Flying the Summer Chameleon

We’re flying creatures of the season, consciously or not. Unlike birds, though, despite the plumage, we transcend the simple “south in winter” edict and scatter to the corners of the globe in summer. But like landscape, we seem to brighten up as we warm.

Maybe it’s because there’s more leisure travel that the colors are brighter. Perhaps folks match their demeanor with their color scheme–dead serious drab dressy for work,

Bust let’s cut loose a little on vacation, right? And the destination, not the journey is the matchup:

It’s that place you hold in your mind’s eye that’s the wardrobe match-up.  Sure, that might clash a little en route, or maybe it’s even supposed to

at least not as long as there are no natural predators around. Mostly, though, we seem to ignore the “now” part of getting there and picture ourselves wherever we’re going. Which is fine–I do it too

But the part that would be a shame to miss is the color en route. Because it seems like around early to mid-May, the landscape wakes up too and furious colors erupt as if making up for lost time. There are parts of the country whose colors may stay roughly the same, but the bright light of a tilted earth in this hemisphere’s summer casts a more brilliant spotlight deepest colors.

Same on the surface, too, if you stop and look. In the flight crew business, surface transportation in a strange town is typically on foot–which gives you time and proximity to take the up-close look at the colors of summer. Lousiville goes all out with their flowers

Block by block I stumble into someone’s flower beds, finally awake and blooming. Not to say, though, that the Big Picture landscape from altitude is any less dramatic:

The badlands of Utah and Arizona seem to gain their second wind in Spring, with deep colors that from miles above seem to be painted with a heavy brush.

When you’re walking (or running, although I have to retrace my steps with camera for anything cool) it’s easier to notice the little details of beauty that are the careless by-product of Spring and summer.

Just a few days (and in my case, a few thousand air miles) later, the fury of the yellow dots fade (I checked) but for this slow moment, what could be brighter?

Even just the sky alone is puffed up with swelling ocean moisture heated by sunlight then boiling up into towering storms, shoulder to shoulder daring you to either top them or go a hundred miles out of your way–which we often have to do.

That of course adds to the colors on our radar map display as well, another sign of the season.

But that’s okay–a few hundred extra miles in a week is no big deal, and the view, as with the short-lived flowers, is worth appreciating while you’re there. And the closer you get to the ocean, the more rambunctious the towering cumulus gets.

In hot weather, flying in Florida reminds me of the South Pacific where the thunderstorms were so tall you couldn’t even see the tops–you just went around them.

And before things get too ungodly hot, a morning walk in the California desert still gives a burst of color if you look.

That’ll be gone by the end of summer. And so will the flying chameleon: it’ll be back to the drabness of bundled layers, colder weather, duller light and subdued colors.

But until then, while you head for your brightest vacation spot, don’t miss the bright chameleon en route both on the ground and five miles in the air. Sure, keep that destination image in the forefront of you mind as you travel, because that makes the trip seem easier, doesn’t it?

And while I take you where you need to go, I’ll be seeing this . . .

. . . but since it’s summer and the season to enjoy a colorful excursion, I’ll be thinking this:

Safe and colorful travels, whether at 2 miles per hour or 500. Enjoy.

Air Travel: How to Fly with Children

Travel season’s here and it’s time to round up the kids and head for the airport. There are many things you need to know to make your trip with your kids smoother. Here are some important tips based on my 25 years as an airline pilot:

1. Educate beforehand: kids need to visualize what’s going to happen at security before they experience it firsthand. Like their first trip to the dentist, they need to be prepared for an unfamiliar, sometimes uncomfortable environment with a different set of rules from their normal life.

The fact that they can be separated from you by the TSA is scary enough unless they understand the process. Plus, whatever stuffed animal or toy they may carry for personal reassurance is going to have to be scanned separately. Talk it up ahead of time! Make it a game–“you’re going to walk through the arch between mommy and daddy.” There may be a magic wand involved (see above). Teddy’s going to ride the conveyor belt inside a duffle bag (please do–I’ve seen stuffed animals caught in the rollers and shredded to the horror of a little one).

Let your child know that you might be singled out for screening, which can be scary for a child.

If possible, tag team: one parent goes through and waits for the child or children on the secure side. Never send a child through first to wait–if you’re detained for further screening, you will be separated from your unsupervised child.

Hand carried items: this is a problem. You’ll have enough to carry just to support a child’s travel, so try to minimize loose items by making sure all hand-carried bags have some type of closing device to keep items inside. Open containers or bags will inevitably spill their toys, crayons, books and food when jostling through the security screening machine. Backpacks for elementary school aged kids make sense: they can carry them and still have hands free, and backpacks can be closed with drawstrings and zippers.

Make a total count of bags ahead of time–“we have three bags and a stroller”–and make it a game: “Mommy said 4 items.” Count and gather items on the secure side.  Tag everything and tie a colored ribbon or string on each item–kids will help find the color or label you choose, so make it distinctive. If you leave anything behind at the security checkpoint by mistake, chances are slim that you’ll ever see it again. In the chaos of gathering clothing, shoes, bags and kids, it’s important to inventory all for items before leaving the area for your gate.

