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
'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.'
