The “Whys” of Airline “Ground Stops” For Passengers

For many passengers, flying is an unfamiliar, sometimes confusing experience made all the more so by the lack of understanding of inconveniences like ground delays.

Often it seems such take-off delays are arbitrary (the sky is clear and blue; let’s go!) and unfounded–but if you understood the reasons behind departure delays, you could at least keep your blood pressure low and your patience intact.

The most common–and often dreaded–delay term you might hear regarding your take-off is “Ground Stop,”  which means you are not being allowed to take-off or more succinctly, your flight is stopped on the ground at your departure airport.

Why?

Multiple reasons. The most common is that the destination weather is such that the the number of inbound aircraft the Air Traffic Control can sequence is restricted or reduced.

Why? Well, the most common problem is a low ceiling and visibility that requires expanded spacing between aircraft.

Why more spacing? Because if we as pilots can separate ourselves from other aircraft visually on an approach and landing, we need only five miles of separation. If we’re flying in reduced visibility, that separation requirement at least doubles to ten miles. That cuts down the number of arrivals possible per hour.

But it could also be a beautifully clear day and capacity could be limited by winds. If the wind velocity or even gusts approaches the crosswind limitation of most aircraft–normally around 30 knots–then some runways may be unusable.

Why? This happens at DFW now and then because of the seven runways, five are oriented north-south, two are northwest to southeast. Doing the math, two runways rather than seven handling arrivals will of course mean delays.

The Ground Stop is a temporary way to shut off the flow of inbound aircraft until such time as either the limiting condition dissipates at the destination field–and that could be the low ceilings and visibility, winds or a thunderstorm. The last problem–a storm–can also cause a ground stop for your destination even after it passes.

Why? Sometimes it becomes a question of real estate: if a storm at your destination has stopped their outbound aircraft from taking off, there often is simply no room to taxi and park a slew of inbound aircraft. This is particularly true at small, congested airports like LaGuardia and Washington Reagan, but even large airports like DFW can become gridlocked as well.

And if the condition slowing things down is icing, there really is no point in allowing too many aircraft in.

Why? Because once an aircraft is de-iced, a take-off must be accomplished promptly or the deicing fluid loses its effectiveness and the plane needs to be de-iced over again.

What about when you’re told there’s an “outbound Ground Stop” for your airport? Rare, but it happens.

Why? From a pilot standpoint, the airport isn’t exactly “closed.” But the problem becomes the departure corridor: if the radar controllers can’t find a clear path for departing aircraft, they simply don’t allow any departures. But sometimes when your airport’s weather is fine, the departures from another nearby airport might cause a temporary shutdown of your airport’s departures.

Airways crammed into the east and northeast.

Why? Well, as in the case of JFK, Newark, and LaGuardia, or Baltimore, Washington, and Dulles, or Chicago O’Hare and Midway, DFW and Love Field, or San Francisco International and Oakland and San Jose, and LAX and any of the dozens of airports there–if one field has bad weather, particularly thunderstorms, their inbound and outbound aircraft have to maneuver off of the normal routing in order to avoid thunderstorms. Air Traffic Control will wisely limit the number of new aircraft added to the mix.

On-board radar display: no take-off clear path.

Really, a Ground Stop makes sense when you think about it. Because the limiting condition at your destination would still exist whether you take-off or hold on the ground. So the problem with allowing the take-off even though the landing field is restricted is that you end up with a larger risk of delay.

Why? Because if the delay inbound is absorbed in the air, that means holding. If holding time is projected to be over a half hour or maybe even forty-five minutes, the end result will be a diversion.

Why? Well, because there’s only so much fuel we can carry en route since every aircraft has a maximum landing weight. If you add an extra hour’s worth of fuel–about 10,000 pounds on my jet–but then it turns out that you don’t need it to hold enroute, you could easily be too heavy to land. Guess what happens then: you will get to hold until you burn off the excess fuel, which is a tremendous waste and will guarantee that some connecting passengers’ next flight will depart without them.

Plus, in my pilot mind, after about forty minutes of holding, my air sense tells me it’s time to find a better place to land. It’s simply not prudent from a pilot standpoint to arrive at an alternate without extra fuel for contingencies there. And if we do have to divert, depending on how long my crew and our duty day has been, the FAA may mandate that we’re done flying for the day–which means you are too, wherever we are.

But all of that can be avoided by holding on the ground at our departure airport, burning no fuel. As frustrating as that may seem, the alternative is actually worse and really, taking-off without a good probability of being able to land at your intended destination doesn’t really sound like a good idea, does it?

I have to say, some crewmembers don’t even understand all of the Ground Stop factors I just explained and certainly, most passengers don’t either.

But the wise passengers like you who understand this “big picture” explanation of the dreaded Ground Stop can just take a deep breath, nod wisely and be confident that they’re on the optimum route to their destination.

The early days of aviation.

Earlier this week, I was privileged to join the Airplane Geeks crew interviewing Igor Sikorsky III, grandson of the famous Russian aircraft designer. He gives new insight into this famous man and the early days of aviation. That, plus aviation news from around the world.

Download or listen live–click here!

Just Fly The Pieces.

Windshear ain’t all bad. Why?

Well, if  “windshear advisories” are being broadcast for the take-off runway, you get to use the full mojo on both engines.

No de-rate allowed, so you get The Full Monty on both engines which is like super kick-in-the-pants giddyup on take-off, especially if you’re light.

So normally I’m rolling down the runway chanting to myself, “Engines, engines, engines . . .” as a way to keep my focus not only on the centerline, but after 80 knots, to screen out any of the dozens of aural and visual warnings and annunciations that could try to induce me to abort–which we ain’t doing above 80 knots. Why?

Because I’m a pilot: I’d rather fly with a sick airplane–even on one engine–rather than try to stay on the 80-ton bronco, stopping it with whatever’s left after something malfunctioned. So I screen out electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic, navigation, flight guidance annunciations and look for engines engines engines; if they’re turning and burning, we’re flying and we’ll worry about the other stuff in the air.

