A good friend sent an e-mail the other day―addressed to the usual gang, all friends―citing the recent rash of airline pilot incidents: a Delta crew landing on the taxiway; a Northwest crew getting distracted by their laptops; and a United pilot arrested for drinking. He ended his messages with this question: "What is going on in the airline business?”
After a quick Google search I replied: “Over 50,000 airline flights with dedicated, professional crews in their cockpits operate each day without incident. That's what's going on in the airline business.”
So often―and with increasing frequency, it seems―we allow ourselves to be drawn to the sensational minutiae, rather than considering the whole picture. This is partially a result of instantaneous communications. News flashes appear on our Blackberries. We can't ignore them. Constituents get outraged, call for hearings. It's all over the news. Ignorant commentators chime-in ad nauseum. We hear. We read. We cringe.
Nothing has changed. These incidents have been happening for generations. What haschanged though, remains unheralded: commercial air transportation continues to be the absolute, unmitigated safest way to travel. And it keeps trending even better.
Okay, now your questions. Did I know any of the people in the news? Yes, I am acquainted with the person who got arrsted. He's a nice guy. He'll be removed from flight status and placed in a dry-out program, after which he will return to the line. But he won't get a third chance.
The laptop situation? Gross negligence. It's not the laptops that are at fault; it's the way those guys allowed themselves to become complacent. Still, they didn't run short of fuel, and they didn't cause a mid-air threat because ATC kept tracking them. No one came near being hurt.
Landing on the taxiway? Three sets of eyeballs in that cockpit are guilty, not just the captain. But remember they were coming off of a 10 hour all-nighter. My guess is that if there had been airplanes on that taxiway, that crew would have seen their error and executed a go-around. Thus either way, there was no immediate collision potential. No one came near being hurt.
And, the guy who had the alcohol in his blood―he had two other pilots with him. Even if he had flown, a safety factor was already in place. No one came near being hurt.
Moral: Flying is safe. The vast majority of flights don't make the news―a good thing. For the ones that do, many safety layers are in place to correct errors.
There are always exceptions. The latest one: Colgan Air 3407, Buffalo NY, 12 FEB 2009. You know that story. Here's a good place to focus. Make sure your air carrier hires competent, experienced, professional well-paid pilots! How do you do that? I don't know. Write them. Write congress. Write the DOT. But be ready to pay more for your ticket.
Dang, I was going to tell you abut the message I sent to another planet.
Unless you're living in a snow cave in Antarctica you know about the incident last week in which pilots at another airline didn't respond to radio transmissions and overflew their destination by 168 miles. Now I can hardly pass by a group of passengers without someone asking, “What is it you guys do while the plane is cruising?”
This is not surprising because the "passengers" in the cockpit on the errant flight admitted to being in a heated conversation about company matters for over an hour and completely forgot to do their job. Air Traffic Control finally got their attention just as a flight of F-16s was taxing out to go after them—with live missiles, I suspect.
Autopilots are wonderful inventions that save lives by allowing pilots to multi-task during high workload situations and to relax during long high cruise segments. Programmed correctly, the autopilot and its associated computers (most large jets have three such units) knows when it's time to reduce power and descend. But it won't do that unless a pilot pushes a button to permit it to do so. On the 757/767s I fly, all it will do is put up a tiny message that says, RESET MCP ALTITUDE. That, by far, is not the only way you know it's time to descend, but it's the only cue you get from George (that's what the old timers called the autopilot). Those bums who FUBARed missed all the cues.
So, back to the question. My son Brad, asked a good one, “Do you read books, throw darts...what?” Here's the official answer: We mind the store.
Every five minutes or so, the radio barks orders at us to change frequencies and occasionally altitude, course and airspeed. We monitor the fuel burn and keep a log to make sure we don't have excessive consumption that might indicate a leak or other trouble. We monitor the navigation systems to make sure we stay on course. We constantly study the weather along the route and at the destination. If we observe conditions not forecast—a “wind bust” for example—we send in a report. We send maintenance reports on breakages and malfunctions. We download paperwork for the next flight, study it, make amendments if necessary, and send back an acceptance, or (on rare occasions) a refusal.
