Wings by Karl Friedrich

Author:Karl Friedrich [Freidrich, Karl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781590135921
Publisher: McBooks Press

THIRTEEN

Alright, listen up. This is Link training, and I’m Corporal Zimmer.”

He was short and skinny, his voice high-pitched—cruelty enough in a man’s army. But fate had dealt him two further misfortunes: a nose that more resembled the colossal beak of a gigantic bird than the snout of a human, and sinuses that kept the thing perpetually wet.

“The Link Trainer was developed by Mr. Edwin Link to give pilots instrument training without leaving the ground.” He fished a handkerchief from a pocket. He’d barely succeeded when an explosion rocked his body, turning his face crimson. None of the dozen or so other soldiers in the room bothered to look up from their work.

Dixie whispered, “He could blow somebody’s brains out with that thing.”

Sally jabbed her to keep quiet. Neither had mentioned Bayard this morning nor the words that had been exchanged the night before.

She was nervous enough already. The Link training building was void of everything but the little machines that were its namesake. Even the walls were bare, save for the occasional window, all of which were closed at the moment because of a sandstorm that suddenly had kicked up outside. The big room felt hot and dirty, and thick with tension.

The Link itself looked like a carnival ride from the outside, but its interior was a close replica of a real airplane cockpit. Once the opaque canopy was closed, the student wouldn’t be able to see outside, simulating flying at night or through clouds. Scuttlebutt had it that the Link was a real little monster, with little or no likeness to the feel of flying a real airplane, and so was almost impossible to control. She and the nine others who had been summoned to begin Link training this morning had heard plenty of horror stories about perfectly good pilots who’d emerged from the contraption only to resign on the spot.

The nearest Link was empty, its canopy propped open like the waiting mouth of a lion, though the others were in use. She watched the little squadron of wooden boxes, with their stocky miniature wings and tails, dip and sway and jerk in response to the control inputs of the hapless student hidden inside and the soldier-instructor stationed at the control console beside each. By manipulating knobs and levers, the instructor could feed the student all sorts of situations that were supposed to mimic flying a real airplane on instruments. As she watched, an instructor turned a knob on his console and the Link in front of him began to act erratically as the student attempted to recover from whatever problem he’d thrown at her. Affixed to each console was a map onto which a mechanical arm drew a continuous line. This line represented the flight path being “flown” by the student.

Corporal Zimmer, his handkerchief at the ready and his feet parked solidly on solid ground, resumed his lecture. “The Link is a simulated airplane that provides movement through the various axes of flight. This movement can be controlled

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.