by Laer Carroll
"By the last oval she had everything down pat. I never thought it was possible someone could pick up stuff so fast."
The Captain began on a second hot dog. "Then I took her out to one of the firing ranges and had her do low-and-slow passes over a 'battle field.' Had her do simulated firing runs with the onboard sim modules. She made mistakes but little ones and never made them a second time."
"I've got to check out this," said Donnie Kim, a pilot whose family had moved from South Korea to the U.S.
"Volunteer to take Wanda's slot tomorrow."
"Hey, don't be giving away my turn at this prodigy."
One of the other pilots reminded her that she didn't have a 'slot' as the Major had not yet assigned anyone to spend time with Jane the next day.
Meanwhile Captain Pickell had begun on his third hot dog and second Coke.
"By this time I was a bit pissed at the girl. I had her do acrobatics, trying to test her limits. Didn't find any short of redlining the craft. She can fly inverted as easily as right-side-up."
"You're putting us on!" "You're lying!"
A airplane gets it lift from air flowing over the top of wings. Upside down its "lift" became a "drop."
"Nope. God's truth. You'll find out."
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The rest of the week several of the pilots were able to spend time with Jane. Satisfied with her flying ability as soon as they got her in the air, they began to teach her the advanced weapons and tactics they took weeks to teach their regular students.
Jane made full use of the shows in Las Vegas. By the first weekend she'd made several friends, mostly in their twenties, who joined her in the shows and showed her around the city. On her three Saturdays at Ellis she went to a regular tango dance party which called itself El Encuentro. It meant The Encounter.
She tried her hand at gambling. Roulette wheels, made as perfectly random in their spin as engineering could manage, proved not to be random to the Jane+Robot+wheel cyborg.
She won so steadily that she was escorted from the casino. The two big "escorts" were a bit rough in their treatment of her. Jane had to restrain Robot from joining her and beating them up. She greatly enjoyed the drama of being treated like a cheater whose methods no one could figure out.
In the second week Jane was transferred to the 64th Aggressor Squadron. They flew F-16s, still the workhorse fighter aircraft of the Air Force despite the spread of the F-35 as the USAF's general purpose aircraft. As "aggressors" they tested other aircraft by pretending to be enemies.
On Thursday Jane fought multiple aerial engagements in the squadron's simulators. Even holding back, she won so many against simulated enemies and against experienced 64th AGRS pilots that she was accused of reprogramming the simulators. So on Friday she took off in the latest incarnation of the F-16s against several other F-16s.
She'd been so pissed off about the cheating accusation that she went full-on cyborg. Jane+Robot+F16 scorched every attacker, including those whose attack was missiles launched from over the horizon. For a cyborg it was no problem to dodge a missile at just beyond its triggering range. In a close-encounter dogfight, which almost never occurred anymore, she "killed" four aircraft at once. They got in each other's way, she later said.
Landing, she taxied to the hangar housing her particular craft, parked and got out. She got an official apology for the unofficial accusation, then was christened Hitgirl after a popular comic-book character by dousing her with Champagne.
The aggressor pilots seemed to feel no animosity against her. Indeed, they accepted her as one of them. Nevertheless she felt she'd gotten too much attention for her flying skills. So on the third week (by her request) she became an observer at the 59th Test and Evaluation Squadron.
They analyzed the engineering and operation of several aircraft, including the Air Force's most advanced fighter, the F-22. Jane got some cockpit time in that aircraft but only briefly as she wanted to cool off her reputation as a pilot. Instead she acted as a gofer for all the 59th TES personnel.
As such she got to snoop on everything TES did. Soon, as the people in the squadron realized they had an engineering genius in their midst, they began to solicit her views on their operations. She was able to suggest a number of small but still important improvements, saying as she did so that this was because as an outsider she sometimes saw opportunities which insiders missed.
Then someone connected her with her YouTube video.
The major commanding the squadron asked Jane into her office on Jane's next-to-last Wednesday of her time at Ellis. She had a request. Would Jane build a working prototype of her telemag jet?
"I'm willing, Ma'am. But I have to check with CalTech Legal. They're the ones who helped my Dad submit a patent for the telemagnetic process and own a part of it."
CalTech Legal had been granted several patents covering the process and were negotiating with a number of companies to the rights to use those patents in real products. But Jane was an equal owner of the patents and could do what she liked with them.
They strongly suggested, however, that they coordinate with any prospective buyers if she wanted to sell a product. They had a lot more experience and clout with such sales and could represent her better than anyone else. She agreed and signed an agreement with CalTech to that effect, but only after consulting an independent Intellectual Properties attorney in Las Vegas.
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Consequently Thursday morning Jane acquired a lab in the TES buildings. A squad under a sergeant's supervision overhauled the lab. Biggest among the equipment in it was a large and versatile 3D printer and several high-end computers.
On the same morning she acquired a lab boss who would command a lab crew. This was a young first lieutenant, Jessie Ivory. The black woman had a master's degree in electrical engineering and a bachelor's in math. Jane sat down in the LT's office to talk with her. She herself would have no office except a desk in the main body of the lab with a computer terminal on it.
Jane did not know who should salute whom and so ignored the issue.
