a month later
Pressure? Normal. Joints? Okay. Struts? Fixed. All right. I pulled the lever on the service panel and the engine slowly returned to horizontal position. It turned slowly, graceful, the pistons quietly leveled between structural beams. A reinforced carbon cover flipped over the joint, fixing the whole mechanism and covering the hydraulic pistons. I looked into the front section through the service door, checked the indication and part position. The main structural axle was fixed, meaning the joint will keep the current position. Great. New joints worked great, combined with reinforced formers producing a sturdy, but adjustable structure. Artem greatly worked on it. Not like the first version, drawn by hand and developed on some checkered worksheets, but developed using high-end computer systems, virtual tests and great precision. New machine, build out of aluminium and composites, was built from the old one, being hardly reworked and modernised, with each broken part being replaced. We had to put off SPG production and corvettes, which were sold to ASA-Campagen to save our funds. I climbed out the section and closed the service doors. Laser cutting greatly improved manufacturing precision, though, being hard to work with at first.
- Have you checked everything? - Artem cried from below.
- Engines working, drives in condition!
- Come down, it's dinner time soon.
Fish again? Economy, that happens.
I jumped down and passed my checklists to Artem. He checked the notes, subscribed there, and we continued to the cafeteria.

After taking a meal, we went to the breifing room. The room wasn't very big, but very tidy and neat, with maps of Wright Isles and the whole archipelago, with diagrams and screens, meteorogical indicators which we never minded, and a big table in the middle, covered with maps as well.
It didn't take long to prepare, because we knew most about our units, but full flight plan had been developed in order to make everything clear and ordered. I even attended some flights on the first variant, which was more like a jet table, but finally i could have it controlled and calm.

And Im in the cockpit, in front of clean and untouched yoke. Finally checked the systems, set the engines vertically and turned on the gyroscopes.
Engines slowly turned. I set the nozzels to pre-sonic mode and pulled the throttle.
Engines started howling, quiter than before, and I lifted off. For a few seconds the machine was touching the ground with it's wheels, but next it finally lifted, carrying me up. Slowly turning engine pods, the plane ascended and gained speed, acelerating to 340 mph. Long, thin wing bended a bit, taking load, but that was okay - the flexible structure was made to withstand high pressure and load without breaking. In a few minutes plane started a slow "90+270" turn, reducing the turn radius steeply, and I held it at right level with pedals. Finally, i hit the right pedal, setting the plane onto landing course. Sometimes the flight felt like falling. Howewer, SA-4 was very specific in terms of feelings. It took a few effort to get the aircraft to glissade, but I dealed with that. Descending, I set the engines vertically and rreleased the airbrakes above the airfield, slowing down, and finally made it to the ground.
After turning off the powerplant, I instantly ran to Artem, to ask about the telemetry he followed.
- Flight normal, systems working, no big problems!
Here I stared at the graphs attentively, because only Artem could know how big a problem in his plane can be. SA-1 could fly after loosing a half of it's engines, no, only after loosing them, because it was damn heavy. For Artm, it wasn't a big problem, but for me, it was. I'd analyse the graps later.

To be continued.