Galley Gossip: The Gift of Fear (on and off the airplane)

by Heather Poole on

Out of nowhere you feel it – fear. You’re not sure why you feel it, and because it doesn’t make sense, at least not yet, you choose to ignore it. Perhaps you just don’t want to be rude or look stupid in an effort to avoid whatever it is you can’t quite grasp that is scaring you. Well I’m here to tell you there could be a very good reason you’re afraid, and it doesn’t always have to make sense and it’s okay to look stupid or act rude, even if you are a woman. Better safe than sorry, I say.

Two years after I first started flying in 1995, the airline I work for sent out a newsletter with a little blurb about an interesting sounding book called The Gift of Fear, by Gavin De Becker. I bought the book and several years later it’s still one of my favorites. De Becker discusses what it means to be fearful and how that fear is truly a gift. If you trust it. Some people call it a sixth sense. Whatever it is; a shiver down your spine, hair standing up on the back of your neck, a lump at the bottom of your stomach, something has alerted your senses. You shouldn’t ignore it. That fear could very well save your life.

One of the first stories Gavin shares is about a pilot who enters a convenience store and then immediately walks right back out because his sixth sense told him to leave. The pilot had no idea the store was being robbed, but when De Becker asked the pilot why exactly he left, the pilot said he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. De Gavin pressed the pilot for more details, and soon the pilot realized what really triggered his reaction; a man wearing a winter coat in the middle of summer, customers all turning to stare at him when he walked through the door. All these clues came at the pilot so quickly, he couldn’t make sense of why he felt the way he felt, but he trusted his gut and got out there quickly.

So why did the cop who walked into the very same convenience store seconds later not feel the same way the pilot did? Because when the customers in the store spotted the cop, relief swept over them, replacing fear, which may have been why the cop did not pick up on what was going on quickly enough to prevent him from getting shot.

Remember Richard Reid, the shoe bomber? At flight attendant recurrent training we learned there was something about the man that made each flight attendant on his flight take note of him right away. For some reason those flight attendants got an uneasy feeling the minute he walked onto the airplane. But no one said a word to each other. At least not until the ordeal was over. If you feel a little uneasy about a certain situation, tell someone. If someone tells you they feel a little weird about a certain situation, listen. I know I do.

Fear on the airplane: A few years ago a passenger on one of my flights from New York to Los Angeles caught my eye. Constantly he kept getting up to use the bathroom, and once behind the locked lavatory door he stayed there for an unusually long amount of time. When I tried to address him as he passed me by to get to his seat, he ignored me – several times.

“There’s a passenger making me a little nervous,” I told a fellow coworker. We were just about to begin the first beverage service.

“The one wearing a black polo shirt and dark sunglasses sitting in a middle seat near the front of the cabin who keeps getting up to use the lavatory?” my coworker asked, nonchalantly rearranging the napkins, stir sticks, and sugar.

Two hundred passengers aboard our flight that day and my coworker knew exactly who I’d been talking about. Coincidence? Maybe. Then again, maybe not. Because right after the passenger wearing the polo shirt returned to his seat, another passenger came running, literally running, down the aisle to the back of the aircraft.

“I’m sitting next to this guy and I can’t explain it, but he’s scaring me!” a young woman cried, literally, she was crying.

I handed her a Kleenex, assuring her I knew exactly who she spoke of and that we, the crew, were not only watching him, but we had already informed the cockpit who had contacted the ground. As soon as the words were out of my mouth another passenger walked into the galley.

Flashing a crew ID, the off duty flight attendant pulled me aside so no one else could hear and whispered, “I just want to let you know that there’s this guy…”

This guy, the one wearing a polo shirt who sat a few rows away from her, had made her nervous. Funny enough, he never did do anything wrong. Yet we continued to keep an eye on him. When we landed in L.A. the aircraft was met by several serious looking men and women dressed in dark suits. An FBI agent pulled me aside and asked a few questions. I told him everything, even though there wasn’t much to tell. Eventually the passenger in question was let go. But how strange is it that the one and only passenger we all feared had been issued a passport two days prior, had purchased a one way ticket with cash, and had a connecting flight to Florida where he said he was going to school?

