Life Lessons Forged in the Sky.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Plane Smart: How to Invade Your Airport.

Let’s have a moment of silence for a friend we all fondly remember and will dearly miss: leisure air travel.That’s right, the “leisure” part is dead and gone–but the “air travel” soldiers on, orphaned by the Airline Deregulation Act and held hostage by the price of oil, the largest cost item in the airline business.

So let’s move on, because that’s what life does even as we mourn the dearly departed which, in this case, seems irreplaceable. Nonetheless, we’ll all have a better trip if we leave the old guy dead and buried and consider what we have left to rely on.

So turn over a new leaf and begin with a new vision: travel is no longer a leisurely activity but rather–it’s war. Like any war, you need a strategy, valid reconnaissance of the battlefield, weapons, and the resolve to use all of these assets.

Here’s the turning point for any air traveler: you can be passive and let the air travel system decide for you what happens, or you can declare war on the air travel system and fight your way from point A to point B to your own advantage every step of the way.

Staffing cuts at airports and airlines and even hotels and car rental companies have reduced the level of live assistance available when you travel, and the system of check-in, security, interline connections, customs clearance have only become more complex and arcane. In reality you really have no choice but to proactively manage your own travel.

In short, it’s a war–and you should approach it that way. Here’s how:

Your Battle Plan

1. Intelligence: Know your enemy, find out where the opposing forces are and how many. You must get through their lines to even have a chance at air travel and the opposition forces are intent on keeping you out. Unless you’re driving a fifty-foot semi hauling beverages or merchandise, in which case you’ll be waved through the security perimeter:

Not a beer truck driver or any type of merchandise hauler? Too bad: you’ll have to cross the lines the hard way. But no matter, because this is where “Intelligence”–both literal and figurative–comes into play. You must find the easiest spot to penetrate in order to get to your aircraft. Do the required reconnaissance ahead of time.

Every single major airport has a website now that just begs you to visit–and you should, from the intelligence sense, so you know the unfamiliar territory you’re trying to invade. Look at the wealth of information you need to know ahead of time:

Click on the graphic above to see the actual DFW Airport site.

You’ll find parking information, gate and airline locations, entrances and exits, security checkpoints, rental cars lots and more. Now, you can really use your literal intelligence.

Leaving on American Airlines? Here’s a diagram from the DFW Airport website displaying Terminal D, the largest of the three American Airlines terminals at DFW:

If you were to view all 3 of the American terminals, you’d see how much larger and more spacious this one is. Does it matter whether or not your flight or even your airline leaves from this terminal?

NO! You simply want to make it through security as quickly as possible–and this terminal has the largest security check points of all terminals in the airport. Plus–if you’ve done your recon thoroughly, you’ll note the train connections from this terminal to all of the others in a matter of minutes.

Compare this to terminal C:

You can compare the relative sizes of these terminals better on the DFW website than I can reproduce the diagrams here, but the point is this: for the least amount of waiting, check-in at the largest, less-crammed terminal. If you were to consider auto traffic flow curbside (right to left in both diagrams), you’d observe another useful tidbit: people driving to the airport naturally stop at the first available check-in point for both curbside and counter check-in, so plan to proceed further down the terminal where due to human nature–less passengers accumulate for check-in or security.

Nowhere is this more significant than at Denver International Airport which, like Dulles, Pittsburgh, Portland and many others, has one main terminal that accomplishes security screening for all satellite terminals:

Again, auto traffic dropping off passengers approaches from the right, so passengers naturally stop at the first available space–and go to the closest security checkpoint. But there’s an identical security checkpoint on the other end of the terminal which is normally less crowded–use it!

This is an actual picture of the Denver International Airport security checkpoint that’s on the right in the diagram, the one passengers come to first, so it’s normally jammed. But if you look at the airport diagram, you’ll find an identical security checkpoint farther from the initial checkpoint and it’s half empty because most people have rushed to the first available.

