Navigator Jimmie Riley fondly remembers a mission when he could smell popcorn all the way to the cockpit. More frequently, there are the aromas of fresh-baked pizza and the unmistakable scents of TV dinners, baking slow and steady, the old-fashioned way. You got a stove, you use it, Riley says—even if you're 30,000 feet up and especially when you've been flying 15 hours straight. Long missions are the standard for Riley and his many crewmates. He navigates one of the last remaining WC-135s equipped for Constant Phoenix, the nation's only airborne program to detect nuclear fallout. It's a mission that takes Riley all over the world to retrieve evidence from the area of a nuclear explosion.
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