2. At the gate: get a tag from the agent for your stroller. But before leaving home, get a protective bag for the stroller or car seat. Both Target and Baby’s-R-Us have them for around $20, and you do need one to keep the stroller or car seat clean.

Protect your stroller or car seat.

Also, the bag will keep loose or losable parts together, or at least in one bag–we find loose pieces of stroller trays and accesories all over the ramp and in the cargo compartment of the plane.  Cargo handling is an ungentle, dirty business–the cargo hold is not clean, nor are those other bags smashed in with yours or actually, the hands that handle the gazillion bags a day. Cover your stroller or car seat and keep the dirt and grime out of your infant or toddler’s food chain. Plus, on your return trip, you can stuff a world of used laundry into the bag as well as the seat or stroller.

Should your infant be gnawing on any of this?

Find yourself a spot at the gate that allows your little one(s) some space to expend a little energy. Consult the airport guide to find any kids’ playgrounds, a great idea that’s making its way into more and more airports. Usually, they are corralled off from the main traffic areas, allowing kids to run and play–something that presents a tripping hazard for kids and adults in the regular gate area.

Kid's Zone in the Detroit Airport

Check on-line to see if your airport has one, or just ask an agent or passenger service person. Just keep track of time, and be sure to listen carefully for gate change announcements while you’re there.

3. Food and water: here’s a more in-depth discussion of food while flying, but here are a few hints tailored to parents and kids. First, the MacDonald’s Kid’s meal in the airport?

Maybe–but only in the airport food court. Dragging this messy meal in flimsy containers on board–especially given everything else you have to carry–is a bad idea. There’s really no elbow room on board, which kid’s require to eat like kids do, plus there’s no way to contain the mess or clean it up afterward.

In the above-linked discussion, I make this important point: it’s not about eating on the plane–it’s about not being hungry. If you can’t feed your child right before the flight, be sure to have non-perishable, non-crushable or non-spillable snacks stashed in your hand-carried bag. Don’t count on any in-flight snacks which may not be kid-friendly (Does your toddler like beef jerky? Potted meat?) and are subject to the on-board service schedule and availability: once they’re sold out, that’s it.

Bring snacks and water for everyone. Again, don’t count on the inflight service which may be delayed or in case of turbulence, canceled altogether. Bring what you and your child will need!

4. Sanitation: the aircraft is known to many flight attendants as “The Flying Petrie Dish.” This is another good reason not to bring a meal on board: the aircraft isn’t really clean. Bring hand-sanitizer, plus wipes for your seat’s armrests, tray table and anywhere a small child is likely to touch.

$2.99 at Costco

Save yourself a cold or worse down the road: wipe down the common areas within your child’s reach.

5. Ears and pressurization: although modern jetliners have automatic cabin pressure controllers with very gradual rates of change during ascent and descent, little ears can be sensitive to the changes anyway. Be sure that your child is not congested due to a cold or such and if so, consider an over the counter children’s decongestant to ensure they can clear their ears. Some parents have had good luck with having their kids drink during descent, which requires swallowing, which helps equalize pressure between the inner and outer ear.

You’ll need to be prepared: bring something to drink in a container. Flight attendants are required to collect all service items in preparation for landing and so will not be offering or serving any beverages.

6. Deplaning: Inventory time! How many bags? Contents–particularly stuffed animals–returned to the bag (check the floor around your seat) and bags closed! Do this on descent–don’t wait till everyone behind you on the plane is trying to deplane! Be ready.

With my youngest on a trip, we once discovered the tragedy of a missing teddy bear after we got home. So now we actually have roll call of all traveling stuffed animals at the hotel and on the plane.

Much easier than having to call the hotel and prepay the shipping for a somewhat threadbare but much needed bear. Trust me. Check seatback pockets thoroughly too for things you or your children might have stashed and forgotten about.

7. Department of “Duh:” Shouldn’t have to say this, but some people don’t seem to even think about this nastiness, so here goes.

Don’t change a diaper at your seat. The aircraft lavs all have pull-down changing tables for that purpose.

And that’s the correct place to handle that matter. Literally, speaking of that “matter” or material, would you want my Uncle Fred to change his diaper on your row?

The only difference in the “matter” is in quantity, not content (well, Uncle Fred likes anchovies, but still). Yes, it’s your cute little one, but it still is what it is and everyone on the plane wants to not share the experience and scent.

Thanks, Uncle Fred.

And seriously: DON’T hand the used diaper to a flight attendant! Or DO NOT plan to have them dispose of it in the meal cart (I know, it’s incredible, but people do). Put the diaper in a barf bag and dispose of it in the lavatory waste bin. Again, no one on the plane–particularly the crew–wants to get involved with anyone else’s bodily waste. Would you?

You want me to take WHAT?

Actually, there are more helpful travel hints for parents traveling with children, but this will do for now. If you only master these items alone, your trip will be smoother and more enjoyable.

Have a great trip–and if you have any other helpful travel tips, send them to me and I’ll add them!

Inflight Survival: Foodishness at 30,000′

First off, let’s get one thing straight: inflight survival’s not about eating in flight–it’s about not being hungry.

