Ryan's Travels & Photos

Complete Opposites

2012-01-29T05:19:00.000-08:00

Three days, two opposite parts of our country on two sides of the clock:

Day 1: Ft. Lauderdale, FL

Temperature: 81 degrees.
Clothing - Bathing suit, flip flops.

Sunscreen - Yes.
Drink of choice - Water.

I flew all night to get here, followed by sleep at 6:15AM Atlantic time (3:15AM body time) and a wake up at 11:20AM Atlantic time (8:20AM body time).

Day 3: Seattle, WA

Temperature: 34 degrees.
Clothing - Parka, gloves.
Drink of choice - Hot coffee.

I awoke at 4:00AM Pacific time to fly a trip to Seattle and back. Remember I went to sleep the following night in Florida at 3:15AM, so it really confuses the body as when to sleep and when to wake. The normal circadian rhythm is 100 percent convoluted.

The following day at home is completely useless, and most of us call the day after a trip like this a write-off day. One must also be careful after flying with a convoluted circadian clock, as I've opened a car door right into my face, creating a to rush to the hospital for stitches in my forehead. I usually let dishes pile up high, don't make the bed, and sit like a zombie in front of the television well past 2PM. Yes, I can even find it difficult to make a meal for myself. Basically, I usually cannot function as a normal human being for the rest of the afternoon. Pretty sad, but this is a normal fact of life when my internal clock is tinkered with.

Oh well, I still find it entertaining. Sadly, my wife does not.

Playing Tourists in Napa Valley

2012-01-26T05:19:00.000-08:00

Yes, even locals go wine tasting in Napa and Sonoma Counties from time to time. With the weather so good lately, how can we resist? Actually up until last week I was declaring the winter season over as we have been experiencing springlike temperatures for as long as I can remember. This was the season I was going to take my son snow skiing, but I don't think that's going to happen now. Anyway, let's not get upset, let's go wine tasting!

Er, um before we do that, we better eat something so it's off to the Oxbow Public Market in Napa to scope out some good local food. The Oxbow is a fairly recent public market to arrive in Napa and has great restaurants, a wine merchant, a bakery, a cheese merchant, some good cupcakes, spices, and much much more.

From there, let's drive up to Domaine Chandon in Yountville. After some mingling at the tasting bar, Sharon and I walked out with two full flutes of great sparkling wine to the sunny warm patio. With our kids in the custody of some old friends, I had some wonderful time to catch up with my wife and enjoy life's simple pleasures. Domaine Chandon has been around in Napa since the early 70's and was the first French-owned sparkling wine venture in the United States. Their wines are fantastic and the ambiance of their surroundings is magnificent!

Next, we headed out to our second (and last) stop in the Stag's Leap district of the Napa Valley - Darioush Winery. Darioush is more like visiting Babylon and is known for their Bordeaux-style estate wines. No wonder why we stopped here. Well, it was my Birthday after all...

Sharon looking good as she grabs a whiff of some of their Cabernet.

Well, that's the quick and dirty Napa tour. Ahhh. Let's do that again soon!

Small Town America

2012-01-23T05:39:00.000-08:00

We are currently just north of Indy at 34,000 feet, westbound on a transcon from JFK to LA. The walkaround earlier today on the ramp in New York was brutally cold - 26 degrees with winds gusting at the airport to 28 knots definitely expedited my pre-departure check. With one hand in my jacket pocket and the other grasping a hot cup of Illy coffee, I quickly removed my body and mind from the frozen ramp and placed it in Long Beach in about 6 hours. Today the temps in SoCal will be 80 degrees with bright sun, blue sky and gently swinging palm trees. I can't wait.

Fast-forward one and a half hours west of New York on a course of 270 degrees and we are flying over small town America; a place our airline does not visit at all. I recall flying regional jets into communities down there such as Ft. Wayne and Lafayette; towns that are probably still reminiscent of a Norman Rockwell portrait. Barber shops with laughing old men, girls with red hair and pigtails pulling metal Radio Flyer wagons stocked with jars of fresh preserves. Maybe that still exists, maybe not.

Flash up to our aircraft some five miles in the sky and we are a pressurized vessel of gigabytes, electrons, iPads, laptops, you name it. Our customers from both coasts definitely do not fit the same portrait that may sit below us in Terra Firma. We have eye piercings, nose piercings, tattoos, skinny jeans, blue hair (definitely not natural red) and many more. It's the sign of the times in the most populous coasts of our continent.

As I look down to Earth, I pick up and follow a peculiar snow line just to our left that I can only attribute to a possible elevation change in this general area. It is quite interesting. Perhaps there is a small ridge extending upward here that is just high enough to accumulate a little of the white stuff. Or maybe it is simply the remnants of a much more larger storm that blanketed this area a few days prior. Hmmm.

Anyway, I am looking forward to that blue Pacific Ocean just prior to sundown in less than four hours.

Light Show

2012-01-19T05:18:00.000-08:00

I'm flying a four day trip almost exclusively at night, which lends great opportunity to see some spectacular evening sights. Arriving into JFK from the west with a early turn over the east side of Manhattan really shows how much light emanates from the city at 5AM. Spectacular! However, what follows after landing is not so spectacular - a quick day sleep at the hotel, followed by more night flying down to Florida and back. Trips such as these require sleeping on the backside of the clock, and I will always find it rather odd retiring to bed with the sun rising in the east and waking with the sun descending in the west. Therefore it is essential to be head-on-pillow before the sun actually comes up. Tonight, no such luck.

Below is a photo from my hotel room as I was going to bed. Surprisingly, this is not a Manhattan sunset, but a sunrise. With such short winter days, by the time I awoke and pulled the curtains, it still looked like this but the sun was descending in the other direction.

Later that evening as we approached Orlando, the Captain and I were treated with the Disney 9PM fireworks show. Once again, a perfect night to view some great sights. Tonight I'm flying with a JFK-based reserve Captain who is just a few days younger than me. That's one thing about junior bases - the junior Captains are pretty new to the left seat and are roughly my age. That also means my time to move over to the left seat is almost here as well.

What's great about tonight is we both have plenty in common; speaking movie quotes and the like brings back memories of flying up and down the East Coast in the Embraer 190 with young crews. Wow, I can't believe it has almost been a year since I came to the Bus.

Time flies!

Whack!

2012-01-16T05:00:00.000-08:00

Birds are everywhere this chilly morning. Hundreds of them all flying together about two thousand feet above the wetlands surrounding Sacramento Airport. There's a fine mist hovering just above the field with visibility rapidly changing as the sun slowly ascends into the winter sky. On our arrival, I am flying while the Captain is on bird patrol making sure he spots them and then will call, "Birds" ahead while I split my scan between the gauges and the outside environment. I decide to click off the autopilot a little early so as to gently avoid our winged friends if I see us on a collision course. A few are spotted and thankfully all got out of the way as we touch down on runway 16R at SMF.

Next flight back to Los Angeles and the Captain is in command as we accelerate down runway 16L for our lift off speed of 138 knots. So far no birds. I glance at our airspeed and call "Vee-one, rotate" as the Captain gently pulls back on the stick and sends the Airbus into the air. Just then he mumbles, "Crap" as I see a rather large bird quickly move from left to right in my peripheral vision. At this speed, it is more like a grayish-white blur, but I know it is close enough to have probably sent it whirling out of control to the ground from our wake. I immediately stare at the engine instruments, monitoring the gauges like a hawk to notice any sudden decrease in RPMs from a possible ingestion. Nothing. Everything looks normal. I send my scan back outside the cockpit to resume my portion of bird patrol until we at least past five thousand feet. After that, I can begin to relax.

As we climb to altitude, the Captain and I discuss how that was a close one, but we didn't think we hit it. Upon landing in Los Angeles, we conducted the post flight inspection to ensure we were right, but it looks like we got it. The right leading edge, inboard of the #2 engine took a direct hit, and by the looks of it was a medium-sized bird.

What ensues from this point is a call to maintenance, a logbook write-up, cleanup of the leading edge and inspection of the surface area and all areas aft of the target site. To double check, we move the flaps down to ensure there's no bird parts behind. Besides, we were at flaps 1 at the time, and the remains could have become stuck back there. Kind of gross, but that's what is involved. After inspection, a maintenance sign off in the book and submitting an FAA Wildlife Strike Report, we go on our merry way. No harm done to the plane, by the way. However, it ruined the poor bird's day.

California Sunrise

2012-01-12T05:28:00.000-08:00

Does it really get any better than this?

No, it does not. I've checked already.

Smooth air. No clouds. Beautiful coastline as far as the eye can see. Above is Monterey. Below is just south of Big Sur.

Lastly, below are the Channel Islands.

This is it. You can have the East Coast.

House of Curries - Berkeley, CA

2012-01-09T05:00:00.000-08:00

Then just like that, I'm having Indian and Pakistani food with an old friend in Berkeley, CA the following evening. Talk about playing with the mind after spending a boring night at JB's Restaurant sitting next to the salad bar in Salt lake City. Honestly, after a three or four-day trip my mind is so completely overloaded with experiences that it normally takes one day to recover at home. That's typically what happens when pilots witness thousands of different things in less than a week, compared to what most people experience in a whole month, or even a year.

Here's a good example - I have a good friend who recently ferried a new Cessna 182 from Kansas to Afghanistan (yes, a Cessna) who stopped in Maine, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Greenland, Iceland, Scotland, some Baltic country, Turkey, and across the Caspian Sea over Turkmenistan and eventually into Afghanistan in less than one week. He experienced more in five days than 99 percent of all people on this planet will ever experience in their entire lives. When he arrived home after this incredible journey, he told me he was completely useless for several days. He said his mind was on "overload" and that he just could not function as a normal human being. Can you imagine going to work in a cube after something like that? I couldn't, or wouldn't. Lastly, he mentioned he just felt like he didn't fit in with society for a while, which I can completely understand. Sometimes the best thing to do is curl up in the fetal position and suck your thumb, or blog about it. That's how I get it all out.

Anyway, It's time to eat some chicken tikka masala, dahl, naan, and some other dish that I honestly have no idea what's in it.

The Mormon Walk

2012-01-04T05:04:00.000-08:00

As if ice skating with the Jews (don't worry, I'm one of them) yesterday in warm Southern California was not enough, I'm now walking the grounds of the Mormon Church here in cold Salt Lake City while freezing my tuchus off! Kind of weird, actually, but truthfully every time I visit this town I get the heebie-jeebies. And not just light jeebies, either. I get the whole "I've gotta get outta here" feeling that sends me running back to my hotel room in short order. Where's the fun? The nightlife? The excitement? Hmmm. Sorry, but everything and everyone in this town just creeps me out. Is there even culture in Salt Lake? What do locals do for fun here? I'm waiting for lightning to strike me any minute. Thankfully the sky is clear.

What's interesting to note is there's virtually children everywhere. And not just one or two with their respective super-young parents, but literally five or six of them. I can't even handle two. Mom and dad must have started while they were children themselves! Furthermore, these little kids cannot be more than nine months apart in age! They all look like little cloned-blond robots with fair skin sporting buzz-cuts from a #2 electric razor. Anyway, I don't think the excitement meter ever pegs in this town, but I could be wrong.

It sort of messes with the mind when one day is spent waiting in line at Voodoo Doughnut in Portland, Oregon, and the next is spent here in ho-hum Mayberry, Utah. Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, I do not feel comfortable in this town, nor do I ever wish to move here in the next seventy years. Just my take on things. I guess Northern California has pulled me a little to the left after all these years.

Now I know why I didn't get hired at SkyWest! But ironically my company was founded by David Neeleman, a Mormon himself!

Hmmm....

Ice Skating in LA

2011-12-31T05:09:00.000-08:00

This is not Rockefeller Center, but I'm not complaining. Actually if I didn't know any better, I would have thought I was in Israel today. Currently, I'm right in the middle of Santa Monica on a 73-degree beautiful Christmas afternoon watching a large gathering of orthodox Jews enjoying some time with family on ice. You see, what else are us Jews going to do on the 25th day of December? Look at a tree? Most of us don't even have a Christmas tree (we actually do). I know these two in the picture above don't. They have five blue candles waiting to be lit tonight.

I gathered with relatives after my trip this morning and we all decided to go ice skating- not knowing what was in store for us. What caught me by surprise was out of nowhere the rink quickly filled up with dozens of Hasidic Jews. Yes, men, women and children gathered here on the ice, held hands, laughed and slipped all around the rink as Hebrew music blared from the loud speakers above. It was quite comical but indeed really great to be surround by my brothers and sisters in Los Angeles on a fine Southern California Christmas Day...and the fifth day of Hanukkah.

Long line of Cars

2011-12-26T05:00:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve in the Bay Area.

We are descending from the heavens into Oakland on a gorgeous early evening. The winds are calm, the air mild and the red glow of sunset is finally fading into the Pacific leaving the Bay washed in purple and soft hues. The Captain and I remark on how calm the water surrond the area looks tonight. We could even water ski tonight if we dare to submerge ourselves in the cold abyss. As I glance to my right, I see a long line of cars stretching from Concord down south past the Sunol Grade and into San Jose. Mt. Diablo stands tall to the east, looking down on the bright snake-like brilliance that slither through the East Bay. Families with children make up those lights; parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters and many others all traveling somewhere to spend this evening and Christmas Day with loved ones.

On the other hand, there's me, the Captain and our three flight attendants who will wake up on Christmas morning here in Oakland at the hotel with no family, but to an alarm at 4:15AM. There's going to be no aroma of hot coffee, no warm cinnamon buns, no children's laughter as they impatiently gather around the tree to see what Santa has brought them while they slept. There will just be an annoying buzz in some lonely hotel room. But that's okay! I've been fortunate to have the previous eight Christmases off in a row, so this is my only one away from home in quite some time.

What does sting a little is not being there for my three year old son who has finally grasped the idea of Santa Claus and presents. I am a little saddened I will not see the look on his face tomorrow morning. However, there are many more to come, and I know eventually I will be able to share more holidays at home.

I hope.

I began flying in Northern California some seventeen years ago and I'm still here landing in the Bay Area on a perfect winter night. I know this airspace very well. I know the controllers. I know the roads, the air, the hills, the mountains, the lakes, the rivers, the forests, the wineries. It is a beautiful spot that I am proud to call home. Tonight is my night. My night close to my family and my night enjoying what I love to do for a living. This is my dream job. I would not trade it for any other. Period.

During the six years I have recorded in this blog, I have had tremendous highs, lows, laughter, sadness, peace, stark terror and sheer bliss. Tonight I have come full circle, and as the wheels touch down in Oakland I feel truly blessed to have such a wonderful family. Furthermore, I must not leave out my co-workers who share the same passion as I do. Lastly, thanks to all of you who have supported my writing with wonderful comments and suggestions over the years.

Happy Holidays!

Ryan

Ft. Myers Beach, FL

2011-12-22T05:04:00.000-08:00

I fly over this place commonly on my way into Ft. Lauderdale from the west, and while most of the time I pass over it at twilight, I still know that Ft. Myers and the Gulf Coast of Southwest Florida really have some beautiful beaches. I have written frequently about this area, and now that winter has returned I like to bring up how nice it is down here during the colder months. Most of our customers know too, as our planes from the Northeast are usually packed.

If traveling to Southwest Florida, Ft. Myers Beach is usually a nice place to start. Jetting out into the Gulf with a long, narrow sandbar that stretches south toward Naples, you can usually find beachcombers, seashell shops, quaint restaurants, hotels, and condominiums hugging the beach on both ends. You can spend all day here and think you are further south in Key West or the Caribbean.

I guess that is the whole point this time of year.

Voodoo Doughnut, Portland, Oregon

2011-12-19T05:09:00.001-08:00

Talk about an institution in funky, hip Portland.

Located on SW 3rd Ave and Ankeny Street, Voodoo Doughnut is home to some of the best doughnuts I have ever consumed. Naturally, I'm not a big doughnut fan, but after spending most of the evening devouring large quantities of sushi at Masu with friends, why not partake afterward in a quick, cheap snack?

Like all the crazy dessert places I have visited in the past, there's always a line of hungry patrons stretching out the door. However, what makes this line different from all other lines is how eclectic the customers are. The clientele remind me of grungy teenagers waiting to see a Nirvana concert back in 1991 at the Fox Theater. Once inside, the song "Ugly" by Violent Femmes is blaring out of the bakery at full blast forcing me to have flashbacks to my teenage years myself. Add some tight jeans rolled at the ankle, high tops and wavy hair and you have the perfect recipe for a T-Bone Burnett nightmare. Anyway, it's all good.

Walking like drunk penguins in a single-file slinky, I find myself in awe from all the crazy stuff in here. It's a combo pack of Winchell's Donuts, an old movie theater, one part Legoland, one part corn syrup, and a Volkswagen Bug parked in Humboldt County with Captain Crunch scattered in the backseat. Oh, maybe sprinkle some Pop Rocks and Pepto Bismol in there for color and sound. Don't get me wrong, I like it. It's funky, hippie, grungy, crunchy, whatever. It's definitely fun. However like I said, my friend and I were in such awe of this nauseous gastronomical masterpiece that we didn't realize we were next in line to be yelled at. Yes, don't gaze too long at the menu at Voodoo, because the person behind the counter will literally scream at you.

But wait, before I get to the yelling, there's doughnuts spinning on a carousel in every corner, the music is so very loud, the treats are causing my eyes to seize up, and.....

"NEXT!!!!"

"Ah, whaa?"

Yes, that was my answer. After holding back tears of joy and nausea, I was completely stunned by the bacon and maple doughnuts, the crunchy Oreo-topped bun or the traditional glazed yummy-orgasmic treat. Oh, but wait is there a doughnut shaped like a screaming little man rotating around the carousel? Why yes, yes it is. Better yet, upon closer inspection it actually reminds me of my newborn demanding a milk bottle immediately. Uggh!

The girl looks at me and says, "I SAID NEXT!"

I looked at the twenty-something with more piercings than I care to remember and replied, "Um, uhhh, I'll take a maple and a glazed and ah, um, one of those chocolate ones there."

Whew, that wasn't so hard. The aura in this place is intoxicating, or perhaps something else.

Yes, my mind is still in a dreamy state. Did I really just see a bacon and maple doughnut? Like real slabs of bacon on a gooey-mound of sugar and flour? Yes I did. That's like eating breakfast at 10PM! Well, anyway, there's a lot to be consumed here and if you ever stop in Portland, Oregon make sure to pull on by and grab yourself a funky doughnut.