And in a highspeed abort, especially if there’s a ground evacuation afterward–somebody’s going to get hurt.

“Just fly the goddam pieces,” crusty old Major Jerry McClennan used to bark, instead of the typically laborious over-fried briefing done before an Air Force gaggle of jets and rendezvouses and painstaking square-filling beforehand.

Jerry, engine fire?

A wave of his bony hand, always holding a cigarette which is why he usually smelled like a smoldering dump fire, even unlit. “Bah! Just let it burn off,” he’d growl. “Who the hell cares?”

That’s the original “fly the pieces” mentality, which I first heard from ol’ Jer so many years ago. And he’s right.

Because life is that way: you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit, as my fifth grader reminds me now and again when I’m cursing the laptop for being balky at a task which she can and will easily smooth out with a few deft clicks.

So it is with jets, flights, and flight crews.

And as any pilot who endured an emergency simulator with the legendary American Airlines instructor Dutch Schultz (long retired and passed away) will recall as he threw multiple and complex aircraft emergencies at you relentlessly, how he’d smile and say softly, “Well, it’s an imperfect world, isn’t it?

That it is. And I can’t even muster much disappointment when things go wrong, as they often will, not only expecting the worst, but also figuring the bigger pieces on fire will just burn off anyway. Look out below–we actually had a 727 years ago where one of the engines literally fell off.

Among the other bells and lights distracting the cockpit crew was the cabin interphone call chime.

Flight Attendant: we just lost an engine.

Pilot: yeah, we know. Thanks for distracting me from the obvious with the obvious.

Flight Attendant: no, I mean it’s gone.

This is where Jerry would say, “Well who the hell cares–we’ve got more, don’t we?” And don’t call up here any more–we’re busy.

I was in awe of him as a lieutenant: the guy’s a wildman! He flies around with his hair on fire, doesn’t give a damn.

That’s where, I find out 15,000 pilot hours later, I was dead wrong.

Jerry gave a damn–and he was passing along the secret in the pilot world that also translates into life as well. That is, the question in a critical situation isn’t “what’s going to happen?” Well, you can ask that, but the real question you need to know that will determine what you do is “what’s the worst that can happen?”

Then just back it off a notch and fly right. It gets easier from there, once you decide where the edge of the world is, and you’ll find in any emergency there’s at least some room between you and that fall-off-the-edge point.

I tried, really I did, to muster something other than strict adherence to standard responses the day Mexico City approach vectored us into a mountain at night in a thunderstorm. Really I did–but nothing, no panic, no fear; nada.

The Flight Data Recorder printout (I still have it) shows within two second of the alert, I had the wings level and the power to the firewall, two seconds after that the nose was at 20 degrees and climbing, the radio altimeter unwinding like the Dow. We were losing, the mountain was winning. Couldn’t see a thing because of the thunderstorm enveloping us anyway–which was a good thing: turbulence had exceeded the autopilot’s limits and it had quit earlier.

The extra seconds to disconnect the autopilot might have eaten the few feet we had to spare–you could clearly hear the automated radio altimeter warning “500 feet” even though we were above 9,000 feet in altitude–when we cleared the mountain. Like windshear on take-off, no worries, deal with it and there is an upside to everything anyway.

Throughout, all I could muster was intense concentration–is there one more ounce of lift or thrust I’m overlooking?–the whole time. Well that, plus a smidge of resentment at having been vectored into the mountain, but it’s an imperfect world, isn’t it?

Rocks everywhere!

Fly the pieces, is what I told the pilot sent down to Mexico City to babysit the double engine change required after the firewall escape maneuver we’d done quietly, intently and successfully.

Seen the edge a few times since, and in a career aloft that includes skydiving and acro flying, many times before: shrug. Because Jerry was right–what choice do you really have? Concentration, thinking above feeling and in the end, just fly the pieces. You’ll know soon enough how it all turns out, right?

Bad News: Cat Ranchers in the Sky.

The “cat rancher.” If you’re a flight crew member, you know who I’m talking about–because you’ve been on a crew with one or more of them before.

They have a different mindset than normal folks. Somehow, they’ve confused their pet with an actual meaningful sentient relationship and worse, they’ve confused their cat with a pet. It’s not like the cat or worse, cats, really give a damn, and yeah, they may look “cute” not giving a damn.

But somehow, maybe through the lack of actual interpersonal connections, maybe they’ve moved beyond a parenthood or a spouse-hood–or possibly both of those things moved on from them. Could be a bad experience with a scoutmaster or weird uncle–I don’t know.

Thus the cat rancher: keeper of one or more “babies,” gushing over them whenever a conversation drifts to children or family. They don’t notice that others in the conversation are internally going, “my god: a cat rancher.”

That’s actually just a symptom, too, cat rancherhood, of a “damaged goods” brand that then explains the spillover of such arrested development into other areas. In the flying biz, we tend to be a little out of the mainstream. Our work interactions occur on the road with an ever-changing combination of crewmembers in varying locations around the country and the world.

We tend not to have much direct or face-to-face accountability to a boss or an organizational hierarchy. Rather, we’re on our own  all over the globe, making chit-chat (that’s where they drop “the cat bomb” and seem to not notice the mainstream doesn’t normally include the feline-philia). They have a different set of valuations when it comes to both attitudes and behaviors related to both two and four-legged creatures.

In fact, they do better with the latter, sadly, than the former.

Let me give you an example. Mr. Boeing didn’t give us too much extra room in the cockpit. After a recent flight, as passengers were deplaning, I attempted to heft my suitcase out of the cockpit in a break in the passenger line. The First Officer and I had another flight to fly and we were late.

The cockpit door, when it’s open, covers the forward lav door. You can’t open one while the other is open. Unbeknownst to me–how would I know, actually?–one of our senior citizen flight attendants had chosen that moment to use the lav. And she fought to open the lav door just as I pushed my bag through the cockpit doorway, pinning my bag to the bulkhead.

