Dr. Cooper's eyes were riveted on the airplane carrying his son and brother-in-law. “Just a few more minutes. Just a few moreâ”
Brock checked the instruments. “Descending two hundred feet a minute. That'll do for now, but let's keep him up high enough to get past that stupid hangar.”
The fire trucks motored further down the runway, having gotten word from Josie Fleming that the airplane would attempt a longer landing.
Out by Alki Point, the Coast Guard chopper and cruiser stood ready, listening to their radios, waiting for word.
Aboard the news helicopters, the reporters were so engrossed in the unfolding event that they said very little. They, as well as everyone watching their broadcast, could hear the painstaking, step-by-step radio communications between Dr. Cooper and his son. That and the image of the two airplanes descending together said it all.
“Looking good,” said Brock. “Two mile final, five hundred.”
Again, Runway One Three lay waiting for them, coming up fast. The buildings and streets of Georgetown seemed to move rapidly under and behind them. They were sinking, sinking, lower and lower.
“We're too low,” said Brock. “More throttle.”
“More throttle, Jay,” ordered Dr. Cooper.
The cameras on the ground now began taping the two Skylanes approaching over the tops of the buildings, and the reporters by the fence picked up their narration:
“This could be it,
the
final moment.”
“As all the world watches with held breath. . . .”
“Never in all my career have I witnessed a moment like this one.”
Jay moved his hand from the throttle to the autopilot knob, then back to the throttle, then back to the autopilot knob, then back to the throttle, memorizing where they were. He could feel a little bit of stirring in the airframe, as if Yankee Tango were coming into some turbulence again. He reached for the yoke with his right hand and found it. He could feel the autopilot tweaking the yoke left, then right, then right again, then left, fighting the wind gusts, trying to keep the wings level.
“One mile, three hundred.”
The two aircraft came over the north fence. Their shadows raced once more across the grass, coming closer, closer.
“Touch right,” said Dr. Cooper, and this time his voice cracked. He cleared his throat and instructed again, “Touch right.”
The Yank banked to the right then returned to neutral. They were coming in crooked, a little to the left of Runway One Three, their noses turned slightly to the right, into the wind. Dr. Cooper was trying to anticipate the wind, hoping to get The Yank over the runway.
They passed over the runway threshold. The big white numbers, one three, passed under them, only slightly to their right. Now they were using up the runway, losing hundreds of feet of it each moment.
“Hold her right there, Jay, steady as she goes. One hundred feet.”
The shadow of Eight Yankee Tango was racing along the concrete of Runway One Three.
Jay reached down and gave his seat belt one last tightening tug, then placed his right hand on the yoke. This time he held the autopilot knob with his left thumb and index finger and braced his hand against the panel with his other fingers. He could not let his hand be jerked away from that knob again!
Brock eyed the end of the runway coming up fast.
“Too much power, too much power, he won't get down in time!”
“Less power, Jay!” Dr. Cooper almost shouted.
“Back it off easy.”
Oh man, here goes.
Jay cringed and prayed as he pulled the throttle back.
The Yank nosed down and began to drop faster toward its shadow on the pavement below.
Joyce let out one little cry and then ran for the fence. “I can't watch this, I can't watch!”
Johnny Adair opened his arms and held her as she buried her face in his chest.
Lila kept watching, no longer aware of the asphalt under her feet. In her mind and soul, she was in that airplane with her brother, feeling it, flying it,
willing
it to land on the runway.
“Come on now, easy, easy . . . ,” she coached.
The two airplanes descended together, one over the runway, one over the grass. They were like twins, mirror reflections of each other. At fifty feet off the ground, Brock lowered ten degrees of flaps and throttled for level flight, keeping pace with the descending Yank.
“Hand on the throttle, Jay,” said Dr. Cooper. “You're fifty feet off the runway.”
Jay's hand was already there. He waited, knowing nothing but what his father told him.
Trust, Jay! Trust, trust, TRUST!
“Forty feet. Don't pull the yoke yet. Relax. Remember, don't overcorrect.”
The Yank's shadow moved to the left and over the grass.
