pairing. Today’s flight will be ten+ hours to Jeddah, carrying the last group of Indonesian Hajjis into Saudi Arabia, to start their pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. Upon our arrival, we will be on the ground at the Hajj Terminal for an hour or two, fueling and doing paperwork, then ‘tail-end ferry’ the empty airplane to Singapore (another nine hours flying).
Under other circumstances, the F.A.R.’s would not allow pilots to fly this many hours in a twenty-four hour period. “Tail-end ferry” however, means that as a ‘non-revenue flight,’ (no passengers, no freight and in this case, no flight attendants), the leg from Jeddah to Singapore falls into the F.A.R. Part 91 category, and does not affect ‘duty time rules as apply to F.A.R. 121 carriers. Legally, the flight leg does not exist. In real terms, however, we know that it will be an exhausting day. Were up about it, however, since we know that we will spell each other in a series of sleep breaks, across the entire empty rows of seats in the empty 747.
Also, we know we will be ‘chi-chinging,’ that is making extended duty pay at the rate of $60/hour for every hour of duty over 14 total duty hours. Today we will earn an extra $700 over and above our flight pay. This extra is our ‘chi-Ching’ (the sound of a cash register opening). Finally, upon our comatose arrival in Singapore, we will be checked into a five-star hotel, rest for a day and a half, and fly as business class passengers on Singapore Airlines, heading east towards home. I’m for my scheduled vacation, April 1 — 15.
“April fool,” says Charlie at poolside. I’ve just got a FAX from the company. They’ve cancelled our tickets home, they’re desperate for pilots in Jeddah, and were it!” It seems we’ve just been shanghaied back to Saudi Arabia to fly the Jeddah Hajj until we’ve “timed out,” 120 flight hours, max, in one month. Then we can go home. This is no joke.
We still get our days rest in Singapore, making the best of things at Raffles bar, and at poolside.
The next evening were first class passengers on “Saudia,” heading to Jeddah. Charlie and Jerry and I discuss the progress of the “Lust affair” that Sheamus O’Connor has himself involved in. It is not the first time a pilot has gone off the pecker induced deep-end.
A standing joke in the industry (I’ve been married three times myself), that you are not ready for “Captain upgrade,” if you don’t have at least three marriages.
One week later, still in the sandbox, in walk the ‘Siamese Twins,’ Joe Rudder and Bob Hollis. Both former Eastern pilots, they flew for Air Siam after the strike, and seem always in each others company.
Joe: “Hey Steve , we were just best man and maid of honor at P-Brains wedding.”
Bob: “And we have the pictures to prove it.” I am blown away… we all are.
Captain Phil Brain Phil (‘P-Brain’ to one and all), a bitterly divorced, confirmed misogynist, and I had dead-headed to Jakarta together four weeks earlier. Realizing the bargains now available in Indonesia due to the devalued rupe, we decided to go into business together. Both of us live in Florida, so we decided to collectively buy Indonesian wooden sculptures and container same to Miami. We would then split the cost of the container, the cost of the extremely cheap inventory, divide up the artwork and peddle the stuff independently.
P-Brain was to price out freight-forwarders and container costs. My job was to locate and select the wooden carvings. I had done my job, but had not seen P-Brain in four weeks. I was expecting to consummate our business deal upon my return to Jakarta in May.
“Holy shit, what happened to my partner,” I ask?
The Siamese twins explain that in a three week period, P-Brain met a Kupu-Kupu Malam, bedded her, dated her, fell in love with her, married her, and was now in the process of adopting his new wife’s six-year-old daughter.
“Good grief!” Charlie exclaims. “Life is good,” says Jerry Lovell.
I shake my head in disbelief, I am struck mute. The Jakarta Hajj has struck again!
Charlie Pickles Invents Live-Heading
Coming Awake, the darkened interior of the empty 747 was cavernous, echoing shadows, not sound. We three cockpit crew, along with the fifteen Indonesian flight attendants, are deadheading back to Jakarta from Jeddah, on this otherwise empty airplane. We had spread ourselves throughout the beast, and I staked out about ten rows of nine seats wide as my territory. I stretched out across an entire empty row of seats and fell fast asleep.
Now awake, thanks to my fifty-year-old bladder, I crept silently forward, looking for an empty lay. I was already abeam Charlie’s Cheshire smile before I noticed the girl’s head moving purposefully in his lap. Capt. Charlie, wearing his bright red Jodhpurs, was getting a chi-ching blow job, God bless him!
A few days later, Charlie confides that this is the first time in his twenty-five years of flying (after all the stories he’s heard of others’ experiences) that he’s gotten sex on an airplane. “She was great,” he exclaims in his distinctive, nasal style. “I didn’t do anything… she asked if she could lay down next to me and use my lap as a pillow, the next thing I know she’s got my pecker in her mouth… it was terrible!” he grins.
“Yeah,” I say, “I saw part of your act… you looked like the Mona Lisa with attitude.”
“Did you really?” all happy now that he’s got a witness to part of his good fortune. Charlie blurts out that she finished him off, had a handkerchief ready to delicately pat him dry and put him away. “But she didn’t need it,” he smirks, “she was so neat and thorough. Keshy, the best part was that she asked me for my room number in the Hilton, so she could come by the next day to do it again.” He answers my unasked question by saying, “Yeah, she shows up in a Mercedes, her husband must have a business, does me twice more, without wanting any return favors, and about 3P.M. she says ‘I have to leave, I have to be home to fix dinner for my husband’ …then she shows herself out of my room.”
“Perfect,” I say.
“Perfect,” Charlie agrees, “those perfect little Indonesian girls. They have such a wonderful and different view of sex.”
“Yeah, a different view… hey, Charlie, do you know the difference between a gynecologist and a proctologist?… point of view.”
Charlie grins in agreement. Thinking aloud, he does the sums, “…you know with the extended duty we got for that trip, I got to sleep-fordollars, a blow job, and $800 extra dollars for that leg.”
“Charlie, you just invented a new ‘chi-ching,’ ‘Live-head’ pay, instead of ‘dead-head’ pay.”
“Life is good,” Charlie agrees, using Jerry Lovell’s punchline.
The Intellectual
I’m one of the few pilots considered an intellectual, since I’m forever reading. Let me amend that, Fm now reading Forster’s A Passage to India, while Yul Laviv, our only Israeli flight engineer is studying Penthouse Forum.
“Hey Chubby,” Charlie Pickles turns towards me in his Captain’s chair, You know about Salmon Rushdie, don’t you?”
“Charlie,” I declare puffing up slightly, “I’m the only person I know that actually read Satanic Verses, cover to cover.”
“No shit?”
“No shit, and it was brilliant, but a bitch to get through, all those references alluding to London and to Islam that I had to look up.”