If you’ve been off the planet since the mid 1980s, you may not know this, but unless you have been on another planet, you realize that no domestic airline serves food in Coach.

They’ll sell you something that is somewhat “foodish,” but remember what I said: the mission is to not be hungry in flight. If you are, you’ve failed the mission already: you didn’t eat before the flight, and/or you don’t have an efficient stash of caloric emergency input.

My stash emergency stash in my flight bag.

This is all pocket-sized, crush-proof, non-liquid stuff that will go through security without any problems. No, it’s not really “eating;” it’s doing what I remind you is the mission: not being hungry. Forget the idea of “eating” in flight. Well, unless you’re in the cockpit.

But even then, there’s still the same problem passengers have in back: you’re not getting anything to eat until a certain time in the schedule of the flight–not necessarily when you need it. Hence my stash.

And further, at least in the cabin, you’re going to wait also for the remains to be collected of whatever “foodish” thing you’ve paid for.

Here's a $7 United Airlines "buy on board" snack. How's the potted meat dinner working out?

Given that you’re already crammed into about 2.5 cubic feet, do you really want to sit with your trash and wait for the pick-up cart which is waaaaay after the “serving” cart selling the buy on board junk?

So plan to calorize before you board. Yes, this means you’ll have to spend some money in the airport. Reality check: you indicated through your demand for WalMart pricing on an expensive product (your airline seat is not cheap to produce) that you would not pay for the lunch on board that you know have to buy in the terminal–deal with it.

Even that, though, as I said is a hassle to drag on board along with your hand-carried stuff. The containers are flimsy, the food messy, especially when you’re crammed into you middle seat between one who’s coughing and sneezing all over your food, the other drooling over and eying it longingly.

Forget the messy on-board sky picnic in the filthy passenger seat (no, they seldom get more than a quick wipe off, if that, hence the flight attendant nickname for the passenger cabin, “The Flying Petri dish.)

Now, let’s think of the second survival need: water.

Buy it, bring it, drink it. Do we have to go over the serving cart lecture again? How you don’t want to wait while that trundling inchworm creeps up and down the aisle? In survival school, they teach you to drink your water and ration your sweat. That is–stay hydrated. Don’t wait. The aircraft atmosphere is at about 2% humidity which will dry you like a raisin insidiously: when you notice that you’re parched, it’s too late.

Buy the water in the terminal, schlep it on board, drink it pre-emptively. Yes, you may get to spend some quality time in the filthy on-board out house. But you’ll feel better in flight and at your destination.

Let’s recap:

1. Forget about eating on board. If you must, eat the high cal, uncrushable, minimum mess, compact snacks you were either efficient enough to buy ahead of time, or if not, at least you were smart enough to buy at any airport news stand. Don’t bother with the elaborate carryout.

It’ll be a huge mess, which will irritate those passengers crammed in next to you, breathing all over your food. Plus, you’ll have to sit with a pile of garbage till the inchworm cart creeps past your row.

Bring efficient caloric items that will stave off hunger until you get off the plane.

2. Bring water. And drink it pre-emptively. Sure they’ll eventually get to you with the serving cart so you can have your whopping 4 ounces of liquid. But you need more.

Drink it before and during the flight to stay ahead of dyhdration which causes fatigue and headaches, two things you don’t need when you’re traveling, right?

It’s a jungle up there, trust me. But you can make it survivevable if you think ahead, and think rationally: never mind eating in flight. Calorize, hydrate, and survive the trip so that you can enjoy your destination and maybe, find some real food.

You and Zeus and a Bug’s Eye View

If the devil’s in the details, a birds-eye view is a double edged sword in what you can see. Take a look.

Picture this world through a bug’s eye, crawling across a massive green waxy leaf on his way to wherever bugs go in their daily business: sun warming spindly limbs, a day ahead, a day behind this one no different than the last; on we go . . . wait. How the hell did I get stuck here?

Too late. Missed the details obvious from above: the fat dew drops refracting the sunrise into a thousand jewels suspended in a gossamer web. Web, get it? Spider web, certain death–wandered right into it with your head down. Crawling across the ground can be like that: no big picture, connect the dots beyond the here and now; creep along and don’t look up. From the God’s-eye view, far above and really aware? The double-edged sword: you can see things but do little to warn anyone.

Look down. Cowtown! That’s home. Jewels of golden light suspended in an urban web–see the Cat’s stadium lights blazing away in the bottom right corner? A thousand little cheering voices unheard but you know they’re raising a ruckus you’d enjoy if you weren’t a few miles above. You get the view like Zeus’s Daemons, but no voice to warn of the spider.

Which you get to see from where you are.

This giant storm anvil is sailing east to hammer the city and rain out the Cats, sending a thousand ant-like creatures scattering to their cars. They could see the shadows towering and blotting the setting sun–if they looked up and west. If they could see beyond the Klieg lights ringing the field like dew drops on a spider’s web.

If you look carefully from above sometimes you can deduce the story line below.

See the red emergency lights on the northbound freeway lane in the bottom right? Trouble in the ant pile: someone missed the dew drops or the anvil above and came face to face with the spider. Somebody’s not getting home when or how they envisioned and if you look miles north on the road you can almost picture an empty driveway and a phone about to ring.

