Mitch Cronin Posted December 16, 2004 Share Posted December 16, 2004 What the heck... I found this again recently and scanned it into this machine... so just for your amusement... here's a story I began writing a while back: First, a few disclaimers: - I wrote this about 17 years ago... at the time, I knew little of ATC procedures beyond my few experiences while flying little Cessna's, and I had even less understanding of their work... so there are some inaccuracies in my tale, and some unfairness in my-- err, ahh Chuck's ..assessment of their value... I have since learned much more and now I certainly wouldn't say the same things. - Likewise, there are other things I understand much more about now than I did then... please read with that in mind.... ...for instance, I do not consider pilot's to be "monkeys" any more. - oh... one more thing... any resemblance to persons either living or dead is purely coincidental. Chuck and the Giant Once upon a time, in a land full of confusion, there lived a frustrated aircraft mechanic named Chuck. Chuck had always been a responsible employee and no one would have had a chance to foresee what would eventually come to be known as "Chucks revenge". Most people considered him a rather strange individual, but then, so were most of his co-workers, so he didn’t really stand out in that sense. He did his work well and, aside from the odd little spat about politics, religion, or anything at all, he got along with most people just fine. One night, during the 2:00 a.m. lunch break, someone said something to him that drastically changed his demeanor; nobody can recall just exactly what was said, but all those who saw him leave the lunch room agree that he looked a little miffed. "This is flippin' great." thought Chuck as he walked along the hallway toward the hangar. "Ottawa’s about to fly an American flag and all these idiots can think of is their wallets!" Free trade had been the chatter of the lunch room for the last few weeks. Chucks feelings on free trade had been summed up rather concisely when he said "F___ free trade, and F___ the Americans!". He was heading toward the pneumatic grease gun, thinking about filling Paul’s toolbox with grease— Paul was the loudest supporter of free trade.—, when the foreman interrupted his thoughts. "Go put some power on DJC for me will you Chuck; the groomers are gonna need some stairs on it too." "O.k." said Chuck as he turned to head outside. On the ramp outside, sat one of the largest passenger airliners ever to grace the skies; a Boeing 747, CF-DJC; her huge, silent, dark silhouette looming over the tarmac like a sleeping giant. As Chuck approached the aircraft, he paused for a moment, to admire the awesome spectacle. Like anyone who has once been bitten by the love of flight, he felt an intense appreciation for all things that flew, and a bird such as this would always be a fascinating sight, no matter how many times he’d seen it. As he walked toward the nosewheel, he had a strange feeling in his mind, that for some reason, this airplane seemed to be wanting to fly. He climbed up the back of the nose gear and reached for the hatch, unlatched the handle, lifted the door open and slid it aside so he could climb into the main electrical center and, from there, climb the ladder up through the floor into the main cabin. Once there, using his flashlight to avoid falling back down the hole, he climbed the spiral staircase to the upper deck and entered the cockpit. During his ascent, he had been acutely aware of an eerie silence on the ship; he was accustomed to the constant whine, whistle and hum that aircraft avionics equipment and cooling fans make; this silence seemed to accent that odd feeling that this bird wanted to fly. He sat down in the flight engineers chair and switched on the battery; a vast array of lights now appeared before him, as though the giant had begun to awaken. The giant could not act alone however... somehow, being completely reliant on the actions of those who operate it's mechanical wonders made it seem to Chuck as though it were pleading at the moment... Tremendous power lay dormant at his fingertips, waiting for his command; at this moment, the giant was in Chuck’s hands. He was grinning as he went through the APU starting procedure, ...something was beginning to feel good; he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but somehow, something inside him was giving him a feeling of strength that he’d rarely felt before. "It’s the airplane." he realized, "She wants to go!" By the time the APU had got up to speed so he could bring it’s generators on line, something within him had become hard wired.... like a switch had been made and then fused in position... and he'd made his decision. He and DJC were about to go flying! The airplane was ablaze with lights now, and the familiar whine, whistle and hum were ringing in Chucks ears as he set about doing what he knew full well no sane individual would attempt to do. He didn’t care though, at this moment all that existed in his mind was the notion of freeing this beautiful giant from the bonds and chains of gravity and earth. He opened the APU bleed air valve and quickly switched all 4 air driven hydraulic pumps to 'auto'. He knew he’d have to act swiftly now, as all this noise was sure to attract some attention, especially when he started the engines. As he switched on all the fuel boost pumps, he looked at the fuel guages and decided he had enough fuel for about two hours of flight; "enough