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Three Holer Part 3 - Hired! By Tony Vallillo (5 August 2014) The Ancient Romans said Tempus Fugit, but we all know that time passes slowly when you are awaiting important news. When John and I parted company after completing our type rating course, I reluctantly hit the road in the Fiat once again and headed back to Charleston after having spent a delightful summer in the Big D. I was now awaiting word from two airlines - American, now that I had completed the interview process, and Braniff now that I had demonstrated my superior airmanship to them. I was a bit nonplussed that I had yet to hear from Braniff for an interview; but hope springs eternal, and I was certain that once the paperwork from my rating ride crossed the desk of the Vice President of Flight I would be summoned to my reward! (It was in fact extremely unlikely that any paperwork from BESI would ever cross the desk of the VP Flight, but such is hope.) Meanwhile, of course, life went on, and even in the halcyon '70's that took cash. So I turned to the AF Reserves for some flying to pay the rent. Rent, by the way, was $165/month for an air conditioned two bedroom townhouse in one of the best complexes in Charleston. Those were the days! A nice long European trip in the C-141 would put enough in the coffers to keep the rent collector at bay for a couple of months at least, but such a trip was not on the schedule. So off I went on the first available trip, in command of a flight from Charleston to Andrews AFB near Washington DC, then to Colorado Springs Colorado where we had a layover. The next day we retraced our steps back to Charleston by way of Andrews. That two day trip would pay for a week's worth of the TV dinners that constituted the bulk of my diet at that time. But to really restock the financial larder I went to the squadron schedulers in search of a longer overseas trip. Luck was in my corner, because I was able to latch onto what appeared to be a nice long trip, albeit not in command - I would be the copilot. This was of no concern since the pay in the Air Force was not dependent upon crew position. We started out from Charleston, in the early evening as nearly always, and flew first to Dover AFB in southern Delaware. Then as now, Dover was the main logistical hub on the east coast for the Military Airlift Command (MAC, now known as the Air Mobility Command or AMC), and just about all Europe bound flights originating at any east coast MAC base transited Dover for cargo and passenger upload. After a 3 1/2 hour stopover, which allowed time to swing by the flight line snack bar and sample Dover's justifiably famous Philly Cheese steak sandwich, we launched into the midnight gloom bound for Ramstein AB in southern Germany. After a layover at Ramstein we embarked upon a long turn around to Dhahran, in eastern Saudi Arabia. By the time we returned to Ramstein almost 4 days had passed since we left Charleston; but fortunately the crew was composed entirely of "reserve bums", reservists who had no other employment and who had essentially unlimited time to devote to AF flying. We all voted to try to stay out as long as possible, since the cash register was ca-chinging merrily whenever we were away from home base. The author in the left seat of the C-141A, somewhere in the world. The C-141A, perhaps the finest airlifter ever built, sturdy, relatively easy to fly and reliable, this was the masters degree in flying for a great many Air Force pilots over the years. So we hounded the command post at Ramstein for additional flying; and, after another day had passed, we were rewarded with a short hop down to Torrejon AB at Madrid Spain. There, after another layover, we talked our way onto another shuttle down to Dhahran and back to Ramstein. At that point our luck ran out, at least as it pertained to cadging additional flying. After a long layover (a shade over 24 hours) we found ourselves headed back to Dover, and thence home. Now it so happened that our navigator on this trip (the C-141's still carried navigators at this point, since they had yet to be fitted with inertial navigation systems) was, in his other life, a ground school instructor at American Airlines. Of course I had related to him the story of my interview and my 727 training at Braniff, and he shared with me some information that proved to be the key to my subsequent airline career. American Airlines, he told me, was of course hiring pilots, so the ground school was in full swing training the new-hires. It so happened that they were also looking for ground school instructors in the 727 program, since that was the entry level into which all the new hire pilots were assigned. Why not, he suggested, try to get on as a ground school instructor. That might provide me some visibility over at AA, and the pay was not bad either. I gave this considerable thought all the way back to Charleston. By now nearly two months had passed since both the final interview at AA and the completion of the training at Braniff. Clearly my job search could use some extra juice, since neither airline seemed yet to have come to the conclusion that they just could not continue as a going business without my participation. The foot-in-the-door opportunity with AA was just too good to pass up, and the relocation to the Dallas/Ft. Worth area could be nothing but a boost for my Braniff ambitions, since the ride over to Love Field was a short one from anywhere in the Metroplex. By the time I arrived back at my apartment I had made up my mind to call the individual whose name and number Bill, our navigator, had provided. Lo and behold, upon crossing my threshold and checking my answering machine, I discovered a call from an airline that I had never heard of at that point. This alone was something unusual because due to my long interest in commercial aviation I thought that I had heard of every airline in the entire world! But Air Florida was a new one for me at that time, and even more curiously I had not yet sent them any sort of application. The phone message was to the effect that they would like me to call them as soon as I could. The date/time stamp indicated that the call had come just after I left for the AF trip, so it was nearly two weeks old when I listened to it. Since it was now late at night, I was unable to get in touch with them, so it had to wait until morning. Perhaps this was one of the 727s I could have started out as Captain on with Air Florida, had I been around Charleston the day they called. All things considered, I'm glad I was out of town! First thing next morning I called Air Florida, and discovered that they had indeed been looking to bring me down for an immediate interview! I replied that I could be there in a few hours, but the lady told me not to bother - the job in question had already been filled. I did manage to get details on how to actually file an application, and resolved to do so. It was not until a week or two later that I found out just exactly what the job I might have been offered was, and it was well that I didn't know until then, for if I had known that morning I would have gone for a one-way swim in the apartment complex pool, weighted down with cement blocks! Air Florida, it seemed, had just made the jump from smaller airplanes to several Boeing 727's, and they were looking for Captains for them. They had gotten my name, and the names of several others, from the Braniff School's 727 type rating program. They hired a number of pilots right off the street into the left seat, where they undoubtedly stayed until... This was actually the first of several lucky breaks I got in my airline career, because we all know what happened to Air Florida. After a heady climb up to the rank of major airline, which involved their flying airplanes as big as the DC-10, they floundered back into oblivion, one of the beneficiaries and also one of the early casualties of deregulation. I would obviously have taken the Captain job had I been around the house the day they called, and no doubt I would have stayed until the end. Of course I would probably have been able to secure other airline employment after Air Florida fell, but who knows where and who knows at what level of seniority. Suffice to say that, although I bitterly regretted missing out at the time, it became clear all too soon what a piece of good fortune that AF trip had been. Immediately after the Air Florida call, as though to assuage my low spirits, I called American Airlines and spoke to the head of the ground school. He invited me out for an interview, and I was on a plane to DFW that very evening. Come the next day, I was introduced to Bob Bisbee, the head of the ground school at AA, and a professional Flight Engineer from way back. You can see pictures of Bob at the panel of the original 707 and 727 acceptance test flights at AA. At this point he had taken over management of the entire ground portion of AA flight training. Joining him at my interview was the head of the 727 ground school. They were looking to hire additional ground instructors, initially on a consultant basis. This was something new to me, although the practice is much more common today. A consultant is essentially a full time part time employee, hired more or less day to day and not a full member of the company in question. I would have none of the benefits that AA offered to its own employees, but on the other hand the pay was better than I was making at the time in the AF and there would be some opportunities for limited jumpseat travel. Most importantly, I would be logging the best possible face time at the airline that was my primary career objective. After satisfying them that I knew the 727 well, I was offered employment on the spot! I got on the next plane back to Charleston to round up some of my things and drive back to Dallas in the Fiat. Remembering the delightful atmosphere at the Marquis the previous summer I decided to make that my home away from home. And so it was that by mid November I was back in the Big D, ensconced once more at the Marquis and now working, sort of, for American Airlines. I was assigned to watch an experienced ground instructor teach a class of new-hires. Each class at American at that time was composed of four students, so for the next two weeks I was the proverbial 5th wheel. I already knew the systems cold, but I was interested in two things - first, watching the instructor do the teaching, which involved the operation of those large mechanical systems trainer boards that I alluded to in a previous installment; and second, watching the students to see what sort of questions they might ask during the class. At BESI we had asked all sorts of arcane questions, the better to acquire gems of knowledge to impress our instructors and hopefully lead to a job at Braniff. These students, on the other hand, were already hired at AA, and needed to impress no one beyond the requirements of course completion. Then again, most of these AA new-hires were former military pilots, as I was, and already had a good grounding in jet aircraft systems. So the demands upon the instructor for arcane trivia were minimal to non-existent. Boeing 727 systems trainers, at the FAA Aeronautical Center at Oke City back in the mid 1980s. These were almost identical to the ones I instructed on at American in 1976. Each day after the classroom session ended I stayed late and familiarized myself with the workings of the trainer boards. These boards were the key to the system of instruction which was in vogue back in those days. Properly manipulated, they brought the operation of each system alive, and allowed the trainees to see just how things worked in real time. The instructor had complete control of what happened on the board, and by flicking the right switches at the right time could illustrate just about every normal and abnormal occurrence both on the replica FE panel and also on the animated schematic diagram. However, unlike today's technology there was no single button on the board labeled, as an example, "#1 generator trip" which would activate all of the appropriate lights, bells and whistles associated with a generator trip. Instead, the instructor had to position a small switch for each light, bell, whistle or other manifestation that he wanted to create on the board. This meant that for every normal or abnormal action that I would want to present to my trainees, I had to write down or memorize the exact sequence of switch movements on the instructor's panel that would create the proper pattern of lights on the FE panel and animations on the schematic. This is what I spent hours, and pages of notes, putting together for myself, so that I would be better able to instruct when it came to be my turn. My turn in the barrel, so to speak, came in around 2 weeks, as my "class" graduated to the simulator phase and I was assigned to work with another instructor teaching a subsequent class of 4. We instructors alternated systems, and Dick, my partner for this series of classes, took the tougher systems like pneumatics, kindly leaving me with the "simpler" systems such as APU and electrical. I later learned that I wound up impressing Dick by tackling what amounted to a full course load for an experienced instructor - that is to say half of the material - since he expected to have to step in for me and teach much of "my" systems himself. Fortunately for both of us, that was not necessary, since having just completed both Braniff programs I was fully loaded for bear! And doubly fortunate for me, since it turned out that Dick wrote a very nice letter of recommendation for me as a result of our classroom experiences, a letter that played a part in what happened about halfway through this, my first class as an instructor at AA. The first week had gone very well, and I found that I really enjoyed instructing. The students were attentive and obviously quite motivated, and it was not at all difficult to fill their heads full of 727 knowledge. Working the big boards was easy, once I got the hang of it, and I was having myself a good ol' boy time, quite appropriate considering the location of the Flight Academy midway between Dallas and Fort Worth Texas. I was even becoming quite enamored of the outstanding Tex-Mex cuisine of the area, and overall life was good. A trip to Chicago and back in the jumpseat over the weekend was the icing on the cake, and I could look forward on occasion to more such tidbits of aeronautical enjoyment. Bright and early on the following Monday morning, as we were just getting started with the intricacies of the hydraulic systems, a knock came on the classroom door and I was summoned out into the hallway. Bob Bisbee, the head of the ground school and my new boss, was there along with Jim Seymour, the head of the 727 program. Together with Dick they solemnly presented me with a sealed envelope. My first thought was that AA had come to the conclusion that they did not need ground instructors as much as they thought they did, and I was to be returned to the streets from whence I had come. But lo and behold this was not the case, for the letter inside turned out to be the holy grail that I had been seeking for what seemed to be all of my life! It was an invitation to join the ranks of the American Airlines pilots. In other words, I was HIRED! This was the official letter that made dreams come true; the letter that Bob Bisbee handed me that day in December 76. After I came down from cloud nine, which was not immediately I assure you, the plan for the start of my American Airlines career was laid out. I would continue to teach this class of new hires for the remainder of their ground school program, and following that I would join "my" class, which turned out to be the one immediately preceding this group, in the simulator phase of training. I offered to remain teaching the ground school as long as my instructor services were needed, but was told that I was needed on the line even more than in the school, so it was to the line that I would go! When we returned to the classroom Dick broke the news to our students, and their enthusiasm and congratulations were genuine and much appreciated. Then we dove headfirst into the intricacies of the hydraulics, and I was immersed in the business at hand. Nonetheless, come the day's end there was another celebration at the Marquis North; and more than one of the BESI students in attendance asked how to go about getting that ground school job at American. All during the ground school phase, we spent time not only in the classroom but also in the Cockpit Procedures Trainers. American had two of these for the 727, as well as one for the DC-10. They resembled a simulator without motion or visual, and were used for further instruction in the procedures associated with each system, as well as the accomplishment of preflight inspections and the checklists. This instruction I enjoyed immensely, and it was perhaps the highlight of my time spent in the ground school program. The CPT had an instructor console somewhat like the one in the simulator, albeit less sophisticated. From this perch I could conjure up just about every system abnormality and emergency condition that appeared in the abnormal/emergency section of the operating manual, complete with all of the attendant bells and whistles. The thing would not actually "fly", although I could put it "in the air" with a single switch that changed all of the logic and warnings to their airborne equivalents. Some of the abnormals were programmed so that a single switch would trigger the appropriate sequence of indications and warnings, while others had to be created in the proper sequence by the instructor through manipulations of individual switches. I got the hang of it very quickly, and from that moment on my students were assailed by numerous lights, bells, horns and sundry other indications of impending doom! Fortunately, mistakes were not fatal, and they all got the hang of the procedures quickly. When the time came for them to go into the simulator, they were well prepared. One of the Boeing 727 Cockpit Procedures Trainer (CPT) that I instructed in at the Flight Academy in 1976. The instructors console for the CPT. This was the original analog control that I used. According to the description for this CPT on Ebay, it has been modified to be controlled from a computer station. Back in the day, each of these switches triggered some kind of light or indication at either the pilot panel, the overhead or the FE panel. The pilots panels of the CPT. Not everything worked up here -- the flight instruments, for example, did not. This thing didn't "fly", although it could be put "in the air" in terms of how the modeled systems performed. (Note: in what is certainly one of life's stranger coincidences, one of these very ex-American Airlines CPT's was offered for sale on Ebay just a month or so prior to this being written. At this point it is still there, asking around 16 K. I'm actually surprised that some cockpit builder hasn't snapped this up already, especially since it is completely wired up and working. I imagine that the process of hooking this up to MSFS would be much less involved than doing it with an actual airplane nose section, like Joe Maldonado did at Project 727. Ah, if only Nels paid for these articles, then it could be mine!) When my guys finished up the ground school, I too went on to the simulator phase of training, paired up with a "classmate" who had gone through the ground school just prior to the class I was teaching. Of course for me it was the third time I had been through a 727 sim program, and the third time was definitely the charm. I was ready to help my partner if need be, but it turned out that he needed no help and he aced the program too! Much of what pressure there might have been was off, since I already possessed the Flight Engineer certificate, which the rest of the new hires acquired via a check ride in the simulator. I took the exact same check ride, but it was "only" for the AA qualification, and was not an FAA rating ride, thus the reduced pressure. Around the middle of the simulator training program, which lasted, as I recall, around a week and a half, we filled out our "dreamsheet"; that is, our base selection sheet. On these pieces of paper we indicated the crew base(s) that we preferred out on the line. At that time, the possibilities were: BOS, LGA, DCA, BUF, BNA, ORD, DFW, LAX, and SFO. The entire process was merely an exercise in wishful thinking, since the likelihood of a new hire right out of school going someplace like LAX or DFW was akin to the chances of an icicle surviving more than a nanosecond in hell. The reality was that there were only two crew bases realistically available to us - BUF and LGA, the latter of which really meant New York, since it covered flying at all three area airports. (BUF and BNA were literally relics of the days when Ernie Gann was a new hire. They reflected the 1930's route layout at American, with BUF the midpoint on the NY-Chicago run and BNA a linchpin on the original Mercury transcons). My college roommate was living in Buffalo at the time, so without much real thought I put BUF first on my list. Two days later, the Buffalo area was inundated in snow, even by their arctic standards. The sight of cars buried three feet over their tops on the CBS Evening News was enough to send me racing to the third floor of the Flight Department headquarters building the next morning, with an urgent request to change my number one pick to LGA! The secretary was stunned, to say the least, since this was perhaps the first time in AA history that a new hire changed a base bid to LGA. Such was the allure of the Big Apple in the eyes of all of my fellow American pilots that I had no trouble making the switch, and several days thereafter I learned that I would indeed follow in Gann's footsteps and begin my AA career in New York, albeit at LGA instead of EWR, which was the NY airport when he started out. After the final check ride in the simulator, the next step was the IOE, or Initial Operating Experience, also known in the vernacular of the peasantry as the line check. In those days this rite was performed at the assigned base, administered by a corps of flight engineer check airmen based locally, and distinct from the group that conducted the simulator checks. (In later years, starting around the mid 1980's, everything was centralized at the schoolhouse and every new hire got his or her IOE at DFW prior to reporting to their actual base of assignment.) I asked for and received a week or so to relocate to New York, and headed first to Charleston to close out my digs there, after which I turned my steps north. By pure serendipity my Air Force friend who had been recalled to Eastern Airlines earlier in 1976 was also headed to New York, and we decided to bunk together in the Big Apple. We secured temporary lodgings in the home of an AA flight engineer on Long Island, and decided to start apartment hunting in Manhattan after our respective line checks. The American Airlines offices at LGA, which in 1977 housed the Flight Office for LGA. The second floor offices right at the corner just above and to the left of the bus were the Chief Pilot's office and the associated administrative offices. Downstairs at that time were Crew Sked and the Training department, for whom I worked when I was a check engineer. This complex has a storied history - this was once AA headquarters when LGA first opened. C.R. Smith's office was once on the second floor just where there is a rounded projection in the middle of the building. The corner office which was later the Chief Pilot's office was once the office of the Vice President of Flight. The next day I reported to the Chief Pilot's office at LGA for my introduction to the legendary Captain Dan Weatherbee, and his assistant Captain Dick Wernick*, to say nothing of the many staffers who would play a big part in my first years as an AA pilot. A quick side trip downstairs to the crew qualifications department resulted in my being scheduled for my line check several days hence. (* Dick Wernick and I would spend a good deal of time together in the course of my career after he succeeded Weatherbee as Area Director of Flight - I worked for him as Manager Flying Technical, otherwise known as chief flight engineer, during the heady days of the great hiring cycle starting in 1984, and again in the early 1990's when I was Chief Pilot at JFK. He was, and is, one of the great ones.) On the appointed day, 19 February 1977, I reported to operations at JFK to earn my final seal of approval. The trip was a two day affair - JFK to DFW the first day, followed by DFW to JFK and a turnaround to PVD on the second day. I was more or less at ease, since I had already performed the FE duties in an airplane back at the Braniff school. Nonetheless, this was different. For one thing, there were four complete flights, instead of merely a portion of one. And this time I was gussied up in a three stripe version of the suit of lights - polyester, to be sure, but still impressive. And there were passengers and also, joy of joys, flight attendants along for the ride as well! Early morning walk around at ORD - the long shadow in the foreground is yours truly, taking the picture. Returning from the door check, which was done immediately after engine start early in the taxi out for takeoff. On a short taxi you had to hustle to get back up front for the main event, since on occasion certain Captains were rumored to start down the runway without the FE! After a frigid walk-around, under the watchful eye of my check engineer, I reported back to the cockpit just in time for the engine start ritual. In the simulator most engine starts involved abnormalities of some sort, but in the airplane I would discover that things went perfectly just about all of the time. Today was no exception, and we had all three running by the time the pushback was complete. In those days American required the FE to go back into the cabin after engine start to verify that all of the doors were properly closed and the slides armed. This took several minutes, and involved running a gauntlet of flight attendants who were in the aisles doing the safety demonstration. After returning to the cockpit the FE had to call the company on the number two radio and receive the "load closeout", which was the final weight and balance calculation. He then filled out the takeoff data card and provided it to the Captain for review. All of this took some time, especially for a new man, and it was fortunate indeed that my first flight was conducted at JFK, where the runways were farther away from the terminal and the taxi-out times correspondingly longer. (There is a certain satisfactory symmetry to the fact that both my first and last flights on the line for American were conducted at JFK.) I managed to get all of this paperwork done and the before takeoff checklist run with a minimum of flubs, with a little help from the Captain who took pains to taxi slowly enough so that I was not unduly rushed. I would soon discover that this sort of assistance to a newbie was just about universal among the crews on the line, all of whom had been there and done that, albeit perhaps decades ago. And so it was that I was ready when the time came to turn my seat to face forward and slide it up right behind the center console for takeoff. The 727 had no autothrottle, or at least no mechanical or electronic one - it had a biological autothrottle, and I was it! After applying an approximation of takeoff power, the throttles were turned over to the FE momentarily so that he could set the exact power using the EPR gauges. This had to be done prior to reaching 80 knots, otherwise the EPR reading would be affected by the increasing static pressure resulting from the increasing airspeed and this would render the power setting inaccurate. At 80 knots the pilot flying resumed control of the throttles, which in practice merely meant that his hands were placed upon them in the event of the need for a rejected takeoff. Once the airplane became airborne, and the gear and flaps were retracted, the throttles belonged to the FE for much of the remainder of the flight unless the pilot needed to level off or begin a climb. At American, the FE read all of the checklists, most of them from a card which usually lived in the copilot's seat back pocket. The takeoff and landing checklists were done using a clever mechanical checklist device that was allegedly of AA's own creation, and was eventually copied and improved upon by Boeing for all of their later airplanes such as the 767. The device consisted of a vertical column of sliders that could be moved left or right and covered half of the dual checklist at any given moment. As each item on the takeoff checklist was accomplished, its slider was moved to the opposite side of the stack, confirming its accomplishment and at the same time revealing an item on the landing checklist. When the checklist was complete, all sliders had been moved and the landing check was now ready for review when the time was right. The FE panel in the last remaining (as of 2008) 727 simulator at AA. The charts are laminated to the FE tabletop for easy consultation, and the mechanical checklist for takeoff and landing can be just barely seen (it is black, against the black curtain that hangs behind the FO seat) immediately to the left of the upper FE panel, just left of the generator controls and lights. During the climb, the human autothrottle had to reset climb power periodically, although once climb power was set after flap retraction, very little adjustment was typically needed. I quickly learned to check this every 5000 feet or so, which turned out to be sufficient. Most of the performance charts we needed during a flight were conveniently printed on a poster-like affair, shaped and sized to fit the engineer's desktop. This compendium was covered by a Plexiglas sheet, which protected it from many, though not all, of the hazards of flight, such as spilled food or coffee. Some of the FE desktop charts were edged with brown stains from turbulence induced spills, and the maintenance department was kept busy changing these when they got unreadable, or when they were superseded by revisions, which occurred occasionally. A quick glance at the chart for climb power and a look at the EPR gauges was all it took to keep the engines in line, with an occasional adjustment to a single thrust lever if an engine happened to be out of sync. Unlike the big recips of the golden age, we had no synchronizing gear on the airplane; any adjustments needed (the rhythmic hum-hum-hum of engines out of sync was heard and felt mainly in the seats back in steerage between the pod engines) had to be done by educated guess. The flights to and from DFW were the stretch airplane, the 727-200 (Actually, 727-223 to be exact, the American Airlines version. The Braniff airplanes were -227, or -027 for the shortie; each airline has a unique suffix for every Boeing type.) The turnaround to and from Providence the following day involved a shortie, so I got to see every airplane type we had on this one trip. By sheer coincidence the return from DFW was flown on N6842, which was originally a Trans Caribbean Airlines airplane, and the only airplane in our fleet at that time that had the electronic pressurization system installed. This presented no problem for me, since all of the Braniff stretches had it, and it was covered in the ground school over there. At AA, it was a one-off novelty at that time, and we didn't even operate it the way it should have been operated, a situation that I had tried to point out in the ground school a month previously, when I was teaching. It turned out that AA, always monomaniacal about standardization, had decided to forgo the electronic pressurization system on the -200's in order to standardize the fleet on the pneumatic version. They had to pay extra to have the pneumatics put on the first batch of -200's. When the time came, a year or so after I was hired, to order more 727's Boeing decided that they would not use the pneumatic version regardless of extra money, and our fleet wound up with an eventual majority of electronic pressurization airplanes. By that time, we had learned how to operate the system properly! The electronic pressurization controls on the FE upper panel. This flight, however, was my first opportunity to handle the pressurization system on a real flight; the Braniff check ride involved such a short trip that the altitude never got above around 12,000 feet or so, which really did not require any manipulation of the system. Today, though, we were cruising at 35000 feet, and I had to employ the full gamut of my skills, such as they were, with this system. Actually, the pneumatic system was semi-automatic; shortly after takeoff the cruise altitude was dialed in, after which the only attention it needed was an occasional tweak of the knob that controlled the rate of climb or descent of the cabin. There were a few tricks I had yet to learn, though, including how to avoid a pressure bump when the pilot retarded the throttles to idle at the beginning of a descent. A reduction of power often caused the bleed air system to start using air from the high pressure stage of the compressor section of the engine, in order to keep enough pressure in the system. This opening of the 13th stage bleed valve would put a momentary surge of pressure into the cabin, and the best way to control the pressurization outflow valve to dampen the surge was counterintuitive - leaving the cabin altitude dial set on the current altitude, one cranked the cabin rate knob not to full decrease but rather to full increase. This action provided the most pneumatic muscle to allow the cabin outflow valves to move rapidly to handle the surge from the 13th stage air. This (and most of the pressurization system's quirks) was not modeled in the simulator, but had to be passed on by the line check airmen during the IOE. The flight from JFK to DFW was long enough for a considerable tutelage during cruise, interrupted shortly after level off by the arrival of our lunches. Throughout my long career, the flight crews on AA ate what the first class passengers ate, although not leftovers (except for the Transcon Roast and Caviar) - additional meals were put aboard for us. Typically there were two steaks and one chicken. In theory the two pilots were not supposed to eat the same entree, lest there occur a debacle like the one parodied in the movie Airplane! In practice, however, seniority ruled and unless either the Captain or the First Officer was an aficionado of chicken the fowl migrated to the Engineer's desktop. Fortunately for me, I have always preferred chicken to steak, except in Argentina much later in my career, and I had no problem whatsoever with the various chicken dishes served on American. The tastiest of all was Chicken Kiev, which was an exceptionally rotund breast literally stuffed with butter which, in the process of being cooked, was of course melted and, as I would discover for the first time today, under a not inconsiderable pressure. This delicacy was served with a small stick labeled " Pierce Me", with which the butter could be liberated from within and allowed to run riot over the plate. This had to be done carefully, though, since it occasionally happened that a dairy explosion took place, spraying hot butter all over the hapless crewmember! The special American Airlines napkins, which had a small hole in one corner designed to be buttoned onto the front of the shirt, were likely invented for this very purpose. All too soon it was time to descend, and it was now that I made my first real world acquaintance with one of the truly annoying features of an otherwise classic airplane. All retractable gear airplanes have some sort of warning to alert the crew when the wheels are not in a useful position. On the 727 this was a horn which blew with little less than the strength of Gabriel's horn. The effect was similar, since both were enough to raise the dead, although the gear horn had the added potential of actually precipitating death by cardiac arrest in anyone not prepared for its strident braying. Long tradition held that the Engineer was wholly responsible for keeping the ill effects of this horn at bay; silencing it by means of a small lever mounted on the aft end of the pedestal between the pilots. Further, tradition demanded that far from merely silencing the horn, the FE must prevent it from sounding in the first place. This was done by anticipating the retarding of any throttle to the idle stop, which was one of the triggers for the horn whenever the landing gear was other than down and locked. The aft pedestal. The horn cutout is the metal bar just above the stabilizer brake release knob. A good Engineer soon developed a downright Pavlovian attentiveness to the position of the throttles and the pilots' hands in the later stages of a flight on a 727 (the 707 would also turn out to have the same system), darting quickly to the horn silence lever at the first tremor of movement from up front! Of course, the lever could be held in the silencing position, and some Engineers had small blocks of wood for this purpose. But most Captains would not allow such contrivances, since not only did that spoil one of their principal diversions - the quest to beat the FE and sound the horn (which, after the dollar ride [IOE] usually required the payment of tribute to the pilots in the form of beers on the layover), but it also in essence defeated an important safety device and was thus verboten by both the Company and the FAA. I later developed a unique system which solved the problem for me - I procured a long leather shoelace, one end of which I tied into a loop that fit around the silencer lever, and the other end of which I knotted into a small ball. This knotted end I placed into the FE desk, which was a catch all for anything and everything that was discarded on the flight deck. The desktop with the performance charts was hinged at the rear, and when it was lowered onto the string the knots kept the whole arrangement secure. Thus deployed, all it would take was a tug on the string to raise the lever, a movement I could make without even turning my seat around. No crew ever got a beer from me after that device was invented! On this first trip, though, the horn blared again and again, as the pilots took full advantage of the newbie on the panel and drove me to distraction. In between swipes at the lever, I managed to extract the landing data from the charts on the tabletop and copy it all down onto a card devised by the Company for that purpose. Then, I had to call our station operations at DFW for our special altimeter settings, which must also be on the card. In those days American was the last US airline to use what was known as QFE altimetry (Eastern had abandoned it some years earlier). The system was similar to what was in use in Great Britain and a few other places in the world - an altimeter setting was dialed in that resulted in the instrument reading feet above the field level instead of feet above sea level. An altimeter is nothing more than a specialized barometer; it can be set to display an altitude above (or below) any desired reference pressure. Normally, altimeters are set to a pressure that causes them to display feet above sea level - specifically, they are set to a pressure that is calculated to be the same as the pressure at that location would be if a barometer could be lowered into a hole dug all the way down to sea level. If, instead, the altimeter is set to the actual barometric pressure at a given level (uncorrected for the descent down the hole to sea level) then the altimeter will read feet above that pressure level, which is to say feet above that elevation. If this pressure setting is taken in the vicinity of field elevation then the altimeter will read feet above the field elevation. The 727-100 cockpit, as it looked back in 1977, and pretty much the entire time I flew it. Note the center altimeter above the standby attitude indicator. This was the altimeter we used to fly assigned altitudes below 10,000 feet, when the Captain and FO altimeters were set to QFE. In the days before radar altimeters came into common use this was valuable information, and even with the radar altimeter it was an additional and useful bit of information. For example, with this system every ILS approach had a decision height (for us) of 200 feet, as opposed to whatever 200 above ground level equated to in terms of sea level. We set the pilot and copilot altimeters to this QFE, or field level setting, when descending through 10,000 feet on descent (and conversely switched over to QNH, or above sea level going through ten on the climb). Of course, when ATC assigns an altitude, they intend for it to be flown with reference to QNH, not QFE, so there was a third altimeter on the front panels, located just to the left of the engine instruments, which was always kept set to QNH. It was to this altimeter that the pilots referred for routine level-offs, when flying below 10,000 feet. Once we descended below 10,000 feet, my seat was back facing forward again, and I spent much of the time prior to landing helping with the general outside traffic watch and running the landing checklist. This latter task was done piecemeal, starting as we left 10,000 feet, rather than all at once upon gear extension as was the case in the C-141. Anytime I observed one of the checklist items completed I could call it out and slide the tab. Only the gear and flaps required a challenge and response from the pilots. When everything was completed I became an interested spectator for the final approach and landing. This was a VMC day, but if it had been IMC I would have been monitoring the approach, ready to set power if a go-around was required. After landing and clearing the runway, I was on the number two radio again to get the gate assignment. DFW, even back then, was more or less a hub for us, and this airplane would be going on to another city farther west. We, after the passengers had all deplaned, would head out to the curb to await the crew limo over to the hotel. The layover would be a short one, and the flight back to JFK was scheduled for early the next morning, so there was no time for merriment. The check engineer and I had dinner together, which was an opportunity for additional instructional time, and all too soon I found myself on another limo headed back to the airport for round two. When I started flying them in 1977, AA's 727's had this bucolic tapestry on the bulkheads in First Class. This time I was left pretty much to my own devices as the IOE switched from instruction to evaluation. The check airman was observing my every move, but left everything to me. My previous experiences, particularly as an instructor at the ground school, now paid off handsomely, and I found that I could keep up with the flow of events without too much difficulty. The flight back to JFK was a bit shorter due to the tailwinds, but the real test would be on the next two legs. JFK-PVD was and is a very short flight in a jet - not more than 30 minutes in the air. Almost the entire cruise portion of the flight was truncated and both legs seemed to be little more than climb and descent. The -100 airplane was the type I had flown on all three occasions at the Braniff school, so it was familiar territory. When we parked at the gate at JFK after the last leg, the check airman congratulated me and informed me that I was now officially an AA Flight Engineer. He called Flight Standards to make it official, and Crew Schedule to inform them that they now had another warm body available on reserve for the remainder of the month. So began my AA career. My first flight on my own came early the next month, after a short stint with the USAF Reserves. The trip was to be the first of a great many out of LGA into ORD, and after that to CVG and SDF. The next day we returned via CLE, LGA, BOS, LGA. Throughout the following year I was on probation, which meant that my every trip was critiqued by the Captain on a form that was turned in to the Chief Pilot's office. At around the 6 month point I was given a no-notice line check with another check engineer, and his report also went directly to Captain Weatherbee's abode. A week or so later I was summoned, as were all probationary crewmembers at this point in their careers, to a review board at the Flight Office, whereupon my record was scrutinized and my progress evaluated. All was found to be in order, and my career continued. I would attend another board at the 11 month point, which was the final thumbs up-or-down event. Since I am writing these memoirs it is obvious what the verdict was! In the third month of my probation I had been sent back to the schoolhouse to qualify as an FE on the venerable Boeing 707. At first I was a bit taken aback - the 707 was a higher paying airplane than the 727 (although on probation this would not be a factor since all probationary crewmembers were paid a flat salary - in those days the princely sum of $650 per month, which happened to be $25 per month less than a new flight attendant made!). I had not entered a bid for 707 training, nor did I expect to be assigned to it based upon my looks! It turned out to be an artifact of the seniority system - if no one bid for a training assignment, it would be handed to the junior person at the base. That turned out to be yours truly. The cockpit of the 707-323 sim. Overall, except for the fourth throttle and engine instruments it looks almost identical to the 727. The FE panel of the Boeing 707-323 simulator. Note that there are four of most things, and it is a bit more complex than the three holer. The 707 school turned out to be much more laid back than either of the 727 schools I had been involved with. Not because the 707 was a simpler airplane; indeed, it was more complex in some ways. But rather because the 707 program was not, at that time, a new hire program. All of us (there were actually only two of "us" in the class, which was another novelty at the time) were line crewmembers and treated as such. The pace, both in the ground school and in the simulator, was not so frenetic as my earlier experiences had been. In addition the 707, while certainly much different in many ways, was actually the genetic father of the 727 and the ancestry showed clearly in much of the design and operation of the systems. Electrical and Fuel were simply more of the same stuff (four engines instead of three, so four generators and four main fuel tanks instead of three). The air conditioning system did differ significantly, since there were no air cycle machines for cooling; rather, there were Freon systems that worked much like a typical home air conditioner, and were somewhat more complicated to operate than the simpler system in use in the 727. Also, the air for the air conditioning and pressurization came not from engine bleed air, although that was available from each engine, but rather from a pair of turbo-compressors located above the inlets of engines two and three. These were housed in a sort of hump at the front of the pylon, and you can see the small inlet openings above the much larger engine inlets in pictures of the 707. (Airplanes designed for international operations had three turbo-compressors, on all engines except number four. This was for redundancy in the event one of them failed at some offline location without much in the way of maintenance.) These TC's, as we called them, ran off high pressure bleed air from the engine, which turned a compressor which in turn provided compressed air to the air conditioning system. I soon discovered, however, that regardless of its complexity the overall system actually worked better than the one on the three-holer, especially when cooling in hot weather. An American 707-323 parked at the hangar at JFK, shortly before they were disposed of in 1981. The engines from these birds went to the National Guard KC-135 tankers, and flew on for decades on those old birds. Walking around the 707. These engines, the JT-3's were noisy but reliable and would still be flying today if fuel were still less than $1 per gallon! The 707 flying also served to put me in contact with a completely different group of Captains than the coterie that flew the 727. These were more senior men, and some of them had flown as copilot, in the early portion of their careers, with the first generation of airmen who by now had long retired. From these 707 Captains I heard tales originally handed down from the DC-3 days, and thereby acquired a second hand acquaintance with some of the early history of American Airlines. To say nothing of getting to fly one of the truly iconic airplanes of all time! It was a piece of good fortune that I value to this day. From the time I served as a ground school instructor, prior to actually being hired as a pilot, I realized that I really enjoyed instructing. And so it was that after I got off probation I applied for the position of check engineer on the line. Due in part to my experience in the schoolhouse I was accepted and sent back to school for one of the more unusual of my educational experiences with American. Check Engineer school consisted of a small amount of ground training - more or less a recurrent training session, and several sessions in the simulator which were intended mainly to expose us to some of the errors, minor as well as major, that a new engineer could commit. But the really interesting part of it was what came first. We (there were, again, two of us check engineer candidates) were placed in a Captain's Duties and Responsibilities class, which was the first portion of Captain upgrade, and was intended to be an introduction of sorts to the Corporate Big Picture, as well as an indoctrination into the world of being in charge. It was quite an experience to be exposed to this a mere 15 months into a career, and to top it off the rest of the class, all upgrading Captains, were a great bunch of guys. Beguiled by their soon-to-be-new-found wealth, they were not reluctant to pick up the tab on occasion for those of us who were still firmly ensconced amongst the peasantry! JT-8 on the 727 - this view is from the aft galley door on the right side. From the ground you couldn't see into the lower part of the inlet, so we sometimes checked it from here, especially if ice might be present. The number two engine exposed in the hangar while undergoing maintenance. My career as a Flight Engineer Check Airman, to use the complete term, was one of the highlights of my American career. During that time I operated almost completely outside of the normal seniority system, for in those days the check airmen picked the trips they used to conduct the IOE's. The regular engineer on those trips, however senior, was paid to stay home while I took the newbie out for his introduction to line flying. I wound up sampling some delightful trips in those days, trips far more interesting than those that my humble seniority would allow me to fly on my own. By this time AA was also placing some new hires directly onto the 707, so I had all of those trips to choose from as well. In addition, we administered the 5 month probationary check rides for the new hires. These were conducted on the new hire's own trip, which was probably a junior selection. But since the check ride involved only one or, at most, two legs, I quickly found that I could manufacture layovers pretty much wherever I wanted, including in places where we had no layovers. I could create opportunities to visit friends, many of whom just happened to be female and attractive (this was, of course, in that period of time known to scholars as BS; that is, Before She)! This sublime state of affairs continued throughout the entire hiring cycle of 1977-1981. About midway through this period I was able to upgrade to FO, which turned out to be the least difficult of any of the various trips to the schoolhouse in the course of my career. In the event, I actually ended up flying as FO for but a single month, in December of 1979, but I was able to "buy" a number of individual trips as FO, usually around one every month or so. The hiring came to an end around the turn of 1981, following one of the various oil crises of the '70's. All too soon, the new hires disappeared from the school house and many disappeared from the line as well when the furloughs began shortly thereafter. Ironically, the work for us check engineers did not stop - we were now in the business of conducting IOE's for pilots who, due to the downsizing, were falling off their perches as FO's, or as FE's on more senior equipment, and re-qualifying on the panel of either the 727 or the 707. This work went on for nearly another year, after which they pretty much closed down the "office" and all of the line check engineers, as well as the two professional engineers who worked full time as what were called Manager Flying Technical, were sent back to line flying in whatever capacity their seniority would allow. Mine allowed for flying both the 707 and 727, which I did until AA retired the last of the 707's. My own last flight as a 707 crewmember was on July 29th 1981 from St Martin to JFK on ship 595 as flight 688. From then until the beginning of the great expansion of the Crandall Growth Plan in early 1984 I flew as a 727 engineer. The Big Apple seen from the 727 cockpit on the way up the Hudson for the River Approach to 13 at LGA. These are the best corner office views in the world! The Growth Plan marked the beginning of an amazing time, both at American and in the industry in general. Deregulation had become the law of the land back in 1978 or so, but the full effects were slow in coming, largely because it was and is difficult and somewhat time consuming to start an airline from scratch. By the time that enough new entrant airlines had reached a level of operations that threatened the financial security of the rest of the industry the 1980's were in full swing. Few in airline management had any clear idea of how best to adapt to this new landscape, and at least one legacy airline failed and liquidated as a result of some wrong guesses on the part of its leader. Bob Crandall's approach was, in essence, to expand American Airlines based upon the cost lowering effects of a revolutionary and controversial approach - the so-called B Scale, which involved new compensation levels for employees hired after late 1983. Once contracts were in place with all of the unions that allowed for this sort of thing, American launched what turned out to be the most massive hiring cycle ever experienced in the airline industry. In a matter of months all of the 600 or so furloughed pilots were offered recall and the structure for another round of hiring was put into place. Aftermath. This is the second incarnation of Braniff, after that airline became the first casualty of deregulation and liquidated. A smaller version was reconstituted by the Pritzger brothers of Hyatt, but this version did not last long. National Airlines had one of the more attractive liveries out there. This one has had the girl's name removed from the front of the fuselage, a victim of early PC pushback against the "I'm Dorrie, Fly Me!" campaign. Ironically, the names went on the planes in an effort to point out that they were talking about flying the planes, not the flight attendants! The sexy double entendre of the TV ads turned out to be a bit too much in that era. This is where those National 727's went! Pan Am, frantic for decades to get their mitts on domestic routes to feed their international flights, jumped at the chance to buy National just before deregulation made the whole thing a moot point. This was one of the early nails in Pan Am's coffin, because the money they paid for National would have been better spent setting up their own feeder system after deregulation hit. LaGuardia around the time I started flying there. This was the concourse next to ours, and little did we know that one day TWA and American would merge. I had been absent from the company for much of the immediate aftermath of the 1983 pilot contract negotiation, off for another stay at the University of MAC, as we called Altus AFB Oklahoma. This time I was attending the transition training program for the C-5 Galaxy, at that time the largest airplane in the world, and still a Big Magilla even in this day of A380's. I had "retired" from flying the C-141 in 1979, when I originally upgraded to FO at American; but, as it turned out, my hold on the right seat was tenuous and after I returned to the line in 1982 I was unable to sit facing forward. This led to a certain lingering frustration which in turn led me to "un-retire" myself from the Air Force Reserves, the better to get my hands on a yoke once again, a process which led me to the C-5 and the 709th Military Airlift Squadron at Dover AFB Delaware. The C-5 Galaxy at Altus AFB. I had asked for and received a military leave of absence from American to go to Altus, which lasted for three months. Upon my return in April of 1984, I received a call from Captain Dick Wernick, who was now the Area Director of Flight for New York following the retirement of Captain Dan Weatherbee (in case the name Weatherbee sounds familiar to many of you who follow aerospace, his son was a Space Shuttle Astronaut and commanded several flights of the orbiter). The good Captain Wernick asked for the pleasure of my company in his office several days hence, while assuring me that I was in no trouble (the usual reason for invitations of this nature). It turned out that with hiring being set up, and many if not all of the new hires coming to the New York base, it seemed appropriate to reconstitute the office of Manager Flying Technical, otherwise known in the ranks as Chief Flight Engineer, an office which had been eliminated in the interest of cost savings back in 1982. His request to me was that I assume that position, and take over the management of the new-hire program at LGA. My first question for him, as you might expect, was "do I have to come in and work in the office every day?" Upon being assured that this was indeed the case, my interest waned considerably, for the drive from my house to LGA in rush hour took around two hours each way. I had, in fact, pursued a pilot career precisely to avoid working 5 days a week like this! But of course, I had just been the recipient of Captain Wernick's largesse, since it was he who had approved my military leave a few months previously. As an Italian, and an aficionado of The Godfather, I knew a "... call upon you to do me a service..." situation when I saw one! So I acquiesced, thinking silently that I owed AA three months in the office, one for each month of my military leave. But Dick Wernick, always a shrewd judge of men, knew me better than I knew myself; and, as he intended, I found the work fascinating - so much so that when the time came two years hence to log a few hundred hours as an FO (a requirement for Captain upgrade) I just about had to be dragged back to the line! Captain Wernick and I pretty much set up the new hire program at the base level, an arrangement that was copied all over the system as new hires on probation migrated from LGA to many of the other bases. I personally conducted the orientations for almost all of the first two thousand or so pilots hired starting in 1984, since all but a few of them were sent first to LGA, from whence they emigrated as soon as their nascent seniority allowed. For many of them, this was a matter of mere weeks, and LGA became a vast and merrily spinning squirrel cage of new pilots coming to and leaving the base with a frequency that made keeping track of them and their probationary events such as review boards a real challenge. Meanwhile, we also sought to make them feel valued, which was a task made more than a little challenging due to the pay scale which applied to them, as Dick and I had anticipated. Finally, in addition to conducting indoctrinations for every new class, I found myself sitting as a member of the probationary review boards held each week, in which my role was to conduct a brief oral evaluation of the candidate's systems knowledge. My office at LGA as Manager Flying Technical, festooned for the occasion of my "retirement" back to the line in late summer 1986 This, too, was an idyllic time as seen from the vantage point of retirement. The level of excitement that existed in those heady days had to be experienced to be believed. American seemed to be doing everything right, and we were buying new airplanes as fast as Douglas and Boeing could turn them out, to say nothing of hiring scores of pilots every month. New cities appeared monthly in the schedules and on the bidsheets, and we found ourselves going to places that had previously been the sole proprietorships of other airlines - places like Atlanta, Denver and Minneapolis, to say nothing of Honolulu. The more optimistic dreamers in the Flight Department talked of hiring that would continue without interruption indefinitely. And indeed that is almost what happened. We did not stop hiring until shortly after Gulf War One, when the economy finally took a tumble and air travel slowed. In that span of 7 or so years, we had hired around 5000 pilots, a number that was considerably larger than the size of the entire seniority list when I was hired in 1977. The new 727 Captain grins from the left seat just prior to departing on another trip! The most significant event for me during this period was my upgrade to Captain. By mid 1986 it was obvious that the time was coming when I would be able to ascend to the heights and assume the mantle of command. This was the point at which the Chief Pilots decided that I should leave the office and return to the line, the better to accumulate the 500 hours as an FO that company policy dictated as a prerequisite for the Captain upgrade. And so I did. Finally, in early 1987, I was awarded a Captain Bid at Chicago. Back to school I went, to go through the D&R (Duties and Responsibilities) class again, now shortened from the week long affair it had been in 1978 to a mere single day. After that, off to the simulator for the training and the AA Captain check ride (I didn't need an FAA "rating ride", thanks to Uncle Sam's largesse back in 1976 at the Braniff school). Thereafter I flew the 727 as a Captain in complete contentment until I was again lured back into the office, this time as one of the Chief Pilots. Throughout this entire phase of my career, which spanned more than a decade, I was always qualified in at least one of the three crew positions on the 727. I ended up flying it in every cockpit crew position possible: Flight Engineer, Flight Engineer Check Airman, First Officer, Captain, and Pilot Check Airman. My logbook shows 4276.9 hours total time in all crew positions, of which 1424 hours are in one of the pilot seats, the majority of which is left seat time as Captain. This is by no means a lot - many pilots for one reason or another logged well in excess of 10,000 pilot hours in the 727, and some spent most if not all of their careers flying it. I could have flown it for a much longer time, of course, but the exigencies of the service in the office dictated that I qualify on the Airbus A300-600R, which was the main mount at the JFK stable when I took over as chief pilot there in 1989. My own 727 qualification expired in 1990. In the course of my career I have flown 5 different airliners in one crew position or another - the Boeing 727, the 707, the Airbus A300, the 757 and the 767. Of these, my hands down favorite is the 727, because of the nearly perfect flying qualities the type has always possessed. In my experience there has never been as sweet handling a large jet airplane as the 727; and, considering that fly-by-wire is the way of the future, it is likely that there will never be again. If there were one airplane I could choose to go flying in again it would be a real coin toss between the 727 and the T-38! The Three Holer is that good! Happy Landings! Tony Vallillo Three Holer Series Three Holer Prelude Three Holer Part 1: Wrench Three Holer Part 2: Type Rating Three Holer Part 3: Hired!
