Flygirl Read online

  FLYGIRL

  a novel

  by

  R. D. Kardon

  FBI Anti-Piracy Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Flygirl

  First Edition

  Copyright © 2019 R. D. Kardon

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address Acorn Publishing, LLC,

  3943 Irvine Blvd. Ste. 218, Irvine, CA 92602.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from the author.

  This story is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  Cover design by Damonza

  Damonza.com

  ISBN—Hardcover 978-1-947392-22-9

  ISBN—Paperback 978-1-947392-21-2

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018050645

  To the women and men who flew the Blue Ridge J32,

  collectively, the ‘32 Guys.’

  To my family, for better or worse.

  “The pilot-in-command of an aircraft is directly responsible for, and is the final authority as to, the operation of that aircraft.”

  Federal Aviation Regulations Part 91, §91.3(a)

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PART I: The Job

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  PART II: The Ball Buster

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  PART III: Albemarle and Vaughn

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  PART IV: What's Right

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  PART V: Red Over White

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  December 15, 1998

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  “Angel Flight” Preview

  PART I:

  THE JOB

  August 1997

  One

  TRIS LOST ALL visibility as the airplane pierced a thick slab of fog. She slid her focus from the miasma outside the cockpit window to the flight instruments in front of her. They were her eyesight now. She trusted them. They told the truth.

  She scanned the gauges and smiled. Tris heard their silent language; woman and machine entwined in the exceptional conversation of flight.

  “Clear Sky Two-Five-One, cleared for the approach,” the Columbus, Ohio approach controller announced over a scratchy connection. Tris nodded to Captain Danny Terry, sitting two feet away in the left seat. His jaw clenched as he worked the radios on their last flight of the day.

  “Gear down,” Tris commanded.

  The landing gear groaned and clicked as they lowered into position. Locked on final approach, the turboprop glided toward the runway, a concrete strip somewhere below them. Its twin engines spun in sync on the airplane’s wings. Tris monitored every bump and twitch of the plane. She answered each with a tap of the controls. Flying is a series of small corrections.

  Tris nudged the yoke to bank the airplane left, the plastic coated steering column cool beneath her hands. She thought of all the ways pilots measure movement: degrees of heading, feet of altitude, ticks of the clock. Always counting up, down, until the next critical moment. As Clear Sky 251 slid toward the ground, Tris counted down.

  Then she saw the flash. Just for a second, an amber warning light flickered.

  “Danny, check the gauges. We had a caution.”

  “Five hundred,” the airplane’s synthesized altitude alert announced. Tris checked the altimeter. So close to the ground and they still had zero visibility through the late-summer glare.

  “I don’t know,” Danny said as he scanned the gauges. “Wait. It’s the oil pressure on number one. The needle’s going crazy. It could be nothing, just a blip.”

  Or the number one engine could be about to fail.

  “Ok.” She’d need full power on both engines to climb if they couldn’t land—and she might not have it.

  “Nothing in sight.” Danny squirmed forward in his seat to catch the first glimpse of runway lights. His breath grew more labored with every foot of altitude they lost. He wouldn’t see the runway until the very last second, if at all—right when Tris would decide to land the plane or thrust it back up into the soup.

  “Roger.” Tris stayed focused and in control. As seconds passed, the plane slid lower, lower, in a stable descent. The only sounds were the whir of spinning dials, the click of needles, the white noise of flight. Tris eyed the altimeter, her hands soft but firm on the power levers.

  Danny’s hand twitched behind hers; a backup. He strained to see the runway. Decision time loomed a few feet away.

  The caution light blinked again. Tris had to keep her eyes on the navigation gauges. The closer the airplane got to the ground, the more sensitive those indicators became. If she strayed off course, even a little, she’d lose all guidance and have to climb, or else there was no telling where they’d hit the ground. She felt Danny’s hands move closer to the controls, protecting them in case she faltered.

  She didn’t. Tris saw the runway, dead ahead.

  “I’ve got it,” Danny said quickly as he keyed the mike. “Columbus Tower, Clear Sky Two-Five-One, runway in sight.”

  “Roger, Clear Sky Two-Five-One, Runway Two-Four, cleared to land, wind two-five-zero at three knots.”

  “Landing,” Tris said. She looked outside, blinked to focus, and kept the plane moving straight along the runway centerline, edging toward the earth. The altimeter registered field elevation just as the plane’s rear wheels softly touched the ground. Tris pulled the power levers to idle and drew the control wheel back toward her chest. As airspeed bled off, the airplane’s nose wheel tapped the runway. She pressed the brakes and they slowed to taxi spe
ed.

