check.”
He heard a cross between a mutter and a whisper from behind his left shoulder but he couldn’t make out the words. Removing
his headset, he swung around to face the person. There was no one in the room.
Of course there was no one there. Donaley suddenly remembered that he and the technician were the only ones in the locked
building that night.
Donaley felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as he tried to think who had touched him and whispered in his ear.
Stories about the ghostly visitors started to circulate among the technicians. They found that several had had unexplained
things happen to them individually. Most had been afraid to say anything. To paraphrase the poet, it’s better to say nothing
and appear to be a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
But now that the shift super had let them know about his brushes with the supernatural, other happenings started to be told.
A tech related his experience on the graveyard shift while he was working alone in the console room. The doors to the study
and briefing rooms are held open by electromagnets as a fire safety precaution. If a fire breaks out, the power is removed
from the building and the doors shut automatically to prevent the spread of fire. As he worked alone on the computer, suddenly
one by one the doors to the rooms slammed shut. If power had been lost from the building, the doors should have shut all at
once. But the power stayed on. He watched in shock as each door slammed in turn, right down the row. He then left the console
room for a more brightly lit and heavily populated maintenance room.
A stranger happening took place in the flight station itself. Dennis, one of the day technicians, was helping out the night
crew with a persistent motion problem. He was “flying” the station while the other two techs monitored his progress at the
console.
When the box is under motion, its occupants are totally isolated from the room. To enter the station, you must cross a drawbridge
that raises away when the motion system is activated. The station then lifts up on its legs to prepare to simulate the flight.
The occupants are now suspended twelve feet above the floor. Anyone on the outside of the station would prevent the station’s
rise. The catwalk is covered with a pressure sensitive flooring that inhibits motion, and lights a warning light at the console
to show when anyone steps on the station or even touches it. So Dennis was completely isolated from others as he flew the
plane above the computer earth.
The gentle rocking motion of the simulator and the background noise of the jets worked in unison to lull him. He was almost
dozing when suddenly a hand slapped the back of his head. It was the kind of slap a pilot would use to jump-start his copilot’s
brain when he botched something.
It definitely got Dennis’s brain working. He punched the emergency stop, shutting off the power to the system, ripped off
his seat belt, and bolted for the door. He almost pitched over the railing. The drawbridge had not yet dropped in place. He
was on it and running for the steps before the pumps had released all the pressure. His faith in modern machines was somewhat
shaken. But the best was yet to come.
Friday night is the only night that the trainer is completely shut down. The process of turning it off is involved and must
be followed exactly to prevent damage to the components.
Ted and Ron were working in the flight station as Jerry worked outside the building to clean up the area. Ted was shutting
down the pilot’s side as Ron did the same with the copilot’s side. The windows were blank. They had already turned off the
computer that produced the visuals. Suddenly the window blossomed with a picture of the runway at Minot.
“Wonder why Jerry turned on the visuals?” asked Ted. “You finish up here and I’ll go see what’s happening.”
He left to check on the computer room.
He heard a cross between a mutter and a whisper from behind his left shoulder but he couldn’t make out the words. Removing
his headset, he swung around to face the person. There was no one in the room.
Of course there was no one there. Donaley suddenly remembered that he and the technician were the only ones in the locked
building that night.
Donaley felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as he tried to think who had touched him and whispered in his ear.
Stories about the ghostly visitors started to circulate among the technicians. They found that several had had unexplained
things happen to them individually. Most had been afraid to say anything. To paraphrase the poet, it’s better to say nothing
and appear to be a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
But now that the shift super had let them know about his brushes with the supernatural, other happenings started to be told.
A tech related his experience on the graveyard shift while he was working alone in the console room. The doors to the study
and briefing rooms are held open by electromagnets as a fire safety precaution. If a fire breaks out, the power is removed
from the building and the doors shut automatically to prevent the spread of fire. As he worked alone on the computer, suddenly
one by one the doors to the rooms slammed shut. If power had been lost from the building, the doors should have shut all at
once. But the power stayed on. He watched in shock as each door slammed in turn, right down the row. He then left the console
room for a more brightly lit and heavily populated maintenance room.
A stranger happening took place in the flight station itself. Dennis, one of the day technicians, was helping out the night
crew with a persistent motion problem. He was “flying” the station while the other two techs monitored his progress at the
console.
When the box is under motion, its occupants are totally isolated from the room. To enter the station, you must cross a drawbridge
that raises away when the motion system is activated. The station then lifts up on its legs to prepare to simulate the flight.
The occupants are now suspended twelve feet above the floor. Anyone on the outside of the station would prevent the station’s
rise. The catwalk is covered with a pressure sensitive flooring that inhibits motion, and lights a warning light at the console
to show when anyone steps on the station or even touches it. So Dennis was completely isolated from others as he flew the
plane above the computer earth.
The gentle rocking motion of the simulator and the background noise of the jets worked in unison to lull him. He was almost
dozing when suddenly a hand slapped the back of his head. It was the kind of slap a pilot would use to jump-start his copilot’s
brain when he botched something.
It definitely got Dennis’s brain working. He punched the emergency stop, shutting off the power to the system, ripped off
his seat belt, and bolted for the door. He almost pitched over the railing. The drawbridge had not yet dropped in place. He
was on it and running for the steps before the pumps had released all the pressure. His faith in modern machines was somewhat
shaken. But the best was yet to come.
Friday night is the only night that the trainer is completely shut down. The process of turning it off is involved and must
be followed exactly to prevent damage to the components.
Ted and Ron were working in the flight station as Jerry worked outside the building to clean up the area. Ted was shutting
down the pilot’s side as Ron did the same with the copilot’s side. The windows were blank. They had already turned off the
computer that produced the visuals. Suddenly the window blossomed with a picture of the runway at Minot.
“Wonder why Jerry turned on the visuals?” asked Ted. “You finish up here and I’ll go see what’s happening.”
He left to check on the computer room.
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