Fearful Flyers: What Not To Worry About.

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

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

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

Welcome aboard!

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

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

If you only knew.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peak Experience

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

Good thing I took out the garbage.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Further south: Hood!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Holiday Travel Weirdness: The Jethead Chronicles.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whoo-hoo: hot fudge brownies for the crew!

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

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

Phoenix glides by 7 miles below.

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

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

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

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

One Pilot’s Perspective: 737 vs. MD80

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

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

What a wake-up call.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MD80 flight director.

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

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

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

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

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

Who IS the airline Captain anyway?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And loved it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who is the airline captain? Now you know.

The TRUTH About Flight Attendants.

You sure you’re ready for the truth?

Still watching “Happy Days” reruns? Or maybe even “Leave it to Beaver” (okay I do, but I already have seen behind the curtain when it comes to Flight Attendants) where June Cleaver vacuums in pearls and heels? If this is you, please click here. Okay, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

First, let’s start with the basics: who IS this person we call Flight Attendant? Where do they come from? Actually, they’re parents and spouses and significant others and sons and daughters. And they come from, well, everywhere.

My friend Melissa and her crew.

The common denominator seems to be the ability to get along with nearly anyone. That, plus the ability to handle children. No, it’s not that they handle children on board in their role as Flight Attendant. Rather, they must deal with a lot of childishness in flight on both sides of the cockpit door. So anyway, many, it seems, have a background in Education: either  as a college degree or as a teacher–or both.

My friend Nanci dealing with one of the children on board.

But that’s just what constitutes a significant number, but by no means, the majority. I once dated a Flight Attendant who had previously been a USDA meat inspector (I got rejected as “Not Prime,” although I’d like to consider myself at least “Average Chuck”), I know several with PhDs, I know one guy who flies for my airline who is an M.D.; the bass player in my band (shoutout to Angela!) is a flight attendant; My Darling Bride (MDB) before she became a “stewardess” was an engineer.

Okay, WARNING: don’t EVER call them “stew;” they hate it–even though my own mother, even after 25 years of non-rev travel on my passes still calls me to say, “The stews were so nice.”

Thanks, Mom.

But I can use the term myself because MDB doesn’t listen to me any more and in fact, with Flight Attendants you could say anything you want on the aircraft P.A. and they’ll NEVER KNOW. Seriously–the P.A. is a frequency that they can’t hear–kind of like a reverse dog hearing–so I could announce “I slept with your sister!” on the P.A. and she would simply ask, “what time are we landing?” Because she didn’t hear that P.A. either. But I digress.

Let’s just cut to the chase: here’s what you really want to know. In fact, let’s just go over important facts you NEED to know if you’re going to deal with flight attendants (of course you are, in flight), or date a flight attendant (you THINK you are, but that’s in YOUR dream, not theirs and they don’t get much sleep these days anyway), or maybe even you want to BE one (What, you’re finally off suicide watch, now this? Break the Prozac in half). Anyway, learn THIS:

1. Flight attendants will kick your ass. Seriously, they can and they will if they have to–and trust me, I’ll explain later–you want them to.

Okay, Carolyn's actually one of my Facebook friends and she's very nice. Mostly.

I’m not kidding. If you piss them off, you will pay. It might be be something simple like overfilling your coffee cup purposely so you’ll have to spill it (that was one of MDB’s specialties) or even the patented Flight Attendant “eff you” that is given so subtly and sweetly that you don’t even realize till the cart and flight attendant are three rows back before you think it through and realize, “Hmmmm . . . I think I just got told to go eff myself.”

Not that you don’t deserve it: they’ve asked one hundred people before you the same simple question–“What would you like to drink?” And they’ve answered the what do you have question at least as many times, plus they made a P.A. giving you the answers ahead of time. So, when you in row 32 ask again anyway, they have a soothing, pleasant proximate answer that after a few minutes your brain finally deciphers correctly as, you stupid idiot, YOU SHALL HAVE NOTHING. To which I would add, “you douchebag” but Flight Attendants are more skilled and less vulgar than I am. Bottom line: don’t be an idiot.

2. Flight attendants will share their ass–and they are crafty. We’re all crammed into a long, sealed tube, right?

Let’s face it–you’re in a sardine can for hours on end. In the cockpit, I actually have separate zone-controlled (by me) air conditioning and recirculation. Yes, it is good to be captain. And sure, you have some weird ideas about what goes on beyond that cockpit door, don’t you?

