Chapter 82: Danger! Thunderstorms surround us, lightning strikes us!
The next day, after a good sleep, Xu Cang was full of energy. Whenever he thought about the seven hours of experience time he could get today, Xu Cang felt extremely excited. In this period when the number of flights has been greatly reduced, there is really no better gain than this.
As usual, Xu Cang arrived earlier than most crew members. He was going to go to the dispatch room upstairs to thank them for leaving such a good shift for him, but when he went in, he saw no one. He remembered that Yue Hai should be on duty today, so why wasn't he there?
However, Xu Cang did not dwell on it too much. He did not want to wait too long. He had not flown to Urumqi much, not much in the true sense of the word, even with his later experiences.
It's not that the Urumqi Airport is so special. Simply according to the development, Xu Cang will return to the 121st Department in the jurisdiction of the East China Bureau in the future. There are very few flights from the eastern region to Urumqi. When there are more routes, Xu Cang will start to do a lot of administrative work again, and the flight opportunities will be reduced accordingly, so naturally he will fly less to Urumqi.
It was actually a bit of a pity for Xu Cang that he did not have a deep impression of the Urumqi airport, but the experience of spending the night in Urumqi only once in his later life was still deeply impressed.
The barbecue in Wushi, especially the lamb barbecue, is really better than other places in China. At that time, the co-pilot who stayed overnight with Xu Cang in Wushi was a local of Wushi, and he especially recommended lamb kidneys to Xu Cang. However, Xu Cang, who was born and raised in the eastern region, could not accept the heavy taste of lamb kidneys, even though the co-pilot tried his best to persuade him that it was a rare delicacy.
In fact, lamb kidneys were already a relatively conservative recommendation by the co-pilot. If Xu Cang knew that there were roasted lamb eyes and lamb penises in Urumqi, I wonder what expression would be on his face.
In addition, Xu Cang also likes the fruits in Urumqi very much. They are really juicy and sweet. Even if he has no chance to go to Urumqi in the future, he will ask the crew flying to Urumqi to bring back some grapes, watermelons and other fruits if he has the chance.
Unfortunately, this flight to Urumqi was just a standard stopover, not even a big stopover, so there was no time to go out for a little shopping.
After taking the breathalyzer test and getting the pre-flight information, Xu Cang began to ponder the characteristics of the Urumqi Airport. To be honest, there was nothing special about the Urumqi Airport. Except for the Hola Mountain to the west, the other three sides of the airport were flat, and all standard approaches and missed approaches did not pass through the west, so the terrain threat was relatively small.
This airport is a single runway operation, with blind landing systems at both ends, and a glide gradient of 5.2%, which is considered a fairly standard glide gradient. The final approach fix point is located on the fifth side of the airport ten nautical miles away, with a restricted altitude of nine hundred meters. There are no terrain obstacles below the entire final glide stage, so there is no need to consider the need for delayed interception of the glide.
The only thing to note is that the airflow around the Urumqi Airport is often unstable, and the impact of fog must be considered during this season. However, Xu Cang looked at the weather report and found that there was no fog in Urumqi, but thunderstorms were expected.
Of course, this kind of predictive weather message is not a golden rule. It does not mean that if there is thunderstorm coverage, there is thunderstorm coverage. Dispatcher will combine various types of information to decide whether to release the flight or give more extra fuel.
So far, the dispatcher has not called to say that the departure is delayed or the flight is cancelled, so it is likely that we still have to leave.
Just when Xu Cang was pondering the satellite cloud map, there was a slight noise coming from the side. Xu Cang looked at the door and saw a captain with four stripes dragging a box towards this side.
"Fly to Urumqi?" The captain walked closer to Xu Cang and stretched his head to glance at the mission book on the table.
Xu Cang nodded: "Captain, it's flying to Wushi."
"Oh." The captain clicked his tongue, pulled the mission book over and looked at it carefully again, then uttered an ambiguous laugh and turned to look at Xu Cang: "Are you Xu Cang?"
This time there was a three-person crew with two co-pilots, and the captain was not sure which one Xu Cang was.
"That's right, Captain! I'm Xu Cang."
"So you are Xu Cang." The captain glanced at Xu Cang with a half-smile, and there seemed to be a hint of sarcasm on his face. The voice that sounded like sudden enlightenment after discovering Xu Cang's true identity seemed to be a bit problematic no matter how you listened to it.
