Summer Air Travel Disaster: “We” Collides with “Me”

Getting onto the jet about twenty minutes prior to pushback, I encounter an all-to-familiar scene: standing in the doorway to the cockpit is a man with a bag and a hopeful look on his face, flanked by two flight attendants giving me we tried to tell him looks.

“In this bag,” he tells me, pointing to his roll-aboard that’s about half again as large as the normal size limit, “I have $30,000 worth of fragile instruments. The suitcase is too large to fit in the overhead bin,” he continues, “so why can’t I just put it into the forward coat closet here?”

This is where his “me” collides with our “we:” I sure empathize with him regarding whatever he had in his bag. He’s thinking, in his mind, out of “me:” I have this stuff, I know what it is, I know it’s beyond the permitted size . . . me, me, and me.

That runs headlong into “we:” we are not permitted by the FAA to put anything other than crew bags in that closet ($5,000 fine for the forward flight attendant), we have a full flight, including five flight attendants whose bags already take up the allotted space for them in that closet. We already explained to you the carry-on size limits, and we have already heard what you’re going to ask next.

“Well,” he continues, after I politely point out that the closet is full of crew bags for the working crew plus a jumpseater, “Many times before they’ve let me put this behind the pilot’s seat up in the cockpit.”

I almost get nostalgic thinking back to the air travel days prior to 9-11, compared today’s world of underpants bombers, Air Marshals, pilots armed with 9mm handguns and bad people in far away countries relentlessly plotting to exploit our air travel system as a weapon of terror. That’s what we have to deal with, and we have had to change our way of thinking: there won’t be anything someone brings aboard that we’ll stow in the cockpit.

Because we as flying crewmembers have been mandated–and willingly adopt–a “group-think” that looks for threats in everything. Because we fly between 140 and 200 days a year and because we’ve been charged with stewardship of our air travel system and its security, never mind our own determination to see our families after our trip. And when you’re on board, you too are part of the “we” with everything at stake.

I take the easy way out. “We have a jumpseater in the cockpit today,” I tell him, “Sorry, but there’s no room for extra baggage.” For god’s sake, we’re not even allowed to carry critical parcels like organs for transplant any more in the cockpit–because you really don’t know what’s inside unless you open it–which we ain’t, and the flight deck is no place for surprises, period. I hate that, because I think of the organ transplant people involved at both ends of such a flight–but I never forget those on board nonetheless.

This goes beyond the obvious hassle for the other 159 passengers on board, many of whom are stuck on the jet bridge as boarding halts to deal with him. This goes beyond his disregard for those folks, their downline connections that depend on our prompt departures, and even beyond his claim to special storage space which, if a flight attendant bag was placed in the overhead bin, would deny another passenger space for his bag.

There’s more going on than that–which ought to be enough for any considerate passenger to avoid. Sure, Mr. “Critical Instruments” is only thinking out of his own world of “me,” putting us in the position of being in his “me-world,” the bad guys. But what he really needs to do is join the group-think that encircles his “me-world:” realize that the constraints apply to all, and that they are an inflexible necessity in this post-9/11 world. Join the “we” and make the trip smoother: we don’t expect to slip outside of the rules, we don’t expect to bend them, we don’t expect to be exempt.

I have to prove myself, despite my identification as the captain in command of the flight, by going through security screening like everyone else. You bet it’s a pain in my ass–god forbid if I were to actually access the cockpit–but I also embrace it: that’s the “we” that transcends the “me” for the betterment of all. Flight crew know this, so we do our part.

Yet honestly, sometimes we fail. I had an agent walk a passenger down the jetbridge before boarding in one of our smaller stations. The agent carried a briefcase-sized bag that was wrapped once or twice in cargo tape. “This man is a professional chef,” the agent informed me. “He requires this full set of chef’s knives to perform his duties, so I’ve sealed this case and he’s agreed to leave it in the overhead bin for the entire flight.”

Sigh. No, there will not be a full set of butcher knives and meat cleavers in the cabin–even wrapped in a few swipes of duct tape. When I put it that way, the agent returned to his senses, and rather sheepishly offered the normal procedure: “We can ship it as cargo, but not in the cabin.”

