Chapter 17

On the day of the first test flight, Carlton wanted to run through his preflight inspection from inside the pilot’s capsule – one more time. The capsule itself is attached to the aircraft, with an ejection device in place for bailout in extreme emergencies. The capsule is also equipped with a self-detonating parachute which will automatically deploy if and when the pilot capsule is ejected free of the aircraft.

To enter the capsule, the pilot simply lies face down behind the aircraft, extends his arms into the capsule and pulls himself forward into the tube. Then he extends his arms inside each wing frame to reach the flight-control gloves. With the flip of a switch, he activates a series of self-aligning electromagnets, which connects his flight suit to the aircraft’s electronics.

The entire process – from donning the flight suit, encapsulating himself inside the padded capsule – to starting the engines – now takes less than one minute. Once the pilot has positioned himself inside the padded capsule, he will be in a relaxed, kneeling position, as if he is kneeling on the floor with his chest resting on a sofa, his upper body extending forward and slightly inclined. His arms will be extended outward into padded sleeves, inside the wings. Each hand will be inside a flight-control glove.

Once the pilot has secured himself in a comfortable position – he activates the digital flight controls. Other than the digital instrument panel being activated, there are only two, preflight controls made before liftoff. With his fingers inside the flight-control gloves, he starts the lift engines – then – the main thrust rocket.

The sound of the engines is equivalent to a small fan running on low speed ... until the pilot increases thrust, and liftoff occurs. Even then, there is only the soft hum of the engines, as if another small electric motor is running nearby.

From inside his capsule, Carlton ran through the pre-flight preps, and he was ecstatic. “Adam, you’ve got to mount up. We are now ready to test our Chiropta in flight.”

Adam, already wearing his flight suit, was on his belly in an instant, sliding into his capsule.

Suma, our media specialist – along with Leigh and Susan, our legal specialists – have made preparations for the entire preflight operations to be recorded by the pilots. They wanted the first manned liftoff of both experimental aircraft on film.

I was standing by with my four young Eagles, awaiting liftoff. We were planning to stay right next to Adam and Carlton all the way, as they test the Chiropta during their first flight. Each of us have checked our communications with both pilots, and now, we’re ready.

Our plans were – have them fly for ten minutes – then, if both Chiropta check out as expected, they would continue flying for another thirty minutes.

When we heard the whine of the small, high speed turbines, Hawk, Falcon, Tana, Jana and I, stepped outside the shop and flew up to one hundred feet. There, we spread out to watch Adam and Carlton liftoff and rise vertically to hover, where each of us could circle closely around them. Seeing the Chiropta slowly rise to where we waited ... was a thrill, with each of us recording their first flight. We checked them over thoroughly before giving them a thumbs-up to continue testing their inflight maneuvers.

By aligning multiple pairs of opposing gyroscopes and accelerometers – Carlton and his beautiful geniuses were able to achieve advanced output from the engines and the aircraft, giving the Chiropta, a full six degrees of freedom.

Freedom to move forward/back, up/down, left/right, pitch, yaw, and roll. By a simple touch of the sensor pad inside the fingers of the flight-control gloves, the pilot’s eight fingertips can control his craft’s movement as if it were a part of his own body.

These two extremely gifted men, have practiced these functions for hours on a shop-made flight simulator over the past week. They sat in front of the large LCD monitors, each wearing flight helmets – displaying all inflight maneuvers – using a pair of flight-control gloves for controllers. As if playing a fast paced video game with inflight maneuvers, they watch the performance of a small, bat-wing craft as it responds to their commands, just as it will with them inside the Chiropta. Suma had just recently created the flight training simulator, incorporating the image of a bat-winged craft into the action.

Now, they stopped at one hundred feet, as planned, in order for us to inspect each Chiropta from outside the craft and beneath the pilot’s capsule...

“We’ve checked each of you from end to end, top to bottom, and we haven’t seen anything to keep you from completing the first ten minutes of testing...

“All systems are go, “ I told them.

Through the transparent, polycarbonate canopy of the capsule, we saw them smile. Then, with a slight flap at the tips of their twelve foot wingspan, we were off across the ranch to the west.

Adam barked into his mic. “Testing ... Speed: 4 point 7-9 knots ... Altitude: two hundred feet. Direction: south/southwest.”

Carlton echoed. “Testing ... Speed: 4 point 7-9 knots ... Altitude: two hundred feet. Direction: south/southwest.”

Jana told them, “Right on track, Chiroptas – I love both of you, Big-Bad-Ass-Bats. Now lets go have some fun.”

It has only been two weeks since Falcon, Hawk and I had flown over the rugged, windblown, and eroded, property west of the ranch. Susan and Leigh had contacted the State Representative for our district. With a little legal persuasion, they convinced him to introduce legislation declaring the newly leveled property be transferred to Lightfoot LLC, for research and development purposes.

