Flight Time: Soothsayers, Stooges, Sages and Thunder.

Time is pretty sneaky when hooked up with his silent partner, motion. You think you’ve got all the time in the world–and relatively speaking, maybe you do–but where you’re headed will force your hand nonetheless.

Can I get by everything in my way? Am I above it all? Or do I need to change course? Ah, the curse of forethought and the knowledge of a future rushing your way.

Can you really look too far ahead, and if you do, can you get an accurate picture of what’s in your way? Can we trust the seers and soothsayers we look to for their view of the future?

Do they really know, or are they just telling you what they see, rather than what’s real?

There’s no shortage of people with answers to sell but that all depends on your buy-in: do they really have the answer you need? Can they see the path ahead of you? Even if they can, what will change between the time they give their view and when the picture ahead becomes near and real?

Can you really have faith in either art or science claiming to transcend the barriers of time and space and help you understand the future? I guess some people do, because they continue to ask the experts for a vision or at least a forecast.

Always good to have options, right? And a backup plan.

And information is always good, with a catch: predictions, visions and forecasts are all helpful, but nothing beats realtime information. What’s happening right now? What’s happening on the path ahead this minute, this second?

That’s where time and place coincide: worry is because there’s nothing you can do until they meet.

Now the picture is clear–not a prediction, not a forecast, but at last, square in your face. Now you can take action: evaluate your options. You could wait:

Fine a place to hold off to the side until the storm passes. Of course, that presumes we’re talking about a “passing storm,” not anything permanent.

Another option would be to plow right on through and hope it’s just a temporarily bumpy ride:

Some folks choose to plunge headlong into the storm. Maybe they’re mislead by the earliest look at things–where maybe from afar there seems to be a safe passage through the ugliness, based on a forecast or an earlier report. “Look–a sucker hole. Can we make it before it closes up?” That puts YOU in the business of predicting the future.

And the only thing predictable with perfect reliability is that things will continue to change. Opportunities for safe passage vanish in an instant and there you are, nose to nose with big trouble. With the escape path blocked. With no options but straight ahead.

Oops! The sucker hole is closing fast . . .

Where are the soothsayers now? Where’s the clear path, based on a few minutes ago? That’s why I’m a confirmed pessimist, at least at work. Expect the worst. Count on it. Plan for it.

I knew this was going to happen. So we have a couple tons of fuel to spare–we can outlast the storm. We can go the extra miles around the tumult and so just not care what it does in the near term–or ever.

Well folks, slight delay here as we give trouble a wide berth. We didn’t worry too much in our flight planning as to whether there’d be problems along the way–rather, we just planned on it. And so we have the range we need to keep life smooth for all of us.

Don’t really need soothsayers or good luck charms–just tons of fuel and patience.

Like mayhem in life, lightning in flight is best enjoyed as a spectator:

That’s life. Craziness is fine, as long as you’re just a casual observer and can step around the insanity. Forget the soothsayers and stooges telling you what they think you want to hear. You already know what you need to dodge the thunder.

Here’s how that looks from the flight deck. You can relax in back and enjoy the view–we’ve got time and distance all under control for you.

There’s always a way around, if you’re ready now, never mind “then” or whatever “they” predict. It’s a big sky, thankfully. Plan accordingly.

Inflight Etiquette: How Not To Get Busted.

Certainly, manners are an essential part of airline flying, right?

Well actually, the usual standard in flight is a free-for-all of bad manners and ill tempers, mainly due to the circumstances of air travel today that includes delays, crowding, extremes of temperature and declining on-board amenities.

In fact, that may be the standard of twenty-first century life.

So let’s hearken back to better days and find the important standards of travel conduct that originally made the jet age a wonder of good manners, and refined behavior.

Certainly, though the traditions of dressing up and reserved behavior have nearly vanished, the realities of air travel that affected even the well-dressed, finely-mannered early jet age travelers remain today:

Aircraft pressurization controls.

That’s right–the aircraft changes the pressurization in the cabin in order to maintain a safe differential between inside and outside of the structure. That is, as an aircraft climbs, so will the cabin. Same on descent: slowly, the pressurization system will bring the cabin altitude back down to match the landing field elevation.

What does that mean for you?

On ascent, whatever gas is in your body will expand as the cabin pressure is mechanically lowered.

Which translates to that “balloon animal” feeling often encountered in flight. Of course, that’s predictable and a normal side effect of a pressurization cycle–plus the nasty junk you’ve been eating while traveling, especially at the airport.

