Cockpit Chronicles: Hitching a ride to Kentucky in Concorde

by Kent Wien on

Occasionally, when pilots are together, the subject eventually will come around to airplanes. Specifically, just what airplane we’d most like to fly.

While I have a rather long list that includes the Ford Tri-Motor and the Spitfire, solidly at the top of the heap lies Concorde. An airplane so special, you’re not even allowed to put ‘the’ in front of its name.

Since there was no possibility of ever flying this airplane at my airline, I knew I had to do the closest thing. Even though my wife and I were very recently hired at our respective airlines, we both agreed that we’d have to pay for a non-revenue (slang for employee reduced-rate) flight in Concorde before it was retired. This was in the mid ’90s and the one-way tickets were still a relatively steep $600 per employee.

At the time, my wife was a flight attendant for United, based in Newark. She was working in the aft galley when a gentleman came back for something. He happened to mention that he worked for British Airways at JFK as the director of Concorde charters.

My wife told him of our plans to purchase a pass on the airplane for a flight to London in the future, just for the experience.

“Don’t do that.” He said. “We have a charter flight from New York to Cincinnati in two weeks. Come along on then. No charge.”

He even extended the offer to the other flight attendants riding that day, but they all passed on the opportunity.

Two weeks later, Linda and I arrived at the Concorde lounge early enough to watch the inbound supersonic jet taxi to the gate. There was a tremendous amount of activity by the staff, with everyone even more frantic than what would be typical for agents eager to ‘turn-around’ an airplane quickly.

We soon discovered what was happening.Princess Diana was arriving on the airplane to sell some dresses for charity in New York. The Princess of Wales was escorted off the jet and down to a waiting car on the ramp, and unfortunately we never actually saw her. But soon afterward, our hero, the director of Concorde charters, came upstairs carrying a large plaque featuring the princess with a warm thank you message written on it given to him by Diana. Needless to say, he was beaming.

While waiting to board, I spotted the co-pilot in the lounge making his way to the gate. I approached him and mentioned that we’d be one of the 14 passengers that day to fly with him to Cincinnati. I explained that I was currently flying the 727 and showed him my ID, hoping that just maybe he would invite me up to the cockpit at some point.

“Let me check with the captain, maybe we can get you the jumpseat.” He said, taking my I.D. and license with him.

As we stepped on board the airplane I took a quick picture of my wife in front of the Concorde sign.

The co-pilot came back to where we were sitting and asked my wife if she would be upset if I rode in the jumpseat. I turned to her with my most buoyant look.

“No, not at all!” She said, as a flight attendant handed her a pre-departure champagne.

Concorde, just like many airplanes of the ’60s and ’70s had a cockpit where the major systems were operated by a flight engineer. At the time, I was an FE on the 727, so I was rather interested in this panel aboard Concorde.


The flight engineer panel on Concorde

The flight engineer showed me the jumpseat, but I was amazed that my perch was well behind the captain. It wouldn’t even be possible to see out the front from that far back, I thought.

As I began to sit down, the FE explained, “No, no, no. The seat slides up forward.”

Sure enough, in what had to be the most unusual cockpit seat, I found my place just behind the captain with the chair locked into place.


The cockpit jumpseat is tucked in just behind the captain seat.

We taxied out with the nose drooped down for better visibility looking forward. As we lined up on runway 31L at JFK, the co-pilot said that this was the lightest he’d ever flown the airplane.

In a scene reminiscent of the original Battlestar Galactica, we blasted down the runway and rotated far sooner than I expected.

The captain reached over and flipped a three inch switch under the glareshield that raised the nose. As the nose sealed into place, I was shocked to see just how bad the visibility was. It was like looking through two sides of a humid greenhouse. It seemed like the first pane of glass, in front of the pilots, was a full ten feet from the retracted windshield that maintained the smooth, needle like appearance of Concorde.

Jumpseating is usually just a method for pilots to get to and from work or where they needed to go. But that day, it was how I confirmed my supposition that the Concorde would be the ultimate airplane to fly.

Climbing through 10,000 feet, I couldn’t hold my enthusiasm any longer. “Guys, you don’t fly an airplane. You fly a rocket!” I gasped.

They explained that even on a lightly loaded airplane they still used ‘reheat’ or what us Yanks call ‘afterburners,’ which essentially injected fuel downstream of the turbine section of the engine for added thrust, producing a glow on the four Olympus engines that could be seen for miles.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t fly supersonic over the continental United States as sonic booms are generally considered annoying for groundlings. Still, flying at .95 Mach, or 95% of the speed of sound may have set a commercial speed record between New York and Cincinnati. (The CVG airport is actually located in northern Kentucky).

