Into the Stupid Zone

I thought you might be interested in a flight attendant story, although this one may not be the one flight attendants hoped I would tell.

People have been focusing on Captain “Sully” Sullenberger a lot these days (see my blog entry of March 2, 2009) but it's unfortunate that Sully's flight attendants are not getting a fair piece of the credit for their outstanding job of evacuating that aircraft. Yet any of them will tell you they're accustomed to playing second fiddle to the pilots and they accept it. They're hard working people. But I remember when a couple of them got into deep suzuki on a layover in Jacksonville and I had to make a tough decision.

A piercing tone jolted my eyes open that morning. I saw the ceiling pulsating with amber flashes from the phone. Oh-five-hundred already? This life is cruel. I looked aside at the clock. 1:10. It was no wake-up call, and it boded no good.
It was the front desk. Some police officers wanted me to come down to the lobby. Why, the desk clerk didn’t know. Not good. I pulled on a t-shirt and jeans and went down.
I got off the elevator and saw two officers standing beside two of my three flight attendants, both males. One, about 30, was slumped and bruised. His face was patched with band aids. The other one, younger, appeared unscathed, but looked shaky and scared. An officer looked at me. “Are you the captain of these two?” I told him I was.

“Well, they got in a fight at a club.”
“With each other,” I asked.
“No. They fought some other people. Got their asses beat, from the looks of it. They said you were their captain.” The officer looked aside at the sorry sight of the two and shook his head. “Boy, if these are pilots, I sure as hell don’t want to fly anywhere with them.”

“They’re not pilots!” I instantly assured him. “They’re flight attendants.”
“Okay, Captain. I’ll leave this up to you. You want ‘em in jail. I’ll take ‘em. But I’d rather you just take ‘em off my hands, and I don’t want to see ‘em outside this hotel tonight.”

I stood wondering if this were a dream. It was too much like military flying. I had dealt with wayward loadmasters and flight engineers before. Then, though, I had a command obligation to those guys, as well as a moral one. You take care of people you go to war with.
But this was different. I had no command authority over the two flight attendants outside the aircraft, and I felt absolutely no obligation to save them. The officers waited for my answer.

The two obviously had been drinking within 12 hours of our scheduled takeoff―a non-no. I should let the cops book them. It would teach them a lesson. Of course, our flight would be canceled and obviously these two would never work here again. Not that I cared.
“What do you want to do?” the officer asked.
I studied the younger one, the one who looked scared. He looked like a decent, clean-cut kid. I knew he was still on probation, having just recently been hired. I remembered from the previous day’s flight that he had been very conscientious of his duties and respectful toward me. I imagined him being off a farm or from a small town, reared up right, seeing the world for the first time, then getting caught up with the older guy and getting dragged into trouble. What would his parents think of him if he got fired so soon, and for so sleazy a reason? That boy needed a second chance.

The older flight attendant moaned and rubbed his eyes. I thought he might throw up. I saw the two policemen get impatient.
But there was a lot more at stake here than a second chance for the kid. Federal regulations say that any pilot who knowingly allows a crew member who is in violation of the drinking rules to fly is also guilty. That “knowing pilot” would be me.

