A Moment in Time

This essay by Vishal Jariwala is a great reminder what it's like to experience those things we've been dreaming about for a long, long time. Enjoy.

An Extraordinary Flight

By Vishal Jariwala

“Welcome aboard, sir!" the pretty air hostess said on flight AI-184 from Bombay to Bangalore. As she showed me to my seat, a thought churned in my head, “Should I or should I not? What would happen, if I did?” I had mulled over it, again and again, but the decision was still eluding me. It was in my hand, ready to be passed on. I reached my seat in this dimly lit lower deck of a Boeing 747, and absentmindedly stuffed my luggage in the bin overhead. The paper was white and crisp, and my handwriting was attractive. It had to be; I had spent hours making this one up, while waiting in the deserted passenger area of the airport.

Then I decided to do it, to make my move. Through the chatter of boarding passengers, I made my way towards front of the cabin, and waved at the stewardess nervously. “Could you please give this to captain?" A bit surprised, she took the note, which I had folded loosely in an attempt make it appear easily accessible for reading. The note reflected yellow glow of surrounding lights on her beautiful face as she opened to read it. “This is normally not allowed, but still I will talk to the captain,” she said with a smile. It was a relief to know that the note was not immediately rejected. “Thank you,” I said with continued nervousness. I watched her climb that tiny spiral staircase to the upper deck. I was trying to picture myself in her place, climbing that staircase, because I knew where it would lead me; to the flight deck or cockpit of the jumbo jet!

“Excuse me...excuse me...," I made my way back to my seat through the clusters of passengers. The stewardesses were explaining emergency procedures; no smoking and seat-belt signs were on. With a sudden jerk, the aircraft started move through the cool night.

“Did the captain ignore my note?" I wondered because I had not heard back. I looked at my watch, and stared outside through the window. The ramp was flooded with the orange glow of sodium-vapor lights; the taxiways were lit with blue lights, and fog was setting in the distance, where the grass and small plants were growing by the runway. The airport felt lonesome without much activity, and the weather was clear. Our aircraft came to a halt, and then there was a sudden burst of noise; all of us got pressed against the backs of our chairs. The aircraft had started to roll with a great speed on the runway for take-off. The whirring of wheels tried to catch up with the noise of those majestic engines, throttled at full power. And it was gone. Suddenly, the whirring had gone, because we were airborne.

I tried to just relax and come to terms with possible disappointment, a possible denial to a sacred place, the cockpit of Boeing 747 – the place, where no one I personally knew had been. The watch showed 1:15 AM, but sleep did not seem to like my company although almost all of the passengers around me were in deep slumber. The aircraft was gliding smoothly through dark and clear air. I attempted to dim the overhead spotlight to the lowest possible setting, and closed my eyes. The aircraft cabin felt cooler than I would have liked, as if the cold air from outside was leaking in.

From the jerk with which I woke up, I assumed that I must have been fast asleep. A stewardess was trying to wake me up. She asked me to take my luggage, and move toward the front of aircraft. I was not sure why. “The captain has taken your note, and asked me to have you moved closer to the staircase going to the upper deck. He said that it may be possible to allow you to see the cockpit, once we have leveled off.”

“Wow! Really?” I grinned with a smile from ear to ear, and clumsily removed my stuff from the bin. The excitement filled me.

I moved to the seat she showed me. It was right behind a pale wall of what seemed like a station to store the stuff like water, food etc. But I did not care about that station, the wall, or the fact I had no space to store my luggage. The clock continued ticking, and the eagerly awaited refreshments arrived. Now I was receiving a little extra attention from pretty stewardesses because of, I believe, the captain's response. It was hard to keep from grinning wildly. Even more time passed. With its passage, being patient was becoming increasingly difficult. I got my tray, which was loaded with a sandwich, a dessert, and a chilled apple juice. I started to eat, and I looked around to find so many chewing jaws. Their company felt good. We devoured the meager portions. My anticipation of a call to visit the cockpit made the time appear to move a lot slower. It seemed like forever. I had just put a spoonful of delicious dessert in my mouth.

“Excuse me!"

I looked up to find another pretty face. “The captain has invited you to visit the cockpit. You'd better hurry, because they won't allow once we start the descent,” she said.

I nodded vigorously, but without noticing that I still had the spoon sticking out of my mouth, and was shaking that too! She smiled. Feeling silly, I put my tray in an empty seat next to mine, leaving the dessert half-eaten. I so much wanted to eat it but not at the cost of time that could be spent visiting an office flying at the height of 34,000 feet above ground. The choice was clear. I walked a short distance behind this gorgeous stewardess, who led me to the spiral staircase and extended her arm pointing at it. I climbed the stairs.

Several hours ago, back in Bombay, I had discussed such possibilities with my friend Hemalatha, who flies Airbus 320 as a copilot. “It is absolutely worth a try,” Hemalatha said. “Depending upon who's the captain, she may allow a peek. You should also mention your ground training.” Coming from an aviator, this had strengthened my resolve even further to write that note, on crispy white paper, and error-free!

The steward on the upper deck knocked at cockpit door. “Sure," he nodded in response something that he heard coming from inside of the cockpit. The passage leading to the door was small, and was lit by a recessed yellow light above. The floor was reflecting light on greyish blue walls, which also included two doors perpendicular to each other – one door was for cockpit, and the other was for a restroom which I realized a lot later, not until the end. The handle turned, and the tiny door to enter the cockpit opened. I entered – one of the world's most amazing places – the cockpit of Boeing 747 while it was flying.

