Back to the Future: From the Ground Up.

Have to warn you: this could be boring.

Because you’re on another journey: forward, which in a way is backward, too.

Been sitting here for twenty-ish years. Thousands–fourteen thousand plus change, actually–of hours of pilot time in this jet. You know where everything is by feel. Could do most functions with your eyes shut. Thousands of approaches and landing and take-offs and cruising.

All that ended Friday.

Buh-BYE, MacDonnell-Douglas, hello Boeing. Nice the way Boeing incorporated the Mac-Doug logo after eating the company whole, don’t you think?

But to get there, to move to the 737-800 captain position from the MD-80 captain’s seat: transition training. And there’s the time machine.

When did you do that last? 1994, for a brief stint on the F-100. And that school, that airplane, was a cake walk.

Back in those days, well, back “then,” new aircraft, new systems and procedures–just a fact of life. Flight engineer school, then  First Officer training, then widebody DC-10 First Officer upgrade, then MD-80 captain, then F-100 Captain and then requal back as MD-80 captain all in the span of 6 years.

That was just the way of the world: just do whatever it takes to fly the latest jet.

And before those days, an even faster whirlwind of flight.

Just a kid, twenty-something with a comparative (at least to today) handful of flight hours blasting around with my hair on fire. It was all just good fun and the training part? Just something you had to do–a nuisance, really–to get to go fly. That was fun, despite the responsibility of study and learning and proficiency.

It was all about the rush of flying, the freedom from the mundane office world, a desk and god forbid, a boss breathing down your throat. In the air, it was all pure exhilaration, freedom, power, and what the hell was I thinking, below, being barely 21 and flying solo with about 8 hours total, with a camera in one hand?

 

What the HELL was I thinking?

 

Back in those days, ironically, the buzz phrase was “fly safe.” Not sure we really did, but we said that a lot. Now, it’s a more appropriate “fly smart” in my mind, because that’s safest, really.

No doubt this place on the verge of more flight school and newer, bigger, faster jets is now as it was then a bit of luck: you’re just some guy, nothing special, who’s been lucky enough to be put in the right place, this place, where once again the top of the line jets and equipment at a major airline are there waiting for you to start.

There’s the link with the past: I still marvel at the opportunity, the good fortune, to have another jet waiting, to have a spot on the roster of airline captains flying it, to have a training slot and instructors ready to help me through all the steps and hurdles between now and forty-thousand feet.

And there, too is the connection with the mundane: studying manuals, learning procedures, memorizing technical limits and emergency procedures. Cockpit drills, procedural trainers, simulators, classrooms, evaluations.

I used to do all that as a matter of course?

Of course.

And here we are again. You wanted to stay out of an office, away from a desk, right? Been free of that scourge since college, and that was a different kind of desk. You’ve never had an office or a desk, really.

So here’s the alternative. Starting tomorrow, this blog will go through Boeing 737-800 school from Day One to first flight.

Might be boring. Might not even be able to make a blog of it. But, the connection of past and present, the reentering the past way of life–climbing over hurdles and obstacles–to get back into the air in an even more exciting way.

How’s that going to be, devouring new technical data, mastering maneuvers in a new jet, in full-motion, stage-3 simulators? Out with the old hand-flying feel, in with the new: airfoil’s different, controls all hydraulically boosted, no doubt a Boeing’s going to fly different. State of the art navigation (thank God, at last) to learn, new operating philosophies.

Can you master everything required to be certified as captain in flight with 150+ bods-on-board, never mind the $50 million dollar jet and the responsibility for both? In a few weeks?

That’s going to be past plus future, at least for the present. Interested?

It all starts again tomorrow. Let’s go.

Ryanair: An Empty Head, Two Heads, and a Pay Head.

Single-pilot airliners make financial sense, according to Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary, and that point I can’t argue.

Ryanair CEO Michael O'Lerary

But what I can and do argue is that any airline run by a CEO who makes operational decisions based primarily on cash value–and O’Leary is the airline guy who introduced the concept of the pay toilet to the airline world–is an airline I’d never fly on, much less let my family travel on.

It would be like consigning yourself to an operating room whose surgical procedures were based on cash value to the hospital. Under anesthesia, hope for the best and by the way, did you pre-pay the resuscitation and de-fibrillation fees?

More important though is how fundamentally ignorant O’Leary is regarding the very product he sells. Let’s start at the beginning.

There have been many high-tech single pilot aircraft flying successfully for years. But the difference is, there was only one life at stake and a guaranteed escape plan if the airplane became un-flyable:

That escape option doesn’t exist on an passenger jet. But that’s not the only reason why two pilots are necessary for safe airline flight.

