Cockpit Chronicles: Too much adventure (Part II)

by Kent Wien on

We left off in the last episode looking at an extra two nights in Paris after a mechanical issue caused our flight back to Boston to cancel.

This was because our 7:10 p.m. required departure time had arrived and the mechanics still hadn’t found the problem. So now there was no way to get to Boston without exceeding our 14 hour maximum time on duty.

We couldn’t believe the situation. A five-day Paris trip? I’ve always envied the British Airways and Virgin crews that layover for days in the Caribbean. We’d finally get a chance to experience Paris after a full night’s sleep.

Later that evening, the mechanics narrowed down our problem to a faulty total air temperature probe. This probe supplies the temperature information for the FMS (Flight Management System – The airplane’s ‘computer.’) which calculates our Mach number and how high we can fly, among many other things. They’d have to fly a new temperature probe in from Chicago the next morning.

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I was sure we’d have to wait a few hours for a bus to pick us up at the airplane after we finally ran out of duty time. Amazingly, though, the bus was right at the nose of the airplane when we were ready.

On the ride to the hotel, we ran through our options for the next day. It came down to two choices. We could either go to the Nuits de Feu, which is a fireworks contest in Chantilly, or we could spend the day in Versailles with the Fat Tire Bike Tour.

Nine of us elected to do the bike tour. Since one of our flight attendants actually lives in Paris, he preferred to go home, obviously. The other two flight attendants were happy to do their own thing,

I called Fat Tire as we drove to the hotel. They were fully booked up for the Versailles tour, but since we had so many in the crew, they thought they’d go ahead and put on an extra guide for us–a private tour at no extra charge.

A large group of us went to the Latin quarter for a bite to eat after getting to the hotel at nearly 9 p.m. We didn’t want to stay out late, since we were meeting up at 8:30 a.m. the next day for our eight hour ‘tour de France.’ But we managed to stop for a Crepe Nutella before hitting the sack. The perfect end to a long day.

I was impressed that everyone who said they wanted to go the night before, actually showed up the next morning. So the nine of us jumped on the metro to the Dupleix stop near the Fat Tire headquarters. They decided not to split the tour into two groups, so there would be just over 20 of us.

I almost prefer it that way, since it’s fun to meet the other people on the tour, and the large group can actually be more fun. Our guide for the day was a really sweet and enthusiastic girl named Eliza, but since she looked so much like Indy Car racer Danica Patrick, she will from here on be referred to as Danica.

The €60 price included the RER train ride and a ticket to tour the palace at Versailles.

After picking out our bikes at Fat Tire, we pedaled over to the station. This was the most challenging part, since the train’s doors would only be open for a matter of seconds.

We’d have to get our bikes on board and stow them near the doors as quickly as possible. To facilitate this, Danica turned our handlebars 90 degrees which made it easier to stack the bikes four at a time on the train.

The RER train took us to Versailles in less than 20 minutes. We stopped at the farmer’s market where we shopped for nearly an hour, loading up with enough bread, meats, cheeses, fruit and wine to hold a grand picnic lunch on the grounds of the Versailles Gardens.


The Palace of Versailles was established to house the Royal Family just outside Paris. The idea was that it would lend an air of mystery to the Royals. “What were they doing out there?” the Parisians would wonder.

After years of taxation–an 80% tax rate, with 3/4 of that going straight to Versailles, the people of France rose up mounted a successful revolution.

Only one word could come to mind when riding around the gardens, past the guest house and Marie Antoinette’s villa. Opulence.

We parked ourselves at the end of the cross-shaped lake looking back at the palace at the other end of the pond.

We broke out the food on the thick grass and had a good laugh about the troublesome trip from Boston three days earlier. One of the flight attendants, Elaine, couldn’t decide if having to scrape off the vomit from her shoe was worth getting a five-day layover.

We met up with two girls from Houston who were touring Europe, a nice couple from New Jersey and we even toasted the 21st birthday of one of the riders.

I managed to shoot a short video of the relaxed and enjoyable ride so far.

It’s just about impossible to walk the entire gardens in a day, but with a bike it was simple and fun to get around. Versailles was one of the largest Palaces in the world.


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We could have stayed at that spot all day, watching the airplanes fly over to land at a local small airport, eating the world’s freshest strawberries and raspberries, but we needed to bike back to the palace for our grand tour inside.

Many people walk these gardens, but there’s just no way to really see it all unless you take a bike. The beach cruisers that Fat Tire uses were rather comfortable to ride all day. That is until someone loses a chain.

The scale at which this palace was constructed is hard to imagine. Marble columns everywhere, a hand-dug lake, and a Palace that takes over an hour just to tour the half of the home open to the public.

Inside, they give you a headset, and you simply put in the number of the room you’re in and it describes what you’re seeing. The furniture in the Palace is mostly removed to help the flow of traffic through each room. There were times where I’d call it heavy traffic indeed.

The “Hall of mirrors” was fantastic. Mirrors were incredibly rare in those days, so they would use polished silver to make these mirrors. In fact, I ran across some graffiti on one of the silver panes. If you look close, you’ll see it was scratched into the mirror in 1842.

The room everyone wants to see is, of course, the bedroom of Marie Antoinette. I stopped there for a moment to send a text message to everyone I knew via twitter “Spending father’s day in Marie Antoinette’s bedroom!”

