Crossing the Sky

Stupid Questions

2011-10-01T14:06:00.000-04:00

On a March day, ten and half years ago, I started my first IOE (initial operating experience) for an airline. It was an eye opener, even more than I expected it to be. CRM (cockpit resource management) was in the forefront of the airline industry then, but it hadn’t established a great presence at my commuter turboprop airline, and I was about to find out.

The first flight was easy, a short one from Spencer, Iowa to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, with me as the PNF (pilot not flying). From my first impression, I could see that my IOE Captain, whom they call a Check Airman, was ‘crusty around the edges’. That means he was very capable and skilled, but with a certain disregard for standard procedures and protocol, and a lack of patience to go with it. ‘Burned out’ is another term often attached to pilots like this, and although he was seemingly a good guy outside of the cockpit (he gave me a ride to the hotel two nights in a row, even though his home was the opposite direction from the airport), he was past his expiration date and needed to move on, which he did later on that summer.

Our second flight was to Denver, over the South Dakota and high plains. They became dark below us as night had fallen, and as the pilot flying I was wondering about the STAR (standard terminal arrival route) we were on into Denver. I wanted to study it and see what the courses and DME distances on the fixes were (on the VOR’s we were tracking). At a normal airline both pilots have their own set of charts, but my first airline was not a normal one. Only the Captain received a set of charts, to be shared between the two pilots of each flight crew. The Captain decided where the charts would be placed in the tight cockpit. Captain ‘Bruce’ had the arrival chart on his yoke, as I recall, and I couldn’t see it well in the dim cockpit. Before Denver center had us start our descent, something happened which made me lock up, and not ask my Captain what the fixes were or to see the STAR.

I couldn’t believe he said it, but he did, and then and there I had to deal with it. And the method in which I did turned out to be not the greatest. In the end it was a great learning experience for me in what to do, what not to do, and especially how NOT to be.

“Well, at this level, there are stupid questions.” That was what he said, definitively and blank faced to me, after prefacing that inane statement with “you know how you’ve been told in your flying career that there are no stupid questions?” I was immediately both shocked and programmed to not ask any stupid questions. Not on my second flight as an airline pilot, and my first one as the pilot flying.

We were now on the STAR (Standard Terminal Arrival Route) portion of our flight routing. Each major airport has several standard arrival routes, or paths, and we were on one from the northeast of Denver, headed southwest.

The following is as best as I can remember it. The numbers may have been different, but this is the best I can recollect. The STAR we were on is called the LANDR arrival, and it also included a fix (or waypoint) on the route which had the same name of LANDR.

It was seemingly not more than a couple of minutes after the ‘stupid questions’ comment that my Captain read back that a crossing restriction clearance to Denver Center on the radio. “Cross LANDR at-maintain one one-three-thousand” were the exact words I heard him repeat back to Denver Center, which set my synapses running.

(Thirteen thousand feet is lower than the published crossing restriction at LANDR, but I think ATC liked us there because that permitted faster moving jets to pass us above us on the way in if needed.)

http://aeronav.faa.gov/d-tpp/1110/09077LANDR.PDF
(This link is a map of the LANDR STAR. You might have to rotate it clockwise to view it better. Just right click your mouse and select "rotate clockwise".)

As Bruce twisted the knob, set the altitude alerter to 13,000 and I verified it, my face felt warm and flushed with the pressure of facing my first real crossing restriction, with no real knowledge of the DME (distance from a ground station) of LANDR, and most critically, with too much fear to ask what it was. He had just intimidated me (unknowingly, probably) into not asking any ‘stupid’ questions, no matter how simple they were.

(Background: Our Beechliner was strictly ‘green needles’ for navigation; we received VHF ground navigation stations and tracked courses to and from them, following our flight plan and clearances that way. A nice feature we used constantly was referencing the distance (DME) from each ground station (VOR), which was displayed on our EHSI’s (electronic horizontal situation indicator)).

Two simple equations drilled into our heads in ground school training were ones regarding how to descend and make crossing restrictions. We had to do mental math, but it was relatively simple. To descend at an approximate three degree angle (preferred): (1) Distance to descend before the fix = thousands of feet to descend x 3, (2) Descent rate per minute to make crossing altitude = ground speed x 6 (ground speed was displayed in the cockpit). Also, to get the current distance to the fix you had to do some arithmetic. There are other mental math ways to do this, but this is the way we were taught. The problem was the actual training to do this was OJT, on IOE, so it could get sketchy and stressful, and was about to be that way in our cockpit.

I started descending at a gingerly rate, consumed with the question of what DME the fix was, but afraid to ask. “Thirty to thirteen”. Bruce started barking out numbers, and I had no idea what he was talking about. “Twenty to thirteen”. I was kind of frozen. “Sixteen to thirteen”. In higher volume and more urgent tones my crusty Captain pronounced this codespeak out loud.

Post-incident, I realized that he seemed to think that I should have understood the information he was giving to me. I admit I was a ‘green’ airline pilot, but regardless, he never explicitly explained what the numbers meant. Also, I was so paralyzed it never occurred to me that I could just descend to 13,000 feet as quickly as possible. I wanted to do the mental math to make the restriction, but what the heck was the DME of the fix? In the heat of the moment, I was still too afraid to ask, and had no real idea.

It continued: “Twelve to thirteen”. The tension in the cramped cockpit finally reached a climax as he practically yelled: “Eight to thirteen! My aircraft!” I relinquished the controls as Bruce exhaled a frustrated sigh, and chopped and dropped – reduced both power levers to flight idle and pushed the control wheel forward to lower the nose of the beechliner, and increased our rate of descent to make the crossing restriction.

We made it fine, but it wasn’t fine. Bruce was now skeptical of me and how I would do during IOE, I could tell. To my relief, he quickly cooled off, gave me back the flight controls, and I remember that my first landing in the Beechliner was a good one.

But my first impressions of him had already been cemented. He was burned out, his communication skills were poor, and he didn’t seem to care about it or about teaching new pilots very much. At the very least, his actions showed that he was unaware how much he had intimidated me.

However, for my part, I should’ve asked what he meant by those numbers when it was happening, should’ve asked him if I could see the chart or what the DME of the fix was, and should’ve explained my confusion once our conflict was past. I should’ve resolved that conflict, but didn’t.

That very first day notified me that sometimes there will be conflict between crewmembers, and how important it is to resolve it. Over the years my experiences in airline flying have taught me how to resolve it, and just as importantly, how to avoid it.

It’s better to focus on how to be than not to be, but that experience left an impact on me I remember well. I used to tell this story to my First Officers after I upgraded to Captain and it amazed them that a pilot could act with such disregard, unawareness, and ego. Bruce had let his ego get too big in his left seat and eventually didn’t have enough patience and grace that was needed for the new First Officers he was given to fly with.

To a certain degree though, his implied advice was useful; let me elaborate. Nobody wants to look stupid, but everyone needs information. As in any industry, if there is information you need that can be easily obtained, get it yourself if you can. If you can’t answer it, then try a higher up (Captain in this case). But regardless, above all, don’t withhold a question because you’re afraid it might be stupid! Safety depends on it, and professionalism dictates it!

Thanks for reading my blog, and may God bless you.

Spoilers

2011-07-18T17:49:00.002-04:00

“Oh, they won’t wait anymore. We’re up for sale, you know. Have to get that on time performance to look good. The only way they will hold this flight is if mainline calls and tells them to.” I was greeting the friendly pilots of the red, white, and blue regional jet I was boarding for my flight from Chicago to my home, and had just told them the CSA (Gate Agent) had mentioned to me that they had seven passengers who had just landed on a mainline flight, who would probably be late for this flight. Even though it was the last flight of the night to my commuting city home, these two professionals (and I mean that in every sense of the word) didn’t even think it worth their while to request, tell, order, or demand to the agent and/or operations that the flight be held for these ~~passengers~~ customers. Performance wins too frequently these days, and humans end up losing. Performance over customer service. Performance over safety). Performance over sticking your neck out over the risk of getting a ‘demerit’ or worse.

I kindly let their ambivalence slide and answered their questions about how my regional airline was doing, thanked them for the ride, and found my seat.

The door was shut and jetway disconnected at 9:11 PM. We pushed back five minutes earlier than scheduled departure time at 9:15 PM, while I visualized these seven passengers running and showing up at the gate at 9:17 PM, pleading that the agent re-open the flight and board them on the plane. No chance. This scenario has probably occurred on my watch, when I’m tired at the end of the day, and want to get to the overnight. I try to guard against it and leave no one behind; I try to show how I care. But I won’t say it has never happened. When this might occur, it is usually the gate agent’s last flight of the night and they want to go home.

Why don’t we care like we used to in the airlines? We care more about staying out of trouble and not getting a late departure than we do about our customers. It starts from the top down, and if an employee fears being late more than stranding passengers, unhappy passengers lose. The airlines say they care as much about customer service as they do about safety, on time performance, and ‘economic efficiency’ (fancy phrase for cheaper), but in my experience these priorities are unbalanced.

I’ve been on two airlines who hold flights for late passengers, however, and I will name names: #Southwest (they do a great, consistent job of this) and #United, believe it or not (the last flight of the night).

What a day I had, five legs after a 6:30 AM van. I tried to ‘drop’ the last two flights, a Pittsburgh round trip, but crew scheduling denied it, due to ‘lack of reserve coverage’. We woke up in humid, stale, stinky still air in Florence, South Carolina (sorry Florence), flew up to Charlotte, over to ‘Rocket-Town’ - Huntsville, Alabama. Loading up the peeps a United Captain came to the cockpit to meet us and ask for ride back to Washington. Lo and behold, it was Alan Cockrell, one of the best airline bloggers and writers, in my opinion. It was nice to meet him, and you should read his blog. He should write a book on airline flying.

In DC we then had a three hour fifteen minute break until the Pittsburgh round trip. If my drop request had been granted I would’ve been on a 2:30 PM flight home on the first leg of my commute.

After my FO tried to encourage me that I could still make it home later, I replied that I’d already used up my optimism on my rejected drop request. At the time, we had just seen the departure monitor show that our plane for the Pittsburgh flight would be late. It was ‘posting’ as a 4:22 PM departure instead of 4:07 PM.

A nice lunch at the new Qdoba should’ve cheered me up, but the lack of tortilla strips in my Mexican gumbo left me a little riled (no apology and no offer of chips in their place – this is a little like McDonald’s running out of French fries). This was the first instance of someone not caring this day.

I feared that our plane would become more delayed, not knowing why it was running late. I could’ve called dispatch to find out, but I was juggling my phone with many business emails (see logbooksolutions.com) today.

Fortunately, post Qdoba our jet looked like it would arrive at about 4:15 PM. We would still go out later than 4:22 PM to Pittsburgh but I had a fighting chance of making either the 7:20 or 7:50 PM flight to Chicago.

Fast forward to the visual approach my fine First Officer was flying into Pittsburgh. He was ‘freestyling’ (hand flying with flight director off) a visual approach from a semi-high position (all strictly within our flight limitations), and on base leg had extended the flight spoilers. On approach we noted that we had indications that the spoilerons and outboard ground spoilers had minor ‘faults’ indicated with them. One or more of these spoilers had one of two actuators that didn’t seem to be working properly. It didn’t mean the spoilers wouldn’t work, just that they had lost some redundancy. On touchdown I verified that all the spoilers (panels on the wing which pop up and disturb the lift the wing produces) actuated properly.

After shutdown at the gate, my good First Officer asserted in a professional manner that we should give maintenance a call about the spoilers, and write the messages up in the aircraft logbook. Because we had received the messages in flight, if we had called maintenance it would require a visit from an on-call mechanic. This I readily admit I did not want to do. I could visualize us waiting to twenty or thirty minutes for the mechanic to arrive, twenty or thirty precious minutes I needed to catch my DC to Chicago flight.

In the end I called. I cared more about doing the right thing than about getting home; I do admit I had mixed motives, but still. On my non-company cellphone I talked to maintenance, wrote the two messages up, and waited for the on call mechanic to arrive. It really varies from airport to airport how long it takes maintenance to get there. But before I had much time to fret, he was in the jetway. He took care of the writeup and circuit breaker reset in record time.

We had already loaded up, and after closing and pushing back I had confidence again that I would make the last flight out of DC this night. Thirty minutes later, after a fast climb to the east, ATC announced holding instructions to us. “Holding? What for?” I thought screamed (“traffic volume” the ATC controller included with our clearance), while my FO wrote the clearance down, programmed it in the FMS, and I observed and confirmed it.

My FO later expressed a little admiration for me not ‘sailor talking’, saying that he would’ve been throwing the four letter words if he’d been in my position. This exemplifies the stress pilot commuters endure, trying to get home and to work, and it adds to an already sleep deprived high workload. Maybe someday I’ll have an easier commute (one leg instead of two) or even drive to my domicile. But for now I’m still making the best of it.

I did make the flight to Chicago, by the way, where they closed my flight home early to the seven “mis-connects”. We were released from the hold ten minutes early, at 6:50 PM. The flight to Chicago was to depart at 7:50 PM. I set the parking brake of our thinly painted, rivet exposed, well used CRJ at about 7:15, and hustled two concourses over as fast as I could briskly walk.

We who transport people across the sky from one place to another should care more (myself included). Too many pressures from management and bean counters “spoil” what comes naturally to many of us: to show how we care about customers by serving them to the best of our ability while performing our duties professionally and efficiently. And in this arena we deliver something of bedrock importance to them : sustainment of their dignity as fellow humans. When a customer is dissed, everything gets degraded: they do, our culture does and society does too.

In earth’s short human history, one person lived who showed that he cared more than any other, and still does. Even though He was actually a King, He served others as a servant, taught marvelous truths, healed many, had many followers, and He promised that by following him, you could enter the kingdom of God. He cared so much that he voluntarily gave up his life on a cross of crucifixion, to pay for the penalty of my sin, and of your sin. By putting your faith in Him as your Savior, you receive the promise He gave from John 3:16: “that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” By exercising faith in Him and his “substitionary atonement”, we are made clean and become acceptable to God. You should conclude then, whoever this person is who died in all of humanity’s place, he must be very special, and very Holy.

And you would be right. His name, Jesus Christ, of course, you’ve heard of him probably. But in this post-modern, now post-Christian world (at least part of it is), others disagree. They believe in a universal spirituality, and they don’t believe in the concept of sin as the bible teaches. They don’t believe that their sin separates them from God, and if they believe in a personal God, they likely believe that God’s grace is available to all.

Those beliefs lead them to not think of Jesus as the bible teaches and claims he is. This is a grave error, and is the same as “man making God in his own image” instead of viewing Jesus through the lens of “God making man in his own image” as the bible states.

God’s grace is available to all, but the one pre-condition to being “under grace” is believing and receiving Jesus as your Savior. If you don’t claim Jesus as your personal Savior, you are still “under the law”. Liberal theology and ‘pickers and choosers’ of the Bible tend to discount any claim of exclusivity that Jesus had as unworthy additions by newly zealous Christian converts in the first century. But in the Gospel of John, Chapter 14, verse 6, Jesus is quoted in no uncertain terms as stating this to his disciples "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” A Methodist Pastor puts this passage in better perspective. I personally feel that there are many spiritual paths to come to Jesus, and that Jesus is the best and truest way to God.

God showed how he cares about us, about you and about me, by sending his son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sins. Jesus never sinned, so that is one reason that he had the ability to serve as a sacrifice for the sins of many. Another set of reasons are the many, many Old Testament prophecies He fulfilled, involving his lineage, his life, actions, and death. His work of Salvation for us is a marvelous thing, an amazing gift available to all who trust in Him. Taking a cue from that cute Mexican beer commercial, Jesus is the real “most interesting man in the world”. “Stay thirsty, my friends.” Let me ask you, though, are you, yourself spiritually thirsty enough to want to know God, the God that personally cares enough for you to die for you?

I’m not trying to scare anyone or to sell ‘fire insurance’. But this is the basics of orthodox Christianity. I see universal spiritualism creeping into our society and culture more and more, and sold out Christians (myself included) aren’t speaking up enough for Jesus, aren’t pointing toward the person He is and the light He shines, aren’t saying hey, wait a minute, that’s not how God is.

Don’t let the ideas of Universalism spoil your opportunity to go down God’s jetway. God cares about you, reader, enough to hold the flight for you, as long as you have breath left on this earth in this life. God will meet you where you’re at, when you’re ready to take a step of faith and put your trust in Jesus as your savior. You don’t have to board the plane in clean clothes either, come as you are, straight from the mud pit, if that’s where you’ve been.

"Praise the Father, Praise the Son, Praise the Spirit, three in one"!

God bless you, and thanks for reading my blog.

Aborted Takeoff

2011-05-16T11:46:00.002-04:00

“Abort! Abort!” We both declared it at the same time. Reacting from memory and reflex, I pulled the thrust levers to flight idle, clicked and raised the shorter reverse thrust levers into the idle range, and applied the wheel brakes lightly on the top of the rudder pedals. We had only reached between forty and fifty knots when the corresponding yellow flashing ‘master caution’ light alerted us to the message on our EICAS screen. Any caution message we receive from the airplane on takeoff while we are below a speed of 80 knots requires an abort.

We were both staring at the yellow caution message on our EICAS screen, “IDG1” as I exited the runway at the first turnoff. It extinguished and was shortly replaced with a “GEN 1 OFF” caution message. The caution message surprised us both, but we performed and reacted well. I was more annoyed by it than startled; it being a yellow ‘caution’ message had a lot to do with it. If a red ‘warning’ message is received on takeoff, it most likely involves one of the engines, and that would get my blood pressure up. As we left the runway my good First Officer (funny and entertaining one too) told the pax (passengers) to stay seated on the PA and then transmitted to the control tower that we had aborted our takeoff.

I had been there and done this before as a First Officer. I knew that this message was no fluke; it was a real problem that would occur again on a subsequent takeoff. We taxied back to the ramp, called maintenance are wrote the problem up in the logbook, and started the ‘circus music’ with passengers wanting to leave the flight and go back home.

FO ‘Rob’ had also called our operations people, a gate agent (CSA) met our flight with news that a good number of passengers would now miss their connections in Charlotte. We ended up losing half a dozen of them, but I had a little difficulty sympathizing with them as to why. When an airline strands a passenger in their travels due to a mechanical problem, they are obligated to put that passenger up in a hotel for the night, by law. The guess the passengers who got off the plane figured another night in their own beds was better than in a hotel, even though they were losing a significant amount of time at their destinations in the process.

It was our good fortune that we were at one of our maintenance bases. The mechanic came over quickly, and after a short conversation about what exactly happened it looked like they were going to “MEL” the left engine electrical generator. MEL means minimum equipment list, and is a long list that stipulates what components we can fly with while they are broken and maintenance is deferred, or in other words, the repair of said component is put off till a later time.

The message we got, “IDG1”, referred to our integrated drive generator, a combination of an engine driven generator and a constant speed drive unit (CSD). The CSD is similar to a car’s automatic transmission. Filled with oil, it turns an engine’s variable rotation speeds into a constant RPM, which rotates the electric generator. If the oil level inside the CSD is too low, the CSD can disconnect from the generator, and possibly get too hot if it doesn’t, which will also trigger a disconnect. If our case the IDG sensed that the oil level was too low on takeoff, as we started to accelerate. The acceleration caused the oil in the IDG to slosh just enough to trigger the IDG caution message, and resulted in the generator coming ‘off-line’.

There are many balls to juggle when you have a gate return. Passengers who are going home have to have their bags returned from the cargo hold. The maintenance has to be completed and the aircraft has to be released back into service. The Dispatcher is preparing another flight release, which can be put back in the system till the aircraft is returned to service. I try to coordinate all that and keep the passengers informed, every ten to fifteen minutes if possible. Sometimes there are unexpected delays in getting all this done. This time, everything worked like clockwork in getting us going again, though. An hour after we started engines the first time we did it again with one less electrical generator, and took off for Charlotte.

There were differences, as you might imagine. Our MEL (Minimum Equipment List) dictated that we can fly passengers with an inoperative engine generator, but to compensate for that we have to operate the APU (Auxiliary Power Unit), a small engine in the tail of our jet, for the entire flight. The APU produces electrical power and air for engine starts and air conditioning, and it has a lower maximum altitude for operation than the altitude our flight plan had been filed for. Consequently our dispatcher refiled our flight a few thousand feet lower. Normally we have two electrical generators active in flight; with the APU on we would regain that second generator.

Airline flying is the safest form of travel for a reason: the many safeguards and procedures that are built into our operations help to produce a safety factor that is very high. Although it might be frustrating when your flight gets delayed, have security that your pilots, flight attendants, and mechanics have the integrity to do the right thing when something on your jetliner breaks.

And I do believe this advice, I’m not just saying it, in spite of all the media attention which has lately been questioning the effect that maintenance and scheduling pressures have on airline safety.

May God bless you, and thanks for reading my blog.

Christ is Risen!

2011-04-24T14:19:00.003-04:00

Christ is Risen! ("He is risen indeed.")

He is risen from the dead, 'born again'! Let's talk about the first time he was born on earth to frame the perspective of Easter. Everyone, it seems, or at least the majority of folks, love Christmas. The gift giving and receiving, the kind spirits and wishes for peace and harmony, all help to ease entry into winter. Secular folk and non-Christians alike tolerate it still being called 'Christmas', even though its a commercialized version with little in common with the Christian meaning of it. Except that Jesus is God's biggest gift to man, and we celebrate giving gifts to each other. Christians do well to incorporate the remembrance of God giving us Jesus (his birth on earth) as we give gifts to others.

In contrast, Easter is huge for followers of Jesus, of much more significance than Christmas. Christmas is the birth of the promised and prophesied Messiah, savior of the the Israelites (Jewish people) and the entire human race. Easter is the culmination and completion of that work. First Jesus was convicted (falsely and with improper legal procedure) of blasphemy, by claiming he was the Messiah. For this he was crucified on the cross by the Romans, on behalf of the religious Jewish leaders and the crowds in Jerusalem. He was buried in a tomb sealed with a huge boulder and guarded by Roman soldiers. But on the third day he rose again (as He promised) from the dead, in a resurrected body.

We believe that the reason Jesus died on the cross, after being brutally tortured and mocked, was to pay the penalty of our sins, to make us right with God. He freely, voluntarily, bled for us: "our sins were washed in the blood of Christ!". Jesus Christ, "Son of Man and Son of God", was made guilty of all of the sin of humanity. How? Substitutionary atonement. I'd have to be a seminary student or theologian to explain, its a mystery but we believe it. The burden of the guilt of our sin was laid upon Him. "For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ." 2 Corinthians 5:21

The most well known bible scripture is John 3:16. Say it with me: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." John is quoting Jesus here, Jesus said these words near the beginning of John's record of his ministry. Applied to the resurrection, whoever believes in Jesus will have a resurrected body and eternal life. Jesus proved it by his own rising from the dead! Alleluia!

A believer is "saved by grace, through faith". No good works or any good deeds one can do in this life can ensure a person of eternal life with God; only by investing your faith in Jesus as your Savior by his completed work on the cross can. This is a great thing!

I appreciate you reading my blog and letting me share my faith with you. God Bless you! Jesus is risen!

Let's celebrate His resurrection! Here is another video of a great song by Matt Maher.

Condemned for our sin

2011-04-22T12:41:00.004-04:00

I just got back from a men's prayer breakfast for Good Friday in our town. Hundreds of us enjoyed 'egg dish' and fellowship with each other before singing a few hymns and listening to a retired prison Chaplin speak.

He shared many interesting stories of ministering to hardened inmates. What a tough job that must have been! But he felt called to do it, to be there for the outcasts, and to have sympathy and compassion for them, when no one else did. He focused on getting to know them, and meet them where they were at, and show them mercy, as Jesus did. He would have volunteers run the music and education programs, and concentrate on ministering individually to the inmates and on preaching.

He kept saying what tremendous satisfaction it brought him to see his efforts succeed on the battleground for hardened prisoners hearts. By the time a person goes to prison, they are cast off by virtually everyone around them. Society has given up on them and shunned them, and they are condemned.

Convicts who serve time in a prison, more than any other segment of society, know what it is like to be condemned. Sure, they've all been found guilty in a court of law, so they deserve it. But we do not know what it is like to be declared unacceptable and unfit to exist in free society, to be banished and punished for crimes for up to multiple life sentences or worse. We have not experienced it. Don (the speaker) made it clear that prison is very tough on inmates. They all have plenty of time to think about the crimes they've committed. The guilt, self-anger, anxiety, remorse, and depression all pile up inside them to staggering and overwhelming levels.

On Good Friday, Christians remember the condemnation and death of Jesus Christ on the Cross, and what he died for. Jesus had condemnation in common with prisoners. He knew he would undergo the ultimate in condemnation and rejection by society, by the people he came to serve, teach, and to love, and by his disciples. Because he was fully human, in addition to fully being the Son of God (perplexing, isn't it?), he agonized over this the night before he was crucified, while praying at the garden of Gethsemane. From Luke 22:42-44: “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” ⁴³ Then an angel from heaven appeared and strengthened him. ⁴⁴ He prayed more fervently, and he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood.

Even almighty God himself rejected Jesus and left his presence, as indicated in Mark 15:34 and Matthew 27:45, when on the cross, Jesus exclaims in a loud voice "“Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” ("My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”). Perhaps, in his humanness, he didn't realize how horrible that would feel like exactly.

Why did God's presence leave Jesus, in this overwhelming moment when he could've used it the most? The Bible teaches that our holy God cannot be in the presence of sin, without destroying all. Jesus, according to scripture, was voluntarily dying on the cross as a sin offering for all of humanity. He was innocent of any sin, yet he was made sin on our behalf: from 2 Corinthians 5:21: God made him who had no sin to be sin^[b] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. An innocent, holy, sinless man took on the guilt of the sin of the world himself, to make restitution available between man and God, for all those who believe in and receive this sacrifice (Jesus).

Before Jesus was condemned, Pilate the Roman governor pronounced him "not guilty" of the charge of leading a revolt (Luke 23:13-22). But then Pilate had him crucified (for personal politics it seems) at the demands of the religious rulers and the crowds, because they believed Jesus committed blasphemy. In Mark 14:60-63, the High Priest Caiaphas asked him while questioning him "Are the you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed one?" Jesus responds: "I Am. And you will see the Son of Man seated in the place of power at God's right hand and coming on the clouds of heaven." Caiaphas and the others all scream "Guilty! He deserves to die!"

In spite of all the popularity Jesus had, the teachings he did, the miracles he performed, and the prophecies He fulfilled that showed He is the Messiah, He was crucified in part because He didn't meet their earthly expectations of one. Consider this: Jesus did say in John 18:36 "My Kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. If it were, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But my Kingdom is not of this world."

By his crucifixion, though ironic, He fulfilled his ultimate purpose and prophesy. He was condemned for us! He was condemned for you! He was condemned for me!

Please consider watching this touching video. God Bless you. He Loves you.

Triumphal Entry

2011-04-17T23:02:00.002-04:00

Today, this Palm Sunday, the first day of this trip, we had a pretty good day of RJ flying in the south and then up to Wisconsin. The strong storms and destructive tornadoes (to property and lives, unfortunately) have moved on out to the east, and all day we enjoyed light winds and blue, sunny skies. To say we had a 'triumphal entry' back into the skies after this severe weather as passed would be a misnomer; my crew and I were only lucky enough to have our days off during the worst of it recently.

We flew from DC to Charlotte to Memphis to Charlotte to Milwaukee. Things ran fairly normally except a closed runway in Charlotte (for construction) backed up our taxi in Charlotte a couple of times. Most of our passengers seemed to be in a friendly, good mood. I like to think they were is a celebratory mood. They expected safe, smooth travel, reasonably on time, possibly with a good view out the window. And for the most part, they got that. But sometimes expectations don't meet the true reality.

Sharing my peeps good moods and expectations helps me transition into writing about what good moods and expectations the folks in Jerusalem had on the original Palm Sunday, about 2,000 years ago.

Christians observe today as the day Jesus entered and paraded through Jerusalem on a donkey, the week before he was crucified on the cross. On this day, it was also a celebratory time for the crowds in Jerusalem. They laid their clothing garments in advance along his path, and others without garments took palm tree branches and did this same. By this showed great honor and respect to Jesus as he rode through the streets. They shouted "Hosanna! Hosanna in the highest!" (save us now!) as he passed along the way. The Jewish crowds knew from Prophecy that the promised Messiah would enter Jerusalem on the foal of a donkey, and that's just what Jesus was doing. The ones not in the know asked "who is this?" The response: Jesus of Nazareth, the prophet. He wasn't Jesus Christ yet, per se, just rumored to be.

Why was Jesus being given the rock star treatment here? He would be tried for blasphemy and led to the cross (would carry part of his own cross actually) in just a few days, so why all this adulation now? Jesus was becoming very popular now, due to his teachings, his love for others, his wisdom, and for the miracles he was performing. In the meantime he had become a big threat to the Pharisees (the religious rulers in Jerusalem) and to the Romans.

He hadn't been back to Jerusalem for a while also. Jews hoped he would be be their leader in rebellion against the Romans, who were the occupying power, army, and rulers in Jerusalem and Israel. That possibility of overthrow and freedom from the Romans and for themselves is what seemed to concern the Jews, at that moment anyway. But Jesus had other objectives. His mission was given by our heavenly Father, and was one which involved eternal significance. Let's take a look some of the scripture of his triumphal entry, from Matthew 21:1-11:

¹Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, ²saying to them, "Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me.³If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, 'The Lord needs them,' and he will send them at once." ⁴This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying,
⁵"Say to the daughter of Zion,'Behold, your king is coming to you,
humble, and mounted on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.'" (Zechariah 9:9 emphasis added)

⁶The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. ⁷They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. ⁸Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. ⁹And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!" ¹⁰And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, "Who is this?" ¹¹And the crowds said, "This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee."

This is the celebrity Jesus, but this version would soon give way to the one the crowds and religious leaders were demanding the crucifixion of. The crowds all wanted to get one thing out of Jesus, that of their own collective self interests, but he had other ideas. What do you want to get out of God? Does your image of God match who he really is? Have you ever considered whether you 'put God into a box'? Do you use God only for your needs, when and how you see fit? This is a good time to really think about your expectations of God verses the reality as the Bible and Jesus himself expresses.

To find out more about Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and the whys, hows, and prophecy fulfilled, click on the links. You'll learn something about Him, and maybe something about yourself and your expectations of God.

God Bless you, and thanks for reading my blog.

Crosswind to remember

2011-04-14T20:47:00.001-04:00

The fourth day of a recent trip found me in Covington, Kentucky in a six-fifteen AM van, after sleeping fairly well for about the last seven hours. My cellphone playing U2 in the van alerted me to crew scheduling calling. What I dreaded wasn’t occurring; there was a plane at the airport with our name on it, but our revenue flight from Cincinnati to Philadelphia had been cancelled, and we were to ferry it there instead.

