JetHead, The Novel: Chapter 2.

Have you read Chapter 1? Scroll down and you’ll find it. Here’s Chapter 2.

Chapter 2: Lurch and The Beaver

The spool-up growl of the big Snecma engines building to takeoff power still gave him a shot of adrenalin: such engineering marvels, spinning at thousands upon thousands of RPMs, a thousand degrees, flawlessly, for hours. Lurch toggled the TOGA button on the autothrottles then rode them with a loose hand on top, right up to the N1 setting he’d grudgingly briefed. Digital readouts blossomed and counted up, then held at 91.4, just as planned, then a shove in the pants, forward, turned loose.

“Thrust set, 91.4,” Bob announced confidently. That was required, so Lurch would just have to deal with it. He didn’t seem to like much talk in the cockpit, but Bob took solace in the stream of useful procedural information he could provide regardless. After all, the airline had crammed his head full of fifty thousand little BBs of information in ground school and he was determined to show that all the little brass pellets hadn’t yet–at least while he was on probation–dribbled out of his ears to scatter across the cockpit floor like mercury.

He loved the gathering rush of power and speed, the slight rudder walk as the towering tail slab bit the air and Lurch tapped it a notch left to make the nose wheel clear the kerthumping runway centerline lights. Lurch was a pro, no doubt about it. He’d handled even the worst combination of snow and winds and shit weather with a calm, quiet ease. But what a grouch.

“Gear up,” Lurch growled from the left seat, holding his right hand out, palm up, the signal for the command. Dammit–Bob had missed his “positive rate” call out, mandatory, confirming that the jet was climbing. And Lurch hadn’t waited for it.

The blessed instant of flight was an illusion, like his first flat spin in an Air Force jet: not that the jet spun but rather, the view did. Heart thumping, he’d been ready, at twenty-thousand feet in the clunky Tweet jet trainer, sucking on an oxygen hose with a mask mashed to his face, cinched up tight in the ejection seat. “You ready?” Death Ray had asked with a droll foreboding, from the right seat. “Yeah,” he’d answered, in a tone that said ‘fuck you, I’d sooner die than show fear in front of you.’ And he’d meant it.

Then Death Ray pulled the nose up, bled off the airspeed and stomped the rudder which induced a flat spin like a plate whirling atop a stick for a juggler, the wingtips sailing round and round and the jet flat plunging from 20,000 feet down to ten, straight down. Anticlimactic, it was; as if they in the cockpit stood still and the Earth and sky and view rotated around them. A moment of elation, not fear; “ain’t nuthin’ to this aviation shit” he’d echo with his flight buds in the bar that night.

So it was with takeoff: Lurch eased the yoke back and the Earth just fell away. Then, he set the pitch to freeze the airspeed and the Boeing rose, following the nose up to about twenty degrees, climbing and accelerating.

Frequencies were changed, tower handed them off to departure, the low sector first, as the litany of cleanup went step by step on the flight deck.

“Clean machine,” Bob said, verifying the wink-out of the green leading edge light, plus the two flap needles flush on zero. He resisted the urge, in deference to Lurch, to say the cabin was pressurizing, the fuel feeding from the center tank. Just tell me what’s wrong, the sourpuss had said, and if nothing is, nothing needs to be said. So he thought it to himself and left it at that.

Passing ten thousand feet, Lurch punched the flight attendant chime letting the cabin crew know they were no longer in “sterile cockpit.” Within a heartbeat, the crew interphone chime rang over Bob’s head.

“It’s for you,” Lurch said, never looking away from the sky ahead, still hand-flying the jet.

Bob grabbed the handset. “This is Bob–”

“Look, Bucko,” that would be Dixie, “Am I gonna have to teach you how to run the air?”

He didn’t know what to say. Dixie’d been flying since he’d been in high school, maybe before. When Lurch had introduced her–they seemed to go way back–she’d laughed and said, “I’m not bringing you a crew meal–I’m just going to take you up to my room and breast feed you.”

He didn’t look that young, at least in his own mind. But Dixie, Lurch and about half the crew force looked to be his parents’ age. Except that one in the back, Kerry? She was a newhire, like him. More his age.