The basic philosophy of the airline operation is that layers of redundancy safeguard the thousands of passengers who take flight each day. It’s not simply a case that two or three pilots can divide the workload, which is true.

What’s more important is that it takes more than one pilot to divide the task of safe flight into the components that require simultaneous undivided attention in the critical phases of flight during which the aircraft and everyone on board are most vulnerable.

And that’s just in normal operation. The division becomes even more critical during an abnormal or emergency situation. Here are two prime examples.

We routinely take off from airports with tiny runways designed for the smaller propeller aircraft of the fifties and sixties. Jets, particularly when they’re heavy, require miles of runway to accelerate to take-off speed. Even more critical than that is the additional runway required to achieve flying speed if an engine fails.

Which adds another constraint: stopping in case there’s not enough runway to continue to take-off speed after an engine failure. That, on a short runway like in LaGuardia, Washington National, Burbank, Chicago-Midway and San Diego to name but a few, makes an instantaneous decision to abort a life and death question: do you have enough speed and runway to continue into the air? Do you have enough runway and not too much speed to stop?

Add to the stopping situation the wild card: is whatever failure for which you’re aborting going to affect your ability to stop? That is, with an electrical, hydraulic, landing gear or a few other potential failures–you can’t and won’t stop on the runway.

How does one person sort all of the variables of speed, runway length remaining, malfunctions and stopping capability and make the correct split second decision to stop or go?

The answer is, one pilot doesn’t.

Despite O’Leary’s theory that one pilot does most of the flying–and maybe it’s true–two pilots are needed for the big decisions like the above and many other split second decisions that have to be made in the critical landing  phase, here’s the secret: divide.

The take-off situation I just described is what we call a balanced field. That is, there’s exactly enough runway to allow for an engine failure, then a continued take-off on one engine or a safe stop on the runway. This is not just a short runway contingency either–the miles long runways at both Denver and Mexico City are often barely long enough in the summer heat due to their mile-high altitude.

Either way, the safe stop depends upon all of the stopping systems–spoilers, brakes, hydraulics, electrics–all working. You have a split second to decide. And in all of the above locations, there is no overrun. You’re going off the airport at high speed, loaded with fuel.

When I take-off from a balanced field, I divide the focus and tasking this way: the first officer will make the take-off. He is the “go” guy, meaning if I don’t take over and abort, we’re flying. He has but one task, no matter what, one engine or two, malfunctions or not: fly.

I, on the other hand, am the “stop” guy. I’m only looking for the Big Four as we call them: engine failure, engine fire, windshear, structural failure. I’m looking for those and only those–not both malfunctions and take-off performance. Because my righthand man is zeroed in on that.

We both then have individual, singular focus on the critical items in two opposing but now separate dynamic realms. It’s simple. It’s smooth, it’s reliable.

And it’s not possible with a single pilot.

Same theory of separation is vital on low visibility, bad weather landings, only this time the roles are reversed: I’m flying and looking outside for critical landing references, the First Officer’s entire focus is inside on the instruments, looking for any anomaly that would require a discontinued approach.

The O’Leary method, apparently, is to simply roll it all into one and save a few bucks per plane on pilot salaries. Never mind split second decisions, separation of critical duties and focus and ultimately, your safety.

Which might result in a few bucks of savings on your Ryanair ticket. But be prepared to give it back to them in flight eventually anyway.

That is, if you can muster the courage to fly on an airline whose CEO sees everything in terms of dollars and cents–but has little common sense himself.

Stupid Layover Tricks: Sharks In Death Valley.

You know how things make sense when you’re doing them but in hindsight, you have to ask yourself, what was I thinking? Well this is one of those times. Being on the road, flying about 200 days a year, it’s really not surprising that it happened on a layover.

Had a Tuscon layover a couple summers ago. My big plan was to get in a good run early, before it got too scorching hot, then some pool time.

And here’s the thing about layovers: that was my plan, I was looking forward to it, it’s what I told myself ahead of time when I was feeling that “I-don’t-want-to-be-away-from-home” pang before a flight sequence: it’ll be fine, a good run, decent Mexican food for dinner.

Great plan. But a problematic jet engine screwed it up: we departed a couple hours late, which meant a late arrival in Tuscon. Add to that the excessively long time it took to get the hotel van to pick us up and by the time I was ready to run . . .

. . . I was pretty well screwed: the temp was over 100 and climbing as the afternoon wore on. The hell with the temp, I decided–and it really was becoming hellish–I’m not going to be denied my run. The whole layover depended on it! I could start out and if it got too hot, just stop and walk back.

