An Airline Pilot S Life

What readers are saying about
An Airline Pilot’s Life,

Winner of N. Texas Book Festival
“Best Adult Non-Fiction 2020”
Written with heart, wry wit, and honesty. Chris Manno has a strong eye for
dialogue and for detail, and both are put to use in this entertaining, info-
packed memoir of a pilot. –J. Beldon
Wow; just, wow. Great read. Refused to put it down. –NB
Right from the beginning of this book, I was hooked, reading the story of
what could have been a deadly end to a planned jump from an airplane. –
Maryann Miller
An honest peek inside a life well-lived, An Airline Pilot's Life is the best
memoir I've read in years. –Jennifer Silverwood
This book will take you on a journey that will entertain and educate you. –
Storey Book Reviews
******ebook converter DEMO Watermarks*******

An
Airline
Pilot’s
Life
CHRIS MANNO
DARK HORSE BOOKS

Dark Horse Books
P.O. Box 100881
Fort Worth, Texas 76185
USA
Copyright © 2020 Chris Manno All rights reserved. No part of this book may
be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical
means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission of the author, except where
permitted by law.
ISBN-13: 978-1717142580
ISBN-10: 1717142583
Printed in the United States of America

Also from Chris Manno
A Pilot’s Guide for Fearful Flyers
Flight Crew Confidential: A Cartoon Anthology

(second edition)

To L.W. “Chip” Hough, with thanks.
FOREWORD
This is a true story. It’s written in the way stories are told at 40,000 feet and
five hundred miles an hour in the cockpits and galleys and on the jumpseats
of the big jets by those who live the airline crew life.
We talk about “my brother” or “my son” without specific names that mean
nothing to those you’re crewed with, typically for the first and probably last
time ever. Flying names, nicknames or family references make more sense
than first names in the airline flying world, and on the flight attendant
jumpseat confessional, where personal truth is passed without reservation to
friends you just met, and pronouns serve just fine, suborned to the story
anyway.
Crew life is a patchwork of a thousand such stories, all the same, all different,
all at once. For those who live the life, this is just one story, my story, but
also our story. For those who don’t, here’s a glimpse of that life well-lived;
an airline pilot’s life. –CM

If one advances confidently in the direction of his
dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has
imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in
common hours.
Thoreau
Chapter 1
Nothing but a furious blue sky above, laced on top with a wispy cirrus
deck like a delicate veil. Below, the earth screamed up at nearly terminal
velocity and the jump plane was nowhere to be seen. Fine.
“Hop and pop,” it’s called: fling yourself out the open aircraft door two
thousand, maybe twenty-five hundred feet above the ground if the jump plane
pilot’s feeling generous, then plunge. I only paid for two thousand feet, but
I’d hoped for a bit more.
One fist on my helmet, drawn in as my ripcord hand goes for the handle,
so as not to flip myself over from the imbalance. Grab, pull, wait.
Nada.
The rumply-fluttery sound of the main chute dragged out by the smaller
drogue flapping upward in the slipstream, but no reassuring, nut-crunching
harness tug of full deployment. Okay, arch your neck, look up.
Shit.
The sleeve’s still on the main chute and it’s wagging like a big streamer
yards above my head. The sleeve covers, reefs, the main chute. Ain’t
opening. I shake the risers like a stagecoach driver urging on a team of
horses, trying to shake loose the sleeve, to let the main parachute blossom full
and wide but no.
My frantic attempt to clear the streamer has eaten up precious time, too
much time. I’d “cut away,” release my tangled main and go for my reserve
chute, but I’ve spent too many valuable seconds trying to clear the tangled
main. The reserve chute will need at least five hundred feet to blossom full
enough to arrest my plunge. I can see cows below, coming into distinct focus,
as the ground rises to meet me. That’s bad.
I’d had no money for flying lessons, paying my own way through college,
so that was way out of my budget. But skydiving was a fraction of the cost.
Bought a used chute, took a few lessons—just get me into the sky and I’ll
find my own way down.
Like right now. The voice of calm logic in my head annoys the panicked
side of my brain with the salient fact that well, with a streamer, you won’t
achieve terminal velocity because of the tangled chute’s drag, so you’ll only
hit the packed dirt at ninety, maybe ninety-five miles an hour.
The mortal side of me, the soft pink flesh and blood humanism that
doesn’t want to impact the dirt clod strewn pasture land at ninety miles an
hour begins to perceive the red lip of terror, but there’s more to be done. I
clutch my reserve chute tight with my left arm, then pull and toss away the
reserve ripcord.
Both the relentlessly rational side of me and the human side feeling the
growing alarm of near death unite in the methodical, careful last-ditch effort:
grab the reserve with both hands and throw it downward as hard as you can.
Hope and pray the reserve chute catches air and inflates on the way up rather
than tangling with the snagged main chute flapping away above.
I give it a heave downward with all I’ve got. I mash my eyes shut, not
wanting to see the results. I’ll know soon enough, whether the chutes tangled
together and assured my death within seconds, or if I’d beat the odds and
have the reserve chute blossom and displace tangled main. Or not.
The calm, unrelenting voice of reason, always there no matter what, had
the last words: you really didn’t have jump out of a perfectly good airplane.
Way to go, dumbass.

Thunder; booming, crashing. And the bottom of the dining room table—I
remember that. They say you can’t remember things from when you were just
three years old, but I do.
Musty smells and whitewashed walls and everything at eye level mostly
knee high to the adults, including a frumpy German housekeeper who didn’t
smile much.
And the roaring hell above: I dove for cover again and again at the
thunderous booms, which weren’t thunder from towering cumulus, at least
not always. Rather, there was a death-boom scary detonation of jets above
breaking the sound barrier over the base in Bitburg, Germany, where we
lived, where my dad was already flying jets in a reconnaissance squadron
when my mom arrived with my brother and me. I can visualize the bottom of
that dark wood table, where I’d take refuge from the monstrous thundering
jets screaming overhead.
And there was more.
Maybe I was told, or maybe there were memories of the grainy old home
movies my father took back in those days but I have gray, dim visions of
holidays and elaborate Christmases, of my dad wiping an elephant’s trunk at
the zoo with his handkerchief, of tricycles and Tonka toys.
There were large gatherings in our small apartment, laughing, loud,
cigarette-smoking adults, Father Grothjon, the base chaplain and his sweet-
smelling pipe; booming-voiced squadron aviators and their wives, battles of
the will with my mother I both won and lost, banished to my room for not
eating, but not eating just the same.
My sister was born there in the base hospital, and we became a family of
five. After she was born, we moved back across the Atlantic to
Massachusetts, to an Air Force Base, Otis, near Cape Cod, and a small,
brown-shingled house on Kathy Ann Lane.
My father’s squadron flew the mammoth—in my preschooler sense of
scale—Lockheed Constellations. They had sleek, graceful lines in the classic,
three-tailed civilian version, but the Air Force modified the airframe with a
large dorsal radar antenna plus a bulbous radar antenna housing on the keel
beam between the main landing gear.
Nonetheless, they were huge-mongous, wonderous air machines with four
smoke belching, roaring engines and broad, three-bladed propellers.
Watching them start the engines one at a time, the whine and gradual spin-up
of the fat bladed props until the tips were simply a blurred crimson circle—
that mesmerized me with both wonder and fear. What power they had! Who
were those shadowy men I could barely see through the heavy glass cockpit
windows, the men at the controls and how did they earn the right to claim
such magic, to taxi that big bird like they knew what they were doing, and
take off and fly away into the sky? It was at about that time, according to my
mother, that I declared my intention to gain entry into that exclusive domain
of pilots and planes.
A younger brother joined the fam and my mother was overwhelmed
chasing after four kids under the age of five. She told me recently that as my
dad drove her home from the hospital with my newborn brother, with both
me and my older brother snot-faced with colds in the back seat, she asked
herself, my god, what did I do?
My older brother and I did our best to run wild, both literally and
figuratively: he could run all the way across our fenced-in back yard—maybe
a hundred feet—without stopping, an amazing feat to four-year-old me.
And we caused all manner of cruelty and mayhem in that back yard,
urging my barely three-year-old sister to “pet the pretty bees.” My mother
couldn’t understand why she kept coming inside crying, bee-stung yet again.
Once she could articulate the cause and effect, my brother and I caught hell,
perhaps rightfully so.
We wanted out of that back yard, but the four-foot-high fence was like a
prison stockade to us. We started digging with our beach shovels and pails,
struggling to get under one corner post. The plan was, we’d enjoy some fun
hours of digging with the secret goal of eventually squeezing under the
infernal fence and out into freedom.
We worked one entire summer like little POWs and were nearly
through to the other side when disaster struck. The warden—my dad—
noticed the digging and assumed we wanted a sandbox. We came outside one
day to resume escape work and my father and grandfather proudly unveiled
the sandbox they’d built in our corner, filled with sand. It was hopeless.
The only escape came in the Cape Cod winters when blizzards drifted the
snow above the fence. Then we could actually climb over and run free, at
least until the cold drove us back inside. In warmer weather, we’d sometimes
get to play in the front yard—anything to get us out of the house—and we
stole the basket of apples on our next-door neighbor’s porch then sold them
door-to-door to other neighbors up and down Kathy Ann Lane.
My mother had pled her case to the owners of “Mrs. Marshall’s
Kindergarten,” my older brother’s preschool and that convinced them to
include me as a preschooler even though I was barely over three years old.
They felt sorry for her, having four young kids at home.
The marketing ploy that got me to go along with it was the “bird:” my
brother said and my mother reinforced, that there were “blue birds” and “red
birds” and whatever, assigned to each age group. I thought I’d get one—an
actual bird, not be one—but by the time I was on-site, enrolled, it was too
late. I was in the blue bird class, and pissed off about the bait-and-switch, but
it was fait accompli. At least mom got the at-home headcount down by one.
The preschool itself was a blur of old women in swishy dresses, some of
them smoking, and yard time out back in crunchy leaves and the smell of a
lush New England fall. That part was a pleasant experience.
We were all about prison rebellion, be it the exile to the basement to
wreak havoc with a blaring record player in among the stored junk when it
was too cold to go outside, or in the front yard trying to sneak back into the
house.
My youngest brother was a budding terrorist even at barely two, trying
to guilt my mother into letting him inside by banging his head on the cement
steps. I can still hear the dull, melon-like thudding which my older brother
and I found hilarious, but mom was a tough cookie, she never caved in.
My mom abruptly broke up our little crime syndicate as Fall came
around. My older brother’s birthday was near the end of October, so he
couldn’t enroll in Kindergarten in Massachusetts at age four. But in Buffalo,
New York, my parents’ hometown, his October birthday was acceptable for
enrollment and she desperately wanted to lower her at-home, underfoot child
count.
So, they shipped him off to Buffalo where he lived with my
grandparents and enrolled in kindergarten. Once he’d done six weeks of
school there, the Massachusetts schools would accept him as a transfer. Then
we were back in business.
So that spring my brother finished first grade and I graduated from
preschool as a four-year-old. I still have the framed photo of me, diploma in
hand, cap, gown and mortar board, crossing a miniature yet symbolic bridge.
I recall immediately after my crossing going under the bridge to growl—I
was a shark—at the others as they crossed.
And I will never forget being incensed at the oppressive reality afterward
that there was yet more schooling ahead—I’d thought I was done, graduated,
fini. It never occurred to me that my brother was still in the classroom grind,
a couple years ahead of me.
That Fall, my father parlayed an assignment to Niagara Falls Air Force
Base near Buffalo, New York, only minutes from my favorite grandparents’
house. They were the two kindest, most devoted adults in my life and moving
nearby was the best thing in the world for my sibs and me. Too bad it was too
short, as the best things in life tend to be.

Chapter 2
The rush of the wind as I accelerated downward, plummeting, tore at my
skydiving coveralls. I had my head down, chin tucked in—as if that would
help as I slammed into the rocky pastureland below—and squeezed my eyes
shut.
A rustling sound like a flag fluttering in the wind rang in my ears for a
half second, then a tremendous yanking force grabbed me by the middle of
my front parachute harness with such force it felt like the heels of my boots
could have hit the back of my helmet.
I opened my eyes and looked up to see a fully blossomed emergency
reserve overhead. I’d live.
Below me hung the tangled main chute, flapping lazily like the tail on an
old cow, swinging back and forth as she walked to the barn.
Stark raving terror caught up with me as I realized how close I’d come to
death. The reserve canopy swung me like a pendulum as air spilled out from
first one side, then the other of the simple, last-resort canopy. I yanked as
hard as I could on one set of risers to see if I could stop the swinging, but that
only made the oscillations worse. Fear gripped me so hard I couldn’t breathe
as the earth rushed upward and I swung downward, adding to the momentum.
I just knew I was going to crash into the dirt.
I clobbered the ground hard, still on a downswing from the risers and the
un-steerable canopy. But I was alive.
The canopy fluttered limp to the ground, because lucky for me, the wind
had died. I was in no condition to jump up and deflate the parachute after the
stunning blow from the hard-packed dirt. I just laid there for a long moment,
deliberately savoring not moving, not plummeting, not freefalling and
watching death reach up to me.
On my back, I spread my arms and said a prayer of gratitude for the firm
feel of land, motionless earth below my back, and me still alive.
That was the moment that hot-forged a realization that I’ve owned ever
since: I’d lived terror, I’d felt panic, I’d stared at death and the overwhelming
reality hit me—I’d rather be dead than scared, from that moment forward.
And I’ve never been afraid since in many, many dangerous, difficult
dilemmas in the sky.
In the distance I heard the whine of a jeep motor, growing closer. I sat up
and peered over some tall weeds at the grille of the drop zone Jeep barreling
right at me. I rolled away from the front tires and the Jeep skidded to a stop.
John, the shaggy-headed, bearded jumpmaster and owner of the jump plane,
hopped out of the driver’s seat.
“We thought you’d been hurt,” he said.
I could understand that, because I hadn’t stood up and waved my arms as
they approached. I was still savoring not moving, not dying, not ever
panicking again.
“Get me back up there,” I said mostly to myself. The only way to
vanquish the fear, to seal the promise I’d made to myself that fear would
never get the better of me, ever, ever again was to grab another packed chute,
strap it on my back, and climb back into that goddam jump plane. I’d
consecrate my courage and defy fear, if not death itself, and own life without
fear in the sky ever again.
John said nothing, just nodded, his eyes a little distant, perhaps glad his
skydiving business hadn’t logged a fatality that day. He knew.
I splurged on a rental chute, plus another reserve, rather than trouble-
shoot and repack my own rig. John bumped me up to the next lift before my
courage flagged and I returned to the sky, resolute.
In Niagara Falls I was four years old, going on five, and already on my
third address, which was about average for a military brat. That was a
wonderful couple of years near my grandparents, despite the monstrous

winters. My father was assigned to a missile squadron stationed on the base
just south of the Canadian border. Their mission was to intercept any Soviet
bombers that might attack by flying over the north pole in the darkest days of
the Cold War.
We lived in base housing, another good community of like-minded,
itinerant families and other savvy brats. In typical military thinking, at
Christmas time, Santa rode through the housing area atop a Bomarc missile, a
twin jet-engine, frightening-looking missile on its launcher towed behind an
Air Force truck. Never mind the warhead, Santa tossed candy to all the kids.
We loved it.
The base had a spectacular Armed Forces Day open house every May,
with classic Century-series fighters like the base’s F-101 Voodoo fighter jets
and F-106 Delta Darts from other bases. There was a monstrous, droopy-
winged B-52 menacing the flightline like a brooding buzzard. I clambered
breathless through cargo monsters like the twin-tailed C-119 flying box car
and the giant, double-deck KC-97 Stratotanker and “Old Shaky,” the C-124
Globemaster.
You could see the grease streaked by high speed flight on the underwings,
the massive flight controls and colossal landing gear. The cockpits smelled of
electronics and fuel and some exotic combination of oil and hydraulic fluid
and god knew what else. There were controls and complex dials and straps,
lanyards and things that spoke of the mysterious, arcane, exotic machinery of
real aircraft. They screamed flight, a mysterious, magic, unique world in the
sky that I just had to make my own.
Living only minutes away from my grandparents was a windfall for us
kids, because my father’s parents were the most devoted, kind grandparents
any kid could ask for. My grandmother’s brother, “Uncle Charlie,” lived with
them too and he was the nicest grandpa-like man you could ever meet. He
and my great-grandfather not only tolerated four kids taking over the house
on Oakwood fairly often, they seemed to enjoy having us visit.
Those were brutal winters in Buffalo too, but we didn’t know any better
as kids, especially having just moved from the Massachusetts coastal winters.
There were snow forts and igloos and sledding in the housing area and in
parks near my grandparents’ house in North Tonawanda.
Summers were short but beautiful in upstate New York. Our uncle
Butch would take us to the always frigid opening of the Memorial Pool down
the street from my grandparents’ home.
In our little base housing neighborhood, there was Karen Corey
across the street, a schoolmate whose dad used chrome polish to shine the
handlebars on my bike, and Debbie Green, my first girlfriend, a black girl
whose dad was a fighter pilot, and “Kelly, Smelly, With The Big Fat Belly”
as we would chant at the obese sixth grader who’d threaten to kill us but was
too slow to catch anyone.
From our bedroom window my brother and I could see some train tracks
and sometimes as a string of locomotives and a trail of box cars rumbled by,
he’d make up stories for me about what was in them and where they were
going. A real treat was in the dark after bedtime prayers and lights out (“now
go to sleep” was mom’s parting orders), listening to him count to one
hundred, a second-grader parlor trick that kindergartener me couldn’t get
enough of. He’d make it really exciting, building suspense, as he got into the
eighties. The nineties were the lofty, rarified air of numbers, then the
triumphant one hundred. Then I’d beg him to start over again.
My school days were mostly happy in Mrs. Flanagan’s kindergarten class,
and Mr. Vandeventer the principal, an imposing, super-human figure to us
kids, and Mr. Schaeffer the kindly old custodian who had an incredible cart-
mounted vacuum device to clean chalk from the teachers’ erasers—
sometimes he’d let you help. It was just a great time and place to be an
elementary school kid.
In first grade my brother and I joined little league. That was one
opportunity you could count on if you were a kid living on an Air Force base:
there’d be a well-organized little league baseball program with multiple
teams and many dads serving as volunteer coaches. It was an exciting day to
get your team t-shirt in time for the first practice. My father never
volunteered to help with any youth sports, but he did come home one day
with two baseball gloves, one for my brother, one for me.
Trouble was, I have always been lefthanded, but he bought two right-
handed gloves. “Well, you can make do,” he said, apparently having had no
idea I was lefthanded. “Just catch the ball, then take off the glove and throw
it.” That didn’t work out too well, but it became a moot point, though,
because I pretty well sucked at baseball anyway and used the glove mostly to
sit on in the outfield, eating Pixie Sticks from the snack bar and watching the
ants marching across the dirt until called in when the inning was over. No
first grader could hit the ball past second base anyway.
My first-grade teacher discovered I was lefthanded and set about to
change that, ordering me to only hold a pencil with my right hand, period.
The unpredictability of Air Force brat life saved me: my father got transferred
to Hancock Field Air Force Base in Syracuse, New York and we moved.
In Syracuse my parents contracted with Sam Manese, a local builder, to
build us a three-bedroom split level tract home at 207 Jewel Drive in a new
development in Liverpool near Buckley Road Elementary School. It was
February, so everything was frozen and digging the basement and framing
the house was slow going. While we waited for the construction crew to
finish, we lived in a house trailer owned by the builder in a trailer court
named Rattlesnake Gulch.
We started school at Buckley Road Elementary and I, like every first
grader in my class, had a massive crush on our young, beautiful teacher. She
got married that spring—my whole family attended the wedding—and
became Mrs. Helen Goodreds. Like all the boys in the class, I stood by, ready
to step in if the marriage didn’t work out.
The school itself was a haven from the chaos of home and four needy kids
making my mother crazy. There was another larger-than-life principal, of
course. I still remember him, Mr. Perry, making me walk all the way back to
our classroom from the doors of the cafeteria, because I’d run in the hallway.
“Haste makes waste,” he’d warned me sternly.
There was Miss Maas’s wide-open world of art in a separate class and I
spent as much time as I could, even summer school, drawing and painting
there. There was a combined music class after school—another asset for my
mother to lower her kid head count—and my brother and I spent several
afternoons “participating.”
Moving into the house on Jewell Drive was not only a step up from the
trailer park, but a brand-new, spacious house larger than any we’d had in the
past. An older couple, the Farmers, lived across the street, and two doors
down was Major Rycroft who had two terrifying dogs always on the loose—
Jacque (who we called “Shack” because we weren’t conversant in French)
and Debbie. They were frisky, friendly Irish setters and though I’m sure now
they were harmless, I was certain then that these dogs who outweighed me
wanted to eat my face. Walking to school required an advance lookout to
determine whether we’d be safe cutting through the back yards or if we
needed to stick to the street. The Rycroft’s yard was a mine field of dog shit
but keeping an eye out for the two renegade killers meant a lot of smelly
missteps.
My classmate and best friend Bobby Worden’s mom was the den mother
for my Cub Scout Den 7 where we made fun crafts and ate cookies, the
essence of grade school scouting. Bobby was a legend, opening his lunch and
sniffing his sandwich, then deeming it spoiled and throwing it in the trash.
His lunch became the cream-filled chocolate Hostess cupcake Mrs. Worden
usually packed, plus a bag of potato chips if he could eat them before I
smashed the whole bag flat with my hand. He also ate a 22-caliber bullet
once, which added to his legend, and part of the epic story was that his
parents had to check his poop daily until the munition was confirmed to have
passed through him.
My older brother and I had free run of the neighborhood on our bikes,
with one restriction: the construction area where more houses were being
built on the far end of Jewel Drive was the Forbidden Zone. So, of course
that’s where we spent the majority of our time. The newly framed houses
were just too enticing, with rafters to be climbed through, empty soda bottles
to smash against concrete walls, and huge trenches to play army in.
There were hulking bulldozers, dump trucks and heavy equipment left
unattended after hours and on weekends. We actually managed to start up a
gigantic yellow road grader once, then neither of us could figure out how to
shut it off. We eventually killed the motor by throwing large rocks into the
massive radiator fan until the engine seized up. Problem solved.
There were some Sundays when we all wore our church clothes and dad
dragged us into downtown Syracuse to the cathedral there, to sit and squirm
through a tedious, unending (to me) Catholic high mass, with garbled liturgy
and the somnolent, mumbled drone of a homily: a letter from the archbishop,
a gnarled old priest would sigh, and I’d tune out. Afterward, we’d stop by
Columbus Bakery for intoxicatingly fresh and fragrant old school Italian
bread, often still hot from the oven. We’d tear off hunks and eat them in the
car.
My dad brought my brother and me out to the base once to get an up-
close look at some fighter aircraft in a cavernous hangar. The jets seemed
massive indoors and sleek, fast, strong, and mysterious. The ejection seats
were awe-inspiring: men sat there, pilots, strapped in and rode these
powerful, wild and weapon-laden, rocket-like birds through the sound barrier
and into the deepest blue of the sky. I had to touch the smooth skin, feel the
jet, and with all my heart, I needed to fly one myself. I never understood why
that passion for flight never grabbed ahold of either of my brothers. Sure,
they thought the jets and flying was neat, but neither showed any real interest
in flying, much less a sworn oath to do so.
And I was an unlikely candidate anyway: scrawny kid, not very adept at
sports and prone to motion sickness in the car. I’m not sure why—maybe it
was just the motion in the back seat of a car, the poor ventilation—but any
road trip meant that I and at least one of my siblings would fill a bag or two
from my mom’s bottomless box of Glad food storage bags in the glove
compartment. I wasn’t sure how I’d get around the issue of motion sickness,
because clearly, I’d need to in order to be one of the men of steel, the Air
Force pilots who flew those magnificent jets. I’d have to worry about that
later.
My brother and I began building Revell airplane models, gluing them
carefully together and painstakingly applying decals. My first aircraft model
was a Navy Corsair jet and I admired the smooth lines, the powerful jet
exhaust nozzle and the rounded plexiglass canopy over the cockpit where I’d
picture myself sitting someday.
The Syracuse years were tough on my parents, and tougher still on us kids
as a result. There was a lot of stress about a possible assignment for my dad
that would send him to Vietnam for a year, plus speculation about another
move even though we’d just gotten settled in a new home. The worst fate
ever befell us all when my father was ordered to Sondrestrom, Greenland, for
an entire year. That was a “remote tour,” meaning he left and we all stayed
behind in Syracuse.
Those orders felt like a death in the family to me at eight years old: dad
was gone. But orders were orders and there was just nothing to be done but
endure the consequences. It was a lot to ask for a single parent to manage
four young kids, and my mother had her hands full, understandably, left alone
with four children from age nine to five. It was a tough time for a military
family, but also just part of military life. My parents did the best they could
and I’m not sure I could have done any better in their shoes.
That glum year did a lot to cement the four of us kids as a sibling unit.
My older brother was a good leader, generous, and he cared about everyone
even though he had his own worries. My sister was, as always, a model
student and the most well-behaved kid anyone could ever be. My younger
brother was irrepressible and a lot of fun.
We four stuck together, whether it was in a new, strange school, or
lining up oldest to youngest for whacks with the belt or the ruler from one
parent or the other. We’d tease my little brother, then in Kindergarten, about
crying before it was his turn to get hit; a clever psychological ploy that may
have reduced his total whacks with the belt or the ruler.
At school, I had a rough year in Miss Fischer’s third grade, but all of my
siblings had it as bad or worse in their own classes. In the fall, Miss Silver’s
fourth grade was a relief after the bedlam of Miss Fischer and at least we
could see the light at the end of the tunnel of darkness that the remote tour
was for us all.
The drive from Syracuse to Buffalo to pile in on the haven that was the
home of my grandparents on my father’s side was about two hours on the
New York State Thruway, and we did that drive on many weekends.
My brother and I would share the breezeway sofa bed and watch the
moon rise in one window and set on the other side of the house in the wee
hours of the morning. After dawn, there were “the good cartoons” on TV
which we turned down low, and Popeye, and The Three Stooges before
anyone else in the house woke up.
And the jackpot was to witness with the sunrise where Uncle Charlie
had parked his battleship of a sedan after a night of beer-drinking with his
friends. Sometimes the earliest light would show his monstrously large white
Chrysler sitting diagonally across the front lawn and we could hardly wait for
the explosion when grandma got up to start the coffee percolator and noticed
the big sedan on the grass.
There’d be huge Sunday dinners with the family gathered around a
smallish porcelain table in the kitchen: parents, grandparents, uncles, other
family. My brother and I were often overflow, sitting in the dining room,
dropping mashed potatoes into each other’s milk glasses, strangling our
laughter so as not to attract adult scrutiny and swift corporal punishment.
On Sunday evening, we’d load everything back into our four-door, olive-
green Mercury and head east on the Thruway back to Syracuse.
Dad came home once for a weekend in the middle of that year and my
youngest sibling, a sister, was born nine months later. As soon as he finally
got home from the year-long remote assignment, he left for a new duty
station at McChord Air Force Base in Tacoma, Washington. After
Thanksgiving, my mother pulled us all out of school once again and with the
four of us “rotten kids” in tow, herself several months pregnant with child
number five, she flew with us all across the country from Buffalo to Seattle.
My grandparents dropped us off at the Buffalo airport for the first leg of
our trip, a quick hop to Chicago on a four-engine United Airlines DC-6. I
couldn’t wait—I was the first of us to rush across the tarmac and climb the
stairs to the yawning-wide aircraft door. Those red-tipped propellers! Huge,
wide, potent, waiting—we were going to fly!
We buckled in, my brother next to me, my mother, sister, and younger
brother in the row behind us. The interior seemed small, crowded, but
intimately comfortable. I could hardly contain myself when the inboard prop
out my window began to turn. This was a dream come true.
Takeoff was gentle, graceful and the earth just fell away. My brother and
I marveled as the landscape shrank into a miniature diorama of cars and
buildings and toy-like structures. This was it, to me: flight—the best thing in
the world.
I set about my first order of business as soon as the seatbelt sign went off.
My mother had given each of us kids a small travel bag. Whatever you can
carry goes in here, and you’re responsible for it, she’d warned. Among my
important stuff were a few metal planes and other toys I gathered up and
headed for the aircraft lav. Once inside with the door latched shut, I turned to
the toilet and lifted the lid. I held my first projectile, then flushed.
Nada.
My brother and I had assumed that an airliner lav would just open up and
flush into the air. I had plenty of stuff I wanted to drop and throw out of that
plane. That was my only disappointment on that glorious flight. Up until just
a few years ago, I still had the silver “United Future Pilot” wings the
stewardess gave me.
I was fascinated just looking out the window at the undercast drifting by
below, at the patchwork tapestry of farmland and buildings, spidery highways
and rail lines. And the engines, the whirling props invisible except the red
tips inscribing an “O” around their spinners. This was heady stuff, my dream
come true. I never wanted it to end. Of course it did, but that was only part
one.
We straggled through a very crowded O’Hare Airport to our next flight.
My mother did a good job shepherding the lot of us with no one losing
anything or her not losing anybody. We arrived at the gate well before our
next flight and the boarding area was mostly empty, save one tired-looking
airline pilot slouching in a seat, idly reading a paper. He may have been
deadheading, or maybe even a crewmember on that flight. Whatever he was,
I guess he caught my look and knew what I was thinking.
“You want to look in the cockpit?”
Could the day get any better?
“Kiddies are my specialty,” he said, and led all four of us aboard and
into the cockpit.
I could hardly believe I was actually sitting in the captain’s seat. The
four-engine Boeing jet cockpit was serious business—gunmetal gray paint, a
metal floor, and a large control wheel, a half moon, right in front of me.
There were rows of dials and gages, switches, levers and controls. I wanted to
memorize the image, burn it into my mind for daydreams and playing pilot
later. This was to be my world; it just had to be.
In flight, once again my brother and I sat in a row of three seats, this time
on the righthand side of the aircraft just in front of the wing. My mother and
two younger sibs were on the left-hand side a row back. I could have stared
out that window at that long, thick, sleekly swept wing and those two big jet
engines slung below for the entire flight, never mind the stunning tapestry
scrolling by below. The engines actually swayed a little under the wing on
their pylons and the wing flexed in any bit of choppiness. She was a living,
breathing, graceful bird, that jet, and I never wanted the flight to end.
My brother and I had never had shrimp before, but my mother assured us
it was good, so we both opted for that when the flight attendants served the
inflight meal. We reported back to my mother and the stewardesses that the
shrimp really were great, although a little gristly at the fin end. My mother
then explained that no, you don’t eat the whole shrimp; you leave the tails.
All too soon the flight ended. Dad picked us up at SeaTac Airport in a
used Buick station wagon he’d bought after he’d flown in the month before.
We were beat and besides the long, exciting day, the three-hour time zone
change—my first experience with jetlag—hit me like a ton of bricks. Dad had
our base housing quarters at 3312 Willow Street set up with temporary
furniture while our household goods lumbered at highway speed across the
miles we’d just soared over like Superman. We slept like the dead that night.

Chapter 3
We piled into Harry’s four door Lincoln for the ninety-mile drive north
from the Sport Parachute Center at the New River Valley Airport near
Radford, Virginia, back to the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, our
college, for another grueling week.
The gently winding drive up the Shenandoah valley on Highway-81 was
mostly quiet because everyone was tired. We’d slept on the floor of the
parachute loft Saturday night after a day of skydiving, followed by a night of
beer drinking, of driving cars up and down the runway at a hundred miles an
hour and for a few of us, a climb up the spindly tower to ride around on the
whirling airport beacon.
I was both exhausted and contemplative, reflecting on my near-death
plunge and then the subsequent, normal jumps afterward. There was no way
any corner of the sky was going to scare me off, but I had to face reality:
skydiving was not really a substitute for flying, and it was risky. So, I’d
simply have to get selected for Air Force pilot training, so that the Air Force
would start paying for basic flight lessons even as I worked on my undergrad
degree at VMI. The sooner the better, in my mind, if a simple mistake—mine
—tying a break cord in an extra knot could cause a furious wind-whipped
death plunge.
But those were long, lopsided odds: ninety-five others in my ROTC class
were considered pilot-qualified, many of them Air Force scholarship holders,
most of them engineering majors—all more valuable to the Air Force than
me. Only a handful of cadets would be selected for the coveted pilot slots.
It’s a sad reality among VMI cadets upon crossing the Rockbridge County
line inbound to VMI to sigh in despair at the prospect of another brutal week
of Monday through Saturday classes, varsity athletics, and unrelenting
military duty. I felt that like everyone else in that car, tired from the weekend
and in my case, wrung out from my ill-fated sky dive and despairing over
ever getting back into the air, especially at the controls of an airplane.
I had no idea that upon my arrival back at the huge stone barracks, I’d be
grounded completely, both figuratively and literally.
Tacoma was beautiful, not only because of the lush evergreens that made
the air sweetly fragrant, but also, Mt. Rainier standing tall, snow-capped and
majestic when she poked her head through the clouds to the east. After the
brutal winters in Massachusetts and upstate New York, I thought I’d moved
to the banana belt: forty degrees in the winter? I needed my shorts.
My father’s intent in pursuing then accepting the assignment to McChord
had been to advance his career, which was clearly hobbled by his navigator
status. “It’s a pilot’s Air Force,” he’d always said, meaning the choicest
career advances and promotions went mostly to pilots, and he wasn’t one.
He’d been in Air Force pilot training early in his career, but as is always the
risk in the military, that opportunity had suddenly vanished: when the Air
Force budget dictated a cut in the number of pilot trainees, a line was drawn
according to some never-divulged standard. If you were below the line, you
were out. He was offered navigator training and took the opportunity to fly in
that backup role. But his frustrating, never really fruitful struggle for
promotion and command experience never abated and was a sore spot in our
home my entire childhood. In my mind, it was unfair: he was a good officer,
and that should have been sufficient for promotion.
The first order of business for us at this new base my dad had moved
us to was getting enrolled in school and not only were we living on-base in
officer housing, the school, Woodbrook Elementary, was located on the base.
That’s where my brother and I landed, with me being the new kid in Mrs.
Inez Pearson’s fourth grade. The class was all military brats so not only was I
right at home, the other kids knew exactly what I was going through as the

new kid. It was a smooth transition for me.
My younger siblings were at another on-base school for the lower grades
and my younger brother not only joined the wild boys’ fraternity my older
brother and I’d steadily cultivated, he even broke new ground: he was
suspended from first grade for clubbing a classmate over the head with a
large rock.
Gradually, for my older brother and I, a sort of underground
leadership replaced my parents’ influence. It seemed to me that they were
constantly struggling with their own lives so they’d be the last people I’d ask
for advice. So, we just discussed things among ourselves and did whatever
we decided was best. That was probably not very wise in terms of the
decisions made by a couple of elementary school kids, but to me that was
preferable to both of my parents, who were seemingly swamped in their own
roles as parents and adults.
The results weren’t always beneficial. We both soon crossed swords
with our Principal, Mr. Sloan, a short, portly man with a salt and pepper gray
widow’s peak who’d patrol the school grounds, paddle in hand, looking for
troublemakers. My brother got the principal’s two-part, velvet hammer
intervention first: Mr. Sloan would buy a kid an ice cream sandwich and
pleasantly explain the error of the child’s way. The tacit reality was, ice
cream for the first offense, but second correction was driven home by Mr.
Sloan’s huge, thick (it had air holes drilled in it so his swing wasn’t slowed
by aerodynamic resistance) wooden paddle.
My brother got the ice cream one week, the paddle the next. I skipped
over the ice cream stage and went directly to the paddle along with a crew of
boys I’d organized to throw baseball gloves at Debbie Durban, a pretty girl in
my class I’d needed to impress. We all took several licks for that. Still, it was
good to find out early exactly where the limits were so you could operate just
within the boundaries.
On McChord Air Force Base we once again had free run of the housing
area and much of the base on our bikes. I’d ride mine to school and to little
league baseball afterward. I tried both pitching and catching and I actually
loved playing catcher. I pretty much sucked at both, but since the chance of
either of my parents ever seeing one of my games was nil, there was no
shame there.
Fresh off the jet flight from Chicago, I looked at the blue sky above
differently. Seeing a chalky white contrail etching a straight line across the
sky with a silvery pinpoint at the moving end suddenly meant a lot more. I’d
sat in such a cockpit, seen the controls, the huge wings and powerful engines
slung under them up close, out the window. Now more than ever I looked up
with longing to fly, to be up there, to own that flight.
On weekends, sometimes my dad would drive us out to a lookout point
near the McChord AFB runways. Sunday afternoons were the best as a
parade of different aircraft that had flown in cross-country for the weekend
departed for their home bases. There’d be fighters, bombers and transports
taxiing slowly, grandly by. You could get a fighter pilot to wave back if he
noticed, cruising by, canopy up, one gloved hand on the canopy rail, a cool
helmet, visor and oxygen mask just screaming superman.
Their takeoffs, in those classic, Century-series fighters like the F-106,
F-101 and the F-105 were spectacular. Those jets had what was called a
“hard light” afterburner, where spray nozzles added jet fuel to the already
red-hot exhaust and instantly, the tailpipe exploded into a thirty-foot tongue
of fire with a chest-thumping boom and propelled those super-human pilot
guys down the runway and into the air like a rocket. I needed so badly to be
one of those guys.
We left Tacoma a year and a half later and in typical Air Force fashion,
the move couldn’t be, say, to the same coast or even the center of the country.
Instead, my father’s new duty station was all the way across the country in
Petersburg, Virginia. That meant a zig-zagging road trip with seven of us
crammed into a Chevy Caprice wagon, motoring west to east for days. At
night, we’d squeeze all seven of us into one hotel room, then back into the car
the next morning, crammed together, for over a week. That convinced me
that I needed to avoid such seemingly endless car safaris in that particular
hostage group, smashed into a station wagon—and I did manage to negotiate
my way out of the next two family cross-country drives.
In Virginia my father was assigned to an Air Force detachment on
Fort Lee, an Army base. He’d be the head of the personnel department, which
might help him gain a promotion. For me, an Army base meant no flight
operations; no runway, no aircraft to follow, no squadron that my father
might take me to in order to eyeball the aircraft or meet some of his pilot
colleagues. That, to me, was a sad prospect.
We lived in Colonial Heights in a brand-new home at 310 Norwood Drive
and I started junior high school. What Fort Lee lacked in aircraft and flight
operations for me to pore over was almost offset by the friends I made in
school who I still value and keep in regular touch with today.
The lack of aircraft to see and marvel over in person led me to read
voraciously about the earliest pilots, the World War I flying aces, as well as
the pioneers like Lindbergh and in World War II, men like Jimmy Doolittle
and Pappy Boyington. I felt like in a very real way, I was learning the
heritage of my chosen vocation, even if there weren’t any jets to see on Fort
Lee or on Armed Forces Day, nothing larger than a transport helicopter to
look at and climb on.
Just up the street lived my classmate and partner in crime, Joe K. He and I
experimented with homemade explosives, combining gunpowder and
gasoline in empty beer bottles then detonating the devices with fireworks in a
road construction site behind his house. We pilfered tampons from his older
sister’s purse to make fuses because they’d wick the gasoline nicely from the
bottles, but we never got a satisfactory explosion, even after mixing in paint
thinner and whatever other flammable solvents we could scavenge from Joe’s
garage. We usually ended up disappointed, ultimately throwing them then
watching the fireball when they shattered.
My brother and I fine-tuned our academic hooliganism at Colonial
Heights Junior High School, but below the radar. We’d learned from Mr.
Sloan and never directly challenged Mr. Pugh, the principal, but we played
pretty close to the edge.
We were both members of the Boy Scout troop at the Woodlawn Baptist
Church near our neighborhood, where we pretty much ruined scouting for
most of the troop and certainly, for Mr. Hopson, the scoutmaster, and
Sergeant Kendricks, an NCO from Fort Lee who was the assistant
scoutmaster.
Just from our defiance of authority, relentless smarting off and general
disrespect, Sgt. Kendricks wanted to beat the snot out of us. But that
wouldn’t comply with the BSA adult leadership standards. So, he’d flush red,
sputter and growl and always end a reprimand with “May-no—I guess he
couldn’t figure out ‘Manno’—this is on your record!” Eventually, my older
brother was invited to leave the troop, so what could I do? I wouldn’t dream
of staying without my staunchest ally. And I really hated camping anyway.
That was the end of our scouting.
Meanwhile, in the elementary school, my younger brother did an encore
from his Tacoma repertoire, earning a suspension from third grade. The
principal showed up at our doorstep with him in tow; citing something about
tormenting his teacher, and climbing out of the classroom windows and
running wild.
He could be a crafty little terrorist at home, too. I shot him with a BB gun
once and he demanded that I let him shoot me or he’d tell my mother who’d
inflict even worse physical pain. I had to let him shoot me, then act like it
didn’t hurt like hell just to piss him off. In a way this example underscores
my mother’s “rotten kids” characterization, but at the same time, there’s a
fundamental contradiction: she had no idea what we were actually doing. So,
her viewpoint was unfounded.
By then my youngest sister was a toddler and all of us older siblings
thought she was the best thing ever. She was sweet, funny, and I can almost
recall a worry that she never experiences the physical harshness we all did as
older kids. I couldn’t bear the thought of her joining the line-up for the belt or
worse.
My older brother continued to look out for everybody and always
included me in activities with his friends who were all older than me. I
wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d have excluded me, but he never did.
My sister was her typical model student-self, with excellent grades and
perfect deportment. I think around that time, despite the fact that she was a
wonderful child, she began to see the bow wave of wariness from teachers
and even some neighbors that came from having the three of us boys, unruly
and defiant, for brothers. It was time to move.
That’s one of the pluses of military brat life: sometimes, you just needed a
new place with a clean slate, with no teachers remembering anything about
you or any of your siblings they might have dealt with. By the time we’d
lived somewhere for a couple years, we kids would get antsy, ready to move,
to find a new neighborhood and a new setting with a fresh reputation.
Our Colonial Heights days lasted two years. The summer after I finished
seventh grade, my father was ordered back into an operational flying
squadron, back into the Lockheed EC-121 again. That was bad news for his
career aspirations, being assigned as a line navigator in a flying squadron
where there was little opportunity to compete with squadron pilots for the
leadership positions vital for promotion to Operations Officer or Commander.
But that was good news for us kids: we were headed for McCoy Air Force
Base in Orlando, Florida. And for me, back to the world of airplanes within
sight, if not reach.
Orlando was a beautiful, seemingly tropical, to us, paradise. When the
orange groves were in bloom our whole neighborhood smelled wonderfully
fragrant. We lived in base housing again, which we as kids loved. We moved
into 3320 Ramey Circle, just a couple doors down from the general’s
quarters, occupied at that time by General Felices.
Across the street lived the bomb wing Director of Operations, Colonel
Carter, a B-52 pilot. His son Tracy was in my brother’s freshman class at
Oakridge High School. Tracy had a beautiful older sister we all had a half
crush on, so Tracy was included in every opportunity we could think of just
to get a shot at her.
The Biscone’s lived on the corner and they were another good Italian
Catholic family like us, with six kids. Colonel Biscone was a pilot. His oldest
daughter Karen was three years older than me and the picture of an
unattainable homecoming queen, while her younger sister was a pal of mine
in junior high.
My parents had heard that Florida public schools were rated pretty low
academically, so everyone but my older brother was enrolled in St. John
Vianney School, a Catholic school run by Franciscan nuns. No problem, I
figured, because up until St. John’s, my experience with nuns had been in
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine basic religion classes taught by jolly,
roly-poly, doddery old sisters in Buffalo and Syracuse. A lot of “yes, sister,
no, sister” and a side-order of sucking up and all would be well. I couldn’t
have been more wrong.
Classrooms were set up with assigned seats, girls in back, boys in front so
we wouldn’t see the girls and have unclean thoughts, which of course we did
despite the strategy.
I made great friends there anyway and they all, boys and girls, seemed to
have an ongoing alliance against the strict nuns, particularly the one whose
homeroom I was assigned to, known as Hawkeye. She missed nothing, could
appear out of thin air and jump down your throat for the least infraction of the
many rules.
I felt immediately welcome among the other students and quickly
assimilated into an underground resistance that most of them had been a part
of for years and for many, their whole school life. Repression was
widespread and thoroughly policed and transgressions were dealt with swiftly
and severely. The nuns were of the Order of St. Francis, who we referred to
as “The Sisters of Perpetual Violence.”
That was just a larger-scale version of my home life, but in this case
instead of just my siblings, I had dozens of allies. Sister Euthalia—Hawkeye
—ran the school with an iron fist, but the inmates managed an underground
opposition.
The other kids were more practiced at the art of staying below Hawkeye’s
radar than I was, having just been dropped into the prison camp. That was a
liability.
Eighth graders changed classrooms every hour and as we left the room,
we were to dip a finger into a wall-mounted Holy Water fount near the
doorway and cross ourselves in silent prayer as we passed. A student was
assigned to hold the fount, and one week it was me. All week, my guy friends
and even some of the girls would dip their finger into the Holy Water then,
when the coast was clear of sisterly eyes, they’d flick the water in my face.
I believed the best defense was a good offense, so I did a preemptive
strike: holding the fount, before anyone rose to exit, I poured a couple
tablespoonfuls of holy water on the head of my friend Kenny, the nearest kid.
I thought I’d cleared the area of hostile forces pretty well. The teacher was
not a nun but rather a lay teacher, Mrs. Stogstill, and we were pretty sure she
only had one eye. I waited till her good eye was turned away, but I might
have guessed the wrong one.
Hawkeye was immediately notified and dragged me out of the room by
my sideburn on one side. The nuns were diabolical like that—how could you
complain about being dragged by your sideburn? There was no mark. And I
sure as heck wouldn’t tell my parents, or there’d be more physical
punishment on an even grander scale.
With guidance from my fellow inmates, I eventually learned to subvert
the nuns’ scrutiny, although there was still the occasional “gun-to-the-head”
phone call I’d be forced to make to my home phone from the principal’s
office. My mother got used to the routine:
Mom: Hello?
Me: It’s Chris [Hawkeye looming over my shoulder].
Mom: Okay, what this time?
Me: I burped in class. [Hawkeye leans in, menacing] Real loud.
[Hawkeye backs away]
Mom: Will you be home on time?
Me: I think so.
The following year, at Bishop Moore High School, the nuns were mostly
in the background, teaching only a few classes, none of which I had. There
were more lay teachers and priests in the classroom, and the latter were very
laid back. It was almost like a regular high school, except for the uniforms.
That, however, thanks to the Air Force, was to be very short-lived.

Chapter 4
I trekked across the broad parade ground from Harry’s car in the First
Class parking lot to the cold, brooding stone barracks. Stonewall Jackson
Arch drew us in like the mouth of a furnace, wide open, impersonal,
uncaring, and miserable.
First year students at VMI—freshmen at every other college—were
considered to be, and treated like, rats. Rats were required to strike a brace—
chin cranked in, arms rigidly straight at your side, eyes pointed directly ahead
—and walk on a prescribed line inside barracks, the same worn-smooth path
trudged upon by over a century of rats since the Institute’s founding in 1839.
There was no talking, no looking around.
I made a bee line for the spartan, first floor room of my “big brother,”
or “dyke” as they’re called at VMI. That was at least a refuge for rats: first
classmen, or seniors, knew the system, had all the privileges granted to the
senior class, and each chose a rat or two to both mentor and get served by.
I’d been lucky. My dyke, Roland, was one of the most well-liked cadets
in his class, if not in the whole barracks. He’d look out for me, teach me the
ropes, the dos and don’ts, and bail me out when I got into trouble. My duty
was to slip into his room before reveille and wait quietly until the bugle
sounded. Then I’d help him get his uniform put together and get his room in
inspection order before we all reported to company formation to march to
breakfast down the hill in Crozet Hall.
On a Sunday evening, Roland was typically wrapping up a fun
weekend, maybe having visited friends at another college nearby or more
likely, still recovering from a rugby party. When I walked into his room, he
had his usual crazy grin plastered on his face, but his eyes were serious.
“You really stepped in shit this time, Manhole,” he said, crunching a
mouthful of potato chips.
“The mailroom thing?” I asked cautiously. This was like being a kid
again—you didn’t know exactly what to admit to and you sure didn’t want to
confess to something no one knew about.
I hoped it was nothing worse than “the mailroom thing:” Roland had
had to smooth things over with the postal staff after I subscribed to “Oui”
magazine (one of my roommates already subscribed to Playboy, so I figured
I’d add to the room porn variety) under the assumed name “Horn E. Bastard.”
I’d thought it was funny. The mailroom ladies had not.
“Nope,” Roland said, stuffing more chips into his mouth from a bag.
“Much worse.”
“Buck,” Juice Bones, one of his roommates, stated flatly.
My head swam. Buck was the barracks nickname for Colonel
Buchanan, the Commandant of Cadets. Nothing to do with Buck could ever
be good, especially for a rat.
“He called my ass in about you,” Roland said, then let the words hang in
the air like smoke. “He wanted to know what the hell I’ve been teaching
you.”
The room fell silent.
“Turns out, you led the entire corps in demerits for the first quarter, and
you’re failing both calculus and chemistry.”
I knew what was coming next.
“So,” he continued. “You have about three months of penalty tours to
serve, and no off-post privileges until you do. And you’re on both academic
and conduct probation. Congratulations.”
All my guy pals at St. John’s eighth grade class and I were going to be
Air Force pilots because that was the coolest thing we could aspire to and we
all lived and breathed that dream. Flying, especially as an Air Force pilot:
what could be a better life?
Santa must have known of my pilot aspirations, because that year he
brought me a gas-powered, control line replica of a Spitfire, the classic

British Word War II fighter plane. It was beautiful and most importantly, it
really flew: the Cox .049 engine snarled like a chainsaw when started, and the
elevator controls in the tail responded to the commands of the control line
hooked up to a control handle. When let loose, she’d scream around in a
counter-clockwise circle, held in check by the control line. The instruction
booklet showed a diagram of a smiling kid putting the plane through all kinds
of fancy maneuvers.
The first time I took the Spit out to fly in a ball field, I carefully unrolled
the control line, then laid the handle on the pitcher’s mound. The third base
line would serve as a dirt runway, and my younger brother held the plane as I
cranked the engine, then fine-tuned the power with the tiny needle valve just
in front of the small fuel tank.
I scrambled back to the pitcher’s mound, picked up the control handle and
tested the lines. The elevator responded smoothly to my up and down
commands.
This was the big moment. Once the Spitfire was released, I’d let her roll
until the tail lifted off the dirt on its own. Then, as the instructions specified,
I’d simply tip the handle back gently and the Spitfire would smoothly lift off
and I’d be flying. At least, that was the plan.
I nodded and my brother released the Spitfire, which leapt forward like
a jackrabbit. The lines pulled tight and the plane lifted off on its own. I
nudged the control handle back a bit, the elevator tipped up—how exciting, I
was actually flying! —and the nose bobbed upward. The outer wing lifted
too, because apparently, I’d taken off with a huge crosswind, while the nose
wobbled higher on its own.
The wind pushed the Spitfire toward the center of the circle and the
control lines went slack, so I had no control over the elevator. She climbed
high, lost speed, stalled, then came crashing almost straight down onto the
pitcher’s mound and nearly hit me on the head. I ducked out of the way at the
last second and my beautiful Spitfire smashed into the dirt and shattered into
a pile of plastic pieces.
My dad found another control line model from the Cox model airplane
line that was called the “PT-19 Trainer.” The wings, engine mount and a tail
assembly were bound to the fuselage by rubber bands. If you landed it hard,
the impact might snap the rubber bands but in theory, there’d be no damage.
That did the trick. On my first flight, I managed a mostly straight and
level flight, varying pitch only slightly, until the little engine sputtered to a
stop when burned up all the fuel a few minutes later.
The unpowered landing was rough, snapping the wing rubber bands but
there was no real damage. My younger brother flew it, then I flew it again
and between the two of us, we did manage to break some plastic parts. But
we made field repairs with some quick-drying epoxy glue and flew it again. I
was elated at having flown an aircraft. Sure, it was less than two feet from
wingtip to wingtip, but still—it flew.
I salvaged the Spitfire engine from the wreckage and set about building
another airplane. I spent my allowance on a Ringmaster kit for the smallest
balsa wood plane they made that could be powered by the .049 engine. I
loved the smell and feel of the balsa wood, smoothing out the leading and
trailing edges of the wing with extra-fine sandpaper. I mounted the tail at a
slightly canted angle to force the nose outward in the flight circle, mindful of
the hazard of slack control lines that had sealed the Spitfire’s fate.
The finished balsa wood airplane was much lighter than the plastic
Spitfire or the PT-19 Trainer. On a nearly windless afternoon, I took the
Ringmaster out to the ballfield, fueled her up, then spun the three-bladed prop
I’d cannibalized from the Spitfire. The engine caught then snarled to life.
I ran out to the mound, picked up the control handle, checked the elevator
movement then nodded for my younger brother to let her go. She skipped
ahead in the dirt on her little wooden wheels then lifted off. She flew straight
and true, faster than the heavier planes and much steadier. The canted rudder
and light balsa wood let her pull outward and hold the control lines taut. I did
some basic climbs and descents, circling round and round, the elevator
instantly converting the touch of my fingers into motion.
When the engine ran out of gas, I tried to ease her down, holding back
pressure on the elevator, and I stalled the plane. She flopped into the grass
and slid inverted for a yard or two, but there was no real damage. I wiped off
the castor oil exhaust that streamed out along the fuselage and outboard wing,
refilled the tank and flew her again and again.
Even when I could carefully glide the plane to touchdown, the spindly
gear inevitably snagged on rocks or grass or even dirt which flipped the bird
upside down. But the Ringmaster was a durable design and even better, I
could easily fabricate replacement parts out of balsa wood, cutting and
shaping a new tail and even an elevator part. I put a bead of Elmer’s glue on
top of the tail and the canopy shape to protect the planes from damage if she
snagged a gear and flipped on landing.
Eventually, I just removed the landing gear altogether. I glued a small
piece of coat hanger wire onto the fuselage keel and she simply slid to a stop
on my makeshift skid. Takeoff just required whoever I could talk into the
ground crew duties to take a couple steps and lightly give her a slightly
upward vector release. The lightweight plane—especially nimble without the
weight and drag of landing gear—leapt away gracefully.
The last days of junior high interfered with my flying and aircraft
building, but there was no way out of schoolwork. The bus from the Air
Force Base dropped me off at St. John’s a half hour early and Sister Euthalia
instantly put me to work.
“Idleness is the devil’s workshop,” she’d warned me daily, then handed
me a spray bottle of 409 cleaner and a rag. Every morning, I had to spray and
wipe-down each desktop, a routine I customized to include squirting a small
puddle in most seats for an unsuspecting student to sit in and soak their
uniform pants or jumper. Then I endured another day of classes, just
watching the clock till I could get back to work on my airplanes.
I needed cash to pay for my expanded aircraft projects. I had to buy
airplane kits, plus extra balsa wood for repairs and even my own original
aircraft designs. I needed to buy hot fuel proof dope, a type of aircraft paint
that lent strength and rigidity to my paper-covered wings.
I needed tools, Exacto knives especially, after I nearly cut off the
middle finger of my left hand (still have the scar) using my old scout knife to
cut balsa pieces. Mrs. Carter had to take me to the emergency room for that—
I walked across the street, trying to stop the bleeding, and said “I think this is
bad …”
Meanwhile, the entire base was scheduled for a higher headquarters
military inspection, and the base commander decided that the housing area
must look topnotch for the incoming brass. So, he’d had bags of fertilizers
delivered to each house in the base housing area.
The intent was that every occupant of the base-owned quarters would
apply the fertilizer to their lawn then water it in, so the base would appear
perfectly greened-up for the inspection team.
In that steamy hot summer after my eighth-grade graduation, no one felt
like spreading fertilizer. So, after I’d spread ours as my dad had ordered that I
should, I took our fertilizer spreader and rolled it door to door, offering to
spread each resident’s assigned bags for a few bucks a lawn. Neighbors and
street after street of residents were glad for the fairly cheap way I offered for
them to comply with the base commander’s orders.
It was a miserable way to make a few bucks per house in the sweltering
July sun, but day after day I raked in more dollar bills to fund my growing
fleet of control line airplanes. So I set out each morning, street by street, door
to door.
And my little fourteen-year-old mind, if the “3” setting recommended on
the fertilizer bag meant green lawns, I figured that “7” or “8” would have to
be even better. That also emptied the bags faster.
The end result was, I burned over half the lawns in base housing. The
inspection team toured a base with over half of the lawns an ugly yellowish-
brown.
But the upside was, I had plenty of funding for more aircraft building
materials. I bought a “Lil Satan” kit: this aircraft had hollow wings and no
tail—just a dual-boom fuselage with a fat elevator slab. I had to learn how to
cover the wings with special paper—just as the earliest aircraft had fabric-
covered wings. I could feel the connection, the fundamental love of building
aircraft, as I stretched and covered my Satan’s wings, dried them over the
burners of the kitchen stove (“You’ll burn the house down,” my mother
warned) then painted it a jet black.
She flew like a dream, a devilish dream, angry, fast, maneuverable and
capable of inverted flight, loops, and snap maneuvers.
I built a Sterling biplane kit. I bought another Cox .049 engine with a
standard tank, having learned that the extended tank on the Spit mounted on
the Satan was almost too long to handle.
I built a mini biplane and mounted a smaller .020 engine on it. She flew
fast and tight but the .020 engine couldn’t handle much wind before the lines
went slack and I had to back away while turning in the center of the flight
circle to maintain control.
The biplanes taught me about dual-wing lift: it was an incredibly touchy,
maneuverable flyer. I experienced firsthand why early fighter planes with
rudimentary engines needed the doubled lift to dominate the sky. Just like
those early American, British, French and German biplanes of the early
twentieth century, mine was hard to handle and I spent a lot of time
fashioning replacement parts from sheets of balsa wood for my crashed and
broken biplane parts.
My parents held an occasional evening social function at our house,
usually involving squadron pilots, navigators and their wives. For us kids,
that meant banishment to the bedroom areas of our small house, with lots of
loud voices and drinking mayhem going on in the living room and dining
room areas.
That made it all the more challenging for my brothers and me to slip
down the hallway unseen, then sneak out the front door into the night. At
first, to make it seem worth the trouble, we started running around the block
in the darkness, then sneaking back in.
That soon became routine, boring even, so we raised the stakes by
running around the block in just our underpants. The final adrenalin rush
came from the challenge of running undetected around the entire block buck
naked. Inside, the adults guffawed, drank, smoked, played bridge or whatever
old people did for fun.
The base housing was a closed community with a common denominator:
most of the officers flew, and that meant deployments to various parts of the
globe for weeks, often months. In that world, everybody’s dad would deploy
with the Wing, whether it was the bombers, the radar aircraft like my dad’s
squadron, or the rescue squadrons.
Like many military wives, my mother set about various projects while my
father was gone. She’d paint a room a different color, put up new drapes,
have furniture reupholstered and even, sometimes, change her hair color.
Inevitably, my dad would return home, sit in his usual chair, and flip open the
newspaper, and not even notice anything. That would ratchet up the home
fires in a bad way, scorching everybody, especially those of us teens who
were about to be ratted out by mom.
For Air Force brats, that meant weeks of pretty much running wild despite
the repeated maternal threat, “wait till your father gets home.”
We paid little attention to that, at least early on in the dadless weeks.
With discipline pushed beyond our teenage cognitive horizon, there was a
good deal of hell-raising, organized hooliganism, whether snatching carp
from the Officer’s Club pond (those ended up in a very beautiful teenaged
girl’s water-filled kitchen sink, with the disposal running), or pulling all of
the government-issued backyard clothesline poles out and piling them in
somebody’s backyard, or nighttime skinny dipping in the O’Club pool—
whatever we could get away with.
The jackpot, if you went too far, if you were apprehended, was the base
commander calling the squadron commander your father answered to,
wherever he was deployed. Then he’d get called onto the carpet by his
commander, and you knew you were dead on your father’s return from
deployment.
That put a damper on the family side of the squadrons’ return from weeks,
often months of combat. The teenagers avoided the delayed justice as long as
possible. So, there weren’t many welcoming celebrations, at least not with
the kids over whom the sword of Damocles— “wait till your father gets
home”—dangled. At least we were all grounded at the same time after all the
dads got home.
Air warfare was a paradox. On the one hand, military force was applied in
conformance with American foreign policy. On the other, the bombers and
tankers and recon aircraft flew home to our base, bomb bays and cargo holds
filled with Hibachis and cheap electronics, jewelry and all manner of retail
plunder bought by the crews on their off-duty time in some faraway land.
The rotation of deployments continued year-round, often on short
notice, and that was just the tide of life on base, with many families walking
through the same cycle of absence, single-parent discipline, then the turf wars
of another adult barging back in, reasserting parental and marital authority.
Our Florida adventure ended in less than two years: my father was
assigned to another flying squadron and in the typical Air Force fashion, the
new base was clear across the country in California.
My dad loved cars and driving and long road trips, but I dreaded the
thought of a coast-to-coast drive with seven people crammed into a Chevy
station wagon for days on end.
I began to plot a way to sidestep the miserable cross-country safari and, if
I succeeded, get myself into the sky.

Chapter 5
On the thick lawn of the peaceful Memorial Garden near the old VMI
gym, Dr. Clark King ordered a couple dozen rats in athletic clothes to spread
out in a circle around him. We all wore boxing gloves and protective
headgear.
Dr. King was a powerful, no-nonsense man, imposing in stature with a
granite jaw and a steely-eyed stare. He was a former Marine who’d won a
Silver Star for valor in combat. He spoke quietly but commanded respect.
“All eyes on me,” he ordered, scanning the circle of college freshmen,
most of whom, like me, wished they could have been nearly anywhere else in
the world besides his boxing class.
A couple of cadets walking behind a statue caught my eye. Was that my
roommate, Kenny? Or maybe Laze?
“You,” Dr. King barked. He pointed directly at me.
Shit.
Coach King’s eyes narrowed. “I said all eyes on me. You’ll be the first
one knocked out because you didn’t pay attention.”
I swallowed hard, trying to act unimpressed but I know he saw right
through me.
“Get over here,” he snapped.
I walked to the center of the circle on wooden legs and faced Dr. King.
“Now,” he spoke to the entire group. “I’m going to demonstrate the
various offensive combinations on …”
He glanced down at my T-shirt.
“On Cadet Manno here who doesn’t know how to follow instructions.
Now, put up your gloves.”
He spoke quietly, matter-of-factly as he demonstrated various
combinations that flew at my head and face like magic: I had my arms up and
my elbows in, but it made little difference—Coach King’s boxing gloves
bounced off my face, my shoulders, my gut, a fraction of a second ahead of
any defensive move I could make.
He didn’t hit me that hard, or at least not as hard as I knew he could have
which I’m sure would have knocked me clear across the garden and into the
statues if he’d wanted to. Still, he pounded me hard enough, and fast enough,
to drive home his point: orders are orders. “All eyes on me” meant exactly
that.
That squared with what Uncle Buck had promised me when he’d
summoned me to the Commandant’s office to chew my ass for leading the
entire regiment in demerits that first semester.
Pat, his secretary, looked up from her desk with sad eyes and a kind smile
when he waved me into the inner office with the words every cadet dreaded:
“Close the door.” That meant there would be yelling.
Buck had commanded troops during multiple combat tours and was tough
as nails. But he knew the secret that powerful men all knew. Firmness,
unyielding toughness, is more than just a showiness of belligerence or in Dr.
King’s case, slugging. Buck—like Coach King—led by the example of his
own personal toughness proven in leadership, in wartime, with his life and
that of his men depending on his military bearing and execution.
He laid things out in no uncertain terms: attrition was part of the VMI
mission. The Institute didn’t need everyone who applied, nor everyone who
was accepted and walked through the hallowed Jackson Arch. You proved
yourself by surmounting the challenges, not sidestepping them. Or you left.
The Institute would be just fine without me and would be more than
happy to expel me for failure to manage the obstacles every cadet must
overcome, including ironclad orders, unrelenting demands and strict
discipline.
He may have yelled some. I understood clearly what he said and what he
meant. If there was any failure, it would be mine, and I wasn’t about to let my
track to Air Force pilot wings get derailed by my own stupid failure.
That was a harsh realization at age eighteen, but I owned the truth for
myself. That was also fundamental reality at VMI: whether in the
commandant’s office or the boxing ring, you’d better do exactly what you’re
told to do. If not, you’ll get your ass kicked, both figuratively and literally,
and it will be your own damn fault.
That was a new concept for me, living a simple, straightforward life of
rigid duties with no slack. As Colonel Buchanan so vigorously explained to
me behind closed doors, “I can’t make you do anything, but I can sure make
you wish you had.” In essence, VMI would demand a lot, but let you fail,
then hold you fully responsible for your own failure.
I actually liked it better that way. Sure, life was spartan, harsh, strenuous,
relentless and even oppressive. But it was fair. If I did what was required,
everything went well. It wasn’t like I needed the underground rebellion my
siblings and I depended on to get by in the lopsided, haphazard, often
vindictive and excessive physical and mental punishment we faced at home.
My upbringing actually prepared me for boxing in a backhanded way:
after nearly eighteen years surviving a blow to the face that could come out of
anywhere, anytime, from one of my parents, I was pretty adept at ducking
instinctively.
Plus, having a wrong-handed baseball glove help me develop
ambidextrous hands: I could switch from left to right-handed boxing which
left some of my opponents baffled, helping me win bouts. Of course, I
definitely got my clock cleaned more than once in the ring, getting beat to a
pulp in some matches. But that, too, was part of the lesson in VMI boxing:
you could get the snot beat out of you, lose the bout and yet, you’d live to
fight again.
And the upside was, in boxing, unlike at home, you were allowed to
defend yourself and as a citizen-soldier, you were expected to fight, and fight
back. This was the first code of fairness I ever lived under and I began to like
it, despite the rigors of eighteen mandatory hours of academics, military duty,
a varsity sport, never-ending inspections, reviews, parades and marching
everywhere including classes and meals. It was demanding, unrelenting—but
fair.
All that was on top of the academic challenge, and the faculty didn’t even
try to hide the Dean’s endless refrain that they “must resist grade inflation”
that would water down the value of a VMI diploma. Grading was ruthless
and a challenge to all majors: the engineers drowned in the required
semesters of English and History, while the liberal arts majors gagged to
death on a full year of calculus and chemistry.
I declared math as my major the first semester but by the second
semester, already on conduct and academic probation, I found myself in basic
calculus class retaking the course I’d flunked the first semester. It was clear
that I wasn’t cut out to be a math major, even though I’d figured that
specialty would make me more competitive for an Air Force pilot slot.
Not only had I lost that leverage, I looked around in Colonel Ax’s
calculus classroom in despair at third classmen, even second classmen, there
in my Calculus-1 retake class, repeating the course themselves after multiple
failures.
Many cadets, especially rats, had sworn oaths to leave the VMI military
and academic hell at the semester break. But after Christmas furlough, they’d
quietly reappeared in barracks, just like me. Most had fallen victim to a tragic
conundrum of VMI. That is, your GPA was just high enough to stay enrolled
at VMI but too low to transfer anywhere else. We called that being “flunked
in,” and of course, I was.
Colonel Ax scribbled chalk formulas all over the classroom-wide
blackboard, mumbling what was either an explanation for his calculations, or
maybe he was just muttering to himself. Like everyone else in the class, I
strained to hear, and feverishly copied his scrawl into my notebook to study
and decipher later.
He reached the far end of the blackboard, stopped, then put his chalk
hand on his chin.
“No, that’s not right,” he said, surveying his work.
A collective groan went up from the class. Paper was crumpled, wadded
up, and thrown into the trash basket.
Colonel Ax was correct: it just was not right. Calculus would never work,
not for me, but like chemistry, another course I was failing for the second
time, I had to find a way to accomplish the impossible. I just had to.
I pulled out another sheet of paper and waited for Colonel Ax to start
mumbling again.

I bounded up the metal stairs from the tarmac to the big four-engine
jetliner, barely looking back. I couldn’t sleep the night before the flight, I was
so excited, so flush with the good fortune of an airline ticket from Orlando to
San Francisco. I’d stared at the flimsy, multi-page airline ticket, savoring my
name—mine! —as the passenger.
I wouldn’t have believed even a few months earlier that my
overcontrolling, iron-fisted parents would’ve consented to me flying solo
across the country—but they had. For me, missing the mind-numbing,
transcontinental station wagon safari was a blessing, but flying was the
ultimate reward.
My aunt and uncle lived just south of San Francisco so my uncle would
pick me up at the airport. Then, I’d hang out with them and my cousins while
the fam-wagon lumbered across the country. The Air Force would spring for
the airfare in addition to a certain per diem and mileage stipend for the
family’s drive anyway, so I suppose my parents decided it was still cost
effective to send me and have one less person on the drive.
They also probably didn’t mind not having me in the car at least as much
as I didn’t mind not being there with them. It was the perfect storm.
Once aboard, I did the passenger slow walk down the aisle of the DC-8,
pausing as those ahead of me reached their assigned seat and stopped to stuff
hand-carried items into the overhead bins. I tried to act like I knew what I
was doing, even though I didn’t, as if I was a frequent flyer, even though as a
high school freshman, I sure wasn’t.
An amiable business traveler gave up the window seat when I asked, then
I settled into our row just aft of the wing. I had a decent ground view plus a
clear view of the top of the wing and aft, plus the tailpipes of the two big,
grease-streaked fanjet engines slung under the broad wing. I had that front
row, reserved seat all to myself, all day, and I was away from my parents and
their constant chaos. I was in heaven.
Takeoff from Orlando was a headrush of speed, power and gentle grace as
we tipped back, then lifted off and climbed away to the north. The ground
magically shrank into a miniature diorama just as it had when we’d lifted off
from Buffalo and I was thrilled to watch the city, the lakes, even the copper
dome of my old high school, Bishop Moore, scroll by below as we sailed
away into the sky.
We landed in Atlanta only too soon, in my mind, but from there I had an
even longer transcontinental leg ahead so there was no regret. I studied the
huge wing, the way the pilots reshaped the trailing edge, bit by bit with flaps
as we slowed and descended. I marveled at the hydraulic actuator pushing
massive spoilers up into the slipstream as we banked and slowed. I pictured
the elevator on my flying Ringmaster balsa wood planes, moving to my
fingers’ commands, and imagined the lucky guys up front, harnessing the jet
thrust and reining the big bird through all the maneuvers from the
stratosphere to the deck. They were the luckiest guys in the world, in my
mind.
The stewardesses were all beautiful, just as they were on TV and in
magazine ads I’d seen. They were like the prettiest girls, the cheerleaders,
from my high school and so friendly and nice to a goofy high school
freshman traveling alone. They checked on me a lot and probably had a wry
laugh at my rapt attention out the window and my starstruck attitude toward
them. Who could ever date a stewardess, I wondered? You’d be as lucky as
those chosen few who get to fly the jets. It was like they had the best of
everything, in the air and on the ground. No mere mortal could be that lucky.
The topography below sailed by under the big wing, the greenery of the
southeast giving way to the ochres of west Texas and the deep reds of New
Mexico. I stayed glued to the window, marveling at the sun-drenched
badlands of Utah and Nevada. I spotted a needle-like white jet, and Air Force
T-38 Talon, zipping along eastbound below us. That was an Air Force jet
trainer, a primary pilot training jet, and some lucky guys were rocketing
along, strapped into ejection seats, earning their pilot’s wings. I was in awe, I
was envious; desperate—I had to get there myself.
The stewardesses were kind enough to check on me often, probably
getting a wry laugh at the gangly teenager in the white dress shirt and thin tie
with his face glued to the window. One sat on the aisle armrest and offered
that they’d be flying this route every week that month if I were traveling to
and from Atlanta again. Of course I nodded, allowing that I might possibly
see them on a future flight, knowing darn well that it’d be years before I ever
got into the sky again. I put that sad thought out of my mind and stared out
the window, savoring every moment of flight.

Chapter 6
I floated across the VMI parade ground, legless in the moonless night,
escaping my study carrel in the Preston Library, headed to Lejeune Hall, the
student union, for a study break with my brother rats. The late winter months
were referred to by cadets as The Dark Ages, because there was so little to
look forward to besides endless academics and military duty. Spring Break
was too far off to even consider and summer furlough unreachably far away.
The hulking, prison-like stone barracks sat like a fortress to my right,
windows open despite the cold. Zoo-like ragings, laughter and yelling drifted
my way from the stone edifice.
From my left, the faint tinkling of glass, laughter, and music floated on
the breeze from Washington and Lee University next door. They were
partying at the many frat houses—you could even hear girlish laughter when
the breeze was just right or very wrong, depending on how you chose to look
at it—while I was restricted to the Post, reading and studying for my
Saturday classes. That was torture, for a college sophomore, or the third
classman that I was. But that was duty: no cadets were allowed off post
except after Saturday classes until midnight, and all day Sunday.
There was extra misery for Thirds besides the restrictions. The Ratline
was brutal the Fourth-Class year, but you eventually were freed from those
draconian restrictions by springtime and the euphoria actually lasted until
summer furlough.
But the Third Class year became an academic ratline, with a heavy
course-load of required classes for your major. There was little room for
electives, and still an eighteen hour load comprised mostly of the core
courses of your major. The workload was oppressive, relentless and mind-
numbing. The basic truism all cadets knew—and that the first classmen
ordered the rats to chant in barracks and the mess hall, was “Thirds eat shit,”
which was truer than I could afford to admit without losing the will to
continue.
Even worse for me and my fellow Air Force ROTC pilot hopefuls was the
tragedy that befell the seniors that winter, which foreshadowed disaster for
everyone like me hoping to nail down a pilot slot.
Just as the Air Force had done to my father so many years before, pilot
quotas were slashed out of the blue and all but two of the graduating First
Classmen had their orders to pilot training rescinded. “The needs of the Air
Force,” was the official explanation, pronouncing a death sentence on the
hopes and dreams of many who, like me, were mainly at VMI for that
solitary reason.
Worse, for them, was the timing, leaving them only months from
graduation having never had a job interview, much less a job prospect, once
they were awarded their degrees. They were devastated, the class behind
them terrified, and mine, still two years away from our commissions,
depressed about our chances to lock down one of the scant numbers of pilot
slots that nearly a hundred of us wanted.
I double-timed up the steps to Lejeune Hall, ready for a cup of coffee with
my buds, plus a good bullshit session. Often, I’d stop by new barracks and
browbeat my best friend and classmate Rob Brown until he’d drop whatever
he was studying and head to the “X” for a cup of coffee. Rob was actually a
good student, and I was probably responsible for lowering his GPA half a
point because of my bad influence and nightly distraction.
But at least in the student union there might be a chance to see a stray
Southern Sem girl or two, or if any of the upperclassmen had a date visiting
them at the student center, we’d grunt, oink or moo if the poor girl was large,
bovine or porcine.
Meanwhile, I tried to forget the female laughter that had drifted down
from the W&L frat houses full of “Minks:” “sleek, bloodthirsty animals that
hunt in the night,” as the VMI Rat Bible described the frat boys. Chances
were good that your Saturday night date was partying it up with a mink while
you studied on Friday night.
I thought of Julie, my girlfriend at the time, a Longwood University
student, who for all I knew could be in one of those frat houses with her Tri
Delt sisters. I put that out of my mind. And I forced myself not to think of the
bloodbath the Air Force had inflicted on the hopes and dreams of so many
graduating first classmen, guys who cherished the life’s dream of Air Force
pilot wings just as doggedly and desperately as I had. They’d successfully
earned the chance, only to have their future ripped away at the last minute.
Truly, the third class year did eat shit, and that showed no sign of getting
any better the following years.
I stepped out of my first period science class at my new high school and
two boys grabbed me and slammed me against the classroom windows.
“Hey, new boy, are you a narc?” the stringy-haired, hippie-looking guy
asked with a smirk. I said nothing.
His biker-booted pal Rusty shoved me then stood back.
“Because this is a joint,” hippie guy said, opening his grimy fist to show
me a swollen doobie. “You’re not going to narc on us, are you?”
I turned away and trudged towards my civics class.
“You’ll get your ass kicked if you narc on us,” Rusty called after me.
Welcome to Del Campo High School in Fair Oaks, California, a suburb
west of Sacramento. The school was blanketed with drugs and Balkanized
into factions: even the athletes and honor students used drugs; the heads sold
drugs and beat the shit out of anyone in their way, which included all
bathrooms—if you blundered in, and even teachers steered clear—you’d
stumble back out pounded to a pulp by their scruffy, scroungy multitude
inside smoking dope.
There were regular fistfights during school and afterward. I got into one
such slugfest during my English class and Mr. Geri, my teacher, only looked
up from his desk now and again to see who was winning.
Enrolling there had been another nightmare as the guidance counselor
scanned my transcript and let me know how many of my credits didn’t
transfer (“We don’t recognize that algebra course”) and were lacking (“You
didn’t take first semester California history?”) which once again set me
behind and would mandate summer school.

