descending and hurrying to the coffee wagon.
Driving back toward the terminal, Mel radioed the Snow Desk, confirming to Danny Farrow that runway one seven, left, would be usable shortly. Then, switching to ATC ground control, he turned the volume low, the subdued, level voices a background to his thoughts.
In the Snowblast cab he had been reminded of the event which, of all others he remembered, had struck with greatest impact.
It had been four years ago.
He thought, startled, was it really that long ago?–four years since the gray November afternoon when, dazedly, he had pulled the p.a. microphone across his desk toward him–the microphone, rarely used, which overrode all others in the terminal–and cutting in on a flight arrival bulletin, had announced to concourses which swiftly hushed, the shattering news which seconds earlier had flashed from Dallas.
His eyes, as he spoke then, had been on the photograph on the facing wall across his office, the photograph whose inscription read: To my friend Mel Bakersfeld, concerned, as I am, with attenuating the surly bonds of earth–John F. Kennedy.
The photograph still remained, as did many memories.
The memories began, for Mel, with a speech he had made in Washington, D.C.
At the time, as well as airport general manager, he had been president of the Airport Operators Council–the youngest leader, ever, of that small but influential body linking major airports of the world. AOC headquarters was in Washington, and Mel flew there frequently.
His speech was to a national planning congress.
Aviation, Mel Bakersfeld had pointed out, was the only truly successful international undertaking. It transcended ideological boundaries as well as the merely geographic. Because it was a means of intermingling diverse populations at ever-diminishing cost, it offered the most practical means to world understanding yet devised by man.
Even more significant was aerial commerce. Movement of freight by air, already mammoth in extent, was destined to be greater still. The new, giant jet airplanes, to be in service by the early 1970s, would be the fastest and cheapest cargo carriers in human history; within a decade, oceangoing ships might be dry-dock museum pieces, pushed out of business in the same way that passenger airplanes had clobbered the Queen Mary and Elizabeth. The effect could be a new, world-wide argosy of trade, with prosperity for now impoverished nations. Technologically, Mel reminded his audience, the airborne segment of aviation offered these things, and more, within the lifetimes of today’s middle-aged people.
Yet, he had continued, while airplane designers wove the stuff of dreams into fabrics of reality, facilities on the ground remained, for the most part, products of shortsightedness or misguided haste. Airports, runway systems, terminals, were geared to yesterday, with scant–if any–provision for tomorrow; what was lost sight of, or ignored, was the juggernaut speed of aviation’s progress. Airports were set up piecemeal, as individually as city halls, and often with as small imagination. Usually, too much was spent on showplace terminals, too little on operating areas. Coordinated, high-level planning, either national or international, was non-existent.
At local levels, where politicians were apathetic about problems of ground access to airports, the situation was as bad, or worse.
“We have broken the sound barrier,” Mel declared, “but not the ground barrier.”
He listed specific areas for study and urged intemational planning–U.S. led and presidentially inspired–for aviation on the ground.
The speech was accorded a standing ovation and was widely reported. It produced approving nods from such diverse sources as The Times of London, Pravda, and The Wall Street Journal.
The day after the speech, Mel was invited to the White House.
The meeting with the President had gone well. It had been a relaxed, good-humored session in the private study on
Driving back toward the terminal, Mel radioed the Snow Desk, confirming to Danny Farrow that runway one seven, left, would be usable shortly. Then, switching to ATC ground control, he turned the volume low, the subdued, level voices a background to his thoughts.
In the Snowblast cab he had been reminded of the event which, of all others he remembered, had struck with greatest impact.
It had been four years ago.
He thought, startled, was it really that long ago?–four years since the gray November afternoon when, dazedly, he had pulled the p.a. microphone across his desk toward him–the microphone, rarely used, which overrode all others in the terminal–and cutting in on a flight arrival bulletin, had announced to concourses which swiftly hushed, the shattering news which seconds earlier had flashed from Dallas.
His eyes, as he spoke then, had been on the photograph on the facing wall across his office, the photograph whose inscription read: To my friend Mel Bakersfeld, concerned, as I am, with attenuating the surly bonds of earth–John F. Kennedy.
The photograph still remained, as did many memories.
The memories began, for Mel, with a speech he had made in Washington, D.C.
At the time, as well as airport general manager, he had been president of the Airport Operators Council–the youngest leader, ever, of that small but influential body linking major airports of the world. AOC headquarters was in Washington, and Mel flew there frequently.
His speech was to a national planning congress.
Aviation, Mel Bakersfeld had pointed out, was the only truly successful international undertaking. It transcended ideological boundaries as well as the merely geographic. Because it was a means of intermingling diverse populations at ever-diminishing cost, it offered the most practical means to world understanding yet devised by man.
Even more significant was aerial commerce. Movement of freight by air, already mammoth in extent, was destined to be greater still. The new, giant jet airplanes, to be in service by the early 1970s, would be the fastest and cheapest cargo carriers in human history; within a decade, oceangoing ships might be dry-dock museum pieces, pushed out of business in the same way that passenger airplanes had clobbered the Queen Mary and Elizabeth. The effect could be a new, world-wide argosy of trade, with prosperity for now impoverished nations. Technologically, Mel reminded his audience, the airborne segment of aviation offered these things, and more, within the lifetimes of today’s middle-aged people.
Yet, he had continued, while airplane designers wove the stuff of dreams into fabrics of reality, facilities on the ground remained, for the most part, products of shortsightedness or misguided haste. Airports, runway systems, terminals, were geared to yesterday, with scant–if any–provision for tomorrow; what was lost sight of, or ignored, was the juggernaut speed of aviation’s progress. Airports were set up piecemeal, as individually as city halls, and often with as small imagination. Usually, too much was spent on showplace terminals, too little on operating areas. Coordinated, high-level planning, either national or international, was non-existent.
At local levels, where politicians were apathetic about problems of ground access to airports, the situation was as bad, or worse.
“We have broken the sound barrier,” Mel declared, “but not the ground barrier.”
He listed specific areas for study and urged intemational planning–U.S. led and presidentially inspired–for aviation on the ground.
The speech was accorded a standing ovation and was widely reported. It produced approving nods from such diverse sources as The Times of London, Pravda, and The Wall Street Journal.
The day after the speech, Mel was invited to the White House.
The meeting with the President had gone well. It had been a relaxed, good-humored session in the private study on
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