for a little joy ride" he thought. He sat down in the captain’s seat, adjusted it’s position so he could reach everything comfortably, reached up to the fire handles and proceeded to test the fire detection and extinguishing circuits on all 4 engines; it’s not that he thought for a minute that he could save his job by successfully fighting a possible engine fire, it’s just that he wouldn’t want to burn the ship. He didn’t give a damn about his job at that moment, but he cared a great deal about this now fully awake, weeping, wheezing, snorting, fire breathing, winged giant. A few circuit breakers to reset and a quick look at the engineers panel to see if all was well for engine starting.... Suddenly he realized that if he was actually going to fly this bird, he just might want to be able to taxi to the runway, so he’d have to go back outside and remove the chocks and the steering bypass pin. "Sh!t! The gear pins too." he said to himself; "I wonder what else I've forgotten?" He checked that the parking brake was set, shut off the hydraulic pumps and ran back down the spiral stairs, climbed down through the hole in to the main electrical center and out the hatch onto the nose wheel and the ground. ...Just then a truck full of groomers approached. "Are you going to put some airstairs on this airplane for us?" asked the driver. "Uh... ~ havin' some problems" said Chuck. "O.k., no sweat, we’ll come back after coffee. Will you be ready by then?" "Ya, gimme about half an hour." he said, and the truck drove away. Quicker than you can say "Christ, is he really gonna do it?!", he removed all 5 gear pins & the bypass pin, kicked out the wheel chocks, climbed back inside, closed the hatch and went back upstairs to the cockpit. "O.k." he thought, "no time for messin' around now." A Quick glance at the air bleed panel revealed enough air pressure for engine start, so he reached up to the #4 start switch, lifted it up to the ground start position and held it. As the start 'valve open' light came on he could hear the tremendous rush of air blasting through the starter and he watched the #4 N2 guage on the FE’s panel start to slowly climb... 6%..9%..10%... "I didn’t need those damn hydraulic pumps on" he was thinking, "all that racket could have blown it for me." 17%....18%.....19% ...He glanced outside to see if anyone was watching, and seeing no one, while still holding the start switch with his right hand, he reached down with his left hand to the #4 fuel shutoff lever and lifted it up to the 'rich' position. ....WHOOOMPH!, she lit up.... He watched the exhaust gas temp. guage in front of him climb; "A little too much fuel" he thought, "I guess I won’t use rich on the other 3", "what else can I mess up?"... N2 was climbing much faster now, 29% ..30% ..31% ...He checked for oil pressure and N1, and looked outside again. "Maybe he’s having his coffee too" he thought, "I just might pull this off if I don’t screw up any more." ...48, 49, 50%. He let go of the start switch and watched the 'valve open' light go out. At about 60% N2 the acceleration subsided and he lifted the fuel lever to the idle position. He now had one engine running and 3 more to go. Repeating the procedure again for #3 engine, this time going straight to the idle position with the fuel lever to avoid the extra loud "Whoomph". He kept looking outside for the foreman. Time seemed to be standing still as #3 spooled up; and then #2; and then #1. His luck had held up pretty well so far, all 4 engines were now whistling along at idle. He set the stabilizer trim for takeoff and moved the flap lever to ten units of flap. "Now I want the pumps in auto" he remembered, and he got up, went back to the FE.’s panel and moved the 4 switches to the 'auto' position. He figured this would be a good time to make sure everything was ready for flight, so he had a good look at all the panels. "O.k.... engines all idling so I don’t need the APU" He moved the APU bleed air switch to 'close', and the APU master switch to 'stop'. When he did, he nearly jumped out of his skin as everything went dark except for some amber and red lights that reminded him that he hadn’t put the engine driven generators on line yet. He quickly did so and while trying to control his shaking, he proceeded with his final checks. "Radio masters on, body gear steering armed, anti-skid off, nav lights on, beacon on, ah, what the hell, I’ll even throw the logo light on, may as well advertise... Geez theres a lot of stuff here, no wonder it takes three monkeys to fly these things." Having convinced himself that both he and the giant were ready to go, he moved back to the captain’s seat, tapped the toe peddles to release the brakes and advanced the throttles. What he didn’t know was that, while he was out of the seat, the foreman had come running out of the hangar and was, at this very moment, attempting to climb the nose wheel —rather clumsily, as he’s a fat little bugger— to get inside. As the aircraft started moving the foreman gave out a little squeal as he hit the deck, hoping and praying that Chuck would at least have the decency to taxi straight ahead without running him over with the main wheels. Chuck did taxi pretty straight, but he was perhaps just a little over zealous on the throttles; so the little fat foreman got blasted pretty good and he was sent tumbling and rolling into the ditch, where he stayed and had a nice long sleep, looking like a blob of soft ice-cream in a bowl full of nuts. Thinking that, since he was going to need an empty runway, he’d better tell the tower what he was up to, Chuck picked up the microphone, dialed up the ground frequency and started talking. "Toronto ground, Charlie fox — Delta Juliett Charlie." he called. Talking to these guys had always made Chuck nervous, but this time, compared to what he had now to be nervous about, this conversation would be fun. "Delta Juliett Charlie; Ground, go ahead?" "Thank you, ground; Delta Juliett Charlie is a 747 on whiskey taxiway, requesting taxi clearance to the active runway."