Imagine the wind rushing through an open door while the roar of the propeller in an aging old Ford Trimotor airplane rattles in your ears. You can smell the smoke from a raging fire hundreds of feet below. You are dressed in thick, padded clothing, wearing an old-fashioned football helmet with a jury-rigged grille in front of your face making it hard to breathe — that is, if it weren't already impossible for you to take a breath because of what is waiting beyond that open hatch.
In a matter of minutes you will be fighting a greedy forest fire on the ground, but first there's the matter of a little jump you're about to take — in a cast-off parachute! All the good ones are being used by the armed forces overseas in World War II.
Suddenly, your squad leader gives a signal, and no matter…