So I set off from the hotel running. Found some back roads with shade and honestly, even at 109 degrees, with the shade, without any humidity and at a slower, more cautious pace, the run was more comfortable than back home in the upper 90-degree range with boiling humidity and scorching sunshine. So on I went, carefully, for twenty minutes through a mostly residential area of town.

After twenty minutes, I took a walking break for a minute to take my heart rate: no real problem. And I felt fine.

So I reversed course, hugging the shade as much as possible, heading for the hotel. Then I got that gnawing feeling–and it wasn’t just the heat–that I wasn’t alone. The whole time it had seemed as if I was running through a ghost town: not a creature, a person or pet in sight. But still, I knew I was being watched. I turned around . . .

Creeping along behind me, maybe fifty yards back, a police cruiser. When I stopped, he did too. I started running again, he started creeping along behind me. Finally, I turned around and walked back to the police car. One cop, and he didn’t get out of the car. The window slid down silently.

“What’s up?” I asked.

He tipped his shades down. “Couple people have called 911,” he answered nonchalantly, “figure you must be crazy.”

He let that sink in. Guess there’d been no signs of life outside, but inside the natives had decided only a mental patient would be out running in the afternoon.

“Well I’m almost done,” I said, pointing at the hotel in the distance. “I’m feeling fine.”

“I can’t stop you,” he said. “But it doesn’t seem like a good idea to me.”

I went back to running at a measured pace, but the cop had been a buzzkill: what if he’s right? If the hidden, 911-dialing residents were right? “We gotta ‘nother dumb tourist down,” he’d say on the radio, staying in the car with the furiously blowing air conditioning, “wet cleanup on aisle six.”

Me, road pizza. That’s how it happens–one minute you’re running, the next your heart explodes in the 109 degree heat. Now came the mind games, like when I’d swim laps between bouys in the Pacific: now and again you’d catch a glimpse of someone on shore, pointing. You just knew they were pointing at you, yelling, “Shark!” Which you couldn’t hear . . . but which you’d certainly feel any minute. Yes, I know Death Valley is not in Arizona; but was the shark thing all over again.

Made it to the hotel and started a walking cooldown. The cop car did a u-turn and vanished into a side street. Disappointed? No CPR, unless it was too hot for that. No roadkill.

Regardless, the thrill was gone, probably for both of us. I grabbed the cool beverage I’d had icing down as I ran . . .

. . . then entertained second thoughts about the run. Okay, maybe you can’t always force things in extreme temperature. Maybe the run could have waited till Boston (hate the traffic!) the next day.

Like so many things you look back on in life–and layovers–you have to wonder: what the heck was I thinking?

“Say What?”–The Passenger Chronicles.

It’s really not that hard to go unnoticed in flight. In fact, it’s probably more the rule than the exception: most of the time, the flight crew won’t remember you at all. Often, that’s a good thing.

But if we DO remember a passenger, often it’s because either alcohol or inexperience–or both–are involved. Here’s an example.

About halfway to Calgary, the interphone rings in the cockpit. Seems we have a slightly intoxicated passenger in the back. Never a good thing, something that we wish had been left at the gate but it’s not always possible to detect before flight.

Is he a problem, I ask? No, the flight attendant tells me. It’s not his behavior, it’s what he’s saying.

Huh? Is he being obnoxious? Abusive?

No. He’s kind of bragging.

Okay, I’m confused. What’s the problem? “Well,” she continues, “he’s bragging to the guy next to him–who happens to be an airline employee–that he managed to get through Customs in DFW with a load of cocaine from Amsterdam. And U.S. Customs didn’t find it.”

Hmmm; to think he almost made it to Calgary undetected. Almost.

It’s actually fun to have something to do on a long flight like that. I typed in the basic info on the data link control head. Our dispatcher called ahead to Calgary to coordinate the appropriate reception committee for our clever yet too chatty passenger.

Customs officials and the local police force were happy to pick up where U.S. Customs left off with Mr. Chatty. And while it’s always nice to have someone meet you after a long flight, I’m not sure this was the kind of attention he anticipated. But I guess passengers figure we’re really just ignorant and unconnected once we get in the air. In reality, we’re in constant communication with a full range of folks on the ground eager to help in any situation that might arise. Ah, well, live and learn.

People also distinguish themselves with some interesting ideas about aviation, too. After a long flight to the west coast, an elderly gentleman poked his head into the cockpit during deplaning and gave me his wise counsel.

“You know,” he said seriously, “you shouldn’t keep that beautiful sunset all to yourselves up here.”

Yes, going west, it was a beautiful sunset. Right in our face for about four hours, actually.

“And the full moon rising in the east,” he continued, “people should get to see that, too.”

Great idea. Right? Wait for it.