After returning our bikes in Paris, we jumped on the Metro for the trip back to our hotel. There was talk of getting together for dinner again that night, but we were all so tired, we decided to skip food in favor of some extra sleep. I was still plenty full from the hour-long picnic.

The next morning we joked about the possibility of another cancellation. We were unanimous in all wanting to get home at this point. My nine-days in a row of flying had already turned into 11 days, and I really needed to get home to give my wife a break from the kids and a bit of respite.

It might sound like 11 days in a row at work is a marathon, and I certainly thought it was, but I realize that my wife Linda has her hands full with the kids every day without a break while I’m gone. I honestly don’t know how she does it.

The marathon wasn’t quite over, though. I would only have one day off before heading out for another three-day trip to–you guessed it–Paris again. But I’m not complaining, I swear! My family on the other hand…well, let’s just say it was time to bring something home on the next trip.

I’ll leave you with a gallery of other photos from our Versailles trip. Thanks for coming along!

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Cockpit Chronicles takes you along on every one of Kent’s trips as a co-pilot on the Boeing 757 and 767 out of Boston.

Cockpit Chronicles: Paris – A trip with too much adventure

by Kent Wien on

I’ve often marveled at how smooth air travel has become. Contrary to media reports, tens of thousands of flights operate every day with nary an issue. That was certainly the case for the previous six Paris trips this month.

The first clue that it’d be a more interesting flight came as I walked into the cockpit after doing the walk-around inspection outside. The captain mentioned that we didn’t have any autothrottles tonight. It’s akin to driving a car for 7 hours without cruise control.

I pulled out my Macbook to check the 767 MEL (Minimum Equipment List) to see if there were any issues about flying across the Atlantic without the autothrottles. Nothing came up, which meant they could be deferred for a few days until repairs or component replacements could be made.

At this point I can already hear a few corporate and regional airline pilots screaming, “Hey, we don’t even HAVE autothrottles!”

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But it wasn’t just the autothrottles that were deferred, it was the thrust management system that also gives us information on what our maximum takeoff, climb and continuous power settings were at any given phase of flight.

That meant that, as the relief pilot, I’d need to look up the charts for the proper settings, which change as we climb.

Captain John briefed our non-normal situation while we were still on the ground:

“Kent, could you pull up the max climb thrust, max continuous and .80 cruise thrust at flight level 350?”

I had a flashback to my 727 flight engineer days. The only difference this time was that I was sitting forward in the seat instead of sideways.

Ding, went the cockpit call chime. I picked up the interphone.

“We have fluid from the lavs leaking all over the aft galley,” said the flight attendant.

I told her I’d have maintenance come out and take a look at it right away.

Dave, the co-pilot then mentioned that the ACARS unit isn’t working. ACARS (Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System) is a device that allows us to text message the company inflight through a VHF radio frequency and pull up the weather for various locations or get our oceanic clearance from ATC. These can all be done via regular VHF voice communication if we don’t have ACARS, but it’s much more of a hassle.

We checked the frequency that the ACARS unit was using, but that looked right. Fortunately, as I was telling the mechanic about the leakage in the aft galley, John and Dave got the ACARS up and running somehow.

The mechanic came back to the front of the airplane and explained to us that when the ramp crew leaves the hose hooked up to add water to the airplane’s potable water tanks, it occasionally ‘over pressurizes’ the system and causes some of the water to leak out of the coffee makers and on to the galley floor.

Fortunately, it was an easy fix and we could now begin boarding the airplane.

I sat back after takeoff in seat 2H. I was a bit more tired than usual, so I planned on sleeping if I could. Unfortunately, a 75 year-old Texan lady was making it impossible for anyone to sleep.

“I tell you what…” she’d say, followed by some sort of political opinion she felt was necessary to share with the Finnish man across the aisle.

Her rather loud conversation continued. As the flight attendants went through the cabin offering hot towels, I could hear her say, “No thank you, but could I get another glass of wine, please?”

After my one hour and fifty minute break was up, I went back to the cockpit.

“You guys might want to bring some earplugs if you plan on sleeping,” I warned John and Dave, filling them in on our loquacious passenger.

Captain John stepped back for his break. Upon returning, he told us he’d manage to hear her life story.

Dave dug through his suitcase to find some earplugs before stepping back for his break.

“Give me a ten minute wake-up call, will you?” He said.

Two hours later, he came back to the cockpit and explained that our lady friend was still chatting with the Finnish man. In fact, she was probably the only one on the airplane still talking, since most had gone to sleep after midnight local time.

John made a perfect landing toward the west, away from the sun. A minute later, as we were taxiing in, Elaine, our purser called.

“We had a passenger stand up just as we were about to touch down and move toward the front of the airplane. I met her in the aisle and she asked if she could have a bag, as she didn’t feel well.”

“Let me guess, it was the lady from Texas, wasn’t it?” I asked.

“Yes! That’s the one.” Elaine responded.

“She said she felt dizzy, so I sat her in the crew rest seat. Just as I did, she passed out, fell backwards, threw up all over the crew rest seats and then wet herself. I helped her lean forward so she didn’t asphyxiate; it’s quite a mess back there.”

“Ok, I’ll let operations know. Does she need any medical attention?” I asked.

“She’s awake now. I think it was just all the wine she had.” Elaine replied.

As annoying as it is to cross the pond without autothrottles, I couldn’t help think that Elaine’s flight was a bit more problematic for her.

