My visit to a most expensive rest resort in the world; the Hospital

Over the past couple of days, I have been reminded of the often unremembered truths which, as most people exposed to these truths, tend to hide them from their mind. For example, how long does it take to get a simple shot of Insulin? The answer is about nine hours plus one day. The simple fact is at one point I almost decided to call 911 to get the paramedics to come to my hospital room to give me a shot of insulin. I know that they have it on their truck.

Image via Wikipedia

While I don’t know why it took nine hours to get one simple shot of a drug that I can walk into a drug store and buy, without a prescription, is beyond me. I can, however, visualize the paperwork train that the hospital’s bureaucracy invented, so they can charge you several hundred dollars for a three dollar shot.

Procedure to obtain insulin for patient:

1. Give patient 8 units of insulin when patient needs 1oo units. When patient tells her that is not enough smiles and say OK.
2. Give patient 8 units of insulin several hours later blood sugar reading 315.
3. Several hours later give patient 8 units of insulin, again patient requests more insulin, in fact, stated used 100 at home; smile beatifically.
4. Next morning gives patient 10 units of insulin, blood sugar now 325. Patient is cranky, side effect of high-blood sugar. Patient aches all over body, also side effect from high-blood sugar. Patient feels very weak, another side effect of high-blood sugar. Patient states that he takes 100 units of 70/30 every morning and needs that to get blood sugar down. Smile, give patient 10 units of R and tell him, I have put in an order for it. Give morphine for pain.
5. Four hours later doctor comes into the room. “You blood sugar is out of control over 330.” Patient informs doctor that hospital gave him 10 units of insulin when he needed 100 units of insulin. Doctor states I’ll put in an order for it.
6. Four hours later nurse comes into the room and gives 8 units of insulin, and when patient tells her that is not enough says, “doctor put an order in for it.”
7. Two hours later, patient feeling increasingly frustrated and cranky calls friend to ask that he go get patients insulin and needles and bring them to him in the hospital. During a telephone conversation, nurse comes into the room with needle containing 100 units of 70/30. Administers shot of 100 units of 70/30 then administers shot of 10 units of R.

For those of you who are not familiar with insulin, it comes in two basic forms N and R. I will not go into the differences other than to say that R is fast acting, and N is slower acting. If you ever come to the unpleasant need to use it, the doctors will explain it to you; in detail. The point is that 70/30 is 70% N and 30% R. What this means that I take 70 units of N and 30 units of R every morning, and my evening shot will either be 75 to 100 units depending on my blood sugar. As I lay here typing this, I am wondering if the excess of R, remember that she gave me 10 extra units of R on top of that 100 of 70/30, is going to make my sugar bottom out. That is never a pleasant experience. Unfortunately, I will not know for about another hour When she was sticking me, I though she was using two 1/2 cc syringes. Stupid me, I should have asked BEFORE she stuck me, not after.

But to put things in prospective I imagine the chain to get the insulin in my system goes something like this.

PROTOCOL FOR DEALING WITH INJECTIONABLE NON PRESCRIPTION DRUG:

1. Request for drug made by a patient.
2. Nurse checks horoscope to make sure stars permit use of drug at this time of year.
3. Files nails!
4. Types request into a computer and sends it to head nurse (sitting next to her).
5. Computer at supervising nurse station beeps to inform her, she has mail. (She is on coffee break.)
6. Returns from coffee break and files nails.
7. Reads the paper and talks to doctor.
8. Walks past all the rooms on floor quickly looking in to make sure bed still in the room.
9. Takes a coffee break.
10. Comes back from coffee break and opens mail.
11. Has 10000 email’s all but 2 junk, deletes non-junk email’s by mistake.
12. Patient asks the nurse about insulin.
13. Nurse asks supervisory nurse if she has read email yet. Answer no, maybe it got deleted with the spam.
14. Nurse sends email again. Turns to the supervisor who is sitting beside her and asks if she got it. Answer NO there are 500 spam’s in there though.
15. Nurse types in email but does not hit send. Asks supervisor to clear her junk and after this is done hits send on her email program.
16. Supervisor finally gets email.
17. Supervisor reads email checks horoscope. May have changed since nurse did this. Horoscope approves use of insulin so adds here approval to email and forwards this to staff doctor.
18. Staff doctor is out playing golf.
19. Doctor comes back from golf game flirts with pretty nurse for a while before going to the office.
20. Doctor goes in office and reads Golf Digest.
21. Gets bored of reading about Tiger Woods so turns to the computer to read email.
22. Very carefully delete 20,000 spam email’s, he has been bitten repeatedly with junking important email’s. This is why he’s, still a staff doctor. He junked invitation to join a prestigious practice, and he’s not going to do that again by damn. Unfortunately, all he finds in email from nurse requesting insulin for patient.
23. Add’s annoyed note to email and returns it the supervisory nurse. Insulin is not a prescription drug.
24. Nurse reading Play Girl, strangely she had the center fold folded out reading it in detail.
25. Drinks coffee, and starts to read email, spill’s coffee down her front. Has to go change scrubs.
26. Finally, reads email. Sends dirty reply to doctor then forwards email to pharmacy.
27. Pharmacist assistant reads email, unfortunately, email is not proper record keeping required by federal law. Entire email is hand written in to proper forms, including smiley faces and the #%!!#%& that the doctor had sent back to the supervising nurse.
28. Assistant places now properly formatted note on to do pad.
29. Pharmacist picks up note but can’t read it. (Remember Pharmacists can only read doctor.) Tells assistant he can’t read this.
30. Assistant hand carries note to staff doctor. (Same doctor that supervising nurse sent it to in the first place). Asks the doctor to translate the note into ‘doctor’, so pharmacist can read it.
31. Doctor agree’s but accidentally spills coffee on note destroying the letters on the page.
32. Assistant goes back to pharmacy and print’s out original email (only assistants save email’s).
33. Assistant goes back to the doctor with printout and doctor translates note into ‘doctor’ for pharmacist.
34. Assistant returns to pharmacy and places non prescription; prescription on the to be filled pile.
35. Pharmacist reads note, pulls a bottle of 70/30 out of ice box and fills a needle with 100 units. Returns insulin to ice box.
36. Needle placed in tagged bag with destination floor, room number, name of patient, name of doctor, today’s horoscope, name of supervisory nurse, name of nurse and picture of Mickey Mouse.
37. Bag is then placed on the deliver box for correct floor and ward.
38. Semi daily orderly picks up drug box to deliver to floor.
39. Drugs arrive on floor.
40. Make sure that the is no Methadone in the box. If there is, give those patients drugs first as withdrawal sempstress are unpleasant for staff.
41. Do the happy dance that you now have a tool to get pesky patient off back.
42. Take insulin to room inject patient. Make sure you also give the normal 10 insulin units indicated by the sliding scale, as well.

It’s very simple really! it just sounds complex.!

OH well, when I’m feeling a bit better, I may have more bits and pieces about, our illustrious, health care system.

By the way, if it sounds like I’m saying a doctor’s prescription for insulin is worthless, that piece of paper does do one very important thing. It makes the insulin cheaper because my health insurance pays half of all prescriptions on a very long list of possible medications and insulin is on the list. Unfortunately to save thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents, that’s the insurance paying one half of the cost of three bottles on insulin, I have to pay for a one hundred-dollar doctors visit. While it is true that my insurance pays for a set number of doctors visits per year, or at least eighty percent of them, this means that i will save seventeen dollars and fifty cents by going to the doctor. After my eighth visit in a year, I end up paying all the one hundred-dollar visits to get that discount.

I think I’ll just keep walking up to the counter and saying, “give me two bottles of 70/30 please.”

Like most diabetics, I’m a well-known man at the pharmacy. They see me a lot.

The difference a bit of editing can make.

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For those of you in the know, nothing I show here will come as any surprise. For the rest of us however, it can be rather startling at the difference which a bit of judicious editing can make with a bit of prose. While you are writing, it is often wise to simply continue with the flow of the words going on to the written, or virtual as the case may be, page.

Some writers prefer the physical written page. Some of those use pen and paper still while others, back when I began to write technical documents, used typewriters.  In today’s world, finding a typewriter outside an antique shop is more than a bit of a challenge, but that is a story of a different color.

I’m going to take this opportunity to present two versions of the opening chapter of a book idea I have had bouncing around inside my head for some time. The first version is the unedited version as it went into the word processor. After reading that, please read the same chapter, after it has undergone editing. I hope you enjoy.

The Second Moon: Sea Sick

The floor was rising rapidly in a side ways jerking, lurch of a movement which left my stomach where it had been before the move started. I was wishing it had left my nose there as well, that is if by staying where my stomach was it did not have to smell what I was smelling now. With another sickening lurch the floor fell as the front bow of the ship fell into the trough of the wave it had just crossed and with a hard roll to the left we plowed down the back side before the hole motion started again.

 Luckily, or unluckily, which ever way you want to look at it I was tied to my bunk. As bad as things were, it could have been far worse, I could have been with the men in the maze of four high racks in the troop birthing areas instead of this nice closet with three other junior officers such as my self taking turns groaning or puking little they had left onto the slippery deck. From the stench coming in through the closed door, hell would quite possibly be an improvement on the conditions in the rest of the ship.

 Not only was the ship rolling so far that at times one would think that the thing was going to turn turtle and roll over, then suddenly the bow would rise up so high I feared we would tumble backwards before the bow of the ship fell once more that we were almost hanging from our ropes which kept us from being tossed about the cabin as if a can was being kicked by children in a game of kick the can.

 On top of all that, the temperature in this pig of a ship was over a hundred. I could not even imagine the hell in the bowels of the ship where the stokers shoveled coal into the insatiable maw of the boilers. All we needed was a bit of the sent of brimstone and the illusion, or reality, of hell would be complete.

 I didn’t know how sailors did this. We had been at sea for just over twelve days and had another four to go. I was not sure I was going to make it. For more days of this hell, I now knew why the senior officers had ordered all the weapons into the weapon lockers for the duration of the voyage. It would be just too damn tempting to shoot yourself to put yourself out of your misery.

Two months ago, when I saw the ships of this fleet for the first time it looked as if nothing in the world could stand in our way. That was before I saw just how much trouble we had loading all the equipment and men onto these very ships. Not only that, but we had all the equipment of our largest port to help us load and I knew that four other fleets had joined us from other ports after we set sail. Sick as I felt from the rolling ship, I was sicker as I put my engineers brain around the task of unloading these ships without the benefit of that equipment.

Sick as I was, I was glad that I had volunteered for infantry and that bitch of a job would not fall to me. All I had to worry about was off loading my platoon and most of that work would actually fall to the Sargent’s. As I lay there thinking how good it would be to not have to deal with that problem, I forgot that the universe has an evil streak, like a blond headed gal on Saturday night when you want to find something nice to cuddle with and all she was after was a free meal and show.

