Solo by Clyde Edgerton Read Free Book Online Page B

very complex, I’d learned it well.
    The crew chief stood in front of us, off to my left. Our glass-bubble canopy was open. We’d lower it while taxiing out to the runway. I could see outside so much better than in the T-41. I was sitting high in the airplane, and the instrument panel was low, rather than almost in my face. When I’d gone through all my checklist items and was ready to start the left engine (the left engine is always started first), I gave a little whirling motion with my leftindex finger, and the crew chief let me know with the same signal that all was clear. I moved the throttle into idle, pressed the starter button, and checked all gauges—rpm, temperature, oil pressure, and so forth—as the engine came to life. I started the right engine. Even though green lines on the gauges indicated normal parameters, and red lines, danger areas, we were required to memorize and recite normal limits for each instrument.
    For the first time, I was about to fly with a fighter-pilot stick grip in my right hand.
    Among several buttons and a trigger on the grip was a button that engaged the nose-wheel steering.
    The two throttles were side by side on the left console and could be operated simultaneously under my left hand or independently. The instructor had the same setup—stick and throttles.
    “Let’s taxi,” said Captain Dunning.
    Through my gloved hands I felt the stick and the throttles that were controlling this machine. I moved the throttles forward. No movement. A little farther. We were moving.
    We bounced along the taxiway with the whole world out there. I steered with my feet by pressing on either the left or the right rudder pedal.
    Inside my helmet were earphones, and in the oxygen mask covering my nose and mouth was a microphone. My mic and Captain Dunning’s were “hot,” so that whatever one of us said, the other heard. In order to be heard by someone in the tower, I had to press a button on the throttle grip with my left thumb.
    I could look in our rearview mirror and see myself with my new helmet, sun visor lowered, wearing the oxygen mask now necessary in the T-37.
    What was I feeling? A strange pride and power. I saw myself as I thought I’d look to an observer, as I’d viewed fighter pilots all my life—as a hero, with all the attendant awards, recognitions, and love.
    While waiting on the taxiway to be cleared onto the runway for takeoff, Captain Dunning said, “Now, when you’re cleared on, taxi out and turn around at the end of the runway—as close as you can get to the back edge there, with your nose wheel on the runway centerline. You always want as much runway in front of you as possible.”
    Cleared for takeoff, I taxied out and stopped the aircraft facing down the runway. I knew what to do, but Captain Dunning would talk me through every move.
    “Get on the brakes,” he said. “Stand on them if you have to. Now push the throttles to one hundred percent and check all your instruments.”
    The toes of the rudder pedals operated the brakes. I almost stood on my toes to hold the aircraft still. I brought the twin throttles in my left hand forward and watched the needles on the rpm gauges rise to 100 percent.
    “They’re all in the green,” I said.
    “Let’s go.”
    I released the brakes and we were rolling, slowly at first, and then there was a significant pickup of speed. I watched the runway centerline. I was drifting left. I touched the right rudder, too far right, then the left, and was backcentered. The airspeed indicator showed 40 knots, 50, 60. At 65 I pulled back the stick, the nose lifted, we rolled along on the main gear, and then the aircraft smoothly lifted into the air. We climbed out at 180 knots, almost twice as fast as I’d ever gone while piloting.
    Captain Dunning talked me through climb-out. He made all the radio calls himself so that I would not be distracted. We leveled out at 12,500 feet, higher than I’d ever been as a pilot. I was in a