It will probably set you back a buck-fifty.

Crater Lake

2011-12-14T05:12:00.000-08:00

For one hour now, my face has been planted in each of the three large windscreens on my side of the aircraft as we fly north over the Sierras, past Lake Tahoe, Lassen Peak, Mount Shasta and Klamath Falls. Then out of nowhere amid the highest white-capped peaks in North America is a huge aqua-blue hole situated east of Oregon's old-growth forests and just on the fringe of the high desert to our right.

There it is, Crater Lake!

I have only been down there once with my father, and what a massive lake it is. The lake itself was actually formed from the collapse of the volcano Mount Mazama, and has obviously filled up with snow melt and rain that have accumulated over the centuries. The lake also contains plenty of water too - it is the second deepest lake in North America, with an average depth of just over 1,100 feet.

Then, just as quickly as it is in front of us, it is behind us and fading quickly at seven miles per minute.

Coming Home

2011-12-10T05:17:00.000-08:00

After a seven-hour transcon flight bucking strong headwinds from New York with a fuel stop in Salt Lake City, we have finally made it to Point Reyes in Northern California. My home is just to the north of our vantage point and the beautiful San Francisco peninsula can be seen just over the Captain's left shoulder. In just a few more miles we will be making a left turn to follow the waypoints on the Golden Gate Seven arrival into SFO.

The Pacific is a golden shimmer and there's virtually not a cloud in sight as I make out the small rocky Farallon Islands that sit just off the coast. These rocky mounds are usually shrouded in thick cool fog most of the year, so viewing them is always a nice treat. I am also reminded of the large infestation of great white sharks that loiter these waters in search of seals that hang around the rocks. No surfing here for me.

The aircraft begins a left turn at the LOZIT intersection as we descend and maintain 11,000 feet. This view down there never gets old as I am so lucky to live in one of America's most beautiful (and expensive) places. We pass Bolinas, Muir Beach, the Golden Gate Bridge and Pacifica. San Francisco's gorgeous skyline can now be clearly seen in the left windscreen as we are then vectored off the arrival for a quick descent to the airport.

My trip ends here and once again I am home.

Ski Bear

2011-12-06T05:02:00.000-08:00

A significant portion of my youth during the winter months was spent right down there at Bear Valley, CA. Situated between Yosemite and Lake Tahoe, Bear Valley (formerly known as Mt. Reba) was California's best kept secret. Crowds were sparse, the people friendly and the best part was that one could ski for free for one hour between 8-9AM before committing to a full-day pass. Perhaps it was too icy that day? No problem. Bring it all in at nine and call it a day without spending a dime. During the spring, it was not uncommon to get an hours' worth of carving on the slopes followed by an afternoon of wakeboarding or water skiing a little lower in the green foothills. Lastly, one great perk our High School maintained for all their B-average and higher students was a free ski day per month in the winter. How cool is that?

For five years, this whole area down there was my playground. It has shaped me into who I am today, and I will always be an outdoor enthusiast for life. Sadly, I only pass high overhead now, and can only dream of taking my family skiing there one day. Hopefully it will not be much longer.

Fall Walk, Portland Oregon

2011-12-02T05:27:00.000-08:00

My trips to balmy paradise have ended, and I am finally enjoying a cool fall walk here in Portland, Oregon. The rain is beginning to fall once again as we venture out of our hotel in search of food and possibly a hot beverage. It's also nice to see views that resemble what most of the Northern Hemisphere is experiencing this time of year. It's hard to find views like this in Southern California or Florida. How beautiful is this? Then again, I can leave this cold and damp scene while locals are stuck here in this gray mess until June. As a matter of fact, the most common thing I hear from locals as we open the aircraft door in Long Beach is, "SUN!"

Fun with Son

2011-11-28T05:40:00.000-08:00

"Daddy! Daddy! Come on daddy! We need to get on the airplane. Come sit right here next to me and put on your seat belt. Okay daddy, no talking!"

Our son recently went on his tenth airplane ride at the ripe old age of three. I would say he is no longer an amateur when it comes to airports, airlines and aircraft. Pulling his familiar rollerboard, he breezes through TSA faster than I do and waves at "all the people" while confidently strolling through the terminal toward his departing flight. He even waves goodbye with a smile to all the deplaning customers at the front exit. To him, this is old hat. He reminds me of myself over thirty years ago when I rode on my father's airline, PSA. I used to walk up and down the aisle, passing out mints toward the end of the flight.

Thank goodness he told me he wants to be a firefighter!

Gobble

2011-11-23T05:00:00.000-08:00

As you bite into your Thanksgiving turkey this holiday, please reflect on your birds' short life in some turkey farm somewhere in America. Perhaps it came from this farm right here in the central Sierra Nevada foothills, but probably not. Most come from Minnesota, North Carolina and Arkansas, although all states have some sort of turkey production.

Enjoy your turkey day, and remember that for the third consecutive year, I will once again be enjoying this fowl somewhere on the road in America. Perhaps in Ft. Lauderdale by the pool.

Enjoy the Ride

2011-11-20T05:36:00.000-08:00

As pilots, we are wired to be in total control, but in reality the world we live in sometimes does not extend us this opportunity. The only time we can actually "practice" control is on the job, however outside of work most of our daily lives consist of something closer to chaos. Taking raising kids, for example. I thought I had everything "in control" during the three years of parenting our son. Out comes our second child this September, and my world is quickly turned upside down. As I am desperately trying to right-side up this unusual attitude, I simply find that I cannot get back to normalcy. So forget about controlling anything, because I really can't. I was fighting this new change up until last week, when I finally decided to just "roll with the punches" and accept change and frustration as part of the job. I think sleep deprivation seems to be the largest factor when attempting to maintain sanity while raising young kids. Add in a defiant three-year old boy, a screaming newborn, spit up, throw up, crying, screaming, potty-training, diaper changes at 2AM, dirty dishes, no exercise, and a few red-eyes thrown into the mix and you have the perfect cocktail for disaster.

Although pilots naturally attempt to avoid disaster at all costs, it is perfectly normal in a young family. All my friends with new children are in the same boat, and they don't seem to complain. However, as a control freak type-A pilot, this can become quite a challenge. There is no checklist for parenting. Don't forget that all pilots (yes, ALL pilots) are the biggest, whiniest, spoiled babies on the planet too. Just ask any pilot's wife for that matter. She will say, "When my husband comes home from a trip, I now have to deal with yet another baby." Yes, she is absolutely right.

This is where one must be "open-minded" in life comes into the factor. For example, I commonly receive several emails from young aspiring pilots who have their whole airline pilot career mapped out in front of them. That's great! We all did when we were young. However, most forget to factor in "Plan B" if plan A doesn't work, or even a "Plan C". Some write Plan A like this: "I will graduate college, then get hired at XX years old with XX amount of hours at XX Major Airline, then by XX year I will move to the Captain seat, and by XX years I will be hired by XX airline and by the time I am XX years old I will be a 787 Captain flying one leg from LAX to Sydney for the rest of my career. Well that sounds really fine and dandy, but in this turbulent, always evolving industry this isn't always going to be the case.

In the flight deck, most of the ice breaker conversations that come up between pilots are, "So, where were you before this job?" I have met many who were at United Airlines, or American Airlines and who thought they had the world by the string. Some who were not at the majors yet actually had the goal of working for United Airlines. I did. I wanted to be a United 747-400 pilot, based in SFO. At twenty years of age, I had two pictures of two airplanes on my wall in my college apartment. One was a Beech 1900 in United colors, and the other was a United Boeing 747-400. Those two planes were going to be my first and only passenger aircraft I was to fly. Well, it didn't really work out that way, now did it?

If you look at my post about Becoming a Professional Pilot, you will find my path was extremely convoluted. I learned through fists and starts that I must "roll with the punches" because after spending thirteen years in and out of the airline industry as a professional pilot, this career is anything but ordinary. A career as an airline pilot is not a straight shot to the top. It is full of curves, detours, spins, stalls and crashes. The only person I know who had a great airline experience is my father. Other than that, I cannot attest to knowing anyone who had a great career flying airplanes until retirement. So as in my career and in life, I simply "enjoy the ride". It could end for me tomorrow. It could go on until our airline is purchased by another airline. It may go bankrupt in five years. The same goes with family life. I must roll with the punches and enjoy the ride, as I really cannot control how much spit-up there will be on my pillow tomorrow morning, how many band-aids I will place in my son's knee in the next few months, how many dead car batteries I will replace on the side of the freeway, or how many friends I will lose to leukemia. I cannot control it. It is part of life, and life is wonderful if you simply "Enjoy the ride".

Moments in Lauderdale

2011-11-16T05:40:00.000-08:00

It seems all I have been flying lately is the redeye from LAX to Ft. Lauderdale, followed by a day sleep at the hotel and one leg back in the late afternoon to LAX. So far I have not de-iced once this season, and perhaps I will escape this zany procedure all together. That would be nice.

Here are a few moments I have captured during my twelve-hour stay in southeast Florida that I feel are noteworthy:

Pool paradise:

Sunset on the ramp:

Preflight:

Oh Swell

2011-11-12T05:55:00.000-08:00

1 borrowed surfboard: $0

1 borrowed wetsuit: $0

Parking at Huntington Beach today: Free!

Missing your non-revenue commute home from Long Beach by three minutes because you were waiting for the perfect swell on a Monday morning in November: Priceless!

Now watch the video:

Canon 5D Mark II Slow Motion + Jaws ( Peahi ) 12-7-09 from iamkalaniprince on Vimeo.

The Redeye

2011-11-08T05:26:00.000-08:00

For some reason, I kind of enjoy redeyes. For one, the radios are normally quiet for several minutes on end. Furthermore, there's usually no weather such as ominous buildups that reach halfway to the moon by the afternoon during the summer. Lastly, by the time you arrive on the East Coast, it's still early enough on the West Coast to plop into bed and get at least 7 hours of sleep. By the time you wake up, it's only 10AM out in California. Then you get up, shower, and get dressed so you can return back to where you came from.

Kind of reminds me of college.

Experience is Priceless

2011-11-04T05:29:00.000-07:00

Sitting at Gate 33 in Boston and ready to push back, I am bombarded with certain procedures particular to this airport. I must first call clearance on 121.65 and request to push, along with informing the guy up in the tower which departure procedure we will be using. Then I will switch to ground control and they will call us. I also realize we are too heavy to use runway 9 for a transcon flight, and so we must request 4R. These are all things that have come from experience and local knowledge over the years, and is information that I do not need to look up anymore. It is rote.

I have also learned not to get smart with JFK ground controllers. I am sure you all know why.

Never to stop at Chicago O'Hare when exiting the runway; always keep moving or you will get yelled at.

I have learned to call tower over the outer marker at LAX's 25L and not before.

I know to fly at 280 knots above 10,000 feet while exiting Charlotte's airspace to the north, until advised.

I know to slow to 200 knots prior to crossing the LAX 130 degree radial westbound below 5,000 feet as we approach Long Beach.

There is almost always moderate turbulence while descending into Las Vegas from the west most times of the year.

I better have an alternate when flying into Arcata, CA in the morning.

I know I can request to fly direct to the GILRO intersection to intercept the 30L localizer at San Jose, CA thus saving us a few minutes.

There are large mountains just to the east of Anchorage, Salt Lake City, Seattle and Portland, just to the west of Denver and Reno and just north of Ontario, CA. Flying one thousand feet above these airports in those directions will eventually kill you.

I know that if we have a rapid decompression in the western US, I better level off at around 15,000 feet. Any lower and we may just hit terrain.

I know during the spring and summer months, DFW may change the arrival on us at least three times.

I know between the months of May-August to avoid any airport in Florida between the hours of 11A and 4P. Thunderstorms pop up quick down there and quickly cloak off airways...and airports!

I know to monitor 121.50 on the secondary radio at Washington DCA.

I must state the first fix on our departure procedure to ramp control on push back at Dulles.

Be conservative landing at Burbank and Midway Airports.

If I need to divert when halfway to Bermuda, plan on making a 90-degree turn and head for land.

Unless you're on it, plan on being high and fast when using the localizer to runway 27 at San Diego. I've seen plenty of go-arounds there.

San Francisco is probably the only place you can count on an ILS PRM approach, and occasionally to a breakout. I've done at least one.

Never accept a visual approach into San Diego's Brown field from the east at night. There's a mountain that has claimed many many lives over the years.

I know to contact Havana Control when I'm five minutes from the CANOA intersection westbound, and to contact Santo Domingo Control when I'm five minutes from the BESAS intersection southeast bound.

Plan to have the sun in your face for five hours if you depart Los Angeles for Honolulu at 5PM.

I know to not fully understand Mexican controllers while departing Cancun, or any Mexican airport for that matter.

The controllers in Quebec love to speak French all the time. Parlez-vous Francais?

...and many, many more.

This all comes from experience, and in this industry, experience is priceless.

Choices

2011-10-30T05:39:00.000-07:00

Happy Snowtober! It's not even Halloween yet and the Northeast gets dumped on. Let's see, I could be based in Boston right now, walking to the grocery store in this.....

Or I could even be a little further south in Queens, NY on this fine weekend. No thanks!

Or I could be quite happy right here in sunny Southern California. Temperature today will top out right at 80 degrees. Volleyball anyone?

I'm not moving.

Overhead O'Hare

2011-10-26T05:28:00.000-07:00

It is a beautiful day in the Great Lakes. The city of Chicago and surrounding areas can clearly be seen almost one hundred miles west in Michigan. I am getting quite familiar with the topography of our nation. So much, in fact that even though this is a huge country, it feels very small to me.

Yes, Chicago is still there. So is New York, Boston, Orlando, San Francisco, Seattle and Los Angeles. I have seen them all in the last two days. I have also seen the vast expanse of the Prairie, the murky swamps of the Everglades, the heat-soaked Arizona desert, the rugged peaks of the Rockies and the beautiful coastline of California. It is all there, and to me it is all home.

It is just an extension of my backyard.

Long Beach Marathon

2011-10-22T05:41:00.000-07:00

I awoke to a gorgeous October morning with the sound of U2's "Beautiful Day" blaring from below as thousands of marathoners took to the streets at 7AM to partake in the Run Long Beach Marathon. It was great to see so many people from all over the nation and the world pushing their limits on this spectacular Saturday, October 8.

There's so much energy, enthusiasm, strength and endurance in all those runners of all ages down there. They are really truly great athletes.

A few hours later, I walked down to the finish line to cheer everyone who came across, including cancer survivors, chair athletes, children and many others on a job well done. It's addictive to be around such motivated people, and it makes me want to run as well. However 26.2 miles is a long way to go! Perhaps a half-marathon is doable, or even the bike ride that takes place just prior to the race. That is definitely more my speed.

Naturally, our airline was there to support the drive and determination of the human spirit! Job well done to all!

Detroit City

2011-10-17T05:36:00.000-07:00

In another month, this place will be a little too cold for my taste. For now we fly overhead enroute to JFK in the beautiful autumn light. This time of year is usually clear and carefree. The summer thunderstorms have long since dwindled and the air up here is super smooth. Looking to my right, I realize that if I were to drive directly south from Detroit, the first foreign country I would arrive at is Canada. That's right, as Detroit, Michigan is the only city in the continental US directly north of that country.

Look it up.

West Spanish Peak Color - Colorado

2011-10-12T05:32:00.000-07:00

Three and a half hours into our flight from Boston and my face is smashed into the forward windscreen. The golden slopes of aspen and poplar groves caught my eye about ten minutes back, and now I am viewing at least one thousand square miles of pure autumn glory surrounding Colorado's West Spanish Peak.

Today these groves in Southern Colorado are at their peak color. I can only imagine riding horseback six miles below, listening to those fallen leaves crunch underneath the weight of those hooves. It is an unmistakable, pure sound. So is the sound of Rocky Mountain wind gently fluttering those yellow leaves still clinging on to their respective trees.

The lower sun, warm days and crisp nights make this one of my favorite times of year. The only problem is that I am up here, and not down there. Then again, if I were down there and saw the contrails of our jet heading west, I would probably dream of being up here.

Asbestos Mine & You

2011-10-08T05:13:00.000-07:00

That great big man-made gray crater in the earth down there was once the largest asbestos mine in the United States. Located a few miles south of Angels Camp in California's Sierra Nevada foothills, this place used to extract approximately 36,000 to 45,000 metric tons of the stuff every year. Long since closed, it is now just an open pit waiting to be filled with dirt or perhaps things that don't decompose at all, such as tires.

Naturally, most people have heard of asbestos, but do you know exactly what it is and how it can harm you? I once traveled to the very bottom of this mine and learned firsthand about the dangers related to asbestos ingestion. For one thing, asbestos is a silicate mineral found in the earth that contains thin fibrous crystals. Now what is so dangerous about this mineral is not really caused from touching it, but inhaling those fibers that can easily flake off and become airborne. Once ingested in the lungs, it can cause serious illness such as lung cancer and mesothelioma.

This stuff was commonly used by manufactures in the late 19th Century because of its sound absorption, strength, and resistance to fire and heat. It has been used in a wide variety of applications from brake pads to fireplace insulation, but the most common uses include home materials such as electrical and building insulation, textured paints and wall panels.

Normally, when you breathe in air, your nose filters out impurities and/or impurities are exhaled when you breathe out. However, when asbestos fibers are inhaled, some of them get stuck in your lungs, usually in the lining. Over time, these fibers build up and the lining of the lungs becomes scarred and inflamed. This inflammation leads to asbestosis, mesothelioma and lung cancer. The more asbestos you are exposed to, and the longer the length of exposure, the more susceptible you are to having a dangerous build-up of fibers in the lungs.

So there you have it. More information that you ever wanted to know.

TWA Nostalgia

2011-10-04T05:16:00.000-07:00

Pan Am seems to be the hot topic right now on television, but what about the other great airline? There are very few remnants of Pan Am's blue globe that remain, but you don't have to look very hard to spot some old TWA memorabilia around our system. In fact, our new Terminal 5 at JFK was once part of TWA's old terminal back in the day. It's still intact too, and I know JetBlue and the Port Authority have been working on making it a museum. I hope they do, but first they need to figure out that asbestos problem in there. More on asbestos on my next post.