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Golden Argosy Part 1 By Tony Vallillo (1 June 2004) Way back in the late 1960's, Universal Pictures took Arthur Hailey's bestseller "Airport" and made it into one of the better airline motion pictures of all time. The movie is memorable for a number of things, not least being the casting of Dean Martin as the Check Captain and main protagonist, a role that ol' Dino played surprisingly well. But the real main character of the movie turned out to be none other than the Boeing 707 wearing, in this instance, the livery of the fictional Trans Global Airlines. It was operating a flight from "Lincoln International Airport", (a thinly disguised version of O'Hare) to Rome. This was in the latter portion of the era in which airlines, catering to the whims of the imaginative poets in the marketing department, occasionally bestowed names upon their most glamorous flights, and so the flight went by the evocative title of "The Golden Argosy". Screen shot from FlightSim.Com file library. By any name, or even by no name at all, a flight from the USA to Rome is special. Just think of it: Rome, the eternal city, city of the Caesars and the Popes, city of history and romance, and Anita Ekberg forever romping in the Trevi Fountain. One never tires of Rome, no matter how familiar with it you may become. At least not yet, and it's coming up on two years of once a week! In a flying career that started in 1971, I had, until last year, never set foot in Rome, despite having been in and out of Naples and certain other NATO bases in Italy on various occasions through the years. Of course, when I started my career as an airline pilot with American (1977), the company was almost totally domestic in focus, with only a few routes into the Caribbean to add an international flavor to the operation. Deregulation changed all of that, of course, and AA, along with just about every other sizeable airline in the USA, embarked upon an international expansion in the mid 1980's. Yet Rome continued to elude me, even after we began to fly there from Chicago a few years ago. I have, you see, been based in New York for almost all of my career, and I saw no point in commuting. Finally, in the spring of 2003, JFK-Rome was announced, and by that time I had accumulated enough grey hairs to hold a bid on the route. So many grey hairs, in fact, that I was able to bid the inaugural flight, which was only appropriate considering my heritage! This was the layover I had waited my whole career for. One of the regular features of this website is the series of articles about simulated flights from point A to point B. Many of these are surprisingly realistic (considering that the authors have probably never laid hands on the controls of a real jetliner!). They are usually accompanied by screen shots, which have, over the years, become more and more impressive as MSFS has matured. There seemed to be a great deal of interest in realistic depictions of airline operations; and, as Carrie Bradshaw is fond of saying in a certain well-known cable channel sitcom, "I couldn't help but wonder"... Would you like a look at the real thing? So you are hereby invited along on AA flights 166 and 163, the JFK-FCO (Rome) and FCO-JFK services, the modern day Golden Argosies that constitute the source of most of my daily bread these days. You'll even join us on the layover, for a peek at just what makes Rome such a great destination. One thing must be noted for the record: during the course of any flight, certain situations are considered "sterile" and nothing must distract the crew from the duties of the moment. Generally, this sterile period is said to exist any time the airplane is in motion below 10,000 feet. None of these pictures of (or from) the cockpit were taken during a sterile period. Flight 166 leaves JFK in the early evening, at 17:50. That means sign-in time (the reporting time for the flight - one hour prior to gate departure) is 16:50, in operations. But for an airline pilot, the day does not begin then. No, we all commute to work in one fashion or another, some by car and some by air. (This is perhaps the only aspect of being a virtual airline pilot that is better than the real thing!) I am now one of the "bridge and tunnel people", to recall a phrase from the disco era of the late '70's when I used to live in Manhattan. So around two in the afternoon, we'll get the motor running and head out on the highway. A pilot lives by the traffic reports on the radio, and so the two-plus-hour drive is spent listening to news, weather, traffic and, in my case, Rush and Sean! Assuming no major tie-ups on the greater New York interstate highway system, we block in at the employee lot at JFK and catch what bears a striking resemblance to a school bus over to the terminal. I often wonder what I'd have thought if, as a schoolchild on just such a bus, I had any idea I'd still be riding one in my mid 50's! Once settled into operations, it's time for the one really undesirable part of being an airline pilot - revisions! Elrey Jeppesen was one of the real old timers at what became United Airlines, and his little book of notes on the airmail routes he flew turned into a big business. But with all due respect to the old Captain, inserting page after page of tissue paper sheets into a binder that is already bulging and overweight (not unlike its owner!) is a thankless and miserable task indeed. There is talk of an "electronic kitbag" and other space-age paraphernalia in the offing, but it won't be here in time to do me any good! Doppler radar display, typical of the displays in Operations With our manuals up to date, it's time to take a preliminary look at the weather. Actually, I've been taking preliminary looks at the weather for the last two days, courtesy of the Weather Channel website. But that's just to decide how to pack. Now it's time to check for real. We have a nice weather computer in ops that can depict just about anything you want to know about the atmosphere between here and there (and everywhere!). Tonight, there is a small area of rain shower activity just west of Teterboro that appears to be moving east. Hopefully, it won't turn into thunderstorm activity, but we'll keep an eye on it. Enroute, the weather is not too bad, although a change in direction of the Jet Stream over Newfoundland promises a bit of turbulence during the first few hours of the flight. Beyond about 50 degrees west longitude, it will be a tailwind most of the way, although not too terribly strong. Rome will be cloudy in the morning, with clearing around noon, and it should be sunny later in the day. Sounds good! Europe satellite. Flights from the US to Rome are in excess of eight hours, and Federal Regulations specify a third pilot for relief on flights over eight hours. So tonight we have an additional First Officer on the crew. We will each have an opportunity to take a break during the cruise portion of the flight. The union contract specifies that a seat in Business Class, the highest class on the 767-300 at AA, will be set-aside as a crew rest seat. Some of the longer range Boeing 777's have a special bunk room aboard for rest purposes, but the 767's do not fly routes long enough to warrant a bunk (over 12 hours). Right now, though, the FB, as he is known, will assume the duties of the long gone Flight Engineer, and proceed directly to the airplane after our initial briefing. There he will complete a preflight and walk-around inspection and set things up prior to our arrival. We, the First Officer and myself, have other things to keep us busy. Airline flight planning these days is a lot different from the early days of transoceanic flight, when the crew consisted of at least one navigator and a radio operator in addition to the pilots and a flight engineer. This cast of thousands was fully occupied for well over an hour with weather analysis, route selection, takeoff performance calculations, and the actual preparation of the flight plan, including calculating the time and fuel burn between each waypoint. This latter task was performed with a circular slide rule, called by many pilots the "whiz wheel". For reasons no longer apparent, (perhaps a sense of history, or an arcane form of ancestor worship!) we still have such a whiz wheel as part of our kit bag. I can honestly say that in a 27+ year career at AA, I have never used it in anger! I have, however, occasionally taken it out of its case just to see if it still spins! The reason the whiz wheel hibernates in its case these days is that, from about the early 1970's onward, computers have taken over the purely calculational tasks of planning, and dispatchers handle much of the route selection and weather analysis. This is not to say that the pilot does not look carefully at these things; indeed, the last word belongs to me. But by the time I arrive, a thoroughgoing professional dispatcher with a license nearly equivalent to mine (the dispatcher written exam is essentially identical to the ATP written) has already selected a route and planned a flight. On most occasions, I have merely to review, agree with and approve the plan, and the number of times that I have found the plan wanting in one way or another have been few indeed. The dispatchers do a very good job. Tonight the plan our dispatcher has chosen calls for a flight of just under eight hours from takeoff to touchdown. We will proceed from JFK to Yahoo, a point just southeast of Nantucket, and from there more or less parallel to the Canadian coast south of Halifax, to a waypoint called Rafin, about 150 miles south of St. Johns, Newfoundland. From there we will step out across the Atlantic. FL 340 winds aloft chart. Most air routes throughout the world are fixed; that is, they reside in the same geographical place anchored by the same end points defined by ground based radio transmitters (VORs and ADFs) or else defined by waypoint coordinates of latitude and longitude. They are thus like highways in the sky, and when followed they will lead you over the same terrain every time. The North Atlantic, however, is different. Decades ago, in an effort to both increase the amount of traffic that could be handled, and to improve efficiency and economy for all, a program was established whereby the routes across the North Atlantic would be determined twice a day, based largely upon the forecast winds. The traffic across the Atlantic in these latitudes between North America and Europe is very directional. That is to say, in the evening, virtually all of the flights are eastbound, and most leave North America between 16:00 and 23:00, with the real jam occurring between 18:00 and 20:00 Eastern time. During the day, the flow is westbound, with most departures from Europe occurring between 09:00 and 13:00 Europe time. The tracks, known as NATS (North Atlantic Tracks), are determined taking into account the location of the jet stream winds. So for the evening tracks, which are laid out by the oceanic control center at Gander, Newfoundland, the location and orientation is selected to make best use of any tailwinds that exist. If, like tonight, the winds are mostly crosswinds, then the tracks are selected to minimize overall distance. Day tracks (westbound) are put together by the center located at Shannon, Ireland and Prestwick, Scotland (known as Shanwick) and generally strive to avoid the headwinds, thus lying either north or south of the jet stream. The tracks are published twice a day and sent to all operators, such as airlines and the military. There are generally six tracks, each 1 degree of latitude (60 nm) apart, all parallel with the exception of one or two that lie farther to the south, and serve flights from Miami and points south. Our dispatchers let the computer calculate each track and select the most favorable in terms of time and fuel. (Flight simmers can take advantage of a website that has the NAT tracks available each day. There is even a freeware program that plots these tracks onto a nice map to make orientation easier. Check it out at http://www.natroutes.glideslope.de/) Fuel planning is the most important part of the overall flight planning process. It is nice to know how long it will take to get there, but it is imperative to know that you will get THERE, and not to some intermediate point, perhaps in the middle of the ocean, for lack of fuel! When we plan a flight, we attempt to do two things at the same time - first, to ensure that there is enough fuel, and second to minimize the overall usage of fuel for the sake of economy. Like it or not, air transportation is a business, and it must follow the general guidelines of the economics curriculum of Father Guido Sarducci's famous "5 minute University" comedy routine; namely, "you buy something and you sell it for more"! Notwithstanding the number of times since deregulation that it has seemed as though the entire industry had forgotten this simple maxim, it still applies; therefore, we try to avoid wasting expensive resources, fuel among them. So the dispatcher and I look for a balance that results in the lowest cost, a function of both time and fuel, for the complete operation. All other things equal, a shorter trip is a cheaper trip, since the engines burn fuel every minute they run. Yet to speed up, more fuel must be used per hour, and so careful calculations must be made to see if it is worth speeding up (which might use more fuel) to arrive earlier (which might otherwise save some fuel, as well as crew time, which is also money). The computers, of course, solve this problem in the usual computer way - brute force! They calculate every reasonable combination of altitude, speed, and route in a matter of seconds and decide upon the least cost solution. This is then compared to standards such as the overall schedule, and unless it would result in a very late arrival which would compromise passenger connections and convenience, the plan is finalized. Fuel-wise, however, we aren't finished yet! Federal law requires us to incorporate additional fuel for unforeseen circumstances. The simplest requirements apply to all flights, domestic and international, and mandate sufficient fuel aboard to fly to the destination, then to the alternate (if applicable) and finally an additional reserve amount to account for delays at the alternate. This is the absolute minimum fuel required, and rarely if ever does a commercial airliner take off with only these amounts aboard. In normal operations, extra fuel is added for such things as delays or holding at the destination, delays on takeoff, delays enroute, and so on. Internationally, additional reserve fuel is required when flying over water for more than an hour or so. Since our departure time of 17:50 puts us right in the leading edge of JFK's evening rush hour, we must account for an historical average of 30 minutes taxi time before taking off. An enroute reserve equal to 10 percent of the flight time, is also aboard to protect against the possibility of our not getting the optimum altitude we filed for, or for the winds being less favorable than forecast, or for temperatures at altitude being warmer than forecast, all of which can result in an increased fuel burn. Finally, the dispatcher and I have selected Roma Ciampino airport as one alternate, with Genoa as a second, since Ciampino is only about 12 miles from Fiumicino, and will likely be affected by the same weather. Fuel will be aboard to proceed to Genoa, the furthest alternate. This all adds up to 113,500 pounds of fuel, which is our required fuel load for tonight. Added to the airplane, which weighs around 204,000 pounds empty, and tonight's payload of around 49,500 pounds, we get a planned ramp weight of 367,000 pounds, well below the maximum takeoff weight of a Boeing 767-300, which is 408,000 pounds. Once the weight of the paperwork begins to approximate that of the airplane, we gather it all up and head on out to join the FB. The walk from operations to the airplane can be considerable hike, although at JFK it is within the limits of reasonableness. Halfway to the gate, we must clear security. I actually remember the days, up until the mid to late 1960's, when you simply walked onto the airplane, with only a ticket check. Nowadays, and of necessity, security is a gauntlet. Pilots have to go through everything that the passengers go through, with only some "head of the line" privileges to speed us up a little. Many, including some of the brethren, wonder why pilots have to go through all this; after all, the logic goes, they mostly know each other and can vouch for each other. Well, yes and no. An airline like American has over 12,000 pilots (around 10,000 or so still working at the moment) and it is not at all unusual to fly with someone you don't know. And if anyone thought that the uniforms and ID cards were some kind of guarantee, just rent "Catch Me if You Can" from your local video store! Having passed through security, we arrive at the gate. It is here that the reality of this business hits you. The gate area is already full of people, all of whom are eager to go to Rome, and willing to trust us to get them there on time, in comfort, and of course without a scratch. Captain Auggie Keim, an AA old timer featured in Ernie Gann's "Fate is the Hunter", had a simple creed: "If my ass gets there, so do the passengers!" For the most part, he was right. We don't normally spend a lot of time thinking about what is following us around behind the cockpit door. Probably just as well. But here they all are, waiting patiently, some looking up with obvious interest when we make our grand entrance, garbed in the suit of lights, the toreador image sullied only by the wheelie suitcases we all drag around these days! After checking with the gate agent, who has been checking passengers in for the last half hour or so, we board the airplane, which, at this point, is usually in the process of being cleaned. Airliners are staggeringly costly these days, and an investment of this magnitude cannot be allowed to sit idle for long. As the old crop dusters used to say, "you can't make money with the hopper shut!" So our airplane has arrived within the last several hours, most likely from Europe, perhaps even from Rome itself! A small army of cabin cleaners goes to work as soon as the inbound passengers have deplaned, and they are still hard at it when we arrive. You would not believe the mountains of detritus that are removed from an inbound long distance flight! Suffice to say that many large (and I do mean large!) garbage bags are sitting, bulging, on the Jetway. Several more will accumulate before all is done. These cabin cleaners are a real unsung group of heroes at American Airlines. Just in time for our outbound passengers to begin boarding, the cleaners will have this airplane looking like it just came from the Boeing factory! They really do a terrific job, and against some tough time constraints. Which is all the more astonishing when you see what greets them upon their arrival! In addition to the bustle of the cleaners, there are several additional bustles going on! The Cabin crew, tonight numbering eight Flight Attendants under the leadership of a Purser, have been busy since their arrival ten or fifteen minutes ago. Working with the caterers (the third bustle at the moment), they are preparing the galleys: stowing things in the proper places, inventorying the supplies, and getting the coffee brewing! The coffee thing goes back a long way in aviation. The first Stewardesses, all registered nurses prior to WWII, served coffee and, at American, fried chicken box lunches on most of the DC-2 and DC-3 runs, and the practice went back even farther to the Condor sleepers and Ford Tri-motors. So much so that American Airlines was known, in the pre-war era, as the "chicken" airline, a moniker that had nothing to do with courage! But the coffee stayed as a constant link with aviation's origins, long after the chickens had flown the coop! In contrast to the thermos bottles of hot (?) coffee that were loaded onto the early airliners, the coffee is brewed fresh onboard nowadays, and I suppose, if you like such things, it is very good. For me, however, coffee is an emergency procedure! I never developed a taste for the stuff, and prefer to get my caffeine from an infusion of Diet Coke! Legally, I assume command of the entire crew when I board the airplane, and command of the airplane when the door is closed. "Command" has had a long evolution in the airline business, and has its roots in maritime tradition. But the application of maritime tradition to aviation can be traced to one man - Juan Trippe, the legendary president of Pan American Airways. Trippe had a great love of all things nautical, and he was the first to establish marine nomenclatures such as First Officer and Captain. It was only natural on an airline that operated mostly flying boats! In fact, the two highest ranks at Pan Am prior to WWII were "Captain Coastwise", and, the ultimate glory, "Master of Ocean Flying Boats". That last has a nice ring to it, and it is perhaps a shame that we settle today for the simpler title "Captain"! But whatever you call him or her, the pilot who sits in the left seat is the aircraft commander, and is completely responsible for the airplane, crew, passengers and cargo. It is a benevolent despotism, but a despotism just the same. Notwithstanding modern developments in "crew coordination" or "crew resource management", there is still only one man or woman charged with making the important decisions. It is not, nor has it ever been, a committee task. This is all codified in law, and the law states that, although I am charged with operating the flight in accordance with a myriad of regulations and policies, in an emergency requiring immediate action, I can take any action necessary for the safety of the flight, including actions which, in other circumstances, would be grossly illegal. Despotism it may be, but it is not, hopefully, a tyrannical one! There is plenty of room for collegiality on the flight deck, and everyone today tries to operate in as casual an environment as regard for regulations and good conservative operating practices will allow. In my experience, the Captain Bligh's are few and far between. My colleague and I arrive on the flight deck to find that the FB has completed his inspections and has the airplane set up. Tonight, the FB is one with whom I have not previously flown, an unusual but not unknown event. Airline crews form and re-form every month, as bids are run and pilots select the runs they will fly. Sometimes, you fly with the same crew for several months, but this is rare these days, at least at American, and is either a coincidence or the result of relatively senior people specifically bidding to work together. Standardization, therefore, is obviously essential, and it is achieved by training and evaluation. All training for pilots at American Airlines is done at a single location, our Flight Academy just south of the DFW airport in Texas. American was the first airline to set up a single standardized school for the entire pilot corps, back in the 1960's. Prior to that time, when most training was done in airplanes and not simulators, a great deal of the training went on at the individual crew bases, under the supervision of the chief pilots. Today, though, I trot down to Texas every nine months for a week or so of ground school and simulator training. Our pilot corps, typical of the pilot groups of all of the major airlines, is a well-seasoned group of professionals, especially these days. The First Officer, for example, has served as a Captain on domestic flights for several years. The downsizing after the 2001 terrorist attacks has cost him his Captaincy, at least for the moment. Both he and the FB are also Captain qualified on this Boeing 767, although neither hold a Captain bid. The qualification is required by the FAA on flights that need a relief pilot - there must always be at least one person on duty on the flight deck who holds a license to command. Both the FO and the FB had years of flying experience before they came to American. All of us spent years, either in the military, or in the various levels of general aviation, acquiring and honing the skills and experience needed to meet the hiring standards of the airline industry. These standards have always been very high, and for one reason -- they can be. There have always been more people who want the airline pilot job than there are airline pilot jobs. This, caused in part by the generally prevalent supply of ex-military pilots, has ensured that the nation's airlines have always been staffed by highly experienced crews. It is a serendipity that has benefited everyone. The Nest. Once within the cockpit, it is time to get to work! Off comes the jacket and hat, and the kit bag and suitcase are stowed. After settling into the left seat, I spend a minute or so adjusting it to my liking. Boeing builds a good seat, although the very latest 767's have a harder cushion that takes some getting used to. The seat adjusts in a variety of directions, and for some perverse reason, the little holes that the pins pop into to lock position always seem to be a few millimeters too close or too far for my preference! C'est la vie! After the seat is adjusted, the process of "building a nest" begins. A great many charts, approach plates, taxi diagrams and the like must be out and readily available once we get going, and an organized pilot plans ahead, arranging these in a convenient location and a sequential order. The most important thing now is the loading and checking of the flight plan in the Flight Management Computer. When the Boeing 767 was introduced, these computers were a brand new concept, and state of the art, as far as the hardware was concerned. Today they are still state of the art, circa 1982. That is to say, around the Intel 286 level of processor. Even so, they still do the job; just like that old 286 would, with software written for it! Those of you who use Wilco's 767 Pilot in Command, as I do at home, are already familiar with the loading and use of the FMC. The major improvement over the loading of the old Inertial Navigation Systems is the ability to enter waypoints and navaids by name, rather than the more error-prone method of typing in the coordinates. Additionally, the route may be entered by airways, rather than entering each waypoint separately. Nowadays, the entire route and all of the performance numbers can be sent to the FMC over the ACARS, an Airinc data link radio system. No matter how it gets into the computer, the route and all of the performance data must be carefully checked. We compare each waypoint in the computer to each waypoint on the flight plan, and the airway routing in the computer to the route filed with the FAA. It is a drill, pure and simple, but embarrassing errors have occurred when the drill was ignored! Tonight the route portion of the FMC looks like this: * Hapie Three -Yahoo * Direct -Vitol * N21C -Jarom * Direct -Bobtu * Direct -4450N * Direct -4540N * Direct -4730N * Direct -4820N * Direct -4815N * Direct -Etiki * Direct -Reghi * UN480 -Kolek * UN470 -CGC * UN460 -Fouco * UT187 -Lerga * UM728 -BTA * UL146 -GRO * L153 -TAQ * ILS16R TAQ Transition (If you want to fly this yourself in MSFS, and you don't have the ability to input all of the flight plan by airways, you can either use a high altitude chart for Europe to get all the waypoints along the airways, or you can cheat and use only the significant points that define the airway changes, as indicated above. After all, you aren't actually dealing with ATC!) We'll start off at FL 350, which we will maintain for the Atlantic crossing, climbing to FL 370 once across, after we get somewhat lighter from the fuel burn. The plan calls for cruising at Mach .80 the entire way, which happens to be the typical best economy speed for a 767-300 under most conditions. For the takeoff, planned for runway 13R at JFK, the numbers show: Flaps 5 V1 153 Vr 157 V2 164 Once all of this is entered and checked in the computers, I brief the crew on the plan for takeoff, including the runway, flap setting, departure to be flown (in this case the Hapie 3 departure from JFK with the Yahoo transition), altitude for level off, and the procedure and plan for an engine failure during or immediately after takeoff, including the runway and approach by which we will return to the airport if necessary. All of this is required by company policy and we are now all aware of what will happen during the first, and most critical, few minutes of the flight. Briefing accomplished, I call for the first of many checklists that we will run tonight. Checklists are an age-old tradition in aviation, and it is hardly possible to remember a time when they were not used. Certainly one would have to go back to the wartime years at least, but there was indeed a time, even in the airlines, when the pilot's memory was all that ensured that every switch, knob and lever was in the correct position. Since embarrassing and even tragic things happened when memory failed, as it often did and still does, the written litany was developed and mandated, no doubt to the chagrin of at least a few of the old timers! Today's airman, however, has been using checklists since his or her first introductory flight as a student pilot. To go without the checklist today would be unthinkable! If everything has gone according to Hoyle, we have 5 or so minutes left until departure time. Departure time is the time the airplane first moves, not the time it takes off. This has been a source of confusion and even consternation for some passengers, who think that "padding" the schedule to account for the inevitable delays from first movement to actual takeoff is somehow cheating! Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth. Any scheduled transportation system has systemic delays that are a result of more than one person wanting to use the system. Accounting for the probable delays when they are predictable is nothing more than plain old honesty. The gate agent checks with us one final time to ensure that all is in readiness, then proceeds to close the door. My speaker crackles to life, as the ground-man makes his presence known and calls for release of the brakes. This action on our part triggers the ACARS unit to transmit an "Out" time, and we are officially on the clock. Most laymen probably know that pilots and flight attendants are paid by the hour, but they likely think it is on the basis of hours on duty. It is not. Our pay has always been calculated on the basis of block-to-block hours. Everything that has happened up to this moment, from arrival at the employee parking lot onward, has been gratis! (In actuality, however, the hourly pay rates do take into account the value of the time worked when not in motion. And that time can be considerable, especially on multi-leg trips with long sit-arounds between flights.) Brakes released we get clearance from company ramp control for pushback. The practice of pushing airplanes with tugs became common in the late 1960's, when the search for space on the ramp led to airplanes heading directly at the building for parking rather than parking parallel to it and simply turning away on taxi-out. Smaller planes can actually back up under their own reverse thrust, but large engines like the GE CF-6's on the 767 would create too much blast and subject themselves to Foreign Object Damage. Slowly we trundle backwards into the "alley", as the ramp between concourses is always called. We have departed from gate 8 in terminal 8, the original American Airlines building at JFK. (You may remember the large stained-glass window that covers the entire front of this building, said to be the largest stained glass window in the world.) Once we get placed in the center of the alley, the ground-man clears us for engine start. Starting a jet engine is simplicity itself compared to starting a big radial recip. One switch (on the 767, a button on some other types) opens a start valve, which allows high-pressure air from the Auxiliary Power Unit (or a high pressure air cart) to spin the starter motor. This motor in turn spins the spool that carries the compressor and turbine blades, thus creating a flow of air through the engine core. Once the high-pressure spool (N2) speed is above a certain percentage, fuel and ignition are added to the mixture by the operation of a fuel cutoff switch. With fuel, air and a spark, ignition cannot be far behind, and we watch the EGT gauge for evidence of light off. This is not long in coming, and within a minute, the engine has accelerated to idle RPM, and the start cycle is complete. Once more, with feeling, for the right engine, and we are ready to bid the ground-man a fond farewell -- he wastes no time in unhooking and delivering a smart salute before getting out of the way! From now until we tie up at the gate at Rome, our every movement will be at the pleasure of Air Traffic Control. Ground control clears us to taxi to Runway 13R, via taxiway Bravo to November to Papa. I nudge the throttles forward a bit, and the beast moves under its own power. A 767-300 loaded to around 370,000 lbs will often start rolling on its own if the ramp is not sloped upward. Oddly, the smaller sibling, the 757, seems to have square wheels, even at relatively light weights, and needs frequent blasts of thrust to keep it rolling. JFK at around 18:00 is alive with aircraft and vehicles moving in every direction, and so a high degree of vigilance is in order. We give way to a 767 just in from who-knows-where, and turn left onto the outer taxiway, now known as Bravo. Around 10 years ago, the FAA moved to standardize the taxiway nomenclature around the country, and we lost the old, more descriptive, designations of Inner and Outer. O'Hare lost a good deal more - The Wedge, Cargo, Lakeshore Drive, Old and New Scenics, Wolf road; just about every taxiway at O'Hare had a name! The names were a little tough to get used to, but once you got the hand of it, it was way better and more descriptive than Yankee or Lima. You just never forgot where the Wedge was! The rain shower on radar, in max mode. Doppler indications (purple areas) are absent. By now, that rain shower that started out at Teterboro has moved overhead LGA. We can see the clouds just to the north. It still doesn't look like a serious threat; certainly not a severe thunderstorm, for example, but I decide to turn on the radar and check it out. The radar picture shows the rain area, the display changing as we switch from max mode, the most intense, to calibrated gain. We have a Doppler turbulence function in this radar, and it is not making itself known at the moment, indicating that the returns are most likely just rain. But to get a better feel for it, I take advantage of a unique fact about the New York area; namely, that EWR, LGA and JFK are in some ways just one huge airport without connecting taxiways! So, we listen to the tower frequency at LGA to see if the rain is wreaking any havoc on operations over there. It is not. So it is unlikely that we will experience any microburst or windshear problems in our takeoff. Didn't cost anything to check it out, though. With about five airplanes ahead of us in the line, we complete all of the pre-takeoff checklists. This runway is one of the simpler departures at JFK - just fly an assigned heading, which usually involves a turn of only 20 or 30 degrees to the right. On the reciprocal runway, 31L, you have to turn all the way toward Canarsie, and then turn another 70 or so degrees to the left, while retracting the flaps and speeding up. No problem, really, but a lot of maneuvering. 13R is much more straightforward. Takeoffs in transport category jet airplanes are planned carefully around a worst-case scenario - the loss of an engine at the critical point, just prior to rotation. By law, every takeoff must be planned so that if an engine failure occurs, the airplane can, depending upon speed, either stop on the runway or become airborne and achieve 35 feet of height over the runway end. This performance edge is achieved by limiting the weight of the airplane to a maximum level, determined by extensive testing before the airplane is certified. The weight, of course, is then essentially a function of the runway length, any obstacles beyond the end of the runway, and any contamination on the runway itself that would either retard acceleration or impede stopping, such as ice or snow. Runway 13R is one of the longest civil runways in the world; at over 14,000 feet in length, it is a legacy of the needs of the original Boeing 707's, which were by no means stellar performers on takeoff. Twin-engine jets are much more sprightly, even on just one engine, and so tonight we have a generous surplus of runway at our disposal. Would that it were always so! Liftoff! He's heading for Rome too, and he'll get there before us. Cleared into position to hold, we run the final checklist and check that the final approach is clear. JFK usually lands on 13L when using 13R for takeoff, but Delta and a few other airlines with terminal buildings on this side of the airport often prefer to land on the left side, saving several miles of taxiing. With the airplane ahead of us safely up and away, we hear "American 166 Heavy, cleared for takeoff 13R" and a wind report. We zero the ship's clock, the last preflight checklist item, and I push the throttles forward slowly. We're off to the races! Authors note: To be continued in Golden Argosy, part II, the flight to Rome! Anthony Vallillo
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Three Holer Prelude By Tony Vallillo Authors note: Having shared with you the events of the sunset of my airline career, I turn now to the beginning; and, by the by, a panegyric to my favorite airplane! It occasionally comes to pass that a particular type of airplane becomes so intimately associated with its milieu that it achieves iconic status. In the commercial airline industry this has occurred several times. The iconic airliner of the 1920's, at least in the USA, must surely be the Ford Trimotor, and in the 1930's the DC-3 so dominated the scene that it, too, came to represent commercial aviation in that decade. After WWII things got a bit more varied, but the icon of the golden age of air transport, as the 1950's are sometimes called, may well be the Lockheed Constellation, if for no other reason than the fact that it is surely the most beautiful transport airplane ever built. The jet age has its icons as well, most notably the first really successful jet transport - the Boeing 707. This airplane became synonymous with the "Jet Set", and spawned an entire lifestyle for the rich and famous in the late '50's and beyond. Later, in the 1980's, the MD-80 can probably be thought of as the icon for the early deregulated era, and these days the new generation 737's are assuming that status, as the salad days of airline travel recede into the mists of time and memory - literally as well as poetically! You may notice that I have left out the later regulated era, the time period from the mid 1960's until the mid 1980's. This is a complicated time, with a plethora of airliner types deployed around the world in all sizes and shapes, from the DC-9 to the 747. Yet although it may be a tough call, I would certainly propose a candidate for iconic status in that transitional period. The airplane I have in mind is unmistakable in shape and design, and also unforgettable for any pilot who had the privilege of flying it. It ended up being flown by just about every major airline in the world at one time or another, and its variants remained in service with some airlines for nearly 40 years. It served as the first career step for the majority of airline pilots hired between the mid 1960's and the late 1990's. The airplane I have in mind is, of course, the Boeing 727. The second 727 test article, N72700, at LHR during testing for Pan Am's Berlin operation. Photo by Ralf Manteufel. Much has been written about the origins and gestation of the Boeing 727 series, so we need only touch on the highlights. By the time that the 707 was beginning to shrink the world, both Boeing and the airlines were thinking smaller. Smaller airports, that is. The original 707's were ground loving beasts that required runways far longer than those of most civil airports of the day. In the late 1950's, 5000 feet of runway was considered a generous length, and 7000 was enough for even the biggest recips of the time. On the other hand, the first 707's needed a good 10,000 feet of pavement to get safely airborne, and for the international flights even more was required. Runway 13R/31L at JFK, for example, was extended to over 14,000 feet at the time the 707 began service, and quite often just about all of that length was put to use! Early in the 1960's, Boeing built a slightly smaller version of the 707 which was intended to be used on shorter flights from slightly shorter runways. This was the model 720, known as such largely at the behest of United Airlines, who had backed themselves into something of a PR corner by extolling the virtues of their Douglas DC-8's over the competition's 707's to the point where it would have been downright awkward for them to have acquired the latter! So by calling the smaller edition a Boeing 720, United was able to create the illusion that what they had just purchased was in fact a totally different airplane. Such was certainly not the case. Although there were a few structural differences (mainly in the shape and size of the wing) and it was somewhat lighter, the 720 was just a hot-rod model of the short 707, and some of the airlines that operated both Boeings didn't bother to differentiate them in advertising. American, for example, simply called them all 707's. Only the pilots knew for sure! And although the airplane did have somewhat better runway performance than its bigger sibling, a number of heavily patronized airports still could not accommodate it. Rollout of the first Boeing 727 on 27 November 1962. The 727 on its first flight, February 9 1963. The principal of these under-endowed (runway-wise!) airports was New York's LaGuardia. Its two 5000 foot runways, considered exceptionally long in the days of the DC-3, weren't even long enough for the transcontinental DC-7's and later models of the Constellation, all of which had migrated over to the longer runways at Idlewild by the mid 1950's. But LGA stubbornly refused to die, since it was by far the most conveniently located of the Big Apple's three airports; and so it was that Eastern Airlines, one of the four main interested parties (the others were United, American and TWA), stipulated that the new jet that they wanted must be able to fly in and out of LGA. This was the impetus for the extraordinary high lift devices that eventually wound up on the wings of the new airplane. There was a lively battle fought among the airlines and Boeing over the number of engines. United, which had always favored more engines than fewer, insisted on a four engine layout like the 720. But none of the other airlines were interested in the higher operating and maintenance costs of four engines, and although a two engine layout was explored (and would eventually emerge as the even more successful 737), the engines of the day were simply not powerful enough for two of them to do the job on an airplane of the size being discussed. No matter how the cards were cut, it was going to take at least three engines to make the airplane perform as desired, so three engines it turned out to have -- the first US Trimotor since Henry Ford's day. This was, of course, much easier said than done. The problem of where to put the third engine was difficult to solve, and some of the proposals that were floated out of the engineering department were truly bizarre. The eventual solution is so well known today that it is hard to remember just what an outlandish innovation it was back in the early 60's, when artist's renderings of the new airplane began to circulate. But the engine-in-the-tail approach (actually pioneered by the British Trident) was completely successful, and Boeing's graceful curved inlet duct was so effective that Lockheed paid them a royalty to emulate it on the Tristar. (Douglas, more frugally, saved the money by devising an engine mount on the vertical stabilizer for its DC-10.) First introduced by Eastern Airlines in early 1964, the 727 very quickly became ubiquitous, with all of the trunk airlines except Delta getting in the game. Pilots loved it because it was the first jetliner with hydraulic control boost in all three axes, thus ensuring a light and harmonious control feel that has never been surpassed even to this day. It also featured outstanding performance for its time, and the takeoff and climb out were sprightly in comparison with the four engine jets. Passengers loved it, in part because Boeing had made the decision to retain the 707 fuselage cross section, which allowed for 6 across seating and plenty of room overhead. In those days of 36+ inch seat pitch, the coach section of a 727 was a very comfortable place indeed! It was also quiet, both inside and out, although especially with respect to its outside noise footprint "quiet" is a relative term! It was called a "Whisperjet" by Eastern, to be sure, but that could be considered accurate only by comparison with the thundering roar of the early 707's and DC-8's! It was not until very late in its operational career, when special noise suppressing cowlings and tailpipes were mandated, that the 727 truly whispered. Getting ready for the first flight. Note the logos of the airlines that had already placed orders just below the cockpit windows. Original engineering drawing of the E-1 unit (as the first airplane was referred to at Boeing at the time). This airplane actually entered service with United after the test program and flew a full career at that airline. After UAL retired it, it was donated to the Museum of Flight in Seattle, where it is undergoing restoration. Its introduction was marred by three fatal accidents in the first year and a half of service. The first two would be known today as controlled-flight-into-terrain (CFIT) events. A United flight inbound to O'Hare disappeared from radar screens over Lake Michigan, and after an intensive recovery operation about 80% of it was raised from the depths. Few distinct clues emerged, however, and the consensus was that the jet was below its assigned altitude and was simply flown into the water. Some months later, an American 727 flying a circling approach in bad weather at Cincinnati crashed into terrain that was hundreds of feet lower than the airport elevation. In both of these crashes the altimeter was an issue - most 727's featured a "drum type" altimeter which, in its early incarnation around that time, was difficult for pilots used to the three pointer model to read and interpret quickly. Specifically, it was easy to make an error of 1000 feet when interpreting this kind of altimeter. The type became more refined by the late 1960's and evolved into the "counter-pointer" altimeter that is still in use today on big airplanes. The third accident brought into focus an unforeseen consequence of the high performance characteristics of the 727. A United flight approaching Salt Lake City wound up high and hot on the approach, and the Captain instructed the copilot, who was flying the airplane, to leave the throttles at idle for most of the approach. By the time that the Captain recognized the excessive sink rate that developed, it was too late. Jet engines took as much as 8 seconds to spool up from idle to go-around thrust in those days - seconds that this flight didn't have. The airplane slammed down short of the threshold so hard that the landing gear was driven up through the wings, igniting a deadly fire that continued for the entire slide down the runway. The 727 achieved its remarkable field performance by a combination of power from the new fanjet engines and an extraordinary wing. The wing featured full span leading edge flaps and slats, and a trailing edge flap system that could extend a full 40 degrees to generate both lift and a lot of drag for short field approaches and landings. This was all well and good, and enabled the airplane to get into and out of LGA's original 5000 foot runways, among others. But with all of the flaps and slats deployed, and idle thrust set, some truly enormous sink rates could develop, and it was possible that such a high descent rate might not be fully appreciated until the airplane was fairly close to the ground. (This is an effect that can be seen even in MSFS). The lesson learned from the Salt Lake accident was to avoid low thrust high sink rate descents close to the ground, and pilot training for the 727 was improved accordingly. The airplane subsequently racked up a good safety record in operations all over the world for many decades. I myself followed the gestation of the 727 in my youth - it was the first major airplane type introduced after I was more or less aware of what was going on in the world of aviation. I built models of it and read books about it, and no doubt somewhere in the recesses of my developing mind there lurked the conviction that I would one day fly it. The three-holer was my favorite airplane in those days, as it would remain for years to come. Even Southwest operated the 727! This is the first one they had, which was a Braniff airplane that was "loaned" to them when they won a lawsuit against that company. A decade or so later, they leased a half dozen or so from People Express for a short time. Photo by Aris Pappas. 727 circa 1970, in the original AA scheme. When I flew this one, around eight years after this picture was taken, it had the new livery. You can see the leading and trailing edge high lift devices clearly, as well as the original smoky engine exhaust! Photo by Bob Garrard. By the time I became a pilot in the Air Force, the 727 was being flown by just about every airline in the country, the only exceptions being the smaller of the local service companies like Southern or Texas International. The rest of the local service airlines would, for the most part, eventually fly the 727 - Allegheny, Piedmont, Frontier, North Central, Ozark, Alaska, Northeast, and yes, even Southwest operated it at one time or another (Southwest operated a single Braniff-owned airplane for awhile as the result of an anti-trust settlement, and a handful of leased People Express airplanes a bit later). In fact, aside from Southern, TI and Air Cal I'm hard pressed to think of an airline that existed prior to deregulation that did not fly at least one 727! It truly was that universal, a status no airplane had achieved since the DC-3 in the 1930's. So it seemed obvious to me, as an aspiring airline pilot, that the 727 was going to play a role in my professional career, no matter what airline eventually hired me. It also seemed obvious that my first exposure to it was going to be from a seat that faced sideways most of the time! The 727 was the last single aisle airliner to feature the flight engineer as an integral part of the crew - indeed, after the mid 1960's the only new airplanes that had a position for the FE were the widebodies. It is true that the 737 flew, until the early 1980's, with a third pilot as part of the crew at some airlines (UAL, Western, and a few others), but that person was not a flight engineer, nor was there either provision or need for one - the third pilot (known in the industry as the "Guy in Back", or GIB) was promulgated by the UAL pilots and adopted by ALPA as a general policy, although it may not have been enforced at all ALPA airlines. By the time I was ready to leave the Air Force and seek my fortune, it was possible to buy training on the 727 as either an FE or a pilot. In those days of mostly military trained pilots with thousands of jet hours in the applicant pool, it was a widely held belief that the more qualifications a pilot had on his or her resume, the more likely it would be that an airline would come knocking at the door. And so most of us undertook to add as many certificates and ratings to our licenses and logbooks as we could afford. Actually, it would be more accurate to say "as Uncle Sam could afford", since all of us who were in the service had access to the GI Bill, which was perfectly happy to pay for flight training at the higher commercial levels. There were several paths to a Flight Engineer certificate in the mid 1970's. The written exam, of course, could be taken after simply signing up for a weekend ground school, and several companies dined out on that source of revenue for many years. The one I availed myself of took an approach that is now more or less standard - they had created a book composed entirely of questions and answers that were on the real test (although many more than actually appeared on the test, just like today). Familiarity with these, which could be achieved with as little as a few days perusal, was sufficient to pass the FE exam. (Before you get the wrong idea about the actual ease of taking a test like this, remember that I had, at this point, several thousand hours of heavy multi-engine jet flying experience along with all of the training that went along with it! It was this experience that made it possible to simply "cram" for the test and actually pass it.) Pan American operated the 727 in Europe and the Caribbean/Latin America. The original IGS (Inter German Service) to and from Berlin was a 727 operation. Photo by Richard Vandervord. TWA was another early operator of the 727. Photo by Bob Garrard. The Flight Engineer certificate itself could be acquired in one of two ways. Either I could seek out a certain Air Force flight engineer in our C-141 Wing who happened to be an FAA designated examiner for the FE ticket, or I could buy a slot at the full course of training at the Braniff Airline School in Dallas. Although the idea of getting the FE certificate essentially for free on a C-141 had some attraction, I soon decided that it was not the best way to go about it. For one thing, although I was an aircraft commander on the C-141, I was by no means familiar with the arcane doings back at the engineers' panel. The 141 was a complex, systems intensive airplane, and although all Starlifter pilots had studied those systems in the original trip through the "University of MAC" (Military Airlift Command) at Altus AFB Oklahoma, none of us had the level of expertise that the engineer position required. So passing the FE flight check on the panel of a 141 was by no means a sure thing. Nor was it really legal as far as the Air Force was concerned, since pilots were not qualified to sit at the FE panel, even for training. By far the most important element of the decision, however, was the fact that no airline flew C-141's, and thus none of them would be much impressed by an FE ticket obtained on that airplane! The Braniff school, on the other hand, used the 727 as its basis (although it was also possible to take the training on the DC-8). Braniff, in the mid 70's, had a requirement for employment that was unique in all of the industry - the applicant had to possess an actual FE certificate, not just complete the written. And, although it was unstated per se, it was clearly understood by the applicant pool that Braniff wanted that FE ticket to have been acquired in the 727. In order to make it possible for an individual to get an FE ticket on the 727, Braniff kindly (!) made their own school available to anyone who could cough up the 5000 bucks they charged. That was a ton of money back then, and although a very small number of pilots went seriously into hock to finance it on their own, the overwhelming majority of Braniff Education Systems (the name of the training subsidiary) students were vets on the GI Bill. Braniff pretty much had this market to itself when I got out of the Air Force, and so it was to Braniff that I decided to go. A year or two later, a few other airlines, including American, got on the GI Bill gravy train, but none of them had the success that Braniff enjoyed for a number of years. Of course, none of them required pilot applicants to have an actual FE ticket either! (Another airline that for years required applicants to have an actual qualification on an airliner was Southwest, who required the 737 type rating. They, however, did not sell the training - an applicant had to go find it someplace else.) So, having filled out the paperwork for the GI Bill funding (not for the first time - I had already gotten a CFI and taken a CFII course on the bill prior to the Braniff school), I set forth from Charleston headed west on Interstate 20 in my fairly new Fiat 124 Spyder convertible, bound for the promised land! Continued in the next installment: Wrench Anthony Vallillo avallillo767@gmail.com Three Holer Series Three Holer Prelude Three Holer Part 1: Wrench Three Holer Part 2: Type Rating Three Holer Part 3: Hired!