“Why don’t you make a series of turns in the air so passengers on both sides can see the sunset and the moon?”

Why didn’t I think of that? Besides the fact that we aren’t a sightseeing tour, I don’t want to waste an ounce of scarce fuel zig-zagging across the country and besides, the constant stream of jets smoking up on our tail won’t like the idea much either.

“Yeah, great idea,” I say, then add everyone behind you would like to get off the plane and in addition, you’re an idiot. Well, that last part was in my head.  “Maybe next time.” My first officer rolls her eyes.

Finally, my favorite, except for the smell but that’s not an issue in a blog.

In flight, I shouldn’t be hearing male voices near the cockpit door under two circumstances. One is when I know I have an all-female cabin crew. That’s because in the Post-911 world, we don’t allow congregating in front of the cockpit door, except for our flight attendants going about their duties. Some are male.

But on this day, I had an all female crew. And we had the second condition that would prevent any male voices from being up near the cockpit:

The seatbelt sign was on. So no one other than crew should be anywhere but buckled into their seats. But I heard the male voice near the door. And a female voice, too. I called to the back.

“Everything all right back there?”

“It is now.” Hmmmm. “I’ll be up in a minute to explain and maybe vent a little.”

Okay, I’m good with that. And the male voice had vanished.

Later, we talked. She told me a “large,” hairy man had spent a lot of time in the lavatory, then ended up standing in her galley–doing some odd calisthenics. That made it difficult for her to do her job.

I had to ask. “What exactly was he doing?”

She nodded. “I asked him that.” She seemed a little annoyed. “He said he’d tried to fart in the lav but nothing came out and there wasn’t enough room to work it out.”

So he stood in the galley, hoping to coax out his gas. “Venting,” I guess. Nice.

Sigh. Maybe it’s just the decline of public civility, or the prevalence of affordable air travel. Either way, it seems like much of what you hear in the air paints a grim picture of both air travel and an ever-growing segment of the traveling public.

Ultimately, I’m just glad the flight deck door is locked from the inside.

Steven Slater, Dental Hell and the Death of Civility in Air Travel.

The outrageous JetBlue incident last week brings back memories. And they’re not necessarily good.

Used to be when the last squadron jet of the day’s flying reported in on the tower frequency, a very surly Bad Jimmy Williams would step out of his Operations Officer cubicle and without a word, he’d open the padlock on a large refrigerator in the back corner of the Flight Ops lounge, glare at us waiting Lieutenants, then stalk off.

That signaled  that the “Beer Box” (presumably derived from “ice box”) was officially open, which also opened the lounge for an impromptu happy hour and flying story session. After beers all around, we’d discuss the day’s flying and eventually the conversation would meander into all manner of B.S. stories.

Although he wasn’t a pilot, Dr. Love (yes, that was his real name) often would wander over from the Dental Clinic, knowing he could poach a beer or two before heading home. Which was fair, because he lived near us and we drank plenty of his beer whenever possible.

For whatever reason, he felt like he had to add a dental war story to the absurd flying tales being spun and although that was largely irrelevant, one thing he said I’ve never forgotten.

“Well,” he drawled, contemplating his half empty beer can, “I used to be so careful when I was doing dental work on a patient.”

The room fell silent. What the hell could he possibly say next? Please make him say and I’ve only gotten more careful and caring as time goes on, because we all have to go to the Dental Clinic sometime.

“But you know what I learned?” he asked, studying the Budweiser label (there were only a few brands of beer available there on The Rock in the South China Sea). He paused for effect. “I learned, people heal. You don’t have to be so careful.”

Note to self: never see Dr. Love at the Dental Clinic. But beyond that, there’s a real point:

Dr. Love deliberately contributes to everyone’s lore of dental hell. Which only perpetuates the problem, reinforcing not only the fear of dentistry, but also escalating spiral of outrageous dental tales.

People only want to tell a story about a “horrible” dental experience. No one wants to tell–or hear–a story about a pain-free, simple dental procedure.

The same is true for air travel nowadays: everyone needs to tell a horror story now at happy hour. Ten hour tarmac delays with no food, crying babies, and overflowing toilets (not physically possible unless there’s actually over fifty gallons of human waste added during the delay) and passengers dying.

That’s the stuff of legends, and perhaps Steven Slater is the new “Dr. Love.”

On the day he snapped, cursing a passenger on the P.A., blowing an escape slide, grabbing a couple beers and sliding off the jet, Slater negated the day’s work of his peers–just like Dr. Love did for his dental clinic and fellow dentists.

Because on that same day, thousands of flight attendants were treated rudely by thoughtless, boorish passengers.

But they didn’t snap. They didn’t blow a slide. And though many likely wanted to, they didn’t curse their passengers, at least not out loud.