Anyway, after pushing back from Gate 33B in LAX (below), I realized this too was once part of the old TWA terminal. Just take a look at the sign ahead and you will see what I mean. The 707 paint is almost all faded, but the 767 and L-1011 markings remain. What is the significance of these anyway? Does it light up red when your L-1011 pulls up to the gate, signifying the Captain to stop? Was this technology around in the 80's? Anyway, what great memories of a once great airline.

...and walking back through this gate on the following day, I found this mic just inside the jetbridge in the terminal.

Lastly, here's a TWA L-1011 at the very same gate in LAX back in 1992. Ah, good memories of the beautiful Tristar.

You are gone but not forgotten!

Diddy Riese Cookies - Westwood, CA

2011-09-30T05:10:00.000-07:00

If I were a young UCLA student living in Westwood and craving something super sweet and of course cheap, the first place I would stop is Diddy Riese located on Broxton Ave. Like all sweet institutions located near college campuses, this place can be attributed to every UCLA freshman's fifteen. Yes, that's fifteen pounds gained after the first semester in college.

My freshman fifteen came naturally from piling several cookies on my plate after a huge starchy meal, and then taking them to my dorm room where I would chase those warm, gooey cookies with a few beers. That was almost twenty years ago (really?) in a town up north where tubing down the Sacramento River and Pioneer Days was as talked about as the ubiquitous Sierra Nevada Pale Ale that flowed from every tap. Anyway, I digress...

Back to our story. To indulge in a Diddy Riese morsel, you must first wait in line with several other twenty-somethings who all have the same idea. Commonly, the line snakes out the door and down the sidewalk. Hmm, this seems all too familiar with other sweet shoppes I have visited in the past. What is it about soft, chewy cookies that have been mixed with fifteen sticks of butter? Why does that creamy soft ice cream call my name? Who makes such magnificent chocolate brownies where oozing morsels of cocoa goodness drip from the corners of my mouth?

Well, tonight it comes from Diddy Riese right here in LA, and eventually we make our way to the front of the slinky line and order up a few things to go. First off, I highly recommend that you know exactly what you want by the time the person behind the counter looks you in the face and says, "Next!"

You can't say, "Well, um, ahhhh, I think I'll have the, ah....." Yeah, that will not work here. So let me help you out.

"Hi, I'll take an ice cream sandwich with the white chocolate macadamia-nut cookie and the cookie dough ice cream, followed by the brownie and a Hawaiian shave ice."

You see here at Diddy Riese, you get to make your own ice cream sandwiches from a wide selection of cookies and ice cream. There's also brownies, cakes, this, that and Hawaiian shave ice. That's it, and the best part is that it all came to less than four bucks.

Now to check my blood sugar and probably not drive for at least an hour. "Taxi!"

Places to Visit in the Southwest

2011-09-26T05:17:00.000-07:00

Now that the summer is over and the Southwest temperatures are a little more tolerable, perhaps now is a good time to go visit some of those beautiful places down there.

Below is Sedona, Arizona.

Next up is Zion:

Lastly, how about Bryce Canyon:

Now all I need is a Winnebago.

LAX Sunrise & More

2011-09-21T05:12:00.000-07:00

Just like last year, I experienced multiple sunrises this summer. However, thankfully I am viewing them most often from the West Coast now. Occasionally I do get to view some spectacular sunrises while working the redeyes to the East Coast. I guess those redeye photos are worth showing as well, so here they are.

Over the Pacific Ocean, west of Oregon from Anchorage, southbound.

Over Indiana enroute to Dulles:

Overhead Erie, PA at 35,000 feet. The shoreline and surrounding towns can be seen in the left window, with Buffalo, NY at the top:

Lendy 5 Arrival at daybreak over NYC:

Overhead JFK a few minutes later:

Crescent moon with beautiful colors:

Over Louisiana enroute to Ft. Lauderdale, FL:

Pacific Northwest Photos

2011-09-15T08:05:00.000-07:00

Here's the best shots from the beautiful Pacific Northwest. I love it up here, just not during the rainy nine months out of the year.

Portland on the hottest day of the year:

Portland from above:

Alaska's "We're All Working Together" Boeing 737-490 in Portland:

Seattle Skyline:

Mt. Shasta:

Lassen Peak:

Lassen and Shasta together:

Three photos of Crater Lake from all angles:

Portland Saturday Market:

Mt. St. Helens:

Mt. Rainier:

Three Sisters, OR:

Old Theater:

Mt. Hood:

Mt. St. Helens & Mt. Adams:

How many volcanoes do you see?

Modern Portland:

Mt. Rainier sunset:

Ten Years After the 9/11 Attacks

2011-09-11T20:40:00.000-07:00

Today I am supposed to be in New York City flying in and out of La Guardia and JFK airports, but I am preparing for a new arrival into our family any day now. If our baby daughter does not arrive today, then my son and I will be attending a short memorial service at the Pacific Coast Air Museum in Santa Rosa where they will display the historic “First Responder” F-15 Eagle that was the very first fighter aircraft to arrive in New York City on 9/11 and flew combat air patrol missions to clear the airspace of almost 100 aircraft.

The historic “First Responder” aircraft “102” was retired to the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center (AMARC) at Davis-Monthan AFB, Tucson, AZ on July 31, 2006 after nearly thirty years of service, but was recently acquired by the Pacific Coast Air Museum in 2009 and was transported to Santa Rosa in December 2010. Since then the aircraft has been reassembled, and today will be unveiled under the F-15 “First Responder” Exhibit at 2PM. Pics of the ceremony and aircraft to follow later on this post.

It is unbelievable that 9/11 was ten years ago. I also look back to that morning and remember it as clear as ever.

Tuesday, September 11, 2001:

I am already up this morning, don't ask me why. I am wide awake, sitting in my hotel room writing note cards on my small hotel desk in preparation for my second day of jet class here in Dallas Fort Worth, Texas. The American Airlines training facility is located just a few miles away, and soon I will be learning how to fly American Eagle's growing Regional Jet fleet. I have already been with the company two years flying SAAB 340 turboprops, and I decided to make the leap to the RJ for a couple of years, and then plan to upgrade back on the SAAB as Captain so I can acquire that Pilot In Command time that would eventually lead to better airline jobs sooner.

That never came to be.

Tuesday, September 11, 2001 was going to be a warm one in Dallas. Planes were already departing to the south, vibrating the windows in my hotel room as they screamed at takeoff power over my head. To me, it was a beautiful sound. Those ubiquitous American Airlines MD-80s could be heard roaring overhead with an unmistakable whine generated from those JT8-D engines. It was music to my ears, and it was my calling. For now, I eyed the clock and continued writing note cards as the familiar blast of airplanes continued to fly overhead my hotel.

Then the noise abruptly stopped. It's as if the winds shifted and the airport operation turned around in an instant. I thought they must be landing north now, and that's why I wasn't hearing planes vibrating my windows anymore. At least that was what came to my mind. I continued to write and kept that little thought of flying big iron in the back of my head; envisioning myself hand-flying a Boeing 767 for one of DFW's north runways. One day I'll be there.

I continued to write.

The phone rings, which I thought was kind of odd at this time of morning.

"Hello?"

It was a voice I have heard thousands of times. Someone close to me at that time who was calling from my house in California. What time could it be out there?

"Have you seen the news yet?"

"No."

'Turn on the TV."

"Okay."

As I turn on the television, I capture one of Manhattan's largest skyscrapers engulfed in black acrid smoke. Just then, I capture what appears to be a Boeing 767, one that I was just envisioning myself flying not ten minutes earlier now plowing into the second building and exploding in a large fireball.

"Ah, what just happened?" As I spoke slowly and quickly tried to register what I had just witnessed. My mouth opened wide as a stream of emotion quickly raced over my body. I was in complete shock.

From that day on, my life would change. It changed for America and the families who lost loved ones that morning in New York City, Washington D.C. and Shanksville, PA.

We will never forget.

Sunday, September 11, 2011:

Here is the unveiling of the F-15 “First Responder” Exhibit at the Pacific Coast Air Museum, featuring the first military aircraft that was scrambled from Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts in response to the hijacked commercial airliners.

With former Secretary of the Air Force Tom Reed at the podium, he told the crowd to, "Never forget."

Colonel Timothy "Duff" Duffy was at the controls that day as he and his wingman raced at supersonic speed toward Manhattan.

Owing its heritage to the Massachusetts Minutemen, the 102nd Fighter Wing has been in continuous service since 1921, and the tail flash for this wing includes the Minuteman, the very symbol of the citizen soldier.

What a fantastic exhibit to be on display in my town!

Vegas Dawn

2011-09-08T05:09:00.000-07:00

It is just after dawn in Sin City as we fly overhead westbound toward the Pacific. It's supposed to be one hundred million degrees down there today, and thankfully our next stop after Long Beach is Seattle. I recall those days of sitting in a hot turboprop cockpit at McCaran or Henderson with no cool air in my face as the sweat dripped off my forehead in buckets. Not any more.

However, there's still plenty of great memories in that city. Late nights with good friends, minor gambling, dancing, BBQ's, The Rum Jungle, the pool at the Hard Rock, Mr. Lucky's at 6AM and so on...

I am sure many of you will agree.

Terminal

2011-09-05T11:00:00.000-07:00

Naturally I am working every observed holiday in America, and this weekend is no exception. But that's okay! Thankfully, I am employed and doing what I love to do.

I have walked this exact space with thousands of other people, all racing to and from their flights here in LAX, but today is another story. Today this place is vacant. It's almost eerie. I half expected an old man driving a zamboni to come sloshing down my way and stop while saying to me, "Son, we're all closed now. You need to go home."

Hopefully my commute flight home is still operating.

Hurricane!

2011-08-31T05:19:00.000-07:00

Well, not really.

As a West Coast-based pilot, this is about the closest I get to a hurricane nowadays. The previous few years based out east was definitely a different story. Besides, I'm not enthusiastic anymore about sitting stranded somewhere in New York City while a tropical storm wreaks havoc overhead.

As the marine layer over the Pacific clears, there seems to be a slight rotational movement to these lingering clouds. Is it due to water currents? Air currents? Maybe someone can explain this phenomenon located just south of Santa Barbara. Anyway, one thing is for certain: I would definitely have no problem flying through that thing. I probably wouldn't even turn the radar on.

Juarez

2011-08-27T05:00:00.000-07:00

We are flying southeast and bearing down on El Paso at almost 500 knots. Just to the right is the Mexican border town of Juarez. From what I have heard, this place has become one of the most dangerous city in the world. Even the guy sitting next to me agrees, and he has been to the world's most dangerous places. Having once flown Air Force tankers in and out of Baghdad and places much more formidable than this, he knows what hazardous pay is.

We are not the only ones up here perhaps contemplating the security of Juarez. Four thousand feet above us is a Southwest Boeing 737 that I have been watching for almost a half an hour now. They are on the same route into Texas and now we too are bearing down on them. Soon we pass underneath their red, orange and blue Boeing 737-700 as we both make the turn over El Paso and they branch off slightly to the south. They must be going to Houston.

Funny, I ride on those guys as much as I'm on my own airline. They take me to and from work every week, and as usual they treat me very well. I look at them as my own brethren; a comparable choice of air carriers.

From Juarez to Baghdad to Southwest to customer service, there's plenty to discuss as we keep truckin' along with destination Austin in less than one hour.

Salt Lake City

2011-08-23T05:08:00.000-07:00

It is a mountain cool. A wet, humid mass that cloaks me after the rain has stopped and the earth absorbs the wet runoff. The rest evaporates in the late summer air as I take a walk in the long shadows of a Salt Lake City afternoon. The sky is clearing and a beautiful rainbow develops like an apparition over the hills as the setting sun drops in the west. I love the mountains. I love the weather they produce, the smells, the sights, the air. It is beautiful up here.

The next morning at the gate, I catch a glimpse of another beautiful sight. The lingering clouds left from those massive cumulonimbus buildups of yesterday afternoon paint a spectacular sunrise. It begins with a fiery glow that bastes the whole area in crimson. Then as if the Prophet himself rose from above to embrace this Mormon city, rays of sunlight begin shooting off the Wasatch range to the east.

It is indeed a beautiful sunrise...

I better take it all in now because I will be back in Los Angeles, sitting in traffic on the 405 in less then three hours.

Six Miles

2011-08-19T05:12:00.000-07:00

Flying back from Anchorage puts me right over the top of my house at daybreak.

I am currently six miles from my doorstep. Six miles away from my family, my backyard, my own bed. Six miles is nothing. It is the distance to the grocery store. I can cover six miles on my bike in less than 20 minutes, but six miles straight up is another story. Six miles vertically speaking seems like eternity.

From here, I have no choice but to silently pass above and press on while my family starts their day below. Strange how I feel so close, and in reality I am, but it's as if I'm in another dimension. If you think about it, there are thousands of people who pass over us like this every day, silently gliding by in jets high in the sky, and nobody seems to know.

Little do my loved ones know I am virtually overhead at this moment in time, watching from above as if I am in a passing satellite. It will take almost five hours for me to get back down there. Seems weird.

This morning, six miles away seems like forever.

24 Hours in Anchorage Alaska

2011-08-15T05:22:00.000-07:00

If you were to tell me a year ago that I would be flying a company Airbus to Anchorage Alaska on a scheduled route from my base in Long Beach, I would have told you to go take a hike. Nonetheless, here I am blasting off out of the Los Angeles Basin for the great white north on a muggy day.

Funny how a year goes by so fast. 365 days ago, I was enjoying a nice layover in Isla Verde in Puerto Rico with a great E-190 crew, soaking up that tropical sun and later enjoying great mofongo at a local restaurant. The last frontier of Alaska was the farthest thing from my mind, but today it’s a reality, and I get to do it. The flight departs Long Beach at 6:40PM and heads north over the Bay Area, out over the Pacific Ocean near Arcata, CA and eventually makes landfall south of Anchorage. As we lift off into the dusky sky, I realize we are chasing the sun as we head northwest.

Bay Area dusk

By the time we fly over San Francisco, the sun lingers just above the Captain's windshield, and slowly sets shortly after we leave the North Coast behind.

As we approach waypoint BOXER, we are handed off to San Francisco Radio where we now make position reports to ATC. Further up, we also capture two Boeing 747s cruising over us on the same route as they fly from Anchorage to LAX.

From here on up to Alaska, the sunset lingers for the rest of the flight, as the glow strangely moves from the Captain's side to my side. Then just prior to the Top of Descent, the sun magically appears just above the horizon as a small sliver of orange. Pretty cool.

It was my leg tonight into Anchorage, and we were vectored for the ILS to runway 14. As we descended into the clouds, I reached up to turn on the engine anti ice, as the clouds up here at this latitude are still very much capable of producing snow showers at any time of the year. Tonight the temperature at the airport is at 55 degrees.

With my first-ever landing in Alaska, I was reunited with a state I haven't set foot in since I was probably ten years old. It was great to be back! By the time we arrived at our hotel in downtown Anchorage, it was just shy of 1 o'clock AM. From here, the Captain and I decided to head down to the oldest downtown Anchorage bar still in its original location. This bar was originally established in 1944 as the Mur-Mac Lounge, an Irish pub that was frequented by aviators serving the bush community as well as many federal employees who worked right across the street in the old Federal Building. After the Good Friday earthquake in 1964, the Mur-Mac was torn down and was replaced with new buildings, where eventually new owners came in and changed the name to the F Street Station Bar. Not only do they have a great lively atmosphere with every aviation sticker planted in the bar, they have the absolute best halibut fish n chips I have ever had in my entire life.

We returned back to our hotel by 3AM and I magically awoke just three hours later at 6AM. I just could not go back to sleep, so I went downstairs, had breakfast and decided to walk around town.

For the remainder of the morning, I ventured in and out of shops, visitor centers, museums and small local restaurants.

By noon, I decided to rent a mountain bike to see the outlying areas. So on 3 hours' sleep, enough caffeine to raise the dead and pure self determination, I went on at least a 30-mile bike ride out to the east, and back to the west in search of some more interesting sights.

First stop was the Great Alaskan Railroad.

Next stop I observed a group of salmon fishermen.

Then past Merrill Field located just to the east of town.

Then I rode back toward the west on a gorgeous bike trail that took me out to Kincaid Park, just past the Anchorage Airport.

It was right around here where something piqued my interest, so I kept riding.

Then I became really distracted. For thirty minutes while sitting on my bike, I watched all these cargo heavies fly over my head at the end of runway 32.

Then by this time it was about 4PM, so I turned around and made for the city. Naturally, there would be more things on the way to distract me.

Nice view of the city of Anchorage.

I crossed paths with this moose, so naturally I let him (or her) walk across the trail.

I returned to my hotel room by 7PM and was able to take a quick nap. By 10PM it was still bright as day, so the Captain and I met back up and decided to eat some more fish n chips before flying the redeye back to LA.

10PM Pic

By 2AM, we were ascending high into the Alaskan overcast with destination Long Beach. As we climbed up to our cruising altitude of 35,000 feet, we noticed a glowing phomenon off the left side of the aircraft that resembled the early stages of a sunrise. However after some research, we learned this to be night clouds or Noctilucent clouds. They are tenuous cloud-like phenomena that are the "ragged-edge" of a much brighter and pervasive polar cloud layer called polar mesospheric clouds in the upper atmosphere, visible in a deep twilight.

These clouds are made of ice crystals and are most commonly observed in the summer months at latitudes between 50° and 70° north and south of the equator. They are also the highest clouds in the Earth's atmosphere, located in the mesosphere at altitudes of around 47-53 miles. They are normally too faint to be seen, and are visible only when illuminated by sunlight from below the horizon while the lower layers of the atmosphere are in the Earth's shadow.

These clouds are not fully understood and are a recently discovered meteorological phenomenon; there is no evidence that they were observed before 1885. They can form only under very restrictive conditions; their occurrence can be used as a sensitive guide to changes in the upper atmosphere. Since they are a relatively recent classification, the occurrence of noctilucent clouds appears to be increasing in frequency, brightness and extent.

About an hour after we took off, we left these interesting clouds behind. We continued offshore down past British Columbia, Washington and Oregon and by 6:30AM were coming onshore just south of Arcata California. From here, I was in very familiar territory as we both received a windscreen full of a Mount Shasta sunrise. Beautiful!

From here we continued south over the fog-shrouded Mendocino National Forest, right over the top of my house in Sonoma County and eventually down Central California and into the Los Angeles basin. We touched down around 8AM, concluding an incredible 36-hour round trip.