That was typical military brat life, just where we landed and what we had
to deal with when my parents bought a four-bedroom tract home in
Larchmont Hills, a plopped-down housing development across from the high
school and next to the junior high.
The neighborhood was mostly middle class, and tight-knit: Jeff and
Monique, a freshman and a junior respectively, lived across the street. My
older brother became “close” with Monique for a summer until better options
became available that fall, including my very hot-looking biology lab partner
widely known as Juicy Lucy. When the Monique thing ended, her mother
knocked on our front door and demanded my mother pay for the bras my
brother had ripped.
Her brother Jeff, one of my good buddies, would sell me everything from
his records to his Schwinn Varsity ten-speed for a fraction of their actual
worth for cash to buy drugs. I’d look out my window late at night to see the
lights on in his room, knowing he was speeding, stoned and too messed up to
sleep.
Next to their house, Jerry, my other partner in crime, also a freshman,
lived with many siblings. His older sister, under the cover of darkness on
their front lawn, finally taught my brother and me how to get a hand inside a
bra without destroying it.
On the other side of Jeff’s house, Ray lived with his family. He became
nicknamed “Fat Pig,” weighing in at well over two hundred pounds at age
fourteen. He had a halfway decent looking sister who was my sister’s age and
they hung out some.
Ray was always eating, and always diabolical: when the ice cream truck
stopped in front of our houses, he’d buy two fudgesicles—one to eat, the
other to lay discreetly on the ice cream truck roof to melt then streak down
the windshield.
Jerry and I cued in on the fact that Jeff and Monique’s parents always left
their master bath window open a crack. Often, when we were sure they’d all
piled into the family car and motored out of the neighborhood, one of us
would boost the other up to the window, pop the screen off, then clamber into
the bathroom.
We’d make a beeline for the kitchen, then clean all the beer out of their
fridge and exit through the back door. Monique was grounded regularly
because her father believed she’d stolen the beer, despite her very true
professions of innocence. If Fat Pig and his clan had motored out of town in
their camper as they often did, we’d sneak into their tarp-covered ski boat
parked next to their house and drink our beer, laugh and talk as if we were
floating on the nearby American River.
Jeff’s dad took a job in the San Francisco area and they moved away.
Within a couple years, word filtered back that Jeff had fried his brain on
some tainted hallucinogens and was institutionalized.
But when they moved out, a family with two boys moved in. John, the
oldest, also built and flew control line aircraft and we became fast friends. On
weekends, our flying was just like a real Air Force squadron. We’d prepare
all of our various aircraft, then fly them until they broke, then we spent the
rest of the day making repairs.
John was farther along with his aircraft building skills than I was and he
taught me a lot about shaping, cutting and bonding ribs, spars and struts.
He’d built a giant, four-engine monstrosity which, with one of my larger
engines plus three of his, we finally got off the ground on a school
playground for a minute or two before the engines ran out of fuel one by one.
John was a serious guy and a good friend. His dad was an Air Force
officer and John also planned to win silver wings himself. We designed plans
for aircraft and built custom versions of some Ringmaster plans. I
experimented with wire frames to save weight, but the solder never had
enough strength to withstand the engine vibration and the flight stresses.
I delivered The Sacramento Bee, daily and Sunday, to a hundred and
fifty customers. The monthly income funded my aircraft building projects
plus social stuff and when my brothers saw what I was making, they took one
on as well.
My sophomore year I flew control-line airplanes on weekends but had
track practice on weekdays after school. The whole distance running thing
seemed like a good fit when I noticed how much faster than the other boys in
my PE classes I was whenever Coach Kimball ordered us to take a few laps
around the athletic field.
My confidence turned out to be unfounded once I stepped onto the track
with the rest of the freshmen and sophomores for Coach Ken Smith’s time
trials. I was only faster than my PE class because they hated running, and half
of them were lazy, out-of-shape druggies.
Still, I labored away at practices and track meets and competed weekly in
the half mile with mediocre, middle of the pack finishes. When I told my
parents I needed decent track shoes to compete, my father decided the best
thing was for me to run in an old pair of his high-top basketball shoes which
he said would give me “ankle support.” My dad could probably have heard
my big feet flap-slapping around the track in practice, which was
embarrassing, but they never came to a track meet (my mother asked me
recently, “Why didn’t I know you ran track in high school?”) so there was no
shame there.
Even after a year as my coach, Coach Smith never knew my first name,
entering me in the district meet as “Cougar” Manno (the team was the “Del
Campo Cougars”) which seems especially lame since I was in his second
period geometry class for that entire year. Still, long distance running became
a lifelong pursuit for me all the way through college and beyond.
Even after completing driver training and being of legal driving age,
neither my older brother nor I were allowed to get a driver’s license. My
mother would actually cite misdeeds I’d done as a second or third grader to
justify her claim that I was no good and not to be trusted, so it was either ride
a bike or walk. Dating was only possible if a friend who drove agreed to do a
double date.
I managed my first real date my sophomore year with Melody
Hornberger, an impossibly cute classmate who lived a block away. I
delivered their evening paper along with a hundred others, then put my bike
in the garage and walked to her house, then we walked to Del Campo for the
dance.
My mother was either over worried—probably with good reason,
although she didn’t know the half of it—or just too lazy to keep up with her
pack of teenage kids, but the answer to most requests for a little longer leash
became too predictable. The answer was always “no” when asking to go to a
social event, which only intensified the underground life of her kids:
whatever we really wanted to do, we found a way to fly below her radar. In
retrospect, she actually created the outlaw behavior she thought she was
stifling.
It was always comforting to have my older brother on campus, to say
hello to in passing, which often happened at the nurse’s office if we both had
a test on the same day. I’d sign in and note his a few lines above mine in the
clinic notebook. He always had a creative malady preventing him from
attending class on a test day— “intestinal disorder” was his go-to most of the
time—but eventually old Mrs. Neguchi, the school nurse, called my mother
to inquire about the chronic ill-health of her sons. That cut our test dodging
way back.
My older brother landed a job at Yogi Bear Restaurants, which was a
local chain of hamburger stands licensed and patterned after the Hanna-
Barbera Yogi Bear cartoon series. He started out in the Yogi costume, a
heavy, carpet-like brown fur suit topped by a large fiberglass head. Yogi’s
job was to stand out in front of the Fair Oaks Yogi Bear burger joint, waving
to cars passing by and customers on the property, attracting attention on
Madison Avenue, and posing for snapshots with little kids eating at the
restaurant.
After less than a month, he got moved up to the fryer, inside the kitchen.
Then, Lloyd Heap, the pistol-packing owner of the Sacramento franchises
offered me the bear position for minimum wage, plus free cheeseburgers,
onion rings and shakes. Of course I took the job. How bad could it be to walk
around in a bear suit for a few hours?
The bear gig was fun for a couple days. I was a sophomore in high school,
and after class I’d pedal my bike a couple miles to Yogi Bear on Madison and
suit up: the costume was like wearing a heavy rug, which was oppressively
hot in the Sacramento sun. The bulbous Yogi head was a fiberglass structure
affixed to a hard hat and a fist-sized, screened circle in the bear’s nose was
the only viewport the suit wearer had.
That was a double problem: first, you’d stumble over curbs and bump into
cars in the drive-through line. They added a vaudeville-style cane to Yogi’s
outfit that was primarily so you could feel your way around the lot. Second,
the tiny portal was like sensory deprivation: you couldn’t see anything for the
hours you wore the suit. That intensified the boredom.
I was warned by my brother that when it came to kids, the best defense
was a good offense, because little boys in particular would punch Yogi in the
nuts for no reason. You couldn’t see that coming with the restricted viewport
and were left defenseless. So, if anyone wanted a kid picture posed with
Yogi, my technique was to lay a hand on the kid’s shoulder and through the
finger holes, pinch the kid’s neck or shoulders as hard as possible. They’d
scream and run away, while their parents would reassure them, “He’s not a
real bear, he won’t hurt you,” but actually the kid had the right idea.
Besides dealing with bratty kids, the finger holes in the suit’s paws were
essential to flip off the cars whizzing by, because they sometimes lobbed cans
and bottles at the bear. It was a tough crowd on Madison.
As bad as the stifling suit was the constant “big brother” monitoring from
inside the restaurant was even more oppressive. There was a loudspeaker
system to call customers dining in the shabby little “Jellystone Park” picnic
area in the back to come inside and pick up their orders.
The manager of the day also used the PA system to nag the guy in the
bear suit: “Bear, move around,” I’d hear if I tried to sit down; “Bear, wave,”
and “bear, stop pretending to jerk off with the cane” and on and on all day till
I was completely harassed and pissed off with my job.
Eventually, I heard, “Bear, you’re on fire,” in the same laconic drone
from the speakers. Turned out I’d inadvertently backed into the gas flame in
the barbecue pit façade and set the suit on fire. I got to wear the much lighter
Boo Boo suit for a couple weeks while the Yogi suit was repaired, but all too
soon, it was back inside the larger, heavier Yogi sweat suit.
Once an hour I was allowed inside the restaurant to sit down and doff
the heavy Yogi head off for a ten-minute break, which, heeding my brother’s
advice, I’d spend in the walk-in freezer, cooling down. I also followed the
lead of my brother and the other pissed-off, minimum wage laborers at
Yogi’s and used the private minutes to pop open the lid on the trash can
Lloyd filled with “special sauce” and spit a hawked-up gob or two, lowering
my frustration level and making the burger sauce “real special,” as we all
used to say. Then I’d pedal home on my bike to fold my newspapers and
deliver them.
That was my life most of that year. We weren’t allowed by my parents
to go to any athletic events like football games or anything not held at our
school, so life was pretty dull. Fat Pig was a Boy Scout or at least had been,
so we did sell my parents the idea of his backyard sleepovers as a healthy,
Scout-ish experience. Then when the weather permitted, we’d all gather our
best buds and sleep out under the stars. The “sleep” was after a night of beer,
some drugs (I steered clear, knowing that a drug bust would end my Air
Force pilot aspirations), vandalism, and general hell-raising.
A biker guy named Otis who my brother knew from classes the
previous year was the night cashier at a nearby convenience store and he’d
sell the underage pair of us a quart of beer, then rent us the bottle opener for a
dollar. My brother taught me how to open the bottle on a spigot outside,
saving us a buck.
By the next year we’d stepped up from beer to any hard liquor
someone’s friends could sneak out of their parents’ house, often during
school hours. My girlfriend Gail once sought out my brother and a couple of
his friends to rescue me from the nurse’s office where I’d passed out after too
much fun with my buddies. Before they could figure out who I was, my
brother and his crew hustled me off to a vacant art lab where I slept it off on a
table for the rest of the day.
My parents never seemed to make the connection between one of my
brothers and me being hung over at dinner maybe once or twice a month, or
the possible reasons why we were, which was a small blessing. My older
brother used to bait my father about politics or even military policy, just to
get a rise out of him which was a welcome distraction if you were hung over.
Life was all making some fun times despite my parents, building and
flying model plans, running long distance, delivering The Bee, enduring the
Yogi torture, and surviving Del Campo High School. But by my junior year, I
could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Following the next academic year,
I’d be out of the house, presumably at college if my patchwork of high school
transcripts allowed me to meet a college’s admission standards. I’d be free of
my parents at last, and on my way to Air Force wings.
Of course, my father’s Air Force career threw me a curveball: after most
of my freshman year and all of my sophomore and junior years at Del
Campo, we were once again ordered to move across the country. My dad was
to be assigned to the Pentagon.
That meant a new school apart from all of my high school friends, for my
last high school year. There was no way out for me—I’d do my senior year in
a strange school among strangers.
I tried to look at the big picture, reassuring myself that it was only for one
year. I pulled out my paper calendar and flipped through the pages. I
numbered them backwards from August after what would be my senior year,
clear back to that spring when we got the new orders to the other coast. I
knew exactly how much longer I’d have to endure the family insanity before
striking out on my own.
That was just life as an Air Force brat, I reasoned. I was tough, so I
could handle it, I told myself. Mimi, the most recent in a series of girlfriends
had just dumped me anyway, and after four grade schools and two junior
highs, I could make my way into my third high school, somehow, and meet a
college’s entry requirements.
Fourteen months, I told myself. I’d only have to endure another
fourteen months. As I turned seventeen, that seemed like an eternity, but I’d
just have to power through.

Chapter 7
The engraved plaque under the wooden shadow box frame proclaimed
“Why We Toil Here.” Inside the box, a shiny brass pair of lieutenant’s bars
gleamed on a background of blue felt. That missed the mark, for me, but I felt
secretly relieved that lieutenant’s bars and an Air Force commission were
sufficient for many of my VMI classmates.
Of course, some of my classmates were either not physically qualified
for pilot training or were uninterested. The latter, I just couldn’t understand.
How could anyone not want to fly jets? But, like both of my brothers, some
of these guys were unimpressed, uninterested. I, on the other hand, wouldn’t
have endured four years of the VMI beating for anything else.
And of course, producing commissioned officers was exactly the
mission of Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) Detachment
880 at the Virginia Military Institute. I just needed more than just lieutenant
bars and would settle for no less: I needed USAF pilot wings. Problem was,
due to budget cuts, the Air Force had few wings to give out.
After the rescinded assignments wrought havoc with the previous year’s
graduating class, the Air Force chose a more reasonable path. The next
graduating class—and presumably, mine in the following year—would get
their assignments at the end of their junior year.
So we all watched the class ahead of us, the soon-to-be seniors, as their
assignments came down. Their news was not good: only three of the eighty
or ninety qualified applicants received orders to pilot training. For the rest of
them, that was simply that—they’d become Air Force officers in a non-flying
career field. I could not live with that.
The ROTC unit even tried to divert pilot candidates in my class with what
I considered half-assed flying assignments. We were all gathered in a
classroom, then Captain Kane dimmed the lights.
“The few of you who are lucky enough to get pilot training assignments,”
he explained, walking in front of the screen, “Will probably wait nine
months, maybe even a year after graduation to start flying.”
He let that sink in. No problem, I told myself. I’d waited nearly twenty
years for flight school, I could wait as many months after graduation the Air
Force’s scaled-down pilot quota might require.
“But,” he continued. “If you’re pilot qualified physically and score-wise,
you can get into the air immediately after graduation.”
My Air Force Officer Qualifying Test scores were certainly high enough:
I’d scored near the maximum on the pilot aptitude portion, but near the
minimum on the “officer” potential section. Still, the pilot score had kept me
in the running for a pilot slot my first two years. I had a feeling I knew what
Captain Kane was going to say next.
“Watch this film,” he said, then a sergeant in the back of the room rolled
the film.
Blue sky filled the screen. The camera pulled back and we were in the
cockpit of a C-141 jet transport. Voices crackled over an intercom system.
“Pilot, nav,” a crisp voice called.
“Go ahead, nav.”
“There’s bad weather ahead.”
The camera zoomed out the window and focused on a lone thunderhead in
the distance.
“Yes,” the pilot says, his voice tense. “What should we do?”
“Come left ten degrees,” the nav said confidently.
The horizon tipped, the jet banked away from the solitary white cloud,
then the wings rolled level again, with nothing but clear blue sky ahead.
“Thanks, nav,” the pilot said, the relief in his voice clear, if somewhat
forced. “And good work.”
Sergeant Novotny stopped the film. The lights came up.
Captain Kane paced again in front of the blank screen. I liked him, but he
was not a pilot. Maybe for him it didn’t matter.
“Now,” he spoke deliberately. “Those of you currently in the pilot-
qualified applicant pool can opt for navigator school instead. There’ll be no
waiting after graduation. You’ll be in the air and shortly, on a flight crew,
flying missions such as this one, around the world. Who’s interested?”
I tried not to laugh out loud. It’s a pilot’s Air Force, my dad’s rueful
words echoed in my memory. All of his years of career frustration, of being
passed over for promotion and squadron leadership positions in favor of his
peers who were fortunate enough to be pilots, flooded back into my mind.
I glanced left and right. A few hands raised. Some, I noted, were Air
Force scholarship cadets. That would be less competition for a pilot slot,
especially the scholarship guys: after the Air Force paid for a student’s four-
year degree, he’d be a higher priority asset than lowly old middle-of-the-
pack, English major me.
After the ROTC meeting, I rushed back to barracks for a uniform swap. I
had just enough time to change from class uniform to the grey blouse, buff a
quick shine on my shoes and grab my M-14 rifle from the rack in my room. I
hustled down the stairs, out through Washington Arch and to my position in
my squad, in ranks as a company, “on the bricks,” as the cobblestone
pavement outside the huge stone barracks was known.
We came to attention, weapons at “order arms” by our sides, waiting.
Seemed like that was the relentless, endless theme of VMI life: you rush
around, hectic, from one demand to the next and then, like military life, you
wait.
Blue sky arched over the parade ground westbound and a Boeing 737
whispered overhead, maybe ten thousand feet above, headed for Roanoke
some fifty miles away.
I stood at attention, motionless, waiting for my turn to be inspected, to
have my weapon scrutinized, my uniform critiqued, my shave and haircut
approved. But with my eyes, I followed the jet above sailing westbound with
graceful ease. I promised myself two things.
First, I’d be in the cockpit of such an airline jet someday. Never mind the
scant Air Force pilot quotas, my own mediocre scholastic record, or the two
years of military and academic hurdles between me and the cockpit. I’d
figure it out, I’d endure, I’d succeed, I’d fly.
And the second promise I made to myself was to never, ever forget the
excruciating, relentless tedium of VMI life as I experienced it that very
moment, in ranks, before another of a seemingly endless series of dull tasks
that made up a cadetship. I’d seen the VMI alumni around the post for
reunions and football games, heard the tall tales and the adoring Institute
stories.
I’d remember the hours of toil and tedium, when I was an alum and
especially, in the cockpit of my own Air Force jet and eventually, an airliner.
That, I decided, was going to be my future. Against the long odds and
despite the uphill struggle to get there, I would simply refuse to settle for
anything less.
I walked down the long main hallway at West Springfield High School in
Springfield, Virginia, searching for my assigned locker. I was only halfway
paying attention to where I was walking, my eyes on the locker numbers on
the wall as well as on the combination card in my hand.
I collided with a mean-looking biker guy in a black leather jacket,
motorcycle boots, and with long, stringy hair of the dangerous kind in my Del
Campo memories. Instinctively, I turned to put my left shoulder forward and
turned slightly to present the smallest profile for any blows flying my way,
just as I’d done in Del Campo or at home. A string bean was harder to punch
from a profile view.
“Excuse me,” he said, and patted me on the shoulder as he stepped around
me.
Excuse me? West Springfield High was a different world, a better world
for me. The biker-looking guy turned up in my German class and we became
friends. Like most kids there, his parents were government workers. It was a
much more white-collar student body with so many fathers in the military,
like mine, stationed at the Pentagon or any one of a half-dozen military bases
nearby. The school was safe—you could even use a restroom without a
beating or at least a choking dose of tobacco and marijuana smoke.
I made friends quickly, almost like the days of living on base because
everyone understood the military brat life since most were living it, or had
family, friends and neighbors who were too.
Though I was in my senior year in high school, I wasn’t allowed to get
my driver’s license, which meant a humiliating trek to the bus stop every
weekday morning with the freshmen and sophomores too young to drive. My

older brother turned eighteen and got his driver’s license, by law no longer
needing my parents’ consent and signature. They grudgingly put him on their
automobile insurance policy because having graduated from high school and
having no plans for college, he needed to get a job.
My parents were odd regarding what should happen after high school for
their five kids. There was never a mention of college that I can recall during
my brother’s latter high school years, much less how my parents would pay
or help pay for higher education.
The fall after he graduated, my senior year, he got a job at Merit Shoes, a
very low-end Endicott-Johnson shoe store chain in a strip mall a few miles
from our house. Just as he did at Yogi Bear, he got me hired in short order.
That meant I had to take a city bus for a forty-five-minute ride after
school to work, being denied driving privileges, but it was better than going
home after school. The store itself was old-school, the walls covered with
hundreds of shoe boxes and an old-fashioned display window showing all the
styles we offered.
Gary, a young, black man, was the manager and our boss. Gary was a
recent Hampton University grad and an up-and-coming management type,
trying to prove to Endicott-Johnson that he had executive potential by
running our tiny retail outlet successfully.
He always wore a smart-looking suit and tie and conducted weekly
sales meetings, even though my brother and I were the only employees. He’d
post memos in the stock room that followed a familiar pattern: “Employees
will not change the radio station. –G. King;” or “Employees may not
consume food or beverages on the sales floor. –G. King.”
Gary’s wife Brenda was a sweetheart and they had us over to their
apartment after the store closed a few times and we all drank too much beer,
laughed and talked until late. I think Brenda got a kick out watching two
goofy white guys act foolish.
She was from North Carolina and to keep her happy living in Virginia so
far from her family, Gary would agree to drive back to their hometown often.
With the drive being so long, he cut a deal with us to allow him to leave on a
Friday at lunchtime for the weekend rather than Saturday afternoon after
we’d closed.
The bargain was, my brother and I would manage the store, including
tallying the sales, depositing the money at the bank, and locking up on
Friday, then on Saturday, open at ten, man the sales floor, then repeat the
closing procedures. For that, he’d pay us with a case of beer, but there was a
catch: we were not to consume any beer till after closing.
Fine. We waited for at least an hour to be sure he wouldn’t come back to
check on us, which he did one time. Then, honoring his directive that we not
drink any of the beer before the store closed, we closed and locked the front
doors. We changed the radio station, turned up the PA, and cracked open the
beer.
After a few beers, my brother went to one of the shelves that covered the
interior wall of the store and pulled out a shoebox.
“See these?” He held up an ugly-looking woman’s dress shoe. “I’ve
always hated these.”
He grabbed a hammer from the stockroom and began to pound the hell
out of the shoes, then threw them in the trash. I about died laughing, then
went to the wall myself.
“Look at these.” I held up a pair of women’s oxfords. “Who buys this
shit?”
I took a turn with the hammer, crushing the shoes.
After a few more beers, my brother went back to the wall.
“Watch this,” he said, then pulled a stack of boxes from the wall. He
hefted them with both hands, then headed to the stock room. I followed.
“Open the door,” he ordered, and I slipped by him and opened the back
door to the alley.
He took all of the boxes and flung them into the dumpster and we both
laughed.
Back inside, I pulled my least favorite line of shoes from the wall and
headed for the front door where the store keys hung from the lock.
“Unlock it,” I said, and he did.
I stepped out, looked both ways to be sure no potential customers were
headed for the store, then stepped briskly across the half-empty parking lot to
the Goodwill box. I dumped all the shoes in, figuring at least someone might
consider ugly shoes better than no shoes at all.
At closing time, we counted the cash from the mornings sales (“Very
slow afternoon, Gary”) then called the local police, as we always did, to
escort us with the cash in a deposit bag to the bank across the parking lot. The
officers seemed not to notice or care that we’d been drinking all afternoon.
In Miss Hilliard’s home room, I sat in alphabetical order in front of Hal
Marvin, another senior whose father was also an Air Force officer.
We’d chit-chat before homeroom ended and we headed off to individual
classes and one fall day he mentioned college.
“I’m driving down to Lexington next week,” he told me. “For a college
tour. Want to come along?”
I turned around in my desk.
“What college?”
“VMI,” he answered. “Virginia Military Institute.” He held up a college
catalog with a black-and-white cover photo depicting a hulking, castellated
Gothic structure. “Check out the catalog.”
I took the catalog home and studied the details: ROTC commissioning in
all branches of the armed forces, strict military and academic regimen; no
civilian clothes, classes six days a week, no girls, no cars, every cadet must
play a varsity sport and take eighteen academic hours of coursework.
That sounded daunting, but also attractive in how single-mindedly
focused the college was on producing college graduate military officers. A
commission from a no-nonsense military school would put me well down the
road to my goal of Air Force pilot wings. Hal had the same goal and had
come to the same conclusion.
And I knew myself. I knew that if I left the strict, over-controlled and
oppressive environment my parents had created at home and went to a
regular university, I’d dive into the partying and freedom from iron-fisted
parental control and lose my way. I needed a narrow path, a focused goal, and
a school with proven results and a legacy of successful military graduates.
That wouldn’t be easy, nor probably much fun, but if VMI could get me
where I wanted to go after graduation and commissioning, it would all be
worth it.
I wrote to the commander of the VMI ROTC unit and inquired about
entry into their program. And the next week, I drove the three hours from
Springfield to Lexington with Hal in his Volkswagen Beetle.
That was a day that charted the course of the rest of my life.

Chapter 8
The July sun began to heat the clear blue morning sky, promising another
hot, humid Florida day. I woke before dawn, having hardly slept a wink the
night before. This was the day, the big day when a dream would come true.
We dressed in our olive-green military fatigues and combat boots, then
lined up in formation and marched across the street to the flight line. This
was the incentive that Air Force ROTC summer camp promised: a back seat
ride in a supersonic jet.
Four gleaming white T-38 Talon jets stood on the ramp, looking sleek and
fast even at rest. Two had the canopies raised front and back, ready.
Two pilots, one in each jet, would take up an ROTC cadet for a thirty-
minute thrill ride. We’d be strapped tightly into an ejection seat, then after
taxi out, the pilot would light the afterburners and we’d speed down the
runway, liftoff, then hug the deck to attain 300 knots of airspeed, then he’d
pull the nose up and we’d rocket skyward in a seventy degree climb to about
ten thousand feet.
This was the stuff of my dreams: this aircraft was a primary jet trainer
in Air Force pilot training. I’d spent hours both in high school and at VMI
daydreaming about flying this jet solo someday.
The Air Force thought of everything at summer camp, even providing us
cadets with a “box lunch” since we’d be missing breakfast in the mess hall.
“Sir, what should we eat of this box,” I asked, “Given that we’re about to
fly the T-38?”
A bored looking pilot who was assisting us into the required flight gear
glanced at my box lunch.
“Hmmm,” he mused, probably sensing an opportunity to create some
mischief. “Probably should drink the chocolate milk, definitely the orange
juice.”
I took his advice, which I’d shortly regret. Then I waited my turn.
This was after my second year at VMI. The Air Force sent ROTC cadets
to a “summer camp,” which was normally a six week stay in a quasi-boot
camp on an active Air Force base. We’d get some firsthand exposure to the
real Air Force, and the officers and staff would get a good look at us.
We were observed, rated, inspected and taught Air Force organization and
operations in long days that began with predawn physical training and ended
in study, drill, and inspections.
That summer, the Air Force experimented with a new concept, the
“enriched camp:” instead of six weeks, cadets from military colleges would
be grouped together for a truncated, four-week camp. The theory was, we’d
all been in uniform and living a strict military regimen at our colleges already
the entire school year, so we could reach the same military performance goals
of summer camp in just one month.
The flaw in the theory was this: cadets from VMI, Norwich and The
Citadel were overdone from nine nonstop months of military life and had
little tolerance for an intense summer military boot camp. The exception was
the Aggies, who seemed to thrive on the military bullshit the rest of us were
sick of.
The end result, for me and many of my fellow VMI, Citadel and Norwich
friends was conduct probation and penalty tours served by washing the camp
commander’s car over and over. And the Air Force never tried the “enriched
camp” again.
Since we were stationed on Eglin Air Force Base in Fort Walton Beach,
Florida, the Air Force planners scheduled us for a range of military
experiences based on the missions supported by both Eglin and Hurlburt Air
Force Bases.
That included a water survival mini-course, which was fun, in my mind,
but others didn’t care for the experience. We were strapped into parachute
harnesses, then loaded aboard a trawler and motored off shore a mile or two.
Then, while the trawler cruised forward, cadets were hooked up to a
parachute rig and lofted into the air, parasailing.
The second part of the training required each cadet to jump off a two-
story platform on the trawler’s stern, hooked up to a parachute and harness.
When it was my turn, I took a deep breath and leapt off the platform. I hit the
water feet first, facing aft, and was swallowed up by seawater billowing
furiously from the trawler’s wake. Loaded down with soggy fatigues and the
parachute harness plus a helmet, I sank into the bubbly blue-green ocean. But
I wasn’t worried. The boat continued forward, dragging me, which was the
plan, simulating that I’d bailed out of a jet, landed in the water, and was
being dragged by my inflated parachute.
Roll over onto your back, the instructor’s voice echoed in my mind.
With a kick and a twist of my hips, I flipped over easily onto my back. As
promised, I saw blue sky above and could breathe again. I deployed my life
vest and they cut me loose to bob in the ocean, cool, calm and quiet for a few
blessed minutes before the recover boat picked me up.
One “training experience,” more ground-troop oriented, was a disaster.
At dawn, they bused us out to the Army Special Forces training camp in the
scrabbly-thick jungle on Hurlburt field. Seated on benches, we got some
hasty instruction on the plentiful poisonous snakes, spiders and plants that
owned the jungle, plus some basic information on the topography and
landscape we’d challenge that day.
Then we got a quickie course in orienteering, the Army grunt method of
navigating across land using a team to “orient” ourselves: one cadet held the
map and collaborate with a compass man who directed a point man based on
the map instructions and landmarks.
I hated all Army-type military stuff and dreaded the sweltering hot, day
long orienteering “experience” we had no choice but to master: we were
turned loose on the five-mile courses through jungle, rocky fields, and
endless thickets of scrub brush. The only way back onto the buses and out of
that jungle hellscape was to successfully reach the camp at the far end of the
course.
Fine. Let’s get this miserable “grunt for a day” shit show over with, I
muttered to myself. We set off with our team into the wilderness.
We rotated duties between our squad of five less than enthusiastic
troopers. I had the point for a while, marching ahead twenty or thirty yards,
then waiting for further vectors from the guys with the map, answering to the
guys with the compass. We seemed to be going nowhere fast, I decided, but
besides swatting bugs and hating life, there was little I could do until it was
my turn with the compass.
The instructions stated that the course should take about three hours to
complete. If we got hopelessly lost, the last resort was to simply head west.
That would take at least five hours to reach the recovery camp, and would
require fording a stream in addition to the longer hike, which we desperately
wanted to avoid. So, we rotated duties and pressed on.
A huge thunderstorm swept over us about an hour into our hike,
dumping torrential rain and throwing lightning bolts everywhere. We could
hardly hear each other over the wind and the thunder and we scattered to find
shelter.
When the storm passed, we gathered in a clearing, trying to get back on
course. But there was a problem. In the chaos, we’d lost the map. We found
the compass, but without the map, that was little help. No one could
remember who’d had the map when the storm hit, or even where we were at
that time. We were screwed.
We hiked west, towards the sun. We forded the stream, wary of snakes,
soaked up to our chests, cursing, blaming each other for losing the map,
hating the Army and grunt world and orienteering.
We straggled into the recovery camp just as they’d finished up dinner,
our squad and one other pretty much the butt of everyone else’s jokes for
having gotten lost. We stripped off soggy fatigue shirts and hung them near
the camp fire to dry and when we did, I made a horrifying discovery: the map
was stuffed inside my shirt, behind my back. I must have stashed it there in
the chaos of the raging thunderstorm to keep it dry.
So, we’d spent a miserable afternoon in the jungle, hiking an extra hour,
and all of it needlessly—I’d had the map the whole time. I glanced left and
right and when I was certain no one was looking, I slid the map into the fire
and watched it burn to ashes. Then I joined the rest of my squad cursing the
idiot who’d lost the map.
Other hands-on experiences included flying the C-130 simulator and
touring the actual aircraft in a hangar, visits to the 33rd Tactical Fighter Wing
and climbing all over their jets, plus more mundane tours of logistics and
communications facilities. We even had a day-long “ground safety” course
presented by Skipper Kemp that most snoozed through.
But none of the various “experiences” really mattered on that sweltering
July morning as I strode to the T-38 jet, laden with helmet, parachute and life
vest. I struggled up the yellow metal ladder slung over the side of the
fuselage and fumbled my way into the ejection seat. A ground crew airman
scrambled up the ladder and hooked up my straps and harnesses then cinched
them tight. I could hardly move.
He hooked up my oxygen hose and comm cords, then gingerly pulled the
arming pins from the rocket ejection seat.
The pilot climbed up the ladder and looked me over.
“Now,” he said, “put your palms flat on your thighs and don’t touch
anything.”
I did as he ordered, my heart pounding.
They closed and locked my canopy and instantly, the Florida sun began to
roast the rear cockpit. Once the pilot started both engines, some air flowed to
the rear cockpit but with the engines at idle, I was still sweltering.
I didn’t care. I was on the verge of flight in a supersonic, afterburner-
driven military jet.
We rolled onto the runway and stopped.
“All right,” the pilot’s voice crackled in my helmet earphones. “You
ready back there?”
“Yessir.”
The tower issued some cryptic orders, the pilot repeated back something
about “burner climb,” then the engines spooled up to full power, ice crystals
sprayed out of the air vents, and the pilot said, “Okay, here we go …
afterburner, now.”
The jet surged ahead as the afterburners lit and mashed me into the
ejection seat. The relentless acceleration was astonishing and after a short
roll, the jet lifted off.
“Gear coming up,” the pilot said. He held the jet down over the runway,
picking up speed. “And here we go.”
The nose rose like a rocket launching and the earth fell away. I was flat on
my back, the jet’s needle-like nose pointed straight up into the blue. We
accelerated going nearly straight up.
The momentum smashed me into the uncomfortable ejection seat, bound
and strapped so tightly I couldn’t move, the G-forces in the climb crushed me
and made my breathing come in gasps; my stomach churned and my
vestibular senses scrambled and protested. I was sweating, struggling to
breathe and my vision went gray.
Yet I was in heaven. I couldn’t have asked for a better moment and I
never wanted it to end.
At the top of the climb, the pilot rolled the jet inverted. Blue ocean
appeared below, over my head. Then he rolled the jet upright and headed us
out across the ocean to airspace restricted to military jets.
“Well,” the pilot said, “Want to see a loop or something?”
Start out slowly, my stomach screamed.
“How about an aileron roll?” I answered.
“Sure. First you pull the nose up a bit.”
The nose rose. Then we corkscrewed three hundred and sixty degrees,
smoothly, back to wings level.
“Go ahead,” he said. “You try.”
I took the stick, lightly eased it back then pushed it to the left. The jet
followed my touch instantly, rolling smoothly inverted then back upright. I
went a little too far, but the pilot leveled the wings. I was elated.
“How about I show you a strafing run?” he asked.
My brain was scrambled from the climb, the inverted flight, and the
aileron rolls.
“Sure,” I answered, despite the warning bells going off in my head and
my guts. Fuck that, I warned my body. We’re doing this.
The pilot rolled us upside down, then pulled the nose through the horizon
and into an inverted dive. I was weightless and we plummeted like an
elevator whose cables had snapped.
The ground raced up towards us. The pilot rolled us wings level, still
aimed at the scrubby shoreline.
“Now,” he said, “We walk the rudder …”
The nose wagged back and forth and I pictured cannon shells from a
Gatling gun spraying the beach.
“Then we pull off and jink away.”
He snap-rolled the jet sixty degrees to the left, then pulled up so hard my
vision went gray, then black, and the crush of four times my body weight sat
on my chest like an elephant as we rocketed up and away.
The next thing I knew, we were cruising back to the base for landing. My
guts were tied in knots, waves of nausea swept my body, my sense of balance
was scrambled, and I never wanted the flight to end.
“Okay,” the pilot said as we streaked above the runway at about a
thousand feet. “Here comes the pitchout.”
He snapped the jet into a ninety-degree roll and pulled hard, reversing our
course. The G’s tonnage crushed me again. I reached for the barf bag in my
pocket.
The jet slowed, then rolled into a ninety-degree bank and plummeted a
curving path toward the runway. I undid the bayonet clasp on my oxygen
mask, let it drop away and heaved my guts—and the orange juice and milk,
funny joke, Mr. Pilot—into the bag just as we touched down.
“You still with me?” the pilot called as we rolled clear of the runway.
“Yessir, I’m fine,” I lied. I felt beat to hell. I felt on top of the world. And
this wild world of supersonic jets, well, my stomach notwithstanding, would
be my world.
My fellow cadets and I posed for pictures in front of the jets as we
deplaned. The snapshots looked like a bizarre fishing trip, with everyone
holding up a full barf bag rather than their fresh catch. Everyone had gotten
sick. It was worth it a hundred times over, in my mind.
Later that evening, I happened across the pilot in the Officer’s Club stag
bar, still in his flight suit, sharing a beer with other pilots seated at the bar.
“Yeah,” he told me, “At first I was pissed that I had to come in on a
Saturday to fly some fucking ROTC pukes. But it turned out to be a nice day
to fly after all.”
I ordered a beer, then thanked him for the epic flight.
“You did good,” he said, then turned back to his pilot buddies.
I knew that was a lie, but it felt good to hear it anyway. And I knew I’d be
back in a T-38, preferably in the front cockpit, solo. I’d do whatever it took to
get the assignment and more importantly, master the physical and mental
challenges of high-performance flight to become one of those pilots who
possessed those assets and owned the privilege of supersonic jet flight.
Sure, I realized that was a longshot, and I wasn’t even sure how I’d pull it
off. I just believed that I would. I finished the camp with a high rating from
Captain Kniebusch, our Tac officer, and returned to VMI more determined
than ever to surmount any obstacle between me and Air Force pilot wings.

I came home from West Springfield High on the late bus after an
intramural volleyball game. My father had the VMI catalog in one hand and
my acceptance letter from Colonel Lipscomb, the Director of Admissions, in
the other.
“Well,” he said, tossing the catalog onto the counter, “I think VMI is too
tough for you and you’ll never be able to hack it. So I don’t think you should
go.”
That was just dad being dad, always negative, always finding the worst
outcome in an opportunity, at least where I was concerned. His oft-repeated
mantra to me—in between yelling at me for whatever infraction du jour my
mother had reported—was, “You’re not a complete waste: if nothing else,
you can serve as a bad example.” I’d long ago learned to tune that out, and
him, too. He in his Air Force career like my mother in her general life were
frustrated, stymied, and unhappy. I got that and actually felt sorry for them.
But I have to say, in this case his dismissive words inspired me. Not that
I had any doubt, but that clinched it: I’d matriculate into the VMI Corps of
Cadets that coming August. Period.
Hal Marvin and I’d been impressed with our tour of VMI, led by Cadet
Corporal Mike Fleener. The place was simple, monumental, stunning,
daunting, forbidding and welcoming, all in one. Most importantly for me, it
felt right, it felt like where I should be, where I needed to be. A straight,
narrow path.
I’d never been allowed to test my judgment at home—the answer was
always “no.” I knew that in a regular college it would be too easy for me to
veer off course into social distractions and lose my way. If anything, I
resented my parents for setting me up for failure in that regard, holding rigid
control of my life and citing things I’d done wrong as a second grader as
justification for their total lack of trust in me.
But that wouldn’t matter in a few months, as I’d have all of the
decision-making authority to myself. I’d even tried that argument on my
parents during my senior year: wouldn’t it be better for me to exercise some
responsibility now before I have it all in the fall? Apparently not.
Page by page, I tore the last few months off my backwards-numbered
calendar. I started running at night after I got home from work to build a
training base for cross-country running at VMI. I’d run track in high school,
but I wanted to run longer distance in college.
My girlfriend Virginia and I didn’t so much break up as we just said
goodbye, sort of. We’d done everything from the prom to constant double-
dates with my best friend Mike and his girlfriend Carol. We had one last date
planned before I left for VMI to break new ground, at least for us.
We double-dated on a nighttime visit to the Occoquan Reservoir. Our
buddy Brewster’s older brother had bought a case of beer and we were to
pick up Brewster and another close bud Dave and meet them with a couple of
Virginia and Carol’s girlfriends for a night of drinking and skinny-dipping in
the snake-infested Occoquan reservoir.
The other girls fell through, so it was just the four of us and a case of
beer. I’d never seen Virginia drunk before and it occurred to me despite my
own beer fog that she’d probably never been intoxicated, considering that her
father was a Baptist minister. Despite being afloat and naked, she was too
drunk for any breaking of new ground, at least as far as I was concerned
morally. There was no way I could live with anything but taking her home,
given her condition.
I backed my dad’s Buick Cutlass into her driveway, parked but left the
motor running. I’d gotten her back into her underwear, and that was the best I
could do. I sat her down on the doorstep, piled her clothes in her lap and rang
the doorbell.
Then I drove off. That was the last I ever saw of her, because the
following year she married her ex-boyfriend, the guy she’d gone with before
me, and started having kids.
Finally, it was August, and time to report to VMI for cadre, an infamous
weeklong period of hell to break down every civilian kid into a basic rat, a
freshman, an unproven VMI cadet who needed to prove that he should be
there—or go home.
For me, that was perfect. I’d fight the good fight, keep my eyes on the
prize, the Air Force wings I’d lived for up until then. The night before we left
for matriculation, I’d dreamed and it was not of VMI, but rather, my entry
into USAF pilot training. That is where my head and heart lived, and VMI
was just a challenge I’d have to work through in order to get there. I was
undaunted.
All I had to do was survive and overcome four years at a rigorous old
school military college that would just as soon have me leave as stay.
My parents drove me the three-hour trip down the valley to Lexington and
VMI. I piled my two suitcases in the old barracks courtyard as directed, then
as centuries of cadets had done before me, I signed the giant, old and revered
matriculation book. I was no longer a high school teenager. I was no one, I
was VMI property, I was unproven and realistically, unwanted. VMI always
admitted many more than they had room for, knowing that the rigors of the
first year would cut our class ranks by almost thirty percent.
A cadet sergeant pinned an index card with my name and basic
information to my shirt then ordered me into line with a half-dozen other
matriculants. I said a hasty goodbye to my parents, with zero regret or
remorse that I can recall. That was the end of my calendar countdown, my
emancipation from the toxic home life I’d endured, and I was content and
resolved to move forward.
After a silent lunch in the mess hall, we were escorted onto the parade
ground as a rabble of over four hundred other new matriculants. There they
lined us up according to height, because that’s how we’d march in parades.
Then the long line of “freshmen” was marched into barracks and up to the
fourth floor were all freshmen roomed.
We paused at each doorway and the capacity of the room dictated how
many height-arranged new cadets were marched into each room. That’s how
roommates and, in my case, some lifelong friendships were founded, though I
have to admit only three of the five of us made it through the first year.
We were marched down to the quartermaster, drew uniforms and
essentials, and were told how to arrange our rooms and belongings. The
civilian clothes were removed to the barracks basement.
After a long day, taps was sounded by a bugler and all lights were ordered
out.
Within an hour every door on the fourth floor was kicked in and we were
all ordered out onto the prison-like tier and down into a courtyard in total
darkness. Then, the senior class, the first class, as it is called among cadets,
filed in wearing dress blouses and starched white uniform pants.
Cadet Captain Chip Beaman, the first class president, spoke and though I
can’t remember his exact words, his message was that whoever we were
when we arrived, we were no more. Whatever status we had, mattered not
one whit. We were rats, the lowest of the low, untested, unproven, and
unworthy of the title VMI cadet.
Our childhood, our past, was over. We’d prove ourselves physically,
mentally, and morally—or we’d leave VMI. And the only thing we as rats
could count on going forward was ourselves, our commitment and grit, and
each other.
Then all hell broke loose.
One first classman bellowed orders at me and several others to hustle
down into the main shower rooms which had been pre-steamed and the air
was hot and stifling. Someone hammered a bass drum above the screaming of
first classmen, intensifying the surreal chaos. My tormentor ordered us to run
in place in the sweltering steam bath, then drop for push-ups.
He roared into my ear a torrent of abuse, then more orders. Fine. I’d been
yelled at, tormented, taunted before. At least he never laid a hand on me.
That was a sweat party, we’d learn. It was wild, out of control. I did sit
ups until I could do no more. Then push-ups till I was unable to move. What
could they do, I rationalized? They can’t kill me. And they sure can’t run me
off.
I was fine. Many quit that first night. I looked ahead and could only
foresee more of the same, at least the first year, and I was right. Still, there
was no way I was leaving.
We flopped on our bunks well after midnight. The next sweat party
commenced before dawn, followed by a forced run.
Still fine. I could run. I could do pushups. I could take a good yelling at.
Despite the torment, there was a certain peace in the Shenandoah Valley, the
old stone barracks, the stately parade ground and brooding House Mountain
looming in the distance.
It all felt right. Not much fun, torment, really, but it was right. I was
there to stay and in a strange way, content. This was, at last, somewhere I
belonged.

Chapter 9
The big guy sat at one of the tables in the Lejeune Hall snack bar,
watching me as I swept the floor around him with a large dust mop.
Chip Decarli was a third classman, a year behind me as we entered the
spring of what was my third year at VMI. He was a friend, one of the group
of football players I’d come to know through my roommate Danny, a football
scholarship athlete and starting defensive lineman like the big guy at the
table.
“I just sweeps up,” he said to me. I don’t remember what I said back.
But the words stabbed me. Yes, I just sweeps up—I’m a janitor. And the
pool room attendant, the bowling alley attendant, a part time receptionist at
the student union front desk—whatever it took to pay for my college degree.
I knew he didn’t intend it as any sort of unkindness, it was just something
to say. But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to a little resentment at my need to
earn cash and his idleness provided by a football scholarship. At the same
time, I knew firsthand the weekly beating Danny took on the football field, at
practice, and academically, all the while maintaining over a 3.0 GPA in an
engineering curriculum.
As I progressed through the class ranks, year after year, at VMI, I was
given some financial aid in the form of a tuition grant, but it wasn’t enough.
That was fine; I wasn’t asking for a free ride.
So I worked every job I could find on Post to cover my tuition and
expenses. I earned the student activities fee—a significant sum that covered
the formal dances and other events—by creating and painting the stage-wide
backdrops for the events, freehand, usually in an all-night session. That was
fine, too—I had help from Joe Santelli and Ralph George, a couple Brother
Rats and my partners in many crimes, and we did our late-night work with
our own music blasting from the PA and a completely forbidden case of beer.
When I was home on holiday breaks and some summers, I worked retail
jobs with as many hours as I could get. I started going to summer school
rather than home because there was no peace there. My mother hassled me
over use of “her car” to get to my job, so eventually, it wasn’t worth the fight.
In summer school I could take a course to lighten my academic load in the
academic year, which boosted my grades and allowed more time for on-post
jobs during the school year.
Also, VMI was wonderful in the summer. There were no uniforms, no
military duties, no schedule other than class. Coach King became our friend
and mentor and saw to it that we had access to all the athletic facilities during
the summer. Rockbridge County was the most beautiful place to run cross-
country and I ran five, ten- and fifteen-mile training runs in the rolling hills
around Lexington to prepare for cross-country in the Fall. Wade Williams,
our cross-country coach and the very definition of a tough but fair, caring
leader, always kept us posted on the mileage being reported by the incoming
rat recruits. We had to keep our mileage up to not be embarrassed by the new
kids that Fall.
There were also many Lexington girls home from college and we all hung
out and partied together. There were Melissa and Robin, two sisters who
were always game for fun gatherings; the sisters we called “The Three
Stooges,” their dad a VMI grad and they’d had the foresight to enroll in
predominantly male VMI summer school; there was “Main Jane” home from
Mary Washington and “Atom Ant” and “Short Stuff.”
Some of Danny’s teammates rented old, broken-down party houses in the
country for summer school and there was always something fun to do in the
evenings and plenty of girls to date.
Running was my Zen, my escape from the pressures of VMI life and the
endless hurdles between me an Air Force pilot wings. Though by my final
year I wasn’t competitive at cross-country any more, Coach kept me and a
few other rising First Classmen on the roster, because that’s the type of
exceptional coach VMI recruited: he really cared about his athletes as people,
not just as competitive assets. He was a major positive influence on my life
and the lives of many other runners.
My hard-won independence was worth the constant scramble to cover
costs. As a student, I never had to explain any academic problems to my
parents because I didn’t authorize them to see my grades. Since they
contributed not one cent to my college costs, I wasn’t about to answer to
them about grades.
Maybe that was partly my own fault, because I never asked them, nor did
they offer any help with tuition, room and board, although they did co-sign
for my student loans, which I paid off myself. Before I’d return to VMI after
a holiday break, my dad would typically ask, “Do you need anything?”
Well, yeah: tuition, room and board, spending money. The usual college
student stuff.
“No,” I always answered. I’d decided I’d rather push a broom than ask
him for anything. That was just the way I felt, based on the way it was.
Still, I had a little more financial help in my third year from the Air Force.
After a successful summer camp at Eglin, my classmates and I were offered
the advanced ROTC contract, which included a sizeable monthly stipend. In
return, we were under contract to the Air Force, obligated to accept a
commission and to serve as directed after graduation.
The last part was key: we’d receive our assignments that spring. If I
wasn’t selected for pilot training, I’d have to enter active duty in whatever
specialty the Air Force deemed best for their needs.
We were all sweating the assignment release, especially the nearly ninety
of us who were pilot-qualified and competing for whatever few pilot training
assignments that would be allotted to our graduating class.
The previous year, only five cadets got orders to pilot training. The rest
either went into the Air Force Reserves for two years, serving drill weekends
and annual six-week deployments, or to their second or third (or worse)
choices listed on their “Dream Sheet,” or assignment preference list.
I don’t remember what any of my choices were beyond Undergraduate
Pilot Training (UPT), because nothing else mattered to me. Anything else
was unthinkable and irrelevant.
A few more cadets dropped out of the competition, opting for nav school
or as unlikely in my book, “rotary wing” training with a “guarantee” of fixed
wing transition after five years. In plain English, the Air Force was offering
pilot-qualified candidates the option of helicopter pilot training instead of
UPT, then transition to fixed-wing pilot training later. But I knew from
observing the careers of my father and dozens of his fellow officers that there
was never any real “guarantee” from the Air Force.
I resolved to be optimistic, to assume that the Air Force budget was on the
upswing and that we’d be allotted more pilot training slots than the previous
class had—because they’d received one more than the year before. As long as
I was predicting the future, I figured I’d envision it in a positive light. But I
was wrong.
I walked down to Kilbourne Hall, the ROTC building, right after lunch, a
few minutes early for my afternoon class. I flopped down on a Naugahyde
sofa in the break area and contemplated a cat nap. At VMI, rest was in short
supply and you took opportunities for sleep wherever you found them.
“Mr. Manno.”
A short, slightly built major with a spindly mustache and pilot wings on
his uniform shirt appeared before my eyes when I opened them.
“Step into my office for a minute, please,” he said, then led the way back
to his cubicle among the officers’ desks. I followed.
He motioned me to the government-issued gray chair next to his desk. I
sat.
Major Sullivan was a mentor of sorts to me. He didn’t fit into the VMI
officer mold, nor the typical Air Force pilot mode for that matter.
He was an Air Force Academy graduate and had been a Rhodes Scholar.
He was brilliant, serious, intense, and very perceptive. I wanted to be an
officer like him.
Next to his cubicle was the desk of Captain Allen, a fighter pilot who had
a plaque over his desk with a barely veiled insult to Major Sullivan, who was
a transport pilot. The inscription in bold letters read, “If you ain’t a fighter
pilot, you ain’t shit.”
To which Major Sullivan would reply, “So if you are a fighter pilot …”
I liked his understated but mordant wit. He seemed to appreciate mine,
my smart-assed attitude that he once told me “tweaked my superiors at a level
just short of insubordination.” He appreciated my blasphemous cartoon series
in the weekly newspaper, lampooning everyone in authority at VMI,
including the superintendent, the dean, the governor of the state, and even the
dreaded Colonel Buchanan.
Some of my cartoons had won collegiate awards, the most recent given by
Pulitzer-prize winning political cartoonist Jeff MacNelly, who’d invited me
to visit him (which I did) in his office at The Richmond Times Dispatch.
Major Sullivan was an iconoclast, and maybe he tolerated that in me. He
said my attitude, my scrappy drive to succeed at VMI, was a good officer
quality.
I waited for him to shuffle some papers on his always messy desk.
“I just wanted you to know,” he said.
Sweet Jesus, I thought, he has the pilot training assignment list. My pulse
pounded in my ears. I wanted to know, but I also didn’t: the dream was alive
until that list killed it. Or didn’t.
“Sir?”
“Four pilot training assignments came down for your class. And you got
one of them.”
My head swam. I needed to jump up and scream, to throw up, cry, to run
up and down the waxed linoleum hallways of Kilbourne Hall with my hair on
fire.
I was going to pilot training.
“The assignments will be announced in class today,” he continued. “I
wanted you to be prepared beforehand.”
I read between the lines: there’d be more disappointment in the room than
elation, so I’d have time to be elated now and defer to the crushing
disappointment that would be the reality for most of my fellow pilot-hopefuls
in the room when the assignment list was released.
“Yes sir. Thank you,” was all I could muster. Seemed like there was more
that I should have said, but I had no words. I think he understood.
“Okay. See you in class,” he said at last, and went back to his paperwork.
I floated out of his office. I walked to the seclusion of the stairwell and sat
down on a step. How? I mean, this was my life’s dream, but the competition?
Scholarship guys, academically distinguished cadets. The odds? So very poor
—only four pilot training assignments for the whole class.
I was assigned to pilot training.
After class and the announcement that four—only four—of us had been
selected for pilot training, the mood changed among my commissioning
group. Some guys were resigned to their fate and went on with their
cadetship. Others were angry—I would have been—and resentful. Some
avoided me, or barely spoke to me, as did many of their friends.
I hadn’t expected that, but I guess I couldn’t blame them. I’d been very
fortunate, they had not. My old West Springfield home room buddy, the guy
who introduced me to VMI, had not made the cut. At least he still seemed
friendly to me.
The semester flew by from that point, at least for me. At Spring Break, a
classmate and I drove down to Florida to my older brother’s college campus.
Like the previous year, I’d camp out on my brother’s floor and spend all day
on Jensen Beach while he and his roommates were in class.
In previous years, I would hitch hike to the beach. Somebody would
always stop for a clean-cut, military looking kid. Often, when a car stopped
for me, my brother and his long-haired, hippie-looking roommates would pop
out of the bushes to pile into the car, cutting class for a day at the beach.
This time my brother rat Freddie drove us down in his father’s station
wagon. Freddie was a chick-magnet: women everywhere swooned at his
good looks and athletic build, although to me he seemed pretty ordinary. That
was a plus because I was available for his castoffs as he chose a girl or two
for a night of drinking and more.
We stopped along the way to Florida and stayed with girls from Freddie’s
harem at North Carolina State University; we drank too much and wrecked
his father’s car on another date night with another set of girls. We stopped in
Atlanta at Danny’s home and in his well-equipped garage, he managed some
stop-gap repairs that restored the brakes, cleared some of the smashed fender
and grill and at least made the car drivable again, which let us continue on to
Florida.
My older brother was still the same as ever, generous, welcoming, always
looking out for family, even to the extent of letting his goofy younger brother
stay for most of a week. At his apartment, I witnessed the side of college life
I was clearly missing at VMI. We all binge-drank on the beach all day, then
grilled out when the sun set and drank even more. The “Grass Man” stopped
by on his route as dependably as the mailman. “Anything you all need?” he’d
ask, and offer an ample selection of pot and hash, some pills and
hallucinogens from a large satchel. The roomies bought plenty and fired up,
at which time I’d have to leave the premises. I couldn’t afford any kind of
drug bust, not with my pilot training assignment in hand.
It was then I realized I’d been wise in choosing VMI, because I too would
have been lost in the playtime college party world if I’d gone to a non-
military college. As it was, most of my brother’s group of friends and
roommates were in their third year but most had only one or two years of
college credit. Ultimately, only one of them ever got a college degree.
Back at the Institute, one more Air Force hurdle awaited. Before dawn
one morning all of us who were to be commissioned as Air Force officers the
following year boarded charter buses and set off on the two-hundred- and
thirty-mile drive to Norfolk Naval Base for our commissioning physicals.
I settled back into my seat and prepared to nod off. To me, the
commissioning physical was just a formality. I was in great physical
condition thanks to cross-country running and the athletic demands of VMI.
I’d never had any problems with any physical screening.
We rumbled out of Lexington eastbound into the sunrise. I dozed, having
no idea that my pilot training dreams were about to explode into a million
pieces.

Chapter 10
After final exams in my second class year, I hitched a ride with a friend
back to Springfield, splitting the gas cost for the trip home. I had a plan I’d
hoped to talk my parents into supporting.
It had been three tough years at VMI, but I’d finally advanced to my First
Class year. Unlikely as it seemed, I was a leader in the Corps, having been
elected president of one of the major student government organizations. I’d
managed a decent GPA despite the hell of six day a week classes, my part-
time jobs, athletics, the student paper and my award-winning cartoon series.
I’d also been appointed editorial editor for the weekly newspaper, one of the
few stand-alone college papers supported only by advertising and
subscriptions.
I was included in my graduating year in the national publication “Who’s
Who in American Colleges and Universities” for my overly active
extracurricular life, from sports to college organizations (I was an officer in
the College Republicans for their political doxology, and in the College
Democrats for their mixers with several all-girls colleges) to editorial writing
in the paper.
And I’d secured the elusive pilot training orders. I’d live out my lifelong
dream, as well as the one snatched away from my father a generation ago.
I hadn’t been a model cadet, but I had certainly been a “decent” cadet: I
never spit-shined anything after my rat year, but my shoes always had a
proper buff shine. My brass didn’t glisten, but it was always Brasso-polished
to standard, my pants had an acceptable press, and my haircut was always
just short enough to comply with regulations. I was a simple, basic, ordinary
or as we called it, “grub private.”
That pretty much described most of the corps—privates—in contrast to
the “rankers,” or those who’d held a cadet rank. I had nothing against them
and in fact, I was proud of the guys in my class who’d held rank, especially
in our upcoming senior year. Steve would be an excellent regimental
commander and all the regimental and battalions’ staffs below him were good
people and would make excellent leaders for our senior year and afterward, in
the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines.
The two other cadets who survived my rat room both were rankers,
officers in the Company and Battalion and I was happy for them. They’d
excelled in the military system and were proven leaders and would make
good military officers.
I chose the other road, being perhaps a little on the barely military side of
the VMI demographic. I was just one of many in the cadet ranks, anonymous
in the military mass and happy to be that way. And of the four hundred and
forty-five of us who’d matriculated our rat year, only two hundred and fifteen
remained. I was happy to just be one of the survivors.
The key privilege awarded to VMI seniors was permission to keep a car
on campus and drive anywhere in Rockbridge County and beyond. Before I’d
left Lexington, I’d found a used Volkswagen Beetle for a reasonable price.
Anyone other than a First Classman caught driving would be
suspended, or would serve penalty Number One: a year of confinement to
post. So, I’d bided my time. I’d found a car and arranged a car loan I could
afford with my Air Force stipend and my on-campus jobs. I’d present that
sure-fire plan to my parents and surely, I’d hoped, they’d agree to co-sign the
loan for the car which I’d pay for myself.
Honestly, the main reason I’d come home was to discuss the car.
Surely, they’d at least co-sign the car loan if I showed them how I could
make the monthly payments myself. Otherwise, hanging around the house
had become a drag. My brothers and I were pretty much off the tight leash
because we stopped asking and just went out with our hometown friends after
work. But that meant the unwelcome “light in the living room window” we
all dreaded.
If we pulled up to the house after a night out, even well after midnight,
chances were good that if the floor lamp in the living room showed through
the drapes, it proved that Dad was up late watching television. That meant
you had to go inside and act normal for a respectable amount of time—we
figured fifteen, twenty minutes—which included making at least one cogent
remark about whatever old movie he was watching.
That was difficult to do with double vision and the speech impediment
from a half dozen beers. But that was the requirement before you could
excuse yourself and go upstairs to your room and fall down on your bed.
Often, somebody’d be there before me, sitting strategically far enough
away from my dad so that he couldn’t detect any beer breath or worse. If
another sibling came in during your time, that was the perfect escape. My
younger brother had the worst of it, often spouting some drunken gibberish
about the television show and that would set my dad off (“You smell like a
brewery, you idiot—get out of here!”) which let everyone escape upstairs.
My parents and I had butted heads the last time I’d been home for the
holidays, not about me but about my sister. She was, as always, a model
student, one who did everything the school or my parents could possibly ask
for and unlike my brothers and me, she was not a hellion, hell raiser, drinker
or any kind of troublemaker. She was an honor student with an “A” average,
no small achievement given the patchwork of schools she’d transferred in and
out of as we’d moved around the country. Yet still my parents allowed her no
freedom, zero privileges.
I realized then that no matter how closely we’d ever followed orders—
which we hadn’t—it would not have made any difference. I was kind of glad
I’d allowed myself the fun of being a hellion with my two brothers, knowing
the results would have been the same regardless.
This visit I steered clear of anything controversial. I waited till my dad
had a day off and neither of them was busy. I laid out my plan, showed them
my budget.
As soon as I asked, the car was a resounding “no;” they would not co-sign
the car loan, period. “Why should we?” my mother asked with a cross
between sarcasm and arrogance.
It finally dawned on me: why did I even bother? The answer was
always no, would always be no, so why was I wasting my time even asking? I
repacked the few belongings I’d brought to Springfield and headed back to
Lexington.
That summer before my First Class year I had pretty deluxe digs, house
sitting in one of the venerable old faculty houses on Letcher Avenue near the
parade ground. That was better than sharing a bedroom with my little brother
and tolerating my antagonistic parents. The house was the on-post living
quarters for Dr. Tom Davis, a History professor and a mentor and trusted
confidant. He and his kind and supportive wife Helen were in London doing
research. All I had to do was babysit Wick-Wick, their beloved cat, and the
place was mine.
Once back in town, I stopped by the business office in the cadet student
union. I’d worked for Red Turner, the concessions contractor, in various
positions from janitor to cashier to fry cook for three years. He knew me
well.
I’d hoped he could put in a favorable word for me at the Lexington bank
where he was actually on the board of directors, so that maybe I could get a
car loan even without a co-signer. I could budget for a higher payment, if
that’s what it took.
“Let me see that,” Red said, and took the loan application from my hands.
He glanced at it briefly, then grabbed a pen and scrawled his signature on all
of the co-signer lines.
“There,” he handed it back to me. “I know you’ll keep up with the
payments.”
And that was that. All I had to do was learn to drive a stick shift. I lurched
my way around town, stalling, grinding gears, but eventually catching on. A
couple weeks later, I drove my light blue VW all the way to Atlanta for a
banking convention to draw cartoons.
Based on my published cartoon work, I could pick and choose between
contract opportunities to produce caricatures as part of various businesses
promotional booths at summer conventions. Attendees and potential
customers would sit for me—two minutes for black and white, four for color,
according to the promotional director—and they’d walk away with a
caricature suitable for framing, with the client’s logo on the paper. It was
good work, and paid well for a student. The hours were easy, maybe an hour,
possibly two, between attendees’ meetings and a few private cocktail parties.
After the convention, I settled into summer school again, getting ahead
for my upcoming fourth and final year at VMI.
I sat on the sofa at lunchtime with Chrissy, the beautiful middle daughter
of The Three Stooges from Lynchburg. She was way out of my league and
dated more high-profile football players rather than a geeky cross-country
runner like me. But we were fast friends and met in the Davis’s home for
Velveeta grilled cheese sandwiches and old sitcom reruns before her
afternoon class.
Her older sister Gail was blonde, beautiful and a talented music major,
also way out of my league but somehow, she dated me all summer anyway.
The youngest sister, a redhead named Gwen, was a close friend and ally
in crime—we often drove to their hometown, Lynchburg, gathered her
friends and went to a nightclub or two. Our summer nights were busy with a
never-ending social life.
Being back in Lexington was a relief, with life seem more like home than
the house in Springfield I’d left. And I needed to be there early for the start of
the academic year anyway. I was elected by my fellow grub privates as
president of the Officer of the Guard Association (OGA). We had the
responsibility of disciplining the incoming rat class and perhaps more
importantly, giving an institutional voice to the privates in every cadet
company.
I wasn’t much for yelling at rats and there were plenty of others who were
good at that. I was there in an OGA leadership position to see that the chaotic
sweat parties all rats endure on the first night went smoothly, safely and
under control.
I did sit at the special OGA table in the Crozet mess hall, being the
group’s honcho, where rats who’d bucked the system—kind of like I had
myself—were heaped with even more yelling and “attitude readjustment”
than at their normal cadre tables.
I took a more sotto voce approach with the errant rats. While others
harangued them, I calmly and quietly showed them catalogs and recruiting
brochures from other colleges. “See these guys tossing a frisbee there with
those beautiful coeds? Civilian clothes, parties—I bet they cut class whenever
they want …” I made a few of the most hard-core miscreants—kind of like I
had been—fill out applications to other colleges.
Cadre went well, with the usual attrition but no significant injuries or
damage. My course load wasn’t too bad thanks to summer school, and most
of it was electives in my major. One in particular I’d looked forward to and
had been on a waiting list for, for over a year: Herbert Nash Dillard’s
“Shakespeare” class. Dr. Dillard was a legend at VMI and in academia, in his
own inimitable way. For an English major, the class was a must.
Cross-country training started with two-a-day practices, both at dawn and
again late in the afternoon. Coach Wade was a master at developing a team’s
stamina, right down to taking each runner’s pulse after half-mile repeats and
tailoring both the repetitions and the rest intervals.
I sold my parachute to a classmate, because I wasn’t ever going to need it
again, thanks to the Air Force. He landed in a tree on his first jump with the
chute which was a fitting if shredded end to that period in my life.
The main reason I’d jumped in the first place was as the only affordable
way I could get into the sky. Having orders to pilot training meant that in my
First Class year, I’d be given basic flight instruction in a small Cessna, paid
for by the Air Force. The program was called “FIP,” short for “Flight
Instruction Program,” and the mission was to be sure those of us headed for
pilot training had the basic aptitude for piloting an airplane before the Air
Force invested over a million dollars each in the basic jet flight training on
active duty.
The week before classes started, I hustled over to Kilbourne Hall to the
Air Force Detachment, looking for Sergeant Teague. He scheduled the FIP
program with a small flying school operation and Roanoke’s Woodrum Field
about fifty miles south of Lexington. I’d simply hop in my little VW and
drive myself south once a week to the airport and—at last—start flying for
real.
The FIP schedule board hung on a partition outside Sgt. Teague’s cubicle.
Three names were neatly lettered there in grease pencil. Mine was not one of
them.
What the hell?
I knocked on the edge of the partition. Sgt. Teague looked up, then at my
name tag.
“You need to talk to Major Sullivan,” he said before I could ask any
questions. Then he turned back to his paperwork.
My heart sank. I didn’t want to talk to Major Sullivan. The dream would
only be alive until someone told me it wasn’t. I took a deep breath and
walked back to the officers’ section.
“Sir?” I asked, poking my head into Major Sullivan’s cubicle.
He glanced up. At first he seemed distracted, then his eyes narrowed.
“Sit down.” He motioned me to a chair. He pulled a fat file folder from
one of the piles on his desk and flipped it open.
He leaned back and his chair squeaked. He looked tired.
“Your physical came back from Norfolk.” He tapped the file. “You
flunked the flight physical.”
“What?” My heart sank. The dream was slipping away.
“Your eyes,” he said, “Your vision is not twenty-twenty.”

Chapter 11
“Headquarters ROTC says they’re not granting any vision waivers,”
Major Sullivan told me, but I already knew that. At a time when the Air
Force actually had too many pilots, they could be as picky as they wanted.
That reality was crushing, because how often had I heard someone say,
“Yeah, I always wanted to be a pilot, but my eyes weren’t twenty-twenty.”
Now, that was me.
“So, this is pretty much the worst-case scenario,” he added calmly,
shuffling through folders piled on his desk. “But there might be still one
chance to surmount this.”
I’d do anything. And if I was honest with myself, I’d have to admit the
vision results weren’t a total surprise. Three years as an English major and
the tons of reading in the curriculum had taken a toll. Plus, I was getting
older, twenty-one versus that eighteen-year-old rat I’d been when I’d started
ROTC.
Major Sullivan opened a thick black binder to a marked page and placed
it before me. The heading read “medical standards for pilots,” and he’d
highlighted one paragraph.
“This says you are allowed a retest.”
I nodded. Okay, let’s retest.
“But,” he continued. “Look at your vision test results.”
He tapped my pilot physical report form: twenty twenty-five in one eye,
twenty-thirty in the other. Shit.
“That’s not really even close, so a retest isn’t going to cut it,” he said. “In
fact, it might slam the door completely if you don’t pass. But.”
He put a finger on a paragraph in the fat manual. “Buried in here is one
line that states, ‘if the pilot candidate is not within a hundred and fifty miles
of the nearest military medical facility, a consultation with a civilian
optometrist will be accepted.’”
That began to sink in. Lexington certainly wasn’t within that range of any
military bases. And if I read between the lines, it seemed like Major Sullivan
was saying, so shop around until you find a doctor who’ll report your vision
to be twenty-twenty. Whether that was what Major Sullivan meant or not, it
didn’t matter—that was exactly what I’d do. I’d find a doctor who’d report
my vision as twenty-twenty.
“Try Dr. Brothers on Route-11 just north of here,” Major Sullivan
suggested. “He was an Air Force eye doctor for several years before going
into private practice. He’ll understand what you need.”
“Yessir.” I stood. “I’ll call right now.”
“This may or may not work out,” he said as I left. “Don’t get your hopes
up too high just yet.”
It had to work out, I decided. Just the same, though, I made a note to
check with my brother rat who edited the yearbook. My senior write-up
included the verbiage “Chris won that coveted Air Force pilot slot so he
could finally achieve his dream of jumping out of a plane he himself was
flying.” I’d have to revise that, just to not look really stupid if this didn’t
work out.
“I won’t,” I lied to Major Sullivan, having already pinned all my hopes on
this slim chance. Jumping out of a plane he himself was flying. My old
parachute was in tatters, which was fitting, because I didn’t want to go back
to skydiving as a half-assed way to get into the air.
“Bring me a twenty-twenty vision report and we’ll go from there,” he
said, then turned back to his paperwork-piled desk.
“Yessir.” I turned and headed for Sgt. Teague’s office to find a yellow
pages phone book.
I felt grateful to Major Sullivan, because he could have simply said,
“Sorry, you’re not pilot qualified” and avoided the additional chore of
sending in a consult, much less digging through the regulations to find a way
to salvage my dream.
This consult possibility was a stroke of luck. So, I decided, I’d better get
after it quickly, before anyone changed their mind.
I set up an appointment for later in the week, then tried to put the whole
sorry mess out of my mind as classes started. That was impossible to do,
especially as I watched Wyatt, Steve and Elmo leave for their FIP flying
lessons down in Roanoke. They came back with flying stories that both
heartened me, but then made me fearful of that dream of flight slipping
through my hands.
I finally got into the examining room with Dr. Brothers that Thursday
afternoon. He was a friendly guy, willing to chat about his Air Force days in
the past as well as mine in the future.
He performed the full eye exam, then even typed up a note that said
“Cadet Manno has a splendid refractive error today,” plus more medical
mumbo-jumbo I didn’t understand. But the bottom line was, both eyes were
still documented as worse than twenty-twenty.
“This should do it,” he said cheerily as I went to his receptionist to pay. I
knew it would not do, but said nothing and just paid for the exam.
I was crestfallen, and worried about two things. First, I just had to get that
twenty-twenty score, and nothing else would do, including a letter noting
“marvelous refractive error.” Second, the search could get way out of my
budget fast if I had to shop around much more at the standard exam price.
I tried another doctor in nearby Buena Vista, but he reported the same
thing. I tabled the issue for a day or two, trying to focus on academics and
athletics.
By my senior year I was no longer competitive on a cross-country team
composed of the super-recruits Wade Williams had brought in that term. He
was a topnotch, well-respected coach and parents were willing to entrust their
student-athletes’ cross-country future to him and his program even with the
overlay of VMI demands their incoming student would face.
But even more admirable in my mind, was the fact that he let me among
several seniors stay on the team even though we couldn’t help the team’s
score much in cross-country meets. But with Wade, as long as you were
trying, he’d coach you and make you welcome on his team.
I served mostly as a running guide, keeping the new cadets on the team
from getting lost on our ten to fifteen mile runs through breathtaking
Shenandoah foothills. I pounded out mile after mile, mulling over
possibilities to get my pilot slot back. I ran alongside one of my brother rats
who’d not made the final pilot cut in AFROTC, although he’d been qualified.
He seemed unbothered by the loss, but I just knew I could never reconcile
myself to an Air Force career anywhere but in the cockpit.
Late one afternoon, walking back from downtown, I passed a shabby-
looking sign hanging over a door across from the movie theater and next to
the liquor store. “Dr. Ballard,” or something to that effect, was painted in
faded, sun bleached script over smaller print.
I’d seen the sign many times before and, in my mind, I’d figured it to be a
dentist’s office, though I’m not sure why. But from the look of the faded sign
and even the weather-beaten front door, I’d figured that would be a dental
clinic I’d be reluctant to trust with my dental health.
That day, the smaller lettering registered with me: “Ophthalmologist.” On
a whim, the worn-looking exterior notwithstanding, I opened the door, stood
aside for an older woman leaving the office, then stepped inside.
The outer office was dimply lit and smelled musty, just as I’d imagined it
would.
An elderly man with thick glasses, white hair and a mustache to match
glanced up from a clipboard.
“Can I help you young man?”
“I’d like to make an appointment for an eye exam,” the words tumbled
out of my mouth. I worried as much about the standard of the office as I did
about yet another chunk out of my savings to pay for the exam. But I said
nothing.
He glanced at his watch.
“How about right now?”
“Yessir, that would be great.” The words were out, I was committed, no,
desperate. I was running out of time and options.
The exam was thorough, slow, almost painstakingly slow. I had to accept
that quietly, though, because he looked to be older than my grandfather, a
fact I tried to confirm with a glance at his diploma hanging beside the door.
But, with my eyes dilated, the lettering was too washed out to read.
He scribbled notes on an exam form. He sighed and shook his head.
“Well, sir?” I asked cautiously. I wanted to know, but I also didn’t. Still, I
knew I couldn’t sustain a doctor to doctor eye exam search in terms of both
time and money. I just needed good news.
He sighed again.
“Are my eyes twenty-twenty,” I asked at last.
“No,” he said. “Not really.”
Not really? He handed me the signed examination form.
“But they’re close enough,” he added. “It’s all arbitrary military nonsense
anyway. You’ll do fine.”
“Thank you,” was all I could manage. I hurriedly wrote a check for the
exam, relieved to know it was the last one I’d have to pay for, but more
importantly, to get out of the office before he changed his mind.
I hustled back to barracks with the form in my hand, still disbelieving that
this one bit of scribbled information and the signature of the old doctor could
actually move the mountain before me. At the same time, I wanted it, willed
it to be enough. I changed uniforms and on my way to the locker room to
change for cross-country practice, I detoured across the street to Kilbourne
Hall and up to the Air Force offices.
I knocked on Major Sullivan’s cubicle. No one home.
“What do you need?” Captain Allen asked, leaning out of his doorway.
“I have the consult,” I answered. “The eye exam.”
He reached out his hand, scanned the form and nodded.
“Excellent. This ought to do it. I’ll see to it that it’s submitted right
away.”
“Thank you, sir.”
I crossed the highway back to Cocke Hall to pick up my freshly
laundered cross-country gear and stop see what workout Coach Wade had
posted on his “Hell’s Kitchen” bulletin board.
A few teammates huddled around the board and groaned. Over-distance
today, fourteen miles through the rolling foothills. I was undaunted. That
ought to do it. I played that over and over in my head. Yes, that damn well
ought to.
I let my mind drift as I ran the backroads outbound deeper into the
county. The simple beauty of the Shenandoah Valley in the fall was like a
fine wine, better with time and week after week the scenery burnished into
stunning miles of beautiful trees that arched over the backroads.
Coach Wade was a hands-on coach. He didn’t just post the workout and
send us out. He found everyone on the course at various points, pedaling his
ten speed or riding a motor scooter. He’s offer encouragement as well as
useful critique of my form and pace. It was easy to keep my mind off of the
eyesight dilemma.
After practice I trudged up the hill to Crozet Hall for dinner at the Cross-
Country training table. Some of the FIP cadets, my three lucky brother rats
who’d passed their eye exams the first time, sat at a separate table eating a
late supper. I wanted to join them, but besides the fact that we ate as a team—
an emaciated, P.O.W.-ish band of long-distance stick bodies—I didn’t want
hear about what I was missing, at least not until I was definitely back on
flight status.
Class demands didn’t lessen while I waited and I dove into my reading,
using the reading glasses Dr. Brothers had given me. “They’ll ease the strain
on your eyes,” he’d said. If I managed to return to flight status, I’d still have a
full year of college reading ahead, which would not help my eyes before the
eye test at my pilot training base.
One course in particular was giving me problems, though it shouldn’t
have. But Dr. Dillard’s “Shakespeare” class, the one I’d been on a waiting list
for since my third class year, was dragging down my grades slowly but
surely.
Dodo, as Dillard was affectionately known, had an odd approach to the
literature aspect of Shakespeare’s plays. We had a textbook of annotated
plays, but no secondary sources. The class consisted of Dodo performing
Shakespeare, bellowing lines as Othello or Hamlet or Richard III and playing
out the scenes. He knew every line in every play we studied and the
classroom was his stage.
That was entertaining, but his quizzes were based simply on student
knowing who said what in which play, something I was finding impossible to
master. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of the characters and their
motivation, but his quizzes simply asked for names and lines from students
like me drinking from the firehose of his wild performances in classes and the
heavy tome of plays during study hours. I had a “D’ and that was slipping.
Ever the wild-eyed Shakespearean orator, Dodo couldn’t have cared less
—he was having a blast, even as some of us were drowning: an English
major, failing Dodo’s Shakespeare?
He’d even show up in barracks now and then, late in the evening, drunk
as a skunk, visiting cadet rooms and holding forth as if everything was just
another performance, another hour for him to strut and fret his hour upon the
stage, while I was just Macbeth’s idiot, having no way to graduate on time if
I failed his course. Which could cost me my pilot slot—if I actually got it
back.
After he left my room for others—and both my engineer roommates just
shook their heads at his antics—I went back to studying, not sure if my story
was a comedy or a tragedy.
I’d soon find out. Very soon.

