Tail of the Storm

by Alan Cockrell

  Next, I get out the "pubs." From the large storage bags back in the loft, which contain all the information you need to fly almost anywhere on the globe, I fetch all of the charts and booklets needed for the trek.

  Then I sort the approach books, which contain the detailed procedures for making approaches to thousands of airports. The procedures are designed so that a safe letdown can be made in bad weather, but we fly them in most places no matter what the weather.

  Next I select the "supplements," which are thick booklets containing all the details of individual airfields and facilities; stuff like latitude and longitude, frequencies, runway and taxiway data, load-bearing capacity, notes telling us to do this and not to do that ad nauseam.

  One of my pet peeves being the sight of a messy cockpit, I take care to arrange the material neatly and in the sequence I'll need it. Bones apparently was a dismal failure in Chart Folding 101. He has a deplorable habit of strewing unfolded charts, booklets, flight plans, and such about the cockpit with reckless abandon. He stacks them on the glare shield and casts them on the center console. He wads them up like great spitballs and crams them down into his map case. Despite my scorn, he shows little improvement.

  Once, back at home station, while building my nest, I got annoyed at the way some meathead on the previous crew had stuffed the approach booklets down into the map case. Fishing my hand down into the case in search of a booklet I felt something mushy and moist. I jerked my hand back and saw that it was smeared with stale tobacco juice that had been spit into a paper cup.

  That tripped my breakers. I thought of that most wicked and hideous instrument of mass destruction known to mankind, strapped back there to the aft bulkheadthe crash axeand how I would use it on the vermin who had done this. I had an idea who it was but called the command post and demanded the names of the underbreeds who had last piloted the jet.

  I learned that it was the young farmer from New Hebron, the ever-grinning mustachioed Johnboy Turnage, who grew cows, chickens, and young children who tended the chickens, and who had won the highly distinguished Commander's Trophy for being the absolute undisputed Best in his USAF pilot training class. But he also had a conspirator: our unit's resident rotorhead Judd Moss, a convert from the Army, where he had flown helicopters. They were both disgusting chewers and were both qualified in either seat. The task of finding the culprit was complicated, because I knew that each would blame the other for the ignominious deed. And that's precisely what happened when I confronted them with it weeks later. They made a mockery of my attempt to chew their asses out, claiming innocence, pointing accusingly at one another, snickering, cheeks abulge. Since then I never reach into a crammed map case without carefully checking for repugnant booby traps.

  The final act in nest building is seat adjustment. I slide mine as far forward as I can, which is unusual for a tall guy, but I like to be close to the panel. Then I adjust the rudder pedals as far out as they'll go. I make the vertical height so that I can just see a small deflector forward of the windscreen. Then I recline the seat back a few degrees and fix the armrests at a slightly sloping angle. In other than this familiar position I feel like a klutz.

  The jet is in good shape, and we're ready to try again to launch for the sands. With a few minutes to go before station time, I decide to test Walt's patience.

  While he isn't looking I go aft and drain a can of fuel from the single point refueling valve, then walk out and throw the fuel up onto the bottom of the right wing. It splatters, spreads, beads up, and drips onto the concrete, reeking of kerosene. Before it evaporates, it bears a remarkable resemblance to a fuel leak, which is a serious matter on a '141.

  I cut the others in on the prank, put on my poker face, and climb to the flight deck, where Walt is reading a copy of Guns and Ammo.

  "Walt, you'd better go out and check the right wing. It looks bad."

  He sees the concern in my face and proceeds out, mumbling something about a snake. Finding the dripping fuel, he looks at me and sighs. He just slowly shakes his head in a disgusted resignation but then realizes that all eyes are on him, not the leak.

  Somehow I expected cussing and rage, but I see Walt is not a man of such behavior. I clue him in on the gag, and he just smirks with an "I'll get you back" expression.

  The preflight checks done, we sit and wait as the troops board. I look down at the long line of them, shuffling slowly toward the jet from the buses. They're fully decked out in desert camo, complete with the wretched German-style helmets that I just can't get used to; rifles and bayonets, bandoleers of ammo, and other such soldiering truck protrude and dangle from their sacrificial bodies. All of them look exceptionally youngonly a couple of years senior to my oldest son. A chilling thought envelops me, thinking that he could be among them.