I had a son about that kid’s age. If Rusty got into this kind of trouble, would I want someone to intervene and give him a second chance, even if that intervention meant that that “someone” had to put his own neck on the line to do it? Yeah. I would. I would want that for my son.
I knew I was about to make a decision that was dripping with bad judgment. “Okay, officers. I apologize for their bad behavior. Thanks for your help.”
I turned toward the older flight attendant. “You! Where’s your room?” He fumbled in his pocket for his key card. I took it, told them to follow me, and started for the elevator. On the way up the older one started to thank me and apologize with a slurring tongue. I cut him off. “I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANYTHING OUT OF YOU UNLESS I ASK YOU A QUESTION. UNDERSTAND?” He looked back at me, astounded. The kid started shaking again.He started toward his bed when we got in his room and I stopped him. “STAND UP. I’M NOT FINISHED WITH YOU!” I looked at the kid. “YOU TOO!” I knew the guy didn’t have to obey my order to get up and face me, but I still had the option to cancel tomorrow’s flight and report him to the company. He knew it. He got up.
He started to explain the fight and again I cut him off. “I said I don’t want to hear any of that! Now both of you listen up.” I looked at my watch and swallowed. I was about to cross a line most airline pilots are familiar with, the one marked Stupid Zone―Stay Back!
“We’re supposed to meet down in the lobby in four hours.” I looked at the older, wavering guy, and at the trembling younger one. “YOU’D BOTH BETTER BE DOWN THERE AT EXACTLY FIVE-THIRTY, NOT A SECOND LATER. AND YOU BOTH BETTER BE DRESSED IN YOUR UNIFORMS, EVERY HAIR COMBED, NO WRINKLES, NO SHAKING, NO SLOBBERING, NO HIC-CUPPING, NO HOLDING ACHING HEADS. YOU’D BETTER BE READY TO GO TO WORK, OR I’LL HAVE YOU FIRED ON THE SPOT, UNDERSTAND?”
That was the bluff. Of course I didn’t have to power to fire them. The older one dipped his head. The kid nodded vigorously. I told the kid to get to his room, and he scurried out.
I turned back to the older one. “You’re a lucky SOB.” He nodded. “I like that kid, and to save him I have to save your sorry ass.” He nodded again. He opened his mouth and I let him speak.
“I’ll be ready to go, boss.” He wavered, about to lose balance, and glanced at the bed. “Promise you, boss.”
I went back to the room knowing I had crossed into the stupid zone, and for what? For the company? For that kid? Or was it something else? I don't know. You tell me.
Common sense should have prevailed but it didn't.
Sleep didn’t prevail either, and I got off the elevator at 0525 feeling like I was the one with the hangover. I looked around and saw the crew waiting near the coffee urn. My first officer stood chatting with the female flight attendant. The two wayward ones stood aside eying me. I wondered if the others knew what happened last night. I approached the two and looked them over―not a hair out of place, not a wrinkle in sight, all whiskers whacked. The kid still looked a bit bug-eyed, but the other one smiled broadly, chin held high. “Here we are, Captain! Ready, willing and able!”
I looked at the kid. “You too?”
He nodded.
The older guy chatted constantly on the van ride to the airport, laughing and bantering much more vigorously than we expected or desired in the pre-dawn gloom. I knew it was a demonstration of sobriety aimed at me, but I marveled at what a recovery that guy had made.
Still wary though, I watched them both as they inspected the aircraft’s cabin safety equipment and prepared to receive the passengers. I looked back at them frequently during boarding and listened to their PA announcements. Each time I peered back toward the cabin, the older guy looked back at me with his broad grin and winked, then resumed enthusiastically greeting passengers.
In flight I called back to the female attendant and asked her how the guys were doing and she bragged on them. “Great,” she said. “No problems whatsoever!” I had not told her about the events of the wee hours but suspected she knew.
When we landed I went to the cabin after the people had gotten off and looked at the two. “I laid my ass on the line for you guys. You’ll probably never get another break like that again.” The kid smiled and nodded. The other one grabbed my hand and shook it, smiling somewhat artfully.
I walked away to the next flight, yawning, not able to shake off the thought that the older flight attendant regarded me as a dupe, chuckling at his good fortune to have a sucker like me pull him out of the crap hole he dug for himself.
But, of the kid, I’ve no doubt he needed a break. I did it for him. I did it for his dad. I hope he remembers it.
Here are a some picks from the last few weeks. Click on
them to enlarge.


This one is for Joe. It's a northwest view of the Sangre de Cristo Mts. in south central Colorado. Joe, can you pick out the one we climbed?



This is Ship Rock in New Mexico. It's a volcanic neck. Think of it as a volcano that never made it to the surface. It cooled and the soft rocks around it eroded away. Can anybody say what the wall-like structures are that radiate out from it?



This is in northwestern New Mexico. What are all those little dots?





Here, in western New Mexico, is a volcano that did make it to daylight. The view is south. Which way was the wind blowing at the time of eruption?



Angling opposing traffic, 12 o'clock high

Waltzing With the Deadly Saber

The route going east out of Los Angeles usually gives us a clear view of Rogers dry lake northeast of Palmdale. It's easy to see the big runway there. Part asphalt, part dry lake bed, it extends miles into the lake bed's interior. North of the runway you can make out the ramp, hangars and buildings of Edwards AFB, the famous USAF Flight Test Center where Chuck Yeager and others pioneered the jet and rocket ages.

