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Articles tagged “pilot”

Cockpit Chronicles: Domestic Duties

by Kent Wien on Apr 28, 2008

I can’t wait for our one European destination to come back to Boston in May. These crack of dawn departures don’t fit my circadian rhythm at all. I’m convinced in fact, that when I retire I may never again see the sun rise.

That said, it’s just so amazing to walk down the jet bridge and out the side door to start the preflight inspection and see the sunrise shining down the polished fuselage just as the light breaks through the horizon. Even after so many years it’s still enough to get you excited to climb once more into the sky, turn left to one-four-zero and pop through a thin cloud layer into the bright sun. For me, this is the best part of the job. Not the layovers or the diminished travel benefits, but the ability to fly an airplane I could never afford, to places I never thought of seeing with other pilots and flight attendants that I enjoy working with.

This morning’s flight down to Chicago was completely full. The captain, Roland, was someone who I hadn’t flown with before and we had two American Eagle pilots in the cockpit jumpseats. The 757 has two seats located just behind the pilots that are used for FAA checkrides or for extra relief pilots who sit there for takeoff and landing. But they’re most often used by pilots who are trying to get to or from work. Often these pilots work for a different airline.

%Gallery-21627%After passing through a series of checks with the gate agents, jumpseating pilots make their way into the cockpit and introduce themselves where the captain will look over their paperwork and I.D.’s. Most of these pilots are apologetic for crowding into our workspace for their flight to or from home, but I actually enjoy having them along. It’s nice to catch up with what’s happening at other companies, and since I’ve used the jumpseat at FedEx and other airlines so many times, I’m happy that we can return the favor.

The two Eagle captains filled us in on some of the details at their airline such as how much time it’s taking to upgrade to captain, where the senior bases are and some interesting rumors.

I’m pretty sure I haven’t flown into Chicago since 2005. Not much has changed, except for the renumbering of a few of the runways. A new east/west runway on the north side of the airport is being built, which meant they’d have to rename the two parallel runways from 27 Left and 27 Right to 27 Left, 27 Right and 28. It’s not nearly as confusing as it sounds.

The weather was clear and calm, which allowed for a relatively quick turnaround of about an hour in Chicago. I didn’t even go into the terminal, since I had just enough time to do another preflight inspection and the cockpit setup tasks. The next leg was to Miami and just like the first one, it was a full flight, with two more jumpseaters.

We have a normal power setting and a maximum power setting that we use for each takeoff. Maximum power is used only when the runway is short, there’s any tailwind or if the winds are shifting significantly. Today, we had a slight tailwind, so a max power takeoff was required. Even with every seat full, the 757 was a rocket–climbing over 6000 feet per minute at a deck angle of 20 degrees and still accelerating.

One of our jumpseaters, Brett, was an Eagle co-pilot and the other was a 737 pilot for us. They were both commuting to work. We enjoyed chatting with Brett who was finishing up his first year at the airline flying the Embraer regional jet. His enthusiasm was infectious and when we found out that he’d be staying at the same hotel in Miami that we were, we insisted he come with us for dinner.

He was genuinely surprised when we covered his meal, but really, who’s going to let a first year Eagle pilot pay? The dinner at Norman’s (a shrimp BLT sandwich) at north Miami Beach was excellent.

Back at the Miami Beach hotel I went to my room and spent a relaxing night writing up a Plane Answers post for Friday. When I’m at home, I usually watch the kids while my wife gets some work done after I’ve been gone for the past few days. So I can only write in the late evenings after everyone’s asleep or during the layovers. Occasionally I can write while deadheading.

The next morning we met the van outside the hotel while it was still dark. Roland and I flew the early morning flight from Miami to San Francisco. Our flight attendants were based in Miami, so we met up with them at the airplane.

My favorite thing about these domestic transcon flights are the beautiful opportunities for pictures above the Rocky Mountains, Bryce Canyon and the Sierra Nevada mountain range. We were kept lower than usual, due to the headwinds that were stronger up above us, so the view turned out to be perfect for a few pictures. Allow me to take you across the country, over New Orleans, Dallas, the Rockies, Bryce Canyon, Utah, Yosemite, and into San Francisco with this gallery:

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I’ve never had any intention of writing a blog. I just started out sharing these kind of pictures, and the captions began to grow into blog posts. My English teacher would always say, don’t tell me, SHOW me! Well Mr. Park, here you go–I’ve got my camera right here.

The wind was really howling at the San Francisco airport, up to about 40 m.p.h., but it was pointed down the runway. Of course Roland rolled it onto runway 28 nicely.