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Three Holer Part 1: Wrench By Tony Vallillo (19 May 2013) In the early spring of 1976 rumors abounded about the possible resumption of airline hiring. An old friend who had been furloughed from Eastern in 1973 suddenly found himself recalled to duty in early 1976, and it was he who gave me perhaps the best single bit of advice I have ever received. "Tony", he told me, "don't wait for the hiring to actually begin before leaving active duty. Put in your papers now". This was something of a daunting prospect for me, because I had been continuously employed since the day I graduated from college some 5 years earlier. The thought of jumping into the void without a job offer in hand was not a comfortable one, but the logic of his advice was undeniable. Fortunately for yours truly, the Air Force had not been keeping track of the airline recalls and was still offering early release from active duty for those pilots who would commit to the AF Reserve for a time period equal to twice their remaining active duty service commitment. So I held my breath and immediately applied for a transfer to the Air Force Reserves. My application was accepted (this was hardly news to my squadron superiors, since I had, perhaps foolishly, never made a secret of my airline ambitions). And so it was that I crossed the line from active duty to reserve duty; which in practice meant crossing the street to the 707th Military Airlift Squadron, USAF Reserve, Charleston AFB, South Carolina. Since both my old and new squadrons flew the C-141, it was largely a paperwork exercise, and I was off flying my first line mission for the reserves within the week. Thus freed from any encumbrance to immediate airline employment, I set about sending applications and/or letters to every airline that I had ever heard of. This included all of the major and local service airlines, and as many non-skeds as I could find (picture below). I had to organize a file system to keep all of the applications straight - there were over 20 of them! Every airline wanted a resume of qualifications, of course, and this brought the Flight Engineer Certificate issue to the fore. This is what started it all - my original application as a pilot for American Airlines. Note that they put the biggest and best on the cover! I had already completed the FE written exam earlier in the year, so the remaining decision was whether or not to go the whole nine yards and train for the actual certificate. And if I decided to get the ticket, where should I train? At that time Braniff Airlines, while not the only entity offering training for the Flight Engineer certificate, was certainly the most desirable place to get it, if for no other reason than that they showed a strong inclination to hire the graduates of their own school. None of the other schools were affiliated with airlines in 1976 - it was another year or two before American and one or two others got into the game. Then again, Braniff was a highly desirable potential employer in its own right, what with their enticing collection of domestic and international routes, to say nothing of their rainbow colored "jellybean" fleet of jets (pictures below)! So it was to Braniff that I applied to take the Boeing 727 Flight Engineer course. Shortly after I was accepted , I also signed up for their 727 type rating course, figuring that if an FE ticket looked good on the resume, a Captain rating would look even better! Braniff operated the most colorful fleet of airplanes in its day, such as this 727-227 approaching ORD. Perhaps the same 727 at DFW. Braniff's extensive route network made it an appealing employment choice in 1976, before the evil gleam of deregulation entered the dark and tortured mind of Alfred Kahn! The total cost of this educational experience was around 10 large, as Tony Soprano would say several decades later! That would be $10,000 for those of you who are not "made men"! (Closer to 100K in today's dollars) Although I had managed to save a few bucks over the course of my 4 year active duty career, I had nothing like 10K hanging around. In fact, 10K was very close to my annual salary in the early part of my Air Force career. Fortunately for me and my airline ambitions, my then-rich Uncle Sam had long ago provided for my education after military service through a piece of post WWII legislation known as the GI Bill. My parents had, around the time I was born, used their GI bill benefits to go to college - the first in their families to do so. I had already been to college, of course, and so instead of using my benefits for grad school or law school or something along those lines, I used them to pay for the Braniff school. The GI bill covered 90% of the cost, leaving only a manageable 1K or so to emerge from my savings account. Braniff's headquarters and training center was located at Love Field in Dallas Texas. So it was that I found myself headed west in my Fiat convertible in early June, bound for what I hoped would be the promised land. After two days of driving I arrived at what would be my digs for the next two and a half months. This was an establishment known as the Marquis North, a small apartment complex across Lemmon Avenue from Love field. It had been recommended highly by several previous BESI grads of my acquaintance (BESI was the name of the training subsidiary of Braniff - Braniff Education Systems Incorporated) as being the best place to stay; in part because BESI also featured a school for reservationists and these students, mostly young women, were known to favor the Marquis. In the event, the scouting reports turned out to be accurate, and the swimming pool at the Marquis proved to be a Garden of Earthly Delights for the entire duration of both courses, a situation which had the potential of considerable interference with the constant study that the school demanded. Fortunately I was young then (!) and my memory still sharp; indeed, sharp enough to absorb the airplane knowledge quickly and still leave at least some time for flirtation! At the appointed time we gathered in a classroom in Braniff's training center, which was on the east side of Love Field. Braniff no longer flew into Love Field in 1976, except for airplanes that were bound for their maintenance complex adjacent to the school, but they had not yet undertaken to relocate the school over to the larger DFW airport. Braniff's training center was carved out of a portion of one of the hangars, and was nowhere near as attractive or as large as the American Airlines Flight Academy, which was 15 or so miles farther west. Nonetheless, its classrooms and two simulators were adequate for both Braniff's and our own purposes. After introductions and an overview of the next few weeks' activities, we jumped without further ado into a series of lessons on the systems of the 727, starting with the APU, or auxiliary power unit. Airline and military training in those days was oriented around classroom instruction on airplane systems, followed by simulator training on procedures and often topped off by flight training in the airplane itself. Such was the case at BESI, since the Braniff 727 simulators were not approved by the FAA for rating rides for pilots or flight engineers. We would spend the first 2 weeks in the classroom, then progress to the simulator for a week or so, followed by a flight in a real 727 for the check ride. That was for the FE program. The type rating program that followed was more simulator intensive, since a great deal of time would need to be spent on such things as flying approaches and engine out takeoffs and landings. Again, as in the FE program, the cherry on the sundae was a pair of flights in the airplane - left seat, of course! In that era, the classroom training was accomplished through the use of large and often complex systems trainer units. These were about the size of a big billiard table turned on its side; and, judging from the industrial strength wheelsets they rode around on, just as heavy (picture below)! They typically featured a complete flow-chart type diagram of the applicable system which would be festooned with animated widgets representing pumps, relays and so on. As often as not, the applicable portion of the FE panel was also depicted, at several times life size to ensure good visibility from the back of the room. Portions of the diagram would light up according to the configuration of the controls on the FE panel: pump widgets would spin, and relay widgets would open and close. All of this animation served not only to educate us but also to keep us awake, since operation of the thing entailed a noisy collection of real relays and switches within the bowels of the machine! But noisy or not, they served their purpose well. Today's computer based programs, replete with similar animations, grew out of this tradition. In the days before computer based instruction burst upon the aeronautical scene, big airplane systems were taught using large mechanically animated units such as these. This batch, which were located at the FAA Academy circa 1984, are systems trainer boards for the 727, and were similar to units in use in the 1970's at Braniff and American, among other airlines. We were each issued a Braniff Boeing 727 Operating Manual, the same tome that the line pilots used in daily operations. This was my first exposure to airline operating manuals, and I was underwhelmed. These books, while certainly hefty enough, were only around half as thick as our C-141 operating manuals. Furthermore, while a reasonably adept mechanic had a decent shot at actually building a C-141 using only the operating manual (well, not really, but they were very comprehensive!), the airline books were merely descriptive, not unlike a Readers Digest condensed version of a novel. This, we were to learn, grew from the airline philosophy of training; namely, that a pilot (or FE) did not need to be able to build or even repair an airplane. He or she only had to fly it, and systems knowledge beyond that needed for actual operation was unnecessary, to say nothing of unnecessarily expensive. Our instructors were men of long tenure at Braniff, specialists in ground instruction who taught both pilots and mechanics and were thus in a position to impart far more information than was to be found in the manuals. And so they did, offering lucid explanations for the whys and wherefores of the 727. These pearls of wisdom we copied down in notebooks that we quickly procured for this purpose. Mine was particularly festooned with illustrations of my own making, for I was, even then, a visual learner! And since I had managed to lay hands on a pack of colored markers, I embellished these illustrations with color codings similar to those on the systems trainer diagrams. By the end of the course, my notebooks were in some demand as loaner items to the other students, and afterward I bequeathed them to another C-141 pilot who took the course later in the year. I would come to regret that magnanimous gesture later, when those gems of system knowledge might have come in handy, but c'est la vie! Each day we tackled another system, and as the fuel system, electrical system and hydraulic systems passed in review before us the notebooks filled up with the trivia of the 727. Even things that the instructors told us we did not need to retain were scarfed up greedily and consigned to our notes. There was a reason, of course, for all of this fact hoarding - we all knew that Braniff hired many of the graduates of this very school. We came to assume that our every move was being watched and evaluated, and so we sought to impress our invisible evaluators by trying to memorize one more factoid than the next guy. Even the smallest bit of information was pounced upon. I'm not sure if Braniff was really watching us closely, but I have never in my life seen another group so intent upon mastering a subject. A few months later, when I was actually teaching 727 ground school at American to real new-hires, I was taken aback by the relative lack of intensity of those students compared to our class (and I assume all classes) at BESI. Perhaps the difference can be attributed to the fact that the American students were already hired, and not in some real or imaginary competition to be hired. Compared to the sophisticated systems of the Lockheed I had been flying, the 727 was actually a fairly simple airplane, and thus I had little difficulty mastering it. The electrical system was an entire order of magnitude less complex than the C-141, and instead of three hydraulic systems the Boeing had only two. The fuel system and pneumatic system were essentially similar to those on the 141, or any large jet for that matter. The anti-ice system was considerably simpler - the C-141 had some kind of de-ice or anti-ice on just about every surface save for the fuselage itself, whereas the 727 had only engine and wing anti-ice. We learned a great many mnemonic devices to cement the trivia of various systems firmly in place - ditties like "break in up stairs" for the B hydraulic system (main wheel brakes, inboard spoilers, upper rudder and airstairs), a few of which, like this one, remain lodged in my memory to this very day! A page from the American Airlines Boeing 727 Operating Manual, showing the -100 series air conditioning sytem schematic. These diagrams were extensively watered down for pilot consumption. The actual maintenance manuals had the drawings showing what the real piping and gadgetry looked like; these were, for the most part, incomprehensible to pilots! Although it looks like a simulator, and I'm sure most of us flight sim hobbyists would kill for one, this is actually a fixed base procedures trainer, known in the trade as a CPT. Again, this is an FAA unit at Oke City. Braniff did not have anything like this, but American had two of them, both essentially identical to this one. They were used for cockpit familiarization and procedures drill for both pilots and engineers. I would end up spending considerable time teaching American new hires in just such trainers a few months later! There were two flavors of 727 - the series 100, or shortie version which was the first to emerge from Boeing, and the series 200 or stretch version, which came along a few years later. Aside from a different version of the JT-8D engine, and an electronic pressurization system that was one of the first set-and-forget devices I had seen on an airplane, the -200 was essentially the same save for the length of the fuselage. Since Braniff flew both varieties, and our rating rides might be on either one, we had to master both, and this provided yet another opportunity to memorize stuff! In addition to the airplane's systems, we had to master the performance charts. The FE was the keeper of the performance keys at Braniff, as at all airlines, and any questions about field length or weight limits were addressed to him (picture below). This meant that we had to become familiar with dozens of charts and tables. I immediately noticed a significant difference between airline performance charts and the ones that I, as a C-141 pilot, had been exposed to. The Air Force charts were all what we today would call "raw data" charts - graphs covered with curved lines, or sometimes multiple iterations of curved lines. They were entered at the side or bottom with a particular value and the intersections of lines and curves led to the desired result. It was complex, and fraught with the potential for misinterpretation, which was why on the C-141 both flight engineers (a 141 crew consisted of two FE's, who were charged with these calculations) often did a particularly critical calculation independently to ensure that their answers were in close agreement. Performance charts resided not only in the manuals, but also at the engineer's fingertips. The most commonly used charts were laminated to the FE table under an acryllic sheet, and could be easily consulted on the fly! By this time in history the commercial airlines had changed over to the relatively simpler paradigm of tabulated data. Instead of each FE making a single calculation of, say, required runway length based upon the conditions of a particular flight, the airline had loosed their computers on the problem of calculating runway lengths and weight limits for every single combination of conditions (runway lengths, winds, temperatures, surface condition, etc.) that might reasonably exist. These numbers were then arranged not as graphs but as tables of data, not unlike a fully loaded spreadsheet. If you wanted to know your max takeoff weight, you could first dig out the tables for the airport you were departing, and then find the combination of runway, flap setting and temperature that matched the current conditions. At the intersection of those particulars, you would find a number which would be the maximum takeoff weight. This tabulated data added up to considerably more pages than the graphical charts we had in the Air Force, since a separate set of tables was required for every airport the airline flew from. The book that contained all of these tables was called the Airport Analysis, and it was the lot of the flight engineer to carry this, as well as the entire operating manual and yet another book called the Minimum Equipment List, or MEL. This was the document that laid out, in painstaking detail, just which of the myriad of bells, whistles and geegaws installed on the airplane could be inoperative for flight. Since there were at least two of just about anything on a 727, this book was not a small one. Indeed, in those halcyon days of 3 person crews the pilot and copilot often carried their small allotment of manuals (essentially just enroute charts and approach plates) in normal sized brief cases - Halliburton's were in vogue among the Captains when I was hired! The engineer, on the other hand, toted his load in a large catalog case known in the trade as a "kit bag" or, sometimes, "brain bag". These often weighed in excess of 20 pounds, especially when the required toolkit was thrown in. The study of performance and tab data took up several days of the ground school class, and was the finale of that part of the program. Once we had passed the required written examinations on systems and performance, we were scheduled into the simulator for the second phase of training. For this and the final airplane phase we were paired up in twos. I drew another C-141 pilot from Charleston, whom I had known casually back at the squadron. Joe and I became joined at the hip, and spent a great deal of time together studying the normal procedures, checklist responses and emergency and abnormal procedures. For this we utilized a crude but effective "simulator" of our own making. Braniff had, at the beginning of the course, issued each of us with a set of color drawings of each instrument panel in the cockpit. At my suggestion, we arranged these on the wall in a corner of my living room, in an approximation of the layout on the real airplane. Although these were only about quarter scale, they were quite effective as a practice aid, and we spent many hours running checklists, starting imaginary engines, and eventually making complete imaginary flights in our "simulator". Other students emulated the concept, and soon the corridors of the Marquis North echoed with the arcane incantations of the 727 litanies. (I occasionally wonder how the course would have gone had we had MSFS and one of the good 727 add-ons available to us back then! Much better, I certainly imagine!) The 727 simulator at Braniff in those days was similar in realism to the C-141 sims with which I was familiar in the Air Force (picture below). The cab was a completely realistic facsimile of a 727 cockpit, with the addition of a station for the instructor that occupied a position behind the Captain seat. There was a motion system with 3 degrees of freedom, consisting of hydraulic legs attached to the bottom of the cab on the one end, and to pediments in the concrete floor on the other. These would stretch and contract, in unison or one at a time, to the beat of instructions from the motion computer which was one of the several mainframes that made the magic. The motion was occasionally sufficient to induce the queasiness of pre-nausea, a condition that might rear its head in the stressful circumstances of a difficult procedure. This is what a 727 simulator looked like in 1976. This unit, one of the original 727 sims at American Airlines, is now in the Wings of Eagles Museum in Elmira New York. Eat your hearts out, fellow simmers, because AA essentially gave this and 5 or 6 other first generation simulators away around 10 years ago - they could not find buyers for them! I spent a good deal of time in this very simulator over the years of my 727 career at AA. It is shown here configured with a newer computer generated visual system, with a screen for each front window. Photo courtesy of Bill Maloney. Interestingly enough, from outside of the sim the motion often correlated not at all with what the simulated airplane was doing at the moment! For example, you might be standing outside a simulator and hear the sound of engines being revved up for takeoff (picture below). This would be followed quickly by a pronounced pitch-up of the simulator cab, as from an over rotation. But the pitch-up actually created the sensation of gathering speed on the takeoff roll, by creating a situation where you were pressed into the seatback, just like acceleration. The actual rotation, when it came, was accompanied by an additional pitch up movement of the motion system, although not so pronounced as the initial movement. This is what a modern FAA Level - D simulator looks like in "flight". The motion system occasionally puts the cockpit in some interesting pitch positions to create a sensation of motion. This unit is equipped with a modern, fully enclosed wrap-around visual system, and as you see can be utilized in a normally lit environment. Ironically, a large piece of one of the old model boards for the original visual systems in use decades before lies along the wall in front of the sim! This piece was probably on its way to the CR Smith Museum. Likewise, to create the sensation of a turn, the motion would first tip the cab a bit in the direction of the turn, and then almost immediately roll it back level very slowly. Inside, the "airplane" was still in a steady bank, but of course in such a coordinated turn the sensation of bank soon disappears, thus the movement of the motion system back to level. When the pilots on the inside began to roll out of the turn back to simulated level flight, the motion would tip the cab over in the other direction briefly, and again level it out slowly. There was a lot more to it than to simply have the sim duplicate the attitude of the airplane! This picture, which shows the oirignal Boeing 747 simulator at the American Airlines Flight Academy in the late 1970's, depicts the original setup of the visual system for all of the sims. One large screen was located in front of both pilot windows, with a video projector on top of the cab aimed forward and down. Since the system was not enclosed, the entire simulator bay had to be kept in near total darkness during the time the sim was in use. The simulator also had a visual system, although this would not really be a factor in our training until the type rating program later on (picture above). Visual systems were only about a decade or so old at that time, and the Air Force simulators I had worked in lacked them altogether. Braniff's system was a second generation model board system, in which a tiny television camera with an even smaller optical probe "flew" over a large board that was decorated to look like an airport and the surrounding terrain. Similar to a model railroad layout, but to a much smaller scale, this model board was complete with roads, towns, buildings, trees and bushes, and all manner of lights including all of the lighting associated with a large commercial airport (pictures below). The camera picked up the scene it was maneuvered around, guided by a complex mechanical tracking system driven by another one of the mainframe computers. The "view from the front office" was projected onto a screen that sat about 10 feet in front of the pilot. It was in full color and was surprisingly realistic. The instructor could set things up for "day" or "night" conditions, as well as low visibility and ceilings. We typically used it for the portions of a flight below 1000 feet or so "agl". At other times, the screen showed a featureless grey that was typical of the view from inside a cloud. A close up view of the camera probe being "flown" over one of the large model boards that formed the basis of the first generation visual systems at most airlines. Tiny fiber optic lights comprise the runway and approach lights. In reality, these boards were mounted vertically, and lit from a large bank of lights at the side. Each board and its system were shared by two simulators, but both sims could not use the visual at the same time. This necessitated careful coordination between the instructors in the two sims, by phone from cab to cab. And this is what it looked like from within. This is a Citation simulator at the American Flight Academy using one of the model board visuals. American had replaced the cockpit of one of their four 707 simulators with a Citation, and had the exclusive contract with Cessna for many years for Citation training. American Airlines Photos Late one summer night Joe and I trooped across Lemmon Avenue to the big Braniff hangar on the east side of Love Field to begin the simulator portion of our training. All of the BESI schedules were in the wee hours, since this same school served the entire Braniff 727 pilot population, which at that time probably numbered upwards of 500. Naturally, the line pilots got the daytime schedules! This was less of a problem than it might seem, since even in those early days I had become a confirmed night owl, partly the result of years of all night flying over one pond or another! After stumbling around a bit in the unfamiliar surroundings, we came upon the correct briefing room, where sat a young man not terribly much older than our late-twenties selves. This would be another Joe, Joe F, who was a Braniff line FE who alternated flights in the airplane in the real world with stints teaching FE students in the simulator. We would be under his tutelage for the remainder of the program, and we were fortunate that this was so, for he was an excellent teacher! (I would also like to think that he had some good material to work with in our case, but that is an assessment which must be made by others!) Joe quickly introduced himself and ran us through the schedule of our training, which had come down from on high in the Braniff training department earlier that day. We would spend each of the next six nights with Joe in the 727 simulator, followed by a day off and then the airplane check ride. With the administrative matters dealt with, Joe F led us into the arcane rituals of preflight and inflight systems operation through which we would translate our ground school knowledge into operation of the airplane itself. We, of course, had spent the last several days since the completion of the ground school in intensive self instruction and drill on these very procedures, and we intended to put on for Joe a show that would rival the best that John Ringling North (The Greatest Show on Earth) had ever offered! So after the two hour briefing we mounted the metal steps to the simulator cab and entered what, for us, was a world of airline pilot fantasy. We were also dimly aware that, with a bit of luck, it might one day become a torture chamber to be experienced again and again! Inside the last remaining 727 sim at American. On the inside, all of the 727 sims, regardless of generation, were essentially identical save for the instructor's console, just to the left of the black IP seat at lower left. The last and most sophisticated 727 sim at American, which is still in use today for contract operations. The lighted office on the ground level is the lair of the simulator technicians, and of the several mainframe computers which animate the beast. The seats were still warm from the last occupants, a Braniff crew engaged in their annual recurrent training, known around the trade as the "sheep dip" (pictures above). Joe F wasted no time in setting up the instructor's station, and we immediately began to display our newfound procedural knowledge. First on the agenda - the preflight inspection (picture below, left). Scores of items - switch positions, fluid quantities, electrical voltages and the like were examined according to flow patterns that had been carefully worked out at Boeing during the flight test phase and perpetuated ever since at the airline training schools. Satisfied at last that all was in order, I began the litany for the start of the APU, the auxiliary power unit, a fourth jet engine on the 727 that played no part in propulsion, but rather sat between the wheel wells below the main deck and occupied itself with the generation of electrical and pneumatic power for the airplane on the ground (picture below, right) The APU start sequence took nearly a minute and had to be carefully monitored on a small panel located on the rear wall of the cockpit immediately adjacent to the cockpit door. This first start was without abnormality, thanks to Joe's sense of fair play, but it would be the last freebie! All remaining APU starts featured some kind of abnormality - either a fire or overtemp, or perhaps a failure of the APU generator or pneumatics. These situations had to be dealt with according to the procedures in the operating manual, and we kept the unwieldy thing handy on the small table that was provided for the FE immediately below his panel. This is what we were here to learn to master - the FE panel of the Boeing 727, the last such on a narrow body aircraft. It was actually fairly simple compared to any of the big recips or the widebodies. And it was child's play compared to the FE panel on the Concorde! The controls for the APU, as well as a few other ancillary functions, were located on the rear wall of the cockpit adjacent to the cockpit door. What look like myriad buttons are actually circuit breakers for the many and sundry electrical components of the airplane. APU starts and operation are monitored on this panel. Joe F then hopped into the left seat, where he could play the part of Captain and also, by looking over his shoulder, keep an eye on what I was doing on the panel. In this manner we worked our way through engine start, as I brought each engine driven generator on line in sequence and synchronized them to each other so that they could operate in "parallel" (Later jets, like the 767, dispensed with the synchronization process: each generator works on its own to power its part of the system in perfect isolation. When one fails, the other takes over the entire system after a brief nanosecond of interruption). When all three engines were started and all systems brought online, I checked everything on the panel using a scan pattern that we referred to as the "little u Big U" scan (picture below). This started in the middle of the upper panel, went down then left and up to the top of the electrical panel, then down the left side of both upper and lower panels and finally up the right side of both to end with the pneumatic system. It was there that the air conditioning "packs" had to be brought back online after they were shut off to allow all of the high pressure air to be directed to the engine starter motors. In the torrid temperatures of a Dallas summer, the FE must not delay reinstating the air conditioning in the real airplane, lest the wrath of both flight attendant and Captain fall upon his head! The famous "little u BIG U" scan! Mention that phrase to any pilot who flew as an FE on the 727 and you will get a reaction! This first session in the sim was limited to ground operations, so after we had everything running and ready for takeoff, we jumped ahead to the checklists and operations that would follow a landing and lead to the final shutdown at the gate. When this was completed, half of the four hour sim period had passed and, after a short break for coffee and a snack, it was student Joe's turn to shine! And shine he did, just as I had. In truth, both of us were "loaded for bear" for these simulator sessions. As I said, they were keeping score, or so we thought. We worked hard to put on a perfect performance, night after night. And since we each had over 4 years of large transport jet experience under our belts (and little else, unlike later years when I would have not only flying experience but a great many over-large layover dinners under my belt!) we were already quite well prepared. The next night's entertainment involved an actual "flight" in the sim, piloted by Joe F in his leading-man role as the Captain! This was even more fun than the ground operations, since Joe knew the line well, and was able to spice up our training with simulated calls from the flight attendants for more or less heat or cold in the cabin; a situation with which we would both become well acquainted when we started our line careers a few months down the road. Of course, all of that was in the mists of the future at this point, but the interaction with "the girls" was great fun and served to refine our knowledge of the minutiae of the 727 systems. Student Joe and I were doing so well after the second session that I was able to talk Joe F into letting me "fly" the sim when I was not actually working the panel (picture below). He knew that I had enrolled in the Type Rating program later in the summer, and he agreed with me that I might profit from a little extra stick time at this point. So for the next several sessions, I was able to play "Captain" when Student Joe was doing his thing in the back. This experience turned out to be useful, if for no other reason than I was able to get a feel for the simulator itself. No simulator, of course, flies exactly like the airplane, and often no two of them fly exactly like each other. This was not a real problem here since Braniff had only a single 727 sim at that point, but it was useful to have a good idea of how the sim "flew" when I matriculated into the rating program. The seats I really hoped to occupy! Flying the sim when I was not on the panel during the FE program was to be a big help later in the Rating program. The week went by all too quickly, what with studying at the pool during the day (about half the time studying the airplane and the other half studying the often gorgeous bikini clad reservation students!) and flying the sim at night. In the fullness of time the night arrived when we would demonstrate these skills not in the artificial environment of the simulator, but in a real Braniff 727 over at DFW airport. Joe and I and the other students in our class drove over to the big airport and found our way to Braniff operations, where we stood out like a gaggle of sore thumbs in our civvies! The only other similarly dressed folks turned out to be our crew for the evening. The Captain and the FO were just there to be our chauffeurs, but Mike, the chief check engineer for the 727 at Braniff, was to be our Chief Inquisitor. As an FAA designee for the FE rating, Mike would be signing the temporary certificates that we all hoped to have in hand by night's end. The Captain and Mike held a short briefing, which covered the ground rules for the flight and also the batting order. Since the airplane would not actually land for seat swaps, the first and last slots would be more interesting since they involved the engine start and shutdown procedures. The guys in the middle slots merely had to watch the panel for 40 minutes or so and answer a few questions! I was confident in my abilities, so I decided to go for one of the more interesting slots and wound up with the last one that covered the landing and shutdown. While the rest of the examinees were doing their turn in the barrel, I would be in the back in first class, enjoying a soda and some nuts courtesy of Braniff. Sadly, there were to be no flight attendants aboard, since we were all crewmembers, or at least hopefully soon to be! But before we actually boarded the airplane, we each had to demonstrate that we could perform the exterior visual inspection, known as the walk-around. This is a ritual that every conscientious pilot performs before any flight, be it in a Cessna or a 747, and it was the one part of the program for which there was no real simulation. We had learned the walk-around by watching slides showing all of the steps of the procedure and the details that we should look for. Now we had to do it on the airplane itself, and at night to boot (the slides had all been shot during the day). Out came our flashlights and each of us had a go at it, starting at the nosewheel and proceeding clockwise around the airplane. Mike peppered us with questions and required us to explain what we were looking for at each step of the inspection. It took around 10 minutes for each of us to go through this drill, and the better part of an hour passed before we at last mounted the jetway stairs and entered what we hoped would someday be the promised land! Our steed for the rite of passage was N7278, which at that time was adorned with the two-tone green version of the color scheme of that era. I suppose one of the more interesting facets of flying for Braniff was the issue of which color airplane you would get on any given trip. (Only one group of pilots at Braniff could always know for sure, and that was the 747 group. This was no doubt a very small and very high seniority fraternity, for Braniff in those days had but a single example of Boeing's biggest. It was the only orange airplane in the fleet, and it flew but one route - that between DFW and HNL. Six days shalt it labor, and do all it is able, and the seventh a DC-8 takes over while the Great Pumpkin, as it was often called, is undergoing its weekly inspection!) The first initiate turned left at the main door, along with the flight crew, while the rest of us turned right, to disport ourselves in the unaccustomed comforts of first class; which, on Braniff, featured leather covered seats, the first such on any domestic airline! We had already heard the anecdotal tales of how this came about - supposedly Braniff had made a great deal of money in South America on those routes it had acquired when it merged with Panagra. So much money, in fact, that one or more of the governments down there had balked at the notion of the northward flow of all that cash, and had demanded that Braniff spend the money locally. This, legend had it, they accomplished by buying up several herds worth of local leather, and it was with this that they festooned the first class cabins of their fleet. We had already been shown, earlier in our training, how to operate the cabin doors, and so one of our number closed and armed the L1 door. Within minutes, our classmate up front had successfully assisted the pilots in starting the engines, and before we knew it we were on our way to what at that time was called runway 17R, the only 17 on the west side of the airport back then. Clearance received, we started our roll, and very shortly thereafter (we were empty, after all!) we felt the Captain rotate and lift the bird off the runway. For the next few hours one after another of the brethren was summoned to the bridge to demonstrate his ability to keep things under control. As though to enter into the spirit of the event, we started sending requests for heat or cooling up front via the intercom, but desisted when one of our number, spurred on by the check engineer, retaliated by sending a sirocco our way, leaving us begging for some cool air, and amusing the check engineer no end! That put paid to any more torments from the rear! Finally it was my turn in the barrel (picture below). I entered the cockpit and took my place at the panel. The first thing I noticed was that the visual system on this thing was worlds better than the one in the sim! We were heading from Waco, where the pilots had been dallying about and doing a few touch and go landings, back to DFW, and the myriad lights of the metroplex glowed ahead. I checked the panel, made sure that the pressurization system was set for landing, calculated the landing speeds, and with a bit of assistance from the check FE called Braniff operations and reported inbound. They came back with a gate assignment which I shared with the Captain. These tasks completed, I busied myself with the little u Big U scan. A moment of whimsy from later in my career! In truth, there were "dog days" for engineers, especially in the dead of winter or the heat of summer. As we neared the airport, I swung my seat to face nearly forward. The FE seat on the 727 has several degrees of freedom, as it were. It can move toward and away from the FE panel, and it can move diagonally toward the throttle console (picture below). In addition, in any position the seat can be rotated to face the front of the cockpit, which is the position most FE's tend to use for takeoff and landing. Facing forward, the FE seat was positioned similar to the jump seat in the C-141, a seat in which I had spent considerable time over the years. So I felt right at home in the three-holer. When the FE seat was rotated forward and moved to the front end of its diagonal track, this is where he ended up - right between the pilots just aft of the console. He could reach the throttles from here, and indeed in cruise served as a human autothrottle! I was, of course, merely a spectator for the approach and landing, albeit an interested one. After the before landing checklist was completed, I had nothing to do but monitor the approach and cast an occasional backward glance at "my" panel. The Captain greased it on, which I would eventually learn is by no means easy in the 727, and then I was back on stage again as I ran the after landing checklist and, for the first time for real, started the APU. The taxi-in was short, but I had everything set up for arrival, so that when we came to a stop at the gate the Captain was able to shut down the engines immediately. Since we had in fact returned the airplane in the same condition we got it, I was hopeful that my performance would yield that precious white slip of paper that represented 5 large of Uncle Sam's money. I was not disappointed, as Mike congratulated me for passing my checkride (picture below). The other candidates, as it turned out, had all passed as well, and it was a happy group that drove back to the Marquis at O-Dark Thirty to celebrate. This is what 5 grand bought back in 1976. My original temporary FE certificate, issued the night I passed my airplane check ride. I haven't weighed that little since those days! Thus began my career as a flight engineer, a career that would not really end until I upgraded to Captain at American a decade later (picture below, left). In addition to the 727, I would turn the wrench on the 707 as well. Indeed, I would find the bigger airplane to be more interesting over the years that I flew it, both for the longer flights to more interesting destinations that were a feature of the 707 selections at the NY crew base, and because there was a bit more for a 707 engineer to do (picture below, right). I have piloted all three of these particular airplanes! The Ford, N414H which is shown here dolled up in American Airways markings for a publicity tour around the time of the introduction of the -200 series, later served as a sightseeing plane at Las Vegas, where I logged 0.5 hours at the controls in the right seat during a flight over Hoover Dam courtesy of the pilot. The two American three holers, of course, figured in my airline career. The legendary Boeing 707. I have always been grateful to have had the opportunity to fly this magnificent airplane, which is still one of my favorites. The FE job proved, over the course of my career, to be one of the best ones I had. Although I did not actually handle the flight controls, I had plenty to occupy my attention at the panel (picture below, left). Especially on the 707, the air conditioning system required near-constant attention to strike a balance between the comfort of the passengers and the desires of the flight attendants, many of whom were literally slaving over a hot stove in the galley! It took a while for a new FE to become attuned to the difference between what the stews perceived as comfortable and what was, in fact, comfortable for the passengers. Then again, each type of airplane had system quirks that either worked for you or against you, especially when trying to cool the cabin on a hot day (picture below, right). The 707 had an air conditioning system that used Freon heat exchangers to cool the air, not unlike your average window air conditioner. These worked reasonably well in all weather, but needed ground high pressure air to operate on the ramp - the 707's did not have APU's and always needed ground air for conditioning and engine start. The 727, on the other hand, had been designed to be more or less self sufficient at the smaller airports it was intended to serve, and was equipped with the APU and also the rear stair for boarding when no jetbridge or ground stairs was available (I had never seen that happen with passengers at AA - in fact, our airplanes had the sidewall panels of the aft stairs removed). The APU, if it was working well (and occasionally one wasn't!), could provide enough air to keep the cabin cool on all but the hottest days of summer. Unfortunately, quite a bit of our flying was done in climates like the DFW area, which in summer would give Dante's Inferno a run for its money! The flight deck of the 707 was dimensionally identical to the 727, and differed mainly in the extra throttle and set of engine instruments. The 707 FE panel was also quite similar to the 727, although the fuel and pneumatic systems were a bit more complex, as you can see. But both airplanes had the FE panel laid out in essentially the same way, which was a big help since I spent 5 years qualified on both at the same time! The 727 manufactured cold air not with Freon or some other exotic gas, but rather with what was called an "air cycle machine". This lash-up of a compressor and a turbine cooled the air by expansion, while at the same time stealing most of the moisture out of it, which resulted in the typical bone-dry environment that has been the hallmark of the jetliner cabin. Unfortunately, part of the cooling process involved passing the air-in-treatment across a pair of heat exchangers, like a car's radiator. These, located on the underside of the airplane just at the juncture of the wing leading edge, were less than effective in the dog days of a Texas summer, so the air cycle machines were often unable to produce air much cooler than 40 degrees or so. To cool the cabin of an airplane not painted white in those conditions would have required, at least initially, air of a temperature well below freezing! So the drill was to have the passengers or FA's close at least the window shades on the sunny side prior to arrival at the gate. Thus and only thus would the outbound FE have a prayer in hell of providing a cool cabin for the outbound passengers. These travails, and others as well, provided ample opportunity for the dedicated FE to hone his professional skills and come up with clever and inventive techniques to overcome the challenges of both summer and winter. A good FE, as I would rediscover later when I became a Captain, was a keeper! In periods of seniority stagnation, of which there were a few during my career, guys and gals would end up staying longer on the panel, and acquiring more experience. Of course the best of the best were the professional, or two-stripe, flight engineers. When I arrived at American we had over 500 of these fine gents (they were, of course, all men; for they had originally been mechanics in the 1940's and '50's) and they held down the bids on the FE panel on all of the widebody airplanes. We pilot type FE's, an animal that made its original appearance in the early 1960's around the time that the American pilots left ALPA and struck out on their own, had to content ourselves with the narrow bodies like the 727 and the less senior bids on the 707. The two-stripers had been offered the opportunity to take pilot training and move up to the front seats back in the early '60's, and a few of them did indeed make the jump, but most of them remained at the panel and there were a handful still flying right up until the retirement of the last airplane that had an FE panel, the 727 in the early 2000's. Some pilots chafed at the panel, unsatisfied since they were not doing the flying. But most of us rose to the occasion and tried hard to do the job as well as the older two stripe guys. One aspect of the job was quite appealing to me. With my seat rotated forward between the pilots, I could and did take in just about everything that went on up front (picture below). In addition to being a terrific way to learn the airline flying business once removed, I found that I could provide back-up to the pilots in all phases of flight, the more so since I was a pilot myself, and aware of what was going on. I considered myself as something of an engineering consultant to the Captain, not unlike Scotty on Star Trek! Once I had acquired enough experience for my input to be taken seriously, the Captains often did just that, which was a source of great satisfaction! Looking ahead, the FE had quite the "big picture" view of things, and could be very much in the operational loop, especially on the ground. It is my personal theory that one of the root causes of the proliferation of runway incursion incidents and accidents that has occurred since the 1980's is the lack of the third set of eyes on the flight decks of most airliners these days. Two pilots in a large airliner are extremely busy on the ground much of the time. The FE freed the FO up to concern him or her self entirely with location and navigation. In addition to my line flying duties, I would also become a Flight Engineer Check Airman at American, as well as Chief Flight Engineer at New York for several heady years in the beginning of the Great Expansion early in the Crandall era. All of this, however, was still in the future as I sat by the pool that night at the Marquis, savoring the sweet smell of initial success, along with a cold Lone Star, and eager to begin the next phase of my training - the 727 type rating! Continued in the next installment - Left Seat Anthony Vallillo avallillo767@gmail.com Three Holer Series Three Holer Prelude Three Holer Part 1: Wrench Three Holer Part 2: Type Rating Three Holer Part 3: Hired!
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Blue Water Air Force CAP Puerto Rico Hurricane Maria Recovery Mission By Tony Vallillo CAP was involved early on in the recovery effort after Hurricane Maria blasted the island with 150+ mph winds and torrential rains. Although not a state, Puerto Rico nonetheless has a Civil Air Patrol Wing and the two Cessna aircraft assigned there were apparently kept safe from damage, and were available to fly sorties as soon as the airports got up and running again. There are two airports in the San Juan area - the big international airport over on Isla Verde, TJSJ, or San Juan International as it is otherwise known, and a smaller airport much closer to downtown and Old San Juan, known as Isla Grande airport (TJIG). It must have taken a day or two for these airports to get cleaned up and operating after the storm, but soon after they came on line the local CAP Wing was tasked for mission flying in support of the recovery effort. CAP had already been flying for almost two weeks when we arrived. There was a swarm of helicopters, both military and civilian, scurrying back and forth to the isolated communities in the mountains. CAP does not fly helicopters, of course, so our participation in recovery efforts is more oriented toward airborne damage assessment, both by eyeball and more importantly by aerial photography. As I indicated in the first chapter of this missive, aerial photography (or AP as it is also known) is fast becoming the core mission of the modern Civil Air Patrol. And so it was that some of the local pilots, who could actually get to the airport and the two airplanes, started flying photo missions for FEMA, the agency in overall charge of the efforts. Puerto Rico is a big island - very close to the size of the state of Connecticut - and it soon became apparent that additional resources would be needed - especially more airplanes - if CAP was to do as much imaging as FEMA wanted and do it quickly. Around 10 days after the storm hit, two Cessna 182's were sent down from Florida Wing to augment the efforts. In addition, the call went out for the Jumbo of CAP, the Gippsland GA-8 Airvan, and that is how yours truly became involved. The GA-8 Airvan is an Australian design that bears a remarkable resemblance to the box that a Cessna 182 would have come in. It is a bush airplane - big, slow, easy to handle and with huge windows that are well suited for observation. The airplane was sought not only for photo missions, but also for those sorties when FEMA officials or other people might need to ride along to make a first person assessment. The Cessnas are not really suited for this since an AP crew is composed of three people and the missions require a full load of fuel. The Airvan, on the other hand, can carry up to 7 people in addition to the pilot, even with a full fuel load. The airplane seemed perfect for the job. CAP had originally purchased 18 Airvans and based them around the country in various states. Several are based on the east coast, including one at Maryland Wing and another a bit further south in Virginia Wing. It was to these two Wings that the call went out on the 30th of September to send the airplanes and two crews of pilots and photographers to Florida to prepare for an overwater odyssey. I was actually a bit surprised when I heard that CAP was intending to fly the airplanes down to Puerto Rico, rather than just using the two they already had down there and flying additional crews in and out via commercial or military air. Long overwater flights in single engine airplanes were not something I had heard of CAP doing, at least during my 10 year membership. However, short of loading a few onto an aircraft carrier and taking them down there a la Jimmy Doolittle, there's really no other choice. I very much doubt a GA-8 would fit into a C-5, at least with the wings still attached, and so the only way to get them down there would be to fly them. Our four person life raft, our risk mitigation element to keep the sharks hungry. In the event, we did not need it! I have spent virtually my entire professional life as an aviator flying over one ocean or another; indeed, I have flown hundreds of trips in and out of San Juan and many more to just about every place in the Caribbean and mid Atlantic that a big jet can operate. But I had yet to fly far over water in a single engine airplane. My own SkySkooter would be hard pressed to operate even 10 miles away from land, considering that there is no place aboard it for a life raft, which is a vital piece of equipment for any flight beyond gliding distance of the shore. CAP does have a few missions that go beyond gliding distance, such as the various bay and shore patrols that some Wings have during summer months, but these are hardly blue water operations and land is always in sight and close at hand. The longest overwater mission I had previously flown involved playing target for Air Defense fighters out to around 70nm from Atlantic City a few years ago. We had life jackets, a raft, and we wore exposure suits for those flights, but you could still see the glow of the lights of Atlantic City after dark and there was thus some reassurance. This mission promised to be different. The Airvan looks, on the inside, like a sort of miniature airliner, and the cockpit does bear some resemblance to a "flight deck" - including a big airplane style yoke attached to a control column that stands up out of the floor rather than out of the instrument panel. It even has an overhead panel with switches and circuit breakers, just like a Boeing only smaller! It appeals to the Walter Mitty in many of our general aviation members and many CAP pilots seek the training to fly it. But the appeal slams to a screeching halt the minute someone sits down in it. Unfortunately, it was apparently designed for comfort only for relatively small people. Indeed, the seats in this airplane are so uncomfortable that I have come to refer to it as the waterboard of aviation! None of the seats recline, and even the pilot seats are adjustable only over a very short range fore and aft. Some of us believe that these seats were invented by an impoverished chiropractor in search of a new and steady stream of patients! For anyone taller than around 5'7" or so, flight times longer than an hour are sheer skeletal torture. Sadly, because of its blistering lack of speed and the long stage lengths of any trip between the mainland and Puerto Rico, we would experience many flights longer than an hour. A great many. The Puerto Rico sectional chart with CAP search grids drawn on. Gridded sectionals are a staple of every CAP crewmembers' kit bag, although they have been supplanted recently by the aviation apps, all featuring grids that can be turned on and off on the moving map The plan was for us to depart Martin State Airport, just north of Baltimore, on Sunday afternoon and fly down to the east coast of Florida that evening, whereupon we would strike out southeastward over the Atlantic the next morning bound for the Islands. But before we could leave, there was much to do by way of preparation. An international flight over water requires a great deal of additional equipment, charts and the like compared to a purely domestic operation. From my big airplane experience I knew that we would be dealing with border clearance forms in multiple countries, to say nothing of foreign charts and approach plates. These would somehow have to be acquired, which in itself was new to me since the airline had taken care of all of that for me back in the golden age of my employment. In addition to the paperwork, there was the matter of keeping the sharks hungry. In a single engine airplane over water, the engine turns or the sharks dine! So we had to ensure that, in the event the engine decided not to turn, we crewmembers (especially yours truly who cannot swim a stroke!) would have a vessel of sorts in which to continue our journey. This vessel is the life raft, which is carried on all airplanes flying over water, even 747's. Unlike the Titanic, airplanes have enough raft space for all of the passengers and then some. For us that would mean at least a 4 person raft, since we would be making the trip with a complement of 4 crewmembers. Such a raft is usually about the size of a small suitcase when it is packed, and weighs around 40 pounds or so. In addition to the raft, we would each be wearing an inflatable life jacket on the over water legs; and these, which are somewhat larger and more sophisticated than the ones under your seat on an airliner, weigh around 5 pounds each. Getting the GA-8 ready for its epic odyssey. Weight and balance was indeed our first big challenge for this mission, even in an airplane like the Airvan which has an excellent useful load. We each had to pack for at least one week, and this was in addition to a kit bag that was more than normally stuffed with gear. Then, on top of all of that, we had two large hard shell cases filled with high end camera equipment. Add in some extra oil for the engine, some chocks and tie downs, a small ladder for fueling, a pinch of this, a dab of that and full fuel tanks, and we ended up very close to the max gross weight of 4000 pounds for just about every leg. No space or weight capacity for the two cases of water per person that we were advised to bring down. We figured (correctly as it turned out) that Puerto Rico was probably awash in bottled water by that time, and we were not of a mind to flight test newer and higher weight limits for the airplane. Loading up for the great adventure. The Airvan has outstanding load hauling capability, but our hoard challenged it. Arranging the load was delicate, and we weighed everything that went aboard. Photo by Richard Marko. Our two photographers served as loadmasters for the positioning flights, and they did a superb job of fitting the proverbial 10 pounds of stuff into a 5 pound sack. The cabin was literally packed to the gunwales, and even though 2 of the original 8 seats had been removed there was still very little space remaining in the cabin for the crew to stretch out. Our loadmasters thus had to share the discomfort with those of us in the front seats. And they were limited to only 2 of the remaining seats due to the need to place our cargo carefully to ensure that not only the weight but also the balance was correct. The cabin after loading was complete. There was little room for whoever had to sit back here. Only Pete escaped sitting in the back at least once! By the time all of our gear was stowed and the airplane refueled (it had just returned from a local mission) it was dark. I and my fellow pilot, Pete, had gone up in my Thorp Sky Skooter late the night before to get night current, so we were prepared for a night flight. By now we knew that we were not going to be able to get all the way to Florida, so we planned a flight to Columbia South Carolina (KCAE) where we would RON. This was just as well since we had no time thus far to acquire the international charts that we knew we would need. Probably OK to get them down south, or so we thought. Pete flies down to KCAE. Photo by Richard Marko. The flight down to KCAE was smooth and uneventful. Flying at night in VMC, such as we experienced on that first leg, is often a thing of sublime beauty and subtle enjoyment. This served to mitigate, at least to some degree, the mounting discomfort as the hours ticked by. Four of them. That's a lot in an Airvan and it was a wake-up call to the coming torments of the mission. By the time we unfolded ourselves from the cockpit at CAE we were ready for bed. And a hot tub, which unfortunately was not to be found! Next day came the first of several setbacks in our progress toward the Island. We had been sent south from Baltimore without a life raft, having been assured that one would be rented for us in the Citrus State. But bright and early next morning, just as I was about to start the engine, my phone rang with the news that life rafts were too expensive in Florida, and that we should fly back north to Richmond VA to pick up a raft owned by CAP. Oh well, we thought, the weather was still beautiful; and, whether north or south, flying was flying. So off we went after our raft. Nearly 3 hours later we arrived at KFCI, the headquarters of the Virginia Wing of CAP, and hefted the raft aboard. Now we really were right at 4000 pounds! A quick bite of lunch, some fuel, and we were off once again. We lacked the range to make Florida non-stop, so we decided to drop in on Savannah Georgia, KSAV, for some fuel. Just a quick stop to onload some fuel and offload some other liquids and we were away. We had been advised by our release officer that hotel rooms along the east coast of Florida were few and expensive, and so we decided to head for Kissimmee, near Disney World, since it was farther north and inland. The expense, you see, was due to the fact that Hurricane Irma had just churned up the length of Florida a week or two previously, and although Irma was nothing at all like what hit Puerto Rico, there was still some damage and power outages to contend with. The Magic Kingdom lies below us as we approach Kissimmee. Since I speak of our release officer, I should probably digress for a moment and explain just what that means. In Civil Air Patrol no one just goes out and hops in an airplane and flies. A flight must be released (authorized) by a CAP officer who is designated for that duty. Many of us are so designated. The Release Officer (RO) ensures that the proposed flight is within the scope of what is allowed in CAP (no personal hundred dollar hamburger runs, for example) and that the crew is properly qualified and current to perform the mission. There is a bit more to it than that, and in essence the RO is in some respects like a "dispatcher light", although the RO has none of the joint responsibility for the actual conduct of the flight that an airline dispatcher has. For this mission we were working with an officer whom I knew very well from my years instructing at CAP's yearly mission aircrew school. We conferred with him before every leg and he was able to make some of the arrangements such as procuring the VA Wing raft. But as to the actual conduct of the flight we were on our own, as is