ROBERT Trevor sat in the cockpit of his plane, staring through the cracked windshield
at the engine cowling and some farmer’s field beyond. Head throbbing and bruised from the harness biting into him, he felt disoriented. Shifting his gaze to inspect his surroundings, he noted the cockpit was intact. On the panel in front of him, everything was dead. The radio, the brand new GPS tracking system, and the engine controls were all dark. The angle of the plane told him the landing gear was down and, thankfully, hadn’t collapsed. He was hard pressed to remember landing the plane. All he could piece together was a few very close flashes of lightning and the large open space into which he had dived. His rebuilt World War II fighter plane weighed five tons, took up two normal parking spots on the pad, sucked gas, and the tail controls were manual cables. The flight inspector at the airfield probably would have preferred to park it on the VFW lawn as a museum piece rather than in the hangar. But if Robert had been flying a Cessna instead of an F6F Hellcat, he’d be red paste now instead of wondering what had happened. The bird was old and heavy, but it was also very tough. Checking the battery power, he found he had voltage. He keyed the mike and pushed the FAA emergency channel. “Mayday. Mayday. This is Romeo 3867-A. I have made an emergency landing.” There wasn’t even static coming in over the headphones. A quick check of the channels found nothing but more static. Great, the radio didn’t survive. He popped open the harness and slid back the canopy. With the help of the canopy edge, he groaned his way to his feet and looked around. The plane didn’t look too much worse for wear. The leading edges of the wings and tail were missing bits of paint, and pieces of corn stalk decorated the wings. Behind him, a long flattened strip showed where he came in just over the tree line. On the right was forest. On the left was nothing but cornfields. Straight ahead a few hundred yards away, peaks of a few low farm buildings rose above the corn. Climbing out, he dropped down under the wing and checked the wheels. They looked okay. Both fat tires held air, but the left one had sunk a couple inches in the ground. The tail wheel was still there, trailing a thick wad of cornstalk it had collected. Taking a walk around the plane, he searched for leaks or any real damage. Besides being assaulted with corn, the plane was intact. Beneath the round engine cowling, the air intake was packed with shattered pieces of stalk and cob. Opening the intake cover, he breathed a sigh of relief. Thankfully, the mess hadn’t gotten into the motor. There weren’t many 2800-cubic-inch, double-wasp engines still around. To get one machined and repaired would feed some mechanic’s family for a year, but what other choice would he have? He crawled out from under the engine and headed toward the farm to get help. In every field he had ever seen, corn was grown in long, straight rows. There were thousands of such fields through the Midwest. Whoever planted this one was either drunk or couldn’t steer the tractor. The rows were wavy. Here and there the clumps of corn were so thick he had to go around them. After only a few steps, he had lost sight of the plane back through the tangle of tall stalks. Keeping as straight a path as he could, he made for the farm. _______________________________ [FLIGHT OF THE HELLCAT by K. Allen Cross | Fantasy Novel (cr2005 Keith Allen Cross) | This excerpt is protected by copyright and is for use only on the Dragonfly Publishing, Inc. websites; it may not be printed, altered, or distributed without the publisher’s prior written consent.] |
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