by Jack L Knapp
Chuck responded, “Copy. Coming up on ten percent. Ten percent registering.”
This time the airspeed indicator barely quivered as Will throttled the twin turboprops back. Moments later the airspeed slowed gently and stabilized at 120 knots.
“I want to judge the effectiveness of the impellers on the plane, but I intend to stay within the plane’s performance envelope at all times. Add impeller power, bring up the speed to 150 knots, but do it slow. Don’t exceed fifty percent impeller power without my okay, Chuck.”
“Copy 150 knots, don’t exceed 50% power.” Chuck gently rotated the thumbwheel while watching the airspeed indicator. Two minutes later he eased the last adjustments into place.
“Steady at 150 knots. Indicating 37% power from the impellers. Current draw...best way is to tell you that at this power setting we have about three hours of remaining flight time on battery power.”
“Understood. I’m going to reduce power to the turboprops now. You add impeller power as I do. I want to see what our airspeed is at 50% impeller output.”
“Copy, Will.” Chuck eased the thumbwheel ahead, watching the airspeed. He reached half power on both impellers and watched the plane slow to 86 knots. “I’m at fifty percent power, Will.”
“Roger. I’ve got the engines dialed back to idle. It’s possible the props are creating a small amount of drag, but we’re still above stall speed. Maybe next time I’ll shut the engines off entirely. How much battery capacity is left?”
“At 87 knots...hang on a minute...you’ve got 135.6 minutes estimated. If you want 90 knots, the impellers will draw more juice, so you’ll have less flight time. Headwinds or tailwinds will also make a huge difference in battery reserve.”
“Copy. We’ve got plenty of airspace beneath us and nothing but desert ahead. You’re going to attempt to control the plane from your station. Set up for a gentle bank and a turn to port. You know what to do, right?”
“Right, angle up on the starboard impeller, down on the port one with the trim controls, center them as soon as I’ve got enough bank angle. Increase power to the starboard impeller while I’m doing that. I don’t think I want to reduce power at this point, though. The turn would go faster if I pulled off power to the port impeller, but we’ve got time.”
“Right, you’ve got the idea. Okay, you’re flying the bird. Go ahead when you’re ready.”
Chuck concentrated on the instruments, carefully dialing in trim settings on each impeller. The right wing came up as the left wing eased down. As soon as the instruments indicated that the plane was banking, he set both trim controls to up and fed in power to the starboard impeller. Slowly, the directional heading indicator swung. The Twin banked smoothly left in a gentle turn to port. The altimeter indicated that the plane was sinking slowly, but it was nothing to worry about for now. As the plane completed the turn, he reduced power to the starboard impeller and reset the trim controls to neutral.
“I lost some altitude, but I’m ready to bring us back on course. What direction should I take?”
“You’re close enough now. Level the bird and try keeping your altitude above 4000 feet. Try using only the impeller trim controls to bring us back to 4500 feet, see how much battery charge that takes. Again, remember you’re trading altitude for speed so make sure you don’t drop below stall speed. Increase impeller output to 75% if you need to. You could get to 4500 by increasing speed and using the elevator, but that wouldn’t tell us what the impellers can do when they’re set for gentle lift. Stall speed is listed at 58 knots, but it might be a little higher since we added the impellers on the wings. That’s bound to disrupt airflow to some extent, so let’s figure that it might stall as high as 65 knots. Let’s go with 70 knots as our safe lower limit, so use that as your do-not-exceed lower speed. We’ve got about thirty-five miles to the airstrip and I don’t want to drop below ten percent battery charge. As soon as you have the airstrip in sight, let me know. I’ll land on engines with no impeller input. Can you do that?”
“Piece of cake, Will.”
Will’s voice was dry, even over the intercom. “Don’t get overconfident and end up with crumbs. You just do what I said and we’ll talk about it when we’re on the ground. Maybe later in the week we’ll practice dual landings, using the engines and the impellers. We’ll start slow, give you time to get used to the idea, but maybe in a couple of weeks you’ll be ready to land the plane on impeller power alone.”
