Going Down: What’s Up With Airliner Descents?

Feeling less than comfortable, even downright disturbed with all of the sensations of descending in an airliner? Wonder what all the noise, pitch, turning and weirdness is about? Step inside my head for an inside look at what goes on and why.

Here’s where it all starts:

No, seriously–you’re in my head, remember? That’s the “Jethead” thing. And this is where “descent” starts for me: running the half-mile in high school. Stay with me.

I’m a high school sophomore, hiding in the locker room with the other half-milers who like me, have already finished our heats.

We have to hide because Coach just discovered that one of our two-milers has no-showed for his heat, so someone will be pressed into service. Can’t forfeit those points!

“Cougar Manno, report to the starting line,” blares the loudspeaker in the locker room. Damn.

No, my name’s not “Cougar.” It’s just that after nearly two years on the team, Coach Smith–who also sees me every day in geometry which he teaches–still doesn’t even know my first name. We’re the “Del Campo Cougars–” that’s good enough, make him run the two-mile.

Here’s Coach’s mug shot:

Okay, this is Pythagoras (take that, Coach Smith) but this is where we get back to flying and what my sophomoric high school years have to do with it. And Pythagoras is key.

And here's the Del Campo track from a jet I was flying, after so many years and laps watching jets above, swearing I'd fly one too--if I could pass geometry.

Say we’re approaching our destination in an airliner. We’re at cruise altitude. Our destination is ahead by a certain number of miles, we’re a certain number of miles up. Picture starting to form yet?

You can see that we’re going to have to slant our flight path downward and cover the distance to the destination at an angle, right? Two important points on that.

First, because Coach Smith taught that our flight path from altitude to destination is the hypotenuse of this triangle–it is longer than both other distances, right? This, if you care to consider it, is why “air miles” are different from “ground miles:” you fly a hypotenuse up and down from altitude, making the straight line distance between two points longer by two hypotenuses–hypoteni?–whatever, you get it, right?

Second, clearly the nose-down angle is going to need to be steeper if we’re closer to our destination than if we’re farther back, where we can make a very shallow descent. And here’s just a little more math to figure the “where” and “when” of a descent:

You have a certain amount of altitude to lose–for example, ten thousand feet–for a restriction. You have a certain amount of time between now and the crossing point. Index the two–a certain number of feet in a certain number of minutes–and you have the required descent rate in feet per minute. If I have ten thousand feet to lose in five minutes, I need a rate of 2,000 feet per minute.

If only it were that simple.

Okay, sometimes it is, and that’s what you perceive as a smooth descent. But other times, Air Traffic Control has specific requirements regarding how soon you’re allowed to descend. They add restrictions, too: cross a certain point at a particular altitude and speed. Then often some other contingency pops up to screw all the angles and numbers you’ve planned:

There goes your formula as well as your smooth, flat descent angle, and here come the speedbrakes:

They disrupt the clean airflow over the wing, and you can see why–they’re like a board pushed out into the slipstream over the normally smooth wing. So there’s a good deal of rumbly vibration, right? Here’s where they are in the cockpit:

The noise and bumpiness are no big deal–the aircraft is designed for this, and most of the noise and turbulence is from the wind. It’s like when you’re driving down the freeway and open a window–lots of wind noise, which is what a slipstream is: disturbed air. Loud, annoying even, but harmless.

What the speedbrakes are doing, however, is important: they’re catching you up on the formula above when some factor alters one of the numbers in any of the three key variables: time, distance, and altitude.

It’s a three cornered relationship–another triangle, right Coach?–whose sides are constantly in flux due to conditions. I’m always visualizing the three variables and how they are fitting and changing due to circumstances like altered restrictions, winds, and speed changes. The alternative to speedbrakes for increasing a descent, which I recall wistfully from my other flying life, you definitely won’t like, or certainly not the 4-G level-off at the bottom:

Sorry, just another quick flashback. Anyway, starting a descent farther out allows for a shallow, smooth descent–think of the triangle. Delaying the descent necessitates a steeper rate: the combination of feet per mile and thus feet per second. There’s the big angle that feels like a plunge when circumstances dictate a higher than usual descent rate.

In my Toronto example above, other traffic below kept us from starting our descent as far out as I’d have liked. Yes, ATC could have vectored that other aircraft out of our way, or even vectored us off to one side. But they didn’t. Suddenly, the time-distance-altitude triangle is changed.

As pilots, we’re always watching that geometric relationship develop in our heads–thanks Coach Smith–and I’m always planning a strategy accounting for the variables like crossing traffic and one I haven’t mentioned yet: tailwind.

Top left corner, “GS 526” means “Groundspeed 526,” even though our true airspeed is in the 400s. That’s because of the “276/107,” which is right above the arrow, which is showing the wind angle. Means that whatever speed we’re showing on our airpeed indicator, add the wind to that, because we’re in the airmass which is itself  moving at 107 knots.

It’s this deal:

No matter what speed they’re paddling, the raft’s in the swift-moving roaring torrent of fluid.

Air is a fluid, and 107 knots is a torrent. Which eats up our hypotenuse quickly and in my triangular mental image–I realize we need drag to descend by the restriction. And probably a steeper deck angle, plus drag like the speedbrakes and if we really need all the drag possible, the landing gear too.

Again, more noise, but the gear hanging is like a drag chute slowing us down–we can really lower the nose and keep the speed under control nonetheless, dropping our jet in the technical terms I’ve perhaps used more than once, “like a turd off a tall moose.”

How about a little privacy here?

But why, you might ask, don’t we start all descents way out from the destination so as to ensure a shallow, comfortable descent?

Well, for a couple of important reasons. First, it makes good business sense to stay at a higher altitude to take advantage of the lower fuel consumption and the favorable tailwinds. But as a pilot, I’m naturally a fuel miser: I want every pound of fuel in reserve for any contingency we might encounter–weather, mechanical, a runway closure, whatever.  Because–another flashback on my part–we can’t just air refuel like back in that other flying life.

"I think a 5,000 pound top-off will do."

Plus, the airspace is crowded more today than ever. If you plan to get into a major airport, you have to do your part to assure the traffic sequencing: increase that descent when Air Traffic Control needs it, and be mindful of the restrictions ahead. Because you folks in back have connections to make and schedules to keep, right?

Which means, of course, skillfully flying the hypotenuse, adjusting the triangle relationship of speed, distance and altitude. Squeeze in the feet per minute required to fit into the traffic mix.

And when you as a passenger on descent hear the noise of the landing gear or speedbrakes, feel the rumble, and notice the deck angle steepening, you can turn to your seatmates with a knowing nod and reassure them by dropping a few phrases since now you know about the “what” and the “why” of the fluid time-altitude-distance triangle.

Just smile and say, “Yup, boards are coming up,” or “guess they needed to catch up on the descent and a speed restriction” or if they still don’t seem reassured, flash a smug grin, then casually turn back to your newspaper with a bored yet oh-so-knowing, “like a turd off a tall moose.” Tell ’em you learned that from Coach “Cougar” Smith back at Del Campo High School.

