We are within VHF range of Ocean Station November, a weather ship positioned midway between California and Hawaii. After giving a position report, we ask for a radar fix, although none is needed. We’ve been cruising along Route Bravo below the contrails of a 747 equipped with inertial navigation. This visual reference offers guidance as reliable as a railroad track. The jumbos are rarely more than a mile off course.
It is almost impossible to get lost when flying the other way, from Honolulu to Los Angeles. North America is simply too big to miss. Upon reaching the coast, all a pilot need do if lost is to look at the mountains. If they are green or white, he is too far north. If they are parched and brown, he is too far south.
The ocean station confirms our position and asks if we have time to copy a few messages to be mailed for the ship’s crew when we land. It is difficult to understand how these sailors can trust the addresses of their wives and girl friends to the dozens of lecherous pilots within VHF earshot, all of whom know that the men on November will not be home for several weeks.
The crew on Ocean Station Charlie (situated in mid-Atlantic) is savvier. They hold a “Miss Ocean Station Charlie” contest, collecting the names and addresses of willing flight attendants from overflying jetliners. At the end of a 40-day cruise, the winner is selected from a hat and receives a bouquet of flowers. We wonder what happens to the remaining names and addresses.
We reach the equi-time point, signifying that from here it would take as long to return the mainland as it would to continue in the event of an engine failure or other emergency. Several hundred miles later we pass the point of no return, an event more dramatic in fiction than in reality. Because Hawaii’s main airports have never been closed simultaneously, there is no reason why a pilot would want return to California after passing the equi-time point.
Our next stop, Guam, is a dot, a minute oasis floating on the Pacific vastness, the end of a 3,800-mile-long line drawn on the chart. The South Kauai VOR points an electronic finger toward this distant fleck of land, but the deviation indicators soon relax and we are without guide.
We used to be led across oceans by navigators using sextants to shoot the stars in the mystical manner of ancient mariners. Today, we use Doppler navigation (an electronic form of dead-reckoning) updated with fixes provided by Loran A (predecessor to Loran C).
The puffy clouds below are like sheep grazing on a boundless, emerald meadow, but ahead the cumulus grows tempestuously taller, confirming that our route partially coincides with the intertropical convergence zone, a cauldron of thunderstorms brewed by mixing the northeast and southeast trade winds.
It seems inconceivable that more than 50,000 thunderstorms occur daily above the Earth until you have flown the South Pacific. At times, all 50,000 of them seem to be in your way, challenging your right to the sky and necessitating the most devious, serpentine flight path imaginable.
One transceiver is tuned to 121.5, waiting patiently for a voice of desperation to break the silence. Once, while en route from Shannon to New York, I heard that voice. It belonged to the pilot of a Beech Baron flying from Narssarssuaq, Greenland to Goose Bay, Labrador. He was hopelessly lost, low on fuel, and his ETA had become history. His call for help was answered by so many well-intentioned airline pilots that the emergency frequency became temporarily jammed.
The pilot’s position was eventually determined, and he was directed toward a sub-Arctic settlement where a helicopter later plucked him from the tundra after his fuel ran out.
The electronic pulses wriggle across the Loran scope like topless dancers across a stage, curving and twisting irregularly. Soon, one is superimposed upon another to provide a line of position and confirm that ground speed has decreased drastically during the last hour, adding to the deceiving effect of slow motion at high altitude. We are suspended in a wispy, ethereal blackness where nothing seems to move except the fuel gauges.
A patch of turbulence, a change in outside temperature, an increase in groundspeed. The jet stream has tired of pushing against us and has veered north to perpetrate its folly elsewhere. It is cold outside, −97°F, dangerously close to the fuel-freeze point of −100°F. A lower, warmer altitude is requested, and we discuss with renewed amazement the incongruity that the coldest temperatures in the atmosphere occur above the Tropics.
