So then it was the B team’s turn, and off came our masks. I was feeling good, I had no sense of panic and my nails were fine. I got straight to the written work. Name. Age. Address. Employer. How easy is this? Maybe I should be doing it in copperplate. Another quick check of the nails and I turned to the maths just as a Mr Wrong Stuff next to me wimped out. How on earth did these guys make it to be pilots?
The maths was a breeze, first Pythagoras then a quick check of my beautiful nails and onto Fermat’s theorem followed by all the prime numbers. Just as the next wimp caved in, I heard through my headphones, ‘Number four. Put on your oxygen!’ The irritating little man in my head got my best ‘not till I’ve completed this pi to a thousand places’ stare. But again I heard, ‘Number four, put on your oxygen mask now!’
And just as I was thinking how beautiful my nails were, a monster hand swept out of nowhere, whacked the oxygen mask over my face and tightened it around my head. I was indignant: he didn’t have to be so rough about it, and I hadn’t even finished my maths. I looked across at Ray and he and the others were vigorously laughing. I glared at them.‘They won’t be laughing so much when they see me triumphantly hold up my proof backing up Stephen Hawking’s assertion that black holes emit sub-atomic particles at a steady rate.’
I lifted up my writing pad to show those morons what I’d achieved in such a short time, knowing it would totally impress them.
What I saw on my pad was that some child had written my name, and misspelled it. I had never lived at that address with no number and, what’s more, 3 plus 3 did not equal 11, 2 multiplied by 4 was not 24, and 7 plus 7 plus 7 would never be zero. What’s going on?
When we de-subbed, Ray told me that the moment I took off my oxygen mask, my eyes rolled back in my head, I stared and stared at my nails as if I had just had a million-dollar manicure and, while doing my trigonometry and my treatise on the deformation of space time, I kept looking at Ray with a euphoric look, as if I’d just witnessed the birth of my first-born.
So I didn’t have the right stuff after all. That test and my humiliation obviously meant nothing; I was allowed to fly anyway and my trip was still a goer. I just hoped the airforce wasn’t as lenient on the pilot of our B-52 Stratofortress. I decided to keep a close watch on his fingernails.
•
The morning of the flight I was a bit nervous. But all my concerns about fingernails, parachutes and which cord to pull were forgotten as soon as I cast my eyes and camera over the beast. It was gigantic—48.5 metres long, with eight huge engines, all of which looked far too heavy for the 56.5-metre wingspan. The immense weight of those eight engines caused the wings to droop, creating an injured bird look.
I stared at nothing but the plane as we walked towards it, not because I was mesmerised by the size but because any head movement might have snapped my neck. I was wearing an airforce helmet—that’s not unlike wearing two bricks on your head. I was also wearing a parachute that not only made me look like Quasimodo, but made me feel like I was bearing his whole belltower. Plus, I was carrying the camera and sound gear. There was no room for soundman Micky. A B-52 can only carry five crew members and 25 tonnes of bombs. Yet somehow they found room for Ray and me.
We squeezed bricks, belltowers, camera, sound gear and ourselves into our designated spot up front, just behind the very small cockpit for five. Behind us was a huge chasm the length of the plane, crying out to be filled with bombs so it could open its wide jaws and spew out its cargo of death.
We rumbled down the runway, the noise was unbearable, and the lift-off felt like a real struggle, yet we were cargo-free. I wondered how the hell these things made it off the ground when they’re chockers with bombs.
During the ‘American War’, the Vietnamese people witnessed on a daily basis hundreds of these take-offs, every plane filled to capacity with what was thought to be maximum killing power ... until ‘Operation Rolling Thunder’ was conceived. Then some genius warmonger came up with the idea and means of increasing the bomb capacity, making it possible to squeeze eighty-four 500-pound conventional bombs in the plane plus twenty-four 750-pound bombs on each of the underwing pylons.
In December 1972, in ‘Operation Linebacker II’, otherwise known as ‘The Christmas Bombings’, over twelve days, the B-52 killing machines dropped 15,237 tonnes of bombs on Hanoi and Haiphong, killing 1600 civilians. All I could think was how terrifying it must have been to look up and see those bombs in confetti-like numbers raining down. The B-52 flying at 60,000 feet couldn’t be seen or heard. So the first sign the Vietnamese civilians had of the horror was the sudden sight of bombs falling from nowhere.