“Can you let me out? Can you let me out?” She said it at least three times, very irritated, almost as if I’d let the air out of her cat. “Not until you close that door a little because–”

“Let me out! Let me out!” She squeezed her portly self out through the narrow opening, haranguing me the whole time, adding, “You can tell the lav is occupied by the red sign there.” Duh. But if it’s behind the door, how the hell could I see that?

My F/O, laughing, said it first with a knowing glance: “Cat rancher.” Which I suppose is a more pleasant term than the equally accurate characterization, “social retard.”

“I hope you don’t talk to your cats that way,” I said as we both skeedadled to our next gate and jet. And actually, I can only imagine what a tale she must have told her cats in her 1980s vintage condo over a shared can of tuna and Tivo’d “Golden Girls” reruns–or what they may have said in return.

Fig. 1 Cats vs. hotness: tolerance has it’s limits. Courtesy of fellow pilot Marlo C.

So, the profile of the cat rancher is over forty, usually fifty, sometimes sixty, cranky, weird from living alone and having no direct supervision at work. And a flight attendant. Right?

Not so fast.

Sadly, they’re on both sides of the cockpit door.

Flew with First Officer “X” (not his real name–and I know you already know “X” is not his “real name,” but I always wanted to try that goofy “not his real name” device and it really does feel as inane as it is). Anyway, he immediately tipped me off to his cat-rancher potential within minutes of meeting him on the flight deck.

“Hi, I’m Chris,” I said as usual, extending my hand before putting my flight gear into place at the captain’s position.

A brief hello was within minutes followed by, on his part, some pictures from Mars that he’d downloaded and printed.

Strike one.

More pictures followed of his Sheltie, who he said he had to rock  to sleep, then tuck in. Strike two and three.

He tried to show any flight attendant who made the mistake of coming to the cockpit his Mars pictures. And he explained to me how after his most recent first date with a flight attendant, he waited a respectable day before calling her again–and she’d already put call blocker on him.

Really? Guess she didn’t have any interest in Mars. Or pets elevated to human stature, at least in certain peoples’ minds.

Sigh.

They’re everywhere, even–no, especially in the sky. It’s an artificial world of transient connections, no supervision, no real accountability for propriety and reality because anything goes: you’ll never see the cat rancher again, so what point is there in telling someone, “you really need professional help–you’re losing it over your pets.”

So when it comes up–and it will, eventually, on a crew–how someone’s pet has become a defacto “person” in someone’s world: be patient, relish the fact that it does seem weird to you, which is confirmation that you haven’t lost your marbles as they clearly have.

Just nod, say “Mmm-hhmmm” as necessary, a pray for a short flight. That, and call blocker are your only only real hope.

Fly The Ragged Edge.

“If you are out of trouble, watch for danger.” –Sophocles

Which is why in flying, I like trouble in my face–because it means it’s not sneaking up to bite me in the ass.

Thought about that as wind noise coupled with the tautness of flight at the Mach limit made the whole westbound lunge seem like a strain. We’d didn’t really fly low and fast–low being mid-twenties and fast being .81 Mach–without a damn good reason. It’s expensive, and hard on the jet. But it’s the best way to cover ground fast.

I’d gotten my marching orders from Flight Dispatch and the Chief Pilot on Duty before take-off: the hurricane bearing down on Cabo was predicted to make landfall there in just over four hours. That gave me about three plus change to get in there, board a full load trying to escape the looming storm, and get out.

“If for any reason you judge that you won’t be able to get out before the storm hits–don’t land. Turn around and fly back home.” We had enough gas to get there, u-turn, then climb to a higher altitude for a slow cruise back without ever having landed. Was I game, they asked? Pilot-in-command has all of the authority, as well as the responsibility if anything goes wrong. But of course I’m game–I’m always ready to take it in the air.

What could go wrong? Maybe better, who?  The weather forecasters could be wrong about the speed of the storm, or the storm could speed up, change course–who knows?  Don’t care–I have radar. Within 300 miles I’ll get the picture, we’ll be able to calculate how fast it’s moving.

What if you get on the ground and something malfunctions, breaks or somehow prevents taking off again?

That would be like old times in the South China Sea: typhoons circling the little coral rock that is Okinawa, wind noise preventing sleep, humidity making everything clammy damp and little to do but read books and drink lukewarm refreshments by candlelight because the power goes out early on and stays out. Been there, done that. Guess we’d try to park the $25-million dollar jet with the nose into the wind and hope for the best.

What if what if what if?

Actually: who cares? You deal with it as it comes, because anything else is all fakery anyway: crossing bridges before you come to them, especially in flight, is a bad way to plan. Here’s why.

Flashback to my early years as captain . . . thirty miles south of the airport, marginal ceiling due to fog rolling up the valley. The best approach available due to winds has a 100 foot minimum. The fifty foot minimum–which we will need, my experience tells me, despite the reported airport weather–comes with a ten knot tailwind, something I’m unwilling to negotiate at fifty feet.

And the Flight Management Computer “magic box” suggests we’ll have enough fuel to shoot two approaches, then proceed a hundred miles north to our alternate, fly an approach and land. Flight Dispatch says “You should be fine–the fog’s rolling up the valley, you’ll outrun it.” So–remember, it’s my early days as captain–that’s the plan, based on “what you know.”

The first approach uses exactly as much fuel as we’d planned, but with predictable results: the ceiling is ragged; I catch glimpses of the approach lights but not sufficient to set up for a safe landing. And I won’t go below minimums, period.

Second approach, still no good; clearance to our alternate pre-coordinated on the missed approach. Then, the one-two punch I wasn’t expecting:

Now the magic box “Progress–Fuel Predict” readout is a thousand pounds lower than before we’d started the approaches, even though we’d used exactly the amount we’d expected. But somewhere between our primary and alternate, we’d lost about twenty minutes of loiter time. Not devastating–we’d land at our alternate–right?