****

Now, are you still worried about approaches and landings? Stay tuned, stay subscribed: we’ll take the mystery out of both very soon.

Turbulence: A Moment of Silence, Please.

Can we talk for a minute? I mean crew to crew? If you’re not flightcrew, this may be boring. Sorry.

But still, let’s talk about not talking for a minute. Here’s the deal:

We’re flying along fat dumb and happy. Then, it gets bumpy. I turn the seatbelt sign on. What do you NOT do? Or more accurately, what do I wish you wouldn’t do?

Call the cockpit. Seriously. What we get more often than not these days is, bumps, then ding-ding. “It’s for you,” I say to the First Officer, even though I am monitoring the flight interphone in my headset. Then I get the thanks a lot look from the F/O who reluctantly picks up the phone.

But I already know what the flight attendant’s going to say: “How long is it going to be bumpy?” or worse, “it’s really bumpy back here.”

Sigh.

First off, besides being an inane question, it shows a real lack of understanding of what just happened, plus what needs to happen. To begin with, if we knew the turbulence was there ahead of time, do you really think we’d fly into it? And given that we didn’t know it was there, how the heck are we supposed to know how long whatever it is we didn’t know about is going to last?

And truly, is it possible that it’s bumpy in back but not in the cockpit, so you really need to call and let us know?

Worse, either of us having to answer the phone with “we have no idea” or “yeah, it’s bumpy up here too” only prolongs the turbulence. Why? Because here’s what has to happen to get out of turbulence.

First, I have to decide if we can climb or descend. Are we light enough for a higher altitude and at that altitude, what is the margin between high speed and low speed stall? That is, a higher altitude may be habitable in smooth air, but not in turbulence–yes, the charts are broken out into smooth, light, moderate and heavy turbulence because it affects both speed control and the airfoil. Given that we are in turbulence at this geographic location, there’s a darn good chance it extends above and below us here as well.

If the margin between high and low speed buffet–Coffin Corner, as it is known–is sufficiently wide in my judgment, then climbing is one option.

The other is descent but that has a catch as well. Yes, the Coffin Corner spread is more favorable. But now we have to worry about fuel burn, which is higher in the denser air of lower altitude–which is why we cruise at the optimum altitude for fuel burn and Coffin Corner spread. I have to calculate whether the increased fuel burn allows for sufficient arrival fuel to accommodate the destination situation–and that varies.

Going into Omaha? Seldom if ever an arrival delay. Atlanta? Chicago, La Garbage? Better have flexibility and loiter time–which means fuel. Plus, the destination weather: with a low ceiling and visibility, even Omaha isn’t a slam dunk.

The final gotcha about descending to a lower cruise altitude because of turbulence is the increased fuel burn it’s going to take to return to the optimum cruise altitude when it’s reported smooth again.

With me so far? Then we need to call air traffic control and find out the ride report and the winds at a higher or lower altitude. Why? because a higher (or sometimes lower) altitude can have a significantly larger headwind, which again affects fuel burn, never mind arrival time. Anyway, calling takes time, then it takes more time for Air Traffic Control (ATC) to find the info we’re asking for.

Once we know the winds and the reported ride conditions, it’s back to a decision about up or down, based on the fuel endurance and destination weather factors I just explained. That all takes time too.

Once we’ve determined the best option, we request a new altitude from ATC, then wait for them to coordinate a new altitude–which also often comes with a catch: sometimes, they’ll need you to turn off course to gain spacing from another aircraft either in the airspace we need to climb through or at the altitude we’ve requested. Again, more fuel. Can we do that?

And then there’s the climb or descent itself: it takes minutes even after the minutes of calculations, requests and clearances.

None of that starts till we’re off the phone with you. Because in a two-man cockpit, both of us must be fully in the decision loop, as well as the execution of the changes in altitude and heading. And even then, we may find the new altitude is not smooth either–in which case the whole process starts over.

You can trust me on this: once we encounter turbulence, we immediately go to work to find a better ride. But none of this happens while you’re calling us. And we’d do it whether you called or not–so don’t delay the process.

If you’ve ever flown with me, you know this: if I know of any turbulence ahead, I’ll call back and tell you to “grab yourself a buttload of jumpseat–she’s gonna buck.” If I haven’t told you and it is suddenly bumpy–grab yourself a buttload of jumpseat–and wait for us to start the process of finding smooth air.

We’re definitely aware of the turbulence and looking for smoother air. All we need is a moment of silence.

Dummy Air: Stupid Is As Stupid Does.

The DC-10 flight engineer was the first to reach the aircraft for pre-flight on a cold, damp Boston morning. Yeah, must be nice to be the captain and First Officer, still in Flight Ops, warm, drinking coffee, chatting with the flight attendants. “Hey, we sent the engineer out to warm up the jet,” they’d say, “he’s supposed to have coffee ready when we get on.”

Same gate, every week, right? Up the steep stairs from the ramp to the jetbridge. Inside, power up the jet. Start the auxiliary power unit for conditioned air to take the chill off of the cabin. Set up the Flight Engineer’s panel, pre-flight the cockpit. Then back outside, flashlight in hand, for the walk-around inspection of the aircraft exterior.

A pause under the tail, slightly aft and to the starboard side–there. No matter what the ramp temperature, in that one spot the air is a balmy seventy-five degrees: that’s where the APU exhaust reaches the ground. Warm jet engine air which strangely, always had the slightest smell of pastries. Wintertime in Chicago or Boston, you’d always see DC-10 engineers spending a significant part of their exterior walk-around in that one spot.

Schlep back up the stairs, punch in the door cipher code; inside to the mid-cabin door. Hmmmmm, waiting till the last minute, I guess the crew is. They’re the ones who will be frantic as 250 people pile aboard and they’re not ready.

Back in the cockpit, set up the nest: pubs out and ready, audio hookup; final cockpit prep. Done.

Waiting.

Where is everyone?

Oh NO: wrong airplane!!! It’s been on this gate every morning all month–but not today!

Frantically re-pack all the engineer pubs and tools. Power the airplane down, beat a hasty exit. Try not to tumble down the steep jetbridge stairs hauling the forty pound flight bag and an equally heavy suitcase. Scurry over to the correct jet–duh, they’re loading cargo on this one, stupid–park the two bags under the nose where you and they can’t be seen from the cockpit.

Quick exterior walk-around, then bound up the inclined steps, into the jetbridge. Squeeze by the boarding passengers, slip into the cockpit. Stow bags ever so quietly. Unpack engineer stuff casually, even though your heart’s still pounding from the Chinese fire drill between jets.

Up front, no one says a word. First Officer is staring off into space. The captain, a very distinguished gentleman of few words, taps his fingers idly on the control yoke.

I breathe a sigh of relief. Pulled it off. All’s well that ends well.

Not so fast.

“Well,” says Bob in the left seat, casting a sly grin my way. “Are there any other jets on the ramp you’d like to pre-flight?”

Busted. Never did make that mistake again. Well, thankfully I was only a flight engineer for a year.

