Cockpit Chronicles: An eye-opening walkaround inspection

by Kent Wien on

I’ve never been a morning person, so it was with some reluctance that I traded away an afternoon departure to fly an early morning three-day trip with St. Thomas and Santo Domingo layovers.

The flight departed at 6:40 a.m., which meant an arrival at the airport no later than 5:40 a.m. No matter how hard I try, it’s nearly impossible to get to sleep earlier than my normal 11 p.m. bedtime. Switching from morning to afternoon or evening departures can wear you out. Of course, attending the Macworld conference in San Francisco for three days prior to this trip didn’t help at all.

Fortunately the captain was one of my favorites, Keith the Canadian. He’s a sharp guy who’s always up on the latest airline news and rumors.

The trip is one that’s becoming familiar to us at the base. The first leg is typically to Miami and then we continue on to some destination in the Caribbean for the layover. The next day we pass through Florida again on the way to another warm spot. Finally day three takes us back to Miami and then home to Boston.

We have some four-day trips with this theme as well, which I prefer, only because they depart in the afternoon.

When Keith and I arrived in Miami, we had two hours until our flight to St. Thomas. Just enough time to pick up some lunch. Our flight attendants would be coming from some other flight this time, which is common. Nowadays, we don’t normally work with the same flight attendants for more than two flights in a row.

I put my bags in the cockpit of the next airplane and grabbed my keys and a flashlight to do the walk-around inspection. I looked at the tires and pressures, as well as the general condition of the airplane, trying to catch anything out of place, such as open panels, fuel or hydraulic leaks, or dents and scratches.

Finding something during a walk-around is rather rare. In fact, I can only think of a handful of flights with any issues–typically just a flat tire or open panel. Today however, something caught my eye.
After I finished looking over the left engine, I worked toward the fuselage and noticed a significant scratch on the left side of the airplane. These kind of issues are usually marked with a gray sticker, in the shape of a dot, noting the date and location of the initial discovery which tells us that maintenance found the damage to be within allowable limits and it’s been noted in the logbook.

This time there was no dot, meaning that the damage was either very recent, or the sticker simply came off. Either way, we needed a mechanic to inspect the gouge.

The damage was in a fiberglass fairing ahead of the wing, a part that was of more importance aerodynamically than structurally. But if it were to crack or split, it could still require a costly fix.

I called maintenance and they reviewed the logbook to see if this issue had been previously written up. There wasn’t anything in the aircraft’s history, so they went out to measure it and see what their manuals allowed.

Unfortunately, by the time maintenance had inspected the damage our passengers were already on board. Any delays now would mean more time in their seats, something we like to avoid.

A mechanic took pictures of the groove and maintenance supervisors were determining if it could be temporarily repaired.

Because the scratch was longer than six inches, special approval had to be received and after an hour-and-a-half maintenance was able to fix the problem. Using a roll of ‘speed tape‘, the mark was repaired. This tape is made of aluminum and sells for $35 a roll, I was told.

I took a good look at it after we arrived in St. Thomas and it was still in place.

At this point, it had been an exhausting day that stretched into twelve hours on duty. We were more than ready for the 30 minute van ride to the hotel. If I could just stay awake for a few more hours while we had dinner, I knew I could sleep for ten hours straight through, which was something I really needed to do.

Keith and I met up at a restaurant next to a deserted pool and beach. I ordered a veggie-burger and while it was cooking, I went out to take a few pictures to send back to some friends. Since it was snowing pretty hard in Boston, I thought I’d take the time to remind a few of them what a sandy beach looked like.

Since antagonizing my friends was my only motivation to walk out to the beach, I immediately left after I took a few moonlit photos.

While it sounds great to have a moment away from the long winter, even for just a few hours, the truth is, I’d have preferred to be at home sledding with my daughters.

Keith and I watched half of an NFL playoff game while eating our dinner before heading to bed. I managed to sleep ten hours straight.

The next morning I walked out to the St. Thomas ramp while the captain picked up the paperwork. It was looking like it could rain in a few moments, so I ran my bags up to the cockpit before beginning the walk-around. While inside, the rain hit the airport and drenched the front entrance of the cabin.

I knew it wouldn’t last long, so I grabbed my camera and waited inside for the sun to pass. I was hoping to get a picture with the wet ramp reflecting the airplane above it. Much to my surprise, the scene would be far better than just that.

Unfortunately, I left the camera in a manual setting from a picture I had taken the day before. So the colors and saturation could have been better. I was too busy trying to get the right angle before the rainbow disappeared that I didn’t notice the mistake.