the CAP way. The entire crew, disported in the lack of luxury(!), shortly after takeoff. Since Richard is a mission pilot, we gave him a leg in the right seat to get some GA-8 familiarization. Yours truly is enjoying the dubious comforts of first class! Photo by Richard Marko. A word or two may be in order here about our crew complement. Two of the four of us were mission pilots, a qualification over and above basic pilot that indicates that we had been trained and found competent to perform all of the various maneuvers attendant to CAP mission flying. These maneuvers include all of the search patterns, photography patterns, and in some cases mountain flying procedures and techniques. Pete and I were both qualified in all aspects of mission flying. In fact, we are both CFII's and serve as instructor and evaluator pilots in CAP. Notwithstanding the old saw about the most dangerous thing in aviation being more than one check pilot in an airplane, we were both highly experienced. Pete has, perhaps, not so much total flying time as I have, but his single engine time is greater than my own so we were a good match. We had flown together often prior to this mission, and we both knew and practiced the principles of crew resource management. We set out with a clear notion that these principles would be needed throughout the mission, and we were correct. Usually it was Richard (left) and Mike (right) in the back. Here Richard is backing us up on navigation with his iPad, and Mike is taking care of some paperwork. The Paper and Computer work was not inconsiderable, and Mike was a big help with all of it! We had two crewmembers qualified as aerial photographers, which is a relatively recent qualification in CAP. Only in the last decade has that role been quantified and a formal training and qualification program put in place. Although I am a long time serious amateur photographer and a dab hand with a camera, I have yet to actually obtain that rating from CAP. Richard and Mike served many roles beyond photographer, during the long hours we spent droning to and from Puerto Rico, including loadmaster, cabin attendant when it was time to pass forward our comestibles, and even auxiliary trim actuators! You see, the Airvan has a wide CG envelope, but since the weight of an adult is not insignificant there is a marked trim change when anyone moves about in the cabin. Fortunately for we pilots, Mike and Richard had very little room to move around in, and the trim changes were minimal. We actually had a hilarious inflight discussion about how we might control the airplane both laterally and longitudinally by calling commands to the two of them to move fore and aft, or lean right or left! We also had a bonus extra in this crew - Richard is also a mission pilot, and lacked only the GA-8 qualification. All in all, a highly qualified and experienced crew with extra skills to handle the challenges of an unprecedented mission. Bright and early Tuesday morning we awoke to discover that the weather, which had been quite favorable as late as the previous evening, had decided to give us the back of its hand. Low clouds raced overhead, driven by winds that, although more or less down the runway, were flirting with CAP's maximum limit of 30 knots. When we arrived at the airport, the heavily loaded airplane was dancing around merrily in its tie downs, and the prospect of going anywhere seemed a bit remote. Further weather analysis showed marginal VFR conditions at best, with scattered rain storms in all quadrants. When faced with a situation like this procrastination is often the best policy, so we camped out at the FBO for awhile to see if things might change. By mid day things did change a bit, just enough for us to be able to depart within the wind limits, and we took off into a sky filled with bumps and jolts not unlike the mechanical bull at Gilley's. Strangely enough, above 2000 feet things smoothed out, which was just as well since by then we were on instruments. Pete and I had been splitting legs, and my old luck reasserted itself -- starting with this leg he seemed to get all of the good ones! Good ones, to a professional pilot, means the ones that are at least a bit challenging, the ones you can tell war stories about later after you arrive! For the rest of the mission I seemed to get the clear skies and Pete got to add to his actual instrument time. We battled our way against strong headwinds (in an Airvan even a 10 knot wind is a strong headwind!) and with the help of ADSB and ATC radars we managed to dodge the buildups. Our destination was KFXE, Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport, from whence we hoped to launch our assault on the Bahamas the following morning. After landing ground control directed us to Banyan Aviation, one of the large FBO's at the airport. This turned out to be quite fortuitous, since Banyan has had long experience handling outbound international flights (in fairness I must say that every FBO along the Florida coast probably has the same expertise). The pilot shop at Banyan Aviation at KFXE -- the largest pilot store I had ever seen. One of the first things we discovered after we tied down was that Banyan had the most over-the-top pilot shop we had ever seen. This was almost a Wal-Mart of aviation, with goodies to appeal to any pilot. I immediately headed toward their large display of navigation charts and approach plates, feeling certain that a place like this would have everything we needed for a flight to Puerto Rico. But alas, even Banyan did not have approach plates for anyplace east of Florida. Any US military field would have the DOD Flight Information Publications for the Caribbean/South America area, but CAP had apparently not considered that and there was no such field anywhere near Lauderdale where we could have gone to get them. After we got to the hotel a few hours later, I set myself to the task of finding out how I could get tooled up, chart-wise. All of us had iPads, which have become a mainstay of general, and even airline, aviation these days. The three pilots on the crew, Pete, Richard and I, had three different EFB apps -- Garmin Pilot, ForeFlight, and Wing X Pro. Nothing like diversity! I therefore set myself to the task of finding coverage for the area between the mainland and Puerto Rico. I started with Garmin, since I was the one who used Garmin Pilot, an outstanding app that I use in the Skooter because of all of the offerings it is the most like a real GPS navigator. I called Garmin and was told that they do indeed offer a Latin America coverage. I have always found the folks at Garmin to be exceptionally helpful, and when I told them who we were and what we were preparing to do, they authorized a short subscription for me at no cost. This literally made the rest of the mission possible, and I must take this opportunity to thank Garmin for their support. Garmin and Jeppesen both contributed to the success of our mission by assisting with our chart needs. When I downloaded the Latin America data to my iPad, however, I discovered that the data did not include approach plates. As I attempted to summon up the approaches for Nassau I was met with a screen that indicated that MYNN had no instrument approaches. This I knew to be untrue, since Nassau is an international airline destination, so I inquired further -- only to find that since most EFB's use the US government charts, and other countries publish their own, approaches could not be included in a coverage such as Garmin itself provides. However all was not lost, because Garmin and Jeppesen, the company that provides worldwide data to just about everybody, had recently teamed up and Jepps were available for Garmin Pilot. A quick call to Jeppesen confirmed this, and I was able to arrange a shorter-than-usual subscription on a one-shot basis that provided me with all of the approach procedures for the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos. Finally, we were properly tooled up and ready to go. I had used Jepps extensively, during my airline career, but I had not seen one since I retired in 2008. It was like encountering again an old friend! Banyan also provided us with a superb briefing on border clearance procedures, along with a packet that included every form and bit of paperwork we could possibly need. At last all was in readiness. We had the data, we had the forms, and we had the knowledge we would need to avoid creating an international incident. We awaited only the cooperation of wind and weather. Your author (left) and Mike while away the hours in the lobby of the hotel in Fort Lauderdale, waiting for Old Man Weather to change his ways. Alas for us, a disturbance over Cuba had formed over the last few days and was responsible for the strong winds that were beating upon the east coast of Florida, as well as several large areas of rain and embedded thunderstorms all along the Bahamas chain. And to add to our woes another hurricane, Nate as I recall, had formed over the Yucatan and was headed up towards the gulf states. This threatened to have at least some impact on Florida later over the weekend, which would further interfere with our plans. We found ourselves between competing weather disturbances. Most flying organizations, including the military, the airlines, CAP and just about everybody else, use a concept called Operational Risk Management to keep flying as safe as possible. To simplify the concept, we look for risks in an operation and come up with ways and means to mitigate those risks. Normal overland flying entails some risks, such as engine failure. These we compensate for by such means as ensuring that the airplane is in good condition, and by training to handle an engine out landing, as well as by always keeping track of where a good landing site might be. Bad weather is another set of risks, and we compensate by instrument training, equipment and procedures as well as by constant practice of these procedures. But in all things, we must recognize the limitations of man, machine and organization. Single engine operations in IMC and overwater are a particular concern for many reasons, and not just because of the possibility of engine failure. East of Florida there is no weather radar coverage and no ADSB, which means that without airborne weather radar we had no way of avoiding thunderstorm buildups other than visually. Without ADSB we would lose all of our weather information on the iPad, and would have to rely on voice radio to get weather reports; which, although not a huge burden, certainly turns the clock back a decade or so in terms of progress. We were also dealing with an area that had been at least sideswiped by several hurricanes over the last few weeks, and we would need access to good NOTAM information. And then there was that other concern - ditching. If the engine did quit, we knew that it was an even chance that the airplane might end up on its back after splashdown. This is the reason Navy pilots undergo training in the Dilbert Dunker. Getting out of an upside-down airplane that is sinking, perhaps rapidly, is a terrifying prospect, and attempting it in conditions of darkness is tantamount to suicide, at least for a non-swimmer like me. In an attempt to mitigate that particular risk we decided, as a crew, that we would do no overwater flying in conditions of darkness. This limited some of our options but we felt it best in the interest of survival. Another consideration was fuel. This was actually a simple matter - since the airplane could indeed legally fly with our load and full fuel, we simply filled it up at every stop. Unless you are on fire, there is no such thing as too much fuel. But again, overwater operations differ from land ops. We would be flying to island destinations, mostly with but a single runway, and often with no close-by alternate. The normal 1 hour of fuel as a reserve might not be sufficient, particularly since some of the alternates had no fuel available. If we ended up at a place like that it might be a long wait until fuel could be ferried in for us. This was why, as an example, the big military airport at Grand Turk (MBGT) was not suitable for us - jet fuel only! We always had an alternate and we made sure it had avgas. Meet the press! Pete, who was an on-air radio personality in a previous life, was elected to do the interview, along with Mike, one of the photographers. We got press coverage of the start of our journey on several Baltimore TV stations. All day Wednesday we sat around the hotel, waiting for a break in the weather that never came. By Wednesday night we were thinking that perhaps this operation might not come off after all, an embarrassing possibility considering the press send-off we had gotten at Baltimore. When we awoke at O-dark thirty on Thursday, things still looked poor, with two separate Sigmet areas for embedded thunderstorms up to 40,000 feet and down to the wave tops that pretty much covered the Bahamas down to the area of Stella Maris. A text message from our RO, who was located in Texas and was thus awake an hour "earlier" than we were, agreed with our assessment. Confident in the agreement of 5 experienced minds, we immediately sought refuge in the sheets and resumed our interrupted slumbers. By breakfast time some hours later the newest sigmets had just been released, and with them a glimmer of hope appeared -- for the two areas of storms had moved apart and there now appeared a pathway between them of more than one hundred miles width, perhaps enough for the Airvan to slip through. The RO had earlier offered the suggestion that we might consider a more southerly route; and this we now did, selecting in the process an airway that ran south of our original plan of A-555. This airway (A-315) split the lane between the sigmets, and offered us a path to an island called Exuma, a bit south of Stella Maris and more than halfway to Providenciales which was to be our stepping off point for San Juan. Although the late hour would mean that we would probably have to RON at MYEF, since Provo (as we generally referred to Providenciales) would not be reachable before dark, it at least offered a path through the weather and on into an area of relative clearing. The flight to Puerto Rico the next day looked to be an easy run, weather wise. The flight planning for our first overwater leg, from KFXE to Exuma Bahamas, on the Garmin Pilot app on my iPad. These apps were invaluable for doing the planning, which would have taken hours in the olden days, to say nothing of access to planning facilities that we often did not have. The airplane was ready for us when we got to the airport, and we were off in good time, with yours truly at the controls for the first leg "feet wet". We planned a direct course to Bimini, ZBV, and thence onward along A-315 to a waypoint a few hundred miles southeast called AMBIS, from which we would proceed directly to Exuma. As we droned southeastward we were soon passing waypoints that I remembered from my earlier days flying jets - places like SWIMM and HODGY which appear on the high altitude charts and/or STARS as well as our low altitude maps. The weather was mostly cloudy until we got to Andros Island, the biggest in the Bahamas, and from then on we were wondering just what the sigmets had been all about. Indeed, there were only a few widely scattered buildups, and most of the sigmet areas on either side of our clear lane (and indeed it was very clear!) would have been easily navigable. Oh well, better to err on the side of caution.... You can tell by Pete's hair and the palm trees that the wind was howling at KFXE when we prepared to head toward the Bahamas. Photo by Richard Marko. The waters of the Bahamas are often exceptionally shallow, with large areas looking as though a ditched airplane might never submerge. The colors of these waters are beautiful in a way difficult to describe or catch on film, and a flight here at any altitude is an experience of sublime beauty. Once beyond Bimini we were never completely out of sight of land, although with a glide angle only marginally less steep than the Space Shuttle the Airvan could reach only those islands that we more or less flew directly over. We were cruising at 7000 feet, and by some strange optical illusion the islands seemed to drift by at much the same rate as I recalled that they appeared to from 35000 feet going nearly 500 knots. The clock never lies, though, and the passage of time reminded me that we were in an Airvan and not an Airbus. More's the pity. But as I beheld the subtle beauty of these waters I was again reminded of that great gem of aviation wisdom -- if flying is this much fun, why are we in such a hurry to get it over with? On that day, however, we actually had an answer to that rhetorical question -- because we're in an Airvan, dummy! We go "feet wet" for the first time. The Azure waters of the Bahamas are a sight to behold. Your humble author at the controls. Note the prominent life vest. Approaching Exuma. We had three hours to enjoy the front-office ocean view before setting down at Exuma. This was a place I had never been in all of my previous travels, and it is always interesting to put another destination in the logbook. The FBO was outstanding, and the friendly Bahamians there shepherded us through customs and immigration quickly and efficiently. They arranged a hotel for us, since we decided that we had not enough time to get to Provo by nightfall. In due course a taxi arrived to take us to our digs for the night, which turned out to be a small resort (every hostelry on any of these islands is a resort of one kind or another) right on the water, which was not surprising since the island itself is only a mile or so wide, although of much greater length. There, watching the sun set over the shallow waters of the Atlantic, we celebrated the completion of the first of what we hoped would be many uneventful overwater flights. Box score: Fliers 1, Sharks 0. Tropical layover at Exuma. I might want to come back here someday! The next day dawned bright and beautiful. We consulted the international Flight Service and found that the forecasts were as good as the view out the window. So off we went to the airport, and filed our flight plan to Provo (MBPV). The big advantage of EFB programs like Garmin Pilot or Wing X Pro or ForeFlight is that you can do your flight planning off-line without Wi-Fi, although you will get better enroute times if you have access at least to the winds aloft. Our route from Exuma to Providenciales. And so it was that since I was familiar with the airspace and routes, I took responsibility for the flight planning. All I had to do at the FBO was to fill out an international flight plan with our details and off it went into the fax machine for submission to the tower. This differs from domestic procedure where you can file directly from the app -- out of the country you often have to file a paper flight plan. Due to my years of experience with the ICAO flight plan, which has only this year been adopted in the USA, I had no difficulty with the format. Garmin Pilot plotted our route over the (very) deep blue sea. Getting airborne was merely a matter of waiting for our clearance to be coordinated with Provo and for a few airliners to precede us down the runway. Off we went into the blue skies, above waters of just about every possible shade of blue. The actual navigation was being done using GPS, of course, although I tuned each VOR along the way that might have been of use to us. We always had at least one iPad running as a navigator along with the onboard GPSComm, the Apollo 480. The 480 was the first WAAS GPSComm in general aviation, and even today it is a very sophisticated unit. It pioneered many features in GA that had previously been available only in airliners or high end bizjets, such as load-by-airways, holding patterns, GPS steering (the capability of an autopilot to steer to the magenta line) and a few others. The later generations of GPSComms and the latest software updates for the G1000 have all of these capabilities, but the 480 had them a decade ago. All we lacked in the Airvan was an autopilot -- did I forget to mention that?! Pete and I took turns playing autopilot, and we were kept on our toes by a slight but annoying tendency the airplane displayed toward a dutch roll. A dutch roll is a rolling and yawing tendency usually associated with swept wing airplanes. But it proved mildly difficult to keep this straight-winged Airvan precisely on heading and altitude for any length of time worth mentioning, and when it did happen it was purely a matter of luck. It was by no means all over the sky, but particularly in IMC the beast needed constant attention and gentle control inputs to fly to our high standards of tolerance. The autopilot hard at work! In a mere two hours Providenciales hove into view ahead, and after a few airliners had preceded us we were cleared to land straight in. This was to be merely a fuel stop, so the border clearance procedures were streamlined and the longest wait we had was for a helpful FBO employee to run into town a few miles distant to acquire for us a few sandwiches for the long leg to San Juan. We were airborne again in around an hour and a half. Refueling at Provo. Our course took us first to Grand Turk (GTK). This island, which is mostly taken up by a military and NASA installation, has long been a linchpin in the communications network for all space launches and overflights. I flew a trip or two into MBGT in C-141's when I was a shave tail louie back in the early 70's. Grand Turk is the last of the islands in what, geographically, is still the Bahamas chain, albeit a different country. Beyond GTK we had only open ocean ahead of us, and it took but a few minutes to see the waters change from the pastel hues of the shallows to the dark blue of the briny deep. Indeed, a few hundred miles further south and east lies the second deepest part of the world's oceans -- the Puerto Rico Trench. I shared this knowledge with the rest of the crew, and assured them that the airplane would indeed sink low if we had to put it down anywhere near our course. Changing depths, changing colors. Our route after GTK was A-555, which is a straight shot to Puerto Rico. We would follow it only to IDAHO, after which it heads toward SJU VOR. Our route would lie along an airway called Route 6. We planned to turn off Rte 6 at CORAF, which is an approach fix for the Isla Grande airport (TJIG). This leg, the one between GTK and SJU, is one which is not often flown in single engine airplanes. Within the Bahamas, and even down to the Turks and Caicos, there is often a good deal of single engine general aviation traffic. Many Florida fliers take the plunge and navigate the relatively short legs and typically benign weather that exemplifies flying in the Bahamas. There are many airports among the islands, and some fly-in resorts as well, and the beaches and other attractions are quite appealing, particularly to pilots with a certain willingness to trust in God and Pratt and Whitney! But south of the Turks, we were out of sight of land altogether for over three hours, which is a more serious undertaking than a mere weekend of fun. Our entertainment on the long leg to San Juan -- a flight of Osprey tilt-rotors led by a C-130 refueling tanker, all headed for San Juan too. Out of sight of land, but not of other airplanes. Throughout the entire leg from MBPV to TJIG we were entertained by a continuous parade of jets high above, all going to more or less the same place at least for starters. Some of them, bound for further destinations, would overfly SJU but many were destined to land there. Of course a number of the islands further east, like St. Maartin, were still shut down by one or another of the hurricanes, so there was not as much traffic going further downrange as there might normally be. At one point, about halfway through the leg, we were overtaken and passed (nothing new there!) by a flight of five airplanes up around 16,000 feet; a C-130 refueling tanker and four Osprey tilt-rotors all headed for San Juan. They were in view for almost 10 minutes and provided us a bit of entertainment along the way. At the HARDE intersection we entered the San Juan Oceanic airspace. Up to about 50 miles northwest of HARDE we had been talking to Miami center all the way from KFXE, but they said goodbye and switched us over to San Juan, noting that we might not be able to contact them for awhile at 7000 feet. This turned out to be true, and we spent most of the next half hour incognito, albeit with the ability to relay reports through other airplanes, which we did upon arrival at HARDE. In due course we could hear San Juan and they could hear us, and all became well with the world once again. The clouds and storms build up over Hispaniola. Picking our way through these was a major challenge when flying to and from Santo Domingo. From GTK onward our route roughly paralleled the coast of Hispaniola, the large island upon which sits the Dominican Republic and Haiti. It was now mid afternoon and Hispaniola was crowned with an immense agglomeration of cumulus and cumulonimbus buildups, a typical condition there and one through which I had had to pick my way on occasions too numerous to remember back when I was flying to and from Santo Domingo in the Boeings and Airbuses. Fortunately, we were now admiring these from a distance of nearly 100 miles, and they did not interfere with our passage. Shortly after contacting San Juan southeast of HARDE we could see that Puerto Rico was also crowned with a similar diadem, which of course is also usually the case. San Juan itself sits on the coastal plain, and so is often not directly affected by the afternoon storms, except for the occasional shower that breaks off and slides down the hills toward the sea. Lo and behold, that was exactly what was in store for us that Friday, which became obvious when we were close enough to pick up the ATIS at Isla Grande. Marginal VFR to light IFR with rain showers and, of course, the ever present east winds awaited us and a number of other flights also bound for TJIG at that moment. Puerto Rico has its own buildups, but fortunately they are mostly over the mountainous center of the island, not over San Juan. When we were switched over to San Juan approach we found that we were number four or so for arrival, and actually wound up getting holding instructions at the initial approach fix for the RNAV to runway 09. Pete was getting all of the good legs again! We had actually switched legs so that I could handle the radios for the long overwater segment and the approach into San Juan, accustomed as I was to the procedures and the accents. Now Pete got to add to not only his instrument time, as we plowed through some light showers and ragged clouds, but he also got to experience an honest to goodness holding stack, which was something I had not seen in decades. There were at least three of us stacked up over MALCU, and at one point we could see one of the airplanes below us wheeling through his turn along with us. Sunset had by now come and gone as we were cleared for the approach. Conditions were not too bad, with around 2 miles visibility, but the airport had a rain shower going on and we had to fly through it on final approach. That made it a bit difficult to pick up the runway until we were around a mile out, and the PAPI lights being sited on the right side of the runway instead of the left was a bit puzzling until we got a bit closer and could differentiate between the runway and the two parallel taxiways on either side. But Pete is an old hand at this sort of thing, and he aced it as I expected he would. We turned off and followed tower's instructions to get to the customs building, where we shut down and uncoiled ourselves from the seats. We had made it! Box score now Fliers 3, Sharks 0. Film at eleven. Finally feet dry over Puerto Rico. It was eerie taxiing around TJIG just at dusk as we headed over to a flight school where we were told to park and refuel after clearing customs. Everywhere were signs that things were not normal, and we could see damaged airplanes piled in heaps in several areas of the ramp. Clearly, something massive had happened here. We passed one crumpled Cessna 172 which, we learned the next day, had been flipped over in the flare by the rotor wash of one of the many military helicopters operating at TJIG. Tragically, the pilot had been killed. We shut down in silence and began to unload the airplane completely for the first time since Baltimore. A pile of junk airplanes, courtesy of Hurricane Maria. A short time later a CAP van came around the perimeter road and pulled up on the ramp beside us. This was to be our ride to our accommodations for the week. On the way down we had been told that we would be billeted either in a hotel downtown or in a sort of "cot city" that FEMA had set up in the Convention Center, also downtown near TJIG. Having not had to endure a cot since my time on active duty during Gulf War One (Desert Storm), I had hoped that we would end up at the hotel. But lo and behold, our destination was neither of these places. Indeed, we were about to begin a nautical adventure of sorts, for our billet was to be aboard what amounted to a troop ship, which was docked at the Port of San Juan, a few miles inland on the bay. At Customs immediately after landing at Isla Grande airport, San Juan. The cruise ship in the background was sent there to pick up stranded tourists and take them back to the States. There are a number of Maritime Academies in the US, one of which is the federally operated US Merchant Marine Academy, and several others which are run by one state or another. In particular, both New York and Massachusetts have maritime colleges as part of their state university system -- Mass Maritime and SUNY Maritime. Each of these has a training ship, both of which are 1960's vintage cargo ships of the so-called "stick ship" variety; i.e., break-bulk ships that have onboard derricks to load and offload cargo. These represent the last generation of merchant shipping prior to the current container ship revolution. The two colleges each acquired a ship of this kind and modified it for use in training large numbers of cadets. Most of the cargo holds of each ship were converted into berthing spaces for upwards of 500 to 600 cadets, and the result was a ship that closely resembled the troop ships of the World War II era. Our digs was to be the SUNY Maritime ship SS Empire State VI. Our home away from home -- the SS Empire State VI, training ship of the SUNY Maritime college in New York. Since some of the cost of modifying these ships came from Uncle Sam, the ships are considered a reserve asset, and are occasionally used as floating hotels in disaster situations such as this where they can dock close to the action. These two ships were used to house many of the responders, volunteer and paid, who were working for FEMA to assist in the recovery and clean-up. The Convention Center, which served as FEMA's headquarters and command post, as well as a makeshift cot city. The hotel at the very left edge of the picture was also used for responders, as was the small cruise ship just beyond the Center. FEMA itself had commandeered an entire hotel adjacent to their headquarters at the Convention Center, and had also contracted for a small cruise ship which also served as a floating hotel. Altogether there were accommodations for thousands of people. The ships were self contained little cities, with power, air conditioning, fresh water and most of the amenities of modern life. As a long time devotee of armchair nautical lore I was fascinated by this opportunity to spend some time on something other than a mega cruise ship. Perhaps the best part of the Empire State -- the mess hall. The food was excellent, and plentiful! We checked in at dockside, and then it was up the gangway and onto the ship itself, whereupon we were met by members of the crew and brought immediately to the mess hall. Now this was a crew that knew how to treat airmen who have just spent an entire day in an Airvan! The food, as it turned out, was really good - I have been on two cruises where the food was not as good as on the Empire State! Dinner time turned out to be the best time of the day. As for the accommodations, we ended up in a berthing area that held upwards of 50 men (women had their own areas, of course) in bunks three high that looked very much like the quarters for enlisted men on a modern submarine. I, fortuitously, got a bottom bunk, a necessity for one so un-athletic. Pete, though, ended up with the top bunk. Not only was this climb a strain, but the top bunk was right underneath the air conditioning vents, a situation that resulted in his eventually coming down with a head cold after we got back to the States a week later. Yours truly examines the sleeping quarters, a converted cargo hold with bunks that were, somewhat surprisingly, not bad at all. Overall, I found the arrangements satisfactory. At 5'8" I was a good fit for the bunk, and the mattress was actually fairly new and comfortable -- miles better than a cot of any kind. The blanket was quite thin, but adequate to protect one from the maritime air conditioning. It turns out that air conditioning on a ship in the tropics is not like that which we are accustomed to at home. The system cools the air nicely but removes little or none of the humidity, so that everything in the area was always just a bit damp. It took a minute or two after crawling into the sheets for body heat to warm up the slightly cold and barely damp bedding. But once things got warmed up a bit everything was fine. Indeed, the only problem we encountered during our stay was from several of the non-aircrew inhabitants who were apparently sorely afflicted with apnea. The snoring of one of these, berthed immediately across the narrow aisle from me, was enough to awaken the denizens of Davey Jones' locker, to say nothing of penetrate the industrial strength ear plugs that I always have available when sleeping en masse! But my slumbers, though occasionally interrupted, were never put to such disarray as to make the next day's flying unsafe, so in the end no harm no foul. Flight Operations in one of the nurses locker rooms. Early the next morning we awakened and made our ablutions, followed by an excellent breakfast. After that a quick van ride over to the CAP command post, which had been set up in a women's and children's hospital about a mile from Isla Grande. Our area was actually one of the nurses' locker rooms, and was painted a bright pink color, which clashed with our blue polo shirt uniforms, and even more with the green flight suits which some of the CAP pilots wore (I rarely wear the green bag in the tropics because it is typically quite hot and uncomfortable, but in the heat of San Juan it really mattered little which uniform I wore - they would all be wet by the time the day was done). We were quickly given our first flight assignments of the mission - I would take the Airvan and two photographers and photograph a grid of 10 miles square over in the middle of the island just south of Arecibo, while Pete would take one of the Cessnas and fly as a communications relay aircraft over the center of the island. I had taken the liberty of purchasing a San Juan sectional chart the evening we arrived, and so I had something a bit larger than the iPad with which to plan my first sortie. But I also programmed the grid on the iPad, and it was well that I did so. After we took off and headed west, I discovered that the 480 GPS would not respond properly to the inputs I needed to make in order to fly our grid pattern with it. Since I had taken the precaution of plotting it out on the iPad, I was able to use the GPS in that device to fly an accurate pattern over the ground so that the photographers could do their jobs. I slip the bonds for the first operational sortie from TJIG. Almost immediately after takeoff the scope of Maria's impact on Puerto Rico became painfully obvious. In the dusk the evening before, we could not see that the hills were mostly brown, like New England in late autumn, and not the tropical green normally associated with a rain forest. Today it was obvious that just about every tree on the island had either been uprooted or snapped in two, and every leaf had been scoured off these trees to boot. The trunks lay askew like some giant's game of pick-up-sticks. This was the situation just about everywhere we looked. On the other hand, the buildings appeared, from around 1000 feet agl, to be in much better shape than I had anticipated. The volcanic karst hills, west of San Juan. Normally these hills are entirely green, but every leaf has been stripped from the trees. Judging from pictures of the island of Dominica, which had been nearly flattened by the storm, and looked more like ground zero of some nuclear detonation than an inhabited island, the damage to structures here was less intense. My first impression was that roughly 80 percent of the buildings we saw appeared to have suffered no major structural damage, such as roofs blown off or total collapse. Although there were a few structures in each village and town that did appear to be destroyed, most of the buildings, and just about all of the ones that appeared to be relatively new, seemed to be surprisingly intact. Now it is admittedly difficult to judge structural damage from 1000 feet or more in the air, but overall the picture was much better than I thought it might have been. Also it seemed that every paved road we looked at, even in the mountains, had cars driving upon it, which seemed to indicate that a great deal of road clearing had already taken place by now, roughly two weeks after the storm hit. Trees were snapped like twigs, or uprooted entirely. It will take nature a while to restore the vegetation. The entire time we were there, container ships were loading and unloading right next to the Empire State. Relief supplies in, and, one would expect, empties out. We took our pictures and made our way back to Isla Grande, in beautiful weather as my luck typically dictated. That sortie took around 2.5 hours, and we were not tasked to fly again that day, but instead returned to the command post and set about planning the next day's flying. FEMA wanted a complete survey of the islands of Culebra, St. Thomas and St. John, so it looked like the sharks might get another shot at a meal! Some quick iPad planning revealed that it might take as long as three hours to get everything they wanted. The airport at St. Thomas was open, but mainly for airliners, and we would have to fly down to St. Croix to get avgas, were that to be necessary. On the plus side, the weather forecast was favorable and it looked to be a great day for flying. Next morning the weather did not disappoint us, and after another excellent breakfast aboard the Empire State we headed back to the airport for our island tour. The distances involved are not great, and I recall flying between San Juan and St. Thomas in the 727 back in the day, a trip which must surely have been barely longer than the LGA-JFK short haul that I wrote about some years back. In the Airvan the times would be nowhere near as short, of course; and rather than simply land, we were going to be circling each island several times to get complete coverage. Downtown San Juan immediately after takeoff from Isla Grande. Every takeoff from Isla Grande gave us a front row view of downtown San Juan, as we banked left after liftoff and flew through a small gap in the high rise hotels by the beaches. To go east, we followed the north shore of the island until we got to a point abeam the tower at the big airport, and then we were cleared to fly directly over the terminal building, followed by a turn to the east that put us between the two runways' departure paths. This course was held until we neared the light house at Fajardo, from which it was over the blue sea for 20 miles or so to the island of Culebra. The departure to the east involved flying right over TJSJ at 2000 feet. All of the Antilles are mountainous islands, volcanic in origin, and we had decided to use mountain flying techniques to do our photo runs. When searching mountainous areas, especially at high density altitudes (a condition which did not apply here, fortunately), it is almost always preferable to begin at the highest elevations and work your way downward. Small single engine airplanes rarely have the power to weight ratio to conduct searches or photo runs uphill, if the slope is steep. Here, of course, we had some control over what the slope might be, by choosing our path over the ground. But it would still be better all around to start at the top, and that is what we did. We gave the sharks another bite at the apple, cruising low on the way over to Culebra and St Thomas and St John. Arriving above Culebra, we circled leftward around the higher points and worked our way down in a spiral pattern. The camera window is located on the left side of just about all of our airplanes, and this dictated the direction of the turns. It also made it easier since the pilot had a good view of the terrain. It took around 25 minutes or so to cover the entire island, which is not too large, and Richard, in the back, was snapping pictures furiously as we flew along. After satisfying himself that the images were of good quality, which is an outstanding benefit of digital photography, Richard cleared us to proceed to St. Thomas. Now ATC got involved once again. They had let us do our own thing over Culebra, but of course the small airport there is uncontrolled and there was no traffic during the time we were busy taking our pictures. St. Thomas (TIST), on the other hand, had several airline inbounds by the time we broke off from Culebra, and we had to be vectored away from the approach path for runway 10. We conceived a plan which garnered the approval of ATC -- proceed north of the island and start once again at the highest elevations, circling the high hills first, which would keep us away from the airport and the approach path for awhile. This worked well, and by the time we got around to the west side of the island, where the airport is, all was quiet on the arrivals front. There was a single departure while we were working the area, but it was no problem for us to keep north of his path, a path I knew well since I had flown it myself many times. The airport at St Thomas had been reopened for a week or more by the time we got there, but they only had jet fuel and thus were not a potential refueling stop. The blue tarps indicate damaged roofs, and are a common sight after a weather event. FEMA had already been hard at work on St Thomas when they requested this re-shoot. Both at Culebra and St. Thomas the situation was much like that on Puerto Rico itself; namely, most buildings relatively intact but just about every tree on the islands a casualty. It was obvious that a lot of work had already been done over on the Virgin Islands, because the few structures that seemed to have lost roofs already had those blue FEMA tarps stretched tight over them. One again there was vehicle traffic on most of the roads, but what there was not was cruise ships. Normally the harbor at Charlotte Amalie is crowded with some of the largest ships in the world, and the town is overflowing with the thousands of tourists each ship disgorges. But on that day, the entire harbor was empty, save for a few container ships. Charlotte Amalie, the principal town on St Thomas. Normally, this harbor plays host to giant cruise ships, but not now. St. Thomas, being larger than Culebra, took longer to photograph. But after around three complete laps of the island we had it all, and from there it was a short hop over to St. John. This was much easier to work, since there is no airport there, and the island is largely given over to a National Park, so the areas of habitation, which were our targets, were fewer there than on St. Thomas. We made quick work of St. John, and as we did so I cast an eye off to the right at the British Virgin Islands. The British Virgin Islands in the distance. We had to stay away from the boundary, since it is an international border, and we had not been asked to take any pictures over there. But I well remembered several sailing charters I tagged along on back in the Pleistocene days of my airline career. A group of us new airline pilots chartered a big sailboat, and spent a week cruising the marvelous waters of the BVI. We did some diving on the wreck of the Rhone, which was also used a few years earlier as the location for filming some of the movie The Deep. I even made the acquaintance of the very barracuda that played a bit part in the film! The dynamic duo of Pete (right) and I hard at work. Pete had flown this sortie around the islands, and he wound up with one of the few landings he made that was not preceded by an instrument approach. After landing we made our way once again to the nurses' lounge at the hospital. Too bad the nurses were not there! The hospital itself was open for business, since they were possessed of an enormous diesel powered generator that not only powered the entire hospital but also spewed out exhaust and copious quantities of raw noise just across the hall from our temporary command post. Small wonder the nurses seized this opportunity to be off to quieter digs. In the midst of this din, Richard and Mike downloaded and processed the huge batch of photos we had taken. This can take awhile, and it was late afternoon by the time we were ready to return to the ship. Late afternoon often means rain in San Juan, and today's downpour was torrential. We ended up driving the van through water as deep as a foot and a half on the way to the docks, but we made it. Another day, another dollar! The Salvation Army is always front and center when troops need to be cared for, worldwide! They sent over lunch every day to our flight ops center. The next day we did not fly, but spent the entire day at the command post. The sit around time on a mission is usually nothing but boring, although the respite from flying is valuable. Things can be especially boring in the absence of wifi and wireless data, both of which were spotty for obvious reasons. It was something of a miracle that the cell network was as functional as it was, given that only two weeks before everything was down and out. By this time there was talk of setting up a network of tethered helium balloons each carrying a cell antenna array, to provide broader interim service over a wider area of the island. But this scheme was not put into effect when we left, although it may have been set up later. (Author's note: it is being set up, although with tethered drones instead of balloons.) Up in the hills, the damage to trees can be seen. The major electric transmission lines seemed to be intact, but the infrastructure that leads to each house and building was where most of the damage was. These communities were isolated for several weeks, and it may still be difficult for land vehicles to make it up here. Erosion from runoff was starting to become a problem while we were there. There was also talk of providing solar panels and batteries to many of the homes, especially in the remote areas. This, too, was not in evidence when we were there, although perhaps something may come of it over time. The high tension electrical distribution lines that we saw during our flights all seemed to be intact, even to the cables between the towers -- I saw none missing. It was the local electrical lines that had been impacted severely. It will take quite a while to fix all of that, due in part to the difficulty of getting a large number of trucks and personnel to the island. The operating area for the aerostat at the southwest corner of the island. The following day we had a special mission. The southwest corner of the island had not been photographed due to a restricted area there surrounding an aerostat. An aerostat is a huge tethered balloon that carries a radar dish to monitor sea and low flying air traffic. Since the late 20th century a number of these balloons have been deployed around the fringes of US territory, in places like Key West and southwest Puerto Rico. The Aerostat itself had been wound back into its hangar for the hurricane and had remained there since, but the restricted area was not lifted for photo flights until our sortie on Wednesday. This was a very long flight, in part because FEMA wanted saturation coverage of the grid, and that meant flying the entire grid from east to west, and then again from north to south. That evolution took over two hours, in fact almost three counting the travel time from San Juan over to this farthest corner of the island. Then, once we were done, Pete (who won the coin toss to fly today!) could not fly us back direct to SJU since the daily buildups were crowning the high terrain in the middle of the island. We headed back east, over Ponce, looking for a place to sneak through. Failing that we would have to fly all the way around the island. Fortunately, there is a nice valley midway along the island that allowed us to stay VFR beneath the clouds with several thousand feet of ground clearance. We worked our way through this valley, which leads to Caguas and beyond to the southern suburbs of San Juan. Although the island was capped by buildups, it had not yet started to rain, so we arrived without getting soaked. The rains occurred, as they always do, later in the afternoon, as we were on our way back to the boat. The big radio telescope near Aricebo. The original CAP plan had been to keep the Airvans and the Cessnas in San Juan for several weeks, with aircrews rotating in and out via airline or one of the by-now-regular military shuttle flights that operated several times per day to various bases in the CONUS. Indeed, we had originally been scheduled to depart Puerto Rico several days earlier on one of these flights, with another Maryland Wing crew coming in to replace us (a plan which was scrapped after it took us nearly a week just to get there). Several iterations of this dance were expected to occur over the course of a month or so, at the end of which a crew would fly down and get the Airvan, bringing it back to Baltimore by more or less the reverse of the route we took. But by Wednesday morning we began to get messages indicating that the Airvans, at least, might be finishing up and heading home sooner than anyone thought -- by Thursday, to be specific. The question was raised: since Pete and I had flown the airplane down, and knew the route and the drill, might we be willing to take it back home? This would obviate the need to fly another crew down to Puerto Rico. Dams were a problem. This one is intact, but there was another one west of Aricebo that was in some danger of failing. Helicopters were working to strengthen it. Note that the water is all brown, a result of increased erosion from the daily rains falling on hills that no longer had much living vegetation. After a bit of talking among ourselves, we agreed and volunteered to fly the bird home. It would mean giving the sharks another bite at the apple, so to speak, but we had gotten to be old hands at overwater flying and the thought of another trip up the Bahamas chain, with all of the beauty attendant thereunto was enticing. After our marathon journey to the southwest corner was done, we set about planning a return trip. One of our photographers, Mike, had to be home by Saturday and, remembering the nearly week long slog it took for us to get down, decided that he would avail himself of military air, leaving the same day we were going, tomorrow (Thursday). With only three of us, the plane would be a bit lighter and possibly a knot or so faster. The weather was not looking to be a factor until around Nassau and beyond, so we could return via the more direct route. This would be San Juan to Provo again (no getting around that leg!) followed by a run up A-555 to Nassau. That would most likely be our RON, since the winds were not favorable enough to make the run all the way to KFXE non-stop. Since we were westbound, 6000 feet would be a good cruise altitude. I filed the flight plan with international FSS over the phone from the ship Wednesday evening and all was in readiness for an 0800 departure on Thursday. Mike came to the airport with us to help us repack the airplane, since he had signed for most of the photo equipment, and we were carrying all of that home with us rather than burden him with it on the KC-135. The entire crew helped load the airplane for the return trip. Mike would return by military air, the rest of us ran the shark gauntlet once again! From the left, Richard, Pete, Mike and Tony. Once again, I volunteered to handle the radios on the Provo leg which meant that Pete had another leg in the left seat. By this time neither of us cared a hoot who flew! The torture was the same in either seat. We took off, turned left between the Caribe Hilton and the El San Juan and headed for CORAF again. The flight to Provo was a mirror image of the flight down - long! We saw a number of cargo ships on the ocean below us, but no cruise ships. Grand Turk was a welcome sight when it hove into view, since it meant that we would always be in sight of land from then on. Arriving at Provo, we were issued another hold, since several airplanes were inbound and there is no ATC radar. The lavatory was calling us, and it was with some reluctance that we headed for the holding fix rather than the airport. But luck was with us, for we were cleared to the airport even before we got to the holding fix. Grand Turk, in the Turks and Caicos Islands. We again had someone from the FBO go into town for some ham and cheese sandwiches, as we had on the way down. On that trip, a week ago, they were the best ham and cheese sandwiches we ever tasted! Today not quite so -- perhaps another chef was in town. But they still hit the spot an hour or two later, when we asked Richard to take up the role of flight attendant and pass them up. I had chosen to fly this second leg into MYNN in part because the original forecasts indicated the possibility of an instrument approach at Nassau. But my luck had not changed, and by the time we got there it was sunny and pleasant. We could see the Atlantis hotel complex over by the town, and the usual gaggle of huge cruise ships docked at this, one of the few ports in the entire area that was not really affected by the hurricanes. Our flight plan from Provo up A-555 to Nassau. Arriving at Nassau, New Providence Island. You can just see the Atlantis hotel and the cruise ships in the distance. Nassau was not impacted by hurricanes this year, and the cruise ship traffic has not diminished. Once we cleared customs we got a cab to our hotel, a quaint little place near the airport and well away from the town and the tourists, called A Stones Throw. The accumulated fatigue of the entire mission was beginning to show, and the meal we had there was outstanding and relaxing. We had discovered conch fritters on the way down, in Exuma, and we once again treated ourselves to them in Nassau. We capped it all off with a good night's sleep - the first on a real bed since we had embarked upon the SS Empire State. The delightful "A Stones Throw", a small hotel close to the airport and a block away from an un-crowded beach far from the tourist beaten path. By morning we were recharged and rejuvenated, and ready for the day's labors. A long day was facing us, since we were of a mind to make it all the way back to Baltimore on Friday. This looked quite doable, since CAP allowed up to nine hours of flight time in a 14 hour duty day. All of this had been waived for the mission, of course, but even within the regs it looked like we could do it, and do it safely. We set course for KPBI, since it was a few miles closer to our ultimate destination, and every minute saved was appealing after over 50 hours in the Airvan! We planned the leg into the USA to terminate at KPBI instead of Fort Lauderdale, since by going up to Palm Beach we could cut a corner and save a few minutes on the overall flight time. The route I planned took us over Freeport, although shortly after takeoff we were cleared direct. This leg was complicated by the extra notifications necessary to alert customs to our arrival. In addition to the electronic notification, which is done through a system called EAPIS, we also had to make a phone call to the KPBI customs office telling them when we planned to arrive. Thus far in the mission, accuracy of arrival estimates had been mostly academic, but now it counted. We were expected to show up on customs' doorstep within an hour of when we told them we were coming. Since the flight itself was only around 2 hours so in length our estimate would probably hold up. Feet dry at last! Or so we thought. Arrival over Palm Beach. Promptly 1.9 hours after takeoff we set the parking brake on the customs ramp at KPBI and presented ourselves and our paperwork for inspection. All of us had been through this drill many times - Pete is a seasoned international vacationer and Richard is actually a Slovak national. Customs and immigration personnel were friendly and efficient and we were cleared to proceed within 10 minutes or so (no doubt also due to the fact that we were the only airplane there at that point). This marked a significant milestone, since from this point on the flight was a plain vanilla domestic flight. Among other niceties I could resume filing the flight plans from the Garmin Pilot app! First stop -- Customs! Unloading our personal effects before taking them inside to clear US Customs at KPBI. One of the interesting aspects of a long series of flights like this is that the only fixed points are the origin and the final destination. In my professional career, every leg was set in stone and we simply followed our orders, or the schedule, with no deviation except for a diversion for cause. But these flights were our own to construct. We could have stopped in Exuma again, for example, or Freeport rather than Nassau, or any other airport in the Bahamas that had fuel. Likewise, we could now stop anyplace between Palm Beach and Baltimore for fuel, since we could not make it non-stop and probably would have been unwilling to endure the flight even if we could. As we planned the northbound journey we considered Savannah, Columbia, Fayetteville, Raleigh, and a few other places. But since the leg was mine, I decided to drop in again at a place I had not visited in decades -- Charleston, South Carolina, the home of my Air Force alma mater the 437th Military Airlift Wing as it was known then (simply the 437th Airlift Wing today). The moving map shows our direct course to Charleston SC, still one more leg over water. Feet dry indeed! Our fight plan from PBI to CHS called for Victor 3 up to Craig VOR, and then Victor 1 to Charleston. Victor 1 lies just off the coast, but probably within gliding distance of the beaches from our planned altitude of 7000 feet. In any event, we still had the raft and the vests so we had no hesitation about planning the flight this way. Although we should have been feet dry up to CRG, departure control vectored us a few miles out over the ocean before turning us north. We could again see the signs of hurricane Irma as we coasted out, although by around 2000 feet things on the ground resumed a more or less normal appearance. There were some scattered cumulus over the land but little in the way of clouds over the water. At 7000 feet, we were pretty much in the clear, and able to avoid the scattered higher buildups visually, although we also had once again the advantages of both ADSB weather and ATC radar to assist us. We flew about 10 miles inland of Cape Canaveral, but could see the massive VAB building and the associated launch complexes in the distance. By the time we got to CRG Center offered us the option of going direct to CHS, a short cut that would take us well out to sea, but would also cut 5-10 minutes off the flight. Again, the deciding factor was the lack of comfort of the sturdy Airvan. We had the equipment to go feet wet one more time, and we also had the nonchalance born of seven previous overwater legs. Why not? And so we turned 20 degrees right and set a direct course to the City by the Sea. Cavorting in the cloud canyons! This is the part of flying I will miss most, if ever I have to stay on the ground. We wound up having to dodge a few buildups on the new course, but it was no problem. One of the joys of IFR flying is the ability to get close to, or even inside of, clouds. Indeed, in the Airvan getting close to clouds is the only way one can get any sense of speed! Our cruise speed could only be considered sprightly by comparison to something like a Greyhound bus, but close to a cloud we at least could savor the illusion of speed. And, of course, there is endless delight in dodging to and fro in the cloud canyons aloft. Cheap thrills, perhaps, but rare enough not to be ignored. I indulged myself for the better part of an hour in such pursuits, and if nothing else it helped to keep my mind off the pains! It took almost 4 hours to get to CHS, a portion of which was the fault of approach control, who decided, because of our arthritic speed, to vector us all over the low country to keep the approach path open for faster and presumably more deserving traffic. By the time we had shut down on the FBO ramp the Hobbs meter read 3.7 hours. Over on the other side of the airport lay Charleston AFB, now festooned with C-17's rather than the smaller C-141's of my era, and somewhat modernized over the course of nearly 50 years, but still recognizable. I spent a few moments in the luxurious FBO lounge reminiscing about my life here in the early 1970's, and the many worldwide trips that I flew from this very runway. I once owned a small plane here, an early model Beech Bonanza, and flew it all over the low country, mostly in pursuit of hamburgers, or more often good seafood. There was not time for anything like that now, for we must needs be off fairly quickly to get to Baltimore before it got too late. We contented ourselves with snacks from the FBO and a few bottles of water for the last leg of the odyssey. Takeoff from KCHS, my alma mater, where once I flew the C-141A Starlifter from this very ramp and runway. Those are the larger C-17's on the ramp now, a worthy successor to the Starlifter. It fell to Pete to bring it all home, as I resumed my role of copilot. I had told Pete earlier in the mission that he was getting the opportunity to sample an airline trip. Indeed, our journey did bear a striking resemblance to a multi day airline pairing. We two worked together like an experienced airline or military crew, which was not surprising since those virtues are exactly what CAP preaches and teaches, and for the same reason -- safety. It was gratifying to think that CAP's training and procedures had equipped Pete to become a true crew dog, since most of his flying time is actually single pilot. But we had all the duties split down the middle as we droned northward, measuring our progress as much by the ATC centers we were handed off to as by the waypoints we passed. Actually, I had simply filed direct to Martin State Airport; and since Pete was in the left seat, and more often than not possessed of the luck of the Irish instead of his actual heritage, we were cleared direct to KMTN. There were, therefore, no actual waypoints passing, but we could see Charlotte, Raleigh and Richmond both out the window and on the GPS as they drifted slowly by. Pete and I bring it all home. The Airvan looks more spacious than it really is in this picture, but aside from the seats it is a good airplane and very nice handling. Up around the Richmond area we were treated to a magnificent sunset off to our left, a fitting coda to the long and arduous mission. By this time we were able to get the reports and forecast for KMTN, which now indicated that the fun was not yet over, because a 600 foot ceiling and one mile visibility meant that once again Pete was going to get some instrument time. Indeed, by the end of the trip he pretty much had his instrument currency updated for another 6 months! But before he could inscribe all of this in his logbook, he had to fly this last approach; which, although not really to minimums, would still be demanding. Golden Sunset over our shoulder. Times like this make the occasional discomfort worthwhile! As we closed in on the Washington area we were rerouted, as is usual, to the east of the SFRA. By now an undercast had formed below us and we could only see a glow of light through the clouds to confirm that we were nearing our destination. Clearance for the approach took us down into the clouds, and as so often happens on the line, we had to earn our way to the ramp by finding the airport in the clag. The undercast thickens. That little circular rainbow surrounding our shadow is called a Glory. Martin State was using runway 33, which has an LDA approach with a glideslope. This, for all intents and purposes, is similar to an ILS approach, and flown in the same manner. At the end of such a long day it is often challenging to keep the needles together on an instrument approach, but Pete had us positioned nicely at the point where I called the tower and asked for the runway lights to be turned up full. This is an old pilot trick, and behold -- in an instant the runway appeared from nowhere, directly in front of us! It was then merely a matter of landing upon it, and we were down and home. Home at last, the Airvan rests as we prepare to refuel her and put her to bed. She served us well over 12 days and nearly 60 hours of flying! We taxied in light drizzle over to the ramp, where we were met by the same CAP people who had given us our sendoff almost two weeks before. Fortunately, the drizzle stopped by the time we were ready to unload the airplane, which took almost as long as it did to load it. We refueled the trusty Airvan and I sneaked in an affectionate pat on the cowling as a thank you for her long and faithful service on this mission. Over the course of 12 days and nearly 60 hours of flying she had performed flawlessly, with no maintenance issues whatsoever -- just when we needed such a performance most! Final box score - Fliers 8, Sharks 0. A perfect game indeed! Every generation or so, CAP is involved in a major mission that serves to define it in the coming years. The Steve Fossett search, the hurricane Katrina recovery, and now the hurricane Maria recovery will always be front and center in the legacy of Civil Air Patrol. But this one was unprecedented -- a long overwater trip that crossed international borders. It demonstrated that CAP is capable of flying with the best of them, in every circumstance that our equipment and training will allow. Pete, Mike, Richard and I are proud to have been involved in this one. Happy Landings! Afterword: If you think you may be interested in getting involved with the Civil Air Patrol, I encourage you to take a look at www.gocivilairpatrol.com and visit a local squadron. We would love to show you around and encourage your participation. A flight simmer has a lot to bring to CAP, and we do a lot that would no doubt be of great interest to you. I look forward to seeing some of you on my crew someday! Tony Vallillo www.gocivilairpatrol.com Also by Tony Vallillo: Civil Air Patrol - USAF Auxiliary