Chapter 12
On a surprisingly chilly, blustery October afternoon I motored my trusty
VW bug down the gently winding curves of Interstate-81 southbound from
Lexington towards Roanoke and Woodrum Field. I’d have to drive right by
the Hollins College exit and under ordinary circumstances, I’d have stopped
for lunch with my girlfriend who was an undergrad there. But this trip was
for my first flight lesson and I was all business.
Sgt. Teague had scheduled me to fly just as soon as my eye exam worked
its way through the proper Air Force channels and my 1P status was restored.
On the passenger seat beside me, a stack of Cessna flight manuals rode
shotgun, just in case. Wyatt and Steve, both already well into the FIP syllabus
and getting ready to solo, had said I wouldn’t need them except for maybe the
preflight. Still, they were a tangible reminder that this was real, that I was
finally getting into the cockpit, behind the controls.
I’d pored over the manuals and found them to be an enigmatic new world,
at least for a liberal arts major. Everything was all about quantifiable
measures: weight, range, altitude capability, wing span, turn radius, climb
rates—a library of facts and stats. It seemed strange, but that was simply the
more esoteric approach to things that made me a decent English major: I saw
things through dynamic motion, not static facts, but that was this new world
I’d have to conquer.
It occurred to me as I drove south that maybe that’s why Dodo’s “Shakes”
class was giving me fits. He tested with frequent quizzes focused only on
questions of “what line,” “where,” “who said it” and “what exactly did they
say” and even “to whom,” rather than the holistic overall and multi-layered
aesthetics, or in-depth interrogations of implications and sub-text. He was
counting and cataloguing brush strokes, while I was taking in the painting.
And I was failing his course.
If that quantitative approach applied to the pilot world, well, I’d fight my
way in and satisfy the requirement. I wasn’t sure what I’d do about Dodo, but
that would be a problem for after my flight lesson.
I pulled into the parking lot of the Bedford Flying Service at Roanoke’s
Woodrum Field. The two flight school airplanes stood side by side next to the
small, one story brick building with the flying school marquee out front. The
pair looked sleek and natural like spindly dragonflies poised to dart off into
thin air. The blunt nose fronted by a prop and pointy, shiny prop spinner
tapered back in a sleek empennage to the tall rudder and wide elevator. It just
proclaimed “flight,” and I was ready.
These were at long last the real deal, I told myself, not just the balsa
wood and fabric-winged miniatures I’d built and flown. I’d get to be inside,
to move the ailerons and rudder against the slipstream, carving a real path
through flight maneuvers a thousand feet in the sky. No more control lines.
No more jump plane where after a cramped and uncomfortable ride up, I’d
have to make my own way back to Earth.
To me the aircraft appeared like friendly puppies, ready for play, frisky,
wanting to leap off—just like me. The high wing looked thick and firm and
almost seemed reassuring, mounted like a pair of shoulders and outstretched
arms spread above the cockpit.
The registration number was painted on each plane near the tail: “11J”
was the Cessna-152 “Aerobat,” which actually had windows on the ceiling of
the cockpit for aerobatic maneuvers. We called her “One-One-Juliet.” The
other plane, “45U,” was a standard -152 with two seats and a small space
behind them for luggage.
I exchanged paperwork from the ROTC Detachment regarding
authorization and billing, signed a few forms for the school and met my
instructor.
Pat was a middle-aged guy with a friendly smile and a soft-spoken
manner that seemed ideal for a flight instructor. We did a walk-around
preflight inspection of the 45-Uniform, checking the oil level, scanning under
the cowl for any oil or fuel leaks. The compact lightweight engine reminded
me of my VW Beetle’s small but efficient engine.
We scanned under each wing, taking a fuel sample from each (“Water is
heavier than fuel,” Pat explained, “It’ll settle into these sumps. We need to be
sure there’s none that can gum up the carburetor.”) then moved back to the
empennage.
“There are gust locks,” Pat said as he moved the metal elevator up and
down. “To keep the wind from battering the flight controls on the ground.”
He had me swing the rudder left and right.
“We need to be sure everything moves freely before we fly,” Pat said as
we completed the circuit. “Okay, you hop in that side, I’ll go around to the
other side.”
Finally. I climbed into the small left seat. Basic instruments stared back at
me from the panel, unblinking eyes lightless and frozen in place till Pat
turned on the battery switch. Then she came to life with gyros spinning and a
radio crackling with static.
Pat ran through the start-up checklists, explaining as he went. Then he
cracked his door open and yelled, “Clear, prop!” to warn anyone nearby that
we were about to start the little engine and its dangerous, whirling prop.
I taxied us out like a drunken sailor, zig-zagging all around the taxi line
painted on the asphalt. You steered by the rudder pedals maneuvering the
nosewheel and it felt unnatural, opposite of what I’d expected: when you
push a tricycle’s left pedal or a bicycle’s left handlebar, the wheel goes right.
But on an airplane, the priority is flight, and pushing the right rudder pedal
positions the rudder and the nosewheel for a right turn. It was all backwards
and I was clumsy.
Pat assured me that was normal and with an extra amount of
concentration, we lined up on the runaway centerline.
“You make the takeoff,” Pat said. “Like we talked about, we’ll smoothly
advance the throttle to takeoff power and let her roll. I’ll tell you when to
ease back on the yoke.”
We rolled only a couple hundred yards or so and the nose just lifted off
and the earth wobbled away below.
“That’s it, bring her up,” Pat said, though I hadn’t really done anything
with the control yoke. 45-Uniform just was ready to fly, wanted to fly—and
did.
The higher we climbed, the slower we seemed to be flying but that was
just an illusion. The airspeed indicator needle wagged back and forth between
eighty-five and ninety knots as we bumped along, buffeted by every wind
gust. That choppiness was a familiar feeling from riding in a jump plane that
was just a slightly larger version of 45-Uniform and I ignored it and
concentrated on our climb. She took the gusts in stride and righted her wings
when left alone. That was a good feeling: she was steady, stable, and ready to
return to stasis on her own when buffeted by gusts and turbulence.
Pat talked me through basic maneuvers out in the practice area, like turns
around a specific point, standard climbs and descents. He said we’d work on
stalls next time up, because the entire flight program was designed to get us
safely familiar with solo flight, then on to a basic “contact flying” check ride.
The flying was to be all contact flying in that the primary reference was
looking outside. Yes, we used the compass card to navigate and the basic
instruments to define and shape our climbs, turns and descents, but the
primary reference was outside, based on the horizon and the Earth. We’d
need to recognize and deal with stalls if we were going to fly solo safely.
The maneuvers made sense, but they were much easier to visualize than
to actually fly.
“You’ll need to hold some back pressure on the elevator to keep the nose
from falling through the horizon on that turn,” Pat would quietly suggest, or
“You’ll want a little top rudder to keep the turn coordinated.”
Though I was inept and overcontrolled the plane, the ailerons, elevator
and rudder felt responsive and easy to use. To me, flight felt natural and my
clumsiness aside, I knew it was only a matter of time before I’d develop the
touch needed for the docile, forgiving plane. I was at home right away, just
feeling a trust in the forgiving little Cessna, but also in my own ability to
grow into the privilege of piloting her.
Too soon, we were back on the deck with me zig-zagging us back to the
parking spot next to 11-Juliet. I hardly noticed the afternoon chill driven by a
north wind but Pat zipped up his fleece and motioned me inside the flight
school building.
We reviewed what we’d done and what we’d do the following week.
“The Air Force wants you to solo by twelve hours,” Pat explained. “But
that’s pretty ambitious. Most civilian students have at least twenty hours of
instruction before they solo. We won’t rush things, and we’ll get you ready.”
Still, I knew the FIP program was one part instruction to two parts
screening. I understood that, and Major Sullivan had explained to us all how
that philosophy underwrote USAF pilot training: time was limited, flight
programs fast-paced and demanding. Maybe civilians could take their time
and mass hours and experience before their solo, but the military model
reflected something we were all too familiar with at VMI: attrition was the
mission. Fall behind in pilot training, fail to meet the standards within the
instructional time allotted—you wash out. Thanks for playing.
I hardly noticed the hour-long drive back to Lexington and VMI. I strode
across the parade ground from the First Class parking lot behind the Marshall
Library to the wide-open gates of Jackson Arch. This time, everything was
much more upbeat. I’d flown at last and moreover, I was fulfilling the Air
Force’s requirements, proving that I had the aptitude to fly their jets
someday, someday very soon, I hoped. I allowed myself to think of the T-38
ride the summer before, only envisioning myself in the front cockpit. I was
on that road and that realization almost made the years of drudgery and toil at
VMI seem worthwhile.
I only flew with Pat one more time. We practiced contact flight
maneuvers like steep turns and figure eight turns based on the compass
heading. After a while both airplanes seemed easy to fly because they were
stable, forgiving and tame. I had no problem trimming the plane up as Pat
showed me and mostly easing it through the maneuvers rather that “flying” it.
It was like practicing a foreign language, and building the confidence to
simply speak—carefully, slowly—but not translate. Just speak the new
language.
We practiced straight ahead stalls, pulling the nose up, then letting the
airspeed bleed off until the stall warning sounded its weak and warbly horn
sound. Pat showed me how to assess the plane and position, then get the nose
back down and, for departure stalls, the wings level and power back on. But I
also cued in on one of his preflight explanations of the stall series.
“Worst case,” he’d said, “If you just take your hands off the controls, the
Cessna will eventually return itself to level flight.”
I actually tried that out on a couple stalls and sure enough, 11-Juliet and
45-Uniform both flew out of stalls and back into controlled flight mostly on
their own. The trick was to let the plane do what it was designed to do, while
being patient. Flying got easier every flight.
Then I was handed off to another flight instructor, a younger guy that the
other FIP cadets had warned me about.
Bob was a former enlisted guy, a boom operator on a KC-135 crew. He
seemed to have a chip on his shoulder, having had five years of “yessir-ing”
officers on his assigned flight crew, pilots and navigators, but now we who’d
soon be officers would have to answer to him. I think he may have resented
the fact that he was helping us along the Air Force pilot path he’d never had
an opportunity to travel.
His attitude was both aloof and condescending, especially compared to
Pat’s easy-going instructor attitude. But for me, I had enough faith in the two
Cessna-152s and my ability to fly them or as accurately, let them fly as
they’d been designed, that I wasn’t going to let his attitude be an obstacle.
Besides, for every FIP cadet who’d endured over three years at VMI, his
caustic attitude was barely amateur level by comparison.
He was sarcastic in the plane and seemed to set up each maneuver as a
test, then scoff if it didn’t work out perfectly, which often it did not. I had less
than ten hours flying time, so chances were good, given my inexperience and
his obstructive attitude, that my maneuvers would be somewhat rough. I
didn’t let it bother me, although one of my classmates was having a very
difficult time with Bob.
Bob actually let one nose high stall accelerate into what I realized
afterward was a spin. We were nose low, corkscrewing toward the ground
and that, I found out later, was definitely not in any part of the flight syllabus.
But if his intent was to have me lock up, or to panic, it didn’t work. The
lesson of my skydiving streamer still held full sway: panic is never, ever an
option, period. I fell back on Pat’s offhand remark and just pulled the power
back, since we were in a dive, and let the plane right itself and eventually,
return lift to the airfoil so we could fly again.
Maybe that was Bob’s backhanded way to build my confidence, which
it did. I knew I’d be fine in those planes come what may when I was solo.
Most of all, as I’d learned from skydiving, I could trust myself to keep a cool
head
Or maybe it was his way of weeding me out, tripping me up,
undermining my confidence or worse, the Air Force’s confidence in me. It
didn’t work. I had more faith than ever in the two little planes and my ability
to shepherd them around the bumpy skies of Roanoke.
On a late fall afternoon Bob and I went up in 11-Juliet. He sat next to me,
elbow to elbow, taciturn as always. He’d shadowed my preflight walkaround,
seemingly bored. I did all of the preflight radio clearances and we taxied out,
lined up on runway 23 and took off.
We flew directly to the practice area and immediately worked through all
of our maneuvers and a stall recovery series. I really felt it was unfair, two
against one: me and Juliet against Bob, and he didn’t stand a chance.
Whatever he demanded, we could do. Stall, falling off on the left wing? Give
her slack, let the nose fall, tap the rudder, level the wings, feed in power—not
too much, climb back to the original altitude.
Compass figure eight? Watch us. Slight back pressure and a touch of
rudder, let the compass and Juliet swing her nose at a thirty-degree bank left
to right, in her own time; remember where you started, track back with the
nose just above the horizon, now reverse course, smoothly. No rush; let her
fly. Claim the peaceful time lag as your own little slice of calmness.
“I’ve got it,” Bob said abruptly, then aimed us toward a field a couple
thousand feet below and just north of Interstate-81. I had an inkling of what
might be coming next. Fine, I decided. Bring it on. It’s still two against one.
Bob pulled the throttle completely back and the engine fluttered to idle,
the prop practically feathered.
“The engine just died,” Bob said, sounding annoyed. “Land.”
I set up a long, lazy downwind. I searched, then spied a smoke stack near
the western edge of the practice area, all the while easing Juliet lower, trying
to keep a clean, power-off airspeed to stretch our powerless flight. Smoke
showed wind out of the west, so we’d land into the wind.
I eased a wide turn to the left, into the wind. I slowed, gradually fed out
landing flaps. And waited. How far would he take this, I wondered, as we
slipped below five hundred feet. But I also didn’t worry: I’ll land it in the
field, I don’t care—that’ll be your ass, Bob, not mine.
At about three hundred feet, Bob pushed the throttle back in and the
engine buzzed back to life. We climbed, and I retracted the landing flaps.
We entered the landing traffic pattern for runway 23 at Woodrum Field. I
taxied us clear after a routine landing.
We taxied back towards the departure end, but at midfield, Bob spoke
again.
“Pull over here.”
I swung us off the taxiway and pulled into an apron abeam the flight
school. I let the engine idle. He popped open his door.
“You ready?” he asked.
Sweet Jesus. Ready? Ready? I was born for this.
“Yes.”
He nodded. “Do a couple patterns, touch and goes, then park it back at
Bedford Flying Service.”
I nodded. He strapped down his seatbelt, then left, clicking the door shut
securely, walked away and didn’t look back.
I nosed 11-Juliet forward, back onto the taxiway. I paused at the departure
end and ran through the magneto check fairly mechanically. We’d been
flying for an hour, the magnetos, the ignition, the airframe, me—we were all
ready. This wasn’t about manuals and numbers and specs—this was about
flight.
In that golden instant I had the rare sense that this was momentous not
just for what it was, a first solo flight, but for what it meant. There are
unique, lifetime flying moments that matter more than anything in a pilot’s
life. Few they are, and I somehow intuitively knew the truth: whether you
went on to fly supersonic, aerobatics or formation in an Air Force jet solo, or
commanded an Air Force flight crew on trans-Pacific missions or succeeded
in airline captain upgrade and took on worldwide jet flight with hundreds of
souls in your hands—nothing would outdo this first solo. Nothing. Equal
maybe, add to the legacy, but never surpass this moment. I knew that, even as
a twenty-one-year-old strapped to a beautiful little Cessna, I knew that.
And I made a point of savoring the reality, burning it into my memory
as a golden moment, even back then. I knew it belonged equally to the tough
guys like Clark King who punched me into reality, to Buck who held me
strictly accountable for my life, to Coach Wade who led with tough but
caring leadership, to Major Sullivan, who found me a way back from the
dead.
But it also belonged to me and I’d damn well own it, every God-given
second. Once cleared by the Woodrum Field tower for take-off I took a deep
breath. This is mine, I resolved. I don’t deserve it, but no less than anyone
else who’d attained it, nor any more than those who hadn’t. But I can own it,
do it justice.
I had a weighty premonition that once I left the earth solo, nothing
would ever be the same again. When the sturdy little engine reached takeoff
power, I released the brakes. We rolled into the headwind, she steadied, then
Cessna 9811 Juliet and I rose into the sky, solo.
We climbed to pattern altitude as I’d done a dozen times before and I
allowed myself a glance to my right, to the empty seat, and a real peace and
jubilation warmed me from the inside out. This was how it was meant to be.
Airplanes just fly better solo, I realized, because flying was all about the
aircraft, you, and flight. That’s what mattered and everything else was just
giving the devil his due for the privilege of flight, of piloting.
And I was right—I was never the same after that. This was what my life
was meant to be. And in that moment—at long last—it was mine. And there
was no way, not so long as I breathed, that I’d ever let it go.

Chapter 13
Wyatt stomped on the accelerator and the old car careened down the
windy curves in the dark. Wind tore at my ears and face as I clutched the side
of the passenger door, my head as far out the window as I could get it.
I heaved my guts out in a spray of Scotch and potato chips, the primary
components of our dinner that night. Immediately, Elmo and Steve in the rear
seat started howling, “It’s blowing in the back window!”
Well, that can’t be helped, I decided, then heaved again. Roll up the
window, why don’t you?
We’d all finally soloed and further, we’d all passed our contact flight
checks. So, in true fighter pilot style, Captain Allen had invited us all over to
his home to celebrate our aviation triumph, modest though it was, with
endless toasts and buckets of whiskey. It was the first and the last time I ever
had Scotch. I had foggy, disjointed visions of my tumbler sloshing full of
burnished whiskey poured over a pile of knotty-fat VMI class rings and even
my own watch. I couldn’t untangle why that had even happened, but we were
just blowing off steam, I guessed.
We’d worried about getting Elmo passed the solo and the check. He’d had
trouble getting released to solo, a bad sign that of course the FIP program was
looking for in order to avoid putting someone without sufficient flying
aptitude into the pilot training pipeline.
Still, I was rooting for him. Hadn’t the eye exam been designed to weed
me out too? Such obstacles were meant to be surmounted, weren’t they?
We’d had pump-up sessions long after taps in the barracks study room,
trying to smooth Elmo’s way through the maneuvers and requirements. I
figured he was at a disadvantage having Bob as an instructor and if only to
spite Bob for his vindictive, predatory attitude, I wanted to see Elmo succeed.
Bob probably smelled blood in the water, flying with Elmo, and a chance to
put down a rising officer and pilot.
I didn’t have much to contribute other than encouragement. What could I
say? Let the planes fly—let them do what they’re designed to do. Be patient.
Be attuned to what forces are in play. Work with them, through them. Don’t
wrestle them with formulas and rote procedures.
That wouldn’t help Elmo, though I believed it was all true. I’d soloed
with only eight hours, so even Bob had to grudgingly admit that my seat-of-
the-pants sense worked adequately.
But Elmo took a more engineering-based approach to flying, which
worked for some people. He was all about power settings and lead points,
quantifiable stuff that was way too static for my liberal arts brain. I knew
some approximate settings, but a ton of abstract numbers made no sense to
me in the dynamic realm of flight. A starting point, maybe. But that was it.
Steve already had his private pilot’s license and about a hundred hours of
flying time, an astronomical amount of pilot experience in my neophyte mind
so I mostly kept my mouth shut. Wyatt seemed to have equal facility with
both numbers and aeronautical concepts, so he and Steve coached Elmo on
both.
Elmo’s rigidly quantitative reasoning would have thrived in Dodo’s
Shakespeare class, an ever-growing academic threat to my graduation plans, a
deadline upon which my commission and pilot training depended.
I wasn’t good at memorizing line after line, linked to names and titles.
The dynamics of the play? The subtext of the dialogue? The allegory of the
drama? All fine. Who said what to whom and when? That was sinking me. At
midterm, I was an English major, a senior, in Dodo Dillard’s “Shakespeare’s
Dramas,” with an “F.”
But that dilemma resolved itself, for better or worse, shortly after
midterm. I sat at my desk in barracks, studying one bright, sunny morning
when one of my fellow English majors poked his head in our propped open
door.
“Did you hear? Dodo just had a heart attack in his nine o’clock class. He
dropped dead on the floor.”
He was doing exactly what he loved, orating, acting out Macbeth or Lear
or Othello, shrieking, mugging, imploring the class to appreciate the
outrageous gravitas, he’s talking about his daughter, he’d roar at us, his
daughter! Then just like that, he was gone.
“Chesty” Burgess, a crusty ex-Marine with a doctorate in English, took
over the class, chunked most of the grades, and I finished the course with a B.
Chesty taught literature more in the way I and most English majors learned,
through layered inquiry and subtle induction.
I used every flight hour I could squeeze out of the FIP program, much of
it flying solo. I grew more comfortable in the air with the repetitions of what
was almost a sacred ritual. I did the preflight walkaround inspection just as
Pat had shown me. A careful, hands-on look from prop to rudder. Hands-on
was key: I liked the smooth feel of the rivetted skin, the smell of oil and
avgas, the play of the controls in my hands from the outside. It was due
diligence: you treat her right, check everything carefully, she’ll treat you
right, she’ll fly right.
It was a ritual, but it was more than just that. The rote concentration fell
along the same lines as me packing my own parachute, with deliberate,
careful and concentrated mechanical effort. The side effect of that was the
reassurance when it came time to step out the wide-open door of the jump
plane that yes, everything was in order.
Same with the preflight inspection and even the laying of hands on the
very fuselage and flight controls. There was a ritual connection, a
concentration to the exclusion of any distraction which gave me the assurance
I needed to shove in the throttle and fly away solo.
I’d climb out to the practice area and do a stall series, maybe a few figure
eights. I’d explore, too, flying a bearing away from the airport, and cruise
north. If I’d gauged the winds correctly, reversing course for a similar
timespan would point me back toward Woodrum Field. I savored a trimmed-
up airplane and the freedom to scoot across the sky alone.
Now and then the air traffic controller responsible for both the practice
areas and the approach corridor would call me and shoo me into the far
corner of the airspace to make way for an airliner on approach to Woodrum
Field. Of course I stayed respectfully, almost wistfully out of the jetliners’
way, although I made sure I at least got a sidelong view of the jet forming
itself out of a metallic speck ahead of smoke exhaust plumes. Someday, I
promised myself. Some day.
The second semester flew by once we got past the holidays. Orders came
in, tangible, printed military orders, directing me and Wyatt to Reese Air
Force Base in Lubbock, Texas for pilot training. Steve was sent to Del Rio
Air Force Base and Elmo to Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi. It was
more real having orders literally in hand, but the timing demanded a large
dose of patience because while we’d graduate in May, our report date wasn’t
till the following February. The Air Force filled the earliest classes with their
favorite children, the Air Force Academy graduates, then once they were all
in training, those of us from both ROTC and Officer Candidate School were
sequenced into the pipeline.
We were given the option of coming onto active duty in a non-flying job
at our pilot training base, or simply waiting until the following February. If
you went on active duty immediately, there was a slim chance that you might
get into flight training sooner if a vacancy occurred.
But mostly, you’d be a go-fer, an extra hand in somebody’s paper mill on
base. Wyatt and Elmo both decided to report to their base right after
graduation. I thought about it, but it seemed like there might have been a
better option, at least for me.
My father had finagled himself a fantastic new assignment to Aviano Air
Base in Italy. They’d move to Italy, to the tiny town of Aviano at the foot of
the Dolomite Alps, about an hour north of Venice. I could hang out there,
travel around Europe and enjoy nine months of idleness.
Or, I could go onto active duty as a non-flying Air Force officer. The
choice was clear, at least to me. I bought a one-way ticket to Frankfurt,
Germany. I’d test out my six years of German classes by making my way via
train through Germany and Austria to Italy.
I’d stop reading as soon as exams were finished in May, then eat and
drink my way through Europe. What, I asked myself the day my flight left
JFK Airport enroute to Frankfurt, could possibly go wrong?

Chapter 14
The Southwest Airlines 737 jetliner gently sank lower toward the red
dirt of west Texas, aimed at Lubbock not far off the nose. This was, at long
last, my reporting date for USAF pilot training at Reese Air Force Base just
north of the city.
The terrain looked harsh, barren, sere, and blistered red. And it was
pancake-flat, I’d give it that, which might be a good thing if one’s learning to
fly jets here. There wasn’t much to hit.
My plan to join the parentals and hang out in Italy at their house while I
waited lasted about two weeks. There was no way I’d last ten months in that
crazy house again, so I bought a rail pass and travelled back north through
Austria and into Munich.
The Vice Wing Commander at Aviano introduced me to his beautiful
blonde niece who had finished her first year of college but was taking a “gap
year,” staying with him and his family and travelling around Europe with
them when they could get away. That was the perfect set-up.
We got her a rail pass and we both set off together on a trip. She was
young, gorgeous, and annoying as hell. But eventually, we ended up staying
at a small hotel outside of Munich and took the S-Bahn in to the Oktoberfest.
After a couple days, I was ready to move on but as I was waiting to check
out, I overhead Doris, the manager, complaining to her boss that she was
shorthanded at the desk.
After she hung up, I volunteered to fill in as a desk clerk, if I could stay at
the hotel. I had no work visa, but we arranged a cash deal: a decent hourly
wage, a hotel room with a beer-stocked refrigerator, and flexible hours. I
moved in for the duration.
I enjoyed the small town, made friends with several kind young German
folks and their families, plus many Americans working as ex-pats in menial
hospitality-connected jobs.
Eventually, Doris had me lead guests on tours of downtown Munich,
something I was woefully unprepared to do, despite the tiny guidebook she
gave me.
“I can’t answer half of their questions,” I told her after my first tour.
“So make something up,” she said. “They won’t know any better till they
get home. Then it’s not our problem.”
So, there were tourists who returned to the United States to show their
family and friends the minarets on the cathedral in Munich “from the Turkish
invasion of 1200.” That sounded good to me at the time and became my go-
to, along with a few other important sounding but completely unfounded ad
libs.
Eventually I became adept at leading bar tours, and became fairly creative
with the male guests who were always asking me for pick-up lines in German
to hit on the beautiful local women in my favorite bars. I coached them to
repeat the most disgusting and vulgar phrases I could simplify for them, then
watched the fireworks.
Once a large group from Bitburg Air Base, the one I’d lived on as a
preschooler, came up to stay at the hotel. They were mostly fighter pilots and
friendly, especially when they learned I was headed for Air Force pilot
training.
“Look for Chip Hough,” Neil Kacena, a fighter pilot told me. “He was a
nav in my squadron in Asia. He’s a great guy and he’ll be starting pilot
training at Reese too.”
I filed that away for when I arrived at Reese.
I’d hop on the train every now and then to Italy to ski, staying at my
parents’ house for the weekend, then back to Munich for weekdays as a desk
clerk. Nights were typically my own, so I had a fun, active social life. I didn’t
envy Wyatt shuffling paper in Lubbock, Texas while I rampaged around
Europe.
I stopped skiing that December so as to be healed from whatever fractures
I might earn on the ski slopes well before my report date.
And I basically spent everything I’d made during my time in Munich on
food, beer, skiing, travel and more beer. So, I found myself on that Southwest
flight taxiing to the Lubbock airport terminal with a couple hundred dollars in
my bank account, two suitcases of basic civilian clothes, a regulation haircut
—and nothing else.
A cab picked me up and we trundled off toward the base.
“Real close by,” the rangy-looking, unshaven driver drawled. “Just west
here a few blocks then north five miles on Sixth.”
That struck me as quaint. North. Then west? Who had a compass? And
where I was more recently from, in the foothills of Virginia or especially in
Germany and Italy, nothing ran straight for long. But he was right: Lubbock
was like a giant grid, laid out toward the cardinal points of the compass.
The landscape seemed even more stark and windblown from the ground
level. Buildings were pretty basic and unadorned, and they looked worn by
sun and wind and weather. There wasn’t much more than scrubby vegetation
and the few trees were spindly and anemic.
As we neared the Reese, I began to make out a swarm of jets circulating
over the base. White trainer jets, both the stubby, fat-winged T-37s and the
sleek, needle-nosed T-38s flew a traffic pattern overhead to landing, and
more launched off and away from the base.
My heart leapt. This was it; this was real, this was going to be mine.
The guard at the front gate scanned my orders then gave the cabbie directions
to the personnel building and waved us on.
It took a surprisingly short time to fill out basic paperwork at the
personnel office. They directed me to the billeting office where a large older
woman with a flaming red beehive hairdo boomed a laugh and welcomed me.
“I’m Lucille,” she practically yelled, though I’m sure she didn’t mean
to. She grabbed a keyring that jangled with dozens of keys and waddled
toward the door. “Let’s get you settled into a nice BOQ (Bachelor Officer’s
Quarters) room.”
That took only a few minutes, which surprised me. But there I was,
settled into a downstairs room in a fairly new BOQ. It had a modest bedroom,
a bathroom and shared a kitchen with the adjoining room.
I set off on foot towards the uniform sales store. There I bought uniform
pants, a couple shirts, and hat, belt and insignia. I’d worn only a pre-civil war
gray uniform at VMI all four years except for the summer camp at Eglin, so I
was largely clueless as to exactly where my lieutenant’s bar was to be pinned
on the folding flight cap. I finally found another guy upstairs in the laundry
room who’d been on-base for a couple months.
“It’s just a wag,” he said, meaning Wild Ass Guess. I put it all together,
and just like that, the wild-haired Munich tour guide became a butter-bar,
brand new Air Force lieutenant.
I called Wyatt as soon as I got a chance. He’d managed to start a month
early, which didn’t seem like a fair trade for the adventures I’d had in Europe.
But I’d find out all too soon, it had really put him in a much better situation
than I was about to blunder into.
We met on the flight line after duty hours when things had settled down.
My spirits lifted despite the fatigue of the long miles from Italy to Texas. It
was great to see a familiar face, especially a brother rat.
We slipped into one of the hangars and walked up to a T-37 parked
there with the canopy lifted up like a giant clamshell. It seemed bigger than
I’d imagined, at least indoors. And it smelled like a jet, a flying machine,
with hints of jet fuel and oil and hydraulic fluid, and side-by-side ejection
seats. Wyatt had flown twice and was hooked, as he assured me I would be. I
had no doubt of that.
But before reaching the actual flight line, we’d spend several weeks in
what he explained was the academic flight line. We’d have some basic
classes in basic flight operations, plus an aviation physiology course and
altitude chamber training, and life support training to include parachute
training with a ground-based parasailing rig.
Of course, there was the big hurdle dead ahead during academic ground
school: the flight physical. I could only hope my eyes would make it past the
screening exam, that my long respite from reading and studying had allowed
my vision to at least meet the minimum vision standard. Wyatt’s class hadn’t
lost anyone to the physical, which was a really good sign.
But they had lost one to “S.I.E,” the biggest failure of all, in my mind:
“Self-Initiated Elimination.” That meant someone had resigned, had quit—of
their own volition. People got scared, Wyatt said. That I could not imagine.
S-I-E? I’d rather D-I-E, I decided, and I meant it.
The next morning, I walked over to the academic flightline, a u-shaped
building of classrooms and a small auditorium. Of course, I was early and the
designated meeting room was largely empty.
At a desk in one corner sat another young lieutenant. He slouched in a
desk seat and smirked under a wispy mustache. His hair was dark and
combed straight forward like Moe from “The Three Stooges.” As I drew
closer, he leaned over on one cheek and farted loudly, then snickered. That
must have been what the smirk was about. At face value, I decided we could
be friends. He was a lot like the VMI guys I felt comfortable around.
That was how Coker was, and he became known simply as “The Coke.”
He had been an enlisted crew chief in an Air Force Reserve squadron in Fort
Worth and when he’d worked his way to a college degree, his unit sent him
to Officer Candidate School (OCS) where he earned his lieutenant’s bars,
then on to pilot training to eventually qualify as a pilot in their fighter jets.
There was a tall, all-American looking guy there as well. He was clearly a
little older than us, a captain, and he wore glasses as well as navigator wings.
That was Chip, the guy I’d been told of by his former squadron mate Neil
back in Munich.
Chip was an Air Force Academy grad—had played football there—and
had obviously been a standout officer thus far in his career to have been sent
to pilot training from the navigator ranks. You could tell he was just a great
guy, perhaps a little amused at the young and goofy lieutenants filling the
room.
There was one other captain in the room, also a navigator who’d achieved
the very competitive attainment of orders to pilot training. He’d also been a
back-seater in fighters.
The rest of us filled the room like play-care at a dog park: big, young,
eager puppies bounding around the room. Most of the lieutenants were
ROTC graduates like me, but some were from OCS like the Coke and headed
back to their Air National Guard squadron to fly their assigned aircraft. The
rest of us would be assigned an aircraft, if we successfully passed all the
academic exams and the flight checkrides in the year-long course, based on
the needs of the Air Force, how well we did in training and finally, based on
our preference if we were qualified and recommended for the assignment.
Some of the Guard and Reserve guys were older than I expected and in
fact, some had age waivers. There were no brand-new Air Force Academy
grads, which actually lowered the pressure a little in my mind. They tended to
come across as a little on the entitled side, and in fact the Academy sent every
one of them who was qualified to pilot training, unlike the rest of the
universities and OCS which had a very limited quota. A lot of really good,
qualified guys back at the Institute were excluded, while the Academy grads
were automatically included—and some made it clear they really didn’t care
to be there, which just didn’t sit well with me.
I was the only one from my VMI class, but a couple of universities
seemed to have several classmates in the room. I didn’t consider any of them
to be competition but rather, as at VMI, allies in a common struggle. And we
were clearly not the Air Force showpiece academy types and in fact, we were
more on the ragtag side, with the older Guard guys, a few non-rated officers
from non-flying specialties and even slightly crude, roguish types like Coke
—and me.
I immediately liked that facet of our group because it was closer to my
VMI, “grub private” roots. We were there to work hard, get the job done and
leave with wings. The military stuff was just a means to an end.
The conference room filled gradually and a major called the room to
order. He outlined the program for us, though most of us already knew what
to expect.
We’d be on the “academic flightline” for the first few weeks, taking basic
classes in flight policies and procedures, aviation physiology, some basic
navigation and T-37 systems. We’d also complete basic life support training
and the fitting of flight helmets and other equipment, plus we’d be qualified
in the ejection seat trainer and parachute landings.
Academic flightline would continue even as we moved into the T-37
flying squadron for a few more subjects, including T-38 systems and some
weather training plus more advanced navigation. Each subject would have a
final written test, and there were ten exams total. A student pilot was allowed
only two exam retakes, so a third failure meant an academic washout from
pilot training, despite any actual flight performance in either jet.
Later that day we gathered in the Simler Theater for a rather dour, even
harsh “welcome” from the Wing Commander, a full colonel.
“Take a good look to your left and your right,” he ordered.
Of course, we did as we were told. I saw nothing but about forty eager,
hard-charging young guys ready to fly jets and launch pilot careers.
“Because,” he continued, “A year from today, half of you won’t be here
anymore.”
No way, I decided on the spot. He doesn’t know us—couldn’t know
who’d fail, or how many. You’re wrong, old man, I thought to myself. We’ll
all be good friends, too.
It didn’t occur to my immortal twenty-two-year-old mind that he meant
someone—or more—might be dead.

Chapter 15
The evening breeze felt surprisingly mild for West Texas in February,
so we spilled out of the meeting room and onto the lawn beside the Officer’s
Club. We’d changed into civvies and were back for “beer call,” a time-
honored Air Force squadron tradition which was basically just an opportunity
to socialize, but this gathering had a secondary purpose: we needed to divide
the group into two sections.
The captains would be the class commanders, one per group or “flight”
as they’re called, and the higher ups really didn’t care who went into which
group so long as there was an equal number in each. Then, each flight would
be sent into separate flights in both T-37 flying, T-38 flying, and all academic
flightline classes.
Some of the guys grouped together based on their familiarity from their
college days together, and some even avoided guys from their ROTC
Detachment because of prior bad blood.
I decided to hang with Chip, having had such a glowing
recommendation from the Bitburg fighter pilots, and it looked like Coker was
headed that way, too. The process reminded me of picking teams in grade
school gym class, only the “game” we’d be playing was flying jets, much of
it in formation.
Chip ended up with what seemed like a roguish group, and I fit right in.
Eventually, we all grew into nicknames based loosely on who we were or
how we acted. There was The Coke, a Dallas good ol’ boy who swore up a
blue streak at the slightest provocation; Sweathog, who was going back to fly
C-130s for the West Virginia Air National Guard, along with a squadron
mate of his, The Kirb, the oldest guy in the class who was formerly enlisted
and like The Coke, could swear up a blue streak and had a great sense of
humor; and Pulsar, a sawed off Brainiac from Purdue who had a master’s
degree in electrical engineering and who seemed constantly charged with
high voltage to the brink of explosion.
The was another Purdue grad there who became “The Dorf,” a
nickname he hated because we all imitated the dolphin Flipper whenever the
word Dorf was said, kind of teasing him about his dolphin-like squeaky
enthusiasm; Stipper, a quiet, affable guy, GD, another quiet, friendly west
Texas guy; Willy, a former Army enlisted man who reverted to his Army
grunt basic training and answered every senior officer with “Sir, Lieutenant
Wilson—so he became “Sir Lieutenant Wilson” by default.
I eventually earned the nickname “Landshark” from the Saturday Night
Live skit, and from an incident in the Officer’s Club bar where the lights
went out and another officer’s wife got bitten—hard—on her ass (nothing
was ever proven). Two other young guys, Animal, a Jersey guy
commissioned out of Rutgers University, and Father O, a powerlifter, quiet
giant from the University of Colorado and I formed the very unholy alliance
known as The Shit Brothers, for reasons I’ll explain later.
There was another northeasterner, a guy from Philly who used to sell
grave plots before his Air Force commission. His car had vanity plates that
read, “Pre-Need Pete.” That became, for our purposes, “Pre-Tweet Pete,”
referring to the T-37 we told him he’d be flying thanks to all the sucking-up
he did in T-37s.
Bradlips had been an Air Force finance officer and arrived as a first
lieutenant. He was a solid guy, friend to all, and a member of our core class
group.
Finally, there was “The Snake,” a wiry Iowa farm boy who just decided
to name himself “The Snake” for no apparent reason the rest of us could
discern.
Chip was just, well, Chip, the good-natured, very tolerant zookeeper
and ringleader of a wide-ranging and intense group of budding pilots.
We started in the next day with morning classes on the academic
flightline. The first course was some basic T-37 knowledge and a hodge-
podge of Air Force subjects. There would be ten written exams based on the
ten classes that comprised the academic part of pilot training. Classes
extended for most of the year, finally ending midway through the T-38
advanced flying.
You were allowed two retakes, and two only. If you failed, or “busted”
a third exam, you were washed out of flight school.
There weren’t exactly textbooks, just paper manuals crammed with
instructions that mirrored the oral instructions and slides presented in a very
dry lecture format by the course instructor. No discussion, just cram this
information into your cranial unit and barf it back at me on demand.
Truly, it wasn’t education so much as just training: the instructors
recited a lot of facts, figures and procedures, most of which were stuffed into
the paper manuals, then a multiple-choice exam was given on the last day of
class.
We made an afternoon trek out to some hard-packed, windblown dirt
acreage owned by the Air Force a few miles from the base towards Levelland
where the training department kept a parasailing rig mounted on the back of a
pickup truck.
After some rudimentary training in the proper landing technique,
something I already knew pretty well, I took my turn, strapped into the
parachute harness behind the truck. The chute itself was behind me, held up
by classmates to catch the relentless west-Texas wind. With a nod, the truck
sped off ahead of me, I ran like a crazy person till the chute inflated and rose
from the dirt, lifting me with it.
After about two hundred feet of cable had played out, the safety
observer gave me the signal and I released the tow cable. I stared down
between my legs, gauging where I’d land with the barely steerable chute. I
clobbered the ground, rolled, and my classmates quickly collapsed the chute
before it could drag me. That was it: I was parachute qualified for both
aircrafts’ ejection seats.
The parasail takeoffs and landing resulted in collisions, bumps and
bruises, but no real injuries in our class. There were a few broken bones in
others.
Later that week we landed smack in the middle of the ordeal I’d dreaded
for so long: the flight physical. It wasn’t the poking, prodding, needles and
bloodletting that I worried about and in fact I really didn’t care about that
stuff. It was the eye exam, and I wasn’t alone with my worries.
Willy fidgeted nervously on a plastic chair next to me, swearing that he’d
shoot the place up if they gave him trouble about his vision. Several other
guys muttered curses and oaths to that effect so I knew that many of my peers
were sweating borderline vision as well.
When it was my turn in the examining room with the vision-testing
machine I willed myself to breathe calmly and settle down. This was it, the
do or die—I’d learn my fate in just a few moments time, and that made my
heart pound despite my best efforts.
A friendly, young enlisted medical technician breezed into the room and
plopped down on a stool near the testing apparatus and flipped open a folder.
“Okay,” he said as I settled my forehead against the pad and peered into
the machine. “Both eyes, read line 8A.”
Slowly, carefully, deliberately, I peered into the machine. With my left
hand middle finger, I pulled a slight bit of tension on the skin near my left
eye. The letters sharpened and I read the row of letters correctly.
“Good,” he said. “Now, just the left eye, 8B.”
He flipped the lever on the machine again, this time blocking my right
eye.
I held the tension with my index finger and read the line easily. But, I
knew, my right eye would be the make or break my physical and with it, my
hopes of becoming an Air Force pilot.
No matter what I did, the letters were too blurry to read. I tried easing
back a little, getting a longer focal range. I tried pulling at the skin at the
corner of my eye to change the shape of my eyeball a little but again, no dice.
I felt defeated, frustrated and most of all, despondent as my flying career
began to slip down the drain.
The med tech stood.
“Look,” he said. “I’m going to go out into the hall for a minute. When I
come back in, let’s see if you can read line 8B. Okay?”
I nodded. Was he telling me what I thought he was saying? Reading
between the lines, was he saying, use both eyes, stupid, read and memorize
the line.
This was a different world, for me. The guy was telling me that what
mattered wasn’t my eyesight, but rather, going through the motions of the
screening machine. My flying career hung in the balance.
I recalled the words of an Air Force fighter pilot I’d gone bar-hopping
with in Munich a few months earlier. I’d asked him about the vision test
because I knew how weak my eyesight was, at least when it came to the
machine test.
“Don’t worry,” he’d said, “You scoot past the initial eye test and you’re
in. After that, your eyeballs can fall out of your head and they’ll just tape
them back in and send you back to flight status.”
The medical corpsman walked back in and plopped down on the stool
next to the infernal eye test apparatus.
“Well,” he said. “Let’s see how you do now.”
I recited the line perfectly. I think.
“Pass,” he said, then scribbled some notes on the examination form.
“Down to the lab, on your left.”
He vanished down the hallway with my physical exam folder. I breathed a
heavy sigh of relief. I was in.

Chapter 16
Life settled down into a dull pattern of the “Academic Flightline:”
tedious lectures covering T-37 aircraft systems, aviation physiology and the
rudiments of air navigation. The latter topic was foreign to most of us, except
for Chip who had been an Air Force navigator for several years. The
instructor explanations were simply more rote directions: do this, this, and
then this.
Most of the procedures made no sense, deciphering positions and
directions, vectors and intercepts, inbound and outbound from a station. Arcs,
tangents, lead radials: what the hell? It made little sense. We actually had to
make little paper airplane cutouts, then construct crude instruments which
only made navigation principles clear as mud. “Paper trainers,” they were
called and they were nearly useless, bordering on ridiculous.
So we relied on rote phrases: “top cat plus forty-five” for an outbound
course intercept. That is, pass the station and plot from the tail of the needle
to the desired course. Inbound to a station? “Charlie Brown plus thirty.” That
is, from the desired course to the bearing pointer plus thirty degrees. I
couldn’t visualize that or understand it. Of course later, after years of flying,
it seemed simple: outbound the radials diverge and get farther apart so of
course you’d need a more aggressive forty-five-degree intercept.
The opposite is true inbound—the radials are converging so thirty is
sufficient. But in the heat of introductory air navigation, this was nearly
incomprehensible. What I didn’t understand was that I wasn’t supposed to do
anything but memorize and repeat back.
But even that made no sense. How could you test for mastery of the skill
if the student didn’t understand the process he was being tested on? The
answer was, you mastered the test, not the material. The “exam” was a
multiple-choice test of fifty abstract questions that required a rote response. If
you’d memorize the material, the right answer would jump out at you. If you
hadn’t memorized, if you tried to reason out the answer, you were doomed.
And I was doomed.
“Just cram all the little BBs into your head,” Chip would tell us, “Have
them ready for the test, then you can ram-dump it all afterwards.”
That didn’t work for me. After the exam, three of us had less than the
required seventy-percent to pass the course: me, Animal, and Father O had
our first test busts. That left us one to spare: if any of us got that dreaded
second academic test bust, we were at the door because the third test bust
meant we were washed out of flight training. And we still had many more
exams to go.
We became the unholy alliance we coined “The Shit Brothers”—even
had t-shirts made up with the dubious sobriquet—and studied our asses off
under Chip’s tutelage and managed to pass the retake.
For me, this was nonetheless a moment of panic for several reasons.
First, this type of “learning” was abstract, capricious and unfamiliar to me
after a college degree comprised of subjective analysis, inquiry and inductive
reasoning. There’s no reasoning my Wolfpack mates would tell me over and
over. Just cram this stuff into your head and spit it back out on demand, then
dump it all and move on.
I walked from Bachelor Officer Quarters every morning past the Officer’s
Club over to the academic building, mindful of the buzzing swarm of training
jets roaring and screaming overhead. That’s where I wanted to be, not in the
classroom “drinking from the fire hose,” as Chip aptly described academics.
I wanted to fly, to move, to control a jet, not sit in a classroom stuffing
disjointed, often abstract information into my head to parrot back and
eventually, decipher from fifty multiple choice questions with four answer
choices to “test” how well one could memorize.
As we got close to our flightline date, we were fitted for helmets and fire-
resistant flight suits, flight boots, too. At the fitting, we were also footprinted,
which seemed odd. The enlisted guy who took my prints explained the
purpose for footprints is because in an aircraft crash, especially in the
supersonic T-38, there wasn’t much left in the wreckage to allow
identification of bodies—except maybe a boot or two.
We began to do Link simulators, rudimentary T-37 cockpits with
navigation gear that responded to our control inputs as we practiced
intercepts and basic navigation. That, to me, made sense when I could see the
theory unfolding in dynamic time. Why that training was sequenced after the
classroom and worse, after the exam rather than before made no sense.
We started aviation physiology both on the academic flightline in another
boring, rote shoveling of abstract information, and also at the aviation
physiology building where the altitude chamber sat like a giant, fat, squat
tank with portholes you’d see on a deep-sea diver’s helmet. We’d
file in, put on our flight helmets and masks and pre-breath one hundred
percent oxygen to purge any nitrogen from our bodies. Then, the air pressure
was sucked out of the sealed chamber by huge pumps, leaving us sealed
inside at the equivalent of twenty-five thousand feet. There we partnered with
a classmate and took turns dropping our oxygen masks to experience hypoxia
or, oxygen starvation to the brain. Inside the chamber, we had some simple
elementary school puzzles we were to complete while oxygen deprived.
The exercise showed us the insidious effects of hypoxia: with my mask
off, I thought I was arranging giant letters on a magnetic tic-tac-toe board
correctly, but once my mask was back on—with an assist from my buddy, I
could see I’d simply made an incoherent mess. I think it may have
been due to my long distance running that had maximized my lung capacity
but I managed the entire drop-mask period allotted, although I felt high as a
kite after just one minute without oxygen.
Subsequent altitude chamber sessions took us up above the thirty-
thousand-foot altitude mark and then instantaneously forced the air out of the
chamber. The air was sucked out of our lungs, the chamber completely
fogged up as the moisture vaporized and we had to quickly don our masks
and then pressure-breathe one hundred percent oxygen forced into our lungs,
just as we’d have to do if we lost pressure in flight.
This was, to me, valuable training: I learned my own symptoms of
hypoxia, plus I gained confidence in my own ability to take care of myself in
a rapid depressurization. The only painful side effect had to do with breathing
one hundred percent oxygen for extended periods. Our instructors warned us
to Valsalva (pinch your nose and blow out to equalize pressure on the
eardrum) often throughout the day because the oxygen would come out of the
bloodstream and into the inner ear, pressing against the eardrum if you didn’t
clear your ears regularly for several hours. Those of us who dozed off
between classes regretted it: my ears felt like they’d been stabbed with
daggers when I woke up.
The physiology unit introduced us to a device called the “Visi-
Vertigon,” a cockpit simulator designed to induce vertigo. The idea was to
simulate the effects of a constant rate turn: once you settle into the turn, your
inner ear senses the turn as normal and when you move your head or stop the
turn, bam—your equilibrium becomes scrambled. Instant vertigo and the
machine became known as the “Visi-Vomiton:” nausea and worse, spatial
disorientation. I learned to tolerate the sensation for those brief training
periods, but for me and several of my classmates, this was a bad omen of the
air sickness to come.
Finally, the physiology department introduced us to the Boom Bucket
and seat kicker. The boom bucket was a T-38 ejection seat mounted on
vertical rails that extended upward three stories. When it was my turn, I was
strapped into the seat with my helmet and mask on and my harness cinched
up tight as we’d learn to do in actual flight. When I squeezed the ejection
handles, it was over before I knew what had happened: I was thirty feet up
the rails in the blink of an eye.
The seat kicker simulated the next phase of the ejection sequence, when
a band of fabric below your butt was automatically pulled tight to shove you
out of the ejection seat and into freefall. All of this hands-on, practical
training was invaluable to me not only from a standpoint of knowledge, but
also confidence, leaving me feeling that I could recognize and deal with the
many risks of high-altitude flight.
But back in the classroom? More of the fire hose. I tried to absorb the
droning lectures, taking notes, trying to stay awake after 0530 report times.
And the note taking and traditional learning methods were a mistake,
although I didn’t know that at the time. The best survival technique turned
out to be to concentrate on recognizing which of the four multiple choices on
the exam made the most sense, never mind learning anything.
That, too, proved to be all for naught for me because I screwed up the
date for the physiology exam. Thinking I had another day to study, I showed
up on time to class as the instructor stacked the physiology exams before us.
My heart sank. I wasn’t ready for the exam! And I already had one bust on
the first exam. What were the chances that I could get through eight more
exams without a failure if I failed this exam?
I had no one to blame but myself. With everything at stake, how had I not
double and triple checked the exam date? I’d learned so much from the
hands-on training, but I’d expected another night of cramming for the exam.
Still, it was mine to pass or fail, and there was no one who could be held
accountable for another exam failure but me.
And fail the exam I did. Barely, but the results were the same: I’d failed
my second exam.

Chapter 17
Major Christie was a tall, ruddy-faced redhead. He’d flown fighters in
combat and now flew T-38s in addition to his assignment as Chief of
Academics. He had a loud voice that made him seem like he was yelling, but
he didn’t do so in a mean way. That was just how he came across.
And I was his problem, standing before his desk at attention, waiting. He
had my training folder open and he shook his head as he pored over it. Then
he looked up at me.
“Lieutenant Manno, you have two academic exam busts, and you still
have eight more exams to go,” he said. He looked at my training file and
scowled.
What could I say? Sir, I’d thought I had another day to cram; I gotten the
exam date wrong, which was completely irresponsible on my part. Add to
that the goddam relentless firehose of information and dead, droning lectures
and abstract four question multiple choice answers to complex questions and
you have a recipe for failure. I said nothing because there was nothing to say:
everyone else had managed a passing grade. My failure was my own damn
fault.
“Look,” he continued, “I’ll be frank. The odds of you passing the next
eight exams without another bust are almost nil. The Air Force sinks over a
million dollars into your flight training and it’s just a waste of your time and
the Air Force’s money for you to continue on, then wash out eventually
because of another exam bust. I recommend you S.I.E. now and save us all a
lot of time and money.”
So there it was: Self-Initiated Elimination. Quit. Give up my life’s dream.
Granted, I’d been an idiot and the odds were hugely stacked against me going
forward. He was urging me to just walk away.
“No sir,” I said with a firmness I really felt. I didn’t care about odds or
budget of costs or time or anything, anything but USAF pilot wings.
“No?” he repeated. He looked me up and down. He sighed. “Lieutenant
Manno, I’ve been here a good while, seen many lieutenants and even captains
come through here. I’ve never seen a single one bust the first two exams and
still make it to the end of the program. That’s why, for the good of all,
especially the Air Force, I’d advise you to stop now.”
“No sir,” I repeated. “I will not S.I.E.” I’d rather die, I’d rather fight on,
I’d even rather get to the last exam and then fail if I have to but I will not ever
give up the fight for those wings you wear, I thought but didn’t say.
He frowned. After a moment he spoke.
“Okay,” he said at last. “Stay. But if you fail one more exam—and I don’t
see how you can not fail another—you are out. Understood?”
“Yes sir.”
“Dismissed.”
I left the office feeling defeated despite having refused to leave on my
own. Because he was right—what were the chances I’d make it through the
entire program? We hadn’t even started flying yet, and there I was on the
brink of washing out. I recommend you S.I.E. now and save us all a lot of
time and money, Major Christie’s words burned a hole right through me,
because he’d been there, he’d seen pilots come and go and aspiring pilots like
me fail and slink away. Who was I to argue with what he knew?
But, still no, at least from me. They’d have to throw me out and there was
a very good chance that they would. But I would not quit, ever.
I passed the next exam, but by the fourth exam, my two comrade Shit
Brothers joined me in the two exam busts club, an unenviable federation. I’m
not sure what Major Christie said to them after their second busts—after all,
they were farther along—but they too adamantly refused to S.I.E.
Chip, as Class Commander stepped up in a big way on our behalf and in
fact, for our entire group, in a way he really wasn’t required to do but which
demonstrated who he was. He essentially advocated a “no man left behind”
leadership philosophy: we’d all stick together, support each other, support the
dumbass “Shit Brothers,” letting no academic or training hurdle eliminate
anyone.
He devised a watchdog type system for exams that stationed well-
informed, well-educated eyeballs on every Shit Brothers’ exam. If something
didn’t look right, a tap of a pencil eraser signaled “check your answers,
stupid.” The key was learning Air Force “testology,” as we called it, which
meant “RTFQ:” Read The Fucking Question. Test questions were made
vague, deliberately confusing, trying to lure you into a mistake: inverted
answers (“Which is not a good …” “What wouldn’t be a …”) and so you had
to engage the test like a game.
This was anything but learning. Rather, this was absorb, retain, repeat
back then dump it all. But that was the name of the game and moreover, the
gatekeeper if you wanted to survive the academic gauntlet. I sure wanted to,
so I learned how to game Air Force multiple choice questions.
A friend from Wyatt’s class told me they sometimes relied on an old
Air Force Academy technique which he explained to me as, “Read the
question, learn, answer the question.” In other words, some students simply
brought cheat sheets into the exam. We never even considered doing that.
But Chip led the class in a way that showed every member mattered.
We were a team, a pack—The Wolfpack, to be exact. Anyone who was
earnestly trying was not going to simply fall victim to the attrition mission at
USAF pilot training. He didn’t have to do that, but that’s who Chip was, a
guy confident in his own abilities and completely loyal to those he led.
Just like my VMI experience, I knew that “attrition was the mission” in
Air Force pilot training. They didn’t really need as many pilots as candidates
they accepted. They needed to weed out the weak or sub-standard candidates
to ensure a strong, viable pilot pool for the good of the Air Force.
And even back then I could see why: the Air Force flying business was
predominantly an entry-level operation. The pilots, the instructors, the aircraft
maintainers, the leadership, virtually the entire organization was relatively
young newcomers with little experience. In order to run safe, effective and
capable flight operations, there needed to be testing, qualifications, rigid
oversight and little tolerance for marginal performance. Truly, I knew I’d
performed marginally and Major Christie was simply doing the crucial task
of weeding out substandard performance for the good of the whole flying
operation.
I realized we were playing for keeps early on. When we arrived on base,
they were still talking about a recent fatal crash that had claimed two lives in
the Reese traffic pattern. A T-38 had gotten too slow, stalled and crashed in
the final turn on a landing pattern. I deliberately ran a long-distance course on
base that took me by what looked like a junkyard of aircraft wreckage, from
other accidents.
I ran long distance even after VMI to keep up my conditioning and
really, to control the stress level of the training, especially in my hanging-by-
a-thread, two-bust predicament. And I ran past the wreckage to remind
myself that this struggle was about more than just flying—it was about an
unforgiving challenge that demanded full dedication.
Life became a predictable cycle of waking up early, walking to the
academic squadron, drinking from the firehose, then later in the day, studying
for whatever exam—aircraft systems, weather, the subject du jour—then a
quick dinner and back to study.
Friday nights were reserved for cheap beer, pinball and general hell-
raising at the Officer’s Club stag bar. At Reese, the stag bar was smaller than
the formal bar and the rules were less restrictive. The accepted tradition was,
the formal bar required decorum more befitting officers, and as such it was a
place where you could take a spouse or a date without concern that they’d be
offended by anyone’s behavior or language.
The stag bar had no such rules and typically, an “anything goes” standard
applied. We drank a lot of cheap beer, card games abounded, stupid flight
games were the rule that included a lot of chanting, yelling, spilled beer and
overturned furniture. It was a place to blow off steam.
On most Saturday nights, the single lieutenants in the class typically got
together and drove into downtown Lubbock to one of the many bars or
hangouts mainly catering to the Texas Tech University crowd. We were fresh
out of college ourselves and it was a perfect social opportunity.
I met Donna Jean at Fat Dawgs late one Saturday night. She was the ideal
girl for me at that moment: she was twenty-two, already a year divorced from
a Baptist minister and making up for lost time. She was focused on her
nursing classes at Texas Tech and wasn’t looking for commitment and nor
was I—flying was my priority. We became a quasi-couple in that we dated
regularly but not exclusively. A perfect match.
I didn’t have a car because I really didn’t need one on base since
everything I needed was within walking distance. Donna Jean didn’t care, she
just drove out to the base or met me at a club in Lubbock. I figured not
having a car would keep me more focused on the important business at hand,
which was getting through academics and finally, onto the flightline in a
flying routine rather than just classroom time.
When that day finally arrived, we were all elated. Yes, we still had
academics to contend with, but finally being assigned to a T-37 “Flight,” (a
group of T-37 instructor pilots who’d instruct us through the flying syllabus)
meant we’d actually be hands-on flying at last.
I’d visited Wyatt’s T-37 Flight room and found it to be a very cool place:
each instructor pilot had a table he sat behind, facing the pair of assigned
students who took seats across from him. Under the glass on the table, facing
the students, were photos of whatever aircraft the instructor had flown, plus
perhaps some logo material from his favorite sports team, maybe a sports car
ad, sometimes even a pinup photo of a swimsuit model. The idea
was, let’s get excited about flying and cool stuff. Let’s aim toward silver
wings and the right to fly the sleek, shiny jets like the photos under the glass
and the aircraft models hanging from the ceiling.
Wyatt’s IPs (Instructor Pilots) referred to their students as their “studs”
and were proud of them and seemed ready to help them through the very
demanding flight syllabus. The syllabus consisted of training flights with
specific skills which must be mastered, a graded check ride with an evaluator,
then another set of objectives and another check ride.
The challenge was intensified by the common knowledge that the
program was fast-paced and time limited: if you didn’t progress through the
check rides in the allotted number of training flights, you were washed out of
the program. As one IP told me, “We could teach a monkey to fly if we had
enough bananas—but we do not.” He meant that flight time was deliberately
limited: a student pilot progressed on schedule or was eliminated.
The harsh reality at Air Force pilot training, we all knew, was that you
were always only two rides from elimination: a failed check brought a
recheck, and a final failed recheck meant you were washed out. We’d seen
that happen right up to the final rides of the syllabus. No one was immune or
free from the threat of elimination.
Our Wolfpack section was assigned to “E-Flight” of the 35th Squadron,
flying T-37s. Chip marched us into the flight room as required by military
protocol once the doors opened.
We had no idea that things were about to go to hell, literally.

Chapter 18
We each found our assigned instructors at their tables in the E-Flight
room and came to attention before them to report in, military style, as was
required. My assigned instructor was a first lieutenant named Carl Knott. He
was tall, lanky and had a sagging, hound-dog, maybe annoyed look on his
face. He returned my salute without ever meeting my eyes with his. He
looked away as we both sat down.
My eyes immediately went to the stuff under the glass on his table top,
facing me. Fighters? Military aircraft? Fast cars? Pinups? Nope. What I saw
shocked the hell out of me.
Facing me under the glass, obviously aimed at me and my fellow student
desk mate, were glaring, huge-font headlines proclaiming certain religious
denominations and what was wrong with them. Literally, the headlines
screamed “Catholic: WRONG,” then below the headline a bullet point list of
reasons declared why Catholics were going to hell. Ditto for Judaism
(WRONG), Buddhism (WRONG) and Islam. More clipped articles
proclaimed the need to accept Jesus as Savior—and the Southern Baptist
Jesus at that—or face eternal damnation.
Carl Knott’s desk was the most egregious example of religious
intolerance in the Flight Room, but we all came to realize that E-Flight was
defined by the standard of conservative, evangelical Baptist intolerance.
There were a couple of the younger IPs who seemed indifferent, but up
through the ranks, including the Flight Commander, Assistant Flight
Commander, Scheduling and even Standardization Officers—basically, the
key leadership—religious intolerance was the standard. These were the guys
who held our futures in their hands—we were all just two rides from the door
—and these were the guys who we’d have to satisfy daily with our flying and
military performance.
How could this even be possible, to have such a blatant, inappropriate
intolerance in a military organization? We speculated that most likely, the
35th Squadron had consolidated all of the religious zealots and bigots into one
flight in order to keep them from disrupting all the flights individually, but
who really knew? The how and why of it became secondary to surviving not
only the flying tests, but in E-Flight, the moral and religious judgments.
Captain Bob Watson, E-Flight Commander, stepped up to a podium at the
front of the room. He was balding, slouchy, and his worn-out flight suit hung
on his bony frame like a trash bag. He’d come to the 35th Squadron from
tankers, the most un-glamorous Air Force pilot job, and he looked the part:
worn out, trashy and unenthusiastic. There were some words of welcome, but
he too seemed like Carl Knott, reluctant to meet anyone’s eyes. He spoke
mostly to the floor or the far wall, I couldn’t tell which, as he launched into
an outline of how our days there would unfold.
Each day would begin with a briefing of hot topics passed down the chain
of command to us, which included military and operational directives, aircraft
technical updates, weather, and other flight related items.
Then, “standup:” one of the IPs would take the podium and pose an
emergency procedure question in the form of an inflight scenario. The answer
was supposed to include the pertinent procedural and memory items
associated with the aircraft system involved.
Systems knowledge was key and usually, there was some sort of twist,
some complication or, as the flight room terminology went, a “trick fuck”
aspect designed to lead you astray but eventually, make you think and
actually learn something new. If you answered the question incorrectly, you
were grounded for the day and the failure was noted in your training file.
In E-Flight, the standup question was typically designed to make the
student squirm, to mislead the novice and often, simply embarrass the
unlucky one called on. There was no uplifting, confidence-building approach
as Wyatt had described in his T-37 Flight. Rather, E-Flight used a negative
incentive: the “Toad of the Week” award.
The award was actually a bloated, dead, stuffed frog, its skin gnarled and
brown, spindly legs mounted on a wooden platform. Whoever’d made the
most egregious mistake—and morning standup was a prime opportunity—
was named the “Toad of the Week” and had to display the dead toad on his
table to proclaim his stupidity for all to see until someone else surpassed
whatever bonehead mistake he’d made. Then, with a great fanfare of sarcasm
and ridicule, the award was passed to the next unfortunate student pilot.
To be fair, the Air Training Command (ATC) instructor manual
specifically endorsed “fear, sarcasm and ridicule” as legitimate training
techniques, and E-Flight embraced those dubious teaching elements. Many
IPs were clearly not happy being T-37 instructor pilots flying the lowliest,
slowest jet in the Air Force inventory and they made no secret of their
disdain. In E-Flight, fear, sarcasm and ridicule weren’t just techniques—they
were the order of the day.
There was a special echelon of discontent among those who’d graduated
from pilot training themselves, only to be plowed back into the squadron as
T-37 instructor pilots. These IPs were designated “FAIPs,” which was short
for “First Assignment Instructor Pilot.” They’d never flown in an operational
Air Force squadron and most were thoroughly dissatisfied with that sad
reality as their classmates went on after graduation to operational units flying
fighters, bombers or transports while they were marooned in west Texas
flying the “Tweet,” as the T-37 nicknamed because of the high-pitched shriek
of its two lame jet engines.
Carl Knott was a FAIP and although it was hard to tell what made him so
unpleasantly sour—besides having to deal with heretics like me who’d been
raised Catholic—he was clearly not happy to be there.
Another FAIP sat at the table next to Carl Knott’s table. He was a second
lieutenant who only recently qualified as an IP and was clearly not happy to
be stuck in Tweets. A.D. Ray was his name and he earned the nickname from
us “The Death Ray:” he’d flunk a student, “hook ‘em,” in the blink of an eye.
He’d simply glare at you and hold up his hand in a “U” shape— “Unsat”—if
you answered a question wrong or if he was debriefing you on a flight
maneuver you’d messed up in the air. Too many messed up— “unsat”—
maneuvers on a flight meant an unsat, a hook, on the entire ride. Unsat more
than a couple flights and you were scheduled for an “IPC:” Initial Progress
Check. Bust that and you were scheduled for an “FPC:” Final Progress
Check. That was do or die—if you failed, you were washed out. Hence the
ominous sword of Damocles that hung over all of our heads in the sudden-
death reality that we were all “just two rides from the door.”
Another Captain joined Watson as the Assistant Flight Commander: Larry
C. Mills had flown gunships in combat and although he didn’t seem to be in
the hyper-religious clique, he had little use for second lieutenants and seemed
eager to embrace the attrition mission because if nothing else, less student
pilots meant less work for the flight. Larry C. Mills seemed mildly amused by
it all and basically uninterested in helping anyone except Larry C. Mills.
The seemingly next in the E-Flight pecking order was Captain Robbie
Lynne. He wasn’t a FAIP, but he had a chip on his shoulder nonetheless. He
always had a sarcastic word or putdown for students and especially, the Toad
of the Week.
I never was awarded the Toad, but I sure deserved it. Reciting abstract
procedures, memorizing and putting together seemingly endless numbers,
pressure readings, electrical currents, mechanical sequences—that was a
disjointed mystery to a guy accustomed to primary literary or theory texts
supported by secondary texts, then inductive reasoning and discovery. I
wasn’t good at memorizing tables of numbers: climb versus military versus
cruise versus continuous Exhaust Gas Temperatures—EGTs for short—or
DC versus inverted AC current at what flow from what source? What’s the
answer, lieutenant? Why don’t you know?
We stepped up from the Link instrument trainers to the simulators, which
were detailed cockpit replicas with instruments and indicators that moved as
they did in the actual aircraft. The cockpits were mounted on huge hydraulic
jacks that gave the simulators motion and induced the feel of actual
maneuvers.
Once the canopy was lowered, you’d swear you were in the actual jet and
through the front windscreen, a projected visual completed the simulation and
induced as close to a real time feel as you could get outside of an actual
aircraft. Strapped in, wearing a helmet and mask—instructors wore only
headsets in the simulator—took some getting used to and it was a good idea
to acclimate “in the box” as we called the sim so as to be able to perform
better in the actual aircraft.
These simulator sessions were long and tedious, but well worth their
weight in gold or, as was the purpose, in fuel savings. We learned procedural
flows and what we called “switchology:” where were the switches and
controls that were required for different phases of flight and what were the
correct sequences and motions required.
Though Chip was a seasoned flier and had actually flown combat
missions in the F-4, the lower ranked FAIPs still seemed to want him to
salute them when reporting formally to them. Diplomatic as he was, Chip
worked that out, but as he noted when it came to us, “There is no rank among
lieutenants,” meaning we really didn’t need to salute other lieutenants like
Death Ray, but we all played the game, not wanting to bring down any more
animosity on our heads than was already there.
Weekends started on Friday afternoon at the O’Club stag bar where a beer
cost less than a dollar and there was always a full crowd of lieutenants
blowing off steam from another high pressure, do or die week. There were
endless card and dice games ongoing. As the night wore on, the crowd and
the noise grew. Stupid pilot games took over, furniture was overturned, often
the lights went out and fire extinguishers were discharged and sprayed the
room in the dark.
Sometimes a few of the IPs, even our E-Flight IPs, showed up at the stag
bar and it was clear that we, their students, were a nuisance, and an unworthy
nuisance at that. That didn’t matter to us and in a way, it was almost fun to be
in their faces, especially among other IPs and FAIPs who didn’t necessarily
despise students.
Saturday nights were reserved either for dates or a group trip to a club
downtown. I seemed to meet a lot of girls downtown and asked them to bring
friends out to the Club for my Wolfpack buddies. That became known among
our little band of lieutenants as a “Beefpack,” there to meet some twenty-
something officers and student pilots. It didn’t hurt anything that the drinking
age was only eighteen on base but twenty-one downtown. The twenty-year-
old Texas Tech coeds could drink freely at the Club and many appeared there
on their own.
We worked hard during the week and we played hard on the weekends.
Those of us who were single hung out together in two groups: there were the
guys like Pre-Tweet Pete who preferred what seemed to me to be stuffier bars
like Smugglers, while my group—Coke, Pulsar, Father O, Animal—went
more for the younger-crowd, beer-swilling joints.
The other group of guys at Smugglers actually hooked up with a group
of the younger IP wives on a girls’ night out, a very bad, volatile
circumstance, at least in my mind. One of the guys—not absolutely certain
which one—actually got into a major slap-and-tickle in the back seat of one
of the wives’—and thus the IP’s—car that became a regular bone dance
going forward, just one more thing for the already pissed off E-Flight IPs to
hate us for if they found out. To me, the wives were off limits partly because
of the dangerous IP connection and the repercussions that could bring, but
mostly because they were late twenties or early thirties—old ladies to me.
Eventually, we completed all of the pre-flight training requirements in
both the Links and the sims and were at last ready to start the actual flight
syllabus.
Dollar Rides were what everyone called the first ever flight in the actual
T-37 jet. This was largely a freebie, basically just an orientation flight with
the instructor doing most of the flying, pointing out the ground tracks we’d
fly in and out of the traffic pattern, and the basic maneuvers the jet was
capable of, and which we’d be required to master.
When our time to actually fly in the T-37 finally arrived, per the tradition,
we stopped by the bank to get an actual silver dollar to hand over to the IP
who flew your Dollar Ride.
I hardly slept the night before my Dollar Ride. I walked to the squadron
and after standup, Carl Knott told me I’d be flying with Death Ray for my
Dollar Ride. I didn’t care who it was with, I was just elated to be flying at
last. I’d paid special attention to the morning weather briefing, which
included winds at the surface, at pattern altitude, and at high altitude. The
information was to help you account for drift as you flew … AS YOU
FLEW! That very reality, flying, was what really mattered.
I reported to Death Ray, told him our aircraft tail number and our “step
time,” meaning when we wanted to be out the door of the Life Support shop
with our helmets leak tested and our assigned parachutes visually pre-
flighted. Death Ray briefed me on what we were going to do, maneuver by
maneuver, then dismissed me to meet him at the Life Support shop just prior
to step time.
We tested our gear then slung our chutes over a shoulder and headed for
the flight line. A deuce-and-a-half truck drove slowly north to south, picking
pilots and their students up at the Life Support exit, then slowly trundling
down the line of white jet tails row by row till a crew spotted their jet and
signaled for the truck to stop.
At the far end of the flight line, the truck made a U-turn and picked up
crews after their flights had been completed to return them to Life Support to
drop off equipment, maybe grab a soft drink, take a bathroom break, then
return to the flight room to debrief.
I’d written our assigned aircraft’s tail number on the palm of my right
hand along with the step time, as was our usual technique. I met AD at the
door and we trundled out to the truck and climbed aboard among other crews.
At the jet, he had me simply get aboard and the crew chief helped me
strap in. The T-37 was a side-by-side trainer, with me, the student, in the left
ejection seat, the instructor in the right.
There was a step just below the engine intake and then you swung the
other leg over the canopy rail and put your foot on the seat, then stepped in,
sat down, and began hooking up harnesses, communications cords and
various other connections.
To be frank, it was not comfortable. The beautiful blue Texas sky featured
a brilliant sun that beamed down and heated up my Nomex fire retardant
flight suit. Helmets, masks and Nomex gloves completed the ensemble and
things heated up fast. That wasn’t a problem we’d had to deal with in the
Link trainers or simulators.
My flight helmet was form-fitted with the pads formed based on a mold
taken of my head. I pulled on a skull cap—another heat source—then the
helmet. The nape strap dug into the back of my neck, as it was supposed to in
order to remain on during a high-speed ejection.
The mask snugged around my face tight to ensure my breathing oxygen
with a cinched-up fit that left welts on my cheeks and the bridge of my nose.
The breathing oxygen had a distinct odor and a very dry feel, especially on
the one hundred percent oxygen setting, which was recommended if you
were planning heavy maneuvering to help ward of air sickness, or so I’d been
told.
The ejection seat had a thin pad over the survival kit under my butt, and
the angle of recline couldn’t be changed and felt awkward, at least at first.
The crew chief looked me over, checked the security of my harnesses like the
operator of a carnival thrill ride, gave me a thumbs-up and went over to
Death Ray’s side to help him strap in.
We taxied out with the canopy open, the little white jet seemingly
waddling down the taxiway and into the line on the taxiway waiting for
takeoff among a half dozen other Tweets.
Once it was our turn for takeoff, AD closed the fishbowl-like canopy and
we locked it tight. When we were cleared for takeoff, he pushed the throttles
forward to military power and in that instant, a small butterfly fluttered past
my forward windscreen and back toward the engine intake over my left
shoulder.
The engines shrieked, the jet shook and AD held the brakes to run up the
power to check the engine instruments, and the butterfly twittered around
right in front of the intake, then flitted away. Wasn’t sucked in, I noted, even
though the jet engine was at full takeoff power. Welcome to the Tweet, I told
myself, and two of the lamest jet engines ever.
We skittered down the runway, buffeted by the ubiquitous west Texas
crosswinds, then the earth seemed to fall away and we were in the air,
climbing slowly but steadily, bouncing in the wind.
When we turned, often we banked up to forty-five degrees, which caught
me by surprise. In order to stay at least level at that bank angle, there had to
be some Gs pulled, maybe only a couple but that caught my stomach by
surprise too. My inner ear and equilibrium began to scramble as it did in the
Visivomiton.
I didn’t care. We were flying at last and I wasn’t going to let vertigo or
nausea ruin the thrill of finally being aloft and learning to fly a jet. Still,
alarm bells went off: this was just a sedate orientation ride. What would I do
about the thought of air sickness on a full-blown aerobatic flight? Stalls and
spins?
I put the worries aside. AD banked us into tight “clearing turns,” right
then left, which was pretty much standard procedure to clear the airspace of
other aircraft, particularly with student pilots, some solo, operating in nearby
airspace.
The Tweet was rugged, I’d give it that, with a fat, straight wing that AD
seemed to yank and bank against without a worry—she flew on, wound
around clouds with ease, slipped and dipped effortlessly, as long as we were
at a high-power setting and exchanging altitude for speed. Then, almost like
good old One-One-Juliet, there’d be a patient climb back up to an altitude
you could trade for airspeed to do more yank-and-bank maneuvers.
He talked me through the traffic pattern, pointing out the ground
references we’d use to enter the traffic pattern: the standpipe, a few other
landmarks that help me orient myself with the charts we’d studied
beforehand.
Before I knew it, we were on a long, slow, straight-in final approach for
landing. I’d kept my breakfast down but only barely. Still, I was thrilled to
have had my first actual flight, step one of the long flight syllabus in the T-
37. We taxied in then hoofed it to the edge of the flightline with our chutes
and gear and waited for the line truck to pick us up.
I felt optimistic as I walked back into the E-Flight room. Yes, there’d
been nausea problems, but I’d have been surprised if I’d been one of the
lucky ones whose vestibular system tolerated the yaw, pitch, roll and Gs
readily. At least I was at last flying an airplane, one I felt I could get used to
eventually.
The cinched-up harnesses and the rigid ejections seat, the helmet and
mask—that would be just a matter of adaptation and I had no real concern
there. I was completely psyched up to begin training in earnest, to learn how
to make the jet perform as it was designed to do and as the syllabus
demanded.
I’d maintain my concentration on academic exams and redouble my
efforts on the flightline, sidestepping the predatory E Flight non-secular and
moral pronouncements and simply be a good student pilot
If only it was that simple.