“You think I’m ready for that?”
“Not yet, Chuck, but you will be. What would you think about getting a pilot’s license? Your grandfather mentioned that to me, said it would be a good idea for later on. I’m a certified instructor, I don’t do it, because it takes too much of my time and I don’t need the money anyway. But I can teach you what you need to know to get started. We can conduct ground school classes here, do practice flights in the afternoon, take a break for supper, then do the impeller tests after dark. It’s a lot of work, but I think we can do it. You’re still hurting, so this will also give you a chance to do something productive while your ribs heal. You’ll need a medical exam to start the official process anyway, so we’ll have to wait until you’re healthy. Plan on spending a few days in Clovis with an instructor later on, that’s easier than renting a single engine plane. He can issue the student pilot certificate and sign off on it before you solo, but I can take it from there. The FAA exams can be taken online, last I heard, so you can do the prep work here.”
“I like the idea, don’t get me wrong, but I may need to help Mel and Lina get the King flying.”
“Delegate, Chuck. Don’t try to do everything yourself. Spend time with Lina, but not with a wrench in your hand. We’ve got other people who can do that, the same ones that rebuilt the original Bedstead and built the King’s impellers. They know what they’re doing. Let Mel handle the King, okay?”
“Well. All right, I guess I can give one of the engineers a try, see if he can do things the way I want them done. But if this doesn’t work, my first priority is getting the King flying, not getting a pilot license.”
“It will work, Chuck. Your grandfather has had to stand back and let others carry the load, and you can too. Remember what I said about Lina. Make her your first priority, that would be my advice. Frenchy’s too, as soon as he finds out how things are going with the two of you. Trust me, both of us have made that mistake, taking on too many projects at once. Things might have been different if...well, no need to go there. We learned the hard way that money can wait, relationships can’t.
“As for that license, the hard part is developing a sense of situational awareness that’s not limited to just two dimensions. You’ve already got that from flying the Bedstead. You’ve also learned to trust your instruments. You’ve spent a lot of time flying during darkness, more than in daylight. Don’t worry about the license. It’ll be a piece of cake. I remember hearing that somewhere.”
Chapter Eighteen
Will met Chuck later that afternoon and handed over the manuals Chuck would need while studying for the FAA exam. There was a book on meteorology that appeared to be a well-used college-level textbook, while an equally-hefty tome dealt with the theory of flight. A third was the pilot’s manual for the Twin Otter. Will advised Chuck to set that aside until he was thoroughly familiar with the first two. There was also a paper listing online resources from the FAA that could be downloaded in PDF format. This list included two handbooks, The Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge and The Airplane Flying Handbook. So much to learn before he would be ready to take the written exam!
The trailer he shared with Mel gave him a place to study. Mel and Lina worked on the King during the week, and that meant they were in and out of the break room at odd times. They were also prone to interrupt Chuck to ask questions, which ruled out studying in the break room.
Chuck set up his computer on the trailer’s fold-out table and tied it in to the new LAN that one of Prin’s engineers had installed. He then laid out a legal-sized ta
blet and a pair of pencils for taking notes, then added pens and a small sharpener for the pencils. While some notes could be recorded on his computer, there was no real replacement for paper and pencil to sketch out the ideas that would help him understand the concepts in the books.
He soon settled in to the new routine. Chuck studied in the morning, flew in the afternoon, then caught a few hours of sleep before rising and meeting with Will and the engineers who were building the modifications that would eventually be installed on the Twin Otter. He was chronically short on sleep, but made sure he took time to meet Lina before she began work on the King in the late evening. Mel was very understanding, but even so, opportunities for the two to be alone were limited. It was frustrating, but the heavy work load made the schedule necessary. Occasionally Chuck thought about how nice it would be if he could just take Lina away for a while, but he knew that his grandfather would not understand. The old man worked a schedule that would have exhausted a much younger man; Chuck could not, would not, betray Morty’s trust.