After researching the problem in the aircraft logbook, surveying the ferry flight permit, discussing it with my fine First Officer ‘Cindy’, performing all our checklists and briefings, and getting the frost de-iced from our wings, we sped down the runway in the morning light.

A single bell chime and flashing yellow ‘master caution’ light a few hundred feet AGL (above ground level) on climbout didn’t startle us, we expected it. The associated caution message on ‘ED1’, our display screen that shows our engine and fuel parameters, read in yellow letters “STEERING INOP”, referring to the nosewheel steering. At the appropriate time thereafter my F.O. read and performed the QRH (quick reference handbook) procedure for this message. Actually she read it and I performed it. This was simply to cycle the nosewheel steering switch (located on my side and accessible only to me) off and back on. The steering was restored, the message disappeared, and we continued upward and onward.

The previous crew flying this plane had received this message on climbout after retracting the gear, and during the approach to land after extending it. They ‘wrote it up’ after parking for the overnight in Cincinnati. This problem was why we were ferrying the empty jet to Philadelphia: you obviously don’t want passengers on a plane with its nosewheel steering on the blink.

During our talk on the ground in Cincinnati Cindy and I shared the hope that if the steering inop message occurred again with gear extension on the approach and landing into Philadelphia that we would be able to get it back via the same QRH procedure. A review of the weather in Philly gave us both some concern that a landing attempt without nosewheel steering would most likely be not advisable, or in plain words, unsafe.

A slow moving cold front and ‘associated low pressure system’ was finally finishing its path across the northeast, and the Philadelphia airport had pretty strong, gusty winds from the northwest at 29 to 37 mph. For our jet emptied of passengers, it would be a strong crosswind from the right side, relative to the west, landing on runway 27 (landing to the west, 270 degrees magnetic, wind from the northwest).

(This is a crosswind component chart. See if you can determine the crosswind component for our conditions. The runway direction was 270 degrees magnetic, the winds were blowing at 25 knots from a 330 degrees magnetic direction.)

This ferry permit placed in the maintenance logbook required that we land on runway 27L or 27R in Philly, the longest runways there; runways 26 (5000 feet) and 35 (6500 feet) were prohibited. In Cincinnati I thought about what I would do if we were unable to restore the nosewheel steering if it failed upon gear extension in these conditions upon arrival at Philadelphia. This was where someone would say that “this is why they pay you the big bucks”.

With no steering, I would’ve rather landed on runway 35, it was less of a crosswind than on 27 (20 degrees of crosswind instead of 60), but the ferry permit prohibited it. I could’ve called our Flight Department manager who authorized the permit and asked him to authorize 35, but that promised perhaps thirty minutes of work added to a morning which was already behind schedule, with no guarantee of success. We had been given a Baltimore alternate from our Dispatcher, which I appreciated, and that airport, with runways aligned to the northwest and more directly into the wind, would’ve been a better choice if we had to land without nosewheel steering.

The risk of losing the steering completely on approach was clear in my mind and gut as I decided to go ahead with the flight. I was confident that if it failed on gear extension that we would be able to restore it, because cycling the switch had worked in the past. My guess was that a nosewheel steering wire was getting pinched somewhere during the retraction and extension cycle, causing the steering to go offline. Because of this tendency, I felt fairly assured that it wouldn’t fail suddenly on landing after touchdown. But there are no guarantees in life, or in flight.

Landing without steering in a crosswind that strong would highly risk that differential braking (we brake the left and right main wheels separately) and aerodynamic forces from the rudder would not provide enough control to prevent the airplane from ‘weathervaning’ into the wind and then skittering downwind across the runway, and I didn’t want to try. In a normal crosswind landing, considerable steering input to the nosewheel is required during deceleration from landing speed to taxi speed (140 mph to 10 mph). With no steering, the nosewheels caster freely, much like a front shopping cart wheel.

I had landed without nosewheel steering before, as a non-flying first officer at Chicago O’Hare. The Captain did a fine job, we were towed in from the runway we closed down, and it’s a great story for another time. But that was in calm winds, not in a crosswind which had gusts exceeding the steady state crosswind maximum published for our jet.

We had over an hour airborne to think more about the possibilities that could happen. I decided and briefed that we wouldn’t attempt a landing without nosewheel steering at Philadelphia, that we would extend the landing gear ten miles out so we would have time to deal with a steering failure, and if the steering failed after touchdown I would apply maximum braking on the runway. It all sounded good to Cindy as well.

Once we reached the Philadelphia area, things happened fast, since we were arriving in between ‘pushes’, a busy time of arrivals, then departure. ATC vectored us quickly, and I thought that I should’ve managed my speed better as we noticed on a tight base vector that we were going to overshoot the final approach to runway 27R, due to a strong tailwind. I’m modest: the controller should’ve given us an earlier turn to final to prevent this from occurring in the first place. I hand flew a healthy crab angle back to the north, and we were basically aligned with the runway.

I say basically, because the constant moderate turbulence and kicking, gusting winds made airport and runway scene jumble and swerve around out the windscreen eight miles ahead. Philly has three runways aligned in the same direction and an old runway in use as a taxiway, and I admit that in the turbulence it had taken a few seconds to find the right one. By this time, we were relieved to verify that the landing gear was ‘down, three green’ and the nosewheel steering was still ‘on-line’ (its ‘steer by wire’).

I was a bit out of our element at this moment, but knew what to do – fly the plane, and how to do it. We were at a very light weight, and I had the thrust at a setting I thought would counter the strong headwinds buffeting us from the right side. But a series of gusts at this altitude, 1,500 feet above the ground, kept us from joining the glideslope (we were a little high) and slowing to the proper speed for a few more seconds. “Chop and drop” occurred, as they say, but only for a little bit, we were soon configured, on glide path, and ‘stabilized’ (as much as you can be in 20+ knot gusts) with the thrust ‘up’ by 1,000 feet AGL.

The exact wind report on the ATIS was 330 degrees at 25 knots, gusts to 32. The math on that works out to a crosswind of 60 degrees and a crosswind ‘factor’ of about .87, or a crosswind component of 22 knots, gusting to 28. The maximum demonstrated landing crosswind component for our CRJ200 is 27 knots, so this was pushing it.

Its unnatural, well, it looks unnatural, to be pointed away from the runway, into the wind, flying sideways in a strong crosswind, but that’s how birds do it and that’s how man does it. Any seasoned pilot has landed in some strong ones, and this one was impressive, intimidating even. With our nose cocked twenty degrees to the right of the runway, the touchdown zone loomed into view.

“100 - - - 50 – 40 – 30 – 20 - 10”. The automated voice called out our radar (airplane based) measured altitudes down to the ground. At the fifty foot call I had the thrust levers coming back and felt them reach the idle stops by twenty. At that moment I applied a healthy amount of left rudder pressure and right control wheel pressure, and had already applied back pressure to start the flare.

Our empty and gust buffeted jet, save the three of us, gyrated on all axes, its right wing now banked low against the ground, with the nose aligned with the centerline of the runway and pitching up to permit the main landing gear to touchdown first.

The CRJ has a fairly low wing and the wingtip and/or wing flaps has a good likelihood of scraping the ground when touching down in a bank angle of ten degrees or more. I’ve never really been afraid of this occurring in a crosswind, although it’s happened before at our airline. In strong crosswinds a cautious “pilot not flying” monitors the bank angle on touchdown and advises when it reaches ten degrees. This frees up the landing pilot to completely focus on landing.

In the moments over the runway I kept increasing control deflection as our airspeed was decreasing, till I had full left rudder in and lots of right aileron. Then, just a hair before we touched down, inexplicably, I relaxed the aileron pressure, enough that the wings returned towards level. Oops. I don’t know how many strong crosswinds I’ve landed in, but it’s been a very long time since I’ve done such a ‘fool’ thing as this. I think that in this wind I was concerned about the wingtip and flaps, and ‘gave up’ too soon. The aviation axioms I failed to fulfill in this instance is to ‘fly the plane till every part stops moving’ – don’t stop flying the plane. In a flash, literally, I watched the runway slide over to the right fifteen feet, right as we touched down, not hard however, wings basically level, with the four main gear tires spinning up, smoking and sliding across the grooved runway surface. I had let the wind win, and it had pushed us across the runway, downwind (I don’t call it drifting).

I put the right aileron pressure back in instantly, lowered the nose to get the steering wheels on the ground, pulled the thrust levers into full reverse, applied the main wheel brakes on the rudder pedals, and muttered questioning and un-congratulatory words to myself. Steering the plane back to the centerline using the rudder pedals isn’t that difficult, once the other proper controls are applied, I relearned.

During our taxi in the tower updated that at our moment of landing the wind was now blowing at 31, gusting to 40, and I believed it. That was equivalent to a direct crosswind of 27 knots, gusting to 36, as much as we are allowed to do and as much as I want to handle in a CRJ. We parked next to the maintenance hangar, told the mechanics they could have it, and braved the gale in a short walk to the concourse to resume our scheduled day.

Landing in strong, gusty crosswinds bug piston and turbine engine pilots (especially at the lower levels of experience) both practically more than any other issue involved in flying planes. It tends to be black and white too, you either are comfortable or you aren’t. The problem if you’re not is that you have to go out in it and get exposure to the windy, gusty conditions to increase your proficiency and confidence in them. It is a major practical and mental barrier to pilot confidence and competence, and a major cause of minor incidents and accidents. Crosswind proficiency should be mastered at the lower levels of aviation and training. It takes courage to go conquer crosswinds with an instructor, and even more to do so by yourself. But when you relish the opportunity to meet the challenge and find yourself alone in the traffic pattern, battling them and ‘winning’, you enjoy a great feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction, because you know you will carry that confidence and proficiency with you the rest of your flying career.

God bless you, and thanks for reading my blog. He Loves all of us, you know!

Pilot Shortage? - on the horizon

2011-03-24T12:56:00.000-04:00

Its been over a month since I posted here. Oh, should I be ashamed? No, I've been busy with other stuff, and will continue to be. I do have a story almost ready to post, however. The logbook binder business has kept me busy and will still (they're selling!), I just trained for and passed another six month PC (yea!), I've entered pilot job hunting mode, and other major tasks await as well. Based on what my PC examiner told me and on what I've observed recently in the industry, I banged this one out though. Its worth looking at if you're a pilot today or want to be one.

Magazines articles and flight school advertisements have trumpeted it for years, but it seems a real pilot shortage in the USA and around the world is around the corner, or is 'here'.

This doesn't mean that a major domestic or international airline will hire you off the street with only your private pilot license, however. Not yet and not in the foreseeable future, anyway, but things could always change. The shortage will occur and is occurring at the lower levels of aviation, the flight instructor, charter, small plane cargo, and commuter and regional airline level.

As many aging 'baby-boomer' pilots reach mandatory retirement age (now 65) over the next 5-10 years, a great need for pilots will occur at all levels, as younger, qualified pilots replace them and create a need to hire new pilots at the lower levels. And the forecast for airline passenger flying is that it will continue to increase.

At the same time three factors have produced a low supply of new pilots. One: the high cost of civilian pilot training has discouraged many from pursuing the career. Pilot training starts are at very low levels. Two: Lower level pilot salaries and benefits discourage pilots from staying in the career or starting one. Three: Military pilots coming to the airline industry are fewer in number than in the past, because they serve longer, there are fewer of them to begin with, and more choose not to have an airline pilot career.

My contacts in the regional airline industry tell me that they are having a hard time finding pilots who are qualified and capable to complete the strenuous training involved.

Maybe you don't believe the hype, because you've seen it before. Its true that 'pilot factories' and flight schools do hype the 'pilot shortage' problem to lure new students, but the reality of a shortage is present, and I believe the problem will get worse. Don't just take my word for it. I've found a few great blog articles which expound on the truth of this shortage and the reality of what an airline career is really like.

If you want to be a professional pilot, now is the time to be training and earning your pilot certificates. With a lack of supply and the same demand, airlines will be increasing pay, benefits, and providing bonuses to attract qualified pilots. You will still need to be intelligent, have good social skills, and have good pilot skills, especially instrument skills - you will still need to be a professional. But there will be opportunities aplenty, I believe for pilots to start a career now and in the future.

The worst case scenario, for the airlines, is that so few capable and qualified pilots will be available that planes will be parked and flights will be cancelled for lack of pilots to fly them. At the regional level, larger planes will be operated than now, and the flights will be less frequent. I'm not promising that this will happen, but it could.

But something has been thrown like a wrench into an engine, to make things worse; let me explain. It started after a bad commuter turboprop crash at Buffalo, New York, on February 12, 2009. After investigation showed that both relatively inexperienced pilots exhibited poor airmanship, the FAA and Congress have raised the minimum airline pilot qualifications for the future. I support the legislation, because it will subsequently serve to increase the pay, benefits, and quality of life of pilots, and safety for the flying public. Also in the aftermath, the FAA is now attempting to make flight and duty rules more conservative, to combat fatigue and further increase the safety of airline flying.

Both laws will in effect increase the pilot shortage, because of higher pilot experience minimums required and more pilots required to cover the same amount of flying, due to more conservative (and safer) flight and duty rules.

But the airline industry and their lobbyists are aggressively fighting both of these legislative efforts. The effects of a real pilot shortage at the regional and commuter levels put even more pressure on this situation. If you're concerned about your safety on your next regional airline flight, contact your congressman! Its the American way.

Back to the 'shortage': This will take years, more than a decade to pan out. A shortage will be good for the quality of life of pilots, as wages and benefits do generally increase as demand increases and as supply decreases. It is up to airline pilots and their unions to ensure that (1) they are given a minimum of what they deserve and (2) they are given what the free market 'can afford'. The best airlines will recognize this dynamic and respond appropriately.

Airline and fractional flying requires many qualifications and sacrifices, but for those who love flying enough to tolerate and manage the disadvantages, it will still be a worthwhile career for the future.

United 93 at rest in winter

2011-02-12T22:22:00.001-05:00

I promised on twitter recently that I would post pictures I took of the final resting place of United flight 93, which was befallen by Islamic extremic terrorists on September 11, 2001. Here it is, snow covered and captured from about thirty thousand feet during a December flight I flew from Washington, DC to Detroit, Michigan.

You can plainly see the semi-circular arc swath of landscaping that has been done in site preparation work for the national memorial. Red maple trees will be planted on that semi-circle, and will surely be a striking visual landmark of the area during all seasons.

Previously I had been interested in finding the exact location of United 93, because I figured my flights pass by that area frequently, especially when flying Pittsburgh to Washington, or vice-versa. Online, I searched for the latitude and longitude coordinates, and then inputted them into the FMS (Flight Management System computer) of our CRJ. Basically, the crash site is sixty miles southeast of Pittsburgh, twenty miles south of Johnston, Pennsylvania, and about five miles east of Somerset County airport (K2G9).

On this day there were some low clouds partly covering the area, but when we passed by the moving map location of where United 93 should be, the clouds moved out of the way and I suddenly found the site out the left window in the same direction the map display showed where it would be.

On this Google Earth picture I placed the coordinates of where the aircraft impacted. Forty passengers and crew perished at this location. The famous words of Todd Beamer, "Let's Roll", had been declared. The heroic efforts of passengers to overpower the four hijackers had been attempted. The hijackers gave up on their evil primary plan, retreating to the only course of action that remained, barring surrender. And this flight, the passengers and crew aboard will be remembered always, at this memorial being built for Americans and citizens of the world over, united in the fight against extreme Islamic terrorism.

150,000 tourists a year already visit the site, and here is a nice link to a comprehensize presentation of the planning of it.

There is some controversy over the memorial design, because the shape of the semi-circular grove of trees vaguely resembles a crescent, as in Islamic crescent. I feel that this is overblown opportunism, that the topography of the site lends itself to formulating a semi-circle as is being constructed. The architect of the memorial is not another 'secret muslim'.

The ten year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks will be observed this September. I hope that Americans will be able to more honestly and accurately reflect on these events, with a more informed and balanced view. There are many questions which don't have clear answers, but that is no reason not to ask them, in these rapidly changing and tumultuous times.

God bless you, and thank you for reading my blog.

Western Kansas tells and smells

2011-01-29T23:30:00.002-05:00

I have a few memories of western Kansas worth recollecting here. Some are funny (and gross, beware), imprinted on me as some of the most surreal and sufferable moments of my flying career. In spite of what you might think of western Kansas, generally known as a dry, flat farming place in the heartland, I found that the terrain is inspiring, the sky is big, the thunderstorms are incredible, and the people are honest, warmhearted, friendly, and God fearing. A good combination, and its all accented with a western flair you won't find as much of in other parts of Kansas. I've got three stories to share. Dodge City is famous for good reasons, but on one overnight it became infamous for me; I'll get to that in a little bit, but first, a little Garden City infamy.

In the spring of 1998 I flew a 1964 Cessna 172 from Tulsa to Denver and back, stopping in Garden City, Kansas on the way there. It was a VFR only plane with a rather weak 145 Hp Continental engine with an undersized propeller. My wife was my 'co-pilot', and felt as anemic as the plane did on the second leg to Denver. It was a beautiful day, but mountain wave prevailed over western Kansas all the way to the front range. I got the plane up to 8,500 feet I think it was, slowly. Our airspeed varied by plus or minus twenty-five knots in the wave if I maintained altitude, so I rode the smooth waves 300 feet up and down and minimized the speed changes. Shannon was nauseous, but she made it there 'with the paper bag on her knee'.

A couple days later when we were ready to fly back home, Shannon accepted a dose of Dramamine from my mother, and it helped her airsickness. I accepted a large cup of coffee from my mother, before we took off from Centennial airport near Denver. I thought it was too large, but drank it like a dutiful son.

Our scheduled stop on the way back to Tulsa was Dodge City, east of Garden City, but after over an hour and a half (I think) of flying eastbound, my bladder was not cooperating. I gave Shannon the sectional, asking "is this town on the map this one ahead of us?", motioning out the window. "No, we're way back here", she responded, surprised that I couldn't quite read it. Maybe you've been there, with your gums floating, and no way to pull over to 'the side of the road', flying a small plane with both hands, praying you can hold it till you land. This was bad because now I couldn't concentrate enough even to read the map. There was now way I could hold it till Dodge City, so I made a good decision to land again at Garden City, a little before Dodge City. This was when my bladder started breathing. Not really breathing, but cycling back and forth, telling me that it could only take so much more abuse; its a strange phenomenon. Ahh, now, a little later we were on final approach, we were going to make it! After a nice landing, I was concentrating on an actual FBO ramp worker guiding us in on the ramp; I was relieved that a mess wasn't going to happen after all. However, with me distracted while parking, my bladder gave up. It issued no further warning that it had had enough: the rubber band broke and the gates cracked open, just enough to require a change of jeans. Doh! My wife was embarrassed along with myself, as I attempted to stroll nonchalantly into the FBO, covering my dark spot with another pair of jeans and underwear. Tip learned but not used on this occasion: a coffee cup or plastic bottle can be used for more than something to drink (but you need someone else to fly the plane)!

Just over two years later, in June of 2000, I found myself in western Kansas again, with a farmer from Iowa for a Captain. I was new at my first airline, Great Lakes Airlines (named after Iowa's great lakes, not the real great lakes). I had 'drank from the firehose' from February though March while getting through their ill reputed training, and was starting to feel comfortable on the line flying the 'mighty' Beechcraft 1900D "Beechliner" (even though it didn't have a bathroom). After climbing out of Denver, we were headed to Liberal first, then to the Dodge City overnight in smooth air.

Western Kansas has lots of irrigated farmland, and most of it seems to be crop circles. Not the unsolved mysteries kind, mind you, but the 'center pivot' irrigation kind. This irrigation system is a big arm that water is pumped through. It slowly sprays the field as the arm rotates about its center. Its funny, two different passengers have asked me on flights when I was a fellow passenger to Denver and other points "what are those circles on the ground"? They could hardly believe that these giant circles of brown, green, and yellow were really circularly irrigated farm fields.

On the descent into Liberal from the north I saw many of these fields up close from my perch on the right side of the cockpit. Except the sun low on the horizon, the type of wheat (I think) they were growing in the fields, and strange lights emanating up towards us all combined to make it one of the most surreal and beautiful sights I've ever witnessed as a pilot.

These circular wheat fields were a color purple. There is such a thing as purple wheat, really, even purple bread, see? I don't know if it was that, whether the golden light from the setting sun reflected that color from the soil, or a combination of the two. To cap this scene of wonderment off, the center pivot of each field had a blinking strobe light on it. In silence, my farmer turned pilot and I watched this alien world flow by while finding our way into the 'airport' at dusk. Was this an unknown, alien world we were about to touch down onto? Were these strange fields landing bases for the UFO's my previously mentioned ignorant fellow passengers seemed to suspect? No, but it was an engrossing thing to imagine, if even for a few moments. But why were there strobe lights on the center pivots of the irrigation systems?

Maybe for these reasons. The wheat harvest has an intensity unrivalled in the grain world, because wheat has a fairly limited time between ripening and spoiling. Large commercial harvesting crews attack fields with a team of large combines 24-7, they tell me. My guess is strobe lights are on these center pivots because the crop dusters (agricultural aviators) work long days to keep the wheat healthy, from early dawn to late dusk, and need to see the obstructions that the irrigation systems are. Here's a cool crop dusting video, they really skim over the crops.

Fourteen months later, I was headed toward Dodge City again, this time as a Captain. This informative link about Dodge City says that they slaughter 20,000 head of cattle a day there. Actually, there's a slaughterhouse right next to the final approach into the airport. And the corresponding odor of 'boiled blood' ("the smell of money") greeted us in August 2001 as we landed there on a 'high-speed' overnight (as we called them at Great Lakes). A high-speed is a continuous duty overnight, meaning that you never go off duty, even though you go to the hotel (most nights, most airlines). Instead of getting eight hours or more rest at the hotel, you get less than that, six if you're lucky, five or less if you're not. I don't particularly enjoy high-speed overnights, especially into Dodge City. I had done this particular short trip before, though, and had braced myself.

Braced myself for the particularly bad ~~hotel~~, no, motel we stayed in. Braced myself for the smell and the short, six hour period between our scheduled arrival and departure time. But it turned out I didn't brace myself enough. By the way, Dodge City itself is a great place to spend some time exploring the real wild west history that occurred there. I just never had time to do it myself.

I and my Italian-American First Officer were about to experience my worst overnight, ever. I had warned him about the motel car, a first generation Dodge minivan with the second coat of spray can paint on it, which we could start without a key and drive back and forth to the motel. But no one had told us about the gallon of milk someone had left in it for a few days, during the summer. The smell was awful, as bad as the boiled blood from the cows were, and the container of carpet fresh they sympathetically left for us to spread around only masked it for a few seconds, it seemed. The short ride into town was our saving grace. Gagging on the sour, spoiled milk odor, I would stick my head out the window till I couldn't stand the smell from the daily slaughter. Holding my nose didn't help because the taste was just as bad! Back and forth our heads zig-zagged till we made it to the lovely Best Western a couple of miles from the airport, a favorite of bikers and a blue collar drinkers. And it was a weekend night, as I remember.

In my room later, with the door shut, I got ready to hit the sack quickly, the alarm would buzz in about four hours. After washing up I returned to my open bedding to find the biggest cockroach I've ever seem in my life smiling up at me, on the center of my pillow. Incredulous, I managed to send it to an early death, then looked over and under the bed, and tucked in. For about five minutes, that is, before switching to the other bed, logically.

In the shower a few short hours later I was cursing my luck, not only for what we were being put through, but because the maids conveniently forgot to leave towels or washcloths for me. Actually, I was able to dry off with the lone foot towel, which they had left. Some night drunk had smashed the glass door to the motel lobby, and after checking out we carefully went back through it and said good riddance to Dodge City, holding our breath back to the airport on a prairie hill.

Its crazy what pilots go through and are willing to put up with, in order to have a career in the skies. They must love it, or they wouldn't be willing to put up with it, and this was true in my case. I was glad to get out of Great Lakes and fly an MD-80 for Vanguard Airlines for three short months in Kansas City, before they went bankrupt and shut down. But I'll always remember the sacrifices and hardships I and my family endured at Lakes, and the camaraderie, friendships, and adventure I had there in two short years. I learned a lot, gained great experience (some of which were flying mistakes I made in western Kansas) that will benefit me for the rest of my career, and essentially earned my chops. My hat is off to the 'Lakers' who continue being real 'airmen' still today.

God bless you, and thanks for reading my blog.

Guns, lately

2011-01-21T12:40:00.001-05:00

This is just a political commentary I wanted to get off my chest, skip it if you want to! I was going to include it in my next post but took it out here separately. My 'gun story': Hunters and other gun lovers types told me before the 2008 election that Obama was going to take away our gun rights. That would require a repeal and/or re-interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. I responded to all of them that I would march with them on the National Mall in Washington DC if and when that happens. And I will. But I seriously doubt an attempt to do that will be made by this President; that is just the politics of fear in action.

Yes, Saturday Night Special and Run Through the Jungle are ‘anti-gun songs’ on my current playlist. I could’ve put U2’s desire on there too I guess, but with the MLK Holiday recently, but “Pride” was a better choice. I’m not anti-gun, well, not completely. I support the 2nd Amendment, just not in a rabid, Ted Nugent, NRA type way. I’m a hunter, mostly upland birds, and I fully believe any American of sound mind has the right to own and responsibly use a firearm in certain conditions: to protect and defend yourself, your family, or livelihood while under attack or robbery, definitely; to hunt game for sport and food, definitely; to safeguard against an oppressive, totalitarian, unconstitutional federal or state government, yes also, if it comes to that. My caveats: (1) Guns should be used safely and NOT combined with alcohol and/or drug use, and out of the reach of curious children (locked up preferably or with trigger locks). Gun owners should learn how to shoot safely and effectively. (2) There’s too much knee jerk swaggering and posturing against the government by citizens with miniature arsenals, in my opinion. If ultra-right wing ‘patriots’ commit pre-emptive attacks against the government (and I won’t name names or events in the past) it’s fair to surmise that the government has the right to respond in order to maintain peace and order in our society. (3) Its also too easy for a mentally ill person to obtain a firearm, which is exactly what happened recently with Jared Lee Loughner in Tucson, Arizona. Without a legal requirement to check a gun purchaser for a history of mental illness in some way, shootings like the one in Tucson and at Virginia Tech (which left 32 humans cold and dead) will continue, my friends and fellow Americans.

New Plan, New Year

2011-01-02T21:30:00.002-05:00

Pilots are known for having 'new plans', "just in case", in the interest of safety. The FAA and the airlines require it, and the philosophy of safe flying dictates it. For example, an alternate airport for landing is required in certain forecast weather conditions (if the actual weather at the destination goes below approach minimums you might proceed to your alternate), and a specified fuel reserve at the destination is always required (if airborne delays occur or if fuel burn is higher than planned). In case of engine failure enroute, a diversion airport is a subject frequently on the mind of pilots, especially single engine airplane pilots. When we fly an instrument approach there is always a missed approach procedure associated with it which we plan on flying, if we don't have the runway in sight at the end of that approach. Backup plans, and backup plans to the backup plans, are important to aviation safety. And 'new plans' aren't just part of what's required, it's one ever present part of a professional (or professionally minded) pilot's thought processes. Airline pilots even have 'new plans' for engine failure on takeoff roll and right at takeoff.

In the midst of the Christmas season, full of promise and surprise, we got a surprise of our own, which required a new plan. On a visual approach into Washington National airport, we were given some indications this was about to happen, and we were prepared, somewhat. But in what transpired after that, we (at least I did) experienced for a moment a feeling of being in the wrong place, at the wrong time. The phrase "airline flying is hours and hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror" comes to mind. Actually I don't think they were referring to short haul, east coast USA flying, but the quote still fits somewhat.

It was a week before Christmas, and we were finishing our four day trip. After landing in DC we were scheduled to fly to Norfolk, Virginia, and back, then go home. On the way in from Detroit, the first flight of our day, I was flying a "Mount Vernon visual approach" up the Potomac river to runway 01. Washington National airport had a clear runway (no snow or ice on it) but braking action reports (good-fair for most of the runway but poor at the end). This was odd, but there had been snow and ice recently on the airport. Lately the asphalt runway there seemed to have a sheen on it, I guess leftover from deice applications to the runway. More so, Washington Regan National is built on landfill right next tot the Potomac river, so it can be surmised that moisture from the ground near the river easily is drawn out to the runway surface.

A picture of Washington Reagan National airport from southwest of the airport looking to the northeast. The green areas north of the Potomac river and bridges are the National mall, where the national monuments and prohibited airspace area P-56 are.

We turned final up the river to the north, and I commanded flaps and gear down, and
slowed our plane down to approach speed, about 140 knots. Approach control had had us at 160 knots until five miles out, where my good First Officer contacted the control tower.  DCA tower said to slow immediately to final approach speed (which we were already at), and had an Embraer E-170 jet "line up and wait" (the new phraseology for "taxi into position and hold").

We were waiting for clearance to land now on runway 01, the long runway at DC aligned towards the north, beyond which is the Jefferson, Lincoln, and Washington Memorials, the National Mall, the White House, and the airspace designated as P-56 which encompassed them all. It is simply the most important prohibited airspace in the nation, and we are to avoid penetrating it at all costs. For a map of it, click on the "Mount Vernon visual approach" link above. Our jet was about two and a half miles and one minute away from the runway, and my good FO and I had the same thoughts: we might be going around soon.

Shortly after the jet in front of the E-170 took off and made the left turn up the Potomac river to the northwest to avoid the previously mentioned P-56 airspace, the control tower cleared the E-170 for takeoff. We waited, the control tower waited, and then we waited some more. The jet was stalling on the runway, not moving, I said out loud they probably had gotten deiced and were doing an engine clearing procedure before they released their brakes and started accelerating down the runway for takeoff. We have a procedure for this as well, for our jet it takes twenty seconds at 'N1 60% engine RPM' before we can release brakes. It is to clear out any residual deice fluid that might have made its way into the engines during the deicing process.

Finally the black (really a dark navy blue colored fuselage) jet started moving. It was going to be close. We couldn't go any slower and the tower had not asked us to do s-turns to increase the spacing between this departing jet and ours, landing behind them on the same runway. The autopilot was off, had been off, and I was concentrating on maintaining alignment with the runway, the proper glidepath on the glideslope, and our target airspeed. What concentration I had left I was using to scan up the runway at the now fast accelerating jet in front of us. From the beginning of this episode, I thought they would have enough clearance from us, many times when its close the jet in front of you breaks ground when you're 100-300 feet above the ground and you continue to a landing, but this time we heard the "100" callout from the radio altimeter, and I focused completely on landing the plane.

But this time I wouldn't have a chance. Just at that moment the control tower commanded "Express 3784, go around". The new plan was given.  My FO replied to the tower, "go-around, Express 3784. As I pushed the GA (go-around) button on the side of the engine throttle lever handles, pulled back on the control column to raise the nose to match the pitch attitude commanded by the flight director on the attitude display (the PFD), and pushed the thrust levers forward to the appropriate position for takeoff thrust, all simultaneously and by rote training and reflex built in, I wondered one thing: which way are we going to go?

