The small airstrip was like numerous others I’d seen only this one was more remote. Low grey hills surrounded it, making it more hidden than I’d ever encountered. A line of electricity poles led to the edge of the tarmac and, together with a grimy windsock, interrupted an otherwise barren skyline.
Take off would involve either immediately crossing a shallow, muddy river, or demand a stiff climb straight after the wheels lifted, depending on the direction of the wind. Neither would be a walk in the park. Doubts had set in as soon as I left the hotel and I was silently cursing myself for having agreed to such a harebrained scheme. This tiny airstrip in the middle of nowhere was just one more reason why María was wasting time she didn’t have.
We got out of her car – we’d gone to her apartment where she’d quickly packed a few things – and walked over to the small hanger situated halfway along the runway. Ignoring the garage-like door for the plane, she took a key from her shoulder bag, opened what I call the ‘man door’ at the side, and switched on the light. Her fingers tapped in a code on a small wall panel and the alarm system went dead. I followed behind her, eager to see what I was supposed to fly, secretly hoping it would be an old Beaver or Piper that would be totally impractical for such a trip.
Instead I saw a gleaming Cessna Skylane, the Jet-A version. Half a million dollars of airplane. I’d read about this model recently in an issue of Flying magazine that I’d found lying around, and recalled it had a range of nearly a thousand nautical miles, and a maximum speed of at least a hundred and fifty knots. More to the point, its ceiling was twenty thousand feet. Still not enough to be comfortable really, but I could see my excuses rapidly evaporating.
I ran my hand along the frame and reached up to feel the smooth skin around the flap, then admired the pristine propeller blades.
“Hasn’t been flown much?” I said.
“Once a month I think. Let’s get going.” She opened a padlocked metal cabinet and handed me the plane’s keys. I stared at them in my hand and swallowed hard. No backing out now. I unlocked the cabin doors; we threw our stuff into the back seats and climbed in.
I found the Skylane’s POH and began to study it. The Pilot’s Operating Handbook gave me step by step checklists for prepping, starting, taking off, flying and landing, all of which were pretty standard. There were also manuals for the avionics, radio, and autopilot but I didn’t need to examine those. Far more interesting, and reassuring, was the GPS, an eight thousand dollar add-on called the Garmin GMX-200. A ‘situational awareness’ system, it makes navigating a bit like a video game. Linked to the plane’s mechanics and autopilot, the Garmin simplifies much of the in-flight calculations and workload. All I had to do was pull up Chicureo on the screen chart, click on it as destination, and the computer would tell me how to get there.
I stepped out again and went through the external checklist, examining the prop but also checking ailerons, flaps, rudder and elevator as well as making sure all antennae were in place.
Next, I pressed the button to raise the hanger’s wide metal door. Then I unplugged the Tow Buddy from its charger, attached its long, claw-like arms to the Cessna’s nose wheel, and slowly rolled the ton or more of plane out onto the tarmac.
After closing the hangar door behind me I climbed up into the Cessna’s pilot seat and went through the internal checklist. Fuel tank selector, throttle, prop, mixture . . . all in their correct positions. I flicked the master switch on, then the auxiliary fuel pump just until the fuel flowed and throttled back to idle. María stirred in her seat but I ignored her. I hit the starter and felt the familiar surge as the engine whirred up and the prop began to turn. The pistons caught and gave their distinctive throaty roar.
I went rich on the fuel and throttled to a thousand rpms. Checked the oil pressure, switched the avionics and the navigation lights on.
Ready to roll. I smiled at María, knowing I could do this after all. She smiled back.
Then bedlam broke out.
There was a blur of movement at the window on my right, and the door beneath it sprung open. A man reached in and pulled at María’s arms. She struggled but he was too strong for her and yanked her out of her seat. They stood on the tarmac almost nose to nose while he screamed something at her that I couldn’t hear over the engine. She wriggled her arms free and slapped him in the face. Big mistake. He shook his head angrily and punched her hard in the stomach. She doubled over, and I couldn’t see her anymore. I felt a tremendous surge of anger and he looked at me as if sensing it.
In seconds he was inside the plane. Without thinking, I swung my whole upper body around to my right, my left arm following like a slingshot. My fist connected perfectly with his chin and a shaft of pain shot up from my knuckles to my shoulder. But it did the trick. The man slumped in the seat, stunned. Behind him, María was on her feet again. She hauled the guy out of the seat, dumped his limp body on the ground, and climbed back in.
I gave her a Bose headset to match my own.
“Bautista,” she screamed into it. Her brother.
I nodded, released the parking brake, and backtracked to the end of the runway. After a final scan of the sky to make sure it was empty I increased the throttle and the Cessna quickly picked up speed. My eyes dashed back and forth between the airspeed indicator, watching it climb toward the magic number, and the far end of the runway as it came closer and closer.
As we approached the hanger again María’s assailant Bautista reappeared and ran out in front of the plane, blocking our way. I had maybe two seconds to decide what to do – keep going and kill him or swerve to the side, wreck the plane and maybe kill ourselves.
María decided for me. She reached over, grabbed the steering column tightly and even began pulling it back. I screamed out a “No!” and wrenched her hand away. By now we were past Bautista and, thankfully, I hadn’t felt an impact thump. I pushed forward on the yoke to keep the nose on the ground. The Cessna speeded up even more and the airspeed hit optimum. I glanced quickly sideways to make sure that María was behaving herself and pulled back on the yoke. After a breathless moment the plane’s wheels suddenly went silent. The runway disappeared beneath us. We were safely in the air.
As the plane lifted I looked out the side window and spotted Bautista. Still on the runway, he staggered to his feet, looked up and shook his fist. He seemed to be staring straight at me.
I veered sharply to the right to avoid the slopes ahead, climbed to eight thousand feet, set the GPS and glanced at my watch. Eighteen minutes past twelve noon. With a tailwind between twenty to sixty knots and a journey of about a hundred and thirty nautical miles, we had a flight time of no more than a couple of hours ahead of us.
Assuming everything went well over the Andes. I tried not to think about the challenge coming up.