Time and Space in the Passage Place.

There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
–T.S. Eliot

The Greeks saw time as a two headed monster: chronos, which is the moments ticking by, and kairos, which is the moment, the “aha” sledgehammer of revelation. Funny how one you count, the other you live. Chronus is the abacus and the sliding of beads; kairos the realization of self–and yet kairos takes a back seat to chronus in life as in flight.

Unless you fight it. Let me explain.

Here comes the god Chronus. The price of jet fuel is up 3.3% this week, up 9.6% over last month, and a whopping 26.3% over December of last year–with the price of oil rapidly rising as we speak. My life–and your flight–is counted in air nautical miles per pound of fuel; ANPP, as we call it.

I don’t care about gallons, because they mean nothing in the lift equation, which is what gets our eighty ton freight train into the air. I don’t care about dollars as much as I do minutes, which is what moves us from here to there.

Can’t argue with physics, chronus’s relentless thug. And while I know can’t forget chronus’s digital constructs of “now” and “then”  orchestrating the results of “where” and “when” . . .

. . . I have his relentless data stream from a dozen satellites crunched by another dozen on-board processors populating the abacus with characters accurate down to a ridiculously small margin, claiming “here is where and when you are breathing out and in.”

He’s got a picture for those who would track us, constructed from the ionic backscatter bounced off our riveted hull and scooped up by a scythe-like radar arc sweeping relentlessly, converting us into a dot inching across a black glass pancake.

And he has a cartoon for me that converts our 160 bodies of blood and bone into a white triangle on a magenta line, ever forward-facing, with a numerical count of the seemingly silent action of our passage.

And if it weren’t enough to reduce sky and earth to formulaic characters interacting in sums and differences, the twenty-first century chronus presents me a with a combined image of both the digital abacus and the dirt below–all in one cyber-mirage.

“See?” barks Chronus, dog that he is. “Wasn’t I right all along?” Yeah, he’s tidily accurate to within a few feet, even after a few thousand miles aloft. As if that were all that mattered: the counting of the beads. The passage of time. Like the passage itself didn’t matter. You just sit there–I’ll drag everything by you, tell you what you need to know, never mind seeing or the gods forbid, being.

And that’s exactly where chronus is a liar and a thief. He wants to bottle you up like a genie inside your head. He wants you to overlook your own being in favor of a place ahead or behind; he wants you to live in the “then” and forget the “now.” Use your head and not your eyes. And this is what he’d have you do:

Pretend you are elsewhere. Not notice the “here”–be all about “there.”  The time between here and there is of no consequence and in fact is best left alone or if need be, avoided with the deliberate distraction of Inflight Entertainment or digital connections (chronus has ’em, right?) that reach beyond where you are (inflight wireless connections!) in favor of where you wish you were. He’ll tell you that what matters is solely what you can quantify, what you can calculate, what you can reduce to figural representation.

What a crock. He has no soul.

What chronus would desperately like to hide is the reality that your time spent in passage is a passage itself. And like poetry, that’s not something you’re supposed to “get” –it’s what you’re supposed to live. Kairos is all about the eyes and the heart–not the mind and the head.

It’s the burning lip of death on the horizon, as the day heaves a last sigh that endures for a thousand miles through a long, long flight hour. Would be convenient to ignore the approaching sunset–hard on the eyes, isn’t it? But it’s underway regardless, a portent of the future painted in our “now.”

It’s Arizona sneaking into New Mexico on the dragon breath of a west wind, looking more like an uber-pastel than a omnivorous cloud of stinging dust.

Or consider–and look (LOOK HARDER, my T-38 instructor pilot used to say) at the aquamarine jewel embedded in the jagged Sierras.

Doesn’t cost you anything–give it a long look, and contemplate the deepness of blue, above and below and ahead. And aren’t we lucky, miles above the wall of thunder beating up the plains states right now? Enjoy: this is included in the price, because it’s not just the passage of time or miles–this is your life cruising by with the hands of the clock. We’re way too fast for the storms, but of course, not the clock.

But for kairos, that’s less important. In the moment of revelation, of living out the beauty of the passage, the limitations of time and place mean little.

But missing the moment means everything.

Flight–like life–is the intersection of kairos and chronos, and the trick is to balance the two: one endures, one is simply endurance. If you can’t tell the difference, or if you can and just need a reminder, it’s time to fly.

If you look–if you bother to look–the revelation is there for free: flying, in passage, where you really ought to “be.”

*****

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

–T.S. Eliot

Fearful Flyers: What Not To Worry About.

Didn’t help much when you were a kid, at night, scared, and your mom said, “There’s no monster–go to sleep,” did it? Because fear doesn’t respond well to “shut up.”

So rather than dismissing the fears of white-knuckle flyers by saying, “There’s nothing to worry about,” I’ve taken to asking those fearful passengers, “What is it that worries you about flying?” That way we can actually examine their area of concern and shed a little light in their darkness, maybe helping them relax. It’ll be a long night otherwise, plus a lot of wasted fear that could have been vanquished with the flip of a light switch.

Here’s some of what I’ve been told by fearful flyers, plus what I’ve been able to pass along to them to help worry less, or even not at all. If you know someone who is afraid to fly, share this with them–it might help. If you have concerns about flying, share them with me. I want to be able to help you and the countless others who’d like to fly–or have partners or family who wish they’d fly–to understand what not to worry about when it comes to flying.

Welcome aboard!