Xu Cang is not a fool. He can see that the captain's attitude towards him is obviously abnormal, but he can't figure out the reason.
The captain shrugged, put down the flight box and went to take a breathalyser. Xu Cang touched his face and felt that there didn't seem to be anything foreign.
Fortunately, before Xu Cang could figure out what went wrong, the first co-pilot came over. Xu Cang politely greeted the first co-pilot, but the first co-pilot did not respond at all. After putting down the flight box, he went straight to the place where the breathalyzer was tested.
Xu Cang was sure that the volume of his voice was not as loud as a mosquito and could definitely be heard. The first co-pilot was clearly ignoring him.
When the first co-pilot walked to the breathalyzer test site, he happened to meet the captain who had just finished taking the breathalyzer test. A smile instantly appeared on both of their expressionless faces, as if they were changing their faces, and they gathered together and talked and laughed.
Xu Cang was not interested in observing the conversation between the captain and the first co-pilot, but he occasionally noticed from the corner of his eye that the captain and the first co-pilot would occasionally look in his direction while they were chatting.
This was a very pointed action. If the abnormal behavior of the captain and the first co-pilot just made Xu Cang feel a little confused, then now Xu Cang could be sure that something he didn't know about must have happened, and this thing he didn't know about was very likely aimed at him.
The question is...what is it all about?
Xu Cang no longer looked at the captain and the co-pilot, but silently carried out pre-flight preparations.
Not long after, the first co-pilot also passed the breathalyzer test and came over with the captain. However, when they walked to Xu Cang's side , the two who were originally chatting enthusiastically immediately fell silent, and the meaning was self-evident.
Even though he knew there were some problems that he was not aware of, Xu Cang did not pay too much attention to it. He still followed the usual procedures and reported to the captain information such as fuel levels, weather, aircraft reserves and navigation notices.
After listening to Xu Cang's long conversation, the captain just said "hmm" and his attitude was very cold.
The captain didn't talk to the first co-pilot, so they naturally didn't talk to Xu Cang, and now the three of them fell into a strange silence. It was so strange that even the dispatch and information seats not far away felt that something was wrong.
Fortunately, this atmosphere did not last long. With the arrival of the crew, there was finally some movement around.
There were six people in the crew, and when they gathered together, the air was filled with fragrance. Compared with men's perfume, Xu Cang was more willing to use it on women, even if the fragrance was a bit strong, it was still acceptable.
"Captain, can you give me some instructions?" The chief flight attendant handed the captain a crew coordination card, and his voice was so soft that it made your bones crack.
It is said that soft jade can turn steel into something as soft as silk, and this is true.
The captain winked at the chief flight attendant, took the crew coordination card, and glanced at the crew members with a little surprise on his face: "There are quite a lot of people today?"
Logically speaking, this flight only needs five crew members. Given the stingy nature of Blue Sky Airlines, how can they still operate beyond the standard?
The purser chuckled and said, "I'm taking the trainees today."
As he spoke, his eyebrows moved and he looked at a weak figure at the back of the crowd.
As soon as this action came out, even Xu Cang looked over. Just at a glance, he found that he knew the student the flight attendant was talking about. It was Xia Shuyue who had helped him before.
Xia Shuyue seemed to want to hide herself in the crowd. If it weren't for the flight attendant's signal, Xu Cang would not even notice Xia Shuyue's existence.
I had originally planned to be an ostrich, but now that the flight attendant had pointed him out in public, I could only say softly, "Hello, Captain."
The captain, noticing Xia Shuyue's presence, was in a trance for a moment, and only came back to his senses when Xia Shuyue spoke. He nodded and said, "Okay, okay, okay!"
Among all the gorgeous flight attendants, Xia Shuyue's elegant and pure temperament really stands out from the crowd.
However, this also made Xia Shuyue notice Xu Cang. After a little surprise, Xia Shuyue's gem-like eyes curved into a pair of crescents, adding a touch of cuteness.
The captain, who was already amazed by Xia Shuyue, was completely stunned, while Xu Cang looked a little unnatural. It was hard to bear such a beautiful woman.
When the captain realized that his behavior was a bit too obvious, he immediately calmed down and carried out normal pre-flight coordination.
It was originally just a normal coordination link, but when it came to the order of power succession in the cockpit, the captain followed the order of rank, and the power succession was in the order of the captain, first co-pilot, and finally Xu Cang.