Not bad for a 3-day!

2 Man & More - Long Beach, Calif

2011-08-12T05:07:00.000-07:00

Is it true that everyone plays volleyball, kite boards and surfs in Southern California? I'm about to find out. This morning starts with watching a little 2-man volleyball competition, followed later with an afternoon kite boarding lesson from my buddy. But hey, I'm on the clock so I could get called out any time to fly up to cool Anchorage for a 24-hour layover. Oh, things to do in Alaska...

I received about thirty minutes of instruction from a friend on how to fly a rather large kite. Being that I am a pilot, I thought I knew a little something about aerofoils and the wind. Boy was I humbled very quickly. Not only will this kite pull you off the ground while practicing, it will drag you to the nearest volleyball pole in a hurry. Talk about intimidating. However, when you get the hang of it, the next step is to strap yourself onto a board and go screaming, er sailing across the water at ludicrous speeds. Then when you get that figured out and you don't drown yourself or break your neck, you must remain cognizant of where you are going because there are at least twenty or more other kite boarders of all experience levels sharing the water with you. If that's not enough, there's also twenty or more other kites right above your head that you must not tangle yours with as well.

Colorado Name Game

2011-08-08T05:11:00.000-07:00

Allright, it's time for the Colorado name game. Starting at the top, see if you can name these places in Colorado. This is not incredibly difficult, but more for fun. All photos were taken by me in July. Try not to cheat by peeping in my Flickr album.

Picture 1:

Picture 2:

Picture 3:

Picture 4:

Picture 5:
This town below is just east of this mountain above:

Baseball

2011-08-04T05:10:00.001-07:00

No Red Sox here. No Fenway. This is Angel Stadium in Anaheim. When I transferred to LA, it was necessary to trade in the Sox gear or be fired. Well, that's not exactly true, but perhaps frowned upon. For now I'm enjoying a great ball game under a warm SoCal sky with my cousin. What could be better than this? I better keep my SF Giants hat under wraps, and secretly send signals around the park to "Fear the Beard."

Malibu

2011-08-01T05:09:00.000-07:00

We perform the right turn out of Los Angeles and climb just below the arrivals from the north and let them pass overhead as we intercept the airway that leads to the Bay Area and beyond. The view south back toward LAX tonight is magnificent! I envision Hollywood types frolicking in the late afternoon sun; wearing designer sunglasses and enjoying those moments away from the spotlight. Surfers are still looking for that last wave to shore while yellow lifeguard jeeps sweep up and down the sand in search of any trouble offshore. It is Baywatch every day down there. What a nice life.

Where's Hasselhoff?

Perfecting the Game

2011-07-28T05:34:00.000-07:00

As the saying goes, it takes at least six months to feel comfortable flying the Airbus. Maybe even more. So far, I have to completely agree with that. I have already experienced my share of mistakes that every new Airbus pilot makes. Funny thing is, the other pilot sitting right next to me has made them too at some point in his or her career. Thankfully I'm learning that every Captain is sympathetic to the amateur flying style of a new Airbus FO.

I also warn them.

Every time I pair up with a new Captain and we shake hands and exchange small talk, I lay it on nice and thick.

"By the way, I'm one of those E-190 transition pilots, and I have approximately 80 hours on the Airbus right now."

This is the part I actually find enjoyment in. It's kind of a sales technique I picked up years ago that really can show how a person is feeling by just watching their facial expressions. Most of the time their expression turns from one of calm and relaxed to rigid and concerned. I'm not kidding. To them, who knows what kind of Airbus pilot I may be today. Only my training and experience can prove to them that I'm (hopefully in their eyes) a sharp FO and a good stick. That's the part that every FO has to deal with every time he or she flies with a new Captain. I must prove myself every single time. It's almost like taking an ATP checkride every leg I get paired up with someone new. I must bring my A-game every time.

So far so good.

Since my new base is one of the most senior bases in our whole airline, most Captains and FO's have flown out here for several years, and some have been with the company since inception. Some probably have never set foot in our 50 E-190s. So the other day I got paired up with a nice Captain, and naturally I gave my line while walking out with him to the aircraft.

"I'm one of those E-190 transition pilots, and I have less than 100 hours right now in the plane. So, if you see me doing something that makes you feel uncomfortable or if you think I could be doing something a better way, by all means, you are not hurting my feelings."

That usually sets the tone for me. So if I screw up, at least I can pull out that card. Today is a four-legger, a back-to-back LA to Sacramento turn. I kind of like these trips up and down the West Coast because I can quickly bang out four legs worth of experience in an afternoon vs. flying one 5-hour leg. I am looking to gain experience, and with experience come knowledge, and with experience and knowledge comes relaxation. I hate being tense in a new aircraft, so the more I learn the Airbus and feel comfortable, the less beats my heart makes every time I see the top of descent (TOD) creeping up at me at 7 miles per minute. That was covered a few days ago.

I suggested to the Captain to fly the first round trip up to Sacramento and back and I would fly the last round trip. Therefore, I can watch and learn. He agreed, and in no time we were off to the north part of the state - my neck of the woods.

My father used to say, "You can tell a lot how a pilot flies an airplane in just the first 30 seconds."

He is absolutely right.

The Captain slowly and oh-so-smoothly applies takeoff thrust and our V-200 engines spool up with such a great whining sound. I love it!

I watch all three airspeed readouts increase and call, "Airspeed Alive."

I read the engine instruments as we begin to roll down the runway. "Eighty knots, power set," is my next call.

The Captain replies, "Check."

"Vee-one......rotate"

The Captain smoothly pulls back on the stick as the Airbus gently rotates to about 8 degrees, and then finally up to about 15 degrees of pitch.

"Positive rate"

He calls, "Gear up."

The plane is like butter in his his hands, and with the electric jet the first order of business while climbing rapidly out of the Los Angeles basin is call for the autopilot.

"Autopilot one."

I press the AP1 push button and the small green LED light illuminates. There is a familiar click sound that I am getting used to that is a pin passing through the base of our joysticks, thus locking them out. As we manipulate our way up to Sacramento, I find this guy is super smooth. He doesn't really fly this plane, he massages it. The aircraft literally purrs with every input he makes to her flight controls and thrust. She is happy. She is also the newest aircraft in our fleet. Brand spanking new. As we near our destination, he slowly and smoothly descends the aircraft as per our ATC instructions and smoothly guides the aircraft to a right downwind for runway 16L. Runway 16R is closed at the moment, so we will land on the east runway and taxi back to the west terminal. As we fly abeam the field, NorCal approach clears us for the visual approach to runway 16L, and to contact tower.

I hear that familiar clicking sound again, followed by the typical Airbus chime letting me know the Captain has just disconnected the autopilot.

"Flight directors off, bird on, set inbound course 166..."

I deselect my flight director as well as his, press the black button changing us from HDG/VS to TRACK/FPA. On a visual approach, when we are currently not flying via assistance from a localizer or glide slope, it is imperative to deselect the flight directors because the aircraft may do some interesting power adjustments. With the flight directors off, we are in control of the Airbus speed mode.

He is making a beautiful base turn to final, flying and calling for flaps and gear just as the textbook says. Even better, he is letting the Airbus slow down at her discretion, something we call managed speed. At just above 180 knots, and flaps 1, the aircraft will not slow any further until flaps 2 are selected.

Approximately 1.7 NM from the outer marker he calls, "Flaps 2." The aircraft magically begins to slow on her own back to approach speed.

Outer marker: "Gear down."

1700 feet above the ground: "Flaps 3."

1400 feet above the ground: "Flaps full, landing checklist."

1,000 feet above and we are on speed and looking good. His touchdown was very nice, and we exit the high speed and taxi to the gate.

The second leg back to LA was his again, and once again he massaged that plane right down to the pavement, but this time with a splat! Well, it is a short runway.

With the pressure on, it was my two legs with the hopes of duplicating his smoothness. I could only be so lucky.

We took the runway on the roll and blasted down the pavement toward our rotation speed of around 136 knots. I rotated smoothly and pulled the nose up into the bright sun, while calling for "Autopilot two" at about 300 feet. As the Captain switched over to SoCal Approach, the very first thing that blurts out of the ATC controller's mouth is, "Cessna traffic at our twelve o'clock, three miles at 1700 feet!"

Great. With a clearance to 3,000 feet, I knew the aircraft would want to start to level off right around 1500 feet and put us right into the path of this most likely oblivious Cessna pilot. Well he was about to get a windscreen of Airbus. SoCal immediately told us to expedite to 5,000 feet and as I watch his altitude closure rate on the TCAS become slightly uncomfortable, I thought about increasing the vertical rate of climb in a hurry as to not receive a TCAS resolution. Just as I lifted my hand to pull speed to start the aircraft into a quicker climb, the Captain says, "Try pulling speed." So, at least I was thinking about it. As we blast high over the Cessna, and climb into the LAX Class B Airspace, I push the speed button and the aircraft begins to accelerate to 250 knots. The Captain looks at me and smiles.

As we cross the shoreline, we are given a clearance up to 8,000 feet, followed by a right turn to intercept the airway that will take us north over the Gorman Pass and on our way back up to Sacramento. Everything looks good on the way up, until we are told by ATC to cross 10 nautical miles south of the Sacramento VOR at 11,000 feet. Naturally, I try and plug all this magic into the flight management system, but naturally, the Airbus doesn't want any of it, so I decide to do the math in my head and start down for this crossing restriction. Chaos and embarrassment averted.

As we cross over the Sacramento VOR, we are then given a descent clearance to 4,000 feet, followed by the fateful, "Oh, they just now opened runway 16R back up, so we're gonna put you on that. You are number one."

What did I miss?

Nothing. We had no idea. So after setting up and briefing runway 16L, we were given 16R at the last possible minute. Now I was basically behind the power curve, as I just asked my Captain to plug everything in for me. He did. Not missing a beat, we once again found ourselves abeam the airport, and ATC clears us for the visual approach to the newly opened 16R. I turned all the automation off and made a nice base to final turn, but used selected speed until almost the outer marker. This is kind of an amateurish move, if not fully comfortable with the plane slowing on its own.

Stress is on. I must make a nice landing.

The Airbus aural radar altimeter starts counting down as the bottom of the plane nears the runway.

"Fifty, thirty, twenty, ten, retard, retard."

By 30 feet, I have placed the throttles to idle and to my astonishment, I rolled the plane on the runway without a bump. It was like a magic carpet gliding down to the soft sand. The nose came down softly on the centerline and I taxied off the highspeed with smoothness and ease.

Whew.

As we arrive at the gate, the Captain looks at me, exhales and says in a whiny voice, attempting to imitate me earlier, "I've only got 80 hours and I still fly like an Embraer pilot. Man, you sandbagged me and I believed you! Geez! That was an incredible job and great landing. You really aren't new are you? Go take you bows!"

I really wasn't attempting to deceive him, trying to be the weak new guy. I just got lucky. However, I know what to look for on the next landing. It's like playing golf and hitting that stellar shot. Naturally, you attempt to emulate your every move so as to duplicate your beautiful drive onto the green. Of course it never comes out that way, but at least you know what mechanics are involved. Just add those always-constant variables of stress, wind, etc that makes this job different every time you set up to land.

At least it's not boring.

30 Rock

2011-07-25T05:19:00.000-07:00

I approach the gate with my rollerboard in tow and notice the Captain who I am presumably flying with concluding what appears to be a long-winded speech to a large group of our customers. As I approach the podium from behind, my eyes connect directly with our respective gate agent, who rolls her eyes at me in disgust. A fellow First Officer walks behind this public speaking Captain in question and his eyes open wide. Maybe he has heard this man give a speech or two as well. My eyes also meet his as he sarcastically smiles and shakes his head at me. He opens his mouth and moves his lips silently not to disturb the Captain's speech.

As he walks past, he silently says to me, "Good luck".

Apparently there are at least two employees who have heard this man speak. I haven't. I don't even know who this Captain is. But there he is talking to the entire gate area like he is briefing the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Who is Captain America? One thing is unmistakable. He talks very well, and with such confidence. It is Oscar-winning.

His hair is cut short and the shoes polished to a mirror-like finish. Everything about this six-foot four man is impressive. Broad shoulders, a huge air of impudence and boyish looks. Even his hands are as convincing as his words; palms down and open, with pats through the air like an attorney defending his client in court. He speaks as if he wants his audience to kneel down and pray. It is almost God-like. He concludes his great speech and says, "Thank you for listening."

The entire gate population in the hundreds begin to clap. Some are literally crying. Old men with veteran caps are nodding with approval. Single women are melting into their seats. This Captain is all business, all the time, and his business is winning. Who is this guy? What did he say, and more importantly what did I miss?

He turns and walks toward me who is sheepishly standing on the sidelines. I feel like a second stringer on the bench, just called to speak to the Captain of the team.

He is the Captain.

Well The game is over and he clobbered the competition. As I approach him I decide to greet him with a little humor.

"What did you say?" As if he did something wrong, but with a smile.

He looks at me in disgust like I just insulted his mother.

"Oh, I just told them about our ATC-induced delay situation here in JFK."

Situation? What is this, CNN Crossfire? It's JFK for crying out loud. It's the most delayed airport in the Solar System. What else is new? I expect delays. Apparently so does the Captain and now so does the entire gate area. I look at gate board and check the remarks under our flight number and destination.

It reads, "On time".

So he likes to talk. In ten minutes, he confidently and succinctly dissects the air traffic control mess here in New York City with visceral conviction and perfect English to his audience. He is a very effective and articulate speaker. I find out he is also a Colonel, because he just told everyone so. Yeah, well I know several Colonels too. Some on a family level.

This apparently was not the first time, or the second he has given such a palaverous speech. He is famous here on the East Coast, and I get the privilege of flying with him for the next two days. Well then let's get our first leg up to Syracuse over with.

The flight up is quick, and surprisingly fine. I am actually taking a slight liking to this guy as we talk about himself most of the way into Upstate. As we descend for Syracuse, the flight attendant calls up.

"Hey, do you know who we have on board?"

"No."

"Alec Baldwin."

"Oh, that's cool. Maybe you can send him up before he gets off the plane."

"Okay, I'll see what I can do. He purchased the seat next to him, as not to be bothered."

We arrive at our destination and open the cockpit door at the gate. Captain Colonel and I are still sitting in our seats when in pops Alec Baldwin's head. He smiles, shakes my hand, shakes the Colonel's hand, looks directly at him and says in that raspy voice, "If you want a job in Hollywood, gimme a call." He throws his card on the pedestal and disappears out the door. Apparently, he heard the whole speech back there in JFK.

Captain America looks at me, and without a nanosecond to even process and digest what Alec just told him, he humbly shrugs his shoulders, and says, "Meh".

Apparently it was no big deal. He grabs the card and shoves it into his pocket.

I am smiling from ear to ear.

I wonder if the Colonel made that call... If not, I think the Pentagon is looking for another leader.

Smurf

2011-07-22T05:17:00.000-07:00

Sacramento Airport was the first large airport I ever flew into solo as a student pilot. I would fly down from Chico in a Cessna-152, conduct a touch and go, and then return back up north. It only took 18 years to return in an Airbus. Back then when I was nineteen years old, this airport only had one runway, and was known only as Sacramento Metro. Well things have grown considerably and now there is an added runway and large terminals on both the east and west sides.

Labeled SMF, I have referred to this place as 'Smurf' ever since I was a little kid, and I think that name will stick with me forever. When I was living here but based all the way in North Carolina and flying little turboprops many years ago, all I wanted was to be based back here at this airport. Well that never happened, but fortunately I have moved on to bigger and better things.

Coming back to Sac is weird. It was home for almost 4 years and I grew to love everything about this town: The river, Old Town, the great food on J and K Streets, the Capital, and of course the California State Fair. Sometimes I wish I was that 19-year old again flying bug-smashers up and down this valley into SMF. Now I'm in and out of this place in the course of one hour, and that's about it.

At least the flight deck is air-conditioned.

Techniques for the New Airbus Pilot

2011-07-18T05:18:00.000-07:00

I am learning exponentially on the Airbus, probably because at times I am flying five legs per day up and down the West Coast. Furthermore, through Airbus manuals, reading from the Internet, asking high-time Airbus Captains and obviously through my own experience flying the aircraft, I can comfortably say that at 100 hours, I feel "pretty good" flying the Bus. However, in another 100 hours or even 1000 hours, my thoughts may be completely different. Funny thing is, the Airbus is so different from any other flying machine out there that I cannot remotely make a similarity to anything else that has wings.

Yes, the Airbus is a highly automated aircraft, but so is the Embraer 190 I flew before. However, there are HUGE difference between the two aircraft as they obviously have two different brains and react a completely different way. Being new on an Airbus brings new meaning to being new on lets say a Boeing aircraft. When I tell the Captain that I am new on the Airbus, I commonly don't get the standard response of, "Oh, well that's okay," from him or her. It is usually, "Oohhhh, well, are you getting the hang of it now?" See the difference? That's because all I can tell you is that compared to a Boeing (or similar jet aircraft) the Airbus can give the impression of being a really wacky machine. That is until you get to learn its brain and naturally its logic. Even all the Check Airmen and Captains who have 9000-plus hours on the plane all comment that the Airbus is indeed very unusual. They even go on and say sometimes they see something new that they have never seen before. Well that's comforting, isn't it?

There's even an old joke about Airbus pilots:

How can you tell an Airbus pilot? (S)he's the one who says, "What's it doing now?"

How can you tell an experienced Airbus pilot? (S)he's the one who says, "It's doing that again!"

Unlike other aircraft I have flown, it was essential that I start to make my own Airbus notes that would keep me out of trouble. Obviously these notes are getting quite thick now, and I learn something on every flight. Honestly, I am glad I got "thrown into the fire" out here in Long Beach because flying five legs a day makes you real sharp in the plane real quick. You take off, climb to cruise for about 20 minutes, set up the aircraft for approach and landing, then descend and land. I do that five times a day, whereas in Boston I would most likely fly one leg out to the West Coast and then one leg back the following day. Not too much to learn there. So far, I probably have 40 more landings than my simulator partner who is based in Boston.

