Page 5
Simulation For Real: Air Combat USA
By Bob "Groucho" MarksThis must be what Hell smells like . . .
"Oh, crap! I think were gonna get spanked". Jesse knows stuff.
Pursuant to Jesse's prediction, we got spanked. The acrid, bitter smell of hot oil heated by the Lycoming's exhaust (the smoke generator) filled the cockpit. "Guns! Guns! Guns!" Dooley's voice filled my headphones. Brad DeMille, the scourge of British Columbia, had bested me over the skies west of Long Beach.
He's up there! Pull!
This must be what hell smells like, because Jesse and I were dead. Out of nowhere, the reek suddenly made my inner ear and stomach become lifeguards. "OK! Everybody out of the pool," they yelled in unison. Following the motion-sickness protocol, I pulled the mic away from my lips and raised the tinted visor in anticipation of a probable Technicolor yawn. Jesse and I cracked the canopy of the Marchetti, while Brad lined-up and made another kill. Then another. Fair enough; an incapacitated pilot is a dead pilot. At this point, I felt like something that slid out of the south end of a northbound dog. The blast of fresh air, however, made me feel presentable, and I pulled the microphone back to my lips and lowered the visor of the HGU-22.
"Ready to go again?" Jesse inquired.
Gulping another lungful of fresh air, I said as forcefully as possible, "Yeah, let's go."
This time I tried to go high, but in my presently energy-challenged state only succeeded in going semi-level, but Brad appeared to make a similar goof. This time, however, Brad and Dooley spotted our approach and dove for safety. Not good . . . that maneuver awarded us an honorary hard-deck kill.
Death from above!
That one was particularly unrewarding seeing as Jesse and I followed him in through and below the 2500 foot level. Screw it! A kill is a kill, right? I lined-up Mister DeMille in my sights to record the hit and pulled the trigger of the B-8. Splash two.
This engagement finally depressed the clutch and set my digestive system in reverse. I snagged the already handy plastic barf bag and took care of business.
The human body is truly amazing. After ridding myself of the poisonous Carl's Jr. Double Sourdough Ranch, Bad Harold Swiss Cheeseburger Deluxe, Go Big with Large Fries and Paint Bucket-Sized Iced Tea I felt like a whole new hombre. Without ceremony, I made quick work of securing the twist-tie around the neck of the bag of quasi-digested nastiness and set it behind the leather stick boot. We continued our climb back to 9500 feet.
"You Okay for another dogfight?" Jesse inquired as into my mental / digestive health.
"Let's go," I mumbled, trying my best to sound as convincing as possible that my digestional indiscretions would not return again.
In my mind, this was the most epic dogfight of all, possibly due to the fact that Brad and I were both learning. I cranked the Marchetti hard up and over on this engagement immediately as our wingtips passed. I took our SF-260 as hard as she would go. The accelerated stall buffet that torments her airflow at five G limiting me as I tried to pull the nose around to his airplane. Unloading as necessary to alleviate the rumble, another thing I've learned from simulators, I was able to kick my airplane one more time to bring my sights over top of the Canuck Menace. I pulled the trigger once again. Kill number three. What snagged my attention later was the way that the video playback revealed the way the upper skin of the wing wrinkled under the load.
Five times the pull of gravity wrinkles the top wing skin of the Marchetti
Good thing I was watching Brad's airplane during that particular display of the wonders of mechanical engineering, and not the structural condition of our primary conveyance of lift.
"Oh, yeah, Baby! One turn, one kill!" My mentor approved. "Good aggressive turn! Man, I started to gray out on that one."
High Five!
I may have also. Actually, I don't know. It is amazing how totally the human mind can focus on one thing. All I really remember seeing is that one airplane-shaped planform, and how much I wanted to see it in my sights.
