Barnstorm (3 page)

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The full moon shone through the window casting a windowpane shadow onto Trip’s floor. The lighted wind sock on the peak of the hangar limply communicated the stillness of the night. A sudden gust of wind caused the wind sock to fully extend, rotate one hundred eighty degrees. The large hangar doors creaked under the strain of a threatening storm. A loose sheet of corrugated metal rattled and banged against the hangar side under Trip’s window.

Trip snored, magazine on his chest. The storm and wind intensified, waking Socrates. The hangar moaned and groaned. Heavy rain and hail punished the steel roof. Trip stirred and rolled onto his side. The lightning and thunderclap were almost simultaneous. That was a close one.

An air-raid siren blared. Trip sat up in bed, surrounded by fellow Navy fighter pilots. Responding to the call of duty, the aviators hurriedly donned flight suits. There was the commotion of shouts, orders, as Navy pilots rushed to the flight deck. Trip secured his harness and wiggled comfortably into the cockpit. As the flight leader, Trip was first to catapult off the flight deck. Amusement parks try to duplicate the adrenalin rush of these steam catapults. Not surprising that taxpayer investment of twenty-five billion dollars in an aircraft carrier provided a more blood-rushing thrill than that available at Six Flags.

After successfully chasing the North Koreans back north of the 54
^th
parallel, a little tower-buzzing was warranted. Trip and his cohorts flew under the Gateway Arch, then swooped around the Statue of Liberty. He shot at King Kong as the great ape clutched the Empire State Building. Trip tossed and turned. One last snore, more of a snort, and a frown as Trip lamented that this flight experience might be fake.

As his tailhook was snagged back to the flight deck,
Trip jerked awake in a cold sweat. Yep. Exciting, but not real. The sheet metal slamming at the window near his bed was real. He crawled out of bed, looked out the window and reacted to a loud noise from inside the hangar. Still in his boxer shorts, he grabbed a flashlight, ready to explore the unknown dangers that lurked beyond. “Stay put, Socrates,” he ordered. When the duck flapped in protest, Trip gave him a hypnotic stare. Socrates retreated to his corner nest.

Save the moonlight streaming through a few hangar windows, and that successfully filtering through cracks in the wall, it was almost pitch black. Combined with the howling wind and the rain hitting the steel roof, it would have been a perfect Halloween haunted house. Trip flicked on his flashlight. Obviously the Energizer Bunny was too scared to make an appearance. The flashlight crept in-and-out of nothingness after scattering only a bit of darkness.

A stranger to the scene would have needed a fresh change of underwear. It was scary. Spider webs. Sporadic blasts of hail made it sound like the rapid-fire from a Gatling gun. Trip lived here 24/7. He knew every nook-and-cranny. Coaxing beams of hope from his flashlight, he pointed it toward the source of each noise. He was always half-a-second late.

The three Stearman biplanes leapt to life with each strobe of lightning. The faded paint flashed sky-blue or as yellow as the sun, if only during that fleeting millisecond between the billion volts of electricity and the ensuing thunderclap. Enough wind was invading the hangar to cause the tarps and sheets to billow like the sails of a ship tossed at sea. About when Trip had become acclimated to the cacophony of sounds bombarding him, a metal trash can fell over to his left. Were a 12-gauge shotgun in his hands, that trash can would have breathed its last. He hit it with a feeble shot from his flashlight.

“Darn raccoon,” he blurted.

Turning to continue his search for evil varmints, he bumped his head on a biplane wing and fell to the ground. Since it was after midnight, he would probably debit this clumsy event from his quota for the following day. His flashlight had enough energy to illuminate a step-ramp underneath the plane. Like a two-step stool with a board extending over the wing, it was used to prevent novices or stupid people from putting a foot on a wing. Old biplane wings were made of linen, cotton, lightweight fabric, or sometimes modernized to a nylon or polyester-type concoction. A foot in the wrong place resulted in embarrassment and a hole in the wing. A foot on the wing close to where it was attached to the fuselage was acceptable.

