Say Again Please

OK, I really try to keep this blog out of the political fray. I am going to deviate slightly from that rule with this post. I am seeing, hearing, and reading a lot of unbelievable "news" about the two latest terrorist tapes, starring Oh-Sahma-Momma and some guy born and reared in California, both of them pointing their fingers at me. The gist of the reports (from our major networks) are that we should be afraid, very afraid. Excuse me? These talking heads evidently have forgotten, or want to forget, that this Great Nation fought and defeated the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces and The Third Reich, and we did it at the same time. Read previous sentence again. Those enemies did not hide their faces when they threatened us. They came at us with heavy iron and guns blazing.

July 1944: Yes, I can see it now; Hauptmann Walter Hausser, 37th Panzer Regiment, Tiger tank commander, waving his finger, in a newsreel, at an American theater audience warning them about blood running in the streets...

Say again, please...

Howling at the Moon

Of course! A really neat lunar eclipse tonight, but the clouds are in the way. I am home tonight looking up instead of at work looking down. Well, I would rather be home. The next lunar eclipse in 2007. I should be here for that one.

It is surrealistic in my backyard at night, looking up at the twinkling navigation lights moving across the starfields. I can hear a whisper from the engines...

More Cat Hair

Our last dog died in June 1997. The day after she died, the wife of my youth told me, "Don't bring me any puppies; I can't take it when they die." I said, "OK." Hmmm, I was thinking, life without pets for awhile, that might be nice. A few days later I departed on a four day trip. While I was gone a stray cat showed up and guess who started feeding it? The rest is history. That cat has taken over my garage full time and my house part time. OK, I can see why people like cats. They are very cute and cuddly.

The cat is watching me while I write this at the kitchen table.

They know...

Cat Hair

Cold Feet

I just closed the door of my hotel room in Denver. It is 3:53 A.M. Denver time. Our flight left Miami on schedule with 52 passengers for Las Vegas. I suited up for battle with the weather again, but we found a big hole in the thunderstorm line over Alexandria. After that, it was smooth all the way to Las Vegas. Five hours and eight minutes flight time to Vegas. My feet were frozen from the cold soaking effect at Flight Level 390 (39,000 feet). The nose of the aircraft becomes very cold after a few hours at minus sixty degrees. I have learned a little trick, though, from a flight attendant. You can fill an empty water bottle with very hot water, wrap it in a blanket; instant foot warmer. It works well, actually.

After unloading our 52 passengers, we quickly reloaded 150 passengers for Denver. The taxi out was uneventful and in a few minutes the landing gear hit their uplocks and gear doors closed as we climbed toward the Milky Way. Our air traffic controller cleared us direct to the Denver airport shortly after we checked on at 20,000 feet in the climb. The atmospheric conditions were excellent with the nightwinds on our tail.

Gray hair factor low...

The Evil Green Eye

This morning, over Littlerock, we got hammered transiting a line of storms extending from Michigan all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. We were enroute to Miami from Lost Wages, I mean, Las Vegas with a completely full airplane. My dispatcher did a great job of keeping me informed enroute and passing along routing suggestions, but we had to cross the line eventually. The Evil Green Eye (airborne radar) showed the airspace over Littlerock to be the thinnest area, so I told my young and sharp co-pilot to go for it. I had my flight attendants, all three senior and battle hardened, batten down the hatches in the back and take their seats. I told the passengers, with a P.A. announcement, that it was going to get rough while crossing the weather line. A few miles later, we got into it at 37,000 feet. I managed the Evil Green Eye and the co-pilot flew the airplane. We weaved and dodged, through and above the tops of the storms, missing the severe turbulence, but still got pounded with moderate turbulence for about two minutes. The instrument panel was constantly moving in quick rapid jolts. The lightening beneath us was impressive; non-stop strobelight effect and flickering, illuminating the flightdeck with white light. Then, magically, we were on the eastside in the clear. Smooth sailing to Miami. Gray hair factor high!

The passengers thanked us for the warning and the safe flight as they deplaned in Miami. All five of us arrived at the hotel in Coconut Grove exhausted. Our route had taken us from Las Vegas to Los Angeles to Las Vegas to Miami. Must sleep...

Update: I slept well today. The treadmill has been done and I am suiting up for the night's flying. We will be crossing that line of weather again! It has moved further east.

More to come...