Chapter 19
The first phase of T-37 flying was called “contact flying,” because the
maneuvers were based on visual contact with the horizon and other visual
cues rather than instruments. After takeoff we used ground references to find
our way to an auxiliary airfield about seven or eight miles from the base and
there we practiced touch and go landings and overhead traffic patterns. Then,
out to a practice area to work on maneuvers like climbs, turns descents while
maintaining speed and altitude.
The gusty winds, heat, thermal turbulence, aggressive turns, the bank
angles, the Gs—all of it began to exact a physical toll. I got sick in flight,
once, then twice. Most of the IPs were merciless: “Keep flying,” Knott
drawled as I barfed into a bag I held in one hand, flying with the other. Fuck
you, I thought in my head, and I’d switch my comm selector to the “call”
position, which made it so that he couldn’t mute the audio, so he had to listen
to me vomiting.
I wasn’t the only one battling air sickness. I’d seen others struggle out of
the line truck under the weight of their flight gear and discreetly deposit a
barf bag or two in the dumpster by the door into Life Support. Animal had
once run out of barf bags and had to moose in a flight glove that also got
tossed into the dumpster.
As we progressed into aerobatics, the nausea was a miserable fact of life,
but really, the mandate to fly no matter whether you were throwing up or not
was justified: the goal was to solo, and to fly solo you had to handle
everything, airsick or not. It was pure misery.
As if by magic, mustaches disappeared from the faces of many guys
who’d had them, because it was embarrassing to come back from a flight
with food in your stash. Breakfast took on a new and different perspective,
too: you had to consider not only how food was going to taste going down,
but also coming back up (orange juice burned, I remember that) at the worst
possible time, like inverted at ten thousand feet trying to recover from a
messed-up maneuver.
Several guys SIE’d and I couldn’t blame them—the nausea and air
sickness were both debilitating and demoralizing. Like the deck wasn’t
already stacked against me, to have the vestibular weakness piled on top! Not
all of us were prone to air sickness, in fact most weren’t. But of course, I, and
my Shit Brother comrades, suffered from it every flight. Regardless, I refused
to give in, to quit. I’d rather die, and even die throwing up, if that was what it
came to.
Eventually, a ray of hope showed itself. Someone suggested we go to the
flight surgeon to see if he could prescribe something for nausea. Going to see
the flight surgeon—the “Witch Doctor,” as we called him—was a double-
edged sword. He could ground you temporarily or if he saw fit, permanently.
But, as far as the airsickness went, the cat was out of the bag: we couldn’t
hide it from our instructors, and our training was hampered by the vomiting
and our grades were suffering.
Dr. Lecompte, the Flight Surgeon/Witch Doctor seemed unconcerned. I
guess he’d seen it all and expected, as usual, our class to have the basic
human percentage of students susceptible to motion sickness. He prescribed
Dramamine and to counter the drowsiness which was its primary side effect,
he also gave us Dexedrine.
Suddenly, we were supercharged: the Dramamine eliminated most of the
nausea and, as we flew more and more often, our vestibular senses became
accustomed to the inverted flight and high Gs. The Dexedrine was like
magic, making us wide-awake and alert, even at 0430 briefing times.
“Learning” was still a problem in E-Flight. Granted, the course was titled
“training,” not learning, but the instruction was dubious. A typical flight
would start with my FAIP instructor “briefing,” which was mostly a run-
through of events and maneuvers and their sequence on the flight profile.
There was little in the way of instruction, not much on technique from
Carl Knott other than some small bits of information (“You need full power,
then start with forty-five degrees of bank and back pressure on the stick”) and
then, out the door to the jet.
Then, after the flight, seated at his shrine to religious bigotry and
intolerance, he’d repeat the “briefing” reformatted as a debrief: “You didn’t
use forty-five degrees of bank, you let the nose fall though” and finally, for
me, the mystery critique, “Your landings were dragged in.” No explanation
of how or why, just don’t do it again. And a marginal grade on the ride. That
was a worrisome trend.
Standup was the same bloodbath and Toad exchange, and Bob Watson
dropped in another inappropriate wild card: there’d be a daily prayer session,
completely voluntary, thirty minutes before report time, in the Flight Room.
If anyone wanted to attend.
I couldn’t believe it, reading between the lines: here was yet another way
to get on the black list it felt like E-Flight was creating. No, I didn’t want to
show up early to pray with the instructors, and so yes, I was going to hell. I
did enjoy the irony of the guy I was pretty sure was boning one of the IP’s
wives in the back seat of her car on Saturday nights coming in early Monday
to pray with the guy (and the IP was actually a pretty nice, if goofy guy)
despite the illicit reality. But I refused to come in and fake it with uber-pious
instructors.
One day, without any warning, I walked into the flight room to find I’d
been moved to a different table and a different instructor. Brian Odell was
another FAIP who always seemed to be annoyed, frequently over-emoting
about minor problems with gradebooks or syllabus write-ups. He cultivated a
sarcastic persona, often trying to seem acidy-annoyed as if he was being
forced to work with people—second lieutenants, even though he was only a
first lieutenant himself—well below his station in life.
With Brian, the pattern was just like with Carl Knott, only with added
sarcasm. For example, on liftoff, students were supposed to query the IP
“gear clear?” before raising the landing gear. Brian typically would snap
back, “I don’t know—is it?” I never knew exactly where I stood with him,
because while procedures were constantly reinforced out of the cockpit, in
flight, he’d make you feel stupid for following them.
Carl Knott once grabbed my oxygen hose in flight, pulled my head
around then lifted my tinted visor and said, “I just wanted to be sure there
was somebody in there.” Hah—fear, sarcasm and ridicule. With Brian, it was
a constant needling, and neither one of their techniques helped me learn.
Debriefs were the same exercise: Brian would simply reel off all the
maneuvers I’d done in a substandard manner, including, “dragged-in
landings.” It wasn’t long before he said, “You’ve failed this ride. And your
gradebook thus far has too many sub-standard write-ups.” To that point in the
program, I’d only flown with FAIPs, Death Ray, Carl Knott, and Brian
O’Dell, basically three of the least experienced instructors in E Flight.
Nonetheless, it was proposed by O’Dell and decreed by Bob Watson
that I would be sent to an “IPC:” Initial Progress Check. If I failed that, I’d be
given a Final Progress Check (FPC), and if I busted that, I would be washed
out. I was, as we all said with dread, on the first of those two rides that led
“out the door.” Around the same time, my fellow Shit Brother Animal was
scheduled for his IPC as well. Looked like E-Flight was taking the “attrition
mission” to heart.
To prepare for the IPC, I was scheduled for a practice flight with an
instructor from the squadron staff rather than an IP or, thank goodness, a
FAIP. But that was a double-edged sword, too. The staff was all higher-
ranking officers holding command positions. I drew Major Wingo, a fighter
pilot with combat time who was known as a quiet, no-nonsense guy. After
my flight with him, he’d pass on his recommendation to the evaluator giving
me the IPC. One word from Major Wingo to the evaluator flying with me on
my IPC could tank my chances before the chocks were even pulled on the
IPC.
The night before the practice flight I stared into the bathroom mirror in
my BOQ room. Before me, fat black grease pencil stared back, forming the
letters I’d written there recently as a reminder:
1. One day at a time.

2. Blow it off.
3. Never give in.
Number one was to keep perspective: I couldn’t look too far down the
road because there was just too much to worry about, from exams to air
sickness to the unforgiving pace of pilot training that pushed us all to just two
rides from the door.
Number two was a defense against the constant barrage of
condescension and sarcasm that was the daily, caustic staple in the crossfire
of disgruntled FAIPs and holy-roller E-Flight in general. I needed to not take
it to heart, or I’d lose faith in myself.
Finally, “never give in” hearkened back to Churchill’s words at the
Harrow School, a quote that had stiffened my resolve through some dark and
desperate times at VMI. I thought of the miserable odds in the terms my VMI
Cross-Country coach would use when faced with impending disaster. Wade
Williams, our beloved, respected and quietly tough-as-nails coach would say,
“I’ll be fucked and dipped in shit if I’ll let that happen.” Come what may, I’d
never quit.
I slept fitfully.
Bright and early the next morning I found myself seated before Major
Wingo at his table. He calmly, quietly briefed me on what we were about to
do in the air. He’d read my training folder and said we’d concentrate on
aerobatics in the practice area, then work on landings in the traffic pattern.
There was no sarcasm or ridicule, no witty digs with a side glance at any
other IP nearby for a snicker, just business. In the air, he was mostly silent,
only occasionally offering coaching, sometimes demonstrating and talking
through a maneuver. In the traffic pattern, he gave me suggestions that I
could apply in real time.
In the debrief, Major Wingo offered the first explanation of “dragged-in”
approaches I’d ever heard.
“Think of a wire stretched tight from traffic pattern altitude to the
touchdown point on the runway. Now, your job is to slide down that straight
wire on a grommet.”
Suddenly, it made sense. I was simply sinking lower on approach rather
than maintaining the constant rate and angle on the descent all the way to
touchdown. Even though I recalled a training slide with a cartoon of a T-37
being dragged to the runway by pilot with a rope with the admonishment,
“Don’t drag it in,” the concept never made sense. Suddenly, it did.
“You were doing well towards the end,” Major Wingo said, “And your
airwork was decent. You’ll be fine tomorrow if you just keep that up.”
And that was it. I stood, saluted, then headed back to E-Flight, allowing
myself to claim an ounce of optimism about the upcoming IPC.
The rest of the day in E-Flight I sensed an uncommon bit of reserve in the
IPs and maybe even a few of my classmates, as if I was a condemned man on
death watch. Animal lightened the mood when he returned from his IPC
warmup flight saying, “I just can’t get up for review rides.” Gallows humor
from a fellow Shit Brother.
Promptly the next morning I stood before Major Wayne Plump, another
combat-veteran fighter pilot, the evaluator who’d decide if I was to return to
the flight room or be deposited on the doorstep of failure and expulsion.
Like Major Wingo, he was quiet, reserved, respectful and business-like,
which put me at ease compared to the adversarial environment that was the
E-Flight FAIP standard.
He said very little in the air, which was both a relief and a concern. Being
an evaluation, he wasn’t there to instruct. Still, there was no criticism either
and I actually felt like the flight was going well and that my performance had
improved—especially my approaches—after just one warm-up flight with
Major Wingo’s coaching.
After landing, I stowed my flight gear in the Personal Equipment shop,
grabbed a drink of water then reported to Major Plump to await my fate. He
waved me to a seat as he wrote in my training folder.
“I don’t see any major problems,” he said quietly, “You’re fine to
continue in the program.”
Relief washed over me. He looked up from my bulging training folder.
“Keep up the good work,” he said at last, then dismissed me.
I returned to the E-Flight room with a mixture of relief and confidence,
only to find that I’d been reassigned to yet another FAIP, my third instructor
in just our short period in T-37s.
To me, that was neither good nor bad because I really disliked both Carl
Knott’s simmering, judgmental opprobrium and Brian O’Dell’s self-
aggrandizing antagonism. Death Ray, my new IP, wasn’t as outwardly God-
squad as Carl Knott or as dramatically sarcastic as Brian O’Dell. Still, he was
a brand new FAIP, we were his first student class, and he was famous for
offering his patented “hook” or failure signal both on the ground during
“stump the dummy” question and answer grilling sessions as well as in the air
after a poorly executed maneuver.
Regardless, I claimed a slight bit of confidence in my own ability to
survive the constant criticism: two senior, experienced command-level
instructor pilots had both flown with me and found my performance to be
adequate, so it would seem less likely that a FAIP would be eager to
contradict them. At least I hoped that would be the case.
Sure, there was a lot more of the flight syllabus to survive and plenty
more ways to fuck up ahead, but at least it was clear that E-Flight wasn’t
simply going to quickly and easily railroad me and my fellow Shit Brothers
out of the flying business.
Death Ray remained a puzzle. On some days, he could be helpful and
offer good instruction; on other days he’d slide back into the predatory E-
Flight antagonism. You never knew which AD was going to show up for a
flight, but you had to be ready for either.
Death Ray briefed my first spin ride as if it was no big deal, but really, it
was one of the major hurdles between me and my first solo flight. The T-37
could flat spin like a frisbee or a spinning plate, plummeting like an elevator
whose cable had snapped as it did. Inverted, right side up, even accelerated,
the Tweet was designed to flat spin but, if you applied the long, multi-step
procedure correctly, the spin could be broken and normal controlled flight
resumed.
Mastering the spin recovery made sense in a couple different ways. First,
it was a confidence-builder for the student pilot, letting you gain confidence
in your ability not only to regain controlled flight in a spinning, plummeting
aircraft, but also that you could recall and apply multiple critical action steps
correctly during a distracting—spinning—maneuver.
That was crucial if you were to solo: you had to be able to handle
whatever the aircraft did. But, still fresh off my nausea breakthrough, I was a
little concerned. Would this spin resurrect the air sickness? In addition, would
I be able to recall, recite, and apply the multiple steps to recover the jet to
controlled flight and as importantly, to Death Ray’s satisfaction, in a
spinning, plummeting jet? After all, despite the successful IPC with Major
Plump, I was still just two rides from the door if I dicked up more flights.
We’d finished our airwork, which had gone well. From the top of our
practice area, it made sense to save the spin for last because that wouldn’t
waste flight time climbing to a safe spin altitude and at the end of the flight.
Instead, the spin would drop us down to the correct, lower altitude to exit the
practice area and return to the landing traffic pattern.
“You ready for the spin entry?” AD asked.
Well, no, but I’ll be fucked and dipped in shit if I’ll let you see me sweat,
I thought but didn’t say.
“Heck yeah,” I lied.
AD slammed the controls around, pulled the throttles to idle and raised
the nose till the jet shuddered, stalled, and began to pitch down. He the
stomped the rudder to start the spin and I braced myself for what was to
come.
Slowly, almost gently, the Earth below seemed to rotate. Then it gathered
speed but still, it was as if we were motionless and the ground was spinning
up to meet us. That was it? That was the dreaded spin? It really was no big
deal.
“Recover,” AD’s voice, muffled by his oxygen mask, came through the
intercom.
I took over the controls and recited the first step, “Stick abruptly full aft
and hold.” I yanked the stick into my lap and held it. “Rudder: abruptly apply
rudder opposite direction of spin, opposite of turn needle …”
On it went, step by step. The jet didn’t seem to want to respond at first,
but eventually, as we gained speed, roughly—probably due to my ham-fisted
inexperience—she came out of the spin and settled into a steep dive.
“And recover from the dive,” I finished the litany.
“Not bad,” AD said. “Now, back to the pattern.”
During a quiet moment flying back to the traffic pattern for touch and
goes, I allowed myself a little optimism.
The spin was a whole lot of nothing, just another maneuver to
accomplish. My other airwork items were coming along fine—I could fly a
passable cloverleaf, Immelmann or Cuban eight with only a little coaching.
Maybe, just maybe there were enough bananas available for this monkey to
learn the flying biz.
At the end of the day, I rode my bike away from the squadron building in
a fall dusk. It seemed fitting to me to be coasting easily at a only few miles an
hour, on a bike, after wringing myself out in a jet twice that day. The bike
was a peaceful counter-statement to the aerobatics, the G-forces, and the
constant stress of performing in the air for a critic who really wasn’t
interested in my success. I savored the peaceful contrast.
I allowed myself to look ahead a few flights. With just a couple more
instructor rides, I should be ready to solo. After that, there’d be formation
flights and eventually, a step up to the sleek, supersonic T-38.
Still, there were many T-37 flight skills to be mastered, plus more exams
as well.
One day at a time, I reminded myself. Just survive, no; master the very
next day.
That would do for now.

Chapter 20
We flew “stalls and falls,” the nickname for a stall series, practicing
recoveries in case I put the aircraft into a position where the wing stopped
generating lift. That could happen on takeoff or landing if I screwed up, or it
could happen in flight.
We practiced “unfair attitudes,” which was the unofficial term for unusual
attitude recoveries. In that exercise, the student pilot covered his visor with
both gloved hands while the instructor whipped the aircraft through a series
of banks, rolls and turns, then ordered, “recover.”
I’d open my eyes—I actually closed them so as to get the maximum effect
—then I took a moment to analyze whether we were inverted or upright, nose
high or nose low; power on or power off, airspeed high or low.
In that nanosecond, I also checked left and right to see where the big, fat
wingtips were in relation to the horizon and ahead, looked for blue sky or
brown dirt, above or below, depending on what Brian had done.
I believe the Tweet would actually fly itself out of whatever unusual
attitude you’d induced, and it started giving clues as to what it wanted to do
right away. So I’d help the jet: if we were nose high, I’d ease into a slicing
bank to regain airspeed and let the nose fall through the horizon. Just about
always, returning to wings level was the key, then get the nose tracking back
the way you needed it to. Seemed easy to me and I had no problem just
letting it happen, correcting as needed, back to straight and level flight.
Back in the flight room, Brian O’Dell pursed his lips and shook his head.
“I suppose this ride was decent enough,” he said. “To sign you off for
solo.”
I’d been waiting, hoping to hear those words for a long time. Our morning
flight had gone well and I was on the “solo stop:” the point in the program
where, if winds, weather and my performance met the requirements, I’d be
sent up alone for my first of many solo flights.
That wasn’t as easy as it sounds, because not everyone made it to solo and
of those who did, some decided against continuing on and SIE’d. The most
notorious case I recall was a captain, former navigator in the other section of
our class.
The solo pool, a two-feet deep kiddie pool outside the squadron building,
waited for him upon his final landing of his first solo. The pool was filled
with cold water and upon the solo pilot’s return, he’d be tossed in his flight
suit into the pool to commemorate his success in the traditional pilot training
fashion.
A handful of classmates waited outside the squadron, ready to toss the
guy in after he completed his traffic pattern solo. Meanwhile, from behind the
building, a huge cloud of red, west Texas dust rose and swirled into the air
near what must have been the approach end of the runway. Then, over the flat
rooftop of the squadron, a T-37 wobbled upward. A few minutes later, again
a pink dust cloud swirled skyward and again a Tweet climbed up and away.
The group waited, but the student pilot—former navigator—never turned
up for his triumphant dunking. That was weird, but no one waited around—
everyone had other duties demanding attention.
That very day, the former navigator in the other section SIE’d. It had been
him solo in the wobbly T-37 and the dust cloud had erupted when he’d
landed the jet—twice—in the dirt between the runways rather than on the
pavement. Lubbock, Texas was known as the land of the crosswind and gusty
winds were the rule rather than the exception and they’d gotten the better of
him.
He’d been unable to control the jet’s drift on final approach and had
missed the runways two times before successfully landing on the pavement
on the third and final try. That had scared him beyond his limit and he quit
that very day.
I had no such worries about my own ability to land the T-37 on the
runway, crosswind or no. The infamous Reese crosswinds were just one more
manageable challenge and actually a confidence builder: if you could land
there, you could land anywhere. Brian strapped down the instructor harnesses
over the empty ejection seat and nodded. I was good to go. I started the
engines and trundled the squatty little jet into the lumbering lineup of Tweets
headed for the runway.
On the radio, I reported myself with the call sign addendum “stage,”
which announced to the world that I was a first time solo. I was proud of that
and eager to get into the air, alone.
When I finally received takeoff clearance, I swung the Tweet onto the
runway, bubble canopy closed and locked, and took a deep breath. This was
it, I decided, and I wanted to savor the moment. In less than a minute, the
earth dropped away and I was airborne.
Just as I’d discovered flying the little Cessna in Roanoke, the aircraft flew
better solo: no hassles, no interface or really, interference. No judgment,
sarcasm or ridicule and I’d long since lost any fear. This was great, I decided,
a turning point for me.
I took my toss into the cold water of the solo pool with a feeling of both
accomplishment and relief. Things were looking up, as long as I stuck to my
mantra and didn’t look too far ahead. Our weekly routine solidified: Friday
nights included over-indulging in cheap beer and rowdiness at the club, then
Saturday nights we raced downtown to the bars.
Chip met Jonne, a grad student at Texas Tech, and they started dating.
Jonne (pronounced “Joan,” or as we all knew her, “Joanie”) was stunningly
beautiful, a smart, strong, kind and soft-spoken Indiana girl. That added to
our weekend routine a stop to congregate at Chip’s place downtown to watch
Saturday Night Live with them, then we’d head out looking for trouble
afterward.
For me and Coke, my usual partner in crime, that meant a trip to one of
the local bars that had music and girls in plentiful numbers. I’d follow behind
Coke, apologizing for him and his routine:
Coke: You want to dance?
Woman: Uh, I’m here with my date (or husband or
boyfriend).
Coke: Well fuck you then.
Me: I’m sorry; he just got out of prison. He’s crazy.
Coker’s pick-up line variations might include the addition of “I’m flying
jets at Reese; I could be dead tomorrow” or “I got my nuts cut—you don’t
have to worry.” And the evenings often ended at a convenience store where
we’d buy one more six pack for the road, plus a dozen eggs which we’d
throw out the window at other cars as we drove around drinking the beer. It
was a full life: flying a fun little underpowered acro jet during the week,
running around with our hair on fire all weekend.
We all made it through the solo stage, although our Wolfpack ranks were
shrinking. Besides the SIEs who threw in the towel at the acro-vomit stage,
Idi busted an IPC and got sent to an FPC that didn’t go well.
Idi had served as an enlisted door gunner on choppers in combat before
getting commissioned as an officer. When he showed up at the final review
board in his dress blues with more medals than anyone on the review board
had, they let him stay, just washed him back a class where he did well.
Lindsey made everyone insane, both students and instructors, and he was
washed back a class and eventually, washed out. Stod-man tore some
ligaments during a volleyball game and washed back a class too.
The losses actually brought us together tighter as a group and our shared
struggle against the E-Flight goal of getting rid of as many of us as possible
solidified our brotherly bond. To be fair, not everyone was struggling as
desperately as my Shit Brothers colleagues with both flying and academics.
Chip was burning up the syllabus, doing great. He had plenty of flight
experience and was an excellent student. The Coke was a natural pilot,
excelling both in flying and academics. Everyone seemed to fall somewhere
along the performance continuum between Chip and Coke at the top, me,
Animal and Father O at the bottom. Nonetheless, E-Flight slowly began to
realize that we were not leaving, period.
During one of our runs that spring, on a clear, blustery afternoon, as we
rounded the bend at the far end of our loop, Chip said, “What would you
think if I said I was going to ask Jonne to marry me?”
I was stunned at first, because it hadn’t occurred to me but that is what
people did at our age, although they hadn’t known each other very long. But
immediately, my thought was heck yeah, you’d better ask her—she’s one in a
million. And I told him as much. They were a perfect pair and she was
absolutely amazing.
That cemented our Saturday night routine, watching Saturday Night
Live with Chip and Jonne, then prowling the bars and clubs in Lubbock, with
me apologizing in the wake of The Coke’s wreckage.
Though I still rode my bike on base, enjoying the peaceful disparity
from the hot, sweaty, G-loaded yank and bank of the day’s flying, I finally
got around to buying a car. I picked out a brand new, deep blue Camaro and
drove it off the lot. The car gave me a lot more flexibility, especially on
weekends, although Coker constantly bitched that I wouldn’t let him smoke
in my brand new “Lieutenant-mobile.”
I’d become friends with one of Wyatt’s classmates, an Air Force
Academy grad who was also a runner and a weightlifter. We called him
McBunny because it contrasted with his muscle-bound power lifter physique,
which contrasted with his extensive knowledge of literature, especially
Shakespeare. He’d been a double-major in math and physics, yet he knew
more than I did about Renaissance poetics. He was a remarkable guy, yet
humble and easy to get along with. When an apartment upstairs from Wyatt’s
opened up in the Plains Villa complex on Slide Road near the South Plains
Mall, McBunny and I pooled our resources, split the rent and moved in.
In tweet E-Flight, our solos became wider-ranging, including not only the
traffic pattern, but also the practice areas around west Texas. Those were
areas of restricted airspace that ranged in altitude from about ten thousand
feet up to about twenty-five thousand feet. They were forty-ish miles wide,
and reserved just for your flight.
Often, we’d have several Wolfpack solos aloft at the same time, and we’d
tune up a frequency we’d all coordinated ahead of time and shoot the breeze
as we flew acrobatics in our individual practice airspace.
Lubbock offered the perfect ground references for aerobatics. The roads
were a giant grid pattern running north and south, east and west. You could
line up your nose on one, then pull over the top into a loop, then trace another
road down.
Tumbling through acro, solo in a jet was the ultimate freedom and a hell
of a lot of fun. Often when I’d finished practicing all the acro I’d be graded
on, I’d roll inverted and pull until the jet was nearly vertical and nose down,
let it gather speed and energy. Then I’d pull back on the stick with three or
four Gs until the nose was pitched straight up and just let the jet leap
skyward, sometimes rolling constantly, shooting toward the vertical.
Eventually, at over twenty-thousand feet, the Tweet would run out of
airspeed and would just tumble and fall like a maple leaf from a tree. I’d just
let go, let it fall off on one wing or another and pitch down into a dive. When
she picked up speed and began to fly again, I’d pull out of the dive and set up
for another maneuver.
Instead of straight-in landing approaches, we began to fly “overhead
patterns:” you flew straight over the runway at thousand feet and two-
hundred knots, then at midfield, you rolled into sixty degrees of bank and
pulled hard, holding level flight as you did, and at least two Gs, until you’d
reversed course. This was called a “break” or “pitch out,” and it set you up on
a downwind leg paralleling the landing runway, eating up energy and
airspeed which was necessary to configure for landing.
About 45 degrees to the touchdown point as you looked over your
shoulder at a thousand feet was a position called “the perch.” You rolled off
the perch into another sixty-degree bank, eased the power back and pulled the
nose around and down toward the touchdown point. If you did it correctly,
you’d roll wings-level at about five hundred feet, in a seven to eight hundred
feet per minute descent to touchdown.
When you landed, you lowered the nosewheel to the runway and shoved
the throttles up to full power then took off again, climbed to pattern altitude
then flew the same downwind to the perch and configured for another touch
and go.
I flew back from my solo practice area one afternoon using the exact
same landmarks and ground track as Death Ray and I had used on a training
flight only a few hours before. Flying twice in a day was called a “double-
bang” and I was always ready for that because I loved to fly, especially solo,
but also, because it meant I was knocking out required syllabus items
required to complete T-37s then move on to the T-38.
My usual lunch between double-bangs was a Coke and a bag of peanuts.
The Coke offered caffeine, a necessary item on long flightline days with
academics afterward, and the peanuts were protein, in my twenty-two-year-
old mind. That snack warded off hunger but didn’t sit heavy in my stomach
during aerobatics or formation flights.
So, I cruised back solo to the overhead traffic pattern entry to fly initial to
the runway I’d departed from less than an hour before. I had no idea that
while I was in the practice area, Reese had reversed runways: I’d taken off to
the south, so I was entering the traffic pattern to the south.
That meant since they were now taking off to the north, I was flying right
into the teeth of all the departing Tweets and worse, the rocket-like T-38s.
Several T-38 flashed by me nearly nose to nose and instantly, I realized I
was beak to beak with a few dozen high speed projectiles, going against
traffic.
“T-37 north of the field entering initial, Poppet on guard, breakout
immediately,” came the strained voice of the flying supervisor.
Without a second thought I pitched the jet straight up to about five
thousand feet, over onto its back then rolled upright and made a beeline for
the VFR straight-in pattern entry point.
“T-37 approaching Reese from north initial, say your call sign,” the
supervisor ordered.
Yeah, like I’m going to rat myself out and get my ass chewed off and
probably grounded, I thought to myself as I dropped into the straight-in
pattern between other Tweets.
After landing, I returned my helmet and parachute to the Life Support
shop and as I strolled past the Ops desk, the Supervisor of Flying ranted to a
Flight Commander leaning on the counter before him.
“One of our T-37s just flew initial to the wrong runway, straight into the
departures,” he said. “I want to find out who that stupid son of a bitch is.”
Not today, I thought to myself. I just kept walking, back to E-Flight.
They never figured out it was me.
Meanwhile, I passed two more crucial academic exams and my flying
grades were improving as I got comfortable with the Tweet. The fat wing was
very forgiving and it allowed some fun acro. True, the jet was underpowered
but once you planned for good energy management, she was easy to put
through the required maneuvers.
Bob Watson was replaced as flight commander by Carl Payne, an import
from outside of E-Flight. He didn’t seem quite as into the God-squad E-Flight
intolerance, which lowered the antagonism a notch, though Carl Knott
maintained his shrine to religious bigotry nonetheless.
HoJo moved into the flight as an IP and had nothing in common with
the God-squad IPs, which diluted their stranglehold on standup “stump the
dummy” sessions. About that same time, Rhet Rage, an E-Flight IP, actually
busted his own annual check ride, undercutting the old-school E-Flight hubris
with a dose of humiliation. Meanwhile, we were doing better as a class,
finishing the syllabus requirements, so there was less leverage for the more
predatory instructors to wash us out.
We started formation flying in two-ship flights and once again, the
lumbering, stable Tweet made it easy and fun. We began to fly “trail”
formation, where you simply glued yourself into formation tucked in close
behind and below the other jet. That lead jet’s maneuvers became your
attitude indicator as you matched whatever he did exactly. Sometimes a
glimpse of the ground above or blue sky below told you that you were
inverted but it was totally inconsequential—you just flew and had a blast
doing so.
Also that summer, Chip and Jonne tied the knot in an intimate, simple
wedding at the Reese Base chapel attended by family and friends plus, of
course, the entire Wolfpack.
Though it seemed like an eternity from our disappointing introduction to
E-Flight in T-37s, at long last we completed the entire T-37 flying and
academic syllabus. Finally, we stood on the doorstep of the T-38 squadron,
ready to fly the White Rocket, as it is called.
I approached the move up to T-38s with humility because I hadn’t exactly
burned up the T-37 program, what with an IPC plus as many poor grades as
the E-Flight cabal could put in my gradebook. But I was also hopeful, having
grown comfortable with the flying environment and the T-37, solo or in
formation. I could hardly wait to climb into a T-38 and learn to fly the shit
out of it.
My humility, hopes, and best intentions aside, nothing could have
prepared us for what we encountered in the T-38 squadron.

Chapter 21
Strapped into the front ejection seat of the T-38 on the departure end of
the long runway, I waited for takeoff clearance. It meant a lot to me to be in
the front cockpit at last, remembering my rear cockpit familiarization ride
during ROTC summer camp barely three years earlier. The dream was alive
and well and this was my introductory flight in the jet as a student pilot, not
just a ride-along cadet.
Quasar, an affable, quiet, carrot-topped IP was in the rear cockpit, and this
flight was basically to give me the feel of the jet and to work on standard
flight maneuvers. It was a dream come true.
We’d reported to the T-38 squadron, assigned to E-Flight in a different
building with a whole new set of instructors. Day one was astonishing after
the Tweet E-Flight early days: these T-38 guys welcomed us and even
seemed glad to have us there. I was assigned to Curly Culp, a witty, funny,
friendly FAIP from Maryland.
To be a FAIP in T-38s was actually a good deal because you got to fly
the jet for a few more years, which gave you a better shot at getting a fighter
as your next assignment.
Curly was a great guy and was the only IP I was assigned to the whole
time I was in E-Flight. Sure, I flew with other IP’s depending on scheduling
constraints but it wasn’t the same musical chairs we’d played in Tweets.
We nicknamed our flight commander “The Count” because he was
short, quiet and had waggling eyebrows when he spoke what few words he
was inclined to speak. He set the tone for the whole flight and it was one that
showed respect for and even pride in us as students. This was a radical
change from the E Flight Tweets’ rotating toad humiliation.
Once, when the Major Reese, the scheduling officer, was griping about
student schedules and requirements in a very loud voice in the flight room,
The Count stepped out of his office, walked up to the scheduling board and
simply said “Fuck off, Reese” then returned to his office. This was a
welcome change.
Once we were cleared for takeoff, Quasar held the brakes and shoved the
throttles to full military power, then released the brakes and we raced
forward. Then he eased both throttles past the military detent until the
afterburners lit which gave us a smooth but definite shove.
The T-38 accelerated like a rocket and at a hundred sixty-eight knots,
Quasar eased back on the stick and we leapt into the air.
“Gotta get the gear and flaps up fast,” Quasar’s voice came over the
intercom, “She accelerates so fast it’s easy to overspeed both.”
We climbed out at two-hundred eighty knots, well beyond the standard
two-hundred fifty speed limit below ten thousand feet because the stubby-
winged rocket needed at least that speed to maneuver safely.
The jet was a pleasure to fly, requiring such a gentle touch on the
controls compared to the tweet. It was almost as if you had to just think about
a control input, then put slight pressure on the stick and the jet responded
instantly. You couldn’t see the wingtips from the front cockpit because they
were so far behind you so it felt like, in the front cockpit, you were riding the
nosecone of a missile.
The cockpit was roomier than the tweet, with better visibility and plenty
of elbow room. We wore G-suits to constrict the body from the waist down to
help counter the G-forces that literally drained the blood from your head and
caused your vision to tunnel and go to black. She handled acro easily, though
the higher speed made for huge loops compared to the T-37, unless you used
afterburner and lots of Gs. It was a dream to fly and I couldn’t wait to solo.
The T-38 flight syllabus clicked by without any major problems, unlike in
Tweets. Curly always offered useful critique, both in the air and on the
ground in our debriefs. I learned a lot about the aircraft and how to make it
perform, plus energy maneuvering and spatial relationships in flight. I gained
confidence in my ability to learn and demonstrate my proficiency in the
required maneuvers.
I flew often with Charlie Simmons, a good old Beaumont, Texas boy who
was seldom without a wide grin and a funny saying. Flying with Charlie was
always fun and a good learning experience, whether he was demonstrating a
maneuver or just singing hints (“Trim, trim, trim, trim …”) in the rear
cockpit.
It was Charlie who finally gave me the approval I’d been waiting for,
announcing after a flight, “You’ve got pork for hands and shit for brains—but
I like ya!” Meaning, in Charlie’s good old boy slang, I was cleared to fly the
T-38 solo.
We cinched down the straps on the rear ejection seat, then closed the
canopy and I climbed into the front cockpit. The crew chief climbed up the
ladder slung on the side of the jet and helped me strap in. I hooked up my
communications cords, my oxygen and G-suit hoses, then started the two
engines and taxied out.
At the end of the runway, I waited my turn with a half dozen other T-
38s. Finally, I closed the front canopy, swung the jet onto the runway and
stood on the brakes and waited for takeoff clearance.
I wanted to savor the moment, to feel the accomplishment that flying
the T-38 solo was for me. It had been such a long, uphill battle from my first
T-38 backseat ride as a ROTC cadet, yet there I was, in that front cockpit,
alone, about to punch the afterburners and launch myself skyward in the
White Rocket. In that moment, it seemed like anything could be possible, if
you worked hard enough for it.
Once cleared for takeoff, I advanced the throttles and scanned the two
columns of engine instruments. Everything looked normal, so I released the
brakes and shoved the throttles into afterburner.
Like an amazing dream, the jet leapt forward and then up into the dusty
blue west Texas sky. I raised the gear and flaps and eased the throttles out of
burner as I banked into the standard climb-out up and over the airfield. She
responded easy to my touch and there was no describing the elation and
satisfaction of flying the jet solo. All too soon, the flight was over, but I had
more solos ahead, so I wasn’t disappointed. Rather, it was time to go to the
O’Club to celebrate with my Wolfpack brothers.
I’m not sure why I wandered into the formal bar at the O’Club, because I
usually stuck to the stag bar which had more lenient rules. The formal bar
was where senior officers—and they were all senior to us—took their wives
for a drink before dinner in the dining room, or chatted with their peers
before going home for the day.
I noticed a beautiful, brown-haired lieutenant in a flight suit sitting alone
at a table. It was clear that she was a new student, probably in academics,
waiting to go to Tweets. I asked if I could join her, feeling a little swagger at
being a T-38 solo student. Her name was Karen Robinette, she’d been a flight
nurse and now was starting pilot training. She nodded to an empty seat.
I was already three or four beers into the night as we chatted, when she
said, “Okay, we need to do some shots.”
Did we? I don’t do shots, I needed to say but wasn’t about to admit that,
to blow my cool and slink away. But I realized that especially on top of my
beers plus my usual skimpy lunch of peanuts and a Coke and the potato chips
and dip I’d scarfed down in the stag bar, that tequila shots were a very, very
bad idea.
A waiter brought the two shots. Karen smiled, downed hers in one gulp
then stared at me.
Against my better judgment, I tossed the golden shot back and swallowed,
struggling not to gag at the awful taste and nasty burn. There, I decided, now
let’s get back to—
“Well aren’t you going to buy us a round?” she asked sweetly.
What could I do? Even though my stomach had begun to clench, how
could I not reciprocate to not be a wuss?
“Two more,” I said to the waiter.
In a moment, two more shots appeared. Karen downed hers, smacked the
glass down on the table and waited.
I steeled my nerves then downed the shot without gagging, a minor
miracle. Okay, now we’re even, I thought, even as my guts roiled and
protested and the room began to slant dangerously. Let’s be done with this.
“Two more,” she said, and the waiter nodded.
I made my face stone, at least I hoped, masking my own desperation.
Maybe I could get through one more, had to get through one more, the
desperate thought formed in my tequila and beer-soaked brain pan.
Karen downed her third shot and smiled.
I tossed mine back, then nearly slumped over but caught myself. Vesuvius
rumbled and heaved and I wasn’t sure which end of the volcano was about to
blow first—but I knew the lava was coming.
“Can you excuse me for a moment?” I asked politely. I stood slowly,
trying to act nonchalant. I walked casually to the big wooden door from the
formal bar to the hallway.
Once outside, all hell broke loose: my vision was double, the hallway
dark, the men’s room nowhere to be seen. I struggled down the hallway,
pulled on a maintenance closet’s door knob but it was locked. I spun through
a darkened doorway, fumbling for a light switch but couldn’t find one. I
braced myself against the wall and full-body heaved a mighty blast of tequila,
beer, potato chips and dip all over the textured wallpaper. Once, twice, and
one last time for good measure. I was defeated. I slipped out the back door of
the Club and wandered into the night. There was nothing to do but go home
and sleep it off.
The next morning, Coke and I were first in line for breakfast at the
cafeteria line of the O’Club. A large black woman who ran the cafeteria
section trundled over to the light switch and turned on the overheads. She
froze.
“Mercy, heps me,” she sighed, “Somebody done left they manners all
over the floor.”
There on the wall and tile floor adjacent to the cash register was a huge
starburst of potato chips and, I knew, dried tequila and beer. I laughed.
Coker looked at the splatter, looked and me, then back at the starburst and
snapped, “Goddamn you Manno!”
What could I do? And it wasn’t like I didn’t hear that from Coker at least
a dozen times a day anyway. He was always angry about something or
someone, constantly raising hell and working in as many “goddamns,”
“shits” and F-bombs as he could pack into every sentence.
Once in the flight room when he was ranting “goddamn” this or that, I
asked him for a little clarity.
“Coke,” I interrupted his blue streak. “All we ever hear is ‘goddamn this’
or ‘goddamn that;’ all about the things you don’t like. Is there anything you
do like?”
He thought for a few seconds before he spoke.
“You know what Manno?” he said after a moment, “I don’t like a
goddamn thing.”
Such was the life of lieutenants in the latter stages of pilot training.
It wasn’t all good times though, despite my growing comfortable with the
jet in formation, acro and low-level flight. I learned fast and did well on my
flights, but the academic Sword of Damocles still dangled over my head:
there was one final exam to be passed, and the material confounded me.
Most of what would be tested were numbers, a whole matrix of them to
be memorized and simply coughed up on demand. And the test would have
the usual trick-fuck devices: “Which answer is not the correct engine temp
limit for the following situation …”
The temps and pressures varied with phase of flight: temp limit for Take-
off Rated Thrust, Military Rated Thrust, Climb, Max Continuous, Max
Cruise; the list went on and there was not only a normal limit number, but
also a momentary of “for 2 minutes” (or 5, in some cases to make it even
more complex) and you simply had to pluck them out of abstraction and find
the correct answer on the multiple choice exam. I was doomed.
“I can’t for the life of me get this,” I said, feeling defeated.
“No,” McBunny scolded me. “No. You must memorize this chart; you
will memorize this chart even if you only retain it for an hour.”
That was as Chip always stressed, just be sure you have the info for the
exam and as soon as the test is over, you can let all the little BBs roll out of
your ears.
He was right, McBunny was too—but my English major brain was
protesting the number grid like my guts had rejected the tequila. But
somehow, I had to master the last exam.
My fellow Shit Brothers were also sitting on two exam busts so this final
test was life or death for all of us. Major Christie’s prediction that I couldn’t
get through the final eight exams without another failure was about to be
resolved one way or another.
He knew that but as the exams went by, one by one, I felt he was actually
rooting for me and my fellow Shit Brothers. Sure, if he was right about the
odds, and if I proved that he was by failing this final academic test, he would
wash me out, exactly as he was supposed to do. But I had the sense he was
hoping we could succeed and I didn’t want to let him—or myself—down.
So, it was do or die that next morning as I sat down at my usual table in
the classroom, flipped open the exam and began the all or nothing fight to
stay in pilot training.

Chapter 22
We all milled about in the hallway outside the classroom after the very
last exam. Behind a closed door inside the classroom, the instructor graded
our answer sheets and for me, held my dreams of Air Force wings in his
hands.
Actually, I knew, whatever the results, the responsibility was solely my
own. I’d been given a rare opportunity, one which I knew hundreds of other
well-qualified people had also wanted, and the two exam busts that now
threatened my life’s dreams were no one’s fault but my own.
Major Christie walked briskly down the hall and stopped before the
closed door. He regarded me with a tight smile, gave me a nod that I thought
basically implied that he was hoping for the best. Then he went inside to find
out what the future held for me, Animal and Father-O.
Some of my classmates were certain they’d passed and were relieved that
academics were finally over. I was happy for them because they’d worked
hard and done well. Chip was working toward acing all the exams and I was
rooting for him to do so and thereby win the academic award.
I kept to myself and mostly made my mind a blank, at least as best I
could. There was nothing to do but simply wait and there was no sense
stewing about it.
After what seemed like an eternity, the door burst open and Major
Christie stepped into the hallway, looked me right in the eyes and flashed a
thumbs up.
I had passed. We all had. The relief flooded over me. I had faith that I
could make it through the rest of the flying check rides, although that
certainly wasn’t a given: a guy in McBunny’s class had gotten washed out in
the last month of T-38s. We were all still just two rides from the door until
we finished the final graded flight.
We started working on navigation and instrument flying in addition to
aerobatics and formation flight. The T-38 had a curtain-like hood that could
be pulled forward in the rear cockpit, making it nearly impossible to see out
of the back seat. There we practiced instrument-only flight with an instructor
in the front seat with full visibility for safety’s sake.
When my instrument check ride date arrived, I went to base operations
early to pick up and mark the navigation charts I’d need for the route from
Reese in Lubbock to El Paso and back. Coker was right there to help, as he
always did. I plotted out the courses, the timing, the speeds and the fuel, then
reported to “Check Section” and the evaluator who’d have to be satisfied
with my navigation skill in order to pass—or fail—me on the check ride.
I climbed into the rear cockpit of the T-38 and strapped in. Right after
takeoff, I pulled the shroud up and over my head, completely covering the
rear canopy, then set to work flying the radials I’d plotted at the speeds and
fuel flow I’d computed. We flew that way for nearly an hour, then the
instructor said from the front seat, “Alright, you’re supposed to navigate us
right over the top of the El Paso Airport.”
We were nearly there, by my calculations, if I’d plotted it right and flown
the route correctly. I waited.
“I’m going to roll inverted,” he said, “And you can pull the hood back. If
we don’t see the El Paso VOR antenna above our heads—you’re busted.”
“Okay,” was all I could think of to say. He rolled us inverted and I looked
up—which was really down, but we were flying upside down. There was the
antenna exactly above my head.
“Good job,” he said, then maneuvered us for an overhead pattern and
landing at El Paso to refuel. Though I’d had confidence that my navigation
was accurate, there was relief nonetheless as another major requirement was
checked off of the T-38 syllabus.
One of our solo requirements was a night solo flight, which caused some
people a lot of worry. I wasn’t particularly concerned, even knowing that
spatial relationships in the overhead pattern, particularly when rolling off the
perch and pulling into a tight final turn, were more difficult to gauge in
darkness.
The T-38 final turn had to be flown exactly right because it was very
tight and at a descent rate that if you screwed up, put you out of the
survivable envelope for the ejection seat. But I’d learned to think less and fly
more, feeling what the jet was doing and what it needed rather than flying a
formulaic methodology of predicted angles, rates and speeds. It worked.
To prepare for the night solo, Curly and I flew a night formation flight
with another T-38. We flew some close-trail, tucked in close below, and
glided through the night sky like magic. Back in the traffic pattern, I stuck to
what I knew, flew my same patterns and rolled off the perch as I always did,
trusting the jet and flying it the way it needed to be flown. It felt more magic
than ever in the dark.
The next night we all launched off on our night solos after a thorough
brief in the Flight room.
“No aerobatics,” Curly stressed. “No inverted flight.”
I nodded my agreement, though I had no intention of heeding his
warning. They were concerned that in the dark, a student pilot could be
susceptible to spatial disorientation or vertigo, which could definitely be a
problem.
We’d fly “The Night Tube,” a racetrack pattern around the Lubbock
area at ten thousand feet. After a normal afterburner takeoff, I climbed out
and joined the tube at ten thousand feet at the assigned speed. It was like
flying in space, with bright stars above and lights below, smooth as glass. I
felt secure, cozy even, in the quiet cockpit, all alone, at peace with the world.
I loved flight, especially solo, especially in the T-38.
I eased in a little back pressure, added a little power and rolled inverted
smoothly, then upright. Then again, a slow graceful roll. It was the ultimate
freedom, one of the highlights of the T-38 syllabus.
Back in the traffic pattern, there was a good deal of chaos as some
students struggled to get their final turns correct in the dark. For me, the
pattern was a non-event: I just flew it as it was supposed to be flown, as it felt
right, and landed just fine.
The syllabus eventually called for a supersonic flight, which was called
the “boom ride.” Curly and I planned and briefed the flight: we’d climb to
thirty-thousand feet, clear the area ahead, enter a shallow descent, then add a
touch of afterburner and watch the Mach push through the sound barrier.
I wanted to experience the sound barrier myself and also, even though it
may sound trivial, I wanted to be wearing my VMI class ring when I did. The
Air Force Academy cadets’ class rings are flown supersonic before they’re
given to the cadets, an exclusive perk no other school could claim. So I’d fly
my own class ring supersonic, never mind having someone else do it for me.
I could barely get my Nomex flight glove on over the fat class ring before we
strapped in—but I did.
At altitude, after clearing the area of other aircraft, I eased the nose lower
and gently nudged the throttles into afterburner then glued my eyes to the
Mach meter. The needle hesitated only slightly at .9 Mach, then the jet surged
slightly and the needle jumped to 1.1 Mach. That was it—very smooth, no
noticeable change really.
At Curly’s prompt, I gently pulled the throttles out of afterburner and
smiled. I—and my VMI class ring—had joined the supersonic club.
Early in December, we embarked on a cross-country flight that was a
required part of the navigation syllabus. With exams behind us and the
syllabus all but complete, this cross-country was more of a fun joyride, a
“road trip” at .98 Mach to anywhere we could reach in the T-38’s range.
A few IPs and students headed west to ski country. Curly and I joined a
group that included Chip, Coker and a few others and headed east for the
panhandle of Florida and Eglin Air Force Base in Fort Walton Beach. For
me, this was especially meaningful given that not so long ago I’d been to
Eglin as a ROTC cadet, sweating in the sun, dreaming of flying as an Air
Force pilot. I’d had my T-38 familiarization ride there, and now I was
returning in the front cockpit, flying and navigating the rocket cross-country
along with a handful of my new friends, including Curly, Charlie Simmons,
Ben Summerlin, and Wilbur “Oh My Fucking God” Wilbanks, four of the
best IPs any of us could have hoped to have had.
We all four pitched out over the runway at Eglin, landed, then taxied
our jets to parking side by side. After hitching a ride to the Base Billeting
Office, an Air Force van drove us to our hotel downtown. After a quick
change of clothes, we reconvened at the Hog’s Breath Saloon one of
Wilbur’s favorite watering holes and one I’d remembered from my summer
there years ago as an ROTC cadet.
We stuffed ourselves on fried seafood and washed it down with way too
much beer. By midnight, I was asleep in my hotel room, looking ahead to a
decent breakfast and a leisurely takeoff time around noon. But that was not
meant to be.
At barely six o’clock in the morning, my phone rang.
“We’ve been recalled,” Curly said. “Lubbock’s expecting an ice storm
tonight and the squadron wants us back before it hits.”
We all scrambled to repack and get back to Eglin. We filed flight plans
quickly then returned to our jets and pre-flighted. We cranked engines and
took off one at a time.
Looking back on my ROTC fam ride, I felt the need to recreate the
high-performance takeoff that had thrilled me then but now, would be even
more meaningful actually flying the jet myself from the front cockpit off of
that very runway. When we were cleared for takeoff, I executed the normal
procedure, except after raising the gear and flaps, instead of climbing I held
the jet down on the deck, in afterburner, and accelerated to over three
hundred knots.
“What are you doing?” Curly asked from the back cockpit. I didn’t
answer.
At the end of the runway, I pulled the nose up to about seventy degrees
and, still in afterburner, we rocketed nearly straight up. At ten thousand feet, I
rolled inverted, pulled the nose down slightly and rolled the jet to wings level
and pulled the throttles out of afterburner.
“What the hell was that?” Curly snapped from the back cockpit. “You
just burned up a shit-load of fuel.”
I hadn’t thought of that, as we climbed out and continued on course. I
glanced at the fuel calculations on my kneeboard. It would be tight, but I was
sure we’d make it. And I felt as if I’d closed the loop I’d started at ROTC
summer camp in that T-38 flight. That felt pretty good.
“I guess we can drop into San Antonio if we need gas,” Curly
grumbled, and he didn’t seem happy. We climbed to forty-one thousand feet,
the best-range altitude for cruise, and made it all the way back to Reese
without having to stop for fuel.
The second week of January, I finished my last graded flight, which was
bittersweet: I was done flying the T-38, which was a hell of a lot of fun, but I
was also, at long last, safe from washout: there were no more “rides” between
me and “the door,” or my wings.
But I did get one more chance. Curly sat down in front of me in the
flight room and said, “Your syllabus audit shows you need one more solo.”
I was reasonably certain that was incorrect. I’d tracked everything very
closely.
“I don’t think I’ve missed anything,” I said cautiously.
“I don’t think you did either,” he said, “But …”
He let that hang in the air. Somebody had screwed up the record-
keeping. I didn’t think Curly and I had, but in essence I was getting another
free hour and a half solo in the T-38. I wasn’t about to protest.
As I briefed Curly on my planned solo flight profile, I overheard
Animal, my fellow Shit Brother, briefing Quasar on his solo profile.
“I’m going to fly the standard departure to the practice area,” he said
nonchalantly, “I’ll clear the area, then lower the nose, add afterburner, and
break the Mach. Then, I’ll practice maneuvers, fly the standard recovery
profile, then land.”
“Yeah, right,” Quasar said, probably thinking Animal was pulling his
leg: students weren’t allowed to break the Mach solo and if anyone broke the
sound barrier, they had to sign the “Boom Log” recording the date and time
for liability purposes because some ranchers near the practice areas claimed
the sonic booms scared their cattle. I’d broken the Mach a few times solo—
once by mistake—and just never admitted it or signed the boom log. But
what Animal had briefed was unthinkable, so Quasar just signed Animal off
to go fly.
Later that afternoon, as I was solo and climbing out and headed for my
practice area, I heard Animal call in on the radio frequency, reporting that he
was established in his practice area adjacent to mine. As I entered my area, I
saw the telltale contrail in his area of a shallow descent, then the corkscrew
contrail of a jet breaking the Mach. He’d done it exactly as he’d briefed it. I
smiled to myself. The Tweets had hardly “gotten rid of” the Shit Brothers.
After landing on that solo, I held the stick in my lap, aerobraking the jet
as I rolled down the runway. Without warning, the sky above my head
exploded in an otherworldly thunder, then a streak of white flashed over my
clear canopy, afterburners roaring with blue flame. That was just Chip, also
solo, “dusting me off” right over my head. I’d have to return that favor, I
decided.
The last few months for the Wolfpack were equal parts brotherhood and
family. Chip and Jonne showed us young, single, goofy lieutenants what it
meant to find that perfect match with whom you could build a life beyond
just the dream of flying we all shared. That mattered to me, and though I saw
little chance of meeting my perfect match as they clearly had, it mattered a lot
to me that not only was it possible, but also that two people I really cared
about had found that.
And the Shit Brothers were a brotherhood in a real way. Father O was
an example of a guy who cared as much or more about others as he did
himself. He was a real brother to me in every sense. And Animal was one
who was always there, steady, solid as a rock. We’d forged a strength
together that said, “no, we’ll never let go, never quit, and fuck you for trying
to make us.” That was a brotherhood borne of both desperation and
dedication.
As we neared the end of the T-38 syllabus, it was time to look ahead to
aircraft assignments. The Air Force gave new pilots an opportunity to express
our preferences on a form called “The Dream Sheet:” you’d list your top
three aircraft choices in order. Of course, the needs of the Air Force would
determine what aircraft you’d actually be assigned to, but if your choice was
available, theoretically you’d be assigned to one of your choices.
Priority also would be given to class rank, which in my case wasn’t very
high. But one other stipulation would be problematic. If you wanted to fly a
tactical aircraft—a fighter, in essence—you’d have to be approved as “fighter
qualed” by both the T-38 squadron as well as the T-37 squadron.
I’d done a creditable job in T-38s, but my T-37 gradebook was pretty
thick with bad write-ups from Carl Knott and Brian O’Dell. And though I’d
passed my IPC, just having had one was a black mark on my record.
Curly pulled me aside in the Flight room one afternoon. His face was
uncharacteristically serious, which was worrisome to me.
“Look,” he said, “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but I don’t want you
to fuck up your Dream Sheet.”
My hopes began to sink.
“The Tweets aren’t going to fighter qual you,” he said at last. “We would,
and we’d keep you here as a T-38 IP. But they won’t qual you so we can’t.”
Reality began to dawn on me: I was going to heavies. What Curly was
trying to do was to warn me not to put fighters on my dream sheet, because
without a fighter qual, I’d be sent to any heavy that had a vacancy to fill. That
could mean a dreaded B-52 assignment, a fate just one notch above death.
Curly was giving me a heads-up so I could at least have some input into
the decision of which heavy I’d be assigned to.
I can’t say I was surprised. I’d had a checkered, mediocre UPT record and
I knew it. It was a little hard not to be bitter at the Tweet squadron because
the E-Flight god-squad had been such a shit show, such an uncooperative,
predatory bunch of assholes. The T-38 squadron was willing to fighter qual
me, but not the Tweets? What a joke—and they were having the last laugh.
So, heavies it would be. In the big picture, silver Air Force pilot wings
were what mattered and with only a few flights left, I was pretty sure I’d get
those. The dream was still alive.
I revised my top three Dream Sheet choices to “C-141, C-9, C-130.” If I
was to fly heavies, another thought occurred to me. That was, a “trash
hauler”—which is what cargo aircraft were nicknamed—was the perfect lead
in to airline flying. If I could get a couple thousand flight hours in cargo jets,
after I repaid the Air Force with the required six years of active duty service,
I’d be a viable candidate for an airline pilot job.
Assignments were kept secret until “Assignment Night” in the officer’s
club ballroom on an agreed-upon Friday evening. The class would gather,
along with friends and the IPs from Tweets and -38s, after a couple hours of
preparatory drinking. A student pilot’s name would be called and he would
stand. The squadron commander would read off the student’s Dream Sheet
choices in order, then the actual aircraft assignment.
Mostly, the news was survivable, although not always. McBunny’s class
had received a mixed bag of assignments, some heavies, many fighters, and a
few T-38s and T-37s. McBunny had asked for and received an assignment to
a KC-135—a four-engine refueling heavy jet—to Griffiss Air Force Base in
upstate New York.
The aircraft was not a top choice, barely a notch above the dreaded B-
52 bomber. And Griffiss, in Rome, New York, was not a popular location.
But for McBunny, all that mattered was he would be close enough to
Rennselear Polytechnical Institute—RPI, for short—to continue his graduate
work in physics.
He’d actually told me once he’d considered SIEing from pilot training
because he really didn’t care much about flying compared to math and
physics. At the Air Force Academy, they’d simply ordered every cadet who
was physically qualified to go to pilot training. Many really didn’t care to be
there.
That was incredible to me, having fought tooth and nail not only to get
to flight training, but also to stay there. Plus, I knew so many very qualified,
motivated, good guys back at VMI who hadn’t made the cut, hadn’t made the
final four with me, Wyatt, Elmo—who washed out of pilot training—and
Steve Fonetone. Yet here were a number of guys actually in pilot training
who really didn’t care about flying.
McBunny was brilliant and I was happy for him to get his choice
assignment that would allow him to go to grad school. But not all
assignments worked out that well. Earlier that fall we’d been in the O’Club
formal bar having drinks when a student pilot, a captain, jumped on the bar
and started swearing.
Colonels and field grade officers grabbed their wives and cleared out, not
wanting to witness what might come next. The captain had been a back-seater
and navigator in fighters, like Chip. But unlike Chip, this guy had been
obnoxious not only as a student, but also as commander of his class.
He’d burned bridges and pissed off instructors from Tweets to -38s.
And while he’d requested to go back to fighters, on his assignment night, that
very night, he’d been assigned to be a B-52 copilot. The ultimate
smackdown, the worst assignment, especially for a former fighter guy.
There he stood on the bar, drunk, grabbing his crotch and yelling, “What
are you going to do—give me a B-52!” He was right, there was nothing
worse anyone could do to him. He unzipped his flight suit and pulled out his
manhood, aiming it around the room roaring, “What are ya gonna do?!” as
the ranking officers fled the scene.
On our assignment night, we arrived at the Club early and tanked up on
cheap beer. We sat together at the front of the ballroom, with friends, some
wives, and both Tweet and -38 IPs in the back.
One by one, names were called and aircraft assignments revealed. Chip
received a fighter, which was well-deserved as the top student in the class.
Stipp got a fighter, Dorf was called back as a T-38 FAIP. GD got a Tweet;
Pre-Tweet Pete got a tanker, a KC-135 like McBunny had requested. Father
O got a tanker as well and Animal stood up, drunk, wearing his flight helmet
and was sentenced to a B-52.
When my name was called, I stood. In a beer fog, I listened for only two
possibilities: if I was ultimately screwed, I’d get a B-52. If the assignment
gods were favorable, I’d get a C-141. There was nothing in between—it
would be hell, or it would be my first choice. I held my breath.
“KC-135,” the Colonel said.
I was stunned. This was not part of the deal. No, it wasn’t B-52 hell, but
still, not even close to what I wanted. A tanker? Really?
Someone tackled me to the floor and suddenly I was piled on by other
flight-suited lieutenants.
“KC and the goddamn Sunshine Band, Manno!” Coker’s voice hollered
from somewhere in the dog pile.
I was doomed, I was fucked, I was tanker trash like Bob Watson.
There was nothing to be done. At least I had wings, Air Force wings, and
I’d fly my ass off, build my flight hours, do my required years as an Air
Force pilot and then, then, I told myself after drinking a sea of beer with my
Wolfpack brethren, there would be the very good possibility of an airline
pilot career.

Chapter 23
I rolled into Castle Air Force Base in Merced, California in my dark
blue Camaro after a two day drive from Lubbock. Merced was a sleepy little
town in the San Joaquin Valley, picturesque and after a year in the Texas
Panhandle, a very lush landscape.
As I drew closer to the base, I could see both KC-135 tankers and B-52s
lumbering around the traffic pattern. Castle was the transition training base
for both aircraft. New pilots like me would learn the aircraft systems and
procedures, then fly training flights first in the simulator then eventually, in
the aircraft, to become qualified copilots.
We’d be paired up with a former copilot upgrading to aircraft commander
as well as a navigator fresh out of nav school plus a new inflight refueling
boom operator. We’d work through the training flights as a crew with an
instructor pilot, and instructor navigator, as well as a boom instructor.
So be it, I’d decided on the cross-country drive. The KC-135 was an early
version of a very popular, four engine long-haul passenger airliner, the
Boeing 707. For as many years as I owed the Air Force, I’d fly the jet—also
nicknamed the “Strato-bladder” and the “Silver Cigar”—and gain the heavy
jet experience and flight time to be competitive for an airline pilot job at the
end of my military commitment.
On my Dream Sheet, along with my choice of aircraft, I’d listed my
choice of location. I’d requested any overseas base, hoping to at least see
some of the world as I flew my heavy. The Air Force had nixed that, too: I
was assigned to a tanker squadron at Ellsworth Air Force Base, South
Dakota, about as far inland as they could send me.
After I checked in at the Castle Billeting Office, I moved into the BOQ I
was assigned. It was comfortable enough, with a living room and a desk plus
a small kitchen in the outer room, then a bedroom and bathroom in the back.
The feeling at Castle was that we were not just students but rather
pilots, albeit brand new, who the Air Force needed and were going to prepare
us in a much less predatory way than we’d experienced at Pilot Training.
They needed us in our respective aircraft fleets so unlike at Reese, there was
no “attrition mission.” In fact, everything was oriented to help us through the
course and get us qualified then shipped off to our squadrons.
McBunny was already at Castle when I got there and it was nice to see a
familiar face. He showed me some of the running routes he’d discovered and
we went for an occasional long-distance run. Father O lived in a nearby BOQ
and we got together for lunch on a regular basis in between classes. Pre-
Tweet Pete was there too and he’d pretty much mapped out the bar scene,
which we frequented on many evenings.
The class schedule was fairly low key and not overly challenging. We
were grouped together in a class of a half-dozen former KC-135 copilots
upgrading to Aircraft Commanders (AC, or “Ace” as the slang term went), a
bunch of us newly-minted pilots transitioning to KC-135 copilot, and a
handful of navigators fresh out of navigator school transitioning to KC-135
navigator.
We started with a huge pile of brand-new aircraft manuals and flight
regulations that had to be assembled, then tediously updated. Then the pilots
split off into systems classes, with the new aircraft commanders getting a
review out of what was for us new pilots our first exposure to the KC-135
aircraft systems.
Systems classes were pretty basic and slow-paced: hydraulics, electrical
systems, jet engines, flight controls, fuel plumbing. The beast was huge and
Byzantine in complexity but the systems classes were patiently explanatory
to the point of mind-numbing detail. I began to filter what our instructor was
telling us with a standard, two-part question: do I need to know this to
operate the system, and do I need to know this to pass my oral exam?
That cut through most of the overly elaborated class discussions, because
our instructor, a slightly paunchy, affable major, would explain how to build
a KC-135 if you asked. I didn’t really care about the minutiae of specific
voltages, amperages, valve solenoids or servo connections, and didn’t see
how that would be relevant to my flight deck duties.
I also found the rambling, way too detailed discussions to be the perfect
setup to take notes and study what was actually relevant, because this
information firehose was like cramming five pounds of shit into a ten pound
bag: there was little that really mattered, and my theory was, I’ll sift through
the crap and focus on what did matter in both flight and in my oral exam.
And I was correct: I breezed through all of the oral and written exams
actually a day or two early. So, our instructor arranged a trip to the flightline
to view the tanker up close and personal for the first time.
The jet was big and bulbous, squatting on eight fat main tires on the two
thick landing gear trunnions. The wing seemed huge, at least compared to
anything I’d ever flown before, the bottom side streaked with grease and
seeping fluids, and grime thrown up from the runway by the main wheels
spinning.
We climbed up a rickety work stand and stepped through the yawning
cargo door just behind the cockpit. The interior walls were padded and
electrical conduits ran from stem to stern along the sidewalls. There were no
windows save for one on the over-wing hatches over each wing. The interior
was dark and musty and smelled slightly of burned electronics.
The cockpit was smaller than I expected, but given the taper of the
fuselage toward the nose, everything had to be crammed into a small space.
The overhead panel with hydraulic, electrical and pneumatic systems reduced
the headroom over both pilot seats even further.
The instrument panel looked familiar with the usual performance and
navigation instruments, the same as both the T-37 and T-38 only larger. On
the main panel, four sets of engine gages, one for each engine, were stacked
in four columns.
Below that was a fuel panel with multiple tank readings, valves and
pressure lights plus ducting schematics. Between the two pilot seats was a
control stand that had four tall throttles, one for each engine, and a speed
brake handle.
Before the copilot’s seat was a control yoke identical to the one on the
pilot’s side. A yoke, not a control stick like the T-38 or even the T-37 for that
matter. Welcome to heavies.
Outside, I asked our instructor how he liked flying the KC-135. He
laughed.
“I like not flying it better.”
That made no sense. He was a pilot, a major no less. Why wouldn’t he
want to fly? In fact, that’s all I wanted to do. No classroom stuff, no collateral
jobs which I knew would get dumped on me eventually anyway. But I was
really only there to fly.
“Why is that?” I asked.
He just smiled.
“You’ll find out,” he said as we walked back to the Squadron building.
That was a bad sign, but I decided he must just be old—he had to be at
least near forty—and tired. Not flying made no sense to me.
Later that evening in the O’Club bar, I ran into another lieutenant from
McBunny’s class that I’d gotten to know at Reese. Duane had been in
McBunny’s Academy class and was newly married. I almost didn’t recognize
him with glasses, but he, like me and so many others, had gone immediately
to the eye clinic after graduation to get the glasses we’d always needed.
“How’s the flying going?” I asked.
“Fine,” he said.
“You don’t seem too enthused about it.”
He shrugged. “I’m going to Kadena. My wife’s pretty upset about it.”
I could understand that, with the two of them newly married. Kadena was
in the Far East. His new bride wasn’t too keen about going across the Pacific
to live half a world away from home and family for a few years.
“Where are you headed?” he asked me.
I rolled my eyes.
“Ellsworth,” I said. “As far inland as they could send me.
“Want to trade assignments?” he asked.
“We can do that?”
“Yes.” His face brightened. “Look, a lieutenant’s a lieutenant to
Personnel. They told me the only way I’d get out of going to Kadena is to
find another copilot willing to trade.”
“Well heck yeah,” I said without hesitation. “If you can arrange the swap,
I’m game.”
Though I wasn’t familiar with Kadena, I did know it was on the island of
Okinawa somewhere south of Japan. But that’s all I needed to know. Send
me to the Far East! Let me have an adventure flying around the world. It was
what I’d requested.
“Look, don’t tell me this if you’re not sure,” he said.
“No, I’m sure. If you can get them to swap our assignments, I’ll do it.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll call the assignments shop first thing in the
morning.”
We shook hands and I left the bar and headed directly to the base library
to look up Okinawa before the library closed.
There I found a couple of picture books about Okinawa and the Ryukyu
Islands. They lay south of Japan with the Pacific Ocean on one side, the
South China Sea on the other. The island was long and narrow, mostly rock
and the landscape scrubby and dense with jungle. It looked exotic, it looked
perfect. I only hoped Duane could pull off the swap.
After I finished the basic systems classes, I was paired up with an
upgrading copilot from an east coast base named John Armstrong. He was
officially designated a “PUP,” or Pilot Upgrade Pilot. He’d been a copilot
long enough to accrue the required hours to be promoted from copilot to
Aircraft Commander, or “Ace” as the slang went. John was a happy-go-lucky
guy, very easy to get along with and always willing to explain how life in a
KC-135 squadron would likely unfold for me.
We were paired with Doug, a tall, quiet navigator from Georgia who was
soft-spoken and amiable. Our Boom Operator was John Phillips, a young guy
who was smart and really motivated to do well.
We started simulator training with an instructor pilot, a Major named
Arch Watkins. Arch was a southern gentleman with a very laid-back teaching
style like I’d experienced with Curly Culp. We all clicked as a crew right
away.
One morning as I was ready to leave the BOQ for the simulator building,
the phone rang. The caller identified himself as a sergeant in the officer
assignment branch of the Military Personnel Center (MPC).
“Just need to verify that you’re in agreement with the proposed
assignment swap before we cut orders,” he said. “You’ll be assigned to the
909th Heavy Refueling Squadron at Kadena Air Base, Japan.”
“Yes,” I answered quickly. “That’s fine with me.”
“Okay,” he said. “You’ll be receiving orders within a couple of weeks.”
And that was that. In the O’Club later that week, I met Lou Flowers, a
pilot who’d just left Kadena and was upgrading to aircraft commander
enroute to his new stateside squadron assignment.
“There’s a lot of good flying at Kadena,” Lou told me. “You’ll be up in
Korea a lot, down in the Philippines and Guam, too. It’s a fun assignment.”
That sounded good to me. When my father had been sent to the Pacific
with his squadron on and off over the years, places like Kadena, Yokota,
Osan and Clark were exotic-sounding names for far off destinations. Now,
I’d go there, fly there, as an Air Force pilot. I was grateful for the twist of fate
that allowed me to trade away the stateside assignment.
By luck of the draw, my crew finished all of the simulator syllabus first,
before Father-O and Pre-Tweet Pete’s crews, and were scheduled for our
initial aircraft flight before everyone else. For me, that was a plus, a bit of
luck that would, if we stayed on track, get me out of the training environment
and into the real world flying as an Air Force pilot.
Moving from the academic and simulator training to the flying squadron
settled us into a familiar pattern. We’d mission plan all one day, then fly the
next. Mission planning was excruciatingly tedious and boring, at least for me
as the copilot. Doug had to manually calculate each leg on a spreadsheet-like
grid called the “Form 200.”
That meant for each segment, be it fifty or a hundred and fifty miles out
of a total of nearly two thousand miles, he had to compute headings, altitudes
and speeds. Then he’d give me a pilot copy of the Form 200 to me and for
each segment, I had to figure aircraft weight, fuel burn and fuel remaining.
So I’d painstakingly divide the miles and minutes by an “ANPP” (Air
Nautical Miles Per Pound of fuel) figure which had to be determined for each
segment individually, because the aircraft weight and thus the ANPP changed
as we burned off fuel.
That meant I had to go into performance charts and pinpoint weight and
fuel for each succeeding flight segment. The charts were tiny but complex,
the work tedious. The mordant description of such calculations are
summarized with the age-old Air Force flight performance mantra, “Measure
with a micrometer, mark it with a grease pencil, then chop it with an axe.” It
was painfully boring and tedious, but that was the way it was done.
The only upside was the lunch break we’d take as a crew, driving into one
of the many excellent Mexican restaurants in either Merced or Atwater. Then
it was back to the mission planning grind.
Our first flight, after a day spent mission planning, began with a long
exterior preflight with John and Arch, who pointed out the various aircraft
components that needed to be checked before we started the interior preflight
set-up and checklists. Inside, I slipped into the copilot’s seat, strapped in and
hooked up my communications cords and headset.
We worked through the preflight checklist, with me calling out the
“challenges” and each crewmember providing then appropriate response after
having completed the required item. Our simulator training paid off in that
Arch really didn’t have to do much coaching but also, the preflight procedure
wasn’t really complicated or challenging.
We started all four engines in the chocks, then after the proper clearances,
we taxied the lumbering silver cigar out to the active runway, completing
before takeoff checklists as we went.
The KC-135A had four early generation jet engines that barely put out ten
thousand pounds of thrust apiece. That was marginal considering the jet
usually weighed well over two-hundred thousand pounds and could weigh as
much as two-hundred ninety-seven thousand pounds. In a nutshell, the tanker
was an underpowered pig.
In fact, the flight manual actually cautioned in several places that pitch
must be kept very low after takeoff to keep from stalling the jet. The exact,
very sad verbiage is still seared into my brain: “A pitch attitude in excess of
five degrees after takeoff,” the manual warned, “may put the aircraft into a
position from which it can neither climb nor accelerate.”
To wring extra thrust out of the anemic J-57 engines, a system of pumps
and ducting channeled demineralized water into each engine’s combustion
chamber to increase the density of the jet exhaust, thereby boosting the thrust
of the engines another ten percent. The on-board water tank contained only
five thousand six hundred pounds of water, which at takeoff thrust, lasted at
most two minutes.
On takeoff lineup, once the Ace gave the command “Start the water,”
my job as copilot was to reach down to the water boost pump switches in
front of my yoke and activate the high-pressure flow. All eyes in the cockpit
would go to the engine instruments to verify the thrust augmentation before
brakes were released. The navigator hacked a stop watch once the increased
thrust was verified and we began to roll. His next callout was “One-ten
water,” meaning we’d reached one minute and ten seconds which cued me
and the AC that we had no more than twenty seconds left to lower the nose
before the augmented thrust ended.
We lined up on the Castle runway with all of our preflight checklists
completed. When we were at last cleared for takeoff, John held the brakes
and pushed all four throttles up to military power. The engines roared, the jet
shuddered and struggled against the brakes, when John gave me the
command, “Start the water.”
I reached forward and flipped the switches, waiting for the correct
indicator lights to come on, verifying that the high-pressure pumps were
operating. The engines shrieked and thundered like the end of the world.
“Good water on all four,” John called out.
The roar was deafening and the jet shuddered like a bucking bronc. This
would be epic, I decided, expecting an afterburner shove times about four,
given the thundering pairs of engines roaring like the end of the world on
each wing.
John released the brakes and after a second, the Strato-bladder crept
forward, barely, at walking speed. We rolled literally two miles before John
eased the yoke back ever so slightly. The jet sat back a bit on its haunches,
rolled another thousand feet then waddled barely, reluctantly, into the air.
Holy shit, I thought to myself, this is going to be a long and painful five
years.

