Although the captain had uttered more than a handful of expletives to express his dissatisfaction, the translation of his communication to me and the flight engineer was, “You gotta be kidding!” His remark was a reaction to the fact we had just been advised over the company frequency that cargo loaded on board our brown-and-white Boeing 727-100 in Louisville, Kentucky (KSDF), had been destined for Jackson, Mississippi (KJAN). Unfortunately, our airplane had been flight planned for Jacksonville, Florida (KJAX). Yours truly had unknowingly crunched the provided weight-and-balance numbers for the wrong cargo using the infamous “whiz wheel.”
Having never departed the UPS ramp, we shut down the three engines that had just been started. We waited for the just-out-of-college loading supervisor with the clipboard and stopwatch to climb up the portable airstairs/scaffolding.
