Moonlit Path
N31°24.67′ W131°4.50′
0255 ZULU
The full moon, looking like a luminescent china plate, rushes upwards into the fading blue sky. Twenty minutes ago, unseen behind our tail, the sun dropped over the western edge of the world, the cloud shadows it created below us merging with the gray, murky ocean waters. The air is still, and I lean forward—my hands on the glareshield feeling the slight vibrations of the engines—as I watch the moon put more and more space between itself and the horizon.
To the southeast, as the sky darkens, Sirius appears, glowing more and more brightly with each passing minute. I strain my eyes against the dimming light and a further scattering of stars fill in the void above. As I watch, a satellite skims the edge of space, gliding eastward into the darkened distance, passing in front of an emerging Orion’s belt as it does. I turn sideways in my seat, and awkwardly squish my face up against the cold glass of the side window. The outboard 10 feet of our left wing is visible—the green nav light and flashing strobe at its tip—with the last remnants of orange and yellow daylight fading behind it.
The flight computer shows just over 800 miles to go, some two hours of flying towards the lighted perimeter of the continent. I adjust the vent that has been blowing air in my face since we took off almost three hours ago, no longer needing its cooling in our small bubble transiting the cold darkness. The Captain has spent the trip alternating between staring out the window and studying the system’s manuals on his tablet in preparation for an upcoming ground school. Now, with almost nothing to see outside, he adjusts the brightness of the screen and goes back to reading about hydraulics.
Outside, the moon seems to have become comfortable with its separation from the horizon and slows its assent. A countless number of stars have now winked into existence as the sky fades into black in the spaces between the light of the moon and the dimming horizon behind our wings. Of course, the relative speed and size of the moon as it rises is nothing more than an optical illusion, but as the bright, white globe and the stars beyond continue their westward dance across the dome above us, I can almost take it as the truth.
The latest weather report for our destination pops up on the screen, and I am momentarily drawn away from the slow-motion light show occurring overhead. Southern California is sitting in its own normal good weather bubble with just a few scattered clouds in the mid-winter sky. A few weeks ago, I did this same flight and was astonished to find heavy rain and gusty winds buffeting us all the way down to the runway. We are still one more hourly weather report away from landing, so things could change, but the possibility of bad weather now seems unlikely so I look back into the distance out the windshield.
The moon hangs in the sky, midway between the horizon and where the heavens curve out of sight above us, its glow refracting through the glass of the windshield, breaking up the roundness of its shape. Surrounding the moon, where the light fades to dark, a multitude of stars dot the night sky, reaching upwards into the distant beyond. Below, the cloud-speckled ocean is visible in the moonlight, spreading out around us like a field of white flowers. A golden canyon of moonlight shimmers on the water below the clouds, stretching out towards us and guiding us onward into the night.