Instead, they did their jobs, under trying circumstances with unreasonable passengers and onerously long work days. You didn’t read about the flight attendants who that day–like every day of the year–perform CPR on a passenger in cardiac arrest at 30,000 feet. Nor the ones who helped the very young or very old with the extra attention that they need above and beyond the normal passenger services so that they can get where they need to go safely.

No, the headlines were only about the one flight attendant who blew up–and quit being a flight attendant. Which I say discounts and devalues all those who didn’t. Those remembering Dr. Love’s “healing” philosophy project it onto the thousands of dentists who do care about their patients.

And the thousands of passengers who were treated kindly by their cabin crew nonetheless have their radar scanning for a Steven Slater rogue to spin into a cocktail yarn or a “Good Morning America” interview.

That’s life and moreover, that’s popular culture. Don’t get me wrong; I know thousands of flight attendants nationwide cheered the actions of Slater. But in the fantasy sense of wow, what a great gesture. The public is too often rude, surly, inconsiderate and they get away with it.

Because  in air travel, this:

Has given way to this:

. . . and so this

Has devolved into this:

Funny stuff for tall tales, late night talk show monologues and silly YouTube tribute songs.

But a sad commentary on both popular culture and those who comprise its storytellers and listeners. And even worse, it’s an accurate commentary on both the traveling public and the norms of behavior en route.

Every profession has its Dr. Loves. Unfortunately, the rest of the profession suffers the derisive connotation of the rogue’s actions  regardless of the reality of their work, which pales against the backdrop of popular culture that rewards outrageous behavior.

Not sure what ever happened to Dr. Love or what will become of Flight Attendant Slater. But both are hard to forget, for all the wrong reasons.

Bees and Flight, Darkness and Light.

Special Note: here’s a soundtrack designed for this essay–you can click on it to play it, then return to this window to read for “the full Monty” if you like.

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Daylight is the fountain of youth, and there’s no shortage of seeming noonday above it all westbound.

That’s the way we go, backs to the east and the dawn that’s gone, west to the sun as fast as we can.

We’re younger back there and some of it’s hard to remember: dawn is the time of half awake, of coffee poured and routines started by rote and necessity that give way later to more elaborate undertakings.

Takes time to get your eyes open, to acclimate to the world in general and flight in particular. We’re younger, earlier, closer to the dawn; smaller than now but taking flight nonetheless. Doesn’t seem so long ago until you look back, and then the earlier flights are clearly a different time with different people.

The shine of everything, the newness before a thousand times over makes each seem more like an extra lash of the minute hand rather than a special moment. That was an era of firsts, of an undercurrent of discovery and faith that the cycle would be ever more new and larger ways to fly.

And all of them would last forever. Of course they would, it’s just from that particular momentous “now” that races behind us, linked inextricably to the dawn from which we’re always outbound, they did last forever–it’s just that we didn’t.

Inch by inch, our westbound flight does what we hardly notice as we follow the sun: things change, even as they stay the same. And there’s the conundrum of westbound flight.

The more we repeat the things that were “new” and exciting “firsts,” the less they are that and from the standpoint of time, the less room there is for truly new and exciting as we do diligence to the process. Family. Income. Lifestyle.

Running the machine composed of the endless gears of all that shiny pioneering, they require time and effort that limits the discovery that brought them into our time in the first place.

Still it’s ever westward, tailwind, headwind, bumpy or smooth–we’re on our way, keeping the sun as high as possible over that world of rare, short shelf life newness.

Yet there are those who fly who care little for the clock and the sun that at its highest arc warmed wings best for flight; even the key to navigation in relation to the westbound sun matters little though the routine flight is spectacular and with great purpose.

There’s no fear in this flight, oriented by the sun yet oblivious of the fireball’s second by second dip from the top of the sky, slinking to the west. No thought for the hazards that also awaken with the new day, disguised with jewel-like adornment that is night’s mourning of dawn’s heat, promising nothing but doom.

Relentless, westbound just the same, with lessening notice of the good or bad as the remarkable is subsumed into routine by repetition, blossom to blossom, noon till sundown and onward we fly.

Takes a herculean effort to not give in to the opiate of monotony. Almost have to pinch yourself, remind yourself exactly where you are. To acknowledge that the flight itself is as significant as the destination, maybe even more important: this is the now that’s fleeting, that is relegated over the shoulder toward the vanished forever dawn.

Face it: the cloud swing is moving, just as the sun is, ever west. Looking ahead, it may not seem so but looking down, the illusion is clear.  The gears turn now, but not forever and never the same as “back then.”

