Chapter 27

He was so excited he could barely sit still.

Their Cessna 400 landed on a brisk, cloudy, windy Sunday at Municipal Airport in Independence, Kansas after a four hour flight that seemed to take them a million years. Kit was so excited to finally be there, so anxious to get started, he flew the plane at almost full throttle, cruising at 220 knots at 17,500 feet and landing in a stiff headwind about ten minutes from violating the plane's emergency reserve, draining his tanks to get there quickly, so much so Kit had to land and refuel in Oklahoma, where they also had lunch. They landed at about two in the afternoon, and there on the north side, with its large buildings, was the Cessna Flight Training Center. It was there where Kit would tie down his plane, and it was there where he and Jessie would be spending the next six weeks of their lives. He taxied the plane towards their compound, and a guide truck came out to meet them. Jessie took video of their arrival from the right seat as the guide truck brought them to a large hangar, and then guided them inside to occupy a spot right near the hangar doors. Kit turned the plane around and shut it down as a femme raccoon, a cat, and a tall ocelot approached. The raccoon was wearing a pant suit, while the cat and ocelot were wearing dress shirts with the Cessna logo embroidered on their pockets and jeans. "Mister and Misses Vulpan, you're early!" the raccoon called as Kit opened the gullwing door. "We didn't expect you until later this afternoon!"

"I couldn't wait to get here," Kit laughed. "Are you Amanda Wilkes?"

"Yes, I am," she nodded. "Welcome to Independence. Are you ready to go to your hotel?"

"Well, can we take a quick tour first?" he asked as Jessie opened her door and climbed out.

"I think we can manage that," the ocelot smiled, stepping up and offering his paw to Jessie. "I'm David Summers, ma'am, and I'll be your flight instructor."

"Hi, I'm Jessie Vulpan," she smiled.

"Have you been studying the materials I sent you?"

"Oh, yes sir!" she said with a laugh. "Kit makes me study every night!"

"I think you'll find she's all but ready to take her check ride," Kit told him with a smile. "She can recite the FAR to you verbatim."

"Well, there's more to it than the regs," he smiled. "And I'm happy to see you bought one of our planes! It keeps my paychecks coming," he chuckled.

"This plane is why I'm getting my license!" Jessie laughed. "I love it so much, I'm learning to fly it!"

The male cat offered his paw to Kit. "It's good to meet you, Mister Vulpan. I'm Luke Jones, and I'll be your primary flight instructor for the Citation program."

"I'm very happy to meet you," Kit laughed.

"Have you been studying your materials?" he asked.

Kit grinned. "Do you want me to blindfold myself and point out the location of every control in a Citation cockpit?"

"I think you can do that when we start," he smiled. "Did you find the software helpful?"

"Immensely," he answered as he opened the cargo door and started pulling out their suitcases. "It's one thing to see a picture, but quite another to have that interactive simulation that quizzes you on what a control is and what it does."

"How was your flight up, Mister Vulpan?" Amanda asked.

"Smooth," he answered. "We stopped in Oklahoma to refuel and grab a bite to eat, but outside of that, I've been flying her at about max speed to get up here. I've been just a little anxious to do this," he said.

"It's all I've been hearing about for two weeks," Jessie sighed, but she was smiling at him.

"This is all the luggage you brought?" Amanda asked curiously as he pulled out the second small suitcase, and Jessie shouldered their carryall holding their laptops.

"The rest of it is on its way up via UPS," he told them. "As you know, this plane doesn't have the biggest load rating in the world, and we had too much to bring given how long we'll be here. So, we just shipped up our other stuff and carried what will hold us over 'til it gets here."

"Clever," Amanda said with a nod. "Your rental car is just outside, and a second rental car is already parked at your hotel. So, you can put your luggage away and we'll give you a tour of our training center."

They were showed around, from the classrooms to the two large flight simulators, all of it brand new and cutting edge. "This is a much different flight school from what you might have attended Mister Vulpan," Amanda told him. "This isn't a for-profit school, it's where we bring our customers, their private pilots, and our employee pilots for their initial type rating when they buy planes from us or they come to work for us. We have two facilities where you will train, Mister Vulpan. Here, and at our Wichita facility. This facility is currently dedicated to our Mustang, CJ four, and Columbus programs, since the Mustangs are built here in Independence and the CJ four and Columbus aren't in production yet, and we've yet to incorporate them into our Wichita facility. The Wichita facility is where you'll be training on the CJ series, the Encore, and the Citation Ten. Our facility here is understandably small but highly advanced, because it serves a very exclusive clientele of Mustang pilots and our test pilots preparing to test fly the CJ four and Columbus, and there's a connected, even smaller facility where we train our pilots on our more complicated propeller aircraft like the four hundred, that holds flight simulators Jessie will be using when she can't fly on VFR. Our Wichita facility is much larger, but just as advanced. Because of that, we're completely focused on the timely and thorough education of our customer or their pilots. Our operation is usually centered mainly on our Citation jets, furs who already have their licenses, but we've made a special accommodation to give your wife her initial flight training," she said with a smile. "David has graciously agreed to be her flight instructor, when he's usually one of our Citation Mustang instructor pilots."

"I've been told to train you as much as I can in six weeks, Misses Vulpan," he told her. "If you get through your initial private certificate quickly, we can get you type rated on multi-engine craft and also get you your instrument rating."

"I'll do my best, Mister Summers."

"Please, call me Dave," he smiled.

"I find it odd that you have just one jet program down here," Kit noted, "since you build the jets in Wichita."

"The Mustang? It's built here in Independence, Mister Vulpan, so it's best to have the training facility for them here, at least for now. We had plenty of empty space down here after we built this building, so we put the Mustang training program here, and added the experimental flight programs while we prepare to expand our Citation flight training facility in Wichita to incorporate them there. The CJ four and Columbus are still in flight testing stage, so we decided to make use of the extra room and also keep them separate from the other jets, to keep the pilots we're training on them focused."

"Ah. So, when I finish here, I'll be moving up to Wichita?"

"Then coming back here, while your wife does all of her training here," she pointed out. "So instead of moving you, we'll just allow you to commute to Wichita when you begin those phases of your training. We'll be furnishing you a Mustang for your personal use after you complete your rating training, Mister Vulpan," she smiled. "In fact, you'll be helping with the test flights and shakedown of that jet, it's just come off the assembly line. You'll be the first pilot in the seat after it's had its initial inspection flight and safety shakedown. You'll be flying up every day, and also getting some real time behind a jet yoke in the bargain."

"Now that sounds fun!" Kit said excitedly. "But why not put us at Wichita rather than here?"

"We had Misses Vulpan to consider as well, Mister Vulpan, and so we decided that it would be the most convenient for everyone if we let you settle in here, since this airport is where Misses Vulpan will be doing all of her training."

"Ah, yes, that is best," Kit nodded as Jessie looked at a flight simulator.

"Since you already have your license, it will be very easy for you to fly to Wichita and back every day. It's only about fifteen minutes from here in a Mustang."

"Not enough time to have any fun," Kit laughed.

"Now, let me show you the planes we have for Misses Vulpan to fly," she said, guiding them down a long corridor.

They entered a smaller hangar, where a Cessna 400 painted white with blue stripes rested, and beside it was a twin engine Cessna 303. "We're not actually having her fly in your plane, but we have a four hundred here for her to use," she motioned. "That keeps us from putting hours on your personal plane. This is our four hundred trainer. And we have a Crusader for her to use to get her multi-engine rating."

"It'll feel weird not being in our plane," Jessie said, looking at the planes.

"You'll find our trainer flies and feels just the same as yours," David assured her. "We keep her in tip-top shape."

"It's all the same inside?" she asked.

"Yup," he nodded. "We looked up the plane you bought using her serial number, and our trainer here has the same systems as your plane, so you'll feel right at home inside."

"Who did your training on the four hundred, Mister Vulpan?" Luke asked.

"I did," Kit answered. "I already knew the Garmin, so I just studied the manuals on the plane itself. I have my commercial, so I can get away with doing that in a utility class airplane."

Luke laughed. "Yes, you can," he nodded. "As long as you don't mind paying outrageous insurance."

"Well, while I'm here, we can take a check ride in my four hundred and you can sign me off to make the insurance company happy," Kit said with a smile.

"We can definitely do that," Amanda said confidently. "That should bring down your insurance quite a bit."

In all, Kit was impressed with the facility. They had three small classrooms, and one was in use, where three furs were being instructed by a fourth, who was using a laser pointer to indicate parts of a Mustang cockpit that was projected on a screen by an overhead projector. They had two flight simulators for the Mustang and one flight simulator each for the CJ4 and Columbus. One of the Mustang simulators was in use when they came into the room, and Kit saw on a monitor an image of the cockpit, where a thin femme bear was behind the controls, adjusting something on her Garmin display. Luke was explaining their training schedule to him as they walked, and from him Kit learned that he would spend his first few days in a classroom, going over the fundamentals of jet flight from an aviation standpoint, then they'd go into the Mustang's flight systems, learning how to manage a jet's systems, which were much different and more complex than any plane he'd ever flown before. After he finished his classroom training, he'd be spending most of his time in a simulator. Kit would literally be type rated on a Mustang without ever actually flying it. The simulator was approved by the FAA to type rate pilots, since it could duplicate all aspects of actual flight… and they could even program it to mimic in-flight emergencies. And it was a hell of a lot safer to deal with real emergency conditions in a simulator then train for the eventuality in a real plane, but never face the actual conditions until it actually happened. The simulators even moved, being on a platform moved by hydraulic pistons.

After they finished their tour, the three of them walked Kit and Jessie out to their car. "Now, remember, we start at eight o'clock," David told Jessie. "We'll meet in the hangar where you saw the trainer plane, alright?"

"I'll be there, Dave," she nodded.

"You'll start at eight as well, Mister Vulpan," Luke told him.

"Please, call me Kit," he said with a smile. "You're probably older than me, I'm the one who should be calling you Mister."

Luke laughed. "Then the boss would give me a funny look," he smiled, pointing towards Amanda.

"Darn right I would," she smiled, giving Kit a card. "This is my work, phone, cell, and fax numbers, Mister Vulpan. If you have any questions or need to talk to me, you can reach me any time. I'll be at your immediate disposal. Consider me your liaison to the Cessna company," she smiled. "So, if these two jokers do anything out of bounds, I'm the one you call."

"We're not jokers! We're troubadours," David smiled.

"Well, these troubadours had better do a good job," she smiled at them.

"I'm sure they will," Jessie said with a smile.

"If you studied as much as you say, we'll look good without ever lifting a finger," David laughed. "If you've learned most of the bookwork already, then that'll really streamline you getting your license. Heck, we might even be able to wrangle your IFR rating if you can log enough hours and do the bookwork quickly enough, since both plane models you'll be flying are IFR rated planes. We can just double up and kill both birds with one training regimen. I'd be happy to give you the training."

"I'll do my best," she smiled. "I already told Kit, when we leave, I'm flying the plane home."

"Then we'll do everything we can to make sure it happens," David said with a reassuring smile.

The trio left them at their rental car, a Saturn, which had the keys in it as well as a map showing them where their hotel was. Vil had put them up in an Embassy Suites hotel, which was more like a small apartment than a hotel room; the chain was famous for their two-room hotel suites, a living room/kitchenette and a bedroom. The hotel was only six miles from the airport, on the outskirts of the town of Independence, according to the map.

"Well, what do you think, love?" Kit asked after they got into the car.

"I think we're both going to have a lot of fun here!" she said with an eager smile.

"We'll both be busy as sin," Kit chuckled.

"It's better than me just puttering around the house doing nothing," she told him. "And besides, I'll be learning something while I'm here, something really cool!"

"That makes me happier than you probably believe," he told her. "I'd hate for you to come up here and be bored."

"Oh, this will not be boring," she laughed.

The Embassy Suites hotel was just off state route 27, and across the street from a strip mall anchored by a Wal-Mart and Sam's Club. They carried their luggage in and to the desk, where a short, plump bobcat greeted them with a smile that revealed he'd broken a fang and had yet to have it fixed. "May I help you, sir?"

"Yes, we have reservations for Vulpan, Kit and Jessie Vulpan," Kit told him.

The bobcat punched keys on his computer. "Yes, yes sir, right here. Ah, it looks like this was a special arrangement. There's a couple of messages here. First, we replaced the bed in your room with a Sleep Number bed, by special arrangement. I'm not sure why it told me to tell you that," he said curiously.

"I understand why," Kit chuckled. "I have what you might call special needs when it comes to mattresses."

"Ah, well, we're happy to accommodate you, sir, it says here that the bed is yours, and you'll take it home with you when you leave. We're also holding a key for you, sir, for a rental car parked in our lot, it's a black Saturn. And we're holding several boxes delivered to the hotel by UPS this morning. Now that you've checked in, I'll have them delivered to your suite."

"Wow, they got them up here fast," Jessie said. "We just shipped them yesterday afternoon!"

"I guess when they say next day air, they mean it," Kit chuckled as the clerk started printing out forms.

It took them about five minutes to sign everything and get the little plastic strip-keys for their room, as well to get the key to their rental car. The clerk had an attendant show Jessie where the rental car was parked, since that was her car, while Kit carried their luggage to the hotel room that would be their home for the next six weeks. It was surprisingly roomy, he had to admit, with a nice big living room and full service kitchen along the side wall, with a nice little table for meals, and a small pair of small folding double doors at the end of the counter, which were open to reveal a little economy washer and dryer in a nook. The living room side had a clean, new-looking couch and two chairs, arranged around a large widescreen TV that did not look like the kind of TV one would find in a hotel. There was a small desk near the door to the bedroom that looked like a computer work area, since it had a network cable coiled on top of it. The clerk that had checked them in had also come with him, and he pointed things out to him as he looked around. "As you can see, sir, this is one of our long-term suites, for furs who will be here a while," he said. "We get quite a few, to tell the truth, because of the Cessna factory," he added. "We have a fully furnished kitchen, your own private washer and dryer, and you'll find your TV has Direct TV. You'll have about two hundred channels to choose from. We have a hotel-wide wireless network for your laptops, but we also provide two network jacks if you prefer to go wired, or have any trouble with your wireless card." The bobcat led them into the bedroom, which was dominated by a king-size bed, two dressers, a nightstand on each side of the bed, a vanity, and a sliding door closet. "Note that there are two doors to the bathroom, sir, one here and one in the living room. The bathroom has a full size tub. Your Sleep Number mattress is already on the bed, and the controls for it are on the nightstands. The other wired network cord is behind the desk," he said as he went over to the curtains on the far side of the room and opened them, revealing a little ground-floor patio surrounded by a waist-high iron fence, that looked into a pool. There was a gate in the fence and a little stepping-stone path between well-maintained shrubs that led to the pool area. "This room has a patio for your enjoyment, and as you can see, we also have a pool here, but it's not open yet. It will be opened in two weeks, sir, and you'll find that your patio has a gate that lets you go right out to it."

"Nice," Kit noted.

"Like I said, sir, this is a long-term room, so it has some extra perks compared to most of the other suites," the bobcat said with a broken-toothed smile. "As you saw, there's a Wal-Mart right across the street that has a grocery store in it, where you can shop for groceries and whatever you might want or need. Independence Mall is on the other side of town, right down route twenty-seven, if you'd like to do any shopping that doesn't involve Wal-Mart, as well as a number of small stores in the downtown area. Virtually every pizza place in town will deliver here, and we also have a sub shop, Vietnamese restaurant, and a Chinese restaurant that will deliver here as well. We have the numbers to them on a little placquard in the top drawer of each nightstand. We don't offer room service here, but if you call the front desk, they can usually help you with anything you might need."

"Sounds good, thank you," Kit said with a nod.

Jessie was brought to the room as they went back out to the living room. She smiled and tipped the young collie that had helped her find the car, then looked around the living room with a professional eye. "Very nice," she said. "I can do some real cooking here."

"Would you like me to show you around, ma'am, or will you trust your husband to do it for you?"

Jessie laughed. "I think I can trust him to do that," she said, winking at Kit.

"Alright, I'll have the boxes UPS sent delivered to your room immediately," he said.

"What's it like?" Jessie asked as the bobcat left, and she opened the door to the refrigerator. It was smaller than theirs at home, but it looked big enough to serve their purposes while they were here.

"Not bad. Vil had a Sleep Number bed sent for us."

"What's that?"

"One of those adjustable air mattresses, because of my back," he answered.

"Really? That sounds interesting," she said, leaving the kitchen to go back to the bedroom.

Kit helped the hotel staff carry in the five boxes holding their clothes and some other necessities, then he tipped each of them for their trouble. He carried the box holding their clothes into the bedroom and saw Jessie splayed out on the bed, arms and legs out wide, her tail straight out under her and between her legs, and with the control for the bed in her paw, with a happy look in her face. "I love this thing!" she gushed. "You can make it as firm or soft as you want!"

"Well, the manager said it's our bed, that we'd be taking it with us when we go. I'll have to ask Vil what that means."

"I hope that means we ship it home with us," she said. "It's way more comfortable than our bed!"

Kit had to try it with that declaration, climbing in on the side in which he usually slept at home, then he picked up the little control and hit a button. Under him, he felt the mattress firm up, push back at him, until he found a setting that felt nice to his back. "Wow, this thing is nice," he agreed, making it soft again. "Now you don't have to worry about finding a mattress that suits me," he chuckled. "I can set my side to be nice and hard, and you can have whatever you want."

"Then I can firm up my side for when I'm feeling frisky," she giggled, rolling up on her side and testing the border between the two sides of the bed. "Well, nothing hard in here, nothing that feels like a divider, I guess as long as we make both sides the same firmness, it won't feel like two mattresses pushed up beside each other."

"That's good, since we always somehow end up in the middle of the bed tied up in each other's arms anyway," he said with a sensual smile that made her grin at him. He gave her quick kiss, but she giggled and grabbed hold of him, pulling him into a more serious kiss that made his tail shiver.

"Mmm, fancy meeting you here, Mister Vulpan," she smiled.

"Whatever are you doing in a hotel room, Misses Vulpan? Did I catch you when you were arranging a liaison with some mystery lover?"

"I cannot tell a lie, you did," she giggled. "He's a handsome young fox that has this little problem with one of his ears."

"I'll have to challenge him to a duel," Kit declared. "I'll brook no competitors for your affection."

She laughed and gave him a hug and kiss on the cheek. "Such a silly boy!" she accused. "Now let's quit acting silly and get unpacked and settled in. We are going to be here for a while."

"You do realize that Lupe's gonna be abusing our apartment while we're gone," he laughed. "We have a nicer TV than he does."

"As long as everything's still there and nothing's broken, why should we mind?" Jessie smiled. "As long as he stays out of our bedroom," she declared in a serious voice.

"You left him a whole fridge and freezer full of food, I doubt he'll make it back there for two weeks," Kit laughed.

It took them about an hour to unpack everything. Kit had brought more than just clothes, he had also sent his printer and desktop, and their DVD player and a selection of movies. Jessie brought some of the pots and pans from the kitchen, since she liked them and didn't relish the idea of either using the ones in the hotel or buying new ones. She'd brought most of her spice rack contents as well. As Kit put the computer back together, Jessie arranged the kitchen to her liking, then got on the phone and started calling everyone to tell them that they'd arrived in Kansas safely. Kit did the same, calling the office first, calling Rick directly. "Hey boss, we're here," he said after he answered the phone.

"That was fast," Rick chuckled. "Did Jessie record you guys arriving?"

"She did," he answered. "She'll upload the video later, right now she's calling her folks to tell them we got here."