I mentioned to John and Dave that I wanted to do the night bike tour offered by Fat Tire Bike Tours at some point during the month. Since Dave hadn’t been on the tour before, we decided this would be a good trip to give it a try.

The Fat Tire Bike Tour has been a crew favorite for some time. They offer a morning, afternoon and evening ride through the city that can hardly be considered strenuous. They also have a day tour out to Versailles or Monet’s Gardens in Normandy, but we’re never in Paris early enough to take advantage of that.

After a long nap, we met up in the lobby to grab a quick bite to eat. John knew of a place right near the hotel that served a €5 dinner of Kebob Sandwich, fries and a drink. This worked out perfectly, since we didn’t want to be late for the tour at 7 p.m.

We dropped by the Monoprix on the way to the metro station to pick up some baguette, cheese and salami to go with the wine on the tour. It’s always good to bring enough to share with everyone else on the tour.

We met up at the South pillar of the Eiffel Tower a few minutes before seven.

I’ve been on the day tour twice and the night tour at least three or four times, but I’ve found that it’s impossible NOT to have a great time with Fat Tire. Five hours of entertainment for €28 isn’t a bad deal for Paris.

The night tour is especially fun, since you swing by Ile Saint- Louis for some Italian ice-cream before getting on a Bataux-Mouches boat tour of the Seine. Once on the boat, the guide often breaks out a few bottles of re
d wine to share among the group.

The tour guides are probably what make the ride most interesting, though. They’re almost always from Texas A&M university, and they can describe Paris in ways that you might not read about in a guide book. They’ll even detail the methods used to clean the Notre Dame Cathedral.

For this tour, our leader, John, was actually from Houston. He turned out to be the best tour guide I’d ever had which is all the more impressive when we found out that he had just had his personal bike, a restored ’70’s vintage Schwinn, stolen at his apartment a few minutes before coming to work.

[update: John found his bike locked up around the corner of his apartment. He swears someone moved it and claims he hadn’t been drinking the night before when he parked it]

“What’s your favorite animal?” He asked the group. Someone responded, “Horses.”

“Horses, eh?”

“OK, then the theme tonight will be horse related. Pegasus away!” He said as he rode away leading the pack (herd?).

It’s always fun to meet the other riders, and we were surprised to find two New York based co-pilots were among them. There was also a couple from Australia, and a German or two, but most were Americans on vacation or touring Europe.

I brought along a cheap RCA digital video camera to mess with while biking. At least with this camera, if I were to drop it, I wouldn’t be out too much.

This made it rather easy to bring you along for our night bike tour of Paris with John from Fat Tire Bike Tours:

After the ride, we left the Fat Tire building at about 11:30 to jump on the Metro at the Dupleix station. The New York pilots, Beau and Martin, wanted to get a bite to eat at a nearby pub.

Since we needed to stay awake for at least another two hours if we wanted to sleep through the night–remember, it’s only 5:30 p.m. Boston time–we stayed around for a Guinness before heading back to the hotel.

The topic of Crepe Nutella came up, so we stopped in a cafe near the hotel for some desert. I’ve always said, it’s not an official layover until we have a Crepe Nutella and this just topped off a perfect evening.

The next afternoon, during the preflight, Dave noticed a status message, “WARN ELEX” on the lower EICAS (engine indication and crew alerting system) display.

As is the procedure with any of these messages on the ground, we simply called maintenance. The mechanics went through a few trouble shooting tests, but it soon became apparent that this might require swapping a few components out to narrow down the issue.

We called our dispatch (the person responsible for creating our flight plans and tracking our flight at the company) to let him know we’d be running late with this issue. He politely told us that we wouldn’t run out of crew duty time until 7:10 p.m.

We found that a bit funny, as there was no way we could imagine having a delay that would push our 1:30 departure back to 7 p.m.

Little did we know…

Unfortunately, our passengers had already boarded when this seemingly minor problem popped up. The station personnel were great about bringing some bottled water on board for each passenger along with a snack.

Every time the mechanics replaced a component, our hopes were dashed after we discovered that the problem still hadn’t been fixed. Captain John did his best to keep the passengers up to date on every attempt to fix the issue.

The problem was an issue with the ‘air data’ such as the temperature, airspeed and pressure sensors that were fed into our computer, known as the FMS or Flight Management System. One of these inputs was causing the problem.

After four hours of waiting, we knew it was time to get the passengers off the airplane and re-ticketed on the New York flight that would leave at 6 p.m. Those who couldn’t make that flight would have to go on another airline or leave the next day.

Business class was let off the airplane first and put on other flights, and the coach passengers deplaned a few minutes later. We were now sitting on an empty airplane while still holding out some hope of seeing our problem fixed.

The mechanics changed out component after component, reloaded the software for our flight management computers and even started the engines at the gate with no luck.

I sat on the jetbridge with my Macbook connected to the WiFi of the CDG airport, since there wasn’t anything we could do to help the cause along. Finally, at 7:10 p.m. our day was done and we were told that we’d be flying the trip home two days later, since the crew flying the trip to Boston the next day were already in Paris.

A five day Paris trip! This was exciting for everyone, but after a moment it sunk in that we’d be missing Father’s Day at home the next day. I’m sure some of our passengers were thinking the same thing.

At least we’d be paid a few extra hours of flight pay for the extended stay. But I felt terrible for my two kids, and especially my wife, since this was already day 9 in a row that I’ve been working. I would now only have one day at home before going out on yet another three-day trip.

