It's August 4th, the third day of a four day trip. I've switched from early, early morning shows in July to afternoon shows in August. I underestimated the effect I'd feel from it as well. It feels great to sleep in and get more than six hours of uninterrupted sleep every night on the road. But there are strange things afoot; it will take me a couple more days of transition to get used to the new routine.
After only a single day off between trips, due to the way my July and August schedules merge, I was back in Charlotte, fighting my Sunday afternoon nap inclinations. We were to fly to Cincinnati and back, with a jet with one broken air conditioner, or 'PACK', and a flight management computer (FMS) with an expired performance database. The one PACK left made climate control an inconvenience but it wasn't unbearable, thanks to warm, but not hot temperatures at CLT and CVG. But the lack of performance data in the FMS meant that we would have to set our thrust settings old-school style, using our paper charts and tables. And we soon found out that our moving map display didn't show the ETA of any of our waypoints or destination, because of the lack of thrust setting data available to the FMS. Because the 'warm fuzzies' we like to have were lacking, the flight log paperwork we are always issued from Dispatch became a lot more important. We would actually check it's fuel and time estimations to each waypoint along the way mcuh more closely than usual, and some pilot 'mental math' calculations were in order.
Our round trip to CVG and back to CLT for the overnight went off without a hitch, mostly. Anxiety from flying an opposite schedule and not having ETA's displayed on our screens? Yes. My body told me along the way that I wasn't used to flying during this time of day, that I should be off pilot duty and preparing for bed time. This same experience befell me yesterday as well. Out of sorts and in an unwanted siesta, I told my Co-Pilot to watch out for me, but I would do my best. Results? Yesterday, I tried to perform the in-range checklist without completely preforming the 'flow', the duties which encompass the checklist, first. Last night on the way to Columbia, SC, our overnight where I'm writing from, I actually put up the sun shade to block the light from the beautiful full moon, I'm not kidding! Relative to our typical duty day we had in July, this was the high noon time we were making out way to the overnight, so it was out of habit, I presume.
Yesterday, it seemed that my affliction was passed on to a myriad selection of our operations people. We showed up at CLT on time at 2:10 PM, and the departure monitor showed our flight was delayed for 1.5 hours, till 4:30 PM. We found a crew room to rest in, and I called our Dispatcher to confirm our delay. He was understandably upset and surprised: "You guys aren't delayed, your plane is here, you're delayed?" Uh oh. Just then, Crew Scheduling called me on my cellphone, asking the dreaded "where are you?" question. The plane was here, on a different gate than shown, and on time. Well, not anymore, we had about five minutes to get out on time now. We hustled over there, and the monitor still showed the wrong gate and time, and we even had to convince the gate agents we were taking that jet outside to White Plains (HPN). The paperwork they had printed proved our point. Someone had dropped the ball, big time. The explanation we always get, and got this day, was "the city controls the departure monitors".
And the Captain is responsible for leading his crew. Oh well. This day I assumed the system would work, as the weather was fine, and I trusted the monitors. That's the way this job is, you slowly, unknowingly, ride the complacency curve until something happens, then you're gun-shy for a while. I much prefer the type of events which don't require a written report, as this one was, though. I'll be calling dispatch daily for a while now, before we leave the hotel for the airport!
We flew CLT-HPN-DCA, it was all fun until greeted with the news that our CAE (Columbia) aircraft we were to swap into in DC was delayed for maintenance. Taxiing into our parking spot we spied our 'swap' and noticed that it's right engine cowling was open, and a ladder was laid horizontally across the ground. The jet was 'hot and dark' (doors closed, no power or air-conditioning on) as well. Dispatch told us they were waiting on parts and were expecting a 9:30 PM departure, 1.5 hours late.
Shortly after, while conferring with Maintenance (MX) I was informed that the part for the jet they thought was good was bad, and a good part wouldn't help fix the plane till 2 AM. That equalled a cancellation to me, but Dispatch came to our rescue again with a good plane which would arrive at 8:15 PM, just a little after our scheduled departure of 8:08. Good. No, we would still be a little more delayed. This 'good' plane required a service check, an 'oil check' and more of sorts, by MX before midnight, or it would become illegal for flight. So it looked more like a 9:30 PM departure, all in all.
DCA ops chomps at the bit to board your peeps on a bus which they drive out to the aircraft, which seems to arrive just as you do at the aircraft. It takes us a good 5-10 minutes before we stow our bags, check everything and are ready to board. With a service check due I made sure ops would not board our peeps until I told them, to limit their time on the lovely bus.
Our plane arrived and we checked it out, but MX wasn't climbing all over it, like they were on the jet next door to us. A sharp ramp agent talked to them and got back to me: "they said this plane doesn't require a service check". What? A quick call to our MX department confirmed that our Dispatcher had gotten confused, our swap required a service check by the next night at midnight, not this night. You know, people are human, and this characteristic was showing it's face all day. The right hand was learning that it did not always know what the left hand was doing, truly.
Are we always aware of what we are doing and thinking? I'm thankful that in my job we have many checks and balances, and procedures for covering and correcting others errors. It contributes vastly to the safety of airline travel, the safest way to travel long distances by far.
Anyway, we shortly awoke to a hurried atmosphere of boarding us and departing ASAP. My good Co-Pilot's job on the way to CAE was to fly us down there; I was to lead, monitor, and communicate. So I was able to observe and 'wax' silently. The "smaller great light", the one which "governs the night" (from Genesis Chapter 1) was full and round and bright. Climbing out from DC southbound I gazed at the silver water and the striped, white reflection the moon provided on the historic Potomac river. The night breeze displayed ripples of life on the current, in between calm stretches, just as in our own lives. The skies were hazy but visibility good, the air alive with a moon glow which reminded me of an idyllic but trepidatious scene under the oceans surface, with many illuminating jellyfish gracefully swimming in peace.
When the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing, one must first know that fact itself, and then seek to find the truth, in the true light. It's good that we spiritually have a light available to illuminate our paths during all of the day and all of the night. Unfortunately for some, (those who don't believe) I'm not speaking universally, as far a true light goes, anyway. From the Gospel of John, Chapter 1:4-5, referring to Jesus: "The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it." And from 1:9: "The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world."
Read the gospel of John, find out more, and believe about the 'true light, whose life gives light to everyone'!
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Saturday, August 1, 2009
A better Vantage Point, Part I
I’ve experienced some very beautiful and inspiring sights in my career. Experience has taught me to expect when one will occur. Breaking through the top of a cloud layer and climbing out into the burning blue and a blazing white sun is one. Gazing upon an expansive and colorful sunrise or sunset is another. Witnessing up close the power and grandeur of a mature thunderstorm is awe inspiring. These last two you can do from the ground, but airborne you seen to have a better vantage point.
A few rare times, I’ve been truly surprised and transfixed, found my mouth open with no breath left at what’s in front of me. I’ll share one of these moments with you now.
It’s etched in my mind like a memory which becomes more beautiful with age, like a legend that gets better with time. One spring in my Great Lakes days, circa 2001, we had just taken off from Utah’s Canyonlands airport, just north of Moab, Utah, and turned south over the rugged land toward Lake Powell, Arizona. The ‘Mighty Beechliner’, our Beechcraft 1900D turboprop, had to stay at a relatively low altitude for a few moments until ATC had us in radar contact.
From the captain’s seat my window beheld a magnificent panorama, using nature’s entire color palette. A valley stretched out to the east, showcasing a pointed and dominant mountain peak at its far end. Upslope on both sides from the bare valley floor, the vista displayed Grand Canyon shaded stripes of white, tan, orange, red and pink. The peak had the same colors, abruptly changing with elevation to a vibrantly green forest, and then to a hard and gray granite above the tree line. Above our altitude the summit crowned itself brightly with snow. The azure blue sky capped above it all had a presence which seemingly stated this clearly: “The Lord created all this, and it is good”.
Our sequence of flights from Denver to Phoenix always had potential for great sightseeing. Denver to Canyonlands (Moab for better reference) was flown west over the heart of the Colorado Rockies. Moab to Page was flown south, next to Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park, and low over crystal clear Lake Powell. On a good weather day the Page to Phoenix flight delivered an expansive view of the Grand Canyon itself.
I was so curious about the sights I was blessed with that I googled it recently. I’m fairly certain that what I saw was a three peak range called the La Sal Mountains, a few miles east of Moab. With elevations up to 13,000 feet, they are the tallest peaks in that area. Although I unfortunately couldn't find any photos which matched my memory, although the one above is close, click here for stuff I did find.
Savvy, or so they thought, travelers would purchase the cheapest Denver-Phoenix internet ticket available, or cash in their frequent flyer miles, not knowing they were booked on Great Lakes. They would inevitably wind up anxious, apprehensive, and confused on our little nineteen seat turboprop. This is a good airplane, but one where each seat serves as both a window and an aisle seat. There is no lavatory, there is no Flight Attendant (although the First Officer doubles as one), and there are no ‘good vibrations’, only the uneasy kind. We would coax them into continuing with us, with promises that the wondrous scenery they would have on each of the three legs the route to Phoenix consisted of would be worth it. We usually didn’t disappoint. We had a different and better vantage point, at a lower altitude and over more beautiful and varied terrain, than big blue United Airlines had while flying high, nonstop, and quickly.
