Airframe (40 page)

Reardon looked down at his feet again. "As the aircraft lands, the team is jubilant. Happy faces all around. The flight is successful. Norton has made its point. At least for now." He took a breath. "As the aircraft lands, the team is muted. Norton is devastated. The deadly controversy over the N-22 continues to rage." He looked up. "Enough?"

She said, "You better give me an on-camera about the controversy continues to rage. We can close with that."

"Good idea."

Marty always thought it was a good idea for him to appear on camera. He stood erect, set his jaw, and faced the camera.

"Here, in this building where the N-22 is built, no ... Behind me is the building where ... no.

Hold on." He shook his head, faced the camera again.

"And yet, the bitter controversy over the N-22 will not die. Here, in this building where the aircraft is made, workers are confident that it is a safe, reliable aircraft. But critics of the N-22

remain unconvinced. Will there be another harvest of death in the skies? Only time will tell. This is Martin Reardon, for Newsline, Burbank, California."

He blinked.

'Too corny? Too much on the money?"

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"Great, Marty."

He was already unclipping his mike, removing the radio pack from his belt. He pecked Jennifer on the cheek. "I'm out of here," he said, and sprinted to the waiting car.

Jennifer turned to her crew. "Pack up, guys," she said. "We're going to Arizona."

227

SATURDAY

NORTON TEST FACILITY YUMA, ARIZONA

4:45 A.M.

A thin streak of red was starting to appear behind the flat range of the Gila Mountains to the east. The sky overhead was deep indigo, a few stars still visible. The air was very cold; Casey could see her breath. She zipped up her windbreaker and stamped her feet, trying to stay warm.

On the runway, lights shone up at the Transpacific wide-body, as the FT team finished installing the video cameras. There were men on the wings, around the engines, by the landing gear.

The Newsline crew was already out, filming the preparations. Malone stood alongside Casey, watching them. "Jesus it's cold," she said.

Casey went into the Right Test Station, a low Spanish-style bungalow beside the tower.

Inside, the room was filled with monitors, each displaying the feed from a single camera. Most of the cameras were focused on specific parts—she found the camera on the right locking pin—and so the room had a technical, industrial feeling. It was not very exciting.

"This isn't what I expected," Malone said.

Casey pointed around the room. "There's the cockpit. High mount down. Cockpit, facing back at the pilot. You see Rawley there, in the chair. The interior cabin, looking aft Interior cabin, looking forward. Looking out on right wing. The left wing, Those are your main interiors. And we'll also have the chase plane."

"Chase plane?"

"An F-14 fighter follows the widebody all through the flight, so we'll have those cameras, too."

Malone frowned. "I don't know," she said, in a disappointed voice. "I thought it would be more, you know, glitzy."

"We're still on the ground."

Malone was frowning, unhappy. "These angles on the cabin," she said. "Who will be in there, during the flight?"

"Nobody."

"You mean the seats will be empty?"

"Right. It's a test flight."

"That isn't going to look very good," Malone said.

"But that's how it is on a test flight," Casey said. "This is how it's done."

"But it doesn't look good," Malone said. "This isn't compelling. There should be people in the seats. At least, in some of them. Can't we put some people on board? Can't I go on board?"

Casey shook her head. "It's a dangerous flight," she said. "The airframe was badly stressed by the accident. We don't know what will happen."

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Malone snorted. "Oh, come on. There aren't any lawyers here. How about it?"

Casey just looked at her. She was a foolish kid who knew nothing about the world, who was just interested in a look, who lived for appearances, who skimmed over surfaces. She knew she should refuse.

Instead, she heard herself say, "You won't like it."

"You're telling me it's not safe?"

"I'm telling you that you won't like it."

"I'm going on," Malone said. She looked at Casey, her expression an open challenge. "So: How about you?'

