Chapter 20: The Boston Party

The entourage of four vehicles led by Lesa's Jaguar arrived at the small airport north of Atlanta after everyone had met for breakfast at the iHop en route. Misty said she would normally drive up to the airplane, but she didn't want to congest the tarmac with so many cars. She sent everyone into the small terminal for luggage buggies and last-minute potty breaks.

She shouldered a black bag that was much too large for someone of her stature and walked across the asphalt to a small white airplane with red and blue trim. She heaved her bag onto the right-hand wing, climbed onto the wing herself and opened the door into the plane. She reached into the cockpit to manipulate some switches and would periodically stick her head above the roof of the plane and look around as various lights came on and off. She scrambled off the wing and walked around the small craft checking the tires, oil level, and propeller. She even drained samples of gasoline and wiggled parts all the way around the low-wing craft.

She joined the crowd in the terminal lounge and asked Jake to keep an eye on the airplane while she went to the bathroom. Emerging from the toilet, she eyed the luggage, "If everyone has been to the bathroom, then all that's left is getting everything and everyone into the plane. Just be alert for airplanes that are taxiing or have flashing lights. Stepping into a spinning propeller will ruin everyone's day."

Jake asked, "Is it okay for us to walk out there where the airplanes are parked?"

Misty was a bit puzzled, "Sure, no problem. They just worry when small children are running loose."

Misty led a sizeable crowd to a very small airplane. The few people at the airport on such a dreary morning might wonder what they were up to. There were almost enough people in the small crowd to pick up the airplane that they were approaching and carry it around on their shoulders.

At the airplane, Misty sorted through the bags and sent most of the heavier ones to the front of the plane with Jake and Marvin. She put as many bags in the aft compartment as it would hold, and then joined Jake and Marvin to load the balance into the forward baggage compartment. Jake, Marvin and Ralph ran back to the terminal with the buggies, and returned as the last of the hugs were wrapping up.

Misty asked Tiffany and Toby to sit in the two rear-facing seats. She had removed a small pile of charts, books and gadgets from her flight bag and left them on the passenger-side front seat. She secured the bag on a shelf behind the forward-facing seats in the rear of the small cabin and showed Leslie and Sara how to get it down in case she needed anything from it. She secured the rear door and came back around to the right-hand side where she had asked Janet to wait.

She hugged and kissed those staying and suggested they return to the terminal's patio, "It'll get real breezy out here when that big fan starts spinning." She tilted her head indicating the large propeller on the nose of the airplane.

Facing Janet, "Okay baby, I need to get in first. Give me a second to stow my gear, then take the seat next to the door." Janet was looking a bit pale. Misty gave her a quick kiss. "You're not going to get sick on me, are you?"

Janet turned as Misty showed her where to step and where not to step. "I don't know. I've never been in an airplane before."

Looking up at the clouds, Misty frowned, "This isn't going to be ideal weather for a first-time experience, but it shouldn't get too rough. Of course, if I had a quarter for every time a briefer was wrong about the weather, I'd be as rich as Lesa."

When everyone was settled and buckled in, Misty copied some numbers from her notepad into a calculator and frowned. The balance was okay, but they were a bit overweight. She rationalized, 'it's a cold morning; we should be fine.'

Turning in her seat she suggested that everyone put on ball caps and headphones. She pointed to a small compartment. "There are earplugs in there if you decide not to listen in. It can get a bit loud in here. The ball caps will keep your hair from getting tangled in the headphones." Misty handed Janet a small spiral-bound notebook with laminated pages. She pointed to a section labeled 'Normal Engine Startup', "Read me this checklist and we'll be out of here in a few minutes."

Janet's jaw dropped, "Don't you know how to fly this thing?"

Misty laughed, "Yes, I have it memorized forward and backward, but it is good practice to read it anyway, just to be sure."

Misty had turned on the red flashing beacon on top of the airplane's tail before she had buckled in just to let everyone in the area know she was about to become a hazard to pedestrian navigation. As Janet read the steps, Misty manipulated switches, levers, and knobs. She even called Janet a couple of times when she had skipped a step.

They finally got down to the step where Misty turned the small ignition key and the propeller started moving very slowly until the engine coughed. Misty pushed the mixture lever forward and the power of the awakened engine shook the small craft. Misty and Janet continued down the list, checking gauges and finally turning on the avionics that allowed them to hear each other through the headsets.

Misty's small voice came though the earphones, "Okay, I just need to get the radios set up and clearance from the tower and we'll be on our way. We should be rolling in about two minutes. I need everyone to keep conversation to a minimum until we're out of Atlanta's airspace. There are a lot of people that I need to get instructions from over the radio."

Misty was just about to key the transmitter when Tiffany asked, "Do you really know what you're doing, Misty?"

Misty laughed into the microphone at her chin, "It's a bit late to be asking that question." She keyed the transmitter, "Clearance Delivery this is..." In a couple of minutes she had copied everything she needed onto the notepad strapped to her thigh. With permission to taxi she focused on the man with two batons standing in front of the small airplane as she released the brakes and advanced the throttle. She let the small plane roll about three feet before tapping the toe-brakes enough to stop the roll.

A nervous Janet asked, "What's wrong?"

Misty smiled and said, "Nothing's wrong, baby. I was just testing the brakes. It can be a real bitch rolling in at a hundred miles an hour without any brakes. Relax, I'll be the first one to scream if we're about to die, okay?"

