MILK RUN TO VERA CRUZ
By Ron Fox
It was Pete, now dead 15 years, who told me to drive an old car.
“Keeps the IRS lookin’ elsewhere,” he used to say.
He drove a ’71 Buick LeSabre. He had spent a small fortune on that
old car – new paint, new vinyl top, new leather interior, new engine, new
front end, nice stereo, the best tires money could buy. It was a joy to ride
in.
“Keeps the Feds away,” he used to say. “You start throwing your
money around and you become conspicuous, someone’s going to notice.
The Feds are always looking for money being thrown around.”
Pete and I were in the Jefferson County Airport shared among three
Texas coast cities of Beaumont, Nederland, and Port Arthur.
I found it a curious thing for him to say in response to my question
about why he obviously put so much money into his car.
I had idly asked the question only to change the depressing subject from
one of our most common recent topics of conversation.
Over lunch and between flights, Pete and I had been lamenting the
financial condition of our little airline; a more and more frequent habit of
any gathering of Air Texana pilots of the last few months. We were a
motley crew of beginner aviators and jaded veterans and our gatherings
were never dull. Our airline just wasn’t carrying enough passengers on a
regular basis to make it possible to pay the bills and keep going too much
longer. It had something to do with this being the jet age and the reluctance
of the traveling public to entrust their safety to an airline flying loud, bone-
rattling, smoke-spuing airplanes which were older than most of its pilots.
As fond as some of our older passengers once were of the venerable DC-3,
in 1981 it was an airplane that only a pilot could love.
The airline would have been more appropriately named Keystone
Airlines, (after the Keystone Cops of the silent film era). Our ragtag duty
roster was suitably accompanied by a ragtag fleet of aircraft to match: a
Convair 440, a DC-3, a passenger model of the C-47, and two old Beech
Queen Aires. This would have been an admirable fleet in the 1950’s, but
this was 1981 and people just didn’t like getting on airplanes whose engines
chugged, wheezed, vibrated, and blew oily smoke out of the engines.
But it was an airline and airline jobs were getting harder and harder to
find in 1981. There was a recession going on and airlines were furloughing
pilots all over the country. Besides it was my airline and for awhile I was
proud of it. My passengers may have been a little frightened and
uncomfortable, but I got them where they were going most of the time,
even sometimes on time.
“I used to make a lot of cash on the border and I didn’t want to call
attention to myself or my work,” Pete continued. “You know the border
wars are still going on down south. Why don’t we blow this popsicle stand
and go make some real money?”
When Pete first jokingly mentioned the border wars and making a lot of
cash, I naturally thought he meant smuggling drugs into the country from
Mexico. I was shocked at such a casual invitation and mortified that a
friend I thought I knew could be involved in such a malevolent enterprise.
Pete laughed at my obvious expression of horror and quickly moved to alter
my perception.
Looking around the near empty restaurant for potential eavesdroppers,
Pete lowered his voice and said, “Relax, Fox. It’s not what you think. You
obviously have the wrong idea. Before you drop your jaw into your french
fries, this is not about smuggling into the U.S. We smuggle _out_ of the
U.S., and it’s not anything repugnant at all; it’s electronics. Have you ever
heard of a TV hurting anyone?
Still not uttering a sound, my wide eyes and open mouth immediately
turned into a furrowed brow and pursed lips of puzzlement.
“I’ll bet you’re a lousy poker player, Ron,” Pete said, laughing at the look
on my face. “Do you think I would risk losing my pilot’s license and a long
jail term for something as repugnant as drugs? Get a grip, man. I’m talking
about flying TVs into Mexico, complying with all customs export
regulations; filing all the necessary declarations and cargo manifests and
operating legally!”
Still puzzled, I finally found my voice. “But you said smuggling! That
doesn’t sound too legal to me.”
“I know,” he replied. “Let me explain. When I say operate legally, I
mean on this side of the border. Our U.S. Customs export declarations
name an importer with an address in Mexico and our flight plan names that
destination. Once airborne we just change our minds and take the
merchandise to someone else at a different location!”
Observing my flat, dimpled smile and narrowed eyes which belied my
continued puzzlement, Pete pushed on. “You see, Ron, the Mexican
government charges a one-hundred percent import duty on almost all
consumer goods entering the country, ostensibly to protect Mexican
industry. But no one in their right mind would buy a Mexican TV, radio or
just about anything made there because it’s usually junk.”
Suddenly understanding flooded my face. “I get it. We avoid the
import duty and someone makes a lot of money.”
“Bingo! And they pay us a lot of money to help them,” he said.
“So we really are smuggling stuff into Mexico, breaking _Mexican_
law,” I responded, furtively looking around the room. “That’ll put us in a
_Mexican_ jail! Are you nuts?” I looked at the cold remnants of my lunch,
no longer hungry.
“I understand your revulsion at the thought, but it doesn’t work that way.
You have to look at this whole industry as a game; a gentleman’s game, if
you will. The receiver makes an order with an electronics distributor on the
U.S. side of the border. The distributor brings the goods to the airport for
the operator to load into an airplane. The flightcrew delivers it to the
receiver in Mexico who has paid off the law to look the other way. Simple,
huh?” This is how they’ve been importing goods into Mexico since the
revolution!”
I knew that bribes were a way of life in most other countries of the
world. I had flown throughout the Pacific while in the navy so it did not
come as a shock. In fact, visiting Mexico numerous times as a tourist I had
learned to pay at the scene when involved in traffic violations, fender
benders, and any altercations with officialdom, minor or otherwise.
“What if something goes wrong?,” I asked, feeling that Murphy’s Law
had special meaning south of the border.
“That’s where the gentleman part comes in,” he answered. “If for some
reason things don’t go as planned; say your receiver doesn’t pay off the right
people, or some unpaid officials enter the picture, you’re arrested and taken
to jail. But it’s not just any jail. It’s really quite nice. For a small monthly
stipend of say, a couple of hundred bucks, you get a private room with
maid service, decent cooked meals, and even air-conditioning. You get a
Mexican lawyer and pay him a couple thousand bucks, he arranges for you
to pay a “fine” of perhaps twenty or thirty thousand and you go home. The
whole process takes perhaps two or three months. They don’t want to keep
you in jail. They want you to go home so they can catch you again and
make money off you all over again! I know some guys who have been
captured three or four times!