Coincidence? You decide.

On a layover: Once at a layover hotel in a city I no longer remember, I signed in and collected my room key from the front desk in the hotel lobby. Because all the other flight attendants had gone up to their rooms to make the most of our short, nine hour, layover, I stood all alone in my uniform waiting for the elevator. Finally the doors opened wide and I stepped inside. A well dressed man holding a garment bag stood leaning against the mirrored wall. I smiled, and when I went to push the button, I noticed there were no other floors illuminated. Just mine. Immediately I felt a little weary.

When the elevator stopped at my floor, I stepped out, rolling my Travelpro bag behind me. So did the man with the garment bag. I took a left and quickly walked down the hallway. So did the man with the garment bag. My heart began to race. Because I’d read De Gavin’s book, and because I trusted my fear, I passed my room, continuing on down the short hallway to the big red sign that read Exit. The man continued to follow me. Once I reached the fire escape, I circled around and quickly passed the man, heading back to the elevator and down to the lobby to report the incident. Of course I got a new room. Sure, the man with garment bag could have been an innocent guy, but I wasn’t going to take any chances.

Neither should you.

If you haven’t read The Gift of Fear, you really should. It’s an amazing book and I’ve recommended it to more passengers and flight attendants, particularly women, than any other book. What you read may one day save your life.

Want to be a pilot? No experience required

by Grant Martin on

Those of you that have been reading Kent Wien’s Cockpit Chronicles may experience the deep envy that many feel when we read about the great destinations, experiences and adventures that a pilot is privy to. Indeed for many, the job of a pilot is a dream, something that we aspire to as children but rarely pursue later in life. And by the time many of realize how much we want to chase that dream, well, we may think that it’s too late to inviest the time and money in training. If you win this contest, however, that could all change.

Air Asia, Malaysia’s most successful low cost carrier has a shortage of pilots, and in an effort to build interest and support in the brand they’re launching the “So you Wanna be a Pilot” competition. 10 lucky winners who submit a blog entry to their site could be selected to win training from the ground up. Obviously you have to have basic education in Physics, Mathematics and the like, but every pilot should have that, right? Oh and the other caveat? You need to have a good command of Bahasa Malaysia. But that’s not hard to learn, right?

Check out the rest of the details on AirAsia’s blog.

Plane Answers: How a pilot’s flight time relates to their experience

by Kent Wien on

Welcome to Gadling’s feature, Plane Answers, where our resident airline pilot, Kent Wien, answers your questions about everything from takeoff to touchdown and beyond. Have a question of your own? Ask away!

Ted asks:

Due to the latest streak of incidents and accidents I have seen the pilot’s experience written down in flight hours – the captain on the Turkish plane that crashed at Amsterdam had ~15,000 hrs experience, Capt. Sullenberger almost 20,000 hrs and his first officer 15,000+ hrs while the first officer on the ill-fated Colgan Air flight 3407 only had 774 flight hours experience.

However, I would like to know how this translates into years of experience; how many flight hours does a pilot accumulate in an average year; what are the differences between a long-haul pilot (747,767,777 etc), a pilot that flies shorter flights (737/A320) and a pilot for a regional airline.

If possible, I’d like to find out how a pilot’s career looks in flight hours; from moment 0 when he/she takes the first flight lesson, to the PPL and so on all the way to a Senior Flight Captain with the hours attained at the most important milestones. (I know these vary greatly from case to case, but how would it look like on a more or less approximated average?)

Oh, and one more thing: are the flight hours calculated from take-off to touch-down or do they count ground time as well?

Hi Ted,

That’s a great question.

As you mentioned, the milestones in one pilot’s career can vary wildly from another pilot’s. But I could probably give you a general range.
The researcher Anders Ericsson claims that to be an expert in any field or subject takes 10,000 hours of practice – a milestone in flying I’ve only recently reached.

Here’s a breakdown of the typical flight times for various pilots.

Student pilot

A student pilot can solo whenever an instructor is comfortable signing them off. That can be anywhere between six and twenty hours, typically.

