andyjohnston

Before leaving LAX, I had made sure we had a full tank of gas, and we had used about a third of that getting to the little house. Now the amount in the tanks was dropping steadily. Heading back, I set the highest altitude I could, so that if (when) we ran out of fuel, we'd have the longest possible glide distance. I kept my eyes outside for the telltale signs of a runway, until finally it happened. The engine sputtered a few times, then quit. There was a field ahead of us, but there was no way we were going to reach it. I looked for a closer runway we could land on, none made itself evident. We were getting closer and closer to the ground. LA has a whole series of highways that run all over, and the was one not far from us, so I adjusted for a steeper descent and levelled out above it to lose a little speed. The road had looked straight from above, but as we got down, we could see it winded a little, and there were a lot of cars on it. We had no choice, we were committed now since there was nothing else we could do. Huey ducked his head down and braced as best he could.

I said with the logo, but I meant without it.

I have a different one, with their logo, and Eddie's head on the tail.

Thanks, I always appreciate any feedback :)

Definitely not what we were hoping for! While we were huddled next to the house, it had started drizzling again, and I hadn't even noticed until I was running back to the plain when it started coming down harder. I stumbled along the road and I figured it wouldn't be long until I fell and smacked myself pretty good. Somehow I made it back to the plane and heaved myself into the pilot's seat. I flipped a few switches and turned the starter, the propeller came to life in front of me. I pushed hard on the left rudder pedal and gave it a bit of power. The plane started to swing around and I looked for Huey. He wasn't back yet, and I wondered if I should leave without him. Here's the thing. I'm a bit of a grump. I hate to admit it, but it's true. But I liked Huey, he was a good guy. I wasn't going anywhere and leaving him behind. I pulled the throttle back and the plane slowed. Just as I was about to hit the brakes, he pulled the right side door open and crawled partway in. Good enough, I jammed the throttle all the way forward. The ground was a mess and it wasn't easy to pick up speed, but eventually we did and the tail lifted. I looked out the window and there were three people on dirt bikes similar to the one I'd seen before and they were headed our way, guns held high in the hands of the riders. A shot rang out and I flinched. Then another, and a few more. I pulled the yoke towards me as far as I could and we lifted off. Huey cried out and as I glanced over, there was a look of terror in his eyes. I banked the plane hard to the left, and as I held it like that with one hand, I used my free one to reach over and help pull him in. We were safe, or so I thought. A minute or two later I smelled gasoline. One of those bullets had hit us. I hoped we would be okay for a little while. This wasn't my plane, and I would have some 'splaining to do...

I hope everyone's enjoying! Any feedback?

They say the best laid plans can still go astray. We didn't have any plan, let alone a good one. By the time we got there, the rain had stopped and the sky had mostly cleared. We circled the house and took in the lay of the land. The house was surrounded by fields with a dirt road running past the front. I set us up to make a steep descent but I didn't time it right and had to lose some speed, then landed on the road. Trying to get into position, I ended up flying right past the house. So much for stealth. The road was still a little messy as we jumped out and kept our heads down as we ran back to the house. Huey and I crouched low by one window as we tried to peer in. There was a good film of grime on the glass making it hard to see, and I ducked back down. Huey kept trying to look in, and that's when we heard a voice behind us. "Hey!" I didn't stop to look, instead I was running as quick as I could, and it was only when I heard a roar that I glanced back. There was someone dressed in jeans and a white shirt on a reddish dirt bike, and he was headed my way. I'd lost sight of Huey, but headed in the direction of the plane. A gun shot rang out and I ducked my head down.

Huey and I were back in the air shortly after, on a 787 bound for LAX. There was a steady drizzle coming down by the time we arrived, and we could hear it beating down on the jetway as we got off the plane. We wandered into the terminal, stopping for pizza at Sammy's. I pulled out my phone and scrolled through the contacts until I found one I knew was local. It had been a few years since I had talked to Jimmy, I hoped he would remember me; I didn't have to worry. "Well I'll be darned," came the answer. "Of all the people I wasn't expecting to hear from today." "Hey Jimmy, how's tricks?" I said. We exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes before I finally got to the reason for calling him. "Jimmy, I need to use a plane, and I'm wondering if you still have yours?" "I do," he said. "Are you in town?" "Yeah." Jimmy laughed, "Well come by and see me." With that he told me where his plane was parked. I thanked him and we headed outside. The rain had picked up and was coming down steadily as we ducked under the wings for cover before clambering inside. It started pretty quickly, and I taxied us out to the runway, before giving it full power. Pretty soon we were airborne and I headed in the direction we had gotten. What was my plan? To be honest I wasn't quite sure. But the map had shown us there were a lot of fields in the area, and I was hoping we could put down in one and have a look around. Thinking back, it wasn't exactly the brightest of ideas, but you know what they say about hindsight.