What else? Crew meals take some time—I'm a slow eater. And, sometimes we open a manual and review stuff about the plane or the operation that's gotten fuzzy.
My company regards the airspace below 18,000 feet to be “sterile cockpit” country. Since my company has placed that rule in our operations manual, the FAA considers it theirs also. During sterile cockpit we can only discuss matters relating to the task at hand and perform only actions related to flight. That's why I don't take photos of landings. (One of our pilots did that two years ago and posted it to her website, and was summarily fired.) And, the flight attendants are forbidden to call us below 18,000 unless they have an emergency.
Above 18,000 feet there is no prohibition on conversational topics. The captain usually sets the tone. I allow my first officers to vent, but I discourage lengthy, unending tirades. They are usually quick to see that I like to talk about airplanes, boats, dogs and certain sports. It would be highly unusual to fly with someone who didn't want to discuss in depth one of those compelling subjects.
So, there you have it. That's what we do. Understand that the newspaper you see tucked in my bag's outer pocket is for the layover. And don't assume the round disc-like bulge in my travel bag is a dart board.
I was going to tell you about the message I sent to another planet, but that'll have to wait. Oh, yeah, I forgot. We send messages to other planets too.
Carl was flying the other night on the DEN-LAX leg. He's an ex
-naval “aviator.” Never could understand why they don't call them pilots. Carl and I have some things in common; we're about the same age, we both love dogs we and both flew A-7s. But he had better A-7 stories than I did. He kept my sides hurting from laughing so hard.
I had given the passengers my standard pre-departure speech when I have navy first officers: “Ladies and gentlemen, your First Officer, Carl _____ will be at the controls tonight. Carl is an ex-Navy pilot. But don't let that concern you. I'm an ex-Air Force pilot and I'll be watching everything he does.” Another pilot came into the cockpit to ask for the jumpseat just as I finished the announcement, saying, “Well skipper, now you've got two squids to watch after."
Carl immediately began extolling his vast powers of Naval airmanship as he climbed us out over the Front Range and made the sun rise again. It was a stunning sight. The evening was clear and peaceful, and the sky colors were so vivid and sweeping that we sat awed for a few minutes―the stories and jokes suspended while the three of us drank in sunset. We were peeking into the studio of the Artist of the Universe. He may have looked over his shoulder at us and winked before turning back to His work.
The western horizon was still crimson aglow when we started down the long straight-in arrival procedure at LAX, well known to airline pilots as the RIVER ONE ARRIVAL. I sat there wondering what river could possibly be below us in that parched basin that would have beckoned the FAA to come up with such a name. The RIVER ONE is usually a benign procedure, albeit a fairly busy one. But that night it turned into a monster when SOCAL Approach pulled the dreaded runway switch on us. They switched us to runway 24R, from the usual 25L.
Our navigation computer, called the FMC, doesn't like it when we put a new runway in it in the final minutes. It punishes us by erasing the current routing. Suddenly you find yourself flying with the autopilot in Heading Select not tracking any course, just descending straight into the beehive of air and radio activity that the LA Basin is. Scary.
The change threw us into a frenzy trying to re-establish the proper route transition into the FMC. Of course at such times nothing happens in series, only in parallel. As Carl started to brief the new runway procedures, as he was required to do, voices on the radio began to demand my attention. “Cleared ILS 24 Right, River One arrival, maintain 250 knots until further assigned.” I read back the clearance and consulted the chart for the next altitude crossing. Carl found it before I did. “Set 14,000,” he said, pointing his finger at the Altitude Set window. I put it in as the voice on the radio demanded my attention again. “There is a heavy Boeing 777 your eleven o'clock descending for runway 24 Left, report that traffic in sight.”