When the man who was walking backwards in front of the plane started thrusting out his left arm Misty pushed the right-hand peddle to the firewall to spin the nose in the direction indicated. Just before the wingtip passed him, he turned to face the direction they were rolling and thrust both hands forward. Misty waved, and followed the instructions she had been given by Ground Control.

It took another couple of minutes to roll the half-mile to the run-up pad near the end of the runway. Misty pulled off the taxiway, "I'm going to wind up the engine to check the magnetos and propeller controls. It's just a routine last-minute check, but we'll be wallowing around as the engine fights the brakes."

The small plane shuddered and twisted while the engine was at 1700 rpm and Misty tested the two magnetos and pulled back on the propeller control three times to get warm oil into the propeller hub. She pulled the throttle back to idle and let the plane roll down the last bit of taxiway to the very end of the runway.

Misty got on the intercom and looked around, "Everybody buckled in? Doors locked? Leslie, Janet, if I say 'pop the doors' I want you to unlock the doors with the lever at the top and push the main handle forward. You won't be able to open them against the wind, but if anything goes wrong on takeoff, we don't want the doors jammed closed. Don't get nervous. I don't know anyone who's had an engine failure on takeoff, but it can happen and we need to be ready just in case. Relax everyone, I'm good at this and we're in a tough little airplane." She pushed the button on the radio panel that switched from Ground Control to the Control Tower, "McCollum tower, Lance eight-two-Juliet at two-seven ready for takeoff."

A voice came back through the headset, "Eight-two-Juliet cleared for takeoff, fly runway heading at or below three thousand."

Misty replied, "Cleared for takeoff, runway heading below three thousand, eight-two-Juliet." She turned on the landing lights, released the brakes, and added throttle. "You're not reading to me, Janet."

"What, I..."

Laughing again Misty told her, "You're just about useless as a co-pilot. I don't know why I let you hang around with me." She turn on the booster fuel pump, added a notch of flaps, and when the nose lined up with the big white stripe down the middle of the runway she pushed the throttle lever all the way forward and held it there.

There was not as much shuddering and wallowing this time. Nothing was fighting against the powerful engine as it spun at 2700 rpm. It was just loud. The plane left the runway with a little thump as the struts extended to the stops. Misty kept it just off the runway to build airspeed; then took her hand off the throttle just long enough to reposition the knob that raised the landing gear. She lifted the nose and the little plane bounded toward the low-lying clouds.

The explicative, "Shit!" came through the headphones from at least three sources. Janet had a death-grip on the checklist that she had stopped reading.

Three minutes after starting the takeoff roll, the airplane disappeared into the solid mass of clouds a thousand feet off the ground. The small group that was watching from the ground turned toward the parking lot. Lesa nodded, "Very smooth takeoff. I don't think Misty let it get two feet from the centerline all the way to the clouds. They're safely on their way. I guess we need to get back to Atlanta. Party at my house tonight?"

In the air, Misty had removed the flaps, turned off the landing light and booster pump, and reduced the engine power and propeller rpm from the takeoff settings to the performance climb settings. Even though they were right at and maybe a few pounds over the gross takeoff weight, they were gaining altitude at a thousand feet per minute in the cool morning air.

Misty was handed off from the tower to Atlanta ATC shortly after entering the clouds. Atlanta cleared them to eleven thousand feet. They broke out into bright sunshine at six thousand feet above sea level just as Misty spoke on the intercom, "We are now five-thousand-two-hundred-eighty feet above the terrain below us. Anyone wanting to join the mile-high club, this is your chance. That is, if Toby's still alive."

There was a bit of squeak in Toby's voice, "I'm alive. I've flown in commercial jets, but this ... Wow."

Tiffany reached over and rubbed Toby's crotch. "He's as limp as a noodle. What's with you losers? I've had much rougher takeoffs in my father's jet with professional pilots at the controls. Nice job, Misty. I'm impressed."

Everyone looked at Tiffany like she had three heads. She NEVER complimented anyone.

No one jumped anyone's bones, but there were several uncomfortable bladders three hours later as they descended into the pattern for Martinsburg. Misty had Janet stage the frequencies in the radio stack, more to give Janet something to do than actually assist. They had been bouncing around in the clouds for ten minutes when Misty executed the final turn that reversed their heading, and then started tracking the localizer radio beam for the ILS RWY 26 approach into Martinsburg.

Misty lowered the landing gear when they intercepted the glide slope radio beam to increase the rate of descent without changing their airspeed. With minor adjustments to the controls and throttle, she kept the course and altitude needles centered on the two radio beams coming from the ground as they descended into Martinsburg. The runway was directly in front of them when they broke through the clouds.

As they dropped out of the clouds, Tiffany craned her neck to look over her shoulder and out the windscreen above the high instrument panel. "Very nice," she said into the intercom. "The guys flying my dad's Citation never drop out of clouds with the airport directly ahead like this. It's invariably off to one side or the other. You really are good at this, Misty."

"Thanks," Misty replied. "My Pop makes sure I have a lot of practice, and things don't happen as quickly in this airplane as the do aboard a business jet like the Citation."

She pulled the throttle back to a fast idle and held the nose down as she pulled the flap lever from the floorboard up to the top notch all at once when they were about three hundred feet above the ground slowing their speed to ninety miles-per-hour as they crossed the runway threshold and flared into a nose-up landing attitude. The little airplane settled gently onto the runway and Misty followed the directions of the controllers to the parking area where an attendant guided them into a space, then crossed his batons across his chest signaling Misty to shutdown her engine.