"What kind of hotel room did Vil give you?"

"Nothing outrageous, but it's nice," Kit said appreciatively. "We're in an Embassy Suites, in one of their long-term suites. It doesn't look like a hotel room, it's actually kinda homey. It even has a full kitchen in it."

"Take some shots of it, we have to document everything for your series."

Kit was making a series of articles out of their trip to Kansas, but Rick was also having them video as much of it as they could, to have videos the readers could watch on the website that would coincide with the articles they'd read in the magazine. The series was being called The Life of a Pilot, and would document Kit's experience training to fly jets in Cessna's training program. Kit had to write the first article by Tuesday, since Rick needed it completely finished by Wednesday so he could work it into the issue.

"Jessie's getting pretty good with the video camera," Kit chuckled. "Did Mike install that video conference program on your laptop?"

"Janet did," Rick answered. "Let's test it."

"Sure, lemme get my laptop up and running." They kept up with each other on the phone as they got the video conference up, and then he was graced with Rick and Sheila's faces in his monitor as he hung up the phone and turned up the volume. From the look of it, they were at Rick's house, and Sheila had to be over there to see Martha, and get more lessons on cooking from her. "Hey guys," he grinned. "We're here."

"I see Janet didn't blow anything up installing this," Rick grinned to someone behind the camera.

"Just for that, your computer is going to suffer a mysterious and fatal crash, Rick," Sheila's voice called, barely audible, over the microphone Rick was using.

"I keep payroll synced with my desktop on this thing, so if she doesn't want to get paid, she can go right ahead," Rick countered.

"What's Kansas like, cousin?" Sheila asked, grabbing Rick's microphone and putting it close to her mouth, bending down to where she was literally cheek to cheek with Rick.

"Very flat," Kit answered. "Cessna has a huge facility here, and it's really nice. They already gave us a tour of where we'll be training. Hopefully they'll let us take some video of it so we can show you guys."

"I'll see it myself next month," Sheila winked. "Vil's gonna come see you, and when she does, I'm coming up too. Both me and Ally." She laughed. "Did I tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"You're a damned virus, cousin," she grinned. "Me and Ally both enrolled in flight school!"

Kit laughed. "You did? Well, good for you!"

"We enrolled together," she said with a big grin. "AAIA, we start next week! We're gonna do it together! We'll both have the summer free, and we're both interested, so we're gonna go for it! They said as long as we don't dick around, we'll have our private licenses before school starts, they have a special summer program."

"Well, congratulations, cousin! I'm sure you'll love it. I know I do."

"I loved it when I flew in your plane," she grinned. "And think, after I get my license, I can borrow your plane," she said with a huge, teasing smile.

"After you have about ten years of practice, maybe," Kit retorted immediately. "Just remember, cousin, this isn't something you do half-assed. You have to be dedicated, or you're wasting your time and your money, and you just might get someone killed."

"I think I've proved I can dedicate myself when I want to, cousin," she smiled.

"You have at that," he chuckled in agreement.

"Son, your first assignment is on its way to your Blackberry," Rick said, pulling the microphone back close to his mouth. "You're going to research voter fraud in Texas for a piece Barry's doing for the election special, and you're going to research the Rainbow Push Coalition, because someone from them is going to give a speech on campus."

"And Michael Phelps!" Sheila called.

"And Michael Phelps, there's a little fan club on campus that Denise is doing as her weekly piece," Rick chuckled.

"God, he's cute, even if he's not a fox!" Sheila gushed, smiling in a predatory manner.

"It's no surprise he's a good swimmer, he is an otter, after all," Rick grinned. "So, there you have it. I hope you're ready, son, because we're gonna keep you really busy while you're in Kansas."

"I'll manage," Kit smiled.

"Well, we'll let you go, I'm sure you have a lot to do to settle in," Rick told him. "If you have a kitchen, I have no doubt that Jessie's gonna want to head to a grocery store as soon as you're unpacked."

"I wouldn't bet against you on that one," Kit smiled in agreement.

"Alright then, have that research done and sent in by Tuesday morning," Rick told him.

"It will," Kit promised. "I'll call you tomorrow."

"We'll be here. Have a good one, son."

"You too, guys. Bye now."

"Bye cousin!" Sheila called, waving as Rick said his own goodbye and terminated the conference.

"Huh, guess what, pretty kitty?"

"What love?"

"Sheila and Allison enrolled in flight school for a summer program," he told her. "They're going to get their licenses too."

Jessie laughed. "I think we'll have to hide the keys to the plane!" she declared.

"We just might at that," Kit chuckled in agreement as he speed-dialed Vil.

"Hey bro!" Vil called when she answered, without even saying hello. "You there?"

"We are, and thanks for the bed, sis!" he said. "I never thought of the bed situation."

"That bed's yours to keep. Just have a mover come pack it up and ship it home when you leave," she told him. "Can't have you showing up for your training bent over like an old geezer, can I?" she asked lightly. "What's the hotel room like?"

"Kinda roomy," he answered. "It's pretty nice. We can definitely feel comfortable here."

"They said they have a pool, what's it like?"

"Pretty big, but it won't be open for two more weeks, they said," he answered.

"Did you find the cars alright?"

"Right where you put them," he answered. "One was at the airport, the other was here and the desk clerk had the key. Our stuff from Austin was even here waiting for us," he said appreciatively. "I have no idea how they got it here so fast."

"You had it shipped next day air, bro, and UPS will deliver on Sunday if you pay for it."

"I didn't realize that, I thought it would be here tomorrow," Kit chuckled. "I just told them I wanted it here as fast as possible, and they gave me a price."

"Well, there ya go," she told him. "Hate to cut it short, bro, but I'm about to pull up to the jet and get on board."

"Where are you?"

"Getting ready to head back to Washington," she answered. "I have to testify in front of the Armed Services Committee again, this time for the House. Why can't they just do this at the same time?" she complained. "But, at least I'll get to see Kendall!" she said brightly. "He's coming over to Washington tomorrow and we're going to have dinner."

"Another long-distance date?" Kit chuckled. Kendall had been coming over at least once a week to go out with Vil.

"Yeah. Next week I'm going to England," she told him. "We're going to watch polo in Scotland or something, I'm not sure."

"So interested," Kit laughed.

"What I'm interested in is Kendall," she told him. "I really like him, bro. And I mean I'm getting into daydream territory," she told him.

Kit laughed. "Why Vil, are you telling me he's challenging your virginal resolve?"

"You of all furs should know that I'm no virgin, bro," she told him, a bit tartly. That much was true; there was no Vulpan younger than fourteen that was a virgin, be it male or femme. Vil had lost her virginity at fifteen, and she'd told Kit all about it when he was older, after Suzy took his. "But I can say that I hear that ticking coming from below my ribcage much louder whenever I'm around him," she said, almost girlishly.

"So, Vil's finally heeding her Catholic teachings to be fruitful and multiply," Kit teased.

"I'm following in your footsteps," she teased in reply. "So far, I think we're on schedule for a nice May wedding," she said dreamily.

"So late? Don't give him that much time to see all your flaws, sis, trick a proposal out of him now and get your claws into him by September."

She laughed. "So, I should approach this like business, eh?"

"You bet. He's not listening to your offers, it's time for a hostile takeover. Leverage him. After all, that's what you'd do if he was a business rival."

"I think I'd like a marriage, bro, not a business relationship. Just leave me alone, I'll drag him to the altar in my own time and at my own pace."

"Alright, but I could tell you all about what kind of fun you're missing," he told her, a bit naughtily.

"Stop right there, I don't think I'm old enough to hear what's about to come next," Vil told him with a laugh.

"Alright, I'll let you figure that out on your own," he said lightly. "Call me when you get to Washington and we'll talk."

"Sure thing. Later, bro."

"Bye sis."

Rick was right in that the first thing they did after they finished calling everyone and got everything unpacked and set up to their liking was head to the store. They spent nearly $300 buying a plethora of food, and their own plates and silverware because the ones at the hotel weren't all that good. Kit had to buy another bottle of body soap, and Jessie had to buy a new bottle of vitamins, since she only had enough to last her another two weeks. They bought laundry detergent for the washer and Bounce sheets for the dryer, and Jessie bought a beach towel to use when the pool opened, since Jessie loved to swim. She hadn't packed her swim suit, but odds were they could find one for her at the mall that was supposed to be across town.

When they got back to the hotel it took them about an hour to get everything packed away, and Jessie broke in the kitchen by cooking their first meal of shrimp jambalaya as Kit retrieved his assignments, sent them from his Blackberry to his laptop, and surveyed them to see what kind of work he had ahead of him. He saw that they were actually going easy on him, since they weren't asking for anything really in-depth.

It took him about four hours to get it all done. He didn't go by what they asked for, he went by what they needed, so his research was much more detailed. While he worked, Jessie had her nose deep in her flight books, reviewing everything she'd learned so far, for she knew that starting tomorrow, what she knew was going to matter. He'd already told her that the first thing she should expect would be to be tested on what she knew, and not casually. David would grill her, really test her knowledge, because he had to know exactly what she knew so he'd know what he had to teach her. It was nearly eight when Kit was finished with magazine work, and he uploaded their video of landing in Kansas to the website for Mike, so he could do whatever it was he wanted to do with it. Kit took video of the hotel room as well, narrating as he went. "And there's my wife, studying for her first day of flight school. Wave to the readers, pretty kitty," he called. She laughed and waved, holding up her textbook so they could see the cover that read Flight Procedures and Air Traffic Control for Pilots. "She's already hard at work, because tomorrow she's going to start working for her private pilot's license."

"You've had me working on it for over a month!" she protested.

"You're going to officially start," he corrected, which made her giggle and nod. "We've got a very nice suite at Embassy Suites here in Independence, and we've already settled in. Almost looks like a home, doesn't it?" he asked, zooming in on the dirty dishes in the sink. "I'd show you the bedroom, but then we'd have to hide the slaves we keep tied up in there for our perverted desires."

"Kit!" Jessie called threateningly. "Behave!"

"Since when do I behave?" he asked flippantly as he panned back to the living room. "Tomorrow, I'll ask the Cessna furs if they mind if we take some video of the training facility, to show you guys. I hope they do, their facility is very interesting. I'd love to show everyone what they'll be reading about. Anyway, that's about it here from Independence, Kansas. Kit and Jessie Vulpan, signing off."

He sent that off to Mike as well, before Jessie could demand he make a video without the color commentary.


The first day.

Kit was almost giddy as he and Jessie drove to the airport, arriving at the facility a good half hour before 8:00, but the facility was already open, and their two personal trainers were already there and waiting. They separated with a kiss good luck, and were taken to separate areas. Kit was taken to a small classroom by Luke, and the small, thin cat then proceeded to do what Kit knew was coming… test him. Kit was quizzed on what he'd learned studying the manuals and books, and quizzed thoroughly. Luke told him to answer when he knew, but if he was guessing, to tell him he was guessing and try to answer anyway. Kit understood why; a guess was often based on what a fur knew, and that would give Luke insight into how much Kit really did know. Luke tested him for nearly three hours, and then, after it was done, he settled in and started teaching Kit the classroom aspects of jet aviation.

For the rest of the day, Kit was back in school. He learned all about flying a jet, how it was different from flying a prop plane in how it handled and what responsibilities Kit would have as a pilot of a jet aircraft. Luke was a very good teacher, teaching in a simple, earthy kind of language that seemed to just sink into Kit's brain and lock in. He learned all about jet engines that day, the science of jet propulsion, and how the higher speeds altered the handling characteristics of a jet aircraft. The main thing that was drilled into his head that day was that jet aircraft were much more responsive than prop planes, and also required more attention.

To Kit's surprise, at the end of the day, Luke gave him a written test on what he'd learned that day to see how much he had retained, and Kit had acquitted himself nicely.

"We'll have another day of classroom instruction tomorrow, and then we'll start working in the simulator," Luke told him. "You showed you know your stuff about the basics, so tomorrow we do the classroom portion of the Mustang control systems and handling characteristics."

"Sounds good. Oh, I have a favor to ask, but I think I'll need to ask Amanda."

"What is it?"

"I'm writing a series of articles for my magazine about my experience here," he said, "and my editor wants me to take video of the facility to post on our website. Can you find out who I need to talk to to arrange that?"

"Sure, I can find out for you, no problem," he answered with a nod. "I hope the articles are good," Luke laughed.

"So far the experience has been wonderful," Kit grinned. "You mind being interviewed about what it's like being a flight instructor?"

"Not at all," he answered.

"You're definitely going to get some good press from me," Kit chuckled as they left the classroom. "Now I need to find out where my wife is."

His wife was, in fact, airborne. He found out from Amanda after she came over to talk to him about taking video inside the facility, and he went out to the tarmac to see her perform a touch and go on the runway. She lifted back up into the air and performed a low speed turn to the left, and it looked like David, who was in the right seat, was going to have her go around and do it again. He smiled when he watched her go around and do another touch and go, putting the plane down with practiced, gentle ease, right on the stripes; he'd taught her to aim to put the wheels down within the area of a band of marker stripes on the runway, because it taught her how to manage the runway. If she could touch her wheels on the stripes, then she could aim at any part of the runway when she was executing a short strip landing. And when she took her commercial check ride, she had to be able to bring the plane to a smooth stop within one hundred feet of a point her examiner selected on the runway, so he was just teaching her what she'd need to know later.

"She learns fast," Luke told him. "She has a very light touch I wouldn't expect out of a student pilot."

"I've been having her practice in our plane," Kit chuckled. "You don't have to repeat that, though."

"Repeat what?" he asked with a smile. "That's how I taught my wife, too," he added with a chuckle.

"I did mean to ask one thing," he noted. "How is Dave going to try to get her IFR done in six weeks?"

"Because the planes she's learning to fly in are all IFR rated," he answered. "The hours she logs for her private are also hours she can claim for her IFR and her commercial, don't forget that. She'll really only need her cross country requirements for IFR after she gets her rating, and we can do some of that in the simulator. We do have simulators for a four hundred, which she'll use if she can't fly VFR."

"Oh. Ohhhhh," he said. "One forty-one rules!"

"We are a one forty-one facility," Luke told him.

"But she's not learning through a one forty-one approved curriculum," he realized.

"We won't say anything if you won't," he smiled.

Kit laughed and shook his head.

Jessie did two more touch and go maneuvers, then she landed and taxied back to the small hangar attached to the facility. Kit, Luke, and Amanda met them there, and she waved brightly to him as she opened the gullwing door of the trainer. She and David did the post flight, and after she was done, she ran over and gave him a huge hug. "I take it you had a good day?" he asked with a laugh.

"I get to solo tomorrow!" she said with an excited squeal.

"You taught her well, Kit," David chuckled as they came over. "She knows everything she needs to know to do her first solo flight."

"So, I take it she passed her tests this morning?"

"Remember when you said that she could recite the FAR verbatim?"

Kit nodded.

"You weren't lying," Dave smiled. "There are some things she needs to take in the classroom, but I'm going to mix that in with actual flight time. She'll spend some time in the classroom in the morning, then we go out to the plane and she logs her hours the rest of the day."

"He said I could have my private in ten days if I really work hard," Jessie said brightly.

"I think she could pass the written test right now, but she needs a little reinforcement to pass the oral, and she needs more training with the four hundred to answer the questions the examiner will ask her about it during the check ride. But if she works very hard, she'll have the logged hours she'll need for her check ride in about ten days. Then she just needs to bone up for the test."

"I'm proud of you, pretty kitty," he said, kissing her. "We saw you doing touch and gos, and you flew beautifully!"

"She's definitely either a natural or been stealing time in your plane," Dave winked.

"She's a natural, naturally," Kit said, then they all laughed. "How'd you do on the Garmin?"

"I remembered everything you taught me," she grinned.

"She handled it like a pro," David nodded in agreement. "I've already signed her off on the Garmin. I don't think you missed a beat when you taught it to her. You'd be one hell of a flight instructor, Kit."

"I'm going to get my rating," he said with a nod.

"Really? I've seen your pilot record, Kit. All you have to do is pass your FOI, take the ground training, and get your proficiencies logged and you could do your check rides for your type one, type two, and your MEI, cause I doubt any pilot with as many logged hours as you couldn't perform the required maneuvers," Amanda said. "Hell, Kit, you'll have enough hours logged to rate as a flight instructor for a couple of jet models. We can do that for you, we're authorized to give the exams here."

"You can?"

She nodded. "The FOI classroom training is a three week course, and Luke can do your ground training and endorse you for your requirements, fitting it in between your training sessions. It'll be a lot of work, but we can do it inside the time you'll be here. Interested?"

"Yes!"

"The FOI prep class is two hours a night, Monday through Friday, five to seven," she told him. "Our next class doesn't start until next Monday, though, but I think you'll need that time for your rating training."

"Just give me the books so I can get a jump on it," Kit said.

"I'll have them for you before you leave tonight," she promised. "We have a doctor you can go to for your physical for your rating."

"He doesn't need a physical, Amanda, he already has a commercial. They're the same physical."

"Oh? Well, I guess that's not a problem then," she winked. "That means you can focus on getting everything done in time. Luke, you'll need to work up a schedule to get all the ground training in along with the type training."

"I think he'll have plenty of time to study and get the ground training in, since he already knows most of what I have to teach him about the jets," Luke told Amanda. "He's going to the simulator tomorrow."

"How long until he tries his check ride?"

"Honestly? Four days," Luke said. "We'll finish classroom instruction on the Mustang tomorrow, and after that, all he needs is practice behind the controls. I'm positive he can pass a check ride then."

"Well, you're shaving a whole week off our usual time," Amanda smiled at him.

"A week of that is usually glass cockpit training," Luke noted. "He already knows the Garmin, so he has a leg up. It's when we go to CJ training that he'll have to devote some time to avionics training. The Collins is much different from the Garmin."

"But the switch locations will be similar to a Mustang," Kit noted.

"Yes, and that will help you a lot."

Jessie was very excited when they went home, Kit with a new book to study that taught the process of teaching; an amusing repetition in his mind. "I was really nervous at first, but Dave is very nice, and he made me comfortable," she said in the car. "After about ten minutes, I relaxed when we went over what I knew instead of what I didn't, then we talked about what I don't know. Classic teaching tactic, building confidence in the student," she laughed. "He had me plot a trip to Wichita on the Garmin, then he had me carry it out. We flew to Wichita and landed at the airport there, then we came back. He had me do everything, and he only talked about flying when I was about to do something wrong. After he had me practice touch and gos, he said that tomorrow I get to solo," she said. "I'll be really nervous, but I can do it. I know I can."

"I almost threw up on my first solo," Kit told her with a wry chuckle. "Of course, now, I have no idea why I was so nervous."

"He said he was really impressed at how consistently I could land," she told him. "All those times you made me practice at Lakeview paid off."

"I'm glad they did," he smiled. "How did you do with air traffic control?"

"I messed up a few times, but I'm getting better. I got a little confused one time and almost turned the wrong way, but Dave caught me before I did it."

"That's what he's there for," Kit chuckled.

