Meditations From A Darkened Sky.

Day doesn’t give up the sky easily.

Last ditch, the blue fistfights with darkness like death: parts of the horizon arc fade differently, the sun exits dramatically or not; subtle or sudden, Ophelia or Faustus, depending on which way you’re flying and how high you are.

I mean east to west: bam, the sunset cattle-brands the horizon into an angry tight lip, then slams the sky shut like a granny purse, socking away the day for safekeeping, to snore under a fat pillow of layered cottony cirrus and leftover cloud piles, indifferent, floating; nothing to see here folks, so move along.

But eastbound? Not so fast: a jaundice swirls into the cloud bottoms, then fever fires the skyline like a malaria flush, the sun sighs itself westward, the horizon twists a blue frown–if you’re high enough, say forty-some-thousand–the downturn matches the curve of the earth, wingtip to wingtip. If you could hear it, dusk would be a groan; resignation, played out and spent, the day says “uncle;” hold that thought for tomorrow, finito.

Moonrise, maybe? Or not, depending on which rosary bead the month assigned to the comatose day, barely on life support and just waiting for last rites if the priest would ever get here. Yet, what is there to save? You pull the plug or you don’t, but the day flatlines regardless.

Like the cartoon before the main feature, the moon wants you to laugh, to goof around. “What the hell!” you say then wish you had the words back. Gotcha, again: joker luna burns her way through an undercast like an Alamagordo A-bomb. Or, just plain, unadorned, served up like tomorrow tossing a volleyball into today, shiny bone-white and perfect fine china, place setting for one but you’ll have to eat with your hands.  Any old way, any late day, the moon’s solid like the inner workings of a clock, underwriting tides and light in waves and wedges, depending on which blue you sail on.

And we sail on. Lights of passing ships, red on the right means a jet headed your way, emerald green and we’re fellow travellers. Sometimes moonlight makes their contrail glow like the luminescence of the deep sea and we’re just so many minnow streaking god-knows-where or why. Other times you only see the contrail when you cross it, then bump like a dumptruck when you do.

Opening act, the moonrise is: hey, where are you from? Seen it before; climb into the sky and race you till dawn, except celestial fine china never tires–but you do. You’re looking to the main event anyway: the Milky Way.

But tonight the Milky Way is part skim: atmospheric crud, even seven miles high, and you’ve got bad seats for the whole night show. What the hell, find your friends–Orion, never lets you down; Cassiopeia, vain beauty like you even looking at her, Ceres, you dog, and you, your jet flashing like a pimpmobile from below, insignificant from above. It’s a celestial tailgate, but you’re fake, manmade and only flying for now. But still.

Once it’s night, it’s just dark. Sure, we have the wubba, the blankie, the 14-satellite good to fifty feet GPS accuracy, and the guy in the left seat, keeper of the algorithms of gravity and lift and flight like the atomic clock that says when and how you fly and land. Because unlike the days sailing the night–you’re not really part of the heavens: visitor parking–and there’s a limit.

That’s okay. The non-stop must stop; it’s not “just flying,” which everything else in the sky does, but rather, “a flight.” And you, flyer for life, guy with the hands on the controls and the deliberately silent, taciturn “you’ll never get anything out of me” recalcitrance yet flying for all the years of your life, there is this. All of this; and you’re one lucky son of a bitch every time your feet leave the ground and the night sky lets you fly anyway.

When it’s all said and done, and you’re slipping through the terminal headed for home, and others wonder about your sly smile, you can’t help but think to yourself, how could I not?

But nobody would “get it,” really, so why say a word? Better just leave it at that.

Beads, Lists, Gravity and Fate.

Trust me: determination trumps faith where gravity is involved. You discover that the moment you let go and gravity takes over: it took determination to take the plunge, and faith ain’t half enough to stop it. In fact, faith wouldn’t have gotten anyone with a pilot brain out the door in the first place. Yet everyone’s flying through the air regardless.

I never quite understood the “tandem skydiving” thing. Is it really enough to hitch yourself to someone else while they do something daring, then claim the thrill as your own accomplishment? Does this act  invert the balance of faith and determination when it comes to gravity? Without your own hand on the ripcord, and with only dollars paid serving as a meager voucher of determination, there’s but a thin sinew of faith in someone else’s hand between you and the certainty of gravity. I’ll never get that–which is why all my jumps have been solo.

The bottom line with gravity and flight never hits home as solidly as when you’re solo, with or without an airplane, if you give flight the healthy respect demanded to walk away from it in one piece. Maybe that’s why it’s actually easier to fly solo–I believe it’s easier to jump solo too, since I’m not about to cash in a stranger’s fate for my own–because that eliminates the middleman: you do it, you rely on your own determination, and faith takes a back seat. No one to share the blame or provide the fame.

Maybe that’s where modern life becomes more about counting the beads than saying the prayers, because after all, which is quicker and easier? And never mind that I think that’s more like a swipe of the icing than a bite of the cake, anything beyond the polar bear club or a good rollercoaster crosses the line between trendy-funny-bucket-list-nonsense to just plain reckless.

Knowing that in the worst case, when faith is betrayed and determination forsworn a thousand feet below in a cash register receipt–you bought the ticket, now you take the ride–I can only imagine what final thoughts must attend the original choice to inherit the earth so dramatically.

Maybe that’s a roundabout way to say that I neither trust fate nor bank my determination to fly with anyone else’s hands. Maybe that’s why I’m still in touch with thin veneer separating “cool” with “safe,” and I never overlook the ripcord moment nor depend on anyone else to pull it for me. It’s always my hands.

