THE ADVENTURES OF REX THE WONDER ENGINEER:
REX and the BREAKAWAY
It's a bold, bright sunny day out on AR 8A-B. The KC-10 and crew are finishing
up their 3rd hour of straight receiver AR, hurtling around the two short tracks like it's
a fucking NASCAR oval, with no passing allowed. Rex, the Wonder Engineer, is on his
7th local in two weeks, and his nineteenth hour of receiver AR this month. Leading this
perverted race is a wore-out E model, with the pride of the Raggedy-Ass Militia as crew.
Rex stirs slowly from a sound sleep as Joe, the infamous numb-nuts boomer, former hero of
SAC, pokes him with greasy, tobacco stained finger. Rex's eyes bolt open as he hears the
IP, Capt Bank, yelling at him from the right seat. "Engineer! We don't have a ready
light here, is there a problem?" "Fuckin' A right, there's a problem",
blurts old Joe, "Fuckin' old wore out engineer boy is a-sleepin' on the goddamn job
again." Rex stares blankly at the FE panel. Then he turns to Joe and pokes him in the
upper layer of gut-fat, hard, with his 0.5 MM lead pencil. "OOOWWW!!, goddamn, Rex,
you mother-fucker, I'll kick yer old wore out flow-bar ass, you......." "TIME
OUT!!" Yells the PUP idiot in the left seat. "What are you guys doing back
there?" The PUP, a typical jerk-off professional copilot with an attitude, thinks
he's in charge, now that he's playing AC. His name is Capt Corn. Rex calls him the Great
Cornholio. When Rex is awake. Like he is now, with two goddamn finger-pilots barking at
him; he quickly assesses the situation, and takes the appropriate action. "HEY!, What
the fuck is all this yelling about?", Screams Rex, "Time-the-fuck OUT!!"
Rex violently punches the AR reset button and a "Ready" light appears magically
on the windshield post. "There!, Goddammit, anyway, Jesus Fucking Christ! I been back
here strapped into this fucking seat for 3 mother-fucking hours. Ain't even had a chance
to PISS, and you bastards are yelling at me! What the fuck, OVER??" Joe looks
amused, kind of like a cow looks as it's shitting all over itself. Capt Bank, who a year
ago was a new banked copilot, who's now the squadron's senior IP, is looking for his
sunglasses. The Great Cornholio is unaware that he has established a rather high rate of
closure with the wood-burning tanker, and Rex is unstrapping. "Hold everything, you
sky warriors, I gotta go drop off a message to TACC." Rex jumps out of the seat and
disappears into the cabin. Capt Corn sort of stabilizes the Extender in a position
somewhere within a hundred feet of pre-contact, and then starts babbling like the idiot he
is. "Dammit. This is fucked. I've had with Rex's shit. When we get back, I'm going to
bring up that bastard on charges. Insubordination. Dereliction of Duty. Sleeping on duty.
Failure to shit prior to flight!......." Joe hocks up a tobacco glob into his paper
cup, ejecting a little spittle over the rim to land on Capt Corn's helmet back, right onto
his stupid ATC class patch. He speaks. "Cap'n, you ain't a-gonna do shit to Rex. The
new Commander and him are best buddies, whiskey partners, see, and Rex saved the OG
Commander's ass back in the 141, and the Wing Commander, well, him and Rex were runnin'
partners back at Clark, and Rex got him treatment for the clap back in '82 afore the
general's wife found out...and that ain't all...In fact,...." "OK, Joe, shut up!
I got it. I'll get that bastard somehow......" Capt Corn is spitting all over his
microphone..Capt Bank is looking for the sandwich that his dear wife made for him that
morning, and once again the two aircraft are closing. Fast. As Joe searches his greasy
helmet bag for more chew, and Capt Cornholio is blinded by tears of rage, whilst the
mildly retarded Capt Bank is reading the sweet note his wife put in his Darth Vader
character lunch-box, the KC-135 Boomer, who has just gotten done with his cigarette, and
is stubbing out on the ashtray he's kept for 35 years of flying, sees approaching doom,
and keys his mike: "HOLY SHIT BREAKAWAYBREAKAWAYBREAKAWAY!!!!"
The Great Cornolio looks up from the INS and sees the words : HIGH SPEED BOOM less than a
foot from the windscreen. And the boom is up as far as it will fly. Then comes the push.
Capt Corn shoves the yoke eight inches forward in a half second, resulting, you might
guess, in a less than text-book separation. A full negative 1G world now awaits them. Joe
screams and pisses himself, and everything not tied town in the airplane, including Rex,
is slammed against the ceiling. In an instant, the now-bent Extender shoots through the
bottom of the block at 17,000 FPM, 18 degrees nose low. Panic ensues while the IP wastes
time turning on the flight director switches, and farting around with the vert-speed
wheel. He also remembers the beacon lights. Good monkey boy! As the abused and twisted
wide-body slashes through 18,000 feet, Joe dutifully calls "Thousand to
transition!" Capt Bank finally sees his sorry life flash before his eyes and realizes
that they are over the Mt Shasta area, calls "I got the airplane" and loads the
poor Douglas up like a shit-stained Saudi in his dad's new F-15. The Boeing Boomer later
claims to have seen vapor trails from the wing and horizontal stabilizer tips. Fighter
pilots are conditioned and accustomed to pulling multiple G loads on a daily basis. They
are proud of their physical strength and ability to operate effectively under conditions
of extreme loads. Too bad they're are such assholes. But no fighter pilot anywhere, ever,
has pulled 5 Gs on plastic shitter seat. Rex did it, and survived. Aerospace Medical geeks
from all over the world have studied his case, and all agreed that only an iron-ass
engineer like Rex possessed the physical strength of ass, and the sheer power with the
straining maneuver, to survive such an event. Rex's ass is permanently stained with blue
shitter-water, not from the push-over, but the high-G pull, which caused his ass to
actually stretch out all the way into the metal bowl, which naturally, was coated in blue
water and shit.
The following is the actual radio transmission between Travis Command Post and the
ill-fated local, Spazz 61:
Travis Command Post = TCP
Spazz 61=61
61: Travis Command Post, Spazz 61
TCP: Go ahead, Spazz 61
61: We are inbound your station. Code 2, requesting ambulance and latrine service upon
landing.
TCP: State reason for ambulance, and pass on maintenance writeups, over.
61: Well, uh, we got an engineer that's all covered in latrine water, and....uh...stand by
fer writeups......uh, we might should have a fire hose standing by....to wash off this
here engineer, he's all covered in....uh...excrement and piss, over.
TCP: Spazz 61, say again......did not copy...did not understand....Say again over...please
pass writeups.....
61: Dang it! ain't anyone listening down there? Like I told ya afore, my engineer's all
covered in shit, godammit, and if you want to know the fuckin' whole story right here on
the goddamn air, well, my gosh dang pilot boys are sittin' in bags of shit, and I done
pissed in my dang drawers, too.....how copy command post.....
TCP: Spazz 61 please pass writeups and any DVs on Board? Over..........
This was the last transmission. The airplane landed without incident after 16 touch and
goes. The Great Cornholio did not bring up charges on Rex. Capt Bank found his sunglasses
imbedded in his fat ass when he got home. Joe went to Crusty's, still in his
pissed-stained coveralls, and awaited Rex, who was released from DGMC after ingesting 4
valiums and undergoing a thorough probing by the hobbyists at the flight surgeon's office.
Rex did not utter a single word for over 6 days after the flight.
NEXT: REX GOES TO THE FLIGHT SURGEON TO GET OFF DNIF.
Jan 1998