Spirit Flight

by P. R. Fittante

  Thompson said nothing. He seemed completely lost in thought. Mr. Walker quickly brought him back to reality.

  “But I suspect there’s a few folks up the road who might be interested in what an old engineer has to say.” He stood up and started for the door. “I just hope you folks will reconsider what you’re putting out to the newspapers.”

  •

  Jeremy Thompson watched Ernest Walker disappear down the hallway. His mind raced as he considered what impact a man of Ernest’s experience might have on the safety board. It worried him.

  He returned to his desk and dialed Senator Tolnert’s private office number. After a few minutes the Senator came on the line.

  “Thompson!” he barked. “This better be important! I think you know there’s a lot going on around this town right now.”

  “Senator, I was just paid a visit by a former B-2 engineer. He claimed he is going before the safety board to tell them the B-2 accident may not have been pilot error.”

  “Former engineer, huh? How long has it been since he worked the program?”

  “1983”

  “1983! Look Thompson, I know a dull blade can draw more blood, but come on—this man’s been out of the loop for awhile.”

  “I agree, Senator. But he’s no dull blade. And he’s also the father of the pilot that was killed in the B-2 crash. You warned me previously about the dangers of perceptions. I think this could present us with some bad publicity.”

  “OK, Jeremy. But within forty-eight hours, I think we’ll have all the good publicity we need. This jet is up for the task, right?”

  Thompson mustered as much sincerity as he could. “Yes, sir. It is.”

  “Good. Then we have nothing to worry about.” The phone clicked.

  Jeremy Thompson replaced the receiver and buried his head in his hands. Part of him sincerely wished he was back at the drafting table solving problems instead sitting at this big desk covering them up.

  Chapter 26

  Frank followed Lieutenant Colonel Hernandez into the classified mission planning room. Otherwise known as the vault, it was still used for planning long range nuclear strikes against targets assigned to the B-2. For the aircrews at Whiteman, its state of the art computers and software were more realistically used for planning conventional bombing missions.

  Hernandez struggled to close the room’s massive steel entry door behind them. “You should have told the general ‘no,’” he grunted.

  Frank wasn’t surprised by Hernandez’s attitude. He couldn’t blame the squadron commander for wanting to send his own crew members into combat. Still, there was no way he would be bullied into backing out of the mission. “Sir, I had no reason to refuse the general’s request.”

  “This isn’t a carefully monitored test, Major. You won’t have a hundred engineers continuously evaluating the health of your jet. This is an autonomous combat mission. All the critical decisions will be your own. From what I’ve seen of your track record, that doesn’t make me very comfortable.”

  Up ahead, Frank noticed a couple of Whiteman pilots pretending not to listen. As Hernandez grew more agitated, Frank suspected he was playing to the audience.

  “This is a combat mission for combat-ready pilots,” he continued. “Pilots who continuously focus and train for such a mission. I don’t see you fitting that bill Farago.”

  “Sir, for the past three years, I’ve done nothing else but work to make the B-2 combat ready.”

  “Slamming a control stick back and forth doesn’t qualify as combat training in my book!”

  “I suppose flying air shows does,” Frank replied calmly. It was obvious Hernandez knew nothing about flight test. Frank remembered he had met Hernandez once before. He was someone who had spent much of his career attending schools and filling staff jobs. Command of a B-2 squadron simply served as another quick square filler, before moving on to a larger desk somewhere else.

  Hernandez stopped abruptly and put his crimson face within inches of Frank’s. “You screw this up Farago, and I’ll guarantee you never see another cockpit. I won’t see the reputation of this squadron tarnished.”

  “Sir, if this mission fails, what happens to me or your squadron won’t much matter. Especially if North Korea launches a couple of nukes.”

  Hernandez gave Frank a contemptuous stare and then turned to one of the pilots standing to the side. “Major Nagamo. Major Farago here will be your left seater. If you determine he is unfit to perform this mission, I want you to tell me immediately.” Hernandez hastily exited the room, leaving Frank alone with a powerfully built Whiteman pilot.

