by John O'Brien
“Are you okay?” Robert asks as I plug in.
“I’m good,” I say in response.
“Good,” he says. That is his way of saying he is thankful I am back safely and that he was worried.
The muffled thumps persist against the aircraft as we go through the checklists. Those thumps diminish substantially as the first inboard engine starts and the prop begins to turn, tailing off completely as we crank up the others. I verify our GPS coordinates in the nav computer and input the original coordinates for McChord, programming a route home. We taxi out as the moon rises from the east, bathing the vast areas of concrete, grass and dirt in its silvery glow.
The runway, lit by our powerful landing and taxi lights, rushes by in the night as we race down it with the twinkling stars above us, inviting us to join them and welcoming us as our wheels leave the ground, leaving this now desolate, high altitude base behind. We climb into the thin air, struggling for altitude, circling around until we reach flight level 250 (25,000 feet). I want the higher altitude for the mountain crossing. Our cargo compartment is now filled to almost standing room only and we are fortunate that our fuel weight is down somewhat from our trip across the country from Atlanta. Leveling off, we start our last leg home, hopefully. A little over four hours and we will land to begin the next phase of our survival.
We transit over the moonlit snowcaps of the Rocky Mountains stretching upward as if trying to reach out to us as we glide over their pristine wilderness. Each peak and subsequent valley slides below our wing and behind us as we drone to the west and north. Yellowstone passes by off our right wing, no longer inhabited by the summer crowds flocking to see its wonders. The bison and wildlife left to their own without the constant transit of cars and gawkers; the geysers erupting without anyone to marvel in their glory.
The westward side of the great mountain range falls off only to be replaced by the rocky and hilly wilderness of Idaho. The distinctness of the hills and forests lost and replaced by the silver light of the moon shining on the tops of trees and hillsides with the dark shadows of valleys gliding by far below us.
We are still about two hours away when I glance down at the instruments and notice that the turbine inlet temperature gauge on number three engine — the inboard one on the right side — has crept up. Still within limits but each time I look at it, which is about every four seconds, it has climbed slightly higher. Great! What next? I think.
“See that,” I point out the instrument to Robert.
“Yeah,” he says with a bit of worry edging into his voice.
“It’s still within limits but creeping up. Open up your checklist to the turbine overheat section and mark the engine shutdown checklist for quick reference,” I say tapping on the gauge. This is an old aircraft and sometimes the needles can get stuck or move on their own. Rare but I have seen it happen before.
“Are we going to have to shut down the engine?” He asks turning up his map light and thumbing through the checklist strapped to his leg.
“I hope not,” I say opening my own checklist.
“Bri, be ready to shut off the fuel to number three engine when I say so,” I add looking at the fire/overheat indicators on the T-handles centered above us. The red lights within each of them remain dark and unlit.
“Okay, Dad,” she says turning her own light on the fuel system panel. I turn the instrument rheostat up so we can see the indications better.
The turbine inlet continues to rise, approaching the upper limit. I retard the throttle back slightly toward idle, watching the gauge needle fall back and feel the nose want to slide to the right as the thrust on that side is reduced, only to slide back as the autopilot makes its correction to bring the aircraft back to its course. I push the throttle for the outboard engine on that side up to compensate for the nose drift bringing the wings back to level. I reach over and switch the autopilot off to fly manually so I can feel the aircraft.
I descend down to flight level 200 in order to give the propellers more air to bite into. The temperature gauge continues to climb with me pulling the throttle back a little further each time the needle approaches the upper limit, additionally moving the number four engine throttle up an equal amount.
“Why don’t we just shut it down?” Robert asks watching my actions.
“Because I want to keep the engine operational as long as I can. The thrust will help us and every minute we can fly at a higher airspeed gets us closer to McChord. And, I don’t want to find a closer airfield to set it down as once we’re down, we’re stuck there,” I answer.
“Nic, will you go get Lynn please? Robert, go back and take a look out of the window at the engine to see if you can see anything. Look for anything streaming out,” I add turning on the wing light so he can see outside a little better.
“What’s up?” Lynn asks as she arrives behind me.
“It looks like we may be losing an engine,” I answer her. “It shouldn’t be anything to worry about.”
“We can still fly right? Will we have to set it down?” She asks yelling in my right ear through the helmet.
“We should be okay. We can fly on three engines without too much difficulty. I plan to continue on to McChord as we’ll be stuck wherever we land,” I respond.
She nods and sits on the lower bunk next to our other passengers already seated there. Robert returns a short time later, sits and plugs back in.
“Well?” I ask hearing the click of his connection coming live on the intercom.
“I can’t tell for sure but it looks like there might be smoke trailing behind,” he answers.
I nod and pull the throttle back a little further, the lever approaching the inflight idle position. The outboard engine is at full throttle but not compensating fully for the loss of thrust on the inboard engine. Luckily it is the inboard engine malfunctioning or the loss of thrust would be felt more. I have to crab the aircraft a little to compensate for the loss of thrust and subsequent loss of lift on our right side, lowering the left wing a touch in order to keep a straight line of flight. I also pull the throttles back slightly on the left side as another measure to compensate.
