Chapter 24

Cindy’s turn:

0700 for a wake-up. The alarm caught me when it went off. Sometimes I’m drifting between sleep and awake, but not this morning. I finally got to sleep, found out that Dana’s a kicker, so I kicked back.

When the alarm went off, I let it roll for a bit, listening to the whines and other sounds of the gang waking up. I killed it, turned to get out of bed, but was a bit slow. I saw a T-shirted Rachel flash by muttering “bathroom...”

Well, at least with two rooms we can split the load, and thankfully not a one of us needs the mirror for a makeup application session.

The hotel’s got a free breakfast. It’s adequate. The coffee’s nothing to get excited about, but coffee away from the Community seldom is. I’m not QUITE to the stage of bringing a coffee kit with me, but it wouldn’t take much to get me started. However, the one I have in mind, if I had to supply coffee for a crowd, would be a huge pain.

I reminded my herd that we were loading for the return trip and to double-check to make sure we didn’t leave anything behind.

“Yes, MOTHERRRR!” Derek said.

“Derek Helton, you behave yourself!” Rachel popped.

“Well, EVERYBODY was thinking it,” he whined.

“Doesn’t mean YOU get to be the one to say it.”

“Just DO it,” I said. “Mother or not.”

Transportation. I’m training Jerry. There go our two licensed drivers, until we cajoled one of the airport staff to chauffeur the gang around all morning while Jerry and I flew our butts off.

One, Jerry’s a good student. Two, the airplane’s NOT strange. It’s a lot more stable than Hanna’s Extra, a bit lighter than the 152. We run a lot of transitions from cruise to landing configurations and stall the thing in every conceivable way.

“Dang, Cindy,” Jerry says. “I ain’t NEVER gonna do THAT!” He said that after we were almost at full power, nose WAY up in the air.

“Keep adding back pressure. You KNOW what’s gonna happen.”

It did. Got mushy, broke with a nose drop. He instinctively let off the back pressure and the horsepower was still there. With the nose down, she started flying again.

Then we got into the pattern. Landings. More landings. Short field, soft field. Full stop. Short field take-off...

“This is where that power-on stall comes in, if you try to make ‘er fly and she’s not ready...”

“I promise...” Jerry said.

We played with configurations. Setting the trim for take-off, letting her accelerate, just a bit of positive pitch, she comes unstuck really nicely.

Go-arounds – aborted landings with full flaps. In a Cessna with those barn-door flaps, that’s a fight until the flaps get back up. This’un’s less so.

“I can appreciate that,” he said. We stopped after an hour and a half. Time for a break. Drink a cold drink, use the restroom, then run his butt back out there.

“You haven’t flown for a week. Show me your pre-flight.”

He stood tall, pointed. “Two wings. Three wheels. Propeller. We’re good to go.”

“I will beat you with that chockblock!”

He laughed. “You think YOU’RE gonna be tough, I have to fly with the pTerridactyl...”

He knows what he’s doing.

I let him fly to a waypoint we selected on the glass panel’s nav suite. It’s neat. Not quite up to the standards that Lenya’s sporting, but a big step up from the panel in our old Cessna 180.

“I’m glad I learned on the steam gauges,” he said. “This thing kinda lulls you into thinking you know something.”

“Yeah, and remember, if it stops working, you put this thing down in the first available airfield, which you’ll KNOW because...” I prodded.

“ ... Terri will be sitting there following our route on a paper chart.”

“Very good.”

We played with the autopilot. Yep, it’s got one. Unbelievable.

“You know how I feel about that,” I said and we experimented with engaging it from unusual attitudes. It just doesn’t. That’s good.

“I know.”

“Take us back to the field.”

“Hai, sensei.”

“Butt!” I muttered.

We topped off the fuel, parked.

“Okay, show me your flight planning.”

We looked at weather for the route. I have thirty thousand feet of altitude to play with. He’s got twelve because he’s not (yet) instrument-rated, and summertime thunderstorms can go that high or higher.

There’s a possibility of those, but seriously, in the daytime you can see ‘em twenty miles away and just fly around ‘em, or, if they’re forming a line, you just go land someplace and wait.

We had that conversation.

“Of course if you land somewhere and call Alan and tell ‘im that those mean ol’ thunderstorms are in the way but you’re putting his precious daughter up in a nice hotel room...”

He looked at me hard. “I’d be better served to put ‘er on a bus for home...”

“Would YOU buy that story?”

“I’d try ... but no...”

“So, forty-six gallons, we could fly the whole thing in one hop.”

“That’s a possibility, but that’s sitting in that cockpit for six hours ... You wanna do that?”

“No. you’re right. Let’s see. Halfway? That’s like Cincinnati, more or less. Or one of the general aviation fields.”

“Good thinking. Until you’re more comfortable...”

He put his finger on the chart. “This one ... Ashland.”

“Look it up. Make sure it’s got facilities. Fuel.”

“I’ll call and see.”

I smiled. The boy’s thinking.

“Lemme go and do the same thing for us.”

“Okay. I’ll go ahead and get a flight plan started.”

“Good.”

