The mood in the classroom was quiet and somber. Mike’s seat was empty and no one even looked at it. Their class commander, Captain Morgan, walked up to the front of the classroom.
“Today is a hard day for all of us. Lieutenant Mike Harris was a friend to everyone in this class. There will be a time for grief, but today is not that day. We have a job to do, and we cannot let this accident distract us from that job. Unfortunately, death of a friend is a part of being an Air Force pilot. This is a dangerous job, and every pilot on this base has lost a friend in an aircraft accident at some point in their career. We have to learn to deal with it. There will be an accident investigation, and we’ll get the results of that investigation when it is complete. Do not waste time speculating on what may or may not have happened. The best way to honor Mike is to learn from this accident and go on to be better pilots for it. There will be an informal memorial in the O Club casual bar this Friday at 1600 hours. Everyone needs to be there.”
Casey struggled to fight back tears. Mike’s absence left a gaping hole in her heart. She’d never known anyone her own age who had died, but she needed to put her sadness aside and deal with it later. Air Force pilot training stopped for no one.
When the class got to the flight room, the master schedule board had a big X through the flights and sims scheduled for that day. Instead it said, “Safety Down Day.” Several of the IPs, including Lieutenant Carter, were absent. The flight commander, Captain Stavros, walked to the podium as the room was called to attention.
“Take seats, everyone. We won’t be flying today as several IPs are being interviewed by the safety investigation board. Instead, we’re going to have a ground day focused on flight safety and accident prevention. We are coming into a very intense phase of training, with more solo flights, and there is no IP sitting next to you to save your ass if you screw something up. You’ve all soloed the jet, and the responsibility is on you to save yourself. The best way to get through this is to continue to work hard, learn your stuff, and be heads up when you fly.”
Casey looked up at the schedule board. There was a blank line under her name where Mike’s name had been. He had been erased from the flight just as if he’d washed out of the program. She tried to concentrate on studying her instrument flying manual but was having a hard time keeping her mind focused. Her thoughts kept drifting back to that sustained hug from Captain Hardesty in her room. She was surprised when she felt little tingles move into her stomach remembering the feel of Kathryn in her arms.
Lieutenant Carter came back to their flight room the next day and grumbled about wasting his time with the safety board. Casey sensed he seemed nervous. Maybe they thought there was something wrong with his screaming instructional technique. Maybe they thought he was to blame for Mike’s crash. They would find out soon enough after the investigation was complete. She kept looking for Captain Hardesty’s name on the schedule board, but she didn’t see her all week. She assumed she was tied up with the investigation.
The whole class was glad when Friday finally came and they could go to the O Club to blow off steam and remember Mike. Casey had several beers as they told stories about Mike. Her favorite story was the one where Mike borrowed Jeff’s flying gloves, then barfed into them on his second flight because he forgot his airsick bag. They raised their glasses in a final toast to Mike led by their flight commander, Captain Stavros.
“To Mike Harris, who has flown his final flight west into the sunset. To us, and those like us, damn few left. Hoo-ah!”
No one cried for Mike in public. It wasn’t “manly,” and there was no crying in the Air Force. Casey looked across the room and noticed Captain Hardesty standing in the corner watching the activities. She looked subdued until she locked eyes with Casey. She gave her a head nod and a slight smile. Casey felt warmth spread in the pit of her stomach and she smiled back.
She noticed Captain Hardesty quietly leave the bar shortly after the last toast to Mike. Casey stayed for another half hour but was feeling antsy as the drinking increased and the volume of the men got louder. She was overwhelmed by the reek of testosterone and beer in the air and needed to get away from the maleness that had surrounded her all week. What she needed right now could only be found at a lesbian bar.
She drove into Phoenix to the Incognito Lounge. She didn’t feel particularly good about what she was looking for, but she wasn’t feeling guilty either. Casey wanted a quick hookup—that’s all. She needed the intimate company of a woman to free her mind from thoughts of Mike, plane crashes, and pilot training.
The bar was packed with a cloud of thick, blue cigarette smoke and the pounding disco beat of the Village People. She scanned the crowd looking for a potential lover for the night. No women really caught her eye until she saw a cute, sporty-looking woman walk in by herself. Casey observed her as she walked up to the bar to order a Coors. She was shorter than Casey, with shoulder-length straight brown hair and a nice smile. Casey struck up a conversation with her, then asked her to dance. The woman seemed interested in Casey as she pressed her hips into her on the dance floor.
“Would you like to come over to my place where we could have a drink in private?” she asked Casey.
Here it was, Casey’s objective, right in front of her, but a strange nagging in the back of her mind kept her from closing the deal. “Thanks, but I can’t tonight. I have to get up real early tomorrow. Maybe some other time.”
The woman walked off with a shrug.
