(Firebird 402, airborne 150 miles northwest of Barranquilla, Colombia)
From 10,000 feet, Trench checked the time. He had almost 40 minutes to screw around.
His Hornet, 302, had needed a routine post-maintenance check flight for a new right trailing edge flap actuator. After Trench had “wrung it out,” he was satisfied the sailors in the airframe and aviation electronics shops had done their jobs well, as usual. He was now alone, 50 miles south of the ship, on yet another gorgeous blue day in the Caribbean. Chances were he could find a sailboat down there hoping for an impromptu air show. Trench was the perfect guy to deliver.
His radar was showing several blips to the southwest, and he reduced power to near idle to conserve his fuel so he could show off later. In an easy turn, the midafternoon sun moved left to right across the top of his canopy bow, and he opened the distance between him and Mother.
Alone — and free! Only the single-seat Hornet pilots could really be away from others at moments like this, free to roam over the open ocean in silence, alone with their thoughts. Away, even, from wingmen in formation, away from the ship controllers, airspace controllers, the CO and XO. Away from ball-busting Macho and all the crap back there aboard Coral Maru.
Yes, Macho, Little-Miss-Can’t-Be-Wrong… ugly freakin’ bitch. She was the reason for the come-around with the XO. Screw them, he thought. For an hour or so, away from the ship and the regimented military control of it, he could be free in his single-seat rocket ship. Want to whip the stick hard left and do an aileron roll? Go ahead. Want to cloud surf, rolling and pulling the jet along the nooks and fissures of the brilliant cumulus buildups that dotted the sea all around? Why not? The weather was perfect and such opportunities didn’t happen every day.
In another ingrained habit, he kept his head moving to search for other airwing jets around him. They were also free to roam and goof off in this beautiful tropical playground before the ship summoned them home. Running into each other would ruin everyone’s day.
He rolled out due south in a shallow dive, headed for a small canyon of cloud, an opening like that between the thumb and hand of a mitten. The cloud formation reminded him of Michigan and his home, Bay City, at the base of Saginaw Bay. Nothing for him there anymore, not that there ever was. His jag-off high school friends were going to drink 12-packs of Pabst from the back of their pickup trucks until the day they died. They were already dead with their bitchy, ball-and-chain wives and rat-tailed kids who spilled cereal everywhere. He was flying through, and past, Saginaw Bay, the scuffed rust-belt patina of his youth, which in his mind was washed away in the radiant whiteness of the clouds here, or the Med, or the Indian Ocean.