Chapter 8
Circle for a Landing
“Emergency override! Eagle One, this is Albuquerque tower. I say again, emergency override!” The squawk of the walkie-talkie jerked Brigadier General Ed Bayclock out of a tedious Friday interview in his base office. Time to leap into action.
David Reinski, the young-and-trim mayor of Albuquerque, somehow didn’t notice the emergency call and kept chatting. “General, this White Sands agreement could benefit Albuquerque as well as Kirtland. Could you point that out in your dinner speech?” Reinski to Bayclock as if they were equals.
“Quiet, please!” Bayclock said, holding up a hand as he strained to hear the radio voice.
“Guzzle Thirty-seven on approach,” the walkie-talkie said. The voice sounded tight and high-strung. “Five souls on board with an ETA of five minutes. An emergency has been declared.”
In an instant, Bayclock became a different person, shoving trivial business matters to the back of his mind: the agreement he had just signed with the White Sands Missile Range and the upcoming awards dinner, at which Mayor Reinski would introduce him. No time for that baloney right now. God had given different people different skills, and not everyone was as good at coping with emergencies as he was.
He lurched forward in his overstuffed chair. The warm leather creaked as he snatched the clunky old radio from its recharging stand. “Tower, this is Eagle One. Give me details.” From his window, Bayclock looked out over Albuquerque International’s 13,000-foot runway out in the desert, but saw no sign of the approaching aircraft.
“KC‑10A unable to retract their boom, sir,” the tower voice answered. “Their controls were inadvertently scrambled by a high-power microwave test at Phillips Lab. Main pump has failed, and they are unable to dump fuel. They’re coming in from the east and are cleared to the desert where the crew will eject—”
“Belay that!” Bayclock said. The KC‑10 was a wide-body jet outfitted as a flying fuel tank, and it would explode like a bomb if it crashed. “Foam up the runway and have them do a slow pass.”
Dammit, he’d hang those Phillips Lab scientists later.
“A flyby?” The tower voice sounded incredulous. “General, we are following the emergency checklist!”
“You heard me,” he said. He didn’t have time to explain to some snot-nosed airman. “Bring them low enough so I can spot the damage. I’ll watch them at the break-to-final point, three miles from the runway. Then you let me decide what to do. That’s what I’m paid for, son.”
Waiting for a response, Bayclock glanced at his office walls, at the framed photos of fighter aircraft, at the memos and reports stacked on his desk. He longed for the days when he had been in the cockpit himself, “kicking the tires, lighting the fires,” and blasting off into the stratosphere. Not chained to a desk.
Desk job. The words soured his mouth. It was the one thing he had disdained throughout his 30-year Air Force career. Real men don’t fly a desk. Yet Bayclock had been offered a star, the chance to serve as a general officer with command over a large number of people, more responsibility. He was not power hungry, but he firmly believed a man should serve to the best of his ability. And few people had the ability to do the job Bayclock did every day. He could not shirk the tough assignment just because he would miss flying.
“What’s taking so long, dammit!” he said to the silent radio. He could feel the cold, exhilarating sweat prickle beneath his clean uniform.
“Uh, we’re getting flak from the crew, Eagle One. We told them your plan, and they insist—”
Bayclock strangled the transmit button. “Tell them to do the flyby, or they’re going to wish they crashed with their plane! They’re not qualified to make this kind of decision.” He took a deep cold breath. He didn’t question orders from above, and he didn’t like it when enlisted men did it to him.
“Rog,” came the stiff reply from the tower.
Keeping the old-model walkie-talkie in one hand, Bayclock reached for his dark blue flight cap. He snapped at Reinski as he started for the door. “If you want to come along, Mr. Mayor, you’ll have to move it.”
Reinski jerked to his feet, but Bayclock left without waiting for an answer. The general clicked past officers and enlisted people who moved out of his way. He paid them no attention—he had his body set on autopilot, intent on getting to the staff car.
He burst out of the air-conditioned headquarters building, feeling the sudden dry heat slam him like a baseball bat. He trotted to his staff car parked in the reserved space, then turned to see Reinski tripping down the steps after him. “You coming?”
“Yeah.” Reinski wheezed, out of breath.
The general’s driver was nowhere to be seen, but Bayclock could damn well drive himself. “Hurry up, Reinski, but don’t get in my way.”
“Shut up and drive, General. There’s an emergency here,” Reinski said as he scrambled into the car. Then, with an uncertain grin, he added, “Sir.”
Bayclock snorted at the young mayor, then let out a guffaw. Flicking on his lights as he screeched from the parking lot, he barely missed an oncoming car. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Reinski frantically trying to fasten his seat belt.
Bayclock fumbled at the dashboard and brought up a microphone. “Tower, Eagle One. I’m heading to the break-for-final. What’s the status of Guzzle Thirty-seven?”
The radio crackled. “We’re foaming the runway now.”
“Is that plane going to crash?” asked Reinski. His voice seemed to carry a mixture of dread and anticipation.