Typhon, a Greek vision of a Daemon.

Ancient Greeks claimed Daemons were sent to earth to warn mortals of danger, yet we’re anything but earthly, cruising above and right on by at unearthly speed, more like Plato’s darker version of Zeus’s guardian spirits. We’re granted the magic carpet view from above, but altitude and speed come with a vow of silence as the rolling tapestry scrolls away the past in seconds flat. We look ahead, and down.

Somebody’s today was painted with a rusty brush.

Looks hot and dry and rugged; hard to imagine but you know someone did creep right across that rock pile foot by dusty foot not even that many years ago. They took on faith or word of mouth what we can see miles ahead: water.

It had to be there or that would be pretty much it for those creeping bugs, right? You can see that joyous revelation flying east to west: notice how many mountains hide water on their western flank and when they do, how many cities pop up between the mountains and the water. You can see in your mind a raggedy knot of pioneers pausing atop the mountain saying, “Thank god! Water. We’re staying.”

Albuquerque tucked between the mountains and the Rio Grande.

Just nod your heads, fellow Platonic Daemons. We have miles to go and more to see in the silence of our Zeus-like jet flight above the rolling story board of time and place. Time only to notice individual leaves and dew drops and mountains but not a moment to linger on any.

Because here’s my clock, and it rules our ride:

Fuel flow is Godlike in the sky world. I keep the fires burning that shove us through the air high above the world even Plato would have trouble envisioning. And two jet engines are burning like a glass furnace, spinning the turbines at over 32,000 revolutions per minutes and sling-shotting us through air so thin we barely make a sound to those miles below.

You can tell them about it later. Our view, like our ride, is fast but temporary. I know, you weren’t here to look, but rather, just to ride from a certain here to a particular there.

And maybe the view is a sideshow, but the truth isn’t.

Beyond the magic of flight is the genie that is scale: how much more can you see if you can claim the Zeus-view? What’s the mountaintop-valley-river reality in life waiting to be noticed, to be brought down to Earth in a bug’s life? What don’t we see when we’re crawling across a Manzanita leaf or an asphalt spaghetti bowl that would just make all the difference?

I could be Zeus’s good Daemon with the P.A. in the air and point out the view and the viewpoint. But I’d tend more toward the Platonic evolution: what you discover yourself, you own. So I won’t say much.

But the sky-high Daemon view is full of devilish details just for you–for now, for as long as our fuel burn permits. But after you think about it for a while, from now on.

Because when you look with a wider, higher viewpoint, there’s a whole new world buried in the details, right? Might look beyond the bright lights and dew drops and save yourself from being stuck nose to nose with the spider.

Just throw your airfare under the car.

This is me looking down on my old high school–literally, not figuratively–where as a freshman, I had a neighborhood paper route.

It’s significant for me now to look down on my old paper route there–the Sacramento Bee, daily and Sunday, over a hundred customers–because in those days I looked up from my bike as I tossed newspapers, wistfully watching the airliners climbing toward the Sierras. I have the better of the two views now.

But I also relate to a “customer service” lesson I learned on the paper route that’s just as valid from my present perspective a few miles above my old paper route and and two hundred times faster than bike speed.

The biggest pain every month had to be collecting from customers. And the worst of that was at the house of a junior high school principal who lived on the route.

Ring the bell. Wait. He comes to the door and points to his driveway.

“Your money’s under the car–where I normally find my paper.” Crawl under the car; at least he usually had exact change. Every month.

Which didn’t seem fair, because his paper wasn’t under his car every day. Just now and then, because I had about 137 papers to throw from my moving bike, often with a dog or two chasing me, and a lot of days in the rain.

I think of that percentage as we top the Sierras (that’s Lake Tahoe in the middle)  because we’re running about forty minutes late.

Of the one hundred and forty people on board, I’m sure that one or two are steaming like my old customer, wanting to see me crawl under the car because this is what “always happens.” No dogs chasing me this time, but yes, weather slowing things down and a traffic-jammed Air Traffic Control system.

For that guy, and those of his ilk, there’s no explaining what goes on and why–they’re really not listening anyway and just want to tell their neighbors about how the paperboy has to crawl under the car to get his measly $3.50 a month.

But for the majority of reasonable folks on board, here’s a behind the scenes explanation for the common frustration experienced by all but seemingly insurmountable for the “under the car” minority.

Why doesn’t the pilot tell us what’s going on? Well, because  . . . it is going on: two nights ago, we were taxiing in the aluminum conga line to the runway, watching on radar as a ring of storms converged on the airport.

There’s no time to spare. I’m recalculating fuel burn for a new route, listening to and answering ground control giving instructions on one radio, monitoring the other radio that my first officer is on negotiating a new route from Clearance Delivery and steering the jet with my feet on the rudder pedals. And that’s not all that’s “going on;” it’s taking shape as the minutes tick by and the ring of towering cumulus closes in on the airport. I don’t have time to step out of the task mix and say “here’s what’s happening” because it’s changing by the minute.

Seriously?