I let this thought distract me too much, I admit. But I'd never been in this situation before, at Washington Reagan National Airport, with the infamous P-56 right in front of us two miles ahead, and another jet taking off right below us.  It was so close that just before I started the turn (which I'll get to in a moment) I could see its nose pitching skyward from the ground below us as our glareshield (dashboard) blocked our view of him.

(Another view of the the White House and the Washington and Jefferson Memorials, with Washington National airport on the other side of the river beyond. This view is looking south.)

If we'd had a few more hundred feet of clearance, we would've landed, but it was a good decision by the control tower. With the braking action as it was, if that jet in front of us had aborted takeoff while we were landing, it would've made a bad situation.

As I was pitching the plane up and looking for the one below us, "Go-around, flaps 8" was said, and my good FO retracted the flaps. Actually, she is the one that said it, while I was engrossed with the traffic conflict blossoming right in front of us and wondering what would happen next. You see, the published missed approach procedure at DCA from runway 1 is to basically turn left to the northwest while climbing out and avoiding P-56. Logically, we couldn't turn to the northwest because that's where the other jet was going, and we couldn't go straight ahead because we'd penetrate P-56 and cause a bunch of bad paperwork, in the least.

I repeated the callout I was supposed to have made in the first place, "go-around, flaps 8", and heard the tower say, for the second time but for the first time for my brain, "start your right turn now to heading zero-nine-zero (090 degrees), climb and maintain two thousand". A new plan for the new plan had been given. I smoothly but quickly rolled in a turn towards the right, while answering my FO's callout "positive rate" with "gear up, speed mode". She had already selected the heading bug to 090 heading and selected heading mode on the flight guidance panel. I hoped that our turn radius would keep us out of P-56. We had had a slight tailwind on final approach, but by the time I rolled us wings level headed towards the east (090 degrees), I could see the US Capitol building off my left shoulder, at least one mile away, indicating that we were clear of P-56.

But there wasn't time to revel in our safety or wag fingers (at myself) at missed callouts, we were now above 'acceleration altitude' and needed to 'clean up and speed up', perform checklists, talk to approach control on the radio, and brief the passengers on what just happened. It all happens pretty fast when both engines are turning and we do it only a handful of times a year, but its what we are trained to do and expected to do well; usually its an intense but routine experience. And actually, my job was just to fly the plane, the autopilot was on again soon, and my good FO was getting everything done in short order. She was irritated because approach control kept asking the reason for the go around (as if it was our fault perhaps?), and they could tell she was irritated with her response. We had a normal landing the second try, with the tower leaving plenty of room for the jet in front of us to break ground.

After the engines were shut down at our parking spot, I apologized to my FO for missing that callout, and thanked her for covering me. I had let complacency sneak up on me; as I said had never been in this situation before, but its not the best excuse. I had talked about what would happen in the situation with other FO's on previous occasions, I believe this situation is commonly talked about by flight crews who frequent DCA and ponder the 'what ifs'.  But for some reason I didn't think we would really, really go around, and consequently I wasn't as mentally prepared for it as I should've been. If I had been completely prepared for it, I would have briefed that we should expect to have a right turn on the go-around due to P-56 being in our way straight ahead and the other aircraft being in our way on the standard missed approach procedure up the river to the left.

"Complacency kills" is a much used phrase in military aviation, but its application in civilian use is very much warranted. Many jet accidents have incurred loss of life with complacency being declared as contributing factors by accident investigators. I know that I'll be making this possible go-around briefing when traffic is trying to takeoff in front of us when I land in DC on runway 1 from now on. If you'd like to comment on this event, please feel free to do so.

Now, this being a New Year, many folks have New Year's resolutions, its a tradition the world over. A new year affords a new plan, and time for making promises and goals that we will do this and won't do that, that we will love and serve others better than we have in the past, and will take better care of ourselves and our loved ones.

But we fail. We make resolutions, promises, and goals, then try to make new habits routine, and sometimes they do stick, but often they fail, eventually. Where does that leave us when we fail? In regards to our standing with God, where does that leave us when we fail?

I'd like to take this moment to encourage you (as well as myself when I read this later) that if you call Jesus Christ your Savior, you have an amazing fringe benefit. When you fail, when you slip up, when you take your eyes off of the prize, when you let others or yourself down, basically, when you sin, take heart! Because God promises this, from Second Corinthians 5:17-19 and 5:21:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

"In Christ" (being spiritually connected to the body of believers in Jesus Christ), you are a new creation! Like the old year has gone and the new year has come, the old person has gone and the new person has come. Its a time to start over, a time to go-around and try again. Believers aren't meant to continue in their old ways, they are meant to glorify God with their thoughts, actions, and their lives. And the Holy Spirit, in concert with a believer's will submitted to its leading, gives the desire and power to live as a new creation of God.

Paraphrasing verse 21, Jesus, who never sinned, was made sin for us (by dying on the cross), so that through faith in Him we can be called righteous by God, (not by our own good deeds or works). (See, turning to the right was and is a good thing!). We are justified and saved by grace, through faith (Romans 3-4) as Abraham was.  Its a marvelous mystery, but true; read Romans 3-4 if you'd like to know more.

If you believe in Jesus and can call him your personal Savior, but aren't happy with the way you've been living, God wants to meet you where you're at!  And that is one of the best things about Jesus, He IS a God who meets people where they're at - at their greatest point of need.

With God's grace in our lives and a justification/salvation by faith, not by works, believers can do as many go-arounds and do-overs as needed to get through this life, with the assurance that we will spend eternity with God in heaven. Knowledge of our true nature of salvation and the value of the work Jesus accomplished on the cross and in the resurrection results in believers becoming committed to the Lord, in just a fraction of the measure in return, that Jesus is committed to us. My prayer for you is that you experience more of the Love and fellowship of our Lord, and that you have a better and blessed 2011. Happy New Year! God Bless you, and thanks again for reading my blog.

Rethinking Christmas

2010-12-25T01:41:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas everyone! "Peace on earth, and good will to men". I just finished a four day trip this Christmas Eve in DC and am going home tomorrow. We were about to leave Charlotte this evening, with the door closed and pushback clearance received, when the tug driver motioned me to look at the CSA (customer service agent-gate agent) who was waving at us and making the motion 'can you take one more passenger'? A late passenger was frantic and wiping eyes, desperately wanting to get on this last flight of the night to Washington National airport before Christmas. Actually we had five minutes before our scheduled departure time, but the flight had been closed.

I'm a softie for late passengers on the last flight of the night, especially on Christmas eve, so I waved my hand all friendly like and she was on the plane soon, after our Flight Attendent opened the door. It felt good to help a late passenger get to her Christmas desitination, it was a no brainer really. We pushed back into the night and had a nice flight to DC, where my 1,500 hour, just off of IOE, new reserve pilot First Officer 'Ben' flew a smooth, on glideslope approach into DC's runway 1.

Everything was looking great until at 100 feet AGL the scene outside showed my eyes that the jet's descent rate virtually stopped, or got reduced to half what it was the moment before, anyway. The 100' indicated on the radio altitude tape seemed to hover there as the airspeed started dropping a little too fast. Two seconds had gone by and it was enough for me to say (attempted gently but firmly) "lower the nose a little". He may have noticed the problem at the same time I said it, but by the time I did, action needed to be taken, to recover or to go around. He did relax back pressure on the yoke, the nose lowered, the airspeed recovered some and we continued our descent until he reduced thrust to idle at 50 feet AGL and flared the plane a moment later. We touched down a little firmly, but in my judgement only because Ben didn't flare quite enough for our energy condition, which was a little less than normal at that point. I told him taxiing in that I thought we had plenty of energy left for him to flare a little more. He was disappointed, but I told him not to worry about it, he has just over 100 hours in the plane, and at that experience level it's harder to see and sense when the descent has been arrested too high above the runway.

I've seen this situation before, and have no qualms at all about coaching new pilots to a safe landing. When a pilot takes on landings in a new airplane, everything changes: the view, the speed, the pitch response, and in a jet it can be surprisingly sensitive, especially when the thrust setting is not reduced for landing (in our jet down to about 50 feet AGL). It takes a few landings rethink how to land a new plane.

Pre-Christmas this season, I've been reading Words of Hope daily devotionals, a great ministry. One of the writers, Dr. Verlyn Verbrugge, has got me rethinking the Christmas story. I'd like to share three days of his devotionals about the Christmas story, I hope he doesn't mind. Verlyn is a retired Pastor who has written a book about the same subject, titled "A Not-So-Silent Night: The Unheard Story of Christmas and Why It Matters". I haven't yet, but I plan on reading his very interesting, very human take on the traditional Christmas story.

For background on the most extensive Christmas story (the birth of Jesus Christ), see the gospel of Luke chapters 1-2 at ESV Bible online.

Verlyn's December 19, 2010 Words of Hope devotional: Mary's shame

More than a million babies are born in the U.S. each year to mothers who are not married. That’s nearly 40 percent of all births. Today there is little social stigma attached to these women.

But that’s not the way it was in Bible times. Ancient culture was an “honor-shame” culture, where certain situations – one of which was getting pregnant out of wedlock – caused a family deep shame. The father of the family was expected to take some drastic action to restore the family honor.

Mary knew that what the angel was announcing to her would cause her deep pain. An unmarried virgin – conceiving a child! How could she explain? Who would believe her story, that her pregnancy involved no sexual immorality?

The nativity passages from Scripture suggest that only two people believed Mary’s pregnancy was divine: Elizabeth and (eventually) Joseph. Since we read nothing in the Bible about Mary’s parents being supportive, is it possible that they insisted that Mary leave their home until she “came clean”? I think that is possible; it would undoubtedly have protected the family’s honor.

In any case, Mary’s submissive statement to Gabriel, “May it be to me as you have said,” must have terrified her. But she vowed to be God’s humble servant, regardless of the cost.

Verlyn's December 21, 2010 Words of Hope devotional: Joseph's shame

Joseph was engaged to Mary and undoubtedly looked forward to his upcoming wedding. But then a message came to him: “Your fiancee is pregnant.” And Joseph knew he was not the father of Mary’s baby.

Joseph had to take action to retain his own honor; he had to end his relationship with Mary – and quickly. He could either increase Mary’s disgrace by divorcing her publicly or do so quietly; he was planning on the latter.

But then an angel came to him in a dream. He assured Joseph that Mary’s story about her baby being God’s baby was true, and the angel instructed him to take Mary as his wife. Now Joseph would share in Mary’s shame. Regardless of what he might say to anyone, his actions would testify to them: “That baby is mine.”

Oh, the stares that Joseph must have gotten, the whispering behind his back, the snickering of friends. In one short night, Joseph’s entire life was altered. That one dream changed all his other dreams. But he was obedient to God’s will for his life. In spite of the pain that lay ahead, Joseph did what the angel had commanded; he believed Mary, knowing that God had called him to protect her.

Verlyn's December 22, 2010 Words of Hope devotional: Pledged to be married

Joseph is headed to Bethlehem with Mary, but they are not married. And Mary is pregnant! What a story! What a scandal!

In the ancient world, an unmarried man and woman were never to be alone together, not even for a moment. Joseph and Mary spend at least seven days together, traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehem – engaged but not married.

And guess what? Mary did not have to go to Bethlehem for the census. Ancient censuses were either for military purposes or for taxation – never for just counting people. Neither reason applied to Mary. And Mary is nine months pregnant! Imagine her walking (or riding on a donkey) for nearly a hundred miles, up and down dusty roads, about ready to give birth.

Why wasn’t Mary at home, perhaps with her parents? One real possibility is that Mary’s parents had rejected her and her story. Only Joseph believed Mary, and God had charged him with protecting her. God uses this situation of pain and rejection to bring Joseph and Mary together to Bethlehem, in order to fulfill God’s prophecy through Micah (Micah 5:2). Yes, God can and does use the pain in our lives to fulfill his purposes. Christmas assures us of that.

I hope you have a greater, deeper understanding of Christmas after considering Dr. Verlyn Verbrugge's writings. The first Christmas was not as joyful and happy as our popular culture makes it seem, even as our 'church culture' makes it seem sometimes.

I wish you the best for this holiday season, reader. Merry Christmas and may God Bless you! In the words of Mac Powell, "Hallelujah, the King is here, given for all men, for today the Holy Son of God is born in Bethlehem!"

The "mystery missile"

2010-11-17T11:59:00.000-05:00

The “mystery missile” from November 8th last week is still taking off. In spite of delayed but reasonable explanations from the Department of Defense, the FAA, NORAD, NASA, and other knowledgeable experts and bloggers, rumors are persisting that a missile was launched off the California coast by an unknown party. Guessers say ‘it’ was launched by an Asian country’s Navy, or accidentally by the US Navy. And ‘they’ say it’s not an ordinary missile, that it’s a big one, an ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile). The conspiracy theorists explain that it’s reasonable to suspect that the Chinese or North Korean Navy are behind it, taking advantage of the timing of President Obama being out of the country on an Indian and Asian commerce tour.

When scientific, factual, and circumstantial evidence don’t all together cast doubt on an ‘official government story’, then one should plausibly acknowledge the possible reality of the matter, no matter how temping or beneficial (even politically) the theory may be. (I’m speaking to you, Barack Hussein Obama ‘born in Kenya and a secret Muslim’ people.)

The mystery missile is really a UPS McDonnell Douglass MD-11, flying as UPS902 from Honolulu to Ontario, California (a Los Angeles area airport), and I’ll explain why I am completely convinced of it here, with a lot of help from two very good websites, Liem Bahneman's blog 'Time to Think' and Mick West's contrailscience.com.

The first few times I saw the pictures and video the TV helicopter shot of the ‘mystery missile’ I thought that there was a chance it was a missile. My wife would say there was a forty-five minute period when I was convinced of it, too. ("He can't resist a good conspiracy!") The supposed exhaust trail was fatter at the bottom, it made a vertically arching path, and the ‘glow’ from the rocket plume was visible at the bottom of the perceived missile, high in the sky. However, all these appearances are explainable, and they will be taken on one by one.

We all know that the earth is not only curved, it’s a sphere. Let’s think about what that means for a moment. A spherical earth (globe) means that when viewing objects from the ground or the sky, optical illusions are possible. Things that might appear to be straight from different viewpoints (a road, a coastline, a ridge, a contrail) aren’t actually straight at all, they’re curved around the earth. The UPS MD-11 appears to be moving away from the viewer, when in fact it’s moving toward the helicopter. In both of these blogs you can view many pictures, some of even the flight in question itself, which show this phenomenon and tracks of the actual flights, based on GPS and radar data.

The contrail appears to be vertical, but it's an optical illusion. It's a horizontal contrail curved around the earth, produced by a jet flying eastbound at 37,000 feet above sea level. Contrailscience overflow website has excellent explanations of this.

By experience, I knew that a sun which has already set on the ground could illuminate an object in the sky, because at altitude the earth’s 'dipping' horizon can be seen a farther distance from an object in the sky than it is on the ground. Investigating this recently, I found out that the horizon actually drops eight inches for every mile travelled on the surface of the earth. After ~~crunching the numbers~~ googling websites that means that for a jet at 37,000 feet, the horizon (or where the sun will set and not shine) is 235 miles away, compared to only 55 miles away for a helicopter at 2,000 feet above the ground. Why is the 'glow' an orange reflection instead of white, you might ask. Even at altitude the sun, low above the horizon, is still orange, so the reflection it makes off an aircraft will be orange to an observer far below as well.

How did the contrail look fatter at the ‘bottom’ where if it was a jet it should be thinner and dissipating? It spread out and expanded with time, the most recent portions of the contrail were thinner. I've read elsewhere that the weather conditions that day over the ocean were perfect for contrails to form and linger for a long time, and that the contrails were less likely to form over land. Contrailscience has great pictures which show that UPS902 stopped forming contrails as it passed closer to land. A missile would leave an exhaust trail far into the sky vertically. The picture below is from there.

Many trained observers said the ‘missile’ appeared to be moving slower than normal, so they surmised that it was an ICBM. It was slower than normal because it was a subsonic jet moving horizontally, as explained before.

Some have questioned that if it’s a jet, then why aren’t two contrails visible? The MD-11 has three engines (one in the tail), which produces three contrails spaced closer together than in a jet with two engines, and because of the vast distance from the camera to the jet, three contrails can’t be made out by the camera or the naked eye.

Finally, our very capable friends have also found satellite images of the contrail made by UPS902 over the Pacific Ocean as it approached the southern California coastline.

There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that this was UPS flight 902, an MD-11 flying from Honolulu to Ontario, California. However, I can certainly understand how tempting it is to suspect it was a missile, after looking at the pictures and video. Conspiracy theorists, shift your focus to something more plausible, like whether JFK's murder was a conspiracy and who was responsible. November 22nd will be the 37th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy, and the subject is still worthy of investigating and pondering.

I'd like to send a good round of thanks to Liam Bahneman and Mick West for their very informative and proving blogs on the 'mystery missile'. Bravo guys!

I love my country. Thanks for reading my blog, and God Bless you.

The 'civil' in civilization

2010-11-15T13:26:00.007-05:00

On a recent four day trip I was flying with a fellow Christian, a Baptist from Tennessee. He’s a good guy and a solid Pilot, with a great work ethic and a sensible attitude. We didn’t really connect much until we shared our faith stories with each other; there was some difference between us when we talked politics a little before. He didn’t say so, but seemed surprised that I identified myself as a democrat, was conservative on personal moral issues, and was an evangelical Christian. Hearing his views on things it was clear he was a politically conservative republican. Our encounter was a good demonstration, I think, that God is neither a republican nor a democrat. If Jesus came back tomorrow he would be not be a member of any political party.

At 6:25 AM the last morning of the trip we were ready to push back from the gate in a dark, but dawning Greensboro, North Carolina. My good First Officer was trying to get a word in to ground control, but the frequency was being taken up by an intense back and forth discussion between the ground controller and a Cessna pilot. The Cessna Pilot was requesting to ‘go fly IFR approaches under VFR’, but the Controller didn’t like his terminology, not at all. Their banter quickly turned into a pretty heated argument.

It went something along the lines like this (Cessna pilot in bold italics): “We’d like to do some IFR approaches under VFR.” “You can’t do that unless you have an instrument flight plan, do you have one on file?” “No, we can do it, I’d like to fly a few local IFR approaches in VFR, I don’t need a flight plan.” “Now, you’re confusing me here, and don’t go getting an attitude now.” “I don’t have an attitude; we just want to fly some approaches locally.” “You can’t fly IFR approaches without an instrument clearance, and I don’t see a flight plan on file for you. Flying practice instrument approaches under VFR is different than what you’re asking for, is that what you want?” “Yes, we want to fly practice IFR approaches locally under VFR.”

Shortly after that another controller took over, it seemed the one involved in the argument was taking a break. The Cessna taxied out with a clearance and so did we, appreciating the glowing horizon that promised an absolutely beautiful sunrise that was to come. We didn’t stop along the way and rolled onto the runway and ‘Scott’ advanced the thrust levers smoothly for takeoff. Our jet was light and accelerated quickly on the smooth, new runway 23R. I glanced at the aircraft moving on the taxiway parallel to the runway, I assumed it was the single engine Cessna that was involved in this early morning dustup. There was also something else, an airport vehicle, a white sedan with yellow lights flashing, moving at high speed behind the Cessna, trying to catch up to it. I think it’s a solid assumption that it was the ground controller, wanting to resolve the conflict he had with the pilot. I see no other reason for an airport vehicle to be doing 50 MPH down a taxiway at the crack of dawn, especially with what we heard go down on the frequency.

I hope he treated the pilot with respect and vice-versa. Technically the Cessna Pilot was using the wrong terminology; you can’t be cleared to fly ‘IFR approaches’ without having an IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) flight plan and clearance. But a pilot can fly PRACTICE instrument approaches under VFR (Visual Flight Rules) without an IFR flight plan; the meat of the matter here is explained in the FAA AIM (Aeronautical Information Manual, section 4-3-21): "Pilots not on IFR flight plans desiring practice instrument approaches should always state `practice' when making requests to ATC."

I feel the slight lack of respect the Pilot showed for the controller, combined with his improper use of terms, tripped the controller over the edge. Maybe he had a bad day on the night shift and was irritable. On the other hand, I also believe he knew what the pilot was asking for and once he felt he was getting an attitude of entitlement from the pilot, he wouldn’t play along with what he suspected that he wanted. In fact, the pilot was entitled to service from the controller, his taxes (and ours) provide his income.

We’re losing our civility in our civilization, it seems. It’s sad, and it scares me sometimes. We’re more connected to other humans online with social networks, to our ‘friends’ on Facebook and to our ‘followers’ on twitter and other networks, but in that process we seem to be losing the ability and will to engage civilly with others we disagree with in conversation and debate. As we get more friends online we seem to have fewer close, personal friends. This is happening in conjunction with a further polarization in politics nationally and locally, which the media, especially cable news and talk radio, have seemed to fan the flames with as entertainment has been integrated into the partisan news and opinion experience.

Shifting to a similar item in the news, I was disappointed with the way the South Fulton, Tennessee ‘Fire Dept.’ responded to Gene Cranick’s 911 call asking them to put out the fire on his rural property recently as well. It seems he hadn’t paid the $75 annual fee to the fire department for fire services (instead of having a tax there it is an optional service, the phrase ‘pay to spray’ is coined from this). Gene told the operator on the phone that he forgot to pay it, that he would pay anything, just come and put the fire out. They said no, and the Fire Chief is on record saying that if they put it out for him then no one would pay the fee. How’s that for optimism and faith in your fellow man (or fellow Tennesseans)? I’ve learned that this attitude is a part of the politically oriented right wing of Libertarianism, which I obviously disagree with. One of the more popular supposed Libertarians is Rand Paul, the newly elected Kentucky senator.

The South Fulton, Tennessee Fire Department did show up at Gene Cranick’s mobile home though, to put out the grass fire on his neighbor’s property, who had also called 911. He had paid the $75 fee. His neighbor held out his checkbook in his hand and attempted to pay the Fire Department the fee for Gene, but his gesture was rebuffed by the Fire Chief on site. It was reported that firemen were shedding tears in the truck as Gene’s home burned to the ground, while four family pets died inside. They were not allowed to do their job. I simply ask, how is this policy maintaining the civil in civilization?

I have a few questions also. Was Mr. Cranick sent a notice in the mail that he would not get a response from the fire department if his property caught fire? If so, how many notices? It’s customary for multiple notices to be sent to a resident/customer before the electricity and/or gas is turned off, it’s a matter of ethics for the utility provider, I believe. On the other hand, playing the other side, did Mr. Cranick really ‘forget’ or was he just trying to save a little money? Apparently he and his wife both forgot, and they had paid it previously. What percentage of rural households in this ‘pay to spray’ area have paid the fee? Why didn’t the fire department have a pre-planned and signed for “billing agreement” with future, possible users of their services who haven’t ‘paid to spray’? He told them he would pay anything, why didn’t they take him at his word and bill him later? Why did they choose to have an optional plan instead of a regular $75 tax? Many questions, but it’s justified. What if humans were inside the house, would the fire department have sprayed then? (They said they would) There are better ways to manage our civilization. If such a policy is to be enacted, let’s have a little more faith in your fellow man, can we?

Pessimism applied to social policy can get ugly, optimism in human nature and faithfulness in serving others for the common good works better, in spite of a few taking advantage of the system; there can be better oversight for these situations. Living ‘under grace’ is better than living ‘under the law’. This doesn’t mean one is exempt from the law, however, it means a measure of grace and mercy should still be applied. To explain my sentiments a little more, it bugs me that some who call themselves Christians, who should hold ‘New Covenant’ ideals (New Testament teaching from Jesus' death on the cross onwards) don’t wish to apply much of that sort of thinking as philosophy towards how modern government should function.

Let’s carry this ‘pay to spray’ application out to other areas and visualize what it looks like. Many citizens are upset that the government will be requiring them to have health insurance in the future, in spite of the fact that this policy was also supported by at least one republican presidential candidate in 2008 (Tommy Thompson and Mitt Romney). Out of principle, they don’t want the government telling them what they have to do, overlooking the fact that most all states have laws requiring you to have auto insurance, and citizens don’t complain about that. Going without health insurance intentionally, just out of opposition to the ‘government’s oppression’ of you, makes the high cost of healthcare even higher when more uninsured show up at the hospitals and clinics.

In a Libertarian run, cash strapped society, one who chooses not to purchase health insurance might lawfully and legally be refused care at the doctor or hospital after showing up with a car accident injury, an illness, disease, or other condition. (Currently there is a federal law which requires everyone to be treated in emergency rooms, regardless of their ability to pay, but this could theoretically change.) “No health insurance? I’m sorry, by law we can’t treat you here, step outside, you’re bleeding on the carpet”. Free health clinics would still exist, but they can only do so much good for patients with untreated disease and/or terminal illnesses. A Libertarian philosophy based health care system would produce self-imposed death panels for some of our citizens who choose not to buy health insurance (even though they have the means), and that’s not the America I want to live in.

God bless you, and thanks for reading my blog.

1st Human powered Ornithopter flight!

2010-10-28T20:12:00.001-04:00

I'd like to give a BIG shout out, congratulations, and standing ovation to the University of Toronto Aeronautical Engineering team of students, led by Todd Reichert, for their outstanding achievement recently.

Leonardo DaVinci dreamed of it, and made famous sketches of it. Greek myths of it (Icarus and Daedalus) have inspired the imaginations of humans for thousands of years. Many others, some infamously memorialized in grainy black and white footage, have failed in attempting it. Even TV commercials have been made depicting it lately. Countless times, humans have daydreamed of soaring like the birds while gazing at them on a nice summer day. Not just flying like the birds, really FLYING like the birds: silently flapping wings and defying gravity, like the birds do.

See this funny video below for some of the more infamous actual attempts long ago.

The study of birds and how they fly is called Ornithology, and wacky but very smart engineers/pilots have been chasing this dream for the last twenty years with a committed zealousness. A tightly focused and committed group of ornithopter junkies have existed on the Internet, pursuing their cause, while gaining knowledge and community together. As a result, you can now buy any number of remote controlled ornithopters, or flapping winged remote controlled 'birds'.

About four-five years ago I had a period when I was all gaga myself about designing and creating a human powered ornithopter. In my spare moments while commuting and on overnights, I spent time sketching human powered ornithopters, and thinking and reading about ornithology. I even told a First Officer or two about my dreams (carefully, it's very easy to be labelled a crackpot in this realm!) I fantasized about getting a team together and working on it during our spare time, meeting during the summer to build and experiment. Sketches shown to a pilot when I was commuting in the jumpseat was about as far as it went. I will say, however, that two features of my design ideas have appeared in form on the aircraft successfully flown recently: a high wing, drooping fuselage design, and a rowing, leg pressing motion by the pilot used to flap the wings.

Another University of Toronto team have previously had a successful flight of a powered manned ornithopter, and now, this team led by Aeronautical Engineering PhD candidate Todd Reichert, achieved successful and sustained human powered ornithopter flight multiple times. Although the 'Snowbird' was towed into the air by a car each time, it can be seen that once the aircraft starts flapping, it sustains flight, slightly dipping between each downstroke.

I believe he would have flown longer a longer time and distance, but they were doing it on a grass strip and trees and obstacles were in the way beyond the end of the runway, also on numerous occasions control cables broke and prevented the plane from flapping wings further.

From Canada's National Post: Canadian student pilots first ‘ornithopter’

by Linda Nguyen

A Canadian university student has become the first person ever to pilot a human-powered “wing-flapping” airplane.

Todd Reichert, an engineering graduate student and PhD candidate at the University of Toronto, accomplished the feat when he flew the aircraft “Snowbird” for 19.3 seconds on Aug. 2 at the Great Lakes Gliding Club in Tottenham, Ont.

The 42-kg plane made from carbon fibre, balsa wood and foam, travelled 145 metres at an average speed of 25.6 kilometres per hour during the flight.

“Our original goal was to complete this sort of, original aeronautical dream, to fly like a bird,” said 28-year-old Reichert on Wednesday. “The idea was to fly under your own power by flapping your wings.”

The flight, which was witnessed by a member of the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI), was set to be officially confirmed as record-breaking next month by the governing body.

The group stayed quiet about the record for nearly two months in order to get the data finalized, he said.

The four-year project, a brainchild of Reichert and student Cameron Robertson, was worked on by 30 students, including some from France and the Netherlands.

The plane, with a wingspan of 32 metres, was powered by Reichert, who petalled with his legs, pulling down the wings to flap. He had to endure a year-long exercise regime to bulk up on muscle and lose nearly 10-kg so he could fly the aircraft.

“Thousands of people have tried to do this for hundreds of years,” said Reichert. “To be honest, I don’t think it’s really set in yet that I’m the one who has been successful. I was pushing with everything I had. When I finally let go and landed, I was hit with a breadth of excitement. It was pretty wild.”

Reichert went through 65 practice flights, and he said the aircraft will probably never be flown again.

The students are attempting to get it into the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa.

The FAI is a non-governmental and non-profit organization which aims to further aeronautical and astronautical activities worldwide.

Congratulations again to Todd Reichert, Cameron Robertson, and the rest of the team at the University of Toronto for your magnificent achievement! For more information on their Snowbird, including interesting technical data on the engineering behind flapping winged flight, see their ornithopter website.

"Cali-Triplet-cation!"

2010-10-03T22:17:00.001-04:00

I’m originally from Oklahoma, but have always been drawn to California. A few weekends ago we had a great time after I let myself be drawn there again with my triplet sister, when we met up in Dallas and flew to LA to visit my triplet brother and his family. Yep, you heard that right, I’m a triplet, there are ‘two others like me’. Well, not a whole lot like me, but all three of us have similarities: we’re all fairly easy going, fun loving, and still have plenty of ‘Okie’ in us.

Before I go on, you might want to know how it happened. Us three, I mean. The way I tell it, the Holy Spirit just made the fertility pills Mom was taking work really well. Regardless of your take on why/how conception times three occurred, it did and rocked Mom and Dad’s world, big time. My parents raised three different kids quite well, at the same time. They had their hands full, more than I know, but Dad says ‘I was easy to work with’, thanks. To me, the fact that all three of us still call Jesus our Lord and Savior shows that Mom and Dad did the Christian faith upbringing thing right.

This was our 41st, and we had two-thirds of us together last year, so to get the last third we came to Chris this year. He and his family live in a Glendale, California suburb, which is a Burbank suburb, which is an LA suburb. It just keeps on going and going in 'SoCal'.

After finishing a trip in Washington on a Friday at noon, I jumpseated on a jet to “big D” instead of towards home. Once at DFW airport I had plenty of time to reminisce while waiting for my sister to join me from Wichita. Together we got seats (separately, unfortunately) and flew on a long, silver “AA” bird

westbound into the night, towards, Burbank, California.

