The Final Flight by James Blatch (fastest ebook reader .TXT) 📕

loitered by the Hunter. Rob climbed up a short red ladder attached to the side of the aircraft and placed his helmet on the seat before backing down to check the jet before flight.

Walking around, he occupied himself with the inspection: peering into the engine intakes to ensure they were clear, examining the underside for fluid leaks.

In the aircraft he settled in slowly, confirming his own ability to operate.

If he walked back in now, would they ever let him fly again?

Closing the canopy, he brought the jet to life.

The oxygen started to flow, and he gulped the air.

A teenage marshaller appeared in front of the aircraft. Rob signalled, completed his pre-taxi checks and got permission from the tower. After the chocks were held up by the teenager, Rob pushed the throttle forward and the aircraft lurched. He dabbed the wheel brakes to ensure they were working, then continued to the taxiway.

He felt brighter.

Away from TFU, alone in the single seat aircraft.

He busied himself with the checklists and procedures. It had been a few weeks since he’d last flown the TFU Hunter and he was low on hours.

With the flaps set at thirty-eight degrees and the trims set to neutral, he received his clearance and entered the active runway.

He advanced the throttle and watched the engine revolutions rise. At four thousand five hundred RPM he checked the power indicator; one of the no-go moments in a Hunter would be a lack of power to the flying controls.

Was he looking for an excuse to bin the flight?

The indicator remained black.

He quickly reached a hundred knots and a moment later, the Hunter seemed to take itself up into the air.

Rob looked down at the peace camp to his right.

In one of those tents: the ticking time bomb of the lost papers.

The airspeed crept up; the Hunter vibrated.

He brought his attention back to the cockpit and realised he’d failed to raise the gear or carry out the after take-off checks.

“Concentrate!”

He called the tower and set a heading of one hundred and sixty, allowing the jet to climb to ten thousand feet. Rob took an occasional glance at an air chart of southern England before pushing it back down the side of his ejection seat.

Ahead of him was the coast. The day was clear and he could see Bournemouth and the distinctive outline of the Isle of Wight.

He dropped the nose and settled a little lower at seven thousand feet. As he crossed the beaches below, he banked left and pulled back on the stick, entering a four-G turn.

The nervousness subsided.

Below and ahead, a fast sea vessel created a significant wake. Curious, he pushed the nose of the Hunter further down and brought the visual gun sight over the vehicle.

As the jet sped up, he reduced the thrust to hold the speed at around three hundred knots. About half a mile short of the target, he realised it was a military hovercraft. The grey vessel sat on a shiny black skirt, with white spray billowing in all directions.

He pushed the nose beyond the hovercraft and squeezed the trigger to simulate an attack, imagining the shells curving downward and striking the vessel below the gunsight.

The Hunter flashed over the BH.7 at three hundred feet.

He threw the Hunter into a steep, banking turn.

Rob smiled under his oxygen mask at the sensation.

He continued along the Solent. To his left, an aircraft carrier sat in dock at Portsmouth. Staying at low-level, he used the Napoleonic forts in the sea as aiming points.

A gunmetal grey warship edged out of the harbour as he banked back around, mindful of the controlled airspace around the Daedalus airfield.

The military was everywhere. Frigates, aircraft carriers, hovercraft. All these branches of Her Majesty’s armed forces; and here he was, flying a Hawker Hunter as an RAF pilot.

For the first time in a while, he thought about Millie’s mantra for test flying: that every person to follow them relied on their diligence. Every sailor on every ship, the pilot of the hovercraft, the Royal Marines below decks… they all relied on the men who came before and made sure their equipment was effective. And safe.

The aircraft bumped along in the thick air at five hundred feet. He lined up behind a container ship, presumably out of Southampton. He raised the nose and passed a thousand feet above it. Checking the chart, he saw that controlled airspace began at eighteen thousand feet, so he increased the power, accelerated to four hundred knots, and pulled back on the stick, making sure he was visually scanning the air above him as the Hunter fired upwards. He looped until upside down, facing in the opposite direction.

After rolling the wings, and righting the aircraft, he set the throttle to idle and let it drift back down.

Rob cleared the eastern side of the Isle of Wight, and banked around, wheeling through the air at five thousand feet.

He chose one more target for a practice strafe run before turning north, climbing, and pointing the nose at West Porton.

A hovercraft, two forts, and an oil tanker would now be in flames, had his attacks been real.

He found the idea ridiculous.

He was not a warrior.

But he could fly. He was good at flying, and following procedures, evaluating systems. He was a good test pilot.

Until recently.

Until the moment he stopped listening to his closest friend.

Rob flew mechanically and accurately as he positioned for his return to the airfield.

He swept into the circuit, talking to air traffic as he carried out the pre-landing checks. All completed with the consummate ease afforded to a skilled flyer.

As he descended on the dead side, he looked over at the peace camp. It was dwindling in size. Even since yesterday.

“Damn her.”

On the final landing, he let the jet roll long and he turned off the runway and taxied past camp at its closest point to the airfield.

There was no doubt about it: they were leaving.

He had made up his mind.

With the papers and tapes neatly folded into an old