The Doppler system announces that Sunday night has suddenly become Monday night. The International Date Line, drawn to meet man’s need for order and definition, has been crossed. A passenger sends a note to the cockpit, complaining with mock disappointment that he has been cheated out of his birthday. We respond unsympathetically advising that he should have flown in the opposite direction and celebrated his birthday twice.
Parenthetically, if America and the Allies had been defeated by Hitler and the Nazis, the date line would not be where it is today. Der Fuehrer declared that Berlin was the center of the world and planned to exercise his egomaniacal power by moving the Prime Meridian from Greenwich, England to Berlin, thereby shifting all meridians 13 degrees east. He even had maps printed to reflect this change.
Our shadow streaks south of wishbone-shaped Wake Island, a 4.5-mile-long atoll that was put to use in 1935 as a seaplane base for Pan American Airlines’ Clippers. Today the island is governed by the FAA, and those learning to fly there are not required to make cross-country flights. The closest airport is on Eniwetok, 600 miles south.
The small cumulus below drift behind with metronomic regularity, casting shadows on the water that look like small islands. An island or an atoll usually can be distinguished from a shadow by a green ring of shallow water surrounding it, but not always, causing me to wonder if any flight-weary pilot ever let down to a shadow thinking that it was an island.
The Pacific immensity is monotonous. More clouds, more water, more sky. Once in a while when the passengers are asleep and the pilots would like to be, some comic on a nearby flight breaks the boredom by transmitting risqué jokes on 121.5. Occasionally, someone sings or even plays the harmonica. Such diversions, scorned but undetectable by the authorities, is stimulating and rarely lasts more than a few minutes. Each pilot then returns to his personal thoughts and a bout with the “Pacific blues,” a fatiguing form of long-range boredom.
Those in the cabin also do strange things to break the monotony. Yemenites have been known to start campfires in the aisle to cook a meal. Passengers accustomed only to train travel have attempted to climb into overhead baggage compartments for a nap, and there are the inevitable honeymooners unable to wait.
The weather at Guam is reported CAVOK (ceiling and visibility okay), which is comforting because there is not a suitable airport close enough to Guam to be used as an alternate.
While soaking up the South Pacific sun on a coral-covered beach on Guam, it occurs to me that we are spending our layover on the summit of what may be the world’s tallest mountain. Guam’s foundation rises from the Marianas Trench, the deepest part of the Pacific basin, 35,640 feet below sea level.
The dispatcher hands me a weather folder containing the familiar prognostic charts and weather reports. Included also is a list of the speed, course, and last-known position of every large surface vessel steaming in the vicinity of our route to Hong Kong.
When I ask if he thinks that we’ll really need this information, he responds by adding a mimeographed sheet to the maze of preflight paperwork work scattered before me. It is entitled, Recommended Ditch Headings for Western Pacific Weather Zones.
Our flight to Hong Kong will be via Typhoon Alley, a nickname given to this region when Pacific hurricanes are on the rampage. It can be a severe weather area, but neither it nor any other region I have visited is as rough as Tornado Alley in the Midwestern U.S.
Once while en route from Guam to Okinawa, we tangled with a seemingly innocuous precipitation cell barely large enough to show on radar. It lifted the crew meal from my lap and slammed t
he tray against the instrument panel. Ever try to read your gauges in severe turbu1ence through a gooey film of coq au vin?
On the way to Hong Kong, I review the approach plate for Taipei, an en route stop, and am amused at the precision with which the Chinese expect us to make a visual approach: “After passing the TP radiobeacon at 140 knots, turn to heading 140 degrees at 4.2 degrees per second, fly straight for 6,382 feet, execute a 10-second, 45-degree turn while covering a ground distance of 2,364 feet, fly the downwind leg 6,360 feet from the runway,” and so forth.
A rumor—something you start if you do not hear one by noon—claims that intrepid and cunning aviators from the People’s Republic of China stole onto Taipei Airport one night and relieved the Nationalist Chinese Air Force of several aircraft. This partially explains why the Formosans are such sticklers for detail. You get the feeling while on the airport that permission is required to sneeze.