I and my family have spent plenty of time at DFW ‘non-reving’, or flying non-revenue standby, while growing up when my mother worked for American Airlines in the 80’s and 90’s. These were days when I was all gaga (before lady gaga) about flying an MD-80 or something bigger for American, enough to write poetry about it. I remember less crowded flights, meals in coach (apple stuffed and rolled pancakes for breakfast) and smokers lighting up soon after takeoff, cigarette and lighter in hand (and use sitting next to them). It was stressful, but exciting, this non-reving, waiting patiently until all the paying passengers got on, not knowing whether you got a seat till the last minute, then scrambling on the plane in victory or making plans for the next flight in defeat. Looking back it was good training for the two leg commute and drive I endure now!

It was both before and after I started flight training in ‘85 (6.5 hours) and ‘88 (private pilot training). American ruled DFW (and Delta to a lesser extent) than compared to today when it now seems they have fewer flights, it could be that it just seems that way. McDonnell Douglass was still a vaunted and powerful name in airliners, and Airbus got a turned up nose reaction from us, like a snooty French reaction to American tourists. DFW still has that huge but friendly feel to it, with a little boastful attitude thrown in, a lot like the Texas that it is located in.

It was great to see my sister and talk with her hanging out in the aisle during the flight to California. She’s been very busy because her school teaching has started again, and as a special-ed teacher, it‘s a tough position to do well. Add raising three boys and numerous small dogs to the mix and she was ready to take a break. Together with my red haired brother Chris (Kim and I have brown hair) and his family we were going to celebrate our B-Day with a laid back SoCal attitude, in non-Hollywood style.

After we started our descent I settled in for a view out the window. LA’s downtown and Dodger Stadium lights rapidly slid by as the guys up front were trying to make our MD-80 “slow down and go down” on arrival to Burbank. A “marine layer” of low clouds and fog I could see below us from my window was draping over the rest of LA from the far side of downtown towards the coast, covering up the colossal LAX airport. Even with the clouds hiding the rest of the city, you could tell that LA still lives large. It’s still an incredibly huge place in terms of area, urban sprawl, and humanity. I then saw the dimly lit ridges of the Hollywood Hills below and knew a steep descent was to follow into Burbank beyond, with “the boards out” (flight spoilers extended).

After a fine arrival with an expected firm touchdown and aggressive deceleration on the wheel brakes and reverse thrust, we made a short taxi to the ramp at Burbank. There was a “that guy” (a know it all) behind me swearing the pilot was an ‘ex-Navy carrier Pilot‘. I bit my tongue thinking “fella, you see that last few thousand feet of runway lights coming up quickly and let’s see what you do with the landing, brakes and reversers”. Maybe he hadn’t heard of Southwest’s infamous overrun of Burbank’s 5,801 foot long runway 8 (towards the east) on March 5, 2000, where a 737 ‘stopped at a Chevron for gas‘. Fortunately there were no flames and no fatalities.

There were two serious injuries and forty-one minor, the plane had major damage, and the pilots lost their jobs, however. ATC took a little of the blame but most of it was laid on the pilots by the NTSB. Flight 1455 was about 2,300 feet above the runway only four miles from it, where it should have been 1,200 feet above the ground. The NTSB said they made a 7 degree descent, normally it’s a 3 degree descent for final approach. They ignored sink rate warnings from the aircraft and touched down a little long (2,150 feet down the runway, the FAA‘s “touchdown zone" is the first 3,000 feet, perfect touchdown is at the 1,000 foot marker) and very fast at 182 knots, 44 knots faster than it’s final approach ‘target speed’ of 138 knots. They should’ve gone around, and the Captain’s mood concerning this was clear in his post-crash comments on the CVR: “Well there goes my career”.

After a little research about this I learned that this evening we landed on the same runway the Southwest flight had overrun. In MD-80 and airliner speak, any runway less than 7,000 feet is basically a short runway, and a runway less that 6,000 feet is to be avoided if at all possible. We land the CRJ regularly on a 5,000 foot runway, but it has less overall momentum than larger airliners and thusly is easier to stop. Still, we don’t mess around; if we‘re more than a little high or fast crossing the threshold it‘s time to go around (before then preferably). If I had ’that guy’ in the back of my CRJ after landing on Philly’s 5,000 foot long runway 26, he’d be giving his spiel again, cause we’re ’hard on the binders’ there.

As a close to this ‘that guy’ stuff, all kidding aside, I hope to God this never happens to me, that I’m smart enough to operate according to SOP and go around when, not if the conditions warrant. (I’m pretty sure I am, but just in case I’m not.)

My brother met us on the sidewalk of the compact and throwback, but charming Burbank terminal as we quickly got accustomed to the California atmosphere. He drove us though Burbank, then Glendale, then up to their house in a quaint town in a valley where the term "Valley Girl” is from, according to him.

Our Birthday morning brought us to attend my niece Rylie’s soccer game and my nephew Declan’s baseball game, and they both won. The locals were friendly and down to earth it seemed, different from the attitude I’ve received from beach locals in the past. For the rest of the day we hung out by my brother’s pool and caught up on things, having a party time and jamming out to my wonderful oldest niece’s iPod play list (I’ll explain more about her ‘star status’ later). My brother Chris grilled good steaks and asparagus and we had a surprise visit from my cousin Jose, who is stationed with the Coast Guard in San Diego. It was a complete surprise to all three of us and his bald head really took us back for a second! (who is that? Ha ha ) Thanks Kelly, I should have known after the birthday singer last year that you’d be up to something! (Picture below is me from last year)

After that we rocked the Wii Pop Star game, which I hadn’t played before. What a blast, I’ve got guitar and drum talent, at least on the wii I do. Rebel yell, Band on the Run, and No Sleep Till Brooklyn will never be the same now! Lastly, Kelly broke out the birthday cupcakes, ending a great birthday in SoCal.

It was a great time in Cali, in spite of the fact that we didn’t visit Hollywood. Speaking of which, I’d like to plug my entertainer niece now. Madisen Beaty is a talented young actress who has had memorable roles in films such as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and the Lifetime Movie Network film Pregnancy Pact. She’s also been in numerous commercials and has had a guest starring role in a popular episode of iCarly on Disney channel.

Currently she can be seen this fall as a guest in episodes of the new series No Ordinary Family and NCIS. Watch for her this fall!

She and her family have had many changes on their road from Denver suburbia to TV and film up and comers. My brother and sister-in law set the bar high for Madisen to show that she was really, really willing to commit to acting on the screen small and big, and she showed them she was ready. They visited out here for while in 2006, and she somehow got an agent and a manager (difficult to do, let them tell you). They haven’t looked back and love it out there, in spite of everything involved in ‘the business‘. The acting bug has spread too, even Rylie and Declan have performed in a few acting roles and commercials, click on their names to see.

I should write about my brother Chris. It would be dishonest to leave out the part that I’m inspired by him, and proud of him and how he’s provided for his family. He’s used plenty of courage and wily instincts to get where he is these days, all with a tour behind him in the Navy as a ‘Sonar-tech‘, some college, and an ability to talk to almost anyone and network well. He’s been in his role a Technical Recruiter for contract internet and network programmers for business applications for quite a few years now, and knows the business very well. Kelly know it well too, and they’ve built a successful home based business on it, called Spyglass Staffing.

He and his family aren’t afraid of dreaming big and chasing new opportunities after a glimmer of shining ideas and aspirations are glimpsed. By design, they live in a valley removed from the craziness of Hollywood, and I’m confident and his family can stay grounded in the Christian faith we all share.

Thanks for reading my blog, and God bless you. Jesus still Loves you!

September 11th revisited & reused

2010-09-10T22:24:00.000-04:00

I wrote about my personal experiences during the 9/11 attacks last year, and about my opinions of the more unsound technical aspects of the conspiracy theories about the attacks, which are still making the rounds in the Internet ether: http://crossingthesky.blogspot.com/2009/09/when-september-ends.html

This year it's been nine years since it happened, and tomorrow I'll be flying four legs and then commuting home. I'd like to write about flying but I feel compelled to express myself in regard to recent developments and the 9/11 anniversary.

Now there is continued controversy at ground zero, or rather, two city blocks full of high rise buildings from it. Does the WTC 'ground zero' site extend this far?

I'm not a fan of Islam, but I do have co-workers who are Muslim, have shared a cockpit with them, and I respect the freedom of religion we have in these United States. We don't live in a Christian based theocracy, and Christianity isn't the official religion of the United States, there isn't an official religion. The politically safe stance is to support the building of the Mosque, just farther from 'gound zero'. How far is far enough? Four blocks, twice as far as two? How about eight, is that a city mile? They say it won't be visible from the WTC memorial site. If you're opposed to it, do you REALLY believe they'll be dancing inside celebrating 'victory'?

If we as Americans really believe in freedom of religion and support the Constitution so many of us feel is a virtually sacred document, shouldn't we look at this issue in that frame of mind, and with our hearts, seek a little forgiveness toward those of another religion of whose extremists have done us harm in the past?

If you live according the Old Testament rules, we have sought and gotten vengeance against those who committed evil against our country on that beautiful, turned ugly day. We've taken more than an eye for and eye, and more than a tooth for a tooth.

Would President McCain (say he had been elected) have opposed the building of this mosque? I think this is all just political posturing for effect against Obama and the Democrats. Remember in the months and years after the 9/11 attacks when President G.W. Bush said repeatedly in speeches that "Islam is a religion of peace"? Bush walked hand in hand with an Arabian King and friend more than once. Would President Bush have opposed the building of this Mosque if it had happened during his second term?

Right wingers question NYC Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf's affiliation, and want to know if any of the financial backers of the 'ground zero mosque' have links to islamic terrorism. Well, I don't think so, Bill O'Reilly said tonight that there is no proof of it. There is proof, however, than an investor in O'Reilly's employer has also invested in the ground zero mosque!

Straight from WorldNetDaily, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal owns the biggest chunk of the parent company of the Fox News Channel outside of the Murdoch family, and has invested more than $300,000 into the ground zero mosque. He owns 7% of the same news corporation which constantly derides the construction of this mosque that he has invested more than $300k in. Now, is this really an ideological opposition or is it being used only for political effect?

Apparently this mosque is a sensitive issue with former President Bush and his advisors: "Ex-Bush advisers urge Republicans to soften criticism of mosque near Ground Zero".

As you might know, however, cutting through the bull in politics can be informative and entertaining, thanks in part to Jon Stewart. And he didn't fail us this time either: 'Extremist makeover, Homeland edition'. The video is a little long but well worth it. Laura Ingram didn't oppose this mosque in December 2009.

I love my country, I support our free Democratic Republic and I support free market Capitalism. But I've had a little skepticism regarding 9/11, I admit. Here is a link with which to examine the question marks, the concidences, the puzzlements you may or may not have had in regard to the big picture and events surrounding the 9/11 attacks, both before, during, and after. If you haven't considered these, you may be suprised. If you've dismissed the crazier theories, take a look at these circumstances. Again, as I wrote last year, virtually all of the outlandish, technically based theories have been roundly and scientifically debunked.

I won't say what I believe or don't believe. I'll leave your opinon of all that up to you. The implications of anything other that the official government story are worthy of being called "matters of National Security", and as such, I do not wish to endanger my career or reputation. When something is called "a matter of National Security" the Federal Government is empowered to do whatever it takes to protect the information involved.

God is still sovereign in all this, that I'm assured of in my heart of hearts. He says so in his book. God has contantly used people (both 'friends' and 'enemies' of God) with their good and evil deeds to acheive his ends on this earth. These stories and events are chronicled in the Bible, and there is no reason to assume that this dynamic has not ceased.

Thanks for reading my blog, and may God bless you.

Moon-Shine

2010-08-27T13:31:00.004-04:00

It was early enough to 'make the donuts' but the hat I was wearing wasn't that of a bakers'. An extra few z's didn't come during the twenty-two minute minivan ride to the Jacksonville, North Carolina airport because bad classic rock on the radio kept my ears awake. It was so early at Albert J. Ellis field that my good FO had to call a 1-800 number to Lockheed Martin (an FAA Flight Service Station contractor) to get a clearance out of this non-towered airport out 'in the sticks'. Jacksonville, NC is a neat area, namely because there are plenty of proud Marines stationed at nearby Camp Jejune, not because of the very flat and forested geography with guaranteed humidity.

We actually had to taxi away from the terminal so that 'Paul' could get cell phone reception that wouldn't drop his call. After performing the "Flaps 8 Before Takeoff" checklist I taxied the jet onto the runway while we performed the "Takeoff" checklist. The mist became very noticeable in the bright runway lights and as I set takeoff thrust I wondered if there were any animals on the runway, none were to be encountered. The mood in my brain seemed to match the scene - foggy a little. Alertness really can't get too much better than that while hurtling down the runway at 5:25 AM. As we climbed out over them, the approach lights lit up on the opposite end of the runway (runway 5, we took off runway 23) displayed through the mist gave a flat, two-dimensional appearance, and I was momentarily distracted from concentrating on our pitch attitude by the complete lack of depth perception.

Off into the black and gray, smooth and still night air we climbed, with the airplane symbol on our PFD (primary flight display) fully tucked into the inverted v-bars of the 'flight director'. Shortly thereafter a quick climb in our light jet to 14,000 feet afforded my Co-Pilot and I a simply incredible view of the 'lesser great light' (above us at our two o'clock position shining brightly). The full moon's light reflected across an undercast cloud layer 4,000 feet ahead and below us. Cumulus clouds grew out of the smooth surface in sparse locations like unmoved boulders in a stereotyped Irish pasture. Two different dark spots on the horizon displayed orange flashes, insistent but for which I'm thankful for pre-dawn warnings from nature to not fly into there, to not fly into there at all. They were off to our left, by the coast anyway, and I was transfixed in gazing wonder about this suddenly mysterious moon-shine. The following is a nice picture but an approximation of the scene we beheld.

From John 1:5: "And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it". You might be aware that this is a reference to Jesus, of course, but I thought it has an alternate applicability here. It's resonant to me in my soul that the spiritual truth of Jesus' light shining through the darkness has a physical counterpart in our moon, reflector of the sun.

Who or what does the moon shine for? When it's hidden above a cloud layer and can't be seen by humans on terra firma? When there's no one there at all? "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands." Psalm 19:6 It shines to glorify God, and when I or someone else is there it shines for us, to display His glory to us!

There are plenty of interesting facts regarding the moon, which lend toward thoughts of it's creation by a creator-God, not by evolution. This site describes how evolutionary scientists are 'baffled' in explaining it's origin. The appearance of the moon and it's effects on our planet which help sustain life are just another indicator of the reality behind the beauty we behold: that we may assume that whatever or whomever is behind the creation of the universe is as beautiful and wonderful as it is.

With a 29 1/2 day cycle, the moon is seemingly set in the sky to mark the passage of time, to mark the months. Ancient civilizations the world over have followed the lunar calender God made. Here is a link to the Hebrew lunar calender and a schedule of Old Testament Israelite religious festivals and observances. Many Jewish religious events were observed at the new moon, but two annual ones were set to occur at a full moon, or halfway through the month, the Passover Festival and the Feast of Tabernacles.

The new moon is when it shows just a sliver. Half of the 29 1/2 day cycle is 14 3/4 days, so it is at that point when one would observe a full moon. From Psalm 81:3 (NLT): "Blow the ram's horn at new moon, and again at full moon to call a festival!" Numbers 28:16-17 and 29:12 set forth that the Passover Festival and the Feast of Tabernacles will start of the 15th of the month (first month for Passover, seventh month for Tabernacles, Hebrew lunar calender).

I hope I haven't lost you yet. I'm glossing over a few details, read the links if you'd like to be better informed concerning them. The Passover is perhaps the one Jewish holiday Christians are most familiar with and revere as well. We believe that the Passover sacrifice of the lamb, and the eating of it and the bread is prophetic of Jesus Christ. Here are two websites (there are many) which teach more about Jesus Christ, The Passover Lamb: menorah.org and a page labeled "The Passover Prophecy and the Crucifixion".

The moon shines (reflects actually) His light for me, it does, and for His light I am grateful. It shines for me in the darkness, and in the daylight. It shines for you too. I quote from a many played Matthew West song but it's a great one:

"I love you more than the sun
and the stars that I taught how to shine
You are mine, and you shine for me too.
I love you yesterday and today
And tomorrow, I'll say it again and again
I love you more."

I shine for Him too? Yes, that's one of the many fringe benefits you get in having faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Thanks for reading again, and God Bless you!

How the Dutch Rolls

2010-08-19T12:58:00.004-04:00

There we were in this early summer moment, relaxing in the smooth air at 31,000 feet, headed east in the sunshine toward Philadelphia. We had climbed out of Kansas City, Missouri about an hour before and had about one hour left to reach Philly. Our exact position was 230 miles west of Johnstown, ‘P.A.’ (the one that had THE flood). The 73 knot tailwind was helping to produce our ground speed (GS) of 522, or 8.7 miles a minute, or a mile about every seven seconds. The airspeed tape indicated about 210 knots, but because of the thin air at altitude, our jet’s true airspeed was 439, computed by our ADC’s (air data computers). Our speed relative to the speed of sound was .74, or ‘Mach point .74’. Our total weight at this moment was 48,700 lbs, 1,700 lbs greater than our maximum landing weight of 47,000 lbs. Each of our two engines were burning almost 1,400 lbs per hour. What would our weight be upon landing in Philly in one hour? Do your quick Pilot mental math before proceeding further.

It would be ‘fourty-five nine’ as I like to say, or fourty-five thousand, nine-hundred pounds. Our little CRJ was packed to the gills with people and bags, and some or most of our ’pax’ were sleeping, no doubt. The droning on of our turbofans and the 8,000 feet above sea level equivalent altitude in the cabin had a part in the that. And the natural back and forth slight banking of our ’airship’ probably did too. I took a few moment to observe and appreciate this rhythmic motion of the left wing behind me, smoothly moving up and down against the horizon. Wads of symmetrically oriented cotton ball cumulus floated by far below, and seemed to frame the scene for contemplation on why.

Why do the wings of my CRJ always do this, rock back and forth? It’s always done this from the first day I started flying it, but it always seems to do it with the autopilot engaged. I’ve looked back when hand flying (just for a couple seconds, mind you!) and the wing is as steady as my hand can be. Well, with the autopilot on I took a video with my camera; let’s see how it looks on that. Observe the hazy horizon behind the wing tip, and you can see that it’s lazily rocking in a bank to the left and right, and maybe just yawing forward a back a hair.

As near as I can tell, this is the ‘natural frequency’ of a CRJ, like a ship or boat that lists or yaws back and forth naturally. A On a dependents cruise of my brother’s ship, a Destroyer in the US Navy, I observed his ship listing (banking) left and right a few degrees at a time. It’s period (time to complete one cycle) lasted about 20 seconds. I myself am not an aerodynamics expert, but I am a good BS’er. I know a little, of course; you can’t hardly call yourself a jet pilot without knowing a little about the difference between straight wing airplanes and swept wing jets.

I asked my excellent and very capable First Officer, who just happens to have a degree in Mechanical/Aerospace Engineering. He said that it had to do with an imbalance of lift of that between the left and right wings, due to slightly changing relative wind the left and right wings experience. He explained that a jet has a spanwise airflow, meaning that airflow over and under the wings doesn’t really flow straight across, it flows at an angle across it. Straight wing airplanes don’t have spanwise airflow over their wings, and quite a bit more stable in flight than swept wing planes.

Let’s go dutch! After looking at the video, some other videos online, and reading about it, I think I know what it is. What my jet is experiencing and counteracting is Dutch roll, a classic aerodynamic term and dynamic situation swept wing jets inherently have. Asymmetrical, spanwise airflow imparts a yawing moment, or yawing tendency, to the aircraft. Yaw is a rotational force around an aircrafts’ vertical axis. Yaw makes a jets’ nose rotate to the left or right about the center of gravity (the jet‘s balance point, located next the wing, approximately). When an aircraft yaws in one direction the aforementioned difference in relative wind and imbalance of lift between the wings occurs.

See this video for a good look at authentic undamped dutch roll.

Explained similarly, dutch roll begins with the aircraft yawing one direction, then banking in the same direction. The yaw produces more lift on the wing which has moved ahead of the other. This imbalance of lift then produces the banking tendency. Eventually the dipped wing will produce more lift than the higher wing because of a higher ‘angle of attack’ (another explanation I won’t go into here) than what the higher wing has, and the wings will start to return towards level.

A ‘yaw damper’ is a fancy but necessary piece of flight control equipment on swept wing jets. It will apply the rudder in the opposite direction to counteract yawing, but because of the delayed reaction of banking occurring after yawing and as a result of it, the left and right banks occur. This is my best estimation of what is happening. The jet ends up banking slightly to the left and right as the yaw damper dampens out these oscillations. Rudder applied into the slipstream will produce yaw first, then bank, as the forward wing (in a right yaw the left wing will be forward of the right wing) produces more lift than the other one.

This neat website (HOW IT FLIES) shows what's happening to the wings in tandem aerodynamically during dutch roll. The wingtips actually trace loops against the horizon in opposite directions. If the plane yaws left the left wingtip will yaw aft and bank downward, then yaw forward and bank upward to wings level as the dutch roll is counteracted with rudder applied by the yaw damper. During this period the opposite right wingtip will yaw forward and bank upward, then yaw backward and back downward to wings level. It actually is a motion that is more oval or circular shaped, due to the changing aerodynamic forces involved. If the plane yaws right the opposite wingtip motions will occur (its confusing, so I won’t explain, see the ‘websight’ for more ‘insight’).

This is another British video which shows the circular loops the wingtips trace during dutch roll.

Dutch roll can be a dangerous phenomenon, and it was in the early days of swept wing jet fighters and airliners. In 1956 during a Braniff 707 customer acceptance flight control was lost after exceeding Boeing's maximum dutch roll demonstration bank angle (with the yaw dampers off). Three of the four engines were shed from the airframe before they performed an emergency landing on a river bed. Spending time flying with the yaw damper totally disabled (jets have two of them) can be a real eye opener, and it's something we demonstrate in the flight simulator. Yaw dampers are so critical that my jet isn't allowed to fly passengers if both of our yaw dampers are broken.

As I’m trying to finish this post I’m riding on an ‘advanced’ Airbus A319, the ‘fly by wire’ one. I look at the wingtip against the horizon, and it’s the steadiest one I’ve seen yet. It does move, however; with the aircraft responding quickly, almost immediately, to keep the wings level. The swaying and correcting looks like a matter of inches; it’s impressive to watch on an airliner with a 111 foot foot wingspan. I presume the Airbus is better at damping out unwanted yaw and bank because it has more advanced avionics in the form of the ‘fly by (computerized-digital) wire’ technology.

Readers, I know it's been a while since I've posted, but I've been busy putting the nuts and bolts together for my business selling logbook binders and paper for computer pilot logbooks. It's been going good, a few have sold on flybystore.com (click here to see it) and I'm about to start my own website. Summer is passing by as well, and I've had a challenging time of it flying, and am ready for the season to change. Lastly, God is still good and I still feel led to glorify him and make Him known to others through my job, my writing, and everything else I do.

I can't let you escape without a comparison of dutch roll to our own lives. Observe your life events and you'll likely see that disturbances in your life balance can cause other parts of your life to 'roll away'. Control the yaw, or your directional stability, better, and the rolls will cease or be minimized. Christ is the one true light in the darkness (John 1:4-8) who can and will draw you in his direction. Keep it pointed toward His light and he'll be your very own 'yaw damper'. Thanks for reading, and God bless you!

Happy Independence Day!

2010-07-04T18:20:00.001-04:00

Freedom for your checked bags!!

On this July 4th, Happy Independence Day to you! Thanks for about.com for this informative series of quotes from our Founding Fathers. From the site, "These Christian quotes of the founding fathers will give you an overview of their strong moral and spiritual convictions which helped form the foundations of our nation and our government." I haven't read through them all, but I will. You might or might not be surprised by what Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson wrote. Franklin had some skepticism regarding Christ and Jefferson famously had his own Bible, 'the Jefferson Bible', wherein he took out sections from the New Testament he didn't believe. But it can be seen that they both believed in God's deity, power, and blessing.

Our Country has certainly been greatly blessed, with the structure of our government and economy, and the resulting influence and prosperity we have. We have all kinds of freedoms that others in our world don't. One of the most precious ones is that we have the freedom to worship God as we choose, or not at all.

The following quotes of our Founding Fathers are from the aforementioned about.com site:

George Washington

"While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian."

--The Writings of Washington, pp. 342-343.

John Adams

2nd U.S. President and Signer of the Declaration of Independence

"Suppose a nation in some distant Region should take the Bible for their only law Book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited! Every member would be obliged in conscience, to temperance, frugality, and industry; to justice, kindness, and charity towards his fellow men; and to piety, love, and reverence toward Almighty God ... What a Eutopia, what a Paradise would this region be."

--Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, Vol. III, p. 9.

"The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God."

--Adams wrote this on June 28, 1813, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson.

"The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever."

--Adams wrote this in a letter to his wife, Abigail, on July 3, 1776.

Thomas Jefferson

3rd U.S. President, Drafter and Signer of the Declaration of Independence

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever; That a revolution of the wheel of fortune, a change of situation, is among possible events; that it may become probable by Supernatural influence! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in that event."

--Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII, p. 237.

"I am a real Christian – that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus Christ."

--The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, p. 385.

John Hancock

1st Signer of the Declaration of Independence

"Resistance to tyranny becomes the Christian and social duty of each individual. ... Continue steadfast and, with a proper sense of your dependence on God, nobly defend those rights which heaven gave, and no man ought to take from us."

--History of the United States of America, Vol. II, p. 229.

Benjamin Franklin

Signer of the Declaration of Independence and Unites States Constitution

"Here is my Creed. I believe in one God, the Creator of the Universe. That He governs it by His Providence. That He ought to be worshipped.

That the most acceptable service we render to him is in doing good to his other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them.

As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, is the best the world ever saw, or is likely to see;

But I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble. I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequence, as probably it has, of making his doctrines more respected and more observed; especially as I do not perceive, that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the unbelievers in his government of the world with any peculiar marks of his displeasure."

--Benjamin Franklin wrote this in a letter to Ezra Stiles, President of Yale University on March 9, 1790.

Samuel Adams

Signer of the Declaration of Independence and Father of the American Revolution

"And as it is our duty to extend our wishes to the happiness of the great family of man, I conceive that we cannot better express ourselves than by humbly supplicating the Supreme Ruler of the world that the rod of tyrants may be broken to pieces, and the oppressed made free again; that wars may cease in all the earth, and that the confusions that are and have been among nations may be overruled by promoting and speedily bringing on that holy and happy period when the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ may be everywhere established, and all people everywhere willingly bow to the sceptre of Him who is Prince of Peace."

--As Governor of Massachusetts, Proclamation of a Day of Fast, March 20, 1797.

James Madison

4th U.S. President

"Cursed be all that learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ."

--America's Providential History, p. 93.

James Monroe

5th U.S. President

"When we view the blessings with which our country has been favored, those which we now enjoy, and the means which we possess of handing them down unimpaired to our latest posterity, our attention is irresistibly drawn to the source from whence they flow. Let us then, unite in offering our most grateful acknowledgements for these blessings to the Divine Author of All Good."

--Monroe made this statement in his 2nd Annual Message to Congress, November 16, 1818.

John Quincy Adams

6th U.S. President

"The hope of a Christian is inseparable from his faith. Whoever believes in the divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures must hope that the religion of Jesus shall prevail throughout the earth. Never since the foundation of the world have the prospects of mankind been more encouraging to that hope than they appear to be at the present time. And may the associated distribution of the Bible proceed and prosper till the Lord shall have made 'bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God' (Isaiah 52:10)."

--Life of John Quincy Adams, p. 248.

William Penn

Founder of Pennsylvania

"I do declare to the whole world that we believe the Scriptures to contain a declaration of the mind and will of God in and to those ages in which they were written; being given forth by the Holy Ghost moving in the hearts of holy men of God; that they ought also to be read, believed, and fulfilled in our day; being used for reproof and instruction, that the man of God may be perfect. They are a declaration and testimony of heavenly things themselves, and, as such, we carry a high respect for them. We accept them as the words of God Himself."

--Treatise of the Religion of the Quakers, p. 355.

Roger Sherman

Signer of the Declaration of Independence and United States Constitution

"I believe that there is one only living and true God, existing in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the same in substance equal in power and glory. That the scriptures of the old and new testaments are a revelation from God, and a complete rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him. That God has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass, so as thereby he is not the author or approver of sin. That he creates all things, and preserves and governs all creatures and all their actions, in a manner perfectly consistent with the freedom of will in moral agents, and the usefulness of means. That he made man at first perfectly holy, that the first man sinned, and as he was the public head of his posterity, they all became sinners in consequence of his first transgression, are wholly indisposed to that which is good and inclined to evil, and on account of sin are liable to all the miseries of this life, to death, and to the pains of hell forever.

I believe that God having elected some of mankind to eternal life, did send his own Son to become man, die in the room and stead of sinners and thus to lay a foundation for the offer of pardon and salvation to all mankind, so as all may be saved who are willing to accept the gospel offer: also by his special grace and spirit, to regenerate, sanctify and enable to persevere in holiness, all who shall be saved; and to procure in consequence of their repentance and faith in himself their justification by virtue of his atonement as the only meritorious cause.

I believe a visible church to be a congregation of those who make a credible profession of their faith in Christ, and obedience to him, joined by the bond of the covenant.

I believe that the souls of believers are at their death made perfectly holy, and immediately taken to glory: that at the end of this world there will be a resurrection of the dead, and a final judgement of all mankind, when the righteous shall be publicly acquitted by Christ the Judge and admitted to everlasting life and glory, and the wicked be sentenced to everlasting punishment."

--The Life of Roger Sherman, pp. 272-273.

Benjamin Rush

Signer of the Declaration of Independence and Ratifier of the U.S. Constitution

"The Gospel of Jesus Christ prescribes the wisest rules for just conduct in every situation of life. Happy they who are enabled to obey them in all situations!"

--The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush, pp. 165-166.

"Christianity is the only true and perfect religion, and that in proportion as mankind adopts its principles and obeys its precepts, they will be wise and happy."

--Essays, Literary, Moral, and Philosophical, published in 1798.

"I know there is an objection among many people to teaching children doctrines of any kind, because they are liable to be controverted. But let us not be wiser than our Maker.

If moral precepts alone could have reformed mankind, the mission of the Son of God into all the world would have been unnecessary. The perfect morality of the Gospel rests upon the doctrine which, though often controverted has never been refuted: I mean the vicarious life and death of the Son of God."

--Essays, Literary, Moral, and Philosophical, published in 1798.

John Witherspoon

Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Clergyman and President of Princeton University

"While we give praise to God, the Supreme Disposer of all events, for His interposition on our behalf, let us guard against the dangerous error of trusting in, or boasting of, an arm of flesh ... If your cause is just, if your principles are pure, and if your conduct is prudent, you need not fear the multitude of opposing hosts.

