"Dean Ing - Flying To Pieces" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ing Dean)

If Elmo Benteen hadn't raised so much hell at his last B.O.F. party, he
might have lived to throw another one. Or maybe not; Elmo was loopy as a
bedspring, having fought off half the tropical diseases known to medical
science and too much of the VD. By now, Elmo's organs had become stony
where they should be soft and, he admitted on his deathbed, soft when
they ought to be hard. Every surviving member of the Boring Old Farts
agreed he was past due; Elmo was a legend, but it had taken him more
than eighty years and damned near that many airplane crashes. The only
surprise was, it was finally his innards that crashed.

That's not strictly true. Elmo had a second surprise for his B.O.F.
buddies, and at first they thought it was just the stuff running through
tubes into his arms that was doing the talking. Some of them figured he
hadn't converted all those smuggled Cambodian rubies to money, and maybe
that was what he meant by a huge stash. But after a little judicious
illegal entry, when the last words of the late Elmo Benteen finally
became clear, most of the B.O.F.s emitted variations of, "I don't
believe a word of it," or, "This gives a whole new meaning to 'risk
capital,' " or, more succinctly, "At my age? No dice."

But there are a few old pilots like Wade Lovett who, smart enough to
survive to retirement age, are still dumb enough to sucker themselves
into a box canyon or beneath an anvil cloud, if the reason seems good
enough to risk flying to pieces. When the reasons include several
millions in cash and a paragraph in aviation history, these few will
step forward, betting that experience will bring them through. Amelia
Earhart had lost that bet and Fred Noonan with her, two generations
before, in the same comer of the world where Elmo Benteen later recorded
his great stash. But most of the B.O.F.s remembered Earhart as a pilot
of great courage and indifferent skills, and themselves as "good
sticks"-superior pilots. They also figured that, if ol' Elmo had got in
and out again with a whole skin, the risks would be chiefly financial.
So much for the wisdom of Boring Old Farts.

Actually, the trouble didn't start at Elmo's deathbed; it all began when
he declared a National Emergency...

Even though the city reached out westward toward Rolling Hills, Kansas,
the air traffic from Wichita's Mid-Continent Airport kept Wade Lovett's
condo affordable because some folks don't like to live under an aerial
on-ramp. Still, for each housewife who wakes up fearful whenever a
Boeing's low pass shakes dust motes into her moonlit bedroom, some
solitary wing nut like Lovett smiles without waking.

No mystery about that. For many years Wichita has been home to half the
aircraft constructors in the country, and the area boasts more aircraft
freaks than farmers. When a bug decorates his windshield Re a Jackson
Pollock, the driver twangs, "Wow, must've been a twin Piper." That's how
many airplanes infest Wichita, and their thunder roars a duet of future
money and past adventures to old guys like Lovett. No wonder they smile