When the storm blew it’s self out two days later my belly was just beginning to calm down when the First-Sargent knocked on the door.

“Come!”

“Good morning sir. The Colonel wants you.”

“Do I have time enough to clean up a bit first do you thing?”

“Sir, from the message I got, you may have time enough to put your pants on, I wouldn’t push it past that.”

Seeing that I already had my pants on and he knew it, I grabbed my cover and started out the door.

“How much trouble are we in Sargent?” I asked the question as he walked with me in the direction of the senior officers staterooms on the ship.

“None that I know of sir. I told the squad leaders to start cleaning up while we were gone. I didn’t wait till we got orders from company on that. I figured that the quicker we git rid of that mess, the quicker we can get some of the stench out.”

“Good thinking Bob.” I had known First Sargent Bob Alexander since the first day I took over the platoon almost a year ago. About two months ago I had decided to try to get more friendly with my top Sargent as it was him that was really running the platoon. All I ever did was make the decisions he told me I should be making.

Now if you think that sounds strange, think again. I’m an old Army brat, my dad having been a Sargent in the Army most of my life meant I had spent a lot of time around guys like Bob Alexander and knew that what they knew made everything I learned in officer school almost as important as a toddler attempting to run a relay race with a world class sprinter. If something ever came up I would make what ever decision I had to make but until that decision had to be made I was going to spend my time learning from men like Bob.

He tapped me gently on the arm to stop me, “Ed, I heard that we lost a couple of ships in the storm. Have you heard anything about that?”

I looked him in the eye. I don’t think I had ever seen him this worried before. “I heard the same rumors Bob, but I don’t know a thing. What’s wrong?”

“I got two brothers on some of the other ships Ed.”

Now I knew why he was following me into officer country. At first I had thought that he had a summons just like me. Now I knew that that was not the case, but he was worried about his brothers and wanted to know as soon as he could find out.

Now don’t get me wrong, Bob was a brave soldier and his brothers were also soldiers, I had met them. The thing is, there is a big difference between getting killed in battle and drowning in deep water or being eaten by a fish. While Bob would and had face the bullets flying on the field of battle and had watched his brothers charge into the teeth of the enemy with fixed bayonet, being eaten by a big fish was a cat of a different color.

“For the record Bob, just in case somebody asks you, I was still a little unsteady on my feet when you found me so you had to accompany me to the Colonels quarters just to make sure I get there.”

Turning I started walking again. I doubted that anybody would question a Top Sargent walking with a junior officer, but even if they did, I just did not really give a damn.

In just over two minutes we were standing in front of the Colonels stateroom and after trying to tidy up my messy uniform as much as possible I knocked on the door.

“Come!”

I opened the door stepped inside and snapped to attention and said, “Sir, Lieutenant Edward Morrison reporting as ordered”. That was when I saw the General.

“Was that Sargent Bob Alexander with you?”

“Yes sir!”

Before I could even flinch, General Emend Almond was on his feet and had crossed the space to open the door. “Come on in Bob. Both of you, have a seat.”

Bob Alexander walked into the room and with more aplomb than I was able to show, sat on one of the chairs to the left side of the office. While I stiffly walked over to and sat on the other chair on that side of the room the General walked over to the couch and flopped down.

“Damn that feels good.” With a long sigh he looked over at Bob and saw the worried look on his face, “there fine Bob. I know what ships both of them were assigned to and both of those ships are still with us. Unfortunately that can not be said for the Lorelei..”

I stiffened at that statement. The Lorelei was one of four ships which had our senior engineering staff on board. The idea had been that they could use the voyage to plan operations on how to offload the ships when we got to the far coast. The loss of that ship meant that many senior officers were gone with it. I knew full well that there was not a snow ball’s chance in hell that we had been able to rescue anyone from that ship in the middle of the storm we just came through.

“My staff and the staff of the other officers of this fleet have begun the process of reviewing the records of all the officers in this Army and some of the fleets officers as well who the Admiral assures me can be seconded to the Army for the off loading. Your name came up several times Ed.”

“Sir?”

“You were top of you class in engineering at the academy. Your father was Top Sargent in an engineering regiment for years before you went to the academy and you have top reviews by all of your reviewing officers for the last year. What’s more, even though you were assigned to infantry, while we were loading you assisted the engineers in one of the trickier loadings we made. Now I know you volunteered for Infantry, but unfortunately the needs of the service trump that. You are reassigned to the engineers effective immediately.”

“Yes sir.” I’m sure that the General could tell that I was less than enthused by this transfer, but I did understand the necessity of it. I was just going to have to buck up and do the best I could. One thing I could do for my platoon though was to make sure that they had good leadership after I left. “Sir, have you decided on my replacement in the platoon yet?”

He looked at me with renewed interest. “Not yet, who do you have in mind?”

I smiled, he had deliberately given me the opening I had been praying for. “Bob Alexander sir. I recommend that he be given a commission and placed in command of third platoon of D company. We are going to have a shortage of officers with the loss of that ship and I know that if you give the platoon to Sargent Alexander they will be well led one we enter combat sir.”

I was talking trying to convince him to give Bob a chance at that instead of giving the platoon to one of the green kids we had along who were fresh out of the academy. True, I was only a little over a year out myself, but as a military brat, I was not quite as green as most of them were. Glancing around I saw the stricken look on Bob’s face.

Nodding his head, “I think that is an excellent idea Major! Lieutenant Alexander will be the perfect replacement.”

Generals are like that! Just when you think you are starting to learn something, they kick you in the guts. “Major,” I squeaked, then rapidly added, “sir!”

“Yes Major, and those junior officers you are so afraid are going to be placed in command of third platoon, as of this second they work for you. Colonel Torington will brief you and supply you with a list of the ships you will be tasked with offloading. I’m making you a Major because Lieutenants, even First-Lieutenants have trouble giving orders to Captains. We lost more than engineering officers with the loss of the ships which went down, we lost the men who would be supplying the work detail as well. While infantry are not trained in engineering, I’m afraid you are going to be forced to make due with them as your labor force. Companies B and D are reassigned to Engineering for the duration. Use them well Major.”

Donny Torington opened a desk drawer and pulled out a bottle. I don’t think the General will object to a bit of the creature to wet down your promotions. Bob if you will grab some glasses from that cabinet,” he pointed and Bob opened it and pulled out four water glasses he found inside it. He placed them on the desk and the Colonel poured whiskey in each glass.

After each of the four of us held a drink in our hands, he held his up in a salute. “To those we lost! May they find peace!”

Almost in a single voice the rest of us muttered, “may they find peace.”

EDITED VERSION of

The Second Moon: Sea Sick

The floor was rising rapidly in a, sideways, jerking, lurch of a movement which left my stomach where it had been before the move started. I was wishing it had left my nose there as well, that is if by staying where my stomach was it did not have to smell what I was smelling now. With another sickening lurch, the floor fell as the bow of the ship fell into the trough of the wave it had just crossed, and with a hard roll to the left we plowed down the back side of the wave as  the hole motion started again.

Luckily, or unluckily, which ever way you want to look at it, I was tied to my bunk. As bad as things were, it could have been far worse, I could have been with the men in the maze of four high racks in the troop birthing areas instead of this nice closet with three other junior officers such as my self taking turns groaning or puking little they had left onto the slippery deck. From the stench coming in through the closed door, hell would quite possibly be an improvement on the conditions in the rest of the ship.

Not only was the ship rolling so far that, at times, one would think that it  was going to turn turtle then roll over, but suddenly the bow would rise so high I feared we would tumble backwards, before the bow of the ship fell once more, and we were almost hanging from the ropes which kept us tied to our bunks. The ropes were the only thing keeping us from being tossed about the cabin, as if we were a can which was being kicked by children, in a game of kick the can.

On top of all that, the temperature in this pig of a ship was over a hundred. I could not even imagine the hell in the bowels of the ship where the stokers shoveled coal into the insatiable maw of the boilers. All we needed was a bit of the scent of brimstone, and the illusion, or reality, of hell would be complete.

I didn’t know how sailors did this. We had been at sea for just over twelve days and had another four to go. I was not sure I was going to make it. For more days of this hell, I now knew why the senior officers had ordered all the weapons into the weapon lockers for the duration of the voyage. It would be just too damn tempting to shoot yourself to put yourself out of your misery.

Two months ago, when I saw the ships of this fleet for the first time it looked as if nothing in the world could stand in our way.  That was before I saw just how much trouble we had in loading all the equipment and men onto these very ships. Not only that, but we had all the equipment of our largest port to help us load and I knew that there were four other, smaller fleets, which had joined us from other ports after we set sail. Sick as I felt from the rolling ship, I was sicker as I put my engineers brain around the task of unloading these ships without the benefit of that equipment.

Sick as I was, I was glad that I had volunteered for infantry and that bitch of a job would not fall to me. All I had to worry about was off loading my platoon and most of that work would actually fall to the Sargent’s. As I lay there thinking how good it would be not to be forced to deal with that problem, I forgot that the universe has an evil streak, like a blond headed gal on Saturday night when you want to find something nice to  cuddle with and all she was after was a free meal and show.

When the storm blew it’s self out two days later my belly was just beginning to calm down when the First-Sargent knocked on the door.

“Come!”

“Good morning sir. The Colonel wants you.”

“Do I have time enough to clean up a bit first do you think?”

“Sir, from the message I got, you may have time enough to put your pants on. I wouldn’t push it past that though sir.”

Seeing that I already had my pants on, and he knew it, I grabbed my cover and started out the door.

“How much trouble are we in Sargent?” I asked the question as he walked with me in the direction of the senior officers staterooms on the ship.

“None that I know of sir. I told the squad leaders to start cleaning up while we were gone. I didn’t wait till we got orders from company on that. I figured that the quicker we git rid of that mess, the quicker we can get some of the stench out.”

“Good thinking Bob.” I had known First Sargent Bob Alexander since the first day I took over the platoon almost a year ago. About two months ago, I had decided to try and become more friendly with my Top Sargent, as it was he who was really running the platoon. All I ever did was make the decisions he told me that I should be making.

Now, if you think that sounds strange, think again. I’m an old Army brat, my dad having been a Sargent in the Army most of my life meant I had spent a lot of time around guys like Bob Alexander and knew that what they knew made everything I learned in officer school almost as important as a toddler attempting to run a relay race with a world class sprinter. If something ever came up, I would make what ever decision I had to make, but until that decision had to be made I was going to spend my time learning from men like Bob.

He tapped me gently on the arm to stop me, “Ed, I heard that we lost a couple of ships in the storm. Have you heard anything about that?”