And you can count one one thing from mine, or from any professional airlines pilots’ hands: it ain’t our hobby–or your bucket list–that’s happening from the moment of brake release to parking at your destination. We don’t do it on weekends or days off because it’s a sport or recreation, we do it year round in all weather, day and night under the strictest supervision, and see it for not only what it really is, but also what it should never be. Ain’t no counting the beads in this service.

With all that said, why the hell was I into skydiving in the first place? There’s a twofold answer: I was putting myself through college and flying lessons were too expensive–but skydiving was a fraction of the cost. Got me into the sky with a minimum of hassle or expense, though the part about getting down in one piece kind of got overlooked. Beads, not prayers: much cheaper in the short term, bad investment in the long run.

And now 17,000 flight hours later, despite faith in my pilot abilities, when I’m done flying big jets–I’m determined to be done flying. I’ve squared off with fate too many times in the air to close my eyes and count the beads, especially taking anyone with me.  Don’t get me wrong, I encourage anyone who wants to do so to get some good flight instruction and proper aircraft and go see for themselves. That’s fair–and a lot of fun, plus a lot of the pros I fly with now came up that way.

But for those still daydreaming the “bucket list” silliness, I suggest pursuing that with both feet on the ground. Flying with or without an airplane ought to be more than just a box checked by someone else’s hand. Because just like everything else, store-bought imitations just never satisfy like homemade, do they?

All in a Pilot’s Day: Thunderstorm Zen and the Captain’s Firewall.

Head pounding. Look down at your right calf: a liter bottle of water, mostly full.

Stupid.

Just flew 3 hours from DFW to DCA–should have paid attention to hydration. Now, sitting near the end of runway 1 at Reagan national, it’s too late: the damage is done.

Been sitting here for over two hours now. In a thunderstorm. Which has hit the tower with a lightning bolt that fried their primary radios–so now they’re using a weak backup radio that sounds like the controller is using a tin can on a wire.

More delay while the radio situation gets fixed, plus the hand-offs from tower to departure ain’t working. Wait.

Call the tower: “Tower, American 445.” Wait.

“American 445, go.” Sounds like her head is in a bucket.

“We’re wondering about a take-off time, as we’re bumping up against some Passenger Bill of Rights time constraints.”

Like three hours–an hour from now–then we need to go back to the gate and probably, cancel the flight. Passengers have a right to not go anywhere, rather than sit on a plane waiting to go somewhere.

“We don’t have any information,” comes the tinny reply. Thanks for your help.

Ignored several phone calls from the cabin crew already, saying passengers are antsy, wondering what the latest is. When I ignore the interphone chime, the F/O has to field the questions to which there are no answers anyway. I prefer to isolate myself to focus on weather, fuel, timing, the departure procedure to the north (the FAA will violate you for even a tiny stray from the radial) and a clear path on radar. Which I can’t see because our nose–and our radar dish–is facing south. I make a PA every thirty minutes or so, telling passengers what I know: westbound departures are on hold due to weather on the departure routing. The lady in the tower sounds like her head is in a bucket. I don’t tell them that, but still.

Already tried to negotiate a departure to the south or even east in order to air file a route west–craftily uploaded an extra 3,000 pounds of fuel before pushback, after seeing the storm front marching on Washington as we landed.

No dice.

More calls from the back: passengers want to use their cell phones; they’re getting up . . .

Tell them no–if they use phones, the cabin crew has to make another aisle pass to ensure they’re off for take-off (FAA regulation) and if we’re cleared, we need to take the runway, check the weather–then go.

Sure, they have connections and people waiting. But that can wait till we get there. What I want to attend to is a new and higher power setting that creates less time on the runway; an optimum flap setting that gives a better climb gradient, and a wind correction to stay on the safe side of the departure radial.

That’s where the “firewall” comes in: if I let connections, cell phones, Passenger Bill of Rights or even my own next flight tomorrow (not going to be legal if we keep delaying) mix with the important considerations like fuel, weather, radar, performance and power settings, something’s getting messed up.

It’s not that I don’t care–I really do. But if I don’t attend to the latter set of considerations, the former won’t matter, will they? Drink some water, rehydrate. Relax. Run through your list of priorities for right now. Pay attention to right here, right now. Be ready to do “now” right; worry about later, well, later.  That’s the thunderstorm zen, the captain’s firewall.

It happens fast: “445, start ’em up–you’re next to go.”

Fine. I reconfirm with the F/O the heading plan (310 is good–but 305 is better. If we have to correct back right to the radial, fine–but we do not stray east . . . a full radar picture before we roll, static.”

Raining cats and dogs, hard to see, swing out onto the runway and grab every inch. Stand on the brakes, full radar sweep–decide.

“You good?” I ask the F/O as a formality–because I’m looking at him and I can tell from his face whether he is or isn’t from his look no matter what he says. And if he isn’t okay or doesn’t look okay, if maybe his firewall or zen are under seige, I’ll know and we won’t go until everything adds up.

We roll; relief when we’re past abort speed; mental chant “engines only, engines only” reminding myself of which of the hundreds of warnings I’ll abort for on that rain-slicked postage stamp of a runway; throttles speedbrakes THEN reverse, amen. The jet rockets into the whipping rain undaunted; love the big fans at a high power setting. We climb, buck, dodge, weave and finally . . . cruise at 40,000 feet above all the turmoil as the lights of the nation wink out.

Landing after midnight, home finally at 1:30am. Crew Schedule calls: “Sleep fast, we’ve slipped the departure of your Seattle turn just long enough to keep you legal. You’re still on it.”

Eight hours in the cockpit today; another eight tomorrow. Plus a few hours to sleep in between.

Erase today–it’s over, safely and smartly done. Rest, and save a little zen for tomorrow. No doubt, you’re going to need it.

Ask an Airline Pilot: Why Do I Feel So Worn Out After a Flight?

