By Tony Vallillo
18 February 2008
Three AM is an awful hour to awaken to the strident ringing of the
phone. Although our home phones are now the cordless type, and I
could use a more mellifluous ring-tone if I so chose, I stubbornly
stick to the digital version of the old Bell Telephone bell! If
nothing else, it certainly ensures that you can't sleep through a
phone call! Bleary-eyed, I glance at the little screen - it is crew
schedule.
I have very little contact with crew schedule these days. I
haven't been on reserve (that is to say, on-call) for way over a
decade, save for one month in '03, and the only other time we speak
is when I must recuse myself from a trip due to illness, or if I am
looking to increase the bottom line, so to speak, by doing a bit of
extra flying. The latter is the case now, over the Christmas
holidays, since extra flying is always easy to come by at this time
of year.
The lady from crew sked (as always, courteous to a fault; unlike a
few of the brethren who react, when called, like bears rousted from
hibernation!) proceeds to acquaint me with the latest offerings from
the New York catalog of 767 flying. Not quite as exciting as a
Victoria's Secret flyer, to be sure, but much more lucrative!
Interestingly enough, the main offering for tomorrow is a ferry
flight from EWR to JFK. This brings back some long forgotten
memories, the stuff of stories such as
"Short Haul", which appeared here a while back.
Back in the 1970's, at the beginning of my career, ferry flights
were fairly common at the NY crew base, often occurring with almost
schedule-like regularity. They mostly involved the Boeing 727, but
occasionally one of the bigger birds would need moved between EWR and
JFK, and I imagine that at least once or twice a DC-10 would find
itself hopping to or from LGA. As time went by, this happened less
and less often, since the not-inconsiderable cost of flying an empty
airplane for around 30 minutes or so is a serious financial burden.
Then too, the wide bodies found their way exclusively to JFK and EWR,
while LGA eventually became home to the MD-80 and, later on, to the
737 and the ubiquitous RJ's. Hardly ever do the twain meet, and so
it is that a co-terminal ferry, as we used to call them, has become
something of a "rara avis" these days.
The thought of reliving a portion, at least, of my oft misbegotten
youth was intriguing enough that I pronounced "accepto" to the offer
of the ferry flight! The fact that sign-in would not be until 17:00
that afternoon was also a big plus. I could now roll over and resume
my interrupted slumbers, the better to prepare myself for an
aeronautical "quickie"!
Upon awakening at a more civilized hour later that morning, I
turned my attention to the first important consideration when dealing
with co-terminal ferries - the limo ride. Only on the rarest
occasions does one get to fly another airplane back from the ferry
destination, and so ground transportation is necessary to get to
where the Honda is parked. Actually, the decision in question was
whether to park the car at EWR, the beginning of the trip, or JFK, at
the end. The first option, parking at EWR, would free up more of my
day, since I could arrange to arrive just prior to sign-in. On the
other hand, that would mean an hour-plus limo ride after the flight,
to get back to EWR. The other choice at hand would be to drive to
JFK and park the chariot there. This, however, would mean that the
limo time would have to be added to the sign-in time, and I would
have to be at JFK much earlier than would have been necessary at EWR.
In the event, I decided to drive to JFK, since that would get me home
sooner. It turned out that the FO opted to do the same, thus
requiring only one limo. (Each crewmember gets his or her own choice
in the matter, and occasionally two limos must be arranged, one at
each end of the trip!)
Arriving at JFK at the appointed hour, I was delighted to find
that we were provided with an actual limo. This was always the case
in the beginning of my career, and even on layovers the ride to and
from the hotel was a real limousine, often one of the early stretch
models. As time went by, and penury percolated from the pilot ranks
to the bean-counters at headquarters, these limos were replaced by
either the standard hotel vans, or specially contracted services that
used the same sort of van. But today, lo and behold, we have a real
Caddy, and a white one at that! As I climb aboard, I wonder where
the bride is!
Today is the Saturday before Christmas, and the local roads are
packed with cars full of people headed for the various malls in the
area. So we settle in, the FO and I, for a potentially long ride.