While taxiing for takeoff at Taipei, a red light warns us to stop so that a guard can verify that our N-number coincides with the one on the flight plan. If the two do not match, we will be escorted back to the ramp. The guard’s machine gun and several anti-aircraft batteries surrounding the airport convince us that this is one red light we cannot afford to run.
The guard salutes respectfully and shines a green light. We trundle to the runway.
We are soaring through placid valleys of white cotton candy, banking gently to follow the contours of an aerial fantasy land. Our wings are outstretched arms and slice through soft cumulus castles. This exhilarating sense of speed and freedom is what flying is all about.
A glance at the chart, however, returns us abruptly to the stark reality of the world below. We have passed over Makung, a small island in the Formosa Strait, and are paralleling a buffer zone intended to immunize the Chinese mainland against trespass by aircraft of the Free World. One notation on the chart informs us to be on the alert for transmissions from unlisted radio aids within Red China that could be hazardous and misleading. Another notation states matter-of-factly “that any aircraft infringing upon the territorial rights of China may be fired upon without notice.”
Nearing Hong Kong’s Kai-Tak Airport, we receive a descent clearance, and prepare for what might be the world’s most unusual instrument approach. At first glance, the approach plate looks confusingly similar to an Aresti aerobatic diagram.
Kai-Tak’s Runway 13 points to Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor.
Upon reaching the Cheung Chau Radiobeacon, we descend through thick globs of nimbostratus to 1,000 feet msl while flying a series of graceful figure eights using the “Charlie Charlie” Beacon as a pivot point. Inbound from the beacon, we break out of the dripping overcast and peer through an onslaught of heavy rain. We now fly visually for 15 miles at only 750 feet above the sea. Visibility is one mile, but 12 miles ahead the Stonecutters Radiobeacon encourages us to continue. We pass abeam the tip of Hong Kong Island and enter Victoria Harbor, our screaming turbines seemingly unnoticed by those aboard the dozens of Chinese junks below that plod and heel through windswept waters.
Crossing Kowloon Beach, we begin a gentle right turn, our eyes straining, searching for the visual aiming point, an orange-and-white checkerboard on the side of a 300-foot-high hill near the approach end of Kai-Tak’s Runway 13.
Tall buildings below stretch for the sky, probing for our belly. The illuminated checkerboard appears straight ahead, and we bend the Boeing right to avoid the hill, simultaneously descending toward concrete canyons and torrents of turbulence that conspire against us. Wings level at 200 feet, we are at last aligned with the 8,350-foot-long concrete ribbon projecting into the harbor from Kowloon’s east shore.
Hong Kong, a sweet-and-sour mixture of Chinese antiquity and modern British colonialism, a place where you can go broke saving money and where you can eat bird’s nest soup, a glutinous compound made by stewing bird saliva from their nests.
After fulfilling the dictates of my shopping list, I tend to an essential chore in Hong Kong, buying a survival kit. No, I do not expect an en route emergency. This survival kit consists of canned groceries to obviate my having to eat anything in Bombay, our next layover point. Eating the local food there can incapacitate the delicate Western stomach for days with something certain to baffle the medical world. Compared to the water in Bombay, Mexico’s water is like Evian. But if you are brave and insist on drinking tap water in Bombay, be sure to first hold a glassful up to the light to see if anything inside returns your stare.
High above the China Sea, I begin to prepare a list of my Hong Kong bargains for U.S. customs when the flight engineer asks us to listen to the high-frequency radio on 6624 kHz. But instead of hearing controllers, we hear Radio Peking’s modern-day version of Tokyo Rose spewing her dally dose of anti-American air pollution.
On another frequency, Saigon Control clears us across South Vietnam via Green 67. I carefully check the chart, having been cautioned about anonymous or misleading clearances that might originate in Red China or North Vietnam. An American jetliner with 117 passengers would be a prize fish for the Communists to capture over their territory.
