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.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

.

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.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

.

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.”

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

.

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.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*

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.”

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

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.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

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?

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

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. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________

“This Is Captain Minimum Speaking . . .”

I made it through college by adhering to the premise that if the minimum wasn’t good enough, it would be the minimum, would it?

That at least let me survive four years of fascism and “military rigor” as it’s more pleasantly termed, in “college.”

Actually, the “minimum” theory conspired to keep me there: my GPA was just high enough to stay enrolled (I was on the Dean’s “other” list) but too low to transfer. So as my fellow bottom dwellers termed it over 150 years of minimal academic performance, I was “flunked in.” Nonetheless, the college degree and class ring were of the same material as everyone else’s. I think.

Beyond that, I believe the minimalist approach actually worked in my favor when it came to the intense competition for Air Force flight training. We had hundreds of cadets who wanted to go, but only four of us were selected. I have a feeling that the hard academic work by my peers at the premier engineering school that VMI is forced the Air Force’s hand: they knew what to do with engineers and needed them badly. So they snapped them up and put them to work in serious stuff like aerospace and civil engineering. Boring.

Me, on the other hand, and one of my best friends who was also selected, both of us having a degree in English therefore had no real potential in the serious stuff of the Air Force. I envision the Air Force personnel managers throwing up there hands and saying, “What the heck–they have no useful skills; send them to Flight Training.”

Good deal. In flight school, I once again employed the “minimum” principle with just a slight modification: probably we could say I established an economy of effort just short of being killed in the process. There was little danger of death in the study of English lit, but starting that year there has been a regular litany of flying colleagues who don’t live through the day’s work.  But even with that additional caveat, I still managed with minimal effort to be in the exclusive flight trio known as The Shit Brothers for the next year.

The Wolfpack’s “Shit Bros.:” Animal (now an AA 777 Captain), me (Landshark), Father-O (Fedex A-300 Captain)

We didn’t overdo the whole “studying” thing to the detriment of our health or recreation, certainly. In fact, in retrospect I would have to say that we emulated the finest trio in the history of teamwork: lots of laughs, some of them painful, but still.

So of course there were those who were amazed not only at our successful completion of the program, but also that we didn’t kill ourselves in the process (some did, every year).

We stayed minimally clear of that razor’s edge–especially flying in formation–and defied the odds which were clearly against us. Nonetheless, our wings were the same material as everyone else’s. I think.

So in gratitude for the trust plus the millions of dollars the Air Force spent on us, and for their letting us fly their multi-million dollar jets around solo and supersonic like we knew what we were doing even though we barely did, we swore we’d serve the United States Air Force to the death, or to retirement, whichever came first.

That lasted about five years. Then, the call of the airlines became too great to ignore: of the original 17 Wolfpack pilots, all but 3 ended up in airline cockpits. And it’s a different world.

Different, because now the minimum is you–the passenger. My world revolves around the minimum when it comes to you.

What’s the minimum visibility I can tolerate and still land you safely where you want to go? How much fuel must I hold in reserve to escape the holding pattern and even the weather at our destination, to keep you safe?

How much clearance can I get between us and the weather? What’s the minimum stopping distance on that rainslicked runway we’re heading towards at 200 miles per hour?

How quickly and safely can my crew get back out to the airport after a 14-hour day with minimum rest time (the industry standard: 8 hours behind the door of a hotel room) and more challenges ahead?

How long will this de-icing last for us, given my own judgment of the snowfall rate and quantity? Sure, someone else will give you an answer to all of these questions–but whose responsibility is it? Who really needs to know and better find out the correct answer without relying on anyone who isn’t also putting their ass on the line.

Yup, that’s the minimum these days: how do I keep you safe? Why shouldn’t we take off now? What do I need as a safety margin at our destination–or we don’t land and instead divert?

