Prelude to Afghanistan: The Ontogenesis of an Airline Pilot

© 2013 by John G. Bigelow. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 02/21/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4817-0940-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-0939-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-0938-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013901152

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To the lovely Lady Norah:

I finally got you…

To ‘Bear’ and ‘Hozer’:

Who are carrying on the tradition.

Contents

Picture Acknowledgments

Foreword By Robert Gandt

Preface

Introduction

Part One Prelude

1 Escape

2 Nevada

3 Idaho

4 Utah

5 New York

6 Wyoming

7 Georgia

8 Vancouver

9 Interlude

10 California

11 The Pacific

12 Wake Island

Part Two Afghanistan

13 Misunderstanding

14 A Look Back

15 The Assignment

16 The Middle East

17 Arrival

18 Can Of Worms

19 Khalil Amiri

20 Captain Morgan

21 The Accident

22 Aftermath

23 Postmortem

24 Fall From Grace

25 Catchaloo, The Cadillac, And The Prince

26 Care-Medico

27 Flies

28 Emmett

29 The Bsa 650 Twin

30 Khalil Amiri

31 Ferry Flight

32 Night In The Everglades

33 Flight To Bamiyan

Epilogue

PICTURE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

FOREWORD

BY ROBERT GANDT

First, a disclaimer. For something beyond thirty years I’ve been privy to these stories. Or, more correctly, I’ve been privy to variations of these stories. I heard most of them in Berlin, back when the city was at ground zero in the Cold War and our company, Pan Am, was the most glamorous airline in the world. I was a new captain and John Bigelow was the chief pilot. The stories were rendered in the time-honored way: libations in hand, in the company of fellow airmen, past adventures relived via the medium of words.

Such storytelling, it should be explained, comes naturally to a certain breed of airman. There is something in these pilots’ chemistry that inspires them to cobble together stories from the random circumstances of their flying lives. A number of them are even compelled to set down written versions of their tales. For the most part, these tend to be tedious, bloated with long passages beginning with I.

Not so this book. In this novelized memoir, Bigelow has neatly sidestepped the personal pronoun by creating a stand-in protagonist (who bears a remarkable likeness to Bigelow), sending him on a series of adventures across the backwaters of the aviation world. That these adventures happen to be true (more or less) makes them all the more compelling.

Had John Bigelow lived in the Pleistocene era instead of the machine age, he would be one of those storytellers keeping his fellow cavemen spellbound around the campfire. He would be performing the historian’s traditional duty of capturing not only the happenings of his day but also preserving for his audience the nuances and impressions that gave meaning to their lives. He would be an entertainer.

Prepare to be entertained. Though it may first appear that the author has given us a book of flying tales, you’ll soon glimpse an underlying theme. This book is a journey of exploration, not just of distant airfields and exotic locales, but of the human condition. It is peopled with characters whose decorum ranges from outrageous to sublime to gravity-defying. Love them or hate them, you won’t soon forget them.

The book may also serve as a cautionary tale for readers interested in an airline career. The traditional career arc goes something like this: finish college, enter formal flight training in the military or one of the commercial flight academies, find a bottom-rung slot on a commuter airline, vault to the roster of a major carrier. Choose your carrier wisely, ascend the seniority ladder, and in the fullness of time your uniform sleeve will have four stripes.

Which bears no resemblance to this story. In fact, a warning should be affixed to the book’s cover: Aspiring pilots, do not even think of emulating the career of Clay Hutchinson (Bigelow’s fictional stand-in). Hutchinson’s chances of making it from the wreckage of a crop duster in Idaho to the chief pilot’s job at an international airline have approximately the same odds as those of a meteoroid striking Boise.

So you’ve been briefed. Strap in and brace yourself. Prepare to laugh, frown, ruminate, shake your head. You’re in for a great ride.

Robert Gandt is the author of seven books of military and aviation history, six novels, and the television series Pensacola: Wings of Gold. His books include Skygods: The Fall of Pan Am and The Twilight Warriors, winner of the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize for Literature. He may be reached at www.Gandt.com.

PREFACE

Although a work of fiction, most of the events described herein are heavily dependent on fact.

All references to Pan Am and its people are true. I am indebted to the Pan Am Historical Foundation, and, in particular, C. W. (Pete) Runnette, for permission to use references from its archives.