Whenever I see Edwards I always think of someone else, not Chuck and his test pilot peers. I think of a virtually unknown and ill-fated young Texan named Lieutenant Barty Brooks. Brooks made a valuable contribution to aviation. He undoubtedly save many lives, yet his own life ended in what has become one of military aviation's most storied crashes, the video images of which became a part of several movies. But Lt. Brooks didn't die the way most people assume he did.

The year was 1956. The F-100 Super Saber, the USAF's first supersonic fighter, was brand new and it had some dangerous handling characteristics that could get you into deep trouble.

Brooks and the other three members of the four-ship flight that took off that morning from Palmdale, where the Super Saber was built, were all new to the jet. They were members of the 1708th Ferrying Wing at Kelly AFB, Texas, which was their destination. Right after liftoff Brook's leader looked at him and saw his nosewheel cocked 90 degrees. He radioed Brooks and told him to keep his gear down. Brooks and his leader decided to put the Saber down on Edward's long runway. They declared an emergency and requested the runway be foamed in case the nose gear collapsed.

A flight test was scheduled that morning at Edwards and camera crews were setting up their equipment at two different locations near the runway. The cameramen heard the sirens and saw the two Super Sabers coming. They turned their cameras to the oncoming aircraft. If you have ever seen the movies Jet Pilot, The Hunters, X-15, or the McConnell Story you know what they captured on film.

The inexperienced Brooks got too low on his approach and the runway supervisory officer advised him to pull up. Brooks did this, adding power as he raised his nose ever higher, but his airspeed continued to decrease. Realizing he was in deep trouble he lit his afterburner, but the sudden burst of power forced his nose almost to the vertical position while his forward momentum carried him wobbling, weaving and teetering down the runway only only a few feet above it. The Saber was literally standing on the blast of its afterburner. Ejection was not an option because zero-zero ejections systems (zero airspeed and/or zero altitude) had not yet been invented.

After about 20 seconds, which must have seemed an eternity to Brooks, the jet decided to die, not fly. It rolled off on a wing and smashed into the ground in a horrific fireball. Poor Brooks did indeed enter eternity, but not how you think if you watch the film. Watch it now on these links before reading on: Saber Dance. Also in color (from one of the movies): Saber Dance.

If you thought there was no way anyone could survive that crash and fire, you thought wrong. What the film didn't show was the jet's nose and cockpit separating intact and rolling away from the fireball. When the rescuers reached it they found Brooks still strapped in the cockpit and apparently unharmed. Yet he was dead. When they unhooked his oxygen mask vomit poured out. The man had drowned in his own puke.

So how did Brook's crash benefit fighter aviation? No doubt he would not have chosen to demonstrate the deadly Saber Dance—as it has come to be known—but in doing so on film, tens of thousands of military pilots, including yours truly, watched him in training classes. We got queasy and winced. Various imprecations, exclamations and the names of a few deities fell from our lips. We understood then what they had told us about getting swept wing jet aircraft into a low altitude, high angle-of-attack regime. And we wouldn't forget it.

The Saber Dance has gone down in aviation folklore as well as history. It has been told again and again in hangars, classrooms and bars. Poems and songs have been written about Brooks' nightmarish ride, but few know his name and fewer still know the real reason for his inglorious demise. What a story he could tell if only he had kept his breakfast down.


From an old fighter pilot bar song:

Oh, don't give me a one-double-oh,
to fight against friendly or foe.
That old Saber Dance made me crap in my pants.
Oh, don't give me a one-double-oh.

We owe Barty Brooks an honorable place in aviation history. He left us all safer because of his fatal waltz with the Saber.

New information added 10/05/2009: Lt. Brooks did not die from inhaling vomit. The accident report shows he died instantly of impact injuries. (The vomit story has been circulating for over 50 years.)

I researched this story more thoroughly. It will appear in the September 2011 issue of Aviation History Magazine.

Answers

I didn't fly this past week, so I'll take this post to respond to some of the keen comments the last post attracted.

For "Anonymous" who suggested the parallel contrails were the Thuinderbirds going to an airshow: El wrongo. But I suspect that was a jab from a Blue Angels fan. The contrails are miles apart. He/she is absolutely correct about the fire.

gpb0216 isn't too savvy about fires but he's right on the nose with the contrail analysis.

Sequ likes the header and loves the blog. Brad and I thank you.