Then the First Officer handed me the latest printout of weather at our alternate field, which did have a fifty-foot decision height–but it wouldn’t matter because our alternate had gone below minimums as well. The fog didn’t flow up the valley–it formed south to north as the temperature-dewpoint spread shrank with the setting sun. Suddenly, the snapping jaws of trouble are biting me in the ass: low fuel, and we need to overfly the alternate to the first suitable field another sixty miles north, and that one approach will be it–so it better be good.

What about the weather forecast, the last reported viz, Dispatch’s prediction and recommendation, plus the great “plan” that made sense ten minutes ago?

You can sum all that up in the great words of the modern day Sophocles: you fucked up–you trusted us. Never, never, never trust “what you know”–because that’s all a look backward. It may have been fine then, but we live and fly now, moving forward at hundreds of feet per second.

Los Cabos is currently reporting steady winds out of the south and a high ceiling. I can picture it, having raced out ahead of typhoons and hurricanes in the Pacific: a blank sky, curiously devoid of features, almost lulling you into going out to sea. It’s the high pressure dragging in the ultimate low pressure that is the hurricane. And when it nears, the high cirrus blowing off to the path of the storm–fair warning, if you pay attention, announces the march of the whirlwind heading your way.

HEFOE check: Hydraulics, Electrics, Fuel, Oxygen, Engines–the ship’s just fine, all consumables at good levels, no systems problems. The radar picture shows the contour of the first approaching bands of squall lines, still twenty to thirty miles off shore. Winds are shifting between twenty and thirty knots, so we have enough slack to sneak in and out.

This is a good steady-state “now,” in my mind: still a margin for the winds to pick up and since they’re down the runway, no problems getting airborne again. The Cabo station staff are good folks–they’d turn the aircraft around fast. I’m game. The F/O? I ask, “what am I not thinking of?”

To me that’s a better question than, “What do you think of this plan?” I want to know what he’s thinking, and what he might know that I don’t want to overlook. He shakes his head slowly–“I can’t think of anything else.”

Deep breath. Thoughts of “what if” yield to “what is.” Commit: we’re going. “Call for descent,” I say, going for the shoulder straps. Already seated the flight attendants and the handful of passengers, probably Cabo residents heading home to batten down the hatches.

The Cabo ramp is a ghost town. You can feel something electric in the air–the steady wind off the ocean, strong, relentless, the breath of a giant storming ashore, the promise of a powerful lashing to come. The sky is a jaundiced yellow now, the sun shrinking and closing it’s eye into the western Pacific, not wanting to witness what night would drag ashore.

Not the usual look on the passengers faces in the terminal. Round eyes and drawn faces, quiet, the exact opposite of the usual sunburned, wilted, worn, bored, tired, hungover, annoyed-the-vacation’s-over look. Now they look pointedly for escape. We’re the last rocket out of town.

An orderly line, clutching hats and leaning into the wind, straggles to the stairs of the jet. The wind has picked up just since we landed, more insistent now, like, “You were warned.” Something powerful, monstrous is headed this way, you can feel it. I walk around the jet one last time as passengers make their way aboard. I linger under the right wing, one wary eye toward the sea, taking in the feel of the storm. We’re good. Engine failure options on take-off now will be either a quick downwind tucked inside the mountains, or depending on when where and what (fire makes everything different), maybe further north or east.

I’m the last one up the stairs to the aircraft. The station folks have a wary, distant look–they know what they’re in for. “Take care, amigo,” I say, hating to leave the agent there. “Via con Dios,” he says back, then looks away.

We part ways, done with “what if,” both turning to face what our own trip to the edge means. It’s better that way, finding and facing it. At least that way you know where it is.

Any Mouse, Ridin’ the Gypsy Wind.

The kid asked, as kids will do, the question requiring a straight face and a kind answer: What’s “any mouse?”

Well what do you mean? Give it to me in a sentence.

Like when there’s a quote, and the person who said it is listed as “any mouse.”

Any mouse, indeed. Who isn’t? How funny is that really? Don’t think about it too long, but it’s not only who you are, but where you’re going–and who’s taking you there.

And getting there is a rat race:

Big Skinner box, the cheese is at the gate, then on-board, a seat. You take it on faith: though you’re “any mouse” here–even though to the security guy looking at you naked on a screen you’re really anything but–regardless, you’ll be more than that there. And there is wherever and whomever you valued (and vice versa) enough to justify the faceless gauntlet between here and there.

And where is there? Where you’re going–where they know you, value you beyond the quantitative “you” of weight and price and carbon composition. As you.

Well kinda sorta you–more quantitatively, as that cryptic bar code that lists stuff about  (destination, bags, connections, weight, number) rather than the flesh-and-blood qualitatively you most appreciated there–or you wouldn’t be going, right? You won’t be just any mouse when you get there.

That’s worth launching into the stratosphere for, you’d have to hope. You paid your pound of flesh, endured the hauling (bags weigh a ton!), the purging (that won’t go through security!), the prep. Boarding is that moment that divides the waiting from the going.

And who is it that makes the going happen? Well, any mouse, once again. Don’t know if you’re blind and I’m invisible or vice versa, but either way works just fine. You might as well be asleep as in surgery, because you won’t see me anyway, if I can help it. Flying is what I do, but you’re why I do it. We don’t really need to meet, do we? Just need to get it done.

I love being any mouse, because while what I do is because of where you want to go, it’s most importantly, a large part of who I am. Let’s be any mouse then, shall we?

Sometimes you overhear stuff going on beyond a wall and you know, yup–they’re there.

Sneak preview, yeah, we are. We have a lot of similar stuff front and back, don’t we? Not a lot of extra space either place.

Which is the reality of putting a bullet into the sky, you have to know, where weight and size are critical. Nobody has a lot of elbow room. Kind of bought the ride but not the space, you know? And you have screens in back to help you forget where we are and what we’re doing

while I have a bunch of them to keep me engaged in what you’re trying not to notice.

