Finding the way

September 24, 2006

Sometimes desperate measures must be taken to stay awake and alert.

Crossing the Atlantic isn’t an easy task, I've learned. Navigation is checked, double checked and checked again. The view at cruising level is all clouds, not that it would be much better below, churning over the vast blue blanket of the Atlantic.

The crew on a C-130 will chatter about everything.

I slid on my headset just in time to hear Capt. Steve Hreczkosij, who was piloting the plane at the time, say that Prime Meridian would be a great name for a super hero.

Brace yourself, we're about to dive into navigator heaven. It's a place I'm sure is wallpapered with navigational charts and filled with desks for calculations and timelines and decorated with clocks and dials.

Navigator Lt. Justin Ballard gave an estimated time of arrival for the Prime Meridian a while ago, something that is apparently never done.

The Prime Meridian is an invisible line that runs from the North Pole to the South Pole, cutting through England, from which the globe's time zones are calculated.

When Ballard told his ETA for the Prime Meridian, everyone started laughing. Fellow navigator Maj. Paul Wilson piped up and said the Prime Meridian should be a sandwich.

Next thing you know there are jokes about the Prime Meridian Steak House.

Finally, somewhere over Holland, Hreczkosij said, "Doesn't Prime Meridian sound like a super hero?"
The crew decided that Prime Meridian Man would be the guy who helps wayward travelers everywhere.

He'd have a line down his middle and wear a big watch around his neck.

"He has better bling than other superheroes," Wilson said.

Hours later, as Lt. Will Pahn, another navigator, shook his head in his hands as if to say, "Enough!" The navigational superhero discussion hit a new low.

Equator Man and Date Line Man had also been invented.

Sometimes a flight is just too long, I suppose.

And staying alert takes laughter.

Posted by editor at September 24, 2006 06:39 PM