Chapter 24
The chartered jetliner rolled to a stop on the tarmac at Kadena Air Base,
Japan, nearly eighteen hours after wheels-up at Travis Air Force Base in
California.
The long, monotonous flight had spanned the night and crossed the
International Dateline, leaping ahead a day. The jet was crammed with 268
people, officers, enlisted, and their families moving to their new duty station
in Japan, just like me.
We’d stopped twice for a little over an hour each time, first in Anchorage
Alaska at Elmendorf Air Force Base, where there’d been a crew change.
Then we’d stopped again at Yokota Air Base on the Japanese main island
where some passengers had deplaned for Air Force, Navy and Army
assignments there.
I’d been seated near the back of the plane, in an aisle seat next to a couple
destined for a four-year assignment on Okinawa. Nolan was a staff sergeant,
a few years older than me, I’d guessed. His wife Eileen sat between us. She
was my age, maybe a year younger, slim, small and cute with red hair.
In the middle of the night over the Pacific they’d explained that Kadena
was going to be a new start for them. They’d considered splitting up, but
decided to give it a go on a fresh, new assignment. I thought of Duane trading
the assignment to me because of the potential stress of living on an isolated
island for four years and what that could do to a new marriage.
I was only going to be there a year and a half, a standard
“unaccompanied tour” as a single guy. I looked at Nolan and Eileen and
while I wished them well, I had a bad feeling about their chances. We
exchanged squadron phone numbers and promised to grab a beer someday
soon when we were all settled into our new homes.
When I finally worked my way forward to deplane, the humidity hit me
even several rows from the open door. I stepped out onto the truck-mounted
stairs and into impossibly brilliant sunshine and stifling wet air. Instantly, my
uniform shirt matted to my body in what must have been at least ninety
degrees and about the same percent humidity. Welcome to The Rock in
summer.
We’d travelled thirteen time zones west of my body time and though it
was afternoon, it felt to me like the middle of the night after having been
awake most of the previous night in the air. I sleep-walked through the bag
drag, found my luggage, then bumbled through a perfunctory Japanese
Customs inspection in the passenger terminal. Outside at last, I grabbed a cab
to the Officers’ Billeting Office.
“You’ll have three days in the temporary BOQ,” a young female airman
told me. “Then you’ll have to move into permanent party BOQs.”
I nodded, collecting the key.
“There’s a waiting list for air-conditioned junior officer quarters,” she
continued. “You’ll have to find your own air conditioner and install it in the
permanent BOQ.”
Say what? That got my attention. Un-air conditioned? In the tropical heat?
Never was it clearer to me how lowly my second lieutenant status was. I
trudged to the temporary BOQ room she’d assigned me, which was blissfully
cooled down, drew all the drapes and fell asleep.
I woke the next morning completely disoriented, my body still
synchronized to a time zone several thousand miles east of Okinawa. I forced
myself to go through the motions of shaving and pulling on a clean uniform.
Then I waited for my sponsor, another lieutenant from the 909th Air Refueling
Squadron, to pick me up. I tried to shake off the cobwebs in order to be at
least coherent when I reported in to the squadron after breakfast.
We drove to the Officer’s Club first for breakfast. As I picked at a plate of
scrambled eggs my time clock-addled stomach didn’t want in the first place, I
noticed a plump brown blur buzz by in my peripheral vision. No one else
seemed to take notice.
A moment later, the dark blur buzzed by noisily in the other direction. It
flitted to a landing on the wall. I put my fork down: it was the largest, ugliest
roach I’d ever seen, at least two inches long and fat. Finally, another officer
stood, wadded up a newspaper, then smashed the roach flat. It splatted and
fell to the floor. Everyone returned to their eating, unimpressed. Except me.
“Yeah,” Geoff, my fellow copilot said, “The roaches are supersized here
and they fly.”
“They fly?”
“Yeah,” he said, shoveling scrambled eggs into his mouth, “They’ll go for
your face if they feel threatened.”
I just shook my head. Okinawa was a strange little island, from what I’d
seen. The land was craggy black rock, even on base, with scrubby thick and
squatty trees, plus palms. The jungle vegetation was dense and raucous with
the never-ending buzz, click and whine of insects. You’d have to chop your
way in there with a machete, but that would be a bad idea: I’d seen spiders
with six to ten inch legs and massive webs, plus there was the danger of
stepping on a “Habu,” a reptile nicknamed “the two step snake” because if
you were bitten by a Habu, you’d be dead within two steps.
Our squadron building was around the far side of the runway from the
main section of the base with the BOQs and the Officer’s Club. I reported in
to the squadron commander, Lieutenant Colonel Cliff Jester, referred to
behind his back as “CJ” or worse by the other lieutenants. He called everyone
“Babes,” as in, “Let’s get this mission briefed, babes” or “I’d better not have
to say this again, babes.”
CJ was a classic New Jersey guy with Brylcreamed hair, buff-shined
wings, and taps on his shiny shoes so you could always hear him coming. I
decided I liked the look of those gleaming, silver-polished wings and decided
to shine my own that way.
CJ had been a Forward Air Controller flying the OV-10 in combat so it
seemed that being in a tanker-trash squadron would be a huge step down for
him, but if he felt that way, he never showed it.
The second in command was Bad Jimmy, a major and a former fighter
pilot who seemed pissed off about everything, including being dumped into a
tanker squadron.
Finally, I met “Widetrack,” the aircraft commander to whose crew I’d
been assigned. Widetrack was a short, mousy-looking guy with thinning hair,
a wispy mustache, and a constant shit-eating grin. I found out quickly that
being on his crew was a windfall because Widetrack was the fair-haired boy
in the Wing.
That wasn’t due to his flying skills, which were very good, but rather, his
golfing skill: all the upper echelon command staff, especially the colonels
and generals, wanted to be paired with him for golf matches.
He was quite the diplomat and parlayed that senior officer schmoozing
into a lot of good deals. Being Widetrack’s copilot let me enjoy the benefits
he’d earned. Plus, we were the only all-bachelor crew. We were always game
for a quick trip out of town, out of country, really, as we had no family to
worry about. That suited me fine because flight hours were all I wanted.
Our navigator was an anemic-looking, surly guy with a wispy mustache
nicknamed “Stinkfinger.” He was just a first lieutenant, but he treated me, a
second lieutenant, as if I was a serf. He was always pissed off—probably
about being a navigator—and was a constant complainer about everything.
Rounding out our crew was boom operator “Fred Flintstone,” a paunchy
Tech Sergeant with meticulously coiffed hair and a high regard for his own
questionable skill with the ladies, and a constant dislike of second lieutenants.
I often wondered why Widetrack didn’t tell both of them to shut up, to
quit whining, but he’d just laugh and say, “Ignore them.”
Before I could be qualified as a copilot, I had to pass a mission
certification, which was a fairly easy oral presentation I had to make before a
few senior officers who’d “certify” that I understood our war mission
thoroughly.
To prepare for that, I was scheduled for a week in “the vault,” which
literally was just that: a windowless room buried deep in a concrete bunker
behind several locked doors guarded by armed security guards.
There a lieutenant colonel, a navigator assigned to the classified area,
piled manuals and books and charts and maps before me and said, “Here—let
me know if you have any questions.”
I spent most days of that week culling through the sometimes horrifying
but mostly tiresome operations plans, trying to stay awake as my body clock
slowly migrated west. I’d learned to sift through the material selectively,
picking out significant bits that the study guide suggested would make a good
mission briefing for the colonels who’d pass or fail me.
Afterward, I caught a ride back to the BOQ with one of the other
lieutenants in the squadron. There was a camaraderie among the new copilots
and navigators, most of whom were brand new lieutenants like me. I met a
guy from McBunny’s Academy class, although they didn’t know each other.
Benny was a friendly, happy-go-lucky guy who was also a copilot, and he’d
been in the squadron for about six months. His navigator, Jimbo, was an
Academy class behind him and also a great guy.
“Hey Buddy,” Benny said, “C’mon over to our BOQ building and we’ll
help you find a decent room.”
Since they’d both been through the process and knew what to do, I
jumped at the chance. Later that afternoon, Benny and I went back to the
Officer Billeting Office. The clerk on duty, a young black sergeant, was very
pregnant and looked very tired.
“Tell you what,” Benny told Sgt. Taborn. “No need for you to trudge
around in this heat. Just give us a few keys and we’ll check out the rooms,
pick one, then bring the other keys back.”
She looked at us warily, but Benny was right—she had no desire to step
out of the cool office into the tropical afternoon heat. She handed us a bunch
of keys.
I settled on the room on the second floor adjoining Benny’s at a shared
kitchenette. Then we used the other keys to pilfer the best furniture from the
other unassigned rooms. Mine originally had a sofa and a bed behind a room
divider, plus a fridge, tiny kitchen, and a bathroom with a shower. The front
side had floor to ceiling windows. The back had one small window with a
cutout for an air conditioner which, as I’d been warned, I’d have to scrounge
myself. We added a couple easy chairs “borrowed” from other rooms, plus a
couple coffee tables, end tables and lamps, then returned the keys to the
billeting office.
The only air conditioner I could find for sale used was a three-thousand
BTU unit that was way too huge for my single room, but the price was right.
I bought it and we jury-rigged it into the window opening and cranked it up.
No matter how hot it was outside, I could make it snow in my room.
Just like most lieutenants, I was dazzled by the huge selection of audio
equipment available in the Base Exchange (“BX”) audio shop. Before I’d
even bought a car, I bought and set up four-hundred-watt Technics speakers,
a Sansui ninety-watt receiver, a turntable and a tape deck. I was ready to play
—and air condition—Shea Stadium.
In the evenings after a mind-numbing day in the vault, I started running a
course that wound around the base. With the sun a little lower, the heat was
less stifling but the humidity was not—I’d be drenched in the first mile. But I
came to appreciate the stark beauty of Okinawa, the jagged volcanic rock, the
thick, scrubby vegetation and the constant noise of birds, lizards and insects
in the jungle growth.
It needed to look exotic, I decided, to drive home the point that we were
half a world away from home. For me, with my parents stationed at Aviano
Air Base, Italy, I was literally on the other side of the planet from family. But
that was okay by me, in fact, I’d wanted that. After living alone near Munich
for most of the year between VMI and my pilot training class, I’d come to
appreciate the solitude and independence of living in a country far from the
US. It wasn’t going to be forever, so kind of like my four years at VMI, I’d
enjoy the simplicity and the adventure while it lasted.
Benny and Jimbo plus a few other squadron folks invited me to an off-
base restaurant called “The Green Door” for tempura served at low tables on
tatami-mats, washed down with bottle after bottle of Sapporo and Orion beer,
which was the local brew. The tempura was crisp, tasty and scrumptious; the
smell of food and rice and stout Wasabi was wonderful. I decided I was going
to like this island despite the wet heat.
I came to appreciate my perspective as a lieutenant copilot in a tanker
squadron for what it was compared to other commands like Tactical Air
Command. We were treated like irrelevant kids, tolerated, but little was
expected of us other than the menial grunt work of the mission planning and
staying out of the “adults’” way. We were no competition to anyone but that
wasn’t the case in fighters as I began to hear from others who’d reported to
their squadrons.
Tactical squadrons “ate their young” was a constant refrain I heard from
other lieutenants at Kadena and elsewhere. Lieutenants were fodder, so they
inherited the shit jobs in the squadron and if making one look bad advanced a
captain or major, too bad for the lieutenant. Worse, lieutenants would climb
over one another’s backs to get ahead.
If I was truly honest with myself, I had to admit I felt a little wistful
seeing Chip, Coke and Beldar headed to fighter lead-in at Holloman, and
Dorf and Bradlips starting T-38 IP training at Randolph. But I also had to
admit that I wasn’t the “ace of the base,” the top of the class pilot who’d
earned those slots.
We were in an unglamorous command with a dullard’s mission—air
refueling—in a fat, underpowered cow of a jet. But at least as a lieutenant, I
was fairly invisible with little expected of me so there were few career
predators if I simply stayed out of everyone’s way. I didn’t plan to hang
around long enough to get into the more competitive arena of instructor or
evaluator positions, so the bottom-feeder lieutenant niche wasn’t all bad.
My mission certification went smoothly with a couple of bird colonels
asking me fairly basic questions for barely a half hour. The next day, I was
assigned to an alert tour with Widetrack and crew. That meant for four days,
we’d live in a block house with three other crews, a short drive from our
assigned aircraft.
The jets were “cocked,” which meant ready for immediate launch. The
ground crew would simply pull off the engine inlet covers and after a quick
preflight—our flight gear was already aboard and stowed at our crew
positions—we’d fire up the four engines and be ready for takeoff in a matter
of minutes.
During that alert period, which at Kadena was either a three- or four-day
stretch, you had to live in the alert blockhouse with four other crews, plus the
ground crew chiefs, never straying far from the tankers. That meant twenty-
four crewmembers plus some support people living in the facility, driving in
assigned crew trucks to the dining hall to eat, hanging out at the squadron by
day and bored to death at night.
What made it worse was the insanely dull daily briefing, then command
and control code training referred to derisively as “beep-beep” by the crews,
then mandatory “EWO”—Emergency War Order— “study” in the vault.
Widetrack would grab a stack of magazines and newspapers, then find us a
briefing room where we locked the door then studied the magazines or read
whatever book we’d dragged in for the assigned study period.
Another factor making alert so tedious I couldn’t have foreseen. That was
the constant, sophomoric “pranks” grown-ass adults engaged in to “blow off
steam,” which in reality meant they were acting like childish idiots in an
already cramped living area.
I didn’t care about the non-stop “training films,” which were actually porn
the enlisted guys showed in the briefing room. It was the childish practical
jokes which though they didn’t affect me directly, made the three- or four-
day tours like living in an overgrown child care center. That was just one
more thing to hate about life as tanker trash.
My first alert tour was different, at least at the start. Our morning briefing
included the news that super-typhoon Judy, packing sustained winds over 150
mph, was bearing down on the island. The order was given to us to prepare
our jets for typhoon evacuation to Guam. We were released for a few hours to
go our quarters, pack for a week’s stay, then report back to the squadron to
fly the alert birds to Anderson AFB, Guam.
I drove my little white Mazda wagon across the base to the BOQ, grabbed
some more clothes and, as Benny suggested, my swimsuit because Guam
had, he promised, great beaches. Then I drove across the street to pick up
Widetrack as he’d instructed, to give him a lift back to the squadron where
Stinkfinger and Fred Flintstone would meet us.
No time for tedious mission planning: they just handed us a canned
package of precomputed flight plan and performance data, which was a
blessing, but which also underscored how unnecessary the usual day of
donkey-work that was mission planning actually was. Then we’d launch as
soon as we could get the jet preflighted.
I knocked on Widetrack’s BOQ door. After a moment, he opened it, half
dressed, holding a beer. A fairly plump, not very attractive and also half-
dressed woman peeked out from his bedroom. I glanced at the beer can in his
hand.
“I thought we weren’t supposed to drink for twelve hours before a flight,”
I said.
“It’s light beer,” he said. “Have one.”
Things kind of went downhill from there.

Chapter 25
The cockpit was dark and quiet save the wind noise and the
pressurization airflow. No one spoke, nearly five hours into what should have
been a three-and-a-half-hour flight.
We’d launched out of Kadena quickly and joined a stream of six other
lumbering tankers headed for Guam the long way, having to dodge the
massive typhoon bearing down on Okinawa.
I felt at home in the copilot’s seat and frankly, relieved that there were
just the four of us on board—no instructors, evaluators, staff or other pilots.
Stinkfinger and Flintstone took sextant celestial nav sightings to plot our
course over the Pacific where there were no navigation stations for Widetrack
and me to fly an airway.
Feeling comfortable in the cockpit was a direct result of my extra flying
time the months prior to my Kadena assignment. I’d scrounged extra flying
time back at Castle after I’d finished the transition course, while I waited for
my orders to Okinawa. Many pilots stood down, hung out at the squadron as
little as possible as they waited for orders. Others took leave.
I hung around the scheduling office and begged my way onto a bunch
of ferry flights: we’d fly a Castle bird to another base, pick another KC-135
up and return it to Castle. The Air Force was constantly rotating aircraft
around the country and I was an extra pilot, qualified, waiting around with
nothing to do. Assigning me as copilot on a ferry flight freed up a squadron
pilot to do other duties.
The extra flight time helped me to learn the nuances of the tanker, how
sluggish it was in roll particularly. The ailerons were unpowered, at least not
hydraulically powered like most jets. Rather, Boeing devised the “flying
control tab,” which was a smaller control surface on the ailerons themselves.
Turning the control yoke in the cockpit displaced the tab on the aileron in a
way that created lift to fly the control surface into the required aileron
position to induce bank. That worked adequately at altitude and at cruise
Mach because so little displacement was required, but low and slow, like in
the traffic pattern, the system was sluggish and clumsy.
“Don’t bother with the ailerons on final,” Jerry McClennan told me.
“They get you into a wing rock because of the control input lag. You’ve got a
goddam barn door swinging out there on the tail. Tap it to make heading
changes.”
He was right: the portly tanker had a huge rudder and at slow speeds, it
actually did a better, more responsive job of changing the aircraft heading.
Otherwise, demanding too much aileron would command a wing spoiler to
deploy and drop the wing, adding drag and some yaw. The rudder was the
better option, and the “flying tab” system a very poor idea.
Though he was an instructor, Jerry was a dead-end Major, just doing his
last couple months until mandatory retirement because he hadn’t been
promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. I got the sense that he was pretty much on
the outs with the flying squadron, maybe because he had so little time left, or
maybe that’s why he hadn’t been promoted. Like me, to the schedulers he
was a spare pilot so we ended up ferrying several aircraft together.
It didn’t matter to me that he was maybe out of favor or a dead-end pilot
because he could fly the shit out of the aircraft, and not necessarily in the
“schoolhouse” way, but always deftly, effectively. And he was a very good
instructor, which helped me sharpen my flying skills.
We returned to the Castle traffic pattern once and were told by the
command post to keep flying until they told us to land. We were at the end of
the fiscal quarter and the wing’s allotted flying time hadn’t been completely
depleted. If Headquarters found out, they’d reduce the next quarter’s
budgeted flight hours, so we’d keep flying around the traffic pattern until the
hours were zeroed out.
That meant, for me, an extra hour and a half of touch and goes, mostly
for myself except for the few Jerry used to demonstrate a technique.
“Stow your paperwork, nav,” Jerry said over intercom as we entered the
traffic pattern.
I glanced over my shoulder. The nav looked bewildered, and I felt the
same way.
Jerry opened his side window, at over two-hundred knots, then lit up a
cigarette. Wind roared from his window and rushed through the cockpit.
Over and over we practiced different approaches, Jerry coaxing me
through symmetrical turns and rudder-controlled heading changes. After
touchdown, I’d shove the power forward to lift off again on a touch-and-go
and Jerry’d pull a throttle back, simulating an engine failure.
“Watch the nose,” he’d say, “Step on the good engine. Put the nose where
you want it.”
I knew what he meant: “step on” the rudder pedal corresponding to the
wing with both engines operating to counteract the adverse yaw from the
dead engine on the other wing.
Whatever Jerry was—and the nav probably thought he was nuts for
flying around with a cockpit window open—he was a damn good pilot and I
learned a lot from him.
We ferried a jet out to Grand Forks, North Dakota and I’d heard that John
Benson, my old high school buddy and partner in building and flying gas-
powered control line airplanes, was stationed there. I looked him up and gave
him a call ahead of time and he met our plane.
But despite plans to become an Air Force pilot, John had enlisted instead.
College just hadn’t been his thing and he’d gone to aircraft mechanic training
instead. I was sorry he hadn’t followed the path to pilot wings and an
officer’s commission, but it was great to see him anyway.
When I wasn’t flying, rather than hiding out from the squadron and laying
low until my orders came in, I started attending some of the navigator classes
with some navs I’d met and become friends with. Although celestial
navigation—their specialty—was a wizardry I had no hope of understanding,
inertial navigation (INS) made sense and I learned the system right alongside
the navs.
Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) navigation systems were the way of
the future, but in wartime, military jets couldn’t count on the navigation
satellites being operational. Inertial nav was essential and in fact, the newer
tanker, the KC-10, the military version of the DC-10 airliner, relied solely on
INS—no navigator even on the crew. I glanced back at Stinkfinger at the nav
station behind my seat. What a blessing it would be to have a dual INS
instead of his whiny butt on board.
I looked down at the radar scope near my left knee. I could just begin to
distinguish a blip of land after hours of nothing but water below.
“Nav, co,” I said over interphone.
“What?” Stinkfinger snapped.
“Is that the city I’m seeing on radar?” I asked. “Agana?”
“That’s the whole damn island, stupid.”
Guam was a tiny flyspeck of an island and I had to grudgingly—silently
—give Stinkfinger credit for having navigated for over four hours above
nothing but open ocean, weaving around the bands of thunderheads
emanating from Typhoon Judy.
We landed near midnight, then turned the jet over to the crew chiefs to
service it and get it ready to fly again. All of the Base Ops food options were
closed for the night, but Widetrack had connections at the “Crash Kitchen,” a
food service mess hall for the round-the-clock crash, fire and rescue crews on
duty. We chowed down, which felt pretty good after the long flight with just
water, coffee, and a granola bar I’d stuffed into my flight bag.
By the time we got to the billeting office it was nearly one in the
morning.
“Here’s all we have,” the billeting clerk said, handing over one key.
“We’re still repairing storm damage from the last typhoon.”
Widetrack took the key and in a borrowed Air Force car, drove us into
the housing area.
“All they had” turned out to be a three-bedroom house—with no
furniture or air conditioning, in the tropical Guam heat and humidity. Each
room had a mattress laid on the floor, and that was it.
Stinkfinger whined and cursed up a blue streak, but there was nothing to
be done. Widetrack pulled a bottle of Jack Daniels from his travel bag and
passed it around. Between the four of us, we drained the bottle, then headed
to our individual rooms to sweat and swat mosquitoes. That night was more
unconsciousness than sleep, and for hangover purposes I was glad we’d at
least had a large feed before the Jack.
Guam was a lush tropical paradise, I discovered the next morning as
sunshine streamed through my curtainless window. Sunny and tropical—
stifling, steaming, tropical it was, with a beautiful view of the brilliant blue
Pacific Ocean nearly everywhere you looked because the island was so small.
“Get your shit packed, Co,” Stinkfinger said, slouching in the doorway.
“Ace got us some real rooms.”
I could hear Widetrack—the “Ace,” or Aircraft Commander—on the
phone in the hallway. He had connections everywhere and once again, being
on his crew was going to be a good deal, or at least, a step up from sleeping
on a mattress on the floor of a vacant house with no air conditioning.
He finagled us a two-bedroom suite in the BOQ but with four of us and
only three beds, somebody’d have to sleep on the sofa.
I figured in military rank order; Fred Flintstone being enlisted would get
the sofa. But in the weird, typically Air Force perversion of rank, it was me
who was deemed the bottom on the totem pole. Widetrack knew better, but
the unholy alliance of Stinkfinger and Flintstone prevailed with Widetrack
and I was relegated to the lumpy sofa in the small living room. At least that
was an improvement over the mattress on the floor of the un-airconditioned
house the night before.
We were required to have crew rest before assuming satellite alert on
Guam, so we basically had twenty-four hours of free time. Widetrack
commandeered a large aircraft maintenance van by inviting the crew chiefs to
enjoy several cases of free, cold beer. The plan was to drive the Air Force
blue, “Official Business Only” van right onto Terragi Beach for some fun,
sun, suds, and swimming.
Stinkfinger, pasty-white and awkward, begged off, not wanting to fry his
milky complexion in the tropical sun. That was a real plus, as far as I was
concerned, allowing me to get away from him for most of a day. Flintstone
opted to join a group of his enlisted Boomer peers on a tour of strip clubs and
dive bars in Agana, which meant a whole day without his constant needling
and pompous bullshit.
Terragi Beach was like a South Pacific postcard: the sun seemed
impossibly bright and the sky a brilliant blue, dotted with puffy clouds and
thunderheads near the horizon. The crew chiefs iced down the beer in two
trash cans and Widetrack had directed them to back the van right up onto the
beach.
The sun, the waves, the refreshments—it was a perfect afternoon. By
early evening, it was time to break up the beach party to get the maintenance
van back to the flightline for the evening shift.
A Guam tradition, or so we were told, was to pay our respects to General
Shaky, a huge wild boar, on our way back to the flightline. Supposedly,
Shaky was just an orphaned piglet when the base Civil Engineers found him
at a construction site they were bulldozing. They set him up with a deluxe
pigpen and hog trough inside a fenced enclosure surrounding a high-voltage
transformer site. He had the run of the place which served the dual purpose of
keeping him in and trespassers out.
The tradition demanded you salute General Shaky from outside the ten-
foot fence as you pissed on a telephone pole just inside the enclosure,
because he liked to lick the salt off the post. He was a huge beast and was
inclined to charge the chain link fence while you nonetheless held your salute
and stream steady. Somehow, that made sense after a day of beer drinking in
the tropical sun.
Widetrack and I made it back to the Officer’s Club for what was known
throughout Air Force bases in the South Pacific as the best Mongolian
Barbecue around. We hooked up with more squadron pilots and navs and
downed more beer along with plate after plate of epic Mongolian.
It was nearly midnight when I flopped down on the BOQ sofa for the
night. The irony wasn’t lost on me: the Air Force specified that flight crews
had to have crew rest before assuming alert, and in the best traditions of Air
Force aviation, we’d spent the “rest” time being as wild as possible, saluted a
high-ranking wild boar in a very special way, and had hijacked an Air Force
van and drove it out onto the beach.
Seemed like a pretty restful day to me. I dozed off immediately.

Chapter 26
The hand lettered sign at the first metal security gate said, “Attention
Tanker Crews: Do Not Let Gate Slam.” So, those of us Tanker Trash stuck
on nuke alert in the Andy alert facility made a special effort to slam the gate
just to piss off the very self-important, annoying bomber crews. It was bad
enough having to share their alert facility with them because they sure didn’t
want us there. Thank Typhoon Judy for that, I thought to myself, and tried
my best to ignore the Bongo-52 crews.
One of the few places we were allowed to go while on alert was the base
library, and I hid out there. It was air conditioned, quiet, and I lost myself in a
world of fiction: I read Jong’s Fear of Flying, which I found totally
captivating, and I discovered John Updike and devoured his Rabbit series. I
only returned to the razor-wire, fenced and guarded alert facility to join other
Tanker Trash crews—preferably not my own—to drive to the chow hall at
regular intervals.
Alert crews were used as slave labor for mission planning. While the
crews who’d fly the actual refueling mission spent the day at Terragi Beach,
the strip clubs and dive bars, and pissing for General Shaky, the four captive
alert tanker crews could be corralled by the operations staff to mission plan.
Widetrack managed to sidestep that grunt work for our crew, but Slam
Denk was physically chasing his own mutinous crew around the secure area
trying to get them to mission plan late our last night. I didn’t mention to him
that his nav, R +12, was actually hiding beneath a parked alert truck.
In the alert facility with nothing to do, I decided to schmooze the tall and
kind of cute alert controller who sat behind the secure communications desk.
She was young, new, and seemed just as bored as I was. I believe that she’d
had her fill of bomber crews and since we were all strangers from another
base, she wasn’t too worried about the possible consequences of
fraternization with an officer, at least a lowly brown-bar lieutenant like me.
In fact, no one at Kadena seemed concerned about the more strictly
enforced policy stateside that prohibited fraternization between officers and
enlisted people. Widetrack was doing the bone dance with a fat, ugly old
sergeant in the base intelligence shop. Stinkfinger had a going thing with an
alert controller at Kadena. And several officers in our squadron were married
to enlisted women they’d met at Kadena.
So I didn’t worry about having a major league grab and grope with Casey,
the alert controller, in the supervisor’s office while we watched sitcom reruns
on Armed Forces television. That was made all the more rewarding because I
was actually on alert and a defacto prisoner and, even better, since Widetrack
had hit on her and she’d shot him down.
At least from my dumb lieutenant’s perspective, I decided that based on
my first alert tour, the whole business of alert wouldn’t be that bad: we’d
basically had two days on alert at Kadena, flown to Guam, drank too much,
then had a fun time with the very cute alert controller for most of the last
night, even while incarcerated among the bomber pukes. Of course, nothing
like that ever happened to me again on alert.
The next day, upon release from alert after crew changeover, we were
immediately assigned to crew rest for an early morning refueling mission.
Crew rest, of course, called for us to party as much as possible right up to the
eight-hour cutoff for alcohol, while the ongoing alert crew planned our
mission.
“Don’t worry,” Widetrack promised me, “I finagled us the number five
tanker position. We’re just the spare.”
That meant we’d start up and taxi out with the four primary tankers, but
we’d only launch if one of them had a no-go mechanical problem at the last
minute. The two BUFFs (B-52: Big Ugly Fat Fuckers) would launch first,
then after the primary tankers launched, we’d taxi back in, shut down, then
go back to sleep off our hangovers.
So, on our “crew rest” we replayed the beer-filled maintenance van on the
beach deal, and Casey, the then-off duty alert controller, met me on Terragi
Beach for a private, beer-lubricated day of beach fun and other interpersonal
activities.
It was well after midnight by the time we’d paid our proper respects to
General Shaky, returned the van, and hit the sack. The room spun, my skin
felt tight and scorched from the sun—Casey’d gotten her fair skin fried—and
the air conditioner gurgled and clanked every time I fell asleep, waking me.
But I told myself, no worries: we were just the spare. I’d be back in the sack
by eight o’clock.
I dragged myself through the buttcrack-of-dawn showtime, crew briefing
and preflight, then slouched in my cockpit seat. Widetrack slumped in his and
no one, including Stinkfinger and Flintstone said a word—it was too damn
early and we were all still suspended in the nauseating grey netherworld
between half-drunk and well-hungover.
Flintstone hadn’t even bothered getting a jug of coffee, the fat, lazy
bastard. All he’d managed was a couple gallons of room temperature tap
water since we were just the spare. He’d figured he’d just end up dumping
out the coffee anyway, which I kind of craved as a result.
After engine start, we lumbered out behind the two B-52s and the other
four tankers. I was only vaguely aware of where they were all headed, having
ignored most of the briefing. Something about the BUFFs doing a low-level
bombing route, then popping up for max fuel offload then blah-blah-blah. My
head pounded, my mouth felt like sandpaper, so I just didn’t care.
That is, until mission frequency crackled to life and the command post
ordered, “Launch the spare.”
What the hell?
“Confirm,” the command post snapped. “Trade 19, launch.”
That was us. Shit.
“He didn’t get water,” Stinkfinger grumbled, pointing at the tanker on the
runway.
I squinted at the squatty tanker, engines bellowing, but no telltale black
cloud from the water injection. Fuck, he’s got a boost pump failure.
“Try it again,” Widetrack barked on the mission frequency, a bold and
prohibited move on his part, but I hoped that might prod the other crew to
cycle the pumps a few more times.
No dice.
“Trade 19 now mission primary,” Stinkfinger groaned over the mission
frequency.
As if in a bad dream, I acknowledged the tower’s take-off clearance
among the muttered curses in the cockpit from my three fellow
crewmembers.
We ran through the final takeoff checklist items while I silently prayed
that our water injection system would fail so we could abort as well. But no
dice; the water injection system kicked in, then Widetrack released the brakes
and we began to inch forward.
We rolled most of the long runway, into a glowing pink sunrise, then
wobbled into the air and past the cliff at the far end, over the Pacific.
“Gear up,” Widetrack said. I reached for the gear handle and raised it.
Nada.
“It’s not coming up,” I said.
“Well, cycle the handle,” Widetrack said.
I put the gear handle down, waited a heartbeat, then raised it again. Still
nothing.
“Fuck me,” Widetrack muttered, lowering the nose slightly to preserve
airspeed with the huge landing gear trucks dragging in the slipstream.
Fuck all of us, I decided. With the gear down we’d never make the
formation, much less the mission.
“One-ten, water,” Stinkfinger whined.
“Tell the Command Post we’re an air abort,” Widetrack said.
Stinkfinger relayed our status to the Command Post while I coordinated a
cruise clearance with Departure Control. No one else spoke, because we all
knew we were still screwed: with our mission fuel load, we’d be too heavy to
land for hours.
I began to calculate the fuel burn, then the max landing weight.
Sonofabitch.
“Three goddam hours at ten thousand,” I relayed the bad news to
Widetrack. Flintstone cursed roundly, Stinkfinger whined.
“Request a cruise clearance at five thousand,” Widetrack ordered.
“Nothing to hit out here anyway.”
That would help. Maybe only two hours. Flintstone and Stinkfinger
unstrapped and went back into the cargo compartment to forage in a survival
kit for something to eat while Widetrack and I scoured the manuals for a
technical solution to our landing gear failure to retract. There was none.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Widetrack said as I eyed the fuel dump
valve switch. “And so does the Command Post.”
I sighed. He was right: they knew exactly how much fuel we’d launched
with and even as we spoke, some asshole with a calculator in the command
center was figuring out just how long we’d have to fly in order to burn off
fuel to be below the max landing weight.
Sure, in an actual emergency, no one would question fuel dumping. But
our only emergency was an ever-worsening hangover, although I began to get
the impression that only three of us were actually suffering. Stinkfinger had
avoided the beach beer binge both days and actually seemed to be enjoying
everyone else’s discomfort. Just one more reason for me to despise his whiny
ass.
Sawdust bars, or what the Air Force called “survival concentrate,”
which was densely packed, dried cornflake cubes the size of a soap bar, was
all the survival kit offered. I gnawed silently, washing the sawdust down with
tepid tap water, and made a promise to myself that I’d cram some sort of
survival food into my flight bag going forward.
I’d usually grab a can of Coke before leaving Base Ops for the jet, and I
had a special place just aft of the crew entry door where the insulation could
be peeled back and I’d stow the can next to the external skin where at altitude
it would chill just shy of freezing within an hour of takeoff. But I hadn’t
bothered, being the spare. How I wished for that cold drink as we cruised
over the Marianas Islands and the impossibly blue Pacific at five thousand
feet and three hundred knots.
After landing I spent the rest of the morning sleeping, then hung out at the
Officer’s Club pool the rest of the day. Though tropically hot and sticky,
regular dips in the pool counteracted the heat and on and off catnapping
restored my strength from the early showtime.
“Have you heard anything about the plane,” I asked Widetrack who
snoozed on the beach chair next to mine.
“Nope,” he said. “And who cares anyway?”
I hadn’t thought of it that way, but it made sense: the tankers were old and
creaky and in the tropical climate, cranky from the heat, humidity, and
corrosive salt air. I had heard that one of the BUFFs had also been unable to
raise the landing gear so the entire mission was a bust.
We were in crew rest to fly a jet back to Kadena the next day, which
meant another night of heavy drinking. Widetrack decided we should do that
at the Officer’s Club, which sounded boring to me, but I agreed anyway. At
least we could hang out at the O’Club pool all afternoon, then get a decent
dinner and a few beers
We flew back to Kadena in cell formation, half a dozen tankers stacked at
a thousand feet intervals, a mile or two apart. As usual after a typhoon, the
high pressure that shoved the storm over the Pacific left the air clear and blue
and mostly smooth.
Kadena seemed like it’d had a power wash after the downpour and winds
over a hundred-fifty miles an hour for several days. My little white Datsun
wagon was where I’d left it in the alert facility parking lot and it too seemed
clean, despite the oxidized and sea air corroded finish.
We called an impromptu “Rock and Roll, Beer and Sweat” party for that
night, centered in Benny’s BOQ which adjoined mine. Benny had dragged
back a case of giant Foster’s Lager cans from Guam and I had a case of Oly
Gold in my fridge. Word spread fast among the squadron lieutenants, navs
and copilots, as crews returned from Guam.
We expected the usual suspects, including Jimbo, Benny’s nav, Devo,
R+12, Stormin’ Norman, a Special Ops C-130 pilot friend of ours, Doctor
Love, a dope smoking dentist who lived in our building, Bill Joyce, an RF-4
backseater, Sweet Sue, a school teacher next door to Jimbo who was way out
of all of our leagues, a few other female DoD school teachers, plus a couple
captains like Doug and Fonke whose wives would let them stop by and get
toasted before returning home.
The party was a raucous free-for-all of beer and booming rock music
blasted from Benny’s Bose speakers and my Technics cabinets. The whole
south end of the Q was engulfed in the mayhem which devolved into air
guitar with tennis rackets which then morphed into thrown food which was
then batted by tennis rackets all over the floors and walls.
Benny seemed sad that his place was trashed, so to cheer him up, I said,
“C’mon, let’s go trash my Q.”
The party spilled into my BOQ; food flew, some of my government-
issued furniture got smashed and tables tipped over. More people dropped by;
some enlisted girls Benny knew—which was strictly prohibited but what the
hell—plus more school teachers.
Finally, some of the enlisted girls invited us to go with them to the NCO
Club for more beverages, another military protocol taboo because we were
officers, so we loaded up a few cars and scrambled to the NCO Club.
The place was packed, the drinks cheap, and the subversive aspect of
being in with the NCOs made it all the more fun. More women seemed to
hang out there, probably because of the cheap drinks, plus the guarantee of no
officers around—except for us trying to act like we weren’t officers.
I made it back to my place after finding nothing worth staying for, or at
least no one worth staying for that night. I’d been dating a Navy lieutenant on
and off and I considered calling her but decided against it: it was late and
even on a good day she was a pain in the ass.
That was a Kadena reality a bachelor had to live with: any American girl,
especially a decent-looking girl, especially an officer, had her pick of guys.
Janet, the Navy girl, knew she had it made and was demanding about dates
and on dates. We’d rate her a “Kadena Nine” which stateside might be a
seven, maybe an eight. But the odds for a round-eye girl were spectacular,
not so much for us guys.
Even the school teachers, on one- or two-year contracts with the
Department of Defense, realized guys were forced to grade on a curve
because of the odds. They also hooked up with the married Marine helicopter
pilots who’d shack up for their six-month deployment, then go back stateside
to their wives and kids. Some, no; many of the school teachers liked the
relationship fun with no strings attached and played the field in the Pacific for
years.
Maybe that was why so many officers had enlisted girlfriends, some of
them butt-ugly like Widetrack’s harem, and frankly, why so many husbands
and wives came to Kadena a couple, but left with someone else. I was glad I
was single, at least for that aspect.
But then one day a knock came at my BOQ door. I answered it, and there
stood Eileen, a knockout in her big-girl clothes, hair and makeup done, short
skirt. She told me it just wasn’t going to work out for her and Nolan. She’d
given it a good try, but Kadena was just not the place to repair a shaky
marriage. I’d seen that firsthand among squadron couples. It was tough on
families, especially on broken or breaking marriages.
I could read between the lines. She wasn’t just there for a social call. The
situation was like one I encountered at Reese with a married enlisted woman.
She’d been Major Christie’s admin specialist, always looking cute and
smiley-friendly even to a goofy second lieutenant like me. I wasn’t the only
one who’d lusted after Sgt. Busby but, she was off-limits: married, enlisted,
and married to another enlisted person.
Then in November of that year, all at once she became “Miss,” not
sergeant, when she finished her enlistment and her husband moved out. She
continued working in the squadron looking even cuter in civilian clothes, and
no longer off limits. So, we started dating, and she went with me to
graduation and the formal ball we had afterward. It was like a dream come
true.
But this was different. Yes, Eileen and Nolan had split. But he was my
friend too—they both were. You just didn’t do that to a friend. I would not,
could not, did not. I knew I’d wished I had, especially given the scarcity of
opportunity on The Rock, but I knew later I’d regret more being a faithless
friend. I wished her well and sent her on her way.
I flopped down on my bed, defeated yet again but what the heck—there
was little to choose from and I wasn’t ready to go either enlisted or ugly, at
least not yet.
The room spun and I knew I’d be up several times tapping off too many
beers. Even with the lights off, weird shadows made it clear most of my
furniture had been smashed like Benny’s but no matter, really. Suzy-Q, the
BOQ maid who did our laundry and cleaned our rooms was adept at
reassembling the wooden BOQ furniture which seemed to have been
designed to be smashed and reassembled anyway. Beyond child-proof, that
stuff was lieutenant-proof.
Looking forward to a couple days off, I slept.

Chapter 27
The tanker mission was basically a dullard’s task in a dump truck of an
airplane. Mission planning continued to be a daylong waste of life, but more
in the make-work sense: at least no one could task you to do anything else
while you were “mission planning.” So we’d sleep-walk through the motions,
hand-calculating time, distance, heading, altitudes, offloads, fuel burn—
basically every little detail. Then in late afternoon, we’d grab either Bad
Jimmy or CJ and “brief” the very dull and lengthy mission in ridiculously
minute detail.
All that was mostly just busy work, donkey work really, me going line
by line through the “Form-200” flight plan, calculating fuel burn and offloads
inch by tedious inch. Clearly, it was a useless project anyway because on
short notice if a Higher Headquarters (HHQ) directed mission came down
from the Bomb Wing, the Operations section of the wing would simply hand
us a canned, computer-generated package of charts and fuel logs and we’d
launch.
The Air Force had cheaped-out on the tanker’s environmental control
system to save money, which made the temperature pretty miserable for flight
crew like us in the tropics. The civilian versions of the jet had two complete
air conditioning systems, or “packs,” as they’re called, to cool and even heat
the jet effectively. With half of the necessary air conditioning capacity, the
tanker was a sauna bath on the ground and in the traffic pattern, then an ice
box at altitude.
We often flew “transition” training on the tail end of a refueling
mission, which was a beating after already flying six or more hours: we’d fly
two hours north to refuel aircraft over Korea or Japan, maybe two hours east
to rendezvous with Guam Bongos, or two hours south to refuel aircraft over
the Philippines. We’d typically be on station orbiting on a refueling track for
an hour and a half to two hours, then fly the two-hour return flight to our
base.
Once we were established on our assigned refueling track, the copilot’s
job was pretty easy and just busy enough to keep it interesting. I’d monitor
the air refueling frequency on which we’d talk to the receiver aircraft, as well
as the Air Traffic Control frequency or more typically, the military Ground
Control Intercept (GCI) radar site vectoring the receivers into the refueling
area.
The AC orchestrated everything, talking to the inbound receivers until
they stabilized in formation below and behind us. Then the Boom Operator,
at his station below deck in the aft end of the tanker would take over
communications, guiding the receiver in with voice commands. The bottom
of the tanker had an elaborate light system that signaled the receivers with
cues to position themselves in the “contact” position about fifteen feet below
our tail and about fifteen feet behind us. Then the Boomer would plug the
boom into the receiver’s fuel receptacle and both jets would confirm solid
contact.
Then I’d jot down the current tanker fuel quantity and turn on two
refueling pumps and notify the Boomer over our crew interphone, “He’s
taking gas.”
I’d shut the pumps off when the receiver had received his scheduled
fuel onload, according to the roster on my clipboard. Some receiver pilots
asked for a little more fuel and I can’t remember ever not giving them
whatever they wanted—we had plenty.
We typically had multiple receivers waiting in formation and we all
flew in a racetrack pattern in the refueling airspace, shuffling receivers until
they’d all received their fuel. Often, one flight of receivers would leave just
as a new formation flew inbound. I’d usually have just enough time during
the rendezvous to step back to the galley and grab a cup of coffee, then be
back in the copilot seat and start the process over again.
When we’d completed all of our refueling, we’d orbit in the area until I
could coordinate a clearance back to Okinawa with Oceanic Air Traffic
Control. Then it was just a quiet cruise back to “home plate.”
Once back in the Kadena traffic pattern, sometimes—too-often in my
mind—an Instructor Pilot would come up to the cockpit from the cargo seats
to take over and cycle the extra pilots who’d been thrown on board through
whatever approaches and touch-and-goes they required, a tedious, hot,
bumpy and often nauseating hour or two of “transition” before we could land
full stop and call it a day.
Back in the squadron, the Supervisor of Flying would monitor all
squadron aircraft flying that day and once the last tanker had landed, he or
Bad Jimmy, the Ops Officer, would unlock the big padlock on the squadron
“Beer Box,” a standard refrigerator stocked with beer. If you were mission
planning or doing anything else in the squadron, you stopped what you were
doing and headed for the squadron lounge and had a beer with the crews
who’d just landed. Cliff was normally there too, ever the involved squadron
commander, chatting up the crews.
Later, I went to the O’Club bar with Dan Haggerty, a reconnaissance
pilot I’d known since Reese. We met a few school teachers there, and I
started to date one. She and I went out pretty regularly after that.
I made a pest of myself at scheduling, something most of the other
copilots didn’t do because in essence, it was just asking for more workdays.
But I was on a mission—I needed and wanted flight time and would do
anything to build it. Flying hours and experience could get me out of the low-
end copilot pool and maybe to a better job on a better aircraft—maybe an EC-
135 or RC-135, perhaps the larger KC-10 or even maybe back to Air
Training Command (ATC) in a T-38 after I’d proven myself for a couple
years in the air. I hadn’t had any problems with tests or check rides since
Reese, and I’d had plenty. I taped a note to the scheduling board that read,
“Lt. Manno will fly any time, any place, with anyone for any reason.”
My persistent nagging of the schedulers did get me extra flights, which
were mostly ugly missions nobody else wanted. I picked up some spillover
pilot tasking dumped on the detachment from Beale AFB in California who
maintained TDY (Temporary Duty) crews at Kadena to refuel the SR-71.
They’d get tasked to fly a conventional refueling mission attached to our
Wing and were glad to have me volunteer to keep from using one of their
own copilots.
I flew a couple missions with their Detachment Commander, which was
a good networking connection not only to the Beale Squadron but the guy,
Phil Daisher, was very popular with the crews and had been a U-2 pilot as
well. He was a quiet guy and a good stick and as importantly, he could
possibly get me an interview there at Beale in either the Q-Model tankers or
even the U-2.
I caught a couple missions to Guam which upgraded the “Rock and
Roll, Beer and Sweat” parties that Benny and I sponsored every week.
Smuggling became essential, because we could rarely get specialized drink
mixers like daquiri, Mai-tai or margarita mix at Kadena. Benny finally
pushed me over edge midway through a frenetic weekend party.
“Try this, buddy,” Benny said and handed me a drink.
I sniffed the soapy-looking liquid. A slight hint of mint.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Mint daquiri.”
I sipped the drink. Pasty, nasty, almost gritty.
“That’s awful,” I said. “What’s in it?”
“We don’t have daquiri mix,” Benny explained. “So I used Crest
toothpaste for flavoring.”
He’d also made a batch with pumpkin pie filling and they were equally
vile. That was the last straw. We started sneaking frozen daquiri and
margarita mix back from Guam which had plentiful supplies. We’d stash it in
the keel beam of the jet where the Japanese Customs inspectors never looked.
That ended the toothpaste and pumpkin daquiris going forward.
I also flew several epic dogshit missions dragging fighters from
mainland Japan to Alaska. The fighters had to land in day “visual flight
rules” (VFR), I guess because their commanders high up the chain of
command weren’t confident in their ability to fly instrument approaches,
especially at night. Some of the fighters we refueled at night had a hard time
staying in formation off our wing, making it seem like they just weren’t
flying enough to be proficient.
As a result, the tankers from Kadena had to brief at one o’clock in the
morning and launch after two, fly two and a half hours north to mainland
Japan to rendezvous with the fighters near sunrise, then fly in formation
above them, refueling them as they flew the six or seven hours to Elmendorf
Air Force Base in Alaska.
I typically drew the ballbuster mission, the “high tanker.” We flew at
the top of the stack as an “air spare” in case either of the other tankers had a
refueling system problem, or to escort any fighter to an abort base if they had
a mechanical problem. We didn’t refuel anyone unless one of the other
tankers had a problem offloading fuel, which seldom happened.
We stayed high to conserve fuel because once we got to within an hour
of Elmendorf, if we weren’t needed for either abort contingency, we simply
u-turned in the air and flew all the way back to Yokota Air Base in mainland
Japan. That was essentially twelve hours of non-stop flying with no relief
pilots, all night. On one long-tanker return, I woke up in my copilot seat
somewhere abeam the Sakhalin Islands, on the edge of Soviet airspace, and
everyone in the cockpit was asleep. Thank god for the autopilot and a good
nav course. The mission was physically brutal.
But still I didn’t care. I just wanted the flying time and particularly liked
not having to share the flight with another copilot. On one such mission our
thrown-together crew included Jim Roberts, the senior master sergeant of the
squadron. I’d learned to respect the Senior Master Sergeants and Chiefs
because to have risen to that enlisted rank, they really had to know their shit
and were true leaders. Moreover, they really knew how to get things done—
one way or another, above board or by whatever means necessary.
When we dropped into Yokota after all night in the air, we all
nonetheless decided we wanted to simply refuel and fly the last two and a
half hours to Kadena rather than spend the night. We cooled our heels in the
Base Operations flight crew lounge while the transient alert ground crew
refueled and reserviced our jet. Jim, our Senior Master Sergeant, eyed the
leather sofa I was stretched out on, trying to get a catnap.
“That’d look really nice in the squadron lounge,” he said.
“Yep.” I sat up. “Between the Beer Box and the TV.”
The nav nodded. Without another word, the three of us picked up the
sofa and tromped out to the aircraft. Jim opened the cargo door then we
wrestled it up the shaky portable stairs quickly and stowed it in the massive
cargo compartment.
Jim went back into Operations, then came out with a large, wood-
paneled trash can and a floor lamp that had caught his eye (“These’ll be
perfect in the alert facility game room,” he said) then he strapped everything
down securely and we blasted off for home plate before anyone at Yokota
noticed anything was amiss in their crew lounge. That was probably the only
upside to being Tanker Trash: we had the capacity to haul anything we
bought or, I guess, borrowed.
I’d get a couple days off after a nasty, long mission and I’d spend a lot of
my free time running long distance. The school teacher I’d been dating and I
moved off base into a very small house just up the hill from Jimbo and Benny
who’d also rented a place in Onishi Heights Terrace, near Futenma MCAS.
The house had a living room wall of plate glass windows that looked out
over the steep sloping, jagged rock hills towards the Pacific. Admiral’s Island
lay flat as a pancake on the eastern horizon and a spectacular sunrise played
out each morning on the east side of our small yard.
We got married in Orlando later that year, because basically, at twenty-
four, I pretty much knew everything and at twenty-five, she definitely did.
Chip and Jonne drove down from South Carolina for the wedding, along with
their precious newborn, Jenny. That was just like Chip and Jonne, always
there for the important things in life and I appreciated that.
The Shit Brothers also reconvened for the bachelor party. Animal Hauser
flew out to Orlando in a T-37, and Father-O flew down in a T-38. We
overindulged at the 94th Aero Squadron near Orlando Regional Airport so I
could have the proper Wolfpack hangover the next day. After a quick
honeymoon in Hawaii, we settled back into our little house atop the cliff in
Onishi Heights Terrace.
Jimbo and I ran endless road miles up and down the narrow, twisted roads
in the backwoods and fields areas where you were likely to round a corner
face to face with an ox cart or a school bus alike.
We gave route directions as if we were illiterate: turn right at the red
car, left at the pig farm (your nose let you know when you were
approaching), left again at the tori gate, down to the domed tombs. It was a
different, exotic, rugged beauty and long-distance running was like a dream.
It wasn’t long before Widetrack and Stinkfinger both left Kadena for new
assignments back in the states, and Fred Flintstone was assigned to a Stan-
Eval crew. I really wasn’t sorry to see any of them go, although I figured I’d
miss being associated with the wing’s fair-haired boy.
I inherited a new aircraft commander who’d just arrived on the island and,
it was clear, he really wasn’t happy being back in a tanker cockpit. Dudley
was his name, and he’d just pinned on major’s leaves. He’d come from an
ROTC unit, doing the same job as Major Sullivan, getting university students
who were also ROTC cadets ready for an Air Force career. It was a bad sign
to me that he really preferred a non-flying job. I’d shortly find out why.
Paul Boggs was our new navigator and he’d also just arrived at Kadena,
from a tanker squadron in Abilene, Texas. He was quiet, serious, and I liked
him right away. This was a very positive step after putting up with
Stinkfinger’s whiny, sour demeaner for so long.
Dudley never seemed comfortable in the cockpit. He had a nervous
undercurrent that was hard to miss, even for a new pilot like me. He seemed
unsure of himself and all of us as a crew. I knew right away that Paul was an
excellent nav, and I knew I was a decent copilot. Moreover, our mission was
stupidly simple: fly point to point, orbit, offload; repeat. But Dudley was
nonetheless typically on edge, almost reluctant to fly. And he wasn’t very
good at it.
The irony was, I learned more about being an effective aircraft
commander from Paul than from Dudley, or even Widetrack for that matter.
Paul was always practical and cool under pressure. When Dudley would start
to fixate on problems in the air, or develop tunnel vision in the face of
multiple challenges, Paul would quietly offer sound, fundamental advice.
On one mission, we went way over our planned fuel burn due to a number
of unforeseen wind and weather factors. That had Dudley wound pretty tight.
He had me spinning out fuel computations and burn totals for various
alternatives in case we couldn’t get in to Kadena and land.
All I had to do was look over my shoulder at Paul for a good, common
sense answer.
“Fuel flow,” was all he said.
Never mind the knotty ANPP calculations, wind and altitude adjustments,
and the Byzantine graphs to read the figures off of. Fuel flow: we had four
engines, and each had a fuel flow gauge reading in pounds per hour.
Even a math-hating English major like me could see that each gauge,
then, represented fifteen minutes of flying time. I could easily figure ground
speed, divide it into distance, then come up with a time and fuel in a matter of
seconds.
It was simple and smart. That became my new way of handling airborne
choices and challenges: Dudley would blurt out some decision and I’d simply
look over my shoulder at Paul. He either nodded, in which case I knew
Dudley’s idea was okay, or he shook his head no.
In that case, my job, along with Paul, was to steer Dudley to a better
option and do it in such a way that he thought he’d come up with the idea
himself.
That achieved everybody’s goal of a safe, smart flight, but for me it was
more than that. Paul had no command authority as a navigator, nor did I as
copilot. But rather than authority, what mattered was getting the best result
and in the case of Dudley, it was not only without any authority, it was
despite his.
I was witnessing firsthand what my father had been up against his whole
Air Force flying career. “It’s a pilot’s Air Force,” he’d always warned me. “If
you’re going to fly, do it as a pilot.”
During my father’s tenure at many squadrons I’d seen good officers who
were navs passed over for jobs and promotions that went to pilots with less
capability and poorer performance. That was the way of the Air Force: pilots
were in command, both in the air and in the squadron.
Seeing that firsthand playing out in the cockpit was a revelation to me.
Being a good leader had less to do with authority than with a collaborative,
constructive crew interaction. I knew that someday soon I’d be an aircraft
commander and would have the authority Dudley bungled anyway.
The revelation was, sure, I’d have the authority. But, like Paul, if I was a
real leader, I wouldn’t need it. Paul as a navigator was the leader I wanted to
be as a pilot. I carried that lesson forward my entire flying career.

Chapter 28
That Fall, we typhoon-evacuated once again, but this time, to Clark Air
Base in the Philippines. I’d heard so much about Clark and what the crews all
described as some kind of exotic playground: hotel-casinos named “The Red
Baron,” “The Maharajah,” and “The Oasis.” There was cheap booze, cold
beer and supposedly, tons of beautiful Filipino women hanging around. At
least that was the legend. Real life, however, proved to be a huge letdown:
the “casinos” were little more than one-story concrete blockhouses attached
to dumpy hotels.
The squadron launched jets in cells of four separated by at least an hour
so as not to overwhelm the ground crews at Clark. We launched at the tail
end of the stream and by the time we’d landed, put the plane to bed and
changed clothes at our dumpy hotel, it was getting late.
We walked over to The Red Baron to meet the rest of the crews. Inside, it
looked mostly like a low-end strip joint near a Greyhound Bus station. It had
a musty, dank tropical smell mixed with the stench of cigarettes and spilled
beer. Barmaids, short, miniature compared to western women, circulated
around the crowd of mostly American military guys, selling drinks and
ultimately, themselves. Loud rock music blasted from speakers and several
screens showed various Hollywood feature movies.
After a few beers, my disappointment turned to resignation: so this was
“paradise” everyone had talked about? I could check the Philippines—or, “P-
I” as crews called it—off my list of places I’d want to return to.
My crew got in line for what was billed as “a massage” with bar service
included. They actually had a photo album of “masseuses” from which you
were supposed to pick a girl to be assigned to you. That put me off—it was
too much like an unfair, weird meat market. But, by my fourth beer, I was
pretty well buzzed like everyone else.
“Just pick one for me,” I told the bar manager.
“No,” he insisted. “You pick.”
One of the squadron navs was walking out of the back room after his
massage as I spoke with the manager.
“Number five,” he said and flashed me a thumbs up. “She’s excellent.”
Something in the back of my mind sparked a warning briefly, but the
blanket of beer resettled over the concern.
“Whatever,” I said, waving a hand in resignation, half watching a muted
horror movie playing on an nearby TV screen. “Number five.”
A couple beers later, the manager called my crew—minus Dudley, of
course—and it slowly dawned on me what I’d done: the nav who’d
recommended “number five” to me was married, and his wife, god bless her,
was morbidly obese—and so was Number Five.
Back in a curtained off cubicle, she began to fill what looked like a giant
galvanized washtub with water. “We take bath together,” she said, pointing to
the tub.
Hell no we don’t I thought and tried not to panic. No way I’m getting into
a tub—presumably naked—with a fat girl I don’t even know. I stripped down
to shorts, then wrapped my midsection in a towel and laid down on the
massage table.
“No thanks,” I said. “Back massage. And another beer.”
It occurred to me all of a sudden, even through the fatigue and beer fog,
that this was what my father used to tell us about when he’d return from a
couple months temporary duty in Thailand and other places in Asia. He’d
always gone on and on about the wonderful “rub and scrub” pampering he’d
received while off duty. I realized there in Asia it was more like “steam and
cream,” clearly, though I tried not to think about that.
Afterward, I joined a few other lieutenants at the bar.
“How was that?” R+12 asked me. He punched me in the shoulder. I
rolled my eyes.
“A decent back massage,” I admitted.
“And?”
“No and.”
A hand job was the offered “and,” phrased as “you like sensation?” or
“happy ending?” And the answer was no, not with an indentured-servant bar
girl from a dirt-poor family. Sorry, but no.
We moved en masse from the Red Baron to the Fire Empire, another
place I’d heard epic tales about. The interior was equally dark, dumpy, smoky
and stale. Pretty young bar girls circulated around the tables and hit on
everyone who walked in.
We made our way to a round wooden table where a few older squadron
pilots sat hunched over an intense poker game. One waved us to seats at the
table.
“Watch and learn, boys,” Bozo said, waving a fat cigar around
majestically.
Whenever he spoke, his voice sort of caught in his throat, as if he was
either getting choked up or having a mild seizure. I figured he was just drunk
—until a shadowy figure crawled out from under the table.
She was a bar girl, young, jet black long hair, and she rose to her knees,
then spit a huge gob on the concrete wall behind Bozo’s chair.
“Aw, you didn’t have to do that.” He handed her a few dollar bills.
“That’s just gross,” he said, then turned back to the card game.
There were other girls under the table, blowing some of the guys as they
played cards. I couldn’t believe it; didn’t want to believe it, but I’d seen it
with my own eyes.
Then and there I promised myself—a promise I stuck to—that when I
was an aircraft commander, my crew would stay on base, not downtown in
that Angeles City dump of a town, in that dismal collection of cheap strip
clubs and whorehouses.
After another beer or two at the Fire Empire, we piled into a jitney parked
out in front of the squatty, ugly building. Jimmy, the driver, was proud of our
squadron sticker affixed to his windshield. The guys who’d been to Angeles
City before explained to me that Jimmy was safe, trusted, and familiar with
our squadron. You couldn’t just climb aboard any jitney or you risked a
mugging or stabbing.
“What you like?” Jimmy asked. “I get for you.”
Several guys—including me—popped off with a couple Hollywood
actress’s names. After ten or fifteen minutes driving around crumbly back
streets, Jimmy did just that: a Filipino girl matching nearly exactly the
description of the starlet we’d each just named. They were dead ringers, if
you were drunk and didn’t look too closely, and they were hookers.
Driving around to other clubs with them was fun in a weird way, but at
the end of the night outside the Red Baron hotel, I handed my assigned young
supermodel a handful of bills and jumped out of the jitney. She looked
disappointed, especially as other guys left hand in hand with their “dates,”
headed to the hotel. And the disappointment was merely financial, because
there’d be no further paid work for her.
I just couldn’t stomach the possibility, knowing even drunk and tired that
it was nothing more that human trafficking. Young girls were recruited in the
poorest farm villages to come to Angeles City and make a few bucks to send
back home. It’s not that the girls weren’t attractive, because they certainly
were. It was just that I couldn’t live with myself if I took advantage of such
an unfair, lopsided power dynamic.
During the daytime, if you looked, you could see in many Filipino
men’s eyes something between enmity and resignation, knowing that the U.S.
military guys were basically renting their daughters’ and sisters’ bodies
cheap. The whole situation was either appalling in a sad way, or sad in an
appalling way. Whichever way I looked at it, the entire state of affairs was
depressing.
And the city was dangerous. Bad Jimmy, our Ops Officer, had been
mugged before in broad daylight in Angeles City. So, on that trip, he showed
us the empty wallet he’d stashed in his back pocket in case it got picked—
meanwhile, he kept his cash in his front pocket.
Later that day, a Filipino street thug pick-pocketed him by slicing his
pants with a razor. When he took Bad Jimmy’s empty wallet, there was a
slight scuffle and the thief scrambled away and vanished into a back alley.
Then Bad Jimmy noticed that besides having his underwear hanging out of
his sliced-open pants, the thug had managed to steal his watch too, in the
brief scuffle.
Nevertheless, with trusted friends, I’d go downtown to shop, then drain a
few beers at Earthquake Magoon’s, an indoor-outdoor tiki hut type bar that
had ice cold draft beer and blasted classic rock music from huge speakers.
There the only physical contact was the “magic fingers massage:” as you
drank your beer, seated at the bar, the best neck and shoulder massage you
could imagine spontaneously started. That would go for about fifteen blessed
minutes, then stop.
Until you handed a couple more dollars over your shoulder, then it would
commence again. Beer, rock and roll and a shoulder massage from an elderly
woman probably all of thirty, but too old for the bar girl hooker routine—
which was fine with me.
From that point on, I campaigned to be on a crew that was ‘phoon evac-
ing to Guam instead of the Philippines. It wasn’t difficult to find a copilot
who’d swap with me, if the schedulers approved. The P.I. was, in my mind,
one part drinking fun with my flying buds and two parts depressing,
dehumanizing, impoverished desperation. I preferred Guam which was like a
mini-trip home to the states, almost Florida-like.
Even during a typhoon evacuation, the squadron still maintained the same
air refueling commitments we served from our home base, but we simply
flew the missions out of Clark Air Base in the Philippines rather than Kadena
Air Base in Japan. If your crew had an early launch the next morning,
common sense would dictate a conservative, low-alcohol evening the night
before, but that seldom happened.
There was one ferocious hangover I recall nursing in the Clark Base
Operations pilot Flight Planning room. My crew was scheduled for a nine-
a.m. launch and I was in Operations early calculating our takeoff data, which
was always a pain in the ass, hangover or no.
The worst case scenario was a “balanced field,” which meant you had the
exact minimum runway length, given your takeoff weight, that would allow
you to either continue the takeoff on three engines and still limp into the air,
crossing the end of the runway at thirty-five feet above the ground, or
actually stop the multi-ton bladder engorged with over fifty tons of very
flammable jet fuel by the end of the runway.
There was little margin for error, and everything had to work perfectly for
the successful takeoff with an engine failure, or a safe stop on the runway.
Even that was iffy: what if whatever caused the engine failure also
compromised another system required to stop, like anti-skid or hydraulically
deployed speed brakes? What if the tires weren’t perfect (they never were) or
the brakes near the end of their service life?
Flying long, oceanic missions, we were typically heavy, and a balanced
field was not unusual, especially if the runway wasn’t dry, which affected
stopping capability. I’d spoken with the early crew and was familiar with
both their mission and their fuel load. Over the Supervisor of Flying (SOF)
frequency in Ops, I heard the announcement, “The runway is now wet.” I
groaned, because that meant I’d have to recalculate our own takeoff distance
and speeds based on the reduced brake effectiveness on a wet runway.
First, though, I began to spin out the numbers for the early crew, now
taxiing out for takeoff, and their stopping distance on a wet runway. And the
numbers didn’t add up: by my calculation, if they had an engine failure on
that takeoff, they’d be unable to stop on the wet runway, and would roll off
the end and create a huge fireball.
I always sucked at math, so I called another copilot over and asked him to
check my numbers. They were correct: with their current fuel load, an engine
failure meant disaster. We grabbed the handheld radio and I called
the tanker, which was now just about at the end of the runway.
“Hey guys,” I said, “Did you check the runway distance numbers?”
“Yeah,” a familiar voice called back, “We know.”
I just left it at that. They realized the stopping distance was inadequate—
but they were going to roll the dice anyway. And they did: all four engines
performed normally, and they launched successfully. That was just the way
business was done, although I made a mental note that when I was an aircraft
commander, I’d didn’t absolutely have to bend the rules, or at least, there
were probably better options. But, as I saw that day, Air Force rules were
often bent and sometimes, broken.
The partying and flying situation in Korea was much the same or maybe a
little worse in some ways: the Osan Flight Surgeon actually tested the
hookers in the O’Club for sexually transmitted diseases as if they were
grading beef. Part of the working girls’ standard routine was to show you
their inspection card as part of a sales pitch, a sad reality of a world gone
morally nuts.
We’d go from bar to bar in Osan, eating street food we’d regret later,
drinking Peach Oscar at rock clubs, a local sparkling wine that would
guarantee a whopping headache the next day. It was fun, with limits, at least
in my mind. But for me, the main thing remained a focus on flying, gaining
pilot hours and experience, with the fun times among my peers, the younger
copilots and navigators, a close second.
And always, I ran long distance, just as I had at VMI and Okinawa was
a beautiful place to run, with hills and valleys and always, a view of the
ocean. Jimbo and I often ran eight to ten-mile courses that took us up and
down hills, through small villages with exotic above-ground tombs and
temples, through back streets and around ox carts drawn by water buffalos
and past temples and schools. Both Jimbo and I ran the 26.2-mile Okinawa
International Marathon each year we were on the Island. That was my third
and fourth marathon after completing my first two at VMI.
The Okinawan people were great to live with, always friendly and
living with respect for each other and even for us, mostly unwelcome military
interlopers in their seaside life. With Benny and Jimbo just down the street, it
was an almost idyllic life of flying, running and socializing with squadron
friends.
Being married gave me the acceptable excuse to not join in the
philandering in the Philippines and Korea, although that really didn’t deter
many of the married guys. Usually, after we deployed to either place, half the
crews were “DNIF” (pronounced “dee-NIFF,” Duty Not Including Flying)
because of antibiotics prescribed for whatever bad juju a guy had contracted
from one of the working girls, Flight Surgeon inspection or no.
My new bride and I took a vacation trip to the Philippines once, which
didn’t go well, at least from my perspective. I’d had in mind a lot of
relaxation and pampering at the hotel pool. Two other squadron couples were
planning to be there at the same time and had booked poolside rooms at a
decent hotel and I thought we could all hang out, have beverages at the pool,
go to dinner together.
Nope. Within an hour of landing, we were already back at the base
pack-and-mail to ship rattan ornaments and serving pieces back to Okinawa.
There’d be no relaxing at the pool, nor socializing with friends, the entire
time we were there. It was all shopping, shipping and schlepping: gotta see
this pottery factory … here’s a cliff I read about. Maybe we should have
travelled together before we were married, I thought to myself. Too late.
Travelling together was just not going to be our thing.
I was lucky to have landed on Widetrack’s crew initially, which put me
in favor in the squadron just by virtue of my association with him. After
Widetrack, I steered a middle course, not striving hard enough to be a threat
to any of the handful of career climbers which as a copilot, was pretty
useless. All it did was piss off your peers and there was really no upside:
we’d all upgrade to aircraft commander in time, so there was no reason to be
known as “that asshole.”
I also didn’t take advantage of those copilots who seemed marked for
scapegoat status. I felt sorry for them, except for those who weren’t decent
pilots which was, in my opinion, inexcusable. So was not wanting to fly, as
far as I was concerned, and guys like Dudley fit that bill, although he played
squadron politics and did kiss the right asses to weasel his way into an
Instructor Pilot slot.
That required him to return temporarily to Castle Air Force Base in
California. He’d be there four to six weeks to complete the course to become
an instructor pilot, which most of us thought was a bad idea because he was
not only a very marginal pilot, he also clearly didn’t like to fly in the first
place. But that was how squadron politics worked: flying was secondary to
schmoozing and sucking up. I was sure he didn’t really want to be an
instructor, but it was a vital career move, so he’d wrangled the assignment.
Still, that was also a risky move on his part. There was no guarantee that
he’d succeed, even if he passed the course. Castle would send him back with
a recommendation to Cliff Jester, our commander, after he finished the
course. Based on CJ’s concurrence, plus a check flight with our own
squadron evaluators, he’d either be certified as an instructor—or not. If not,
well, that was bad for any career.
I didn’t mind him leaving the crew, but Paul also got tapped to be a
squadron Standardization-Evaluation navigator, giving other navigators their
regular evaluations and training. That was good news for the squadron
because Paul was an excellent navigator and a strong, quiet leader from
whom I’d learned so much. I’d miss his steady and influential presence over
my shoulder in the cockpit.
To replace Paul, we were assigned Frank Garland, an experienced nav
from a stateside base, who was an excellent nav and a great guy to work with.
To replace Dudley, we were assigned Bob Howard, a lieutenant colonel
who’d been dragged out of a maintenance squadron commander position and
tossed back into the cockpit because as always, the shortsighted Air Force
was suddenly short of tanker pilots.
This was a bad deal for Bob, being an “L-C” (lieutenant colonel) “A-C”
in a “K-C,” because his old squadron commander job was much more
important to his promotion chances to full colonel. A line pilot—not even an
instructor pilot, though he had been in his previous squadron—was a bad
career move, but he had no choice.
Still, that was good news for me: Bob was one of the best pilots I ever got
to fly with. He was smart, quiet, extremely skilled and an excellent leader. I’d
learn a lot from him in my remaining time at Kadena.
One of our first deployments together as a newly-minted crew was to
“Gilligan’s Island,” which is what pilots called Diego Garcia, the coral reef
island in the Indian Ocean just south of the equator and a ten-hour flight from
Okinawa. There we experienced a baptism of fire—literally—that taught me
a lesson about flying I’ll never forget.