“So turn up the air, Bucko,” brought him back to the problem at hand. He sighed, ready for the abuse that “twenty questions,” now required, would bring down on his head. Seemed like flight attendants couldn’t discuss the temperature with a clear statement of what they wanted. You had to drag it out of them. Did “turn it up” mean hotter or colder?

“Do you want it–”

She cut him off. “Look, I’m going to yank these goddam pantyhose off and put ’em over your head and see how well you breathe.”

Ah, she wants the cabin cooled down. “Okay, I’ll cool it a–”

“No,” she butted in, “You’ll give me full cold and I’ll say when.”

Yes ma’am, he wanted to say but decided not to tangle with the number one flight attendant, especially being acid-tongued Dixie. Why couldn’t sweet, young, blonde Kerry; no, Kelly was her name–why couldn’t she be number one?

“Okay,” he answered, reaching up to twist both cabin temp knobs to the cold side. “Here it comes.” She’d already hung up.

He adjusted the temperature rotary knob to display the cabin temp in both locations.

“Says it’s putting out seventy five degree–”

Lurch raised a hand, still looking ahead. “How long you been married?”

He thought about that. Oh. A “yes dear” moment. But up here, we’re pilots, not compliant hubbys, running state-of-the-art airliners with limits and procedures and know how.  Bob wasn’t buying it.

“Seven years,” Bob answered. “But the cabin temp is–”

“Whatever she says it is,” Lurch finished the sentence for him, turning to offer a rare, if wry smile, though his eyes remained inscrutable behind a pair of sunglasses. Not Aviators like Bob’s, he noted. Lurch didn’t seem to get into the airline pilot persona.

“Look,” Lurch offered, “They’re all back there running around, working, swathed in polyester, sweating. Who cares what a temp probe located God knows where says? Just do it.”

Bob shrugged. “Sure.”

“Did you fly the MD-80?” Lurch asked. Bob nodded. “Well, those packs go full cold at takeoff power. Not the Boeing. The pilots coming off the 80 always goose the heat out of habit, and always get a call like you just did. If the temp was okay on the ground, it’ll be okay in the air.” He reached up and moved the cockpit–“control cabin,” as only Boeing called it–temp controller a quarter turn to the left. “And the last thing I want on climbout is heat in the cockpit, too.”

Bob nodded, filing that away. The ground school instructor had warned them that if the temp control valve got frozen on the ground, it might remain stuck in the air. But he was gradually learning that there was a great disparity between ground school book knowledge and practical application in flight.

That was all new. The Air Force was all about reciting technical and procedural knowledge from various manuals. You were only better than the next guy if you could say more, memorize more, and show those above you what you knew.

“Guess I’m still in the Air Force squadron mode,” Bob said. “Standardization, orals.”

Lurch punched the “Command A” button.  “Autopilot’s on. Yeah, it takes awhile to move beyond that. But we’re not like that. Especially on this fleet.”

Air traffic control directed them to a new frequency, and the new controller cleared them to their final cruising altitude. Lurch set the altitude and confirmed it verbally with Bob.

“Three nine zero.” Lurch pointed to the altitude set window. “Thirty-nine,” Bob repeated. A wispy cirrus layer slipped under the nose, creating a flickering sun dog. As they climbed, the ground shrank into a carpet of browns and greens, then the higher they went, a tapestry of land and woods veined with spindly roads.

“The Air Force needs all that,” Lurch said. “Very new people flying and fixing complicated aircraft and missions. But the average pilot here has nothing but flight experience, and tons of it.”

Bob had to agree with that. “And even better,” Lurch continued, “We’re not fighting each other for promotion.”

That had been one of the prime reasons Bob had been glad to leave the Air Force. Promotion was one part proven skill, two parts politics and sucking up. In the airline pilot world, promotion was all about seniority, longevity which, by nature normally meant an assload of flight time.

“Takes time,” Lurch offered charitably. “But you’ll learn to ease up.”