My last retardation of the throttle reaches the inflight idle position. Any further action if the inlet temperature climbs to the overheat condition will be to shut the engine down. Right now the engine is not providing any thrust but it is not increasing our drag either. It has become a neutral party to our flight. If I can keep it running in this manner, I will still have use of it in case we need to go around on a bad landing setup or for anything else that may arise.
I watch the needle slowly climb upward while continuing to keep an eye on the other instrumentation. If number four started acting up or the needles for the two engines on that side started going haywire, we would have a completely different emergency. I am concerned with our weight and once again thankful for our decreased fuel weight. I do not want to descend any further if I can at all avoid it as we still have the Cascade Mountain Range to cross. They are not as high as the Rockies by any stretch but there are some tall peaks around.
The needle hits the upper limit of the engine and crosses over it. A blinking red light startles me and begs for attention. I look up to see the number three engine fire handle blinking rapidly at me as the master fire light also illuminates on the instrument panel. It has come time to shut the engine down before it can cause any further trouble. We are only about 45 minutes out from McChord. I have been following along on our enroute charts for possible emergency airfields just in case we do need to set it down quickly but we should be able to make it if we do not encounter any further problems.
I rapidly accomplish the quick reaction checklist items for an emergency engine shutdown — called bold face procedures. I pull the engine condition lever back to its detent position bringing the propeller into its feather mode which means that it is perpendicular to our flight path reducing the drag on the aircraft. With the propellers spinning idly on their own without any thrust being
applied to them, they become like a giant plate hanging off of our wing. The drag of that alone would be enough to pull the aircraft to the right with very little we could do about it. That is why we have to make sure the propeller is feathered, so the wind doesn’t catch it and allow it to spin freely. I then reach up and pull the T-handle aft, the one with the blinking red light, for the number three engine. This cuts the fuel off to the affected engine effectively shutting it down. All of the gauges for the engines immediately come down to their zero position or are winding quickly downward verifying that the engine is shut down. The red light vanishes from the T-handle. With the red light going out and the temperature gauge winding down, I do not have to discharge the flame retardant into the engine. I punch off the master fire light.
I direct Bri to turn the generator switch and the fuel pump to their off position for the affected engine. I also have her make sure the fuel cross feed switch is in the off position after verifying that the number four engine is drawing fuel off of the tanks on the right side. We continue going through the cleanup checklist items. I put the throttle into its full forward position and close the oil cooler flaps as the final steps in completing the emergency engine shutdown procedure. I also tell Bri to watch the fuel gauges as the tanks on the left side will drain faster as they are supporting two engines as opposed to one. We may have to cross feed if the imbalance gets to be too much.
“How about Olympia? It’s closer,” Robert asks as the situation stabilizes.
“I want to be at McChord. One for the transportation and two to raid the Special Forces and other armories there,” I answer. “We’ll be fine.”
The mountains of the Cascade Range begin to slide under our nose as we limp every closer to McChord and our destination. I ease us down a few thousand feet. Mount Rainier is off to our right, its snowfields on top glowing brightly, reflecting the moonlight from it icy surface. There is not much snow left but enough to radiate its beauty. Our altitude will give us enough clearance to pass over the hills even though the top of Rainier reaches above the horizon. It seems like a long time since we watched it pass by our wing as we started this journey. It is quite a welcoming sight and it seems to welcome us back too.
I think of this as a homecoming and think on how Mom is doing; hoping she is okay. She has not left my thoughts but events have seemed to come in rapid succession so my thoughts did not stay there long. I will try my cell phone and call when we land although I have little hope of it working. If we had all engines running, I would head over and do a flyby to take a look at the place and, if she is still at her house, let her know we have returned. I am anxious and worried about her as I am sure she is about us. I will head over first thing in the morning if my call doesn’t go through.
Mount Rainier passes off our right wing and behind us as I begin a descent into the Puget Sound area. The roads and highways that I know are there should be lit with the lights of cars and trucks transiting through but everything is dark below us. The moonlight reflects off of the waters of Puget Sound presenting a tranquil scene.
I turn north in a descent as the navigation needle centers on the approach I set up into McChord. I would like to do a flyby to verify a clear runway but a go-around is not an ideal procedure on three engines. I will just have to trust that there is not anything large enough on the runway to impede our landing. It would totally suck to go through all that we have been through and come all of this way only to pile it in on our arrival.
Setting up on the approach and finishing the checks, I bring the aircraft down final with the airspeed a touch higher to give us a margin in case we do have to go around for some reason. Our landing lights reach out into the darkness, searching for the runway. There are no visual references with which to judge our approach so I just have to trust the instruments. Robert is in the right seat reading off airspeeds and altitudes, transitioning to the radar altimeter which gives us our height above the ground. I cannot rely on the actual altimeter for accuracy as we do not have a correct atmospheric pressure to set into it. On down the glide slope we continue.
The runway threshold suddenly materializes out of the dark as the landing lights pick it up. We are coming in with a little crab due to our asymmetric thrust which will slowly vanish as I pull the throttles back. The end of the threshold disappears under us. I begin to pull the throttles back bringing the nose up, reducing the crab as the asymmetric thrust vanishes. The centerline stripes rush past the windshield as I continue to gently raise the nose. The main wheels thump on the runway and the aircraft settles. I lower the nose and let the aircraft slow on its own, not wanting to use reverse thrust as that will create a tremendous amount of reverse thrust differential due to our lost engine and possibly veer us off the runway. I could use just the outboard engines to reverse thrust with but we have a long runway and will be able to slow down without using them. Although the C-130 will do well as an off-road vehicle, I do not really want to experiment with that right now. The airspeed slows and I apply the brakes to slow us further.
We taxi in to the ramp where we started this whole trek across the world, our mission a success. Our landing lights pick up the lunch area outside of the base operations building where we began planning this crazy trip. The table still sits where we left it with a couple of the chairs knocked over on their sides. It all seems very surreal and eerie as if we experienced the flight planning just a few days ago in another life or dream. We have arrived a lot wiser to our situation but the expenditure of energy and lives has been high in acquiring that knowledge and getting Lynn. Too many close calls. Hopefully the west coast night runners are a little more laid back than the east coast ones as the ones out east really did not seem to like our presence. Well, come to think of it, the ones here did not especially seem to appreciate us either.
The drone and vibration of the our three remaining engines decreases as we shut the fuel off to them and the giant propellers begin to wind down in the night air. I turn off the taxi lights plunging the night outside into darkness. The moon is high overhead casting its light on the ramp outside and illuminates the cockpit, which has been our home for the past few days, in a silvery glow. This will be the final resting place for this aircraft which has experienced our journey with us and seen us through safely. I pat the dash lightly and tell it thank you.
I unbuckle and rise with a tired sigh, feeling a touch of melancholy now about having to leave the aircraft here but feeling an anxiety and nervousness about our new journey that will begin with the rising of the sun. I reach into my flight suit pocket and pull out my phone. Flipping it open, I press the start button powering it up. The screen lights up, illuminating my face with its glow. The main screen shows and, there on the top, four bars show. What? I think seeing this. How is this possible? I think along several avenues until I realize there has been a revolution around this area with putting solar panels on a lot of the cell towers and powering them using solar energy. I guess they must have done the same with some of the central offices and the servers so these links are still powered up. Lucky us, I think as my phone vibrates suddenly in my hand.
There, displayed on my screen is a text message. I stare in disbelief at the words printed on the screen:
“Are you still alive? I need help.”
Epilogue
The bright light is out again this night, causing a slight tingle on his skin where it is exposed. Not enough to cause any discomfort or pain but like a small, barely felt itch on the back where you cannot reach it. Not close to the pain of the ball of light during the light hours but noticeable if thought about.
His pack is out again this night like all of the others, the sound of their feet striking the street behind him echoes off of the silent buildings as he runs searching for food. He has gained numbers over the last few nights making him the leader of a medium-sized pack. They have needed to range further from their lair each night to find food as it has become scarcer around the buildings and the lairs of the two-legged ones. The food lying
freely about in the buildings has been taken and their meals now consist of having to chase down live prey. They will have to move their lair soon.
These ‘thoughts’ do not come as words in his mind but more as images and instinctual reactions and knowing. He hears distant shrieks throughout the night as other packs find a scent or food; too distant for him and his pack to respond in time. He stops and sniffs each passing breeze for a scent that will lead them to food. They have eaten some this night but there have been other nights when he and his pack have had to retire to their lair, with the failing night, hungry. He runs on, searching the area in patterns hoping for the elusive scent that food is near.
There have been moments, when running in this fashion, when objects appear on his search that trigger a sense of recognition, but the hint of recognition is forgotten almost immediately. His awareness of the other night runners around him fades when these triggers occur, leaving him confused as to why he cannot detect them or why they fade from his mind. But even that confusion is forgotten with the moment passing. He has remained the leader and added to his pack because of his ability to find food and keep the pack relatively safe.
He has only his instincts; keep fed, keep his pack whole and growing, and to mate with the females when they give off their irresistible scent. An image comes to his mind that he needs to add more females to his pack. That will prevent a rivalry with the males that are following him down the darkened street. He does not register the additional fact that his sight has improved in the night. What does register is the fact that the two-legged ones, that are favored for food and creates an anger within, do not show themselves in the night anymore. They keep to their lairs that are becoming increasingly hard to get into.
Some of the places where the two-legged ones live are still relatively easy to get into but are becoming harder to find. The boards are sometimes easily torn from the sides and the pack can eat. Sometimes though, they try for hours to get in before leaving to find other food or depart because the lightening in the sky forces them to retire back to their lair. Few of any other food roams at night or hides within the buildings; fewer each night and the competition for food between packs is building. They have not had to defend their food when they have found it as yet but he instinctually knows that they may have to.
