Spirit Flight

by P. R. Fittante

  •

  The sun was fading below the western hills as Frank and Anna rode slowly toward the barn. If not for the lengthening shadows, Frank would swear that time stood still. He was content to simply enjoy the moment with no thought to the future. No obligations to uphold. No roles to fulfill. In Anna’s presence, he felt complete. There was no other way to describe it.

  They stopped outside the barn and dismounted. “I think I could get used to this,” Frank said, as Anna led the two horses into their stalls. He reached into his pocket and felt the small leather case his father had given him.

  “You seem better suited to jets than horses, but I bet you’re trainable.” She closed the gate and turned to face him. “I suppose I’d let you come again for some private lessons.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and teasingly kissed him.

  They walked out of the barn and immediately recognized Charlie’s tan Saab parked outside the house. Charlie emerged from the front porch, still dressed in his camouflaged hunting gear. Frank could see he had something rolled up in his hand. He braced himself for a confrontation.

  Charlie’s smile disarmed him. “You two look invigorated!” For a moment, the smile seemed forced as he looked from Frank to Anna. “Well, now that the three of us are together, maybe we can talk about some of those old times.”

  He handed Frank what was rolled up in his hand. It was aUSA Today newspaper. “By the way, Frank,” he said with mock sincerity. “You didn’t tell me you were such a famous pilot.”

  Frank opened the paper. The bold print of the front page immediately screamed its indictment:

  PILOTS BLAMED FOR B-2 CRASH

  The headline underneath added further injury:

  RECKLESS ACTIONS LIKELY CAUSE OF TWO BILLION DOLLAR LOSS

  Frank was stunned as he read the first paragraph:

  Last week’s crash of a B-2 Spirit bomber in the California desert has been attributed to pilot error, according to sources close to the Air Force safety investigation. The pilots, Major Francis Farago and Major Dale Walker, reportedly disregarded recommendations to terminate the mission prior to the accident. One high ranking aerospace official confirmed that the two pilots had been seen drinking alcohol the evening prior to the flight.

  Anna looked over his shoulder in disbelief as Frank quickly scanned the rest of the page. The last paragraph offered a final, harsh assessment:

  Senator William Tolnert, a vocal proponent of the B-2, expressed concern about the conduct of flight test operations at Edwards Air Force Base. He promised a complete investigation into the actions of the test pilots and the control room. He also recommended that the remainder of the B-2 fleet be cleared to resume flight operations since the accident’s cause was not mechanical.

  Frank handed the paper back to Charlie. He felt as if someone had hit him hard in the gut when he was completely relaxed. The newspaper’s verdict was staggering. Since the moment he lost command of the aircraft, it appeared everything else had continued to spiral out of control. The story now seemed unreal, especially in light of his retreat and renewal amidst this Carolina refuge. How could these impassive, accusatory words actually refer to him?

  “Tough break,” Charlie offered. “I hope they’re not gonna dock your pay for the cost of the jet.”

  “Charlie!” Anna said quickly. “Frank’s best friend was killed in that crash.”

  Frank thought Charlie was taking a little too much delight in his role as messenger. Still, he decided to ignore him. He wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a reply. He looked at Anna. His expression reflected his strong desire to turn the clock back an hour. He could tell she felt the same.

  “Frank, I’m sure the truth will come out soon.” She looked at him helplessly.

  “Maybe,” he said. “But I know someone who can help me find the truth now.”

  Chapter 21

  Rain streaked across the windshield, obscuring Frank’s view of the Rocky Mount city limit sign. The charcoal sky had filtered heavy drops throughout the morning drive, drumming a somber cadence against the Mustang’s leather top. For the first time in a week, Frank found himself replaying the moments leading up to the accident. He could visualize the cockpit displays and his own practiced inputs, but he could not reconcile the two. Why had the B-2 pitched up so violently? Had he misflown the maneuver and overstressed the aircraft? Had there been a malfunction he didn’t notice? The flow of questions persisted as he idled along the rain-slick streets of Dale’s hometown.