The fact that in 2012 we still have to have these conversations is troubling. Are we already forgetting the basic, albeit annoying sacrifices we must individually make in order to thwart those relentless dark forces looking for new ways to terrorize our nation through spectacular feats of evil?

Are we just going through the motions, but reserving exceptions in our own minds for ourselves, forgetting about the broad-based group-think that really only works if we forgo me for the best interest of all?

I sure hope not. But if we’ve already forgotten the hard lessons for which we’ve paid dearly in the recent past, if we’ve already through laziness or selfishness let down our guard, besides the fact that the bad guys win by default, one thing I can promise you is this: it’s going to be a long, hot, painful summer.

What I wouldn’t give to be proven wrong.

Flying the B-2 Stealth Bomber

Listen to Bill Flanagan’s firsthand experience

flying this exotic aircraft:

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Questions to ask BEFORE you get on a light twin-engine aircraft.

When I lived in Hawaii, occasionally I’d lease and fly a Grumman Cougar (above), a light twin-engined propeller aircraft. The cold, hard fact with that aircraft was that if we took off with two passengers and their bags and lost an engine we were going down, period.

This I knew as a pilot–so I never flew the Cougar with any baggage, ever. But I think that many passengers might assume all is well either way–but it certainly is not.

This haunting memory always recurs every time I read of a light twin engine aircraft crashing on take-off, and sadly, that’s an all-too-common occurrence.

Cessna 401 crash after an engine failed on take-off, killing pop singer Aaliyah.

Some simple but vital questions could save your life if you’re thinking of chartering or accepting a ride on a light twin engine aircraft. But first, why do you have to ask?

The answer is simple: when you step onto my 175,000 pound twin engine jet–I have these answers specifically worked out for every flight, because the answers are crucial to all of us. You may assume that whoever is flying your light twin aircraft has answered them with specific numbers, but if you don’t ask, you’re casting your own safety to the wind. If your pilot has the answers–and provides them specifically (I’ll get to that later), step on board and have a good flight.

If your pilot says “Huh?” or even “It’ll be okay” or anything other than “here are the specific answers,” walk away immediately. Here are the Big Five:

1. What is the single engine climb gradient on this take-off, based on our projected weight and the current weather (temperature, pressure altitude and winds) conditions? Yes, I can answer that for every take-off with an exact number in two vital parameters: single engine (meaning assuming one engine quits on take-off) climb feet per nautical mile available and required.

“Required” means based on the terrain ahead, what is the minimum single engine climb gradient required for our aircraft to clear all obstacles by a minimum of 35 feet? “Available” means given our weight in fuel, passengers and bags, what is our aircraft capable of achieving on only one engine? Yes, there is a specific number to be derived from performance charts–and your pilot better have computed both. So your pilot should have a ready answer, don’t you think?

Four people were killed this week and one remains hospitalized after this Cessna twin crashed in a field in Kansas after leaving Tulsa. The cause is under investigation.

2. How much flight time does your pilot have in twin engine aircraft? Seriously, “total flight time” is not the important point here for a couple of crucial reasons. First, twin engine aircraft behave completely different from single engine planes because of the asymmetric yaw an engine failure produces. If one engine fails, the other continues to produces power and in many cases, must be pushed to an even higher power setting. Immediate rudder correction for adverse yaw–which doesn’t exist on single-engine aircraft–is a delicate operation: too much and the drag induced by the rudder kills lift; too little and the aircraft can depart controlled flight. Put in the wrong rudder, and you’ll be inverted in seconds.

If you’re paying someone to fly you somewhere, he’d better have at least 500 hours in that specific twin-engine plane–or you’d better walk away. In the above crash, the father of one of the survivors said the pilot had “flown the aircraft several times” and was “well-versed in it.” I stand by my 500 hour rule, at least when my life’s at stake. And “flight time” alone ain’t enough: proficiency, meaning hours flown within the past six months, is just as important. A few here and there? Not much recently? bad news.

Cessna -400 series interior.

3. What is our planned climb performance today? Meaning, given our gross weight in fuel, passengers and bags, at the current temperature and pressure altitude, what climb rate can we expect on a single engine? Again, this is a specific number derived from performance charts after all of the above variables are computed–and if your pilot doesn’t have the specific answer–walk away.