From what I’ve gathered from nervous folks before or after a flight, several key worries seem to recur among the group. Most of these concerns center around a particular phase of flight (for example, take-off) or a flight sensation (say, turbulence, or a rapid descent) but the common denominator in them all is this: the unknown. Like the darkness in that scared kid’s bedroom. So let me shed some light on these areas to fill in the blanks for you, to unveil the unknown so you can relax. Because what you don’t know can help you.

First, of course, is The Take-Off. Seems like you just rocket down the runway in a thunderous roar, tilt back and climb off the runway, right?

If you only knew.

First, you should know that every parameter involved in the take-off, from aircraft weight to fuel weight to wind factors to runway slope to outside air temperature to aircraft center of gravity are all computed to the nearest hundredth–and then recomputed one more time before we reach the end of the runway.

That’s important for me–and for you–because we need to have the correct speed and thrust setting for the exact conditions. And think for a minute about both thrust settings and speeds.

Here’s the big boy engine–one of two, of course–on my jet, the 737-800. It can put out up to 27,000 pounds of thrust, but we seldom use more than 22,000 pounds per take-off.

So what? The “so what” is that means we have five tons of thrust to spare if we need it. We are actually over-powered if we need the extra kick. And consider this when you think of that: the design of the jet is that if we achieve a certain minimum speed (yes, that’s calculated and recalculated before flight) I can continue the take-off on just one big boy engine–easily. Or, if I’m below the maximum stopping speed (ditto the “recalculated” comment above) I can safely abort on the runway.

And in case you’re reading for detail, yes, the maximum stopping speed will ALWAYS be above the minimum single-engine take-off speed, so ultimately, the deck is stacked in our favor: we can take-off or stop under all conditions. Feeling more secure on take-off yet? Well wait–we’re not done rigging things our way.

There’s a safety margin built into the safety margin: we know what the stopping capability of the jet is–but we’ll knock 20% off of the performance, adding an additional safety margin to our stopping capability. In other words, if we know it takes 4,000 feet to stop at our precisely recalculated weight–we’ll require 5,000 feet of runway to do it.

But wait–we’re still not done stacking the deck in our favor.

Although we have thrust reversers that will throw out a 22 ton anchor to stop us–we won’t even count their effect and will calculate the stopping distance without them.

So let’s recap: on take-off, we have tons of extra thrust available if we need it. The aircraft is designed to fly–and fly well–on just one engine, once we reach the minimum take-off speed. And that speed is always below the maximum stopping speed based on factors biased toward a safe stop as I explained.

So we can stop or go, safely, no matter what. That’s all part of the design of your jet.

Everyone say "thanks" to the geek who designed our jet.

Those design limits  affect another in-flight boogie-man, turbulence. The engineers designed a load factor limit way above anything a rational person would ever expect.

That is, they took a G-limit that would probably give a horse an aneurysm, then again, added 50% to it. That’s the limit for operating the aircraft in turbulence. Wait for it . . .

. . . then they added another 20% to that for good measure. Your jet is designed to endure a shaking like Charro on crack and still go about its business. Although I’ve never asked a nervous flyer because I’m trying to calm them, not piss them off, if you are a white knuckle flyer, do you worry about your car falling apart whenever you cross railroad tracks? Probably not–even though your car is NOT designed with the stress tolerances of our jet. Just something to think about.

Now, let’s turn to the third big bagaboo: landing. There’s probably a lot about landing that you don’t know that would most likely make you feel more confident if you did.

First, once again, safety margins: the landing stopping distances are biased in our favor with 20% additional distance tacked on, plus our thrust reversers and their enormous power not even counted. Put that in your hip pocket and now let’s talk about weather.

It looks like pea soup from the cabin windows, doesn’t it? But not from where I sit.

It’s like x-ray vision: see the runway outline? It’s exactly overlaying the real runway, computed by a half dozen computers reading a handful of GPS systems reading a couple dozen satellites and figuring our position accurately to within a matter of feet. So, whether there’s pea soup from our cruise altitude to the ground, no matter: I can see accurately and we will land safely.

Or, if I’m not satisfied that the byzantine range of safe landing requirements are met, we have the fuel to go elsewhere. And the entire enroute portion of our flight, I’m constantly checking the destination weather, as well as the weather at potential divert options.

That’s one of the many things I’m doing on the flight deck so you can relax in back and enjoy the inflight entertainment (they were showing “The Office” last week). I have an eye on our “special clock”–fuel flow–which is our most meaningful measurement of how long we can fly. If things turn bad weatherwise at our destination, no problem: we’ll land at a safe and suitable alternate with lots of extra gas for unforeseen contingencies. That’s kind of the way I’m designed, after 25 years in this airline’s cockpits. And they back me 110% on that.

So let’s review the landing edge we’ve claimed for ourselves: we will have fuel to fly to our destination, shoot an approach and if it’s not satisfactory for any one of a hundred good reasons I can and do think of–we’re out of town, safely to an alternate with better conditions. Our stopping distance is biased in our favor. And I have been graciously granted x-ray vision by my airline (you should know that my airline, American Airlines, and Alaska are the only two using this “Heads Up Display” system) for all critical phases of flight.

Finally, there’s the big catch-all nervous flyer concern, and that is, not being in control. Right?

