Brown, Dale - Independent 02 (19 page)

 
          
The
Coast Guard was one of the things that
could.
“This deal is going to be a big waste of time,” he was saying.

 
          
“You
never even met Hardcastle,” Geffar said.

 
          
“Iknow
his rep. He’s a loose cannon, wants to make points by coming up with flaky
ideas. Why did you agree to fly with him?”

           
“Because . . It was a good question.
Hardcastle could put her nose out of joint too, but he was also dedicated in
his work, intelligent, forceful and not afraid to rock the boat. And right now
the guy had something up his sleeve.

 
          
“I
want to stick close to this man, that’s all,” Geffar said coolly. “He’s got his
boss’ ear on this project, whatever it is, and apparently he’s gotten hold of
some pretty valuable equipment to play with. If we have any chance of keeping
up with whatever the Coast Guard is doing, this is it.”

 
          
That
wasn’t her whole answer. Hardcastle knew that neither Customs nor Coast Guard
was really suited for the expanded role being forced on each of them. The Coast
Guard didn’t have the skills or the intelligence apparatus to conduct major
law-enforcement activities, and the expanded drug-interdiction role was probably
unsuited for the Coastie’s lifesaving mission. As for Customs, it didn’t have
the global authority or the firepower. Hardcastle was a guy ready and waiting
to break out of the rut. It might just be the time to give him a break . . .

 
          
“You’re
not exactly keeping an open mind about this,” Geffar told Long.

 
          
“The
Coasties got nothing I want. And neither of us have the time to watch a
dog-and-pony show—”

 
          
A
strange sound interrupted, something that could only be described as a
combination of propeller and jet engines. Long and Geffar turned to see what
had to be one of the most unusual aircraft in the world make a steep banking
turn scarcely two hundred feet overhead. It resembled a twin-turboprop small
transport plane, not as big as the Air Force’s C-130 cargo plane but still
large for a prop job. The plane was about seventy feet long and twenty-five
feet wide, with a wing mounted high on the fuselage and a cantilever tail with
twin rudders. The turboprop engines were unusual; large and spinning a very large
propeller at a remarkably slow speed, and the engine nacelles were mounted
directly at the wingtips instead of on pylons nearer the middle of the wings.

 
          
As
the weird aircraft made a few tight high-speed left turns over the Customs
Service parking ramp, Long recovered sufficiently from his initial surprise to
say, “That’s gotta be Hardcastle.” And this is his big surprise . . . ? A
miniature C-130 . . . ?”

 
          
“That’s
not a C-130,” Geffar said.
“Look
at
it.”

 
          
The
strange aircraft completed its last left turn, rolled out, then completed a
tight right turn out across
Homestead
’s main runway and rapidly descended to less than fifty feet above
ground.

 
          
“Great,”
Long said. “That S.O.B.’s going to buzz us . . .”

 
          
But
the aircraft didn’t race overhead as expected. With a sudden roar of engine
power, the two engine nacelles at the wingtips swiveled upward until the
propeller spinners were pointing vertically, with the propeller blades
horizontal, helicopter-like. The plane- turned-helicopter decelerated rapidly,
the nose swinging high in the sky, and like a giant eagle it swooped onto the
parking ramp and settled in for a landing, the landing gear popping out of the
fuselage just in time for a gentle touchdown.

 
          
As
the twin engines were shut down a smiling Admiral Hardcastle stepped out of the
entryway on the right side of the hybrid and walked over to Geffar and Long.
“Nice to see you again, Inspector Geffar,” he said, then turned to Long. “Agent
Long. We’ve never met but I’ve heard a lot about you.” Likewise, Long thought.
A moment later another man in a flight suit and carrying a helicopter- style
flight helmet came up to them. “Agents Geffar, Long, I’d like you to meet
Lieutenant-General Bradley Elliott, U.S. Air Force.”

 
          
“Air
Force?” Geffar heard Long exclaim under his breath.

 
          
“I’ve
heard a lot about you, Inspector Geffar,” Elliott said, shaking hands with her
and then Long.

 
          
“Let
me explain what you’re thinking but not asking,” Hardcastle said quickly.
“Elliott is the director of an Air Force weapons testing center in
Nevada
. HAWC.
High
Technology
Aerospace
Weapons
Center
. He and his organization, I’m damned
pleased to say, are on long-term loan to me. HAWC has already been helping me
with some advanced aircraft design. Brad, why don’t you show them your newest
toy here?”

 
          
Long
watched unhappily as Elliott led Geffar toward his aircraft, noting that his
boss seemed damn near mesmerized by the strange aircraft.

 
          
“Officially,
folks, this is the V-22C Sea Lion,” Elliott began. “What we did was take the
basic Bell-Boeing V-22 tilt-rotor chassis, lengthened and strengthened the
fuselage and added bigger turboprop engines. She can carry, for example, twenty
hospital rescue litters plus six crewmen, or ten full-size rescue-raft packs.
It has the performance of a small cargo aircraft—top speed of about two-fifty,
fully loaded range of about nine hundred miles—but it has the added advantage
of helicopter-like vertical flight.”

 
          
He
moved to the right side of the Sea Lion aircraft. “The V-22 has two cargo hooks
and the capability of lifting over twenty thousand pounds. It’s designed for
nap-of-the-earth terrain-following flight, all-weather search-and-rescue and
long-range surveillance. It also has a stores pod on each side of the fuselage
above the sponsons, where we can mount up to two thousand pounds of stores in
retractable hardpoints that can be loaded or unloaded from inside the cargo
bay. Fuel tanks, cargo pods, sensors, winches, communications gear—”

 
          
“Or
weapons,” Hardcastle added.