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Civil Air Patrol Part One - USAF Auxiliary By Tony Vallillo Flight simmers who delved into the missions section of FSX may have noticed one mission that featured a red white and blue Maule, called CAP Search and Rescue. The task at hand was to locate, and if you had some real brass ones land and rescue, a downed flier in the mountains. Finding the target was not terribly difficult, but it took me a few tries before I was able to land the Maule on that tiny plateau, pick up the downed airman and take off again. For most of you it was probably just another imaginary mission among the many offerings within FSX, but some of you may have wondered just what CAP is. CAP stands for Civil Air Patrol, the civilian volunteer auxiliary of the US Air Force. The organization has existed since the early days of WWII, and today has many thousands of volunteers in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. We operate over 500 Cessna airplanes; we are, in fact, the largest operator of Cessna aircraft in the world. I say "we" because since 2007 I have been a CAP member myself, and after my retirement from American Airlines in 2008 just about all of my flying was and is done on behalf of my alma mater's auxiliary. My involvement in CAP actually dates from the early 1980's, when I joined as a senior member during my son's tenure as a cadet. This is actually how most of our adult members get involved, in part because CAP is a much better kept secret than it should be. Like most members, when my son went on to other pursuits I let my membership lapse, but I came upon CAP again in early 2007 when a new squadron was established in the city near which I lived. By this time my airline retirement was on the horizon, and it seemed like CAP would be a good post retirement activity -- I could keep flying with a purpose greater than the mere pursuit of a full stomach, albeit in Cessnas instead of Boeings, and also perhaps contribute to the interest of youth in aviation through the cadet program. The timing was perfect, because one year later I had to pull the trigger on retirement early (rather than lose a not insignificant slice of my pension) and I found myself with a lot of time on my hands -- time that would ordinarily have been spent in the company of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed. Now we all know that She is intolerant of my normal inclination to idleness when not actually flying, and She had gotten used to me being out of the house completely for days at a time each week. It may come as a surprise to you, but spousal homicide is the principle cause of mortality in retired airline pilots (!), who never fail to attempt to prolong their command by trying to take over the kitchen! So at least in a tongue-in-cheek sense CAP has kept me alive for nearly a decade now! CAP has a long history, having been around longer than I have been. It came into being around the time of Pearl Harbor, in an effort spearheaded by well known pilot and journalist Gill Robb Wilson, and the Mayor of New York (also a pilot) Fiorello LaGuardia. Wilson, in particular, was interested in finding ways to use civil aviation as part of the war effort, instead of grounding it altogether, which was one of the proposals floating around at the time. Using volunteer pilots flying their own airplanes, CAP undertook many missions during the war years, including courier missions, border patrols, and the best known mission -- anti submarine patrols along the coasts. Early in the US involvement in WWII, German submarines were a terrible threat to maritime traffic, and it was possible to watch from the shore as ships were attacked and sunk. CAP began flying anti-submarine patrols, sometimes armed with small bombs. Although the stories of CAP airplanes actually sinking submarines with those bombs are apocryphal, a number were sunk by military aircraft summoned by the CAP pilots on patrol. After the war, when the USAF was established as a separate service, the CAP was made the official auxiliary of the Air Force, and given principal responsibility for the conduct of inland search and rescue flying, especially searches for downed airplanes. This was a lively business in the immediate postwar years, and is still one of our principal missions. Additionally, a cadet program was established which is also still going strong. Young people ages 12-21 can participate, and be involved in all manner of leadership training and aviation and technology oriented activities, including learning to fly. In the modern age, CAP has been tasked with many new missions, like disaster relief (mainly aerial photography for damage assessment and resource management). There are also special missions of assistance to the military -- playing target for air defense fighters, escorting actual drones to and from restricted areas, and even simulating drones in large scale military exercises. With the advent of the 406 MHz locator beacon there is a bit less demand in some areas for search and rescue of downed pilots, but we still see those missions occasionally. CAP can be an ideal activity for a flight simulator enthusiast, because you can get hands-on involved in aviation even if you are not a pilot. There are a number of aircrew positions in CAP -- in addition to pilot there are Scanner (the crewmember who actually looks for the target), Observer (the right seat occupant who coordinates with the ground assets of CAP using a special radio) and aerial photographer (who is often also a scanner and/or observer). And if you are a pilot, you can avail yourself of the excellent training opportunities in CAP to learn search pattern flying, aerial photography flying, and just standardized disciplined flying in general. If this is beginning to sound a bit like a recruiting pitch, well I hope it is! Flying in CAP is a lot like flying in the Air Force, leaving aside the method of propulsion. The procedures are standardized, and the expectation for a high level of professionalism is emphasized. Search patterns can be flown with great accuracy using modern GPS equipment, and we train and practice to do just that. We take proficiency check rides every year, and we have small and large scale exercises within which to learn and practice, just like in the Air Force. The AF closely supervises our activities; indeed, within the last two years CAP has officially been designated a part of the Total Force, alongside the active duty, the reserves and the Air National Guard. We do wear uniforms, although members can choose from either the Air Force style (essentially a USAF uniform with slightly different insignia) or the more casual corporate uniform (one popular variant of which is simply grey slacks with a blue CAP polo shirt and an optional black leather flight jacket). In earlier times CAP used mostly member owned airplanes, augmented with Air Force surplus airplanes (nothing as sexy as a P-51, of course; in fact, the hottest of them were a number of Beech T-34's from back when the AF used that airplane as a primary trainer). Nowadays we use exclusively CAP owned airplanes, purchased by the Air Force and assigned to CAP, which is actually a non-profit corporation for financial purposes. As I said before we have somewhere around 535 Cessna single engine airplanes, ranging from 172's to 206's, along with 18 Gippsland GA-8 Airvans. More about the latter in part 2. Our Cessnas range in age from mid 1980's to brand new. All of the new ones, of course, feature some variant of the Garmin G-1000 integrated glass cockpit, and more of those are showing up every month. The G-1000 is a real delight for an ex-airline pilot like myself, since it has many of the features of the more recent Boeings and Airbuses -- things like moving map Multi Function Displays, NEXRAD radar, XM Weather, an autopilot with Flight Level Change and VNav functions, and so on. Indeed, were it not for CAP, I would have virtually no opportunities to experience modern integrated displays in small planes. In addition to the new airplanes, many of our older airplanes, particularly the 172's, are being refurbished and in the process upgraded to modern avionics like the Aspen or the Garmin G-500. And not only are the airplanes well equipped, but they are also well maintained, which can be a challenge considering that some wings fly each of their airplanes over 300 hours per year! So just what, you may ask, is flying in CAP like? What does it entail, and how does one prepare oneself for the mission oriented aspects of it? It all starts with a Private Pilot or higher FAA license, of course. Membership application in CAP is initiated online, like so much else in the modern world (http://www.gocivilairpatrol.com/). An early step is to locate your local squadron, which is often found on an airport nearby. Visit on a meeting night (meetings are typically weekly in the early evening, often between 7 and 9 pm.) and meet the local membership. Most squadrons will have an officer who will work with you to get you through the application process. Once you are a member, and have acquired at least one of the various uniforms that CAP uses, you can arrange with one of the CAP flight instructors in your wing for whatever introductory practice you may need to prepare for the initial proficiency check (called a form 5 evaluation in CAP). A form 5 ride is, for all practical purposes, identical to an FAA Private Pilot checkride, and will involve cross country procedures, steep turns, slow flight and stalls, emergency procedures and forced landing, ground reference maneuvers, some instrument flying, and various takeoffs and landings. It is much more than a typical FBO checkout, such as you might encounter when renting an airplane. As long as you know all about it going in, you will have no difficulty. A form 5 eval is administered to each CAP pilot once per year. Once you have qualified as a pilot in CAP, most of the subsequent steps will depend upon your logged PIC time. With 100 hours of PIC time, you are eligible to be appointed as a Transport Mission Pilot. This qualification, which involves no checkride, allows you to fly in missions and exercises in a purely transportation role; that is, flying from point A to point B hauling people or equipment. With 200 hours of PIC time you are eligible for several more qualifications -- Cadet Orientation Pilot, which allows you to fly cadets on their official orientation flights, and Mission Pilot, which involves most of the operations attendant to CAP's missions. Those operations would include search pattern flying, aerial photography flying, ELT search flying, and many more. A considerable amount of training goes into becoming a mission pilot, and there is a separate checkride involved, which is administered every two years. Cadet orientation flights are a lot of fun, and are similar in many ways to the rides given in the EAA Young Eagles Program. The O flight pilot introduces the cadet in the right seat to various aspects of airplane operations, and the cadet may take the controls when safely airborne, if he or she desires. There is a complete syllabus for the Orientation program, which involves each cadet getting five rides in the right seat, and as many as he or she wants in the back seats. Each flight has a particular emphasis; for example, the first ride is aimed toward introducing the controls and how they function to keep the airplane under control. Other rides introduce flight instruments, the different speeds of flight, weather and so on. An orientation pilot need not be a CFI, nor are the flights considered to be instructional even if flown by a CFI. Preparation for the mission pilot qualification is more involved and there is a complete syllabus for the instruction. Some pilots take the training at their local wing, often during exercises that are set up for that purpose. Others attend one of the several major Mission Aircrew Schools that CAP operates around the country each year. My alma mater is the National Emergency Services Academy, held each summer in mid-July at Columbus, Indiana. This is a week-long program which encompasses many hours of classroom work and a goodly amount of flying. The Mission Aircrew School at NESA offers programs for qualification as Scanner, Photographer, Observer and Pilot. The size and tempo of this Academy is similar to that of a large scale mission, like the Steve Fossett search some years ago, and the quality of instruction is superb. Graduates, like those of the Navy's Top Gun program, are recruited to return as instructors, and also to teach what they have learned back at their local wing and squadron. I have been going back as an IP each year since I attended as a student, and NESA is a cornerstone of my summer CAP activities. Mission flying involves the execution of a variety of search patterns, which were developed to ensure that a given area would be thoroughly searched or photographed. Long ago, it was determined that a standardized pattern would yield better search results than merely wandering around in the search area, and so it was that our search patterns were created. The patterns we fly are the grid (often called parallel line) search, the creeping line search, the route search, the expanding square search and the sector search. Taking them in the order that an incident commander might order them, the first likely response to a missing airplane report would be a route search along the presumed route of flight. In earlier times this might have been more involved, perhaps following ground references such as railroads or highways; but nowadays, with the ubiquity of GPS equipment, the presumed route is usually direct from the departure airport to the destination airport, particularly if the flight in question was conducted under VFR. The route search consists of flying the presumed route back and forth with increasing offsets from the actual course line as the GPS draws it. Usually the first offsets are one half mile on either side of the centerline, and for each subsequent trip back and forth the offset is increased by that same one half mile, leading to an evolution of one round trip at half a mile, another at one mile either side, another at 1.5, and so on. While this visual search is going on down low (all visual searches are conducted at 1000 feet AGL) another airplane is likely flying higher and faster along the route centerline, listening on its electronic direction finder for the signal sent out by an ELT. Often this ELT route search, sometimes called the "hasty search", is the first sortie sent out, since it requires no planning other than merely knowing the origin and destination of the flight in question (sometimes, as in the case of the Steve Fossett search, the destination is not really known. But a hasty search can still be dispatched to listen for a beacon signal). If the initial route searches turn up nothing, which is often the case, a closer inspection of the landscape is in order. The planners at the incident command post (if one has been set up by this point) will, in the absence of any further information as to the possible location of the downed airplane, probably want a more detailed search of the presumed route. This is done by utilizing the creeping line search. A creeping line search investigates the area along a route, but does so by flying a series of ladder-like legs across, not along, the presumed line of flight. These crossbar type legs are often flown out to a distance of three miles from the route centerline, and they snake back and forth across the route, not unlike an exaggerated series of S turns across a road. This pattern provides considerably greater coverage of a route, but takes far longer than the simple route search to accomplish. In fact, if the presumed route is long, it is usually broken up into segments of around 10nm and a search airplane is assigned to each segment, all flying more or less simultaneously. While all of this is going on, the planners at the incident command post (ICP) are soliciting clues as to the whereabouts of the airplane in question, from sources like the FAA, the police along the route, and often the public. If a clue comes in it can often be localized to a single position, more or less. In this case, it is time to employ one of the point-based search patterns; the expanding square or the sector search. Both of these concentrate the eyeballs on a particular area, albeit in different ways. If the reported position is vague and not definitely established, the expanding square is the search of choice. This pattern begins on a point, and involves flying around that point at increasing distances. It is essentially a squared-off outward spiral, typically flown with right turns with the point of interest always on the inside of the turn. This is done so that two sets of eyes (the observer in the right front seat and the scanner, located for this evolution in the right rear seat) are always on the area of interest. The pattern is most often flown at distances of one mile initially, from the center point, and it increments outward in one mile intervals each time a complete circumnavigation of the center point is accomplished. The area searched starts out at the assumed point but proceeds outward farther and farther from that point. Typically, a search like this would proceed out to around 5 miles from the original point. On the other hand, if the probability of the target being pretty much right at a given point is high, the sector search is your best bet. This pattern looks like a pie, cut up in segments, with the airplane flying over the center point many times, from different angles. This saturates the point-in-question with eyeballs and the different angles allow for many sighting possibilities, particularly in forested areas where trees block the view of the ground. An example of a situation where a sector search would be immediately commenced would be the end-game of an electronic direction finder ELT search. We would actually continue to use the DF gear to fly over the same point again and again, from different angles, both to establish the location of the beacon and also to allow for visual searching. We would be doing a sector search. Sometimes, if a beacon signal is being heard, we simply go looking for it with our electronic gear. There are two types of DF equipment -- the older L-Tronics gear, which uses a needle similar to a tiny VOR course indicator, and lets us know if the signal is coming from left or right, and the more modern Becker unit which has a video screen display with a direction indicator that works somewhat like an ADF and gives us the relative bearing to the signal. Both types work well, although an ELT signal is not particularly strong to begin with, and it may be even weaker after a crash, especially after a day or two has gone by. ELT signals are line of sight, of course, but they can be attenuated by things in the vicinity like trees or buildings, as well as annoyingly reflected by metal structures or sometimes large geological formations like cliffs and canyons. ELT searches are as much an art as a procedure, and more's the pity that we get relatively few of them these days, since that means we have less opportunity to keep the skills sharp. Fortunately, we are possessed of a number of training beacons that broadcast the same signal, but on a different frequency. This is how we practice, and perform ELT searches on the mission pilot evaluation flights. Either of the direction finders would allow us to more or less home in on the ELT signal, and provide indication of station passage when we overflew it. Electronic searches are usually begun at higher altitudes, so that we can acquire the signal. Then we can fly progressively lower as we approach it, to make the search more precise, as well as to allow visual acquisition of the target. In addition to the DF equipment we usually also listen to the beacon on one of our Comm radios (for the older 121.5 beacons). This allows us to determine our proximity to the source, since the signal will get louder as we approach it. If the DF unit is not working we can use older, more archaic methods with the Comm radio that involve analyzing the signal strength or volume to come up with data that can be plotted on a chart to show the probable location of the signal source. Once we have done this we simply proceed to that point and begin one of the point based search patterns. Another method of DF-ing a signal without the DF equipment involves making a steep turn over an identifiable point on the ground while listening to the ELT on the Comm radio. In a steep turn, around 45 degrees of bank or more, the wing will actually block the beacon signal when it comes between the antenna and the signal source. That results in a noticeable "null" in the ELT signal. At that moment, the signal is in the direction of the wing that blocks the antenna. If the antenna is on top of the wing, the signal is in the direction of the high wing, 90 degrees off the nose of the airplane. A quick check of the directional gyro will give us the magnetic bearing, which can be plotted on a sectional using the point you are flying over in the turn as the origin of the bearing. Doing this two or more times over points on the ground separated by around 5-10 miles will yield a probable location where the plotted lines cross. You can do all of this on your PC based simulator. In fact, I use MSFS when I teach these procedures at NESA and the other training sessions. You can do the search patterns using only the sim, without any add-ons, although for eye candy realism you may want to download one of the CAP repaints that are available for some of the Cessnas, both stock and add-on. We fly the visual search patterns using information from the GPS. The data we use are track, cross-track, and distance. All of the patterns are flown using various combinations of these three bits of data. For the grid search we use all three -- track is always used to steer the airplane over the exact course over the ground that you need, cross-track becomes the value we use for the centerline of our desired path over the ground, and distance marks the beginning and end of each leg of the pattern. The expanding square is flown using track, distance for the first turn of the pattern, and cross-track for both centerline and end points for all subsequent legs. The creeping line uses distance as centerline, cross-track for end points of the legs, and as always track to control the path over the ground. Sector searches use cross-track (or CDI centered) as centerline, and distance as end points. All of the patterns take advantage of the OBS feature of most GPS's, which allows the course to be adjusted like the desired radial of a VOR. All of the big three Electronic Flight Bag providers (ForeFlight, WingX Pro and Garmin pilot) now have the capability to actually construct and draw these search patterns based upon data you enter, such as the type of pattern and the point where it starts. So too does the G-1000, provided the SAR feature has been activated. A few of our airplanes still have the GX-55 GPS, and this was the first unit to feature the ability to construct and draw CAP search patterns. So there are many ways to skin the SAR cat! In MSFS we also have a terrific add-on that allows you to do much more by way of simulating CAP search operations. Published by Abacus Software, it is titled CAP Search and Rescue, and it is available for both FS2004 and FSX. This package has a number of features: A GPS that has a readout of latitude and longitude, allowing for several of the patterns (grid and expanding square) to be flown by direct reference to lat/long numbers Simplified but accurate simulations of both the L-Tronics and Becker DF units The ability to place an ELT signal anywhere on the scenery, which will be displayed on the DF The ability to also place on the scenery, at the same point as the ELT signal, a visual representation, in scale, of a target. There are around a dozen or so possible targets, ranging from a crashed 747 to a crashed light airplane, and also people, cars, trucks, signal flares, signal fires, and some others. These appear on the scenery in scale, and are often surprisingly difficult to find, just like in the real world! Using the Abacus package, a pilot or even a scanner trainee can get a lot of valuable practice. We in CAP are starting to use simulation in this way, and the benefits are substantial. Abacus even offers a discount for CAP members. You can look online to find some of the CAP search manuals, particularly the Operational Mission Inflight Guide. These are not classified, and you can get some good insights into how to actually fly the various patterns. In recent years CAP has been tasked with new responsibilities, especially aerial photography, most often in support of some kind of disaster relief like a hurricane or flooding or the like. As we go forward this will be a bigger part of our mission, because the 121.5 beacons are no longer monitored by the satellite, leaving no way for the Air Force Rescue and Coordination Center (AFRCC) to know that a signal is being broadcast unless an airplane aloft or on the ground happens to be listening on 121.5. Airliners often do just this on their second VHF radio, so we do occasionally get tasked to go find an ELT that is broadcasting. In the vast majority of instances the beacon has started transmitting for some reason other than a crash -- a hard landing perhaps, or a fault in the unit. Beacon searches usually end up in one of two areas -- an airport or a junkyard, since a major reason for a unit to start transmitting is improper removal and disposal. Similar beacons also exist on boats, and marinas are another popular terminus for ELT searches. But the rise of the 406 MHz beacon, coupled with its internal GPS, means that a transmitting beacon now broadcasts its exact location, obviating the need to actually search for it. So it is to the aerial photo missions that we turn next, because in the last few months the US and its territories have been hit with several major hurricanes, causing untold damage and destruction across large areas. This is what we can do to help out when the time comes for the coach to put us into the big game! In part two of Civil Air Patrol you can go along with us on a major mission, and experience the thrill of long distance overwater flying with but a single engine, a task I once thought I would never undertake... Stay tuned! Tony Vallillo www.gocivilairpatrol.com Also by Tony Vallillo: CAP Puerto Rico Hurricane Maria Recovery Mission
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Boeing Boeing By Tony Vallillo The image is among the most iconic in aviation - a view out the window of a four engine jet, but with a twist - everything outside is upside down! What on earth, or above it, was going on there? What was going on there, as the pilot of that airplane told his boss, was selling airplanes. And they sold a bunch of them as a result of that maneuver; more than that - they touched off a revolution in travel, and jump started the jet age. But how, you may ask, did it come to barrel rolls in jet transports above hydroplane racers? Just prior to World War II, the Douglas Aircraft Company had something of a monopoly on building airliners. Although the Boeing Company had, in fact, raised the bar in air transport design with their ground breaking model 247 in 1933, they were hoisted upon their own corporate petard, as it were, because of their status as part of a larger conglomerate which included Boeing Air Transport, the predecessor of United Airlines. The airline thought it had a good thing going with the advanced Model 247, and managed to corner the market by taking virtually all of the first few years' production. This left competitors, principally TWA, potentially in the lurch. They responded by getting Douglas Aircraft to design and build first the DC-1 prototype, and then the DC-2. This airplane was superior in just about every way to the 247, and when it was further expanded into the DC-3, Douglas' hold on the air transport world was secured, and DC-3's flew all over the world for decades. Meanwhile, Boeing found its own niche in the development and construction of large bombers during the war. After the war they created a giant airliner, the Stratocruiser, based largely upon the design of the B-29 bomber. Although they sold only a relative handful of the Stratocruisers as airliners, the USAF bought hundreds of KC-97's, which was an air refueling tanker version of the Stratocruiser. The airline version was troubled, in the beginning, with numerous design issues with the engines and propellers; these planes were, for the most part, retired in favor of Douglas airplanes like the DC-6 and DC-7. But the military version flew all the way into the early 1970's with the Air National Guard - one of my pilot training classmates ended up flying them in Texas in those years. The big event at Boeing in the late 40's was the development of a large bomber powered by the new turbojet engines. This was the B-47 Stratojet, which was soon augmented by the even larger B-52 Stratofortress. In those early days of the cold war, these planes (particularly the B-47's) needed to be refueled in the air in order to achieve the range needed to accomplish their strategic bombing missions. This was done, in the beginning, using piston powered tankers like the KC-97, but this was an interim solution and was unsatisfactory. The tankers, at their top speed, were still in the low speed range of the jet bombers, which all had highly swept wings for fast flying, but which performed poorly at low speeds. What was needed was a fast jet powered tanker plane to complement the speedy bomber fleet. Boeing figured this out even before the Air Force did; after all, the planes were all made by them, and they knew better than anyone the weaknesses of the piston powered tankers. But initially they were unable to convince the AF to fund the development of such a jet tanker. So Bill Allen, president of the firm, decided to take an enormous gamble and bet the farm, or in this case the company, to develop the plane themselves. $14 million later (a gargantuan amount in those days), this gamble emerged as a one-off jet airplane, the Boeing model 367-80. Rollout of the 367-80 on May 15, 1954 Dash 80 first flight 15 July 1954 Dash Eighty, as she was affectionately known, was a hand built prototype - literally put together from parts that were mostly custom made. Put first through exhaustive testing, which, as intended, revealed a few flaws which were rapidly corrected, the jet was also taken on a fairly extensive round of demonstrations both at home and farther afield. This was all an effort to arouse some interest in the unique airplane, from both the airlines and the military. The airlines were not at all enthusiastic about anything as new as this, having just coughed up the money to order the latest DC-7's and Super Constellations. Nor was the thought of the inflight explosions of the first jet airliner, the British Comet, far from their minds. Thus there was not exactly a stampede of customers to Boeing's "showroom". So it was that in early August 1955, on the occasion of the annual Hydroplane races on Lake Washington in Seattle, Bill Allen arranged a fly over of the Dash 80 for the benefit of nearly every airline president in the country, all of whom had been invited by Boeing to enjoy the races and the delightful Puget Sound summer weather. As it turned out, Allen got more than he bargained for. Boeing's chief test pilot at this time was a colorful character named "Tex" Johnston. Tex decided to put on a real show, the better to "sell" the new airplane. He chose to demonstrate the Barrel Roll maneuver because, if done correctly, it is a one G maneuver, as Bob Hoover spent a career demonstrating at airshows around the world in later years. Tex practiced the maneuver in the Dash 80 at altitude several times the day before, and on the appointed day he flew low over Lake Washington, right over the head of just about every airline CEO in the country, and performed a perfect barrel roll. Then Tex turned the ship around and did it again in the opposite direction! To say that the airline brass was impressed would be the understatement of the jet age - Eddie Rickenbacker of Eastern Airlines, who apparently arrived a day later and missed seeing the spectacle, told Tex that had he known of it ahead of time he would have demanded to ride the jump seat! The famous barrel roll, as painstakingly painted by aviation artist Mike Machat Tex Johnston after a flight in Dash 80 Bill Allen was not so enthusiastic. After having nearly suffered a heart attack (figuratively, not literally, although he reportedly asked one of his lieutenants, who did have heart trouble, for some of his pills!), he called Tex on the carpet the next day and asked him just what in the **** he thought he was doing. "Selling airplanes" was the laconic reply. And that is exactly what happened. In fact, some would place the origin of the "jet age" squarely on that day, August 6, 1955. It is not unreasonable to deduce that, had their confidence in the sturdy construction of the Dash 80 not been assured by those rolls (most of the airline brass were not pilots, and knew nothing of the relatively benign nature of the maneuver), it may have been years before orders would be forthcoming for any jet transports. Tex Johnston literally sold the airplane and the entire concept of jet transportation in that one moment. And according to company lore, just about every Boeing jet, at least through the 767 series, has been rolled at one time or another during testing. Rollout of the 707-100 Almost immediately, Boeing derived two airplane designs from the Dash 80 - the airliner that would be known as the Boeing 707, and the Air Force tanker, called the Boeing 717 internally, but designated the KC-135 by the USAF. These were two largely distinct airplanes, and neither was a clone of Dash 80. The KC-135's were all identical to each other, and were a bit larger than the prototype in nearly every dimension. Most of them, all built prior to the early 1960's, are still flying today, albeit with newer and much more powerful engines. Surprisingly, most of them have less time on their airframes than some of the 777's still in airline service, since they spent a good deal of their time over this 60 or so year career sitting on the ramp on alert. They will not all be retired to the boneyard until around 2030! AA's first 707, N7501A. Although not the first on the property to fly a trip, this airplane was the first delivered to AA, and I flew it twice in the course of my career. N7501A was sold shortly after I flew it, and ended up with Cyprus Airways, where it was written off after this landing accident in August 1979. The airline version, the 707, was even larger than the KC-135. Original specifications, based upon the tanker version, had been for a cabin with 5 across seating, similar to the later Douglas DC-9 series. But the airline bosses, particularly C.R. Smith of American, knew that they would need a lot of paying bodies in the seats to turn a profit on these expensive beasts, and so it was that Boeing was "persuaded" (actually, Smith made Allen an offer he couldn't refuse, decades before that phrase became popular) to enlarge the cabin to accommodate 6 across seating, as Douglas was planning to do with their entry into the jet race. Dash 80 today, in proud retirement at the National Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy complex at KIAD/ The 707 came to be built in a bewildering number of variants, as Boeing, eager to rack up sales, tried to cater to each airline's unique needs. Eventually, the family included three basic types, within which there were a number of subsets. The broad types were the 707-100 series, which were the original model; the 707-300 series which were a stretched long range version better suited to international flights, and another version aimed at shorter range operations from shorter runways. More on that last version later. Within the -100 series there were several unique types, built for specific airlines with specific requirements. For Qantas, Boeing built the -138's, which had a shortened fuselage and longer range. This, by the way, was the type that John Travolta owned and flew for many years. For Braniff, which by this time had acquired routes into the Andes region of South America, Boeing built the -227, which had more powerful engines for the "high and hot" environment. The majority of the 100 series were the standard issue, which were almost all converted a few years later to -100B status with the addition of the new and more powerful turbofan engines. One of a number of our 707-300's awaiting sale after being retired in the early 1980s. The 300 series were more standardized, although Boeing did cater to a great deal of customization in the cockpit equipment and the cabin design. When the turbofan engines became available, the 300 became the 300B, although apparently none were converted while in use - all of the 300B's were new builds. The B's also had larger wingtips which carried a bit more fuel for better range. Within the 300 series were also the 300C's, which were cargo only variants. There was also a -400 series, which was a -300 airframe with Rolls Royce engines, built specially for the British airline and a few of the Commonwealth airlines. Boeing, it seems, would do just about anything required to assure a sale! And then there was that short range version. That came about early on, as a result of the inconvenient truth that the original non-fan 707's needed a very long runway to operate at anything near max weight. We are talking in excess of 10,000 feet here, and although the major international airports like Idlewild in New York did indeed lengthen some of their runways to accommodate this need, there were still only a handful of airports in any given country that could take on the early jets. The "Jet Set" had to content themselves with flights between only the most major cities worldwide. As the passenger popularity of the smoother higher flying jets grew, both passengers and the airlines were very interested in expanding the jet experience to more and smaller airports. Boeing met this need with a redesign of the basic 707. The 100 series fuselage was shortened by around 10 feet, the entire structure was made lighter by using lighter aluminum alloys and the wing was modified a bit. The latter included a "glove" of sorts on the leading edge of the wing inboard of the inboard engine. This had the effect of increasing the sweep of the inboard leading edge, while also adding a bit to the wing area, increasing low speed lift. The leading edge devices were redesigned to add to this increased low speed lift, and the fuel capacity was reduced, resulting in a reduced range but also an overall weight reduction of around 30,000 pounds compared to a dash 100. All of this added up to an airplane that could operate reliably out of runways somewhat shorter than a dash 100 - say around 7000 feet as opposed to 10,000 or more. Early United 720, prior to the advent of the fan jet JT3D engines. Boeing had originally designated this airplane the 707-020. But the launch customer, United Airlines, had what amounted to a PR problem. United had been a major Douglas customer over the years, and had originally ordered the DC-8 instead of the 707. From the beginning, they had extolled the virtues of that choice in all of their advertising, to the point that both the marketing department and their board of directors felt that they would look fickle ordering a bunch of 707's at this later date. Boeing never had any problem catering to the whims of a customer, and so it was that the public name of this new plane was changed to the Boeing 720 - the only Boeing jet airliner to depart from the 7_7 designation scheme. Although United was thus able to create the impression that what they were flying around in the early 1960's was a completely new airplane, this was most certainly not the case - the 720 was merely a light weight, hot rod derivative of the 707. Originally powered by the same JT3C straight jet engines as all the rest of the 707's, it lacked water injection, since that power boost was not needed on the lighter airframe. Almost all of them were converted to the 720B configuration the minute that the fan jet JT3D engines were available; and, thus equipped, they were sprightly performers, leaping off of runways and booming up to altitude far faster than the other variants. In the USA they were operated originally by UAL and Eastern, which never operated any other version of the 707, and by Northwest, Braniff, Pan Am, TWA and American, all of which did have the other series in their fleets. In fact, American, Pan Am and TWA did not refer to the airplanes as 720's - they called them 707's, and only the crew or a few very knowledgeable passengers knew the difference. That difference, by the way, as far as a layman could tell, was the single overwing exit as opposed to the 707's two overwing exits (although Eastern's 720's did have the double overwing hatches due to their extensive use in overwater operations). When I hired on as a pilot at American in 1977, we operated a large fleet of 707's, although by this time the 720's were long gone, replaced in the 1960's by the much better performing 727 series which could operate from runways as short as 5000 feet (this was actually a requirement of the design, at the behest of Eastern, which wanted to operate the 727 in and out of LGA). The JT3D turbofan engines on one of our 707-300s at JFK. Within my first year on the line I was sent back to 707 school as a flight engineer, and thus began an era in my career during which I flew both the 707 and 727 regularly, first as a line FE and then as a flight engineer check airman. This was an amazing opportunity for several reasons. First, I now had access, even at my lowly level of seniority, to twice as many trip selections each month (for in those days one could be dual qualified). Second, I now flew with Captains who were significantly older than the 727 group, and who had, early in their own careers, flown with some of the pioneers, pilots like George McCabe, Walt Braznell, Howard Woodall, and other true early birds. From these men I heard tales of the really old days, and I gained a greater understanding of what those original pilots had to endure, back when the job was much different than it is today. One of the four Boeing 707 flight simulators at the AA Flight Academy around 1979. Compared to the 727, the 707 was a bit more complex, as one might imagine, and although the pilots were doing essentially the same thing in both airplanes, the FE was much busier in the 707, if for no other reason than the fact that he or she had four of everything to be concerned with as opposed to three. The fuel system had additional tanks, not only for the fourth engine but also auxiliary tanks for much greater range (that American used on only one occasion that I was involved with). The pneumatic system was an entire order of magnitude more complex than the one on the three holer, with not only engine bleed air to manage, but also a system of turbo-compressors on the inboard engines that were the actual source of the A/C and pressurization air. The air conditioning cooling was produced not by the air cycle machines that I had been familiar with on the C-141 and 727, but rather by an actually more effective Freon cycle system that more closely resembled the design of a home air conditioner. Only the hydraulic system was simpler - on the 707 hydraulics powered the rudder, brakes, flaps, steering and speed brakes. A simple system of two engine driven pumps provided the pressure for this assemblage. The other flight controls (ailerons and elevators) were not hydraulic boosted at all, and were operated by a system of anti-servo tabs, like the ones on the 727 which were, on that airplane, only used as a backup manual system in case the hydraulics failed. Tab operation, on an airplane this big, resulted in heavy roll and pitch forces on the yoke. In the pitch axis this mattered less, since one could (and just about everyone did) fly the airplane with the pitch trim, which was electrically powered. But in the roll axis, there was nothing to relieve the heavy, truck like feel and response of the tabs and it is more the wonder that ol' Tex had been able to roll the heavy beast so low to the ground. It would not have been a feat for the faint of heart, or the weak of strength. Back in the day, when the airplanes were new, the truck-like feel and response was less of an issue, since all the piston airliners flew like trucks, at least compared to modern designs. But by the time I was flying it, the career progression might lead one to fly the 727 first, and then the higher paying 707 a bit later on, at which point the natural delight of flying the remarkably responsive 727 (the best flying large jet ever designed, in my humble opinion) would give way to the now objectionably heavier feel of the older airplane. The lure of the bigger bucks, though, overcame any distaste over handling! I never flew the 707 in either pilot position, although I got a good bit of time in the pilot seats in the simulator, and a generous Captain once gave me a takeoff in the actual airplane (that is as much as I will admit to, now that the statute of limitations has expired!). I found the airplane to be as advertised - more or less like the 727 with hydraulics shut off. Roll was heavy on the stick forces, and ponderous in response to inputs. Anticipation was key here - you needed to know when to begin and end roll inputs and in both cases the time for that was just a bit prior to what you were used to in later designs. Things seldom happened immediately in the 707. Pitch was a bit more responsive, albeit heavy enough on the yoke that trim inputs were the preferred method of inducing a pitch change. Flown that way, things were manageable. I never had a landing in the airplane, but if the simulator was any indication (and it usually was) they landed like a big Cessna, with a pronounced flare-and-hold-it-off, and even a bit of a tendency to float if the speed was a bit high. Real grease jobs (referred to today in the sim community as "butters" for some reason unknown to me) were regularly achieved, at least by the veterans, and it was rare indeed that a 707 landing would set off seismographs (as the 727 was capable of doing on a much more frequent basis). Another view of the turbofan JT3D engines. The 707 was a very versatile airplane. At AA it was used, at least during my tenure, for trips as long as transcons (although by this time the premium runs like flight 1 were all widebodies) and as short as JFK-ROC. We had a sub fleet of around a dozen that were configured as freighters, and these flew all around the system, particularly in and out of the Caribbean. There was really no such thing as a typical 707 trip, at least out of New York. One of my favorites, and one of the first actual trip selections I was able to hold as a very junior FE in the late 70's, was a selection that left JFK around 6 in the evening, non-stop to San Diego. After a 24 hour layover in that delightful town, it returned as a red-eye the following evening, leaving SAN around 9pm. The runway at KSAN was not long enough to accommodate an actual non-stop flight to the east coast, so a stopover was made at KPHX to refuel and pick up more passengers. Then the transcon was resumed, arriving at JFK around 0600. We also had both passenger and freighter trips as short as JFK or EWR to ROC, SYR, BUF and CYYZ and back. These flights lasted only an hour or even a bit less, but the 707 filled the bill well enough in those days of cheaper fuel. At the international airlines, of course, it was used on the long hauls, overwater from continent to continent. Until the advent of the 747, the 707 held down all of the most prestigious flights worldwide - JFK to London, Paris, Zurich, and to and between just about everywhere else. Only once did I ever fly a trip that used the extra range of the -300 series, and that was a charter flight from JFK to Paris, long before we acquired the authority to serve that route on a scheduled basis. We actually had around five of the -300's fitted out in an all coach configuration as a charter fleet, and our charter department was aggressive in seeking out opportunities to use them in that manner. Interestingly, on that Paris trip in question, all three of us up front were check airmen! In airline lore this is a sure sign of troubles to come, so we were all exceptionally attentive to our duties, the better to ward off the bad karma! The max weight of the basic -300 series was actually around 400,000 lb, but American and probably most other domestic airlines that used it had certified it to a considerably lower number - in our case 350,000 lb. This was done to save money on landing fees, which were and probably still are based upon the certified max gross weight of an airplane. The FAA will certify whatever the airline wants, but when we selected 350k, we were bound to it from then on. Fortunately, by the time we actually got routes longer than east coast to Europe, we had other airplanes such as the DC-10 and 767 to fly them. The 707 was eventually retired not because it was getting too long in the tooth, but due to the increasing cost of fuel. I flew the 707 until the very end of its tenure at AA, around 1983. Most if not all of ours went to the USAF to be shorn of their engines, which were then used to re-engine part of the KC-135 fleet. By the mid 1980's about the only place you could find a 707 in the US was at KMIA, specifically on the north side of the airport in an area we knew as cockroach (or sometimes corrosion) corner. This was a living boneyard of old airliners that were still in use nightly on cargo runs into Latin America and the Caribbean. The various versions of the 707, as well as a good many DC-8's, were literally worked to death in these hardscrabble services, bearing the haphazard liveries of companies you had never heard of. There, and in South American, Africa and the Middle East you could still find, and even fly on, the former queen of the sky. The USAF, as I said, is still flying a good portion of its original KC-135 fleet, now re-engined with the massive CFM-56's. Thus equipped, it is finally a good performing airplane. And there are a few dozen actual 707-300 airframes in the inventory, mostly the AWACS with a few J-Stars and TACAMO airplanes performing special missions. Boeing built over 1000 707's, a total that pales in comparison with the 737 numbers, but which was very respectable in the day. Finally, many today (myself included) think of it as the most beautiful jet transport ever built. Certainly nothing in the skies today comes close. The 3D cockpit of the Shenshee Boeing 720. There are already some very nice repaints for the 720, including this one of an AA airplane in the last livery it wore there. The 707 In The Flightsim World In the world of flight simulation, there have been a number of representations of the 707 over the years, for various platforms. In the older versions of MSFS, we had the freeware Historic Jetliners Group, which had (and still has) just about every variant of the series modeled, with excellent externals but limited cockpits and system functionality. There was also a 707 from Captain Sim, which was also very good on the external appearance, and a bit closer to "study level" with its 3D cockpit (although to date there has never been anything like a true study level 707 on any platform). For X-Plane there had been a reasonably decent payware offering of a 707 by someone named Wilson, but this is no longer available, more's the pity. There is also a very nice KC-135, and this might conceivably be redone as an actual 707, but nothing along those lines has happened yet. There is supposedly a 707 in the works for MSFS 2020, and we shall see what we shall see. At the moment however, the world, or at least the X-Plane world, has been taken almost completely by surprise by a new offering - a freeware Boeing 720. And it is an outstanding piece of work indeed! It was developed by a single individual whose nom de plume is Shenshee, who has been designing cars for racing simulations according to his curriculum vitae on the download page, and for whom this is a first attempt at an airliner. Well, all I can say is keep an eye on this individual, for this 720 is a real home run! The default livery for the 720 is this very nice Ethiopian Airlines paint job. Pan American also flew the 720, most likely in and out of the Caribbean. Let's start with the externals. This looks very much like the real thing, and in this respect it is essentially payware quality - certainly as good, and perhaps a wee bit better than the Wilson offering. Boeing narrow body jets have a certain "look", particularly around the nose, and Shenshee has caught this almost perfectly. Wings and tail are also impressive, as are the two engine variants that come with it - it has both the straight jet JT3C and the fan JT3D, selectable at the touch of a button on a special panel that you can call up with a click of the mouse. The view I fly from in the 3D cockpit. The FE panel was my office when I was flying the 707. This one is very well modeled, although not everything works. But everything that needs to work works! The flight deck is fully modeled in 3D, and in appearance is very much like the 707's I flew. The textures are not up to the standards of something like PMDG, of course, but who would expect them to be? As it is, they are very good and both the pilot panels up front and the FE panels in back are quite realistic. The instruments are very similar to those found on the 707 or 720 back in the day, and the autopilot is more or less an exact replica of the one we had on the 707. It works the same way too, and is just as limited in functionality! No altitude capture here - you have to pay attention to it, just as we did in the long ago. The 707s had a somewhat simplified overhead panel compared to later models since the FE panel held much of what is on the overhead of a modern airliner. Up front most of the switches work, and have more or less the desired effect upon their systems. The overhead is where you will find some non operational switches, but the ones you need, like the engine start switches, the lights, pitot and window heat and pax signs do work. In other words, what needs to work to fly the airplane does work. The same goes for the center panel and console. Here Shenshee has included a much appreciated animation - when the gear handle is raised, it subsequently goes into the center-off position all by itself, thus precluding any strange interaction with the Honeycomb Bravo landing gear lever! Lower FE panel - very realistic indeed. Upper FE panel. Here you see the ground electric switch and, on the middle of the A/C and Pressurization panel, between the (non functional) turbo compressor switches, the ground air switch. These two switches are needed during the start sequence. On the FE panel we again find that what you need to operate the airplane does in fact work. For some reason the essential power switch is non functional, but that is of little import, since there are no failure modes to worry about. In this airplane you have to engineer your own failures, although I imagine that there is also the option of using the X-Plane interface to do some of this dirty work. Overall, about half of the switches on the FE panel are operative and animated - enough to start the engines and manage the fuel system. I honestly don't know yet whether or not some of the operative switches actually do anything besides move and turn lights on and off, but I am sure that no one who flies this airplane will have any interest in being the FE any longer than it takes to crank up and go! And no, you don't need an AI flight engineer for this airplane - just start up, set and forget. Even the pressurization system can be dealt with that way. Enough talk, let's go fly! There were no APUs on any of the airline 707's that I ever saw, those being a later addition when a few of the airplanes were converted to private use. They were all operated on the ground with ground electric and high pressure ground air. These two can be selected or deselected using the same special panel that also controls which engines are displayed, whether or not there is an HF antenna on the tail, whether cabin lights are on or off (yes, there is a complete 3D cabin, and it is a pretty decent effort!) and a few other items of interest including the current gross weight (although this is not in pounds, sad to say!). Very nicely rendered complete cabin - this one looks like it is set up for charter operations, since it is all coach class. This is the interface that comes up when you click on either the center windshield post or the FE table. This controls the operation of ground air and electric, among other features. So... in order to start the engines you need to choose ground air and electric plugged in, and on the FE panel turn on the ground electric, and the ground air. Ensure that all of the engine bleed valves and the isolation valves on the pneumatic panel are open. You might as well close all of the bus tie breakers on the FE electrical panel at this point. We had them closed just about all of the time - in fact, the only time I ever opened one was if there was something abnormal going on with the electrics. Center console and throttles. During engine start, you need to translate your view down to this area to actuate the fuel levers at around 25-30% N2. Engine start was a two person act in the airplane, but there will be only one of you to do the work. We started them 3,4,2,1 at American, but some airlines may have had a different order. Raise the guard and left click the start switch. In the airplane this was a spring loaded (to off) switch and was held open by the Captain during the sequence. This action opens the engine start valve and allows the high pressure air to spin the starter turbine. This gets the N2 spool going, and you can see the N2 rpm increase on the center panel. Shenshee has accurately modeled this spring loading. But to watch the N2, you have to move your view down to the center panel, which would normally involve "letting go" of the start switch. What you have to do here is that, as you left click the start valve you then right click your mouse (hold both clicks down) in order to drag your view down from the overhead panel to the center console, so that at around 25-30% N2 you can release your left click on the start valve (which has still been active even though you moved the cursor off of that switch) and left click on the fuel lever, which will animate itself into the "run" position and the engine will continue to start on its own. Wait until everything stabilizes (these engines did not start as quickly as modern engines) and then close the guard on your first start switch and repeat the process three more times, in whatever order you want. After all four are started and the start switch guards closed, you can go to the FE electrical panel and close all four generator breakers one at a time. After that it is time to get rid of the ground electric and air, and crank up Better Pushback. Since we always left the gate with all engines running on these airplanes, you could actually save yourself some time by merely starting your sim session with engines running. This is one airplane where that would be more accurate than not! This is a good pitch trim setting for takeoff at most weights with flaps 20. Set the pitch trim at around 25% MAC on the center console, and set the flaps to 20. If you are using the Bravo throttle's Cessna style flap lever programmed to raise or lower one detent per input, you will find that although there is no detent in the sim for flaps 10, the first input on the flap lever gives you 10. Takeoff in a 707 was made with flaps 20, or in some cases 30 and not 10 so keep that in mind. This is exactly what a 707/720 looks like becoming airborne - very accurate deck angle. During taxi the airplane responds very realistically to inputs such as nose wheel tiller and rudder pedal, and you have to give it some thrust every now and again to keep it rolling, also prototypical for a heavy airplane. Takeoff is exactly like I remember it from the old days, and the pitch rate on rotation is spot on - a bit slow and stately. Once airborne, the illusion is complete, as it rolls smoothly but not quickly in response to your inputs. If you happen to have a Honeycomb Alpha, you are in for a very realistic experience, since the Alpha is itself quite heavy and stiff in the pitch axis, which just happens to make for an outstanding simulacrum of a 707 in pitch. With such a rig, you will definitely be flying it with trim. And speaking of trim, the trim wheel on the Bravo is a perfect replica (except for size) of the real thing and has exactly the same effect on the airplane as manual trimming did in reality. The gear and flap animations are very realistic as well. Even the cabin window view is outstanding. Well do I recall sitting there listening to the roar of those D models as they strained at the yoke to get the beast airborne! I cannot say enough good things about how this Shenshee 720 flies. I have been using it for a few weeks now, and even though the brand new PMDG 737-800 has just been delivered into my "hangar" I am still using the 720 far more. I guess I'm just at a point in my life where I enjoy reliving a portion of my youth! But most of that attraction has to lie at the doorstep of the realism of this 720. It responds almost exactly like the real thing seemed to, at least from the FE seat! A word or two about the autopilot would be in order. This autopilot is an exact duplicate of the ones we had on the 707, and works the same way. It has none of the modern conveniences, like FLC, or VNAV, or Altitude Capture. What it has is a pitch wheel, which is used to raise or lower the nose; and which can, with a little manipulation and attention serve as a Vertical Speed mode of sorts. This is how climbs and descents are handled. In real life, most pilots hand flew the bird to altitude and for most of the descent, since it handled well enough, especially when flown with pitch trim. The autopilot's basic roll mode is a wing leveler with a turn knob. The turn knob induces a roll, proportionate to the amount of knob rotation and capped at around 20 or so degrees of bank. Just use the turn knob to turn the airplane, remembering to return it to center to level out. Now what that autopilot did have were a few lateral modes like heading select and nav tracking (for VOR or Localizer). These, when selected with the rotary knob on the left side of the A/P unit, worked pretty much like their modern counterparts on a 737. In heading mode you turned the airplane by moving the heading bug on the HSI. In the real world, we did not use nav tracking much since it had a tendency to wander left and right instead of nailing the course and holding it. Instead we used heading select to steer the airplane to hold a VOR course. The autopilot had two approach modes - Auto GS and Manual GS. We used Auto, and this would track the localizer from the time it was engaged (you pretty much have to be on course to engage this, or at least you did IRL). It also captured and tracked the GS, provided the GS was intercepted from below, which is the usual method. Manual GS would track a GS captured from above, and since that is almost never done, we never used it. All things considered, the A/P could fly a coupled ILS approach to CAT II minimums of 100 feet and a quarter mile. There was, of course, no automatic go-around of any kind! Nor any auto-throttle, other than the carbon based variety; i.e., the FE. And the FE generally did not handle power on the approach, although he or she did in climb and cruise. Landing it is particularly evocative. Although you must take great care to manage your speed and altitude, if you happen to have much in the way of chops flying heavy airliners in XP you will have little difficulty handling this. If you lack the "experience", your flights may not go so well in the beginning. Just like the real thing, you have to be smooth and anticipatory with this bird, particularly with level offs, which must be anticipated. Nearing level off is not the time to be getting distracted; because, among other things, there is no altitude capture. That job is yours and yours alone, even on autopilot! Crosswind landing - about to touch down on the upwind gear. Landing animations - spoilers, flaps and reversers - are very well done. On approach, lower the flaps to 20 around 10 miles out, and let it slow down to around 180 kts. It will take around 3000 lb/hr per engine fuel flow to hold this condition. Drop the gear and set flaps 30 just prior to glide slope intercept. Start down the chute and lower the flaps to full in increments, and shoot for a ref speed of around 140 kts. Again, it should take between 3 and 4 thousand pounds per engine to fly final at this speed. Over the runway, flare it almost like a Cessna (not too much or it will float all the way to China), and when it touches down, make a real effort to lower the nose, since what looks like nose on the runway may in fact be nose wheel 3 feet in the air. Landing animations (spoilers and thrust reversers) are excellent. Get on the brakes early because this airplane uses up a lot of runway on landing, not unlike a real 707. I have been looking for a 707 on any of the sims I have installed ever since I lost the Captain Sim when I took FS2004 off the system. I would have settled for any sort of wretched offering. But low and behold, Shenshee has surprised us with freeware perfection! In most previous iterations of FS or XP this would be payware, and well worth a modest price. But for something that looks this good and flies this well to be free? Well, let's just say that I violated the ancient canons of my former profession and sent a couple of brewskies Shenshee's way. I hope that I am not the only one to do so, because work of this quality should be applauded in some measureable way. Thanks, Shenshee, for bringing me back 45 years to the beginning of my airline career! Happy Landings! Tony Vallillo Shenshee Boeing 720
