Join Me On Airplane Geeks Podcast

Airplane Geeks podcast is the number one online source for aviation, airline and aerospace news. It was my privilege to join them once again for an episode where we discussed An Airline Pilot’s Life with the podcast crew.

You can listen to the entire episode here . We discuss the true story that is Amazon’s #1 new release in commercial aviation, giving you an insider, firsthand view of military flying from USAF pilot training to years of missions flown in the Pacific, Asia and the United States. You’re in the squadron, in the cockpit and in the air flying the missions.

Part Two of An Airline Pilot’s Life is complete and ready for release in both Kindle and paperback formats later this month. Start your aviation journey now with Part One on Kindle and get ready for Part Two which will put you in the cockpit of the world’s largest airline, flying the DC-10, MD-80, F-100 and Boeing 737-800.

Climb aboard, strap in, and let’s fly through An Airline Pilot’s Life.

 

JetHead, The Novel.

Yes, you read that correctly. Let me explain.

I have a novel in print right now: East Jesus, published by White Bird Publications of Austin, Texas.  Of course, there’s an aviation theme (read more here) but only as a part of the larger story.

Here below, for my 5,000+ blog friends and subscribers, is Chapter 1 of the JetHead novel.

You want to live the airline pilot life through the prose you’ve come to enjoy in the blogspace here–happy to report that over a million readers have–before my publisher gets ahold of it?

Here you go.

Chapter 1: A Slice of the Sky

“Breathe, goddamit,” he silently swore, as much to himself as to Beaver. It was no use, Beaver was a narrator, the worst kind of narrator to have in the cockpit, his cockpit. “Just breathe.”

Taxi out should be silent save what was required, at least in his mind, and he was the captain. Like a walk down the church aisle to a pew, quietly, with reverence, preparing for worship. So little needed to be said. But Beaver not only over said what needed to be said, he blabbered on about what didn’t need to be said: “The runway is not wet,” he chattered. No shit, it’s not wet or in flames or made of corn flakes or a million other salient but useless observations that could be made.

Beaver was a last minute replacement for his regular First Officer–FO, in the parlance of flight crews–which could mean only one dastardly thing: Opie was off getting his pipe scraped by The Sky Goddess. Beaver, Eager Beaver, was a newhire, on the line barely a year and eager (hence the nickname) to prove he was doing stuff, a lot of stuff, in that right seat just as he presumed every copilot must do.

Taylor had been in the left seat, a captain for what, twenty-five years plus change now? Had he been Beaver once, with a babbling lack of shut up, back in the day? Doubtful: Taylor had earned a reputation as a silent type, a grouch especially on early flights, in his Air Force squadron. That was long ago, but still.

He sighed and nudged the lumbering jet back toward the taxiway centerline with a light touch on the rudder pedals–his cabin crew, he knew, was up and about checking seat backs and seat belts in preparation for take off. He always pictured Her, his flight attendant bride of twenty years, even though she wasn’t on board, trying to walk down that aisle and taxied as smoothly as possible. Like a great timber ship of old, Taylor could sense the creak of spars and the slosh of fifteen tons of jet fuel in the wings and center tank heaving against the turn he smoothly eased out of. That feel, beautiful silent sense of fuel and steel, blood and bone ready to leap off the earth–that called for silent appreciation. For Opie, maybe. He was good at reading people, knew when to be quiet. But The Beav, no.

Taylor tuned out, steering with his feet, clearing his mind. He knew the planned aircraft weight, needed now only to know the up-linked final weight and what the aircraft’s onboard Flight Management System thought the jet weighed. Because the choreography had to match the dance: day or night, tired or not, those three would be reconciled without ambiguity or confusion without fail.

“Blah blah as briefed blah blah,” came from Beaver in a stream of consciousness flow.

If it’s “as briefed,” why do you need to say anything? Selective listening would be the key to not having an aneurism during the next 3,000 air miles. Opie, damned Opie, blowing up his life with the Sky Goddess and sticking Taylor with The Beav as a result. Hope it was worth it. He eased the jet to a stop in the aluminum conga line ahead. The fuel sloshed, the keel wagged a bit in protest. The ship was alive and that, for Taylor, was what mattered and really, all he wanted to think or feel.

The Boeing was a simple, solid jet, a friend a pilot could rely on: generous wing, plenty of smash in the two big hi-bypass engines slung beneath each wing. She climbed well, handled smoothly in roll and pitch. A reliable workhorse, a Percheron among jets, she deserved respect. You don’t just fly ’em, he thought to himself. Like horses, Noble, quiet, strong; you were privileged to be among them, much less ride them. He’d been downstairs as she sat at the gate, for no other reason than to take her in, the span of her wings, the smooth, flush-riveted and polished skin. Slide a hand down her flank; an ancient ritual from his Air Force days.

Beav fell silent. Finally, Taylor’s cue. “We planned 160.5, we closed at 160.9 for a takeoff weight of 161.5; set and crosschecked.” Amen, he thought but didn’t say. Respect the altar of fire and flight.

Opie had a a very pregnant wife plus a toddler at home. Sky Goddess had three kids and a husband with a badge and gun and the legal sanction to use it. On Opie, Taylor had warned. A dime-sized hole between his eyes, a bag of cocaine stuffed in his mouth and no further questions from the grand jury: no bill.

He set the brakes as a ponderous, four-engined Airbus took the runway. He shared the Bus crew’s cockpit moment, reviewing the litany–pilots called it that–going through the captain’s mind: idle power, speed brakes, boards, amen. Above eighty knots, abort for engines only. Meaning, the reality of flight: he was a pilot, made for flight, not a drag racer trying to stop an eighty ton tricycle. There was always that moment of relief when max abort speed was passed, committing them to flight. Much better for a pilot to handle a sick jet in flight rather than stop it, laden with tons of jet fuel looking for a flashpoint, on the ground. Pilots fly, godammit, and that’s what he’d sooner do. The Airbus rolled.