Trip looked up at the open cockpit. He knew that Buzz had this graveyard off-limits. But Buzz wasn’t here at three a.m. Trip positioned the step-ramp and unfolded it over the wing. Step-by-step he inched closer to nirvana. Stearman–eventually part of the Boeing Company–started making these biplanes in 1939 and throughout World War II. The N25 and PT-17 models that formed Buzz’s graveyard collection earned their reputation as trainers. They were somewhat clumsy to fly, likened to trying to land a refrigerator with its door open. The Army Air Corps figured that if a fly-boy recruit could handle these flippity-flop contraptions, they could fly anything. They were ready for combat.

Trip turned his shoulder, pointed the flashlight at the step beneath him. He was only about three feet off the ground, but his fear of heights got the best of him. Though he dreamed of being a pilot, he hadn’t quite made the connection between success in a cockpit and his fear of heights. He lost his balance and fell butt first into the cockpit. His feet straight up in the air above his head, it took him a moment to regain his bearings.

Twisting around in the correct, forward-facing position, he looked into the second, open-air seat in front of him. He was seated where the action was as these old biplanes were piloted from the rear-cockpit position. The controls necessary to operate the plane were duplicated in the forward-cockpit seat. Quite effective for pilot training.

His flashlight illuminated the instrument panel, joy stick, rudder foot bars. The foot bars screeched and screamed as rust and metal-on-metal were reminiscent of fingernails on a chalkboard. With a loving index finger, Trip wiped thirty years of grime from the limited gauges on the instrument panel.

The world was at peace. Trip ignored the thunder and lightning. Hail on the roof and sides of the hangar could have been flakes of new Christmas snow. The rattling of the tarmac double-wide doors was smothered by the thunder beating in his chest. “I was born for this,” he confirmed. “Someday. Tomorrow I’m different. I can do this.”

Rat-a-tat-tat came the gun fire from the rear. The German Messerschmitt was gaining on him. Another German plane was at ten o’clock high. It had drawn a bead and looked ready to fire. Trip was the wingman for this twenty-plane squadron over Nazi-occupied France. It was 1943. If he could draw the fire away from his squadron Captain, the mission would succeed. It was up to him. Trip did a combination dive-roll where he peeled off from the Allied formation. It worked. He had sacrificed himself for the good of the mission. The two Luftwaffe planes pursued him toward the French countryside below.

Trip’s World War II dream had become intertwined with the reality of the thunder and lightning storm outside his airstrip hangar. Was it present day thunder or was it Messerschmitt 80mm canons?

Trip saw only one way out. Ahead was a wooden bridge over a small stream. The stream was flanked by lines of trees on both sides. The cool morning air had created a fog bank that blanketed the stream. The trees, fog bank, and meandering stream created a tunnel effect. He went for it. The German pilots were hot on his tail. Trip dove under the low bridge. He left the top inch of his vertical stabilizer on the lower support beam of the bridge. Wheels kissing the stream below, Trip disappeared into the fog bank. The German pilots were not so lucky. When the first plane hit the bridge in a ball of flames, it caused the trailing Nazi pilot to climb and bank hard away from the bridge. Right into a towering oak tree. Two German planes–gone. Trip figured that the maintenance crew back in England could repair his plane without much trouble.

The wind was still strong enough to gently rock his Stearman pile of junk like a cradle. Trip closed his eyes and dreamt of beautiful women waiting to touch the shoulder of a hero stunt pilot.

The storm left as quickly as it had arrived. At sunrise, the wind sock hung limply, exhausted from a night of flailing at a mighty foe. The morning calm was rudely broken as the large hangar door was opened. Buzz entered the hangar and knocked on Trip’s bunkroom door.

Cracking the door enough to see Socrates flap his wings and quack, Buzz announced, “Trip, burnin’ daylight.” He avoided saying anything to Socrates as he didn’t need a protracted foul argument this early in the day.

Strange, he didn’t see Trip around the hangar or the cafe. As he passed through the hangar he noticed that the step-ramp was lying across one of the Stearman’s wings. Not a big deal, until the plane wobbled and shifted. Buzz was generally not a believer in ghosts, but the facts pointed to something out of the ordinary. The sound of snoring originating in the cockpit dispelled anything of the occult. As Buzz leaned closer he wondered, what the heck is that?