Kit wrote his first article that night, after Jessie made hamburgers for dinner and curled up with the laptop to practice on a simulator program David told her to work with that night. He wrote about arriving at the program, and his first day. He stressed all the preparation work he did before he arrived, the month and more of intense study of everything they sent him, and double stressed the dedication required to be a pilot while at the same time capturing the essence of freedom and fun that came with taking off from a runway and having the whole world laid out before you. He summed it up with the line "it's easy to fly, but it's only easy if you're very serious about being responsible and safe, and that means being a well prepared, well educated, and well trained." He went on to describe his first day, which started in a classroom, not in a plane or a simulator. "Surprised? Don't be," he wrote. "Three quarters of what makes a good pilot isn't how well he can fly, but how well he is trained. Skills come with training, and training comes with taking it seriously. Nothing can compare to a professional, quality flight instructor using a tried and true technique for training a pilot, and here at Cessna, they have a program that is second to none in quality." He then went on to describe Jessie's first day, and explained that flying on the first day actually wasn't unusual. "It's actually very easy to fly. It's just as easy as driving a car, and probably even more so… if only because the only thing you can really run into is the ground, and you don't have maniacs all around you who look at driving as a full contact sport. As long as you understand the rules, flying is safe, easy, and fun. In the sky, you're in the wide open spaces, and the only furs who share it with you are just as determined to keep everything safe and courteous as you are. That's the true mark of the skies compared to the roads, the defensive mindset of those you find there. Hot rods and hot dogs in aviation circles find themselves grounded very quickly, where hot dogs on the streets continue on with impunity until they either kill themselves, or someone else." He told wrote about Jessie's upcoming solo flight, and reminisced about his own first solo, how it was pure joy mixed with abject terror, and how he very nearly threw up when he opened the throttle and started down the runway to begin his first flight without the comforting presence of a flight instructor to make sure he didn't do something stupid. "It's the ultimate test of character, that moment where you have to look yourself in the face and ask yourself am I ready to really do this? The only answer can come from yourself, and that's in that moment you pull back on that stick and lift your plane off the runway. That is the moment that you become a pilot, not when you take your check ride and get a license, oh no. That's just a confirmation of the truth you experience in that plane, by yourself, on that runway as you accelerate and watch your speed, both terrified and anxious to hit that magic number that tells you that it's time to pull back on the stick and change forever. That is the moment a fur becomes a pilot. And while it's scary when it's happening, I don't know a pilot that doesn't look back at that moment with fondness and nostalgia." He then went on to talk about Jessie's rather unusual progression. "Is it unusual for a student to solo on her second day? Oh yes, but Jessie has a distinct advantage over other students, and that's a husband who's already a pilot. She spent months preparing for this, and her advantage was being the wife of a male who has gone through it himself, who could tell her what to study, what to read, what she needed to know, could tutor her and demonstrate for her. The fact that we own our own private plane and she had the ability to see what it takes to be a pilot from the cockpit also helped quite a bit, for she learned a great deal about being a pilot before she ever decided to pursue her own license, just by watching me. Jessie walked into the front door of Cessna already knowing most of what they teach in the classroom, because I knew exactly what she had to study to be ready to take the exams… everything! All she really needs now is to practice behind the controls of a plane, something she couldn't do with me, since I'm not a licensed flight instructor, which is what she's receiving. Tomorrow, my wife will change. She will become a pilot, for she will know that exhilarating and scary feeling when she opens the throttle on her plane, all by herself, and ask herself that question that has been asked so many times before as she accelerates down the runway. Am I really ready for this? I know my wife, and I know what her answer will be. And I'll be there to watch her plane lift off from the runway and soar into the sky. I will watch her become a pilot." He smiled. "And so will you."

He sent it off without showing it to Jessie, for he didn't want her to see it until after her first solo. He joined her in silent study after finishing his work, engrossing himself in learning the avionics system in a Citation X, since he'd already gone through everything else.


The Citation Mustang flight simulator was, in a word, awesome.

It was an absolutely perfect and faithful replication of a real Mustang cockpit, and everything Kit had read and studied all came together like a jigsaw puzzle, falling into place as Luke sat with him and grilled him on all the flight controls, then tested him on the procedures for warming up the plane, the procedures for a cold start and a warm start of the engines, and then they walked through the preflight checklists. He was absorbed in what he was doing, but he and Luke were keeping an ear out for Kit's phone, and Kit had the video camera right at paw and ready. He had already taken extensive video of the facility with Amanda's blessing, and now he was waiting to video Jessie on her first solo. David was going to call him as she taxied out, and he was waiting for it. Luke knew of his plan, and wouldn't mind at all to go out with him and watch with him. "It's a very important moment in any pilot's life," Luke chuckled. "I remember my first solo. I almost wet myself."

"Me too," Kit laughed.

The two of them sat in the cockpit as Kit went through the checklists, occasionally having to think a second before finding the right control, mainly because the control locations were different in a Mustang from his 400, even if they did use the same avionics system. In the simulator, Kit performed his first simulated engine start, taxi, and then the video monitors that appeared to be windows in the simulators showed the end of a runway. Kit blew out his breath, checked his indicators to ensure he was good to take off, then pushed the thrust levers forward to takeoff position. The simulator leaned back slightly to simulate the G force of acceleration, and Kit pulled gently back on the yoke when he reached takeoff speed. In a smooth motion, he achieved the nominal ascent angle for their projected flight plan and retracted the landing gear, then started a very gentle ascending turn, a gentle pitch and roll to the right as he lined up for an imaginary flight from Independence, the simulated airport from which he took off, to Tulsa, Oklahoma. The flight plan Kit had been given was for a flight at 300 knots at 17,000 feet, but that was only because it was a very short flight from Independence to Tulsa, a flight of 17 minutes. He brought the simulator up to 17,000 feet and leveled out, then Luke quizzed him on all the indicators as they "cruised" along. Kit answered all of his questions quickly and correctly, then Luke watched as he began the descent and performed the landing checklist. He even remembered to bring up a diagram of the Tulsa airport on the Garmin's database and queue it so it was it was ready to go when he was on the ground. He made a slow turn to line up with the runway, and then landed the simulator with light grace, so much so that the simulator barely shimmied and made him wonder if the simulator thought he was on the ground. The weight on wheels switch indicated that they were indeed on the runway, so he hit the brakes and started their deceleration.

"A little slow to react to landing," Luke noted.

"I thought the simulator was broken, I didn't feel anything," Kit laughed as the simulator slowed, and he turned to taxi on the indicated ramp, using the diagram that even showed the location of the plane on the diagram to guide him to where he was supposed to park.

"That's because that was one of the smoothest first run landings I've seen," Luke said with an approving nod.

"I put way too many hours on a twin engine Beech not to be able to put a multi down softly," Kit chuckled.

"A Beech?"

"At my flight school. It was very old, it still had steam gauge indicators," he winked.

Luke laughed. "Once you fly glass, you wonder how the hell you ever managed without it."

"Amen."

They sat in the simulator and discussed the flight, which was basically Luke telling him that he did nothing seriously wrong, and only made a few very minor mistakes which they corrected right then and there. But then his phone rang. They both jumped up as Kit answered it, and he heard David's voice over a propeller engine. "She's taxiing out now," he called.

Kit and Luke hurried out to the flight line, and David joined them on a little platform often used to observe take offs and landings, and Kit aimed the camera at the 400 as David used a pawheld radio to tune in to air traffic control on a special training frequency which Jessie, the controller, and David would all use. They listened as Jessie negotiated with the controller to get clearance to take off, and Kit could hear the nervousness in her voice. But he expected her to be nervous. There was no pilot that wasn't nervous on their first solo that wasn't lying. She pulled out to the end of the runway, and he heard David call on the radio. "Go, Jessie, go!"

"C two six seven requesting clearance to take off," she called in a slightly quavering voice.

"C two six seven, cleared to take off, VFR."

"VFR," she acknowledged the controller telling her she was under visual flight rules, then, after a pause, the plane surged forward. Kit followed her with the camera as she raced from right to left in front of them, then right when Kit knew she was up to speed, the plane lifted off the runway smoothly and at a perfect angle. Her wings bobbed just a little, probably due to nerves, but she executed a slow speed ascending turn, by the book, as she flew off.

"Damn, that was almost perfect!" Luke said happily. "What's her course?"

"I'm having her fly up to Blackbow lake and back. I've always loved that flight, it's really relaxing."

"Wow, you're sending her pretty far out for her first time," Luke noted. "That's almost cross country distance."

"She can handle it," he said with utter confidence.

"How long will that take?" Kit asked.

"About thirty minutes, it's about forty miles out, and I told her to stay under a hundred and sixty knots. I want her to enjoy her first flight." He changed channels on his radio and keyed it. "Tower, location of C two six seven?"

"Ten nautical miles heading three two two, one five zero knots."

"Right on course and under her speed limit," he said with a nod.

They didn't have to do it, but all three of them waited right there on the platform, waiting for her to return. The wind started picking up, and that concerned David a little. When he called in to the tower, he frowned. "There's a pocket of clear air turbulence coming in ahead of a storm front that wasn't supposed to get here so fast," he said sourly, switching channels and calling the tower to call Jessie to warn her of approaching weather conditions and have her speed up to beat the front to the airport. She was already on her way back, so all they could do was wait and watch, and hope she could outrun the approaching bad weather.

Things got a touch more serious when Jessie appeared on the horizon, a bank of clouds appeared at an angle to her right, and the wind started getting erratic on the tarmac. She got clearance to land, and as she was making her approach, the wind suddenly shifted on the flight line as a gust of wind roared over them from an unexpected direction. "C two six seven, crosswind, wave off, wave off!" the tower called just as Jessie was about to land. A gusting crosswind hit her plane, pushing her sideways and dipping her leading wing towards the ground, but she opened her throttle and picked up her nose quickly, just as she was supposed to, using stick and rudder to counter the force the crosswind was putting on the plane. Kit almost had a heart attack after the fact, when he realized that what just happened was one of the worst things a student pilot could face on her first solo flight, a sudden clear-air crosswind gust while landing. That crosswind would have crashed a lesser experienced pilot, and of that there was absolutely no doubt. She called the tower as she flew out and away from the airport, and they directed her to the other runway, where she'd be flying into a headwind, and Kit could only feel very relieved and very proud. Jessie had just passed her biggest test, and that was reacting to a sudden and unforeseen event. She drifted out and made her turn, then approached again.

Kit narrated to the camera as he tracked her. "Jessie had to wave off because of a gusting crosswind on the runway, a rare event, almost like a microburst in a thunderstorm," he explained as Jessie approached, "and now she's landing on a different runway so she has more favorable wind because it's changing direction constantly. Landing in a crosswind is very dangerous, and pilots avoid it unless they have absolutely no other choice. What you just saw was my wife recovering from something that might have crashed another pilot."

"Did she ever," Luke agreed. "That femme can fly."

She navigated shifting wind very well for a novice, banging the wheels just a touch harder than she would have otherwise, and then hit her brakes and speed brakes. "Well done!" David called over radio, "and way to not panic, Jessie! I'm proud of ya, girl!"

"I almost wet my pants!" she admitted over the radio, probably unaware that the tower heard her as well.

"Damn fine flying, lady! You just proved you can keep your head in an emergency! Taxi back to the hangar, and be ready to get your first solo endorsement in your logbook, as well as a couple of hugs and kisses from your husband!"

"I think she just got her endorsement for her emergency situation," Luke noted.

David laughed. "Hell yes. I'll sign off on that right here and now. She did not panic. All she needs now is her glide training and she's golden on her emergency procedures. And if the examiner doesn't like it, well, we got tape of it."

They met her at the plane, and Kit gave her a huge hug and a kiss. "Well done, pretty kitty," he told her before she could even do her post flight.

"You're a pilot now, Jessie," David grinned at her. "Not many pilots can say they got their emergency response endorsement on their first solo."

"Really? Why?" she asked.

"Because waving off in that crosswind qualifies as an emergency, mainly because it sure as hell wasn't planned," Luke told her. "You did exactly what you were supposed to do, and you did some great flying correcting when that crosswind hit you."

"I just did what Kit told me to do in a crosswind," she answered. "I didn't get scared until after I was about twenty seconds out from the airport," she admitted with a shy, nervous smile. "When I tried my second landing, my paws were shaking on the controls."

"Well, you did great!" David beamed. "I want a copy of that video, Kit, we can use it as a perfect example of what to do when you're hit by a crosswind. We can use it to teach other pilots."

"You got it," Kit nodded.

"So, I did well?" Jessie asked.

"That's a silly question!" David laughed. "Here, show her the video, Kit."

Jessie was surprised when she saw the video herself, as the four of them watched from the small LCD screen on the back of the camera. She saw how the plane slid sideways and one wing dipped, but then the plane corrected quickly and nosed up, aborting the landing. "Wow, I did that?" she asked.

"Like I said, you did great, Jessie," David repeated. "Now, you feel up to going up again?"

"Uh, am I soloing?"

"No, I'm going up with you this time," he smiled. "We're going to go over some things and just let you log hours."

"Good, I think I'll feel a little better being with someone else this time," she laughed nervously. "I'm a little nervous now."

"Perfectly understandable, but you know what? I'll feel totally comfortable letting you fly, because now I know you won't panic in an emergency. I'll feel totally safe flying with you."

Jessie absolutely beamed.

And so, Jessie's first solo flight was a bit more exciting than Kit would have liked, but like David, he was now confident that she wouldn't ever crash a plane because she panicked. She had proved her mettle.

She proved she was a pilot.


When it came to getting a rating, Kit was the first one to draw blood. Four days after they began, on a blustery, windy, stormy Thursday that grounded Jessie because she couldn't fly with a cloud deck and put her in a flight simulator for the day, Kit took his first check ride. Kit was excited, anxious, nervous, and terrified all at the same time. He was looking at the day that a boyhood dream would come true, and he'd been so excited the night before that he only slept about two hours. He'd spent the rest of that time studying everything, doing the software quizzes, and reciting checklist operations over and over. He was at the Cessna facility at six, leaving Jessie to drive in on her own, and paced around for the three hours while waiting for his check ride time going over everything in his head. Then, finally, the appointed hour had arrived, and the check ride for his coveted, dreamed-of jet rating had begun.

To his surprise, it wasn't an FAA examiner that administered the check ride, it was one of the Cessna instructors, who was authorized by the FAA to perform the exam. His name was Justin, and he was a tall, slender leopard who was friendly and nice.

But being nice didn't mean that he was going to go easy on Kit. His oral exam was demanding, almost exhausting, but Kit answered every question quickly and concisely, whether he was right or wrong. Kit wasn't perfect on his oral exam, making a few mistakes, but he made no mistake worth a pink slip, which was the fail paperwork that would be given to him if he answered a critical question wrong, or made a potentially dangerous mistake during the check flight. After the oral exam, Kit and Justin got into the simulator, and Kit was given his simulated flight orders. Justin didn't remain quiet as Kit bent to the task at paw, still asking the occasional question about what he was doing, and more importantly, why he was doing it. He asked quite a few questions about the engines, and then he fell silent as Kit finished the preflights and started the engines… at least in simulation.

The simulated check ride was an hour long, with Jessie watching from the simulator control panel the same way he'd watched her solo from the platform, and Kit had been warned that there would be a simulated emergency during the check ride by Luke. The check ride for jets always included an emergency situation to which the pilot had to respond, to ensure that the pilot knew what to do. And Kit, perhaps a little indignantly, felt that they were being a tad unfair.

Kit's emergency situation ended up becoming landing the jet on one engine, on backup power, in a thunderstorm, on a short runway.

It started with the engine. He got a fire warning in engine #1, and did exactly what he was trained to do. He pulled the fire level, declared an inflight emergency, redeployed his power management and flight controls to a single engine configuration, and executed an emergency descent as he waited for control to give him instructions. As he descended, feeling the plane trying to yaw to the left because the lost engine was no longer putting thrust on that side of the plane, the plane's electrical breakers popped, and the plane went on battery power, lighting up his warning board like a Christmas tree. Kit declared that emergency, then was warned that the only airport where he could land was experiencing a thunderstorm. But he had no choice. Since he had an emergency, all traffic was cleared for him so he could land, and he had to make a very difficult approach while fighting shifting and stiff winds, and landing on a runway that was very short, forcing him to make a short strip landing on one engine, on battery power, in a thunderstorm.

But he did it. From as near as he could tell, he put the wheels down about fifty feet from the safe edge of the runway, and hit all the brakes as he executed a short strip deceleration. The simulator rumbled and shivered as it simulated a jet making an emergency brake, and then the simulator rolled to a stop about three hundred feet from the end of the runway, a runway that was just barely long enough for the plane to begin with.

Kit's paws were actually shaking on the yoke when the simulator stopped moving, and he blew out his breath, but didn't stop. The check ride was not over until he successfully completed all emergency procedures pertaining to the emergency, and that required an emergency shutdown of the other engine and to engage all the emergency fire suppression protocols to prevent another engine fire in case he was leaking jet fuel into the damaged engine or onto the runway. That required a total shutdown of the electrical system to prevent sparks and warning the tower that he had a potential fire hazard, so they would mobilize the fire trucks to come to the jet.

When the lights in the simulator controls winked out, Kit blew out his breath, and Justin said nothing, which made Kit very, very nervous. He was silent nearly a full minute, and then he looked Kit in the eye and smiled. "I'd say that's a pass," he said. "You made a couple of minor mistakes and answered a couple of questions wrong, but nothing worth a pink slip. And I think that's the most difficult emergency situation we have programmed in the simulator, which you handled very well. Congratulations, you're now rated for solo flight on a Mustang."

Kit could not suppress the whoop of delight. He jumped out of the seat and ran down the ramp, and then wrapped Jessie in a huge hug, picking her up and spinning her in a circle. "Congratulations, baby!" she said happily, giving him a big kiss on the nose, and then kissing him full on the lips. He felt absolutely ecstatic, as happy as he did the day he got his license, because he had just completed a childhood dream.

Despite everything his father did to stop him, Kitstrom Lucas Vulpan III had finally learned how to fly a jet.

They awarded him his type rating after the check ride, a beautiful little form that was a temporary rating authorization until he got an updated license from the FAA. Right there, on the field on his license that marked his endorsements, were those wonderful little letters that denoted that he, Kit Vulpan, could fly a jet. And not just fly it, but fly as the Pilot in Command, which in a single pilot rated jet meant he could fly it alone, without a second pilot in the cockpit.

Luke shook his paw, Amanda shook his paw, David shook his paw, Justin shook his paw, then Luke smiled and pointed him towards the door. "It's time to go to Wichita, Kit," he declared. "You just landed in a thunderstorm, so I think we can trust you to take off in the real thing in the rain."

They took him to a different small hangar, where three jets were sitting. Two of them were Citation Mustangs, and the third looked like a CJ model. "Alright, newly rated pilot, fly me to Wichita," Luke grinned, pointing at the nearer Mustang.

Kit smiled evilly. "I don't remember how!" he whined, which made Luke give him a startled look, then explode into helpless laughter.

It had been a nervous Kit that had done the check ride not an hour ago, but Kit's paws were now trembling for an entirely different reason. He was almost too excited to stand still, but he kept his composure enough to remember everything he'd been taught. Luke watched on silently as he did all the necessary preflight checks, did the walk around, then got in and started a cold engine start checklist. The sound of the fuel pumps clicking and the batteries humming were almost like music to his ears, and then the sound of the engine starting sang through his soul like a chorus of angels when the FADEC controls started each engine in turn.

"Has this plane ever been flown?" he asked impulsively as he noticed the absolute spotless condition of the cockpit.

"Once," he answered. "This is going to be our second live trainer, what we'll use as what you might call the second check ride. Pilots will rate on the simulator, then come out here and do an actual flight, just like you're doing now. But for now, it's your personal taxi from here to Wichita and back. You're going to help shake it down so other students can use it."

"I'll enjoy every minute of it," he grinned.

"For the seventeen minutes we'll be in the air," Luke chuckled. "You won't even get to ten thousand feet before you have to descend."

"I'm still going to love it. I've worked for this day since I was sixteen," he said.

