Aviation weather, flying and more, with
Meteorologist & Pilot James Aydelott
To download and save, Click Here.
We talk live with
Ed Rasimus, co-author of “Fighter Pilot” and veteran of 250 combat missions over North Vietnam in fighters.
March 7th–don’t miss it!
Older JetHead Live podcasts are available free on iTunes, just click on the icon below.
________________________
At about a hundred-twenty miles from touchdown that combination of headwinds and distance remaining brought us to the best moment in any trip: the top of descent. Approach, landing and finally, home–straight ahead and a few miles down. Easy.
Everybody’s tired at the end of a flight day, so it was actually my good fortune to have it be the First Officer’s turn to land–we alternate, usually, on each flight leg–so I could watch and back him up but basically, I’d just relax.
We adjusted lights downward as the sun sank but more importantly, as we descended, the sunlight vanished like a candle blown out. My F/O looked a little greenish. “You good?” I asked, just to be sure. I used to hate it when captains asked me that when I was an F/O. But still, I needed to know.
“I was thinking I’d go to the lav,” he said, “but I’ll just wait.” Thanks for the heads-up: let me alert the media. Whatever.
He did look jaundiced, though, and it wasn’t just the failing light of the vanishing sun.
We hit the descent arc and the engines rumbled back, the nose dipped and the sigh of thicker air began to slip around the nose of the jet reassuringly. In my mind I was halfway to my car, on the way home after a couple thousand air miles. Not so fast.
As we leveled at the requisite eleven thousand feet to turn onto the downwind track, he looked over at me with eyes wide and said, “You’d better take it.”
I know my eyes narrowed; what the hell? I mean, I don’t mind landing–I’d rather do it myself anyway; easier to fly and know what you’re doing than monitor and wonder what someone else is doing. Which is why I’m the world’s worst airline passenger.
“I gotta go so bad, it’s going to be all I can do to NOT do it right here,” he said, knowing that there was neither time nor fuel for a trip to the lav now. We were in the traffic pattern, flight attendants strapped in, so none available to be bathroom monitor in the cockpit per regulations while he stepped out to the can. You should have gone before we left the house. Or altitude, In this case.
Seriously? One look into his deer-in-the-headlights eyeballs and I knew he wasn’t kidding.
“Okay,” I said, “no worries. I’ve got it. You just try to relax,” and not explode in that seat next to me, please god, “we’ll be on the deck really quick.” He was concentrating, tense, willing himself not to blow up; halfway bent forward.
“Tell you what,” I offered. “Once we land, we’ll just clear the runway, I’ll tell the tower we need to hold our position for a minute for a systems check–”
He looked over hopefully, gritting his teeth.
“Then you stroll back real casually while I make a PA about a slight gate delay, please remain seated, blah-blah-blah. Nobody’ll ever know.”
Like the first gust of a thunderstorm, an ill wind washed over me and I’d have grabbed an oxygen mask, but I knew that would be pretty inconvenient on a landing that would be mostly solo. He nodded, seeping.
Mercifully, Approach Control turned us inbound quickly and cleared us visually to land. Good deal, dirty up: more flaps (I’ll get ’em), throw out the gear.
That reassuring of the main gear falling into the slipstream, the nosegear door below us opening; three good thunks–but only two green lights on the landing gear.
“Well,” I sighed resignedly, “tell ’em we’re going around.” Meaning we’d have to break off the approach and enter the downwind again. He looked at me in horror, cheeks clenched. “No way!”
“We have to,” I said matter-of-factly, raising the gear and resetting the flaps to fifteen. Lava dome or no, I had to have verification of three safely down and locked landing gear before I committed a hundred sixty-five souls on board figuring to landing.
He slammed his head back against the headrest, sweating and riding way high in the saddle. Hold it tight, amigo; just damn well hold it.
On downwind, I read the checklist aloud and accomplished the pre-landing portion even as I swapped out gear bulbs on the offending indicator. On final: three green. We touched down smartly on the outboard runway, and barely cleared when straps flew and his seat ratcheted back against the stops, armrests flying back. I set the brakes and told the tower we needed to hold there for a moment; they approved it, bored, no conception of the lava dome about to burst in the cockpit.