I know you have a schedule to meet, that you have a destination with appointments and people waiting. I really don’t care though, when it comes to the minimums of safety and common sense. That’s what you pay for and that’s what you’ll get: a safe trip. Maybe missed meetings or disappointed families or lost opportunities or vacations or whatever. But the important thing is you will arrive.

That’s the new minimum, because I will never accept anything other than that, and certainly nothing less. And when you’re on board and upset over delays and diversions, let me remind you: if the minimum wasn’t good enough, it wouldn’t be the minimum, would it?

Really, I’ll bet you wouldn’t have it any other way.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

High altitude oriental salad.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Everyone Looks To The Blue

Everyone’s looking skyward, because wherever it is they’re going, the sky’s the way there.

The sky looks angry today, with bruised looking billows of scud clouds, tumbling east to west on a wintery gale that is limiting the airport to just two instead of six landing runways. Which slows the normal flight operations pace to a crawl.

Of course it’s chaos in the terminal–it’s Spring break. Snow flurries add to the festive Spring atmosphere, celebrating a freak late-season storm galloping out of Canada (can’t they keep their cold air up there where it belongs?) to poke down into the central United States and wreak havoc on a thousand travel plans.

Spring Break spawns the airport freak show like the bar in Star Wars: apparel matches the destination, not the location. Shorts and t-shirts bound to or from the beach jostle elbows with weary Joe Businessman jockeying for boarding priority, knowing the overhead space on the aircraft is tight, and also knowing that since no one wants to pay to check a bag, everyone wants to drag everything on board.

Looking to the sky outside, the biz guy prays for an on-time arrival wherever it is he’s going that he’d probably rather not be, unless it’s home. He studies the sky absently, thinking beyond today’s steel-gray sky spitting unwelcome snow pellets. Hadn’t the calendar vanquished what’s already been a miserable winter of delays and cancellations everywhere business is done? Still, he’s either wherever he’s going in his head (an exciting Power Point, maybe?) or wherever he just came from (missing family? Swearing to travel less, but the boss wants to stay home too, so . . .), or as likely, wherever he wishes he could be instead.

There’s always a group of teens or early twenties, bound in a group headed for a school team or band or church trip, confusing their “first ever” gang trip with “the first ever” trip of this kind: it’s the illusion of youth that whatever they’re doing, this is it, rather than “this is one more of those done by these” who may dress differently than the last generation but are essentially the same nonetheless. And that’s okay, that’s what they’re supposed to do. Teen boys bound and frisk like restless ponies and show off for studiously disinterested girls; loud voices, weary chaperones, harried agents–it’s all part of the mix.

Families try to carve out a space in the boarding area. Children try not to fidget, but it’s too hard and really, better to get the energy out now rather than in flight. Parents with infants are like roadies with rock stars, schlepping all manner of equipment: strollers as complex as the fold-out Apollo Lunar Rover; food-beverages-diapers-outfits-containers-bottles–the band’s here!

The younger couples in the pre-kid and recent-post-honeymoon phase watch it all and try to project themselves in the family role, but why? You can’t really try it on mentally as if it were a radical fashion departure, nor can you imagine the nostalgia with which you’ll look back on the pre-kids travel when your parenthood days come. Just enjoy the trip–and trust me, you’ll love the kids and the adventures when it’s time.

The older folks with more issues than just reservations and vacations melt into the woodwork. Mobility challenges, hearing, seeing the dang small monitors–it’s less of a lark and almost more important for them; more than from point “A” to point “B,” it’s an odyssey fraught with unforeseen obstacles.

I keep an eye out for them: let me get the information that eludes you, the service person who overlooks you, the answers you need and ways and means to get you where you’re going. Thanks for your patience; we’ll get you through this rolling tide of humanity and into the blue as soon as possible.

Me? I’m whomever you need me to be: for the elderly, I’m Charon, the Ferryman, polling your raft. I’ll take you where you need to be, even if you can’t picture the place yet yourself.