The close quarters on an aircraft, particularly in the Coach cabin, add to the problem in that there’s really no room to move around or reposition oneself. Nonetheless, the gas pressure must eventually be relieved, right?

In a crowded airliner cabin, this can be a problem of both safety and etiquette. But don’t worry–there is a time tested technique that will allow you to handle the problem discretely. First, think etiquette: there are those around you trying to breathe what is a limited amount of air on board. It’s not like they won’t notice or be directly affected.

Miss Manners demonstrates: here’s the dilemma.

Although you can’t do anything about the effect on others, they key is in distribution. Flight crews at the beginning of the jet age developed an effective solution beyond the usual sea-level techniques.

While this might work in a social situation on the ground, there’s a better technique for in flight:

Crop Dusting: This involves a short walk in the cabin, but it must be done properly. Specifically, front to back (see Fig 1)

Fig. 1: Always crop dust front to back.

ALWAYS move from the front of the aircraft to the rear. That way, when the olfactory impact is sensed by your fellow passengers, there will be no one in sight on whom to fix the blame: since everyone’s facing forward and you’re already out of sight by the time the stench hits them.

Oh my God, who had nachos for lunch?!

Your mission is to appear uninvolved. This technique has been used successfully by flight attendants for years.

"I sure feel less bloated."

Fortunately, the ambient noise level in flight will drown out all but perhaps the most vigorous excisions of gas, so simply try to meter the outward pressure and the jet noise should take care of the rest.

The piano was added to the exceptionally quiet 747 upper deck simply to mask the noise of First Class passengers depressurizing.

Of course, you could handle the matter even more discretely in the lav, but I don’t recommend that for a couple of reasons. First, as soon as the lav door opens, the olfactory remnants will have you completely busted by the next passenger in line.

Truly, the lav smelled bad before you entered, but add a few cubic feet of your body gas (had to have the large fries, didn’t you?) and the next person will not only blame you for that, but probably also whatever crop dusting is experienced in the cabin–and call you on it: “Hey, this is the one that just skanked out the lav.” Not good.

Second, consider the adventure of flight: why not go all out and crop dust as a part of the experience? Where’s your sense of adventure?

Finally, if the seatbelt sign’s on and you can’t move about the cabin (front to back, remember?) to accomplish this vital bodily function? Your only hope, and it’s slim, is this:

Yeah, not likely. Your best bet is to feign innocence or if you can act at least halfway credibly, immediately express your disgust by glaring at those around you. Be the first–the one who seems uninvolved is going to get the blame.

Me? I’ll stay uninvolved. Best of luck to you in the back.

Finally, if anyone next to you complains, just point out to them that things could be much worse, then get this out of the seatback pocket in front of you:

Kind of makes them put things into perspective. Have a good flight!

Destination Weather: Do You Feel Lucky Today, Punk?

I have one eye on the fuel flow, the other on my watch: the two are inextricably linked with the only variable being the rate of consumption. Always have hated math, especially in a situation like this where the stubborn numbers refuse to add up as I’d like them to do. We have only so much fuel and therefore only so much time, with the factors of altitude and speed governing the number of minutes till we fall out of the sky.

It’s a major factor because DFW is experiencing the fallout of a normal summer weather pattern: storms.

Here’s where we can often expect a call from the back. “The guy in 4B says his office emailed him and the weather’s fine at the airport.”

Of course, the flight attendant’s call isn’t to pass along the special knowledge Mr. 4B’s office has forwarded (busted! we’re holding for the fun of it) but rather to give us a laugh while also letting us know that the typically self-righteous know-it-all’s are being themselves which is to say, a pain in the ass.

Air Traffic Control radar display

Because actually, the weather at the airport is clear, as is the weather between us and the airport. But the weather ninety miles beyond the airport is blocking the aircraft from the other coast from arriving–so where might they go?

Bingo! To our arrival corner post! That is, if the two corner posts–mandatory overfly points that sequence the arrival crowd of flights into the airport–on the far side of the airport are blocked, there’s going to be a fuel-hungry crowd gathering on our side which means–everybody gets to hold. Despite what Dwight can see out the office window.

So now options are limited, but there are some choices to be made and with those choices, I cast our lot among the other fifty jets all negotiating the same decision process. First, speed: should we push forward fast and burn a lot of fuel to get to our arrival post first? That would put us at the head of the line–except for those from the far side ATC may vector in front of us. In that case, we’ll have wasted precious loiter fuel getting there fast for nothing. And it’s a long way–in distance and fuel–to our alternate.