I was dumbfounded and Pete noticed. “Time to go fly,” he said, picking
up his hat and newspaper. “Think about it and we’ll talk about it later.”
I raised my eyebrows, nodded and said, “OK, Pete. I’ll see you maybe
later tonight. How about meeting at the Palace?” The Palace was a huge
local dancehall with several bars throughout the premises and was one of
our hangouts.
He thought for a moment and replied, “I’ll try to make it, but I can’t give
you a time.”
“The time don’t matter… unless I get lucky,” I said with a smile, knowing
I couldn’t afford entertaining anyone but not wanting to admit it to Pete.
“If you get lucky, don’t wait on my account,” he said, laughing his way
out the door, putting his uniform hat on with a rakish tilt.
I picked up my check and noticed his still on the table. I picked up his
check, too and with a sigh, headed for the cash register, my head spinning
from our airline’s impending doom and the prospect of becoming a
smuggler.
The rest of the afternoon and early evening, cruising back and forth
between Beaumont and Houston, I sat quietly on the flight deck musing
about the dim prospects of finding another job. After leaving the navy, I
spent a year dropping sky divers, a year in Alaska flying the bush, and a
year flying freight out of Dallas in old, beat-up Beech Barons. I was tired
of having flying jobs crater on me, each loss more devastating than the one
before it. This job was just six months old. I shook my head and thought
to myself, “Boy the things I go through just to keep flying,” not even once
considering doing anything else.
Over the next few days Pete and I talked some more about flying on the
border. Since I trusted Pete, I believed what he told me about the whole
deal. It wasn’t until the Feds grounded one of our DC-3s and six pilots got
furloughed that I knew the end of our airline was near. Up until then I was
maintaining my sanity and holding my yearning for adventure in check.
Then Pete said he was heading for McAllen to rustle up a border job.
“The first domino has fallen, pal and I’m outta here this weekend. Care
to join me?”
“I feel like a rat abandoning a sinking ship, watching her go down with
all hands,” I complained, bemoaning the obvious fate of our little airline.
“No one’s gonna throw you a life preserver, buddy. When this thing
goes it will be sudden and without warning. You’ll come in to work one
day and the door will be locked and you’ll be left wondering how you’re
going to pay rent or even buy your next meal. Believe me, I’ve been there.”
“I can see the signs, Pete. This job won’t last much longer.” I threw up
my hands, “What else have I got to do this weekend? What the hell, it
sounds like fun.”
Once the decision was made, my enthusiasm grew at a pace indirectly
proportional to my dwindling financial security.
Early the next day I found myself hurtling down a Texas two-lane
blacktop in my ’68 Malibu, trying to keep up with Pete’s Buick in formation
from Beaumont all the way across the middle of Texas to McAllen.
On the highway with my V-8 engine rumbling through Glasspac
mufflers; the sound was not much different from that of the old beat up
Beech Baron in which I flew freight last year out of Dallas. The
monotonous landscape of south Texas rapidly glided by, releasing my mind
to wander through the jumbled path of my flying career. ‘What am I doing
here?,’ I wondered. I’ve done a lot of dangerous things in the past with old,
beat up, poorly maintained airplanes just to keep flying, but this takes the
cake. Pete makes it sound so easy.’
Knowing another flying job was about to leave me on the ground, I was
awash in disappointment. All I wanted to do was fly. Give me any old roof
over my head, and enough money for fast food and an occasional good
time, an airplane, new or old to fly people or freight and I was happy. I
love what I do and I enjoy all the people, young and old, who work in
aviation. It’s just too bad it’s such a house of cards. They say it’s easy to
make a small fortune in the flying business; just start with a big fortune and
you’ll be there in no time.
“We comply with all U.S. laws,” Pete said. “We clear U.S. Customs in
and out. We comply with all FAA regulations. We merely fly to a
destination other than the one listed on our manifests and we don’t clear
Mexican Customs. Any problems we may encounter are in Mexico. That’s
why they pay us so much money.”
Peter Knox, a Canadian-born aviator of some renown, was a tall,
lanky, well-built fellow. His hair was blonde, both his own and that of the
toupee~ he wore. His ruddy complexion and blue eyes set in a long
aristocratic face made him quite attractive to the ladies, the attention from
which he lived on. I imagine it was this attention which drove him to
wearing a rug. He was always self-conscious of it and his efforts to hide it
only made everyone aware of it. He loved accompanying himself with a
guitar as he sang country songs at parties and always seemed to have a
chorus of female admirers around him. We used to enjoy trading flying
stories and so became good friends.
Pete had been the Chief Pilot of the Biafra Airlift in the sixties, flying food
and medicines to the starving people suffering from civil war in that small
African nation. Some time later, he was the Chief Pilot of the ill-fated Air-
Go Airlines of Dallas before joining Air Texana in Beaumont as a Convair
440 captain in 1981. Sometime between Biafra and Dallas, Pete has spent
some time on the border flying as a “Contrabandito” and claimed, while the
flying was demanding of skill and nerve, the pay couldn’t be beat. The
impending loss of my job and the lack of much flying employment during
the recession of 1981, coupled with the promise of high pay and adventure
was too much for me to resist.
There has always been this “little bird” in the back of my mind; an
aggravating little squawking parrot in my head who, over the years has
guided me through the dangers of the air, reminding me of past mistakes,
close calls and failures, warning me of impending disasters in the nick of
time or mostly so. I have not yet grown enough in wisdom to heed his
advice all the time, but he’s there just the same; always trying to bring
balance to my impetuosity and counterpoints to my rationalizations. The
eight-hour road trip to McAllen had created an uninterrupted session in
thought with this little bird which could be described as a conversation with
myself had any words been exchanged out loud. Still, being a what-the-
hell-go-for-it kind of a guy – that’s what Pete called me – the draw of a new
impending adventure could not be overcome, the common sense of my little
bird notwithstanding. Jack London called it the “Call of the Wild.” This
was wild.
