we have it. The Gulf might close altogether, at least until we and the Western Allies can blow the bastard open again…and now we’re locked out of the other big world oil supply. Everyone in the industry could see it coming. And what did we do? Nothing. A great big zero. And now this. Fuck me.”
The interesting part of this discussion was not that Bob Trueman had shed the light of a prophet upon the subject. Bob was not renowned as a major intellect, even in the higher reaches of the ARCO boardroom. He was just a professional oil man, with a voracious appetite for knowledge. His staff referred to him as the Bear, his office was referred to as the Cave. He carried three briefcases usually, and read, according to Steve Dimauro, “about 3,000 magazines a day.”
He was a likable character who tended to drive his colleagues crazy because he believed there was no group of people on his staff who could provide him with as much information as he needed. His intake of both knowledge and calories, on any given day, approached the high frontiers of supply-side economics.
Above all, however, he was quick to recognize a fool. And he definitely recognized one in a position of power. Bob Trueman had been voluble in his condemnation of the White House in the dying years of the twentieth century. And he worked for America’s current Republican President with all the energy of a true zealot. The cool rejection of his proposals in Baku, by the new men in charge of world oil — or at least a significant piece of it — had frustrated him almost beyond tolerance.
“And it was all so goddamned simple,” he growled. “All we had to do was cozy up to Iran, mend a few bridges, offer them some assistance. Then finance a U.S.-Iranian pipeline with a big fat ARCO refinery, right at the end, bang on the Gulf. That way everyone gets rich, the world keeps turning, and Iran loses its fanatical desires to close it all down.
The final word was the key to his abilities. Bob did not come up with solutions. He was not a creative thinker. He was an oil-industry computer with a giant database of knowledge, honed after a lifetime in the world’s oil fields. He was a man who ought to be listened to, but, for two reasons, he was never going to be president of ARCO; one, because he might not find the decisiveness to move forward in a crisis. Two, because he did not look like a natural candidate for long life.
Bob Trueman and his colleagues were ensconced happily in the big Concorde lounge in Heathrow’s Terminal Four. All six men were sipping coffee, and the team leader had helped himself to a couple of Danish pastries. Steve had made an unusual request, that they would like lunch two hours into the three-hour flight. However, shortly after takeoff he asked if the chief U.S. oil negotiator might have a couple of cheeseburgers. Steve thought he might have to delve into the mysteries of his boss’s weight-maintenance program, but Julie, the Concorde flight attendant had smiled sweetly, and replied, “Of course, sir, I am quite certain we can manage that.”
Meanwhile, Captain Brian Lambert, in company with his Senior Flight Engineer Henry Pryor, and First Officer Joe Brody, was already in the cockpit, running through the long prestart checklist that accompanies the still-superb achievement of flying a 200-foot-long delta-winged aircraft at a speed of MACH-2, twice the speed of sound, right out on the edge of space, with 100 people on board being variously served filet mignon, roast grouse, or salmon.
Henry had already walked around the aircraft for almost an hour, making his standard visual external check. And now he sat in his seat in the cockpit, running through all the preflight tests and checks, in strict accordance with the minutely ordered written procedures. No details were skimped. No detail was so small it could be ignored. Before takeoff, Henry operated by the well-tried book.
The two pilots had studied the flight plan and the en-route chart, and, with fifty minutes to go, the flight engineer handed over his documents to the captain, who signed the log and formally accepted control of the aircraft. Now both pilots had a copy of the flight log clipped to the front of their boards. They were concerned at this moment with way points, altitudes, and radio frequencies.
Flying the Concorde is like flying no other aircraft. Everyone is always busy, such is the terrific speed and height. The supersonic empress of the North Atlantic is a demanding mistress, and the degree of care needed to bring her safely home requires the leading edge of crew diligence and perception. Her altitude is governed by barometric pressure, rather than actual feet above the ocean, and as she burns fuel at a terrific rate, becoming lighter in weight, she rises and then corrects, maybe through 500 feet over a couple of minutes.