The rest of the trip went smoothly after our encounter with the rainbow. Since then, I’ve flown a few ‘turns’ down to the island and back, always looking for another quick shower to pass so I can get the shot right this time. I may have to wait a long time for that chance, I think.

Finally, I’d like to apologize for the time between these Cockpit Chronicle posts. I’ve recently picked up a new camera and so I’m looking forward to sharing some more pictures with you in the future. 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 Plane Answers.

Cockpit Chronicles: Anatomy of a 26 hour delay.

by Kent Wien on

You’ve booked your honeymoon cruise and since you’re smarter than the average traveler, you planned to be in San Juan more than a day early just to be safe.

Sometimes though, no matter how hard we try, forces just stack up against passengers and their flight crews. The San Juan one-day trip I flew just before Christmas is the perfect example.

Two 757s diverted into New York the night before because of a snow storm, and one of them happened to be our airplane for the noon departure from Boston to San Juan. I’d been called out to cover a trip on reserve the night before, so I watched with interest the progress of our airplane in the morning.

To make matters worse, another 8 inches of snow had fallen overnight at my house, so I had to snow blow the driveway at 7:30 a.m. for an hour. I wasn’t too surprised when the company called to tell me we’d be delayed until 1:30 p.m. while the airplane was brought up from New York.

I finished the driveway and checked the computer. Our airplane was being ferried (flown empty for repositioning purposes) from JFK by another reserve crew.

I made it to the airport for the later departure, but my captain had signed in earlier in the morning, before we knew the flight would be delayed. That meant his clock had started to run, counting toward the 14 hours of maximum duty day he was allowed to fly. Surely this wouldn’t be a problem, right?

Our airplane finally arrived an hour later than planned after sitting on the taxiway in New York in heavy snow. The flight had a taxi time of over an hour while it snowed at Kennedy.
Unfortunately, the pilots discovered a high stage bleed-air valve light had illuminated during the ferry flight, which meant that maintenance would have to try to fix the problem before we could depart, if they had the part in stock.

Bleed-air is the air that’s pulled from the engines to pressurize the airplane and heat or cool the cabin. There are two valves, a low stage and a high stage, that open depending on the amount of air needed. When the High Stage light is illuminated, it means that the valve is not in the position that’s being demanded at that moment. In our case, it was probably stuck open.

This was going to be a big job. And the task was made especially tough, since the other airplane ferried up from New York to be used for a Providenciales flight had a mechanical problem serious enough that it may be necessary to cancel that flight. I never did find out what the issue was on that airplane.

Not only that, but the 767 immediately to our right had an issue where both engines weren’t accelerating at the same rate–a problem that would take at least an hour to fix.

Maintenance was determined to get at least one of the three flights out of town that snowy, cold afternoon.

It was decided that the priority would be placed on the transcon 767 flight and our flight. Apparently the Providenciales flight had bigger problems than we did.

The mechanics estimated it would take two hours to change the bleed valve, since they had a replacement part available. They went to work right away in the blowing snow, opening the cowling of our right engine and crawling to the top of the compressor section while the 30 mph wind made the 12 degree air feel like -10 degrees F.

These mechanics were the real heroes that night. They never complained for a moment, even though the two hour job turned into a seven hour project. We stayed with the airplane and occasionally wandered into the gate area to answer questions.

Passengers were understandably frustrated and worried about their connections to various cruise lines. I couldn’t help but empathize with their situation. I tried to give them as much detail as possible, so they at least had an idea what was happening.

I usually leave this kind of discussion up to the captain, but when he wasn’t around, I braved the annoyed crowd to give them updates. To get more information, I checked on the mechanics, but I really didn’t want to pester them too often.

I never saw these guys take a break, and finally, after spending six hours in the cold, they had changed the valve.

By this time, we were within an hour and fifteen minutes of running out of duty time. We needed to be able to complete the 4 hour flight from Boston to San Juan within the 14 hour maximum duty day. And even though the valve had been replaced, the engine still needed to be started at the gate, shut down and then opened up again to check for any leaks.

If it passed the leak check, the next step was to taxi with the mechanics to a safe place to perform a high powered run-up. It was going to be close, but if we could get the passengers on the plane and the door closed before our 10:15 p.m. deadline we could make it.

I went to the gate to explain the situation to the waiting passengers while maintenance closed up the cowling and ran the engine. I was impressed that, while most of the passengers were frustrated with the situation, they genuinely understood what we were up against and that we were all trying to make it work.

