Assistance under extreme circumstances in artic Quebec. A polar bear, pilot, military surgeon, navigator and two weather men form the ‘crew’ of this, above all, funny aviation story….a true aviation novel!
Shortly summarized it comes down to this: a polar bear mauls one of the weather men severely, his colleague manages to get him to safety, but urgent assistance is needed. Which comes in the form of a female pilot with a Beechcraft Queen Air, helped by the navigator and the husband of the pilot, who as a U.S. military surgeon, just back from Afghanistan, by parachute leaves the plane to assist! Of course I cannot give way here of how it ends.
What makes this book special to me is the description of the navigation on high width.
Astronavigation is evidently still indispensable for this. GPS is, at most supportive, but not reliable enough (not many satellites, sun activity). Back to the basics of airplane navigation! And that under bizarre – read ice and bad sight- circumstances. Strong work!
A second story line is formed by the dialogues between the weather men and later also with the surgeon. All kind of things pass by, from Al Gore and his ‘man made’ climate change, ObamaCare, the dying and mutilation of American men and women in Afghanistan and the ‘sitting on the hands’ of the remaining NATO participants.
For an European these brought forward views are rather harsh: ‘two nukes on those ragheads and also one on Pakistan, no further American blood needs to be spilled’. It strongly looks that Obama can do no good in the eyes of Dennis Kitainik!
As a third story line can be reported the detailed approach of the medical acting under ‘front line conditions’. Also here elaborate descriptions are given. Dennis gathered professional advice on each of the story lines.
The head story, the confrontation with the polar bear and the para dropping came to me across as rather bizarre, although the reality often surpasses the fantasy! So benefit of the doubt is certainly in place here. And what makes the reading pleasant is that there is speed in the story.
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