Arriving in McAllen at four in the afternoon, I followed Pete to the
Airport Sheraton across the street from the McAllen airport where we got
separate rooms. After checking in, we changed into our swimming suits
and parked ourselves in lounge chairs next to the hotel pool for my first
lesson on smuggling demeanor and diplomacy.
“Here’s the deal, Fox,” Pete said in his most professor-like voice. “I’m
going to make some calls to a few of my prior associates in town and see if
I can line up some trips for us. I’m going to invite some people to the bar
tonight and see what I can drum up. I highly recommend your getting some
shut-eye. It’s going to be a long night.”
After a few drinks, a swim, and some sun, we retired to our rooms for
an afternoon nap. As I drifted off to sleep, I couldn’t help feeling strange,
as if in a fog where my surroundings were very indistinct. I had never gone
looking for a job this way before, and events were leading me instead of the
other way around. Anticipation and the wonder of a trek through Never-
Never land were dancing in my head.
My alarm woke me at seven p.m., and I rolled out of bed refreshed. I
dressed quickly into a polo shirt, old jeans, and an old pair of brown suede
cowboy boots – real roach-stompers. They were called that due to their
sharply pointed toes allowing deep penetration into corners. I headed for
the hotel bar. As I entered the dimly lit room, I noticed Pete by himself at a
large round table in the darkest, most remote corner.
“Hello, Fox,” he said, in a soft, quiet voice, easily heard in the near
empty club. “Have a seat and let me tell you the plan.”
I sat down across from him, eager to hear what he was about to
reveal.
“Ron, I’ve invited one of the Atkins brothers and a couple of his
friends out here tonight for a drink and to talk about a job. I mentioned to
him that I had brought a buddy with me, but these are cautious people. He
doesn’t want to meet you. When they arrive, you are to go to another table
out of earshot and wait for things to develop. We’ll just have to see what
happens. That OK with you?”
“Sure, Pete, no sweat,”I replied. “I wouldn’t know how to act,
anyway.” In fact, I had no idea what to expect from these visitors. Were
they gangsters? Were they bad people? I was new to all this, but I was
determined to go with the flow and see what happened.
“Just act like you normally do, like a crazy, what-the-hell-go-for-it
kinda guy. Not that you ever brag, but don’t start now. Don’t puff
yourself up and try to convince anyone you think this will be easy. It won’t
be, and they know it. They can spot a fake pretty easily. They’ve had lots
of practice at it. Just be relaxed, open, and honest about your flying
experience and try not to flinch too much if they describe some of their
previous pilots’ problems, OK?”
“Sure, Pete. I’ll be cool,” I replied, in a confident voice which did not
belie my churning stomach.
Pete waved to the passing waitress, “Ma’am, another Johnny Walker
Black, please, and a double Jack Black, coke back for my friend here.”
After our drinks arrived, I sat back and listened to Pete talk about
flying on the border. Some stories were tragic, some funny; but all were
exciting.
“One thing you must always remember,” he said. “Put off until
tomorrow what you don’t feel like doing today. The Man~ana Syndrome
has saved many an experienced pilot in this business. Man~ana is always
acceptable to your Mexican receivers, so don’t push too hard. If your strip is
too wet, the weather is too bad, there’s fog expected, or your airplane
doesn’t perform right, or if your load is too heavy or improperly loaded;
don’t go. Learn the limits of your plane and the limits of your skill, and
draw lines you must never cross. Only this and a little luck will keep you
alive to spend all that money you will make.
“What kind of money can we make, Pete?,” I asked, through the
growing Jack Daniels cloud in my brain.
“Well, the going rate for a new guy in a single- engine Cessna 207 is
about three hundred per trip. It’s a fairly short run to Tampico, though;
about two hours. Next is a small twin like a Beech Baron or a T-Bone
where you can make about five hundred for a trip of three to four hours to
Jalapa, Vera Cruz, or even further south, if you have the guts for a one-way
trip. Trips further south than Vera Cruz are one-way trips, meaning you
only have enough fuel for one way. If you don’t make it into your strip,
you have to land some where for fuel in order to make it home. That can
get real dicey. A Beech 18 can bring in seven or eight hundred and left seat
in a DC-3 is about a thousand. You’ll have to wait for your turn at captain
on a DC-3. That will come only after you’ve proven yourself in smaller
aircraft. All you have to do to get paid is bring back an empty airplane.
Payday is every day and your pay is in cash – one hundred dollar bills.”
“I can’t wait to get into this deal, Pete.” Talk of hundred dollar bills
making my pants bulge was getting the better of me.
“You’ll have to start waiting right now, Fox. My friends just walked
in. Go sit on the other side of the bar and be cool.”
“Good luck, Pete,” I replied, getting to my feet quietly and moving to
a table across the room.
I sat down about thirty feet away. The light was good enough for me
to clearly distinguish Pete’s friends. One was a large, middle-aged man with
a goatee, sitting directly across from Pete. Another was a nondescript
younger man who didn’t say much. A third, younger and smaller than the
other two, wearing a black vest, appeared very animated in his conversation,
none of which I could clearly make out. After a rather boisterous greeting,
they settled down into a subdued conversation, appearing very serious.
Their heads were leaning forward towards each other. Early in their
conversation they turned to look at me, but only briefly. I felt I was an
insignificant part of this process until the younger guy in the black vest got
up from their table and walked straight towards mine.
I observed him walking purposefully across the room. He was below
average in height, a little smaller than my average frame. He had long,
straight blond hair hanging straight down almost to his shoulders which
swayed gently as he walked. He had a mustache running all the way around
his mouth to his chin and his face appeared friendly with a smile.
“Jerry’s the name,” he offered, as he held out his hand. “I hear you’re
looking for work.”