"Well, you're nowhere near done yet," Luke reminded him. "I still have four other training programs to give you."

"Four?"

He nodded. "You'll do your CJ, Encore, and ten training in Wichita, then come back here to rate on the CJ four, which isn't in production yet. And we'll be squeezing in an hour here and two hours there doing your ground training for your CFI ratings. Since you'll also be doing the FOI classes, you'll need to be there by five every weekday starting Monday. They hold them at the Wichita facility, so it's kinda good that you'll be in Wichita for the next few weeks. At least you'll be able to go from a simulator straight to class."

"What are we going to do in Wichita today?"

"Test," he answered. "Same as we did the first day of Mustang training. I need to see how much you remember from the study material we sent you, so I know where to focus your classroom time."

"Ah, okay. What kind of schedule are we looking at?"

"I'd say a week for the CJ depending on how much you studied, two or three days for the Encore, then a week to ten days for the ten," he answered. "The CJ will be the hardest for you because it uses the Collins instead of the Garmin, but so does the Encore. So you'll skate through the Encore, and then have to study a new avionics suite for the ten. You'll also have to get used to working with another pilot for the Encore and ten training."

"Will I rate as a pilot in command?"

He shook his head. "No one can rate as the PIC immediately. You have to do twenty hours in the right chair first, because we train you as the PIC. But there's no test, just the hour requirement. Once you have your twenty hours, we'll sign you off, and you can sit in the left chair."

"Well, I doubt I'll pull that off while I'm here unless I spend an entire weekend in a simulator," he chuckled.

"'Nah, four hours a day in a simulator for five days, and you're set. You can do it in a week, and from the way things look now, you'll have a week to kill waiting for Jessie."

Kit got an electric thrill through his tail as they taxied out onto the ramp, after he'd plotted a flight to Wichita using the Garmin's navigation system. The rain had stopped, and the sun was peeking through a break in the clouds, sending a golden shaft of light down onto the prairie west of the airport. Kit taxied the Mustang out, then he got clearance to take off and pulled out onto the runway. He could only smile as he saw the runway laid out before him, and then his paw tingled as he put it on the thrust control and pushed it forward. The engines roared as they spooled up, he let go of the brakes when they reached the desired power, the Mustang surged forward, and he felt a wonderful push into his seat as the little jet galloped down the runway, quickly reaching takeoff speed. He picked her up off the ground with a light pull on the yoke, then retracted the landing gear even as he turned towards Wichita.

"Wonderful feeling, isn't it?" Luke asked with a big smile. "I remember my first jet flight. I felt like I was king of the sky."

"That's a good description," Kit laughed.

Kit was almost disappointed when he landed at Wichita, putting the tires down right on the second set of stripes. Wichita was 90 miles away from Independence, nearly 2 hours by car, but only 17 minutes by jet, which included take off and landing time. When one was going 300 knots, which was around 345 miles an hour, 90 miles was about how long it took to listen to a couple of songs on the radio. The Mustang accelerated up to 300 knots quickly, really pushing it to fly so fast at low altitude, but Luke let him have his fun and didn't mention how much fuel they were burning to go that fast at 9,000 feet. They didn't even really reach a cruise altitude because it was so short, it was more like a ballistic arc, ascending to an apex, then descending to Wichita.

After they arrived, they toured the Wichita flight facility. It was about ten times larger than what they had in Independence, with classrooms, hangars, and two flight simulators for every jet they taught… so that put 16 simulators in the complex; two each for the CJ1, CJ2, CJ3, Encore, XLS, Sovereign, and X. Before they started the tests, though, Luke took him to a hangar and gave him a tour of the three CJ models. "You only take one rating test for all three," Luke explained. "They're all similar, there's just slightly different handling characteristics because of size. But the avionics, the systems, the procedures, they're all the same for each of them."

"So this is the fabled Collins pro line twenty-one," Kit said, looking at the glass panels in the cockpit of the CJ3.

"Best in the business," Luke said. "After you rate on this, you'll think a Garmin is steam controls. Every jet you rate on from here out uses the twenty-one or some system based on the twenty-one. The ten uses a different system, the Primus two thousand, but it's laid out almost exactly the same way as the twenty-one you see here. That makes transitioning up through the Citation fleet very easy."

"So I just learn new systems instead of having to relearn everything every time."

"Exactly."

Luke was expecting Kit to know a great deal about the CJ and the Pro Line 21, and Kit did not disappoint. They tested not in a classroom, but in a simulator, as Luke grilled him about the jet and its systems, and Kit justified Luke's belief that Kit came loaded for bear when he came to this school to rate on jets. He had all but memorized all the material they sent him, he had really used the software they had sent him that let him apply that knowledge in a practical manner. They talked about the CJ systems the rest of the afternoon, until Luke looked at his watch. "Woah, it's nearly seven!" he said, then he laughed. "We'd better get back."

"So, what's the verdict?" Kit asked curiously.

"Two or three hours in a classroom, then you hit the simulator," Luke smiled. "And I promise we won't be that mean to you on the CJ check ride. We always introduce an emergency situation into the check ride when we use a simulator to see how the pilot responds, and we kinda decided to give you the nastiest scenario we had to see how well you'd do. I promise, your CJ emergency won't be quite so ruthless."

Kit laughed. "So, now I know whose house to firebomb," he grinned.

"Guilty," he said, raising his paws. "Don't shoot me, Sheriff, I got five kids to feed!"

"You're on the list!"

Luke allowed him to fly the Mustang back, and when they landed, he patted the console. "Damn, would I love to own a little jet like this. I bet it can land anywhere my four hundred can land, and it has almost the same range."

"Yeah, it can, and your four hundred actually has more range than a Mustang. If you want one, though, you'd better put down a deposit and stand in line. We have a line stretching back to two thousand ten for these little puppies. I kinda don't like them, though."

"Why is that?"

"Well, they fly very nice," he said as they taxied towards the hangar. "But they're really meant for short range recreation, a jet version of a private aircraft. After all, it is very small. My view is this; if I'm going to own a plane, I'd like something that can go some distance, has some legroom, and has a real lavatory, not a seat with a bucket and a pull curtain."

"Well, that's a step up from the portable urinal we keep in my four hundred," Kit chuckled.

"This Mustang has just slightly less range than your four hundred, but it does go faster. And it's pressurized," Luke said. "But if I could afford any Citation, I'd buy a CJ three. It has almost double the range of a Mustang, able to go intercontinental if you go along the right routes, it's very economical to fly, it can take off and land at some really short strips when it has to, it's single pilot certified, and it's roomy. And it has a lavatory," he chuckled.

"And it's what, seven million dollars?"

Luke nodded. "So I won't be buying one anytime soon," he laughed. "The Mustang is around three million. It's really aimed at, pardon the comparison, furs like you. Furs of means who want a private jet for their own recreational use, the private pilot who wants to move up to a jet, and can afford it. Though, I have to admit, we've had quite a few orders from air taxi services to use it for short range trips, since it's very easy on the wallet when it comes to operational costs. It factors out to about three dollars a mile for total fuel and maintenance."

"That's not bad at all for a jet," Kit nodded as he taxied up to the hangar.

"If you don't mind landing to refuel and don't need a lot of space, I guess a Mustang will do you. After all, you can use the bathroom when you land to refuel," he chuckled. "But if I could afford it, I'd go with a CJ three."

"By the time I can afford a jet, they'll probably have warp engines or something," Kit chuckled as they rolled to a stop, and Kit shut down the engines. "The only reason I'm here is because my sister is rich, and she loves me. I'd never be able to afford this otherwise."

"Huh. To be honest, I was sure you'd be flying out of here in your new jet, and your wife would be flying your plane home. I thought you were just rating on more than one jet because you wanted to, you know, get the whole experience. I mean, you'll be here for six weeks, that hints that you have the time and resources to do something like this."

"She is flying the four hundred home… just with me in it," he chuckled. "I make less money than you do, Luke. Hell, half the reason I want my flight instructor rating is so maybe I can earn a little money on the side, since I have my own plane. A flight instructor with his own plane can freelance. My sister bought my four hundred for me," he explained to Luke's surprised look. "Actually, my whole family did. I couldn't afford a one seventy two, let alone a four hundred. If you come down to brass tacks, Luke, I'm actually poor. The only reason I got to do this is because my rich sister loves me and is helping me achieve a boyhood dream. When I go home, the dream will be over, and I go back to my twenty thousand dollar a year job and scrape to make ends meet, just like everyone else. All I'll have is the memory of doing what I've dreamed of since I was a boy."

"Well, that's a surprise. Really a surprise," Luke said, tapping his chin in consideration.

"I know, a poor Vulpan," Kit chuckled as they started post flight. "Shouldn't the world be exploding right now?"

Luke gave him a startled look, then laughed richly.

What was almost as good as getting his first jet rating was telling Vil. He called her that night after getting home, and didn't even give her the chance to say a word. "I got it, Vil!" he announced. "I passed my test for my first jet! I'm a jet pilot now, sis!"

"Alright!" she said with a laugh. "I'm so happy for you, bro! You finally did it!"

"And I have you to thank for it, sis," he said gratefully. "I can't ever thank you enough, for everything. For my jet rating. For sending Jessie to flight school. And for letting them give me FOI classes so I can get my flight instructor rating."

"This six weeks is all part of what the family owes you, bro," she said seriously. "The family stole six years of your happiness away from you, and if not for our bastard father, you wouldn't be missing your ear and have screws in your back."

"That's odd logic."

"If he wouldn't have driven you out, you would have never been hit in the first place."

"And I would never have met Jessie," he pointed out.

"Well, I'll be very selective about what crimes I feel you deserve compensation for," she said flippantly. "I think these six weeks are just a pebble on the beach of what you're due."

"We can consider the six weeks here payment in full, Vil," he told her.

"I'll be the one to decide when you've been fully repaid, bro. I am the ruler of the family now."

"I think you're terribly biased."

"So?"


Kit and Jessie had been busy.

It was almost three jobs now. Kit was doing research and writing for the magazine, taking video anywhere and everywhere he could. On top of that, he was busting his tail working on the CJ model rating. He had finished his classroom work, and had been logging hours in the simulator, adjusting to the Pro Line 21 avionics, which required a lot more work than rating to the Mustang, since it had the Garmin suite. But Kit was able to adjust, picking up the Pro Line quickly given how much different it was.

Luke was right, it was better than the Garmin. It was intuitive, comprehensive, and very well laid out, easy to use and easier to learn. It simplified the complicated systems of a jet to nearly "hit a switch" levels, automating many things pilots used to have to spend a lot of time calculating or looking up themselves. The autopilot was exceptional, and flight planning and management was a dream.

And now, on top of that, Kit was taking Fundamentals Of Instruction classes, or FOI. They were classes to teach how to teach, and while the classes weren't mandatory, they would help him pass the flight instructor FOI test that was. It wasn't a one on one class, it was Kit and two other furs being taught by a teacher, not a flight instructor. These were not flight courses in the conventional sense, though in some places, a flight instructor did teach FOI. But Cessna was a big company, they could afford to bring in a real teacher to teach pilots how to teach, so they could be flight instructors. The classes weren't hard, at least, and Jessie, who had taken similar classes in college for her preparation to be a teacher, was able to help him quite a bit.

The classroom time wasn't all he was doing, either. He was logging ground training hours on top of his FOI classes, squeezed in after simulator or classroom sessions. He needed about 40 total hours of ground training for all the ratings he wanted, and that put a real demand on his time. Luke did it in a linear fashion, but all the training he was getting was turning every day into a 14-16 hour day… and then he had to go home and study afterwards. It was a murderous pace, almost too much, but Kit was determined to squeeze absolutely everything he could out of the six weeks that Vil had arranged for him. He hadn't really come here to get his flight instructor rating, but they offered it, and with a lot of hard work, he could get it… and he may never have another chance. So he was going for it.

It was a bit funny, really. Kit and Jessie both had been very busy all last weekend, and between the two of them, they logged nearly 45 hours in flight or in flight simulators. Kit had spent 23 in the simulators on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and Jessie had spent 14 hours flying, logging her hours for her license, then spent 8 hours in a simulator after clouds moved in and forced her to land; that was the curse of being a VFR pilot. When Monday came, he was settling in to spend a good 6 hours in the simulator, but Luke reminded him that he had to go to that class, which was also held in Wichita, and he had had to hustle there.

Jessie was moving right along. She had completed all of her logged hour requirements for her private pilot license, and was schedule to take her check ride today, 11 days after beginning, on a clear, sunny Thursday. She had taken her written exam yesterday, and had passed with a 96, only missing 4 questions on the whole 100 question test. David had decided to wait one more day to help solidify her on some parts of the oral exam dealing with the Cessna 400 itself, since questions about the plane was part of her check ride oral exam… and this actually worked against Jessie. Most pilots took their check ride in a much simpler plane, like a 172, but Jessie was taking hers in a 400, with all of its additional systems and controls. The 172 didn't have anti-icing systems, speed brakes, TCAS, and so on and so on, where a 400 did. And since they were part of the plane, she had to be able to answer questions about them as part of her oral exam.

Kit was very busy, but he couldn't miss her check ride. He also didn't want to crowd her, so he took video of her and her check ride examiner from a distance, a portly possum, as they walked around the 400. The examiner would point to something, then the two of them would talk for a while. He seemed to talk about the wings and the flaps, then they went around the tail, then they walked around to the propeller. Then they did it again, this time clearly for the walk around preflight, as Jessie tested flight control surfaces and inspected the plane.

Then they got inside. Kit held his breath as they talked in the cockpit for a while, then she started the engine. Luke and David joined him as the 400 taxied out onto the ramp, and Kit taped as she taxied out to the runway, lined up, and then accelerated to take off.

"And there she goes," David said with a chuckle. "Tom's in for a shock."

"Tom?" Kit asked.

"The examiner. I was a bit ticked when he was assigned, since he's prejudiced against femmes. He's always harder on femmes than he is on males. But he'll be in for a shock against Jessie."

"He's that bad?" Kit asked.

"He's not blatant about it," David answered. "But when he does Citation checkrides for femme pilots, he always asks them harder questions, and always gives them harder emergency situations in the simulator. Jessie will beat him up," David laughed. "She will ace this."

Kit taped it when they came back from the navigation part, and watched as she performed a slow approach, her flaps fully deployed, but too high to land. He saw the plane shudder slightly, as the examiner made her stall the plane, but she correctly got herself out of the stall without losing more than ten feet of height, powering up and retracting her flaps. Then she went around and performed a short strip landing, landing smoothly and then hitting the brakes, bringing the plane to a stop in half the runway length, right in the intersection between the runways. She then started the plane forward again, then turned on the first ramp leading to a parallel taxiway.

"That had to be her fifty foot obstacle as well," David mused. "Typical Tom, a short strip landing with an imaginary obstacle to boot. And he always makes them stop at the intersection."

"Yeah," Kit agreed. "She aced that landing, didn't she?"

"Beyond aced it," David laughed.

They went over to the plane after it came to a stop on the flight line, and the two of them talked a minute in the cockpit before the possum opened his door and started climbing out. He approached the three of them as they came towards him, and gave David a nod. "She should have flown her check ride weeks ago," he announced with satisfaction. "She scored perfect."

Kit had to resist jumping into the air, passing the camera to David and rushing forward. Jessie climbed down from the trainer and got swallowed up in his arms as he gave her a nearly crushing hug, then hooked his paws under her arms, picked her up, and swung her around like a child. "Congratulations baby!" he said giddily.

"So I passed?" she asked excitedly.

"You scored perfect, Jessie!" David told her, taking video of Kit swinging her around.

"Yes!" she squealed, then leaned down and kissed Kit on the nose. "So who's flying the plane home now, my handsome fox?" she asked.

"You are!" he told her, pulling her down into a hug. "Congratulations, pretty kitty, you're a pilot now!"

"And now we start flying the twin engine plane, right?" Jessie asked.

"Just as soon as we get your temporary license from the FAA office here, we will," David told her. "We only have four more weeks, Jessie, so we can't stop to celebrate too much. You still need your multi engine and IFR, and we'll be just squeaking you by on your requirements."

"How long will it take to get the multi?"

"About a week," David answered. "It's basically just learning how having two engines changes how you do things, and the entire test is practical. An experienced pilot could pass his multi practical after as little as two full days of training, if he really buckled down and had complete access to the plane. But since you're a new pilot, you'll need a little more time. Then comes the IFR, and that will be what takes up the majority of your time with us, because you have to log about fifty hours of flight time under certain conditions. We can use a flight simulator for some of it, some of it will be solo, and some of it has to be in in a plane. There's a lot to it. I figure that will take us about two weeks minimum, three weeks maximum to get the logged hours done, and then there's fifteen hours of devoted training I have to give you, then you have to do your checkride. You should be ready for ten hour days preparing for your IFR, Jessie, and most of that either flying or in a simulator."

"But if I get my IFR done in two weeks, that leaves us a whole week," she realized.

"Which you'll be spending in the Mustang rating program," David said with a big grin at Kit.

"I thought I needed my commercial—"

"No. All you need to rate to fly a jet is your private, multi, and IFR. Once you have those, you can rate. It's no guarantee you'll finish in time, just to warn you. But you already know the Garmin, so that shaves a good week off the usual training. You'll have a week to try to learn enough to try a check ride. If you pass, good for you. If you fail, don't worry about it, it's enough that you tried with so little flight experience. We're of a mind to give you the chance just to see how well you can do, because you have impressed us, Jessie. You won't be able to rate as pilot in command because you have no experience, but you can rate to fly a jet as the copilot. Now, getting insurance would be ridiculously expensive, but hey, you'll have the rating, won't you?"

"They'd insure me?"

"They have to," Luke smirked. "Anyone who graduates from our training program is guaranteed insurance, since we trained you, and we don't sign off on furs who can't fly. Believe it or not, this isn't a free ride for either of you, you have to prove you can do it. An insurance company would be forced to offer you a policy, because you were given your rating by Cessna, not a flight school. They'd charge you through the nose, but they'd have to offer you the insurance."

"That's why I want to sign off on my four hundred through you while I'm here, so my insurance comes way down," Kit nodded.

"Take a test, you have it," David grinned at him. "Because we seriously doubt you don't know your plane. You've been flying it, after all. And it's very clear you taught Jessie almost everything she knows."

Kit and Jessie went to eat a celebratory lunch of hamburgers at a McDonald's near the airport, and Jessie was a mixture of happy and tentative. "Do you really think I could do it?" she asked. "Really learn to fly a jet? Like really?"

"It won't be easy," he warned her, taking a bite out of a French fry. "I won't lie about that, pretty kitty. But you're one of the most intelligent femmes I've ever known. It would take a lot of work, love. And I mean a lot. You'll have to study a lot, and fly long hours in the simulator. You'll have a hell of a lot of information thrown at you all at once, because you have to get your multi and IFR done before they throw the Mustang at you. It would be like being in the mother of all pressure-cooker crash courses. You'll definitely have a few sleepless nights studying. And you don't have to do it. If you find it's too much for you while you're doing your IFR, then tell them you don't want to do it. There's nothing making you, love. Hell, you'd be like me, rated to fly a plane you'll never fly. But, it's up to you. If you want to try it, then I'll do everything I can to help you."

"Well, let's see how well I do learning to fly multi-engine planes, then decide from there."

"A wise move," he said with a smile and a nod.