This is a question that I get asked by the most astute travelers: why do I feel physically worn out after a routine flight?

That’s a very good question, born of savvy observation among those passengers who fly often. And they’re right: flying has a direct physical impact on your body for very clear reasons, which I’ll explain. And–good news–there are some things a passenger can do to minimize many of these effects.

The culprit with the most insidious effect is one of the most obvious factors in your flight–and also the most underestimated, and that is, ALTITUDE. I’m only talking about the aircraft’s altitude indirectly, because what really affects you as a passenger is the cabin altitude.

The controlling factor in the cabin altitude is the the hull design of the aircraft. Because the pressure at altitude is a fraction of that at sea level, the aircraft’s pressure hull must have the strength to hold survivable (for humans) pressure in an extremely low pressure environment at altitude. For the sake of structural integrity, the difference between inside and outside pressure has to be minimized and the way to do that is to allow the cabin altitude to climb with the aircraft altitude, gradually, to a higher altitude to minimize the differential pressure.

The picture above is of a pressurization gage that shows aircraft altitude, cabin altitude–and the difference between the two. The aircraft’s pressurization system gradually raises the cabin pressure with the climb to altitude to keep the differential within the aircraft hull’s design limits. The result? At 41,000 feet, the aircraft cabin is over 8,000 feet.

That’s like being transported to Vail, Colorado (elevation, 8,000′) in a matter of twenty or thirty minutes. Suddenly, your body must make do with a significantly reduced partial pressure of oxygen, and this after being depressurized like a shaken-up soda can: every bit of moisture in your body–and gasses as well–are affected by the rapid (compared to a gradual drive from sea level to Vail) change of pressure.

This affects your body like the bulging of a balloon animal: the pressure reduced around you makes everything swell. Maybe not as dramatically as the balloon animal, but with definite and perceptible effect. And that cycle is repeated on the way down, in the opposite manner: your body must accommodate the repressurization.

Some people are more susceptible to the effects of altitude than others: I’m one who doesn’t feel well doing prolonged physical activity at altitude above 5,000 feet. I don’t like skiing or the outdoors type stuff in the mountains because of the flu-like effects of physical exertion at higher altitudes. Common side effects, or what’s called “altitude sickness,” include flu-like symptoms such as headache, body and joint pain, fatigue and a feeling of being out of breath.

If you’re the type who is susceptible to “altitude sickness” in any degree, you shouldn’t underestimate the effects of cruising for several hours at a high cabin altitude.

Next on the list of stress factors has to be humidity–or more importantly, the lack of humidity at altitude. The cabin air comes from outside at altitude where the humidity is around 1% to 2%. Fresh air is drawn in, heated, then mixed with cooler air to provide a comfortable cabin temperature. Mythbusters: I’ve heard the urban legends about “restricted air flow” to save money; recirculated rather than fresh air in airline cabins. That’s all bunk, at least in Boeing and Airbus aircraft. The cabin pressure is maintained through constant circulation and in the Boeing, large fans draw the air throughout the cabin and cargo compartments, then through the electrical compartments for cooling, then to an outflow valve for metered release with respect to a stable cabin altitude.

The pressurization and air conditioning systems work great, supplying fresh, conditioned air but . . . the humidity is very, very low because the source air at altitude is exactly that way. So, if you as a passenger aren’t drinking water constantly–you’re going to feel the effects of dehydration quickly at altitude.

The last of the major but often underestimated stress factors is also obvious but insidious: noise and vibration. Consider the basic fact that each engine on a 737 weighs over a ton and each has a core that spins at over 30,000 RPM at idle power. At cruise power, the vibration is subtle but distinct, transmitted through the airframe to everything and everyone on board.

That has a physical side effect added onto the motion effects of flight: pitch and roll changes in combinations you don’t experience on Earth. Like trains, ships and cars on a rough pavement, vibration is transmitted to your body and has a wearing, fatiguing effect.

Noise? Absolutely: there is a layered level of noise from engines, airstream outside and air flow inside that is both fatiguing and cumulatively, wearing.

What can you do about these three factors that can literally wear you out as you travel by air? Let’s start with the last factor: noise. This one has a really easy solution:

Earplugs. The foam kind, available in any hardware store. We use them in the cockpit all the time, because wind noise in the pointy end is much louder than in the back, depending on altitude and speed. They’re disposable, they’re cheap–and they work. You can still hear normal conversation just fine and the important thing is that they will reduce the fatigue level you will feel after a long flight. Try them on your next flight.

Low humidity? This is tied to the altitude effects as well, and this is a simple solution as well: hydration. Certainly on board you should be drinking plenty of water (yes, you’ll have to bring water with you–it’s available in airports everywhere; if you’re really cheap, just bring a bottle and refill it at a water fountain in the airport) but also, you need to think ahead.

Like the preparation for a marathon, you need to stay well-hydrated the day and night before the event.

If you step on board marginally hydrated or actually slightly dehydrated, the 2% humidity at cruise altitude will outpace any attempt you make to catch up, much less keep up. Coffee? Alcohol? Diuretic soft drinks? See photo above.

Finally, the high altitude effects of cruise flight. The good news is, going forward, that the next generation aircraft like the 787 “Dreamliner” are capable of maintaining significantly lower cabin altitudes during cruise. This is very important on long flights and the fact that Boeing designers recognized this passenger stress factor and have designed a way to minimize the effects underscores my original point about the stress.

For now, though, the best you can do is to deal with the other two key stress factors–hydration and noise–and simply try to be in decent physical shape: those who are suffer less with the stress of altitude exposure.