“Final’s clear,” The Beav broke into his reverie. That was a required call out. “And the clock is started,” Beav added. That was not required, but the eager one wanted the droll, soporific and taciturn captain blob to know he knew they’d need two minutes of wake turbulence spacing behind the heavy bus only just now but slowly rising into a dusty cobalt Texas sky.

Taylor knew. And he really didn’t care, looking at the windsock showing a steady crosswind. The wingtip vortices from the heavy would be a problem for those landing on the parallel runway, maybe, but not for them. Plus, they’d be in the air a thousand feet prior to where the euro-trash heavy broke ground, and sail way above the lumbering beast anyway.

Over time, Taylor knew you just get so familiar with the jet that the final minutes before takeoff become reflex driven. From the captain’s cyber-view, a green alphabet soup swam before his eyes in the HUD–Head UpDisplay–that couldn’t be sorted, shouldn’t be anyway: symmetry was the key. A battalion of aerospace engineers designed the semiotics to present a symmetry when all was well–airspeed, altitude, course, track; over seventy bits of detail, Taylor had counted–leaving the pilot free to concentrate on flying.

Beaver was leaping over the symmetry and quashing Taylor’s calm awareness of the rightness with a deluge of everythingness. He’d have to dial that back.

“Line up and wait,” came the call from the tower. Finally. He chimed the flight attendants to let them know “take off was imminent,” as the operating manual writers put it–more like, “grab yourself an assload of jumpseat, we’re fixin’ to fly this jet” in the less orthodox argot he tended to think in, sometimes speak in.

Time to roll the jet onto the runway, line it up on the numbers, ease it to a stop as the fuel sloshed and the nose dipped from the gentle braking. Then, the silent moment of peace before fifty-four thousand pounds of thousand degree thrust shattered the air with the hi-bypass howling growl and launched them down the runway.

Hang on, Beav, he thought to himself, looking five miles ahead and above in the dusty blue sky. This is going to be epic.

Pilot Incognito: The Trouble With Air Travel.

Let me confess: though I fly at least 90 hours a month as an airline pilot, I personally hate air travel. The delays, bad weather, crowding, security, expense, cattle-herding through packed terminals, the security gauntlet, baggage claim–I hate all of it. Give me a road trip, a map, hotel reservations, a route and I love to travel, driving. Hang airline reservations over my head and I go as to the gallows. But this past holiday weekend, I did exactly that: I bought tickets for my family and me, and we faced the ordeal together. Sure, we can travel free–but not if we have a tight schedule and an event to attend, especially on a federal holiday weekend like Memorial Day. I thought to myself, as I went through the steps as an air traveler to find a decent fare, buy a ticket, and travel, let’s see what this is like from the passenger standpoint. Year round, I hear the griping about airline service, fees, late flights, rude passenger service. I decided I’d get the full experience from start to finish, then decide for myself if the urban legend of horrible air travel was true. Reservations? On line, complicated, tedious and annoying. There were too many ways to screw up, which I did: whoops–this particular flight goes to Baltimore, not Washington Reagan. All airlines consider Baltimore, Washington-Reagan and Dulles to be “Washington DC” for their flight purposes–but not mine. They dump them all together online, sorting by “value,” which is to say, “here’s what we usually can’t sell, so it’s a little cheaper.” From a consumer standpoint, the value of “cheaper” versus “where I need to go” is bass-ackwards, priority-wise. But online reservations are their ball game, so they make the rules. A long, frustrating sorting process–mostly wading through stuff they want me to buy–culminated in the painstaking process of names and addresses for all three of us. I’d had to change some details once it became apparent what we actually needed–the punishment for that is retyping all the data for the three of us each time. Fees? Yes, but there’s nothing sneaky about it: want to board ahead of others? Pay for it. Want more legroom? There’s a charge. Check bags? Pay. So? That seems fair to me–we’ll board with our group. We’ll use the seats I chose. We’ll check one bag, and pay for it. That’s business. I have no problem with that but then maybe I don’t perceive these extras as my birthright. At the airport, as a pilot I could have entered the terminal through a couple of different authorized access points. But, I was traveling with my family–we stay together. The security screening was adequately manned so traffic flowed smoothly, with an ironic twist: we were in a very short, fast-moving general screening line, while the TSA Pre-Check line was three times as long and moving slowly due to the need for more elaborate document checks. The TSA people did their job efficiently, with only a minimum of the cattle-call feel. But the annoyance wasn’t the TSA staff, but rather many other air travelers who were distracted, inefficient, and rude, shoving ahead of each other, not following basic instructions. I could imagine the complaints from many of those passengers who were actually the problem themselves, rather than the screening process. Another irony.

Once on the secure side, we prepared for the reality of air travel: we bought a bottle of water for each of us, plus a sandwich each. There’s really no food to be had on the flight, largely because over the years passengers have demonstrated loud and clear that they don’t want to pay for food. Fine–we paid at a concession stand for food instead, then brought it aboard. Those who didn’t went hungry (and thirsty) in flight. That will get chalked up to poor service in some customer feedback, but the situation is exactly as consumer demand dictates. Again, the line between the cause of the complaint and the complainers becomes blurred. Since I paid to check the one large bag we brought on the trip, we had only hand carried items: a garment bag, which I hung in the forward closet as we boarded, and a mini-sized roll-aboard. We were near the back of the plane, but still, storage space wasn’t a problem even though every seat on the flight was full. Again, either you pay to check a bag, or pay to board early to get overhead space–or you don’t. The airline product now is cafeteria style: pay for what you want only. Those who expect dessert included with their appetizer will be disappointed.

