Let’s talk flying, and writing–and writing about flying.
It’s a lively discussion of both on the Clueless Gent podcast–just CLICK HERE to listen.
We talk about flying, about writing, about crazy flight stories and a behind-the-scenes look at An Airline Pilot’s Life, the true (“Best Fiction 2020”), insider story of life as an airline pilot. Click here to check out the book on Amazon.com.
When it comes to crew life, outsiders want the dirt, the real lowdown, and they ask me at times, “What was too sensitive for you to include in An Airline Pilot’s Life?” My answer is always, a lot.
Too many others could get hurt and as bad, this: some stuff is insider knowledge outsiders probably don’t need to know. Well, I found a way to share it anyway:
Here are the nitty-gritty, incredible, crazy, hilarious and often sad, all at once, insider stories from the airline world. There’s some extreme behavior; there’s some misbehavior. In fact, there’s some extreme misbehavior, in these stories.
I hesitate to share them. Too sensitive? Too intimate? The tough stuff is going on right now: furlough notices. What’s that like? See for yourself. Below is a story from the collection that will let you witness the very insider view of that tragic reality. But that makes me cringe: so many fellow crewmembers, folks I’ve flown with and care about, are getting the bad news.
That’s why, when I retired in May after thirty-five years at American Airlines, I passed on the proffered final flight water canon salute. I just couldn’t, wouldn’t, didn’t; not when so many others are facing loss of their flying job, income, security and their very profession.
See why this collection makes me worry? For now, though, I’ll give it a try.
The collection is available for Kindle pre-order, assuming I have the fortitude to go ahead with the publication. Both paperback and Kindle formats are slated for release by Dark Horse Books on October 1. I’m not sure how long I’ll let the publication run, to be honest. It makes me uncomfortable, which is why I didn’t include these incendiary tales in An Airline Pilot’s Life.
Named “Best Non-Fiction of 2020” by the N. Texas Book Festival.
Well, let’s give it a try. Here’s some of the heartache that’s going on now, behind the galley curtain. A sneak preview from Aircrew Confidential.
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Furlough Letter
Stacy bound her pony tail in a twisty-tie, then grabbed her stacked bags again and rolled toward her departure gate. She looked good, she knew, especially compared to some of the older, more senior flight attendants who didn’t seem to care how they looked.
It wasn’t a bad thing, she decided, that heads turned, male heads, sometimes young and good-looking male heads, when she walked into a boarding area. That was probably something the senior mamas noticed, even if they never acknowledged the fact.
The gate agent scanned her ID card, then pulled open the locked jetbridge door.
“I’m sending them down in ten,” she said without looking back at Stacy. She strode down the sloping jetbridge, bags in tow, already starting to swelter in the layers of polyester uniform in the stale-smelling jet bridge.
“I’m Stacy,” she said as she stepped through the forward entry door. “Number four.”
“Kimmie,” the older woman said. “Number one. Shirley normally flies four on this.”
“Oh,” Stacy answered, smooth and cool. Why did that matter, that ‘Shirley,’ whoever she was, usually flew number four?
“I guess she called in sick,” Stacy said and smiled sweetly.
“Well no,” Kimmie answered. “Thursdays she has Bunco so she just drops. Never fails.”
Hobbyist, Stacy grumped to herself. Drop a trip, lose the pay, but for those married to a doctor or lawyer or such, that mattered little. My husband lets me fly forty hours, one hobbyist told her. I have to get away from the kids.
She was already in a foul mood and the thought of more elitism, especially since Stacy herself counted every paid flight hour towards her own rent, began to annoy her. She dragged her bags down the aisle and stowed them near the aft galley. Now is the time, she decided, to put this all out of your mind. And yet, the letter poked out of her tote bag as she forced the overhead bin shut.
The letter. The damn letter.
No, she decided again, this time more firmly. Not going to let it end like this. That thought, of course, sprouted green shoots of memory only recently planted. Those she could allow herself.
A year and ten months ago, on the stairs of the Charm Farm, all of them in descending order, uniforms fresh, the sign board proclaiming their class number and graduation date.
What a hodge-podge they were: the oldest guy was a retired cop; several school teachers, giving up the daily grind; many, like Stacy herself, fresh of a series of post-college marketing “positions;” just all manner of young and old, or at least older, but all of them survivors of the attrition rate she figured was built into the flight attendant training program.