I looked him in the eye. I don’t think I had ever seen him this worried before. “I heard the same rumors Bob, but I don’t know a thing. What’s wrong?”

“I got two brothers on some of the other ships Ed.”

Now I knew why he was following me into officer country. At first I had thought that he had a summons just like me. Now I knew that was not the case, but he was worried about his brothers and wanted to know as soon as he could find out.

Now don’t get me wrong, Bob was a brave soldier and his brothers were also soldiers, I had met them. The thing is, there is a big difference between getting killed in battle and drowning in deep water or being eaten by a fish. While Bob would, and had, faced bullets flying on the field of battle and had watched his brothers charge into the teeth of the enemy with fixed bayonet, being eaten by a big fish was a cat of a different color.

“For the record Bob, just in case somebody asks you, I was still a little unsteady on my feet when you found me, so you had to accompany me to the Colonels quarters just to make sure I get there.”

Turning I started walking again. I doubted that anybody would question a Top Sargent walking with a junior officer, but even if they did, I just did not really give a damn.

In just over two minutes, we were standing in front of the Colonels stateroom. After trying to tidy up my messy uniform as much as possible, I knocked on the door.

“Come!”

I opened the door stepped inside and snapped to attention and said, “Sir, Lieutenant Edward Morrison reporting as ordered”. That was when I saw the General.

“Was that Sargent Bob Alexander with you?”

“Yes sir!”

Before I could even flinch, General Emend Almond was on his feet and had crossed the space to open the door. “Come on in Bob. Both of you, have a seat.”

Bob Alexander walked into the room and with more aplomb than I was able to show, sat on one of the chairs to the left side of the office while I stiffly walked over to, and sat on the other chair on that side of the room. The General walked over to the couch and flopped down.

“Damn that feels good.” With a long sigh, he looked over at Bob and saw the worried look on his face, “there fine Bob. I know what ships both of them were assigned to, and both of those ships are still with us. Unfortunately, that can not be said for the Lorelei.”

I stiffened at that statement. The Lorelei was one of three ships, which had our senior engineering staff on board. The idea had been that they could use the voyage to plan operations on how to offload the  ships when we got to the far coast. The loss of that ship meant that many senior officers were gone with it. I knew full well that there was not a snow ball’s chance in hell that we had been able to rescue anyone from that ship in the middle of the storm we just came through.

“My staff and the staff of the other officers of this fleet have begun the process of reviewing the records of all the officers in this Army and some of the fleets officers as well who the Admiral assures me can be seconded to the Army for the off loading. Your name came up several times Ed.”

“Sir?”

“You were top of you class in engineering at the academy. Your father, was Top Sargent in an engineering regiment for years before you went to the academy, and you have top reviews by all of your reviewing officers for the last year. What’s more, even though you were assigned to infantry, while we were loading you assisted the engineers in one of the trickier loadings we made. Now I know you volunteered for Infantry, but, unfortunately, the needs of the service trump that. You are reassigned to the engineers effective immediately.”

“Yes sir.” I’m sure that the General could tell that I was less than enthused by this transfer, but I did understand the necessity of it. I was just going to have to buck up and do my best. One thing I could do for my platoon though was to make sure that they had good leadership after I left. “Sir, have you decided on my replacement in the platoon yet?”

He looked at me with renewed interest. “Not yet, who do you have in mind?”

I smiled as he deliberately given me the opening I had been praying for. “Bob Alexander sir. I recommend that he be given a commission. He is the perfect man to be placed in command of third platoon of D company. We are going to have a shortage of officers with the loss of that ship and I know that if you give the platoon to Sargent Alexander they will be well led one we enter combat sir.”

I was talking trying to convince him to give Bob a chance at that instead of giving the platoon to one of the green kids we had along who were fresh out of the academy. True, I was only a little over a year out myself, but as a military brat, I was not quite as green as most of them were. Glancing around I saw the stricken look on Bob’s face.

Nodding his head, “I think that is an excellent idea Major! Lieutenant Alexander will be the perfect replacement.”

Generals are like that! Just when you think you are starting to learn something, they kick you in the guts. “Major,” I squeaked, then rapidly added, “sir!”

“Yes Major, and as to those junior officers you are so afraid are going to be placed in command of third platoon, as of this second, they work for you. Colonel Torington will brief you and supply you with a list of the ships you will be tasked with offloading. I’m making you a Major because Lieutenants, even First-Lieutenants, have trouble giving orders to Captains. We lost more than engineering officers with the loss of the ships which went down, we lost the men who would be supplying the work details, as well. While infantry are not trained in engineering, I’m afraid you are going to be forced to make due with them as your labor force. Companies B and D are reassigned to Engineering for the duration. Use them well Major.”

Donny Torington opened a desk drawer and pulled out a bottle. I don’t think the General will object to ‘a bit of the creature’ to wet down your promotions. Bob if you will grab some glasses from that cabinet,” he pointed to a cabinet on the left wall. Bob opened it and pulled out four of the water glasses he found inside. He placed them on the desk and the Colonel poured whiskey in each glass.

After each of the four of us held a drink in our hands, he held his up in a salute. “To those we lost! May they find peace!”

Almost in a single voice the rest of us muttered, “may they find peace.”

Changes and Lost Bits of Prose.

One of the terrible and powerful things about writing is rewrites. There are times when a story begins to unfold in your mind and you follow a path only to find yourself trapped in a pitfall of your own making. When this happens there is simply nothing for it but to back up and begin again, at some earlier point in the story.

One thing which often happens is that much well crafted prose must inevitably end up in the wast basket, or the bit bucket of your hard drive as it were, after you have spent much time carefully crafting the images from your mind into the written word.

Here is one of those bits ob prose which must,  regretfully, vanish into the mists of the wast basket sitting unmercifully at my feet.  Several people who have read it told me they found it quite grabbing. I hope you enjoy.

***

SNAP COUNT from an early version of Stranger One

“Mr. President, your call is ready on line one.”

Compton Yates prided himself on his ability to speak several languages beside his native English. Picking up the phone he greeted the person on the other end of the line in that persons native language, Italian. “Your Holiness?”

“President Yates, the Church of Saint Peter faces danger such as it has not faced since the days of Richard the First of England. Today that danger is the same enemy Richard faced almost a millennium ago.”

“Your Holiness, this time we must not leave a single Muslim living.”

“I had hoped you would reach this decision my son. I feared I would need to plead with you as the only leader in the world capable of dealing with this.”

In a small compartment toward the front of the aircraft, an Army General listened to the conversation the President was having with the Catholic Pope. Janice Costello frowned. This war had started because a few religious fanatics, who did not represent the majority of the Islamic population of the world, tried to inflict their view of religion on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, it appeared as if these few were about to be answered by violent action by a few of their counterparts from the Christian religion.

Two years ago, Janice Costello had occasion to meet the current Pope. She had come to the conclusion that he was every bit as dangerous as one of the Muslim’s who used terror to try to inflict their version of religion on the world. Both types were more interested in forcing every one else in the world to conform to their view of religion, than to following the word of the God both claimed to worship.

She had come to the conclusion that the vast majority of Muslims were devout, peace loving people. The vast majority of Christians were exactly the same, peace loving people. But the unfortunate truth was that it was the crazies who seemed to boil to the top. Crazies who had started this war and it would be the crazies who would destroy this planet in the attempt to force their view of right on everyone else.

Three weeks ago, she had been given two envelops. One of these had been handed to her by Valentine Teasdale. The other by Bob Johnson. Both had told her not to open them except in the event of their death, then only in the event of emergency if she was in doubt. Both of these men were now dead but she had not opened the things yet, almost fearing what she would find.

Steeling herself, she reached into the inside pocket of her uniform and pulled them out.

Dear Janice;

If you are reading this, I’m dead and you are trying to make a hard decision. Unfortunately, the only help I can give you is to tell you that I trust the following people;

       General Robert Johnson
       Secretary of State Tommy Tonkins
       General Janice Castello
       Phyllis Ackerman

One additional thing, as of today I have named Robert Johnson Secretary of the Interrior pending approval of the Senate, a post which is currently open, and I have fired the Secretary of Agriculture and appointed Phyllis Ackerman in his place. As I have said, both of these appointments are pending confirmation of the Senate. Neither of them know about these appointments, and these appointments have not been formally announced. They will be sent to the Senate at the first sign of hostilities.

Your friend Valentine Teasdale

The second letter was shorter.

Dear Janice;

The only advice I can think of which may be useful is this. During World War II German officers swore allegiance to Adolf Hitler personally. That act prevented the majority of them from doing what they knew to be the right thing to do and permitted them to perform atrocities which haunt the world to this day.

In this country we have never done this. You are not sworn to protect the President, or me, or anyone else. Your oath is to the Constitution and the people of the United States of America. In fact you are duty bound to defend the United States of America against all enemy’s both foreign and domestic.

The unfortunate truth is; not all enemies are foreign!

Bob;
She suddenly knew what she had to do. She wondered if she was really that much different from the fanatics who committed suicide by walking into a crowd and setting off a bomb. Stiffening her shoulders, no, she was not trying to kill innocent civilians. She was going to perform the same act that Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg had failed in performing. One thing she knew, if she failed, the outcome would be far worse than what had occurred when Hitler had lived. The world had survived Hitler, she was not sure that the world could survive Compton Yates.

In 1944 Adolf Hitler had been an evil megalomaniac bent on forcing his view of reality on the world. Fortunately he did not have the power to destroy the entire planet.

Today, Compton Yates, a man who was a good friend before he became President, was a good man. It was unfortunate that he was the Christian twin of a Muslim extremist. She had many long talks with him, trying to convince him that his beliefs were just as dangerous as the beliefs of a man such as Osama bin Laden.

Unfortunately, today, Janice had listened to this conversation because she had feared that Compton’s unreasoned hatred of all things Muslim would sway his decision. She knew now that it had. They were dealing with a madman willing to destroy the world, to save it from the Muslim hoard.

The Boeing 7747-2020 was the latest and greatest airliner in the world. In it’s normal configuration as a carrier of people, it could move almost a thousand people. As Air Force One, it packed the latest free electron laser, Sparrow missiles, Quail missiles and several other forms of defensive measures.

Unlike all other predecessors of this aircraft, it was designed to fly with a fighter group in escort. Like a Naval task force, Air Force One took control of the fighters surrounding it and designated which aircraft should be used to terminate which threat. Unlike a Naval task force, encrypted spread spectrum interlocking networks tied all of the aircraft together as if they were a single aircraft. All of the escorting fighter aircraft were flown, via their autopilots, by the pilot of Air Force One. When Air Force One turned left, all the fighters turned left.