Finally at 9:45 p.m. we had the engine running. It took far longer than expected just to get the cowl closed, probably caused by the cold weather. And after the idle run at the gate, the HIGH STAGE light illuminated again.

The mechanics were understandably upset that their 6 hour effort was for nothing. Since we were now out of duty time, they would have to take the airplane out of service and they could look at what else could be causing the problem.

I dreaded walking back to the gate area to explain our situation to some of the passengers, a few of whom I’d actually got to know as the hours passed. I know I’d be furious if I were them. Waiting 11 hours only to find out they’d have to try it again the next day had to be torturous.

Passengers were given hotel and meal vouchers and were told to come back tomorrow morning for a 9:30 a.m. departure. We figured a new crew would be called out to cover that trip, but surprisingly we were put up in a Boston hotel so that we could be given the minimum ten hours of rest before coming out the next morning to take our frustrated passengers in a different airplane to San Juan.

I went to a computer at another gate to find out what was happening to our schedule. Coincidently, the 767 that had been fixed next to our gate also ran into crew legality problems, causing another cancellation. So we fielded questions from a few of their passengers who were just receiving their hotel vouchers.

The captain and I jumped in the hotel van with a couple who had left Chicago that morning in a snow storm, before arriving in Boston to continue with us to San Juan. The new bride was nearly in tears at the thought of missing their cruise. But if everything went smoothly, we could still ge
t them there the next day before the 8 p.m. departure of their ship.

Naturally, the next morning a nor’easter hit the New England area and we’d need to be de-iced. After arriving at the gate, we discovered that our flight had rescheduled for a departure an hour and a half later at 11 a.m.

I thought of the newlyweds as well as others with 4 p.m. cruise ship check-ins. These passengers did everything right. They planned their arrival the day before the ship left, allowing for plenty of time in case of a delay in their flight. And yet they still might not make it.

We waited just over an hour for an airplane next to us to fully de-ice. The runway was opening and closing as plows were trying to keep up with the heavy snowfall. We needed to be de-iced with a two step de-ice/anti-ice process that would take 40 minutes to complete.

Twenty-five hours after we were originally supposed to depart, the de-ice crew came on the radio.

“Captain, prepare your aircraft for de-icing,” said the de-icer.

I turned off the air conditioning and engine bleed air, which prevents the sweet maple-syrup smelling de-ice fluid from entering the cabin.

There was nothing left to do but wait for the two trucks to de-ice our wings and tail. I spent the time snapping pictures to share with you, of course.

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An hour later, we called for clearance to taxi.

“Did you pick up your clearance?” the ground controller asked.

“Yeah, we got it via PDC (the ACARS box).” I said.

“Well, we don’t have anything on you. You’ll need to re-file it.” The controller responded.

Oh, no. Our IFR clearance with ATC was good for a two hour period. We exceeded that by just a few minutes, which would require our dispatch to re-enter our flight plan information and send it to the FAA controllers.

I looked up the frequency to contact our dispatch while kicking myself for not thinking of this earlier.

Thankfully, after less than 3 minutes, our dispatcher had the new flight plan in the system. The controller could then let us taxi.

If our taxi time exceeded between 40 minutes to 1 hour and 20 minutes, depending on the snowfall intensity, we’d need to be de-iced again. Fortunately, the taxi was very short with only one airplane ahead of us. We were finally on our way.

We were scheduled to arrive in San Juan 30 minutes past the time our return deadhead flight was to depart. But there was still a chance that the deadhead flight would be late, since it had also come out of Boston that morning before flying to St. Thomas and then San Juan.

We just might make it, I thought. Once we were within 200 miles of San Juan, I called our company on the radio. I was dying to know if we’d be going home that day or if we had to stay the night in San Juan. The one-day trip had already turned into two, and I really didn’t want it to become a three-day trip.

“The flight to Boston has just arrived. You should be able to make it,” said our operations agent on the island. What a relief. Things were looking up.

Moments later, the agent called back. “It looks like you’ll all make it on the flight back to Boston tonight, but the co-pilot has been reassigned to fly to Miami.”

This job has its moments, and at some point, when things get turned so far upside down, and schedules are thrown out the window, you just have to laugh–it’s the only thing left to do.

I keyed the mic and said, “Ahh, you’re breaking up. Can’t hear you at all.”

We landed in San Juan at 6 p.m. I’m not sure if that was enough time for the newlyweds to make their 8 p.m. cruise, or how the other passengers did, but I sure hope it worked out for some of them. A first class passenger gave me an employee recognition card, which, under the circumstances was a nice thing for him to do.