  “I have the airplane,” Danny’s hand briefly touched hers as she reluctantly ceded control of the aircraft to the captain.

  “That was close. Nice job, again,” Danny said as his scan moved slowly from side to side, careful to steer the aircraft clear of obstacles in the path of the wings. The hint of crow’s feet around his eyes creased as his smile broadened.

  “Thank you, master.”

  Danny snorted in reply. One of their many lingering private jokes, the impetus long forgotten.

  Once Flight 251 taxied off the runway, Tris returned to her typical duties as first officer, moving handles and flipping switches. Her job was important—critical, in fact. The plane couldn’t fly without two pilots, but she longed for command.

  “Tough day. Damn glad I had you with me. Still can’t believe you’d ever want to leave all this glamour behind.”

  “You mean you’re not gonna at least wait until we get to the gate to talk about this?” Last week, Tris received a call to interview for a pilot job with a corporate flight department. She and Danny had talked about little else all day.

  “How is anyone at this airline gonna get through a schedule like we had today without you?” He was only half joking. It was the casual way the captains at this small commuter airline let Tris know they wanted her as their first officer. Especially in weather like this, when quick decisions had to be made.

  She accepted Danny’s backhanded compliment gladly and with pride, but it wasn’t enough. At thirty-four, she was only three years into her flying career. Most of the captains she flew with at Clear Sky were way younger and had been flying much longer. They started their aviation careers in college, long before Tris ever touched the controls of an airplane. While they built flight time, Tris was teaching English to middle school kids. She needed to catch up.

  “Second-in-command is only a stepping stone, Danny. You know that better than anyone.” Danny made captain at Clear Sky two years ago. He commanded an airliner, albeit a small, slow one.

  Danny guided the plane into the gate, set the brake, and called for the shutdown checklists. The crew ran them expertly and then relaxed a bit as the aircraft door squeaked open and ground handlers deplaned the passengers.

  He moved his slender, six-foot-one frame across the cockpit’s center console, edging closer to the right seat. Danny looked into Tris’s eyes with gravity befitting an in-flight emergency.

  “Upgrade to captain here at Clear Sky. Come on, stick around, Flygirl.” He used Bron’s nickname for her, but it didn’t help his cause. Bron believed that every pilot should be a captain, the sooner, the better.

  “It’ll take way longer for me to upgrade here. I can move up faster in a corporate flight department and fly a jet.”

  “I hear you. But aren’t you going to miss being mistaken for a flight attendant?”

  “Who says it’ll stop?” she shot back.

  Passengers constantly asked Tris about the drinks menu and whether they were serving peanuts or pretzels. On the outside, she took it as a joke. After all, it gave her the opportunity to use one of her favorite lines: “Sorry. I wasn’t pretty enough to be a flight attendant, so they made me a pilot instead.” She’d bat her eyelashes, flip her stick-straight brown hair and thrust her slim hips to the side in her best glamour pose. It always got a nervous laugh and ended the discussion.

  Tris considered the consequences of leaving as she ran through final checklist items, readying the plane for the next crew. She’d miss flying with Danny and her other friends at Clear Sky, probably more than she realized. If she got the job.

  “It’s that, sure, but not just that,” she said more to herself than to him. Danny understood why she wanted the job, but only in part. Ambition, yes, but her need for the left seat went way beyond proving that she was qualified to be a captain.

  After what she did to Bron…she owed him.

  Two

  DANNY LEANED AGAINST a lamppost as he and Tris waited for the van to their hotel, absent-mindedly pushing a pair of Ray-Bans up on his nose. His dark blonde hair was dented from wearing headsets all day.

  He inhaled the cool evening air, the clouds now a welcome relief from the hot summer sky, and stole a long glance at Tris. Her hair looked curly in the hotel lobby earlier this morning. Now it hung straight. That was the only toll this long, intense workday took on her. She still looked fresh, unrumpled, as if their crew duty day had just begun. He shrugged. Maybe that’s just how he saw her.

  Danny checked his pager, then started right back where they left off before the tense approach into Columbus.

  “So, what do they fly again?” He asked, referring to the corporate flight department at Tetrix, Inc., the Fortune 100 company where Tris would interview next week.

  “An Astral and a Gulfstream.”

  “Gulfstream? Wow, you’d really be movin’ on up in the world.” Danny hummed the theme song from that old TV sitcom. To go from flying a nineteen-seat turboprop to a state-of-the-art business jet was a mammoth professional step.