The formation surrounding Air Force One was far more precise than any military formation flown by mere humans could ever have been. Up until this very flight, the pilot of Air Force One had always refused to allow the interconnected network to control the accompanying fighter aircraft. No experienced pilot of Air Force One would have allowed such a thing. Unfortunately, all of the more experienced flight crew had died, earlier this day when other aircraft had died. Not one of the experienced Air Force Pilots who flew the President and his closest advisers had considered the system safe enough to risk the life of the president against. But the newly trained crew, who normally would have only traveled in the backup bird until they gain more experience, now had the job of flying the new President.

Airplanes and pilots comprised an imperfect system. Some people believed that the computers were least likely to cause a crash. Among the people who believed this were the people at Airbus. Unfortunately, there were times when the computer in the aircraft over ruled the pilot and because of this, people died. In the other camp lay the people at Boeing. With Boeing’s, sometimes when the pilot over ruled the autopilot, people died. In truth both sides were correct and both sides were incorrect. Neither human pilot, or computerized pilot, was truly without fault. But when an aircraft intended to depend on human pilots, such as the 7747, and a green pilot overly dependent on the autopilot, confusion was perhaps the best outcome which could be hoped for.

With the system tying Air Force One to it’s fighters, they had the worst of both worlds. One pilot controlling nine aircraft. One large, wallowing, transport, heavy on the controls, manipulating the movement of four pairs of nimble fighter jets, most of which were visibly cloaked, to prevent a possible enemy from seeing them. The outside world saw one large transport in the official markings of Air Force One accompanied by two fighter jets. What they failed to see were the six additional actively cloaked jets.

Pilots being pilots, even when they are flying one hundred million dollar jet fighters, when the autopilot is flying the aircraft; attention is not always as tightly attuned to the over all environment as it should be. Every pilot is trained, hour after hour, in trainer and aircraft alike, when on autopilot, monitor the instruments. In almost every situation which can occur in flight that is as it should be. But for this flight, it was not the instruments which these fighter pilots should have been monitoring, it was the separation. When flying formation, only the lead pilot should be fixated on his instruments. Every other pilot should have his head locked on the bird which is the flight lead. Their job is to lock their jet, to the lead jet, almost as if they were glued to the point on its anatomy it had been assigned to fly.

Fighter jets are not the most comfortable aircraft to fly. After a few hours it is almost as if you are sitting on a picket fence or on a granite slab placed in the aircraft expressly for the discomfort of the pilot. The unfortunate effect of this is that pilots tend to fixate on one instrument to the exclusion of other instruments, or to watch the instruments to the exclusion of mongering the separation of their aircraft to the other aircraft they are flying formation with.

Air Force Pilots are not trained in formation flying using autopilot. Formation flying is always done by hand. Not a single one of the fighter pilots involved had ever flown formation when the autopilot was in control of the aircraft. One result of this was that after several hours, most of the pilots forgot they were in formation and began to monitor their instruments as if they were on a normal instrument flight.

Inside the belly of Air Force One, Admiral Janice Costello typed an override command into the computer console in the communications room of Air Force One. It only took a few seconds to type in the command she wished to send to one of the fighters flying in formation with them. Staring at the command she hesitated thinking about her daughter. In two weeks her youngest daughter would be having her high school prom. If she did this, she would not be there for her as she had been there for her older daughter. It was then she realized that, if she did not do this, Kala may never live to have her high school prom.

Thinking about all of the people such as Kala who would die if she did nothing was all it took. Janice pressed the enter key.

Seventy feet above and one hundred and fifty feet behind Air Force One the pilot of the F-39 was shocked out of his stupor of watching the instruments as the nose of his aircraft fell and the Vulcan cannon began to spin as the thrust lever moved all the way to the firewall and raw fuel was dumped into the afterburners of the two hungry engines. It took less than one second for the aircraft to close the distance between it’s self and the large transport it was protecting. In that three quarters of one second seventy five twenty millimeter canon shells slammed into and exploded inside the larger aircraft.

Exploding shells or not, most of the rounds missed the people inside the aircraft. One round exploded just outside the presidential suite but the surrounding bullet proof partitions protected the man inside the cabin. Another shell exploded inside one of the fuel tank’s on the left wing. Amazingly, even though the tank was ripped open and fuel flooded into the surrounding sky, no spark seemed to find it as it dissipated into the sky behind the huge dying bird. Another of the rounds exploded inside the primary computer which controlled the large aircraft and with the death of this computer, the seven remaining fighters were released from the rigid control they had been subjected to for the last three hours.

Of these seven fighters, six had control of their aircraft within three seconds, unfortunately for the seventh of the remaining aircraft those three seconds were far too long. Something in the interface being dropped between it’s autopilot and the controlling computer on Air Force One caused this one aircraft to roll hard right. Half a second after control was lost it’s canopy slammed into the left wing tip of Air Force One crumpling the outer fifteen feet of the wing.

In the front of Air Force One, even though the fly by wire control system was still functioning after the death of the primary computer, there were no longer any control surfaces at the tail of the aircraft to control. Just under one second from the time that Janice Costello pressed the enter key the fighter slammed into the Boeing and tore the tail of the aircraft off.

Without a tail, and with the outer fifteen feet crumpled into a drag producing wad of metal, the great aircraft slew sideways into the slipstream of three hundred and forty knot wind and began to denigrate. The pressure vessel which had held the breathing air of the humans inside the machine opened so quickly that the air explosively left what had previously been the interior of the bird. The lungs inside the fragile humans who had been protected from the near vacuum of space outside the aircraft at forty thousand feet ruptured as there was no slow decrease of pressure which would permit the air to escape. In that instant, even if they had been at a hospital ready to be treated, not one of the humans inside the aluminum and titanium frame had a chance to live.

Within fifteen seconds all but the one armored compartment on the extreme interior of the bird was fluttering toward the ground as if it were so much tin foil which had been dumped out of a bucket. Inside that one armored compartment, a single human being, lungs ruptured, dying beyond any hope of survival, yet still alive, sat trying to grasp the oxygen mask dangling in front of his face. The mask was a hope which even if grasped could do no good as the lungs of the man would no longer accept the live giving oxygen being sprayed into the thickening air as the box fell the seven miles which separated it from the Earth laying below.

Light faded to gray and just over three minutes later, when the box containing the body of the man who had been President of the United States of America for three hours slammed into the ground, the heart of Compton Yates finally stopped.

Sequel to Deep Flight

For those of you who are just a little anxious about what happens after the end of Deep Flight. Here is a small taste.

Prelude to War

Bob Johnson was racing down the corridors of the Pentagon toward one of the public rest rooms and hoping he would make it in time. He found himself almost literally crossing his legs to hold it until he got there. It would be very unseemly for a four-star General to, have that kind of accident. It had taken all of his will power not to tell the new CJCS he needed to go, like a little boy asking a teacher for permission to go by raising his hand. After leaving a meeting with the CJCS, he had been as desperate as he remembered being. As he almost stumbled into the latrine and up to the urinal, he barely made it in time as he almost ripped his zipper down. Leaning his middle in toward the urinal as he placed one hand on the wall above it, the relief was an electric sensation through his body.

He was still urinating when his phone began to ring. It was almost with that first ring that he began to hear alarms sounding thought the building. Unfortunately, the ringing phone, was not his personal phone. It was his direct line to the President. Droping his head against the wall, he fumbled with the newly freed hand into his inside jumper pocket to fetch out the phone. Punching the answer button he asked in a pleading voice, “could this wait about thirty seconds sir?”

After a slight pause, the president said, “OK Bob.”

It was almost another twenty seconds before he began trying to zip up his pants with one hand while answering the President with the other hand. “Thank you sir.”

“What were you doing Bob, taking a leak?”

With a sheepish voice, Johnson answered, “yes sir.”

There was a momentary chuckle from the other end of the line, “been there done that. Early warning satellites have detected approximately one hundred ICBM launches. In addition to those launches, five MRBMs from Iran are directed at Israel, and five ICBM launches from Iran appear to be headed our way. Space command has informed me that they have all of the tracks targeted. In addition to this, Israel has launched ten MRBM at Iran targeted at all of the major Iranian facilities. We have also detected MRBM launches from  Saudi Arabia aimed at Israel. We do not know how these are armed. China appears to have launched anti-satellite missiles at all of our major space assets in an attempt to blind us. Space command recommends that we destroy all Chinese satellites and that we direct five EMP detonations above China. I need to know what you think about that idea Bob, and I need to know now.”

Bob Johnson began to digest the information that Valentine Teasdale had given him as he finished zipping up his pants. As he turned away from the urinal, he saw a light Colonel who had been standing behind him with a snicker on his face. Taking note of the mans name he hurried quickly out of the latrine. That Lieutenant Colonel was going to have to explain what he was doing standing around snickering while the hells bells for a possible World War III could be heard. As far as what the man was snickering at, if those alarms had not been going off, Johnson would probably have been snickering himself.

“Mr President, if the Chinese are really launching things into space, I’ll bet they have sent a few EMP pulses our way to try to decapitate us. While it probably won’t kill our command and control, it is going to play hell with the country. Do we know how launched first, Iran or China?”

“Iran!”

“OK the Chinese are trying to use that as a cover to decapitate us, but they had to know it was going to happen. With our current relations with China, that constitutes an overt act of war, without the launches. I have been studying the intel reports on China for the last two weeks sir. I recommend that you launch multiple EMP’s and that you launch at least one kinetic ICBM’s at Beijing. I’ll bet that their ruling elites are out of the city, and they are testing us to see how we will react.

Sir at least one of the launches from China is directed at either New York or Washington sir. In addition, sir, we know that at least one of the Chinese satellites is armed. I am not sure if it will be a live round fired at New York or Washington.”

“Why one kinetic round at Beijing?”

“To test what their up to sir. If they shoot it down OK, but the real test is if they let it hit. We know that they have the capability of shooting one or two inbound tracks, and while they do not have our capability they do have some limited ability to defend their capital. If they permit the round to hit, you can be sure that the missile fired at us will be kinetic and not armed. Are they trying to make it look as if we are the ones escalating? This will tell us what they are up to without giving them the excuse!”

“OK Bob! I want you on your way to Andrews. There will be a helo waiting for you by the time you get to the pad. I want you on Air Force One asap.”

As he hung up, he had already changed course to the nearest elevator to the rooftop helicopter pads. Punching a button on his phone as he arrived at the elevator, slid his ID into the slot, instead of pushing the button, calling the elevator with his priority code, he waited for the Sargent to answer.

“992-9876!”

“Sargent, the is General Robert Johnson, I need to talk to the duty officer!”

There was a five second pause while the man looked up his name on the computer, “bingo?”

Johnson had the list memorized, “Olivetti!”

“Yes sir, one moment sir!”