Because like the bee’s wings, they cool and move more sluggishly in the diminishing light. Not such a ready flex or easy reach as the day fades, but it’s still easy to underestimate the power of light and loss in the creeping of darkness. As time goes on, that requires more deliberate effort for any creature transcending the automaton-ish, hive-centric bee’s life.

If you do, you won’t be fooled by seemingly carefree flight that is borne more of indifference than courage.  Because what he doesn’t know–but you do–is this: the sun will win this race, fleeing westbound and eventually, leaving you without a shadow. The molten gold near the end is beautiful,

but darkness waits just beyond and as Swinburne warned, “. . . in the end it is not well.”  Bees go somewhere at night and eventually, don’t fly any more. If the sun shines brightest on the liveliest, then this is truly “the rest” of life.

To know or not know that ending won’t matter as much then as it does now while there’s still daytime left. Never mind the bees buzzing unconcerned around the fountain of youth, that’s the promise of light.

Soundtrack: “Stormy,” Chris Manno–Lead, Bass,  Drums.

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The bee’s story: I was heading to breakfast in Nashville yesterday, getting ready for another day in the sky. Looked like he was doing the same, which got me to thinking. I’m lucky he didn’t sting me for sticking the camera in his face, but he seemed more interested in his collection business than in me. Or maybe he wanted to be part of this story . . .

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Unfriendly Skies and the Avoidable MidAir Collision

Apparently, the skies above our nation have become less friendly recently.

The Washington Post recently reported on a dangerous trend in aviation:

The NTSB is investigating almost a dozen midair near-collisions that have occurred nationally since it began to mandate that they be reported in March. They include an incident 24,000 feet over Maryland on March 25, when a Continental Airlines 737 came within about a mile of colliding with a Gulfstream jet. The traffic was under the direction of a controller who had been on the job for almost three years after graduating from a college program. She was still in training.

Not only are there frequent and harrowing near-misses between aircraft all over the country, there also seems to be an increase in the number and frequency of such potentially deadly conflicts.

Some critics point fingers at the FAA, saying that there is a higher than historically normal number of inexperienced air traffic controllers replacing older, retirement-age controllers. But that’s only part of the story behind the worrisome statistics.

As one retired Air Traffic Controller told me:

“I agree with the basic premise that the skies are NOT getting more safe. I worked over the years in the DFW area, ABQ, SoCal and BWI. Positive radar control is more work for the controller and a few more miles for the pilot but is infinitely more safe than utilizing visual separation (italics mine).

The problem is that the FAA is tasked not only with the safe operation of our skies and airports, but also with the expeditious movement of aircraft. Oftimes these two goals are at odds with each other.

Controllers are under constant pressure to move the tin quickly — crews and aircraft costs, schedules, weather, physical space on the tarmac — all these and other issues require the controller to get planes on their way as quickly as possible. It’s like the old card game of War — deal those planes off to someone else as fast as you can!”

This firsthand look behind the Air Traffic Control curtain is unsettling at best, but the crux of the problem–or likely the optimum solution–is in this key statement:

. . . the FAA is tasked . . .  with the expeditious movement of aircraft . . . controllers are under constant pressure to move the tin quickly . .

Add to that the pressure commercial airlines put on both Air Traffic Control and airline pilots to minimize flight time and thus costs, plus throw in the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, the private pilots’ lobby group, and their constant and unthinking opposition any flight restrictions and the result is an ever more crowded airspace with resistance to control techniques that increase costs and restrict aircraft movement–but provide the highest safety margin.

From a public interest standpoint, the issue of  “expeditious movement of air traffic,” recreational flyers’ access to airspace, and airlines’ operating costs are secondary to one overriding priority: flight safety.

Key to flight safety in a crowded sky is aircraft separation–which is clearly safest when verified by radar identification.

And therein lies the rub.

In order to move more traffic faster, the concept of “visual separation of aircraft” is used by controllers under certain circumstances. That is, if an aircraft reports visual contact with another aircraft, that pilot can accept the responsibility to maintain separation from the conflicting aircraft.

This frees up the controller: no longer are the aircraft and their separation the controllers’ responsibility–no longer are they separated and kept apart by radar monitoring and the controller can move on to other tasks. From the viewpoint of the FAA management, this is “moving the tin” expeditiously and at a higher volume. But for controllers?Essentially, they’re doing the same thing I’m doing: carefully guiding an airplane through crowded terminal airspace. Whether that means 50 aircraft landing and taking off per hour or 60 per hour makes little difference to both of us–the key is that it’s done safely. The pressure on controllers to issue–and pilots to accept–visual clearances serves only to increase the rate of traffic flow, but introduces a measure of risk to achieve that goal.

