Heat Waves - Duty, Adventure and Blistering Tarmacs

 Oh! We're having a heatwave, a tropical heatwave
The temperature's rising, it isn't surprising

 

 from "Blue Skies, Fred Astaire and Olga San Juan

I've been watching the news about the heatwave the last couple of days.  Dad doesn't have central air conditioning, but with double paned windows, thermal drapes and fans, he keeps the house livable. We did put a air conditioner in his bedroom window, but he rarely uses it. He says hot was North Africa during WWII, he can live without ac in his little ranch house. It should only be about 90 there, being pretty far north.

But OTHER parts of the West and Southwest. .

I do not like hot weather.  Perhaps it's Celt/Scandahoovian genes, or the Casper the Friendly Ghost tan, but I'm likely going to be the snowbird that flies the wrong way and retires up along the lakes where it's even COLDER in the winter (except in my shop which will be nice and toasty).

But I have spent many a day in the heat.

Flying in it was certainly never fun. I preflighted a plane once when it was 125 degrees F. in the shade and found the soles of my boots had melted from the tarmac.  We were eyeing the temperature closely, waiting for it to cool enough to take off. Our performance charts for takeoff only went up to 126, after that we were idiots or test pilots.

There were days of only searing heat. There were days with storms, but they brought little rain, only dust and high winds that tumbled the small pieces of ground equipment around, tipping them over like monuments in a violated graveyard.

One day, landing at a civilian strip in the desert, the recorded weather showed the temperatures in the high one tens.  The tower controller quipped when we checked in, "But it's a dry heat".  Being a bit cranky, I took the mic from the Second in Command and said "So is my (insert FCC naughty word here) oven, but I've never wanted to land in it!"

The Sherpa on the hot day was the aerodynamic equivalent of an Easy Bake Oven. On the best of days it couldn't climb high enough to get out of the heat (it's hard to pressurize a shoe box), so we spent our days sweating down low, bouncing around in the thermals like a paint shaker. Nights were slightly better, the air smoother as time and worry rushed slow and dark under us, drifting like somnolent fireflies between columns of solitary thunderstorms.

Flight training was often conducted at night. Being an instructor pilot, I got the joy of doing what is known as a V1 Cut, pulling the power back on a perfectly good engine right at the speed you're supposed to lift off, and you do anyway, just on one engine on an airplane that now wants to roll over on its stomach and go to sleep with a headache. Today, this is done mostly in simulators for good reason. Back then, I just got to find out how badly the newbie pilots wanted to kill me. It's also why now, when I see commercials for girly deodorant so the lady stays fresh and dry while shopping for shoes, I just laugh.

The Sherpa wasn't exactly a hot performer in those temps, even at night, and lurched into the air with all the exuberance of Fetus's Mule. Conducting training under those situations was even more of a challenge.  There were GPWS warnings I'd never heard before, Too Low Terrain! during one V1Cut. The pilot candidate says "too low to Rain - what's Weather go to. .  oh crap!" Max Thrust !  Max THRUST! (not just a good name for a 70's porn star but words that kept us alive more than once.)

During night training when it remained really hot, I once brought along a cooler of ice and Coke and strapped it down in the back. There were a couple planes in the pattern doing proficiency checks and when the news spread, suddenly everyone had a warning light they had to check out and everyone stopped, shut down, ran over to my plane like the dambusters raid and grabbed something cold to drink. When the pop ran out we just poured the ice water down our necks.

Such times included moments of physical discomfort yet they also included moments of something else. On such nights, we stood on the tarmac in the night air, sweat dripping down our brows. I looked at the men, none of them really tall or stocky, built more like greyhounds and emanating a vitality, an animation even as they made no movement. Call it brotherhood, call it kinship, but as we stood there, we all had the same wild, dark look in our eyes, that comes with youth and adrenalin, the will that is facing fear and winning. We stood there, only briefly, as waves of heat shimmered in the dark, a small clump of pilots, standing under the hot smudge of our aircraft, beneath the starry sky that was our future.

We survived, a bunch of new pilots went into duty and I eventually earned command of an airplane without props. I learned a lot during that time. Resilience, patience, and that if you stick a whole roast wrapped in foil in a ground support vehicle all day while you go train, when you get done it's perfectly cooked, all you need is a knife to shred it some hot sauce and some buns.

But mostly I remember the heat.

The next memory of heat comes later, when I moved to Indiana. I had a little VW Rabbit. I was coming out of a three bedroom house so I had a LOT of stuff, so it all went in the moving van, the move being covered as part of a job transfer.  All I had in the rabbit was myself, young Barkley in his harness in the back seat and a  12 point deer mount, sitting on the passenger seat wearing a Sig Sauer ball cap (little kids and truckers waved at us a lot).

On the way to Indiana, the AC went tango uniform.  I only had a couple hours left to go, but  I had my best friend in the car wearing a fur coat. It was the first week of September so it wasn't overly warm, but we were going to need some relief beyond the vents.

I kept my sleeves rolled down (clothing absorbs your sweat, keeping it against your skin has a cooling effect).The windows were rolled down a bit and we both drank lots of water and no treats for either of us (digestion uses water you can use for cooling). Barkley had his neck bandanna, and I always carry one, so those were dipped in the melted ice water in the cooler of supplies I take on long road trips and worn around both our necks. When we made a stop for gas, he got a potty break and a BIG splash all over from a water bottle I'd frozen that was thawing but quit chill. The car smelled like wet and happy dog but we got to our destination mostly comfortably.

Still, a trip without ac in a car in the summer time is not on my bucket list.

But there will be more trips, more heat, life not offering always fair winds and blue skies.

On another hot day, when I'm out that way, I'll make a stop at a cemetery and say hello to an airman gone West, just paying respect to something that goes deeper than all of us.  Pooled on top of the stone perhaps, the remnants of a shower that passed over head, quickly evaporating in the heat. I'll dip my fingers in it and make the sign of the Cross, with fleeting, symbolic waters that would not be fit to drink, but which for the reason of it's shining transience, is fit to remember this man.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

So, here's hoping that my readers in the West and Southwest can stay safe and cool through the next few days. But as you sit and perhaps complain about the heat - think of one thing.  Every day, there are military personnel and the contractors that support them in Afghanistan and other hot and dangerous  places all over the world, day after day after day.

They work and defend,their only comfort perhaps a cigarette burning in their hand when off duty,that plume of smoke, hot in the still air. Such moments are the few physical and unlistening joys they may have. They don't have air conditioners everywhere they travel. They wear clothing that is as light and comfy as the arctic weight wookie suit. They don't have frozen yogurt shops and coolers of cold pop in their personal gear and the thought of being home, safe with a cold beer on the porch with their loved ones may be not hours away, but a year or more. And they do it, for us, for others, for freedom and faith, or simply their own code of honor, sometimes at great cost.

This weekend, I'll sit on my porch if it gets too hot and instead of whining, I'll think back to days of hot airplanes and the camaraderie of commitment. I'll think back to moments that now just tick like the hands of an invisible watch, hanging from the end of a chain whose length is unknown. I'm going to tip a cold glass to them, to those that serve, to those that gave their lives in that service, there in the heat of duty. So should we all.

- Brigid