Linda looked down near the foot pedals and couldn’t reach them. She thought for a moment of her grandfather teaching her how to fly when she was just twelve years old. He had to place a telephone book underneath her.
“Come on, short-stuff,” he said laughing as he helped her move the seat forward so her feet could reach the pedals. “Got to see the runway you know.” She moved the Captain’s seat forward enough so she could reach them.
Then, she put on the pilot’s radio headset but couldn’t figure out where the radio controls were. She scanned the vast maze of instruments before her but couldn’t find anything that looked like an aviation radio stack. She could hear static through her headset, but that was all. She looked down at the four throttle levers to her side between her and the co-pilot’s seat – but no radios. Finally, she looked further back and found them behind the throttles.
She tuned to several frequencies but continued to hear nothing but static. Then, she switched to the low-band airport beacon frequencies until finally – she could hear the steady tone and click of an omni-directional navigation beacon from – some airport someplace. She shook her head and tuned back to the general aviation frequency and keyed the transmitter.
“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday,” she said. “This is Boeing 747 heavy transmitting in the blind. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is Boeing 747 heavy transmitting in the blind to any station receiving us. Over.”
Silence.
“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is Boeing 747 heavy transmitting in the blind. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is Boeing 747 heavy transmitting in the blind to any station receiving us. Over.”
“Any luck?” The flight attendant said from behind her.
“Oh – ah – no I’m afraid,” she said. “Well, sort of. I’m getting a VOR navigation beacon from somewhere. So, it’s only the voice single side-band that’s out. Where exactly are we anyhow? Do you know?”
“No, not really,” she said, looking out the window. “Somewhere over the Rockies.”
Linda looked over her left shoulder at the mountainous terrain below. “Not many places to land around this place.”
“But, here,” the flight attendant pointed at a computer LCD screen on the instrument panel. “This is the GPS.”
“Oh, okay. We got GPS.”
“You’re not used to flying with high-tech instruments?
“No.” Linda looked at the display. “I fly your basic low-tech propeller driven aircraft. Some of them are even antique like my grandfather’s old WWII P51 Mustang.”
“Yeah, I know. That was the one you flew in with President Beckman out of Iran! They all said on the news that it was the most incredible feat of flying of our times.”
“Yeah, well – this is a lot different.”
“I can help a little. They taught us just the bare basics of the 747 instrumentation in school.”
“Good.” Linda sighed. “‘Cause I’m going to need it. What’s your name by the way?”
“Carol,” she said. “Carol Matheson.”
“Hi, Carol. I’m happy to meet you.”
“Oh, not as happy as we are to meet you!” She laughed. “You don’t know how glad we were to see your name on the passenger roster when this all started!”
“Yeah, well,” Linda shook her head. “I’ll be much happier when we are all very safely landed on the ground.”
“Oh, we will be,” Matheson said, laying her hand on Linda’s shoulder. “I have every confidence you’ll be able to do it.”
“I’m glad you do,” Linda looked at the GPS display again after studying the instrument panel. “The least they could have done was to leave in some of the older basic avionics, I’m familiar with.”
“They do have the company emergency telex Wi-Fi still working. So, we can at least text with the ground.”
“Well, good thinking for once!” Linda looked at the high-tech displays again and saw that many of them were merely digital readouts displaying what the older analogue instruments used to say. She looked back and forth between the throttles and then back up at the LCD display and found where it showed the engines rpm’s, temperature and status in constantly updating visual graphs. For the first time since sitting in the Captain’s chair she regained some confidence that she could at least fly the plane in straight and level flight.
“How much stuff can they text to us over the Wi-Fi?”
“As much as you want.” Carol shrugged. “It’s just slow is all.”
“Okay, well there’s a start. Tell them to text me with all the specifications they can on the 747. I need stall speeds – both clean and dirty approach stalls to landing – landing cycle checklists, stress limits, minimum safety speeds, best rate of climb speed and descent limits. And ask them where – exactly – in the fuselage could someone go to fix the radios while we’re still airborne.”
“Got it,” Carol said as she wrote it all down. Then, she looked down to the rear of the throttles and started pushing buttons. “We should get an answer pretty quickly I think. So, your grandfather was a pilot too?” She continued texting.
“Yes.” Linda scanned the instruments in front of her. “He was a WWII ace, flying P-51 Mustangs over Germany. He shot down 11 Messerschmitt’s and the very first jet; the ME-262. So, he was actually a double-ace.”
“Did he teach you about jets?”
“No. But my father did. He was an ace too during Vietnam and then again in Desert Storm. He was a triple ace with 17 planes shot down and won the Congressional Medal of Honor in Iraq.” Linda sniffed for a moment, remembering him suddenly clutching his chest and then collapsing on the tarmac in a sudden first-time fatal heart attack. He was so pale.
“He was the best pilot there ever was,” she said. Linda wiped her eyes as she remembered him touching her cheek and smiling at her as he died in her arms. Even a year later, the pain was still very fresh. She shook her head. She couldn’t cry now. She had to concentrate.
Matheson lay her hand on her shoulder again and squeezed it gently.
“Well, I’m sure their talents rubbed off on you,” she said.
“Let’s hope so,” Linda said sniffing. “Let us hope so.”
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