In the final analysis, you can’t completely avoid the physical stress of air travel without avoiding air travel itself. But, if you are a savvy traveler, you can at least recognize the effects and take simple steps to minimize the effects of air travel on your body and ultimately, your trip.

Bon voyage.

Open Skies: Any Mouse, Anywhere.

Wide-eyed and wide open, as only a child’s mind could be; the question took me by surprise: Who is any mouse?

One of those million dollar moments that last no longer than a nose print on glass. No rush, savor the welcome into kid world.

Not sure what you mean. Can you tell me more?

You know, like when a saying is from “Any Mouse.”

Smile. Don’t let the snowflake melt. Ah, yes. Any mouse–what do you think it means?

Well I always think of all those mice running around; could be any mouse, anywhere.

So it is–really. Ah, those faceless, nameless whiskery-little scurrying creatures.

Used to be that when you flew from DFW to say, Seattle, you knew where you were going.

The route in the air was defined by points on the ground: you knew what you’d see, you knew where it was. Cleared direct Amarillo. No matter where a pilot was in the United States, you knew knew right away which way and how far that was. But no more.

Now it’s any mouse going anywhere:

Where in the wide, wide world of sports is KD45Q? Somewhere along the way to KA36W?  Where in the heck is that?

Smarter mice than me decided we now had the lightning-fast processing capability and invisible bandwidth to sever the journey from the landmarks. They redefined location, uprooting geography of place and replacing location with instance:

The airways give way to free flight; a thousand feet of vertical separation, closing speeds of a shotgun blast: honk and wave, see ya. Because now it’s about mice scrambling every which way, from one grid square to the next: any mouse, anywhere. Everywhere.

The five character identifiers are derived from a grid overlaid on the globe: “K” means USA, “D” means Denver Center’s airspace. But the other three characters, the digits? Mice scampering as they will, orchestrated by precise computers and directed by the crossroads of half a dozen satellites.

Sure, the ground references of days past are still down there–the front range of the Rockies will still bump you like railroad tracks; the Mississippi still runs a jagged course below whether you notice or not. But they’re no longer significant in what we’re doing–only in where it’s happening and that only incidentally.

In the cabin, no one realizes that their journey is unhinged from the places they know. No one could care that the brains of the journey discounts any place they ever valued–it’s just business, managing physics. Mice, midway to somewhere–never mind that the helm is set and the sails filled with anywhere. The electrons don’t care.

It’s all much cleaner now. In a way, it’s kind of what air travel’s all about, isn’t it? The journey seems to matter less, if at all; the “now” paling before the robust “next.” But like a trip to KD45Q, it means little the instant “next” becomes now–so off we scurry. Any mouse, anywhere but here; any time but now.

My little friend’s brow furrowed, face pinched. Little hands upraised. That seems so sad.

What does? What’s sad?

Anywhere. Because it’s just not home.

I think of the thousands of miles I’ve flown, the years away, bound from somewhere, halfway to anywhere.

We agree: no, it’s just not home.

And the big conundrum is not why there’s always a “next” or a somewhere else, or even how how to get back, because we do that eventually. The real question is why we ever left in the first place.

Life Lessons Forged in the Sky.

Let’s face it: most of life is about reconciling the failure of what we planned but didn’t happen, or accommodating the unexpected that wrecked what we had planned for and expected.

The hard lessons of flight apply appropriately to unexpected challenges of life, because both share a common reality: no matter what, there’s no turning back–or not even any slowing down, much less stopping. You’re under way–and you have to deal with what you encounter as you go.

In my years in flight, whether it’s been a case of something on fire, exploded, died, a mountain staring you in the face seconds away, or even plummeting through a thousand feet at terminal velocity with a parachute that just ain’t going to open, the following holds true and will get you through–in the air or on terra firma:

1. Breathe. I mean it–in and out, and notice that you are. Means you’re still alive, still in the fight and as importantly, it enforces the moment of pause, the time it takes to say (repeat after me) “Can you believe this sonofabitch is still flying?” that divides reaction from response.

Reaction is inevitable–but it doesn’t substitute for cogent, meaningful and effective response. After you’ve had a breath or two, a few heartbeats to ponder, then you can better decide and act. Isn’t that the basics of Relationship 101: hold the first thought that pops into your head which you can always say later–but you can’t take back.

Now you’ve got a running start–consider your backups, your alternatives, better courses, then speak up; act deliberately, not reactively. Yeah, the damn engine’s on fire. But we have a few very good ways to deal with that, let’s choose one and proceed cautiously.

2. Trust no one–particularly yourself. That is a liberating concept, when you really think about it: used to be in the pilot biz there were tons of memory items for instant use in emergency situations. But then the evolution of common sense prevailed in the realization that in a dire situation, you need to first do #1 above anyway. It’s hardly the time for recitation and boilerplate solutions–especially without having taking the time to analyze before acting.

Plus it introduces another layer of challenge and doubt into an already critical situation: did I memorize that litany correctly and repeat it verbatim? Suddenly, the response to a critical situation takes on a gatekeeper function–one you can worry to death about ahead of time, one you can doubt at the right time, before you even manage to conjure the resource you so wisely memorized ahead of time. You hope.

Never mind that: you don’t need to know the answer–you just need to know where to find it. And meanwhile, trust no one who says they already know–including yourself. Knowing is overrated, especially in complex situations where often, things aren’t what they seem anyway. Often, you really can’t even clearly identify the actual question in a tangled mess of a situation anyway. Just know where to find the answers, and share that, making sure it’s the best solution and being sure there aren’t other alternatives–you might need them too.

3. Believe. In what? In you, in the future, in your ability to get there regardless of the challenges. Claim #1 above–you don’t have to do anything instantly; and #2, you’re not even supposed to know what to do. You just have to take a moment to stand back and survey the situation, then know where to look for answers, believing that you can–and will–step by step, work your way forward.