There is absolutely no problem with this order, but when talking about Xu Cang at the end, the captain inexplicably smiled and his tone began to become strange.
After the captain said this, the flight attendant looked at Xu Cang in surprise: "So you are Xu Cang?"
When she was checking the mission book just now, she only paid attention to the crew configuration, but did not look at the names of the flight crew.
As soon as Xu Cang's identity was exposed, the crew began to laugh. Two flight attendants even smiled and whispered.
This is so weird!
After the coordination was completed, the crew returned to the crew preparation room first, and Xu Cang also left under the pretext of going to the bathroom.
After catching up with the crew, Xu Cang pulled Xia Shuyue, who was at the end of the team. Xia Shuyue was shocked when someone suddenly grabbed her, and turned around to find that it was Xu Cang. In the end, she let Xu Cang pull her away.
Xu Cang directly pulled him to an empty stairwell. Seeing that there was no one around, he quickly let go of his hand and apologized first: "Sorry, I have something to ask you."
Xia Shuyue didn't care. She just stood there waiting for Xu Cang to ask questions.
Seeing Xia Shuyue being so well-behaved, Xu Cang blushed, but he still coughed and said, "When the captain mentioned me just now, I saw you guys were all laughing. What were you laughing at?"
Hearing this, Xia Shuyue did not answer immediately, but waved her hands quickly: "I'm not laughing, I'm not laughing."
"I know you're not laughing, I just want to know why. I feel very strange. Is there something I don't know?"
"Brother, don't you know?" Xia Shuyue was a little confused.
Xu Cang frowned even more. "What's going on?"
"It's like this." Xia Shuyue organized her words a little: "This morning, we received a notice. From now on, if you have something to report, you are not allowed to cross levels or departments, especially cross departments. You can only report the matter to the squadron first, and then the squadron will summarize and report to the corresponding place."
"This?" After listening to Xia Shuyue's words, Xu Cang didn't seem to think there was anything wrong: "Then what, what does it have to do with me?"
When asked by Xu Cang, Xia Shuyue hesitated for a moment, not knowing how to answer. But in the end, under Xu Cang's urging, she explained the situation: "Because it is said that this notice was issued because you went to talk to the vice president of maintenance separately. Some people think that you..."
At the end, Xia Shuyue couldn't go on.
Xu Cang said coldly: "What did they say about me?"
Xia Shuyue muttered quietly: "They said that you...meddlesome."
Xu Cang was stunned. Now thinking back to the expressions of the captain and the co-pilot, he was afraid that their abnormal reaction to Xu Cang was probably due to this reason.
"Minding other people's business?" Xu Cang really didn't know what to say.
Seeing Xu Cang's lonely expression, Xia Shuyue hurriedly comforted him, "Brother, don't listen to their nonsense."
"It's not just the flight attendants who think so. It seems the flight attendants think so too. Are you meddling in other people's business?" Xu Cang waved his hand: "It's okay. Go ahead."
"Brother, are you really okay?" Looking at Xu Cang's expression, Xia Shuyue was a little worried.
"It's okay." After Xu Cang finished speaking, he walked out of the stairwell, leaving Xia Shuyue with a worried look on her face.
After a while, Xia Shuyue returned to the crew preparation room and saw that the others were already packing their bags and preparing to enter the airport. The chief flight attendant saw Xia Shuyue coming back and asked casually, "What is your relationship with the co-pilot named Xu Cang? Are you boyfriend or girlfriend?"
Xia Shuyue blushed: "No, no, just ordinary friends."
"Just an ordinary friend is fine!" The flight attendant snorted, "He has a bad reputation now, don't get too close to him. If you want to find a pilot, there are plenty of them."
"Sister, what are you talking about?" Xia Shuyue was very shy: "But, I think Xu Cang didn't do anything wrong, why do people treat him like this?"
It can only be said that beautiful women are loved wherever they go. The flight attendant touched Xia Shuyue's head meaningfully: "Because he doesn't know his position."
"But……"
Xia Shuyue wanted to say something on behalf of Xu Cang, but was interrupted by the flight attendant: "Stop talking, let's go in!"
…
Apart from feeling a little sad at the beginning, Xu Cang did not have any big emotional fluctuations after learning everything. He had a lot of things to do, and he would not die over such a trivial matter.
But Xu Cang is also a human being. Even if he doesn't care much, he still feels a little annoyed after receiving strange looks from people around him.
