The Flight of the Invisible Man

It doesn’t matter that you can’t see me–in fact, it helps ease the passage. We go together, silent partners, then we go our separate ways but the main thing is, we go.

Don’t act surprised. That’s the corporeality of life and time and especially jet flight: nobody goes backwards. Spindly hands sweep the clock face, blue-green waves crash on the beach then hiss away, aluminum egg crates ride the fire off into the blue until they’re just a dot and then gone.

The ever-forward urgency of flight masks the destination with the passage itself like the blindfold on a condemned man: best not to peek past the ledger of doing and done and yet to come. There’s sanctuary–at least for now–in the bustle that is the embarkation, the itinerary and finally the living-out of the route, waypoints like days on the calendar torn off and gone.

Who cares? The calendar still seems pretty weighty. So is the relentless tide of here-and-now washing up on the beach of there and gone, actually, but what the heck: we’re on our way. Meanwhile, there’s strength in numbers, which is good because the passage is a trial, isn’t it, starting with the mass inquisition.

Like the troll at the bridge: who shall pass?  And not just where to go, but how to get there. Myriad choices of routing and travel modes, never mind destinations and events and people and places that matter scattered to all points of the compass like mercury to the touch.

You can’t really see me there either, but I am, just masked from your perception by the elaborate costumes and the authentic set that allows those there to ease the passage to blend discretely into the scenery like a motionless owl treed in the dark, watching intently nonetheless. Gotta get you on board and on your way, right? We’ve got an airline to run and a schedule to keep: there are tons more passengers crowding in behind you, and there’s hardly room for everyone. And they’re all going somewhere in the world, or at least somewhere else.

So where in the wide, wide world of sports are you headed? Decide. At least for now–you can always change course later–but let’s aim you like a rifle, get your boarding pass and fire you off on your way. Can you even imagine who and what’s waiting for you “there?” Hope it’s everything you dreamed it would be but regardless, we’re going you and me.

Every moment en route is a crossroads of people more than places, because people are what move: young, old, single, families, alone, together you name it. Places have no life, only lives lived there, a stage acted upon and waiting for the next troupe of players. So many places to go, stages to act upon yet so little time and funding but mostly, the pesky pyramid-like quality of time: gets kind of tight at the top, you know?

Near the apex there seems to be less elbow room but at least you can finally see the point, if you you look. But one step at a time for now. The clockwork and moving parts mesh only slowly when you’re waiting, don’t they, as if they weren’t moving at all?

But pass they do like the scenery of which I’m a part, invisible as the nameless and faceless characters, extras they seem, on the set as you make your way through your travel scenes. We do all we can to smooth your passage because it’s our job, but also because we’re on the way, too. The last thing we do is count souls on board and we keep one total with no distinction between those in uniform or without, once you cross that little jet bridge and file aboard.

I keep that thought and that number in my head because I’m responsible for each, especially when we leave the planet. Which happens pretty quickly once we commit thrust to weight and lift overcomes drag and off we fly.

Unseen still, the Invisible Man, but no matter–in flight, everyone’s about the destination anyway. Pay no attention to the pilots behind that armored door, but do at least say “please” and “thank-you” to the cabin crew making you comfortable and most importantly, seeing to your safe passage. Once we’re cruising, seems like it goes without saying but somebody should, even at the risk of irritating the biz guy studiously avoiding recognition of the wonder unfolding below his window: look down.

He’s too travel savvy, but I’m not. The sun’s about to set, gathering the day and slinking away west. On your right is the “Big Ditch.” Here’s Bryce Canyon. Look, there’s most of Arizona trying to blow itself into New Mexico and beyond.

And there’s where centuries ago the Mississippi froze, then jumped its banks and cut a new path five miles wide another ten miles west. Check out cobalt blue Lake Tahoe looking looking like a puddle from five miles up.

And there are the northern lights and on the other side the constellation Orion our tireless friend and on and on are you listening at all? Anyway, you get the picture–if you look–without me saying a word. So much flying by so check it out, see everything and anything but your watch which will go neither slower nor faster for being looked at, but will go nonetheless. And that’s what makes all this tick.

What you don’t see is missed–gone one way or the other. And since you’re going anyway, might as well notice the passage.

But me you don’t need to notice, really. I’m on my way back before you do anyway, ready to ferry another shipload of precious souls on their way to wherever. Because air miles are my workday I’m invisible in this voyage. But this is your life–so you’re not.

Once we get “there,” we’ll go our separate ways, you on with your life, me back in the air. Silent partners no longer, but I’m glad nonetheless to have shared a calendar page and a passage in the sky with you. Safe travels, wherever you’re headed.

Flightcrew Zoo: Sky God & Switch Bitch

(First in an occasional series profiling classic flight crew members)

Those were the days.

The captain was a “sky god” in every sense of the term. Well liked-by crewmembers on both sides of the flight deck door, he’d advanced through the pilot ranks over twenty-some years to the top of the heap: senior captain on the widebody.

I was the “switch bitch,” or “plumber,” or any of the other unflattering sobriquets that designated the new-hire flight engineer. I loved it regardless, having landed on the DC-10 flight engineer’s panel fresh-faced and new after seven years as an Air Force pilot. Sure, I was “sitting sideways,” doing my apprenticeship on the flight engineer’s panel rather than at the pilot controls up front.