Anyway, there is widespread agreement in the aviation industry that pilots do not acquire a complete understanding of the more advanced features of the autoflight system in training. In fact, some airlines do not attempt to teach highly automated lateral navigation (LNAV) or vertical navigation (VNAV) modes in training. It is left for the pilots to learn how to use these functions while flying on the line. Therefore, I have made the following notes as an aid for myself and for other new Airbus pilots who may need a little help when flying after they have completed their training. If you are interested, then please read on.

AutoThrust

Why not labeled "autothrottles?" Because the Airbus throttles don't move, unless you move them. After you pull them back from either Take-Off/Go-Around (TO/GA) or Continuous Thrust (FLX/MCT) to Climb (CL) at acceleration altitude after takeoff, you simply don't move them until you either click them off on approach or retard them to the idle position at around 40 feet above the ground on landing. By placing them in the idle position, they are disconnected and the plane can transition from the flight phase to the ground phase. If not, expect a big bump of power right on flare. So on a modern Airbus, you should see the throttles no longer as a physical sensor of the current engine setting, but rather as a huge selector lever to select a specific thrust regime. However, you will be happy to know that the plane flies just fine without the AutoThrust, such as the case for me last week. I had to fly from JFK to LAX with the AutoThrust inoperative, but it was very easy. I just had to revert back to flying in the good old days, moving the thrust levers during every regime. However it was good to know where to put the thrust on the descent phase, i.e. - at the Top of Descent, bring it right back to flight idle to the first constraint as that is what the Airbus logic is designed to do.

Flight Phases

This is something that is good to know. From ground school we are taught that the Airbus Flight Management Guidance Computer (FMGC) uses several modes during the phases of flight to calculate vertical planning. As a pilot, one should become very familiar and aware of these modes and their changes. These phases are separated into 8 different modes: Preflight, Takeoff, Climb, Cruise, Descent, Approach, Go Around and Done. In addition, the FMS needs to know when the aircraft is in taxi, engine-out and landing modes. Be familiar with them.

Descent Planning

The descent phase (and to a lesser extent the approach phase) is is where most new Airbus pilots get into trouble.

Uh oh! Here comes that Top of Descent symbol (white arrow).

On my initial operating of the airplane, I was very relaxed, right up until I saw the Top of Descent (TOD) depiction creeping toward me at 8 miles per minute. Then my blood pressure would start to raise a little, and I begin to do those 3-to-1 calculations in my head to know when I really needed to start to descend, just in case the smoke and mirrors didn't work. In a perfect world, the magic works well. However, in a not-so perfect world like in New York Airspace, I was initially at a loss for words. Common phrases heard from new guys flying this plane (and I've made them all) are:

Now why is it doing that?

Now what should I do?

Will this work if I do this?

So why is it telling me it will cross this restriction when it really won't?

Why is it lying to me?

@!#%?!*

Oh, @!%?!*!!!

...and so on and so forth.

You either learn what the Airbus is doing or it will eat your lunch. For example, to start a nice descent while the plane is managing the route, you can simply dial down the altitude, and press the altitude knob, giving the Airbus a nice 1,000 foot per minute descent until it intercepts the calculated descent angle, where then upon reaching the descent path, it will automatically bring back the power to idle and the plane will descend at the current managed airspeed. With me so far?

Now if the aircraft is on a heading, such as given by ATC, then you can't dial down the altitude knob and do what I just said to do, because it won't do it. Trust me, I tried this on my OE, and nothing would happen. Naturally, the Check Airman starts to smile (and is thinking to himself) "Oh, yes, the very common first mistake," while I'm in the right seat trying to figure out the next thing to do and sweating bullets.

So there I am, trying to push the altitude knob, and yes, it will descend at 1,000 FPM, but that's it, while thinking to myself, "Okay you *&%!*?$ airplane, why aren't you descending? Well, we are on a heading, so I guess it won't do a Managed Descent, so I'll use the vertical speed knob."

I spin the VS knob down to 1,500 feet per minute, and the plane begins to descend. "Okay, that worked. Remember to write that one down in your growing book of Airbus tricks."

Naturally the Check Airman learns that I just learned something. Sometimes the best way to learn is by trial and error.

Managed vs. Selected

You may have heard from Airbus pilots some new terminology you won't hear around Boeing or conventional jet aircraft. The two words you will most commonly hear is managed and selected.

Simply put, managed basically means the aircraft is fully automated and is flying a FMC-generated profile full of its own determined speed and constraints. If there is no ATC intervention at all, the aircraft is designed to fly managed from 100 feet above the ground on takeoff to 100 feet above the ground (or perhaps all the way to the ground on an autoland) on landing. It will climb to altitude, and upon reaching the Top of Descent (TOD) nearing the destination, it will (upon pressing the ALT knob) descend all the way down to 1,000 feet above the ground on-speed and while the pilots are configuring the aircraft with flaps and gear, will make a normal touchdown every time. To fly in the managed mode, the pilot traditionally must push one of the modes on the flight control unit (FCU) located on the glareshield.

The FCU

Selected means the aircraft is not flying in a managed mode, such as a selected speed where ATC has issued you a speed to fly, etc. In the case of selected speed, the pilot has more control of the aircraft, as he or she directly makes the inputs that control what the plane is to do. This is done traditionally by pulling any of the modes on the FCU. As some Airbus pilots say, push to give it all away, and pull to take it all back.

New Scan

As a new Airbus pilot, it is imperative to keep an eye on the Flight Mode Annunciator (FMA) all the time, especially when in the descent mode. Also get in a habit of including the N1 gauges in your scan. This is good for unexpected thrust changes, then you can pull for selected speed and stop embarrassing thrust changes before they get out of hand.

The FMA (top) tells you what mode the aircraft is in.

Managed Descent

Note the FMA says THR IDLE, as the aircraft is managing this descent to the first constraint from cruise altitude. Also note the VDEV (pink dot) just left of the altitude showing us on-profile.

Before we start, I want to point out if not within 200 nm of destination the aircraft will not initiate descent in PERF DESCENT mode. Descent will be made in PERF CRUISE mode as a “cruise descent”. During descent in cruise mode the FMGC will not “see” crossing restrictions in the flight plan. This is a gotcha. It is also good to note that the aircraft will not initiate descent automatically from cruise altitude when reaching the Top of Descent point (TOD).

Normally, the Managed Descent on the Airbus works great, just as long as you have plugged in the proper descent winds into the flight management computer, and ATC let's you descend unrestricted. If you don't put in the winds and let's say you have quite a large tailwind, the aircraft will most likely overshoot the crossing restrictions. Internally, the Airbus computer divides the descent path into various segments, depending on the relative positions of the constraints. The Airbus VNAV calculates an IDLE descent from the Top of Descent (TOD) to the first constraint, then a geometric (straight line) descent for the next segment. After the first constraint, it will still want to descend (but not at idle) whereas on previous highly automated airplanes such as the E-190, it levels off until reaching the point where it would need to descend again (a second TOD) to make the second restriction.

You can fix this issue on the Airbus by again reloading the next crossing restriction into the FMS when you pass the first constraint. You can also press the PERF key on the FMS and re-input the field temperature on the APPR page where we input the field conditions for our approach speeds. Those two methods will reset the TOD for you, unless you have passed what the Airbus thinks the TOD is anyway, and then good luck. That's why you need to actively calculate that 3-to-1 descent in your head.

On a managed descent, the Airbus VNAV flies a window of +/- 20 KNOTS on either side of the current managed descent speed. If the aircraft calculates a managed descent of 290 KIAS, for example, it may increase up to 310 KIAS or decrease down to 270 KIAS to meet its current VNAV restriction/constraint. It may also blow past 310 KIAS too, and then you will have to deploy some speed brakes to get it back in that window.

Managed Speed on Descent

You can only normally change speeds on the descent in the FMS while in the cruise phase of flight. There are exceptions to this that I will explain later. So as long as ATC doesn’t assign a speed in descent, it is best for the Airbus to descend using a Managed Descent as the aircraft already has a calculated speed it uses to fly the descent most efficiently. Think fuel savings.

Selected Speed on Descent

Note, the FMA reads SPEED, because we are in selected speed of 280 knots, but we are still managing the descent. You will also see SPEED in a Managed Descent when the aircraft flies the geometric (straight line) descent between the first constraint and the second constraint, and so on.

However, if ATC gives you a SPEED to maintain while on descent, everything is thrown out the door. The easiest thing to do is to simply select the speed (pull SPD) and use vertical speed (VS) or Open Descent (OPEN DES) to descend. It will however descend managed (pushing ALT) fine in selected speed, but one must watch the descent profile carefully as when in a selected speed (a speed that the plane is not using for descent) as the aircraft may get high slightly and will not honor any speed restrictions, i.e. - slowing to 250 knots prior to a fix. You must be the one to intervene and perhaps dial down the vertical speed (VS) or pull altitude for an OPEN DES (aircraft descends at the selected speed) to get low on the profile and then level off a few miles prior to the fix, and then dial the speed back (or push) for 250 knots.

Or, you can even use a managed speed (pushing SPD) if you have put in the correct speeds prior to descent and then use VS to descend. I commonly use this on the East Coast when ATC tells us to maintain let's say, .77 Mach with a transition to 290 knots on the descent. I'll first pull speed for .77 Mach, then while still in cruise flight, I press the PERF button on the FMS, click NEXT until I get to the DESC page and type in .77/290 in the speed window. Then at the TOD, I dial in some VS (maybe initially 1,000FPM) and watch the VDEV donut begin to drop. Then the aircraft with indicate that I SET MANAGED SPEED, so I'll press SPD and keep dialing down the VS to meet the VDEV profile for the descent. So the aircraft will descend at .77M and transition to 290 KIAS (that I put in) and everything is fine. You see, there are several ways to accomplish this task.

Showing a Managed Descent of .77/282

So, now what if I’m in a Managed Descent already of 280 knots, and ATC tells me to maintain 310 knots? Then your option are limited, since you are already on a descent. Your real only option here is to simply:

1. Select (pull) speed and dial up to 310 knots.

2. Revert to using VS or OPEN DES to make the crossing restriction. Since you are descending at a selected speed now, the only way to really increase your rate of descent (if you get a little high) is to use the speedbrakes.

However, you can trick the Airbus a little if ATC tells you to give your best forward speed in the cruise and on the descent before your Top Of Descent (TOD), you can try this:

1. Pull SPD for that selected speed,

2. Then go into the Flight Management Computer and go to the PERF/NEXT PAGE (managed speed will be in blue at that time) and input a faster speed on DESCENT. For example, if you see it as a managed speed of .77/288, then it will transition from .77 mach to 288 knots. So to fly a faster Managed Descent, you can change it to perhaps .80/310 or similar (maybe ATC assigned a speed of .80 with 310 knots or greater in the transition, for example). Therefore you can still fly in the managed mode, even though you calculated new managed speeds for the plane.

3. So just prior to the Top of Descent (TOD), you can push the ALT knob to descend at 1,000 feet per minute, and once on descent, the FMCU will transition to the Descent Phase of flight, and the FMS will announce SELECT MANAGED SPEED, so then just push the speed knob and the plane will go back to a Managed Descent using those new-inputted speeds.

However, one thing to note while the plane flies a Managed Descent is that the aircraft flies a window of +/- 20 knots on descent in order to meet the crossing restriction criteria. Sometimes during high tailwinds the aircraft may deviate away from the ATC-assigned speed of up to 20 knots in either direction, so as a pilot you have to keep that in mind and monitor the speed closely. If the speed doesn't stay within 5 knots of the assigned speed, then perhaps you should revert back to selected speed by pulling the SPD knob and then using vertical speed (VS) or pulling the ALT knob and initiating an OPEN DES down to the crossing altitude. Hey, the plane may level off sooner than anticipated, but at least you made the crossing restriction.

Another Option...

Also in the case of above (selected descent) you can enter a new cruise altitude below your current altitude into the PROG page. This will cause the FMGC to revert back to the cruise phase and allow you to enter a new descent speed in the PERF DES page. This can also be done in the case of a level off at an intermediate altitude. So select the PROG page in the FMC and enter your new intermediate altitude. This will allow you to change the speed on the descent page to the new assigned-ATC speed if you wish to resume a managed speed. Then, when you descend again and re-establish the descent phase, you can push for managed speed. However, a new Airbus pilot must use this option with caution as to not push for managed speed while in the cruise phase of flight, as the plane will speed up to its previously calculated cruise speed until the descent phase is once again attained. Trust me, I made this mistake early on, and was yelling, "Now why is it speeding up like this all of a sudden?" That's because I wasn't fully aware of its functions yet. Obviously now I am.

Yes, the FMGC may plan a much slower speed for descent in Descent Phase than in Cruise Phase. If the aircraft begins a descent and enters the Descent Phase when you wish to make a faster cruise descent you can once again enter a new cruise altitude on the PROG page below your current altitude. The FMGC will now revert back to Cruise Phase until crossing the new altitude. Be aware, however, that the FMGC does not “see” crossing restrictions when descending in Cruise Phase and will only descend at a set vertical speed. Use with caution.

Heading on Descent

If on a heading for any particular reason, then the Airbus will simply not manage the descent. This is mostly true for any other airplane out there too, as some will automatically resort to FPA (Flight Path Angle) or similar vertical speed mode. In this case, for let’s say weather or traffic (no managed NAV) I just use vertical speed (VS) or OPEN DES to descend.

Late Descent

If you get a late descent (past the TOD), I suggest dialing in some vertical speed (VS) to start a smooth transition down and then pulling the ALT knob for an OPEN DES to come down quickly. You can modulate the speed (SPD) up to increase the rate of descent, and use the speed brakes if needed below 30,000 feet to recapture the descent profile.

Pulled ALT for an open descent, giving us a 2700 FPM descent. Note, the VDEV (pink dot to the left of the ALT) is showing us slightly low on the profile now, so we can probably resort back to a managed descent or VS.

If you still find yourself high on the profile, the last resort is to click off the autopilot and go to full speedbrakes. The aircraft only uses half speedbrakes with the autopilot engaged. If that doesn't get you down like the NASA Space Shuttle, then I suggest getting relief for ATC and telling them that they screwed up.

Other Useful Tips

As a general rule if you are going to manually select a SPEED or MACH by using the FCU SPD/MACH Push Button, use MACH in climbs and SPEED in descents. Make sure to pull for speed first before using the vertical speed (VS) knob as if the selected speed is below your current airspeed, the autothrust will roll back. That's not good if you're up in the high flight levels and still climbing very slowly.

Another thing to look after on the descent profile is as soon as you go into HDG, or select a speed, or anything, the FM-calculated vertical descent profile will be in error to what you are now actually doing. VDEV will also be in error. Keep that 3-to-1 profile in your head as a backup.

The VDEV on the PROG page shows us about 1,070 feet high on the profile. But are we?

Descent Exercises

Click on the KAYOH 4 STAR into Long Beach (KLGB):

Example 1 - You are inbound about over HEC at FL240. ATC clears Airbus 1 to cross DAWNA at 13,000 feet.

What do you do?
What will the FMA read?

You should dial down the ALT to 13,000, and upon reaching the TOD, push the ALT knob. The aircraft will descend at FLT IDLE to 13,000 and make the crossing restriction at DAWNA (granted you have plugged in the descent winds in a real-life scenario). You can also dial down to 13,000 and push the ALT knob now if you wish and the plane will descend 1,000 FPM until intercepting the profile, and then descend on profile at FLT IDLE until reaching 13,000 feet.

Example 2 - Same situation as above, but ATC clears you to descend NOW to FL240, and expect to cross DAWNA at 13,000.

What do you do?

You should dial down the ALT to FL240 and press the ALT knob. This will give you a 1,000FPM descent until intercepting the descent profile (represented by a lightning bolt, not shown) to cross DAWNA at 13,000. Upon intercepting, the aircraft will transition to a FLT IDLE descent on profile until reaching FL240 and then level off. If ATC then gives you the crossing restriction to cross DAWNA at 13,000 feet before you level off, all you need to do is continue dialing down the altitude to 13,000 feet. The aircraft (already on the descent profile) will continue down to 13,000 feet.

Example 3 - ATC clears Airbus 1 to descend NOW to 8,000 feet. You just passed DAWNA at 13,000, and will expect to cross DEJAY at 8,000.

What do you do?

You can simply dial in 8,000 and once again press ALT. The aircraft will descend at 1,000 FPM until intercepting the descent profile (represented by a lightning bolt) to cross DEJAY at 8,000. See the red ball on the path just prior to DEJAY? That is where the aircraft will decelerate from its current descent speed to be at 250 knots passing through 10,000 feet, as to make the crossing restriction at DEJAY at 8,000 feet.

You could also dial in VS or pull ALT for on OPEN DES if you want more that 1,000FPM and keep the speed managed. The aircraft will still slow to 250 knots upon reaching 10,000 feet (or prior) and you will need to modulate the VS to reach the crossing restriction at DEJAY, or let the aircraft slow on its own, thus trading some VS in order to do so while in an OPEN DES.

A Word About the Flight Directors

Simply put, if you are flying on autopilot down the glideslope and pointed directly at the runway and decide to click it all off at 1,000 feet to fly her down to the runway, by all means have at it. However, if you find yourself outside of this regime on a base leg or downwind and decide to hand-fly the aircraft, you should turn off BOTH flight directors and call for FPA, or "bird on". Why? Because turning off the flight directors will cause the autothrust to go to Speed mode. Therefore, you have speed protection while you are flying manually. If you don't turn them off, or leave one FD on, the aircraft is bound to do some weird stuff (like add lots of power) that you are probably not anticipating or expecting at the moment you are thinking about landing. It would be a shame to do a nice go-around wondering why the heck the aircraft did what it just did. At least it gave you a nice bump in thrust at the precise moment when you thought you had that visual approach in the palm of your hand.

Landing

In ground school they teach to pull the power back at 50 feet above the ground. Try SLOWLY pulling the power back at IDLE beginning at 40 feet, vs 50 feet and see what you think. On a hot day you may want to pull it back at 30 feet. The "retard" callout is simply just a reminder that the autothrust should be at idle by the time the mains touch down. If not, plan for mucho power. Not good when you want to be at idle as your mains pass over the touchdown zone.

On landing rollout only when ready to apply manual braking, try putting all your feet on the rudder pedals and touching the TOE STOPS at the very top. This will stop asymmetric braking, thus one hotter brake than the other. Don’t get into the habit of putting your heels on the floor when braking like you did on other aircraft. Your braking will be sloppy.

