TRANSCON -REDUX LAX-EWR

This whole evolution started around midnight, on the night of 15 March, just two days past. It started with us rocketing down the runway at old SkyHarbor airport, KPHX, in swift and thunderous pursuit of a slightly obese UPS A300, that lifted off in front of us, and dangled ,tantalizingly close in my L1 window, a mini constellation,winking,white,white,green,red,and repeating the light sequence. ATC slowed us to 280 knots indicated to keep us apart, but we followed our new friend across the ink black Sonoran desert, till his lights merged with the stars and disappeared , and we continued onwards and upwards to LAX.
Overhead 29 Palms,the Marine base, and VOR, we started our descent for the LA airport, ghosting over and through the Banning Pass, the entire LA basin spreading beneath us,aglow, a sea of incandescence, crazy bright,giddy even,a 21st century Oz. At the very edge , hard by the sea,lay a series of runways, LDIN lights pulsing thrip,thrip,thrip to the thresholds. 25L at the extreme left,was our concrete of choice this night,my FO guided us down,on,and in expertly,and we wended our way to the old Imperial terminal on the south side,shutting down,as a Cathay Pacific 747-400 thundered in,alighting from God knows where in the Orient.
Whisked to the hotel for a brief nights sleep, I see the lights of the IN-N-Out Burger,on Sepulveda, from my 10th floor window. Unfortunately its too late for my usual Double-Double Animal style, and a Strawberry shake. Next time.
0530,is there anything more disconcerting than the klaxon ring of the wake up call. 0730 ,back at Imperial, our ship awaits, a blue, and white Boeing classic, that raked tail, those shapely,sharply, swept wings, she looks transonic sitting at the gate. 727. Bred for speed, not efficiency,designed when fuel was pennies a pound,she will max out at .9 mach, a mere one tenth under the barrier. Flying her is sheer joy, a delight. I, we, cherish our time in this airplane, steam gauges and all. She will always be the mark I measure other jets by.
Dispatch calls, a one hour,flow control delay to EWR. Winds. We have completed our pre-flight checklists, we have our full route clearence, our clients are comfortably eating breakfast in the back. What can I do, to kill an hour? A cockpit, facing the runway is a wonderful place to spot. An NCA 747-200F,pushes back,taxis out,and launches in front of us. That wonderful whisper,roar,hummmm, of its engines,and that classic 200 shape (small hump, not the extended cab) , make my early day. A United 747-400 in that new baby blue waddles in,followed by a Korean Air 744,then a Singapore Mega Top 744F. Skywest EMB-120s dart in and out like larks among the giants. The best is the last,Wuala Dreaming (sic?),Qantas's answer to the Calder DC-8 arrives while we fire up,and taxi out.
The Pacific is a soft,hazy ,blue this morning, melding with the sky on the far horizon, we tuck in our chin and accelerate, lifting off , and climbing out, over the city,then the snow capped San Gabriels, then back over the Mojave, all the way up to FL 350, the lower stratosphere,where the Jetstream takes a hold ,by God's grace, we are blessed with a 540 knot groundspeed. ETA EWR 4 hours. We fly VOR to VOR to VOR,the jet airways, an invisible highway in the sky. Desert turns to mountain,to prairie,to midwestern plain. Traffic whizzes by ,pulling contrails above,and beneath us, a highlight,the Antonov,an AN-124 plods by, about 5 miles away,as massive as a mountain with wings.
The hours melt away,and soon we are descending from the high,blue vault above,and joining a 30 mile conga line for 4R at EWR. NYC, the shining sea Atlantic,and my beloved Jersey are in fine fettle this CAVU day. A brief joust with a crosswind, and we are down and in,and heading for the West parking area. Pacific ,to Atlantic, west coast to east,transcon, for the second time in a matter of weeks, our love affair with the 727 continues.