"I was just thinking. When I was a kid, which isn't all that long ago, most of this place was fields. In summer there were cows and corn and barley. There was a grass airfield; small; nobody thought it would amount to much. If anyone traveled by air, they used the airport in the city."
"That's aviation," Tanya said. She felt a momentary relief at being able to think and talk of something other than what they were waiting for. She went on, "Somebody told me once that working in aviation makes a lifetime seem longer because everything changes so often and so fast."
Tomlinson objected, "Not everything's fast. With airports, the changes aren't fast enough. Isn't it true, Mr. Bakersfeld, that within three to four years there'll be chaos?"
"Chaos is always relative," Mel said; the focus of his mind was still on the scene he could see through the car windshield. "In a good many ways we manage to live with it."
"Aren't you dodging the question?"
"Yes," he conceded. "I suppose I am."
It was scarcely surprising, Mel thought. He was less concerned with aviation philosophy at this moment than with the immediacy of what was happening outside. But he sensed Tanya's need for a lessening of tension, even if illusory; his awareness of her feelings was part of the empathy they seemed increasingly to share. He reminded himself, too, that it was a Trans America flight they were waiting for, and which might land safely or might not. Tanya was a part of Trans America, had helped with the flight's departure. In a real sense, of the three of them she had the most direct involvement.
With an effort he concentrated on what Tomlinson had said.
"It's always been true," Mel declared, "that in aviation, progress in the air has been ahead of progress on the ground. We sometimes think we'll catch up; in the mid-1960s we almost did but by and large we never do. The best we can manage, it seems, is not to lag too far behind."
The reporter persisted, "What should we do about airports? What can we do?"
"We can think more freely, with more imagination, for one thing. We should get rid of the railway station mind."
"You believe we still have it?"
Mel nodded. "Unfortunately, in a good many places. All our early airports were imitation railway stations because designers had to draw on experience from somewhere, and railroad experience was all they had. Aftetward, the habit remained. It's the reason, nowadays, we have so many 'straight line' airports, where terminals stretch on and on, and passengers must walk for miles."
Tomlinson asked, "Isn't some of that changing?"
"Slowly, and in just a few places." As always, despite the pressures of the moment, Mel was warming to his theme. "A few airports are being built as circles---like doughnuts with car parking inside, instead of somewhere out beyond; with minimum distances for people to walk with aids like high-speed horizontal elevators; with airplanes brought close to passengers instead of the other way around. What it means is that airports are finally being thought of as special and distinct; also as units instead of separate components. Creative ideas, even outlandish ones, are being listened to. Los Angeles is proposing a big, offshore seadrome; Chicago, a man-made airport island in Lake Michigan; nobody's scoffing. American Airlines has a plan for a giant hydraulic lift to stack airplanes one above the other for loading and unloading. But the changes are slow, they're not coordinated; we build airports like an unimaginative, patchwork quilt. It's as if phone subscribers designed and made their own telephones, then plugged them into a world-wide system."
The radio cut abruptly across Mel's words. "Ground control to mobile one and city twenty-five. Chicago Center now estimates hand-off of the flight in question to Lincoln approach control will be 0117."
Mel's watch showed 1:06 A.m. The message meant that Flight Two was already a minute earlier than the tower chief had forecast. A minute less for Joe Patroni to work; only eleven minutes to Mel's own decision.
"Mobile one, is there any change in the status of runway three zero?"
"Negative; no change."
Mel wondered: was he cutting things too fine? He was tempted to direct the snowplows and graders to move now, then restrained himself. Responsibility was a two-way street, especially when it came to ordering the near-destruction of a six-million dollar aircraft on the ground. There was still a chance that Joe Patroni might make it, though with every second the possibility was lessening. In front of