Captain John’s wife, Amy posted about her disappointment with this delay on her blog.

But what would we do with an extra full day and a half in Paris? What would YOU do? Tune in for the next Cockpit Chronicles to find out.

In the meantime, check out more of the bike tour in photos here:

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To be continued…

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

Cockpit Chronicles: Paris – Chez (grand) Papa

by Kent Wien on

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

“We’ve had a minor explosion back here,” one of the flight attendants, Susan, told us during our preflight.

“There’s orange juice all over 2H and J.”

Selfishly, we all perked up. Those were our crew rest seats. The thought of sitting in a wet seat gave a new urgency to the co-pilot’s voice when calling maintenance to get the cover and cushion replaced.

I was the relief pilot again for this flight. My schedule for June is exclusively for FB trips to Paris, but occasionally I’m able to trade over to the co-pilot seat if it opens up during the month, which leaves my relief pilot position open to someone who’s on reserve or another pilot who’s able to trade into it.
There’s no difference in pay between the relief pilot and the co-pilot positions, but most pilots prefer to fly if they have the chance.

We departed Boston at around 7 p.m., and just ten minutes later I left the cockpit for my crew rest seat, hoping it wasn’t still soaked from the orange juice. Maintenance did replace the cushion and cover of the seat bottom, but the window seat was especially wet on the seat back. So I opted to sit in the aisle seat, where I put a comforter blanket behind my back.

If I’m not tired, I usually try to catch up on a few posts. There’s nothing like flying along in an airplane to put you in the right frame of mind to write about, well, flying in an airplane.

After my two hours were up, I went to the cockpit and the captain went back to our rest seat. Moments later we started to get into a small amount of light ‘chop.’ (Pilot-speak for those little, rhythmic bumps).

Typically it’s up to the captain to turn the seatbelt sign on at this point, but when he’s gone, the other co-pilot and I look at each other with the ‘you think these bumps are going to last?’ look.

“Ding.” I turned the sign on.

Sure enough, it smoothed out almost immediately. I’m starting to wonder if the sign has magical powers.

The flight attendants are required to make a PA, telling the passengers that the captain (who’s now sleeping in row 2…) has turned on the seatbelt sign. If we turn it off two minutes later, we’re sure to hit some bumps requiring the sign again. So we elect to leave it on for a few minutes longer to be sure.

I’m sure my grandpa, an early bush pilot in Alaska, wouldn’t have been annoyed by this minor dilemma. He was more concerned with far more significant issues as he flew passengers year-round in Alaska during the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s.

Ice forming on the fuel vent? Is the radiator leaking again? Does that snow look too deep to land on with these wheels? And most importantly, where can I land if this engine quits?

But we’d be given a challenge of our own from ATC. Shanwick called up using the airplane’s SELCAL system. Controllers have the ability to ring us using a special code on our airplane that sends an alert via HF radio. They usually only call when they need to clarify a position report or to give us a new routing. This time they needed us to slow enough so as to arrive at the next waypoint at or after 0621z.

ATC keeps the airplanes flying at the same altitude and on the same track spaced at least 10 minutes apart which is around 75 miles. So we were likely gaining on someone ahead. I slowed the airplane back to .76 MACH, and the computer figured out our new arrival time at the fix: 0622z.

Perfect. Challenge solved.

We sat back to marvel at the United 777 passing 1000 feet above us on the right, just as the sun was breaking through the horizon in front of us. Contrails were everywhere; most of them drawing a path in the sky that marked where we’d soon be making a right turn.

One of the airplanes 20 miles ahead was 2000 feet above us. The wake of airplanes can cause some bumps, even this far back, since it descends at about 500 feet per minute.

Depending on the winds, you’ll often get these bumps when 12 miles behind an airplane that’s 1000 feet above. Double that number for an airplane that’s 2000 feet above.

To avoid these annoying bumps, we’re allowed to ‘offset’ the airplane either 1NM or 2NM’s to the right. We put in a mile and slid over to the side, avoiding the bumps that were easy to see from the contrails.

Yet another problem solved. Grandpa would be proud.

Truthfully, there are so many other issues that make flying complicated today. I suppose my grandpa might be overwhelmed with many of the legalities, the procedures and the aircraft systems. After one look, he might even prefer to go back to his Tri-Motor Ford. I wouldn’t blame him. But I’m sure glad I don’t have to scrape ice from the wings of the airplane in the morning anymore.

We often chat in the cockpit at altitude about families, previous trips or activities outside work. But a very popular topic of conversation lately has been the state of the industry.

Just like most of the airlines, we’ve announced a reduction of around 10% in our flying for the fall schedule. This has a trickle down effect among the pilot group. Some captains will be bumped to a smaller airplane, or even back to co-pilot, which results in co-pilots either becoming more junior on their same airplane or bumped back to a domestic 737 or maybe even furloughed.

I was furloughed from 1993 to 1996, so I hope to never have to see that again. But we still have pilots on furlough from our 2001 reduction. Some of those were recently called back and I would hate to see them furloughed again. The only thing worse than getting furloughed is getting furloughed twice.

My dad always encouraged my brother and I to think about having a back-up plan in case the flying thing didn’t work out.

“It’s just such an unstable career,” he said in 1983.

How right he was. But I always knew it was the only job for me. Especially after studying accounting and management in college.