Not just the elderly, but the unaware, heading to places from which there’s no return. It’s not just age, but circumstance as well. I never forget that the journey for you may be beyond my imagination–and possibly yours too–when it comes to the changes in life marked by travel. It will mean something to you, so it’s important to me.

I’m the character at Disney, wearing the costume you want to see in order to embrace the comfort of the story that goes with it.

That’s part of the illusion (I really don’t need a hat and tie to fly the plane–and they often are ditched behind the closed flight deck door) and the story line you’ve paid for enroute. Even in my usual jeans, I still have the thousands of hours of experience and flight time that are what really matter, never mind the costume.

Most of all, I’m the watchman, the Catcher in the Rye, making sure you get where you’re going safely despite the miles high perch and the barely sub-sonic speed in our aluminum island in the sky.

Because I get it, really I do: here, time is nobody’s friend, because this is only a waypoint on the road to where memories are made.

When we finally blast off, it’s no longer the waiting–it’s the going, the doing. We’ll climb that giant staircase and perch miles high for a few hours. You can study the blue above and the dirt below in the moving tapestry of here to there.

Take your time, enjoy the sky. You’ll be “there” soon enough, and too soon back if you’re lucky. For now, just look to the blue.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

*

The Big 5 Conspire To Ruin Your Air Travel

Want to know who to blame for your airline hassles? Here are “The Big 5” conspiring to ruin your air travel:

1. Congress. In an ill-conceived attempt to legislate a “one-size-fits-all” solution to largely anomalous and often anecdotal reports of airline tarmac delays, Congress enacted a law effective April 29th mandating multi-million dollar fines for airlines with aircraft delayed longer than a specified time, hoping to lessen passenger delays. But the law will have the opposite effect: instead of freeing passengers from tedious hours-long delays, this bill will create indefinite delays and cancellations of flights, stranding passengers enroute and at origination airports (for an in-depth analysis of the downside of this disastrous bill, click here).

Continental Airlines CEO Jeff Smisek said his airline will be forced to cancel flights rather than risk fines in the millions for an extended tarmac delay. The ultimate impact of this unavoidable cancellation for the traveler?

You will find yourself along with hundreds of other on the stand-by list for the handful of open seats going to your destination. And there can be only a handful of seats–and they’re not going to be cheap as a walk-up fare–because of number 2 below.

2. Alfred E. Kahn.

Known as “The Father of Airline De-Regulation,” economist Alfred E. Kahn was Jimmy Carter’s Chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board. His blueprint for airline de-regulation was based on a flawed economic model, and was as misguided as economist John Kenneth Galbraith’s assurance to Lyndon Johnson that the Viet Nam war would be short and wouldn’t affect inflation. Kahn proposed complete de-regulation of airline routes and fares, positing that the marketplace forces would drive down ticket prices and provide the American public with cheap and plentiful airline seats.

What he failed to consider in his economic model is the fact that not only is the product–an airline seat–not inexpensive to produce, it is also linked to energy costs which are both volatile and unpredictable. “Cheap airfares” for the public are incredibly expensive to produce, forcing in the progressive “unbundling” of the airline product: now passengers must pay for each component of the flight–a checked bag, food, beverage, amenities like a pillow or a hard-copy ticket–and the revenue still only marginally covers the price of the product, with the airline industry losing billions nonetheless. Consumers insisted on paying less for an airline ticket, so now

You wanted your ticket for $10 less, now you hand that over to McD's instead.

they can cough up for food and drink at airport prices between flights. Everything must yield revenue or there is no airline, and nothing with revenue potential on board can be simply given away.

Further, Kahn didn’t foresee that many airlines would use bankruptcy as an operating shield for years (thank #1 above for not amending bankruptcy laws) to gain an unfair advantage over the few airlines that didn’t. This abuse of bankruptcy law dealt a financial beating to carriers that paid their bills but still had to compete head-to-head with many who simply walked away from their debt.

