With a full load of cargo bound for the war, we lined up on the runway in Southern California for our flight to Germany. We would meet a tanker off the coast of New England some six hours later, so it was important to take off on schedule. At the designated time, the co-pilot pushed up the throttles and we accelerated quickly and majestically rose into the air. We hadn’t even climbed more than a couple of hundred feet before the greenery seemingly so predominant at eye level was quickly replaced by the desert that Southern California really is. Here and there I could still see blossoming isles of green amidst the desert – a golf course here, a park there – but as we continued our standard instrument departure, even those oases of incongruous emerald were lost to my sight.
Following the magenta-colored line on our flight displays depicting our departure routing, we made a broad turn to the south. The Channel Islands were visible just offshore, and hundreds of boats of all shapes and sizes were plying the waters of the shimmering Pacific. We continued southward until we were no longer a traffic conflict for other airborne arrivals and departures for the half-dozen or so airports scattered beneath us. So Cal Departure Control finally gave us a turn to the east, and we soon climbed out over Palm Springs and the Salton Sea. It was clear ahead of us for probably a hundred miles, and I could already see the Colorado River snaking its way through the otherwise barren desert. It was a good day to be flying.
We crossed central Arizona south of Flagstaff; the Grand Canyon was just a little too far north for a bird’s eye view, but was still a spectacle, as always. Continuing eastward across the parched landscape, we passed Albuquerque and the Rio Grande Valley before losing sight of the earth completely due to a frontal line over the Texas Panhandle. Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri all passed beneath us sight unseen obscured by the undercast. Somewhere over the Midwest, we ran out of daylight; the shadow of the earth arced into space above us as we flew into the darkness beyond. The amber lights of cities appeared across Indiana and Ohio sparkling brilliantly 35,000 feet below us. I could almost make out Lake Erie to the north by the cities clustered along its darkened shoreline.
The tanker crew began calling us; they were eager to arrange an early rendezvous. Instead of meeting at the tanker track off the tip of Long Island as scheduled, they would fly westbound to meet us over western New York State. They figured that the earlier they gave us the required fuel, they’d head home early for the night. It made little difference to us; we still had a seven-hour flight across the pond. So we agreed to help them out, as long as they could give us a little extra fuel. I didn’t need the refueling, but another pilot did, so I hopped out of the seat so he could get the gas.
Air Traffic Control helped us coordinate a new rendezvous point and we descended to 20,000 feet. We started looking for the tanker, a KC-10, and it wasn’t long before we saw it at our three o’clock position, 1,000 feet above us. We continued on a converging heading as the tanker grew larger, its lights and rotating beacons somewhat reminiscent of the mother ship from Close Encounters. The KC-10 is a large, make that gargantuan, tanker; receiver pilots refueling with the KC-10 for the first time often underestimate how close they are. They might call 100 feet in trail while they are actually 200 feet or farther away.
The pilot crept in slowly and steadily and we were soon taking fuel. I noticed the lights of New York City growing brighter as we approached; our next turnpoint on the flight plan was JFK airport, so we’d fly just south of the city. I was sitting just behind the pilot, so I’d have a bird’s eye view from the left window, directly into the heart of the Big Apple. I was not disappointed; the elegant iridescent lights of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge crossing the Hudson, the stark outline of darkened Central Park, the twin transcendent spires of the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings bathed in illuminated splendor, the abounding radiance of Times Square, and a playoff game in progress at Yankee Stadium. I could practically see the pulse of the city through its lights.
The tanker dragged us along Long Island out to Hampton VORTAC, a navigation station at East Hampton; we had already received enough fuel to finish our flight to Germany, but they kindly allowed several of us to get some practice time on the boom. Reaching Hampton, we turned north along the New England coastline while our tanker turned south for its base. As the city of Boston glittered west of us, Boston Center cleared us direct to our coast-out point off the coast of Nova Scotia. They soon handed us off to Moncton Center and we left the States behind. Our passage of American skies was complete as we were soon cleared to our 50 West crossing point, somewhere above the dark restless Atlantic.
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