I am grateful to the National Geographic for permission to reprint extracts from Tom Abercrombie’s article of his vivid description of the game buzkashi—Afghanistan’s national pastime—in the September, 1968 issue of the magazine.

I am grateful to my long-time sailing and cruising friend, Heath Boyer, for his keen eye, reviewing so much of my raw data drafts, while we spent a pleasant winter on our boats in Barcelona, long after I’d quit flying.

But without the copyediting skills of Pia Gandt, who also served as my final arbiter in matters of style and syntax, this enterprise would have struggled to become airborne.

Thanks, Pia.

INTRODUCTION

For years now, friends have been gently persuading me to document the details of my extended love affair with flying—and get it all down before the drooling set in and I forgot it all.

Countless nights have been spent together, most of us well-oiled by Scotland’s favorite beverage, while I was encouraged to describe amusing, often incredible stories, fanning out over forty-four years as a pilot. (I do admit to occasional embellishment during those sessions.) And I’m reminded of a day long ago in a Dublin pub while a tale I was reconstructing was being regarded by one listener with skepticism. An elderly Irish lady, standing nearby, turned to my accuser and said, Darlin,’ the truth is so boring.

The time I spent trying to keep the ‘blue side up,’ is equivalent to 1,000 days, or nearly three years, in the air. As recorded in my log books: over 24,000 hours of flying time.

It began in the back seat of a Harvard WWII trainer, and ended in the cockpit of an Airbus A320. In between, I flew World War II cargo airplanes in the Arctic, crop-dusted and crashed in Idaho, flew whore-house charters to Nevada in a DC-3, DC-6’s and DC-7’s across the Pacific and Atlantic. I had a closet full of uniforms when, in 1966, I was hired by Pan Am—The World’s Most Experienced Airline. Twenty-three years later, the once-proud airline was on its knees. Fortune blessed me again, and I took up residence in southern France, employed as an instructor and test pilot with Airbus Industrie.

This is a fictional account of some of that journey—the central player, Clay Hutchinson. Other names have been changed and time frames altered to suit the circumstance.

What was nothing more than a collection of ‘war stories,’ became much more. We see Clay:

Confronting inauspicious beginnings and frequent, humbling failures. We see him crawling out of a dark hole, and setting off on a long trip, learning along the way how to become a better human being.

This is a recollection of an unfinished journey during which, Clay discovers Afghanistan.

And there, he grows up a little.

Not entirely.

Never entirely.

PART ONE

Prelude

"Mommy?"

"Yes, dear."

When I grow up, I want to be a pilot.

"I’m sorry son, but that’s not possible. You’ll have to choose one or the other."

-Anon.

1

Escape

1959

Back in 1959, when things were less complicated, Clay Hutchinson escaped from Canada and became what you might call a ‘northern wetback,’ entering the United States through Blaine, Washington. No tunnels or rivers for him. He drove in.

Seattle, Clay said from the window of his ’39 Plymouth. For the weekend. A little shopping, some good food.

In the back seat: his guitar, two small suitcases, a few LP records. Everything he owned.

Anything to declare? the immigration officer asked.

Nothing, he said.

The officer smiled. Enjoy your weekend.

Weekend, my ass, Clay thought. I’m here for the duration.

He was armed with five hundred dollars he’d borrowed from his Old Man, and one large diamond engagement ring given back to him in anger several weeks earlier. He was headed for Minden, Nevada—not Seattle. There, he’d arranged to learn how to become a crop-dusting pilot. The ring would help pay for the lessons.

His first stop was the FAA office at Boeing Field just outside Seattle. If he was going to make a living as a pilot in this new country of his, he needed a license. His Canadian license he intended to parlay into its U.S. equivalent. Unsure how this might be done, he was, nevertheless, confident that it could.

As it turned out, an obscure bilateral agreement between the two countries permitted the FAA to do just that. Four hours after crossing the border under false pretenses, he was legally licensed to fly. All he needed now was a medical certificate. He could get that later.

Flushed with success, Clay Hutchinson headed south to a new life and a new beginning.

But first, he had to find Minden.

2

Nevada

1959

Why Minden?

His buddy, Murray Cliff. That’s why.