4. What is the engine history on this aircraft? Seriously? Yes, dead seriously: before I accept any aircraft for the day, I scan the engine history of repairs, malfunctions, oil consumption, vibration and temperature limits going back at least six months. Ditto your light twin: the pilot should be able to answer that question in detail–if the pilot checked.

5. How many pilot hours does your pilot have in this model and type of multi-engine aircraft? And when was the pilot’s last proficiency check? For example, I consider myself to be a low-time 737 pilot, having just over 1,500 hours in the aircraft–even though I have over 17,000 hours in multi-engine jets. In those 1,500 Boeing-737 pilot hours, I’ve had two complete refresher courses with FAA evaluations, plus three inflight evaluations–and I welcome that: I want to know my procedures and skills are at their peak. And I fly at least 80 hours a month, maintaining proficiency. When was your pilot’s last flight? Again, how many flight hours in the past six months?

Recurrent training and evaluation every nine months.

Not withstanding “well-versed” and having “flown it several times” as quoted above, your pilot needs to have hundreds of hours in the model and type to be flown, and preferably hundreds of hours in multi-engine aircraft. Remember the engine-out scenario on take-off I sketched out above, where the wrong rudder input can flip you inverted on take-off if an engine failure? Ditto on landing, with another set of problems, in the event of a single-engine go-around with a lighter aircraft.

Know the answers to these questions, and have your radar tuned for the following circumstances: how far are you going (short hop versus a longer point to point), and how many are on board, plus what cargo (baggage or equipment). Why? These are your cues that gross weight is going to be a critical factor in aircraft performance, making the five questions I just raised even more critical for you to ask.

Look, there are plenty of safe aircraft and pilots available to fly you around if that’s what you had in mind. Those pilots are the ones who have good answers to the above questions ready for you as soon as you ask. Be sure that you do ask, and when the answers are satisfactory–and only when they are: bon voyage.

Flying the B-2 Stealth Bomber: an audio interview with Bill Flanagan.

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Airline Pilot Recurrent Training: Your Annual Beating.

It’s a love-hate thing. You know you need to get back into the classroom for the latest technical information on a complex jet, plus the thorough review of systems, aircraft performance, navigation; all the myriad details, plus technical and procedural changes since your last beating nine months ago. And you want to know the standard is high fleet-wide, that everyone you fly with has also been challenged, evaluated and made the grade.

But it’s also known in the official FAA description of the process as a “jeopardy event:” your license is on the line as part of the process. Because the final “event” is the actual six hour beating on the final day: a two hour “stump the dummy” (YOU) session with an evaluator, covering the memory items, of plus all aircraft limitations (max altitude for bleed and electrical on the APU?), the operating limitations (crosswind limit on a wet runway with visibility less than 3/4 mile?), and systems knowledge (power source for emergency DC?).

Complete that satisfactorily, then begin the four hour “pinball simulator” (you know, lights, bells and buzzers coming on constantly) which is also pass-fail. That is, here come the malfunctions, fires, failures, technical problems, wind shear, instrument approaches, single engine landings–and if you don’t handle everything perfectly, your license qualification is suspended and you’re grounded.

Never has happened to me, and keeping things that way is the headache of recurrent training. And last time doesn’t matter–it’s the one ahead that determines your career.

So of course you start studying in flight as the dreaded training approaches. Above is the “Memory Item” card, a menu-like roster of the 14 memory procedures, each with multiple steps, that you must be able to accomplish and recite from memory. In the training “good, bad and ugly,” this is definitely the latter: some of the critical action litanies are clearly written for and by attorneys for their use–likely against you–after an incident requiring the procedure.

For example, the first step in “Emergency Descent” checklist: “The pilot will notify the flight attendants on the PA of the impending rapid descent; the first officer will notify ATC and get the local altimeter setting.”

Seems fine? Actually, it’s not written in any way useful to a pilot, like some of the other critical action items. For example,  “Engine Fire, Failure or Severe damage:” “Autothrottles, disconnect; Throttle, failed engine (confirm), closed . . .” Those are action items with first person narrative step-by-step follow-through, very helpful in an emergency.