I could see as we boarded that the crew was tired. We were scheduled to land at midnight and they’d obviously already had a long day. I approached them this way: they’re at work, they’re tired–leave them alone and get seated. Those passengers who presume that their basic airfare has somehow bought them a piece of somebody’s workday are flat out wrong. My wife, a veteran flight attendant, always hated it when passengers boarded and ordered her, “smile,” as if she were a character at Disney. I roll my I eyes when I’m squeezing past passengers on the jet bridge, returning to the cockpit, when there’s the inevitable “We’ll let you by” as if we’re all just “funnin'” rather than me trying to accomplish a complex job to get us airborne. Ditto the cabin crew. Leave them alone. Most of the boarding hassles are, simply, passenger induced: the inevitable bashing of bags against people as passengers shove their way in. Backpacks are the worst, with passengers whirling around, smacking someone else with their wide load. Others dumbly push bags designed to be pulled, drag bags designed to be rolled, a struggle with too-wide, over-stuffed bags because by God, THEY’RE not paying to check anything.

Once airborne, we each had what we needed: water and food. So, when the service cart reached us, the beverage was a bonus. Yes, I could have shown my crew ID to get maybe a free drink, but it’s not worth: I’m not working, I’m glad I’m not working, and to keep the precious bubble of anonymity and “not at work” ambience, I paid $7 for a drink. Well worth the price. Arrival was on time and the last hurdle was deplaning, a simple reality made into an ordeal, once again, by some passengers: even though the forward door wasn’t open, there’s a mad rush to bolt out of coach seats and start slinging hand-carried bags like missiles. There’s a repeat of the boarding bashing of other passengers with backpacks and heavy bags. There are those in rows behind you that won’t wait, but feel they must push past you. Bags not designed to be pushed, pushed; bags designed to be rolled, dragged. Basically, most of the hassles of being a passenger are caused by, or certainly compounded by, other passengers. The tableau of air travel is the reverse of the classic “ascent of man” drawings, with travelers becoming stooped with fatigue, unmet needs (don’t pay for food/water on the plane–BRING IT), too heavy bags (CHECK IT–you have $500 for your headphones, audio equipment and iPad; invest $25 in your own convenience). Air travel is the descent of man–so many unthinking, illogical, uninformed (what’s your flight number? Boarding time?), helpless (“Where’s the bathroom?”) and rude (gotta shove ahead through security, during boarding, and deplaning) people spoiling things for everyone–including themselves. The return trip was much the same. I have to say, my usual reluctance to travel by air proved to be an overreaction: nothing turned out to be urban-legend awful, from security to boarding to baggage claim. People just like to gripe and I have the feeling that the loudest gripers are among those who, as noted above, cause and compound the very problems they complain about. Regardless, we got where we needed to be, on time, efficiently, as promised. That’s a positive experience, in my opinion. I’m back in cockpit again, storing that lesson away: air travel urban legend, along with those who rant the loudest, both have very little credibility. Take your seats, let the crew do their job, and we’ll be under way shortly. Given my choice, I prefer to drive, but flying is nonetheless an efficient, fairly-priced indulgence. If only that could be a more common realization.

The Big Girl and What You Don’t Know

She stands tall in the chocks, that DC-10, all shiny polished aluminum gleaming at the leading edges like an Atlas rocket. A grand old bird, a design maybe Mac-Doug rushed into production to compete with what some called the better tri-jet from Lockheed. Not that I gave a damn, first as flight engineer, or Tengineer, as we were called, then as DC-10 copilot.

Because she had what a pilot needed–lots of lift on a fat gull-wing that produced a nice ground effect cushion to make you look good on landing if you treated her right, and tons of smash in those growly hi-bypass fans slung under the wing and mounted in the towering tail. For all her bulk and heft, she’d go like a halfback after the snap.

And in the cockpit, windows so wide next to the pilots’ seats that you’d swear you were going to fall out and drop two stories to the Tarmac on your first pushback. That took some getting used to.

That morning I was flying with Big John, a guy as nervous as you might expect a senior captain to be just months from retirement, not wanting to screw up. He had an enormous belly, hence the nickname, which I’d slap with the control yoke when I pulled it back during the taxi-out flight control check.

You’re supposed to watch the small, square flight control position indicator in the center of the instrument near the Thrust Rating Computer as you put the ailerons and elevator through their paces. But it was more fun, out of the corner of my eye, to watch Big John’s rubbery lips twist into a frown by the second or third time I’d heave back on the yoke till it popped him on the gut.

“Watcha tryin’ to do, boy–loop it?” he’d ask with a wet, wheezy sigh. The flight engineer and I would share a laugh about that over beers later. Conspiratorial, we were, young pilots laughing at the fat old captain.

The big jet rolled like a tank on the ground but once in the air, she climbed steady and strong, shoved smartly by those three big, snarling engines. Once she leveled off and planed out like a speedboat does, her nose dropped and she was a thoroughbred on a quarter mile track, effortlessly sailing along at .84 Mach, mane flying, not even breaking a sweat. And there was the quiet beauty of a morning flight, with everything below bathed in a rising arc light of sunshine as if revealing the new day by degrees of latitude and the majestic solar march along the ecliptic.