Within a day, within hours, really, they were scattered to the four winds, to crew bases on both coasts, plus Chicago. Then the first few quit in their first months at their crew base. That wasn’t hard to figure: Stacy herself felt like quitting when she’d arrived at O’Hare on Christmas Eve with two suitcases and the one box the airline had shipped for her. And that was it.
“Stacy,” Kimmie’s voice cut into Stacy’s thoughts. “We’re still checking emergency equipment, if the agents call.”
Not that Stacy wanted to rush boarding, but the fact was, Kimmie and company were basically lounging in First Class, not checking anything. Her phone buzzed.
Our FO is wearing cowboy boots with his uniform, the text read. Stacy sighed, then tapped away with both thumbs.
Probably a cheesy ‘stache and a teeny wienie. She hit send. Then she added, my granny crew is sitting on their fat asses in First.
Where was Laurie? Stacy couldn’t remember. Detroit turn? Stacy had a hard time remembering her own schedule, or even the day of the week, much less her roommate’s schedule.
“I’m Delores,” a portly flight attendant wearing gardening gloves said. She resumed hammering cubed ice that had clumped together on the catering truck.
“Stacy,” she replied and raised a hand to wave, but Delores had already ducked back into the forward galley. The cabin smelled stale, and little air circulated.
He keeps trying to get me to go to lunch with him sometime Laurie texted. Says I’ll like his Porsche.
Loser, Stacy texted back. She checked the emergency equipment in the forward overhead bin. The phone rang on the jetbridge and Stacy pictured the disheveled, harried agent who hadn’t met her eyes on the jetbridge.
“Don’t answer that,” Kimmie ordered, comfortably curled up in a First Class seat.
Yes ma’am, Stacy said in her head, then tried to figure out why that rankled so much. Being told what to do? Being ordered to join the old ladies malingering, delaying boarding?
The fact was, she too was in no rush to start the tedious parade of passenger demands, confusion, clumsiness with luggage and the impossibly slow process of finding a seat then actually sitting down. But she didn’t like being discounted, being told by parent-ish Kimmie and her cronies what to do as if she were a child.
“So,” Kimmie continued to her partners also on their duffs in First, “Everyone knows Shirley and I own 19 to London. It’s our bid.”
Granny thinks she owns the early London flight, Stacy tapped out on her phone. Bitches. She’s been sent out on that flight as a reserve more than once. While some of the crews were welcoming, too many “air bags” like Kimmie felt compelled to assert their “ownership” of a flight by virtue of their seniority rather than anything related to skill or merit.
The fact was, passengers clearly preferred the younger, prettier and more energetic younger male and female flight attendants to the waddling, plodding and as was the case right there in First, hiding flight attendants.
The agented clomped through the door, huffed a sigh, then pointed to Kimmie.
“We’re boarding,” she announced, then turned on her heel and walked up the jetbridge again.
“We used to board a full DC-10 in twenty minutes,” Kimmie called after her, mostly for effect, Stacy figured, or maybe for Stacy herself. That rankled too. She headed for the back of the plane.
Stacy took her place in the aisle for the mind-numbing slow shuffle of boarding which, she grudgingly had to admit silently, really did seem endless.
As the jet trundled to the runway, Stacy sway-walked to compensate for the nose-weaving taxi motion with the practiced grace of one who’d had a few years of doing it, of pouring scalding coffee flawlessly in a bouncing cabin, and reassuring nauseated passengers in turbulence that her own stomach had long since accommodated.
In cruise, Kimmie faced the inevitable.
“Let’s get this over with,” she said. She released the brake on a service cart and yanked from the galley.
Stacy positioned herself at the forward end of the cart, facing aft, popping open soft drinks, twisting caps off of liquor minis and wine splits, pouring, then handing things over to Kimmie who passed out the drinks and snacks.
The older woman had a strange, obsequious, automaton manner about her, as if she was there as a paper cutout, speaking with care but her eyes vacant, elsewhere, just sleepwalking through the service.
Fine, Stacy decided. Passengers, too, were barely there. More engrossed in layers of technology from ear buds to games and movies, hardly noticing her and requiring a second or third inquiry: something to drink? Snack?