Suffice it to say that we pilots get “the royal treatment.” Now let’s move on.

Back to the long metal tube you’re paying a few bucks to be trapped in rather than face the freeway for days on end getting to whatever destination you’ve coughed up your vacation savings for.

The air in the jet is fine, it’s just the people like you who muck it up with your coughing, sneezing and personal exhaust if you know what I mean and I think you do.

Well, the cabin is their workplace, too.  As long as they’re trapped and required to endure assorted emissions from both of your ends (sometimes you’d have to think that the ones from your south end are more tolerable than the “what do you have?” stuff coming out topside), they deserve a chance to defend themselves. And when you travel, especially as much as we do on a flightcrew, diet is at best a catch as catch can thing. That end result is bad, eventually.

Wet cleanup on aisle six.

And the best defense in this case as in most others is a good offense.

Hence, “crop dusting.” That’s the diabolical plan by which they spray front to back on board so that by the time you get smacked in the face

"My god--air, please . . . !

. . . they’re already halfway to the aft galley and out of sight. You all will blame each other, but there was, you should know, a secret plan:

From the Flight Attendant Manual: "Always cropdust front to back."

There’s nothing you can do about this, by the way, except take small breaths. Deal with it.

Finally, here’s the last and probably most important thing you should know:

3. Flight attendants will save your ass. And that’s what they’re on board for–not just to tell you what beverages are available, not to entertain you, but actually to save your ass in the worst possible moment of your life.

Notice who isn’t walking away from this crashed aircraft alive and well? It’s the Flight Attendants who helped them off and are still on board helping others. That’s what they do. And that’s why you want them to be able to do item #1 above: they need to be able to throw your ass down an escape slide if you can get out of a burning passenger cabin yourself.

They can handle the 90 pound emergency exit door or the even heavier cabin doors. They know the route by feel and by heart to the nearest emergency exit in a smoke-filled cabin–and they’ll take you there. They are ready with first aid and CPR and a defibrillator and a fire extinguisher and oxygen and anything else you or I might need in flight. Not what we “want” in flight, although they take care of all they can–but most importantly, what you need to make it off the plane alive in any circumstance.

That’s the challenge they’ve undertaken on your behalf. That’s what they’ve trained to do, what they’re tested on and certified annually and rigorously through drills, classes and study.

They’re not leaving without you, even if they have to haul your ass out of a burning plane themselves. To me, that’s amazing.

This they do for minimal pay over long hours with little time for food or sleep and with complete disregard for time zones or body clock, because that’s just the nature of the job. I’ve never known a more selfless group, and there isn’t a more versatile group of professionals on the planet. They can hang with anyone, talk to anyone, and they’ll save the life of anyone, in the air or on the ground.

Do I have to spell this out for you? You should respect and appreciate the unique and giving individuals who are the flight attendants on your flight. Or in my case, I appreciate the one who is my partner for life. Or there’ll be an ass-whuppin’ in short order for you and me alike.

Got it? Good–remember it. Think about the big three flight attendant truths I just shared with you the next time you fly.

And be sure, if nothing else, that you know what you’d like to drink BEFORE the cart gets to you. When it does, “please” and “thank you” are mandatory–especially to the professionals who can both kick your ass and save it, and who will do both as necessary.

And THAT is the truth about Flight Attendants.

Epilogue:

Actually never met the guy, but you gotta like the way he thinks.

Coming next:

You hear the name, you see the pilot, but who is this person, “the airline captain” in whom you place your trust?

The exclusive, only here. Subscribe.

Sea level to 737 Captain: Back Into The Blue.

NOTE: This is the final entry in a series tracing firsthand what it’s like

for an airline pilot to transition to a new aircraft. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

________________________________________________________________

Jitters about the two-part simulator check? With the FAA? Only a fool wouldn’t worry.

But, you learned a long time ago to set that aside. Whether it was before skydiving, or military flying, or even starting a marathon, you’ve always been good about acknowledging fear–then leaving it behind. Because it doesn’t help help going forward, and often that road ahead was full of problems. Worked best with full concentration.