Lessons learned: there’s really no practical correlation between where your intended gate is and where you must either park or clear security, because there’s inter-terminal transportation that will get you to your gate faster than it would take for you to wait in a huge line–and with less frustration on your part. Also, the airport information for your departure, connecting and destination airports can be found on-line and can answer just about all of the questions you might have regarding locations, gates, services and facilities. Do your reconnaissance ahead of time and out-think the obstacles to your entry!

2. Battle Plan: This really goes back to intelligence in both senses. That is, you need to have all of your vital information at your fingertips, and here is the worst item for discerning that vital information:

That’s right: your boarding pass is an awful way to keep track of the important data. That’s because formats vary, times may vary despite what’s printed on the boarding pass and depending on how long ago they were printed, flight numbers may have changed as well. Plus, times listed on the boarding pass are normally boarding time, not departure time, making it even more confusing to cross-check the monitors in the terminal. And normally, you’ll have more than one such card and sorting them out with your hands full of carry-on  luggage and whatever else you’re juggling is a losing proposition.

The only information on your boarding pass not subject to change is your name and destination–which you already know, right? Fly smarter–use a smart phone:

I use this system as an airline pilot because it is active: I don’t have to search out the information regarding gates and times because that info is constantly pushed to my phone. This is but one airline’s automatic text notification system and every major airline now has such a service. This will immediately update you on gate location and departure time changes, plus, most (like this one) allows you to customize the information: want a notification an hour prior? And two hours prior? No problem, the latest info will find you and if it’s bad news like a delay or cancellation, you’re the first to know and thus first to rebook–also on your phone. Make sure you have your airline’s smart phone application installed and working on your phone and you can begin the re-booking process without standing in line for hours.

3. Once through the enemy lines: I can’t tell you how many people in the terminal will walk up to the gate counter and ask, “Am I in the right place?”

Sigh. Do we really have to play 20 questions? Where are you going? What is your flight number? What is the departure time?

This is what you can expect if you ask me if “you’re in the right place:” if you are very old or very young or don’t speak English, I will help you in any way possible. But if you’re an average traveler, I’m going to teach you to help yourself: “There are the flight monitors; look for your destination and flight number and you’ll find the departure information you need.”

Why don’t I just look it up? First, because the time and gate can and very well might change–and passengers need to be aware of where that vital information is. And if the flight isn’t listed yet, any planned info I dig up is too likely to change for it to be of any use.

All of the pertinent information related to your flight is at your fingertips if you install the smart phone app for the airline(s) you’re traveling on.

Often times this information that the airline’s application pushes to your phone will be even more current than any information an agent or crewmember can provide because it is updated instantaneously.

Plus, if you’re shrewd enough to bookmark the airport sites for your departure, arrival and connecting airports, you’re ready to find answers quickly and easily without having to search for scarce customer service reps at any point in your travel.

After Action Report

You now know where to find, bookmark and save the vital information pertaining to your travel. Even five years ago, the push technology that today can keep you fully informed didn’t exist or if it did, it was too large to store on a handheld device.

That’s no longer true. Now, you can bookmark airport websites, download and save airport diagrams, and keep all of your itinerary at your fingertips. Once you have this information plus real-time data pushes from the airline to your mobile device, you won’t find yourself chasing the important details any longer. Instead, you’ll have instant access to current information, plus reference charts and service information coming to you, not you chasing bits and pieces of vital information around the airport.

That’s not just smart, but plane smart. Why would you travel any other way?

You, Me, and Air France 447

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

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

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

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

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

The Accident Report

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

Fingerpointing

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

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

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

The Flightcrew

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Going Forward

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

Hawkeye, Frankenpants, and Fate.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Of course, the last leg was the worst.

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

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

JetHead Live: Flying the 747 for Cathay Pacific Airlines

One pilot’s flight odyssey from Winnipeg, Canada, flying metroliners around Canada, to Hong Kong, flying 747s around the world.

Here’s Jeremy Giguere’s story, in his own words:

To download and save this podcast, click here.

Also available free on iTunes–just click on the iTunes icon below.