I was trying to make a casual PA: “Well, folks . . . a little ramp delay ahead of us, so . . .”
The cockpit door banged open and he flew out, wild-eyed, undoing his the belt on his pants as he went.
“. . . we’re going to be here for a moment or two . . .”
The lav door shut so hard it rebounded open, then slammed shut again. He was doing the kind of “jump off a cliff” yell you’d expect from a suicide or anyone watching Game 6 of the last World Series when the Rangers exploded, only slightly muted by the flimsy lav door. It sounded like a Three Stooges-style rumpus with what I assumed were the thuds of elbows and knees clobbering the walls as a safe delivery posture was assumed. There was the muffled sound of a balky chainsaw refusing to start despite multiple pulls, then tendrils from another seething toxic gas cloud spread like an oil spill, alerting First Class as to what the “ramp delay” was really about. Several horribly choked cycles of the vacuum-flush from the lav eliminated any further doubt.
He returned to the cockpit, rumpled, relieved, both literally and figuratively; a new man. “That worked out well,” he said, staring straight ahead, “and just in the nick of time.”
“Not sure you fooled anybody,” I offered casually, releasing the parking brakes.
He shrugged. “Yeah, well. We all gotta go sometime.”
Yeah, I guess we all do.
What does the future hold for the airline business?
Join JetHead Live with airline analyst and writer Holly Hegeman:
To download or save, click here.
Visit Holly Hegeman’s website PlaneBuzz.
Next week, on JetHead Live:
Meteorologist and Pilot James Aydelott:
Weather, flying–and more.
It’s only Thursday in the sense of a time-segment before days off: could be any named day of the week. But in the flight crew world, the calendar slips days like gears, the only important condition being that the drive train works, turns, moves: flies.
And it’s Thursday in the sense of past-mid work week tired; thousands of miles gone like pages turned, but the final chapter yet to be written, never mind the epilogue: you’re responsible for how the story turns out; lots of folks will be reading over your shoulder, commenting eventually. On time? Bumpy ride?
Nobody reads between the lines anyway–fuel burn, altitude, routing, navigation; pay no attention to the man behind that curtain. Just as well, though, because surgery is easier for the surgeon if the patient is completely out of the conscious realm. Leave the driving to us.
The day, like the trip, has broken in half and the better part of the light and heat slipped over the horizon, fickle as tomorrow, leaving dusk like a sigh that slowly dies, restless, then dark.
Freak! Coward. Regardless, gone is the day and with it, distance and depth, at least ahead and below. Still in hand, though, the reins of chaos: 50,000 pounds of thrust and 3,000 psi of hydraulics moving ailerons and rudders on demand. The sea is dark and the reins tight and make no mistake: we’re cruising the fire in the dark.
We’re on the downside of a northern arc when the eastbound fireflies cross our nose; below, mostly, having just left the west coast headed east. We’re lighter, waypoints beyond and a few thousand feet above their path, surfing the jetstream east. The burst of wingtip strobes, pinpoints, then the permanent geometry of running lights–green passes nearest on the starboard wingtip slicing along eastbound; the captain’s side, the red tip, harder to spot but like ships running through the fog, you know which way they’re headed by the configuration of lights.
And in their cockpit, a temple of dark silence like yours, someone’s manning the fires, someone’s got the reins, both beat back the chaos only inches away of a -50 degrees freeze-dry you in seconds outside air temp too cold to even form ice; the 500 mile per hour gale that would shred the conglomeration of bodies and bones and stuff and wires and metal over three states if the reins slip loose; the air half again as thin as the top of Everest, turning you blue before you could lose consciousness a heartbeat later.
Steady, a steady hand, a steady head watching the geometry of time, distance and altitude shrink–hold the reins, adjust accordingly. It’s a step-down of epic proportions, energy paid out, energy dissipated on a gradual, bone-saving scale. Got to serve the numbers to keep the geometry safe, flat and eventually, at a complete stop. And it’s only Thursday, pace yourself: another attempt at hotel sleep, food; watering like any draft horse needs because there’s another flight day tomorrow.
Cheat sheet: you know the ballet, but it doesn’t hurt have a thumbnail sketch. The orchestra strikes a chord an octave lower each measure, carefully slower, hold it, to the final note. Rest.