In her mind, Casey could hear Marty Reardon's voice, as he said, Despite her repeated insistence that the N-22 was safe, Norton's own spokesperson, Casey Singleton, refused to board the plane for the flight test. She said that the reason she wouldn't fly on it was...

What?

Casey didn't have an answer, at least not an answer that would work for television. Not an answer that would play. And suddenly the days of strain, the effort to try and solve the incident, the effort to contrive an appearance for television, the effort to make sure she didn't say a single sentence that could be taken out of context, the distortion of everything in her life for this unwarranted intrusion of television, made her furious. She knew exactly what was coming.

Malone had seen the videos, but she didn't understand they were real.

"Okay," Casey said. "Let's go."

They went out to the plane.

ABOARD TPA 545

5:05 A.M.

Jennifer shivered: it was cold inside the airplane, and under fluorescent lights, the rows of empty seats, the long aisles, made it seem even colder. She was faintly shocked when she recognized, in places, the damage that she had seen on the videotape. This was where it happened, she thought. This was the plane. There were still bloody footprints on the ceiling.

Broken luggage bins. Dented fiberglass panels. And a lingering odor. Even worse, in some places the plastic panels had been pulled off around the windows, so that she could see the naked silver padding, the bundles of wires. It was suddenly all too clear that she was in a big metal machine. She wondered if she had made a mistake, but by then Singleton was gesturing for her to take a seat, right in the front of the center cabin, facing a locked-down video camera.

Jennifer sat beside Singleton and waited as one of the Norton technicians, a man in coveralls, tightened the shoulder harness around her body. It was one of those harnesses like the stewardesses wore on regular flights. Two green canvas straps came over each shoulder, meeting at the waist. Then there was another wide canvas strap that went across her thighs.

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Heavy metal buckles clamped it all in place. It looked serious.

The man in coveralls pulled the straps tight, grunting.

"Jeez," Jennifer said. "Does it have to be that tight?'

"Ma'am, you need it as tight as you can stand it," the man said. "If you can breathe, it's too loose. Can you feel the way it is now?'

"Yes," she said.

"That's how you want it when you put it back on. Now here's your release here..." He showed her. "Pull that now."

"Why do I need to know—"

"Case of emergency. Pull it, please."

She pulled the release. The straps sprang away from her body, the pressure released.

"And just do it up again yourself, if you don't mind."

Jennifer put the contraption back together, just as he had done it before. It wasn't difficult.

These people made such a fuss about nothing.

"Now tighten it, please, ma'am."

She pulled the straps.

'Tighter."

"If I need it tighter, I'll tighten it later."

"Ma'am," he said, "by the time you realize you need it tighter, it'll be too late. Do it now, please."

Alongside her, Singleton was calmly putting the harness on, cinching it down brutally. The straps dug into Singleton's thighs, pulled hard on her shoulders. Singleton sighed, sat back.

"I believe you ladies are prepared," the man said. "You have a pleasant flight."

He turned, and went out the door. The pilot, that Rawley character, came back from the cockpit, shaking his head.

"Ladies," he said. "I urge you not to do this." He was looking mostly at Singleton. He almost seemed to be angry at her.

Singleton said, "Fly the plane, Teddy."

"That's your best offer?"

"Best and final."

He disappeared. The intercom clicked. "Prepare to close, please." The doors were closed, clicked shut. Thunk, thank. The air was still cold. Jennifer shivered in her harness.

She looked over her shoulder at the rows of empty seats. Then she looked at Singleton.

Singleton stared straight ahead.

Jennifer heard the whine of the jet engines as they started up, a low moan at first, then rising in pitch. The intercom clicked. She heard the pilot say, 'Tower this is Norton zero one, request clearance for FT station check."

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Click. "Roger zero one, taxi across runway two left contact point six."

Click. "Roger, tower."

The plane began to move, rolling forward. Out the windows she saw the sky was lightening.

After a few moments, the plane stopped again.

"What are they doing?" Jennifer asked.