Interestingly, six years later the same airplane, G-BOAG, received special permission to fly supersonic over land to set a commercial speed record while flying from New York to Seattle on November 5th, 2003 for its last flight.

It’s fitting that today G-BOAG is now on display at the Museum of Flight at Boeing Field in Seattle, since Seattle is where I met the exchange student while I was in high school who would later become my wife who landed me this rare experience.

If you have the chance, check out the museum. It’s a must see for any aviation geek.

Special thanks to the director at British Airways who made it all happen for us. I only wish I had remembered his name.

And thanks to Ruthann O’Connor for the photos.

Cockpit Chronicles takes you along on some of Kent’s trips as an international co-pilot on the Boeing 757 and 767 based in Boston. Have any questions for Kent? Check out the Cockpit Chronicles Facebook page or follow Kent on Twitter @veryjr.

Cockpit Chronicles: Landing an airline pilot job just got harder, but here’s one way to do it.

by Kent Wien on

Last year H.R. 5900 was signed into law requiring the FAA to set a new 1,500 hour minimum flight time requirement for any new airline pilots including small companies hiring co-pilots for their 19-seat airplanes.

The law is mandated to take effect by August of 2013 and was one of the recommendations to come from the Colgan Flight 3407 accident in Buffalo, even though both accident pilots had more than 1,500 hours at the time of the crash, with the captain having logged 3,329 hours and the first officer 2,200.

In the past, major airlines culled their aviators from the military and regional airlines. As hiring tapered off, military pilots went to the much lower paying jobs at the turboprop and small jet operators.

Today, fewer pilots are leaving the military, instead opting to make it a career. Furthermore, Air Force Magazine reported:

USAF is already training more UAV pilots than F-16 pilots. Within two to three years, Air Force officials predict, drone pilots will outnumber F-16 pilots, numbering as high as 1,100.

Airlines don’t recognize this as piloting experience, though. Fortunately, these pilots may be able to move on to a flying position after three years in the service, which brings them three years closer to the twenty years needed for retirement, something that may affect their decision to move on to the airlines.

As the military pool of pilots dries up, most new hire classes will be filled with high-time regional airline pilots. But with the 1,500 hour requirement for new co-pilots, (what had been a typical minimum experience at the major airlines) these smaller companies are going to be competing fiercely for new pilots.

So while it’s going to be more difficult to get to the 1,500 hour point, once you get there, the job market will likely be far less competitive.

But getting there won’t be easy. I’ll share with you how I would go about it if I were starting today.For a college-educated new pilot to finish their basic requirements which include a commercial flying license with multi-engine and instrument ratings, and perhaps a flight instructor certificate, they’re looking at a minimum of $40,000 worth of debt, not including their college expenses. After making it through the training, they’ll still only have 250 hours at this point.

Traditionally, these pilots would then become flight instructors in order to build flight time for a few hundred hours. But now they’ll need to extend that employment until they reach at least 1,500 hours. And instructor jobs will be far more scarce, especially as their students drop out after they realize what a daunting (and expensive) task is ahead of them.

If our 250-hour pilot can’t find an instructing job, they would have to spend at least another $125,000 renting a single-engine airplane ($100 an hour for 1,250 hours) until they reach the new minimum flight time requirement.

Let’s add that up, shall we?

$80,000 for a 4-year college degree in whatever subject they choose.

$40,000 to reach the old minimum ratings and flight time.

Another $125,000 to reach 1,500 hours of flight time.

That works out to $245,000!

Now, I find it hard to believe that anyone would be willing to invest that much money to land a $24,000 a year commuter airline co-pilot job, even one that offers a chance to make $80,000 after upgrading to captain after a number of years.

There’s no doubt in my mind that some shortcuts will need to be made. Airlines will likely reduce or drop altogether the requirement for candidates to have a college degree, for example. They’ll also lobby the FAA to allow them to hire pilots with less than 1,500 hours if they’ve gone through an aviation university, perhaps.

Regular readers of the Cockpit Chronicles know that I love my job. I can’t imagine doing anything else. But would I recommend this to anyone given the added expenses involved?

That’s exactly the question (edited for brevity) that Jeffrey asked this week:

Hey Kent,

I’m a student at a Community College in North Carolina and I hope to have an associates degree by July. The few questions I have to you are about aviation and where I should go from this point forward.

1. After earning my instrument rating and racking up a total of 165.4 hours what is the next step for me? I’m really unsure where to go from here and what to do. Should I cut my losses in aviation and change career goals?

My main concern would be a loan for the commercial training which would be at least a twenty thousand dollars to get my commercial single and multi and CFII rating. That would then put me owing thirty thousand dollars in loans. I do realize that in aviation the money is not great especially for someone first starting out. I’d have to endure several years of low pay as a flight instructor and then several more years as a first officer with low pay. I’m not sure that’s something I want to do. I completely understand that money isn’t everything but I’d like to be able to live on my own one day and be able to be happy doing what I am doing with my career choice.