Scott wants to gather at the river and sing. The Crazy Woman had a fine voice. Jeremiah too.

Dancer asked, "So do you think the scene with the Indian meant they finally reached a truce?" By the way, that indian's name was "Paints His Shirt Red," a fact I know you knew. I think you would enjoy reading Mountain Man, by Vardis Fisher. His tale was the basis of the movie. It will answer your question better than I can. Also, check out Crow Killer by Raymond Thorp. It's the definitive account of John Johnson's life and times, but get ready to be grossed out by Johnson's menu selections. Then there's that classic of mountain man fiction, A.B. Guthrie's Big Sky. A must read.

Dan in Alb got both riddles right. He likes those kind of photographic interpretation challenges. More of them to come.

Squatch got the fire right but botched the contrail riddle, although he put forth a reasonable theory. I'll see what Brad thinks about bringing the Yak back into the header. Can't have bad karma.


Northwest Captain Mike Moe sent me this. He really says that at home.

(From the New Yorker)

His Name was Jeremiah Johnson

How does the new header look? It's great to have a graphic designer extraordinaire like Brad Cockrell in the family.

Last Sunday I flew the "PS" route from LAX to JFK. I don't do that very often―our New York crews usually do it. PS stands for Premium Service and if you want to ride it you will pay a handsome premium. We have a few 757s dedicated to this service and they are extravagantly configured for discriminating passengers who want it and can afford it. We only run PS service between New Yorks's JFK airport and Los Angeles or San Francisco. 

Consequently you can usually expect at least one celebrity on the PS run, and that day we had four. Truth be known, the flight attendants had to tell me who three of them were. Those were Clay Aiken, Josh Hartnett, and Judith Light. They didn't have to tell me who the fourth one was.

Before we pushed I went back and greeted the First Class passengers, as I always do, not just because the celebs were there. I didn't know the other three from Adam, but I knew Robert Redford when I spotted him on the back row of first class. He was traveling alone and seated beside a somewhat geeky looking fellow who was plainly quite astonished about his seat mate. The guy was clearly nervous and was ordering a drink when I greeted him and Redford.

I shook Redford's hand and told him he'd always be “Jeremiah” to me. He must have approved; he grinned broadly and said, "Thanks."

I'm not an autograph chaser so I left the man alone and continued my stroll to the rear. When I came back through, both Redford and his seat mate were up in the aisle. The guy was apologizing profusely while Redford dabbed at his trousers with a napkin. A glass lay on the floor and the seat was wet. We called for a new seat cushion. I went back to the cockpit snickering.

Honestly, Redford is not one of my favorite people but he starred in the best film of all time, Jeremiah Johnson (1972). That was the story of a fur trapper―more commonly called a Mountain Man―trying to survive in the Rockies in the 1840s. If you haven't seen it you've missed a classic. The film has developed a cult following over the years, and I'm hopelessly captured into it.

While sailing high across the snowy Rockies, pushed by a smashing good tailwind, I thought of Jeremiah Johnson toiling down there, trying to trap a few beaver, always watching his backside for some local gentleman hankering for a scalp with which to adorn his lodgepole.
Pondering Jeremiah and the passenger in seat 3B who portrayed him I realized that we were not far south of a navigation station named Crazy Woman VOR, with the chart identifier CZY. It's located in the area where the real Jeremiah encountered a distraught woman who had lost her family to a Black Foot Indian raid. (Check this site out for a look at the real Jeremiah: Damn Interesting.) 

He wanted to take her to civilization but she stayed in a shack by the graves and spent the rest of her days grieving. Mountain Men regularly dropped in on her bringing food. The story is half legend, half truth if you look it up. But the legend survived and even made it into the annals of aviation navigation names. It's only a matter of time before some crazy feminist activist finds out about CZY and tries to get the name changed.
CZY is a constant reminder for me that people didn't always sail over this vast and rugged land in a few hours, drinking cocktails, watching movies and complaining about the service. They froze, they starved, they lost their hair, they died. A few made it through to the west coast and eventually built factories that made 757s, and the like, so that the crossing could be a little easier. After that, they forgot about the travails of people like Jeremiah and the crazy woman and took cross-continent air travel for granted.