As Carl finished his briefing, I looked ahead and slightly left but there was a layer of scud there. I didn't see the Triple. The voice paused for a second after barking instructions to other aircraft and I told him “No joy on the Triple.”
I reached into the chart bag, pulled out an enormous binder and rifled through it trying to find the Runway 24R approach, as Carl commanded, “Set 12,000 feet.” I set the new altitude, then remembered we had not yet accomplished the Approach Descent Checklist. I quickly double checked to make sure Carl had set the correct ILS frequency and course into the receiver, and heard the voice command me to slow to 210 knots. Carl deployed the speed brakes and we heard the roar of wind over the raised panels far behind us.
I reached for the checklist card and started reading the items on the descent checklist, but the voice interrupted again and told me to slow to 180 knots. Carl slammed the speed brake lever back forward and said, “Flaps 1.” I moved the handle to the “1” position. Now we heard a different wind noise and felt the nose adjust downward. I went back to the checklist and resumed accomplishing the items when the voice asked me again if had the Triple in sight. I looked out ahead and low and saw nothing but the lights of the Los Angles basin, zillions of them. How was I supposed to pick out the lights of an aircraft against the backdrop of that cluster of lights?
Then I remembered the cabin warning. I had not done it yet. I pushed my PA button, “Flight Attendants, prepare for landing.” When I looked back up the runway was straight ahead and getting bigger, fast. I thought, I'm about saturated with all this stuff. Too much to do.
Carl said, “Gear Down!” I reached over and slammed the handle down, then looked back toward the Triple. I saw lights on the ground going out momentarily and coming back on. That was the big jet passing over them. Then I saw his flashing strobes. I punched the mic button and said I had the Triple in sight. “Roger, caution, wake turbulence, maintain visual separation with that traffic.”
I looked at the wind display on my EHSI and saw it was a right quartering crosswind. Good. That would blow the Triple's wake away from our course. Then Carl demanded more flaps. I moved the lever and watched the flap indicator travel to the new position. I looked back at the gear indicators and saw three green lights. I read the Final Descent Checklist just as the voice demanded I switch to the tower frequency. I did that, while wondering what I had forgotten, and as soon as I got a sufficient gap in the constant radio traffic I announced to the tower that were on the ILS 24R.
Carl demanded more flaps. They cleared us to land. I saw 1000 feet on the radio altimeter and announced it. Carl said, “Runway 24 Right in sight, cleared to land.” In a few seconds the radio altimeter read 500 feet. I announced it. Carl said, “Final flaps 30.” I checked that they were at 30, the gear was down, and the brake pressure was normal.
Carl set the 757 down expertly and smoothly, despite being a carrier pilot, and I took over for the taxi when he slowed. I slumped and took a deep breath. Carl looked at me, wiping sweat from his brow. “Damn!” said. “We're getting too old for this!”
“What are you talking about?” I said. “I did all the work. You just flew.”
We got to the hotel and ordered cold beers and some cheesy nachos and swapped some more A-7 tales. We both agreed that those were the days when we really had to work. But those were also the days when we were fearless “bullet proof” young turks. (Truth be known I did get scared a time or two.)
We also agreed we were lucky to survive those fighter driver years so that we could come to this slow, boring, challengeless airline job.
Now check this out. A couple of nights earlier, St. Elmo's fire clawing at our windscreens:
Think that's cool? Read what Dr. Edward Wilson wrote about this phenomenon while on an Antarctic voyage of discovery in 1904:
Sat 12 March: This was the most weird and brilliant night I have ever seen at sea. The water was ablaze with phosphorescence. Acres of brilliant light flashed by and the seas that broke over our decks were all ablaze. Ahead and astern were large luminous balls in the water, like gas lamps as far as one could see in every direction. Overhead was pitchy black, with aurora towards the horizon and occasional flashes of sheet lightning. And, to crown it all, St. Elmo's fire settled...on every masthead and on the two ends of all the upper yard arms, just one bright clear star at every point. It was a beautiful sight in the pitchy blackness above, to see these crosses sweeping backwards and forwards as the ship rolled to and fro. The lights were as big and as bright as the Gemini. One is lucky to see this electric phenomenon, for many have spent their lives on the sea without ever coming across it.