Originally, the captain and the first co-pilot did not speak when Xu Cang was in the cockpit, but the flight from Jianchuan to Urumqi was too far, more than three hours. For such a long time, there was no sound in the cockpit, which was really dull.
Until the last hour or so, the captain couldn't hold it in any longer. He slumped in his seat, coughed twice, and turned his head back: "Xu Cang, did you read the notice?"
The captain did not specify which notice it was, but Xu Cang knew it in his heart, and just whispered: "I haven't seen it, but I heard about it from others."
At this time, the first co-pilot also turned around and asked Xu Cang with a smile: "So is it true that you went directly to the vice president of maintenance? I heard it was for 1566?"
When Xu Cang saw the smiling face of the first co-pilot, he felt uncomfortable. He didn't say anything, but just hummed lightly.
"1566?" The captain was even more excited, with an even bigger smile on his face: "I heard before that you were forced to transfer to a ground position by the company. You were conducting a route assessment, but you took off and hit the tail during the assessment. You were flying 1566 at the time, right? Xu Cang, you are not trying to find an excuse to make up for hitting the tail? And... you hit the tail, why did you continue to fly, do you have any... ways?"
After the captain finished speaking, he looked at the first co-pilot and burst into laughter. The cockpit was filled with a joyful atmosphere, which was completely different from the dull feeling not long ago.
In this situation, even a man with a temper like Xu Cang began to look gloomy.
The captain may have found that arranging Xu Cang in this way was also a great way to entertain himself. After all, Xu Cang was just a second officer and there was no need to worry about the consequences.
"Xu Cang, I'm really curious about how you thought of going directly to the vice president of maintenance." The captain grinned, looking quite interested: "Do you think the vice president of maintenance has a lot of free time, or do you think you have a lot of weight? Don't get me wrong, I just want to understand your thought process, because I really find it hard to understand."
While the captain was speaking, the first officer added: "This is the first time I've seen such a train of thought."
After the two finished talking, they burst into unbridled laughter again.
"Captain, is this really a funny thing?" Even though he knew it was inappropriate to say this, Xu Cang couldn't help himself: "I hope everyone can fly a safe plane. Is this really so funny?"
To be honest, Xu Cang knew that as a pilot, it was indeed inappropriate for him to go directly to the vice president of maintenance. But compared to leaving the hidden danger to the pilots behind, he felt that this was nothing.
If he reported it step by step according to the usual process, he would not even be able to get out of the flight department.
As soon as these words came out, the captain immediately heard the dissatisfaction in Xu Cang's words, and he also restrained his smile and sneered: "It seems that you are not only a bad person, but also a bad speaker. Your emotional intelligence is really low."
Often, failure to follow established rules is considered low emotional intelligence. But is this really a golden rule that can be treasured?
However, the captain's attention was soon drawn to the first co-pilot. The first co-pilot pointed to a large patch of weather on the navigation display and asked, "Brother, how do you think we can get around it?"
The captain glared at Xu Cang fiercely, then looked away and looked at the weather display.
The weather radar showed that the plane's route was blocked by a large patch of bad weather. The weather was roughly in the shape of a long strip running north-south, and it contained a lot of red danger zones, which was really difficult to avoid.
At that time, the weather radar did not have an automatic mode, and the pilot could only rely on manually changing the scanning angle of the weather radar to understand the specific weather conditions.
I saw that the captain adjusted the scanning angle to zero degrees, and the originally large area of weather suddenly disappeared a lot. This shows that most of the weather is below the aircraft, and there is not much weather at the same level as the aircraft or higher than the aircraft.
This way, the originally blocked airspace now has a little space for flying around. Because there is a gap about five to ten nautical miles wide in the area on the right side of the route. Unlike other areas that are either red or yellow, this area is not displayed at all, and it is very clean.
The captain raised his head and looked outside. The plane was in the clouds and could not be seen with the naked eye, so he gave up the idea of making a decision with the naked eye.
The captain was quite democratic. He pointed at the gap and asked the first officer for his opinion: "How about we go around this way?"
At present, this is indeed the only way to fly around. Of course, if you are determined to fly a little more, you can also fly out. However, this little more is not just a lot.
In this situation, the first co-pilot had no objection and agreed with the captain's opinion. Only Xu Cang felt something was wrong in the back.
Such a large area of weather is obviously at a mature stage of development and should be completely connected. How come there is such a clean gap?
