“How much time do you have in one of these?” Aldwood asked almost idly.
“I read the dash-one real carefully’ ” Canidy said wryly.
“I figured as much,” Aldwood said. He looked at Bitter.
“I’ve never seen one before, sir,” Ed Bitter said.
“Well, then, you’re both about eight hours behind me Aldwood said. “And more than a little ahead of me. You’re a hell of a lot younger, and Dolan approves of you.”
“And he doesn’t approve of you?” Canidy replied.
“Not after I told him there’s no way I was going to let him fly.”
“Why not?” Canidy asked. “I understand he’s got a bell of a lot of time.”
“Yeah, and some hard hours on his heart, too,” Aldwood said. 44 Why did you think they took him off flight status? I’m surprised the Navy didn’t pension him off years ago.”
“I suppose,” Canidy said, “before we start test-flying these things, somebody’s going to have to check us out in them.”
“I’ll show you around the cockpit,” Aldwood said. “And since You’ve already read the dash-one, that’s it, I’m afraid. There’s no ground school, unless Claire… Chennault… is starting one at Toungoo.”
“And what if I bend the bird?” Canidy asked.
“Please don’t,” Aldwood said. “We’ve already wrecked two, and all we’ve got and are going to get is an even hundred.”
“Are they all here?”
“Sixty-two. God only knows when we’ll get the rest. We’ve been putting them together at the rate of one every day and a half. We hope to get that up to two a day, maybe three,” Aldwood said. He climbed onto the wing root and motioned Canidy and Bitter up on the other side.
Aldwood gave them a detailed tour of the aircraft’s controls and told them what he knew of its flight peculiarities. He didn’t rush through it, but he was finished thirtyfive minutes later.
“You want to wait until you’ve been off the ship another night?” he asked, finally. “Or-?”
“I’m not going to be any better tomorrow,” Canidy said.
Ten minutes later, wearing an Army Air Corps leather helmet and goggles, and a Switlick parachute marked PROPERTY USN, Dick Canidy looked out both sides of the cockpit, called “Clear!” and put his hand on the starter switch. It took him a long time to get the engine to even cough, and even when he had it running, it ran roughly and there was a peculiar oily smell he hadn’t smelled before. There was also, barely visible in the propeller blast, a faint grayish smoke coming from the engine, obviously not the blue smoke from a toorich mixture or the nearly black smoke from an oil leak.
It disappeared shortly after the needles moved off their pegs and started to creep up to the strips of green tape indicating the safe operating zones for pressures and temperatures. He then realized what caused the smoke: preserving oil and greases being burned off what was almost a brand-new engine.
Canidy looked at Aldwood, gestured toward the instrument panel, and made an OK sign. Aldwood nodded and gave him a thumbs-up signal.
J ira Canidy put the microphone to his lips. “Mingaladon Tower. 1\4CO sixteen by the CAMCO hangars. Taxi and takeoff.”
CA The control-tower operator came back immediately. A crisp British voice gave him the time, the barometer, the altitude, the winds, and cleared him to the active runway as number one to take off. Canidy released the brake and advanced the throttle. Too much. He had more than a thousand horsepower under his hand. The last time he had flown, he had less power, and in a much heavier aircraft. And the last time he had flown, he thought, had been more than three months ago.
Taxiing the P40-B was difficult. The seat was in a full-down position, putting him low in the cockpit. And the P40-B’s nose was high, so it was difficult to see out. Because he had to taxi by looking to either side of the taxiway, he immediately saw that controlling the plane on the ground by use of the rudder was a skill he would have to acquire by a lot of practice.
He reached the threshold of the runway and stopped. He ran the engine up, checked the dynamos, moved the stick and the rudder pedals through their movement arcs, and then pulled the goggles down over his eyes. He picked up the microphone.