The FO, as it turns out, is just back from furlough, having sat out
the last 4 years or so in the aftermath of 9-11 and the turmoil in
the industry. This is his first month back with us, and I am quick
to welcome him back aboard.
Furlough has been a fixture of an airline career from the earliest
times, back in the 1930's. In those days, airline flying was a
markedly seasonal activity, with a significant downturn in the winter
months. In those yearly doldrums, the bottom of the seniority list
would receive letters notifying them that their services would not be
required for a few months, and those affected would be forced to find
other employment until spring. As time went by and the industry
matured, patterns of flying became more consistent, and the annual
furloughs eased. In their place arose a pattern of hiring and
furlough on cycles corresponding with tides of economic boom and
recession. For reasons never entirely clear to me, airlines tend to
hire somewhat belatedly, usually trailing the demand for additional
flights by many months. They then go gangbusters until the economy
turns around, whereupon they slam on the brakes and clear out the
schoolhouse, furloughing not only the trainees but also several
hundred active pilots at the bottom of the list. When the bottom
starts to slide the rest of the list slides too, not unlike a Malibu
beach house in a mudslide. The bottom seniority Captains, most of
whom had only recently ascended into the top strata of the
profession, must now dust off the three-stripe jacket they so
recently consigned to the cedar closet; and, in the early days of my
own career, the bottom FO's had to go back to sitting sideways and
tending the fires once again. Until the inevitable economic
recovery, when the boom cycle would start again.
Not everyone has to endure a furlough - in fact, relatively few
ever do. I myself avoided it in the early '80's by around 300
numbers - not a great many, but certainly enough. In my previous
experience at the airline, which included furlough cycles in the
early 1980's and again in the mid 1990's, I had never seen more than
around 600 pilots furloughed at any one time. In the 80's that was
about 1/6th of the list, but by the 1990's the list was up to around
8000, and the percentage was much smaller. All things changed,
however, on 9-11. We now have around 25% of the list on furlough, at
one point a total of over 2,500 pilots, many of whom will probably
choose not to return, having in the interim secured other jobs, and
perhaps even other careers. But things are improving, if for no
other reason than the number of retirements has been increasing
lately (though that may stop now that the age has just been
increased). And so we have been recalling pilots from furlough, such
as my FO today.
The ride to EWR is surprisingly free of traffic jams, and we
arrive in good order, a little before sign-in time. There is no need
to go to operations - we can acquire the flight plan and other
necessary paperwork right at the gate. The airport is packed with
travelers today, since this will be one of the busiest travel days of
the year. At the gate, we discover that the airplane we are to
deliver to JFK will be almost an hour late arriving at EWR, due
perhaps to delays at its origin, EGE (Eagle, CO). I am not
surprised at this development, since the entire Midwest is in the
grip of a major storm today, and delays no doubt abound.
Ferry flights are usually fairly low priority affairs, especially
maintenance inputs like this one, and even more especially on
holidays with bad weather. Quite understandably the main effort is
being expended getting passengers to their destinations as
expeditiously as possible, although given the national weather
situation "expeditious" is a relative term! Inevitably, since we are
standing at a gate counter in the full suit of lights, we begin to
attract questions from passengers eager to find out why things are
not going smoothly in the world of aviation. We do our best to
answer their questions, which we often can if the inquiry is simple
and does not require knowledge of the arcane entries required to
wrest reservations information from the bowels of the computer! It
is easy, for example, to check the weather at any station, or the
progress of any flight - such things are well within the scope of our
knowledge, so we occupy our time spreading as much goodwill as we
can, trying to make someone's day a bit easier.
In the fullness of time our airplane arrives, and after it
disgorges its load of passengers, we meet the arriving crew on the
jetbridge and inquire of the condition of the bird. It turns out to
be AOK, and we board, making our way to the cockpit through the usual
detritus of a long flight. This airplane will not be cleaned here,
since it is bound for the maintenance hangar, and thus the galleys
have the remainders of the sodas and, delight of delights, several
trays of unconsumed mixed nuts! These will be our "dinner" on
tonight's local argosy, and I am quick to husband them carefully,
lest they be removed inadvertently. As I am aware from long
experience, these ferry flights can occasionally turn out to be
protracted affairs, and the sustenance may well be providential.