  “Yeah, I wish. Maybe someday. This position is for the Astral. Smaller. But still faster than what we’re flying now.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “Ha! Right.”

  He argued that Tris should spend more time at the commuter, gain more experience, and ensure an easy upgrade.

  “Why leave now? Upgrade here. With all the time you’ll have in the airplane, training will be a breeze this time.” He looked down and shook his head. He knew he’d gone too far.

  “I’m sorry,” he added a moment later.

  “It’s ok.”

  Danny rubbed his chin and continued. “Yeah, so anyway, you’d skate through training, then build your time in the left seat as pilot-in-command while you have a schedule. Then, when a job comes up with a larger airline, grab it. The PIC time will make you more competitive.”

  Tris nodded but said nothing. She stared off into the distance, a look Danny knew all too well from their days together in the simulator at Clear Sky; Tris a new-hire first officer and Danny an upgrading captain. She had listened but didn’t agree.

  Danny knew her as well as anyone at Clear Sky, including Bron. She’d walked away from a ten-year teaching career to become a pilot. Tris left a whole life behind. And then she lost Bron.

  It surprised them both that she’d gotten this interview. Danny just assumed that Tris would hang around Clear Sky longer, and warm to him over time. That he’d be right there when she was ready to date again.

  “I hear you,” she said, probably for the fifth time that day. “But I have at least four years before upgrading here at my seniority.” Clear Sky was a union shop, and date of hire determined upgrade, period.

  “Well, but those corporate jobs, Tris, they’re so political. There’s no union, no protection. Managers can do whatever they want, advance whoever they want. And anyway, what’s the rush?” He’d waited patiently to upgrade at Clear Sky when his seniority number came up.

  “If I can upgrade faster, why not? I’ll fly a new, complex luxury jet. I’ll see the world, first class, on someone else’s dime,” she said, referring to the upscale travel arrangements corporate pilots enjoyed as they flew their passengers to exotic international locations.

  Danny pressed on. “You know Tris, the transition to jets from turboprops, it’s a challenge. You’ve never flown anything like what they have. And upgrade to captain…well, you know the old saying. You’ll have to ‘know everything about the airplane no matter how trivial or worthless and fly it like God!’”

  They both snickered, but their levity had an edge to it. While she was certainly a kickass pilot, learning to fly that jet would be an enormous challenge—probably the biggest she’d face in her short career. She almost flunked out of training at Clear Sky. It had to weigh on her mind.

  “Look, I don’t even have the job yet. This is just an interview. If nothing else, it’ll be good practice.”

  “Suit yourself, Flygirl. But don’t those corp
orate flying jobs usually go to the department manager’s buddies? Any idea who you’re competing against?”

  “Negative. A friend told me about the opening, gave me the name of the chief pilot, and I sent a résumé.” Commuter pilots were always sending out résumés, but they were rarely noticed. Something about Tris must have rung a bell with the Tetrix Chief Pilot.

  The bright green hotel van approached through the cluster of cars bunched up at the curb by the airline arrival doors.

  “Come on.” Danny motioned to Tris. The van nosed over toward them, their pilot uniforms making them easy to recognize. Tris and Danny bounced their roller bags off the curb as the van weaved its way behind the exaggerated tails of black limos and tenuously parked cars.

  Columbus was a fun overnight. The crew stayed at a decent hotel and had fourteen hours between check-in and work the next day. The last couple of nights they were on minimum crew rest and had to either grab a cold sandwich or order costly room service. Tonight, they’d be served in a restaurant. No doubt the conversation about her interview would continue over dinner.

  “So, where will it be tonight?” Danny asked. “Chili’s or Outback?”

  “Chili’s.” They both loved the burgers, and it was much cheaper than steak. “But if I get that job, next time it’ll be Outback!” She wiggled her eyebrows up and down rapidly like Groucho Marx.

  Tris rolled her bag to the back of the van and hoisted it inside. She thumbed through a magazine on the bench seat next to him. Would next time be different? Could she actually make it through jet training?

  Danny had his own concerns. As the van bounced toward the hotel along the streets of Columbus, he swallowed the questions he really wanted to ask her.

  What will happen to me if you go? Will I ever see you again?

  Three

  TRIS NAVIGATED BY the sound of jet engines and the smell of hot rubber and gasoline. As each grew louder and stronger, Exeter Airport drew closer and her heart beat faster. In fitful sleep the night before, she answered interview questions posed by faceless men, inserting a smile here, a hand gesture there. When the alarm rang at 6:30 a.m., Tris popped up in bed, wide awake in seconds.