“He's going to miss the runway!” Brock warned.
“Touch right.”
The Yank banked to the right and now its shadow skittered along the runway's edge. They could feel the stirring, the lurching of turbulence close to the ground.
The shadow drifted to the left again.
“Touch right. Twenty feet.”
The Yank banked right again. Half the shadow came over the runway.
They'd used up half the runway. Up ahead, the fire trucks and aid cars were waiting on the grass, lights flashing, medics and firefighters standing ready.
The shadow drifted left and off the runway.
“We won't make the runway,” said Dr. Cooper.
“Let him finish it,” Brock yelled. “Let him touch down.”
“Ten feet,” said Dr. Cooper. “Hand on that yoke, stand by!”
Jay could feel The Yank rocking, swaying, wagging its tail in small gusts of wind. His hands were shaking, trembling against the yoke and throttle.
“Dear God, dear God, dear God. . . .”
“Start pulling the power back, Jay,
slowly!”
“Oh God, oh God. . . .” He pulled. It seemed slow, but he couldn't be sure. The engine began to hush.
“Back pressure, Jay, just a touch.”
He pulled on the yoke.
“Hold it there, hold it there!” Now his Dad was quite excited, his voice racing and high-pitched.
“Five feet, hold it steady!”
The Yank was off to the left of the runway, heading for the grass. Brock looked anxiously ahead. Were there any lights, any signs, any obstacles?
A fire truck! A big stupid fire truck was sitting on the grass! The crew was scrambling, trying to move it. It was beginning to move, butâ
CRUNCH!! RATTLE! The impact of the wheels on the ground came so suddenly, so loudly, that Jay's whole body jerked with a start.
Then the wheels were quiet. Jay felt like he was floating.
The Yank had bounced high. It was nose up, losing speed, heading for the fire truck.
“POWER, JAY!” Dr. Cooper yelled. “POWER!”
Jay jammed the throttle forward. The plane lurched, roared, rattled. Through the blur and blindness he thought he saw a flash of red.
As Lila watched, as the television cameras recorded it, as the crowds along the aprons and fences all watched in horror, Eight Yankee Tango pulled, struggled, clawed its way into the air, up ten feet, then fifteen, just enough to skim over the top of the red fire truck.
“Chop the power!” Dr. Cooper yelled. “Ease off the pressure!”
Jay yanked the throttle back so hard his hand slipped off the knob and his elbow slammed into his seat back. He could hear the engine flutter down to a whispering idle. At the same time he felt a sickening, sinking feeling like an elevator going down.
The Yank nosed down toward the grass, limping, floating through the air.
The stall horn began to wail through the cabin, warning Jay of slow speed, loss of lift, an impending disaster.
“Nose up!” came his father's voice.
Nose up? I'm about to stall this thing!
Faith. There was nothing else available.
He pulled back.
The Yank nosed up just as it hit the grass again, bounced, floated, bounced again.
Jay froze in his seat, waiting, just waiting, afraid to move anything, just waiting for the wheels to touch again.
THUMP! The wheels hit ground again. Jay winced, waiting, expecting another bounce, another terrible floating.
But then . . . at long last, there followed a blessed rumble and rattle and bouncing and shaking.
The Yank was
on the ground!
It was rolling along the ground!
As Brock's airplane flew past, Dr. Cooper turned in his seat and looked out the back window. “I can't see him! I can't see him!”
First the fire crew ran after The Yank, then all the emergency trucks and cars gave chase. Laboriously, The Yank rumbled along the grassy strip alongside the runway, clattered and banged and bumped over a runway light, bounced across a taxiway. . . .
Jay finally thought of the brakes and jammed on them hard.
November Seven Five Eight Yankee Tango locked its wheels, dug out two long ruts in the grass, and finally came to a stop.
Lila exploded with a scream of joy and relief, leaping so high in the air she thought she'd never touch down again.
“He made it! He made it!”
She ran to Joyce and yanked her loose from her death grip on Johnny Adair, forcing her to look and believe it. “They made it! They landed!”
No power on earth could contain the roar from the crowds along the fence. Nothing could restrain their shouts, their leaps, their waving arms.