The last hurdles between you and the real jet in the blue sky is the Maneuvers Validation, then the Rating ride. The “Maneuvers Val” as everyone calls it is  a four hour test involving all of the most important performance standards: precision and non-precision (what a pain in the ass) approaches, Category 3 (300 yards visibility) hand flown, single engine and dual; systems failures and how you handle not only malfunctions, but also the crew. You’re the captain remember?

Then the rating ride will be with an evaluator, plus at no additional charge, the FAA Principal Operations Inspector for the 737 fleet at our airline. That will be a two-leg enroute sequence with surprises, technical and mechanical “gotchas.” No problem–you wouldn’t want to be turned loose with a full jet without competence in every facet. Yes, they’ll throw the gauntlet at you, then judge how you handle it.

Doesn’t mean you don’t worry about the one shot deal facing you. Twenty-five years with the airline and never a busted check. But everything only gets more complex and challenging as time goes on–you can’t even imagine how anyone comes off the street into this career field–so there’s no slack even after 17,000 flight hours.

Maneuvers Val: Just one of those days. Slow, careful, methodical–it just came together piece by painstaking piece. Easy start with a min viz take-off. That’s with 300 feet of forward visibility in heavy fog, which requires centerline guidance through the Heads Up Display (HUD) for me to keep on the straight and narrow till liftoff.

CONCENTRATE! You know The Dead Zone between 80 knots and rotate speed at 143. You don’t bite on the wrong abort: you have a split second to decide and correctly announce “continue” despite the angry yellow master caution light glaring through the bottom of the HUD.

Airborne, then a warmup with some navigation intercepts, some holding. That’s just three dimensional thinking and then correct radial layout and execution of point-bearing-distance and intercept. Cake.

First engine fails on a missed approach; carefully, smoothly, just enough rudder; recite the litany (pat your head, rub your stomach) while keeping on course and an climbing vector: “Flaps fifteen–positive rate, gear up; throttle (confirm) close, start lever (confirm) cutoff, fire switch pull and rotate; heading select runway heading . . .” and so it goes.

And so it went: slow, careful, deliberate. You’ve been a captain for over nineteen years–you take it slow and methodical; as your old CRM former fighter pilot bud used to say, “First and always, take a deep breath and say can you believe this son-of-bitch is still flying?”

The Rating ride too: careful, methodical, taking your time–they even try to rush you, but like in real life when that happens, you slow down even more: no one pays you to rush and they’ll hang you for a mistake.

Before you could even think about it, mired in concentration, it was over. Thank god. And thank god for the rock-solid F/O that Bill is.

Then the verdict. In a briefing room cold enough to hang meat, seated across from us, FAA sitting to the side, the evaluator speaks: “This is the good stuff, guys–congratulations, and welcome to the fleet.”

Then there was more paper. Here’s the whole, arm’s length training schedule

heading for the trash. Because the only piece of paper that really matters is in hand:

The ticket: type rated as captain in the Boeing-737-800. The end of hours of study, classes, computer based training, manuals, systems trainers and full motion simulators. All of them, and every bit of the considerable effort it took to thread the needle through yet another aircraft qualification were all to put you on the doorstep of yet another flying opportunity.

That day, the first flight, is best seen in pictures, and here they are.

The day starts early, but somehow you don’t mind. It’s like Christmas morning, and there’s a new jet under the tree. The eyes just pop open.

Check out your new ship. From the terminal? The jetbridge? Heck no–you go downstairs and meet her where she’s waiting patiently, already loaded up with fifteen tons of jet fuel, ready to leap off to the coast.

Couple of these bad boys slung under the wing will be needing about 20,000 pounds of that jet fuel to hurl us across the country.

Nice lines, the wing noticeably higher above the ground with a greater dihedral angle than the old Douglas flat wing. Something for you to keep in mind: if you evacuate the people onto the wing, it’s a long way to the tarmac. And that’s a seven foot tall winglet out there–looks like a toy from the ground, but it’s large and graceful.

You’re seldom out here at this hour of the morning, and that’s by choice–and seniority. But it’s almost like returning to your roots, back to earlier days when you weren’t senior but were glad nonetheless for any flying schedule. When you appreciated how many people wished they had the job of climbing into the cockpit and not just riding, but actually making it happen.

It’s a new day, isn’t it, both literally and figuratively? And there’s nothing like the feeling of anticipation on a ramp with loaded jets like a team of horses ready to break loose and gallop away. You need to saddle up.

