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Flag of Japan

     In its service to Los Angeles, Singapore Airlines included a night stop at Tokyo.  Departing Singapore on 11th December 1987, I flew this route for the first time, and would thoroughly enjoy doing so for the succeeding five years.

     The city of Tokyo sprawls inland from the northwest edge of Tokyo Bay.  It’s the most populous city in Japan, and the most populous metropolitan area in the world.  Once a year I’d spend one night there (shudder), similar to visiting a gigantic anthill swarming with tens of thousands of scurrying Japanese.  If you can’t read or speak Japanese, don’t wander too far from the hotel.  Why?  No one speaks English and all the signs are in Japanese.

     Less than thirty minutes south of central Tokyo lies Haneda Airport, with three runways right on the waters’ edge of Tokyo Bay.  During this period it was used primarily for domestic flights.

     The airline billeted us at a cold and sterile, five-star 34-storied hotel.  Its only redeeming feature was the roof.  From there, on a clear day, I could actually see the iconic Mt. Fuji 60 miles away to the southwest.  It’s perfect, exceptionally symmetrical, snow-capped cone rose to a height of 12,389 feet, making it the highest mountain in Japan.  While in reality it’s not a mountain, rather an active strato-volcano, which last erupted in 1707-08.  Making us all a nervous Myrtle, dear reader; isn’t it due for another big blow?

Mt.Fuji from downtown Tokyo.

Mt. Fuji over-flight in my 747.

     Fortunately the majority of my Tokyo layovers, thank my lucky stars, took place at a beautiful little spot we called “Narita Village.”

     Located 37 miles east of central Tokyo rested the new Narita Airport, and although it merely had a single, 13,123-foot, runway it still handled the lion’s share of Tokyo’s international air traffic.  The government wanted to add more runways, but the rioting Japanese farmers wouldn’t let them.  Hence poor Narita was operating well beyond its currently designed capacity. 

     Snapped this out my front windshield as we came in to park at Gate 44.  

My “Big Top” parked safe and sound at Gate 44.

     In the end, despite its over-crowded conditions in the air, or on the ground, Narita’s ATC controllers and ground-pounders ran everything smoothly and efficiently.  From Singapore to Narita it was usually six hours flying time.  The STAR (Standard Terminal Arrival Route) that we used was the Jupiter One or Two Arrival; which easily (depending on which way the wind was blowing) set us up for an approach to either Runway Three Four or One Six (340°/160° magnetic, NW/SE).  Making it “easy-peasy-Japanesey” to land at Narita.

     As for Narita Village, it was situated approximately equidistant between Tokyo Bay and the North Pacific Ocean.  With the founding of a noted Buddhist temple (Narita-san Shinsho-ji) in 940 AD, the village became an important pilgrimage destination.  Technically Narita Village was reclassified as a “city” in 1954, when it absorbed six other neighboring villages. 

     Even so, we aircrew referred to it as Narita Village, simply because it didn’t appear or “feel” like a city.  A city has broad avenues, grid-locked traffic, thousands of people hustling to God knows where.

     While sleepy Narita possessed a spider web of quaint, narrow lanes, winding up and down gentle hills, sparse traffic, few crowds, small shops and eateries.

The outskirts of Narita on the way to the Holiday Inn.

It can also snow at Narita.

     It’s impressive asset was the Narita-san Shinsho-ji Temple Complex, lying on the northwest edge of the village.  

     This was an amazing park a thousand years old, containing temples and pagodas from different periods, set as jewels within the trees and softly rolling hills.  It was likewise laced with a myriad of lanes wandering through immaculate forests around pristine ponds.  

Main Entrance.

     Often I’d find myself totally alone exploring a path, shrouded in mist, within a magical Japanese forest.  

     And when winter came, with snow transforming the temples, pagodas and trees to a white winter wonderland, it knocked my socks off, dear reader.  Especially at night, with Japanese lanterns reflecting off the icicles dripping from swept temple roofs; once again enjoying this beauty all alone.

     Oh yes, dear reader, you can have the frantic anthill of metropolitan Tokyo, I’ll take sleepy Narita Village, thank you very much.

     Returning to my very first layover at Narita, 11th December 1987, SIA put us up at a Holiday Inn on the outskirts of the village.  

     My room on the fourth floor being cramped and stuffy, I elected to open the solitary window; a single, large plate of glass encased in an aluminum frame.  It unlatched alright, except no matter how hard I pulled on the latch the window wouldn’t budged.  It was thoroughly jammed shut.

My room. Note the “jammed” window.

I found the bathroom odd; constructed as a single cubicle of plastic.

      Grumbling, I gave up and slipped into my undersized single bed.