Mudstorm

Pushback for Chicago was on schedule at 1500 hours local time. The airplane was heavy with passengers, bags, freight, and fuel. The weather was moving in from the west at an alarming rate, but it appeared that we might be able to beat it. As we moved closer to the runway in the long lineup, ATC slapped us with a ground hold for traffic saturation arriving Chicago. Uh oh! We did not have any ground hold fuel, so we had to go to the penalty box and shut down both engines. Our APU provided electricity and conditioned air. The storm hit the airport at about 1520 hours local with a vengeance. Strong winds, heavy rain and blowing dirt in combo made a mudstorm. Our airplane was buffeted by the storm quite impressively. Fifty minutes after we shut down the engines we were released for Chicago. After becoming airborne, we had to fly through the storm, which had moved east of the airport, to get out of the Phoenix area. Gray hair factor was high! Finally, at 25,000 feet and 90 miles down range we flew into blue sky.

Not a good way to start a trip...

B.I.A.

This post is off subject. I'm not sure what stimulated the memory neurons, but I remembered this on my last trip (at Flight Level 390 over Wichita), so I quickly wrote a note to myself. Somewhere in the long lost past I heard this little jewel of wisdom.

The Three Measuring Sticks of the World:

1. Beauty
2. Intelligence
3. Achievement

If you have one of these, you might be successful, if you work hard. If you have two of these you can be successful, if you wish. If you have all three of these you will be successful; the world will deliver it to you. What you do with it is your decision.

I think it is true, mostly.

Invisible Man

My Invisible Woman post reminded me of an Invisible Man my wife and I saw in Denver. The year was 1993 and I was furloughed from the airline business. I had been one of the lucky pilots and had found a job flying business jets out of Denver. One afternoon my wife and I had gone to a fish restaurant for a late lunch. As we were standing in the foyer waiting for a table, I saw a little old man bent over a walker leaving the restaurant with a middle-aged woman. He was wearing a baseball cap with the logo "Doolittle Raider" on it. I told my wife that this guy might be the genuine article and I was going to approach him. I introduced myself and asked him if he was indeed a Doolittle Raider. He said that he was and then told me his name and that he had been in the number two ship behind "Jimmy." He was a flight engineer and gunner on the raid. I was floored. So, I shook his hand and thanked him for my freedom. He said something like, "you are welcome and I would do it all over again if I could." Then his companion, a daughter, led him out to the car and they were gone. I quickly called my father, an expert on the Doolittle Raiders, telling him about meeting this guy. My Dad retrieved a book on the Raiders ( I could hear the pages turning over the phone). Sure enough, his name was on the crewlist of number two ship. There was also a photo of his crew that I saw later and in the back row as a young man, there he was. He had a big grin on his face.

In a fish restaurant in Denver a real American Hero was sitting with his daughter eating lunch. That restaurant was packed with patrons. No one noticed the little Invisible Man sitting next to them. Holy Moly!!

After failing to find the radio beacon( there was a misunderstanding of the date)that was to lead them to the makeshift airstrip, they ran out of fuel in instrument flight conditions at night. Their big Pratt & Whitney radial engines coughed and sputtered as the propellers slowly came to a stop. The rushing wind over the airframe was the only sound as they stepped into the dark abyss praying that their parachutes would open.

Against the Sun and the Wind

Invisible Woman

I arrived at the gate in San Francisco one hour before check in time. At San Fran, I enjoy relaxing with a hot Peat's coffee, a scone, and a newspaper before the flight. I noticed a cute little lady sitting by herself near the gate. There was something about her that aroused my curiosity, so I walked over to her and introduced myself. Her name was Bea and she was 94 years old. She looked good for her age and was mentally agile. She had been visiting her 95 year old brother in San Francisco. After awhile, she began to relate some of her life history. Her first husband, a doctor, died from cancer in 1942. He hid it from her until the very end. She was left with a 14 month old son. Five years later, she remarried. That union lasted 53 years and produced two daughters. He died in 2000. Her son, from the first husband, moved from Alaska to Tucson, AZ., to help her. That son was traveling with her and I met him a few minutes later. He was 62 years old. He had long gray hair and had the appearance of a 1960's flower child grown old. However, he was sharp and was a good conversationalist. He related to me that he had earned a private pilot's license while in Alaska.

I asked Bea if she was going to get married a third time; she said "are you kidding!" Later during the flight to Phoenix, I asked the first flight attendant if she would check on Bea and let her know that the Captain was asking about her. I told her good-bye as she left my airplane. She was an interesting person with a lot to say. I wished there had been more time to visit with her. It's a tragedy that old people become invisible in our society. In her time, Bea was a beautiful and passionate woman. Now, in my time, she is ignored and barely tolerated by society. Not a good thing, for they have so much to contribute. As the famous slogan says, been there; done that.