Or–and this is what I usually prefer–we can slow down, save gas en route, maybe even stay in the high altitude sector to save even more fuel rather than enter the descending holding stack where fuel flow increases with the lower altitude and the high banked turns required to stay in the holding airspace. Then, if we must divert (I hope not) we’re closer to our alternate and will get in and out before the crowd of other diverting aircraft do the same thing.

But that option might put us too far back in line to hold until everyone else lands. Double-edged sword, this weather strategy biz. No matter what you choose, there’s a downside:  the fuel flow continues regardless and even “slowed down,” we’re rushing toward the arrival corner post at about 400 miles per hour. So the question is, do you feel lucky today, punk?

Here’s where we often get a call from the back asking if we could say anything for the Dunder-Miflin crowd second-guessing whatever decision looks best from where I sit.

But what can I say? Especially between fast-changing options: F/O is off searching for the best and lowest-fuel required alternate and weather for each, I’m doing the math with the speed and fuel flow and guesstimating how long ATC is allowing folks to stay high plus how fast and in which direction the weather is moving and on our radar, how it’s developing or decaying and at what rate. That, plus the close-fast-low or lag back-slow-high equation that’s in constant flux.

So I will make a P.A., not for the backseat drivers but just to prepare the crowd for the delay–which is all we can be sure of at the moment. Plus, it seems to me best to make no promises or predictions because I realize how frustrating it will be if after a few minutes, I have to explain why what I just related is now irrelevant. And, I need to have my attention and concentration back in the cockpit so as to not miss a single clue in the arrival puzzle that’ll get us in earlier, or any weather awareness via radar or reports from a half dozen other airfields that when put together, give me a clearer picture of our best course.

That’s what’s happening on my side of the cockpit door when you feel us slow down dramatically or even go into a series of turns that often indicates that we’re in a holding pattern. It’s that time of year again and with the ever-increasing density of arrival traffic, this scenario is going to arise often.

Maybe now you can help me out by explaining to the Dunder-Miflin guy seated next to you steaming over the delay exactly why I’m not saying much, plus what you now have a pretty good picture of up front. I’ll get to you as soon as I have a free moment and something definitive to say. Which for me would be “flight attendants, prepare for landing.”

And if I’ve been able to maximize all the variables I just described, that will be at our scheduled destination.

Air Travel: How to Fly with Children

Travel season’s here and it’s time to round up the kids and head for the airport. There are many things you need to know to make your trip with your kids smoother. Here are some important tips based on my 25 years as an airline pilot:

1. Educate beforehand: kids need to visualize what’s going to happen at security before they experience it firsthand. Like their first trip to the dentist, they need to be prepared for an unfamiliar, sometimes uncomfortable environment with a different set of rules from their normal life.

The fact that they can be separated from you by the TSA is scary enough unless they understand the process. Plus, whatever stuffed animal or toy they may carry for personal reassurance is going to have to be scanned separately. Talk it up ahead of time! Make it a game–“you’re going to walk through the arch between mommy and daddy.” There may be a magic wand involved (see above). Teddy’s going to ride the conveyor belt inside a duffle bag (please do–I’ve seen stuffed animals caught in the rollers and shredded to the horror of a little one).

Let your child know that you might be singled out for screening, which can be scary for a child.

If possible, tag team: one parent goes through and waits for the child or children on the secure side. Never send a child through first to wait–if you’re detained for further screening, you will be separated from your unsupervised child.

Hand carried items: this is a problem. You’ll have enough to carry just to support a child’s travel, so try to minimize loose items by making sure all hand-carried bags have some type of closing device to keep items inside. Open containers or bags will inevitably spill their toys, crayons, books and food when jostling through the security screening machine. Backpacks for elementary school aged kids make sense: they can carry them and still have hands free, and backpacks can be closed with drawstrings and zippers.

Make a total count of bags ahead of time–“we have three bags and a stroller”–and make it a game: “Mommy said 4 items.” Count and gather items on the secure side.  Tag everything and tie a colored ribbon or string on each item–kids will help find the color or label you choose, so make it distinctive. If you leave anything behind at the security checkpoint by mistake, chances are slim that you’ll ever see it again. In the chaos of gathering clothing, shoes, bags and kids, it’s important to inventory all for items before leaving the area for your gate.

2. At the gate: get a tag from the agent for your stroller. But before leaving home, get a protective bag for the stroller or car seat. Both Target and Baby’s-R-Us have them for around $20, and you do need one to keep the stroller or car seat clean.

Protect your stroller or car seat.