Chapter 29
We launched out of Kadena early one morning, bound for Diego Garcia,
with just our basic flight crew plus a couple of maintenance troops being
moved to our detachment on the island. Some folks called it Gilligan’s
Island; others referred to it as “No Fun Atoll.” I’d survived a deployment
down there with Dudley once already and I kind of liked it there.
The flight was a long and tedious eleven to twelve hours, depending upon
winds, with a ton of international clearances to be negotiated over the always
problematic HF (High Frequency) radio in order to overfly Thailand and
Malaysia then wind our way through the Straits of Malacca, made more
difficult by the language barrier.
I was content in my nest in the copilot’s seat, managing the fuel from
multiple body and wing tanks plus handling the radios, chatting with Frank
and Bob. The boom operator was a last-minute addition to the crew and his
name was also Frank. He was a good guy, a former Marine, and not very
popular with the other boom operators because he was tough as nails and
didn’t put up with any of the immature prankster nonsense in the alert
facility. I liked him better for that.
Once we landed and handed over the jet to maintenance, we hitched a van
ride over to the billeting area. The island was tiny, basically a coral wishbone
south of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. The equatorial heat and humidity
weren’t much worse than Okinawa in the summer time, although the
relentless tropical sun just a few degrees below the equator could fry you in
minutes. The base area that had the housing and what few amenities that had
been built on the island were arranged in a circle: mess hall, billeting rooms,
a small retail store, and a dumpy cinderblock hamburger stand named “The
Donkey Burger” in honor of the wild donkeys inhabiting the British side of
the Island.
The Donkey Burger was a fave and a right of passage: the lines were
long and when you got to the front of the line, you were standing over an
open sewer grate with a stench so awful you really had to concentrate hard to
place your order while gagging. On our last trip, Dudley insisted on hoarding
his per diem instead of paying for regular meals in the chow hall. He survived
on barely a Donkey Burger a day until Paul calmly talked him into eating,
explaining that he was acting hypoglycemic in the sweltering equatorial heat,
all due to his refusal to spend any money in the mess hall and subsisting on
one bare Donkey Burger a day.
There was an Officer’s Club made out of a Quonset hut right on the water
and a beautiful beach, but we were warned to never go in more than knee
deep because the water was infested with sharks.
We were crammed four to a room designed for two, but no one
complained because the Navy crews were billeted in un-air-conditioned sea
huts. The thing to do, we were told the evening we arrived, was to go
to the package store, buy a six pack, then grab seats at the new outdoor movie
theater for the nightly feature film. So, we cruised through the package store
and I bought a cold six pack of Olympia. I joined the others on a bench in the
outdoor theater in a middle row about halfway back from the two-story,
whitewashed concrete wall that served as a screen.
“Cans?” a Navy guy sniffed at me, “Why’d you get cans?”
Because they’re lightweight and easy to carry, I thought to myself. Why
not cans? Once it became dark and the movie started, I found out “why not
cans,” or at least why bottles were preferred. From the earliest
scenes, whenever the bad guys appeared, there was a fusillade of beer bottles
hurled at the concrete screen, shattering among hoots and profanity.
Navy guys who’d planned ahead drained their beers then flung their
empties to smash into a shower of glass at the foot of the screen. By the end
of the show, there was a layer of shattered glass five to eight inches deep near
the screen and as a side effect, the Navy guys let off a lot of steam. From then
on, we too brought bottles to the evening show.
The Officer’s Club was a rollicking shitshow of binge drinking, drunken
sailor songs, and, thanks to the Navy crews, furious, marathon dice and poker
games with lots of cash changing hands. The Navy aviators were sharks in
the dice games like “Four, Five, Six,” “Liar’s Dice,” and “Ship, Captain,
Crew.”
I was smart enough to quit before I lost too much money but that was a
decision you had to make early. Once you started to lose, you had to stay in
for the long term or you simply fueled the pot for the devilish swabbies
running the game. Bob did pretty well, Frank did not—so it was a quiet flight
back to Kadena once we left because Frank owed Bob so much money from
many nights of dice games. Bob was gentlemanly enough to allow Frank to
repay him fifty dollars at a time so his wife wouldn’t discover the loss.
Frank the Boom Operator was a gangster among the Navy enlisted
troops. He’d brought with him a stock of items they couldn’t get on the
island, like Skoal, Redman, Tabasco—little but important commodities he
could barter. He traded his bootlegged commodities for choice cuts of beef
we could grill for dinner.
We also raided the lagoon of freshwater lobster, poaching them after
dark so the British officials wouldn’t catch us. The maintenance guys rigged
up a small plywood platform on a truck innertube with a car battery hooked
to a headlight mounted on the board. They’d float the contraption into the
shallow water of the lagoon and the headlight would illuminate the green
lobster eyes of the creatures on the rocky-sandy bottom. Then someone
would grab the lobster and toss it into a bag. The lobsters were large and
plentiful and best of all, they were the warm water variety that had no claws.
Eventually, when the bags got too heavy, guys would simply tear off the fat
tails and throw them into the bag, then toss the rest of the lobster back into
the lagoon.
So, we ate grilled lobster with our evening steaks and sometimes even
for breakfast. Benny and Jimbo actually smuggled a large Igloo cooler filled
with iced-down lobster tails past the Japanese Customs inspectors back at
Kadena and we enjoyed them there, too.
There were a couple other tanker crews from U.S. bases who were
shipped over on temporary duty from the Tanker Task Force on Guam. They
were stateside crews from awful bases like Minot, North Dakota or Pease in
New Hampshire. This was an exotic adventure for them and they were good
company while we were all marooned on Gilligan’s Island. I counted it as
good fortune the I wasn’t stranded in some northern tier dump—Diego was
just one more tropical island in our normal ops rotation. I was really glad the
assignment trade had worked out, landing me on Okinawa rather than South
Dakota.
We were only scheduled to fly one mission in our two-week
deployment, but we were always on standby if refueling was needed. Our
planned mission was a heavyweight launch with a maximum fuel load to
refuel two heavy receivers out over the Indian Ocean.
We were scheduled for launch right around dusk and there was no
mission planning to be done—Lanny Hall, the Detachment Commander
simply handed us a complete computer-generated mission package and we
were on our way.
Bob and I had discussed his extensive experience as an instructor pilot,
teaching new copilots and new aircraft commanders how to fly the jet in
various upgrade programs. If I was interested, he said, I could fly the left
seat, the aircraft commander’s position, for our scheduled mission.
If I was game? Hell yes, I was game—my first flight in the left seat? I
wouldn’t miss the chance! Of course, that was strictly illegal: he wasn’t on
instructor pilot orders, and I wasn’t an aircraft commander. But what the hell:
a few thousand miles from the squadron and wing scrutiny, we’d decide for
ourselves what we’d do.
Diego Garcia was a flying circus, where rules were bent. We’d once
flown into the traffic pattern as a four-ship of tankers in line abreast
formation at five hundred feet and three-hundred and fifty knots, blasting
over the warships anchored in the lagoon with not much altitude to spare.
Then we’d each pitched out over the runway and flew downwind. The
outboard jet in that formation over-sped everything trying to keep up and
actually ripped panels off the fuselage. The crew chiefs who witnessed the
show from the tarmac said the four jets down low with sixteen dirty jet
engines wide open made it look like the horizon was on fire.
So, Bob and I swapping seats seemed tame by comparison. I liked the
feel of the left seat. I believed that I could handle it, legal or not and it
certainly was not. But Bob was an experienced instructor and we as a crew
swore a vow of secrecy.
We lined up for takeoff right around sundown. Once cleared for takeoff,
I stood all four throttles up to takeoff power and waited while Bob started the
injection pumps from the copilot’s seat. Once all four engines reached their
howling max power output, I released the brakes and we began a long, slow
roll, heavy as hell, max effort actually, steering the bloated behemoth down
the runway centerline with my feet on the rudder pedals.
Once we passed go-no go speed, Bob called “rotate” and I eased the yoke
back then the nosewheel lifted off the runway. As soon as both huge main
landing gear lifted off the runway, I heard and felt an engine wind down.
A glance at the outboard right engine instruments confirmed what I’d
heard: the engine had exploded—a fire light glared on the instrument panel—
and just like that, barely in the air at our max weight, we’d just lost one
quarter of our thrust.
“Keep flying,” Bob said matter-of-factly. That I did. Almost without
thinking, I added enough rudder to counter the adverse yaw from the dead
outboard engine, and gently held the nose up so we didn’t sink, although the
wounded elephant seemed to want to.
“You’re on fire,” the tower called.
“We know,” Bob answered evenly. The engine turbine section had
disintegrated and flung white hot shards of metal into the wing, some of
which had sparked a fire in the outboard fuel tank.
That was a concern, but in my view, one I could do nothing about at the
moment so I concentrated on flying. We retracted the landing gear, which
helped reduce drag dramatically and I levelled off at about a hundred feet,
taking advantage of “ground effect,” the cushion of air between our wings
and by then, the surface of the Indian Ocean. There was nothing to hit and we
needed speed to blow out the flames under our right wing.
Bob completed the emergency action memory items, pulling the fire
handle to cut off fuel and hydraulic fluid to the failed engine, then he started
dumping fuel to lighten our weight. Eventually, after pissing tons of jet fuel
into the Indian Ocean, we climbed to five thousand feet and circled back to
the island, finally light enough to land.
For me, the engine failure was a confidence builder, because there was no
panic, really, not even any alarm for me. I just responded to the immediate
necessity and gently eased the beast skyward.
The rudder correction was instinctive and the jet easier to fly than I
expected. We practiced engine failures in the jet by pulling a throttle to idle
to simulate a failure and the real thing wasn’t all that much different. My
training had been very good, as it turned out, and my skydiving experience
really had inoculated me against panic. It all went very smoothly. We landed,
then set the brakes. Then Bob and I hastily switched seats then taxied back to
the parking ramp where the Detachment commander and fire trucks waited.
We renewed our vow of secrecy, the four of us, then climbed down the
crew ladder. Bob and I walked around the jet and noted both the mangled,
smoking engine and the shrapnel holes in the wing still dripping jet fuel.
The engine was eventually removed from the jet and replaced, and the
wing holes patched. The engine shop teardown revealed the problem: the
demineralization process being used on Gilligan’s Island was ineffective or
perhaps, poorly done. But either way, impurities had built up on the turbine
blades in the hot section and one or more of the blades failed, flinging molten
shrapnel through the turbine and into the bottom of the wing.
We spent another slow week of dice games, binge drinking, Donkey
Burgers and outdoor feature films with audience participation. Frank the
Boomer finagled us a massive softball game against the crew of a nuclear
submarine anchored in the lagoon. He’d threatened their pride, promising that
the Air Force would wipe up the baseball diamond with the lame-ass
submariners.
Nothing could have been further from the truth, and he knew it. In fact,
we didn’t even have a softball team until he’d issued the challenge. But he
was crazy like a fox, making the deal that the Air Force would supply the
beer—something they couldn’t have aboard their sub—if they’d provide the
food.
The subs were well-stocked with very good food. Their mess crew set up
a massive cookout with steaks and burgers and more. Of course, we sucked at
softball and they whipped the hell out of us. But our priority was the chow,
not the game, and I believe we won the buffet.
Soon enough, we waited at base operations, all our gear packed, and
watched the inbound Kadena bird land and taxi in. As soon as the inbound
crew went into crew rest, we were relieved of our duty on the island. We pre-
flighted the refueled jet, loaded our gear, and launched off on the long
eastbound flight home.
It was quiet on the flight deck most of the way. We were all tired,
sunburned, and Frank owed Bob a lot of money from dice game losses that
he’d have to pay back in installments.
I’d managed to get my first left seat flight and had done just fine, even
with an engine failure. I had a good crew to fly with for my remaining time
on Kadena, which was growing short.
Benny had already gotten his follow-on assignment, and it was a beauty:
he was going to fly the brand-new E-3 AWACS (Airborne Warning and
Control) jets. They were pristine Boeing 707 jets, the modern airliner version
of the tanker pig we flew, with state-of-the-art, powerful fanjets rather than
the balky, anemic J-57s we relied on.
We’d had a going away cookout party in his Onishi Heights backyard,
swilling down gallons of beer and grilling burgers with all of the usual
suspects. At the end of the evening, Benny threw his KC-135 flight manuals
into the fire and we all cheered, watching them burn, then we all put them out
by pissing on them. It was the perfect sendoff.
I wondered what my options would be for my follow-on assignment. I’d
hoped for some escape from the A-model tanker, maybe into an RC-135 or
an EC-135, both of which flew tons of hours that would be good for an
airline resume. And both jets had bigger, more powerful fanjet engines.
Those assignments were hard to come by, but not impossible. I’d have a
better idea once I got back into the squadron and had a chance to discuss
options with Colonel Jester.
At that moment, winging our way eastbound over the Indian Ocean, I
couldn’t have imagined the opportunity headed my way.

Chapter 30
Back at the squadron on Okinawa, I’d become a “short timer,” with only a
few months left on The Rock. When you were stationed overseas, you were
assigned a “Dee-Ros,” short for “Date of Return from Over Seas”
assignment. As mine drew closer, and I waited for news from the Air Force
Military Personnel Center (“AFMPC” or just “MPC” for short) to see what
openings in other squadrons might be available.
I knew I wanted to avoid a northern tier assignment, having heard
firsthand from so many Tanker Task Force crews how miserable their bases
in the Dakotas, upstate New York and in New Hampshire had been.
I also wanted to at least check out some of the more obscure -135 units,
like the Weather birds, the WC-135s based at McClellan in Sacramento. Most
of us had never heard of the unit until a guy in the other section got assigned
a WC-135 right out of UPT. That was a great location—I could revisit Yogi
Bear Restaurant, maybe heckle him a little myself—and their mission was
easy, with no alert.
I was also interested in the Beale AFB unit flying the Q-model -135 to
refuel the SR-71, primarily in England and on Okinawa. They also had no
alert commitment and basically deployed from Beale in Sacramento to both
Kadena and Mildenhall regularly. That assignment had also been a stepping
stone to the exotic U-2 spy plane, and even the SR-71, for a select few.
I wanted to avoid a plain vanilla tanker squadron assignment, so I’d
considered the RC-135 unit at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, but even
though they pulled no alert and got a lot of flight hours flying ten and twelve
hour surveillance missions—good fodder for an airline pilot resume—they
were stuck living in Omaha, something I didn’t relish, and they were based at
SAC Headquarters, which promised to be a pain in the ass.
Ditto the 1st ACCS “Airborne Command and Control Squadron;”
pronounced “axe”) unit: they too were based at Offutt, which again meant
long, frigid winters and being stuck in SAC.
Being overseas did have one advantage where assignments were
concerned and that was a category called “Consecutive Overseas Tour,” or
“C-O-T” (pronounced “See-Oh-TEE”) which gave you a priority for follow-
on assignments to another overseas assignments.
For me, that opened up the possibility of two other overseas assignments
to ACCs units, one in England, which I thought would be a great opportunity,
and the other in Hawaii which of course would be paradise for four years.
That latter possibility was both remote and almost too good to hope for.
Both ACCS units were small, so there were few copilot openings and little
turnover, especially in the Hawaii squadron.
Even though I still owed the Air Force another four years to pay back the
million bucks Major Christie had said they’d spend on my flight training, I
still kept an eye on the airline pilot market. At the time, pilot hiring by
airlines was a dismal prospect. There’d been a brief window of hiring during
my last year on The Rock, but that had ended quickly and those pilots who
had been hired had been furloughed within a year. It did not look good.
Nonetheless, two of our 909th aircraft commanders had put in their
separation papers to leave the Air Force and pursue an airline career. The one
I knew pretty well, Sam, was a bachelor, so the financial uncertainty didn’t
deter him. He had an interview scheduled with a start-up airline plus some
connections in the cargo flying world. Both were very tenuous, too risky in
my view. Sam really didn’t like the Air Force anyway and especially once
he’d put in his separation papers, he let his displeasure show, growing his
hair long and wearing his uniform all sloppy and un-pressed.
I decided that if I was ever in a position to jump to the airlines, I
wouldn’t let on, much less disrespect the profession that had actually
provided me the qualification to make the leap. Maybe that was just the
respect for the military that VMI had instilled in me but also, with a family, I
couldn’t fathom being quite as cavalier about my career or paycheck as Sam
clearly was.
The last typhoon to hit Okinawa before I was scheduled to leave the
island massed just offshore as the rest of the squadron crews evacuated the
aircraft to Guam and Clark. I wasn’t on the schedule for alert or flying, so for
the first time in my tour, I’d stay and weather the storm. As “Typhoon
Condition Red” was announced, meaning the hurricane-force winds were
imminent, I drove from the squadron around to the main base side to exit and
then the few miles from the base to Onishi Heights Terrace. I expected
tension, panic maybe—but there was none.
Pregnant women near their due date were put up in the hospital just in
case, but that was it. No lines for food or candles or batteries and in fact, the
only real line was at the liquor store, because as I found out, there’s really
nothing to do during a typhoon except drink warm liquor by candlelight and
read.
The power would fail early on, so there were no lights, appliances,
televisions or audio equipment. Per my instructions from home, I bought two
bags of ice, one for the freezer, the other for the fridge. We just hoped the
power would be restored before everything rotted.
The party aspect wore off quickly and the boredom set in. The howling
wind made sleep impossible, and the humidity made the bedsheets and
everything else damp. Just for something to do, while the winds were over a
hundred miles per hour, I crawled out our back door, skittered on all fours
into our backyard and stood, leaning hard against the raging wind, just long
enough for my wife to snap a quick picture. Then I crawled back inside. We
worried all night that the giant plate glass window would shatter and send a
thousand jagged shards through the house like a fleshette scatter-bomb, but it
never did.
Typhoons weren’t the only times power failed on Okinawa. There were
blackouts and brownouts at seemingly random intervals for no apparent
reason. Same with the water: the island’s reservoirs were small and fresh
water always in short supply. Often, there was unannounced—at least to
those of us who didn’t speak Japanese—water rationing. Then it was like the
stone age met the jet age: I’d shave with a bowl of water I’d saved from the
day before, heated in the microwave, then go fly.
And there were no dairy products, because there were no dairy animals.
In fact, the only pair of cows on the island was in the Naha Zoo. Instead,
coconut milk mixed with powdered milk substituted for dairy products and I
actually grew to like the taste, especially with a hangover.
Once the typhoon passed and the squadron reopened, I set up an
appointment with Cee Jay to discuss my follow-on assignment. I checked my
uniform, wings, and shoeshine before I knocked on the doorway of Cee Jay’s
open door. He looked up.
“Come in.”
I stopped in front of his desk at attention and threw him a salute, which he
returned.
“Sit,” he said, and motioned to a government-issued grey armchair before
his desk.
“You’re good for a COT if you want one,” he said without any
preliminaries.
England? Hawaii? Alaska? I waited.
“But I wouldn’t if I were you,” he continued. I wasn’t prepared for him to
argue against a COT, but regardless, if I could get to England or Hawaii, for
heaven’s sake I’d go. I remained silent.
“If you take an assignment to either PACAF or USAFE, you’ll fall behind
your peers.”
Some of my peers were already in line for aircraft commander upgrade,
which required a minimum of five hundred hours of flying time. I had that,
but I was in no rush to slide sideways in a tanker if I could escape to either
PACAF (“Pacific Air Force”) or USAFE (“United States Air Force Europe”).
I hated the dullard tedium of Strategic Air Command (SAC).
“Because when you get back,” CJ said sternly, “And you will come back,
your peers will already be instructor pilots.”
Well we’d just see about the “will come back” thing. If I could escape
SAC for four years, I’d worry about the rest later. I wondered if he’d given
the same lecture to Benny who’d escaped SAC with orders to Tactical Air
Command.
“Sir,” I ad-libbed my best, most disingenuous shit screen, “I will work
very hard to keep up. I’ll do all my PME …”
That was a typical junior officer dodge: “PME” referred to “Professional
Military Education” which was some hogwash bureaucratic courses to teach
lieutenants to be paper-chasers and other useless nonsense. You could do it
by correspondence or in residence—but “in residence” tacked another two
years onto your commitment to the Air Force.
“… and I’ll upgrade as soon as possible.”
That was a stretch, too, because you needed five hundred hours to even be
considered as a copilot in the ACCS flying world. But I did meet that
requirement.
Cliff looked down at some papers on his desk.
“Well there’s the Cobra Ball squadron at Eielson,” he said. “They need a
copilot.”
Eielson? Alaska? Satellite alert in the frozen Aleutian Islands? Not only
no—but hell no.
“And the Blue Eagle squadron in Hawaii needs a copilot.”
My heart pounded. Hickam? Honolulu? For four years? I tried not to look
too excited.
“Don S. rotates ahead of you,” Jester continued. “So he gets first pick.
Talk to him—I’ll recommend you for whichever assignment he doesn’t
want.”
I stood.
“Yes sir!”
I saluted; he returned my salute then looked down at his paperwork
again.
Hawaii?! I could actually get stationed on Oahu for what could be my last
four years in the Air Force? That was almost too good to be true. I found Don
in the Mission Planning room.
“I’m leaning toward Eielson,” he said.
I knew he had a romantic thing going on with a Kadena hospital doctor
and that she’d been transferred to Eielson. Had it been me, I’d have said hell
no, I’m not going to Alaska—I’m going to Hawaii, girl or no girl.
“I know you guys would be very happy together,” I fibbed a little. I’d
gotten the impression earlier that he was more into the relationship than she
was.
A week later, Don chose Alaska over Hawaii, a choice I couldn’t fathom
but was glad to hear. I rushed back into CJ’s office.
“Okay,” he said when I’d confirmed my choice. “You have to submit the
full package, including your flight records, check rides, personal statement—
the works. But.”
I waited.
“Bobby Dunn is in their training flight,” Cliff continued. “He’s a protégé
of mine from my Offutt years. If I recommend you to him, you’ll be selected
for the assignment.”
That was the thing about Cliff Jester: he supported his pilots, and if he
said he was going to do something for you, you could count on him to follow
through. Within a few weeks, I had orders to paradise.

Chapter 31
“Flex your fingers,” Tom Meade said from the copilot’s seat. “Relax.”
Tucked up under the tanker at twenty-four thousand feet, I nudged the
throttles just the barest hint and our EC-135J “Blue Eagle” jet eased forward
slowly, gently.
“That’s it,” Tom said.
“Stabilized, precontact, ready,” I said over the air refueling frequency.
“Roger,” the boomer aboard the refueler aircraft confirmed, “Mango 13
contact.”
“Mango 14 contact,” I repeated back with our call sign as soon as the
green light illuminated.
Easy as pie. I’d been told that anyone could air refuel as receiver, with
practice. The caveat was, some people got it right away, others struggled
every time. I was lucky—refueling as receiver came easy to me from my very
first attempt.
That had been over two years ago, when as a first lieutenant new-guy
copilot, I’d checked out in the aircraft, albeit the right seat. Cliff was right:
I’d be behind my old SAC tanker peers who were pretty much all upgraded to
aircraft commander and some to instructor pilot.
But I’d been right too—Hawaii was paradise and the 9 ACCS a plum of
an assignment. The squadron was laid back and small. There really wasn’t
much busy work involved and what little there was got scooped up by a
couple of copilots who wanted to burn through the career ladder. I was
definitely not one of them.
Tom Meade was the squadron commander and an excellent instructor
pilot. Every upgrade instructional ride had been outstanding, and easy, really:
I had over fifteen hundred pilot hours and had as a copilot seen the mission
and flown all the required maneuvers dozens and dozens of times.
The jet was both a pleasure to fly and plush bordering on indulgent: she
had four TF-33 turbofan engines instead of the anemic, balky J-57s that
underpowered the KC-135 so badly. We had thrust to spare and never any
performance issues.
We also had a full galley with a Jennair range and ovens, and flight
stewards preparing meals from scratch. Of course, they were aboard for the
flag-ranked officers we often carried around the Pacific, but we reaped the
trickle-down benefits as a result.
On mission planning day for a “Westpac” (Western Pacific) mission, the
flight service stewards would meet with the aircraft commander and
coordinate the meal plans: “This is a four-hour flight,” Steve Lominac, one of
the squadron’s favorite flight stewards, would say, “How about soup and
sandwiches?” Or on a longer, trans-Pac (trans-Pacific) flight, Mandy Belock,
another favorite IFS (In Flight Steward) might make a full roast beef. It was a
far cry from ice water or coffee, and a Granola bar, on the old tanker.
The J-model -135 was loaded up with communications equipment,
including a trailing wire antenna tucked under the right wing near the
fuselage. It had a drogue about the size of a garbage can hooked to a wire
cable that could be extended over 20,000 feet. We also had a saddleback
dorsal satellite antenna mounted atop the fuselage to complete the comm
gear. Our on-board radio operators could receive encoded battle orders from
the satellite, forward them to the five-man, multi-service battle staff who
could then relay orders to submarines via the low frequency trailing wire
antenna.
That made for a full crew on battle staff missions: five officers
commanded by a colonel, general or admiral plus a senior enlisted
crewmember comprised the battle staff. They worked at consoles in the
center of the aircraft.
The comm team had a compartment crammed with communications
gear just forward of the battle staff. There were usually three or four radio
operators on the comm team, plus two radio maintenance technicians to keep
the communications gear in working order in flight.
We also carried aircraft maintenance and crew chief personnel to handle
the jet on the ground during deployments, plus four armed security police to
guard the aircraft on the ground around the clock between flights.
Add to that a flight steward, sometimes two, plus the four cockpit
crewmembers and we had a small crowd aboard when we deployed to several
WestPac destinations each tour.
Just like the windfall of having flight stewards provide great meals, we
in the cockpit benefitted from having the battle staff logistics officer—called
the “Logo” (pronounced “LOG-oh”) make all the arrangements for crew
hotel rooms and transportation. When we landed at another base with the full
crew aboard, right next to our parking spot would be a line of pre-arranged
vehicles, including a car for the cockpit crew, cars for the battle staff, a truck
for the stewards who’d buy fresh food for the next day’s flying, and a truck
or two for the comm team. As a pilot, I really liked the added perk of having
a comm team on board: they handled the oceanic radio clearances and
position reporting for us.
The airplane, the mission and especially the base—on Oahu—were the
best it could ever get in the Air Force heavy jet world.
I had no idea what exactly they did in the battle staff compartment
because cockpit crewmembers didn’t have a high enough security clearance
to be told, which was fine by me. In addition, their compartment was locked
during their command operations, which was also fine with me—the galley
was just behind the cockpit, so there really wasn’t anything else I needed
anyway.
Most missions, however, were like the upgrade training sorties Tom and I
were flying along with a navigator and a boom operator. We’d launch from
Hickam at a very civilized nine or ten in the morning, often just ahead of or
behind another squadron aircraft. Both jets would fly south to the restricted,
military-use airspace, then practice the standard air refueling rendezvous,
giving the navs practice at this routine maneuver.
All of our navigators were very experienced, usually majors or lieutenant
colonels and almost every single one was of the Paul Boggs sort: smart,
confident, understated and very good crew leaders.
The J-model had the latest Inertial Navigation (INS) systems and even a
new, digital Doppler Nav System (DNS) that was nearly instantaneous: the
DNS operated almost immediately and could update the INS. Most aircraft
had only the INS, which took several minutes to align as a navigation
platform. That meant we could scramble and launch as soon as the engines
were running rather than wait the extra five to ten minutes for the INS to
align.
After our turn on the boom taking fuel, we broke formation and headed
for the ARCP (Air Refueling Control Point) while the other squadron aircraft
that had refueled us headed for the ARIP (Air Refueling Initial Point). Then,
we started the rendezvous procedure over again, this time as the tanker,
because our jets had not only the air refueling receptacle atop the fuselage
just aft of the cockpit, we also had a refueling boom under the tail. Then the
other jet and crew got their contacts and boom time.
After a couple hours of refueling and rendezvouses, we’d typically head
for either the Big Island or Maui for some approaches and touch and goes.
We’d often use the seven-thousand-foot runway at the Kona airport for touch
and goes which, in hindsight, seems a little short for touch and goes in a jet
that size. More often, we’d fly practice instrument approaches at the Hilo
Airport. They had a longer runway, but eventually, after enough noise
complaints from the locals, they’d ask us to leave there, too.
Then it was an easy and always scenic airways cruise north over Maui,
Molokai and finally back to Honolulu International for a full stop landing.
After taxi-in and parking, I liked doing an informal aircraft commander’s
walk-around of the jet. She’d always served us well and was well cared for
externally, too, with a slick paint job of a white upper fuselage emblazoned
with the lettering “United States Air Force” and a flat silver-ish-grey below.
The big engines were whitewashed and gleamed like the upper fuselage.
In the Air Force, the aircraft commander did the exterior walk-around
inspection and I relished the task. Just like with 11 Juliet, the little Cessna I’d
first soled in, and especially the T-38, I liked the basic touch of cool metal
flying machine skin on my fingertips. It was like a mutual trust: we’d work
together in the air, as seamlessly as possible, and fly right, fly smart, and fly
safe. No worry at all, just a strong, bonded trust between pilot and aircraft.
By the time the rest of the crew had piled into the crew bus, I’d be done with
my “goodbye” walkaround and then it was off for a quick maintenance
debrief, then home.
There was much less emphasis on mission planning, and for copilots, the
process was made easier by the larger engines which made takeoff
performance a breeze. If that wasn’t enough, a bright new copilot from
Loring, Maine joined the squadron. Jim Albright was a Brainiac computer
wiz and he wrote a software program that created tabular data for takeoff and
fuel burn calculations. Jim was way ahead of his time and brought us forward
with him: no, the tab data wasn’t “Air Force certified,” but it was much more
accurate than the old chart interpolations and we all used his data.
Living in Hawaii was truly paradise, with perfect flying and running
weather. In fact, the local news broadcast team didn’t even have a
weatherman—just the anchor announcing “partly cloudy and eight-five
degrees” in the summer, “partly cloudy and seventy-five degrees” in the
winter months.
We’d stop by Base Operations before each flight to file our flight plan
and to get a weather briefing. Same story each time, unless we were headed
to either the mainland or Asia, in which case the arrival weather briefing was
more interesting and more challenging, especially when Alaska was our
destination.
I’d run five or ten miles at every destination regardless, including in
Anchorage during winter deployments. During the snowy season in Alaska,
running reminded me of doing the same in Buffalo at my grandparents’
home. My older brother and I still stopped in to visit and even run there well
after we’d left home for our careers. Alaska demanded the same attention to
treacherous footing and the hazard of cars appearing from behind huge
snowbanks. I was grateful to my 909th AREFS buddy for taking the Fairbanks
assignment so I could enjoy the endless summer in Hawaii.
I upped my mileage to sixty or seventy miles a week, running nearly
every day through beautiful routes in the crater or the foothills of Aiea. I ran
the Honolulu Marathon twice and finally brought my time for the 26.2 mile
run down below three hours, which for me was an accomplishment given that
the temperature for the last five miles was typically in the eighties. Running
easily became my focus when I wasn’t flying.
Meanwhile, back on the mainland, Chip was burning up the fighter pilot
world, as I always expected he would. His follow-on assignment was to the
Aggressor squadron, an elite flying unit that flew specially configured F-5
aircraft, a supercharged, single-seat version of the T-38, painted in Soviet-
bloc aircraft colors.
This squadron only took the best of the best pilots, flying Soviet tactics in
dogfight missions against other Air Force fighter squadrons. Chip and Jonne
actually flew out and stayed with us in Hawaii on leave, a welcome visit from
old friends.
Coker was transitioning from the F-105 to the F-4, under protest of
course, hating having another person on board rather than his solo world in
the Thud, even complaining about the second engine. That was good, because
for The Coke, acting unhappy meant he really was happy.
Benny reported in from the AWACs world, loving the airplane but not the
many months spent flying in the Middle east. Couldn’t blame him for that.
Unlike at Kadena, I hadn’t landed on the fair-haired boy’s crew as I had
with Widetrack. In fact, it was the exact opposite. I liked Roy and identified
with him, especially his love of fitness and sports. But, as in any squadron,
there was a pecking order in the 9th ACCS. Somebody had to get the poor
ratings, everyone couldn’t get an outstanding flight checkride.
The Chief of Stan-Eval (“Standardization-Evaluation”), the pilot who
gave checkrides to other pilots, was a runty, wizened, chain-smoking
alcoholic commonly referred to by the squadron pilots as “Hitler.” He had the
classic short man syndrome that compelled an unfounded arrogance and he
sensed weakness and opportunity for damage, so he had it in for Roy.
How he became the Chief of Stan-Eval I’ll never know. But my
introduction to him was on one of my first crew missions after checking out
as copilot. Hitler showed up unannounced at our crew briefing, smoking like
a dump fire.
“No-notice checkride, full-blown,” Hitler announced with obvious relish.
I could see him keying in on Roy’s perpetual worry. It was like he smelled
blood in the water.
We flew the mission, and I did my best to help Roy out, but with Hitler
breathing down his neck, chain smoking on the jumpseat, things didn’t go
well, especially on the instrument approaches at the Kahului, Maui airport.
Back at the squadron for the checkride debrief, Hitler grabbed my
shoulder and said, “I’m not going to sweat ya—you did a good job, all you
could.”
Thanks, I thought to myself. Not going to sweat ya? Meaning, that
“sweating someone” on a checkride was an option? That reminded me of the
Air Training Command “fear, sarcasm, and ridicule” policy which certainly
had no place in a constructive training environment, much less an operational
squadron.
And me passing the check while the other pilot didn’t? The only other
time I’d seen that was when Dudley returned from Castle to Kadena with a
recommendation that he not be upgraded to instructor pilot. Cliff decided to
let him sink or swim, putting him up for the check regardless of the
recommendation. I survived that checkride too, having done, as the evaluator
said later, “everything I could” to save the ride for Dudley.
The squadron was small—we only had four aircraft, one of which was
always on alert, and one of the four always back on the mainland getting
some type of modification. Maybe the thought was, isolate Hitler in Stan-
Eval rather than in the mainstream squadron where we’d all have to endure
him day to day.
The nav on Roy-Boy’s crew was a newly-minted major, a short, balding,
quiet guy named Gary Van Cott. I liked him immediately and he was an
excellent navigator. We’d share a room on alert, so it was good that we had
some common interests. Gary did a lot of outside reading, particularly about
history, so conversation with him was always interesting and helped pass the
time on alert.
Lucky for me, the stigma of the crew didn’t stick, at least not on me. I
was “the new guy,” and Walt, one of the longtime copilots told me later, “We
watched to see which way you’d go.” That was almost as disturbing as
Hitler’s “sweat you” remark, because why was any copilot to be judged by
any other? Labeled after being judged to have “gone” one way or another?
Regardless, I guess I made the “correct” turn, because I felt welcome in the
squadron and in short order, Roy-Boy transferred to Benny’s AWACS wing
in Oklahoma, and a new pilot was assigned to the crew. At the same time,
Gary completed his PACAF tour and was transferred to a staff job.
The new aircraft commander, Hugh or as we liked to call him, “Huge,”
was a fairly new AC. He was smart, a great pilot, and pretty quiet except for a
very wry sense of humor. He was great to fly with and we did well together. I
learned a lot, watching Huge stand up to a major or lieutenant colonel battle
staff executive officer who’d insist we launch on schedule despite out of
limits weather conditions. For Huge, that meant a simple, “No sir” and he
stuck to his guns as the aircraft commander, despite being outranked. That
was a lesson I never forgot.
I added Hugh’s archetype of quiet authority to my lessons learned from
navs like Paul Boggs and pilots like Bob Howard: quiet authority was the
best approach, no histrionics, just consistent, quiet firmness. That kept
everyone working collaboratively, feeling engaged. No, it wasn’t a consensus
thing—there’d be no vote. But a quiet adherence to what was required by
best practices, not to mention the regulations was what the job of aircraft
commander demanded.
That was where Hitler had it wrong, despite his many flight hours he’d
earned sitting on his bony ass in EC’s at Offutt, a fact he brought up every
chance he got. The authority of an aircraft commander was stipulated by
regulation—you didn’t need to wield it like a club. Doing so destroyed the
cohesive “three heads are better than one” team mentality on a crew. That left
the aircraft commander almost solo, having stifled any collaboration.
Usually, the colonel or general commanding the battle staff was low key
and easy to please. It was his executive officer who could be a pain in the ass.
That was made worse by the fact that the battle staff was interservice,
meaning that besides Air Force people, we had Army, Navy and Marine
Corps officers flying on the battle staff.
The Marines were the worst, being totally unfamiliar with the flight
environment. I recall one Marine major who, when he’d get hot on board,
would take an oxygen hose, switch the supply to one hundred percent than
hose himself off with the cool air. Any ignition source would have set him
ablaze.
Our navigator was an experienced guy newly arrived from Loring Air
Force Base in Maine. Brian was a big guy, a weightlifter, and a Norwich
grad, so we had the military school background in common. He was a great
guy, a dependable friend and the three of us became “The Flying Bunda
Brothers,” the last name taken from my fake name that I used when at other
bases.
That was an informal tradition among many Air Force aviators: we had
fake nametags embroidered on a set of wings that we could swap out for our
real names on our flight suits when raising hell at another base, especially at
the officer’s club at an away base.
More than once in my years at the 9th ACCS, the commander or the ops
officer would take me aside and warn me, “If you see Joe Bunda” (that was
my fake name) “tell him not to go back into the formal bar at March AFB,”
or “there’s a colonel waiting to shoot Joe Bunda if he ever shows up again in
Kunson, Korea.” Such was life with the Flying Bunda Brothers.
I had one final head-butt session with Hitler after I’d been thrown onto
one of his missions just to get a couple of approaches I required to stay
current. The flight was the day after the Honolulu Marathon and I was
physically beat down after running the 26.2 miles in 2:56:43, a personal best
for me. I figured what the heck, I’m just on board for a couple touch-and-
goes, I can just relax in the back of the jet the rest of the time.
But, during the air work in the restricted area, Hitler was giving air
refueling “instruction” to a hapless copilot who’d always struggled to get on
the refueling boom. I could hear Hitler yelling at the poor guy all the way
back in the comm compartment.
That was bad, but what was worse was the nauseating motion in the cabin
during air refueling. If refueling was done right, the cockpit remained still as
the pilots maneuvered the rest of the jet to maintain the stable alignment of
the tanker’s boom and the receiver air refueling receptacle.
The sensation in the back was nauseating, especially in my weakened
state. I barfed a couple times, something I hadn’t done since the early days in
the T-37. So, to gain a little visual stability for my scrambled vestibular
system, I walked up to the cockpit during a touch-and-go, even though being
unstrapped during that phase of flight was a no-no, unless you were an
instructor, which I was not.
Later that week, Hitler summoned me to a briefing room where he sat
behind a desk, looking like Pontius Pilate—if Pilate had been a scrawny,
sunken-eyed alcoholic. A radio maintenance technician who was a friend of
mine described Hitler perfectly, saying he looked like “a twice-eaten piece of
Church’s fried chicken.”
Hitler lectured me about standing up during an approach. That, he
belabored the obvious, was an evaluator privilege and I was not an evaluator.
I tried to explain why I’d done that, but he exploded before I could
complete a sentence. He yelled about respect for authority—his—and his
three thousand flight hours and blah blah blah. “When you get three thousand
flight hours, then we’ll talk,” he blabbered. I just smirked, deliberately.
“Stand at attention when a superior officer talks to you!” he roared. True,
he was a major and I was a captain, the next lower rank. How petty. I
slouched. He yelled, but I didn’t care. It was just the two of us anyway. No
witnesses.
Later that week in the squadron, Tom Meade pulled me aside.
“Look, you have to respect the Chief of Stan Eval,” he said, “And his
experience.”
Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full was my usual “get out of jail free” act. I
never heard another word about the incident or Hitler’s tantrum. For all his
experience and skill—and he actually was a good pilot—he had undercut his
own credibility in the squadron. That was because Hitler never learned the
golden rule of aviation: being a good pilot is secondary to not being an
asshole.
Eventually, Hitler moved on to another assignment and the pox was
lifted from our squadron. Don Merritt, a fair and well-respected aircraft
commander and instructor pilot, took over.
Meanwhile, I breezed through the aircraft commander upgrade program
with excellent instruction from pilots I knew well and respected, like Tom,
and Don Merritt, and Bob Dunn, Cliff Jester’s protégé, who became a good
friend at Hickam.
I even had upgrade instruction in flight with the wing Director of
Operations, a full colonel who was one of the rare senior officers you’d ever
find on instructor pilot orders: Stan Brubaker was a great pilot and teacher in
the mold of Bob Howard.
The special windfall of the local training was that it didn’t add to my Air
Force commitment. Had I been at one of the mainland tanker units, I’d have
been sent to Castle AFB, back where I’d done my initial copilot training, for
the aircraft commander’s course, just like John Armstrong, the “PUP” (Pilot
Upgrade Pilot) I’d been paired with after I finished pilot training at Reese.
That PUP course added two years to a pilot’s active duty commitment.
The “Flying Bunda Brothers” broke up as a crew when Huge rotated back
to the states and I upgraded, although I did fly now and again with Brian even
after he moved into a staff job at PACAF Headquarters.
I also learned the big secret of being an aircraft commander in relation to
the copilots I flew with: just let them do their job. They know what they’re
doing and if you simply stay out of their business, they’ll make you look
good as an AC. Of course, I had very experienced squadron copilots to rely
on, high time copilots liked Jim Albright, Jeff Price, Mike Gilbert and John
Davey who’d transferred in from the 909th, my old Kadena squadron. If you
left people alone to do their job, rather than fretting or worse, meddling like
Dudley used to do, flights went smoothly and the crew stayed engaged
instead of the Balkanizing I’d seen on bad crews, where no one
communicated and everyone seemed to work at cross purposes.
I flew several WestPac deployments and true to my Kadena vow, I told
the Logo (Logistics Officer) “I don’t care where the comm guys stay—the
cockpit crew stays on base in the Philippines.” The enlisted guys couldn’t
wait to get downtown, and more power to them. I made sure my cockpit crew
had rooms at Chambers Hall, on base and only a few body-slams from the
Officer’s Club. I could run safely on base, eat at the Club and make a trip in a
group to Angeles City for a night of shopping and bar hopping with Huge and
Brian, plus a select few of the battle staff officers who were fun to spend time
with.
Kunson Air Base in Korea was in a tiny dump of a town south of Seoul.
Our general and his party needed to deplane in Seoul, but the Air Force
wasn’t about to leave the very expensive, secret-technology jet on the ground
so close to the border with North Korea. As it was, when we flew north
toward Kimpo Airport, fake navigation aids popped up beyond the
demilitarized zone, trying to lure us across the thirty-eighth parallel and into
the range of their anti-aircraft guns. Brian Bunda was having none of that.
Running at Kunson was a real head trip, because that close to the DMZ
(Demilitarized Zone), the base remained on a combat footing and the
ROKAF (Republic of Korea Air Force) manned anti-aircraft batteries all
around the perimeter of the airfield, which is where I’d run.
The gun crews must have been bored, because as I ran, I noticed pairs
of fifty-caliber machine gun turrets trained on me and following me—or so it
seemed. To be sure, I stopped, and sure enough, so did the twin barrels
tracking my path. I backed up, and so did they. It was a creepy run with gun
emplacements aimed at me as I went, but it also proved what the Koreans all
know too well: North Korea remains an imminent threat.
After three years in paradise, I knew I needed to find a follow-on
assignment for after my final year before the Air Force found one for me. I’d
spent my entire career on tropical islands, and that luck had to run out sooner
or later.
The major airlines like United and American still hadn’t recalled all the
pilots they’d furloughed a couple years back, so there was no sign of pilot
hiring in the near future. Benny left the Air Force to fly for America West, a
maverick start up airline in Phoenix. The catch was, besides no one knowing
if the airline would survive, was that pilots had to do more than just fly. In
America West’s radical new business model, their airline pilots also had to
spend some days loading bags and manning ticket counters. That sounded
dismal, not only loading bags, but wondering if the company would survive.
My fellow Shit Brother Father O’Gara had jumped to another maverick
carrier, People Express, but they were also showing signs of financial
disaster. Animal Hauser, my other Brother in Shit, was flying the Bongo-52
at Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, the headquarters of American Airlines. He
was poised to jump if they started hiring pilots, but there was no sign of that
yet.
We had just had our firstborn child, a wonderful, precious little girl, and I
was overjoyed and completely committed to making a secure financial future
for our newly expanded family.
I called the Military Personnel Center (MPC) officer assignment branch
and talked to my career planner. What were the chances that I could go back
to T-38s as an instructor, I asked? I speak passable German, recently lived in
Germany, and would love to be a T-38 instructor pilot for the Luftwaffe
pilots who trained at Shepard Air Force Base in Texas.
A few calls later and after a couple weeks, MPC forwarded my flight
records to Air Training Command and the T-38 selection board. By Fall, it
was settled: I had orders to Shepard as a T-38 instructor pilot.
Or so I thought.

Chapter 32
I sat in an F-105 ejection seat, a cold beer in one hand.
“I have no goddam idea, Manno,” Coker groused, hunched over a small
grill on his driveway where he tended two steaks that sizzled over glowing
charcoal.
The question was, how did he get hired by Southwest Airlines, a recent
bit of good news. The ejection seat was in Coker’s garage, god only knew
how or why. It was a bit chilly outside, at least compared to Hawaii, so I just
stayed in the garage and nursed yet another beer.
“No one in their right mind understands Southwest’s goddam hiring
process.”
That was a lie. Coker was an outstanding pilot in his fighter squadron,
many of whom were Southwest pilots. It was common knowledge that you
had to know somebody to get hired there. They’d have been crazy not to hire
him.
“I’m just glad to have a fucking job,” he continued, “Flying the oldest
737s in the goddam world all over Texas.”
I mulled that over. On the one hand, Southwest Airlines seemed to have
started a trickle of pilot hiring. Was that for attrition, or was it a coming
industry trend?
In a way, the point was moot because I’d taken the assignment to Shepard
Air Force Base as a T-38 instructor. I’d flown into DFW, rented a car, and I’d
driven the two hours north to Wichita Falls to visit my new squadron and to
survey the housing market ahead of our move.
I’d found a nice little three-bedroom home at 1618 Willowick Drive in a
suburb called Tanglewood not too far from the base. I was excited to show
my little family the place and I even put down earnest money when the
sellers accepted my offer.
The squadron was another story. My sponsor, a squadron Instructor
Pilot assigned to help me relocate to Shepard, was glum.
“It’s like, ‘welcome to the squadron—hand me your shoelaces,’” he
joked. Morale was low and in the flight room I visited, the IPs all seemed
unhappy.
How could this be? They were flying the T-38 every day and doing it
with mostly international students, flying a challenging syllabus with lots of
formation flying and low levels.
“You’ll see,” he promised. “This place is hell.”
I mulled that over too as Coker and I feasted on steaks and beer in his
cozy little house on North Bailey Street in Fort Worth. The next day, I flew
back to Hawaii and shared the good news about the Willowick house but kept
the squadron morale problems to myself.
The 9 ACCS had always had decent morale, but then how could anyone
be disconsolate about life in Hawaii? By then, though, I’d moved up to a
wing staff job as the Flight Safety Officer.
The Air Force had sent me to the University of Southern California for
the summer to qualify as a flight safety specialist after completing their Flight
Safety and Accident Investigation Course. Flight safety was one of the few
staff jobs that always interested me and I figured long term, the knowledge
and experience could only help me as a pilot.
I was fortunate to attend the course and specific classes taught by some
legends in the field of flight safety like Chator Mason, Ski Parker and the
irascible Charlie Dole. In fact, I still have the signed copy of Charlie Dole’s
aerodynamics textbook from that class. Sure, it might have been a bit of a
scam to have the Air Force pay for his textbook for the class he taught, but
Charlie Dole was the real deal and I was lucky to have learned from him
firsthand.
I still flew the EC-135J regularly as “guest help,” attached to the 9 ACCS.
That was mutually beneficial because it got me out of the Flight Safety Office
to fly regularly, and I was extra manning for the squadron.
The squadron assigned me to fly with the higher headquarters inspectors
for the squadron’s annual evaluation. That was a good deal for them because
in case I busted the evaluation, they could say, “Well, he’s wing staff, so that
doesn’t go against the squadron record.”
For me it was a great opportunity, because I knew the mission, procedures
and the maneuvers by heart. I also had one of the best navigators in Charlie
Watts, a gentleman, friend and an amazing leader of the Paul Boggs ilk on
the crew. We flew a perfect mission and received an “exceptional” rating, just
one more good resume item for my promotion file.
I did a lot of headquarters flying assignments which freed up a 9 ACCS
pilot for other duties. For example, I flew an EC-135 trip carrying an
inspection team to Wake Island, a tiny speck of coral used mostly as a divert
or refueling stop in the middle of the Pacific.
When we landed, I noticed two Marine Corps C-130s parked on the ramp.
I figured they had stopped to refuel on their way to or from Japan or Guam. I
didn’t think much of it.
At the weather-beaten cinderblock shack that served as a billeting office
for the very limited transient quarters on the flyspeck of an island, I began to
deduce what was going on.
As our logistics officer was inside getting our room keys, a crowd of
Marines in flight suits gathered around a couple trashcans of iced-down beer
cans. That, I figured out, must be the two crews from the USMC cargo planes
I’d seen parked on the ramp. They clearly been drinking for a while right
there under the blazing tropical midday sun and were getting rowdy.
One of the inspection team members whispered discreetly, “I think we
just got them all thrown out of the temporary quarters.”
That explained it: we were a higher headquarters Air Force delegation and
as such we took priority over transient crews from another service.
Obviously, the hard-drinking Marines had been evicted from the air-
conditioned billeting to sleep on their un-air-conditioned aircraft in the
ninety-degree, ninety percent humidity air for the night.
A muscle-bound Marine major strode my way, a beer in one hand, the
other fist bunched. He didn’t look happy. He stopped before me, his chin
jutted out, huge chest, too. His flight cap was pulled down nearly over his
unibrow and he looked me up and down. The crowd of drunk Marines
quieted, watching.
“I hear,” the big Marine growled, “That you Air Force VIP pilots are all a
bunch of pussies.”
He pronounced V-I-P as “vip,” so it took me a minute to catch his
meaning. But there it was: the Neanderthal jarhead was calling out the
scrawny Air Force captain who’d breezed in with his shiny white-topped,
“United States Air Force” jet, and displaced his Marines from their air-
conditioned rooms for the night.
I thought about my words carefully, then I answered, “Yes sir, yes we
are.”
Like we were going to what—arm wrestle? Fist fight (he’d have killed
me), roll dice for the air-conditioned rooms?
“We’re having a little party later on,” he continued. The other Marines
snickered. “We’d like you to stop on by.”
I nodded. Of course I would, maybe have a few gallons of beer with them,
then they could cook me and eat me and no way in hell would I party with a
dozen or more angry, drunk jarheads.
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll stop on by.”
He nodded, still glaring at me. I eased my way toward the entrance to the
billeting office.
“You do that,” he said and flashed a jagged tooth grin. That night, I
shoved most of the furniture up against the door to my room, certain that at
any moment in the middle of the night there’d be a torchlight mob of angry
Marines marching my way to dismember me and feed me to the sharks in the
lagoon. At dawn, when I woke up for a run before the sun got too high, the
C-130s and the Marines were long gone.
The downside of the safety staff job was the seemingly endless readiness
exercises dumped on the wing staff by higher headquarters evaluators.
The safety staff officers—Chief of Safety, Chief of Flight Safety, and
Chief of Ground Safety, were gathered and holed up twenty-four hours a day
for days on end, in a conference room with the Wing Commander and Vice
Wing Commander and their subordinate staff for “scenarios” dumped on
them by the evaluator teams.
They’d hand the wing-king a card that read, for example, “Simulated
hostage situation at the base library.”
Then the command staff was supposed to “simulate” the law enforcement
response, the bomb squad, negotiators and even sharpshooters. “Simulated,”
which was in my mind just grown-ass adults playing make believe.
That ensnared me too when the make-believe involved some type of
aircraft incident. I got called out to a “simulated” aircraft accident with a
toxic chemical spill near the Honolulu Airport reef runway, which was
actually part of the base golf course. I sighed, grabbed my handheld flight
safety radio, a safety vest and reluctantly, my chemical warfare gear and
drove the flight safety truck out to the “accident site.”
I had a moment of clarity as I stood in my sweltering chemical warfare
outfit next to a pickup truck in the golf course fairway grass simulating a
transport plane that had simulated-ly run off the runway and caught fire.
We were all lined up like grownup children simulating—making believe
—our assigned duties as jumbo jet after airline jumbo jet trundled out to the
reef runway for takeoff.
I envisioned the airline pilots secure in their cockpits gazing down at us,
huddled over an empty pickup truck, broiling in chemical warfare gear in the
afternoon tropical sun. They’d probably have a chuckle and be glad they
weren’t stuck on the ground playing make believe while others flew the big,
cool, high-paying commercial jets.
In that moment of clarity, mindlessly reciting the required “simulated”
disaster checklist responses, I realized that if an assignment in paradise could
devolve into this level of pointless frustration, imagine life in Podunk-ville-
Wichita Falls, Texas, even flying the T-38. Welcome to the squadron—give
me your shoelaces my sponsor had said.
Four years, and then what? If the airlines did start hiring, I’d be too late;
I’d be the last one hired and the first one furloughed. But if I stayed in the Air
Force for the next four years, that would put me at the eleven-year mark. I’d
have to stay till twenty to get at least a basic retirement. Probably not in a
flying job either, after the T-38 or even worse, stuck somewhere in The Great
White North in a goddam tanker. You’ll be back, Cliff Jester had promised.
What if he was right?
After the “all clear” for our ridiculous scenario, I drove back to the Safety
Office, my mood glum. Even as I pulled into the parking lot and secured the
truck, I couldn’t have imagined the phone message waiting on my desk in the
Flight Safety Office, a message that would completely change the course of
my life.

Chapter 33
“Call CBPO,” the handwritten message on my desk read. “There’s a
problem with your assignment.”
That wasn’t much to go on. “CBPO” referred to “Consolidated Base
Personnel Office.” They handled assignments and orders for transferring
people like me.
I stepped into the outer office.
“Nancy,” I said, recognizing Nancy Steinmark’s handwriting. “Did they
explain anything about this over the phone?”
She held up her hands and shook her head. After a moment, I dialed the
phone. Eventually, a CBPO staffer handed me off to a major.
“Yes, Captain Manno,” she said. “There’s a problem with your
assignment.
That much I already knew. I needed details, and it better not be bad news,
like a reassignment to some northern tier tanker shithole.
“Seems that since you’ve been overseas ever since pilot training,” she
continued. “You have no ADCS, just a DEROS.”
“What does that mean, ma’am?”
“It means you have no Active Duty Service Commitment. On your
DEROS (Date of Return from Overseas), you’ll be out of the Air Force.”
I was stunned. I had no inkling of the technicality of the ADSC being
only my DEROS, which was fast approaching. It was just luck, mostly, that I
hadn’t incurred any additional commitments while on active duty, but having
avoided any stateside PME schools and having had a local upgrade to aircraft
commander, I was free and clear.
“So,” I asked, “What do I need to do?”
“Get down here to CBPO and sign for another six years,” she said, “If
you want to fly the T-38.”
Simple enough, or so it seemed. I did want to fly the T-38.
“On my way now,” I said. I grabbed my flight cap and car keys then
headed for my little island beater car.
As I drove across the base to the CBPO office, the reality of what the
major said really sank in: no commitment? I had nothing holding me in the
Air Force?
I detoured over to the Headquarters building where I knew the
regulations regarding assignments were kept. In the Director of Operations
library, I pulled out the volume covering officer assignments and found the
key regulation that applied:
“Seven Day Option: Before incurring an Active Duty Service Commitment

(ADSC), the officer must be offered a seven-day option, allowing one
week for the officer to decide whether to accept the new ADSC
commitment or separate from the Air Force within thirty days.”
So there it was in black and white: I could get out of the Air Force in
thirty days if I chose to decline the new commitment.
I mulled that over. Animal Hauser had managed to get hired by American
Airlines—Dorf too—as had Benny Goodman. In Benny’s case, he’d already
spent a lot of money and uprooted his young family to move to Phoenix and
buy a house for his America West job. Now he was moving to Fort Worth,
soon to start at American Airlines.
Even though he’d gotten out of the Air Force a year ago, he wouldn’t be
that far ahead of me if I too got hired by American.
If. And that was a very big, daunting, “if.” But still.
I jotted down the regulation number plus the section and page of the
seven-day option reference. Then I continued on to the CBPO.
“I need a seven-day option before I sign for another six years on active
duty,” I told the airman at the service counter. He eyed me a little
suspiciously for a moment, or so it seemed to me, then said, “Wait here—I’ll
go get the major.”
After a moment, a weary-looking major appeared carrying an armload of
manilla folders.
“Look,” she said, getting right to the point, “If we give you a seven-day
option, you’ll just get out of the Air Force, won’t you?”
Might, I said to myself, might get out. It was important to at least
consider. I cited the regulation chapter and verse to her regarding the seven-
day option, then added, “I just want this all by the book. Look, I asked for the
assignment, I already bought a house and shipped one car. Do you really
think I’ll just get out?”
She looked at me for a long moment. There wasn’t much she could do,
given the regs. And she could see from my Form-90 “Dream Sheet” that the
T-38 to Shepard had been my first choice.
“Alright,” she said at last. “I’ll put this request through channels. It’ll take
two to three weeks, then you get back in here and sign this so we can get you
set with orders to your next assignment.”
“Yes ma’am,” I said, even though I was pretty sure what I was going to
do about the “option” once it was formalized.
I checked in with Jerry, a friend who was a C-130 pilot in the 6594th Test
Group. He’d recently been given a newhire class date by Northwest Airlines,
and he shared with me the pilot recruitment contact information for
Northwest and United Airlines.
I called Benny and got the American Airlines pilot recruitment contact
information, plus his personal recommendation. Benny was a very savvy guy,
and when he said that the hiring boom was beginning at the major airlines, I
believed him. “You gotta go for it, buddy,” he said, “I know you’ll love the
airline life.”
I talked the possibility over with my wife who said she’d support
whatever decision I made. We’d make a good life for our family, in or out of
the Air Force.
The next day, I sat down with my Safety Office boss, Major Keth
Edmondsen. He listened to the whole story of the seven-day option and the
airline opportunities. Keth was a trusted friend and a very pragmatic person
with whom I could discuss the possibility of leaving the Air Force in
confidence.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity,” Keth said in his quiet, Caribbean accent.
“You can probably count on at least one furlough for a year or two, but
otherwise, you will simply fly for an entire career.”
We discussed it further and Keth said he’d approve whatever leave I
needed to go to the mainland and interview as soon as possible, to at least see
what was out there.
“And,” he said, “Depending on what you find out, I might be right
behind you.”
I fired off the required application inquiries to United Airlines, my first
choice since I was a child flying from Buffalo to Chicago, plus American
Airlines, Northwest and Continental. I told no other squadron or wing people
except Keth what I was considering.
Within days, I received a letter from American Airlines inviting me to
Fort Worth for the first phase of their interview process. I also heard back
from United with virtually the same offer. Both letters instructed me how to
confirm an interview date and time, plus how to travel on each airline from
Honolulu to their headquarters in Fort Worth and Denver respectively.
Continental also invited me to interview, but they’d just gone through an
ugly strike that left many strikers on the street and many non-union scabs on
the Continental seniority list. Don Bender, a friend and classmate from safety
school, had been one of the strikers who hadn’t been called back yet and out
of respect for him, I shit-canned the Continental application.
I had plenty of military flying experience, but I’d need civilian ratings and
airman certificates in the airline world. So, I enrolled in a weekend cram
course to prepare for the Airline Transport Pilot (ATP) exam given by the
FAA. Elbow to elbow in a hotel conference room with a couple dozen other
airline pilot wannabes, I stuffed into my brain virtually all I needed to know
to pass the exam, which I did the following weekend. I signed up for another
cram course for the Flight Engineer (FE) written exam for the following
weekend, and made an appointment with a Honolulu doctor certified to give
FAA flight physicals.
“It’s a good time to apply to the airlines,” the doctor told me, noticing the
ever-problematic vision in my right eye. That didn’t seem to deter any
airlines except Delta Airlines which still insisted on 20-20 vision for all
applicants. So, I never applied to Delta.
I bought a dark suit, which would become known industry-wide as the
“pilot applicant clone suit” worn by most airline pilot hopefuls to their
interviews. Then, with Keth’s signature on a leave form, I set up interviews at
American and United Airlines.
My strategy was to interview at American for practice, then go to
United armed with actual interview experience. American Airlines would be
my fallback, but United Airlines was my goal.
American put me in First Class on a DC-10 from Honolulu to Dallas-Fort
Worth International Airport. That was an experience I decided I could get
used to—flying in First Class, especially considering all the trans-Pacific
flights I’d made sardine-packed into an all-coach class airliner for the eternal
flights to and from the Far East.
The interview itself was simple, just as Animal and Benny had said. Phase
1 was basically to check your pilot hours, but with military pilots, which most
of us were, there was simply no question once you passed them a certified
copy of your military flying records. The civilian guys’ logbooks got
scrutinized more closely because they weren’t kept by a government agency.
The years of military experience also assured them that we’d had
background checks, plus regular drug testing and no arrests or we’d have
been expelled from the service. So, the face to face interview with a pilot
recruitment staffer was very informal and low threat.
Then there was a rudimentary physical, and we were sent on our way. If
we’d satisfied the Phase 1 requirements, we’d be invited back for Phase 2,
which was the much-dreaded American Airlines “astronaut physical,” as it
was known in the airline industry. The American Airlines medical director
was the notoriously demanding Dr. Wick, who I was pleased to note was a
VMI graduate. I didn’t really figure that connection would help me much, but
it seemed like good Karma just the same.
Up in Denver, I found the United Airlines pilot interview process to be
much less friendly and in fact, borderline hostile. In the face to face
interview, as I’d been warned by other applicants, a two-person management
interview team prodded me with uncomfortable questions, arguing with me
about my answers.
“Tell us about a difficult situation,” one of them asked, “that you
encountered in the air that required you to use interpersonal skills to make the
flight a success.”
I got halfway into a story about helping a weak pilot like Dudley through
a checkride when the female interviewer interrupted and snapped, “Oh, come
on, that’s nothing.”
That was an attempt, I’d been warned ahead of time by Benny, to get me
to lose my cool. I didn’t lose my cool, but I also didn’t see the point of the
whole adversarial approach to an interview.
The physical became another test to determine how badly you wanted to
fly for United Airlines. The exam, including the hernia and nut sack check—
the latter being medically unnecessary, but was probably added to see how
much you’d tolerate to get the job—was done by a female doctor, and a very
good-looking one at that.
Then the simulator basic flight evaluation was given by an instructor who
asked me if I had any questions, warning me that once the eval commenced,
he’d remain silent for the entire session.
Questions? You mean like, “How do I fly a 767, having never set foot in a
767 cockpit before?” That occurred to me, but it was clear that wasn’t the
type of question he’d answer.
So, I just figured an airplane is an airplane is an airplane; and like the
nut check, I’d just have to drop my pants and hope for the best. I felt like I
did an adequate job, flying the basic maneuvers, then a decent but very firm
landing. Not bad, considering it was my first shot at that particular jet.
The next morning, I hopped on a United 747 back to Honolulu.
“Any chance of First Class?” I asked the gate agent, recalling the royal
treatment I’d received from American Airlines. Both agents at the counter
frowned as if on cue.
“We reserve that for our paying customers,” one said icily.
Well, okay. The entire United interview was basically a pain in the ass,
but that didn’t deter me from wanting to be a United pilot. Surely, once on
board as a pilot, you’d be treated better, I told myself. And after seeing the
huge, modern and impressive training facilities at both airlines, there was no
doubt in my mind that the airline life would be a fantastic flying career,
should I choose that.
I returned to Hawaii and shared what I’d discovered with Keth. While I
waited for my seven-day option paperwork, I was on pins and needles
waiting to hear from United Airlines about a possible class date, if my
interview had gone well enough.
In short order, I received an invitation from American Airlines to return
for Phase 2 of their interview process. But, if I was hired by United, that
would be unnecessary. Just to be on the safe side, I went ahead and scheduled
the American Phase 2 interview.
I also found a rock-bottom ATP (Airline Transport Pilot) flight school
that met the minimum requirements for an FAA ATP flight check. Eveland
Aero was a small FBO (Fixed Base Operator) and flight school on the cargo
side of Honolulu International Airport. The cheapest option was to pay for
nine or ten instructor led flight hours to become proficient in the basic
maneuvers in a twin engine Grumman Cougar. Then, an FAA ATP checkride
for the certificate.
Jim Albright warned me that the Cougar was an underpowered pig that
he’d flown when it belonged to the Air Force Aeroclub. If you lost an engine,
depending on the temperature, fuel load and aircraft weight, you might or
might not stay in the air.
Still, I was on a tight budget so the Cougar would have to do. Al Avery,
my quiet, likeable CFI (Certified Flight Instructor) was a retired airline pilot.
He’d taken other Air Force pilots through the barebones flight instruction for
the same purpose as I had: with over 2,000 pilot hours in the 135 aircraft, a
Boeing-707 derivative, I simply needed a multi-engine instrument checkride
administered by an FAA flight examiner. Al could prepare me for that.
In the air, I struggled with the rudimentary instrumentation in the
primitive Grumman twin, with very small, scattered nav instruments and
jumpy course arrows and needles that flitted all over the case despite the slow
ground speed of the light twin compared to a jet. But eventually I mastered
the basics after about seven hours of dual instruction. I hired a Hawaiian
Airlines pilot who moonlighted as an FAA examiner to give me an
instrument checkride in the Cougar, actually signing my island car over to
one of Chelsea Eveland’s instructor pilots (she let me drive the jalopy until I
left the island) for the free time in the Cougar she had coming to her as a job
perk.
After we landed, I drove the short distance to the FAA Regional Office
with my completed ATP checkride form and my Air Force Form 1 record of
my -135 flying hours.
“So,” the FAA clerk said, “You will have an ATP with a Boeing-707 and
an GA-7 type rating?”
“Can you just leave out the GA-7?” I asked. It looked a little silly next to
the 707 rating.
“Whatever you want,” he said, then printed me out my Airline Transport
Pilot license. The following week, I completed my FE written exam. So, if I
got hired, I’d head to United Airlines with a current ATP, a First-Class FAA
medical certificate, plus my flight engineer written exam. All I had to do was
wait for the appointed date and time to call a toll-free number United had
given me to receive the news about my interview and a possible pilot class
date.
The only thing left for me to do was to choose whether to get out of the
Air Force or stay in, because once my seven-day option paperwork was
approved, I’d need to formalize the decision one way or the other. Would it
be four years of flying the T-38, an exciting prospect? Or would it be a dream
career as a United Airlines pilot?
Despite the indecision I’d managed between the two very good
alternatives, I was ebullient knowing that both were excellent flying
opportunities. I could live with the T-38 or United Airlines, and that was a
great feeling.
I had no idea at the time I’d actually do neither.

Chapter 34
If an Air Force pilot announced the intention to leave the service, there
was a gauntlet of counseling mandated that was designed to persuade the
pilot to remain on active duty. I expected that, although I put little value on
the scripted lectures.
The talks would come through the chain of command, from the
squadron commander to some of the senior officers on the wing staff. The
content would be mostly canned talking points the officers had been issued,
with the directive from higher ranking officers to convince the pilot not to
leave active duty.
I needed real advice to help me decide what the best choice was for me
and my family. I’d learned in my seven years as an officer that if you really
wanted help, really, really needed help, the senior enlisted folks were the
ones to turn to.
I’d discovered that early on, and more than a few times I’d gone to a
senior master sergeant or a chief master sergeant, the highest enlisted rank,
hat in hand.
“Chief,” I’d say, “I screwed up, and I need your help.”
They were the ones with real experience and little tolerance for higher
ranking bullshit at the expense of common sense. They could help a junior
officer out of a tight spot (“Chief, I’m just a dumbass lieutenant”) because
they knew how things really worked in the military.
That’s what I needed: common sense, realistic advice from a chief
who’d seen it all, who was immune to the institutionally ordered dogma and
saw things as they were. In fact, contrary to the military chain of command,
I’d always saluted chiefs before they could salute me, as military courtesy
stipulated they should do. That was out of respect on my part, and I didn’t
care if it violated military protocol.
Nancy Steinmark, the administrative specialist who literally ran the
Wing Safety Office, was married to the senior chief master sergeant of the
base. I’d met him a few times and we had a cordial relationship. I made an
appointment to see him in his office in the wing headquarters building.
“I want your advice, Chief,” I said. “I have to decide whether to stay in
the Air Force, or separate and pursue an airline job.”
I outlined the situation for him, including the seven-day option
opportunity, and the chance to fly for an airline. He listened carefully.
“There’s no doubt,” he said at last, “That as an airline pilot, both your
lifetime earnings and your retirement would be substantially higher than as an
Air Force pilot.”
He reviewed the alternative, staying in, and what my future might look
like. There’d be a lot of family separation on deployments, and probably
some less than preferable duty stations. We both knew most officers flew less
and less as their career progressed, especially if an officer wanted to get
promoted. Within ten years, if I stayed in the Air Force, I wouldn’t being
flying at all, most likely.
“So,” Chief Steinmark said at last, “You need to decide which you are—a
pilot first and an officer second, or vice versa.”
I mulled that over, but it was immediately clear to me who and what I
was. I’d only struggled through VMI as a means to get into flying. In the Air
Force, I’d fulfilled the officer duties only to the extent that they were required
in order to fly.
The choice was simple, and clear. I was always a pilot first, and
everything else had always been mostly a means to an end. And so,
it was settled in my mind: I would leave the Air Force to pursue an airline
job.
By week’s end, I stood in front of the major in CBPO and selected
“ADSC declined,” then signed the seven-day option.
She scowled. “You planned this all along.”
It may have appeared that way, but I only wish I’d been that smart. As it
was, we’d shipped the family car and I’d lose the earnest money on 1618
Willowick Drive. The opportunity to get out had dropped in my lap, and I’d
decided to take it.
Gerry Gerlach, Tom Meade’s replacement as 9 ACCS commander, was
pissed. I actually overheard him at the Officer’s Club telling some copilots,
“Look at him. He’ll be pumping gas in a year, begging to come back in.”
Many separating pilots at other units found themselves grounded once
they announced their intention to leave the Air Force. That was intended to
intimidate pilots near their ADSC, to coerce them into staying. Still, for me
there was no getting around the pragmatic distinction—pilot first or officer—
that Chief Steinmark had pointed out. The squadron pilots weren’t buying it
from their commander—and neither did I.
I still flew because the squadron was shorthanded. When PACAF
planners decided to demonstrate the effectiveness of our ACCS unit in a
forty-eight-hour airborne alert exercise, I found myself assigned to the second
sortie as aircraft commander with my old Kadena buddy John Davey as
copilot.
The mission was planned to be an eight-hour flight with the full battle
staff working, plus a trailing wire antenna deployment. That was a lot for one
mission, especially the “wire” part: so often that system was balky, and it
often failed.
I’d usually monitor the progress of the trailing wire deployment and
recovery by listening in on the comm crew interphone channel. Typically, the
narration was about the rate of movement out or in, plus the number of feet
the wire was extended.
Often, the verbiage was, “Three thousand to go … two thousand to go …
uh-oh.”
That meant either the cable was jammed or often, the wire—which was
only about as thick as a pinky finger—had snapped, leaving the rest of the
wire and the garbage can-sized drogue to flutter down to the ocean. As it was,
when fully deployed, the drogue and wire drooped up to seven thousand feet
below the tail of the aircraft.
Sometimes, the wire would simply jam and refuse to go in or out. We
couldn’t land with any of the wire extended, so the TWA (Trailing Wire
Antenna) operator simply had to activate the cutter mechanism, then the wire
and drogue would simply fall away. It was an imperfect system.
John and I briefed up the mission, started engines, taxied out and took off
in midafternoon, planning to fly orbits in the restricted area while the comm
and battle staffs did their thing. We also would take on fuel midway through
the mission, demonstrating the endurance potential of the Blue Eagle aircraft.
That meant a long flight mostly on autopilot, for a couple reasons. First,
as I’d found out riding along with Hitler, hand-flying up front meant a
nauseating ride in back. We sometimes used that as punishment for the
backend crew: if the battle staff or the comm team had been a pain in the ass,
we’d linger on the boom, even though we’d completed our fuel onload. Barf
bags were filled in the back, a just punishment, in my mind. Don’t mess with
the cockpit crew.
Second, the workload of keeping the aircraft straight and level for eight
hours was an unreasonable prospect for just two pilots. There were no auto-
throttles either. That alone required a lot of attention to maintain the speed the
navigator needed for a rendezvous as well as a nav leg.
As we levelled off in the restricted airspace, I reached down to engage the
autopilot coupler. Nada. In fact, the roll and pitch access switches refused to
hold. I tried again, once, twice; still nothing.
We scoured the multiple circuit breaker panels at the rear of the cockpit,
looking for a tripped circuit, but found nothing amiss. I sighed. We’d have to
do the entire eight-hour flight the hard way. We took fifteen-minute shifts—
for the entire eight hours.
Our midpoint refueling came after dark on a moonlit night. Ordinarily a
full moon was a bonus, improving visibility. On that night, we flew in and
out of fat cumulus clouds, bouncing around a good bit, and the moon created
an optical illusion appearing then vanishing into the clouds. The effect was
particularly disorienting as we arced through turns at either end of the
refueling track.
At one point, as I hung onto the boom in a turn, John said, “I’ve got
vertigo.”
My answer was, “So do I.”
There was nothing to do but ignore our own innate sense of balance and
up and down, and just hang on until we’d gotten our token fuel onload. Never
mind punishing the backend crew—we just needed to get the assigned gas
then go back to our orbit.
Near the end of our mission, the aircraft scheduled to replace us on
station scrubbed due to maintenance. After barely sixteen hours of airborne
alert, PACAF cancelled the rest of the exercise and declared the mission a
success. And after eight hours with my eyeballs glued to the flight
instruments, I saw them in my sleep for most of the night and I’m sure John
did, too.
Back at the Safety Office, I went about my normal routine, waiting
impatiently for my assigned date and time to call United Airlines Pilot
Recruitment for my interview results. Some days I pictured myself in a
United Airlines pilot uniform, riding a jumbo jet out to the reef runway,
looking down at the Air Force guys doing “let’s pretend” in the noonday sun.
Other days, I worried that Jerry Gerlach might turn out to be right and I’d
be out of the Air Force, pumping gas and washing bugs off windshields at a
full-service gas station, wishing I’d stayed in.
As insurance, I took a few backseat rides in the Hickam T-33 unit, just to
get re-accustomed to the yanking and banking flight environment that would
be part of the T-38 flying, in case that option became a necessity.
The T-33 flying was fun, but I’d obviously been jaded by years of
overwater flight in a four-engine jet with weather radar. As we
cruised out to the restricted military airspace, thunderheads edged our path.
By reflex, I wanted to scan the cloudbank with weather radar, which the T-33
didn’t have. It also had only a single engine, and we were flying out over the
open ocean. That didn’t give me a warm fuzzy. I mentioned the weather to
the guy in the front seat.
“Let me check,” he said over interphone, then reached a gloved hand into
a slot beside his seat. He pulled out a “weather flimsy,” the Xeroxed copy of
an hours-old Base Ops weather shop prediction.
“No worries,” he said, “Nothing in them.”
I was, as Coker would say in his Texas slang, “ruin’t” for overwater flight
by years of multi-engine, radar-equipped aircraft.
The T-33 was a fun little aircraft, reminiscent of the Tweet with a fat,
straight wing, powered by an anemic, antique centrifugal flow jet engine that
during some throttle movements sounded like it was about to explode, which
some did.
The unit existed as a flying club for the colonels and generals at PACAF
headquarters to enjoy and justify their flight pay, and also as intercept targets
for the HANG (Hawaii Air National Guard) fighter squadron to practice
shooting down enemy fighters, as if the Pearl Harbor attack of World War
two was still a potential threat.
The T-33 unit was manned by lieutenants and young captains who liked
to fantasize themselves as macho fighter jocks, even though they were flying
the oldest and slowest jet in the Air Force inventory, with no weapons or
ordinance.
Still, they and their wives were much more fun to socialize with,
especially at “Pau Hana,” as the Friday night happy hour on the Hickam
O’Club lanai was called. “Pau Hana” was reminiscent of the craziness at the
Reese casual bar, with the T-Bird wives dressed to the nines, doing
cartwheels in the bar in their sun dresses, while the stuffy, pretty much
“bulky” ACCS wives looked on with stodgy disapproval.
“Frumpalinas,” was the word used to describe the ACCS wives by Holly
Stava, wife of a T-Bird pilot named Jim. They were our neighbors and good
friends and she was right. Ours was a dour, mostly un-fun bunch.
By regulation, I had to be counseled before leaving the Air Force by my
commander, which ultimately on the wing staff was Tom Meade. Tom didn’t
offer any of the canned, institutional spiel. Instead, he told me he’d
considered getting out at my point in his career, but there wasn’t any real
airline hiring at the time.
Those of his peers who’d gotten out and had been hired as airline pilots
had had mixed experiences. Most were furloughed at least once and many
had waited for years as a flight engineer until attrition allowed them to
upgrade to copilot.
Nonetheless, he told me that he thought an airline career was a great
opportunity and wished me good luck, adding, “Who knows, I may join you
there myself someday.”
It was a Wednesday afternoon, bright and sunny, when I stepped out of
the Flight Safety office to use the pay phone near the front door. I dialed the
toll-free number the United Airlines Pilot Recruitment office had given me to
call for the results of my interview.
This was it, I told myself. The dream job, United Airlines pilot wings and
a career of pure flying could unfold before me with one simple bit of good
news.
The woman who answered the phone asked for my identification number.
I read it off slowly and deliberately.
She confirmed my name and interview date.
“Correct,” I replied.
Static sizzled quietly on the line for a moment, then she spoke.
“You were not a successful candidate.”
Then the line went dead.