Distant Thunder

Arrived Chicago O'hare this morning at 0430hrs. with 150 passengers. The weather was really beautiful, a rare thing for my Chicago arrivals. I am on a short overnight, actually an overday, then back to the flightdeck for westbound flying. The hotel is located across the street from the O'hare airport, so, the background noise is constant. A low vibrating thunder from the jet engines at takeoff power settings. The older turbojets even rattle the coffee maker a bit. Some folks complain about such hotels, usually flight attendants, but I find it comforting. Jet engines are the sound of freedom, and for me, the sound of economic security.

All is well this morning as I blog away in my hotel room. I need to get my slightly overweight bod in gear and find a treadmill. More later...

Chicago delays

Life can turn on a dime! What an amazing experience our neighborhood had with the invasion of the bad boys. But, we came out the other side intact. My three days off flew by and I am back on the airways of our country. I left Phoenix this afternoon with an aircraft full of passengers bound for Chicago's O'hare Airport. It was like the Saigon airlift of 1975 when refugees were hanging on the helicopter skids fleeing the Red Pestilence. What is it with Chicago? I have been flying to O'hare and Midway most of my life and the flights are crammed full all the time. Those folks like to travel. I am not complaining...it's job security for me. Anyway, we had a forty minute delay for traffic saturation arriving into O'hare. I decided to take it on the ground in Phoenix, rather than turning circles over Iowa. As it was, we were vectored up to forty degrees off course several times enroute. When oil is fifty bucks a barrel that gets expensive.

After O'hare we quickly loaded up for Las Vegas. Again, completely full. Taxiing out for take-off at O'hare I heard a radio conversation that was very embarrassing. Apparently a DC-8 freighter misunderstood his instructions and cut in front of another airline's MD-90 in the take-off line. The ATC guy in the control tower must have thought that the MD-90 was the problem and he scolded that crew. The Captain of that aircraft came unglued on the radio. The control tower guy told him to watch his tone of voice! Unbelievable! The Captain raised his voice to a higher octave. The ATC guy backed down, then the co-pilot of the MD-90 came back on the frequency trying to calm things. Then, an embarrassed silence ensued. Another controller took over the tower frequency. Then things got back to normal. A couple of observations on this incident:

1. In the recent past, this would have been a non-event. The crews would have apologized to each another for the taxiway intrusion and then giggled about it. The ATC guy would say something like, "come on guys, please listen up."

2. The tower controller would have never ever told an airline Captain to watch his tone of voice over an open frequency.


What's the problem? I believe it is the fundamental changes occurring in the airline business affecting the minds and performance of the players. That MD-90 Captain probably realizes that his retirement is in mortal danger. For that matter, his job is hanging by thread. He's got to be thinking, "What the hell happened to my airline?" Yep, things are changing rapidly. I'll bet that in twenty years the only major airline will be a nationalized operation staffed by government or quasi-military pilots. There will be no pilot-in-command as such; the air traffic controllers will be in command of each flight and issue instructions via wireless internet to the aircraft's flight control computers. The aircraft will be totally controlled by a master computer on the ground preventing any hijackings. The humans in the flight deck will only be there because the public will not accept a pilotless airplane; but, in fifty years, as the public gets used to the idea, there will be no pilots in the flightdecks. There might be a technician onboard to monitor the flight computers.

I wonder if anyone, twenty years in the future, will remember or even care that the old geezer living in their neighborhood used to be a real Captain of the Airways.

Probably not...

Silence of the Roaches

The little cockroaches have moved from the neighborhood. The silence is deafening! Saturday night, while I was at work, the neighborhood and the police confronted the enemy, for the hundredth time, and the good guys finally won. At midnight, in the street, were five police cars, the owner of the rental house, the parents of the young thugs, and most of my neighbors. My wife was among the audience for this soap opera. She said it got ugly between the police and the parents of the thugs, i.e., their little angels were being unfairly treated and misunderstood, etc.

Long story short; the owner of the property told them to get out immediately. It worked, to my surprise. They began moving out that very moment. Twenty-four hours later they were gone! The house was a wreck in their wake. I sort of felt sorry for the landlord, sort of...He should have known better to rent to teenagers with silly cars.

The parents of the thugs lost the $2,000 deposit. The stormtroopers vowed they would get revenge, but out of earshot of the police.

From the Eastern Front-we will hang tough...

