There are two people behind the dispatch desk, a young woman who I have never seen before and a 50ish man who I know too well. She's mid-twenties, I'd guess Indian (not native American), and working the computer like she's been there for decades. The man behind her is tall, thin, greying, and watching her every keystroke. He's the operations supervisor for the airline, an original employee, probably there keeping his hands on by training the new dispatcher.
She sees me, stops her work and looks me in the eye. She has a nice voice. And nicer brown eyes. "Can I help you, sir?" The man behind her nearly chokes at that last word.
"Packer. Simon Packer. First officer for 461 to Kona. And you are?"
The man interrupts. "Miss Mankat has work to do, and you have the nicest girlfriend I have ever met and a lot of work to do yourself. How about you get to it?"
"Yes, sir," I use my most sarcastic voice. Miss Mankat is not sure what to make of the junior first officer talking back to the third most senior person in the company. She quietly hands me a manila folder with the Mountain Pacific Airline logo, marked 4-6-1 and today's date across the top.
I really don't have any work to do, at least not until my captain shows up. If I do anything now, I'll just have to do it over again later. There are a bunch of rectangular wood tables in the back of the room, where pairs of captains and their first officers are buried in similar folders. I spot an empty one and take two steps toward it.
"Bring that girlfriend around for dinner next week, your mother keeps asking me why you're hiding her," the old guy is talking to me, my escape ruined.
"Yes, dad." Miss Mankat's mouth is hanging open. It doesn't make her any less cute.
"Dad's the op super, huh?" It's a captain standing behind me, probably my captain (sorry Walt Whitman). The trip is going to be painful now, either he'll assume I got my job because of dad and can't fly, or he'll assume I can get him something he wants from my dad.
He introduces himself as Matt. I've never seen him before, but I did stand on him in the shower this morning. I keep that to myself. We take our seats and use the data in the folder to map the route to Hawaii, check the weather, calculate our fuel requirements, and determine the engine thrust and speeds we'll need to use. Ms. Mankat has done this all on her computer, and our numbers match hers, which is a good thing since a mistake means we and 188 other people will have to swim part of the way and the airline will lose a $50 million aircraft.
Matt goes back to the counter with a form filled in with our calculations. It should take him 30 seconds to sign it and be on his way, but he spends a couple minutes making Miss Mankat laugh. Despite the truth in my dad's words, I'm pissed, though it reminds me that I have not called the girlfriend today. I remedy that situation while watching Matt trade flight data for a phone number. I should have peed on him in the shower. To make matters worse, dear old dad appears to be helping him, not thinking about what cute grandchildren she and I would have. Jen doesn't answer, and I leave a quick message ending in "love you." Does it matter if I don't?
After he stuffs her number in his pocket and makes one last joke, Matt and I walk over to the crew area to brief the flight attendants in one of those little conference rooms. No hazardous materials on board, no special needs passengers, no bad weather expected. We go over procedure if they need something, we need to pee, or a bad person has snuck on board. They've heard it all before, but repetition makes things automatic.
The seven of us then join a line of our brethren getting on the bus to the terminal. We pass through our special security line, Matt and I grab a couple of orange juices at McDonald's, and find gate 70B. Matt heads down the jetway toward the plane, I head down the stairs to the ground. As First Officer, it's my job to inspect the aircraft, Matt's is to inspect the office, what you call the flight deck or cockpit.
The 757 (seven-five to it's friends) is the most beautiful aircraft ever built, but that doesn't mean something can't go wrong. Even supermodels must catch colds sometimes. I check the tires and brakes. Make sure nothing is leaking from the engines or the hydraulic lines. Examine a dozen or so instruments that stick out from the surface of the aircraft. Spin the front turbine disks on the engines. Check that no one drove a baggage cart into the side. I check out the guys loading the baggage, none of them has a staff. When I'm sure we'll make it to the islands, I climb back up to the gate, and head down the jetway to join Matt.