Because as we’ve noted, we’re hurtling forward regardless. And that’s the beauty of it: we can’t know what’s ahead anyway, so we don’t even have to worry about what to do “if;” rather we just have to be calm enough, patient enough and capable enough to do the best thing “when,” not if, things go haywire.

Three time shuttle astronaut Mike Mullane told me how a shuttle commander he flew with brushed aside the “what ifs” associated with their flight, saying “No sense dying all tensed up.” Fighter pilot and veteran of 265 combat missions Mark Berent told me that when you’re in a fight where you’re clearly outgunned, sometimes all you can do is give it back in the same way you’re getting it, knowing you’re going to die but willing to fight nonetheless.

The big three above are all about doing exactly that. Take a breath, let yourself off the hook, think, act and believe. The fact that despite the odds, the challenges, the worst case scenarios and long odds that we’re still here to talk about it gives me great faith going forward that when fate starts going haywire in the air or on the ground–and it always does–those three things are all you have to remember to give it right back to the world, plus ten percent interest for spite.

You’re going to be just fine–believe it.

Mark Berent served in the Air Force for more than twenty years, first as an enlisted man and then as an officer. He has logged 4,350 hours of flying time, over 1,000 of them in Combat. During his three Vietnam tours, Berent earned not only the Silver Star but two Distinguished Flying Crosses, over two dozen air medals, the Bronze Star, the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry, and the Legion of Merit.

We go one-on-one with Mark Berent in a wide-ranging interview about flight, air warfare and more.

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Airport Insanity: The Things You Hear.

Airport insanity has a lot to do with the craziness you hear–and I’m not talking about things passengers say. Yet.

Butt first and foremost, I’m talking about what passes for official “information,” and one set of “officials” are repeat offenders:

We’ll remind you of the proper procedure after you’ve successfully accomplished it.

That’s right: it’s the “security” people. And the noise they makes repeats itself throughout the secure side of the terminal, dozens of times every hour:

“All liquids must be in three ounce or less containers . . .”

Plus other “information” the passengers clearly already know–or they wouldn’t have made it through the security checkpoint. Why are we constantly dunned with the instructions we’ve already complied with? Is there just not enough noise and chaos without the irrelevant instructions for what we’ve already accomplished? Where does this insatiable need to tell people what to do after they’ve already done it come from?

Or the other standard announcement, “Passengers should monitor bags at all times to avoid carrying objects without their knowledge.”  Never mind the fact that this literally means without the objects’ knowledge, not the passenger’s. Either way you look at it, the announcement makes no sense: if it’s without your knowledge, how can you prevent it?

Excuse me, but are things going on without your knowledge?

Now, on to the airlines.

It’s once again obscuring the significant with the obvious, with classic PA announcements like, “This will serve as a gate change announcement . . .”

Who cares about “this,” when the important information is the not the announcement itself, but rather the information? Is it really vital to describe the medium (see photo above) in order to convey the information? Would the added verbiage be confusing to the average passenger, much less one with language or hearing impairments?

And speaking of excess, here is my annoying favorite: “This is the last and final boarding announcement . . .” Is it just me, or is that kind of redundant kind of–like this sentence? Is there a distinction between last and final that is germane to the information that the aircraft door is about to close?

You were warned.

To summarize, the announcements not only add to the noise and chaos in the terminal, in a real way, they make information more difficult to come by because the user has to decipher the announcement in all of it’s useless bluster from the important information.

And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the passengers’ contribution to the chaos.

No no–you’re not in the way. Much.

I guess there are those who are too comfortable with the environment, at the expense of everyone else both in it, and working in it:

It’s not that questions are the problem. Rather, it’s the volume of questions, which can be separated into those that need to be asked and those that really should be understood: there is plumbing in all airports, which includes bathrooms. No one working in the airport except the perhaps janitors might have the locations memorized. Rather, they–we–take on faith that there must be bathrooms somewhere, one as close as the next. But you want the closest, you say? Again, who keeps that information handy and really, does anyone besides you need to know about your urgency? Times wasting–go find it.

And in the interest of complete disclosure, I have to admit that sometimes I’m part of the communications breakdown myself:

I know; I hate when I get like this.

Maybe it’s just the nature of air travel: too much information, good and bad, floating around aimlessly. So I’m going to propose a vow of silence henceforth: no more crabbing on my part about communications, too much info, too little info and everything in between.

Well, maybe one more . . .

You have to admit, there are some things you really don’t want to know.  And at the airport, it’s probably best to just find some things out on your own.

You, Me, and Air France 447

My guess is that “Air France 447” probably doesn’t ring a bell with most airline passengers–nor should it, really. But it means a lot to me.

But I probably read airline accident reports with a different mindset than those for whom “flying” is actually riding, kind of like the tandem jumpers who pay to fall out of a plane hooked to an “experienced” parachutist–then say they’ve “sky-dived.” That’s because what goes on between the time passengers board my jet to touchdown and deplaning thousands of miles later rests squarely on my shoulders.

Certainly, I mourn the loss of the 228 souls on board the Airbus 330 aircraft, but I have to think beyond that. My job is to ask, when it comes to the mechanical failure the pilots of AF 447 encountered, what are my blind spots, my vulnerabilities? How can I successfully handle this challenge when it happens on my flight?

If you’re the kind that prefers to just “hook up to some guy and jump,” more power to you. That’s part of my profession, allowing you that confidence by doing the post-mortem, reading the report and figuring out for myself what I need to learn for myself–and you–when faced with a similar situation.

Want to come along and see how that’s done? Fine, here we go. Not interested? That’s fine too. See you next week.