*****

But fast forward now to my early days as captain, flying with one of my favorite First Officers who had earned the nickname “Deuce,” and now I’ll explain for the not-so-faint-of-heart how he earned that sobriquet. If you’re easily grossed out, consider ourselves done here–onto to more erudite reading; see you next post.

This means "stop," in pilot world.

Okay, you still here? Good.

Well anyway, as with flight attendants and felons, there are no “ex-Marines.” Once Semper Fi, always Semper Fi. That’s why in the ex-military frat I come from, Marines are great to fly with. They just never stop being hard-charging and fearless, which is a quality to be admired on the flight deck.

If we’re picking teams for flights or fights, I’ll go with a Marine pilot first choice any day.

“Deuce” won his nickname from a particular talent he had–are you following yet? Stay with me: “deuce” is the number “2.” Is this beginning to make sense?

Anyway, as is the Marine way, Deuce liked to establish his virility and prowess through what George Costanza referred to as “feats of manly strength.” In Deuce’s case that had to do with a certain bodily function.

The MD80 lav is like a barely sophisticated outhouse. The one item that differentiates it from your average porta-potty is the “splash pan.” That is, a flimsy metal plate on the bottom that opens like a trap door under any, uh, weight of any kind, depositing stuff into the swirling blue pool of degerm.

I know, “eww.” Anyway, my ex-Marine compadre claimed as his feat of strength that he could propel his nastiness hard enough to audibly knock the metal splash plate against the housing. The distinct metallic “whack” was his signature, and from the cockpit, there was no mistaking it.

For him, it was like a carnival game, with his own unique sledge hammer ringing the bell every time.

What can I say? Flying is a serious business, so it’s cool to have a little comic relief between crises. Again, Marines are the best for that. Duece “saved up” daily so he could whack the splash pan audibly, for me in the cockpit and of course, for everyone in First Class. Who da’ man? Deuce.

And yeah, after a month of flying with the Deuce, I did consider challenging him–but only for an instant.

Gawd--this is disgusting.

Gave up that idea real fast. Anyway, fast-forward to the 737, my new, twenty-first century jet. New lav, with a Teflon base and suction that if you were a fat guy sitting on the can in First Class and flushed, you’d get sucked into coach in an instant. No more swirling cesspool stinking up the forward end of the jet. But no more carnival-game splash pan.

I flew with Deuce on the 737. Great reunion–glad you’re on the fleet! Good to fly with you again. But what about that lav? No splash pan.

Deuce shrugged, older and wiser. “Doesn’t matter,” he said, “I had to stop doing the deal on the MD-80 anyway.”

What? Why?

He shrugged and looked away. “Gave myself roids.” Pause. “Huge roids.”

Nuff said. Semper Fi. And like the goofy engineer story, stupid is as stupid does.

See you next week.

Time and Space in the Passage Place.

There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
–T.S. Eliot

The Greeks saw time as a two headed monster: chronos, which is the moments ticking by, and kairos, which is the moment, the “aha” sledgehammer of revelation. Funny how one you count, the other you live. Chronus is the abacus and the sliding of beads; kairos the realization of self–and yet kairos takes a back seat to chronus in life as in flight.

Unless you fight it. Let me explain.

Here comes the god Chronus. The price of jet fuel is up 3.3% this week, up 9.6% over last month, and a whopping 26.3% over December of last year–with the price of oil rapidly rising as we speak. My life–and your flight–is counted in air nautical miles per pound of fuel; ANPP, as we call it.

I don’t care about gallons, because they mean nothing in the lift equation, which is what gets our eighty ton freight train into the air. I don’t care about dollars as much as I do minutes, which is what moves us from here to there.

Can’t argue with physics, chronus’s relentless thug. And while I know can’t forget chronus’s digital constructs of “now” and “then”  orchestrating the results of “where” and “when” . . .

. . . I have his relentless data stream from a dozen satellites crunched by another dozen on-board processors populating the abacus with characters accurate down to a ridiculously small margin, claiming “here is where and when you are breathing out and in.”

He’s got a picture for those who would track us, constructed from the ionic backscatter bounced off our riveted hull and scooped up by a scythe-like radar arc sweeping relentlessly, converting us into a dot inching across a black glass pancake.

And he has a cartoon for me that converts our 160 bodies of blood and bone into a white triangle on a magenta line, ever forward-facing, with a numerical count of the seemingly silent action of our passage.

And if it weren’t enough to reduce sky and earth to formulaic characters interacting in sums and differences, the twenty-first century chronus presents me a with a combined image of both the digital abacus and the dirt below–all in one cyber-mirage.

“See?” barks Chronus, dog that he is. “Wasn’t I right all along?” Yeah, he’s tidily accurate to within a few feet, even after a few thousand miles aloft. As if that were all that mattered: the counting of the beads. The passage of time. Like the passage itself didn’t matter. You just sit there–I’ll drag everything by you, tell you what you need to know, never mind seeing or the gods forbid, being.

And that’s exactly where chronus is a liar and a thief. He wants to bottle you up like a genie inside your head. He wants you to overlook your own being in favor of a place ahead or behind; he wants you to live in the “then” and forget the “now.” Use your head and not your eyes. And this is what he’d have you do:

Pretend you are elsewhere. Not notice the “here”–be all about “there.”  The time between here and there is of no consequence and in fact is best left alone or if need be, avoided with the deliberate distraction of Inflight Entertainment or digital connections (chronus has ’em, right?) that reach beyond where you are (inflight wireless connections!) in favor of where you wish you were. He’ll tell you that what matters is solely what you can quantify, what you can calculate, what you can reduce to figural representation.

What a crock. He has no soul.

What chronus would desperately like to hide is the reality that your time spent in passage is a passage itself. And like poetry, that’s not something you’re supposed to “get” –it’s what you’re supposed to live. Kairos is all about the eyes and the heart–not the mind and the head.

It’s the burning lip of death on the horizon, as the day heaves a last sigh that endures for a thousand miles through a long, long flight hour. Would be convenient to ignore the approaching sunset–hard on the eyes, isn’t it? But it’s underway regardless, a portent of the future painted in our “now.”

It’s Arizona sneaking into New Mexico on the dragon breath of a west wind, looking more like an uber-pastel than a omnivorous cloud of stinging dust.

Or consider–and look (LOOK HARDER, my T-38 instructor pilot used to say) at the aquamarine jewel embedded in the jagged Sierras.

Doesn’t cost you anything–give it a long look, and contemplate the deepness of blue, above and below and ahead. And aren’t we lucky, miles above the wall of thunder beating up the plains states right now? Enjoy: this is included in the price, because it’s not just the passage of time or miles–this is your life cruising by with the hands of the clock. We’re way too fast for the storms, but of course, not the clock.

But for kairos, that’s less important. In the moment of revelation, of living out the beauty of the passage, the limitations of time and place mean little.

But missing the moment means everything.

Flight–like life–is the intersection of kairos and chronos, and the trick is to balance the two: one endures, one is simply endurance. If you can’t tell the difference, or if you can and just need a reminder, it’s time to fly.