“Most people call me Fox,” I replied, shaking his hand. “Yeah, I
am.”
“Has Pete given you the run-down on this border stuff?”
“Yeah, he has. Sounds kinda interesting,” I said, as I gestured for
him to join me at the table.
He gulped down what must have been a good ounce of Jim Beam
from a Texas shot glass – three inches across, four inches high, with a
heavy solid, six-sided bottom.
“Let me tell you what I have going, if you’re interested,” Jerry said, as
he sat down, motioning with his finger to the watching waitress, moving it
in a circle pointing downwards. “My team breaks people out of jail in
Mexico, and I’m looking for a pilot.”
‘Holy shit!,’ I thought to myself. ‘Is this guy for real?’
“For the going rate of about twenty grand, we go into Mexico and, at
a nearby airstrip meet our guide who takes us to the prison where our client
is incarcerated. Through one means or another, usually with bribes, we
clandestinely arrange for our client’s release and fly him home. Simple as
that. “His manner was straight forward and matter-of-fact, like he was
describing an every day procedure.
I asked, “What means do you use if bribes don’t work?”
As he lifted the side of his vest to reveal a small gun, probably a snub-
nosed .38 in his belt, he replied, “Bribes are always our means, but, on
occasion, we must use a little extra persuasion.”
Swallowing hard, I tried to mask my distress as I asked him, “Have
you ever had to shoot anybody with that?”
“Never a shot fired in anger,” he replied, very cool.
I was certain, looking into his cold, piercing, pale eyes, that he could
shoot a person and not be angry at all.
“I pay three times per trip what you can make flying contraband, and
there’s no goods to be caught with if we’re captured.”
Feigning relief, I nodded my head. “I’ve taken risks before, for a lot
less money,” hearing the little bird in my mind: ‘Don’t panic, be cool. Just
don’t agree to do anything this fucker says.’
“Come on Fox, I know a place just down the street where the drinks
are bigger and cheaper and they have a country band, you interested?”
“Sure,” I replied, horrified that I had said yes to the first thing he
asked me to do.
How I ever got back to my room that night, I don’t know. We spent a
few hours talking about my flying DC-3’s in the Pacific, my dropping sky-
divers in California, my bush flying in Alaska, a little about flying Navy jets
off carriers. I suppose he was trying to learn about my background and to
see if I was a bull shitter. I do remember politely declining his offer for
employment. I told him I had come to the border with my partner Pete, and
that we wanted to work together flying contraband. He didn’t seem put out.
I didn’t tell him, while I was crazy, I wasn’t crazy enough to join his team.
“There just weren’t any openings for us, Fox,” Pete revealed the next
morning at a very early break fast. “My friends said they would ask
around, but right now they don’t have anything. Don’t worry, pal.
Something will turn up.”
The only thing I was worried about turning up at that point was my
breakfast.
For the next eight hours we drove back to Beaumont, dejected. Back
to a house I couldn’t afford, buying gas on an overdue credit card. I
thought to myself, ‘Bummer, I might have to find a real job,’ referring to
non-flying employment. The little bird in my head was smugly silent.
Upon our return home, we arrived to find a message of a phone call
from a man named Gus in Brownsville.
The message only read: “Gus Spradling, midnight trip, Brownsville,”
and a phone number. Pete’s girl friend, an Air Texana flight attendant,
must have written it while we were away. Pete nodded, smiling from ear to
ear. With a wink he said, “This could be it!”
He quickly dialed the number and asked for Mr. Spradling, nervously
shifting his weight from foot to foot. “Mr. Spradling, Peter Knox here. I
received a message you may want my partner and I to fly south tonight.” I
was glad that he mentioned both of us.
Amazed with a call from Brownsville, I could only wonder at the
conversation, only hearing half of it.
“No problem, we’re flying one now, Part 135 qualified in passenger
service,” Pete said in a confident voice. “We can make midnight. See you
at B.A.A.C.,” and hung up the phone.
“He’s inviting us to fly a midnight departure in a DC-3 that’s already
loaded and waiting for us,” was all Pete had time to tell me as we both
jumped back into our cars and tore out southbound.
For the next six hours of high speed cruise, my mind was racing with
all sorts of imaginary scenes of just what a smuggling trip south of the
border would be like. For the last two days, my mind had been on a roller
coaster, one moment picturing myself rolling in a pile of hundred dollar
bills, the next picturing myself in a pile of melting credit cards, wondering
where my next meal would come from. I knew I could get into a lot of
trouble smuggling, but it wasn’t like we were doing any harm to anyone.
We weren’t going to carry anything dangerous or prohibited and Pete made
it sound so _acceptable_.
When Pete and I arrived in Brownsville, I followed him directly to
the Brownsville International Airport. We didn’t know anyone in town, nor
did we know of anywhere else to meet Gus but the airport.
On our way down Billy Mitchell Boulevard, heading for the airport, I
followed Pete’s Buick as he suddenly wheeled into a Circle-K convenience
store.
“Wait here,” he yelled, as he ran into the store, carrying his flight kit.
He came out after a few minutes with his kit bulging.
“Provisions,” he yelled, and climbed back into his car.
I didn’t think I could eat anything on this trip. My stomach was
churning with a combination of a hangover and nervous anticipation of our
upcoming trip.
Now, as we were pulling into the fixed based operator, B.A.A.C.
parking lot at the airport close to 11:00 p.m., I was trying to picture what
my first flight south would be like.
When we walked into B.A.A.C.’s hangar, we asked where we could
find Gus and were told he was in the main office. Upon entering the office,
Gus greeted us with a whoop.
“Hot damn! You boys made it!,” he hollered.
“Hello, you must be Gus,” Pete said in his most formal Canadian
accent. “I’m Pete and this is Ron, the copilot I spoke to you about on the
phone.”
He extended his hand to each of us and, after a firm handshake,
asked Pete, “You’re both qualified in a 3, right?”
