Fire Flight

by John J. Nance

  “Yeah. Clark? If I tried that snap roll, which way do you think I should roll? Left or right? My head’s swimming right now, and I can’t figure it out.”

  Rusty’s voice cut into the frequency.

  “You’d roll right, Sam. That way, if the wing starts to fold on you and creates a left rolling moment, you’re already rolling right.”

  Clark hit the interphone button. “No, man! That has the aileron putting upward pressure on the bad wing that wants to fail to the up position.”

  “Clark,” Rusty said, “the rolling moment is more important. The aileron pressure isn’t enough to be significant, and he’ll also need some right rudder as he comes through ninety degrees.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “My degree was in aeronautical engineering with wind tunnels. Trust me.”

  “Tell him, then.”

  Rusty repeated the instructions on the radio.

  “Okay,” Sam replied, walking through the steps slowly. “Roll right and push as hard as I can with heavy right rudder, unload the back pressure as I come upright and quick flare it right over the runway with power back.”

  The transmitter aboard the Baron remained open as Sam gripped the switch unconsciously, not aware his personal mutterings were being broadcast.

  “Yeah, right,” he was saying to himself. “I’ll screw this up and cartwheel down the runway in flames or collapse the landing gear and do the same thing. Jeez! What a cockamamie idea. Bob Hoover couldn’t pull that off.”

  Sam pulled his finger off the transmit button as he discovered the mistake, and Clark jumped in immediately.

  “You can do it, Sam, and Hoover would tell you the same thing,” he added, wondering what Hoover, the dean of aerobatic flying in light twins, would really say.

  “Sorry, guys…I’m just somewhere north of terrified up here.”

  “Bring your heading to two hundred forty degrees now, Sam. We’ll turn you south over the valley in about another five miles.”

  “Clark,” Rusty said, “take a look to the right. We’ve got company.”

  A giant Skycrane helicopter with a water snorkel hanging beneath was obviously flying at almost maximum airspeed to keep up as he angled in toward the DC-6B and the upside-down Baron.

  “Tanker Eighty-eight, this is the Skycrane to your right, Skycrane Eight Echo Romeo. We’re trying to figure out a way to get back on the ground and rig a sling. Maybe we could snag him and carry him down.”

  Clark and Rusty looked at each other with raised eyebrows, and Clark shrugged.

  “Skycrane Eight Echo Romeo, Tanker Eighty-eight, you have a sling strong enough to carry a Baron, and big enough to capture him? How the hell?”

  “Man, I don’t know, we’re just trying to figure out a way. We heard you talking about his slowing to a hundred knots and we thought maybe we could do it.”

  “Hey, Skycrane Eight Echo Romeo, Lead Four-Two…thanks, man, that’s a great idea, but I’d take you out tryin’ it, and even if I could somehow get the nose in the sling without chopping it up with my props, I’d probably slip out backward.”

  “No, no, Lead Four-Two. We could use two slings. Get you steady, we fly over and from behind, get the back sling around your tail and rear fuselage, then lower the forward sling and catch your nose before you shut down your engines.”

  “No, man,” Sam replied, his voice calmer. “Nice try, and I appreciate it a lot, but there’s just no way.”

  “Hey, Four-Two,” the Skycrane pilot replied, “you were right about the cockamamie reference to the snap roll at twenty feet. You won’t make it. At least this gives us a fighting chance.”

  “Skycrane Eight Echo Romeo,” Clark interrupted, “you don’t actually know that rolling it upright on short final won’t work. It worked once before. The problem with your idea is you’re not going to be hovering. At a hundred knots your slings would be streaming behind you, and even if you could get one around his tail section, how in hell could Sam get the forward sling around his nose without catching it in the props? Your slings, if I recall, are all hung from the same place. You’d have no control.”

  There was a telling hesitation from the helicopter crew and a new voice from the ground coming in on a different radio not audible to the other aircraft.

  “Lead Four-Two, Jackson Helibase on AM. We’ve been listening to you on an aviation scanner down here, and Skycrane Eight Echo Romeo alerted us. We’re looking for slings and we’ve got a second Skycrane on the ground. But one of our guys has another idea, and we’re working it. How long can you stay airborne, Four-Two?”