If you look–if you bother to look–the revelation is there for free: flying, in passage, where you really ought to “be.”

*****

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

–T.S. Eliot

Fearful Flyers: What Not To Worry About.

Didn’t help much when you were a kid, at night, scared, and your mom said, “There’s no monster–go to sleep,” did it? Because fear doesn’t respond well to “shut up.”

So rather than dismissing the fears of white-knuckle flyers by saying, “There’s nothing to worry about,” I’ve taken to asking those fearful passengers, “What is it that worries you about flying?” That way we can actually examine their area of concern and shed a little light in their darkness, maybe helping them relax. It’ll be a long night otherwise, plus a lot of wasted fear that could have been vanquished with the flip of a light switch.

Here’s some of what I’ve been told by fearful flyers, plus what I’ve been able to pass along to them to help worry less, or even not at all. If you know someone who is afraid to fly, share this with them–it might help. If you have concerns about flying, share them with me. I want to be able to help you and the countless others who’d like to fly–or have partners or family who wish they’d fly–to understand what not to worry about when it comes to flying.

Welcome aboard!

From what I’ve gathered from nervous folks before or after a flight, several key worries seem to recur among the group. Most of these concerns center around a particular phase of flight (for example, take-off) or a flight sensation (say, turbulence, or a rapid descent) but the common denominator in them all is this: the unknown. Like the darkness in that scared kid’s bedroom. So let me shed some light on these areas to fill in the blanks for you, to unveil the unknown so you can relax. Because what you don’t know can help you.

First, of course, is The Take-Off. Seems like you just rocket down the runway in a thunderous roar, tilt back and climb off the runway, right?

If you only knew.

First, you should know that every parameter involved in the take-off, from aircraft weight to fuel weight to wind factors to runway slope to outside air temperature to aircraft center of gravity are all computed to the nearest hundredth–and then recomputed one more time before we reach the end of the runway.

That’s important for me–and for you–because we need to have the correct speed and thrust setting for the exact conditions. And think for a minute about both thrust settings and speeds.

Here’s the big boy engine–one of two, of course–on my jet, the 737-800. It can put out up to 27,000 pounds of thrust, but we seldom use more than 22,000 pounds per take-off.

So what? The “so what” is that means we have five tons of thrust to spare if we need it. We are actually over-powered if we need the extra kick. And consider this when you think of that: the design of the jet is that if we achieve a certain minimum speed (yes, that’s calculated and recalculated before flight) I can continue the take-off on just one big boy engine–easily. Or, if I’m below the maximum stopping speed (ditto the “recalculated” comment above) I can safely abort on the runway.

And in case you’re reading for detail, yes, the maximum stopping speed will ALWAYS be above the minimum single-engine take-off speed, so ultimately, the deck is stacked in our favor: we can take-off or stop under all conditions. Feeling more secure on take-off yet? Well wait–we’re not done rigging things our way.

There’s a safety margin built into the safety margin: we know what the stopping capability of the jet is–but we’ll knock 20% off of the performance, adding an additional safety margin to our stopping capability. In other words, if we know it takes 4,000 feet to stop at our precisely recalculated weight–we’ll require 5,000 feet of runway to do it.

But wait–we’re still not done stacking the deck in our favor.

Although we have thrust reversers that will throw out a 22 ton anchor to stop us–we won’t even count their effect and will calculate the stopping distance without them.

So let’s recap: on take-off, we have tons of extra thrust available if we need it. The aircraft is designed to fly–and fly well–on just one engine, once we reach the minimum take-off speed. And that speed is always below the maximum stopping speed based on factors biased toward a safe stop as I explained.

So we can stop or go, safely, no matter what. That’s all part of the design of your jet.

Everyone say "thanks" to the geek who designed our jet.

Those design limits  affect another in-flight boogie-man, turbulence. The engineers designed a load factor limit way above anything a rational person would ever expect.

That is, they took a G-limit that would probably give a horse an aneurysm, then again, added 50% to it. That’s the limit for operating the aircraft in turbulence. Wait for it . . .

. . . then they added another 20% to that for good measure. Your jet is designed to endure a shaking like Charro on crack and still go about its business. Although I’ve never asked a nervous flyer because I’m trying to calm them, not piss them off, if you are a white knuckle flyer, do you worry about your car falling apart whenever you cross railroad tracks? Probably not–even though your car is NOT designed with the stress tolerances of our jet. Just something to think about.

Now, let’s turn to the third big bagaboo: landing. There’s probably a lot about landing that you don’t know that would most likely make you feel more confident if you did.

First, once again, safety margins: the landing stopping distances are biased in our favor with 20% additional distance tacked on, plus our thrust reversers and their enormous power not even counted. Put that in your hip pocket and now let’s talk about weather.

It looks like pea soup from the cabin windows, doesn’t it? But not from where I sit.

It’s like x-ray vision: see the runway outline? It’s exactly overlaying the real runway, computed by a half dozen computers reading a handful of GPS systems reading a couple dozen satellites and figuring our position accurately to within a matter of feet. So, whether there’s pea soup from our cruise altitude to the ground, no matter: I can see accurately and we will land safely.

Or, if I’m not satisfied that the byzantine range of safe landing requirements are met, we have the fuel to go elsewhere. And the entire enroute portion of our flight, I’m constantly checking the destination weather, as well as the weather at potential divert options.

That’s one of the many things I’m doing on the flight deck so you can relax in back and enjoy the inflight entertainment (they were showing “The Office” last week). I have an eye on our “special clock”–fuel flow–which is our most meaningful measurement of how long we can fly. If things turn bad weatherwise at our destination, no problem: we’ll land at a safe and suitable alternate with lots of extra gas for unforeseen contingencies. That’s kind of the way I’m designed, after 25 years in this airline’s cockpits. And they back me 110% on that.

So let’s review the landing edge we’ve claimed for ourselves: we will have fuel to fly to our destination, shoot an approach and if it’s not satisfactory for any one of a hundred good reasons I can and do think of–we’re out of town, safely to an alternate with better conditions. Our stopping distance is biased in our favor. And I have been graciously granted x-ray vision by my airline (you should know that my airline, American Airlines, and Alaska are the only two using this “Heads Up Display” system) for all critical phases of flight.

Finally, there’s the big catch-all nervous flyer concern, and that is, not being in control. Right?

Wrong. You are in control just by choosing your flight. If it is on a major carrier–not a “regional” or “commuter” air carrier, you get me. Not just “me” as in me, but all of us and I’m typical of the major airline pilot: seven years as an Air Force pilot flying worldwide, twenty-five plus years in our cockpits, captain since 1991, and many, many thousands of pilot-in-command hours with the commensurate number of take-off and landings to match. Like all of our cockpit crews, “this ain’t my first rodeo.” You’ve chosen your crew well–by choosing a major U.S. airline.

You also chose well in your aircraft options by choosing a major airline with a huge maintenance and engineering department keeping the state-of-the-art jets healthy. And the airline has thousands of highly experienced and rigorously qualified pilots operating their fleet safely. Add to that your new-found insight into take-offs, turbulence and landing and you are in control as soon as you wisely book your flight.