He reminded me of a west Texas bronco-riding rodeo star, right
down to the jeans, belt buckle, and cowboy boots. His west Texas
country twang was fascinating to listen to. He was very open and friendly,
slapping us on the back and speaking to us as if he had known us for years.
He had a handsome, leathery face and walked like a bronco rider who had
just been thrown. The next rodeo you see, watch how they walk after being
thrown and you’ll get the idea.
“I didn’t think you boys were goin’ to make it! I called Atkins in
McAllen trying to rustle me up some pilots and he gave you a good
recommendation, Pete. He said you always brought the airplanes back. I
got a loaded DC-3 outside with your name on it. You got to be in Vera
Cruz by 4:00 am. Can you handle it?,” he drawled.
“We’re ready if you are, Gus,” Pete told him, somewhat reserved.
“Do you boys mind takin’ her around the patch one time for me to
check you out?,” Gus asked, raising his eyebrows as if in apology.
Pete looked at me, then at Gus. When I nodded, Pete told him, “No
problem Gus. But, if we’re going to make Vera Cruz by 4:00 am, we’d
better get a move-on.”
“Let’s do it, then!,” Gus hollered as he quickly moved for the door.
Pete and I followed him out the door as he headed down the flight
line towards another hangar. We walked along several rows of ancient
Beech 18’s, T-Bones, Queen Aires and DC-3’s. I felt like I was on a tour
of aviation yesteryear, only it was dark. Seeing all these old majestic
airplanes, sitting quietly in the dark, waiting their turn to fly south into
danger gave me a shiver. It began to sink in that the adventure I had been
yearning for was about to begin. It didn’t take any particular effort on my
part other than to roll with the flow of circumstances. I wondered often if I
would survive the trip, but never even considered backing out. This is the
kind of stuff that Errol Flynn did in the Caribbean, Bogart did in Marseilles,
and Rod Taylor did out of Africa. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
“Here she is boys!,” Gus drawled, as he raised his hand toward the
airplane in introduction. “Only forty-thousand hours on her! Ain’t she a
beauty!?”
In the dark it was hard to tell.
Pete and I walked around the DC-3, 42V, giving her a very thorough
preflight using our flashlights. I jumped up on the wings to check the oil
while Pete checked the tires and flight control surfaces. Satisfied that it
would probably fly, Pete spoke to Gus confidently, “Looks OK to me, Gus.
Is it OK to you, Fox?”
“Looks OK to me, Pete,” I yelled from the top of the wing.
Gus opened the cabin door behind the wing and turned on the cabin
lights. I couldn’t believe what I saw. There was a pile of square objects
wrapped in brown paper, each about three feet square, solidly stacked
almost all the way to the ceiling and all the way across the cabin. The last
eight feet of the stack was tapered like stair steps down to just one layer at
the rear of the cabin which almost reached the door. This was one full
puppy.
“You take em’ out of the boxes, huh?,” I asked Gus.
“Yeah, the boxes take up too much room. We can pack em’ much
tighter with paper,” Gus responded, obviously proud of the packing of the
airplane. “There’s three hundred and seventy-five, twenty-five inch color
TV’s in here,” he beamed.
“How much does all this shit weigh?,” I asked him, shocked at the
load.
“Hopefully not much over ten thousand pounds,” he chuckled.
“We’ve flown this much before, lots of times. Don’t you get to worryin’,
now. It’ll fly!”
I was left to ponder where I had heard similarly optimistic words before as
Gus climbed up the stack to the ceiling. The loaders had thoughtfully left a
tunnel on top about two feet high and about three feet wide at the center.
“You’ll find that this is the hardest part of the whole trip, gettin’ to the
cockpit,” he grunted as he crawled up into the tunnel head first.
Pete looked at me just shrugging his shoulders and followed Gus up
the stack into the tunnel, dragging his flight kit in with him. I closed the
door and followed them, the TV’s creaking as I stepped on them, thinking
to myself that this was the darndest thing I had ever seen.
There wasn’t enough room in the tunnel to crawl. We had to pull
ourselves along, sliding towards the flight deck on our stomachs.
When I reached the flight deck, Gus and Pete were already standing
there watching me. There wasn’t enough room in the tunnel to turn around
and come down feet first. I was planning to grab hold of the radio rack on
my way down and slide around to land feet first in a suave move. Instead,
missing a hold on the radio rack, I slid down the stack head first, landing on
the flight deck floor with a crash. The papers in my flight kit scattered all
over the place, as well as my flashlight, maps, pens, gum, and all the other
junk in my kit. Pete and Gus were both howling with laughter.
“Son of a bitch!,” I exclaimed with a sheepish grin, wiping the dirt off
myself. I was sweating like mad. My shirt tail was pulled out. My hair
was a mess and I had dirt all over me.
“Welcome, Grace,” Pete chided, and they laughed again.
Gus stepped aside and waved his arm with a flourish towards the pilot
seats. Pete got in the left seat and I got in the right. After we had belted
ourselves in, Gus kneeled between our seats to watch us work.
Pete and I got out our Air Texana DC-3 checklists and he called for
the Before Start Checklist. I rapidly read aloud the items and Pete checked
each one, crisply stating each appropriate response.
Looking out the left side window, Pete blurted out “Starting one!,” as
he hit the starter for the left engine. I watched his head nod through the
rotation of each blade as he counted them. “Nine blades,” he said, as he
turned on the ignition.
After a wheeze or two, the engine fired up with a roar and then
settled down into a rhythmic chug. After ensuring the oil pressure was up,
he called, “Starting two!”
I counted the blades as they passed through bottom center and,
counting 9 blades, I responded with, “Nine blades.”
Pete repeated the same procedure for the right engine and
immediately called for the After Start Checklist which we quickly finished.
He then asked for the Before Taxi Checklist, and we repeated the same
ritual.
Gus was impressed.
I pulled out my weight and balance worksheets that Air Texana used
and started filling in numbers.
“You might as well forget that shit,” Pete said. “The graphs won’t go
high enough for you to figure out our C.G. and you don’t want to know
what our gross weight is.”
I put them away.