Lucky, indeed.
In the next post: The message I sent to another planet.
I looked down with my usual astonishment at the colors, shapes and shadows of the Desert Southwest. Unscrolling from the expanse ahead I began to make out a semi-circular shape, the typical arc of a hogback formed by the erosion of a plunging fold.
I became puzzled when I saw it was bisected by a straight hogback that cut the semi-circular one off and extended far out in a straight line, dying out in a big mountainous conglomerate in the distance. It looked like a colossal cent mark ( ¢ ) of uplifted, tilted sedimentary rocks. Strange.
I studied it closely as it slid by below and to the left, my nose pressed against the side window like a kid looking into a toy store. Then I figured it out. The straight hogback was a fault line. It had emerged and broken up through the older semi-circular hogback. I looked over at the first officer, Eric, wondering if I should describe
it.
I didn't. Geology doesn't excite people like it does me and some others I know. Besides, Eric looked pre-occupied with something.
“Then do it!” he said. Retire right now! Just like you said.” He started figuring. “Hmm. Let's see, we have three hours to go in this flight, that means I would get three hours of captain's pay!” His grin widened.
I shook my head in mock disgust. “That's all you guys think about. You would do anything to improve your seniority!”
“Yes, we would!”
I said, “I know. I fear for my life every time I start my truck.”
Eric was in a much better mood than earlier. He had been bellyaching about the money he had spent in Vegas the previous evening. He had met two ladies he knew back home in Virginia and had taken them both out for a bit of gambling and dinner. He lost $300 at the Texas Holdem tables; that was his preferred game. One of the chicks put $15 in a slot machine and won $500.
They left and went to an upscale restaurant the ladies suggested to him. He bought the drinks, $17 martinis, but he assumed it was to be “dutch” rules for dinner, since it wasn't an official date. Expensive wine flowed and the meal came in courses. When the bill came due he plainly saw they did not intend to pay. They started a chatty conversation between themselves, not displaying any inclination to tap into the gambling winnings, while he eyed the tab. It soon became obvious the “rich” airline pilot was to pay. He ponied up.
While I went back to marveling at the landforms below he examined his credit card receipts, shaking his head. “I wasn't even drunk! How could I let them do this?” I asked to see the receipts. The cocktails were $55. The main tab was over $200.
“But you enjoyed their company,” I suggested, grinning.
"Not That much," he yelled.
I had stayed in the hotel and watched Bama take Ole Miss behind the wood shed while Eric was entertaining the chicks. I got the best deal.
That $600, I thought, would go far buying gas for the fifth-wheel rig—when the time comes, that is. It won't be too soon for Eric.
And I've got a chick and a dog who wants to go along exploring the geological wonders of the lonely American outback. That won't be too soon for me.
Runway 25R at Las Vegas. Lose
an engine on takeoff, plan on turning soon.
Admiring cumlo nimbus from afar
What is this? Give me its scientific
name and its common name.
Aviation trivia question:
The F-100 Super Sabre was manufactured in 4 versions, the A, C, D, and F. What happened to the "B" Model?
We were a somber group. Homesick, all. You never get used to it. Sunday mornings are not supposed to be like this―early, dark, foggy and far from home.
The van driver loaded our bags―four crews of pilots, eight of us heading to the airport, nobody saying much. Just civil utterings.
"G' morning"
A nod.
"How's it goin'?" "Livin' the dream, man. Just livin' the dream." Yawn.