Silent partners, aren’t we? You divert, I engage. You ride, I fly. Together, we drag a knife across the sky and leave a puffy rumply scar that heals quickly nonetheless.

You can’t see that? Sideways ain’t always the best view. Are you even looking? No? Because you’re looking here:

Aren’t you? Good. Then I can get on with what I do. Getting there is my reason for being here–but being “there” means little to me. I’m not staying anyway and if you asked me later where I was, I probably could even tell you. It doesn’t matter to me.

Rather, I’m all about the fire.

A thousand degrees, fifty thousand pounds of thrust, let’s roll. Every minute, every vertical foot, every thousand miles one at a time, I’m on it–so you don’t have to be. Climb, climb, cruise, climb; lather, rinse, repeat. Route, reroute; guess-timate–call on your years of appraising the sky and what it might hold–outsmart it; the sky doesn’t care. But I do.

All the while, I’ve got eyeballs out watching the sunset giving the horizon a fat lip.

Rumpled sky having trouble getting settled into night. A thousand miles later, off the nose, the moon just punched the night sky in the face, rising bloody red at first but then that alabaster gleamy mottled ball that won’t shut up. No excuses for bad landings tonight.

I keep an eye above, thinking of the far-off jewels flung across the sky; cirrus like a gauzy scarf dressing up old pals like Cassipoea and Orion. But I still find ’em, think about jewels, priceless, and as far away as that. That’s something to savor and not forget.

Keep your window shades drawn because it’s about time for the feature film–it actually varies with the compass direction of the flight (did you know that?) in the Main Cabin. Miles, courses, frequencies, fuel burn, oxygen, generators–I’ve got it figured down to a rat’s ass:

I’ll take care of time and tide for you–fuel’s a’burning, I’m keeping count, ticking off the miles, sweeping 600 miles of sky ahead looking for trouble to avoid.

I’ll let you down easy, slow you down, deal with the thousands of foot-pounds of kinetic energy we owe now because we opened the double-cans of whupass on the runway hours back:

Ah, love those two, the way they bite the air and rocket us forward and up. But no worries downline, fellow mouse, I’ll land you there, wherever that is for you, and you can get off.

Me? Always another “there” to fly to, an excuse to light the fires and climb as far above this world as possible. There? Not so much, but you go ahead.

Getting there, flying–that’s my thing.  Looking for me? Keep an eye out for any mouse, riding that gypsy wind. That’s not just what I do, it’s who I am.

Vuelo Loco: Tennyson, Dead Fish and Mexico City.

Listen, I’m a fan of Mexico. Really, I am.

What’s not to like about Mexico City? Always looked forward to those downtown layovers–it was part of my job–but they’re scary dangerous. Probably not for the reason you think though.

I mean, sure, there’s plenty of drug violence. And yes, I did have to dodge through four lanes of traffic to evade a scroungy-looking cop trying to shake me down once, but he was either too lazy or too smart to chase me through the insane downtown traffic.

And yes, plenty of people with questionable intent in a city of 20 million, where you could simply disappear, kind of like the city itself  is doing, slowly sinking into its own aquifer. And okay, maybe I did roll the dice in a sense, as an instructor-evaluator taking pilots down to Mexico City every month, showing them the safe way to fly in and out of the mountain bowl.

Well, it’s not even really this “thread-the-needle-through-mountains” approach and usually, through thunderstorm alley that was like playing craps weekly. And it’s not really that I minded the always slick (memo to Mexico City Airport: the rest of the world cleans the reverted rubber off of their runways every year or two, so get a clue) runway with the puddle in the middle that you hit doing about 150 and exit two thousand feet later at about 149.

More, actually, was requiring the qualifying pilot have a beverage and a Cuban at an outdoor cafe on the traffic circle outside the Presidente Hotel. The bar–Karishma–is where a whole crew got mugged one night. They noticed that suddenly the place was empty save the two airline crews enjoying tapas and the generously poured (“Tell me when to stop pouring, Senor”) refreshments there. Then suddenly, watches, rings, wallets–buh-BYE, as we like to say.

So to be on the “safe” side, we sat outside on the traffic circle–maybe more witnesses?–and since it was my idea, I made sure my back was to the building, so the new guy got to sit with his back to the insane traffic, puffing a Cuban (relaxing–but mandatory) and enjoying a refreshment, maybe getting a shoeshine from the roving vendors who’d magically appear, ignoring the demolition derby mere feet away.

Hey, might as well get the full flavor: massive city (did I mention 20 MILLION people?), exotic neighborhoods of jumbled steel and glass elbowing in between with castellated stone architecture, snarled in the clogged highways like the arteries of a fat man. You watch the traffic and muse over your beverage, how the hell do they do this five way intersection without a traffic light?

And then on the side streets of The Polanco, maybe a quieter sidewalk cafe where I actually did much of my doctoral exam study: outside, books piled, good coffee, usually a thunderstorm in the afternoon that made me glad I wasn’t trying to fly a jet in or out at that moment. Out of nowhere, it seemed, in the afternoon towering big-shouldered thunderheads would roll through the mountain pass with raggedy sheets of torrential rain and thunder that echoed through canyons of concrete and steel, the reverberations so fitting to Tennyson’s “Ulysses” marching across the page before me toward the inexorable doom awaiting us all.

Harder to relax at dinner, though, when you were concentrating on the guard dog staring at your plate and whatever you were having for dinner. The armed guard restraining the dog had his eye on you and the plate alternately, and you had to wonder if either or both of them might figure that the dinner and your wallet might tip the scale in favor of mutiny. It was a stand-off in Mexico: the guard and dog making sure banditos didn’t mug you while you ate–but then the silently menacing pair themselves having to resist the hunger and temptation to rebid the transaction in more favorable terms.

And it’s not even the “one-eye-open” sleep in the airport high rise hotel with the un-level floors from the tipped buildings patiently waiting to tremble and topple in the next big quake they know is coming soon.

