“Okay, while we wait, I see runway 8 on the pavement, runway 8 in the box. We are on the EXTAN5 departure, SHAYK transition, first fix is KIDNG. We’ll LNAV out there up to 23,000 feet and no airspeed restrictions. Any questions?” the captain briefs as we approach the end of the runway. I shake my head as a bell rings in the cockpit to let me know the flight attendants are calling to confirm they are ready.
“None. Okay, they are ready in the back. Before take-off checklist...” I finish up the last checklist, flip the last few switches and advise the tower we are ready to go. We pull onto the over 2 mile long runway in Denver, conduct a last minute sanity check, and before we start pouring jet fuel into the engines at over 3000 gallons per hour, he asks if I’m ready to go. “Yup,” I reply, “let’s go home.”
The throttles are brought to life. Moments later, we can both hear and feel as the engines reach takeoff pitch; the deafening sound of rushing superheated air exiting the engine and interacting with the relatively cooler atmosphere combined with the feeling of the deep mechanical whirring of the turbines as they spin at nearly 15,000 RPM. Still, with all that noise and sound, the airplane only sluggishly accelerates down the runway. At 5500 feet above sea level, the airplane will need to be traveling over 180mph before there is enough air flowing over the wing to create adequate lift.
“V1,” I call out. We’ve reached the “decision speed.” From here on out, there is a very short list of things that are going to keep us from taking-off, so short that even engine fire or failure isn’t on it. At V1, there is no longer enough runway to stop so in 99.9% of instances, it is actually safer to take-off and come back and land. Shortly after V1 comes Vr and the call-out, “Rotate.”
The Captain lifts the nose off the ground until we are pitched about 6 degrees above the horizon, waiting for the wings to fly. It is always at this moment I am most in awe. At over 180 mph, we just wait for the airplane to fly while it is balancing on its rear tires, nose gear raised six feet in the air. Normally, your butt feels the subtle change of direction as the 180,000lb jet gives up the earth to join the sky.
A sudden jerk to the left. What the... My eyes dart from my instrument screen to the Captain. He’s staring straight ahead. He moves control wheel abruptly to the right to keep the wings level. He steps on the rudder to bring the airplane back to the centerline. With the nose still pitched in the air, I will the airplane to fly. Less than a breath later, the familiar feeling of liftoff. Confirmed by the instruments, “Positive rate,” I say to the Captain who then commands the gear to come up. And we are off.
My senses are heightened thanks to the sudden squirt of adrenaline into my blood stream. We sit in silence for the first ten minutes of the flight saying nothing to each other than the required checklists and radio calls. My mind searches for something to justify what happened in that brief second on the runway. Maybe I imagined it? Maybe the Captain hit a bump or swerved to avoid a deer. No that’s stupid.
I look over at the Captain who watching his instrument display as we climbed eastward away from the Rockies and decided to break the ice. “Hey, so, did you feel...”
He interrupted me, “that was really weird, right?”
To Be Continued
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