Bouncing High Above the World Page 2
They explained that this time he would not be using the astrolabe from a ship at sea, but from an altitude high above the clouds. They had only this one chance to fly this aircraft, and so its whole design mission would have to be tested this first time. He would be coming back here to land at this runway in 3.7 hours if all went well; in the meantime he was to be rocket launched to the fringes of the upper atmosphere, where he would fly the aircraft to skip across the upper atmosphere like a flat rock across a pond, going completely around the planet and landing back here. Along the way he would drop a bomb on Sydney, Australia, sending a message to the world to surrender to Germany, who could now attack any city in the world just as easily, with no defense possible.
Although those American bombers were continuing to get closer, which could become a big problem.
The flight crew packed in a lunch and a thermos of hot coffee; they had thought it better to not have eaten before the launch, due to the uncertainty of the physiological effects of the rocket launch. No one had ever flown a rocket before, not to mention one that would reach above the atmosphere and travel all the way around the planet before touching back down on the ground. Werner had the mixed feelings that this was far more of a dangerous test flight than he was prepared to take, along with eagerness to achieve even more than any man had done before, a rocket ride to the fringes of space. He was instructed to set the astrolabe down on the floor, then to rest as flat against the seat as possible, and just relax until the engine shut off.
A quick radio check made, comfortably resting in the unusually plush cockpit seat, then a roar of the rocket booster ignition and he was slammed hard back into the seat that no longer felt soft. It was mere seconds until the end of the kilometer-long ramp had been past, and he pulled the stick back, so the ten ton rocket bomber tilted up at a 30 degree angle as the booster continued to shove hard; then it stopped, detached, and the big rocket engines on his plane ignited, their kerosene and liquid oxygen powerfully providing thrust that slammed him even harder into the back of his seat, crushing him, he was fading out....
He came to, with a strange feeling, quite the opposite of the crushing of the past few minutes. And the silence was just as different. The sky above was not blue anymore, but black as night; but looking down through the windows at his feet, he could see ground through the patchy clouds far below; so it actually was still daylight. He reached down and picked up the astrolabe, and to his surprise it seemed to be light weight as if made of wood instead of brass. He took a position fix on the stars, comparing the time and compass reading, and marked his position on the map; he was high over north Africa.
He examined the flight profile for this part; he had been told about this as part of a future flight test, but it was not to have been this first flight, as of when he got up this morning. But he was one of the best fighter pilots, and his competency had gotten him this first glamorous flight, although obviously gotten him a lot more too. He tilted the stick down a little bit; the aircraft was very slow to respond in this very thin air; but only a little movement of the ailerons was specified, otherwise they would become a source of drag, and he had a long way to go. All the way around the planet, in fact, to get him back home in time for dinner. His careful precision had served him well in battle as a fighter pilot, and yet this was a different kind of sport for sure.
Watching the time, he then pulled the stick back a bit and began to pull up from his first bounce in the upper atmosphere. Then he could relax a bit, nothing much was happening after his second fix on the astrolabe; he was on course, and the thermos of hot coffee and lunch were looking very welcome. The cockpit was only partially pressurized to about 15,000 feet equivalent, so he could only take a long sip of hot coffee and take a bite of food, before putting his mask back on to provide adequate oxygen to breathe.
The world below had turned all white. There apparently was a massive worldwide storm going on down there; the German weather service had not been able to learn enough about worldwide conditions before the launch; but no matter, it was launch then or maybe never. And the worst was happening down there; he could even see a circular area off in the distance, a hurricane as he had imagined they would look like from far above. But it did not reach up here, where all was calm except for the changing weight sensation as the plane very slowly bounced skipping across the upper atmosphere high over the Indian Ocean.
An hour and a half into the flight the astrolabe indicated that he was passing over the eastern coast of Australia, but all he could see down there was the white of clouds. He could also see the terminator where all vanished into darkness down there; he hoped the clouds would go away so he could see the lights of Sydney as he made his bomb drop.
Another quick sip of coffee and a bit of food, then it was time to make another position fix on the stars. It was about five minutes before he needed to do the bomb release. He strained to see the city lights down there but could see nothing except darkness; stars shone above him, however. He used the astrolabe to make another position fix, marking it on the map; he was right over Sydney, it indicated, but he could see nothing down there. He waited a few moments longer, intensely looking for the city, but it was hidden below the clouds. He pulled the bomb release lever, and felt a slight shudder, then he closed the bomb bay doors again, and the ride became smooth again. He made another position fix checking with the time, but he was not as far along as he ought to have been at this point. Normally a series of ever higher and farther test flights would have refined these figures, so he was not too surprised that all was not going perfectly according to estimated plans. What was clear to him at this point, was that he did not have enough kinetic energy and altitude to make it back to the airfield in Germany; instead, the projection was a wet landing in the mid-Atlantic Ocean. And he doubted that this thing would float, even with empty fuel tanks.
The backup plan was to make a landing on the west coast of the North American continent. An airfield known to never be obscured by clouds this time of year, and was in a remote area where German operators had secretly been preparing for landing of many such rocket bombers after Japan had taken the Pacific and had attacked Seattle, establishing ownership of the state of Washington in America. But that had not happened yet; the war in the Pacific was still raging, and only a few sympathizers were prepared to be at the airfield at this point. Better than a watery ending, he decided, so he banked the rocket bomber to head a bit more northward.
The long bounces across the upper atmosphere gave him little to do in between position fixes, and his mind began to drift toward other things. He would not be here in this desperate situation, if he had just continued on with his youthful dream of becoming a Catholic Priest. What a different life it would be now, if he had not been attracted to that call for daring pilots to fly fighter aircraft to defend the Homeland. He would be doing Mass this Sunday morning, respected by all those people out there. Instead he was alone up here where no one knew he existed, and gravity was insisting he return to far down below.
Three hours into the mission and he was south of the Hawaiian Islands, per his latest position fix with the astrolabe; the sun was coming up and it was still showing just white down there, the storm was covering nearly the whole planet, he decided. He had made his last and rather short bounce, and was now in a long glide down toward the clouds; this was a heavy glider and he had but one shot at a nice landing. The clouds were still covering everything down there, as he strained to see a break in the clouds; then there it was, the sight of an area of bare ground; he could see railroad tracks. Following them he saw a long runway in the desert floor; he made a complete circle, and came in fast over a low hill, then he was touching down on the runway. Too fast; his brakes failed before the end of the runway
and then he was in the dirt off to the side and beyond the end of the runway; then he was stopped.
He had finished his mission, once again. Never mind that it was not exactly as planned; a fighter pilot always had to respond to the situation that was found. And bring his aircraft back to the ground safely. Taking his mask off, Werner had another slurp of coffee and the last of the meal, then opened the hatch. A couple of cars were headed his way, along with a digging machine.
He was given some civilian clothes to put on; they tossed his flight suit back into the cockpit and closed its hatch, even as the ground crew was busy bulldozing a deep trench in front of the aircraft. It was hot here in July 1944 but the crew worked hard, and soon the bulldozer towed the rocket bomber down into the trench, and then was shoving dirt back in over it. They quickly leveled the area off, making it look fairly like the rest of the bleak desert; then they headed back up along the runway, heading onto a side road where they parked the bulldozer at its normal site, and the rest of them headed off to a ranch. This airfield was still listed as a