I’m not sure of it, but I like to think that we had one or more passengers from Denver all the way to Phoenix on this particular flight, and that they appreciated the same incredible views that I did.
Similar to our alternate route to Phoenix and the wonderful scenery it entailed, in life it’s worth the extra time and hardship to take the long, narrow road, which provides the new vantage points. It might seem audacious for me to state that categorically, but this has been my experience. Jesus actually teaches this in part of his ‘Sermon on the Mount’, in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 7:13-14, (NLT): 13 “You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell (Greek for the road that leads to destruction) is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. 14 But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.” For a good study on the narrow road, click here.
I think this passage, involving the terms ‘kingdom’, ‘gate’, and ‘life’, can be interpreted in more ways than one; it is more than just about salvation and obtaining the promise of eternal life. It’s about the abundant and full life we can have on Earth, as travelers on the narrow road in the Kingdom of God.
Kingdom, an old word we don’t hear much about anymore, refers to the realm where a king rules, of course. God’s kingdom is certainly in Heaven, but it also rules in believers’ hearts who have submitted to him in all their ways, and made him ‘Lord’ of their lives. In the gospel of John, Chapter 18:36 Jesus tells Pilate, the Roman ruler who was questioning him before he was condemned and crucified, that “my Kingdom is not of this world”, bolstering the idea stated above. His followers had wanted it to be an earthly one; they hoped he would be the leader of a violent rebellion against the Romans, who occupied and controlled Jerusalem. Furthermore, In the gospel of Luke, chapter 17:20-21, Jesus ultimately answered the Pharisees question of ’when the kingdom of God would come?’ by stating that “indeed, the kingdom of God is within you”.
Jesus’ very excellent and similar words from the gospel of John, chapter 10 help to illustrate. Quoting Jesus (NIV): 1 “I tell you the truth, anyone who sneaks over the wall of a sheepfold, rather than going through the gate, must surely be a thief and a robber! 2 But the one who enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep recognize his voice and come to him. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 After he has gathered his own flock, he walks ahead of them, and they follow him because they know his voice. 5 They won’t follow a stranger; they will run from him because they don’t know his voice.” 6 Those who heard Jesus use this illustration didn’t understand what he meant, 7 so he explained it to them: “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who came before me were thieves and robbers. But the true sheep did not listen to them. 9 Yes, I am the gate. Those who come in through me will be saved. They will come and go freely and will find good pastures. 10 The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.”
Jesus Christ said to enter the God’s Kingdom from the narrow gate, in order to travel on the narrow road and have life. Then he said that he himself was that gate, and that he came to give a rich and satisfying, abundant life. What a promise we have in him!
If we are sheep, as it seems, then we aren't very smart animals. We have a hard time knowing what is best for ourselves. We would need a lot of help to stay on the narrow road. We need a good shepherd, and that is what Jesus is. For an account of an actual Shepherd who actually serves as a physical gate for his sheep, click here.
A new vantage point, on the ‘narrow road’, helps us to see our lives in a different way, and appreciate anew the blessings and opportunities we have. That’s what I’ve experienced this last school year through participating in a discipleship program called Vantage Point 3, which my church hosts annually.
Our associate Pastor had asked me to participate in it last year, but I stalled, not wanting to sacrifice my weekends and especially my Sundays, because the class meets on Wednesdays, and I would have to bid trips which had me flying on the weekends. I’m grateful Jon didn’t relent though, as my wife and I enrolled in the class this past fall. The sacrifices and discipline it has required have been well worth it.
I’d like to tell about what life was like before. In essence, I was one of those anxious and dissatisfied passengers stuck boarding a small, scary turboprop, when I had expected a big, comfy jet.
Just a year or more ago I would tell others I flew with that I was burned out on airline flying. I was actively looking for another job back in Mechanical Engineering, or as a Corporate Pilot. The job wasn’t worth the sacrifice and suffering I constantly put myself and my family anymore. People would say “but you’re ‘living your dream’”. I would respond thinking yea, but I feel like I’m ‘dreaming of the life’. I would ask God ‘If this is your will for me, to continue to fly a jet full of skeptical strangers across the sky, to wade through crowded airports with rushed passengers and rude vendors, and sleep in sanitized but uncomfortable hotel rooms: is it worth the constant struggles and sacrifice, and can I justify the precious time away from my wife and children? If this is God’s will for my career, why is it such a struggle, and why is the joy in it so often bittersweet?
I had lost my conviction, desire, and fire to be a good witness for Christ to other pilots I flew with. And a big reason for that and why I felt burned out was the negative, cumulative effect my wife and I let my time away from home have on our marriage. I had developed a standoffish relationship with God. I wasn’t giving him my best, not loving him with all my heart, soul, strength, and mind. My grudge had debilitating effects on my attitude in general, and toward my wife as well. Over the years, bitter roots had grown in both our lives toward each other, as she resented me being gone and we lost some of the emotional intimacy we had before. It was sometimes hard to reconnect with my wife and family when I was home. It was difficult at times to accept my life as it was.
A sense of purpose was missing from my job. I still enjoyed flying and meeting the daily challenges, but that alone wasn’t worth it. The extra reason I kept showing up to fly wasn’t there anymore, and I didn’t realize it for a while, grinding on from month to month. On faith, I used to believe my position as an airline pilot entailed a divine purpose, but I had lost this somewhere in my frustration and questioning in the skies.
In part II, I’ll share about another plane I’ve flown, and the Vantage Point program.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Two Too Laughed
Dateline: Thursday, July 9th, 2009
On this third morning of another five day trip (actually a three day and a two day back to back) with all very early show times, I’m grumpy, to be honest. It has a lot to do with ‘springing’ out of bed every day at 4 to 5 AM, I’m sure. That and the wrestling I’ve been doing with my laptop, which stubbornly refused to connect to the internet at the hotel.
I contacted their technical support twice, they apologized twice, and that’s about it. Actually they tried hard to fix it but their efforts had no effect. I think my anti-virus software is clogging up the works. I’ve tried to turn it off, unsuccessfully. I ask out loud: why would you sell anti-virus software you can’t actually turn off when you need to?
I’ve been trying to complete my airline’s recurrent internet ground school course while on the road so I don’t have to do it at home during my ‘girl time’ with SG and M & M. On the first overnight in Albany my browser wouldn’t work, at all. I found that if you leave the calendar set to the wrong month after checking future plans (oops), you can count on this exact problem occurring. Before I got back in the right dimension the Albany hotel’s business center rescued me; and Rochester’s version will have to help as long as I’m laying my head there, again tomorrow night. I have to finish within five days, before my one day ground school the day before another three day trip starts. With two days off between five days of flying and this next stint, the road wear and fatigue can and is piling up.
When I get stressed I can whine, complain and have a negative attitude. Misery does love company, especially with a regional airline crew. Or I can suck it up, make the best of it, crack jokes, and biblically ‘call all my suffering joy’. I prefer the latter attitude. Attempt at a humble disclaimer: although my suffering certainly is miniscule in comparison to what other Christians have endured and will endure, I feel like I’m still in the ballpark; that what I experience is worthy of meditation on the word of God. I’ll explain more later.
Now half awake after the first cup of airplane coffee (not really but it sounds good), I nudge the thrust levers to where I know they’ll reach our targeted thrust setting. The jet pushes forward on the smooth surface as our seasoned cockpit seats slowly absorb our body weights toward rotation speed. Breaking the bonds of earth in smooth air, really smooth air, always feels like a treat. I know our plane has hydraulically powered controls and what they call ‘artificial feel mechanisms’, but the stimuli experienced in my fingertips don’t ever seem to mind.
I know what the lay of the land is like climbing out off Rochester’s runway 22. On my left shoulder, this dawning has the low orange sun and lavender-pink back lit horizon silently urging me to say “Autopilot ON” so I can fully enjoy the view. It’s too soon for the fluffy, forested black not green ‘moss’ (trees) between farm fields below us to show their true color. The deeply, God and glacier carved Finger Lakes and hills stretch out in front of us again from right to left. This time they’ve covered by cotton comforters of fog and low cloud banks, which permit them and the river valleys sleep in lazily. I’ve observed fog and cloud banks covering river valleys many times in the eastern US. I wonder what’s it’s like on the ground. Is it really a dreamscape, with all the cars stopped on the middle of the road, wild animals tame, and odd things occurring all around, time suspended and slowed down?
Back to the reality of life on the line. In the midst of suffering, joy comes. As does my corny sense of humor. This trip just kept the laughs coming. It helps when your First Officer gets your brand of humor and laughs at your jokes, though.
On with Philly approach, our first destination, they ask a mainline flight to slow down to 190 knots at a quicker pace, with urgency in the controller’s (ATC) voice. The pilot answers back “we’re in the reduction process now”. My FO and I are struck with laughter; we’ve never heard such a thing. ‘Slowing’, ‘we’re slowing’, ‘Doing our best’, and other phrases are common responses to ATC asking that you make a speed reduction ASAP, but that obtuse one is not. We thought someone was on the Food Network or working for Dow Chemical.