This was not the way the "dream" is supposed to be. Sunday mornings are for sleeping-in, for coffee and breakfasts, for church and family, and walking dogs. Sunday is supposed to be a day for rest and regeneration. And yet there I was, dragging bags and breathing the gloom. I long to live a normal life.
How much more of this will I choose to endure? I'm supposed to be retired by now. Defunct pension plans and grizzer bear markets hold me hostage here. But a hostage to what? To fortune? A different kind of fortune, Gann would say. (Of course, you've read A Hostage to Fortune, right?)
Yeah, mornings like that compel me to consider exit options. Pilots on my company seniority list junior to me would applaud that idea.
We got to gate 77 and found it full of droopy-eyed vacationers in Hawaiian garb awaiting the eastbound flight, their second leg to home, already dreading going back to work Monday. You could see it in their faces. Fifty-one weeks of hell pays for a week in Paradise. Now back to the hell. If that’s normal I don’t won’t that life either. Mike and I woke up the slumbering Pratts and beat all the others to runway 25R. (Why are so many of my first officers named Mike? I'm not making this up.)
We were the first heavy jet out of LAX that gloomy Sabbath, maybe the first of any jet. We burst through the top of the fog in mere seconds, and our eyes breakfasted on a horizon ablaze in stunning crimson and orange. The gloom was banished. Breath deep, now, the rising sun. My spirits lifted and I ceased thinking about retirement, for the time being.
It was a good sail over the Rockies, which were encrusted with carpets of shimmering yellow Aspens. I imagined Del Gue down there yelling, "...and there ain't no churches, ceptin' this right here!"
Toward the end of the flight the head flight attendant came up and showed me an image he had just taken with his Blackberry. It was a dead fly in a passenger's omelet. I sent an ACARS request (That’s like an e-mail) to our destination station: "Please have Customer Service meet passenger in 4F to offer condolences for the dead fly he found in his omelet."
Their response: "Would you like paramedics to meet flight to resuscitate fly?"
I suppose I'll endure "the dream" a bit longer.
What is that glow on top of the fog layer?
Rolling out over foggy Los Angeles to meet the dawn
Leveling off at FL 370 and getting ready to get the Big Eye in the eye
Two weeks ago, out Livin' the Dream with some buddies:
The humidity is causing the prop streamers
I'm the one vertically confused
Even our props are in formation. Are we good, or what?
It was a vivid dream, as dreams go. Holed up there, in the Hyatt–Dulles the night before a mission―make no mistake about it, airline flights are missions―it came on me near morning. At least I think it was near morning. How is it that the moment of impact is when the alarm sounds?
I was flying the right seat. I haven’t done that in 14 years. Don’t know why I was there. In my military days aircraft commanders often flew the right seat. Maybe that’s how it came about. But in the dream I was the captain―a captain in the right seat.
It was night. A call from the flight attendants came. A fire raged back there. Then putrid smoke broke out where we were, in the cockpit. It started on the floor. The man in the left seat was flying. We got out masks and put our goggles on. Then I saw a brilliant orange flare erupt in the floor near his feet. He screamed and let go the controls. I took over. The orange brilliance climbed up his legs and engulfed his upper body. He screamed more. I turned the jet. I don’t know to what heading. Toward an airport I suppose.
Then I looked over at him. He wasn’t human any more. He was a black sculpture, his limbs frozen in mid-air, as if enroute to his face to cover it from the agony and horror.
The orange glow erupted at my feet. I felt the heat. I looked at the attitude indicator. I was in a right bank. I felt a stabbing, burning pain. I pulled harder. I knew I was in a graveyard spiral. I knew we were losing altitude in the blackness. I wanted to roll out and stop the deadly descent, but the fire hurt. Hurt bad. I couldn’t help myself. I pulled harder.
After I took my eyes off the thing in the left seat that had only seconds before been human, I didn’t think of him. I didn’t think of the passengers. I just thought about the impact and whether it would hurt.
Then the alarm rang and I got up and flew my mission.
