Everything's in sync here -- a commercially satisfactory and often exciting first run of the first SST -- 40,000,000 dollars, 200 passengers including an old man Sonderberg who represents a competitive airline and a shotgun rider (the FBI) and of course the men who get her up in the air. Stall Sears, the Captain, is ""pushing the edge"" since fear is really his co-pilot and then he's had some trouble at home re his wife and his first officer, a superstud. There are others (ground crew supervisor and flight engineer and hostess, etc.) but no one really seems to matter after the liftoff when there's an FAA warning re the failure to install a safety wire and when they ""hit something"" and the aircraft becomes uncontrollable and when they consider (with Sonderberg in the observer-adviser's seat) bringing the plane down in ""nonsurvivable landing conditions."" There's a lot of equipment and urgent wing-talk (""Solar flare warning in the dear. Reading zilch."") and you can just put this on automatic pilot and it'll reach the grounded readership of Gann and Hailey.