CEO of the Cockpit

You don’t land a Champ or a Luscombe in the same manner as you land a B767 or an MD-88, but the principles are the same. Both kinds of airplanes require your full attention until you have them parked, chocked and shut down.Landing a tail-dragger only begins with the touchdown. Once the tires kiss the […]

One of the advantages of flying from the Eastern Time zone to the Pacific is that when you get there it always seems early and you always have enough time for a good dinner.Our 6 p.m. arrival in SFO was really a 3 p.m. arrival by their left-coast standards, which left enough time for a […]

They found a box in the main terminal. The box didn’t seem to belong to anybody and when the Homeland Security team looked at it, it looked suspicious. Bomb or brownies?The contents of the box in question would be either a bomb in fact or simply a gut bomb, but either way it meant that […]

It had been a while since I’d had an FAA inspector in my jump seat and I was grateful that it was for a short leg from New York to Detroit. You usually don’t see FAA guys on the seat on a transcontinental leg unless they really want to get to LAX for some non-fuzz […]

Damn, it’s early! I know it is really three hours later, body-wise, because I live on the east coast, but it still feels like 5 a.m. A light rain is falling on LAX this morning. Not enough to get my uniform wet and certainly not enough to justify a rain poncho as I head out […]

The end of a not very long day. One leg from SFO to home at the end of a four-day safari and we were almost officially at the end of our week.Humping our suitcases out of the luggage rack and with our flight kits dragging them to the front door, we paused only to hook […]

Our 767 was number three in line at the de-icing pad and with the snow continuing to drop heavily, it looked like we had a little time to pass.Keith, my copilot, was a little apprehensive and was making damn sure we were ready to follow the de-ice procedures. About 10 years back, he and his […]

Eastbound and down, loaded up and truckin’, we’re going to do something that they said couldn’t be done — arrive on time in Newark on Christmas Eve.This feat is harder during the Christmas season than almost any other. In addition to unusually high passenger loads, icy weather and high winds, we airline crews are dealing […]

A 777 cockpit can be a crowded place if you fill all of the seats. Along with the relief-pilot seat there is a fairly uncomfortable jump seat. With the back of the airplane full of returning Americans and potential British ex-pats, I found myself a sort-of cockpit captive for the eight and a half hour […]

My 17-year-old nephew Kermit asked me to go with him out to the local airport to have a gander at some WWII bombers that were visiting the aviation museum. It was a good excuse to avoid mowing the lawn and gave him the chance to scare the bejesus out of me with his driving.I was […]