3. Airline Capacity. Every airline that intends to survive the high production cost and low revenue stream has cut capacity to the bone. This is common sense: empty seats are an unrecoverable loss and waste, and airline planners have analyzed traffic and passengers in order to minimize such waste and loss. For the traveler, this means less empty seats–seats which are vital when a flight is cancelled due to #1 above, or for the more common cancellations due to weather or equipment. Used to be that the percentage of empty seats was higher, allowing the system to absorb passengers from a cancellation or delay. Such margins are a luxury of the past with airlines having to deal with out-of-control fuel prices with an ever-shrinking revenue stream.

True, Kahn’s brainchild did spawn new entrant airlines–but they don’t have a seat surplus either, or they simply go out of business.

4. Airway Infrastructure. There are only so many take-offs that are physically possible at 5pm at LaGuardia. Although Alfred Kahn’s model says the marketplace will regulate itself, if everyone wants to sell a competitive 5pm departure, it is clearly predictable that there will be massive delays, which are the rule at airports like LaGuardia and many in the northeast, as well as from airports inbound to those airports. Kahn’s leverage, unfortunately, is you, the passenger, and the delays and misconnects you will suffer as a result. But in a free market, what business can afford to not compete in the market that customers demand? And when they do, how do they deal with number 1 above? As Continental CEO Jeff Smisek promised, there will be rampant cancellations and stranded travelers as a result.

LaGuardia’s delays are emblematic of the entire national air route system: despite Kahn’s academic model, the airways are saturated at all of the commercially viable times when passenger demand dictates the competitive environment. Which leads to more delays–and in the face of congress’s newly enacted financial penalties, cancellations and misconnects for you, the passenger.

5. The Big Box Store.

The heyday of the discount “big box store” gave rise to a consumer expectation of all products and services for steep discounts. Everything from home electronics to auto parts to furniture is now sold in bulk at drastically reduced prices by wholesalers with only minimal investment in buildings and equipment.

A new aircraft, by contrast, costs upwards of $50-$100 million per aircraft, and hundreds of such aircraft are required to produce a fleet with a competitive route structure. Further, each aircraft has to earn revenue daily despite upturns and downturns in the travel market, as well as drastic fluctuations in fuel costs which follow oil prices. Face it: the cost of an airline round trip is not the same as a set of tires or a Cowboy’s football game–but the public paradoxically expects to pay less anyway (more details–click here).

Still not convinced that cheap airline travel is an absurd expectation? Ask yourself why “cheap surgical hospitals” aren’t also a consumer demand.

Does anyone really think flight at 7 miles up and the speed of a 22 caliber bullet is any less risky than surgery? Does anyone demand the cheapest bare bones surgical “product?” Is airline pricing too high? Read this and decide.

Regardless, there remains an unrealistic expectation among consumers that somehow ticket prices should fit their budget rather than the actual cost of the product. Part of that stems from the low-overhead “big box” pricing that is the norm on other big ticket items, part from Alfred Kahn’s unrealistic promise to consumers of cheap pricing on an expensive product, and part due to congressional unwillingness to address the disparity between the two.

You tell me. These “Big 5” items have changed air travel from a Nieman-Marcus experience to a K-Mart Death March. Further, the airport and airway infrastructure are badly in need of technological upgrade.

The traveling public can make changes in #1 and #5; it’s time to junk #2, and it’s time to force #1 to make the needed upgrades to #4. The airlines themselves will take care of #3 when that happens.

Until the public and congress fix this, at least now you know whom to blame for your airline woes this travel season.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

*

Airline Pilot: Day 2 In The Life.

[Did you miss Day One of this saga? If so, here it is if you’d like to catch up.]

The phone blasts you awake at an ungodly hour. “Huh? What?”

“Crew Tracking. Your inbound aircraft is late, so your pick-up at the hotel will be an hour later.”

Damn–you realize you’re in a hotel. Not at home. “Uh, okay. You gonna call the first officer?” No sense letting him get any more sleep than you, right? Besides, he’d be down for crew van pick-up an hour early.

