How Bad Do you REALLY Want to Fly??!! - Pt. II

Eventually, our flight to the big city was called, and we somehow managed to unpeel our rear ends that had been semi-permanently fused to the vinyl waiting room seats. Between our sweating and losing a pound of hiney flesh in the course of an hour, it was a fairly efficient weight loss program. The “bus” that used to take passenger s out to the waiting aircraft was simply comical. No lie- it was an old bus that was hitched to a tractor. Apparently, someone must have died laughing because, about 4 years ago, it was replaced with a bona fide bus. Thinking that the waiting room was stifling, we were now proven utterly wrong. Out on the tarmac’s black asphalt surface turned La Brea Tar Pit, we were shockingly introduced to the real meaning of 250 degrees, and understood clearly that the waiting room was merely the chilling station for overheated workers. It is only a couple of hundred yards from the building to the plane, so within minutes we pulled up beside our waiting YAK 40 with its glowering crew.

Unloading the bus and boarding the plane is a process of unspoken rules, which can easily be mistaken for a “non-process” by the amateur or uninitiated. The elderly and those with small children are politely let to pass; all other commence a spasmodic act of getting there first- something very much like the Pamplona running of the bulls. Trying to get 50 people into a YAK in 10 minutes can be done using the proper techniques with a shoehorn and funnel. I think at some point, I heard the pilot tell everyone to hurry up or he’d turn on the propellers and chop everyone’s head off who didn’t’ hurry up. OK. Not really. But the process was done quickly, and chaos had its intended effects.

When this sort of chaos is ensuing around a newbie, the tendency is to step back and wait. Of course, you wouldn’t step back too far, in case the pilot wasn’t joking, but that’s what we did. We let everyone else pass us up and suffer the broken ribs and bloody noses, while we sucked in our last several breaths of fresh, albeit scorching, air before subjecting our lungs and olfactory senses to the reek of BO and vodka.

While doing this, The Water Guy happened to notice the tires, or what was left of them. It must have truly been a miracle that this bird had landed at all the last 50 times. The bulk of their rubber had likely melded long ago with the La Brea Tar Pit runway. Shockingly, all that was left to bear resemblance to being tires was their roundish-ness and the shredded steel belts exposing their Triscuit-like nakedness from underneath. We remarked to each other that if the tires were this bad, what else of crucial importance might have been neglected?? With renewed trepidation and increased prayer, we boarded and sat in the last 2 seats whose backs stayed upright.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love vintage and antique things. Tables, books, dishes? All good as antiques. The aircraft that I depend on to get me across the Steppes of Asia? Not so much. But truly, this plane looked, smelled and felt like it was about 100 years old! There were only a few seatbelts, every rivet holding every piece together was exposed, the cockpit had no door, and the lavatory had a homemade wooden cut out “seat” screwed down. There was no separate luggage area; everyone’s various boxes, baggage and bundles had been haphazardly stacked here and there, and some even occupied the seats whose backs wouldn’t stay up. Given a rough landing or heavy turbulence, chances were pretty good that a 50 lb. parcel would take someone’s cranium clean off. Little by little, we were realizing that safely was not the top (or even 10th) priority. Luggage in place, passengers seated, it was time to rev up and go…..or so we thought….