It’s difficult enough when one of the Flight Attendants call up and ask “What’s the delay?” The answer would be, “I’m doing five things at once; don’t call me back unless we’re on fire.” Most Flight Attendants realize that and don’t call. If they do, I realize they’re taking heat from the hundreds of eyeballs boring into theirs as they sit on their emergency exit jumpseats. Any wonder why some of them may be a little defensive?

So–I know this is not what you want to hear, but–if I’m not saying anything on the P.A., it’s because there’s nothing for me to say and no time to say it anyway. And even what information there is changes by the minute. Even if you wanted to be part of the chaos, I don’t have the time to narrate what’s going on and still keep up with it and stay on top of our flight priority in the mix. Can you just get started on your crossword puzzle and trust that we’re doing our jobs as efficiently and safely as we can?

Once we do get into the air, we have another 4 hours of flight.  So make it the New York Times crossword: it’s in the “Entertainment” section, on the driveway. Under your car.

Meanwhile, lighten up on the paperboy, okay? He’s doing the best he can.

Sweet Tart Time Warp: The Three Hour Sunset

You point the nose west and settle into cruise and it finally hits you: this sunset doesn’t want to end. That’s the moment when the past catches up with the present and lets you in on a little secret about the future. That is, time depends on where you’re going. Long? Short? Brief? Interminable? It’s all a question of direction.

As a kid in fourth grade I had pretty much worked out the science of this revolutionary discovery using my newly acquired mathematical tools like long division and multiplication, scratching calculations on three ring binder paper while downing Sweet Tarts for brain fuel and watching Dick Van Dyke Show reruns. According to my calculations, if I flew west to east at just the right speed, given the turning of the earth below and my jet’s speed, time would stand still because I’d be over the exact same spot. Kind of a grade school version of the geosynchronous orbit.

Fast forward to my adulthood and the opportunity to examine that theory from my present job site at thirty-plus thousand feet and .77 Mach.

One thing I hadn’t accounted for in my grade school theorizing was the fact that as an airline pilot and an adult, I’d be lazy enough (and senior enough) to not fly early in the morning. So I’d be flying mostly east to west, joining the tide of blinking strobes creasing the sky late in the day, sailing to the coast. And in that physical reality, I find that I was halfway right: the sunset goes on forever as we chase the sun west.

But in the most part–damn the math and Sweet Tarts–I was just plain old wrong. No geosynchronous orbit. Not time standing still. But the important lesson: time depends on where you’re going. That’s a matter of proportion and substance, not speed and duration. Here’s why.

This sunset was observed at sea level. Actually, nine decks up from sea level and it should be noted, on a cruise ship with a camera and a vodka tonic in hand rather than Sweet Tarts and a number two pencil. Two other factors are fundamentally different as well.

The ship was cruising at a leisurely twenty knots, rather than my work-related obligatory four hundred plus knot cruise speed. And in the second clause is the most significant distinction: work. At altitude, I’m at work. At sea level–especially at sea–I’m not.

That seaside sunset lasted about two minutes. The week long cruise in retrospect seems now more like a matter of a day or two. But the months leading up to the cruise–and especially the maintenance-delayed flight to the port city–seemed like forever.

By contrast, once the jet’s landing gear is tucked into the gear wells, time slows to a creep. There’s the inverse relationship: at high speed and high altitude, time drags slower than Christmas.

By contrast, sea level–“sea” being a key word, particularly on a beach or a cruise ship–when not at work flies by like a lightning bolt, a brilliant flash disappearing in a squiggly swirl of smoke and landing somewhere far away. The thunder lingers, like the stack of vacation pictures, but predictably fades with time till you can only barely remember the original brilliance.

Same way with parenthood, and families and important events and people. Gone in a flash, yet the times in between seem to drag on. Not that there aren’t dazzling views on the way, incidental in only the fact that they’re unanticipated, but breathtaking nonetheless.

And it would be shortsighted to discount all the friends and family and events waiting ahead in unanticipated places and times of equally rewarding experiences encountered along the way to the next “big event.”

Maybe the real secret is this: the whole journey is the big deal; the events just the waypoints along the way. Maybe it never was about a geosynchronous life, hovering over a here and now. Maybe in the interminable sunset between events–the time warp–there’s also a meaningful now that sets into relief the precious moments of past and present.

So maybe there’s no time warp after all, and fourth grade math and youthful perspective not withstanding, no need for it either. The real deal is in the journey and whether at five hundred miles and hour or ten, sea level or flight level, you’re speeding onward nonetheless.

Hard as it is to admit, the times in between the momentous events are the majority of the journey, rather than the sideshow. Never mind long division–I always suspected it would lead to no good–and I’ll take the Vodka tonic over the Sweet tarts nowadays. But from the time from of fourth grade to forty-plus, one thing is clear: time, distance, place and people go by too quickly when you don’t want them to.

I think I’ll spend a little more time concentrating on the ride. Long or short, there are only so many sunsets to go.

High Flight: I’ll Take The Low Life.

The oddly symmetrical reality of flight is this: there’s only so much flying you can do without repeating yourself.

