Lucid Intervals (2010)

course I do. Whitestone could simply not have worked for your service on a full-time basis while simultaneously establishing a fabulously successful business in this country. That is a fact.”
    “No, it’s not; it’s a factoid.”
    “What’s a factoid?”
    “Something that seems to be true, but isn’t what it seems, like a humanoid in a sci-fi movie?”
    “Well, I don’t know what else to do to help you. As it is, I’m spending all my time getting type-rated in an airplane I’m never going to be able to own or even fly, except with or for Jim Hackett. How is that helping you?”
    “You’re gaining his confidence,” Felicity said, “and he’s paying you to do it. That sounds like a win-win situation to me.”
    “Maybe for me, but not for you.”
    “When you’ve earned his confidence it will be easier to poke holes in his legend.”
    “When are you going to tell me why your people still care about Whitestone?”
    “When I’m allowed to but not before,” she replied. “And I may never be allowed to.”
    Stone pulled the covers up. “I can’t think about this anymore,” he said.
    “See you in the morning,” she replied and switched off her bedside lamp.
     
     
     
    THE NEXT DAY Stone and Dan Phelan were taking off from Teterboro with Stone at the controls, when Phelan pulled the left throttle back to idle and said, “You’ve just lost an engine; handle it.”
    Stone applied right rudder and used the rudder trim to take the pressure of holding it off his leg.
    “Very good,” Phelan said.
    “The airplane doesn’t really handle any differently on one engine as long as the rudder is neutralized,” Stone said.
    “That’s right; the airplane is very benign. Now let’s go fly some single-engine instrument approaches and missed approaches.”
     
     
     
    AFTER THEY LANDED at Teterboro and secured the airplane, Phelan said, “You’re doing well, but you’re going to have to pay a lot more attention to your heading, airspeed and altitude when you’re hand-flying the airplane. Your FAA check ride will be to Air Transport Pilot standards, and that means plus or minus five degrees of heading, ten knots of airspeed and a hundred feet of altitude.”
    Stone nodded wearily. “I know,” he said.
     
     
     
    FOR THE FOLLOWING three days Phelan ordered Stone around the sky while he honed his skills in every phase of piloting the airplane. On the fourth day Stone arrived at Teterboro to find Dan Phelan talking with a tall, slim, red-haired man.
    “Stone,” Phelan said, “let me introduce you to Craig Bird.”
    Stone shook the man’s hand.
    “Craig is an FAA examiner, and he will be conducting your check ride today.”
    “Today?” Stone asked, astonished. He had not prepared himself mentally for this.
    “Today,” Phelan said. “I’ll leave you two to get on with it.” He walked to the other side of the pilot’s lounge, picked up a newspaper and began to read it.
    “Let’s sit over here,” Bird said, and they settled at a table. “I gather you weren’t expecting this, but Dan feels you’re ready, and we’ve already completed the paperwork for your check ride. You’ll probably do better for not having worried about it.”
    “I hope so,” Stone said.
    Craig Bird began asking him questions about the Mustang’s systems, and Stone supplied the correct answers that had been ground into his brain by Ida Ann Dunn. An hour later, Bird said, “All right, you seem to know the airplane well; let’s go fly it.”
    Bird watched as Stone performed the thirty-minute preflight inspection that he had performed for every day of his training. Then they got into the airplane and closed the door.
    Stone picked up his voluminous checklist and turned to the first page. Bird took it away from him. “We’re not going to use the checklist,” he said. “Don’t worry if you forget something, I’ll remind you. I’m not going to break your balls. I just want to know if you can fly this airplane well and safely.”
    Stone worked his way across the instrument panel from left to right, putting them in their proper positions from memory, then started the engines.
     
     
     
    THREE HOURS LATER Stone performed the best landing he had made during all his training. “Congratulations,” Craig Bird said, “you’re now single-pilot type-rated in the Cessna 510 Mustang.”
    Back at Jet Aviation, Phelan greeted them in the pilot’s lounge. “How did it go?”
    “He did just fine,” Bird replied.