Also, the bag will keep loose or losable parts together, or at least in one bag–we find loose pieces of stroller trays and accesories all over the ramp and in the cargo compartment of the plane.  Cargo handling is an ungentle, dirty business–the cargo hold is not clean, nor are those other bags smashed in with yours or actually, the hands that handle the gazillion bags a day. Cover your stroller or car seat and keep the dirt and grime out of your infant or toddler’s food chain. Plus, on your return trip, you can stuff a world of used laundry into the bag as well as the seat or stroller.

Should your infant be gnawing on any of this?

Find yourself a spot at the gate that allows your little one(s) some space to expend a little energy. Consult the airport guide to find any kids’ playgrounds, a great idea that’s making its way into more and more airports. Usually, they are corralled off from the main traffic areas, allowing kids to run and play–something that presents a tripping hazard for kids and adults in the regular gate area.

Kid's Zone in the Detroit Airport

Check on-line to see if your airport has one, or just ask an agent or passenger service person. Just keep track of time, and be sure to listen carefully for gate change announcements while you’re there.

3. Food and water: here’s a more in-depth discussion of food while flying, but here are a few hints tailored to parents and kids. First, the MacDonald’s Kid’s meal in the airport?

Maybe–but only in the airport food court. Dragging this messy meal in flimsy containers on board–especially given everything else you have to carry–is a bad idea. There’s really no elbow room on board, which kid’s require to eat like kids do, plus there’s no way to contain the mess or clean it up afterward.

In the above-linked discussion, I make this important point: it’s not about eating on the plane–it’s about not being hungry. If you can’t feed your child right before the flight, be sure to have non-perishable, non-crushable or non-spillable snacks stashed in your hand-carried bag. Don’t count on any in-flight snacks which may not be kid-friendly (Does your toddler like beef jerky? Potted meat?) and are subject to the on-board service schedule and availability: once they’re sold out, that’s it.

Bring snacks and water for everyone. Again, don’t count on the inflight service which may be delayed or in case of turbulence, canceled altogether. Bring what you and your child will need!

4. Sanitation: the aircraft is known to many flight attendants as “The Flying Petrie Dish.” This is another good reason not to bring a meal on board: the aircraft isn’t really clean. Bring hand-sanitizer, plus wipes for your seat’s armrests, tray table and anywhere a small child is likely to touch.

$2.99 at Costco

Save yourself a cold or worse down the road: wipe down the common areas within your child’s reach.

5. Ears and pressurization: although modern jetliners have automatic cabin pressure controllers with very gradual rates of change during ascent and descent, little ears can be sensitive to the changes anyway. Be sure that your child is not congested due to a cold or such and if so, consider an over the counter children’s decongestant to ensure they can clear their ears. Some parents have had good luck with having their kids drink during descent, which requires swallowing, which helps equalize pressure between the inner and outer ear.

You’ll need to be prepared: bring something to drink in a container. Flight attendants are required to collect all service items in preparation for landing and so will not be offering or serving any beverages.

6. Deplaning: Inventory time! How many bags? Contents–particularly stuffed animals–returned to the bag (check the floor around your seat) and bags closed! Do this on descent–don’t wait till everyone behind you on the plane is trying to deplane! Be ready.

With my youngest on a trip, we once discovered the tragedy of a missing teddy bear after we got home. So now we actually have roll call of all traveling stuffed animals at the hotel and on the plane.

Much easier than having to call the hotel and prepay the shipping for a somewhat threadbare but much needed bear. Trust me. Check seatback pockets thoroughly too for things you or your children might have stashed and forgotten about.

7. Department of “Duh:” Shouldn’t have to say this, but some people don’t seem to even think about this nastiness, so here goes.

Don’t change a diaper at your seat. The aircraft lavs all have pull-down changing tables for that purpose.

And that’s the correct place to handle that matter. Literally, speaking of that “matter” or material, would you want my Uncle Fred to change his diaper on your row?

The only difference in the “matter” is in quantity, not content (well, Uncle Fred likes anchovies, but still). Yes, it’s your cute little one, but it still is what it is and everyone on the plane wants to not share the experience and scent.

Thanks, Uncle Fred.

And seriously: DON’T hand the used diaper to a flight attendant! Or DO NOT plan to have them dispose of it in the meal cart (I know, it’s incredible, but people do). Put the diaper in a barf bag and dispose of it in the lavatory waste bin. Again, no one on the plane–particularly the crew–wants to get involved with anyone else’s bodily waste. Would you?

You want me to take WHAT?