That’s all it takes, and everything in regard to your flight safety is biased in your favor. Does that help shed a little more light on your darkest thoughts about flying?

If you are a fearful flyer, or if you know one, share this blog. Hopefully it makes one major point that helps folks relax in the air: there’s a lot of stuff to not worry about. If only your mom had explained when she told you that so many years ago.

Peak Experience

When I lived in Honolulu, over time I grew to take the visual for granted. That hit me one evening as I was taking out the garbage. Over my head, spread out like a splash of spilled paint, a furious crimson sunset vaulted across the sky.

Good thing I took out the garbage.

But that’s the way we get, isn’t it? Workaday world with an accretive ho-hum factor. What was wondrous becomes worn, routine and eventually, just another thing to do. If that’s the thing you always do.

Or maybe you’re a victim of circumstance. Used to marvel at a once-in-a-blue moon view of the gravelly dark volcano spine of Iceland during an Atlantic crossing or the blue sea ice sprawl of the Greenland fjords. Seldom did the weather or the route allow such a view, but if you were in back, you didn’t see it. That’s because the one time I made a P.A. telling the passengers to look off the right wingtip and behold the marvel below, it was only a matter of seconds before the flight attendant purser crashed through the cockpit door, livid.

“They all lifting their window shades to look out the windows!” she bellowed.

The horror. Not passengers looking out the windows at an incredible view; rather, the bloated and reddened face of the flight attendant chewing my ass. “Now they’re all going to want stuff! That’s why we’re running the movie!”

But still. This is where I’m a bad dog: I still will tell you when there’s something wondrous to see. Like yesterday–and here’s my not noticing the sunset till I take out the trash–I was hassling with an air traffic control clearance, a balky fuel boost pump, and crosschecking the weather radar when I happened to notice this right in front of my face:

Mt. St. Helen’s north face–blown off in 1981, buried in recent snow but the story’s clear enough, isn’t it? Stupid me for being heads-down, just another departure with a little fuel imbalance and navigation hassle thrown in. But there was more.

St. Helens’ big sister, Ranier looking stately as ever with a 14,410 stature of quiet dignity.  Almost missed that too, but truly, she’s hard to miss.

Especially if you’re allowed to look. Who’s stopping you? Well, who’s stopping me besides me? What is it about chores that take your focus until someone tells you to open the window shade and look? And life goes on nonetheless.

Further south: Hood!

God we have a lot of pointy stuff in this country, don’t we? In fact, take a look at the carpet of rocks that is the Sierras. I can’t even imagine the cajones of those who crossed this monstrous tract on foot.

And it’s not just the peakish stuff–we have magnificent ditches, too. The Grand Canyon sneaks up on you too, embarassing those who don’t notice until the trash is full that there are wondrous things silently waiting to suck the breath out of you.

And let’s nod to civilization. Now and again, a concrete ridge pops out of an undercast with man made peaks and valleys of vertical beauty:

Even if there’s nothing to see outside–there’s still something! Like these clouds which, from seven miles above, look more like sand dunes than anything, sprawling five hundred miles in all directions.

And you want dunes? We have real dunes too. If you were on the ground, this would be a nasty sandstorm in Arizona, wouldn’t it? But from the heaven’s eye view, this is a beautifully painted, delicate marzipan.

Is that just life or what? Isn’t it so that there’s much furious and breathtaking life spinning by below that we don’t even notice while we have our head buried in work and hobbies and distractions and stuff?

Sure, there’s always the office. Always work. But.

There’s more, too, isn’t there? Wheeling by silently, below, waiting but not caring if you look or not–it’s your loss, right?

Yes, that’s 619 knots–over 700 miles per hour.

Life comes at you fast, doesn’t it? Or more realistically, goes by way fast–whether you’re looking or not. Lift the shades, for god’s sake. Screw the fat woman yelling inside to close the shades and watch the damn movie. Worry less about the boost pump–we can balance fuel later–and take a breath between radio negotiations with air traffic control to look down.

It’s all going on, and going by, my friend. Have a quick look–because that’s about all you’ll get before it’s gone.

Holiday Travel Weirdness: The Jethead Chronicles.

What is it about holiday season travel that brings out such weirdness? I’m not just talking about the vagrant standing out in front of our favorite Seattle crew hangout with the helpful sign:

He also offered to be my “bodyguard” for $5, but I was with Ben The Dependable Copilot, and Ben’s about 6′ 2″ and weighs in about 220, so I passed. But still.

And even Pike’s Market Place was a little off the game today as well:

So just getting away from the airport doesn’t seem to limit the weirdness this time of year.

Now, at the airport, odd stuff is a given. That’s because odd people still have very little time and so must go by air, I suppose, to share their weirdness with family and friends.

Some folks just don’t get out much, but this being the holiday season, they’re of necessity heading to “somewhere else” and you know what the fastest way is from point “A” to point “B,” right?

Maybe there’s too much of a good thing on either end–eating, drinking, whatever. Problem is, airline crews are kind of stuck in the middle: between wherever “here” and “there” is for the traveling public, our workplace is the waiting room.

I guess folks just make themselves at home, or forget they’re not at home. Either way, our “workplace” is more bizarre than ever during the holidays as a result. The trick is to not only act like you don’t notice (step around the seemingly dead body for whom apparently stretching out on the floor is fine), but to try to act nonchalant when you do–which sometimes is difficult.

The on-board weirdness is predictable, with holiday travelers who are often infrequent flyers. Go ahead, mop the lavatory floor with your socks, Mr. Seldom Travels By Air. I don’t want to even think about it, but I am grateful that at least somebody’s cleaning that outhouse floor, even if the flight attendants are gagging when you do.

Or, go ahead and ask if there’s food on this flight. Has a nice, nostalgic ring to it, especially since there hasn’t been a meal served in coach this century.

I don’t mind for two reasons. One is because no matter how many times airlines, air travel organizations or even travel agents tell you that you need to bring your own food (and water if you want real convenience), you’d rather be surprised.

And second, the cockpit door is locked from the inside, so you can’t see what I’m eating anyway

Whoo-hoo: hot fudge brownies for the crew!

and really, you wouldn’t want to know anyway.  It’s pretty scary up front. Right?

No, honestly, what it is is peaceful. Darling Bride used to come up to the cockpit when we were flying at night and say how it was a cozy cocoon. It is, and I appreciate that–especially compared to what goes on in the back of the plane.

Phoenix glides by 7 miles below.

Gives you time and silence to put things into perspective. When you do, you realize that holiday travel is the best: it’s more than just business or even vacations. It’s families; it’s reunions and gatherings and children. It’s not just air travel, it’s yearlong anticipation of children and adults alike.

Our Chief Pilot–a true leader who voluntarily flies  on every holiday–uses this example to explain: The CEO of Revlon once said, “We don’t sell cosmetics–we sell hope.” Truly, what we do in these holiday travel weeks is just as magic: it’s hope for many, joy for the kids and for the adults who love them.

