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Authors: Nicholson Baker
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the window and leap off the wing onto an inflatable rubber slide. How fast do you go down a slide? Fast enough to break a leg, I would think. I wouldn’t want to leap onto that slide, but I like the arrows.
On the return from Denver, the wing, attached to an Airbus A-230, said DO NOT WALK OUTSIDE THIS AREA . I had no interest in walking outside that area. The clouds were enormous flat-bottomed patties resting heavily on an ocean of low-pressure air. A few days after that, on a Boeing 767—one of the ones with the mis-designed call buttons on the sides of the armrest which people press when they are trying to adjust the volume on their headphones, so that when the movie begins, the cabin is filled with unintended dinging calls for flight attendants—I had, just after takeoff, a quick, pleasing view of the neighborhood where I lived, visible just above the lump of the left engine, whose crest bore the words NO STEP . And then in June of that year I again saw NO STEP on the top of a jet engine, while the plane I was on was still on the ground. A man was leaning into the engine, so that only his legs were visible. On the wing there were faint wind-wear lines streaking like aurora borealises from behind one of agroup of eight little flathead screws. Two weeks later, the engine of a Boeing 757 said: HOIST POINT SLEEVE ONLY , and THRUST REVERSE ACTUATOR ACCESS , and LEAVE 3 INCH MAXIMUM GAP BETWEEN FAIRINGS PRIOR TO SLIDING AFT AND LATCHING, and SAFETY LINE ATTACH POINT .
By 1999 I had become a collector of wing language. I copied the words down on folded pieces of paper, with arrows pointing out which words were stenciled in red paint and which in white. McDonnell Douglas planes were a pleasure to fly, because they were less common and offered different messages. Once when I was in an emergency exit row in a McDonnell Douglas MD-80, there were two pilots seated behind me. “This is an old plane,” one of the pilots said, “but it’s got new engines—you can hear the new engines.” I listened for the note of newness in the engines but wasn’t sure that I could hear it. On the wing there was an irregular area bounded with red paint, with NO STEP commands around the inside, and then in the middle it said ELECTRIC HEATER BLANKET 110 VOLTS .
In April 1999 I rode a little propeller plane called a Dash 8 to Seattle. The window looked out below the wing, leaving the landing gear, projecting from below the engine, spindledly visible from my seat, as if I were looking at someone’s legs from under the dinner table. I watched the wheels as we began the surge down the runway, to see whether the tires (there were two tires on each side) would change shape at the moment of liftoff. They didn’t, but the moment was marked by a sudden extension of the greased piston of the shock absorber, and by the appearance of the tire’s crisp shadow against the asphalt. Then came a small surprise: the wheels kept turning, fast, as we rose a few hundred feet, and then the wheel struts folded anddisappeared into the under-nacelle, and, with the wheels still going, the carapace flaps closed.
When the plane descended an hour later, I watched our shadow coming into focus on the blur of the skidmarked ground; and when the now motionless tire first touched the runway there was a beautiful puff of white smoke before it began to turn. As we drove to the gate, the rubber showed its whitish burned patch over and over; it was almost worn away by the time we reached the gate. I was so interested in the wheel struts and the smoke puff that I failed to note down the messages on the engine. Later, though, when I rode a Dash 8 propeller plane again, I recorded this from the engine cowling: WARNING HYDRAULIC SERVICES MAY OPERATE / CLEAR PERSONNEL FROM RUDDER FLAPS AND LANDING GEAR DOORS BEFORE CONNECTING .
On an Airbus A330 this past March, the engine said CAUTION—PRESS HERE ON LATCH TO ENSURE LOCKING , and there was a little set of gills next to which were
On the return from Denver, the wing, attached to an Airbus A-230, said DO NOT WALK OUTSIDE THIS AREA . I had no interest in walking outside that area. The clouds were enormous flat-bottomed patties resting heavily on an ocean of low-pressure air. A few days after that, on a Boeing 767—one of the ones with the mis-designed call buttons on the sides of the armrest which people press when they are trying to adjust the volume on their headphones, so that when the movie begins, the cabin is filled with unintended dinging calls for flight attendants—I had, just after takeoff, a quick, pleasing view of the neighborhood where I lived, visible just above the lump of the left engine, whose crest bore the words NO STEP . And then in June of that year I again saw NO STEP on the top of a jet engine, while the plane I was on was still on the ground. A man was leaning into the engine, so that only his legs were visible. On the wing there were faint wind-wear lines streaking like aurora borealises from behind one of agroup of eight little flathead screws. Two weeks later, the engine of a Boeing 757 said: HOIST POINT SLEEVE ONLY , and THRUST REVERSE ACTUATOR ACCESS , and LEAVE 3 INCH MAXIMUM GAP BETWEEN FAIRINGS PRIOR TO SLIDING AFT AND LATCHING, and SAFETY LINE ATTACH POINT .
By 1999 I had become a collector of wing language. I copied the words down on folded pieces of paper, with arrows pointing out which words were stenciled in red paint and which in white. McDonnell Douglas planes were a pleasure to fly, because they were less common and offered different messages. Once when I was in an emergency exit row in a McDonnell Douglas MD-80, there were two pilots seated behind me. “This is an old plane,” one of the pilots said, “but it’s got new engines—you can hear the new engines.” I listened for the note of newness in the engines but wasn’t sure that I could hear it. On the wing there was an irregular area bounded with red paint, with NO STEP commands around the inside, and then in the middle it said ELECTRIC HEATER BLANKET 110 VOLTS .
In April 1999 I rode a little propeller plane called a Dash 8 to Seattle. The window looked out below the wing, leaving the landing gear, projecting from below the engine, spindledly visible from my seat, as if I were looking at someone’s legs from under the dinner table. I watched the wheels as we began the surge down the runway, to see whether the tires (there were two tires on each side) would change shape at the moment of liftoff. They didn’t, but the moment was marked by a sudden extension of the greased piston of the shock absorber, and by the appearance of the tire’s crisp shadow against the asphalt. Then came a small surprise: the wheels kept turning, fast, as we rose a few hundred feet, and then the wheel struts folded anddisappeared into the under-nacelle, and, with the wheels still going, the carapace flaps closed.
When the plane descended an hour later, I watched our shadow coming into focus on the blur of the skidmarked ground; and when the now motionless tire first touched the runway there was a beautiful puff of white smoke before it began to turn. As we drove to the gate, the rubber showed its whitish burned patch over and over; it was almost worn away by the time we reached the gate. I was so interested in the wheel struts and the smoke puff that I failed to note down the messages on the engine. Later, though, when I rode a Dash 8 propeller plane again, I recorded this from the engine cowling: WARNING HYDRAULIC SERVICES MAY OPERATE / CLEAR PERSONNEL FROM RUDDER FLAPS AND LANDING GEAR DOORS BEFORE CONNECTING .
On an Airbus A330 this past March, the engine said CAUTION—PRESS HERE ON LATCH TO ENSURE LOCKING , and there was a little set of gills next to which were
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