Easy for you to say, Bob thought to himself. You’re half retired as it is, flying only turns to either coast, home every night. GOOMSOM, the acronym was scrawled in the kitbag room: “Get Out Of My Seat, Old Man.” Meaning, for old guys like Lurch, retire. Bob allowed himself an inward smile.

Yeah, he was junior and he knew it. Still puppyish about the thrill of flying, and nothing but flying, since he’d left the political ass-kissing contest of Air Force squadron life.

He didn’t even mind being on reserve, though so many of the older guys griped about it. Life was good, whatever he got called to fly by Crew Sked was better than just sitting in the always crowded and usually smelly crash pad. Even this turn with Lurch, as he’d nicknamed him. He’d have a great yarn to spin back at the crash pad and–

The printer hummed and immediately, Lurch had a hand on the printed message and tore it down and off. The old guy stared at it for a moment.

“Fuck.” He handed the message to Bob, who read and then reread the short message.

“Fuck,” Lurch muttered again. Bob laid the flimsy paper on the Comm pedestal. Wow. Things were about to get crazy.

[Note: Chapter 3 is done and will be posted soon]

JetHead, The Novel.

Yes, you read that correctly. Let me explain.

I have a novel in print right now: East Jesus, published by White Bird Publications of Austin, Texas.  Of course, there’s an aviation theme (read more here) but only as a part of the larger story.

Here below, for my 5,000+ blog friends and subscribers, is Chapter 1 of the JetHead novel.

You want to live the airline pilot life through the prose you’ve come to enjoy in the blogspace here–happy to report that over a million readers have–before my publisher gets ahold of it?

Here you go.

Chapter 1: A Slice of the Sky

“Breathe, goddamit,” he silently swore, as much to himself as to Beaver. It was no use, Beaver was a narrator, the worst kind of narrator to have in the cockpit, his cockpit. “Just breathe.”

Taxi out should be silent save what was required, at least in his mind, and he was the captain. Like a walk down the church aisle to a pew, quietly, with reverence, preparing for worship. So little needed to be said. But Beaver not only over said what needed to be said, he blabbered on about what didn’t need to be said: “The runway is not wet,” he chattered. No shit, it’s not wet or in flames or made of corn flakes or a million other salient but useless observations that could be made.

Beaver was a last minute replacement for his regular First Officer–FO, in the parlance of flight crews–which could mean only one dastardly thing: Opie was off getting his pipe scraped by The Sky Goddess. Beaver, Eager Beaver, was a newhire, on the line barely a year and eager (hence the nickname) to prove he was doing stuff, a lot of stuff, in that right seat just as he presumed every copilot must do.

Taylor had been in the left seat, a captain for what, twenty-five years plus change now? Had he been Beaver once, with a babbling lack of shut up, back in the day? Doubtful: Taylor had earned a reputation as a silent type, a grouch especially on early flights, in his Air Force squadron. That was long ago, but still.

He sighed and nudged the lumbering jet back toward the taxiway centerline with a light touch on the rudder pedals–his cabin crew, he knew, was up and about checking seat backs and seat belts in preparation for take off. He always pictured Her, his flight attendant bride of twenty years, even though she wasn’t on board, trying to walk down that aisle and taxied as smoothly as possible. Like a great timber ship of old, Taylor could sense the creak of spars and the slosh of fifteen tons of jet fuel in the wings and center tank heaving against the turn he smoothly eased out of. That feel, beautiful silent sense of fuel and steel, blood and bone ready to leap off the earth–that called for silent appreciation. For Opie, maybe. He was good at reading people, knew when to be quiet. But The Beav, no.

Taylor tuned out, steering with his feet, clearing his mind. He knew the planned aircraft weight, needed now only to know the up-linked final weight and what the aircraft’s onboard Flight Management System thought the jet weighed. Because the choreography had to match the dance: day or night, tired or not, those three would be reconciled without ambiguity or confusion without fail.

“Blah blah as briefed blah blah,” came from Beaver in a stream of consciousness flow.