At times, navigation and communication problems occur over Southeast Asia. None are serious, but all are annoying. The Chinese are invariably blamed for these and anything else that goes wrong, even the aft toilet that will not flush.
The 115-mile flight across South Vietnam takes only 13 minutes and begins over the coastal town of Qui Nhon, south of Danang, north of Saigon. Broad, spotless and inviting beaches characterize the scalloped coast. From our vantage point, Vietnam appears peaceful. But looking carefully, we can still see numerous bomb craters, pockmarks on the face of the Earth and on the face of man.
We streak across the muddy, swollen Mekong River and then the rice-rich fields of Cambodia and Thailand as we prepare for an en route stop. But while on final for one of Bangkok’s two parallel runways, I gape at what lies between them: a golf course. Can you imagine teeing off while being assaulted by the thunder of F-4 Phantoms taking off in formation? Like the rabbits that dwell between the runways at Los Angeles, the duffers at Don Muang Airport must be stone deaf.
A feminist would have difficulty adjusting to life in Bangkok. The entire crew orders breakfast at a small restaurant near the airport from a petite Eurasian waitress with extraordinarily delicate, flowerlike features. In typical Thai tradition, the men are served first, and our flight attendants are not served until we are finished.
We are over the narrow, southern extremity of Burma, a devoutly Buddhist land with pagodas so large they are visible from 7 miles above.
Ahead is the 1,000-mile-wide Bay of Bengal and on the other side, India. I turn off the transponder, giving it and us a rest from the rigors of positive control. Secondary radar is non-existent on the “backside” of the world, and primary radar coverage is spotty.
We estimate landing in Bombay at 2000 GMT, which is 0130 local time. Because Bombay is 5-1/2 hours ahead of Greenwich, we conclude that Indian leaders could not decide whether their country should be Zulu plus 5 or 6 hours, so they compromised. We wonder, though, what logic was used by the Liberians who decided that their country should be 44 minutes and 30 seconds behind Greenwich. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia has no zone time at all. Saudis observed Arabic or solar time. Watches are set to midnight at sundown every day.
Please forgive this preoccupation with time, but when constantly crossing time zones, it becomes a vital issue. We are in constant psycho-physiological turmoil, trying to synchronize our body clocks with the sun. After flying halfway around the world, we frequently go to bed hungry and fall asleep at the lunch table. Perhaps the Mongolians have the right idea. Their People’s Republic has no legal time whatsoever.
Our radar confirms that we are passing south of the mouths of the Irrawaddy and 2 hours later, the ADF needles flip over Vishakhapatnam, a fishing village on India’s east coast.<
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Fortunately we are not required to pronounce these tongue-twisting names or we would be unintelligible to traffic controllers. We simply report passing the Victor Zulu Beacon. Even more difficult to pronounce is Inoucdjouac, a beacon on the east coast of Hudson Bay.
The lights of innumerable small towns passing below are like jewels scattered on ebony, giving India an unblemished appearance. But those who have been here before are not deceived. India, a country where people are its major commodity, its most pressing problem, its hope for the future.
We are cleared for an ILS approach to Bombay’s Santa Cruz Airport, and after executing the required procedure turn, begin sliding down from the sky. The landing lights spike the blackness, and we pray that there are no holy cows on the runway.
After passing through customs, we are confronted by a group of consummate beggars, pathetic, destitute children ranging in age from 2 to 5. But we are prepared and pass out candy to these undernourished, scantily clad urchins.
The crew bus rattles and chugs through unlit streets, weaving once to miss a toddler straying in the night. Numerous people are asleep in the gutters, on the sidewalks, and in doorways. An airline crew is normally a jovial group, but during this ride, we are silent. Once at the hotel, we meet at one of the flight attendant’s rooms for needed refreshments and a “debriefing.”
Progress around the world can be measured in minutes and miles, but for pilots it is easier to compare the stack of unused charts with the stack of used ones. In Bombay, the two stacks are equally tall.
Dream Aircraft Page 26