  He wiped the fog from his side window and glimpsed the cemetery where Dale was buried. He considered stopping, then decided against it. Somehow, he couldn’t face up to Dale’s death until he found some answers to his questions.

  Within a few minutes he reached his destination. He stopped the car in front of a simple brick house. The overgrown yard was full of discarded machinery, scattered tools and an old power generator. It was all enclosed within a chain link fence sporting a homemade topping of electrified wire coils. Frank cautiously approached the front gate.

  “It’s OK, Frank,” came a gravely voice. “The fence isn’t powered.”

  Frank looked up to see Ernest Walker standing on the front porch. Dale’s father was clad in greasy work pants and a tattered sweatshirt. Like the skin on his wrinkled face, his clothes clung loosely about his slender frame. His thin white hair was uncombed and dark puffy circles cloaked bloodshot eyes. He seemed to have aged years in the days since the funeral.

  “I don’t need any more shocks.” Frank smiled weakly as he closed the gate behind him. “After seeing the news reports, I knew you were the man I had to see. Thanks for letting me come over.”

  “Always good to have a visitor. I don’t get many these days.” He held the front door open for Frank.

  Frank stepped into a narrow hallway. It was made more narrow by the stacks of old books and cardboard boxes that lined its walls. He followed Mr. Walker down the corridor into a small living room. It too was full of books as well as boxes stuffed with a variety of electronic components. Frank noticed several radios and televisions strewn about the room in various states of disrepair.

  “Pardon the mess,” said Mr. Walker, clearing off a seat for Frank. “Electronics repair has become somewhat of a hobby for me.”

  “Most of these look pretty old.”

  “Yep. Bunch of vacuum tubes and copper wires. No software or computer chips to fool with. Simple but reliable.”

  Frank nodded as he sat down. Before him on a low table were several cut outs of newspaper and magazine articles. A quick glance told him they all referred to the B-2 accident. Dale’s name had been highlighted in several of the articles.

  Mr. Walker stared vacantly at the pile of clippings. “It’s strange, Frank. This is the first time I’ve ever really paid attention to my son’s career.” He shook his head sadly.

  Frank felt pity for the old man. He looked around the cluttered room and noticed the mantel over the fireplace was the only spot not covered with dust and scrap. Instead, a sturdy triangle of wood and glass rested on its polished surface. Inside, crisply folded, was the flag that had draped Dale’s coffin.

  Mr. Walker moved over beside the fireplace. “I used to keep a model of the B-2 up here. Didn’t seem right to keep it out.”

  Frank stood up. “Sir, I need for you to tell me about the B-2. I think you might be able to help me understand what went wrong with our jet that day.”

  “Oh, I don’t know how I can help, Frank. I was only involved with the early design. And that was twenty years ago. What could I possibly tell you?”

  Frank shook his head. “I’m not sure. I just need to hear what you think of the airplane.”

  Mr. Walker was silent. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes as if searching inward for memories long untouched. At last he opened his eyes and looked wearily at Frank. “The B-2 is an old idea, Frank. Jack Northrop’s original dream of a flying wing. The perfect airplane. Everything geared toward the production of lift and the r
eduction of drag. Mr. Northrop used to say the fuselage and tail of a conventional airplane are just along for the ride. It’s the wing that keeps it flying. Of course, he never realized his ideal flying wing would also serve as the ideal combat aircraft of the future. He had stumbled upon the perfect design to evade enemy radar. No sharp angles. No vertical surfaces. The end result was the B-2.”

  “I’ve heard the first engineering drawings were a lot different from the way the B-2 eventually turned out.”

  “They certainly were.” For the first time, Mr. Walker’s face seemed to brighten. “We had a sleek design, Frank. One that could come in at seventy thousand feet, its pilots wearing pressure suits like the astronauts, and drop a massive load of weapons without ever being detected by the enemy. It was a point design. The ideal high altitude, long-range bomber. It would do one job and do it perfectly. We had finally realized Jack Northrop’s dream.

  “Then one day, management paid a visit to our engineering shop. Seems the Air Force decided the jet must be able to fly low level too. We told them it would mean a complete redesign of the airplane. But they just said ‘make it happen.’