A few pics (click to enlarge):

The left winglet, viewed from the captain's left rear window.
These things save 4% fuel burn and look magnificent.
(Sorry about the dirty window.)
The Control tower at Washington-Reagan.
Here's a riddle: Are those contrails from
planes flying parallel to each other? Or
is there another explanation. Post your answer.
The brown smudge is the scar of
a fire in eastern Colorado.
Next riddle: Where did the fire start and
from which direction was the wind at the time?
(Top of the photo is north.)

About Sully

So, what do I think about Sully?

That question has been fired at me from all quarters lately. (Sully is US Airways Captain Chesley Sullenberger, the “Hudson Hero.”) Here's what I think.

Sully isn't a hero. He’s a highly trained, experienced professional who sits up in the executive office of his jetliner and does his job. His paramount goal is not to crash because he knows he will be the first to the crash scene. He knows the first and last things that will go through his mind at the point of impact will be his instrument panel. He has a keen awareness that there are two kinds of pilots: those who know they are going up for their last flight and those who don't. The trusting souls sitting behind him are not his main safety concern; he knows if he takes care of himself his passengers will be the happy beneficiaries of his prioritization efforts.

What do I like about what he did? Two things. First, he quickly assessed his options and methodically sorted them. 

When one option fell through he had another one waiting. The river was the last resort. This is the result of decades of thinking miles ahead of fast moving jets; of double and triple checking every switch position, every setting, every plan and bit of information; of recognizing when something isn't right by the way that little bristle of hair on the back of his neck feels.

None of this is taught in classrooms or textbooks and not all of it is intuitive. It's picked up in the cockpits of Phantoms, Hornets, C-130s, B-52s and the like. It's also painfully earned in the lonely cockpits of small single-pilot cargo planes carrying packages at night in storms and icing with absolutely no one but yourself to rely on. Most of us earn our tickets to this profession. That day on the Hudson all those years paid off. He knew what to do.

The other thing I like about him is his demeanor. He shrugs off the hero hype—my kind of guy. In age, background and experience we're practically equals. We both have pretty wives so used to living alone they can't understand what the big deal is when their friends ask them how they cope. And we're both old ugly geysers. The younger pilots wish we would step aside and let their seniority improve. Despite our likenesses I don’t pretend that I could have done as good a job as he did.

In the wake of Sully's experience I'm getting more attention from people. As I strolled through the plane, as I often do before push-back, one of my passengers recently said, “You look like Sully!” He was smiling approvingly. I think that perception gave him confidence.

A couple of days later another one teasingly asked me if Sully trained me. My immediate teasing answer was, “No. I trained Sully.” That brought on a round of laughs from several rows away. Everybody knew who Sully was.

Still another man politely beckoned me to his first class seat and said, “People are looking at you captains in a whole new way now.” His smile indicated the “new way” was something positive. I wondered why anyone would think of us in any other way. But then there was the “Summer of 2000.” Oh. 

Forgot about that. That's another story.

I hope you've got a Sully type up front next time you fly. The statistics say your chances of having one improves with the size of the plane you're on. That's just a fact of life we have to live with. Smaller planes pay less (way less) and draw entry-level job seekers.

I do one thing now, as a result of Sully's unscheduled swim, although it may at first seem minor. We get a final weight and balance report that comes out of our printer just before take off. We enter any last minute changes in that information into the performance pages of our computer. This tweaks our expectations of what the plane can and can't do when we put the spurs to her. A little note on the bottom of that page tells us the exact number of people on board including crew. It's called the SOB count. It means Souls on Board (I'm certain some of those souls are a subset of SOBs). That's information I might need if I find myself standing or laying beside a bent bird talking to rescuers, so I put the little sheet in my shirt pocket.

I remember once explaining to my mother what SOB meant in the people count. She looked astonished and said, 

“Souls!?” Then she uttered a painful grunt.

So, I lift my glass to Sully. He's an SOB but not an SOB. He's one of the good guys. So is his first officer, his flight attendants and every other airline professional out there plying the skies. They're not lucky, they're good.

Here are a few cool (no pun) pics from the last few trips.

The Hush House at O'Hare. They test engines here.


Gate C9 in Denver with reflection in the window. The de-icing
boom is on the right. The colored lights are the auto park system.
Under the lights you can see a poster in the terminal of
Katie Couric framing me.


Descending into Denver, you can see where the plane
ahead cut a hot slice into the cloud deck as he went down
through it.