The wait was less than two seconds, “Colonel Fields sir!”

“Colonel is there  a maned Chinese mission up now?”

“Yes sir, one will be crossing the cost in seven minutes.”

“Kill it immediately Colonel. You have priority Tomcat Jake to use one of the Laser Satellites to kill it. Under no circumstances is it to get closer than five minutes to the coast!”

“Sir we are trying to hide the fact that we have those!”

“Colonel, we are currently at war with an inbound attack against US assets from China. There is a strong probability that the manned craft is armed and intends to use weapons against targets inside the United States. You should be getting Presidential launch orders within seconds.”

“Yes sir. I think that order is coming in now!”

The elevator arrived, and Johnson hurried on and slid his card in the priority slot. He pressed the button which would take him to the highest level.

“Sir, our launch is in progress, and your target has been added. Do you have any more priority traffic for me sir?”For those of you who are just a little anxious about what happens after the end of Deep Flight. Here is a small taste.

Johnson knew that the man was very busy at the current time, but there was one more thing he needed to know. “Have there been any launches from any of the territory of the old USSR?”

“No sir!”

“OK, let me know immediately if there are. You can use this number!”

“Sir if we miss one of the EMP pulses I won’t be able to reach you!”

“Yes you can! Just think of how you can reach someone after an EMP!”

There was a very short pause, “yes sir.”

The elevator arrived at the top and even as he disconnected the telephone he was rapidly moving toward the door which lead out to the helicopter pad. There was a V-22 its rotors turning was waiting for an instant lift off. Ducking his head out of habit, he rushed to the door of the cabin and climbed in. The aircraft was lifting even before he made his way to a seat.

“Arn’t we waiting for the CJCS?

“No sir, Presidents orders. Were to get you to Andrews immediately!”

It was one of the shortest flights he had ever made. He was out the door, moving toward Air Force One within a second of the bird settling to the tarmac. As he climbed the steps, he heard the sound of Marine One landing.

Within seconds of Valintine Teasdale was entering the aircraft, the door was closing, and less than ten seconds later, the aircraft began to move. The air stairs had barley had time to clear the tail before the huge bird was moving.

Johnson looked at his watch. Nineteen minutes ago he had been relieving himself when his phone rang.

——————-

Enjoy

New book Sample “Never Home Again”

Chapter 1: Trapped

Carron would never span the stars again. The damage was simply too severe to fix without a full yard refit. As the nearest yard was over five hundred light years away, and they were out of subspace contact with home as well as being far off course, they would likely never see home again.

Not that they could not let home know what happened, and that they needed help. That had already happened, at least in part. The message had been sent. It was just that, with the damage they received, it would take the message years to reach the nearest relay point before it could be beamed home.

Hopefully the navigator’s fix was close enough so that they would actually find the relay point with their beam. With the relay being 75 light years off, the soonest they could expect help was around one hundred years from now. While the trip out would be fast, the final run in to the system would take several years. There was simply too much junk drifting around to use hyper into the system. Flying at sub hyper speeds they would need to go very slow to avoid running over some of that junk.

Carron was on the side of a large moon. The moon, in tidal lock, forever faced away from the blue ball it circled. The moon, however, did not have air. The planet did. It was even, almost, breathable, after a fission. The pressure, even at the surface, was a bit high. The overpressure of nitrogen would be toxic at that pressure, but fortunately, there were nice, lovely mountains. Those mountains, being higher up in the atmosphere, were at lower pressure. Nitrogen would not be such a problem.

Nun looked across the shuttle bay where the last of the shuttles were being loaded. Everything had been carefully shut down to await help from home. He would not live to see that help arrive but perhaps his children would. After all, the year of this new planet was very close to the year of their own planet. On the mountains, the air was even very close to home. If one could avoid the lower realms of this world and the incredible heat, it could be almost like home.

There was an incredible diversity of life on this planet. One species, even showed a small bit of intelligence. Still, these creatures were very primitive. This made things easier, primitive creatures, would be simpler to control. To primitive people like these, Nun knew that they would appear to be gods.

Nun smiled! He had often wondered what it would be like to be a god. Now he was about to find out. One thing was sure though; if the samples brought back by the scouting party were any indication, they would not starve. In fact, one of the life forms tasted pretty good.

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Chapter 2: Fire in the Sky

The night was still, and all of the sheep had settled down. Even the watchful dog’s were laying down as nothing seemed to stir in the night. Aaron looked over the sleeping forms with watchful eyes. After all, it had only been a few days since several men, trying to look as if they were wolves, had tried to steal the sheep. Fortunately, he had several good dogs. The thieves had found that Aarons sling arm was accurate against men, just like it was against wolves.

His camp was well suited to his purpose, guarding the sheep. He was on one side of a small pass overlooking a high valley where the sheep were grazing. The other end of the valley led higher, into the mountains. In front and to the rear of his camp, the pass leading to the low-valley floor below. From the high side of the valley, the primary threat was from animal, his dogs could take care of that. On his side, it was usually men, men who were trying to steal the sheep.

His eyes swept toward the twinkling lights in the sky above. It was still well before moon rise, so the inky blackness of the sky was a tapestry of brilliant points of light. He was about to return his attention to the sheep when at the horizon he saw it.

Just above the distant line of trees, there was a star which should not be there. Aaron knew what the sky should look like. He had watched it almost every night since his tenth birthday. When the sky was clear enough to see the stars above, the velvety vault captivated his attention. Like many men before him, Aaron wondered what those tiny points of twinkling light were. He knew that, by the patterns they made in the sky, you could tell what time of year it was. In fact, farmers grew their crops based on the stars above. As for his sheep, stars told when to move them to the high pastures, and when to move them to the valleys below.

The stars were a constant. That is; most of the points of light in the sky were. There were the wondering stars. What seemed stranger, some of those wondering points of light seemed almost fuzzy. The wanderers just did not move right. At different times, different numbers of the wondering stars seemed to trace the vault of the night-sky. He had been told that there were five of these wanderers, but he had never seen all of them in the sky at once. He looked up, sure enough two of the wanderers were in the sky tonight.

Aaron had once been told that the wondering stars were god’s moving across the sky. While Aaron had never really believed that, still how could he be sure that they weren’t the gods? She shivered at that thought.

Strangely, tonight, there seemed to be a new, wondering star. This star should not be where it was. More important, the star was moving. One thing that fifteen years of staring at the night sky had taught him, stars don’s move! While it was true that the wondering stars did not move with other stars during the year, when they were visible during the night, they moved with all of the other stars. It was only when viewed over a number of days or months that it was possible to see that they were not where they should be in relation to the other stars. This star was actually moving. Not over days or months, but now! This star was not only moving; it was getting bigger. Much bigger!

It was then that he started to hear the sound. It was a deep roaring sound, almost like the sound made by a distant water fall but vaguely different. There was some roaring of this sound almost like a beast growling a warning. Terrifyingly it was getting louder. As the star grew bigger, the sound grew.

Suddenly the dog’s were all barking, and the sheep were on their feet ready to bolt. Aaron called helplessly to his dogs. All of the dogs were yapping; yelping almost as if they were in pain. Suddenly the sheep bolted, and Aaron was startled to see that the star had become a building with fire coming out of it’s bottom. He had never seen such a site and found that he was standing alone at his lonely perch above the valley floor. All of the sheep and the dogs had run away.

Aaron knew that he should run too. But, for some reason, he was not able to force his legs to work. That terrifying, flying building got larger. Growing as it got closer and louder. With a crackling roar which was so loud that it actually hurt, the building started to settle in the valley which had, until a few moments ago, held most of his sheep.

It was a monstrous thing. Even with the thing being over one hundred of paces away, he still felt the heat from the fires below. This sky building could not be a fallen star! Or could it? Perhaps it was raised up from the underworld into the sky just out of the range of his eyes. That would be just like the inhabitants of the underworld, trying to fool any mortal who saw the thing.

The fires sputtered and went out. With the fires, went his vision. For an instant, he was afraid that the beast had destroyed his eyes. It was then he realized that the brilliant light given off by the house had made him night-blind, just as one would become night blind by looking into a camp fire.

When ever he was alone like now, he always only had fires during the day, and well away from where he would spend the night. At night, he left the fire dark. Even in the winter on cold nights, it was usually seeing was better, than being warm.

Aaron moved to the back side of a rock, providing himself some cover from this flying house. It seemed like he moved just in time too as the night was suddenly lit as if by the noon day sun. Hiding in the shadow of his rock, he dared not look around to see what was happening until the light receded.

When dark returned, he chanced a look around the edge of the stone toward the building which flew. He had seen the builders kites, and had heard that other flying things existed far away, but never had anyone told him of flying buildings. As he watched, the side of the thing opened and several creatures came out.

His mind was stunned. The giants were here!

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I hope you enjoy the first two chapters of my new work. Please let me know what you think.

Introduction to Me

Hi my name is Joe. I would like to take a little time to welcome you to my world and tell you just a bit about me. Now I know that I’m not interesting enough for a biography but perhaps telling you just a little about me will give you a better idea of why I have some of the strange ideas that seem to fall out of my computer into my stories.

It started about sixty years ago in a little burg in Oklahoma called Tulsa. Don’t ask me anything about that because I don’t remember and the few people who do, I either don’t know or they are not talking. What I mean is that my mother gave me up for adoption and as far as I know all the records of that were destroyed. Unlike some people, I have never been all that interested in who she was because it’s obvious that she did not want to be part of my life. Thus basically my life began at the age of ten months when I was adopted.

I don’t know how much you remember about being ten months old but I don’t remember squat. My earliest memory is from sometime around my second year when I fell off the steps at church and hit my head on the concrete steps. The main reason I remember this is the amount of caterwauling the women, including my mother (adoptive mother) were doing. You would have thought I was dying. Knowing how scalp wounds bleed, perhaps the amount of blood flowing may have had a bit to do with that.

I remember my early days in school. Mostly as a few years of misery. Kid’s don’t know how to tell you that something is wrong, that should be the job of the adults. The unfortunate truth is that much of the time the very adults who should be watching out for the kids either don’t care or don’t know what to look for. I have dyslexia. Dyslexia is a very nasty little learning disorder because it is so misunderstood. Simply put, someone with dyslexia has problems reading and in some cases with spelling. The good news is that there are always warning signs. The bad news is that most teachers and virtually all parents don’t know the warning signs and think that kids with dyslexia are just dumb.

Take my case as an example. While I was in grade school we had a daily spelling test which consisted of twenty-five spelling words every day. We would be given the list of words one day and the next school day we were tested on them. Every morning my mother would grill me on those twenty-five words and every morning I would get every one of them correct. Next I would go to school and during the first period of the day we had our spelling test and on average I would spell three or four of them correctly.

