Endless Night Revisited
It was a journey of lasts. I knew it yet in the end I would not know how many lasts would occur. It was journey at the end of an era that had been my life...the era of DC-10, 747 (pre 400). It was in the waning moments of Honolulu as a trans pacific crossroads. The Soviet Union within months would cease to be. Since this piece's first incarnation things have changed. The man who inspired me to add sentiment depth into my writing about aviation has since past and the WWW has changed many things. Lets face it between Flight Aware and Airliners.net one can get quite the fix of aviation. Google earth allows us to an airplane window view anywhere in the world and the data fits in well with holes from my observer's point of view of a 15 year old male. I can paste memories and satellite images together to create a more cohesive picture of the journey. Len Morgan has gone on yet his flying Column "A Derelict Hulk is Worth A Thousand Words" stands as a teacher an inspiration to what follows. I understand now as a writer how the column had such a great impact from a technical standpoint. Just like I as a song writer understood the intricate work of Knopler's guitar playing in Sultans of Swing created the magic. The magic is still magic now I attempt quite feebly to imitate the master.
It was July 5th 1991 the Desert Slug on the ramp at Robert Mueller had entered her career as symbol and myth while still flying. She was Huey painted desert camo and like the men who flew her she was a Vietnam vet. Her time on the ramp as a part of a welcome home ceremony was her debut into symbol status. I was bound to visit my Aunt and Uncle in Australia. The equipment from SAT a 10 series 10 out of DFW to LAX an MD-80. Then a 10 series 10 to take me to Honolulu and a 30 series ten to take me to the land down under.. My parents were bound for New York. I stood there in American Airlines terminal with a Minolta X-370 I shot some pics of an Air New Zealand 747-400. A generation was taking the skies...the airplanes that once were shiny and experienced as a Kindergartner on an odyssey from JFK that would wind up in Visby Gotland was now old and passé. The geography I had grown up with and knew from time to time was changing. A German family was enroute to Australia. They had visited points in the states and were Australia bound. The Atlantic was shrunk further and the Pacific was now bridgeable in single leaps. The sun was starting to sink towards the Pacific. A United Airlines DC-8-70 series taxied past. The boarding call came later. The endless night was going to come.
I had a window seat on the front side of the 10 series DC 10. My window on the flight would face northward as we made our way to Honolulu. I was aware that this flight would be among the last as both the MD-11 and 747-400 could leap the distances of the Pacific in a single shot. The new A340 was capable of such range and all the aircraft could do so economically. Pan Am had tried the 747SP the last bit of pioneering with the then Boeing wonder bird would be a nail in Pan Am's coffin. My first flight from LA to Honolulu was aboard Qantas 747SP. The last time I had been over this stretch of sky was on a 747SP named Winton.
The DC-10 was pushed back and the now slightly familiar safety briefing was played on video screens after it started up the engines and we taxied past where the United Airlines DC-8-70 had gone. The DC-8 seventy series was a strange hybrid its engines were from eighties and it was born in the early 1980s. It had the touch of the Pet Shop Boys it had bell bottoms it was a strange mixture of both. It was loading at the United Terminal. We made it to the end of the runway and we passed a corrugated steel sign that reminded no turning till over the ocean. It was red letters on a black background obviously hand painted and rushed. Acceleration was swift the airplane rotated and climbed out over Dockweiler State Beach and we soon went through a layer of clouds and the airplane was on a southwesterly heading. The song Walking In Memphis was going through the headphones as the night took on a mystical feel. The clouds were puffy the sun was creating a field of orange near the cloud base and the sky slowly grew dark around. Soon the song was over and the airplane continued on its trip into the night. The guy sitting next to me was on his way to a family reunion and to see the great oncoming solar eclipse. Slowly the ground began to be eaten the Pacific is vast and large. There was light conversation as the airplane went into the vast pacific night. Slowly as a feeling all encompassing blackness came it was time for a nap. It was an hour I was out. I gingerly arched my long leg over the seatmate and made my way to the back of the dark airplane. As I walked back I heard a flight attendant talking about her experiences. For a while I listened in with interest but I realized I was already too tall. The airplane was dimply lit and out an emergency exit window somewhere in the sea of black was the Pacific Ocean. The rear toilets were the only point of light near a flight attendants station. The otherwise blue cabin had a dark tint and lights shown on dark brown gray tone. While waiting listening to her story was interesting the tale of a professional gypsy. Getting up and stretching was somewhat entertaining the airplane had the constant hum of the engines as the engines from GE turned the big fans and fuel burning in steady stream. The roar had become a part of our life. I headed back to my seat and looked out the window some silvery clouds and around us a sea of black ocean somewhere beneath there was a huge ocean and some where above the atmosphere ended....behind us somewhere was the west coast and ahead of us a chain of islands in the Pacific that would mark a mid point in our journey or for some of us like my seat mate the end. Yet between all those points was an indecipherable sea of black. The lights pulsed the engines droned and we continued. I listened through some of the music and went back to sleep. I would go back once more or a couple more times. I had read an article in travel and leisure about the hazards of in flight dehydration. Looking out into the darkness it was easy to imagine the airplane as space ship the dimmed cockpit lights stars above and one looked hard enough down below silvery clouds and touches of light reflected textures of the ocean below. Time drug on slowly the noise of the engines constantly. After several hours we began our descent Honolulu was its typical collection of lights beckoning us strangers to the ground and travelers that land was once again beckoning.