Wrong. You are in control just by choosing your flight. If it is on a major carrier–not a “regional” or “commuter” air carrier, you get me. Not just “me” as in me, but all of us and I’m typical of the major airline pilot: seven years as an Air Force pilot flying worldwide, twenty-five plus years in our cockpits, captain since 1991, and many, many thousands of pilot-in-command hours with the commensurate number of take-off and landings to match. Like all of our cockpit crews, “this ain’t my first rodeo.” You’ve chosen your crew well–by choosing a major U.S. airline.

You also chose well in your aircraft options by choosing a major airline with a huge maintenance and engineering department keeping the state-of-the-art jets healthy. And the airline has thousands of highly experienced and rigorously qualified pilots operating their fleet safely. Add to that your new-found insight into take-offs, turbulence and landing and you are in control as soon as you wisely book your flight.

That’s all it takes, and everything in regard to your flight safety is biased in your favor. Does that help shed a little more light on your darkest thoughts about flying?

If you are a fearful flyer, or if you know one, share this blog. Hopefully it makes one major point that helps folks relax in the air: there’s a lot of stuff to not worry about. If only your mom had explained when she told you that so many years ago.

Peak Experience

When I lived in Honolulu, over time I grew to take the visual for granted. That hit me one evening as I was taking out the garbage. Over my head, spread out like a splash of spilled paint, a furious crimson sunset vaulted across the sky.

Good thing I took out the garbage.

But that’s the way we get, isn’t it? Workaday world with an accretive ho-hum factor. What was wondrous becomes worn, routine and eventually, just another thing to do. If that’s the thing you always do.

Or maybe you’re a victim of circumstance. Used to marvel at a once-in-a-blue moon view of the gravelly dark volcano spine of Iceland during an Atlantic crossing or the blue sea ice sprawl of the Greenland fjords. Seldom did the weather or the route allow such a view, but if you were in back, you didn’t see it. That’s because the one time I made a P.A. telling the passengers to look off the right wingtip and behold the marvel below, it was only a matter of seconds before the flight attendant purser crashed through the cockpit door, livid.

“They all lifting their window shades to look out the windows!” she bellowed.

The horror. Not passengers looking out the windows at an incredible view; rather, the bloated and reddened face of the flight attendant chewing my ass. “Now they’re all going to want stuff! That’s why we’re running the movie!”

But still. This is where I’m a bad dog: I still will tell you when there’s something wondrous to see. Like yesterday–and here’s my not noticing the sunset till I take out the trash–I was hassling with an air traffic control clearance, a balky fuel boost pump, and crosschecking the weather radar when I happened to notice this right in front of my face:

Mt. St. Helen’s north face–blown off in 1981, buried in recent snow but the story’s clear enough, isn’t it? Stupid me for being heads-down, just another departure with a little fuel imbalance and navigation hassle thrown in. But there was more.

St. Helens’ big sister, Ranier looking stately as ever with a 14,410 stature of quiet dignity.  Almost missed that too, but truly, she’s hard to miss.

Especially if you’re allowed to look. Who’s stopping you? Well, who’s stopping me besides me? What is it about chores that take your focus until someone tells you to open the window shade and look? And life goes on nonetheless.

Further south: Hood!

God we have a lot of pointy stuff in this country, don’t we? In fact, take a look at the carpet of rocks that is the Sierras. I can’t even imagine the cajones of those who crossed this monstrous tract on foot.

And it’s not just the peakish stuff–we have magnificent ditches, too. The Grand Canyon sneaks up on you too, embarassing those who don’t notice until the trash is full that there are wondrous things silently waiting to suck the breath out of you.

And let’s nod to civilization. Now and again, a concrete ridge pops out of an undercast with man made peaks and valleys of vertical beauty:

Even if there’s nothing to see outside–there’s still something! Like these clouds which, from seven miles above, look more like sand dunes than anything, sprawling five hundred miles in all directions.

And you want dunes? We have real dunes too. If you were on the ground, this would be a nasty sandstorm in Arizona, wouldn’t it? But from the heaven’s eye view, this is a beautifully painted, delicate marzipan.

Is that just life or what? Isn’t it so that there’s much furious and breathtaking life spinning by below that we don’t even notice while we have our head buried in work and hobbies and distractions and stuff?

Sure, there’s always the office. Always work. But.

There’s more, too, isn’t there? Wheeling by silently, below, waiting but not caring if you look or not–it’s your loss, right?

Yes, that’s 619 knots–over 700 miles per hour.

Life comes at you fast, doesn’t it? Or more realistically, goes by way fast–whether you’re looking or not. Lift the shades, for god’s sake. Screw the fat woman yelling inside to close the shades and watch the damn movie. Worry less about the boost pump–we can balance fuel later–and take a breath between radio negotiations with air traffic control to look down.

It’s all going on, and going by, my friend. Have a quick look–because that’s about all you’ll get before it’s gone.

Holiday Travel Weirdness: The Jethead Chronicles.

What is it about holiday season travel that brings out such weirdness? I’m not just talking about the vagrant standing out in front of our favorite Seattle crew hangout with the helpful sign:

He also offered to be my “bodyguard” for $5, but I was with Ben The Dependable Copilot, and Ben’s about 6′ 2″ and weighs in about 220, so I passed. But still.

And even Pike’s Market Place was a little off the game today as well:

So just getting away from the airport doesn’t seem to limit the weirdness this time of year.

Now, at the airport, odd stuff is a given. That’s because odd people still have very little time and so must go by air, I suppose, to share their weirdness with family and friends.

