The Road to Wings by Julie Tizard

Author:Julie Tizard [Tizard, Julie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781626399877
Amazon: B075R85S33
Goodreads: 36208984
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2017-10-17T03:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

As formation flying continued, Casey felt a small amount of lightness in herself. She was progressing well, especially her ability to lead, and she was getting better at staying in position on the wing. The last hurdle was to fly solo in formation. She could not wait.

She hadn’t flown with Captain Hardesty recently and the flight IPs were flying with lots of different students. Casey was comfortable flying with any IP now, even Carter. He was doing less screaming lately. When she flew against her classmates, she realized she could stay in position better than most of them, and she had no trouble staying mentally ahead of the formation when she was the lead. Some of her classmates struggled with formation and were close to getting washed out. If you couldn’t fly formation, you couldn’t be an Air Force pilot.

Casey was excited to see she would be flying with Captain Hardesty today. If everything went well, her next ride after this one would be her formation solo and her last ride in the T-37 before she graduated to the supersonic T-38 jet. She and Captain Hardesty would fly against her classmate Jason Montgomery, who was flying his solo formation ride.

Captain Hardesty came striding into the flight room like she always did and announced, “Tompkins, Montgomery, let’s brief this up.”

Casey stood at attention at her table as Montgomery rushed over looking harried and disorganized. “Lieutenant Montgomery, Lieutenant Tompkins and I will start out as lead, then position change, and you will lead us back to the overhead pattern for landings.”

Casey was keenly aware that Captain Hardesty expected her to be the formation commander and make all the decisions as lead. This ride would be her last check before she was allowed to fly formation as a solo pilot. The check-in, engine start, taxi out, and wing takeoff went well. Casey started a smooth turn to the practice area and noticed Montgomery bouncing around a fair amount on her wing. Maybe he just needs to settle down a bit.

She did a slow, smooth rollout from the turn to try to help him out. Casey gave him a cross under, and it took him longer than normal to move from the right wing to the left wing. When she entered the practice area, she gave him a pitchout so he could get a rejoin. After she gave him the wing rock rejoin signal, she looked for him in the usual eight o’clock low position behind her but couldn’t see him. “Can you see him, ma’am?”

“Yeah, I see him. He’s way too low and forward of the rejoin line,” Captain Hardesty answered.

Casey saw Captain Hardesty’s hand move to the stick for the first time on the ride. She finally saw Montgomery way low and far forward of where he should have been. “Crap,” she muttered to herself. What the hell is he doing?

“Overshoot! Overshoot!” Captain Hardesty yelled over the radio.

Casey saw Montgomery cross under her jet and swing wide to the opposite side of her.

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