It was a terrible burden on her, but Kit thought that it was possible. Flying was nothing but a combination of memorizing information and practicing the procedures once in a cockpit. Theoretically, they could take someone with absolutely no flight experience and teach him to fly a 747 just by letting him practice enough. And that was where Jessie, and him for that matter, had that advantage. In regular flight schools, like the one that Sheila and Allison were now attending, they were restricted by time. They only did an hour here, an hour there, and maybe a few hours on the weekends. But Kit and Jessie were here literally full time, spending 8 to 10 hours a day, every day, working on their skills, and learning what they had to learn to do it. Sheila could probably get her license in two weeks if she spent 12 hours a day on it, 7 days a week, and spent most of her off time studying the bookwork that came with the course. That was how Jessie bulled through to her private in just 11 days, because she walked into the place already knowing most of what she needed to know… and that knowledge came from consistent study and access to a plane whenever she wanted it. But from here out, both he and Jessie knew that it wasn't going to be very easy. Kit couldn't really prepare her for multi engines because he had no access to one, he could only explain things to her as best he could from memory. And IFR could not be easily prepared for, since the vast majority of an IFR rating was logged hours and training, not studying. Jessie couldn't really study in advance for an IFR, only study after she was trained. So, it was good to wait and see how well she did now that they were delving into area where Jessie's preparation and prior training would not help her.

Could she really walk out of Kansas rated to fly a Mustang? Oh yes. But would it be easy? Hell no. In fact, it would be the hardest thing she'd ever do in her life.

They separated after lunch. Kit went back to Wichita to continue logging hours in the CJ simulator, while Jessie began her work on multi engine planes. He went to FOI class after, and got back to the hotel around eight. Jessie hadn't yet got back, so he made sure to make her a nice dinner of broiled salmon steaks and asparagus. When she didn't come back by nine, he called her. She answered on the first ring. "Hey, handsome fox."

"Are you okay, love? It's nearly nine."

"It is? Oh my goodness!" she gasped. "Dave, it's nearly nine! I'm so sorry, handsome fox! I'll come home right now and cook."

"I've already cooked, you silly kitty," he chuckled. "I just want you to come get it before it gets cold."

"I'll be there in just a little bit."

"What made you lose track of time?"

"We just got back from a night flight," she answered. "It's both for my multi and for my IFR, Dave said. We were talking about how I did."

"Ah. Well, broiled salmon awaits you, pretty kitty."

"Oooh, you're so good to me, handsome fox!"

"It's a congratulation dinner for becoming a real pilot," he told her.

She got back to the hotel in about fifteen minutes, and ate with her usual speed. She was very happy and bubbly, a welcome and wonderful change from the almost frenetic femme that had kept her nose in a book or her laptop almost continuously for the last three days. "Feels nice to finally take a breather, doesn't it?" he smiled.

She laughed. "I'm not unhappy, though," she told him. "All that work was worth it. Have you told Vil or my folks?"

"And ruin it for you? No! I left that happy chore to you, love. It's your accomplishment, it's your privilege to spread the happy news."

She did that after dinner, calling Vil, her mother, and Sheila while Kit worked on more research for the magazine. They were definitely treating him with kid gloves, he could see. The research assignments Rick sent him were child's play, almost like it was token busy work. But he made up for it with his articles, for he had an article to write tonight about Jessie's victory, about getting her private pilot rating, getting her pilot's license. It was such an easy article to write. He captured the joy of finally holding that temporary license in your paw, knowing that all your hard work had finally culminated in the right to get into a plane and fly off into the wild blue yonder, that the world was opened up to you like an oyster holding a pearl. He then described what was next for her, how she was moving on to multi-engine planes, and then would get her instrument rating that would allow her to fly in cloud cover and at night, and make instrument approaches to airports. He then talked about his own feeling of anxiety and trepidation at tomorrow, for tomorrow he would do his next check ride, on the CJ series. He would do his check ride in a CJ3 simulator, and that would also cover the CJ1 and CJ2 if he passed, since they had the exact same systems and procedures, and the differences between them were minimal, though he would be tested on those differences during the check ride's oral exam. "Even though I'm already a jet pilot, and still giddy about it, I find myself with the same knot in my stomach," he wrote. "I know it's a bit silly, but I can't help it. A test is a test, and I'm being tested on how well I learned, and that reflects on both me and my wonderful sister, who paid a lot of money to send me and Jessie to this training center. If I don't do the best I can, I'll feel as if I failed myself, and what's worse, I failed my sister. So, I guess you can say that my own desire to earn a new jet rating is only half of my motivation. The other half is to make sure my sister isn't embarrassed by me, that she has good reason to spend her money on me, that I won't let her down. I want her to be proud of me, because I love her."

Jessie spent a very happy evening calling friends and family, and then went to bed around eleven. Kit again stayed up almost all night studying the CJ series, going over everything over and over and over, until Jessie came out into the living room at three in the morning, collected him, and forced him to go to bed by literally grabbing hold of him and holding him in bed, assaulting him with her purring. It never failed to seduce him into a sense of peace and contentment, and he fell asleep soon afterward.

Kit took his check ride at eight in the morning, almost as soon as he got out of the Mustang with Luke. Justin was again his examiner, and they got right down to business. He spent nearly a half hour answering questions, and then Justin again sat in the copilot's seat of the simulator as Kit began the practical section of the test. He got his destination, plotted his course, input all the information into the Pro Line 21, and then went through the procedures to start the jet. Once he had it up and running, he taxied it out to the simulated runway, got clearance, and took off. The simulated check ride would take about half an hour, a jaunt from Wichita to Topeka, and as Luke promised, his simulated emergency was nowhere near as nasty as his Mustang one. The one this time was an indicator showing that the nose landing gear did not fully deploy, which caused Kit to undertake the procedures dealing with such an emergency. Cycling the gear did no good, did not clear the warning light, so he declared an emergency and requested a low speed fly-by of the tower so they could visually check his gear and see if they were deployed or not, if it was a gear problem or some problem with the indicators themselves. The simulated fly-by was done and the controller, who was actually Luke over an intercom, told him that his nosegear was indeed down. But, that was no indication that it was actually locked, so he decided to undertake full safety. He requested an emergency landing and permission to circle to burn fuel to lighten the plane… and at this point, the conditions of the simulator diverged from actual reality. To speed things up, Luke informed him that they would assume that Kit had circled long enough to reduce his fuel to the amount he specified he wanted on hand to make the landing. The fuel indicator on his plane magically changed to reflect about thirty minutes of flight, and then he lined up with the runway and executed a bad-gear landing. He put the back wheels down first, and ran with the nose off the runway, slowing down as much as possible before putting weight on his nosegear, and then he let the plane's nose come down. The weight hit the nosegear, and then the simulator shuddered as indicators told him that the nosegear had buckled and collapsed under the simulated plane; it had not been locked. He jacked the brakes to stop the plane as fast as possible, kept the sliding nose of the plane aimed straight down the runway, then quickly shut down the engines and the electrical systems to prevent a possible fire the second the plane slid to a complete stop.

"When do I get to land in a check ride and actually land?" Kit asked with a rueful chuckle. "You may not even know if I know how to actually land a jet."

Justin laughed, and made a final note on his clipboard. "Anyone who can put his back wheels down and run a good six hundred feet of runway before putting the nose down can land a damn jet," he grinned. "Oh, by the way, you passed. Congratulations."

And so, Kit was happy all over again. He had earned his second jet type rating.

After lunch, and calling Jessie to tell her of his success, they started on the Encore. Again, they started with a quiz of what he knew, and he again did not disappoint Luke. They spent about three hours doing that, then Luke chuckled and had him go straight to a simulator. The Encore required two pilots, so Luke was in the simulator with him acting first as the pilot in command, and then as the copilot, teaching him the way two pilots worked, how the Encore had certain tasks performed by one pilot or the other.

After about seven hours in the simulator, Kit went to his FOI class, then flew back to Independence and went back to the hotel. Jessie was already there when he arrived, and had made him Cincinnati style chili. "How did you do today, pretty kitty?"

"I flew for about six hours," she smiled in reply. "David says I'm doing just fine. It's a lot more complicated flying a multi-engine plane," she complained.

"That's why they call them complex, pretty kitty," Kit chuckled. "Did you like it?"

"That plane isn't as nice as ours I felt really weird flying using a yoke."

"The stick in our plane is an exception, not the norm."

"Well, I like our plane better."

"So do I, truth be told. The side stick feels natural in your paw."

Kit got to spread the good news of another rating, and wrote another article about his experience that night. Jessie had taken video of her night flight in the 303, so they sent that into the magazine as well. And both of them, as if by unspoken agreement, put aside all studying that night and went to go see a movie, just relaxing a bit. Tomorrow they'd both be doing a lot of flying time, since it would be Saturday, and poor David and Luke had yet to have a day off. They'd been completely at Kit and Jessie's beck and call since they arrived in Kansas.

Kit arrived in Wichita at the Encore simulator the next morning ready to log more hours, and Luke didn't disappoint. They put about five hours in the simulator, and then they went to lunch, which was lunch with Jessie, since she flew their plane to Wichita to have lunch with him, and so he could show her around. After his long lunch, he was majorly derailed when Justin appeared again, right out of the blue. "Alright, let's do this," he said.

"What? Now? I haven't had time to study! I'm not ready!"

"Humor us. If you fail, this check ride won't count. Fair enough?"

"Well, I guess."

Kit felt very uncomfortable. He didn't answer questions about the Encore with his usual immediate certainty. He had to stop, to think, to consider, then he gave his answers. Justin quizzed him for nearly thirty minutes, asking him about Encore systems, about the differences between the Encore and the CJ, asked him about different controls in the Encore compared to the CJ, and asked him about how things were different in a two pilot cockpit, what rules he had to follow. Justin didn't pink slip him immediately during the oral quiz, so Kit figured he must have answered enough questions correctly… or Justin was just waiting to pink slip him after the flight. From the flight standpoint, though the Encore was so much like the CJ it was almost like it was the same jet. The Encore was bigger, so it was a bit heavier and more sluggish on the controls, and Kit already knew which controls were different so he had little trouble adjusting. It was also a two pilot jet, so Luke served as his copilot, but did nothing except what Kit told him to do, just occupying the space while Justin sat in a seat behind them. Kit had to act as the pilot in command, even though even if he rated, he could not be the pilot in command until he logged 20 hours in the right seat.

They had to throw a curve ball at him as well, since he got an emergency. The emergency, though, was blown breakers and a shift to backup power. Kit declared the obligatory emergency and went through the main power loss checklist, but couldn't find the problem. So he diverted to the nearest airport, which was a short runway, and landed using just about the entire thing, bringing the jet to a stop about fifty feet from the end of runway warning stripes.

As he did the emergency condition post flight, he sighed and looked at Luke. "Alright, how bad did I do?" he asked.

"So badly we'll have to pass you," Justin answered with an amused tilt to his voice.

"What? Are you kidding?"

"You made only two minor mistakes during the flight, nothing you'd get a pink slip over, and only answered one question wrong during the oral."

"What mistakes?"

"You set the thrust levers to start the engines using the procedure in a CJ, then caught yourself and did it the right way. That had to be counted as an error, but since you corrected your error, it's minor. I'll chalk that one up to you taking your CJ check ride this morning," he chuckled. "The other mistake you made was you missed a call from ATC and they had to call you again. Again, a minor error, nothing we all haven't done, but also something I have to mark as an error during a check ride. But neither are worth a pink slip. So congratulations, that's two ratings in two days," he grinned. "That gives you plenty of time to work on your ten rating. And trust me, you're gonna need it."

"The ten is probably the most difficult rating to get in the Citation program," Luke agreed. "New avionics, and the ten handles much differently than every other plane you've flown so far. So you'll get plenty of time to work on it."

"This was a filler rating anyway, Encores are two pilot jets and I doubt you'll ever fly one," Justin laughed. "They'll be all but obsolete once the CJ four is certified. There's serious talk to reduce production on the line when the CJ four is in production."

"But it's a rating, and it looks pretty on my license," Kit said, which made both of them laugh and nod in agreement.

Kit added that little blurb in his article that night, after he spread the news that he'd completed two ratings in two days, and was now about to start learning to fly the fastest civilian airplane in the sky. "It was an ambush test if there ever was one," Kit laughed to Vil that night. "I had no idea they were going to do it. But they said I passed, and I'm positive they wouldn't pass me unless I passed for real. You don't fake things in the world of aviation, or furs die."

"What now?"

"For me, I start training on the Citation ten, the fastest civilian jet in the air. Jessie's still working on her multi-engine rating, and probably won't finish that until sometime next week."

"How long will it take you to do this ten training?"

"Probably about two weeks," he answered. "We're starting on Monday, and I'm ready for some work. They told me that the ten is the hardest of the Citations to fly, because it's so fast. It has different handling characteristics."

"That's all Greek to me, bro."

He chuckled. "When are you coming to see us?"

"The last weekend you're there," she answered. "So when you have one week to go. It'll be me and Kendall, and I'm picking up John, Hannah, and Ben on the way over. Sheila said she's coming up too. We've already decided to let you give us a flight," she told him. "If you finish your rating on the ten, you'll be carrying us in that. If not, we'll take the biggest jet you can fly and have you give us a ride."

"I sorta have to, since you paid for all this," he laughed.

"Damn right, baby bro," she said teasingly. "I want my money's worth!"


Sunday, Kit and Luke worked on the required ground training he needed for his flight instructor rating, and he also logged enough hours in a CJ simulator to give him the magical 5 hours logged in make and model to be qualified to train students on that model. Kit intended to get enough logged hours to be able to teach the Mustang and CJ, since he fully intended to train his wife someday, when he could afford a jet of his own. He wanted to be ready, and he also wanted to be able to be able to do her training for her commercial license for both single and multi-engines. Kit intended to go back home with the ratings to teach VFR, IFR, single engine, and multi-engine, and most important of all, be able to train a pilot to rate in every jet in which he held a rating. With those, Kit could probably get a job in almost any flight school as an instructor if the magazine ever failed and closed down.

It was always smart to have a fallback plan, especially for a fur about to have a baby.

Jessie had finished early, so she was already in the hotel room when he returned. She was in the bedroom, putting on her new swimsuit, because the pool was now open. "How did it go, love?" she asked as she pulled on her bikini bottoms and snugged them over her hips. Her baby bump was more pronounced now, but still wasn't detracting overly from her figure. She felt comfortable enough to wear a two piece, baring her belly.

"Same as always, I ground hours in a simulator," he chuckled. "Nice suit," he said with a wink.

She laughed. "It does have a top, handsome fox," she said pointedly.

"I like it better like that."

"I'm so glad that you do," she said primly. "You just like looking at my swollen breasts."

"This is a bad thing?"

"Behave, you naughty boy," she laughed. "And give me the top."

"No, I think I'll take you out just like that," he told her, grabbing up her top and holding it firmly in his paw.

"Kit," she warned.

"Yes, dear?"

"Don't you dear me, you rascal," she told him. "Give me my top."

"Make me."

That, naturally, was the wrong thing to say. It was quite a lot of fun to have her chase him around the bedroom, but it wasn't as much fun when she caught him. After what she considered was suitable chastisement with a pillow from the bed, she wrested her top from him, held him down long enough to get off of him, then swatted him rather firmly on the backside with her paw. "Bad fox!" she chided him.

"I love being bad for you, pretty kitty," he said unashamedly, rolling over on his side and grinning at her.

"I'll train you yet, you bad boy," she giggled. "Now put on the trunks I bought for you and come swim with me!"

"I'd love to."

The air was a bit cool, and the water cooler, but it was nice to swim. The hotel's pool was large and had a diving board, and they had the pool to themselves with just a bored lifeguard looking on as they enjoyed the pool, then sat on the steps leading in from the shallow end and soaked as they talked. "I don't think I'm going to go for the Mustang rating, handsome fox," she told him. "I'm starting to get a little burned out. I think I'll be happy getting my instrument rating."

"That's fine with me, love," he told her, kissing her on the cheek. "I told you, it would have been very hard, and it would have been a lot of work for you."

"Well, I can always come back and get it some other time, maybe after our daughter's born," she smiled. "After I have time to enjoy what I already have."

"No shame in that, love, none at all," he said honestly. "You know, we need to think of a name for her."

"I've already got a list," she giggled.

"How about Andromeda?"

"Oh no, no mythology, no Shakespeare," she laughed. "How about Laura Julie Vulpan?"

"Too normal," he smiled. "Vulpans aren't normal."

"Well, this Vulpan will be," she told him.

"Alright, well, how about Laura Beth Vulpan?" he asked. "Beth was what everyone always called my mother, and Laura Beth has a nice flow to it."

"I like it," she said, then she sighed and leaned against him. He put his arm around her, and she leaned her head on his shoulder and started to purr.


Things got serious for both of them starting on Monday.

Kit began his training on the Citation X, which was very complicated. The X was a large jet, and it had swept wings, which was a wing design Kit had never flown before. That changed just about everything about how the jet handled, and Kit found himself in class all over again, learning about how to fly a swept wing aircraft. That lasted three days, then he had two days of marathon classroom instruction on the X's avionics system, which was different from the Pro Line 21 used in the CJ and the Encore. He would go from X class straight to FOI class every weekday for the first week, then he studied the avionics and specs of the plane on his own at night. After that, he would do his boring, milktoast research assignments while he wondered just what real research they weren't sending him, wrote his articles, and uploaded videos when they made them.

Jessie was busy as well. She took her multi rating practical test on Wednesday, and Kit felt awful that he hadn't had a chance to be there for it. But he was in classes now, classes with two other pilot trainees learning the X as well. David got video of it for him, though, and taped Jessie passing her multi rating practical check ride with flying colors. After she got her multi rating, she focused on logging hours, getting more and more comfortable behind the controls of a plane, and also completing the required hours she needed for her IFR, as well as the special conditions on those hours, such as her three stop cross country hours, her night time hours, and her solo hours that had to be logged in a plane, and not a simulator. She no longer used the 400 trainer, she flew the 303 trainer almost exclusively, both logging IFR required hours and also logging hours behind the controls of a multi-engine plane, which were critical hours. She'd been told that she needed to get her multi hours now, that her single engine hours would come in her own plane, since she could fly it whenever she wanted. But after she got her multi, she slowed down, considerably. She'd already told David she didn't want to try for the Mustang rating, so she was enjoying her training instead of cramming every night, enjoying her flights, getting the chance to finally enjoy the fruits of her labor. So though Jessie was busy, she was much happier than she'd been when she was working non-stop to get ready for her license. She was pacing herself to take her IFR tests in their final week.

As they entered their fourth week, and as Jessie's stomach started becoming slightly more pronounced with her baby bump, Kit entered his last week of FOI classes, and also moved from the X classroom to the X simulator. He was paired with Luke in the simulator half the time, but the other half of the time he was paired with one of the other X pilot students. When Kit was with Luke, he did all the flying, learning how to fly the finicky, very responsive Citation X. It did truly handle differently from every other jet he'd learned to fly, and it took him about ten hours of simulator time to finally adapt to the light, touchy, almost reactive controls of the X. Once Kit had gotten accustomed to the flight characteristics of the X, he was paired with the other students, where they took turns being the pilot in command and worked together, learning both how to control the cockpit and how to take orders when not in control.