“Boyd, let’s take them up to ten thousand feet. We need to test these Chiropta as many ways as possible with our onboard flight maneuvers,” Carlton suggested.

“Carlton is right, Boyd. Since everything checks out perfectly, I say we give the Chiropta a chance to prove themselves,” Adam agreed.

“I’ll be at ten thousand feet waiting for you...

“Eagle Squadron, follow them up and watch for anything out of the ordinary.”

“Aye–Aye, Captain,” Tana answered and I heard the others laughing. These girls are getting into the fun of this flight training more and more, as they fly with their brothers.

With a vertical climb that took me to ten thousand feet in seconds, I left them hanging. Once there, I watched as the two Chiropta soared westward, then banked to climb with amazing speed, right up beside me. Each of them stopped in mid-flight, holding their elevation steady with their vertical thrust engines.

“Tell me about it, Adam.” I was excited as I spoke while hovering just outside his canopy.

“Boyd, this is even more amazing than I could have ever imagined of our original Wing-Suit design...

“I am so excited by this I could take off right now – on a trip around the world.”

Carlton again echoed Adams assessment of the Chiropta, “Adam said it all, Boyd. Since the day I first saw you fly free as a bird, I have dreamed of how it would feel for me personally to fly. Now, within four months of that day, I have come to realize my dream. One day – when we have these bats perfected to the nth degree, I would love for us to take that trip Adam just mentioned.”

“Are you serious?”

“Boyd, we owe it to ourselves, to Lightfoot Aero, to science and aviation history, to make such a flight, non-stop even!”

“I’m agreeable, but only after we have tested your speed and endurance. At Mach-20, I could make the twenty-five thousand mile trip in one hour and forty minutes. We have yet to see Mach-1 with the new Chiropta.”

Adam admitted, “I’m not sure the structure of this design would withstand flights at Mach-20, even if we could attain such speeds. BUT – I do see us attaining those speeds in the future as we design smaller, ultra high-speed craft based on this first Chiropta design.”

Hawk broke up the tech talk when he told Adam, “Papa Adam, show us what you got. We want to video more of your flight so we can show the military.”

Carlton was still hyped by his first flight. He added, “Hawk’s right, Adam. You and Andrea designed these bats to fly and we built them as best we could on short notice. I say we give them a true test-flight in order to show the military what Lightfoot Mach-20 Aero has to offer. Let’s take them to the bottom, all out, then across the new property, before we climb vertical and gather back at the top again.”

To make sure they were as safe as possible, I wanted Hawk and Falcon positioned below them before they started their vertical dive. I sent Tana and Jana to the southwest corner of the property to watch for them as they turned skyward, flying vertical again.

“I’ll fly between you. If you experience extreme turbulence, or trouble of any kind, yell and we’ll cut it off ... Now then ... how fast do you want to fly, or – can you fly?”

“We designed this Bat to fly at least Mach-1. I already know we can double that after flying inside this amazing thrust rocket we’ve created...

“Lead us into the Wild Blue Yonder – Eagle One, “ Adam spoke loudly into his mic.

Carlton wanted even more. “Boyd, while climbing vertical from the far corner, I want to crank it wide open, all the way up to the top side.”

“Go for it. Just stay on my wings and I’ll lead the way. The faster you fly – the faster I’ll lead. Both of you call your speed when I do, as we hit bottom and turn to fly horizontal,” I told them.

With that, we were off.

At five thousand feet we were at nineteen hundred knots – at five hundred feet we were at twenty-eight hundred knots and I wondered how much more they would push them.

At one hundred feet, I swooped toward the west, flying horizontal as I called my speed...

“Three – four – zero – zero, knots.”

“Three – four – zero – zero,” Carlton replied.

“Three – four – zero – zero,” Adam replied.

“Chiropta, according to my onscreen graphics, that happens to be thirty-nine hundred miles per hour...

“You-just-broke-Mach-5.”

Falcon and Hawk fell into formation beside the Chiropta as we flew horizontal across to the far west corner.

I spotted Tana and Jana hovering at the west corner of the property. They were waving us on – and just as we turned to fly vertical, they too joined formation, flying in a V, outside their brothers.

I wanted to see more action from this test flight and told them, “Take them into a vertical roll ... you need to test all of your inflight stress maneuvers.”

Despite flying vertical, they were right with me as we neared seven thousand feet. Both of them were rolling left 180°, then right 180° as they flew out the topside at ten thousand feet. In the blink of an eye, they came to rest at eleven thousand feet, their wings parallel to the ground, hovering like helicopters – or – more like hummingbirds.”

“Adam, how was your first flight?” I asked.

“Boyd, this was even more exciting than I ever dreamed possible. We have a true winner here and we’ll be selling these Chiropta to the military as fast as we can assemble them. We may even need a bigger barn after the Big Brass, themselves experience the Chiropta in action.”