  The pilot sized Frank up for a moment and then extended a large, muscular hand. “Jim Nagamo,” he offered solemnly.

  Frank took the hand and immediately readjusted his grip when he felt the vise-like onset of pressure. He matched Nagamo’s force and then replied. “Frank Farago. I remember you from the NCAA tournament.”

  “Yep. I was at one-seventy-five for Hawaii. And you were that wiry dago from Carolina.” He released Frank’s hand and gave a quick, approving nod. “You definitely still got the grip dude. But have you still got the taste for combat?”

  “I’ve never lost it,” Frank replied firmly.

  Nagamo looked at him closely and then broke into a broad grin. “You are intense! Yeah, I watched you with Hernandez. The air show crack was a little low, but you’re right about one thing. The boss does go for appearances over results. Come on over here and we’ll see if you’ve got a clue about combat mission planning.”

  Frank followed Nagamo to a table lined with computers. Nagamo took a seat in front of an oversized monitor. A quick series of key strokes brought up a detailed terrain chart overlaid with a blue route line. He rapidly manipulated a mouse to display threat rings, targets, and flight parameters on the chart as well.

  “Here,” he said, getting out of the seat and moving the mouse cursor to a corner of the screen. “You can page through the route of flight and get an idea of our ingress and egress routing. The altitudes and airspeeds we’ll be flying at are listed on the top right. I know you’re Mister TF system, but I hope you won’t be too disappointed that I planned everything for high altitude.”

  Nagamo chuckled and moved over to a set of displays that simulated the B-2 cockpit layout. As he sat down in front of the large monitor, Frank watched Nagamo rapidly press buttons around the cockpit displays. He seemed to know which buttons to push without even reading the menu options. Within seconds he had configured the four displays with the desired navigation, weapons and threat information to strike the North Korean targets.

  Nagamo noticed Frank was watching. “They call me Game Boy,” he explained proudly. “No one can navigate the B-2’s menus faster than the Japanese from Waikiki!”

  “Well, Game Boy,” Frank replied serenely as he paged through the flight plan. “You must think we’ll be riding into North Korea on a giant tsunami instead of the thin air of the stratosphere.”

  Nagamo interrupted his button pushing to see what Frank was looking at. The monitor showed the final ingress from the Sea of Japan heading west toward Pyongyang. Frank pointed to the altitude readout. “We’re coming in too high to drop our weapons at Wonsan.”

  Nagamo looked at him like he was on drugs. “Hey, dude. I know we’ll be heavy since we’ll have just refueled over the Pacific, but we’re still below our service ceiling. Come on, you’re the golden arm test pilot. Can’t you keep us flying up there?”

  “Sure. As long as we don’t open our weapon bay doors. But I think that’s an important part of the mission.”

  “A little extra drag, huh?” Nagamo said, realizing his mistake.

  Frank nodded. “Yep. Hate to drop our weapons in a stall.” He didn’t bother mentioning all the test flights he had flown to define the envelope for opening those doors. Instead, he thought of the original B-2 design Ernest Walker had been so proud of. “Game Boy, we should have the ability to come in higher. It’d keep us out of range of most of
their SAMs and MiGs. Unfortunately, the jet wasn’t designed that way.”

  “I’m more worried about their early acquisition radars,” Nagamo said, pointing to a string of radar sites along the North Korean coastline. “Not much we can do, except hope this stealth shit really works. These Spoon Rest sites are all tied to their SA-2 batteries. If they do launch some SA-2’s at us, at least we’ll still be able to out maneuver them even if we come down a few thousand feet in altitude. And if their MiG’s do somehow get us visual, they still won’t be able to do much against us at the high altitude.”

  Frank pointed to an airfield just outside of Pyongyang. “They’ve got MiG 29s based right here at Pukch’ang. Those jets certainly would be able to get us up high.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ve watched one turn quite impressively at forty thousand feet.”