It never ended. What? Something to drink? Would you like to purchase an on-board snack … credit or debit only … something to drink?
Kick the cart’s toe brake, pull forward a few rows, park the toe brake. Something to drink? A snack? Credit or debit.
She fell into the mind-numbing mantra, ask, pop a top, pour, tap the brake, pull. Finally, she helped Kimmie drag the cart back into the galley, shove it into its slot then flip the latch. At last, she plopped down on the jumpseat, exhausted more from the noisy hotel and crappy night’s sleep than from the mind-numbing cart mantra, up then back down the aisle.
She pulled a People magazine from her tote bag and dropped it in her lap, then leaned her head back just so against the bulkhead at the perfect angle that let her glimpse the round porthole in the emergency exit even while her head rested against the aft bulkhead.
Framed by the circular window, a tapestry of raggedy mountains glided noiselessly by below and disappeared behind. She gave in to the gently swaying yaw of the jet, always more pronounced in the very aft end, and let it lull and rock her like a cradle. The drone of the engines, the whoosh of conditioned air, and the ever-changing tapestry smoothly, silently scrolling by below mesmerized her into that half-sleep of conscious twilight, dreamy, awake but not really.
A highway like a tiny vein slipped by and sun glinted off speck-like semi-trucks lumbering below, antlike, earthbound. A flash of sunlight glinted off of filament-like railroad tracks and moments later, like a black marker streak, a freight train like a miniature eraser blotted the sunlight and crept ever so slowly west on the rails.
It was a footless, god’s-eye view, exclusive, omniscient, above and beyond at incredible speed and height. That was hers, her secret view, her superpower, soaring above.
“She will fly,” Aunt Millie said, holding a ladybug on her fingertip.
“How,” seven-year-old Stacy asked her, squinting in the sunshine and floating dust motes in the side porch. “How will she fly?”
“Well,” Aunt Millie said, a modest smile nonetheless crinkling the crow’s feet near both eyes, “She knows how. May not look like it, but she will.”
The ladybug seemed more like a cute button, a perfect little toy, even a candy, but certainly just a bug. Fly? How?
Then just like that, the candy-like red panels on the ladybug’s back flexed up and out in unison and after a heartbeat, she rose in a blur and darted out the open window then up into the sunlight.
“Just like that,” Aunt Millie said. “She knew how, and she knew just when.”
That was amazing. How could a bitty bug just know, both how and when? And she will fly. She just knew, she repeated to herself, trying the thought on like a soft new sweater. It fit. Somehow, it just felt right. Not the how and when exactly, but.
“I will fly,” Stacy announced, then nodded her head for emphasis.
“Will you, my dear?”
She nodded again, as if to say, that’s final. Millie smiled, stood, then kissed her on the forehead.
“Well, my girl, I do believe you will.”
“Flight attendants,” the PA blared and her half-dream fled like a candle blown out, “Prepare for landing.”
Those were the words a flight attendant lived for. Landing, taxi-in, then time off. She stood and shook the cobwebs from her head. Then she swept past the galley curtains and walked through the cabin, checking for seats fully upright and passengers belted.
As they taxied in, Stacy’s phone buzzed to life and she glanced down at it, cupped in both hands as if it were a precious metal or a family bible. She wanted to look, but she wanted not to. Laurie.
Stacy dug in her tote bag for the letter, for her relative seniority position. Pointless, she knew, but like dawn on death row, she hoped that maybe the meaning had changed or perhaps she’d misread it. But since Laurie had landed an hour ago, she’d know the truth. She’d heard the announcement from the union. And the dream was alive, at least until it wasn’t.
We’re both gone, the text read. Furloughed. The standard WARN letter had been sent out, a verdict read but no sentence carried out. This was it. Gone.
She crumpled the letter and tossed it on the floor. Shit. What do I do now? She thought back to the cloud-flecked blue sky, the scalded ochres of Utah giving way to the big-shouldered Rockies below, all below her, gone. She too, like her sky, just gone.
After everyone had deplaned, the tears came, but she didn’t care. Kimmie looked into her eyes like her mother used to do, knowing, but not saying anything.
Finally, Kimmie sighed.
“I’m so sorry, hon. I heard.”
