Pilots of Convenience, Part 1 (Revision)
The old cargo plane creaked and groaned as we flew low over the jungle. An ancient DeHavilland Caribou, almost as old as Dart and I combined, handled much like her real namesake – big and awkward.
The Caribou's cockpit was almost as if someone took a normal cockpit and put it in a cocktail mixer. For one, the throttles weren't located on a console between our seats but mounted overhead. The control yoke didn't run between our legs but was attached to a pedestal mounted on the far side of our seats. The instruments were all your old school variety - mechanical dials and gauges. And then there was the smell - a mix of fuel, body odor, coffee, and something I can only describe as metal.
Dartanian "Dart" Matthews returned to his seat in the cockpit. He appeared as old as he actually was; he had not had an easy forty years. Broad and solid, he filled the cramped cockpit with his presence.
“Oh, man, does that give me a rush!” he shouted over the roar of the Caribou’s radial engines.
I ignored him. I hated this type of flying. This wasn't my first choice for a job - or the even in the top ten for that matter - but this was the only one that would take me.
Buckling back into his seat, he placed his headset upon his pudgy round head. “Oh, man,” he said through the intercom, “this brings back memories. This is just like the days in my A-10 over Iraq!”
“Well, except for the fact that the A-10 is an armored jet with a big honking gun and Iraq is a huge desert, yeah, I can see how this is exactly like that,” I replied.
Dart laughed. He made the same comment on every flight, and I gave the same reply. Only Dart never called them flights; to him, they were "missions."
As we raced out of the foothills of southwestern Venezuela where we made our cargo drop, Dart grabbed the yoke and twisted it right, banking the aircraft. "Change of plans, Foe."
My name is Dan Carlyle, but I got the unfortunate nickname Foe my first day on the job. Upon first meeting Dart, I called him “Captain” and announced that I was his “F.O.” – short for “first officer,” the politically correct way of saying “co-pilot” in the airlines. After having a good laugh, he took to calling me “Foe.”
Our flight plans were simple – take off from Aguachica and head southeast to Cravo Norte. Along the way, we'd take a slight deviation into Venezuelan airspace, look for the signal, make an airdrop, and resume the flight plan. It looked easy on paper.
In reality, things were much different. We took off around dusk, loaded with about 5,000 pounds of cargo. From there, we had to be above 7,000 feet in ten minutes to clear the first mountains. Then, it was an additional climb to 10,000 feet. If it was cloudy – which was half the time – we had to ensure we were clear of the clouds prior to nearing Venezuelan airspace, else we wouldn’t be able to make the drop. Luckily tonight the clouds cooperated.We crossed into Venezuela, descended to 5,000 feet, and looked for flares. Once we saw them, Dart went into the back and dumped the cargo while I held the controls and kept the plane from pitching wildly up following the rapid decrease in weight and balance.
Normally, we would turn and continue our flight path over Venezuela and southeast back into Colombia as if nothing ever happened. But tonight, following the cargo drop, Dart cancelled our flight plan, turned us on a heading of 179, and took us down to 1,500 feet, just above treetop level.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“I want to check something out,” Dart replied.
“There’s not much to see out here but jungle.” The sun was nearly set, but in the twilight I saw the Rio Arauca, marking our return to Colombia. “We’re not supposed to deviate too far from the flight plan. That’s Rule #5.”
“Ah, but Rule #7 is 'Ensure the safety of the aircraft, the cargo, and the crew.'”
“And notice the order of those priorities,” I added.
“And as you recall from our safety briefing, we should vary the egress route after making the drop.” A smile appeared on Dart’s weathered face. “I’m just varying the egress route.”
As I looked over the map, I saw that we were heading towards Tamé instead of continuing on east to Cravo Norte. “Tamé?”
“Yeah, that’s what I want to see.”
“There’s nothing to see at Tamé.” I was puzzled; we’d flown in there about a dozen times, and never had Dart shown any interest in the place. “Why are you interested in that place now?”
“I heard Juan talking the other day.” Juan was one of our ground servicing crew. A Colombian of dubious loyalty, he had connections. Any time we needed something, we asked Juan; he provided it to us as long as we paid cash (Rule #3 – Always pay cash) and never asked any questions (Rule #1 - Don't ask questions).
As I was about to ask Dart what tourism advice Juan provided him, I saw flashes from the jungle below, followed by the high-pitched pinging of bullets off the airframe.
“What the hell?!”
“Juan said the FARC had taken an area outside of Tamé," Dart said, referring to one of the guerrilla armies operating in Colombia. "Guess he was right!”