In the control tower there was total bedlam as every member of the staff shouted and waved through the big glass windows at the aircraft resting out there on the grass beside the runway. Even Ben Parker, at long last, broke into a smile, and raised his hands in the air in triumph.
In homes, restaurants, department stores, and everywhere else there was a television or radio, crowds of people cheered, embraced, and cried. The reporters on the scene were crying and shouting into their microphones so loudly they could not be understood.
Brock climbed for safe altitude and circled back over the field for a look. When Dr. Cooper finally saw The Yank sitting on the grass in one piece, now surrounded by fire trucks and rescue personnel, he flopped back in his seat, removed his headset, and let himself breathe again. Brock extended his hand, and Dr. Cooper grasped it firmly and gave it a shake. Neither had to say a word.
Jay felt weary and faint. Absentmindedly, out of habit, out of repeated training from his father, he reached for the mixture control and pulled it all the way back.
With no more fuel coming through its carburetor, the faithful engine finally rested, its black propeller spinning to a stop.
It was the last thing Jay remembered doing in the cockpit of Eight Yankee Tango before he came to the end of his strength and everything went black.
It isn't over. I'm still in the airplane. I'm still flying, still blind. . . .
Jay awoke with a start.
“Whoa, it's okay,” came his father's voice.
He looked around. He was in a hospital bed.
“How are you feeling?” asked Lila.
He gripped the sides of the bed. He was still feeling the weird sensation of being in the airplane, even though he could see the bed was sitting solidly on the floor.
Wait. He could
see
the bed? His eyes grew wide.
He blinked.
He could see again! He could see the hospital room with its white curtains and clean white walls; the sunlight coming in the window; his father, sister, and Aunt Joyce standing by the bed.
“Wow,” was all he could say.
“How do things look, son?” Dr. Cooper asked.
“They look great!
Man,
do they look great!”
Dr. Cooper raised his hand for a high five, and Jay reached and gave his palm a slap. Lila leaned over the bed and gave Jay a joyful hug.
“Am I okay?” he asked.
“You're going to be fine,” Dr. Cooper answered. “The doctors had to operate to relieve the pressure on your brain. Looks like they succeeded.”
Jay's hand went to his head and felt the bandages.
“What about Uncle Rex?”
Aunt Joyce answered, “Well, he'sâ”
A voice came through the door. “He's still alive and kicking, that's what he is!” It was Rex, sitting in a wheelchair, pushed along by a nurse. His head was all bandaged, but he was smiling and still had that mischievous glint in his eye. “He's got a lovely wife, a great bunch of in-laws, a slightly bent airplane that made it back, and a very good God, and he's thankful.” With the nurse's help he rolled up alongside Jay's bed and extended his hand. “You saved our lives, buddy. You're one crack pilot.”
When the Coopers and Kramers finally made it to the Seattle waterfront a week later, Jay was so absorbed in seeing everythingâthe sun on the water, the seaweed and barnacles on the pilings, the smooth, effortless soaring of the seagullsâthat the rest of the group had to keep waiting for him while he lagged behind to look at it all, study it, and see it as he had never seen it before.
“You know,” Jay said, looking out across the water, “I was ready to leave it all and go home to be with the Lord, but I'm still kind of glad the Lord said, âNot yet'.”
“I guess He still has some things for you to do down here,” Dr. Cooper said with a smile.
Rex nodded. “I wouldn't mind a few more years with Joyce; I really wouldn't.” Then he smiled that same teasing smile. “And besides that, one of these days I'll get to see you finally get your pilot's license.” Then he looked concerned. “Uh, that is, if you haven't had the idea scared out of you by now.”
People dining at a nearby seafood bar were sharing their meals with the seagulls, tossing bits of fish and French fries high into the air where the gulls would catch them in mid-flight. Jay was fascinated.
“Boy, nothing can fly like a seagull, you know that?”
Rex thought it over and responded, “Eh, I've come close.”
Jay didn't take his eyes off a snow white seagull as it swooped down in a wide, graceful circle to intercept a thrown French fry. “So will I.”