Taxi in, Thursday nearly done. Folks are now where they’d planned to be, never mind the reins, the chaos, the fireflies, the jetstream. That’s your world. That’s the flight crew world, where tomorrow at last the clock strikes Friday–and home.
This week, on Jethead Live:
We go one-on-one with airline analyst
Holly Hegeman
concerning the future of air travel . . .
Wednesday!
Don’t miss
Thirty plus years together flying in the Air Force and the airlines,
the Wolfpack Flight looks back–and forward:
To download or save, click here.
Burned–not just figuratively: literally.
And while the feeling might be among those not close to the fire, “who cares,” the answer is simple, once you too start feeling the flames. And you will: the way of American business today is to break up the furniture and burn it to heat the house.
Still you might say, “not in my business” to which I’d reply, “maybe not for now.” But you will notice the wildfire consuming the airline business the next time you decide to go somewhere by air. And eventually, if those in big business who control yours decide it’s financially expedient in the short term to cash you out, your very own comfy chair, desk, pension and future will provide the heat to warm the place long after you’re out in the cold.
The Dallas Morning News reports that the combined post-bankruptcy Delta-Northwest combination, over 30,000 airline jobs went up in smoke; the post-bankruptcy Continental-United merger torched an equal number; USAir through bankruptcy burned up another 20,000, and American Airlines just forced into bankruptcy will of necessity claim thousands more faces ghostly to those who don’t know them, even more ghostly to those who do.
But not you, not now, right? No, now it’s this guy, and whether you know it or not, he is you–not that you’d recognize it or admit it, for now:
He’s the Citizen Kane who has been handling your bags for all of the years you’ve been flying. He’s the muscle behind the launch of your jet to wherever you’re going, then he goes home to a family like yours. He’s been doing this for twenty-some years–but not any more: he’s been cashed out, broken up and thrown on the fire to heat the house. There are hordes waiting to smash your bags for minimum wage–so who needs him?
Airlines have no choice but to invest billions in new aircraft, then try to make ends meet with a cost structure skewed by oil prices, the wild card held hostage by both oil speculators and petroleum producing nations, many of whom despise the American way of life–including the cheap airfares connecting the length and breadth of our far-flung nation, a promise made to you by your congress as if it were a sacred entitlement no matter whose job or pension it costs to deliver the savings to you. Who do you think will pay that price for you?
I know who. She’s the one who would save your butt over her own when the real fires start burning:
Many started with me back in the 80s, flying now to support families and to pay mortgages and to have life on the earth like everyone else. Thousands of those dreams and lives went up in smoke through bankruptcy court to heat the chilling business that hangs and dies on the price of a barrel of oil. And month after month, that fluctuation extinguishes not only the hopes and dreams of folks like her–but also the bottom line of the airline that you love to vilify for charging a fraction of what it costs to buy an NFL or NBA playoff ticket. Getting you there, however, must be bargain basement pricing, right? I mean, it’s your right, right?
And don’t forget this guy; well, then again I guess you’d better:
He’s the knuckle-buster I depend on to tell me the jet’s ready, fixed, 100%. And when he says it, I know it’s true. Because he’s the same mechanic who migrated with me from tough, lean years in the military, or the civilian A&P ranks, who like me has put in the thousands of hours of sweat equity taming these giant beasts of metal and fuel and fire and a thousand high-tech components wiring it into a flyable tonnage the size of a freight train at shotgun speed–with your ass strapped aboard. But, his craft can be duplicated–though his lineage certainly cannot be–somewhere a thousand miles off shore for a third of the price. So he goes up in smoke too.
And finally, come on up to the pointy end.
Who’s going to fly your jet? Me, I’m here for the duration: USAF experience worldwide, 26+ years at my airline, 21+ as captain, but here’s the catch: who in the next generation of pilots who witness my nearly 27 years of pension go up in smoke like a “strike-anywhere” match as it just did is going to dedicate his life to your cheap air travel? Who will spend the $80,000+ on flight ratings, or the years of military indentured servitude to aspire to the dead end, $20,000 a year entry level that the job boils down to, just to linger in slow-death overtime as no one can afford to leave once their pension is erased?