What follows from this? That he is the best friend to American liberty, who is most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion, and who sets himself with the greatest firmness to bear down profanity and immorality of every kind.

Whoever is an avowed enemy of God, I scruple not to call him an enemy of his country."

--Sermon at Princeton University, "The Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men," May 17, 1776.

Alexander Hamilton

Signer of the Declaration of Independence and Ratifier of the U.S. Constitution

"I have carefully examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity I would unhesitatingly give my verdict in its favor. I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition ever submitted to the mind of man."

--Famous American Statesmen, p. 126.

Patrick Henry

Ratifier of the U.S. Constitution

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here."

--The Trumpet Voice of Freedom: Patrick Henry of Virginia, p. iii.

"The Bible ... is a book worth more than all the other books that were ever printed."

--Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry, p. 402.

John Jay

1st Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and President of the American Bible Society

"By conveying the Bible to people thus circumstanced, we certainly do them a most interesting kindness. We thereby enable them to learn that man was originally created and placed in a state of happiness, but, becoming disobedient, was subjected to the degradation and evils which he and his posterity have since experienced.

The Bible will also inform them that our gracious Creator has provided for us a Redeemer, in whom all the nations of the earth shall be blessed; that this Redeemer has made atonement "for the sins of the whole world," and thereby reconciling the Divine justice with the Divine mercy has opened a way for our redemption and salvation; and that these inestimable benefits are of the free gift and grace of God, not of our deserving, nor in our power to deserve."

--In God We Trust—The Religious Beliefs and Ideas of the American Founding Fathers, p. 379.

"In forming and settling my belief relative to the doctrines of Christianity, I adopted no articles from creeds but such only as, on careful examination, I found to be confirmed by the Bible."

--American Statesman Series, p. 360.

Piling on the Pres

2010-05-31T23:08:00.003-04:00

Starting out writing this, I’m commuting home from a four day trip, both sides un-commutable. Yesterday started relatively early, with a 6:30 AM van ride to the airport in Newberg, New York, near West Point US Army Officer Academy, where President Obama spoke Saturday before we arrived. There were no signs left from the Secret Service personnel, of whom the van driver said had been staying in the hotel all week, and I had a good and needed rest for our long day of Sunday flying.

With a friendly Co-Pilot and Flight Attendant, we made our way through almost eight hours of flying, which entailed six flights and twelve hours to perform it in. Newberg-Philadelphia-Louisville-Philadelphia-Washington-Rochester-Washington was on the agenda, but a low pressure weather system and the forecast east winds and relatively low cloud ceiling in Philly promised to slow us down. My First Officer had plans to meet his wife in Milwaukee, to spend the night there before heading to Charlotte the next morning. With the delays in Philadelphia we were expecting, it was questionable whether he could catch the last flights from Washington to Philadelphia. He commutes from Green Bay, Wisconsin, and is a fellow brother in Christ. We had a good conversation about some of the particulars of Protestant Christian theology, and enjoyed flying together.

Our first two flights arrived in Philly and “Loua-Vule” on time. Now we just had to go through Philadelphia one more time, and we wouldn’t expect any delays in and out of Washington. In Philadelphia, when the winds are from the east, the airport runway layout can’t accept the same amount of departure and arrival traffic as it would normally. This can create major ATC delays, especially for traffic inbound to Philadelphia. Our scheduled departure time out of Louisville was 11:35 AM, and Louisville clearance delivery had given us a ‘wheels up’ takeoff time of 1:01 PM. We had time to hang out some, eat lunch, and talk about our commuting plans. I couldn’t make it home even if we arrived in DC on time, our Flight Attendant, a new one but a good one (she had flown for a regional based in Atlanta previously) could still make her commute flight even if we were a couple hours late, and my Co-Pilot was scheming and trying to figure out a plan to catch his last flight available in record time. It seemed we would arrive in DC at about 7:30 PM, and that’s when the last flight to Milwaukee was.

We pushed back without three missing passengers in Louisville, in order to meet the 1:00 PM takeoff time. Just then, ATC surprised us with a new delay, a 2:05 PM takeoff time. No! We had a couple options: taxi out and hope for a shortened delay, or wait to see if our three missing passengers would make it back to the gate. We could board them on our plane, taxi out, and still make the new 2:05 PM takeoff slot. In the interest of providing good customer service (this is a customer service business, despite what some of my Co-Pilot’s seem to feel), we started our engines and taxied the thirty yards back to the gate to board our three lost passengers. In actuality, we lost one passenger, who had said ‘enough’ and got off our jet to travel another day, and we put on four, for a gain of three and a ‘full boat’ back to Philly. The ‘circus music’ had started playing, because whenever a plane returns to the gate, one-third of our pax ask the Flight Attendant the litany of ‘will I still make my connection?’ type questions, and they were doing it now. Dealing with those issues is the Gate Agent’s job, and it’s a tough one in this situation. They generally make an announcement in the cabin (I asked her to this time) that ‘NOW is the time to leave the flight if you want to, that this aircraft will leave the gate again and not come back.’

We got our new passengers on board and just as we were closing up, ATC notified us that the ground delay program had been canceled, along with our 2:05 PM takeoff delay. We were released to Philly, and in quick order we taxied and took off. As we broke ground I wondered if that passenger we lost saw us climbing out into the blue Louisville sky.

Fast forward four days later: I’m commuting again back to work, trying to go through Chicago. Before my first of two flights to get me to Washington, Chicago had a ground stop issued by ATC for “VIP movement” (President Obama). My Sioux Falls-Chicago flight was now delayed till 7:15 PM instead of 6:30 PM, and with a scheduled 45 minute connection to Washington on a normal day, I knew I'd be running for it. And I literally was, after seeing on the departure monitor that my flight was delayed by five minutes, and that many others were as well. "Can't you do something, Mr. Obama, without displeasing someone?"

I caught my breath in my window seat and our Airbus taxied out for Washington National. Leaving Chicago, I’m transfixed by what I see. We’ve turned to the east just after breaking ground in smooth air, and the vast, expansive grid of greater Chicago spreads out in the window in that appealing orange halogen color the street lights have. Miles and miles of it are broken up occasionally by the stray winding expressway with white and red lit drivers making their way to where they’re going. The famous Chicago skyline is now ahead and to the right, with the (former) Sears Tower and the Hancock Tower framing the ends of it. Oddly, downtown and Lake Michigan seems to be backlight tonight. After closer observation and some scuddy clouds clear out of the way, it can plainly be seen that a full moon is out tonight, shining it’s white, reflected light on the calm, black surface of Lake Michigan. It casts a white, milky beam across the water, seemingly all the way to Indiana and the Notre Dame ‘capital’ at South Bend.

I am reminded that scenes like this one, which I first enjoyed while flying standby as a passenger on American Airlines as a kid, really make an impact on me. I really enjoy the beauty the skies can have, I guess you could say my eyes behold it. With the distractions and stresses of life, it’s can be easy to overlook the beautiful things, whether it’s in the sky or in your personal or family life. As the sky goes, maybe I’ve been doing some overlooking lately. But it is now thunderstorm season, and I know there will be plenty to appreciate soon! (And to be wary of)

Speaking of which, it’s a convenient time to transition back to the previous trip's Louisville departure to Philadelphia. Soon we’re climbing to our cruising altitude of 29,000 feet (“Flight Level two niner zero”). In blue sky and sunshine, my First Officer turns on the radar, and increases the range to 80 miles, then 160 miles. The tilt is low and the gain is turned up, but the screen barely shows any green returns, and that’s probably from the ground. The white, wispy clouds ahead, with a few curved, more solid looking bumps bulging slightly above them, indicate that we’ll probably have to do some deviating from our course line ahead, in spite of the clean radar returns.

We’re just not close enough to it yet; when we get within about 40-60 miles some good returns start showing up, the worst color they show is yellow. The view out the windscreen compels us to ask ATC for deviations, even if the radar was blank. The cumulonimbus tops are only two to three thousand feet above us, it looks like, but in reality they are probably four to six thousand feet higher. The tops look relatively flat, for thunderstorms, but looks can be deceptive. I see a bolt out into the burning blue sky out of one of them in front of us, confirming that these puppies can still bite. By this time I’ve been trying to ask center for a heading of 15, now 20 degrees left to avoid this buildup in front of us. The center controller I’ve been trying to check in with has been busy handling other airline traffic, and now we’re 15 miles closer to this storm than when we started calling. Another 30 seconds to a minute of this and my FO and I agree that we’re turning left, no matter what.

We could make it through it OK, but it would be constant moderate turbulence at the least, possibly severe occasionally, with icing in the tops of the cumulus formations, and a chance of lightning and wind shear with the turbulence. Not good for the pax or the Flight Attendant, and definitely not good customer service. The controller finally responds and serves us with an approval to “deviate left as required, direct Gordonsville (GVE) when able”.

Overall, it’s a good primer for the now-here thunderstorm season. A broad layer of wispy clouds stretches from left to right. As my Co-Pilot has the autopilot finish the turn to make our first of several heading deviations for buildups, we confer with each other, and agree that our course to the left, mostly in the clear, is better than to the right of the cumulonimbus. On the radar, another yellow spot, the biggest one, is now plainly seen; if we had deviated to the right we would have less room to deal with this cell than if we had turned left. Looking out the window, this largest storm cloud is mostly obscured by this thin layer of clouds previously mentioned. If we were a thousand feet lower, this situation would meet the classic definition of an embedded thunderstorm; the wispy clouds leftover from previous buildups wouldn‘t let us visually see the danger ahead! We later fly through some of these wispy areas, they are generally fairly smooth, with occasional light chop and nothing else.

We made it through the rest fairly unscathed day after arriving in Philadelphia. Philly to Washington to Rochester to Washington went off without a hitch, minus our standard wait for ramp agents to park our jet in DC, both times. However, we didn't make up enough time to improve my FO's chances of going to Milwaukee.

With my FO a little dejected, I was walking with him to the crew room when he spied the departure monitor board, and saw that he might have one last chance to make it to Milwaukee, via an American Eagle flight from Washington to Chicago, then the last United Express flight of the night to Milwaukee. He would be running for it, but we both thought he just might make it. He ran off to the gate, just like I would in the future tonight, but I don’t know if he made it or not. If President Obama didn’t get in his way, he was probably fine! I took his flight bag back to the crew room and then myself to Chipotle for a good, needed dose of burrito. I made it home the next morning, starting this post on the way.

I'm giving our President Obama a little bit of a hard time. But I'm just poking fun at everyone else who seems to be. Lately he's been taking flak from all sides, not just Republicans. I think his current troubles are more politically partisan based and stem from a lack of PR control rather than lack of performance. It's true that far left liberals haven't gotten what they've wanted from Obama, but neither have right wing conservatives. Is not preventing the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster and spill, and performing an inadaquate leak stoppage and cleanup, really his fault? No, the Deepwater Horizon disaster is not Obama's 'Katrina'.

Excuse me for getting too political, perhaps. I just feel that we should have a minimum amount of respect for our political leaders, no matter how much we disagree with them. We should pray for them, it's in the Bible too: "I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." (I Timothy 2:1-4).

And the Bible teaches that we should pay our appropriate taxes to the government: : "Render, therefore, unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God, the things that are God's" are Jesus' words from Matthew 22:21.

That's it for now. Thanks for reading my blog.

Wet laptops & reflective thoughts

2010-05-20T21:57:00.001-04:00

(This post was originally started about nine days ago)

I just finished a five day sequence and am flying home on United in economy plus, fighting the urge to take a nap. I’m pleased because my new laptop isn’t dead after all. Last night in Syracuse, New York, I was trying to finish my schedule bid for June, talking to my Mother on the phone (Mother’s day you know) when I accidentally splashed water on this keyboard I’m typing on. Doh!

I dried it off immediately with towels but there were droplets in between the keys. Not thinking, and especially not googling, I dried the keyboard further using the hotel hair drier and my breath to blow the droplets away from the keyboard.

It worked, for a while. Soon the number 8 key starting ghosting and repeating, and after a lengthy, second hair drying, the 0 key did too, and many keys didn’t work at all. Panicked and anxious, I finished my schedule bid on the hotel computer, worried that I had ruined my laptop by blowing the water drops into the keys and driving moisture into the keyboard using the hair dryer.

After bidding, ‘google’ said in one entry to never use a hair dryer to dry off your keyboard, as it will drive moisture further into it, and the heat and static can cause electrical problems with a laptop as well. But there were many other sites which mistakenly, in my opinion, suggested using a hair drier. The advice I now trust after a liquid spill on a laptop is not to use a hair drier, but to turn your laptop off immediately, dry it off with towels, turn it upside down to let liquid drain, and put it in the sun or warm, dry air for a while, remove the battery, and leave it off for 24 hours. I removed the battery, let it air dry overnight, then put it out in the sun during all five of our flights today (with it off, lest you‘re thinking about that NW crew). The air is pretty dry in an airliner, and the sunlight coming through the flight deck windows can bring in a fair amount of warmth. That combination draws the moisture out of a laptop fairly well, because after finishing scheduled day of six hours of flying, it works again, and every key is fine.

We had a ‘nice’ 4:45 AM show time at the airport, so considering I had this secondary problem to contend with, in addition to the one of getting a good amount and good quality of rest, I slept for five hours relatively soundly. Giving your worries up to God in prayer does help, and I did the best I could doing that before lights out last night.

I am tired with a capital T at the end of this five day sequence of flying. Today we flew from Syracuse to Philadelphia to Detroit to Washington to Norfolk to Washington, and were on duty for nine hours and fifty minutes, from 4:45 AM till 2:35 PM. This was the fourth early showtime I’ve had this sequence, and the second one at 4:45 AM in a row. And the best part of it is it’s all legal per the FAA’s rest rules and our labor contract. But is it safe? It could be even safter.

I don't want to scare you, but this is the reality that many flight crews face. However, it's much easier on pilots than in the early air-mail and airline days, when airplanes were unreliable, the navigation technology and avionics were crude, weather forecasting was more like weather guessing, the working rules were scarce, and the accident record was reflected in all these shortcomings. It is relatively safe, in that there are two pilots (better than one), our aircraft is highly automated (hand flying five legs would be exhausting), and our work is highly standardized and routine. The US does have the safest transportation system in the world.

On another note, I haven’t posted for a while, and don’t have a concise and readily available reason as to why. I have a couple ideas I’m working on, and a new phone which will enable me to do better and more frequent twitter (I’m “crossky” on twitter) updates, with pictures, on the fly, so to speak (literally). Technology and social networking, a’la ‘community’ is a subject I’ve been pondering. Because of social networking, the way we have community with each other in this era is changing, and sometimes I wonder if it’s for the better or not. I’m still trying to correlate it to flying somehow, but it will come.

Community with God, and better community with each other, is one of the main reasons the Son of God came to earth in human form. I’m not the best at fostering and keeping community with others in a loving Christian manner (as Christ teaches), but I kind of think that concern has been on my heart and mind lately. There are other signs I’ve seen that God is still working in my life, and when I get to a quiet place to reflect on that, it feels good. God is good, all the time! All the time, God is good! Thanks again for reading the blog.

Gut Check

2010-04-18T23:49:00.005-04:00

He is risen, He is risen indeed! I say it to others and others say it to me. In my past life, in the next few days and weeks after Easter I typically would slowly revert to living like I did before, only feeling the literal meaning of Jesus’ resurrection every so often, instead of every glorious day. I wish we could celebrate our Lord’s resurrection every week. Wait a minute, we do: Sunday is the day of the Lord, the risen Lord. Christians (except for Seventh Day Adventists) observe the Sabbath day as Sunday instead of Saturday, honoring the fact that Jesus rose from the dead on a Sunday morning, after the Jewish Sabbath (Friday night to Saturday night). Realizing that I’m still human helps me to understand how rediscovering ‘the joy of my salvation’ keeps it fresh in my heart.

Luke, a gentile (non-Jewish person) and physician, and close friend of the apostle Paul, wrote the gospel of Luke and the sequel to it, the book of Acts, during A.D. 61-64. Acts picks up where the gospels left off, and documents the rapid growth and events of the early Christian church after the resurrected Jesus Christ, in bodily and glorified form, appeared to many disciples and followers.

What occurs in the book of Acts is exactly what one would expect from resurrection witnesses empowered with a conviction of the mind and the presence of the Holy Spirit (which Jesus promised them). The apostles act boldly, teaching, preaching, performing miracles, and endure much persecution, suffering, and dying for God‘s glory. The church grows rapidly as a result.

Here are just a few events in the book of Acts: the outpouring of the Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost; the gospel is preached to the Jews and the Gentiles; the church grows rapidly in spite of resistance and persecution of it; Saul (a zealous Jew who persecutes Christians) is met by a blinding Jesus on the road to Damascus, believes, and is renamed Paul; and Paul and others go on missionary journeys as far as Greece and Rome.

Acts is certainly a book of action, and a perfect sequel to the gospels. It’s an historical ‘gut-check’: it’s stories and history are evidence for an affirmative answer to the question ‘did Jesus really rise from the dead?‘ Instinctively, it makes sense. The followers of ‘The Way’ wouldn’t have been willing to endure the persecution and suffering they did if the resurrection wasn’t true.

Christians pronounce that Jesus is risen: we say it and believe it, but do we keep it hidden? Do we act like we really believe it so others can see our faith? The stories in Acts can be used as evidence of the new church’s knowledge of the truth, resulting in the bolstering of one’s faith in Jesus.

I’m reading through Acts this month, and am behind the reading schedule in my Bible. So often it seems things don’t happen on my schedule, they happen on God’s schedule. But that’s the way it should be. After a week of good vacation and getting the taxes done, I’m having an enjoyable three day trip in sunny weather. It’s the third morning in Jacksonville, North Carolina, and I’ll be flying OAJ-CLT-LEX-CLT-DCA today (Charlotte, Lexington, and Washington).

We had an overnight in Lexington the first night of this trip. I liked it there, it was lushly green, with absolutely beautiful tree lined, hilly horse farms and meadows, complete with painted wooden fences. The folks are friendly there with true southern hospitality, and I had a good jog over to the nearby ‘UK’ (University of Kentucky).

However, in spite of the niceness of Lexington, I can’t go there without thinking of the tragedy of Comair 5191, on August 27, 2006.

The Delta Connection flight to Atlanta attempted to takeoff on 3,500 foot long runway 26, instead of 7,003 foot long runway 22. Forty-nine out of fifty souls on board died after the jet struck a fence and trees while struggling to get airborne beyond the short runway.

They attempted takeoff on the wrong runway because the Captain steered the jet onto it by mistake. The taxiway route to the runway offered the crew an opportunity to take a left turn at two locations. The first left turn was onto the ill fated short runway, the second left turn, a little further down the taxiway, was onto the correct runway.

It can be argued that there were many contributing factors for this accident. The control tower controller didn’t watch their takeoff attempt, information about the airport wasn’t supplied appropriately to the crew, the layout of the taxiways and runways could potentially trick pilots into using the wrong runway, the Captain didn’t get good rest the night before, and the crew engaged in non-essential conversation while the plane was taxiing. However, in spite of all these factors, in the end it was the pilots responsibility to make sure they were taking off on a runway that had adequate length.

What prevented either pilot from noticing they were on the wrong runway? Apparently, they didn’t check that the magnetic direction the plane indicated while on the runway was the same direction of their intended runway for takeoff (260 degrees instead of 220 degrees). More fundamentally and less technically, apparently they didn't do a gut check: they didn’t ask internally or to the other pilot ‘does this feel right, is everything OK?’ Professionals in all fields of work perform ‘gut-checks’ routinely. ’ Experience is the best teacher’, and it teaches them to safeguard their work just by being aware and sensing when something is amiss and out of the ordinary. Gut checks are vitally important when operating at less than full mental capacity, as when fatigued, distracted, or both.

The paradox is that at the very time when it’s most critical to maintain a good situational awareness, when fatigued or distracted, is the very time when it’s most difficult to do so. I know this from experience.

The two most humbling mistakes (and they were very humbling) I’ve made in my airline career have occurred while I was taxiing the plane on the ground, and I believe they happened in part because I didn’t perform a gut-check. I wasn’t able to because I was tired and fatigued, rushed, and too distracted in non-essential (to the flight) conversation with my Co-Pilot on the ground. In the industry this is known as ‘violating sterile cockpit’, and it is big on the FAA’s hit list. Airline pilots are to observe a sterile cockpit - no conversation that doesn’t pertain to the safe operation of the flight - anytime the plane is moving on the ground or anytime below 10,000 feet in flight.

Applying this line of thought to this accident, I believe that short term fatigue and distraction from violating sterile cockpit helped to prevent this crew from taxiing to the correct runway, and to prevent them from aborting the takeoff before it was too late.

I examined the cockpit voice recording transcript briefly, and the crew (mainly the First Officer) did ‘violate sterile cockpit‘, but not to a gross extent, in my opinion. However, lack of focus is possible when distracted by emotion or thought about a non-essential conversation, even if its a short one. I have seen this occur to me numerous times, and I believe it is one of the main considerations for the sterile cockpit rule. What I mean is that’s how I think the mechanism works: while a mistake can occur during the moment sterile cockpit is violated, it can also occur afterwards. Non-essential conversation can induce a type of lingering distraction to pilots during a period of flight operations that is critical to the safety of flight.

I mentioned fatigue as another characteristic which reduces the ability to maintain situational awareness. Unfortunately, the Captain of the accident flight didn’t get good rest the night before, due to his wife and two infants spending the night in the hotel with him. He complained on the CVR about his lack of sleep to his Co-Pilot. I was fatigued when I had both of my problems aforementioned on the ground, the first after a short night of sleep after commuting in to my base for an early showtime, and the second after a long duty day full of schedule changes. When fatigued, one simply doesn’t have the ability to perform to the same level as when not. Slowing down the pace at which one completes tasks and adhering to SOP’s (standard operating procedures) are two ways to counteract the effects of fatigue.

This accident, like other airline accidents and incidents recently, exhibit symptoms of a lack of flight discipline, which stems from a lack of professionalism. Frankly, others I've talked to are like me, we never expected Comair, a regional airline whose pilots always had a reputation for being true professionals, to have an accident like this. If Comair could have this accident, any regional airline could. This problem of a lack of professionalism is endemic in our industry, and it seems to be difficult to get across to all pilots the insidiousness of it. The negative reaction seen at times involves an impulse to blame airline management for poor schedules and reduced pay, instead of examining their own personal standards of professionalism and flight discipline. Poor schedules and reduced pay are problems the pilot unions continue to battle to win improvements on, but these issues are no excuse to absolve pilots from their duty and responsibility to safely transport the flying public with the highest standards possible.

OK, short rant over. In review, fatigue and distraction both reduce pilots ability to ‘trap errors’ and perform a gut-check. Performing a gut-check is good thing to do in aviation or any industry:

- be in tune to your instincts, trust them, and follow them

- when fatigued and/or distracted, the ability to perform a gut-check is diminished

- when fatigued and distracted is the time when SOP’s are the most important to follow to the letter. Adhering to a checklist, callout, or procedure when fatigued and/or distracted makes it more likely than otherwise that a critical item won’t be missed.

I got a little academic, but this is the way I see it, and I make no apologies for it. The opportunity to learn and lessen the likelihood of more tragedy and loss of life makes it worthwhile. Thanks again for reading my blog.

PS: In case you're curious, I continue to battle against fatigue and distraction I encounter on the flight deck. After I've made mistakes of the type which in the past I would point to others and say quietly "I could never do something that silly", I operate more conservatively and with better flight discipline than I ever have as a pilot. I still learn new things about the airplane and how to better perform my job, and I hope I always will.

Good Friday sense

2010-04-02T16:16:00.004-04:00

It’s day five of flying for me, tonight will be night number six away from home. I’m spending the day in a Hampton Inn in Greenville, SC, where everything is green, or greening up in the early spring. Tonight I’ll fly from GSP to Charlotte, only about a twenty minute flight maximum, then deadhead back to DC for the night. I miss my wife and girls, and will be home tomorrow afternoon, for a week of vacation and four days extra scheduled off, away from the skies. So, two days before our Easter holiday, it’s a good Friday, in fact it is THE Good Friday, and I’ll be writing about that subject in a paragraph or two.

The first couple of days of this trip we endured a lot of turbulence in the clouds, immersed and enveloped ‘inside the lampshade‘, in white and gray. Climbing and descending to find a smoother altitude for our ‘peeps’ didn’t help much, so we usually just slowed down the plane and endured it. My Co-Pilots and I had to fight gusty crosswinds on takeoff and landing. We airline pilots generally like the challenge of a crosswind, passengers generally don’t. Not seeing the blue sky or sun for entire flights is strange at times. It still intrigues me to navigate using only our instruments on the flight display screens in front of us, then pop out of ragged clouds and mist with the runway right in front of us, canted at an angle, due to our ‘crab angle’ into the wind.

On the second day we were flying north over western New York, destination Toronto, Ontario, Canada, when we seemed to reach the end of the endless clouds. It started clearing over Buffalo, New York, as center had us descend to 10,000 feet. I got out my camera because I knew Niagara Falls was coming up, and it looked as if we would get a chance to photograph it. This is from two miles above the ground with a zoomed lens, but it’s still very impressive.

I think it’s only fitting that I quote Jesus’ from John 7:37 (ESV) here: “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Wow, what a river of living water, indeed. I will see it up close in person, someday.

Below is a picture of the river and lakes of the Niagara Falls region, this was taken while we were headed south, from Toronto back to Philadelphia. In the foreground is Lake Ontario, in the background is Lake Erie. That little puff of white is the mist rising from the Canadian, Horseshoe falls side. The river is the Niagara river, and it flows from south to north, background to foreground, from Lake Erie towards Lake Ontario. Unless you’re geography limited, like I was about this area until a few years ago, it doesn’t make sense without an explanation. Here's a google map of the same area. It’s still tricky for me to make sense of it, of a river that flows from south to north, and not only that but a humongous waterfall over seemingly flat country. But with a little knowledge and explanation, it does make sense. Rivers all over the earth flow from a higher elevation to a lower elevation.

It can be hard to make sense of Jesus’ sacrifice of his life on the cross too. With a little knowledge and explanation it begins to make sense too. God loves you! God loves us, every one of us, and He wants to have relationship with us, now and for eternity. Our sin (which is turning away from God by our thoughts, words, actions, and deeds) separates us from God, because God is Holy and perfect, and cannot and will not tolerate sin in his presence. As a matter of fact, God will destroy whatever is sinful in his pure presence. But God made a way, from the beginning, to ‘fix’ our imperfectedness and restore our relationship with him. Jesus. He said in John 16:13 “there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

Many skeptics of Christianity accept that a man named Jesus Christ of Nazareth was crucified on a cross, but they draw the line there. But without Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, his crucifixion doesn’t make sense at all. The resurrection is absolutely essential to Christianity. But don’t just take my word for it, feel free to check out these three links, by others much smarter than me about the subject: No Christianity with the Resurrection, Christianity is Resurrection, and Resurrection essential to Christianity.

Without Jesus rising from the dead:

-His death on the cross was in vain, and unable to defeat sin; in other words the pain and suffering of crucifixion, ‘bearing the guilt for the sins of many’, was unable to overcome death.

-He was just a man, and not God.

-He was a liar, and so were his disciples. All the times in four gospels where Jesus promised that ‘whosoever believes in me shall not die, but have everlasting life’ make him and the gospel writers out to be liars.

-God has permitted all true Christians out to be liars as well. I can’t, don’t, and won’t believe that the nature of God is like that, the Bible says otherwise in plenty of places.

The proof that Jesus’ perfect sacrifice was sufficient enough to make us sinners right with God (“by grace through faith” - Ephesians 2:8) is in the fact of his resurrection itself, and gives all believers confidence that at some point after we die in this life we will have resurrected bodies and eternal life, just as our Savior promised multiple times in the gospels, and as the New Testament authors espoused on.

Perhaps the most memorable New Testament passage regarding the essentialness of the doctrine of the resurrection was by the apostle Paul, in I Corinthians 15:12-19 (Amplified): "12But now if Christ (the Messiah) is preached as raised from the dead, how is it that some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not risen; 14And if Christ has not risen, then our preaching is in vain [it amounts to nothing] and your faith is devoid of truth and is fruitless (without effect, empty, imaginary, and unfounded). 15We are even discovered to be misrepresenting God, for we testified of Him that He raised Christ, Whom He did not raise in case it is true that the dead are not raised. 16For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised; 17And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is mere delusion [futile, fruitless], and you are still in your sins [under the control and penalty of sin]; 18And further, those who have died in [spiritual fellowship and union with] Christ have perished (are lost)! 19If we who are [abiding] in Christ have hope only in this life and that is all, then we are of all people most miserable and to be pitied."

Wow, what a statement and declaration of truth by Paul. If we have no resurrection from the dead then Jesus doesn't either, and we are to be pitied by others, and we are, because they don't believe it (the resurrection). But we brothers and sisters in Christ know otherwise, for we have experienced the prescence of Christ in our lives, and the peace, joy, fellowship, love, and purpose that comes along with it.

Hallelujah, for He is risen! He is risen indeed!

Happy Easter everyone, whether you observe and believe the resurrection of our Lord or not. Thanks for reading my blog.

Geese!

2010-03-23T10:26:00.007-04:00

It's Tuesday, mid morning on day three of my current trip, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Under a white but clear sky the sun is getting rid of the dew on the grass and surfaces. From my hotel window I can see the airport only a quarter mile away, and a jet on final. It's going to be a great day, it seems.

Our first day had us flying six legs on a Sunday, in and out of New York LaGaurdia and Philadelphia, mostly. We arrived in New York on the second flight of the day, then saw it again after stopping in Philly once. After seeing Philly twice we were to make our way up to Allentown, Pennsylvania for the night. Allentown is pretty close to Philly so it would be a busy, short flight.

On our third flight, LGA-PHL, we had a jumpseating pilot up front. He was a Captain for a large regional airline which has a good prescence at LaGaurdia, but not ours. He seemed like a sharp fellow, and proved it before the flight was over. Our First Officer was flying the plane with the autopilot engaged in the Philadelphia terminal area, and I was handling the radios and checklists while we were getting vectors for the visual approach to runway 35 (landing towards the north). Philly sometimes gives us delay vectors for 35 because they have to coordinate the proper spacing for the landing runways. Runway 35 and runway '27 right' physically cross each other, like a street intersection, so it's critical that we have safe spacing when they are landing jets on both of these runways. After zig zagging per ATC's instructions for a few minutes it looked as if we would be cleared for the visual approach at any second. We could easily see Philadelphia International through the afternoon haze, in a very pleasant appearing sky, about ten miles away. We were about 2,000 feet above the ground, pointed toward the airport, when a voice shouted, loudly, GEESE!! It was our jumpseater, looking out for us. The fact that I nor my FO hadn't seen them didn't bother me, I was glad that 'Dan' our jumpseating pilot in the extra seat, did.

