Dale came back to Operations from talking to the riggers. We had time for a short trip into town. We rode along the coast road past the old fort to the markets. We would buy some colorful handmade items there to give as gifts before returning to the airplane.
As co-pilot it was my job to check the fuel, dipping the tanks with a wooden stick, and to check each engine's oil. Dale checked that the airplane was properly loaded. That everything was secure and that the front strut showed that the airplane was in proper balance.
We checked the radio for the time, the barometric pressure and any updates on the weather or pertinent NOTAMs, NOtices To AirMen. We went through the check-list. I watched out my window as Dale started up the two engines on my side, Four, then Three. Then he started the two on his side, One, then Two. The tower gave us taxi instructions, and we taxied to the threshold where Dale ran up the engines, and Lillian checked the oscilloscope and all the gauges.
The British accented voice from the tower cleared us for takeoff, and we were away. It was funny how very different our four regular British destinations were. In Jamaica they were cool and confident. The Bahamas were laid back to the point of never seeming to do anything. Belize was ultra bureaucratic, except for the lovely environs of Hopkins. In Guyana they were just plain paranoid. On Dale's command I retracted the gear, confirmed that all three were locked up, and retracted the flaps. We began our climb over the island enroute to Puerto Rico on the other side of Hispaniola.
At about one-hundred ten thousand pounds the DC-6 was a third of the size of the DC-8 we would buy in a few years. But it was fourteen times as big as our Twin Beech and fifty-five times as big as the Stinson I soloed in. But 350,000 pounds or 2,000 bounds or in-between all airplanes everywhere obey the same laws of physics, and they are all flown using Wilbur and Orville's invention.
The brothers from Dayton did not invent the airplane. They invented something much more significant than the airplane. They invented a way to keep an airplane controllably in the air, three axis flight controls. Glenn Curtiss flying Langley's seaplane had to use his body weight to somewhat controllably crash into Chesapeake Bay.
The yoke that was in front of me was connected to woven steel cables that controlled the ailerons on the wing and the elevators on the horizontal stabilizer ninety feet back. The two pedals at my feet controlled the rudder. Up and down is controlled by the elevator; port and starboard, which is nautical for left and right, are controlled by the ailerons with a light coordinated touch of the rudder.
The Stinson had five flight instruments. The Airspeed Indicator used air pressure from the the pitot tube to indicate forward air speed. The Altimeter used atmospheric pressure to determine elevation above sea level and was adjustable. The pilot dialed in the barometric pressure. You could also do it in reverse if you knew the airfield elevation.
Three instruments used spinning gyroscopes to determine our heading, attitude and the coordination of the pilots use of flight controls. The Artificial Compass was not affected by the non-coincidence of geographical and magnetic north, or magnetic anomalies caused by large iron ore deposits and the like. The Artificial Horizon and Turn and Bank Indicator existed in deference to the fact that it was not lift per-se but the vertical component of lift that kept us in the air and alive.
Many aircraft have a sixth instrument, a Vertical Climb Indicator, although the Altimeter can be used for the same purpose. If you are flying VFR, Visual Flying Rules, those five instruments are all you need. As Maimonides said, "the rest is commentary." If your airplane lacks IFR equipment, or you lack an IFR rating, when the weather is bad you don't fly.
Seven-India-Charley had a GSI, Glide Slope Indicator, to land the airplane on Instruments. It had two AM radios for the ADF, Automatic Direction Finder, and four FM radios, two for the VOR, Very high frequency Omni Range, one for the ILS and one for communication. Our Beechcraft only had four radios and the Stinson just the one for communication.
To fly by IFR, Instrument Flying Rules you add an ADF that can read AM signals and provide a bearing to the transmitter, and a VOR that can read dipole VHF radio signals and provide a bearings to the transmitter. You also need a Clock; because on IFR you fly X miles on Y heading, and you use the ASI and Clock to figure out X miles. On the Curtiss the pilot had the two IFR instruments, the clock and the GSI. But only the Co-Pilot had an Artificial Compass, so you flew IFR from the left seat.