“Maybe.” Bayclock shot a glance at the scrawny mayor fidgeting in the front seat. “But not if I can help it.”
When they reached the runway, Bayclock jumped out of the car, leaving the door rocking on its hinges. He held a hand up to his eyes, searching for the incoming plane in the bright desert sky. The smell of hot asphalt rose up from the tarmac. The overtaxed staff car made ticking noises as it sat under the sun.
When Reinski joined him, Bayclock spoke without turning. “There’s a flying fuel tank up there with a gas hose they can’t pull in. The problem is the hose isn’t made out of rubber—it’s a twenty-foot-long hollow steel pole that juts down. The crew thinks it’ll be like lighting a fuse if it scrapes on the runway. They can’t dump their fuel, so they want to bail out.”
“And you’re not allowing them?”
“Hell no!” said Bayclock. “Not without seeing for myself. People in situations like this tend to panic and overreact. It’s my call, and I’ll make it. What is this, twenty questions?”
Reinski’s eyes were wide as he stared into the sky. He was looking in the wrong place. “But if those men die because of—”
Bayclock glared. “I’m not going to let them do anything stupid, Mr. Mayor. Once they fly over our position, I’ll tell them what to do.” He didn’t want to be distracted right now. He had to concentrate—be ready to change his mind in a flash. “My people trust me.”
Reinski kept scanning for the crippled tanker aircraft. Bayclock could hear stuttered transmissions over the radio as the tower communicated with the tanker. Three miles behind them, trucks crisscrossed the runway, spraying fire-retardant foam. Ambulances, emergency trucks, fire engines, and Kirtland AFB police vehicles waited at the edge of the runway.
Bayclock patted his pockets, looking for a cigarette, a pack of gum, anything to keep him busy. He picked up the microphone. “Tower, Eagle One. Give me an update.”
“No change, Eagle One.”
“Patch me directly into the cockpit.”
Tower sounded reluctant. “Ah … Rog.”
Bayclock fingered the microphone. “Guzzle Thirty-seven, you there?”
The reply came back in irritation. “Rog, rog, Eagle One. You sure you know what the hell you’re doing, sir?”
“Affirmative,” said Bayclock. “Listen, I’m three miles east of the runway—you bring her down to 500 feet and I’ll give you a reading. That’s plenty of time to either land or keep going to the desert if I wave you off. You copy?”
The voice over the radio sounded clipped and tired. “That’s a rog, Eagle One.”
Bayclock spotted the plane coming low over the Manzano Mountains east of Albuquerque. He felt a sudden rush as he focused his attention even more on the problem. He knew he could do this. Bayclock had never been wrong in an emergency before. Never. “Got you, Guzzle—looking good.” The enormous KC‑10 moved so slowly it seemed like a zeppelin in the air.
The giant wide-body roared past, low to the ground. Bayclock would have to make a decision fast. His heart pounded. He knew the crew of the tanker would be white-knuckled up there, praying, counting on him. The import of the situation buoyed Bayclock. Beside the staff car, Reinski was saying something, but Bayclock shut the distraction out of his universe.
He squinted, taking a split second to spot the refueling boom. He glanced quickly away, then back again to confirm what he had really seen. He spoke rapidly into the microphone. “Guzzle Thirty-seven, your boom is rigid and extended so low it will snap on landing. Bring her in—I say again, bring her on in.”
The shrill reply came immediately from the lumbering tanker, now less than two miles from the runway. “If the boom doesn’t snap, it’ll skid and light us up!”
Good thing I’m making the decisions, Bayclock thought. “Bring her down!” he commanded.
The pilot gave no confirmation other than two rapid clicks over the radio. Bayclock watched as the tanker descended through the remaining 500 feet. The last few seconds seemed to take forever. “Come on, come on!”
The jet flared with its nose up in the air, wheels reaching out to grab the runway like a bird of prey. The long boom struck the foam-covered tarmac. A brief flash of light gave Bayclock the sudden sick feeling that he had made the wrong decision, and the fuel tank would go up in a Nagasaki-class fireball.
But the boom broke off and tumbled into the barren scrub. The aircraft wobbled from side to side, then finally touched down. It skidded, then the tires kicked up foam that enveloped the plane. All Bayclock could see was a huge ball of dust, foam, dirt, and debris as ambulances and emergency vehicles raced down the runway.
Bayclock slammed his hand on the staff car, leaving a small dent. “Shit hot!” Jumping inside, he took off for the runway, barely giving Mayor Reinski time to climb in. He didn’t care if the mayor had to walk.
As they pulled up to the KC‑10 hissing and cooling on the tarmac, Bayclock saw long streaks of water and dirt along its fuselage. The crew staggered out of the plane down a long aluminum ladder, and an ambulance whisked them away. He felt vindicated as emergency personnel stepped up to the tanker and sprayed fire retardant over the fuselage.
General Bayclock’s perfect track record had yet to be broken.
***