How Bad Do You REALLY Want To Fly??!! Pt. III

Waiting in the waiting room was bad, but this waiting on the plane was simply no less than torture. The crew had closed the door and the temperature began to rise to Sheol –like temperatures. Dante might have used a situation like this as inspiration to describe his descent into his inferno. The baby began to cry, making us not only hot, but stressed out worried too. She was quite flushed and sweating, obviously bearing the uncomfortable weight of this terrible situation too.

Outside, the crew had started the propellers spinning, and took away the chocks from the wheels. And then it happened… the pilot tried to start the engines. POP!!! BANG!

WHAT IN THE WORLD!?!!?? I’ve been flying a very long time; all over the world, in all kinds of planes. In all my many years of zipping around the globe, I’ve never heard a plane complain of starting with a KAPOW!l like noise. The Water Guy and I just simply looked at each other, and through unspoken, but clear, language, we communicated to each other that it was either get of now, or put our very lives at risk. Neither was a good choice. In fact, chances were pretty good that had we demanded to get off, they would not have let us. We felt hostage to a crappy and potentially fatal situation, with no way out. Resigning ourselves to our fate, we continued to sit and wait some more. And wait some more we did.

The next thing we knew, a “fire truck” was pulling up beside our antique aircraft. With propellers still spinning, they turned the water on full blast and began to squirt the engines. If you thought going through the car wash was fun as a kid, this was 10 times better. Certainly more comical and entertaining! Water was spraying everywhere, but immediately evaporating as it touched the oozing, black tarmac. But, as entertaining as it was, it was somehow lost as we were slowly dying of heat prostration. Once again, the pilot hit “go” and the engines revved right up. Phew!

A tradition here is for the stewardess to walk up the aisle before takeoff, and offer a piece of hard candy to the passengers. In this, they are right on the money! That little piece of candy really does go a long way to help with hurting ears. These little planes ascend and descend much more quickly than the jumbo jets, so pressure in the ears is a much bigger problem. I was happy for that little sweet- it took my mind off my impending doom and the rising stench inside the cabin for a few minutes.

Slowly the plane started to taxi away from its resting place, and towards the runway. Camels and cattle grazing beside, we raced down the strip and off into the azure sky over the Steppe. Lunch was served, the men got out their vodka and proceeded to make merry in the grandest sense of the word, and hot tea was offered. All in all, it was a pretty uneventful flight, and before we knew it, it was time to land. Once again, we offered up prayers of deliverance and hoped that the tires would make one last landing for our sake. It was asking a lot, I know. They did, and we rejoiced that once again, we were spared for another day.

In hindsight, we now understand that the engines were simply too hot to start up, and the loud POP was a backfire. Not too much to worry about really. But it did stretch our faith just a little more that day; that’s for sure!! Things have greatly improved over the last 6 years. In fact, the company that we flew on this trip is no longer in business, all newer planes (Fokker 50s) are flown on this route now, drinking your own alcohol is no longer allowed, every seat has a seatbelt, and smoking is no longer allowed either. Travel has come a long, long way, and for that we are very thankful!