Heat

Chapter 53

Saturday was Jesse’s first whole day with Carrie in more than two years, and he relished every moment of it. The two little girls took to each other immediately, and both reacted soberly when the rules of Carrie’s stay — that she remain inside and out of the living room at all times and that Carey tell no one of her presence — were explained to them. Jesse spent nearly every minute of the day with the two girls, and after supper, when it was time for bed, he tucked them both into their beds in Carey’s room.

He kissed Jenny, then sat down in an easy chair in the living room and began to study. Before he went to bed at 2 A.M. he had read not just the four chapters that Casey had assigned, but the entire flight manual.

Jesse arrived at St. Clair Airport half an hour early for his flying lesson. He nodded to the fuel attendant, then took a stroll around the big hangar, peering through the windows of small airplanes. Pat Casey’s Cessna 182 was parked in the premier position in the hangar; no aircraft had to be moved in order to get the Cessna out onto the apron. He noted that two huge sliding doors secured the hangar, and he paid particular attention to a combination padlock hanging open on its hasp. Whoever had set the combination into the lock had done it the easy way; 1234 opened the lock.

Next, Jesse strolled into the little flight office and looked around. A large map of the United States hung on one wall, and Jesse spent several minutes locating St. Clair and measuring distances to various other airports. He looked, too, at a rack of air charts on a counter, picked up one and noted which charts covered which areas of the country. Finally, he found an airport directory and flipped through it, making mental notes. Then he saw Casey’s patrol car coming and stepped out of the building to meet the chief of police.

“How you doing, Jesse?” Casey asked.

“Fine, and looking forward to my lesson.”

“Great, but first we do ground school.”

“Of course.”

Casey sat down on an old sofa in the flight office and motioned Jesse to join him. He then took his pupil methodically through the first four chapters of the flight manual, asking and answering questions as he went. When he was satisfied that Jesse was familiar with the material, he got up and headed for the hangar.

“Let’s do a preflight inspection,” Casey said. He opened the airplane door with a key, got out a fuel tester, then led Jesse around the airplane, following a checklist. When he was satisfied that the airplane was flightworthy and the two men had pushed the airplane out onto the apron, he handed Jesse the key. “Okay, hop into the left seat, and let’s get going.”

Soon they were in the air. Casey instructed Jesse to head a few miles south of town, then climb to six thousand feet. “We’re going to be performing some maneuvers, and we want plenty of altitude,” he explained.

While Jesse flew, he took in the landscape surrounding the airport. The principal obstruction was the mountain that rose above the town, and that was to the west of the airport, plus the low mountains to the north. Anyone taking off from St. Clair could fly in a southerly direction and easily avoid obstacles while climbing.

Casey had him perform shallow and steep turns, then do some stalls. Jesse found his old experience coming back to him, and he performed well. On one occasion, Casey reached forward and pulled the red mixture knob all the way out. The engine died.

“Okay, what are you going to do?” Casey asked.

“Find a place to land the damned thing, I guess,” Jesse replied.

“First, establish eighty-eight knots of airspeed — that’s your best gliding range. Good, now where you going to put it?”

Jesse looked around, then pointed. “There’s a straight stretch of road.”

“Yeah, and it’s also got a straight stretch of telephone poles right alongside it. Telephone wires are a no-no.”

The airplane had lost a thousand feet of altitude when Jesse spotted a green pasture. “How about over there?”

“Head for it, and we’ll take a look,” Casey said.

Jesse pointed the airplane at the field, and, keeping his airspeed steady, allowed the machine to descend. He had lined up for the field and was down to six hundred feet of altitude when he saw the cattle.

Casey pushed in the mixture control and the engine leapt to life. “Better get out of here,” he said. “Both you and the cows are hamburger. You’re dead.” He laughed. “Got to watch out for everything in an emergency landing. Let’s go home; you’re tired, or you wouldn’t have made that mistake. Know where the airport is?”

“Afraid not,” Jesse said. “All this maneuvering has confused me.”

“Put the identifier into the GPS,” Casey said, pointing at the instrument. “That’ll give you a heading.”

Following Casey’s instructions, Jesse dialed in the correct identifier, pressed a button twice, and a heading popped onto the little screen. “There it is; we’re six and a half miles out, and the heading is three-three-zero.”

“Exactly right. Now engage the autopilot. First, put the arrow on the instrument in front of you on three-three-zero, then press the alt and nav buttons, then the on button.”

Jesse did as he was told, and he felt the autopilot take charge of the airplane.

“Now the autopilot will maintain our present altitude, and it will navigate us directly to the airport.”

“How do you find out an airport’s identifier?” Jesse asked.

Casey reached between the seats and held up a little book. “This has all the information about every airport in the West. Or, you can simply enter the name of the city into the GPS, and it will give you the identifier. Simple, huh?”

“Dead simple.” Jesse saw the field ahead. “Pat, what’s the range of this airplane?”

“About six hundred and fifty miles at maximum cruise in a no-wind situation. Of course, you almost never get a no-wind situation. Generally, the winds are westerly — higher at high altitudes and lower at lower ones, but you can get an anomaly in the weather and get the opposite. The airspeed indicator gives you your speed through the air, once you’ve set in your altitude and the temperature, and the GPS gives you your actual speed over the ground. It also give you your ETA at your current ground speed. Over there on your left is the fuel flow computer, which gives you the hours and minutes of flight time available on the fuel you have remaining; it’s accurate to within a gallon. You compare the flight time remaining on the fuel flow computer to the ETA on the GPS. Allow yourself an hour’s fuel for safety, and you know at any moment if you have enough fuel to reach the airport.”

“And what sort of cruise speed do you get?”

“Standard is about a hundred and forty knots, but I’ve got a lot of speed equipment — fancy wheel skirts, aileron gap seals, etcetera, so I get closer to one fifty-five.”

Jesse nodded and flew over the field to get a look at the windsock. He selected a runway and turned downwind. Soon, they were pushing the airplane back into the hangar.

“Top her off,” Casey called to the fuel attendant. Then he shook Jesse’s hand. “You did good. We’ll have you a private license in a couple of months.”

“Thanks for your time, Pat. Next Sunday?”

“For sure.” Casey got into his car and drove away.

Jesse went into the flight office and bought some charts and an airport directory.

As soon as the girls were in bed, he went to work. He spread out the charts on the dining room table and began measuring distances to various destinations.