  “That was 1983. I retired that year after thirty-five years with the company. Five years later the world was officially introduced to the B-2.”

  Frank nodded. “The engineers made it happen, but it was a much different airplane from your original design.”

  “Yep. Thirty thousand pounds heavier and a much larger wing area. We had to make a lot of compromises to get that jet to fulfill both a high and low altitude role.”

  “At Edwards, my focus has been on the low level role. Trying to get its terrain following system to work. But I know what you mean about compromises. Getting the B-2’s pencil thin radar beam to see all the obstacles in front of it has been difficult.”

  “Like drivin’ at night with only a flashlight.”

  “Exactly. And if you want to be stealthy, you need to drive at night with no lights at all. It’s tough to make an airplane do things it’s not meant to do.”

  “Frank,” Mr. Walker said suddenly. “I never did believe that jet was suited to fly low level.”

  “Dale felt the same way. Prior to the accident, we flew a low level through some pretty rough turbulence. He didn’t enjoy the ride.” Frank shook his head. “I guess I’d actually gotten used to getting knocked around down low.”

  Frank was surprised to see the concern on Mr. Walker’s face.

  “You say you hit some rough turbulence?” He was quiet for a moment. “Frank, tell me about the flight controls testing you did afterward.”

  “We were doing full deflection loaded rolls.”

  “Why? Under what conditions?”

  “We were heavyweight at low altitude.” Frank tried to be patient as Mr. Walker considered the information.

  “The elevons,” he finally whispered.

  “What?”

  Walker’s eyes bored into his own. “Frank, you remember how Edwards Air Force Base got its name, right?”

  “Sure. It was named after Captain Glen Edwards, one of the pilots on the YB-49 when it crashed back in 1948. Dale told me you started out with Northrop as an engineer working on the YB-49.”

  “The YB-49 was the first jet-powered flying wing. It was a monster, Frank. I had never seen an airplane so big. It was like a giant boomerang breathing black smoke. It amazed most of us young engineers that it could even get off the ground, let alone remain stable in flight.” He knelt down and rummaged through one of the boxes at his feet.

  “Here,” he said, holding up a detailed model of the YB-49. “Really, you can see the basic flight controls used on the YB-49 are the same as the B-2’s. It used elevons on the trailing edge for pitch and roll, and split flaps at the wingtips for yaw.”

  Frank examined the model. He was amazed at the detail. All the control surfaces moved and even some of the cockpit instrumentation was present. He also noticed each wing had two vertical fins on either side of the engines. “So it wasn’t a true flying wing,” he said pointing to the fins.

  “When we replaced the turboprops with jet engines, we lost some directional stability that had been provided by the prop housing. Back then we didn’t have flight control computers that could automatically stabilize the airplane. No fly-by-wire systems moving control surfaces faster than a pilot can think. Most of the pilots who flew it, including Glen Edwards, reported the YB-49 as being unstable in pitch. The day it crashed, they were doing accelerated stalls. To this day, the exact reason for the crash is unknown. All we know is that it suffered a catastrophic structural failure. We figured it somehow departed controlled flight and then broke apart.” He paused, staring at the model in Frank’s hand. “I always figured the elevons were the cause.”

  “And you think the elevons were somehow involved in the B-2 crash?”

  “I don’t know,” Walker said, rubbing his head. “I was a structures guy, Frank. I wasn’t involved with the design of the flight control system. I just knew it would take some super fast computers to keep the B-2 stable in flight.”

  “That’s OK. I know someone I can talk to about the flight controls. Melissa Fairfield is an engineer in our squadron and she’s an expert on flight control systems. She was also in the control room the day of the accident. But Mr. Walker, you have a perspective of the whole B-2 program that we don’t. Is there anything else you can tell me?”

  “I do know the B-2’s flight controls were completely redesigned so it could fly low level. I always warned about the stress we’d be putting on the jet, and particularly those elevons, in that thick air.”

  “What about the beaver tail? Wasn’t that added to help relieve the stress on the aircraft’s structure?”

