Inspirations for "Departure from Moonraiser Airport" in Roundtrip Ticket to Paradise 2

I had several inspirations for “Departure from Moonraiser Airport”.

First, of course, was the 1964 holiday television classic, “Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer”. Rudolph returned from his walkabout during a howling blizzard which threatened to force Santa to scrub his annual flight one year. What would happen when, already loaded for the scheduled flight, Santa, Team, and Crew stopped by Island for Misfit Toys (“Moonraiser Island” in my essay) and boarded an unspecified load of additional passengers and cargo? Yes, there was 12.5% additional reindeerpower now available which hadn’t been accounted for in the original flight plan, but…

An additional influence was the construction and launch of the “crate” (British wartime slang, I think, for a war aircraft) in the movie Chicken Run, by a flock of chickens using found objects in the best Nazi prison-camp escape traditions. They then board their pedal-powered ornithopterial transport and fly it out of the coop/camp.

Most influential, I feel, was a novel to which my Dad had introduced me years ago, Down to a Sunless Sea, by David Graham, which I consider to be the best piece of aviation fiction I’ve yet read. The novel follows Captain Jonah Scott in first person as he pilots a British Airways evacuation flight JFK-LHR, following the utter collapse of the US economy owing to a petroleum crisis, as the USA was (and still is) completely oil-dependent.

Speedbird 626 (British Airways Flight 626; “Speedbird” is British Airways’ call-sign, much as “Cactus” is US Airways’) takes off from JFK, Kennedy International Airport, New York, bound for London-Heathrow Airport, with a full load of refugees from the shambles of the devastated USA. Only requirement to board is having a relative who is a British national, and who is willing to pay the fare, as the US dollar is worthless.

Partway across the Atlantic, simmering tensions in the Middle East erupt, causing global thermonuclear warfare. One by one Scott’s destination and alternate airports are wiped from the map… where to land? Temporary safe haven is found at Lajes, Terceira Island, Azores… but the Azores high-pressure area is deteriorating and the radioactive cloud is pressing closer, and only a day or so remains before exposure becomes lethal.

Eventually, permanent safe haven is located 8429 nautical miles distant… but that is considerably beyond the maximum range of Captain Scott’s aircraft, and owing to the nuclear devastation, there is no possibility of an enroute refuelling stop. So, technical modifications are made to extend the range at the expense of the takeoff and climbout performance. Graham walked the reader through the takeoff and climbout sequence from Lajes, and so then did I for Pilot and Team from Moonraiser Airport.

And now you know…
…the rest of the story.

Last updated September 29, 2014