Later at Detroit, we got a long taxi into the gate because of taxiway and runway re-construction. That delay made us leave the gate with a new batch of passengers just in time for the ‘red tail’ push. We were certain that our takeoff runway would be ’22 Left’, right next to our terminal. These Northwest mainline and NW Airlink aircraft just kept coming toward us in line for takeoff, towards the same runway we were destined to be in line for quite a while now. “Wait for eight more red tails to pass you before you get in the conga line for runway 22 Laughed”, is what the ground controller told us in translated words. His mispronunciation of runway 22 Left as “runway 22 Laughed” struck us as with cruel irony each time he told a new aircraft to get in line. We realized he really wasn’t laughing at our predicament, but his accent made us chuckle about it. He sympathized with many us in line, and told us the wait wouldn’t be too long.
Detroit is ‘Rock City’ (for you KISS fans) in this regard. MSP (Minneapolis-St. Paul) and ORD (Chicago) style the tower made quick work of getting us and maybe two dozen more red tails off the ground, clearing each one holding in position for takeoff as the one on the runway is still hurtling toward rotation speed. Us and the red tails were given ‘vectors west, vectors east, in this line you’ll wait the least’. Detroit tower could really teach Denver, DFW (Dallas), and Washington Dulles how to spring jets in the air in quick fashion.
The previous, second day of this trip, had us surrounded for a time by Canadians in ‘Muntray-all, Kay-beck’, the Canadian French way to say Montréal, Quebec, Canada. We were treated to more aviation comedy on the ground frequency. The official language of aviation is English, but in Montreal the controllers will oblige you in French if you wish. A private aircraft was taxiing out; all we heard was gibberish from the controller or the pilot and a call sign in French with the ending ‘paw-paw, paw-paw’. That’s the English ‘phonetic’ pilots speak for the letter P, this aircraft’s calls sign ended in the letters PP. But because in the ‘states’ it’s pronounced ‘poppa’, this odd back and forth banter was like two French birds calling each other. Anyway, you had to be there.
The fourth day we started a two day trip in DC, up early again, for a quick round trip to RDU and back first. Baking in the morning Virginia sun while boarding the plane for this second Rochester overnight, we were hurrying to get out on time. Then I did something which made me ‘want to get away for a while’. I didn’t have a Snickers either, so I’d just have to slink down in my seat and sulk for a moment.
The biggest rookie thing any airline pilot can do is transmit on the wrong frequency mistakenly. And it happens, eventually, to everyone, from United to Southwest to the smallest turboprop regional, a pilot will call in range to the company on the emergency frequency, or brief the passengers to turn the seat belt sign off on center frequency. Unbeknownst to me, it was now my turn. After using my best captain’s voice I flicked the transmitter switch selection back to our number 1 communication radio from PA (Public Address), only to notice it was already on ‘comm radio 1’. With a rush I realized that I had just welcomed our peeps on board and told them about our flight on our ‘National Airport’s’ Ground frequency! Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Fortunately I had the speaker turned off and left it off, as I’m sure many aircraft loved to chime in how ‘that was a great passenger briefing, thanks!’. After catching my breath and reclaiming some dignity, I told my FO in clear terms that I wasn’t going to talk on the radio again that afternoon. We laughed, learned, and moved on, er, flew on, rather.
So ‘when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade’. Many folks have that attitude. But as a Christian, how does this apply differently? From James (Jesus’ brother) book, James 1:1-4 (NIV): “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations: Greetings. Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."
It’s illogical to most in the secular world to call enduring all kinds of trials and suffering as ‘joy’ for the intention that the God will be glorified in the life of a growing Christian believer. But that’s the gist of applying this scripture, I believe. For a more detailed and better explanation, click here.
I’ve experienced joy from the Lord during periods of great duress. Without going into details, in the midst of a great deal of emotional pain I’ve prayed to God for relief and found myself laughing with joy, knowing with a peace that things were going to be OK for me.
My Mother, or someone, a pastor or radio preacher, or maybe scripture, taught me in the past to give my trials and suffering over to God, let go of my burdens and release them to him. All I can say is that it works, the Holy Spirit works, it works inside of me and it can work inside of you.
And in the end (I’m trying to finish here) Paul’s great letter to the Romans provides a snippet of closure. We won’t suffer forever. From Romans 8:18, 8:23, and 8:28 (NLT): “18 Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later; 23 And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering; 28 And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.”
On earth, we’re stuck with trials and suffering, but we can react to them with true joy in the Holy Spirit’s power. When trials continue to come in my life, as I’m sure they will, I hope to include God in them. Together, like with a trusted fellow Co-Pilot, the two of us will laugh too.
On this third morning of another five day trip (actually a three day and a two day back to back) with all very early show times, I’m grumpy, to be honest. It has a lot to do with ‘springing’ out of bed every day at 4 to 5 AM, I’m sure. That and the wrestling I’ve been doing with my laptop, which stubbornly refused to connect to the internet at the hotel.
I contacted their technical support twice, they apologized twice, and that’s about it. Actually they tried hard to fix it but their efforts had no effect. I think my anti-virus software is clogging up the works. I’ve tried to turn it off, unsuccessfully. I ask out loud: why would you sell anti-virus software you can’t actually turn off when you need to?
I’ve been trying to complete my airline’s recurrent internet ground school course while on the road so I don’t have to do it at home during my ‘girl time’ with SG and M & M. On the first overnight in Albany my browser wouldn’t work, at all. I found that if you leave the calendar set to the wrong month after checking future plans (oops), you can count on this exact problem occurring. Before I got back in the right dimension the Albany hotel’s business center rescued me; and Rochester’s version will have to help as long as I’m laying my head there, again tomorrow night. I have to finish within five days, before my one day ground school the day before another three day trip starts. With two days off between five days of flying and this next stint, the road wear and fatigue can and is piling up.
When I get stressed I can whine, complain and have a negative attitude. Misery does love company, especially with a regional airline crew. Or I can suck it up, make the best of it, crack jokes, and biblically ‘call all my suffering joy’. I prefer the latter attitude. Attempt at a humble disclaimer: although my suffering certainly is miniscule in comparison to what other Christians have endured and will endure, I feel like I’m still in the ballpark; that what I experience is worthy of meditation on the word of God. I’ll explain more later.
Now half awake after the first cup of airplane coffee (not really but it sounds good), I nudge the thrust levers to where I know they’ll reach our targeted thrust setting. The jet pushes forward on the smooth surface as our seasoned cockpit seats slowly absorb our body weights toward rotation speed. Breaking the bonds of earth in smooth air, really smooth air, always feels like a treat. I know our plane has hydraulically powered controls and what they call ‘artificial feel mechanisms’, but the stimuli experienced in my fingertips don’t ever seem to mind.
I know what the lay of the land is like climbing out off Rochester’s runway 22. On my left shoulder, this dawning has the low orange sun and lavender-pink back lit horizon silently urging me to say “Autopilot ON” so I can fully enjoy the view. It’s too soon for the fluffy, forested black not green ‘moss’ (trees) between farm fields below us to show their true color. The deeply, God and glacier carved Finger Lakes and hills stretch out in front of us again from right to left. This time they’ve covered by cotton comforters of fog and low cloud banks, which permit them and the river valleys sleep in lazily. I’ve observed fog and cloud banks covering river valleys many times in the eastern US. I wonder what’s it’s like on the ground. Is it really a dreamscape, with all the cars stopped on the middle of the road, wild animals tame, and odd things occurring all around, time suspended and slowed down?
Back to the reality of life on the line. In the midst of suffering, joy comes. As does my corny sense of humor. This trip just kept the laughs coming. It helps when your First Officer gets your brand of humor and laughs at your jokes, though.
On with Philly approach, our first destination, they ask a mainline flight to slow down to 190 knots at a quicker pace, with urgency in the controller’s (ATC) voice. The pilot answers back “we’re in the reduction process now”. My FO and I are struck with laughter; we’ve never heard such a thing. ‘Slowing’, ‘we’re slowing’, ‘Doing our best’, and other phrases are common responses to ATC asking that you make a speed reduction ASAP, but that obtuse one is not. We thought someone was on the Food Network or working for Dow Chemical.
Later at Detroit, we got a long taxi into the gate because of taxiway and runway re-construction. That delay made us leave the gate with a new batch of passengers just in time for the ‘red tail’ push. We were certain that our takeoff runway would be ’22 Left’, right next to our terminal. These Northwest mainline and NW Airlink aircraft just kept coming toward us in line for takeoff, towards the same runway we were destined to be in line for quite a while now. “Wait for eight more red tails to pass you before you get in the conga line for runway 22 Laughed”, is what the ground controller told us in translated words. His mispronunciation of runway 22 Left as “runway 22 Laughed” struck us as with cruel irony each time he told a new aircraft to get in line. We realized he really wasn’t laughing at our predicament, but his accent made us chuckle about it. He sympathized with many us in line, and told us the wait wouldn’t be too long.
Detroit is ‘Rock City’ (for you KISS fans) in this regard. MSP (Minneapolis-St. Paul) and ORD (Chicago) style the tower made quick work of getting us and maybe two dozen more red tails off the ground, clearing each one holding in position for takeoff as the one on the runway is still hurtling toward rotation speed. Us and the red tails were given ‘vectors west, vectors east, in this line you’ll wait the least’. Detroit tower could really teach Denver, DFW (Dallas), and Washington Dulles how to spring jets in the air in quick fashion.
