Different Circles

“That’s ... uh ... good to hear,” he said. “So ... do you think you will be up for a return trip when the time comes to sign all the papers and make everything official.”

She nodded enthusiastically. “Of course,” she said. “Whenever you need me to travel to Bogota, you just say the word and I’m there.”

Jake smiled. “Cool,” he said. “It really is an interesting place, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” she said with a smile. “Very interesting.”

Chapter 2: Tonight’s the Night

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

April 18, 1996

Suzie Granderson was behind the controls of the King Air as it turned onto final approach toward General Mitchell International Airport’s Runway 01-L. She was starting to get a little bit nervous as she still could not see the runway she was about to land on, could not see anything at all outside of the windows except a thick gray cloud cover. The autopilot was currently locked onto the ILS localizer for their runway and was dropping them down at a rate of six hundred feet per minute. According to the instruments, which Suzie had long since learned to trust with, quite literally, her very life and the lives of her passengers, she was right on the glideslope, poised to touch down neatly on the centerline of the runway. But she still needed to visualize the runway in order to accomplish that.

“Flaps to approach,” she told Njord, who was supposed have been flying the approach and landing leg, but Suzie had pulled rank when she heard the conditions at the airport on the ATIS.

“Flaps to approach,” Njord replied automatically as he manipulated the lever.

“Airspeed to one-two-five indicated,” she said next.

“Airspeed one-two-five indicated ... set,” Njord said, spinning the dial on the auto throttle.

“Gear down,” she said next.

“Lowering gear,” Njord told her, pulling the handle and watching the indicator lights as the machinery whirred. Finally, he announced: “Three greens on the gear.”

“Three greens on the gear,” Suzie repeated. “Altitude?”

“One-one-two-five,” he told her.

“Okay,” she said, still alternating her eyes between the glideslope display and the gray nothingness outside. “The ceiling is supposed to be at one thousand. We should be coming out of it soon.”

“We should be,” Njord agreed.

The MKE approach controller told them they were clear for landing and that the winds were one-two knots from zero-zero-five. He then asked if they had the runway in sight.

“Not yet,” Njord replied. “We are still in zero visibility conditions.”

“Advise when runway in sight,” they were told.

They passed through eleven hundred feet and still there was nothing but gray fog and rain to be seen. And then a thousand. Suzie was starting to think that maybe they would have to abort the landing and divert somewhere else. They were rapidly approaching the decision altitude of two hundred feet above the ground. If they could not see the runway at that point, it would be unsafe to land. She was just about to verbalize this to Njord when finally, at just a smidge above nine hundred and fifty feet of altitude—only three hundred fifty above the runway elevation—they finally reached the ceiling of the cloud cover and broke into rainy but visible conditions. She breathed a sigh of relief as she saw a subdivision of houses and acres and acres of soggy parkland below. And in front of them, just where she was expecting it, was the runway, its approach lights pulsing invitingly.

“There we go,” she said with a smile. “Report runway in sight. Flaps to full. Speed to one-one-zero.”

Njord reported the runway in sight and then repeated her other instructions back as he performed them. They continued to sink toward the runway.

“Check that auto-feather is set,” she said, reading off the final item on her landing checklist.

“Auto-feather is set,” Njord confirmed.

“All right then,” she said. “Let’s bring it down.”

She turned off the autopilot just as they cleared the perimeter fence of the airport. She throttled them back to ten percent and she pushed gently down on the yoke, adjusting their slope a bit. She used her feet on the rudder pedals to keep the nose pointed at the center line of the runway. They passed over the threshold and she pulled up on the yoke, flaring them for landing. A few seconds later, the rear wheels touched down gently on the wet pavement.

“Throttle to idle,” she said aloud as she eased the nose gear down. “No need for reverse thrust on this long of a runway.” They had already discussed this in the landing briefing, but it never hurt to reiterate things.

“Agreed,” Njord said. “Retracting the flaps.”

“Copy that,” Suzie said, steering them and using gentle braking motions to slow them down. The approach controller told them to exit the runway when able. They were able at the next exit. Suzie turned them to the left and they contacted the ground controller for directions to the general aviation terminal.