But that would come soon enough–a copilot’s seat on a narrow body jet was mine for the asking within months. I had chosen instead to do my probationary year at the DC-10 panel because there was less chance of anything happening that could lead to termination, which was always a possibility for a probationary pilot. Seemed like a good way to breeze through probation, sitting at the mostly automated DC-10 engineer’s panel. What could be easier?

It was a sub-zero day at O’Hare. I’d finished my walk-around inspection on the frozen ramp and then shed sweater, overcoat, scarf, hat and gloves and sat back down at the engineer’s panel, waiting for pushback after all 250 passengers had boarded.

Captain Skygod sat in the left seat, feet propped up on the instrument panel, idly thumbing through a golf magazine. The First Officer sat like a zombie, having done nothing, which was the beauty of that job as I later enjoyed myself  for a year or so.

One of our nine flight attendants interrupted our reverie.

“We have a bag problem in back,” she sighed. “Could use some help.”

Skygod didn’t even look up. “Why don’t you go back and see what you can do, son.”

The First Officer smirked at me over his shoulder, telegraphing he means you, which of course I already knew.

“Yessir.” I unstrapped, grabbed my hat and headed for the main cabin.

I squeezed past the boarding throng to the mid-cabin where an irate woman argued loudly with three flight attendants–a fight she seemed to not realize she could never win. It seems that the garment bag storage was full and so the flight attendants were insisting the woman’s overstuffed garment bag be checked in the cargo hold below. That was not acceptable to the red-faced, irate woman.

“Look,” I said, gently but  firmly pulling the garment bag out of her hands, “I’ll personally take this downstairs and place it in the cargo hold then bring you the claim check.”  The flight attendants nodded, hustling me off before the glaring woman could protest.  “Thanks,” one flight attendant whispered, clearing a path for me to the entry door.

In shirt sleeves still, I carried the bag out the jet bridge door and into the sub-zero freezing cold, down the steep stairs to the arctic ramp. I carefully placed the bag in a cargo container set to be loaded aboard, then return half-frozen with the baggage claim check to the mid cabin. I found the woman at her seat, still fuming.

“Here you are, ma’am,” I said, handing her the baggage claim check.

She snatched it from my hand, giving me a look that could bend a spoon and snapped, “You f*cking asshole.”

Fine.

Back to the jet bridge, out into the freezing cold; down the icy stairs to the frozen ramp. Find the baggage pallet–there’s the bag. Rip the baggage tag off of it; drag it to the gate next door–a Super-80 heading who-knows-where. Toss it into the cargo compartment. Race back upstairs half frozen.

I slipped back into my seat, shivering. Skygod was still flipping through his magazine. After a moment, he spoke.

“Did you get that baggage thing worked out?”

I turned the cockpit heat up a notch. “Uh, yessir. All worked out.”

He nodded, never looking up. “You do good work, son.” Nice guy that he was, I knew he’d give me a glowing recommendation on the probation report he’d fill out on me later.

I survived my probationary year and moved up to the copilot’s seat on a narrow body jet. The flying was more fun with a set of controls, but I missed the DC-10 days of motoring around the system without any real responsibilities–save the occasional “baggage situation.”

I flew many miles with Captain Skygod until we parted ways: he moved up from the domestic flying to the coveted trans-oceanic trips; I upgraded to the copilot position on the MD-80.

Then the only time I’d see him was in the airline employee lot as I was arriving at the buttcrack of dawn to fly a cruddy junior-guy trip and he was just returned from his Honolulu flight.

He’d stationed his RV which the crews nicknamed “The Whale” in the lot so he and most of his pilots and flight attendants could enjoy “happy hour” after flying all night. As the sun was rising, you could hear the whirring of his blender, laughter and tinkling glass from “The Whale” as the rest of the world began their work day.

Ever the gentleman, after the mai-tais had been free flowing for an hour or so he let the muu-muu clad flight attendants have first dibs on the lav. Eventually, he was busted for using a light pole to relieve himself and the airport police invited him to remove The Whale and never bring it back as a quid pro quo for not arresting him.

Captain Skygod retired from our airline at what used to be the mandatory age of 60, but went on to fly 747’s somewhere overseas. I lost track of him over the years and having been a captain myself for 19 years now, I doubt he’s still flying. But when I think of him and those days, I have to smile, and only wish we could get away with half the things we used to do back then.

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Altitude and the Neverlasting “Now.”

The sneaky seduction of altitude is this: the higher you fly, the faster you can go but the more difficult it is to perceive the speed.

At cruise altitude, the arch of the earth or the depths of the ocean are mere backdrop for passage. From a contemplative perch made of the lightest material possible in a thin-skinned cocoon inches from sub-freezing, anemically thin air, the perspective and distance makes the otherworldly, near-Mach speed seem like a lazy float in a cloud swing.

The monumental seems miniscule because the miles-high magic of perspective paints the infinite details with a brush broadened by altitude rendering the monolithic perceptible in a glance–an impossibility from the ground.

Once the Earth falls away, the crags and mottled rocks and bare washes recede into a more perfect rugged beauty most apparent in the wide angle vantage point of altitude, a newborn epic revelation.

And the lazy cloud swing breezes through effortless miles over a rolling tapestry of preternatural vistas from here to there, a “now” with a spectacular view,

a footless, rootless, colossal impossible God’s-eye-view of the fastest way to there, wherever that is today.

