Best Laid Plans

  
The holiday season is always tense for airline pilots. Even the super-senior ones can’t get it all. You want Christmas Eve off, and the big day, too. And you want the day after off so you won’t have to commute in that night. Ditto for New Year’s Eve, Day and after. In my case I’ve got my wife’s birthday to on New Year’s Day to consider, and every other year the Christmas reunion her family holds. Then there are the parties, plays, concerts and services that come with the season. No way you can’t work them all in. You’ve got to prioritize. You’re bidding power only goes so far. I’m tired of it and can’t wait till next year when I’m finally a normal person and can do it all. This final year on the line was no different. I schemed as usual to try and salvage a day, morning or afternoon at home sometime near Christmas. And I thought I had done it.

What a perfect plan I had. My plotting to get Christmas day off went off without a hitch, or at least that’s what I was thinking. I was supposed to be on reserve (of course) but I got to studying the open flying coming up and looked at the reserve availability. Someone had just called in sick for Buenos Aires. The trip technically worked on Christmas day, but it got back into base at 0600 Christmas day. I was not eligible for it because I was coming up on two days off. But then, no one on the list was eligible either. Hmmm. Could there be opportunity here?

I devised my scheme and called the scheduler, telling him, “I see you’re in a pickle about Buenos Aires tomorrow night.” He confirmed it, saying he was going to have to draft someone and move their days off. I told him, “Look no farther.” He moved my Monday day-off to Thursday and put me on the trip.

Good work. My family and some extended family were planning on Christmas dinner. I’d be home by 10am. An extra perk with the deal was the opportunity to do some Christmas shopping in BA. I hung up the call to the scheduler smirking like schoolboy who had just put a frog in the teacher’s purse. I told my wife I’d be joining them, with the usual caveat an airline pilot’s wife is so painfully accustomed to: assuming all goes well.

Next evening when I met my crew, Rich, the relief pilot told me he had worked out the exact same deal with the crew desk. We high-fived it and pored over the paperwork. Good weather. Clean airplane. No delays expected. If a song bird had flew in and lit on my shoulder I wouldn’t have been surprised.

While we were settling in on the flight deck something subtly ominous happened. A mechanic poked his head in and asked, “Is that right fuel pump low pressure light on?”

We instantly looked at the EICAS message list. The usual lights were on at this stage of the game but not the one he asked about, nor was it supposed to be on. Before we could ask him why he was asking, he said, “Good flight” and disappeared. Poof! Gone.

We looked at each other, eyebrows wrinkled. "That's strange," I said, “I don't remember seeing a write-up about that when we went over the paper work back in ops. Did you?” They both shook their heads. Rich grabbed the flight paperwork and reviewed the last two weeks of maintenance work. There was no record of it. Why then, did the mechanic come up and ask such a question? We shrugged it off and went about our business of prepping the cockpit for the long, dark trek south.

At 2050 hours I pushed the “READY” button on the ACARS panel, 10 minutes before scheduled push time. This told station operations center that we had completed our pre-start checklists, had our fuel sheet and maintenance release, and were ready to go. We got the plane ready early and I visited with some of the passengers. They were upbeat and happy—headed home for Christmas, or to visit. I went back to the flight deck to start the checklists. 

When push time came and went and the cargo doors were showing open, we figured they were just late as usual, loading bags. No big deal. But then, why was the entrance door still open? That answer literally walked in the door as I was about to call station ops to ask it. The agent said three people were denied boarding because they didn’t pay their “reciprocity fees.” The fee is $160. You pay on-line before you go and you must show the receipt at the boarding gate. It’s called reciprocity because it is a tax war between the two countries. I don’t know who started it.

The problem was these three folks’ checked bags had been loaded with the other hundreds. Now we were in for at least an hour’s delay while the bag crews unloaded, sorted and re-loaded. We sipped coffee and sank back into our seats. An hour didn’t threaten out crew duty day much, and an hour robbed from a 36 hour layover was no big deal.