If it’s “as briefed,” why do you need to say anything? Selective listening would be the key to not having an aneurism during the next 3,000 air miles. Opie, damned Opie, blowing up his life with the Sky Goddess and sticking Taylor with The Beav as a result. Hope it was worth it. He eased the jet to a stop in the aluminum conga line ahead. The fuel sloshed, the keel wagged a bit in protest. The ship was alive and that, for Taylor, was what mattered and really, all he wanted to think or feel.

The Boeing was a simple, solid jet, a friend a pilot could rely on: generous wing, plenty of smash in the two big hi-bypass engines slung beneath each wing. She climbed well, handled smoothly in roll and pitch. A reliable workhorse, a Percheron among jets, she deserved respect. You don’t just fly ’em, he thought to himself. Like horses, Noble, quiet, strong; you were privileged to be among them, much less ride them. He’d been downstairs as she sat at the gate, for no other reason than to take her in, the span of her wings, the smooth, flush-riveted and polished skin. Slide a hand down her flank; an ancient ritual from his Air Force days.

Beav fell silent. Finally, Taylor’s cue. “We planned 160.5, we closed at 160.9 for a takeoff weight of 161.5; set and crosschecked.” Amen, he thought but didn’t say. Respect the altar of fire and flight.

Opie had a a very pregnant wife plus a toddler at home. Sky Goddess had three kids and a husband with a badge and gun and the legal sanction to use it. On Opie, Taylor had warned. A dime-sized hole between his eyes, a bag of cocaine stuffed in his mouth and no further questions from the grand jury: no bill.

He set the brakes as a ponderous, four-engined Airbus took the runway. He shared the Bus crew’s cockpit moment, reviewing the litany–pilots called it that–going through the captain’s mind: idle power, speed brakes, boards, amen. Above eighty knots, abort for engines only. Meaning, the reality of flight: he was a pilot, made for flight, not a drag racer trying to stop an eighty ton tricycle. There was always that moment of relief when max abort speed was passed, committing them to flight. Much better for a pilot to handle a sick jet in flight rather than stop it, laden with tons of jet fuel looking for a flashpoint, on the ground. Pilots fly, godammit, and that’s what he’d sooner do. The Airbus rolled.

“Final’s clear,” The Beav broke into his reverie. That was a required call out. “And the clock is started,” Beav added. That was not required, but the eager one wanted the droll, soporific and taciturn captain blob to know he knew they’d need two minutes of wake turbulence spacing behind the heavy bus only just now but slowly rising into a dusty cobalt Texas sky.

Taylor knew. And he really didn’t care, looking at the windsock showing a steady crosswind. The wingtip vortices from the heavy would be a problem for those landing on the parallel runway, maybe, but not for them. Plus, they’d be in the air a thousand feet prior to where the euro-trash heavy broke ground, and sail way above the lumbering beast anyway.

Over time, Taylor knew you just get so familiar with the jet that the final minutes before takeoff become reflex driven. From the captain’s cyber-view, a green alphabet soup swam before his eyes in the HUD–Head UpDisplay–that couldn’t be sorted, shouldn’t be anyway: symmetry was the key. A battalion of aerospace engineers designed the semiotics to present a symmetry when all was well–airspeed, altitude, course, track; over seventy bits of detail, Taylor had counted–leaving the pilot free to concentrate on flying.

Beaver was leaping over the symmetry and quashing Taylor’s calm awareness of the rightness with a deluge of everythingness. He’d have to dial that back.

“Line up and wait,” came the call from the tower. Finally. He chimed the flight attendants to let them know “take off was imminent,” as the operating manual writers put it–more like, “grab yourself an assload of jumpseat, we’re fixin’ to fly this jet” in the less orthodox argot he tended to think in, sometimes speak in.

Time to roll the jet onto the runway, line it up on the numbers, ease it to a stop as the fuel sloshed and the nose dipped from the gentle braking. Then, the silent moment of peace before fifty-four thousand pounds of thousand degree thrust shattered the air with the hi-bypass howling growl and launched them down the runway.

Hang on, Beav, he thought to himself, looking five miles ahead and above in the dusty blue sky. This is going to be epic.