Carlton spoke up, “I agree, Boyd. We need to start hiring dependable, qualified help as soon as possible. I suggest college graduates with at least a four-point grade average. This was easy for us, but we have a long way to go before we set up an assembly line to start cranking them out!”

I asked them, “Are there any other tests we need to make on this first flight, before we return? We’ve been out here nearly thirty minutes.”

“Boyd, I’d like to try some loops and rolls. Maybe even some hard turns as if we’re evading an enemy aircraft,” Carlton told me.

“I want some of that too,” Adam said, then added, “I’ve always wanted to fly copilot in a fighter jet as they train for aerial dog-fights.”

“Will the Chiropta withstand the stress of such g-force during all the dives, climbs, rolls and turns?”

“From what we’ve seen out here today, that ... and ... twice that.“

“Then here’s how we’ll do it...

“Hawk, you and Jana evade Papa Adam...

“Falcon, you and Tana evade Carlton...

“I’ll stay above you, videoing the entire aerial dog-fight circus. We’ll see just how good you two – airplane mechanics – can fly your new Chiropta Fighters in a dog-fight...

“THEN – I want the Young Eagles to turn on you, in order to see if the Chiropta can evade the Eagles, and really test how you guys stack up.”

... I knew my boys and girls weren’t flying at full speed, but they sure were giving Adam and Carlton the roller coaster ride of a lifetime as they turned, twisted, rolled, dived and flew vertical ahead of them.

Adam and Carlton surprised me, as they gave chase and crowded the Eagles until they kicked it up another notch.

Suddenly, my Young Eagles turned on the Chiropta – and the real dog-fight was on.

The new Chiropta were no match for the kids, but Carlton and Adam amazed me at their ability to stay with them as they were able to evade, and counter their attacks during the simulated dog-fights.

Each of them were videoing this and I had it covered from above as they put the Chiropta through stressful climbs, turns, dives and rolls at speeds of which a full size fighter jet could never manipulate inside such close parameters.

“OK, Chiropta and Eagles, time is up. We need to head back to the bat-cave and let the others know we’ve survived the first ever, Flight of the Chiropta.”

Back at the shop, my Young Eagles swooped inside the open shop door, then sailed upward to settle back on their feet, right beside me. The four of them were slapping hands, then my sons hugged their sisters. I reached for all four of them just as Adam swooped his big, faded-gray Bat through the wide front door, settling slowly to rest on the four retractable, landing pods which support the widespread wings. Carlton flew into the shop and slowly settled his Bat to the floor, to rest behind Adam’s craft.

Before anyone could assist them, both men were standing behind their Chiropta, shaking hands, then hugging each other. I walked over to congratulate them, then reached down to put my hand on the main thrust rocket. The surface was barely warm.

Inside our new conference room which adjoins the shop, I held my helmet out to Suma so she could download the video onto a disc. We had seven recordings from seven different angles to load. She quickly had my recording loaded and inserted into the DVD player.

As the DVD began playing, Suma, Susan and Leigh began loading a copy of my recording into the DVD Movie-Maker program. They were eager to start editing and adding clips from all seven of the videos to be used in our presentation to the military.

Like the other spectators in the room, I was amazed at the scope and quality of the video taken from my helmet cam. This was as close to 3-D as it gets in real life. Though I had watched many clips from the videos I’d taken since we began recording my flights, I had never seen graphics as detailed and defined as The Test Flight of The Chiropta. When I saw my two sons and two daughters flying in formation, miles above the earth, my heart swelled. Hawk and Falcon must have really been working with their sisters. There is nothing they’re afraid of trying as they fly. To see them hovering close to Adam’s or Carlton’s, Chiropta, then flying faster than a bullet to another position, was enough to bring tears to my eyes.

Savana, you and Andrea need to drop everything and bring the others over to watch this new video. The test flight of the new Wing-Suit design went even better than we could have dreamed, and the video is like watching a sci-fi movie from the sky, above the action

We’re on our way.

We stayed at the shop until the cooks called us to dinner. No one really wanted to leave, but this has been a long day and everyone was tired. During the day as we worked and tested the Chiropta, there had been a flurry of military activity around the two new shop buildings. Some personnel had been working near the security fence, installing cameras – some had been seen walking patrols around the new buildings. Those on foot patrol were armed and outfitted in full battle gear.

Since the main security fence has now been completed around the entire ranch property, there were military vehicles constantly patrolling the service road built inside the fence line. These patrols will now be carried out with three, eight hour shifts each twenty-four hour period ... seven days a week.

I had just pushed back from the table after dinner when Nora yelped. Everyone turned to see her holding her baby bump.

Kendra, sitting beside her asked, “Nora, is it time?”

“Yes, and my babies are even more ready than I am!”

By now, the family knew the drill by heart.

Within minutes, we were gathered at the bottom of the lake where Nora sat on the alien rock. Though our three nurses were also due to deliver just any day, they were attending Nora when Connie tapped Lisa on her shoulder.