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Bus Driver By Tony Vallillo This being the story of how he abandoned Boeing for a time, and took up with a plump French Tart! And, by the by, a review of an outstanding new product for X-Plane 11. In the beginning there was Henry Ford; who, as Ernie Gann wrote, seemed to have enticed all of the Aunt Mabels of the country to turn in their washboards to be fashioned into airliners. Then came Donald Douglas, who at the behest of first TWA and later American, created the most timeless airliner of all time! Then came Lockheed, and Convair, and Martin and soon the world was overrun with airliners. But finally came Boeing, and conquered all, for a time, during which the others faded away, some quickly, some slowly. And Boeing did rule the roost. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the European ranch, an airliner specification was quietly making its way around the several old world airliner manufacturers. It was, oddly, an American specification - meaning American Airlines, and it was the brainchild of one Frank Kolk, who was Vice President of Engineering at AA. When the US airlines decided, early on, that the 747 was simply too large for domestic use (even though many bought them, largely because the passengers loved them) they proceeded to underwrite the next generation of wide bodies - the DC-10 and L-1011. Frank Kolk drew up the American Airlines specification for this class of airplane and it featured two engines, of roughly the size and power of the engines on the 747's. Not for the first time (remember the 727 story?), most of the airlines wanted more engines, thus the three engine layouts of Douglas and Lockheed's nearly identical pair. The American specification continued to float around for awhile, eventually finding its way to Europe. Eastern was the first US customer for the original A-300 Dassault, Sud-Est, and a few other entities had by now formed a new conglomerate called Airbus Industrie, and they were very interested in the AA specification, to the point of talking with Kolk about it, but by that time American was invested in the DC-10. Nonetheless, the widebody twin was designed and built as the Airbus A-300. A number of airlines around the world, including Eastern Airlines in the US, bought them and put them into service in the 1970's. This original A-300 was fairly conventional, with a three man crew and a flight engineer station in the cockpit. It was not initially a big seller, but it was successful enough that further developments were forthcoming, including a "shortie" version dubbed the A-310. This was significant because it was the first variant to feature a somewhat automated, two pilot flight deck. As time went by, Airbus decided to graft the automation and the two crew cockpit onto the larger A-300B4 fuselage, thus begetting the A-300-600. Wardair Canada A-310, the short version that introduced the two man cockpit. By this time Boeing had also gotten into the widebody twin market, with the 767. There was, initially, a controversy in the USA over the three versus two pilot crew issue; and not until a Presidential commission had cleared the way for two pilot operations did the 767 take off, so to speak. The competition between the A-300 and the new 767 was interesting to behold. The initial 767-200 was somewhat smaller than the A-300, and had a fuselage of slightly smaller diameter. This made it necessary to design new smaller under deck cargo containers for it. Airbus had built the A-300 with a larger, perfectly circular fuselage that could accommodate two of the regular wide body containers side by side, and of course they tried to make some marketing hay about it, but the industry turned out to be quite sanguine about building smaller containers, and the 767 did not lose sales on this account. A few years after the introduction of the 767-200, Boeing did what they and Douglas had always done best - they stretched the design and made the 767-300. With this airplane they had a closer match for the passenger capacity of the A-300-600. A-300-605R in AA colors at Toulouse in a publicity shot. I still bears French registration. (AA photo) All the while, Airbus was trying hard to sell the latest models of the A-300 to US airlines, a factor that did not go unnoticed at AA headquarters. Bob Crandall drove hard bargains, as all of the employees at AA were to eventually find out (but of course, these bargains also had the effect of strengthening the company, thus ensuring durable careers for many, including yours truly!). But not only employees -- suppliers of all sorts found this out as well: if you wanted to do big business with AA, you had to offer a great deal. So Airbus and Crandall hammered out a great deal - an initial total of 25 A-300-605R's on what was essentially a Hertz-like rental agreement (in contrast to the long term capital leases that typically financed airplane purchases for airlines). It was an agreement that could even be cancelled early on if AA was not satisfied. Such a deal! Another publicity shot over France (AA photo) Interestingly, Boeing also offered a nearly identical "bargain" on new 767-300 ER's, and Crandall, loath to leave anything on the table, took them up on it to the tune of 25 of them, causing a good deal of heartburn at Airbus. But both deals were done; and, as it turned out, the two types would constitute the entirety of my flying for the last 18 years of my career. In the end, we would get 10 more Airbuses and become the largest A-300 operator in the world, considering only passenger versions (FedEx and UPS now have many more, and are still operating them. In fact, Airbus was still building them as freighters until 2007). But, in the end, it was the 767 which became the king of our fleet for a long time, and we eventually ended up with over 100 of them, mostly the -300ER variant. The initial cadre of our pilots for the Airbus was treated to what must surely be the greatest boondoggle in the history of aviation. They all trained in Toulouse France, at the Airbus headquarters, where a school had been established. While the AA schoolhouse in Texas was being set up with an A-300 division, a few hundred AA pilots (some accompanied by their wives and even families) were wined, dined, and subjected to one month of training crammed into three months! Sadly, this was all history by the time that I got there, and I trained at our own digs hard by the DFW airport. But the stories I heard from the pilots who had gone the Toulouse route were the stuff of dreams, including junkets all over Europe, and I always regretted having missed out on that. AA photo I got trained on the A-300 considerably out of seniority, as a direct result of having gone back into "the office" as Chief Pilot at JFK. JFK, at the time, was more or less the nexus of our A-300 operation, since we primarily used the airplane on the Caribbean runs to take advantage of its high passenger capacity (in the two class configuration we used, it had a capacity of over 250 passengers, which was more than the 777-200 could take in a three class layout, to say nothing of the huge belly cargo volume). Since most of our operation at JFK involved the A-300, one of the chiefs at New York, usually the one at JFK, was always qualified on it. And so it was that I found myself in 1990 headed not to Toulouse, sadly, but to Arlington Texas for my first new airplane school since C-5 school in 1984. In the study hall, learning the A-300. The joystick, form a military surplus store, reflects an inadequate understanding of which Airbus I am dealing with! Things had changed considerably in the intervening years. Whereas the C-5 school had consisted of classroom work with large mechanical systems trainers like the ones I had always seen since I started flying, the Airbus school had been computerized, and consisted entirely of what we now call computer based training (CBT), with what would today be considered PowerPoint presentations with embedded narration. All of the systems and procedures were taught this way. The fleet classrooms had been replaced by a large open area with dozens of CBT carrels, capable of running any of the programs on any of the fleets. After watching these programs in the morning, we ate lunch and then gathered with an instructor in a small room (there were only a handful of us in any given "class") for review of what we had supposedly learned that morning. To facilitate this review, the room was equipped with what we called a "wooden Indian" - that is, a paper trainer, although these were done up with full size instrument panel photos, not the previous line drawings. There I was to discover something I had not anticipated; that is, that CBT gained knowledge is extremely volatile. Many's the time my response to a question from the instructor was "we haven't studied that yet", only to be rebuked with the reminder that yes indeed, we had encountered it earlier that same day in the computer course! And had already forgotten it. This was shocking, and my only comfort came from the fact that my partner was having identical difficulties. Left: Later on at the hotel, going quietly nuts over the complicated systems! The Airbus was and is a very complex airplane, in terms of systems and cockpit layout. The systems are sophisticated, and replete with nit-noy collections of relays, solenoids, subsystems and all manner of complexities. In this the Airbus resembles the C-141 and C-5, both Lockheed products and both the result of the same sort of thinking on the part of the design engineers. The cockpit of the A-300 is festooned with buttons, switches, knobs, dials, and other assorted minutiae, in stark contrast to the relative simplicity of the 757/767 flight deck. In the 767 the FE was carefully and thoughtfully eliminated, pretty much vanished in an engineering disappearing act. In the Airbus, they more or less moved the FE panel up overhead and kicked out the FO, promoting the FE to a window seat. Had it not been for my long experience with complex airplanes in the military I might have had a worse time of it. As it was, I wound up spending most of my weekends at the schoolhouse instead of going home, to stay up with the academics. Left: The A-300-600 simulator at the Flight Academy in Texas. Note the complex flight deck. Right: The somewhat simpler layout of the 757 flight deck. The simulator training was equally intense. By this time, the airline had changed its training philosophy from "the pilot is a junior mechanic and needs to be able to build the airplane, or at least fix it" to "since no one can fix much while the airplane is flying, the pilot does not need to know much beyond which button to push when". In other words, operationally oriented rather than theoretically oriented training. At Toulouse, when pilots tried to delve into the inner workings of systems, they were often met with a Gallic shrug and an exclamation "It ees Automatique!" And we got a good bit of the same attitude in Texas, except for the accent (waaal, shucks - its aw-tow-matic!). Left: My notes on the overhead panel picture. There was much to learn on this beast... Right: The FMS, which was the source of a great deal of confusion during training. The A-310 was a transitional airplane, and not as much a clean sheet design like the 767. Much of the stuff of the three crew A-300 made its way onto the 310 flight deck, and stayed there when the cockpit was grafted onto the longer A-300 fuselage. Thus, in addition to all of the new ECAM and PFD/Nav Display gimcrackery, an entire set of analog engine instruments occupied much of the center panel, and 4 of the original 6-pack of flight instruments clustered around the glass in front of each pilot. There was, however, a big difference between this and any other airplane I had ever flown - the FMC; or rather, as they called it in the Airbus, the FMS. These gadgets were a brand new concept; and, especially for the older guys, a very difficult concept to grasp - totally integrated navigation and automatic flight. All of the mostly senior pilots who gravitated to these well paying widebodies already knew jet aircraft systems cold from 20 plus years of experience. But they did not know much if anything about integrated flight management systems, and it was to this deficiency that the bulk of the simulator training was addressed. Whereas in the past sim training had consisted largely of takeoffs, approaches, stalls, steep turns and engine out approaches, combined with sessions that introduced most of the systems abnormalities that could crop up, the majority of the time in the A-300 sim was spent learning how to program the FMS, and watching it make Otto jump through hoops. Abnormals, in any event, were mostly a matter of running a checklist that appeared like magic on the left ECAM screen whenever the need arose. But the real comic relief was watching both pilots (me included!) trying to herd all of the digital cats into the CDU. Once we had achieved some level of competence in the workings of the FMS/CDU and had learned to fly the beast with but a single engine running, the rating ride was taken and passed; and we then proceeded to the line to encounter the real airplane for the first time -- and with a load of passengers to boot, none of whom was given to know that their Captain was, in fact, a neophyte! As always in such circumstances, there was a check airman in the right seat to keep the blue side up. I finally make it to the line, perched in the left seat. The Airbuses have something of the appearance of a bird's beak up front. I had been flying the C-5 for 5 years at this point, and mere size in an airplane no longer intimidated me - in fact, the cockpit of the A-300 was a good 10 feet lower than that of the C-5, so the bird felt smaller than it actually was. But what did impress the hell out of me was the ability of two engines to convert fuel into acceleration. This was the first twin engine airplane I had flown since the T-37 and T-38 in pilot training, and the effect, on my first takeoff, was not unlike that of the T-38 in full afterburner! It felt an E ticket ride at Six Flags. We weren't all that heavy for the JFK-SJU flight, and rotation speed seemed to flash by in mere seconds. This was not something that the simulator fully duplicated - oh, it made the airspeed needle move impressively, but even with a 6-degree-of-freedom motion system they don't replicate acceleration completely. I eventually came to appreciate that this is more or less true of all twin engine transport category aircraft, since they are all, by decree, nearly 100% overpowered for takeoff when both engines are operating. After all, they have to keep flying when one engine quits at V1! Eventually I got used to it, more's the pity, and getting pressed into the seatback became a typical experience. But, like love...oh, that first time! Ensconced in the left seat somewhere between the old world and the new. I flew the Airbus for nine years, most of it on the line after I "retired" from the office. After eight years of flying it in the Caribbean I decided that I might as well reacquaint myself with the delights of Europe, and I started flying the Atlantic division trips to London. By this time, around 1997 or so, ETOPS was old hat in the industry, and so for the first time since 1993 I was flying the NATS. While not a truly long range airplane, the Bus could make it from New York or Boston to London without difficulty. After a year or so, London led to Paris, which in turn led to the 767, the steed that bore me through to retirement. The A-300-600R was a good airplane, stable and easy to handle with its old school hydraulic control systems and artificial feel. It wasn't the sweetest handling airplane I ever flew, something that I discovered immediately, having come right off the 727 (which was the sweetest handling transport ever), but it was docile enough when I flew it and it proved not difficult to land decently. It did hide a flaw, one which caused an accident in late 2001, but which had not been previously identified - the way the rudder limiter system was designed, it turned out to be possible to put excessive loads on the vertical tail if the rudder pedals were moved rapidly, even over the span of an inch or so, in a clean configuration. My last flight on the Bus, in late May of 1999. It had excellent field performance with those two big GE engines, and it could climb quickly, but only to medium altitudes. The engines could take it to the moon, but the relatively small stiff wing did not like high altitudes, and with transatlantic loads we usually started out at FL310. Empty, though, it was a rocket. Once, on a ferry flight from Puerto Plata to JFK, I made a max power, max climb departure. It was like riding a spooked bronco, and we were at FL 410 in less than 10 minutes. But it was only when it was empty that any altitude above 370 was attainable. This could be problematic; like the night we were coming back up from the Spanish Main and coasting in over Norfolk, only to find a solid line of huge thunderstorms from Virginia Beach all the way to California, or so it seemed! We had managed to struggle up to FL350 by this time, but it was obvious that 350 was far short of what might be needed to top the line. Struggling out of 32,600 feet, probably for no higher than FL330. A 757 was going over it at 410, and I envied that Captain the possibilities that a decent high altitude wing conferred upon him. I, vertically challenged, had to request a deviation out over the Atlantic to the east, but this was refused. The Navy, bless their salty hearts, was dogfighting in the warning areas off the coast. I asked for a deviation around the west side of the line, but when I informed the controller that it was unlikely that we would be able to flank it until we were past Pittsburgh he refused that request as well. Finally, I simply asked for clearance to a VOR well south of the line, to hold or divert because I wasn't going through that gauntlet of lightning and red radar returns. No sooner had I made this request than every flight behind us coming up the airway to Norfolk requested the same thing. Like elephants in a circus parade, it often happens that way - one guy decides that discretion is the better part, and the rest suddenly think it's a good idea too! In any event, clearance to deviate west was eventually forthcoming, and indeed we were near Pittsburgh before we flanked the line and headed back east to JFK. But for the want of a wing, FL410 could have been ours. The yellow thing is a sunshade, provided for each side window. Even with its altitude limitations, the Airbus was an excellent fit at American because of its huge blimp-like fuselage. As I said, it could carry over 250 passengers - more than our 777-200's - and the cargo hold was cavernous. One Christmas season, shortly after a flight attendant strike during which Bob Crandall had kept the airline operating with mostly empty airplanes (and we discovered that we could sometimes break even just with belly cargo), we flew dozens of trips from New York to the Caribbean carrying only the excess baggage of the islanders. We were totally empty on top, not even flight attendants, but those flights were profitable nonetheless. That was a lesson the industry is now relearning, thanks to COVID. Tied up at the gate at Boston after my final Airbus flight in 1999. AA kept the A-300's until shortly after I retired in 2008. By that time they were back to plying an east coast to Caribbean trade, bumped off the North Atlantic by the burgeoning 767 fleet. I myself abandoned my French flirtation and returned to Boeing in 1999, eventually flying the 767 all over Europe and South America. I ended up with nearly 4000 hours in the Bus, lower than you might expect over nine years time because of my 4 years in the office. Our A-300's, and likely many of the other passenger variants, often wound up being converted to freighters, which is pretty much the only version flying today. But it is indeed still flying today, and in good numbers. Both FedEx and UPS each have fleets nearly double the number we had, and cargo carriers worldwide are still making good use of all the volume that fat fuselage provides. In fact, as I said earlier, Airbus was still building it in 2007. It may not be the prettiest airplane in the world, but it can still pay the bills! Review: Inibuilds A-300-600F In the world of PC flight simulation Airbus has, until now, been mainly represented in the form of the later and smaller A-320. A variant of it was standard equipment in FSX and Aerofly FS2, and it has become available in nearly every platform as a "study level" add-on. There have even been add-ons of the somewhat larger A-330, yet until now there has been no payware A-300-600R. But the wait, for the faithful, is now over, and the result is very impressive indeed! Inibuilds is a company that I was heretofore unacquainted with; but, if their new offering is any indication, they will bear close watching in the future. Their A-300-600F (the freighter version) is an excellent piece of work - with a high degree of realism, not only in terms of the visual look, but also the flight model and most impressively the systems. As I mentioned, Airbuses are complex under the skin, and the ECAM displays which provide a glimpse into the inner workings of all of the mostly automated systems are replete with screen after interactive screen, just about all of which are faithfully recreated for this product. For all practical purposes, all of the systems needed for normal operation are modeled, and granted that my last flight as a Captain on one of these was 21 years ago, it all seems complete and correct to me. Typical of today you will find, over on the forums at the Inibuild web site, numerous complaints that this or that nit-noy was not included or improperly modeled, and indeed some of those posters should have been on the alpha and beta teams! But operationally, in terms of real world flying (not a simulator session from recurrent training) this is a complete package, and it is just about the most realistic add-on I have ever encountered (full disclosure - I have never owned or tried anything from PMDG, nor any of the A-320 variants on any platform, so there may be something out there that is as good as this, that I have not been exposed to. Just sayin'). In the past, new product reviews have been replete with illustrations inside and out, and descriptions of how the thing works, together with technical specs on such important minutiae as frame rates and the like. Today, though, there is little need for written reviews thanks, largely, to YouTube. We now have full blown video reviews from some very fine gents such as Froogle and Jeff Favingiano, to name but two, and these give far more insight into the product than any written report ever could. So, aside from an opportunity to share with you my French flirtation, the reason that I write this is to convey that which only a pilot of the type can provide - to give you an idea of how this A-300 "flies", compared to the real thing! Now obviously, the first difference in how it flies is tens of millions of dollars worth of real airplane, or an only slightly lesser dollar amount of high tech certified simulator hardware and software. So the issue boils down to this: does this thing offer the hobbyist a reasonably accurate simulacrum of the actual experience of piloting this airplane? In short, yes it does, within the limits of what is achievable on a PC with a $100 yoke and $500 pedals. All transport category airplanes fly pretty much alike. That is to say, if you put in a certain amount of roll input on the yoke you will get a certain amount of roll in the airplane itself. Likewise for pitch inputs. The response of a real airplane of this class can be categorized as stable and just slightly ponderous, and pretty much lacking in "twitchiness" and instability. This was achieved aerodynamically and with artificial feel back in the A-300's day, and through flight control computers in the fly-by-wire era of today. The responsiveness of a transport category jet is not unlike the responsiveness of a Honda Accord - pleasant and relatively stable. On the other end of the performance spectrum, a modern fighter jet is somewhat unstable for instant maneuverability. Think Maserati or Lamborghini, rather than Honda or Ford. Going back a few decades, the 707's and all of the propliners flew more or less like a Mack Truck without power steering. Another aspect of realism in a project like this is the power output of the engines and the indications thereof, as well as the response of the simulated airplane to the engines. Twinjets with engines under the wings have a pronounced tendency to pitch nose up with the addition of power, especially large inputs of thrust, and to pitch nose down when thrust is reduced, especially when it is reduced quickly and a lot. The best way to stop on a dime the otherwise excellent climb rates in these airplanes is to pull all throttles to idle. The climb stops NOW! That was the drill if we ever overshot an assigned altitude. This pitch-tendency-tied-to-thrust is so predictable that you can fly the airplane with it; and indeed, that is more or less what Captain Al Haines and his crew did in the Sioux City event. On a more mundane level, the taxi performance and response to thrust on the ground are also elements of realism that we will explore. Different engines have different ground idle thrust levels, and some will make the airplane scoot right along on the ground while others have to be occasionally "encouraged", not unlike a jockey brandishing a whip on a racehorse. And, lest we forget, the tendency of the airplane to stop quickly or not is an element of realism too. In our PC flying we have, of course, no "feel" other than what centering springs provide. Although this might actually be realistic for something like the A-320 series, it leaves us with no possibility of analyzing "feel". Instead, realism in a product like this depends largely upon a) the accuracy of the systems modeling and b) accuracy of the flight model - that is, how accurately does the sim react to control inputs and is the performance at given speeds and power settings what would exist in the real airplane? So off we go to find out! The screen from the old AA FMS trainer for the Airbus. Not until I had seen this again did I really remember that our airplanes indeed had the Sperry FMS as depicted faithfully in the Inibuilds offering. Hopping into this A-300 is like stepping back 20 plus years in time. I have pretty much kept my hand in, so to speak, with the 757 and 767 - at least in terms of what they were equipped with 12 years ago, thanks to Level D and Flight Factor. The Airbus is a different story - 21 years is a long time; so long, in fact, that I did not even recognize the Sperry Flight Management System that is very well modeled here. It was not until I dragged out the old disks from my AA A-300 training that I realized that yes indeed it was the Sperry. The Sperry is not at all like the system on the 757/767. That one, probably by Honeywell, was way more intuitive, with specific keys for many of the functions such as DEP/ARR, CLB, CRZ, DESC, and the like. All of that, in the Sperry, is hidden in various other pages, and takes some knowledge to pull up right away. A quick trip to one of many study videos on YouTube, some produced for Inibuilds itself, was enough to refresh my ailing memory on some of the ins and outs of the FMS, enough to input a flight plan of sorts, the better to launch myself on a mission of rediscovery. Contrary to my usual practice of jumping in with both engines running, I decided to go "cold and dark", to experience the start up sequence and judge its accuracy. For this, too, I had to resort to the "how to" video, but except for actually turning off the packs (apparently this was "Automatique" when the start switch was placed to either of the two ground start positions) I was able to get them both started without damage! The actual start up is very well depicted, and the sounds are excellent, albeit fairly low level in the cockpit, which is probably realistic given the size of the airplane and the distance to the engines. In any event, if you want yours to sound like an open cockpit you can adjust the levels in settings. It is plenty loud enough in outside views. Starting big high bypass turbines is a relatively slow process, and this is accurately modeled. Also, the EGT gages on the Airbus were slow reacting (also accurately depicted) in contrast to the fast response thermocouples on the 767, which were unnerving to us in the simulator the first time we started up. Many pilots did the hot start drill when they saw the EGT wind up like a figure skater in a spin. The Airbus, in contrast, was a thermodynamic study in slow motion. Once both engines are started, which IRL we did one at a time beginning with number 1, we are ready to taxi. The Inibuilds A-300 interfaces with Better Pushback right in its own tablet system, so calling for and setting up pushback is easy. That tablet system was not a feature of the airplane when I flew it - we barely had laptops back in 1990 and we certainly did not have them in the cockpit! With around half fuel and half a cargo load, breakaway thrust is accurate at around 40% N1. I flew these with GE's, so that is how I will evaluate it here. Initially, I had to keep adding a bit of power from time to time to keep it moving, but once you get it up to around 15 knots or above it keeps going by itself, just like in real life. Turns are well depicted, and if you start with a little input and add more when the turn is established you will look like a pro. You need to oversteer an airplane like this just a bit, since the nosewheel is behind your seat - a good bit behind. That is to say, don't start the turn until your viewpoint is a bit past where you think you need to start. The 757 was like this too, but the 767 nosewheel was almost beneath the pilot seats and you only needed a little bit of oversteer to account for the distance back to the main gear, which you want to keep straddling the yellow line! Once lined up for takeoff, you stand the throttles up (increase them manually to around halfway) and, when satisfied that both engines are accelerating more or less together, you would (in the airplane) hit the TOGA button on the throttle. But in this simulation, for some reason, that does not work, nor does the Autothrottle button on the autopilot panel up front. Instead, Inibuilds has created a phantom TOGA switch, located on the little screw just to the left of the A/THR button. When you move the mouse there, the little hand appears. Just click, and off you go! Both engines accelerate to whatever takeoff power you have commanded, and the airplane starts to roll. In the simulation, this acceleration is realistic: rapid if you are light, and somewhat stately if you are heavy, just like the real thing. The computed V1 and V2 speeds, courtesy of the tablet at your left elbow, are somewhat higher than I dimly remember them to have been. Just now, as I am starting a trip from Puerto Plata to San Juan, they are on the order of 164, 166, and 171, at a weight of 281,000 pounds. I will have to look among the dusty cobwebs of my aeronautical archive to see if I still have any performance manuals from the Airbus. As I said, my memory is more likely to be faulty than Inibuilds data, but I just don't remember the speeds to be that high. When you get to rotate speed, whatever it may be, the actual rotation is quite realistic, in terms of how much pitch input yields how much rotation. The nose comes up nicely and the airplane lifts off at just about the right pitch attitude - 7 to 10 degrees. This airplane did not have the close ground clearance, tailwise, that the Boeings had - the fuselage slopes up sharply near the tail, and it would take a considerable over rotation to actually hit any structure. Thus there is no tailskid on the A-300. Once airborne, this bird "flies" superbly, with only a little bit of excess response in both pitch and roll that is generally characteristic of all XP airplanes. This can be tamped down by altering the right hand edge of the pitch and roll response curves. There is a YouTube video showing how to do this, but the short version is -- reduce the right hand edge of the curve from full to around 80%. This yields a more realistic and slightly less eager response to yoke inputs. The real airplane flies in a stately manner, with smooth response in all axes. The Inibuilds model displays good climb performance, in terms of climb rate versus pitch attitude and airspeed. The pitch trim is a bit overenthusiastic, and it would not be difficult to over-control this if you are in the habit of flying with trim, as many tend to be, including real world pilots. But if you are judicious in your use of the pitch trim all will be well. This is fortunate since there is no simple way to rein in the pitch trim (i.e., how much the trim wheel turns for a given length of button push). The autopilot appears to be very well modeled, with only an occasional electronic tantrum on display, probably caused by me using profile mode while having only the dimmest memory of how it works! Many of you will use Otto for just about everything, which is fine considering that many of today's airline pilots do the same. VNAV is called Profile in the Airbus, but pretty much does the same things; and if you never master it, Flight Level Change and Vertical Speed are just a click away. The old "3 times the altitude loss" rule (distance from target to begin descent is three times the altitude loss in thousands of feet; i.e., to lose 10,000 feet start down 30 nm [10x3] away from the point where you need to be level again) works pretty well, and you can fine tune it as you get used to the performance. Don't forget to add about 10 miles to the distance for slowing to 250 knots, if that will be a factor, and also maybe add or subtract a bit of Kentucky windage for headwinds or tailwinds. The autopilot can, of course, land the airplane as well as fly it, and it does this with great realism. I flew an autoland at a relatively light weight (220k lbs) and it was flawless - smoothly flown, with the autothrottles tracking the commanded airspeed closely, followed by a perfect flare and touchdown. The airplane wiggled a bit left and right at touchdown, as the yaw dampers compensated for the slight crosswind (all autoland systems have a de-crab feature to eliminate landing sideways in a crosswind). Autobrakes on medium will bring the ship to a complete stop without fuss or screeching of tires. Having satisfied myself that Otto was possessed of all of his faculties, I decided to try it myself. In my book, the landing is the gold standard of all flight simulation, be it PC based or Level D certified. As you descend and approach the field, the airplane slows down just like the real one, and you will want to anticipate the need to add power as you approach your target speed. Pitch attitudes for the various configurations (clean at 250, 15/15 at 180 and so on) are spot on if memory serves. The "airplane" handles with just the right touch - stately but adequately responsive - and the deck angle comes down as flaps are extended, just like it should. On final, fully configured, it is one of the best "flying" simulated airplanes I have encountered; right up there with the Level D 767 for MSFS and the various Flight Factor and FlyJSim offerings over here. That is high praise, in my book. It is about as much like the real thing as it would be possible to get on a PC. Landings are really excellent, provided that you have been on glidepath and on speed (the so-called stabilized approach). As you get below around 30 feet, a small flare of around a couple of degrees of pitch is enough to stop most of the sink, and let it settle on. After turning a hundred knots or so of speed into heat (which you can see on the brake temps page of the ECAM, and should trigger you to turn on the brake fans), you are back to taxiing once again. Happy Landings indeed! This thing has some excellent features, in addition to the very realistic performance and operation. Like many products today, it features an in-cockpit tablet mounted on the side window. Real pilots have been using these for a decade or more, and the resulting elimination of close to 40 pounds of kitbag has perhaps been one of the reasons that the retirement age could be raised to 65! This tablet is the most useful and versatile I have yet seen in a PC simulation. You can access all of your loading options from within it, and it has a page to calculate your takeoff data. On top of that, it will send all of that to the FMS for you. Of course, you access all ground services from there as well. Best of all, it all works quickly - no annoying Walter-Mitty-realism leading to annoying real world fuel and load times. Real and Memorex! An outstanding simulacrum indeed. Settings, too, are handled here and there are many of them, giving you a great deal of control over many aspects of the simulation. And wonder of wonders - there is a startup states page, which lets you instantly select and progress to any of several start states - the cold and dark that is so beloved of flight simmers (and so unusual in the real world), an at the gate state with the APU running, a ready to taxi and a ready to takeoff, the latter of which has done everything for you except for the initialization and flight plan setup in the FMS. The only way to fly! The product currently consists of only the freighter version, which may be appropriate since that is the only version currently flying. They have really good looking liveries for just about every airline that flies it, and some fictional ones that do not. Inibuilds also has the passenger version coming along soon as a free addition to the package, and they have even assured me that both the grey and the bare metal versions of AA's airplanes will be available. There is available a document that is more or less a quick-start introduction, but I have yet to come across a real Pilot Operating manual for it, other than to go down to my archives and drag out the real manuals (that would likely work, given the level of realism here). Fortunately, there are a number of high quality video tutorials on YouTube (also referenced on the Inibuilds web site) and these are must-see items for anyone who is not a current or nearly current A-300 pilot. This airplane (real and simulated) is very complex, and does not always lend itself to a kick-the-tires approach to flying it. So study hard and study well, and approach it loaded for bear, and you will be rewarded with an ultra realistic experience! Nothing worthwhile these days is cheap, and certainly not the Inibuilds A-300-600R. The price is approaching the take-your-breath-away level - in my case around $95 at the exchange rate of the day I bought it. That's a lot of dough indeed - probably too much for many people, especially with MSFS 2020 having hit the streets with a price tag even higher (for the high end versions). In fact, my purchase of the A-300 will definitely delay my eventual purchase of 2020, although it is not the only factor that will make me a latecomer on the Microsoft side of things - I will need a completely new computer for 2020, whereas I am getting good performance (20-40 fps depending upon scenery) from the A-300 in XP 11.41. If you are planning to stick with X-Plane, and wait until the dust settles a bit on 2020, you could not do better than the Inibuilds A-300 to keep you happy and challenged. It is a superb simulation of one of the most interesting airplanes I have ever flown. Granted, at this point it is more or less a normal-operations-only simulation, and someone who contemplates simulating all sorts of abnormal and emergency situations will be frustrated. But for "line flying" it is complete. Even at the stratospheric price, I am delighted with it. Well done, Inibuilds, and keep 'em coming! Happy Landings! Tony Vallillo Purchase iniBuilds A300-600R(F) On The Line for X-Plane 11
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Dream Aero USA By Tony Vallillo It was the relatively obscure (aren't they all?) Vice President Thomas R. Marshall who famously quipped "What this country needs is a really good five-cent cigar". As far as I know (having never smoked a cigar) the smokers of America are still waiting for that need to be filled. Now a country as large and dynamic as the USA has many needs, quite a few of which have been going unfilled, and judging from the current governmental stasis may stay that way indefinitely. But at least one of those needs, one mainly applicable to those of us in the flight sim community, has now been met. We finally have the metaphoric five-cent cigar! Of course I am not talking about tobacco. What this country has needed for some time has been a really good storefront flight simulation offering, the likes of which has been popular in Europe and Asia for some time now. Someplace where anyone can climb into a reasonable facsimile of an airliner cockpit and play Captain for an hour or two -- and preferably at a reasonable price, a price not as lofty as the simulated altitude of the "flight" in question. Until now, you would have to take a transoceanic trip to strap into something like that. But be frustrated no more, for relief is at hand - some very fine relief indeed. I refer to a new operation called Dream Aero USA, which recently opened near Washington DC. Project 727 in its early days, an airliner nose section with a home made visual screen. The cockpit of Project 727 - a real Boeing 727 cockpit hooked up to FSX. Years ago our hobby spawned the desire, in a few talented minds at least, to operate our PC based flight simulators from a realistic cockpit complete with controls that looked and worked like those in a real airplane. Thus the hobby-within-a-hobby of cockpit building was born, and came to fruition in such efforts as those of Dr. Joe Maldonado of Puerto Rico in his Project 727. If we all had the myriad skills, and, let's not kid ourselves, the money to carry off a project of this sort, the world would be littered with mock airliner cockpits and also probably enough fighter cockpits to equip a small nation's air force. But most of us lack both the money and the skills, and thus have to look elsewhere to scratch that particular itch. Elsewhere, in the past, usually meant real airline simulators at real airline training centers. In the 1990's some airlines, led initially by United, began to offer time in their Level D simulators to the more well heeled practitioners of our hobby. This time was usually in the wee hours, when their own pilots were reluctant (or precluded by the union contract) to be flailing around simulated skies with an engine out. Hobby pilots, on the other hand, didn't care what time of day it was - they were just happy to be playing the ultimate Walter Mitty fantasy game! Prior to 9-11 many airlines dined out on this new revenue source, and quite a source it was; the hourly rates were said to be many thousands of dollars, yet the lines were around the block. The events of 9-11, of course, put at least a temporary halt to this opportunity, but things got a bit looser a few years after, and today it is again possible to get some time in a real FAA Level D flight simulator; albeit usually through the good offices of a third party such as Rod McClennon at Airline Captain for a Day in Las Vegas, which uses the simulators at the Pan Am International Flight Academy. I also know a few folks who have bought some sim time at the American Airlines Flight Academy in Texas, also courtesy of a third party operator. Nowadays it is likely that anyone buying such real simulator time may have to undergo some sort of vetting prior to being allowed access. I have no idea how that works, but it would likely be arranged through the organization, such as ACAD in Vegas, which accesses the time. One of the many simulator bays at the American Airlines Flight Academy in Texas. One of the model boards for the original visual system lies at the foot of the Fokker 100 simulator. The Delta Airlines Museum at KATL. The Boeing 737-200 simulator is seen beside the Boeing 767 airplane Spirit of Delta, which was originally purchased with money donated by the employees. There is one air museum in this country that features a fully operational Level D simulator, and that is the Delta Airlines Museum in Atlanta. They have a 737-200 simulator that is available to anyone with a certain amount of bucks. It, like the simulators in the active flight academies, is full motion and full visual and all of it is working. I would imagine they keep it humming, since all it takes (besides money) to create the time to sit in it is to schedule yourself a six or so hour connection between flights at KATL! (It is a good distance from the terminals, however, and you probably have to Uber it over). Another air museum, this one in Elmira NY, has an ex-American Airlines Boeing 727-200 flight simulator on display, but it is not fully operational and only "flies" using Microsoft Flight Simulator on the visual display. An interesting piece of history, but not flyable in the sense that we want to experience. Aside from building your own, or availing yourself of a real FAA certified sim, nothing had been available to us here in the USA, at least nothing that I knew of. Elsewhere in the world, however, the situation was a bit different. A number of what could be called "storefront" simulator operations had sprung up in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. These were typically not certified flight simulators but rather something more akin to a fixed base trainer. Hardware of this sort was and is manufactured by several companies worldwide, one of which is Flight Deck Solutions, whose products range from partial cockpits for the hobbyist to full-up setups for airlines and, on occasion, Hollywood productions (Flight 93 was filmed in a Flight Deck Solutions 757 cockpit). Setups like this differ from real flight simulators in several ways. For one thing, little of the re-created cockpit is actual airplane hardware. In a certified sim just about everything is flight hardware, and could be taken out of the sim and put in a real airplane. In a Flight Deck Solutions cockpit (or any of several other makers) the yokes, throttles, instruments and the like are identical in size, shape and usually function, but are replicas and not the real thing out of an airplane (they are often more delicate as well, for obvious reasons). The look is similar, most if not all functionality is the same, but the tactile feel is often different, to say nothing of the "feel" of the simulation itself. The other most frequent difference is the lack of motion. Simulator motion is expensive to create, which is one of the reasons why real Level D simulators often cost almost as much as one of the airplanes in question. The airlines can afford them only because of the enormous savings, mostly in fuel, that the simulators create, to say nothing of the vastly improved training and the lack of fatal training accidents (in the early jet age, before simulation had reached full maturity and the "simulators" were merely fixed based trainers, the majority of the hull loss accidents in the first few years were training accidents). Interestingly, motion is the least necessary aspect of flight simulation at our level. Relatively unsophisticated motion, like you can find on the current general aviation simulators (actually "training devices") adds little to the training experience. Even the 1960's era 3 degree-of-motion installations, like that of the aforementioned AA 727 simulator in Elmira, were never confused, kinesthetically, with real airplane motion. It takes 6 degrees-of-motion to fully replicate, in any realistic way, all or nearly all of the sensations of flight, and that is the requirement for a modern FAA Level D simulator. The "degrees" of motion are, in no particular order: pitch, roll, yaw, heave, surge, and sway (it was interesting to see that heave is a cause, and not the result, of some of the motion!). I refer you to Google to find out just what those last three motions do. Exterior view of a dome visual system, similar to the one at the Sikorsky plant in Connecticut when the Commanche was in development. So if motion is not particularly essential, what is? A big wide visual, that's what. A very wide (on the order of 180 degrees or more) visual can create its own psychological motion effect. I once saw this for myself, in the engineering simulator for the Comanche helicopter at Sikorsky in Connecticut. This was one of those full dome visual setups, with the simulator cab inside of a plastic dome that covered almost 360 degrees of view in every possible direction. On this day the demo pilot really put the copter through its very considerable paces, including rolls and loops. No motion, because the motion system was deactivated for our session. I was standing on the floor inside the visual dome, right next to the helo cab, on the verge of nausea because of the way the "world" was flinging itself around on the screen! I literally had to close my eyes for awhile to avoid an incident of "heave" that had nothing to do with the motion system. Fixed base Airbus A380 "simulator" in a mall in Dubai, typical of the usual setup in a storefront "simulator" operation worldwide. The store front operators worldwide had picked up on these facts; and, motivated no doubt by the fact that a whiz-bang visual system is usually an order of magnitude less expensive than a major motion system, they installed no motion at all, but instead really good wide visual systems. These apparently sufficed for the mostly non-pilot clientele that gravitated to these centers. And so things arranged themselves in the rest of the world. But not here. (A few years ago I heard Bob Randazzo, the head of PMDG, say that he was looking to establish just such a sim center, in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington DC. But at least at the moment, nothing further has been heard about that.) Then, a week ago and much to my surprise, a friend of mine emailed me a picture of himself sitting in what appeared, for all the world, to be a real 737-800 simulator. I knew that this fellow would be very unlikely to lay out a lot of money to fly a real simulator, and my second thought - that he just sat in one and had his picture taken in it - was put paid by the message that accompanied the picture; to wit, that he had flown the thing for 30 minutes! It was beginning to look a lot like storefront! I immediately questioned him as to just where this new Elf Hill was (A Night in Elf Hill, the title of a science fiction story along the lines of the Brigadoon legend, was the title of the original article I wrote here about Project 727). To my great delight, my friend told me that the operation was called Dream Aero USA and was located in the Washington DC area. Even greater delight -- it was in the Maryland suburbs, much closer to me than Virginia. My first thought was that perhaps this was finally the PMDG operation, but not so. Ribbon cutting at the opening of one of Dream Aero's Russian locations. Dream Aero USA is the American branch of a company located in St. Petersburg, Russia. They build the simulators themselves - this is not Flight Deck Solutions hardware. They have, according to information I was able to find on the internet, built around eleven of these 737-800 simulators, and an A320 sim as well. The company has opened storefront installations in Russia (They have ten locations in Russia, including four in Moscow: three B737 and one A320), Dubai, and now the good old US of A! Of course, I just had to have a look at this new operation; and since the Westfield Montgomery Mall in Bethesda, Maryland is less than an hour and a half from my door, events so arranged themselves that within a few days I found myself merrily motoring toward the nation's capital, hell bent on checking out this local Elf Hill! The Westfield mall must surely be one of the few remaining busy, popular and bustling malls in the entire country. This place reminds me of the 1980's; when such giant shopping centers, in their heyday, were the de-rigueur hangouts for both shoppers and teenagers. Today most such malls have fallen into some level of disuse, courtesy of Amazon and other cyber companies, but not this one. Dream Aero's very attractive shop on the third floor of the Westfield Montgomery Mall in Bethesda Maryland. On the third floor, hard by the food court and the ArcLight Cinemas, lies the modern and attractive Dream Aero USA shop. The center of attention both visually and operationally is, of course, the simulator itself, which can be seen from just about anywhere in this part of the mall. Like all modern simulators with wrap-around visual systems, this one looks nothing at all like an airliner nose section - in fact, it bears more resemblance to a simulator for some kind of alien spacecraft. It sits on the silver legs of a 6 DOF motion system, just like the airline sims. It has stairs that take you from the ground up to the simulator cab, just like the airline sims. It gyrates in many axes when someone is "flying" it, just like the airline sims, and it prangs and heaves when someone botches a landing, again just like the airline sims. All I could think of to say was...Cool! My original intent for this exploration was merely to gather information and pictures for this very story, which I proposed to Nels the minute I found out about this. But of course I was unable to just look at it, or even just sit in it. Once I saw it I had to fly it! And so I did, but I am getting ahead of the story. When you walk into Dream Aero USA you are immediately greeted by the receptionist, today an efficient and attractive young lady named Yuliia. I acquainted Yuliia with the essentials of my mission, some of which I had previously related to her over the phone, and she had ready answers to my many questions. Who built the sim? Was it in any way FAA certified, such as for approaches or other currency requirements? Did it incorporate real airplane parts in the cockpit? Was that indeed a 6 DOF motion system sitting underneath it? And most important of all, how much did it cost to fly it? The Boeing 737NG full flight simulator. As Real as it Gets! About the only things that don't work are the window handles! That last question was actually answered for me by signs on the reception desk itself. The list prices start at $175 for 30 minutes in the sim, and time can also be purchased in one, two, and three hour amounts, all at various discounts from the 30 minute basic block. I will leave it to you to visit their web site (dream.aero) for the dollar amounts since things might change over time. There are many discounts available, ranging from a currently offered Valentine's Day discount to a discount of 10% if you actually have a pilot license. Overall, you can probably take advantage of one or another sort of discount in just about every instance. These prices are an exceptional value, in my opinion. The hourly rate today was $285, which is $65 less than twice the 30 minute rate. (And all rates today were discounted 15%, which actually resulted in a $148 charge for a 30 minute flight, and $242 for an hour.) Let's put this into perspective. The next cheapest full-motion-and-visual airliner flight simulation option in the USA is the Delta Museum, which charges $425 for an hour, which amounts to 45 minutes actually in the sim after the briefing. Airline Captain for a Day now apparently has a two hour minimum of around $1500, which would work out to $750 per hour, a bit less than the hourly price two years ago but you need to buy two hours. The airline flight academies are way more than this, in the thousands of dollars per hour. So -- what we have here is the least expensive full-motion, ultra realistic cockpit, ultra wide angle visual experience in the country, by a long shot. And best of all, you can go for the 30 minutes, which is plenty of time to do a short flight - even including push back, start up and taxi. Say perhaps a ferry flight from DCA to BWI, or a "Short Haul" from LGA to JFK! To answer the other questions - the sim was built in Russia by the parent company of Dream Aero (from Russia, with love!). It is NOT Flight Deck Solutions hardware, nor are there any real airplane parts that I could perceive. It is not FAA certified, nor do they want it to be, since 1) it is for entertainment purposes only and 2) they would probably have to get involved with vetting the customers if it was certified. So no, I could not log the approaches for my instrument currency. I think, though, that based upon its sophistication, this sim might very likely be FAA certifiable, at least to the AATD standard. And yes, that is a 6 DOF (degrees of freedom) motion system fitted to it. The motion system is entirely electronic and has no hydraulics, thus being smaller and lighter, to say nothing of cheaper and cleaner, than the typical high pressure hydraulic system that an airline simulator has. It apparently works using some kind of high speed jackscrews operated by electric motors to flex the motion muscles. However it works, it works well. It even simulates the effect of getting shoved in the back by an increase in thrust, which is something the Level D sims have to do. It is far superior to the 3 DOF systems we had into the 1970's, and it really adds to the overall experience. Panoramic view showing the full span of the visual system - 180 degrees. When you enter the cockpit you encounter a nearly exact simulacrum of a 737 flight deck. As far as I could tell (I never was qualified on any variant of the 737 and my real world experience in them is limited to jumpseat riding on a number of occasions) every switch, handle, button, bell and whistle is faithfully duplicated. Again, none of it seemed to be real flight hardware, but the similarity is total. The only thing I found that did not work (although it moved realistically) was the crank to adjust the rudder pedals! The yokes look and feel like the real thing (they might conceivably be - you can get that sort of thing out of the boneyards; but it did not occur to me to ask, and Yuliia might not have known). Ditto the throttles and the spoiler and flap handles, although the handles seem to be made of a lighter material than the metal of the real thing. All of the instruments and display screens were very authentic. The seats are a near identical duplicate of the real thing, and lack only seat belts; which is interesting, since the thing has motion. Apparently the motion does not kick things up enough to throw you out of the seat, at least not when I was flying -- which was surprising since I was doing a pretty good job of over controlling! More on that later... As I said before, my original intent was merely to sit in it, see how realistic it looked, and take some pictures of it for eventual use in this article. But resisting temptation has never been a particularly strong point with me! It only took about five minutes of sitting and looking before I just had to fly the thing. That was easily arranged with a quick trip back to the front desk and a wave of the ol' Visa card. The discount available today made the total cost for a 30 minute flight $148. Nice sharp visual display with seamless wide view. Super realistic! Is it or isn't it? Only the FAA knows for sure! At this point my instructor pilot, Lamyl, made his grand appearance, all decked out in a four stripe uniform shirt (it turned out that the remainder of the "suit of lights", the four stripe jacket, was hanging quite realistically in the cockpit itself). He sat down in the right seat and proceeded to give me a short briefing about the operation of the 737NG. The engines were already running, which was just as well for a mere 30 minute flight. A non pilot might well want to experience the push back and start up, but I have done that a few thousand times in the real world and need no introduction to it. The sim was "sitting" at the end of runway 01 at KDCA, and Lamyl suggested a flight over to KBWI, an airport from which I fly regularly as a passenger in the Southwest Airlines version of this very plane. And so it was. According to Lamyl, who is also a user of PC based flight simulation, this system runs on the professional version of X-Plane 11. There are four PC's running the sim -- one for the visual, two for the cockpit displays and one for the flight dynamics. The flight dynamics and instrument displays may perhaps be proprietary software - I was not able to clarify that. But the actual "flying" feels much like X-Plane. More on that in a minute. Once I had run through a brief check of all switches, and put a short flight plan into the FMC, we were ready to take off. Stand the throttles up to mid range, let the engines stabilize, then arm the autothrottles and engage N1. The motion system entered stage left with a pretty good sensation of forward acceleration, which is done by tilting the simulator cab backwards as though it were in a steep climb. VR speed came up and I put as much back pressure on the yoke as I was accustomed to doing in the larger Boeings I have had the privilege of flying in years gone by. Turns out it was just the right amount, and I was immediately impressed by the apparent realism of this sim. I was