Touch the Heavens

Touch the Heavens Read Online Free PDF

Book: Touch the Heavens Read Online Free PDF
Author: Lindsay McKenna
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Contemporary
Once airborne, I’ll turn the stick over to you, and you’ll get the feel of this ugly bird. Canopies down,” he ordered.
    With a double set of flight controls, Chris hit her canopy lever, watching the Plexiglas lids slowly close. There was a soft whoosh as it locked tightly on each separate compartment. Although pilots never flew without their oxygen masks clamped securely to their faces in case of a leak, the cabins were pressurized.
    Within minutes the F-4 was trundling heavily along the concrete taxiway. Chris helped Dan by switching radio frequencies and handling other little chores that would make his job less complicated. She watched the flaps lower, the whirring sound shivering through the Phantom. Now, with the flaps down, the lift-off capability of the fifteen-ton fighter was increased. Her pulse beat raced as she heard the engines shrieking as they readied for takeoff.
    Dan pushed down on the brakes and rudder system beneath his booted feet. With his left hand, he inched the two throttles forward, watching the RPM gauges jump higher. The harnessed power throbbed throughout the aircraft. The day was dying with the inky stains of night tainting the dusk. The F-4, its array of red and white blinking lights situated on tail and wing tips, bellowed furiously on the cold desert, demanding to be released. Smiling to himself, Dan could almost feel Chris’s excitement in the rear cockpit. She hadn’t said much, but the tremor in her voice gave her away.
    “I’m going to request afterburners upon takeoff,” he informed her. Might as well let her experience the raw, awesome power of the F-4, he thought. He called the tower and received permission. “Let’s tempt the gods,” he said. “There’s an old Air Force myth about flying so high that we’ll anger the mythical gods of the sky. Are you game?” he challenged.
    She grinned, thumbing the intercom button. “Listen, I tempt fate regularly. The sky gods and goddesses are on good terms with me. Let’s go for it.”
    Chris felt him release the brakes. Instantly she was pushed back in the seat, her breath momentarily torn from her by the impact of the aircraft’s power. The F-4 thundered down the runway like a growling cat running full tilt after its quarry. Suddenly the afterburners were engaged by shoving the throttles all the way forward. She could do nothing but sit, crushed against the seat. The landscape was a blur, the F-4 shivering with unleashed might as it hurled itself down the longest runway in the world. Suddenly Dan pulled back on the stick and the fighter left the earth in a single bound like an unchained eagle being released to the freedom of its true domain: the sky.
    The Phantom’s flaps came up on the wings, landing gear tucking neatly beneath its belly, gaining speed, hitting Mach .9 in only a few seconds. The angle of climb was breathtaking. The F-4 quickly hit six hundred knots, and Chris watched the altimeter unwinding like a broken spring as they streaked to five, ten, fifteen, twenty and twenty-five thousand feet. Exhilaration surged through her as she became a part of this magnificent fighter that raced along the very edge of the stratosphere.
    Dan began to bring the nose back down at thirty-five thousand. At forty thousand the Phantom had struck Mach 2. He could feel the aircraft sloughing off the sticky drag of the low subsonic region. The higher they climbed, the less air there was to slow them down. At forty-five thousand, he leveled out the F-4. “Well?” he asked, grinning, “what do you think?”
    Chris gave a shaky laugh. “Things happened so fast that my thinking was way behind the plane! It’s wonderful! What a thrill!”
    Dan’s eyes crinkled with pleasure. Her voice mirrored her happiness. She loved flying as much as he did. That mass of metal, wire and circuitry was a living extension of himself, docile beneath his hand, ready to obey his every command. “Take the stick,” he ordered.
    Chris slid her gloved fingers
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