Fly Boy (7 page)

I had better be signing off. Best wishes to you and your family, and my thanks for all your help
.

With fondness
,

Davie

“Does anybody care to make a small wager on who might have scored the highest in our latest examination?” the instructor asked as he held the tests up in his right hand.

“Can I put my money on McWilliams?” Johnnie asked.

The instructor cocked his head to the side. “Don’t you have enough faith to want to bet on yourself?”

“I haven’t been to church enough in my life to have
that
much faith,” Johnnie replied, and a roar of laughter erupted.

“Settle down, everybody. The last thing we want to do is encourage him. He is right, though. Top marks on our orientation quiz go to McWilliams. Let’s give him a hand.”

The boys started to clap and cheer and whistle. Jim leaned over and gave me a slap on the back.

Our instructor put the paper down on my desk. A big fifty out of fifty was marked in red pen at the top right corner. “Not only did he have top marks, he had perfect marks!”

Again there was a round of cheers.

“As for the rest of you,” he said as he continued to hand out the papers, “there were some good marks, some passable marks, and some who did so poorly in understanding the concepts of orientation that I am surprised they were even able to find their way into this room to take the test in the first place!”

I looked over at Jim as he received his paper. He looked at it, nodded his head, and turned it so I could see the mark: 32/50. Navigation—and mathematics in general—wasn’t his strength, but he made up for it by studying hard.

“You have now been here two and a half weeks,” the instructor said. “Today is the halfway point in your time at the Initial Training School. While some, like McWilliams here, have taken full advantage of the time and training, others have been less, shall we say, dedicated. You may have noticed the empty chairs in the room today.”

I
had
noticed, and wondered if there was a touch of the flu going around—or maybe the kind of flu that came in a bottle the morning after a night of drinking. A few of the guys always indulged way too much.

“Those empty seats belong to those members of your class who have washed out of the program.”

Everybody now did a serious scan of the room, trying to figure out who was still there and who was gone. Instantly I picked up a couple of the missing faces, because I’d already figured out who was on the edge. Everyone who had passed basic training at Manning—and that was almost every-body—had made the trip to flight school together. We’d left Manitoba behind and were now in Saskatchewan, stationed outside Regina. But the training was getting harder—especially all the math—and it looked as though they were whittling our numbers down already.

“Some of those men might yet become ground crew. Others simply do not have what it takes and have been asked to consider enlisting in something that requires less ability … perhaps army or navy.”

There were derisive hoots from the back of the room.
We all knew which branch of the military was the best—although I wasn’t about to mention that to any sailors or soldiers unless we clearly outnumbered them.

“That does not mean that those of you who remain are in the clear,” the instructor pointed out. “Some of you are hanging on by the skin of your teeth.”

I wasn’t certain, but I thought he glanced at Johnnie. Johnnie didn’t seem to notice.

“Does anybody care to venture a guess as to why some of you are doing better in your studies than others?” he asked.

“McWilliams hasn’t been out of high school that long, so he’s used to taking tests?” one of the men suggested.

“McWilliams looks like he should still
be
in high school,” the instructor replied. “But some of you have recently graduated from university and are not doing as well. Which, I might say, tells us something about the quality of our institutions of higher learning.” He paused. “Since no answer is forthcoming, I’m going to provide it myself. The difference is that while some students are here studying, doing additional reading, and peppering their instructors with extra questions, some of you are drinking, gambling, and sneaking out to carouse and get into fist fights.”

This time he did look directly at Johnnie. Johnnie was sporting an only slightly faded black eye. He’d told the commanding officer he’d received it falling on a wet floor. I didn’t think the CO—or anybody else for that matter—believed him, but they couldn’t prove anything different, especially since half a dozen guys claimed to have “witnessed” the event.

Technically, we were allowed out on leave only on Saturday nights, but that hadn’t stopped some of the guys from sneaking off base for a little excitement. Last Thursday
six or seven of the guys, including Johnnie, had climbed out of a window after lights out,
borrowed
a truck, and gone down to the Hotel Saskatchewan in downtown Regina.

Apparently the male population of Regina didn’t think too much of the fly boys in training. Maybe women liked a man in uniform, but the local men didn’t feel the same way. Farmers were classified as essential workers—they were needed to work on the home front to avoid food shortages—but some of them were pretty touchy about the fact that they hadn’t been able to join up, and they didn’t take kindly to the guys in uniform coming in and flirting with their lady folk. I’d seen a few of them around the town and they were big, strong-looking guys. And from what Johnnie told me, when the locals and the fly boys mixed it up, there were some cuts and bruises on both sides, but the fly boys got the worst of it. Johnnie had been in more than a few of these dust-ups. At least he’d been able to get away before the military police showed up, and he’d always made it back to base without being caught … so far.

“If any of you feel that your training here is getting in the way of your social life, you will not succeed. You might as well grab a rifle and join the army. And as you slog through the mud, sleep in foxholes, and eat army grub, I want you to look up in the sky as our planes fly overhead.”