The previous, second day of this trip, had us surrounded for a time by Canadians in ‘Muntray-all, Kay-beck’, the Canadian French way to say Montréal, Quebec, Canada. We were treated to more aviation comedy on the ground frequency. The official language of aviation is English, but in Montreal the controllers will oblige you in French if you wish. A private aircraft was taxiing out; all we heard was gibberish from the controller or the pilot and a call sign in French with the ending ‘paw-paw, paw-paw’. That’s the English ‘phonetic’ pilots speak for the letter P, this aircraft’s calls sign ended in the letters PP. But because in the ‘states’ it’s pronounced ‘poppa’, this odd back and forth banter was like two French birds calling each other. Anyway, you had to be there.
The fourth day we started a two day trip in DC, up early again, for a quick round trip to RDU and back first. Baking in the morning Virginia sun while boarding the plane for this second Rochester overnight, we were hurrying to get out on time. Then I did something which made me ‘want to get away for a while’. I didn’t have a Snickers either, so I’d just have to slink down in my seat and sulk for a moment.
The biggest rookie thing any airline pilot can do is transmit on the wrong frequency mistakenly. And it happens, eventually, to everyone, from United to Southwest to the smallest turboprop regional, a pilot will call in range to the company on the emergency frequency, or brief the passengers to turn the seat belt sign off on center frequency. Unbeknownst to me, it was now my turn. After using my best captain’s voice I flicked the transmitter switch selection back to our number 1 communication radio from PA (Public Address), only to notice it was already on ‘comm radio 1’. With a rush I realized that I had just welcomed our peeps on board and told them about our flight on our ‘National Airport’s’ Ground frequency! Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Fortunately I had the speaker turned off and left it off, as I’m sure many aircraft loved to chime in how ‘that was a great passenger briefing, thanks!’. After catching my breath and reclaiming some dignity, I told my FO in clear terms that I wasn’t going to talk on the radio again that afternoon. We laughed, learned, and moved on, er, flew on, rather.
So ‘when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade’. Many folks have that attitude. But as a Christian, how does this apply differently? From James (Jesus’ brother) book, James 1:1-4 (NIV): “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations: Greetings. Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."
It’s illogical to most in the secular world to call enduring all kinds of trials and suffering as ‘joy’ for the intention that the God will be glorified in the life of a growing Christian believer. But that’s the gist of applying this scripture, I believe. For a more detailed and better explanation, click here.
I’ve experienced joy from the Lord during periods of great duress. Without going into details, in the midst of a great deal of emotional pain I’ve prayed to God for relief and found myself laughing with joy, knowing with a peace that things were going to be OK for me.
My Mother, or someone, a pastor or radio preacher, or maybe scripture, taught me in the past to give my trials and suffering over to God, let go of my burdens and release them to him. All I can say is that it works, the Holy Spirit works, it works inside of me and it can work inside of you.
And in the end (I’m trying to finish here) Paul’s great letter to the Romans provides a snippet of closure. We won’t suffer forever. From Romans 8:18, 8:23, and 8:28 (NLT): “18 Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later; 23 And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering; 28 And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.”
On earth, we’re stuck with trials and suffering, but we can react to them with true joy in the Holy Spirit’s power. When trials continue to come in my life, as I’m sure they will, I hope to include God in them. Together, like with a trusted fellow Co-Pilot, the two of us will laugh too.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Hold for fireworks!
Today New York gave us a run for our money, and I’ll cut to the chase: like the founding and establishment of our great country in opposition to the British Empire, we won. But like the Revolutionary war we had with the Brits, it encompassed a journey which required endurance, among other things. I write this in celebration and honor of our Independence Day. Happy July 4th to you!
This morning we started out in DC and made our way to Dayton, Ohio first. A low pressure system, centered over our friends in Montreal, was rotating counter clockwise as best it could, and promised the possibility of an interesting day, weather wise. The forecast for New York, our next destination, included a temporary condition which predicted ‘CB’s’, weather code for cumulonimbus clouds. The smaller version of these is a tall cumulus cloud which gives a healthy rain shower at the surface. The larger version is a garden variety thunderstorm or worse, one which pilots want to avoid flying through.
We had a short break, then loaded up for LaGuardia. Clearance hadn’t told us about any delays for New York, so we pushed back to start engines on time at 9:25 AM. It seemed odd; my gut told me that we would get a delay somewhere. Climbing into the smooth overcast clouds, I wondered about the Wright Brothers and their bicycle shop, after glancing at downtown Dayton on takeoff.
I had a good crew I had flown with before to help me carry a plane load pretty full of tourists, mostly, to New York. We cruised in the sunshine at 31,000 feet above a seemingly heat reflecting white and puffy layer of clouds floating by. I noticed on our flight display that our jet thought we had 40 minutes left to go to make it to LGA. Optimistically, I started to think we could make it on time, even early.
Things started to change ten minutes later. We were still too far out from New York to get a good picture from our weather radar, but that didn’t matter now, as New York center just put us in a holding pattern at a fix called ‘Biley’. We descended to 15,000 ft, still bathed in sunshine, with large cumulus and towering cumulus clouds below us, and threatening to climb above our altitude. I programmed the hold into the ‘box’, our FMS (Flight Management System), a computer which takes various navigation inputs and ‘drives’ the autopilot. My FO slowed the aircraft down and confirmed that I knew what I was doing with the FMS. “Execute” he said, commanding me to press the execute button and ‘make it so’ in Star Trek Next Generation parlance. The FMS was now committed to flying the holding pattern neatly displayed on our moving map display screen.
This is a time when you appreciate that there are two pilots and that the one you’re paired up with is very capable and good at teamwork. There were lots of things to do now: Email our Dispatcher via our ACARS unit, brief the passengers and FA on what was happening, check our alternate airport weather and forecast (PHL), make an estimate on bingo fuel and wait on our Dispatcher’s numbers, get an update on LGA weather, judge whether the weather at our holding point was safe to remain in – if we had to descend especially, and last but not least, triple check that the holding pattern was correct.
We entered the hold and started the oval racetrack pattern, and it was beautiful. The cumulus sliding by below us made for an exiting sensation of speed, their rounded shapes of giant carved white granite figures of puff dragons and doughboys posed, laying down and smiling for the cameras. They were imposing, but size wise ones which we knew we could penetrate if we had to. My FO called the two bogeys in sight below us, and we watched them on our TCAS, which shows other aircrafts as diamonds on our moving map.
They were two other regional jets holding at ‘Biley’ as well, 1,000 and 2,000 feet below us, stacked right over each other. We could see their small but sharply defined silhouettes easily against the bright puffs of the cumulus below. There are only two words to describe this: very cool. Starting the first turn back toward Biley I wondered out loud whether we would penetrate a CB at the end of the turn that we knew they certainly would. We watched them with fascination, I’ll admit, as both were swallowed like gnats by the mashed potato behemoth growing in front of us. It turned out we were still a little too high to ‘enjoy’ the ride they did. Moments later both crews told center that the moderate turbulence they were getting in the clouds while holding was unacceptable, and they requested a hold somewhere else. Center kindly obliged them, as they usually do, and sent them closer to the big apple to hold again.
We retrieved a series of ACARS messages which updated us on the weather reports from LGA and PHL, and with information from our Dispatcher. He gave us a bingo fuel of 3,500 and changed our alternate to nearby ABE (Allentown, PA), then changed it back to PHL in a later message, which was fine with us. Our estimated fuel remaining on our arrival at ABE, if we held the entire time expected, flew to LGA, went missed and went to the alternate, was still good, about 2,400 lbs. The flight log I keyed up on our flight display agreed with this number, shown in a white color. Actually it showed two numbers, 1900, our IFR reserve of 45 minutes fuel, and 500, the extra fuel in excess of our IFR reserve. The numbers in terms of time were simple. We were burning about 2,000 pounds an hour, and had about 4,500 pounds of fuel on board by now, so we could hold for about 30 minutes before we had to divert toward Philly.
So we still had our warm fuzzies, still had an expectation we would make it to LGA this morning. But there were a lot of IF’s attached to this condition. Fifteen minutes later center extended our ‘EFC’ (expect further clearance) time 10 minutes, then 30 minutes more. The fuel numbers displayed now turned yellow. We couldn’t hold the entire time ATC told us to expect, so there was a pretty fair chance that we might actually go to PHL. I informed the passengers that this was a possibility, in the most optimistic voice I could muster.
A few minutes later we were released from the hold, to continue onward towards New York. Breathing easier but still anxious, we prepared to fly an ILS approach through a summer rain shower with considerable vertical development, something we would have to watch a little bit. “XX XX (our flight), Holding instructions, advise when ready to copy”. Now we started holding at another fix about 30 miles closer to New York than the first one, with the same expect further clearance time. The same flurry of activity ensued, and our Dispatcher gave us almost the same bingo fuel, 3,400 lbs.
This turn of events wasn’t good. Morale was sinking, and I was tempted to be resigned to our fate. We only had 300 pounds more than our bingo fuel, which translated down to just a few minutes till we burned down to it. Ten minutes, in fact, and our EFC was 25 minutes away. There was ten minutes left before it was Philly time for us and our 39 ‘victims’.
Even though this was typical treatment by center when there are big delays going into LaGuardia, we were getting tired and a little frustrated of them teasing us. Just when ‘the night was darkest’, we were released from the second hold and put back on the arrival route. The tone in the controller’s voices had sympathy for us, and conviction perhaps, that we would make it in. Onward, with faith, we made our way, even through two vectors off the arrival route for ‘traffic management’.