The j Edgar Hoover Building in Washington DC is home to the headquarters of the FBI. Just a few blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, you can actually arrange tours, but you have to give them a lot of notice, like booking a month in advance. Huey and I caught a taxi at the front door of the airport, along the very imaginatively named Smith Blvd. We crossed the Potomac River along the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge, and then followed Constitution Avenue, making a quick turn in front of the art gallery. The weather had really turned bad, and it was raining steadily. When the car pulled up to the curb, we had to dash for the door to avoid getting soaked, and we were both still pretty wet. Though you are allowed to tour the place, they'd be a little upset with me if I was to go into detail about how everything looked, but we met Ryan in the lobby and he brought us through security, who made me leave my personal phone in exchange for an ID badge that identified me as a visitor who had to be escorted. We went to the elevator and Ryan pressed the button for his floor as Huey explained his situation; he stayed remarkably on topic the whole time. Unlike in tv shows were they can have an entire conversation during an elevator ride, Huey continued to explain while we walked down the hall to the lab where Ryan worked. "Well then," Ryan said, "let's see what we're working with." Huey handed him his phone, which he had eventually been allowed to bring because of the relevance to what we were doing, and Ryan plugged it into his computer. I'm no slouch when it comes to computers, but pretty soon Ryan was bringing up screens I had never seen before, filled with tables of information. "Mm-hmm, uh-huh," he seemed to know exactly what it all meant. Then he brought up another screen and typed in a web address which took him to a very obscure site. If I remember correctly, it was called Google...or something like that. Yes, sarcasm implied. From there he was off looking at this and that, before he finally plugged in some of the information from the phone. "There you go," he said. "The call came from an address in California." With that he brought up a map of the area and zoomed in until we could see the front of the little white house. He scribbled down the address on a scrap of paper. "Go there, that may help you find what you're looking for."

You would think eventually he'd run out of steam, but Huey goes on and on endlessly. We flew in a small plane from Courchevel to Paris and he yammered. Then we flew all the way to New York, and he never stopped except to catch his breath. I was relieved to have the night to myself, but in my dreams Huey was carrying on. That morning, as we wandered down the gate to a flight destined for Denver, he actually said something important. I had to stop myself and get him to back up. "The ransom call came in on my cell," he repeated. He was about to start talking again when I interrupted. "Then you must have the number it came from?" Huey shook his head. "No, it was blocked." "Well we can do something about that!" I said. I turned and hurried back along the gate, Huey had to rush to keep up. I went straight to the counter to refund our tickets. The woman working there looked at us with raised eyebrows, and asked why we were refunding tickets when we could just board the flight. At first she didn't seem to want to accept we've changed our minds as a reason, but she relented when it became obvious she wasn't going to get any more out of us. I led Huey through the airport and we stopped in the little building where they would let us rent a plane. I got us a little 172 and we made the long taxi out to runway 4L for takeoff. It wasn't until we were a good way along the taxiway that I noticed something, Huey hadn't uttered a peep in a good while. We took off and turned to a south-westerly direction. It took a little while in that plane, but we eventually found our way to Washington, and landed at Reagan National. I've worked a lot of jobs over the years, you may have even read about one or two (or more) and I've made a few connections. We parked and I had my phone out. Ryan answered immediately. "Of all the people I wasn't expecting to hear from today." "Yeah," I said, "I'm in town and I need to make use of your expertise. Do you mind?" "Not at all," Ryan said. "Why don't you come to the building and I'll meet you downstairs." "You're a lifesaver, thanks." There was a line of taxis waiting in front of the airport's main door, and Huey and I hopped into the first one.

The plane was pretty small, but I was glad it had an autopilot so I didn't have to concentrate on holding it steady. The takeoff from Courchevel is always a little hairy, since you don't know until the last seconds whether you'll get off in time, but we did and set a course for Paris. Our flight made one thing painfully obvious: Huey talks too much. He goes on and on about anything and everything, and his accent makes it hard to understand what he's saying. After a while I found myself leting him drone while I only caught the occasional word. I was half tempted to close my eyes, but evfen with the plane on auto that would still be a bad idea. We got to Paris shortly after dark and immediately bought tickets for the first flight we could find that would get us across the ocean. The destination was JFK in New York, and we landed shortly before daybreak. Huey bought us breakfast at some little diner down the block from the airport, and we were back in time to catch or next flight, off to somewhere out west.

