To: 
From: "Jay  P Hailey" 
Reply-To: trekcreative{at}yahoogroups.com

> ...I'd love to read "Accidents," but I never got part one.

New Accidents 1/8 [PG]

Title: Accidents
Author: Jay P. Hailey (JayPHailey{at}yahoo.com) Series: Vista City
Part: 1/8
Rating [PG]

The ancient bomber roared through the hot California air. Its two rotary
engines pulled it through the air as its wings strained to keep it aloft.

In the pilot's seat, ex-astronaut, ex-secret agent Scott Ashby made another
adjustment to the trim that kept the plane on course. It was overloaded and
kept wanting to slew around.

The plane was as old as its pilot although he was unaware of it. Scott and
a group of airplane enthusiasts from the "Confederate Air Force"
specialized in keeping piston engine warplanes functioning as living
artifacts from an earlier time.

They had bought the old plane from a charter cargo operation in South
America. The old plane had wound up there after years and years as a
chartered cargo carrier. The owner could not believe that a plane from
World War II was still flying and so assumed that the B-25 was a replica
built by license in South America.

The airplane enthusiasts, including Scott, bought the old plane and rebuilt
it, so that they could have a replica of an old W.W.II plane to fly on
actual missions. Thinking that it was a replica and not the original plane,
they rebuilt it as a fire-bomber for use against forest fires in the
Southwest. Then they fought over whose turn it was to fly the old thing.

For its own part, the plane was happy to be defending the country of its
manufacture once again. It had rolled off the lines just a little too late
to take part in the combat operations of the war. This had always bugged
the airplane and it arranged to stick around as long as possible against
the off chance that it might one day be called to duty again.

Both Scott and the airplane were happy as they approached the drop zone
with the heavy load of fire retardent.

The fire in the Shasta National Forest was a bad one. The drought in
California had dried the forests for three years or more and this provided
a lot of fuel for the wild fire.

Worse, the area was on the flanks of Mount Shasta and was difficult for
foot and truck bound fire fighters to get to. The fire was threatening the
small town of Hazel Creek. Unless the advance of the fire was broken, the
town was going to get burned.

This was a situation made for airborne fire fighters, and they had turned
out. Most of the fire fighting airplanes belonged to various state or
county governments, but a few groups had built  fire bombers of their own
and flew them on a volunteer basis. Most counties, when asked, were nice
and paid for the fuel.

As Scott, his co-pilot and the airplane approached the fire zone, gusts of
wind began to affect the plane more seriously. It dipped and slid around.
Scott and his co-pilot had to exert more and more effort to hold their
course.

Scott's co-pilot was Jack Small, a seventy-six year old veteran of The
W.W.II and Korea. He had flown in the wars and when that was done, he kept
right on flying. Both Scott and Jack loved to be in the air.

"I think we should increase the final altitude to five hundred
feet." Jack said over the tinny intercom.

Scott thought it over. It was a conservative move, and would reduce the
chance of a solid hit against the fire. It would also reduce the chance of
crashing the airplane while it was full to the top with the fire retardant.
Under those conditions, in a crash, the airplane would probably leave
retardant soaked chunks of Jack, Scott and airplane spread all over the
mountain side.

"Roger." Scott said. "We'll make the pass at five hundred feet."

Scott keyed the radio and reported to the plane in the formation behind
them. "Fire Seven to Fire Eight, We will make the pass at five hundred
feet. Do you copy?"

"Roger, Fire Seven. We copy. Welcome back to sanity." The plane
behind them was a California Air National Guard cargo plane, with a
fire-bombing module carried in its cargo bay. Scott snorted. The National
Guard planes were limited to one thousand feet, or more. The cargo module
dispersed the fire retardant badly in the early parts of the drop. The
effect of the cargo plane fire bombing was not commensurate with the effort
it cost.

Scott wondered if a fire bombing pod could be built for an F-16, but
quickly dropped the idea. Fire bombing was for others. The front line
pilots of the F-16s got to have enough fun on their own.

Scott had flown the F-16 over Panama in 1989 and in the Persian Gulf war
due to a clerical foul up. Remembering it made the old B-25 seem clumsy and
slow, but even though an F-16 could carry more bombs than the old B-25,
they could not attack fires with the same efficiency.

The plane rolled a little onto its side as if to remind Scott to keep his
mind on the business at hand. Scott was careful not to over correct. If he
spent too much time over steering the airplane, then they wouldn't be in a
good position to start their run against the fire.

