Next Stop Panama

The picture of I took of Lou on the dance floor the night before. He is the one with his hands up down in front on the right with the girls.




We find Abby where we left her. Everyone is gone... no guard, no one. Apparently Bear had moved on and took his men with him. But this is okay because our cargo behind the semi-secret hatch is still there. I take a little inventory while Lou checks on Naomi. She fit nicely in the hanger behind us. Lou had the men that were here last night gas her up. Both Abby and the new girl are ready to fly.

Speaking of girls, they stayed all night with us after we left the clubs around two in the morning. Lou tried to find a way to give them a little something without making them out to be whores or something. They knew that wasn't what he meant, but told him that they were with us because we needed to have a good time. I'm sure that was how Bear put it to them. They wouldn't think of taking money for our night out. It would put them in the wrong social class... and these girls were all about class.

We work together, inspecting both aircraft with tired eyes. Didn't get much in the way of sleep last night, but what we did get was quality. I am hoping for a little miracle from the little bag of tricks I got from the waitress last night. While I am thinking about it I split up the capsules from the bag and give half to Lou. He pockets them and we move on.

After topping off Abby's oil tanks we turn to Naomi and start on her. She is small and accessible.
We make quick work of our inspection and then check her reserviors. The only issue with Naomi will be her range. I estimate her to have half the range of Abby, about a thousand miles. Planning around that for the first few legs will give us some margin for error.

"There is an old Army airstrip just outside Panama City I have landed at before. It's on Jerry's charts. I think you can make it there without much chance of using up all your fuel."
Lou grabs his chin with his left thumb and forefinger and nods. "We can fly the beach most of the way just in case there's trouble with her."
"Now you're thinking. We run the chance of Federales working with American DEA, but it is a slim chance as long as run the coast and aren't crossing over it to open sea. We can keep low until we get out of the populated areas."
"What about the radio?"
"Well, let's give it a shot." I turn on the radio and select a frequency in the upper bandwith and slip on the headset. "Radio check... " I repeat my request several times.
"Is it broken? No one coming back?" Lou looks worried.
"No, that's good. I would rather it just be you and me on this thing."
I strip off the headset and hand it to him, then head over to Abby and climb in. I select the same frequency and key the microphone. "Radio check?"
Lou gives me a thumbs up. I key up again, "We'll use this setting until it gets busy."

After a lengthy going over in Naomi's cockpit, making sure Lou feels comfortable, I offer to go on a few more touch and goes with him.
"I think I can do it. I never mentioned this to you, but I have flown small planes before. When I was a kid the neighbor had a crop duster and I went up with him plenty of times. Learned to fly when I was fifteen."
"So... what happened yesterday?"
"I'm a hell of a lot older now and I stopped flying when I was sixteen. Plane crash... not my fault though."
"So, no more lessons."
"That's about the size of it."
"Hey, it's your funeral."

We get into Abby's cockpit and find the charts for this region. I find the two charts we need and line out our course, tracing it out with Lou looking on.
"We'll fly northwest to the Gulf of Venezuela and around as much of the mountain range as possible, over to Santa Maria then on thru Cartagena. From there it is a straight shot over the water to Panama."
Lou looks at the chart and the distance. "That looks like about a thousand miles. Not much room for error."
"It's a little shy of a grand. It should be a walk in the park. By the time we get over Cartagena we should know how much range we have left. I don't know anything about the place, but if it looks bad, we will have to find an airport and fuel up."

We push open the hanger doors and Lou gets in the cockpit. Naomi has markings, and I ask Lou to look in the side pockets for paperwork on the aircraft. He finds a leather binder with title and registration, the title signed off by the previous owner with no recipient filled in.
"She is legal." Lou calls out, holding up the paperwork. He folds it back into the binder and stows it. Then he waves me over.
"Hey, just in case something happens, I had a hell of a time."
"Me too, Lou. Let's talk about it in Panama."
He shakes my hand, "Let's do this."

I set up the cockpit and get her ready to fire. I look over at Lou, who has already started Naomi and idled her out of the hanger. He will take off first and I will follow. I start Abby's number two and blow the smoke out of her. Once she is up to idle, I fire number one and get them evened up. Time to roll.

Little Naomi taxis out ahead of me and then I hear Lou on the radio.
"Well, I guess this is it. I am just going to head out on course. If you have any trouble you let me know and I will turn around."
"Of course. Good luck man."
Lou turns onto the runway and I see him give a thumbs up and hit the throttles. She starts off quick and gets two thirds of the way down the runway and then lifts off. Lou stows the gear like he has a weight-off-wheels switch and they are up before he is twenty feet off the ground. It looks like he might stall, but then eases her back to normal flight.
"That a boy, Lou." I say into Abby's empty cockpit. Feels kind of weird being in here all alone. My turn now.

