WarBirds

Page 2

By

Howard M. Fitzcharles III

 Each time I pulled back on the stick too hard the plane would start buffeting again. I recognized this as an accelerated stall.  So it was a continuous cycling of pull back, buffeting, ease off and the ground coming closer and closer. Then, just as I was about to get the plane under control, a warning light came on the instrument panel. It was a fuel problem on one tank. I quickly looked around the cockpit for the fuel control valves.  

 Then my mind seemed to stop working. I remember thinking, This simulator does not have access to look around inside the cockpit nor any control of the fuel control valves. As I looked down at my feet, I could see that I was as I thought, in socks, shorts and a T-shirt, but I was sitting in a real cockpit. I had one hand on the throttle and one on the stick and I could feel the metal rudder peddles through my socks. My mind was now racing with wild crazy thoughts running one after another.  

My first thought was that the heat has gotten to me and I am hallucinating. Just then I noticed at the same time, the altimeter was racing upward, the engines were slowing and all I could see out front was sky. I quickly pushed the throttles forward and at the same time pushed the nose over. I felt the negative G's as I came out of the seat against the belts. At the same time thinking. "This can't be. I'm in my home at the PC just flying a flight simulator".

  Just then the left engine died and the nose veered to the left. Even though I didn't have a lot of multi engine time, I responded quickly by lowering the right wing and feeding in some rudder to keep the plane as straight as I could. In the simulator, I could quickly hit the F-1 key to look at the map to see if I could make it to a friendly airfield. But now, there are no keys to hit, I found a radio and what was probably the navigation equipment. I didn’t recognize anything as I learn to use Omni for navigation and this plane had something else. Just then the right engine started to sputter. I was now so busy, I stopped thinking about how I got here. I pushed the nose over a little more while spot checking the air speed. Most of the planes I flew would let you knew if you were flying too slow by the controls getting soft and mushy feeling. I was able to feel like I had some control at 110 indicated so I kept it between 110 and 120 indicated.  

As soon as I had that stabilized, I looked at the fuel gauges and my heart sank. The machinegun fire from that base had evidently got both tanks. Now I knew I had to look for a place to set down. The terrain was about the same as in the program. Mountains to my left and a vast ocean to the right. Most of the lowlands between was clear of underbrush. I played with the airspeed a little to see if I could stretch my steady loss of altitude. I needed to put as much distance between me and that airfield that was shooting at me. The beach was too narrow and steep to be a good landing area, so I decided to look for a relatively flat surface on the lowlands.

Page 3

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