Right now Captain Lambert was feeding the way points into the computerized inertial navigation system. These were the milestones they would call out to air traffic control all the way over the Atlantic, every 10 degrees of longitude, a distance of 450 miles. They would check in with Shannon/Prestwick (SHANWICK) oceanic control about 30 minutes after takeoff, then make another call at 4 degrees west, at the acceleration point above the Bristol Channel. That would confirm Concorde’s route, which is not the same as the other big commercial jets heading west across the Atlantic.
Concorde flies alone for several reasons, the first being that all populations in all countries must be protected from her big sonic double boom as she races through the sound barrier. Thus her course takes her straight down the middle of the Bristol Channel toward southern Ireland, where she begins to wind up her speed to supersonic. Then she streaks southwest, climbing to her cruising altitude of approximately 54,000 feet, more than 4 miles above the other jet aircraft, throwing her boom out behind her across the ocean.
Out over the Atlantic she leaves the coastline of County Cork 45 miles to starboard, sticking to a course way south of the other airliners. Concorde flies over no land between Somerset in the west of England, and the immediate precincts of John F. Kennedy Airport, Long Island, east of New York City. The 3,500-mile journey will be accomplished in three hours. At supersonic cruise speed she makes 1,330 mph, covering a mile every 2.7 seconds, 22 miles every minute. She drops a little time climbing out over southern England, where her speed is strictly restricted to just less than MACH-1, but still more like a guided missile than an airliner.
Flying her today was forty-four-year-old Brian Lambert’s second choice. His first would have been to watch his son Billy play rugby, in the front row of the scrum for his prep school first fifteen. They were up against the tigerish lineup of Elstree School in Berkshire, who traditionally won the game by about twenty points, but were perceived as vulnerable in the new season of 2006. Still, his wife Jane would be going, and Brian would be thinking of them both at 1430, when Billy would lead the team out for the first time. Concorde’s pilot would be in New York by then.
For January, it was a good day for rugby. Cloudy, not too cold, with a softish pitch thanks to three days of almost nonstop rain. Driving from Surrey to Heathrow, on still-wet roads, Brian had already noted the westerly wind and layered banks of cloud, assembling in his mind the kind of weather he would encounter as he flew the takeoff. He wondered which particular aircraft it would be today. Not, he hoped, the one that had developed a shaky gauge in number three fuel tank last week.
Now, with forty-five minutes still to go before the new 1045 departure time, he was familiarizing himself with his two-man crew. Henry Pryor he knew. They’d flown together in December, but Joe Brody, the first officer from West London, was a mere acquaintance. It was standard British Airways procedure to select random crews, mainly to avoid the obvious problems of overconfidence, slackness, and bad habits, which occasionally evolved among men who work together all the time.
Thus the three men assembled, as a flight crew, for the first time a couple of hours before departure, in the operations office, where they went over the flight plan and studied the detailed weather information provided in a folder by the airport meteorological office. Every possible contingency was contained there…temperatures, pressure systems, winds, potential areas of turbulence, possible icing areas, all laid out in a coded format, incomprehensible to a layman.
In the cockpit, preparing to leave, the planning schedules focused the minds of each of the three men. The fuel tonnage, which ensured they would have sufficient to land in the event of an engine failure, was critical. Because Concorde cannot fly at MACH-2 on only three of her Rolls Royce engines, neither can she remain at her great height. And when she slides down to a lower altitude, her fuel efficiency is cut by around 25 percent, which could force her to land in the Azores, or Gander in Newfoundland, or Halifax, Nova Scotia. Henry Pryor was watching the steady filling of those 95-ton capacity tanks with a beady eye.
The trim of the aircraft was also a vital part of the preparation, because the center of gravity must be spot- right. With Concorde carrying a grand total of 185 tons in weight, it is more complicated than on any other aircraft, because of the constant transferring of fuel from tank to tank in flight, and the subsequent redistribution of the tonnage. Most of the passengers are sitting in front of the gravity center. Indeed the pilot works 38 feet in front of the nosewheel, and 97 feet in front of the mainwheels. The loading officers, working with the crews, often make
