Moonset... Sunrise

Position: Over Lincoln, Nebraska

Altitude: 36,000 feet

Groundspeed: 337 knots (387 mph)

Equipment: A320 V2500 A-1 engines

Pax-on-board: 150

Airborne... Day number three of a four day trip.

Where am I and why am I dressed this way? Yikes! Time for oxygen, again... The alien-like head squeezer grips my skull and face allowing the regulator to flood my lungs with a pressurized stream of cool aviator's oxygen. Colors get brighter instantly and my mental acumen comes back from the brink of stupid. I look over at the co-pilot; he is looking at the food stains on his tie.

Surely he is doing just that... Because sleeping is illegal. Just ask the poor air traffic controllers who are in the media smash box at the moment.

The moon is setting in my twelve with the sun rising in my six. We have been flying for three hours with three more to go on the back side of the circadian body clock. Fortunately, I have been doing this for so many years that I am able to stay awake without much problem.

Outside, the winds are 120 knots (138 mph) on the nose cone; three different altitudes have been tried with no relief. We are going to be late arriving KLAX, no matter what thrust setting we use. I have this thing about being late, but sometimes it cannot be helped.

Below us, the vast bread basket of the American Empire. How many times have I flown over it? Maybe when I am put out to pilot pasture, I can get my logbooks/trip sheets and try to figure it out... If I can remember that I wondered about it back in the day.

Right seat nuisance...

The guy in the right seat has been ticking me off the entire trip. It is rare for me to have trouble with a co-pilot, as in extremely rare. I have been whining about him to the wife-of-my-youth with every phone call. She says I might be getting a little grumpy in my pre-geezer state. There could be something to that, I guess.

Nevertheless, he is combative with the ATC controllers on the radio. That instantly drives me insane. The controllers are not our enemies in any way, shape, or form. When he is issued a new frequency, he dials it in and pushes the transmit button before checking whether he is blocking another conversation. Also, he mumbles during the read-back causing the controllers to transmit again for clarification. Very amateurish...

Do I really have to tell a 40 year old airline pilot how to talk on the radio?

His aircraft handling is sloppy. For example, landing off the centerline of the runway. Now how basic is that?

Do I really have to tell a 40 year old airline pilot to land on the center of the runway?

Another thing that turns me into a screaming mimi is union talk while being high and fast on a crossing restriction. This guy does it continually... He is bashing airline management or a sector of the seniority list that he hates all the while being 2,000 feet high and 80 knots too fast ten miles from the crossing waypoint. Fingernails on a chalkboard...

Do I really have to tell a 40 year old airline pilot to shut-up and fly the aircraft?

Ten minutes before push from the gate and he has not pre-flighted the aircraft. And that has been at every single push on this four day trip.

Do I really have to tell a 40 year old airline pilot to pre-flight the aircraft early so the mechanics have time to work on a problem?

Right seat perfection...

The wife-of-my-youth reminds me that I am predisposed to impatience with this guy because he is not on my list of favorite co-pilots with whom I normally fly. There might be something to that...

But...

Consider that I get to fly with one of the top co-pilots in the whole industry on a regular basis. She never makes a mistake of any kind with the aircraft; flies it like she is an integral part of the control system. Radio comm is absolutely (100%) perfect; clear and concise. So much so that controllers actually enjoy talking with her and we seem to get preferential treatment.

The aircraft is ready to go all the time; all the work is done for me including administrative and any required maintenance before I sit down. All I have to do is show up with coffee in hand. The difference is like night and day. What a concept!

Left seat whinefest...

There is something about this guy that pushes the wrong buttons. It is probably magnified by circadian switches in my brain. I should quit mentally whining and get this guy out of my head. Yes, quit whining captain... Not professional at all.

No-whine zone...

OK, I feel much better. The co-pilot is still inspecting his tie. Must be a heck of a mustard stain. My throat is dry from the oxygen. I take the mask off... The sun will be above the horizon in a few minutes and the day time circadian switch will trip ON.

The ATC center controller calls us... I look at the co-pilot. Nothing, so I answer the call. The co-pilot then wakes up and asks if he missed anything.

No, not a thing.

Outside, winds have increased to 140 knots. On the plus side, our star is rising and washing away the long night with morning's beautiful light. Things are looking better already.

Life on the Line continues...

Leaving Pandora

Position: JOH (Johnstone Point)

Altitude: 35,000 feet

Groundspeed: 440 knots (506 mph)

Equipment: A319 V2500-A5

Pax-on-Board: 123

Airborne...

The VOR needle swings 180 degrees indicating station passage; time to pencil in a fuel check over JOH. We are 600 pounds ahead of the flight plan. This is a very good thing.

On the other side of the heated Plexiglas... Extremely thin atmosphere, brilliant star fields and the aurora borealis. It is exceptionally active tonight. The cosmic streamers are undulating like electric snakes. Somehow, though, it is appropriate; an Electric Jet in an electric sky.