In cruise there was nothing to do but put your feet up on the traction-taped bar below the sparsely stocked instrument panel–it was so wide it just seemed empty–and ease that electric seat back a comfortable inch or two more. Then the good flight engineer would produce a small bottle of unreasonably Scoville-blazing hot sauce and make us Virgin Mary’s with the tomato juice in the collection of drinks and snacks and a pot of hot coffee and water the flight attendants had tossed into the cockpit on climbout to keep us pacified.

The Ten design engineers took cabin pressurization a step further than most jets, not only modulating outflow to maintain a habitable pressure despite the membrane-thin atmosphere where we cruised–but also varying the input tapped off of the big engines humming out on the fat wings. So she puffed and wheezed like Big John struggling his girth into the crew van, as the three air cycle machines opened and closed high stage bleeds.

You might not notice so much in the cabin, but having spent a thousand hours myself manning the DC-10 flight engineer’s panel, even up front I was in tune with her calliope-ish huffing, familiar as a the breathing of spouse of so many years in the middle of the night.
“Not really happy ’bout these winds,” Big John said, shaking his head. “Big damn crosswind.” Which really mattered at LaGarbage, with its fairly short runways.

But the engineer and I couldn’t care; Virgin Mary’s and tonight in Manhattan mattered more: with half the flight attendant crew–the others would find something better to do–we’d walk from the Mildew Plaza to the Westside Temple for crappy Chinese but free wine. All you could drink, though the wine tasted like piss. But it was free and we were airline pilots: free piss is free piss. Big John could pour down a bucket by himself.

“Seems marginal,” Big John muttered, holding the current wind printout. That was the good engineer’s cue to check it out on his tabletop wind chart. We all knew the limits.

“It’s right at it,” the engineer offered. At it ain’t over it, we both decided, but of course Big John had signed for the jet, the damages, plus the FAA and NTSB beating should so much as a ding appear on the silver girl’s skin.

The engineer shrugged a second officer shrug: I told the captain the winds. I did too: I agreed. Glad it’s not my decision.
“Tough call,” Big John said, searching my eyes, I figured, for some hint as to what I’d do if I were him.

And that’s the moment blazed into my mind to this day as I carry his weight. Not his gut, but his pilot-in-command weight, in the twenty-some years I’ve been wearing four stripes. Ain’t no simple, pat answers, just air sense, and the ability to bring others into the decision in a meaningful way.

“We’ll fly the approach as long as we have the fuel increment to divert to JFK on the missed approach with at least fifteen thousand pounds on the deck there. In a standard Korry arrival that leaves about fifteen extra minutes after the full approach so we bingo out at twenty-five regardless. Just request clearance on the missed.”

Then, the golden question. He turned to both of us. “Now, what am I not thinking?”

Not, what do you think of my plan, which is a useless question if you want to know what others think (Your plan? Okay, but I have other ideas) or what you might not know. What am I not thinking?

“That sounds like a good plan,” I said. It was–and there wasn’t anything in my head that I could share or hold back, especially since he asked. Simple? Might seem so–everywhere but the left seat where the buck stops, where the authority and responsibility irrevocably resides. Big John didn’t need an answer from me–he’d been a captain since I was in grade school. What he needed was what every captain needs: information, ideas, data, and a linked-in crew trained to speak up and comfortable doing so.

Because it’s not what you know–Big John knew plenty–it’s what you don’t know that’ll bust your ass. It’s crucial to ask and by doing so, demonstrate that asking, that searching for what we don’t know to perfect what we do is the way we’re going to think and fly this jet. And speak up about it, dammit, because we’re a team.

We stepped her down through the complex arrival that is the New York Center latticework of airways and approach corridors. I aimed at the two big Maspeth tanks, we were cleared the Expressway visual that’s a box pattern of low-altitude, tight maneuvering (can’t interfere with the JFK pattern) close in and eventually, treetop level. Big John called the left turns for me like a third base coach, having the better view of the SS LaGarbage over his shoulder.

She rolled out squared up, power on against the barn doors of max landing flaps hanging off the trailing edges of the wings. Just a touch of right rudder and she lined up true against the crosswind which less than the limit, or so it felt. The Ten was a stable giant, unlike the squirrely MD-80 I’d also flown as copilot, requiring constant tugging at the leash to get her to heel. When the big gear trucks rolled onto the runway, the ponderous weight settling, it was like she wanted to stop, a great feeling the DC-10 conveyed through your feet on the brakes and the mass weighing her down.

That flight is etched in my memory not only for what Captain Big John showed me, but because of the discovery waiting for me among the half dozen useless messages in my crew inbox after the trip. Sandwiched in the middle was a notice of pending crew status: my captain upgrade class, scheduled for the next month. Just like that, my eyes became Big John’s, needing to know, wanting to make the best decision and from that day forward, accountable.

No more riding along, offering, but now the “tough decision” no longer belonged to someone else.

“You’re not yourself tonight,” my engineer friend said later at Smitty’s, the last resort Irish bar only a few body-slams across Eight Avenue from the front doors of the Mildew. We’d watched Big John polish off a trough of Kung Pao Chicken at the Westside Temple, washed down with a tankard of free piss. After a Westside night, the last snort at Smitty’s helped wash the bad taste out of your mouth.

“Yeah,” I said after a moment. “Probably never will be again.” At least I hoped not. I wanted to be worthy of that fourth stripe.
He looked at me like he didn’t get it, but that’s okay. He would, eventually, when his day came. Until then, in his shoes, it’d be just one more thing he didn’t know.

Now you can own a piece of JetHead:

These 25 short essays in the best tradition of JetHead put YOU in the cockpit and at the controls of the jet.

Some you’ve read here, many have yet to appear and the last essay, unpublished and several years in the writing,  I consider to be my best writing effort yet.

Priced at the printing production cost, this collection is not for profit–it’s for YOU to keep.

