THE TURQUOISE PEN

A PLANE STORY

Noël R. King

"Hey, that was neat," Fred said to Thomas, his copilot. "We never even left the ground, did we?"

"Nope. Guess not," was Thomas’s reply.

"Well, well," said Fred, who wasn’t about to let the subject drop just like that. After all, it wasn’t every day you started out to fly to Chicago in a 737 Airbus and ended up driving there instead.

It was a real case of one thing leading to another, but nobody quite knows what.

"Well, we just kept taxiing and taxiing. The next thing we knew, we could hear radio control in Chicago O’Hare, which was kinda weird, seeing as the airport we started out of was Dulles International," said Fred in an interview that evening. "Guess Tommy and I just got caught up in our conversation. Can’t really tell you much more than that."

"Yup," said Thomas, not much for words, apparently, except when in the cockpit.

"I’m telling you," continued Fred. "Sure wish we knew how we did it. I’d highly recommend it to all pilots, you know, when runways back up or something like that. Or even when you just wanna try something different for once, you know? You kinda just wanna leap outta that cockpit sometimes if you have to keep doing the same old same old day after day."

"Yup," said Thomas. "That’s true."

What about radio control, they are asked. Didn’t the towers follow the plane’s taxiing progress as it occurred?

"Nope," said Fred.

"Nope," said Thomas.

The two are being paid for the "flight" just the same as though it were a regular flight.

Most passengers who were interviewed following the "flight" expressed surprise at all the hullabaloo.

"What’s the big deal? So we never left the ground. So what?" responded a harried-looking businessman rushing to his next gate. "A flight’s a flight."

"Yes, it was a very nice flight," responded a gracious mother of three small children.

When informed it was not a true "flight," she simply replied, "Oh, it wasn’t? Matthew! Stop pinching her." Turning back to the reporter, "I’m sorry. What were you asking me?"

Members of the public hoping to travel via the same non-"flight" method will unfortunately have to wait until it becomes more clear how this method was accomplished.

—As circumstances warrant, through her Turquoise Pen column Noël R. King, Reston, Virginia, reports on strange and wonderful things, including flights that don’t leave the ground.