Eastern Front, continued

Back to the saga unfolding in our neighborhood. My wife fills me in each day on the Hitler Youth. Apparently they are taking a stand against their landlord. As I suspected might happen, the little storm troopers have probably found out that they have rights as tenants not to be uprooted, as such. Friday night brought the police over twice for disturbing the peace complaints. The little soldats say yes sir and no sir to the police until the patrol car departs, then the middle fingers go up and the thumping stereos are back to max decibel levels. It's incredible that something like this could happen in our neighborhood, but what's really frustrating is the inability to do anything about it, without serious legal consequences.

So, yesterday, I called an attorney that deals with renter/tenant relationships to began researching our options. She said that if there is a clause in the renters contract about police activity on the premises of the landlord's property, i.e., constant complaint calls, that would be a crack with which a legal crowbar could began prying. A big maybe! She offered to write a letter to the property owner, for a nominal fee, to officially began the legal saga at about $300 per hour.

The neighbors on either side of the cute little guys are: leftside- software engineer; rightside-
two attorneys(married). I know them well and they are pulling their hair out. Of course, the gut reaction is to move to a new neighborhood. The problem with that solution is that new or pre-existing housing is costing more than it's worth at the moment, i.e., $250,000 homes are selling for $400,000, etc. Will it keep going up? Will the new neighborhood be invaded by little
thugs driving silly cars? Obviously, if enough storm troopers live under one roof, even a $600,000 roof, they can each pay a fraction of the rent to meet the monthly obligation.

And then there is the really big question. Is the airline business, as we know it, going to survive the next terrorist attack? Will I still have a job to pay for a new neighborhood? One must assume they, the terrorists, are planning to hit us again. Look at the success of their 9-11 operation. They have to be licking their chops and waiting for an opportune time.

Many troubles have I seen on the horizon,
but few have come my way.
-Mark Twain

The saga continues...

International Space Station

We left Dallas-Ft.Worth exactly on schedule bound for Phoenix and Philadelphia. We climbed to 39,000 feet and cruised in smooth conditions underneath the Milky Way. I noticed a bright satellite rising in the west which was obviously the ISS. It was large and very luminous as it tracked over our aircraft toward the southeast. We continued on against a 60 mph headwind crossing over El Paso and on into Phoenix arriving on time. After a 58 minute turn we lifted off for Philadelphia with 124 passengers. We had a steady tailwind of about 70 mph which gave us a groundspeed of about 620 mph. The ride was very smooth all the way to Philly. Hardly a ripple...I am an astronomy geek and I love watching Orion rise in the east during the waning months of summer. Orion the Hunter! It has been silently crossing the winter night skies for eons looking down at we humans. The tailwinds put us into Philly about twenty minutes early and 900 pounds less than forecast fuelburn.

I am really out of shape for these long trips because of glutinous eating and no exercise during vacation. The older I get the harder it is to recover from vacation. I guess I will have to start behaving while on vacation. Yikes! What a thought...

Blow back

My wife and I got quite a surprise when we returned from vacation to our neighborhood. Two houses away is a rental house, which until now has had decent folks living there. The current occupants are two young thugs, most likely in their early twenties, and probably their first home away from the parental units. They are white supremacist wannaabes and fancy themselves as rebels and or Nazis. Oh yea, it gets better and better. One had a swastika flag worn as a shirt, also they have a Rebel flag hanging in the garage next to a flag that has a skull and crossbones with the logo "Kill them all and let God sort them out." In the evening until early morning there will be as many as twenty punks in the driveway or street. They have the little silly cars with four cylinder engines mated to a loud and obnoxious chrome muffler that makes a blat-blat-blat noise. Let's not forget the black lights underneath the car?! They are pigs of the highest order and have already trashed the front of the house and street.

The police and HOA have been called numerous times and have responded, but admit there isn't much they can do at this time. One of our neighbors tried to talk and reason with them, but they told him to F---off. Recently, I saw one of them wearing a handgun while he was standing on the driveway, probably trying to intimidate the neighborhood. I immediately got dressed and went over there to talk to him about that, but he must have seen me coming because he took the handgun off and was no longer wearing it when I approached him. We had a cordial visit because he was alone. I told him he had an interesting car, etc. Small talk only.

The neighborhood had an emergency meeting and we decided to ask the owner of the house to do something about this problem, also informing him that the junior Nazis were not respecting his property value. The owner told us that he will evict them no later than Sept. 30; yesterday. Well, they are still there. Hmmm... now what? Probably will have to get attorneys involved at $300 per hour.

Ooops! I almost forgot the best part to date. There is a black family that lives three houses away from the little storm troopers. The children of the black family were told, by the punks, not to walk in front of the Wermacht Headquarters building or they would beat the s--t out of them. If I could only capture that on tape...I believe that would be a Federal offense.

Stay tuned for the latest from the Eastern Front...