That’s not just because it all starts to look the same. Rather, it’s because if you keep flying, it actually WILL be the same: you’ll eventually circumnavigate the globe and end up over the same spot and on your way again if you don’t land.

But that’s not all. It’s also an inescapable reality that the higher you get the faster you can go, but the high price of altitude is that higher is colder and the air so thin you’d turn blue in a matter of seconds.

Sure, you’re able to skip over most of the weather because you’re above most of the atmosphere.

But then, where’s the bottom, the foundation upon which you can really ground the experience, to say you’ve been to, and not just over,  a significant landmark? Sure, you saw it–I see big stuff every workday as I crisscross the continent–but the difference between “up there” and down-to-earth is like night and day.

I have time to consider the distinction between higher and lower as I wait between flights in that great equalizer, the boarding area. Like the hospital waiting room, there’s only one and it’s filled with people from all socio-economic levels.  True, the “elite” travelers often wait in a separate lounge between flights, some even apparently entitled to the more rarefied air of “special services” whisked to the gate at the last minute on a private cart.

And sometimes, the casual traveler goes casually off the deep end, traveling in attire more suitable to cleaning out the garage than flying.

Nonetheless, I’ve seen the man in a suit that costs more than the car driven by the man seated next to him in the boarding area, elbow to elbow, waiting for the same flight. But that’s where the commonality ends.

For the travel “elite,” it seems like it’s always about time and I’m just guessing, more about where he’s going than where he’s waiting.  There’s an iciness there that you don’t want to bump into.

But for the infrequent traveler, the waiting is charged with the excitement of going, and they’ll actually drag you into the experience if you let them. And why the hell not? I’m glad to hear about what’s waiting after landing and often enough, wishing I was about to do the same thing, whether visiting friends or family or a resort destination. For them, the waiting is the anticipation of the opening act of a first-run play in which they’ll star.

For those simply rushing from point “A” to point “B,” the flight is a dull rerun of a show they’ve seen too many times, and the flying experience probably isn’t going to go well. There will be delays and traffic jams and diversions and cancellations. They won’t be part of the adventure but rather, a pain in the rear: there’s a schedule to keep, calls, texts, deals, dates, times, no flexibility, no slack. No wonder.

The infrequent flyer isn’t experiencing a “travel product,” but rather, is living an adventure. For them there’s still some wonder in the skies and in the process of climbing miles into the air, and they still like doing it.

It’s a moving tapestry that unfolds below them and time, rather than just the logjam between now and the big “then” of arrival is more than simply the endurance akin to a few hours spent in a dentist’s chair.

There’s more to the experience than just the slow passage of minutes and miles–rather, there’s the marvel of passing a mile every 7 seconds. There’s the view that stretches from horizon to horizon, the darker blue of space above and the mottled tan of a mid-continent mountain range in between. There are monstrous cumulonimbi thundering about harmlessly below

and rivers wandering lazily into the sunset.

There are hardly words to describe how the sun gathers in the day and runs off like a thief to the west, chased by a moon sliver and the evening star.

So I guess what you see and how it strikes you depends on how high you are. There’s warmth and red-blooded breathable pleasure the lower you go. If you take a little of that with you as climb higher–and we do to a maximum pressure differential of 8.32 psi at altitude–suddenly the experience is truly more of a wondrous passage than a tedious transport.

Which brings me back to the symmetrical reality of flight: there’s only so much flying you can do without repeating yourself. And in over 17,000 flight hours, I guess I’ve flown enough miles to circle the globe more than a few times and so I keep crossing over the same spots. That being the case, how does one preserve the wonder of flight, and why?

Helps to have a touch of the Earth in you, and a memory of the days when flight was the exception rather than the rule. And the awareness that the everyday in the sky is anything but for everyone other than the few. That’s the low life: the life on the surface, grounded in that realization. Puts flight into perspective.

It’s the eyes of the non-flyers that see such things truly. The renowned Ski Parker, a professor at USC’s School of Flight Safety and Accident Investigation once asked me, “If you and a non-pilot layman were to witness an aircraft crash, who’d be the more reliable witness?”

In my first few thousand hours of pilot time I couldn’t accept his answer, but now I know he was right: those with clear eyes, without thousands of repetitions skewing both expectations and memory have the truest vision of flight.

That’s what grounds the experience, which provides a foundational value for the coolness of flight. If I capture in text the head rush of shoving throttles forward, thundering down the runway like a runaway freight train, then pulling back and lifting off; and share that with those seeing with clear eyes, then I share the vision–which is what originally got me into flying and helped me over the bazillion hurdles enroute–and preserve that clear vision too.

And okay, I’m still a sucker for jet piloting, still get a rush out of it all. But I realize too that the enduring reward comes from sharing that with those un-jaded and unaccustomed to the thrill. Down to earth, where it’s warm and clear, is where that view is. That’s where all the important stuff, like home and family and an appreciation for flight lives.

See you there. Which, actually, is right here.

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Flight Deck: Zoom With A View.

Wanted: the lucky few with vision.

Job title: Zoom With A View.

“Applicant must be willing to sit for long hours looking out window at ever-changing sky. Hours vary, as does the sky, and applicants must have the ability to stay alert regardless of the hour.

