The unique air sound from the starter
Trails on for a good ten seconds
Until the increasing RPMs and turbine noise drown it out
The engine comes to life slowly
And settles into it's idle
Oil pressure good
EGT good
Generator online
The other three start as easily
A fine start to an easy flight
We busy ourselves with the final checklists
Setting everything up for takeoff and climb out
The plane rolls it's way to the end of the runway
Clear up to five hundred feet
The mountaintops shrouded in the clouds
No less real for being invisible
Nothing to worry about though
Nav units and GPS are working fine
My seat rotated to the forward facing take off position
I reach forward and set the throttles for take off
Right on the money
EPR hitting their marks
Knobs all lined up like four little soldiers
I love planes fresh out of heavy check
Brakes off!
Rolling
Faster
V1
VR
And we're off
I monitor the engines on my board
Everything is green
Running like a clock
I adjust a few things just to be anal
But it wasn't needed
I just wanted to be busy
Just then the co pilot taps on the GPS screen
"This thing is not working right at all"
I saw what he meant
The screen was a blizzard of pixels and lines
None of which having anything to do with where we were
But hey, that's ok, the inertial navigation unit is still working
They set that up while I was doing the walk-around
We press on
Surrounded by clouds
A grey gloomy brightness
The top of this cloud layer can't be far above us
We climb a little more
Banking gently to conform to the confines of the mountain range
All around us
Unseen
I turn my chair back towards my board
Unhooking my shoulder straps
Pulling out my handbook to check on fuel quantities
I'm not paying any attention to what is out the windows
Suddenly the cockpit interior is illuminated by sunlight
Thank goodness!
I hate flying blind
Then
"Oh Shit!!!"
I snap my head around
Just in time to see several things all at once
The front windscreen is filled with an all too close view
Of a rocky mountainside
The pilot and copilot pull back at the same time
Both pulling the yokes into their bellies as hard as they can
I'm slammed sideways against the back wall of the cockpit
My butt still in the seat thanks to the seat belts
I raise my left foot
I put it up on the throttles
My snakeskin cowboy boot pushing them forward
To the stops
Certainly not going to worry about trim numbers
I pull myself upright
Not moving my foot from the throttles
The aircraft buffets in a near stall as it climbs and accelerates at once
The view is grim
Mountain
Pull pull pull pull
Engines roaring almost over speeding
Mountain
Still pulling
Feels like we must be going straight up by now
Engines screaming
Feels like the plane is about to come apart
Sky
Antennas!!
The captain jukes the plane slightly trying to miss the largest antennae
It's three of those large television or radio affairs
Up on top of this mountain that we just narrowly missed hitting
We are aimed between two of them
The fuselage streaks between them
Our wings smash into them
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