  Sam keyed the transmitter and hesitated before speaking. “Ah…I have no reason to think these engines will keep running past the next thirty seconds. I have no idea what my usable fuel is while inverted. I had about a half tank, but…God only knows in this condition.”

  “Sam, how’re you doing?” Clark was asking on the air-to-air frequency, unaware of the conversation on the air-to-ground radio.

  “Stand by a second, Clark. I’m…talking to Jackson.”

  “Okay, look,” Helibase continued, “we’re trying to get a big flatbed eighteen-wheeler. If we can make this work and get him up to a hundred on the runway, you could set down still inverted right on his flatbed. That’s the idea.”

  “Okay…thanks…hang on.” Sam switched back to the air-to-air. “Ah…Jackson Helibase has an idea, guys, about getting a flatbed truck to run down the runway and have me land on it inverted. What do you think?”

  “This is Skycrane Eight Echo Romeo…that runway’s only a bit more than a mile long. Can a big truck accelerate that fast?”

  “Hold on,” Sam replied, switching back and repeating the question to Jackson.

  “We don’t know, Lead Four-Two. But if you can stay up there and orbit awhile, we’ll do our damndest to find out.”

  “Can you guys come up on a regular aviation radio?”

  “We’re…hold on…someone’s bringing a handheld.”

  Suddenly the air-to-air frequency exploded in competing transmissions as several other pilots tried to jump in with ideas.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Clark interjected. “Hold on, everyone! This is Tanker Eighty-eight. We’re escorting Lead Four-Two along with Skycrane Eight Echo Romeo. Take it one at a time, please, and let Sam direct the traffic since it’s his neck. And Sam, before you answer, we’re coming out over the valley now and I see you’re already turning south. Come to a heading of one seven zero degrees.”

  “Okay. Roger. Jackson Helibase, are you up on the air-to-air?”

  A weaker version of the same voice came back. “Roger. We’re on the handheld and monitoring.”

  “Roger,” Sam replied. “Look, everyone, I…I need to test my stall speed first. Please keep working on ideas, but quietly, and I’ll call you back in a second. I’m slowing now, Clark, to a hundred.”

  “Just feel it along, Sam. Don’t fixate on the numbers.”

  “Thank God it’s clear, except for the smoke,” Rusty added in the interphone. Clark had extended the DC-6’s flaps to the ten-degree position, but he called for flaps twenty now to be able to stay in formation with the stricken Baron as it slowed. Clark watched as Sam increased the angle of his Baron, the inverted nose describing a greater and greater angle above level as the wings tried to hang on to level flight. He saw the Baron begin to shake as Sam pushed his throttles back up and stabilized himself.

  “Okay…well, that was scary.”

  “What’d you get on speeds, Sam?”

  “She wanted to stall around ninety-five. So one hundred five is my slowest approach speed.”

  “Hey, Sam? Skycrane Eight Echo Romeo again.”

  “Yeah. Go Skycrane.”

  “We’ve got a better idea. We think there’s a big cargo net in the hangar that would hold you, and all you’d have to do is slam into it. Like a Spiderman catch. We’re gonna peel off to base, dump this load, and see if we can rig it in time.”

  “Might work. Thanks, guys
,” Sam said. “Man I’m getting one hell of a headache up here hanging like a bat. I can’t believe people used to pay money for a rack in the basement to do the same thing.”

  The fright was clearly audible in his voice and Clark knew he was fighting hard against the debilitating tendency to hurry up and end the suspense regardless of the danger.

  “Sam, Clark here. You’re going to want to think about orbiting north of the field in case you lose power.”

  “Yeah, good point. I’ll start a gentle turn here. Ah, Clark?”

  “Yeah, Sam.”

  “Could I ask you a big favor?”

  “Anything.”

  “If…if I don’t make it out of this, would you please talk to Lisa, my wife, and my little girl, Kelly, and tell her we did everything possible?”

  “Of course, Sammy, but you’re going to tell her yourself. You’re going to make it.”