After about 45 minutes, Rich, sitting on his jumpseat said, pointing at the EICAS, “Look! That light is on!” As quickly as my eyes found it, the RT CTR FUEL LOW light went off. We looked at each other. Jeff, the first officer said, “I think that’s why that mechanic came up earlier. He might have seen that light come on when he was riding safety brakeman. They towed it from the hangar, didn’t they?”

I shrugged. I didn’t know whether they towed it over or not. If we didn’t see it come in under tow, we usually don’t know. About then the agent came back up and said they had found the bags to be off-loaded and were re-stowing the rest. It wouldn’t be long now.

Nobody said much for a few minutes, but I knew we were all searching our thoughts about that peek-a-boo light. We had our carefully laid plans. The passengers were eager. We wanted to go. It was easy to ignore a light that appeared a few seconds every now and then, especially when you know that even if you have a defective center tank pump, you still have a second one that can do the job of both. 

We heard a thump, and knew it was the forward cargo door sealing itself closed. The cargo door light went out. The agent appeared with a big smile. “They’re finished down below. Can we pull the bridge and get you out of here?”

“Wait,” I said. I looked at the other two guys. I saw trouble in their faces. I wasn’t feeling too gung ho myself. I had no doubt we could safely make that flight with the redundancy we had. If that light came on after 100 knots on the take-off roll we would not stop. On to BA. If the second center pump failed enroute (what are the chances of that?) trapping fuel in the belly tank, then we would have to make a refueling stop somewhere. Not good. We would likely go illegal on crew duty day and would dump about 200 people on some sleepy Caribbean town. BTW, at out stations guess who is responsible taking care of stranded passengers?

Another scenario: If the light came on prior to 100 knots on the takeoff roll we would have to abort. There would be a long trouble-shooting process. With an 11 hour flight ahead, we would certainly run afoul of the duty rules and go illegal.

With the agent waiting, the passengers settled, the push tug connected and the ground crew giving me the all clear below to push, I had a decision to make and the ramifications could shatter a lot of Christmas plans, not just mine. 

 

High pressure core?

 

“As the hours pass … ties are pulled down and collars loosened; there is a much stretching of limbs. It is at this point that some airmen become preoccupied with personal thoughts, their dreams transporting them over the horizon to more prosaic scenery. They create romantic visions of their homes in which their wives are continuously delightful, their children never cry, and all the bills are paid. Sometimes they become so sentimental they even trifle with thoughts of remaining permanently earth-bound. Only the cynics know this is next to impossible.”

                       

                       Ernest Gann

                       Fate is the Hunter

 

The Big Crunch

I know. You’ve had your fill of my doleful lamentations about my many trips over the Andes Mountains, their splendor denied me by darkness. Both going and coming to destinations in the Deep South (ain’t talking about Mobile here) we pass over or near, in high silent pitch blackness, the second highest mountain range on the planet. It’s as if we have been forbidden by its creator and/or our scheduler to lay eyes on it, insignificant and unworthy specks that we are. Yet sometimes the Moon will, with a wink, pull back the ebony veil and show us a teasing glimpse below—a ghostly sheen of light reflected a quarter million miles onto the Andes’ soaring slopes.

But last week—thanks to the Sun’s annual pilgrimage to the December solstice—we were permitted a marvelous vista in broad daylight. The spectacle even inspired Bruce, our relief pilot, to hatch an idea that would hopefully enhance his quest for romance back home in Tulsa, which at that moment seemed about a million miles tailward.

Southbound, toward Buenos Aires, the sun was rising on the left just as I came back up from break—the middle of the three 3-hour breaks. Bruce, a bald and robust man in his mid-fifties, heaved himself out of my seat and went aft for a pee-break. Dave, the co-pilot, fortyish, sharp with book knowledge and eager to share it, briefed me on our progress. “We were two minutes early at the last waypoint and 1500 pounds down on the fuel.” I nodded. I punched the PROG button on the FMS. It predicted we would arrive at BA with enough gas to shoot an approach and then bolt for Montevideo if we couldn’t get in. But the forecast was CAVU, so we expected no fuel woes. “Oh,” Dave said, rubbing scratchy, tired eye sockets, “We’re comin’ up on the second terrain escape procedure.” I nodded again. We were about to cross the highest terrain on our route.