What’s the problem? You tell me:

This is an actual on-board display of air traffic. There are multiple aircraft converging with yours–some from above descending, some from below climbing, and many approaching from different angles. Plus, the Air Traffic Controller is looking at a regional, compass-oriented one-dimensional picture; you’re looking at three dimensions with you at the center, looking forward in your direction of flight–and you’re moving, usually in more than one axis.

Think there may be some ambiguity in traffic location for you, the controller, and the other aircraft? If you are warned about an aircraft at “one o’clock,” can you be sure which one is the conflict?

I can’t. Not with any certainty, and knowing that simply not accepting clearance and thus the responsibility will mean ATC will continue to ensure radar separation is the safest bet–for me, and for my 140 passengers. Visual flight clearance in a crowded airport terminal area is a bad, unsafe idea.

Radar separation essential. Takes a bit longer. Doesn’t provide expeditious flow. Restricts the recreational pilots’ freedom.

Ensures your safety. Fair trade?

Notice too that I said “I can’t be sure.” The “I” here is a professional pilot with 32 years of experience, former Air Force pilot, 25-year airline pilot and 19-year captain and over 17,000 flight hours. If I can’t be sure, what are the chances he can be:

With the minimum of age, experience, currency and proficiency, he can take responsibility for the lives of hundreds of passengers by saying, “Yes, I have the traffic and will maintain separation.” If he’s actually looking in the right spot for the right traffic traveling at over 200 miles per hour above or below or even behind him.

What’s safest for him, and me, and you is this: positive radar separation. Not “visual” or “pilot separation;” rather, a qualified radar controller monitoring traffic and issuing instructions to both aircraft to ensure positive separation.

The answer is all about dollars, as usual: the FAA budget strains to provide controllers, airlines constantly seek to lower operating costs, recreational flyers watch their costs go up and demand freedom and access to all airspace.

It’ll cost more all around–in ticket prices, the FAA budget, and recreational flying costs.

Realize what’s at stake here and stop the widespread use of visual clearances in crowded airport traffic areas. Our Air Traffic Controllers are the best in the world–give them the staffing levels and training and pay required to do their job. Ignore the howling voices demanding less restrictions; budget for it, pay for it and ensure the safety of our ever-more crowded airspace.

I think we’re all worth it.

Flight Lessons for Real Life

Most of what I’ve learned in over 17,000 flight hours–usually the hard way–applies on the ground in the big picture of life as well. Here are two primary lessons you can rely on whether you’re in either place:

1. There’s nothing more useless than runway behind you. The concrete behind you can do little good for you when things “change” and suddenly you have less space than you planned on to get up to speed. In real life? Forget shortcuts=start at the beginning: don’t waste any parts of the runway. Sure, First Officers tell me all the time, “we don’t need all of the runway–we’re light.” Yes, jet is lighter than planned so we don’t “need” it mathematically–until an engine ingests a bird at 35,000 rpm and destroys itself.

Then suddenly those mountains seem higher and like the end of the runway, not so far away. What does that mean in real life?

What did you take for granted? What precaution did you skip for convenience or because on paper, it didn’t seem necessary?

Personal decision? Nobody else’s business what you do as far as “precautions” because it’s your life? Well, does that apply to me too?

I’ve had passengers tell me they “don’t worry” about flying because “when your number’s up, it’s up.” I remind them that when my number’s up–theirs is too.  Because whatever applies to me applies to you when you’re on the jet I’m flying. And so it’s really not about me–rather, it’s about the hundreds a day who pay me to do what I do perfectly and in their best interest. Never mind what’s easy or convenient for me.

You?  Think there’s anyone depending on you and the decisions you make in the course of your life? Family? Business?

Okay, even if you don’t have the classic four piece set yet–when do you think is the time to do the preparation they’re counting on in order to have a smooth journey when they come on board with you?

What monumental yet tedious preparation would be nice to have behind you–rather than empty runway–when the challenges ahead demand every iota of advance preparation? Does it really matter down the runway what you might have skipped out of convenience a couple miles back?

So you tell me: do we really need all of that runway? Wouldn’t the mathematical minimum be sufficient? Can’t we deal with things later or if it’s easier now, not at all?

2. Don’t trust the weatherman. Why? Because he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Specifically, he’s looking to the past, predicting future outcomes based on historically similar circumstances. Two problems with that: first, you’re going to be dealing with the weather in the future, not the present and certainly not the past. And the weather guy will be the first to say, “things change.”