Own a piece of JetHead, from Amazon Books and also on Kindle.

Air Travel: 3 Simple Ways to Make Your Summer Flights Easy

Summer time air travel can be stressful, but there are practical and simple things you can do to make your trip easier. Here are my top 3 simple ways to make your summer air travel as efficient and low stress as possible.

1. Information: install the smart phone apps for the travel services that apply to your trip (airline, hotel, rental car) and take a few minutes before your trip to set them up with “push” notifications so you will automatically be notified of gate changes, delays and even rebooking. If you’re notified of a delay by the airline, having a hotel, rental car or resort app installed will put you in touch with those important services quickly and easily. Your pharmacy’s smart phone prescription app can speed you through the refill process in a distant city, or transfer prescriptions in many cases.

 

Many airline apps let you rebook instantly, avoiding long waits in a customer service line, and can outline your options quickly without you having to navigate a website. Best of all, you can beat the rush when re-booking is necessary. On some airlines–American Airlines is one–you can use the airline’s app and website in flight through the on-board WIFI for free.

On taxi in, when you’re cleared to use your cell phone, you will be notified–if you authorized “push” notifications–of your next gate accurately if you’re connecting, or your baggage claim if your travel is complete. The gate agents pull that info 10-15 minutes before your gate arrival, and we print it out in flight 30-40 minutes prior to landing. But your “push” notifications will be more timely and accurate than the other two sources.

You can delete any travel apps you don’t need later, but while you’re on the move, there’s no quicker or more accurate way to get the answers you need to your immediate travel needs. Install the apps, know how they work, and use them to stay ahead of the crowd–especially in case of cancellations, delays or gate changes.

2. Survival gear. First, count on none of your basic needs being met: food, water, shelter. Provide all three yourself. First, food: if you can’t buy something in the terminal to take along–and often you can’t–better have whatever compact, long shelf life calories source you can pack: power bars, granola bars–whatever you prefer that will stave off hunger.

Ditto for water: you “can” get water on board, but the question is when, and sometimes, how–are you in the back and they’re starting the beverage service from the front? Or vice versa? Or is it too turbulent to safely move about the cabin for passengers or crew? Just have a liter of bottled water handy per person, then don’t worry about it.

Finally, “shelter:” dress for the trip, not the destination. That resort-wear will not keep you warm in a chilly cabin, particularly on long flights. And here’s a crew secret: your flight attendants are active, working, and blanketed in layers of polyester. Who do you think calls us to ask for changes in the cabin temp? If they’re melting under the uniform layers, you’re going to wish you weren’t in shorts and a tank top, because we’re more likely to hear “cool it down” than “warm it up” from our working crew in back.

3. Consolidate: all vitals and valuables in one hand-carried, locked bag. Medication, documents and here’s the big one–valuables, like your watch, wallet and any jewelry MUST go into this one locked bag BEFORE security. Why would you ever–and I see this all the time–put your wallet, watch, cell phone and other valuables into an open container on an unmonitored conveyer belt? Why not consolidate them all and then after you’ve successfully passed through security screening, retrieve your items from your locked bag?

And locked is the key: if you’re pulled aside for additional screening, do you want all of your valuables laying out in the open, outside your reach and often, out of your sight? Even if that one locked bag requires extra screening, the lock ensures it will only be searched in your presence.

The final part of “consolidate” applies to your personal belongings: do NOT disperse your items all over your seat area. It’s a sure way to leave an item on a plane, a fact that is borne out by the number of passports, wallets, personal entertainment devices, tablets, keys and phones that turn up on overnight cleaning of aircraft. If you leave valuables, much less valuable documents like a passport, in the seat back pocket or anywhere else, you’ll likely never see them again. And speaking of “seeing” them, the normal climbs, descents, banking and on landing, braking will cause whatever loose items you may leave or drop on the floor to end up rows away. Even if you check your immediate area before deplaning, some items might have vanished. So don’t scatter your belongings about! Return items to your hand carried bag immediately after use or when not in use.

Face it–air travel is stressful as it is, but a lot of stress can be alleviated by these three steps. Information is king when you’re departing, trying to connect, or are changing plans on the fly due to delays or cancellations. Get the apps, set them up, and use them. Stay hydrated, fed, and warm to ease the physical stress. And finally, move smart: consolidate your valuables and do not let your personal items become strewn about your seating or waiting areas on board or in the terminal. Inflight forces will help them slide away, or if you leave them inadvertently, chances are slim that you’ll ever recover those items.

Follow these simple steps–and have a good flight and a great vacation.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Impress your flight crew with your airline insider knowledge–

Get your copy of the JetHead Cartoon collection:

72 pages of original, insider cartoons!

To order, click here.

 

 

Sent from my iPad mini

A “simple” aircraft change? You tell me.

Walking down the jet bridge to the plane, flight plan in hand after outwitting two balky printers, and I overhear a man telling a woman, “It was something to do with the plane coming in.”

Maybe a touch of skepticism, or maybe I’m over-thinking because I’m a little defensive since I’m the one who flew it in. Late.

“This flight’s late because of something with a plane in Dallas?” she asks.

And also, I’ve already taken a load of crap from the Number 4 flight attendant, urging me to take whatever shortcuts I can to speed up this turn-around so she won’t miss her 2-day New Orleans trip, which she really wants to do.

I want to un-hear that: I don’t take any shortcuts, ever, and it’s difficult for me too–I have a life, and a body clock that doesn’t care for flying after midnight. But that’s the captain double-down: tired, late–you don’t rush, you take extra care to not mess something up.

“The jet we were supposed to fly out of DFW took a few birds in an engine on their approach,” I interrupt, breaking my own cardinal rule of maintaining invisibility, “So we had to swap planes.”