Casey drove back to the base frustrated with herself. She looked at the clock—eleven thirty. She hoped Rhonda and Trish would still be up.
“Hi, Rhonda, I was wondering if I could invite myself over. It’s been a rough week.”
“Sure, come on over. Why don’t you spend the night? We’re having a pool party tomorrow.”
A weight lifted from her as she drove to her friends’ home. They didn’t ask her any questions, they just got her a beer and some snacks. After a while, Casey told them about Mike’s death, her own near crash on her solo ride, and finding Kathryn Hardesty in her room thinking she’d been killed. They listened without comment, but both gave her a big hug.
When she went to their guest room, she wondered again why she couldn’t complete her hookup plans with the cute girl at the bar. Then it struck her—that girl resembled Kathryn Hardesty. She turned over and tried to dismiss the disturbing thought. Instead, she let herself sink into the sheets, feeling surrounded by the sanctuary of her friends.
*****
Kathryn closed the thick folder of the accident investigation report. She was almost finished with the formal written part and was just waiting for a few more evidence analysis reports to come in. They were just formalities since she had her causes and conclusions already written. The cause of this accident was difficult for her to accept. A young student was dead, and he shouldn’t be. She’d put in long hours for weeks working on this investigation, and the heavy stress was getting to her. She knew what she needed and went to where she could get it.
Kathryn spotted Barb hard at work on the big schedule board as she entered the flight room.
“Captain Arnau, I have a favor to ask.”
“Captain Hardesty, where have you been? Done with your investigation, I hope.”
“Almost, Barb, but I really need to fly. I’m going stir-crazy from this paperwork. Do you have any jets available today? Pleeease?”
“Sorry, Kath, I don’t. Let me call the squadron scheduler and see if I can rustle up a plane for you. I don’t have any other IPs available to fly with you. Can you do a student sortie?”
“I’ll fly with anyone. I just need to get up in the air.”
After a quick call, Barb motioned Kathryn over. “I got a Warlock jet for you that was on a mechanical delay but is fixed now, and you can fly with Tompkins. She’s up for an advanced contact ride.”
“You’re a gem, Barb, thanks.” Kathryn had a little twinge of apprehension because this would be the first time she would see Casey after she’d hugged her in her quarters. She had to put her awkwardness aside and treat Casey like any other student. She needed to fly, and Casey needed her to be a good IP.
“Lieutenant Tompkins, are you ready to fly?”
Casey jumped when she heard her name called. “Yes, ma’am, I am.”
“Let’s brief this up and go fly.”
*****
Captain Hardesty had Casey complete the preflight inspection, take off, and climb out to the practice area.
“Casey, I need to update my spin currency, so I’ll fly the first spin recovery, then I’ll have you do one.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“My airplane. I’m climbing to twenty-five thousand feet. Confirm your loose items are stowed.”
“Your jet, loose items stowed.”
Kathryn talked as she set up the spin maneuver, like she couldn’t fly if she wasn’t instructing.
“Nose up twenty degrees, throttles idle, hold this pitch attitude as the speed drops off. At the first stall indication, smoothly feed in full right rudder and hold it.”
Casey felt the aircraft shudder as it ran out of airspeed and started to stall. She looked out the big canopy as the plane rolled to the right, almost upside down, then started rotating into a spin. The ground looked like a record on a turntable as the rotation increased and the nose was pointed almost straight down.
Captain Hardesty called out the emergency recovery steps as she executed them. “Throttles—idle. Rudder and ailerons—neutral. Stick—abruptly full aft and hold. Spinning right, turn needle right—left rudder.”
She kicked the left rudder hard to the full stop, held it for one turn, then slammed the stick full forward to break the stall. The jet accelerated like a spinning ice skater, then suddenly popped out of the spin with the nose pointed straight at the ground. “Recover from dive. Tighten up, Casey.” She smoothly pulled back on the stick to return to level flight with G-forces pulling them hard into their seats. “Okay, Casey, your turn.”
Casey climbed the airplane back up to twenty-five thousand feet and tried not to be intimidated by the perfect spin recovery Captain Hardesty had just demonstrated. Her spin wasn’t bad, just not perfect.
“Let’s descend into the low area and practice some acro. Tighten up, Casey.”
Captain Hardesty rolled the jet upside down, pulled the throttles to idle, pulled back on the stick with five Gs, and did a split S maneuver, losing ten thousand feet of altitude in a matter of seconds. Then she rolled upside down again, doing another split S, and had the jet in the exact center of the low practice area.
Slick. I’ll have to remember that.
“Casey, why don’t you show me your Cuban eight? Your jet.”
Casey set up the maneuver to fly it as precisely as she could. She was tilted off-center after the first half of the maneuver and didn’t do a very good job of fixing it on the second half.