To visit Jeremy’s blog “Pushin’ 4 on the Second Floor”—click here.

Airline Fees: Just The Tip of the Iceberg.

With the summer travel season upon us now, you can hardly watch more than thirty minutes of any newscast without some mention of airline fees which, according to every source pandering to public perception, are skyrocketing and unfair.

I’m all in favor of fairness. So, if this problem of added fees is to be eliminated for the sake of the consumer, it needs to be eliminated across the board. Because airline fees are just the tip of the iceberg.

First, and perhaps most egregiously, we need to eliminate the outrageous gouging the average consumer must bear every time a restaurant feels like charging for “extras.” To do that, everything on the menu should be included in one price. This business of charging a fee for an “appetizer,” a “dessert”–it’s nothing more than a money grab. Coffee, too–all beverages, really–should be included without an extra charge. When you order a meal, just like buying an airline ticket, everything the business has should all be included in the price. In the food service industry, that must include the bar as well: just like the ideal check-in at the airport, you should be able to tell the bartender (and of course, the business owner) “one, please.” Whether that “one” is beer, wine, liquor, a milk shake or iced tea–that must be one un-itemized or variable price, which probably needs to be set by the government to be fair.

Same goes for the auto industry: when you go into any auto dealership, every option available on all models should be included in the price. Basically, like an “airline flight,” there should be the specification “vehicle” designating that any option (or all options, at the consumer’s discretion) must be included in the sale price. This blatant price gouging involved in up-charging for “leather interior” makes as much sense as a restauranteur charging for “dessert” or an airline charging for “baggage” and clearly, the whole trend needs to be stopped.

And musicians have been getting away with this scam for too long. The business of selling songs via iTunes or other piecemeal on-line media is yet another abuse of the consumer: if you buy the Aerosmith song “Walk This Way,” you should be awarded the entire “Toys In The Attic” album, period.

Finally–and this really hits home–there’s the housing industry. When a consumer contracts with a builder, there should simply be one commodity, “a house,” like an “airline trip,” a “restaurant meal,” and a “vehicle,” with one set price including all possible options. The traditional builder “amenities package” which includes various prices for different components, materials, appliances and fixtures runs exactly counter to the basic consumer right (certainly, “passenger rights”) to have a product produced at an all-inclusive, fixed price, announced up front and encompassing every possible choice a builder could offer.

Which brings up another relevant analogy: everyone loves to decry the high price of medical care and often, doctors fees which ultimately is a thinly veiled resentment over how much doctors make.

That consumer right, however, seems to get short shrift in the emergency room or god forbid, on the operating table. There’s no one complaining about price to their anesthesiologist or their surgeon, never mind the hospital providing and charging item-by-item for the services required to provide medical care.

Clearly, the problem of “fees” is a universal plague that extends far beyond simply the airline industry. But kind of like the emergency room mindset, I seldom hear griping in flight about prices or fees when the weather is down to minimums, the winds close to limits, or the jet experiencing some type of mechanical problem.

Regardless, if one industry–in urban myth, the airline industry–is getting out of line with other commercial enterprises, maybe in fairness there should be some pricing regulation. But until the other ninety-nine percent of the for-profit industries join the one-price-fits all fairy tale espoused by those in the media, the government and ultimately, the public–we’ll just have to deal with the reality of product, price and choice that has defined free enterprise since the concept was first introduced in this country centuries ago.

Now, go to your favorite restaurant and tell them how unfair the menu is. Be sure to insist on their finest champagne to toast the deal, and it better be included in the single “meal” price. After all, that’s fair, isn’t it?

“Living the Dream:” Cathay Pacific 747 Pilot Jeremy Giguere, Live from Hong Kong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What I wouldn’t give to be proven wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cessna -400 series interior.

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

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

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

Recurrent training and evaluation every nine months.

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

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

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

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Airline Pilot Recurrent Training: Your Annual Beating.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Practice putting on that life vest . . .

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

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

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

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

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

Then four hours in “The Box:”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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