If you think such a dream is a harbinger of what’s to come, then we’d all be dead. I never thought that, and don’t. I think maybe our fatalistic dreams―those of us that occasionally have them―are subtle reminders that each day is a precious gift. God never promised us tomorrow.
I know I don’t have to be Charles Lindbergh, Sir Edmund Hillary, Winston Churchill, or Billy Graham to be a real person, a person experiencing the abundance of life. A kiss, a hug, a taste of wine, a dog fetching a stick I threw, or a blue moment, is all I need to say that my life here was a success and well worth it.
None-the-less, thank God for the wake-up call.
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black flack and nightmare fighters. When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose. --Randall Jarrell, 1945 "Death of the Ball turret Gunner"
The Moon was so stunning even the hotel van driver remarked about it on the drive to the airport. Yes, it was a fine night for it, I reckoned. A fine night for a red-eye trans-con.
Indeed it was, and as we pushed back I caught a glimpse of that orange glowing quarter-moon sinking into the Pacific, its sharp horn following the rest of it down like a foundering ship. When we swung our nose around on runway 24R at LAX and pushed the two big Pratts up to takeoff thrust, the Moon had fled over the horizon toward Hawaii. But not for long.
Even at over 320,000 pounds the 767 soared effortlessly out over the dark Pacific like a zooming projectile, and suddenly the Moon rose again--rose where it wasn’t supposed to rise, only where it’s suppose to set. Brilliant and orange, the pointy prow reared from the horizon. Then the rest of the arch heaved up, its glow shimmering in the water. And as it stood, hovering there while we began our big sweeping 180 degree turn back toward the east, it seemed to be saying, “Okay, you’ve had your fun with me, now let me go.”
And we did.
We pilots have the powers to make the Moon and Sun rise and set at our whim. We defy gravity daily. We heft hundreds of souls into the stratosphere and haul them across oceans and continents. It's good that aviation issues us a ration of humility from time to time, lest we start regarding ourselves as god-like creatures.
My first officer, Jose, feels far from god-like tonight. He’s praying God takes care of him and his family. He’s being furloughed next month, for the second time in five years. He doesn’t expect to be called back again. He thinks maybe there won’t be anything to come back to.
The financial pundits are predicting we will succumb again to bankruptcy this winter. They doubt there will be financing available to push us through. Liquidation, they say, is the only way. Besides, they add, there are too many airlines. At least one, they say, needs to fall on its sword so the rest can have a better go of it. I’d like to take a sword of my own to some of those contemptible key board peckers who neither risk anything nor produce anything, for their worthless scribblings.
We’ve seen it all and heard it all before. And we survived. I think we survive because we have such damn fine people working their hearts out to make it happen. People like Jose. Such a loss.
If only I could use some of this power at my fingertips that fetches celestial bodies at will, maybe I could make some sense of this crazy industry that I both love and abhor with equal passion.
Here's a poem I remember from long ago. I saw it in an issue of the USAF's TAC Attack, a magazine for fighter pilots. I'm sorry that I can't remember the author's name.
I go on windswept clouds and race the moon through starlit skies, unfettered free to roam, beyond night’s faint horizon. Higher, higher, higher above the flickering firefly lights, high above the din and cacophony, I tred along untrodden paths chasing moonbeams like a child on a summer’s evening, Oh God, but couId I
I didn't mean for this to be blurred,
but I like the way it came out. What plane is that?
The alarm clock’s brutal twanging sends a spasm through me. I peer at it as if it were a loathed thing. It is. Oh-four hundred, it says. I roll out of bed mumbling a homage to a deity.
Many years of professional flying have taught me that in order to soar with the eagles you must often get up with the pigeons. But it never gets easier.
Down in the hotel lobby I meet my first officer, Jay Thomas, who also happens to be my fishing buddy. He’s a hopeless optimist grinning, yelling "Good Morning!" at me from 100 feet away. I look out the door and see an ebony sky, not a hint of morning, yet there he is, coffee in hand, teeth shining, ready to fly.