Must have the ability to play nicely with others, particularly in crowded airspace . . .

. . . where “bumping into a stranger” is never a good thing.

Job often requires eating on the fly.

Working with fun people in very close quarters.

Must keep an eye on details inside, while appreciating what’s going on outside as well.

Applicants must demonstrate innovative vision in traffic jams . . .

and an ability to capture a moment visually doesn’t hurt.

And on the ground . . .

Old meets new in Louisville

. . . it’s helpful to have an eye for the sublime,

. . . and a tolerance for the absurd.

Workplace security is provided by a specialized force of hand-picked officials

trained and employed by a government agency.

How can you NOT rest easy when they are responsible for your security? Well, never mind that.

Paperwork is kept to a minimum,

. . . and stunning views are at the maximum

. . . if you just look.

Nonetheless, must see that people are what really matter anyway

especially when it’s “us against the world” of delays and weather and maintenance problems . . .

. . .  you realize who your friends are,

sometimes, if you’re lucky, for life.

So vision is key, maintaining perspective crucial. Applicants must be able to perceive magnificence in the minute

in order to realize what really matters, and be able to recognize your own minuteness next to the magnificient

in order to see with humility

and perceive humanity with the the appropriate respect.

Applicants simply need several thousand pilot hours of jet time to apply; approximately one in two hundred will be selected.

Views provided free.

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Senator Schumer and the Myth of Cheap Air Travel.

Senator Chuck Schumer is confused once again. This time, it seems he’s confusing “consumer rights” with “consumer products.”

Last month, Schumer heralded a questionable attachment to the FAA Re-Authorization Bill as the answer to the underlying causes of pilot fatigue and regional pilot levels of experience. He was wrong, but his press releases on the subject made for decent publicity for the senator.

Now Schumer weighs in on carry-on baggage and airlines, stating that the former is a passenger “right” that must be provided for free by the latter.

Hogwash.

The consumer “right” when it comes to airlines is to choose one over the other, which has everything to do with free enterprise and the marketplace which governs the “right,” or more accurately, the product.

Spirit Airlines as a private company has both the right and the obligation to price every component of their product. And consumers have every right to choose another airline without the baggage fee, if the fee is a deal-breaker for the passenger.

That’s free enterprise. And whether Schumer admits it or not, the fee proposed by Spirit Airlines is a direct result of the Airline Deregulation Act. The marketplace, according to congress, is supposed to determine airline ticket prices. That’s why congress disbanded the Civil Aeronautics Board which up until 1978 regulated airline ticket prices and routes.

My personal opinion? As with fare hikes, this may be a trial balloon on Spirit’s part: if no other airline joins Spirit and institutes their own charge for carry-on luggage, I’d expect that the fee will go the way of most fare hikes–that is, into the garbage. Nonetheless, air travel is not nor ever has been cheap to produce and airlines continue to lose money despite any fees or fares enacted.

That would be the marketplace doing what congress directed when they enacted the law, and Schumer knows that. But he can’t resist an opportunity to grandstand, no matter how insincere it is.

Fees are irritating and costly, but airline seats simply are costly, too, and have to be paid for. This is a lesson not lost on Europeans who have a fiercely competitive airline market–and a plethora of passenger fees that clearly go hand-in-hand with low fares. Check below for the schedule of “nickel-dime” fees, to use Schumer’s term, of one of the leading European discount carriers.

Meanwhile, when the basic market forces of production cost meet Schumer’s myth of cheap air travel, guess which one will win–or we will all lose the “right” of air travel to the cost of producing the luxury.

From the Ryanair website:

Ryan Air Table of Fees

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(UK Pounds/Euro or local currency equivalent)	Booked on www.ryanair.com		Booked via a Call Centre* or Airport
	UK Pounds	Euro	UK Pounds	Euro
Online Check-In (not charged on some promotional fares)	£5	€5	£10	€10
Mastercard Prepaid Debit Card As a special offer to the above card holders, Ryanair, for a limited period only, will not apply an administration fee	Free	Free	Free	Free
Administration Fee – Per passenger/ Per One Way Flight This fee relates to costs associated with Ryanair’s booking system and processing payments.	£5	€5	£5	€5
Priority Boarding Fee* – Per passenger/ Per One Way Flight	£4	€4	£5	€5
Airport Boarding Card Re-issue –	n/a	n/a	£40	€40
Infant Fee – Per Infant/Per One Way flight (must be under 2 years for both outbound and return flight)	£20	€20	£20	€20
Checked Baggage Fees* – (Each passenger is permitted to check-in up to 2 bags with a maximum weight of 15kg per bag)Different rates fees apply depending on the date of travel (peak rates apply for travel in July and August)1st Bag – 15kg allowance – per bag/ per One Way Flight	£15	€15	£35	€35
1st Bag – Peak Rate July/August	£20	€20	£40	€40
2nd Bag – 15kg allowance – per bag/ per One Way Flight	£35	€35	£70	€70
2nd Bag – Peak Rate July/August	£40	€40	£80	€80
Excess Baggage Fee – Per Kilo Fee can only be purchased at the airport ticket desk	Not Available Online	Not Available Online	£20	€20
Infant Equipment* (car/booster/travel cot) Fee charged per Item/ Per One Way Flight (1 pushchair carried free of charge). A maximum weight of 20kg per item	£10	€10	£20	€20
Sports Equipment* Fee charged per Item/ Per One Way Flight A maximum weight of 20kg per item	£40	€40	£50	€50
Musical Instrument* Fee charged per Item/ Per One Way Flight A maximum weight of 20kg per item	£40	€40	£50	€50
Flight Change Fees* – Per Passenger/ Per One Way Flight	£25	€25	£55	€55
Name Change Fee* – Per Passenger	£100	€100	£150	€150

