Then he decided to let the flight director and autopilot take over, so he reached down to his right and pressed two push buttons labeled PITCH and LATERAL. The first thing he needed was a clearance, to set up part of the route to Johnston Island. He needed a lot of other things, too, including at least one more aerial refueling. It would be a long night now literally, flying west as darkness moved west. The stars spread before him, a host of trembling silver points. “Take the airplane,” he told Colman. “My radios.” Parson detached his utility light from over his head. He pulled on its coiled cord and shone it onto the pages of the Flight Information Handbook. He looked up a frequency and rolled it into the number one HF radio. When he pulled up HF1 audio, he could hear the shifting crackles of radio waves bouncing across great distances of atmosphere. He pressed his TALK switch and called, “Santa Maria. Santa Maria. Air Evac Eight-Four.” In sidetone through his headset, his own voice sounded far away.
