Flight to Paradise Ch. 06

He begins reading a piece of paper while flipping switches and pulling knobs, and she watches in fascination as three large screens on the instrument panel come to life. She stares at the screens a moment, but they're covered in gibberish she has no hope of understanding. The control wheel moving in front of her as he twists and pulls the duplicate on his side pulls her attention away from the screens. She hears a whining cough from her right and she looks out of the window to see the prop on the engine begin to slowly turn as the engine snorts once, stalls, and then coughs to life in a belch of grey smoke, the engine making the entire plane vibrate slightly. She looks to him as he pushes another button while he watches out of his window. She hears the same whining cough then thrum as the second engine roars to life.

God help me, despite being in this flying antique, it's exciting riding in the front of an airplane!

He begins to talk to someone over the radio as the airplane idles. She can only understand one word in ten, something about taxi, VFR, ceilings, wind direction and Mother Goose, whatever the hell that means, though it made Mac laugh. He looks at her as she hears his voice in her headphones.

"We're about to taxi, last chance to change your mind," he says with a brilliant smile, but knowing from the look on her face he'd have to throw her off the plane now.

"I guess I'll stay since you're about to taxi," she says, forcing her voice calm, though she's almost bouncing in the seat in excitement.

He laughs in her ears then thumbs a switch to cut over to the tower frequency as he reaches above his head, pushing two levers forward, the engines roar increasing and the vibrations smoothing out as the plane begins to move. She feels something touch her foot, making her jump. She looks down and sees pedals moving in the floor. She pulls her feet back to give the pedals room to move just as his voice sounds in her ears again. "You can put your feet on those if you like. It'll be more comfortable than sitting all scrunched up like that. Just let the pedals move with your feet on them. It'll be fine."

She places her feet lightly on the pedals, letting him move her feet as he works the pedals. "That okay?"

"Yep. That's perfect." They trundle along, the plane softly bouncing as it rolls, until they reach the end of the pavement, where he pushes the right pedal hard down, the top of the pedal moving independent of the main part, and the plane pirouettes hard right, lining up on the runway. Without stopping he moves the throttles all the way forward, the plane surging down the runway as the engines begin to bellow. She feels herself pushed back into the seat then the rear of the plane tips up slightly, leveling the plane. The Beauty continues to accelerate then, with a sinking feeling in her stomach, the plane lunges into the sky.

Almost as soon as the wheels leave the runway, she can feel the plane bank to the left as Mac begins to turn, heading to Paradise she assumes. She hears a lot of whirs and thumps as he flips switches and moves levers.

"Just the landing gear coming up and the flaps retracting," he says to reassure her that the plane isn't falling apart. He throttles back from full power, letting the plane settle into cruise, Kate watching out of the windows, items on the ground get smaller and smaller as they slowly climb to altitude.

"How high are we going?" she asks as she feels the plane settle into its comfortable lope.

"Four thousand feet," he says. "Low enough that we aren't mixing it up with the big boys, high enough that we aren't flying close to the edge."

"Close to the edge? Close to the edge of what?" she asks. Why the hell do pilots talk so weird?

"Close to the edge of the air. The ground," he says with a grin. "We're high enough that we don't have to worry about hitting trees, hills, power-lines, stuff like that, but low enough that we don't have to worry about being sucked into the intake on a commercial jet. Either of those things would ruin a perfectly good day."

She laughs. "Yeah, I guess it would."

They fly along for nearly an hour, Mac answering Kate's questions and explaining to her what the major controls do. "You want to fly?" he asks on impulse. The autopilot has been flying since they'd hit their cruise altitude, but she's obviously interested and is asking intelligent questions.

"Lord no!" she squawks in surprise. "I wouldn't want to, what was that term you used... 'auger in.'"

He laughs at her wit. "I'm right here. Nothing is going to happen. If you get into trouble I'll take over, just turn loose of the controls. It'll be fine."

"No. Thank you, but I'd better not." Her words say one thing, but her eyes and body language are saying another.

"Well, I'm disengaging the autopilot so one us should fly the plane." He taps a button on the large center screen, the glass cockpit he calls it, and she can see Autopilot Disengaged appear on the screen. She sits with her hands in her lap, but he makes no move to take the controls.

"You asshole," she mutters as she lightly puts her hands on the wheel, holding on but not moving the wheel at all. She can tell from the artificial horizon on the screen in front of her the plane is flying straight and level, properly trimmed he calls it, so if she doesn't move anything the plane will just fly itself. She begins to relax and enjoy the flight again, until she feels the wheel move slightly to the left. She looks down and tries to bring it back right, but it's stuck. Panicking she looks to Mac, his hands on the wheel.

"You aren't flying, you're riding. Just relax and let it flow," he says as she stops struggling with the wheel. Together she and Mac bank the plane gently one way then the other and she can see the relationship between movement of the wheel, the changes on the gauges, and the flight path of the aircraft.

"Now, you're flying," he says.

She knows she's grinning like an idiot, but she can't wipe the smile off her face now if she tries.

"Keep it up," he says as he removes his hands, though she notices that he keeps them close, ready to take over at a moment's notice.

She slowly swings the plane, first one way then the other, mirroring the movements when he was in control. She's so excited she has to focus on holding her hands steady. She's fucking flying the plane! Finally she steadies the wheel, making slight adjustments until the plane is once again flying straight and true. She reaches over and touches the autopilot button to reengage the device then looks to him for approval.

He gives her a quick nod. "Are you done?"

"For now," she says beaming. "I'm about to jump out of my skin, so I thought it best I calm down a little before I do something stupid."

He gives her a big grin. "I know how you feel. I felt like that when I first learned to fly. It's addicting isn't it?"

"I can certainly see why it is your second favorite thing to do. I think it could easily become mine as well," she says, smiling at him and then looking away as his laugh sounds in her ears.

As they fly, she finds herself wondering what it would be like to be in a long-term, stable relationship with Mac. She's been free, playing the field, for years now, and has truly enjoyed the good times, but there's something about him, something she can't put her finger on, something other than the physical, his good looks and prowess in bed, that draws her. Something that she's never felt before. She grimaces to herself. It's probably just the excitement of flying his plane and the fact she's looking forward to having an itch scratched in a few hours, but as she watches the world pass below her, she wonders if there's more to it than that, the thrum of the plane's engine matching the buzzing of her thoughts.