That’s difficult to imagine from the surface, particularly when the struggle to get into the air seems as insurmountable as the miles to go. Even once under way but still shackled with the twin albatrosses of gravity and crowding, “now” masquerades as forever.

Waiting–Keats’ “foster child of silence and slow time”– renders the present a shuffling laggard, and speed a distant mirage like tomorrow or yesterday. “There” and “then,” the double-play of anticipation, never seem more impossibly far away and “now” a more wearisome isolation from where we’re headed and who we’re going to see.

And yet that’s the closest we ever really are to each other, wandering life, vagabonds bound by the commonality of where we aren’t yet, but are headed for–which is always some particular there. The tedious details of the strangled moment are forgettable snapshots as they present themselves, but in truth they’re truly the imprint of the best, most fleeting treasures of our lives:

This is how we were then. Look how small the kids were! And how young we were. Like the magical clarity borne of altitude, the distance of time paints a whole new picture. And the pictures side by side reveal the awful truth: time is a thief.

Let’s face it: compared to the breathtaking perspective of the sky view, the grounded here and now seems like a sideshow–even when it really is the other way around. Maybe it’s the tedium of now, the obligations, the faults and close up detail of “now” that falls away when you leave the Earth relegates the “here and now” to the status of ugly stepchild to “there” and “then” of destination.

Like the ruddy details of a landscape vanishing into the miles-high montage below a jet flight, the ticking seconds hide in the tearing off of calendar pages. But like the imperfections of wilderness, they are nonetheless the essence of our lives, the reality that makes life what it is rather than the illusion of how it appears from a distance of time or place.

That masks the real culprit–relentless time–and lets him go about his silent ruination of everything precious now under the guise of everything yet to come.

You pay me to hide that from you, and I do my best.

Though time and distance seems non-existent in the speed and altitude of flight, that’s because I’m handling those culprits, sweating them for us all. Time is fuel. Speed is distance. And neither is flexible or endless, because time is not our friend.

We have an appointment with gravity and energy that is ticking our way, hiding behind broadest view of time and distance and the breathless, breathtaking journey between them.

There’s a big plan for our little journey,

and in bringing it to a successful close, it’s easy to forget that what’s for me a workday process is for all of us a passage nonetheless. I try to keep in mind that the seduction of altitude is but ample cover for the thief of time tiptoeing silently by in the seconds barely evident in the calendar’s march. At least I won’t let him steal away unnoticed.

The sneaky seduction of altitude and its supernatural view is also its greatest secret, if you pause long enough to take it apart like an old watch:

The outer face tells an elegant story, but means nothing without the myriad interlocking details that make it tick. A sleek jet at shotgun speed is a beautiful sight rocketing overhead.

But nonetheless, it’s our mundane day-to-day litany of close-up imperfection and routine but precious interlocking lives that is the miracle. A fleeting miracle, despite the stunning trickery of high altitude sightseeing that hides the all-important ticking details in favor of something down the road beyond the reality of now.

And it’s not a fair trade-off, because as Bella Abzug promised, maybe we weren’t at the Last Supper, but we’re certainly going to be at the next one.

On the way, I plan to drag my feet as long as possible in each fleeting but precious mile-high and down-to-earth heartbeat of the neverlasting now.

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Midair Collision? You bet your life.

The near mid-air collision between a jumbo jet and a light aircraft near San Francisco International Airport last week should be a wake-up call for the FAA and passengers alike. Sadly, it wasn’t for either–and so the imminent risk of a midair collision remains.

Sweep aside the usual hot-button issues of “free access to the skies” and other light aircraft lobby specialties. Here’s the bottom line: slow, light aircraft with hobbyists at the controls mixing with high-speed, heavy jet traffic promises disaster.

144 people died in the worst air disaster in California history When PSA flight 182 collided with a Cessna 172 and crashed into North Park.

A major risk is the overly simplistic rules of separation between aircraft: see and avoid.  That’s it.

When a jetliner is in the airport traffic pattern either taking off or landing, often controllers are able to use “visual separation” rules. That is, if the visibility is deemed minimally adequate, an air traffic controller can issue a traffic warning that holds a pilot responsible for avoiding another aircraft if the pilot can confirm that they have visual contact with the aircraft being pointed out.

There’s the roots of a disaster that will happen: when there are multiple aircraft in question, it’s very difficult to be sure as a pilot that you are looking at the one the controller is trying to point out.

Radar snapshot of the Atlanta Airport Terminal Area.

If you are looking at the wrong aircraft–and there are many at all points of the compass and at various altitudes–you cannot assure the clearance you just promised to maintain.

According to a recent study produced by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, air traffic at major hubs has increased exponentially in the past ten years. And even after 30+ years and over 17,000 flight hours, I find myself more often than ever when given a “see and avoid” clearance, telling air traffic controllers, unable to accept that clearance– I do not have visual contact with that aircraft.

Why?

Because with the multiple targets (i.e., other aircraft large and small) in the terminal area, I won’t gamble your safety on the bet that I’m seeing the correct aircraft.

And what about that other aircraft? The fact is, that aircraft may not even be flown by a licensed pilot.

Students with minimal hours are allowed to fly solo in the same airspace as your jetliner. And when the air traffic controller points out your jetliner to this student pilot–or weekend hobbyist pilot–what are the chances that he’ll do better than I would? Because my point is, I often refuse the visual separation clearance.

The result?