You wake up the next morning with the feeling of relief: ahh, The Big One they’ve been expecting didn’t happen while you slept, crushing you in tons of rubble that will take about ten years–if ever–to remove.

No, I’m talking about this:

That’ll eat you alive. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I was heading down to Mexico City for the umpteenth time and my favorite cousin was there with her husband who worked for the U.S. Department of State. “Hey, want to meet for dinner?”

Okay, I already know why not–I’ve been in the airline crew biz a looooong time: relatives don’t get it, you’re not on vacation; time does matter, sleep too.

“Sure, why not?” Because I’m an idiot–and here’s why. We’re going out for Mexican, traditional, right? I mean, we’re in Mexico-friggin-City, right? Enchiladas? Queso? Fajitas?

No.

We’re doing Mexican-Asian fusion, which means I’m eating raw fish in Mexico: salmon carpaccio, pictured above. Delicious. Amazing! Immodium, amen. That didn’t take long.

The fever lasted about a week. The shower nozzle effect (any chance of scheduling a colonoscopy? I’m prepped, just for the hell of it) lasted a couple weeks. Thanks cuz.

Forget banditos. Who cares about high altitude aircraft performance, up-sloping mountainous terrain and treacherous rolling thunderstorms. The real danger’s on the plate.

Yes, I love Mexico City. Just don’t go there unarmed, okay?

The Flight of The Fatass.

Couldn’t come at a worse time, when each cent spent on fuel strains the budget of every major airline. The fact is, a direct operating cost airlines cannot avoid is fuel usage, which is directly linked to the aircraft’s gross weight. Suddenly, there’s this:

That’s right: double-fudge brownie sundaes–in flight. Which brings us back to the jet’s take-off and climb gross weight. Seriously gross, in some cases.

Back in my Diesel-10 days, I flew with a giant of a captain who shall remain nameless but his initials are Big John. He must have tipped the scales close to three hundred pounds, and I admit, as a First Officer doing the flight control check, I’d purposely pull the yoke back far enough to jiggle his big gut (he’d say, “Whatcha tryin’ to do, boy, loop it?”) hanging over his lap belt.

The big mystery early in the month we flew together was why did Big John excuse himself from the cockpit at the top of descent point, for at least fifteen minutes? That’s right before we get really busy with descent and approach.

Mystery solved on our first layover: the “galley wench” (that’s the flight attendant who served below decks in the DC-10 lower lobe galley) said he was downstairs with her, hoovering any uneaten food from passenger meals that were left over.

Maybe that comes from the grand tradition of fat sea captains who had to keep themselves well-marbled to survive months bobbing around on a hostile ocean. You never know when you’re going to have to spend two seasons and an eternity of reruns on an uncharted desert isle.

You never know just how long a three hour tour is going to be, right? We were doing a lot of trans-oceanic stuff in the ten, so maybe John was planning to be the only guy surviving in a life raft.

Regardless, Big John was just one of a growing number–literally growing–pilots who over the span of a career, drove up the fuel burn of the airline as his career dragged on.

Why? Go back to the top of the page and face the brownie sundae–my weakness. Okay, I’ll come clean: I’m six feet tall and weight 182 pounds (today anyway), have finished nine of the 26.2 mile marathons, blah, blah, blah.  Point is, I do take part in the aerial hog call pretty regularly. A tour, you say? You’d like a tour? Prepare yourself.

First, there’s the big guns that announce themselves with a “ding” on the flight interphone: “Hey, we’ve got [insert uber-caloric dessert here] in back if you all want some.” Or, it just comes already on your crew meal. Either way, there’s this:

A dense chocolate cake-like pie. Sure, just eat a bite or two, right? You’ll run it off on the layover, right (in Toronto in January? YOU’RE LYING)? You missed lunch too, see, and this is okay therefore, mangia, right?.

Then there’s this:

Coming out of several Florida airline catering kitchens–it’s really decent Key Lime pie. Somebody actually recognized that Key Lime’s are just like any other limes–added for the citrus flavor for the pie, not the color–and it looks and tastes authentic. Probably about 800 calories, too.

I really like this meringue-ish type lemon pie too:

It’s kind of densely creamy with just the right amount of tartness. And another 900 calories, probably. Sometimes the dessert just looks so innocent sitting there on your tray, small and innocuous, looking up, suggesting hey–eat me.

But word gets out when the inflight menu changes: hey–the cheese cake’s back. Burp. And sure, the salad’s always a sensible choice . . .

. . . as long as you don’t chase down it with another fat bomb:

I’m less vulnerable to the cake, which often is dry enough to suck all of the moisture out of your already parched (from the 2% cabin humidity) body.

That and the hermetically sealed bread item could absorb a fuel spill of considerable magnitude. So I find those non-confectionary things easy to avoid. But then there’s the catering out of Mexico:

Always some type of pastry dessert that face it–you’re going to try some of it. And when you do, you’re stuffing all 900 calories into your pie hole.

So, you might well ask, why not just bring your own food? Right? Yeah, like that’s any better, like anyone could be trusted to manage that. Here’s just a couple of bad choices in that regard.

This is The World’s Most Dangerous Pastrami, slapped together lovingly (“Ey–we don’t got all day here, whaddya want?“) in the employee deli in La Garbage Airport, Flushing (is it just me or are these terms all appropriately suggestive?) New York.

Or The Long Haul Meathead Sandwich, good for at least two thousand miles:

But tofu’s healthy, right? Shut up:

Here’s the Blow Your Head Off spicy tofu, an O’Hare exclusive I can’t resist. The heartburn alone will keep you awake for at least a thousand miles, which is kind of the point.

Regardless of whether you bring your own food, the galley ovens are just on the other side of the cockpit door. When the aroma of freshly baked cookies finds it’s way forward, who are you kidding?

You’re eating them. yes, you can defend yourself from any smells . . .