A few hours later, I met up with another captain, a check airman who had also been reassigned to fly this trip from San Juan to Miami. Apparently the flight from Hartford had also left late enough that the cockpit crew couldn’t continue, so they used us to work the Miami flight. The captain I was flying with was from Sweden, and he kept me entertained with some great stories all the way to Florida.

I stayed the night in Miami before getting on the first flight back to Boston the next morning. Fortunately, they had a first class seat available.

After a few minutes had passed from our departure time, the captain got on the PA and said, “Ladies and gentleman, we have a problem with our hydraulic system that’s going to require a part brought over from the hangar. Since we’re not going to have air conditioning, we’d like to ask you to get off the airplane until we can get this problem resolved.”

I just smiled. I was sure it was payback for the past twelve months worth of mostly smooth flights with minimal delays and very reliable airplanes.

Luckily, just two hours later, we were on our way home to Boston. All I had to do was enjoy the view from the passenger window…

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 Plane Answers.

Cockpit Chronicles: Back to the simulator

by Kent Wien on

Cockpit Chronicles takes you along on some of Kent’s trips as a co-pilot on the Boeing 757 and 767 based in Boston.

“You have training!” read the message at the top of our company website.

Unlike our vacation or monthly schedule, we have no choice in the timing of our training. So every nine months, plus or minus a month, we know that we’ll be called back to the flight academy for four or five days of what we call “recurrent.”

Ground School

The first two days consist of classroom training that covers subjects such as performance, (which mostly deals with takeoff performance calculations), emergency equipment, federal regulations, security and finally a review of the aircraft’s systems, such as the electrical, hydraulic and flight controls of both the 757 and the 767.

At times, these courses can be tedious. Watching a video on the proper way to set up a 56-man life raft every nine months can test your abilities to stay alert. In fact, it’s torturous.

This year, however, we had a redesigned human factors class. Human factors training covers some of the common mistakes discovered through a pilot self-disclosing program known as “ASAP.”

Often these mistakes are re-created in a simulator and filmed for use as a training aid. This year, one of my flights was featured in the class.

Usually this isn’t something anyone would be proud of. Fortunately it was a video I made for entertainment purposes only. It showed a typical three-day trip from Boston to Paris and it’s now used to lighten things up a bit in the class before diving into more serious topics.

A Shiny New Toy

The other new experience came during the simulator training. The company is in the process of retrofitting all their 757 and 767’s with a new type of cockpit display. These LCD screens are much larger and they replace many of the round dial instruments that are common in the older Boeings.

Currently only one of our airplanes is flying with these new panels, but two of the simulators have been modified, allowing us to get some training in the new layout before flying one for real.


The LCD screens are larger and they display more information without having to switch pages as we’ve had to do in the original design. It’s bright and clear, and it makes flying an approach a little easier, eliminating the requirement for one pilot to display a raw data page while the other displays their map page during certain approaches.

I know there are some people out there who prefer the round dials and old ‘steam gauge’ cockpits, but these people probably would prefer we did away with enclosed cockpits, too. At some point, you have to embrace new technology.

Eventually these screens will include satellite weather and Jeppesen approach plates with airport diagrams built in, an upgrade called the Class 3 electronic flight bag. This will allow us to shed a couple of heavy books from our kit bags.

Since I’m a gadget nut, I’m always in favor of any new technology we can get in the Boeing. Small, general aviation aircraft have had some of these features available to them for years and it’s about time we caught up.

The Simulator

This time I’d be going through the class by myself, which meant that instead of being paired up with another captain, I’d fly with an instructor who would play the role of captain for the scenario. After a two-hour briefing, the instructor, also known as a “sim-P,” or simulator pilot, put me in the box to practice a few maneuvers while getting used to the gorgeous new displays.

The two sim-Ps were retired from Braniff and Eastern Airlines. I’ve always been impressed with these former line pilots. They know what they’re doing and they approach their jobs with surprising enthusiasm, even though they’ve been flying or instructing for quite a few decades.


George and Gary, both former pilots of now defunct airlines, get the simulator ready.

The FAA requires the training of certain maneuvers. You can expect to see aborted takeoffs, an engine failure during the critical phase of flight [like just after lifting off the ground] and a windshear scenario. We also fly a variety of approaches–ILS’s, VOR, RNAV and visual approaches–often times with only one engine operating.