The air traffic controller must maintain positive radar separation between our jetliner and the other aircraft. This may mean slightly longer vectors, maybe a minute or two of extra flying in order to sequence our aircraft safely into the mix of flights in the terminal area. I personally can find no downside in that for you and me at a mile or two up flying at a couple hundred miles per hour.

Where do the air traffic controllers stand in this squeeze play of airspace users and managers? Tireless advocates for airline safety through appropriate air traffic control manning and airspace management, controllers have long warned of shortages of radar monitoring and manpower in critical terminal areas.

But the FAA and private plane owners may often prioritize workload and operating costs respectively above my (and your) priorities in the same situation and unfortunately, the same airspace. Both have resisted attempt by safety groups to exclude student pilots or even low-time private pilots from crowded airways and airports.

With increased pressure on the FAA to move air traffic in and out of airports as quickly as possible (see again the Wharton report), “see-and-avoid” clearances allow Air Traffic Control to increase the flow rates of an ever-increasing traffic load.

Light aircraft owners have a powerful lobby group that opposes all efforts to limit their airspace access.

This powerful lobby group is supported by an even more powerful and financially vulnerable group, the manufacturers of light aircraft whose sales depend upon users’ access to airspace.

Add up those factors, throw in ever-increasing air traffic congestion, airspace demands and private pilot owners’ “rights” to free flight and you have the a volatile mix that sooner or later will erupt in disaster–again.

Because when it comes to “see and avoid” in today’s complex mix of air traffic and inexperienced pilots at every major airport, I can sum up the risk of a midair collision in four words:

“You bet your life.”

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Jet Flight And The Curious Lightness of Hope.

Sure, the destination is the same for every passenger on board. Yet the passage is anything but, except for that moment of stillness before instant of flight.

It’s that empty pause after the final turn from the taxiway onto the runway, after a quick glance upwind to be sure no one’s on final approach. Satisfied, goose both throttles, engine instruments spring to life; feel the shove, pull ’em back. Make a wide swing, pressure on the inboard brakes slews the nose around and at the sweet spot, deft pressure on the outboard brakes stops the nose dead on the wide white stripe leading miles ahead, into the air and far away. Feel the slosh as ten tons of fuel in the wings protest the precise stop after the graceful arc, rocking the jet in ever-diminishing waves.

Silence. Stillness. The moment of “should we?” well past, but the instant of “we are” yet ahead. Savor the verge of such nearly bursting potential, that heartbeat before the sound and fury and no turning back.

That frozen moment masquerades in another pregnant pause near a boarding gate, but often at the drop-off curb. It’s okay for me to look, being invisible–not a person, but a component of a travel ensemble: just the uniform on somebody crewing the machinery of here-to-there, no more significant than the stripe on the aircraft fuselage or the logo at the gate. From the outside, at least, air travel is a process as much as a passage. And there’s safety in the anonymity of that, at least from the inside.

But now and then in the chorus of good-byes there’s one that’s more than cursory. With a touch that lingers, sad eyes echo pained looks back and forth like a shout in a canyon. There’s nothing simple in this parting, it’s easy to see, yet so hard to look at.

Because who hasn’t been there? Who hasn’t had to endure the moment of leaving and the torturous suspense of not yet being gone? That awful stretch with neither past nor future, only an agonizing now where hope just flat lines. In those murderous moments the mundane elements of time and place freeze; the sun, the clear sky, a warm or cold day and what he or she wore and said and that last look, thin as a nose print on glass and gone in a moment but still, memorializing in stone the physical aspects of a momentous passage, at least for you.

And so for them, I remind myself. We’re flying people, not just passengers and cargo and a buttload of fuel, most of which we’ll methodically incinerate in the getting there. And the crossroads gathering everyone here and now from the forgettable quick trip to the heart-wrenching good-bye and everything in between is this hanging moment that ends with flash and fire.

Always loved the feel of making that happen: stand the throttles up; a hundred-thirty-some feet behind, a pair of hydro-mechanical fuel controls respond to my touch with a gush of volatile jet fuel into burner cans ringing the turbine sections on both engines. In an instant, instruments on the forward panel spring off their pegs and wind up as does the jet noise and we roll.

Jet fuel ignites at around 400 degrees Fahrenheit, and under compression and lightning-like heavy-Joule ignitors, the hot section of the jet turbine flirts with 1,000 degrees and howls a gale of hot exhaust behind us, slinging the aluminum, hydraulic fluid, miles of cables and electrical components never mind the bone and blood and heartache and joy to the speed required to lift the whole unlikely assemblage into the air.

One last scan, riding the pointy end of a southbound train that ain’t never going to stop, pull back just enough, and hold. The huge tail fin bites the air and up goes the nose.

Then the earth just falls away and sky replaces the complications of buildings and roads and homes and offices with the simplicity of white clouds and a dome of cobalt above, darkening at the top, with just a miniature sketch of the tiny world below going about its seemingly–at least from miles above–tiny little business.

Maybe now in cruise, I tell myself, the pain of parting can give way to the hopefulness of reunion. Or a new beginning. Or an ending. But all of that is on hold for however long we are off the ground. I never forget that.

Busy people sometimes call flight time “the black hole” because they can’t send or receive calls from an office or some other worldly hell. But I prefer to see our flight as more like an oasis high above the desert of requirements and demands and contests and complications of the petty ant pile miles below.