“My jet, Casey. What are you looking at when you do the reverse turn?”
“Um, I think I’m checking my heading.”
“That’s what I thought. These are fighter pilot maneuvers, and you have to look outside the jet, as if a bad guy is on your tail trying to kill you as you are flying them. You only glance inside at the instruments to check your airspeed and heading. I want you to feel the jet, Casey, not just mechanically go through the steps. Let’s try something. Pretend there is a giant tube of red lipstick at the tip of the pitot probe on the nose. I’m going to do a barrel roll around that puffy cloud in the distance, and I want you to visualize drawing a big red circle around it. Follow along with me on the controls.”
Captain Hardesty lowered the nose to get the entry airspeed with the cloud right in front of her. She smoothly rolled and pulled the airplane around, up, and over the cloud in a complete circle. Casey could truly see the pitot tube on the aircraft nose draw a perfect circle in the sky around the cloud. She had been struggling with her acrobatics, but this was so simple. She finally understood.
Casey tried a barrel roll around the same cloud, and instead of ending up in a dive like she usually did, her maneuver was almost perfect. It was a revelation. They went through the rest of the acro maneuvers with Captain Hardesty providing only minor critiques.
“I think you’ve got the picture. My turn,” Captain Hardesty said as she took the controls and descended toward the bottom of the practice area where there was a layer of scattered cumulus clouds. The white puffy clouds looked like giant pieces of popcorn.
As she was descending, Captain Hardesty started quizzing Casey on some of the flight rules. “What are the VFR cloud clearance and visibility minimums in the practice areas?”
“Three miles in flight visibility and clear of clouds.”
“Correct. But what does that mean?”
“I don’t understand the question, ma’am.”
“It means we can get as close to the clouds as we want, as long as we don’t fly through them. Like this.” She abruptly rolled the plane upside down, yanked back on the stick, flew around and under a puffball cloud while just skimming below the base of the cloud. The cloud was so close it looked like Casey could reach her hand out and touch it. She maneuvered the jet like it was her own private playground as she wheeled, dove, and rolled around the puffy clouds. She started doing figure eight rolls with just the wing tip of the plane touching the clouds. Captain Hardesty wasn’t instructing now—she was just flying.
Casey didn’t say a word as she watched this demonstration of precision and skill. She knew these clouds were just condensed water vapor, but they were so beautiful in shades of dazzling white and pale gray within a blazing blue sky. Captain Hardesty was chasing the clouds like she was one of them. Casey put her hand on the stick to feel Captain Hardesty’s movements. She sensed a lightheartedness she’d never felt from her before. She wasn’t instructing or grading Casey; she was just flying with joy. It was beautiful and just plain fun.
“Okay, Casey, your turn.”
“My jet, ma’am. Um, what should I do?”
“Anything you like. Just don’t over-G or overspeed the jet and don’t fly into the clouds.”
Casey tentatively maneuvered banking left and right around the clouds.
“Get closer, Casey. Do an aileron roll right over the top of that big cloud. It’s okay to yank and bank the jet.”
Casey aimed the jet toward the top of the cloud. It looked like she was going to hit it, but she pulled up a little just as she rolled upside down right over the top of it.
“Good one, Casey. Now fly right between those two cloud columns.”
She flew toward the two clouds and rolled to ninety degrees of bank as she approached the small space between them. The nose went down and she went right into the clouds with white momentarily filling the windscreen, then she popped back out into blue skies.
Captain Hardesty laughed. “With ninety degrees of bank you lose all your lift. You have to step on the top rudder to keep the nose up. Think of it as if you are a knife edge.” They continued this game for several thrilling minutes before Captain Hardesty said they had to head back to the base. Casey had never felt such freedom in her entire life as when they were chasing those puffy clouds. She’d just shared something magical in the air with Kathryn Hardesty.
*****
Kathryn had Casey fly the plane back to the base. She was able to relax a little watching Casey confidently fly the arrival procedure and make the radio calls. Casey was growing into a pilot almost right before her eyes, and she let herself feel pleased. Flying a plane was the only thing that made sense in her life right now—pull back on the stick and you climb; push forward and you descend. It was logical and predictable and, unlike a human being, you could count on an airplane to not betray you or break your heart with a senseless death.
As they flew back to Willie, the sun, low on the horizon, reflected on the Gila River beneath them, making the water shine like a ribbon of liquid gold. The light slowly changed as the day gave away to the inevitable night. The bright blue sky transformed into pale turquoise, and the land changed to subdued, soft colors with a line of deep lavender separating the sky from the earth. This was Kathryn’s favorite time of day to be in the air as the daylight retreated into the beauty of the night sky. She had successfully exorcised the terrible images of a charred aircraft and a dead student pilot. She was, once again, at one with the twilight, the airplane, and the sky.