As Pete gunned the engines and pulled out of our parking space and
onto the taxiway, I missed the familiar bounce I was used to feeling in our
Air Texana DC- 3’s. This sucker was glued to the ground. The struts were
so squashed at this weight, they didn’t provide much of a cushion. The last
time I had been in a DC-3 that felt this heavy was out of Honolulu
International in an over-loaded Navy C-117D six years ago. That was the
night of my 52 second takeoff roll, a personal record I would never forget.
That night, had we lost an engine in our slow climbing turn, we surely
would have taken out at least one or two high-rise hotels on Waikiki Beach.
To say I was uncomfortable tonight would be quite an understatement, but
I was a novice in this game, determined not to appear overly cautious. I
kept quiet, trusting in Pete, who had been here before, to keep the shiny
side up . I tried to maintain a crisp, professional demeanor, hoping my
frequent swallowing did not reveal my increasing alarm.
The tower had been closed for hours, so radio communication wasn’t
necessary. We pulled into the run-up area just short of the runway and
stopped. Pete ran the engines through a mag check and exercised the props
and, satisfied, called for the Before Takeoff Checklist.
We quickly ran through the checklist and took the runway. Pete
looked over at me and said, “You ready, Fox?”
“Ready, Pete,” I responded, trying to keep the nervousness out of my
voice.
Pete advanced the throttles slowly and smoothly close to takeoff
power and yelled, “Takeoff Power.” The engines were roaring and the
plane was bucking, straining against the brakes.
I put my left hand on the throttles below Pete’s hand and advanced
the throttles to takeoff power, responding with, “Power’s set,” yelling
myself.
The airplane crawled, picking up speed very slowly. We were at least a
third of the way down the runway before Pete could get the tail up by
pushing almost all the way forward on the yoke. We were halfway down
the runway before the tail would stay up with the yoke in a normal position.
We weren’t even up to 60 knots yet. We were two thirds of the way down
the runway before we hit 80. Pete held it on the ground until we were less
than a thousand feet from the end of the runway and looked over at me,
saying with a smile, “No sense in wasting all this runway,” and pulled it off
the ground. We had plenty of speed to climb, but it was an awful slow
climb. We were climbing at perhaps 300 feet per minute at full takeoff
power when Pete called, “Gear up!,” still yelling.
As I yanked the landing gear lever up, I repeated, “Gear up!”
Our climb increased to maybe 400 feet per minute, still at takeoff
power. The engines were howling and heating up fast in the warm, humid
air.
We started a slow left turn, climbing up to a wide pattern altitude of a
thousand feet almost two miles from the airport before Pete called, “METO
power!.”
I set METO (Maximum Except Takeoff) power and responded with,
“METO power set!”
It took METO power all the way around the pattern just to hold
altitude. I knew we must be rattling windows all over town. By the time
we reached half way down the runway in the opposite direction, Pete called,
“Gear down!”
As I put the landing gear down, I repeated, “Gear down!,” and made
sure we had two green lights.
“Landing checklist,” yelled Pete.
I went through the items quickly on the checklist, calling out each
item as it was accomplished.
Now well past the runway, Pete started a gentle, descending turn back
towards the airport, pulling off just a little power, demanding: “Half flaps!.”
We slowly sunk towards the runway.
“Half flaps!,” I responded as I put them down halfway.
At 500 feet, Pete called, “Full Flaps!”
“Full flaps!,” I responded putting them down all the way.
Pete brought the airplane down close to the runway going very fast
but held it off, the nose rising as the airspeed bled off. He set her down
with a soft thump and let the tail down easy as we lost more speed. It
wasn’t a greaser like most of the landings at Air Texana, but at this weight
it was more important to get on the runway and the weight off the wings
and onto the tires so we could brake.
“After landing,” Pete ordered, finally being able to use a more normal
volume.
I responded by accomplishing the checklist out loud.
While we were taxiing back in, Gus expressed his amazement, “Shit
fire, boys, you’re good! I’ve never seen two pilots working together so well!
You ain’t gonna have any trouble at all! You wanna top her off, Pete?”
“I figure we must have used a half-hour’s cruise fuel in just ten
minutes, so I believe I will.”
“Good thinkin’, boy. Just leave her in front of the hangar and I’ll send
my truck out.” Gus seemed secure and very pleased at his luck at finding us.
With that, Gus climbed the stack, entered the tunnel and was gone.
Pete parked the airplane in front of the hangar and shut the engines off.
When the parking checklist was done, he turned to me and said, “This is a
milk-run, Fox. We’re going into Vera Cruz International Airport. No dirt
strips, no rough roads. Just almost two miles of concrete! There’ll be
airplanes all over the place and we’ll be well protected. We’re Blue Star
Two and will go in just 10 minutes after Blue Star One. No surprises, no
sweat. What do you think?”
“It feels like she flies like a pregnant whale,” I told him. “I’d hate to
lose one on takeoff,” referring to an engine.
“I’d hate to lose one period!,” he replied. “This sucker won’t fly on
one, but then, we don’t want to live forever, do we Fox?.”
“I laughed and said, “Fuck no, man, not me.”
We both laughed and waited for the gas truck.
42V had what they call Pan Am wings. That is, it had four four-
hundred gallon gas tanks, two in each wing. We had over 8 hours of fuel
with full tanks and always left with them full to the top.
After we were topped off, Pete fired 42V up again, paying close
attention to our checklists just as if Gus were sitting there with us. Pete
was a professional. I was surprised to see him take his shirt off and pull out
a blue paisley bandanna and tie it around his head.
He looked at me and laughed. “I’m going to be sweating for the next
few hours. You should be, too!”
He took a silver St. Christopher’s medal from around his neck and
hung it on a switch on the instrument panel. Waving at Gus, he gunned the
engines and we were off in a cloud of blue smoke.
It was a half hour later before we reached our cruising altitude of
9,500 feet. I kept a close eye on the engine instruments. They were
running warm, but not hot.