There you go: best seat in the house. And humbling, isn’t it? You’re just damn lucky to sit there. Yeah, there were many years of scrambling and sweating for it–many gave up along the way–but no one really deserves the great privilege of the captain’s seat on a cool jet.

But since no one really does–it might as well be you. Just stay humble, and be grateful, and pass that along.You’ll share the flying with more good F/Os along the way.

And she really does hand fly well: stable, a solid wing. That winglet seems to make her ride a little tighter through chop; not sure that’s a good thing, at least for passengers. But you can feel the power in those two CFM-56 engines, feel the stability and lift of that wing climbing out.

And the seat of the pants feeling: it’s all different now. It’s like you were married to the MD-80 for twenty-plus years, but now you’re sleeping with someone else. You knew every move she made in her sleep, her breathing; now it’s all different: the shudder of the wing in chop, the movement of the throttles and the rumble of her pressurization. Cues mean something new, you’re still trying to read her.

Takes time. While, you’re learning, don’t forget to appreciate the view

as seven miles below, dawnlight drenches the canyons of Utah like spilled paint.

Appreciate the fact that half of the First officers on the property have been gagging in the right seat for fifteen to twenty years, waiting to move up to the captain’s ranks. Half of the F/Os at the base are on suicide watch, the other half have lost interest and just come to work because it’s the only job they’re qualified to do–or are paying most of their attention to a side job.

Enjoy that cup of coffee at the top of descent, then go do what you do best. With thankfulness for the good fortune to, as you will next month, every Tuesday fly this shiny new jet to Toronto; spend the night downtown, then on Wednesday, Chicago, then on to Seattle; stay downtown. Then on Thursday afternoon, one leg home.

After the sound and the fury of struggling, striving, learning, surviving, it all comes down once again to this:

Back into the blue.

It’s what you do.

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Coming up next week:

Yeah, this one might get my ass whipped, but the story should be told.

Subscribe! You don’t want to miss this one . . .

From Sea Level to 737 Captain: Judgment Day.

NOTE: This is part of a series that examines firsthand what it’s like for an airline pilot

to transition to a new airliner. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

____________________________________________________________

Judgment Day: this is what it all leads up to: the FAA rating ride. That is, another aircraft “type” rating–that means that the FAA grants you the privilege of flying a specific aircraft type.

It’s mainly a captain thing. First Officers usually don’t get the Type Rating, although on our 737 fleet they do. Our airline decided that since the 737 fleet flies internationally –including south America and the Caribbean–they’d type all the F/Os to have complete versatility manning both the International and Domestic divisions.

And a rating ride is usually done by a designated airline examiner, meaning an airline pilot Check Airman (you were one yourself on the MD-80 fleet) is designated as the FAA certifying official. But for you? Sorry, it’s not your lucky day.

The Check Airman giving you your “polish work”–endless landings with ever increasing crosswinds, engine failures at lift off–casually mentioned, “By the way, the FAA Principal Operations Inspector will be observing you on your  rating ride.

Say what?!!

Like a rating ride isn’t enough: let’s add the feds, the guy who can revoke your pilot certificate with the stroke of a pen based solely on what he observes in your check.

“But don’t worry,” he added quickly, “he’s a really nice guy.” Yeah, with small fingers, right? And a set of beady little eyes watching everything you do for four hours, judging you. Judgment day.

Your luck is really lousy, isn’t it? You are so screwed.

But you’re getting ahead of yourself. Let’s revisit the last week. Here’s the plan:

Simulator Day 1 through Day 5 are with a simulator instructor: procedures, basic maneuvers, procedural flows. The sim instructor spends about two hours before each sim period going over the complex computer work we’ll doing with the Flight Management Computers (FMCs) in order to effect the performance and navigation we need to accomplish.

And it’s truly Byzantine in the complexity and layering of systems interaction that must be managed while flying the jet at the same time. The FMCs manage both vertical and lateral navigation, but there’s a catch: you have to program it properly and command the correct mode. Not so easy.

The hands-on is better, being something you can understand. And the neighborhood is becoming more familiar, too. You can find the switches and knobs and grouped systems you need to operate the jet.