Spearheading the darkness of the sky, the flight deck like other parts of the Boeing 747 was dimly lit. But it had a different allure to it. I gawked around. I had never been inside a cockpit of a real airliner not even on the ground. And here I was, in the cockpit an airliner that was actually flying at that very moment. The captain snapped me out of my trance with a big “Hi!” He extended his hand, clad in ivory colored leather glove, riddled with holes. We, including the first officer, shook hands, and exchanged the pleasantries.

I was offered a seat, which is usually occupied by trainee or supernumerary pilots, sometimes by other crew members. As I tried to adjust myself in this new environment and contain my excitement, my thoughts were to make sure to maintain enough decorum for the sake of these godly pilots, who allowed me into this place, which was coveted by many enthusiasts, like myself. I did not speak much, since every few minutes the first-officer was talking over the radio.

The dials were shining on the front panel of the cockpit. The whirring of the engines was a lot more muffled. My seat felt a bit colder, since it was not occupied before my arrival. It was covered with a dark blue and gray colored fabric with a sort of rough texture. But the roughness or the fact that the seat had negligible cushioning effect – none mattered. I moved my eyes from one corner to another very slowly as if recording everything in my head, and I did not want to create a blurry or a shaky movie.

The night-time cockpit is one of most marvelous sights. Every single instrument, dial, knob, switch that talked to the flight officers was illuminated. Embedded in the front panel, right behind both control columns, there were two colorful identical screens showing a great amount of information, which I tried to make sense of. I had seen these screens just in theory, not in practice, and definitely not while in operation. They were surrounded by slightly smaller gauges, and they in turn were by even smaller ones.

The central column, between the seats of flight officers, had the thrust levers, flight computers, and many other switches, most of which I did not know. The overhead panel of the cockpit contained even more switches, maybe hundreds. They were connected with what looked to me like light-paths, which were guiding my attention from one switch to another. Then I tried to locate one of the most important instruments in the cockpit: the magnetic compass. There it was, right in front of me, in the center of the aircraft, between two front windows, and then I suddenly noticed what was behind that shimmering compass. It was nothingness, a dark sky, which I was sure, was extremely cold at that height. The sudden thought of how high I was above the ground made me a bit uncomfortable. But I was soon reassured by my realization that I could trust the technology, and the humans that were carrying me through the dark skies. I kept watching from one instrument to another, trying to simulate if I were to fly what sense a particular instrument would make.

“See on your right, below. Do you see an aircraft?" said the captain. I jerked my head to right, and saw a flashing white light, and a red light which was closer than the green one. This meant that the aircraft was flying towards us, but far below us.

”You're lucky to be able to see reciprocal traffic,” said the captain.

“Oh! Yes,” I agreed.

“Why don't you put on those headphones?" he asked as he pointed at the headsets dangling right above my head.

“Oh wow, I did not even notice that," I thought while looking up. I gingerly removed the headphones from the hook, and put them on. Almost instantaneously, the world that I was experiencing in this amazing flight deck, expanded by the addition of one more dimension - the auditory dimension. I could hear the radio communication between various other aircraft and the air traffic controller. Their talk did not make much sense, but this was incredible. I wondered how I got to see an operational cockpit, and got to even listen to the talk. I felt this was beyond incredible, but I did not know what was coming next.

I was expecting to be asked to leave anytime, because I knew that we would soon start the descent. “Let me savor every single moment that I have here,” I thought.

“Put on the shoulder belts as well,” ordered the captain, bringing me back from my deep reverie. I started to follow the command, but was not sure how. By a few quick gesture of the gloved hands, the captain showed me how to fasten the shoulder belts. I had never used those, since I had not seen any on the regular passenger seats. “If I am supposed to leave at anytime, then why am I being asked to put the shoulder belts on?" I thought in amazement. And then it felt like my chair was slowly tilting forward as if it was trying to get rid of me by sliding me forward.

The nose of the aircraft had dipped, and the descent had started. “Wow!" I said silently, since I was not ready to leave in any case. I was clutching the sides of my barely cushioning seat. We were going down. Of course not crashing, but descending toward the destination. “Why has nobody asked me to leave yet? Well, mum is the word,” I told myself, and looked outside to see if I could figure out where we were.

In the meantime the first officer had already notified the air traffic controller that we were in what sounded like, the final lag. My curiosity grew. I looked around, and the windows became suddenly completely foggy, my heart leapt a bit.

We had just crossed the cloud cover, and the aircraft broke into the open sky above the city, offering a magnificent view of the city at night from a prime location, the cockpit. The city looked like a collection of toys adorned with all kinds of lights. It glimmered and shimmered. “I hope they won't ask me to leave now,” I thought as I turned my head to see the front window of the flight deck. My jaw dropped when I saw the view. There it was, the runway, whose both two sides were marked by rows of glowing amber dots, and the edge facing us was glowing green; umpteen other lights – blue, red, violet, flashing lights, rotating beacon and so on. It was one of most amazing views I have ever seen, just awe-inspiring.

We landed with a light thud, and the captain opened up the thrust reversers, which send the exhaust of jet engines forward, in the direction opposite of aircraft travel. It quickly decelerated the aircraft, and bringing it to standstill. We taxied back to a four-story high terminal building, parked the aircraft, and turned off the engines. And I was still sitting in the cockpit, beginning to realize that all had come to a pleasant end, and what a privilege it was.