Pete pulled out a sectional map of eastern Mexico and started
showing me the main cities along the coast as we passed them. We were
about 50 miles off the coast. Pete didn’t want to get too far out over the
gulf in case we lost an engine. He stated that if we did lose one, we
probably wouldn’t find anywhere to land, but it just made him more
comfortable.
He showed me the location of the Posa Rica VOR and a couple of
radio stations we could use to get a bearing with the ADF. Other than that,
there were only visual landmarks to guide us. That and the constellation
Southern Cross, which he pointed out to me.
Tampico glided by looking like a treasure chest full of jewels. Jalapa
looked like several necklaces draped through the mountains as we passed
it. In the distance we could just begin to see the glow of Vera Cruz when
Pete started briefing me on our procedures for getting into Vera Cruz.
“We head straight for the airport and when we reach the ten mile arc,
we turn west and follow the arc around. That will get us past the army
base,” Pete hollered over the engines. “We go all the way around to south
of the airport and turn towards it when we hit the one-hundred-eighty
degree radial. We proceed due north lined up with the runway on final
approach, no lights. At about two miles out, we say over the radio, ‘two
miles’, and nothing else. Juan, the tower operator will turn on the runway
lights for us. When we land, we taxi back to the south end of the runway
and pull off into the run-up area with all the other airplanes being unloaded.
We get unloaded and get the hell out of there. Since we’re over the city,
we don’t use any aircraft lights at any time. Got it?,” he asked.
“Got it, Pete,” I answered. “When do we call Blue Star?”
“Just about now, twenty minutes out.”
He picked up the hand-held FM radio and barked into the mouthpiece,
“Blue Star, this is Blue Star Two, we’re twenty minutes out.”
No response.
“Blue Star, this is Blue Star Two.”
Suddenly I heard the tinny voice responding, “Blue Star Two, this is
Blue Star. We are backed up on the ramp, so you must slow down as
much as you can, over.”
“OK, Blue Star, we’ll slow down. The latest we can get there is twenty
five minutes. Is that OK?,” Pete asked. There was worry wrinkling his
brow.
“That will work,” the tinny voice replied.
“They must be backed up unloading airplanes on the ramp,” Pete told
me. “These cluster-fucks can turn messy sometimes.” He was not happy.
About eighty miles out we started a slow descent at minimum power
and speed. If those other cities had looked like treasure chests, this one
looked like a bazaar right out of the Arabian Nights. There were thousands
of brightly colored lights spreading out in all directions, with seemingly little
harmony to a plan. It was if a hundred treasure chests full of jewels had
been dumped in a pile.
Pete turned the aircraft to the right to adjust our course off of a direct
bearing from Brownsville. “No sense in getting in anybody’s way that’s
heading back home. No one’s got any lights on and there’s been a steady
stream of aircraft arriving here half the night. You remembering all this,
Fox?,” he asked, looking at me with raised eyebrows.
“I ain’t missing a thing, Pete,” I answered. “It’s like the first time you
make love to a woman. You never forget the smallest details!”
“Yeah, but if you miss some of these details, you’ll end up with a
whole lot more than disappointment, pal.”
Pete seemed to be getting more nervous than I had ever seen him. I
was more nervous than the proverbial long-tailed polecat in a room full of
rocking chairs, but my excuse was ignorance. Everything was making me
scared and I didn’t know just how dangerous this deal was…..yet. I half-
expected to be shot down, crash or be captured before the night was over
and had no idea what would happen next.
Descending through five thousand feet, about twenty miles from the
airport, I could clearly see the city streets, the coastline, the buildings and
car lights moving around. It wasn’t much different than a night arrival in
Kansas City. Looking into a black sky, people may not have been able to
see us, but they could sure hear us. A DC-3 isn’t exactly a quiet airplane. I
felt like an invader from another planet on a first contact mission, thinking
to myself, ‘If they could only see me, they’d freak’. If they did see me, I’d
freak.
At the ten mile arc, Pete turned the aircraft sharply to the right and
once more spoke into the FM radio, “Blue Star, this is Blue Star Two,
we’re starting our ten mile arc. We should be there in less than ten
minutes.”
“Roger, Blue Star Two,” the radio crackled. “We’ll be ready.”
Tuning in the tower frequency on our VHF radio, Pete spoke into our
regular microphone, “Juan, this is Blue Star Two on the ten mile arc.
We’ll be there in five minutes.”
“Blue Star Two, this is Juan. Give me a call on a two mile final for
the lights.”
Pete kept the aircraft on an exact ten mile arc circling west of the city
center at five thousand feet. Looking at me, he said, “Put three sixty in
my VOR and track our radials with yours. Let me know when we’re
twenty radials off and then when the course is alive. We don’t want to
overshoot the final.”
I tuned the VOR frequencies in our nav radios and began tracking our
bearing from the airport. I realized how excited I was when I kept dialing
past the frequency numbers on the radios.
At twenty degrees from our inbound final course, I told Pete,
“Twenty degrees,” trying to keep my voice calm and professional.
A few moments later I told him, “Final course alive,” and he began
turning the aircraft in a tighter left bank to intercept our final course to the
runway. I could tell where the airport was, but there was no way to tell
where the runways were because none of the runway or taxiway lights were
on. Spooky stuff.
I realized why Pete was concentrating so hard on his course and
altitude as we descended closer to the airport. Two miles isn’t a whole lot
of time to make final adjustments for a runway you couldn’t see.
At precisely two miles on the DME, Pete said, “Tell him we’re two
miles.”
Grabbing the mike I said, “Juan, Blue Star Two is two miles.”
In an instant I saw the runway lights come on. They were dim, but
we could see them. Pete had done a great job of lining up because he
made little corrections to his alignment or glidepath. In less than two
minutes, Pete thumped us on the runway and began heavy braking.
“The closer we get to the other end of the runway, the closer we get
to the airport troop barracks,” he commented, stopping the aircraft in the
first third of the runway and turning around.