Here’s where this trip started to look ugly. We arrived in San Francisco before noon, but we’d be leaving for Boston at 11 p.m. With just a bite to eat, and some well-needed sleep, we’d be flying all night to Boston.

Roland had a favorite restaurant that turned out to to be a bit of a hike, especially with the wind blowing from the bay right at us. I broke one of my self-imposed layover rules and didn’t bring my camera. I had no idea it would be such a scenic walk. The low res iPhone camera was all I could use to give you an idea where we walked.

When we made it back to the hotel three hours later, it wasn’t hard to sleep–even though it was in the middle of the day. It’s unfortunate that we didn’t have more time there, since this was one of the best hotels in our system. More and more hotels are getting flat screen televisions, but this was the first I’ve seen with actual HD content. Not only that, but they included a panel where you can plug in your iPod, computer or mp3 player. Finally a hotel that isn’t clinging to the idea that guests are only interested in outrageously priced ‘on demand’ movies.

I enjoy flying at night. It’s usually smoother, and there’s far less chatter on the radio. After taking off from San Francisco, we were given a direct route to Albany, N.Y. which is the first point on our approach into Boston. This direct routing shaved off twelve miles from our original flight plan. That only amounts to a saving of three minutes but we were happy to take whatever they would give us.

Halfway through our last leg, I agreed with Roland that this trip was really much better than it looked on paper. No one likes to fly the all-nighter trips, but this one really wasn’t that bad. In fact, I prefer this flying over the early morning flights we have to Miami and then to the islands. But I just couldn’t see switching to domestic, since I’d miss the Caribbean and European flying.

Everyone has different priorities though, and that’s one of the benefits of working for such a large company. My brother is also a pilot here, and he prefers domestic flying for the most part. Recently the 777 captain position has become within his reach and he’s seriously considering flying from Chicago to our 777 destinations of Shanghai, New Delhi, Moscow and London. This would be a dream for me since it would at least give me something new to write about and it would also pay more, but Kurt’s really having to think it over. I may just have to jumpseat with him on one of those trips if he decides to take the plunge. Ten years ago I rode with him from Seattle to Tokyo when he was flying as a co-pilot on the MD-11.

I thanked Roland for a great trip as we waited for the bus to the parking lot. I then jumped in my car for the hour-long drive north to New Hampshire. My wife was just getting up with the kids and after a nice welcome home, I went upstairs for some sleep.

I was completely exhausted and delighted to finally fall into my own bed for a much needed rest…

Then crew scheduling called.

They let me know that I’d be needed for another trip in the morning. And of course, it left at o’dark-thirty.

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: Caracas and New York

by Kent Wien on Apr 24, 2008

Being the only pilot on reserve, I figured I’d be getting a call to fly over the weekend. Sure enough, Camille called on Thursday to tell me I’d be departing at 6:30 the next morning. It was a new sequence that I hadn’t flown yet. They took away our Panama City and Caracas trip and replaced it with a Caracas and New York layovers.

While I wasn’t really itching to fly to Caracas again, the idea of a day in Manhattan sounded like fun. We seem to get N.Y. layovers every year or two for a few months at a time.

John K. was the Captain and he was yet another one of the Boston pilots I enjoy flying with. I know I’m constantly pointing out how nice it is to fly with the Captains I’m paired up with, but I sincerely believe that Boston has the most good-natured group of pilots at the company. I have no scientific proof of that, but I’m sticking with it.

John and I had a great time in Paris a year ago, when he showed me that some bread, cheese and wine at the local grocery store can be the perfect way to enjoy Paris on a summer evening. So I knew we could find something interesting to do in New York.

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He gave me the early morning leg down to San Juan, Puerto Rico. The sun was just coming up while we were waiting our turn to takeoff, affording a good opportunity to snap a shot of an airplane crossing the path of the rising sun.

Four hours later we were on approach to Puerto Rico. In the past, when you landed on runway 10 (pronounced “one-zero”) in San Juan, it would feel like you were about to lose a few fillings in your teeth. After a construction period that lasted at least a year, we were ready to give the freshly-restored runway a try. For whatever reason they used the more expensive concrete instead of asphalt on the runway this time and the results were excellent. There’s one less thing I can blame a poor landing on.

When you sign into the computer in operations at the beginning of every trip, it tells you how many hours you have on the type of airplane you’re flying and the number of landings you’ve made. The records indicated I had 2994 hours. I did the math and realized that I’d be reaching 3000 hours just after we took off from Miami on our way to Caracas. I figured I’d note the time and celebrate to myself after we leveled off.

