Cold Pizza

Some of our days are very busy with little time to eat. In this case, the airline provides crew meals. These pseudo meals have been the butt of jokes for years. When I was flying the 737, which has no galley nor ovens, the meals were grim. The sandwiches, frozen with dry ice, were like hockey pucks, hard and tasteless. The lettuce usually had a brown edge. Yikes! Then I moved over to the dark side, the A320 & A319, which do have galleys and ovens. The first few years in the 320/319 saw me gain 10 pounds from eating too much First Class food. It was very good! But, with high fuel costs and low ticket prices, the food quality and quantity headed south. So, it is back to the crew meals. The crew meal menu is limited, because of money concerns. For instance, on a typical four day trip the crew will eat two crew meals per day. Possibly a breakfast and then a dinner meal. Each pilot is supposed to eat different food for safety reasons, but that does not always happen. The menu will be the same for several months... usually only four or five different meals. You can eat a small piece of chicken and 11 green beans only so many times...

When possible, on busy days, I will send the co-pilot into the airport on a food recon and gathering mission, a.k.a. I'll buy, you fly. I will do my duties and the co-pilot's while they are gone. Yesterday, at the SeaTac airport, the co-pilot went on a pizza run. The pizza available in the new food court is outstanding. He made it back with minutes to spare. The aircraft was refueled, reloaded and back in the air 35 minutes after landing. Twenty minutes later, we leveled off at 37,000 feet on the third leg of the day. One more to go after this one.

My pizza is cold by the time I get around to eating it, but I am so hungry... no problem.

Switches and Knobs

Helios Airways 737

There is an amazing news report circulating about the 737 crash in Greece. It goes like this: The flight deck crew was incapacitated by an unknown event, possibly lack of oxygen, but as of now, the investigators are not sure. A flight attendant, who was taking flying lessons was in the flight deck attempting to fly the 737, but unfortunately, the engines quit from fuel starvation. Apparently, he was able to pick up the radio microphone and issue a Mayday call before impact.

If this is true... Wow!

Ten degrees right please

We sat at the end of the runway in Burbank for one hour and five minutes waiting on a ground hold to lift at Sin City. Bingo... fuel load now inadequate! Back to the gate to re-fuel. Very bad... the passengers are starting to get angry and the flight attendants are looking to me for answers. So, I explained to the passengers that I have no control over the weather and that I am very sorry for the delay. We push back from the gate (again) with a new fuel load and are soon cleared for take-off.

As soon as we climb out of the southern California smog layer, we can see the line of weather between us and Sin City. We will earn our money this afternoon, for sure! I switch duties with the co-pilot, making him the flying pilot, so I can concentrate on the weather radar and radio communications to pick our way through the line of storms. Luckily, our Los Angeles center air traffic controller was a battle hardened professional who kept his cool, hence the communications never broke down as we began the thunderstorm weave through the cumulonimbus canyons.

Ten degrees right please... twenty degrees left please... and so it went for thirty minutes until we broke out of the rain clouds with the runway in sight at twelve o'clock and five miles. The tower warned us of possible windshear on final, so we reviewed the windshear recovery procedures on final approach. The co-pilot was keeping ahead of the airplane without a problem; very good for a guy with only one year on the line. At about 200 feet above the ground, I switched on the windshield wipers for both of us. The aircraft touched down smoothly in the touchdown zone morphing from a flying vehicle to a ground machine. The reverse thrust slammed us forward in our five point harnesses. Lightning bolts in all quadrants were illuminating the runway surface. Awesome!

We quickly unload our 150 passengers, clean the plane, refuel the aircraft for the east coast, grab the paperwork, load the bags/cargo and then, two hours behind schedule, push back from the gate. While we were waiting our turn for take-off, we saw five aircraft go around on short final because of microburst and windshear problems. One of those aircraft was nose up with engines at full thrust and still descending toward the ground. The co-pilot and I both cried out at the same time, "Look at that!" It was an unbelievable sight! Finally, that aircraft, out of the downward flow of the air mass, began to climb away to safety.

One hour and forty-one minutes (and 1900 pounds of fuel) after we pushed from the gate, our turn came and we moved onto the runway. The flight deck was being illuminated by lightning every few seconds. The weather radar was showing a good path through the weather with a ten degree left turn after take off. When the tower had five miles spacing between us and the prior 757 departure, we were cleared for take-off.

It has been one of those days... and the night is still young.

Number Three

As expected, three airliners have been involved in accidents over a short period of time. An MD-82 (or as we refer to them... Mad Dogs) of foreign registry, has crashed in South America. Initial reports say that both engines failed, leading to a crash. If that is true, and it may not be so, then it should be relatively easy to figure out what happened. Both engines are separate ententes that will operate independent of each other, except for a few critical items. These critical items are fuel, icing, foreign matter ingestion, or pilot intervention.

The investigation continues...

737 Crash

There is an age old axiom about airline accidents happening in groups of three. If the Toronto accident was number 1...

I have been gathering data about this accident from the news sources, TV and internet. So far, the only sure fact (available to the public) is that one of the passengers sent a text message to a relative that stated the cabin temperature was low and that the pilots were unconscious.

I have heard reports that the Greek F-16 pilots sent to intercept the 737 reported the co-pilot was slumped over the controls, the Captain could not be seen and that there were people in the flight deck, apparently trying to fly the aircraft. All this may or may not be true. We shall see.

Here are a few things about high altitude depressurization events that are interesting, or horrifying, depending on your point of view.

