AMERICA ONE by T. I. Wade Page A

hours, I guess, and I moved the parcels and into the front right seat to monitor the controls and do the radio work. Nobody seemed to think anything was out of the ordinary when I got into the pattern at Dyess after going back to manual flight. I simply completed the pattern while the runway lights came on, turned on the inner light, read the instructional booklet on landing instructions that was taped on the roof above my head; then I got the engine sounding right, riched up the fuel flow, got the undercarriage down, landed, and taxied to where they told me. It was all quite simple, except that I think I got the propeller pitch out a little as she struggled to taxi. I placed the pilot into a straight up sitting position, put his stiff hands back on the controls, put the parcels back and climbed into the rear seat.”
    “Really,” replied the old man, “good thinking. The medical captain told me that he couldn’t understand how the pilot had landed the aircraft, since his body was already cold. And you telling them that it was very cold up-there…bull crap. How many hours did it take me to convince the base commander that you didn’t murder the poor pilot! That incident cost me at least another year before the commander left, and I was finally promoted to major.”
    “Why would I want to murder the man flying me? Didn’t these officers have any brains?” asked Jonesy.
    “After a while I thought the same. Some of these men were purely there to get through their time and then retire. But that was just one out of dozens of problems you caused me. At least you are still alive, and it seems not an embarrassment to your family. I’m off to bed.” And he got up and left the porch.
    His mother took the plates and returned a few minutes later with a half empty bottle of Jack Daniels and three glasses. “At times like this I often sit out here and have a drink or two. Want one?” Both men nodded, and she poured three Texas-size amounts into each glass and handed them out.
    Jonesy relaxed more once his father had gone to bed. It was chilly outside but the liquid kept them warm.
    “He always followed your Air Force career,” his mother began. “He has a whole scrapbook of all the write ups in any civilian newspapers or Air Force publications. His best cutting was when you brought that C-17 in with no engines on a dirt airfield in California; just outside Edwards, wasn’t it?”
    “Oh, that one. That was San Luis Obispo airport, not a dirt field,” Jonesy replied as if it was a drive to the supermarket. “I was catching a lift from Hawaii back to Edwards and was a couple of hours out when I heard a change in rhythm in left-wing jet engine number one. I was sleeping on a row of seats that was pretty close to the engine. It sounded like a sort of fuel starvation. The jet seemed to want for fuel, so I headed up to the cockpit to tell the pilot. He was a youngster, not much younger than the kid here, about twenty-five. He was the co-pilot in the right seat, the left seat was full with a snoring flight commander, and the kid told me to mind my own business. Suddenly the engines went dead, the autopilot, or the kid did something weird, and the snoring pilot and I both hit the instrument panel hard. I heard the whack of his head on the instruments and then blood ran down my face and onto the floor I was kneeling on. Suddenly this stupid kid of a pilot starts screaming at the top of his lungs and wakes up the hundred-odd troops in the cargo hold. A couple arrived and I ordered them to get the stupid kid and the unconscious captain out of the cockpit. One of the guys knew me and got the bodies out of my way. I jumped into the left seat and took over the controls. We were losing height and going into a dive. I pulled her out and figured out that, for some dumb reason, one engine was still operating but the other three were dead. The aircraft was pretty heavy with a company of men and equipment. There seemed to be a fuel problem