     Next morning the Flight Engineer and myself caught a ride on the courtesy van to the village.  We had to cross a steep gulley on a narrow iron bridge.  Subsequently, as we left the main roadway to enter the bridge, the rear end of our van slid out from under us and attempted a 180°.  For a heart stopping moment, I felt we were about to leave the bridge for the bottom of the gulley.  Had we hit a patch of oil?  At the last instant the driver regained control; and eventually we were dropped off in the heart of the village.

     As the F.E. and I began to explore, we came upon a pet shop with a half-dozen wire cages on the walkway containing, what I believe, were squirrels and ferrets.  These critters were acting berserk, as they crazily did 360°s in their cages; moving so fast I couldn’t tell what they were.  Could they have been given meth?

     Sauntering further we chanced upon a grocer with all its canned and dried goods piled on the aisles’ floors; followed by a liquor store with broken bottles on its floors.

     Upon reaching the corner, we saw a woman precariously on a roof’s overhang kicking loose tiles crashing to the lane below, as a colleague on the ground kept people from getting hit.

     “PING!”

     That’s when it at last jelled, dear reader.  We had been hit by an earthquake when our van lost control on the bridge!

     Later, returning to the Holiday Inn, my deduction was confirmed.  The elevators were out of order, forcing us to use a dark concrete stairwell.  As we climbed to the fourth floor, I discovered long vertical cracks in the concrete’s walls with water seeping out of them.  Upon entering my room, I stepped onto a Hollywood detective “B Movie” set, right out of the 1940’s.  My room had been “tossed!”  The lamps, chairs, table, ashtrays, glasses and even my 14-inch TV were all on the floor, with the bureau’s drawers halfway out.

     In spite of this, dear reader, we have to look on the bright side.  Remember that plate glass window I had attempted to open the night before without success?  Well, sir, it was now wide open!  Apparently it takes an earthquake to open it.

     In the years to come I was also to discover the The Red Lion; a popular hangout for aircrews laying-over at Narita.  A genuine British pub serving Guinness, fish and chips, shepherd’s pie and other Limey grub.  And, occasionally, I’d stumble on pilots I had flown with at SAUDIA, currently flying with other airlines.

     On one particular Narita layover, I got collared in the lobby by a beautiful SIA Flight Attendant name Susan Ong.  She was 23, a Chinese-Singaporean, possessing a statuesque figure, with jet-black, silky hair falling below her shoulder blades, and perfect porcelain skin.  She could have easily been a poster girl for Singapore Airlines, plus she was also married to “Prince Toad,” making her ready to play.

 

Susan: in and out of uniform. 

     Possessing a wicked sense of humor, she asked me if I’d tried the fresh water eel yet; a Japanese delicacy.  Knowing full well it would make my skin crawl.

     The last time I had encountered eel was in an ancient Roman bath, inside a crumbling Roman garrison outside Rabat, Morocco.  They were big, black slimy fellows that really gave me the creeps, for I was thinking of jumping in to cool off, when they came slithering out of the shadows.  I still have nightmares regarding this, and Susan knew it.

     So this 98-pound, beautiful Singaporean kidnaped me, gleefully twisting my arm, and dragged me through the snow in the dead of winter to her favorite “eel-shop” at Narita Village.

     Dumping our airline top coats, gloves, wool scarfs and caps in a corner, we sat on silk cushions on the floor, with our legs dangling into a well, under the table, for people with long legs.

     Susan wisely plied me with bottles of hot sake, and starters, before the main course of barbequed eel arrived.  All in all, it wasn’t half bad.  No bones, and no heads or tails, merely long, filleted-strips of barbequed eel.  What did it taste like?  Well, dear reader, let’s call it BBQ chicken.

BBQ eel on a bed of rice.

     Susan and I finished off several platters of them, and perhaps a dozen bottles of hot sake, leaving me utterly legless.  Thank God she was with me, otherwise, in my hammered condition, I would have never been able to navigate all those twisting, snow-packed lanes back to the hotel.  For the airline had moved us out of the Holiday Inn, to a smaller hotel in the village.

     When we reached L.A., I paid her back by renting a Pontiac convertible, and zipped Susan up the coast to Solvang; where I filled her up with good Scandinavian cooking and wine.  It was a perfect, clear winter’s day in California.  A day that Susan and I will never forget; pleasantly wandering through the boutiques and art galleries of this Hollywood version of a Scandinavian village.

     On my very first layover at Narita, departing on 12th December 1987, I was in for another surprise at the airport.  After our 747-312 “Big Top” was pushed back from Gate 44, out my right side window, I saw the Japanese seven-man ground crew line up shoulder-to-shoulder and come to attention.  They were all in grey jumpsuits and, in unison, they raised their right arms and began waving “goodbye.”