I can hear you now but your wrong. It was not my short-term memory. What was happening was my mother grilled me verbally while the spelling test at school was written. To a dyslexic letters and numbers often reverse themselves. To this day I am very dependent of computer spelling checkers because I often know that I have spelled a word incorrectly but I can not see what the error is. The simple fact is, more than once, I can look at a word I have written, look the word up in a dictionary (the fact that I was able to successfully look the word up should be a hint that I really do know how to spell it) and look at the word I have written then look at the word in the dictionary. I will know that there is a difference between the two words but I can’t tell you what the difference is.

To put things more simply, by my junior year in high school I was taking Human Physiology, Chemistry, Plain Geometry and making A’s in all of them but I was making D’s in English, History and C’s in Algebra II. What was the difference?

If you had watched me when it was time to go home you would have gotten a lesson. I almost never took a book home. In the hard sciences I could get it by listening in class. The other classes were a problem because I needed to be able to read and as a high school junior I could read at about two hundred words a minute with less than fifty percent comprehension. Why take a book home? I couldn’t read it anyway. The pathetic part was that not a single teacher in the school system had any idea I had dyslexia. Worse still, they probably did not care.

Fortunately I was also trying to study electronics out of school and came to the point where I needed to learn how to use a slide rule. If you are under about fifty you probably don’t remember those things. Back in the bad old days, before calculators, slide rules were used to do math. My problem was that not a single teacher in the entire Kingston High School from the math teacher to the superintendent of schools had any idea of how to use one of the things. (Think about that. Not even the math teacher understood how to use a MATH TOOL. I don’t know what her degree was in but I do know that it was NOT in math.)

My dad made a phone call and ended up taking me to his old school. The superintendent of schools at Bing High School met us one Saturday afternoon and showed me how to use a slide rule. What was even more amazing was that he diagnosed my dyslexia problem within about ten minutes and was even able to recommend a solution to the problem which is quite probably the only reason I am able to read to this day.

The moral of this is, if you as a parent see you child having problems in school find out why. If you child’s school can not recommend a solution, go elsewhere! Even if they do have a possible solution don’t simply blindly trust them to be correct.

A sample of “Deep Flight”

Tom Blake had been looking over the deep-sky images for hours. Like many amateur astronomers, he had dreamed of being the first to discover something. What it was, did not matter. It could be a comet a meteor even a planet, he did not care just what he discovered. Instead of finding some thing, it was his technique which caused the Blake Observatory to be recognized as one of the premier observatories in the world.
While most amateurs could only devote extremely limited time and means to the quest, having inherited many millions, all of his time and money could be devoted to this singular quest. Long had his fascination with the twinkling orbs in the black vault above his mountain top held his attention. Unlike most astronomers, Tom Blake was self educated. He had his degree from a small Oklahoma University, but it was his study after he had come to his mountain which had given him a far better education than could be had from most leading university programs.
Many professional astronomers used the very latest software to match different digital images for slight differences between images. Tom had always thought that too much was lost using this method. He still believed in the old methods. He believed that he must first see, then use his mind to mold what he saw. Finally, he would mold every scrap of information into trying to solve the fundamental question people had asked themselves for millennium. Tom still believed that photo emulsions captured significantly more detail than could be seen using the pixilated capture tools most observatories used. Sometimes he even used the old blink comparators such as those that Tombaugh used when he searched for Pluto.
Thirty years ago, he had bought his mountain outside Leadville because the high altitude made observation easier. Being far from normal civilization there had been no running water no electricity, other than that produced by his own small generator, and none of the other conveniences which most people took for granted. Thirty years living almost as a hermit had produced nothing but a vast number of deep-sky photographs that few other people in the whole world had ever seen. But those thirty years had brought him far more than he had ever started his quest to find.
Thirty years and a bit over fifty million dollars later, his remote mountain top held little resemblance to the stark patch of rocks he had camped out on with his small telescope gasping for breath in the extreme height of the mountain top. It was true that the scattered ramshackle collection of small buildings, situated on a plateau below the mountain top, and the few telescope buildings atop the mountain looked as if something thrown at the top of the mountain. Even after thirty years, there was still no well defined road leading to the site, but there was the crude trail which they occasionally used to bring supply’s in an old Ford Bronco. For people, the primary means into the site was a well tended helicopter pad. That pad was one of his carefully guarded fast links with the outside world.
He remembered how he had almost died several times in the first few bleak years at what the world now referred to as the Blake Observatory. Still the years had their compensation, at least as far as he was concerned. The Mt. Blake Observatory now held comfortable quarters for himself, Janet and the six-person staff and their families who were employed full time to care for the maintenance of the facility. There was a power generation plant a septic system and even a small fresh water system. Satellite phone and Internet links tied them to the outside world and sometimes he felt that the lack of a road only meant that the outside world was kept at arm’s length and made to work in a more friendly manner with the people hidden away at Mt. Blake.
For Tom, the most remarkable single change was Janet. Almost twenty five years ago Janet Rincon had come to his mountain as a housekeeper and cook. It was not that there was much house that need keeping in those days, but with a two man maintenance and construction team employed full time to help build his dream, a cook was becoming something of a need. That was when Janet had entered his world. She was the first to apply for the job.
At first he had almost not hired her because the thought of a single female in his all male dominion worried him. He had talked it over with his one real friend, John Thomas. John was his lead carpenter. He had said that he could turn one of the storage buildings into temporary quarters for her until something better could be built. “Besides we are getting a bit too much as if we are a couple of old boars burrowing in the dirt. I think a woman’s touch may be just the thing to bring us out of it,” John had said.
Tom smiled to himself at the memory. That discussion had been twenty five years ago. John had been right. Just her presence had seemed to heave a dark cloud off of the mountain top. He had known that she was becoming important to him. Like many other men, it had been her near death that told him just how much she meant to him with terrifying sharpness.
He remembered Janet’s smile as she had breezed into the ramshackle hut they used as a small dining hall. Over the four years, she had been on the mountain top somehow his whole day seemed to brighten as she entered any room where he was. She had just reached the table where he sat when she got a very strange look on her face grimmest then doubled up as she fell to the floor. It had seemed like days before the flucka flucka sound of the helicopter came in from the valley floor.
The single smartest thing he had done in his entire life was when he married her after getting her out of the hospital. When her appendix had ruptured he was terrified to realize that he could lose her. By the time, he was able to bring her home from the hospital, there was a bright new helicopter pad and several new electronic links to the outside world. He never wanted to feel that lost again.
Tom looked away from the jewelers loop he had been using to view the latest plates produced by his twenty-inch scope. Rubbing his eyes to relieve the tension he considered for perhaps the millionth time in the last year, all of the wasted years his fruitless search had produced. Even a true believer such as Tom could be worn down by the event less existence. While it was true that his study had just perhaps touched at the very fabric of space time, his dream was to find a new planet. That had always been his dream!
He could smell her even before he heard her. Janet came softly into the room he used for comparison of the images he made of the sky. His pulse quickened at her presence. With sudden clarity, he realized that if he had not had this dream and started to build this mountain top retreat he may have never met her. She made every hardship, every second, every dollar worth a hundred times the price he had paid.
She almost floated into the room and placed the plate with his lunch on the desk to the side of his working images. With a smile and a quick peck on the cheek, she gave him a quick hug and silently breezed back out of the room. Her sent lingered. It was not quite a perfume but more the woman herself and the soap she used more than any artificial fragrance. He knew that, by her genital scent, he could pick her out of a room full of women blindfolded. Over the years, she had seemed almost able to read his mind. On some few occasions, he could almost slip into her mind and see things with her eyes. Over the years, he knew that she had come to love this secluded mountain as much as he did.
With a shake of his head, he turned back to the task at hand. It was time he tried the new gadget his newest assistant had built. He snorted to himself. For nearly thirty years, he had struggled as an amateur in a world of professional astronomers. None of the pros seemed to take him too seriously but then about five years ago, a paper he had submitted to the mainstream scientific review process prior to publication had changed everything. It had been Janet who had pushed him into submitting it.
For years, he had periodically written papers, as if for submission to some journal or the other. He thought of this as more for his own benefit to track the progress he made in his search more than any other reason. Janet had almost hounded him into submitting it. She had become every bit as much of an astronomer as he, studying everything she could get her hands on hungrily. He had acquiesced, only when she allowed her name to be added to the paper. After all, it was an extremely different paper after her astute editing than it had been before, when he first scribbled it.
Within a year, they were referred to in the scientific community as the Mt. Blake Observatory. What was even more surprising was when several universities had visited. One of them had actually set up a program where two of their graduate students would work and study at Mt. Blake.
It was time to try out one of these students ideas. Tapping the button on the newly installed intercom on his desk, “Hillary, would you come in here for a minute?”
Hillary Rena Bitters was anything except what her sir name implied. She came bouncing into his study with a spring in her step and an extremely happy smile on her face. “What’s up professor.”
Tom smiled at her usual greeting. He was not a professor. All of his Doctorates were honorary. Hillary seemed not to care about this. She treated both him and Janet both as if they were senior professors. He guessed that in a way that there was some truth in this as he would have to write an evaluation about her when she finished her year with them. One thing was certain, if her Doctorate was dependent on his or Janet’s evaluation, she was a shoo-in. “Let’s fire up that new gadget you have on these,” he said tapping the plates he was pulling out of the old fission blink comparator. “I think this region here,” he said drawing an invisible box in the upper right quadrant of the photo plates.
She got a questioning look on her face. “Have you found something?”
“No, it’s more of a feeling than anything else. It almost seems that some faint something just beyond the resolution of the blink is hiding there.”
Several hours later Hillary’s program was comparing sections of nearly fifty photographic plates focusing on that section of sky. While they had still only found a hint of something, Hillary had run to pull old plates from the archives of the same patch of sky as the two plates given to her by Tom Blake. She quickly had the selected sections of those plates scanned into the system. Something was there, unfortunately, it was still just beyond their sight.
Janet called them both to dinner.

—-

Copyright © 2011 by Joe Johnson  All rights reserved.

This book is available on Amazon.com and is available for purchase on the books page of:

http://joe-johnson.blogspot.com

A sample from “A Ring Through Time: The Awakening”

Smoke drifted through the room along the ceiling slowly filtering out the window to rise as a majestic mist in the still night sky above the tower. Below in the city, people nervously glanced to the lighted tower win­dow in the early evening twilight, cringing at the ruddy glow which sur­rounded the brighter white of the window. The light seemed to permeate the very stone of the tower with a deep ruddy glow.

Below, night sounds drifted through the streets of the city as denizens of the dark plied their trade in the alleys and across the rooftops of the sleeping city. Dark gray smoked drifted up from chim­neys, rising like dirty smudges on the moonlit sky.