Second, no one has succeeded yet in crossing any bridge before they come to it–and the weatherman ain’t going to be with you when you do. Those who depend upon “experts” making predictions of future  outcomes based on past events will find themselves ill-served and alone if they base crucial decisions on a forecast–of weather forecast, financial, political or any critical issue. I prefer the simple way: assume the weather is going to be awful and prepare accordingly. What’s the worst case scenario, and how to I bail myself out when it comes to pass? Then, if the weather’s nice–oh well, we’re safe, happy, secure.

But if the weather’s awful: you’re a prepared. No one rewards you for fortune-telling; being ready for everything makes you the genius everyone was counting on you to be. As with number one above–it really isn’t about only you.

Experts can predict a forecast that suggests that umbrellas aren’t really necessary. We know how that goes . . .

If you rely solely on the predictions of those outlining the future by peering into the past, you could be in for an interesting fight for your life well down the road.

Okay, that’s it for me nagging. The point is, most of what has become a culturally normative standard of individuality is completely irrelevant in the life or death business of flight. Looking for motivation? Or, have someone who needs a little push in their life because of the way the life plan affects others? Feel free to forward this post to them:

Diligence is dull stuff, on the ground or in the air. People count on their pilot to do what is prudent and safe no matter what effect that has on the “free choice” or convenience of the pilot. I affirm the commitment passengers expect when they strap in behind me. It’s all a part of the duty that comes hand in hand with the privileges inherent in the position at the controls. Anything less is simply unworthy of the trust others who count on you have placed in you–in flight, and in life.

. . . and okay, here’s the rest of the Chris Farley “motivational speech:”

H20: Above and Below

H20: Above and Below.

Ride the sky home.

There’s a song in my head and it won’t go away. It comes at the top of the slide,

a sloping seven mile glide, ever downward and south toward home. Bound for DFW from the west coast, the captain’s voice my own, says “we’re eighty nautical miles from touchdown in Fort Worth; be on the deck at half past.” and on it drones with the same spiel as ever, but the music gets louder each mile, drowning it out.

It’s a tedious trip west to east to south, like the ride from The Stockyards to Tanglewood, or God forbid, the Far Southwest side on Bryant Irvin where any time of day, never mind rush hour, it seems like forever: there’s just no hypotenuse. East to west, or north to south but not north to southwest in Cowtown, not without a lot of pain and aggravation. But come down easy, that’s how you get home. There are no shortcuts.

The mayor once said with a hang dog tired face it’s so bad you could change a tire in a Cowtown traffic jam and not lose your spot, and he wasn’t even talking about trying the mythical hypotenuse between the North Side and the southwest Mecca of Hulen and Tanglewood. Really, it’s not so far away but just hard to get to yet home is definitely worth the trip.

When I cross the Red River I feel like I’m in the neighborhood and the red dirt pancake of the Panhandle starts the song of home in my head. It’s those comfy notes your hands just know, a cozy riff you can get lost in like a half-awake morning in the Paris Coffee Shop, more aware of what it’s not—and it’s not a modern chain shoveling breakfast—than the bald light, melodious clink of silverware and bracing aroma of strong coffee that it is. Newspapers and linoleum and waitresses who call you “hon” and the comfort of an old tune not redone, not over done; rather, the original from way back when. That’s the music that when you play it, you transcend fingers and frets and keys and notes, simply cruising along with the melody.

A hundred plus people follow me down in the back, some coming home and humming the same tune. Picture my wife’s Paschal mafia: they graduate and scatter to the four winds—but they return sooner or later. So there are the inexorable five year milestone reunions at Joe T’s or the Stockyards Station or anywhere Fort Worth that’ll hold the returning classes; hugs, backslaps, “so good to see you!” but because so many seem to move back eventually, and we see them weekly anyway at Thom Thumb on Bellaire, what’s the big deal?

But that’s everyone humming along—no one needs sheet music; like the song in my head, they probably don’t even know they’re doing it. That’s the song of home you get to sing aloud now and again with others who know it.

We slip between big-shouldered thunderheads marching out of the west toward Fort Worth, casting a bruised blue shadow across a red sky sprawling east like a dome you can see best atop Reata, the bustling crisscross of Sundance Square below. Storm’s coming with one inch raindrops plopping an inch apart, but nothing’s perfect and who knows? Maybe it’ll hold off till we get there, and we need the rain nonetheless.

Things look bigger the lower you go and now the swaths of green and brown and lakes of blue define themselves like individual musical notes on a scale but now you don’t need them: there’s DFW and you’re cleared to land. More hands and feet on the controls, working less with science than art, riding the familiar tune whose beat is like that of your heart. Close your eyes and see the flow of red tail lights snaking down the main artery to Fort Worth.

Slower, down to earth but still, the music will carry you home. The steel and glass on Main and Commerce rise straight backed and tall, waiting. Patience, slowly, mile by mile, the music will carry you home.