A Time for Patriots

“Where are the thunderstorms now?” Frank asked on the phone. His wife, Kara, rolled her eyes and looked at her watch for the umpteenth time that afternoon. Kara had been in real estate, but the real estate market had all but dried up in California in the current economic meltdown, so she did part-time fill-in work for other agents, mostly doing escrow paperwork and staging and showing homes. She never liked the idea of owning something as complex and extravagant as an airplane, and only agreed to go on this weeklong cross-country trip because she was assured of being able to see her parents in Kansas as well as Frank’s folks in Nevada.

“The northern edge of the band of thunderstorms is about fifty miles south of Battle Mountain,” the briefer repeated.

Frank’s face brightened, and he made a sausage-shaped drawing on the sectional chart he had on the desk in the flight planning room to indicate where the storm was, then drew an arrow representing the storm’s direction of movement. Kara looked at the circle and looked relieved as well. “So from Elko I can outrun the storms,” he said, “and if the controller tells me the weather is getting close, I can deviate farther north around them.”

“Do you have weather-avoidance or — detection equipment?”

“No,” Frank replied.

“How about NextGen?”

“No,” he repeated. NextGen, or Next Generation, was the new air traffic control system that used datalinks aboard an aircraft to broadcast its GPS satellite-derived position, ground speed, course, and altitude to air traffic control, rather than using ground-based radar. NextGen was designed to increase air traffic control coverage and efficiency and eliminate radar blind spots in higher terrain, but it was expensive and not required to be on small general aviation aircraft for several years.

“Radar coverage is spotty in that general area,” the briefer said. “Unless you’re up pretty high or right on the airway, you may be in and out of radar coverage.” Left unsaid was the fact that air traffic control radars were designed to track aircraft, not weather — although newer digital systems were better than the old analog ones, weather avoidance was not a major part of a controller’s skills.

“I’ll plan on being on the airway, and I have oxygen just in case I need to go higher.” Kara scowled at that comment. She hated wearing the little rubbery oxygen masks because they dried her nose and throat and made her claustrophobic.

“Roger,” the briefer said. He continued his briefing with terminal weather conditions and forecasts. Although their destination on this trip was Sparks, Nevada, where they planned to visit the in-laws, the planned overnight stop was Carson City because they had very inexpensive fuel there at the self-serve pump, almost two dollars per gallon less than Reno. The forecast was for cooler temperatures behind the front, but skies would be clear and winds were out of the west, right down the east — west runway at Carson — perfect. The briefer then read winds-aloft forecasts, which were not much better than the radar summary — strong south-to-southwesterly winds ahead of the front, switching to westerly winds behind the front, with light-to-moderate turbulence forecast above twelve thousand feet. He concluded his briefing with, “Anything else I can help you with today?”

“I’d like to go ahead and file,” Frank said. Kara smiled, silently clapped her hands, then turned to her son, Jeremy, and told him to start packing up his drawing pads and colored pencils, which he had scattered all over the flight-planning-room floor.

The briefer was silent for a long moment, obviously not expecting the guy to launch into such mean-looking weather. But it was not his job to tell a pilot to fly or not to fly, just to give him all the information he requests. “Stand by and I’ll call up the flight-plan page… Okay, I have IFR, Cessna Two-Eight-Three-Four Lima, a Charlie-One-Eighty-Two slant Golf, departing at twenty hundred Zulu, route of flight Battle Mountain, Lovelock, Carson City direct at ten thousand feet. Go ahead with the rest.”

“Two-point-five hours en route, no remarks, five hours’ fuel on board, alternate is Reno International,” Frank replied. He gave his name, his San Carlos, California, address, his cell-phone number, three souls on board, and his aircraft’s colors of white with blue stripes.

“Your flight plan is on file,” the briefer said after entering all the information into his computer and waiting for an “ACCEPTED” message from the FAA’s computer servers. “PIREPS are strongly encouraged on one-two-two-point-zero. Have a safe… and very careful flight, sir.” The briefer was trying everything he could to get this pilot to cancel this trip short of just telling him, “Wise up, jerk, and keep your stupid ass on the ground.”