Leaving on a Jetplane
Copyright© 2024 by The Horse With No Name
Chapter 21: Test Flight
Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 21: Test Flight - Ian, the son of British immigrants, finds his life changed after a family tragedy and decides to make the best of his ambitions and dreams. And nothing gets you to new adventures as fast as your own airplane...
Caution: This Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa mt/Fa Fa/Fa Consensual Romantic BiSexual Heterosexual Fiction Workplace Sharing Polygamy/Polyamory Anal Sex Exhibitionism Massage Oral Sex Nudism
Feeling nervous about flying seemed to become a pattern lately. Granted, after flying each of the Dash-7s I had lost the nervousness about them. In fact I actually loved flying that plane a lot. But today I was back behind the controls of the Pilatus PC-12, and this was not going to be your garden variety flight.
The first few days in June had been marked by brilliantly nice weather and routine work, but today I was going to fly into Courchevel. Strictly speaking it wasn’t I who would be flying, at least not at first, but Andreas, a Swiss pilot we had contracted for the day to teach me the approach into one of Europe’s craziest airports.
According to the weather reports, the conditions were fairly optimal in the Alps as they were in Emden. It was not hard to guess that Andreas was from the western, French-speaking part of Switzerland. His English was decent, as was normal for pilots, but he had a thick French accent.
The PC-12 was the only plane that I was actually rated on to fly as a captain, which meant sitting in the left seat, but today I had returned to the first officer position on the right. I flew most of the initial flight as we tracked the German-French border, but when we closed in on Switzerland after more than two hours, Andreas took over the controls.
“This is close to my home,” he told me. “Mont Cervin, or as you know it, Matterhorn.”
“Hard to miss,” I said as it looked as if we were on a direct course to smash right into the towering mountain.”
“Middle on the right is Grand Combine, where the Verbiere resort is, and there on the far right is the Italian face of the Mont Blanc.”
“Flying into here is like playing Tetris at 200 knots,” I mentioned nervously. “Those mountains look awfully close.”
“We are about two-thousand feet above them, no need to worry,” Andreas said with a chuckle, all the while staying completely calm and collected. I had done my fair share of flying close to the Rockies back home in Americaland, but I had never been that close to them.
Andreas made a steep right turn, which meant we would at least not face-plant the Matterhorn, but the new vista didn’t do much to alleviate my strained nerves. We were literally surrounded by mountains. Some even had remnants of snow on them, in June!
“I’m speechless. I’m actually a bit scared,” I lied. In reality I was scared shitless.
“Don’t be scared,” Andreas said calmly. “We are now entering France. Below is glacier of Tour and ahead is Aiguille de Triolet mountain. Three thousand eight-hundred meters, French-Italian border.”
“Reducing speed, flaps one please,” he continued and I pulled the flaps lever into the requested position.
“I’m really holding my breath, we are so close to these damn mountains,” I whined.
“No worries,” he said, still completely relaxed. “You see, I’m turning to get a lot of space.”
The term ‘a lot’ was doing some heavy lifting there.
“We are reaching end of glacier of Leschaux below us. We are now starting descent to highest airport of Europe at Courchevel, inbound overhead for safety.”
I kept myself busy monitoring the instruments and trying to memorize what Andreas was doing.
“You have to know three things,” Andreas explained. “Runway at Courchevel has a twenty percent slope, second we must not get it wrong. You cannot do missed approach at Courchevel.”
“So if you turn final, you have to land, in one piece or not,” I replied for clarification.
“Correct,” Andreas answered. That didn’t do much to calm my nerves. Maybe it had not been such a good idea to fly into there.
“Third is, Courchevel is very high,” Andreas continued, oblivious to my inner thoughts. “Six-thousand five-hundred feet. You have less power and stall speed is higher.”
“At least the slope should help with slowing down,” I said.
“Correct,” he confirmed as I got my first look at the actual airport and I had to stop myself from gasping. We flew over it at about two-thousand feet which is not a lot in flying terms and I got a damn good look at just how short that runway was. The very idea of flying into here with a Dash-7 appeared to be ludicrous.
“You always do an overflight for safety reasons?” I asked and Andreas answered affirmatively.
“Surface condition is clear. Decision is to land,” he continued and contacted the tower for landing clearance.
“That was quite late, asking for permission to land,” I pointed out.
“Runway is used in both directions,” he explained. “From now until we land, nobody will be allowed to take off. Always wait until you have decided that you are actually doing the approach. We do not want to block the airport for too long.”
“Roger,” I answered, trying to keep communication to a minimum. As we actually prepared to land, we would normally be under sterile cockpit rules, which meant no unnecessary communication between pilots was allowed. But since I was expected to learn something here, those rules did not apply in their strictest sense.
“Landing checklist,” Andreas ordered and I began rattling off the items as he made the final turn to line up with the runway.
“Maximum flaps, gear down,” he requested and I made the necessary changes.
“Starting final descent,” Andreas said. “minus 500 feet per minute vertical speed. I’m aiming at the ramp in front of runway.”
For all intents and purposes we were flying a normal approach if it wasn’t for the fact that in front of us was the craziest and shortest runway I had ever seen and we were heading straight towards a mountain. Botching an approach and going around was not an option. You had only one attempt.
Andreas put the plane down firmly and I got first-hand experience of just how steep the incline was. The runway was insanely short as it was, but we didn’t even need half of it, even without the thrust reverser. I was completely gobsmacked.
The lady in the tower, also sporting a thick French accent, radioed in the taxi clearance and told us the coffee was ready.
“It’s tradition,” Andreas explained. “Everyone stupid enough to land here gets a fresh coffee.”
“Frankly, I’d prefer a stiff drink,” I said, feeling droplets of sweat running down my temples. “But I have a flight to Hungary after dropping you off at Geneva.”
“The first time is always scary,” he said. “And you will always be a little nervous. If you are no longer nervous, stop flying into here.”
“Well, you were good at hiding it,” I said with a chuckle when we came to a stop on the apron.
“I’m serious, Ian,” he told me. “If you ever lose that slightly nervous feeling coming into here – stop. That would be the moment you will make a deadly mistake.”
“I would be happy enough not to be scared witless any more,” I admitted. “I can deal with a bit of nervousness.”
“Three more chances to get used to it,” Andreas told me with a grin. “But first some coffee.”
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