But you’re not gonna avoid cookies, are you? And never mind in flight, what about the junk you bump into hanging out before the flight? Like the old faves stationed around the nation, waiting:

It’s the best breakfast burrito in the nation, waiting for you at a little shop in the Albuquerque airport. Perfect salsa, will light your hair on fire. And in the Portland Airport, “Good Dog Bad Dog,” with sausages you are going to eat no matter what.

Need a closer look? There’s a video look at “Good Dog-Bad Dog” on the bottom of this page. Go there, try one–you’ll be hooked, too. And speaking of dogs, back to basics in the Oklahoma City Airport–Sonic, headquartered in OKC, offers you the essential foot-long chili-cheese-onion dog right across from the gate for your convenience:

This is all leading to a very scary conclusion, fellow fliers: we are destroying the ozone needlessly because of the bulk–literally, the bulk–of those who must be hefted off the ground and into the stratosphere with the fossil fuel burn increase required to haul their fat asses airborne.

Don’t get too smug, either, if you’re not a big butt pilot–we’re only two of 165 butts on my airplane. Yeah, we notice–

The suitcase will fit under the seat–but what about fitting in the seat? Anyway, that’s what’s driving up fuel costs, along with the constant mayhem in the middle east, hurricane rumors near the Gulf, a flu outbreak at a refinery in Jersey–whatever. Those are things Al Gore says we can’t control. Eating in flight is quite another thing.

But actually, it doesn’t look like Big Al’s skipping any meals either. So let’s just forget it–this is The Land of Plenty, to fly across it is going to take plenty of fuel because of all of the plentious butts on board.

Flying is a tough business, in my experience. You deserve a trip to “Good Dog–Bad Dog” in order for fortify yourself for the journey. So click on the video below and enjoy an up close and personal visit to the place.

Me, I’m heading out for yet another long run. I’m personally too cowardly to follow in Big John’s gigantic footsteps–his heart exploded on a layover and he keeled over dead, face down in his angel hair Carabonara.

Bon appetit!

a

Jethead Goes to School

Canada’s future is certainly bright, judging by the students in Miss Giulia’s sixth grade class at St. Monica Catholic School in Ottawa. What an articulate and considerate group they are, and they were gracious enough to share with me some questions about airline flying after studying the basics of flight earlier in the school year.

What do kids wonder about when it comes to flight? What did they discover in Miss Giulia’s classroom that sparked further questions about flight?

I asked–and they answered. Here’s a selection of their questions and my answers, with my heartfelt thanks to Miss Giulia and the entire class for generously sharing their time and ideas. In fact, they asked so many good questions that in order to answer them all, I’ll make “JetHead Goes to School” a series reappearing now and again with new questions and their answers.

1. Frank: “What’s it like flying near thunderstorms?”

That’s a good question. If you stay upwind of the storms, usually there’s no effect, although lightning has been known to reach ten miles from a cell to another cloud—or an aircraft. Hail, too, can blow out of the top and travel for miles. So it’s best to keep a healthy distance.

Sometimes you have to pick your way through the storms, finding gaps. Usually we do that with radar to be sure we stay clear. Here’s what a radar picture of storms looks like:

Green areas are rain, yellow indicates heavy rain, red means dangerously dense rain, and purple means turbulence. The pink line is our projected flight path, which I would alter to the right based on the radar picture. Here’s where the radar is located on an airplane–it’s always in the nose cone, facing forward:

The rules are, we need to stay at least ten miles from any thunderstorm. Radar helps us do that, especially at night when the storms are difficult to see. Here’s a picture I took as we flew by a storm pretty close:

It was actually taken late at night, but the lightning lit the sky as if it was daytime. Here’s a video of some storms in flight I made into a promo for my band (that’s my lead guitar, actually):

Definitely a good idea to steer clear of thunderstorms, don’t you think?

2. Anna R.: “Why is it so important to take ice and snow off the wings?”

The airfoil has to be clean and smooth to produce lift. Ice or snow or even frost disrupts the airflow on the wing and reduces the lift produced by the wing.

Here you can see snow and ice that’s accumulated on a wing root (the place where the wing joins the fuselage). All of that is considered contamination and must be removed to allow smooth airflow.

Any contaminant ruins the smooth flow over the wing. In flight, the leading edge of the wing—that’s the forward edge—is heated internally with air ducted from the engines that is at about 500 degrees. No snow or ice can accumulate there. You probably never noticed, but we also have to check the jet engine intakes for snow and ice. Chunks of ice can break off and get sucked into the engine, damaging the components that are spinning at 30,000 RPM or more.

On the ground before a flight, trucks with de-icing fluid and crews in booms blast the ice and snow off the aircraft and apply a coat of “anti-icing fluid,” a chemical mix that inhibits ice formation on the wings. Here’s a picture out one of my side windows of the de-ice crew in Montreal getting ready to spray de-ice fluid on my jet this morning in Montreal.

We usually de-ice near the take-off runway because the de-icing fluid loses its effectiveness over time. We have charts that are based on the type of precipitation falling at the time that shows us how long the de-ice fluid will protect the wings, so we make a good effort to be ready for take-off right away after de-icing.

Want to see more cool pictures of the effects of a snowstorm on aircraft? I’ve added a short video montage to the bottom of this page, after the last question and answer. Enjoy!

3. Brayden: “Have you ever had a flat tire and had to fix it? How long does it take to change a tire?”

Never a flat tire on an airplane, but we have had to have tires changed. Aircraft tires on a big jet are much thicker and heavier than those on your car. Car tires are usually inflated to 30-35 pounds of pressure per square inch, but our aircraft tires are inflated to 200 pounds of pressure.

We check the landing gear and tires before every flight and if there’s a worn out spot or maybe a nick from the hard use our tires get (remember, the jet weighs 60 to 80 tons and touches down at 150 miles per hour or so), the ground crew changes the tire. They jack up the plane smoothly and only a little bit so you wouldn’t even notice from the passenger cabin, then they swap tires for a new one. Then we’re on our way!