Heading east across eastern Montana you can see
a contrail on the right side of a flight ahead and
below us. On the left is the shadow of his contrail
on the snowy ground.



Again in eastern Montana, the shadows of contrails.
The vertical one is crossing traffic. The horizontal one
is ours.


One of this blog's followers asked for a shot of the
terminator (read the MAR 11 2008 post for more
info on the terminator).


Are we there yet?



One recent day in Denver the airport was assaulted
by zillions of tumbleweeds. It was bizarre. Watch this video
taken at the gate after we blocked-in.

New Look

So, how does the new header look? Sorry I had to sanitize it. This age of retribution and litigation is such a curse. None-the-less, my purpose is not to disparage my company.

Am I frustrated with it? Yes. But with the top brass, not my co-workers who, for the most part, work hard and earnestly trying to do a good job. Am I a union man? I belong (got no choice), and I think it has done a great deal of good along with some measure of bad. I wish we didn't need it. But enough of that.

Those of you who commented on I, the Pirate and asked to be forwarded a copy, I would be happy to do it if you will give me your e-mail address.

For this post, only a funny observation: Surely you have gotten one of those e-mail Forwards that lists amusing military and airline maintenance records. (The gripe is the pilot's write-up, the action is the mechanic's action to fix the gripe.) You remember, for example the one that reads, Gripe: Lost right engine. Action: Couldn't find right engine. Well, here's a real life funky gripe/action for you. It appeared in the maintenance records of a 757 I flew last week. Click to enlarge it.

The Desert Southwest

I love flying over the desert southwest because the weather is almost always good and the geology is magnificent. I know I bore people who I fly with talking about it but most of them express great interest.

We were turning left and right over the Canyon and I was explaining the geology of the Canyon to my first officer, Chris. He was loving it. He said, "What a job we have! Days like this make me think I'd do this for free!" I cautioned him not to say that to the company management.

An hour later we lined up on final for Orange County/Santa Anna-John Wayne Airport and started to slow down. Chris was flying. We noticed we had a 49 knot tail wind but the tower said the wind was calm on the surface. We worked like madmen to get the 757 configured for landing and slowed. The gear goes down at a relatively high speed but the flaps have airspeed limitations and we must go through six incremental positions before getting them to the landing setting, and each position has a progressively restrictive airspeed. That's why the slowdown takes time.

And the Santa Anna runway is only 5700 feet long. You've got to be on airspeed there or you go off the end. That'll get you a trip to the kick butt room, if you survive it.

Passing through 500 feet we were still 20 knots too fast. I said, "Chris, take her around."

He powered up and hauled the nose up. I raised the gear and started the flaps back up. LAX approach control took us out over the Pacific. We re-ran the landing checklist, made the necessary announcements (the passengers get nervous when you abort a landing), notified company dispatch, and recalculated our landing speed, based on the new gross weight after the missed approach burn-out. I looked over at Chris. He was sweating bullets. I asked, "You still want to do this for nothing?" He shook his head vigorously.

We made it in the second time.
Today is inauguration day. I didn't vote for Barak O'Bama but I hope and pray that he succeeds in taking our country down the right paths in these scary times.

Click to enlarge:

Arizon'a Kaibab Plateau, heading west. Altitude 38,000'


Monument Valley, Arizona, where they filmed Stage Coach,
Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and the greatest of
them all, The Searchers

East (nearer) and West Spanish Peak, Colorado (elev. 13,700).
I have been to the top of the west peak 5 times.
The indians called them Ahoyatoya ("Breasts of the
World")

The Colorado River flowing toward the Grand Canyon


A caldera in southern Colorado. This is a collapsed
volcano.

Sunset at Denver airport seen from United Flight
Operations

Sailing over Colorado's Sangre de Cristo Mountains

Aruba

This time of year we fly a lot of families, which means a lot of kids. I try to go back, if I have time before the flight starts, to invite kids to see the cockpit. Most of the teenagers shrug and shake their heads. (How can a 757 cockpit compete with X-Box?) But the smaller ones usually jump at the chance. Here's a quick kid story from a couple years ago about a rug rat that tried to destroy us.

The feisty toddler eyed our cockpit as we were doing our pre-flight set-up. We glanced back at him, smiled and asked his name. His mother, standing behind him, told us the name, but I didn't catch it because at once the tyke charged into the cockpit on a mission of madness. He assaulted the center console with a vengeance and started throwing switches. 