Actually, there are more helpful travel hints for parents traveling with children, but this will do for now. If you only master these items alone, your trip will be smoother and more enjoyable.

Have a great trip–and if you have any other helpful travel tips, send them to me and I’ll add them!

Inflight Survival: Foodishness at 30,000′

First off, let’s get one thing straight: inflight survival’s not about eating in flight–it’s about not being hungry.

If you’ve been off the planet since the mid 1980s, you may not know this, but unless you have been on another planet, you realize that no domestic airline serves food in Coach.

They’ll sell you something that is somewhat “foodish,” but remember what I said: the mission is to not be hungry in flight. If you are, you’ve failed the mission already: you didn’t eat before the flight, and/or you don’t have an efficient stash of caloric emergency input.

My stash emergency stash in my flight bag.

This is all pocket-sized, crush-proof, non-liquid stuff that will go through security without any problems. No, it’s not really “eating;” it’s doing what I remind you is the mission: not being hungry. Forget the idea of “eating” in flight. Well, unless you’re in the cockpit.

But even then, there’s still the same problem passengers have in back: you’re not getting anything to eat until a certain time in the schedule of the flight–not necessarily when you need it. Hence my stash.

And further, at least in the cabin, you’re going to wait also for the remains to be collected of whatever “foodish” thing you’ve paid for.

Here's a $7 United Airlines "buy on board" snack. How's the potted meat dinner working out?

Given that you’re already crammed into about 2.5 cubic feet, do you really want to sit with your trash and wait for the pick-up cart which is waaaaay after the “serving” cart selling the buy on board junk?

So plan to calorize before you board. Yes, this means you’ll have to spend some money in the airport. Reality check: you indicated through your demand for WalMart pricing on an expensive product (your airline seat is not cheap to produce) that you would not pay for the lunch on board that you know have to buy in the terminal–deal with it.

Even that, though, as I said is a hassle to drag on board along with your hand-carried stuff. The containers are flimsy, the food messy, especially when you’re crammed into you middle seat between one who’s coughing and sneezing all over your food, the other drooling over and eying it longingly.

Forget the messy on-board sky picnic in the filthy passenger seat (no, they seldom get more than a quick wipe off, if that, hence the flight attendant nickname for the passenger cabin, “The Flying Petri dish.)

Now, let’s think of the second survival need: water.

Buy it, bring it, drink it. Do we have to go over the serving cart lecture again? How you don’t want to wait while that trundling inchworm creeps up and down the aisle? In survival school, they teach you to drink your water and ration your sweat. That is–stay hydrated. Don’t wait. The aircraft atmosphere is at about 2% humidity which will dry you like a raisin insidiously: when you notice that you’re parched, it’s too late.

Buy the water in the terminal, schlep it on board, drink it pre-emptively. Yes, you may get to spend some quality time in the filthy on-board out house. But you’ll feel better in flight and at your destination.

Let’s recap:

1. Forget about eating on board. If you must, eat the high cal, uncrushable, minimum mess, compact snacks you were either efficient enough to buy ahead of time, or if not, at least you were smart enough to buy at any airport news stand. Don’t bother with the elaborate carryout.

It’ll be a huge mess, which will irritate those passengers crammed in next to you, breathing all over your food. Plus, you’ll have to sit with a pile of garbage till the inchworm cart creeps past your row.

Bring efficient caloric items that will stave off hunger until you get off the plane.

2. Bring water. And drink it pre-emptively. Sure they’ll eventually get to you with the serving cart so you can have your whopping 4 ounces of liquid. But you need more.

Drink it before and during the flight to stay ahead of dyhdration which causes fatigue and headaches, two things you don’t need when you’re traveling, right?

It’s a jungle up there, trust me. But you can make it survivevable if you think ahead, and think rationally: never mind eating in flight. Calorize, hydrate, and survive the trip so that you can enjoy your destination and maybe, find some real food.

Just throw your airfare under the car.

This is me looking down on my old high school–literally, not figuratively–where as a freshman, I had a neighborhood paper route.

It’s significant for me now to look down on my old paper route there–the Sacramento Bee, daily and Sunday, over a hundred customers–because in those days I looked up from my bike as I tossed newspapers, wistfully watching the airliners climbing toward the Sierras. I have the better of the two views now.

But I also relate to a “customer service” lesson I learned on the paper route that’s just as valid from my present perspective a few miles above my old paper route and and two hundred times faster than bike speed.

The biggest pain every month had to be collecting from customers. And the worst of that was at the house of a junior high school principal who lived on the route.