"Hi, Lieutenant. Did anyone tell you what you'd do here?"
"Build a prototype was all they said." She grinned, her teeth white against her face. "Lieutenants aren't consulted in the jobs they are to do."
"We're going to build a full-size telemagnetic jet engine and install it in an aircraft."
"Wait. Aren't you that cadet who invented them?"
"Cest moi."
"Cool. What is our schedule and how much budget?"
"I'll be here till the weekend of next week, but I believe the schedule is open ended. I think it's practical to make and install one in an aircraft and fly it before I leave. Making it practical, that will take a lot longer."
"And our budget?"
"Whatever we want. The Air Force, or at least the TES commander, really wants this."
The LT spun her ergonomic chair in a complete circle and said, "That generosity will lessen as we make more demands on it. So I'm going to use a time-honored tactic. Ask for a lot more than we need and make do with what we get. So I'll have to quickly draw up a critical-path diagram to a quick show of results.
"I'm going to need people--"
"Your job, not mine."
"What aircraft do you think would work as a testbed?"
"A twin-engine aircraft with engines mounted on the fuselage. Like a bizjet. Or an A-10. As it happens the 66th Squadron has a couple of old A-10s still operational but in what is effectively their own private bone yard. You know, never throw away junk; you might need it some day. As it happens, I have a lot of friends in 66th."
"And they'd be real happy to see one of their aircraft in the forefront of a move that's going to revolutionize air travel."
<>
A call on her SuperSmart got some time with Captain Pickell at 66th. Jane and Jessie walked a quarter of a mile along the flight line to his office. He greeted Jane warmly and the lieutenant coolly after they'd exchanged courtesies.
"What we want
to do, Sir, is steal one of your A-10s and replace its engines with telemag jet engines."
"You do, do you? I didn't know anyone here at Ellis was experimenting with those."
"As of this morning, there is. Lieutenant Ivory here is in command of the task force. She's in 59th TES. I'm lending some engineering expertise."
The lieutenant said, "We think it's realistic to make and mount two engines on an A-10 and even get it airborne by next Wednesday."
"That is super ambitious. I'd expect that to take at least a year."
"For a full-scale project to create a viable product. But this will be just a tech demonstrator. With a full-size airframe instead of model airframe."
Jane said, "Though we will start with a model aircraft. There are one-twelfth sized models available in Vegas in several hobbyist stores. We can have that on-base this afternoon and several prototype telemag jets by tomorrow morning."
Jessie said, "As it happens, we have the inventor of the telemag jet here on base. She says she can 3D print a few jet prototypes over night." At that she made a sideways gesture with her two arms as if to showcase Jane beside her.
"Jane? Oh, yeah, I forgot you're inventor too, Cadet, in my focus on you as a hotshit pilot."
Ivory said, "We'd prefer to get an A-10 airframe. But I'll bet we could get a junked F-16 instead."
The Captain said, "And let the fighter mafia get a jump ahead of us ground-support guys? No way. The Boss will jump at the chance. At least that's my guess. I'll see him at lunch and get back to you."
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Lieutenant Ivory and a couple of airmen drove into Vegas to bring back an A-10 model aircraft and all the support equipment such as remote-control consoles and such.
While they were gone Jane sat down at her workstation and downloaded the triply encrypted design files for her jet engine directly to a flash drive. The only public exposure of the data was the data stream from the ultra-secure vault to the drive, theoretically unreadable by any spy robots on the web.
Jane loaded the files via the flash drive onto a computer unconnected to any net. It would be their secure database. Then she irradiated the drive and so wiped it clean.
At about 1:00 the LT and her helpers arrived with boxes from the hobbyist store. They also brought the sandwiches and drinks Jane had requested.
The two airmen, one a staff sergeant and one a private first class, unboxed the model purchases. Both had years of technical skills and so made good time. Once they deemed it operational they carried it outside, its four and a half foot long length and five foot wingspan requiring some judicious handling. Jane followed with the radio control console and the LT followed her.
They drove in a large self-driving golf cart with a cargo bed big enough to hold the model a half mile away to a field often used to fly aircraft models and quadcopters. Shortly the model trundled over the grass under Jane's control and took to the air in the face of a hot west wind. She tooled it around the sky in modest aerobatics and proclaimed it acceptable.
One the way to a landing a strong gust of wind sent it into a small tree and it cracked up.
The airmen surveyed the damage and declared it repairable. And if it wasn't the second model they purchased could be unboxed.
"You bought an extra," Jane said.
The LT grinned. "I bought four. Two to bring with us, two to be delivered tomorrow sometimes. Model airplanes crash."
Back at her workstation Jane reviewed the jet engine design she'd used for her tech demonstrators earlier in the air. They were three sizes for each of the three demonstrators. She scaled the design up to the twelfth-scale A-10 tech demonstrator. Then she physically hooked up the secure computer to the large 3D printer brought only an hour earlier from Base Stores by the two airmen.
That done, Jane set up the printer to make four copies of the A-10 demonstrator engines. They would fit into a shell eight inches long and four inches in diameter. She connected a second 3D printer to her computer and set it to make four shells for the engines.