aware, from conversations with 737 pilots during jumpseat rides, that one does not want to over rotate this airplane, lest the long fuselage lead to a tail strike. So I kept the pitch to a bit above 5 degrees nose up until it was apparent from the instruments that we were airborne. After that it was whatever pitch attitude it took to keep the speed within reason, which turned out to be the prototypical 15-20 degrees. Since we were taking off to the north at KDCA I started a left turn to follow the Potomac River, an easy task with a visual like this in front of me. The visual system at Dream Aero is fully the equivalent of that in an airline simulator. In fact, it is better than some that I had flown back in the day, before the advent of the 180+ degree wide view visual systems. And the scenery in X-Plane is also better than the scenery databases we had at AA back in the day, although judging by the installation at the Pan Am International Flight Academy in Las Vegas much improvement has occurred over the years. The screen wraps around both sides to straight off your shoulder, a full 180 degrees of coverage. It is sharp and without pixilation, a high definition view. From your seated position the visual covers everything you can see out the windows - you would really have to lean over unrealistically to see the top or bottom of the screen. Everything in the picture works! Overhead panel. When I started to roll to the left I discovered that the yoke has a bit of a detent at the center, and thus requires a certain "break out" force when you make a roll input in either direction. This is not something you find in the airplane or in a certified simulator, and results in having to use a bit of effort when you make a turn. Normally you think of pressure on the yoke rather than yoke movement for either pitch or roll inputs - how much would depend upon what was needed. At lower speeds more actual movement of the yoke is needed, at higher speed less. This is because of control effectiveness at different speeds. But you make the inputs as pressure rather than movement per se. When you apply a roll input here, the required break out force (which is not a whole lot but is noticeable) will exceed the control pressure one would normally apply in the airplane. This, coupled with an apparent bit of stiffness in the roll axis of the yoke, leads to a physical feel that is not quite perfect, and which can and did (for me at least) lead to over control in the roll axis. It took a bit of mental adjustment to come to terms with the roll axis, but I soon enough got the hang of it. Overall it took a bit more wheel throw in most phases of flight to achieve the desired bank condition than I remember it taking in real jets, but the sim was always controllable and responded more or less like X-Plane 11 does at home. The pitch axis of the yoke does not seem to have the same center detent and feels more realistic to an actual airplane. I had no difficulty rotating to the exact degree that I wanted, and as we climbed out I could tell that there is some kind of control loading being applied in pitch, enough that keeping the sim trimmed in pitch is a necessity, just as it is in the airplane. I kept hand flying the sim through the clean up because I wanted to sample the control feel and response. Flap retraction proceeded apace, with Lamyl handling that aspect of pilot-not-flying duties for me since I am unfamiliar with the flap-speed schedule of the 737. X-Plane 11 has what I consider to be a somewhat exaggerated pitch response to flap configuration changes, and this tendency carries over to the Dream Aero sim as well, making it mandatory and at the same time a bit difficult to keep the sim in pitch trim during these excursions. You really feel the need for trim change in the yoke, due to the aforementioned control loading, and since I am long unused to handling a jet using a real yoke I ended up over controlling in pitch a bit. This was eventually compounded by a bit of hubris on my part, a not atypical situation with me! The flight thus far had been conducted in VMC, the better to sample the outstanding visual display. But now I decided that I would hand fly an approach and landing to minimums, say around 2000 RVR. I have done this many times at home with X-Plane 11 without difficulty, and I consider it to be a litmus test of my remaining supply of the "right stuff". But I should have known better, considering all of the time I have spent in flight simulators. Panoramic view of the simulator. At the airline, we always started each sim session off with at least 15 minutes of visual flight conditions, the better to get the "feel" of the sim and adjust to the small differences between even the big Level D simulators and the actual airplane. It was often amusing to watch the initial struggles of experienced airmen (who were not flying on their PC's at home in preparation for recurrent training) coming to grips with the simulator after months of flying the real airplane. It often took them nearly 20 minutes to settle down and get used to the sim. All simulators are a bit less stable and somewhat more "squirrelly" than the airplane. This may or may not be by design, but the effect is beneficial -- once you master a maneuver in the simulator it will be easier in the actual airplane. This hard-won awareness was lost on me this day, and the result was comical to say the least. Mr. Retired Captain was all over the sky trying to keep up with the demands of hand flying the sim. Too much pitch, not enough pitch, break the yoke out in roll, now immediately reverse the input because the original was too much, out of trim, in trim, up, down, here, there and everywhere except where I needed to be. It was doubly embarrassing because over the years I thought that I had learned the great maxim of flight simulator expertise -- use half of the control input you think you need and take it out before you think you need to. And halve it again close to the ground! It would have been a lot easier if I had not set the bar too high by flying instruments right off the bat, and things were exacerbated because I do not know the power settings for the 737 except in a vague sort of way from my X-Plane experience. A cardinal maxim in either the simulator or the airplane is to know the pitch attitude and power setting for every condition of flight. Not knowing either will lead to you chasing your own tail, a feat that I achieved in dog-like fashion throughout the early part of today's flight! Now in addition to having an overly lively pitch response to flap setting changes (probably an X-Plane artifact), the simulator is also pitch sensitive to power changes. This latter is very realistic to an airplane with engines under the wings. Every time I added or reduced power, the airplane would pitch accordingly -- up with power on and down with power off. Add this to the configuration changes on an approach and you have a recipe for a perfect fugoid. Down the glideslope I swooped; above, below, occasionally right on, but not often enough to make for anything but a missed approach at decision height. No problem, for a missed approach is a successful outcome. The sim felt very realistic in the missed approach -- the motion system gives you a bit of feeling of thrust pushing you forward - and it felt just like the airplane! This is a really good motion system. My second approach to identical conditions was successful, in large measure because I was getting the feel of the simulator and was now able to anticipate my control inputs, which is always better than merely responding after the fact. Suffice to say that at decision height the strobes were visible, and at 100 feet AGL the runway was visible. Now came the other instance of over controlling -- the flare. I was trying not to get too nose high since these long body 737's have very little tail clearance on landing. Indeed, that is why the approach speeds are artificially high on these airplanes (higher than anything else in the sky at any equivalent landing weight); high speeds keep the deck angle lower and there is less chance of a tail strike. I got the pitch part of the flare right, but I got into a series of rolling movements due to over control of the roll axis. This is typical behavior of a Level D sim as well, and so must be considered a point of realism. The roll breakout force works against you here, but you just have to remember (and act upon the notion) to use half of the input you think you need and take it out immediately. I got the ship tamed and stopped without dinging it! During the initial phases of this second approach, I had let Otto, the autopilot, handle the chores of flight. Otto performed flawlessly, along with the autothrottle system, which actually moves the throttles realistically. Lamyl said that the sim is capable of autolandings, although I insisted on hand flying the second approach as well. When Otto can come up with the money for however many minutes of sim time the landing takes, he can have a landing! Until then, I get the landings. With only around five minutes remaining in my 30 minute block, I had the ideal flight in mind to fill the time -- the Short Haul; the fabled four minute ferry flight from runway 22 at KLGA to runway 13L at KJFK, about which I have written for this web site. Lamyl set it up in a moment, and we set it to night VMC, just like it was back in 1977. In visual conditions, with the benefit of nearly 30 minutes of getting acquainted, the sim and I worked much better together, and the flying and the handling were very good, proving once and for all that most of the strange gyrations of the first 25 minutes were due to my unfamiliarity with the responses of the sim. I still had a bit of rolling in the flare, but I handled it much better, and by next time I should have it down pat. I say "by next time" because there will surely be a next time! I won't let a setup like this, at a price like this, as close as this is, be a one-time experience. Yours truly poses with Instructor Captain Yamyl, who had the infinite courtesy not to fall off his chair laughing at my gyrations! So, let's sum it all up: Dream Aero USA has a very realistic looking 737NG simulator which, although it has several handling characteristics that are not exactly like either the airplane or a Level D simulator (roll breakout force and slightly exaggerated pitch response to configuration changes), can be described as overall realistic in flying. It just takes some getting used to. The visual system is fully the equivalent in appearance and performance of a real airline simulator, and the motion system is a full 6 DOF and really enhances the experience of the flying, and complements the visual system. Add to that the price and location and you have a combination that can't be beat. I highly recommend this simulator for any PC flight sim enthusiast, and for that matter for any pilot who wants to see what the world looks like from the corner office of a 737. Just remember a few of Captain V's tips and hints: Start the session in VMC until you get the hang of manually controlling things; use the autopilot if you still have trouble (don't worry, most airline pilots use it just about all of the time!); discipline yourself to start out using about half of the pitch or roll inputs you think you need and be ready to take those inputs out a bit before you might think you need to; be attentive to learning to anticipate control inputs, particularly pitch inputs and trim inputs when flight conditions change; and be prepared to deal with over control in the flare. Every one of these hints grew out of flying Level D simulators, and the fact that they are applicable here is another testament to the realism of this Dream Aero sim. Happy Landings! Tony Vallillo dream.aero
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Delays By Tony Vallillo All human endeavors are plagued with delays. No doubt those apes in "2001 A Space Odyssey" were a few minutes late to the party when one of them had a hard time finding a suitable bone. Trains are often delayed everywhere but Switzerland, and roads are so congested all over the world that traffic delays are not even the butt of jokes these days. Air travel, on the other hand, is amazingly free of delays... and watch as his nose grows longer and longer! Actually, delays in air travel occur at about the same rate as delays in other forms of transportation; especially those forms in which the number of users occasionally overwhelms the system. In fact, the majority of all transportation delays stem from overuse of the system. Although the Wright brothers probably had a few mechanical delays on December 3rd 1903, the potential for air delays began to really grow the day the world's second airplane was constructed. In the world of aviation, delays have three main causes: Mechanical delays (involving both the airplane itself and a wide array of ancillary equipment), Weather delays, and System or throughput delays involving saturation of the air traffic system (these are, in turn, often initiated by weather). Operators (airlines and individual pilots) have control over only some of the causes of delays. Mechanical delays can be minimized by careful attention to maintenance and inspections, along with an extra airplane or two on the property that can be used as a spare. But things are always susceptible to breaking at the last minute, even in the best run outfits. Weather can be coped with by training and equipping to the latest standards, but there are things like hurricanes, thunderstorms, blizzards, and certain kinds of icing conditions that simply cannot be safely handled. The ATC system could mayhap be upgraded, akin to adding lanes to a freeway, but although this is ongoing as we speak, it is glacially slow and extremely expensive. Meanwhile, more and more of us want to travel... Airlines are almost always on pogroms to better their on-time performance, the more so when the government takes an interest in such things, as it does from time to time. I recall the time when, back in the 1980's, the Transportation Department (apparently overwhelmed by a sudden urge for clarity that has never existed elsewhere in government) began to publish the airlines' on-time statistics. American's hard driving president Bob Crandall sagely perceived that whoever topped the ratings for the first year or so might derive some bragging rights from the achievement, rights that just might outlast their tenure at the top. So for about a year AA pulled out quite a few stops and succeeded in topping the fed's list of on-time airlines. This was done, among other ways, by an all-hands-on-deck push to ensure that every airplane got out on time for its first flight of the day. Maintenance, the aircrews, the flight attendants, the ramp crews, the catering crews and passenger service all pitched in to ensure this result, with surprising success. It was also fortunate that this effort occurred at a time of relative labor peace on the property! It worked, and the poet laureates in the marketing department soon began creating advertisements that sang the praises of "The On-Time Machine", an appellation that has seldom been applied since then to any airline! But for some years after that time, an aura of the On-Time-Machine clung to AA, long after we were eventually toppled off our perch. Actually, despite customers' near-total conviction to the contrary, airlines desperately DO want to run on time, if for no other reason than that delays can be extremely costly. Too little fuel carried (in an effort to lower fuel costs) may result in a diversion and hotel rooms for a plane load of people. Cuts in maintenance inspection frequency (even if allowed by regulations) can result in more mechanical delays and cancellations. Delays can cause crew misconnects that result in still more costly cancellations. Even the airlines' success can be problematic, as full airplanes lead to boarding delays. And so on, ad infinitum. To paraphrase Senor Solozzo in The Godfather: "Delays are a big expense!" No airline employee wants a delay either. The corporate cultures at most airlines are distinctly non-Japanese; that is, blame is fixed, rather than problems. A delay of even the shortest duration will start a downhill flow of a substance that is neither colorless nor odorless. Unless an employee is represented by a powerful union, like a pilot union, too many delays can be detrimental to a career, sometimes terminally. No indeed - delays are an anathema to all. Along the way, we must get one thing straight - there is no such thing as a "delayed" takeoff, for the simple reason that there is no scheduled takeoff time. The scheduled departure time is the block time, the time the wheels start turning (usually backwards) upon the start of pushback or taxi. This time is also the FAA's definition of the beginning of flight time, as pilots log it. The time you actually get airborne is completely outside of the immediate control of the airline, or your pilot, and has no meaning other than whatever psychological importance it may have to you as a passenger. It is indeed a rite of passage, but not a scheduled one. So, on we go to some delays that I have known. We can start with one that I myself created! One fine morning, while doing my walk around inspection as flight engineer on one of those first-flights-of-the-day that we were often so obsessed with getting out on time, I was inspecting the tires of my shiny Boeing 727. It was always my wont to inspect the tires closely, since they were and are a very important portion of the collection of parts known as the airplane. Any damage to tires that is sufficient to be noticed is worthy of close examination, and this includes the small pebbles and shards of detritus that are often pressed against the tire surface as it rolls over the tarmac. I always took care to brush such things off the tire, lest they possibly come off on their own during takeoff and fly into one of the engines. On this day I saw what appeared to be a small pebble, about half the diameter of a dime, adhering to the surface of one of the main gear tires. As I attempted to brush it off by hand, I was surprised to notice that it did not budge; in fact, it resisted all of my efforts to dislodge it. Closer examination (my eyesight was perfect back then!) revealed that it was not of mineral origin, but rather metal; and it appeared to have penetrated the tire to a significant depth. This was now out of my league, as far as an immediate fix was concerned, so I called maintenance and the ensuing delay began. The mechanic immediately confirmed my suspicion that this metallic bit was only the tip of the iceberg. They began to change the tire, and when they had finished and managed to extract the offending bit of FOD (Foreign Object Damage) I was informed that what I had detected was a 5 inch bolt that had completely penetrated the tire, with only a small pebble-like remnant visible on the outside. It had apparently been there for at least one previous flight! Attention to detail paid off that day, but we were delayed some 30 minutes in the process. Fast forward many years, to the apex of my career in the left seat. We were bound for Rome one evening, and the lineup for takeoff was, as Goose in Top Gun might have said, "long and distinguished!" So long, in fact, that we would be able to shut down an engine while waiting, since we would be stationary for at least 30 minutes, and possibly more. But to our great surprise, the selected engine would not shut down! Now ordinarily this sort of dedication might be applauded - the little airplane that could, with engines that just would not quit. But the inability to shut down an engine is indicative of serious problems within it; and what might possibly ensue should we actually need to shut it down, perhaps for a fire or other failure? We had immediate recourse to maintenance, via radio, who offered various ideas to get the engine stopped, none of which worked and one of which, pulling the fire handle, I declined to do lest we might not get it started again to taxi back to the gate (we were well overweight for single engine taxi). By this time I was determined to get the airplane inspected more closely and get the problem definitively fixed. So I imparted to Ground Control the sad news that we had to return, only to be told that since we were nowhere near an intersecting taxiway from which we could escape the conga line, it would be a good hour before our part of the gaggle might begin moving enough to get us headed home. And so it was. Once we got to the gate, it turned out to be a matter of replacing a stuck fuel valve, which was a 30 minute job, and then we joined the conga line again. By now, of course, most of the line had long since taken off, so our delay was relatively minor, but we were over 3 hours late compared to our original schedule. There are never winds sufficient to overcome a three hour delay, and so it was that we were three hours late arriving in Rome. It was one of the stranger situations I ever encountered - the inability to shut down an engine. Snow and ice are great delay sources, and one of my more interesting experiences dates back to my C-5 days. My Air Force Reserve squadron was recalled to active duty during Desert Shield/Storm, as was every C-5 unit in the reserves. Now you wouldn't think offhand that snow or ice would be a problem in the Saudi desert, but of course we had to pass through Europe in the dead of winter to get there. On this particular night the snow was falling fast, and the ground crews at Rhein Main AB, in Frankfurt Germany, were hard put to remove it from the giant airlifters. Deicing in the Air Force is the same as it is at the airline - squads of deicing vehicles surround the airplane and spritz it with a variety of high tech fluids carefully formulated to remove and prevent the accumulation of snow and ice. Airlines keep fleets of these vehicles at the northern airports, and can handle dozens of airplanes at a time. But the Air Force, at least at Rhein Main, had only a few of them, and they kept running out of fluid and having to be refilled. Understandable, since the volume of deice fluid that it took to douse a C-5 must have been such as to fill a super tanker! Since our journey involved a trip to Saudi and then back to Spain, we were already facing a long duty day. Ostensibly, our duty day lasted 24 hours, just like your average day-in-the-life. We could go longer, if we ourselves initiated the request, but those waivers were not always forthcoming. And so began a pas-de-deux between us and the command post as we tried to speed up the deicing process. We informed them of the limits that duty time put on our deicing, but to little avail. Since none of us was particularly interested in going to Spain on the flipside, we eventually stopped badgering the CP and just sat back and waited. Since it takes over 30 minutes to deice a C-5, and we were about number 4 in the lineup, we ended up going illegal, just as we had warned the bosses. And so ensued another bag drag as the entire crew lined up on the 30 or so foot high entry ladder and passed our belongings hand to hand down to the snowy tarmac. Back to the crew hotel we went, to fight another day. Of course, there were a score or two of aircrews at Rhein Main that night, so the CP had no trouble getting another crew, whom they wisely called out just before the deicing was eventually started. We live and learn! A flight to Bermuda from JFK is only around 90 minutes long, and when it also has a 32 hour layover on that delightful island it is a pleasure indeed. One evening we left the gate right on time, but unfortunately just as a line of thunderstorms was bearing down on the New York area. Early evening at JFK is rush hour, and the lineup was nearly 60 airplanes long, with us starting out in the tail-end-charlie position. When things get this congested at JFK, the conga line wraps entirely around the airport, sometimes even using runways as taxiways to double up with the adjacent parallel taxiways. So things were that night. One by one, the western departure gateways were shut down as the storm drew closer, and that got things stalled completely, since the number one through five airplanes were all westbounds. You would think that someone might have anticipated that, and held the west departures off to one side somehow, but no. Now in gridlock, the entire lineup watched from their cockpits as nature unleashed one of the most spectacular displays of lightning and thunder I have ever witnessed - the lightning was so close by and frequent that you could read by it on the darkened flight deck. We took nervous comfort in the notion that due to its rubber tires the airplane was insulated from the ground, but a time or two that confidence was shaken as lightning struck nearby. It took the storm nearly 30 minutes to move away from the immediate vicinity of the airport, but our ordeal was not yet done, because now the south and east departure gates were still shut off, and only a dribble of westbound flights were able to get out initially. All in all, our out-to-off delay was over two hours, which was considerably longer than our eventual flight time to the island! Fortunately, the passengers had been front row witnesses to the spectacle outside, and needed no reminding that in flying, as in life, discretion is sometimes the better part of valor. This was one delay no one complained about! The Mother of All Delays, at least in my career, took place, appropriately enough, at that vortex of all delays - Chicago O'Hare. This one was back in the early days of my AA career, when I was flying sideways tending the fires and watering the horses. We were embarking upon a three day trip that started, as so many did at AA in those days, with an LGA-ORD leg, to be followed by a flight to Tulsa or some such place. Our weather briefing at LGA (done live by dispatchers who, at that time, actually occupied the operations area upstairs in the days before AA brought them all to DFW, to a centralized dispatch facility) indicated that the weather at ORD was going to be "interesting", in the Chinese sense. And so it proved to be. We picked up our first holding instructions in the vicinity of Detroit, and spent some time circling the Motor City. Fortunately, the Captain and the dispatcher had both agreed to carry as much fuel as the ship could bear, and so although we were quite heavy we enjoyed a surfeit of fuel, such that diverting to an alternate was not yet a concern, nor would it be for some considerable time. The cause of all of this was a massive line of thunderstorms moving from west to east across Illinois. It was dissipating, but still lively enough to thrash the ATC system at Chicago into submission for awhile. After about 30 minutes over Detroit we were advanced a bit west to the Pullman VOR, southwest of Grand Rapids, where we spent another half hour boring holes in the sky. While this was going on, I queried the company on the number two radio as to the situation on the ground at ORD. The reply was intriguing, suggesting as it did a state of total chaos on the field. Apparently the airport had run out of room to handle airplanes since there were so many on the ground awaiting takeoff. For further entertainment, I tuned ORD ground control on that same radio and we all listened with amazement to controllers who were out of space and ideas all at once. It did seem that, by strenuous effort, they had managed to keep the inner taxiway more or less fluid, at the price of keeping some airplanes just going around in circles until their gates opened up. So when the weather between us and the airport began to dissipate (it actually more or less evaporated in situ, and we never did have to penetrate anything more significant than a rain shower, quite fortunately) they were able to accept arrivals even though there was still a good bit of weather off to the west, and many of their departure gateways were still hors de combat. After around 45 minutes at Pullman we were vectored toward the field, albeit with quite a few speed reductions. When we were on final we could finally see what was happening - and I had never, before or since, seen so many large airplanes on one airport at one time. There were hundreds of planes, lined up and down every taxiway and several of the runways that were not in use. The line snaked past the Air National Guard, past that old Comet jet that was still decaying in place at that time, through the maintenance area, in out around and through the maze of taxiways that, in those days, bore evocative and occasionally humorous names instead of letters like Alpha and Bravo. It took us the better part of 30 minutes to taxi to our gate, which was fortunately available. Yet another piece of good fortune for us was the fact that we were to keep the same airplane for the next leg of our journey; and dispatch, eager to avoid increasing their problems, kept it that way. So after about 45 minutes of unloading, refueling and loading we got back into the conga line, which did not seem to have diminished by even so much as a single airplane! In a move of sheer desperation, ORD ground control sent us off to the only patch of unoccupied concrete they had, way off at the northwest edge of the field at the departure end of 32L. In so doing, they informed us that they expected a delay for us of several hours. So we shut down all of the engines, and gave the flight attendants clearance to do a beverage service of sorts. But our fortune was to be better than most that day, for lo and behold the wind shifted, enough that they decided to start using 14R, the runway that we were more or less number one for, for takeoffs. They literally had to get us out of the way in order to be able to use it! As soon as the cabin crew was able to button everything up in back we were on our way to our next destination. The total delay, inbound and outbound, was over four hours. And we had it perhaps an hour better than just about everyone else that day. Later that evening, at the hotel, we toasted Fortune, hoping that she would continue to smile upon us. And she did, for I never again encountered such a delay in my career. Oh, there would be delays aplenty to come, but never involving that many airplanes on one field! These days airborne delays are becoming rare. The FAA and the airlines tend to hold airplanes on the ground, in so-called ground stops, to prevent airborne holding. Instead of being in an airliner flying in circles, you will probably spend your delay in one of the airport bars, which is certainly a more pleasant prospect than sitting in coach for what seems an eternity with the seatbelt sign on. And when things start to really look bad, like a hurricane or a major winter storm, flights in the thousands are flat out cancelled, so most of us don't even have to go to the airport at all, at least on the original day. So spare a sympathetic thought for your crew when next you are delayed on a flight - their plans may be getting even more messed up than your own. And take what comfort you can from the plight of passengers on Amtrak, who can be delayed by the myriad freight trains that often take priority on the rails. At least, while holding or waiting in the bar, you do not have to gaze upon the impudent cause of your delay, as you sit motionless on a side track watching a mile long hot-shot freight whiz by, to arrive at your destination hours, perhaps a day before you will get there. That must be frustrating - even in the dining car! Happy Landings! Tony Vallillo
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Diversionary Tales By Tony Vallillo One thing that pilots deal with all of the time, something that virtual pilots can skip lightly over (since there is always the option to disable fuel burn, to say nothing of changing the weather instantly!), is the selection and possible use of alternate airports in our flying. All flights, VFR and IFR and big airplane as well as small airplane, require that consideration be given to the successful completion of the flight when conditions change from the original plan. Usually this involves changes in weather; since of all the factors that affect flight, weather is indeed the most fickle. The regulations guide us both as to the need to consider an alternate and the conditions that make an airport suitable as an alternate. In purely meteorological terms, an alternate airport must be planned whenever the forecast weather at destination is below certain limits, which differ for VFR and IFR flights, and can be found in the FAR's. In the case of IFR flights, there are additional weather limits which bear on the suitability of an airport as an alternate. So if the destination forecast is below the specified ceiling and visibility when you are planned to arrive, you will search, in the flight planning process, for another suitable airport where the weather is forecast to be better than a different set of ceilings and visibilities. And you will plan on carrying sufficient fuel to proceed from your destination to your alternate, fly an approach, and then hold for 45 minutes. That is the minimum legal requirement for fuel. If you want to give yourself more options, carry more fuel; and if that is not possible, plan a series of shorter flights so that your available fuel can provide you with these extra options, such as holding at destination or choosing a more suitable alternate farther away. All of this planning is just that - planning. Once you take off, the choices, and the consequences, are yours. You may change your designated alternate while you are enroute, if reports and new forecasts make for a better choice. You may also consider the fuel onboard to be your own possession - to use as you see fit. But in all things a conservative approach is warranted -- it would be foolish to use your "holding fuel" (the legal amount of which is intended for use at the alternate) at your destination, since you would be robbing yourself of options later on in the flight where they might be important. There are other factors that might require the selection of an alternate airport for a given flight. Extended overwater flights always require an alternate airport in the overwater portion, typically within 180 minutes for most jets, and a few more minutes for others. This requirement protects against certain mechanical malfunctions overwater and allows for a landing on terra firma. Of course weather is a consideration here as well, not so much in the requirement for the alternate but in the requirement that the alternate be viable - obviously bad weather at an airport along the way might preclude a safe approach. Flights in some mountainous areas, such as the Andes and possibly the Himalayas, require careful selection of alternate airports with respect to drift down over high terrain, especially in twin engine airplanes. This is to cover the loss of an engine over the middle of the mountain area. Terrain in these areas is sometimes in excess of the single engine ceiling of the airplane at its current weight, so an immediate turn toward lower terrain and a specific alternate airport is mandated. There are many things that play into the selection of alternate airports. Other than weather, and thinking of the part 121 environment, things like runway weight bearing capability, approach aids, taxiway dimensions and weight bearing considerations, availability of suitable egress equipment like passenger stairs, jetways, baggage handling equipment, Customs, and of course ARFF, as well as more mundane considerations like does your company have a contract in place for fuel and services! And don't forget availability of hotels and such for accommodating crew and pax. Also maintenance, considering that a common reason for a diversion, particularly on the Oceanic segments, is a mechanical malfunction. And of course availability of fuel; although at any airport capable of handling a transport category jet, fuel is pretty much a given unless some disaster has precluded deliveries, particularly to island locations... And thereby lies a tale or two, or three: JFK-Rome in a 767-300. We had very little holding fuel, against a fine forecast and two alternates (Ciampino and Genoa). Two alternates is a common practice at the airline, at least when I was working. One will usually be close in, like EWR for JFK, and be intended for use if traffic backups at destination are the only stumbling block. They are obviously in the same weather pattern, and hence the second and more distant alternate. (An aside - often, in the part 121 world, the fuel requirements for a close-in alternate like EWR for JFK are actually less than the requirements for a no-alternate flight plan. This is the other reason you often see EWR or JFK as alternates for LGA and vice versa. Note, however, that LGA might not be a suitable alternate for the other two in the case of a widebody.) Upon arrival in the greater Rome area, we discovered that the weather earlier that morning had been actually below CAT III minimums (yes, that is possible!). Although things had "cleared up" to around RVR 1200, there were several score of airplanes in various holding patterns all around the thigh of the boot. Upon arrival at our assigned hold, I determined that we had fuel for about 2 turns, using the Genoa alternate. Ciampino would have been out of the question for both weather and traffic reasons. Once you get into the situation where you will probably go to an alternate, along with a bunch of other airplanes, an important consideration becomes beating the other guy to the fuel pump! So I immediately requested clearance to Genoa upon holding pattern entry. While the good controllers at Roma were figuring out how to get us up there, my compatriot on the ORD-FCO flight apparently took my hint and decided that Genoa (also his alternate - same dispatcher!) would be just fine for him as well. This is a phenomenon that is often seen in the airline world - everyone follows the last guy through the maelstrom like elephants in a circus parade, until one guy or gal decides that valor is NOT the better part of discretion and demands to go another way. I've seen it many times in my career; and on that day, as it turned out, the ORD flight got cleared to Genoa first, presumably because he was at a lower altitude in the stack. Damn and Hellmnation! The first of my best-laid plans began to go astray. Just after landing at Genoa. There is a considerable bay behind the runway. When we got to Genoa, I discovered that a Continental flight had aced both of our flights, and not only got there first, but actually was parked at a gate. We johnny-come-lately's had to settle for a spot on the expansive ramp. This remote location became a player in what followed. The terminal and ramp at Genoa, where Continental has already grabbed the only available gate, leaving the ramp to us. First order of business was to get hold of dispatch and discuss our next moves. But lo and behold, the SATCOM did not seem to work. We scratched our collective pilot heads about this, and conferred over VHF with the crew of the ORD flight, who also were suffering from this strange malady. Eventually we gave up trying to figure out what was going on, and got in touch with dispatch via HF single sideband radio through a commercial service called Stockholm Radio, the first time in my career I had recourse to that company. While all of this was going on, it was becoming apparent that although Genoa was indeed the designated alternate on the flight plan, apparently none of our airplanes had ever made an appearance here before. This was made manifest to us in a growing inability to figure out how the company was going to pay for the fuel we would need to continue our journey. Incredible as it may seem (and make no mistake, I burned up the company's debrief system over this when I returned to JFK the following day!) we had no contract in place at Genoa for fuel or services. Long gone were the days when the Captain was equipped with big rolls of cash to pay for things like that; and of course also long gone were the days when the Captain himself was rich enough to pay for it on his or her own! (Happily, things are different now, and any widebody Captain can easily afford an entire 747-load of fuel just out of petty cash!) The dispatcher told us to charge the fuel and services to a company American Express account, the number of which, astonishingly, he read out over the open airways of single sideband, for every ham radio enthusiast in the world to copy down! However, here ensued yet another sideshow of this amazing circus that the Genoa diversion was fast becoming -- just like that old MasterCard commercial, they didn't take American Express!! You can't make this stuff up! Genoa is apparently not without a certain beauty and charm. The Captain of the ORD flight, faced with the same problem, was indeed trying to pay for it himself; un-holstering his plastic (and in the process liberating several rare specimens of moths into the Italian ecosystem!) and proposing to put the ten or twenty thousand dollar charge on his credit card. I myself immediately tried to do the same, thinking the company would refund me the money before the bill collector knocked on my door, and also mentally adding up the award miles that a twenty thousand dollar charge would accrue! But alas, the rewards were not to be mine, because USAA (whose credit card I have held since my pilot training days) keeps close track of charges; and was (and still is) loath to roll over to a huge charge in a foreign country in a town the cardholder had never set foot in. Denied! Try though I might to get over to the terminal and call USAA, I was unable to get in touch with them. Meanwhile, we had a full planeload of passengers to deal with. This diversion was going to be a matter of hours and not minutes, so we had to find a way to keep the customers happy. The flight attendants, in Clint Eastwood's best tradition of "improvise, adapt, overcome" scrounged together a tolerable food service from the leftovers of both last night's dinner and this morning's breakfast, as well as all of the remaining coffee we had on board. We re-ran one of the movies from last night. And I availed myself of an old trick I had discovered years earlier - a cockpit open house. For some reason passengers, when faced with few or no alternatives, seem to relish a trip to the wheelhouse, and this group was no exception. I had, fortunately, coordinated this in advance with the flight attendants, because the line of eager sightseers snaked its way all the way to the rear of the airplane. We must have had over 100 people take us up on the offer, and many were the kids that got their pictures taken in the left seat with the Captain's hat on their merry little heads! We were of no mind to just stay in Genoa since we had that full planeload of passengers; and the prospects of the company finding hotel rooms for all of them (and all of us) considering their abject inability to secure such a basic fundament as fuel, were low indeed. Fortunately, some bright soul in dispatch figured out that since we were in an "alliance" with British Airways, who had regular operations at Genoa, British would buy us the fuel and the company would repay them. And so it was that we finally got our fuel, and not a moment too soon, because the crew duty time limits were breathing down our necks. This was, fortunately, in the days before more stringent limits were set, and so we had a bit of regulatory wiggle room, so to speak. Suffice to say that we made it to Rome later that afternoon, after a further delay at Genoa of an hour at the end of the runway awaiting ATC clearance in the scrum that ensued after everyone went to alternates that morning! Another time and different crew. A 777 bound from the USA to Rio de Janeiro had a medical problem onboard that dictated an immediate diversion. There was a chart in those days that depicted available alternates in the area between Venezuela and the south-of-the-Amazon portion of Brazil, but the chart did not have all of the details the crew needed. There are actually very few adequate alternate airports in that area; and although such flights are not extended overwater, they do indeed resemble ETOPS operations in terms of alternatives available. This crew decided to divert to the nearest of the suitable alternates. Unfortunately "suitable", in this case, turned out to mean merely a decent runway. The airport had absolutely no stairs that could come anywhere near reaching the giddy heights of the 777 passenger doors, nor any jetways or even ladders. They eventually had to take off and go to yet another alternate. The way I heard the tale told, the ill passenger survived, so the story had a more or less happy ending. Medical issues have been the cause of the majority of my diversions over the course of my career. I recall one in particular - it was the first day of originating flights after the airways opened up again after 9-11. We were flying a 767 from EWR to LAX, and we had the added benefit of two of the relatively few Sky Marshalls that were on the payroll at that time. Things were tense, of course, and the flight was only about half full. Just past Denver we got a call from the back -- a passenger was having difficulty breathing. As is almost always the case, at least on a big airplane, there was a physician aboard who answered the call, and in a short time we were advised to get the passenger on the ground ASAP. The new Denver airport by day, as it was back then. All of us were on high alert for the possibility that this might not be what it seemed. The Sky Marshalls, of course, heard the call for assistance and no doubt stood ready, but they apparently kept themselves undercover. We immediately declared an emergency and asked for a turn back to KDEN. It took ATC a minute or so to arrange this, quite possibly due to some not inconsiderable coordinating and alerting, but we did get clearance and proceeded directly to KDEN, descending quickly as we went because it was but a short distance away. The stars were aligned for us since the weather was clear and a million. I thought I could "feel" the presence of some USAF fighters behind us, and I'm sure they were vectored back there, but they never made themselves known by sound or sight. And so it was that I landed for my first and only time at the new Denver airport. The passenger was taken off the airplane by the paramedics, and we quickly added a few gallons of fuel and departed once again for the golden west. I asked dispatch when I returned home whether the passenger made it, and was told that he or she (I don't recall which) did indeed come through OK. On another occasion I got the call well into the descent into EWR from overseas. Again a physician responded (we have to be careful to ask for a "physician" over the PA, since there are many "Doctors" that are not medical men) and again the word was passed to us up front. This time it was dire -- we needed to get down as quickly as possible to save a life. We were around 90 miles from EWR, and I asked for and got clearance to come in at the speed of heat, even below 10,000 feet. Ah, the benefits of Emergency Authority! We had all three pilots up front by then, so I assigned the third pilot the task of watching the TCAS like a hawk, while the two of us up front glued our eyes to the windshields as we blitzed along at 320 knots all the way to around the outer marker. Then it was speed brakes and gear down, and we wound up at 1000 AGL right on the numbers. We got clearance to land on the inside runway, 22R, and it was thus a quick taxi to our gate, where once again the medics were waiting. This one, too, had a happy ending, as I found out a day later in conversation with dispatch. This one wasn't a divert, strictly speaking, but it was a change of plans all the same. At the gate at Newark after a quicker than usual arrival Sometimes other things influence alternate selection. When we were flying the Airvan down to Puerto Rico we had to deal with the fact that not every airport down the chain of the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos had avgas. This is indeed a problem throughout that area, and not only in the aftermath of hurricanes. Availability of fuel is important, and can result in an unplanned vacation on one of the more remote islands while you wait for the weekly or monthly tramp steamer to deliver you a barrel of 100 low lead, at an astronomical price! In our case, we had to quick stop Providenciales rather than Grand Turk, since GTK had only jet fuel. (Ah, if only CAP had Caravans then, I would not be facing shoulder surgery in two weeks due to my torments getting into and out of the SlowBus!) So...there is no substitute for complete and thorough planning, especially in selection of and diversion to alternates. And sometimes even the big guys come up short! Happy Landings! Tony Vallillo
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Silver Argosy Part Two - Low And Slow Across America By Tony Vallillo (6 April 2015) By the time that everything was in place to make the purchase of N112T possible, it was well into October of 1996. Summer was over, and so was the summer weather across a direct route from Independence Oregon to Connecticut. As I began the process of flight planning for the Silver Argosy, my first decision revolved around whether to fly at all! Weather conditions across the northern tier of the USA can be quite harsh even in late October. This year we have seen that illustrated rather starkly; indeed, the flight would not have been possible at all during parts of October and November of 2014! 1996, while perhaps a bit less chilly in October than 2014 has been, was by no means a benign year up north. As I contemplated crossing the Cascades and the Rockies in a two place single engine very light airplane with no heater (that's right - neither Dave's Skooter nor mine has a heater; Thorp lived in southern California, and heaters are apparently less of a necessity out there!), I was also face to face with the fact that the "baggage" area of the T-211, which is a small shelf like area behind the seat backs, could accommodate little in the way of emergency equipment beyond a whistle and a signal mirror. The prospect of crossing a thousand miles of snow covered semi-wilderness without much more than a book of matches was not enticing. Neither were the altitudes that I would have to maintain in order to avoid the terrain, nor the temperatures I might encounter at those altitudes. A considerable amount of snow had already fallen by late October all along the western reaches of the most direct great circle route (above), which would have involved a whole day of flying over areas with as much as five feet of snow on the ground, particularly in the mountains. This was long before I had joined CAP, but although I did not know then how difficult it is to spot a small airplane down in snow I had enough sense to realize that for reasons of safety, to say nothing of comfort, the northern route would be a risk, even following the Interstate highway. In addition to crossing two mountain ranges, the northern great circle route would involve crossing Lake Michigan in much colder weather than had existed when I did it in the summer, and a portion of the route actually lay in Canada. Cutting the corner into the territory of our neighbor to the north is a routine event in jet flying, but in a small airplane it would probably involve landing somewhere in Canada, if for no other reason than to accommodate the fact that a heater is not all the SkySkooter lacks - it also has no lav! A slight modification to the northern route (above) would avoid the lake crossing and keep the flight entirely within the good 'ol US of A, but it would still mean days of flying in weather colder than I was willing to accept. I therefore began to cast about for an alternative. One possible alternative would have been to ship the airplane by surface transportation rather than to fly it. I actually entertained this notion, at least to the point of inquiring of the owner how difficult it would be to have 112T shorn of her wings, the better to fit onto or into some sort of truck or other conveyance. It was not until I was assured that this would be difficult and costly in the extreme that I put the notion aside. Another notion that I briefly entertained was to buy the airplane right away but leave it out in Oregon until late spring, when the climate along the direct route would be more manageable. This might have been possible, since the owner had nothing else going into his attached hangar (he had the sort of living arrangement that every pilot would kill for - a house with an attached hangar on an airport!). But he indicated that he would have to charge me rent for the hangar, a reasonable proposition under the circumstances. Careful analysis of the cost led me to cast this alternative aside as well - there is no justification (then or now) for inflating the cost of airplane ownership one iota. So I would fly, and I would fly soon. Now it would come down to just where would I fly? Of course I already knew where I wanted the airplane to end up. I had been warned by the owner that this polished-aluminum airplane absolutely needed a hangar. If it were to be left outside for even a week, it would look like an old lawn chair. So I investigated the local Connecticut airports to see if, by chance, there was any hangar space available. Hangar space availability is the second dirty secret of general aviation (the first, you may recall, is how ridiculously expensive it is!). Most airports that even have hangars for small planes (not all do) have waiting lists that are decades long to actually obtain a rental on one. In this sort of lottery, it matters not whether you can afford it; and so, in perhaps the only such instance in aviation, the rich and the not-quite-so-rich are on equal footing - first come first served. In no other field of human endeavor would such costly assets be housed outside, at the full mercy of the elements. We're talking about airplanes costing over half a million dollars sitting tied down outside in the rain and snow! I certainly don't recall the last time I saw a Lamborghini parked outside for months at a time, but that's how things are in aviation, at least in many places. Fortunately for me the farther you go from a major metropolitan area, the greater the chance you will find hangar space available. And so it was that I stumbled upon a hangar that was available at the airport at Meriden Connecticut, around 45 minutes from our house. In aviation terms, this is close by. I immediately secured a lease and the Skooter had a dry place to roost when the time came. Thus the ultimate terminus of my Silver Argosy would be KMMK. Planning a flight as long as this could take quite a while back in the day. Of course things are much easier now, with all of the many and varied apps for tablets that can do everything in a matter of seconds, even picking the cheapest fuel along the way and routing you to take best advantage of the low prices. But in late 1996 none of that existed. In fact, the concept of computer flight planning at any level below airline or corporate just did not exist. Or if it did, I was not privy to it! So I set about acquiring a number of paper charts, the better to peruse the choices of routing that might be available. The climate pretty much dictated the overall plan of attack - the southern route (above), which would involve getting from Oregon down to the latitudes of Southern California, and crossing the continent in those balmier climes. I was already a devotee of the other meaning of IFR - I Follow Roads, so my first cut at looking things over was to examine a Rand McNally road atlas of the USA. Following the Interstate highway system makes a lot of sense, especially when you are transiting sparsely populated areas, and/or areas where opportunities for a successful forced landing are minimal. The Interstates are little ribbons of civilization across the wastelands, to say nothing of handy runways in the event of trouble. Looking at the atlas, it was obvious that Interstate 5 would provide a dandy thoroughfare for much of the first portion of the trip - the flight south that would precede the turn east. Interstate 5, in that neck of the woods, runs south through Salem Oregon, just northeast of Independence, to Eugene and then through the mountains that separate Oregon and northern California, on into the great Central Valley. It winds through a pass in the mountains and pretty much defines the best route. Once through the mountains and into the Valley itself, other factors would come into play, and for that I turned to the aeronautical charts. I had initially bought three World Aeronautical Charts (WAC's) which, at 1 to 1,000,000 scale, cover twice as much ground as sectionals do. They are ideal for planning, and you can also actually use them for enroute navigation, provided the landmarks you will be looking for are really prominent - things like Interstate highways, or cities, or good sized lakes and the like. There was also the little matter of cost - three WAC's are cheaper then 7 or 8 sectionals. Having chosen a general line of attack using the Rand McNally, I honed the route on the WAC's. Once south of the area of Mount Shasta there are many airspace issues, ranging from Class B's to Restricted Areas full of military pilots going Mach One plus with their hair on fire! Certainly I had no wish to mix it up with such as those, so lining up the actual route to be flown became much like planning to traverse a minefield of your own making. This aeronautical threading of needles was made more difficult by the fact that 112T did not have a transponder, nor would there be time (or money) to install one for the trip. Therefore, in addition to all of the military areas, I had to avoid Class B and Class C airspace as well. The Garmin 95, an early aviation GPS unit with moving map that handled most of the navigation chores for the Silver Argosy Fortunately, in addition to my eyeballs on the charts I would have a portable GPS aboard, an early model called the Garmin 95. This was one of the first units with a moving map; and although crude in the extreme by today's standards, it did show the airspaces as well as the airports and the course line. So the needle threading work would be done using the Garmin, leaving the charts to be used as general orientation and backup to the magic. I planned to turn the corner at the Tehachapi Pass, at the southern end of the Central Valley. I had no desire to mix it up with the air traffic in the LA area, nor could I have legally done so without the transponder, so instead of crossing the mountains into the LA basin I would turn left and traverse the Tehachapi. There would be some needle threading after that to avoid the restricted areas at Edwards AFB, which would have to be done with the Garmin since there were no conveniently aligned Interstates, but past that area things would get a bit simpler. I could pick up the Interstates again east of Palm Springs and pretty much follow the concrete compass. Once established in the more hospitable southern latitudes, the trip eastward would weave its way south of Phoenix, so as to avoid the class Bravo there, and head toward Tucson, where the class Charlie would be easier to dodge. From there it would be a matter of keeping Interstate 10 in sight all the way to El Paso. Further east, once I reached the vicinity of Midland Texas, I could dispense with keeping to the Interstates, since the level of civilization below would increase to the point that a possible forced landing would not be a survival situation! Thus, from that point eastward, pretty much all the way to Connecticut, I could utilize the GPS and fly direct, deviating only to avoid weather and airspace issues. There would still be DFW and Atlanta class B's to avoid, but that would be a simple matter of staying just south of DFW and north of Atlanta. Two additional fixed factors also dictated the route - I would plan to make overnight stops in Shreveport Louisiana and Winchester Virginia, where I had relatives. These overnight stops would be in addition to others which were planned every 500 or so miles. I figured that 5 hours a day spent in the tiny confines of the T-211 cockpit would be enough (I was used to the more spacious Airbus A-300 at this point!). An airplane that cruises at 100 knots makes for fairly simple flight planning. In the roughly two and one half hours that my physiological system can endure, I would travel 250nm in no wind conditions. Since a great deal of the flight would be flown with the letter "E" under the lubber line, I could anticipate tailwinds much of the time. However because this flight was being planned several weeks ahead, it would be impossible to determine just how much tailwind would exist. Therefore, I decided to construct a very loose plan, one that would make for a good approximation but that would dispense with the fine details of what wind corrected course for what leg, and how much time and how much fuel exactly. The Skooter had a fuel gauge that was reported to be reasonably accurate, and I had no intention of going farther than 2.5 hours on any given leg, which was only a shade over half of the airplane's full fuel endurance, so there seemed to be little advantage in calculating everything down to the proverbial gnat's behind. So it was that I prepared my charts in a manner that was of my own invention (although others, including Lindbergh, had developed similar methods over the years). Starting at Independence, I made marks on the chart perpendicular to my intended route of flight each 50nm. These marks I made long enough to accommodate a considerable left or right deviation from whatever the course line might be at the moment - Interstate 5 for the first portion of the flight. Thus I could keep a good track of my progress while being freed from a slavish captivity to a particular path across the ground. I had never tried this method before, but it worked very well on this flight. Of course I had planned this argosy to be a solo endeavor, since there was at best but a single seat available for a "passenger". This was actually the one part of the upcoming flight that I was not eagerly anticipating - the overwhelming majority of my flying over the years has been done with other people in the cockpit, and I anticipated that the many hours (it was looking like it would be around 40 hours, give or take) of solo time might well be both boring and lonely. Just at this point, however, an opportunity arose to have a copilot for the trip! The daughter of one of our best friends had just finished college and acquired a private pilot license. When she heard about my planned argosy she offered to join me at her own expense, the better to acquire some extra cross country flight time. After first consulting with She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed as to Her attitude toward having an attractive young woman accompany me most of the way across the country (Melanie would disembark at Chapel Hill North Carolina, about three quarters of the way to Connecticut and, fortuitously, right on the planned route) and receiving her enthusiastic approval (so confident was She in the fidelity of her spouse!!) I gave my assent, and could now look forward to having a real crew for this epic flight. Sold! I hand over the check Melanie and I made our separate ways to Oregon on 30 October 1996, and met up at the Portland airport for the drive down to Independence. The following day, Halloween appropriately enough, I got my final checkout in the Skooter from the owner - takeoffs and landings, stalls and slow flight, and a full briefing on the workings of the simple machine, which included a late model LORAN (with which I was completely unfamiliar, but which I intended to use as a backup to the GPS). That having been done, I handed over a certified check for the amount we had agreed upon, arranged for insurance coverage, and mailed the bill of sale and change of registration form to the FAA. The airplane was now mine. Bright and early the following day, 1 November, Melanie and I prepared to depart. A thorough weather briefing disclosed that the overall weather was superb all along the route, with the single exception of the valley that Independence sits in, which was afflicted with fog. This, however, would soon burn off and so we loaded up and gassed up, the better to be prepared to launch the moment that things improved It was around noon when the weather cleared up, and after saying goodbye to the now-previous owner and running the simple checklists we launched off into the blue. We made one pass over the airport in salute and took up our southerly course to intercept Interstate 5. The Skooter in flight. It still amazes me how far we travelled in this tiny airplane! The Skooter is a delight to fly, with excellent control response and reasonably light control forces. It is certainly no Pitts, but it is also certainly not a Cherokee regardless of its parentage of that