We landed in Paris and after the last passenger deplaned, we went down to the bus parked just in front of the nose of the 767. This isn’t usually the case, but in Paris we’re fortunate to jump on the crew bus right at the airplane that takes the twelve of us into the city.

The ride can best be described as excruciating. On the weekdays it’s stop and go, with jolts and surges lasting an hour and forty-five minutes typically. Some people try to sleep, others talk or listen to an iPod. I’ve actually managed to sleep a bit on these rides, but it’s not very easy to get comfortable.

Again we waited a few minutes in the lobby for our room keys. This is always a good time to co-ordinate the days activities. I had mentioned that I wanted to check out the Catacombs of Paris, which is near our hotel. Both pilots were interested, so we planned to meet up at 3 o’clock after a good sleep.

The Catacombs are a series of skull and bone filled tunnels that traverse everywhere under the streets of Paris. Apparently they were running short on land and the only solution was to relocate the grave sites into these tunnels. Obviously, this occurred long before Drew Barrymoore showed us in Poltergeist what a bad idea this was.

I was exci
ted to go down to the Catacombs, since I had read some of your comments suggesting a visit. I studied up, I knew to bring a flashlight, to dress appropriately and I even downloaded a couple of maps.

But there was one thing that I didn’t read up on; they close at 4 p.m.

We arrived a few minutes before 4 and stood in line, hoping they would let those already in line down below. Just as the line moved to the entrance, they cut us off. We’d have to come back another time. At least while waiting in line, I discovered one of the most beautiful statues in Paris:

Wifi available! Yep, this meant I could check my email on the iPhone while standing in line. I have an account with Boingo, a roaming service that allows you to bypass a lot of the fees charged at hotels and airports. Unfortunately, some of the locations are premium, which means you’ll pay about $10 an hour to use them. It turns out the parks in Paris are all in the premium category, but the hotel where we stay isn’t. Apparently, if I elected to go from the $22 a month plan to the $39 plan, there wouldn’t be any premium fees.

Since it was early still, we all split up. Jim the co-pilot worked out, Phil the captain borrowed another captain’s bike that’s parked nearby and went for a ride. One of our captains brought a bike over from the states piece by piece and built up a ten speed bike that no one would ever consider stealing. Of course that was his plan all along. He’s very generous in sharing the bike’s combination lock with the other crew members.

Of course, I’m so far behind blogging these trips, I needed to get some work done back at the hotel. We had previously arranged to meet with one of our flight attendants and two other captains from Miami and New York for dinner a few hours later.

Back at the hotel, I ran into Frenchy, one of my favorite flight attendants who’s now flying out of Miami. He’s recommended some great restaurants for the crew in the past and I wanted to pick his brain again for suggestions for our dinner tonight. He told me about a restaurant located on the grounds of a park near our hotel.

“What kind of price are we talking about?” I asked him, knowing that he generally had good taste in dining (i.e. expensive).

“Twenty to forty Euro.” He said.

Perfect, I thought. I had done a bit of ‘fine dining’ for the last two trips and it’d be nice to eat on a terrace near a park without having to take out a second mortgage on the house.

The six of us met up at the hotel and I told them of my new discovery. Everyone thought this sounded like as good a place as any, so we walked about 20 minutes to the Montsouris park.

As we approached the restaurant, Susan said, “It’s like Tavern on the Green!”

“Yeah, but without the price to go along with it.” I confidently remarked.

At 7 p.m. the place was empty, since most Parisians dine rather late. We managed to get a table without having reservations, but when we sat down and took a look at the menu, the table got a bit quiet.

The prix fix menu price was €52.

“I can’t do this.” One of the pilots said.

Since that worked out to $85 not including any drinks, and both Susan and I had spent a fair amount on dinner during the Les Papilles birthday celebration for Stephanie a few trips earlier, we decided it might be best to go somewhere else.

Jim and Phil wanted to try Chez Papa, a nearby restaurant that’s becoming popular with crews. I was happy to go along in an effort to save some money. I’m starting to realize that I need to alternate between a nice dinner and something more reasonable if I’m going to fly this trip exclusively this summer.

Susan and the two other pilots wanted to trek into the Latin quarter to find something more in between, price-wise, which I completely understood.

Chez Papa turned out to be a great choice. The choices were a bit random, with lots of Duck and Lamb offered in a variety of stews, but I opted for a potato omelette. And for a nice change of pace, this dinner ran at just €11 with a drink.


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The flight home was completely uneventful. I tried to snap a shot of Paris from the air. Unfortunately, we were climbing through 11,000 feet, so the view isn’t the best.


Phil and Jim starting to descend for the arrival into Boston.

With two Paris trips down and one to go in my 9-day in a row marathon, I still felt pretty good.

Little did I know, the next trip would prove to be a bit more troublesome…

Cockpit Chronicles takes you along on each of Kent’s trips as a co-pilot on the Boeing 757 and 767 out of Boston. For the months of May through July, he’ll focus on Paris almost exclusively. If you have any good suggestions for Parisian activities, feel free to leave your tips in the comments.

Cockpit Chronicles: Take your kid to work day!

by Kent Wien on

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

“We’re going to try a new place to eat,” Doug, the captain said as I walked into operations.

While he waited for the dot matrix printer to spit out the twenty feet of paperwork needed for our flight, he filled me in on what was the plan was for Paris.

