"Shortly after takeoff you will notice a marked decrease in engine noise, due to a reduction in power. This is perfectly normal and is done as a courtesy to those who live near the airport and in the direct flight path."
The second statement was a lie. The power reduction was neither normal nor desirable. The truth was: it was a concession---some said a mere public relations gesture---involving risk to aircraft safety and human life. Pilots fought noise abatement power restrictions bitterly. Many pilots, at risk of their careers, refused to observe them.
Gwen had heard Vernon Demerest parody, in private, the announcement she had just made... "Ladies and gentlemen, at the most critical point of takeoff, when we need our best power and have a hundred other things to do in the cockpit, we are about to throttle back drastically, then make a steep climbing turn at high gross weight and minimum speed. This is an exceedingly foolish maneuver for which a student pilot would be thrown out of flying school. However, we are doing it on orders from our airline employers and the Federal Aviation Administration because a few people down below, who built their houses long after the airport was established, are insisting that we tiptoe past. They don't give a damn about air safety, or that we are risking your lives and ours. So hang on tight, folks! Good luck to us all, and please start praying."
Gwen smiled, remembering. There were so many things she appreciated about Vernon. He was energetically alive; he possessed strong feelings; when something interested him, he became actively involved. Even his failings---the abrasive manner, his conceit---were masculine and interesting. He could be tender, too---and was, in lovemaking, though responding eagerly to passion as Gwen had cause to know. Of all the men she knew, there was no one whose child she would bear more gladly than Vernon Demerest's. In the thought there was a bitter sweetness.
Replacing the p.a. microphone in its forward cabin niche, she was aware that the aircraft's taxiing pace had slowed; they must be near the takeoff point. These were the last few minutes she would have---for several hours to come---with any opportunity for private thoughts. After takeoff there would be no time for anything but work. Gwen had four stewardesses to supervise, as well as her own duties in the first class cabin. A good many overseas flights had male stewards directing cabin service, but Trans America encouraged senior women staffers like Gwen to take charge when they proved themselves capable.
Now the aircraft had stopped. From a window Gwen could see the lights of another aircraft ahead, several others in line behind. The one ahead was turning onto a runway; Flight Two would be next. Gwen pulled down a folding seat and strapped herself in. The other girls had found seats elsewhere.
She thought again: a bitter sweetness, and always the same single question recurring. Vernon's child, and her own---an abortion or not?... Yes or no? To be or not to be?... They were on the runway... Abortion or no abortion?... The engines' tempo was increasing. They were rolling already, wasting no time; in seconds, no more, they would be in the air... Yes or no? To permit to live or condemn to die? How, between love and reality, conscience and commonsense, did anyone decide?
AS IT HAPPENED, Gwen Meighen need not have made the announcement about power reduction.
On the flight deck, taxiing out, Captain Harris told Demerest gruffly, "I plan to ignore noise abatement procedures tonight."
Vernon Demerest, who had just copied their complicated route clearance, received by radio---a task normally performed by the absent First Officer---nodded. "Damn right! I would too."
Most pilots would have let it go at that, but, characteristically, Demerest pulled the flight log toward him and made an entry in the "Remarks" column: "N.A.P. not observed. Reason: weather, safety."
Later, there might be trouble about that log entry, but it was the kind of trouble Demerest enjoyed and would meet head on.
The cockpit lights were dimmed. Pre-takeoff checks had been completed.
They had been lucky in the temporary traffic lull; it had allowed them to reach their takeoff point, at the head of runway two five, quickly, and without the long ground hiatus which had plagued most other flights tonight. Already though, for others following, the delay was building up again. Behind Trans America Flight Two was a growing line of waiting aircraft and a procession of others taxiing out from the terminal. On radio, the ATC ground controller was issuing a swift stream of instructions to flights of United Air Lines, Eastern, American, Air France, Flying Tiger, Lufthansa, Braniff, Continental, Lake Central, Delta, TWA, Ozark, Air Canada, Alitalia, and Pan Am, their assorted destinadons like an index of world geography.
Flight Two's additional fuel reserves, ordered by Anson Harris to allow for extra ground running time, had not, after all, been needed. But even with the heavy fuel load, they were still within safe takeoff limits, as Second Officer Jordan had just calculated, spreading out his graphs once more, as he would many times tonight and tomorrow before the flight ended.
Both Demerest's and Harris's radios were now switched to runway control frequency.
On runway two five, immediately ahead of Trans America, a British VC-10 of BOAC, received word to go. It moved forward, with lumbering slowness at first, then swiftly. Its company colors---blue, white, and gold---gleamed briefly in the reflection of other aircrafts' lights, then were gone in a flurry of whirling snow and black jet exhaust. Immediately the ground controller's voice intoned, "Trans America Two, taxi into position, runway two five, and hold; traffic landing on runway one seven, left."
One seven, left, was a runway which directly bisected runway two five. There was an element of danger in using the two runways together, but tower controllers had become adept at spacing aircraft---landing and taking off---so that no time was wasted, but no two airplanes reached the intersection at the same moment. Pilots, uncomfortably aware of the danger of collision when they heard by radio that both runways were in use, obeyed controllers' orders implicitly.
Anson Harris swiftly and expertly jockeyed Flight Two on to runway two five.
Peering out, through snow flurries, Demerest could see the lights of an airplane, about to touch down on one seven. He thumbed his mike button. "Trans America Two, Roger. In position and holding. We see the landing traffic."
Even before the landing aircraft had bisected their own runwav, the controller's voice returned. "Trans America Two, cleared for takeoff. Go, man, go!"
The final three words were not in any air traffic control manual, but to controller and pilots they had identical meaning: Get the hell moving, now! There's another flight landing right after the last. Already a fresh set of lights---ominously close to the airfield---was approaching runway one seven.
Anson Harris had not waited. His outspread fingers slid the four main throttles forward to their full extent. He ordered, "Trim the throttles," and briefly held his toe brakes on, allowing power to build, as Demerest set pressure ratios evenly for all four engines. The engines' sound deepened from a steady whine to a thunderous roar. Then Harris released the brakes and N-731-TA leaped forward down the runway.
Vernon Demerest reported to the tower, "Trans America Two on the roll," then applied forward pressure to the control yoke while Harris used nose wheel steering with his left hand, his right returning to the throttles.
Speed built. Demerest called, "Eighty knots." Harris nodded, released nose wheel steering and took over the control yoke... Runway lights flashed by in swirling snow. Near crescendo, the big jet's power surged... At a hundred and thirty-two knots, as calculated earlier, Demerest called out "V-one"---notification to Harris that they had reached "decision speed" at which the takeoff could still be aborted and the aircraft stopped. Beyond V-one the takeoff must continue... Now they were past V-one... Still gathering speed, they hurtled through the runways' intersection, glimpsing to their right a flash of landing lights of the approaching plane; in mere seconds the other aircraft would cross where Flight Two had just passed. Another risk---skillfully calculated---had worked out; only pessimists believed that one day such a risk might not... As speed reached a hundred and fifty-four knots, Harris began rotation, easing the control column back. The nose wheel left the runway surface; they were in lift-off attitude, ready to quit the ground. A moment later, with speed still increasing, they were in the air.