My own efforts were a bit more complex since we were going to climb up into the IFR world. Still, I asked for and got flight level 250, direct, GPS.

Alec came in. “You folks checked out now?”

“He’s forbidden to crash,” I said. “Yeah, he’s good. If the wings stay on and the engine runs...”

“We haven’t had any complaints,” Alec said. “You’re going back to Alabama?”

“Today,” Jerry said. “I’ve got the owner of the thing with me and her dad’s waiting on her.”Lots of people are. We had to move a meeting to make this trip. Raytheon can wait.”

“Must be good if Raytheon ... They’re a big company.”

“They wanna pay us a lot of money for something we’re doing, so I figure they’re gonna turn around and make a whole lot MORE money,” Jerry replied.

“What’re you selling ‘em?”

“Nut and bolts, it’s classified. I can tell you robotics and that’s about as far as I can go.” Jerry added, “Sometimes we give ‘em some capabilities and some hardware and it’s best to NOT let your mind wonder as to where it could be used.”

“You mean...”

Jerry laughed. “We got a bot that’s been terrorizing the local paintball scene.”

“Oh.”

The van showed up with the rest of our crew. We took advantage of it to go do an early lunch.

“Those of you who’re flying with me, Lenya does NOT have a lavatory. There’s a five-gallon bucket in the cargo area, so I’d lay off of a lot of drinking.”

“What about us?” Terri asked.

“Hmmphh. It’s YOUR brand-new airplane. If you pee on the seats, that’s YOUR problem...”

“Ewwwwww!” from Rachel and Mandy.

So, hamburgers and small drinks, and everybody visits the loo.

Back to the airfield. I’s dotted. T’s crossed. Final checklist.

“Last chance, Terri,” I said. “You’re putting your life in the hands of one of MY students...”

“You got this, baby?” she asked Jerry.

“Got it, punkin,” he smiled. “Let’s go do it.”

Why did I catch ‘do it’?

We watched them preflight the plane together. Just as well. And they got in the little thing and buzzed off for home.

We gave ‘em a half-hour head start as me and Dana and Mandy preflighted Lenya.

I shook the hands of Alec and the rest of the bunch, then we climbed aboard, shut the door and fired ‘er up.

“Okay, Dana. You do it.”

“Uh...”

“I’m right here. I’m not letting you break my airplane.”

“Okay, pre-start checklist...”

Once on course and climbing, I punched up 122.75 on the radio.

“Sling four seven five juliette tango, this is Pilatus zero seven tango sierra.”

I wasn’t very surprised to hear Terri. “Pilatus zero seven tango sierra this is sling five juliette tango, over.”

“Seven tango sierra, just checking.”

“This is Sling five juliette tango, it’s all nominal, over.”

“Pilatus seven tango sierra, understood. We’ll pass you in a bit. See you in Alabama.”

“Roger. Sling five juliette tango, out.”

“There you have it,” I said over the intercom. “Mandy, one of y’all wanna call home and tell ‘em we’re on the way?”

Tara’s turn:

Getting back into it, some. See, first I married Aaron, and then we had an actual wedding! Lots of friends (that means the entire Community!), some members of our synagogue, Aaron’s family, all that. Then a two-week honeymoon -- beautiful place down at St. Thomas. I have to admit, for the first three days, we didn’t leave the hotel room very much. (!) But then we did some sight-seeing, a little shopping, and visited some nice restaurants. Whew! Stuff is PRICEY down there!

Aaron’s release date is coming up soon, and he’s got his application in for a billet in the Reserves over in Birmingham.

Release date? He’s not old enough to do that ‘retire with twenty years’ thing from the Air Force. That’s one serious talk we had. I would’ve followed him wherever the Air Force might’ve sent him, and he knows that.

He, though... “This place, Tara baby. No place is like THIS place. It’s easier for me to just drop off active duty...”

“But your years of service, baby...”

“Uh, there’s ways around that.”

That’s that ‘reserve’ thing. His active duty counts.

No official word, yet. But in talking about it, at one point he said, “It doesn’t really matter, Tara. Either they want me or they don’t, but I don’t care, really. The benefits are nice, the medical care is pretty good, but as a reservist, none of that kicks in until I’m sixty. I could probably do better monetarily if I just took a job as an engineer. After all, it’s not like I need the money.”

Hmm. We hadn’t talked about money yet. Why not? I’ve got a good-sized lump in several savings and investment accounts. He’s never laid a ledger sheet on the table but he sure doesn’t act like he’s living paycheck to paycheck. I’ve met his mom and dad. They’re VERY well off. So I infer...

I suppose it’s time. I said, “Aaron, what had you planned to do -- live off MY money?”

He jumped, and said, “Sorry, Tara, I didn’t mean it that way! It’s just that, well, I already have a pretty healthy bank account -- I don’t actually know how much is in it, but it’s well into 7 or 8 figures, I think. Dad’s an investment banker, you know, and he trades my holdings for me. Some months are good, some are lousy, but I think he averages about 10 or 15% a year, enough so that nearly my entire Air Force pay goes for taxes.”