Since the FO is singularly underdressed for the climate, being
without an overcoat, I decide to do the walkaround myself. After a
brisk excursion around the bird, I return to the warmth of the
airplane and check on the loading of the flight plan. The flight
plan is simplicity itself, with just one waypoint (SANTT) between EWR
and JFK. This I know to be wishful thinking of the most outrageous
sort, and we will have to await our ATC clearance to find out the
actual route. We therefore call clearance delivery right away, and
are given a clearance that has both of us scratching our heads and
scrambling for charts! What ATC reads out to us, in the frenetic
pace of a Brooklyn auctioneer, is this: "American 9653 cleared to
JFK via EWR 7 departure, BDR radial 248 and CCC radial 285. Maintain
2500 feet." Plus a few other tidbits that now escape my volatile
memory!
We have to get a repeat of this to copy everything down, and then
it is time to enter it into the FMC. Radial to radial routings like
this are rare indeed, and few pilots can recall the procedures for
entering them without referring to the manual. Fortunately, the FO
is just out of the school and he does indeed remember the entries,
sparing me from setting the whole thing up on VOR raw data, which
would be easier than rummaging through the kitbag looking for the
book! What it appears that this clearance will do is take us north
and east of LGA. I was not expecting anything much shorter, of
course, since it is still only around 19:00 and the air traffic in
the area is staggering at this hour, certainly enough to preclude the
sort of up and down described in the original "Short Haul". And I
also know, from experience, that our actual route is likely to be
different from this clearance - indeed, we will probably get vectors
most of the way around.
We are ready for pushback after entering and checking the route,
and without further ado we shove off and start the engines. Once
they are both running, we receive clearance to taxi. Now comes yet
another delay - the controllers at the TRACON have their hands full
with JFK arrivals, and we must wait for release, probably around 30
minutes or more. Fortunately, we are at a point on the taxiway where
we can shut down both engines without becoming an impediment to the
outbound traffic, so we do just that. No sense wasting fuel.
While we wait, we study and brief the EWR 7 departure. This will
be a delicate affair with an airplane this light - we weigh only
149,000 pounds all up - because the departure calls for an initial
level off at 2,500 feet. At this weight the 757 is vastly
overpowered, and 2,500 feet will come very quickly, so we must be on
guard lest we either over-speed the flaps or bust the altitude, or,
God forbid, both! In addition, there are two turns right after
takeoff, the first a 20 degree turn to the right, followed a few
miles later by a 60 degree or so turn to the left. (Degrees of
heading change, not bank angle!) A lot will be happening in the
first 60 seconds of the flight, and we prepare as best we can for the
sequence of events.
Finally, after 45 minutes or so, we are told to start 'em up and
head for the runway. We will be using 04L tonight, so we trundle
past the FedEx area and head toward the south employee parking lot.
We'll be setting off more than a few car alarms as we set takeoff
power tonight, since the sound tends to be of greater intensity under
an overcast such as we have now. It is always comical, when in the
lot awaiting the bus, to hear the symphony of alarms start up as each
departing aircraft wafts its many decibels of low frequency noise
across the area. It actually shakes the cars enough to trigger
whatever sensors activate the sirens, and the ruckus lasts for a
minute or two before quieting down, just in time for the next
departure to start it up all over again!
Clearance for takeoff comes immediately, and I turn the controls
over to the FO. Even with standard (that is to say reduced) thrust
set, the ship reacts like a horizontal rocket and shoots down the
runway at the speed of stink! V1 is an absurdly low number tonight,
as light as we are, somewhere around 110 kts, and we reach it almost
immediately. Up comes the nose and we are away and climbing, turning
right to that 060 heading. We are handed over to departure control
and I waste no time contacting them, because I suspect that we will
not be making the turn to the 290 heading. Indeed we do not - they
give us direct to LGA VOR. Now things really get busy, because we
are in the middle of flap retraction, watching carefully lest our
surging speed get out of limits for the flap settings. For the
moment, I simply spin the heading cursor around until it lies right
over LGA. That will get us headed in the right direction until I can
make the entries in the FMC that will set up the LNAV to go direct to
LGA. We also get clearance to 5000 feet, which spares us the
ballistic level-off that would have ensued at 2500.