Stacy nodded but said nothing. Yes, she knew, but with her seniority, Kimmie still had her job. And her sky, and her super power and the sun and clouds and escape and freedom and what did she know—
“Hon,” she said. “I know. This is my third airline.”
Delores put a puffy arm around Stacy’s shoulders. “My second. First one liquidated. No recall.”
“I waited tables,” Kimmie continued. “I just had faith I’d be back. Then we got recalled but a year later, we lost all our seniority in a merger and I was out on the street for five more years.”
“That’s awful,” Stacy said, and all at once, she meant it.
“And now,” Delores added, “After these furloughs take effect, we’ll be flying bottom reserve even though we have nearly thirty-years of seniority.”
Kimmie laughed, and patted Stacy on the back. “Not sure how these granny bones are going to handle that.”
There was everything good about being a flight attendant and of course, everything bad. But this, this, the worst of the worst and a loss. All around, for granny bones and young girls who believed in the magic of ladybugs and flight.
“You’ll be back, hon,” Kimmie said as they parted ways at the jetbridge door. “You take care, meantime.”
“You too,” Stacy said with a nod and a pat on Kimmie’s forearm. “And yes: I will fly.”
Kimmie nodded, and smiled so hard the crow’s feet crinkled at both eyes.
“Well, my dear,” she said at last. “I do believe you will.”
Stacy turned, squared her shoulders, held her chin high, a went on her way.
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Well, what do you think? Too much, too “insider?” Let me know.
And pre-order here from Amazon Books, if you want. You’ll get a copy on October 1.
I can’t promise how long I’ll keep it for sale after that.
Maybe you’ve heard of Amazon’s #1 New Release in Commercial Aviation, An Airline Pilot’s Life. The true story starts with a step into nothingness 2,000 feet above the hard-packed clay of Southwest Virginia. Then, the parachute fails. Here’s the pic–and the story–plus a few more photos from this fast-selling new book.
Last one into the jump plane, because I’m going to be the first one out. Then, all hell breaks loose.
From An Airline Pilot’s Life:
Chapter 1
Nothing but a furious blue sky above, laced on top with a wispy cirrus deck like a delicate veil. Below, the earth screamed up at nearly terminal velocity and the jump plane was nowhere to be seen. Fine.
“Hop and pop,” it’s called: fling yourself out the open aircraft door two thousand, maybe twenty-five hundred feet above the ground if the jump plane pilot’s feeling generous, then plunge. I only paid for two thousand feet, but I’d hoped for a bit more.
One fist on my helmet, drawn in as my ripcord hand goes for the handle, so as not to flip myself over from the imbalance. Grab, pull, wait.
Nada.
The rumply-fluttery sound of the main chute dragged out by the smaller drogue flapping upward in the slipstream, but no reassuring, nut-crunching harness tug of full deployment. Okay, arch your neck, look up.
Shit.
The sleeve’s still on the main chute and it’s wagging like a big streamer yards above my head. The sleeve covers, reefs, the main chute. Ain’t opening. I shake the risers like a stagecoach driver urging on a team of horses, trying to shake loose the sleeve, to let the main parachute blossom full and wide but no.
My frantic attempt to clear the streamer has eaten up precious time, too much time. I’d “cut away,” release my tangled main and go for my reserve chute, but I’ve spent too many valuable seconds trying to clear the tangled main. The reserve chute will need at least five hundred feet to blossom full enough to arrest my plunge. I can see cows below, coming into distinct focus, as the ground rises to meet me. That’s bad.
I’d had no money for flying lessons, paying my own way through college, so that was way out of my budget. But skydiving was a fraction of the cost. Bought a used chute, took a few lessons—just get me into the sky and I’ll find my own way down.
Like right now. The voice of calm logic in my head annoys the panicked side of my brain with the salient fact that well, with a streamer, you won’t achieve terminal velocity because of the tangled chute’s drag, so you’ll only hit the packed dirt at ninety, maybe ninety-five miles an hour.
The mortal side of me, the soft pink flesh and blood humanism that doesn’t want to impact the dirt clod strewn pasture land at ninety miles an hour begins to perceive the red lip of terror, but there’s more to be done. I clutch my reserve chute tight with my left arm, then pull and toss away the reserve ripcord.