Bruce returned with coffee in hand and slid into the right seat. Then we bade goodnight to Dave as he disappeared into the dark bowels of the 767 for his break, the third and final one. I donned sunglasses and set the shades on my left side to filter the lazer brilliance coming out of the east.

Bruce—a Bostonian living like a fish out of water in Oklahoma— didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who thrilled too much over natural panoramas. He had seen his share of them in his Air Force career. He had zipped low across many a mountain range riding Phantoms and Vipers, been an instructor at the weapons school at Nellis (“Top Gun” in the navy) and had closed his career as an F-16 wing commander. I’ve flown with guys who had similar colorful and exciting backgrounds such as his who were introspective and brooding over the notion that the best of their lives was behind them.

Not Bruce. His deep Boston accented voice, his hearty laughs and commanding presence did not belie any regrets about being a 767 relief pilot. He liked it here. He imparted due respect to his captain—me—but with a skillful touch of tact took command of our coming layover in BA. Before we had left the ground he had already crafted our dining plans in the greatest beef-eating city on the planet, diplomatically securing Dave’s and my approval. But that pleasure was many hours in our future.

The sun had not yet risen high enough to spill its brilliance on the Andes as I opened my I-Pad to the terrain escape procedure for our route. It was a precaution in case we lost compression and had to make a “high dive” to thicker air. We, the crew, have hours of oxygen for our use, but the passengers have only a few minutes. If the terrain below prevents an emergency descent you have to know your escape route. I installed the routes on the EHSI where they showed up as dashed green lines. If we lost pressure we would plunge no lower than 19,000 feet until established on one of the green lines headed east. (Think of them as valleys.) Then we could continue down to 10,000—breathable air. By the time I got the EHSI set up for the procedure, the tops of the Andes lit up, on fire with the sun’s yellow rays.

“Wow!” I said to Bruce. “Look at that! We don’t see this very often.”

He nodded, somewhat unimpressed with it all, and gazed out front. His expression changed when I said, “It’s the Big Crunch.”

He asked what I meant. I explained how the collision of the

South American continental plate and the south Pacific plate had thrust the Andes up. His face lit up. He wanted to know more. I talked on. He asked me to diagram the concept, which I did on the back of a flight plan page. His questions came faster; his building enthusiasm for the geology excited me. I love thus stuff, although I don’t pretend to understand it in the depth of modern academic standards. Finally Bruce sat back and took it all in, smiling contentedly. He shook his head with a grin. “Just wait till I tell her this,” he mumbled. I asked who. “My girlfriend!” he said with an even bigger grin.

Turns out Bruce had met a woman who vacationed in the lake house next to his. She was a geologist with an oil company. His world and hers were so different communication wasn’t easy, even for a gregarious guy like himself. But now Bruce had the tools to break the ice. “She’ll love this,” he said, raising his camera for numerous shots ahead and out to his side. “Now what did you call that again?” he asked, gesturing to the parallel ridges out front.

“Folds,” I said. “If you really want to impress her, use the terms ‘anticlines’ and ‘synclines.’” He had captured me into his scheme.

He jotted the terms down and shook his head in abject delight. “She’s gonna love this!”

Now I had become not purveyor of scientific knowledge but an aider and abettor—a source of clever tools to help him achieve an intimate objective. But that was okay.

We drank in the grandeur of the Andes—a rare and not soon to be forgotten sight. And if Bruce’s plans materialize he will be hearing much, much more about the Big Crunch.

 

Bruce, the new geologist.

Did Magee Really Do That?

Those of you who read my recent series of posts called SevenSierra Whiskey (click on thetitle to jump to it) may remember a name that came up many times in that story—that of Dave Vroom. I thought I'd share with you a story I wrote about Dave and his biplane that appeared in 1997 in Airline Pilot Magazine. (Dave also makes an appearance in Tail of the Storm.) But why would Airline Pilot want its heavy metal drivers to read about a private pilot? Read it and enjoy.
   

(For a larger and easier to read image click on the icon at the bottom right corner that looks like this:)

See if you can pick out the error that the editors made, for which I forced them under threat of deadly force to publish a correction.

   Did Magee... by yakpilot