Come to think of it, weirdness and all, this is a great time of year to be an airline pilot, to fly families and friends to reunions and holiday gatherings.

I’ll be in the air this week–next week too, looking to make somebody’s travel as quick and easy as possible so they to can be with family and friends for the holiday. Really, it’s the least I can do considering they’ll mop up the lav floor without even knowing it.

One Pilot’s Perspective: 737 vs. MD80

Well I have to confess, I’ve been a little “out of touch.”

Since the early 90’s, I’ve been flying the MD80, assuming as I did that as airliners went, the jet was comparable to other commercial airliners.

What a wake-up call.

In the past twenty years, technology has marched on in all manufacturing and the airline biz is no exception. Sure, there have been several add-on systems that have helped the MD80 struggle along in today’s airline environment. But that’s pretty much the macro and micro view of the problem with the MD80: rather than redesign, MacDonnell-Douglas just added a few things to an already aging airframe.

By contrast, Boeing has kept pace with new capabilities by redesigning and refining what’s worked well. When they enlarged the 737 to the present -800 model I fly, they added more wing and more power with the newest CFM-56 engines with 27,000 pounds of thrust each. Douglas stretched the DC-9 by adding fuselage plugs before and after the same old wing.  And the engines are the same Pratt & Whitney JT8Ds they hung on the first ones in 1981.

It’s the difference between “add on” and “redesign” and the results of these two philosophies couldn’t be more apparent to the hands-on pilot. So let’s start with that perspective, taking a look at each from a pilot’s standpoint.

Here’s the captain’s seat of the MD80 where my butt has been for at least 12,000 flight hours. At first glance, it doesn’t look like much but I learned to make it home: everything you need is within reasonable reach and locations and function make decent sense. There’s elbow room, plus room to stow stuff at your fingertips. That’s important.

But the downside? Outside visibility is poor. The windows are small, and where the side window meets the forward windshield there’s a huge blind spot I always worried about. That plus the fact that the forward windows were in three panes and even more visibility is blocked.

And it’s not just outside visibility that’s a problem in the MD80 cockpit. Almost worse and certainly annoying is the fact that the yoke actually blocks the pilots’ view of the navigation display. That’s an unbelieveably clumsy design and shows typical disregard for the basics of human factors engineering.

Much better viz both inside and outside the 737. The seat is as comfortable and eureka! There’s a headrest–not so on the MD80. All of the 737 displays are readily reachable and easy to handle. The drawback? Not as much stowage or elbow room. Maybe the Boeing theory is that there’s ample display of anything you’d need a chart for, so you don’t need the side table to set up books and approach charts. It’s taking some creative adaptation on my part to get things in the “nest” where they’re useful, but that’s a fair trade for all of the improvements in displays and visibility in the Boeing.

Okay, that’s a quick look inside the cockpit. But the bigger question is, how do they compare flying-wise? And not sitting in the back which is, despite the frequent flyer nose-in-the-air attitude about it, “riding,” not flying.

Well, the first thing about the MD80 you notice is that at most gross weights, it accelerates and climbs fast. It’s pretty much standard on an average day that once you get off the ground and are sure you won’t strike the tail on the runway, you’re going to climb at 20 degrees nose high.

But the 737 is even more powerful and you can feel it, particularly at the higher thrust ratings which we sometimes uses on short runways. It too accelerates well and climbs without a fuss–from 600 feet at DFW to 38,000 feet in less than twenty minutes, a pretty good rate for an airliner.

That’s because of the wing: Boeing added three feet to each wing, plus the winglet as well. Never flew the plane before it had winglets, but that seems to give it a tightness in turbulence that’s probably not real popular in back. But the wing loading as a result of the broad spar structure gives it a solid feel which reminds me of the DC10: you set the pitch and bank and it wants to hold it.

The MD80 must be wrestled down final because it shows a real vulnerability to induced roll moment. That is, a gust on one wing seems to more adversely lift that wing both higher and more extremely than you experience with the 737. Again, the wingloading on the Boeing is less, so the effects are less extreme. And at the top of the cruise envelope, you can rely on the 737 wing and engines: when you have to turn on the engine and airfoil anti-ice, there’s power and lift to spare. The MD80? Good luck.

Add to that the limitations of the MD80 ailerons: they’re not hydraulically boosted. Rather, they “fly” into position by means of a tab that is displaced by the control wheel. This induces an input lag (the tab has to be moved, then gain airload) which  induces a slow response, plus I feel like the MD80 spoilers when they’re activated at slow speeds induce more unpleasant drag and sink than the 737’s again, probably, due to the high wing loading on the MD80.

The effect is even worse, too, on the MD80 because the rudder is nearly useless for anything other than slewing the nose around to extract the crosswind crab on short final. A Boeing rudder is actually as effective or even more effective (no spoiler float) than ailerons for making small (3-5 degrees) heading changes on final. The MD80, being a long tube, resists rudder input which only seems to induce an uncomfortable twisting moment. Bad combination with cumbersome ailerons an sluggish roll response.

I’m enjoying the tight, hydraulically boosted roll response on the 737. granted, after take-off and on departure, roll rates aren’t really important because there’s not much maneuvering required at anything other than standard rate. In that case, both jets have the response required and plenty of power.

But on approach, especially a visual approach, there’s no comparison: the 737 has fast response from a stable wing: it wants to stay where you put it, versus the MD80 that is squirrely all the way down final and on the runway until below about 90 knots. Used to think the MD80 had the techno edge over other airliners because of the autobrakes: when 727s were wrestling large crosswinds to land on a longer runway, we could stop just fine on a shorter, into-the-wind runway. But now, the 737 has a smoother system with 4 landing settings that is superior to the MD80’s older first generation system.

Flight guidance? I was always happy with the MD80 command bar display system. To me, especially after so many hours, the command bars (the “hojo” wings) to me seem more easily assumable than the 737 crossbars which are a throwback to the old 727 or DC10 era.

MD80 flight director.

Nonetheless, the 737 primary flight display is much larger and consolidates more data: airspeed, angle of attack–which the MD80 doesn’t even have–airspeed, vertical velocity, radio altimeter, barometric altimeter and flight mode annunciation as well as active frequency and identifiers. Make crosschecking easy and efficient.

Of course, the crosscheck is almost moot from the left seat which has the Head Up Display, or “HUD,” which synthesizes all of the information on my primary flight display–plus a few extras–and projects it all onto the glass in front of me. Essentially, I look through the information as we fly. It’s an amazing asset for poor weather and low visibility departures and approaches.

Night before last, going into a squally, low viz and gusty crosswind approach in Seattle, it was invaluable. Yes, it did take self-discipline to not look down and crosscheck the primary flight display, to instead trust the symbol generator and projector to not let me down in mid approach. But it was flawless: the generated runway target was a perfect overlay of the actual runway when we broke out of the soup at about 300 feet.

Well, there’s no comparison, ultimately, for me. The 737-800 is the product of years of refinement in both engineering and application. I guess once Rip VanWinkle wakes, there’s just no return to the slumberland of yore.

