Fly Away - a fighter pilot story

Chapter 5 - Dangerous

"You need to get him down from there, Captain Hughes", I say between clenched teeth looking at the monitor in front of me.

They currently train aerial combat also known as dog fight. I lost count on how many times he almost crashed into another aircraft. The rigorous attacks and the risky maneuvers that he does are driving me nearly insane. Hyde flies like a maniac. Doesn't he think about his wife? Doesn't he think about his son? I could scream right now.

"He is doing what I told him to do.", Wifi answers in a relaxed manner, and I look at him aghast. He did what? Didn't he listen to my speech yesterday? Hyde practically throws out almost every rule we have while training. Wifi leans back in his chair as if nothing is happening out there.

"You know, you could get in your plane and teach him a lesson.", he adds, and I see one corner of his mouth twitch.

I know that he is trying to bait me, but I'm not falling for it. Shaking my head, I look around in the room. All the staff that is working on keeping tabs on each and every plane, pilot and maneuver in the air. They need to watch the air space for anyone who might fly into restricted areas or for someone who might flight into our air space. In a nutshell, they have their hands full, so they don't have time to follow the conversation between Wifi and me.

"Not going to happen, Wifi."

"That's too bad, then I let Hyde fly like a maniac. They still have some time left in the air." He is pushing my buttons and he knows it. He knows that if I were to get into my jet, I would probably kill Hyde. Not in the literal sense but for training purposes.

"Sir, one aircraft just broke the hard deck and another one was barely above it. Should only one or both return to base?", someone I don't know asks and the room goes quiet.

I haven't heard that in a very long time. It's like aviation 101. The hard deck is a training rule set in place as an imaginary safety net in case you make a maneuver during your training thinking you have enough energy and altitude, but you don't. If there wasn't a hard deck, you would crash into the ground and you would lose your life and maybe the Weapon System Officer or WSO behind you, if you fly a two-seater.

The impressive thing however is the fact that someone out there made it with a few feet to spare. If they can pull that off during a real dog fight, getting the enemy flying himself into the ground, I would not believe it. It is a hard thing to pull off. I trained for it. A lot. Like hours on end.

"Who are they?", Commander Gonzales asks, and I see him getting up from his chair and walking to the person who informed him.

"Lieutenant Lee broke it, and Lieutenant Commander Johnson was barely above." First Wifi looks at the commander of this training session and then at me. Even though his mustache hides it, I know he is grinning.

"Lee is dead, let Jabba continue", the Commander says and Wifi walks to me.

"He is good.", I tell him and focus back onto the screen, watching Jabba attacking his next victim.

In this training session like all the others before he is an aggressor. His sole purpose is to take each participant down without getting taken down himself. He does a great job as they haven't lost one single training so far. They started out with four students against two aggressors. The current count is three to two. Hyde being the other aggressor. I know what Hyde and Jabba are doing up there. Hyde is distracting the pilots then Jabba comes in and takes them out. It's smart. It's witty. It's idiotic. It's precarious. But it is effective.

"I know. So how was your night out with him yesterday?"

"How do you know? Wait, keep it to yourself. I don't even want to know how you know that."