Different Circles

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The 1982 Cessna 414A Chancellor cruised placidly along in level flight 17,500 feet above sea level, its twin Ram VII turboprop engines driving it through the thin air at 220 nautical miles per hour. Inside the aircraft the pilot and his passengers sat comfortably in a cabin pressurized to eight thousand feet of altitude. Outside the windows they enjoyed a panoramic view of the cloudless summer sky and the foothills and peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountains off to their right. To their left, the broad expanse of the Sacramento Valley stretched off to the west, framed by the low, rolling hills of the California coastal range. The city of Sacramento and its suburbs could be seen sprawling out beneath an ugly brown haze of summer smog. The aircraft flew more or less directly above the boundary between the valley floor and the foothills of the Sierras.

Jake Kingsley, former lead singer of the former rock band Intemperance, was sitting in the left-hand cockpit seat, his hands resting gently in his lap as the autopilot handled the mechanics of keeping the plane straight and level and on course. Jake had been a licensed private pilot for three years now. He carried an instrument rating, a multi-engine certification, and a pressurized aircraft operational certification. As of leaving the ground for this flight, his logbook showed 424 total hours of pilot time, including ninety-seven in the 414A Chancellor, which he had purchased two years before. If not for the months he had spent in self-imposed exile in New Zealand, he likely would have had another hundred hours or more in the log.

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