Buzz cautiously climbed onto the wing and approached the rear cockpit. There he was, Trip, sound asleep without a care in the world. At first, Buzz was shocked, thinking that Trip was naked. Not much of a relief when he noticed that Trip was wearing only his boxer shorts. Boxers with airplane designs. He tapped Trip on the shoulder. In Trip’s dream, it was a beautiful woman shaking his shoulder. He had taken down two German Messerschmitts under that bridge in Northern France. As Trip blinked his eyes and shook his head, this was no love-starved fan standing over him. A pretty good dream had turned into Trip’s worst nightmare.

“And what do you think you are doing?” came the challenge from Buzz. “How many times do I have to tell you?”

Still not quite awake, Trip mumbled, “Uh? Oh. Where am I?”

“In trouble, that’s where you are. Out. Come on. Move your scrawny butt.”

Still a little woozy from his rude awakening, Trip crawled onto the wing ramp, facing away from Buzz. He bumped his airplane boxer shorts butt in Buzz’s face. They awkwardly tumbled off the step in a heap. Trip rolled on top of Buzz, his boxer-clad butt in Buzz’s face.

“Crap. What a way to start the day,” Buzz lamented.

Trip rose, face-to-face with his boss.

“Darn it, Trip. You gotta stop doin’ this. Someday I’m gonna fire yer butt and be done with it. What am I gonna do with you? And another thing. Fix the jump plane back door.” Buzz was firm, but not overly angry.

“Yes, sir. Right away.”

“Within the next hour; before the first jumps this mornin’. That means now.”

“Yes, sir. Right away.”

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Buzz plopped onto a lunch counter stool. He and Deb were alone.

“Whoa, heck of a crash landing,” Deb observed.

“Trip’s ‘bout to drive me nuts. Slept in the cockpit of an old Stearman, in his boxers.”

“Hmmm.”

“Nice guy, but is he cut out for this kind of work? Airplanes are complex, dangerous.”

Deb poured a cup of coffee and let Buzz vent. “I know,” she agreed. “But he tries really hard. Let’s stick with him a little longer.”

“Yeah, but he barely knows the difference between a carburetor and a spark plug.” Buzz gave Deb a quick smooch and exited the cafe as Trip entered.

Trip had quickly dressed for the day. T-shirt, Levi’s. In the hallway behind the lunch counter, he aimlessly grabbed the wrong work shirt. He didn’t notice the name Buzz sewn above the pocket. Typical for Trip, he put it on wrong-side-out. In a hurry, he left it unbuttoned.

“Mornin’, Trip,” Deb said.

Trip waved a small note pad. “Made myself a list,” referring to his new note pad. “On my way to fix that sticky door on the jump plane.”

“How ‘bout that. That should get Buzz off yer back. Ya might consider turnin’ that shirt inside-out before ya try to button it.” Distracted, Deb didn’t notice that Trip had grabbed the wrong shirt.

Trip fumbled with the shirt. “Thanks, off to the jump plane.”

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Trip’s lack of mechanical aptitude was exceeded only by his poor hand-eye coordination. He developed a plan of attack. For at least a full minute, he stared at the rear compartment door handle. Having settled on a strategy, he gave the rear door a futile tug. He then shook the door with both hands–failure. He looked over his shoulder and saw a foursome of skydivers approaching the jump plane. He grabbed a hammer, hit the door handle. He banged his thumb; stuck the thumb into his mouth.

“Come on, stupid door,” he coaxed.

Time was running out. The skydivers were getting closer. One final jerk on the door and it popped open. He lifted his toolbox into the plane and hoisted himself into the rear storage compartment. It was difficult to maneuver in such a cramped space. Twisting, toes-to-nose, and elbows everywhere, Trip felt like the last guy crammed into a circus clown car. Squirming, he found a can of ‘3-In-One’ oil in his toolbox. He tried to squirt oil on the hinge–nothing. There must be a blockage. He looked in the end of the oilcan and squirted himself in the face. Squinting through the slimy gunk in his eyes, he finally succeeded in squirting some oil on the rusty hinge. The door was fixed. It swung open and closed freely. All told, not a bad start to a new day.

Task completed, Trip was on his hands and knees. Head to the open door, he gathered up his tools and closed the toolbox.