My prep the day before: a 10K in the morning . . .

By contrast, re-read the “Emergency Descent” memory step one: it’s third person narrative–very distracting in a first person, real-life emergency, to be recited not to help a pilot accomplish critical steps in a difficult situation, but rather, to be recited in court, to be browbeaten there by attorneys suing the pilots and the airline for whatever might have happened in an emergency. What were you instructed to do?

The dividing line seems to be vulnerability to passenger lawsuits, because the engine failure procedures are written in actionable, useful form (passengers aren’t likely to sue over engine malfunctions) as are other purely technical procedures like asymmetric flaps, electrical failures, hydraulic leaks, or any of the gazillion things that can go wrong with a hi-tech jet. The “lawyer creep” has permeated not only the memory items, but also the inch thick Quick Response Handbook.

. . . then a set with my band late in the day.

And that’s the “ugly” that’s now woven into the fabric of pilot recurrent training: you must fly like a pilot, but think like an attorney.

Now, the “bad.” Unfortunately, many of the recurrent training required items are almost irrelevant from the cockpit, but if the FAA mandates that flight crews get 1.5 hours of “HAZMAT” (hazardous materials) training, by God there will be a training block on the schedule. Why irrelevant? Because pilots neither handle the hazardous material or package, stow, and record the contents. The upside of such training blocks are this: study hall. Everyone’s studying the actually important stuff, like the Stump The Dummy barrage above that you know is coming.

Practice putting on that life vest . . .

Ditto the “Flight Manual Briefing,” which features a non-pilot ground school instructor droning on about approach minimums, legalities, operating restrictions–basically everything we already deal with successfully every flight. More study hall.

Finally, on to “the good” stuff. The best part, and by far the longest, is what we call “The Pump Up,” or Systems Review. This is four hours of schematics, discussion, review and instruction pertaining to the jet, its systems and their operation, conducted by a ground school specialist. This is the pay dirt of recurrent, particularly for someone like me with barely 1,500 hours on the jet.

And last but not least, before the simulator phase, we have Human Factors, which is an interesting, important look at the human factors behind errors or problems in flight. Any pilot with half a brain sitting in on this three hour session listens carefully with a “How Do I Not Screw Up Like They Did” focus. My usual take-away is that flying airplanes is simply too dangerous. And, better get comfortable flying like an attorney.

Grab an extinguisher, head for the fire pit for practice.

The first 6 hour simulator period is a dress rehearsal for the next day’s 6 hour evaluation. This period is vital, and it’s conducted by a non-pilot simulator instructor. These folks know everything there is to know about instrument and aircraft procedures and in fact, when I was a pilot evaluator myself, I always asked them to do the instructional briefings: they’re the best. This is the time to get your questions answered, gray areas cleared up, and essentially, get your head screwed on straight for the checkride.

Then four hours in “The Box:”

Full motion, 180 degree digitalized visual displaying the detail of Google Earth. You can do all the things you’d like to experience in the aircraft, but which can only be safely and very realistically done in the simulator: fires, failures, structural damage, windshear, midair avoidance. It’s a busy four hours, with a break in the middle.

This is, from the pilot viewpoint, the heart of the Flight Academy: the Iron Kitchen. In the hallway connecting the north and south simulator buildings, this non-descript hallway is where pilots all gather between sim sessions, try to unwind, try to pysch up for the second half, and for the evaluation.

The next day is for real, with an evaluator, your pilot qualification at stake. The “oral” Stump-The-Dummy session mixes information about the fleet from the pilot evaluator with questions regarding Memory Items, limitations, procedures, and policies.

Then, if you pass, it’s into The Box where the visual is so detailed and realistic that it almost gives you vertigo. Then it’s a series of emergencies, correct analysis (you hope) and proper corrective action (you’d better). Low visibility approaches, single engine approaches, systems malfunctions and diagnoses, over and over. Do it safely, do it right. Seems like it’ll never end.

But eventually, it does. “Good for another ten thousand miles,” I tell my copilot as we leave the Flight Academy. A love-hate thing: you hate the pressure, the high stakes, but you’re glad it’s there. You want to know everyone else you fly with has made the cut as well, because they’re all you have in the air to make a team that can successfully handle whatever challenge–including the wayward lawyers–that awaits you in the real jet every work day.