Some Class B Airspace Departure Tips

When departing out of airports located underneath Class B airspace, the speed limit is 200 knots. There's basically 3 ways to set up the magic and accomplish this task:

1. You can plug in the presel green dot speed in the CLMB page until reaching the floor of the Class B airspace. This is probably easiest if you are new to the aircraft. When the flaps are retracted, the aircraft will automatically go right to the preselected green dot speed. When inside the Class B, you can push the speed knob and the airplane will accelerate for 250 knots.

Notice our V-Clean speed (0) is 205 knots (below):

If you press the NEXT PHASE key, you can manually add 205 knots to the PRESEL mode. When the flaps are retraced, it will aim for this number, no faster.

2. Or just press the EXPED button on the FCU after calling “flaps up”. However, if using the EXPED mode, upon altitude capture the aircraft will accelerate to 250 knots. This can be a gotcha if ATC gives you an intermediate level-off altitude lower than the floor of the Class B airspace, so be ready to just pull speed. The other thing to note when pressing the EXPED button is that upon entering the Class B, all you need to do is pull the ALT knob, not the SPEED knob and it will accelerate to 250 knots. Trust me, I made this mistake, and nothing happened.

3. Or, lastly right after "flaps up," you can pull speed for green dot, but beware if heavy, Green dot will be much higher than 200 knots. It may be upwards of 220. When flaps are retracted, wait to see what Green dot will be, and then set!

Well that's all for now. Happy Airbus flying, and don't get caught high!

Good references I used:

Airbus Descent Monitoring

Unofficial Airbus Techniques

Measuring Change in Pilots' Conceptual Understandings of Autoflight

Sierra Nevada Tour

2011-07-15T05:00:00.000-07:00

No, this is not a tour of my favorite brewery in Chico, CA. I wish.

I am loving the West Coast flying. Here is a nice tour up the western edge of the Sierra Nevada as we proceed from Los Angeles up to Portland, Oregon. Starting below is a pic of the King's Canyon area.

Followed by Yosemite Park:

Closeup:

...and on to Beardsley Reservoir:

Then approaching my old neck of the woods near the Carson Iceberg Wilderness:

Below is a place I used to ski at as a kid. You can see the backside of Bear Valley ski area mid-center and a tad low/left in the picture. The white flat area to the right is actually a lake that I used to swim in during the summer. It's unbelievable when I snapped these photos in June that Lake Alpine was still frozen. Probably going to be too cold to dip the toes in this year!

Below is beautiful Lake Tahoe:

Followed by Blue Canyon-Nyack Airport. Flew in there once in a Cessna 172 from Chico, CA.

Then the clouds took over and blanketed the rest of Northern California all the way up to Oregon.

Alcatraz Mist

2011-07-12T05:13:00.000-07:00

Mark Twain once said, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." He is correct. It's early summer and yes, the fog that shrouds the Golden Gate is thick, wet and damp. It is a sight to see while driving over the Marin headlands down over that beautiful red bridge and across to The City. The fog has a mind of its own, dancing through the trees and spiraling over the backside of moisture-laden hills with the agility of a ballerina. The air temperature can drop twenty degrees in seconds as the cool fluffy fog envelops you.

Some think it's eerie, while some take great fascination to the fog as it blankets the Bay Area. Yes, fog and San Francisco go hand-in-hand like Coney Island and a hot dog.

I sometimes wonder about those three Alcatraz escapees, named Frank Morris, John and Clarence Anglin who may have successfully escaped from that island over there back in June, 1962. Their bodies were never recovered, so no one really knows if they made it to land or not. We may never know, as the secrets to their fate have too been swallowed up by the fog.

Over the 29 years (1934-1963) that the Federal prison operated, 36 men were involved in 14 separate escape attempts. Twenty three were caught, six were shot and killed during their escape, and two drowned. Two of the men who were caught were later executed in the gas chamber over at San Quentin for their role in the death of a correctional officer during the famous May 2-4, 1946, "Battle of Alcatraz" escape attempt.

Coast5 Departure

2011-07-09T04:59:00.000-07:00

The sun is setting to the northwest as we float down the gorgeous California coastline toward Los Angeles. Less than thirty minutes earlier, I was pulling back on the stick until the electric jet sensed my wrist inputs and commanded one of the ELAC computers to send a signal to the hydraulic actuators that commanded the elevators to move up, thus causing the nose of the French beast to lift off the Oakland pavement. Crazy, isn't it.

The Coast5 departure from OAK consist of a wide left turn taking us between SFO and the city of San Francisco, where we eventually pick up the route south down toward the Channel islands. For now, my head is planted in the windscreen as I trace California's Highway 1 south from Big Sur all the way past Hearst Castle and toward the small towns of Cambria and Cayucos. Funny how I have lived in this state for almost forty years, and I don't think I have driven this part of our nation's most picturesque highways in its entirety. For now I must gaze at it from above. The Airbus cockpit is quiet and the radio chatter is light as we catch a glimpse of such a beautiful coastline illuminated by the setting summer light. My home is in my six as we head for palm trees and white beaches.

I love my job.

Portland, Revisited

2011-07-06T05:17:00.000-07:00

This time I was able to secure, er, more like was told to fly up to Portland Oregon for the afternoon and fly back to Los Angeles the following day. What ensued was a nice overnight with a great Captain that involved wonderful Italian food and conversation. I really like this town, but they have seen a prolonged winter up here, and that part I think I could do without. Yes, it is June, and it is still raining. When will the rain stop? Who knows...

Nonetheless, Portland is a splendid city with a lively atmosphere that incorporates a funky Northwest culture that I love. Look around and the scenery is absolutely gorgeous! Tall mountains, big rivers, beautiful forests, a prolific Pinot Noir-carpeted valley to the southwest and much, much more. Yes, I could live here in a heartbeat, or anywhere in the Pacific Northwest for that matter.

Just need to do something about that rain...

Florida From Space

2011-07-03T05:00:00.000-07:00

Yes, this photo I took could almost pass for the Sunshine State taken from the Space Shuttle's last trip. See Miami on the right? Jacksonville at the top right and Ft Myers/Tampa on the bottom left? Orlando in the middle? Maybe even the lights of Havana, Cuba at the bottom of the photo. This is actually Cape May, New Jersey from 37,000 feet. By tilting the camera slightly to the left gives the illusion of Florida from space.

Here's a few more shots of some familiar areas at night. Can you name them?

Enjoy the 4th of July!

Sunshine Skyway Bridge - Tampa Bay

2011-06-30T05:20:00.000-07:00

I keep reminding myself, "That is quite a bridge down there".

Yes it is.

I've been on it a couple of times, and it is really, really long. I know one day I'll be driving my rental Nissan Quest with two kids in the back who will scream, "I need to use the bathroom," right as we go feet wet. Such is the way the family shenanigans go.

Anyway, considered the "Flag Bridge" of Florida, its span across Tampa Bay is 5.5 miles long and was dedicated on February 7, 1987. The new bridge cost $244 million to build, and was opened to traffic on April 20, 1987. The Travel Channel even rated the Sunshine Skyway #3 in its special on the "Top 10 Bridges" in the World.

Okay, that's all I got. Time to use the restroom.

Oil Bubble

2011-06-27T05:00:00.000-07:00

Oil for pilots is a touchy subject, partly because we are control-minded individuals who cannot do anything about the cost when it rises. We are trained by our airline to treat this as a precious resource, because it is.

Or, is it?

Remember when oil futures skyrocketed and the price of a single barrel of oil went from around $60 in the middle of 2007 to a high of $147 in summer of 2008? Why such a huge spike in oil prices? The explanation was told to us that there was a problem with the world oil supply and we widely accepted this as truth, when in fact this was not really the case at all. In the six months before prices spiked, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the world oil supply rose from 85.24 million barrels a day to 85.72 million. Over the same period, world oil demand dropped from 86.82 million barrels a day to 86.07 million. Not only was the short-term supply of oil rising, the demand for it was falling — which, in classic economic terms, should have brought prices at the pump down. Hmm...

So if it wasn't the consumption of real oil that was driving up price, then what was? It was the trade in paper oil. By the summer of 2008, commodities speculators had bought and stockpiled enough oil futures to fill 1.1 billion barrels of crude, which meant that speculators owned more future oil on paper than there was real, physical oil stored in all of the country's commercial storage tanks and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve combined. It was a repeat of both the Internet craze and the housing bubble, when Wall Street hiked up present-day profits by selling suckers shares of a fictional fantasy future of endlessly rising prices.

So earlier this spring fuel was once again on the rise, and it has become the highest single expense for our airline. As before, the problem is not supply or demand as the highest supply of oil in the last 20 years is right now. So what is going on? I believe it's all speculation. Perhaps someone at Goldman Sachs can answer that question while they smile all the way to the bank.

So as consumers, all we can do is ride the energy bubble and see where it goes. Sadly, each penny increase in fuel equates to about 4 million dollars in additional cost to the bottom line at our airline. Our operation burned about 486 million gallons in 2010, and this year will be slightly higher. Now take our Airbus A320 for example. It burns approximately 3000 pounds of fuel per hour, which is 448 gallons per hour or 7.5 gallons per minute. Multiply that by 650 flights per day, and our Airbus operation is burning some serious kerosene.

One of the ways we mitigate our fuel consumption is by using single-engine taxis, starting the APU (auxiliary power unit that burns fuel) at the last possible minute, idle descents and so on. Over time, these fuel savings add up, thus gaining an edge over our competitors. Lower costs equal higher profits, thus allowing our airline to expand and hire more employees.

Other (more costly) methods include buying more fuel efficient aircraft. Our airline just announced a new order for 40 A320NEO aircraft, which will potentially offer up to 15 percent in fuel savings and increased range. Furthermore, beginning in 2013 our new A320 deliveries will come equipped with winglets, and we will be the launch customer of retrofit winglets on existing A320s. These winglets on our current aircraft will bring up to 5 percent in fuel savings. This too will give us an advantage when every penny counts in a changing industry.

It all adds up.

Mount Tam - Marin County

2011-06-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

Some say the mountain right there is the birthplace of mountain bike riding. Maybe. Located on the other side of the Golden Gate and northwest of San Pablo Bay in the SF Bay Area, the geography is as eclectic as the people who inhabit this place. Oh well, it's close to home and that's all that matters.

The Glamorus Life

2011-06-20T05:14:00.000-07:00

Yes, and now the glamor of being an airline pilot. The glamor of living in LA amidst the palm trees, beaches, Hollywood elite and weather. In reality, every time I stay in Los Angeles, I live in a garage. Yes, you read that right - a professional at it for thirteen years now and living in a garage in Hawthorne.

Even though it's temporary, it still humbles me. Part of this profession requires moving abroad like a gypsy and living near airports in shady neighborhoods. Most pilots leave out this important part that is well worth mentioning. Want to be an airline pilot? Be prepared to live in a garage.

I think I've seen just about everything now:

There was living in an apartment in Raleigh-Durham in 1998 with a back seat from a Dodge Caravan used as our couch.

The 24-person crash pad on the corner of Metro and Lefferts in Queens, NY in 1999. It was one large room and a kitchen. Bunk beds and all...

The occasional Motel 6 near LAX back in 2001:

The friend's house in Las Vegas in 2002 (which was actually pretty nice).

The one exception were the lavish hotels and homes I had the opportunity to stay in during my corporate flying days (2004-2008). If you want to live it up on the road, then I suggest you skip the airlines and find a real nice corporate job:

Then there was back to Queens in NYC living in another crash pad with twelve people. It reminded me of the Haunted Mansion:

There was the move to a larger house in Kew Gardens, NYC in 2009. From the outside, this place was real nice. The inside was another story. We had rats.

A house in Beachmont, near the Boston Airport (I've never been so cold in my life).

Now here I am in a Hawthorne garage. At least it doesn't snow in Los Angeles.

But hey, look at the bright side! I'm just a one-hour flight from Oakland, where an hours' drive north is my beautiful home and wonderful family. It's kind of like having two lives, really. One is a professional who is a husband, a father to almost two kids who has a nice home in Sonoma County. Then there's the one where I am living in a garage like some 37-year old son who has never left home and still lives with his parents. So I can live both lives.

I prefer the family up north.

Wait a minute, "Mom! Did you fold my laundry yet? And where's my dinner?"

Just kidding.

Go Around

2011-06-17T05:00:00.000-07:00

Out of the low stratus emerges the behemoth we know as JFK. As we descend from fifteen thousand feet on the ATC-assisted "crowbar" arrival to runway 13L, I look down at our intended runway and spot a large Lufthansa jumbo just seconds from touchdown. I follow its path over the numbers, just feet from landing when suddenly I notice it has initiated a go-around.

As my eyes wander a little further down the runway, I notice another plane ahead of the jumbo just exiting on the 90-degree taxiway. Apparently, the airplane ahead must have been a little slow on the turnoff, causing poor Lufthansa and its 400-plus passengers to grab another tour of the New York Bay.

Just though I would share this moment in time, viewed three miles above JFK from the flight deck.

Market Street

2011-06-15T05:15:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago...

I am commuting home on a short 55-minute flight to Oakland on Southwest and am loving life. Unfortunately tonight it will take longer to drive home than it took to fly up from LA. Traffic will be bad, but that's part of living in the Bay Area I guess.

Right up Market Street in San Francisco is a line of cars this evening. A late-season storm from Alaska has whisked down from the north and is causing us to land to the south, common in the winter but not this time of year. Naturally, drivers also react to this inclement weather by slowing down which naturally extends my commute home up to an extra hour. It has been unseasonably cool everywhere out west, brought on by Canadian air flowing into the Sierras and Rockies where it eventually meets up with humid air from Mexico over the Midwest. Unfortunately, their relationship over that region is like oil and vinegar.

Tornadoes and horrible thunderstorms have plagued the Midwest and South this season, but thankfully I am not navigating around that stuff at the moment. Now I am a West Coast pilot.

I'll take this over red and purple radar returns any day. However, my day will come this summer.

Red Rock Canyon

2011-06-13T05:27:00.000-07:00

Descending on the KEPEC 2 arrival into Las Vegas brings us just south of Red Rock Canyon before we make the right turn toward the city. Six years ago I hiked up here with a friend, and I thought I would show you some photos of what it looks like. Enjoy!

Ascension

2011-06-10T05:06:00.000-07:00

Climbing out of San Francisco bound for the East Coast lends the same views from the right seat, over and over again. Here we just pass over Oakland. I'm not a big fan of the Oakland Raiders or the A's, but here is their stadium anyway.

It was originally known as the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, formerly Network Associates Coliseum and McAfee Coliseum and commonly The Oakland Coliseum or The Coliseum. Take your pick.

Next up is Rancho Seco powerplant, situated southeast of Sacramento. This power plant had a history of problems and was decommissioned in June, 1989 after Sacramento voters decided to shut it down. So now it sits here as a permanent reminder that Sacramento's Municipal Utility District (better known as SMUD) was and still is the iron fist when it comes to powering the state's Capital.

Next up are some of the beautiful lakes near Lake Tahoe. At the very top is Fallen Leaf Lake, followed by Cascade Lake (middle) and finally Emerald Bay. You can even spot Fannette Island in Emerald Bay near the bottom-right corner. These lakes were formed by glaciers that carved little valleys down from the Desolation Wilderness just to the west.

Followed by the other side of Lake Tahoe is Stateline, Nevada. See the casinos? The ski runs in the back are Heavenly Ski Resort. Still plenty of snow up here, as this was a record snowfall season. There's at least one place in the Sierras staying open until July 4th!

Finally, here is the state capital of Nevada, Carson City. I just realized they have an airport down there. A state capital should probably have one anyway I guess...

By the way, do you know which US state capital does not have its own airport?

From here on there's really nothing else to see until we get just north of Salt Lake City. However, some New Yorkers will argue there's nothing else that matters until we arrive over Manhattan.

A Horizon Airlines Experience

2011-06-08T05:00:00.000-07:00

I boarded this Horizon Q400 in LAX, and just over one hour later was landing 15 minutes from my house at the Santa Rosa Airport! That's how simple my commute can become and I am very grateful. Too bad they don't have more flights to/from LAX, as I would take them more often.

Horizon Air has been around since 1981, founded in Seattle by Milt Kuolt (coincidentally this plane is dedicated to him), but sadly their parent company Alaska Airlines has announced to do away with the Horizon brand completely. All planes are being repainted to match the current livery of Alaska Airlines, right down to the smiling eskimo on the tail. However, Horizon's great service elements and extras will stay the same. That's good because their smiling flight attendants serve complimentary open-bottle local wines and microbrews on their flights. Why not? It's the Pacific Northwest for crying out loud.

The company is also transitioning away from jets to this all-Q400 fleet, precipitated back in 2008 by the first hike in fuel prices. Their other aircraft, the 70-seat CRJ-700 is being retired by next year. This puts their turboprops (albeit, fast) on routes commonly served by mainline and larger jet aircraft.

So remember, if you need to quickly and comfortably get around in the Pacific Northwest, go take a flight on Horizon Air and see for yourself what a pleasurable little airline this really is.

Two Spots on Nassau, Bahamas

2011-06-06T05:08:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture of Nassau, Bahamas the other day taken from 'da Bus while flying back from Puerto Rico...

Now below is Nygard Cay, a stunning private island featuring 10 bedrooms with 2 pools, two additional staterooms available on a luxurious 82-ft yacht, 5 jacuzzi/whirlpools, a tennis court, 2 volleyball courts, a basketball court, 3 boats, a staff of 20 with food and liquor included, 2 Hummers, a 48' fishing vessel, a 24 seat movie theater, exotic birds, and lastly a private limousine transfer to and from the airport. Nice.

Robin Leach of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous calls Bahamas Luxury Nygard Cay "the most unusual villa rental in the world!" Based on a stay of 4 days and 3 nights, Nygard Cay is available for only US $5200 per person, per day. Including the two staterooms aboard the island's yacht, the island has a capacity of 24 people. Your group of celebrities, executives, sports moguls or any person celebrating a birthday, anniversary, seminar, wedding, or vacation will have a trip of a lifetime at this unique luxury resort. Sean Connery, Oprah Winfrey, Robert DeNiro and former President George H.W. Bush have all been to Nygard Cay. Hundreds of craftsmen from Hollywood and Canada used tons of stone to create this colossal pre-Columbian structure that was inspired by the Mayan civililization.

