Stranger to the Ground

To my left, far down the long line of airplanes, the squadron commander pushes his throttle ahead and begins to roll forward. “Falcon formation, check in,” he calls on 24 radios, in 48 soft earphones, “Able Red Leader here.”

“Able Red Two,” his wingman calls.

“Three.”

“Four.”

A long succession of filtered voices and microphone buttons pressed. Throttle comes forward in cockpit after cockpit, fighter after fighter pivots to the left and swings to follow the polished airplane of the squadron commander. My flight leader takes his turn. “Baker Blue Leader,” he calls, rolling forward. His name is Cal Whipple.

“Two.” Gene Ivan.

“Three.” Allen Dexter.

I press my microphone button, at last. “Four.” And it is quiet. There is no one left after the slot man of the sixth flight.

The long line of airplanes rolls briskly along the taxiway to runway three zero, and the first airplane taxies well down the runway to leave room for his multitude of wingmen. The great formation moves quickly to fill the space behind him, for there is no time allowed for unnecessary taxi time. Twenty-four airplanes on the runway at once, a rare sight. I press my microphone button as I roll to a stop in position by Baker Blue Three’s wing, and have a private little talk with the squadron commander. “Baker Blue Four is in.”

When he hears from me, the man in the polished airplane, with the little cloth oak leaves on the shoulders of his flight suit, pushes his throttle forward and calls, “Falcon formation, run it up.”

It is not really necessary for all 24 airplanes to turn their engines up to 100 percent rpm at the same moment, but it does make an impressive noise, and that is what the people in the stands would like to hear this day. Two dozen throttles go full forward against their stops.

Even with canopy locked and a helmet and earphones about my head, the roar is loud. The sky darkens a little and through the massive thunder that shakes the wooden bleachers, the people watch a great cloud of exhaust smoke rise from the end of the runway, above the shining pickets that are the tall swept stabilizers of Falcon formation. I jolt and rock on my wheels in the blast from the other airplanes, and notice that, as I expected, my engine is not turning up its normal 100 percent. For just a second it did, but as the heat and pressured roar of the other airplanes swept back to cover my air intake, the engine speed fell off to a little less than 98 percent rpm. That is a good indicator that the air outside my small conditioned cockpit is warm.

“Able Red Leader is rolling.” The two forwardmost pickets separate and pull slowly away from the forest of pickets, and Falcon formation comes to life. Five seconds by the sweep secondhand and Able Red Three is rolling to follow, Four at his wing.

I sit high in my cockpit and watch, far ahead, the first of the formation lift from the runway.

The first airplanes break from the ground as if weary of it and glad to be back home in the air. Their exhaust trails are dark as I look down the length of them, and I wonder with a smile if I will have to go on instruments through the smoke of the other airplanes by the time I begin to roll with Baker Blue Three.

Two by two by two they roll. Eight; ten; twelve . . . I wait, watching my rpm down to 97 percent now at full throttle, hoping that I can stay with Three on the roll and break ground with him as I should. We have the same problem, so there should be no difficulty other than a very long takeoff roll.

I look over toward Three, ready to nod OK at him. He is watching the other airplanes take off, and does not look back. He is watching them go . . . sixteen; eighteen; twenty . . .

The runway is nearly empty in front of us, under a low cloud of grey smoke. The overrun barrier at the other end of the concrete is not even visible in the swirl of heat. But except for a little bit of sudden wing-rocking, the earlier flights get away from the ground without difficulty, though they clear the barrier by a narrower and narrower margin.