Airplane Memories

 AIRLINE MEMORIES

Memories of  “Flying the Line”

• Sunrises, seen from high flight levels, that make the heart soar.
• The patchwork quilt of the Great Plains from FL350 on a day when you can
• see forever.
• Cruising mere feet above a billiard-table-flat cloud deck at Mach .84 with your chin
• on the glare panel and your face as close as you can get to the windshield.
• Punching out of the top of a low overcast while climbing 3000 feet per minute.
• The majesty and grandeur of towering cumulus clouds.
• Rotating at Vr and feeling 800,000 plus pounds of airplane come alive in your hands
• as she lifts off.
• The delicate threads of St. Elmo’s Fire dancing on the windshield at night.
• The twinkle of lights on the Japanese fishing fleet far below on a night crossing of
• the North Pacific.
• Cloud formations that are beautiful beyond description.        
• Ice fog in Fairbanks on a cold winter’s morning.
• Seeing geologic formations that no ground-pounder will ever see.
• The chaotic, non-stop babble of radio transmissions at O’Hare or Kennedy during the  
• afternoon rush.

         The quiet, near silence, of Center frequencies at night during a transcontinental flight.

• The welcome view of approach lights appearing out of the mist, just as you
• reach minimums.
• Lightning storms at night, anywhere in the world.
• The soft and comforting glow of the instrument panel in a dark cockpit.
• The dancing curtains of the Aurora Borealis on a winter’s night crossing
• of the Arctic.
• The majestic panorama of an entire  mountain range stretched beneath you
• from horizon to horizon.
• Lenticular clouds over the Sierras.
• That brief and tempting glimpse of the runway lights only after you’ve
• committed yourself  to a missed approach.
• On a clear day over Austria at FL410 with all of Western Europe in view.
• The Alps in Winter.
• The lights of London at night from FL350.
• Squall lines that run as far as you can see.
• Exotic lands with their exotic foods.
• Maneuvering the airplane through day-lit canyons between towering cu’s.
• At FL410 by day, the deep blue of the sky while at sunrise the black curvature of
• the earth and the green flash from the emerging sun.
• The hustle and bustle of Hong Kong Harbor.
• The softness of touchdown on a snow covered runway.
• Hearing the nose wheel spin down against the snubber in its well after
• takeoff.  A delightful sound signaling  that we’re on our way.
• Old Chinatown in Singapore before it was torn down; modernized and sterilized.
• Watching the lightning show while crossing the ITCZ at night.
• Long-tailed boats speeding along the klongs in Bangkok.
• The quietly turning paddle fans in the lobby of Raffles Hotel in Singapore.
• Dodging splotches of red and yellow lights on the radar screen at night.
• The sound of foreign accents---and languages---on the ship’s radios.
• Luxury hotels---anywhere;  terrible hotels---some places.
• To paraphrase the eloquent aviation writer, Ernie Gahn:  “The allure of the slit
• in a ‘China Girl’s skirt”.
• Sunsets of every color imaginable.
• The tantalizing glow of the flashing strobe lights just before you break out of
• the clouds on approach.
• Yosemite Valley from above.
• The almost blindingly brilliant white of a towering anvil headed cumulus cloud.
• A cold San Miguel in Hong Kong after a long day’s flight. 
• Ocean crossings----any ocean.
• The taxiway sentry, with his flag and machine gun, at the old Taipei downtown airport.
• Seventy-thousand-foot-tall thunderstorms in the tropics.
• Sipping a ‘cool one’ in a luxury hotel lounge while an Oriental typhoon
• rages outside.
• Chinese junks bobbing in Aberdeen Harbor.
• Watching the Latitude count down to ‘Zero’ on the INS and seeing it switch from “N” to
• “S” as you cross the Equator.  And too, from “W” to “E” at 180° between the
• Hemispheres in mid-Pacific Ocean. 
• Wake Island at sunrise.
• Oslo Harbor at sunset.
• Icebergs in the North Atlantic calving from Greenland’s  spectacular shorelines.
• Contrails---anywhere.
• Pago Harbor, framed by mountains and seas,  always with puffy white  clouds
• adding sparkle to the scene.
• The wonderful camaraderie of a great crew---both cabin and cockpit.   
• The ferry boat races in Sydney Harbor.
• White picket fences and Maori friends in Auckland.
• Soft trade winds blowing on to white sandy beaches lined by swaying palms.
• Double-decker buses in London---on the ‘other’ side of the street.
• The ‘Star Ferries’ in Hong Kong Harbor.
• Heavy weight take-offs from the reef runway in Honolulu.
• Experiencing all the lines of the old Jo Stafford tune:
• “See the pyramids along the Nile”
• “See the sunrise on a tropic isle.
• “See the market place in old Algiers”
• “Send home photographs and souvenirs”
• “Fly the ocean in a silver plane”  
• “See the jungle when its wet with rain”
• The deafening sound of  tropical raindrops slamming angrily against the windshield
• accompanied by the hurried slap, slap, slap of the windshield wipers
• while landing in a downpour in Manila.
• Landings in the 747 when the only way you knew you had touched down  was the
• movement of the auto spoiler handle and then the nice comment that followed
• from the upper deck ‘stew’.
• Endless ripples of sand dunes across the trackless miles of the Sahara Desert and the
• bleakness of modern day Mesopotamia.
• The White Cliffs of Dover and the dozens of WW II airfields still visible  in the
• beautiful countryside of Southern England.
• Oom-pa-pa music at Meyer Gustels’ and Schweine Haxen at the “Gas Station” in FRA.
• Fjords in Norway and the East coast of Baffin Island.
• The aimless compass, no longer knowing where to point as  you cross the Arctic not far    
• from the North Pole.
• The old “Charlie-Charlie” NDB approach into  Kai Tak.  
• Taking a celestial fix with ‘a million’ stars from which to choose. 
• “Brain Bags” crammed to overflowing with charts to exotic places.
• Breaking out of the clouds on the IGS approach to Runway 13 at Kai Tak to see only the
• infamous ‘checkerboard’  and then that immediate “point your wing tip at THAT
• third floor balcony apartment, skim the roof and line up for the landing.  FUN!
• The wonderful smell of tropical flora when disembarking at Nandi, Fiji.
• The thrill of an empty weight take-off in a Boeing 747SP.
• Main gear touching the runway while your 747’s cockpit is still 70 feet in the air.
• The coziness of that same cockpit along with the teamwork of good FIR’s and FEO’s.
• The complex twists and turns of the noise abatement departure out of Osaka’s
• old downtown Itami airport.
• The Canarsie approach into JFK.
•      Max gross weight take-offs and maximum cross-wind landings.
• A large handful of ‘Thrust Levers’; each connected to 50,000+ pounds of thrust.
• LDA DME Approach to HNL 26L (via Waikiki)

Ah yes----and to think I got paid to do all that!

           Original author unknown

Contributed by Gar Bensen