line - the control forces in Cherokees are much heavier and the response less lively than the little Thorp. The controls are all operated by push rods instead of cables, resulting in a more precise and crisp feel than the typically loose and somewhat sloppy feel of the small Pipers and Cessna's. The bubble canopy gives the bird a jet fighter-like ambience, and the visibility is outstanding, just the thing for a long trek across America down low. We took in the marvelous scenery of Oregon's central valley, with the small coast range on our right and the marine layer of fog still lingering along the coast. I once had a layover in Eugene Oregon, and rented a car on a bright sunny day to visit the beach, but an hour's drive away. Lo and behold, when I got past the coast range, the visibility dropped to zero as I encountered that marine layer, and the beach was a dreary place indeed; cool, clammy and uninviting. Soon we approached the Eugene area. I had decided to cruise at 6500 feet, so we were well above the Class D airspace at the airport. But as we headed south toward the city we noticed a sudden shadow overtake us - an aluminum overcast above, composed of a United Boeing 737 also headed toward Eugene. I was thus reminded of the importance of watching for traffic in all quadrants, not just ahead; the more so since without a transponder we were essentially invisible to ATC. Just north of Siskiyou airport CA Mount Ashland ski resort, Ashland OR South of Eugene the valley peters out into foothills and then real mountains. We followed Interstate 5 through the mountains, past Cottage Grove, Sutnerlin, Roseburg and Canyonville, Grant's Pass, Gold Hill and Medford. About every 30 miles or so there was a decent airport along the Interstate, and had we flown somewhat higher, perhaps around 10,000 feet we would rarely have been beyond reach of one or another of them, with or without the services of the little Continental O-200A chugging along up front! The scenery was spectacular. I had seen all of this from much higher aloft, of course, but the vistas we took in were everything I had imagined they would be in the days when I had gazed down from on high and dreamed of making the trip down low. The surviving markings on the chart I used back then appear to indicate that we had planned to make our first stop at Rogue Valley Airport in Medford. I don't recall today why we overflew it, but I imagine that we had picked up a bit of a tailwind and were thus in no immediate need of either fuel or a pit stop. In any event, my logbook shows that we pressed on another 50 miles or so to the Montague Yreka airport, just south of the California border. Once south of Medford, the view was dominated by the incredible massif of Mount Shasta, and it was in the shadow of this great volcano that we made our first stop. Such was our satisfaction at having completed the first and most mountainous stretch of the route that we posed for a self congratulatory picture after the airplane had been topped off. Montague Yreka airport CA, first stop Mount Shasta We launched again into the clear mountain air, and within minutes were passing abeam of the enormous cone of Mount Shasta. These Pacific Rim volcanoes are beautiful to admire, at least until one of them corks off! Fortunately, Shasta refrained from any untoward exhibitions as we passed abeam. Shortly thereafter we ambled down from the heights as the mountains tapered off into foothills and then the northern reaches of the great Central Valley. This valley runs from Red Bluff all the way to Bakersfield, and is one of the most fertile places on earth. A staggering amount of fruit and vegetables pours forth from this place every day, filling trucks and trains, and probably more than a few cargo jumbo jets as well! It is also said to be one of the flattest places on earth, and it certainly looks the part as we descend to lower altitudes, the better to keep the landmarks in sight in the slight haze that exists in the now mid-afternoon. Castle Crags SW of Dunsmuir CA Shasta Lake CA Sutter Butte just west of Yuba city CA We continued to follow Interstate 5, at least roughly. It keeps us clear of various airspaces over father east that we would rather avoid, among which is Beale AFB, the home of the U-2 and, earlier, the SR-71. Approximately abeam of Beale, just east of Colusa, sits the highest point in the valley - Sutter's Butte, which is a long extinct volcanic cone eroded to a mere 2300 or so feet elevation. I was able to snap a quick picture as we flew by. After Colusa, Interstate 5 bends southeastward toward Sacramento. It is here that we had to thread our first needle, navigation-wise. The Sacramento Class B rubs up close to an imposing looking area surrounding Travis AFB. On today's charts this area is merely an alert area, but on the charts of 1996 it looked more like a restricted area. There is a gap of a few miles between the two, and the town of Davis lies squarely in the gap. We used the GPS to thread the needle between the two, and it worked like a charm. Of course the town provided a good landmark as well. Once through the needle's eye, we set course directly to our first planned overnight stop - Stockton California. It was nearly dark by the time we landed at KSCK, and completely so by the time we clambered stiffly into a taxi at the FBO, bound for the Holiday Inn. The Skooter's somewhat cramped confines had confirmed the wisdom of my decision to keep the flying down to around 500 miles per day. But the first day's flying was done, and the arguably most challenging legs were now in the logbook. My copilot and I enjoyed a great meal in one of Stockton's better eateries and we called an early halt to the night's activities, the better to prepare for tomorrow's journey. Just before heading off to the land of Nod I called Flight Service for an outlook briefing. The reports and forecasts were good - in fact, it looked like we would be able to make the entire trip home without any real opposition from the weather. The next morning, a glance outside the motel window caused me to doubt the ability of the western weather gurus. Fog, luminous but opaque, had crept in on its little cat feet overnight and squatted lethargically over what appeared to be the entire Central Valley. A quick call to Flight Service confirmed what I saw, but also offered some comfort - the fog was typical in the early morning there, and would likely burn off completely by mid-morning. Foothills of the Sierras, somewhere between Fresno and Modesto We arrived at the airport around 9 and got the preflight completed shortly thereafter. That's the nice thing about a simple airplane like the Sky Skooter - the preflight is not the lengthy affair that it is on a Boeing! Once that was done we returned to the lounge to await the return of VFR conditions. All we needed was three miles visibility, since the fog layer was scarcely more than a few hundred feet thick and once above it we would be in clear skies. Around 10 the rotating beacon on the tower stopped spinning, the sure signal that visual conditions prevailed. And off we went, rapidly climbing above the residual layer of now diaphanous mist into the clear-and-a-million skies above. Navigation now was the province of the Garmin 95, which had so far worked to perfection and continued to do so. We set a direct course for Bakersfield, at the southern end of the valley, close to the Tehachapi pass. This would be our next refueling point. As we droned southward, the Sierra Nevada Mountains provided a visual spectacle off to our left. This front row seat to the grandeurs of nature continued for nearly two hours, until KBFL hove into view ahead, and we contacted the tower for landing clearance. Aqueduct emerges from the mountains just west of Neenach CA Just south of Edison CA looking up toward Tehachapi Pass After a refueling and a quick lunch, we were off once again, now bound for a little airport in the desert northeast of the LA basin called, curiously enough, Apple Valley. It may well be that I decided to make APV our next refueling stop just to see how it got that name, sited as it is in the desert and probably not at all conducive to apple growing! The route to APV lay across the southernmost ramparts of what is left of the Sierra Nevada, and it was initially my intention to traverse this area by following the iron compass through Tehachapi Pass, one of railroading's most famous grades. As we climbed out of Bakersfield I could see that it would take some time to achieve the 9500 feet that I had planned to safely surmount the pass, and, from an aerial vantage point, it seemed that there was another low area in the range a bit farther south. So we continued our climb and headed for the southern end of the Central Valley. As we did so, we could see the entry into Tehachapi off to our left, and I took note of the windmill farms that even back then dotted the terrain through the pass. If there was enough wind going through there to make it attractive for wind farms, there might just be a good bit of turbulence as well, so I became convinced that the more southerly crossing might be the best. Another attraction of bypassing Tehachapi was that the route through the pass would take us quite close to Edwards AFB, and I had no desire to mix it up with whatever they were testing over there! Just across the pass north of Neenach CA Looking back north across the mountains toward the central valley - just north of Neenach CA Around twenty minutes after takeoff we leveled off at 9500 feet and turned left over what appeared to be the lowest part of the mountains at this point. We could not yet set our GPS to direct to APV, though, since there is a considerable array of restricted airspace surrounding Edwards, so we used the Garmin to steer a course just to the south of the forbidden areas. Once across the mountains, we were flying over the southern reaches of the Mohave Desert, with the San Gabriel Mountains off to our right and beyond those the LA basin. We were not high enough to observe the smog beyond the mountains, as I would be nearly a decade later when I passed this way at 35000 feet on the way from ORD to HNL. And of course we were going one heck of a lot slower! But with this kind of scenery around, the old saw about "if flying is so much fun then why are we in such a hurry to get it over with..." takes on real meaning! Just as soon as we cut the corner on the Edwards airspaces I set the Garmin for direct to APV. There are no conveniently aligned major highways to follow, so we used the GPS for all actual navigation, while keeping track of our position on the sectional chart that I bought at Bakersfield for just that purpose. It had already been clear on the way down that although the WAC charts were great for planning, and for following Interstate highways, Sectionals are better for keeping track of position, especially in areas like this that are complex and intensive. In other circumstances I would call ATC and get flight following, just to have someone to talk to, if for no other reason. But without a transponder that would be pretty much impossible in this area. So Melanie and I had to be content with each other's company. Rogers Dry Lake Palmdale AF plant nr 42 Palmdale passed off to the right, and I wondered about the subtitle in its name: Air Force Plant number 42. Just for starters, where are the other 41 plants; for in all of my travels I have never encountered another airport with an Air Force Plant number appended to its name. Nowadays, we can just whip out the iPhone and Google it, but back then all of that magic was still but a gleam in Steve Jobs' eye, and the questions went unanswered! Burt Rutan and an old Air Force acquaintance about to take to the sky in a Long EZ at Mohave Off in the distance to the left, we could see the Mother Lode of the Right Stuff, Edwards AFB, and the large dry lakes that surround it and form a part of the landing area for, among other things, the Space Shuttle when it was first being tested. I once, on a layover, went to Mohave airport, which is fairly close to Edwards, and happened to meet Burt Rutan there, along with on old acquaintance from my original Air Force days who was building a Long EZ. It was fascinating to talk to Rutan in those days before he really got into the aviation spotlight. Big ideas were his forte, even then, and the future was already in his head, taking shape; as we could tell from the conversational gems he dropped here and there. Mohave, then as now, was also a graveyard for old jet transports, including the entire fleet of TWA Convair 880's. Today it is probably sinking under the weight of all of the 747's, DC-10's and other retired flagships of the airline fleets, including an ex-AA DC-10 and 767-200. Looking north to Rogers Dry Lake and Edwards AFB San Gabriel Mountains south of Palmdale looking toward LA Approaching APV, we descended just to the south of what was once George AFB, now called the Southern California Logistics Center. George AFB was the F-4 Phantom training unit during the Vietnam era, transitioning all of the pilots and navigators into what was, at that time, the latest and greatest fighter in the inventory. Today it is a cargo port and, more recently, another boneyard for surplus airliners. We gave a quick shout-out to the tower as we passed by, for clearance into the class D from above. Right Base leg for Apple Valley airport CA Apple Valley airport CA A few miles east of VCV we spotted Apple Valley. And no, it certainly didn't look like anyone was growing apples out there. But apparently at one time apples were a big crop, and thus the name. Since the next leg, to Blythe California, wasn't too long we contented ourselves with a few vending machine snacks and a fuel top-off, and were back in the sky with minimal delay. Just east of Twenty Nine Palms Enroute to Blythe Enroute to Blythe Between Desert Center and Blythe CA Blythe airport CA, our second overnight stop The flight to BLH called for a dogleg to avoid Restricted Area R-2501, which sits astride the direct route. This airspace runs from the surface to unlimited, so there is no getting over or under it. Staying to the south of it had us hugging the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains, just to the north of Big Bear Lake; which, I noted with amusement, was higher than we were. We turned the corner on the restricted area at Joshua Tree, and took up a southeasterly course direct to Blythe. Now we were flying over some true desert, and I was glad that we checked the batteries on the ELT as part of the pre-buy inspection. There were plenty of places to put it down, perhaps in one piece perhaps not, but the walk to the nearest phone might have been a long one indeed. The Skooter, fortunately, was purring like the kitten it could barely outrun, and any pessimistic speculation was lost in the incredible beauty of the place. As the sun began to sink toward the Pacific, now many miles behind us, we picked up Interstate 10 for the last few miles into BLH. I let Melanie have a try at landing the Skooter, and she nailed it perfectly. We tied 112T down as the sun set, and headed into town for another great Mexican dinner and a good night's sleep. Two days journey in the logbook, with six days more to go. Tomorrow we would have a good bit of distance to cover, for I intended to make it to the vicinity of El Paso before we bedded down again. Departing Blythe on day 3 Up again at the crack of dawn, we checked the weather with FSS, to find that things were going to be perfect yet again, and looked to remain so for much of the remainder of the journey. We ate a quick breakfast and got a taxi out to the airport again for our third day of the journey. Fuel topped off, and the preflight inspection completed, we were off into the sun and the Arizona desert. We had the navigational certainty of Interstate 10 again as we headed east, but before too long we were forced to part company with the concrete compass and head out into the true wilderness. The Phoenix class B, and in particular the 30nm mode C veil, precluded us from following I-10 all the way into town, where it turns south and heads for Tucson. To avoid the Mode C area we had to cut the corner and start heading southeast across the desert nearly 90nm from PHX, roughly paralleling V-94 to Gila Bend. There were (and still are) restricted areas galore off to the south and west, and we had to clear R-2308 before we could make our turn toward TUS. At Gila Bend, there was R-2304 on the right side and the PHX Mode C veil on the left. The restricted areas showed up on the Garmin 95, as did the Class B, but not the Mode C veil; so I set the GPS to take us directly to the GBN VOR, and then direct to our first destination, Ryan Airport just west of the Tucson class C. Crossing the Colorado River east of Blythe Desert southwest of Phoenix This was the first time in the trip that we were flying on a leg with just about zero civilization below. There were no towns, no settlements of any kind on the chart, and only a single rail line that we would cross on the way to Gila Bend. But the Continental engine was still running perfectly, so the pucker factor was comfortably low. In fact, so absorbed were we in the harsh beauty of the desert scenery that we didn't give a single thought to the potential usefulness of our survival mirror and whistle! I was not completely unfamiliar with the Tucson area, having had many a layover there nearly 20 years previously in my Boeing 707 engineer days. In addition to the various aircraft graveyards, civilian and military, the area is pitted with great mines - huge holes that resemble man made versions of the famous Meteor Crater. Most of these are copper mines, and indeed Arizona is known as the Copper State. Tucson is also well known for its outstanding Mexican cuisine, although we did not tarry to sample it, for this was but a fuel stop for us. Clouds south of Phoenix The Venture LLC hangar at Ryan airport AZ. It was closed when we got there. I had chosen Ryan field for a specific reason, aside from its being just outside of the Class C. RYN was the home of Venture Light Aircraft Resources, which happened to be the current holder of the type certificate and tooling for the Sky Skooter. Larry Rebling, the owner of Venture, was just getting started selling T-211 kits made up from some of the 100 ship-sets of parts built in 1966 when 112T was built. I was hoping to meet and talk to him during our stop, since it would be a good idea to get acquainted with a potential supplier of parts. I actually entertained the notion of buying one of the kits - not to build it, but to have a permanent supply of spare parts; and in fact Dave's widow did just that some years later after he went west. But as it turned out, Larry was out to lunch when we passed through Ryan, and we weren't able to wait around for him to return. Back over our shoulder, you see, a weather system was moving onshore from the Pacific, and this had the potential of catching up to us if we dallied an extra day this far west. So after another fuel top off and a quick snack, we launched yet again into the wild blue. From Ryan, we had to skirt the TUS Class C, and that took us to a convenient landmark, the giant open pit of the ASARCO Mission Mine, just north of Green Valley. Apparently a goodly bit of the copper that plays such an important role in all things electrical originates in this hole. We turned the corner at the mine and joined I-10 again east of Tucson at Benson. The terrain was just as stark over here as it had been northwest of Gila Bend, but the Interstate linked a number of small towns every 10 or 20 miles, so civilization was close at hand. We didn't follow every turn and bend in the highway, but rather set a straight course toward Deming and just kept the road in sight. ASARCO Mission mine, Open Pit mine near Green Valley AZ south of Tucson Wilcox Playa dry lake AZ Just north of Wilcox AZ Ever since we turned the corner at Tehachapi we had been the beneficiaries of tailwinds. These are always welcome, and they got stronger as we went further east. By the time we were east of Tucson, we had a boost of roughly 20 knots working for us, with groundspeeds in the giddy range of 130 knots or so. This may not sound like much, but in an airplane that usually true's out around 100 knots this is a significant boost indeed, and we welcomed it with open arms. It looked like we might be able to make it beyond the area of El Paso today. Las Cruces NM enroute stop Northeast of El Paso TX Approaching Guadaloupe peak TX Oil field near Hobbs NM Guadaloupe peak TX Sunset Hobbs NM Originally it looked like Deming NM would be a good place to set down, but those tailwinds gave us just enough push that we were able to press on farther. Our second stop, for fuel and lunch, turned out to be Las Cruces New Mexico, just up the road from El Paso. Beyond that point, we had to turn south, because there was both high terrain and restricted airspace on a direct course eastward. So after takeoff we followed Interstate 10 south toward the West Texas town of El Paso, as Marty Robbins described it. Much as I would have wanted to stop there and pay a visit to Rosa's Cantina, there was still plenty of daylight and our eastward course beckoned. We again had to thread a needle navigationally; because there were several big Restricted Areas north of the Class C, and the path between the two was only around 3-4 miles wide. I was by now acutely aware of the handicap that resulted from our lack of a transponder, and this trip pretty much made up my mind to install one immediately after arrival in Connecticut. We had one more corner to turn, at the southern end of what are called, further north, the Rocky Mountains. This is Guadeloupe Peak, which lies a bit east of El Paso. When we passed by, it was catching the late afternoon sun and looked quite spectacular. This would mark the end of the mountainous terrain portion of our trip. Once we put Guadeloupe behind us it was pretty much flat and, until we crossed the Mississippi river, all downhill! The winds kept up their steady push and we found that we could press on beyond Carlsbad. I had briefly entertained the notion of putting up there and actually going to see the caverns, but there really wasn't time for sightseeing on the ground (we were getting plenty of it in the air to compensate!). Hobbs New Mexico was the next outpost of civilization ahead, and it was there that we headed, landing just around sunset. This had been the most productive day yet, in terms of mileage, and we were quite satisfied with ourselves as we sat down to yet another Mexican dinner. Glad to be parking the bird for the night at Hobbs NM Red Sky at night, sailor's delight. Pilots' too, for that matter. Thus far in the journey we had employed mostly pilotage navigation - that is, looking for landmarks and roads and the like, and following them. In those situations where there were no convenient roads or other features to define a course, we used the GPS rather than rely on dead reckoning. Use of dead reckoning would have required the preparation of some sort of flight plan, using the old E-6B, which would give us a wind corrected heading to fly. We were already far enough into the GPS era that that sort of effort was unappealing! GPS did all of that for us, whenever we needed it and on the fly. The other typical navigation method of that era, VOR, was unavailable to us (except that the GPS could take us to any VOR) since 112T was completely devoid of VOR equipment. We did have the LORAN, which I used more or less as a backup. It had no moving map, but could do a direct course between any waypoints and it had a navigation database in it which, although not up to date, was at least up-to-decade! If dealing with VOR's NDB's or airports it could take us directly to them. It could also take us to lat/lon fixes, but I was not going to get involved with that sort of thing on this trip. The LORAN worked fine throughout the trip, but I already had it in mind to pull it out when we got home, since I would need the panel space it occupied for the transponder which I was now determined to install. The weather held beautiful the next morning, and FSS told us that it would stay that way all day, all the way to Shreveport. SHV was our next planned stop, and would indeed be our final destination today no matter what the winds did, for I have relatives there and we were in for a home cooked meal and the opportunity to wash some clothes. No matter what the tailwinds might choose to do, SHV was as far as we were going. I must have had too much coffee that morning at Hobbs, because we had not been airborne an hour when I began to feel "the need", and not the one for speed (in the Skooter one always feels the need for speed, anyway!). Although we had planned on going a bit farther, I decided to put in at Sweetwater Texas, which was conveniently located a few miles directly ahead. The name on the chart - Avenger Field - hinted that it might have had some military connection at one time, and indeed that proved to be the case, but in a special way - one that appealed particularly to Melanie. Avenger Field was the location where most of the women were trained to fly during WWII; the ones who turned in such an outstanding performance as the WASP's. These women went on to fly just about every airplane that the Arsenal of Democracy turned out during the war years, and some of them gave their lives in the process of testing and ferrying airplanes. What they got for their pioneering efforts was a handshake and an apron, as they were steered back to the nation's kitchens after the war. Although a few managed to actually earn a living in aviation, almost 30 years would pass before Emily Howell became the first female airline pilot in the U.S. in the early 1970's. The Oil Patch - West Texas Tea This part of the country is what is called, in Texas, the "Oil Patch", and wells dot the landscape as far as the eye can see. Nowadays, a bit further to the south, wind farms dot the landscape too, the result of Mr. Pickens' efforts to free us from the dependence on oil. Beyond macerating a number of birds, I'm not sure just what these wind farms are contributing to energy production, but if it depends upon the prevailing winds, as indeed it must, then the omens are good, because this area always seems to be windy. Fortunately for us, the winds were out of the west so we continued to benefit from some free speed, and on this leg we saw groundspeeds as high as 140 knots. Lamesa TX, nw of Big Spring After takeoff from Sweetwater, we detoured a bit south to avoid the Class C at Abilene. After that it was GPS direct all the way to Tyler in east Texas. Our course put us south of the Class B at DFW, but we could see the steady stream of inbounds high overhead as we droned east, most of them decked out in polished aluminum, just like 112T! Pretty much since Hobbs we no longer needed pilotage or the charts - GPS direct would do the trick, with just a bit of Kentucky windage to bend around the various airspaces we could not enter. No longer did we need to keep to the Interstates - civilization abounded in every direction. But the landscape became a bit less fascinating with the mountains far behind us. It would be nothing but farmland and woods until we got to Connecticut. After a quick stop at Tyler for fuel and a bite to eat, we were off again headed for Shreveport. It was here, for the first time, that we actually entered a Class C, since we really had no choice. Shreveport Downtown airport was our destination, and it lay within the Class C, with no other airports available. Now in actual fact, it is occasionally possible to enter a Class C without a transponder provided that ATC can approve it, and fortunately for us they did (I had not tried this before in the trip since there was no real necessity for it). They cleared us to the airport and turned us over to tower for landing clearance. When we arrived at the FBO ramp, my relatives were there to meet us, expressing surprise bordering on shock that we had travelled so far in such a tiny machine! Truthfully, that exact same thought had crossed my mind on several occasions since we left Oregon. Jasper GA, where the weather finally put a temporary stop to the Silver Argosy The next day, having sated ourselves on home cooking and done some laundry, we set off, intending to make it all the way to Chapel Hill North Carolina, Melanie's stepping-off point. But today, for the first time, the weather gave us the back of its hand. Not at first, to be sure, since the day dawned beautifully and we flew through fine weather and enjoyed our by-now-typical tailwinds to our first stop, Bryan Field at Starkville Mississippi, just west of Columbus. We chatted with crop dusters while we topped off the Skooter, and then were off again heading northeast. We needed to sidestep the huge Class B at Atlanta, and this led us to aim toward a small airport at Jasper Georgia - Pickens County Airport, a bit north of ATL. We flew on under skies that were becoming progressively cloudy, but they were high clouds and represented no particular threat. We arrived at Jasper for our obligatory top off and snack, but a quick check of the weather stopped us in our tracks - over on the other side of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where we were headed, the weather was IFR, with low ceilings and poor visibilities. I was in no mood to tackle marginal weather in what, for me, was a brand new and somewhat unfamiliar airplane, so we waited all afternoon for some sign that things might be clearing up over yonder. Alas, it was not to be, so Melanie and I decided to call it quits and spend the night in Jasper. We found a quaint hotel in town, and for the first time since Stockton dined on something other than Mexican food! Come the morn, the weather appeared to be no better over yonder; and for that matter not all that great over here! The skies were overcast, although like yesterday the clouds were high enough to permit VFR flight below them. To fly straight to Chapel Hill, however, was out of the question since there was the higher terrain of the southern end of the Blue Ridge off to the northeast of Jasper. We would have to fly east and do an end run around the mountains in order to stay below the overcast. FSS indicated that the forecasts did call for improvement to VFR with a mid level overcast on the east side of the mountains by early afternoon, and so we waited. And waited. Finally we got confirmation of improvement from both FSS and a recently arriving airplane so we launched and picked our way around the southern end of the Blue Ridge. The overcast above held us down to around 3500 feet, but that was plenty and things did indeed improve as we started heading northeast along the eastern flank of the mountains. Even so, it was still a big change from the clear-and-a-million that we had enjoyed ever since we took off from Stockton. Chapel hill NC, Melanie's point of embarkation. Here she is gathering her gear after we parked As we droned northeast along the foothills, there were towns and airports every few miles. We did have to rubber-band the route a bit to get around the big Class B at Charlotte. It was dealer's choice - either east or west, but consideration of the winds (we had, since leaving Jasper, lost our tailwinds and were dealing mostly with a crosswind of no large magnitude) and distance led me to believe that west was best, and so we stayed to the west of the CLT area until we could strike a direct course for the Williams airport at Chapel Hill North Carolina. At 3 hours exactly this was the longest single leg of the entire trip, in terms of time. I was beginning to see just how lucky we had been with the winds over the previous few days. We pried ourselves from the tiny cockpit and staggered over to greet Melanie's father, who had come out to pick us up. With the bird tied down for the night, we departed for another home cooked meal. I bade Melanie farewell the following morning, and launched off into the not-so-blue skies solo. The weather reports had indicated VFR conditions under scattered mid level clouds all the way north to Winchester Virginia, my next overnight stop. The forecasts also indicated that, while I would have no difficulty getting to Winchester, the following day or two would be miserable, with a front coming through featuring IMC and a lot of rain, so Winchester would be as far as I could go. I did briefly consider skipping Winchester and going up the coast all the way to Connecticut in one day, but decided against that. So off to the north I flew, below clouds that were, at first scattered, then by the time I got abeam Richmond broken, and shortly thereafter overcast and getting lower by the minute. It was clear that the forecasts had been at least a bit skewed (This just in...!!!), and I descended lower and lower to stay beneath the clouds. Getting closer to Front Royal it was clear that I was not going to be able to get through to Winchester under the clouds unless I was willing to do some serious scud running, a prospect that I have never considered cheerfully since it has a tendency to lower the life expectancy considerably. But I was close enough to listen to the Winchester ATIS and they were calling clear skies. Aha! Reversing course, I retraced my path back to where the clouds above were broken and climbed up through the generous breaks until I got on top. Then I set the Garmin to Direct OKV and off I went. I had enough fuel to go a considerable distance and still turn around to get down again if I had to, but I didn't have to. After 30 miles or so the clouds below vanished and Winchester came into view ahead. It took awhile to descend from those giddy heights, but in due course I landed and taxied over to the FBO. My first order of business, after fueling was to arrange for a hangar for 112T for the next two nights, since I had no desire to leave her out in the rain lest I have to polish her the minute I got home. Space was available, as it happened, and we backed the bird in and locked her up. There then ensued an entire day of rain and miserable weather, made enjoyable only by the companionship of my brother and sister in law. On the third day the skies were still overcast, but high overcast and the weather was VFR with strong winds out of the west, which would translate into tailwinds once again. After an hour spent in an almost comic attempt to get into the hangar to get the airplane out (the line boy did not have the key this morning, and had to get into the hangar next door and climb over the partition into the hangar where the Skooter was!) I was up and away on the last leg home. The course was not direct, since both the Philly and New York Class B's stood astride a direct route, but only a little shading to the west put me clear. It was on this leg that I appreciated the value of a finger on the chart; something that, at that point in my career, I still did, wary as I was of the reliability of GPS. While I was edging past the Philly Class C, the GPS went stupid for what turned out to be only 4 or 5 minutes but seemed longer as it was happening. Fortunately, the sectional was already on my lap and my finger was on the chart, so I was able to transition to a mixture of dead reckoning and pilotage for the short time until the Garmin woke up again. Coming up on the Hudson River, the last major checkpoint before home When the mighty Hudson River hove into view I knew that I was home, since these skies had been my stomping grounds in small planes for several decades. As I approached Meriden, I was a bit concerned about the winds, which were reported out of the west at 20 or so knots. The Skooter has an official demonstrated crosswind component of 13 knots, and I was loath to exceed that by very much this early in my career with her. There was always Danbury, 20 or so miles back to the west, where there was an east-west runway if it turned out that the bird could not handle things at MMK. But as it turned out, the trees off to the west side of the north-south runway at MMK served to blank out the wind in the last few feet, and by the time I started the flare the crosswind pretty much disappeared. Approaching 112T's new home at Meriden CT, KMMK The spreadsheet I kept for the expenses for the Silver Argosy Welcome home to the airplane! Her hangar was ready and waiting and I got her tucked in shortly after I topped her off. The total flying time for this Silver Argosy was around 40 hours, over a span of eight days of flying. The fuel bill was just over $400 for 188 gallons, an average price of a bit over $2.00 per gallon. Oh for the good old days! Counting meals and lodging the total cost of the adventure was around $1000; but really, like the commercial says, priceless! My plane and Dave's at an airshow at Simsbury CT. Mine won the prize for "special interest"! At this point, 112T and I have shared 439 hours together in the skies, over a period of 18 years. I have added a transponder, strobe lights, portable GPS, and a battery charger to her, and have had the bottom and some of the control surfaces painted since I could not really do a good job of keeping them polished. I have flown her to all three of the Atlantic islands (Nantucket, Block and Martha's Vineyard), up and down the Hudson Corridor many times, throughout Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, southern New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Long Island. Nothing, perhaps, compared to the Silver Argosy, but the lady still gets around! Aside from some maintenance work this year to replace some components that were in need of it, she has been as "low maintenance" as has She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, whose name she shares (121T bears the name Flagship Virginia). I have, as it happens, had wonderful luck with both a woman and an airplane in this life, and any man who can make that claim has no cause for complaint whatsoever. Happy Landings! Tony Vallillo Read Silver Argosy Part One
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Silver Argosy By Tony Vallillo (3 April 2015) Those of you who have joined me in my previously penned reminiscences here may no doubt be thinking that I am off on another sentimental journey through the annals of American Airlines, the silver fleet that I had the privilege of piloting during a long and delightful career. But such is not the case. This Argosy is of a different color altogether; for this is the tale of a love affair with a single, and much different, airplane! Flight simulation can serve a multitude of purposes - it can train, it can entertain, it can inspire and it can prepar3, to name but a few. Simulation can even save one a not inconsiderable pile of money, regardless of how much money one may sink into it. It can save all of this money because it can serve as a sublimation of the otherwise irresistible urge to go out and buy a real airplane! Airplane ownership is the Holy Grail of personal aviation. Although few start out taking flying lessons in an airplane they already own, by the time the ink is dry on most pilots' certificates the subtle urges are already beginning to show - most often manifested by an irresistible urge to peruse the bulletin boards at small airports (many of these are festooned with advertisements for small airplanes of every sort). Soon thereafter a strange newspaper-like publication, printed on yellow newsprint of all things, may make an appearance in the weekly mail. This is Trade-A-Plane, the bible of small plane advertisement. Long hours may be spent perusing and perhaps even salivating over the various offerings, which range from Piper Cubs to Lear jets. Ownership becomes a primordial urge because of the often uncertain availability of airplanes with which to satisfy the desire to fly once the pilot license is obtained. There is no glut of airplanes for rent, such as exists in the case of automobiles. On a nice flying day every rental airplane on the line is up in the air all day, either boring holes in the sky in search of the perfect hamburger for the licensed, or busy in the process of preparing students to join the hamburger hunt! Unless one has reserved an airplane far enough in advance that the weather becomes a gamble, one often spends those beautiful days at the airport watching those who made earlier reservations having all of the fun. Flying clubs, although certainly a great way to spread the acute financial pain of airplane ownership over a greater number of people, are subject to the same limitations, unless the club in question has one or two oddball airplanes that few members check out in. In any event, oddball airplanes usually end up in that category for a reason; many pilots cannot check out in them for lack of experience or some other issue. Each beautiful day spent on the ground offers a fertile breeding ground for the virus of airplane ownership. The pilots who own airplanes fly whenever they want without regard for the availability of a rental. They gorge themselves on hundred dollar hamburgers, visit distant beaches in an hour or so and gaze down on the lesser hordes stuck in long traffic jams to get to those same playgrounds. The frustrated renter pilot sees all of this and fantasizes about having his own plane, something fast and beautiful that is always awaiting his beck and call. Alas; like fast and beautiful women, airplanes are high maintenance items! Most pilots soon come to grips with an inevitable fact of life - if you have to ask how much it costs you can't afford it. The hundred dollar hamburger is not some exclusive gourmet delight made from specially imported Argentinean Biffa de lomo, but rather a journeyman slab of supermarket chuck spiced up with the cost of aviation gasoline and hangar rental, to say nothing of annual inspections and insurance. What to do, what to do? Starting in the 1990's, when Flight Simulator migrated to the Wintel world and Microsoft took over the franchise, the ever growing realism that it offered became a sublimation, for some, of the unaffordable urge to own an airplane. Here was a reasonable simulacrum of flying, one which was always ready and waiting in its virtual hangar, in a world in which one even had control of the weather! Not only that, but this world offered one the chance to "check out" in airplanes in which one could only ride as a passenger in that other world, the one we call real. To top it all off, the price was right - even at the level of those who buy airliner nose sections for home cockpits, simulation is still orders of magnitude less expensive than airplane ownership. I had, earlier in my adulthood, sampled the pleasures of airplane ownership in more financially halcyon times, when avgas cost less than $1 per gallon and an early Beech Bonanza could be had for $9000. Even so, my airplane partner and I had to skimp - unable to afford a hangar, we had to tie the airplane down in the South Carolina heat. Heat is the implacable foe of solid state avionics, and the Bonanza was equipped with a very early incarnation of transistorized radios. These often rolled over and died in the summer heat, forcing us to call the tower and get light gun signals to facilitate a departure. Usually, after sufficient cooling in the more temperate climes aloft, the radios would come to life, allowing us to reenter the control zone and return home. On at least one occasion, however, the radios stayed dead and we had to recover at an uncontrolled outlying airport. Satisfying as all of this was, nothing lasts forever. My newfound airline employment took me away from South Carolina, and the Beechcraft, N691B, was sold. It remains on the FAA registry to this day, out in the area of Phoenix Arizona, quite possibly under the ownership of the same person my partner sold the airplane to back in 1977. My own flying was subsequently done mostly in airliners and military cargo jets, although I always got myself checked out at whatever FBO existed in the vicinity. I joined and flew with a few clubs along the way, but the frustration of airplane availability still bit hard and painfully. Ownership, however, was out of the question. By this time I had met and married She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed. Women, as I said, are high maintenance items; and although She shops at Marshall's and TJ Maxx (and is thus a keeper!) the financial obligations of family life prior to the Captaincy were such as to keep me firmly ensconced in the world of virtual airplane ownership. There I stayed for more than a decade, enjoying each new and more realistic version of FS. I had started, around 1986, to attend the huge EAA airshow held each summer at Oshkosh. This fiesta has the same effect on pilots as Roman orgies no doubt had on Vestal Virgins - temptation with a capital T! Each year I attended I became enamored of a different unobtainable airplane; one year the P-51 Mustang, another year the Bede Micro Jet. For awhile it seemed like all I had to do to own a fantastic airplane was either become a millionaire or build it myself. Since I remain to this day unsure of which end of a claw hammer to hit a nail with, it looked like I had to wait either for retirement or a lucky day at Powerball to actually own an airplane again. So on and on I went with FS, scratching the itch to fly without actually getting rid of it. Along the way I encountered a remarkable man in Connecticut, where I lived. Dave Gengenbach was a consummate engineer, and had a long and distinguished career at Walt Disney, where he was instrumental in the development of audio animatronics, particularly at Disney World. Several buildings in the Magic Kingdom bear humorous inscriptions in his honor. He was also a pilot from way back in the 1950's, and a veteran of Oshkosh since the Rockford days. He had lived in California in the sixties while working at Disney, and he had been an integral part of the homebuilt movement that had taken root out there in the fifties starting with the birth of EAA. Along the way, he had made the acquaintance of one John Thorp. John Thorp may not be as well known today as Burt Rutan, but in the sixties he occupied a similar pedestal in the world of homebuilt aviation. His Thorp T-18 was a pioneering all-metal single engine design that achieved cult status by the seventies and is still occasionally built today. He and another aeronautical engineer named Fred Weik went to Piper in the early sixties and developed the Cherokee line. They took, as their starting point, one of Thorp's earlier designs, one that had its origins immediately after the end of WWII, the SkySkooter. By the end of the Second World War, it seemed that the entire world would be flying airplanes back and forth to the grocery store every day. Tens of thousands of men (and a fair number of women as well) had become qualified as pilots, and it was assumed that many if not most of these would be clamoring to buy and fly an airplane of their own just as soon as they mustered out of the service. A number of outfits began planning to provide these pilots with the airplanes they were thought to want, one of which was the Thorp Aircraft Company. Thorp's entry in the airplane lottery was a very small single engine low wing design that had its origins in an effort during the war to produce an airplane that an infantryman could fly almost without any training. This design was fitted with an 85 hp engine and dubbed the T-11 SkySkooter. Three pre-production prototypes were built in 1946, and the design was certificated by the old CAA in that year. This was not the first time, nor would it be the last, that pundits overestimated the interest of the American public in private aviation. It turned out that most of the war-trained pilots had had air experiences that were not at all conducive to either pursuing a career as a pilot or buying and flying a personal plane. Many of them left their wings in the top drawer of the dresser and pursued careers with both feet firmly on the ground. And even for those who actually remained eager to slip the surly bonds, there were surplus airplanes by the thousands available for pennies on the dollar all over the country. A new design from a little known company was doomed from the start. The SkySkooter, although an excellent airplane, never made it off the ground commercially - only those three were built. And so things seemed to stay, for awhile at least. Fast forward to the mid sixties. By then the T-11 derived Cherokee was well on its way to becoming one of the world's most popular light airplanes, to say nothing of being the scion of an entire family of planes from the Cherokee 140 all the way eventually to the Seneca twin. And in those long gone days of 29.9 cent per gallon car gas there really were thousands of brand new light airplanes being sold every year. After setting up the Cherokee line for Piper, Thorp returned to California and set his sights once again on the little SkySkooter. Beefing it up with a 100 hp engine, he re-certificated it in 1966 as the T-211 SkySkooter. And lo and behold, who worked with him on this project and did some of the test flying but Dave Gengenbach. Again, three production prototypes were built; but alas, just those three. By now Cessna and Piper had pretty much divided and conquered the light airplane market, and the Skooter could get no more traction in 1966 than it had gotten in 1946. A total of six airplanes had been built, and Thorp himself owned and flew at least two of them, albeit not at the same time. A few more were built in the seventies with the intent of trying to sell them in Europe, but with no greater success. By the mid nineties a fellow out in California had bought the rights, parts and tooling (100 complete ship sets of parts had been produced in 1966 and stored ever since) and began selling the airplane as a kit for the home built market. Somewhere around a score of kits were sold and several were completed by their builders. These were essentially identical to the prototypes. But this venture also failed to really get off the ground. The closest the little SkySkooter came to full scale production was in the mid 2000's, when a physician from Texas bought what was left of the 1966 parts and rights and set out to certify the airplane in the new light sport category. This resulted in the Indus T-211 Thorpedo, which was a modified version of the SkySkooter with a 125 hp Jabiru engine and some plastic parts in place of the original formed metal nose cowl and wingtips. The Thorpedo also dispensed with perhaps the signature feature of the entire design. The original Skooters all had externally ribbed wings; that is, external corrugations in the wing and stabilizer skins replaced most of the internal wing ribs. There are only three internal ribs in each Skooter wing- one inboard where the landing gear strut is located, one about midway out the wing, and one at the end, where the wingtip piece is attached. This made for an exceptionally light and simple to build design (the empty weight of a T-211 is around 750 pounds). Some of the Thorpedos had smooth wings and internal ribs. Unfortunately, the airplane was still star-crossed. The light sport world turned out to feature mostly slick composite designs that, although still slow (as the regulations required), looked like they were going Mach one standing still! The Thorpedo, even with its plastic wingtips and cowl, still looked like a 1946 design. To make matters worse, some fight schools that had acquired a few for rental and instruction began complaining that the airplane could not hold up under the abuse of renter pilots and students, which created a largely undeserved reputation as a less than robust design. As of today, Indus is no longer producing airplanes, at least in this country, although the original corporate concept had involved simultaneous production and sales in India. A web site now indicates that production may begin in China, so we shall see what we shall see. Starting in the late 1980's I had been hearing a great deal from Dave about his adventures with Thorp and the SkySkooter. He had a picture in his basement workshop, where he was busy building a Glasair III, that depicted a youthful version of himself in the cockpit of a T-211 about to take to the skies. He regaled me with tales of how he and Thorp used to try to sandbag the great Jim Bede with the Skooter, hoping to promote a race between the Thorp and Bede designs; a competition that, according to Dave, Bede always managed to duck! Dave did a good bit of the certification flight testing in 1966, and one of his stories involved the fact that it proved to be nearly impossible to get the little airplane to spin, which is a requirement of certification (spin recovery, that is!). It turned out that Thorp had to add weights in the tail cone aft of the cockpit in order to move the center of gravity beyond the normal aft limit. Only then could the Skooter be forced into a spin of sorts (as opposed to a diving spiral, which it could be induced to do at normal limits). It had to be held in the spin with pro-spin controls, and the minute that the controls were released it popped out of the spin. I began to be intrigued by these tales and others from Dave's vast repertoire. So much so that when an opportunity came up to actually fly in a Skooter, I jumped at the chance. John Thorp had gone West in 1992, and by early 1996 his widow was selling the T-211 that he had owned at the end of his life, serial number 3, which had been built in 1946 and modified to the T-211 standard, with the 100 hp engine, in 1966. Dave eagerly availed himself of the opportunity to own this piece of aviation history, but a big obstacle loomed large - Dave had lost his FAA medical certificate some years back, as the result of several heart attacks. He would need a licensed pilot to fly with him at all times. Enter yours truly. Dave and I both went to Oshkosh every year, so it was a simple matter to arrange delivery of his "new" toy at the airshow. The plan was to pick up the airplane at Oshkosh and fly it home to Connecticut. This would be more interesting than it might appear, because the airplane had essentially no navigation instruments in it, nor did it have a transponder. I suggested to Dave that he invest in the transponder, which he did. As for the nav gear, we had a Garmin 95 handheld GPS unit to find our way home. Flight planning was relatively simple - we just drew a course line from Oshkosh to our first fueling point a half hour or so south, and thence across Lake Michigan and south of Detroit and Cleveland to Youngstown Ohio, where we figured we would have had enough of flying for one day and would put up for the night. After that it was straight across northern Pennsylvania to Scranton, and then on to Dave's chosen home airport of Simsbury Connecticut. The trip to Oshkosh that year was a bit more of a logistical challenge than it normally was, since I would be flying home from Wittman field instead of driving down to O'Hare and riding home on the jumpseat of some American jet. I made arrangements to return the rental car at Milwaukee, and Dave picked me up there and returned me to Oshkosh to begin the long flight home. We flew out on Saturday, intending to depart just prior to the closing of the airport for the afternoon airshow. After a through preflight by both of us we mounted up, me in the right seat and Dave in the left. Dave got us started (a simple evolution in the Skooter) and we joined the long conga line of departing aircraft for the journey to runway 18. Everyone and their dog seemed determined to get out prior to the show, so the wait was not short, but in due course we were directed to line up and wait on one side of the runway by hand signals from FAA controllers who dressed and acted more like the launch crew on an aircraft carrier. We had the radio on, but at Oshkosh much of the communication is non verbal. A flagman cleared us for takeoff with a flourish that would not have been out of place at Indy on Memorial Day, and we went charging down the runway mere seconds after another airplane that had lined up on the other side of the runway. The pre-briefed drill was to stay low, below 1000 feet, until we were some distance away from Wittman, to avoid the incoming traffic which was flying over our heads. Once sufficiently removed from the vicinity, we could climb at will. Since we were only going a few miles, we leveled off at 3500 feet and I began to enjoy the view. One of the minor trepidations I had about the flight was just what the state of Dave's flying skills would be, since it had literally been a decade or more since he had taken the controls of any airplane. As it turned out I had nothing to worry about - Dave's flying was excellent, especially considering his years on the ground. All I had to do was keep a general eye on things and offer strategic advice if it became warranted. The flight to our first stop, Sheboygan Wisconsin (KSBM), was a mere 30 minutes flying time from Oshkosh. But I was already becoming impressed by the blistering lack of speed displayed by the possibly misnamed "Sky Skooter"! Although I had flown on occasion in Cessna 172's and was thus no stranger to lack of speed, the Skooter seemed to be flying through some sort of aeronautical glue, especially to someone accustomed to true airspeeds considerably in excess of 400 knots. And so it was that while we were refueling at Sheboygan, when an obviously uninformed bystander opined that the Skooter looked like it was "as fast as a bullet", I replied laconically: "...yes it is, if you took the bullet out of the gun and just threw it!" The next leg, across the lake, was an interesting one indeed. You may wonder why a dedicated non-swimmer such as I would even consider an undertaking like flying across one of the Great Lakes. Well, as strange as it may seem I have always been somewhat fatalistic about water crossings in airplanes, even small ones; and although I would sooner gnaw my own arm off than ferry a small airplane across, say, the North Atlantic, I have considerably less trepidation about bodies of water like Long Island Sound, or even Lake Michigan. Indeed, a crossing of Lake Michigan at its most narrow point would cut more than an hour off our flight time to Youngstown, and perhaps as much as two hours. The lure of such time savings, especially in an airplane with the blistering speed of the SkySkooter, was certainly enough to embolden me to consider a short maritime adventure! We set off from Sheboygan and headed toward the lake, but a short distance away. It was my intention to give at least a nod toward the concept of "gliding distance from land", and so I advised Dave to make the crossing at 9500 feet (the actual service ceiling is 12,500 feet, but consideration of Dave's cardiopulmonary condition led me to select a slightly lower altitude). At this altitude, I told myself, we should have only about 10 miles without the capability to make shore (I had yet to discover that the Skooter has approximately the same glide ratio as the Space Shuttle!). So up to 9500 feet we went, a laborious process that took over 20 minutes. Alas, when we arrived at the giddy heights, we discovered that haze prevented us from discerning any sort of horizon. We could see straight down, but that was all. The visibility was VMC; that is, at least 3 miles, but over the water three miles did not give us a visible horizon line. The difficulty that this brought on lay in the equipment on the instrument panel of this bird - there were no gyro instruments of any kind, not even a turn coordinator (with which I would have been perfectly comfortable). I informed Dave that we must descend to an altitude at which a visible horizon is apparent, and thus lose whatever measure of comfort we might have enjoyed at 9500 feet. Down we went, and it turned out that we had to descend all the way to 2500 feet to get a decent horizon. By now we were far enough out to "sea" that we might as well continue ahead, and so we did. The engine, as they always seem to do in these circumstances, began to "sound" rough, but fortunately I was wise to this oft-reported characteristic and was able to ignore it. "Put your trust in God and Pratt and Whitney" is the old saw, and it worked once again as land hove into sight after about 15 minutes of being surrounded by nothing but water. Once across, we turned the nose of the Skooter toward our next planned stop, Jackson Michigan (KJXN), just about halfway between Battle Creek and Ann Arbor. After a short stop there for refueling and a bite to eat we were off again bound for Youngstown Ohio (KYNG), an airport that I had occasionally visited to watch airplanes in the distant past of my youth. It was early evening when we arrived at YNG, after a total of 4.5 hours of flying from Oshkosh. Dave gave me the leg into YNG, and I was able to get an idea of how this ship handled. All in all, it was a great day of flying. The next morning we flew from YNG to Scranton/Wilkes Barre in northern Pennsylvania, and then on to this Skooter's new home at Simsbury Connecticut (4B9). Simsbury is a tiny little airport in the shadow of Bradley International Airport in mid-Connecticut. Its runway is a mere 2200 feet long and a skinny 50 feet wide, and calls for a certain degree of pilot skill to avoid coming to grief either off one side or off the end. Fortunately Dave's pilot skills, refreshed as they were from four legs and nearly 9 hours of flying, were more than adequate to the task, and the home field landing was uneventful. It took several hours to solve the Tetris puzzle of how to shoehorn the SkySkooter into a small hangar already occupied by a Piper Cub, but Dave and the hangar's owner had already done the engineering studies and after considerable in and out pushing and shoving both airplanes were securely housed within the hangar's confines, an outcome that, at several times, I thought would be unattainable! This exposure to an airplane that heretofore had been just a photo on a wall, and the subject of various verbal reminiscences, proved to be infectious. The little plane flew very nicely - by no means a Pitts, but much more fun to fly than the Cherokees I was in the habit of flying in those days. This got me thinking about owning an airplane once again, and inevitably that led to a subscription to Trade-a-Plane. Lo and behold, within two months a SkySkooter appeared in the pages of that journal, and it looked to be the creampuff of the fleet! N112T was out in Oregon, at a small airport at a town called Independence. After conferring at length with She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed about the financial feasibility of airplane ownership and obtaining her surprisingly enthusiastic concurrence, I contacted the seller. The airplane, as it turned out, had been completely disassembled and restored by him, and was said to be in immaculate condition, an assertion borne out by the pictures the owner sent to me. Now as I indicated earlier, there were only around six Skooters in the USA at that time, and probably only three or four that were airworthy and in registration. I had neither the interest nor the financial wherewithal to undertake an actual restoration, so 112T seemed to be the best of all possible worlds. I immediately made plans for Dave to accompany me out to Oregon and take a look at the bird. What better pre-buy inspection could there be, I reasoned, than one done by the original test pilot himself? So off we went. We discovered that the owner lived on an airpark located on the Independence airport. He turned out to be an aeronautical engineer, and he had done all of the restoration himself, under the supervision of an FAA mechanic, which is a perfectly legal and actually fairly commonplace arrangement. The airplane was superb; a symphony of polished aluminum with orange and blue accents strongly reminiscent of the livery of the original American Airlines DC-3's. The owner had stripped all the paint off the airplane and done all of the polishing himself; a task that I would later discover, through my efforts to keep up the appearance of the airplane, to have been little short of the labors of Hercules. Dave spent an entire day examining every nook and cranny of the little bird, and at day's end pronounced it fit and well worthy of serious consideration. By that time, after considerable scrutiny of my own, I had developed a case of the wants for that plane that was obviously not to be denied. We all went out to dinner that evening and it was at that point that I offered to buy 112T at the very reasonable price the owner had indicated. The only haggling that ensued involved my request that he throw in the two David Clark headsets that were in the airplane - a request to which he agreed. A handshake sealed the deal, and we drank a toast to the Skooter. After Dave and I flew back to Connecticut, I set about arranging the financial side of the transaction. This done, I contacted the seller and set a date for me to return and complete the deal. And then began the planning for the Silver Argosy! Continued in the next installment - Low and Slow across America.