  One is a girl. Incredibly, she is clutching a stuffed animal and laughing with the soldier beside her as if they were at a county fair. I wonder aloud what a battle-hardened enemy would think of this sight and call the crew over to my side window to see the spectacle. These timesI just don't understand them.

  Finally we blast out of TJ, loaded with mixed cargo and troops. Our heavy load includes pallets of chain saws and drums of antifreeze. We also have great stores of Gatorade and stacks of food cartons stamped "MRE," a colossal lie: "Meal, Ready to Eat."

  We climb out to the east over the serene moonlit mountains and cultivated valleys toward Barcelona and reach our cruising altitude of flight level 330, which is approximately 33,000 feet. Above 18,000 feet over the United States and the high seas, everyone sets their altimeters to 29.92 inches of mercury, which is the internationally accepted standard day pressure at sea level. This "transition level" is much lower in most countries. Above this level, altitudes are called flight levels, because they do not measure exact height above the earth but rather provide a level playing field for all the high-altitude cruisers. It assures me that the Aeroflot flight coming at me up ahead at flight level 350 is actually 2,000 feet above me, and it frees both him and me of the burden of resetting our altimeters to new values as we rapidly pass through areas of changing atmospheric pressures as the low flyers must to maintain accurate terrain clearance.

  I start to get a little weary as we cross into French airspace, so I turn the controls over to Bones, disconnect my headset, and lean the seat back. Jeff is asleep in the bunk, so I don't wake him; I just want a short snooze.

  A little while later I wake up and find that I'm the subject of a sick joke. I'm smothered in charts. They are piled on me like a stack of newspapers on a homeless bench sleeper. Low altitude charts, high altitude charts, terminal charts, and VFR charts are piled high on me and are spilling over onto the center console and the glare shield. I flail about like a drowning man and emerge from the pile to find Bones, Walt, Brian, and Jeff guffawing like insolent degenerates.

  The respite in the seat has left me miserably unrested, so I go back and take the bunk Jeff vacates. I want to be fresh for the first trip into the AOR. Trying to sleep in the '141 is an ordeal, even in the bunk. You have to contend with heat, the deafening noise, and the cozy proximity of high-pressure and high-temperature bleed air ducts. An emergency oxygen bottle and mask are kept next to each bunk in case of rapid decompression. The bottles often leak down pressure, and only the foolish neglect to check pressure gauges before settling in for a nap.

  At the altitudes we fly, if we had an explosive decompression, I would probably not get out of the bunk without the bottle, before losing consciousness. The crew would likely be too busy to help, especially with passengers to take care of. Brain damage or worse would result quickly. The outward-opening number two overhead escape hatch, which is located almost over the bunks, has historically been the culprit in most decompression events. That's not a comforting thought as I lie here on my back looking up at it. So I turn over.

  Everyone seems to have the same impression of cruise sleep. You lie there trying to log some Zs, listening to the engines and the slip-stream, thinking
of home, the job you used to have, whatever. Then there's the sickening feeling of someone shaking your boot. Two, maybe three hours have passed. You don't feel like you've slept; you've just been in a cerebral holding pattern. You feel that time has been passed, but you seriously doubt that you're rested.

  I grab a bottle of chilled muscadine juice from the cooler and join the crew and a couple of passengers visiting the flight deck. One is the lady soldier sitting in the forward jumpseat wearing a headset, and Bones is busily playing sky cadet, explaining with textbook precision what all those dials are for.

  We are over Egypt. The Sahara down below is graveyard dark, lifeless and devoid of lights. But ahead is a weird, puzzling apparition. I have to rub my eyes and strain hard to make it out. Contrasting with the blackness is a long, snakelike fuzzy brightness. At first it seems to be a skyborne phenomenon. But no. It is below where the horizon ought to be. It must be a ground feature.