One hour earlier...

The fueler is hooked up and pumping liquid gold into Fi-Fi's belly tank, wing tanks, and tip tanks. My co-pilot is entering flight plan data into the nav computers via his mini-keyboard. I am taking a second look at the PANC weather forecast and see something I did not see on my initial perusal. As my British friend, Trevor, is fond of saying... Hang about!

The TAF (terminal area forecast) at our time of departure has a little note attached to the end: ws010/15050. I am reasonably sure that translates to low level windshear at 1,000 feet above the ground from 150 degrees at 50 knots. If we are taking off on runway 32 (northwesterly heading; 320 degrees)... Yikes! That could be a problem. Imagine a 50 knot wind suddenly hitting our tail as we are trying to accelerate at 1,000 feet.

My iPhone 4.0, a digital cousin (twice removed) to Fi-Fi, connects with my dispatcher... She is one of my favorite dispatchers ever. When email showed up in the cockpits at the end of the Bronze Age, she and one of our co-pilots used it to flirt with each other as they worked the flights across the country in the deepest part of the night. A few weeks later the Chief Pilot heard about it and told them to knock it off (or else), so instead, they decided to get married and are still married with a passel of kids. It is one of the great untold love stories of the industry... Still makes me smile thinking of it.

"Hey, it's cap'n Dave up here in Anchorage."

"Hey, Skipper... You aren't going to believe this, but I was just calling you."

"Windshear, right?"

"Yes, I missed it. I'm so sorry!"

"Well, I missed it, too. Whadda you think? Runway fourteen?"

"Yes, let's go with fourteen. I'll send you some new numbers."

Back to the cloud mines...

The overnight in my favorite destination, Anchorage, is history... We are pushing back with our new numbers (performance data). The gate agent, a personal friend, is waving from the jetway as the super-tug begins its push. PANC reminds me of Pandora from the movie Avatar, a far away and very different place. Hanging out with the lowly, and I might add, unfairly maligned freight dogs and bush pilots at Darwin's Theory will always be one of life's sweet memories... Bigger than life Han Solo characters. The last of the real aviators in this world of digitally enhanced flying.

It is the little things in this life that are so important.

Taxiway romeo...

Number two engine has started and rolled back to idle as I call for the taxi checklist on romeo. Flight controls are checked by moving my stick from stop-to-stop while the co-pilot watches the flight control screen.

"Aileron full left, aileron full right, rudder left, rudder right, elevator full up, elevator full down."

He continues reading the checklist; asks me if runway 14 is actually the runway that has been entered in the nav computers.

"Runway fourteen... Check." It is the top item on my mini-computer screen. You would not believe how many times I have caught the incorrect runway thanks to this checklist item. The human factors person who insisted this be included knew what they were talking about.

Cleared for take-off runway 14... Winds 270 degrees at 8 knots...

"OK, here we go." I move the thrust levers forward enough to bring the engines out of idle and stabilize, and then continue to the stops. Tonight we are using all available thrust to climb through the potential windshear zone.

A sea-level, cold night, max thrust take-off is impressive, even at near max take-off weight. The powerful V2500 A-5 engines are shoving us back in our seats as the speed trend arrow (an unbelievably neat little Fi-Fi'ism) goes to the top of the air speed indicator tape. We are supposed to compare air speed indicators at 80 knots but it's near impossible with this kind of acceleration... The co-pilot gets close to the 80 knot call-out; by the time I glance at mine, 100 knots is heading south.

We are (also) supposed to lead the V1 call-out by 5 knots, but again... Impossible. The V1/Vr/V2 speed zone is compressed into one blip rolling past the speed pointer.

The co-pilot calls out vee one rotate...

I lift the nose off the ground at three degrees of pitch per second, stopping at 18 degrees and ask for gear up. We are climbing at V2 plus 30 knots and accelerating. The vertical speed indicator is showing 2,500 fpm and increasing.

Fi-Fi blasts through the windshear zone at 4,400 fpm, V2 plus 55 knots. We are approaching flap/slat speeds... Flaps up. I decide to leave the engines at maximum thrust until 3,000 feet AGL (above ground level). The deck angle is very impressive as she claws for altitude. PANC departure decides to turn us to the right, i.e., the long way around to an easterly heading. This is smart because of potential turbulence in the Turnagain Arm area. As we shred 2,000 feet AGL, the airframe starts to shake from windshear caused turbulence. It is light to moderate bumping and thumping; winds showing from all directions. The inertial nav platforms are a little bit confused with light winds changing direction in rapid sequence.

