Oath Bound - Book V of The Order of the Air Read Online Free PDF Page A

combination, she had two relatively conventional engines mounted on top of the wing, the fuselage balanced below and beneath them. They’d gone with Gilchrist’s most gaudy paint job for the show, the red hull with red and white checkerboard that Alma had used for racing back in the ‘20s, and he was pleased to see how well she showed up against the pale sky.
    The announcer was talking, had been talking for a while, he realized, and the Catalina made a last lazy bank, showing her red wings, then went into a shallow dive, leveling out low and tight at the end of the runway.  That was Alma flying, he was sure of it — that was exactly her sort of risk, so carefully calculated that it was hardly a risk at all — and then the Cat was past, drawing cheers and applause, to make a much tighter turn north over the runway to line up for the return. The second pass was higher but a little slower, giving everyone a good view of the sleek hull, and then she was pulling up and away again, circling back toward the harbor.
    “That’s a nice plane,” Henry said, and shook himself. “Right. You’d better —”
    Lewis nodded.  “Showtime.”
    Carson had the Dart fueled and ready, drawn out onto the tarmac. Lewis made his walk-around, then watched from beneath the Dart’s wing while the first of the fighter group took their turns.  The He-51 was pretty much what he’d expected: if he’d had that in France, he’d have made himself king of the hill, but against the Italians that followed it, you could see it was outclassed.  The Curtiss Hawk was up next, and he felt himself tense, looking from the windsock drooping at the end of the runway, to the southern approach where all the runs started.  This was his rival, this was the man he had to beat. His breath hitched as the Hawk dropped down out of the white sky, screaming along the length of the runway to pull up sharply as soon as he crossed the runway’s end.  That was a top-notch airplane, maybe every bit as good as the Dart; he’d have to be a better pilot if he was going to put Henry on top.
    By the second pass, he was sure he could do it.  The Hawk’s pilot was good, but he was flying conservatively — maybe he wasn’t sure of the Hawk, or maybe it was less controllable than it had looked on the first few stunts, but he wasn’t pushing the machine to anything near its limits.  He wasn’t even going for flash: his stunts were pretty enough, but nothing that would catch the crowd’s attention.  Lewis ran down his mental list, comparing his program to the one the Hawk was flying.  They weren’t all that different, and he wasn’t yet comfortable enough in the Dart to add elements on the fly, but he would be crisper and tighter and have just that bit of flare that the Hawk’s pilot lacked.
    God willing.  He put that thought away, and climbed into the cockpit as the Hawk made its last low-level pass, one single barrel roll.  He’d do that, too, only lower and faster, he thought, and at least two revolutions.  A lot of reward for not much risk.
    Lewis ran through the checklists, shutting out the noise of the crowd and the Russian plane, now starting its run, and was almost surprised when a voice spoke in his headset.
    “Dart, this is Boccadifalco Tower.  You are next up, after Yakovlev AIR-8.”
    “Tower, this is Dart. Understood. I will be next up.”
    Lewis craned his neck to see out the canopy, saw the AIR-8 sweep by the stands on its third pass.  It was billed as a military trainer, and Alma said that the Russian delegation had been talking up its virtues — something about some non-stop distance records? — but from the ground it looked pretty ordinary.  Unless the engine was something special, it was going to be pretty thoroughly out-classed.
    And from the performance, he doubted the engine was all that good. Oh, he could believe it had set some endurance records, the way the little plane settled back into its groove after each pass spoke of