And the best part is, at least nine months ahead before you have to do it all over to prove yourself yet again.

What’s it like to fly the B-2 Stealth bomber?

We go one-on-one with a man who’s flown it for years.

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Flying the SR-71 Blackbird

Bill Flanagan gives a firsthand description of what it’s like to fly at 90,000 feet and 2,000 mph:

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The gravity of jet flight.

Ever since the first time I flew in formation with another jet, the most stunning realization of flight remains the very un-worldliness of tons of jet-propelled metal suspended in mid air.

It’s never so evident as when you’re eyeball-to-eyeball with another jet, but still you know in the back of your mind as the earth falls away yet again that the miracle of suspended gravity is underway just the same.

I never forget all the moving pieces we depend on or immutable laws we’re bending by leaving the ground behind, and that’s as it should be–that’s what I get paid for. Still, it’s almost a shame that we’ve made that part largely invisible to those who pay us to work the magic.

That’s the part I like best, the planning, the clearance, then the execution of the bazillion orderly steps from sign-in at the airport to the final (at last!) closing of the cabin door and the removal of that jetbridge shadow from my side window. We’re free to fly.

Sure, that magical moment is hard to reach. Yes, getting there is a hassle: I have to navigate between every-nine-months recurring scrutiny of testing, oral, written and simulator evaluations with my license on the line every single time.

That’s in addition to the no-notice evaluations in the cockpit by the FAA and company evaluators and the harsh reality of the old USAF flight training mantra, “You’re always only two rides from the door,” meaning if you fail two checkrides, you’re wings are gone–and that remains true today in the airline biz: at any time, the FAA can invoke their right to evaluate you in the simulator and the aircraft, and your license is on the line. You are always just two rides from the door, and that’s the end of your career, as many have found out, in a matter of an hour or two.

Plus there’s the hassle of random drug and alcohol testing at the end of a trip (going home after a twelve hour day? Not so fast . . .) and the bi-annual FAA flight physical with an EKG data-linked to FAA Headquarters for unmediated scrutiny and a thumbs-up, thumbs-down decision made each time in an office hundreds of miles away.

And for those pilots on the lower end of the seniority list, due to the brutal economics of the airline business, there’s the ever-present (and often witnessed) displacement: you get notified that you’re no longer in your aircraft category or crew position–you’re demoted or worse, now based a thousand miles from your home. See to it that you get to work on time. That just happened to about 350 pilots in San Francisco as that pilot base was eliminated.

Once all that’s behind you, liftoff equals pure freedom–restricted of course by the layers of regulations, details, navigation, instrument approaches and performance variables of fuel, altitude, airspeed and weather.

But I wouldn’t trade this:

For any other work on the surface of the planet, period.

And I realize that there are different hassles in the back, way different from the career-ending obstacles we face up front. Nonetheless, I still see by comparison an element of nuisance rather than real threat, and it’s mated to a dismal outlook unwarranted pessimism (do you not have any views from the cabin?) which is rooted mostly in the Dental Theory: everyone loves a horror story about a dentist’s office visit, and no one wants to hear anything else.

Did you watch that? He’s right: flight is a miracle–but everyone’s pissed off about something nonetheless. You’re sitting in a chair in the sky going 500 miles per hour . . .

Sure, I know: air travel ain’t what it used to be. But air travelers aren’t either:

I’m fortunate that this particular harsh fact of air travel is mostly “in the back,” as up front the unrelenting economic and professional pressures we bear are set aside as they must be in order to concentrate on keeping the miracle of flight going despite the best efforts of gravity and physical laws dictating the impossibility of what we’re all doing at 41,000 feet. I’m not sure why that doesn’t happen in the back of the plane as well, but the cocktail party stories are about the worst, rather than the best experiences in the air.

Nonetheless, there’s still always this:

Utah in the fiery throes of dusk, if you care to look out and down six or seven miles. And even if you don’t, there’s always this:

Which is you stepping off the jet a couple hours and a thousand miles later–and that wasn’t ever going to happen by surface transportation, was it? Not in the time you had to do it, or with hotels and gas, in any less of a cash hit.