I stow my suitcase, slip into the right hand seat, and buckle up. Matt's gone through a checklist to set switches and put our flight plan into the flight management computer. I double check everything he's done, while he talks on the radio to get our departure clearance. We can hear the passengers getting on board, and a flight attendant closes our door. I reach up and flip the lock on. Matt and I talk procedure now, engine fires, other failures, things we practice all the time.
The lead flight attendant calls on the intercom, tells us they are ready. Matt talks to the ground crew, who give us the OK to start one engine. We've been plugged in to the terminal for power, but that requires too long of an extension cord for the flight to Hawai'i. I reach up into the overhead panel, push the buttons to start the fuel pumps and turn the start switch on engine 2 to ground. It spins for a few seconds, then I reach onto the center console, turn the fuel switch to run, and watch the EICAS screen (that's engine information and crew alert system) to make sure everything's fine. The ground crew disconnects us from the terminal, and I repeat the procedure for engine 1. The ground crew then disconnects us from themselves and waves goodbye.
Matt gets on the radio. "Ground, Mountain 4-6-1 ready to taxi."
"Mountain 4-6-1 taxi via Bravo to 2-4 right. Follow the Tahiti 340."
"Bravo to 2-4 right, follow Tahiti, Mountain 4-6-1." Matt is efficient at airplane talk.
It means to drive down the road called "Bravo" to the runway called 24 right. Runways are compass headings. Our "24" means it's 240 degrees on the compass, and there's a pair of runways, so they are cleverly called "left" and "right." It's not really 240, but LAX has so many runways the numbers are close, not perfect. We're following an Air Tahiti Nui Airbus A340. Matt hits the throttles, steers with a little handle at his left hand, and gets us nicely behind the bright blue Tahiti.
A line of aircraft haul down the runway to our right, until finally Tahiti is rolling in the deep, OK, down the runway, and we are next. Ground calls us and tells us to contact the tower.
"Los Angeles tower, Mountain 4-6-1 with you, 2-4 right."
"Mountain 4-6-1, position and hold, 2-4 right."
"Position and hold, Mountain 4-6-1." We make a sweeping right turn, and line up on the runway. We see the Tahiti airborne, maybe five miles out. We wait about 30 seconds.
"Mountain 4-6-1, wind calm, cleared for takeoff."
"Cleared for takeoff, Mountain 4-6-1." Each pilot flies the aircraft one way on these flights. Matt gave me the LAX to Hawaii segment, so I am in command. I reach over and press a button on the Mode Control Panel (fancy terminology for our autopilot) that tells the computer to run the engines to takeoff power, then I put my left hand on the throttles as if I were actually doing it. Matt is still steering until we get above 80 knots (yes, airplanes think they are boats, and measure things in nautical miles).
When we get there, I say "80 knots," and Matt says, "Your controls." My right hand closes on the yoke between my legs (no jokes please). There are two speeds that matter now. The runway is only so long. If we get going too fast, and we're too far down the runway, in an emergency we'd end up in the ocean. So we have a speed called V1 after which it's either fly or swim. The other speed is our rotation speed, the speed at which we bring the nose up, and leave the earth behind. Matt never gets to V1, he calls "rotate" and I do.
We leave the ground exactly as predicted. Matt calls "gear up," pulls the handle out and up, and three red lights change to green. We don't need them, we feel the landing gear and hear it, as do the passengers.
"Mountain 4-6-1 contact Los Angeles departure, 1-2-3-point-3-5."
"Twenty three thirty five, Mountain 4-6-1," Matt pushes a button on the radio to change frequencies, "Los Angeles departure, Mountain 4-6-1 out of 1.8 for 3." We're 1,800 feet up, and not allowed to go above 3,000.
"Mountain 4-6-1, radar contact, fly heading 2-1-0, climb and maintain 1-0-0." We turn a little more to the south, and we're good to 10,000 feet. We put away our flaps, turn off our lights, and flip a few more switches for the fun of it (I'm kidding).
Summer mornings in LA there is a marine cloud layer just above the ground which rises to a few thousand feet. Ground folks refer to it as "June gloom," because it makes their early summer mornings depressing by blotting out the sun. We're inside it now, hoping that no student pilot in a Cessna is lost in here doing something stupid.