Murray and he’d been in the Air Force about the same time. They became friends after their discharge, meeting at a wild party in Vancouver. Murray talked about crop-dusting and the pile of money to be made low-flying legally (a passion they both shared, and one that got Clay bounced out of the Air Force). After Vancouver, Murray took off for Nevada, and Clay didn’t hear from him for a while. Then a phone call in the middle of the night.

It’s Murray. Get your ass down here soon as you can. I’m in Minden, Nevada. At a school run by a couple of old farts who own a Stearman. School’s called the Minden Aviation Academy. They teach dusting and spraying. At the end of the course, you get a diploma. Then the doors open. We’ll be rolling in dough in no time.

Clay couldn’t sleep the rest of the night.

He’d been selling used cars and wasn’t very good at it. The only thing he’d learned was how to lie well. Always have an answer when a customer asks you something, said his boss, Darrell. "Never say you don’t know." He sold his first car following that advice.

How much does this Cadillac weigh? the prospect asked Clay. He had no idea.

Six thousand, four-hundred and eighty-two pounds, he answered. That is, with a full tank of gas.

Clay shared a small apartment in Vancouver with a cameraman for CBC television. His name was Hargrove. He was having trouble coming up with the rent, and he owed Hargrove his share of a large phone bill. Hargrove and he were barely speaking.

Six months earlier, Clay had broken up with Kate. Their relationship—once the envy of their friends—had been deteriorating. It had been a passionate affair, both of them desperately in love, yet too young and stupid to know what a good thing they had going. They needed to grow up, and neither of them could deal with the demands of the commitment. Lingering grievances festered like open sores. In the end, it was Kate who called it off. She returned the ring and soon after, moved to Ottawa, the other end of the country.

At first, Clay was on his knees with remorse. Over time, he began to get over it (or so he thought), and even made a pathetic attempt at reconciliation with his ex-wife. He began to go out again, and discovered—quite by accident—that wearing your heart on your sleeve was a one-minute recipe for disaster. As extraordinary as it appeared, disdain and disinterest for those of the opposite sex made you more desirable. It was a theory, Clay thought, worthy of a name.

The office party, an indecorous affair to honor the salesman of the month, brought in a variety of talent—mostly neighborhood working girls attracted to the free booze and a chance to meet someone new. For the most part, the collection was—to put it kindly—unremarkable. But then Dorothea walked in, and she was a knockout. She’d been dragged to this gathering by a groupie friend with wide shoulders and heavy breasts who was impressed with the fact that, as salesmen, they were all given new cars to drive.

Dorothea’s entrance was electrifying. High-cheeked, sloe-eyed, perfectly proportioned, she radiated an earthy Teutonic glow that attracted wide-eyed stares from every man in the room. Panting and drooling, they clustered around her like hyenas over a fresh kill. Clay watched all this from a distance but wasn’t kidding himself. No less captivated, he had fallen instantly in lust.

Dorothea kept the hyenas at bay but, soon enough, became bored. As she and her friend were leaving, Clay decided he had to make his move.

Not on Dorothea, but on her friend.

With his most disarming smile, Clay walked over to her and said, Hi. I see you’re leaving the zoo. If you need a ride, I’d be glad to drive you home. My car’s outside. Her friend rose to the bait, smiling, but explaining that Dorothea was with her, and would he mind giving her a ride too. Not a problem, he said. Dorothea looked suspicious. But Clay was charming; he was casual. And he was… cool. Leading them through the crowd and out to the car, Clay could not contain a sardonic grin. What a bunch of assholes, he thought.

Clay would admit it was luck. He was able to drop her broad-shouldered friend off first. Then they were alone. Dorothea and he made small talk on the way to her place. He learned she was from Bremerhaven, worked for a prestigious modeling agency, and had just turned nineteen. He had the impulse to tear her clothes off with his teeth. Instead, he walked her to her apartment door and shook her hand, saying how pleased he was to have met her and how he hoped they might meet again. Smiling, he gave her his card, turned, and walked away; the seed planted.

Two days later, Dorothea called him at work. Two weeks after that, they were engaged. With the ring. Kate’s ring.

Clay would confess to being disingenuous. But it was the only way he could get this lovely young lady to bed. He was ready to sell his soul, promise anything. And while it lasted, he’d been transported.

Now, Murray had called. What to do? He needed the ring back if he was going to pay for crop dusting lessons. This would be tough. How to break it to Dorothea?