The first officer and I looked at him, mouths agape. Saying nothing, he twisted every knob he could reach, threw every switch that beckoned at him, and pushed every tempting button that sat before his lustful eyes. Horrified, his mother grabbed him at the waist and started to pull him away, but I stopped her. “Wait! He’s having a ball. Let’s see how far he’ll go.”

He worked his way to the front of the console, never looking at us, tongue slashing side to side, lips slobbering, reaching farther and farther. But he couldn't quite stretch to the juicy throttles and the enticing flap handle. Undaunted, he began working his way back again clicking, twisting, punching, toggling until his mom could no longer stand it. She pulled him back, apologizing profusely, certain he had doomed our flight to a smoking crater. It took us about five minutes to accomplish damage control. He was too young, probably, to ever remember the day he tried to sabotage a passenger jet.

Not much happened last trip except that I had a grand time in Aruba. It was my first trip there. I believe I'd go back if my arm were appropriately twisted. I looked for Natalie Holloway. I would love nothing more than to bring her home to Alabama. But she wasn't there.

Thanks for the suggestions I asked for in the last post. I have been putting some of them to good use.

Happy New Year!

Here are some pics from the trip (click to enlarge).

Arubian beach

Cool pool

Arubian Sunset
Haitian Coast


Rainy day in San Diego

A 737 angles across us 1,000 feet below

Cookin' With Gas

You line your plane up on the runway. The checklists are done. You’ve got your clearance. All is ready. You push up the throttle and roar off. Right?

Not.

Every takeoff in your life is an important event. Lives are at stake; not just your own either. One of my favorite adages goes like this: When a pilot walks out to his plane, he faces one of two possible fates: This will be his last flight, and he knows it. Or, this will be his last flight, and he doesn’t know it.

So that makes every takeoff a profound event. It’s no wonder then why some pilots mark the beginning of the takeoff with some sort of self-assuring verbal utterance. It doesn't seem to matter if their machine is a garage built winged gizmo or the latest behemoth off of Boeing's assembly line, they have this irresistible proclivity to say something as they release the brakes and whip the engines into a mad frenzy.

Some pilots say―with precise professional bearing―“Cleared for takeoff.” Others just say “Here we go!” Some Navy pilots, braced and awaiting the cat shot say, “Lord, please don't let me―“ (You know the rest of that one.)

For no apparent reason, as I got ready to take off a few days ago from Sacramento bound for Denver, I remembered what Hack Cross, one of my old buds of the Mississippi Air Guard, used to say when he let go the brakes and put the spurs to a Starlifter. He said, “HERE WE GO, SINGIN' IN THE KITCHEN!”

I wondered what in the world that meant. Must be a song. Coming from Hack, it sounded cool. And that brought back more memories. I recall how “Flat Land” Moore would release the brakes, push up the throttles and yell, “BOYS, WE'RE COOKIN' WITH GAS NOW!”

Where did that come from?! I think that was a TV commercial, or some sort.

Then there was Mississippi Air Guard icon, George Fondren, the “DOD” (a highly inside acronym that does not mean Department of Defense), who, without fail, announced to his crew as the jet heaved down the runway, “May the force be with us!”

Although I am one of those “Here we go” kind of guys, I decided that morning in Sacramento to honor my old Guard buddies by using one of their takeoff utterances. I chose Hack's. I turned the 757 onto the runway, pushed up the power and said, “HERE WE GO, SINGIN' IN THE KITCHEN!”

But this wasn't the Magnolia Militia anymore. This was the Big Airline world. There are certain things you say at critical times, and you are expected to say nothing else. My first officer blurted, "WHAT?”

“Nothing” I said as I steered the jet down the centerline stripes. I stole a quick glance at him. He was looking at me with this incredible question mark on his face. “Nothing!” I said again.

After we got up higher and our work load dropped off he said, “What did you say when we were taking off?”

I said, “I said, 'Here we go, singing in the kitchen.'”

He looked at me with a blank stare. I grinned and shrugged. I had to admit to myself it didn't sound near as cool as when Hack said it.

