Rudolph, he of the red nose was miffed: his well rehearsed 'dying swan' routine had not been used during the check flight, but he was determined have it appreciated and decided to demonstrate his talent on the very first narrow roof top take off, "teach the fat boy a lesson" he thought as he munched on his pre take off dinner.
The CTE had recovered some cool and was doing his final look around, to be sure, to be sure; one of the new gizmos fitted had not been cooperative, but it tested OK, so with the hour fast approaching, the CTE decided that if it played up the MEL would cover the Santa arse and all would be well, the bloody thing was only an additional back up, of a redundancy duplicated system; anyway his toes were cold and tempus was fugiting.
Santa rolled up, the planning elves had done him proud, and the new 'Pad' (present from Mrs S) was all loaded and ready to rock, even had spare batteries and a plug in for the cigar lighter. Santa was a veteran though and his trusty, dusty, battered flight bag, flask and snack box were amongst the last items to be loaded, quick peck for Mum, nod of thanks to the CTE and with little fanfare, the sled accelerated into the night and slipped quietly away; shaping a course for the second star on the right and straight on until morning
Well, the planning elves had done a bang up job; the ATCO went out of their way to assist, the winds cooperated, the new rapid toy delivery system (RTDS) worked like a dream and by mornings first light (yesterday) Santa was setting up for the long haul over the Pacific and breakfast. He always enjoyed watching the suns first rays lighting the tops of the great mountains parked on the island with the long white clouds, breakfast over and a second coffee poured, the pipe was lit, feet up on the dashboard, a couple of hours to while away before the RTDS would do it's magic work again. And so it was, the reindeers nose bags were on time, the RTDS did it's thing and after a pit stop, Santa et al headed West for the final leg to 'Dizzyland'. It had been christened that by the early Santas because, there being so very little in the middle, and lots around the edges, the reindeer got dizzy going around in a big long, boring circle.
"Morning Brisbane – Santa 1 here, ready to commence RTDS run".
"Santa 1 is that? – we have no details in the system, you must have made an error; hold at 'PARKU' until advised".
Well, long story short, eventually the 'details' were found and the sled left the pattern, but it seemed that the Santa configuration of ADSB and RVSM gear was not unique enough and Santa could either climb half way to heaven; or grub along in the ice and clouds; or, bugger off somewhere else; or divert; or declare an emergency. The CVR tape was played later, for the amusement of the elves at the post delivery party; top marks for colourful language were awarded....Anyway,,,,, eventually the RTDS started and was almost over when Santa spotted a BBQ, lots of wood and canvas aircraft parked, a beer tent and a goodly crowd of children. Being an aficionado of all; Santa checked his watch and decided a
PR exercise was in order; the reindeer were willing to take a break and so without much further ado; Santa lobbed in, sprinkling fairy dust and lollies over the crowd.
While the new composite sled was being admired Santa enjoyed a ginger beer and snag sandwich with the 'grown ups' while pointing out the latest technical developments (showing off really); the kids made a fuss of the reindeer and nearly cleaned out the emergency lolly supplies. " Must get going" says Santa, "long way home and I have one more drop to make". He looked at the crowd and noted they had gone very silent, the kids had shuffled in behind their Mum's and the men all gone pale. "Ho ho" says Santa, "it's not that bad and I'll be back next year". As the silence deepened, Santa looked behind him in the direction the crowd was staring; heading towards him were two figures with 'hi-viz' vests over cheap, shiny suits. "Oh ho" mused Santa, "what manner of evil is this come to visit me on Christmas eve, that scares the children so?"
"Morning boys" says Santa, " special request is it?"
Now as you can imagine, Santa was very skilled indeed at handling naughty children and could size them up at a glance. "Trouble, with capital T" thought Santa, "trouble from the ludicrous pointy toed shoes to the close set eyes beneath the short, pudding basin haircuts: best get out of here tout de suite".
"We demand to inspect your machine and your paperwork" grunts the 'fat' one by way of greeting. The skinny one just lifted his clipboard and took a pen out from behind his ear. "Love to oblige" says Santa, "but I've things to do and anyway, I'm registered at the North pole, well out of your jurisdiction; so, see you later, Tootle pip".
Well, he could tell the 'boys' were unhappy, looked like a couple of Rottweilers deprived of a Pekinese., "tough luck" thought Santa as he climbed inboard, waved at the kids and started the reindeer moving forward.
It was about rotate speed when bloody Rudolph struck; he had the audience he craved and he was sure his dying swan routine would be appreciated by the kids (he'd bragged, they'd asked to see it). "Bang" he called as loudly as he could, stopped pedalling and went into a spectacular, energetic display of how to completely bugger up a take off. No matter what Santa did, neither threats, promises or even applause could persuade Rudolph to stop messing about and get on with the business at hand. Finally, completely loosing his cool Santa bellowed "Rudolph, you fool, that's the Australian CASA troops back there and they will want to investigate". Well that did the tick, Rudolph admitted later that he was so busy doing his act that he only heard the roar of the crowd, the wind in his ears and only one word "CASA".
The sled magically righted itself as Rudolph got back to work, the rest of Dizzyland had the RTDS treatment and with a sigh of relief; Santa punched in warp speed at Fl 700 and set course for home. His thoughts were of slap up Christmas dinner with all the trimmings, relaxing by a blazing fire, watching the snow fall and telling the tales of derring-do. Little did he know, there was paperwork stalking his trail; for he, unwittingly, had caused mighty offence to the wabbits of the warren in the wild woods of Sleepy Hollow.
So children, here we must leave Santa cruising home, high, fast and free with his thoughts of mud crabs, lobster, prawns, turkey, baked spuds, plum pudding, double cream, washed down by copious amounts of a fine dark ale. Little did he know, the 1700 Christmas eve fax would beat him home.
Toot toot....
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Kindly sponsored by the Defence Against Flaming Troglodytes (DAFT) parliamentary sub committee for protecting Christmas cheer.