You`re halfway through your flight. You`re convinced your whole body is moving down into your ankles; your metabolism has shut down to the point where, if you were a bear, you`d be hibernating, and if you`ve even got a pulse, you can`t find it.
At Atlanta, your connecting point, you grab the carry-on luggage, climb the ramp to the terminal, walk, escalate, dodge along a people-mover, ride an automated train, then run with both carry-on bags, because you are the man and a gentleman always carries the luggage.
You make it to the gate for the second part of your trip with about a minute to spare, run down the ramp and fall into your seat, wheezing.
”Shall we fasten our seat belts, please?” the young lady beams.
Your heart has been restarted and your circulation is up to speed, but you don`t answer because, at the moment, you don`t have anything to run through your vocal chords.
Your wife leans toward you. ”Exhilarating,” she whispers.
You want to say, ”Oh, yeah? Then next time you get the bags,” but you don`t. You just grind your teeth a little instead and force a rictus-like smile.
At this point the man across the aisle leans toward you: ”Pal, you got to admit it`s better than crossing the plains in a covered wagon, huh?” You nod but for a little while you`re not so sure. What was it that ever made you think air travel was fun?
”You know,” said Joyce, ”it really is a miracle.”
”What?”
”This morning,” she said, ”we were in California. Tonight we`ll be having dinner in Miami.” We have a son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren in Miami.
While waiting for takeoff, I got to mulling over just how much of a miracle flying really is and about how jaded I must have become to have fogotten that.
After a few minutes, the captain, a jovial type with just enough gray in his hair to look distinguished, appeared in the cabin and explained that a fuel line had to be checked. He apologized for the delay.
Then, almost as an afterthought, he invited any of us who were interested to visit the flight deck. ”And if you have any questions, we`ll sure try to answer them.”
”Well?” said Joyce. ”Go ahead.”
”Probably shouldn`t bother him.” I had never really done too well on visits to the bridge. On an Alaskan ferryboat once when we`d visited the bridge a young captain asked if we could get his picture in the paper. I said we probably could if we could photograph him looking through his binoculars backward. For some reason he took umbrage.
One thing led to another, resulting in the ship`s captain suggesting that the vessel could probably operate pretty well without me on the bridge. When I muttered something about him having no sense of humor he advised that ferries have brigs and asked if I`d like to see one. Boy, give some people a little authority!
My wife took a reporter`s notebook out of her flight bag and handed it to me. ”Go ahead,” she whispered, ”You`ve been invited and this captain looks like a nice guy.”
He was. He said his name was Paul Lennon, ”Like the musician.” Then he took me onto the flight deck and introduced me to his L-1011, a wide-body Lockheed most commercial pilots like. I shook hands with John Hill and Rob McAlister, the co-pilot and engineer.
It was a night flight, and the control panels were all brightly lighted. It looked kind of warm and homey. I`d seen something like it once before on an Air Canada flight. I told Capt. Lennon about it. The Canadian pilot had said, ”If you like it now, watch this.” He had then flicked a switch and every light on all the control panels had gone on.
It was like a Christmas tree. He had explained it was a way of testing all the instrument, signal and warning lights at the same time.
In the control area Capt. Lennon nodded toward the array of instruments.
”Look at those screens. Computers, radar, all `no-glare` and better resolution than the finest television monitors,” he said.
There was a buzz and Hill picked up a telephone, spoke for a moment and then advised the captain that the mechanics would be through in about 15 minutes.
The captain asked if there were any particular questions before he had to go to work. There were a lot. Here are a few I thought might be interesting, along with the answers.
Q-I`ve been hearing for years that if planes got any bigger you`d have to fly them from a desk. Are they that big now? Does a computer actually fly this aircraft?
A-No. Computers, instrumentation, everything you see here is space age, some so specialized and so intricate they boggle the mind. But they`re all just tools. Admittedly, good tools, but it`s the same thing as your instrument light test. You don`t trust the safety of your passengers to a $25 million computer any more than you would to a 25-cent light bulb. Human judgment and experience are the most important factors. Always will be.
Q-Probably quite a bit of it represented here?
A-The three of us? Maybe 80 or 90 years. I`ve been at it for 33. Seven years in the military, went to work for Delta, made captain in five years and I`ve been a captain for 20. Hill and McAlister, here, are a little shorter on years but they`re so smart it`s scary.
Q-Where do your crews come from?
A-The airlines rely pretty heavily on the military for the fundamentals but Delta puts them . . . I should say it puts U.S. right back in training for procedures and such. Training never stops. Constant refreshers, and then there are always equipment upgrades, changes.
Q-You must have seen a few.
A-I don`t go as far back as the Wright Brothers, but I remember when we had to have 200 feet of visibility. Now we can take off and land without any, if it comes down to it. But some things stay the same. We still go out and take a preflight walk-around, make a visual inspection.
Q-What do you look for?
A-Everything. Anything out of the ordinary. But most of what we looked for in the old days is inside the skin now. We still file detailed flight plans, even though Delta`s computers write better ones.
Q-What does the computer`s plan have that yours doesn`t?
A-All the variables. The computer plan is continuously upgraded until we get to our destination. Things change and we have to change with them. There`s other air traffic. Weather fronts move in and out, head winds change fuel consumption. Our course and speed are greatly influenced by the jet stream. When you`re flying something that`s half a million pounds, as big as an office building, filled with hundreds of people, to a destination half a world away you don`t leave anything to chance.
Q-Doesn`t the automatic pilot do some of the flying?
A-It does exactly what we tell it to do, but it can only do what it`s programmed to do. If you want a rule of thumb, above 18,000 feet it handles those functions that can be automated safely. Below 18,000, flying is still a personal, ”hands-on” experience.
Q-What would you say is the most dangerous aspect of commercial flying?
A-Per passenger mile, flying is the safest traveling in the world. Most dangerous part? Getting to the airport in today`s traffic, but that`s pretty much a cliche.
Q-When you take off in a plane like this, what is the speed?
A-This particular aircraft`s rotation speed is 155 knots. That`s about 178 miles an hour.
Q-What is rotation speed?
A-The speed at which the decision to take off is final, but I think most of us make it a few knots short of that. Then a few seconds later, we`re not driving fast anymore. We`re on our way seven miles up and half a world away. We`re flying.
Q-And the miracle begins?
A-You could say that, I quess. The fact that we all give it 110 percent of our talent and experience and spend billions of dollars to keep it happening, doesn`t keep it from being a miracle.
We shook hands, and Captain Paul Lennon took his seat, I took mine and the L-1011 started to roll.
