Volume: 3

Egyptian Blue

A night flight in a suspect plane, with suspect controllers and an unstable date.

Then I climb into the cockpit first and schooch across to the pilot's seat. At this point, she's mostly on her own and Lydia showed some decent dexterity in overcoming her heels and getting her butt in the right seat.

The facial expression of any first-time passenger lights up when they see the array of, by today's standards, primitive instruments. SBDL -- Switches, Buttons, Dials and Levers. Her dark, glistening eyes got wider. Look at all this! She looked at the door, wondering how to close it. I told her I'd close it for her before takeoff.

Focus. Checklists. Routines. Make the thing go. And I did. I held short of the runway as instructed and awaited the arrival of two Boeing 737s. Lydia loved being able to see them land from that vantage point. Anticipating instructions to take the runway, I reached over to latch the door and realized what had distracted me earlier. Perfume. Again. Just like Barbara Reid, who couldn't land because her god wouldn't let her.

ATC cleared us onto the runway. I taxied into position and then was immediately told to get off the runway, requiring an unusual maneuver in that the nearest exit was behind me. I taxied to the right edge of the runway, added power, applied the left brake, spun the plane around and scampered clear.

Why? A corporate jet was landing. What was this controller smoking? He knew about this arrival and still put me on the runway, right in front of it. The next instruction from the tower had a different voice, verification that the controller had made a mistake and a supervisor had taken over. I rolled back into position on the taxiway, short of the runway. We watched the corporate jet land followed by two more airliners. With no lights in the approach path and no further communications from inbound planes, it was our turn. Off we went, north on departure, up to a thousand feet followed by a right turn towards the marine base. My initial departure instructions called for a heading of 90° but it took only a minute for them to change it to 100°, like that would make any difference.