It’s the moment to catch your breath between here and there and whatever those polar opposites mean to whomever is struggling, suspended between them. The flight itself is the interlude, the moment of suspense, time with nothing to be done but endure.

And the secret irony is, it’s a deceptively treacherous peace and stillness considering that it takes place at as close to the speed of sound as we can fly in a sky without enough oxygen to keep you alive for more than a heartbeat or two, and at a temperature that would freeze you solid before you fell the seven miles to the dirt below, riding the fire that calms itself down to about 700 degrees when I throttle it back, but still.

That’s the curious lightness of hope. It’s born of leaving, baptized in the thousand degree fire of launching and climbing, speeding away, zooming ahead. Aloft, between, enroute, underway and no longer still but moving between a certain here and an uncertain there. Flying makes it so–above the mortal ground, ignoring the gravity of up and down, moving at impossible speeds in any place other than the way high above, which is where we are. For now.

Yeah, I know: all this will have to be worked out in the end. We’re going to “get there” and when we do, the energy of 70 tons at bullet speed will have to be dealt with: the thousands of foot-pounds of kinetic energy will need to be dissipated, the miles between us and the ground negotiated and the whole matter brought safely to a stop and mated to a gate so you can deplane and return to your mortal existence. I’ll take care of all that.

But yours is the hard part I don’t envy you one bit: reconciling your passage with new place where you’ve arrived. It’s really what matters–we didn’t just burn tons of fuel for nothing.

Maybe you’re starting anew. Maybe you’re returning. Either way, the complications of time and place and the real world we just zoomed over getting you here resurrect themselves and stare and wait for you to arrive. And now you have, so good luck.

Because my part’s done. In barely an hour, faceless as I am, I’ll be back in the air, back to my world of high altitude, high speed, high temperature from here to there but only for the moment. Just remember, anonymous or no, who cared about you in the coming and going, and everything that the passage meant to you.

And who’ll be here whenever you’re ready to go again, ready to ride the fire and the island of hope to a new place.

Just say the word, and we’ll go. Because as I said, we’re flying people, all of us; we just are. And that’s what really matters.

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Airline Passengers: Are YOU “That Guy?”

You know “that guy,” the one passenger, man or woman, who is annoying bordering on obnoxious–but is the only one who doesn’t recognize what a pain they are.

There’s always “that guy” at some point in the day’s thousand or so miles in the air. Typically, 350 to 450 passengers over the multiple flight legs board and deplane and in between, one or more reveal themselves as “that guy.”

Who’s he? Let me introduce you.

First, there’s the mangled lingo guy. Going to make conversation in the argot of the crew, right? What “runs” are you doing? That’s my favorite, although don’t forget the close cousin, what’s your route?

Both tired questions conjure the image of Ralph Kramden for me. Except that the average bus driver never aimed a 75 ton pile of pig iron ripping along at 200 miles per hour at a concrete slab he couldn’t see until a matter of second before the wheels finally touched the ground, nor navigated the same beast 7 miles up at 500 miles per hour.

There’s Ralphie’s “Main Street to 4th” run, and there’s my flight sequence, which is usually 3 legs somewhere to somewhere, then a hotel.

I don’t have a “run” or a “route,” because after 24 years, I really don’t care about most destinations anyway. Rather, like most flight crew members who’ve been around a while, I’m all about whatever flight sequence–2 or 3 days–requires the least amount of time away from home.

Destination? Who cares, although I do try to fly south in the winter, vice versa in the summer (all birds do that, right?) to lessen the weather hassles in and out of the airport. But as far as the “glam” spots? Puerto Vallarta, Cabo, Miami, New York? Who cares? I’d rather be at home with my family.

Part of that is the “been there, done that” effect of hundreds of “runs” (JUST KIDDING–it’s “trips”), part of it is the weariness of the suitcase life, being on the road and NOT having your place, your stuff and most importantly–your time. Because it’s not your time, it’s a work schedule.

Once in Puerto Vallarta, the hotel ran out of standard rooms and put me (“El Capitan,” they said) in the Presidential Suite. Two problems with that:

1. I spent the night sleeping with one eye open, just knowing a band of drug cartel banditos would eventually kick the door in, kidnap me mistakenly (“No, I’m just a lowly crewmember, not a gazillionaire who could afford this outrageous luxury and by the way–check out the grand piano in the living room!”) and then mail home my chopped-off ear with a ransom note, although Darling Bride would probably request a larger appendage as confirmation and the airline would deny even knowing me. Not good rest there.

2. The luxury suite just reminds me that I’m NOT on vacation, I’m not here with my family enjoying beach time or happy hour or the scarf-till-you-barf “Can I Get Immodium With That” buffet. I have to get up early and get my butt back into the polyester and get to work. Just stick me in a broom closet for my lavish nine and a half hours at sea level.

Besides that, I usually don’t even check where I’m going until the night prior and up until then, I’m probably trying to trade my trip for any open trip requiring a captain that has less time away and less work involved. So we really don’t have “runs” or “routes” anyway, and I’ll trade any trip for Tulsa-Omaha if it gets me home quicker and less painfully.

The next “that guy?” He’s “Mr. I Have Frequent Flyer Status.” He–or she, often–differs from the real frequent flyer who is characterized by the efficiency with which he boards, stows his things, sits down, says “please” and “thank you” and doesn’t make a nuisance of himself.

I'm a "Triple-Axel" elite!