Private Pilot

The private pilot license takes at least 40 hours to accomplish, but most finish it after 60 or 70 hours. That license allows a pilot to carry passengers with them, but not for hire.

Commercial, mult-engine and instrument rated pilot, with instructor ratings

After about 250 hours, a pilot can work toward their advanced ratings which are a requirement to flight instruct or to fly for hire.

Regional Co-pilot

Regional airlines that hire pilots for twin-engine turboprops and RJs (regional jets) typically hire pilots into the co-pilot seat with between 500 to 1,500 hours. After some time in the right seat-as little as six months and as many as ten years-the co-pilot would upgrade to the captain position.

Regional Captain

To be a captain at a regional airline, you would have to have an ATP or Air Transport Pilot license. This license requires at least 1,500 hours, along with a significant amount of cross-country and night flying time. So the typical regional captain could have between 1,500 hours and 30,000 hours.

The large spread in flight time is because some pilots end up at the regional carrier during a time of limited hiring by major airlines. After flying for ten or so years at the regional, it becomes a difficult decision to leave the company to fly for less money initially at a major airline. So many of those captains elect to stay put until they retire at the age of 65.

Regional pilots fly close to the FAA maximum allowable 1,000 hours a year.

National and major airline Co-pilots

The usual new-hire at a national or major airline has between 1,500 hours and 10,000 hours, typically. Military pilots generally don’t accrue the large number of hours in a short amount of time like regional pilots, so they tend to have between 1,500 and 3,000 hours when hired. Civilian pilots often have at least 2,500 hours, and more commonly now, 5,000 hours before landing a job at the majors.

The holy grail. Captain!

Captains at the major and national carriers usually have at least two to 15 years with the airline before upgrading. Since we’ve had an unusually stagnant decade of growth among the legacy airlines, many have between fifteen and twenty years with a company before moving to the right seat. In fact, I just had my sixteen-year anniversary and I’m still firmly planted in the right seat with no real outlook for an upgrade anytime soon. I’m sure once the retirements and growth pick up, that will change quickly.

National and Major airline pilots fly between 600 and 1,000 hours per year.

Notice I didn’t separate the wide-body, long-haul pilots from the narrow-body domestic pilots with regard to experience, since there’s relatively little flight time differences. Some pilots prefer the international flying and some would rather fly within the U.S., or their carrier is domestic only, so the flight time is relatively similar between those groups.

In the airline world, flight time is measured from the time the aircraft pushes back to the time it pulls up to the gate at the destination. Military pilots often only log the time flown in the air, without the taxi flight time included, so that can also account for the lower numbers among those pilots.

But flight time really isn’t the only way to get a feel for a pilot’s experience. Airlines look at a pilots currency, or how much they’ve flown in the past year, the amount of flight time they have in a particular type of aircraft and what type of flying they’ve been doing. A domestic pilot will accomplish a lot of takeoff and landings and gain valuable experience quicker than, say, a long-haul 747 pilot flying as one of the three or four pilots on the airplane.

And it’s also important to keep in mind that we’re all human. All pilots have to fight off complacency, as even 500-hour pilots can start to feel they’ve got this flying thing figured out.

The Turkish pilot with 15,000 hours may have been complacent or lacked currency. The facts on that accident are coming out and it’s looking like an automation failure wasn’t picked up by the pilots while on approach resulting in a loss of airspeed. Proof positive that even a 15,000 hour pilot (equivalent to nearly two straight years in the air) can be caught off guard at times.

So flight time isn’t the definitive tool used to judge a pilot’s experience level. It’s just the most often used.

Do you have a question about something related to the pointy end of an airplane? Ask Kent and maybe he’ll use it for next Monda
y’s Plane Answers. Check out his other blog, Cockpit Chronicles and travel along with him at work.

Plane Answers: What’s really in a pilot’s ‘kitbag?’

by Kent Wien on

Welcome to Gadling’s feature, Plane Answers, where our resident airline pilot, Kent Wien, answers your questions about everything from takeoff to touchdown and beyond. Have a question of your own? Ask away!