When we hit cruising altitude I grabbed the camera and tried to stand up. Impossible. I kept falling backwards, struggling like an upturned turtle to get on my feet. The weight of my parachute was the problem, but then I thought, since I’d decided to die rather than be castrated, why was I bothering to wear it at all? Part of me said I should jettison it completely, and the rest of me saw no reason to disagree. So off it went. I felt practically weightless. And if I did need to deplane at 60,000 feet, my hypoxia experience taught me that I would die with a smile on my face. And beautifully coloured nails.
It was time to work. I slid myself as far into the cockpit as possible to get the obligatory shots of flashing cockpit lights, dials, pilots’ eyes and hands, parachutes and masks. Not a hell of a lot more I could do.
Ray decided it was time for a piece to camera, but I could barely see him. There was not nearly enough light. I got him to lean right up against a small window so I could at least see some of his face. He certainly looked the part with the airforce helmet on his head and parachute on his back, but whether the camera would see any of it was another thing.
Earlier, he had told me he was going to mention the altitude, bomb capacity, and whether or not these monsters regularly carried nuclear weapons, the contentious point for Australia. At that time, the Americans wanted to use Darwin as a refuelling stop.
When he started talking, I could see his lips moving but couldn’t hear a thing, nor could the Nagra tape recorder. Playing back the sound all I got was a slow, deep rumble, nothing more. The bulbous hand-held microphone was overwhelmed by the monotonous drone of the plane.
After a few more attempts—with Ray holding the mic so close to his teeth he looked like he was devouring a giant ice cream—it was in the can. We then settled down and contemplated the meaning of life ... and death. Plenty of time for it. Another eight hours, in fact.
Time goes so slowly at 60,000 feet. I’d like to say it was because of the thinner air outside pulsating with space time continuum particles defined by quantum chromodynamic theory—but unfortunately it was because I was so fucking bored. Just as I was thinking I might as well sleep, the pilot told us we had to refuel. You beauty, land. A chance to stretch my legs and maybe score a strong double espresso. Wrong.
We did refuel, but at 30,000 feet. The pilot invited me right up to the pointy end to get some shots. Still without my parachute and helmet, I could just squeeze into my designated spot.
A fuel tanker plane overtook us on the right side, flew hundreds of metres ahead then backed up. Of course, it’s all to do with the different speeds of the two planes, but the illusion was dramatic, as if he was backing into a parking spot immediately in front of us.
These planes can fly for 13,600 kilometres without refuelling. The first ever mid-air refuel was done between two biplanes in 1923, with a hose and a hand-held fuel tank. Shame I wasn’t shooting that one, they might have been able to hand over a double espresso.
This time a giant telescopic boom appeared from the back of the tanker plane and headed towards us. I hoped it wouldn’t miss its intended target, penetrate the cockpit and do a Palomares incident on us. In January 1966 a B-52 collided with a tanker right above the fishing village of Palomares, Spain. If the planes get too close, it’s the job of the boom operator to call, ‘Break away, break away, break away!’ but for some reason
that day it wasn’t called. The tanker was totally destroyed when the fuel ignited, and all onboard were killed. The B-52 broke apart, killing three of the seven crew members.
In case today’s boom operator wasn’t paying attention, I was all ready to scream, ‘Break away, break away!’ but I soon realised, having left my audio connection back with my helmet and parachute, no one would hear me. Then I figured if I saw the others rocketing out through the top of the plane still in their seats, it’d be a pretty good hint something had gone wrong. So I went to work shooting the refuelling.
It was surreal. The boom, looking like a giant phallus wavering all over the place, was aiming for a small opening just above us, but finding penetration extremely difficult due to the turbulence created by the proximity of both planes. That wretched turbulence created all sorts of performance anxiety. Palomares made a return thought, then, bang! He was in. And when all valves appeared to be closed or locked or whatever valves do, we received our much-needed injection of new life at 1000 gallons per minute.