The airplane descended and landing. Honolulu Airport seemed deep in slumber as we taxied from the reef runway. We were several thousand miles from home and for many of us several thousand miles yet to go. We left he airplane looking disheveled and as we entered the terminal building and heard the familiar Hawaiian music in the background. The airport seemed to be in a slumber. I walked around having spotted a Hawaiian Airlines DC-8-60 series on the tarmac. It was removed from the gate. Its white paint job taken on an orange hue by floods of HNL. It was holding in an era where its replacements themselves were on their road into the history books. It had the old engines and it was still hauling passengers. It could have known Hendrix tunes its days. It was around when Janis Joplin's death was either yet to occur or when America grieved with the tune of American Pie. It could have spent time on the line when man first walked on the moon. Its engines were of similar vintage. I snapped photos of her. I wondered briefly in the abandoned gate lounge if she could talk I wonder what stories she would tell. I made my way back to the lounge for my connecting flight. We were gathered a family from Germany the Aussie accent was heard in the gate lounge I sat on a carpeted area elevated long enough level for me to get a seat followed by along stretch diagnol to the floor line. We were strangers from several continents flung together in this gate lounge many of thousands of miles from home. We did not speak much yet written on our faces our thoughts. The music of the islands lingered in the background. The gate agents seemed less machine like more human. They too were weary. It was a late night at an airport that was losing a degree of her cross roads status. Our gate area and a nearby gate area were areas of activity two American Airlines owned DC-10s hung around. Further beyond a United Airlines owned DC-8 seventy series shouted evenly louder in defiance of age. Yet as the display in the gift shop indicated we were together in a scene resembling Arlo Gunthrie's city of New Orleans. Our magic carpets bore us on aluminum wings roaring through time zones day and night relative quantities depending on the winds going anywhere between 400 and 700 miles an hour. Soon enough boarding began. This brief respite this contact with planet earth would end Sydney bound we were.
We boarded the DC-10 thirty series I took my window seat and gazed out. We taxied to what I would find out is the Reef Runway. At the Center part of the terminal building stood an 747-200 From America West she was a second hand flag ship flying from Phoenix. The airport seemed deep in a slumber trucking on making it through the night. On the other end a DC-8-70 series was there. Beyond that a pair of Qantas 767s-300 stood under the orange floods as we continued further a C-141 basked under the white floods of Hickam. The safety briefing was played and we were enroute to the reef runway. This time I spouted it line by line.
The roar increased and as the turn was completed the acceleration was palpable as we turned onto the runway. What seemed to me to be a 180 degree turn was in reality 90 degree turn and the pilot had already started increasing the thrust. We roared off into the sea of black rotating going skyward shortly afterward a wing tip dipped and a silver vortice of vapor was visible as we made a climbing turn. Soon the Hawaiian islands which had been our contact with land once again faded from view we were roaring through the night. The guy sitting next to me was Aussie he was returning to work the following day. The lights of the cabin were dimmed and the eleven hour run to Sydney continued shortly the fasten Seatbelt sign was turned off. We once again were above the Pacific alone so it seemed. Blackness engulfed the airplane the strobes pulsed and the sound of the engines were the background of the flight. At one time Honolulu to Sydney seemed like a long reach the last great Piston Engine birds did it took jets awhile to get the legs the first generation of the 707 had a sub generation that when given turbo fans could do it. The last generation of 707s did it routinely. As I thought of this I found that comfort was hard to find in a 10 abreast seating econo class with a six foot two inch frame. Now the era the mighty 747s or DC-10s leaving a tired Honolulu for a slowly awakening Sydney was fading. HNL was becoming a destination for rich Japanese Tourists justifying a 747 flight flights to the mainland were soon to be handled by twins. Pan Am the airline that first bridged the Pacific with Martin Flying boats was to these skies mere memory. I gazed into the barely moonlit blackness time passed on. We would have 11 hours to ride. I extended my legs all the way under the seat back in front of me feeling the aluminum bar and slept after drinking some water. This was more slightly more comfortable then having my head rest on the tray table. The movie I had seen the music I was familiar with. I headed to the lav for another hydration check. As I stood I heard more stories. I thought flight attendants as they were now called. There was still some glamour being a professional traveler waitress several miles above the earths surface traveling around 80% the speed of sound. As I gazed out it also occurred to me though the world has shrunk the Pacific was still a large ocean. A few feet above me an engine sucked in air spat most of it either side after shooting it through a fan compressed about 30-40% to a really high temp as it shot out the back it went over blades creating the great suction. The old adage piston engines and jet engines really work on the same principal suck and squeeze blow and go. Those big fans kept turning the engines kept burning into the wind in the stratosphere somewhere between 80-90% the speed of sound we were going through the air somewhat less then that we were southwest bound. I headed back to my seat and I was discussing music with my seatmate. We both liked the Australian Band Midnight Oil and he introduced me to Jesus Jones. Jesus Jones would later become etched in my mind as his song "Right Here Right Now" defined what it was like living in a moment where the world as you know changed forever. I liked what I heard. Roaring guitars depth understanding we found something we agreed on in between naps as the plane roared through the night. I looked out the window again the pulsing of the strobes marking time black everywhere below that some silvery clouds and if one stared down from the top of the window some texture many miles below of the Pacific. The nap look drink routine went on a couple times. The conversation was nice two weary souls one en-route to visit family the other heading home. The 11 hours passed. Out of my window in the distance after we could feel the descent New Castle appeared. We were clearly southbound the shape of Australia and its coast line came into view in the predawn wariness. Half an hour later finally the airplane touched the ground Kingsford Smith International airport.
Being in the rear of a large capacity airplane had its disadvantages. I found myself hunched over the lights and overhead bid on the upper part of my back. Finally we made our way out. First the jet way then the empty hallways that lead to immigration. Somewhere along the way we said our goodbyes. He to work me a few hundred miles to go.