Breanna nudged her rudder pedals, gently pushing the plane to the right. Fort Two’s controls were ‘fly-by- wire’; instead of hydraulics, the control surfaces were moved by small motors directed by electronic impulses in the pedals and yoke. The system was still being perfected, and a hydraulic backup system could be selected by throwing a manual override switch near the throttle panel. Many of Fort Two’s recent experiments involved the control system’s interface with an advanced flight computer capable of flying the plane on its own through a complicated mission set. The engineers were also debating whether traditional controls – such as the yoke that looked like a sawed-off steering wheel – or more contemporary ones like fighter-jet sidesticks were better. Fort Two’s control set aimed to meld some of the originals with new technology; when Breanna pulled back on the yoke, it would at least theoretically feel as if she were pulling back on the wheel of a stock model H.
Besides the control systems, Fort Two was testing uprated P&W JT9D-&Rxx2 engines. The power plants allowed for greater speed and less fuel consumption; their increased thrust allowed the designers to replace B-52’s stock eight power plants with four. That took a bit of getting used to; the new engine set was not only more powerful but considerably quieter. If the Xs – as the engines were called – were adopted as standard, the EB-52 would probably rate as the quietest warplane ever.
“Electric panel one, green,” said the copilot, Captain Chris Ferris. Ferris proceeded through the preflight checklist projected on one of his three multi-use displays. “Two, green. Three, green. Four, green. Crosswind crab.”
“Zeroed,” said Breanna, reading her own tube. The computer was doing the work she would have done in testing and adjusting the equipment in a stock B-52.
“We have pitot heat. We have instruments in the green. We have computers making pilot and copilot completely redundant,” joked Chris.
“As it should be,” groused Dr. Ray Rubeo, one of their two flight deck ‘tourists.’ In rebuilding Fort Two, the forward deck had been stretched and revamped, allowing two large stations to be added immediately aft of the pilot and copilot seats. The walls on either side of the cockpit near the stations featured double banks of video monitors tied to test and monitoring equipment. Rubeo was sitting at station one; Steven McCormick, a somewhat reserved computer scientist, sat at the other.
Chris laughed, continuing through the list of systems that were ready to go. Breanna told the two passengers on the radar-navigation deck below – Greasy Hands and a staff sergeant from the motor pool – that they were proceeding to the runway.
“We’ll take off, do a low-slow circuit of the range, then we’ll have some fun,” she told them over the interphone system, which could be piped to everyone on the plane.
Once manpower-intensive functions, radar and navigation were now handled completely by Fort Two’s prototype flight computer; even the weapons operators, whose ‘office’ was located behind the flight deck just forward of the wing area, were redundant. On Fort Two their panels had been replaced by banks of computers and test circuitry. Had the Megafortress been an active warplane, it would have required only pilot and copilot to complete its mission, though a defensive weapons specialist and a navigator would be preferred additions until all the flight computer systems were at production status. In some ways, Breanna liked the old B-52’s better, with its six-member overworked crews. But this was no time for nostalgia; the tower gave her final clearance as she slipped up to the end of the runway.
“Takeoff power,” she told the flight computer. She glanced at the four-pronged throttle bar, which replaced the multi-fingered mechanical control. Responding to her voice command, the throttle slid into position, thrust precisely and automatically calculated to match not only the plane’s present weight, but the runway and weather conditions. The Xs rumbled on the wings, ready to boogie.
“Noisy things,” groused Rubeo.
“Flaps. Optimum takeoff configuration. Go,” Breanna told the computer as she manually released the brakes. They started down the runway, quickly picking up speed.
“Seventy knots, eighty,” read the copilot.
They wings strained at the top of the plane, anxious to lift her into the sky. Breanna nudged her left rudder pedal ever so slightly, keeping the plane centered on the runway as she pulled back on the stick. Depending on its weight and configuration, a standard B-52 might get off the ground in three thousand meters or so; Fort Two lifted off cleanly at just over a thousand, not even breaking a sweat.
“Gear up,” Bree told the computer.
“Gear up and safe,” reported the computer as the giant wheel assemblies folded into the undercarriage.
Breanna checked her altitude, speed, and bearing in the HUD screen. The control system responded instantly to the optical-servers in the yoke housing as she entered a right bank. Whether flying at shoelace level or over fifty thousand feet, dodging enemy fighters or out for a pleasure cruise, the flight computer automatically trimmed the plane’s control surfaces for the most efficient flight regime, essentially reading the pilot’s mind – or rather, her hands and feet.
Breanna glanced back at Rubeo as the plane climbed easily upward. “Okay, Doc, change places with Chris.”
“Why?”
“Come on. You can’t see anything from there.”
“You’re not afraid of flying, are you, Ray?” asked the copilot.
Rubeo narrowed his eyes into a glare; he hated to be called Ray.
“Any monkey can fly,” he said as Chris eased out from behind the copilot’s station. Still, Rubeo hesitated, and Breanna realized that Chris was right. Rubeo was the senior scientist at the base, personally responsible for nearly fifty breakthroughs so secret they couldn’t be openly patented. His work on logic chips was critical not only for their flight computers, but for the actuators used by the Megafortress’s control surfaces. But it turned out he was petrified of flying.
Not that he would admit it. He frowned deeply as he sat down next to her.
“You might want to hitch up the restraints,” she suggested.
“I intend on it,” said Rubeo.
She noticed a definite greet tint around his gills. Breanna hit the mike button, switching on the intercom circuit.
“Good morning, and thank you for choosing Dreamland Airlines,” she said. “I’m Captain Breanna ‘Rap for Rapture’ Stockard and I’ll be your tour guide this morning. I have to ask you to remain in your restraints at all times, and please, keep your hands inside the cars. We will be moving at close to the speed of sound, and I’d hate for anyone to lose their jewelry.”
“Yuk, yuk,” mouthed Rubeo.
“On a serious note,” Bree continued, “I would remind you that we are an experimental aircraft. Our systems are held together by bubble gum and duct tape. I do expect that you will remain strapped to your parachutes and snug your skull buckets. You too, Sergeant Parsons.”
“Don’t worry about me, Captain,” answered Greasy Hands.
“If you look out the port windows, you’ll see the Z27 test range, where our friends in the Army are testing their new pulse antimissile system.” Breanna tweaked the controls stick, ducking the plane to its left. “Whoa,” she joked. “Don’t everybody look out the windows at once.”
“Very funny,” said Rubeo. His voice was an octave higher than before.
Breanna smirked, launching into a tour-guide dissertation on the history of the venerable B-52. Though she tried to make it sound spontaneous, it was a well-practiced speech; she had given it four times over the past few weeks to Air Force VIPs as part of the effort to keep the Megafortress program alive.
“The B-52 is sometimes called the BUFF – for big, ugly, fat uh, fella, shall we say?” Breanna chortled, knowing everyone would laugh at the obligatory joke. “As a matter of record, the base plane for Fort Two is older than – hell, it’s older than our copilot, Dr. Ray.”
Rubeo ignored her, staring straight out the front windscreen.
“In June 1946,” continued Breanna, “the U.S. government awarded the Boeing company a study contract for a long-range bomber. That seemingly innocuous event led to the design of a turboprop-powered behemoth superficially similar to the B-50, which had evolved from the B-29. You don’t have to have one of Dr. Ray’s four P.h.D.s to realize that a lumbering turboprop would have been no match for the interceptors under development at the same time, let alone surface-to-air missiles. The problem was primarily the engines; even optimally engineered