Sure, we both have to pay some dues to let the earth fall away and revel in the suspense of gravity and the shrinking of earthly life in both distance and perspective, don’t we? But how much of the good and the bad along the way is a matter of focus, yours and mine ?

That’s the difference between magic and mundane, and in the inevitably bumpy mileage above and below the clouds, the view depends on where you look, and if you even notice what there is to see.

What was it like to fly at 80,000 feet and 2,000 miles per hour?

We go one-on-one with SR-71 driver Bill Flanagan.

Be there.

Vietnam: A Fighter Pilot’s View

In Vietnam, the air war was complex, deadly, challenging and forty years later, it’s still not well understood.

Fighter Pilot Ed Rasimus has a unique, 3-point perspective:

100 air combat missions in an F-105 in 1966, then another 150 in F-4s in 1972,

and now, 40 years later, the opportunity to reflect on the experience:

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Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the SR-71’s first flight, with

Bill Flanagan

who flew the Blackbird and helped develop and test its out-of-this-world systems.

Don’t miss it.

Shipwrecked, with smarter friends.

It occurred to me as I drove in to the airport: major league storms forecast for the afternoon, so what are the chances of getting out, or more importantly, getting back into DFW? Still, the facts of life in the airline pilot biz are this–roll with it. Be safe, but stay flexible. Can’t worry about stuff like that.

From the practical standpoint, you have to keep one major factor in mind: fuel. Jet fuel is flexibility, loiter time, options, both on the ground and in the air. Never a problem at American: the Dispatcher has already added a few extra thousand pounds. Now we just need luck, which means timing, essentially. That is, the storms need to stay outside of the danger zone that prohibits ground crews from handling the aircraft. We’re fine inside the jet, but standing next to seventy-five tons of metal and jet fuel, with a tail poking up nearly four stories high, is a danger for the ground crews. Once we push back, fine.

MyFirst Officer was already a castaway, based in Los Angeles, lives in Denver, but sent to fly out of Miami for the month, assigned to this DFW trip. He’s been flying for the last 5 days straight, bounced from one trip to another by Crew Schedule. The cabin crew was the usual suspects–we’d been flying this San Francisco turn all month. They were senior enough to hold the schedule; I was too, but beginning on that day to wish I’d stayed home.

As soon as we cleared the gate and our ground crew was clear, I fired up the radar. An ugly hook of weather from the west was advancing on the airport. On taxi-out, the tower assigned us a runway on the east side of the airport.

“Remind them we’re westbound,” I told the F/O as I pushed up the throttles and swung us out onto the taxiway.

“The west side is shut down due to weather in all departure corridors,” came the tower reply. “Contact Clearance Delivery.”

Which means our route is cancelled. Good thing we have tons of fuel–now we’re launching off the east side, heading north, then west. San Fransisco via Kansas City, adding another 150 miles or so to the route.

And now we get to painstakingly reprogram the navigation system with the new route and runway, then verify every waypoint, something I won’t do while we’re rolling. But I figure we’ll have plenty of time at the end of the runway with a few dozen other jets in line as everyone heads for the east side.

“Not my choice,” I tell Gilligan. “I’d rather go south to Waco, then west to Abilene, then north.” He shrugs. He’s just out of laundry, tired of traveling, and missing home.

I was right: huge line waiting for takeoff, as everyone gets squeezed out of the west side. But I was also wrong. As soon as we reached the end of the runway, the tower called out the take-off sequence–and we were number three. We looked at each other in disbelief, then I looked at the radar. The line was moving so fast that I couldn’t imagine the airport being open more than another fifteen or twenty minutes.

Within ten, we were airborne, arcing off to the east before we could finally turn north. The radar picture to the west was an ugly blob of dark red hooking around from the southwest, marching on DFW like Sherman’s army.

Lucky break, sneaking out before the thunderheads, but a pain to weave our way west. But the 737-800 is my best friend: we climbed right up to 40,000 feet, saving us a trip to Kansas on our way to San Francisco: by the time we reached Tulsa, we could top the weather and headed west.

That’s when the Air Traffic Control frequency began the bad news: “All aircraft inbound to DFW, slow as much as possible; airport currently not accepting arrivals.”