4.  Alberto: How many female pilots are there in American Airlines?

Not sure, but I’d guess around 200 out of a total of 8,000 American Airlines pilots are female. My experience flying with them has been very positive. My guess is that since airline flying is a male dominated field by sheer number alone, they’ve really had to prove themselves all along the way. So I’d say they are as a group actually better than most male pilots who never had to “prove themselves” in the same way. Many, too, are like me, former military pilots, so we have the exact same experience and background. Here’s a picture of my friend and colleague Cindy who is an excellent pilot.

As with any major endeavor, the pilot career field is difficult to get into and stay successful in year after year. There are constant checks and exams we have to pass, not to mention twice a year physical exams. But also like any major endeavor, anyone, male or female, can succeed if they set their mind to it and do the work required.

5. Nicolas: “How did your experience with the Air Force help you as an airline pilot?”

My Air Force training was an immense help to me for many reasons. First, it’s the best training in the world, and the cost is something no one could afford on their own—estimated at $1.7 million per pilot. I got to fly the best equipment, newest technology and from the very start, flew worldwide throughout Europe, Asia and the Pacific. That kind of experience you can only get through the military.

Since most (although not all) airline pilots are ex-military pilots, we share a common denominator in our flying training, as well as the culture of safety, training and flying. Now when I step onto the flight deck and meet a First Officer for the first time, if he’s ex-military, I immediately know we’re of the same background and philosophy. That makes flying as a crewmember much easier. So, the experience and training that comes with being an Air Force pilot is a major asset as an airline pilot. Nonetheless, I have to add that some of the best pilots I know, pilots who are my favorite to fly with, are pilots who have a purely civilian flying background.

That’s all the space we have for this week, but check back regularly for more Q&A that will become an ongoing series, “JetHead Goes to School.” Again my sincere thanks to the children of St. Monica’s school and their most conscientious and caring teacher, Miss Giulia.

And here’s the video of the great blizzard of 2011 that certainly slowed down flight operations at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. Enjoy!

Mach Speed Tumbleweed

A battle rages in silence. You don’t want to get involved–but you are, you realize slowly.

Exactly where is it 5am?

You don’t want to know.

No, I do. The sinking feeling. It’s not home, is it?

Told you you didn’t want to know.

Damn. Reno?

No, that was last night.

Montreal?

The night before.

Palm Beach. Not home. Home got away–again.

How many miles from here to home? Not distance–I get that–flown, I mean? How many more? Flight hours like matchsticks: light ’em off one by one, watch them burn down, then out. Slowly, in the glow, you get it: midway through a four day. Just what you didn’t want to wake to. But do.

So, that was last night: late, always, bone tired too from hotel sleep somewhere else.

That’s here, middle of the night here, before you messed it up. Spartan. Antiseptic. Do not disturb. A trail of clothes from the door to the bed–worry about everything else tomorrow.

Sleep, and it’s that dream again: you can find the gate, find the plane, but there’s no door from the gate to the plane. Which is the way home, of course. No way home–just the waiting place, halls of marked time and any old place.

Gertrude Stein nailed it: “there’s no there there,” in that space between places, the waiting–the island between going and getting there. Or getting home. There’s the irony: for those who make their living going, and carrying others who are on the way too, the idyll would be staying, not going, being home. No door.

So wake up then. Going to need goggles and a snorkel to wade through this one. Not the stuff you’ll think about later–the weather, the jet, the fuel. Rather, another day not home.

Good dog–you’re ready to swim in the deep blue.  People will ask you questions, like “What’s it like to be a trained dog working in the blue every day?” Or maybe they’ll have something equally inane more for each other than for you, like “we’ll let him on” or “we need him” as you try to slip by them going to the office. Funny stuff, right? More likely, though, they have to go to the bathroom; they want to share that with you, assuming you have a constant awareness of toilets and locations, like you do with bailout airfields and low fuel contingencies in flight, right? Funny stuff.

Just put all the pieces back together; everything back into the suitcase like the crammed heap that sprang out twelve hours ago. Kind of like behind the scenes Disney: Mickey puts on his fiberglass head with the permanent smile–then out he goes. Down to the lobby, out to the curb: vantastic! Off to whatever aeropuerto in whatever city.

Just get me to the gig. Snake through the masses herding across the wide-open plains, grazing, mooing; hoofbeats at a shuffle.

The ants go marching out again, hurrah. Step around, mind the Mickey head. Wind your way through; heft the bags, schlep the bags, onward to the gate. Show your ID: yeah, it’s Mickey. Let him on board.

Nothing purtier than precious metal, all eighty tons of her:

She’s your big ol’ dance partner, every song, every leg, and just like you: all about the getting there–but not staying. Folks trundle off, more trundle on; makes no difference. We do our same dance steps, carefully and deliberately without art. Over and over–same old song. You know the words:

We say Mass for the Earth, the litany of escape–then we leave, but everyone still in their pews, seatbelts on and tray tables stowed. Then the aluminum conga line–every-buddy-CON-ga– to the runway. This:

In this:

Into the blue, the higher the better: the sky is denim, comfy as jeans. Good for hanging out, soft, simple, warm, comfortable. The good feel when you put them on.

Unpressed and rumpled–doesn’t matter; a little faded, all the better. That’s cruising, ain’t it? It’s like Saturday against your skin. That’s the jailbreak from the suitcase–off with the polyester, and Mickey’s head; jeans, amen.

Soft and comfy as the sky and nearly as distant: nobody knows you without the Mickey head on, and that’s the best. You’re a ghost, anywhere, everywhere–somewhere where no one knows you, and in the middle of the night you won’t remember where anyway.

You just know what it’s not–home; and where it’s not–HOME. And just close your eyes because soon enough, once again: another passage. Sleep.

“. . . life is a watch or a vision

Between a sleep and a sleep.”

–Algernon Swinburne