We had been ordered to fly from Guam to Queensland and back. I thought we would see the whole state from 60,000 feet, but suddenly treetops were coming towards us at 800 kilometres per hour as we’d dropped down to 30 metres. Buggered if I knew why, but what a buzz. Maybe the pilot was as bored as we were and wanted some excitement, but somehow being that close to the ground made our giant airship feel like the Titanic. The shots of the trees coming at us were amazing. I hoped we wouldn’t run into the helicopter carrying the freelance cameraman who was hopefully scoring equally amazing shots of the plane as we skimmed the trees. We needed those exterior shots.
Later, I thought, How lucky was he? His shoot was over in half an hour and he’d be on his way back to a bar in Queensland. I still had five more hours inside the beast. And on we droned through the hours and finally made it back to Guam, where Ray and I were unable to lift our heads from excessive brick-wearing.
Then we got the news. The freelance cameraman’s helicopter had crashed, and the chopper was in pieces. Luckily, he and his pilot survived. Thankfully so had his footage.
•
We all like to ‘deplane’ (as they say in the US) as fast as possible, especially after a long twelve- or fifteen-hour flight. Even the comfort of a business class seat on a jumbo has lost its allure by then. I once deplaned from a 747 in Tel Aviv almost as fast as I did from my raging inferno at Sydney airport. Mind you, the decision wasn’t mine. Minutes after landing in the Israeli capital, our plane came to an abrupt halt in the middle of nowhere, miles from the terminal. I looked out the window and saw six heavily armed soldiers jumping out of jeeps. A large van pulled up alongside them. I couldn’t see through the van’s darkened windows but somehow I knew this was not a regular catering truck. I was sitting beside Ray Martin, and said to him, ‘It’s a pity the camera’s in the hold. There could be some action on this plane very soon.’
From the comfort of my business class seat I looked over the heads of the mob in front and saw that all six soldiers had boarded our plane and were heading towards us with machine guns at the ready. And they were on a mission. These boys looked mean, and they knew exactly where they were going. I started to feel really sorry for some poor guy back in economy who was about to be dragged off the plane. Whatever he’d done, he was in real trouble.
As they got closer I whispered to Ray, ‘Check out these blokes, no wonder Entebbe was a piece of piss for them.’ When they were two seats away, they slowed and began staring carefully at all the passengers in our vicinity. I realised they weren’t looking for some poor guy in economy, they were after some rich guy in our midst. Everybody stared, terrified of the machine gun carriers and watching where they would end up. And where they ended up was right at my row, glaring straight at me. One of them leant across Ray, pointed menacingly at me and said, ‘You! Come with me!’ His attitude was hostile but he was also big noting for the crowd.
I was dumbfounded and shit-scared as I climbed over Ray and stood in the aisle. I was too shocked to speak, I couldn’t think of a thing to say. Not a word was spoken by anyone as I was marched from the plane and shoved into the van I’d seen from the window.
Inside the darkened van, I was surprised to see a silhouette of someone sitting behind a desk. I was told to take a seat. A lamp was aiming directly at me so I couldn’t see the other person.
‘Who are you, and what are you doing here?’ said the voice behind the lamp. I told him my name and that I was a cameraman with an Australian television show called 60 Minutes and I was here to do a story.
‘What’s the story?’
Fucked if I know! I really wanted to say, but instead I babbled on about the war with Lebanon, and how tough life was for the Israelis, and anything else I could think of that might placate him.
‘Show me your passport and press pass.’
I took them out of my bag and handed them over.
‘Where’s the script?’ he said.
He obviously didn’t know anything about television. I explained that the script hadn’t been written yet, but if it had, it wouldn’t be with me as I’m the cameraman, the script is written by the reporter. But my answer wasn’t good enough, and he started demanding to see the script. I repeated my explanation.
‘You are not leaving until we see the script,’ he said.
Well, then we’re all going to be here for a bloody long time, I thought, but remained silent. I had no idea how I would get out of this.
The situation became perplexing when my interrogator changed the subject and asked how long I planned on staying, who my parents were, where I was born, and who I knew in Israel ...