  “Tell them I love them endlessly, and I’m sorry I didn’t listen about this job…the dangers and all.”

  “Sam…you’re going to be fine, but…if lightning strikes or something, of course I’ll talk to her.”

  “I’m not giving up, Clark, but…it may be that the only reason the Big Guy is giving me a few more minutes here is to relay a good-bye.”

  Clark started to reply, but hesitated, realizing Sam’s mike was still on.

  “See, I…feel the left wing wobbling now…. I can see it. I don’t think it’s going to hold.”

  Chapter 16

  FOREST SERVICE AIRTANKER OPERATIONS,

  WEST YELLOWSTONE AIRPORT, MONTANA

  Jerry Stein had been on the Forest Service flight line preflighting his company’s only Skycrane when one of his employees notified him of the tense drama in progress eighty miles to the south. He stood for a moment by the cockpit door, trying to decide whether to go back to Forest Service Ops or take off as planned, but too many years of experience told him the mission would have to be changed anyway.

  He sprinted all the way to Ops and moved straight to the main desk, where Rich Lassiter was standing.

  “Our Skycrane’s ready to go,” Jerry said. “Do they need it in Jackson?”

  “Let me check,” Lassiter replied, pulling up a receiver and punching up a tie line to the helibase at Jackson Hole’s airport. He spoke urgently and quickly before replacing the receiver and turning to Jerry.

  “The answer is yes, and do you have a cargo net of any sort capable of carrying a six-thousand-pound airplane?”

  Jerry Stein stared at him.

  “What?”

  “Uh…they tell me they’re trying to find a way to, ah, net the Baron lead plane since he can’t land.”

  Jerry cocked his head with a disbelieving smile.

  “Come on…get real.”

  Rich Lassiter wasn’t smiling.

  “I’m just telling you what they told me, Jerry. Can you check on the net?”

  Jerry shook his head and pulled his cell phone from his belt. He punched in the number of one of his men and relayed the question.

  “Okay. Get it and the harnesses out to the Skycrane within the next two minutes. Just…just do it!”

  He clicked the phone back on his belt as he pushed through the door and jogged to the helicopter where his copilot was already waiting, passing a high wing turboprop Twin Otter jumpship from Missoula preparing for departure with a crew of smokejumpers aboard.

  Jerry’s eyes landed on an attractive blond fully decked out in her jumpsuit and parachute as she stood in the open cargo door of the Otter. Her face seemed familiar, and he wondered why. He turned away and pulled himself into the right seat of the Skycrane and turned his attention to an orderly departure.

  IN FLIGHT, EAST OF JACKSON HOLE, WYOMING

  “We’re fat on fuel, boss,” Rusty said, “and West Yellowstone says to stay with Sam as long as we need to. They also said to tell you Jerry is just launching from West Yellowstone in his Skycrane and he’s bringing a net himself in case it’s needed. He won’t make it in time, but he’s on his way.”

  Clark nodded as he widened his bank to stay about a thousand yards to the side of the still-inverted Baron as they monitored radio calls flashing back and forth. A growing team of people was laboring under the pressure of time to find a way to bring Sam Littlefox back to earth unharmed, and the traffic on the radio was becoming unbearably heavy. Sam was keeping the Baron slightly to the north of the airport at five thousand feet above ground level in case the engines quit. The wing, he’d reported, was vibrating slightly, and he had no illusions that he would be doing anything but dying rapidly in a vertical descent if it came off.

  On the roads below, cars were pulling off the highway to watch the tense recovery effort as a local radio station located near the airport broadcast the airborne dilemma. Two television helicopter crews sent to Jackson Hole to report on the growing fires were preparing to launch from the east ramp.

  “Lead Four-Two, Helibase Ops. We’ve got a truck in position right now, and they’re getting ready to test his acceleration time. Can you hang on about five more minutes, ten at max?”

  There was silence for a few seconds before Sam Littlefox came on, his voice more labored now, as he began his answer with a sigh.

  “Every second is borrowed time with this crippled wing, but I think I’d better risk it. Yes.”

  “Okay. I’ll get back to you as quick as I can.”

