Slaughterhouse

SEVEN.

Starter switch energized. Clock started. Hands trembling. So much laughter. It’s all so God damn funny.

DC Voltmeter check. Fourteen volts DC current registering as N1 passes through ten percent. Two rotors with huge chords attached to a teetering rotor head are already starting a slow spin overhead, casting flickering shadows across the cockpit through the eyebrow windows. Copilot giggling over the ICS. Verify voltage continues to increase as N1 picks up.

Exhaust gas temperature is rising normally.

N1 acceleration is normal. Main rotor blades are fully turning now, at fifteen percent N1.

Engine oil pressure light winks out.

Add fuel. THUMP! The big T53 turboshaft engine catches alight, starts delivering over eight hundred ponies to the main rotor shaft. It’s hilarious, thinking about little ponies running on their sides, their little hooves kicking at a main rotor shaft. Release the starter switch once N1 climbs into the forty percent range. Rotors are beginning to slash across the sky, more like a circular wing than two really big boards tied together. Voltmeter reading increases. Transmission oil pressure light, fire warning lights: out. Rotor thumping now. Throttle twisted to ground idle.

“I’m fucking Italian!” the copilot screams over the intercom. “You know how you can tell? My helicopter goes WOP-WOP-WOP!”

Old joke, but it’s suddenly funnier than anything Dangerfield, Carlin, or Louis CK ever said.

Across the flight line, eight other UH-1H Hueys are spooled up, ready for action. Four are loaded with troops. Four are mostly empty, except for the bladders full of piss, puke, and jizz.

Everyone’s laughing.

Everyone wants to kill.