After the required maneuvers are completed, they often give you a chance to see or try something you could never do in the actual airplane. I asked to do a no-flaps takeoff, since that had been in the news lately as well as a landing where I attempted to fly slow enough to touch the aft fuselage at touchdown.

The flaps-up takeoff went surprisingly well. I suspect the 757 has the wing design and the added thrust to handle that situation better than the DC-9 or MD-80’s that have had problems. Of course, there would never be a situation that you’d want to be in this predicament, but it’s nice to know more about what the airplane can do?

The intentional tail strike turned out to be much more difficult than I expected. Even though I was 15 knots slower than the normal approach speed for our weight, we still didn’t touch the aft part of the fuselage to the ground. After touchdown, I pulled back and I was surprised to see how much of an angle was required to finally get a strike. This 757 was much less prone to a tail strike than the 767-300 or even the 737-800.

We continued down the runway dragging the rear end. I imagined huge sparks flying from our tail section. This would have been an expensive lesson in the real airplane that would have resulted in a visit to the chief pilot’s office followed by some remedial training.

After 4 hours in the simulator, George was confident I’d pass my checkride with a check airman the next day.

 Fortunately, I’d have Gary, the former Eastern pilot who acted as my captain during the training session, with me in the left seat for the checkride.

The next day from 6 to 8 p.m., I answered the questions the check airman asked about the airplane’s systems and then we discussed some of the problems pilots have seen on the line.

At 8:15, Gary and I jumped in the simulator and flew a variety of maneuvers and dealt with some equipment failures and fires for two hours, and then we took a short break before coming back to the 757 simulator for the official checkride.

For the next two hours, we operated as a normal flight from Reno to San Francisco. We discussed the unusual two-eng
ine and single-engine departures from Reno, that require a variety of turns to avoid the high terrain in the area, and we also looked at the arrival into San Francisco.

We made sure to discuss the procedure for a one-engine go-around at SFO and how its path differed from the two-engine go-around. Had we not briefed this difference, the check airman would have almost certainly given us an engine failure followed by a go-around.

With just a push of a button, our instructor could have created one of literally hundreds of problems for us to contend with. But this flight was to simulate a more normal scenario with a single mechanical problem, which is more realistic.

After taxiing out and taking off, the check airman gave us a small air-conditioning problem that was resolved quickly. The issue, a ‘pack trip,’ was small enough that we could continue the simulated flight to San Francisco.

Compared to the day before and the first two hours of the checkride, this was a rather simple task. We landed, pulled up to the gate and finished the parking checklist before the walkway was lowered to the hydraulically-actuated simulator for our ‘deplaning.’

The check airman gave a short debrief. His only issue for me that night was that I hadn’t annunciated “Autopilot Off” loud enough when I clicked the button on the yoke to hand-fly the approach. A legitimate gripe that I’ll happily take after four-hours in the simulator.

While I enjoyed the initial training that lasts four to six weeks and the excitement that comes with learning a new airplane, no one ever looks forward to recurrent training. And even though I managed to crack a smile and have a few laughs with some great instructors this week, it was an exhilarating feeling to leave the flight academy knowing I was good for another 9 months.

After training, I had to fly a four-day trip over Thanksgiving, but you might want to hold off with any sympathy for me until after you see where I’ll be going. 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.

Catching the travel bug: Midair malaise

by Kent Wien on

Welcome to Catching the Travel Bug, Gadling’s mini-series on getting sick on the road, prevailing and loving travel throughout. Five of our bloggers will be telling their stories from around the globe for the next five weeks. Submit your best story about catching the travel bug in the comments and we’ll publish our favorite few at the end of the series.

It was 1989. In an effort to build flight time after earning my private pilot’s license in college, I managed to convince my boss at the hobby shop where I worked that it might be a good investment for him to loan me the $5500 I needed to buy a two-seat 1946 airplane called a Luscombe.

After tiring of touring around the local airport, shooting ‘touch-and-goes’ well into the night and giving rides to share the fuel costs with everyone I knew or even the strangers I sat next to in my classes at W.S.U., I decided to venture out on a cross-country flight.

What better excuse than the annual Luscombe fly-in which was held at a beautiful airport near the mountains in Columbia, California. The event attracted over 100 of the durable little airplanes and their owners, allowing the pilots and spouses a chance to socialize about two things they were sure to have in common: a love of flight and an interest in a small part of aviation history.

I flew out to Seattle the day before so I could join up early in the morning with another Luscombe that was attending the event. Since my airplane didn’t have a baggage compartment, I stuffed the full size suitcase, tent, portable VHF radio, Sony Walkman and a bag of groceries into the right seat of the airplane, strapped down so nothing interfered with the second control stick on the right.

