Owen and Liam turned around and walked toward the two-seat G-22 behind them. Members of the deck crew handed them their helmets, which they put on. Simultaneously they climbed up the boarding ladder and got into the open cockpit. The crew took away the ladders and gave the two a signal, after which Owen, who was sitting in the front as the main pilot, pressed a button and the canopy closed over the cockpit with a hissing sound.
Another crew personnel holding colored batons waved his hands in the air and the jet began powering up.
A loud and gradually increasing revving sound came from the jet. The crew personnel gestured some more and Owen’s jet started moving. Slowly, they got onto the flight deck. After some work by the crew, they were ready for take-off. Not for one second did anyone from the academy take their eyes off of the jet during the process. It was not a sight any soldier had the chance to see.
After a few seconds, the jet’s engine became very loud. There weren't any other jets on the deck, so the morning had been relatively tranquil, but Owen’s jet had shattered that quiet. Suddenly, with the deafening boom of the jet’s afterburners engaging, bright, red flames that looked like a gun’s muzzle flash shot out of the rear of the jet with such force that Anna could feel the heat from the other side of the deck.
The crew personnel with the batons gave one last lunging gesture, and Owen’s jet accelerated to extremely high speeds instantaneously. Followed by even louder booms, the jet quickly reached the end of the flight deck and took off from the ground, shot out from the deck of the carrier like an arrow on a crossbow.
As soon as he had taken off, Owen retracted the landing gear and pointed his jet straight up at the sky, ascending like a rocket into the clouds. After he reached a fairly high altitude, he pulled up even more, and now the plane was flying upside down. Owen got to the other side of the carrier when he rolled 180 degrees and corrected his orientation, then 90 more degrees and began knife-edge-flying. He pulled up even more and he was flying in a circle around the carrier. For a split second, Anna thought she saw Owen waving at them when the cockpit was facing the carrier.
Anna smiled in genuine pride for her brother. Owen proceeded to perform barrel rolls for a couple of minutes and then continued flying upside down. Suddenly, white vapor formed at the wings of the plane and trailed behind the aircraft, which seemed to have stalled and is now basically free falling, at the same time doing a backflip from the momentum. After it had been rotated upright, the thrusters engaged again and it started flying in the opposite direction, after which he lowered his altitude and started flying back toward the deck while descending in altitude.
His plane extended the landing gears and slid onto the flight deck. The hook at the end of the plane caught onto the arresting gear on the deck and the jet quickly came to a complete stop. A group of crew personnel rushed over to the stopped jet and began guiding it back to where Anna and her group were standing.
Slowly, the jet drove back to where it had been parked in the beginning and the noise died down. The ladders were brought back and re-attached to the side of the jet. With a hissing sound, the canopy lifted up and the two climbed back out.
There was a slow clap from around Anna that welcomed their return. Anna, of course, joined in. Owen and Liam walked back to Commander Drummond while taking off their helmets. Owen was smiling, but there was a frown on Liam’s face.
“What’s wrong with Stratford?” The commander asked.
Owen looked over to Liam and noticed his expression, too.
“Liam, what happened?”
“I don’t know. I think I saw something up there. It was too cloudy to make out what it was, though,” Liam answered.
“Probably just birds. Our radar can detect any active aircraft from within a 300-mile radius,” Commander Drummond said, shrugging off Liam’s concern.
“Right…”
Liam didn’t seem entirely convinced.
Without giving it a second thought, Commander Drummond turned back to the crowd and continued the training.
“So, can anyone tell me the sequence of maneuvers Sergeant Hastings and Airman Stratford performed in the air?” Commander Drummond asked.
Suddenly, with a whooshing sound, a sea of hands shot straight up from the crowd. Clearly, no one wanted to let the chance of joining a Navy squadron slip by, Anna thought. She was going to raise her hand, too, but after having her view completely blocked by a screen of arms, she changed her mind. She could see that Chris was thinking the same, too, as she caught him trying to raise his hand then timidly dropping it back down.
The commander pointed at a random boy in the front row, and the hands dropped back down.
“Sir, Staff Sergeant Hastings first performed an Immelmann turn, while engaging his afterburners on his ascent. Once he reached sufficient velocity and altitude. He then performed a hammerhead turn and continued in knife-edge flight. After that he performed 5 barrel rolls and a split-s-turn to land the craft,” The boy said confidently, there was a hint of boastfulness in his voice.
It was pretty basic knowledge that everyone was taught in the academy. Anna didn’t know why the boy sounded so prideful.
“That’s correct. However, there was something else to Hastings’s last split-s-turn. It wasn’t like your normal pilot-school maneuver. What was different about it?” Commander Drummond asked the boy again.
The boy thought for a moment. Anna couldn’t see his face, but she could tell that he was panicking a little bit.
“N-No, Sir.”
The commander nodded to the boy’s answer as if he had expected it, then he turned to the rest of the students.
“Can anyone tell me what was special about the split-s-turn?”
No one moved. Anna looked over to Chris, who also didn’t seem to know the answer. She then looked at Owen, who was looking back at her with this expectant expression in his eyes.
Anna slowly raised her hand.
“I can.”
“Oh?” Commander Drummond had slight doubt in his voice.
Anna could feel the side-glances she was receiving from the people around her.
“The final maneuver O- Sergeant Hastings performed was not a split-s-turn. It’s actually a variation of the Kulbit maneuver. The G-22 is an aircraft capable of supermaneuverability and vector-thrusting and is one of a select few fighters with such capabilities currently in service. It means that the plane can be under a certain degree of control even when stalling. While flying upside-down, Sergeant Hastings vectored the thrust upwards to create a rotational force, which increased the angle of attack to exceed 20-degrees, therefore losing lift and began stalling. Then, as a post-stall maneuver, while utilizing the supermaneuverable capabilities of the jet, Sergeant Hastings completed a Half-Kulbit turn until he reached an upright position, after which he engaged the afterburner to regain velocity and lift. It is an incredibly difficult feat that requires the skills of an elite, which is why so few planes are capable of it and very little is known about it.”
Anna could see Owen’s bright smile after she answered.
Liam whispered something into Owen’s ear, then Owen discreetly and forcefully kicked Liam in the shin, who tried to hide his pain behind a twisted smile.
What Anna had answered wasn’t taught at school, since it was very recent technology and had barely made its way into combat. Anna had learned about it during her summer job at Hamilton-Douglas, where she tested out the capabilities. Of course, although she could enable such features for testing purposes, she wasn’t experienced enough to actually use them in a maneuver like her brother had done, which had genuinely impressed her.
“T-That would be correct. What’s your name?” Commander Douglas was quite surprised to hear Anna’s perfect answer.
“Anna Hastings, Sir.”
“Hastings?”
Commander Douglas looked at Anna, then turned to Owen, and the expression on his face went from surprise to confusion, then to sudden realization in less than 10 seconds.
“Well, Private Hastings, your knowledge in aviation has been duly noted.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
Anna glanced over to Chris, who gave her a smile.
“Now then, Private Hastings, would you like to pilot the G-22 next?”
Anna had been waiting so long to hear that.
“Yes, Sir, that would be great.”
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