But it’s one thing to DO the programming, and quite another to call for it while you’re hand flying. Kind of like patting your head and rubbing your stomach. The process is, programming the FMC, commanding change through one of six modes, monitoring the implementation of  the change on the Mode Control Panel lights, verify that with the proper annunciation on the primary flight display then the performance instruments, and then ultimately, the seat of the pants: is that enough power? Pitch? Roll?

Now see how that plays out on the Nav display: are we intercepting the lateral course? Will the wind shift the lead point past a mandatory fly-over  point? And vertically, will we make the assigned crossing restriction at the correct speed?

For you, the answers must be squared away with your cyborg-vision: the trick of the HUD, besides deciphering all of the data, is looking THROUGH it. Meaning, seeing the target through the HUD while gathering the data peripherally, not fixating on the ghostly green  glowing data stream itself.

When you’re rocketing down the runway, near take-off speed you’re traveling at over 200 feet PER SECOND. You cover a football field in the blink of an eye in the nosecone of a seventy ton missile of metal, fuel, bone and blood. You have a nanosecond to decide from the data before you–aural, visual and tactile–not only should we stop, but can we?

So we practice constantly in the simulator. Blasting down a wet runway, you keep the diamond shaped speed bug at 80 knots in your awareness. Any abort after that is only for the big four: fire, failure, fear or shear.

Two of these bad boys slung under the wings put out a combined 54,000 pounds of thrust.

That is, engine fire, engine failure, “fear” or your split second judgment that something has made the jet un-air worthy, or “shear,” which is wind shear. And that’s always the captain’s decision, and he’d better get it right because on the line, no “do overs.” It’s for keeps.

So rolling down the runway, near max abort speed, yellow caution light comes on; “continue” you announce correctly. Another time, at 120 knots, a fire bell. “Abort!” and you grab the controls, yank both engines into full reverse then through the most accurate gage–the seat of your pants–determine if the Autobrake system is handling the deceleration properly. If not–you must.

Actually, face it: every day, every flight, is judgment day. And you’d better be right.

Which is why everything’s accompanied by a specific and often tedious litany, but that’s what it takes to get the complex job done exactly every time. If it was easy, anyone could do it, right? And oh by the way, the FAA will decide if you’re doing it right.

. . . and do all this--perfectly--at over a hundred miles an hour in thick fog.

Anyway, you move on to the final simulator phase, and the Check Airman takes over. You did that job yourself for years on the MD-80 so you know the drill: now we marry up the instruction with real-world scenarios and applications.

Finally getting good, solid line-oriented advice fro a guy with a couple thousand hours in the jet: hold the power in till thirty feet, don’t float, a little opposite rudder and wing low. Ah, flying stuff–now THAT makes sense.

The hours are wearying: two hour brief, four hour sim; sometimes coming out of the box at midnight; sometimes going in at 5:30 am. Still, that’s just like the airline pilot job: some nights a tough approach in Seattle after midnight body time, often it’s a buttcrack of dawn take-off on the east coast.

Now, though, as we near the end of the syllabus, like the runway end rushing up at us, you have to make a judgment: are you ready? Are we as a crew ready? Like every decision you must correctly make in flight, there’s no easy answer.

But like in flight, you make the call. “You guys ready for your check?” he asks on the last training day.

That’s every bit as much a judgment call as you’ll ever make on the end of a runway or at decision height on an approach. No easy answer. Some things still feel rough. Most is okay, with a herculean effort. The First Officer? Solid as a rock, excellent pilot. But we’re both in the “new jet” phase with this beast. And the FAA will be in the front row, on board, second guessing you every step of the way. With the authority to ground you if you fail.

“Yes,” I assure the Check Airman. “Bring it on.”

Judgment Day? Yeah, every single one of ’em is that.  But if it was easy, everyone would do it, right?

Coming up next, the final hurdle: the maneuvers validation check (MV) and the line check (LOE). An eight hour four axis, full-visual simulator examination of everything from single engine approaches to minimum ceiling and visibility to complex navigation.

And the payoff for all of the work . . . the first flight in the real aircraft.

From Sea Level to 737 Captain: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

[Note: this is part of a continuing series describing what it’s like to become an airline captain on a brand new jet. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.]

.

Midway through the simulator phase and there’s plenty good, some bad and a lot of ugly.

But the latter stuff, that’s just your perspective as a pilot. What the hell do you know?