The Accident Report

Here’s a summary of the accident from a source that is usually reliable, and here is the actual report itself if you care to read the whole thing.

Fingerpointing

Here’s the knee-jerk reaction that’s hard to avoid when you’re a pilot: there they go again, making the flight crew the scapegoats. And that’s a legitimate complaint and bias from pilots, because clearly, the aircraft experienced a major mechanical failure. The trail of accident factors in a car wreck doesn’t end with the driver: why did the brakes fail? Why did the tire blow out? Were there design issues that created the problem? Manufacturing flaws? Supervisory lapses that allowed damage to occur or go undetected? Regulatory and oversight failures that allowed the threat to exist undetected–or allowed to continue on a slower than immediate abatement schedule?

This last point is a major headache for pilots and risk factor for everyone who flies. That is, in our country, the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) has responsibility for conducting accident investigation, then reporting on causes and issuing recommendations to prevent recurrence. But the NTSB has no authority to enforce these recommendations. That authority rests with the FAA, who negotiates with the airlines to implement some of the NTSB recommendations on a gradual basis so as not to unduly affect flight operations and incur huge costs and monetary losses.

Meaning, as in the case of AF 447, that a known problem with the pitot-static system that induced the loss of control sequence of events, occurred in flight before the recommended system modifications could be made. It should be made clear that Air France is not subject to the NTSB or FAA, unless operating in the US and this accident occurred in South America. But it should also be said that this exact same pitot-static failure had become a well-known vulnerability in this model of aircraft, and that modifications to the system were being accomplished fleet-wide on a gradual basis, and that the Air France pilots’ union had long been recommending that the aircraft not be flown until the modifications were complete.

The Flightcrew

I have nothing to say about the AF 447 flightcrew other than god rest their souls. I wasn’t on the flight deck on that dark, stormy night over the Atlantic, I don’t know what they saw or felt or how the four minutes from cruise altitude to the ocean’s surface transpired or how the plane handled throughout.

The crew I care about is my own. Are we prepared for this malfunction, for complete loss of pitot-static instruments? Are we astute and engaged enough to detect the root cause of the problem and to work around the lack of airspeed and vertical velocity data?

Because it’s not that simple, although the sequence of events is very simple: the autoflight modes trip off. Meaning, the autopilot and autothrottles disengage, leaving the crew to handle power, pitch and roll inputs.

Fine. But the reason the automation quit was because it no longer had the normal performance data of airspeed and altitude upon which to base its flight control and throttle commands–so the pilots taking over manually were denied that critical information as well.

But here’s where the forest and the trees take over: as a pilot, I could waste a lot of time trying to figure out why both automated modes failed. But that’s not as important as flying the aircraft.

The tendency with advanced flight automation, and we certainly have exactly that in the Boeing 737-800 I fly, plus the Airbus fleet is the poster child for autoflight, is that it’s easy to get wrapped up in the automation function. And that is often at the expense of direct aircraft control.

At American Airlines, our boss the Chief Pilot started a campaign last year aimed at exactly this vulnerability. It’s called “Aggressively Safe,” meaning intervene in the automation cycle at the first sign of a problem with any system: disconnect the automation and hand-fly the aircraft until the validity of all automated systems can be verified and restored–or simply left disengaged.

That’s smart, considering the present vector of automation, which Boeing explicitly warns thus: “The new generation automated flight systems of the 787 level aircraft now outpaces the human capacity to do backup calculations.” In other words, a pilot can’t do the calculations associated with a flight maneuver fast enough to verify the accuracy and correctness of the automation performing the flight maneuver. Hence my boss’s wise counsel to intervene now, fly the aircraft safely, verify as soon as you can.

But in the case of total pitot-static failure, it’s not really a matter of disconnecting the automation, because it’s disconnected itself. In which case, there are two roads to go down, and one of them is a dead end.

As a pilot, I hope to god the road I choose is this: fly the jet, period. Worry about what happened later. The dead end road is to search for the cause of the failure or even worse, the cause of the automation disconnect–unless and until one pilot is decisively and exclusively flying the aircraft. Then the other pilot can concentrate on exactly that–which again, is standard American Airlines operating procedure.

But there again, the “why” of the malfunction isn’t as important as “how” of the work-around: you still have to control the jet and establish straight and level flight before anyone diverts attention to diagnostics and system restoration.

We’re fortunate on the Boeing -800 fleet to have displayed at all times an angle of attack gage, telling us at a glance the performance of the airfoil. And we also have–I assume Airbus has as well, but I don’t know–a valid groundspeed readout regardless of the pitot-static systems. Can I control the aircraft with just those two information streams? The answer is a resounding “yes,” and we practice exactly that at least once a year in the simulator.

But what you can’t easily ensure is the thought process that prioritizes aircraft control over system diagnosis and remediation. As I said, there’s a fork in the road: you either get your head in the flight game (groundspeed, engine power settings, angle of attack), or you go into the what-ifs of automation that has so many layers and so much complexity that you’re soon way deep into the forest and out of the stick and rudder flying realm. I’ve been doing this a long time–long enough to know I ain’t smart enough to travel both roads at once. And in the case of pitot-static failure, we need both of us traveling down the aircraft control road before anyone even attempts a side trip in automation land.

Going Forward

In my experience, automation failure is usually attributable to three factors: power failure, data-input error, or data/program corruption. So when the automation trips off–and it does, often enough, on an average flight–I have those three things in the back of my mind. In the front of my mind is the flight path and aircraft attitude. Stick and rudder always works. And as one wise old fighter pilot who taught crew management to captains at my airline used to say, no matter what emergency is going on in flight, there’s always time to take a deep breath and say to yourself, “Can you believe this sonofabitch is still flying?”