Soon they could see the pall of smoke that marked the main body of the
fire. They began to set up for the bombing run. Jack Small activated the
laser altimeter, and checked the GSPS reader in the brackets next to his
seat. Behind them in main body of the airplane at the old navigator's
station, a PC sat reading both the Global Satellite Positioning System and
a CD-ROM map of California. The GSPS reader was a old model only accurate
to one hundred meters. The laser altimeter became ineffective in the smoke
near the fire, but both made it easy to set up for the bombing run.

Purists objected to the use of the 1990's technology on a W.W.II bomber 
but Scott, Jack, and the airplane had been in too many fights to turn down
any advantages.

Scott turned the airplane onto the proper heading, as called off by Jack.
The people who had rebuilt the plane didn't have enough money to install a
fly-by-wire system, or an auto pilot.

He turned the nose down and began a gentle descent to the five hundred foot
level. The descent became more haphazard and rough as they moved through
air
 disturbed by the fire.

As they got closer to the drop point, the ride became rougher. The airplane
was rising and dropping rapidly and it was difficult to hold on course.
Scott and Jack both knew that it was going to be like that until after they
had made the drop and left the fire zone.

"Take a look." Jack said "About two o'clock." A plane
was approaching them. It seemed to be coming in slightly above them and
from a parallel course. It was an old transport plane, a DC-3, the same
apparent age as their own plane. It was slightly ahead of them and
apparently the pilot of the DC-3 hadn't seen them.

"Fire Seven to Tower, I have a Delta Charley Three in the approach
corridor. Its about a thousand yards ahead of us, at about fifteen hundred
feet, over."

"Redding Tower to Fire Seven," the tower was at the Redding
public airport, fifty miles to the south "I show Jump Four as the only
Delta Charley Three in your vicinity. Can you identify it? Over."

Scott and Jack looked at each other. They thought that flying an antiquated
bomber through the violent air over a forest fire was risky, but not bad if
you knew what you were doing. But they thought that the fire jumpers were
totally insane. Fire jumpers were the paratroopers of the fire fighters.
They parachuted into critical spots to try to blunt the advance of a forest
fire. This combined the worst aspects of several dangerous activities, all
at once.

"Fire Seven to Tower, They don't seem to see us. Could you warn them
off? Over."

"Tower to Fire Seven, We copy. Will advise. Over."

The two planes continued to inch towards each other while flying at the
huge pall of smoke over the fire.

Scott began to grow nervous. If they entered the pall of smoke the their
visibility would be lost at least for a few moments. Usually the bombing
approach by fire bombers was agreed to before hand, and that part of the
sky cleared by the tower. The formation of planes going into the drop zone
were lined up into a long single file line. That way no fire bomber risked
collision with another plane.

Entering the pall of smoke so close to the fire jumper's airplane would be
somewhat dangerous. It was more dangerous because Scott didn't know if the
other pilot had seen them. There was no way to tell what he might do while
Scott couldn't see him.

After a few minutes the planes continued on course with no obvious changes.

"Fire Seven to Tower. Any response from that Delta Charley? Over."

"Tower to Fire Seven, Negative. We could not raise them. Their channel
is Tac-eight, that's  channel Tac-eight. Maybe you can raise them.
Over."

Scott switched the radio over to the proper channel. "Jump Four, Jump
Four, this is Fire Seven please respond."

The planes continued towards the fire.

"This is Fire Seven calling Jump Four, come in, Jump Four."

"This is Jump Four, go ahead Fire Seven."

"Jump Four, If you look out past your port wing, you'll see us at
about seven o'clock."

"Fire Seven, I'm checking, but I don't see you."

"Jump Four, you're going to need to take evasive action or you'll
abort our attack run."

The airplanes were nearly at the point on no return now.

"Fire Seven, this is Jump Four. I still don't see you."

Jack said "We'd better abort and come back around."

Scott made his decision. "Roger. We're aborting." He pulled the
nose of the airplane back a little and began a gentle turn away.

"Fire Seven, this is Jump Four, Say your position, please."

Scott reigned in his irritation. On the radio his voice remained perfectly
neutral and calm. Years of training had taught him how to appear
emotionless in nearly all circumstances.

"This is Fire Seven, We're aborting our attack run on the fire in the
agreed upon attack lane, to the south of the fire. Our heading is north,
Our altitude is twelve hundred and our air speed is one seven oh
knots."

"Fire Seven, I don't know who that is on your nose, but it ain't us.
We're southbound for Redding at this time. Jump Four over."

Scott tried to increase the rate of turn that the old bomber was making.
The airplane was too badly over loaded for any severe maneuvering.



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