  Maybe Bones has been this way before, I should ask him about it. But he's busy with the passenger. And besides, it wouldn't look good. I'm supposed to be the old head around here. I adjust the red beam from the reading light down so as to study the SPINS but keep glancing ahead at the specter.

  The ghostly vision grows brighter and begins to resemble the Milky Way. But it is too low in the sky for that. And I can clearly see the Milky Way higher among the stars.

  The glowing snake bends left, then right; narrows slightly, then widens again, and gradually fades out toward the far south. Now individual points of light begin to appear. Soon it becomes obvious that the glowing serpent is actually a long colony of millions of lights. Here and there clusters break out that are brighter and tinted differently. Then it hits me.

  I minored in geography and feel pretty stupid for not anticipating this. Of course: it is the fertile, populated Nile River valley Incredibly, almost all of Egypt's 39 million people live in this long, narrow band of life-giving soil and moisture.

  We would fly over the valley numerous times in the year ahead, and in the light of day we could clearly see the green fields and farms contrasting sharply with the yellow featureless desert. It seemed you could stand in a sugarcane field and toss a rock into the desert wastes. I never ceased to marvel over the sight, especially at night when I'm given over to profound ponderings.

  The Nile valley is a microcosm. It's a clear and stunning testament to the frailty of all life. Our planet is somewhat like the Nile. We live within such narrow boundaries between life and nothingness. If we stray out into space without protectionlike the Bedouin who rides away from the riverwe perish. The earth is the perfect distance from the sun; a few miles either way, and we couldn't exist. And the tilt of the global axis, the atmospheric pressure, the chemical makeupall are precise for us. It would take more faith for me to believe that it was not divinely planned and created thus.

  We turn eastward over the river and see a hint of sunrise ahead. Normally this would be a dreaded time. After hours of darkness and the tranquillity imparted by the stratospheric night skies, the sun blasts into the cockpit with a laser brilliance, brutally assaulting weary eyes, coercing them to squint and close; to stay closed until awareness wanes; till neck muscles relax, and the inner ear senses the falling head and rejuvenates the consciousness, snapping the eyes open. Then another dose of solar brilliance immediately begins the cycle anew. It's the scourge of the cargo pilot. S-LOC, I call it: sun-induced loss of consciousness.

  But today I welcome the return of the sun because I'm eager to see these mysterious regions from biblical history over which we're going to certain war.

  Ahead, beyond a range of serrate mountains, the sun glistens off the waters of the Red Sea. We are flying in the direction that the earth turns, so that the sun appears to rise rapidly The colors begin to blossom with the sun's return. The turquoise blue of the sea breaks out of the brownish tan deserts, but the mountains west of the sea are a blazing crimson. I don't see a single cloud. Far to the north I can make out the mountains of the Sinai Peninsula, over which we will fly coming back out.

  Bones's voice interrupts my musings, demanding a return to the business at hand.

  "Red Crown, Red Crown, MAC Alpha 5140, over."

  Red Crown is the radio call sign of the U.S.S. Saratoga, an aircraft carrier steaming lazily with her task force in what the Navy must regard as more of a bathtub than a sea. We must try to establish contact with her before crossing into Saudi Arabia or risk a visit from her deck of fighters.

  "MAC Alpha 5140, Red Crown, go ahead."

  "5140 is eastbound squawking 3612."

  After a short delay the seaman sitting in front of his console identifies us and clears into the heralded AOR.

  "MAC Alpha 5140, you're sweet, sweet. Cleared to cross."

  I think that means radar contact/radar identified, but it's only a guess. I was never taught Navyese.

  I train my binoculars on objects in the water but cannot pick out the Saratoga, only a few southeast-bound cargo ships and some oil platforms. Halfway across we contact Jeddah Control and are given our cleared route across the vast Arabian Peninsula. It is as we expected, thus there is no need to reprogram the waypoints in the navigation computer. We watch George, the autopilot, turn us southeastward as we cross the entry point over the seacoast settlement of Wejh.

  The radio is extremely busy with air traffic coming into and out of the AOR. The Saudi controllers have thick accents, but English is the official language of international aviation, and though I become frustrated with them, I sense that they're doing their best to move us through. Bones and I listen closely to each transmission, sometimes glancing at one another with "what'd he say?" expressions on our faces.