As my FO slowed our jet and we configured for approach while we flew through cloud layers and caught glimpses of the crowded New York boroughs below us, I evaluated the weather on the field. Using our weather radar a few minutes before showed that the tops of the rain cloud over the field was only about 15,000 feet. The view out the window matched that of the radar. It looked safe, just a summertime rain shower to fly through, not a thunderstorm.
On approach below the lowest layer, the clouds above LaGuardia were dark gray, with the surrounding areas a complementary white. The good rain on the surface called for full reverse thrust on landing, and my FO did a textbook job of stopping us before the intersection with the other runway. We were in New York! Finally.
Fast forward two days: Now that I’m back home with my three favorite girls, we’ve had to hold again for fireworks. Last night’s displays were cancelled because of rain. This morning the clouds are trying to move out of the way for tonight's July 4th’s fireworks, and for my youngest daughter's fifth birthday party. She thinks for fireworks are for her, you know. This weather is uncharacteristic for where we live on July 4th, so I guess we’ll have to wait it out as it comes, like we did during our flight to New York.
Happy Independence Day!
This morning we started out in DC and made our way to Dayton, Ohio first. A low pressure system, centered over our friends in Montreal, was rotating counter clockwise as best it could, and promised the possibility of an interesting day, weather wise. The forecast for New York, our next destination, included a temporary condition which predicted ‘CB’s’, weather code for cumulonimbus clouds. The smaller version of these is a tall cumulus cloud which gives a healthy rain shower at the surface. The larger version is a garden variety thunderstorm or worse, one which pilots want to avoid flying through.
We had a short break, then loaded up for LaGuardia. Clearance hadn’t told us about any delays for New York, so we pushed back to start engines on time at 9:25 AM. It seemed odd; my gut told me that we would get a delay somewhere. Climbing into the smooth overcast clouds, I wondered about the Wright Brothers and their bicycle shop, after glancing at downtown Dayton on takeoff.
I had a good crew I had flown with before to help me carry a plane load pretty full of tourists, mostly, to New York. We cruised in the sunshine at 31,000 feet above a seemingly heat reflecting white and puffy layer of clouds floating by. I noticed on our flight display that our jet thought we had 40 minutes left to go to make it to LGA. Optimistically, I started to think we could make it on time, even early.
Things started to change ten minutes later. We were still too far out from New York to get a good picture from our weather radar, but that didn’t matter now, as New York center just put us in a holding pattern at a fix called ‘Biley’. We descended to 15,000 ft, still bathed in sunshine, with large cumulus and towering cumulus clouds below us, and threatening to climb above our altitude. I programmed the hold into the ‘box’, our FMS (Flight Management System), a computer which takes various navigation inputs and ‘drives’ the autopilot. My FO slowed the aircraft down and confirmed that I knew what I was doing with the FMS. “Execute” he said, commanding me to press the execute button and ‘make it so’ in Star Trek Next Generation parlance. The FMS was now committed to flying the holding pattern neatly displayed on our moving map display screen.
This is a time when you appreciate that there are two pilots and that the one you’re paired up with is very capable and good at teamwork. There were lots of things to do now: Email our Dispatcher via our ACARS unit, brief the passengers and FA on what was happening, check our alternate airport weather and forecast (PHL), make an estimate on bingo fuel and wait on our Dispatcher’s numbers, get an update on LGA weather, judge whether the weather at our holding point was safe to remain in – if we had to descend especially, and last but not least, triple check that the holding pattern was correct.
We entered the hold and started the oval racetrack pattern, and it was beautiful. The cumulus sliding by below us made for an exiting sensation of speed, their rounded shapes of giant carved white granite figures of puff dragons and doughboys posed, laying down and smiling for the cameras. They were imposing, but size wise ones which we knew we could penetrate if we had to. My FO called the two bogeys in sight below us, and we watched them on our TCAS, which shows other aircrafts as diamonds on our moving map.
They were two other regional jets holding at ‘Biley’ as well, 1,000 and 2,000 feet below us, stacked right over each other. We could see their small but sharply defined silhouettes easily against the bright puffs of the cumulus below. There are only two words to describe this: very cool. Starting the first turn back toward Biley I wondered out loud whether we would penetrate a CB at the end of the turn that we knew they certainly would. We watched them with fascination, I’ll admit, as both were swallowed like gnats by the mashed potato behemoth growing in front of us. It turned out we were still a little too high to ‘enjoy’ the ride they did. Moments later both crews told center that the moderate turbulence they were getting in the clouds while holding was unacceptable, and they requested a hold somewhere else. Center kindly obliged them, as they usually do, and sent them closer to the big apple to hold again.
We retrieved a series of ACARS messages which updated us on the weather reports from LGA and PHL, and with information from our Dispatcher. He gave us a bingo fuel of 3,500 and changed our alternate to nearby ABE (Allentown, PA), then changed it back to PHL in a later message, which was fine with us. Our estimated fuel remaining on our arrival at ABE, if we held the entire time expected, flew to LGA, went missed and went to the alternate, was still good, about 2,400 lbs. The flight log I keyed up on our flight display agreed with this number, shown in a white color. Actually it showed two numbers, 1900, our IFR reserve of 45 minutes fuel, and 500, the extra fuel in excess of our IFR reserve. The numbers in terms of time were simple. We were burning about 2,000 pounds an hour, and had about 4,500 pounds of fuel on board by now, so we could hold for about 30 minutes before we had to divert toward Philly.
So we still had our warm fuzzies, still had an expectation we would make it to LGA this morning. But there were a lot of IF’s attached to this condition. Fifteen minutes later center extended our ‘EFC’ (expect further clearance) time 10 minutes, then 30 minutes more. The fuel numbers displayed now turned yellow. We couldn’t hold the entire time ATC told us to expect, so there was a pretty fair chance that we might actually go to PHL. I informed the passengers that this was a possibility, in the most optimistic voice I could muster.
A few minutes later we were released from the hold, to continue onward towards New York. Breathing easier but still anxious, we prepared to fly an ILS approach through a summer rain shower with considerable vertical development, something we would have to watch a little bit. “XX XX (our flight), Holding instructions, advise when ready to copy”. Now we started holding at another fix about 30 miles closer to New York than the first one, with the same expect further clearance time. The same flurry of activity ensued, and our Dispatcher gave us almost the same bingo fuel, 3,400 lbs.
This turn of events wasn’t good. Morale was sinking, and I was tempted to be resigned to our fate. We only had 300 pounds more than our bingo fuel, which translated down to just a few minutes till we burned down to it. Ten minutes, in fact, and our EFC was 25 minutes away. There was ten minutes left before it was Philly time for us and our 39 ‘victims’.
Even though this was typical treatment by center when there are big delays going into LaGuardia, we were getting tired and a little frustrated of them teasing us. Just when ‘the night was darkest’, we were released from the second hold and put back on the arrival route. The tone in the controller’s voices had sympathy for us, and conviction perhaps, that we would make it in. Onward, with faith, we made our way, even through two vectors off the arrival route for ‘traffic management’.
As my FO slowed our jet and we configured for approach while we flew through cloud layers and caught glimpses of the crowded New York boroughs below us, I evaluated the weather on the field. Using our weather radar a few minutes before showed that the tops of the rain cloud over the field was only about 15,000 feet. The view out the window matched that of the radar. It looked safe, just a summertime rain shower to fly through, not a thunderstorm.
On approach below the lowest layer, the clouds above LaGuardia were dark gray, with the surrounding areas a complementary white. The good rain on the surface called for full reverse thrust on landing, and my FO did a textbook job of stopping us before the intersection with the other runway. We were in New York! Finally.
Fast forward two days: Now that I’m back home with my three favorite girls, we’ve had to hold again for fireworks. Last night’s displays were cancelled because of rain. This morning the clouds are trying to move out of the way for tonight's July 4th’s fireworks, and for my youngest daughter's fifth birthday party. She thinks for fireworks are for her, you know. This weather is uncharacteristic for where we live on July 4th, so I guess we’ll have to wait it out as it comes, like we did during our flight to New York.
Happy Independence Day!
Monday, June 22, 2009
Back at it
I am, after a long awaited family summer vacation to a warm (hot) place with an ocean and multiple swimming pools. All by ourselves too, just my wife and I and our two girls, Marissa (almost 9) and Maren (almost 5). I don't share too much about my family here yet, but we had such a good time that I'd like to.
We successfully and harrowingly non-revved on US Airways to RSW (Ft. Meyers, FL) and back. Sanibel and Captiva Island are long and narrow land strips just off Ft. Meyers in the Gulf of Mexico. We stayed at South Seas Island Resort on Captiva Island, a very nice place. A regular asked us just one thing with his guitar in hand at our swimming pool, next to our 'tennis villa' (condo): 'just don't tell anyone about this place'. Oops, too late now. Click here for my wife's great pictures and stories from her blog.
Major activities: Pool and ocean swimming, ray catching (the sun kind), chillin' and grillin', beach jogging, sunset watching, sea shell hunting, diet throwing, golf attempting, ocean kayaking, and relaxing in general. It's hard for me to relax in general, on vacation that is. Home between trips, I have no problem at all doing that, just ask Shannon. It took me a day or so to slow down on Captiva, but that's okay.