  “When?” Nagamo looked skeptical.

  “Right before I shot him down,” Frank replied.

  Nagamo gave him a blank stare. “You stud,” he said finally. “You flew fighters in the war?”

  “F-16s. Won’t do us much good though, unless you guys have found a way to get an air-to-air missile on the B-2.”

  “I gotta tell ya, Frank,” Nagamo said grinning again. “I wasn’t too thrilled when I heard I was being paired with a test guy—especially one with an unequal number of B-2 takeoffs and landings. But I realize now, it sure beats the alternative.”

  “The alternative?”

  “Yeah. Hernandez intended to put himself on this mission.”

  For the first time all day, Frank smiled. For the next three hours, he and Nagamo went over every detail of the mission. They rehearsed the critical segments of what would be a thirty-two hour sortie over and over using the cockpit simulator. When they were done, the entire mass of flight plans, weapons files and threat scenarios were saved on a data disk the size of a credit card. Frank thought it was a good plan. Still, something deep inside made him feel uneasy. He tried to suppress it, but was unable. As he headed back to his quarters in the late evening chill, he wished he had someone to talk to.

  Chapter 27

  A glossy shield of grease and cheese encased the last slice of cold pizza. Frank left it to harden in the parched air of the visiting officers’ quarters. He took a long drink of water and checked the time on the Weather Channel—10 p.m. At this hour tomorrow night, he would be airborne off the California coast, beginning the long journey to North Korea.

  He tilted his head back and swallowed several more gulps of water. It was important he hydrate now before he spent a day and a half sucking the B-2’s dry, oxygenated air. On the TV, a young woman started giving the international forecast. He tried to visualize his route of flight on the forecast maps. There might be a few storms to dodge over the Pacific, but otherwise, things looked pretty good.

  He purposely kept the TV off of any news channels. There was no need to distract himself with the political or historical implications of his mission. Instead, he closed his eyes and tried to visualize the B-2’s displays and what he might see as they entered North Korea’s airspace.

  A knock on the door interrupted his preparations. He jumped up to open it.

  “Hi, Frank.” Melissa Fairfield stood shivering in the doorway.

  “Melissa!” he said with surprise. “How did you get here?”

  “It wasn’t easy. I flew out of LAX this morning, rented a car in St. Louis and then drove around for three hours trying to find this base. Nobody told me Whiteman was out in the sticks. I can’t believe I actually found you.”

  “Well come on in,” he said, holding the door open for her. “But how did you know I was here?”

  “Bud Corum was pretty sure this is where you’d be. I also called your father. When he said you had left North Carolina this morning, I immediately booked a flight to come here.”

  Melissa took a seat on the couch and nervously unzipped her MIT sweat jacket. It was the first time Frank had ever seen her in anything other than fatigues or a blue uniform. He also had never seen her so animated.

  “So, is it true?” she asked suddenly. “Are they going to use the B-2 to strike North Korea?”

  Frank hesitated to answer. After years of working on top secret programs, he felt uncomfortable discussing the mission in an unsecured setting. “It’s possible,” he said at last. “Is that why you came out here?”

  Melissa could no longer contain herself. “I came here to tell you why the B-2 crashed,” she said excitedly. “I came to tell you that Ernest Walker was right.”

  “You spoke with Mr. Walker?”

  “Yes. He called me right after you met with him. He told me his concerns with the elevons and how the aircraft was redesigned to fly low level. I realized I had been focusing all of my attention on the flight controls testing to determine why the jet went out of control. That was a dead end. All of the simulations I had done confirmed that the maneuvers we were doing just prior to the accident should not have overstressed the jet. But after I got off the phone with Mr. Walker, I went back and looked at the TF testing. I did a stress analysis on the elevons during low level flight in turbulent air. And guess what? I found nothing!”

  Though he had no idea where she was going with this, Frank patiently waited for her to continue. He reminded himself that this young woman was an engineering genius.