Three weeks later, Chuck and Will flew the Twin Otter to Clovis. Chuck spent the next few days getting a medical exam and the dental exam the doctor recommended. Chuck also took the FAA written exam and passed it easily. By the time he finished, Will had found an instructor and booked time for Chuck to fly a Cessna 172.
“The instructor is new to the area, only been here about a month. He owns his plane, flies out to the ranches delivering stuff most of the time, but he also does instructing on the side. I talked to him for a few minutes and went up for a short hop. I like the guy, so we’ll see how you do with him. If you don’t think he’s the one you want to learn from, let me know. The instructor pool here is limited, but we could try Albuquerque or El Paso. I expect there are more choices since they’re larger cities. But we’re not returning to the factory until you solo, so we can go pretty much anywhere we can find an instructor.”
“If you like him, I’m sure I’ll be okay with him too.”
The instructor turned out to be a late-middle-aged man who had flown airplanes all over the world. He’d flown cargo planes as a US Marine Corps pilot, retired, then found flying work in Florida. Leaving Florida, he worked as a crop duster in Texas for a time, then moved on to Clovis. He held current certificates all the way up to Air Transport Pilot, but had only worked as a transport pilot for a few months. “Didn’t like it. Too much like driving a bus. I had enough of that kind of thing, flying for the Corps. Nowadays I fly where I want to and if I don’t want to fly, I don’t.”
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Chuck soloed in the Cessna 172, then spent the next few days gaining experience, working to increase his skills and add flying hours to his logbook. With the instructor’s endorsement, he took and passed the FAA Private Pilot Practical Test. The results were faxed to the FAA and Chuck received an interim private pilot’s certificate.
Will spent some of the time in Dallas, updating his own license. While there, he contacted an FAA examiner and sounded him out about certifying an aircraft with non-standard propulsion. The man was dubious, but interested. “Let me know when you’re ready. I’d fly with you just to see what you’ve come up with! I’m going to want to see it work on the ground first, mind you.”
Chuck and Will flew back to the plant, having been absent more than a month. Much had been done while they were away. The King was fully repaired and ready for further testing. The larger, heavier craft had more power than the Bedstead, but at the same time there was more inertia involved so that piloting required more anticipation. Mel planned to do most of the impeller flight tests in the Bedstead.
Chuck managed to spend a few minutes in the hangar from time to time, but he was no longer an integral part of the Bedstead-King team. He resented it briefly, but understood that he could no longer give his complete attention to the craft. He was present for the King’s first extended flight, but Mel was the pilot. The improved flight-control system worked flawlessly. Chuck was also there two days later when Lina took the King out and flew the course Chuck had originally laid out for the Bedstead. He was waiting when she returned an hour later, bubbling with excitement. Mel watched, smiling, as the two exchanged a very intense kiss.
Chuck managed to squeeze in a flight in the King two days later; his other duties made scheduling the time a challenge. The bigger craft required a different set of reflexes, but by the time he’d finished flying the test course, he was comfortable piloting the King.
The Twin was also undergoing changes. Will had insisted on them, and when he wasn’t teaching Chuck to fly he worked with the engineers to make the changes he wanted. The batteries had been taken out and the housing slots removed. The impellers were also gone, and the attaching points faired over so that externally the plane was once again a stock Twin Otter.
Internally, there had been changes. The former ‘flight engineer’s station’ was gone. Dual secondary panels had been installed beside the pilot and copilot’s stations. These were smaller and simpler than the one Chuck had used, containing only the controls and indicators for the battery packs and the impellers. Chuck ignored them while learning to pilot the Twin Otter. They served no purpose for the time being, but they would be necessary when the impellers and battery packs were reinstalled. The original two-battery capacity would be expanded to four, acceptable now that new batteries were beginning to trickle in. The new, more powerful impeller models would also have more freedom of motion, the swivel mounts no longer being limited to ten degrees. Final numbers were still being worked out.