2. Would you recommend this industry to anyone that is in my shoes right now? The price of gas is likely causing fewer people to fly. I’m just unsure of the current state of the aviation industry. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

With 164 hours, you’ve already invested a sizable amount of money to get where you are right now. There are three things that will all happen in the next two years that should give you some hope.

First, the lack of movement at almost every airline is about to change on December 12th of 2012. That’s the date when pilots will start hitting the mandatory retirement age again after the number was raised from 60 to 65 back in 2007.

Next, new flight time and duty regulations are set to be announced on August 8th of this year that will likely cause airlines to hire more pilots. In their response to the rule, American Airlines claimed they would need 2,300 more pilots to fly their existing schedule. Currently, American has about 9,500 pilots plus another thousand on furlough.

Finally, the 1,500 hour requirement will likely discourage many potential pilots from putting in the investment and years of training required.

But if you can get to that magic 1,500 hours, you’re going to be in an enviable spot in a few years.

Would I do it? Heck yes. It’s still a great job, and I can’t see myself doing anything else. Although, in fairness not all pilots agree, most notably Sully Sullenberger, that this is still a viable career.

So here’s how would I do it today, assuming I couldn’t find an instructing job, since flight instructors will be staying around until 1,500 hours, creating a logjam at that position:

First, get your ratings. You’ll need a Private, Commercial, Multi-engine, and Instrument licenses, or ‘ratings.’ Each has different flight time requirements, from 40 hours for the private license to 250 hours for the commercial rating.

In order to get from 250 hours to 1,500 hours I would buy an inexpensive airplane to build up flight time, reducing my cost per hour down to as little as $30 to $50, which might cut the $125,000 in half or more after selling the airplane 1,250 hours later. Airplanes generally don’t depreciate much, although it’s a buyers market right now in this economy.

Here’s an example airplane, a Cessna 172. If that link should break, just go to Barnstormers.com and look at the listings for Cessna 152s, 172s, a Cherokee 140, or, if you’re more the type to drive a Mini or an MG, by all means look at the Luscombe, Aeronca Champ, or Cessna 140. All are relatively good values (under $20,000 or $30,000) even if the Luscombe and Champ are more than sixty years old.

You’ll have some great experience, and wonderful memories to go along with that flight time.


The author building time in a 1946 Luscombe that helped him land his first flying job.

So Jeffrey, I think you should stick with it. As someone once said, “The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking places.”

Let’s just hope your future parking place will be at a jetbridge.

Cockpit Chronicles takes you along on some of Kent’s trips as an international co-pilot on the Boeing 757 and 767 based in Boston. Have any questions for Kent? Check out the Cockpit Chronicles Facebook page or follow Kent on Twitter @veryjr.

Cockpit Chronicles: A farewell to Boston

by Kent Wien on

April was my last month flying from Boston. It was also the month that our company chose to eliminate the last remaining non-stop flights from Santo Domingo and San Juan to New England. These were markets where we’d flown for decades.

Fittingly, on the 2nd and 4th of April, I flew the very last flights from SDQ and SJU-not exactly something worthy of a celebration, but noteworthy, nevertheless.

I made sure to take a group shot of the pilots I worked with on both flights.

The final Santo Domingo to Boston pilots:

And the last San Juan to Boston flight:

We’ve been shrinking the Boston base for the past few years, and while many of my friends took the plunge and went south to New York, I had always planned to be the last one to leave. But facing a commute to Germany for a year, I knew JFK flying would be far more convenient. Lufthansa, Air Berlin, and even Singapore Airlines offer non-stop flights to Germany.

But before leaving Boston, I planned to enjoy two Paris trips and revisit my two most memorable restaurant experiences from the city of lights, and catch one major tourist attraction that I’m almost ashamed to admit that I’ve never seen.
After ten years of flying to Paris, I knew I needed to look around the inside of the Louvre. I’ve avoided it because I’m really not an art museum aficionado, but I suppose everyone should see the Louvre at some point. To be honest, I was more interested in the building that I’d been photographing for years than in the art to be found inside.

After a quick picnic of cheese and wine next to the Louvre Pyramid, the captain, Pete, and a flight attendant, Michelle and I went inside.

So I suppose a brief review of the Louvre is in order:

There are paintings inside.

And a rather large number of sculptures.

Most of the artwork is huge, except, surprisingly, the Mona Lisa. Perhaps that’s why this painting is so popular. People really love smaller artwork apparently. The 50-foot painting opposite the Da Vinci work was largely ignored, I noted.