           
Long stared at Hardcastle. “Weapons?
What weapons?”

 
          
“Cannons,
guns, anti-ship missiles, rockets, you name it,” Hardcastle said. He motioned
to a third crew member who had stayed inside the Sea Lion, and the man now
activated a control panel. A panel on the side of the fuselage opened up and a
long cylindrical aerodynamic pod motored out from inside the V-22C’s cargo bay
and locked into position just above the tarmac. “We’re carrying a Sea Stinger
rocket pod on the starboard hardpoint; the pod carries six Sea Stinger
infrared-guided missiles capable of attacking air or surface targets from a
mile away. The pod can be reloaded from inside the aircraft and we can safely
carry another eight missiles. The port pod carries an M230 Chain Gun
thirty-millimeter cannon. We can carry up to three hundred rounds of
thirty-millimeter ammunition, and the weapons are integrated into the
fire-control system, which integrates the infrared scanner and weapon computers
to locate and attack targets.

 
          
“I’d
say at this point the Sea Lion is the ultimate maritime reconnaissance and
security aircraft,” Hardcastle said as they continued their walkaround. “We
needed a vessel that could get on scene as fast as an airplane, carry plenty of
cargo or survivors, defend itself, hover to carry out rescue or law-enforcement
ops, and maneuver on land, sea or air. This aircraft is a synthesis of design
and function. The Coast Guard has been looking for something like this for a
lot longer than I’ve been around.”

 
          
“Pardon
me, Admiral,” Long blurted out, “but what do you want with a tilt-rotor
aircraft with weapons in the Coast Guard?”

 
          
“This
isn’t a Coast Guard aircraft. The Coast Guard will get several V-22 Osprey
tilt-rotor aircraft by the mid-1990’s, and eventually they may get the V-22C
model. But we’re not talking about new aircraft for the Coast Guard.”

 
          
“Then
who’s this for?”

 
          
“For
us . . .” was all Hardcastle said, or would say. “We don’t have time, right
now. General Elliott and I have a little demonstration for you. Please get on
board and we’ll begin.”

 
          
On
board Elliott introduced Major Patrick McLanahan, his project officer and the
V-22C’s crew chief, to Geffar and Long. McLanahan was the “baby” of the
group—although his rank was the equivalent of Long’s and he had authority over
the Air Force’s involvement in Hardcastle’s project. Blond, blue-eyed, the Air
Force major could not have been much more than thirty-one or thirty-two, Geffar
figured as she began strapping herself into one of the crew’s jump-seats.
Hardcastle motioned to her to come up to the cockpit.

 
          
“Me?
I don’t know how to fly this thing.”

 
          
“Neither
did I, two days ago,” Hardcastle told her. “Brad is a great teacher, and the
Sea Lion is a dream to fly.” Elliott was pleased to help Geffar into the right
seat and assist her in strapping in. She put up with it.

 
          
Elliott
pointed inside the cockpit. The interior of the Sea Lion was more like a
television control room. The instrument panel was
four twelve
-inch color-monitors, which could display
graphic depictions of flight instruments, engine gauges, large-scale numbers as
readouts or text and numerals. The data displayed on the screens was changeable
by pressing buttons on the edge of the monitors. The function of each button
changed depending on the information desired, so each button could perform a
multitude of functions.

 
          
“All
your flight- and engine-monitoring information is set and displayed on these
screens,” Elliott said. “Navigation, radios, flight instruments, engine
monitors, performances, autopilot, weaponry—all selectable and monitored through
the CRTs and set using these keyboards on the center console.” There were two
large monitors on each side of the cockpit plus one smaller CRT just under the
glare- shield in the center, two smaller text-only CRTs on the center console
and one large text-only monitor on top of the glareshield in the center of the
cockpit. Conventional standby flight instruments surrounded the center monitor
for back-up.

 
          
“It
must take weeks to learn these screens,” Geffar said.

 
          
“It’s
really easy,” Hardcastle told her. “The functions are all displayed on the
screen, and you can flip through any one of them in seconds. The copilot—who,
in the Sea Lion, sits on the left, by the way, a change left over from Marine
Corps aviation—can select functions for the pilot and transfer the selected
image to the pilot’s monitor. The top center monitor displays navigation and
status information and any computer warnings. You’ll be using the two center
MFDs for most of your flight control, power and navigation information.”

 
          
“Pilots
familiar with fixed-wing flying usually have no trouble understanding the
V-22’s control system,” Elliott said, taking over. “Since you’ve had both, this
should be a piece of cake for you,” he told Geffar. “You’ll notice the controls
look like a helicopter’s but they operate more like a fixed-wing plane. The
cyclic—the center control stick—raises and lowers the nose and banks the
aircraft in all flight modes. The lever on the left that looks like the
collective is actually a power control—push forward to increase power, pull
back to decrease power.

 
          
“In
helicopter mode forward speed versus altitude control is accomplished by
varying the angle of the two engine nacelles, which is done using this wheel
switch on the control stick—push the switch forward to move the nacelles down,
pull back to rotate the nacelles upward. The computer displays will tell you
what the best nacelle- angle range is, and in emergency situations the V-22
will put the nacelles in the proper position to prevent any out-of-tolerance
conditions. In extreme emergencies the system will automatically switch to full
helicopter mode, and autorotation control is much the same as in any large
helicopter. In helicopter mode the cyclic will vary rotor pitch for aircraft
control, and the rudder pedals will control yaw just like in a regular
helicopter. What at first messes up chopper pilots is that you push forward on
the control lever to go up instead of pulling back, but most pilots get used to
it in a hurry.