On the way in to the airport while I yawn and prop my eyelids open he’s jabbering about getting up earlier than this to fish, to hunt. This is nothing, he reassures me. I want to shove him out the door. But I won’t do that; I need him today.
He’s got the 757 ready to fly when I get there with the papers. We release brakes at exactly 0600, a perfectly on time departure, and taxi out as streaks of yellowish beams climb out of the east. We’re one of the first jets to get out today.
Within minutes we’re streaking westward across the Virginia horse country, gaining speed and altitude in a perfectly smooth atmosphere and finally I am beginning to make some sense of the world, to see purpose in the day. If I didn’t, Jay would most certainly tell me.
The only thing wrong with this otherwise perfect morning is the imposing overcast of thick gray clouds casting a dreary shadow across the land. As we climb it swallows us.
Jay turns on the engine anti-ice. We hit bumps. We wonder how long we must fly blindly in this depressing soup of boredom. I yawn and think of the sleep I’ve been cheated out of, while Jay chatters cheerfully and incessantly, yet never misses a single radio call from the center. He stops in mid-sentence, answers the call, changes frequencies, checks in with the new controller, and resumes his discourse precisely where he was interrupted. I yawn again and nod approval of whatever he is saying.
Then, in a heartbeat—BLUE SKY! Big blue. Huge, John Wayne blue. Long delirious burning blue, a poet-pilot once wrote.
We rocket away upward, watching the tops of the cloud layer sink away. Jay yells, "THE BLUE MOMENT! THIS IS IT! THIS IS WHAT WE LIVE FOR, MAN! THIS IS WHAT MAKES THIS JOB WORTH IT!"
I look over at him and he’s peering out and grinning at the vast blue skyscape stretching forever ahead and over us. "What did you call it?" I ask.
"The Blue Moment," Jay responds, with a grin the size of Texas.
He’s right, I thought. This is what makes it all worth it. The Blue Moment is like an epiphany that gets experienced again and again, each time as fresh and as new and as awe-inspiring as the first time.
The Blue Moment is one of the pieces of treasure that you file way to remember and savor in the times ahead when your memories fuel your final years through life. Guys like Jay make my treasure file overflow.
Who was the poet-pilot?
A Golden Moment
What book and movie does this sight remind you of? Who wrote the book and who starred in the movie?
I pranged a 757 onto 24 Right at LAX the other day. Thought I had it wired. Nice day. Little wind. Long runway with a turnoff down toward the end. No hurry to stop. Should have been a greaser.
PRANG!
I grimaced over it as we taxied in. I brooded over it on the van ride to the hotel. I analyzed it over dinner. Why does it bother me like this. No one can make perfect landings every time. But then, I remembered Warren Nelson. Now, there was a man who could do it.
Nelson was a master of the "3-holer," the Boeing 727, so dubbed because it had three engines clustered close together in and on the tail. It was a reliable and versatile aircraft that could fly fast and make up lost time to maintain schedule integrity. Unlike more modern planes, it required a third pilot acting as a flight engineer.
The 727 was highly responsive to control inputs and more of a challenge to fly than later generation passenger jets. Some called it the fighter of the airline world. It was especially difficult to make soft landings in. Many pilots loved the 3-Holer so much they stayed on it their entire careers and mastered it to perfection. Those who only passed through the 727 world on their way up the ladder to bigger and newer planes marveled at how the old heads tamed the cranky jet. As a 727 first officer I flew with many of them, but one that stands out is Captain Warren Nelson.
Nelson was a reserved, gentlemanly sort--pensive, intelligent and articulate. Those qualities drew him into leadership positions with ALPA but he rarely talked unionism. Affable and agreeable though he was, he simply didn’t say much, and when he did say something he commanded attention.