Bad news, but not for us. Then:

“All aircraft for DFW, the airport is closed, the tower has been evacuated due to tornadoes.”

Tractor trailers literally storm-tossed south of DFW Airport.

That’s real bad news. But still, not for us–except something began to pick at the back of my mind. Didn’t I park between the towers?

“DFW is now closed for damage; estimating at least 2 hours.”

That’s something I’d never heard before. I pictured the inbound jets, imagining what they were going through: first, slow down as much as possible, buy time, save fuel and weigh options. The usual close-in alternate airports are probably out, given the size of the nastiness sweeping west to east. Which means a bailout to the far alternates like Oklahoma City or more likely, to the south like Austin or San Antonio. Which would mean huge delays with dozens of other jets waiting for fuel and god-knows-when DFW will reopen anyway. Probably be dead in the water wherever you land.

Which brings me back to us, knowing we too would be dead in the water at San Francisco International, figuring our return flight would be cancelled. Which brought up the big question:

I know there’s at least a pair of jeans in there. But doing turnarounds, I haven’t paid attention to much else. Although Mrs. Howell seemed to have a complete wardrobe aboard for just a three hour tour (Ginger too), my crew was a little short–except for Gilligan, but after five days on the road, his laundry situation couldn’t have been much better.

Regardless, gravity took over–we landed at San Francisco International and of course, our outbound flight back to DFW had been cancelled. And all I had as far as outerwear was, of course jeans. No matter.

One $8.99 souvenir T-shirt later (concession stand guy: “They’re 2 for $15;” me: “I really don’t even want one but I’m shipwrecked”) and I join my entire crew of castaways at Kinkaid’s on the San Francisco Bay to watch the sun go done over a bowl of chowder.

Heck of a storm, we all agree, having seen the CNN coverage of multiple tornadoes charging through our home-drome. “And,” I add, “The down side of seniority.” Like the flight attendants, who are on the top of their seniority heap, I too have the close-in parking at the terminal reserved for the fifty senior pilots at the crew base. But parking on top, with no protection for the car.

“Well,” I wondered out loud. “I wonder what’s left of our cars.” We get the up-close parking, but the airport restricts us to the roofless upper deck for employee cars.

Mrs. Howell, wearing a sweater over her uniform dress because unlike the real Mrs. Howell, she hadn’t planned on being shipwrecked, looked at me quizically.  “I’m sure they’re fine. I’m near the bottom level.”

Some of the more than 40 jets damaged by hail in the storm, awaiting inspection and repair.

“Mine’s on the top deck.” Where it’s supposed to be, right?

She laughed, and her colleagues joined in. “We NEVER park up there. Now you know why.”

I learned eventually–when I got back to DFW. Now the car has a new set of dimples:

Alas, the Minnow sustained about twenty hammer blows in the shipwrecking process.

Well, so much for following directions. And the shipwreck itself wasn’t all bad, what with the sunset on the bay and the lobster bisque soup. The next day brought something I hadn’t seen in a good while: sunrise from the cockpit. But with the time change between home base and the west coast, even that wasn’t a problem.

So I took a lesson from Mrs. Howell, being sure to have a full change of clothes in my suitcase–and parking more judiciously when the sky turns nasty.

Not a bad haul from what was supposed to be a just three hour tour.

.

The Air War in Vietnam: A Fighter Pilot ‘s Perspective

JetHead Live goes one-on-one with fighter pilot and author

Ed Rasimus

Veteran of 250 Combat Missions

and author of When Thunder Rolled and Palace Cobra.

JetHead Live: Airline Pilot & USAF General Carol Timmons

From flying US Army UH-1 helicopters as an Army pilot, to flying USAF C-141s and C-130s as an Air Force pilot,

to flying for United Airlines as a 767 pilot and her current command of the Delaware Air National Guard,

General Carol Timmons

goes one-on-one with JetHead Live!

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Airline 101: “Why couldn’t you hold the flight?”

I was standing by the gate counter yesterday, printing my flight plan and other required paperwork for my flight to San Francisco, when a pair of businessmen hustled up to the gate, out of breath.

“Tokyo? That flight departed on-time twenty minutes ago,” the agent told them.