*Up to 4 hours prior to your scheduled flight departure you can purchase online – checked bags, priority boarding, sports/infant equipment and musical instruments even if you have already checked in online for your flight.

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Altitude and the Neverlasting “Now.”

The sneaky seduction of altitude is this: the higher you fly, the faster you can go but the more difficult it is to perceive the speed.

At cruise altitude, the arch of the earth or the depths of the ocean are mere backdrop for passage. From a contemplative perch made of the lightest material possible in a thin-skinned cocoon inches from sub-freezing, anemically thin air, the perspective and distance makes the otherworldly, near-Mach speed seem like a lazy float in a cloud swing.

The monumental seems miniscule because the miles-high magic of perspective paints the infinite details with a brush broadened by altitude rendering the monolithic perceptible in a glance–an impossibility from the ground.

Once the Earth falls away, the crags and mottled rocks and bare washes recede into a more perfect rugged beauty most apparent in the wide angle vantage point of altitude, a newborn epic revelation.

And the lazy cloud swing breezes through effortless miles over a rolling tapestry of preternatural vistas from here to there, a “now” with a spectacular view,

a footless, rootless, colossal impossible God’s-eye-view of the fastest way to there, wherever that is today.

That’s difficult to imagine from the surface, particularly when the struggle to get into the air seems as insurmountable as the miles to go. Even once under way but still shackled with the twin albatrosses of gravity and crowding, “now” masquerades as forever.

Waiting–Keats’ “foster child of silence and slow time”– renders the present a shuffling laggard, and speed a distant mirage like tomorrow or yesterday. “There” and “then,” the double-play of anticipation, never seem more impossibly far away and “now” a more wearisome isolation from where we’re headed and who we’re going to see.

And yet that’s the closest we ever really are to each other, wandering life, vagabonds bound by the commonality of where we aren’t yet, but are headed for–which is always some particular there. The tedious details of the strangled moment are forgettable snapshots as they present themselves, but in truth they’re truly the imprint of the best, most fleeting treasures of our lives:

This is how we were then. Look how small the kids were! And how young we were. Like the magical clarity borne of altitude, the distance of time paints a whole new picture. And the pictures side by side reveal the awful truth: time is a thief.

Let’s face it: compared to the breathtaking perspective of the sky view, the grounded here and now seems like a sideshow–even when it really is the other way around. Maybe it’s the tedium of now, the obligations, the faults and close up detail of “now” that falls away when you leave the Earth relegates the “here and now” to the status of ugly stepchild to “there” and “then” of destination.

Like the ruddy details of a landscape vanishing into the miles-high montage below a jet flight, the ticking seconds hide in the tearing off of calendar pages. But like the imperfections of wilderness, they are nonetheless the essence of our lives, the reality that makes life what it is rather than the illusion of how it appears from a distance of time or place.

That masks the real culprit–relentless time–and lets him go about his silent ruination of everything precious now under the guise of everything yet to come.

You pay me to hide that from you, and I do my best.

Though time and distance seems non-existent in the speed and altitude of flight, that’s because I’m handling those culprits, sweating them for us all. Time is fuel. Speed is distance. And neither is flexible or endless, because time is not our friend.

We have an appointment with gravity and energy that is ticking our way, hiding behind broadest view of time and distance and the breathless, breathtaking journey between them.

There’s a big plan for our little journey,

and in bringing it to a successful close, it’s easy to forget that what’s for me a workday process is for all of us a passage nonetheless. I try to keep in mind that the seduction of altitude is but ample cover for the thief of time tiptoeing silently by in the seconds barely evident in the calendar’s march. At least I won’t let him steal away unnoticed.

The sneaky seduction of altitude and its supernatural view is also its greatest secret, if you pause long enough to take it apart like an old watch:

The outer face tells an elegant story, but means nothing without the myriad interlocking details that make it tick. A sleek jet at shotgun speed is a beautiful sight rocketing overhead.

But nonetheless, it’s our mundane day-to-day litany of close-up imperfection and routine but precious interlocking lives that is the miracle. A fleeting miracle, despite the stunning trickery of high altitude sightseeing that hides the all-important ticking details in favor of something down the road beyond the reality of now.

And it’s not a fair trade-off, because as Bella Abzug promised, maybe we weren’t at the Last Supper, but we’re certainly going to be at the next one.

On the way, I plan to drag my feet as long as possible in each fleeting but precious mile-high and down-to-earth heartbeat of the neverlasting now.

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