On Friday, Kit arrived in Wichita very nervous, for today he was scheduled to take his check ride for the X. Again, it was Justin who met him at the simulator, and as usual, he wasted no time. Almost as soon as he shook Kit's paw, he started the questions. Kit was ready this time, though, this wasn't the ambush check ride like the Encore, and he answered quickly and confidently. After nearly an hour of questions about the many systems and the avionics, it was time to do the flight. Luke again served as the copilot, and Kit acted as pilot in command. A solid week in the simulator had gotten him used to the cockpit and the touchy controls, so he was able to taxi and take off smoothly. His flight plan was to fly to Denver at 41,000 feet at Mach .91, almost the maximum cruise speed of the plane. And yet again, they introduced an emergency situation into the check ride. As Kit began his descent to Denver, the simulated plane lost pressurization. Kit performed the proper emergency procedure, donning his oxygen mask, then making an emergency descent to under 12,000 feet as he declared an emergency. But once he was under 12,000 feet, the main urgency of the emergency faded, and he got his emergency clearance to land at Denver while he ordered Luke, the copilot, to conduct the emergency checklist to try to find out why the plane depressurized, and also to make sure no other systems were affected. Kit landed the simulator smoothly, the first time he'd got to land without some kind of landing issue that required him stop in the runway and execute an emergency shutdown, letting him taxi all the way to where ground control guided him so they could inspect the plane to find the problem.

When he shut down the engines and the simulation ended, he blew out his breath and took his paws off the yoke. "At least you let me land this time," he said, which made Luke and Justin erupt into laughter.

"Congratulations, Kit, you're now rated to fly the fastest civilian aircraft in service," Justin told him with a light smile.

"The rest of today is basically yours, Kit. If you want to work on your twenty hours to get your PIC for the ten, you can start the simulator time now. Monday is a down day, and so is the rest of next week," Luke told him. "You'll take your FOI exam, and if you pass, you'll have a week to prepare for the check rides. We'll do the required flight maneuver checks and training on Wednesday and Thursday. We'll arrange your flight instructor check rides for Friday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Type one, type two, MEI, then MEII, scheduled for eight in the morning each day. A CFI check ride can last anywhere from three to eight hours, depending on how well you answer everything, so after you finish your check ride, Luke will take you to CJ four training. After the MEII, you'll type rate the Mustang and CJ, and if we have enough time and you have the simulator hours, you can try to rate the ten. Remember, you have to be PIC rated to instruct on a two pilot jet, so if you want that rating, you have to PIC the ten by next week. The week after is your last week with us, and we'll be spending that in Independence, rating you on the CJ four when you're not doing your CFI check rides. You'll be rated on a plane only our test pilots and instructors are rated to fly so far," he smiled. "You'll be our first civilian pilot rated for it."

"Wow, I'm honored," Kit said earnestly.

"I'd say you've earned the honor," Justin said. "You're a very good pilot, Kit. We didn't spoonfeed you these ratings. You have definitely earned them. I'd put my entire family in a jet you're piloting without batting an eye."

Kit laughed. "Think I can get an instructor rating for the CJ four? That way I can teach a plane that doesn't exist. I like the irony of it."

Luke laughed. "Technically we can't do it because we can't flight rate a plane not in production to people not working for the company. But we'll give you the check ride test in the simulator and give you an unofficial endorsement."

"That sounds fine to me," Kit grinned. "What time is it?"

"Oh, about eleven," Luke answered.

"Think we can go back to Independence and let me take the check ride for my four hundred before I start my twenty hour marathon slog in the simulator? I'd really like that cert so I can get my insurance down."

"Hell, why not?" Luke laughed. "Feel like dusting off your prop check ride hat, Justin?"

"Sure. I think we have a four hundred here. We'll check ride it back to Independence, and Luke can fly the Mustang back. You can have lunch with your wife, then we'll come back up here so you can start logging sim hours."

"Sounds like a plan," Kit nodded.

Actually, they didn't have a 400 in Wichita at that moment, but that was quickly fixed. Kit called Jessie, and about forty minutes later, as Justin filled out the forms to do a check ride on a 400, she landed their private plane and taxied it up to them at the mouth of the biggest hangar of the Citation Flight Training Center. She had a huge grin on her face as she opened the gullwing door after shutting down the engine. "Did someone call a cab?" she winked.

"I did, and you're late!" Kit teased in reply. "Now get outta there and let me borrow it."

"Where's my cab fare?"

Kit climbed up onto the wing, leaned into the cockpit, and kissed Jessie noisily on the cheek. "There, paid in full."

"That wasn't even a tenth of my fare," she winked at him. "But you can pay me later."

Justin knew it was a formality, but he also did not skimp in any way. He had the 400 sheets with him, so he asked Kit questions just as detailed and in-depth as they would have been if Kit was taking his initial test. This wasn't a check ride for the FAA, it was Cessna's own type rating check ride, which would officially give him a graduation certificate from their training course, and would drastically lower the insurance that Vil had to pay on the plane. Despite the aire of technicality surrounding the exercise, both Justin and Kit took it seriously. Justin would not pass someone that could not pass the test, the real test, and Kit would not just accept a piece of paper thrust in front of him saying he passed something he could pass on his own merit and ability. Luke flew Jessie back to Independence on the Mustang as Kit and Justin got into the 400, and he took off to follow them. Justin had him go up to ten thousand feet though, and broached a subject that seemed to be on his mind. "You know they'll make you recover from a spin to pass your flight check ride," he warned. Without batting an eye, Kit dropped throttle and nosed up. Justin laughed and nodded. "I want to see a full developed spin!" he ordered. "None of that jacking the rudder the instant the nose drops chickenshit!"

"You asked for it," Kit grinned as the stall horn blared.

Kit showed Justin he could, in fact, recover from a developed spin. Kit let the spin get very deep, as they corkscrewed down, and then he nursed the rudder and stick expertly to rebalance the wings, clear the spin conditions, then regain control of the plane. In all, they lost about a thousand feet of altitude when Kit finally pulled level. He looked over to Justin, who had a big smile on his face. "Kit, you'll have no trouble passing your type one," he announced. "I just hope you can fly a twin as well as you can fly this baby."

He snorted. "It's even easier to recover a stall in a twin engine plane," he scoffed. "Which is a good thing, since you don't want to spin a multi. That's the express elevator to the deck."

"Amen," Justin nodded.

By the time they got to Independence, Justin had given over testing Kit's ability to fly and knowledge of his plane, and they landed smoothly. As soon as they were in the hangar, Justin got out and went to the office, so he could have them file the paperwork that graduated Kit from the Cessna 400 training program.

He had lunch with Jessie in the McDonalds near the airport, and she told him about her day so far. She'd done flight time in the simulator that morning, and she had the rest of the day to herself because she and David were going to take a night flight. "Tonight and tomorrow will be my last required night hours," she told him. "I do two hours with Dave tonight, then I fly two hours solo tomorrow."

"Have you been doing ILS approaches?"

She nodded. "And I've already gone through my hold pattern training. And I'm finally getting the hang of talking to air traffic control," she laughed.

He smiled. "Almost feels like we left our lives behind, doesn't it?" he asked suddenly and a little wanly. "I miss home."

"Me too, but I look at this as an extended vacation that will let me fly you around when we go back to our lives," she winked. "Besides, only two weeks left."

"And only seventeen weeks and two days for you," he said with a glorious smile.

She patted her expanding belly and giggled. "Laura is going to be in so much trouble when I get her out of here," she said. "For making me feel fat!"

"Like you'll be mad for more than a half a second," he teased. "When's your next appointment with Doctor Mac?"

"Tuesday," she answered. "I already have a ride down."

"Oh?"

She nodded. "David worked it out for me. I'm riding in a Citation ten," she beamed. "I think they were going to offer you the chance to fly down with me."

"Of course I'm going, Doctor Mac will thrash me if I don't show up with you for the appointment."

"Then you need to talk to David after we finish lunch," she said.

"I think they already know, now that I think about it. Luke said nothing about us doing anything on Tuesday. I'll ask him when I get there."

David did in fact have it all arranged. "Your sister, Miss Vulpan, arranged it," he said. "We'll fly you two down on Tuesday morning, and bring you back when you're finished. So, if you want to fly the plane, Kit, get your sim hours this weekend," he winked. "If you get your twenty, I'll let you PIC it."

"You will?"

He nodded. "I'm going to be doing the flying," he said. "I am rated in every Citation jet there is," he added with a grin. "I'm just teaching Jessie prop planes as a special favor."

"Well, we do appreciate it, Dave," Kit told him honestly.

"Well, your sister is paying to charter the jet," David admitted. "So it's not entirely because we like you."

"She did say she'd handle getting Jessie to the doctor and back while we were here," Kit nodded.

"I didn't realize she was pregnant until last week," David laughed. "She was wearing a tighter tee shirt, not her usual sweater or baggy tee, and I saw her baby bump."

"She hides it well," Kit chuckled. "She thinks she'll look fat, and I'm afraid that my pretty kitty has just a slight touch of vanity. She's very proud of her figure."

"She's gorgeous."

"She's also very shy, and thinks that if I think she's fat, I'll lose interest in her. I keep telling her she's being ridiculous, but she'll learn."

"Femmes can be fickle sometimes," David said sagely. "It's all those hormones."

"And this is why you're not married."


It was another long weekend, but it was long because Kit had a goal.

Twenty hours by Tuesday.

He worked out a schedule that would let him get his hours in and study for his two written tests that came with the flight instructor rating, that he would take on Monday. He returned to Wichita and put nine hours in the simulator that afternoon and evening, and flew back in the Mustang they were letting him use and got in at nearly eleven… but that was alright, since Jessie too was still out, probably just finishing up the solo night flight she needed for her IFR. He spent the next morning cooking Jessie quiche, which lured her yawning out of the bedroom, wearing nothing but a pair of skimpy panties. "Rowr," Kit said with a smile, which made her laugh.

"Did I wake you when I came in last night?" she asked.

"You're certainly waking me up now," he grinned.

She blew him a playful kiss and detoured into the bathroom. "What are you doing today, handsome fox?" she called as the shower started.

"Six hours of simulator time in Wichita on the ten, then I'm coming home to study for my FOI and instructor written," he answered. "What about you?"

"Four hours cross country solo time in the Crusader simulator. David says I'll take my IFR practical on Friday," she called over the sound of the shower.

"You're not flying live?"

"I've been having to pee too much to want to spend a long time in a plane," she complained loudly. "I almost wet myself trying to get to the bathroom last night!"

"Why didn't you take a urinal?"

"Have you tried to use a femme urinal behind the controls of a Crusader?" she said immediately. "I'd rather hold it!"

"Well, you win that argument," Kit laughed. She was right; a 303 cockpit was rather confined, and since it was a yoke, it put the controls in the way when one tried to use a urinal. For a femme, who would have to sit on the very edge of the seat to use it, it would be very awkward.

Kit fielded a call from Rick as he put the quiche in the oven. "Hey boss, how's it going?"

"Doing great, son. I get my cast off on Monday."

"That's almost a week earlier than they said."

"Well, Martha's been the ultimate nurse," he chuckled. "They want my leg to have a few more days, and then the cast comes off."

"Well, this is going to work, boss. Me and Jessie are coming back for an appointment with her obstetrician on Tuesday. Want to get together for lunch?"

"Why don't you come by the office?" he asked. "We can have catered lunch there and you can catch up with everyone, and meet the two summer interns. They're actually not too bad."

Kit had never met them face to face, but he'd talked to both of them on the phone at various points over the last month. Both of them were femmes, Lisa Schaeffer and Paula Yates, and from the way Rick talked about them, they were very good. They were getting no official school credit for working at the magazine over the summer, they'd signed up for the unpaid intern positions just for the experience of working in a magazine that was showing itself to be successful. "That sounds wonderful. And you can meet one of our instructors, he's the one flying down with us."

"You're not flying yourself? What have you been doing son?" he laughed.

"The plane we're going to fly requires two pilots, so it'll be me and him. I get to fly it, he'll be the copilot making sure I really do know what I'm doing."

"Ah, that makes sense. So, you are learning something up there," he chuckled.

"Yep. If you've been listening to me when I call you every day, you'd know that!"

"Yes, you can fly a bunch of fancy jets now," Rick chuckled. "And as soon as you get that flight instructor license, you'll abandon us and open your own flight school," he accused.

Kit laughed. "No. It might be something I do for fun when I'm fifty, and I might do a little teaching on the side, but it sure as heck won't be my career. I like the magazine too much. I find it much more challenging and exciting than having eighteen year olds try to kill me on a daily basis."

Rick laughed. "We want you to get your interviews in with the Cessna folks so we can put it in the next issue."

"Sure, I can do that," Kit said as he set the timer on the oven. "I'll do them on Monday and get the articles in by Tuesday evening."

"Sounds good. You know something?"

"What?"

"I know I shouldn't say this, but I miss Sheila," he chuckled. "The office just hasn't been as much fun since she left. The two new girls are too serious to be much fun."

"Has she been keeping in touch?"

"Yeah, she drops by the office about every other day and still comes to the ranch to cook with Martha. She and one of her friends are taking flying lessons, but I think you know that."

"Yeah, I knew that. She's been keeping me up to speed on her progress over at AAIA."

"Where is she at as things go?"

"About a third of the way there. She's taken her first solo flight already."

"She didn't tell me that."

"She did it yesterday," he answered. "I'm sure she'll tell you all about it when she comes over to cook tonight. She has two more months before she graduates, and she'll have her private license."

"So, how does it feel seeing Jessie flying around in the plane by herself?"

Kit laughed. "Go watch that crosswind video and understand that I am very comfortable seeing it," he chuckled.

"Jeffrey's getting nervous," he chuckled. "You realize she didn't leave any scripts past getting back, so she'll have to put something on his desk like the day you get home."

"I have no doubt she has like a month's worth of scripts in her laptop," Kit noted. "I'll have her email a couple to Jeffrey so he doesn't have a snit. How were the figures?"

"I won't know until Monday, you know that," he said. "But I'm hopeful."

"Consistent increase since I got up here, right on schedule," Kit chuckled. "You looking for that assistant for Jeffrey?"

"Yup, already put out the ads, both for that and for your assistant. I hope to have them hired by the time you get back. Oh, and the first raise goes in next week."

"That's good," Kit said. "It's about time we paid the gang back for all their hard work."

"No argument here. I'd pay everyone a hundred grand a year if I could afford it. I certainly don't do this just for the money."

"Nobody believes you do," Kit chuckled.

"Well, I'm gonna crutch on into work, son," he said.

"On a Saturday? Why?"

"I shook off the rust and did an interview yesterday, so I want to edit it a bit."

"An interview? You?" Kit teased.

"I used to do it all the time when I was a younger dingo," Rick told him playfully.

"Who'd you interview?"

"Read Friday's issue and find out," he chuckled in reply.

"Oh, it's on now, you old dingo," Kit taunted, which made Rick laugh.

Kit logged 23 hours of simulator time from Friday evening to Monday morning on the Citation X, and when not in the simulator, he was getting his required ground training for his flight instructor ratings with Luke, since he needed a certain number of training hours for each rating he intended to get. On Saturday, he was there for nearly 17 hours, and on Sunday he was there 14. And when he was back at the hotel, he spent almost every moment studying. The FOI and written tests for an instructor rating were hard, and he had to be absolutely ready; the instructor rating was the second hardest test to take, only the air transport test was tougher. He arrived in Wichita just before 8:00, and that gave him just enough time to get to the classroom where the FOI exam was being held. Kit sat the exam with the other two furs what had been in the FOI classes, a 50 question test about teaching methods, learning styles, lesson plans, and other very un-aviation type subjects. Kit finished the exam first, and stole a quick hour in the X simulator waiting for the tests to be graded. Amanda had come to Wichita, and she was the one who called over the intercom. "You got a ninety-two, Kit, that's a comfortable pass!" she called. "You need to finish up and get ready for your instructor written!"

"Yes, mommy!" he answered.

Two seconds later, the simulator went dark and settled to a rest. "Never tease the femme who has the remote control!" she shouted, which made him explode into laughter.

He did review the material over lunch, then he sat the written exam… and felt like a novice. The questions were tough, and they only got harder. Kit was spending over a minute on each question, having to carefully read it and consider it before venturing an answer… and he just flat out guessed on 11 questions out of a 100 question test. Given only a 25% chance of a correct answer, then if he got nothing else wrong, he was looking at a best-possible scenario of 92 and a fraction, going by the statistics.

It took him nearly the entire allotted time to take the test. He went back to two questions he was still pondering when he was given the five minute warning, and then handed it in with two minutes to spare. After the test, he went out to the break room and sat heavily in a chair, almost feeling like someone had just pulled out one of his eyes with a vice grip.

It was a curse and a blessing that they graded them electronically, since Amanda came out with a little piece of paper not five minutes after he sat down.

"Do you want the good news or the bad news?" she asked.

"I'll take both."

She smiled. "The bad news is you passed."

He gave her a surprised look, then laughed earnestly. "Then what's the good news?"

"You scored an eighty-nine, which is good for this test," she answered. "The median score on the written is eighty-four."

"I woulda took a seventy-one," he said honestly.

"A few of our instructors did just that," she said with a slight smile. "So, Wednesday, Luke will go through the performance requirements with you, and you'll do your first check ride on Friday."

"That's going to be hell," he groaned. "Four check rides inside a week. All those oral tests!"

"It's the best way to do it," she said. "The others have said it's best to do them all at once, since many of the same questions are asked at each check ride. They say the only odd test out is the type two."

"It's still going to be rough," he said, waving his paw.

"Alright then. You and Jessie need to be here tomorrow at seven," she told him. "The plane will be at the big hangar waiting. Luke said you'll be the PIC and he'll be the right chair."

"It's nice of him to let me do it. By all rights, I should be in the right chair."

"You earned your rating, you got your hours to upgrade to the left chair. If we didn't stand behind our ratings, then yes, we'd put you in the right chair. But you earned the left chair, Kit, and if we didn't believe it, we'd never have rated you for it. And I'm not just making a stump speech, I'll be on the plane with you. I'm going to go talk to a flight school in Austin about rating one of their instructors for a CJ, so I'll be hitching a ride with you rather than do a conference call with them. I think they'll appreciate the personal visit."

"Thanks, Amanda. I really appreciate the faith in me."

Jessie was very happy for him passing the tests, so much so that she made him a huge fully decked out Kit Special hamburger, so big he couldn't eat the whole thing. He was so drained from the effort that he went to bed early, and Jessie joined him, cuddling with him in bed as he listened to her purr, and that lulled him to sleep.

She was also the one to wake him up. She kissed him on the nose in his sleep, which stirred him, then she giggled when he slapped absently at her. "Wha?" he asked sleepily.

"Up, sleepy fox, you have to take me to the doctor," she told him.

"It's morning already?" he asked.

"It's six. I'll make you some tea, love."

"Make it strong," he said as she padded into the other room. He pulled himself up and scrubbed his face, blew out his breath, and then the excitement of flying surged blood through him. Jessie was humming to herself, making eggs and bacon and tea as he went into the other room. "We're in a good mood today," he noted as he kissed her.

"I've been feeling really good lately," she answered as she flipped the eggs. "Guess my hormones are kicking in," she giggled.

"Mmm, then this would be the perfect time," he purred in her ear, putting his paws on her thickening waist.

"Aat, don't you start," she warned playfully. "We have to be at the hangar in forty-five minutes!"

"Spoilsport."

"You can explain to everyone why we're late," she said. "Then you can tell Doctor Mac why we missed our appointment!"

"Ah, no, I'm not that brave," he said mildly which made Jessie laugh.

"Now go get dressed, you silly fox."

They managed to eat breakfast and get to the facility on time. David, Luke, and Amanda were already there, and a shiny, new-looking Citation X was standing on the flight line, a fuel truck standing beside it, with its hatch open and waiting. They greeted the Cessna furs, and then Amanda led Jessie up into the jet, who was taking video of it as they went. David and Luke helped conduct a walk-around, and then they too entered the jet.