Once we are clean and established at 250 kts and 5000 feet, we can
breathe easier. Less than 3 minutes has passed since liftoff, such
is the gusto of the light 757! Just then we get another vector, this
time to the left of LGA. So much for direct! Actually, we will have
nothing but vectors from now on, as I originally suspected. JFK is
also on the 04's, and the approach will be to 04R, which means a good
deal of vectoring around and out over the water for the downwind leg.
This gives us some time to relax, eat a few nuts, sip a bit of Diet
Coke, and send the ACARS messages indicating our ETA. We also brief
the approach, having already set it up on the ground before
takeoff.
Downwind leg is 7 or 8 miles out over the water, and we descent to
3000 feet a grand at a time. The TCAS is lit up all over the screen,
with aircraft above, below, left and right, reminding me of that line
from "Charge of the Light Brigade"! As usual, though, there are no
intruders at our altitude! These controllers are among the best in
the world, and they squeeze a lot of aviating into the confines of
the New York airspace. Of course, this requires almost non-stop
talking on their part, and it is often difficult to get a word in
edgewise on these frequencies. Occasionally, they have to call us
after a changeover since the patter has been continuous. The thing
to avoid is keying the mike right away, without first listening on
the frequency. This almost always results in "stepping on" another
transmission, causing a loud squeal and a complete cancellation of
any intelligible communications, and will often bring forth the
righteous wrath of the controller upon the unfortunate offender!
A few right turns later we are on final approach. The glide slope
intercept altitude for the 04R ILS is only 1500 feet, and once we
intercept the glide slope things happen quickly. In the slot at 1000
feet with the runway in sight, the FO clicks off the autopilot and
autothrottles, choosing to savor a minute or two of hand flying after
his long hiatus. At this light weight, our approach speed is very
low - less than 120 kts, the airplane handles a bit like a kite at
these speeds and weights, making the actual landing more difficult
than it would be if we were heavy. But the FO has lost none of his
touch over the years, and he does an excellent job of it,
notwithstanding a crosswind from the right. Brakes and reversers,
and turn off at taxiway FB. Now begins the long taxi over to the
maintenance hangars, our destination tonight.
Approaching the hangars, we fall in line between two Airbuses
under tow. The one we are following disappears into the cavernous
hangar, and we are told to shut down on the taxiway outside. This we
do, and after the checklists are complete, we await someone to bring
a stair stand and free us from our admittedly comfortable prison!
Release, however, is not immediately forthcoming, and the ensuing 20
minute delay deplaning results in my being illegal for tomorrow's St.
Lucia turnaround that I had picked up earlier in the afternoon. Oh
well!
All in all, from gate to hangar, the elapsed time is almost two
hours! The on duty time, including the limo ride, is around 6 hours.
The actual off to on time is 25 minutes, which is typical for a
co-terminal ferry between any two NY area airports. As I walk to my
car, which I had prudently parked not at the regular pilot parking
lot but at the hangar itself, I think back to the days of yore, when
I did this sort of thing as a 707 and 727 flight engineer. The
airports are more or less the same, but everything else, save the
accents of the controllers, has changed. The planes have changed,
and the airline has changed. I have also changed - older, presumably
a bit wiser, certainly a good deal heavier, and sporting another
stripe on the sleeve of the jacket. But the most important thing
that has changed is the novelty of it all. Back then this was all
new, and pretty exciting to boot! Today, while still enjoyable and
even fulfilling in a professional sense, it is routine and not at all
exciting. Excitement, it seems, is the stuff of youth and in all
likelihood cannot be reclaimed. But it can be fondly remembered, and
as I amuse myself by whistling the theme from "The High and the
Mighty" as I walk through the mist to my car, I am grateful for that
legacy of ferry flights and Christmases past. In the words of the
immortal Bob Hope, "Thanks for the Memories!"
Happy Landings!
Anthony Vallillo
avallillo@charter.net
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