Chuck soloed in the Twin Otter a week later and continued to work with Will to improve his skills. Will advised him to add as many hours as possible to his flight logbook as soon as time permitted. Six weeks later, Chuck was finally able to get away. He landed in Albuquerque as the first stop on a cross-country flight. From there, he headed west to California, then turned north, eventually reaching Seattle. His intended course was laid out ahead of time, then presented to Will for his comments. The Twin Otter had range enough with a maximum fuel load to easily reach an attended airfield. While fuel for the turboprops wasn’t yet common, the airfields had the S10 diesel on hand or could have it trucked out from a nearby city.
“Will, I’ll be avoiding high mountains and doing most of my navigating by GPS. Depending on weather, I should be back in a week to ten days.”
“Sounds good, Chuck. Let’s see what you have in mind.”
The two pored over the chart. “Stay well clear of military installations. You don’t want to attract attention. It’s late summer, so expect thunderstorms. Watch the weather carefully. Some of those storms in the plains spawn wall clouds and tornadoes. It’s no fun trying to fly a plane without wings.”
“I understand. If in doubt, sit it out on the ground.”
“You’ve got it. Go into town, have a good meal, pick up a souvenir for Lina. She’ll miss you, you know.”
“I know. I’ll miss her too.”
The trip took Chuck a week. He cut his planned flight short, because the Twin Otter was due for a maintenance check. Chuck landed in Clovis and turned the plane over to the mechanics. He rented a Super Cub while he was waiting and got checked out on that, taking a short hop with an instructor. He landed the Cub late that afternoon at the factory’s airstrip.
He had managed to grow a scruffy beard while he was gone. Lina took one look at that and told him to go shave.
Chuck was tired, but Lina had been insistent, so he headed for the trailer to shower and shave. Things had been switched around in his absence. The bunk bed he’d used was folded out of the way and the bed in the main bedroom had been made. The room even smelled different. He considered opening up the bunk bed, but decided that could wait. Dropping his dirty clothing by the shower, he stepped in and sighed blissfully as the hot water relaxed him. Lathering up after the shower, he shaved off the beard, wincing when the razor pulled at the hairs. Hadn’t there been a new blade in the razor when he left? Well, longer hairs take more softening before th
ey can be shaved without discomfort. Chuck finished shaving and discarded the razor.
He picked out a comfortable set of khaki shorts and a T-shirt, then bagged up his dirty clothing to take to the hanger. Something else was different, but his tired mind wouldn’t settle on it.
He stopped halfway to the hangar building and stood there, thinking. Where were Mel’s things? He hadn’t kept much in the trailer, preferring to keep most of his clothing in the cabinet in the break room, but hadn’t there been a couple of shirts and a pair of pants in the closet? Had something happened to Mel? Chuck resumed walking.
No, Mel was there, working on the King. He came over and shook Chuck’s hand when he walked in. “Congratulations! Will says you’re a pretty good pilot and you’ll be better when you’ve got a few hundred more hours in your logbook. How was the flight?”
“Long. Boring, mostly. I was wondering, aren’t you using the trailer now?”
“Nah, I’m staying here in the hanger. Seemed better that way.” Mel’s eyes crinkled as if he had difficulty not laughing aloud.
“Let me get a cup of coffee and I’ll see what you’ve done with the King.” Chuck walked into the break room and found a cup, mostly clean. The break room too seemed different. Puzzled, he got his coffee and went back to where Mel had resumed working on the King. The craft now had eight impellers. The four battery slots each contained a battery, another change. Chuck nodded to himself; the new craft was sleek and boasted folding metal tiedown loops on the rear deck for cargo. The King finally deserved its name. It was, despite the smooth, faired lines, a workhorse.
“Looks good. I thought about flying the King, but I’m beat. I’m heading for the trailer. If Will asks, tell him I’ll talk to him tomorrow. And not to wake me up before noon!”
“Oh, we won’t.” Had there been a slight emphasis on ‘we’?
Weird. Chuck walked back to the trailer and climbed the steps.
The other change became apparent when he closed the door behind him.