  Rusty could see the flatbed eighteen-wheeler rolling onto the end of the overrun of the Jackson Hole runway six thousand feet below. He could make out a heavy puff of smoke as the driver apparently headed southbound and rolled onto the hard surface of the runway, accelerating steadily. Rusty watched him dash past the midpoint of the field and get to within three hundred feet of the end before slamming on the brakes. Even from five thousand feet up, he could see smoke curling from the tires, and he watched in fascination as the tractor trailer steered slightly to the right to avoid the approach lights as he rolled onto the overrun, stopping less than a hundred feet beyond.

  “Lead Four-Two, Helibase Ops.”

  “Go ahead,” Sam replied.

  “Okay, we’ve got it figured,” the voice said. “We’ve got two engineering degrees, one masters in math, and a physics major working this out. The wind is steady at thirty knots down the runway. You said you’re going to maintain an approach speed of one hundred ten knots, which is eighty over the ground. The truck will be just about at the midpoint of the field by the time he hits eighty. We’ve calculated he’ll have to hit the gas when you’re exactly fifty-eight hundred feet from the threshold of the runway, so we’ve got someone racing down there fifty-eight hundred feet from the end with a radio, and he’ll give the Go command to the truck the second you pass over. If we’re anywhere close, you and the truck will be in formation and right together by midfield. You think you can set her down in the remaining distance?”

  “I think so, but I’ll be prepared for a go-around if it doesn’t look right. Tell the driver the props will probably chew into the trailer and make a hell of a racket, so don’t let that, you know, spook him.”

  “Roger.”

  “Okay,” Sam replied. “He’ll feel the impact of the bird when I…come aboard. It’ll probably work just fine to have him really tromp on the brakes as soon as I’m on, because that’ll just snuggle me up safely on the forward side of the trailer. Tell me when you’re ready. I’m going to start positioning for the approach.”

  “We’ve got the fire equipment standing by, as well, and it’ll take the driver about five minutes to get back in position.”

  “Got it.”

  Clark keyed his radio.

  “So, you’re going to go with the truck, Sam?”

  “Yeah…I’d like to think I could do the trick of rolling it upright on short final, but the wing’s wobbling out there, and I can see it just breaking off if I tried. If I miss the truck and go around, I can always try the rollover as a last resort.”

  “Remember, they’re still trying
to configure the Skycrane, and there’s a second one at Jackson and a third on the way. They might be able to fashion a two-helicopter sling out of the nets.”

  “I can’t see that working, Clark. Wish I could. I can’t figure how they could rig the net to catch me safely, even with two of them, and if my plane slipped out, the wing would undoubtedly break off and I’d have nothing left to work with.”

  “Understood.”

  “It’s…a great idea, though. Maybe I’m wrong. You think I’m wrong?”

  “Lead Four-Two, this is Skycrane Eight Echo Romeo. We’re going to keep working on it. We’re on the deck now and our crew’s attaching the lines to the net, but go ahead with the truck and we’ll try to be a backup. The second Skycrane’s getting ready, and we are thinking about how to do the sling thing…suspending the net between the two of us and letting you fly into it. But if you can make the truck work, do it.”

  “Roger, guys, and thank you,” Sam said, his strained voice taking on an almost eerie tone.

  A voice from another helicopter pilot popped up on frequency.

  “News helicopter off the east end of the runway, this is Jackson Helibase Operations. Please get the hell out of there! Cross to the west side and orbit at least a half mile west.”

  “Helicopter November Eight Seven Bravo, roger. We’ll orbit the west side. Sorry.”

  “What’s he doing?” Rusty asked.

  “That’s Channel Five’s chopper out of Salt Lake. I’ll bet you anything they’re sending this live to CNN right now.”

  “Wonderful. Sam’s spooked enough as it is,” Rusty replied, almost under his breath.

  “Clark?” Sam asked. “Any advice on how to do this? You did airshow stuff for a while, didn’t you? You’ve seen guys land on moving trucks before.”

  Clark felt Rusty glance at him in surprise. He’d known nothing of that aspect of the senior airtanker pilot’s past.