Upon all of us looking up, there they were, at our altitude, almost right in front of us. Actually, they were from our center position in front of us off to our right. It was two large flocks of big honkers, Canadian Geese, the kind that brought down US Airways 1549. Just as my brain thought that we needed to disconnect the autopilot and manuever to avoid these birds, and I may need to ask my FO to do just that, he did. "Blink blink blink blink" (a poor imitation) the sound came as he disconnected the autopilot and smoothly but quickly banked the plane to the left to avoid the flock, and the birds nearest to our flight path banked away from us as well. We had other options if the birds had been right in front of us, on both sides, but thankfully they weren't, and we didn't have to consider them. If that had been the case, whomever was flying the plane could have disconnected the autopilot and started a sudden climb or dive to avoid the birds.

But that would have been a tall order, at the range we can identify birds in our way, there just isn't enough time to be that clever, it's a matter of three to five seconds before they're there and past you, it happens quickly. We aren't given specific training or advise on how to avoid flocks of big, aiplane damaging birds, besides the simple but sage advice of "see and avoid".

I reported a large flock of geese at our altitude about two miles behind us to approach control, right after they cleared us for the viusual approach to runway 35, shortly after our encounter with them. They appreciated it, and had already been busy advising other aircraft on final approach for runway 27 right of other flocks of geese in the final approach path for that runway. It was a certain afternoon of risk for a large bird strike at Philly.

After ten years of airline flying, this was the second closest I've come to a large bird strike incident, and the largest flock I've seen up close. The closest were 'six flashes above out heads at night', while descending into a prarie airport. See my original posting here for that one.

I hear these beautiful birds outside my open window now, landing in the courtyard of the hotel here. I like these honkers, like watching them fly and hang out; they are certainly majestic and beautiful. And dangerous. I have three more days of flying and avoiding flocks of birds, before this bird writing this heads 'north', to migrate back home.

Post-PC ramblings on love

2010-03-19T23:00:00.002-04:00

(I wrote the first part of this about a week ago, but am just getting around to finishing it now)

I’ve just enjoyed, or 'loved' two days off at home, or two half days and one full day at home, or, best expressed, forty-eight straight hours at home. I had a PC (proficiency check or check ride) again in Charlotte, with a relatively good time slot of four PM to ten PM, plus a debrief. Spending another night in Charlotte meant my first day off from flying or training duty was actually a travel day (still a working day) I get paid for, to travel back to my domicile of Washington, DC. Instead of going home through Washington, I got up early on just a few hours sleep and jump-seated to the Twin Cities of Minnesota and then home, to big slushy snowflakes falling at the airport, but a cold rain falling on the other side of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the city I commute out of. The seasonal change to spring is almost upon us, and the first day of spring is one week from now, excellent.

About my PC: it went fairly well, after I spent most of a long overnight in Charlotte preparing for it the day before. There’s always so much to study for, and as usual, at some point I felt like I studied a few of the wrong things I hope to study earlier and smarter next time. I even made a simple sixth month studying checklist after this one: if I study such and such each month I won’t have to cram as much for it next time. But I made no serious mistakes, no retraining was done, and best of all, I didn’t crash! With simulated engine failures on takeoff and realistic wind shear encounters, it’s a possibility. Also, It’s considered a good sign if the Instructor is nitpicking your technique, which he was, honestly.

I don't love PC's, but I don't loathe them either. It’s always good to have a review of our jet’s systems and procedures, backed up by a demonstration of my capability to actually fly and perform those procedures in the simulator. We know what’s going to happen, pretty much, the instructor is mainly the facilitator of that during the flying portion, and the quizzer during the oral portion.

The ‘box’ (the simulator) has a delay, a lag, however, between the time you apply the controls till when the ‘airplane’ reacts. This is due to the time it takes for the host computer to realize you want a greater bank angle or lower pitch attitude, for example, and then to calculate the change and transmit the response to the simulator itself. The advice to overcome this tendency is to make a control change and wait a moment longer for it to happen than you would in the airplane. But it takes discipline to not over control the simulator, it does for me at least. I remind myself to wait and not over control, and to breathe, as strange as it may sound. Breathing well helps you to think, not surprisingly.

And when I have two days off at home, like I do every time I have three days off while commuting on two of them, two subjects enter my mind: I must make the best use of my precious time at home, and I ponder why I’m doing this: why do I continue to sacrifice time with my wife and girls, and time at home?

Besides my religious and spiritual motivation which helps me to justify being away, and upon which I've expressed at length before, there are a couple other prime reasons I've neglected to mention. I need a job to pay the bills and the mortgage, and support my family with, that's the simple one.

The other one, and I'm surprised that I've never come outright and wrote it here, is that I love flying. I Love flying! I've always been fascinated by airplanes, long before I was a pilot, since I was a boy on our driveway, craning my neck to watch Cessna's and 727's pass across the sky.

Here are just a few things I attach the L-word to in flying: punching through an overcast layer of clouds into the burning blue sky, and surfing them for a moment while still enveloped; dodging puffy stray cumulus clouds, using these giant punchy cauliflower growths as pylons in the spring and summer; the challenge of hand flying a final approach, still mystified at the runway enlarging at us in a 700 foot per minute descent and at a speed of two and three-quarters a mile per minute; takeoffs are fun but landings are better, a tailor made return to terra firma satisfies my passengers and myself, sometimes I say “lucky again” out loud to avoid grandstanding (and to keep the "luck" going).

I wouldn’t exactly say “I love being a Captain” and having all the responsibilities and leadership role that comes with it, but ‘its good to be the king’, as Mel Brooks says. Some of you youngsters might have to Google that to get the reference. I would much rather be a Captain than the First Officer, but I'd rather be in a secure sport at a major airline than at a regional. I’m always my favorite Captain: I get to run the show the way I want to, within reason and our SOP’s, of course.

It bears worth writing again that the hardest part of this job is dealing, in a healthy way, with the emotional and physical toll due to not being home. Again, I’m blessed and lucky to be doing something for a living that I love to do. Not everyone gets that opportunity. Too many pilots lose sight of their love for flying, they let the demands of the job overshadow their passion for it.

Life is meant to be lived in balance, it is demanding when getting the most out of it, whether you’re a free spirit or a devoted religious person. My personal experience has been that a life lived “in Christ” brings balance, peace, and an eternal perspective that re-orients one’s eyes and heart anew. Want to be in better balance on the see-saw of life? Put Jesus on the other end!

This is some of what I’ve learned, and keep re-learning, with Jesus Christ in my life: God loves me, not because of anything I’ve done or will do, He just does. God’s will for me is to know him, and to make him known, and to glorify him, whether I‘m flying planes or fixing drains.

He wants to be lived out in me! May I be so presumptuous to say exactly this? Yes, the following Bible passages quote Jesus implicating it to be so in John 14:23 (his home with us), John 15:4-5 (the vine and the branches), and John 17:21-23 (Jesus prays for his disciples). Galatians 2:20 is one of my favorite verses in the New Testament. Galatians was written by the apostle Paul, whom Jesus, in glorified form, met and temporarily blinded him on the road to Damascus, while Paul was named Saul, a zealous Jew, and actively persecuting Christians. Paul teaches clearly in this verse that Jesus lives in us: Galatians 2:20 (ESV): "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

Love is an interesting thing, it asks you to do things you might not want to do otherwise. Love asks you to sacrifice. My wife and I have sacrificed a lot for each other, and will continue to do so, out of love for each other and to enable me to do what I love. “God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” - John 3:16. The proof of the love God has for all of us is in Jesus Christ, my friends.

Thanks for reading my blog, and God bless you today.

Toronto, pronto

2010-02-27T13:22:00.006-05:00

This image of the weather map for the northeastern US last night essentially shows the conditions we experienced yesterday, while trying to fly seven legs. Bands of snow rotating counter-clockwise around a low pressure center between Boston and New York City made it interesting for the second day in a row for everyone in this area.

My FO and I agreed both that the safety of flying seven flights and seven hours in a day is questionable, and it definitely isn't doable on a day like this. DC to PIT to Philly to Toronto to Philly to Allentown to Philly to Binghamton was our itinerary. Regardless, off we went.

Very gusty winds got my attention taking off on the short runway from DC. Our CRJ juked and jived in the gusts as I turned away from the Pentagon to follow the Potomac river to the northwest, climbing out steeply while wondering how long the constant turbulence would last. It wasn't long; we cruised over to Pittsburgh at 20,000 feet above the clouds, enjoying the sunshine with the familiar blue backdrop.

In about a mile of visibility because of snow falling, I landed on an all white runway, one with a thin snow cover, highlighted by wavily shaped snow drifts. After deploying the thrust reversers to full, I applied the wheelbrakes smoothly but surely, increasing the pressure as I stowed our thrust reversers below 80 knots indicated airspeed. The 'braking action' was there, somewhat more than barely, you could say. The anti-skid was now cycling constantly, but we were slowing down, slowly, on this 11,500 foot runway in Pittsburgh. The control tower told us other pilots had reported the braking action as fair, but I though it was closer to poor, and my FO told them so. Braking action is subjective, and in my opinion this same braking action in DC on the 6,870 foot runway there would definitely been called 'poor'. I used about 6,000 feet of runway in landing and slowing down. After waiting for and watching an efficient bulldozer driven snow scooper plow our ramp area, we parked and boarded up quickly for Philadelphia.

Out EDCT (pronounced 'edict') time (Expect Departure Clearance Time) for PHL was 12:15 PM, but on our taxi out we learned they had extended it to 1:15 PM. Our Dispatcher hadn't sent us an ACARS message to 'hold our push' for some reason. We taxied to a spot on a taxiway between the snow drifts, and I elected to shut down the engines to conserve fuel. We actually didn't have much left before we would burn down to our takeoff fuel, and then we would have to either reduce our takeoff fuel by decreasing our holding fuel or go back to the gate to get more gas. We had an hour to wait as it turned out; they decreased our takeoff delay a little. I briefed the pax, and after a short wait we started up and got deiced quickly by PIT's excellent deice crew. Their setup looks like this, using enclosed control cabs on the end of booms connected to ground structures, instead of trucks.

After lining our chariot up on the centerline of this runway (yep, it really is one, see the runway edge lights?), I gave the reins to my FO, who did a great job of keeping us straight on the takeoff roll. We knew this due to the increasing frequency 'thump thump thump thump' sound the nosewheel tires made in rolling over the runway centerline lights. Ah, the neat, challenging, and sometimes a little perplexing things you get to see as an airline pilot. When some visual clues are lost it forces you to use what clues you have left.

In the clear again cruising over to Philadelphia, valleys of smooth and fluffy clouds below us hid the reality of a serious winter storm giving it's best blows on the ground. Much of the time when the weather gets rotten in winter, with high, gusty winds and snow, the wind blows straight down the runway, and that's what it was doing on the ground in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. When a pilot has to deal with a low visibility approach with snow, reduced braking action on the runway, and then a healthy crosswind on top of it, that tends to up the ante and the heartrate. The weather report for Philadelphia was considerably better than the delays imposed on us indicated earlier. The snow was gone, the runways were dry, and they even offered us a short runway, after clearing us for a visual approach to the long 27 Right. 'No thanks'.

Gold star time! By the time we parked at the gate in Philly, we were about an hour behind schedule. Cause I'm a team player (and because I packed my lunch), I offered to our Flight Attendant that I would say goodbye to the passengers and clean the cabin for her. She'd already asked for a food run in Philly, and she took me up on this time saving offer too. I'd never actually done this before, and I'll try to make it a habit when I can. (Passengers, at the regionals don't get our cabins cleaned by cleaners like at the majors; our flight attendants (and pilots sometimes) do it ourselves.)

PHL-YYZ, our third out of seven flights was next. Toronto's ATIS was interesting. Toronto was only landing on one of it's five runways, and wasn't using the runways which faced into the wind at all. For my FO, the pilot flying, it was going to be a 10-15 knot crosswind landing on a snow covered runway with fair or worse braking action, in falling light snow. What more can you ask for? How about not having to divert to our alternate airport. After just passing Buffalo, NY, we heard Toronto Center (ATC) give a holding clearance to two aircraft in front of us. Holding at a fix name 'Linng' southeast of Toronto, soon became our fate as well. We had a lot on our plate to think about, in quick order.

Here's the rundown: After conferring with out dispatcher with messages sent and recieved using our ACARS unit in the flight deck, our bingo fuel was 3,200 lbs. Entering the hold we had 4,200 lbs, and each engine was burning about 1,000 lbs per hour of jet fuel. Pilot mental math converts that to 30 minutes holding time. If we weren't released from the holding pattern to continue to YYZ before we our fuel remaining reached 3,200 lbs, we were diverting to Buffalo. And the weather at Buffalo, called up on ACARS, sucked, frankly. Any pilot would agree that 1/2 mile visibility in moderate snowfall, freezing fog, and a healthy crosswind is not the best weather to have at your alternate airport that you could very possibly divert to.

Toronto ATC never offered a clear reason why we were holding, I think the one runway they were landing planes on was full of traffic. My FO offered that we should consider other options than Buffalo, and we did call up weather from other suitable airports. None were as close as Buffalo, and if we were to divert, I preferred to land in the US, at an airport which was served by the airline we fly for, to make handling our pasengers of various nationalities easier. Elmira and Syracuse were bad, and too far away by this time, because of our fuel. Hamilton, in Canada, was ok, and Erie, PA, was not too great, but doable, fuel wise. Fortunately, with the next hour's weather report, at 4 PM, Buffalo reported much improved weather, two miles visibility in light snow with better winds.

By this time we had been holding for about fifteen minutes, had a solid plan to divert to Buffalo if we bingoed on our fuel, and were hoping Toronto would open the additional runway soon. Two other airliners holding in front of us were having fuel issues too. One gave up and proceeded to their alternate. Our fuel situation by now: together with the two engines we were using 2,000 lbs an hour, or 200 lbs each tenth of an hour, or 200 lbs every six minutes. We now had 3,600 lbs, or twelve minutes left. I asked Toronto how long till the runway is open, notifying them also that we have ten minutes of fuel left before diverting. 'Oh about fifteen minutes they say' in a polite canadian accent came the reply.

I had briefed the passengers three times, the first being routine, the second being a little concerned and sharing the possibilityof diverting, and the third with the likelyhood of diverting. I don't like diverting, but I'll do it if I have to. Tick, tock, tick, tock. "___ ____ you are now cleared out of the hold, fly heading 180 after Linng"", he told us. They were clearing us out of the hold with a turn to the south, before having us continue on the arrival northbound. Good news. We had about 3,500 lbs, about nine minutes more of holding fuel left. It looked like the other airliner bugging our had worked in our favor.

On approach the changing weather had gotten a bit better, the cloud ceiling was higher, about 3,500 feet above the ground, and the crosswind was about half of what it had been before, about seven knots now.

The control tower reported that the braking action reported by pilots was fair on the runway, and poor on the runway turnoff. But like I experienced in Pittsburgh, my FO rated it as poor, and told the tower so. We took the slippery turnoff about two-thirds down the 11,200 foot runway, and taxied in slowly on one inch of fresh snow. Then we saw and appreciated this:

This behemoth, seen through the falling snow, is the new largest airliner in the world, the Airbus A380. Those are two passenger decks you see, the entire length of the fuselage. It flys all the way from Dubai, UAE to Toronto, a world away in culture, geography, religion, government, and weather.

"Hast thou seen the white whale?" Captain Ahab asks. Well, I have now. As an aside, I just finished reading, for the first time, Moby-Dick. It was hard, took me six months. It's about much more than an egomaniacal Captain seeking vengeance on a whale. I could wax on about it, but I can't do it justice. Maybe just a little. I highly recommend it.

I will say a couple things. I identify with Starbuck, the first mate of Captain Ahab, a man of true Christian faith, and one with his head on straight; he tries valiantly to talk Ahab out of attacking Moby-Dick. A little background on the white whale: Ishmael, the narrator of Moby-Dick, teaches us that all sperm whales are dangerous, but Moby-Dick is a giant who has a fearsome, evil reputation for killing whalers. Ahab is demented, hell bent on killing Moby-Dick, because of his vengeful pride (Moby-Dick took off half of one of his legs previously), but moreso because he's wrapped up in the 'white whale' his personal bias against the existence of evil and 'fate', (i.e. the unfairness and unapolagetic circumstances of life) in the world. In demented and megalomanical character, he believes he will rid the world of the problem of evil if he kills the white whale. It ordinarily sounds strange and implausible for a human to leap to this level of egoism, but in the backdrop of such a grand and mystifying vocation as hunting on the world's oceans (with sailboats and hand thrown harpoons and lances) these huge, majestic, and spiritually associated (by humans) whales, the subject matter and symbolism is easily pulled off by author Herman Mellville, over 150 years ago. It is an epic and timeless book.

In this picture you can see how big the 'white whale' is compared to the 737 next to it. We taxiied in and with typical canadian efficiency we boarded up a new batch of passengers for Philadelphia. I had a message on my phone from crew scheduling, but because I don't get minutes in Canada and it's pretty expensive if I do make a call, I didn't check it. It was good news (for us), however; we found out after landing in Philly that our Allentown, PA round trip and our Binghampton, NY overnight had been canceled. We were overnighting in Philly after flying four of seven legs.

I haven't written too much on spiritual stuff lately, but God is still calling me, and I'm still answering. Even when I don't answer, he still calls. What a commitment God has made to all humans through the work of his son, Jesus Christ! The problem Ahab had with Moby-Dick and evil has been solved by Jesus. We can fret and philosophize over it, but we're better off examining the life and nature of God's son, who died on the cross for all of our sins, and, well, evil. The answers to the questions of life and the true life, personal relationship with God, are found in Jesus.

What is your white whale? What is your frustration in life, that has got you in a bind, a bias, against God? What has been unfair to you in life that has influenced you to think God doesn't care? God does care. BTW I'm just assuming these things, my dear reader, I know that not everyone has a grudge against God. I have had a grudge againtst God before, myself, a few times. I likely will again in the future, but that won't invalidate my faith. Recently I flew with a good guy with a poor attitude. He appeared to have a Christian, but cynical, faith. His cynicism extended to his personal life and our airline. To you, my friend, and others, I submit one of my favorite and simple verses: the word of Jesus from Matthew 11:28-30: "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

Until next time, thanks for reading my blog.

PBS Frontline's "Flying Cheap"

2010-02-19T22:40:00.002-05:00

I recently watched PBS Frontline's premiere of the episode "Flying Cheap", which questions the safety of the regional airline industry. You can watch it online here. The program highlighted the growth of regional airlines in general, and Colgan Airlines specifically. Frontline focused on the crash of one of Colgan’s Dash-8 Q400 Turboprops a year ago in Buffalo, New York. Colgan was operating the flight as Continental Connection 3407, and fifty people perished, including one on the ground.

The NTSB is establishing that pilot error is the cause of the accident. Both pilots let the plane get too slow while configuring for an instrument approach, and then the Captain, the pilot flying, responded improperly to wing stall warning indications. The First Officer made the situation worse by retracting wing flaps at the wrong time, and without being commanded to do so by the Captain. The plane's wings fully stalled, then the big turboprop started to enter a spin. There wasn't enough altitude above the ground to recover from that and the resulting dive.

This sort of basic airmanship pilot error is unconscionable; it is hard to believe that it occurred. But when the Captain’s and First Officer’s record and relatively low experience levels are taken into account, and added to the fact that they both were very likely affected by short term fatigue, it is conceivable that together they could make this series of errors which added up to this horrific tragedy. Another contributing circumstance to the crash that the NTSB might emphasize is that Colgan had an insufficient training and operating program for the Q400, and consequently both pilots’ limited experience in the airplane exposed them to a higher risk of an accident than otherwise.

The Captain had failed checkrides five times, but had notified Colgan about only one of them. When he was hired he had failed three checkrides, and unfortunately he failed two more at Colgan. Colgan has stated they would’ve never hired him if they had known he lied about two of them of them. Failing a checkride is common, however. I’ve failed three myself, unfortunately, and consider myself to be a pretty capable and skilled aviator. I know in detail why each one didn't work out, but it comes down to the fact that each time I rushed my training and lacked preparation in exactly where I busted the ride at. My last one was nine years ago on my Captain upgrade checkride at Great Lakes, a commuter turboprop airline with a reputation for failing many Captain upgrade applicants. I retrained and passed the checkride a few days later.

A failure doesn’t mean you’re an unsafe or bad pilot. Does failing the bar exam mean you’re a bad lawyer? Does failing important medical exams while an intern mean you’re an unsafe doctor? No and no. However, if a pilot has basic airmanship deficiencies, it should show up in the training process as a new hire. I’ve heard of new hires failing in training at my current airline and seen it happen at Great Lakes. Should it have happened in this case at Colgan? I don’t know, it would be unfair for me to say without having specific knowledge, but it’s clear that basic but critical flying mistakes were made.

Furthermore, some pilots just need more experience, then they will be able to successfully complete airline pilot training. The right stuff is real stuff, but it also depends on experience; experience is important.

Our airline has a probationary period of one year for new hires; it’s a period where a pilot can be terminated without job protection from the union. Some have not made off probation at my airline, for airmanship reasons, but the most common reason is having a bad attitude.

I don’t know how well Colgan taught the following operating procedure, but in my opinion the First Officer should’ve had it down pat. When operating in icing conditions, with the icing speed reference switch selected ‘on’ then the pilot not flying must set higher that normal approach and landing speeds (about 20 knots higher) to compensate for the artificially higher stall warning speed produced because this aforementioned switch selected ‘on’. On the accident flight the Q400 was starting an approach in the clouds, in icing conditions. For an unknown reason the higher speeds had not been set; the normal, slower, non-icing condition speeds had been set instead. This left the Q400 dangerously slow when configuring for approach. Neither pilot voiced concern nor presumably noticed that the plane’s airspeed was too slow. The stick shaker (a device which vibrates the control column and indicates an approaching wing stall) activated and the Captain responded by raising the nose of the plane, not lowering it as he should have.

Then the First Officer made another mistake, in retracting the wing flaps of the plane in the midst of the captain fighting the wing stall with the plane’s bank and pitch angles gyrating wildly. Retracting flaps is part of the recovery from wing stalls practiced in the simulator, but only on command and after control is recovered with an increase in airspeed and performance is observed by the pilot. In real life, retracting flaps after recovering from an approach and landing stall would occur long after the airplane is back under control.

Fatigue reared its ugly head in this one, in a way unlike other accidents recently. Each pilot was under the effects of short term fatigue, from sleeping in the crewroom at the airport after commuting in the night before (the captain) and from commuting through the night on a major cargo airline (the first officer), then napping the morning before their showtime. This accident brings it home to me more than ever before: commuting through the night and/or sleeping in the crewroom will leave you very tired and you will sacrifice alertness and airmanship ability if you do it. If you’re wondering, I don’t sleep in the crew room; I have a bunk bed with my name on it in an apartment within walking distance of the airport.

Overall, this is a good and balanced program, and a needed notification to the public about the present problems at regional airlines. However, it did at times go too far toward the ‘Nancy Grace Tonight’ style of TV journalism sensationalism. One scene showcased the cynical response of a crash victim’s father, who discounted a regional airline executive’s personal expression of sympathy and promise to him that they corrected the 'safety gaps'. The executive was one for Pinnacle Airlines Corporation, another regional airline company which bought Colgan in June 2007.
Host Miles O'Brien, who is a private pilot himself, did good in showing the economic hardships new regional pilots face, making as little as $16,000 the first year employed, while possibly being based in a city which has a high cost of living (Newark, NJ in this case). Regional pilots fly smaller planes, and airline pilot's salaries are based on the number of seats the plane has. Thusly, the average Co-Pilot's annual salary at a regional airline is $32,000, and for a Captain it’s approximately $70,000, according to the Regional Airline Association's President Roger Cohen.

The program questioned the safety that a regional airline has when it pays that little of a starting wage, and when grows rapidly. The idea it expressed is that safety suffers when rapidly growing, low paying regional airlines hire unsuitable and inexperienced pilots as compared to the past. It also showed that when paid at these salary levels, some pilots will choose to commute to their base and forego suitable rest facilities in order to save money.

Colgan did double in size, twice, in 2005 and 2008. One Colgan Pilot testified that he upgraded to Captain in nine months, to O’Brien’s surprise. To anyone who has spent time in the trenches at a regional, this is nothing new, but traditionally the quick upgrades to Captain have happened on a nineteen seat turboprop, not a brand new advanced 74 seat turboprop or 50 seat jet. With the rapid growth of regional airlines in the 2000’s, this was the new norm. One really nice fella from my first crashpad in DC upgraded to captain of a 66 seat jet before he had two years in at his airline. When the major airlines and the better regional airlines are hiring, the worst regional airlines operate like a revolving door. Flights are typically canceled not because a pilot is sick or the airplane is broken, but because the staffing is simply not adequate.

With interviews and commentary, Frontline opined that the FAA didn’t do much to spur Colgan to correct safety problems that pilots reported flying there. Frontline seemed to say that the FAA has been too busy promoting the airlines and defending them to properly regulate them when their safety is out of bounds. However, in their defense (am I really defending the FAA here?) the FAA has shut down unsafe cargo, commuter/regional, and low-cost (ValuJet) airlines in the past.

But more experience and qualifications doesn't necessarily equal safer, meaning that pilots with very high levels of experience and qualifications can make simple but critical mistakes as well. In the nineties two different major airlines attempted takeoff without the flaps set properly, both ending in disaster. A Spanish airline did the same recently. Pilots are human and prone to mistakes, whether they have 6,000 hours or 600.

Experience does count for something though, and it should. The last six fatal airline accidents in the US were regional airline accidents, according to the program.

Frontline also took major issue with the facts that major airlines don’t have direct oversight or safety management ability over the regional airlines that carry their name and logo, and that each regional airline is liable for accidents, not their parent airline. These are facts which shock passengers and politicians, and Frontline posited that this modus operandi should be corrected because it is seemingly false advertising when an airline, because of the ‘seamless’ marketing and ticketing, ‘advertises their level of safety on their regional airline when it isn’t actually as safe’.

I don’t wish to denigrate airline pilots, this airline profiled by Frontline, the FAA, or the airline industry in general. But because of the facts behind recent accidents and incidents, I feel that I should share my views. The FAA is focusing sharply on improving the level of professionalism and flight discipline in the flight decks of all airlines, major and regional alike. Randy Babbitt, the new FAA Administrator, speaks honestly and unapologetically on this issue, and he should.

There are new, good changes in regulations coming down the pike from the FAA. ALPA, the Air Line Pilots Association, is on board with these changes too. To see ALPA's position on 'producing a professional airline pilot', click here. In the future the minimum level of pilot experience to be an airline pilot will increase from approximately 250 hours to 1,500 hours minimum. There is a big difference in a pilot between these experience levels. For pilots who’ve been hired under this experience level and/or with limited time in jets, there will be more frequent ‘line checks’, a flight observed and evaluated by an instructor captain. There are other regulations and programs which will be put in place as well.

I still believe that airline travel in the US, even on a regional airline, is safe, in spite of recent events and current issues. I will still travel on regional airlines with my family. I hope that safety, professionalism, and standards of livings of pilots improve in the future. However, with each accident, no matter how decreased the frequency becomes, we’ll be reminded of the great responsibility pilots have, and of the fragility of life we all have in crossing the sky.

Point of Convergence

2010-01-30T14:57:00.002-05:00

Recently, after hurrying through preparing and getting our forty some odd, mostly business travelers on board for an eight AM weekday flight from our nation’s capital to Philadelphia, my First Officer called ground “ready to taxi”. Only DCA ground control didn’t want to play, instead telling us to stay put due to a ‘ground stop’ in Philadelphia.

Knowing that DCA ops (our airline ramp and gate operations) probably needed out gate for another flight, and in addition to the fact that both engines were ‘turning and burning’, we negotiated a taxi with ground control to proceed to the holding pad next to the nearby runway.

Once there, after getting confirmation of the ground stop and ‘expect further update’ time with our Dispatcher and DCA ‘Clearance Release’, we ‘shut ‘em down’ to save fuel, and I briefed the pax (passengers) and our Flight Attendant on our situation.

A ground stop is when ATC, due to weather (usually) at the destination, stops all departure flights headed toward that destination. The philosophy is that it’s better to wait on the ground than to waste fuel in a holding pattern burning fuel or divert to an airport other that your intended destination. The ‘expect update’ time meant that ATC didn’t have a takeoff time planned for us. They were basically winging it, and Mother Nature was in charge for now. Actually, an update time gives ATC time to deal with the situation and the traffic they already have, and means that ‘we will get back to you when we can’.

We had taxied out of the gate at 08:10 AM and the update time they gave us was 9:00 AM. A little after nine they gave us a takeoff time (EDCT) of 9:45 AM, then moved it up a few minutes later to 9:32. Things were looking better, but we still had to contend with a promised to be adventurous short flight from Washington, DC to the City of Brotherly ‘Love’.

Philly’s weather was horrible, due to an inflow of moisture from the Atlantic coast, drawn up into a low pressure are spinning near the Great Lakes, like a wagon wheel on a frontier trail slinging mud up and around itself. Strong, and very strong winds from the south meant that taking off and landing toward the east on the long, east-west runways might not be feasible.

As we were waiting for an update we checked the winds in Philadelphia: 19029G42, or something like that. Translated, that’s an almost direct crosswind from 190 degrees (south) at 29 knots, gusting to 42. In miles per hour, that’s 34 and 49 mph. Regardless, it’s more than our jet’s maximum crosswind component (27 knots) and close to or more than most airliners max crosswind components.

Continuing landings and takeoffs in these type of extreme winds depends on the pilots resolve, and judgment to accept it. Stopping operations requires one or more pilots to request a runway into the wind, to say ‘enough’ to ATC and refuse the approach or takeoff clearance with the crosswind. ATC might want to keep operating the same way because that’s what gives them the most operations per hour, and it’s likely they won’t change it until a pilot complains. At Philadelphia they have three runways aligned on an east-west direction, and only one runway aligned north-south, so you can imagine how the number of takeoffs and landing is reduced when ATC restricts operations to the single runway only.

My 56 year old, retired Marine Aviator veteran First Officer and I agreed that the cause of the ground stop was that Philly had indeed switched to a single runway operation on runway 17, and were trying to deal with the traffic that was already on the ground and in the air. We settled in for while, hoping the wind there wouldn’t get worse.

True to ATC’s word, we started our engines at 9:25 and blasted off the short runway in DC at 9:32 AM. Once airborne, we received a new weather report from Philly which showed a wind of ‘19037G54’, a gust equivalent to 62 mph! They were landing and taking off only on runway 17 (oriented at 170 degrees magnetic) as we had suspected.

