Once I began flying the line, I rarely thought about seat positions and calibrations. At a certain point, takeoffs and landings in an airliner are all about holding a particular deck angle. That generally means eyes more inside on the artificial horizon than outside. Plus the time pressures we were under to run our checklists, […]
The greatest threat to aviation
I was once blinded by my best friend while flying at night. He was trying to help me read a map. We were out of KDAL, heading to KSMO. Inbound to KSMO, at night, over California’s high desert, the earth below looked black as pitch, the sky above a planetarium ceiling’s worth of stars. I’d […]
Navigating a box canyon
I once flew into a box canyon on purpose. A friend of mine lived in a canyon between Pacific Palisades and Malibu on the southern California coast. He’d introduced me to a powerful men’s weekend retreat and it course corrected my life. That one retreat helped me achieve the dream of becoming a pilot, and […]
The dangers of overthinking
My wife’s lovely voice pierced an almost-as-lovely evening flight. “What’s that red light on the instrument panel?” She was pointing to the alternator fail red warning light. And now a fancy-free evening above central Virginia pine forests had just turned into “a situation.” My wife is competent, cool under pressure. If she ever deigned to get […]
Good intentions
Before I could qualify for my helicopter private pilot license in the Robinson R-22, I had to watch an R-22 fall out of the sky. It was part of Special Federal Aviation Regulation (SFAR 73) training. The training also involved viewing a video of the wreckage close-up. In it, I could plainly see a pair […]
Say again
A long time ago it was decided by people much smarter than I am that only one language should be the language of aviation. That language was to be English, regardless of a pilot’s nation of origin. Those same people decided that a specific lexicon should be created within English to reduce any confusion spawned […]
Planes vs. birds
Landing on the Harbor Visual Runway 29 Approach into KPWM can be a 95-second joy ride if the time of day and the time of year are just right. For us, that flight, it was. I flew the crowded 50-seat regional jet in a descending arc, starting at Elizabeth City, Maine. We traveled north along […]
Managing anger in the cockpit
“Louisa County traffic, November four four two eight Quebec departing Runway Niner for left crosswind departure, Louisa County traffic.” I visually cleared final approach and the traffic pattern. Seeing all four quadrants empty, I took the runway and took off. Upwind off KLKU looked fantastic. A riot of yellows, oranges and reds overwhelmed any remaining […]
Would you hesitate to declare an emergency?
The fact that all three of my passengers were throwing up simultaneously left me three options: Tough it out and press on to our destination; join them in their nauseous state; or declare an emergency and get the hell on the ground. My right seat passenger was a Horizon Air first officer. She thought she […]