Both the relentlessly rational side of me and the human side feeling the growing alarm of near death unite in the methodical, careful last-ditch effort: grab the reserve with both hands and throw it downward as hard as you can. Hope and pray the reserve chute catches air and inflates on the way up rather than tangling with the snagged main chute flapping away above.
I give it a heave downward with all I’ve got. I mash my eyes shut, not wanting to see the results. I’ll know soon enough, whether the chutes tangled together and assured my death within seconds, or if I’d beat the odds and have the reserve chute blossom and displace tangled main. Or not.
The calm, unrelenting voice of reason, always there no matter what, had the last words: you really didn’t have jump out of a perfectly good airplane.
Way to go, dumbass.
Copyright 2020 Chris Manno All Rights Reserved
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The rest of the story? It’s all here:
And …. more pictures from the true story.
USAF Pilot Training in Lubbock Texas. We had a blast–the stories are in the book–and here are the real-life people from the story: me on the left, The Coke standing next to me, and Animal Hauser above us both.
The Wolfpack, above. That’s me with my flight suit unzipped, Chip leaning on my shoulder, and Animal Hauser leaning in front of me. Lot’s of adventures with this bunch, and the book puts you in the cockpit with us.
Then, I shipped off to Kadena Air Base on the Island of Okinawa as a tanker copilot for two years of flying all over the Pacific, Asia and the Indian Ocean. Below, that’s me and Widetrack, a guy I flew with and shared some pretty wild times–which are also in the book.
Me and Widetrack, waiting on the wing of our jet.
Those were the early years, my Air Force experience which led me to a career as an airline pilot, which is also covered, putting you in the cockpit of the world’s largest airline. Here’s a sneak peek:
Animal, Chip, me, and The Coke. The story of our journey from USAF pilot training to captain’s stripes is epic, and the details are what comprises Amazon’s #1 New Release in Commercial Aviation.:
This is the true story that is Amazon’s #1 new release in Commercial Aviation, now available in paperback! Now you can live the pilot’s life yourself, from early years flying gas-powered, control line aircraft, to soloing in a Cessna 152, to USAF pilot training and soloing a supersonic T-38, to many years as an Air Force pilot in the Pacific, to American Airlines and a decades-long airline pilot career around the world, most of it as captain.
Critics have called this “the real thing,” “an extraordinary adventure,” and “the closest most of us will ever get to flying a jetliner.” It’s all here, from the flying the DC-10 to captain upgrade to the MD-80 left seat, to instructor/evaluator, pilot union elected officer, to the Fokker-100 and eventually, the 737-800.
Live the dream yourself, every approach, every tight spot, every behind-the-scenes adventure in a vivid, fast-paced real life story.
Then, let your first-person adventure begin.
From Goodreads: “Reading this book, one learns what goes into the making of an airline pilot, as well as what is in the heart and soul of an airline pilot. I highly recommend it on both counts.”
Hundreds of new Kindle readers a day are enjoying this true story, the Amazon #1 aviation new release:
Here’s a free sample, along with some actual photos of the places , people and jet in the story. Enjoy this sample, then get your copy of Part 1: An Airline Pilot’s Story from amazon HERE.
Here’s the scene: me and my aircraft commander Widetrack (see picture below) find ourselves roped into a “mission spare” status for a buttcrack of dawn mission of tankers and BUFFs (Big Ugly Fat F*ckers) launching out of Andersen AFB, Guam. What could possibly go wrong? Well, everything. Live it yourself:
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The next day, upon release from alert after crew changeover, we were immediately assigned to crew rest for an early morning refueling mission. Crew rest, of course, called for us to drink as much as possible right up to the eight hour cutoff for alcohol, while the ongoing alert crew planned our mission.
“Don’t worry,” Widetrack promised me, “I finagled us the number five tanker position. We’re just the spare.”
That meant we’d start up and taxi out with the four primary tankers, but we’d only launch if one of them had a no-go mechanical problem at the last minute. The two BUFFs (B-52: Big Ugly Fat Fuckers) would launch first, then after the primary tankers launched, we’d taxi back in, shut down, then go back to sleep off our hangovers.
So on our “crew rest” we replayed the beer-filled maintenance van on the beach deal, and Casey, the then-off duty alert controller, met me on Terragi Beach for a private, beer-lubricated day of beach fun and other interpersonal activities.
