It’s All in the Details 9-14-5

New York City

For decades the Holy Grail in aviation was the sound barrier. Many were the speculations as to what lay on the far side of it. Countless would-be space explorers knew this barrier would have to be breached; somehow, some way, if humankind was ever going to make it to the stars. Many theorized that no man-made object could survive pressing through the sound barrier; objects would simply disintegrate. Intrepid test pilots don’t like to be told ‘no’. They fearlessly hopped into x-bodies, flying wings, and various highly suspicious apparatus to see just what was on the other side of the upper stratosphere.

Growing up near Los Angeles I heard the results of countless attempts to penetrate Mach 1, the 768 miles per hour at which sound travels. School days on the edge of the high deserts were often punctuated by the powerful percussion of planes compressing air to unimagined pressures, only to have it suddenly break loose and sweep back along aircraft wings and then across the cerulean skies to reach our young intrepid ears.

By paying attention to all manner of details and tweaking their aircraft, test pilots were able to demonstrate supersonic flight could actually be safe. New York to London was reduced to a three hour milk run. The only fatalities involving supersonic commercial flight were caused by scrap metal lying on the ground. Someone was not paying attention to the most trivial of details - sweeping up the trash on the runway in Paris. The ill-fated plane never got going much faster than a really good Toyota can accomplish.

I took a leisurely bike ride this morning at the languid pace of 11 miles per hour; no sonic booms, no concussions to wake up bored kids in school rooms. Later in the morning I had a leisurely workout in the Y where no time trial records were breached. This penetration of the sound barrier was yet to come.

Back home, I decided it would be a good idea to print out a boarding pass so I could actually get onto my jet flight de jour. It was really important to get on this flight, as it was the beginning leg of my grand prize; a thirty-day world adventure. Missing this flight would have meant most probably being penalized for taking too-much time at the free throw line and being thrown out of this game altogether. I was casually printing the boarding pass when I noticed my outbound flight was leaving at 2:45 PM and not 4:15 PM. A horrible prickly feeling washed over my entire being, much like that which one experiences when one sees a truck hurtling into one’s car. My inbound flight thirty days out is leaving at 4:15 PM from a distant part of the planet. I had misread the confirmation e-mail. No problem except the departure gate is 132 miles from where I was casually printing my pass to begin my planet-wide romp.

Time trials!! With no warm-up and no stretching I managed to dress, cram my suitcase, stuff all my chargers, data transfer cords, cameras, computers, drives, power converters, and tripods into a canvas bag, gather my paper work, passport, credit cards, and passes and be in the car in six minutes; breathless and at a decidedly heightened state of alertness. I suspect my pupils had constricted to the tiniest of pinpricks - I would need the utmost acuity for the high-speed road trials ahead.

One does not normally associate supersonic travel with fifteen-year-old Toyota Corollas with nearly 175,000 miles on the main turbine. Four miles into my time trial I stopped to refuel, taking on only enough fuel to get me through one long high-stakes time trial. Frantic phone calls headed off the Good Samaritan who had planned to take me on a leisurely drive to the airport in her nice Lexus. With no pre-flight check, nothing at all, I launched that old car into a sub-orbital trajectory. I now fully appreciate the turbulence and shaking that test pilots experienced when their lifting bodies approached the speed of sound.

About one hundred miles into the time trial; my craft started to disintegrate. It appeared my mission was doomed and the world was not going to be mine after all. I pulled off and went to impulse speed and eventually landed for emergency inspection. The engine seemed intact. A very hasty diagnostic revealed air pressure at high speed had torn the left fender loose and what remained of it was dragging on the pavement. Want to guess how that sounded compared to a sonic boom? I jerked it up and away from the tire and was back in sub-orbital trajectory within four minutes. Backing slightly down from Mach 1, I was able to hold things together with a bit of in-flight prayer.

Incredulous, I soon found myself under the flight approach at the Charlotte Airport. My Corolla had survived the sustained buffeting of high speed travel. I wasn’t in the clear yet. The window for successful orbital insertion was still closing. The details do matter. At the long term parking lot I found parking only at the far end of the lot. I got out of the car and walked up to the shuttle stop. A bus came up instantly. Orbital mechanics require launch at a precise moment and I did not want to wait until another century for optimal planetary alignments. From my car to the terminal, clearance of security, jettisoning of my baggage, and, processing the paperwork - seventeen minutes. For certain, I must have set some kind of time trial records in several categories today. I don’t recommend doing this if you want to maintain any peace of mind and serenity.

One hundred five minutes for packing, driving one hundred thirty two miles, and making it to a departure gate must count for something? It does. I was telling the guy at the gate about my grand sprint to make it to his gate for the beginning of my planet-wide exploits. He asked if I would like to have an unaccompanied seat in the second row, as in eight feet from the cockpit. Upgrade!! The Holy Grail for air passengers had landed in my lap again.

Suddenly, sitting in airports seems a delicious serene way to spend time - not moving.