Ring the bell. Wait. He comes to the door and points to his driveway.

“Your money’s under the car–where I normally find my paper.” Crawl under the car; at least he usually had exact change. Every month.

Which didn’t seem fair, because his paper wasn’t under his car every day. Just now and then, because I had about 137 papers to throw from my moving bike, often with a dog or two chasing me, and a lot of days in the rain.

I think of that percentage as we top the Sierras (that’s Lake Tahoe in the middle)  because we’re running about forty minutes late.

Of the one hundred and forty people on board, I’m sure that one or two are steaming like my old customer, wanting to see me crawl under the car because this is what “always happens.” No dogs chasing me this time, but yes, weather slowing things down and a traffic-jammed Air Traffic Control system.

For that guy, and those of his ilk, there’s no explaining what goes on and why–they’re really not listening anyway and just want to tell their neighbors about how the paperboy has to crawl under the car to get his measly $3.50 a month.

But for the majority of reasonable folks on board, here’s a behind the scenes explanation for the common frustration experienced by all but seemingly insurmountable for the “under the car” minority.

Why doesn’t the pilot tell us what’s going on? Well, because  . . . it is going on: two nights ago, we were taxiing in the aluminum conga line to the runway, watching on radar as a ring of storms converged on the airport.

There’s no time to spare. I’m recalculating fuel burn for a new route, listening to and answering ground control giving instructions on one radio, monitoring the other radio that my first officer is on negotiating a new route from Clearance Delivery and steering the jet with my feet on the rudder pedals. And that’s not all that’s “going on;” it’s taking shape as the minutes tick by and the ring of towering cumulus closes in on the airport. I don’t have time to step out of the task mix and say “here’s what’s happening” because it’s changing by the minute.

Seriously?

It’s difficult enough when one of the Flight Attendants call up and ask “What’s the delay?” The answer would be, “I’m doing five things at once; don’t call me back unless we’re on fire.” Most Flight Attendants realize that and don’t call. If they do, I realize they’re taking heat from the hundreds of eyeballs boring into theirs as they sit on their emergency exit jumpseats. Any wonder why some of them may be a little defensive?

So–I know this is not what you want to hear, but–if I’m not saying anything on the P.A., it’s because there’s nothing for me to say and no time to say it anyway. And even what information there is changes by the minute. Even if you wanted to be part of the chaos, I don’t have the time to narrate what’s going on and still keep up with it and stay on top of our flight priority in the mix. Can you just get started on your crossword puzzle and trust that we’re doing our jobs as efficiently and safely as we can?

Once we do get into the air, we have another 4 hours of flight.  So make it the New York Times crossword: it’s in the “Entertainment” section, on the driveway. Under your car.

Meanwhile, lighten up on the paperboy, okay? He’s doing the best he can.

Sweet Tart Time Warp: The Three Hour Sunset

You point the nose west and settle into cruise and it finally hits you: this sunset doesn’t want to end. That’s the moment when the past catches up with the present and lets you in on a little secret about the future. That is, time depends on where you’re going. Long? Short? Brief? Interminable? It’s all a question of direction.

As a kid in fourth grade I had pretty much worked out the science of this revolutionary discovery using my newly acquired mathematical tools like long division and multiplication, scratching calculations on three ring binder paper while downing Sweet Tarts for brain fuel and watching Dick Van Dyke Show reruns. According to my calculations, if I flew west to east at just the right speed, given the turning of the earth below and my jet’s speed, time would stand still because I’d be over the exact same spot. Kind of a grade school version of the geosynchronous orbit.

Fast forward to my adulthood and the opportunity to examine that theory from my present job site at thirty-plus thousand feet and .77 Mach.

One thing I hadn’t accounted for in my grade school theorizing was the fact that as an airline pilot and an adult, I’d be lazy enough (and senior enough) to not fly early in the morning. So I’d be flying mostly east to west, joining the tide of blinking strobes creasing the sky late in the day, sailing to the coast. And in that physical reality, I find that I was halfway right: the sunset goes on forever as we chase the sun west.

But in the most part–damn the math and Sweet Tarts–I was just plain old wrong. No geosynchronous orbit. Not time standing still. But the important lesson: time depends on where you’re going. That’s a matter of proportion and substance, not speed and duration. Here’s why.

This sunset was observed at sea level. Actually, nine decks up from sea level and it should be noted, on a cruise ship with a camera and a vodka tonic in hand rather than Sweet Tarts and a number two pencil. Two other factors are fundamentally different as well.