It was clearly a special configuration. Usually there were supposed to be around eight seats in a X, but this one had only six, six large, deep, luxurious seats, spaced widely apart, and with a lavatory in the back. Each seat had its own folding table and rail-mounted LCD monitor resting against the side of the plane, which could swing out for easy viewing.

"We mocked up the interior of this ten to mimic a CJ four," Luke explained. "That's how a four will look inside, but not quite as spacious."

"They'll have those monitors?" Kit asked in surprise.

David nodded. "This is the club configuration."

David sat with the femmes as Kit and Luke took the pilot seats. Kit felt a little thrill when he sat in the pilot's chair, but he didn't let his elation cloud his judgment. He had a job to do, and he bent himself to that task with total sobriety, for his pregnant wife was on the jet with him. It took Kit and Luke about fifteen minutes to get their flight plan filed—straight from the cockpit of the X to the FAA—and the preflights done. Kit started the engines once the fuel truck was finished fueling them and well clear, and then they taxied out in the dark pre-dawn, as the sun just started to rise to the east-southeast.

"What's the weather like along the way?" Amanda called.

Kit turned on the intercom. "Should be clear all the way to Austin with a little daytime heating turbulence if we stay up too long," he answered. "Austin weather is forecast sunny and eighty-four degrees, which is kinda normal for late May I've been told. Forecast up here for today is slight chance of rain and seventy-five degrees."

Kit got clearance to take off, and then had to suppress a grin as he spooled up the huge Rolls Royce engines to takeoff thrust, released the brakes, and let the powerful machine hurtle down the runway. He lifted her into the air with a gentle touch, aware of the very sensitive controls of the X, then turned as they ascended to their planned cruise altitude of 47,000 feet. At Mach .92, maximum cruise speed, the plane would make the trip in a little over an hour. That was a trip of about 500 miles in a plane that flew at Mach .92, which was about 700 miles an hour. An hour and ten minutes, for a trip that took them nearly four in his 400… granted, because they landed in Oklahoma to refuel and eat.

It was almost like blinking his eyes. By the time they reached cruise altitude and hit top cruise speed, he and Luke were already planning their landing in Austin. They only cruised for about half an hour, and then they started descending. Kit got to see the landscape north of Austin from the front windows of a jet, watching Texas blur by under them, and then they started their approach at Bergstrom.

They landed on the same runway he used for his 400, the 9,000 foot long general aviation runway at Bergstrom at 8:46, an hour and 21 minutes after they taxied away from the hangar in Independence. Kit taxied the X to the Signature Flight Support FBO hangar terminal at the very end of the flight line. Line workers rushed out to chock the wheels after the engines powered down, and then they started post flight, shutting the jet down. "We're here!" Luke shouted. "I hope you didn't blink, or you missed it!"

"God is this thing fast!" Kit laughed.

"Now you know why I love flying this jet," Luke grinned. "If I could afford this, I'd buy it sooo fast, rate my wife, and then we'd always have two pilots and be able to fly anywhere we want to go, and get there fast."

"That's not a bad idea," Kit chuckled, glancing back at Jessie as she stood up. "Now I just need to borrow thirty million dollars."

"Pft, you can find that laying in the floor in Zimbabwe," Luke chuckled.

If not for the gang, they'd have had to take a cab to go get their own car. Martha pulled up in Kit's Pathfinder not long after they landed. They gave her a fond hug in turn an then introduced her to the Cessna furs. "Luke's been the poor fellow training me, and David here's had the joy of teaching Jessie."

"What do you do, dear?" Martha asked Amanda.

"I make sure they do it right," she winked. "I'm one of the directors of our flight training program."

"Keep them on a tight leash, dear."

"Oh, she does," Luke laughed. "She loves to choke us with it."

They went about their business then. Luke and David stayed with the X as Amanda went down to AAIA; it seemed that they were the ones looking into buying a used CJ1 for their flight school and would need to rate their instructors on the jet. Martha rode with Kit and Jessie as they took her to the office, then went on to their appointment with Doctor Mac. The doctor gave her a thorough physical, and frowned a bit as she checked Jessie's stomach. "You haven't been exercising," she said critically.

"I've been spending most of my time sitting in a cockpit and studying my tail off," Jessie said with her cheeks ruffling.

"You need to keep active, hon. Find time to exercise, even if it's just a brisk walk around school between classes."

"We well, I promise," she said contritely.

Outside of Jessie gaining a bit more weight than Doctor Mac liked, she was otherwise perfectly healthy, and so was little Laura. After the appointment, they had lunch with the gang, Sheila, and Allison, where Kit and Jessie met Lisa and Paula, and they showed them video Jessie had taken of the X. "You came in that, cousin? Now that's riding like a Vulpan!" Sheila grinned.

"I flew it," Kit said with a huge grin.

"You did? Wow, I guess you really are doing something up there, and not just lounging around the pool!" Mike teased.

"We've been too busy to sit around the pool more than once," Jessie laughed. "This week both me and Kit are studying to finish important training. I'm getting my instrument rating, and Kit is taking the tests he needs to become a flight instructor."

"An instructor? Really?" Sheila asked with a sudden smile. "So, you could maybe give us private lessons?"

"Lessons? Yes. Just signing your logbooks without making absolutely sure you know what you're doing? Hell no."

Sheila sighed. "So cruel!" she accused with a smile.

"I told you once before, brat, you earn a license. I won't sign off on anyone and give them something they didn't earn."

"But, you can definitely help us keep going after we graduate from AAIA? It's rather expensive," Allison noted. "I didn't realize just how expensive until I started looking at the training after the pilot's license."

"Now there I can help you. I'm sure you'll find me much cheaper than AAIA."

"You'll make me pay?" Sheila gasped in sincere outrage.

"Well, when a Vulpan has certain marketable skills, shouldn't he get paid for developing them?" he asked, giving his cousin a sly smile.

"Bastard!" Sheila accused, but the lightness in her Vulpan eyes betrayed her serious-sounding voice.

"What's after you do those tests?" Lilly asked.

"Kit's going to learn how to fly one more jet. I'm just going to putter around," Jessie laughed. "They offered to train me to fly a little jet called a Mustang, but I decided not to, because it's so much work, and I'd like to just rest a while. We've been so busy," she said, and Kit put his paw on her shoulder. "Besides, Doctor Mac told me I'm not getting enough exercise, so I need to focus a little more on this," she added, patting her expanding belly meaningfully.

"I'll be type rated for a Mustang, love, I can train you if you ever want it," he winked.

"Well, that'll help," she grinned back.

"Saturday, cousin, me and Ally will be up," she said. "We're going in style, too," she said lightly. "We hired a jet from that place that rents you hangar space, Avia."

"Sounds good. I'll love to show you around up there, we've had a lot of fun."

"And worked a lot," Jessie laughed.

"Well, show it off, honey!" Marty demanded. "Show us your pilot's license!"

Jessie laughed. "I don't have the real one yet, just my temporary one," she said, but she did dig it out of her purse and pass it around so they could see it. "Dave said the FAA is going to hate us," she laughed. "Every time we earn a new rating, the FAA has to make us another new license. So, right about when I get my first one, the paperwork will hit them telling them they have to make me another one!"

"Luke told the FAA to just hold off on sending my permanent license until after I finish flight school," Kit chuckled. "So there's not a series of licenses stacking up for them to send out to me."

Kit found that Rick was right about Lisa and Paula. Lisa was a short possum and Paula was a lanky cougar, and both of them were too worried about doing a good job to have much fun. They wanted to take the job way more seriously than anyone in the office took it. But despite that, they were both nice and friendly, and seemed to know what they were doing. It made him feel really out of touch, since they'd been here for a month, and Kit had only just met them face to face. He'd barely get to know them before they were gone at the end of July, and new interns took their places in mid-August. "Lisa and Paula have been doing a lot of the research that isn't important enough to send to you," Rick explained. "The ability to research is a job requirement for a journalist, so we indoctrinated them into your research system," he grinned. "They picked it up fairly quickly."

"Shh, that's my trade secret, Rick!" Kit protested. "If you bandy that about, I'll be out of a job!"

"I can't get rid of you now," he said morosely. "You're a partner!"

"Duct tape, chains, the river, do the math," Barry noted idly as he went by, which made Kit and Rick laugh.

They stayed about an hour, and then, regrettably, it was time to go. Martha again took them to the hangar, where she pulled up and held them a second before getting out. "I hope you don't mind, dear, but I've been using your truck," she admitted.

Kit laughed. "I don't mind at all, Martha," he assured her. "As long as you don't burn out my clutch, you're welcome to it."

"Well, would you mind if we use it this weekend to take some things to our son in El Paso?"

"Be my guest," Kit said immediately. "Is he off weekend forecasting now?"

"He's still doing it, but he's also doing real news pieces and fills in for the weekday meteorologists when they have days off, so he's moving right along," she answered.

"Thanks for being our chauffer, Martha," Jessie said after they got out. She gave Martha a warm hug. "I'll call you tonight and give you the full details of my checkup. It wasn't pretty," she sighed.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm not getting enough exercise, and Doctor Mac chided me for it."

"Well, it can happen dear. You know the problem is there now, so it's easy enough to fix."

Luke, David, and Amanda were all ready to go when they arrived, so Martha stood by the Pathfinder and took video of them all filing back into the jet after they were ready to leave, as furs removed the chocks from the wheels. Kit again settled into the left chair, but this time Jessie was standing behind and between the cockpit seats, taking video of their preparations. Kit and Luke explained what they were doing as they prepped for the flight back to Kansas, and she braced herself when they accelerated to take off; they were not in an airliner, the only rules they had about passengers were the rules they cared to enforce. So Jessie stayed braced against the wall behind the cockpit and taped them taking off. "And there you go, that's my handsome fox taking off from Bergstrom, and we're on our way back for our last ten or so days in Kansas."

"Where Kit becomes our first civilian CJ four pilot," Luke chuckled.

"And Jessie earns her IFR so she can fly our plane whenever she wants," Kit said with a glance back to her.

"I am flying us home," she winked at him.


The only thing that got him through Friday was knowing he'd never go through something like that again… or at least until Monday.

The check ride began at 8:00 on a clear day, and Kit had stayed up most of the night preparing for them. Justin was not his check ride examiner this time, instead he had an actual FAA examiner with him. The examiner was a short, jolly skunk named Gary Akers, who had an earnest smile and joked with Kit a bit. "So, you're running the whole gauntlet, eh?" he grinned. "I saw your name on the schedule four times, just running up through the ratings!"

"Well, they said I should do them all at once," Kit said.

"Cessna just loves to do that, they hate a CFI that can't teach everything," he winked. "But I have to admit, they do like to run their check rides in a row, and their instructors have yet to fail the check rides. They train them well around here," he finished with a nod. "Don't worry too much, though. The oral test is actually harder than the instructor check ride, since you're just going to show me you can keep control of the plane when a student stalls you or spins you out or some such. So, after you finish the oral, it's basically a victory lap. The only one that's really different from that is the type two, that one's where you have to demonstrate your knowledge and ability to teach IFR in the cockpit. You ready?"

"As I'll ever be," he said, a touch nervously.

It wasn't as bad as the written, but it was close. For his check ride, Kit chosen his own personal plane, so he had no problems answering any question about it. But the examiner's questions were detailed, assuming the role of a student and expecting Kit to be able to ask any question put to him about the plane, about flying a single engine, and all about the FAA regulations and rules, and also questions from the FOI, questions about teaching techniques and instruction, which challenged him more than any of the others. Kit had been flying long enough to be able to answer most of the aviation questions almost instantly and correctly, but he had to stop and think about the questions about teaching… and the questions kept coming, and kept coming, and kept coming. For three hours, he was tested, and every correct answer staved off the dreaded pink slip. But after those three hours, Gary told him it was time to start the flight. Kit and Gary climbed into his plane, Kit continued to answer questions as they went through preflight, and then they took off. While in the air, Gary had Kit perform every maneuver he was required to teach students, and then had him perform the maneuvers and flying skills he'd need to be able to recover from any predicament into which his student might place them. He had to recover from stalls, recover a spin, and forcibly abort a bad-attempt landing… and he had to do all of it from the right seat. That was where a CFI sat, so that was where he had to demonstrate his flying ability.

Gary kept them in the air for three hours. So, after a six hour check ride, Gary had him land for the last time and taxi back to the hangar. When Kit shut down the engine, Gary offered his paw over the center console. "You did excellently, sir, congratulations. You pass."

Kit couldn't suppress a whoop of delight and a huge grin. "Thank you very much, Mister Akers!" he said.

"Now, according to the schedule, you're trying your MEI on Monday, then going for your type two on Tuesday and MEII on Wednesday, and I'm giving you those as well. What plane are we doing it on?"

"A Crusader."

"Bah, I hate those little things," he grunted. "Oh well. Anyway, you can be assured that the other tests usually aren't quite as hard as this one. This one is what you might call the gatekeeper test. To get your type two and MEI, the tests will certainly ensure you know what you're doing, but they're not quite as severe as this one. After all, you proved you know what you're doing to get this rating."

"That's a relief," Kit said earnestly. "That was the hardest test I've ever taken."

"It's meant to be," Gary chuckled. "Monday, eight o'clock, right here, then?"

"I'll be here. How ready I'll be is another matter," Kit chuckled.

Gary wrote up a temporary rating license for him on the spot. "I think I'll hold off submitting it all until you finish your other rating check rides," he grinned.

"That would be a good idea," Luke said as he came up. "We have you set up for MEI on Monday so you have a little extra time with the Crusader, Kit."

"Works for me."

He wanted to celebrate, but he was derailed around 5:00 when Vil called him and told him she was on her way, literally as he shut down the engines of the Mustang and Luke did him the favor of doing postflight as he talked on the phone. "We should be there around eight or nine," she told him. "I started with Kendall, but when the family got wind of the trip, I got stowaways," she laughed. "I'm bringing Suzy, Muffy, and Terry, they wanted to come see you."

"Wow, well, Sheila and Allison are coming up from Austin tomorrow morning."

"Yeah, that's why Terry is coming," Vil chuckled. "He's still trying to woo her."

"That boy needs to take a hint."

"He's quite determined."

"He's in for a heartbreak," Kit sighed.

"I'm not so sure," Vil said. "Terry knows there's something about her that doesn't quite gel. He's a Vulpan, bro, he checked her out, and there are some big holes in her life story. He put two and two together when he saw how much money she has, he knows she's not squeaky clean."

"But it's how she got the dirt under her claws that will turn him off."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Only time and the truth will tell. Woop, there he is now, he just pulled up. Talk to you later, bro."

Kit brought the good news back to Independence only to hear the other good news. Jessie ran out to the Mustang from the back office as he opened the hatch, and she gave him a crushing hug. "I heard you passed, congratulations, handsome fox!" she declared. "I passed too! I got my IFR!"

"That's fantastic, baby!" he said, spinning her in a circle in his arms. "Now you can fly anywhere, anytime!"

"Yup, you can't lord it over me!" she giggled, kissing him on the muzzle.

"I can always lord it over you," he winked.

"Mean fox!" she laughed, hugging him again.

"Vil called, she's coming in tonight. She didn't tell me where she's staying, though. Suzy, Muffy, and Terry are coming with her."

She nodded. "She called me before you. She said she's gonna buy me my own plane," Jessie laughed. "I told her I already have one."

"Did you tell her you're gonna take her flying tomorrow?"

"No, but I think I will now that you've said it," she grinned. "I have to show her what I've learned!"

"I think she'll love it, at least after she gets over the whole 'I'm flying with someone who didn't even have a license a month ago' deal."

She gave him a start, then laughed helplessly.

They had a light dinner to celebrate their respective victories. Jessie was watching her food now, still taking her vitamins but cutting back on the junk food they'd both been wolfing down since they came to Kansas, trying to lose the weight that Doctor Mac said was not good for her, then they just waited for Vil right there at the facility. Luke decided to play a little and let Jessie try her paw at the Mustang simulator, just for pure fun, while Kit studied the Cessna 303 Crusader for Monday's MEI check ride. But the fun was suspended when Vil arrived at the airport on her private jet, and they went out in front of the big hangar to meet them, standing over by the two limos she'd hired to ferry them around.

Vil was wearing her usual dress attire, a skirt and blazer with a white silk blouse, and the diminutive vixen gave Kit a hug when he met her at the base of the steps. "Hey sis," he said. "How was your flight?"

"Nice and easy," she smiled. "Well, how is my jet pilot brother?"

He laughed. "Busy. I'm in the middle of my flight instructor check rides, so you'll have to excuse me if I'm a little distracted this weekend. I have to study for the one I'm taking on Monday."

"Well, I'm here to see you, not mess things up for you," she smiled. "But I will demand my time."

He laughed. "You always do," he teased.

"I'm not used to being ignored," she smiled, flicking him on the nose playfully.

"Well, you're ignoring me!" Jessie complained, which made Vil laugh and give Jessie a warm hug.

"Look at this!" Vil said, putting both her paws Jessie's expanding belly.

"I know, your brother has ruined my figure," she sighed.

Vil laughed. "It's a good ruining," she reminded her. "And only temporary."

"Where's Ben?" Kit asked as the others came out of the plane.

"He's at Ohio State doing orientation, he couldn't make it," John said as he reached them. "He's taking a summer class so he can get a head start, and also so he can establish a nice pattern for himself and get some work in with the football coaches before practice officially begins."

"Oh. Well, good for him."

It turned into a receiving line as Kit and Jessie greeted Kendall, Suzy, Muffy, Terry, John, and Hannah in turn, and then Kit introduced his family and friends to the three furs who had worked with them at Cessna. "This is Luke, he's been my primary flight instructor," Kit introduced. "And this is David, he just finished Jessie's training so she can fly our plane. And this is Amanda, she's one of the managers here at the training facility."

"A Bombardier? Shame on bringing that thing to a Cessna airport," David laughed, to which Amanda gave him a hot glare. But her hot glare softened when Vil laughed lightly.

"I didn't order it, but I can't complain, it's been a good plane," Vil smiled in reply. "I'm afraid Cessna doesn't make anything big enough to suit me, David," she told him.

"Well, when we introduce the Columbus, maybe we can woo you," Amanda said with a smile. "It will be the largest business jet we've ever built."

"You'll have to suitably impress me, since my company ordered my jet here before I was even the CEO. In inherited it from the last CEO. So I'd have to really justify buying another plane so soon after we bought that one," she winked.

"Well, I can certainly try, Miss Vulpan," Amanda said with a light smile. "A client like Vulpan Shipyards would be a coup for any aircraft company."

"We're not easy to capture, Amanda. We demand the same excellence out of our vendors as our customers demand from us. But, we're in the market for a small short-distance jet to ferry our execs from the Boston headquarters to our New Hampshire and Norfolk facilities, so we just may talk about that, Amanda."

"Where are you staying?" Kit asked.

"There wasn't much here, so I'm staying at the Apple Tree," she answered. "There aren't any luxury hotels in this little town, so I went with the best I could find, and I rather liked the pictures of the place. It looked quite nice. It even has an indoor pool."

"So, are you going to take us flying, Jessie?" Muffy asked as she hugged her.

"I sure am!" she said with a big smile. "It'll be an all girl flight, I'll take you up in our plane!"

"Good, that leaves the real plane for us males," Terry said mildly, which earned him a swat from Muffy.

"Actually, I've chartered one of their tens for tomorrow," Vil announced. "So Kit can fly all of us somewhere and prove I didn't waste my money," she winked. "Sheila and one of her friends will be arriving tomorrow morning."

"That sounds fun," Terry said. "I just hope it'll fit all of us."