Buzz walked around his plane, completing his standard visual safety inspection. As he rounded the nose of the jump plane he noticed that the rear storage compartment door was open. Well, how about that, he thought, Trip finally fixed something around here. With that, he slammed the door shut.

The good start to Trip’s day took an expected turn for the worse. The slammed door hit Trip in the head. He tumbled onto his side, grabbed his head, then rolled onto his back, dazed.

The four skydivers, harnessed-up and ready to go, chattered and laughed. Jumping out of an airplane was exhilarating and it showed. These guys were stoked. Chutes on backs, they checked each other’s equipment.

A cell phone rang. After a short conversation, one of the skydivers approached the plane, removed his chute, and placed it immediately inside the main cabin door. Tapping another skydiver on the shoulder he announced, “Peter, we better sit this one out. Got a little problem with the Foster account.”

Somewhat concerned, Peter asked, “Nothing serious, I hope?” He removed his parachute and placed it inside the jump plane.

“We’re okay. Mr. Foster wants to accelerate the delivery date on the second shipment.”

“Look on the bright side,” Peter assured. “Faster delivery– quicker cash in our pocket. Hey, Buzz! Go ahead, we’ll catch the next jump.”

Buzz waved acknowledgement as the two tycoons returned to the cafe to conclude their business deal. The two remaining skydivers and Buzz climbed into the jump plane. Buzz stowed the two extra chutes, settled in, and fastened his safety harness. He adjusted the controls and started the engine as he yelled over the hum of the engine, “Y’all ready to go?”

The skydivers flashed thumbs-up. Buzz checked a few more gauges.

Still on his back in the cramped rear storage compartment, Trip shook his head, dizzy. These cobwebs were slow to shake loose. The engine roar was muffled, buffered by the door connecting Trip’s rear prison to the main cabin. Trip lost his balance as the plane started down the runway. He opened the exterior door he just fixed and saw the tarmac pass beneath him. Planes accelerate down runways for one reason only–to take off. Somewhere in this equation Trip’s fear of heights did not compute. He closed the door, terrified. Trip cracked the door to the main cabin and saw two skydivers adjusting their parachutes.

Trip sorted through his limited options. It was too late to wiggle out and jump onto the tarmac. While the plane was barely moving, a tumble onto asphalt at even a slow speed would require more Band-Aids than in his current supply.

He could announce his presence. The skydivers would laugh. Buzz would be exasperated. Trip would probably get fired. At the very least, Buzz would strap him in the passenger seat and he’d get his first flight. In the cockpit! Not a bad option. Except for the getting fired part.

Trip settled on his third option–stay put. Lie low and ride it out. These ‘dump-the-skydiver’ trips only lasted about ten minutes. Buzz would land. Trip could sneak out as though nothing happened. Worst case scenario, maybe a successful first flight would help assuage his fear of heights. Best case scenario, he doesn’t get found. Yep, it was decided. Trip froze in fear and hunkered down for a ten-minute adventure.

The jump plane accelerated down the runway, bounced once, and the wheels left terra firma. Buzz pushed to full throttle and banked to circle the airfield. It was a routine climb to ten thousand feet, dump the skydivers, and log one hundred dollars per person as revenue. It was just business. Not as much fun flying as the hot-rod crop dusting. Nothing wrong with boring money.

In the cockpit, it was business as usual. Buzz was at the controls. Skydivers checked their gear. The swaying action of the plane caused Trip to fall back into the storage compartment. There was the stark contrast of the peaceful patchwork quilt that Buzz saw and the abject terror in Trip’s eyes.

Trying to settle into his ‘stay-put’ status for the next ten minutes, Trip folded his hands in prayer. “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to-“

The plane hit a minor air pocket, bounced. “--hey, up there. I’m talking here,” came the not totally reverent admonition. The plane hit another air pocket. This bounce was more severe. “Only kidding.” Proof that God must indeed have a sense of humor.

Buzz shouted over his shoulder, “Ten thousand feet, drop zone one minute.”

The two skydivers, thumbs-up, moved to the open doorway. Buzz returned his own thumbs-up. Both hands grasped the handles above the open door; the first skydiver heard and felt the rushing air as he surveyed the farmland below. He jumped. Barely a count of four and both skydivers were letting gravity do its thing.