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Friday was the day to test the demonstrator. Jane assembled two engines while the airmen disassembled those in the model. They then connected the engines to the model with Jane overseeing their work. That done she tested the engines at their lowest power settings.
Satisfied with the test results, the four repeated the previous day's field test, only with the new engines. The model performed as it should and they retired to the lab with it. The airmen were released early. It being a Friday they were happy to leave the lab.
Jane now turned her attention to planning the creation and building of full-sized engines. They would be eight feet long and four feet in diameter. Ivory meanwhile planned the disassembly of the interior of an A-10's cans and the re-routing of its electrical control circuits to the new engine. Power would be supplied by onboard batteries. Their output would run the aircraft for not quite an hour. The telemag engines used energy very sparingly.
Her work done, Ivory reluctantly left for the weekend. Jane stayed on for two more hours. When her work was finalized she sent a bundle of design info to TES's several very large 3D printers with the second to the highest priority, the only high priority her project had been granted.
Monday morning she and Ivory went to the 3D printer area of TES, an entire small building. They inspected and passed most of the components printed out over the weekend. Several were rejected to be converted back to feedstock and re-runs of the jobs for the parts scheduled.
By the time the two came back from lunch the newer versions of the rejected parts were ready for inspection, then for transport. Jane contacted the lead engineer at 66th Squadron, who sent over a work crew with trucks to transport the parts to the hangar where the two A-10s were stored. Jane and Ivory followed them on foot, a distance of about a quarter of a mile.
They met with the lead engineer and gave him the files which described the assembly process. He assured them his office would give their job a top priority and dismissed them.
Feeling a little lost, the two visited Captain Pickell and chatted with him for a while. Finally they left him in peace.
Back at the lab they stared at each other, feeling let down. Everything was now in someone else's hands.
"OK," Jane said. "You're now as much an expert on telemag tech as anyone but me and my dad. How would you like to start working on tele-floater landing gear for future aircraft?"
Ivory agreed and they went to work.
Tuesday morning they checked with the lead engineer at 66th. He assured them that work constructing the telemag jets for the A-10 and assembling them on one of their aircraft was on schedule. After lunch they arrived at the A-10 hangar to see that work was indeed being done. They checked with the lead engineer to see if the work was on schedule. He gruffly assured them it was.
At quitting time they stopped by again. The engineer impatiently said the schedule was STILL on schedule and remarked that it would go faster without someone looking over their shoulder.
Wednesday noon they again bugged him. He was visibly angry with their interference but contained it.
At 3:00 Jane and Ivory got a message from him saying the work was done and to come inspect it.
They spent all the rest of the day and part of the evening doing detailed inspections and tests. The 66th ground crew helped them, seeming as caught up in the project as Jane and Ivory. IF things worked out they would have had a big part in a historic project.
<>
Thursday morning would, Jane and Ivory hoped, be a success for the project. Jane was so nervous that she deliberately merged with Robot. Her subsequent calm helped Ivory to contain her own concern.
They arrived at the 66th A-10 hangar to meet Captain Pickell and a couple of other pilots. The head engineer also attended the meeting.
"So," said Pickell. "Are we ready to fly this thing?"
Jane+Robot said, "We are. Not that flying is first on the agenda. That is just powering everything on and hoping it doesn't go u
p in smoke."
"Is there any danger in that?"
"Not as far as I know. At the Academy none of our model engines showed distress. Nor did the ones in the A-10 model we flew last week. Still, this is the first time a full-sized telemag jet engine has been built and tried."
Ivory, now calm, said. "Telemag floaters are being built and tested. None of them has shown any negative symptoms. One company, a forklift company, has even begun to selling their products. There is no reason to worry that telemag engines will overheat."
"Still," the head engineer said, "We'll have emergency crews with fire extinguishers and so on ready."
Jane said, "Thanks. So shall we begin our tests?"
Jane climbed into the A-10's cockpit. It looked to her like a medieval version of the A-12's cockpit. Ivory peered into it from the ladder Jane had used and examined the new controls for the telemag engines. They were few.
"Looks good to me," she said and clambered down.
Jane became Jane+Robot+A10. SHE powered on. Everything worked as it should. The mechanics of the 66th had kept HER in tiptop shape. JANE focused HER attention on HER engines as she powered them on for one second, then powered them off. SHE felt no distress.
For the next hour Jane went through a long list of checks. This included rolling the plane onto the concrete outside the hangar and running the engines at moderate power for a half hour. No problems showed up. She had not expected any despite her nervousness. She had after all created the engines and planned their integration as Jane+Robot+computer.
At 10:30 Jane got down from the cockpit for a pit stop. She then donned her flight suit and helmet and breathing mask and re-ascended to the cockpit. Meanwhile a work crew had replaced the depleted batteries for ones freshly topped up.
On the flight apron which ran all along the fronts of a row of many aircraft hangars SHE powered on HER engines. They performed as they should. SHE began to roll. At the same time SHE called the control tower.
"Nellis Control, this is experimental A-10 number 1, pilot Jane Kuznetsov. I'm beginning flight plan previously filed and approved. Proceeding as ordered to runway 7E for touch-and-goes."