The ship was cruising at a leisurely twenty knots, rather than my work-related obligatory four hundred plus knot cruise speed. And in the second clause is the most significant distinction: work. At altitude, I’m at work. At sea level–especially at sea–I’m not.

That seaside sunset lasted about two minutes. The week long cruise in retrospect seems now more like a matter of a day or two. But the months leading up to the cruise–and especially the maintenance-delayed flight to the port city–seemed like forever.

By contrast, once the jet’s landing gear is tucked into the gear wells, time slows to a creep. There’s the inverse relationship: at high speed and high altitude, time drags slower than Christmas.

By contrast, sea level–“sea” being a key word, particularly on a beach or a cruise ship–when not at work flies by like a lightning bolt, a brilliant flash disappearing in a squiggly swirl of smoke and landing somewhere far away. The thunder lingers, like the stack of vacation pictures, but predictably fades with time till you can only barely remember the original brilliance.

Same way with parenthood, and families and important events and people. Gone in a flash, yet the times in between seem to drag on. Not that there aren’t dazzling views on the way, incidental in only the fact that they’re unanticipated, but breathtaking nonetheless.

And it would be shortsighted to discount all the friends and family and events waiting ahead in unanticipated places and times of equally rewarding experiences encountered along the way to the next “big event.”

Maybe the real secret is this: the whole journey is the big deal; the events just the waypoints along the way. Maybe it never was about a geosynchronous life, hovering over a here and now. Maybe in the interminable sunset between events–the time warp–there’s also a meaningful now that sets into relief the precious moments of past and present.

So maybe there’s no time warp after all, and fourth grade math and youthful perspective not withstanding, no need for it either. The real deal is in the journey and whether at five hundred miles and hour or ten, sea level or flight level, you’re speeding onward nonetheless.

Hard as it is to admit, the times in between the momentous events are the majority of the journey, rather than the sideshow. Never mind long division–I always suspected it would lead to no good–and I’ll take the Vodka tonic over the Sweet tarts nowadays. But from the time from of fourth grade to forty-plus, one thing is clear: time, distance, place and people go by too quickly when you don’t want them to.

I think I’ll spend a little more time concentrating on the ride. Long or short, there are only so many sunsets to go.

High Flight: I’ll Take The Low Life.

The oddly symmetrical reality of flight is this: there’s only so much flying you can do without repeating yourself.

That’s not just because it all starts to look the same. Rather, it’s because if you keep flying, it actually WILL be the same: you’ll eventually circumnavigate the globe and end up over the same spot and on your way again if you don’t land.

But that’s not all. It’s also an inescapable reality that the higher you get the faster you can go, but the high price of altitude is that higher is colder and the air so thin you’d turn blue in a matter of seconds.

Sure, you’re able to skip over most of the weather because you’re above most of the atmosphere.

But then, where’s the bottom, the foundation upon which you can really ground the experience, to say you’ve been to, and not just over,  a significant landmark? Sure, you saw it–I see big stuff every workday as I crisscross the continent–but the difference between “up there” and down-to-earth is like night and day.

I have time to consider the distinction between higher and lower as I wait between flights in that great equalizer, the boarding area. Like the hospital waiting room, there’s only one and it’s filled with people from all socio-economic levels.  True, the “elite” travelers often wait in a separate lounge between flights, some even apparently entitled to the more rarefied air of “special services” whisked to the gate at the last minute on a private cart.

And sometimes, the casual traveler goes casually off the deep end, traveling in attire more suitable to cleaning out the garage than flying.

Nonetheless, I’ve seen the man in a suit that costs more than the car driven by the man seated next to him in the boarding area, elbow to elbow, waiting for the same flight. But that’s where the commonality ends.

For the travel “elite,” it seems like it’s always about time and I’m just guessing, more about where he’s going than where he’s waiting.  There’s an iciness there that you don’t want to bump into.

But for the infrequent traveler, the waiting is charged with the excitement of going, and they’ll actually drag you into the experience if you let them. And why the hell not? I’m glad to hear about what’s waiting after landing and often enough, wishing I was about to do the same thing, whether visiting friends or family or a resort destination. For them, the waiting is the anticipation of the opening act of a first-run play in which they’ll star.

For those simply rushing from point “A” to point “B,” the flight is a dull rerun of a show they’ve seen too many times, and the flying experience probably isn’t going to go well. There will be delays and traffic jams and diversions and cancellations. They won’t be part of the adventure but rather, a pain in the rear: there’s a schedule to keep, calls, texts, deals, dates, times, no flexibility, no slack. No wonder.