An uncommon but discernable feeling came over me as we still flew in relatively smooth air to the northeast toward Philadelphia in and out of smooth gray clouds. I’m hesitant to use the ‘F’ word, but concern and some form of anxiety was settling in my pilot psyche. I was concerned about the unknown, of what we might encounter on approach and landing, and concerned that ATC might change their plans and force us to divert to our alternate airport. I was a little anxious about landing in a 43 mph wind, gusting to 62, and about the possibility of wind shear.

But a good pilot is able to manage their fears, along with managing the risk and making good aeronautical decisions. ‘Know yours and your airplanes capabilities and limitations, and don’t exceed them’ is a good one sentence capsule of advice. The airlines and the FAA will let you can get right up to the limits, with a hair trigger set and trained to ‘retreat’ if the conditions become unacceptable. Safety and efficiency are intended to both be maximized; and this is the way it’s done in the airline world. My office is not a boring one, especially on days like these.

We started preparing for the ‘Converging’ ILS approach to runway 17, with me as the flying pilot. ‘Converging’ meaning that your final approach path converges with the final approach path of another runway and airplane, usually with runway 17 our approach would converge with aircraft on approach for runway ‘Nine Right’ (9R). But since only ‘one-seven’ (17) was being used it wouldn’t be the case. There are higher minimum descent altitudes and an alternate missed approach procedure with the ‘converging ILS 17’ approach, however, which gets us out of the way of an airplane going missed from an approach to 9R. Clear as mud? It’s hard to explain in one paragraph, this map of PHL airport and of the converging ILS 17 approach might help.

Just as I finished briefing the approach, the constant moderate chop turbulence in the clouds started, and would seemingly not let up. Upon checking on with PHL approach control, they vectored us south, then east, then northwest again, all to get in a long line for the instrument approach to ‘one-seven’. Along the way we picked up the latest update on the wind conditions: 19028G42. It was still a very strong wind, but more doable than previously known. The visibility was still fairly good at 2 ½ miles, and the cloud ceiling was at 1,400 feet above the ground, above our minimums of about 700.

I called for the approach checklist and we were cleared for it by PHL approach. There was a lot of chatter on the frequency as we rapidly bounced down the final approach course and I made the callouts to my FO to configure our plane with flaps and landing gear down. It was like riding a giant gray washboard in the sky, with time seemingly slowed down; due to the high winds at altitude (60 knots) our groundspeed was only 100 instead of the usual 140.

PHL approach then changed our approach clearance for a normal ILS 17, not a converging ILS 17. At first we surmised that it was because the runway 9R wasn’t being used, then approach said the visibility had decreased on 17, which made sense. We quickly reviewed the differences in the approach and made the changes on our FMS and minimums we had set.

We started hearing other flights going around and saying they couldn’t continue the approach. ATC came out with a new ATIS (Automatic Terminal Information Service) with a wind of 19027G34 KT, a visibility of ¾ sm with +RA and OVC14. Translated, this was wind 190 degrees at 27, gusts to 34 knots, visibility of ¾ statute mile in heavy rain, cloud base overcast at 1,400 feet above the ground. This wasn’t good, because our new clearance to fly a 'normal' ILS approach required a minimum visibility of 1 mile or ‘RVR 5000’. I had been feeling my heart pound with some adrenaline on this approach, these new developments made me feel it more.

We were still cleared for the approach, but with the new visibility (3/4 mile) it had gone below what our legal minimums to fly it were: 1 mile or ‘RVR 5000’. RVR (Runway Visual Range) is a horizontal visibility distance measured down the runway, and when it’s available it ‘controls’ whether we can ‘shoot’ and instrument approach or not. We had been switched by PHL approach to PHL tower, and they quickly reported the RVR to us as ‘4,500 touchdown, 4,400 rollout’. We continued the approach, my FO and I talked the minutia of the regulations over, and hoped things would improve. Why didn’t we tell ATC we couldn’t continue then and ‘go missed’ right then? One good regulation the FAA has which we observe and operate under is that we can fly an ILS approach up to the ‘final approach point’ (usually about 1,500 above ground and 5 miles from the runway) with the visibility below minimums. If the visibility hasn’t improved to the minimum required by that point, then we can’t continue the approach and have to go missed.

The tenths of miles and mere seconds to arrive at ‘HYILL’, the name of this final approach point, were rapidly counting down. My FO had been steadfastly trying to get a new, improved RVR report from the tower. Just as we were right on top of HYILL it came: ‘RVR 6,500, cleared to land’. We both breathed easier and prepared to land, at least with more certainty than before. The heavy rain and low visibility had been a temporary condition, to be expected with a wind of 27, gusts to 34. I had my FO configure our jet with the last two settings of flaps for landing and we spied the airport at about 3 miles out. The winds were very gusty and to control our airspeed I had to perform some ‘throttle jockeying’ that experience is the best teacher of. In spite of the gusts, we had a fairly nice landing right on the 1,000 foot markers of runway 17.

Taxiing in and parking at our gate we saw many airplanes of all sizes waiting for takeoff, lined up on both sides of 17, a 6,500 foot long runway. For Airbuses and Boeings this would normally be a ‘short’ runway, especially when there is normally a 9,500 foot runway to be used, but not today. Once shut down at the gate, we thanked each other each other for a job well done and considered our suspenseful ‘point of convergence’ on over HYILL.

Life isn’t always this exciting, but life also brings it’s own points of convergence, sometimes by our own actions, but many times by events and circumstances, or others involved in our lives: Marry this person or not? Change careers or not? Take that big step or not? Go out on a limb or not? Go and fight for your country or what you believe in or not? Believe and receive Jesus Christ as your personal savior or not? Make a deeper level of commitment to God or not?

Gleaned from this experience, I don’t have much scripture to quote or biblical advice this time, except a common one we’ve all heard from our parents: $h!7 or get off the pot. Do it or don’t do it, but if you don’t do it, do something else regardless, and move on. Life is better lived by not getting permanently stuck in an undesirable situation.

(BTW in regard to Jesus, if you’ve read my blog you know that I firmly believe he is worth taking a step of faith for. Making a commitment to Jesus can be daunting. Just remember he committed himself to us first: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. – Romans 5:8)

I was generally miserable in my former career life at a Mechanical Engineer/Designer, not because I didn’t like it, but because (1) I wasn’t very good at it (I give myself a C) and (2) I really wanted to fly for a living. With my wife’s blessing (what was she thinking? ;) I made a career change at about age 30 to full time Flight Instructor, then arrived up at my first regional airline about nine months later. I’ve looked back, but never gone back. The time spent away from my wife and family has made it a struggle to have an acceptable quality of life at times, but overall, I don’t regret it. My office is in the sky! I only imagine how I would regret not giving flying the full time shot that I have.

Thanks for reading my blog.

Far from perfect?

2010-01-16T10:54:00.001-05:00

A certain professional golf player, who won’t be named, in what we now know to be perhaps the understatement of 2009, admitted that “I’m far from perfect”. I have a few things in common with him. He plays golf, so do I. Well, it might be a stretch to call it playing, but I try. He’s travels away from his home quite a bit, so do I. He’s far from perfect, and so am I. Actually, so are all of us.

Don’t get the wrong idea; I’m not like the philandering pilot in “The Pilot’s Wife”, showcased by Oprah’s Book Club. I’m devoted to my wife, and take my marriage vows seriously. But like the bumper sticker “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven”, I’m still human.

Since it’s a new year, and resolutions are common, the subject of perfection and being perfect is appropriate. Being perfect is something I’ve wanted to write about for a while now. I feel like sometimes this blog mistakenly makes the impression that I’m expressing how good of a person I am, how obedient I am to God and what not. That is not the purpose. My intent is to share the experiences I have both as an airline pilot and as a Christian, trying to follow Jesus Christ in word, faith, and deed. I wish to glorify God and illuminate Christ. I struggle, I sin, I fail, I fight temptation, and I suffer. But I also pray, study God’s word, praise and worship Him, share my faith with others, revel with God and glorify him in my victories, and try to love others as I do myself.

Nobody’s perfect is a trite saying, but one that we all have in common, whether you’re the Pope or a pauper, President or Pro Golfer, Parent or Pilot. Honestly, we are all ‘far from perfect’. God’s view on this is shown in Romans 3:10-12, 18, and 23 as this theme: “10As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; 11there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. 12All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." . . .18"There is no fear of God before their eyes." . . . 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Well, there is one exception to that rule. There is one man who lived a perfect life, and never committed a sin. I’m speaking of Jesus Christ, of course. He did God’s perfect will, sometimes even surprising his parents and offending others in the process, and though he was human like us and was tempted like us, he never sinned.

Scripture backs me up. From Hebrews 4:15: “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Just after the Holy Spirit descended on him as he started his earthly ministry, he was tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1-10). And from II Corinthians 5:21: “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

There’s more, from Hebrews 9:14 (NLT) “Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins.” And Hebrews 7:28 calls Jesus our ‘perfect High Priest’.

The naysayer might want to (1) debate whether Jesus lived a perfect life, and (2) also say ‘so we know we’re not perfect, so what? God still loves us anyway, so he would accept me into heaven, I’m not a bad person’. The first point is another subject, maybe for another day. On the second point, yes, God still love us, but He commanded the Israelites in the Old Testament to “be holy, because I am holy” (Leviticus 19:2).

In the Old Testament, God’s people kept disappointing him with their sin and wickedness (not being holy), and God had Moses and Aaron institute a prescribed and precise system of animal sacrifice, which by the spilling and shedding of blood (because the penalty of sin is death, and spilling of blood represents death) would atone for the sin of the people and make things right with God (Leviticus chapters 16-17).

By the time Jesus was born (start of New Testament) and started his ministry 2000 plus years ago, the system of animal sacrifice for atonement of sins was firmly established. Then Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount and at the end of it commanded us to “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Now didn’t God say in Genesis that he created man in his image? And Adam and Eve for a time didn’t sin, at all. So on the basis of God’s creation it’s actually somewhat valid for him to expect us to be perfect.

Let me get this straight, you might say. Not only is God and Jesus Christ perfect, but He wants us to be perfect? Yep. According to the Bible, we need either to be perfect (a very tall order indeed) or we need a fix (they say fix in Oklahoma, where I’m from originally), or a repair, or a remedy for our imperfectness. What I mean by this is a way to look like we’re perfect to God, even though we’re not. I think most all of humanity, when it comes down to it, would choose the latter option.

Jesus Christ himself is the fix for our imperfectness, and the way to repair the broken relationship we have with God due to our sin. He is the Son of God, part of the Holy Trinity, which is portrayed and displayed in the Old and New Testament. Thusly, he is God, and admitted as much in the gospels before he was crucified on the cross.

Do I mean Jesus will help us not commit sin at all and be perfect? Yes and no, kind of. Walking spiritually ‘in Christ’ will grow a desire in your heart to please God with your actions, desires, and thoughts. Avoiding sin only because you know its wrong quickly not only becomes tiring, it becomes impossible! Also, can imperfect humans really be perfect, really? Not by our own efforts, not by our own works. Even the Pope and Billy Graham sin. So where does that leave us, desperate?

For a moment only; no, that leaves us totally and completely dependent on Christ to perfect us, to make us perfect. But does the Bible say He does this? Yes! From Hebrews 10:14: “because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy (Christians being sanctified).” There it is, straight from the Holy word of God. We REALLY CAN are made perfect in God’s eyes, without actually being perfect!

This is a lot to chew on spiritually. For more explanation, I found it was good to read the sections from Hebrews 7:23-28, Hebrews 9:13-15, and Hebrews 10:11-18 (all NLT). Also consider the phrase ‘in Christ’ from the standpoint of John 15 (‘I am the vine, you are the branches’) and as well as from John 17:23 (NLT) when a pre-crucifixion Jesus prayed for future believers: “I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.” Christ is perfect, and he is in us and we are in him. Hallelujah!

What can I share about flying lately? Well, I’m not perfect there either. Things occasionally happen, despite my best intents and efforts that I don’t share unless you’re a fellow pilot at my airline that I’m comfortable sharing it with. No, I can’t divulge the details; it didn’t require a visit from the Chief Pilot or the FAA. Let’s just say the complacency curve caught up to me, and something happened which made me ask “how the heck did that happen?” When I make errors, or mistakes, usually it’s ones of small significance, customer service related, or one where the Co-Pilot and I agree that it just amounts to ‘style points’. But sometimes, well, ‘stuff’ happens.

OK, I give, as I frequently do. We were taxiing out of a Birmingham, Alabama, about a month ago at ‘dark O’Clock’ in a pounding, cold rain. We were a little late because of a number of frustrating occurrences, some caused by a seemingly inept ground crew, some caused by a broken and uncooperative airplane.

The ramp crew hadn’t serviced our jet properly during the overnight, and I had to request water for the galley and lavatory, and a ground power unit (GPU) and air start cart. You’re heard these terms before and together they mean our APU (auxiliary power unit) was broken. When the APU is ‘inop’ we need a GPU for electricity and a start cart to provide air pressure to start our engines. The cabin not being clean enough was minor at this point.

They got us water and the aforementioned equipment, then boarded us and we prepared to start engines, only to see that the tug driver couldn’t make his headset work to communicate with us for the pushback. Eventually he got it working intermittently, and then our left engine had trouble starting correctly. The start was fine, but when it was completed we kept getting a red warning light and text and audible message ‘engine oil pressure’ telling us that the oil pressure on our left engine was too low. Upon checking the actual oil pressure gauge and the other engine indications, the reality was that the pressure was fine, and I surmised that so was the engine. It was entirely logical that the warning was not correct, but with a $2 million engine and a warning that won’t go away, you can get antsy quickly. I shut down the engine, we started the right engine, and planned to start the left one again, and we tried to communicate this to our soaked to the bone ramp agents through the rickety headset connection. Upon starting the left engine again the message wouldn’t go away, so I called for the QRH (Quick Reference Handbook) procedure for low engine oil pressure. The checklist basically said if you have both gage and warning message indications of low oil pressure, shut down the engine, if you have conflicting indications, keep it running and monitor it. Just about then the message did go way.

The ramp crew, in their yellow slickers, had about had enough. To get them out of the rain, I resolved to call maintenance and report our trouble in starting the left engine, but do it after taxi while sitting next to the runway. We finished our checklists and prepared to taxi out.

Leaving a rain soaked, black asphalt ramp at an unfamiliar airport for the very first time, at a dark hour of before sunrise would prove to be interesting. There had been so much rain and moisture that our windshield had fogged up on the inside surfaces, like you get on a car sometimes. I asked my FO to select high on our windshield heat instead of low. For some reason he was reluctant to do so, so I did it myself. The high setting would remove the fog on the windshield sooner. Windshield heat is a super powered version of rear window defogging on a car. We started taxiing out from the ramp to the taxiway after receiving taxi clearance from Birmingham ground control to taxi to our departure runway.

Feeling our way past the terminal and other aircraft, the wipers were doing okay in clearing the rain and the fog was slowly being removed from the windscreen. Two ‘islands’ (areas you can’t taxi over), wrapped in the blue lights taxiways are identified by, were ahead of us, and it looked like we could go right between both of them. Getting closer I slowed the plane down and we both peered through the drops on our windshield. “I don’t see lights on the inner sides of the islands” I said. My FO, a really good guy to work with but a new pilot at our airline, with only about 500 hours total time in jets, agreed. Approaching with about ten yards left to reach the islands I noticed that there was a green reflector in the ground right ahead of us, then the depth and width of the drainage ditch I was about to drive the plane into blossomed into full realization in the threat area of my brain. After an exclamation or two, a brake application and a sharp turn to the left around the ‘two’ islands which in reality were one, we found the taxiway down to the runway.

Fortunately I had been taxiing the jet slow enough to see the danger, slow down, and turn out of the way. We surmised that sometime in the past a blue light and post had been broken and the airport had replaced it with just a green reflector on the ground. The ditch was one to two feet deep and about three feet wide, and would’ve ‘ruined our whole day’ had I driven the plane through it.

At a holding ramp next to the runway, I called our maintenance department. When I reported our engine starting difficulty they agreed it was just an anomaly, and advised us to keep an eye on it, as we certainly would. The engine never gave us any more trouble the entire day, which involved five legs worth of flying.

The temperature in this moderate, constant rain was a cold 3 degrees Celsius, or about 38 degrees Farenhight. That required that we takeoff with our wing and engine cowl anti-ice systems turned on. Because our jet doesn’t have takeoff and landing performance calculated (it wasn’t certified this way to increase available payload) when operating without the APU on while using hot air from the engine for wing and engine cowl anti-ice, we would have to perform the takeoff with the cabin unpressurized, and consequently perform an unpressurized landing and takeoff at Charlotte, Huntsville, and Washington DC. I could explain more but at this point it would be too confusing and diverting from the story; just know that an unpressurized takeoff or landing is a pain in the butt!

After we briefed this procedure, I took a little time to consider with my Co-Pilot what we could’ve done better to avoid ‘driving it into the ditch’ in the first place. I should’ve selected high on the windshield heat immediately, and not taxied until it was clear of fog. I should’ve looked at the airport diagram closer and defined and briefed our taxi route from the ramp to the taxiway, before the plane started moving. I always brief the taxi before the plane is moving, but this time I let being in a hurry get the best of me. I noticed that the airport diagram didn’t show enough detail to see that the two islands were actually one, but one page later, in a map of the terminal and ramp area, it did show that important detail. Lastly, I should’ve been on better guard since I was operating at an unfamiliar airport. Actually there’s one more, too, that I kept to myself. I tend to lose ‘flight discipline’ somewhat when I get emotional, on the angry or happy side of the scale. I could do better in safeguarding against this.

‘Flight Discipline’ is an important term I favor in my job arena. When even the new FAA Administrator is lamenting a loss of professionalism in the regional AND major airline pilot ranks these days, encouraging pilots to have better flight discipline will be one of the keys to improving the airline safety record even further. I’d like to plug a great book I read by the same name, ‘Flight Discipline’ by Tony Kern, a veteran Air Force Pilot. He reviews military and airline accidents in which a lack of flight discipline directly contributed to the crashes occurring. Based on my experience as an airline pilot, former military pilots seem to have better flight discipline than their civilian cohorts. They have more of a mission mindset and a greater respect for the rules and SOP’s (standard operating procedures) than other pilots. This isn’t to say that every civilian pilot is a ‘cowboy’ either, by no means.

Traditionally, the public holds pilots in such high regard, sometimes I wonder why. Maybe it has to do with entrusting your life to complete strangers in a foreign, unknown, unfriendly sky. Not to malign my brothers and sisters in arms, but we are people too. On one hand, passengers seem to think that pilots are brave, courageous, have razor sharp reflexes and coordination, are safe and professional, and thusly, have the morals and ethics of saints. I’m sorry, it’s just not true. You can be a safe and professional pilot and still be completely human, with many personal failings. The opposite stereotype of pilots as greedy, lazy, drunk, egotistical male chauvinists and bigots who cheat on their wives or girlfriends is far from the mark as well. The reality is somewhere between; as it is in society in general, it depends on the individual pilot. Yes, airline pilots tend to have egos, but we’re not superheroes, we’re people like you and me. We’re just people, far from perfect people who have a love for flying, who have a blood and heart infection for being in the sky.

A Grinch who almost stole Christmas

2009-12-28T13:46:00.001-05:00

I’m touched by what went down a few nights ago. The events which transpired on Christmas Eve befit the Holiday. Both the naughty and nice sides of human nature were on display, and I’m proud of the way people with my company and others responded to the situation.

Our story starts after a Philadelphia-Milwaukee round trip, where we incurred takeoff delays in Milwaukee because of not one but two airborne emergencies of Northwest Airlines and United Express planes. After uneventful outcomes of both we blasted off for the ‘City of brotherly love’, grateful that no one was had been hurt.

As a side note, a ‘monumentally impressive snow and rainmaker of a winter storm’ (TV Weatherman impersonation) was producing only a cold and constant rain at Brew City’s Mitchell field. Freezing rain or snow, which was then located to the north and west of Milwaukee, would’ve delayed us twenty minutes or more to de-ice and anti-ice our aircraft. The frontal boundary of this weather system eventually stretched like an upside down horseshoe from the east coast over the Great Lakes and down into the southern plains states. They had blizzard warnings for Iowa and Oklahoma on the same day. The best part is this big storm was moving slowly. They’ve had flood warnings in the east, from days of rain far ahead of the snowy part of the storm system. You can see from the weather map that moisture from the Atlantic Ocean is being drawn up the east coast and across the Great Lakes, helping to feed moisture to the already snow laden atmosphere.

Back to our Christmas story, to start it that is; kind of like the background of the traditional Christmas story, it takes a little to get it going. We arrived a little late in Philadelphia from Milwaukee, and were to swap into a new aircraft for a flight from Philadelphia to Albany, New York for our overnight. I had been flying with reserve Co-Pilots on this trip, and I called our Dispatcher to ask three questions: for a meal break for my Flight Attendant and I, where our plane we were to swap into was, and who my new First Officer (FO) was. He was fine with the meal break, as we had skipped lunch, and told me that our FO, a reserve pilot from one of our other bases, had been in PHL for two hours. Arriving at the gate with Chinese food in my hand, our jet was ‘cold and dark’, airline parlance for not powered up, no electricity and no heat. What it really meant was that my new FO wasn’t present, for some reason. I put on my best poker face in front of fifty anxious passengers and one mainline pilot/jumpseater, then the Flight Attendant and I walked down the jetway to the plane. After firing up the APU to prepare the plane I called Crew Scheduling to advise them that FO ______ wasn’t present. I was quickly concerned when Crew Scheduling was surprised that he wasn’t there and began trying to track him down.

My good Flight Attendant and I agreed not to board the jet until Crew Scheduling had found an FO for the flight, this one or a new one. He wasn’t happy about it, but we advised the gate agent of this, and I became worried that the flight would be cancelled. Crew Scheduling determined that ________ had commuted back to his base for the night, and they started trying to find a new FO for us.

Rachael, our Flight Attendant, brought sodas and water to our fifty Albany bound passengers waiting at the gate. A Gate manager who was helping oversee everything brought out pretzels to the passengers as well. By now we were the last Express flight out of PHL on Christmas Eve, and my optimism was fading fast.

I went out and spoke to a few passengers about the delay, trying to bite my tongue concerning what I suspected our FO had done: essentially ditched us, the company, and fifty Empire Capital bound passengers just before one of the Holiest days and biggest Holidays of the year. A passenger asked me about the new departure time on the monitor. It now showed a 9:40 PM departure time, 2:40 later than we had been scheduled. I called Crew Scheduling (CS) back to ask about it. They informed me that the pilots of a flight currently landing at Elmira-Corning, New York would reposition a jet without passengers back to PHL and the FO from that plane would fly with our crew to Albany (ALB) for the night. Good news!

CS and our Dispatch Coordinator had worked a Christmas Miracle. They had tried assigning ready reserve pilots (different than normal reserve) but they were off duty, no other reserve pilots were available in PHL, and they called to ‘junior man’ pilots but no one was answering their phones (understandably). They had done almost everything they could to find a pilot to assign this flight to, and the only trick they had left was to extend a crew who were still on duty’s schedule, fortunately it worked.

I hated the idea of canceling this flight on Christmas Eve. The visual I had of the suffering these people would experience in not making it to loved ones for Christmas Morning was difficult to me to bear. I’m very grateful that my company and others went the extra mile to find an FO and not cancel this flight. They did more than just avoid a cancellation and the expense of putting fifty customers up in a hotel for the night. They saved Christmas for them!

I’d like to give ‘gold stars’ to my Flight Attendant Rachael, the gate agents, and ramp agents for taking great care of the passengers during this delay, and staying to see our flight out, and especially to my airline’s Dispatch Coordinator and CS Personnel responsible for not canceling this flight and for finding a replacement FO. To strand passengers in PHL on Christmas Eve because of this would have been a very unfortunate thing to do. My company and the others involved spent thousands of dollars more than necessary to get this flight out, but I’m proud of their response in this situation.

I had asked the CS person if she could share any details with me about the first FO’s missed flight assignment. CS contacted him at 7 PM on the 23rd during an overnight stay, via a voice mail message, with the PHL-ALB flight assignment. He didn’t call back, and CS left him another voice mail message on this Christmas Eve during his day of flying. He didn’t return this call either and commuted back to his base after arriving back in PHL after flying three flights. CS wasn’t happy with this person’s actions, and it seemed that this situation would definitely be addressed by management, and rightly so.

I and Rachael were angry and embarrassed, frankly, to hear of these events: angry at this employee, whom neither of us knew, and embarrassed that someone at our airline would do such a thing. While I don’t know his side of the story, it seemed to us that our FO intentionally missed his flight assignment, just in order to be home on Christmas Eve. For a reserve pilot to not call back about a new flight assignment to be flown on a scheduled day of reserve duty is very unprofessional, but even more so on a holiday like Christmas Eve.

I went back to preparing for our ‘Santa’ flight. Our jet’s wingtips were collecting frost, so I requested a de-ice. A PHL Operations Manager responded, but ultimately requested a change of aircraft because the deicing trucks had been shut down for the night, and the de-icing crews had gone home for the night as well (can’t blame them really). Our Dispatcher changed our jet to the one being repositioned to PHL, bringing in our new FO, assigned to our PHL-ALB flight. This plane was “negative APU” (APU inoperative) so I requested an air start cart (for the engines) and a GPU. The circus music had already replaced the Christmas music in my head, and it was getting louder. Fortunately and thankfully our ramp agents and gate agents had not abandoned us, and continued to take care of our needs.

With only the Captain and our ‘savior’ FO on board, our new jet arrived and parked next to our frosty one. The ground crew plugged the GPU (ground power unit) in and we had electricity on the aircraft without having to run one of the engines. Rachael, our new FO and I prepared it and boarded our 50 passengers for ALB ASAP. We pushed back just after ten PM, three hours late.

This night, Christmas Eve night, we had had a Grinch who tried to steal Christmas from our passengers, a selfish fellow with an ugly attitude, thinking only about himself and not others he was to serve. True Christmas spirit, that of giving, serving, and sacrifice, and ultimately of suffering, was not in him. It reminds me of how secular traditions – the commercialization of Christmas (giving gifts, Santa, etc.) and applied humanist philosophies try to steal it from it’s true reason: The celebration of the human birth of Immanuel, ‘God with us’ (Isaiah 7:14) , The prophesied Messiah for the Jewish people and all mankind, Jesus Christ.

There were many prophecies fulfilled just by the birth of Christ. Concerning his birth, the who it was, what would happen, when it would occur, where it would occur, how it would occur, and of what lineage the Messiah would be was prophesied of hundreds and thousands of years before Jesus birth. For two websites worth exploring these prophesies at, click here and here.

Why do I write of Christmas in this way, that it includes sacrifice and suffering? The original, true Christmas story had these elements. Mary and Joseph were certainly cursed at under the breath of others, and possibly ostracized by those who didn’t believe their ‘Holy Spirit conceived pregnancy while still a virgin’ story (Matthew 1:18-25, Luke 1:26-37) that no doubt made the rounds in their town of Nazareth. There’s suffering there.

The arduous journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem that they made during the final stages of her pregnancy involved suffering and sacrifices as well. It was 70 miles, and tradition says that Joseph walked and Mary was on a donkey. The census, called by Caesar Augustus, was to collect taxes for the Roman Empire, and required that everyone travel to their hometown (Luke 2:1-5). By God’s sovereign plan this requirement enabled fulfillment of the prophecy that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, given by Micah the Prophet in Mica 5:2: “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, are only a small village among all the people of Judah. Yet a ruler of Israel will come from you, one whose origins are from the distant past.”

We humans love signs from the divine, and in the Christmas story, one of the signs ‘of the new King’ was given to ‘wise men from the east’. From Matthew 2:1-12, wise men from the east ask King Herod in Jerusalem “Where is the new born king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose, and we have come to worship him.” Why did this signal to the wise men that a new King was born? According to a Bible guide I have, some astronomers calculate that in 7 BC Jupiter and Saturn lined up inside the Pisces constellation not once, but three times. On the ancient Middle Eastern horoscope, Jupiter represented kings, Saturn represented the Jews, and Pisces (fish) represented the Jewish homeland, so it seemed that a Jewish King was arriving at the Jewish homeland! Click here for a Theoretical Astrophysicist’s interesting opinion on it.

What a great sign this was! And I’m grateful that I received a sign this night, a skeptic might say it was coincidence, but I have faith in Jesus, and prefer to use it when I can. Our great sign this night was the name of our new FO, whose last name was ‘King’, I kid you not. He was easy to work with, understanding of the situation, he even called me sir, kept doing it too, even after I told him he didn’t need to. A ‘King’ who suffers and serves, he had those traits in common with the Lord.

If you’re thinking ‘baby Jesus didn’t suffer’ you’re probably right (except for the animal dung smell!), but suffering was part of his destiny. By reading the gospels one can see that He never turned away when faced with suffering and sacrifice. We Christians are quick to accept his serving, suffering, and sacrifice for us, but tend to be slow in accepting it in our own lives. However, In relationship with God through faith in Jesus as personal Savior and Lord and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us, we can grow to accept sacrifice and suffering with Joy. This sentiment is expressed in I Peter 4:12-16: “12Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. 13But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. 14If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. 15If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. 16However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name."

Glory, praises, and all honor to all mankind's newborn Messiah and King!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T13:20:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas everyone! Lots of snow and blizzard conditions where I have loved ones, be careful out there! I'm in Albany, NY, and am scheduled to fly to Philadelphia, PA, then to Cincinati, OH tonight. I have a great Christmas story I'd like to share, but will get to it later. I promise. Thanks for reading my blog again!

The promised Messiah for all of mankind, Jesus Christ, Immanuel, 'God with us', is born this Christmas morning!

Scrooged!

2009-12-20T00:22:00.002-05:00

Yesterday started out nice in Milwaukee, and finished nice in Philadelphia, but in between it was murky, foggy, and tenuous with the scene of the world outside the windows, and eventually the question of where I would lay my head for the night.

Our scheduled day was Milwaukee (MKE) - Charlotte (CLT) – Harrisburg, PA (MDT) – CLT – Washington, DC (DCA). Most of it went according to plan. The first flight to Charlotte went well, except for light turbulence the second half, in ‘IMC’ (the clouds) over the Blue Ridge and Smokey Mountains portion of the Appalachians, pointed toward Charlotte. Once over the CLT terminal area, most of the white skies gave way to an undercast layer far below us, guarding the ground with a blanket of Sunday Football watching nap weather, which I wished I had the opportunity to do instead of shepherding planes full of trusting holiday travelers.

In very light winds, I flew the garden variety ILS (Instrument Landing System) approach, but in ‘solid’ conditions. We didn’t spend much time in the thin layer before we broke out at about 350 feet above the runway, which was covered in moisture from a light drizzle. A temperature inversion (which is a layer of air which is warmer at a higher altitude than it is below) hugged the ground. The cooler temperature on the ground promised that the conditions were all set to get worse, and we trusted that it would.