  It seems asinine, this method of moving millions of dollars of equipment and hundreds of fragile lives around the sky on scratchy, hissing, word-of-mouth instructions. Bones, Jeff, and I banter over the absurdity of it all. Many times we have descended blindly into a valley, with gigantic rocks obscured by clouds all around. As it behooves us, we try to stay generally oriented, but we depend utterly on the radar controllers to keep us clear of both the rocks and the other planes flying as blind as we are.

  It occurred to me that the business world would consider such an operation to be a very serious transaction, fraught with financial and personal liability. The controllers bark orders to move a $20 million piece of equipment and dozens of lives blindly and very swiftly through a murky sky filled with mountains and planes. So much is at stake and not least the careers of both those doing the ordering and those taking the orders. The lawyers would have a field day with this if they could somehow exert control over it. Managers, stockholders, and supervisors would insist on carefully constructed and executed contracts.

  But what if the corporate world, dealing with millions of dollars and hundreds of lives and careers, conducted business as we do between cockpit and controller? It would be as simple as, say, a phone call from a construction company to the city zoning commission. Something like: "Hello, this is Crashworthy Construction Company, we'd like to throw up a six-deck parking garage at the comer of Sixth Avenue and Eighteenth Street."

  "Roger, you're cleared to proceed. Call back when you're done."

  But the commission's telephone is on a party line. Other companies are trying to talk to the clerk all at the same time, and the lines are scratchy and hissy. The best the commission can do is record all the conversations, so that if the garage falls in and crushes a couple hundred cars, or if it was built in the wrong place, then blame can be established.

  And what if we did business their way? We have the technology to fax documents quickly between ground and air. A computer could supply the basic language and would prompt the pilot and controller for the variables. We would make instant contracts, spelling out the duties and responsibilities of both controller and pilot. Each would sign and fax to the other. There could be no room for "Micalaahfiifeunforsero. . cleeriadBraffofiffate, mintintreetreeseeroreeprtMidiinah."

 
I glance at Bones, but he's shaking his head. I look back at Jeff in the jump seat. "Don't ask me," he shrugs, answering the unasked question.

  We may be just around the corner from data link air traffic control. No human voices will be heard. Only a message will print out saying:

  "MAC Alpha 5140, cleared Bravo 58, maintain FL 330, report Medinah."

  In this case I think I would welcome such an innovation. But then it'll only be a matter of time before the controller pushes a button and my airplane responds while I sit and watch. Of course I will have emergency override authority, but if I use it, I will have to defend such brazen action in a court of inquiry.

  The landscape below keeps me pinned to the window, binoculars at the ready. The geology excites me. We cross great fault block mountain ranges and sail over the sinuous patterns of breached, plunging anticlines and synclinesthe long parallel ridges produced by the warping and eroding of layered rocks. Dry though it is, water has played a tremendous role in shaping the Arabian landscape. Countless dry streambeds claw at the uplands, gradually tearing them down into vast alluvial fans. I'm bewildered by the sight of small settlements here and there in the parched valleys. How do the people survive? Bones, who is also schooled in geology, suggests that maybe they have herds that feed on grasses we're too high to see.

  Being infidels, we are forbidden to overfly the holy city of Medinah and are routed slightly north. Then we are told to contact Riyadh Control and proceed eastward over Bir-Darb, down Route Blue 58 over the central plateau.

  The landscape now is predominately of volcanic origin. Hundreds of black cinder cones dot the yellow desert. Vast fields of hardened, hummocky brown lava testify to a cataclysmic history. I venture a guess that it wasn't too long an interval, geologically, between when the cones last spewed their clouds of molten ejecta and when the first Bedouins herded their animals, as they do still.

  Farther, past Riyadh, the mottled lava gives way to immense swarms of dunes. These are Barchan dunes, which seemingly marchand in a geological sense, do exactly thatacross the bleak landscape, their characteristic crescent shapes testifying to the prevailing wind direction.