John was explaining to me about the ‘issues’ he had with some beavers that had taken over his pond. He now has an otter that has been feasting on the fish. The image in my mind of an otter clearing out John’s half frozen pond of largemouth bass was all I needed to completely forget about my little milestone until the next day. The only way to properly celebrate the moment would have been to snack on some mixed nuts. I guess I’ll have to wait until 5000 hours now.

John flew the leg into Caracas. We’ve been landing there for the past few months only at night, so it was nice to have a chance to see it in the daytime. But I was a bit surprised at the smog that was coming from a series of smoke stacks along the shoreline. After we landed it took a while to get used to the smoke in the air.

After a quick nap, we met at the hotel pool before eating at the restaurant a few feet away. This is pretty much the only option, as we’re ‘encouraged’ not to leave the hotel. I had my favorite ‘pizza margarita’ and John had a steak. It almost seems like the prices had doubled since the last time we were there. I can’t remember what I paid before, but the pizza and an iced tea were $17.

The next morning I was checking my emails through the painfully slow internet connection when I got a message that my card had been ‘frozen.’ It seems the account was flagged with “unusual activity” just because I used it in Venezuela. I’m sure the fraud department at credit card companies must really wonder about a card that might see use in Panama one day, Venezuela later that night and then Miami or Boston the next day. I frantically tried to log into the banking website, but I could only load a page or two before the browser stopped responding.

Pickup was at 7 a.m, which was an improvement over the 3 a.m. wake-up time the day before. We made it through Miami and landed at LaGuardia by 2 in the afternoon. John made a perfect landing in the howling wind aboard the U.S.S. LaGuardia. (A nickname referring to the short runway surrounded by water just east of Manhattan.)

I had recently seen Nathan Lane on the Jon Stewart Show plugging his latest Broadway comedy, November. For a moment, I pondered the feasibility of flying down to N.Y. from Boston with my wife just to catch this show. I immediately came to my senses when I thought through the logistics involved in even a short outing like that. Not to mention the cost of a New York city hotel.

It hadn’t even dawned on me that I might find myself in New York just a few days later. I told John about the play and I could tell he wasn’t so sure about spending the $80 to see this play. I convinced him that we could find a good deal at the TKTS booth in Times Square. He was up for it.

The TKTS booth has temporarily moved to the Marriott at Times Square. Fortunately I looked up the TKTS entry on Wikipedia which mentioned that they only take cash. After convincing my bank in person that I wasn’t an international credit card thief, I was able to take some money out.

Amazingly, ‘November’ is one of the plays that’s available at the booth, even on a Friday night. It payed off to get the booth early, since some of these shows are sold out months in advance, and often the TKTS booth has only leftover or returned tickets. After we picked up our discounted tickets, we went to Johns favorite place to eat–appropriately enough called ‘John’s’.

‘John’s Pizzeria’ is located in a converted theatre. I couldn’t resist trying out the margarita pizza, even if I had it the night before in Caracas. I didn’t regret a single bite.

We had plenty of time before the play, so what else is there to do in New York city? Visit one of the city’s most famous landmarks; the Apple Store on 5th Avenue of course! John and I played with the super thin and feather light Macbook Air a bit before walking to the theatre on 47th street.

We had no idea if the seats we were given were any good. I figured they’d be ‘obstructed view’ seats or something way in the back. We were rather shocked that they were 11th row orchestra (floor) seats perfectly aligned in the center of the theatre. Not bad for 35% off.

‘November’ is a play about a fictitious U.S. president, played by Nathan Lane, who is universally disliked by the people. He’s not ready to leave after his first term, but he’s completely out of money to continue his campaign. So he manages to blackmail the turkey industry by threatening to pardon every turkey before Thanksgiving unless the industry group coughs up $200 million for his campaign.

The best line of the show: “I’m thinking of a number so high, dogs can’t even hear it.”

We had a lot of laughs and John and I both gave it a solid 8 out of 10. Hopefully I’ll fly some more of these trips to sample some other plays in N.Y.

Leaving the theater, we marveled at the low clouds that looked as if they were caught on the tops of the buildings. I managed to snap this picture on Madison Avenue. We were almost expecting the “Bat Sign” to illuminate on the clouds at any moment.

The next morning those same clouds had reached the ground and fog enveloped the LaGuardia airport. To make matters worse, our airplane was located over at JFK and they were waiting on a reserve captain to get to JFK to ferry the airplane to LaGuardia. We were a bit confused as to why they didn’t call us a bit earlier to do the ferry before flying to Miami and then home to Boston. They probably thought that it would be faster to have a reserve pilot called out to bring the airplane over to us. Unfortunately it didn’t work out that way. We left LGA late and tried to make up as much time getting to Miami, but we landed just as a connecting flight to Belize was departing. This meant that ten of our passengers, including a really nice family that visited us in the cockpit while we were parked at the gate in New York wouldn’t make it to Belize until the next day.