And that’s the key: flying. Not troubleshooting, diagnosing, or otherwise attending to systems. Unless and until the “flying” part is assured, which is easier said than done. That’s because most pilots are technicians, experienced in working with complex flight management and navigation systems. Many have engineering backgrounds and are naturally inclined to solve technical problems.

Fine–except once you go down that rabbit hole, the other guy is solo and worse, if both pilots succumb to the lure of technical “what’s it doing” or what’s wrong with this system?” tail chase–then whose undivided attention is manning the stick and rudder?

So rewind. What do I take away from this accident report? First, when the autoflight systems fail, it’s time for old fashioned stick and rudder application–period. Troubleshooting? Systems analysis? Later–and only after one pilot is firmly established and solely concentrated on aircraft control.

Second, in a pitot static failure, GPS groundspeed and angle of attack will let you extrapolate straight and level flight. On our jets, the Heads Up Display–HUD–will also display energy potential. Also, the FMS will display the required engine power setting for level flight–set it, leave it, watch it. Divide and conquer: since the HUD is only on my side, I’m flying, copilot is running through the systems checklists.

Conclusion

Like every other flight and flightcrew, I realize my own vulnerability when it comes to systems failures and autoflight malfunctions: the distracting technical rabbit hole luring pilots away from the stick and rudder application and into the layered, complex technical realm of autoflight to detect and “fix” a problem. That’s the real problem.

The designers who built the jet designed it to fly despite the systems failures, if we as pilots attend to the flying as top priority. And my old fighter pilot friend filled in the blank to the final question: just take a deep breath and keep the jet flying.

It’s just that simple, and just that complex. The irony is, if I’m successful, you’ll never know the difference, and that’s pretty much my goal, and that’s also my plan. The rest is going to be, on your part, a leap of faith.

Hawkeye, Frankenpants, and Fate.

It’s almost a pagan thought that somehow fate will always poke you back, especially when you poke it in the eye. The hawk eye.

Pagan and Catholic are like oil and water, at least on the surface, and toss in a backwash of fate and there go your pants, and at the worst time. Am I getting ahead of myself? Slow down–breathe: fate takes it’s own damn time.

I can explain. Hawkeye was a nun from the order of St. Francis sent to earth to torment my junior high school. They were The Sisters of Perpetual Violence because the smack hand could come out of nowhere and at any time, since the hawkeye missed nothing.

Between academics and vigilance against the all-seeing, punitive Hawkeye, life in the school was like the daily challenge of the nine-banded armadillo: see the road, see the traffic–but you gotta go, smashed shell or no. You just have to, and what a headrush when you live through it.

And granted this was the era of “you’ll put your eye out” and other mom-isms it was important to refute, as well as to disprove the dire prediction that we couldn’t be the heathens we were and ever expect to amount to anything, much less what we wanted to be, as adults.

Which, in the case of my small band of heretics, was to be Air Force pilots first–then airline pilots afterward. We lived and breathed it: the talk, the model planes, the gas powered planes–all of it. It’s all we could do then, but certainly not all we’d do eventually. Shiny faced like a new penny, what are you going to do? Run across that highway: time the traffic, get a little closer each time, but cross. What a rush, on the other side.

But nuns don’t care for games of chicken. You’ll be in jail by the time you’re 18, Hawkeye promised me, and in the electric chair by 21. And yet the pagan gods of defiance held me in good stead: seldom caught in the act, never busted outright. Those tires came close to my rubbery shell, but the worst of it was little more than a promise from Hawkeye: you boldbrazenimpudentdisgrace–it was all one word when she said it–having your fun at other’s expense. But some day, it will be at yours.

A lot of shells got crushed on the highway of time. Bob G. forgot about the pilot dreams and enlisted in the Navy. Terry became a mailman and a pothead; Kenny a priest, Larry sold life insurance and Mike “Pick-a-Butt” took over his dad’s heating and air business. I’m the only one who didn’t turn away from the master plan. God knows why.

The years stretched mile after mile smooth out and the rolling hills flatten as you go. Next thing you know, you’re living the dream as an everyday day-to-day.

It’s different on the inside of the dream–better, actually–and eventually the worldly difference becomes the norm. You make it up as you go. Too smart for your own good, can’t follow rules still rings true if hollow: what’s the point of the uniform, the inside track, if we need some kind of stinking badges?

No lines: duck under the rope and go . . . rip.

Felt it more than heard it, but there was no mistaking reality: a thousand miles from home, pants split open on the ass wide as the Grand Canyon and just as drafty. Hawkeye. Somewhere, she was nodding: I warned you. Rules are made for everyone, including you, Mister Duck Under The Ropes Like You Own The Place. Like my grandmother, Hawkeye labelled you with whatever transgression she’d discovered.

Think. Back up slowly, slowly, toward the agents, away from the boarding crowd. The agents are too busy to notice you driving around in reverse, but they see the hand right away.

Don’t ask, my look says. Just don’t ask. They go back to the furious clacking on keyboards that is required for even the simplest transaction. Move away, backing up like a tall truck backing into a giant garage, drafty as a cabriolet with the top down, ease in reverse toward the Men’s room . . . safe. Now what?

Frankenpants: grab the loose ends, crumple a seam, then suture with about two dozen staples. Then another dozen for good measure. They look like hell–and feel even worse: all the metal is on the inside; from the outside, my butt looks like two horse’s lips chewing my pants right up like hay.

My ass is a monster. Worse: no way to get through security. “Uh, yes, there’s metal . . . I have a bunch of staples holding the seat of my pants together. Hawkeye warned me this would happen.” True, I’m on the secure side of the airport, which is where I’ll stay for the rest of the day.

