I’m not yet feeling anger,
not sure how to behave.
How one learns in a hangar:
who’s a king, who’s a slave?
Who is bad, who is good, who is weaker, who’s stronger?
Who will win at the end?
Who will break, who will bend?
A test pilot? A plane?
Or is it near the same?
On the ground, a machine is at rest, acting holy.

Well, tomorrow I’ll learn
where my future resides,
In the meantime I lean
on my airplane’s steep sides.
On the ground we are equal, is it true in the air?
Hands feel chill on these slopes,
I’m suppressing a cough;
I’m not making false hopes
since I lived long enough:
This machine is a beast, an unridden old devil.

Yes, tomorrow my strength will be tripled,
And my horse is superb even now.
If it’s worth it or not, she is riddled,
To work hard by the sweat of her brow.

I have known you since drawings
like since the crib bed,
You were off with your turning,
you went straight ahead,
And you sailed the high seas of the secret science sector.
The constructor-in-chief
did indulge you, my friend,
At the technical bureaus
you got out of hand,
But today you’re at last in the hands of a tester!

Here’s a different play,
we’re a difficult bunch.
So, you will have to pay,
but do not lose too much:
In our business a serious loss is unpleasant.
You have left all behind,
and the timing is ripe,
And I’ve been in a bind
with your treacherous type, -
Thus, backtracking will make us both sinners at present.

All the same, my suspicions are growing:
What to do if it doesn’t go as planned?
What to do if the plane will start stalling,
Disobeying her master’s command?
 
* * *
We would take off like mallards
from a water-soaked field.
We crammed skies, rushing upward.
That was funny indeed!
In a day twenty missions, what a practical joke!
In the steam bath conditions
we were flying through fog.
Clouds were scattered like feathers
from a patchwork at home.
Tracers stitched them together into parachutes’ domes.

We returned with no cover,
with no gauges, at night.
With my radio-gunner
who was shot in the fight.
Damage taken is haunting, bullets riddled both wings.
Center stick’s not responding,
giving me the cold chills.
It was shaking in fever,
it was dancing its dance,
It was drumming the meter of a circus stunt act.

It still gives me sick thrills to remember
How we managed to fly and to land.
Yes, our airplane was showing its temper
By refusing to follow commands.

Well, tomorrow, if lucky,
we’ll be singing our tune.
But today, my old buddy,
we are flying on fumes.
Don’t you dare to attack me with a knife in my back!
There will be other takeoffs,
food for both when we land!
We should try a tad harder,
do you hear me, machine?
Since abandoning partners does sound foreign to me.

Well, I have a gut feeling 
and it’s not a closed book:
My bifacial wingman 
has a dangerous look
Of a player who’s hiding his ambitions from sight.
But I’ll never be frightened
by this ominous sign:
There are limits for engines,
but I reach for the sky!
One will sing in ascension and another will cry!

If we manage to live through this journey
They won’t write us off to reserve.
Who will question a plane that’s still worthy?
Who will say it’s not eager to serve?!