“Oh,” she says, still not sounding convinced. I can’t really blame her for that, because it does seem like a pretty simple thing, a swap, right?

You tell me.

Flashback: I meet the inbound crew as they deplane. This is where captains exchange a look that usually tells the story. Normally, at that moment, the captain handing over the aircraft says something preemptive like, “Good jet.”

This time, silence. Then the “other” look. “We hit a bunch of birds on the approach.”

Crap.

“Where?” I ask.

“Mostly the nose.” Mostly. I know what that means. I have to ask.

“Any adverse engine indications?”

He shrugs. “Not that we noticed.” Good–maybe it’s just a guts clean-off and a thorough exterior inspection.

But I know better. “Well,” I say, making a lame attempt at levity, “that’s what they get for indiscriminate flocking.”

He laughs weakly, giving me a “you’re screwed” look as he walks off. Guess I’ll save the “canary-al disease” joke for another bird strike.

I drag my flight gear down the jet bridge and park it near the door to the ramp. Down the stairs to the ramp, then over to the nose gear.

Yup–bloody skid marks, guts on the strut. But not a real problem. Two maintenance techs are already on the ramp, flashlights in hand, meaning they’d just done a close-up inspection of an engine. One is shaking his head. Crap.

He jerks his thumb toward the right engine. “It took a few,” he says.

I check for myself: shiny spots on the huge N1 fan blades, meaning they’d been “shined” by a semi-soft impact at 30,000 RPM and 160 mph. Some down-ish debris in the first and second stages, and the final clue, the exhaust area smells like burned kerosene and rotisserie chicken. Actually, the latter makes me a little hungry.

“Well,” I ask, “what do you think?”

One tech shakes his head. “They’re probably going to have us bore-scope the engine. But even if we don’t, it’ll take at least an hour or more to get inside to make sure there’s no debris blocking the oil cooler.”

Or any of the other gazillion probes and moving parts. The engine can eat birds no problem, but it’s the fine tolerances for moving parts and intakes that demands close inspection: even dust-fine volcanic ash can trash a jet engine.

My internal clock calculator runs: it’ll take a few minutes for the techs to report their findings to Maintenance Control in Tulsa. Give them fifteen more minutes to come up with a plan: clean? Clean and bore scope? If the former, expect a 1:30 delay; the latter means taking the aircraft out of service.

I could be fine with the first option if the two mechanics are (any of them who haven’t been laid off are super-experienced) but if I were Tulsa I’d insist on the second–and I’m sure they will.

So I’ll shortstop this by calling Flight Dispatch.

“We haven’t been notified of an engine problem yet,” he says, sitting in the War Room two miles south of the airport. “But I’ll  go talk to the equipment desk to give them a heads-up.”

They’re the folks–also in the war room–who reassign jets to meet needs such as this. The ramp crew is milling around with questioning looks: do we load bags and cargo, only to have to unload and reload them on another? That takes time.

The techs shrug. “We have to call Tulsa.” They head for the jet bridge phone.

“Just hold off,” I tell the Crew Chief, rolling the dice. If I’m right, this will speed the process of switching planes. If I’m wrong, we’ll be late and it’ll be my fault. But I’m betting that once Tulsa works their decision tree and passes it along to the Equipment Desk, we’ll be getting assigned to a new “tail number.”

Back up to the gate podium where my crew is milling around, trying not to act like they’re dreading their 10 hour workday going to twelve or more. I am too.

“I’m betting on a change of aircraft,” I tell them. “I’ll let you know.”

“Can you call catering?” our Number One asks. “I don’t want to have to do a First Class meal service with the leftovers from some other catering.”

“Sure,” I answer. We can take whatever extra fuel there is on board, though I make a note to subtract the max landing weight and fuel burn first, but she wants to do a decent service.

I type the code for our flight into the computer and instead of departure time, it says “DCN 13:40.” Good–that means Tulsa has put a maintenance hold on the flight, saying they’ll have a “decision” by 13:40. We’re supposed to push at 14:05, so we know this one’s going “off-schedule,” but at least the Equipment Desk can line up a spare.

We’re at pushback time. I call Dispatch back. “Any word yet?”

“No,” he says, “but call me back in ten minutes and maybe they’ll have something for us. But I do know they’ve burned all the 737 spares today.” Meaning there have already been several maintenance swaps today. Some days are like that, and it has more to do with the birds’ bad planning than the airline’s.

That elicits a line of people asking if they can be put on another flight. I say nothing, but would warn them that they’ll end up standby on a later flight–better stick with this one. Glad I’m not an agent, because people are demanding to know what we don’t know ourselves: decisions are unfolding, not some hidden secret.

My cell phone rings: Flight Dispatch. “Looks like the Equipment Desk is stealing the 6 o’clock’s bird. It flew in from LaGuardia.” That means a later flight will be delayed outbound. But likely, that’ll be a flight terminating at its destination, not bringing back 150 people (for a total of 300 waiting on this one, counting both legs) as we are. “It’s two gates down.”

It’s not official yet, and I don’t want to start a stampede. But I can get down there and determine what we need on board, plus get the F/O busy preflighting the aircraft. “Looks like gate A-17,” I tell the Number One quietly. I remember the call to Catering, but they can’t start swapping until the word filters down.

The pilot’s signature date in the new aircraft’s logbook is yesterday–Dispatch says it flew in from LGA. Did the captain forget to sign it? Or has it not flown yet today? If the latter, that means a longer origination preflight rather than just a quick through-flight checklist.