I had never seen Nelson make a bad landing in the 3-Holer. In fact they were all supremely wonderful greasers that I envied and tried in vain to emulate. I was able to do it sometimes, but not with his consistency. Finally, though, the day came when the 3-Holer turned on him.
It was the last landing of a four-day trip back at the mother base, O’Hare. The last landing of the trip is the most important one because it’s the one you’ve got to live with until you get back to work. It you’re going to prang, do it early in the trip while redemptive opportunities are still available. Nelson knew this.
All looked good to me. His airspeed was good, as was his sink rate, crab and power settings. The runway hurdled toward us; the 727’s approach speeds were high. Nelson retarded the throttles and flared, then relaxed back-pressure to allow the main wheels to catch the runway surface on the upswing as the nose lowered. That maneuver, referred to as "check and roll," is unique to long bodied aircraft that sit relatively low to the ground. It's also a hard one to master.
But it was no problem for a master like Warren Nelson. I watched, expecting our trip to end with yet another of his smooth-as-a-baby’s-butt arrivals. We hit, and we hit hard. The airframe shuddered as if every nut, bolt, rivet and fastener yelled in unison that they were mad as hell and weren’t going to take it anymore.
I sat shocked. The master was flawed. I saw him glance quickly aside at me, as if to say, "Keep your tongue." But I needed to say something in spite of my reverence for Nelson.
After turning off the runway I couldn’t stay quiet any longer. I had to show this man, whom I admired and wanted to be like, that I approved of him no matter that I had found him to be imperfect. "Warren, I thought you had it wired all the way down," as if my evaluation was worthy of mention. His only response to my deference was a grunt.
As the engines spooled down at the gate he stared straight ahead out the windshield. I had forgotten about the landing and was busy preparing to leave when he uttered to no one in particular, "I’ll go home, pour a Scotch, sit in a dark room and think about that one."
Whoever said airline pilots never take the job home with them never met a pro like Warren Nelson.
I’ve had a request to comment on airline “price gouging.”
Asking an airline pilot about ticket prices is like asking a petroleum geologist about gasoline prices. We don’t know. (I'm both.) My concern is the product. The pricing of that product is far above my head. It’s as much a mystery to me as it is to you. My best advice is plan ahead and buy the ticket as early as possible.
I can only look at the worth of the product. Two hundred years ago it took you six months to a year to traverse the continent,and the chances were slim of your making it without freezing, starving or getting your hair lifted. That is, if you could afford the journey. You needed a wagon, mules, supplies and probably a guide.
One hundred years ago it took you a week. You rode at 50 mph, inhaled coal soot with every breath, didn’t shower, and slept little. That is, if you could afford it. They bitched about train ticket prices back then, too.
Seventy-five years ago it took you two to four days, depending on the weather. You were now finally airborne, but 30 hours of hearing 36 cylinders pounding away at two three-bladed propellers drove you to the limits of your sanity, and you probably used your life savings to pay that ticket. And, you probably knew someone who tried to take a trip like that and ended up in a smoking crater.
Fifty years ago it finally started feeling comfortable. You had two jet engines on each side of you purring along while you trekked across the USA, and they even served you a meal. But the ticket price! Forget it. You couldn’t have afforded that flight. So now, here we are, almost done with the first decade of the 21st century. You cross the continent in four hours. You watch a movie. Have a drink. If you’re up front you get a meal. If you’re in back you bring a sack lunch. You don’t know anybody who ever died doing this, and can’t remember the last time a plane this size went down, at least in the good old USA. You’re probably fuming that the flight is 15 minutes late, but you don’t know that was caused by a shortage of baggage loaders. Someone had their job sacrificed because you insisted your ticket be as cheap as possible.
The real question is, what's the value of your life? Because that's what's at stake when airline professionals start you toward your destination.
The links to my books and stories are temporarily disabled. They will be back up in short order. The books are available on Amazon and other on-line bookstores.
Admiring cumlo nimbus from afar