  “But the stress analysis I did only considered manual flight control inputs. When you guys fly TF, you always have the autopilot engaged. So, I went back and looked at how the autopilot moves the control surfaces in turbulent air. Frank, every time the elevons were forced to react to a strong gust, they exceeded their design tolerances. The autopilot was overstressing the flight controls.”

  Frank took a second to absorb everything she had said. “You’re telling me there’s a flaw in the B-2’s flight control software?”

  “You can blame the software. You can blame the hardware. Or, you can blame the fool who said the B-2 should be able to fly low level. But no one can blame you, Frank.”

  Frank wasn’t so certain. He quickly replayed the end of the mission in his mind. “So you think the elevons finally failed when I was doing the max deflection rolls?”

  Melissa nodded.

  “Was there any way I could have known they were going to fail?”

  “I’m not sure. I think the gust load alleviation system—”

  “You mean the beaver tail?” he interrupted.

  “Beaver tail?”

  “That’s what we call the GLAS.”

  “Oh. I think it failed right before your jet pitched up. When I ran my simulations, it also failed on a couple of occasions.”

  Frank considered this. “So, you think if I see a GLAS failure on my flight control display, it’s a sign that the other flight controls, namely the elevons, may fail next.”

  “Your display?” Melissa stared at him blankly, and then slowly shook her head in disbelief. “You’re going to fly this mission, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” he acknowledged reluctantly.

  “Frank! Didn’t you hear what I said? The accident wasn’t your fault. We have proof now. Isn’t it your job as a test pilot to make this known?”

  “It’s my job as a pilot to fly this mission,” he said patiently.

  “Frank, other people must have known about this problem with the B-2. Ernest Walker said the same thing. And they were willing to use you as the fall guy to cover it up.” She looked at him desperately. “I felt terrible when I saw those news reports. Now you have a chance to clear your name and Dale’s name. Why not stop this mission and let the truth be known?”

  “Melissa, I realize other people knew. That’s why those news reports were no accident.” She seemed confused by his admission.

  “Look,” he continued reluctantly. “The only person who saw me drinking with Dale the night before the accident was an American Aero VP. For some reason, he saw fit to reveal that.”

  “Mister Thompson? He was in the control roo
m that day.”

  “I know. And others in that control room probably knew also. But that doesn’t matter now. This mission is important and must be attempted. It’s finally a chance for the B-2 to save lives instead of just taking them.”

  “If you push this jet too far, it could kill you. You’ve seen that.”

  “I know. But too many people, including Ernest Walker, have poured their own lives into this jet. It’s time to find out if all their efforts were worth it.”

  Melissa finally surrendered. “So what do I do with what I’ve learned?”

  “You do your job. Compile all the data you have on the B-2’s flight controls and present it to the safety board. When I get back,” he smiled, “we’ll both make sure the truth is known.”

  “I’m going to hold you to that,” she said, appearing to relax. “You know, things just aren’t the same without you around. Even Bud Corum said he missed you.”

  Frank laughed and then stood up. “Well, I better get my sleep now so I’m not dozing off on the jet.”

  Melissa stood with him. She started for the door and then suddenly turned to face him. “Frank,” she said quietly. “I wouldn’t mind keeping you company tonight.”

  Frank looked at her uncertainly, then reached out and hugged her. He was surprised how good it felt as Melissa squeezed him tightly. “Thank you, Melissa,” he said gently. “You’re the only one who has stuck with me through all this. But tonight I need to be by myself. I hope you can understand.”

  Melissa smiled weakly and nodded. “Just promise me you’ll stay high. Between me and Ernest Walker, I think you’ve got two engineers you can trust on this.”

  “I’ll try.”

  After Melissa left, Frank sat down and stared at the phone. Though he had promised himself no distractions from the mission, Melissa’s hug had him thinking of Anna. It was late, but he had to call.

  Lydia Preston answered the phone. Frank asked her for Anna.

  “Anna left for the beach this morning, Frank. Charlie drove her.”