"Weighing it," Singleton answered. "They weigh before and after, to guarantee we've simulated flying conditions."

"On some kind of scale?"

"Built into the concrete."

Click. 'Teddy. Need, uh, about two feet more on nose."

Click. "Hangon."

The whine of the engines increased. Jennifer felt the plane inch forward slowly. Then it stopped again.

Click. "Thank you. Got it You're at fifty-seven two seven GW and CO is thirty-two percent MAC. Right where you want to be."

Click. "Bye, guys." Click. 'Tower zero one request clearance for takeoff."

Click. "Cleared runway three contact ground point six three when off the runway."

Click. "Roger."

Then the plane began to roll forward, the engines increasing from a whine to a full deep roar, the sound building until it sounded louder to Jennifer than any engines she had beard before.

She felt the thump of me wheels going over the cracks in the runway. And then suddenly they had lifted off, the plane going up, the sky blue out the windows.

Airborne.

Click. "Oh-kay, ladies, we are going to proceed to flight level three seven zero, that's thirty-seven thousand feet, and we are going to circle there between Yuma station and Carstairs, Nevada, for the duration of this excursion. Everybody comfy? If you look to your left, you will see our chase plane coming alongside."

Jennifer looked out and saw a silver jet fighter, glinting in the morning light It was very close to their aircraft, close enough to see the pilot wave. Then suddenly it slid backward.

Click. "Uh, you probably won't see much more of him, he'll be staying high and behind us, out of our wake, the safest place to be. Right now we are coming up on twelve thousand feet, you may want to swallow, Ms. Malone, we're not creeping up like the airlines."

Jennifer swallowed, heard her ears pop loudly. She said, "Why are we going up so fast?"

"He wants to get to altitude quickly, to cold soak the plane."

"Cold soak?"

"At thirty-seven thousand feet, the air temperature is minus fifty degrees. The airplane is warmer than that right now, and different parts will cool off at different rates, but eventually on a 231

long flight—such as a long Pacific crossing—all the parts of the plane will reach that temperature. One of the questions for the IRT is whether the cable rigging behaves differently at cold temperature. Cold soaking means putting the plane up at altitude long enough to cool it down. Then we begin the test"

"How long are we talking?" Jennifer said.

"Standard cold soak is two hours."

"We have to sit here for two hours?"

Singleton looked at her. "You wanted to come."

"You mean we spend two hours doing nothing?"

Click. "Oh, we'll try to amuse you, Ms. Malone," the pilot said. "We're now at twenty-two thousand feet and climbing. It'll be another few minutes to cruise altitude. We are at two eighty-seven KIAS and we will stabilize at three forty KIAS which is point eight Mach, eighty percent of the speed of

sound. That's the usual cruise speed for commercial aircraft Everybody comfy?"

Jennifer said, "Can you hear us?"

"I can hear you and see you. And if you look to your right, you can see me."

A monitor in the cabin in front of them came on. Jennifer saw the pilot's shoulder, his head, the controls arrayed in front of him. Bright light out the window.

Now they were high enough that full sunlight streamed in through the windows. But the ulterior of the plane was still cold. Because she was sitting in the center of the cabin, Jennifer could not see the ground out the windows.

She looked at Singleton.

Singleton smiled.

Click. "Ah, okay, we are now at flight level three seven zero, Doppler clear, no turbulence, a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Would you ladies please unbuckle your harnesses, and come to the cockpit"

What? Jennifer thought But Singleton was already taking hers off, standing up in the cabin.

"I thought we couldn't walk around."

"It's okay right now," Singleton said.

Jennifer climbed out of her harness, and walked with Singleton up through first class, to the cockpit. She felt the faint vibration of the airplane beneath her feet. But it was quite stable. The door to the cockpit was open. She saw Rawley in there, with a second man he didn't introduce, and a third who was working with some instrumentation. Jennifer stood with Singleton just outside the cockpit looking in.