“Mike (the co-pilot) and I read a review on a New York Times blog about a really small restaurant up near the Arc de Triumph called Le Hide. I figured we’d give it a try.”

Crew members tend to have their own favorite places that they frequent. Sometimes it’s easy to get into a rut and not venture out very far to experience anything different. Not so for Doug. He’s on a quest to try a new restaurant almost every layover.

“This is my step-son, Mack. He’s coming with us tonight,” Doug said, as Mack stepped forward to shake my hand. “Mack has just turned 21 this week, so what better way to celebrate the occasion than to bring him along.”

I was starting to get flashbacks of Michelle’s daughter almost getting bumped from the last trip.

“Are we weight restricted?” I asked.
“Not at all. It’s wide open there and back.” Doug explained.

Doug gave Mack a tour of the cockpit while I did my FB duties, since I was again the relief pilot. I went outside and looked over the nose, landing gear areas including the tire pressures and worked my way clockwise around the airplane. Wings, engines, lights, wheel wells, tail skid, rudder, elevator–it looked like everything was all there, with no leaks or damage.

It’s easy to get complacent after looking at hundreds of airplanes that have nothing wrong with them. I try to challenge myself to catch something out of place, but everything looked fine.

After the obligatory pictures of Mack in the cockpit, I showed him how we set our airspeed bugs manually on the airspeed indicator. Each ‘bug’ represents the point where we can retract our flaps to the next lower level.

So after takeoff and above 1000 feet we nose the airplane over slightly and select climb power, which is a bit less than our takeoff power setting. As the speed accelerates we can then move the flaps, which change the shape of the wing. This allows us to go from a wing that’s optimized for the slow speeds needed at takeoff to a shape that would allow for a cruise speed at MACH .80 or 80% the speed of sound.

Departing at flaps fifteen, we’d then ask for flaps five, then flaps one and finally flaps up. At around 2500 feet above the ground, we’re all ‘cleaned up’ and ready to accelerate to 250 knots, which is the maximum speed the FAA allows below 10,000 feet.

Passing through 10,000 feet we can then accelerate to our climb speed, which would be around 320 knots tonight.

Since Mack already has a few hours under his belt, and he’s even soloed a small airplane, he quickly understood the concept and he even helped me to reach over and set Doug’s bugs. May as well make him useful.

The departure was uneventful, and I did my relief-pilot duty of dividing the flight into three parts of about an hour and fifty minutes each to divide up the breaks.

I was fortunate to be back in the cockpit during Mike, the copilot’s break, when we passed just south of Ireland as the sun was rising. I couldn’t help thinking how Lindbergh may have hit this exact part of Ireland, near the Dingle Peninsula, on his solo flight across the Atlantic.

I also thought of Ruthann, www.ruthannoconnor.com, who lives in a tiny village in Western Ireland. She’s been reading my blog almost since the beginning and she’s the one responsible for editing and proofreading everything I’ve written since coming over to Gadling.

Since the age of eleven, Ruthann has gone to sleep while listening on a VHF radio to Shanwick Air Traffic Control give out clearances to airplanes passing just above her house.

She still catches our flight every now and then, using a VHF or HF radio. I suppose you could say she’s an aviation nut–just take one look at her flickr pictures to get an idea. She plans to start flight training this fall in Florida.

After arriving in Paris, we went down the stairs near the top of the jetbridge and down to the waiting bus. After swinging around to pick up Doug’s step-son at the front of the terminal, we were on our way to the hotel.

The Saturday morning van ride took only 35 minutes–a far shorter ride than the hour and forty-five minute ride that’s common on weekdays.

Since this was the first trip of three 3-day Paris trips in a row, I figured I’d catch up on some sleep, so I arranged to meet Doug and Mack at a pub after a nice five hour ‘nap.’

Doug and Mack toured all over Paris, going all the way up to Montmartre, north of the city and finally ending up at a wine tasting event that’s held at the Dernier Goute, a wine store in the Latin Quarter.

I worked my way toward the pub where we’d meet up, stopping at my favorite creperie for a crepe Nutella. For me, it’s not an official Paris trip without a crepe Nutella.

Doug found a nice Irish pub right off the Seine called “Le Galway.” Since we both have GSM cell phones that work in Europe, he was able to send me text messages to let me know exactly how to find this pub.

Mike managed to find the meeting point as well, so we worked our way to the metro station where we’d eventually come out in front of the Arc de Triumph.

Doug had read some great reviews about a restaurant that was moderately priced, especially considering the quality. Le Hide is described by Alexander Lobrano of Gourmet magazine as “a fantastic new bistro run by genial Japanese chef Hide Kobayashi. I left looking forward to my next meal here, and since I’m not alone, make sure to reserve, since word is getting around on this one.“

We chose our appetizers and entrées, and left the desert choice for later. The prix fix meal was 29 Euros, which was great for such a prime location. As I’ve mentioned before, a pr
ix fix menu is made up of your choice of one of the starters, one main course and often a dessert.

I played it safe and ordered the Lyonnaise sausage over mashed potatoes, while Mike and Mack went for the escargot. Doug’s appetizer was the pan fried foie gras.

Doug and Mike insisted that I try their appetizers. I may have made a mistake in playing it safe, since I sampled a bit of Mike’s escargot and Doug’s foie gras, which were both out of this world.