If that doesn't fit your budget, I can understand. Maybe you have a family, so naturally there's the Atlantis Resort. This too is on its own island and here you have pretty much everything from lazy rivers and rapids to eight water slides that also plunge underneath the water in a glass tube.

There's a lagoon full of barracuda and stingrays, a beautiful strand of beach, a small shopping center and millions of other things to do. So whatever you end up choosing, I'm certain you can find something down there for yourself and your family.

Enjoy!

A Drive to Work

2011-06-03T05:08:00.000-07:00

It only took me 13 years to be able to drive from home to work as an airline pilot. Recently I had a SFO overnight, so I just had to drive home, sleep in my own bed, make pancakes for the family the next morning and casually drive back to SFO.

Naturally, I did all this just so I could brag about driving to work. To most airline pilots, this is a rare thing. Furthermore, look what showed up at the gate the following morning? It's the NY Jets plane. What a nice treat to be taking this new baby out for a spin down to SoCal.

Crazy that I'm boarding this Airbus in SFO and not commuting 5+ hours on the thing to Boston or NYC. What a great feeling it was to actually hop on and fly it! What's even better is that I didn't even bring my suitcase because I'll be back home tonight after a Sacramento turn! Can you say a California day trip?

Well, I did it. Hopefully I don't have to wait another 13 years to do that again.

The Landing

2011-05-31T05:16:00.000-07:00

My landing in Long Beach after the short flight from Las Vegas was pretty firm, but nothing to complain about. At least the oxygen masks didn't drop from the cabin. Besides, it's Long Beach and the approach and landing is always tough because of funky winds (commonly a tailwind) combined with a displaced threshold, leaving us about seven thousand feet of concrete to touch down and come to a complete stop before running off the end of the runway. Landings here are always firm, as there is no messing around. Besides, I'm flying a fly-by-wire aircraft with a little joystick and no real feel to what the plane is actually doing. It takes getting used to.

On the taxi-in, the Captain says, "That's exactly how you want to land in Long Beach. Some guys try to make a greaser here and that's not a good idea."

As we park at the gate and swing open the cockpit door, I get up and stand in the doorway to thank our customers coming off the short flight. Up comes this old man pointing his finger at me.

I smile at him and say, "Thanks for flying with us, sir."

"Man oh man, that was a horrible landing! Did you make that?"

I was in complete shock. I swallowed hard, and let out a big smile and replied, "Yes I did."

He shakes his head and makes it abundantly clear he is truly disappointed in my airmanship. "How can you land like that? That was truly awful. You call yourself a pilot? Geeez."

Steady...

"Yes, yes I do," continuing with a huge grin and smile.

"Even I can land my single-engine Bonanza better than that. Oh my God. You should be ashamed of yourself."

Oh, here we go. Another old pilot who owns a small general aviation airplane that weighs less than the weight of fuel we carry in one of our wing tanks is critiquing me on my landing. General aviation pilots love to tell professional pilots they can fly airplanes too.

I made a short sarcastic laugh and attempted to keep smiling. "Well sir, I have about 40 hours on this plane so I'm still getting used to her. She's a little weird."

"Forty hours? That's a lot of time!"

Maybe for you it is.....

"Well sir, it's also a short runway here at Long Beach..."

He cuts me off and waves a finger, "Short runway? What are you talking about? It's ten thousand feet long!"

"Well, actually it's not, with the displaced threshold, and following the glide slope down, its actually seven thousand feet long."

Do I really need to get technical here with something he probably has no idea about?

"No, it's ten thousand feet long."

"Yeah, but.."

"Son, you need to check your charts."

Oh boy, here we go. I'm not even going to argue with this guy why we cannot use the whole ten thousand feet of runway, because it is not available to us. On takeoff, yes, but on landing no. How do you explain that to this man? A simple Private Pilot. Better not say any more.

I chuckled, "Well, I'll get it next time. Sorry about that"

He shakes his already shaking finger at me and hobbles for the main door and out to the stairs. "Man, that was bad," he says one last time while shaking his head just to get the last word in. His poor wife trails behind him without saying a word. She smiles at me and follows him out to the stairs.

I am speechless. The Captain is still up in the cockpit, sitting in the left seat and is laughing his head off. I used to make incredible landings in the E-190, but this Airbus is humbling the hell out of me.

My next landing - Sacramento, CA approximately two hours later (thousands of extra feet of runway for landing).

I rolled it on. A super soft and smooth touchdown of 130,000lbs of Airbus. Even the braking was symmetrical. Surprised myself. Approximately 41.3 hours total-time on the airplane, and still quite humbled.

Once again on deplaning I stand near the cockpit door and thank our customers for flying with us.

About halfway through, here comes the same old man walking down the aisle toward me! I had no idea he was connecting with us up to Sacramento. As before, I stood there with a confident smile (yet somewhat surprised) and said to him, "YOU AGAIN!"

He looks up at me with his old eyes and barks, "Who made that landing? The Captain?"

I stood there confident and gave him a super-big toothy smile. "I did, sir."

"Well that was a HELL of a lot better than the one you made back there in Long Beach. Man, that was a bad one!"

Then he shakes my hand, smiles and makes for the exit.

I just can't catch a break today.

Sanibel and Captiva Island, Florida

2011-05-28T05:01:00.000-07:00

Want to visit a tropical island in the United States that does not require a boat or an airplane ride? May I suggest Sanibel and Captiva islands, located on the Florida Gulf just northwest of Ft. Myers.

Driving here is a snap. Just head west for about 40 minutes from Ft. Myers, and you will think you've landed somewhere in the Caribbean. The bridge across costs six bucks, and once you've arrived on the other side, there's plenty to do all day long. There's shopping, eating, whatever. Pulling into popular Bowman's Beach will take you on a short walk out to paradise. In about five minutes, a beautiful white-sand playa awaits anyone looking to relax or find some shells.

Yes, one popular activity to do here for beachcombers is stroll along the beautiful beach and look for shells. As a matter of fact, most seashells that you can buy in some shape or form usually emanate from around here. With so many varieties of shells, one can spend all day enjoying what the gulf brings in.

All this shelling has made me hungry, so let's journey down to the next island of Captiva. Located just a little further north (and a small bridge across), Captiva is more of the same, but there are some great restaurants that are noteworthy to mention. May I suggest the Mucky Duck, the Green Flash or this little place right here - The Keylime Bistro.

Located right next to the Captiva Island Inn, the Keylime Bistro is perfect for casual lunches and live island music. Sitting outside under the big umbrellas and sipping on a cold ice tea hits the spot, or don't forget to try one of their signature margaritas.

Naturally, I had the real fresh grouper sandwich that was brought in this morning.

Wash it down with their fantastic key lime pie, and I am in heaven. If the name of the place suggest it, then I'll definitely have it.

That's all from here. Now on to someplace new.

EQY

2011-05-25T05:05:00.000-07:00

A few morning ago we passed over Monroe County Airport, located just southeast of Charlotte, NC. That airport is where I first soloed back in 1993 in a Beech Skipper. Add almost seventeen years and seven miles up and I find myself in a pressurized tube straight overhead in present time. I've learned a lot since then, seen plenty and have flown millions of miles. Even that plane I soloed in, N6721V still flies too. She is in Southern California now and based out of Redlands Airport. I recently corresponded with the owner who said anytime I want to come see it, or even fly it, give him a call. Maybe this year I''ll take him up on that offer and do just that.

Wouldn't that be fun!

Pause

2011-05-22T05:16:00.000-07:00

Tankers wait patiently just outside Norfolk on a Sunday morning, commanded to stay put until the opening of business tomorrow. I have visions of those Captains sitting in their high chair, listening to their iPod music of choice while sipping their morning coffee. Kind of reminds me of the scene from the movie Madagascar.

Then comes those pesky penguins.

Frogo

2011-05-19T05:02:00.000-07:00

The departure procedure out of Sacramento to Southern California takes us out to the FROGO intersection, located in the central Sierra Nevada foothills. What's interesting to note about this point in space is that there is a reason for the name. FROGO sits over an area once inhabited by Samuel Langhorne Clemens, or better known by his pen name Mark Twain. Remember, he is the author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and its sequel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Even though he was born in Missouri and wrote stories associated with the Mississippi, he headed west with his brother and eventually wrote some stories associated with the Gold Country, or Mother Lode region of California.

Angels Camp

One book, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County was a series of short stories written by Mark Twain in his cabin around here and later published by friend and author Bret Harte in 1865.

Mark Twain's cabin, between Angels Camp and Sonora

How did I find out about this place? I used to live down there and went to Bret Harte High School in Angels Camp, about ten miles north of the Calaveras County Fairgrounds where they hold the jumping frog contest every third weekend in May. As a matter of fact, it starts today and ends Saturday.

Go frog, go!

You can learn a lot from aviation.

OE Done - New Base

2011-05-16T05:00:00.000-07:00

Wait for it....

Okay, finally!

After ten years away, I am once again based in SoCal with Long Beach and LAX being my new domiciles. So happy!

I thought this was an appropriate sendoff as I flew this plane from San Juan back to Orlando, thus concluding my OE.

Let's rewind back nine days...

In one day I drove down from the Bay Area to relocate a car here, grab a parking pass at the Long Beach Airport, find a crash pad in Hawthorne, drive up to LAX to get an additional parking pass there, went out to an abbreviated dinner with my cousin, drove like mad on the 405 in horrible traffic, somehow made the Horizon flight to Santa Rosa that night, slept 6 hours, woke up at 6AM to drive the other car to SFO where I then flew as a passenger out to New York City to fly one leg to Portland, Maine that same day, deadheaded back to JFK the next morning, flew a Ft. Lauderdale round trip, slept in the JFK crew room on the couch until 5AM East Coast time and finally flew down to Ft. Myers, Florida to be with my mother on Mother's Day.

Now that's dedication.

Cholame, CA

2011-05-12T05:10:00.000-07:00

Do you know what happened right here back in September 1955 at the intersection of Highways 41 and 46, situated east of the town of Paso Robles in a little place called Cholame, CA?

Driving down to Los Angeles after making a family visit on the Central Coast puts me smack in the middle of nowhere. It's early May and the hot dry sun beams down on the once-green hills that are quickly turning a color that resembles golden wheat. In fact, it's a transformation that can take merely take a few days. However, if this region receives large quantities of rain during spring, the area can resemble the greenest hills of Ireland.

In another month the Cholame Valley here will easily reach 110 degrees - a temperature not uncommon around these parts during the summer. I have navigated this stretch of highway probably fifty times in both directions. From a toddler in our family's '77 Camaro to my latest trip, I know this road well. Traveling west will take you from California's San Joaquin Valley to the growing wine region of Paso Robles. Some say that area will become the next Napa Valley. Perhaps. The wines just west of here are indeed truly spectacular. Cabernet thrives in the hot sunshine that is replaced with cool nights and mornings. Drive in the other direction and you will hit Interstate 5, where in three hours I will be arriving in LA. Just a little further east in opposite directions are the towns of Bakersfield and Fresno. Yes, this is John Steinbeck land, and this vast open area will always be etched in my mind forever.

This is also exactly where the San Andreas Fault crosses the highway. Look out across the hills below, and the fault meanders right through their base.

Here's another shot I took as I flew over the same exact area at 35,000 feet:

If you have a hunch on what took place back here in 1955, let me know!

Bed

2011-05-09T05:10:00.000-07:00

This is my bed tonight. Yes, occasionally airline pilots have to sleep on couches or lounge chairs at crew rooms in airports thousands of miles away from home. Doesn't matter if you're a regional pilot, corporate pilot or major airline pilot flying the Airbus A320, it happens to all of us. It just comes with the job. I'm kind-of in a grey area in terms of bases - not really based in Boston and not really based in LA. So, this is what can happen if caught on the road in New York after hours.

I think my worst sleeping-at-the-airport experience was right around the Holidays in 1998. I was a commuter pilot based in Raleigh-Durham, NC desperately trying to return home to Sacramento, CA for Christmas. After three flights and roughly ten hours of flying, I got as far as the San Francisco Airport at 12AM. I missed the last commuter flight to Sacramento that evening and could have rented a car to make the drive, but was so exhausted and poor that I decided to just camp out at the airport on the terminal floor in full uniform like a homeless man and sleep until 6AM. I think I even used a wad of newspaper for a pillow. Back then I was making about $17K a year.

So compared to that fiasco, tonight is like staying at the Ritz Carlton. Besides, this is probably only my 9th time sleeping bed-less over the course of thirteen years. There will be many more to come, I'm sure.

You get used to it.

Shenanigans

2011-05-06T05:00:00.000-07:00

Present Time - 8:42PM, Gate 12 - JFK

The Captain looks over at me from his seat, gazing through the vast expanse of the Airbus cockpit. We are parked at gate twelve at JFK and our night is just beginning. The CRT screens on the ship's panel emit a soft pale glow on his face. He is young. In fact, he’s about my age and has been a Captain with the company for over nine years. It’s all timing in this business, nothing more. Some are fortunate, some are not. He was obviously very fortunate. He could almost pass for my twin brother, and most people are giving us the standard double-take while strolling together through the congested JFK Terminal tonight.

"How ya feeling?" he asks as I program the Airbus FMC for the three hour flight down to Ft. Myers, Florida.

The weather earlier today in Kennedy was simply ridiculous. I have used the term ridiculous several times to describe the New York atmospheric conditions, and today is no exception. The powerful thunderstorms that caused over 300 people to lose their lives in the South had finally charged into New York’s airspace, and we were caught right in the middle of them. Earlier in the day, the runway visibility at Kennedy was exactly zero-zero. Thick fog shrouded the area, formed off the cold Atlantic waters that cloaked the warmer inland sprawl, pulled onshore by those monstrous thunderstorms parked just off to the west. Only in New York can you have thick fog at one minute and thunderstorms in another. The saying goes, "Don't like the weather? Wait a minute, it will change."

I sighed. I scrolled through the electronic pages of the flight management computer to review our route down to Florida. It was a route I didn’t want to navigate, and was already frustrated that we were dispatched on a segment right through this disastrous weather, down the west side of those powerful thunderstorms and then back into the most severe area near Jacksonville. Honestly, who files these routes?

Not professional pilots.

I took another deep breath. "I'm allright. I can do this trip, but I really think it's negative training at this point. By the way, I don’t think our dispatcher even looked at the radar.”

He smiles back. I know he agrees with me. "Yeah, I know. We've also been on duty now for..."

He glances at his watch.

Almost seven hours, and now we've got to do this Fort Myers turn which puts us back here at, ah, 4AM I think. And that’s best-case scenario of course.”

Best-case scenario in the airline business is rarely so. Best-case becomes worst-case in a matter of seconds. From experience, I know without a doubt we will be watching the sun rise off the Atlantic as we fly half-asleep northbound up to New York City. I remind myself this is also legs 5 and 6 of my OE. However, tonight I am at least in good hands. I like flying with this Captain. His demeanor is calm and cool. I can only envision being like him in a few more years.

My computer is open and sitting on the Airbus tray table with the informative FlightAware website up and running. I am watching several blue aircraft blips flying near those powerful storms with caution and I am attempting to determine our best course of action tonight. The storms echo back on my laptop screen as giant red blobs between the Big Apple and the Florida Panhandle, racing southeast and east at over 30 knots. Their tops blast past 60,000 feet. The Space Shuttle can barely top those.

I think to myself, "Do I really have to do my dispatcher's job tonight?

Apparently so.

The majority of flights are routed way off the eastern seaboard, picking up the oceanic routes until abeam Jacksonville, Florida where they intercept the arrivals into their respective cities. Orlando, Tampa, Ft. Lauderdale and Miami-bound aircraft are all flying these offshore airways tonight. Southwest, United, Delta and American seem like they all know the way around these monstrous clouds. So why aren’t we dispatched this way too? I review the release sitting on the center pedestal and locate our dispatcher’s phone number. I’m ready to make the phone call to inform him we will be altering the route he has planned.

However, that will not be necessary.

The Captain looks at me and exhales loudly. He looks tired, fatigued. He says, “You know what, I hate to do it but I'm going to have to call in fatigued. In my ten years here, I've never called in fatigued once, but this is ridiculous."

This is ridiculous. We both reported for this flight back at approximately 1:30PM. Now it is almost 9:00PM and we are ready to board. To make matters worse, the gate agent is prompting us if we are ready to accept customers.

We have been at the airport waiting, planning, watching for what has seemed like an eternity. We have viewed our filed route, over and over again. We've reviewed the weather. We've reviewed the taxi times, the delays, and our own fatigue.

I looked at the Captain and made a half-smile. He was right. This was the right thing to do. We were in fact legal to fly this trip, but barely. Are we safe?

Questionable.

Legality and safety is a fine line in this business. It may look good on paper, but is it the right thing to do? Sometimes you have to go with your gut.

Tonight the gut says no.

Allright,” he says. “I'm calling Crew Services.”

He grabs his phone off the center pedestal and dials. I scroll through the Flight Management Computer one last time to view our filed route. I did want to fly the Airbus just to get more experience, but was feeling exhausted.

"Hi, this is Captain.... Unfortunately I am calling in fatigued for the whole crew. We've been here at JFK for almost 8 hours, and now we are just not safe to operate to Ft. Myers and back tonight. Yes, that’s what I’m saying. Okay, thank you."

That was that. He closes the phone, looks at me and says, “We’re canceled. What if there is a medical emergency on our second leg back up to JFK at 3AM, or a problem in the cockpit we need to address. Are we bringing our A-game tonight?"

No. Most people aren't after fourteen-plus hours on the job.

So my Captain is absolutely right. If we were to handle an emergency on the flight back up, would be sharp and capable of handling it? What if we bend metal? Next thing I envision is standing in front of an FAA hearing in court and some government lawyer asking the inevitable question, “If you knew you were fatigued, then why didn’t you just call in fatigued and cancel the trip?”

I smile and reply, “It's been in your gut for at least an hour, so it was the right thing to do. Always go with your gut instinct.”

The gate agent comes down and pokes his head in the cockpit. The Captain looks at him and says, "We are canceled. You want us to say something to the folks at the gate?"

"No," he says. "I will handle it. This isn't the first time I've had to do this."

He abruptly turns around and walks out of the cockpit. It has been a long day for him too, mostly dealing with irate customers who have been delayed for several hours.