He pointed up as if he were really watching a plane fly by, and we all looked up as if we could see the plane he was imagining. In my head, though, I
could
see it. Obviously, it was a Spitfire, and just as obviously, I was in the cockpit.

“And when you see that plane, remember what
could
have been … if you had been prepared to work.” He chuckled to himself.“You are all now to report to the Link Trainer.”

There were a few cheers from the men.

“For some of you, this is the closest you’ll ever get to flying,” the instructor said.“Scoring well on tests is necessary, but not enough. If you can’t fly the simulator, you won’t be getting the chance to fly the real thing.
Dismissed!
”

We gathered in a semicircle around the trainer. In front of us was such a strange little contraption. With its stubby little wings and lack of propeller, it looked more like a cartoon drawing of a plane than a real one. And of course, it wasn’t a real plane. It was a flight simulator.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” the sergeant began. “This is, of course, the Link Trainer, a flight simulator named after its inventor, Edwin Link. He saw the folly in putting raw recruits up in real airplanes. Up there,” he said, pointing to the sky, “a mistake most often translates into three things: a lost plane, a dead instructor, and a dead recruit. Instructors and aircraft are far too valuable to waste.”

He didn’t mention the recruit, which of course said what he really thought about wasting one of us—not a great loss.

“And that is why we would never dream of actually allowing any of you at this stage to fly a
real
plane. But in this flight simulator, down here, a mistake means nothing.”

That was easy for him to say. A mistake or two down here would translate into washing out as a pilot. I knew that. I also knew that all the work I’d been putting into learning the physics of flight wouldn’t mean anything if I couldn’t actually fly.

“While it certainly looks different on the outside, the controls on this simulator—the yoke, the rudders, and the control panel—are almost identical to those used in actual
aircraft. Having flown both Harvards and Gypsy Moths, the two most common training aircraft some of you will eventually be allowed to fly, I can tell you that this handles in a very similar way.”

All the training aircraft were painted bright yellow to make them more visible in the sky—and on the ground if they crashed. There was no need for them to be camouflaged to blend into the sky because there was no enemy there to hide from.

“This trainer uses a complicated series of pumps and valves to simulate real flight. When you pull back on the yoke, it will climb. When you push it forward, it will descend. The floor pedals do control the rudders, and in conjunction with the ailerons, you can turn and bank as you would in a real plane. There is nothing, I repeat,
nothing
in this cockpit that you have not been taught, studied, and been tested on. If you did well on your tests, you technically know how to fly a plane.”

I felt reassured. I’d done well on all the tests—top of the class in virtually everything—and understood not just the controls but the physics and laws of aerodynamics that allowed flight to happen. I knew that a skid would happen if I used too much rudder and not enough ailerons. I knew a sideslip would take place if I banked too hard and too fast. I knew the minimum airspeed that had to be maintained to avoid a stall. I knew the techniques inside and out. I guess the next question was whether or not I could put them into practice.

“There is, however, one significant flaw with this and any other simulator,” the sergeant said. “Up in the sky, it’s just you and your instructor, or perhaps just you. Those minor
mistakes you make are just between the two of you, or you and God. Down here, with your entire class standing and watching and with your instructor bellowing out orders, everybody knows everything you do wrong. Now, do we have a volunteer to start?”

Hands went up all around me. I wanted to try it, but I was in no rush to be the very first person to—

“McWilliams, do I see your hand up?” he asked.

I startled in response. “No, Sergeant.”

“Don’t you want to become a pilot, son?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“In that case, I think it’s time that you got into a cockpit and took the yoke. After all, being good with a pencil and paper doesn’t mean you’re going to be good in the air. McWilliams, you’re our first
volunteer
.”

The military had the strangest definition of “volunteer.” Reluctantly I stepped forward and was offered words of encouragement and a couple of pats on the back. Carefully placing one foot on the stubby little wing, I lifted the other over the side and stepped into the cockpit. I held on to both sides, slipped in and onto the seat. I was in the cockpit of a plane … well, the fake cockpit of a fake plane, but at least it was a step in the right direction.

The cockpit was surprisingly large for such a little plane—not really spacious, but big enough for me. I wondered, though, how it would be for Jim with his long legs. I put my hands on the yoke. Gently, carefully, I pulled it forward and then pushed it away. It glided effortlessly. Next I moved my feet, making sure they were on the two rudder pedals. I pushed first the left and then the right, and they responded.

“Turn the trainer on!” the instructor bellowed.

The machine began to hum. It jerked a little and then rose a foot or so higher as the valves filled with air. The dials also came to life. There were a lot of dials. I knew that, and I knew what they were for, but still I felt a mounting sense of panic. I could feel sweat starting to roll down my sides.

“Okay, McWilliams, you’re live. Take control of the aircraft!” he yelled.

Slowly I pulled the yoke toward me and the nose of the plane rose up, the pitch increasing as I continued to pull back. I glanced over my shoulder and saw the elevators—the little flaps on the back wing—respond the way they would on a real aircraft, rising up.

“Level it off!” he called out.