     At first I was stunned.  Nowhere in the entire world would a ground crew perform such a polite gesture.  Usually they’d simply disappear – thankful to be rid of you.

     Finally I saluted them, and waved back.  And, after we executed the Chosi One Departure, a SID (Standard Instrument Departure) which set us up to intercept the tracks that would take us across the black Pacific Ocean, I kept replaying the Japanese ground crew’s sendoff; producing a wide grin on my chops.

     On that night I was also introduced to a dangerous practice, which the airlines, operating out of Tokyo across the Pacific, avoid discussing: the jet stream.  Their dispatchers deliberately making use of this phenomenon, which places their passengers and crews at physical risk, in order to save fuel and money.

     What on earth am I talking about, dear reader?  Actually this:  There’s a massive current of air that passes over Japan from west to east, which can move at 100 to 200 nautical miles per hour.  It can also produce violent CAT (Clear Air Turbulence), when punching through its belly, that’s been known to toss passengers and crew around in the cabin like rag dolls.

     In WWII, dear reader, when American B-29 bombers attempted daylight, high altitude raids of Japan at 27,000 to 30,000 feet, they stumbled upon this jet stream, which dismantled their formations and literally blew their bombs off target.  Forcing the B-29s to fly, and bomb accurately, under the jet stream at 10,000 feet; exposing them to accurate anti-aircraft fire and Jap fighters.

U.S. B-29s bombing Japan – their bombs being blown off target by the jet stream.

U.S. B-29s bombing Japan accurately under the jet stream – being chopped up by fighters.

     The Japanese also used this jet stream as a weapon, launching 9,300 hydrogen filled balloons that carried five bombs.  They achieved an altitude of 30,000 feet, crossed the Pacific in three days, and landed on the North American Continent from Alaska to Mexico; and as far inland as the states of Texas and Michigan.  So the American people wouldn’t feel they were under direct attack, this was all hushed up by the U.S. Military during the war.

風船爆弾 fūsen bakudan "balloon bomb," or Fu-Go. 

A captured Fu-Go  with 4 incendiary bombs and a 15-KG anti-personnel bomb.

The Balloon Bombs’ route – pushed along by the jet stream. The Red Dots indicate where they landed.

An RCAF Canadian P-40 about to shoot one of the balloons down over Canada.

     My point being, dear reader, this powerful Japanese jet stream is nothing to screw with.  So why do the airlines persist in deliberately dispatching their aircraft in the middle of it, ignoring passenger safety?  In spite of the fact that many airliners have already been forced back to Japan, due to passengers and crew being injured by the CAT the jet stream produced. 

     For example: The worst incidence of this occurred in 1997, with United Airlines Flight 826, when the jet stream injured 161 passengers and crew.  Fifteen passengers and three flight attendants receiving spinal and neck fractures, with one Japanese female passenger being killed.  It took them three hours to fly back to Japan; bucking severe headwinds all the way.  The 747-122 was so over-stressed that United had to sell it for scrap, it never flew passengers again.

United Airlines Flight 826 – another  “Unfriendly Skies” episode.

     The worst period to experience this jet stream at Japan, dear reader, is in the months of November to March; the winter months when the jet stream is most extreme.

     And so, returning to my first trip to Japan, departing on the night of 12th December 1987 – being totally ignorant of the jet stream the dispatcher had set me up for – you can imagine my surprise when we punched into its belly at 18,000 feet, dear reader.  I encountered CAT so violent; I thought I would lose all the fillings in my teeth!  Jesus, Joseph and Mary!  My 747 was tossed around comparable to a toy!

     Continuing our climb, upon passing 25,000 feet, abruptly the turbulence dissipated and from that point on it was smooth sailing.  We leveled out at our initial cruising altitude of 29,000 feet, and it felt as if we were in the eye of a hurricane; this monumental jet stream moving us right along in its heart. 

     Upon crossing the International Date Line; I got curious.  Using my INS, I ran a check on what the wind (jet stream) was doing to us.  I discovered the following:  We had a tailwind of 200 knots, which in turn gave us a groundspeed of 750 knots (862 mph)! Oh yeah, baby, that’s really cooking!

     In the next five years, when operating this trip, I would average a west to east crossing of 9.5 to 10 hours flight time.  On this first trip, with the 200 knot tailwind, I made it to LAX in 8 hours and 48 minutes!  A personal best!

     On the other hand, the return trip to Tokyo, east to west, would average 10.5 to 11.5 hours.  On the return flight of this first trip, three days later, it took us 12 hours and 24 minutes to reach Tokyo!  Despite the fact we had been dispatched on the Great Circle Route, via Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, way to the north in order to avoid Japan’s jet stream.

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