For the main course, I had the pan-fried fillet of sole, and the others had either saute of chicken or veal chops in a butter sauce. That was all I needed to officially crown the French as having the best food in the world.

And we hadn’t even had desert by then.

Unfortunately, the battery in my camera died during our time in the city. Luckily Mack came to the rescue with some nice shots along the way. Thanks, Mack.

The next day, Mack came up to the cockpit once again during boarding to pose with Doug and Mike. I was busy doing the preflight, of course. I think he had a great time on his second trip to Paris with Doug.

Doug bought enough supplies to have a Parisian picnic in the cockpit on the way home, sans wine of course. We enjoyed some baguette and cheese, and some deli meat that had to be eaten before we arrived in Boston since the U.S. agricultural department doesn’t allow these kind of food items into the country.

We usually end up racing Air France flight 332 into Boston at the end of the leg. We generally beat them into Logan, which is important because U.S. customs occasionally prevents our passengers from deplaning until the crowd of people from other flights has cleared the customs area.

But this time, AF332, was just passing 2000 feet overhead as we prepared for our descent. Even though they managed to get a few miles ahead of us, Boston center decided that they’d give the Air France flight a 30 degree heading change to properly space the arrivals. That meant we’d be in the lead.

As I went to get my camera and take a picture of the second-place Air France jet, it slipped into the melted bucket of water that was once full of ice. I immediately yanked out the battery to prevent anything from shorting out.

Perhaps it’s just payback for taking the lead away from the faster Air France flight. But I’m happy to report that after drying out for 24 hours, the camera works fine.

Anytime you can take a family member or close friend on one of your trips, it hardly feels like work. I’m sure Doug was excited to bring Mack along. It was fun for all of us to experience the city through his eyes. I’m hoping that Mack continues flying, as I’d love to have him as my co-pilot someday.

Cockpit Chronicles takes you along on each of Kent’s trips as a co-pilot on the Boeing 757 and 767 out of Boston. For the months of May through July, he’ll focus on Paris almost exclusively. If you have any good suggestions for Parisian activities, feel free to leave your tips in the comments.

Cockpit Chronicles: A visit with France’s greatest pilot

by Kent Wien on

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

“You’re not going to believe it, Kent.” Michelle, the purser (#1 flight attendant) said as I walked on the airplane.

“Lexi’s in the boarding area–did you see her?–anyway the agent says the flight is weight restricted and it’s not looking good for non-revs–and there’s no way I can leave my daughter here. The flight was supposed to be wide open!” she said.

When a flight is said to be ‘weight restricted,’ it’s usually because we have to take so much fuel due to weather at the destination that we aren’t able to take all the passengers. While the weather was going to be a bit foggy in Paris, I still couldn’t imagine the fuel load that wouldn’t allow us to use every seat on the airplane.
But it turns out the company had a last minute freight addition, which brought our total to 40,000 pounds of passenger bags and cargo.

This was a shock. I’ve never heard of a Paris flight that was weight restricted before. And I knew that the desire to get the flight out on time meant there was a chance that some of the passengers (mostly the non-revenue employees or their families) would be left behind.

If we could get the total cargo weight as soon as possible, we would then know exactly how many extra people we could get on.

“These things usually work out just fine,” I assured Michelle, who was looking very stressed out.

After doing the walkaround inspection, and getting a look at all the cargo containers to be loaded in the belly of the airplane, I told Captain Hank about the issue. We both went up the jetbridge to see how it was looking for the non-revs while the co-pilot, Bob finished up the cockpit preflight. At one point, not only did it look like we wouldn’t get the non-revenue passengers on board, but we might even have to take two passengers off the airplane. No one wants to be the person to tell a paying passenger that they have to get off because we had too much freight. That would have been completely unacceptable.

Finally, it was looking like we’d come in under weight by enough to get at least some of the people on board, but Hank told them to make sure we had the exact cargo figures before closing the door. We wanted to be certain that we didn’t leave anyone behind when we still had a few hundred pounds available. Normally the door is closed and while we’re taxiing out we would get a text message that prints up in the cockpit telling us how much we weigh and how many passengers are on board.

The agents were really helpful, and amazingly the total freight came in lighter than planned we managed to get everyone on, much to Michelle’s relief. Her seventeen year-old daughter Lexi would be able to enjoy a weekend trip with her mom.

We departed Boston on time and made it to Paris early, arriving at the CDG airport around 7:30. This was in spite of the fact that the fog had become rather thick at the airport, with 75 meters of visibility reported when we were still an hour from landing. This would have meant we’d have to fly a Cat III autoland, but luckily for Hank, who would be flying the approach, the weather lifted a bit and the visibility was fine for a hand-flown landing. Hank’s the kind of pilot who really enjoys flying the airplane and I knew he preferred not to have to set up for the autoland.

Since it was a weekend, the bus ride into the city was a rapid 35 minutes. At the hotel lobby everyone talked about their plans.

Michelle has been known to drag a few pilots out to see a museum, church or art exhibit on her layovers. I think it’s her way of forcing a little bit of culture on our yankee pilots. While it might be an offense worthy of deportation from France, I don’t particularly find art museums that interesting. But when Michelle drags me around Paris, it’s usually a lot of fun.

But I had some plans of my own. Every time I manage to get a Paris trip on my schedule, the first thing I’ll do is to email my friend Nicolas who lives in France, on the off chance that he may be passing through Paris.

