“Okay,” Dino said, tightening his seat belt.

The tower called and cleared them for takeoff. Stone taxied onto Runway One, stopped the airplane, centered the heading control, and, with the brakes on, shoved the throttles all the way forward. The engines ran up, and he released the brakes. The little jet shot down the runway, and, at ninety knots, Stone rotated, pulling the yellow V up into the magenta V. He raised the landing gear and flaps, then, at 700 feet, he pressed the autopilot button and turned the heading bug to 040. At 1,500 feet, following the departure procedure, he turned to 280 and climbed to 2,000 feet, then the controller gave him 10,000 feet, and they were on their way.

Dino was staring at the PFD.

“It’s okay to look out the window now,” Stone said. “The autopilot is flying the airplane, and it is a better pilot than I.”

Dino looked around. “This isn’t bad,” he said. “It’s quieter than your old airplane, and smoother, too.”

“That’s the idea,” Stone said. The controller handed them off to New York Center, and they climbed to their final altitude of Flight Level 340, or 34,000 feet. Stone reduced power to the cruise detente on the throttles. “That’s it,” he said. “Now the airplane flies us to Wichita.”

Dino looked at the chart on the big panel display. “That looks like a long way.”

“See these two rings?” Stone said, pointing. “The dotted one is the distance we can fly and still have a forty-five-minute fuel reserve, and it falls beyond Wichita. The solid ring is the distance we can fly before dry tanks.”

“Let’s not fly that far,” Dino said.

“And we even have a little tailwind,” Stone said, pointing at the indicator.

They refueled at Wichita and took off again.