From our little rental near CUR, Curacao International Airport, in Willemstad we flew the C-46 to the five airports in the Dutch Caribbean that were big enough for us to safely land at. AUA, Queen Beatrix in Oranjestad, on Aruba and BON, Flamingo International, on Bonaire were in the Lesser Antilles off the coast of Venezuela. Being the three most western islands in the Leewards, they were well out of Hurricane Alley.
Hurricanes frequented the SSS islands nearer the island of Puerto Rico, the destination for our cargo today. We flew the Curtiss into SXM, Princess Juliana, on the Dutch half of Sint Maarten, and EUX, F. D. Roosevelt, on Sint Eustatius. The island where, on a November day two-hundred-and-fourteen years earlier, Governor de Graaff ordered the guns at Fort Oranje to salute the Thirteen Stripe flag flown on the brig Andrew Doria. The first official international acknowledgement of American Independence.
We couldn't fly into Saba on the sixth and smallest island. It's fourteen-hundred foot runway was too short even for the Curtiss' big fat low pressure tires. With its beautiful low speed handling characteristics, a product of a wing that stalled without a roll from root to tip and big ailerons, a pilot that was used to it could likely get it in. Landing by literally stalling the big tail dragger at 50 feet and 65 knots and squishing it in like Mimi did over in Vietnam.
But even with two of the same powerful R-2800 radials that we had, that same pilot would look like one of the Doolittle Raiders on an old newsreel. Taking off from the Hornet and going down almost into the sea before climbing back up.
The Curtiss was a really good airplane, mocked only by those who could not understand it. Primarily the fact that it relied so heavily upon differential engine control. The rudder only existed to coordinate turns. It could fly half of the payload of the Douglas at the same ceiling and at two thirds of the speed a third farther for a third of the cost. Years later I would spend a decade flying them again. I loved that airplane.
Approaching our destination we could see the lighthouse at Punta Borinquen and the town of Aguadilla near BQN, Borinquen - formerly Ramey Air Force Base. Its three mile long three-hundred foot wide runway Two/Forty was constructed for the ten engine B-36 'Aluminum Overcast' built in Fort Worth. One of the biggest, and certainly the most complex aircraft ever built.
Landing on that runway always reminded me of an old joke.
The co-pilot, just promoted to Captain, touched down right at the edge of the pavement at just over stalling speed; he immediately threw all the engines into reverse. He leaned hard into the brakes, just barely stopping before going off the other end of the runway. He wiped the sweat from his brow and said, "that is the shortest runway I have ever landed on." The new hire co-pilot looked out his window and said, "and it's the widest too."
After landing it was my turn to go find the riggers and get the airplane unloaded. Lillian made a phone call from Operations looking for our backhaul. We had an airplane full of blue jeans that had been made in an old hanger right on the airfield to take back to Miami. Also Lillian and I needed each other to keep a lookout while we went pee.
***
Lillian and I got home to the condo late Tuesday. We still had almost twenty hours to go on our sentance. We showered together and played with each other's breasts and nipples. It felt really nice, but it was frustrating as well. The design of the shield was thorough; direct stimulation to the glans, hood, inner labia and almost all of the outer labia was quite effectively blocked. George, Eva and Jamie were in Guatemala and would not be back until well after midnite.
Kristin and Punch decided that it would be fair if Punch buggered us both tonight, and then George could have us for his pleasure in the morning. So Lillian and I took turns being the girl in the middle; eating Kristin while Punch slowly and methodically brought us right to the edge of release several times, but always slowed down so as not to overstimulate us. After Kristin's fifth orgasm, he finally shot a load into his wife and we went to sleep.
We fell into our secret identities as professional suburban parental units for a few hours Wednesday morning. But once the children were off to school Lillian and I were stripped naked and given the news. It was a mixture of the good and the also good. A new flight had been ordered so we would gain our release several hours early, and Lillian and I would service all of our lovers to their satisfaction before we were released.
