Chapter 5
John Bennett approached the sleek fighter with his helmet tucked under his left arm. He wanted time alone to preflight the aircraft by himself, for in the two weeks since his briefing to the king and the Saudi ministers he had been too busy for his obligatory visit to the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh. But today he would fly an F-20-his F-20-to the capital. Bennett noted the name elegantly painted on the canopy rail; the king was as good as his word.
The weather was warm, even at 0700, and Bennett perspired under his Nomex flight suit, G-suit, and torso harness. The ambient temperature was heightened by a hot wind. But he hardly noticed. He stood beside the two-seat Tigershark, aware of his heart beating slightly faster than normal. He savored the smells of the aircraft-a heady mixture of jet fuel, hydraulic fluid, and rubber. Almost self-consciously he glanced around to see if anyone was watching. He was supposed to be a detached professional, and such men aren't expected to be sentimental about the tools of their trade. That's what the groundlings think, he mused. But they don't know, not unless they're aviators. It was a point of pride that the U.S. Navy produced aviators while almost every other service in the world merely produced pilots.
God, it had been good. The sights, the aromas, the feelings all came rushing back. Sensations half remembered-or half forgotten-from his youth. Bennett had been out of the cockpit more than a decade, but many things had not changed. The tension of the G-suit around his thighs and abdomen, the good tightness of the gloves, even the irritation of a helmet pressing one's ears and forehead, and the flesh creased by the oxygen mask. Girding for battle. He imagined warriors had always felt these things, since the days they wore animal skins or chain mail.
But there was more. To impart to young men the skills that only a few ever master. To do something in his own nation's interest in this critical part of the world, Bennett felt an urgency and a newfound sense of excitement and anticipation beating in his chest.
"You look real tactical this morning," Ed Lawrence shouted. Bennett turned, his reverie interrupted, to watch the redheaded flier waddle toward him.
We all look slightly ridiculous, he thought. Like disembodied junction boxes, with our G-suit leads and oxygen hoses and radio cords dangling. Which was exactly the case. Until a jet fighter pilot was fully plugged into his machine, he was simply an independent flight system, useless without his airplane.
"It's great to be getting back in the air, isn't it, Skipper?"
Lawrence ran an affectionate hand along the F-20's fuselage much as Bennett had done.
"Well, I've read the manual a few times through and you'll recall I did okay in the simulator."
The F-20 simulators still were being installed but Bennett had exercised his rank and qualified ahead of most pilots on the schedule. The Saudis would be the first third world country with flight simulators that showed the world outside the cockpit. They were tremendously expensive but invaluable for accelerating training. The computer-generated imagery which allowed students to experience earth and sky as well as the instrument panel previously was limited to nations which produced the systems, such as the United States, Britain, and France. One of the new simulators, with the academic software which went with it, cost almost as much as an "economical" jet fighter.
Bennett climbed into the front seat while Lawrence strapped, hooked, and plugged himself in the back. Lawrence already had twenty flights in the two-seaters and had overseen initial checkouts of two other instructors. As more aircraft arrived, that pace would accelerate.
Lawrence keyed the intercom: "All right, boss, you've got it. Let's fire up this hummer and get going."
Bennett glanced in the rearview mirror. He saw the exec's old helmet with three yellow stars representing his MiG kills over North Vietnam. Just like old times. Now all we need is a flock of MiGs, Bennett thought. He shrugged involuntarily. Be careful what you want-it might come true. After start-up Bennett smartly saluted the line chief and taxied to the active runway.
The hot sun radiated shivers of heat from the concrete as Bennett lined up on the centerline. Holding the brakes, he advanced the throttle to 80 percent of full military power. The Tigershark strained against the brakes like a hungry predator, and Bennett's legs trembled slightly from the pressure on the pedals. Satisfied the General Electric turbofan engine was performing normally, he released the brakes and pushed the throttle into afterburner.
Though the F-20 weighed 15 percent more than the F-5, it possessed 70 percent more power. Seventeen thousand pounds of thrust were ignited as raw fuel was pumped to the TF-404's afterburner section, and 15,000 pounds of Tigershark rocketed off the runway.
Bennett was elated. He let out an involuntary war whoop as he was shoved back in his seat. Hauling the stick back, he kept the airspeed below landing gear limits, flipped the circular knob on the left of the instrument panel, and felt the wheels lock into place. Then he pushed the nose down to almost level, allowing the little fighter to accelerate. In seconds he had 400 knots on the airspeed indicator. He began an abrupt three-G pull-up and watched the altimeter reel off 5,000 feet before he could count it.
Bennett came out of burner and continued a less dramatic climb. He wanted to settle down and get his bearings before sampling the F-20's performance in other regimes. He made slight, deft movements of the control stick, performing four-point aileron rolls, left and right.
"Not bad for somebody who's almost eligible for social security," Lawrence rasped from the backseat.
Keeping the nose level, Bennett selected afterburner again and let the wickedly beautiful Northrop accelerate to 600 knots. Then he rotated the nose to 60 degrees above the horizon and sustained the climb to 40,000 feet. He came out of afterburner, marveling at the F-20's thrust-to-weight ratio.
Bennett keyed the mike. "Judas Priest, Devil, what have you got me into?"
"Uh, I sort of thought it was the other way around, Skipper."
"Well, considering my advanced age, and the fact I've been out of the saddle for ten years, this one-point-one machine takes some getting used to."
The F-8· Crusader they had both flown in Vietnam had almost as much thrust as the F-20's engine, but the Crusader weighted 25,000 pounds combat-loaded for air-to-air. That meant its thrust was about 70 percent of its takeoff weight. The Tigershark, like most other new fighters, had ten percent more thrust than weight-on the order of 1.1 to 1.
For the next thirty minutes Bennett knew again the wonder of high-performance flight. He rolled, pulled the aircraft through a six-G turn, and felt his body weight increased to over 1,000 pounds by the force of gravity. He flexed his abdominal muscles and grunted through the M-l maneuver, which helped delay the onset of grayout. His G-suit inflated and gripped his extremities as if in a giant vise, keeping more blood in his brain than would be possible otherwise. It also allowed him to maintain vision longer, but inevitably the gray fog at the periphery of his sight grew larger, and twice he blacked out completely.
The old bod ain't what it used to be, sport. But damn … ain't this grand! The high side of fifty isn't so bad.
After a half-hour of remembered exhilaration, Bennett turned over control to Lawrence. As IP, the redhead contacted air traffic control and activated his flight plan to Riyadh. Bennett pulled out a notebook and reviewed air traffic control procedures as well as topics for his meeting at the U. S. Embassy. Glancing to the north, he saw a huge sandstorm developing and made a mental note. He would have to be sure the extra canopies and windscreens he had ordered were en route. Flying through blowing sand, Plexiglas became pitted, with reduced visibility in just a couple of years.