Collision course (novel)

Collision course is a novel by Spencer Dunmore from the year 1974 .

action

The story is about the pilot Frank Beatty, who crash-lands a brand new Boeing 747-100 near a major airport in Africa at the beginning of the plot . Although Beatty cannot be directly assigned the blame, he is fired from his employer, Anglo World Airways, and given a three-month flight ban.

At the same time, Charles Vaughan, a DC-8 pilot at TranState, began a relationship in Toronto with the former Air Canada flight attendant Rosalie Pringle. Lee, as he calls her, is an avid glider pilot and shares many interests with Charles. An intimate relationship slowly develops between the two. Charles, who is married with two children, is torn between his loyalty to his wife Susan and his relationship with Lee, which plunges him into a serious crisis. He confides in his friend Walt Przeczek, who has a reputation for cheating and is no help either.

Meanwhile, Frank receives a job offer from the new charter airline Amory International to fly as copilot and later again as captain on the Boeing 707 . Frank accepts the offer, but withholds the fact that he has been suffering from occasional fainting spells since the crash in Africa. He persuades an old schoolmate, who is now working as a psychiatrist, to advise and examine him under a false name. Some time later, they discover that Frank suffers from some form of epilepsy . Frank swallows pills that suppress the seizures, but is faced with the fact that he will soon lose his dream job. When his doctor learns about his real job, he wants to urge him to quit, as he sees a danger for his passengers in Frank.

In the meantime, Charles's wife has found out about his relationship and moves with their two daughters to Carmel to live with their parents. His friend Walt is killed in a crash. Charles, who has been trying to end his relationship with Lee for months, falls into an even deeper crisis. While taking over a flight to Toronto, he learns that Lee was killed when their glider crashed. When Susan finds out, she is ready to go back to Charles. Frank is also on his way to Toronto. There, after having had several mini-seizures on the flight, he plans to bid a more dignified farewell. Both machines are put on hold as severe thunderstorms have come over Toronto. The 707 flies without a transponder (the flight could not be canceled due to lack of money).

The young pilot Henry Peel, who has made his license in the course of the plot and enthusiastically bought an Aeronca , gets caught in the storm and is sucked into the air. Henry, who has a huge passion for flying, gets in the way of Frank's 707 this way. Frank manages at the last moment to pull the plane out of the line of fire, but then faints again. Believing Frank has had a heart attack, his copilot takes over. When he hears a radio message for Charles, he also follows this instruction.

The 707 hits Charles' DC-8 from below and destroys his controls. The Boeing loses parts of the right wing. Both machines press against each other and get caught, whereby several passengers of the TranState machine perish. Nevertheless, both machines stay in the air and race on as 'double deckers'. The two pilots communicate by radio and manage to steer the plane to Toronto. Frank, who has to control both machines by himself, manages to land in Toronto. The landing gear breaks off and both aircraft separate from each other. Nevertheless, all of the remaining passengers survived the disaster. Only Frank dies in the flames when he freed another from the plane.

At the very end you find out that Henry is selling his Aeronca again because he has obviously lost his enthusiasm for flying.

publication

The original version was published in 1974 under the title Collision . The first German version was published in 1976 by Paul Zsolnay Verlag . ISBN 978-3499143366