... "Uh... Juliett Charlie, confirm, you said you were a 747 on whiskey?" "That’s affirmative" "Uhh..... We don’t have a flight plan" The guy was obviously rattled, he’d never heard of a 747 going by it’s registration instead of a flight number; even crew training flights probably use flight numbers. Chuck was in his glory. He’d always wanted to rattle the cages of these overpaid, overstuffed, overbearing "controllers", that whimper and snivel and cry "Stress!" & "Understaffed!" whenever they screw up. He figured this would make up for some of the sweating they’d made him do in the past. "I’m flying V.F.R" said Chuck, doing his best to control his laughter. "Delta Juliett Charlie," A new voice now, the first guy must have popped some circuit breakers. "we can give you clearance to the active, but ahh... Tower won’t let you go, it’s long past curfew for jumbos....ah.. and I don’t believe we’ve had any requests for a flight of this nature." They didn’t like it. "Ground, Delta Juliett Charlie requests permission to taxi to the active." he said, sternly. "Delta Juliett Charlie, cleared across 24 left,& bravo, left turn on romeo, left turn on victor, contact tower on 121.3 prior to entering runway 33." So far, so good, thought Chuck as he pushed the throttles ahead to get moving and then pulled them back again to avoid charging into the terminal building. When he was on Victor taxiway, having heard no more complaints from Ground, he flicked the transfer switch on his #1 radio to put him on Tower frequency and picked up the mike. "Toronto Tower, Delta Juliett Charlie is ready for take off." "Request denied Juliett Charlie, it’s 03.00. Well after curfew." came the speedy reply. Chuck had had enough. There was no other radio activity and he could see there were no airplanes in the approach pattern, so he let go of the brakes and started rolling on to the runway. "JULIet CHARlie, I REPEAT, your request is denied!" "Toronto Tower.... Fuc% You! I’m goin' flyin." "I’ve never flown one of these before, by the way, so I’d suggest, you take a couple valiums, calm yourself down and get on the horn and start raising some noise about some crazy nut that’s runnin loose - make that flying loose- with a 747 that he hasn’t got a clue how to fly!" With that, he got himself pointed straight down the runway, stood on the brakes, switched anti-skid on, body gear steering off and shoved the throttles forward. Normally, the pilot of this airplane would use a lot of information like. temperature and barometric pressure and take off weight and runway length, and feed it all into a little computer that would then tell him how much power to use for take off, in terms of "Engine Pressure Ratio" —or "eeper", as it’s called—. The pilot would then watch his little epr guages on the front instrument panel while he advanced the throttles, until the guages read what the computer said. But Chuck didn’t have all that and he figured he didn’t really need it, so he just pushed them to their stops and then pulled them back a little to avoid any problems due to over temping or over speeding the engines. The giant and he were both trembling with excitement now as he let go of the brakes and started off down the runway........... .TO BE CONTINUED. . . . . . . . Well, it wasn't ever really continued... maybe some day... Cheers folks, Mitch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
conehead Posted December 16, 2004 Share Posted December 16, 2004 C'mon Mitch, don't tease us. Finish it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Check Pilot Posted December 16, 2004 Share Posted December 16, 2004 C'mon Mitch, Either call "reject" or V1. One way or another it's got me on the edge of my chair!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ccairspace Posted December 16, 2004 Share Posted December 16, 2004 The trouble is guys, he's gone as far as his experience can take him. He needs to be invited onto the flight deck and sit in the jumpseat through V1, then away on an adventure. He can get to "practise" a couple (or a few) landing sequences in the process. So, who's gonna take him? Aren't there are few 747 cargo flights going up on a regular basis...? Whatcha think Mitch? ccairspace Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreatSlave Posted December 17, 2004 Share Posted December 17, 2004 Good job Mitch. You're going to give some of us resident spinners-of-yarns a serious run for our money if you finish it. Please do. Now that you've explained how to fire up a '47, we're all going to want to steal one. Kev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitch Cronin Posted December 17, 2004 Author Share Posted December 17, 2004 If I was to finish it, I'd have him blast off, get it turned around and come back to buzz the tower for a good laugh before he heads off to whatever comes next.... Maybe you could finish it Kevin? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitch Cronin Posted December 17, 2004 Author Share Posted December 17, 2004 Please see the poll: http://forum.aeforum.net/index.php?showtopic=112289 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JL Posted December 17, 2004 Share Posted December 17, 2004 ...better yet, get Mitch in the sim and let him continue his adventure with no assistance in order to maintain the accuracy of what "chuck" would experience if the '47 got airborne! Then he could finish his story! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreatSlave Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 Let democracy speak. The few votes that I received are most flattering but I'm sure that either Neo or Don could do the piece as much justice as I and then some. The fact remains, a literary piece will forever more belong to it's author. This is irrespective of copyrights, publication rights, royalties etc. You wrote it, it's yours good bad or otherwise. (I am personally well experienced with writing bad and otherwise script... don't write with your heart on your sleeve unless it's a love story) Your story is developed, well written (perhaps during something of an emotional moment, who knows after 17 years... just something that I sensed... my cat sensed it too so that tells you something about how deep I am) It deserves to be finished and it's too late to back out now. You have outed yourself as a writer of short stories Mitch. Welcome to the Scribbler's Club Kev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kip Powick Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 The scribblers club What a great name !! In all honesty I can not remember if I posted a short story about a overnight experience in a hotel, many years ago while I was still fondlying the T-Rex. It was posted in the ACPA Journal, I think. If you remember seeing here on AEF..let me know, and I won't bore you with a repeat....I think it was a 3 parter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.O. Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 Go for it Kip! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitch Cronin Posted December 21, 2004 Author Share Posted December 21, 2004 Kip... was that your guy in the hotel looking out the window story?... If so, you did post it here.... still, a repost would be welcome! Kevin... If I were to have written that story now, it'd be much different... I don't remember being in an "emotional moment" when I wrote it, but I guess anything is possible... I remember having fun with it though. I'd think it would be fun to see what someone more qualified than I would do with an ending for it, but if nobody else wants to (and I can't blame you!), I may have a go at it sometime... Not at all sure why, but when I threw in the "poll" I wasn't even thinking of Kip, or I would have included a "Kip" choice in the results... (no slight intended Kip... I think you may have been still in Cuba and not in my mind at the time) Anyway... as for a "scribblers club".... I look forward to qualifing, perhaps, one day... I continue to enjoy all of the "Note's from the Knife" that I've had the pleasure of reading.... Did you ever fess up to stealing the man's tree? Cheers and Merry Christmas! Mitch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kip Powick Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 MITCH...here is a possible end for your story..... Have a Happy Holiday. The giant hurtled down the asphalt, Chuck wildly kicking the rudder pedals as the beast gained momentum. Adrenalin surged through Chucks body, he was experiencing the ultimate high as he approached 140 kts and started to pull the control column rearward. The nose wheel slowly left the pavement and Chuck cheered as he felt the change in the aircraft’s attitude. He checked his speed. The speed gauge indicated 160kts and he was still on the runway. Damn, he was sure he should have been flying by now. In desperation he jerked the control column aft but the aircraft remained on the runway, the speed now approaching 200 kts.Chuck gasped, the end of the runway was looming in the windscreen, he wasn’t going to get off the runway in time. He hauled all the throttles off, stood on the brakes but he wasn’t slowing down and then there was the noise, the unending noise, the screaming, the roaring of engines stuck in max reverse, bright flashes of light mixed in with large fireballs of darkness… “Chuck…..Chuck”, he heard his name being called…he knew he was dieing, he was going, he saw the light, the bright white light, and then deadly silence. He opened his eyes. "Jeeze Chuck, get off the floor. I know you are tired but I really don’t think sucking back ½ bottle of Appletons is going to make you sleep any better. And thanks for fixing the light on the vacuum cleaner. Off to bed now….I love you." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreatSlave Posted December 22, 2004 Share Posted December 22, 2004 Kip, A very clean ending that doesn't require an engineer to actually fly the thing. I've talked a few engineers through a landing in the Double Otter but a 747 is an entirely other thing. Retirement obviously leaves you with enough time to finish other writer's stories for them. Please watch your email for a couple of my orphan stories that I'm struggling with. My editor's deadline is the end of the month so please don't tarry. I will of course make sure that you get a secondary byline. Thanks in advance. Kev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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