5:45 in the morning and this is our view of the sunrise over the South China Sea as we climb out of Hong Kong bound for Xiamen, China. After doing so many long flights, this one was a hurried and cramped hour that left both me and the captain feeling a bit rushed. At least the view was great. We delivered aircraft parts to Xiamen, as there are lots of aircraft maintenance facilities there and our own passenger-to-freighter conversions of the 747 are done there as well.
Continue reading Xiamen and Shanghai →

Observation:

I’m sitting here at 31,000 feet on a Delta flight to JFK to start my 8-day trip for work. The friendly flight attendant (stewardess, air hostie, trolly dolly) stopped by and offered me peanuts and a Coke Zero. I was stunned to see my packages of peanuts. No longer does the little red package say something to the likes of “Salted nuts” or “Snack”. Printed on the package was an advertisement for the Hilton Garden Inn, and their airy soft beds with “Snooze Control.” Ads on the snacks? Hah! What will they think of next?

If there is a way to eek out a little profit anywhere on the aircraft, leave it to the cash strapped airlines to come up with an idea to capitalize on it. Delta’s latest profit announcement was pretty good, considering, and I’m glad to see them and others doing well. I do wonder what Hilton paid to put an ad on the peanut packages. I can see this in a few years: Behind the tray table in front of you will be a computer screen with rolling ads on it, all customized to you the way Google Adwords works — and they’ll know it’s you because you paid for your seat with a credit card or because the TSA did a ten year background check on you (and then sold that information to the airlines so the TSA can pay for some of it’s budget). It’s coming . . .

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This is a great YouTube video of a camera strapped to the back of the nosewheel of a 747 as they make a takeoff and landing. About halfway through the show, the pilots bring the nosewheel down and fly around a bit before lowering the rest of the gear. It makes for great cinema, but leaves me wondering how they brought just the nosewheel down by itself (normally it comes down along with all the other main gear). Enjoy.

I just got back from my electrifyingly long 11 day trip — the one that started the day I got back from vacation. It was long because I was able to do a local trip from Hong Kong to Taipei and back. It was scheduled as some recurrent training and I did well. From Hong Kong, Taipei is only about an hour flight and we left in the evening, stayed briefly overnight and then made the first flight back to Hong Kong in the morning. I had an awesome landing in TPE, but hey, even a broken watch is right twice a day. We were floating, floating, then rolling, rolling. When the sound of the speedbrake lever moving back under its auto function is the signal the main wheels are on the ground, it’s a good one.
Continue reading Taipei and Frisco →

Sick and tired of the farce we call the TSA at the airport security lines? Some are calling for a contest to design a new logo for the organization that needlessly hassles anyone who flies in the U.S. Click on the logo above to see more of the submissions. The one above is great, as it is a depiction of an Eagle clutching a tube of toothpaste in one talon and a box-cutter in the other. It is designed by Travis McHale. My favorite is the one with the attack dogs mauling an innocent passenger. (Note: not all are kid friendly)

You can read more about the farcical TSA in Patrick Smith’s weekly column at Ask The Pilot. He, like me, is an airline pilot who has to deal with the “security” all the time.

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I just finished a trip that took me over to Hong Kong, then round trips to both Manila and Shanghai, and then back to the U.S. It was a long eleven days, but it was very nice to fly to two different cities out of Hong Kong; places I don’t normally go. I hadn’t been to the Philippine capital since training, and I have never been to mainland China.

The routes that I normally fly are freighter routes, but these two trips were passenger routes. I also haven’t flown passengers since training, and that was a blast. I had to remember to talk to the cabin crew over the P.A., think a little more closely about the seatbelt sign, and definitely had to hope for better landings than the ones the freight boxes enjoy. The freighter is nice because if you want a cup of coffee or something to eat you just get up and get it, without bothering a flight attendant with your request. However, the flying seems a little bit more satisfying when you have 399 people (379 + 20 crew) counting on you for a safe flight.
Continue reading Manila and Shanghai →

There has been another airline merger, albeit not as major or significant as the recent United/Continental deal. My former employer, Chautauqua Airlines, has a parent company known as Republic Airways Holdings. RAH runs Chautauqua Airlines, Shuttle America Airlines, and Republic Airlines. These three are regional jet operators. A few months ago, they bought Frontier Airlines out of Denver, and Midwest Express Airlines out of Milwaukee. So now, RAH is running 5 airlines!

Midwest was in trouble for a lot of reasons but RAH is turning them around. They gave back Midwest’s larger Boeing 717 aircraft and have replaced them with Embraer 190 aircraft, which are smaller and less expensive to operate. Then Frontier was purchased and will be merged with Midwest Express. The new airline will be under the Frontier brand and paint scheme, but the famous, warm chocolate chip cookies served on Midwest Express will remain!

Now, Republic Airways Holdings runs three regional operators and one “major” airline. I wish them all luck and hope they succeed. It’s very tough to run airlines in today’s economy. The CEO has said that mistakes will be made along the way but they will work as hard as they can to make it all work out. I say good for them. I’m glad all this happened after I left for Cathay Pacific, or I may have never left the airline.

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On the same trip that I lost my iPod and Bose noise canceling headsets, I got to fly from Atlanta to Vancouver. I had never flown this route before, and though I had flown in and out of ATL many times in the past, I’d never flown the queen of the skies, the 747, in or out of Georgia’s capital. The captain and I had an early wake-up call, at 04:10, but when getting to the aircraft, there was a last minute maintenance issue that caused a three hour delay. We both wished we could have slept for three more hours that morning.

During the delay, the sun was coming up so I went on my own little “walkabout” with my Canon S90. All airline pilots do an exterior inspection prior to each flight, known as a walk around. To me, it sounds a little like the Australian version of an adventure, called a walkabout. Walk arounds are much more dull than walkabouts unless some major technical problem is found. Even so, I use the time to admire the amazing aircraft I fly, the 747-400. As eloquent a description of the 747 as I’ve ever read, Barry Lopez compares the aircraft to a gothic cathedral, describing it with, “Standing on the main deck, where ‘nave’ meets ‘transept,’ and looking up toward the pilots’ ‘chancel’ . . . The machine was magnificent, beautiful, complex as an insoluble murmur of quadratic equations.” Amazing. I love this machine and she truly is the “Queen of the skies.”
Continue reading Atlanta to Vancouver →