For me, this is a great way to fly; in fact, the only way from now on!

Songs In The Key of Flight

It’s definitely the Giddy-Up Chorus howling out there on the wings as soon as you press that Takeoff Power button on the throttles. Last eastbound flight out of Las Vegas, so we’re pretty light–everyone’s either already beat it out of town or is still in a casino somewhere trying to break even. Although they don’t realize it, in Vegas that’s winning.

Funny thing to pop in and out of that world so briefly. For me, it’s all about getting in between the other air traffic and the mountains, then getting out as quickly as practical, around those mountains, then climb as high as possible to ride that jetstream tailwind home.

During preflight, the cockpit sounds like an orchestra pit before the show, with hydraulic pumps whining like a string section warming up, the kettle drum thud of cargo loading, then huge doors locking shut. The forward galley door whomps open with a blast of fresh air and the clatter of catering carts trundling on and off the plane. Two flight attendants try to squeeze into the cockpit and huddle against the swirl of cold night air, mixing their chatter with the drone of air traffic control on two radios on speakers overhead.

We’re all in matching polyester costumes, waiting for the curtain as the audience troops in: the edge of night travelers, worn out from whatever they did in Las Vegas, resigned to arrive on the east coast at dawn–I’ll take them halfway there, then hope to dodge the wrong way drunk drivers on Airport Freeway to get home myself after midnight. It’s an easy crowd leaving Las Vegas–out of money, out of vacation, often hung over. The exact opposite of the inbound crowd.

Had lunch myself hours ago and a thousand miles away. My fortune read “you will travel with the person of your dreams.” Is that what they’re doing in the back? It’s hard to remember when you’re work is travel that in back, it’s a passage to somewhere or from somewhere and some one. And the person of my dreams is two time zones away, getting ready for sleep, but never too far from my mind.

Huh? My First Officer? Guess I won't use the lotto numbers.

We’re going through our lines carefully, checking that everything’s in order, all systems performing as they’ll need to for the next thousand miles. He reads, I check, I answer, he confirms. It’s all too complex to just have at it. We’re careful now so as not to have to be “resourceful” later.

The agent announces curtain time: “Everyone’s on board–okay to close up, Captain?”

I thanks the agent for the good job boarding the flight–whether it’s good or not, I just know they’re hassled and need a pat on the back. Then it’s show time: places, everyone, places! Lap belts, shoulder harnesses, crank the rudder pedals forward to get full throw. Don the headset, adjust the boom mike and wait for the cue from the ground crew. “Chocks are pulled, everything’s buttoned up, we’re ready for brake release when you are, Captain.”

Glance to the right at the warning lights on the overhead panel–trust but verify–to ensure all the cargo doors are closed. “Brakes are released, stand by.”

Glance to the right again. “He says they’re ready downstairs.” That’s the First Officer’s cue to call ground control for pushback clearance.

And now it’s time to strike up the band. “Turning number Two,” I say, hacking a clock to time the start sequence.

Gonna take a big bite out of the night sky, aren't we?

Valves respond to the switch I just twisted, channeling high-pressure air into the huge turbine section. It begins to moan, vibrate, whirl; one of my favorite sounds in the whole world: a jet engine starting. Never ever tire of that sound.

The left engine joins the symphony. Numbers tell me they’re both in tune: 20% N1, 40% N2, 600 degrees Centigrade at idle, 800 pounds of fuel per hour. Oil pressure. Hydraulic pressure. Electrical power from the generators. Amen.

They’re a perfectly tuned duet, and they’ll spin at 30,000 rpm for as long as we have jet fuel and oil, the latter as much for cooling as for lubrication. From behind, a virtual blast furnace: I’ve seen it, taxiing behind another 737; a devilish smelter glow–you can actually see the ring of fire if you’re close enough.

We join the parade of floats with winking lights rolling toward the runway. More numbers along the way in a litany of challenge and response: planned weight, actual weight, power settings, speeds, distances, maximums, engine failure routes and safe altitudes, minimum climb gradients, hold downs, departure speeds, obstacle clearance altitudes, initial level off. Crosschecked, crammed into my head.

The cockpit’s dark save the instrument glow. I transition to ghost vision, as I call it: the Heads Up Display–or HUD. Everything on my primary flight display is projected on the glass in front of my face so I never have to look down in flight.

But instead of the multiple colors that help separate function, everything’s a ghostly glowing greenish aqua. And it swims: the airspeed tape runs upward like the dollar signs on the gas pump. Then when we lift off the right side begins to jump with altitude and vertical velocity.

Can’t get lost in it, mesmerized–there’s a jet to be flown. Take it in subconsciously, they tell you, just fly and hold that in your peripheral vision.

It’s all in your head as you roll down the runway chanting to yourself fire, failure, fear or shear. After 80 knots, that’s all you’re stopping for, so it’s all you’re looking for: engine fire, engine failure, a “fear” in my judgment that some structural failure has left the jet unflyable (good luck determining that at 150 mph) or windshear.

Luke, I'm your FATHER . . .

I’d rather handle everything else in the air. Since we’re lightweight tonight, when I shove the throttles up and hit the “TOGA” (Takeoff-Go-Around”) power button, we leap forward. The wing slices the air and rises. A half dozen computers sing to themselves and each other, figuring fuel flow, engine temperature and pressure, wind speed and direction, ground speed–the engines snarl and buck.

We lift off.

Ghost vision tells me the lift vector, the flight path, the course, the wind, our speed, our climb performance, compass heading, on-course tracking and deviation and a hundred bits of changing information. Hands and feet on ailerons and rudder, I trace a line in the sky invisible to everyone except for me, and anyone on the ground watching the arc we inscribe in the sky, strobes flashing, running lights and exterior spots like an arc weld in the sky.

I can see it; I live and breathe it, day after day after day. And if you listen, you can hear it too: riding the righteous fire, we sail off in a buzzing roar of high by-pass fanjets hurling us up to the forty-thousand foot level, the final act you can see from the ground: a tiny speck of light that arcs up and away, taking the show far and away at five hundred miles per hour.  A contrail in the moonlight, the song plays on, the chorus that carries us home.

Who IS the airline Captain anyway?

Depends on who you ask. But though it seems obvious to me from the inside, it’s a legitimate question I ask from the outside of other exclusive professions.

Well, I can give you a look behind the curtain in the airline pilot world if you’re interested. And also the perspective of captain, which is even more unique: I can remember flying in the First Officer position on the DC-10 one dark and stormy night going into Chicago. Options were running out; The Boss had to make a decision–and fast–whether to divert or to commit to the approach.

He looked to me for advice, which I gave him. “Not sure what the best thing would be,” he said, as if fishing for more.  I smiled slyly and looked back across the cockpit, saying, “Yeah, I bet that’s a tough decision.”

Because he had all of the authority, not me, and in fact I had the luxury of sitting back and watching him sweat it out. It’s good to be captain, right? It’s also tough to be captain as well.

Well, I’ve had the experience now from the captain’s perspective nonstop since 1991. That’s when I got where I am, but not how. Let’s go way back.

