Homeward Bound

Homeward bound

I wish I was

Homeward bound

Home, where my thought’s escaping

Home, where my music’s playing

Home ,where my love lies waiting

Silently for me

-Paul Simon

Today around 3:30 the court granted my motion to appear remotely on the 10th. So I get to go home.

And it is home, isn't it? I look around and our posse here in PC has grown rather small. I would've gone to the yacht club tonight for supper and socializing, but I've done that several times before and found myself adrift and even more depressed than my set point among all these young folks with their kids who don't know the way-out old bald guy slurping up his bisque and nodding approvingly as someone guesses correctly with a trivia game answer in a contest designed to appeal to someone born after1980. I'm old news, with zero to offer there.

But I do get to see one of my dearest friends in the morning for coffee before I fly back to NY. That's the thing, isn't it? I was here last week to help a lawyer I love like an eccentric brother on a fee hearing, then to lunch where we almost cried over the recollection of those years of our kids growing up together, my recollection of his excitement when REM's Monster came out ("What's the Frequency Kenneth"? IYKNK). All this life together. One joins the Rotary up there without any of that, the sweet detritus of a life lived as we've lived it.

I know what you're wondering, with all that ADHD and all--what do I know about why that MD-11 crashed up in Louisville?

Foundationally, I should start by observing that one of my oldest Eagle buddies is an instructor pilot for FedEx in the MD-11, and observed long ago that it's a hard airplane to fly. That doesn't explain this, however. The thing's pretty overpowered, and even with a full load of fuel a simple engine failure shouldn't have caused all that. So what happened?

Well, this afternoon's update says they "lost" an engine not only in the sense that it failed, but it basically fell off and was lying on the runway. This is, well, bad. The longtime airline guys seem to thing it was FOD (foreign objects/debris, or foreign object damage, depending on whom you ask), which means metal bits or rocks or whatever went down the intake, snapped off a few turbine blades, and caused that carefully balanced thing to shake itself apart. We flew with fans in the Eagle, and always knew that unlike the turbojets in the F-4, which could absorb some solid bits and fart them out the back without killing the engine, we'd have real trouble on takeoff if that delicate thing inside the intake had to ingest something solid. Apparently this is part of the narrative here.

But they're not dead yet at that point. Engine failure is just a thing--if you have room to stop, stop. If you don't, take off with what you have, which should be enough to get you far enough off the ground to evaluate the problem and come up with a plan.

Why didn't that happen here?

The smart money is on that FOD thing again. The MD-11 has three engines: one on each wing, and one inserted in the vertical stabilizer. Any two will get you airborne and on your way.

Here, I'm being told that the flying pieces of flaming junk when the port engine failed probably bounced up into the intake of the aft engine, causing it to fail and throw itself apart. Once that happens, you're down to one engine, not enough to drag that very heavy airplane into the air. Too fast to stop, too slow the get airborne. They got maybe 200 feet into the air, climbed a little out of ground effect, and stalled. The next thing, as we used to say, was a bright light and the face of Jesus. What a way to go. At least burning up in 38,000 gallons of jet fuel is probably pretty painless.

This hasn't made me feel any better somehow. Tomorrow I'll enjoy some coffee and fellowship with a dear friend, fly incident free (inshallah) across half the country, then back to the very good thing with Peggy. I worry that I'm not all that and a bag of chips anymore, feeling old and tired and a little sad at the moment, but she hasn't called the code yet so I guess it's okay.

A pretty night here. If Peg could travel with me I'd probably feel differently about this lovely spot.