That night they drove over the Lions Gate Bridge and checked into a cheap motel in West Vancouver and he told her he loved her but he needed the ring back so he could sell it and pay for flying lessons. She started to cry but said she understood and they made love. Afterwards he swore he’d come back to get her but, of course, he never did.

How easy it is to say ‘I love you.’ Such a simple phrase. And he always meant it… at least at the time.

Highway 99—later to become Interstate 5—begins at the Canadian border at Blaine and ends at Tijuana. For the most part, it is four-lane except through the mountain passes of Oregon and California. Clay stayed in the slow lane, easing the old Plymouth up to a respectable fifty miles an hour. From time to time, she burped and farted, but otherwise behaved herself. He made it to Portland that first night before pulling over at a truck stop south of town where he climbed into the back seat to grab a few hours’ sleep. The next morning, in the truck-stop diner, he washed up, ate a huge breakfast, and was on the road again by sun-up. It was a beautiful May morning, not a cloud in the sky. He’d get about fourteen hours of daylight, and figured about 400 miles of driving a day. He had no radio in the car, but amused himself with the Burma-Shave signs flashing by sequentially, and he read them out loud, laughing at the jingles. Billboards intruded on the landscape, advertising beer, bourbon, and bread he’d never heard of. He was already addicted to American cigarettes, and was familiar with the LS MFT (Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco) ads. He pulled a Lucky out of his shirt pocket and fired it up. It tasted just fine—the way the ad said it would. And the pack cost twenty-five cents—half that of a pack in Canada.

It was getting dark when Clay stopped in Grant’s Pass near the California/Oregon border for the second night. He was about half way to Minden. In need of sleep, he blew some money on a motel room and died for eight hours. Clay fell asleep thinking of Dorothea, but her image was already beginning to fade.

The next morning, Clay began the long haul to Sacramento. Another beautiful day, lots of time to consider where he was in his life, and why. He made a mental list which, on paper, would have looked something like this:

1) At fifteen, expelled during his final year at a military boy’s school for being rebellious and incorrigible.

2) At sixteen, an abortive year at college, during which he discovered girls, learned to play pool, and drink beer.

3) At seventeen, learned to fly in the RCAF, only to be court-martialed and discharged a year later for a low-flying incident days after graduating.

4) At nineteen, married, much against his parents’ wishes, to a girl he got pregnant. He was removed from his grandfather’s will and, for all purposes, disowned by his parents.

5) At twenty, lying about his age, he joined a major airline as pilot—Canadian Pacific Airlines—but failed his probationary year.

6) At twenty-one, he joined a second airline, Pacific Western Airlines. He met Kate working for the same airline. He began divorce proceedings.

7) At twenty-two, he left Pacific Western to join a third airline, Canada’s flag carrier, Trans-Canada Airlines. Not yet divorced, he and Kate became engaged, much to her father’s dismay. Then an indiscretion on her part left him on his knees, but he was unable to let her go. He visited the company doctor, thinking he would help him. He asked if he could be taken off flight, and given a short leave to get his head back together. Instead, the doctor shared his call for help with the Chief Medical Officer of the Department of Transport. His medical certificate was revoked, and again unemployed, Clay was now permanently unfit to fly.

8) At twenty-three, now divorced, he broke up with Kate. He began work as a taxi driver, then as a used car salesman.

Clay had been riding on a wave of failures. What he needed was a win.

Then Murray called.

Clay left Highway 99 just west of Sacramento. He decided to bypass Reno and Lake Tahoe to the south and found a secondary road, SR 50, which took him over the Sierras and led him directly to Minden. It was now getting dark, and tired after an all-day drive, he checked into another motel. Tomorrow, the last leg; an easy 200 mile drive. It occurred to him that he’d never before been in California, never before seen an orange or a palm tree.

Across the road from the motel, a sign in front of the restaurant advertised Mexican food.

The second cold beer loosened Clay up enough to ask the waitress, amused by his ignorance, what a tortilla was. For the first time but not the last, he was told he ‘talked funny,’ and was asked, Hey, where ya from anyway? The ‘oots’ and ‘aboots’ were a dead giveaway. He might as well have had CANADA tattooed on his forehead. He began practicing how to say ‘hunh’ under his breath, ‘rat’ instead of ‘right.’

