71. Flight Beyond All Hope. Part 3. Dude's Originals.

“So the captain grits his teeth and wrestles the bird to a grinding halt, with brakes screeching and tires burning, with the flaps fully deployed.  Then he says to his co-pilot, “This must be the shortest ****ing runway we’ve ever landed in!” The co-pilot looks over his shoulder out of the side window and says, “And the ****ing widest!” 

IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE PART I AND 2, PLEASE CLICK THE FOLLOWING LINKS.

 FLIGHT BEYOND ALL HOPE PART 1
 FLIGHT BEYOND ALL HOPE PART 2


Captain Kevin Landers let out a loud guffaw and in fact, a too loud one,  that made the first Officer,  25 year old Alvin Rogers look at him suspiciously.

“I just wondered if you’ve heard that one before,” he said timidly.

“ 'Course I have, but I didn’t wanna  disappoint you.”

“Damn!”

Forty three year old Captain Kevin Landers was known in the circles to be an amiable person with easy going attitude and larger than life sense of humor.

“Heard this one?” Landers asked putting his meal tray on the cockpit floor. “A plane has taken off JFK and climbing. Then the captain comes on the intercom, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Welcome aboard the non-stop flight from JFK to L. A. International. The weather report says it is going to be fine ahead.  So, we can look forward to a smooth flight all the way. Just sit back and enjoy the ride… OH MY GOD!”

And silence. Pin drop silence. After several minutes, the passengers hear captain's voice again.

“Ladies and gentlemen.  I apologize if I scared you witless. What happened was,  while I was talking, the flight attendant accidently spilled some hot coffee on my lap. You should see the front of my pants!” Then a dude in the business class yells, “That is nothing. You should see the back of mine!””

Alvin rocked with laughter and spilled his coffee on the front of his pants.

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The Boeing 777 cruised on auto pilot through the night skies at 37,000ft.  The flight so far has been uneventful as it should be for a fine night like this, with fine weather for flying.

෴ * * ෴  ~ ෴ * * ෴  ~ ෴ * * ෴

The Boeing 777 was homing in on Miami International Airport, Florida.

Flight attendant Annie Davis was teasing the new crew member Michelle Cooper about her crush on the handsome First Officer Alvin Rogers.  Michelle, a 23 year old voluptuous blond, who was eating a burger standing by the galley sink, blushed.

෴ * * ෴  ~ ෴ * * ෴  ~ ෴ * * ෴

Two hours later,  the PA system crackled and on came the announcement, that they would be landing in Miami International Airport, in a while. The Boeing 777 started losing altitude, as it was closing in on its destination.
Some passengers were filling out the embarkation forms flight attendants had distributed, a while ago. Those without ballpoint pens were waiting to borrow from the neighbors who had enough sense to have one on them.

A young mom changed a diaper of her infant, while her husband watched in awe.

The aircraft banked left in a wide curve, to enter the landing pattern. 

෴ * * ෴  ~ ෴ * * ෴  ~ ෴ * * ෴

Photo from Wikimedia

The Boeing 777 was on the final approach on the glide slope with the onboard computers tuned and locked on the ILS frequency of the runway 12/30.  The aircraft was now 5 miles out from the runway and 2000ft up in the air. The captain Kevin Landers lowered the first notch of the flaps. It was time to deploy the landing gears. The skilled hands of the pilots went through the motions.

First officer Alvin Rogers watched the indicators on the bank of instruments turn white crosshatched as the wheel bay flaps opened and landing gear bogies were in transit. There was a hum and a thud that felt inside the aircraft as the wheels were down and locked and the indicators turned into green.

With the airspeed now reduced to just above the stall speed. The engine note audibly changed due to the deployed flaps and the armed speed brakes.

The big jet came in screaming out of the skies, toward the lit up runway 12/30. The engines slightly accelerating to compensate the drag caused by the lowered landing gears and flaps. The runway threshold whizzed past, as the Captain Kevin Landers pulled back the control column to execute the flair, causing the nose to lift off increasing the angle of attack. The Boeing 777 swooped down   like a giant eagle, with its wings spread and claws outstretched to grab the prey.
The main landing gear sets just skimmed the runway and then sparks flew as the rubber met the tarmac at the touchdown, emitting  a cloud of smoke and the  wheels at once started to

Photo from Wikimedia.

spin like crazy, accelerating from 0 to 250kmph in a fraction of a second . The thud was felt in the fuselage as the main landing gear suspension hissed and took over the total weight of the aircraft. 

In a few seconds, the nose wheels touched down adding more rubber to the runway. Captain Landers slid the elevator control neutral and used the rudder pedals to steer the aircraft down the middle of the runway. The fully deployed flaps and spoilers, the reverse thrust of the engine and speed brakes, combined made a howl and roar and scream at the same time which reached a crescendo.

As the ground handling crew watched, the Boeing 777 thundered down the runway making the windows rattle in the surrounding buildings. The giant bird slowed up at the end of the runway and made a ninety degree turn into the taxiway.  The passengers went through their usual routine of getting ready to deplane with usual chatter. 

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Several hours later, Nick Ortega stood in the floodlights on the concrete ramp and ticked off the check list on the clipboard inspecting each item of the aircraft.  He walked under the wing and inspected the wheel bogie and ticked a few boxes.  He grimaced at the noise when one after another jets landed with a tremendous roar and whizzed past.  He licked the tip of the pencil and casually glanced up the wheel strut when he heard a soft clang of metal hitting metal.

His eyes narrowed and a puzzled expression creased his face when he saw the car seat belt dangling from the tubular steel leg, swinging in the wind, its steel buckle clanging on the steel strut.

“What the …!”

He swung the beam of the powerful flashlight upwards on the wheel bay.  Nothing!  For good measure, he stepped onto the axle of the landing gear and shone the flashlight into the wheel bay. It was empty. He licked the tip of the pencil once more while he tried to form the sentence he had to scribble in the Comments box. ‘Car seatbelt hanging from the strut’ sounded just stupid.

He brought his walkie-talkie to mouth, pushed the talk button and started talking into it rapidly.

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Two weeks later, henryblogwalker
sat with a cup of coffee and opened
the inbox of Yahoo Mail.

23 unread messages! Well when you are a blogger you are never short of incoming mail, he thought.

But the Third mail jumped at him.


Carlos!                        Hey Dude                            8.55 AM

"Don’t know what the hell dude has done about that mad scheme of his," he muttered to himself.

He clicked on the name and waited impatiently for the email to load, with his fingers drumming an impatient tune on the edge of the laptop keyboard.

THE END

WARNING: THIS IS FICTION. PLEASE DON'T TRY THIS. THIS IS DEADLY. THE STATISTICS ARE TRUE.

References:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-32111/Cuban-stowaways-died-jet-soared.html#ixzz2J5vFW3af

http://en.wikipedia.org

http://www.boeing.com/boeing/commercial/777family/pf/pf_200product.page

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19562101

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2003/12/do_jet_stowaways_ever_survive.html

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2003/12/do_jet_stowaways_ever_survive.html