“Game Bird!”
“How long will you be here with us?” the pleasant young lady behind the desk at the Atlanta Peachtree Dekalb Airport FBO asked as we walked in from the plane.
“Just 9 innings, I’m afraid,” I replied.
“Ah, you’re a game bird!” she exclaimed, scrawling “GB” in large letters on our ticket. Acting as though I got that all the time, I smiled, “Yes, ma’am!”
Sunday — Halloween and Game 5 of the World Series — hadn’t started off with Atlanta on the itinerary. In fact, Sunday at Casa Humphries had been progressing at a decidedly indolent pace: we’d finally made it to the breakfast table at 11:30 for Stacy’s homemade pancakes. Then the phone rang.
“Hey Scott, can you co-pilot a flight out to Atlanta this afternoon for some folks that want to go to the ball game? It’s a Cessna Citation Mustang. Leaving from Sugar Land, probably coming back after the game.” Fortunately, I’m getting better at resisting the urge to ask how much I had to pay for this experience, because that’s not the way this whole contract pilot thing works. “Sure, be there shortly!”
I met the captain, Dave (name changed to protect the innocent), at Sugar Land Airport, SGR. He and I have mutual friends, but I’d not flown with him before. Super cool, with decades of airline experience. As we ran pre-flight checks, Dave referred to the Mustang as a “starter jet” and complained about how slow it was. I laughed. At this point in my flying career, I had trouble conjuring such a jaded view. The Mustang’s a good-looking plane, inside and out. With jet engines. As a bonus, this model had Garmin G1000 avionics almost identical to those in the Piper Malibu I regularly fly. And in-flight Wifi to boot…
We were wheels-up at 2pm. Dave was generous in divvying up our collective in-flight responsibilities, and the Mustang cockpit became familiar quickly. As I’ve written elsewhere, jets can be simpler to fly than complex propeller planes. If you zoom in on the Mustang’s throttle control, you can see the simple thrust detents: idle, cruise, climb, take-off. The engine management’s a little more complicated than that, but not much.
In any event, the slow, starter jet was clipping along at 35,000’ in no time. As we were taking off, our passengers had requested a destination change to Peachtree Dekalb Airport (PDK) rather than Atlanta’s main Hartsfield Airport (ATL), as PDK was closer to the Game 5 venue, Truist Park. Air traffic control was surprisingly accommodating of the change, given that we weren’t the only “game bird” headed that way. (Big sporting events often require air traffic control reservations, a fact I’d stumbled on years ago flying into New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl.) And, with the magic of technology, I was able, from seven miles above the earth travelling in an aluminum tube at almost 400mph, to make a bluetooth/Wifi phone call through my headset to the PDK FBO to ensure they had room for us on their ramp…
They did, but not by much, as it was quite a party there! With the time change, we landed at 5:30pm. For the next two hours, jets just kept arriving, spilling Braves-clad fans across the tarmac. The scene was a testament to media mogul Ted Turner’s genius: starting in 1978, Turner’s TBS broadcast Braves games into nearly every household in North America, generating a nationwide following that even forty years later had fans winging in from across the nation for a Braves’ World Series appearance…
Dave and I escaped some of the pre-game fuss in favor of 57th, the airport’s World War II aviation-themed restaurant, complete with an entrance through a sandbagged bunker tunnel. I recommend it. I’d given up the idea of buying a ticket to the game: if the Astros were pummeled early, our passengers weren’t planning to stay for the full game. After the Braves’ 1st-inning grand slam, it looked like it might be a quick turn!
But the game went the distance, with the FBO erupting in cheers every time the Braves mustered some offense. But when an Astros win was in hand, that is, as Gravemen took the mound in the 9th, we abandoned the big screen and pre-flighted for the ride home. Around us, the ramp erupted in a hive of activity as the flock of game birds fired their engines for departure. We blasted off just after midnight, Eastern time.
The night sky was empty coming home, and we were cleared direct to Sugar Land shortly after leaving Atlanta. As you can see on the primary flight display, flying high (at 38,000’, as high as I’ve ever piloted) to conserve fuel, we were pummeled by a literally hurricane-force headwind. Nevertheless, the ride was smooth as glass and, making 250kts across the ground, we could make out Houston’s glow by 2 a.m. We touched down at a deserted Sugar Land airport with a quiet chirp of the tires 30 minutes later.
After a quick goodbye to our passengers, and a job-well-done handshake with Dave, we were all on our way to bed…
I couldn’t think of a more fun way to bring an Astros win back from Atlanta!