Sitting on the pants version of a Hair Shirt, the Bed of Nails, medieval devices of atonement: the staples bite, but what are you going to say? Can’t fly this approach, I’m sitting on pointy metal.  Make it three approaches, and three legs. I warned you, but you never listen.

Of course, the last leg was the worst.

No better way to ensure a smooth touchdown; so maybe we should always fly in Frankenpants. And probably we should keep that hawkeye in mind. Truly, she never meant anything but good for all of us, hoped for the best, feared the worst, and prayed for us constantly in between. Because look at you, Mister My Ass Is Stapled to the Hilt and These Pants are Going into the Dumpster in the Employee Lot and You’re Driving Home in Jeans From Your Suitcase, In The Lot In Your Underwear Changing, past is prologue.

And the hawkeye misses nothing, so you’ just better watch your step.

Hope Flies with Opal Eyes

Flying as captain is a marathon: the mileposts come slow and steady, so pacing is key. Especially when you’re tired, and you are.

You once counted, then stop counting after you reached 150, the number of details you must see to and okay before you even send the initial torrent 35 psi air coursing through the starter on the first jet engine. So you divide the tasks to conserve energy, and just like you when you run a marathon–no wasted motion, deliberate pace, tune out the distractions, concentrate. Half of you remains in the scan mode: you know where everything is and how it’s supposed to be, inside the cockpit. Let your eyes do the movement.

And the other half does the evaluating: numbers correct, weights, center of gravity; quantities; oxygen, oil, hydraulic fluid, jet fuel. Systems that need to be armed, armed. Each waypoint, loaded by datalink, but verified out loud between you and the first officer. Page through the jet’s maintenance logbook–how’s it been? What’s been acting up? Comm panel set, your stuff hooked up.

Then almost subliminally, you hear something that pokes. You’re going to need to do something? Something else, pulling both halves of you out of the stride you hold to make the endurance race to the finish line? You can go on up and say hi to the pilots. 

Means neither one of us will curse for the next few minutes. Means we’ll check out the mom–don’t lie, pilots do–and do our duty to a young person who’s on an adventure even as we run our marathon. You break out of the deliberate pace, the assigned role, to put on the TV character. It’s one more lap.

Until you turn around. A little one, maybe 3 or 4? Curly brown hair, a cherubic face sweet and fresh as a scoop of vanilla. And eyes like big opals, clear and white but flashing unlikely color and heat from somewhere. Concentrating. Taking it all in with the aplomb of little ones unknowing but full of hope, and buttressed by faith in mom standing behind.

Tell them your name. Small lips move, but the eyes don’t; wide as saucers, marking and storing this with everything else new, which just about everything is. You can’t hear whatever she said in a tiny voice drowned out by equipment cooling fans, whirring gyros and coursing air conditioning.

“Natalia,” the mom says, her dark mane a large copy of the tousled mini-me still wide-eyed and unblinking. Natalia thrills at what I don’t, what I can’t any more: a Christmas tree, the state fair, a ride at Disney where everything isn’t anywhere in particular, but scattered like pretty shells on the beach or a jewelry case: new, random, unnatural, gleaming.

In the background, the number one flight attendant argues with the agent over some passenger boarding issue; voices raise, which once again means you’ll add another lap to the race, another item on the list of things to resolve, but later. Natalia’s miniature hand thrusts forward a small book without another word. I get it that she’s reading me, man in a uniform, in a place that’s strange, where wonderful things like flying must be possible, likely; take that on faith–mom said so. Out of my zone now, my zoned out stride; I have to smile back at those big perfect eyes, serious set mouth and precious faith she has in her parents, and their having entrusted her to us.

I’ll sign her log book. It’s now a written contract, a piece of her childhood promised for later appraisal and cherished by mom like her Dora the Explorer tickets and her first crayon scrawls, Natalia’s First Flight. A moment bronzed like baby shoes, a snapshot whose corners haven’t tattered yet because we’re living that moment.

Then it’s over.

The marathon run resumes, the litany, both halves checking and confirming facts and figures, waypoints and weights. The flight service supervisor wants to blame the flight attendants for the delay outbound–which is really attributable to the jet being late inbound. I just want to get this flight out on time, the tired supervisor sighs. “It’s too late for that,” I shoot back. “How ’bout we do this without a body count of crew casualties?” She storms off. I’ll hear about it later. Doesn’t matter–you have to take care of your crew.

Finally, the emancipation of pushback and engine start, climbing the stadium steps of checklists and performance confirmation on taxi-out. Mile markers, each ticked off carefully, we join the heavy aluminum conga line to the runway. Strapped in tight, silent save required responses and the crackle of radio transmissions between the tower and the gaggle of jets streaming toward the active runway.

My last items, mental mantra, always: gross weight, verify one more time the correct speeds, correct configuration, correct runway; stabilized thrust at 91.3 N1 on roll; engines-engines-engines only on abort after 80 knots: idle, speedbrakes then reverse, amen. My eyes hide behind sunshades; they know where to look, what to look for, what we’ll see, and what we shouldn’t–then what action to take in case we do. It’s a wrap-around blanket, full confidence and thirty plus years of flight experience, twenty-one in the left seat.

Yet for me, as I release the brakes and standup the power levers, waiting for the welcome growl of 55,000 pounds of jet thrust biting the air, shoving us back into our seats as we head for the sky, the shiny lightness of it all stems from one thing: Natalia’s going to leave the Earth today, for the first time.

That, like a first Christmas, a single birthday candle, the first star of the first night, just doesn’t happen very often, or really ever again. So for a stolen moment, I fly through, and in, the vision of those perfect opal eyes. Though you might suspect otherwise, somehow things seem a little brighter, the arc a little higher. You know it really is, at least for now.