Crossing the NATS

The predecessor to the US Air Force’s Air Mobility Command was called the Military Airlift Command until 1992. Veteran pilots who flew for MAC, as it was commonly known, jokingly said MAC stood for the Midnight Airlift Command. However, this feature of MAC still lives on in today’s Air Mobility Command, which if referred to in acronym form (AMC) could be called the After Midnight Command.

It wasn’t quite midnight when we took off, but we would fly eight hours through the night, landing in Europe sometimes in late morning. However, with three pilots onboard, we were able to always have two of us at the controls and one in the bunk, making our day just a little more bearable. While our flight from Seattle to the East Coast was marked by the gleaming lights of countless cities and towns, this flight was distinguished by the sheer magnitude of utter blackness. Once we left the eastern seaboard behind and flew out over the dark Atlantic, we left all traces of luminosity behind. We flew into an inky darkness so void of any trace of a horizon that we could have flown into a black hole. Even the stars were seemingly plucked from the sky, their twinkling radiance dulled by the thickness of our cockpit windows.

Soon we even lost the benefit of radar coverage as we strayed farther from land; without an air traffic controller in New York Center following our progress on the radar scope, we were required to make regular radio calls to ascertain our position. I can only imagine a wide table in a cavernous room like from some old World War II film, where orderlies move little metal airplane pieces around to track our position. Given the large number of aircraft that make the Atlantic crossing each day, it is a job I would not like to have.

Eventually, we flew out of VHF radio range and were required to switch to HF radio, a nearly anachronistic technology first used prior to WW II. HF waves bounce off the upper stretches of the atmosphere and are quite susceptible to interference from solar flares and cosmic radiation. If you ever have used a CB radio, you may be familiar with the technology. An RC-135 pilot once told me he was flying over Korea talking to a trucker in Tennessee, and his aircraft’s transmission power was so strong, it nearly redlined the trucker’s radio. The only time I tuned up the HF equivalent of Channel 19 over Montana, I must have heard a thousand voices talking at the same time. If I had transmitted, I could have blown out CB radios all across the northwestern US. Why we haven’t switched from HF to a GPS tracking system is an answer that somebody above my pay grade must answer, but the technology is there. After all, we already have satellite radio and GPS tracking in our cars, so it wouldn’t be too difficult to implement.

We had originally planned to cross at FL 330 (33,000 feet), but we were too heavy, so we topped out 3,000 feet lower at FL 300. We were carrying more than 200,000 lbs. of fuel to reach our destination and weather alternate, as well as nearly 75,000 lbs. of cargo, including a full load of crates and pallets of who knows what and enough new Humvee tires to start a Firestone dealership.

Looking ahead of us into the void, we were eventually able to make out a succession of flashing strobes and rotating beacons as the multitude of eastbound air traffic lined up for the transoceanic crossing, just like a modern-day wagon train heading back to the Old World. We had entered the NATS, or North Atlantic Tracks; these aerial highways are spaced at regular intervals both horizontally and vertically, designed to carry the greatest amount of air traffic from one continent to the other. It was a reassuring accuracy check on our navigation systems to see that we were directly astern of another aircraft, several thousand feet above us. If we flew off course out here, we may not have noticed our error until we coasted in over France instead of England.

There was occasional plane-to-plane radio chatter on the common oceanic radio frequency, mostly requests for the proper frequency for Gander or Shanwick Control, wind or turbulence reports, and queries about the final score of Game 5. But the airwaves were mostly silent, other than our hourly HF progress report to our controllers.

Several hours later, shortly after we regained VHF radio contact with Shannon Control, a low gray line was barely discernable across the horizon. We were approaching Ireland, and we had another two hours of our flight remaining. The gray horizon quickly erupted into a stunning rainbow of colors; deep violets, oranges, reds, and yellows stretched across the sky in a fantastic sunrise. It would be the last bit of sun we’d see today, since the cloud cover over Europe meant a bleak day once we landed. But at least the weather reports we’d heard earlier wouldn’t prevent us from reaching our destination.

Crossing the NATS is one of the most challenging things we do in aviation, given the lack of radar coverage, spotty radio reception, and lack of proximity to land in case something were to go wrong. Usually, it is a mundane task and the biggest challenge is remaining alert and finding something to do to stave off boredom. It is such a routine task so far removed from Charles Lindbergh’s daring first crossing that his flight is almost the stuff of myths now. It's just another day at the office for us.