"I'm sure it will," Kit said, kissing Suzy on the cheek in greeting. "They're actually pretty big jets."

"We have a ten available with seating for ten. We have seating configurations for up to twelve," Amanda told them.

"Well then, it sounds like that's all settled," Vil said. "Now, unless you want to come with us and help us settle in, bro, how about we just meet up tomorrow morning?"

"Actually, that's fine with me, sis," Kit answered. "It's been a long day for us too."

Kit and Jessie did chat briefly with them as some furs from Cessna helped the two drivers load their baggage into the limos. Jessie told Suzy and Muffy all about her flight lessons and how she'd been doing with her pregnancy, as Vil, Kit, and Terry discussed recent economic trends and political developments. "Ugh, I'm still heartbroken over Romney," she sighed. "I don't know who I'll support now. Huckabee's too evangelical, and McCain is just too much a firebrand for me. I like nice predictable politicians I can buy and put in my pocket," she said with absolute sincerity.

"My guy's still in it, though he'll never win," Kit chuckled.

"Paul?" Terry asked, and Kit nodded. "I know I'm violating the Vulpan tradition, but I actually kinda liked Bill Richardson. Too bad he's out too."

"A democrat? Good God, Terry, did I make a mistake promoting you?"

"Muffy's voting for Clinton."

Well, she's in the Party Pack," Vil said dismissively… and in a way, Kit saw from Vil just how frustrated some of the younger cousins felt in the family. They truly did get no respect at all.

"I liked Richardson's experience, and he was very moderate for a Democrat. I would have voted for him. Too bad the Clinton machine bulldozed him out of the way."

"I can root for Clinton as a fellow femme, but I don't think I'd like a third term of Bill Clinton," Vil snorted. "God, I yearn for the days when us, the Kennedys, the Rockefellers, and the Fords ran things."

"Things move forward, Vil," Terry chuckled. "And we just couldn't get away with it in the modern age."

"We get away with it now," she scoffed. "You think I don't have the entire northeast wrapped around my little finger, Terry? I didn't let the strings Dad used to pull get away from me when I took the chair."

"Ted doesn't interfere now that Uncle Luke's passed?"

She shook her head. "He's too interested in playing in the Senate to bother. They haven't caused us any problems since the eighties, after they ceded Boston to us and moved to Cape Cod. God, the fights Ted had with Dad, sometimes I'm amazed they didn't kill each other."

Kit noticed that David, Luke, and Amanda, who were standing nearby, were listening with stunned expressions as Vilenne Vulpan talked quite casually about controlling politicians and states. Kit forgot just what family he belonged to from time to time.

The three of them kept looking a little fearful as the limos pulled away, and Kit and Jessie looked at them for a moment. Then Kit laughed. "Now that you've met my sister, we can go back to normal," he teased.

"She's not what I expected at all," Luke admitted.

The next morning started early and kept going. Kit and Jessie woke up early and drove to Vil's hotel so they could all have breakfast together, and Sheila and Allison arrived at the hotel about half an hour after they got there. Muffy folded immediately in with Jessie, Sheila and Allison, getting to know her, as Kit, Vil, Kendall, and Suzy sat at the table, and John and Hannah were over at their room, changing clothes. Terry hovered between the two, already looking to find some way to talk to Allison. "Were we ever that young?" Vil asked, a tad wistfully, as they listened to Muffy and Sheila giggle over something Allison said.

"I don't think you were, Vil," Suzy laughed. "Even when you were eleven. The first time we met, you stood up straight and tried to shake my paw. 'Good morning, I am Vilenne Vulpan, it is nice to meet you,' you said, so stiff and formal and proper. Such a backslide from then," she winked.

"That was when Dad was sending me to that God-awful diction school," Vil snorted. "Right before I started at Weston."

"I won't even talk about what my old male made me do at that age," Kendall chuckled.

"You know, Vil's right," Suzy said, reaching over and tipping Kendall's chin up. "That little black spot is cute."

Kendall laughed. "It's my beauty mark," he grinned. "My old male has it too. Vulpans have their eyes, but the Brighton males have the spot. It attracts the femmes, you know."

"I think if you two marry, Vil will make you shave it out or dye it," Suzy winked. "There will be no femme fishing once she has you."

"She'll have to work for it," he said with a grin. "I'm easy to catch, but hard to hold."

"Isn't he cute, thinking that he has a choice," Suzy mentioned to Vil.

"If I decide to keep him, he'll learn," Vil said calmly.

"If?" he asked challengingly.

"You're easy to catch but hard to hold. I am easy to hold, but almost impossible to catch," she said with a light smile.

"I've always loved a challenge," Kendall smiled.

"You'll find me to be the challenge of your life, Ken," she said, reaching over and patting him on the muzzle like he was a child.

Their flight in the Citation X was actually very fun. Everyone piled into the jet at 11:00, and with Luke as the copilot, the Vulpans, Kendall, and Allison took off from Independence. Luke gave him a little leeway to have some fun, and allowed him to push the performance of the jet by doing a maximum angle power climb, sinking everyone back into their seats as they climbed as fast as the safety range allowed. He leveled out at the maximum ceiling of the plane, 51,000 feet, flying almost on the roof of the world with the land laid out under them like a green carpet. "So, we're going a little over seven hundred miles an hour. Where do you want to go, guys?" Kit asked over the intercom.

"Faster!" Sheila shouted.

"This is as fast as she goes, Sheila," Kit answered. "Want to go overfly the great lakes?"

"Ooo, that sounds cool!" Suzy beamed.

"I'll call it in so ATC knows what the hell we're doing. We'll let them fight with the FAA over our flight plan change," Luke chuckled.

At 703 miles an hour, it didn't take them long at all to reach Lake Michigan, just a bit under an hour. Kit and Luke gave them a flight up and over Lake Michigan, with Lake Superior and Lake Huron in the distance as they neared the upper peninsula, then they turned around and headed back to Independence. During the flight, they came up one by one to look at the cockpit, Jessie took a lot of video, and Kit saw Terry and Allison sitting side by side in the back row, talking quietly. Terry was leaning on the arm of his seat towards her, but her body language showed Kit that she was nervous and uncertain.

They landed smoothly about twenty minutes ahead of a coming storm front, and Kit was directed to a hangar to park the plane to get it out of the coming weather. He parked and started shutdown and postflight. "Well, did you like it?" he called.

"That was awesome!" Muffy said excitedly. "I've never been in a plane that seemed to go so fast before!"

"You haven't, silly girl," Jessie laughed. "This is the fastest there is!"

Terry's reaction was much more telling. "I have got to buy one of these," he said to Vil.

"Amanda said she'd impress me. I'm impressed," Vil laughed. "It's too small for me, though. But I think I'll see if there's one around I can charter from time to time just for the fun of it."

After the flight, they took shelter from the thunderstorm in the facility, where Kit and Jessie showed them around. Vil got to try her paw at flying the Mustang simulator, Sheila intentionally crashed into the tower when she tried, but she actually flew the 400 simulator properly and well. Allison also flew a turn in the 400 simulator, and flew it very well. Cessna brought their bigwigs in from Wichita to meet Vil, and Vil rubbed elbows with them as they talked her into going to a mock-up of a Citation Columbus, but then she talked about what kind of jet would be best to ferry one to four executives from their Boston headquarters to the shipyard facilities they had in both New Hampshire and Norfolk. That made the Cessna execs very excited, and they talked about the Mustang CJ, and Encore models, taking her aside with Terry as they went to go tour a couple of jets they had in the hangar.

Kit would have been suspicious of that, had Vil not mentioned her interest in buying a couple of small short-range jets when she got her new Bombardier, when she was talking about how the other board members would fight over the jet she was passing down. When he heard Vil say "Four million, you say? What kind of operating costs does it have?" Kit had a feeling that Vil might be closing a deal or two before going home. Vil was actually a big fan of brand loyalty. That was why she tended to buy Fords when she bought cars as gifts, because she had always liked the brand, and had had good relations with the Ford family… so she bought their cars. The Cessna furs had treated Kit and Jessie very well, far better than any other student they had taught, and she would reward their devotion to her brother by giving Cessna serious consideration when she started looking for those small jets she was interested in buying. Selling jets to Vulpan Shipyards would be Cessna's contract to lose, not to win.

Kit figured that she'd buy maybe three CJ1s for the shipyard. A CJ1 could carry five or six furs, it easily had the range to reach Norfolk, and it was economical to maintain. And they were nice to fly, though he only flew one in a simulator. He'd had to put six hours on one in the simulator in order for his blanket CJ rating to cover it.

They all went out to dinner after the storm abated, and it was a very nice, relaxing evening given how much he'd been working, and how much more work he had to do. He talked with Hannah and John about their cruise in greater detail, and listened to them go on for half the night about how fantastic it was to be treated like royalty on a cruise ship plying the Caribbean waters. "We came home broke, but we were so happy we didn't care," Hannah admitted with a laugh.

"If you don't regret spending money, then it is always money well spent," Kit nodded. "I still want to know where you took that picture of John paragliding, and how you got him up there."

"He lost a bet," Hannah smiled. "I bet him he couldn't go a full day without skeet shooting. He lost."

Jessie laughed. "Dad, you should have known better!"

"What can I say? I'm weak," he laughed. "It was free! Free skeet shooting, all day! I think I used up all their pigeons."

"Did you enjoy the paraglide?"

"After I got over the initial terror, yes, I did enjoy it," he nodded.

But, unfortunately, it was just a quick visit. Almost as soon as they finished dinner, Kit and Jessie went with them back to the hotel to pack, and then they returned to the airport. Kit and Jessie kissed their way down the line, at least until he got to Allison. "When I get home, we have to talk," he told her.

"I think we do," she said, glancing at Terry. "Talk a long time."

"It'll be a good kind of talk," he told her in a low tone, kissing her on the cheek.

Hannah, of course, did not miss that. "What are you up to, Kit?" she asked in a near whisper.

"My cousin has been chasing Allison. We have to talk about it."

Hannah gave the beautiful vixen a calm, slightly frosty look. "I see," she said.

"Paws off, Hannah, let them work it out," he warned. "That means no long talks with Terry."

"Kit, I—"

"I mean it, Hannah," he said in a tone that was not the usual conciliatory tone he used with her. "If you say a word, you will be breaking my promise, and a Vulpan is his word. Do you understand?"

She drew herself up coolly. "I wouldn't do that."

"I know exactly just what you would do when you think you have the high ground," Kit cut her off. "Or do I have to say the three magic words?"

"What?"

"Austin Police Department," he said calmly.

The wave of rueful chagrin swept over her face, then she sighed and nodded. "Alright, I promise."

"That's all I needed to hear," he said, kissing her fondly on the cheek. "Have a good flight, Hannah. I love you."

"I love you too, dear," she said reflexively, patting him on the side of his neck before starting up the steps.

"Well, bro, I'll see you in Austin on next Monday," Vil said with an impish smile. "We have a surprise to drop on Rick."

"We'll be there, sis," Kit grinned.

"I don't want to miss the look on his face," Jessie giggled.

Kit and Jessie watched the jet taxi away, friends and family waving from the windows, and they waved back. "What's going on with Allison?" Jessie asked.

"Terry's not giving up. She wants to talk to me about it."

"Why?"

"Because I think she doesn't want him to stop, but she's afraid of how he'll react when he finds out the truth."

"Well, if he can't see the femme inside, he has no business being with her," Jessie said immediately. "Because if he can't, then all he's interested in is what he sees, not the femme he gets to know. Allison is a wonderful, smart femme, and if all Terry can see is her face, he has no right to find out what's underneath it."

"Well said, pretty kitty. Now if you would only practice what you preach," he teased.

"I do so!"

"Then the next time that you say I'll think you're ugly when you're fat, I'm going to wash your mouth out with soap."

She gave him a surprised look, then laughed helplessly.


It was their last week there. For Jessie, it was a chance to relax, swim, get some exercise, take cookies and other goodies down to the training facility for the workers—which earned her their undying loyalty—and have a little fun.

For Kit, it was like the Marine boot camp's Hell Week.

He had three check rides in three days, and they were brutal. Gary gave all three of them, which made it feel nice and consistent, but he didn't go easy on Kit in the slightest. The Monday exam was the MEI, or the multi-engine exam, and Kit had went into it with only one day of study on the 303 Crusader he was going to fly. He had to work a little to answer the plane questions, but the other questions were indeed many of the same he had from the single engine exam, which Gary was still required to ask despite having asked them just three days prior. He stayed up almost all night preparing for the test, and he was too keyed up on caffeine to be sleepy when they started. He again spent nearly three hours being quizzed, and then they got into the plane. They flew for only ninety minutes, though, where Gary really only checked him on the maneuvers and techniques unique to a multi-engine plane.

Kit passed, but had only enough time for a short nap before beginning his CJ4 training. The classroom part took place that afternoon, as Luke trained him in the differences between the CJ4 and the prior CJ models. Kit went home early, and spent the afternoon and most of the evening preparing for his CFII, or what was also called the type two rating, which was the ability to teach IFR.

Gary had been right about that test. It was very different from the other ratings because it focused on the instruments. The oral was about teaching and the plane like before, but it also discussed methods of teaching instruments, IFR rules, IFR procedures, and approaches. After the oral exam, Kit demonstrated his knowledge of IFR to Gary in his 400, demonstrating the very things Gary had questioned him over in the oral test. The flight took about two hours, as he went through every aspect of IFR to prove to Gary he not only knew the procedures, he could execute and teach them.

Kit passed that as well.

The last rating given by Gary was a relatively new rating, the MEII, or multi engine instrument. It was, by far, the easiest of all the CFI tests, since it was based on everything else. The oral exam only took an hour, and the check ride flight only took about 45 minutes, where Gary focused on the minor differences in IFR for multi rated planes, and those were primarily in jets. Kit performed the check ride in the same Mustang they'd been letting him fly back and forth to Wichita, demonstrating he knew the IFR procedures more common in multi rated planes… which there weren't very many. So, the check ride didn't take long.

When they landed the Mustang, Gary looked at him and smiled. "Why don't you go for your ATP?" he asked.

Kit laughed. "Someday I will, since I turned twenty-three in March and I have the logged hour requirements done, but not anytime soon," he answered with a chuckle. "I've spent six weeks burning out on flying. After this is over, I'm going back to my job and be happy with what I have. But someday, I'll do it. It'd only take me about a week or so to do the ground training, then take the test and check ride."

"I'm sure you'll pass. You're a very good pilot, Mister Vulpan."

"Thanks, I appreciate that."

Thursday, Kit took his simulated check ride on the CJ4, administered by Luke, and passed that as well, but it didn't mean anything. He also earned his type ratings to qualify to instruct on the Mustang, CJ series, the Encore, and the X. But they didn't let him get completely away. After everyone heard that Kit had passed all his CFI exams and was now a certified flight instructor for everything but the ATP, they threw him a little party. Amanda was there, and got video of them putting Kit on a chair and parading him around the facility like some kind of Egyptian pharaoh. There was also a little ceremony. Out on the flight line, Kit and Jessie both were awarded little Cessna wings, keepsakes of their training there. Jessie's wings were silver, marking her as a private pilot, but Kit got silver wings with a wreath and star, marking him as a flight instructor. When he finally got his ATP and rated his CFI license to teach ATP, he'd get gold wings with a wreath and star.

Friday was their last official day at Cessna. Kit and Jessie spent the morning packing up all their things, then having a professional UPS shipper come and take the bed apart, pack it up, and ship it home. They picked up all their other boxes too, leaving them with nothing but a single suitcase and carryon holding their laptops. After they were packed up, they returned the rental cars, then spent the rest of the morning writing his final article while at Cessna, taking video, and saying quite a few goodbyes. Amanda took them on a tour of the Mustang assembly plant on their final day, treated them to lunch, and then, it was time to go back to reality.

At 1:00, on a brilliantly sunny and warm early June day, Kit and Jessie went back to their plane. Luke, Amanda, and David went with them, and quite a few pawshakes and hugs were exchanged. Kit and Jessie gave them their personal cell numbers. "Now don't be strangers. Call us, we'd love to keep up with you guys!" Jessie said happily.

"We certainly will, Jessie," David said, giving her a brief hug of farewell.

"When you want that ATP, Kit, call us," Amanda told him. "We can do a two week course for it if you do enough study beforehand. I checked your record, and you qualify for the ATP now, you just need the ground training and need to study for the test and check ride."

"I couldn't afford it," Kit laughed.

"Pay? Did you ever hear me mention having you pay for it? You're almost like family here now. If I tried to make you pay, I think the training staff would lynch me," Amanda smiled. "Hell, Kit, if you ever need a job teaching pilots, you call me. I'd hire you so fast you'd be on the payroll before the ink dried."

"I'll keep that in mind if Rick ever fires me," Kit laughed. "But the boyhood dream has been fulfilled. It's time for me to climb back into my little rubber band propeller plane and fly home very, very slowly."

"Excuse me, I'm flying. I didn't spend five weeks up here working the fur off my tail to sit in the right seat!" Jessie corrected, which made them all laugh.

"But really, thank you all of you," Kit said honestly, patting Luke on the arm. "You guys gave me six weeks of hell, but you also made me very happy. It's not every male who can say he got to fulfill his boyhood dream."

"It was an honor and a pleasure, Kit," Luke said, abandoning formality and clapping Kit on the back.

"You two were wonderful students, and we're going to miss you," David agreed with a nod. "If only all the rich brats were as smart and dedicated as you."

Kit laughed. "That's a contradiction in terms, Dave, dedicated rich kid."

"Nah, you proved it wrong."

"I'm not rich. My sister is," Kit winked.

"We get to enjoy the occasional dip into luxury when Vil comes to see us, but then we go back home to our little apartment and return to the real world," Jessie giggled. "Vil's great for making us feel special from time to time, like her letting us take this training, but the rest of the time we're just your average young couple trying to make ends meet."

"You two will never be average," Amanda told her with serious eyes.

"Aww, thanks, Amanda, you're so sweet," Jessie smiled.

They helped them pack their suitcase in the plane, and then Amanda handed them the large, thick leather satchel she'd been carrying. "It has certificates declaring all your ratings inside," she explained. "We put them in thin frames so you can hang them on your wall, so you can look at the wall and remember your six weeks with us."

"Wow, thanks Amanda!" Jessie said with a bright smile.

"We gassed up your plane, and since you were here, we had our mechanics go over it for you," Luke added. "They noted their inspection in your plane's logbook."

"Nice, thanks a bunch, it was about time for me to find someone to do that."

"There's a certified Cessna maintenance facility at the airport in Georgetown that's qualified to work on your plane," Amanda told him. "I'll email you the details."

"Thanks, Amanda."

"Hey, you may be back in your rubber band plane, but it's one of ours, and we're damn proud to build it," she smiled.

"This plane is why I got my pilot's license!" Jessie said once again, with a giggle.

They waved as Jessie taxied them away from the facility. Kit felt a little nostalgic about leaving, but was also looking forward to getting back to reality. He'd spent six weeks learning things he'd probably never use again, but at least he was going home a jet pilot, he was going home after doing something he'd always wanted to do. But, more importantly, he was going home with all his CFIs, and that was something tangible, something he could really use. He could teach Sheila and Allison if they wanted, or do freelance instructing on the side, or whatever he wanted to do.

He would take them up on the ATP offer. Maybe in the fall, but definitely after Laura was born. For now, Austin was where they needed to be, and Austin was where they were going to stay.

Jessie took off smoothly and turned the plane south, and they headed back home to return to reality after six weeks of living a dream.

Chapter 28