Afterward, reservations were made for my favorite restaurant in Paris.

“Le Hide” is ‘hidden’ just off of the Arc de Triumph in a little residential neighborhood. It’s full of typical French cuisine such as escargot and pan-seared fois gras appetizers and a main course of salmon and scallops that flake off with a fork. It’s the most flavorful food I’ve found in Paris, and yet it’s reasonably priced at €22 ($32) for a two-course meal and 29 ($42) for three courses. Reasonable, at least, by Paris standards.

The same flight attendant, Michelle, was on another Paris trip with me the next week. I sheepishly suggested we eat at Dans Le Noir, which is the most unusual restaurant in Paris. She immediately knew what I was talking about and said she was thinking about suggesting the same place.

In the past, I had been rather unsuccessful in getting others to join me for what is truly a dining adventure.

When you walk into Dans Le Noir, facing you is a small pub where you place your dinner and drink order. After removing any cell phones, watches and purses and placing them in one of the provided lockers on the right, you’re guided into a pitch black dining room by one of the waiters, who happen to be blind.

The idea is to experience food as a blind person would, to take in the senses and try to identify what you’re eating without any visual cues.

I had been to the restaurant with two pilots when it first opened years earlier. Today there are versions of this same restaurant in New York, London and Barcelona.

There was so much laughing during the first visit, especially when a pilot’s foot became stuck in the table as the blind waitress was guiding us out of the place, which left him alone in the dark wondering just how he was going to find his way out.

The second visit was just as amusing. As I was guided to my seat, I felt what I thought was a wall next to me, and my hand landed directly on ‘the softest part’ of the lady sitting to the left of me. I felt relieved when the flight attendant sitting across from me also put her hand right on the gentleman to her right, who was with the French lady I had inadvertently accosted. Many apologies and giggles later and we were ready to explore our meal.

You don’t really choose your meal, since this would ruin the surprise, so part of the dining experience is to try and determine what exactly you’re eating. The three other flight attendants and two other pilots with me described what was on their plates, which may or may not have been different than our own. We just couldn’t tell for sure.

After an appetizer of cheese and fruit, we were served a steak with potatoes, and vegetables. Pretty safe food, for sure, but it did take some touching and feeling to understand what was on our plates.

On the last trip of the month, we had a spectacular view of the Northern Lights. It was a fitting sendoff that I won’t forget.

I’m going to miss my friends in Boston, but I’ll enjoy seeing the ones who have already gone south to NY, and who have jokingly referred to JFK as “South Boston” since half of Boston is now commuting to the larger base.

I’ll especially enjoy seeing the captain and relief pilot that were ‘featured’ in my 2004 ‘Vertigo’ video that depicted a typical Paris trip from Boston to New York. Both of them are now flying out of NY as well.

Maybe I’ll discover a few other ‘hidden’ spots in Rome, Zurich, Barcelona, Brussels, Budapest, Manchester, Madrid, Milan or even Rio de Janeiro, to talk about in an upcoming Chronicles.

Just thinking about the options has given me a renewed enthusiasm that’s sure to make the commute from Germany to New York a bit more palatable. Stay tuned.

Cockpit Chronicles takes you along on some of Kent’s trips as an international co-pilot on the Boeing 757 and 767 based in Boston. Have any questions for Kent? Check out the Cockpit Chronicles Facebook page or follow Kent on Twitter @veryjr.

Cockpit Chronicles: Flying with my brother (Part II)

by Kent Wien on

Continued from Part I

We were both tired after arriving at the airport hotel in LA, so we didn’t meet up for dinner, as it was too late anyway. Instead we parted to our separate hotel rooms on the same floor and vowed to meet up at 7 a.m. the next morning.

After picking up breakfast in the airport employee cafeteria downstairs, we proceeded up to the luxurious operations in LA.

The fact that this prime real estate is occupied by the pilots in LAX is stunning. Formerly an Admiral’s Club, it includes the usual assortment of mail boxes, a few offices for the chief pilot and his staff and a dozen or more computers to access the weather and to pull up flight plans.

The modern-looking facility clashes with the 1980s vintage dot-matrix printers though.

What makes this operations so impressive is the view. You can look out at the airplanes on the one side as they park at their gates and then turn around and walk all the way to the other side, past a replica of a late nineteenth century pre-Wright brothers Chanute hang glider that’s on loan from the Planes of Fame Museum in Chino, before you arrive looking down on the other ramp.

As you worked your way around the vintage glider, all along the wall are historic ‘plates’ depicting the early history of the airline, and air travel in general. There were pictures of pilots and flight attendants and the planes they flew in the 30s through to this decade.

The cynic in me wondered just how long our operations could remain at such a lofty location.

Kurt finished up his usual call to dispatch and we worked our way into the terminal.