As we walk off the aircraft and through the super-crowded gate, we are met with boos (yes boos) by a mob of our customers. The Captain and I pull off to the side and begin to explain our situation to those who have been waiting at Terminal 5 for also eight hours. After about fifteen minutes of explaining our situation, most people have cooled off and are beginning to understand our situation. That was at least owed to them because in the end, we were responsible for canceling this flight. It is easy for people to take for granted airline travel. However, when they hear that their pilots may be fatigued, they quickly smile and say, "Well, thank you. We would all rather have alert pilots tonight rather than exhausted pilots."

Two night Earlier - DoubleTree hotel room, JFK 11:45PM

The room is thankfully black. The curtains are pulled tight to block out the orange light just outside my window. Funny how my earplugs always make my ears itch. It's that funny feeling that methodically has me pull them out, scratch my ear and then put them back in. I'm staring at the clock and am not tired at all, even though I've had about five hours of sleep in the last 24 hours. I seem to be on some wacky time zone, probably somewhere between Hawaii and California. Don’t ask me why. There's at least twenty things going through my mind at this very moment. I fumble around for my iPhone on the dresser next to the bed and scroll through today’s mail, mainly focusing on the subjects pointing to no crashpads available in Los Angeles from June -forward.

I begin to think about when I will have time to drive my car to Oakland Airport, return my old parking sticker and replace it with a new sticker for my new car I had to buy. Then continue with the drive down to Los Angeles where I will need to obtain a new parking pass at LAX and Long Beach Airports. Park it hopefully in the LAX employee parking lot, get back on a plane and fly home. I have limited days off to look for crashpads somewhere in LA, or I will be homeless.

I envision myself parked at Redondo Beach, sleeping in my car in my pilot uniform when there is tap on the glass from a police officer. The police officer looks at me and says, “Sir, you cannot park here overnight, and why are you sleeping in your car?”

"Because I am homeless,” will be my reply. "I am a homeless pilot."

Just then the phone rings. A photo of our airline’s tail with logo emerge in the iPhone window with the words Crew Services below. It’s just shy of midnight.

"Hello Ryan, your trip to San Diego has been canceled. The Captain had a family emergency and had to call off the trip. Stay put at the hotel and we will call you and attempt to reassign you to another trip later.

The glorious and highly rare 24-San Diego overnight I was looking forward to in less than twelve hours fades fast like a contrail. Instead I am stuck in a hotel in Queens. In the fog. Perhaps he will call and try to pick up something for us in the following days. I hope so.

An email message from my Captain pops on the screen. In short, he apologizes for the change of itinerary and will attempt to pick up a Fort Myers turn for us in two days. I hope so, but that will be the day when the weather will become horrific.

We shall see...

Providenciales, Turks and Caicos

2011-05-02T05:00:00.000-07:00

The photo above is Providenciales, Turks & Caicos (called Provo) that I took almost one year ago while flying from Ft. Lauderdale, FL to San Juan, Puerto Rico in the E-190. Now I finally get to set foot on this little arid island located southeast of the Bahamas and northeast of Hispaniola.

We begin again with an uneventful flight from JFK down to Providenciales, and back up to JFK. The round trip is a little over six hours of flying, mostly over the Atlantic in Class II waters. Class II navigation today will use the "L" routes down between Bermuda and the East coast flown by GPS-capable aircraft that navigate offshore and out of range of any land-based navigational aids. I was assigned a new check airman again who was very knowledgeable and friendly, thus making this trip very enjoyable.

Passing a northeast-bound company Airbus over the Atlantic

On the "L" routes passing our Equal Time Point (ETP) over the ONGOT intersection

Flying down was great, and it was mostly smooth sailing for three hours. As we approached from the north, I loaded the RNAV to runway 10 in the Airbus FMS and briefed how the aircraft would most likely fly the complete procedure turn out away from the airport and back in for runway 10. As we descended below 10,000 feet , we were assigned flight level zero-six-zero, which was a little odd for me. That's six-thousand feet, but still using a standard altimeter setting of 29.92 inches. In the United States, we don't set 29.92 inches until passing 18,000 feet. Anyway, I was once again reminded of the primitive Caribbean Air Traffic Control with no radar as we approached the island. Thankfully, we were number one for the airport but everyone else arriving at or near the same time was asked to "go hold" while we commenced this approach. Since there is no ATC radar, the guys issuing us clearances to descend and land at the airport were basically blind. So, we were told to give position reports every ten miles or so to update our whereabouts to Providenciales Approach.

Almost there

We cleared some showers from the north and were told to expedite down to 2,000 feet about 20 miles from the airport. With today's fuel prices, we were burning some serious gas straight and level just off the ocean, but that's just part of the flying in the tropics. As the airport became visible, we advised ATC we had the airport in sight and they replied that we were cleared for the approach to runway 10. Now this brought up some questions regarding whether we were cleared for the "visual" or the entire RNAV 10 approach. After clarifying several times back and forth to the local controller, we were finally given a "visual clearance" to approach and land on the runway. It gets a little weird down here, so if uncertain, always clarify. At this point, I clicked off the autopilot and flew the visual, backed up with the GPS approach.

The airport is currently under construction, so there was a displaced threshold, and no markings. Furthermore, it was also a little short, so I had to be on it, and naturally since it was my second landing in the aircraft, it was a a bit firm but that's what I wanted to do.

This place looks pretty dry, but I hear the diving around the island is incredible.

I wanted to stay, but as in the industry, we are here for our customers and must return back up to New York.

Flying out of Turks and Caicos was beautiful, and as usual I'm in awe with turquoise-blue water. However, it seems I'm having issues with my camera and the Airbus windows. It focuses on the glass, and not on what's past the glass. The only remedy so far is to place a frame around the photo, as you can see from above but it is still not a clear shot. Suggestions?

Continental 1866

Back up was nice, and we hooked up with Continental 1866 from Punta Cana and basically followed each other all the way back up to New York. They branched off before our arrival and headed left to Newark. Upon our arrival, we were slapped with a new crossing restriction: "Cross 40 miles south of CAMRN intersection at 14,000 feet at 320 knots, and then cross CAMRN at 8,000 at 210 knots." Naturally, it was given to us late, and once again I had to pull speed to 320 knots, pull altitude to initiate an open descent, and race down to 14,000 feet like the NASA Space Shuttle. Then approaching 10,000 feet we had to slow to 250 knots and then continue down to cross CAMRN at 8,000 at 210 knots with speedbrakes out. Of all the years I have flown into JFK (5 years), I have never been given this clearance. However, there I was in a new machine trying to make the aircraft do all these things in a very short period of time.

Luckily, the landing back at JFK on runway 22L was nice! It was a little gusty but my third landing was my smoothest yet. All I can say is flying an approach in the Airbus is like sitting in my living room on the couch with an enormous flat screen in front of me. It's comfortable, quiet and smooth.

Well, that's Provo. Unfortunately there will be no more OE for a week as I experienced operational chaos in the following days, and that crazy story worth telling is coming up next.

Airbus OE - Part 1

2011-04-26T05:18:00.000-07:00

That's it, fun's over. Now time for the grueling part back to reality. I flew from Honolulu to Oakland, then from San Francisco to Boston to start my initial experience, or OE on the Airbus. Due to some scheduling issues over the Easter holiday, I was only scheduled to fly a Boston to West Palm Beach day turn, and then have another week off before continuing the rest of my OE. So to do this single turn, I flew over 5,000 miles and 6 time zones just to operate these two flights.

Traveling from the most laid-back and beautiful environment in the United States to the complete opposite place in the country was a little stressful. Furthermore, talk about a culture shock. I should have walked off the plane in Boston with my dark island tan, flower print shirt, flip-flops and surfer shorts, but would have probably been laughed at. So, naturally I wore the uniform to be the centerpiece of utmost respect and professionalism. Yes, occasionally it will buy me a cup of coffee...from the Captain.

So anyway, I left this environment...

For this...

Yep. Still winter here in the Northeast. The trees are just beginning to turn green. Maybe a few more weeks before there's any resemblance of spring. Oh well. Somehow, I got plenty of rest before OE and was actually very relaxed on the day of my flights. Absorbing mass quantities of tropical sun will do that to you. I even got a few stares while riding the Boston Subway that I could only interpret as, "Why are you so tan...and happy? This is the Northeast for crying out loud!" I was the first one to the aircraft, so I was let onboard and decided to just load the FMS and get her ready for the flight down to West Palm Beach, FL. Why not?

There she is. Our chariot, N648JB - "That's What I Like About Blue":

First off, look how large this cockpit is. I know, I've seen it hundreds of times, but now I'm finally going to get to fly it.

Look at all those seats in the back. All 150 of them.

Okay, now let's do this quick trip that I have done plenty of times in the Embraer:

The first leg was done by the Captain, and everything went fine. Actually, there's less to do in the Airbus than the Embraer in terms of cockpit prep and taxi out, so I kept second-guessing myself if I completed all my flows. Yep, I did.

Arrival at PBI with Airbus reflection in windows

Coming back to Boston was my leg and once again it went pretty smooth until we had to descend. In a perfect world, the Airbus magic works very well. However, in a not-so-perfect ATC environment commonly found in New York and Boston airspace, it gets a little weird. For one, the aircraft really does a nice job of managing a descent from the top of descent (TOD) to a lower altitude. However, when Boston Center gives a clearance to descend at 320 knots, and then follows that up with a clearance to cross Providence VOR at 11,000 feet at 250 knots, but was issued to us late (past the aircraft's top of descent) then good luck!

At this point, one must pull the altitude knob and begin an OPEN DESCENT (thrust idle and descend at a selected speed of 320 knots) and extend the speed brakes. However, if that is still keeping you high, the next step is to click off the autopilot and use full speedbrakes (with the autopilot engaged, the aircraft will only extend half speedbrakes). Now if that does not work, you must advise ATC to get relief from the speed restriction and then select a speed of about 340 knots to dive the airplane even more to lose more altitude very quickly. Basically the Airbus will come down like a crowbar at this point, and upon reaching 11,000 feet, you better engage the autopilot and press the speed mode knob to put the aircraft back in its "managed" mode, so it will slow to the FMS preselected speed and clearance of 250 knots, granted you've successfully reached 11,000 feet about 10 miles prior to the Providence VOR, because it's going to take about that many miles to slow down from 340 knots to 250 knots.

This scenario is a no-brainer on the Embraer 190, but the Airbus is a whole new animal, and one that I must get used to. Eventually, this will all become second nature, but for now it's all about absorbing another aircraft flight characteristics. The exact situation above happened to me on my second leg back up to Boston (minus the not-going to make the restriction part), so it was a good learning experience to have all this happen at once. Naturally, it didn't help that it was night, raining with low visibility, and obviously I was a little behind the curve. Add an arrival to runway 4R from the south (tricky) using engine anti ice on, and the plane just does not want to come down and slow down at the same time. Yep, time to learn that Flaps 2 will help with the descent as Boston Center slowed us up to 170 knots.

We were then vectored through the localizer twice and eventually were told to intercept and cleared for the ILS 4R approach. As we broke out of the clouds, I decided to click off the autopilot and hand fly the aircraft to the runway. What a nice machine! Thankfully the winds were calm and we actually made a pretty descent landing. The sight picture is a little different than the E-190, as the Airbus lands more flat. You basically "roll it on" and when the mains touch down, you move the stick forward to bring the nose down. It's basically a constant forward motion with your wrist at touchdown that I have to get used to.

Overall, a good experience, and today I am finishing up OE beginning with a flight from JFK to Providenciales, Turks & Caicos and back. Tomorrow is a transcon to San Diego and back to JFK on Thursday. Then back down to Turks & Caicos again on Friday, and then it's time to report to my new base in Los Angeles for May.

More to come.

Matsumoto's Shave Ice - Haleʻiwa, Oahu

2011-04-22T05:10:00.000-07:00

One year ago I was fighting in line attempting to grab a fresh cannoli from Mike's Pastry in Boston. Now I'm on the North Shore of Oahu waiting for a special treat from Hawaii known as shave ice. What is shave ice? Shave ice is an ice-based dessert made by shaving a block of ice that resembles a snow cone. However, a snow cone is crushed ice, whereas shave ice is exactly what the name implies: shaved ice. The difference? Shave ice is not gritty or refrozen, but more like eating fresh snow found at the top of the Haleakala ski run in Lake Tahoe right after a snowstorm. Basically it's like eating fresh powder. Add the traditional "rainbow" tropical flavors such as guava, passion fruit, kiwi and mango on a hot Hawaiian day, and this treat is nothing short of spectacular. So come with me and let's pay a visit to the Matsumoto General Store in the town of Haleʻiwa for probably the best shave ice on the island, if not all of Hawaii.

Mamouro Matsumoto immigrated to Hawaii from Japan and worked hard to open this grocery store back in the 60's. Around the same time, he decided to sell shave ice to the locals and surfers who flocked to the North Shore to catch the perfect wave. Demand was so great that one of their children stepped in to also work at the business. Their son, Stanley would eventually take it over and convert this grocery store to a shave ice establishment with T-shirts, souvenirs and snacks. Good idea.

Ah, once again the line to obtain this Hawaiian treat is long and naturally the weather is hot. Go figure. As I finally make my way to the front, I capture a great view of the operation. Here we have two shave ice machines blowing out as much of the frozen stuff as possible. Add a few young kids working as hard as they can with Mr. Matsumoto in the back barking orders and you have a successful shave ice business. You can also see the flavor bottles behind in the background. These bottles are constantly grabbed and poured onto a fresh order. From what I hear, it's about 1,000 orders per day. Today's order will be the classic rainbow. Naturally, I will request the vanilla ice cream at the bottom. This is a must.

Here is what I have been waiting for, and I give you the rainbow closeup. It is incredibly good. All those flavors mixing around in the mouth creating a refreshing tropical treat that I can only describe as heavenly. Being hot out helps too.

I step outside to sit on the bench with all the other tourists and locals. Yes, let me eat some of yours too, son. Was that fair?

The best part is getting to that vanilla ice cream at the bottom. If you choose the root beer flavor to put on your shave ice, by the time you get to this part you have an additional root beer float! What a concept!

Anyway, if you come to Hawaii, make a mandatory stop at the Matsumoto General Store on the North Shore in Hale'iwa and eat some.

Next stop, Boston!

North Shore, Oahu

2011-04-18T05:00:00.000-07:00

Yes, another trip to some tropical paradise. You may think this is getting ridiculous, right? Two weeks earlier I was walking in the talc-like sand in Tulum, Mexico. Now I'm here. These are tales heard from the golden days of being a glorified airline pilot - weeks spent in some sun-drenched land lounging by the pool sipping Mai-Tais alongside scantily-clad women with dark tans. Well, apparently they are alive and well under certain circumstances. These circumstances are such that I have been given the time off to enjoy such perks of the profession, so why shouldn't I?

I can only imagine how this summer will be - working perhaps six days a week with one or two days off between with a quick (thank goodness) commute up to the Bay Area to kiss my wife and son, wash some clothes and head right back down to Los Angeles. So yes, I'm going to enjoy this time to the fullest.

This is the Turtle Bay Resort, nestled on the North Shore of Oahu in beautiful Hawaii. As a Californian, it is all too easy to hop on board a flight and be here in about five hours. Flying Hawaiian Airlines again for us has become our only choice when traveling to the islands. They always accommodate me and my family, even when we are traveling on a pass. I have always been greeted with warm smiles from the most caring employees, every single time.

The North Shore is famous for the large waves that usually crash along its beaches during the winter months. The area is alive with surf culture, and the tourists and inhabitants who live and visit here seem to encompass every aspect of it. It is laid back, fun and exciting, yet always warm in a Hawaiian way.

The weather here can be a little unpredictable, as the first few days of our visit were overcast, cool and rainy with about a 6-8 foot swell. The next few days were warmer, a little sunnier with absolutely no waves at all. In fact, the ocean was like glass. Below is a picture of the beach where the Pipeline contests are usually held.

A little further south is the town of Haleʻiwa (pornounced Hallay-ay-wah) that is located on Waialua Bay. We spent some time in this town, mainly to eat shave ice (more on that later) and walk in and out of surf shops. It is the largest commercial center on the North Shore of the Island and is a popular destination for tourists and residents alike, visiting surfing and diving sites along the north shore.

We took our two-year old son to the Polynesian Cultural Center, located just about fifteen minutes north of our hotel near the town of Kuhuku. I haven't been here since I was a kid, so it was only appropriate to take our son. In case you don't know, it is a Polynesian-themed theme park or living museum that was dedicated back in 1963. It occupies 42 acres and is owned by nearby Brigham Young University - Hawaii. Now within eight simulated tropical villages, performers demonstrate various arts and crafts from throughout Polynesia.

We also spent a few hours at Waimea Valley, an area of historic cultural significance located just north of Haleʻiwa. The valley, being an important place in Hawaiian religion, includes several historical structures including stone terraces and walls constructed during the time of the Hawaiian monarchy. Much of the garden floor was once cultivated for taro, sweet potato, and bananas, with new crops and orchards introduced by Europeans after their arrival.

The valley contains one of the finest collections of Polynesian plants in existence, as well as excellent collections of very rare Hawaiian plants, rare and endangered species native to Lord Howe Island, and individual gardens dedicated to plants from Guam, Madagascar, the Mascarene Islands, the Ogasawara Islands, and the Seychelles.

Other major collections include the hibiscus evolutionary garden, araceae, bauhinia, bromeliaceae, heliconia, liliaceae, as well as bamboo, begonia, ferns, tropical fruit, etc.
The garden valley is approximate 0.75 miles in length, with a small waterfall and swimming hole at the valley's high end.

Back to the beach. As always, the Hawaiian sunsets are absolutely incredible, and I think I captured it with this photo right here. This is the North Shore at its finest:

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, so away we go back to the mainland so I can finally go back to work and make a living as an airline pilot. As you can see below, some little guy did not want to leave. I love the old murals dotted around Honolulu International Airport.

Until next, time, Aloha!

The Lodge at Bodega Bay

2011-04-08T05:16:00.000-07:00

Training is over and I am awaiting OE, or initial operating experience on the Airbus. In the meantime, the family is spending some time together in Bodega Bay situated just north of San Francisco, and about 40 minutes from our house. Although it's not Tulum, the Dillon Beach/Bodega area is still a very beautiful place to relax. Plenty of beautiful beaches, great seafood and kite shops around.

Apparently, I brought back the warm Florida weather as most of Northern California is experiencing temperatures in the high seventies and low eighties. This is more of soothing pictorial, so enjoy!