I first met Nicolas six years ago, when my neighbor, Sonja, asked if we wouldn’t mind hosting a French exchange student for two weeks. My wife and I were both exchange students at one point in high school, so we jumped at the chance to host someone for a short time.

Nicolas wasn’t officially an exchange student. He was more of a friend of Sonja’s sister and he had hoped to come to the U.S. so he could improve his English before interviewing with Air France. He was 19-years-old when he came that summer and he ended up staying with us for nearly six weeks.

When he went back to France to interview for a pilot position at Air France, he was met with an amazing amount of competition. Air France, like some other European airlines, hires some pilots with little or no flight experience. Since the company pays for their flight training, it’s an extremely good deal. Unfortunately, Nicolas wasn’t hired.

He came back the next summer and we spent a good deal of time flying around the local area. We even made it to Oshkosh for the Experimental Aircraft Associations huge Airventure after I arranged for him to fly all the way to Wisconsin in an experimental airplane. These experiences stuck with him, and he was successful later that year in getting a flying position with the French Airforce.

So when he called to let me know that he’d be in Paris visiting his girlfriend’s family there, I was thrilled to get the chance to see him. On some of the previous Paris layovers, I’ve even taken a three-hour train ride to Nantes, on the west coast of France, to see where he lived and to meet his parents. On one of those layovers, we managed to rent a catamaran and had a great time sailing from a beach near Nantes.

Fortunately this layover would just involve dinner somewhere in the city. At least that’s what I thought the plan was. I told Nicolas that we could meet up somewhere after 2 p.m. since I really needed a good nap.

After waking from the nap and before heading out to see Nicolas, I ran into Michelle and her daughter who were ready to see tackle the city.

I met up with Nicolas and his girlfriend, Margaux, at a train station near our hotel. It was great to finally meet his girlifiend who’s a medical student in Nantes. She had plans to see her brother’s new apartment in the city, so we jumped on the metro and went to Gare de l’Est to find his place.

Before we walked from the train station to his place, we decided to get something to eat. Through a misunderstanding, Nicolas thought I really meant we’d eat lunch, instead of dinner, since he had a 6:45 P.M. train to catch back to Nantes. So this would be a short visit, indeed. Since it was a Sunday, the only thing we could find in the Gare de l’Est area was an American-themed restaurant called the Indiana cafe which appear to be popular near the major train stations in France.

They apologized for not finding something more exciting, but I was really just interested in catching up with Nicolas and meeting Margaux.

Nicolas just finished his flight training in an Alpha Jet in the French Air Force and he’s now awaiting his airplane assignment, which could range from a piston-engined primary trainer called an Epsilon all the way to a Mirage 2000 fighter. I’m looking forward to finding out what he’s eventually awarded.


The Alpha Jet Trainer

We finished up lunch, where they had chicken wings and I went for the burrito, before heading up the street to Margaux’s brother’s apartment. It’s nice to be able to see where people live in the city and I was thrilled to have the opportunity to see a Parisian apartment. I expected something a bit smaller, though. This place, while shared among three bachelors, was actually spacious. As is common in Paris, you enter a quiet courtyard first before going into one of the apartments.


Margaux’s brother Alban, showed us his electronic drum kit. He played a bit for us and we were very impressed with his talent. Best of all, he could practice with headphones on so he wouldn’t disturb his roommates.

It was suggested that we take a quick walk toward the train station to sit down in the wonderful weather at an outdoor pub. We chatted for a while and I enjoyed trying to stretch my French vocabulary.

The three of us said goodbye to Alban and jumped on the metro. I’ve noticed that the metro is much more crowded this year than when I first started coming to Paris in 2002. This ride was no exception, but at least it wasn’t as bad as some of the trains in Asia.

Nicolas and Margaux got off at the Montparnasse stop and I continued on to the hotel. I couldn’t believe I’d have the luxury of an entire evening to get some posts done. And after the excitement from the previous trip, I was very content to pick up a ham and cheese baguette to take back to my room.

The next day the crew caught up on what everyone did on their layovers. Michelle and Lexi visited the American Church where Michelle was married. If anyone could figure out a way to be married in such an amazing location, it would be Michelle. Unfortunately the church was closed, but when Michelle told a staff member that she had been married there years ago, they allowed them inside for a private showing. It really made their trip.

Michelle was so appreciative to the captain and I for doing what we could to make sure her daughter got on the flight that she gave us a box of amazing (and I’m sure, far too expensive) chocolates.

There’s a little more paperwork involved in flying across the Atlantic than on your typical domestic trip. It’s usually brought to the cockpit and includes:

  • The flight plan – which shows where we’ll be flying, how high we’re planned to fly and how much time and fuel we’ll have remaining. This flight plan is only a guide. ATC might give us a different altitude or even a different routing.

  • Track Message – Every day the North Atlantic Track system (NAT) is made up of five parallel routes that are optimized for the forecasted winds. Since they change twice a day, we are careful to crosscheck our route of flight to make sure it matches the track message.

  • The TPS – A printout that shows the flap setting, the takeoff speeds and the power settings that will be used for a given runway.

  • The weather – A detailed look at the current weather and the forecast for the destination and any alternate airports.

  • Company messages and FAA notices – Any recent changes at the departure or destination airports or any operational changes for the flight.

  • A large map with the waypoints marked for our planned route of flight.

I can’t help wondering how much extra freight we could carry if we didn’t have to take along all this paperwork!

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