Buzz banked the plane and saw free-fall skydivers plummeting, floating toward the earth. Chutes burst open. As the fabric and cords popped from their backpacks, a sudden jerk signaled the end of the rushing wind. Legs swayed like a rhythmic metronome in the warm morning breeze.

As Buzz watched the colorful parachutes hit their targets at the outer fringes of the airstrip, he pulled the radio mic toward him and announced to Deb, “Eagle laid its eggs.”

“Roger that,” Deb transmitted. “Lunch’s on the grill.”

“Fifteen minutes. Gonna take a quick detour over the Thompson farm. Check out crop-dustin’ job.”

Buzz secured the radio mic and banked the jump plane toward the Thompson farm. Now at a lower altitude, he settled in for a leisurely task. That didn’t last long. Confirming his bearings out his left side window, the jump plane right window shattered into a spider-webbed pattern. Buzz snapped his head forward in time to see a second goose give up the ghost in his engine intake. Feathers exploded. The clogged intake became the least of his worries. The compromised propeller vibrated violently. Buzz adjusted some controls and tapped a gauge as though that would change the critical message it communicated. Concerned, he hit the troublesome gauge with a little more authority. He had heard about bird strikes, but never been through any training drills that would help now.

As the plane bounced, Trip fell over on his side.

Checking gauges, Buzz made more adjustments. He flipped toggle switches, turned knobs. The plane bounced. The engine coughed. As though his plane were an old friend, Buzz tried to tease a response, “Come on baby, be nice to papa.”

The engine vomited a puff of smoke. Buzz patted the instrument panel, imploring a little better cooperation, “Okay, sweetheart, be nice to papa.”

Trip snapped his head around, faced forward. He sniffed. Cracking the main cabin door he saw a wisp of smoke. Out of options now, he pulled the door to the main cabin closed. Trip was not sure which was worse. Wings tipping left, then right or the pitch-yaw that hit his head on the ceiling of his cave of doom.

Losing his patience, Buzz was beyond love taps on the uncooperative instrument panel before him. He yelled, “Come on, be nice to papa.”

Trip was ready to admit defeat and crawled on his hands and knees into the main cabin. Buzz, being otherwise occupied, did not see Trip roll toward the opening from which the skydivers had jumped. Trip first banged legs, then hip, and lastly shoulder against the side of the plane. His head hung outside the opening. Rolling farmland, engine smoke, and wind rushed past his head concocting a cocktail of fear. As he was about to fall through the opening, the plane jerked sharply right. Trip was hurtled away from the opening. He scurried back into the temporary safety of the rear storage compartment and yanked the door closed.

Buzz pulled the radio mic toward him. With focused resolve he announced his predicament to Deb, “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Bird strike! Deb, goin’ down. Mayday!”

While Buzz, and to a lesser extent Trip, had been gradually adjusting to the potential tragedy, this ‘Mayday’ turd plopped into the cafe punchbowl without warning. Deb stood at Buzz’s business counter with the CB radio mic in her hand. The sound of radio static confused its way through the cafe. The Liar Flyers had gathered and faces communicated immediate concern. Buzz was a highly qualified Air Force pilot. When he shouted Mayday, that’s not a casual How ya doin’, Bubba?

“Engine fire. Goin’ down!” Buzz coughed.

“Buzz! Buzz!” shouted Deb.

The cafe radio receiver now emitted sounds of a sputtering engine and spark crackles. Buzz’s voice broke through with, “Location. Southeast. . . old stone. . .” His steady voice was replaced by static and the radio cut in-and-out. “Fire!”

Deb clutched the radio mic. The radio went dead. The silence in the cafe was deafening. Only the hum of the Sky Gypsy Café neon sign could be heard. Deb cried through the silence, “Buzz! No! No!” She released the button on the side of the mic and waited nervously for a reply that did not come. Silence. She squeezed the mic button harder. Her military-trained fighter pilot had survived all that Iraq and Afghanistan had thrown at him. Surely, a single-prop jump plane wouldn’t spell doom for her Buzz. “Buzz! Oh my God.”