It was well after midnight by the time we’d paid our proper respects to General Shaky, returned the van, and hit the sack. The room spun, my skin felt tight and scorched from the sun—Casey’d gotten herself fried—and the air conditioner gurgled and clanked every time I fell asleep, waking me. But, I told myself, no worries: we were just the spare. I’d be back in the sack by eight o’clock.
I dragged myself through the buttcrack-of-dawn showtime, crew briefing and preflight, then slouched in my cockpit seat. Widetrack slumped in his and no one, including Stinkfinger and Flintstone said a word—it was too damn early and we were all still suspended in the nauseating grey netherworld between half-drunk and well-hungover.
Flintstone hadn’t even bothered getting a jug of coffee, the fat, lazy bastard. All he’d managed was a couple gallons of room temperature tap water since we were just the spare. He’d figured he’d just end up dumping out the coffee anyway, which I kind of craved as a result.
Me and Widetrack, killing time on the wing of our jet.
After engine start, we lumbered out behind the two B-52s and the other four tankers. I was only vaguely aware of where they were all headed, having ignored most of the briefing. Something about the BUFFs doing a low level bombing route, then popping up for max fuel offload then blah-blah-blah. My head pounded, my mouth felt like sandpaper, so I just didn’t care.
That is, until mission frequency crackled to life and the command post ordered, “Launch the spare.”
What the hell?
“Confirm,” the command post snapped. “Trade 19, launch.”
That was us. Shit.
“He didn’t get water,” Stinkfinger grumbled, pointing at the tanker on the runway.
I squinted at the squatty tanker, engines bellowing, but no telltale black cloud from the water injection. Fuck, he’s got a boost pump failure.
“Try it again,” Widetrack barked on the mission frequency, a bold and prohibited move on his part, but I hoped that might prod the other crew to cycle the boost pumps a few more times.
No dice.
“Trade 19 now mission primary,” Stinkfinger groaned over the mission frequency.
As if in a bad dream, I acknowledged the tower’s take-off clearance among the muttered curses in the cockpit from my three fellow crewmembers.
We ran through the final takeoff checklist items while I silently prayed that our water injection system would fail so we could abort as well. But no dice; the water injection system kicked in, then Widetrack released the brakes and we began to inch forward.
We rolled most of the long runway, into a glowing pink sunrise, then wobbled into the air and past the cliff at the far end, over the Pacific.
“Gear up,” Widetrack said. I reached for the gear handle and raised it.
Nada.
“It’s not coming up,” I said.
“Well, cycle the handle,” Widetrack said.
I put the gear handle down, waited a heartbeat, then raised it again. Still nothing.
“Fuck me,” Widetrack muttered, lowering the nose slightly to preserve airspeed with the huge landing gear trucks dragging in the slipstream.
Fuck all of us, I decided. With the gear down we’d never make the formation, much less the mission.
“One-ten, water,” Stinkfinger whined.
“Tell the Command Post we’re an air abort,” Widetrack said.
Stinkfinger relayed our status to the Command Post while I coordinated a cruise clearance with Departure Control. No one else spoke, because we all knew we were still screwed: with our mission fuel load, we’d be too heavy to land for hours.
I began to calculate the fuel burn, then the max landing weight. Sonofabitch.
“Three goddam hours at ten thousand,” I relayed the bad news to Widetrack. Flintstone cursed roundly, Stinkfinger whined.
“Request a cruise clearance at five thousand,” Widetrack ordered. “Nothing to hit out here anyway.”
That would help. Maybe only two hours. Flintstone and Stinkfinger unstrapped and went back into the cargo compartment to forage in a survival kit for something to eat while Widetrack and I scoured the manuals for a technical solution to our landing gear failure to retract. There was none.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Widetrack said as I eyed the fuel dump valve switch. “And so does the Command Post.”
I sighed. He was right: they knew exactly how much fuel we’d launched with and even as we spoke, some asshole with a calculator in the command center was figuring out just how long we’d have to fly in order to burn off fuel to be below the max landing weight.
Sure, in an actual emergency, no one would question fuel dumping. But our only emergency was an ever-worsening hangover, although I began to get the impression that only three of us were actually suffering. Stinkfinger had avoided the beach beer binge both days and actually seemed to be enjoying everyone else’s discomfort. Just one more reason for me to despise his whiny ass.