  Walker grimaced. “Worthless hunk of titanium. You tell me Frank. Do you think it helped smooth out the low level ride?”

  “No. I always thought it made it worse.”

  Walker smiled weakly. “Exactly the point I made before I retired. That jet will take a beating trying to fly low level, not to mention its crew members.”

  Frank thought of his decision to continue the test mission after the turbulent low level. He also thought of Byron Schmidt’s certainty that Frank was to blame.

  “What is it Frank?”

  “I can’t help but wonder if I did something to overstress the airplane.”

  “Stress does its damage over time, Frank. Just like people, an airplane can often tolerate a huge amount of stress for a long period. And then one day, they just snap. The question seems to be: Did the jet pitch up violently, resulting in a catastrophic failure, or did a catastrophic failure cause the violent pitch up? I know you didn’t cause that jet to pitch up, Frank. Therefore, I’d say something failed.”

  “The safety investigation seems to think otherwise.”

  “The safety investigation is not complete! Frank, I wasn’t the only one who was worried about stress on the B-2. Others in the company, and probably the government, also knew. There may have been nothing you could do to prevent that accident.”

  Frank looked at the flag on the mantel. “I have to know for sure.”

  Mr. Walker nodded. He looked slowly about the dingy room with disgust. “Frank, the years of effort I poured into the B-2 were years taken away from my wife and two sons. The year I retired was also the year my wife divorced me. Dale was still in high school.” He stopped and gazed at the pile of newspaper clippings. “I only wish I had once told Dale how proud I was of him.” He rubbed his eyes roughly. “Don’t let this airplane consume you, Frank. It’s not worth it.”

  “I only intend to clear Dale’s name. I owe him that—and you. But you’re right, and I think I’ve finally begun to understand what is important to me. I won’t let anything get in the way of that.”

  Chapter 22

  “I can’t figure it, Lieutenant.” Bud Corum frowned at the TV screen that hung over the operations counter. “What the hell is that madman Kim trying to do?”

  Melissa Fairfield
didn’t have an answer. She watched in disbelief as the special news report described the likely detonation of a nuclear device off the Korean peninsula.

  They listened to villagers in South Korea describe a bright flash over the horizon and a sound of thunder. Seismic and satellite data as well as local aircraft all but confirmed the unthinkable. For the first time in over half a century, a nuclear weapon might again be used against humans.

  “How could he build an atomic bomb without us knowing it?” Bud gestured at all the pictures of high-tech aircraft that decorated the walls of the operations room. “We’ve been flyin’ all around his country for half a century!”

  “But we have no idea what’s happening on the ground. He kicked the UN observers out last year and restarted that reactor.” Melissa pointed to a map of the region on TV. “Now he also has the rockets to deliver the warheads.”

  The map showed a four-thousand mile ring centered around Pyongyang. It encompassed Japan, Hawaii, and much of Alaska. It represented the predicted range of North Korea’s newest ballistic missile.

  “I bet the Chinese sold them the technology.” Bud’s face turned red with anger. “Pretty soon they’ll be targeting us! I bet—” Bud was interrupted by the warble of the telephone. “419th operations,” he grunted.

  “Hello. This is Lieutenant Colonel Rich Hernandez at Whiteman Air Force Base. I’m trying to reach a Major Farago.”

  The colonel’s voice sounded a bit strained to Bud. “Major Farago is on leave. Is there someone else here who might be able to help you?”

  There was a pause at the other end. “Well, I don’t know. I need to talk to someone about the B-2 terrain following system.”

  Bud glanced up at Melissa. “Sir, one of our B-2 engineers happens to be standing right here with me. Would you like to speak to her?”

  Bud nodded and handed the phone to Melissa. She looked at him uncertainly. “This is Lieutenant Fairfield.”

  “Lieutenant?” The colonel’s voice seemed to spit the rank back at her. “Well, Lieutenant, I hope you’re up to date on the B-2, because I need some critical information. This is Lieutenant Colonel Hernandez. I’m the B-2 Squadron Commander here at Whiteman. I need the latest info you’ve got on TF system capabilities.”