Chapter 15

Work like Helen b Happy

Contents
author Cimino
work-in-progress published 2023
repurposed 20250828

Do you walk in the valley of kings?
Do you walk in the shadow of men
Who sold their lives to a dream?
Do you ponder the manner of things
In the dark?
Barnaby Courtney, 2015

Ukrainian Genius: Almost sharing a birthdate with this rapidly ageing author, but little else, the ruggedly handsome 12-seater An-2 designed post-war by Dr Oleg Antonov was initially commissioned for agriculture purposes. Fittingly, although the An-2 mostly moved people, the model depicted on the 2003 Ukrainian 2 and 5 hryvn—just two of many coins honouring the great designer—depicts a crop-sprayer An-2, rather than a passenger variant—of which more than 60 were developed between 1947 and 2013, with more than 18 000 individual aircraft constructed. drawings Dr Péter Kaboldy | coin image use of and insertion non-authorised

Which of the many, phantom Helen B Happys, was the question. There were countless, over the years, that had enjoyed their time in the sun of Cimino’s drawing board—not all made it that  far. Before learning to fully trust his own abilities, not to mention recognise his own shortcomings, Cimino had been enormously comforted by Philip C Bolger’s:

Imaginary boats can be every bit as satisfying as real boats, and much less expensive.

Essex County, Massachusetts Bolger was always going to be dearer to Cimino’s heart than King Country, New Zealand Bolger. This, despite the latter’s ultimately neoliberal-questioning bearings being far closer to Cimino’s Left-of-Karl-Marx compass than Philip C’s determined all-public-space-is-wasted-space Libertarianism. In any event, Cimino had long since decided that political and religious argument was the enemy of the pragmatic, proximate imperative to not accelerate the melting of the icecaps.

Relatively recently, the Helen B Happy had been a low-carbon, low-speed, high-wing dieselnon-fossil combustion-ignition-fuel-burning, of course!-electric seaplane. Very briefly, she’d been a latter-day World War II Mosquito, but the best thing she had going, in the visceral-impact stakes, was her twin 27-litre Rolls-Royce Merlin V-12 engines. But while Mosquitos took part in some legendary low-level sorties—famously, Operation Jericho—Cimino had had the enormous privilege of flying through the Western Australian wheat belt, at ultra-low level, something he’d fantasised doing while pushing the family lawnmower, earnestly convinced the engine’s crankshaft could be swivelled from vertical to the horizontal to propel him skyward. The ground-level flight was every bit as thrilling as he’d imagined behind the lawnmower, but what he’d experienced very, very people had, and that was flying in tandem with another aircraft, routinely so low the pilot had to pull back on the controls to clear fences, much less trees.

At an only slightly higher altitude, en route to a far corner of their vast territory, Cimino was instructed:

You drive; I need to look at the map. Just keep the nose up, and the wings level.

Above the main intersection of a wheat-belt town, its layout hadn’t quite computed for Brian. Much lower and Cimino imagined they could have simply read the street signs, or the name on the verandaed hotel. The local hotel was invariably the team’s objective after work every evening. Flying until last light, the sometimes several-hour drive back to base saw the solemn resolution: food first, then the pub. The seven wedged into the Holden nodding in agreement, all ravenously hungry: loader-driver Cimino and marker-boys in the back; pilot, tee-up-boy-cum-driver, and two big egos, in the front. The marker-wheel-pushing, flag-holding spray-swath markers didn’t object being called boys—any day unapprehended was a good day. The type-a salesman, however, objected strenuously to his, pilot-imposed title. But to no avail:

I can do each of your jobs, none of you can do mine.

Ukrainian National Heronautics: Apparently lacking an aircraft sufficiently powerful to tow it, Ukrainian national hero Dr Oleg Antonov had his otherwise smoothly-gliding tank cancelled—a pity perhaps that the 52-kW engine of the T-60 scout-tank component wasn’t deployed to assist the towing aircraft and/or extend the apparition’s glide range. Eighty years on, given the limited modern role for tanks beyond Russia’s costly, lumbering un-militarily-provoked, depravedly-indifferent, 2022 invasion of Ukraine, tanks themselves  should finally be consigned to military history, along with the military gliders before them, and for the same reason—all too easy to take down, and with weaponry a fraction the price. drawings Dr Péter Kaboldy

…was all the redress said tee-up boy  was ever going to receive.

Every evening, however, by the time the company Holden barrelled into its base, one-pub wheat-belt town, it was only ever going to stop at one place. Nor was anybody leaving before 10-oclock closing time, and only then with armloads of beer. Self-survival caused Cimino to be cook, in the cavernous caravan he’d towed into town behind the loader-truck at the beginning of the season. After which the food had taken its toll the marker-boys lost consciousness and the pilot and tee-up boy repaired to their churlishly shared motel room.

Next, groundhog, day, driving up to two hours in the dark, to arrive back at the aircraft and loader-truck by dawn, the paucity of food consumed, and its effects, would grumble away. Ever-the-optimist Cimino would respond by soliciting undertakings of support for a meal-first-pub-later…

…

To be continued…

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