Chapter 35
People in the Base Exchange parking lot stared at me, but so what? I
guess they’d never seen an Air Force officer drop his uniform pants, then
strip them off completely. Then the uniform shirt. I didn’t care.
I tossed my uniform shoes into the Goodwill box—no sense wasting them
—then I threw my uniform pants and shirt, minus the pilot wings, which I
saved, into the dumpster.
I put on shorts, a T-shirt and flip flops, then got into my little rental car
and motored off base. That was the inauspicious end of my seven years as an
Air Force pilot.
For me, it was even more than that: for the first time in my life, I was no
longer under the safety umbrella of the Air Force. I’d grown up as an Air
Force brat constantly covered by military medical programs and an income,
first through my dad and eventually, on my own.
I’d walked away from all of that, simply based on the possibility of an
airline pilot job, and my primary opportunity had just blown up in my face.
Still, being out of the Air Force was unsettling but at the same time,
liberating. Yes, I had a wife and precious child to think about but still, I had
faith that with an ATP and over two thousand 707 pilot hours, I could get
hired by some airline. Okay, clearly not United, but there were many other
good opportunities. Somehow, I’d find one.
My family departed Hawaii as soon as we’d moved out of our little two-
bedroom base housing duplex at 101-A Beard Avenue. I’d stay on the island
till my separation date, saving the leave I’d accrued for a cash payout rather
than days off as my separation neared. On the way to join the fam at my in-
laws’ place in Orlando, I’d stop in Fort Worth to complete my Phase 2
interview at the American Airlines Flight Academy.
The main hurdle in Phase Two would be the astronaut physical, but
there was no point in worrying about that. I was in the best physical condition
of my life from running high mileage.
The other challenge, the flight simulator check, was a gimme: the sim
evaluation was done in a -135 simulator. Unlike United’s interview where I’d
been tested in a 767 aircraft I knew absolutely nothing about, at American I’d
be evaluated flying the simulator version of aircraft I’d been flying for the
past six years.
Plus, the flight profile for the simulator evaluation was no secret, having
been passed from pilot to pilot and squadron to squadron in the military
flying community. Just a simple holding entry, climb and descent, an
approach and a go around. Duck soup, as we’d say at VMI.
Finally, there’d be the captain interview before a panel of one or more
American Airlines captains.
After the all-night flight from Honolulu to DFW International Airport in
Fort Worth, I checked into the Amfac Airport Hotel and tried to recover from
the jetlag and the time difference.
Bright and early the next morning, I walked to the Flight Academy shuttle
bus stop on the bottom floor of the airport terminal. Other guys my age in
similar pilot clone suits milled about.
“Ya’ll look like idiots,” Bob Reinaur said as he boarded the shuttle bus
with us. He’d flown for a couple years as a Braniff pilot before that airline
had crashed and burned financially, then had been liquidated in bankruptcy
court. He wore a tan suit, setting himself apart from us. I figured he’d claim a
pilot slot easily, having actual airline experience plus a Navy flight
background. I wondered how many others like him I would be competing
with for a pilot position at American Airlines. I hoped there were enough
positions to go around.
The physical was aggressive and lengthy. I’d never been poked and
prodded so much in my life, which was noteworthy given the years of
intrusive Air Force flight physicals I’d been through.
The worst of it wasn’t the blood work, which was extensive, because for
the past seven years the Air Force had simply taken as much as the wanted
whenever they wanted to. It wasn’t even the doctor spelunking up my ass like
a coal miner for what seemed like a half hour.
For me the part I almost couldn’t endure was the eye pressure
measurement, which was part of the eye exam. The procedure was a
draconian, ancient way to detect latent glaucoma, or at least that’s how they
explained it. To me, it seemed like a “how badly do you want this job” test
even more distasteful than United’s genital fondling.
You had to lie flat on your back on the examining table and after the
doctor administered some “numbing” eyedrops that seemed to do nothing, a
metal disc was laid right on your eyeball. Then it got worse.
The doctor then dropped tiny weights onto the metal disc that laid directly
on the eyeball, supposedly measuring the bounce-back from the surface of
the eyeball, testing the pressure. The process was repeated for the other
eyeball. I could keep neither open for the ordeal, nor could I tolerate the
metal disc laying on my eyeball.
That only prolonged the procedure, because the doctor was determined to
get the test data regardless of the discomfort and distress accruing to the
subject. I actually thought to myself at one point, here’s where I become “not
a successful candidate” at American Airlines because I’d punched the doctor
in the dick then fled the examining room screaming. But he persisted and I
endured the procedure eventually, in both eyes.
In between tests we were given psychological exams on paper to take.
There were several and I suspected their purpose was as much to keep us
quiet in between medical tests as to find out how healthy (or not: one test
constantly offered the opportunity to admit to having “black, tarry stools”)
we were deep down in the dark recesses of the brain pan.
Same thing for the family history form, which went back generations.
That too seemed like busy work, but at least it gave me something to do
between medical tests. I heard one guy despair, “I’m adopted—I don’t have
any of this information.” I felt sorry for him but at the same time, hoped
maybe that gave me some slight advantage in the selection process.
We were herded into a classroom, then tests were passed out. A tape was
played of air traffic control instructions being given, with all sorts of talking
and distractions in the background. We were than asked questions about the
clearance being read amidst the confusion. That test was really no test at all,
after so many years of deciphering oceanic clearances from non-English
speaking air traffic controllers all over Asia and the Far East.
The final assessment was the simulator evaluation, but that, too, was
exactly the type of test I’d taken with Seth Wilcox at the Kadena tanker sim,
or at McClellan with Huge for our regular simulator evaluation. The sim
instructor was a kindly older man who just chuckled after I flew the profile
and said, “Well I guess you’ve done this before.” I took that as a good sign.
Finally, I was ushered into an office for my formal interview with a pair
of American Airlines captains. I’d read up on the American fleet and route
system and memorized the names of key vice presidents and the chief pilot. I
was ready for any questions they might ask.
But the interview itself was just small talk. How had I liked flying in the
Far East? What airlines had I interviewed with? I chatted with them easily
and even imagined how it would be to have such conversations with other
captains in flight, at work, rather than just in an interview.
Finally, one asked me, “What do we need to do to keep you from going
to some other airline?”
I answered immediately, “Hire me—I have a wife and a child and I
need to get to work.”
They both smiled and told me they understood, and that I’d be hearing
from American one way or the other soon.
At the end of the long Phase Two interview day, the Pilot Recruitment
folks thanked us airline pilot wannabes, then urged us to be patient as they
sifted through all of the interview information they’d just collected, which
they warned us, would take time. I could foresee that, especially given the
medical testing. But I knew patience was going to be difficult, given that as
of the end of that month, I’d be unemployed.
I flew to Orlando the next day, hopeful but impatient. My in-laws had
graciously allowed us to stay with them for a long as it took to transition
between careers, a generous offer I really appreciated.
When I arrived, they were out of town on a trip so we had the place to
ourselves. I took my sweet baby girl on many bike rides, just killing time.
She’d often fall asleep strapped in the bike seat, which was fine. I added the
daily bike miles to a growing logbook of running miles. Both helped me keep
my sanity while waiting to hear from American Airlines.
My older brother drove up from Boca Raton and we drank gallons of beer
watching the Wimbledon finals on TV, and ran many road miles as well.
I sent out another wave of applications, to Northwest, Western, TWA and
Pan Am. I also took the civil service exam and applied to be a postal worker,
noting that my prior military service would bump me up in the hiring pool. I
even applied at Martin-Marietta Aerospace Corporation, my father-in-law’s
employer, hoping for any type of office work. If all else failed, I could get
some type of work at Disney.
We talked about getting ourselves a small apartment, eventually, if we
didn’t hear from American soon. My in-laws were patient with us and really
enjoyed having their granddaughter with them, but I didn’t want to be a
burden.
It had only been three weeks since I left the Air Force, but in the silence
of unemployment, I wasn’t happy. I ran even more miles and my daughter
and I put in endless, wandering bike miles. And I kept my father-in-law’s
lawn meticulously groomed and the shrubs manicured, just to feel productive.
Then one brooding, rainy summer day, a business envelope with an
American Airlines logo appeared in the daily mail. I shifted it from hand to
hand, wondering why it was so light. A rejection letter would be light,
wouldn’t it? If I was hired, wouldn’t this be a larger envelope stuffed with
paperwork?
I almost couldn’t bear to open it, because my dream was alive until I’d
been formally rejected. I wanted to savor the possibility rather than face a
disappointing reality.
I took a deep breath and carefully opened the envelope then unfolded the
letter.
Beneath the American Airlines letterhead and greeting, I read the words,
“Congratulations—you are assigned to newhire pilot class 105 …”
The dream, at long last, was coming true.

Chapter 36
I glanced at Hosehead across the classroom. He shook his head slightly. I
gave him a discreet thumbs up. That was our system in ground school class:
Dutch Schultz, the ground school instructor for newhire class -105, was
explaining some obscure details of the Boeing 727 electrical system, and
John “Hosehead” Lowry and I were separating the important stuff from the
needless details.
John was my roommate at the American Airlines flight training
apartments. I’d met him on our day one indoctrination and marked him as a
smart, sensible guy. He’d flown civilian cargo planes and most recently had
been an air traffic controller in the LaGuardia Airport tower.
Dutch was a good old boy, a retired senior enlisted guy who we were very
lucky to have drawn as our instructor. There were five of us in class 105:
Jack, a late-thirty-something former Navy pilot, me, Kirb, John, Kook, and
James-not-Jim. That was our seniority order, based on our ages.
John became “Hosehead,” a nickname derived from the Mackenzie
Brothers comedy team, which we both were fans of. James became “James-
not-Jim” and eventually just “JnJ” on day one because during introductions,
he set a few of us straight. I introduced myself as we waited for the
shuttle bus to the American Airlines Flight Academy for indoctrination.
“I’m Chris,” I said, extending my hand.
“James,” he said, then shook my hand.
“Pleased to meet you Jim.”
He smiled. “James—not Jim.”
Others received the same correction, and so the nickname was
determined: James-not-Jim. James was in a USAF Reserve cargo jet
squadron. Kirb had flown all civilian commuters, and the Kook had flown
corporate jets. Jack was ex-Navy.
The Flight Engineer course started with ground school, which was a
combination of instructor-led classes covering aircraft systems, and multi-
media, interactive and self-paced audio-visual presentations. The two-
pronged approach worked hand-in-hand to reinforce our systems learning:
partly self-paced individual learning, partly expert instructor-led classroom
discussion.
The classroom environment was constructive and always positive. If
someone offered an answer to an instructor’s question wasn’t quite right,
Dutch would say simply, “I’ve got a little problem with that,” then he’d
explain the answer he was looking for. We worked through the 727 system
by system, from hydraulics to electrics, pneumatics, flight controls, fuel
systems and more.
I felt a little bit of an advantage having come from a Boeing aircraft
background. The 727 and the -135 were radically different, but the
engineering and systems design shared a basic commonality: generators,
volts, frequencies, AC and DC power distribution and function were much
the same. The hydraulic systems and accumulators were similar, right down
to the operating pressures. Ditto the fuel system, using the same pumps,
check valves and distribution methodology. The air conditioning and
pressurization systems were virtually identical, with one important bonus: the
727, like all airliners, had two air conditioning packs. That meant an
upgraded comfort level for passengers and crew. No more broiling-hot
cockpits during spring and summer flying.
Most of this systems information was new to the other guys who’d
never flown Boeing aircraft. But for me, the 727 ground school was mostly a
matter of sorting the surface-level differences and realigning my process-
thinking to match the airline’s operational methods.
Our seniority numbers were set in stone and from that point forward,
there was no competition between us, unlike in the military. Our training
records at the Flight Academy would contain only records of training
objectives completed—that’s it. There’d be no commander’s evaluation of
leadership potential, no sucking up to attain that evaluation; no competition
for a squadron position based on some rank-ordering subject to subjective
bias and ass-kissing. No one was going to get a better assignment, aircraft
position upgrade or even a “promotion-ready” job based on politics or
schmooze and golf handicap. Any and all advancement would be based
simply on seniority.
American was starting a newhire class twice a week, so things were
moving fast. In fact, Animal Hauser had been a flight engineer for barely a
year and he was already back at the “Schoolhouse,” as pilots referred to the
Flight Academy, for 727 First Officer (copilot) upgrade.
The Schoolhouse and training programs were relaxed, comfortable and
gentlemanly, with civilized hours and a pattern of three days of classroom
instruction followed by two days off. That mimicked a basic airline pilot
flight schedule: you could expect to fly a three-day trip, then have two or
three days off.
Everyone dressed casually and discussions were friendly. There was no
competition between classes, with advancement linked only to seniority, so
cross-talk with classes both ahead of and behind us helped everyone prepare
for the ultimate goal of ground school: pass an oral exam with an evaluator
and move on to the simulator training.
Ground school classrooms contained “paper trainers,” which were
detailed mockups of the cockpit positions being studied which, in our case,
was the flight engineer’s station. There were also interactive system
schematics depicting, for example, hydraulic systems, including pumps,
valves and switches. Same for the electrical, pneumatic and fuel systems.
When you touched a component on the large, illuminated schematic, animate
valves moved and fluids coursed through components. Being a visual learner
myself, these training aids reinforced the other learning tools in the classroom
and individual study carrels.
My day consisted of mostly self-study with the “Plato” audio-visual
systems in a study carrel. I’d grab a stout cup of java, put on a headset and
start the program. The interactive aspect was my responses on the touch
screen that moved valves and switches on the schematic displayed on the
screen. Then there were questions to answer correctly before the program
moved on. All of the training presentations were narrated by Jock Bethune, a
man respected by all, which was like having an old friend explaining aircraft
systems to you.
Those lesson programs were coordinated with the classroom discussion
schedule of instruction Dutch would drive home in class, a double-headed
reinforcement of the systems knowledge we’d need to pass our oral exams.
After individual preparation with Plato, I was ready for Dutch’s methodical
and thorough classroom instruction.
Sometimes, the explanations went a little overboard, which is why
Hosehead and I developed our cross-classroom screening technique. Was this
discussion item likely to be part of the oral? If not, we simply tuned out. If so,
it went into our study notes. Classroom discussion often went beyond that
threshold for a couple reasons. First, the instructors knew the aircraft down
practically to the nut and bolt level. There was sort of an informal
competition between ground school instructors to out-trivia each other.
In the middle of one systems class, another instructor poked his head into
our classroom and asked Dutch, “I bet you don’t know which switch on the
overhead panel is the only one on the aircraft that moves forward when ‘on,’
do you?”
The ground school instructors would teach you how to build a 727 if you
asked, and some of the in-class questions were more toward such miniscule
details. Then the actual learning objectives would be put on hold while the
instructors examined exactly how a hydraulic accumulator metered fluid
pressure or what solenoid moved which backflow check valve. That type of
useless minutiae would get a head shake from both of us, although some
newhires struggled to memorize anything and everything they heard in class.
The second factor is pilots themselves and their nature. Discussions often
veered from “whys” to “back on my old aircraft,” both of which were totally
useless. Worse what the dreaded “what if:” what if the inverter fails but the
master caution loses AC power so the blah blah blah …” That reminded me
of Catholic school as a kid, where the priest fielded equally complicated,
loaded questions from the kids like, “What if it’s a holy day but you’re
stranded on a desert island with only beef jerky to eat so is it a mortal sin to
…” Just as in those days, I’d tune out, annoyed at whoever was wasting all of
our time with pointless questions.
But pilots are just that way, insisting on minute, obscure systems
explanations to memorize. I didn’t care “how” or even why a DC inverter
created AC power—I just needed to know that it did.
After class and Plato sessions, we’d pile onto a shuttle bus and head back
to the training hotel nicknamed the Cibola for dinner, maybe a couple beers,
then more systems review. We had aircraft manuals and schematics to pore
over, then sleep.
So, John and I would compare notes to be sure of what in the day’s
draught from the aircraft systems firehose actually mattered and what was
just a worthless trip down the pilot rabbit hole of “interesting but useless
facts.” I’d typically see Jack and a couple of the others poring over
schematics, looking puzzled, probably trying to remember anything and
everything. We focused on what mattered for the oral exam, period.
Mostly though, Dutch methodically worked us through all the systems
and basic checklist procedures for a 727 Flight Engineer preflight. Every day
started with “a cold, dead aircraft.”
“Comfort and coffee,” he’d begin, meaning, start the Auxiliary Power
Unit (APU), get the air conditioning packs going for temperature control
before the flight attendants board, and supply electrical power to the galley to
make coffee. Then through all the systems tests at the flight engineer’s panel,
up front through the captain’s then the FO’s (First Officer) station, then
outside for the exterior walkaround check.
We were scheduled for some very early cockpit familiarization before
actual sim training started for the day. That let us see and feel the actual
environment represented by the classroom paper trainers.
Sometimes for lunch, instead of grabbing a quick burger at the Flight
Academy cafeteria, we’d walk across the street to “The Charm Farm,” as the
flight attendant Learning Center training facility was nicknamed. That was a
dazzling fashion show of beautiful young women training to be flight
attendants. Hiring pilots was only part of the growing airline expansion at
American. They were hiring even more flight attendants and The Charm
Farm acquired the additional nickname “Barbie Boot Camp” as newhire
flight attendants poured into the facility.
The flight attendants were largely a very versatile group, confident,
poised, and capable of handling any situation, which was exactly their job
description in flight, and why they’d made it through the extensive screening
process to get hired.
Kook was the only bachelor among us and his eyes went wide just
looking around the Charm Farm cafeteria. I reluctantly had to admit that for
me, this was like Pau Hana back in Hawaii. The flight attendants were the
colorful, bold-personality T-Bird wives, while the rest of the women we were
with were, well, frumpalinas by comparison. But I put that thought out of my
mind, realizing that for me and most of my slobby, know-it-all pilot
colleagues with bad haircuts, rumpled, out of style clothes and clumsy social
skills, the gorgeous sky goddesses were way out of our league anyway.
Early one morning, nearly a month later, I sat at a table surrounded by
paper trainers, in front of Ron Cruitt, a 727 Flight Engineer check airman, the
airline equivalent of a Stan Eval pilot giving an oral exam in the Air Force.
With a pointer, Ron calmly, quietly pointed to various controls and system
displays asking predictable, fundamental questions to which I gave equally
predictable and correct answers. There was no rabbit hole of little known and
useless trivia, confirming the study methods Hosehead and I had developed. I
felt confident going forward into the simulator training that I’d do just fine.
We’d kept an eye on the base assignments handed down to the classes
ahead of us, trying to deduce where we might get sent. Of course Hosehead
wanted LaGuardia, his home, but none of the rest of us wanted to move to
that high-cost area on our rock-bottom probationary pilot pay. Jack wanted
Washington DC, where he lived, and I figured that would be okay with me
too, bringing me back to Virginia.
A couple classes had been sent to the San Francisco crew base, and a
few to the Chicago base. But most ended up going to LGA (LaGuardia)
because of the revolving door of seniority. That was, as soon as a pilot base
vacancy elsewhere opened up, it was filled based on system seniority. The
bottom pilots at LaGuardia were senior to us so when a more preferable base
opening was announced—like DFW—they claimed it.
In fact, I never saw any newhire get assigned to DFW because all of the
pilot vacancies were claimed by more senior pilots already on the line. So, I
ranked my three base preferences in this order: DFW, DCA (Washington),
then ORD (Chicago).
Ultimately, Hosehead and Jack got their choices of LaGuardia and
DCA, while the rest of us were assigned to Chicago. Well, fine, I decided.
We could deal with Chicago and in fact, Benny was already up there, living
in Elmhurst just north of O’Hare and seeming to really love it there.
We were required to take a familiarization flight in the cockpit to observe
both the flight engineer and a typical flight operation. I could hardly wait and
once seated on the actual cockpit jumpseat, I felt elated. This was it, the real
deal, my new career. I couldn’t believe that at long last, I was allowed into an
airliner cockpit on a passenger flight.
The captain and first officer were quiet but amiable. The whole
environment was laid back and friendly. At one point during boarding, a
cute-as-a-button young flight attendant stepped into the cockpit and
introduced herself to the pilots. She added after cursory hellos, “I turned
twenty-five today, if y’all want to help me celebrate at the hotel bar tonight.”
The captain smiled and waved, then after she’d returned to the cabin, he
turned to the first officer and said, “What am I supposed to do, adopt her?”
They both laughed.
The simulator schedule was a little more grueling because we were at
the bottom end of the pilot seniority list, so we were scheduled at the times
the more senior pilots didn’t like, such as pre-dawn or late nights. I didn’t
care. I was all about listening and learning in the same mode as I had done
successfully in the ground school phase: is this important to the checkride?
I was never a simulator fan, even though I learned a lot, especially at the
Flight Academy. I was a hands-on, aircraft pilot, and to me the simulator had
always been just a necessary evil, a bit of drudgery that was payback for the
privilege of actual flight.
The simulator instructors, called “Sim-Ps,” were not actually pilots or
flight engineers but rather, they were schoolhouse staffers who knew their
jobs thoroughly and were for the most part excellent teachers. But there was
still the same rabbit hole trap to go down with them as with the ground school
instructors. If someone in the cockpit or briefing room opened Pandora’s box
with a “why does the ____ do ____ instead of ___,” the schematics would
come out and engineering argot would natter and flow and waste my time, I
figured, but there was nothing to be done about that. Pilots loved minutiae
and better yet, some secret technical knowledge other pilots didn’t know.
I cared only about successfully completing the required flight engineer
rating. In my mind I snapped back to Chip’s good advice at Reese: “Cram
those little BBs into your head, remember them for the evaluation, then you
can let them all fall out of your head and onto the floor.”
The sim training was efficient, but skewed by the typical pilot yearning
for useless in-depth “gee whiz” information. Sure, I memorized the acronyms
for systems failures, like “Break in upstairs every afternoon:” the first letter
of each word was a mnemonic hint at the components lost if one hydraulic
system failed: “Brakes, Inboard spoilers, Upper rudder power, Elevator, and
Aileron boost, Yaw dampers.”
But the reality was, if either hydraulic system failed, the captain would
tell me to pull out the aircraft manual and read off what systems we’d lost.
Not recite the list from memory, which wasn’t a very smart idea when the
actual manual was at our fingertips on board. But that was typical of pilot
world: we have to test you on something. I played the game, memorized the
mnemonics, crammed the BBs into my head, then after the simulator check,
I'd let all the little BBs pour out of my ears and scatter all over the floor.
With the excellent Schoolhouse preparation, the checkride was
straightforward and though thorough, it seemed like a breeze. I’d done fine
and that left only one more requirement before claiming my flight engineer
qualification. That was the actual aircraft exterior inspection conducted by an
actual flight engineer.
As soon as Hosehead finished his simulator check, we took the next
shuttle bus back to the Cibola. We iced down a case of beer and sat around
the pool drinking and celebrating our completion of the 727 flight engineer
course from about nine in the morning until the early evening.
That was a mistake.
The next morning, I was near death with the worst hangover I’d ever had
in my adult life.
“C’mon,” Hosehead urged me at dawn, “We’ve got to catch the shuttle
for the walk-around.”
He seemed less wounded than I was, and I barely made it to the hangar
with the others, fighting both nausea and the urge to drop dead. We traipsed
through the interior and the exterior of the hangered jet, an effort that was for
me my trying than any of the 26.2-mile marathons I’d ever run.
Back inside the aircraft, the check airman took us to the viewports for the
main landing gear embedded in the cabin floor. He pulled off the covers.
“Okay, everyone takes a turn looking through the viewport at the gear
alignment stripes.”
There was no power on the aircraft, so there was no air circulation and the
just was stale and musty-smelling. My guts revolted. There was no way I
could get down on my hands and knees and put my face on the floor without
one end or the other exploding. I figured I’d just do the old squadron dodge
Keth and I used at Hickam when they’d lined us all up for some misguided
inoculation for anthrax or worse. We simply slipped behind the screened-off
inoculation area, then reappeared on the far side with our sleeves rolled up,
rubbing our “sore” arms.
But the check airman was having none of that.
“Go ahead,” he told me after everyone else had taken their turn, “Get on
down there.”
I nearly passed out and never saw the alignment stripes or even the fat
landing gear below. Hosehead helped me up afterward, laughing.
We all said our goodbyes, then headed for the DFW Airport to catch
flights home.
I was headed back to Orlando to pack up the family and drive to
Chicago and report in to my pilot crew base.
I could hardly wait for real airline crew life to begin.

Chapter 37
I fidgeted on a plastic chair, one of the many that lined the big, dirty
windows in O’Hare Flight Ops. The view out the window was a dull gray
Chicago sky atop a panorama of silver American Airlines jets parked at gates
for as far as the eye could see.
Most of the chairs were occupied by stand-by flight attendants, assigned
to sit in Ops most of the day, waiting to be called out for a flight, or even just
to board an aircraft for a shorthanded crew. It was a little bit like a homeless
village for fashion models as each flight attendant, whether on standby or just
waiting out a break between flights, set up camp with a seat to sit on, one to
prop their feet on, and one to pile an overcoat and the always yawning-wide
tote bag brimming with magazines and assorted snacks.
The rest of the bustling room was dominated by long Formica counters
topped with computers and printers where pilot crews met and discussed
flight plans and enroute weather, and all crew members, pilots and flight
attendants alike, signed in for their trips and printed their schedules and trip
itineraries.
The whitewashed wall opposite the windows was lined with floor to
ceiling metal shelves crammed with pilot kitbags and other luggage items
stored there by crews. The place was a beehive of activity between the
morning and afternoon “push,” as each bank of departures was termed.
I’d gotten a glimpse of the United Flight Crew Operations at O’Hare
while passing through the airport during my Air Force career. I’d been
envious of the crews, pilots and flight attendants, chatting, laughing, on their
way to a purely inflight workday, work week, career. And yet there I was, a
few years later, in the thick of it myself. I smiled.
There were many beautiful young flight attendants in the reserve
encampment waiting around and I admired them and their pluck: our
probation pay was low, but theirs was ridiculous. Still, they’d pack their bags
at the Charm Farm and head off to high-cost areas like New York or Los
Angeles or even Chicago. They’d band together and rent a one- or two-
bedroom apartment downtown and split the rent four or five ways and
somehow just make do.
A guy about my age in a coat and tie poked his head out the door of the
Chief Pilot’s office and scanned the room.
“New engineers,” he called out a couple times. Several of us stood up
from seats in the homeless camp lining the windows. I followed the group of
guys in very new navy-blue pilot uniforms into the office.
Nate Bockrader was the man in the coat and tie. He’d been a flight
engineer for only a couple years himself and had been added to the Chief
Pilot’s office staff to help manage the office support for the many new
engineers transferring into the crew base. I’d heard of opportunities like that,
both at crew bases and the Schoolhouse, where you flew a little but spent
most of the time in an office doing administrative tasks. In fact, Dorf was
doing that at DFW. Why anyone would choose that was beyond me, having
just gone to such great lengths to get out of an Air Force career of exactly
that: less flying, more desk job. I was strictly about flying and I couldn’t
fathom doing anything else.
My career track would be, I hoped, the basic line crew lifestyle: you
“signed in” at a computer not later than one hour before the scheduled
pushback time for your flight, and fifteen minutes after the brakes were
parked after the last flight segment of the trip, you were done. There was no
“face time” like in the Air Force where you had to hang around the squadron,
acting like you were doing something meaningful, in order to get promoted.
At an airline, they didn’t need or even want to see your ugly face around
because they’d have to pay you your hourly rate for the privilege of having
your mug on the property.
The airline crew work life was an anachronism, a weird profession where
the first thing everyone did upon arriving at work was to scatter to the four
winds within the first hour. No office, no desk, no boss—just go.
So, a line-swine crew pilot simply showed up on time for the flight, then
skedaddled home after the engine shutdown checklist was completed. Flying,
period, which was my dream job.
“Okay,” Nate said. “We’re going into the conference room where you’ll
meet Dave Temples, our Chief Pilot, and he’ll present you with your wings.”
How long I’d waited for that moment. I’d completed my IOE (Initial
Operating Experience), a three-day trip with a Check Engineer looking over
my shoulder to be sure everything went smoothly.
My Check Engineer had been Sean Riley, one of Coker’s Air Force
Reserve squadron buddies. He instantly made me feel at ease, which was
typical of the training and evaluation pilots at American: theirs was a service
mission, helping keep the airline’s professional standards high, rather than a
police force administering heavy-handed oversight.
Our first layover had been in downtown Tulsa, in a high-rise hotel. No
sharing a room with the navigator, and an upscale hotel where most of the
night a thunderstorm crashed and boomed through the empty downtown
canyon of steel and glass.
I loved it, the whole idea that all I had to do was fly a couple point to
point, simple flights, then a van would take us to a pre-arranged hotel room.
What a laid back, easy work life, with easygoing, friendly crews both in the
cockpit and the cabin.
In fact, the whole airline operation was about a collaborative, constructive
professional environment. There was no competition between pilots, thanks
to the seniority-based system of scheduling, assignments, and upgrade to a
new aircraft and crew position. The priority was—and this was hammered
into our heads—a safe flight operation.
A handful of new hires like me crowded around a small conference table
and sat down. Then, Captain Temples, the Chicago base chief pilot, swept
into the room with a handful of little plastic bags containing silver pilots’
wings. He looked like somebody’s favorite uncle, a bit portly, smiling,
friendly and wearing a coat and tie. He handed each of us in turn a pair of
wings.
“You are all American Airlines pilots now,” he said. “Remember that
people will look at you differently in the terminal …”
He went on to point out that we represented the entire airline at all times
in uniform and that we’d have to be careful, especially on duty, to behave in a
manner that always reflected favorably on the airline.
I may have tuned out a bit as I attached the wings to my uniform jacket
and admired them. They had the basic double- “A” logo and eagle in the
middle, then two jet-like wings on either side. In my mind’s eye I envisioned
my United Airlines “Future Pilot” wings I’d received as a nine-year-old
flying out of Buffalo and how I’d cherished them—plus a set from Northwest
and Delta as well—with so much hope for the future. And now here it was,
for real, my actual airline pilot wings.
“Now remember always,” Dave wrapped up his remarks, “Our priorities
are, in order, safety, passenger comfort, and schedule. Don’t forget.”
That was the flight operations mantra repeated over and over at American
Airlines: safety came first, before any other operational consideration. Then,
passenger comfort, which might mean a longer route and a higher fuel burn
to avoid choppy air and stormy weather, because we wanted our passengers
to have a smooth ride.
Finally, we’d keep the schedule as best we could, but only if that was the
safest and most comfortable thing for the passengers. Maintenance, weather
or other extraneous problems were resolved first, even if that meant delays or
more expense. Safety and comfort came first and second before schedule at
American Airlines.
Our union reps told us much the same thing and reminded us that we
needed to avoid situations like being late or performing poorly because there
was only so much the union could do for us if we screwed up during our
probationary year. I signed up immediately for union membership, even on
probation, if only for the safety net of services and programs they offered.
Clearly, I decided, I’d need and want union backing my whole career, so why
wait?
While at the airport I rented a pager and just like that, I was on reserve as
a flight engineer. If another flight engineer called in sick, or maybe
misconnected on an inbound flight, or any of a half dozen other scheduling
contingencies occurred, I’d get called by crew scheduling and offered the
trip.
Reserve was a game you had to get good at. Yes, you were allowed to
“pass” a trip, but if no one else wanted it, the assignment was given to
whoever had the lowest flight time that month. So you couldn’t just flat out
pass on everything without running the risk of being “low man” in terms of
monthly flying time, in which case you’d get whatever dog trip other pilots
with more flight time were able to pass.
I also didn’t feel comfortable just not flying because of proficiency. I was
a new guy, new to the job and despite the Schoolhouse and simulator
training, the actual line flying had a lot of variables and demands no one
could teach you in a simulator or even on a quick three-day orientation trip as
I’d just done with Sean.
But I balanced that requirement with the need to be home, such as it was.
We’d found a very small, furnished apartment in Schaumberg just west of the
airport and settled in with our lively, wonderful one-year old daughter. I
wanted to be there as she grew up and so despite the benefits of the Air
National Guard that Benny had told me about, I didn’t even try to get a pilot
job there. Benny was making extra pay flying with the O’Hare tanker unit,
but that also meant more days away from home. I hadn’t gone to all the
trouble of getting out of the Air Force just to get back in.
I flew a trip or two, and became a little more confident and proficient as
an engineer. On days off, we sometimes visited family, both my sister in a
northern suburb, and some fun and friendly aunts- and uncles-in-law to the
south. Also, JnJ and his wife and son were in the same apartment complex, so
we got together now and then, discussing strategies for reserve flying and
most importantly, how to get a transfer out of O’Hare and into DFW.
I called the American Airline’s pilot planning honcho and seer of pilot
staffing, Roy Everett, and asked for a glimpse of the future and the possibility
of a base transfer to DFW. He told me it’d be a couple months before a 727
engineer position opened up at DFW, but he offered a suggestion that could
sidestep that wait: put in a bid for DC-10 international flight engineer, and
you just might get it immediately, he said.
Kook was also up in Chicago and hell bent to get to a copilot seat as
quickly as possible, so the DC-10 engineer’s job didn’t appeal to him. James
not Jim was ambivalent, but actually, since I was senior to them both, I’d get
first choice on the bid if only one came down.
A “lateral” bid—from one position to the same on another aircraft—came
with a twelve-month lock-in: if you took the bid, you were locked into it for a
year and couldn’t transfer to another base or pilot position during that period.
Kook wouldn’t hear of that, but I wasn’t in such a rush to get into the
copilot’s seat. The union guys had told us that as an engineer, it was pretty
hard to get into any trouble, since you weren’t actually flying the plane. We
were not likely to get a copilot bid for a year anyway, so the lock-in wasn’t a
big deal to me.
Plus, I looked up the pay rate for DC-10 engineer and was surprised to
discover that it was significantly higher than an MD-80 copilot’s pay rate,
especially with the international pay override. I put in my bid for DC-10
international engineer immediately.
Daylight grew short and the weather cold and dreary, especially compared
to Hawaii, but I still managed a decent amount of running mileage, adding
more clothing layers as the temperature dropped. Eventually, I’d wear nearly
every piece of running gear I owned, then run in the snow and ice as I’d done
in Alaska and Buffalo. As soon as I got back inside our tiny apartment, I’d
jumped into the bathtub to strip off the outer layers before the snow and ice
crust melted all over the floor.
I’d managed to dodge any flying on Thanksgiving, but I got tagged for a
Christmas trip. While my fam shared Christmas in Chicago with aunts and
uncles, I’d fly to Omaha on Christmas Eve, then Des Moines on Christmas
Day. I wouldn’t get back to Schaumberg unto the twenty-sixth, but I was
buoyed by the good news that our Chicago days were coming to an end very
soon: I’d been awarded a bid as DC-10 flight engineer at the DFW crew base
effective January first.
On Christmas Eve, we flew out of a freezing O’Hare and into an even
colder, or so it felt on my exterior preflight, Harrisburg Pennsylvania Airport.
During passenger boarding, a woman struggled with bags and a toddler in the
forward entry door area. The kid wasn’t happy, which made the woman’s
struggle even more difficult.
“Look, there’s the pilots,” she said, pointing a finger our way.
“C’mon in,” I said, playing the friendly pilot, “Have a look.” The kid was
wary, but at least he’d quieted down.
“Do you want to sit in the pilot’s lap?” she asked the boy. He shook his
head no, but before I could say anything, she plopped him into my lap. He
started screaming immediately, so after a tired sigh, she snatched him up and
hauled him down the aisle to their assigned seats. But, in the ten seconds he’d
been on my lap, he’d wet his pants. My right thigh was warm and damp.
I did the best I could to decontaminate my pants and leg in the forward
lav, scouring with a fistful of oxygen mask sanitizer wipes, but there was
only so much I could do. Welcome to the airline pilot world.
That night we joined several other crews from assorted airlines in an
Omaha Red Lion meeting room to play board games, have a few drinks, and
try to not act like we felt bad about flying over Christmas. The hotel was
largely deserted, and we were the junior of the junior crews, stuck with the
flight schedule no one else wanted. Still, there was a camaraderie that made
things bearable. Airline pilots and flight attendants were all the same, no
matter what airline uniform the wore—peed-on pants leg included—and we
all made the best of it.
The flying part was really simple, at least from the engineer’s panel.
There were only a few rote procedures to do, minor things like switching
bleed air sources passing through transition altitude and calling out whatever
checklist items were associated with a certain phase of flight, then the guys
up front would give the proper responses.
Since I was a newhire, one of the first questions asked of me by the
captain and first officer was, “So, what’s your seniority number?”
“Forty-eight-thirty-eight,” I’d answer truthfully. Meaning on the pecking
order of the airline’s pilot list that started with the most senior pilot, Walt
Estridge, who was number one, I was tail end Charlie, or nearly so, at the
rock-bottom end of the seniority list. I didn’t care and in fact, I was elated to
be one the list and moving my way up just like every other pilot on the airline
property.
Everything was very laid back with the pilots seemingly motivated to
do everything professionally and at the same time, without useless theatrics
or drama, something that often made Air Force flying a pain in the rear with
certain aircraft commanders, but a pleasure with others like Huge or Bob
Howard. The overriding theme seemed to be “just do it right, and don’t make
a fuss about it.” That hearkened back to Brian Bunda’s flight crew basics,
“Don’t fly at night, don’t fly in the weather, and don’t fuck with the red-
guarded switches.” We flew a lot in bad weather, easily and capably, and
often at night. But the standard was, professional and calm—and I loved it.
Even so, there was a subtext of innocuous disrespect for the Chief Pilot of
the airline, a short, often pompous captain referred to as “Tattoo,” a nickname
borrowed from a character—a midget—from a popular television series. One
prominent switch on the engineer’s panel had a position marked “Off not
normal,” and every 727 aircraft in our fleet had a penciled “H” in front the
word “off” in homage to Tattoo, whose actual surname was Hof.
The next night we spent in a frigid, dark, snowy, windblown Des
Moines Holiday Inn out in the middle of nowhere. Larry McPhail, the
captain, had an awful cold so he slam-clicked, meaning after we checked in,
he slammed his hotel room door and clicked the lock, not to be seen again
until morning. The FO and I borrowed the bartender’s car and managed to
bring a mostly cold Denny’s carryout back to the hotel to eat in the drafty,
deserted lobby. Welcome to the glamorous airline life.
I flew one more 727 engineer trip out of O’Hare, arriving back at the
airport on New Year’s morning. My wife and daughter picked me up from
the airport with the car fully packed with what few belongings we’d brought
to Schaumberg.
I stripped off my tie, pulled on a sweater, and climbed behind the wheel.
We headed south for DFW.

Chapter 38
“Okay,” my sim instructor told me. “This …” he pointed to a gage on the
DC-10 simulator’s flight engineer panel, “Doesn’t exist on American Airlines
airplanes.”
I nodded, beginning to lose track of the non-standard configuration of the
engineer’s station on an aircraft I was unfamiliar with anyway.
“And this,” he pointed at another system, “Is broken. Not sure when they
plan to fix it.”
And so it went in the leased simulator down in Miami where American
had sent us for the first weeks of sim training. The Schoolhouse was bursting
at the seams with training because of the rapid expansion of new routes,
aircraft, and pilots. So they’d leased a DC-10 simulator from another airline
and sent two engineer transition guys—me, plus a former 727 engineer from
the LAX (Los Angeles) crew base, a DC-10 engineer sim instructor, plus an
upgrading FO (First Officer) and captain with their sim instructor down to the
non-standard and mostly broken rented simulator on the Miami International
Airport property.
We’d start out with a briefing period that covered the transition syllabus
learning objectives our instructors planned to accomplish during the sim
period, followed by a laundry list of dissimilarities between the our American
fleet of DC-10s and the configuration of the leased DC-10 simulator.
Then once inside and underway, we’d work around broken simulator
components, balky electrical and hydraulic motion systems and eventually, so
many sim component failures that by halfway through the scheduled session,
both instructors would throw up their hands and we’d all bail out then head
for the hotel and the poolside bar.
My partner was also a newhire who’d left the Air Force a couple years
earlier but he’d had no luck finding an airline job—just what I’d been
worried about myself during those same years—and had worked as an
engineer for Boeing until American had hired him six months ago. We’d all
hoped and prayed the hiring would continue, and it seemed to be, with a new
class starting every week. Hosehead and I had only hoped we could get at
least five hundred pilots below us on the seniority list as a buffer between us
and the inevitable furlough that happened every downturn in the airline biz,
and we already had nearly a hundred and fifty.
The DC-10 engineer ground school had been easy and very slow-paced. I
thought that might be because most of the engineers senior enough to hold
the DC-10, at least before the big hiring boom that had started the previous
year, were in their late fifties or early sixties. The course completion rate
would definitely be higher for guys my grandfather’s age with a slower pace,
and it really was.
I liked what I’d seen of the DC-10 systems so far, but the engineering
didn’t appear to me to be as thorough and substantial as the Boeing jets and
systems I’d been accustomed to in the Air Force. The design and production
seemed like it had been rushed, with maybe a little less thought going into
some of the design of the systems.
For example, the DC-10 tail-mounted engine was much higher above the
other two engines than in any other tri-jet airliner design. The intake for the
tail-mounted engine on the 727 was above the fuselage, but the intake air was
directed through an s-shaped “schwantz duct” down to the middle engine,
keeping it on the same level as the other two engines.
The leading competitor of the DC-10 was the Lockheed L-1011 Tri-
Star, and its tail engine was also mounted much lower, actually low enough
to suction-feed if an electrical failure killed the fuel boost pumps in the
wings. Not the DC-10. If you lost all electrical power, you would lose the
middle engine as well. That was not a very smart design.
The electrical system was balky, often suffering partial failures. “Weird-
trons,” weird electrons, other engineers and pilots told me, plagued the DC-
10: one minute a system would work, the next it would quit. They’d pull and
reset the circuit breakers and for no good reason, the system would come
back to life.
The engineer’s job was simple and easy: you just monitored the mostly
automated fuel, electrical and environmental control systems. Practically
everything functioned automatically so the flight engineer had little to do but
“deadhead between crew meals,” as the saying went. That seemed to me like
a smart, low-risk way to finish the last half of my probationary year.
Between each three-day sim schedule, we’d fly back to DFW for two
days off. We’d bought a small starter home— “probation house” was the
common term—with three bedrooms and a good-sized family room that
opened into the kitchen. We worked to get that furnished and settled and
prepared for the arrival of our second child, a son, that summer.
The crew and I did our last set of simulators and the checkride itself back
at the Schoolhouse in Fort Worth. The evaluation was very straightforward,
because there really wasn’t much to do as flight engineer, or “Tengineer,” as
we were sometimes called. I passed easily.
Instantly, I was the most junior DC-10 flight engineer at DFW, which had
one immediate, less-than-desirable side effect: the LGA crew base was short
of DC-10 engineers, so the airline manning staff offered a TDY (Temporary
Duty) assignment for the month from DFW to LGA. Nobody wanted that, at
least not the old guys on the DFW DC-10 engineer seniority list, which
meant that it was assigned to the junior guy—me.
I wouldn’t actually be line qualified as an engineer until I’d had my IOE
(Initial Operating Experience), a three-day line trip supervised by an
Engineer Check Airman. I pointed that out to the base planners. Just go up
there, they said, and we’ll get you a check airman right away.
If I hadn’t been on probation, I’d have said, no, I’m not going to sit in a
hotel near LaGuardia and wait for you to find a Check Airman. But I was on
probation. So, I did as I was told. I deadheaded up to LaGarbage, as we
referred to the LGA base, although Hosehead would always add, “It’s
heaven.”
A Fugazi Limo Company Lincoln waited for me outside the back door to
“Heaven” Flight Operations and we set off from Queens for Manhattan. The
concrete and chrome canyon that is Times Square caught me by surprise as
the chartered Town Car worked its way crosstown toward the Milford Plaza,
my hotel home for the next month. I shared the back seat with a Chicago-
based DC-10 FO who’d also been assigned to LGA temporarily like me.
I’d only seen pictures of downtown Manhattan, which didn’t do it
justice, especially at night when the lights seemed impossibly ablaze and the
blackness above like the infinity of space against the electric swathes of color
and light everywhere.
I gawked while the first officer kept up a running commentary of places
one was certain to get stabbed or mugged. I wasn’t so much worried getting
mugged as I was about the budget, being a probationary pilot on a fixed, very
restrictive income.
My paycheck as an Air Force captain on flight status had been more
than double what we were taking home as a probationary airline pilot and the
pay cut, though short term, was pretty drastic. So were the prices in
downtown New York. I wasn’t going to be like Dudley, nearly passing out
because he lived on a Donkey Burger a day to hoard his per diem. But there’d
be no Big Apple vacation either.
Nonetheless, Chief Steinmark had been right: in the long term,
especially after probation, the pay would quickly catch up with military
officer pay and then zoom way past it, especially considering retirement pay.
But there was a catch.
The catalyst for the pilot hiring boom that got me aboard was a lower
pay scale for new pilots. Any pilot on the seniority list prior to the contract
approving the lower pay for new hire pilots was grandfathered in at the older,
higher rates, called the “A-Scale” pay rates.
The “B-Scale” rates, which covered all newhires subsequent to that
contract, were less than half of the old rate, and the retirement plan was also
less generous as well. The two scales wouldn’t merge for a B-Scale pilot like
me until the nineteen-year mark, or captain upgrade, which ever came first.
Like all B-scalers, I knew that going in from the day we got our flight
crew IDs at the Schoolhouse. Of course I didn’t like the idea, but my
philosophy was the same as back in the day when I mopped floors at the VMI
student union: I’ll work my ass off to make it better. Just get me into the
cockpit and the rest, well, I’d deal with it.
Not every newhire felt that way, which led to a lot of acrimony and
some rancor in the cockpit. Maybe it was my VMI upbringing, but I couldn’t
resent anyone for doing what it actually took to get me hired. It seemed
disingenuous, even dishonorable, to take the job knowing exactly what the
lower pay would be, and then act like a victim anyway. I wasn’t a victim—I
was ready to jump in with both feet and work to make things better.
It wasn’t just being on probation that compelled me to keep my mouth
shut about the B-scale pay, although doing so was a very good idea when
every captain I flew with was filling out a Probation Report on me, a form
that was turned in to the base Chief Pilot. I just had faith that we’d whittle
down the parity date and boost the pay itself as long as I had any vote or
ability to participate in our pilot’s union. Simple math foretold a day when
the B-Scalers would outnumber the A-Scalers and from then on, all pay raises
would go to us or the pilot contract proposal would never get ratified.
We pulled up to the Milford Plaza in midtown Manhattan after a creeping,
traffic-choked ride from LaGuardia. The Milford was nicknamed “The
Mildew” by crews, and for good reasons. The hotel had seen better days and
was worn, inside and out, and especially in the tiny guest rooms. Street noise
drifted up from 42nd Street with a clamor of horns honking, tires screeching,
trucks rumbling, trash cans banging and a side-order of sirens. I looked out
my warped-glass window and down at the street below, surveying food
options. Directly across the street was a Ray’s Real Pizza with a carryout
window. There was some type of hubbub going on at the window I couldn’t
quite discern. I peered closely.
There was a bloody body slumped over on the sidewalk near the carry-out
window and people were stepping over the scruffy-looking man to get their
pizza. Eventually, police converged on the scene then finally, an ambulance.
They put the man on a gurney and shoved him into an ambulance which
wailed away from Ray’s while the uninterrupted carryout line continued,
slice after slice.
“Yeah,” a doorman told me when I asked on my way out, “A guy got
stabbed.” I crossed the street the other direction at the corner and ducked into
a Smiler’s Deli for some day-old steam tray macaroni and cheese. Welcome
to New York City.
I only ventured out to rent a beeper, which I’d need to be on reserve, and
for food, mostly from delis after surveying the restaurant prices. Even the
museums were expensive, so I basically read books for four days until my
first days off. Since Flight Standards couldn’t schedule me with an Instructor
Engineer, I still wasn’t even qualified to fly any trips Crew Schedule needed
to cover. I basically wasted my time there on the first stretch of reserve days.
I deadheaded back up to LaGarbage after three days off, this time in a
DC-10 cockpit on the jumpseat. A two-stripe engineer sat at the panel. He
looked to be sixty-some years old, at least. The two-stripers were dinosaurs, a
holdover from the earlier era of commercial flight when all aircraft had a
flight engineer. These were guys who’d never advance to either of the pilot
positions, because they weren’t pilots. Rather, they were career flight
engineers, hence the two stripes. I had three because I was a “flight officer,”
destined for a copilot’s seat just as soon as the appropriate vacancy occurred.
The two striper I watched on that deadhead was just like many I’d watch
later, basically doing everything in a most unorthodox way. The DC-10
engineer’s panel was mostly automated but for reasons I couldn’t fathom,
most two-stripers disabled or overrode the automatic functions.
They’d set the temperature and pressure controls to manual backup and
even, sometimes, they’d override the fuel transfer pumps, risking a fuel
imbalance and even an engine flameout from fuel starvation. They’d do this
by propping the fuel pump switches into the “override” position—full up—
by jamming a soap bar from the lav under the switches, against the table top.
I just shook my head in amazement, but kept my mouth shut. The two-
stripers’ manual override of the automation seemed like a waste of time to
me, especially since the temperature control in the manual mode seemed to
prompt multiple calls from the flight attendant crew for a warmer or colder
temperature. I wondered if maybe the two-stripers were simply clinging to a
usefulness that automation had taken from them. At least if nothing else,
watching them confirmed to me that I’d follow standard procedures myself
on the panel.
After my second full week of hanging around the Mildew Plaza, Flight
Standards finally sent a Check Engineer to fly with me to get me line
qualified. Harold Romine was a quiet, white-haired two-striper who patiently
walked around the exterior of the giant DC-10 parked at a Newark Airport
gate with me.
He pointed out things to check for while warning me that part of the
challenge walking around the huge bird was not getting run over by a
baggage cart or a maintenance truck. The jet stood so high on its main gear
trucks that some ground vehicles could actually drive under the fuselage,
although they weren’t supposed to. You had to keep one eye on the airplane,
and the other watching for vehicles barreling your way. Ground traffic to me,
a former Air Force flight safety officer, was hard to believe: the ramp was a
beehive of ground vehicles, tugs, trucks, scooters and more, zigzagging every
which way. It was a wonder no one was killed or no aircraft damaged.
The DC-10 had power to spare, even on a transcon flight from Newark to
Los Angeles. She leapt into the air then climbed out smoothly. The cockpit
was bright from morning sunshine spilling in the widest windows I’d even
seen in a cockpit. The pressurization system had supplementary high-pressure
bleed air valves to augment the pressurization and dampen airflow changes as
the thrust varied, so the conditioned air wheezed and roared and hissed like a
huge dinosaur in flight.
The 727 cockpit had a decent amount of room for three crewmembers, but
the DC-10 was downright spacious, even including Harold on the jumpseat,
peering over my shoulder. He said little, mostly because little needed saying.
That ran counter to the Schoolhouse standard of talking things to death, made
worse by pilots who asked irrelevant or worst of all, hypothetical questions.
That was the beauty of line qualification, where flying took priority. That’s
exactly what I wanted, what I’d hoped for.
The engineer’s station was large and the panel simple and spread out with
fuel and hydraulic controls in front of me, the electrical and temperature
controls above that. The seat itself was oversized and actually not very
comfortable. I’d always grab a pillow from one of the first class overhead
bins to use as lumbar support on an hours-long flight, which helped.
The up and down and forward and aft seat adjustment controls actuated
motors that moved the seat to the desired position. That gave me a wry laugh,
thinking of Sister Euthalia in my eighth-grade class promising me I’d be in
prison by the time I was eighteen and the electric chair by twenty-one. There
I was at age thirty in the electric seat of a widebody jet. She’d been right,
albeit a little too early in her prediction.
After the shutdown checklist, we dragged bags to the curb at LAX for the
hotel van pickup. We spent the night in a classic, tiki-themed hotel in
Manhattan Beach. The captain and FO went out to eat and drink at a favorite
seaside steakhouse which sounded way beyond my Donkey Burger budget. I
politely declined their invitation to join them. Besides, it was actually around
nine in the evening east coast time when we finally got to the hotel, which
seemed late for such a gut-bomb dinner.
Harold slam-clicked, which was the tradition with two-stripers. They
were all thirty or more years older than most newhires like me, so maybe they
age gap was too much for them. But there was also the airline pilot crew
legend that stated the perfect layover was when the young FO got laid, the
old captain took a dump, and the engineer didn’t spend any money. I lived up
to my crew role that evening.
We flew back to Newark the next day, and that was it: one long leg to Los
Angeles, and one significantly shorter, tailwind-assisted leg back to Newark.
I could hardly believe my good fortune, simply riding coast to coast and
back, then calling it a work day. No “mission planning,” no facetime, no rank
structure or ass-kissing hierarchy—just fly, then go home. Or, in my case,
back to the Mildew.
At every airport I returned to, Crew Schedule would have a car waiting
to drive me to the Mildew. I’d cruise through crew operations and search for
any sad-looking young flight attendants sitting around, late at night. Most
lived five or more to a crash pad, just to afford the rent, and many lived in
Manhattan, despite the sky-high prices.
“I have a car, if you need a ride,” I’d say, relieving some from spending
the night in the crew lounge, or springing for a cab or bus into the city. I felt
bad for them and was glad to share the car to at least get them safely to
midtown. I cringed watching them trail off down West 42nd Street alone at
night, but at least I’d helped them get that far.
Once Harold signed my line qualification, Crew Sked (schedule) used me
a lot. The drill was the same: a Fugazi limo picked me up at the Mildew,
drove me to JFK, LGA, or EWR (Newark), then I flew a two- or three-day
flight sequence, then back to the Mildew or for days off, to catch my
deadhead back to DFW.
We flew some shorter legs, often stopping at O’Hare in Chicago, then on
to the west coast. The widebody flying was gentlemanly, with realistic
connect times and seldom did we switch aircraft, a “bag drag” we often did
between aircraft and flights on the 727.
The captains and FOs were usually relaxed and easy to work with. The
captains seemed ancient to me, given that age forty was considered “old” in
the Air Force flight world and these DC-10 captains had to be pushing sixty
years old to be senior enough to fly the DC-10, especially internationally.
One peculiar captain out of JFK named Todd Hebert lectured the FO
about the French Revolution from New York to Los Angeles one day. The
FO simply nodded and hid behind his sunglasses, a technique I’d carry
forward in my flying career as a palliative for incessant talkers. Todd didn’t
seem to notice that the FO was actually listening to music on one of the
navigation radios through his earpiece while Todd held forth.
Another pair of pilots talked nonstop across the entire country about golf.
Five straight hours of golf yack, but at least it gave them something to do
since they were both big golf fans. I’d never played golf beyond putt-putt
because the real game, despite the political advantages in an Air Force
squadron, seemed like it took an excessive amount of time away from home.
So I just tuned out their marathon golf filibuster.
I also heard great flying stories, both from their old military days and
from their years of airline flying. That helped pass the time, plus it helped me
understand the pilot perspective, especially when it came to union issues. I
learned from their stories just how vital a union was to protect a pilot’s flying
career and pay.
After takeoff, the flight attendants would pass an insert filled with a pot of
coffee, water, soft drinks and ice up to the cockpit and I’d put it on the
jumpseat. Then I’d bartend for the two pilots (all non-alcoholic, of course)
and for myself. In the mornings there was always warm cheese Danish, plus
“double-bagged” (made with two coffee packets) coffee and orange juice.
Often, we left the west coast headed for one of the New York airports via
DFW or Chicago, flying with an eight or nine-person cabin crew. Many of
them were very new like me and inexperienced in both the food and beverage
service for up to two-hundred fifty passengers, and the reality of westbound
flight, especially in the winter months: our tailwinds would often shave off
twenty or more minutes from our scheduled flight time.
The result was, often the flight attendants were caught unaware when I
called them to give them a heads-up that we’d be landing in thirty minutes.
“We’re not finished with our service,” was usually the frantic reply from
the main galley. “Can you fly slower?
No, in the crowded, strictly controlled east coast airspace, we couldn’t fly
slower or longer. There was a hasty rush in the cabin to get the meal carts
stowed and the service items picked up. Sometimes, the same flight time
quandary arose westbound when headwinds were unseasonably light. Then
the call was, “The movie’s not over yet—can you slow down?”
No, in the saturated Los Angeles or San Francisco airspace, that wasn’t an
option either. Often, at our arrival gate, some passengers congregated near the
forward movie screen, wanting to see the end of the movie before heading
into the terminal.
I flew one memorable DC-10 trip with a fairly short layover in Boston
with a very quiet, dignified captain I respected. We were scheduled to fly the
same bird out early the next day, so as soon as we arrived at Logan Airport, I
made a beeline for the jet to get my preflight underway. I did all the interior
origination preflight checks, then outside for a careful exterior walkaround.
Then I returned to the cockpit and set up my equipment at the engineer’s
station. And I waited.
Where was everyone, I wondered to myself. It should be boarding time,
but there were no flight attendants, much less passengers, aboard the jet.
Then it hit me, noting the hub of activity at the DC-10 next door: they’d
changed aircraft assignments. I hurriedly gathered all my flight gear and
hustled downstairs to the ramp. I rushed through the exterior preflight on the
DC-10 next door, then hauled ass up the steep jetbridge stairs, and into the
cockpit. I tried to act nonchalant, calming myself, forcing my breathing to
abate. I sat down at the engineer’s station as coolly as I could.
The captain never looked up from the magazine he leafed through idly.
He quietly asked, “Any other DC-10s you’d like to preflight out there?”
Busted: he knew. Mercifully, he never said another word about it.
In just the last two weeks of my New York TDY, I began to feel
comfortable with my new job as DC-10 flight engineer. The work was simple
and straightforward, the hours civilized, the amenities like the insert and
widebody First Class meals, very gentlemanly.
By contrast, the Kook had grabbed a copilot seat on the MD-80 and being
the junior pilot on the FO list, he was assigned mostly all-nighters, and it was
killing him. Since that was an “upgrade” to a higher crew position, he had an
eighteen-month lock-in, versus my twelve months for an engineer to engineer
bid. I was in no rush to give up the gentlemanly flying or the paycheck,
which was significantly higher than the narrow-body FO pay rate. I learned a
valuable lesson from that which I stuck to my entire flying career going
forward: don’t bid any new position until you’re senior enough to hold a
decent trip.
My Mildew month finally came to a close and I headed back to DFW to
serve a month of reserve, on-call for any engineer trip Crew Sked might
offer, both international and domestic.
I had no inkling that within a matter of weeks, Lieutenant Colonel Jerry
Gerlach’s dismal prediction back at the 9 ACCS in Hawaii about my future
would, in a very real way, come to pass.

Chapter 39
“Watch this, Chris,” Walt Estridge, the most senior captain at American
Airlines, said as we climbed through flap retract altitude.
“American Fifty, heavy,” the air traffic controller said, “Fly heading zero-
five-zero.”
With both autopilots and both auto-throttle systems engaged, the captain
had only to twist a small heading select knob the required twists to slew us to
the newly assigned heading.
“That’s it,” Walt said to me with a smile, “Nothing to do until we reverse
course to land in London.”
He wasn’t kidding. Within an hour, we were cleared to fly INS (Inertial
Navigation System) waypoints to the northeast coast and then all through the
north Atlantic air route system to London. We’d launched out of DFW
International Airport at dusk and would land eight hours or so later at
London-Gatwick Airport at breakfast time. Once the inertial navigation
systems were up and running, the autopilots engaged, there really wasn’t
much for the two pilots up front to do.
The First Class food service on the international flights was actually part
of the “Luxury Liner” experience for those who’d paid the premium fare. We
enjoyed the same food in the cockpit, with the multiple courses and the
elaborate service. The food itself was very good—especially the
Chateaubriand—which helped pass the flight hours with something to
anticipate and something to do.
Right after takeoff and climbout, the flight attendants would usually pass
up a selection of appetizers with the beverage insert. Occasionally, depending
on the number one (lead) flight attendant, the flight deck meal service was
less involved. A few of the senior mama flight attendants disliked pilots and
would scrape a cheese board right into the trash—I’d witnessed it myself—
rather than pass it up to the cockpit. Often that was due to a bad experience
with pilots—one flight attendant told me once, “I’ve been married to several
of you at one time or another”—which we inherited regardless of having
done nothing wrong ourselves. But that was rare, fortunately for us.
During the cockpit meal service, I eventually grew adept at snatching a
shrimp off the captain’s appetizer plate as it passed by my engineer’s station.
The flight attendants thought it was pretty funny, and some captains would
glance at my appetizer plate, then their own, then mine.
“Why do you have six shrimp and I have only four?” one captain asked
me.
I’d just shrug and answer, “Beats me.”
I figured most of the captains could afford to drop a few pounds, plus it
was a kind of a sport to grab it in the first place.
A shrug was also an adequate answer for just about any question the old
guys in the left seat would ask. Usually, if I’d forgotten a checklist item and
something was amiss as a result, I’d notice them squinting back at my panel
trying to figure out what was wrong. But I also knew that first, they couldn’t
see that far regardless and second, even if they did, they knew little or
nothing about the engineer’s panel anyway. Usually, I could figure out what
was amiss—especially if it was something I’d overlooked—and remedy the
situation both quickly and discreetly. Then I’d just say, “Not sure why it did
that, but I’ll write it up if it happens again.” That usually satisfied the captain
and turned his attention back to the front.
After being up all night, then enduring British Customs, another bag drag
onto the hotel bus and a short drive to the Gatwick Post House, the crew hotel
some called “the Post Hole,” I was ready for sleep. Some of the flight
attendants simply changed clothes and kept going, heading into London
without rest. I couldn’t do that—I needed a two- or three-hour nap, then I
could think about hopping the train to downtown London.
Regardless, we had one more endurance contest once we reached the Post
Hole. The same block of rooms was assigned to American crews each trip.
That meant that the departing crew flying the jet we’d flown in back to the
states would have checked out barely an hour before our arrival at the hotel.
Those rooms had to be cleaned and readied for us, a process which meant at
least an hour wait in the hotel lobby.
“Isn’t my ass disgusting?” a woman standing next to my lobby seat asked.
With her British accent, that sounded like “my oss,” but actually her butt
seemed normal to half-asleep, bleary-eyed me.
That was Carol, the Post Hotel crew hostess. She bustled about, seeing to
coffee or hot chocolate or tea or whatever anyone wanted while we waited.
Some crewmembers added liquor to their coffee. But caffeine was the last
thing I needed. I just wanted a nap.
After at least an hour, room keys materialized and we all dragged our
bags to individual rooms. Normally, I’d set an alarm for two hours hence and
place it far enough away from the bed that I’d have to get up and turn it off
and shake off the all-nighter cobwebs.
If the weather was decent—and often it wasn’t—I’d go for a run. Once,
being only half-awake and paying little attention to my surroundings, I ran
square into the courtyard of what seemed to be some type of mental hospital.
Some of the residents started howling and pointing. I reversed course before
anyone could take me into custody and commit me for being nuts. Sure,
you’re an airline pilot—and I’m the King of England.
On my first trip to London, Elaine Osborne and Gail Dugan, a couple of
more senior flight attendants, decided that as a new guy, I needed a
chaperoned tour of London. That was fine with me—they were at least ten
years older than me but both were beautiful in that classy, smart-looking
flight attendant way, and they’d done the London layover many times.
“First,” Elaine explained to me at the train station, “We buy a round-trip
ticket to Victoria Station.”
“Why round-trip?” I asked.
“Trust, me,” she said. “You’ll thank me later.”
I did as I was told. We rode the train from Gatwick to Victoria Station and
I marveled at the green, rolling hills and how they contrasted against the
growing number of low-storied, tiled roofs, all worn, sooty and dirty and
alike as we neared London.
We joined another group of flight attendants at a bustling pub near
Victoria Station. Some of the crew had skipped the post-flight sleep thing to
go directly into London and some had already finished their shopping at
Harrod’s, or wherever they went to buy stuff.
The Harrod’s shopping bag was the international flight attendants’ way of
showing off that they flew London: even in the U.S., on their crew luggage,
the telltale dark-colored tote bag with the Harrod’s logo proclaimed to other
flight attendants that they were “international” crew, a ostentatious boast that
seemed a bit silly. After all, they were doing the exact same job—slinging
trays, as the saying went—only for eight or nine hours instead of two or three
or maybe five hours. Still, flying international routes was a sort of mark of
prestige, at least in some of their minds.
Maybe there was something of a pilot pecking order too. I always wore a
miniature pair of Air Force pilot wings as a tie pin on my uniform tie. The
wings aren’t more than a half-inch wide, but they’re a sort of frat pin that
says, yes, I’m ex-military, a former Air Force pilot, which instantly
establishes a commonality and expectation from other military pilot alumni.
Whether it’s a widebody or narrowbody pilot crew, it’s kind of the same
unwritten pilot “butt sniff:” what’s your background? Military? What
squadron? Then there’d be an instant connection and eventually, a squadron
or ex-squadron mate we’d both know.
If a pilot was a civilian, a corporate, cargo or commuter pilot, there wasn’t
much else to say and the butt-sniff ended there. I still appreciated civilian
flying experience like Hosehead had, but the connection was different.
On one London trip, the Captain was a Check Airman named Mike
Tschida. He acted like we knew each other, at least at first. Then, over beers
in a London pub, he told me how I’d just ruined his life. He knew the name
“Manno,” though when we first met in Flight Ops for the trip, he couldn’t
place exactly where. Then somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic, he said it
came to him: his squadron at Bitburg Air Base, Germany, when he was in the
Air Force. He’d flown with my dad on several missions. Mike’s wife told me
at a union dinner years later that after he’d realized I was the son of an old
squadron mate, he came home from the trip and announced that he was
officially ancient.
I followed my two chaperones into a small doorway then we squeezed
onto a bench in the Cricketeer’s Arms pub near Victoria Station.
“Now,” Elaine instructed me, “You order a pint for yourself, and half
pints for ladies.
“Why halves?” I asked.
“Because it’s unladylike to drink a pint,” Elaine answered.
“The hell with that,” Gail said. “Make mine a pint.”
After pub grub and several pints in assorted-sized glasses, Elaine and Gail
led me by the nose to the theater district. There we bought scalper tickets to
an Andrew Lloyd Weber musical where we drank even more adult beverages
in the theater lobby before the show. Then at intermission, we downed yet
another round “interval drinks,” in fact so many that we couldn’t find our
way back to our own seats. So, we watched the last part of the show sitting in
the aisle.
After the show, we found ourselves outside of the Hard Rock Café
Piccadilly Circus, pooling our remaining cash and coins for one last drink
which Elaine, Gail and I split outside the club as late-night traffic zoomed
around the famous Piccadilly Circle. Then we rushed back to Victoria Station
to catch the last train to Gatwick. That explained Elaine’s insistence that I
buy a round-trip ticket on the trip out of Gatwick: we all had zero cash
remaining.
In the station, we scanned the schedule board for the Gatwick Express,
then actually ran to the platform to board. As we stepped into a car with only
minutes to spare, some punked-up kids in the next car shouted obscenities at
passersby on the platform.
Eventually, one of the scruffy-looking punk guys glanced our way, then
passed between the cars into ours.
“Excuse me,” he said in the most elegant British accent. “You lot are
Americans. You’ll want the Gatwick Express, one track over.”
He was right—the track had been changed and we were headed god-
knows-where, but not Gatwick. We bolted from the car after a quick thank-
you to the punk guy. Then he walked back to his train car and rejoined his
crew shouting obscenities out the car window at people walking by on the
platform.
The next morning, we struggled through the always-challenging British
airport security, then launched off eastbound back to Texas.
Midway across the Atlantic, Elaine came up to the cockpit and sat down
on the jumpseat. The cockpit was a kind of break area for flight attendants to
get away from passengers, or even each other, for a few minutes. The view
was stunning, through the multiple, wide windows. Everyone needed a
change of pace on an eight-hour flight.
“So,” Elaine asked me. “What are you going to tell your wife about the
London layover?”
I thought about that for a minute.
“Well, I’ll say we went into London, had pub grub, pints, then went to a
play, and—"
She swatted my arm.
“No, stupid.”
“No?”
Elaine shook her head like an elementary school teacher coaching a
second grader.
“Think about it,” she said. “She’s stuck at home with two preschoolers,
while you’re having a big time in London?”
It dawned on me at once. I thought about it again.
“How about,” I said. “It rained and I stayed in my room?”
“Good thinking,” Elaine said, then headed back to the cabin.
I flew a lot of Europe that spring, mostly London but often Frankfurt and
Paris, too. London was always my favorite, although Frankfurt was a close
second. There I’d take a quick nap, then I’d head solo to the Haupt Bahnhof.
I’d scan the train schedule and looking at the route diagram, I’d choose
the far end of an S-Bahn line, as far from Americans as I could find, then hop
on the train. I’d have lunch and a bier or two and meet local folks and see the
small-town sights. Then I’d head back into the city to meet the rest of the
crew for dinner. The German speakers on the crew usually set up a
meeting place at a Gasthaus in the Sachsenhausen district where we’d all
meet for dinner and drinks. Sometimes we’d coordinate with a Chicago crew
and meet up for a large crew-fest over beers and great food.
I couldn’t keep up with some of the senior captains and senior mama
flight attendants. Usually, I’d head back to the hotel alone, because I was
falling asleep with my eyes open after only a couple hours sleep over the
preceding twenty-four hours. I don’t know how they mustered the stamina to
stay out late in London, Paris or Frankfurt.
Paris was my least favorite layover because I didn’t speak the language,
and the Parisians didn’t seem to like Americans. I asked a hotel concierge
once how much a cab should cost to the Louvre and he answered with a
number then added with a sniff, “But you are American, so you will pay
more.”
Still, it was hard to beat the cafes and the happy hours with crews at
downtown shops, seated outside near the busy old-world streets. Once, one of
our flight attendants, out of the blue, after several rounds of drinks, told me,
“I can rip that t-shirt off of you with my teeth.”
My T-shirt was under a denim shirt. I just laughed.
In an instant, she lunged across the table and we both tumbled into the
street. Car tires rolled by near my head.
I moment later, she sat up with my shredded T-shirt in one hand. I learned
never to laugh or doubt a flight attendant, especially when alcohol was
involved.
The international flight attendant crews were more senior, which is how
they could hold the Europe schedules. Most were very nice although some
could be cantankerous. One “senior momma,” the number one on a London
trip, called me “Bucko” the whole eastbound crossing, and not in a friendly
way. She’d call the cockpit and it was my duty to answer the phone. “It’s too
hot, Bucko,” she’d growl in her smoker’s voice, then hang up.
Eventually, she stopped calling and just barged into the cockpit. The
door would bang open and she’d just glare at me, fists on her hips, then slam
the door. I’d tinker with the cabin zone temps, hoping whatever change I
made would keep her from returning to the cockpit.
Another senior momma couldn’t believe I was actually a DC-10 flight
engineer, since most of the Europe flights were crewed by two-stripers nearly
twice my age. At least she seemed friendly, saying, “You’re so young, I’m
not even bringing you a crew meal, I’m going to take you up to my room and
breast feed you.” Creepy, maybe, but at least not the angry “Bucko” routine.
One other thing I heard several times from different flight attendants
was a question that rankled at first. The question went, “Is your wife a flight
attendant?” Naturally, my answer was no, which instantly got the same
response from the flight attendant who’d asked in the first place: “Well, if
your first wife isn’t, your second wife will be.”
Of course I took that as a joke, but at the same time, I had to
acknowledge that there were many, many second marriages among pilots,
often to flight attendants. Part of that, I supposed, was because of the
unnatural flight crew environment: adult men and women thrown together in
a travel situation in a kind of a social bubble. The transportation, rooms,
everything was set up, partying or at least socializing something of a norm,
and little or no moderation expected. The senior mommas knew what they
were talking about, although I didn’t think any of that applied to me.
Most of the senior flight attendants were more like Elaine and Gail,
smart, savvy, hardworking and generous with their time, sharing their
experience with a goofy new engineer like me. They took pride in their work
and in their service to passengers. They had the stamina and determination to
work the long, overnight flights for the reward of a European layover and I
admired them for that.
There wasn’t that much DC-10 international flying out of DFW, so
actually, once the afternoon Europe flights departed—and I could watch them
arc overhead from my little mid-cities deck on the west side of our house—I
was basically free from crew schedule’s grasp.
That spring I was assigned a Honolulu trip and in the way over, I decided
it might be a fun idea to yank Jerry Gerlach’s chain, if only to prove he’d
been wrong about me pumping gas and wishing I was back in the Air Force.
As we approached the Big Island after nearly seven hours in the air, the
scenery and the airway brought my mind back a year. In a way, it felt like
going home, because I loved Hawaii.
But more than that, it was vindication. The whole purpose of my Air
Force years had been to get me exactly where I was at the moment, in the
cockpit of a major airline, as a pilot. Sure, I was the flight engineer, but still, I
could jump to an MD-80 right seat any time I wanted and with the expansion
going on at American, the future looked bright, despite the gloom and doom
Jerry had foretold.
Back in the 9 ACCS, when we were in VHF radio range of Hickam AFB,
we’d call in to the squadron and report our estimated landing time, plus our
fuel on board. I dialed in the squadron frequency, 127.5, on one of our VHF
radios.
“Mango Ops,” I said over the frequency, “American 5 estimating on the
deck in fifteen minutes with twenty thousand pounds of fuel.”
That was our standard EC-135J inbound radio call. There was no answer,
so I repeated the call.
“This is an official Air Force frequency,” a very familiar voice finally
answered my call. Some of the squadron copilots told me later that there was
a lot of cheering in the squadron scheduling room when they realized what
was going on, and that infuriated my old squadron commander.
Later that evening, Brian Bunda drove out to the layover hotel at the Ala
Moana Center and we went to dinner and had a couple Midori Daquiris. We
reminisced and laughed a lot and shared a few more drinks with the crew
afterwards. It was a welcome reunion but even so, Honolulu wasn’t my
favorite trip because of the time change. We’d arrive in Honolulu in the
evening, body time. Then even having dinner and drinks put you at nine or
ten at night Central time.
I wouldn’t hit the sack until after midnight, then wake up way too early
the next day because of my body clock being six hours ahead of island time.
Then there was the all-nighter back to DFW. It was a grueling trip, especially
the dawn arrival in Texas after flying all night.
Westbound legs home from Europe could also be long and grueling
even though they were daytime flights. Paris was the longest, especially in
the wintertime with a strong jetstream howling west to east. We’d take off
from De Gaulle around eight in the morning with the sun climbing out of the
east on our right wingtip. Ten hours later, the sun would again be off our
right wing only this time, it was sinking into the western horizon. We’d been
aloft so long on an arcing north Atlantic flight path that the sun had
completed its overhead daylight swing.
On those flights where headwinds extended our flight time, we carried
an extra pilot. But that extra crewmember was a pilot, not a flight engineer.
Coming back from Paris one time, Dick Bourland, the captain, passed my
engineer’s seat on his way back to a First Class crew rest seat. The relief pilot
would occupy the captain’s seat for a couple hours while Dick relaxed in
First Class, enjoyed the dinner service, watched the movie and probably, took
a nap.
“When does your replacement get here, boy?” Dick asked me as he slid
past my seat.
I glanced at my watch. We’d been airborne barely three hours.
“In about seven hours,” I answered.
“You got that right.”
I made a mental note to grab one of his shrimp the next time an appetizer
was passed forward later in the flight. And I also decided, after nearly a year
of long-haul flying, that a change was in order.