Some folks just don’t get out much, but this being the holiday season, they’re of necessity heading to “somewhere else” and you know what the fastest way is from point “A” to point “B,” right?

Maybe there’s too much of a good thing on either end–eating, drinking, whatever. Problem is, airline crews are kind of stuck in the middle: between wherever “here” and “there” is for the traveling public, our workplace is the waiting room.

I guess folks just make themselves at home, or forget they’re not at home. Either way, our “workplace” is more bizarre than ever during the holidays as a result. The trick is to not only act like you don’t notice (step around the seemingly dead body for whom apparently stretching out on the floor is fine), but to try to act nonchalant when you do–which sometimes is difficult.

The on-board weirdness is predictable, with holiday travelers who are often infrequent flyers. Go ahead, mop the lavatory floor with your socks, Mr. Seldom Travels By Air. I don’t want to even think about it, but I am grateful that at least somebody’s cleaning that outhouse floor, even if the flight attendants are gagging when you do.

Or, go ahead and ask if there’s food on this flight. Has a nice, nostalgic ring to it, especially since there hasn’t been a meal served in coach this century.

I don’t mind for two reasons. One is because no matter how many times airlines, air travel organizations or even travel agents tell you that you need to bring your own food (and water if you want real convenience), you’d rather be surprised.

And second, the cockpit door is locked from the inside, so you can’t see what I’m eating anyway

Whoo-hoo: hot fudge brownies for the crew!

and really, you wouldn’t want to know anyway.  It’s pretty scary up front. Right?

No, honestly, what it is is peaceful. Darling Bride used to come up to the cockpit when we were flying at night and say how it was a cozy cocoon. It is, and I appreciate that–especially compared to what goes on in the back of the plane.

Phoenix glides by 7 miles below.

Gives you time and silence to put things into perspective. When you do, you realize that holiday travel is the best: it’s more than just business or even vacations. It’s families; it’s reunions and gatherings and children. It’s not just air travel, it’s yearlong anticipation of children and adults alike.

Our Chief Pilot–a true leader who voluntarily flies  on every holiday–uses this example to explain: The CEO of Revlon once said, “We don’t sell cosmetics–we sell hope.” Truly, what we do in these holiday travel weeks is just as magic: it’s hope for many, joy for the kids and for the adults who love them.

Come to think of it, weirdness and all, this is a great time of year to be an airline pilot, to fly families and friends to reunions and holiday gatherings.

I’ll be in the air this week–next week too, looking to make somebody’s travel as quick and easy as possible so they to can be with family and friends for the holiday. Really, it’s the least I can do considering they’ll mop up the lav floor without even knowing it.

Who IS the airline Captain anyway?

Depends on who you ask. But though it seems obvious to me from the inside, it’s a legitimate question I ask from the outside of other exclusive professions.

Well, I can give you a look behind the curtain in the airline pilot world if you’re interested. And also the perspective of captain, which is even more unique: I can remember flying in the First Officer position on the DC-10 one dark and stormy night going into Chicago. Options were running out; The Boss had to make a decision–and fast–whether to divert or to commit to the approach.

He looked to me for advice, which I gave him. “Not sure what the best thing would be,” he said, as if fishing for more.  I smiled slyly and looked back across the cockpit, saying, “Yeah, I bet that’s a tough decision.”

Because he had all of the authority, not me, and in fact I had the luxury of sitting back and watching him sweat it out. It’s good to be captain, right? It’s also tough to be captain as well.

Well, I’ve had the experience now from the captain’s perspective nonstop since 1991. That’s when I got where I am, but not how. Let’s go way back.

Okay, we don’t have to go back that far, do we? Seems kind of boring, to me. But, that is where I came from and it has bearing, whether I’d like to admit it or not, on where I am now.

Seventh grade, control line planes and they really flew. Built ’em, eventually designing my own balsa wood constructions; slap on that infallible .049 engines and drive all the neighbors crazy with the noise, flying and eventually crashing my planes (learning a loop was easier in a jet than one of these control line planes) then fixing them to fly again. Did that all the way through high school. Radio controlled planes? Too expensive.

And along those lines, in college “too expensive” won out over “too stupid:” flying lessons were way out of my budget (I paid my own way through college) but skydiving was relatively cheap. You had to pay for a lift, which wasn’t all that much, and you were in flight just like that. Of course then you had make your own way back to the terra firma, but that was even cooler: flying without the plane! But still in the sky.

Bought my own parachute, budgeted a morning and afternoon jump on weekends. Thought I was immortal, which is really stupid, especially since over those years I saw a lot of folks get hurt jumping and took a few knocks myself and actually split a helmet when the wind dragged me across the asphalt and into a parked car (black eye; onlookers clapped because they thought it was planned). Dumb, dumb idea, but I learned a thing or two about life and death and fear in the process. Those lessons served me well later, as I’ll explain.

The Air Force helped me break that skydiving habit my senior year by paying for flying lessons. And one of my buddies who’d borrowed my skydiving rig made it final by shredding my chute when he landed in a tree.

Actually, it was “flight screening” the Air Force paid for: who had two left feet? Who should the Air Force not invest a million dollars in for jet flight school because they’d end up washed out or dead?

Of the fifty-some guys in my college graduating class who were qualified and competing for a pilot slot, I somehow ended up in the four who were actually selected for flight school. One washed out, one was killed flying low-level formation and the other guy now flies for Delta. But that’s another story.

