The Inquest and Judgement!

“All parties are sworn in, Judge Baker presiding“

“ Prosecution present your case”

“The facts of the case are these, on January 11th of this year the military transport ‘Sky Intruder One’ crashed with the loss of all eight passenger bar the pilot Major Nokes who ejected in his safety cell at 85,000 ft and only suffered minor bruising and cuts. The Sky Intruder class of transport flies in the very upper limits of our atmosphere and it is fuelled by ’Slush Hydrogen’ and an Atomic Reactor. Sky Intruder One crashed in Saudi Arabia killing 1,311 civilians! These are the facts of the case, they are not disputed. We would further say the crash and such a loss of life is down to Major Nokes by leaving Sky Intruder One without a pilot and leaving zero chance for passengers to survive”

The smart Air Force lawyer sat down and the defence lawyer stood up.

“Major Nokes you are under oath do you under stand this?”

A very tall muscled Air Force Major replied in hushed tones,

“Yes sir I do, may I give my testimony?

The Judge nodded and Major Nokes began,

“I have been flying for 25 years in the Military I am the chief test pilot on the Sky Intruder. This was set to be a routine flight, it was for Military dignities, I call these flights photo shoots. People take shots of the curvature of the Earth and pictures of America and Europe its no big deal for a pilot. Except on January 11th it all went badly wrong! The friendly platform got us to 63,000ft then”

The Judge interrupted,

“Friendly Platform?”

The Major continued,

“Yes sorry your honour it’s a remote controlled launch vehicle for Sky Intruder One, it gets us to height and saves Sky Intruder’s fuel, that Slush Hydrogen is damn heavy and very expensive. If we relied on Sky Intruder’s internal fuel supply we would not be able to make more than one orbit in the upper stratosphere sir

The Judge nodded and Major Nokes continued his defence,

“I cut loose the Friendly Platform and she began her descent to Edwards Air Force base. I checked my remote cameras and the passengers already had their cameras out and were taking happy snaps. I brought on the Atomic Scram Jets and got us up to speed. We were travelling at 18,000 miles an hour. The scram jets are not fuel efficient at that height so I eased back on the control column and took Sky Intruder up to 112,000ft the edge of space. Everything was in the green, the Scram Jets were at 80% efficiency we were within our speed envelope at 21,000 miles and hour. Like I said it was a standard show the Generals our new toy mission”