The Boss
10-17-2006, 09:18
The Boss pops awake with a start. She rolls over and grabs her Palm Pilot, flipping it open and hitting the "ON" button in one practiced motion to check the time. 0334. Damn.
No point in trying to go back to sleep now, she thinks. Muster is at 0600 at the CAP maintenance hangar at Lake Hood, and she was going to have to be up in an hour anyway. Might as well get a shower and breakfast now as toss and turn for another hour.
She tumbles out of bed and finds a light. Ugh. Who invented this vile hour, anyway? Should be outlawed.
45 minutes later she's showered, packed, and has scraped the frost from the windows on her rental car. She checked out the night before, so no need to drive over to the hotel's main office. She chooses to turn right, even though left would be the more direct route, because right will bring her past the ramp. Two KC-10s loom in the shadows, and a string of F-18s is being pulled out of the hangar. The blue taxiway lights twinkle in the pre-dawn air.
She drives on and out the Boniface gate, leaving Elmendorf AFB behind.
Heading home. Finally.
Breakfast at Denny's, then. Unexciting but reliably edible, at least in Anchorage. A nest of off-duty police officers have gathered at a couple of the tables, swapping tales. She smiles to herself, thinking she could probably join them if she wanted to. Instead, she motions for the check and heads out the door into the dawn and heads east on DeBarr. All the way across town to Minnesota Drive, down to International Airport Road and on to Lake Hood. Where's that hangar...? Ah, there it is. A Beaver sits out front, already on wheels even though the lake is nowhere near frozen yet. The Juneau squadron's DeHavilland is inside the hangar, she knows, but currently has no tailfeathers. Were it ready to go, she would be taking that down for them this morning. But it's not, so she has to use alternate transport.
Rental car dropped, she takes a shuttle to the back of the parking lot and hops the fence, crosses the busy road, and makes her way to the hangar. Inside, a bunch of bleary-eyed cadets from Sitka are stumbling about, bleary-eyed, trying to get themselves together for the ride home.
0630 and the bus arrives. The Boss, a dozen cadets, and a handful of CAP members from Juneau and Sitka climb aboard and are taken out to Kulis ANG base. On the scales, through a metal detector, and into a briefing room where they wait for a good hour before another bus comes to take them to the plane. Eight C-130s roll into view around the corner... but then the driver gets word on his radio and turns the bus around. Back to the briefing room while they fix something wrong with the plane.
Nothing but time. The Boss dozes on the floor, her slightly grubby blue Nomex flight suit wadded up as a pillow.
The bus is back. Slipping into the flight suit and grabbing her headset again, the Boss loads up as the cadets make bets with each other on whether they'll really leave this time or no. The bus pulls up to a 130 tethered to a fuel truck, somehow itself looking as though it had just awakened.
The Boss snaps a quick photo with her Palm Pilot, just for posterity.
In the back, there's seating for 44 but only 18 pax. The Boss knows better than to select a seat against the outside of the plane, and picks a nice spot along the center, towards the front. A little quieter there, and she can catch a glimpse outside through the tiny window across from her. She buckles in, dons her headset, and flips on the ENC, knocking another 20db off the sound of the turbines as they spin up.
After about an eternity sitting on the ramp, the heavy plane bounces down the taxiway towards the runway. Then things smooth out and they head down the runway, gathering speed. The Boss hooks the fingers of her right hand in the mesh of the "seat backs" to keep from falling to the left during takeoff.
It's a beautiful day. The little window provides a tantalizing view of the snow-covered... hills. She smiles to herself at the reference, remembering something she had drilled into her long ago. She contemplates a trip up to the cockpit, but the cadets are vying with each other for the privilege, and she smiles to watch them sort out in what order they get to go up the ladder.
A quick visit to the head (a camping toilet behind a curtain for the ladies on board) to offload the morning coffee, and then she props her feet on the seat across from her, slumps down against the mesh, closes her eyes and dozes, letting the bit of drone that makes its way through the ENC on her headset take her mind off of anything at all for a while.
When she opens her eyes again, she can discern familiar terrain out the window, and realizes they're almost in Juneau. Good. Susie is waiting for her there, ready to head south again. With any luck, Steve has her ready to go. The Boss doesn't want to dally, particularly with good weather overhead at this time of year.
The 130 settles to the runway with a slight bump, and this time The Boss has to hook her left hand into the mesh to keep from falling over to the right as the brakes take hold. Off the runway at the ANG hangar and the five Juneau pax hop out the side, wary of the still-spinning props. Moments later, the plane is back out on the runway, heading for Sitka.
The CAP van arrives to meet them and ferry them back to the Juneau CAP hangar. Susie is outside, her yellow and white paint shining in the October sun. The Boss gives her a good look-over, pats her cowl, and goes inside to get some coffee and fill out the residual paperwork. Always paperwork. She makes a note to implement a paperwork reduction act at home.