We were to meet up at 6 a.m. on an early May morning before heading south toward San Francisco. Seattle isn’t known for it’s good weather in May, and this morning was no exception. A low layer of clouds hovered over Puget Sound, and if I weren’t following an experienced Northwest captain out of the area, I’m not sure I would have been comfortable flying an airplane with virtually no navigational equipment that day.

I stuck close to the other airplane as we worked our way around the Tacoma area, listening on the pilot-to-pilot frequency while a half dozen Cessnas were reporting their locations to each other and patrolling up and down I-5 to report on the local Seattle traffic conditions.

As we crossed into the state of Oregon, the clouds lifted and we made our first fuel stop. The formation flying made the trip go by in no time, and I was really enjoying the experience. I would follow the captain for another few hours before he had to make a detour towards San Francisco to visit his sister before arriving at the fly-in.

We parted ways as we flew past Mount Shasta and I broke off to land at another airport for refueling. The airplane held 14 gallons of gas, enough for at least two hours of flying. I dug into some yogurt and a breakfast bar before leaving again.

The final stop before Columbia was a little residential airpark in Cameron, CA that sold fuel. I visited with one of the residents who told me that Columbia was just another two hours south.

Up to this point I had been either following another airplane or navigating from town to town using my map, since I had no navigational instruments and my compass had a rather persistent tendency to only point east regardless of my true heading.

But this leg would be over the western portion of the Sierra Nevada mountains, over Yosemite park. I soon discovered how difficult it was to match up the lakes and mountains depicted on my map with what was on the ground below me.

I’d pass over a lake and then try to find it on the map with little luck. There were so many lakes and mountains, it was hard to be sure just where I was. I elected to stay a bit further east, so I would know the airport would likely be off to my right side after two hours of flying.

I began to doubt the wisdom in my routing as time went on. To make matters worse, something was happening to my stomach. A sharp pain hit me above my seatbelt, as if I had just swallowed an ice-pick. It’s funny how quickly the blame came together in my mind to identify the breakfast bar as the culprit. It might make more sense to blame the yogurt, but I knew that breakfast bar was bad news.

As the pain became debilitating and I was feeling nauseous, I discovered that not only was I completely lost, but the batteries in my handheld radio had died.

Fortunately I had come prepared, with an extra set of eight AA cells to pop into the radio. But doing that wasn’t exactly easy. As I flew along, heading south, indicating east, I had to take apart 4 philips screws in my lap, looking down while bouncing over the afternoon bumps that naturally occur over the mountains. I had the Terra radio apart in my lap as I opened the new AA batteries that were packed in their theft-proof plastic.

And then it hit me. I was going to eject one breakfast bar and a cup of yogurt in the next ten seconds. The only question was, where?

I frantically looked around the cockpit. There was no plastic bag, only a duffel bag and my suitcase. I had no choice. I threw open the side window of the airplane and leaned my head out the tiny window, knowing that I would have to explain the mess that ran down the left side of my airplane when/if I made it to my destination. Perhaps it would blend in with the green strip running below the window on the otherwise white airplane.

After this traumatic event and still trying to fly an airplane that had an annoying habit of pulling to the right while I snapped the batteries in place and slipped a few screws into their holes, I began to assess my chances of finding the airport. I checked the time. Two hours exactly. I needed to turn west and hope for the best.

At this point, I was ready to land in whatever flat spot I could find. The “E” was visible on the fuel tank that was mounted above and behind my head and I knew I needed to be on the ground as soon as possible.

I tried to call out on my weak hand-held radio.

“Columbia traffic, Luscombe 71808, anyone in the pattern at Columbia?”

I’m not sure what I would have said if someone responded.

There was no reply.

As populated as the state of California is, the Sierra Nevada mountains looked like the Alaska range. There were no airports, roads or gravel bars below. And it was getting dark.

Maybe it was lucky that darkness had fallen. I scanned the horizon and then it hit. The brightest airport beacon I’ve ever seen. It was an old fashioned airway beacon that was used to navigate from point to point in the 1930’s, back when airplanes were equipped about as well as mine. But was it located on an airport?

I grabbed the full sized pillow next to me and put it in front of my stomach while I leaned forward, trying anything to relieve the pain. I focused on that beacon, descending at 1000 feet per minute and traveling at an excruciatingly slow 95 miles an hour.