Airline analyst Michael Boyd predicted that if this trend continues, airline pilots of the future will be the five year, “I was a ski bum/bartender in Aspen then got a real job” type turnovers, despite the weather, the terrain, the technology, and the challenges of piloting your airline flight.
Because who else with a lick of sense would perform a life and death drama daily for peanuts and an unsure future, branded by the vision of 100,000 airline pilots before them stripped of a future, cut loose with a retirement reduced to nothing?
I don’t know who, but that’s who’ll fly your jets. And I don’t know who in their right minds would choose the monumental and unrecoverable price tag that fuels the “burn ’em up and keep it cheap” model endorsed by your blind eye congress and ultimately by, well, you.
And that’s what you’ll get. Breaking up the furniture to heat the house, regardless of what’s left, never mind habitability or who would have thought, survivability, down the road?
Meanwhile, no worries for now, bon voyage and just warm yourself at the bonfire . . . for as long as it lasts.
He’s amassed over 20,000 hours in the Boeing 727, 737, 757, 767, 777.
JetHead Live goes one-on-one with
Boeing Instructor Captain Mark Rubin
Click Here to listen and/or download
All JetHead Live podcasts available free on iTunes. Just click on the logo below.
While most veterinarians don’t recommend shipping your pet by air for a lot of good reasons, it can be done safely if you plan carefully and, like you must for your own travel, plan well ahead of time.
When it comes to airlines and pet owners, there are basically two options: fly with your pet in the cabin, or have your pet put aboard in the cargo hold. On this latter option, there’s another choice: pet shippers, professionals who are in the business of shipping pets and will actually come to your door, help prep and consult on (or provide) an adequate shipping container.
But no matter which way you choose to transport your pet, you should know that there are actually regulations covering such transportation by both the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA), and statistics regarding animal mishaps can be found on the Air Travel Consumer Report published monthly by the Department of Transportation (DOT). The DOT also publishes some guidelines for shipping pets that you should review.
Still wanting to fly your pet somewhere? Fine–according to the DOT, over two million pets and other animals are shipped by air annually, so, it can and is done often and successfully.
The best summary of “must-do” items I’ve seen comes from the guidelines for shipping pets linked above. Once you’ve ensured that your animal’s condition, shipping container and travel arrangements meet those basic standards, let’s look at the operational aspect: the airport and the flight.
While some airlines stop shipping animals in the coldest and hottest months of the year, many ship year round. But that should be a warning to you: some airlines believe that the extremes of temperature on the ramp that normally is acceptable for cargo might be too harsh for pets. Can you ship during a more temperate season? Can you change plans if the temperature is extremely hot or cold on your travel day?
Because your pet in a kennel will be subject to hot or cold temps on the airport ramp during both the cargo loading and unloading process, which can easily be up to a half hour each way. The flight line and the ramp are hostile environments: extreme noise (hearing protection required for humans–and many pets have even more sensitive hearing) and harsh temperatures. Now, our cargo guys at American Airlines (and I assume most airlines) really are sensitive to pet shipments, trying to minimize the trauma for the animals. Nonetheless, there’s little that can be done about the extremes of temperature and noise that are the facts of life on the flight line.
So, to minimize ramp exposure, try to book a nonstop flight. That will eliminate a mid-trip necessity for the pet and carrier to be offloaded from one jet and trucked across the flight line to another. In the case of both an origination flight and a connecting flight, a delayed inbound flight can mean a long sit on a cargo vehicle on the ramp–a nonstop flight eliminates one long round of exposure to heat, cold and noise on the ramp.
And here’s a myth that we can put to rest: no, the cargo compartment is not unpressurized. If it were, everything in your luggage that is even in a mildly liquid state would ooze all over the place at altitude. The cargo compartment is within the pressurized hull of the jet and further, it is also temperature controlled.
But here is a hazard that is below-decks on a modern jet that isn’t in the passenger cabin: fire suppression chemicals. That is, is smoke is detected in any cargo compartment, there is a cargo fire suppression system that discharges “snuff” chemicals–that is, fire retardants that eliminate the oxidants required to support combustion–as well as breathing. Just so you know.
Again, for shipping your pet as cargo, review the DOT guidelines for shipping pets linked above and be aware of the important considerations required on behalf of your pet.
Good dog--in the carrier, not out.
