We would fly over the valley numerous times in the year ahead, and in the light of day we could clearly see the green fields and farms contrasting sharply with the yellow featureless desert. It seemed you could stand in a sugarcane field and toss a rock into the desert wastes. I never ceased to marvel over the sight, especially at night when I'm given over to profound ponderings.
The Nile valley is a microcosm. It's a clear and stunning testament to the frailty of all life. Our planet is somewhat like the Nile. We live within such narrow boundaries between life and nothingness. If we stray out into space without protectionlike the Bedouin who rides away from the riverwe perish. The earth is the perfect distance from the sun; a few miles either way, and we couldn't exist. And the tilt of the global axis, the atmospheric pressure, the chemical makeupall are precise for us. It would take more faith for me to believe that it was not divinely planned and created thus.
We turn eastward over the river and see a hint of sunrise ahead. Normally this would be a dreaded time. After hours of darkness and the tranquillity imparted by the stratospheric night skies, the sun blasts into the cockpit with a laser brilliance, brutally assaulting weary eyes, coercing them to squint and close; to stay closed until awareness wanes; till neck muscles relax, and the inner ear senses the falling head and rejuvenates the consciousness, snapping the eyes open. Then another dose of solar brilliance immediately begins the cycle anew. It's the scourge of the cargo pilot. S-LOC, I call it: sun-induced loss of consciousness.
But today I welcome the return of the sun because I'm eager to see these mysterious regions from biblical history over which we're going to certain war.
Ahead, beyond a range of serrate mountains, the sun glistens off the waters of the Red Sea. We are flying in the direction that the earth turns, so that the sun appears to rise rapidly The colors begin to blossom with the sun's return. The turquoise blue of the sea breaks out of the brownish tan deserts, but the mountains west of the sea are a blazing crimson. I don't see a single cloud. Far to the north I can make out the mountains of the Sinai Peninsula, over which we will fly coming back out.
Bones's voice interrupts my musings, demanding a return to the business at hand.
"Red Crown, Red Crown, MAC Alpha 5140, over."
Red Crown is the radio call sign of the U.S.S. Saratoga, an aircraft carrier steaming lazily with her task force in what the Navy must regard as more of a bathtub than a sea. We must try to establish contact with her before crossing into Saudi Arabia or risk a visit from her deck of fighters.
"MAC Alpha 5140, Red Crown, go ahead."
"5140 is eastbound squawking 3612."
After a short delay the seaman sitting in front of his console identifies us and clears into the heralded AOR.
"MAC Alpha 5140, you're sweet, sweet. Cleared to cross."
I think that means radar contact/radar identified, but it's only a guess. I was never taught Navyese.
I train my binoculars on objects in the water but cannot pick out the Saratoga, only a few southeast-bound cargo ships and some oil platforms. Halfway across we contact Jeddah Control and are given our cleared route across the vast Arabian Peninsula. It is as we expected, thus there is no need to reprogram the waypoints in the navigation computer. We watch George, the autopilot, turn us southeastward as we cross the entry point over the seacoast settlement of Wejh.
The radio is extremely busy with air traffic coming into and out of the AOR. The Saudi controllers have thick accents, but English is the official language of international aviation, and though I become frustrated with them, I sense that they're doing their best to move us through. Bones and I listen closely to each transmission, sometimes glancing at one another with "what'd he say?" expressions on our faces.
It seems asinine, this method of moving millions of dollars of equipment and hundreds of fragile lives around the sky on scratchy, hissing, word-of-mouth instructions. Bones, Jeff, and I banter over the absurdity of it all. Many times we have descended blindly into a valley, with gigantic rocks obscured by clouds all around. As it behooves us, we try to stay generally oriented, but we depend utterly on the radar controllers to keep us clear of both the rocks and the other planes flying as blind as we are.
It occurred to me that the business world would consider such an operation to be a very serious transaction, fraught with financial and personal liability. The controllers bark orders to move a $20 million piece of equipment and dozens of lives blindly and very swiftly through a murky sky filled with mountains and planes. So much is at stake and not least the careers of both those doing the ordering and those taking the orders. The lawyers would have a field day with this if they could somehow exert control over it. Managers, stockholders, and supervisors would insist on carefully constructed and executed contracts.
But what if the corporate world, dealing with millions of dollars and hundreds of lives and careers, conducted business as we do between cockpit and controller? It would be as simple as, say, a phone call from a construction company to the city zoning commission. Something like: "Hello, this is Crashworthy Construction Company, we'd like to throw up a six-deck parking garage at the comer of Sixth Avenue and Eighteenth Street."
"Roger, you're cleared to proceed. Call back when you're done."
But the commission's telephone is on a party line. Other companies are trying to talk to the clerk all at the same time, and the lines are scratchy and hissy. The best the commission can do is record all the conversations, so that if the garage falls in and crushes a couple hundred cars, or if it was built in the wrong place, then blame can be established.
And what if we did business their way? We have the technology to fax documents quickly between ground and air. A computer could supply the basic language and would prompt the pilot and controller for the variables. We would make instant contracts, spelling out the duties and responsibilities of both controller and pilot. Each would sign and fax to the other. There could be no room for "Micalaahfiifeunforsero. . cleeriadBraffofiffate, mintintreetreeseeroreeprtMidiinah."
I glance at Bones, but he's shaking his head. I look back at Jeff in the jump seat. "Don't ask me," he shrugs, answering the unasked question.
We may be just around the corner from data link air traffic control. No human voices will be heard. Only a message will print out saying:
"MAC Alpha 5140, cleared Bravo 58, maintain FL 330, report Medinah."
In this case I think I would welcome such an innovation. But then it'll only be a matter of time before the controller pushes a button and my airplane responds while I sit and watch. Of course I will have emergency override authority, but if I use it, I will have to defend such brazen action in a court of inquiry.
The landscape below keeps me pinned to the window, binoculars at the ready. The geology excites me. We cross great fault block mountain ranges and sail over the sinuous patterns of breached, plunging anticlines and synclinesthe long parallel ridges produced by the warping and eroding of layered rocks. Dry though it is, water has played a tremendous role in shaping the Arabian landscape. Countless dry streambeds claw at the uplands, gradually tearing them down into vast alluvial fans. I'm bewildered by the sight of small settlements here and there in the parched valleys. How do the people survive? Bones, who is also schooled in geology, suggests that maybe they have herds that feed on grasses we're too high to see.
Being infidels, we are forbidden to overfly the holy city of Medinah and are routed slightly north. Then we are told to contact Riyadh Control and proceed eastward over Bir-Darb, down Route Blue 58 over the central plateau.