James asks:

Hi Kent,

I’ve always wondered what is in a professional pilots flight bag? Is there a difference between what the FO brings versus the captain? Furthermore with respect to airport diagrams and charts, do you carry only the approach and departure plates for the destinations you are flying to?

Ahh, yes. The kitbag. A twenty-five pound behemoth that constantly reminds pilots that we’re a long way from a paperless cockpit. Although Boeing and Airbus have recently introduced built-in electronic flight bags to their airplanes, those of us flying the older generation aircraft still need to carry around suitcases full of charts, manuals and procedures.

Since Gadling features a “What’s in your pack” series, I think it’s about time to ‘fess up about my tote.

As a kid, my friend and I would grab a couple of chairs and my dad’s retired kitbag full of discarded, outdated approach plates, and position ourselves so we were inside a closet, imagining we were pilots. I had no idea what the contents of the kitbag were for, but I knew we needed them to fly.

So what exactly is in one of those bags? Let’s start with the heaviest part first.

Jeppesen Approach Plates

There’s a company based in Denver that has specialized in creating maps and instrument approach charts for aviation use since 1934. What started out as a $10 book that early United pilots carried, turned into a large corporation that is now owned by Boeing.

We carry up to two of these volumes that weigh at least 3 pounds each. For international pilots, a domestic book and Europe, South America or Pacific manual is carried. These manuals include every conceivable landing airport we might fly to, along with alternate and emergency airports.

The books are updated every week or two with an envelope delivered to our mailbox at work containing the latest pages to be replaced. The most minute change at an airport will require a new set of these ‘plates’ that have to be swapped out.

Lots of occupations require a person to bring the work home with them–but pilots, for the most part, could leave their job at the door when coming home if it weren’t for these revisions.

Aircraft Manuals

There are three manuals for each airplane airplane our company operates. Two of them are about the same size as the Jeppesen binders, but we’re only required to carry one, the operating manual, which details the limitations, procedures and systems of our airplane. The other manual stays at home and it goes deeper into the aircraft design.

The third manual is much smaller than the other two. It’s called the Quick Response Handbook (QRH) and it combines all the emergency and abnormal procedures that we may need to accomplish. Emergency procedures, which cover engine fires, smoke in the cabin, rapid depressurization, etc., are marked with red tabs. Abnormal procedures, which deal with everything else, such as overweight landings, oven overheats and volcanic ash encounters, are marked with orange tabs.
Company Procedures and Regulations Manual

The captain is required to carry a manual we call “Part 1” which covers the company rules, procedures and FAA regulations. In this manual you’ll find information on flight planning, crew qualifications and responsibilities, approach and landing regulations and even specifics on our uniform dress code (black socks are OK, blue are not).

Aircraft Specific Minimum Equipment List

The FAA requires that everything operates on an aircraft before it can depart. But they understand that a flight needn’t be delayed to fix a seat-back recline mechanism for a seat that won’t be used, or an oven that’s inoperative.

So the airline, working with the FAA, has come up with a list of the minimum equipment needed to fly an airplane. Pilots call this the MEL and they refer to it anytime something isn’t working properly while on the ground. If the specific item isn’t in the MEL, (the extreme example is, say the LEFT WING) then obviously the airplane isn’t legal to fly.

On our airplane, the Captain carries the 757 MEL and the co-pilot and relief pilot, if there is one, carry the 767 MEL.

Trip Book

This is entirely optional. But I carry a smaller binder with the approach plates and maps for the more common airports that I fly to. Right now, I have the Jeppesen pages for Boston, Miami, London, San Juan, Santo Domingo, St. Thomas, Aruba and Cancun in there, but it can change every month as we add or remove destinations from my base.

I also carry the normal procedures paper checklist in this book, an RNAV approach guide and a quick reference guide to be used if our airlines dispatching computer system is offline before a departure.

Other Items

The FAA also requires that we carry a Flashlight adequate to accomplish all required tasks as well as a spare pair of glasses or contacts if we wear corrective lenses.

The airline provides a headset and wearable microphone in each airplane, but many pilots, myself included, prefer to buy our own type to use. I’ve tried a number of them so far, but most recently I’ve been using the Telex Airman 850.