Overall, it’s good to be handling hardware rather than clicking a mouse and watching animation. But there are rough patches. You can’t find anything. Reflex guides your hands to the wrong place: need a wider Nav display range? That’s not where it is. Looking for a map light? Uh-uh, it’s over there, not here, and it can’t exactly reach anyway.

And the HUD: a thousand bits of information before your eyes. But it’s all displayed in lime green, largely negating the symbol sorting aide provided by colors (red, warning, yellow, caution, green okay, blue, advisory) on all other displays. Plus, what doesn’t fit on the display is converted into a number: the all important radio altimeter hides in among a cash crop of abstract digits rather than as a moving display. But half of what you need to call for is based on its countdown–or up.

Here’s you on the controls: take it easy . . . what is this with the power steering? You’re flying with hamfists and pork brains, or at least that’s how it will feel in the back of the plane.

From the movie Airplane:

Gunderson: “He’s all over the place! Nine hundred feet up to 1300 feet. What an asshole!”

Ever fly a plane before? Well, yeah–the last 19 years on the MD-80 which handles like a pig in both pitch–especially pitch, being a long tube, and with un-powered ailerons. The 737 is a Maseratti by comparison. So you feel like a klutz, wing-rocking down final because it’s so sensitive–and you’re not. Which brings out your inner teacher:

Maddog jocks, you know the drill: put some smash on the jet, aim it at the runway. Cross the  threshold at fifty feet with a plus-five knots (I always did; admit it, you do too) over V-Ref  speed then snatch off all the power. But not in the Boeing.

And you’re your own worst critic. The real teacher? The Simulator Instructor? She’s great; real laid back, very calming demeanor in the briefing and in The Box (which is what we call the simulator). You learn better that way, the way she is: confident, knowledgeable yet very easy-going.

Cleared for the approach, read the fine print.

Still, need a conversion course for MD-80 “steam jet” pilots. But you’re figuring it out: LNAV VNAV is smart box stuff–FMC driven.  Where’s the IAS and vertical speed? Ah, there’s the magic.

But practically speaking, the hours in The Box are beginning to add up. Here’s what week one of the sims reveals:

1. You’ve become lazy as a pilot because there was no challenge to the same old Flintstone (do I really need to spell this out? PREHISTORIC Douglas jet) flight deck for too many years. Time to update and rethink the concepts such as Category III approaches hand-flown to a 50′ decision height (YGTBSM), 600 RVR, vertical navigation, and how twenty-first century technology has changed flying.

Simulator instructor's station. Right behind us; pay no attention to the woman behind the curtain.

2. Boeing has made a stable hand-flying jet. That’s a good wing, a dependable airfoil. Feels substantial both in the flare and on rotation. Not so much lion taming with a whip and a chair like the MD-80. Plus power to spare, on the wing.

3. With the state-of-the art technology comes the challenge of lawyers and liability. Now procedures are driven by what just happened in court regarding some type of aircraft accident.

Anyone can fly like a pilot, but now you need to fly like an attorney. So many new restrictions and procedures that you can tell stem mostly from legal considerations and absolutely not from good flight practices. But that’s just the twenty-first century, right?

Still, so much to absorb, especially in the left seat: you’re going to sign for this jet and everyone on board in about ten days. You have to get this right, not just to pass a check, but for what you know is coming: that dark and stormy night when things start going to “the top of the pyramid:” options narrow, no way out, it’s up to you to out think and outdo whatever nasty situation that will–not might, will–test you in the air sooner or later.

Funny thing: flashback.

Pilot survival, from so many years ago. Back then, a “double-bang:” fly two sorties, back-to-back; formation, aerobatics–you name it. In between, a Coke and a bag of peanuts for you. The Coke had both caffeine and sugar to pep you up. Same deal now, at midpoint in every simulator session, in the Iron Kitchen now, in the Squadron Snack Bar back then, face still showing the outline of an oxygen mask, hair matted from a helmet.

Now, the Iron Kitchen is just an alleyway between simulator building, filled with vending machines and a few tables. It’s the crossroads of airline pilots all somewhere in sim world, whether on the break between sim periods on a check or like you, between training sim sessions. It’s the company of pilots at once lost in their own reverie about their sim check or like you, the right steps into a new jet, shooting the breeze, hangar flying, griping, laughing but regardless, it’s the folks who fly.