Some great quotes from this trip: Marissa, after trying her jumbo fried shrimp at the Island Cow on Sanibel Island: "This shrimp is amazing"; Maren, post-saltwater gulping experience: "Mommy, I think I'm allergic to ocean water"; Shannon, after eyeing 'cheesecake' under glass in Philadelphia International: "I might have to get some cheesecake"; Me, in response: "that's not cheesecake, that's quiche!" But she was under the effect of Dramamine, after all.
Good times were had and good memories made, kind of like airline flying on the good days, only better and more personal. Now, can I segway to tell you about my day of flying? Not very well, although they did have those on the Island, segway tours that is. The fam and I are too cool for that. Well, actually the girls are too young for that. D.C. eight years from now I suspect we'll succumb to it.
In any case, today was pretty easy, as far as RJ flying goes. The plan was three legs on a nice early summer day: DCA-GSP-PHL-BTV. GSP is Greer, SC, serving Greenville and Spartanburg, SC. I never know which city to say so I say all three. Burlington, Vermont, our overnight, has the Green Mountains, which I've blogged about before. PHL, well, everyone knows about PHL. But it has actually improved during this recession. The reduction in flights has decreased the delays, one of the short runways has been lengthened, and the ramp and gate vendor has been able to trim the 'deadwood' and hire workers who actually like to work and service our aircraft.
The jet was a little late, and then upon inspecting the plane a chord struck me. Exposed tire chord, in three places, on our right nosewheel tire, that is. Quickly, I started singing a different tune. (The music references are almost over.) Bear in mind that I can't sing very well: on our radio to operations: "Ops, we're delaying boarding, we have a maintenance delay, I'll call you back in 30". I called Maintenance and wrote up the tire for an inspection. My educated guess said they would change both of them, as the left tire had deep gouges as well, and they did. The sort of wear they showed could've been from placing too much load on the tires, as in turning too sharply, and exiting the runway too fast. You can't control the other guys though, just yourself.
About 45 minutes later I told ops our NASCAR tire change was complete, and we were ready to board. He, who on the radio sounded like a black immigrant who is friendly and speaks 'the Queen's english', didn't get my humor, understandably.
We took off into skies which had scattered, gray bottomed cumulus clouds attempting to shield grounded beings from the sun. Far below us, these classic poofy cotton balls accompanied us all the way to Greenville and up to Philadelphia. A 'bug wash', just like we ordered, was done within five minutes after setting the parking brake in PHL. They even sent the 'Blue man group' over to perform after we gave them short notice. With a third apology to the third group of peeps, a clean windshield, and a freshly serviced lavatory, we pushed back for Burlington.
I steered our CRJ's nose from pointing toward the west to pointing toward the east, raking the nose through more cumulus clouds. We punched a small one, had minor turbulence, then asked center if we could deviate or climb around the next one. Shaped like a pyramid, it resembled a Dora the Explorer type buildup. We could've made it through easy, but it wouldn't have been easy on the peeps. No 'vamonos', no we aren't going. 'We couldn't go through it, we had to go around it'. NY center thanked us for the request and Dora's cloud was used as a ski pylon.
No views of NYC were had this day either, smooth looking stratus clouds covered the area. Situational awareness of our navigation was completely by our MFD and FMS (Multi-function display, our 'moving map') and Flight Management System, the computer we program to 'drive' the autopilot.
Descending into BTV, the controller thought we would pick up the airport visually at 3,500 feet, which would permit him to give us clearance for a visual approach, but we weren't that confident. Apprehension set in, up to a minor but very common level. Potentially ATC was vectoring us in for a short final approach from a higher than preferred altitude. Just when I was about to ask my FO to ask ATC to give us a turn to give us more room, he did, and let us descend to a lower altitude where we could see the airport.
I am always awestruck at just how green the Green Mountains are, and I was again today. Saying it over and over doesn't do it justice. If it looks like that from the air, what would hiking, biking, and kayaking/canoeing it be like? Add it to the list. We we approaching BTV from the south, the hilly side, so we had a great view of the valley that stretches out to the southeast from BTV. Our MFD's terrain showing features from the ground proximity warning system database were coloring up the screens as we lined up on final for a 'raw data' approach. The winds were shifty and a little gusty, they made me work for it a little.
Thinking about our tires now, it's comforting that we didn't have to worry about tires with chord showing which might hit runway centerline lights at 140 MPH, didn't have to worry about handing a bad plane to another crew, and didn't have to worry about the tire blowing for another reason. After a nice run and some great home cooking leftovers, it's time to hit the sack for another early show.
A reminder to me after recollecting my vacation and this three leg day: 'God is good, and I've been blessed.' It's kind of hard to say in light of all the wrong and evil things people and governments do to each other (Iran is this moment's example), but God IS good. He proved it with the life, love, sacrifice, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
We successfully and harrowingly non-revved on US Airways to RSW (Ft. Meyers, FL) and back. Sanibel and Captiva Island are long and narrow land strips just off Ft. Meyers in the Gulf of Mexico. We stayed at South Seas Island Resort on Captiva Island, a very nice place. A regular asked us just one thing with his guitar in hand at our swimming pool, next to our 'tennis villa' (condo): 'just don't tell anyone about this place'. Oops, too late now. Click here for my wife's great pictures and stories from her blog.
Major activities: Pool and ocean swimming, ray catching (the sun kind), chillin' and grillin', beach jogging, sunset watching, sea shell hunting, diet throwing, golf attempting, ocean kayaking, and relaxing in general. It's hard for me to relax in general, on vacation that is. Home between trips, I have no problem at all doing that, just ask Shannon. It took me a day or so to slow down on Captiva, but that's okay.
Some great quotes from this trip: Marissa, after trying her jumbo fried shrimp at the Island Cow on Sanibel Island: "This shrimp is amazing"; Maren, post-saltwater gulping experience: "Mommy, I think I'm allergic to ocean water"; Shannon, after eyeing 'cheesecake' under glass in Philadelphia International: "I might have to get some cheesecake"; Me, in response: "that's not cheesecake, that's quiche!" But she was under the effect of Dramamine, after all.
Good times were had and good memories made, kind of like airline flying on the good days, only better and more personal. Now, can I segway to tell you about my day of flying? Not very well, although they did have those on the Island, segway tours that is. The fam and I are too cool for that. Well, actually the girls are too young for that. D.C. eight years from now I suspect we'll succumb to it.
In any case, today was pretty easy, as far as RJ flying goes. The plan was three legs on a nice early summer day: DCA-GSP-PHL-BTV. GSP is Greer, SC, serving Greenville and Spartanburg, SC. I never know which city to say so I say all three. Burlington, Vermont, our overnight, has the Green Mountains, which I've blogged about before. PHL, well, everyone knows about PHL. But it has actually improved during this recession. The reduction in flights has decreased the delays, one of the short runways has been lengthened, and the ramp and gate vendor has been able to trim the 'deadwood' and hire workers who actually like to work and service our aircraft.
The jet was a little late, and then upon inspecting the plane a chord struck me. Exposed tire chord, in three places, on our right nosewheel tire, that is. Quickly, I started singing a different tune. (The music references are almost over.) Bear in mind that I can't sing very well: on our radio to operations: "Ops, we're delaying boarding, we have a maintenance delay, I'll call you back in 30". I called Maintenance and wrote up the tire for an inspection. My educated guess said they would change both of them, as the left tire had deep gouges as well, and they did. The sort of wear they showed could've been from placing too much load on the tires, as in turning too sharply, and exiting the runway too fast. You can't control the other guys though, just yourself.
About 45 minutes later I told ops our NASCAR tire change was complete, and we were ready to board. He, who on the radio sounded like a black immigrant who is friendly and speaks 'the Queen's english', didn't get my humor, understandably.
We took off into skies which had scattered, gray bottomed cumulus clouds attempting to shield grounded beings from the sun. Far below us, these classic poofy cotton balls accompanied us all the way to Greenville and up to Philadelphia. A 'bug wash', just like we ordered, was done within five minutes after setting the parking brake in PHL. They even sent the 'Blue man group' over to perform after we gave them short notice. With a third apology to the third group of peeps, a clean windshield, and a freshly serviced lavatory, we pushed back for Burlington.
I steered our CRJ's nose from pointing toward the west to pointing toward the east, raking the nose through more cumulus clouds. We punched a small one, had minor turbulence, then asked center if we could deviate or climb around the next one. Shaped like a pyramid, it resembled a Dora the Explorer type buildup. We could've made it through easy, but it wouldn't have been easy on the peeps. No 'vamonos', no we aren't going. 'We couldn't go through it, we had to go around it'. NY center thanked us for the request and Dora's cloud was used as a ski pylon.
No views of NYC were had this day either, smooth looking stratus clouds covered the area. Situational awareness of our navigation was completely by our MFD and FMS (Multi-function display, our 'moving map') and Flight Management System, the computer we program to 'drive' the autopilot.
Descending into BTV, the controller thought we would pick up the airport visually at 3,500 feet, which would permit him to give us clearance for a visual approach, but we weren't that confident. Apprehension set in, up to a minor but very common level. Potentially ATC was vectoring us in for a short final approach from a higher than preferred altitude. Just when I was about to ask my FO to ask ATC to give us a turn to give us more room, he did, and let us descend to a lower altitude where we could see the airport.
