Ball Lightning

But just seconds later, it looked like the pilot had restarted the tail rotor. The rotation of the fuselage slowed, as did the speed of descent, until it once again hovered in the air—but only for a split second. Then, like a clockwork toy, it started to turn again and plummet.

“Bail!” Colonel Xu shouted again.

After a short fall, the helicopter again stopped rotating and slowed to a hover. The next instant it began falling again… and the cycle repeated. Now it was below the safe altitude for parachuting. We could only pray that it reached the ground when it was near a hover state.

When it landed off to the east, its speed had slowed significantly, but it was still far faster than a normal landing. I looked fearfully in that direction and waited numbly. Luckily, no smoke came from that stand of trees.

When we drove up to the crash spot, the other test helicopter had already landed nearby. The site was in an orchard. The helicopter was tilted, crushing a few fruit trees beneath it, and the tops of several other stocky trees around it had been severed by the blades. The cabin glass had shattered, but apart from that, the fuselage did not appear to be seriously damaged. The lieutenant was leaning against a tree pressing a bleeding arm, impatiently trying to push off the nurse and stretcher carrier, but when he saw Lin Yun he used his unharmed hand to give her a thumbs-up.

“Major, your lightning weapon took out a plane!”

“Why didn’t you bail out?” Colonel Xu, who had just arrived, asked in exasperation.

“Colonel, we army aviators have our own rules for when to bail out.”

In the car back to the base, I couldn’t hold back one nagging question, and said to Lin Yun, “You were the designated ground commander for this test. But it was Colonel Xu who gave the order to parachute.”

“It was very possible that Lieutenant Liu would be able to rescue the helicopter,” Lin Yun said evenly.

“There was only a fifty percent likelihood of that. What if he couldn’t save it?”

“Then the experiment would be suspended for quite some time, and the project might even be canceled.”

My stomach turned another somersault. “If you were commanding an attack and there was a minefield in your path, you’d order the soldiers to push through, right?”

“Under the new military regulations, female officers may not serve as front-line battlefield commanders.” As usual, she lightly deflected my question. She added—as if by way of apology for perhaps being too curt—“The military has its own form of conduct, somewhat different from yours.”

“The colonel isn’t military?”

“Of course he is,” she said lightly, a faint contempt noticeable in her tone. She held the same contempt for everyone in the base leadership.

That afternoon, the helicopter underwent emergency repairs at the crash site and then flew back to base.

* * *

“Until there are effective measures to guarantee safety, the experiment must stop!” Colonel Xu said resolutely at the base meeting that night.

“Let’s take it up a few more times. Maybe we’ll find a pattern for the arc fluctuations. Then we’d be able to find a flying method that avoids having it strike the fuselage,” the pilot who had been injured said, waving a bandaged arm. From his movements and expression, it was evident that his wounded hand hurt, but to show that he could still work the helicopter controls, he didn’t have it in a sling and was deliberately making large movements.

“We can’t afford to have another accident. There needs to be a reliable guarantee of safety,” Lin Yun said.

The other aviator said, “I’d like to ask you all to get one thing straight: We’re not taking risks for this project of yours. We’re doing it for ourselves. Army aviation needs new weapons now more than ever.”

Lin Yun said, “Lieutenant, you misunderstand why we halted the experiment. We did so out of concern for the project. If we have another catastrophic crash like Lieutenant Wang Songlin’s, the project is over.”

Colonel Xu said, “Let’s all use our brains. We’ve got to come up with workable safety measures.”

An engineer said, “Can we consider using remote-controlled aircraft to conduct the experiment?”

An aviator said, “The only craft capable of hovering and low-speed flight that has sufficient carrying capacity is a helium airship developed by Beihang University,{This elite university was known as Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics until 2002.} but it’s unclear whether it could be controlled precisely enough to guarantee discharge accuracy.”

Lin Yun said, “And even if it could, it would only eliminate the risk of loss of life. It doesn’t help the experiment itself, since it would still be susceptible to a lightning strike.”

I had a sudden thought. “My master’s advisor developed an anti-lightning paint for use on high-tension wires, but I’ve only heard people talk about it, so I’m not too familiar with the details.”

“Your advisor was Zhang Bin?” Colonel Xu asked.

I nodded. “Do you know him?”