Our 767-200 pulls up to the gate at LAX

An hour before our scheduled departure, our 767-200 was taxied up to the gate by two mechanics. Kurt commented on the men’s unusually big smiles and said, “They must have taken it out for a spin, they look so happy.”

I looked down the fuselage. It dawned on me that I hadn’t flown this shortened version of the 767 since my initial training on this airplane ten years earlier. That fact might surprise people, but Boeing went to a lot of effort to design the two different 767s and the 757 to have very similar ‘systems’–the mechanical features you learn about in the first few weeks of ground school.

In fact, each airplane flew in a very similar manner, even though one is a wide-body (a short -200 version and a long -300 type) with two aisles and the other is much skinnier with just one aisle.The main flying difference with the 767 was that, compared with the 757, it was more sensitive in the ‘roll’ control. So just after lifting off the ground, it takes a moment to get used to the yoke with its boosted sensitivity if you haven’t been flying it regularly. It’s similar to going from a ’70s cadillac, with its loose power steering, to a Japanese import with a tight suspension. The 767 feels more solid and responsive and thus, more fun to fly.

Kurt and I had never been on the 767 together. So it was another airplane to add to our shared airplane list. I made a mental note to take some pictures inside the cockpit of the two of us, as I’ve done each time we’ve flown the other Boeings.

Kurt lifted off and climbed out over the ocean, before ATC turned us back toward the airport, which we were required to cross at 10,000 feet. He did a nice job of expediting the climb and we passed over LAX with room to spare, making the altitude restriction as we were still looking south west at the Catalina Islands while turning toward Los Angeles.

Before long we were over Las Vegas, which wasn’t as impressive during the day as it was the night before.

Just east of the city was Lake Mead, a beautiful reservoir that has lost so much water over the years it’s possible to see the changes along the shoreline from 37,000 feet.

I had forgotten just how beautiful this particular flight was. It had been a year or two since I’d flown a transcontinental flight across the US and I enjoyed the opportunity to take pictures of what I was missing when flying over the North Atlantic.

At the end of the Grand Canyon, we came upon the equally beautiful Lake Powell. Another aircraft complained ahead to ATC of moderate turbulence at our flight level. For Kurt, the decision was easy.

“Ask them where the rides are smoothest.” He said. I relayed his request to Denver Center and they offered us flight level 310, or 31,000 feet.

“Let’s try that.” Kurt said.

The lower altitude would mean we’d burn a few hundred pounds more fuel–100 pounds is about 15 gallons. But the guidance given by our company puts the priorities this way:

1) Safety
2) Passenger Comfort
3) Fuel efficiency

I was skeptical of the smoother ride below, but it turned out to be an excellent move. Once again we passed over the Rockies without the slightest bump. I have to hand it to Kurt. He works harder than anyone I’ve flown with to keep the ride perfectly smooth for the flight attendants and the passengers.

Avoiding the bumps again. Courtesy of FlightAware.com

While over the Rockies, Kurt pointed out Telluride, Colorado just off his side of the airplane’s nose.


Flying over Telluride, Colorado

“Let me borrow your camera and I’ll get a shot of the launch area.” Kurt said.

Years ago, the hang gliding bug bit Kurt again and he began to fly a much higher performance kite, even managing to do some ‘cross-country’ flights. One of his most memorable experiences happened right below us at Telluride. He showed me where he launched, where the landing zone was, and where the clouds rolled in on the other side of the valley, which forced him to land early. Unfamiliar with the local weather, these clouds were common guests along the opposite hill, but always kept their distance from the launch area and landing zone.

Given his lack of knowledge of the area, he wisely elected to land.

I was envious. I did some hang gliding from a small hill while in college with an instructor who wanted to launch me off the mountain, but Kurt insisted I wait until he could be there. The timing was never right after that, and I regret not pursuing it further. Having a wife and kids makes you think twice about those kind of things, so I doubt I’ll try it again.

Over New Jersey, the controller asked us to give him as much notice as possible if we were going to need to deviate. He told us about a Qantas flight in front of us that required a turn away from some weather near Kennedy. Kurt’s smooth flight was now in jeopardy as we looked at a cloud formation parked over the airport. It was hard to tell how ‘developed’ this cloud was.

Sure enough, as we were about over Manhattan, we told New York approach that we’d have to fly out to Long Island before we could turn back toward JFK. Either that or we could go south to Newark and then back to the airport.

Neither options were available, and the controller gave us a holding pattern. Airplanes behind us began to enter the hold as well, but one flight told ATC they’d like to continue their approach. It’s always nice to have a canary to go into the mine before you. We elected to do the one turn in the holding pattern and wait for the preceding flight to give a report on the ride conditions.

