We now make final accuracy checks on our two inertial navigation systems before leaving the security of the land-based navigation stations. The INS is a cluster of very sophisticated gyroscopes that remember the point from which they departed and sense direction of movement and acceleration. It feeds the data into a computer, which translates to us carbon-based units such niceties as where we are, how fast we're going, and our estimated arrival times at any point along our route. Human navigators used to do this work. But no more, not on these airplanes. Now the nav seat is only a temporary berth to a dozing loadmaster or an inquisitive passenger.
We pass over St. Johns, Newfoundland, which Lindbergh called the doorway to the Atlantic, and commit ourselves to the oceanic emptiness. Soon we are out of range of radar and normal radio contact and have to rely on the abhorrent HF radio.
Similar to that used by HAM operators, the HF is an extremely long-range radio that achieves its distance by bouncing its signals off an ionized layer of thin air in the upper atmosphere, a feat that our normal land-based, or VHF, radio cannot do. But the HF is painful to listen to. It is filled with shrieking, hissing, squealing, scratching background noises. Through this preposterous soup of racket come staccatolike, half-human Donald Duckish voices from thousands of miles away. Moreover, the HF can be totally unusable during periods of peak solar activity. We hate it with an untold passion and take tums monitoring it.
There is a certain band of HF frequencies that can best be described as "jungle" noises. I once made this observation to a copilot who then related George Fondren's brilliant theory about the origin of the mysterious sounds. It seems that George counsels his younger copilots that the noises are precisely thatjungle sounds: crickets, grasshoppers, frogs, birds, and other chirping and singing creatures. He theorizes that many planes crashed in World War II on deserted jungle islands. And that their radios, with jammed transmit switches, are still operating, picking up the songs of the jungle, and transmitting them worldwide. Fueled by the perpetual power of acids derived from rotting jungle juices, their batteries are constantly being recharged with fresh ions. The theory reeks with a scatological influence of a bovine nature, but I heard that one lieutenant listened with a great deal of attentiveness.
We can relax a little now. Until we coast in at Ireland, we will mostly just monitor the Starlifter's autopilot and navigation devices. Findley is resting now, and Lynn; the carpenter by civil trade, has taken over the engineer's panel. Findley doesn't just lie down on the bunk for a casual nap. He goes to bed. He strips to his shorts and T-shirt, arranges pillows and covers, and settles in for a serious sleep. I should try that.
On a previous flight, shortly after Findley had turned in, we were directed to descend temporarily to a lower altitude, which is a bit unusual. The silencing of the engine noise and the premature descent brought him to the flight deck to investigate. Turning, I saw him standing there in shorts and socks, with the multicolored cockpit lights reflecting in his glasses as he swung his head here and there, searching for trouble.
I thought I'd solicit a little chuckle to break the monotony and shouted back that we had lost an engine and were diverting to Mildenhall Air Base for an emergency landing. I thought that was the end of it, but a few minutes later he reappeared on the flight deck fully dressed. Then he noticed that all engines were running happily. He didn't appreciate the humor but was too much of a gentleman to call me what I deserved to be called.
I guess he gave up sleeping; he sat on the aft bench seat and reached for his box lunch, which I had previously tampered with: I had removed the sandwiches and replaced them with navigation booklets. This was another in a chain of pranks that started before takeoff. He had proudly showed me his new flashlight and boasted profusely of its power and reliability, prompting me covertly to remove the bulb before he began his walk-around inspection in the darkness. We all claimed innocence when he came back aboard, unsmiling, for another bulb. But he knew I was the culprit.
The missing sandwiches tripped Findley's breaker. Still respectfully avoiding indicting his degenerate boss, he unleashed an awesome wrath. "I wish you guys would stop pickin' on me."
I did feel a little bad about it and hoped it wouldn't drive a wedge between us. But a few hours later Findley was back at the engineer's panel, jabbering away at me about federal farm subsidies, and I knew that all was again well.
It was about here, a couple of hundred miles past St. Johns, that Lindbergh wrote: "Here, all around me is the Atlanticits expanse, its depth, its power, its wild and open water. Is there something unique about this ocean that gives it character above all other seas, or is this my imagination?"
No sir, it's not your imagination. You have never flown over other oceans, as I have. Yes, this one is unique. Many other seas are as cold and gray. Many others are littered with ice and blowing foam. But this one is different because it sits like a restless sentinel between two vastly populated and closely related continents. Its bottom is strewn with the wrecks of storm and war. This ocean doesn't beckon warm and friendly to overfliers as does the Pacific. This one dares youand bides its time.
Listening to the static and the incessant transmissions of other pilots, I wait my turn and seize the instant as soon as a pause presents itself.
"Gander, Gander, MAC Victor 3512, position."
"MAC Victor 3512, Gander, go ahead."
I speak more clearly and carefully on the HF than I normally do because of the great potential for misunderstanding.
"MAC Victor 3512 checked five zero north, four zero west at zero zero three five. Flight level three three zero. Estimate five two north three zero west at zero one two eight. Five three north, two zero west next. Over."
Gander acknowledges my position report, and as soon as he finishes, a TWA pilot calls for Gander's attention but is inadvertently blocked by an Air Canada pilot. Gander advises Air Canada to stand by, and directs the TWA pilot to proceed while light years in the electronic distance I hear another MAC flight, operating farther south, pleading for a higher altitude from Santa Maria Center.
Such is the business of the HF airways. I relax, glad that the position report went off easily. Sometimes we try for fifteen minutes to get a word in. Happily, the next report is almost an hour away.
The HF is filled with more static than usual tonight, and I think I see why. I dim the instrument lights just a little more and look to the north. At first I see only a long faint brightness stretching along the horizon. But as my eyes adjust I can pick out the subtle colors and geometric patterns of the aurora borealis, the northern lights. The lights seem to hang from the starry heavens in swirling, cascading curtains with bluish green and purple tints.
I look away and then back in a minute, and the patterns have changed shape and tint. I revere the lights. I know that the physicists explain that they are generated by solar energy reacting with atmospheric particles, as it is funneled into the polar magnetic convergence. But they are a majestic display of divine power to me, much too choreographed and beautiful to be simply a freak of nature.
This same northern horizon, so gracefully adorned with aurora in winter, is the domain of the sun in summer. When the north pole is tilted toward the sun, we watch a different production on this grand stage.
In the summer months as we fly east across the north Atlantic, the sun will set behind our left wing. But it doesn't fall vertically; it angles toward the north and disappears like a brilliant submarine diving as it plows ahead. It submerges to a shallow depth, voyaging beyond the North Pole only slightly below the horizon, its cosmic glow hovering above it, holding back the night. And because we fly in the same direction as the turning earth, the sun hurries its journey as if to beat us to Europe and flaunt its victory by casting searing rays into our night-weary eyes. In a few hours it emerges to our left in a dazzling rebirth and climbs across our nose toward its commanding perch.