Just like back in the Air Force, the peanuts good and salty to put something on your stomach quick, then back to the struggle with an unruly jet that wants to get the better of you.

It didn’t then, and won’t now either. That I promise; I promise me, promise you. Believe it.

Coming next–and in the next installment of this blog: final preparation, the the FAA rating checkride. Stay tuned . . .

From Sea Level to 737 Captain: Drinking From The Firehose.

Note: this is part of a series relating firsthand what it’s like to transition to a new jet as an airline captain. If you’d like to start from the beginning, click here.

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It gets this way eventually in all aircraft ground school:

“In the beginning, there were two molecules. Then Boeing added a hydraulic system, plus five auto-switching electrical distribution buses, and transformer-rectifiers . . . .”

Huh? That’s what we call “drinking from the firehose.”

There’s always a balance in teaching theory in a one-size-fits-all syllabus: some people need to know the “whys,” some just the “whats.” You’re the latter category–just tell me what it does.

Really don’t need the why (“the Force-Fight Monitor closes this solenoid which allows pressure from the standby pump to blah blah blah. . .”) but simply the “what:” if the PACK TRIP light comes on, you can reset it and if the temperature goes down, it will come back on line.

Everyone learns differently. So at this phase of what’s become an information overload, you develop your information filters. Primarily, being practical, the sort criterion “will this be on the three hour systems exam?” organizes your thinking and listening.

Now it’s all about the exams on Friday: the 14 “Immediate Action Items” which have to be regurgitated verbatim–or the whole exam process stops. No references, besides your already overloaded brain.

Then if you get by that hurdle, there’s the 3 hour systems exam: the computer database generates 100 questions from thousands possible and creates a unique exam for you. For this, you can use your Operating Manual (unfortunately, not the systems manual) and Quick Response Handbook, because you’ll have them both in flight anyway.

Then finally, a one hour exam on an active Flight Management Computer: can you manually (the jet does this itself via data link) input the route of flight, nav data and then use it for intercepts, route changes, climbs, descents, restrictions and holding without ending up lost over  Bumfuk, Egypt?

That’s four days from now.

The good news? At least the cockpit is starting to make sense. You can find most of the stuff you need now and the beginnings of familiarity with systems actuation and procedures become stronger every day.

And this is a cool jet. So it’s worth the struggle.

The Flight Academy has every conceivable training gizmo you could think of to help you understand the function of the systems. Here’s the “Star Wars Trainer,” which has animated displays and touch screens, along with animated schematics to show you what’s going on system-wise when you activate components.

The navigation systems work as well, so it’s a completely integrated trainer–probably cost a bazillion dollars–but has room for chairs and books and active schematics to blend the cockpit and classroom.

That’s emblematic of the Flight Academy: all the best equipment, a thorough and advanced syllabus, even the schedule is engineered to account for travel time (Bill’s based in New York and lives in North Carolina) and even food requirements.

What choice did I have? Now I'm addicted--to both the crackers and the Captain's position.

Instruction has been thorough and very good, although it’s probably inevitable that the instructor would start to get in our hair after so many hours. You’ve even considered saying, “Look, I’ll let you use my name in exchange for you not poking or kicking me every time you want my attention.” Guess that’s just the way it goes–only a couple more days of ground school anyway.

So here’s your practical approach now:

1. With Bill, decide if the class stuff applies to The Bigass Exam this week. If not–ignore and study what is. We know as line pilots that trivia doesn’t really help in the air, or on an exam.

2. Take the practice test over and over. Still scoring in the upper 70’s (need 85%), but that’s without the flight manuals we’ll be allowed to consult and it included a few systems we haven’t covered. Looks like we’re on-track to hit the 90’s by the exam day.

3. Max the tome-length “Immediate Action Item” test–and you have been hitting 100% on that.

4. Don’t lose your marbles over the byzantine Flight Management Computer operation. That’s been going smoothly and will continue as long as you don’t over-think it.

A few more systems trainers and simulator sessions but mostly, ground school is all about getting out of ground school: the exams are dead ahead. Let’s get through them and move on.

Coming up next here: after the inquisition, on to full motion simulators. And in two weeks, into the air in the real jet. School’s fine, but get  back in the air where you belong.