Three thousand feet AGL falls away as we turn through a northerly heading holding 30 degrees of bank angle. Thrust levers back to climb power, lower the nose to accelerate and ask for auto-pilot number one, please. The vertical speed decreases to 2,000 fpm while Fi-Fi rolls the speed up to 250 knots for the climb to 10,000 feet AGL; this takes all of twenty seconds, then the pitch increases again to hold 250 knots at about 2,800 fpm. We are above the shear zone now; winds out of the northeast at steady 30 knots. The forecast 50 knot windshear did not materialize.

At 4,000 feet above Anchorage, engine heat ON as we enter the street-light illuminated cloud bellies. At 10,000 feet, we are still in the clouds as Fi-Fi lowers her nose to leave the 250 knot speed limit behind her. Finally, after four minutes in the icy clouds, we break out into clear conditions underneath the star dome at 61 North. There is literally zero light pollution up here with the terrain blocking the glow of Anchorage in our six.

Words cannot adequately describe the scene.

PPOS... 35,000 feet...

The air mass is glassy smooth even though it is moving towards the northeast at 120 knots. Fi-Fi's nose is 25 degrees right of the course line to maintain ground track. I have my little flight-bag camera, a Nikon P7000 Coolpix, up against the Plexiglas on my side and pointing back at the left wingtip. It is set for a 30 second exposure with an aperture of 2.8. If it stays smooth, this could work... No bumps, please.

Life on the Line continues...

The Need for Speed

Position: Over ICT (Wichita)

Altitude: 33,000 feet

Groundspeed: 570 kts (655 mph)

Indicated Airspeed: 261 kts

Mach Number: Point Seven Four (.74)

Compass Heading: 073 degrees

Equipment: A320 A-5 engines

Pax-on-Board: 150

Airborne...

We are a late night departure out of KLAX en route to the eastern edge of the American Empire. As we climb thru 10,000 feet and Fi-Fi begins to accelerate toward the warp gate, the pesky email alert light illuminates. No, no no... Not tonight, please!

The co-pilot, number two on my top ten list, rips the message out of the mini-printer and snickers. She says, "Momma wants you to slow down. I guess you have to control your need for speed."

My cursing trigger trembles...

"Of course... The only night on this trip we have decent winds and we gotta slow down."

The co-pilot enters the new CI (cost index) and RTA (required time of arrival) into the nav computers and Fi-Fi increases pitch to catch the new and much slower climb speed. What a waste of free energy! Oh, well... Mother signs the paychecks.

Over ABQ VOR... 31,000 feet... Mach .71

Earlier, the Albuquerque Center controller suggested 31,000 feet for a smoother ride. The flight plan calls for 35,000 feet over ABQ; a quick fuel check as we pass overhead shows us falling behind on the burn. That is to be expected 4,000 feet lower than planned. Better to burn a bit more fuel than to break a flight attendant's ankle, though.

Over LBL VOR... 33,000 feet... Mach .72

This is painful! Seven-two? Fingernails on a chalkboard... I briefly think about taking the speed control away from Fi-Fi, but common sense prevails. Mother has the big picture on arrival slotting into one of the busiest airports in the world. On the positive side, the ride seems to be improving at higher altitudes and because of that, we are slowly ascending.

I look over at the co-pilot in the dark flight deck and ask, "Hey, you wanna hear some more Robert Stack? I've been working on it since we last flew together."

"No."

"Come on, I know you like it."

"No, I don't."

The mach number is creeping up as the nav computers continuously chew on the RTA. The tail wind has increased to 60 knots helping us slip through the 500 knot warp gate. It is about time!

PPOS... 33,000 feet... Mach.74/570 kts gs

Underneath our belly, Wichita is a soft yellow smudge on the otherwise dark undercast. Overhead is another story, though. It is appears that an angel threw a bucket of stars across the heavens... Hey, Capt. Dave look at this!

Even with my aging eyes, it is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. The viewing conditions are perfect this morning. I can only imagine what it must look like on the other side of the heated Plexiglas. Outside, tailwinds have increased to 126 knots.

Over STL... 35,000 feet... Mach.75/590 kts gs

Moonrise on the eastern horizon is at 0330 hrs local... Tailwinds are 145 knots. We could easily break 620 knots across the ground with a little more thrust, but...

The undercast disappears east of St. Louis and countless agricultural communities of the great American Midwest stretch to the horizon. They look like small diamond broaches illuminated with yellow-orange light. In the center of each is a tiny pin-point of flashing red light... Main and First street intersection, undoubtedly.

I always wonder if anyone is looking up at a small twinkling light moving east against the star fields. It is Capt. Dave and 154 souls passing overhead...

Back to reality and time for a system check:

Hydraulics are 3,000 psi...

Fuel is balanced within 1,000 pounds...

Electrics are good...

Engines are loafing at a reduced thrust setting...

Oxygen pressure is 1550 psi...

We are looking good... Another eighty-eight minutes to top-of-descent.

Life on the Line continues...