By contrast, those who are impressed by their mileage category or the goofy distinctions airlines dreamed up to make them feel important (“I’m a premium/zirconium/gold circle/fat cat/lead pipe/triple Axel status holder . . .”) run headlong into those who are simply trying to do a good job for everyone, despite the marketing opiate of mileage status.

"Ain't I got status!"

This person is likely to remark to me at some point, “Bet I have more time in ‘these babies’ than you do.” Doubtful, unless you’re in the air more than 900 hours a year and even then, actually flying “these babies” requires more than napping in back in a filthy seat between snoring mothers with squalling lap kids–but better you than me.

Finally, the least obnoxious but often the most disturbing:

We know why you fly: it's cheaper than Greyhound and Amtrak has a dress code.

Unlike the “Status Dork,” these folks don’t mean to be annoying and often, don’t have the experience to not be that way. Never mind the little things like asking if there’s a toaster or microwave in the galley (“Sure–right by fridge and the sink”) or using the lav in only socks or less (“Ewww, but thanks for mopping the floor!”), it’s the stopping dead in the middle of a moving terminal throng, or never knowing their own travel details:

“Is this my gate?” “Give me a hint: where are you going? And god forbid, what’s your flight number?”

It’s just the unfamiliarity with the environment–like me in the dentist’s office or the American Girl Store–

That's NOT me--I took the picture.

it’s the circumstances that make normal people (the “beast” playing with dolls) do silly-looking things they wouldn’t otherwise do, especially if they knew how it made them look. Get the picture?

So if you don’t fly often, it’s not your fault, BUT GET A CLUE:

Dress appropriately. This ain’t a garage sale or a day at the beach. In my Air Force flying, we were told to–and I did–consider the effects of fire on your flying garb. And so we wore Nomex fire-retardent flight suits and even gloves though often it was pretty hot in the cockpit, with cotton underneath, mindful of the melting-onto-bare-flesh effect of artificial fibers when jet fuel burns.

Okay, you don’t need to be that paranoid, but is the T-shirt, cut-offs and flip flops thing going to work for you on your way home from O’Hare in January, never mind if you make an unexpected stop?

Besides, every type of clothing doesn’t look good on every type of body, so just because you’re traveling to an unfamiliar destination doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily look good in whatever they wear there.

When you get home with your Bolivian halter top or bead-laced hair, in the context of a normal day–you’re going to ask yourself “why the hell did anyone think this looked good?” Trust me: we’re asking that as you walk through the airport and onto the plane.

Nix the wife beater shirt, the ripped garage-cleaning wardrobe, the beach wear. Just dress decently and act that way, too. Know where you’re going and on which flight. Say please and thank you where appropriate, and try not to be too impressed with your mileage status or how many hours you have “in these babies.” Things will work out better that way.

And you won’t be “that guy.”

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Click here to listen to my interview along with the P.R. Director of Air Tran Airlines and the regular panel of Airplane Geeks discussing pending airline legislation, The Passenger Bill of Rights, the replacement of Air Force One, and many passenger-related airline issues.

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Inflight Insanity: My Top 5 List

Twenty-four years and counting as an airline pilot–the past 19 as captain–have taught me to never say or think “now I’ve seen it all.” Because just when you think you have, something like #1 below happens.

I still expect to have many more years of flying ahead. But I can say that over these flying years so far I’ve seen a lot of almost unbelievably bizarre things that I wouldn’t have thought could ever happen in the airline world had I not seen them myself–even though often, I wished I hadn’t. Here, then, is my list of the top five weirdness, at least so far, and the valuable lessons in each.

5. A short, stocky taciturn man connecting onto our flight south after clearing Customs from Shang Hai boarded our plane early. He headed to the last row, sat down, dropped his tray table and pulled a strange device from his carry-on bag. This calculator-sized gizmo had blinking lights, a few loose wires, and an LCD display that flashed an ever-changing series of numbers. He then draped his jacket over his head and most of the tray table, tenting himself in seemingly intense concentration on the strange device’s number display.

Of course, that freaked out the flight attendants supervising boarding. They called me on the flight deck and reported the whole oddball situation. Sigh. Why couldn’t he be on someone else’s flight? I called operations and requested a Passenger Service agent to investigate what certainly was abnormal passenger behavior.

The guy spoke only Chinese and tried to ignore any requests to deplane. Eventually, law enforcement officers were summoned to ask him a few questions. As he was led off the plane by Passenger Service agents, glaring at everyone and muttering in some Mandarin dialect, I made sure to stand behind the waiting police officers just in case he went Ninja-crazy with some obscure martial arts move from deepest China, ripping out your heart with one hand and showing it to you as you collapse.

Found out at our next stop that investigators–and translators–determined that the man’s strange device was a “random number generator”that he liked to stare at because it “calmed him down” since he was afraid of flying. Lesson here: don’t act like a weirdo-zombie with a strange device during boarding. It freaks out the crew.

4. In flight, I kept hearing a male voice outside the cockpit door. We had an all-female cabin crew on that flight, so I knew it wasn’t one of their voices I heard. I had made the standard P.A. reminding passengers that congregating near the galleys was not allowed. I also heard a muffled female voice sounding urgent in between words from the male voice. The seatbelt sign was on, so no passengers should have been up anyway.