I am always awestruck at just how green the Green Mountains are, and I was again today. Saying it over and over doesn't do it justice. If it looks like that from the air, what would hiking, biking, and kayaking/canoeing it be like? Add it to the list. We we approaching BTV from the south, the hilly side, so we had a great view of the valley that stretches out to the southeast from BTV. Our MFD's terrain showing features from the ground proximity warning system database were coloring up the screens as we lined up on final for a 'raw data' approach. The winds were shifty and a little gusty, they made me work for it a little.
Thinking about our tires now, it's comforting that we didn't have to worry about tires with chord showing which might hit runway centerline lights at 140 MPH, didn't have to worry about handing a bad plane to another crew, and didn't have to worry about the tire blowing for another reason. After a nice run and some great home cooking leftovers, it's time to hit the sack for another early show.
A reminder to me after recollecting my vacation and this three leg day: 'God is good, and I've been blessed.' It's kind of hard to say in light of all the wrong and evil things people and governments do to each other (Iran is this moment's example), but God IS good. He proved it with the life, love, sacrifice, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Visualizing and the F-word
(Disclaimer: This post is not about the other F-word. This post is safe for family reading. I just had to make a title with a hook. Maybe not had to, but wanted to. Thank you.)
“There it is”, I proclaimed, I admit inappropriately, just after takeoff. A violation of the sterile cockpit rule (non-essential conversation below 10,000 ft), yes, but the view warranted it. Even heroes do it, as it was reported yesterday that Captain Sullenburger remarked “What a view of the Hudson today” during US Airways 1549’s climbout from La Guardia, moments before hitting the flock of geese which would lead them to ditch in that same river. Non-essential conversation happens, the point of the rule is to not let it distract from operating the flight. And in that way, this post won’t be about the sterile cockpit rule.
We had just taken off from Ithaca, NY, a couple days ago, with me as PNF and ‘Nate’, an FO I favor quite a bit, at the controls. Nate and I have had a couple big learning experiences together, mostly because of his errors and my temporary lack of oversight which permitted him to commit them. But he’s a pretty knowledgeable and capable guy, and very easy to work with.
Laid out before us, beneath my left shoulder and to stretched out to horizon to the right, was beautiful Lake Cayuga (click here for pictures), one of the famous western New York state ‘finger lakes’. Ithaca (click here for tourism info) is at the south end of it, and this morning it was calm with a sliver sheen, inviting a tranquil time for those on its surface, surrounded by towering 500 plus foot lush green, round ridges on both sides. The Finger Lakes are a sight from the ground and the sky; they are five or six narrow but long lakes, carved by glaciers long ago. Because they’re glacier lakes, they’re pretty deep, great for fishing and sailing, and whatever suits your fancy.
The Finger Lakes region combines with the Poconos and Niagra Falls areas as a classic and growing area for tourism. There are wineries which advertise Napa valley style tours via brochures placed in our Ithaca hotel. My shameless family vacation fantasy involves relatives meeting us for sights of Niagra, time on the Finger Lakes, a night or two in Ithaca, and of course a car race at nearby Pocono or Watkins Glen.
A bumper sticker you might see in Ithaca, which houses Cornell University and Ithaca College, would be ‘Visualize World Peace’. At the moment over the lake, I was visualizing sailing on it (multi-tasking of course). That's when Nate pointed out the tall waterfall 2,000 feet below us, which fed into the lake via a half mile creek at it's bottom.
Waterfall? Instantly I thought I was in Brazil somewhere. The previous day I’d been flipping through a copy of Outside magazine, some ‘cabin bounty’ that had been left by a passenger. First was a picture of a kayaker making a 70 foot drop over a waterfall in South America. Later a column documented another Brazilian kayaker who did a 125 foot waterfall drop and lived to tell the tale minutes later, after coming out from behind the waterfall curtain, and encountering three boa constrictors during his swim.
“There it is”, I proclaimed, I admit inappropriately, just after takeoff. A violation of the sterile cockpit rule (non-essential conversation below 10,000 ft), yes, but the view warranted it. Even heroes do it, as it was reported yesterday that Captain Sullenburger remarked “What a view of the Hudson today” during US Airways 1549’s climbout from La Guardia, moments before hitting the flock of geese which would lead them to ditch in that same river. Non-essential conversation happens, the point of the rule is to not let it distract from operating the flight. And in that way, this post won’t be about the sterile cockpit rule.
We had just taken off from Ithaca, NY, a couple days ago, with me as PNF and ‘Nate’, an FO I favor quite a bit, at the controls. Nate and I have had a couple big learning experiences together, mostly because of his errors and my temporary lack of oversight which permitted him to commit them. But he’s a pretty knowledgeable and capable guy, and very easy to work with.
Laid out before us, beneath my left shoulder and to stretched out to horizon to the right, was beautiful Lake Cayuga (click here for pictures), one of the famous western New York state ‘finger lakes’. Ithaca (click here for tourism info) is at the south end of it, and this morning it was calm with a sliver sheen, inviting a tranquil time for those on its surface, surrounded by towering 500 plus foot lush green, round ridges on both sides. The Finger Lakes are a sight from the ground and the sky; they are five or six narrow but long lakes, carved by glaciers long ago. Because they’re glacier lakes, they’re pretty deep, great for fishing and sailing, and whatever suits your fancy.
The Finger Lakes region combines with the Poconos and Niagra Falls areas as a classic and growing area for tourism. There are wineries which advertise Napa valley style tours via brochures placed in our Ithaca hotel. My shameless family vacation fantasy involves relatives meeting us for sights of Niagra, time on the Finger Lakes, a night or two in Ithaca, and of course a car race at nearby Pocono or Watkins Glen.
A bumper sticker you might see in Ithaca, which houses Cornell University and Ithaca College, would be ‘Visualize World Peace’. At the moment over the lake, I was visualizing sailing on it (multi-tasking of course). That's when Nate pointed out the tall waterfall 2,000 feet below us, which fed into the lake via a half mile creek at it's bottom.
Waterfall? Instantly I thought I was in Brazil somewhere. The previous day I’d been flipping through a copy of Outside magazine, some ‘cabin bounty’ that had been left by a passenger. First was a picture of a kayaker making a 70 foot drop over a waterfall in South America. Later a column documented another Brazilian kayaker who did a 125 foot waterfall drop and lived to tell the tale minutes later, after coming out from behind the waterfall curtain, and encountering three boa constrictors during his swim.
“Call Outside magazine”. Taughannock falls (click here for info), I’ve now found out, has a 215 foot drop, the highest east of the Rockies. You cab barely make out people viewing it up close on the right side of the picture. The eons spent carving the rocks was evidenced by the high circular granite around it. However, the low water flow and shallow pool would make it an even crazier drop than what I’d read about. But as they say ‘If it can visualized, it can be done’.
That’s more of what this post is about, what we visualize and what we actually do, or what is actually done. I’d like to learn to sail someday, I visualized it but don’t know if it will happen.
I can visualize Steve, the cool fella I flew with two posts ago, reading the bible I gave him and he accepted at 35,000 feet somewhere over Kentucky, on the flight from Kansas City back to DC last week. On the way to KC he asked about my ring: ‘so is that a Templar ring?’ He said it looked like the Templar knights cross, he’s apparently a Dan Brown and DaVinci Code/Angels and Demons fan. “No, it’s just a regular cross, I’m an evangelical Christian, yep”. So we started talking, it went from ‘I don’t believe in God’ to talking about his and my opinion of God’s nature and why does God permit so much evil in the world, religion is the cause of so many wars, etc. Tough questions, but from a certain basis unfair questions, biased against God in the first place, in my opinion. I did my best to listen to him and contrast his statements to my point of view. He let me share my personal experience with Jesus Christ, and I encouraged him to seriously investigate his life and claims. It was a good exchange, we coasted in to park at the gate and Steve went to retrieve us both sandwiches.
I felt led to give him this small New Testament that I had been carrying around. During the long cruise portion (for a regional jet) of the flight back to DC, and after a quick prayer for courage, I offered it to him. He accepted it and started reading the gospel of Matthew right there. I had to turn away and hide my easy smile, praising the Lord silently in our heavenly office. Well, who knows what will happen spiritually with Steve. Like the U2 song I’m (coincidentally?) listening to at this moment, ‘One step closer’, I hope that he is that person.
I’m sitting in NWA first class, commuting home, on the way to Minneapolis-St. Paul, visualizing them holding the FSD flight for me. We were delayed in a ‘ground hold’, from taking off from DC this evening due to thunderstorms blocking the ‘departure gate’, in ATC terms. It will be a tight connection, one I may be running for, but one that they just may hold the flight for. I know there are at least ten other FSD peeps on this airbus, and this will be the last flight of the night. Such is the life of a commuter, especially a ‘two-legger’ as I am.
This morning, the fifth day of a five day trip, I didn’t want to get up. A 4:30 AM van, 12 hour day, six legs, and 6:45 of flying awaited us, and it was all perfectly legal. I and my crew were blessed with a message from crew scheduling, left on my silent ringer set cell phone at 3:30. At 4:00 I (my brain did) heard the nice CS gal tell me that because of yesterday’s weather, our jet didn’t make it to Albany for our morning flight. Our first three flights were cancelled and we didn’t have to report for duty until 9:00 AM. Yes, three more hours of restful and needed sleep!