"I got a call asking for a ransom," he said. "A ransom?" Huey nodded at me. "I don't have money." "Tell me what you do," I said. "Why would they choose you?" "Like I said, I think they have me confused with someone else," Huey said. "I work for the government, I just do websites and stuff. They want five million dollars." "Then we have to do something about it. Come on." I led Huey to the front desk of the inn where I was staying, and left a note for the Filipino businessmen to say I'd been called away on an urgent matter. Then Huey and I hurried to the parking area where we climbed into the Bonanza I had rented, and set course for Paris.

This post is 5 years old.

Thx

I've said before, I'm a terrible sleeper, in fact you'd have to try real hard to find someone worse. Just the same, I was a little tired. But I was also hungry, and I knew that I wouldn't be able to rest unless I had a little to eat. So I motioned for him to follow as I led the way to a nearby café. We sat at a table in one corner and waited for the server. She had a hard time understanding him, but my French is good enough that I was able to order. As she left, I turned to him. "So, what's this all about?" He clasped his hands and leaned forward, then sat back, then he leaned forward again. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. "Today," I thought. Finally, he spoke. "My name is Huey," he began. "Thanks for taking the time to talk to me. Let me explain. I've got some people who are after me, and they've taken my family. My wife and my son. His name is Christopher and he's very sick. He's got..." Between his heavy accent and the fact that I'd never heard over the condition, I had no idea what he said. So I just sat there nodding like an idiot. "Why you?" "They think I'm important, but I'm not. I'm just a simple person. I guess they have me confused with someone else."

Sure is!

It's Russian (you have to say it with the voice of the guy in the movie 2012 where this plane was featured)

In the old days, the Multiplayer Adventures group would fly to the city where there was a course, the change to Tiger Woods or something and play golf in multiplayer :)

A thought occurred to me this evening, how many others are here who have been around a long time? Nels obviously. But I've been here long enough I remember before the site had the current software, probably started around 1997/1998ish. Who else?

At first I had no idea who they were. I had just finished a job flying a fairly new Beechcraft from the factory to the new owner in France, and was quite literally on my way to the airport to head home when my phone rang. The voice on the other end had explained to me that they were three business men from the Philippines who were on a corporate retreat in Barcelona. They were sneaking away and wanted a pilot who could take them on a trip. Did you know they spoke English there? It was a surprise to me. Sure, I had agreed and they said they'd meet me in Paris. Talk about lucky, it just meant I'd have to relax. How terrible. Not so lucky after all, they wanted to see the famous ski area at Courchevel. Alright, not my favourite place to land, but even I had to admit it was pretty. So we rented a plane and made the long trip there. Sounds pretty normal so far doesn't it? It was at the end of the second day, after I had finished eating I was on my way back to my room. I wouldn't call the place a hotel, more like an inn. As I passed along the row of rooms, there was someone standing against the wall ahead of me. I didn't pay him any attention until I got close and he stepped in front of me. He was shorter than myself, and I'm not exactly tall to begin with, an Asian man with a frock of black hair. I stepped to the left to go around him, and he moved in the same direction, blocking me. So I tried the other way and he did the same. I was a little tired and not in the mood to fool around. That's when he spoke. "Please, I need your help." His accent was thick, so much so that understanding him wasn't easy. "I think you have the wrong person," I said, pushing past him with a lot more force than I was using before. He grabbed my arm. "No," he said. "I know who you are, and I know you will help me."

Thanks everyone, I always appreciate any feedback! :)

Well, that didn't go as planned. I stumbled back to the plane. It was still raining pretty heavy turning the ground to mud; I had trouble staying on my feet and expected to land on my face any second. But then I was next to the tail and I grabbed it with one hand to keep me upright. I kept one hand on the metal skin of the aircraft as I got to the door and pulled it open before flopping in. It took only a few seconds to get the engine running, then I stomped on the left pedal while pushing the throttle bit. The plane started to turn, but Huey wasn't back yet. I couldn't leave without him...could I? As if to answer my unspoken question, he pulled the door open and tried to climb in. His legs were still dangling out. Good enough, I thought, and jammed the throttle all the way forward. Acceleration was slow because of the mud but eventually we picked up speed and the tail of the plane came up. As it did, I glanced out the back. There were two...no three people on motorcycles chasing after us, and the trees at the end of the field were getting close. I pulled back on the yoke, and we lifted up with no room to spare. Huey cried out and I banked the plane hard to the left, reaching over with one hand to help pull him in. He was safe, but I could smell gasoline. One of those bullets had hit us, and we'd be in trouble sooner or later! But I guess I should start at the beginning.

Thx all! :)

I figured everyone would :) I'm in Ottawa, if there's hail, you can keep it ;)