“Just do the full origination,” I tell the F/O, who’s already grouchy, but too bad. Better safe than sorry. “I’ll do the outside,” I tell him, throwing him a bone. I actually like the outside–I like the jet, it’s beautiful: high wing, graceful 7′ winglets. The smell of jet fuel–and I’m still thinking wistfully of rotisserie chicken.

Two gates down, I see the catering truck pull up to our old jet. Good–that means that if the catering company has gotten the word, the assignment is official so now I can get a new flight plan (they are aircraft specific) and flight release from the computer on board and the paperwork from the gate printer. Time to wrap up the exterior admiration and get the release done upstairs.

As I fold up the new flight plan, up stairs in the terminal, a young woman, a passenger, approaches me haltingly.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“You just did,” I answer, then kick myself: a nervous flyer, stupid. You’re such a smart ass.

She brushes it aside. “Is it dangerous when birds go into an engine?”

“No,” I answer honestly. “Not unless they’re really huge. The inbound crew didn’t even notice any engine effects.” I consider telling her about the homey baked chicken smell wafting from the tailpipe, but I shut up.

 

I fold my stack of flight paperwork and head for the cockpit as boarding starts. The door warning panel shows both cargo doors open, which means they’re at least loading stuff–I can hear the tumult of bags and cargo from the forward hold–and the aft catering door is open, so at least that swap is underway, too.

We finish our preflight, verify the route and refile an ATC clearance twice before the ATC computer accepts us, having timed out the original clearance.

The F/O is grumpy again because I overruled the high Mach number he wanted to use at cruise. But that makes little sense: we’re pushing back an hour and twenty late; the higher Mach number might shave 5 minutes off, but for a thousand pounds of fuel? Really? I’m all about arrival fuel, which means time and options.

“You ready for me to close up?” the agent asks, poking his head into the cockpit.

“Not yet.” I have one eye on the fuel totalizer–they’re still pumping fuel aboard, and that requires at least one escape path for passengers in case of fire. And it’s pumping slowly.

Finally, the total reads 19,400 pounds. “Go ahead, pull the bridge,” I say.

With the jet bridge gone, the ground crew begins our pushback. Going to be late into the west coast, even later back here. After midnight, driving home.

Worry about that later–there are over two thousand miles and an equal number of details to be managed to exacting standards between now and then.

Back to the present.

“Why does a simple airplane change take so long?” the woman on the jetbridge repeats.

I’m back to my cloak of invisibility, heading for the cockpit. You explain it to her, I tell her travel companion, in my head. I still have one more set of everything to accomplish before we all get to drive home.

A Flight Attendant’s Story

What is a career as a Flight Attendant like?

The lifestyle, the experience, the passengers, the flights:

JetHead Live goes one-on-one with veteran flight attendant

Carola Shroeder-Delong

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Beads, Lists, Gravity and Fate.

Trust me: determination trumps faith where gravity is involved. You discover that the moment you let go and gravity takes over: it took determination to take the plunge, and faith ain’t half enough to stop it. In fact, faith wouldn’t have gotten anyone with a pilot brain out the door in the first place. Yet everyone’s flying through the air regardless.

I never quite understood the “tandem skydiving” thing. Is it really enough to hitch yourself to someone else while they do something daring, then claim the thrill as your own accomplishment? Does this act  invert the balance of faith and determination when it comes to gravity? Without your own hand on the ripcord, and with only dollars paid serving as a meager voucher of determination, there’s but a thin sinew of faith in someone else’s hand between you and the certainty of gravity. I’ll never get that–which is why all my jumps have been solo.

The bottom line with gravity and flight never hits home as solidly as when you’re solo, with or without an airplane, if you give flight the healthy respect demanded to walk away from it in one piece. Maybe that’s why it’s actually easier to fly solo–I believe it’s easier to jump solo too, since I’m not about to cash in a stranger’s fate for my own–because that eliminates the middleman: you do it, you rely on your own determination, and faith takes a back seat. No one to share the blame or provide the fame.

Maybe that’s where modern life becomes more about counting the beads than saying the prayers, because after all, which is quicker and easier? And never mind that I think that’s more like a swipe of the icing than a bite of the cake, anything beyond the polar bear club or a good rollercoaster crosses the line between trendy-funny-bucket-list-nonsense to just plain reckless.

Knowing that in the worst case, when faith is betrayed and determination forsworn a thousand feet below in a cash register receipt–you bought the ticket, now you take the ride–I can only imagine what final thoughts must attend the original choice to inherit the earth so dramatically.

Maybe that’s a roundabout way to say that I neither trust fate nor bank my determination to fly with anyone else’s hands. Maybe that’s why I’m still in touch with thin veneer separating “cool” with “safe,” and I never overlook the ripcord moment nor depend on anyone else to pull it for me. It’s always my hands.

And you can count one one thing from mine, or from any professional airlines pilots’ hands: it ain’t our hobby–or your bucket list–that’s happening from the moment of brake release to parking at your destination. We don’t do it on weekends or days off because it’s a sport or recreation, we do it year round in all weather, day and night under the strictest supervision, and see it for not only what it really is, but also what it should never be. Ain’t no counting the beads in this service.

With all that said, why the hell was I into skydiving in the first place? There’s a twofold answer: I was putting myself through college and flying lessons were too expensive–but skydiving was a fraction of the cost. Got me into the sky with a minimum of hassle or expense, though the part about getting down in one piece kind of got overlooked. Beads, not prayers: much cheaper in the short term, bad investment in the long run.

And now 17,000 flight hours later, despite faith in my pilot abilities, when I’m done flying big jets–I’m determined to be done flying. I’ve squared off with fate too many times in the air to close my eyes and count the beads, especially taking anyone with me.  Don’t get me wrong, I encourage anyone who wants to do so to get some good flight instruction and proper aircraft and go see for themselves. That’s fair–and a lot of fun, plus a lot of the pros I fly with now came up that way.