It’s June 10th, and the typical spring thunderstorms had thrown another wrench into the ATC system works on the east coast. Out three legs left were PHL-DCA-RDU-DCA, and our jet was late as well. It came at 1:30 PM and it was hot, literally. We would leave at least two hours later than scheduled with the jumpseat and cabin full. We had 41 hot and frustrated passengers, and the other nine ‘deadheaders’ and one jumpseater. Fellow pilots and flight attendants sometimes become critics of your operation, but I know they mean well. And we had something to be criticized for, our plane had only one of our two air conditioners, or ‘packs’ as we call them, operating. This was all legit, the problem had been documented in the aircraft maintenance log and the bad pack had put placed on the deferred maintenance list. Inflight, the cabin never got below about 83 degrees, and the airflow was poor. One pilot I know really tried to persuade me to write the aircraft up as having unsatisfactory air, even unsafe air, as he was sweltering and couldn’t breatheon the PHL-DCA flight.
I wanted to, but I had an ulterior motive, I had to get home. We were already about two hours late, and I was afraid if I wrote the plane up the increased delay would mean spending another lovely night at the crash pad. If we immediately flew the last round trip I’d get to the gate for the MSP flight at about 7:30 for an 8:00 PM flight. So I sympathized with our FA and her sweaty ‘pits’ (her words, she was NOT happy), and went to fetch the paperwork for an RDU, NC round trip.
I noticed inflight that the sole remaining pack was only putting out 30 psi. The training file was clicking in my head, hmm, ‘I think that the pack is supposed to put out 41 psi while operating on just one, do you remember that, Nate?’ The systems description of our FCM, Flight Crew Manual backed me up on this. The pack will regulate air inside it to 30 psi when two are operating, and to 41 psi with only one. ‘Trivial’ numbers do have a use after all. The pack was operating, but not according to advertised standards. The plane was safe to operate, but questionably so for passengers, especially those sensitive to heat. It was definitely not acceptable customer service. We were ‘pissing off the world, fifty people at a time’ today.
The only bright side of this scenario is that we requested and received an external air conditioning cart at PHL, DCA, and RDU, which blows a cold, hard stream of air through the ducts into the cabin while boarding, and cools things off a bit before the roasting begins. The shine of it is that this wouldn’t have happened in the past, only in the last year has US Airways Express placed these in service for us.
The flights to Raleigh-Durham and back were done with lots of water and patience, and the weather radar on. Haze in the atmosphere, and leftover cloud material from previous buildups made the danger clouds difficult to see. It seemed that two thunderstorms over the Potomac river might be in our way on the approach back into DC, but we skirted them with ATC’s help. Their radars have weather displaying capability, and we seemingly always get a turn away from cumulonimbus clouds moments before we politely insist they we need a turn, now. Cloud to ground lighting mere miles from the White house, seen from the ramp in DC by our sweaty passengers, reflected the ongoing political tug of war that is Washington. No further comment please!
The swapping crew, the poor souls who would take our sweat box, arrived and the FA said she gets heatstroke very easily. I was already thinking hard about writing it up, and this fact helped clinch it. Maintenance was understanding and didn’t fight me. Good, the right thing was done here.
Do you think quoting rock lyrics in a personal blog is tacky and wrong? I don’t, but a comment made on a widely read fellow airline pilot blog did. Here’s my latest, from Don Henley’s song Heart of the Matter:
I’ve been trying to get down
To the heart of the matter
But my will gets weak
And my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think it’s about
FORGIVENESS
FORGIVENESS
Everyone wants to be forgiven for the wrongs they’ve done to others and to God. That’s an easy thing to do; after the humbling step of acknowledging your wrongdoing, ‘please forgive me’ is universal. My lovely five year old, understandably, doesn’t consistently have the sorrow and admitting your guilt part down yet. She’ll say loudly ‘I’m sorry’ and think it makes it all better without any remorse at all. She’s working on it.
The other side of the F-word is forgiving another when you’ve been wronged. When you’re bitter and hurt. When you’ve been wounded and disrespected. When your relationship is fractured. When you’ve been betrayed and manipulated. When the person hasn’t admitted wrongdoing or asked you for forgiveness, and might not.
The Lord has revealed to me recently that I have and have held unforgiveness in my heart, toward others, friends and relatives. I’m in the process of forgiving them, and it feels great. I feel liberated and free. I don’t need an apology from each of them, although most have. How do parents of children who’ve been brutally murdered forgive their killers? We’ve seen this on TV time and again. I posit that it’s only by the power of God and the Holy Spirit.
We can: Visualize Forgiveness, more forgiveness, in our lives and in our hearts, toward each other. More forgiveness in our citizens, and our citizens of the world. Peoples forgiving peoples, nations forgiving nations, races forgiving races, tribes forgiving tribes, cultures forgiving cultures, governments forgiving governments. It's a big bumper sticker idea like the other one previously mentioned, it's a step on the road to world peace (another subject entirely).
It’s important, forgiveness, is, so much that Jesus taught us (and his disciples) to do so, from Luke 11:4 and his teaching on prayer: “Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.” God’s forgiveness of our sins brings us back into a right relationship with him, it does the same when we forgive others.
Did I make it home this night? Did I catch the last flight out of Minneapolis? Did NWA/Delta hold the flight? Yes! I had a peace about it that I like to think was from God. It was just another moment in life acknowledging the ‘God things’ he has blessed me with. Amen!
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Loss of Air France 447
Unfortunately, on the night of June 1st, an Air France Airbus A330, flying as flight 447 from Rio de Janerio, Brazil to Paris, France, disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean while flying at 35,000 feet through the intertropical convergence zone, in an area of known thunderstorm activity.
Crash debris was found yesterday and today on the ocean's surface, but experts say the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder might very well be difficult to retrieve, because of the oceans' extreme depth and mountainous floor. No survivors have been found, and all 228 souls on board are presumed dead.
I would like to express my sympathy to the family and friends of the victims, and to Air France employees. Another airline tragedy has befallen us, and it is my hope and prayer that surely something positive will come about from the investigation. Knowledge will be gained, and hopefully the lessons learned will be applied to future high altitude jet operations worldwide.
For more information regarding this accident, see Aviation Herald for detailed information and Tim Vasquez' website for a very detailed meteorological analysis of the weather conditions present where and when Air France 447 was lost.
I'm not a meteorologist, but I do have some weather knowledge. Tim Vasquez's basic theory is that the flight was doomed by being exposed to severe turbulence. He postulates that the aircraft might have been flying in moderate turbulence in cirrus clouds leftover from a previous thunderstorm, which wouldn't be very harmful by itself. He thinks that a rapidly growing 'cold updraft tower' from a developing thunderstorm below the aircraft's altitude might have grown upwards into the airliner's position just as it was flying past. Such a fast growing cumilonimbus cloud, with a rate of at least 6,000 feet per minute or more, would surely deliver severe turbulence to an airframe. According to Tim, thunderstorms in the intertropical convergence zone can have these strong, narrow updrafts at high altitudes, which are difficult for weather radar even modern jets have to portray accurately without expert knowledge and operation. Translated, that means that a strong, high altitude updraft from an intertropical convergence zone thunderstorm which is maturing cannot yet have enough moisture inside it to be typically portrayed on a weather radar as a storm signature.
In any case, the loss of Air France 447 is tragic, and another reminder of the fragility that life in flight can be, and of the great responsibility given to all pilots by their entrusting passengers.
Crash debris was found yesterday and today on the ocean's surface, but experts say the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder might very well be difficult to retrieve, because of the oceans' extreme depth and mountainous floor. No survivors have been found, and all 228 souls on board are presumed dead.
I would like to express my sympathy to the family and friends of the victims, and to Air France employees. Another airline tragedy has befallen us, and it is my hope and prayer that surely something positive will come about from the investigation. Knowledge will be gained, and hopefully the lessons learned will be applied to future high altitude jet operations worldwide.
For more information regarding this accident, see Aviation Herald for detailed information and Tim Vasquez' website for a very detailed meteorological analysis of the weather conditions present where and when Air France 447 was lost.
I'm not a meteorologist, but I do have some weather knowledge. Tim Vasquez's basic theory is that the flight was doomed by being exposed to severe turbulence. He postulates that the aircraft might have been flying in moderate turbulence in cirrus clouds leftover from a previous thunderstorm, which wouldn't be very harmful by itself. He thinks that a rapidly growing 'cold updraft tower' from a developing thunderstorm below the aircraft's altitude might have grown upwards into the airliner's position just as it was flying past. Such a fast growing cumilonimbus cloud, with a rate of at least 6,000 feet per minute or more, would surely deliver severe turbulence to an airframe. According to Tim, thunderstorms in the intertropical convergence zone can have these strong, narrow updrafts at high altitudes, which are difficult for weather radar even modern jets have to portray accurately without expert knowledge and operation. Translated, that means that a strong, high altitude updraft from an intertropical convergence zone thunderstorm which is maturing cannot yet have enough moisture inside it to be typically portrayed on a weather radar as a storm signature.
In any case, the loss of Air France 447 is tragic, and another reminder of the fragility that life in flight can be, and of the great responsibility given to all pilots by their entrusting passengers.
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