Consequences Unforeseen

Leuchars Air Force Base, Scotland - July 1971

Leuchars Air Force Base, Scotland - July 1971

It was a cold day in Hell....

The sky went from blue to black so fast it startled both men. Even though they knew it was coming it was none the less a defining moment for both of them. It was as if the lights had gone out in an instant or the world had come to an end. The stars were like diamonds and so big they could be touched by the mind if not by the hand.

Almost 91,000 feet- atmosphere gone and the big engines silent after the incredible rocket like journey to get there. The big F4 Phantom seemed to do the impossible and glide to the apex, rolling over onto its back and floating weightless.

The earth below seldom before seen exposed like this to mere mortals seemed to smile up at the pilot and his guy in the back, saying “you see me now in all my naked glory, but I am still your mistress and you will have to return to me.” Man had just landed on the moon all of two years previously and such sights as this should only have been in the realms of astronauts and TV broadcasts.

They were on another familiarisation flight. No wingman and no formula or mission. Just get to know your own capabilities and that of your aircraft. Ride it like it was meant to be driven.

David McKenna in the back seat was totally silent and in awe. He was used to his pilot doing unexpected and sometimes crazy things, but taking their bird on a joyride beyond the known and well defined operational ceiling was enough to blow his mind. “For fuck’s sake Whisky, your going to have us in the brig for this, and no question about it” he mouthed over the internal intercom – for they were on radio silence anyway.

Bill Douglas – Whisky Delta - remained totally silent. His eyes and mind were fixed one hundred percent on the spectacular God inspired spectacle below, or was it above him. He gazed at the rock on which generations of his family had fought, lived, bred and died and felt at one with the whole thing. “Nothing,” he thought to himself, “that I have done before this can compare with now, not the exhileration of the full afterburner takeoff, or the climb, not the “better than sex” forces pulled during fighter school training. Absolutely fucking nothing compares to this!”

Mckenna was but a passenger as far as he was concerned. A necessity for the two man machine but irrelevant to the extreme. He ignored the words in his headset, pulled the stick back and drew his wonderful bird into the perpendicular for the plummet back to atmosphere and spinning blades which would allow him to restart his Rolls Royce engines and bring his ride back under his control.

If he failed to do that then he would die with pleasure having seen what he had just seen, rather than eject and face the petty wrath of the beurocrats running the Air Fighting Service which called itself the Royal Air Force. “Bunch of pussies” he thought to himself. At no time did he consider the implications of his entry into space or the mundane feelings of the occupant of the rear seat. Oh he loved Mckenna like a brother, but brothers like fathers and mothers he had learned could be fleeting visitors to him and that was just the way it was. He never should have been flying the plane anyway he thought to himself.

Things were about to get even worse…