After a tremendous meal of chili rellenos, refritos, and guacamole, Clay returned, bloated, to his motel room, and lay down on the bed to watch television. This required sliding a quarter into a coin box slot at the back of the set, giving him an hour’s viewing time. Highway Patrol was on, starring Broderick Crawford, and he picked up another bit of California jargon, Ten Four, as the hard-bitten Chief barked a command and acknowledgment into the microphone of his police-car radio.

Everything was so new: language, customs, food, terrain, vegetation. California, someone had said. The land of fruits and nuts. He fitted right in. This was heady stuff for a newcomer, a northern wetback well into the third day of life in his new country. Clay knew he was going to like it here.

The next morning, he headed east, up into the Sierra Nevada, passing through towns with names like Chico and Placerville. The road, at its summit, took him south of Lake Tahoe before it curled down again in a series of switchbacks that led to the valley below him. He was now in Nevada.

Late in the afternoon, Clay pulled into Minden. The Minden Inn, the only hotel in town, sat on the main drag. It was the only two-story building around and easy enough to find. Murray’s British-racing-green MG-TF convertible—the only car there—was parked outside the entrance. He pulled up behind the MG, here at last, but not believing it.

Walking into the Minden Inn, the first thing he saw was a small reception desk, boxes for keys and mail behind the counter. There was a small pre-war switchboard off to one side. The restaurant lay off the lobby to the left, and the entrance to the bar and casino to the right. Tired, light-tan linoleum covered the floor. Several faded Charlie Russell prints in plastic frames on the lobby walls. Underneath, two cracked leather settees, an over-stuffed chair, one ashtray on a stand, and a cuspidor. There was a well-used, comfortable look to the place.

Howdy, the old man behind the desk said. Name’s Clive. Welcome to Minden. Ya must be Murray’s friend. He’s waitin fer ya in the bar. Go on in. Leave your bags here. I’ll check ya in later. Ain’t nobody here in the hotel ’ceptin you two.

Clay walked into the bar and casino. A stained, cigarette-burned carpet covered the floor. Off to the left, along a wall, the ten-stool bar. In the middle, a solitary blackjack table. On the opposite wall, four slots—a nickel, a dime, a quarter… and one dollar machine for high rollers. A girl stood wiping glasses behind the bar. She smiled at him as he entered. Keely Smith’s voice radiated out of the juke box: "I’ve Got You under my Skin . . ."

Clive was wrong; he couldn’t see Murray anywhere. The place was empty. The girl giggled and said, If you’re looking for your friend, he’s here behind the blackjack table. On the floor.

Clay walked over and stared down at him. Murray. What the fuck you doing? Are you dead? Drunk? Is this any way to greet an old friend?

Murray had a hand clutched around a long-neck Budweiser. He opened his eyes. He put his right index finger to his lips. Keely, he said. Please. I’m in love with her. Let her finish the song. When it’s over, I’ll get up.

Later, hunched over the bar, drinking Jim Beam and ginger, they did a lot of catching up. Murray was half way through the flying program. He would take Clay out to the airport in the morning to meet Dago Prinzelli and Chuck McBride, owners of the Minden Aviation Academy. He would love flying the Stearman, Murray said. A ground-looping son-of-a-bitch, tricky as the T-6 (the aircraft they’d both learned to fly in), but a lot simpler.

They wandered over to the blackjack table where they could drink for nothing while they played. In spite of dealer Molly’s help, Clay was down twenty dollars in less than an hour. It was an expensive lesson. Flushed with failure, he staggered over to the nickel slot machine, recovering his losses by hitting the jackpot on the second pull. He bought the next round of drinks. Eventually, they closed the bar, the plan being to rendezvous in the morning and get on with it. Molly, who, according to Murray, was a ringer for Keely Smith, disappeared up the stairs with him, and Clay went to bed alone thinking how marvelous it was to be there.

First thing in the morning, they drove out to the airport in the MG. Off in a corner of the field sat an old hanger, its doors wide open. Above the doors, a faded sign advertised the Minden Aviation Academy. Inside, in the shadows, Clay made out the shape of a yellow airplane—an open-cockpit biplane with a large, uncowled engine. Famous as the Army Air Corps primary trainer during the war, it was the Stearman. Murray pulled the MG into the hanger out of the hot morning sun. They walked over to the Stearman. Someone was