I do miss the camaraderie of the Mississippi Guard. Those guys, by the way, are now pushing ultra-modern C-17s and are flying some of the most challenging global missions of our time. I don't know many of them any more, but I sure hope they haven't lost at least a touch of the Southern flying man's tradition for projecting their personality into the task at hand, and making professional flying fun, as well it should be.

I'm tired of saying, “Here we go.” I need a repertoire of cool takeoff utterances. Give me some suggestions. Post them to the blog, or e-mail me if you're cyber-shy. As long as it doesn't make a fool of me, I'll use your submittal on an actual 757 or 767 takeoff, and I'll let you know when and where I used it.

Until next time: We're off to see the Wizard.

"What?"

A Greatful Man

Suppose you had an unusual guest at your Thanksgiving table—a refugee from a dangerous and troubled land. One where opinions that run counter to the establishment can be unhealthy if they are found out. One where you will dress as you're told. One where the only thing you get to vote for is what to have for dinner, and that choice may be severely limited. One where the only due process you can expect is a kangaroo court where the government's witness is always truthful and you are always guilty. But you'll be lucky if you get even that because most who are accused go straight to prison or worse.

If you had a person like this at your feast-laden table would you be a bit more thankful of what we have here in our great country? I did. And I am.

Ali (not his real name) is waiting for his wife to arrive in December. After that I can use his real name. She is waiting for the US embassy in a neighboring country to approve her visa. Because we don't have an embassy in her country, she will have to go there first, as Ali did, then fly here. Our home has has been Ali's fourth stop in about a month since he's been here.

The first three were with other friends of his—and mine. We all learned to fly together in USAF pilot training class 73-06 at Vance AFB, Oklahoma. When Ali was training with us, his country was friendly with ours. 
Shortly after he returned it had a revolution. Now its government hates us. Come to think of it, its government hates everybody.

Soon after the revolution Ali became involved in a long, devasting war. He flew Phantom fighters. He saw many friends die. No one won that awful war, and honestly, none of us in 73-06 thought he survived. But after the war he wrote letters to his former classmates and one of them made it through. The recipient forwarded it to all of us. Ali was alive! He had taken a job as a crop duster pilot.

Three years ago 73-06 had a reunion in Las Vegas. Ali applied to the neighboring embassy for a tourist visa. They required him to have letters of sponsorship from 73-06 members. We responded promptly, but by the time the visa was processed the reunion was over. Ali came anyway and visited a few of the classmates. I didn't see him then but spoke with him on the phone.

When he returned to his country a local government official heard of his trip to the US and began badgering and threatening him. One day Ali lost his temper when the man came to his home to pester him. Ali told the man that the country's government was corrupt top to bottom, immoral and idiotic. He knew then he had crossed the line. The man took the matter to higher authority. Prison, or worse, was in the offing.

Ali quickly applied to the US for tourist visas for himself and his wife. His was approved but hers got caught in a red tape screw-up. They promised to correct their mistakes and get her visa done by December. Ali could not afford the risk of waiting for her. He came ahead and was welcomed by his old classmates.

The first family he stayed with sold him a car for one dollar. With that he drove to the home of a second classmate, then a third, staying from a few days to a few weeks at each. Before coming to our house he ventured a trip to California to visit friends from his country who had immigrated here. At each place he has used some of his time to research opportunities to get a permanent work authorization (green card) or seek refugee status and to find leads for a job. With the current financial crises we are in, he has a long hard road ahead.

When he drove up my driveway and got out of his $1 car a lump crawled into my throat. I had not seen him in 35 years. My old friend was back; back to the land of freedom and opportunity he had discovered in his youth. Ali is a man without a home, a man without a job. He has placed his future in God's hands and is at peace. And he's here to stay; can't go back.

One way or another, this is his country now. If you know know of a way to help Ali in getting his green card and/or a job, please contact me. He is an expert crop duster pilot and an experienced flight instructor and flight school manager, but he will work at anything.

We sat for several evenings and listened to Ali tell us about the goodness of his old country—its people. And he told us about the bad. His stories are a revelation. Fascinating too, and maybe I'll relate some of them in a future post.

Ali is Muslim and is an intensely optimistic man. He believes with all his heart that God has prepared a place for him in America. As to Thanksgiving, this is his second one. His first one, 35 years ago, didn't mean too much for him then. But now he told us, “I give thanks to God for all things. All things are good. Nothing is bad in God's great plan. When I breath my last breath, I will still be giving thanks.”