Okay, we don’t have to go back that far, do we? Seems kind of boring, to me. But, that is where I came from and it has bearing, whether I’d like to admit it or not, on where I am now.

Seventh grade, control line planes and they really flew. Built ’em, eventually designing my own balsa wood constructions; slap on that infallible .049 engines and drive all the neighbors crazy with the noise, flying and eventually crashing my planes (learning a loop was easier in a jet than one of these control line planes) then fixing them to fly again. Did that all the way through high school. Radio controlled planes? Too expensive.

And along those lines, in college “too expensive” won out over “too stupid:” flying lessons were way out of my budget (I paid my own way through college) but skydiving was relatively cheap. You had to pay for a lift, which wasn’t all that much, and you were in flight just like that. Of course then you had make your own way back to the terra firma, but that was even cooler: flying without the plane! But still in the sky.

Bought my own parachute, budgeted a morning and afternoon jump on weekends. Thought I was immortal, which is really stupid, especially since over those years I saw a lot of folks get hurt jumping and took a few knocks myself and actually split a helmet when the wind dragged me across the asphalt and into a parked car (black eye; onlookers clapped because they thought it was planned). Dumb, dumb idea, but I learned a thing or two about life and death and fear in the process. Those lessons served me well later, as I’ll explain.

The Air Force helped me break that skydiving habit my senior year by paying for flying lessons. And one of my buddies who’d borrowed my skydiving rig made it final by shredding my chute when he landed in a tree.

Actually, it was “flight screening” the Air Force paid for: who had two left feet? Who should the Air Force not invest a million dollars in for jet flight school because they’d end up washed out or dead?

Of the fifty-some guys in my college graduating class who were qualified and competing for a pilot slot, I somehow ended up in the four who were actually selected for flight school. One washed out, one was killed flying low-level formation and the other guy now flies for Delta. But that’s another story.

Bigger and better flying followed. The Air Force decided to ship me off to Okinawa first, then Hawaii, for a total of seven years in the Pacific and worldwide. Good flying, around the clock and around the world.

And a few more pilot compadres got killed doing it, I should note to be honest. But we figured the risk was worth the reward, if not always the duty.

Couple buddies flying back in the states let me know “the airlines are hiring.” Yeah maybe, I thought. I have orders to fly the above White Rocket stateside now. Do I want to screw that up by getting out and starting over?

For the hell of it, I did a couple interviews. That’s all it took.

State-of-the-art jets and a wide open future: you could fly till sixty if you wanted! The Air Force would have you tied to a desk by your late thirties. You’d be done in the cockpit.

Sat side-saddle for a year as DC-10 engineer. On that jet, I flew with legends and gods, in my mind anyway: these were pilots who’d flown a hundred combat sorties in Vietnam. Some had spent time as POWS. They’d flown the classics of the jet age, from Thuds to the Deuce to the Sabre jet; you name it.

Some had flown with my father, a thirty-year USAF flyer. They were gentlemen, they had been baptized with fire in the air flying exotic stuff and even the first jetliners back when I was still in diapers. They were captains the likes of which, honestly, no longer exist.

I was humbled. I shut up and watched and learned: here’s how you lead a crew, here’s how you calmly handle the whirlwind when it erupts and you’re responsible for 250 plus lives.

Then I graduated to a copilot’s seat. Moving forward in the cockpit, now working one-on-one with that old breed of captain. I watched and learned. I fought the weather, the mechanical stuff, the air traffic problems, the schedule plus my own fatigue.

And loved it.

Earned my own set of captain’s wings six years almost to the day after I was hired. That’s unheard of today, where most First Officers have been here at least ten, some as many as twenty years. So I’m nothing special–rather, just damn lucky.

Now I live with what I call the captain’s pyramid, which probably isn’t what you think.

Sure, you’re at the top of the heap, blah-blah-blah. But for me, it’s now about being the guy to whom everyone else says, “Yeah, I bet that’s a tough decision” as I did to that DC-10 captain for whom I was the First Officer so many years ago.

The captain’s view is from inside that pyramid, and as you go up, as the flight becomes challenging due to weather or emergencies or a million other problems, you’re shoved upward, like it or not, ready or not, and lives are in the balance.

And it gets narrower. And there’s less room, but you have to make it work. You have to find the safe way out for you and your crew and all the souls on board.

That’s where who I am, the boring part I was describing before, takes over. It’s the lessons of calmness when hurtling downward at terminal velocity, a snarled parachute overhead and the realization that you have one shot at manually deploying your reserve chute–so make it a good one.

It’s the stormy nights over the most distant South Pacific nowhere land, a thousand miles from any shore and the knowledge that you must get on that tanker boom, vertigo or not from the moonlight through cloud breaks plus the turbulence and constant turning to avoid weather scrambling your equilibrium, you must and will hang on for your fuel–or your life is going to become “interesting. ”

It gives one the quiet calm at the eye of the storm, nose pointed up, climbing for all she’s worth but losing to the mountain you’ve been errantly vectored into in the thunderstorms of peak-ringed Mexico City.

There’s neither panic nor fear, in fact there’s a deathly calm as you do the math and search for any inch of advantage you can get, the only emotion being a distant backroom anger at finding yourself here again. What’s scary is you’re not scared–you’re on task, concentrating.

When that engine quits or worse, explodes; when the weather screws you and the windshear grabs for you, when the terrain (thanks, Mexico City Approach) smacks you in the face: you do what you gotta do. Calmly.

Because that’s where I came from. Like most captains, this ain’t my first rodeo.

And I’ve shared that look, words unspoken, with other captains on the crew bus. We’ve been in the same storm, faced the same narrowing of the pyramid. We’ve been steeled enough through years of the relentless fire to the point where we claim that deliberation, that scary calm, and do what we have to do. Nobody says a word, but the look traded says, goddam, we did that again and did it well, didn’t we? Nobody likes or goes after the top of the pyramid, but we all know it comes after us and we will stand our ground.

That’s kind of it. That’s who we are, which now you know, is because of where we come from.

Not everyone has a military background. Some of my favorite First Officers, the most capable pilots I know and the ones I absolutely need as the top of the pyramid closes in on us, are of all civilian background. And the ex-military folks, well, we’re all pretty much diecut and stamped.

I wear the four stripes which yeah, cuts a path down the jetbridge during boarding. But that’s all eyewash to me, just things passengers need to see to feel confident at shotgun speed seven miles up, comfortably unaware of the pyramid closing in on us. It really doesn’t mean squat there.

So I really don’t give a damn about the cosmetics of it all. Flying is what matters and what decides success or failure, not the outward trappings of the position. Which is why although now you do know, you needn’t even be concerned about who’s responsible for getting your feet safely back on the ground, predatory but invisible (to you) pyramid or no. My gig is flying, living up to the legacy of the giants who came before me and who taught me, employing the hard lessons I learned along the way.

That’s who your captain is, no matter what airline you’re on or who’s in the left seat of your jet. And from my perspective as an airline captain three decades after I first soloed, that’s really what it’s all about.

Who is the airline captain? Now you know.