We taxied back to the approach end of the runway and there was a
sight to behold. There were three DC-3’s parked in a semi-circle at the
outer edges of the run-up area adjacent to the runway. Inside of those were
a couple of Beech 18’s, two or three T-Bones and a Baron or two. An
army of unloaders were throwing TV’s and car stereos everywhere. There
were several big trucks and twice as many pickup trucks moving around the
ramp either parking near the tails of airplanes or moving away from them
after loading.
“Where in the hell are we going to park?,” Pete exclaimed. Just about
then we were hit with a powerful beam of light from Julian’s Q-beam
flashlight and it guided us to a parking space which was on the very end of
the runway.
Looking down the taxiway, I saw several more airplanes parked along
it, almost a third of the way down its length with more trucks and more
lines of people throwing brown packages. As an airplane was emptied, it
would taxi past us onto the runway and take off.
When we got parked, I opened my side window for a better view of
the show and was greeted by the sound of several airplanes with their
engines idling loudly. Ground crew leaders were shouting orders
everywhere and some guys were honking their horns in the trucks. This
was not my idea of covert operations. They couldn’t have made much more
noise if they had hired a band.
Pete reached into his flight kit and brought out a six- pack of Lite
beer. Handing it to me, he told me, “Crawl out there and find Julian and
give this to him. It’s kind of a tradition we started years ago.”
“Who the hell is Julian, and how will I find him?” I asked in a pathetic
voice. I felt as if my commanding officer had just ordered me on a suicide
mission, deep into enemy territory, with no hope of success.
“He’s the guy with the Q-beam in the red truck. You won’t have to
find him, he’ll find you. He loves this stuff.”
With the six-pack in hand, I crawled up into the crawl-tunnel at the
top of the stack of TV’s and proceeded down the grade. About half-way
down I was greeted by several sets of hands grabbing TV’s. With as much
grace as I could muster, I stumbled down the end of the stack and walked to
the tail of the airplane, ducking flying TV’s as I went. I waited a moment
to time my jump out of the door between flying TV’s and plopped to the
ground, ending up on all fours. All of the unloaders were young, poorly
dressed men who looked at me strangely as I picked myself up and headed
for Julian’s red truck. As I approached him, he was leaning against the
seat at the open door with a big grin on his face.
“Julian?,” I asked in a voice that I was sure belied my wonder at
everything that was going on around me.
“Yes, yes!,” he answered in greeting. “Ron?,” he asked, rolling the R
off his tongue, trying to say my name with its English sound as he offered
his hand.
I was surprised that he knew my name and I could only shake his
hand in wonder. I must have looked a sight to him. My head was moving
quickly, to take in all the sights, my eyes darting from one sight to another.
“How’s Pete?,” he asked, looking at the six pack in my left hand.
“Oh!, yeah,” I replied as I remembered my mission and gave him the
beer. “Pete’s doing great.”
“This your first trip?,” Julian asked me as he pulled off a can of beer
and handed it to me.
I knew it. He could tell. All this bravado bullshit for nothing, I
thought. “Yeah, this is amazing,” I said as I looked around again, accepting
the offered beer. ‘When in Rome’, I thought to myself.
I opened the beer and took a long pull. I had never enjoyed a warm
beer before, but this provided great relief to my dry throat and it tasted
great.
“Do you ever have any trouble with so many air planes here?,” I asked
him.
“No, never any trouble here. This will be the safest place you ever
come to,” he said smiling.
Hearing the big truck gun its engine to move away from our aircraft, I
turned around to see it pulling off and saw about a dozen Mexicans
jumping out the door. I gulped down most of the rest of my beer and
looked around for somewhere to throw the can.
Julian pointed to the bed of his truck and, as he offered his hand
again, said, “Good-bye, my friend.” He had a heavy Mexican accent, but
he had been careful to practice his English impeccably.
I shook his hand and said, “See ya,” and ran for our airplane. I
jumped in, pulled up the steps, and closed the door. Looking up into the
huge empty cabin, I was amazed at how many TV’s it must have taken to
fill it up.
Wasting no time, I ran up to the flight deck and jumped into my seat,
buckling myself in.
Before I was strapped in, Pete had gunned the engines and told Juan
in the tower that we were taking off.
Lining up with the runway, Pete smoothly applied full power and
began racing down the runway, rapidly accelerating, now that we were
empty. I had forgotten how quickly an empty DC-3 could fly. When Pete
pulled back on the yoke, the airplane leaped into the air and as soon as we
broke ground he had us heading out towards the water in a steep climb.
Calling for METO power and the Climb Checklist, Pete yelled at me
over the engines, “Was it as good for you as it was for me?,” and laughed
a hearty laugh.
“This is great!,” I yelled back. My relief at being airborne, heading
home had brought me to a state of elation. The adrenalin that had been
pumping through me for hours was hitting its peak and I felt like the cat that
had swallowed the canary.
After climbing up to a high cruising altitude, Pete told me I might as
well go back to the cabin and try to get some sleep. In just the 15 minutes it
had taken us to climb to eleven thousand feet, I could feel the beginning of
the downside slide. The excitement was over.
“Good idea, Pete, if you’re sure you’ll be all right up here alone.”
“No problem, Pal. I’ll be awake until payday.”
I unbuckled and went back into the cavernous cabin. I turned off the
cabin lights, took off my flight jacket and rolled it up for a pillow and lay
down on the floor to sleep. The gentle swaying of the aircraft in the smooth
air of high altitude normally would have made me drowsy, but I couldn’t
make myself drift off. I kept thinking about what we had just done. All the
details of our mission kept running around in my head. One vivid picture
after another flashed in my mind and I soon realized that sleep was
impossible.
I pulled out some paper from my flight jacket and, after turning the
light back on, began writing down some of the details of this adventure. I
wrote down my feelings, my fears, my sense of excitement, and wonder. I
likened my feelings to those I had of driving away from my high school
graduation or to those I had of starting my first cross-country flight. I wrote
that I predicted I wouldn’t be able to let this adventure end here. I was soon
to realize that I couldn’t.
Copyright 1998, BUSHPILOT, all rights reserved.