Now, for option two, carrying your pet on board. Of course, there are government regulations covering that too, and they’re for the benefit of the pets, the pet owners, but as importantly, for those seated around passengers carrying pets. And let’s make an important distinction: pets versus service animals. The latter are covered by a separate set of regulations–which don’t necessarily apply to ordinary pets.
If you’re planning to travel with a pet aboard a jet, know which regulations apply to you–including the limitations–because I can tell you this: the flight crew not only knows what they are, they are charged by the FAA with assuring compliance. Let me highlight some of the more important stipulations here:
I can’t stress that last point strongly enough, because failure to comply with that last point puts a passenger into the category of non-compliance with the lawful instructions of a crewmember, which is a Federal offense we as flight crew members do not take lightly.
Why do I even bring that up?
Because other passengers on your flight may be sensitive to allergens associated with your pet–and they have rights too, specified by even more government regulations. As a result, each airline will have their own specific rules for passengers carrying pets which might be even more restrictive than the government regulations. For example, Delta Airlines regulations are more restrictive than the government regulations, requiring that your pet remain in the pet carrier for the entire time it is aboard the aircraft. And most airline policies are similar to that.
Why do I even bring that up?
Because many people have allergic reactions provoked by exposure to your pet. For instance, the above pictured happy guy went head to head with Alex van Halen on a recent flight over the aging rocker’s carried-aboard pet. And basically, Al Roker was right: there is no requirement for any other passenger to endure ill effects from another passenger’s pet on board an aircraft.
Why do I even bring that up?
Because inevitably, there are passengers carrying pets that insist on removing the pets from their carriers in flight despite the airline policies and Federal regulations governing the carriage of pets aboard passenger airlines. Don’t do it–for the sake of others, and for your own sake–because there are serious physical liabilities for others on board, and major legal consequences for pet owners who claim an exemption from the rules they agreed to upon boarding the flight. Sure, your pet is the cutest pet on the planet–in your eyes. But when on board an aircraft, yours are not the only eyes involved and regardless of your pet’s loveableness, they and you must comply with all government and airline directives.
So that’s it: you know have the big picture and as importantly, the associated federal regulations governing the carriage of pets on commercial aircraft. Read carefully, plan accordingly and if you do travel with your pet, enjoy your flight.
Coming Wednesday:
He’s amassed over 20,000 pilot hours in the Boeing 707, 727, 737, 757, 767 and 777: we go live
with Boeing Instructor Captain Mark Rubin.
All JetHead Live podcasts now available for download or subscription free on
Just click on the iTunes logo.
From flying low-level formation in the Netherlands in a Royal Air Force NF-5 to the worldwide flying as a KLM Airlines Captain, Martin Leeuwis shares his flying experiences on this Jethead Live podcast.
Captain Martin Leeuwis
To download and/or save, click here.
To view Captain Leeuwis’s cartoon books, visit www.humor.aero
Next week: Astronaut Mike Mullane, one-on-one on JetHead Live!
When I was a teenager, like all of my close friends I decided I was going to be an airline pilot. But somewhere along the way between our teenage years and the reality of adulthood, one by one my friends all let go of the dream and wandered off to do other things with their lives.
The standard refrain I hear from them–and most guys when they find out I’m an airline pilot–is this: “I was going to be a pilot, but . . .” The “but” ranges from physical deficiencies to fate to a million reasons–all beyond their control–why that never happened.
Which got me to thinking. There are a lot of good reasons why I couldn’t be an airline pilot either. Here they are:
1. I hate mechanical stuff. Always have. In fact, during those same teen years my Saturday mission was to sneak out of the house before my dad could grab me and put me to work as tool caddy for his day long under-the-hood misadventures. Dad decided my brothers and I needed to do the cliche stuff like work on cars in order to grow up “like normal guys.” In my opinion, that was a waste of a perfectly good Saturday afternoon.
“Get over here,” he’d growl, and you were busted. “This will only take forty minutes and you can go do whatever afterward.” Never forty, maybe four hours and forty minutes, then your day was shot. Dammit. So I’d be the reluctant tool lackey as Dad hunkered waist deep in the yawning engine compartment on the Chevy 396 with a four-barrel carb that with the air filter off, looked like a toilet flushing the way it guzzled gas (that was cool) even at idle.