The word came back that the flight experienced heavy rain but nothing more than light turbulence while on the arrival.

“All right, let’s start the approach.” Kurt said.

I jumped on the radio and told the controller that we were ready to rejoin the arrival. As the turbulence began, our on board ACARS printer paper ran out. We’d been getting multiple notes from the company about changes to our arrival gate, and that, along with the weather reports we needed, caused the printer to run out of paper.

After Kurt briefed the approach–an ILS to runway 04 right–I slid in a new roll of paper. These printers seem to run out just when you’re at the the busiest part of the flight, and while getting bumped around in the clouds.

I know Kurt wanted to make his usual nice landing, especially with me at his side, but the touchdown gods weren’t with him today. After another smooth flight across the country, he unceremoniously arrived at Kennedy with a light thump. No worries, he could make up for it tomorrow, I figured. Besides, he earned it after the extra effort he put into finding a nice ride across the country.

When we finally reached the hotel after an hour drive through heavy traffic with an aggressive (even by New York standards) Russian van driver, we were whipped.

But we rallied the energy to meet downstairs, since I had arranged a tour of the ‘crash pad’ where I’m going to stay when I start to commute from Germany to New York in May.

Fortunately it wasn’t too far from the hotel, but those clouds we had flown through earlier started to spit out a snow/freezing pellet combination that left a slushy mess on the sidewalks.

We opted to take a taxi.

“It’s a lot like fishing.” I joked to Kurt after we failed to stop the third empty cab that went by.

Kurt and I were thrilled with the apartment. To call it a crash pad is a disservice, since there are no other pilots staying there. It’s a two bedroom apartment that I’ll share with a friend who has lived in Manhattan for the past ten years. I’ve always wanted to see more of the city, and while I won’t be spending too much time there, this could be far less depressing than a traditional pilot crash pad.

That night, on Facebook, my neighbor, who didn’t know I was in New York lamented, “I wish there were a Bagel Fairy that could bring me some H&H Bagels from New York to New Hampshire. I just can’t stop craving one.”

So I had a goal for the next morning. A ‘quick’ run over to this famous eatery to pick up a dozen bagels that I would personally deliver to her.

As it happened, these bagels reached her far sooner than I expected.

When I woke up, I read reports of a fire at the Miami airport fuel tanks. A quick check of the computer showed that already the company was canceling some flights in and out of MIA due to the reduced fueling capacity.

Sure enough, as I walked back from the bagel shop, my cell phone rang. Our flight to Miami and Boston had both been canceled. We were now scheduled to deadhead from New York to Boston.

I went straight from the bagel shop, packed, and met Kurt in our van to LaGuardia before riding in a regional jet back to Boston.

The bagels were hardly cold when I showed up in my neighbor’s driveway just six hours after I bought them.

It was an abrupt end to our trip. I’ve been lucky to fly with Kurt on four different occasions in four different airplane types. If I could only fly with my flight attendant sister Kim, much of my aspirations made in grade school would have come true.

Since I’ll soon be based in New York, and Kurt remains in Boston, it doesn’t look like we’ll get another chance to pair up. Besides, it’s looking like a captain position is around the corner for me, as long as another downturn doesn’t get in the way.

There I go again, assuming.

Cockpit Chronicles takes you along on some of Kent’s trips as an international co-pilot on the Boeing 757 and 767 based in Boston. Have any questions for Kent? Check out the Cockpit Chronicles Facebook page or follow Kent on Twitter @veryjr.

Cockpit Chronicles: So what’s it like when your brother is also your captain?

by Kent Wien on

The temperature was fifteen degrees in Anchorage and it was getting dark. But we didn’t care, we just wanted to fly.

My older brother Kurt and I were inside rushing through the final steps to build our styrofoam rubber-band powered Citabrias. Once finished, we still had to wait until the Elmer’s glue was dry. If the white stuff wasn’t set, the fuselage seams would split in half and we wouldn’t be able to fly until the next day.

While flying the airplanes under a lamp that lit up the frozen lake behind the house, Kurt’s model managed to fly well above my head. I began to wonder what it would be like to ride with my brother in an actual Citabria, a two-seat airplane that he would later fly on his first solo when he turned sixteen. He was so lucky, I thought.

But I’d get my chance, I knew it. In fact, I was sure that Kurt and I would fly a Boeing together someday, for the airline my dad flew for, and where my sister had just become a flight attendant.

And why shouldn’t I think that? My grandpa flew with his brothers from the ’20s to the ’50s, and my dad flew with his brother at that same airline.

I’d have bet everything on it. I imagined Kurt and I would fly a 737 from Anchorage to Seattle someday, and Kim would be the flight attendant. It was going to happen.