1. If the depressurization is catastrophic, i.e., a structural failure, like a hatch or cargo door, the flight crew is totally surprised and a little bit shocky. The Captain and co-pilot experience strange physiological events and are thinking, "What the heck is going on?" At an altitude of 34,000 feet, the next thought had better be, "Oh s***t, I need to get on oxygen right now!" If they do not, then it is lights out.

2. Altitude chambers are realistic training devices, but the students are expecting the event and are anxious to see how long they can maintain useful consciousness. Most young pilots can maintain 20-30 seconds. In a real event, lung pressure is sharply reduced as the pilots gasp in surprise. While the brain is in denial, the clock is running, and unconsciousness is only a few seconds away.

3. Since the beginning of high altitude airline operations (60 years or so), crew oxygen bottle valves have been mistakenly turned off, or rather, failed to be turned on when that bottle is replaced for normal maintenance or refill. Part two of this scenario- the pilots fail to find the closed valve during preflight. Then, when the crew tries to use their quick donning masks... oops!

The investigation continues...

Shorter Runway

I had to giggle when I saw that runway 8 at Burbank has been shortened to add an EMAS overrun. EMAS is soft concrete that an aircraft's weight will crush, thus slowing forward velocity. Runway 8 is very short and needs an EMAS overrun. So, they made it shorter to add EMAS. OK, to be fair, there is no place to add the overrun outside of airport property.

My landing, tonight, on Burbank's runway 8, was typical. A firm touchdown and aggressive braking is the norm. As usual, a few passengers made snide comments before they stepped off the aircraft.

Welcome to Burbank and hope to see you on a future flight.

Natural Wonders

Natural Wonders from the Captain's Side Window


The wife of my youth will typically say something like, "I thought you were home for a few days." To which I reply, "Me too. What happened?" And just like a snap of the fingers... it is back to the flight line lugging my 60 pounds of flight gear and clothing. Days off disappear like a phantom.

So, one year older and wiser, I am back in the flight deck with a government safety inspector sitting in the jumpseat (a small, folding seat in the flight deck used by hitchhiking pilots and the Federal Aviation Administration to jump from one city to another...) looking over my right shoulder. My co-pilot is a 38 year old male that is, shall we say, not popular with my fellow Captains. This is my first experience working with him. I am giving him the benefit of the doubt, but after two hours of flight time, I can see the problem. Fortunately, these types are few and far between.

Only two hours until Baltimore...

We arrived twenty minutes late at Baltimore because of total lack of tailwinds. Our historic route data for eastbound flights uses tailwinds for the calendar month. Today... no wind. The Federal Aviation Administration safety inspector was satisfied with our performance, and told us as much. That was my second inspection in less than a month. I can go years without a Fed showing up, then I get slammed with two or three in a row.

The co-pilot wants to go to a strip club close to our downtown hotel. Not this Captain. I feel sorry for a woman who, for strange men, removes her clothes for money. Anyway, it is time for bed. There is a Barnes & Noble, thirty minute walk from the hotel, located in an old factory building along the water front. It is one of my favorite hangouts in Baltimore. That is my destination for tomorrow.

The Orioles just finished a ballgame at Camden Yards. The fireworks are air bursting less than 500 yards from my hotel room. The window panes are vibrating. Cool!!

Birthday Boy

Wow! Another year gone with the wind... Today is my birthday and, incredibly, I am home. My wife and I had dinner with our best friends at an upscale restaurant. An amazing thing happened at the restaurant... Our waitress enlisted some of the patrons to sing Happy Birthday to me. That is a first for me, since it is usually the waitstaff that does the deed. Really cool!

I must pack my bags tonight. A four day trip begins tomorrow.

Are You Two Awake Up There?

I ponder, sometimes, what the Captains of yesteryear would think about getting email in their flightdecks? I just now ripped a message from our mini-printer. It is from our dispatcher located thousands of miles behind our tail. It says:

YYYYYYAAAAAAAWWWWWWNNNNNN... it's boring down here. Are you two awake up there? Please reply. Dispatcher #3.

Smart young lady. She knows what it is like trying to stay awake in the Earth's shadow, when I could be home cuddling with the scantily clad wife of my youth. I force myself to stop thinking about that. My reply is soon on the way back to home base, "Roger the yawn. We are awake. Thanks for checking. How about some new weather for Boston. Thanks." Amazing technology!

The sky is pitch black and the star dome is well defined with the Milky Way overhead. All systems are in the green and the fuel load is looking good. At the moment, I am the only male in this operation. My co-pilot and all three flight attendants are young females. The air traffic controller is a female and, also, my dispatcher.

Ahead, on the horizon, the first hints of dawn. A couple more hours before we can sleep.

Anchorage

Life is good! It is a cool, overcast morning in Anchorage and I am in one of my favorite places working on this blog, via my moleskine. This four day trip truly goes to the four corners of the Empire, and then some. My co-pilot is a young Canadian female whom I have not flown with before. She is very intelligent, very attractive, and an excellent aviator. The world is her oyster.

Tonight, (day #2) we leave for Sin City, then on to Vancouver, B.C.

Nightmare Scenario- Air France in Toronto

This is the nightmare scenario for every Captain in air carrier service. Occasionally, I wake up from a dream (of this very thing) in a cold sweat. It goes like this: After a long flight, the destination is covered by a thunderstorm and the fuel situation is ugly. Does the Captain make a run for another airport (with low fuel), or wait for the weather to improve? Landing underneath a thunderstorm is risky business, but it is done every day, many times. Experts from various aviation disciplines have varying opinions of the risks involved, and I might add, are the first to testify against the crew in the hearings after the accident. A perfect example of a Catch-22 situation that snares crews.

There but by the grace of God go I...