And most importantly, I always carry a camera with me. I prefer to use something with a wide-angle lens, and the Panasonic LX3 is perfect for a kitbag camera. If I had more room in my bag, I’d bring a DSLR on every trip, but the added weight and bulk of the full sized Canon means the Panasonic sees more frequent use.

I often carry a Sigg water bottle with me as well.

Can’t we make this bag lighter?

In the past few years, our company has allowed us to carry what’s called a Class 1 Electronic Flight Bag. It’s a fancy name for a laptop, essentially. I have a Macbook loaded with the company manuals in a PDF format along with an extra battery and powerport charger.

This allows me to ditch the regulations manual, the MEL and the aircraft manual. I now only carry the QRH and the trip book in my kitbag, and I’ve been putting the larger two Jeppesen manuals which we’re still required to carry, in my main suitcase which sits behind my seat, since we rarely need access to them.

So with a need for a much smaller bag, I searched for the perfect solution. After reading Scott Carmichael’s review of the Tom Bihn Checkpoint Flyer, I figured this could be the lightweight bag I need. And maybe I’d set a new trend in pilot kitbags.

I have a feeling this type of bag will be far more common in the future among airline pilots, especially as cockpits enter the 21st century. The Tom Bihn bag had all the features I wanted and a few that I didn’t realize I needed.

It includes a fold out section that houses a laptop, which the TSA now allows in lieu of taking the computer out of it’s case. Flip out the laptop portion and let it slide through security. It’s definitely been a time saver, especially when you have to go through the process two or three times a day.

There are side pockets that hold my camera and headset perfectly, and the main section which holds the trip book and QRH. They’ve even got a small pocket on both ends that’s perfect for a flashlight and keys.

I shouldn’t be too surprised at the pilot oriented layout for this bag, since Tom Bihn’s dad was a Pan Am pilot.

I can think of no less than five pilots who have done damage significant enough to require surgery while lifting their full-sized kitbags into the cockpit. This Tom Bihn bag, coupled with the EFB and Jeppesen manuals relocated to a wheeled suitcase is my attempt at avoiding injury.

Hopefully airlines will retrofit their airplanes quickly with electronic flight bags, in which case, the behemoth kitbag might be a thing of the past.

Do you have a question about something related to the pointy end of an airplane? Ask Kent and maybe he’ll use it for next Monday’s Plane Answers. Check out his other blog, Cockpit Chronicles and travel along with him at work.

Southwest pilot called in sick after passengers accused him of drinking

by Jamie Rhein on

Because I live in Columbus, this story ended up on Wednesday night’s local news. As I listened to the report, this is what I picked up.

At 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, two guys heading for a Southwest flight at Port Columbus International Airport saw a pilot who seemed like he had been drinking at the security check point and decided to intervene. First, they told TSA officials that they were concerned, and then told the pilot when they thought he was heading to their gate that he reeked of alcohol and shouldn’t be drinking and flying.

According to them, the pilot ran off to the bathroom where he changed his uniform jacket for a civilian one. The pilot called in sick from the bathroom and later explained to the airport police who questioned him in the bathroom that he wasn’t drunk, but that he had been partying hard the day before.

Southwest called in another pilot to fly the plane to Orlando and is investigating the case along with the Federal Aviation Administration. The two men who pointed out the pilot’s possible issues, were actually going on a flight leaving from the next gate over.

Here’s a summary of the story from the Channel 10 News that was posted last night and a Columbus Dispatch article about the incident from today’s paper.

Considering that a pilot isn’t supposed drink eight hours before a flight or have a blood alcohol level of .04, according to FAA regulations, I’m wondering just how much a person could drink the night before and still smell? Wouldn’t Listerine have worked wonders if the pilot was within the legal limit? An Altoid or two perhaps? However, nothing conclusive has been found out yet, so he might have been telling the truth and one of those people whose pheromones weren’t treating him well.

Back in 2006, there was a similar issue with a Southwest pilot. If there’s only one of these stories that pops up every few years, I’d say most pilots know not to drink and fly, and possibly, the guy who ran to the bathroom yesterday. He may have been A-okay and simply unaware of his odor.

Other “troublemakers of the sky”: