“You believe we still have it?”
Mel nodded. “Unfortunately, in a good many places. All our early airports were imitation railway stations because designers had to draw on experience from somewhere, and railroad experience was all they had. Afterward, the habit remained. It’s the reason, nowadays, we have so many ‘straight line’ airports, where terminals stretch on and on, and passengers must walk for miles.”
Tomlinson asked, “Isn’t some of that changing?”
“Slowly, and in just a few places.” As always, despite the pressures of the moment, Mel was warming to his theme. “A few airports are being built as circles — like doughnuts; with car parking inside, instead of somewhere out beyond; with minimum distances for people to walk; with aids like high-speed horizontal elevators; with airplanes brought close to passengers instead of the other way around. What it means is that airports are finally being thought of as special and distinct; also as units instead of separate components. Creative ideas, even outlandish ones, are being listened to. Los Angeles is proposing a big, offshore seadrome; Chicago, a man-made airport island in Lake Michigan; nobody’s scoffing. American Airlines has a plan for a giant hydraulic lift to stack airplanes one above the other for loading and unloading. But the changes are slow, they’re not coordinated; we build airports like an unimaginative, patchwork quilt. It’s as if phone subscribers designed and made their own telephones, then plugged them into a worldwide system.”
The radio cut abruptly across Mel’s words. “Ground control to mobile one and city twenty-five. Chicago Center now estimates handoff of the flight in question to Lincoln approach control will be 0117.”
Mel’s watch showed 1:06A .M. The message meant that Flight Two was already a minute earlier than the tower chief had forecast. A minute less for Joe Patroni to work; only eleven minutes to Mel’s own decision.
“Mobile one, is there any change in the status of runway three zero?”
“Negative; no change.”
Mel wondered: was he cutting things too fine? He was tempted to direct the snowplows and graders to move now, then restrained himself. Responsibility was a two-way street, especially when it came to ordering the near-destruction of a six-million dollar aircraft on the ground. There was still a chance that Joe Patroni might make it, though with every second the possibility was lessening. In front of the stalled 707, Mel could see, some of the floodlights and other equipment were being moved clear. But the aircraft’s engines had not yet been started.
“Those creative people,” Tomlinson queried, “the ones you were talking about. Who are they?”
With only half his mind, Mel acknowledged, “It’s hard to make a list.”
He was watching the scene outside. The remainder of the vehicles and equipment in front of the stalled Aereo-Mexican 707 had now been moved clear, and Joe Patroni’s stocky, snow-covered figure was climbing the boarding ramp, positioned near the aircraft’s nose. Near the top, Patroni stopped, turned, and gestured; he appeared to be shouting to others below. Now Patroni opened the front fuselage door and went inside; almost at once another, slighter figure climbed the ramp and followed him. The aircraft door slammed. Others below trundled the ramp away.
Inside the car, the reporter asked again, “Mr. Bakersfeld, could you name a few of those people — the most imaginative ones about airports and the future?”
“Yes,” Tanya said, “couldn’t you?”
Mel thought: it would be like a parlor game while the house was burning. All right, he decided; if Tanya wanted him to, he would play.
“I can think of some,” Mel said. “Fox of Los Angeles; Joseph Foster of Houston, now with ATA of America. Alan Boyd in government; and Thomas Sullivan, Port of New York Authority. In the airlines: Halaby of Pan Am; Herb Godfrey of United. In Canada, John C. Parkin. In Europe — Pierre Cot of Air France; Count Castell in Germany. There are others.”
“Including Mel Bakersfeld,” Tanya injected. “Aren’t you forgetting him?”
Tomlinson, who had been making notes, grunted. “I already put him down. It goes without saying.”
Mel smiled. But did it, he wondered, go without saying? Once, not long ago, the statement would have been true; but he knew that on the national scene he had slipped from view. When that happened, when you left the mainstream for whatever reason, you were apt to be forgotten quickly; and later, even if you wanted to, sometimes you never did get back. It was not that he was doing a less important job at Lincoln International, or doing it less well; as an airport general manager, Mel knew he was as good as ever, probably better. But the big contribution which he had once seemed likely to make no longer was in view. He realized that this was the second time tonight the same thought had occurred to him. Did it matter? Did he care? He decided; Yes, he did!
“Look!” Tanya cried out. “They’re starting the engines.”
The reporter’s head came up; Mel felt his own excitement sharpen.
Behind number three engine of the Aereo-Mexican 707, a puff of white-gray smoke appeared. Briefly it intensified, then whirled away as the engine fired and held. Now snow was streaming rearward in the jet blast.
A second puff of smoke appeared behind number four engine, a moment later to be whisked away, snow following.
“Ground control to mobile one and city twenty-five.” Within the car the radio voice was so unexpected that Mel felt Tanya give a startled jump beside him. “Chicago Center advises revised handoff time of the flight in question will be 0116 … seven minutes from now.”
Flight Two, Mel realized, was still coming in faster than expected. It meant they had lost another minute.
Again Mel held his watch near the light of the dash.
On the soft ground near the opposite side of the runway from their car, Patroni now had number two engine started. Number one followed. Mel said softly, “They could still make it.” Then he remembered that all engines had been started twice before tonight, and both attempts to blast the stuck airplane free had failed.
In front of the mired 707 a solitary figure with flashlight signal wands had moved out ahead to where he could be seen from the aircraft flight deck. The man with the wands was holding them above his head, indicating “all clear.” Mel could hear and feel the jet engines’ thrum, but sensed they had not yet been advanced in power.
Six minutes left.
Tanya said tensely, “I don’t think I can bear the waiting.”
The reporter shifted in his seat. “I’m sweating too.”
“Mobile one,” the radio demanded sharply, “this is ground control. Is there any change in status of runway three zero?”
Patroni, Mel calculated by his watch, had three minutes left.
“The airplane’s still stuck.” Tanya was peering intently through the car windshield. “They’re using all the engines, but it isn’t moving.”
It was straining forward, though; that much Mel could see, even through the blowing snow. But Tanya was right. The aircraft wasn’t moving.
The snowplows and heavy graders had shifted closer together, their beacons flashing brightly.
“Hold it!” Mel said on radio. “Hold it! Don’t commit that flight coming in to runway two five. One way or the other, there’ll be a change in three zero status any moment now.”
He switched the car radio to Snow Desk frequency, ready to activate the plows.
14
Ordinarily, after midnight, pressures in air traffic control relented slightly. Tonight they hadn’t. Because of the storm, airlines at Lincoln International were continuing to dispatch and receive flights which were hours late. More often than not, their lateness was added to by the general runway and taxiway congestion still prevailing.