I roll out on to the tarmac and lock the tail wheel, then throttle up and roll out. Abby lifts off like a champ and I put the gear up. My eyes scan the gauges, then I bring the flaps up and turn my boost pumps off. Lou is ahead and flying at about a thousand feet, headed for the beach. I kick her in to high gear and get up next to him.

"How are you doing?" I ask him over the radio while I fish in the side pocket for a headset. I remember one being somewhere up her that Jerry would where just to keep the noise to a minimum.
"So far so good. I'm thinking if you just stay on my wing all the way I would be happy as hell."
"No problem."
I find the headset and cross my fingers as I plug it in. "Lou?"
"Yeah?"
"Good... this thing works. How much throttle are you using?"
"Looks like I am about two thirds up on the throttle."
"I'm gonna hold Abby at about 150 knots. See if you can match me."
I throttle up and get her speed set at 150 knots. Within ten seconds, Lou is on my wing.
"Think she can hold that for the duration?"
Lou doesn't answer right away. I can see him studying his gauges, "Yeah, she looks good. If anything changes I'll let you know."

We agree on two thousand feet and hold the coast line until we pass over the Gulf of Venezuela then cut over the peninsula and we will hold the beach line once again all the way to Cartagena Colombia.
It starts to get real lonely after the first hour. We don't talk much on the radio at first, but then we get into a talk about life after death. While we are in the midst of it, Lou announces he is going to have a shot or two. I tell him to just be careful.

"Don't worry, mother... I'm a big boy."
"That's not what I mean and you know it. The plane won't land itself."
"Yeah, I know. Don't worry about it." He pauses and I think he is probably cracking the seal on the bottle.
"To be honest with you, I wish I would have brought a little something of my own."
"Look in Jerry's bag."
I reach down and feel around in the bag. There is a bottle of tequila and a baggie with a couple of Walkers.
"Hey... right on."
"I didn't want to drink alone up here."

After the first shot, we continue our conversation. Lou thoughts are in the same vein as mine. Afterlife is a graduation of sorts from the human condition into the pure energy condition, our energy being the collective experience of the soul.
"I read a book once called Mobius... One Man's Journey. Interesting shit. Says the soul is collective through several lives on Earth. Once you have lived here on Earth enough times to bolster your soul energy, it escapes the ground of earth and your in the afterlife. If you pass on and you don't have enough soul energy you start again in a new body and do it all over again."
There is a pause and I start to think that maybe my headset stopped working.
"Lou?"
"Are you smoking that shit already?"
"No."
"Sure sounds like it."

We continue on to Santa Marta. I know that I had several shots during the trip so far. I don't know about Lou. He starts singing a few songs over the radio. It isn't until he starts fucking around and getting too close that things happen. At one point in time he starts tipping his wings this way and that, and then he collides with me. Just a foot of wingtip to wingtip, but it is enough to move me and to cause him to go spiralling out of control beneath me. I can't see him but I can hear him.
"SHIT... " Lou shouts into the radio.
"Give her full right rudder and pull back on the column."
I hear nothing.
"LOU?"
Nothing.
"You stupid son of a bitch. I knew... "
He pulls back up from below and levels off next to me.
"Game time is over." I tell him.
"I think I pissed myself." There is silence for a moment. "Nope, just spilled the tequila."
"I'll tell you what, just put the cap on it and we will party our asses off in Panama, okay?"

Lou does a check of his fuel situation as we approach Cartagena. After calculating our distance covered and what was left to go, we decided to keep flying. We both eat a little of the cocktail girls speed, which improves our alertness in the face of nearly no sleep and the few shots of tequila.
"Hey."
"Yeah Lou."
"I have to piss like a race horse."
"Have you tried out your auto pilot?"

We spend the next few minutes setting it up and making sure it would hold a course. It gives him just enough time to run back and piss out the side door. When he returns, I do the same. He gives me a little room and stays off my wing about two or three hundred yards. Abby has a habit of wandering a little and I don't want another collision.

Onward to Panama. We fly over the jungle and then the canal. Our airfield is close now. We are both buzzing hard on the speed. Lou is chattering on about the woods and laying in them and being so still that no one knew he was there until they were right on him. And then beer in some river, and a still, and...
"HEY!"
He stops.
"Lou, I think that's our airfield at seven o'clock."

We make a fly by and check the wind. We are going to have to land with the sun in our eyes.
"You want to go first?" Lou says, dropping in behind me.
After we both set up for landing, and Lou telling me everything he is doing just to check himself, we spread out.
"I tell you what, Lou. Just follow me down, set your flaps and then start dropping off of the power. Use my glide slope and just do what I do. I will take the airstrip down to the end, so you will have to brake a little more just so you don't run into the back of me."
"Okay."
"And no bouncing."

I drop my flaps and gear, and while I am hoping Lou has done the same he reports that fact over the radio. I get her down and run her all the way to the end of the runway. It is a long one, used by the US Army during Operation Just Cause. They landed C-130s here. I unlock the tail wheel and spin her around just in time to watch Lou hit the ground.