Dart got off on this kind of crap. Me? I never planned to do this job. Dart called us mercenaries, but that wasn't right. Mercenaries got paid to fight in wars; we weren't here to fight. Well, maybe he was, but I certainly wasn't. I was here to build my hours, plain and simple.
At that moment, I wondered if I should have stayed a flight instructor. The pay sucked and the flying wasn’t so good, but hell, I didn’t get shot at!
I grabbed the yoke and cranked it hard left while reaching up and shoving the throttle all the way forward. The engines roared and the airframe groaned as I stood the plane on her left wingtip. We didn’t normally bank more than 60 degrees in a steep turn, but I think I got her well up near 80 degrees.
I scanned the dimly lit instruments. We started bleeding airspeed in the tight turn while red-lining the engines; at least, I assumed we were red-lining the engines. It was hard to read where the red-lines were when the entire cockpit was bathed in red light to help our night vision. I just knew all the instruments were pegged, and I could tell by the extreme roar that we were well past normal operating limits. But I didn't care.
Dart placed his large calloused hands upon his head and laughed.
“What are you thinking?” I shouted. I didn’t know if they were still shooting at us, but I wasn’t about to find out.
I took us up to 5,000 feet at a heading of 095 and leveled off. I eased the engines back to cruise speed, hoping I hadn't done any serious damage to the aircraft.
“Man, now that was like Iraq!” Dart gave out a hearty laugh.
“Take the yoke,” I said, as I let out my breath.
I looked over at Dart holding the controls and thought about exactly how I ended up at this place.
I had it all figured out. After getting all my flight ratings, I took a job as a flight instructor. After a year of making next to nothing, I found a short cut to the airlines. There was a training program in which you paid $35,000 and in return, they gave you the opportunity to fly the line as a second-in-command in one of their turboprops.
It wasn't until much later that I found out that what I was involved in was called "PFJ" - "Paying for Job." The company furloughed a pilot, and then sold me his job for my "training." This practice was frowned upon by all the union pilots who scraped and climbed their way to the top.
Then, after finally making it to a regional airline and getting behind the controls of a jet, I made a major mistake when the pilots picketed. I'll spare you the details, but suffice to say that after being called "scab" for several months, I didn't mind the nickname "Foe." When the union guys returned and labeled meas a scab, I wasn't surprised when I was let go two months later.
Then, one day, I was at a site called “jetcareers.com.” I found a job posting for, of all things, a prop job in a foreign country. The details were limited, but the one that stuck out was “Must be able to pass a background check.” I thought the whole thing was a scam, but I was desperate, so I applied.
Now I was doing penance flying in Colombia trying to rebuild my hours - and my reputation - to take another shot at flying for a real airline.
It took me several minutes to catch my breath.
“You know, we probably dropped those guns that they were shooting at us.”
“Rule #2,” Dart reminded me. That rule was simply “Never talk about the cargo.”
“Listen, we both know who we work for, and I think we both know what our ‘cargo’ is.”
Officially, we worked for an airline based in Massachusetts. But if you went to the airline’s address, you’d find a lawyer's office. The airline didn’t exist except on some bureaucratic paperwork. That’s because the people who paid us – the ones we really worked for – were based in Langley, Virginia.
“You want this landing?” Dart asked.
“Yeah. I don’t trust you.”
“Outstanding.” Dart reached into his flight bag behind his seat and removed a small set of bongos that he bought at a market in Bogotá. He beat the bongos slowly building up the pace. “Your drum roll has commenced, sir.”
I turned and lined up the runway and did a double take. Usually we paid a group of kids to line up half a dozen 50-gallon drums of fuel making smudge pots as crude runway markers. Instead, though, we saw actual lights down there. Not your standard runway lights, but enough temporary lighting to make the small strip visible from miles away.
My first instinct was that we had the wrong airport, but I knew we were where we needed to be. My next thought was that the airport had been taken by guerrillas, but then they were more apt to destroy the airfield than improve it
“Look at those lights,” I said to Dart.
Dart kept beating on the bongos and increased the beat. “I’m not stopping your drum roll.”
I eased the throttle back and added flaps. As the roar of the engines eased, I could hear Dart’s bongos gaining volume and speed.
Unsure of what waited for us upon landing, I took her in faster than normal, hitting the pavement with a heavy thud and a loud screech, followed by a shrill whine as I stood on the brakes.
“No wonder the airlines didn’t want you,” Dart said. He rubbed his neck as if I injured it on landing.
As we rolled down the runway, I saw the Gulfstream business jet parked to the side of the strip. I knew now why the runway was lit up.
“Oh crap, it’s Clint,” Dart said.
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