Chapter 53: Skydiving

Chapter 53: Parachute Jump in Mid-Air

"Squeak, squeak..."

The propeller emitted a few final, struggling groans before grinding to a halt.

Like the Stearman PT-17 biplane trainer, the Tachikawa Ki-95c trainer featured a two-bladed propeller, and the sound it made when stalling was harsh and piercing.

"Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep..."

The oil pressure warning light illuminated and blared an alarm. The oil pressure indicator needle plummeted rapidly, dropping to zero in the blink of an eye.

The engine tachometer likewise dropped to zero instantly.

The supercharger pressure gauge dropped to zero.

The needle on the oil temperature gauge shot straight upward.

The throttle failed.

The supercharger control knob failed.

Immediately afterward, the nose of the Ki-95c dipped heavily, and it pitched down diagonally toward the ground.

The situation happened too suddenly; Zhou Zhihan was caught completely off guard.

Indeed, in one's life, no one can ever predict what will happen in the very next second.

Just a moment ago, the Tachikawa Ki-95c trainer had been flying stably with smooth power output, but in an instant, it lost all power. The forward momentum of the entire aircraft paused slightly, and then, like a large bird with broken wings, with its nose plunging and its tail pointing high, it slanted downward into a rapid descent.

Zhou Zhihan remained calm despite the shock. His immediate assessment was that the black smoke billowing from the engine nose was a ninety-percent sign of engine failure, meaning the aircraft had lost its upward thrust.

This was his first time encountering such an emergency.

What should he do?

Zhou Zhihan’s back was instantly drenched in cold sweat.

Any pilot, from the very day they begin flying and from the very moment of takeoff, must constantly maintain the psychological preparation for an in-flight aircraft malfunction.

Normally, pilots study what kind of sudden in-air failures can occur, how to quickly diagnose the type of failure, and what emergency response is most appropriate.

Yet, no matter how thorough the contingency plans, mental rehearsals, or case studies were, when the engine suddenly lost power several thousand meters in the air, ninety-nine point nine percent of pilots would experience a burst of panic and break out in a cold sweat.

Pilots who do not change expression in the face of death exist only in fiction.

Danger arrived far too quickly.

Only seconds ago, he was immersed in clouds that looked like bikinis, and seconds later, he was struck by a heavy blow.

Utterly unprepared!

Instantly, scenes of various aviation disaster sites flashed through Zhou Zhihan's mind like a movie.

He reached out to press the engine start button.

No response. The last sliver of wishful thinking was shattered.

The aircraft had completely lost its upward thrust.

The altimeter was not broken; it was still ticking, displaying the aircraft's current altitude above the ground while continuously descending:

1,987 meters,

1,928 meters,

1,850 meters.

The diagonal descent rate of the Tachikawa Ki-95c trainer was over 50 meters per second, and the nose kept tending toward a vertical dive. Once established, the falling speed would become even faster.

1,760 meters.

In his desperation, Zhou Zhihan pulled hard on the control stick with a single hand.

This was the only way: first to slow down the rate of descent while figuring out a corresponding countermeasure.

The nose barely lifted upward slightly, and the descent angle increased a fraction, but the falling speed was too fast. Without hydraulic boosters, the control stick felt as heavy as a thousand catties.

1,740 meters.

The descent speed accelerated, but because the nose was slightly raised, the descent angle changed, reducing the loss of altitude. This was the recovery technique used during World War II when a trainer aircraft's engine failed in mid-air: pulling back on the control stick to use the four massive upper and lower wings to lift the nose and glide forward, trading length for altitude.

This was also the reason why instructors leading students into the sky primarily chose biplanes; once an in-flight accident occurred, the survival rate for instructors and students was far higher than in monoplanes.

When it was necessary to pull the control stick, raise the wings, and float in a glide, the pilot's core strength became crucial.

Zhou Zhihan wrapped both hands around the control stick, lifted his feet off the rudder pedals to brace against the floor of the cockpit, straightened his back, and pulled backward with all the strength in his arms.

"Come up..."

...

Zhou Zhihan felt his field of vision shift from looking straight down at the ground to rapidly rising upward, until he could see rolling, endless mountain ranges not far away.

The nose had been pulled up, but it remained below the horizontal line of the tail. The crash descent speed had not changed; it had merely swapped a vertical dive for a sloped, sliding descent.

1,620 meters,

1,600 meters.

The vertical nose-dive posture was finally broken out of. Before Zhou Zhihan even had a chance to catch his breath, a muffled "bang" echoed, and flames erupted from beneath the engine cowl. The flames were flattened against the fuselage by the strong wind, burning backward.

"Trainer aircraft failure and fire, total power loss. Host, under these circumstances, there is no possibility of a restart. The host currently has three choices: first, choose to abandon the aircraft and bail out immediately; second, choose the timing and location to bail out; third, the host may also choose an emergency forced landing."

Hearing the system's voice, Zhou Zhihan instantly found his backbone, and his mind settled slightly.

Although his flight hours could qualify him as an old hand, this was his first time facing a sudden in-flight engine failure and fire.

Bail out with a parachute?

Before transmigrating, he often watched videos on short-video platforms of young women playing with parachutes, girls bungee jumping, and even girls engaging in wingsuit flying.

Watching them made anyone envious.

However, playing with those things required money—throwing money at them. For someone like him with no money, these were completely out of reach. He could only watch how others bounced around in videos, and at most, go to a disco in his own life.

Now, he was going to parachute from a Tachikawa Ki-95c trainer plummeting at high speed at an altitude of over 1,000 meters. This was both novel, thrilling, and nerve-wracking.

If he filmed a video of this and uploaded it to social media, he reckoned he would gain tens of millions of followers.

The Tachikawa Ki-95c trainer, like a giant bird that had lost its power, slipped toward the ground in a high-altitude sloped descent.

1,530 meters

1,520 meters

1,510 meters

Suddenly, Zhou Zhihan remembered that he was not wearing a parachute.

Cold sweat broke out all over his body once again!

Only then did Zhou Zhihan realize how extraordinarily bold he was. In his previous flights, he hadn't worn a parachute at all. How was this any different from riding a naked blade with a bare bottom?

"Big Brother System, where is the parachute?" Zhou Zhihan's voice had changed pitch.

"Didn't the equipment the host purchased the first time include a helmet, flight suit, parachute, flight goggles, and tactical gloves?"

Zhou Zhihan pulled hard on the control stick and swept his gaze around the cockpit: "There isn't! There is no parachute here!"

"All your equipment is inside that watch on your left wrist. As long as the host says 'Open parachute' to the watch while bailing out, a parachute will naturally open on your back."

Zhou Zhihan could see the flight goggles and tactical gloves; the flight helmet and protective suit were worn on his body and, though invisible, could be felt. But he could feel absolutely nothing of this parachute.

Equipped with a parachute, Zhou Zhihan's heart settled a great deal more, though he was still terrified out of his wits: "Then what should I do now?"

"Right now, no one can help the host. The host must calm down and steady himself, making his own judgment whether to bail out immediately, choose the right moment to bail out, or opt for an emergency forced landing.

At this moment, this system is also powerless; everything depends solely on the host himself.

If the host chooses to bail out, simply open the cabin door latch, lift the cabin door and push it backward, then stand up on the cockpit seat, leap upward forcefully, and once your body clears the aircraft, open the parachute to escape."

(End of this chapter)