He’d say “Gimme the 3/8 inch box wrench” and I’d hand him pliers, on purpose, thinking the next time he’d remember how pissed off that made him and perhaps he’d select a more competent tool monkey–like either of my brothers. Nope. So besides cursing whatever procedure that despite the tome-sized shop manual just wasn’t working, or never mind three trips to the auto parts store (another special hell) ranting about parts that didn’t fit, he’d have me to blast for being an idiot (What? A screw driver is not a socket wrench?) sous chef under the hood.
So now, flying a complex, state-of-the-art (some are only weeks old–they still have that “new jet” smell) aircraft, when something goes wrong under the hood, I call an expert and let them fix it.
But I fly with a lot of guys who like my dad have wiring diagrams, flow charts, Lamm schematics–they like to get under the hood, yacking with the mechanics. “Shows 28 volt three-phase; now if you lose one phase . . .” blah blah blah is all I’m hearing. Just let me know when it’s fixed. Unlike my dad, they don’t want me handing them wrenches and like his Chevy Caprice, I don’t want to know how it works or even why it works–just let me know when it’s working again. I can fly the hell out of it for sure but the rest is all just details eating up my afternoon. Fix it, I’ll fly it, end of story.
2. I’d prefer to be invisible in uniform. Seriously: I don’t want to play the “this is your captain speaking” Disney character. Darling Bride and I used to fly together as crew, and people would of course see us in our uniforms–her flight attendant polyester hell, my pilot suit–and they’d seem to be watching us like zoo animals to see what we’d do.
So I don’t relish any of the showtime beyond the sanctuary of the bolted shut cockpit door. Walking through the terminal, it’s like encountering a pack of stray dogs: don’t make eye contact; just go about your business in an unobtrusive, non-threatening way and they’ll leave you alone.
Somebody else is going to have to do the playacting for the public; I’m not good answering questions about the bathroom, yucking it up about flying, or hearing about how (this is standard) “we dropped a thousand feet straight down” on some other flight. Doing the pilot thing as a pilot in the air–that is my only concern. Don’t worry about a thing, it’s taken care of–just keep your seat belt fastened and like Lewis CK says, “You watch a movie, take a dump and you’re in LA.” Just don’t expect a show before or after.
3. I really don’t get along with pilots. That goes with the “invisible” thing above: don’t play the role, don’t relish the identity. No cheesy aviators sunglasses, no 1980s-vintage mustache, no vanity plate like “JetJock” or bumper sticker that says, “My other car is a Boeing-737” or god forbid, this:
This is actually a sticker on sale at the Crew Outfitters store at DFW Airport. Which means some douchebag pilot thought it was a “cute idea,” (what the hell is “giggity giggity?”) and enough are actually buying the sticker to make it worthwhile. Wonder why I want to be invisible?
And in the cockpit, I do not want to take turns parroting whatever talk radio host is the hero of the week, don’t need to analyze the stock market that none of us ever really has any real expertise in, and I definitely don’t want to hear about the merits of home schooling (why is it that some many pilots’ wives are browbeaten into this?) as THE way to raise the only decent kids in the world after “the balloon goes up.” Have a weapons cache ready? A shack in Montana? Just keep it to yourself. Want to talk about sports? Fine: how the heck did Sabathia hit the Yankees for $25 million a year when he looks like he ate everything on the Dairy Queen menu every day since the All-Star break?
Nice gut.
See, I can be sociable. But beyond sports talk, I’m completely avoiding discussion of The Big Three: politics, religion and god forbid, pilot contract talks. Other than conversation related to actually flying the jet, I’m a big fan of what Archie Bunker used to call “A little bit of shut up around here.”
So there you have it: like most guys, there are a lot of good reasons why I couldn’t be an airline pilot, or at least not one like you’d see on TV or in the movies with the cliches and stereotypes. But when the weather’s crap and your pink butt is in the back of the plane heading for the runway at 150 miles per hour, I will guarantee you a safe landing. I’ve got over thirty years of experience and practice doing exactly that.
But afterward, it’s best for all concerned if I just slip out the door unnoticed before anyone can corral me into spending my time off being somebody I’m clearly not. If only my dad had figured that out so many Saturdays ago.
The JetHead Blog 