Seems like I spent a lot of time hanging out on the wing which was much cooler than the cockpit in the South Pacific heat.
Sawdust bars, or what the Air Force called “survival concentrate,” which was densely packed, dried cornflake cubes the size of a soap bar, was all the survival kit offered. I gnawed silently, washing the sawdust down with tepid tap water, and made a promise to myself that I’d cram some sort of survival food into my flight bag going forward.
I’d usually grab a can of Coke before leaving Base Ops for the jet, and I had a special place just aft of the crew entry door wear the insulation could be peeled back and I’d stow the can next to the external skin where at altitude it would chill just shy of freezing within an hour of takeoff. But I hadn’t bothered, being the spare. How I wished for that cold drink as we cruised over the Marianas Islands and the impossibly blue South Pacific at five thousand feet and three hundred knots.
After landing I spent the rest of the morning sleeping, then hung out at the Officer’s Club pool the rest of the day. Though tropically hot and sticky, regular dips in the pool counteracted the heat and on and off catnapping restored my strength from the early showtime.
“Have you heard anything about the plane,” I asked Widetrack who snoozed on the beach chair next to mine.
“Nope,” he said. “And who cares anyway?”
I hadn’t thought of it that way, but it made sense: the tankers were old and creaky and in the tropical climate, cranky from the heat, humidity, and corrosive salt air. I had heard that one of the BUFFs had also been unable to raise the landing gear so the entire mission was a bust. Copyright 2020 Chris Manno All Rights Reserved.
If you have hours of time with nothing to do but worry, why not take a flight of fancy?
Same pilots, different setting: now, versus back in our USAF days.
Left to right, that’s Animal Hauser, wide-body captain; Chip, me, and the Coke, all narrow-body captains. It was a long road from the Air Force to the airlines. It wasn’t always easy, but most of it was fun and all of it memorable. You can climb into the cockpit with us as we all earned our USAF wings.
Then onto the airlines after the Air Force, and you’ll be there every step of the way. Here’s where we are today:
Left to right: me, Father-O, Coke, Chip, and Animal–the actual guys in the book:
Fly with these guys, I dare you. I did–in fact, that’s me, fourth from the left, standing. The “official” USAF photographer had taken the required group photo, then we as The Wolfpack reverted to our original, crude, f*ck this nonsense attitude.
The details and the people above–including Coke, Beldar, Ruff, Animal, Pulsar, Kirb, Dorf, Landshark, and more fly in vivid detail on these pages:
In this first Kindle installment, you’ll start flying in a Cessna and end up solo and supersonic in a T-38. Then, it’s off to the Pacific in two different USAF squadrons as a pilot. You’ll live Amazon’s #1 rated aviation new release in full detail: the missions, the pilots, the adventures, squadron life and more.
Then, in May, part two will be pushed to your Kindle and you’ll step into the cockpit of the world’s largest airline, as copilot and quickly, as a captain for decades of airline flying in a multitude of jets.
The paperback will be released in May, but why wait? Climb aboard now and let’s fly.
What are you waiting for? Strap in, and let’s fly.
An insider-view from an airline cockpit: you’re in the captain’s-eye view, from USAF flying all over the Pacific and Asia, to over three decades in the cockpits of the world’s largest airline, most as captain.
Live the life, an airline pilot’s life, firsthand.
To pre-order your copy, CLICK HERE.
If you are a victim of fear of flying, either directly (you are fearful) or indirectly (a friend or loved one won’t fly), here’s a resource, free:
Cockpit insight, practical coping strategies, explanations and … cartoons!
Get your FREE Kindle copy–CLICK HERE.
The more an airline passenger knows, the less possible it is for the unknown to overinflate itself and stand in the way of your travel with family and friends to fun, faraway places and adventures.
Here’s an insider-look with street-level explanations for everything you’ll encounter from your doorstep to the airport to your seat on the airplane: sights, sounds and sensations–what to expect, and why.
If you have a fear of flying or worse, if you’re unable to fly because a loved one has that fear, thereby grounding you too, here’s an easy, accessible, low-key way to start the reassurance that leads to air travel.
If you relate to the JetHead blog–you’ll love this book. Get yours now, from Amazon Books.
To order, CLICK HERE.
The JetHead Blog 