It was my First Officer’s legs to be the PF (pilot flying) from Charlotte to Harrisburg and back, more infamously known as ‘Three Mile Island’, which the airport is very close to. He’s an Asian-American, was born and raised in Hawaii, and is a long way from home. Very easy to work with, he’s a good, knowledgeable pilot, and quiet and good natured. Harrisburg had a thin overcast too, and the air was so smooth during his approach that you wouldn’t have known it otherwise. I called the ‘approach lights in sight’ at about 500 feet AGL (Above Ground Level) and he landed nicely on the long, misty runway.

After a visit to McDonald’s, and not a healthy salad but a greasy third pound burger and fries (comfort food when missing my three wife and two girls back home), I was ready to jump through the murk back to Charlotte. We had a guest up front, a jumpseating Piedmont First Officer who was in his fourth year there, flying the Dash-8 Turboprop and based at Harrisburg. Piedmont is a proud carrier, a rare regional airline which hasn’t ‘lowered the bar’ and taken paycuts and concessions in exchange for Regional Jets. Good for them, I say, but on the other hand, I’d bet that it can be a heartache seeing all those RJ’s taxi by while you’re making a career commanding an out of fashion and out of favor turboprop. I’m not demeaning T-prop’s, just commiserating with their pilots, that’s all. I think the Dash-8 Q400 (which Piedmont doesn’t fly BTW) is a great plane, but for that many seats (74) a pilot should be paid a great hourly rate.

“US Express thirty-seven-fourty-nine, right turn heading one-eight-zero” Harrisburg departure told us as my FO climbed our jetliner out of the clouds into the night sky. As we turned, the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant loomed seemingly just right below us. The enveloping mist around the tall, hourglass shaped cooling towers and other structures tried to hide it all from view, but the power plant’s bright white lights and ‘aviation red’ obstruction lights would have no part of that. It was a surreal moment surrounding a still amazing and controversial energy technology.

From here onward to Charlotte and part way back to DC, we would observe the earth’s new portrayal of itself, as a gray, white and orange, marbled, spider webbed and interconnected surface. Lights of civilization from the cities, towns, and highways below were illuminating through the thin layer of clouds and fog. For me, it was yet another reminder of how Jesus Christ gives light, true light, his true light, to us, and how he penetrates our hearts, through whatever fog and clouds are in our lives.

We chased some more green light on the way to Charlotte, and had good conversation with our Jumpseater. I made a mental note to see whether the green light in a fading dusk horizon from 20,000 feet is observable on terra firma, and yesterday, when driving home, I verified that it is not. You now have another reason to book a flight, in order to cross the sky and appreciate an exquisitely beautiful sunset and dusky sky.

For our second approach into Charlotte, we still had a thin overcast layer and temperature inversion, but the conditions had gotten significantly worse on the ground. Charlotte was reporting almost calm winds, ½ mile visibility with mist, and a thin cloud layer starting at 300 feet above the ground. The businesslike tone of the controllers and the pilots on the frequency reflected the seriousness of the atmosphere.

Upon checking on with Charlotte Approach, they told us that the runway ‘three-six right’ (36R) RVR was 2000. RVR stands for ‘Runway Visual Range’, and is a measured horizontal visibility that governs instrument approaches in poor visibility. Our airline’s minimum legal visibility permitted for an approach is 1,800 feet, so it was approaching our legal minimums for an instrument approach.

He had already briefed the ILS approach to 36R, so all that was left to do was to cross our t’s and dot our i’s regarding our procedures and such on the approach. Since I take the plane off the runway, I briefed that we would take the first exit we saw at a slow enough speed, or as the tower cleared us. It was likely they would want us clear of the first available taxiway. We both knew that the likelihood of going around was good, so we were mentally prepared for that, as we always are, but more so this time.

One of the components of the ILS is the approach lighting system. It is a sequenced line of lights on the ground, extended from the beginning of the runway up to a half a mile, and on some runways the runway itself has touchdown zone lighting, symmetrically on both sides of the runway centerline. ATC can turn these lights up very brightly, to make it easier to see the approach lights and runway through the low fog and mist. Only I forgot to brief my FO on how bright these lights would be, so bright that they take away all of your depth perception in the landing flare. Even with all our jet’s landing lights on, you can’t see the runway surface.

He did a fine job though. By the time he was flaring the plane for landing it was readily apparent that there was no depth perception. I didn’t want to distract him at that point, so I didn’t say anything. You would think this is a no brainer for airline pilot pros, but we see these conditions only about three times a year – twice in real life and once in the simulator. My FO has been at our airline for over three years, and he told me after we taxied in that it was the lowest visibility he’s actually landed in as the pilot flying.

Those conditions aren’t anything to fool around in. Unfortunately, later that night, after we departed Charlotte for Washington DC, another airline’s MD-80 had a landing mishap after continuing an approach in those foggy conditions when they perhaps should have gone around. The crew landed with one main landing gear on the edge of the runway. Then, in trying to steer the jet back onto the runway, one of it’s wingtips struck the ground. It is reported that these pilots reported trouble with their autopilot and disconnected it during the approach, electing to hand fly it the rest of the way to touchdown.

After a landing accident from an unstabilized approach that my own airline had a couple of years ago, (with no lives lost or injuries, thank God), my airline now has a policy of requiring the autopilot to fly the approach to the missed approach point when the visibility below 3 miles. Some of our pilots opine that they’re restricting our ‘freedom’, but I believe this policy is a good thing.

Taxiing out of Charlotte later, I had to take it very slowly; it was so foggy that ground control was relying on position reports from the aircraft. Seeing other jets on the ground itself was difficult. They tended to show up like silvery lit sets of lights, sliding by like ghosts among the colored Christmas tree lights of the taxiways and runways (I like colored lights on Christmas trees). ‘What is that jumbo jet Airbus doing?’ He turned toward us on the runway we were crossing as he was taxiing to the gate after landing. Suddenly he looked a lot bigger and we wondered if he saw us like we saw him. He was a normal narrow body Airbus after all, 320 series. The fog made planes seem bigger, and they sneak up on you quicker.

In a long line for takeoff, we enjoyed watching the airliners (which had lower legal landing minimums than our airline does) break out of the low overcast and land virtually immediately. The clouds were now reported as 100 feet above the ground and the visibility was variable between 1200-1400 RVR. We had asked our dispatcher for a takeoff alternate at the gate, he knew we would call and was planning it for us. Since we were limited to RVR 1800 when landing at Charlotte, if we had an engine failure or another emergency we wouldn’t be able to return to Charlotte. On our release I ‘pen and inked’ the ‘TOA’ and we were on our way.

The trend seemed to be that a blanket of fog was being thrown all across the south. DC’s forecast wasn’t that bad, relatively speaking. It was supposed to be “31005KT 2SM BR OVC003” (light winds from the northwest, two miles visibility, mist, overcast clouds 300 feet above the ground) by the time we arrived after a 50 minute flight. I was the pilot flying this leg, and by the time I finished my salad in cruise flight, Washington center gave us the standard clearance to “Descend to cross OJAAY at one-zero thousand, two-five-zero knots”. OJAAY is an ‘intersection’ on our route of flight into DC from the south, and ATC wanted us to cross it at 10,000 feet at 250 MPH.

My good FO had just brought up the weather report from DC. It was “19003KT 1/2SM FG OVC001”, with the visibility of ½ mile at our approach minimums. The RVR reports would tell the tale on whether we would get in, or even fly the approach. Soon Washington center gave a clearance to turn back behind where we were and enter ‘the published holding pattern’ at JIMBE intersection. We never made it to OJAAY. After my good FO programmed the holding pattern at JIMBE in our FMS (Flight Management System-computer) I said “execute”, punched the right buttons and twisted the right knobs, and our jet magically entered the holding pattern, flying the oval racetrack pattern depicted on our moving map display.

Meanwhile, the RVR reports from DC weren’t good. It was 800-1200, and the absolute minimum RVR at DC for any aircraft (due to limited ground equipment and approach lights etc.) is 1600. Under these conditions, no aircraft were getting into DC tonight. The weather forecast for DC had been in the neighborhood, but the ‘weather guessers’ had still basically blown it. A revised forecast we received via our ACARS box predicted that the thick fog would stick around DC for the night.

We had about 30-40 minutes of fuel to hold with, with four or five other forlorn airliners waiting for DC above and below us. As usual, there is lots to do when holding, waiting, wondering if you’ll divert to your alternate airport or another airport: update the passengers, the Flight Attendant, communicate with Dispatch, check and re-check the weather reports and forecasts at your respective airports, and look for meteors falling through the sky.

Uh, that last part is rare but true. We were lucky enough to be flying in a clear sky on the night of maximum meteor activity of the annual Geminids meteor shower. My FO had spotted a few more than me, but after I learned where to look I started catching up. It was the only consolation I could offer our passengers as we waited for our bingo fuel to arrive or for the fog to lift at DC.

Our bingo fuel, calculated by our Dispatcher, and verified by us, is the minimum fuel we could leave the holding pattern with, fly the approach at DC, go missed approach, and continue to our alternate and land with IFR reserves (45 minutes worth of fuel) at our alternate, which in this case was Philadelphia. PHL seemed like a long way for an alternate, my FO stated, and I tended to agree with him. We checked the weather at nearby Washington DC Dulles (IAD) and Baltimore (BWI). It was fine at BWI and marginal at IAD, but we might be able to get in there. We ‘emailed’ over our ACARS box to Dispatch our suggestion to divert to IAD instead of PHL, but they didn’t take the bait. He kept responding that “PHL is ready for you”. PHL did have better facilities for receiving a stray US Air Express flight, as it’s a hub for them. But I was visualizing unhappy passengers getting off the plane in PHL asking ‘why didn’t we land at Dulles or Baltimore?’. We crept down closer and closer to our bingo fuel with every meteor sighted.

After holding for about 40 minutes we reached our bingo fuel of 3,800 lbs, and set things in motion with ATC to divert to PHL. Away from blanketed ground beneath us we went toward the bare, fog free Virginia and Maryland peninsulas, towards unclouded Philadelphia and a 20 mile line of aircraft on final approach. That’s a long final approach, it seemed Philly was running a reduced ATC operation, using only one runway for landing. A normal flight from Charlotte to DC usually takes 1:25 total, with this diversion to Philly it took 3:08.

Yes, the people were not happy, especially when the gate agent announced on board that the flight had been cancelled. It was a weather cancellation, which meant that the airline wasn’t liable for providing a hotel for inconvenienced passengers. I know, I know, but I just fly the plane, I don’t make up the rules. Comments like “I’ll miss an important meeting because of this”, “did the Airbus flying from Charlotte to DC make it in?” (no), and of course “three airports in DC, what about going to Baltimore?” were faced by me with the best apologetic, empathetic smile I could muster.

At the hotel a while later, at 1 AM I tried to settle into my comfortable room, but my head was still buzzing with the experiences and sights we had this day. My heart had a flurry of activity too, feeling for our passengers so close, but yet so far from where they thought they would be. I was looking forward to going home, on an unknown early flight from Philly to Minneapolis or Chicago, then on the final leg to Sioux Falls. I was missing my wife and two girls dearly. I hadn’t seen my wife but for a couple hours the last time I had been home. She had traveled to be with her father in Omaha, in the hospital.

The internet didn’t work for my laptop in my room, so I would have to guess on the time and airline to jumpseat on. Murphy, as in Murphy’s law, was running the show. After four hours sleep I clawed my way to the airport and picked Northwest, even against my instincts telling me to go to United. My flight had a maintenance delay. Once at MSP, I learned that the flight I could’ve taken to Sioux Falls, if I had been on time, had cancelled. Passengers and jumpseating pilots from the cancelled flight spilled over in the departure lounge. Soon I missed the next two flights on regional jets, and finally caught the third one home, it had taken 12+ hours.

I was home for 22 hours, as I had only two days off and had an early show for next trip I had to commute back to DC for. But I had a great 22 hour layover at home. Sometimes this job, and life, goes this way. Sometimes you get Scrooged, by the weather and your commute. But God doesn’t say in the Bible that you won’t get scrooged. He does say that He will be there for you when it happens.

Thanks for reading my blog. ‘Happy Holidays’, and have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I hope to post again for Christmas, before the year is out.

Just a little Bit

2009-12-11T13:31:00.000-05:00

Recently it happened; I knew it would eventually. In the fallout after a Northwest Airlines flight crew accidentally lost communications with ATC and over flew Minneapolis-St. Paul airport by over 100 miles, I just knew that sometime in the future, an airline passenger would make a rude remark about it in my direction.

I asked the lady finishing her meal if the seat next to her was taken. I was waiting for my pizza while commuting home through Chicago’s O’Hare airport. “I don’t know, are you drinking?” was her reply. I could feel my facial muscles in disappointment as she further stated “do you have a laptop? Where are you going? Are you going to Tampa Bay?” In complete disdain and eye roll mode I exasperated to her “Please. I’m commuting home to where I live, and I’m not drinking, I’m in uniform”. All the while I was asking myself, telling myself, that she is kidding. Right?

My pizza came, albeit with a soggy crust. I was hungry so I squatted down on the stool, popped in my earbuds with my back to my offender, and tried to get over it. The music intended to soothe my frayed nerves was short lived. I felt a soft pat on my back, then another. I knew without looking that it was this lady again, wanting to accost me, or talk, for some reason. Being the gentleman that I am, I obliged her. It turned out that she was fairly nice, but talkative and opinionated, finishing a glass of wine to prime her tongue.

Her husband was a private pilot and wanna be airline pilot, so she just knew everything that goes on up in the flight deck. She knew a little in any regard. We chatted for a while and she told me about her two sons, how blessed I was to have two daughters instead, and how her husband was a retired Marine but he still won’t get rid of his uniforms (don’t know why that’s a problem). Excepting her first comments, she was actually very nice, and she had a Christian cross necklace on, so at least we had the same God in common. It was strange how I was seemingly making friends with this fellow traveler who moments before I had classed as very rude, all without her apologizing or clarifying that she had been kidding me. I wouldn’t be surprised if I get comments of that nature again in the future.

In this age of high technology, everyone thinks it’s so easy to be an ‘expert’ on anything. Google it, look it up on Wikipedia, read about it on the internet, and you’re an instant layman on any subject. The saying ‘a little knowledge is a dangerous thing’ hasn’t changed in value, though. The vast capability technology gives us, coupled with easy access to information, has somehow given others a license for ridicule and lampoon when human failings break through the system we trust, as they will always do. The average Joe thinks that just because the jets are so automated, that ‘they can fly themselves, and even land themselves’, that it doesn’t take the same level of skill, discipline, and judgment, and leadership as it used to. “So easy, even a caveman could do it?” I definitely don’t think so.

All in all, it shows a lack of respect that travelers have for pilots these days. Then again, by their own actions and appearances, pilots have tended to show a lack of respect for their profession as well. It's not just the pilots though; I also point the finger of blame at the management and leadership of the airlines. I can? Sure I can, this is my blog. Yes, I think both parties have a share in this.

Here are a few axioms that are current in the industry, common to others as well:

"When they pay me like a professional, then I’ll act like a Professional." I don't agree with this one, but it is common in 'the way of the world'. This is a poor attitude to have, and I've written about this before. When it comes to transporting precious human life through the air, this attitude should be invalidated. The intent should be that professionalism, and thus safety, shouldn't suffer, whether you're flying a puddle jumper or a 747. In fact, the per flight hour safety record of the nineteen seat twin turboprop commuter airlines is virtually the same as that of the majors, and these fellas are some of the hardest working and least paid airline pilots there are. I know, because I was one of them for two years. Being less of a professional just because you feel you're underpaid is itself the epitome of unprofessionalism.

However, airline pilots do make significantly less that they did in the past, mainly because of federal deregulation of the airlines (which occurred under Carter but came to final fruition under Reagan) and the consequent competition in the free marketplace. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, in bankruptcies and the rise of the 'low cost carriers', things got even worse for airline pilots. Major airline pilots now make one-half or less of what they used to, basically. According to data published in my pilot union's latest newsletter, when corrected for inflation, a 1982 Captain of a 44 seat turboprop would have made more than twice as much today as regional jet Captains are now at our current airlines. When adjusted for inflation, a Republic Airlines (the original Republic Airlines mind you) Captain of a Convair 580 would make $171 per flight hour now, compared to about $70 per flight hour a 50 seat RJ Captain currently makes. Airline pilots get paid for approximately 1,000 hours a year, so you can do the math.

(Free market Conservative Capitalist steps in): 'Time out now, Craig. You blamed airline management, and now said they (the government) deregulated the airlines, which in turn forced them to compete more with each other in the free marketplace. It's only logical that airline managements would try to reduce their costs in order to remain competitive, which is what they've done. So what's wrong with management responding to the new market established by deregulation, and why haven't you blamed the government?' Nothing, I suppose. You can't blame someone for trying to defend their standard of living, however. I try to strike a balance between understanding the economic stance of the airlines and establishing what I need, not necessarily want, to get by with and provide for my family. Regarding the government, it is what it is, and they are a few voices calling for regulation of the airlines again, I don't think it will occur though. The intent of deregulation was to reduce the cost of airline travel and make it more affordable for more Americans, and that goal has been achieved.

"You get what you can negotiate, not what you deserve." In capitalism based, free market economy, this holds true, like it or not. Whether you like it depends on how well your company is doing and how much you can negotiate, I suppose. For example, FedEx and UPS pilots currently have excellent pay, the best in the business and substantially better than the passenger airlines, because they've been able to negotiate it, based on the incredible profitability their companies have had in the 2000's.

Regional airlines have been buffeted by extreme pressure to reduce their labor costs, and in many cases have caved, my airline being no exception. Regional airlines have been pitted against each other to compete to be awarded or keep the share of flying they do for their parent carrier. This is called 'whip-sawing', and it hardly existed before deregulation and the rise of regional, or 'contract' carriers.

Airline management has conflicting priorities: one is to maximize profitability; the other is to operate a safe airline. At some point, pushing pilots, real human beings, not machines, to do more and more with less and less in order to save money does affect safety in a negative way.

My bottom line, the bottom line, IMO, is that even though airline pilots make substantially less than they used to, professionalism shouldn't suffer. Safety, or perceived safety, shouldn't suffer either. ALPA, the largest airline pilots union, and airline pilot groups everywhere are in large part responsible for the excellent safety record of the airlines, not airline management. Of course, some airline managements are more attuned to their pilot groups concerns regarding safety than others. Our unions and pilot groups should and will continue for fight against the degradation of professionalism in the flight deck. The honor of our profession and the traveling public's trust is at stake.

Sequestered in Manchester

2009-11-18T17:05:00.001-05:00

The very first flight I had after four days off promised to be an interesting one, and it delivered. I was paired up on this three day trip with a First Officer whom I had flown with before; by previous experience we knew what each other was like, and the best way to work together. That is the good part; the bad is that we had had previous disagreements, to the point of anger and even ‘butting heads’, so to speak. We had resolved our previous conflict the best we could, but there was still some lingering resentment between us.

Encountering conflict of this scale and nature is rare for me and my personality type, so it is stressful and trying for me when it happens. I prefer not to disparage my Co-Pilots too much, so I can’t reveal many details of our past. I will volunteer that I’m not the only Captain “Sean” has perturbed and ‘butted heads’ with, however.

Everyone has positive attributes, no matter where a co-worker may fall on the entirely subjective and individualized scale of desirability of workmates that we all have. One person might like a trait a co-worker has, the next person might not. These days I sincerely try to identify valuable characteristics that my co-workers do bring to the job. If I can change how I work with them to play to their individual strengths, it makes our work performance together more effective, permits them to be themselves, and enables me to appreciate them for the persons they are.

My Co-Pilot seemed pleased to see me. My first reaction was thinking that we would get along fine on this trip; over time I’ve realized that he has a personality type is that is direct and clear, but can be confrontational. Sean is like a desert: although he heats up fast, the good thing is that he cools down fast as well. Translation: his temper will flare, but most likely it will be over in a short while.

That being out of the way, it was a beautiful day on the east coast, blue skies and ‘High Pressure dominating’ in TV Weatherman speak, as we climbed out of DC for Manchester, New Hampshire. At 23,000 feet and just past the New York City area in smooth, clear air, with about forty minutes left in the flight, we heard the ding. This wasn’t the sound of the seat belt sign being turned off, either.

Accompanied by the bell was a yellow flashing ‘master caution’ light on a panel in front of us, and a new message in yellow on one of our flight displays. “IDG2” is what it read. I pushed the master caution switch to cancel the flashing light and show the airplane that we acknowledged the message. The IDG2 message then disappeared and reappeared for a few seconds numerous times over the next minute. “Let’s do the QRH, there’s obviously a problem with it”, I said. My First Officer replied “it’s been written up and MEL’d before”. That fact wasn’t surprising to me in the least.

Before I lose you, the IDG is an Integrated Drive Generator, which is driven by the engine, and produces electricity for the jet. Our IDG for our right engine was malfunctioning. IDG’s are filled with oil and work in a similar manner to the automatic transmission of a car. When an IDG malfunctions, the most likely reason is that the oil level inside it is too low.

The QRH is our Quick Reference Handbook, which contains emergency and abnormal checklists for just about any abnormal or emergency condition the jet can encounter. “Sean” was soon finding the QRH checklist for an IDG2 message. MEL stands for ‘Minimum Equipment List’. We have a long list, FAA approved, of things we can fly with broken. It may seem strange but there are plenty of things we can fly with broken, all we have to do is document it with our Maintenance department and abide by the MEL operating procedures. Don’t worry, the MEL is conservative, and an engine is not ‘MELable’, so to speak.

Down the QRH road we went. As the PM (Pilot monitoring), Sean would read it and I, as the PF (Pilot Flying) would perform the actions the QRH specifies. Very soon I was verifying, touching, and activating guarded switches. If I disconnected the wrong IDG, our IDG1, the ‘good’ generator, it would reduce us to emergency power and would promise a hot cup of coffee with the Chief Pilot. That is why certain switches have guarded covers, so that both pilots may verify that the correct switches are being selected in an abnormal or emergency situation.

First the QRH checklist had me take the bad IDG ‘off-line’ and completely disconnect it from the number two (right) engine. It could only be reconnected on the ground. Then per the checklist I started the APU (Auxiliary Power Unit) to restore the electrical power the jet lost when taking IDG2 off-line. The autopilot disconnected when I ‘killed’ IDG2, I should’ve seen it coming but I still have ‘quick hands’, even though I just turned forty. The workload wasn’t too bad, as we could still re-engage the autopilot, and now prepare for the descent and approach into Manchester.

A nice cloud layer above New Hampshire, with mist, two miles visibility, and a 500 foot cloud ceiling in Manchester made for a busy arrival. Lots of question had yet to be answered after our jet had a fit, and with the time remaining to land we could only ask them. Could we “MEL” the bad IDG and still carry passengers out of Manchester to Philadelphia? Would the on call Mechanic arrive quickly and be able to address our problem? How long would the departure delay to PHL be? Would our Maintenance department want the jet repaired or MEL’d? Should we delay passenger boarding? How many irritated passengers would our Flight Attendant have to deal with?

The biggest problem we encountered on the ground was the gate agents bothering us to board our PHL passenger aircraft, close up, and push back before everything was completed. The prompt, on call mechanic found that IDG2 was a little low on oil, sure enough, and was completing the paperwork to defer repairing it until a later time. For our now late departure to Philadelphia, we needed a whole new set of paperwork from our Dispatcher sent over the wire. Manchester had conscientious gate and ramp agents; however, they could have more patience and understanding in what it takes to address a mechanical problem, that’s a common trait of outstations at times. “No, we need our aircraft logbook back, we need new paperwork from our Dispatcher, and then we need at least five minutes to do checklists and prepare for this flight, before we can close the doors and push back. Thank you”; this was the sentiment that was difficult to communicate to them. We pushed back 23 minutes late, not too bad for what we had to deal with.

Fortunately, we weren’t ‘sequestered in Manchester’ very long; but it makes for a catchy blog post title, which I can’t let slide. I was to be sequestered with “Sean” for three days instead. He would love to be a Captain, and I would say with certainty that he doesn’t necessarily enjoy being a First Officer. He has less “right-seat Captain” in him than he used to, I have recognized that. A certain stubbornness is still there, however. For me, it’s a balancing act to ‘hold the reins’ wherein we’re both comfortable with the operation. In regard to him and me getting along, the trip went along fairly well. Sean will be a good Captain someday, but he'll just have to wait, unfortuntely.

Fast forward to a later departure of the day, enough about flight crew dynamics and interpersonal working relationships for now. For our third leg of day, Sean was the pilot flying out of the vibrant and varied cites of Norfolk and Virginia Beach, Virginia. Taking off to the northeast just after sunset, he hand flew the climbing left turn to the west that Norfolk Departure Control gave us.

Wow, what a view it was; we both gazed at the colors in silence, partly because we were still below 10,000 feet altitude and were still in ‘sterile cockpit’, partly because no words from our American English vocabularies could justify the scene in front of us.

Below the sharply defined horizon, in a silver sheen the waterways and bays surrounding Norfolk split up the darkening and light twinkling peninsulas of the ‘Hampton roads’ area. Red, like pigment taken from a rose, hugged the horizon. Our CRJ climbed in smooth air to ‘flight level two-two zero’ (basically 22,000 feet) and we both sat in continuing silence admiring Nature’s (God’s) palette of the fading day.

Remember art class in elementary school? Combine blue and yellow and you get green, and there we were ‘chasing the green light’ once again, between the blue and what yellow there was. The view was slowly changing, as the sun raced away from us towards the west. The once red stripe slowly changed to a deep orange-red, which seemingly permitted the yellow to blossom more, now flickering with beamed fingers. A horizon on fire was depicted by the last vestiges of red licking up into the yellow parts. The master artist even had purple haze swished around to give depth, in the way of far off cirrus clouds left by the painter’s brush.

Meanwhile, beneath this wondrous display terra firma was doing it’s best to provide the right contrast. Far below, all classes of humanity were heading home from day jobs and planning their evenings. The connected web of orange lights, known as civilization, where the people are, shown up at us like a cosmic tree grown out in all the scientifically predicted directions. Virginia was past us, and the Carolinas were starting to slide by. A look at the MFD (our moving map display) showed that Raleigh-Durham airport was under us. We would be landing in Charlotte in not very long, and it was time to go back to work.

Back to work? I get paid to do this? Yep, I get paid to deal with situations such as we had with the IDG, to work in close quarters with persons of all temperaments and personalities, and to do many other things that come with the territory of this job. Enjoying the view when I can is just a fringe benefit. All while not napping or operating this laptop I’m writing this on. Honest.

In spite of the sacrifices this job requires, in spite of the loss in pay and benefits as compared to years past, in spite of the loss of prestige and professionalism airline pilots have suffered in recent years, this career is still a rewarding one. And I still have a hope and purpose in it, in that I hope to glorify God and share my faith in Jesus Christ with others through it. Being sequestered with another in a cockpit for days on end is still allright with me.

The Great American Race

2009-11-10T11:05:00.003-05:00

I've been busy since my last post, and this might be a short one also. I've been working on starting up a new company, and developing the first product to sell. You can check crosstheskyproducts.wordpress.com if you'd like more information about it.

I'm renewing my Flight Instructor Certificate this month also, via an online course. For those in the know, yes, I could theoretically visit the FAA at one of their offices in a 'big city' and renew it in person. But since I don't 'give instruction' to my Co-Pilots (under the black and white definition anyway) that interpretation depends on the individual FAA Inspector. And it's inconvenient for me to take the time and expense to attempt a visit like that anyway. So that's been requiring some time as well.

It's my lovely wife's Birthday today, SG is XX years old, and looks XA years old, Happy Birthday SG! Thank you for all that you do to enable me to do what I do, cross the sky in adventure and 'mission' (without 'laptops on' I assure you). SG is a great Mother, juggler, and hat wearer in general.

Here's just a moment from last night's arrival into DAB. We were descending through 10,000 feet and things were getting busy, my Co-Pilot looked a little high on our descent profile to get into the traffic pattern, we were about eight minutes from landing, but I had all the confidence in him, I had flown with him before.

We were headed south, and out the windscreen the view justified this job for me again, sweet like candy. A blob of cumulus cloud slid by to my left and a thin line of cloud was just below us. In the gap between the two, the orange lit strip of Daytona Beach was illuminated in a line line stretching to the main cloud layer, which went to the horizon. The beach was white with foam, some pretty large waves were breaking, especially for the east coast of Florida. The city of Daytona Beach was inviting us in, but in a teasing manner. The main cloud layer was blocking our view of the airport, but we expected a visual approach once we descended below it. Shortly thereafter Daytona Approach gave us a descent down to 4,000 feet and a vector to the southwest, toward the final approach course.

Below the main layer we could see the effect of the strong winds from the east, related to Hurricane Ida, far to the west, in the Gulf of Mexico. We needed those winds because our jet was still quite a bit high to reach the standard and safe 3 degree approach path. "Going down and slowing down" is tricky in a swept wing jet, but my Co-Pilot had it covered. He deftly and smoothly maneuvered us to landing, without the GPWS (Ground Proximity Warning System) barking and without violating our limitations or flight standards. I was impressed with the way he handled it.

Entering the approach corridor, he was too high to begin with, but I wasn't ready to say that; it was readily apparent to him. The plane gives you room to make a few mistakes and recover, but you still have to watch what you're doing. A 'micro-manager' Captain might have said something, but I prefer to let errors happen, to a certain point anyway. I believe you learn from your mistakes better that way.

Daytona International Speedway, home of 'The Great American Race', the Daytona 500, is literally right next door to Daytona International Airport (DAB). I'd never flown into here before Sunday, so it's been a good change. So often I fly to the same twenty or so airports. We have a fairly nice hotel too, it's near the speedway, (a huge facility BTW - 2.5 mile track & tons of seating), and the hotel has a large outdoor pool, with lots of shopping and restaurants nearby. I joke that I'm going to enroll in the Richard Petty driving experience, and drive or ride in a real stock car on the speedway. I'd love to, but the budget won't permit that right now. I think NASCAR has a museum there though, which I'll try to check out next week, on another trip with DAB overnights.

(NASCAR diversion, skip if you like): I like NASCAR quite a lot, grew up watching it, and most other forms of auto racing. I root for the 39 car, but he's had trouble winning in the last few years. I'm reluctantly trying to switch over to root for Jimmy in the 48 car, but he's so dang good it's hard to, I feel like I'm jumping on the bandwagon. I think he'll win his 4th Championship in a row.

Well, I gotta run and race off to get things done for my day of flying. Today it's DAB-CLT (Charlotte)- DAB-CLT-DCA, commute home tomorrow. Speaking of which, lately it has felt like I'm in a great American race. I'm excited about starting my new company though; I feel it's the beginning of something I've pondered and been inspired to do for many years now.

I intend, though, to keep the balance in my life, like keeping the right balance in a race car. I hope to not go too fast and blow the engine up, or miss a pit stop and run out of fuel. God is still good, all the time. All the time, God is still good.