We were in a bit of a hurry in Miami while we changed from one plane to another. We refer to this as the “bag drag.” When I got to the next airplane, I realized that I left my aluminum Sigg water bottle in the previous airplane. I knew we didn’t have time for me to run back to retrieve the bottle, and I was resigned to the fact that I had finally lost it. Amazingly, after we closed the door the agent showed up with the bottle, standing on top of a belt loader to get to my window. While the ground crew was still loading a few last minute bags, our incredibly helpful agent managed to toss me the bottle through the window. But it took two attempts:

Fortunately the bottle is well padded in a neoprene casing. After a quick turn in Miami it was back up to Boston. The whole northeast was covered in fog, and as we approached the Logan airport, there were reports of thunderstorms in the area. These are two conditions that don’t usually occur at the same time. The visibility lifted a bit, and the thunderstorms were well off to the west by the time we arrived. Still, the Logan tower reported a wind shear advisory to us while we were on short final. The major airports have equipment that looks for rapidly shifting winds. An alert means you may see a gust of plus or minus ten knots while landing. As ugly as it sounded, we had no issues getting in and we didn’t see any of the gusts that were advertised. Still, it was nice of them to let us know that the possibility existed. Technology has gone a long way to improve the level of safety in this industry.

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

Plane Answers: How to become a pilot at 40 years old

by Kent Wien on Apr 12, 2008

Introducing Gadling’s newest feature, Plane Answers, where our resident commercial pilot, Kent Wien, answers your questions about everything from take off to touch down and beyond. Have a question of your own? Ask away!

Hi Kent,

My question is simple. What do you think is the best method to learn to become a commercial pilot for someone in their very late thirties. Do you think that it’s better to go through a college or go through an airline company that offers training.

Currently I’m overseas fighting with the military and I have about 6 month’s left before I come home. I know that this is what I want to do, can you help me?

Larry.

Hi Larry,

First off, thanks for everything you’re doing for us overseas. My hat’s off to you and I hope to be able to buy you and many others a drink when you finally get home.

The following applies to those living in the United States. I can’t speak with any authority as to how it’s done in other countries.

I’m also in my late 30’s, and if I had to do it over again at this age, I might lean towards going to a flight school near my home or perhaps in Florida. Some of these schools can give you a great deal of flight time in a short period so you’ll finish up your ratings sooner. In the long run, this is probably the most economical way to go, but it will involve some self motivation on your part. To find a fight school near you, take a look at www.beapilot.com.

Another option that you mentioned is an Ab Initio school that takes you from zero time to a job interview with a regional. This could be an option for you, but they can be expensive and there are certainly no guarantees you’ll be hired.

The question is, do you have any college education behind you? Most of the majors require a 4 year degree–even if it’s in something other than aviation or engineering–but as the pilot pool dries up, they may waive this down to 2 years. The regionals don’t always have this requirement, though.

Keep in mind you’ll need to get the following ratings: Private, Instrument, Commercial, Multi-Engine and perhaps your Certified Flight Instructor. And you need to do this as quickly as possible. You could probably accomplish much of it in a year, if you worked at it full time. I managed to go to a university while learning to fly on the side, and as a result, it took 2 1/2 years to get the above ratings on my license. A lot of the colleges such as Embry-Riddle and Daniel Webster take the full 4 years to get to the above ratings. That might be an option for you, but I should warn you, it IS expensive.

Finally, after getting those ratings, you’ll still need to build up your flight time by either instructing or some other job that will help you gain some more experience. Some pilots tow banners, perform traffic watch duties for radio stations or fly power line patrol aircraft. Now that the retirement age has been raised from 60 to 65, you’re effectively 5 years younger than you may have thought. So late 30’s isn’t really so late if the airlines are hiring. The last time my airline was hiring, we had pilots hired at the age of 47, and that was when pilots had a mandatory retirement age of 60. We’ll see if the airlines start hiring pilots over 50 with the increased retirement age. Generally airlines want to get a number of years out of their pilots after spending a sizable amount to train them on their aircraft.

I should warn you about the pay and working conditions, especially at the regional airlines. The lower pay and the long days can be tough. But if this is really what you want to do, then there isn’t much that’s going to get in your way. To get an idea of the different requirements and what the corporate, regional, major and legacy carriers are paying, take a look at www.airlinepilotcentral.com. The site is very accurate and it might give you an idea if this is something you really want to do.