Like most older brothers, Kurt never passed up an opportunity to teach me something, and occasionally the ‘lessons’ weren’t even related to flying.

On the lake between flights, he stopped me mid-sentence after I apparently took something for granted. It was long enough ago that I don’t remember exactly what I had said.

“So, would you say you assumed that?” He asked, referring to whatever I said at the time.

“Uh, yeah, I guess so.” I responded.

He then proceeded to give me the lesson about assuming. You know, the one in which the act of assuming will often make an ass out of you, and me. He drew ASS/U/ME in the snow with a stick. These are the kind of lessons older brothers specialize in.

The ‘other’ far more helpful thing he taught me was how to fly an airplane. It was my brother who soloed me, well before my sixteenth birthday and without anyone else knowing, just a few hundred feet from where we flew those foam airplanes.Kurt managed to buy an EagleXL ultralight when he was just eighteen years old. He became an instructor, which is a bit of a challenge, considering the airplane only had one seat. But the first step in the lessons were pretty simple; taxi up and down the frozen lake on skis.

It was a rather rough ride, bouncing across the tracks created by snow machines that ran seemingly in every direction on the lake.

By this time, I figured I was a seasoned flyer, since the year prior, Kurt pulled me (and a few other neighbor kids) up in his hang glider behind a snow mobile. And I had flown with my dad in the Citabria on skis, performing a dozen or so touch-and-gos. And of course I flew model airplanes.

So I wasn’t so sure I needed to spend so much time taxiing around the lake on the frozen ice. It felt like I was going to lose a filling in my teeth.

But I discovered if I went just a little bit faster…

It was heaven! I was airborne. Just five feet off the ground, flying down the mile and a half long lake. Toward the end, I pulled the throttle back with my left hand and settled back down on the skis. I taxied to turn around and then flew back to the other end of the lake. It was a feeling I’ve never been able to re-create, although I’ve tried, much like a druggie who tries to relive their first hit. I kept going back and forth while my brother was warming up inside.

The introduction of ultralights, which didn’t have an age limit, allowed me to take to the air and satisfy a longing that I had been trying to fulfill for years with balsa and foam airplanes and subsequently, R/C models.

From then on, Kurt was my aviation mentor. I ‘soloed’ the ultralight in front of my dad a few weeks later, without my father knowing at the time that this wasn’t officially my first flight.

Of course my dad played big part in my early flying lessons. He let me operate whatever he had access to, which gave me flight time in a variety of airplanes. But Kurt helped me to reach my goal to fly as a professional pilot, since he had more recently navigated the hurdles to earn his private, commercial and multi-engine ratings that were needed to land a job with a commuter in Alaska. He motivated me, gave me guidance and even loaned me the money needed to pay for my flight training after he started working for a major airline.

“Have you taken your private written [exam] yet?” He’d ask every time I’d talk to him on the phone while I was at Washington State, a university that didn’t have a flying program. His help kept me on track just as if I were attending a flying college such as Embry-Riddle.

Finally, in 1993 it happened. I was hired at the same major airline where my brother was now a captain. He told me it was like a race-car owner that had invested so much time and money into a team and had just won the Indy 500.


Kurt pinned my wings on in New York after new-hire training

My timing wasn’t so good though, since I would be the last pilot hired at the company for the next five years, and a few months after I was on the line they laid off six hundred pilots. I was, naturally, the first to go.

On the second to last trip before my three-year furlough, the New York flight office arranged for me, a New York 727 flight engineer, to fly a trip with my brother who was a 727 captain based in Chicago.

Naturally, Kurt didn’t stop with the lessons.

While I was hanging my coat up, he pointed out that the captain’s jacket goes on the far left.

Duly noted, I thought.


Flying together in the 727. Captain Kurt and Flight Engineer Kent.
Over the next three years, as my wife and I moved around the country while I was chasing flying jobs, I looked forward to getting recalled and hopefully flying with my brother again.

The industry picked up again and I was back to work in 1996. In 1998, I bid Boston and two years later, Kurt came to the base as well. The pieces were aligning for another chance.

Finally, in 2001 we flew together on the 737 for two months in a row, mostly flying between Boston and Seattle. And last year we worked together on a 757 from Boston to Miami before we deadheaded (rode in the back) home.

And eight years later, we managed to fly a single Boston to Miami flight together in the 757. Since it was just one leg, we had to flip to see who would fly the leg. But that hardly qualified as ‘flying together’ I thought.

It’s a challenge for us to get on the same schedule as I’m in the international division and he’s domestic. I told him that we needed to figure out a way for me to get on one of his trips one last time since I’d be leaving to fly out of New York in May.

After some trip-trading gymnastics, I was able to drop two one-day San Juan ‘turns’ in order to pick up the three-day LAX and NY trip from a domestic co-pilot who was scheduled to fly with my brother for the month.

