AMERICA ONE by T. I. Wade Page B

to the three dead engines, and I tried everything to get them fired up again, to no avail. The fourth engine was getting hot, so I calmed her down. One engine couldn’t keep the heavy aircraft airborne so I reduced power enough to keep the engine at normal to high operating temperatures, and this reduced our descent down to a glide of about 150 feet a minute.”
    “Could you make Edwards with one engine?” asked his mother.
    “No way! If I increased power she could fly straight and level, but the one engine would overheat pretty quickly at maximum thrust. I had the Charlie-17 descending through 11,000 feet and everything still worked, the engine was also powering up the electronics and, I hoped, the undercarriage when I needed it. I turned off everything unnecessary and asked if anybody was a pilot. Apart from the kid, who seemed upset and was tied to a seat by some of the guys, I was the only one. The guy who knew me was security, ex-marine I think, and I got him in the right seat to check maps for a possible landing site. We were still over 195 miles from the coast and descending. Our forward speed was about 200 knots and I needed every foot of altitude to get her over an airport somewhere. The closest airport to our route, as I said, was San Luis Obispo. We were north of the usual route due to passing around a thunderstorm an hour or so earlier. The civilian runway was long enough to get the Charlie-17 down as long as the undercarriage and brakes worked. I did my numbers and deduced that the aircraft would have 900 feet of height once we went in, so I called up Edwards, who called up the civilian airport; and we headed there. They had plenty of warning, cleared the airspace for me and got ready. I would only have one chance, and if the undercarriage went down I would put her down on the asphalt. If it didn’t, I would use the grass on the side of the runway. I waited until we were at 1,200 feet altitude and half a mile out when I tried the wheels. I pushed full thrust on the engine, which I hoped fed maximum power into the undercarriage system. They went down. I trimmed her out for landing, told everybody to buckle down, and went in for a perfect landing with the one engine on full thrust. One part I had not thought of was that I only had reverse thrust to help brake on one engine. It wasn’t much help, and I stood on the brakes the last half of the runway and left beautiful black tire marks for a couple hundred yards. Only three tires gave out and the aircraft stopped with a foot or two of asphalt to spare. It wasn’t a very long runway, and I’m sure I touched her wheels down within inches of the beginning of the blacktop. Nothing really much to brag about, mother. I was just doing my job.”
    “And those soldiers’ lives you saved?” she retorted.
    “Yeah. A couple of the guys came and said thanks before they disembarked. Nobody at Edwards thought I had done anything fancy, and I never heard anything more. That was a long time ago.”
    “What was the problem with the engines?” VIN asked.
    “The Air Force never gives out that information, but I think it was fuel starvation. I don’t know why only three of the engines and not four, but I would bet something clogged up three of the four fuel lines.”
    It was time for bed.
    After an early breakfast, and the re-appearance of the old man, returning from a long walk, they readied to leave.
    “If you are passing through Idaho Springs, son, I think it’s decent for you to visit your mother. I’ll do my best to put up with your stay. Kid, try and keep my boy out of trouble. That gene went missing when the guy was born!” shouted the old man over the din of the exhausts as he was warming up the engine and about to say their goodbyes. Jonesy had certainly made his mother happy, and his father seemed to have warmed to his son, to at least one percent of a perfect hundred.
    All the way through the remainder of Colorado, not a word was spoken by either man. The