Sigh. Can’t everyone just stay seated when the seatbelt sign is on? Of course not. I called back to the forward flight attendant, asking what was going on. “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you,” she answered, then asked me to make another seatbelt P.A.. That worked–the male voice vanished.

Later, the #1 flight attendant came up to explain why the man was standing outside of the cockpit door and mostly in her galley. “He had just come out of the forward lav and was doing calisthenics of some sort. I asked him what he was doing and he said he’d been feeling gassy, went into the lav to pass gas but couldn’t, so he was trying to work out a big fart.”

Lesson #4: share your gas with your fellow passengers near your seat–not up front. We’re busy flying the plane and breathing is key.

3. During boarding in Puerto Vallarta, a woman with a grating New Jersey accent poked her head into the flight deck and demanded “can you guarantee that there are no peanuts on this plane?”  I thought about it and realized I really can’t guarantee that. We don’t have any peanuts in the catering, but who knows if other passengers may have some with them as a snack? Peanuts are not a prohibited item. “No,” I answered slowly, pretty sure I was correct, “I really can’t guarantee that.”

“Well,” she snapped back, “my son has a severe peanut allergy and if there’s so much as one peanut on this plane, he’ll go into convulsions. So you’d better be sure.” Then she huffed off to the back of the plane where her husband and son were seated.

My first officer looked at me with a raised eyebrow and a sly grin that said what are you going to do, captain?

Sigh.

Sigh. I called Operations on one of the VHF radios and requested a phone patch with the 24-Hour Physician On Duty at Headquarters. After hearing the woman’s story, he made the corporate recommendation: deplane the family. That would be my choice as pilot-in-command as well, because I don’t really want to do an emergency descent and landing on some crude runway in a foreign country with questionable medical help anyway.

I called to the back of the plane and asked the flight attendants to pass along the directive to deplane to the peanut-sensitive family. Within the twenty seconds it would take to stride the 130 feet from the back to of the jet to the front, we suddenly had an irate man with a grating New Jersey accent standing between the First Officer and me.

“We’re not getting off,” he announced, “so you just go about your business.”

I put on my game face. “Well sir, the decision has been made at corporate headquarters. It’s out of my hands–you’ll need to gather your belongings and deplane. We can’t risk your son going into convulsions in flight as your wife warned us.”

“Ignore her,” he said with a wave of his hand. “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. And we’re not deplaning.” He stomped off.

Sigh. I called Puerto Vallarta Operations and explained that we would need law enforcement to escort some passengers from the flight. “Si, senor,” came the cheery reply,” we will send you some help.”

Good enough. I went back to gazing at the palm-studded landscape, the sunny breeze, the ocean in the distance . . . the dumptruck full of soldiers with semi-automatic rifles pulling up in front of of the aircraft.

Huh? “Looks like the cavalry is here,” my First Officer remarked idly.

I called the Flight Attendants in the back of the plane. “Could you send Mr. Congeniality up front one more time?”

Shortly, the Jersey guy reappeared, looking annoyed. “You can’t make us get off. I know my rights.”

“Well, if you look out there,” I pointed to the twenty-some soldiers fidgeting in the hot sun, now line abreast with their weapons unslung in front of the camouflaged dumptruck. “Those folks there are going to help you off the plane if you don’t go on your own.”

He stomped off with mild cursing; shortly the whole family deplaned with Mr. Congeniality muttering threats about “rights” and “lawsuits.” The soldiers looked disappointed as they climbed back into the truck. No guerilla assault today.

Lesson #3: get your story straight before you board. And try to avoid phraseology like, “you can’t make me.”

2. Flying with my favorite flight attendant of all time as #1 flight attendant. We’re inbound to DFW from somewhere up north, and about an hour from landing, The Gorgeous One calls me on the flight deck.

“Just so you know,” she tells me, “we have a guy in First Class saying he needs oxygen, he’s having trouble breathing, and he’s already had three heart attacks.”

Sigh. So close to home, and yet so far away; imagine the paperwork in this. But no one ever dies in flight, I tell myself–they’re just incapacitated. Much less paperwork that way.

The Most Beautiful Flight Attendant of All Time finds a nurse on board who takes the guy’s vital signs while I query the navigation data base for the closest airport with at least a 5,000 foot runway: Tulsa.

The First Officer starts the divert procedures without me having to say anything. The nurse reports that the guy is having chest pains, too. The corporate Doctor-on-Call concurs: land the plane, get the guy some help. I tell Darling Bride we’ll be on the deck in fifteen minutes. Sorry hon–your day just got longer, but I know you want to get him on the ground before he needs the jumper cables.

Like clockwork, we secure the necessary clearances and point the nose towards Tulsa. Medical help on the ground is standing by, ready to whisk Mr. Cardio off the plane and to a medical center. Good deal? Nope.

The passenger doesn’t want to land in Tulsa. Maybe the thought of dying in Oklahoma–living there would be awful enough–is too much for him to contemplate. Whatever–he’s now livid. That’s not helping his heart rate any.

We land safely and taxi right to a gate were an ambulance waits.

Medics strap him to a gurney and wheel him off the plane, protesting all the way, yelling about the pilot’s (that’s me) incompetence. Well, there’s certainly that, plus the thousands of dollars the divert cost, never mind the inconvenience to the hundred or so other passengers with normally operating central circulatory pumps who would likely miss their connections in DFW as a result of the immediate action to save his life. And to save me the paperwork, but regardless: buh-BYE.

