lost over istanbul

Lost over Istanbul

Since some of my earlier posts on this Babble have had an aeronautical

theme, I may as well stay with that since TP and I have done a huge

amount of flying over the years and stories abound. This one involves

our first trip out of Oz in 1990 when we toured the UK and Europe by

camper van over a 4 month period.

We flew from Melbourne to London with Qantas on a direct flight with a

one hour stopover in Bangkok. I might add it was the first and only

time we ever did that and now always plan to have a stopover somewhere

if we do long flights. If any of you readers have never undertaken a

24 hour flight on a plane in cattle class, don't! We suffer jet-lag

badly and I tend to wobble all over the place for days after and keep

getting arrested for being drunk and disorderly! Well, not really but

you get the drift. By the way, QANTAS does not have a "U" and stands

for Queensland and Northern Territorial Aerial Service and you can

read all about the company here. Remember, reading Dogbait's blogs and

you will always learn something.

We'd left Bangkok and it was dark and everyone was sleeping. A flight

attendant (FA) passed by and I asked if we could go up on the flight

deck and she said she'd check. She came back soon after and said the

Captain would be honoured with a visit from DB and TP but said he'd

summon us soon.

About 45 minutes later, we were woken from our fitful slumber that

only a long range aircraft can induce and were told the captain

awaited us. We were led up the stairs of this Boeing 747-300, past all

the Better Cattle Class and into the cockpit. The FA asked if she

could stay too as this was her first flight and she'd never seen the

bosses office during working hours. Permission was granted and

introduction made all round and we were invited to occupy the 2 jump

seats behind the Captain. Our first impression was how tiny the flight

deck was and how damn young the pilots were. I'd swear the captain

hadn't started shaving yet! Since this was one of the older 747's and

was pre digital and glass display, it had a huge control panel behind

the pilots and a flight engineer to monitor and press buttons here and

there. Check this picture out and you will get a better idea of the

size of a similar plane. So here we had this tiny cockpit with 6 of us

crammed in and it was all so cosy! The FA had to stand but she didn't

mind and was happy to take a back row so to speak.

I know a little about the theory of flight and aircraft as I have

successfully landed a 747 myself at the old Kai Tak airport in Honk

Kong which was considered one of the most challenging airports in the

world. Well, I was using Microsoft Flight Simulator on my computer at

the time but even that is no easy feat. Of course, I went into Hong

Kong harbour quite a few times before I managed to bang the thing down

on the tarmac successfully.

I digress a little but I asked some "intelligent" questions that the

flight engineer was happy to answer but his long technical replies

left me in no doubt that crashing a 747 into Hong Kong harbour was

about all I was capable of doing on one of these monsters.

The captain then said he was waiting for the right moment to ask us

up, because, if you caste your eyes out below, you will see the lights

of Istanbul. I was about to say the capital of Turkey but it isn't, is

it. It was great sight with all the lights twinkling from this

wonderful city that spans Europe and Asia and which we were about to

visit ourselves in about 9 weeks hence. Jumping ahead, we loved the

place so much we toured through the country for two weeks again in

1994 when we travelled throughout the Middle East.

It was a beautiful, clear night and we were chatting to the captain

about our forthcoming travels when an alarm suddenly went off. This

loud beeping sound got everyone's attention and galvanised the crew

out of their automatic pilot slumber and into action. The flight

engineer moved his chair up behind the pilots and they all started

having an earnest, mumbled discussion about something. I looked to the

overhead alarm panel and none were glowing and thankfully the master

fire alarms weren't activated either so we could rule out an engine

fire!

Next , they started pulling out maps from their cases and three heads

were buried in intense concentration. The co-pilot then turned to me

and asked me to pass the book which was in a pocket behind the

captains seat. It was an Atlas! I kid you not.! It was a road atlas of

Europe similar to the one I had tucked away in my pack pending our

tour around the Continent. I saw them flick it open and saw there were

black lines drawn through the various pages with notations and

co-ordinates etc.

Now this had me worried. Wouldn't you? While they were pouring over

these high tech navigational aids, the captain was punching numbers in

his Flight Management Computer at the prompting of the other two. At

an appropriate pause in the activity, I had the cheek to ask if I

should bend over and kiss my arse goodbye or could I borrow some paper

to make our a final will. Actually, I asked if everything was okay and

they said they were a "bit lost" as they had missed a Waypoint which

was the reason for the alarm.

Now I think their definition of "a bit lost" and mine varied wildly.

Earlier, the captain had pointed out various twinkling lights around

us as other aircraft so the prospect of banging into one of them

didn't appeal. I imagined that we would reach the end of the flat part

of the planet and fall off if we didn't get back on track soon so I

made the suggestion that Istanbul was not so far behind us and a quick

U turn and locate those lights and we could sort out north from south

pretty quickly. They had a chuckle and then told us were back on track

and all was not lost. In fact, the co-pilot was manually flying the

plane and I could see from the instruments we were climbing and

turning quite noticeable. Being in the cockpit when the aircraft is

dipping big time is quite an experience. The captain said we were

changing course and going to 39,000 feet to "avoid traffic". Please

hurray, I said.

Anyway, things settled down and everyone resumed their correct seats

and nervous tension settled. Of course, I was the only one exhibiting

any of that. We'd been there for about 45 minutes, and before we

outdid our welcome, we thanked them all and made to leave. At this

point, the co-pilot turned to me and said, "And you didn't think we

did anything up here!"

When I closed the cockpit door, I swear I could hear raucous laughter

coming from that flight deck!

As a footnote, we have a friend in Canada who is a retired 747 captain

for Air Canada and he said he lamented the fact that 9/11 now prevents

people visiting the flight deck. He said having company always helped