One guy threw his bags down in disgust. The other pleaded his case. “We were late on your flight out of Chicago. You couldn’t hold the Tokyo flight for us?”

Uh-oh; I’ve heard this one a few times, and it never ends well.

“I’m sorry,” the agent answered honestly. “We had to depart on time. We’ll give you a hotel room tonight and put you on the flight tomorrow.”

Here’s where I could have explained–if it was any of my business–but I kept my yap shut, finished my flight planning and scooted down to my jet. Because I’ve learned that “why couldn’t/didn’t/can’t you hold the flight” isn’t really a question anyone who missed a flight actually wants answered. They really just want to chew the ass of anyone convenient and while I understand the passengers’ frustration, most at that point are either not listening or find little solace in the answer. But here it is.

On a DFW-Tokyo flight, the clock ticks in several significant ways and yes, fifteen or twenty minutes either way are make or break–especially on international flights. Here’s why.

I’ll start with the flight crew. The FAA limits on-duty time for pilots for one good reason: as pilots, we have to perform perfectly for every take-off and landing. The landing, in an international flight scenario, is often done upwards of 12-14 hours after your pilots started their day. That’s because Tokyo-Narita with some wind conditions pushes the flight time to that limit–there is no twenty minutes of slack to wait. Do you want your pilots at the ragged edge, sleepless in the main, for more than 14 hours before they face the delicate approach and landing through European or Asian weather? In the mountain bowl of south America after flying all night?

I hate to say it, but the same problem exists on domestic flights: your pilots may have started their day in Boston, flown to Miami, then DFW and no, they do not have 20 minutes to spare before there’s either a crew change or a cancellation on your LAX or SFO flight. And with both international and domestic flights, there are connections to consider: many on-board will miss their arrival city connection if the flight is delayed to accommodate late passengers. This is crucial–and heartbreaking–departing DFW for other gateway cities like LAX, JFK or Chicago where folks are trying to connect to an international flight. There may be other enroute or destination factors that add an inbound delay–we can’t start out behind the timeline in deference to connecting passengers already on board–and at our destination waiting on their outbound flight and downline connections.

It’s even worse on an international segment, because on a flight of 12-16 hours like Tokyo, Rio, or Delhi, a headwind even 10% greater than planned can add significant misconnect risk in the destination cities. Holding a flight “just ten or twenty minutes” is playing roulette with hundreds of other passengers’ travel plans, plus the FAA limits on flight crew on-duty times.

And here’s the final twist most passengers don’t know or probably, really don’t care about: ALTREVs.

Huh? Yes, another aviation acronym you can add to your lexicon: Altitude Reservation. The airways across the Atlantic and Pacific are crowded and every airline naturally wants the optimum, shortest, wind-friendliest flight path across the pond. Since all the jets can’t fit into that same optimum lane in the sky at the same time, flights are assigned a track time–and you’d better be there at that time.

Same factors affect that as well: greater headwinds, weather deviations, or rerouting in the 3-4 hours over the US before “coasting out” (another cool term for you, “coasting out” = “at the coast, outbound”) can play havoc with your arrival at the track entry point. Early is no problem–just slow down inbound. But late? You can be sent across at a lower, slower, longer track altitude and course which again plays havoc with arrival times, connections, and the aircraft’s outbound leg with yet another set of passengers with preset arrival times and connections on their itineraries.

So there it is: your flight is just one thread in the complex tapestry that is an airline flight with passenger connections, crew duty limits, and track times to be maintained, and each segment is part of the larger rhizome that is an airline operation: it’s all intertwined and interdependent. There’s really no way to build in enough flex time (for example, 14 hours is both the limit and the flight time on some segments and many, many crew days) to “just hold the flight.”

Yes, sometimes we can–and we sure do! That would be in the case of a destination with no connections and probably at the end of the day (who connects in Des Moines?) if the crew time was not a limiting factor.

See why I didn’t try to explain all this to the understandably distraught business guys?  But maybe they–like you–would feel a little more at ease if they understood the big picture answer to “why couldn’t you hold the flight?”

And now you do, so share that with others who might need to know–I’ll be down at the jet pre-flighting, because we really need to depart on time, don’t we?