Lesson #4: no good deed goes unpunished. Nonetheless, if you’re going to have cardiac problems, we’re going to try to save your life. So have your heart attack quietly if your downline connection is that important.

And the Number One bizarro experience, at least most recently:

1. We’d pre-boarded a thirty-something individual who had mobility issues. A travel aide whose sole purpose was to attend to this passenger’s needs also boarded. Once they were comfortably settled and we were about to start general boarding, a mechanic announced that a necessary system check would cause a delay. So we stopped boarding, figuring the passengers would prefer the more spacious terminal for their delay. But the pre-boarded folks remained in the cabin.

After about twenty minutes, the passenger sent the travel aide into the terminal to fetch some junk food.

I saw the travel aide leave the jet bridge because I was at the gate counter on the phone with dispatch, coordinating a new flight release.

Then I noticed on the computer screen I was viewing that the crew list had changed: the number one flight attendant position was vacant.

Huh? I’d only been off the plane for a matter of minutes.

My First Officer filled me in when I returned to the cockpit: as soon as the travel aide left, the individual decided a trip to the lav was an urgent necessity. Which couldn’t happen without the travel aide.

So the number one flight attendant, being somewhat of a saint with perhaps a touch of insanity, agreed to help, holding a styrofoam coffee cup for the still seated passenger.

THREE TIMES. And apparently, on the last “cupful,” through some anomaly of aim, trajectory or hydraulics, our flight attendant ended up hosed down.

And so we ended up with a replacement flight attendant.  There’s no “sigh” with this one–just “ewwwwww,” plus see also lesson #4: “no good deed goes unpunished.”

And here’s lesson #5: just when you think you’ve seen it all–watch out. I just don’t say those words any more, and now you know why.

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Congress vs. Commuter Pilot Experience: Wrong Answer

The image of Senator Chuck Schumer grinning over the signing of the senate bill that adds new restrictions on commuter pilots is as misguided as the the bill itself.

Senator Charles Schumer of New York

Here’s why. The crash of Continental Express flight 3407 last year–the driving force behind the bill–was only indirectly linked to co-pilot inexperience, which is the major focus of the bill.

In fact, the primary vulnerability of the flying public, which is ostensibly the reason for the new law, is written clearly on the burning wreckage of the plane:

It’s the airline logo that threatens the public’s safety: as with many commuter subsidiaries of major airlines, they’re marketed seamlessly as the same airline product–but they couldn’t be more different. The pilots of Continental Airlines, as with any major airline, have thousands of hours of experience over many years. The reason the commuter pilots are not flying for a major airline is largely because they don’t have that level of experience yet.

The place they get the experience? At the commuters–which are nonetheless branded and marketed, right down to the pilots’ uniforms–with the logos and schedules of a major airlines. As if it were the same product.

But contrary to the logo on the wreckage, this was not the crash of a Continental Airlines flight–rather, this was Colgan Airways flight 3407 painted as, marketed and booked as and flown by a commuter subsidiary with comparatively inexperienced pilots. It’s as disingenuous as the Los Angeles Dodgers selling you a ticket to a major league game–and then fielding their farm team, the Suns, for a few innings.

The ticketing process for air travel may involve connections with “partners” who are branded as the same product, with identical paint jobs, crew uniforms and zero distinction in the booking and scheduling. At least in baseball, you’d clearly know that the team was different because unlike the major airlines and their commuter affiliates–the baseball farm club doesn’t share the same uniforms, logos and branding of the major league team. Sure, many of the minor league players will eventually move up to the big leagues–when they’ve proven themselves. That’s the purpose of the farm system in both baseball and airline pilots: when they’re ready–if ever, and not everyone is–they may find a spot on a big league roster.

Can passengers determine whether or not their flight is operated by a commuter airline or a major carrier? Sure. In fact, a few clicks on this site (and it’s just one of many similar sites) will reveal what type of aircraft a booking is putting you on and as importantly, who’s flying the airplane. But will consumers check?

And do they really care?

After the Valujet crash in the Florida Everglades, airline experts warned that consumers would shun the airline. But economists predicted otherwise, and they were correct: $50 ticket discounts brought passenger level back to normal in a remarkably short time.

Meanwhile, cereal makers are required to disclose nutritional information on the box. Grocery stores can’t sell you powdered Tang and label it as Minute Made orange juice, and would consumers allow a rental car company to slap a Caddy logo on a KIA and rent it as a luxury sedan?

Last year, congress debated the “Truth in Labeling Act” which was designed to protect animals by making consumers aware of the actual contents of their food. Labels were required to be specific about nutritional value and specific food content.

Why in the world is there no truth in labeling act for the airline product? While higher standards for regional level co-pilots is a symbolic move toward greater competence, the point is until they have that experience, they’ll stay in the minor leagues which has always been the farm team system of the major airlines. Consumers should be aware of this fact, as well as the fact that although the uniform may be identical, the players are not.

Maybe as in the case of ValuJet, passengers don’t really care about experience or safety margins as much as price. But I suspect that many do and as importantly, it is the government’s responsibility to regulate exactly what product is being sold, and clearly specify what it is–or is not.

Because while minor league ball can be fun to watch, if your life depended on it, don’t you think you’ve paid for and should expect the first string?

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The other side of the story?

Here’s a firsthand account of commuter pilot life from an ex-Air Force colleague and one of the most respected pilots to ever wear USAF wings. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________