"Yes!" yelled Harrington. "It's going."
He was sweating from the mental workload of trying to maintain the glide and start the starboard turbine engine without blowing it up. The engine start-up phase was critical, where too little or too much fuel at the wrong time can easily destroy the precision machine.
As the revolutions on the engine quickly mounted, he eased the propeller feather until it finally, was at full speed and full load.
"We're at five hundred feet," he called out. "This is going to be close.
He trimmed the glide until the vertical speed indicator was almost at zero. His right foot pressed hard on the rudder pedal and the aircraft was banked at about five degrees to port to maintain directional control now that he had one engine at full power. This action gave him time to concentrate on starting the other engine.
The first try didn't work. The left engine stubbornly refused to fire. He left it a couple of moments and tried again. By then they had lost some more altitude. They were now at three hundred feet.
"Oh my leg," groaned Harrington. He had his right leg fully extended with his foot pressing hard on the rudder pedal to counter the yaw caused by the asymmetrical thrust of the one starboard engine at full power, outboard of the plane's central axis. The single operating engine was trying to turn the plane toward the port side because there was no countering thrust from the engine on the port side and his thigh muscle was starting to become fatigued. At the same time, the aircraft was trying to roll over onto its back from the torque reaction of the one spinning engine and he had the yoke turned hard over to the right, trying to compensate.
The engine fired on the second attempt and whistled up as the turbine gathered speed. As he brought the engine to full power and load, he eased off the pressure on the rudder pedal and slowly allowed the yoke to centre.
At that moment two fighter jets flashed passed either side of the aircraft heading in the opposite direction, three hundred feet above them.
"There's the artillery!" shouted the overjoyed pilot. "There will be beers all round when we get back to Cairns."
Their headsets crackled with a new deep voice. "Tango, Sierra, Sierra, this is Group Leader Taipan," the pilot of the lead Super Hornet was calling them. "Maintain your heading out of the combat zone. We have this now."
"Group Leader Taipan, you guys are a welcome sight," said Harrington. " Can you please impress upon those people who are shooting at us that they are not being very neighbourly."
"Roger. We are about to have a candid discussion with them about their bad behaviour. Do you require any assistance?"
"Negative, at this time we are ok. We have both engines hot and are opting out of here below radar level."
"Tango Sierra Sierra, that is acknowledged. All the best guys. Robert Menzies Navy Patrol Vessel is on your port quarter at 100 nautical miles. Group Leader Taipan Out."
The pilot put the nose down and they descended to just above the water – about 5 metres above the swell and with the engines at full power, headed south.
The sun had set and it was starting to get dark. Harrington concentrated on maintaining his height.
"If we stay like this for another ten minutes we will be out of range of any SAMs and then we can grab some height again," he said.
Hatfield and Amy were mute. They were numb and simply nodded.
The plane tore across the ocean, parallel to the shore. It wasn't more than a few hundred metres away.
Then, Hatfield saw it - but it happened so quickly. They were travelling at about six hundred kilometres per hour, only few metres above the water when in a brief flash, in the dim light, there was a dinghy in front of them with two people in it – and then it was gone, receding behind them as they made their breakneck speed escape.
"Did you see that?" Hatfield called out.
"What was it?" said Harrington. "I was too busy concentrating."
"I didn't see anything," said Amy.
"It looked like a fishing boat," said Hatfield.
"Is that what it was," said Amy.
"I think so. That will give them a story to tell to their grandkids, won't it?" replied the pilot, grinning. He wasn't sweating anymore. In fact he looked almost relaxed. "Three minutes to the waypoint, then we climb."
"Thank Almighty God for that," murmured Amy.
YOU ARE READING
Calypso's Mast
AdventureSomething smashed into her, knocked out all of her wind and spun her around. A vice clamped over her mouth and crushed her chest. A second later, she was behind a bush and looking eye to eye with Suzi. Suzi growled. "Shut-up, Suzi," hissed Banni...