Surely not! It can’t be as simple as that! But it started to make sense ... I knew I should have shaved off my moustache before I left home, these idiots thought I looked like a Palestinian.
It was a stalemate. I didn’t have a script, and he wasn’t letting me go. I wondered if my colleagues felt any twinges of concern as to my wellbeing or whether they were already in some bar telling each other they’d never have guessed I was a terrorist.
In fact, they were concerned, but they were newsmen, after all, and knew this would be great publicity, so they’d made a quick phone call to inform the Channel 9 office of my arrest. The mob in the office then rang other journo mates and away it ran, straight to AAP Reuters, where my brother worked as a journalist. When he saw the story on the wire, he rang my mother, who immediately contacted 60 Minutes. At the same time, my wife Suzie heard it on the news and she rang the office, too. But the bosses at Channel 9 had nothing to tell them because they knew nothing about the situation. My colleagues in Tel Aviv also had no idea what was happening. And, as it turned out, nor did the soldiers detaining me.
Suddenly someone came into the van. My interrogator stood up and in the half-dark they had a conversation in a language I didn’t understand. But it sounded scary. I thought, This is it, I’m a dead man. Then my interrogator switched off his light and told me I was free to go. After four hours, no script, and more importantly no explanation or apology, I was driven to the terminal and set loose. It was as if they’d suddenly decided to ignore the problem, if there had ever been one. Or maybe it was just a terrible mistake. Which it was.
I went to Israel at least a dozen times after that, and every time we deplaned I was pulled aside and questioned. Never any of the other crew, which I angrily pointed out to the immigration officials, who always replied that, ‘It’s just random.’ Then when I asked if it was because I had a moustache, they just laughed. ‘Of course not,’ they’d say. ‘It’s just random.’ And they expected me to believe that?
•
Three in the morning and I was sleeping like a baby when the phone rang. Fumbling in the dark to answer it, I groaned, ‘Hello.’
‘Mate, can you hang-glide?’
I recognised the voice of John Little, one of our producers, and this made me shitty.
‘No, I can’t, JL. I’m in London and it’s fucking
three in the morning.’
‘Well, you better learn. You’re off to Africa next month to do a story on a bloke who trains and flies with eagles. It has to be you. The other three blokes are all too big. See you when you’re back in Oz.’
What the hell was that all about? I lay there wondering if it had really happened or if it was a Drambuie-induced dream. Hang-gliding! It was something I’d never planned on doing in my entire life. Something I thought was extremely stupid, dangerous and about as natural as fairy floss.
A week later I was back home and the bosses told me they thought a great sequence for the story would be me in a hang-glider getting shots of African Eagle Man flying alongside his tame eagles in his hang-glider. I pointed out to them that Eagle Man had been doing this for many years and that I would not only be hang-gliding but filming at the same time.
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ I was told. ‘And you’re booked in for your first lesson tomorrow.’ I realised they weren’t going to budge. And they were so excited at the prospect of the shots, I couldn’t argue.
The next day John and I headed off to Stanwell Park just south of Sydney, supposedly the top spot for hang-gliding. The gliding school was right at the top of a bloody great windy cliff with a dramatic fall to the ocean, and gracefully soaring above us were at least a dozen hang-gliders. The air traffic alone was enough to scare me. I’d brought along a small video camera to see just how difficult it would be to shoot. With my main camera weighing nine kilos I wasn’t going to risk it, or my arms.
The instructor told us they were running very late and because there were many people ahead of us in the queue, we probably wouldn’t get a run till at least 4.30 p.m. I’d never realised risking death by jumping off a cliff was so popular. It was now noon and I was starving. I’d decided to forgo breakfast, thinking it might not be wise to jump off a cliff on a full stomach.
With so much time on our hands, John and I headed up to the restaurant where I had a double-beef burger with the lot, a caramel malted milkshake and a rock cake not as soft and fluffy as Uluru but about the same size. As I wiped the last few pebbles from my mouth, I mentioned to John that I might have eaten too much, so a siesta was definitely on the agenda. We headed outside to find a nice shady spot, and just as I lay down the boss of the hang-gliding school came running up.
All This in 60 Minutes Page 11