Good luck!

Kent

Have a question of your own for Kent? Ask away!

Plane Answers: How do pilots move up to Captain?

by Kent Wien on Apr 4, 2008

Kent:

I have a question on how the majors promote pilots. Do pilots start out as (say in AA’s case) an MD-80 co-pilot and go to MD-80 captain, then 75/76 co-pilot to 75/76 captain to 777 co-pilot etc..? Also do the Captain’s fly reserve as well?

-Matt

Thanks Matt for the first question in our Plane Answers feature. You’ve touched on a subject that my neighbors and friends often ask.

I mentioned in one of the Cockpit Chronicles how seniority controls what kind of schedule you’ll be flying. Even more significant than your monthly schedule or when you’ll be taking your vacation is what position you’ll be flying. This is driven entirely by your seniority.

Every airline is different, but typically you’ll start out as an MD-80 or 737 co-pilot. Up until 2002 at my company, you may have started in the flight engineer position of the 727. That’s the guy who sat sideways and controlled the aircraft systems, such as the fuel balance, hydraulics, electrical system and the air-conditioning and pressurization. I did this for four years before upgrading to the right seat (co-pilot) of the MD-80. I was just thrilled to get a view out the window finally, and the first opening just happened to be in Boston where I wanted to end up anyway.

When our company started buying the new generation 737-800’s I went to that as a co-pilot. The pay was very close to the MD-80, but I was thrilled to be flying the non-stop Seattle flights where my parents live. Three years later I jumped up to the 757/767 to fly internationally, still as a co-pilot. For a short time, one month to be exact, I flew the 777 out of New York before getting displaced from it back to Boston on the 757/767.

So typically you’ll work your way up through ever larger airplanes (which usually pay more) while sitting in the right seat before making the jump to the left seat in the smaller narrow-body aircraft. This often results in a 20-40% pay raise.

There are exceptions of course. Some pilots stay in the same airplane for their entire career–especially if their airline flies only one type, as is the case at Southwest. Other pilots might want to choose to fly as a co-pilot for a few more years to enjoy their seniority in that seat. They would hold better schedules as a co-pilot, but once they move over to captain, they’ll likely be near the bottom of that list, which means flying on reserve (on call) again–which happens to be the answer to your second question.

The time to upgrade to the left seat is different at every airline. It’s entirely dependent on how much the company is growing and how many pilots are retiring. At my airline, movement into the left seat has been excruciatingly slow. I’m in my 16th year and I will have to wait for another two years or so before enough retirements allow me to upgrade to captain on the MD-80 in New York. If I elect to stay in Boston, it will likely take another year or so on top of that.

Other airlines have grown rapidly in the past few years. Continental has a few pilots that recently upgraded to captain with less than three years of seniority. Compare that with our most junior co-pilots who were hired at least eight years ago.

In addition to actually being able to hold the captain position with your seniority, you’ll also have to successfully pass your checkride before you can move into the pilot in command position. Failure to do so means you’ll have to go back to the co-pilot position. But some airlines have an up-or-out policy, meaning that you’ll have to successfully advance to captain if you want to continue working there.

So you might ask why pilots stay at a slow moving airline instead of leaving and taking their experience to another carrier. Pilots almost never quit to fly somewhere else because they’d have to start at the bottom of the other companies list regardless of their level of experience. This could leave them vulnerable to a furlough if that company cut back on it’s capacity.

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Do you have a question to ask Gadling’s resident commercial pilot? Head on over to this form and ask away!

KLM pilot gets lost flying over India

by Anna Brones on Mar 24, 2008

When you take a road trip, you have a map to help you find your way. When you fly, you have a lot of fancy controls and tracking devices; but you still need to have a general idea of where you are going. Apparently that was not the case for the Dutch pilot of a KLM flight that flew from Amsterdam to India this weekend. The flight was destined for Shamshabad — Hyderabad’s new airport which just opened on Saturday — but because the pilot knew nothing of the airport, he diverted and flew to Delhi and then on to Mumbai, creating a detour of about 1500 miles, according to the Times of India.

The pilot apparently was not aware of the new airport, and was flying in the direction of the old facility Begumpet. Traffic control directed him to Shamshabad, to which the pilot’s response was “What’s Shamshabad?”

In the pilot’s defense, he did say that he was not willing to land at the new airport because he had not received the “notam” (notice to airmen) about the Begumpet closure from KLM corporate headquarters. Still, there is no denying the fact that he did get a little lost. Maybe our in-house pilot Kent Wien can weigh in on the situation and tell us if it’s as ridiculous as it sounds.

[Via Today in the Sky]