Bigger and better flying followed. The Air Force decided to ship me off to Okinawa first, then Hawaii, for a total of seven years in the Pacific and worldwide. Good flying, around the clock and around the world.

And a few more pilot compadres got killed doing it, I should note to be honest. But we figured the risk was worth the reward, if not always the duty.

Couple buddies flying back in the states let me know “the airlines are hiring.” Yeah maybe, I thought. I have orders to fly the above White Rocket stateside now. Do I want to screw that up by getting out and starting over?

For the hell of it, I did a couple interviews. That’s all it took.

State-of-the-art jets and a wide open future: you could fly till sixty if you wanted! The Air Force would have you tied to a desk by your late thirties. You’d be done in the cockpit.

Sat side-saddle for a year as DC-10 engineer. On that jet, I flew with legends and gods, in my mind anyway: these were pilots who’d flown a hundred combat sorties in Vietnam. Some had spent time as POWS. They’d flown the classics of the jet age, from Thuds to the Deuce to the Sabre jet; you name it.

Some had flown with my father, a thirty-year USAF flyer. They were gentlemen, they had been baptized with fire in the air flying exotic stuff and even the first jetliners back when I was still in diapers. They were captains the likes of which, honestly, no longer exist.

I was humbled. I shut up and watched and learned: here’s how you lead a crew, here’s how you calmly handle the whirlwind when it erupts and you’re responsible for 250 plus lives.

Then I graduated to a copilot’s seat. Moving forward in the cockpit, now working one-on-one with that old breed of captain. I watched and learned. I fought the weather, the mechanical stuff, the air traffic problems, the schedule plus my own fatigue.

And loved it.

Earned my own set of captain’s wings six years almost to the day after I was hired. That’s unheard of today, where most First Officers have been here at least ten, some as many as twenty years. So I’m nothing special–rather, just damn lucky.

Now I live with what I call the captain’s pyramid, which probably isn’t what you think.

Sure, you’re at the top of the heap, blah-blah-blah. But for me, it’s now about being the guy to whom everyone else says, “Yeah, I bet that’s a tough decision” as I did to that DC-10 captain for whom I was the First Officer so many years ago.

The captain’s view is from inside that pyramid, and as you go up, as the flight becomes challenging due to weather or emergencies or a million other problems, you’re shoved upward, like it or not, ready or not, and lives are in the balance.

And it gets narrower. And there’s less room, but you have to make it work. You have to find the safe way out for you and your crew and all the souls on board.

That’s where who I am, the boring part I was describing before, takes over. It’s the lessons of calmness when hurtling downward at terminal velocity, a snarled parachute overhead and the realization that you have one shot at manually deploying your reserve chute–so make it a good one.

It’s the stormy nights over the most distant South Pacific nowhere land, a thousand miles from any shore and the knowledge that you must get on that tanker boom, vertigo or not from the moonlight through cloud breaks plus the turbulence and constant turning to avoid weather scrambling your equilibrium, you must and will hang on for your fuel–or your life is going to become “interesting. ”

It gives one the quiet calm at the eye of the storm, nose pointed up, climbing for all she’s worth but losing to the mountain you’ve been errantly vectored into in the thunderstorms of peak-ringed Mexico City.

There’s neither panic nor fear, in fact there’s a deathly calm as you do the math and search for any inch of advantage you can get, the only emotion being a distant backroom anger at finding yourself here again. What’s scary is you’re not scared–you’re on task, concentrating.

When that engine quits or worse, explodes; when the weather screws you and the windshear grabs for you, when the terrain (thanks, Mexico City Approach) smacks you in the face: you do what you gotta do. Calmly.

Because that’s where I came from. Like most captains, this ain’t my first rodeo.

And I’ve shared that look, words unspoken, with other captains on the crew bus. We’ve been in the same storm, faced the same narrowing of the pyramid. We’ve been steeled enough through years of the relentless fire to the point where we claim that deliberation, that scary calm, and do what we have to do. Nobody says a word, but the look traded says, goddam, we did that again and did it well, didn’t we? Nobody likes or goes after the top of the pyramid, but we all know it comes after us and we will stand our ground.

That’s kind of it. That’s who we are, which now you know, is because of where we come from.

Not everyone has a military background. Some of my favorite First Officers, the most capable pilots I know and the ones I absolutely need as the top of the pyramid closes in on us, are of all civilian background. And the ex-military folks, well, we’re all pretty much diecut and stamped.

I wear the four stripes which yeah, cuts a path down the jetbridge during boarding. But that’s all eyewash to me, just things passengers need to see to feel confident at shotgun speed seven miles up, comfortably unaware of the pyramid closing in on us. It really doesn’t mean squat there.

So I really don’t give a damn about the cosmetics of it all. Flying is what matters and what decides success or failure, not the outward trappings of the position. Which is why although now you do know, you needn’t even be concerned about who’s responsible for getting your feet safely back on the ground, predatory but invisible (to you) pyramid or no. My gig is flying, living up to the legacy of the giants who came before me and who taught me, employing the hard lessons I learned along the way.

That’s who your captain is, no matter what airline you’re on or who’s in the left seat of your jet. And from my perspective as an airline captain three decades after I first soloed, that’s really what it’s all about.

Who is the airline captain? Now you know.

The TRUTH About Flight Attendants.

You sure you’re ready for the truth?

Still watching “Happy Days” reruns? Or maybe even “Leave it to Beaver” (okay I do, but I already have seen behind the curtain when it comes to Flight Attendants) where June Cleaver vacuums in pearls and heels? If this is you, please click here. Okay, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

First, let’s start with the basics: who IS this person we call Flight Attendant? Where do they come from? Actually, they’re parents and spouses and significant others and sons and daughters. And they come from, well, everywhere.

My friend Melissa and her crew.

The common denominator seems to be the ability to get along with nearly anyone. That, plus the ability to handle children. No, it’s not that they handle children on board in their role as Flight Attendant. Rather, they must deal with a lot of childishness in flight on both sides of the cockpit door. So anyway, many, it seems, have a background in Education: either  as a college degree or as a teacher–or both.

My friend Nanci dealing with one of the children on board.

But that’s just what constitutes a significant number, but by no means, the majority. I once dated a Flight Attendant who had previously been a USDA meat inspector (I got rejected as “Not Prime,” although I’d like to consider myself at least “Average Chuck”), I know several with PhDs, I know one guy who flies for my airline who is an M.D.; the bass player in my band (shoutout to Angela!) is a flight attendant; My Darling Bride (MDB) before she became a “stewardess” was an engineer.

Okay, WARNING: don’t EVER call them “stew;” they hate it–even though my own mother, even after 25 years of non-rev travel on my passes still calls me to say, “The stews were so nice.”

Thanks, Mom.

But I can use the term myself because MDB doesn’t listen to me any more and in fact, with Flight Attendants you could say anything you want on the aircraft P.A. and they’ll NEVER KNOW. Seriously–the P.A. is a frequency that they can’t hear–kind of like a reverse dog hearing–so I could announce “I slept with your sister!” on the P.A. and she would simply ask, “what time are we landing?” Because she didn’t hear that P.A. either. But I digress.

Let’s just cut to the chase: here’s what you really want to know. In fact, let’s just go over important facts you NEED to know if you’re going to deal with flight attendants (of course you are, in flight), or date a flight attendant (you THINK you are, but that’s in YOUR dream, not theirs and they don’t get much sleep these days anyway), or maybe even you want to BE one (What, you’re finally off suicide watch, now this? Break the Prozac in half). Anyway, learn THIS:

1. Flight attendants will kick your ass. Seriously, they can and they will if they have to–and trust me, I’ll explain later–you want them to.

Okay, Carolyn's actually one of my Facebook friends and she's very nice. Mostly.

I’m not kidding. If you piss them off, you will pay. It might be be something simple like overfilling your coffee cup purposely so you’ll have to spill it (that was one of MDB’s specialties) or even the patented Flight Attendant “eff you” that is given so subtly and sweetly that you don’t even realize till the cart and flight attendant are three rows back before you think it through and realize, “Hmmmm . . . I think I just got told to go eff myself.”

Not that you don’t deserve it: they’ve asked one hundred people before you the same simple question–“What would you like to drink?” And they’ve answered the what do you have question at least as many times, plus they made a P.A. giving you the answers ahead of time. So, when you in row 32 ask again anyway, they have a soothing, pleasant proximate answer that after a few minutes your brain finally deciphers correctly as, you stupid idiot, YOU SHALL HAVE NOTHING. To which I would add, “you douchebag” but Flight Attendants are more skilled and less vulgar than I am. Bottom line: don’t be an idiot.

2. Flight attendants will share their ass–and they are crafty. We’re all crammed into a long, sealed tube, right?

Let’s face it–you’re in a sardine can for hours on end. In the cockpit, I actually have separate zone-controlled (by me) air conditioning and recirculation. Yes, it is good to be captain. And sure, you have some weird ideas about what goes on beyond that cockpit door, don’t you?

Suffice it to say that we pilots get “the royal treatment.” Now let’s move on.

Back to the long metal tube you’re paying a few bucks to be trapped in rather than face the freeway for days on end getting to whatever destination you’ve coughed up your vacation savings for.

The air in the jet is fine, it’s just the people like you who muck it up with your coughing, sneezing and personal exhaust if you know what I mean and I think you do.

Well, the cabin is their workplace, too.  As long as they’re trapped and required to endure assorted emissions from both of your ends (sometimes you’d have to think that the ones from your south end are more tolerable than the “what do you have?” stuff coming out topside), they deserve a chance to defend themselves. And when you travel, especially as much as we do on a flightcrew, diet is at best a catch as catch can thing. That end result is bad, eventually.

Wet cleanup on aisle six.

And the best defense in this case as in most others is a good offense.

Hence, “crop dusting.” That’s the diabolical plan by which they spray front to back on board so that by the time you get smacked in the face

"My god--air, please . . . !

. . . they’re already halfway to the aft galley and out of sight. You all will blame each other, but there was, you should know, a secret plan:

From the Flight Attendant Manual: "Always cropdust front to back."

There’s nothing you can do about this, by the way, except take small breaths. Deal with it.

Finally, here’s the last and probably most important thing you should know:

3. Flight attendants will save your ass. And that’s what they’re on board for–not just to tell you what beverages are available, not to entertain you, but actually to save your ass in the worst possible moment of your life.

Notice who isn’t walking away from this crashed aircraft alive and well? It’s the Flight Attendants who helped them off and are still on board helping others. That’s what they do. And that’s why you want them to be able to do item #1 above: they need to be able to throw your ass down an escape slide if you can get out of a burning passenger cabin yourself.

They can handle the 90 pound emergency exit door or the even heavier cabin doors. They know the route by feel and by heart to the nearest emergency exit in a smoke-filled cabin–and they’ll take you there. They are ready with first aid and CPR and a defibrillator and a fire extinguisher and oxygen and anything else you or I might need in flight. Not what we “want” in flight, although they take care of all they can–but most importantly, what you need to make it off the plane alive in any circumstance.

That’s the challenge they’ve undertaken on your behalf. That’s what they’ve trained to do, what they’re tested on and certified annually and rigorously through drills, classes and study.

They’re not leaving without you, even if they have to haul your ass out of a burning plane themselves. To me, that’s amazing.

This they do for minimal pay over long hours with little time for food or sleep and with complete disregard for time zones or body clock, because that’s just the nature of the job. I’ve never known a more selfless group, and there isn’t a more versatile group of professionals on the planet. They can hang with anyone, talk to anyone, and they’ll save the life of anyone, in the air or on the ground.

Do I have to spell this out for you? You should respect and appreciate the unique and giving individuals who are the flight attendants on your flight. Or in my case, I appreciate the one who is my partner for life. Or there’ll be an ass-whuppin’ in short order for you and me alike.

Got it? Good–remember it. Think about the big three flight attendant truths I just shared with you the next time you fly.

And be sure, if nothing else, that you know what you’d like to drink BEFORE the cart gets to you. When it does, “please” and “thank you” are mandatory–especially to the professionals who can both kick your ass and save it, and who will do both as necessary.

And THAT is the truth about Flight Attendants.

Epilogue:

Actually never met the guy, but you gotta like the way he thinks.

Coming next:

You hear the name, you see the pilot, but who is this person, “the airline captain” in whom you place your trust?

The exclusive, only here. Subscribe.

From Sea Level to 737 Captain: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

[Note: this is part of a continuing series describing what it’s like to become an airline captain on a brand new jet. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.]

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Midway through the simulator phase and there’s plenty good, some bad and a lot of ugly.

But the latter stuff, that’s just your perspective as a pilot. What the hell do you know?

Overall, it’s good to be handling hardware rather than clicking a mouse and watching animation. But there are rough patches. You can’t find anything. Reflex guides your hands to the wrong place: need a wider Nav display range? That’s not where it is. Looking for a map light? Uh-uh, it’s over there, not here, and it can’t exactly reach anyway.

And the HUD: a thousand bits of information before your eyes. But it’s all displayed in lime green, largely negating the symbol sorting aide provided by colors (red, warning, yellow, caution, green okay, blue, advisory) on all other displays. Plus, what doesn’t fit on the display is converted into a number: the all important radio altimeter hides in among a cash crop of abstract digits rather than as a moving display. But half of what you need to call for is based on its countdown–or up.

Here’s you on the controls: take it easy . . . what is this with the power steering? You’re flying with hamfists and pork brains, or at least that’s how it will feel in the back of the plane.

From the movie Airplane:

Gunderson: “He’s all over the place! Nine hundred feet up to 1300 feet. What an asshole!”

Ever fly a plane before? Well, yeah–the last 19 years on the MD-80 which handles like a pig in both pitch–especially pitch, being a long tube, and with un-powered ailerons. The 737 is a Maseratti by comparison. So you feel like a klutz, wing-rocking down final because it’s so sensitive–and you’re not. Which brings out your inner teacher:

Maddog jocks, you know the drill: put some smash on the jet, aim it at the runway. Cross the  threshold at fifty feet with a plus-five knots (I always did; admit it, you do too) over V-Ref  speed then snatch off all the power. But not in the Boeing.

And you’re your own worst critic. The real teacher? The Simulator Instructor? She’s great; real laid back, very calming demeanor in the briefing and in The Box (which is what we call the simulator). You learn better that way, the way she is: confident, knowledgeable yet very easy-going.

Cleared for the approach, read the fine print.

Still, need a conversion course for MD-80 “steam jet” pilots. But you’re figuring it out: LNAV VNAV is smart box stuff–FMC driven.  Where’s the IAS and vertical speed? Ah, there’s the magic.

But practically speaking, the hours in The Box are beginning to add up. Here’s what week one of the sims reveals:

1. You’ve become lazy as a pilot because there was no challenge to the same old Flintstone (do I really need to spell this out? PREHISTORIC Douglas jet) flight deck for too many years. Time to update and rethink the concepts such as Category III approaches hand-flown to a 50′ decision height (YGTBSM), 600 RVR, vertical navigation, and how twenty-first century technology has changed flying.

Simulator instructor's station. Right behind us; pay no attention to the woman behind the curtain.

2. Boeing has made a stable hand-flying jet. That’s a good wing, a dependable airfoil. Feels substantial both in the flare and on rotation. Not so much lion taming with a whip and a chair like the MD-80. Plus power to spare, on the wing.

3. With the state-of-the art technology comes the challenge of lawyers and liability. Now procedures are driven by what just happened in court regarding some type of aircraft accident.

Anyone can fly like a pilot, but now you need to fly like an attorney. So many new restrictions and procedures that you can tell stem mostly from legal considerations and absolutely not from good flight practices. But that’s just the twenty-first century, right?

Still, so much to absorb, especially in the left seat: you’re going to sign for this jet and everyone on board in about ten days. You have to get this right, not just to pass a check, but for what you know is coming: that dark and stormy night when things start going to “the top of the pyramid:” options narrow, no way out, it’s up to you to out think and outdo whatever nasty situation that will–not might, will–test you in the air sooner or later.

Funny thing: flashback.

Pilot survival, from so many years ago. Back then, a “double-bang:” fly two sorties, back-to-back; formation, aerobatics–you name it. In between, a Coke and a bag of peanuts for you. The Coke had both caffeine and sugar to pep you up. Same deal now, at midpoint in every simulator session, in the Iron Kitchen now, in the Squadron Snack Bar back then, face still showing the outline of an oxygen mask, hair matted from a helmet.

Now, the Iron Kitchen is just an alleyway between simulator building, filled with vending machines and a few tables. It’s the crossroads of airline pilots all somewhere in sim world, whether on the break between sim periods on a check or like you, between training sim sessions. It’s the company of pilots at once lost in their own reverie about their sim check or like you, the right steps into a new jet, shooting the breeze, hangar flying, griping, laughing but regardless, it’s the folks who fly.

Just like back in the Air Force, the peanuts good and salty to put something on your stomach quick, then back to the struggle with an unruly jet that wants to get the better of you.

It didn’t then, and won’t now either. That I promise; I promise me, promise you. Believe it.

Coming next–and in the next installment of this blog: final preparation, the the FAA rating checkride. Stay tuned . . .

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.

Waltz in Blue: Last Dance with the Old Girl.

She was my first. And it’s true: in flying, like many other areas of life, you always remember your first.

It was a long time ago when we were both a lot younger, newer to the airlines. I’d read about her even before that, though. She was the sleek new model–long lines, long legs.

I looked down on her at first, at least from where I was, flying the DC-10. There was no mistaking her distinctive tail and shark-like profile.

I sat sideways on the DC-10, The Plumber, for a little more than a year and I saw her around–knew someday we’d get together. I wouldn’t be a flight engineer forever, and she was the “first date” for a new First Officer.

That’s the first “first” I shared with her: my first flight as a First Officer. For me, that was a long awaited milestone. By then, I’d been flying jets for nine years, seven of them in the Air Force.

But finally, after a couple years flying sideways as flight engineer, and six weeks of transition training, hours upon hours in full motion simulators, this was the baptism of fire: take-off with a full boat–130 plus crew–fly to Long Beach, land.

What a view, finally, from a front seat! All the way across the country, thinking about that landing in Long Beach. First time for me in a Super-80, and with a full boat. We worked it out; she made me look good, touching down firmly but in Long Beach, with a fairly short runway, that was the right thing to do.

And that, as I said at the time, was a dream come true. We did a lot of miles together, saw most of the country and a lot of Mexico, too. Good times, some of them on days I’d rather have been at home. But we hung out together on more than one Christmas, many holidays, even a birthday or two over the years.

Thanks, Marsha!

All told, I guess I accumulated a couple thousand hours in that right seat. Learned a lot about “big picture” airline life on my own, but most of the important flying lessons, like how to land on a slick runway, in near zero visibility, how to pick through a line of storms, wrestling with crosswinds and treacherous icing and a thousand little ‘gotchas” I learned hand in hand with the 80.

Then a couple years off to fly the big brother–the DC-10–all over the globe. But I took with me the early lessons I learned on the smaller, thinner “Long Beach Sewer Pipe” and put them to work on a grand scale on the wide body jet where often, I was glad I’d figured out how to accomplish the mission on the 80 first.

Which brings me to the second first: the Big Kahuna.

Captain’s wings. I can see plain as day still my first landing in the left seat at Raleigh-Durham, thinking similar thoughts from the first “first” in Long Beach years before, landing the MD-80 for the first time: that was a dream come true, too.

Now that’s where 19 more years have passed. Day, night, good weather and bad–you name it. The airline records show over 11,000 captain hours in this one spot.

And actually, the other seat, too, wearing yet another set of wings:

Instructor and evaluator. Helping others make their airline pilot dreams come true and as importantly, keeping the dream alive by ensuring the quality of of training in jets and sims for a couple years.

We’ve seen a lot of miles together in the air. Carried thousands of passengers safely over the years. And we’ve crossed the country enough times to span the distance to the moon, enjoying  the view most of the way.

Which brings us to the present. And more significantly, this week.

It’s the Last Dance with the MD-80 for me. It’s been a good twenty-plus years and many thousands of hours in the air.

But . . .

There’s a new girl in town. In fact, we get a new one every month, and that rate is actually going to pick up in the new year.

She’s state-of-the-art, more powerful, lifts more and cruises both higher and faster. She’s actually replacing the faithful old MD-80 which one by one, month by month and actually two by two, heads to the desert to park for good.

So this week, instead of another first, it’s going to be our last. Three more days and maybe another few thousand miles together.

Then when I put you on the deck this week, it’ll be for the last time. That’s going to be a little sad in many ways, but that’s the way it goes, right? People want to fly on newer jets and even beyond the fact that I can’t blame ’em is the reality that I do too.

In fact, I’ve already started learning the 737-800 systems, although my formal classes start in mid-month. Lots of new numbers, systems and procedures to learn.

And the new Boeing will be just a transition relationship for me. In a couple years, I’ll throw her over for the 777.

That’s the way it goes. Will always have a soft spot for the old girl; she was always faithful and a great dance partner. It’s going to be hard to park her for the last time Friday, but whenever we pass in the sky–and I know we will–we’ll share a good thought, a good memory just the same.

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.