The infrequent flyer isn’t experiencing a “travel product,” but rather, is living an adventure. For them there’s still some wonder in the skies and in the process of climbing miles into the air, and they still like doing it.

It’s a moving tapestry that unfolds below them and time, rather than just the logjam between now and the big “then” of arrival is more than simply the endurance akin to a few hours spent in a dentist’s chair.

There’s more to the experience than just the slow passage of minutes and miles–rather, there’s the marvel of passing a mile every 7 seconds. There’s the view that stretches from horizon to horizon, the darker blue of space above and the mottled tan of a mid-continent mountain range in between. There are monstrous cumulonimbi thundering about harmlessly below

and rivers wandering lazily into the sunset.

There are hardly words to describe how the sun gathers in the day and runs off like a thief to the west, chased by a moon sliver and the evening star.

So I guess what you see and how it strikes you depends on how high you are. There’s warmth and red-blooded breathable pleasure the lower you go. If you take a little of that with you as climb higher–and we do to a maximum pressure differential of 8.32 psi at altitude–suddenly the experience is truly more of a wondrous passage than a tedious transport.

Which brings me back to the symmetrical reality of flight: there’s only so much flying you can do without repeating yourself. And in over 17,000 flight hours, I guess I’ve flown enough miles to circle the globe more than a few times and so I keep crossing over the same spots. That being the case, how does one preserve the wonder of flight, and why?

Helps to have a touch of the Earth in you, and a memory of the days when flight was the exception rather than the rule. And the awareness that the everyday in the sky is anything but for everyone other than the few. That’s the low life: the life on the surface, grounded in that realization. Puts flight into perspective.

It’s the eyes of the non-flyers that see such things truly. The renowned Ski Parker, a professor at USC’s School of Flight Safety and Accident Investigation once asked me, “If you and a non-pilot layman were to witness an aircraft crash, who’d be the more reliable witness?”

In my first few thousand hours of pilot time I couldn’t accept his answer, but now I know he was right: those with clear eyes, without thousands of repetitions skewing both expectations and memory have the truest vision of flight.

That’s what grounds the experience, which provides a foundational value for the coolness of flight. If I capture in text the head rush of shoving throttles forward, thundering down the runway like a runaway freight train, then pulling back and lifting off; and share that with those seeing with clear eyes, then I share the vision–which is what originally got me into flying and helped me over the bazillion hurdles enroute–and preserve that clear vision too.

And okay, I’m still a sucker for jet piloting, still get a rush out of it all. But I realize too that the enduring reward comes from sharing that with those un-jaded and unaccustomed to the thrill. Down to earth, where it’s warm and clear, is where that view is. That’s where all the important stuff, like home and family and an appreciation for flight lives.

See you there. Which, actually, is right here.

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Jethead: The World from 30,000′ at 500 mph

Click the title link below for a video montage:

Jethead: The World from 30,000′ at 500 mph.

Flight Deck: Zoom With A View.

Wanted: the lucky few with vision.

Job title: Zoom With A View.

“Applicant must be willing to sit for long hours looking out window at ever-changing sky. Hours vary, as does the sky, and applicants must have the ability to stay alert regardless of the hour.

Must have the ability to play nicely with others, particularly in crowded airspace . . .

. . . where “bumping into a stranger” is never a good thing.

Job often requires eating on the fly.

Working with fun people in very close quarters.

Must keep an eye on details inside, while appreciating what’s going on outside as well.

Applicants must demonstrate innovative vision in traffic jams . . .

and an ability to capture a moment visually doesn’t hurt.

And on the ground . . .

Old meets new in Louisville

. . . it’s helpful to have an eye for the sublime,

. . . and a tolerance for the absurd.

Workplace security is provided by a specialized force of hand-picked officials

trained and employed by a government agency.

How can you NOT rest easy when they are responsible for your security? Well, never mind that.

Paperwork is kept to a minimum,

. . . and stunning views are at the maximum

. . . if you just look.

Nonetheless, must see that people are what really matter anyway

especially when it’s “us against the world” of delays and weather and maintenance problems . . .

. . .  you realize who your friends are,

sometimes, if you’re lucky, for life.

So vision is key, maintaining perspective crucial. Applicants must be able to perceive magnificence in the minute

in order to realize what really matters, and be able to recognize your own minuteness next to the magnificient

in order to see with humility

and perceive humanity with the the appropriate respect.

Applicants simply need several thousand pilot hours of jet time to apply; approximately one in two hundred will be selected.

Views provided free.

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