Inside, the room at the top of the round tower thrusting up from the building it was attached to as if grop­ing for the sky, massive oak beams supported a heavy stone ceiling. Dimly visible through the cloud of smoke which seemed trapped in the spaces between the massive beams, these ancient timbers had finely chiseled sides as if part of some piece of fine furniture, instead of the struc­tural beams they were. Confined by the walls, extend­ing only as low as the top of the window, the unusually white smoke escaped con­finement and drifted upwards to dissipate into the cold night sky.

Strangely it seemed to be the trapped smoke which produced the light which filtered out of the window. Flooding the entire room with a bright glow which made everything below it as bright as if shown by noonday sun, this strange glow seemed to leave the smoke as it drifted out of the window and joined the other columns of smoke rising dirtily into the night sky.

On the side of the room closest to the window was a strange desk like structure behind which a man sat. The desk seemed to wrap around the man in a semi circle al­most as if to provide him with more readily available work­ing space.

In the corner of the man’s mouth hung an old well used pipe from which a curl of smoke rose to join the glowing smoke trapped by the ceiling awaiting escape through the open window. In some strange way it seemed this small column supplied all of the billowing volumes of smoke floating in the room. Stranger still, other than the rising curl of smoke from the pipe which seemed to grow larger and brighter as it rose before joining the glow­ing smoke trapped at the top of the room, no other light source could be seen.

The other side of the room held a strangely floating spiral stairway which seemed to go both up and down. Each step seemed to hover un­moving in the air, un­supported yet locked immovable as if its ends were set in stone. The stair de­scended down to the dark recesses of the building below and seemed to rise up through the ceiling above and onto the roof above. None of the smoke seemed to escape the room in this way.

The entire floor seemed to con­sist of but one continuous round wall interrupted only by the single window and covered by curved book cases from ceiling to floor. All the cases were filled with books and scrolls only a few of which seemed to have readable titles along their spines. Some tomes showed strange characters on their backs while other seemed to hold titles which danced with fire and changed, despite the brightly lit room, as if hiding the content they selfishly guarded.

The man at the desk, seemingly lost in thought, puffed absently at the pipe in his mouth. Gazing sightlessly across the room he tapped a finger on one of the scrolls rolled out upon the desk.

He was a light complexioned heavy set man with a deeply lined face, as if often lost in thought. His dark bushy brows perched over pale blue eyes. Dark hair matching the brows topped his clean shaven face. He was dressed in dark clothes, both shirt and pants, with dark boots upon his feet.

If you had passed him on the street you would have taken him for a man upon some mission to fetch food or drink for his family and little else. Yet if you looked long at his eyes, a strange glow would seem to envelop you with a chill as you came to under­stand the raw power contained inside his frame.

Inside his tower John Steward sud­denly sat up at his desk and with a look of resignation on his face placed his pipe in the pipe holder on the desk took up a quill and scroll then began to write. Even as his quill moved toward the ink well, the top lifted gently off and floated to one side, leaving the ink well ready for his use long before his quill arrived. Touching quill to scrap, he then wrote quickly with a large firm hand. Four scrolls he wrote, carefully blotting any excess ink, then as he finished each he took hot wax and sealed each scroll press­ing his signet ring firmly into the wax before placing each sealed scroll gently to one side to allow the wax to cool. Only when four scrolls lay neatly side by side on the desk did he lay aside his quill.

With a final look of resignation on his face, one by one John picked up a sealed scroll gently holding it loosely by the ends, after a moment’s concen­tration the scroll vanished with a small flash of light.

When the last scroll was gone, he sat back eyes shut, remembering.

—-

Copyright © 2010 by Joe Johnson All rights reserved

A Ring Through Time is available on Amazon.com. It may also be purchased by going to the books page on:

http://joe-johnson.blogspot.com.

A sample from “The Lonely Hours”

Ever have that shiver run down your spine just before something was going to happen. That feeling just woke me from the usual daze of scanning the instruments and the ever graying sky outside in the cold winter sky. I don’t know about you, but I have learned by hard experience that when this happens, watch out.

Every instrument on the panel looked just the way it should and squint as I could into the gloomy winter sky, nothing was visible other than clouds. Long ago the clouds had closed in tight as if griping the bird in some cold embrace. Nothing particularly different this time from hundreds of other times.

I wasn’t too worried about ice just yet. It was simply too cold to freeze. But something else seemed to nag at the back of my mind. Some small something, almost at the edge of my consciousness, hung there waiting.

It seems kind of strange to talk about the temperature being too cold to form ice, but that is often the way it is, in the sky. What happens is that the water in the cloud freezes into ice crystals, and when these ice crystals hit the cold wing of the airplane, they simply go around it, they don’t stick.

“Beech Duke 3188 Whiskey Chicago Center”, normally most pilots tend to tune out radio traffic which is not meat for them, but there had been too many calls for this particular airplane, and the answers were not always as plain as they should have been. I did not know if the pilot was suffering from vertigo, hypoxia or worse yet had a drink or two too much too close to flight time, but something was definitely not right.

I said that pilots tune out radio traffic meant for other aircraft; that’s not completely true. While they don’t really listen to it, they do tend to use it to fill in a picture in their mind of other traffic in the area. We’re not looking at a radar, so we may not know where they are, completely, but we get more than you may think.

For example, take that guy in the Duke. From the radio traffic, I knew that he was climbing out of Madison and that he was supposed to be going to Milwaukee and had been assigned 9000 feet. Trouble was I was going to Milwaukee flying at 7000 starting just a little north of Madison. This guy had to go through 7 thousand feet to get to 9, and he was going in a similar direction to the one I was flying. Unfortunately, he seemed to be wallowing all over the sky and had been repeatedly told to clime to 9000 and turn to 090.

There was a particularly bad bump, and I glanced over my shoulder to the passengers just in time for 08 Zulu immediate left, I was already turning. Sunday pilots follow the book. Sunday pilots wait for the controller to finish, acknowledge the radio transmission and then turn. That is the way it’s supposed to happen, but professional pilots react just a bit different, that one word; immediate, it’s a bit like yelling fire in a clouded theater. It gets your attention.

When a controller gets a pilots attention with that word, pilots tend to make the turns faster and a bit steeper, say forty five degrees, instead of the twenty to thirty they usually use. Turn to 030, by the time the controller finished his statement the wings were already tilted left 45 degrees. After I was well into the turn, Chicago Center, 030 for 08 Zulu.

Pilots can tell a lot about air traffic controllers thoughts from their voice. You can tell if you are dealing with someone at the start or end of their shift, someone with a lot of experience or someone still green and a controller can tell a lot about a pilot the very first time they open their mouth. There is something in the tone or ease of the voice which tells a lot. This guy had the sound! What I mean is, the sound of the kind of stress in your voice you get, when you know something bad is about to happen.

An hour later, I talked to him on the phone and learned that if I had done the usual talk first then turn, there would have been a big greasy spot in the Wisconsin country side where to chunks of aluminum and steel fell from the sky. Definitely gives you pause to think.

It should not have been a big surprise to me. You’ve heard of the Bermuda Triangle, well for me, it’s Milwaukee Wisconsin’s General Mitchel Field. Every time I go into that airport I have problems. Call it bad luck, bad juju what ever, General Mitchel Field in Milwaukee is not my favorite place on earth or in the sky.

For some reason, almost every time I have a problem, I’m headed for Milwaukee. I’m hoping that this is the only problem I will have on this flight as ATC turns me back toward the airport for approach into Mitchel.

Shooting an approach into Mitchel is not for the faint of heart in the winter if you are in a light aircraft. Most of the time, due to the direction of the wind, the approach is into 25 left. This takes you way out over the lake and uses a Localizer approach to bring you back to the runway. Back in the 80’s there was no glide slope to give you elevation either, just the localizer over all of that cold water.

Unless you have actually seen the great lakes, it is hard to comprehend just how big they are. For example, take Michigan. That monster is 100 miles wide and 400 miles long. Think about a lake which stretches from the Texas/Oklahoma border all the way to Galveston on the Gulf coast and while you are at it, make it as wide as say from Oklahoma City to Tulsa. You are talking about a big chunk of water.

Not only is this thing big, it’s cold too. Remember the movie Titanic, how every body in the water froze to death, in the winter Michigan is colder.

Not only is the water cold, there is ice all over the top of it, but not just nice flat ice as you see in pictures of a frozen lake, there are ridges and ice shelf’s and all sorts of things that make it impossible to put an aircraft down on the surface in one piece. Even the greasy sooty patch where the airplane was will not last long. You don’t want to go down in that lake in the winter, but the approach into Mitchel leads miles out over the water.

Generally the approach will take you around ten miles out. In a normal approach, the final approach fix is five miles from the end of the runway. At this point, the airplane needs to be flying straight and level at the approach altitude with the approach speed already established on the correct heading and on the localizer.

For those of you who don’t know what I am talking about, there is an instrument in the airplane with a needle which tells you if you are one side or the other of the extended center line of the runway by using radio beams which are transmitted from the airport. These beams tell the pilot where his airplane is in relation to the end of the runway. This radio beam is called a localizer. If the needle in the airplane points left, you go left, if it points right you go right. Not that you turn much, if you have to correct the heading much more than say 5 degrees, it’s time to abort the approach and go to plan B.

On this approach you are low and slow way out over water and most of the time you can’t even see anything because of the puffy cotton balls surrounding the bird. That water beneath your feet is never pilot friendly in the winter.

In the 80’s, 25 left used an intersection of a VOR to tell you were at the final approach fix. My eyes are darting to all of the instruments, but I’m watching close to the two needles which tell me where I am. One to put me in line with the runway and the other to tell me when to start going down.

On an ILS the instruments tell you how fast to let down, on a Localizer approach you let down in steps. The controller will drop you down to what is known as minimum sector altitude. Next there is usually an initial altitude which should be maintained after you are on the localizer and within ten miles but still outside the final approach fix and last there is the approach altitude.

Each of these altitudes and much more information is on the approach chart. An approach chart is a piece of paper, not much bigger than a paper back book, which tells you all of the information you need to execute an instrument approach. Every approach has one of these and pilots carry books containing copies of these around with them anytime they fly. On this approach the final is shown as a radial from a VOR.

A VOR is a type of radio aid which can be used, with equipment in the airplane, to tell you what direction from the radio aid the airplane is. This is not like radio direction finders you may have herd of, instead it is a signal which tells the airplane exactly what bearing in degrees they are from the VOR.

Airplanes do have direction finders, they are called ADF’s, but that is a totally different story and a totally different item of equipment. Many ILS or Localizer approaches have an NDB station which is used with an ADF at the final approach fix but on this approach, there is no place to put one. Miles of cold water is not a friendly environment for radio aids.