We break out into the bright morning sun, the clouds gorgeous and puffy below us. It's the one point in the flight where you can really feel our speed. To the left, I see the peak of a coastal island. I scan to the right. There's a 200 foot tall man, wearing a black cloak and carrying a staff the size of a redwood, standing on the clouds. He looks me in the eye and moves the end of the staff until it points directly as us.
"Traffic?", there's worry in Matt's voice. There must have been panic on my face. My apparition disappears.
"Bird," I lie. If I tell the truth, we're going back to LAX and my career ends. "Clear now."
I don't have to explain any more, because departure is calling again.
"Mountain 4-6-1, climb and maintain flight level 3-5-0, resume own navigation. Radar service terminated, contact oceanic control."
In other words, we're basically on our own to fly wherever at 35,000 feet. For the next five hours, it's routine. Check the fuel every 30 minutes. Send a report on our position every hour. Climb another couple thousand feet as the gas tanks get emptier and lighter. Try not to look out the window, just in case.
When we're 150 miles out, I have no choice. Honolulu center tells us to descend to 12,000 feet, and we set a course to fly toward Maui, then turn left, go lower, and line up on the Kona runway. It's all uneventful. We land, taxi over to the terminal, spend a few minutes turning everything off. This aircraft is going back to LA in 90 minutes, but not with us on board.
There aren't jetways here, you walk down a long, winding stair that they roll over to the plane. There's always a perfect breeze, warm sun, ocean, lava beds, and lots of people pretending to be Hawaiian and saying "mahalo" a lot. That's Hawaiian for "thank you," but nowadays you only hear it at airports.
I say Mahalo, though, and mean it. No cloaks, no staffs, no worries.
Chapter 2
The seven of us catch the shuttle to the Royal Kona, check in and meet back downstairs at the bar for lunch. Good food and you are 10 feet from the ocean where you can eat and watch the activity on the water, letting all your cares and worries evaporate. By the time we finish our catch of the day, I'm thinking about two things, and they are both sitting across the table from me. Luckily, I manage to talk them into letting me teach them how to snorkel. Unluckily, Matt invites himself along.
In case you didn't know, we are limited in how long we can fly in a day, and we have rest requirements between flights. Today is Monday, got in 11:30 a.m. Hawaiian Standard Time, and we won't fly out until tomorrow, 1 p.m. I know, cool job.
I run a two week cycle: Monday to Hawaii, Tuesday home, then off until Friday back to Kona and Saturday home, off until Tuesday, back home Wednesday, and then start over. I usually get called in on that second Friday to do a day trip, maybe Denver and back or the shuttle, which means I get to sleep in my own bed. It's not bad really, work 7 days out of every 14, and love every minute of it. Plus parts of six days in every 14 in Hawaii, all expenses paid (or almost all).
We grab our swim gear from our rooms, and catch the Keauhou shuttle up to Kahalu`u Bay. There's a little snorkel shop there where I rent equipment for four, and fight off the old surfer dude who wants to give the women a private lesson (and possibly teach them how to snorkel too). I give one of our women some hands on instruction, and Matt takes care of the other. They pick it up quick, and we spend a fun afternoon swimming with wild looking fish and friendly turtles.
Once we're tired out the bus takes us back into town, where Matt's friend leads him toward the elevator while offering to wash the sand off his back, and mine shows me a picture of her 250 pound linebacker boyfriend. At least he doesn't have a staff.
I go shower alone, not a bit bothered by the steam at this point, head back downstairs and meet the crew for dinner, minus Matt and his shower buddy who are apparently going for room service. I try to extend the meal as long as possible, but soon I'm all alone. I wander the hotel until 11, which is 2 a.m. LA time, and give in. I am, after all, taking 188 lives in my hands tomorrow.
The bed is king size, soft and inviting. It scares the crap out of me. For a while I stand out on the balcony, overlooking Kona town and a piece of the ocean. Eventually, I go back in, close the curtains, take my clothes off and slip naked between the sheets. Ocean sounds fill the room through the open screen door, about as restful and sleep inducing as a sound can be. I fight it, but before too long, I slip away.