A quick lunch at Donna's over which she plans a flight to Sitka before it gets dark, then back to the hangar for good-byes and preflight.
No point in trying to go back to sleep now, she thinks. Muster is at 0600 at the CAP maintenance hangar at Lake Hood, and she was going to have to be up in an hour anyway. Might as well get a shower and breakfast now as toss and turn for another hour.
She tumbles out of bed and finds a light. Ugh. Who invented this vile hour, anyway? Should be outlawed.
45 minutes later she's showered, packed, and has scraped the frost from the windows on her rental car. She checked out the night before, so no need to drive over to the hotel's main office. She chooses to turn right, even though left would be the more direct route, because right will bring her past the ramp. Two KC-10s loom in the shadows, and a string of F-18s is being pulled out of the hangar. The blue taxiway lights twinkle in the pre-dawn air.
She drives on and out the Boniface gate, leaving Elmendorf AFB behind.
Heading home. Finally.
Breakfast at Denny's, then. Unexciting but reliably edible, at least in Anchorage. A nest of off-duty police officers have gathered at a couple of the tables, swapping tales. She smiles to herself, thinking she could probably join them if she wanted to. Instead, she motions for the check and heads out the door into the dawn and heads east on DeBarr. All the way across town to Minnesota Drive, down to International Airport Road and on to Lake Hood. Where's that hangar...? Ah, there it is. A Beaver sits out front, already on wheels even though the lake is nowhere near frozen yet. The Juneau squadron's DeHavilland is inside the hangar, she knows, but currently has no tailfeathers. Were it ready to go, she would be taking that down for them this morning. But it's not, so she has to use alternate transport.
Rental car dropped, she takes a shuttle to the back of the parking lot and hops the fence, crosses the busy road, and makes her way to the hangar. Inside, a bunch of bleary-eyed cadets from Sitka are stumbling about, bleary-eyed, trying to get themselves together for the ride home.
0630 and the bus arrives. The Boss, a dozen cadets, and a handful of CAP members from Juneau and Sitka climb aboard and are taken out to Kulis ANG base. On the scales, through a metal detector, and into a briefing room where they wait for a good hour before another bus comes to take them to the plane. Eight C-130s roll into view around the corner... but then the driver gets word on his radio and turns the bus around. Back to the briefing room while they fix something wrong with the plane.
Nothing but time. The Boss dozes on the floor, her slightly grubby blue Nomex flight suit wadded up as a pillow.
The bus is back. Slipping into the flight suit and grabbing her headset again, the Boss loads up as the cadets make bets with each other on whether they'll really leave this time or no. The bus pulls up to a 130 tethered to a fuel truck, somehow itself looking as though it had just awakened.
The Boss snaps a quick photo with her Palm Pilot, just for posterity.
In the back, there's seating for 44 but only 18 pax. The Boss knows better than to select a seat against the outside of the plane, and picks a nice spot along the center, towards the front. A little quieter there, and she can catch a glimpse outside through the tiny window across from her. She buckles in, dons her headset, and flips on the ENC, knocking another 20db off the sound of the turbines as they spin up.
After about an eternity sitting on the ramp, the heavy plane bounces down the taxiway towards the runway. Then things smooth out and they head down the runway, gathering speed. The Boss hooks the fingers of her right hand in the mesh of the "seat backs" to keep from falling to the left during takeoff.
It's a beautiful day. The little window provides a tantalizing view of the snow-covered... hills. She smiles to herself at the reference, remembering something she had drilled into her long ago. She contemplates a trip up to the cockpit, but the cadets are vying with each other for the privilege, and she smiles to watch them sort out in what order they get to go up the ladder.
A quick visit to the head (a camping toilet behind a curtain for the ladies on board) to offload the morning coffee, and then she props her feet on the seat across from her, slumps down against the mesh, closes her eyes and dozes, letting the bit of drone that makes its way through the ENC on her headset take her mind off of anything at all for a while.
When she opens her eyes again, she can discern familiar terrain out the window, and realizes they're almost in Juneau. Good. Susie is waiting for her there, ready to head south again. With any luck, Steve has her ready to go. The Boss doesn't want to dally, particularly with good weather overhead at this time of year.
The 130 settles to the runway with a slight bump, and this time The Boss has to hook her left hand into the mesh to keep from falling over to the right as the brakes take hold. Off the runway at the ANG hangar and the five Juneau pax hop out the side, wary of the still-spinning props. Moments later, the plane is back out on the runway, heading for Sitka.
The CAP van arrives to meet them and ferry them back to the Juneau CAP hangar. Susie is outside, her yellow and white paint shining in the October sun. The Boss gives her a good look-over, pats her cowl, and goes inside to get some coffee and fill out the residual paperwork. Always paperwork. She makes a note to implement a paperwork reduction act at home.
A quick lunch at Donna's over which she plans a flight to Sitka before it gets dark, then back to the hangar for good-byes and preflight.