As the VOR needle crosses over telling me that I am at the final approach fix, just like turning off a light switch, the left engine quit. Ask any pilot of a light aircraft what the prop on the front of the engines are for and, if there truth­ful, they will tell you that the props are there to keep the pilot cool. The aerodynamic engineer will tell you how they transfer the power of the engines into thrust which propels the aircraft through the air, but to the pilot it’s just a bit simpler. The instant one of those fans stops turning the pilot starts to sweat. Don’t believe me, tray riding around with one long enough to have one of those fan’s quit and watch if they don’t start to sweat.

An engine failure on a twin is never fun, but this is one of the things that all pilots are trained to handle. Reaction is automatic, the first few steps of the check list memorized by every pilot of every multi engine airplane in the world. Mixtures, Props, Throttles, Gear up, Flaps up, Dead foot Dead engine, Verify throttle, Prop to Feather, Mixture off , checklist.

What this means is that in the first few seconds after an engine failure the pilot makes sure that they have full emergency power on the good engine by pushing the controls forward in the correct order to prevent engine damage, in other words start with the mixture followed by moving to full low pitch on the propellers and then and only then adding manifold pressure with the throttles.

Next to start cleaning the airplane. I don’t mean picking up trash, or anything like that, instead I mean to start getting rid of drag which is trying to slow the airplane down. The gear up means that you pull up the landing gear to reduce drag. Unfortunately, in a 310, this can take a long time. It’s often as long as five seconds so you hit the switch, then go to the next item flaps up, which can also take a bit of time. Remember, the longer it takes to get these things done, the worse things will get.

Next, which ever foot is not pressing down on the rudder to keep the nose of the airplane straight is the side of the airplane where the engine is dead. Even knowing this, it’s a pretty good idea to make sure by easing back that throttle to make sure that things do not get too quiet. Once an instructor kicked left rudder just as he failed the left engine. What he was doing was making sure that his student really checked and paid attention, not simply following the procedures by rote. Sure enough the student promptly feathered the right prop, on the good engine.

Once you are sure that is the correct choice you move the prop control to full feather. This stops the prop and drastically reduces drag on the airplane. With that prop still spinning, it’s like trying to stand in the bed of a pickup going down the highway at 70 and hold a piece of plywood flat against the wind. Try as it might the good engine will not hold the airplane up when this prop is still spinning.

The next to the last thing on the memorized checklist is mixture. This cuts the fuel off to the engine. The last item is simply checklist. You are not done, far from it. It’s just that you now have a bit more time to do the rest of the items required to finish securing the bird.

Following this are things like turning off the mag switches to the dead engine, turning off the fuel valves, making sure all fuel pumps are off and myriad other tasks which must be carried out while still flying the airplane, or in this case shooting the approach. With a dead engine, the very last thing you want to do is miss the approach, in fact if you are at a late enough point in the approach, you may not be able to.

Things are quickly going from bad to worse. Ever since I let down to the initial altitude, I had been building ice on the wings. I had boots, but deicer boots are a tricky thing. If you use them too fast, all that happens is the soft ice on the wing will swell out a bit instead of cracking. After this, all that the boots will do is wiggle up and down under the ice.

So, here I am 5 miles out over water and ice, in an airplane with one dead engine and ice forming on the wings. Work load getting higher by the second. I hit the switch for the boots and nothing happens. I mean absolutely nothing happens. I knew there was Nitrogen in the tanks, I had checked before takeoff, but for some reason it was not forcing the boots to inflate. Worse yet, the right engine did not seem to be producing all the power it should be for some reason. I knew at this point that there would be no chance of a go around after a missed approach. If I screwed this approach up, it was all over.

I’m about three miles out and I’m seeing water below me. With the reported weather at 400 overcast, I’m way too low. Every­thing has happened in seconds.

There was no one in the cockpit of that airplane but me, and I will tell you now; I did not land that airplane by my self. Ask virtually any pilot in the world who is experienced in flying Cessna 310’s what would happen if you were hand flying a localizer approach, final inbound with one engine dead the other not producing full power and a load of ice on the plane. Every one of them will tell you too bad about so and so and their passengers. Not a single one of them will honestly say they could land that airplane, and neither will I. Yet here I am and here you sit reading this story. So what happened?

Somehow I got on the ground, you decide how I did it. We all know I had a copilot that day.

Once the bird stopped, fortunately after I had cleared the runway, I asked for a tow. One of the annoying things about multi engine airplanes is that it is not possible to taxi a light twin on one fan, all they will do is turn in circles. Tired of waiting I tried one more time to restart the left engine. It started.

Hours later an AI told me that probably the ventilation to the engine crank case had iced over and this killed the left fan. When I landed, either the ice melted, or it was jarred loose so the engine was able to run again.

My boots did not work because a maintenance valve was closed on the nitrogen lines. But the thing which made me sit down was when he told me why I was not getting full power on the right engine.

Airplane propellers are deiced in one of two ways. Either the bird has hot props which are electrically heated, or it uses alcohol to keep ice from forming on the blades. 08 Zulu used alcohol! The way this works is there is a thing called a slinger ring around the prop boss where alcohol is sprayed so it can be throne down the prop shafts. The reason I had less than full power is that there was ice forming on the prop. The alcohol line was broken. Instead of the alcohol being sprayed onto the slinger it was being sprayed on the exhaust manifold. Raw flammable alcohol on red hot steel, guess we both know who my copilot was that day.

That flight gave me another lesson. Even though I was not working on the planes, READ the maintenance manuals any way. It’s amazing what you will learn which relates to flying the things. For example these manuals showed me that even with alcohol props and boots 310’s still should not be flown in ice as the ventilation to the crank case is prone to icing and there is no ant-icing installed for this.

Max Conrad once said that, the day he did not learn something on a flight, would be the last day he flew. I guess he kept learning. Who was Max Conrad, that is a long story in its self, but I will say this much. The average professional pilot will fly between 10000 to 20000 hours in their life time. Max Conrad flew over 50000 hours. If you are interested in aviation, go to Amazon and get a book about Max. It’s a real education.

Getting back to matters at hand, part of the reason I survived things like that little flight into Milwaukee is what a lot of people would think of as pessimism. That is not really the case, but to the uninitiated it may appear to be that. As an example, every multi engine student I ever trained eventually got the same question. Where are you going to crash if we loose an engine on takeoff? Nice simple strait forward question with a lot more meaning that first meets the ear.

I need to set the seen first. I take the kid in the left seat of the twin into a small airport somewhere, preferably some place with a runway less than 2500 feet. I can safely get a 310 into the air in half that with both fans running. So what’s the problem? You just treat the bird as if it were a single-engine airplane.

Sitting at the end of the runway with the engines ticking over seconds after being asked where are you going to crash if we loose and engine on takeoff, every student starts to recite the following. We won’t crash. It’s mixture, props, throttles, gear up, flaps, at this point I always interrupt them and ask the question again. I have yet to find a single one of them that put this question together with two numbers from the pilots manual for the aircraft that they were responsible for knowing at this time. Never until I pointed out that the accelerate go distance was 6011 feet and the accelerate stop distance was 5950 feet and that we only had 2500 feet of runway did they get the point of my question.

I’m not really asking them if they are ready to die. Instead what I am asking them is if they have a plan B, what to do if? If something happens and you already know what you will do if it happens you just do it. If you wait until after the problem occurs you are behind the 8 ball. Pilots do not like being behind the 8 ball. It has a tendency to make them more nervous than if a black cat walking across the road in front of them.

A simple decision of where to put the bird if, can keep you healthy, wealthy and wise; well as least healthy and wise.

—-

Copyright © 2010 by Joe Johnson  All rights reserved.

This book is available from Amazon in paperback, hard back or kindle editions. You can also find links to purchase this book on http://joe-johnson.blogspot.com under the books page.

Friday the 13th.

Image via Wikipedia

For me, Friday the 13th has always been a good day. Now I understand that most people are superstitious about that day and I’ll bet that only a few of you know that the reason Friday the 13th is equated with bad luck was that on Friday, October 13, 1307 the King of France ordered the arrest of the Templar Knights.  Strangely enough the first  recorded written reference to Friday the 13th being bad luck did not occur until 1869.

Many years ago, when I was much younger with far less gray hair, I was attempting to learn to fly airplanes. As those of you who have done it know, your first few hours are dual instruction where the instructor tries to teach you the basics such as getting the bird back on the ground in one piece. They are trying to teach you to fly, reasonably straight and level while in the pattern, and how to position yourself so that a landing is possible.

Now I know that a few of you who have been through it are saying, but I learned about stalls and finding the airport and emergencies and this and that. The truth of the matter is, yes you did and no you did not. I hear the groans from some of my friends who are starting to talk about a political answer, but that, unfortunately, is the truth. You were introduced to stalls. You were introduced to emergency procedures. You were introduced to what the airport looks like. But the primary thing you actually learned was how to put the airplane safely on the ground in its basic configuration, without bending it. Think back, I’ll bet you didn’t even use flaps on those pre-solo landings.

Eventually comes the day when you instructor gets brave enough, or scared enough, to get out of the airplane. Please note that before I lost my medical certificate I held CFI Single and Multi Engine Land Instrument instructor ratings, so I do know just a wee bit about it from the instructors side of things.

My time came on Friday the 13th. I remember it was a slow day. We were the only aircraft in the pattern, and we had not even heard a radio call for the entire flight. On about the fifth or sixth touch and go of the day, he said, “OK make a full-stop landing on the runway.” This was highly unusual. In fact, this was the very first time I had ever been told to stop on the runway. Always before, we made a touch and go, or we would get off of the runway as quickly as possible.

“Are you superstitious?” His question caught me by surprise.

“No!”

“Good, then I’m getting out! Give me two touch and goes followed by a full stop. Make sure you stop quick enough to pick me up.”

I felt the airplane shift as he climbed out, closing the door behind him. The sound of a door on a Cessna 150 closing is different from the sound of any other door you have ever heard, except perhaps for a Cessna 172. I had heard that sound, every time I flew for almost two weeks, but for some reason, that day, the sound was different.

I looked down the three thousand feet of so of the remaining part of the runway, took a deep breath, and pushed the throttle all the way in. It seemed like no time at all when the wheels chirped as they touched the runway on my first touch and go. In my memory, I was almost in a daze as I completed the second touch and go then landed to pick up the man who had caused my life to change forever.

In a way, I felt as if I had been born on that day. The day I joined the ranks of the bird men.

To those of you who have been there, looked down that runway, no explanation of what I felt that day is necessary. For those of you who never have sat in that left seat staring down the empty runway, no explanation is possible.

The one thing is true though; after that day, my life was never the same again.