But for those still daydreaming the “bucket list” silliness, I suggest pursuing that with both feet on the ground. Flying with or without an airplane ought to be more than just a box checked by someone else’s hand. Because just like everything else, store-bought imitations just never satisfy like homemade, do they?

Airline Workers Burned.

Burned–not just figuratively: literally.

And while the feeling might be among those not close to the fire, “who cares,” the answer is simple, once you too start feeling the flames. And you will: the way of American business today is to break up the furniture and burn it to heat the house.

Still you might say, “not in my business” to which I’d reply, “maybe not for now.” But you will notice the wildfire consuming the airline business the next time you decide to go somewhere by air. And eventually, if those in big business who control yours decide it’s financially expedient in the short term to cash you out, your very own comfy chair, desk, pension and future will provide the heat to warm the place long after you’re out in the cold.

The Dallas Morning News reports that the combined post-bankruptcy Delta-Northwest combination, over 30,000 airline jobs went up in smoke; the post-bankruptcy Continental-United merger torched an equal number; USAir through bankruptcy burned up another 20,000, and American Airlines just forced into bankruptcy will of necessity claim thousands more faces ghostly to those who don’t  know them, even more ghostly to those who do.

But not you, not now, right? No, now it’s this guy, and whether you know it or not, he is you–not that you’d recognize it or admit it, for now:

He’s the Citizen Kane who has been handling your bags for all of the years you’ve been flying. He’s the muscle behind the launch of your jet to wherever you’re going, then he goes home to a family like yours. He’s been doing this for twenty-some years–but not any more: he’s been cashed out, broken up and thrown on the fire to heat the house. There are hordes waiting to smash your bags for minimum wage–so who needs him?

Airlines have no choice but to invest billions in new aircraft, then try to make ends meet with a cost structure skewed by oil prices, the wild card held hostage by both oil speculators and petroleum producing nations, many of whom despise the American way of life–including the cheap airfares connecting the length and breadth of our far-flung nation, a promise made to you by your congress as if it were a sacred entitlement no matter whose job or pension it costs to deliver the savings to you. Who do you think will pay that price for you?

I know who. She’s the one who would save your butt over her own when the real fires start burning:

Many started with me back in the 80s, flying now to support families and to pay mortgages and to have life on the earth like everyone else. Thousands of those dreams and lives went up in smoke through bankruptcy court to heat the chilling business that hangs and dies on the price of a barrel of oil. And month after month, that fluctuation extinguishes not only the hopes and dreams of folks like her–but also the bottom line of the airline that you love to vilify for charging a fraction of what it costs to buy an NFL or NBA playoff ticket. Getting you there, however, must be bargain basement pricing, right? I mean, it’s your right, right?

And don’t forget this guy; well, then again I guess you’d better:

He’s the knuckle-buster I depend on to tell me the jet’s ready, fixed, 100%. And when he says it, I know it’s true. Because he’s the same mechanic who migrated with me from tough, lean years in the military, or the civilian A&P ranks, who like me has put in the thousands of hours of sweat equity taming these giant beasts of metal and fuel and fire and a thousand high-tech components wiring it into a flyable tonnage the size of a freight train at shotgun speed–with your ass strapped aboard. But, his craft can be duplicated–though his lineage certainly cannot be–somewhere a thousand miles off shore for a third of the price. So he goes up in smoke too.

And finally, come on up to the pointy end.

Who’s going to fly your jet? Me, I’m here for the duration: USAF experience worldwide, 26+ years at my airline, 21+ as captain, but here’s the catch: who in the next generation of pilots who witness my nearly 27 years of pension go up in smoke like a “strike-anywhere” match as it just did is going to dedicate his life to your cheap air travel? Who will spend the $80,000+ on flight ratings, or the years of military indentured servitude to aspire to the dead end, $20,000 a year entry level that the job boils down to, just to linger in slow-death overtime as no one can afford to leave once their pension is erased?

Airline analyst Michael Boyd predicted that if this trend continues, airline pilots of the future will be the five year, “I was a ski bum/bartender in Aspen then got a real job” type turnovers, despite the weather, the terrain, the technology, and the challenges of piloting your airline flight.

Because who else with a lick of sense would perform a life and death drama daily for peanuts and an unsure future, branded by the vision of 100,000 airline pilots before them stripped of a future, cut loose with a retirement reduced to nothing?

I don’t know who, but that’s who’ll fly your jets. And I don’t know who in their right minds would choose the monumental and unrecoverable price tag that fuels the “burn ’em up and keep it cheap” model endorsed by your blind eye congress and ultimately by, well, you.

And that’s what you’ll get. Breaking up the furniture to heat the house, regardless of what’s left, never mind habitability or who would have thought, survivability, down the road?

Meanwhile, no worries for now, bon voyage and just warm yourself at the bonfire . . . for as long as it lasts.

Podcast: JetHead Live with Astronaut Mike Mullane

What’s it like to ride over 4 million pounds of explosive thrust into earth orbit? Three times?

What’s the future of U.S. manned space flight?

All this and more as we go one-on-one with Astronaut Mike Mullane, author of New York Times acclaimed book, “Riding Rockets.”

To download or listen with your own audio player:

JetHead Live with Astronaut Mike Mullane

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Next week on JetHead Live:

What’s it like to fly the Boeing 707, 727, 737, 757, 767, and 777?

To find out, we go one-on-one with a pilot who’s flown them all–Boeing Instructor Captain Mark Rubin.