“Sure, Captain.” Click. Hate wake up calls–that’s why you never request one. Two alarms, plus the cell phone. And slowly, it dawns on you what’s just happened: Crew Tracking woke you up early to tell you to sleep later.

Of course, you can’t go back to sleep. Wrong time zone, too awake. Coffee? Foraging for coffee. Darn, it’s the one-cup jobber: won’t stay warm, but take it or leave it.

Strike One: now you’re going to have to risk the coffee bath in the crew van bumping to the airport. It can’t be helped–you need your morning medication. Meanwhile, time for your bloodbath: shave.

You know a widebody captain who just retired (initials Dan H.) but swore he always took not only the hotel free stuff like soap and shampoo, but also the extra roll of toilet paper and when he was running low at home, a couple light bulbs, too. Of course, you took a beer glass from the LaGarbage hotel bar every trip because they were charging $9 per draft. Ought to get something for that price, right? And you are probably the reason why now they allow carry-outs only in a plastic cup. Shrug . . . you have a complete set of their glasses anyway.

Stick your head in the shower, wash away the cobwebs. What the . . . okay, that’s Strike Two:

It’s like you’re in a submarine that’s been hit and is going down.

Anyway, blot that drain clog out of your mind’s eye–the submarine image is better. Grab your stuff, take the key, too, in case you need to come back up for something you’ve forgotten.

Get downstairs for pick up, if your time zone math is correct. If not, and you’re an hour or two early (don’t laugh–you’ve done it), then you’ll need your key to go back upstairs, acting nonchalant (yeah, I just came down to look around . . . uh, with my bags).

It’s quiet in the van because half of the crews are from the opposite coast and so are not yet quite awake; some from the early coast are already on their phones. You and your bunch are on Central time, midway between time zones and everyone, regardless, is heading to the four points of the compass.

It’s a funny career field, isn’t it? First thing everyone does after coming to work is scatter across the country. Maybe that’s why there’s a feeling of comraderie among crews, even from other airlines. We’re all in this nomadic drifting life together, passing each other along the way.

You hate the single point security, at least for the passengers. You’re at work, and you’ve done this so many times it’s pretty well a mindless annoyance. And there are crew lines. You hate the monolithic hassle of giant security operations like DEN and PIT for the families and the elderly who are almost overwhelmed. The special crew line? Well, should we get to the gate and preflight, then wait for the passengers, or vice versa?

There’s no time for anything after the security lines, just go to work. Not making eye contact with passengers, which will normally lead to questions you can’t answer anyway ( more details? click here). There’s an exception, though–there’s always time to help the very young, and the very old.

And of course, the families shepherding both through the airport. Their travel is most important, being their first or maybe even their last flight, and they need and deserve your help just as you would hope your family would get help in a similar situation. Find your way to the gate and  here’s the payoff for you.

The jet, fueled, waiting. That goes back to the core, to the Air Force days: pointy rockets lined up on a quiet ramp, waiting to split the morning sky with the sound of  jet engines. Let’s get to work.

Preflight done, boarding, pushback; take-off.

Do that again two more times. Food? No time–cram in a quick meal eaten out of your lap.

... and keep the cracker crumbs off the radar, okay?

Same sequence, step by methodical and disciplined step, two more times through three more time zones. By the last leg, you’re pretty well worn out. But there’s no slack, no easing up: the third leg has to be just as precise as the first.

Enjoy the desert moonrise, watch the fuel flow, and a constant eye on the route and the weather. The finish line’s only a couple hours away. Never mind the time changes and hotel sleep and missed meals, bring everyone home safely. Park the jet; captain’s the last one off. Now you can relax, the rest is just a sleepwalk to the hotel. And here’s why it’s all worthwhile.

Walk around them. Head for yet another hotel, try to get some rest. The whole thing starts over again tomorrow morning.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Stay tuned for Part 3: Going Home.

Coming soon . . .