Seeing that the first officer agreed, the captain did not make a decision immediately, but asked the regional control in advance: "Urumqi, are there any restrictions on the weather behind P37 ahead?"
"Go to the right, the left is a restricted area."
The captain's planned detour was to the right, which was exactly what he wanted. "Then can I fly a heading of 300? It will be about 30 nautical miles."
"Blue Sky 9211, are you going to fly through the weather at a heading of 300? I see the plane ahead is turning right and heading 350 to go around."
"Heading 350?" The captain studied the weather display. "Heading 350. How far have they circled?"
A heading of 350 means going completely around the weather, not through it. But this patch of weather is very large, so how far do we have to go to completely go around it?
Sure enough, the regional control gave a rather astonishing number: "The plane ahead circled almost 150 nautical miles !"
One hundred and fifty nautical miles means the round trip is three hundred nautical miles, which is a very exaggerated circumnavigation distance.
"When did the previous plane pass by?" the captain continued to ask.
"About twenty minutes."
"Twenty minutes..." The captain thought about it and still felt that he couldn't accept heading 350: "Urumqi, heading 350 is too far, and it's still in the lower sub-area. If I go around now, I will probably have to go around 200 nautical miles. This is too far, and my fuel may be tight. I'd better fly heading 300."
The reason why the controller took the initiative to remind Blue Sky 9211 was because he saw from the radar that there should be weather at heading 300. However, the weather radar they used was not as accurate as the crew's, so everything was still subject to the crew's decision.
"Blue Sky 9211, you can fly heading 300. However, if you fly heading 300, you can only maneuver left and right ten degrees within thirty nautical miles, and there are small restricted areas on both sides. Is this acceptable?"
The captain thought for a moment and said, "Okay! I can ensure that the maneuvering heading is within ten degrees left or right. Ushi, I will turn to heading 300 now."
After the controller agreed, the captain was about to change course when Xu Cang reminded him from behind: "Captain, why don't we change course to 350. Could this gap in front be a radar shadow?"
In some areas with extremely heavy rainfall, the signal from the weather radar cannot be reflected back, thus forming a shadow area. There is no weather display in this shadow area, not because there is no weather here, but because the weather here is too strong.
"Radar shadow, what are you talking about?" The captain didn't even know the term radar shadow, and was still complaining about Xu Cang being too talkative.
In fact, this is normal. In this era, the concept of the shadow of weather radar is still unclear and many pilots don’t know it.
Xu Cang immediately said, "Captain, I mean the weather ahead may be even stronger, so don't fly over there."
"Then we'll have to go around 200 nautical miles and then run out of fuel?" The captain was obviously annoyed: "Xu Cang, you, the second officer, just stay at the back and don't be so self-righteous and make ignorant comments."
As he said this, the captain completely ignored Xu Cang's advice and directly turned the heading knob to 300.
In fact, Xu Cang himself was not sure whether the area in front was a radar shadow. What if it was really a relatively clean area that developed after the previous aircraft passed?
Moreover, flying around 200 nautical miles, a total of nearly 400 nautical miles, would indeed cause a relatively large problem for the aircraft's fuel. However, if Xu Cang was the captain, even with the fuel problem, he would still choose heading 350. At worst, if there was not enough fuel, he could just make an alternate landing.
Unfortunately, he is not the captain and he cannot make the decision.
When they were about to enter that airspace, Xu Cang adjusted the transmitter of his audio panel to the passenger broadcast, notifying the cabin that they were about to encounter turbulence and asking everyone in the cabin to sit down.
The captain was originally supposed to be responsible for this matter, but Xu Cang saw that the captain had no such plan, so he had to prepare for the worst case scenario in advance.
Regarding Xu Cang's initiative to make a passenger announcement, the captain simply said four words: "Mind your own business."
Xu Cang didn't care what the captain said, but stared at the radar display. There was still fog outside the windshield, and nothing could be seen clearly.
As the plane went deeper into the airspace, for some reason, it was still daytime, and even with the surrounding fog obscured, it was still bright. However, almost in an instant, day and night were reversed, and the outside world suddenly became dim.
Xu Cang's heart tightened, and a bad feeling instantly occupied his thoughts. Just when he wanted to shout "return home", there was a sudden flash between heaven and earth, and the entire windshield was submerged in the incomparable light.
The strong light reflected Xu Cangcan's pale and bloodless face, just like the despairing sound of the sky exploding in his ears!
Xu Cang's mind went blank: "It's over!"