I wondered how the landing would be. I crossed over the airport at 1000 feet, looking for the windsock below. I was relieved to see the giant letters written down the runway.

C-O-L-U-M-B-I-A

Whew.

I made an exceptionally abbreviated pattern. I can’t remember how the landing was, but I do remember turning off the runway, and heading straight for the parking area. I spun the tail around, shut the engine off and plopped out onto the grass beside the fueling pit.

I laid flat
on the ground, holding my stomach. This must be food poisoning I thought. Fortunately I was early enough to arrive – the first airplane, in fact – that there were no witnesses to the mess I made beside the fuselage.

I got up and placed a call on the nearby pay phone to my relatives who were my backup search and rescue team if I failed to check in. And then I set up my tent and collapsed inside for the night.

I felt fine the next morning, and as I cleaned off the side of the airplane, I vowed to keep this little incident to myself.

110 Luscombes showed up that year and I made a lot of friends, learned so much about my airplane and joined in some large formations of planes on missions to find the best pancakes in the area or to pass above the clearest lakes in the country.

I swapped planes with the guy parked next to me, a J-3 cub, and we chased each other around for the day while exploring the area. His compass worked fine, interestingly.

For four days, my secret was safe.

Then the Continental Luscombe Association would close up the event with an awards ceremony. I certainly wasn’t expecting to win anything, unless they had the “rattiest Luscombe” trophy perhaps.

But they handed out awards for the oldest pilot and even the youngest pilot at the event. Since I was 19, I accepted that plaque with a big smile.

Finally, they announced something called the “hard luck trophy.” An award given to the pilot who had the most difficulty getting to the fly-in.

Oh, boy. I knew I had to keep my mouth shut.

A pilot stood up and told about his experience flying through a bit of snow on the way there. Then he sat down.

“Anyone else?”

There was silence.

I couldn’t help myself. I had to confess.

I hadn’t realized how amusing the experience was until I was describing the vomit-hiding characteristics of a wide green strip down my airplane.

The only thing I had to worry about for the flight home was how I would get the three foot tall “hard-luck” trophy into my already stuffed airplane.

Then it dawned on me. I could make a little more room by leaving the box of breakfast bars behind.

Photos by Russell Croman

Epilogue: read about the fate of that little Luscombe and where it is now.

Check out Kent’s other flying stories in Gadling’s Cockpit Chronicles feature.

Cockpit Chronicles: St. Elmos Fire, Falcons and Segway-ing through Paris

by Kent Wien on

Rich, the relief co-pilot, looked over my shoulder and pointed to the radar.

“Looks like you’re painting some weather there.” He said.

I looked down, noting the sea of green ahead.

“It doesn’t have much vertical to it.” I replied, which meant the clouds hadn’t developed into anything that would produce much in the way of bumps.

“I think it’s just heavy rain.” I said.

After flying around Hurricane Ike and Hanna, it was nice to get away from the Caribbean weather by escaping to France. Sure, there may be some specks of yellow among the green Rich had pointed out, but this was no real thunderstorm from what I could see.

Soon we entered the clouds from above. The sunrise we had been enjoying was gone now and the cockpit was a bit darker. As we descended towards 20,000 feet, St. Elmos fire began to sparkle on the front windshield. This phenomenon looks like lightning, but it’s actually static discharges occurring right on the glass just in front of our faces.

Rich grabbed my camera to film the scene. [Video after the jump]

As we approached Paris on the arrival, we broke out long enough to see the sun trying to peek above the cloud layer. Moments later we flew through a few small build-ups. This weather was hardly painting on the radar, yet these were some powerful little clouds. The airplane bumped and shook for the next ten minutes causing Rich to give up with the camera. He couldn’t film much longer anyway, since we were about to reach the 10,000 foot sterile period.

Checking in on the radio behind us was a U.S. Airways flight that was beginning to pick up the same ride conditions we had. Since I was working the radios, I gave a quick pilot report about the moderate turbulence we had just flown through, hoping the U.S. Airways flight might do a better job avoiding it than we did.

It turned out Rich made a good call. The green weather with specks of yellow turned out to be rougher than anything I’d ever experienced in Europe. Fortunately we were through it by the time we reached 10,000 feet.

Captain Frank finished off the approach with a nice landing at Charles de Gaulle.

We talked about our plans as we rode the bus into the city.

I’ve always wanted to do it. Maybe this was the layover to give it a try. The reflective vests and helmet makes you look so goofy. Could I get past that? I mean, it is a form of transportation, and I do like gadgets. But I wasn’t sure I’d be able to convince Rich to join me.

