CEO of the Cockpit

The past few weeks and months haven’t exactly been the most enjoyable of my flying career. If we weren’t dealing with hurricanes, destroyed cities and plague, we were worrying about and dealing with airlines declaring bankruptcy and telling their old, sick retirees, “Sorry, pard, I know you’re 85 and have cancer but no soup for […]

I was wandering the terminal awaiting my daughter’s arrival from the city on the other side of the continent that she saw fit to move to at her very first opportunity after graduating high school. I know that regular people aren’t allowed to go through security and await their loved ones at the gate.I had […]

Flying airliners has changed quite a bit during the past 50 years but the pilots have remained the same.They always appear to be dependable, clean-cut and boringly similar on their surfaces, but they possess traits that the flying public doesn’t detect.These personality traits aren’t just limited to airline pilots, although with the amount of time […]

Every pilot will tell you that summer flying is very different from aviating in the winter months. Wasps in the pitot tubes are absent in January. There are no chunks of airframe ice keeping your stabilizer from working during July; and in the Northern Hemisphere, your gloves will never freeze to a jetway as you […]

My entire career in aviation has had to do with the immolation of the remains of dead dinosaurs. Beginning with my early years as a bicycle-riding line boy right through the last 23,000 pounds of Jet A that I burned from New York to Dallas, the rotting remains of latter-day super lizards have driven my […]

It is nice to once again find myself within the confines of my trusty 767 cockpit. A lamb’s wool seat cover caresses my ample behind, as I sit ensconced in my little home away from home.This home has its advantages over my earthbound abode. I can get coffee just for the asking up here, people […]

The sun had gone down, the evening air show was over and it was time to for all tired pilots to bed down in their campsites at the Sun ‘n Fun campground in Lakeland, Fla.After a full day of roast-corn eating, trade-fair attending and craning our necks to a 45-degree up-angle, you’d think that everyone […]

Retirement parties, like funerals, get more plentiful as your life and career nears their respective ends. Much like funerals, these retirement fetes are sometimes the last opportunity to pay last respects to old friends.Leaving the airline almost always means literally leaving your flying friends. This is because a major airline’s flight crews are usually made […]

Dodging airborne 737s is one thing, but dodging airborne Chevy Trailblazers is a totally different situation. As usual, the drive to the airport proved to be much more dangerous than the flying trip. I had avoided a major roadway boning on the way to work and was still a little shook up about it as […]

Dear Santa:I am roasting my ample tummy sitting by a Marriott swimming pool in Fort Lauderdale, the victim of a re-route from my usual trip that normally has a 15-hour Detroit layover. Most re-routes, as you know from hundreds of Christmas trips, are bad news. This re-route seems to be working out nicely: an extra […]