A plan, silly and perhaps impossible and certainly born of desperation but even so better than no plan at all, was beginning to form in my brain. I consulted the great circle indicator and set a course for the Republic of Hawaii; my baby nosed herself slightly south of west. Then I turned to the fuel-speed-distance gnomograph and roughed a problem-3100 miles about, at around 800 m.p.h., ending with dry tanks and depending on rocket juice and the nose units to cushion a cold-jet landing. Risky.
Not that I cared. Somewhere below me, shortly after I set the autopilot on the indicated course and speed, analyzers in the cybernetwork would be telling their human operators that I was attempting to escape to the Free State of Hawaii, on such a course, such an altitude, and at max speed for that range- and that I would pass over the Pacific coast between San Francisco and Monterey in sixty-odd minutes unless intercepted. But the interception was certain. Even if they were still playing with me, cat and mouse, ground-to-air snarlers would rise up from the Sacramento Valley. If they missed (most unlikely!), manned ships as fast or faster than my baby, with full tanks and no need to conserve radius, would be waiting, at altitude at the coast. I had no hope of running that gauntlet.
Nor did I intend to. I wanted them to destroy the little honey I was pushing, destroy her completely and in the air-because I had no intention of being aboard when it happened.
Operation Chucklehead, phase two: how to get out of the durn thing! Leaving a jet plane in powered flight has all been figured out by careful engineers; you slap the jetison lever and pray; the rest is done for you. The survival capsule closes down on you and seals, then the capsule with you in it is shot clear of the ship. In due course, at proper pressure and terminal air speed, the drogue is fired; it pulls your chute open, and there you are, floating comfortably toward God’s good earth, with your emergency oxygen bottle for company.
There is only one hitch: both the capsule and the abandoned ship start sending out radio signals, dots for the capsule, dashes for the ship, and, for good measure, the capsule has a built-in radar-beacon.
The whole thing is about as inconspicuous as a cow in church.
I sat there chewing my thumb and staring out ahead. It seemed to me that the yonder was looking even wilder and bluer than usual — my own mood, no doubt, for I knew that thirteen ground miles were slipping out from under me each minute and that it was high time for me to find my hat and go home. Of course, there was a door right alongside me; I could strap on a chute and leave. But you can’t open a door in a ram-jet plane in powered flight; nor do you jettison it-to do so will cause the plane to behave like a kicked pup. Nor is an eight-hundred-mile-an-hour breeze to be ignored even at 60,000 feet; I’d be sliced like butter on the door frame.
The answer depended on how good an autopilot this buggy had. The better robopilots could do everything but sing hymns; some of the cheaper ones could hold course, speed, and altitude but there their talents ended. In particular I wanted to know whether or not this autopilot had an emergency circuit to deal with a case of ‘fire out’, for I intended to stop the ship, step out, and let the ship continue on in the direction of Hawaii by itself-if it could.
A ram jet won’t operate at all except at high speed; that’s why ram ships have rocket power as well, else they could never take off. If you drop below the critical speed of your jet engines your fire goes out, then you must start it again, either by rocket power or by diving to gain speed. It is a touchy business and a number of ram-jet pilots have been gathered to their heavenly reward through an unexpected case of ‘fire out’.
My earlier experience with the courier Sparrow Hawk told me nothing, as you don’t use autopilots in sky polo. Believe me, you don’t. So I looked for the instruction manual in the glove compartment, failed to find it, then looked over the pilot itself. The data plate failed to say. No doubt, with a screwdriver and plenty of time, I could have opened it, worried out the circuits and determined the fact-say in about a day and a half; those autopilots are a mass of transistors and spaghetti.