Of course I’m talking about taking a tour of Paris on a Segway. City Segway Tours offers as many as three of these tours a day during the summer with the rides tapering off as winter approaches. So I would have to do it on what would likely be my last Paris trip, number 17, of the year.

At 70 Euros, it doesn’t come cheap, but amazingly Rich really wanted to give it a try. He’s a bit of an adventurous type, who’s currently heavily involved in his new hobby of beekeeping. Since touring around Paris on a Segway wasn’t something he’d done yet, it didn’t take much to convince him.

Fat Tire had an opening on their 6:30 p.m. tour, so Rich and I had some time to roam around the city. I told Rich that Grant Martin, the editor of Gadling who normally resides in Michigan, was just a few miles from the hotel playing a competitive game of Frisbee at the Cité Universitaire.

We had some time to kill and we agreed that it’d be interesting to see what was involved in a competitive Frisbee game, so we walked over to the park where he and his girlfriend had met up with his sister and some others for a game.

It was apparently the nicest day of the summer according to the local media with warm 70+ degree temperatures, perfect for hanging out in a park and I suppose ideal weather for a Frisbee match.

Unfortunately, we wouldn’t see a real Frisbee match, since a local falconer was out flying two of his birds at the field. It gave Rich a good opportunity to take the pictures below while I shot some video.

Grant trying to determine if this bird would be using the field for the rest of the day…

The falcon unexpectedly took off after a kid ran towards it. (See video below)

We agreed to meet up with Grant and the ladies later that evening if we survived our Segway experience.

We met Lisa at Fat Tire Bike Tours and City Segway Tours at their office near the Eiffel Tower and she immediately made us sign away any rights and agree to pay for any damage we may do to the machines. That didn’t dissuade us, so we took the next step and picked out helmets before joining the five other riders.

Our guide, Dana, was an enthusiastic American who was rather adept at Segwaying through Paris. She gave us a good thirty minutes of instruction on how to operate the Segway.

Before we knew it, we were all getting comfortable with the motions needed to step on, move, turn and most importantly, stop Dean Kamen’s amazing little invention. The tour takes four hours and covers the major sites of Paris. Rich and I had seen these landmarks before, but we couldn’t stop grinning.

In just a few minutes we completely forgot just how dorky we looked on the Segway and we began enjoying the freedom it provided.

Our concerns with the €70 per person had been put to rest almost immediately. This was worth it.

It’s easy to underestimate just how fast 12 miles an hour is, until you’re on a Segway. We flew through the parks, mostly at a comfortable 1/2 speed, occasionally ‘opening it up’ a bit to feel the wind blow through our hair while demonstrating our prowess to the other riders.

I struck up a conversation with one of the riders who had his new camera damaged a few days earlier. He wondered if I might forward him some pictures and video, and I told him I was writing this up for a blog, and I could at least sen
d him a link.

Much to my surprise he was a fan of Gadling and he was pretty sure he’d read a Cockpit Chronicles. Or at least he thought.

So I vowed to send him this story–a post I’m sure he’ll remember, if only because he was actually there.

Dana gave everyone the option of stopping for a drink and an appetizer at a café, or simply taking a rest break at a Creperie/Bistro so we could spend more time running around the city.

Everyone decided to keep the rest break short and continue our tour as we were really enjoying the zippy little wheels. I was amazed that battery life wasn’t an issue even though we were almost constantly moving for the four hours. These machines never seemed to slow down.

For a novice, riding a Segway is almost more demanding than a bike tour, since your feet and calf muscles aren’t used to the corrections and weight-shifting required to speed up and slow down.

I was able to balance the device, even while shooting video along the way. I may regret this, but I’ll go ahead and share the video:

I know I’ve recommended the Fat Tire Bike tour of Paris and Versailles in the past, but you just might have to forgo those, and give the Segway a try. No one in our group regretted it.

We met up with Grant and his girlfriend over at the Latin Quarter at almost 11 p.m. Grant’s sister Chi twisted her ankle playing Frisbee and couldn’t join us for drinks and dessert. I would have enjoyed talking with her–to get her viewpoint on what it’s like as an expat living in Paris for the past few years. I guess I’ll just have to keep reading her blog. Here’s the day from her perspective along with some great pictures of the Falcon demonstration.

We’re no longer flying to Paris for the winter, so it’s time to bid farewell to this amazing city. It was more expensive this year than in years past, but far more memorable, too.

Now it’s back to the Caracas, Miami, and who knows what other trips we’ll see this winter. 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.