For a domestic flight, it looked sweet. One leg to Los Angeles with a short overnight there, followed by one leg to JFK with a long 24-hour layover in Manhattan. The last day day had us going to Miami and then Boston.

On the day of our trip, the phone rang as I was in the shower.

“I’m just driving by your house, and I thought I’d grab a sandwich at the country store. I can pick you up if you want a ride to the airport.” Kurt’s message said.

Kurt likes to get to operations early to take a close look at the weather and to have time to co-ordinate a revised routing with the dispatcher if warranted. Every pilot has their pet issue, and for Kurt, it’s finding the smoothest ride.

I grabbed a sandwich from the store and drove myself to work. In operations, Kurt was asking about the ride and the winds along our route of flight. Today’s routing had the potential for some turbulence, so he and the dispatcher added fuel in case we changed the route while airborne to avoid the bumps.

At the gate, I came in from the walk-around inspection while Kurt was setting up his side of the cockpit.

“Which leg do you want? The first one? Second one? All of them, or none of them?” Of course, he was kidding with the last two options. I wouldn’t fly every leg, nor would I give up all of mine, especially since there were four legs to be flown on this three-day trip. For me, and many pilots, flying the airplane is like the sugary part added to a frosted mini-wheat. It’s what you look forward to when coming to work.

I deferred to Kurt, so he gave me the first leg, which today was in a 757. We’re qualified to fly both the Boeing 757 and 767, and in fact the next day we’d take a 767-200 to New York. I knew he enjoyed that airplane, and this was probably his motivation to give me the first leg in the 757.

As is usually the case, the cockpit was silent during the taxi out and climb through 10,000 feet during the FAA mandated sterile cockpit period. The only comments were related to checklist challenge and responses, airspeed call-outs and ATC communications. Takeoffs and landings are the busiest time of flight and you don’t want to miss an important radio call or become distracted while taxiing.

Up to this point, flying with a family member isn’t much different from flying with any other pilot. The words said are essentially identical. It’s at cruise where you notice a difference.

Conversation is a big part of flying, and it helps you to stay alert. It’s what we do after leveling off and the PA has been made to the passengers about the route of flight, weather and flight time. We talk.

But when flying with a sibling, you’re often caught up on the latest events by the time you hop in the airplane. I see him all the time. We talk every few days. So the conversation can sometimes get slow.

“You call mom lately?” I said at one point.

The monotony was broken up when we one of our flight attendants, Chris, visited the cockpit. After 43 years, she was retiring and she had a clever way to mark the occasion. She wore a sign around her neck that counted down the days until her last flight.


Chris retires after 43 years

We got busy as we approached the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. Dispatch sent a text message to us via ACARS describing an area of light to moderate turbulence associated with some thunderstorms that were at our altitude and lower.

Kurt dialed a frequency and began talking with the dispatcher.

“What if we went Chicago and then Hector? You think that would keep us out of this stuff?” He said while I listened to the other radio for any calls from ATC.

After sorting out the best route with dispatch, Kurt called the center controller.

“We’d like to put in a request for a turn to Chicago and then direct to HEC.”

All waypoints are identified by three or five-letters; HEC (short for the Hector VOR) marked the beginning of our arrival into LAX. Amazingly, the controller came back immediately and said our query was “approved as requested.”

So far, we hadn’t experienced a single bump. But Kurt was going to see to it that Chris, and everyone else on board, would be getting the smoothest possible ride.

I was surprised when we crossed the Rocky Mountains, an area that’s notorious for at least some light chop, without having to turn the seatbelt sign on.

Our route, courtesy of FlightAware.com

In the end it cost us some extra time and fuel.

The strong jet-stream that we had been bucking on the first part of the flight was scheduled to move off to our left after crossing Lake Michigan. Instead, by turning left toward Chicago we continued to have the 115 knot headwinds for the entire flight. It meant that we’d be arriving 45 minutes later than planned, for a total flight time that was nearly 7 hours, a record for both of us.

Kurt and the dispatcher made the right decision to sacrifice a few minutes and some extra fuel for a smooth ride.


It’s not always serious. Kurt and Kent enjoying a laugh.

On the ground in LA, the passengers didn’t seem to mind, and while deplaning, a few of them said, “Nice flight, brothers!”

Apparently one of the other flight attendants mentioned that we were related in her PA. But the biggest reactions came from our co-workers and the hotel staff when we checked in.

“Wait a minute. Are you guys related?” They asked. After explaining that we were brothers, they questioned whether we got along ok–I suppose sibling rivalry could be a bad thing in a cockpit–and then admitted that they hadn’t realized it was possible or even allowed for two brothers to fly together.

Continue to part II…