Chapter 40
We sat in silence in the spacious DC-10 cockpit, parked at a gate at
O’Hare Airport. The captain flipped through a golf magazine and the FO
stared straight ahead. Things moved slowly there in the dead of winter
because the sub-zero Chicago temps made the ramp crew’s work difficult
bordering on dangerous. My brief time on the ramp walking around the giant
bird drove that point home to me firsthand.
If you knew where to stand, though, the cold gave way to a small patch of
temperate air under the tail. That’s where the hot APU exhaust blasted the
ramp. You’d see DC-10 flight engineers lingering in that spot, dressed with
every item of winter clothing they’d dragged on the trip.
After my exterior inspection, I’d hung up my overcoat and stashed my
stocking cap and gloves in the cockpit closet, then I sat down at the
engineer’s panel, waiting for boarding and cargo loading to be completed. A
flight attendant bustled into the cockpit.
“We’ve got a bit of a situation in the cabin.”
The captain sighed.
“Son,” he said, which of course meant me, “How about you go back and
see if you can straighten that out?”
That wasn’t a request, I knew, but rather a very lowkey order.
“Yes sir,” I answered without hesitation, then followed the flight
attendant aft.
“There’s a passenger in the coach aisle,” she explained quietly as we
made our way through first class and down the starboard aisle. “The forward
closet is full so there’s nowhere to put her garment bag. And she’s pitching a
fit.”
“Can’t the agent just gate check it?” I suggested.
“That’s the problem,” she explained. “The woman is livid about checking
it.”
The DC-10 had closets with a mechanized hanging bar that stowed all the
hanging bags by raising them up and into a compartment on the bulkhead.
Maybe it was a clever design, but it had very limited capacity and once it was
full, that was it—the motor couldn’t pull anything more through the opening.
I saw the forty-ish woman in the center of a circle of flight attendants,
clutching her garment bag, glaring at the flight attendants, then me as I
approached.
“I’ll tell you what, ma’am,” I said, “Let me take your garment bag
downstairs and I’ll personally see to it that it’s put into our cargo hold.”
Her eyes widened.
“No way.”
I gently but firmly took the bag from her anyway, then made my way out
the boarding door, fighting against the tide of enplaning passengers. An agent
handed me a gate check bag tag, then I unlocked the jetbridge door and
stepped out into the bitter, wind-whipped cold. I hustled down the steep
stairs, freezing, then gingerly walked across the icy ramp in only my
shirtsleeves. I found a cargo module of luggage waiting to be loaded into our
cargo hold and carefully laid the tagged garment bag on top of the other
luggage.
Then I walked as fast as I could without slipping to the jetbridge stairs
and clambered up to the door and ducked inside, shivering. I made my way
back to the woman’s seat. She stood in the aisle, still arguing with the flight
attendants.
“Here you are, ma’am,” I said, then handed her the baggage claim ticket
for her bag. “It’ll be waiting for you at baggage claim.”
She gave me a look that could have bent a spoon.
“You motherfucker,” she spat at me.
Fine.
I made my way back out onto the jetbridge, then down the stairs to the
ramp in the bitter cold. I plucked her bag from the cargo module where I’d so
carefully placed it, then walked over to the MD-80 parked on the next gate. I
tossed the garment bag into the forward cargo compartment, then hustled
back to our gate, shivering. Once I’d taken my seat at the engineer’s station, I
bumped up the cockpit heat, trying to thaw out.
“Did you take care of the situation, son?” the captain asked without even
looking back at me.
“Yessir, I did.”
Domestic flying had its drawbacks and frequent “situations” like that, but
the benefits still outweighed the problems, in my estimation. First off, I could
hold a line, or a “schedule” as non-crewmembers might say. That made life at
home much more stable and consistent, which was important to me for our
family home life.
And there were no all-night flights, a bonus, plus much less jetlag. I
couldn’t understand how pilots and flight attendants survived years of that
type flying, but many did, although it’s generally proven and acknowledged
that the international flying aged people fast, and it showed.
I flew a lot of domestic trips with Chicago layovers and often, with the
same flight attendants all month. There was one month when the first officer,
Dave Ferguson, and me, and Holly, the number two, plus Jennifer-O, and
couple more flight attendants fell into a routine on every layover.
We’d gather in the Palmer House lobby after checking in and changing
out of the navy-blue polyester costumes, then dash next door through the
bitter cold to Miller’s Pub. Bob Reilly, the captain, seemed to avoid us even
if we bumped into him in the lobby. Dave did a wicked impression of Bob in
the lobby muttering, “I’ve got to check on a few things.” Then he’d vanish,
which was fine—it was like not having parental supervision, which no one
wanted anyway. Bob was a more extreme case of what seemed to me at the
time an unexplainable aloofness in so many of the senior captains. Sure, they
were friendly, almost fatherly, but standoffish. They seemed to look at us as
kids, maybe immature and foolish, so they’d just hang back.
Maybe it was just like the 727 crew I’d jumpseated with when I was
doing familiarization flying back at the Schoolhouse, the fifty-something guy
who’d scoffed about the twenty-five-year-old’s birthday drinks invitation
(“What am I going to do—adopt her?”) after she left the cockpit. Maybe they
were just like parents, amused but not really interested.
Once Bob excused himself, we’d look for a small bar or tavern to chill out
in and unwind. One of the flight attendants had family downtown, a cousin,
who also led us on a tour of small dive bars downtown. Then we’d end the
night back at Miller’s Pub.
At the end of that month, we flew our final leg from O’Hare back to DFW
in the evening. There were two hundred and fifty-some passengers aboard
expecting dinner, but there was a small problem.
I got the call in the cockpit from Lonnie, our number one. “There’s
something wrong with the P-Lift,” he told me.
That wasn’t unusual. The DC-10-10 which we used on domestic flying
had a lower lobe galley, downstairs on the cargo compartment level. That
galley had food storage and ovens to prep passenger meals that were then
sent up in carts on the “C-Lift,” “C” being for carts. The “P-Lift” was a
second side-by-side elevator from the central galley down to the lower lobe
galley. The “P” meant it was for “people,” though you could actually ride in
either.
Usually only one flight attendant worked in the lower galley and she or he
was called “the galley wench.” Many preferred that crew position because for
the entire flight, they didn’t have to deal with passengers.
I turned all the hydraulic pumps and the fuel boost pumps on, as was
procedure when the engineer was going to leave the panel, and grabbed my
flashlight. I told Bob that Lonnie had called and asked me to see what was
wrong with the C-Lift. That wasn’t unusual and he just waved a hand in
approval.
Back in the main galley, Lonnie said, “Just take the P-Lift down.”
That seemed odd, but Lonnie was kind of quirky. As we lounged around
First Class between flights on a Las Vegas turn, I overheard Holly tell him,
“You’re wearing to much make-up for daytime.”
I opened the narrow P-Lift door and stepped inside. Lonnie pushed the
“down” button and the rickety lift sank into darkness.
When I opened the door in the lower galley, only one or two pinpoint
lights shone in the darkness, plus a couple flashlights, held by Holly, Jennifer
and Sherry. They’d spread out pillows and blankets on the floor and were
wearing their night gowns.
“Slumber party!” they shouted, and I laughed. It was a fitting way to
end a fun month, never mind the passengers upstairs and the relatively short
flight time.
When I returned to the cockpit, I acted nonchalant.
“Dave,” I said. “Maybe you’d better go back and have a look.”
He disappeared back to the galley. Five or ten minutes later, he returned
to the cockpit and strapped into his seat with a shit-eating grin he couldn’t
hide.
Bob motored his seat back and reached for the lap belt release and Dave
and I simultaneously barked, “No!” The last thing the girls wanted was
captain grandpa back there.
I flew a fun month of downtown New York City layovers with “Smilin’
Jack,” a rather infamous DFW-based DC-10 captain. His girlfriend was
married, as was Jack, but they “buddy bid,” meaning synchronized their
monthly schedules to fly together. That was also referred to “body-bidding,”
given the ultimate result. Jack had “a deal going” with her and that wasn’t
exactly rare in the crew ranks.
That was referred to as the ancient airline tradition of “sport-fucking,”
as I’d heard many times. Apparently, that sport was more common before I
got hired, or so I was told. Pilots would ask me when I was hired, then after
marveling at how junior I was, they’d inevitably add, “Well, right before you
were hired, it was sport-fucking every month.” I wasn’t sure what to believe,
but Jack did have a consistent deal.
That wasn’t a one-way street either. I’d stupidly blundered into the
number one flight attendant’s “deal” scheme in the Caribbean once. After
landing in St. Martin, the typical plan was for the captain to vanish, then
usually, like in Las Vegas, the flight attendants got free admission to
whatever show was going on in the casino. They’d tell the FO and me to
hang with their group and get into the show free with them.
Red-headed Trish was the number one and she coordinated the meet-up
to go into the casino for drinks and probably the show. “Six o’clock,” she
told me, “My room at six and we’ll all have a drink and then go.”
At six, when I walked into her room, I thought it was strange that she
and I were the only two there. What happened to “we’ll all have a drink,”
then go?
“So where is everybody?” I’d asked like an idiot.
She handed me a very strong Mai-tai and said, “Oh, don’t worry about
them, they’ll be along at seven.”
Holy shit, I thought to myself, I’m being hit on by somebody’s
grandma.
The month I flew with Smilin’ Jack, we’d land in Newark then load up
the crew van for the slow—with evening traffic—drive into Manhattan.
Jack’s girlfriend and her cabin crewmates would bring along market bags of
selected “crew juice” items, like iced-down beer, wine and liquor.
Then we’d drink our way through heavy traffic into Manhattan and
socialize as we did, the only downside being that there was no bathroom on
the van. By two or three beers in, I’d be fighting the flood until we arrived at
the Mildew Plaza. After a quick change out of the polyester, we’d reconvene
in the lobby then walk en masse a few blocks to the Westside Cottage, a
Chinese restaurant that was a crew favorite.
The food wasn’t great, but the bonus was free and unlimited wine with
dinner. Never mind that it was piss-tasting wine in my opinion, it was free
piss-tasting wine which airline crews couldn’t resist. As a result, I woke up
many times sprawled across my bed back in my cracker-box-size Mildew
Plaza room with all the lights on, fully clothed in the middle of the night,
wondering exactly how I got there.
Jack was always lively in the cockpit, which might have been the result
of his “Coke habit:” in the course of a day’s flying, he’d drink at least four,
sometimes five Diet Cokes. There was never a dull moment in the cockpit
with Smilin’ Jack—he was either telling wild stories about layover
adventures or tales of military flying. In any moment when the three of us
lapsed into silence, he filled it with his own version of “ho hum,” which was
to stretch, grunt, then say, “Well, fuck-shit-piss.” That was his mantra, at
least five or ten times a day.
I flew some buttcrack of dawn Boston trips too, ignoring the early sign-in
and concentrating on the excellent, long Beantown layovers. I was in awe of
Bob Combs, the very quiet, thoughtful captain who’d witnessed Boston
airplane confusion. He’d also flown wingman for legendary ace Ivan
Kincheloe in combat and with a little prodding, would tell the most amazing
flying stories.
Bob was another senior captain in the mold of Walt Estridge, calm, quiet,
dignified and always, completely capable. He treated everyone with respect
and managed to get the big jet safely and efficiently from point to point with
an ease I admired. That’s the kind of pilot I wanted to be and eventually, the
type of captain I decided I’d be.
But after over a year of line flying, I’d reluctantly had to concede the sad
reality that most, if not all, pilots weren’t like that. They were neither humble
nor quiet leaders, especially in my seniority range. Many were incensed over
the B-scale, even though they knew the deal when they signed on. And they
let it show.
Regardless, I started volunteering down at the Allied Pilots Association
(APA) union headquarters. Another B-scaler, Dave Hunt, had already been
elected to the union board of directors from the LAX pilot base and was
working with and within the union to improve our pay instead of simply
complaining and protesting but doing nothing to help.
That’s what I believed in: work for it, fix it, and when we’re the majority,
focus solely on parity. The militancy, in my mind, was childish and counter-
productive, because the divisive infighting only made us weaker as a union.
The company executives who had negotiated the deal would laugh at us,
foolish, selfish man-child types squabbling among ourselves instead of
cultivating a solidarity that would leave them no choice but to concede
improvements.
I resurrected my cartoon business, contributing cartoons to our union
publications via Barry Syrett, a British gentleman and a 727 captain. I hadn’t
done much cartoon work in the Air Force because within a military
organization, that kind of sarcasm could bring down a ton of discipline for
insubordination. But union publications were protected by labor law, so that
threat disappeared and the cartoons grew popular both in the union
publication, but also in the official American Airlines training publications.
Frank Atzert, a true gentleman and editor of the American Airlines’
publication for pilots titled The Flight Deck published several of my cartoons
each month. Eventually, Alan Fahringer, the editor of the flight attendants’
union monthly magazine Skyword contracted with me to provide cartoons
related to flight attendants for each issue.
After a dozen issues of various company and union publications, I started
to amass a pretty good collection of flight crew cartoons. Jock Bethune, the
audio-visual specialist who narrated all of the Schoolhouse training audio-
visual programs, was married to the woman who ran the pilot supplies retail
store at both the Schoolhouse and the Charm Farm.
“Why don’t you produce a cartoon book for airline crews,” Judy
suggested. “We’ll carry it at both of our stores and see how it does.
A few weeks later, I had four hundred copies of a fifty-page cartoon book
titled, Flight Crew Like You[1] printed and bound. It was a risky proposition
for me, a junior pilot with the paycheck to match, because I paid for the
whole batch. As soon as copies started selling in Judy’s stores, Airline
Services Unlimited, a national retail chain specializing in crew uniforms and
accessories, immediately added the cartoon book to their inventory. Several
other small stores catering to airline pilots and flight attendants in Boston,
Los Angeles, Minneapolis and Atlanta also began to stock the book. Within a
few months, we were on our third printing
I was appointed to the union’s national merger committee as a
representative of my peers, the junior pilots, looking out for their seniority
interests in the merger between our American Airlines pilot union and the
AirCal pilots that we’d acquired when American bought AirCal. To me, that
was the answer: go to work to make things better rather than standing outside
the union hall whining.
Phil Nolden was a friend and a B-scaler from my DFW crew base and he
was elected to the APA Board the following year, again adding to our voice
from the inside and doing a hell of a lot of pro bono work for the 2,300 DFW
based pilots, including me. Our crew base was so large that when union board
meetings came to a vote, just through parliamentary procedure, if we voted
our shares combined with Dave’s in LAX, there was a tide shift in the works.
If we stayed unified.
After Phil’s term ended, I ran for the seat and won, although it was a pyric
victory. Don Morris, one of the DFW Chief Pilots who at one time had also
been a union board member, told me, “Congratulations—you’re about to find
out there’s no limit to what a pilot will let you do for him.” I’d soon find out
what he meant, being constantly on call to represent pilots in disciplinary and
other hearings. But even that wasn’t the worst of it.
Generally speaking, pilots don’t listen—you really can’t tell them much.
And the newest generation of airline pilots, my peers, had no restraint to their
self-importance, impatience and in a lot of cases, arrogance.
My fellow board member and pilot domicile rep Jim Danahey and I were
constantly under fire from angry rank and file pilots who demanded parity
with zero thought about how to attain that, other than demanding it. And we
had hundreds of very senior pilots tired of the militant hostility so many of
their copilots displayed. It was an angry, disunified “union” because of
everyone’s disparate perspectives and self-interest.
We’d work hard on balancing policy and strategy but the instant we
presented the results to a union meeting full of know-it-all pilots, the results
were predictable: without so much as a minute’s reflection or consideration,
there’d be instant protests and endless “What we really need to do is” empty,
thoughtless rhetoric.
Jim and I used to joke that we could bring a pay proposal to a union
meeting and explain to the belligerent mass, “Okay, we’ve got a tentative
agreement that will triple your pay, and all you have to do is fly one trip
every Wednesday.”
Before the words had left our mouths, we speculated, some angry,
mouthy pilot would stand up and yell at us, “Wednesday?! I don’t want to
work on Wednesday! That’s stupid …”
And we decided our marathon domicile meetings with hundreds of
fuming pilots, junior and senior alike, were not officially over until we were
the only two left in the meeting room and told each other to fuck off.
The end result for me was that at home, on my union-designated
answering machine on my union rep phone line, I had to listen to my
voicemail only when my two young children were not around because of the
angry profanity in the messages left by the “union brothers” for whom I
couldn’t ever do enough, as Don Morris had wisely forewarned me.
Add to that, for me, the anger of the AirCal pilots demanding a date-of-
hire seniority merger which we as APA pilots definitely opposed, and I
couldn’t even leave my kitbag in flight operations overnight on west coast
layovers because some of those union “brothers” were leaving hostile,
profanity-laced but in the usual cowardly way of those who’d do such a
thing, unsigned notes stuffed into my kitbag.
The final insult was the usual excuse many DFW pilots would give me
after their laundry list of complaints, for why they themselves couldn’t do
any of the work they heaped on me. “I commute” was a very typical dodge,
or “I’m out on my boat,” or the worst, “I can’t do any union work—I have
small kids.”
So did I, two precious, wonderful little ones for whom I was trying to
better our future through hard work, volunteer work. That harsh reality of
pilot selfishness, self-righteousness and arrogance in such a huge number of
my fellow pilots undercut the old image I’d had based on the guys like Bob
Combs or Walt Estridge or even Smilin’ Jack, the type who I’d see in
Honolulu on their airline layovers back when I was still in the Air Force.
They’ve got it made, I used to think. What a genteel group of lucky
aviators. What I didn’t know was, they were a vanishing breed, replaced by a
growing number of childish, belligerent and self-absorbed younger pilots
wanting everything immediately, but unwilling to work for any of it. They
wouldn’t have made it through their rat year at VMI, but they were on the
pilot seniority list to stay.
In the weekly grind of negotiations with American Airlines over the
AirCal merger agreement, I got to know many senior corporate officers,
including V.P.-Operations Bob Baker, who was tough as nails but honest and
fair; Charlie Pasciutto, Jim Gunn and Ralph Richardi, all old-school airline
execs there to work hard and do their job. I got the sense that they were
laughing at the volatile, squabbling pilots, hobbled by their own disunity.
Management had their own freakshow at corporate headquarters. In a
meeting I once asked Bob Baker about a hypothetical situation and what the
company would do.
“Probably,” Bob Baker told me, “Our usual senior management
technique: study it to death, then fuck it up.”
Still, pilots needed a union, because to management, pilots were mostly
just annoying cost units.
“Management wants you to know and never forget,” Wayne Guessford,
the APA vice president told me, “Who owns the place and who just works
here.”
Wayne was the heart and soul of APA during those years, and no one ever
did more for the pilots of American Airlines than Wayne Guessford, a quiet,
dedicated, self-effacing leader.
The president of the union at that time was more of a figurehead, an ass
clown mostly there for the perks of the office, the high pay, and the sport-
fucking: many of the senior pilots working on APA national committees had
longtime girlfriends on the side.
Many national committee members didn’t live locally as I did and as
did some of the other volunteers. But when they were in town on assignment
every month for days or weeks, many had girlfriends in Texas in addition to
having wives back at their crew base. That, like Smilin’ “Fuck-Shit-Piss”
Jack’s regular deal, was just an understood, seldom spoken about reality that
shocked and maybe even disappointed me at first. Slowly, the airline pilot
image I’d always held, looking from the outside, seemed a bit tarnished from
the inside.
The captain who was the union president at the time had an apartment
near our Arlington, Texas union headquarters, paid for by dues money, of
course. Every week he’d leave his wife and kids back at his crew base and fly
in to DFW, work at the union headquarters Tuesday through Thursday, shack
up with his decidedly bovine, in my opinion, companion afterward, then fly
back home on Friday. In conversation, I was pretty sure he was reading from
one script for B-scale me (and Phil and Dave) and another for his A-scale
cronies, but in the end, that wouldn’t matter, even though I felt he was being
less than candid with us. Because soon we’d outnumber him and his senior
pals anyway, and his rhetoric would be moot.
As a gesture of defiance or maybe just to yank his chain when I knew
he was in town, before he eventually breezed into his executive suite, I’d use
his private bathroom for a thorough morning constitutional, then leave it for
him. You could hear him hollering all the way down to whatever conference
room I was working in, which was the point.
Once, he broke into a merger committee meeting ordered me to keep
my B-scale shit out of his private toilet. Presidential order or no, unless he
got there before I did—and he probably should have—he’d just have to deal
with it, just like the whole B-scale stink he’d helped to create.
After the AirCal negotiations were concluded, it was time for a change, a
welcome change. I put in a bid for a DFW MD-80 first officer position, and
got it on the very next bid run.
For me, a lifetime dream was about to come true.

Chapter 41
“Localizer capture,” said Charles Clack, a Check Airman, from the left
seat. Ahead, the lights of the Los Angeles basin sprawled like diamonds
scattered across the blanket of night as we sank lower on our approach to
Long Beach Airport.
Technically, I should have made that callout, being the pilot flying, as
soon as our flight director system captured the navigational signal leading us
to the runway. But that was why there was a Check Airman in the captain’s
seat supervising my first landing—with 142 unknowing passengers aboard—
in the MD-80.
As is typically the case, I discovered the real aircraft flew better and
different from the simulator, which had been my total experience “flying” the
MD-80 up to that point. I had the jet trimmed up nicely and the winds were
mild so she flew a steady, true course with little correction from me.
But the most important, exciting and rewarding point for me was, I was
the pilot flying. That felt good, after almost two years sitting sideways at the
DC-10 engineer’s panel. That had been an easy, decent gig, but this is what I
was here for.
Fully configured with full flaps, the MD-80 autothrottles kept the EPR
(Engine Pressure Ratio, pronounced “EEP-er”) fairly high, which was good:
she flew more stable at a higher power setting with more drag. The MD-80
Operating Manual recommended flaps 28 for routine use because it saved
fuel due to the reduced drag compared to flaps 40. But I learned from
experience that the jet flew a better, tighter approach at the higher power
setting and really, how much extra fuel was being burned from the final
approach fix to touchdown anyway?
Fully configured with gear and flaps, I simply flew the long silver jet
down the guy wire Major Wingo had told me about, from our vector altitude
all the way to touchdown on the comparatively short Long Beach runway.
The landing was firm but decent, although the nosewheel came down harder
than I’d anticipated.
“I should have reminded you about that,” Charles said later in the hotel
van. “With flaps forty, the nose is heavy; so you have to ease it down.”
Still, nothing could dampen my elation at having flown my first takeoff
and landing in a passenger jet at a major airline. With a full load of
passengers on board. That was it—I was really an airline pilot at last. Cross
another item off the dream come true list, I said to myself silently.
The first officer upgrade at the Schoolhouse had been a breeze for a
couple reasons. First, the McDonnell-Douglas systems logic and flight
guidance processes were much the same as those on the DC-10. I already
understood “CLMP,” “IAS,” “VS” and all of the flight guidance modes and
what they’d do because I’d been monitoring the DC-10 pilots’ processes and
procedures for a couple years.
And, I was paired with Brian, a very smart, capable captain-upgrade pilot
for the entire ground school and simulator programs. He was a Chicago-
based pilot, quiet, serious, and very capable. He offered easygoing help and
coaching, just as he’d do with his copilots up at O’Hare and I learned a lot
from him. He’d be an excellent captain, I could already tell, and in fact, he
became a Check Airman himself eventually.
The MD-80 itself was a study in design contradictions. When Douglas
Aircraft stretched the old DC-9 by adding two fuselage extensions, one
forward of the wing root and one aft, they didn’t enlarge or beef up the wing
at all. By contrast, when Boeing extended the 737 series, they’d enlarged and
improved the wing. The MD-80 simply had higher wing loading, which is not
an optimal situation from a pilot’s view. The lift was adequate, but certainly
not ample, reducing the stall margin. While Boeing’s philosophy was “make
new,” Douglas seemed to be simply “make do.”
The ailerons were unpowered, relying on the exact same sluggish flying
tabs the old KC-135 tankers had. She was lethargic and clumsy in the roll
axis and the actual control wheels in the cockpit were cartoonishly large to
give pilots more leverage against the lethargic ailerons. To boost roll
response at slower speeds, the wing spoilers were metered to the ailerons,
which was a mixed blessing: they didn’t raise the left wing to reinforce a
right turn; rather, they dropped the right wing with drag. In an engine failure
situation, the last thing you needed was spoiler drag added to engine thrust
loss in any maneuver. That was Douglas doing “make do,” as they had done
with so many hastily added components on the DC-10.
The instrument panel was chaotic, as if they’d just thrown in all the
indicators and instruments they could think of and then slammed the door.
That left the pilots to constantly sort out useful information and block out
distracting nuisance warnings. Douglas made a stab at lightening the scan
load on the pilots with an elaborate array of aural warnings, a voice known as
“Bitching Betty” to pilots. They just weren’t sensitive enough to be useful,
like yelling “landing gear” in certain situations where landing gear wasn’t
needed, which gradually desensitized a pilot to the point where you’d
reflexively screen out the distraction, which was good, but also the warning,
which was bad.
The most unbelievable bit of cockpit clumsiness was the HSI, or
“Horizontal Situation Indicator,” the primary compass-driven course and
heading indicator before each pilot. Mine on the copilot’s side was placed
off-center and mostly behind the bulky control yoke. It was actually angled
slightly to make it more visible to the captain, because his instrument display
was also obstructed by his control yoke, an incredibly clumsy arrangement.
The ultimate design goofiness was the standby compass, which on most
aircraft was located right above the glareshield between the pilots. Douglas
engineers must have had a field day designing the MD-80 whiskey compass,
locating it on the aft cockpit bulkhead above the copilot’s right shoulder. To
use it, you had to flip up a folding mirror on the glareshield itself, aim and
find the compass behind both pilots’ backs, then try to fly while referencing
the compass in the tiny mirror.
The fuselage was long and thin, earning the jet the nickname “the Long
Beach sewer pipe” because it had been built in Long Beach at the
McDonnell-Douglas plant. Flight attendants called it the “Barbie Dream Jet”
because it was almost toy-like compared to the other American Airlines
narrow body jet, the 727.
The problem with the increased fuselage length was that Douglas hadn’t
enlarged the rudder at all on the stretched MD-80, so the rudder itself was
fairly useless for heading changes or turn coordination. All it seemed to do
was torque the fuselage and have little effect on the aircraft’s azimuth.
Eventually, an MD-80 pilot learned to ignore the rudder pedals in the air,
unless it was needed to control yaw during a thrust loss on either engine.
The aspect of having the engines mounted along the aircraft centerline
was a good deal compared to wing mounted engines which incur more
asymmetrical yaw in an engine failure and I appreciated that. The engines
were so far back that you couldn’t hear an engine failure in the cockpit, so
there were actually warning lights to alert pilots of a failure.
The JT8D engine response was forceful and the engines themselves were
the Pratt and Whitney equivalent of the gutsy General Electric TF-33 fanjets
we had on the EC-135 J at Hickam. Minus the roll heaviness and
disregarding the cockpit design mess, I wasn’t about to let anything dampen
my enthusiasm for line flying as a pilot at a major airline.
I’d waited long enough to bid first officer that I could actually hold a set
schedule rather than an “on call” reserve pilot schedule. At my seniority
range, the trips weren’t very good, but they were trips just the same.
My first month I held a schedule of early two-day Buffalo trips. Still, I
was undaunted—I had a schedule! A regular airline pilot trip. I’d sign in at
six in the morning, a pretty ugly deal, for a seven o’clock pushback. I wasn’t
the only one who’d upgraded: Smilin’ Jack had become senior enough to
hold Honolulu trips on the DC-10 and I’d see him on those early morning
sign-ins as I trudged through the airport employee parking lot.
You couldn’t miss him, because he’d park his Winnebago in the lot and
after the predawn arrival of his flight from Honolulu, his RV would be full of
flight attendants from his trip, still in their uniform muumuus, laughing and
drinking whatever he was whipping up in his blender. I’d have to smile,
headed for my “Ice Age” Buffalo winter layovers while glass tinkled, a
blender whirred and women’s laughter spilled out of “The Whale,” as his
Winnebago was nicknamed.
Eventually, the DFW Airport police invited Jack to leave and never bring
The Whale back to the airport after they caught him peeing on a lamppost in
the parking lot. He was just being gentlemanly—the RV only had one
bathroom and the girls needed it—but that was the end of the dawn luaus in
the airport employee lot.
The Schoolhouse transition programs were designed to give a pilot the
fundamental training in the aircraft to pass the rating check, with the
understanding that a pilot would learn more as his or her flight experience
increased. That made sense in that none of us were brand new pilots, we were
simply transitioning to a new aircraft. I was fortunate in my early months
line-flying the MD-80 that I had very capable, patient captains who coached
me on things like descent profiles and timing, and planning.
I flew a couple of Buffalo months with Rob Stidham, a fairly new
captain and a former Navy pilot. He was an old school type captain, quiet,
laid back, very skilled and patient with a new FO like me. He was single, and
he looked like a Hollywood star or a male model, but yet he was humble,
self-effacing and dedicated to his flight attendant girlfriend.
Captains like Rob were a pleasure to fly with. Knowing I had little time
in the aircraft, they’d use subtle prompts like “are you going to make that
crossing restriction?” which was a nice way to say, “increase the descent rate
because of the tailwind, doofus.” What a sharp contrast to Air Force types
like Hitler who’d simply start yelling and berating a copilot.
Through the grapevine, I’d heard that had Hitler retired from the Air
Force and was hired by a small regional carrier. It wasn’t a surprise that he
hadn’t been hired by a major airline, because he’d burned so many bridges in
his belligerent USAF years that there were many—including me—just
waiting to hear of him interviewing at American. At the first sign of Hitler
applying to our airline, we’d spring into action, knocking down Judy Tarver’s
office door at Pilot Recruitment, warning her not to hire him and why. I’m
sure there dozens of pilots at other major airlines with the same objective,
having endured his assholiness in the Air Force. He never finished training,
we heard eventually.
The Buffalo trip I did so often flew a first leg to Nashville, where I was
addicted to the Café Au Bon Pain chocolate croissants for a quick breakfast,
then on to “Buffleberg,” as Rob called it. There wasn’t much to do in the
frozen downtown, so we’d spend most of the afternoon watching sports,
drinking beer and eating the free roasted peanuts in the downtown Hyatt bar.
That reminded me of the old days back at Reese with Coker and the
Wolfpack, where dinner would consist of too much beer and only chips and
dip for dinner. Early the next morning, I’d take a seat in the Hyatt van to the
Buffalo Airport, hungover and just hoping and praying no other van
passenger would talk to me because if I had to turn my head, I might throw
up.
The short Philly layovers were sometimes worse, in the decades-ago days
before drug and alcohol testing of airline crews. Till the early morning hours,
the hotel bar would be full, with Southwest being the hands-down leader in
wild partying. Often, my crew would straggle into a layover hotel after
midnight only to find a Southwest crew or two partying in the bar or the
lobby, after the bar closed down. In fact, we’d use Southwest as a cover
because they were so insane people hardly noticed us. Compared to the
Southwest Airlines crews binge drinking, everyone else, including us, were
just amateurs.
I flew a couple of months of that Philly trip, which included the brutal
early morning, east coast sign-in after a too short night, then a flight to
Chicago, and on to San Jose on the west coast.
Jim, the captain, was a great guy, a former Navy pilot, and single. He
was legendary among the flight attendants, even though he was plain-
looking, balding, and kind of fat. Still, he’d usually end up with a flight
attendant for the night wherever we went, often a United flight attendant at
the San Jose layover hotel. I asked him once if he wasn’t concerned that all of
his sport fucking might lead to a dread disease and his simple answer was,
“Fuck it—you get AIDS, you die.”
Our usual routine in San Jose included me ending my half-hour run at a
convenience store near our layover hotel, a squatty, old-timey Holiday Inn.
I’d buy cool adult beverages, which Jim always reimbursed me for, then we’d
sit at the pool the rest of the day chilling out. One by one, the flight
attendants would straggle out of their rooms and join us for refreshments;
often United flight attendants who laid over there joined us as well. Once I
dragged a white board out of a hotel meeting room and we had a marathon
Pictionary tournament at the pool with both United and American crews. It
gave us something to do in the dead hotel time we had the rest of the day.
Then I’d usually go across the street to a Chinese restaurant I liked for dinner
and call it a night.
I flew with one high-time and very professional captain for a month
who had one quirk I finally asked about.
“Why,” I asked him, “On every approach at about five hundred feet, do
you always say, ‘what was that?’”
“Just to get it on the cockpit voice recorder,” he answered with a wry
smile. “In case we crash, the accident board will go crazy trying to figure out
what I was talking about.”
I gained a lot of experience handling the MD-80 in winter storms, with
icing, gusty crosswinds and low visibility at the Philly, Chicago, Detroit and
Buffalo airports. Once, flying into Seattle on a gusty night in the heaviest
icing I’d ever seen, I was actually worried that the wing anti-icing system
couldn’t keep up with the growing accumulation that grew so thick I could
barely see out the forward windscreen. We bounced around mercilessly in the
gusty updrafts typical of south landings at SeaTac Airport because of the
gullies and ravines that pocked the final approach ground track and made our
radio altimeters nearly useless.
“I’m not sure about this much icing,” I said cross-cockpit to Jerry
Kagey, a seasoned, ex-Navy Connie pilot and a great captain.
“Just keep flying,” he said, so I did. When you flew with experienced
guys like Jerry, who eventually became a standout check airman, you could
have a lot more confidence than you actually felt. We managed the approach
and, despite gusty updrafts and crosswinds, I pulled off a surprisingly decent
landing.
Besides inflight icing, I also dealt time and again with a design quirk of
the Super-80 that earned it the nickname “The Douglas Ice Machine.” The
shape of the main wing fuel tanks and the proximity of the cold-soaked fuel
to the upper surface caused a thin sheet of ice to form on top of the wing,
even in temperatures well over freezing.
That ice was difficult to detect, until the wing flexed right before takeoff
as lift was generated and that shed the ice layer which flew upwards and aft,
usually into an engine. That frequently caused compressor blade damage and
sometimes, engine failure.
I experienced that once firsthand on takeoff roll from DFW headed
northbound. The clear ice was undetectable visually, but as we rolled down
the runway at takeoff thrust on a runway roughened by icy patches, sheets of
ice dislodged from the left wing vibrated loose and flew into the left engine.
The jet shook like a rag doll as the compressor section of the left engine
disintegrated and the engine failed. Our ice disaster was but one of many that
occurred all to frequently, and only on the MD-80 fleet.
McDonnell-Douglas engineers simply threw up their hands and said,
“That’s an operator problem, not a manufacturer problem,” which was as
untrue as it was lame. In reality, it was just another poor design facet like the
tail-mounted engine in the DC-10. The end result at the lowest end of the
totem pole—me—was more hassle: the MD-80 FO had to climb up on a
ladder near the leading edge of each wing and actually use a pole to
physically check the upper wing surface for ice—before every flight.
I’ve always believed our American Airlines jets are the best and safest
aircraft in the airline world, maintained by the finest, most experienced
aircraft mechanics in the world, period. That made it easy as a pilot to fly
every trip with full confidence. That more than compensated for the MD-80’s
design flaws.
As I gained seniority, I managed to hold better trips which, from an FO’s
viewpoint, meant less harsh northeastern weather and sign-ins later in the
morning.
It seemed in those days that the median ages for pilots and flight
attendants was lower, hovering in the thirties with the flight attendants being
a little younger, the pilots older. I flew a lot with guys in Rob’s age and
seniority range, like Dan Holtman and Jerry Baus, two young, single captains
I admired. They were both ex-military and great pilots, very laid back and
easy to fly with. Most captains were, and I learned from each one,
appreciated their experience and skill which typically, they shared without
reservation.
Eventually, though, my luck ran out. My regular captain called in sick
and a new captain, a guy on reserve, was called out. Despite being a brand-
new captain, he was the airline version of Hitler—and it didn’t end well.

Chapter 42
On the last day of our three-day trip, Captain Hitler and I were passing
through O’Hare on our final leg home to DFW. It had been a miserable three
days, and I was glad it was nearly over.
On day one, a flight attendant had poked her head into the cockpit and
asked a question. I reached for the paperwork to answer whatever question
she’d asked and when I started to answer, Jon whipped his hand across the
cockpit and stuck his finger in my face.
“Hey,” he snapped, his face red, “She’s talking to me—not you. Got it?”
It went downhill from there.
In flight, he was mostly taciturn, scowling. Maybe he thought his silence
was punishing me, but actually, it was just fine by me. I wanted nothing to do
with him.
On the last leg, I did my exterior preflight while Jon was in Chicago
Ops checking the flight plan and weather. As I neared the aft cargo door, a
ramp crew guy called to me from the belt loader positioned near the aft cargo
door.
“Come on up here,” he said. “Have a look at this.”
I climbed up onto the belt loader and joined him, peering into the right
engine intake. One fan blade in the first stage compressor had a huge, jagged
gouge in the leading edge. It must have sucked up a metal bolt or something
from the tarmac, and the damage was clear. The mechanics would have to
look at this and decide if the aircraft was flyable, which I doubted.
I thanked the ramp guy then went back into the cockpit to tell Jon. He still
wasn’t there, so I called aircraft maintenance and entered the damage in the
aircraft maintenance logbook. Technically, I should have asked Jon if he
wanted it put in the book but practically speaking, it had to go in the logbook.
Especially on the last leg of a three day, I wanted to expedite the inevitable—
fix the engine or get us a new aircraft so we could get home.
Plus, Jon had been such an arrogant asshole the whole trip, and this was
the last leg, so I’d shove it right back up his butt: this needs to be looked at by
maintenance and we’d better do that quickly so as not to misconnect a full
load of passengers.
When Jon returned to the cockpit, he blew up.
“Where did you get your engineer training!” he roared, then reached back
to close the cockpit door so he wouldn’t shock the boarding passengers with
his yelling.
I reached out a hand and blocked the door.
“Do this in a normal conversational voice or don’t do it at all,” I said.
He turned red in the face.
“Are you telling me what I can do on my own aircraft?” he hissed.
“You can do whatever you want,” I said. “I’m just not going to be yelled
at.”
“That’s it!” he yelled. “You’re off the trip!”
Fine, I thought to myself, and without a word I put my flight gear back
into my kitbag, grabbed my coat and hat and walked up the jetbridge to the
terminal. I hopped on the next flight to DFW and deadheaded home.
Of course, I was summoned to the Chief Pilot’s office the next day. I
knew the drill, and I’d also gotten the background on Jon from one of my
APA rep buddies. I was the third copilot Jon had fired in the two months he’d
been a captain.
He’d had a reputation as a petulant, easily offended FO and engineer, and
other pilots warned that he’d be a flaming asshole once he got his fourth
stripe. And that he was.
I knew what I had to do. I went in to Joe Killianski’s office “with my dick
in the dirt” as we’d say at VMI when reporting to the commandant,
apologizing. Sir, I told Joe, I’m so stupid, it’ll never happen again. He
lectured me about crew discipline and insubordination, but he seemed to
recognize I’d been thrown off the trip versus having walked off myself.
I responded with the basic “yessir three bags full” which was the
standard military junior officer “get out of jail free card” routine.
Joe lectured me that I had to get along and I needed to help the captain
and blah-blah-blah. I did the dumb lieutenant “drinking duck” imitation, my
head bobbing up and down in agreement with whatever he was babbling
about. I was dismissed in a couple of minutes.
Phil went into Jon’s hearing as his union rep and said that didn’t go well
from the start. Jon started arguing with the Chief, always a bad idea, I knew
from doing so many disciplinary hearings as a union rep.
Killianski told Jon, “We don’t have enough copilots to get through your
career.”
The end result was that Jon actually bumped back to copilot for awhile to
learn how not to be such an asshole, I guess. I never saw him again.
Still, I didn’t escape without a sense of guilt. Yes, he was a jackass, but I
still had a responsibility to not only the hundreds of passengers aboard over
the three-day trip, but also to our profession that had earned a remarkable
safety record that kept us all in business. I’d let our crew connection devolve
into two independent contractors in the cockpit, communicating only
minimally and certainly, ill-prepared to handle an inflight emergency.
That reinforced for me the pilot-in-command approach of guys like Rob,
or Dan and Jerry: inclusive, confident, and easygoing. It wasn’t so much a
question of how I wanted to be as a captain as much how, I realized, I’d need
to be if I was to be a decent captain someday. Ego needed to take a back seat
to professionalism, and I had fallen short.
I continued to gain seniority and with the increased bidding power, I
managed to hold better flying, or at least more comfortable flying in terms of
departure and return times. And I was able to fly to more favorable layovers,
like Orlando, Florida and Long Beach, California where the layovers were
sunny and warm, at least compared to Buffalo or Pittsburgh or Cleveland.
One favorite layover at the time was Long Beach, because we stayed aboard
the Hotel Queen Mary for the night. We arrived in the early evening, just as
Charles Clack and I had done on my copilot IOE. We’d always invite the
flight attendants to join us for a drink at the beautiful, ornate wood-paneled
bar just under the bridge, overlooking the sharply pointed bow. There you
could sit outside on deck and watch the sun sink into the Pacific over Long
Beach Harbor.
Most of our flight attendants were new and many had never experienced
the Queen Mary layover, and that was part of the fun: if we could gather
everyone on that bow deck, outside, it was hilarious to watch those first-
timers jump out of their skin when, at exactly seven o’clock, they blasted the
ship’s horn only a few feet above our heads. The first time I’d been
ambushed like that on the Queen I’d nearly jumped overboard.
We played that trick on the wrong pair of newhire flight attendants once,
and they paid us back with interest. We usually hung around the bar after the
flight attendants left and had another beer or two. Then, that night, I returned
to my cabin alone. By luck of the draw, I’d been assigned a suite, and I
looked forward to enjoying a night in what must have been the height of
luxury a half a century before.
I opened the door and stepped over the bulkhead into about three inches
of water. The entire cabin was awash, conjuring for me the vision of the
Titanic going down. Our very clever, vindictive flight attendants had
convinced a housekeeper to let them into my cabin, and they’d set up some
payback for our ship’s horn surprise on deck earlier. Towels filled the sinks
and the bathtub, and all the faucets gushed water which poured over the
edges and onto the deck.
I trudged back to the reception desk to tell them my room was flooded
and I’d need another. But the security officer wasn’t satisfied with my
explanation that “this is just the way I found the cabin when I returned to it.”
“Why’d you flood your cabin?” he asked several times. I had to admit, the
girls had nailed my ass that time. Finally, I was assigned the tiniest broom
closet of a cabin they could find, where I spent the night.
The captain paid the instigator back with interest. The next day at the
Long Beach Airport when security screeners opened her suitcase to inspect it,
one held up a pair of the captain’s tighty-whiteys which he’d doctored up
with a smashed chocolate bar in the seat. I was relieved that the trip ended at
DFW a few hours later, and that our pilot bags were safely out of the flight
attendants’ reach in the cargo compartment.
I flew an entire month of Orlando layovers and we’d stay in an old, two-
story Holiday Inn on the South Orange Blossom Trail. After an afternoon of
bar service at the pool, we’d dash across the “SOB” Trail to an Olive Garden,
though we were asked to leave more than once for actually opening and
drinking the wine bottles scattered around for ornamentation—at least one
flight attendant had a bottle opener handy—so we learned to do that activity
under the table, out of view.
Often, the next morning as I left my room headed for the lobby, I’d pass
the pool and notice all the pool furniture in the pool, on the bottom. Oh yeah,
I’d recall, we did that after we got back from dinner. And at checkout, I’d
notice that our number one flight attendant had charged all of her beer at the
pool bar to my room, which seemed fair since I’d charged all of mine to hers.
I flew a great month with Jim McConkey, another union volunteer and an
excellent pilot. I’d flown with his wife, Gail, and considered them both to be
friends.
Our first night of the trips I flew with Jim laid over in Huntsville,
Alabama and our routine was to change clothes and reassemble at the bar at
“Darryl’s” next door with whichever flight attendants felt like socializing.
Wendy, our number one flight attendant, joined us at the bar and
eventually, seemed to not appreciate the waitress flirting with “her boys,” as
she called us.
“Now look at her,” Wendy said. “She just unbuttoned another button on
her blouse.”
As Jim paid for a round of famous Darryl’s “Pig Beer,” Wendy pulled her
t-shirt up and flashed the waitress—and us—perfect, manmade and enhanced
twin peaks.
After we paid our tab at the end of the night, as we walked back to the
hotel, Wendy said, “My husband always asks after every trip, ‘did you raise
your shirt and show those boys your boobies?’”
He was spot-on with his question, though I never flew with Wendy again.
We also had wonderful Cocoa Beach layovers when we were flying to
Melbourne, although we did get asked to leave a dockside bar and restaurant
for being too rowdy. They let us all pile into the hotel van with the full
pitchers of beer we’d already paid for and as the captain told the manager,
“That’s okay—we’ve been thrown out of better places than this.”
One of the best narrow-body months I had was flying New Orleans trips
where we laid over at the Royal Sonesta on Bourbon Street. I flew with
Rocky Harshbarger, an excellent captain and a good union member who, as a
gesture of appreciation for the union beating I was taking as a DFW domicile
rep, wouldn’t let me even buy a beer. We’d get in late, then go down to
Toulouse Street and hang out in The Dungeon and have a few beers.
In some ways, airline crew life could be like an extended frat party,
with the partiers sponsored with paid for air travel, rooms, and access to some
major league resort areas and free time to socialize and more.
The relationship between pilots and flight attendants was an odd
conundrum. On the one hand, most flight attendants scoffed at the notion of
dating a pilot. Some of that attitude may have been caused by the type of
guys who were the average airline pilots. The archetype included a know-it-
all attitude, a typical military look—even if they weren’t ex-military—which
included a bad haircut and old, out of date clothes and often, a cheesy
mustache. The old saw about pilots was “big watch, small dick,” and “you
can tell a pilot, but you can’t tell him much.” Most of my peers fit the bill.
Compared to non-pilot guys our age, we looked pretty shabby, and with
the narrowminded world view that went with the know-it-all attitude, I could
see why some flight attendants felt dating a pilot was not appealing. Yet it
was commonplace to see flight attendants dating non-pilots who were losers.
A flight attendant stereotype pilots liked to laugh about was that many flight
attendants who looked down on pilots often dated, in pilot parlance, “an
unemployed drywall hanger.” Why would a flight attendant want to date a
pilot, someone with a college degree and a high-paying job? I heard many
flight attendant sob stories about breaking up with their handsome, house-
painter-loser boyfriends and my suggestion was always the same: find
yourself some sad sack pilot who’ll be grateful for your attention. He’ll
follow you around like a puppy, pay for everything and when you’re done,
you can just dump him and move on.
On the other hand, there were many pilots who claimed they’d never
date a flight attendant, although I always figured that was just mostly empty
rhetoric given that most flight attendants were way out of their league. And
they really were: flight attendants were strong, independent people who were
capable and confident in any situation, because that’s exactly what they had
to be in flight, and exactly why they were screened and hired in the first
place. For all their bravado, most pilots couldn’t handle that strength in a
partner anyway.
Still, many flight attendants dated and married pilots, despite the
condescending attitude towards pilots that was definitely part of their
stereotype. There were groups of single pilots and single flight attendants
who socialized together regularly despite the more prevalent attitude. The
whole thing was a paradox, at least from my married perspective, although it
was a fun spectator sport from the sidelines.
Beyond just hit-and-run sport fucking, it seemed there was always a
fringe of wreckage, maybe damaged goods, certainly with motive and
opportunity to find the like in someone else. Marriages in trouble and people
disengaged from their partners found a place to land, to hook up, with another
crewmember in similar circumstances. It was more than just a typical
workplace romance, because our workplace was a constantly shuffled deck of
coworkers and different states, countries even, month to month.
I flew with several captains who’d blown up their lives with a flight
attendant. Usually they were a matched pair of damaged goods, half serious,
half playing, but flirting with disaster nonetheless.
One such captain, Dale, would sit in his seat between flights and his
flight attendant girlfriend—the “other woman”—would come to the cockpit
and drape herself all over him. I could almost tolerate their handsy groping,
but his animosity for his kids was too much to take. He scapegoated them for
the unhappiness in his marriage which as a dad, pierced me to the heart. They
were his children—how could he?
I’d step out of the cockpit and make myself scarce until boarding, and
feel sorry for his two young daughters who he seemed to despise for reasons I
couldn’t fathom as a dad. It was all too sad and completely out of my hands,
though I did call our union Professional Standards representative about his
cockpit grab and grope with the other woman. They both needed to hose off
and save the physical stuff for the layover hotel. Such wreckage was tragic,
but so was the banal marriages that seemed to abound. I had no doubt that the
playground aspect of crew life had something to do with the blown-up
marriages, but there was more to it than just that.
After a trip, I sat on a bench waiting for the employee bus once with a
flight attendant I’d known and flown with many times over the years. When
the bus pulled up and opened its doors, a pilot stepped out, followed by what
had to be his wife. She was portly, frumpy, and they both looked grim.
“Why is it,” my flight attendant friend asked me, “That pilots have such
frumpy wives?”
I had no answer, though I knew it was true. That felt like Pau Hana at
Hickam all over again, and most of the pilot wives were the 9th ACCS
frumpalinas. Maybe that was okay for most of the 9 ACCs pilots, though it
really wasn’t for me, not back at the old squadron nor there at the bus stop.
In fact, back at Pau Hana I’d look at the beautiful, lively T-bird wives
doing their thing and wonder, why can’t I have one of those, and it was even
more difficult to think differently as an airline pilot working with so many
flight attendants who were more of the cartwheels at happy hour types than
the frumpalinas.
And I was pretty sure I knew the motivation of most of the flight
attendants, in fact one had told me once over adult beverages during a crew
“debrief.” The hair, makeup, stylish clothes, she told me, that’s not for you,
for some guy. That’s for themselves, for who they are, who they want to be.
Not for you. That rankled, and though I tried not to know why, I still
knew. At home, issues of appearance, the logistics of hair and make up and
clothes was stonewalled with the retort, “it’s only you.” And true enough, I’d
extended the flight attendants words—which I accepted, in fact, believed in
—why shouldn’t she want it for herself? Who did she want to be? In fact,
she’d even started buy clothes, shirts mainly, in the boys’ section. They were
“more comfortable.”
I also knew that I— “only me”—wasn’t anything special myself. I was
thirty-something, aging, although I still ran long distance and lifted weights
regularly pretty much uninterrupted since VMI. Maybe jeans and a polo shirt
were “only me,” but I didn’t want to be only me or worse, seen as the reason
why anyone else didn’t have to give a shit that I wanted to be more than that,
at least in a partner’s eyes, and have more than that in a partner.
And the kiss of death I shoved down deep, for a long time, was as my
flight attendant friend had pointed out, if someone didn’t do those things like
hair and make up and clothes for themselves, they never would, period. So,
just accept the boy’s fashions from Sears, the frumpy dresses and chopped
hair because it’s only you, and that’s just the way it was.
That was also the good part of crew life, though maybe it shouldn’t
have been. But you could leave all that behind as soon as you got to the
airport and stepped into the crew world again. Maybe misery loves company,
but many guys I flew with had their own version of it’s only you at home.
One guy, a check airman, told me when he returned home from a trip, he’d
open the front door, throw his uniform hat in, then wait. If it didn’t come
flying back out, he said he’d go inside.
Over beers in downtown Chicago, an FO told me he’d drive home at
twenty miles an hour, dreading and delaying what waited for him there.
Another FO at the bar laughed and said, “I’ve got you beat. I go to the
employee lot and take a nap in my car—then I drive home at twenty miles an
hour.” It seemed like there were a lot of people, crew folks, just plain stuck. I
knew it was our own damn fault and, with kids at home who were precious
and who we didn’t want to lose, it was best just put that under lock and key
while you pressed on with your life.
As my seniority increased, I started flying better trips with more senior
captains, guys who were a decade or so older than the new captains like Dan,
Rocky and Jerry. I was both fascinated by and respectful of their flying
careers, both in the military, for most of them, as well as at the airlines.
Initially, though, some of them could be standoffish, almost brusque,
which puzzled me at first. One guy, Al, seemed almost wary of me. After a
couple of trips—and a couple of beers—I found out why.
Al had been a flight engineer for nearly twenty years, simply because of
the happenstance of when he’d been hired. That’s because seniority was
everything in the airline world. Hiring went in waves, and the last pilots hired
were the first ones furloughed during the next, inevitable airline business
downturn.
Al hadn’t been furloughed, but it might have actually been better if he had
been, according to many pilots I talked to. That’s because if you were
furloughed, you went on and got another job and waited for recall. Many
went back into the military and secured some stability for their families,
waiting for recall to the airline which normally took a couple of years, at
least.
But if you were on the bottom of the seniority list, furlough hung over
your head like a sword of Damocles and you were never sure when or if it
would fall. Pilots hanging onto the bottom of the list were afraid to make
purchases like a new car or a house and were constantly worried about
disaster striking in the form of job loss month to month, sometimes for years.
Al had endured that strain for many years and almost as bad, the career
stagnation of being unable to move up from the flight engineer panel for
years. Pilot retirement funds were based on pilot pay and Al’s had been
constrained for most of his early years, and those years were very important
because they’d compound the longest.
As a result, he’d endured significant career and pay stagnation and even
though he’d finally achieved promotion to captain, he only had a few years
left before retirement. So I could understand why he’d been less than
amenable to sharing the small MD-80 cockpit with mouthy B-scalers
complaining about their bad deal—especially since it had taken Al decades to
reach the copilot’s seat where B-scalers like me sat after barely two years.
I suspected that was the source of Al’s coldness, and he confirmed it over
a couple beers. When I’d first walked up to him in Flight Operations, as was
the normal practice when starting a month, he said he’d braced himself for
what had been mostly a series of angry, sometimes militant B-scalers.
It took him a few flight hours to realize I wasn’t that type. Rather, I was
genuinely interested in his flying experience, especially his Air Force flying.
And I wanted to gain the personal knowledge of MD-80 characteristics—the
“gouge,” as pilots say—the best practices and techniques that worked well.
I wasn’t militant, I was active in the union, working to earn pay and parity
instead of mouthing off or pouting about the deal I’d accepted to fly for
American Airlines. I realized two important things about guys in his position.
First, everyone’s deal is different, despite signing the same contract: Al was
an A-scaler, but his retirement would be worth less than those who’d been
hired a few years earlier and had advanced in pay and aircraft position before
him.
The second takeaway for me was the subtle trap the divisive B-scale was
creating in a union where cohesiveness was the primary asset. And it worked
both ways: resentment and jealousy not only festered from the bottom of the
seniority list to the top, but also, the top end guys didn’t have an across the
board advantage and they too resented the junior guys who discounted the
hardship they’d endured.
Finally, given the narrowminded, self-centered viewpoint of airline pilots
in general, I could see no end to the disunity, much less the profanity-laced
voicemails on my union phone line.
That, it turned out, only got worse.

Chapter 43
“Now, don’t pick at the green,” the old sim instructor behind me croaked.
“Don’t pick at the green” was his quirky way to remind me, in the DC-10
copilot’s seat, to not ease back the control yoke until rotation speed—thus
putting the aircraft symbol on the artificial horizon slightly into the greenish-
blue “sky” on the indicator. I smiled at the quaint advice, even though I
hadn’t planned to pull back early on the elevator controls anyway.
I’d done three years of MD-80 line flying and that on top of the two years
I’d done on the DC-10 engineer’s panel gave me almost exactly five years as
an American Airlines pilot, and times were good. We’d continued nonstop
pilot hiring and though Hosehead and I as newhire 727 flight engineers had
prayed mightily that we might get at least five hundred pilots under us on the
seniority list, we actually had thousands.
I heard the good news when I was in DC-10 FO transition training that
my old 9 ACCS commander Tom Meade had been hired and that was a
windfall for American Airlines: Tom was an excellent pilot and very
experienced, plus a great leader. Same with Wayne Plump, the IP at Reese
who’d given me my T-37 initial progress check (IPC) so many years ago. He
was another bonanza for American Airlines, because he was a good pilot,
well-respected and an asset to our pilot group.
Even better, Animal Hauser, who was less than a year ahead of me, was
already upgraded to captain, and so was Dorf. That would be me in less than
a year, I figured, so it was time to bid the widebody copilot seat for both the
pay and the job, which was wonderful. Being a DC-10 flight engineer had
been simple and undemanding, but the first officer duties were ridiculously
easy: I just had to show up, sit down, and turn on the window heat switches
on the panel above my head. That was it.
Even after I’d finished my term on the union board of directors, the union
pilot and flight attendant publications as The Flight Deck continued to
publish my cartoons monthly. I expanded my product line to include a flight
crew cartoon calendar as well Christmas cards. I actually received a few of
my own cards from people at other airlines who didn’t realize I was the one
who created them. The cartoon business seemed to be thriving with little or
no attention from me, which was good.
The DC-10 FO transition course had been a breeze because I was already
familiar with the aircraft systems and procedures from my years as a
“Tengineer,” and the flight guidance and navigation systems were identical to
those on the MD-80. Ground school had been no challenge and living within
fifteen minutes of the Schoolhouse was a lucky break: I got to be home with
my young kids every night. Pilots from other bases had to deadhead to DFW
and then shuttle back and forth between the Schoolhouse and a training hotel.
Some didn’t mind and even some DFW-based pilots requested a training
hotel room to better concentrate of the flight manuals and training.
I did little study at home—that would be difficult with two preschoolers
—but I figured I knew what I needed to know not only to pass the rating
checkride in the simulator, but also to perform the copilot duties on my Initial
Operating Experience (IOE). I was a decade past the Reese AFB academics
and never had a problem since in flight training or check rides. The time was
better spent with my two youngsters, as far as I was concerned.
The Check Airman assigned to give me my last couple of simulator
sessions as well as my Initial Operating Experience (IOE)—a two-day flight
sequence on the DC-10—was a very soft-spoken and, for a pilot, well-
dressed guy named Marlo.
The simulator program at the time was designed to pair a transitioning
or upgrading pilot with the check airman he’d be flying the IOE with together
for the latter portion of the simulator syllabus as a way to add continuity to
the training, which was a great idea, just as it had been during my first officer
upgrade training on the MD-80 with Charles Clack. American Airlines was
constantly seeking ways to enrich the training programs and for a while, this
scheduling priority made for a more effective transition from the simulator
“flying” to the flight hours in the actual aircraft.
I met Marlo down in the DFW Pilot Operations area before our IOE
sequence. The first leg was a flight from DFW Airport to LaGuardia Airport
in Queens, New York. LaGuardia, or “LaGarbage” as many of us called it,
was a challenging airport in terms of its comparatively short runways (7,000
feet long versus the 13,000-foot-long DFW runways) and the narrow,
constricted taxiways always congested with aircraft. The LaGarbage runways
and taxiways were ancient, by modern airline standards, actually designed for
smaller, propeller-driven flying boats.
The LaGarbage layout included angled, curved and intersecting
runways and taxiways which increased the possibility of conflict between
taxiing aircraft, especially at night. Many of the paved surfaces, as they
converged, raised the possibility of wingtip collisions and worse, incursion
on an active runway, especially at night.
I admired Marlo’s pluck taking on an IOE into LaGarbage in the huge jet
and a new FO as his eyes and ears in the right seat. I had confidence in my
own abilities, but I also realized my limitations from having zero time in the
actual DC-10 copilot’s seat. I’d gained a definite wariness regarding the
LaGuardia tarmac hazards from many flights in and out of the airport in the
MD-80.
The Ten was nearly twice as large as the Maddog with a huge
wingspan. How could it operate in the narrow, angled and intersecting tangle
of taxiways on the S.S. LaGuardia? Also, stopping distance was on my mind
because of my MD-80 experience in LaGuardia. The Maddog might weigh a
hundred and ten, maybe a hundred and twenty thousand pounds on landing,
which required prompt and aggressive braking, especially if the runway
wasn’t dry. The DC-10 would easily weigh an extra hundred thousand
pounds, which would also have to be safely stopped on the S.S. LaGuardia’s
deck.
All of those considerations were on my mind as we boarded the DC-10
parked at Terminal 3E in DFW Airport. I was concerned, but not in a bad
way because I’d seen so many landings at LaGuardia from the engineer’s
panel in the cockpit. Obviously, stopping had never been a problem, although
on those landings, I hadn’t been the guy on the brakes doing the stopping.
While I didn’t want to overdo the braking, I definitely didn’t want to
underestimate the brake pedal pressure required to stop the beast. Sure, Marlo
would never let that happen, but I wanted to get it right the first time.
We boarded the big jet in the bright, morning sunshine of a perfect
summer day in Texas. Returning to the DC-10 cockpit seemed like going
home, with the added head rush of bypassing the engineer’s panel and
climbing into the copilot’s seat.
The simulator just couldn’t reproduce the experience of height above the
ground as well as the effect of the huge side window, which conjured a
momentary alarm as we pushed back that I could fall out and drop from the
second story to the ramp. The MD-80 side windows were much smaller and
the cockpit height much lower.
Marlo had me set to be the pilot flying the leg, which surprised me. He
was going to let me make my first landing in the big jet at LaGuardia, on the
shortest runway we ever used on the DC-10? Seemed like if I were the check
airman, I’d say, “Watch me on this first leg and I’ll talk you through what
I’m doing as I demo the landing.” Then I’d have given the newly transitioned
pilot—me—the second leg back to land on DFW’s 13,000-foot runway.
At the same time, I was completely confident in my own ability to land
the DC-10, even at LaGarbage, and I was eager to do so. This was the very
jumbo jet I’d seen taxiing out to the Honolulu Reef Runway barely five years
earlier, and here I was at the controls! I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the
yoke, so I wasn’t about to say a word about Marlo’s plan.
The takeoff was an old familiar feeling, except it was my hands on the
throttles and the wheel. I eased it back and the nose rose smoothly, then the
rumbly sensation of the fat tires rolling on concrete hushed and she was
airborne.
“Autothrottles on N1,” I called out as we cleaned up the flaps and slats
and arced up and to the east. She handled firm, smooth and stable. You could
almost feel the mass of the big jet and unlike the MD-80, wherever you put
the nose, it stayed, steady as a rock. The DC-10 was the first large jet I’d
flown with powered ailerons and she rolled like a dream at the slightest tilt of
the control wheel. No lag or clumsy sluggishness from the flying tabs like on
the MD-80 and the -135. I flew with one hand on the three tall, silver
throttles, the other on the yoke and the jet responded with ease.
The power response from the three huge General Electric fan jets was
quick and firm, snarling and shoving the jet forward for takeoffs and climbs. I
hand-flew to twenty thousand feet, then clicked on the autopilots.
The cruise was quiet and relaxing, with Marlo saying little other than to
answer any questions I had. Descent into LaGuardia was steady, almost easy
being the middle of a random weekday. Maneuvering the jet was simple
because she was so stable and the flight controls so smooth.
By contrast the MD-80 was often squirrely on final approach, buffeted by
any wind gusts which could set up a roll oscillation because of the lag
between aileron input and the actual control displacement. It was almost as if
you were already in a different gust effect by the time the countermotion
you’d inputted for the last correction took effect. That was a pointless tail
chase. Not so with the Ten. She had instantly responsive ailerons and with the
mass of three hundred thousand pounds, the wind shifts affected her less.
“Just hold what you’ve got,” Marlo told me on short final. The big test
would be, for me, finding the correct flare sight picture. The DC-10 was
much larger than anything I’d ever flown and when the gear was just inches
above the runway, the cockpit would still be forty feet in the air. The
perception would be very different.
When Marlo said, “Flare,” I eased in just a little back pressure on the
yoke. Looking out the forward windscreen, we sure seemed too high, to me,
and if I’d flared the MD-80 at that sight picture, we’d have stalled and
plunked down on the runway when the airspeed bled off.
Suddenly, almost imperceptibly, the main landing gear trucks were
rumbling on the concrete runway. The Ten’s gullwing design created an extra
cushion of air at the wing root when near the runway which made soft
touchdowns easy, if you were on speed and pitch. Immediately, as I eased the
nosewheel onto the runway and before I even pulled the reverse levers up and
back, the jet seemed to want to slow down on its own, also unlike the MD-80.
It was so rock-solid on approach, especially short final where the MD-80
often became a wrestling match, that it was more like aiming the jet rather
than wrangling the reins on a balky mare. And once on the runway, the huge
tonnage just seemed to slow on its own. I loved it.
Deplaning and boarding over two hundred passengers took a bit longer
than the one hundred to a hundred and forty-two we carried on the MD-80, so
plenty of turnaround time was built into the DC-10 schedule. So I took a
moment to go downstairs to the ramp in LaGarbage just to look up at the big
jet as she stood on the tarmac. I’d been downstairs plenty during my engineer
days, but this was different. I’d just flown her, with my own hands, and
landed her here on the short LaGarbage air patch.
It was a match; we were a good pair. She submitted all the smash of three
colossal jet engines, the broad wings, the monstrous tall tail and the taut
ailerons to my puny, human touch, and we’d flown with ease. I was elated, I
was humbled, I was at ease. This was going to be great flying.
When I got home from that trip, I heard the welcome news that Chip had
been hired by American Airlines. I was pleased that we’d gotten one of the
best pilots I’d ever known, as well as a close friend—friends, really,
considering Jonne too would be moving to Texas—on our pilot seniority list.
At the same time, I was astounded that he was getting out of the Air Force
instead staying in for a career. He was exactly who the Air Force needed and
wanted as a pilot and as a commander, being an Academy grad, then having
climbed the pilot career ladder like a fast-burner with excellent officer
qualities and command experience, not to mention being well-liked by his
peers.
But such a loss was, as often it turns out, because of the Air Force’s
stupidity when it came to managing pilots. McBunny, my pilot training
roommate, had requested his initial assignment as a pilot to be at Griffiss
AFB in a tanker solely to be close to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
which was near the base. There he’d continue his graduate work in physics
while on active duty, flying the KC-135. McBunny was another Academy
grad and a brilliant scholar. His graduate work at RPI earned him an offer of
a fellowship Lawrence Livermore Lab studying physics, a tremendous
opportunity, never mind quite an honor.
But the Air Force said no—you will be a KC-135 copilot, period. Another
stellar officer simply stonewalled by the Air Force, one who could have been
an excellent, experienced math or physics professor for the Air Force
Academy after Lawrence Livermore. But no, the Air Force wouldn’t budge.
I went to dinner with McBunny in LA on a layover once, and he’d left the
Air Force and taken a higher-paying job as a researcher for TRW, a major
defense contractor. Once again, the Air Force’s pigheaded treatment of an
excellent officer became a windfall for corporate America.
So it was with Chip: The Air Force’s loss was definitely our gain. We had
a Wolfpack reunion at Animal Hauser’s home when Chip and Jonne arrived
in Fort Worth along with their young kiddos, Jenny and Greg.
I flew with a lot of older pilots, of course, because the DC-10 captain’s
job paid the most so the senior-most captains held the bid. Many told great
stories, several told weird stories—I had one who tried to convince me coast-
to-coast one trip that I should invest in his business of building houses out of
empty beer cans.
Many were on their third wives, some their fourth. I got a lot of quirky
lectures on dubious political, historical and even religious theories. That was
almost a pilot norm: not really thinking, but simply pontificating. Most of
what they “knew” was a bricolage of right-wing rhetoric they’d heard on a
conservative talk radio show or read in a right-wing political publication.
Basically, they parroted—often to each other—the skewed socio-political
rants of their favorite extremists. I tuned out, spending daylight hours hidden
behind my sunglasses, nodding occasionally but actually listening to oldies
on KOMA in Oak-city or WKBW out of Buffalo one of our A.M. radios.
Most of the pilots senior enough to hold the DC-10 captain bid were
older, many nearing retirement. A lot of the younger pilots would antagonize
the guys near retirement, prodding them to retire sooner in order to create
upward mobility for someone more junior. The effect moved all through the
pilot list: when one pilot came off the list, everyone moved up.
“Retired or better” was a fairly insensitive but accurate way pilots
looked at moving up through attrition: we lost several pilots each year to
recreational aircraft accidents, plus the usual mortality factors of age, illness,
accidents, even suicide. Usually the announcement of such a loss prompted
the callous question “what was his seniority number” so a pilot could
determine if he’d gained a seniority number as a result of the fatality.
Folks used to tweak the senior guys with graffiti both in operations and
even in the aircraft. “GOOMSOM” was an acronym for “Get Out Of My Seat
Old Man” that used to set off many rants by the older guys. I wasn’t so
blatant, but whenever the senior pilot in the captain’s seat complained about
delays or reassignments on the trip we were flying, I’d always add, “These
are your golden years—you shouldn’t have to put up with this. If you retire,
you could be on the golf course every day.”
One old codger named Buck would turn to me cross-cockpit on morning
flights and with a very serious look on his droopy, hound dog fac, he’d just
have to tell me, “Chris, I’m building a stool.” Within a few minutes, he’d get
up, grab his newspaper and head back to the lav for his morning
constitutional.
There was one famous DFW captain who was so obese he could barely
cram himself into the DC-10 cockpit seat. Nearly every flight, right before we
started descent, Big John would excuse himself and head into the cabin. He’d
usually be gone at least ten or fifteen minutes, and the engineer and I would
speculate on what exactly he was doing. Did Big John have a physiological
problem? Maybe gut trouble, being as large as he was? About halfway
through the month, I asked the number one if she had any idea what was up
with Big John.
“Eating,” she told me. “Whatever catering we have left over.” He’d stand
up in the mid-cabin galley and chow down on leftover coach catering.
On taxi out, one of my checklist duties was to test the flight controls for
freedom of movement. So, I had to turn the control yoke full left and right as
I crosschecked the aileron and spoiler position indicators on the instrument
panel. I also had to push the control yoke full forward, then pull it full aft to
check freedom of movement. With Big John, I’d pull it back really quick and
slap his huge belly, which the flight engineer thought was hilarious. After a
couple times with the yoke smashed against his gut, Big John turned to me
and said, “What’re trying to do, boy—loop it?”
Big John flew sail planes in his free time and while that was something
I always wanted to experience, I couldn’t imagine cramming into a two-seat
glider with him, though he always invited me to join him. Honestly, I
couldn’t help but worry about the weight—mostly his—and the stress on the
wings during the aerobatics he promised to demonstrate for me.
One of my favorite DC-10 trips flew from LaGuardia to O’Hare, then
on to Seattle. I’d grab a sub sandwich made to order from the LaGuardia
Airport Employee deli, which had really good, lean pastrami and freshly-
baked bread. I became addicted to their subs and I’d order the same thing
every time: pastrami with onions, provolone, and deli mustard on a hero, to
go. After level off from LaGarbage to O’Hare I’d eat the whole thing. The
gruff old captain that month used to complain that the smell of the onions and
mustard was disgusting, which was all the more reason, in my mind to eat the
sandwich in flight.
By the time we were cruising over the Dakotas on the Seattle leg, there
were always gastrointestinal rumblings and complications, including certain
emissions that smelled a lot like the sub sandwich, only worse. The captain
would curse a blue streak every time and I’d swear just as adamantly my
denial.
“If I smell that sandwich one more time,” he threatened me finally,
“You’re getting no more landings.”
I steadfastly maintained my innocence and blamed the flight engineer for
the olfactory scourge. The very last trip of the month, the flight engineer
called in sick, but the stench recurred over North Dakota like clockwork so I
was busted, though it was too late for him to suspend my landing privileges.
Another captain, Don Farmer, a friend from my union work, went the
other direction. The whole month we flew together, he said he only wanted
one landing per trip for himself just to stay current, then I could have the rest
of the flying. That offer I readily accepted because the DC-10 was just a
pleasure, a thrill even, in my view, to fly.
We found ourselves one day in San Diego with a pressurization write-up
that precluded carrying passengers or even flight attendants. The three of us
in the cockpit had oxygen masks if we needed them, so we were assigned to
ferry the airplane back to DFW without flight attendants or passengers.
Just to see what a DC-10-30 could do empty and lightweight; we planned
a max power takeoff and climb from Lindbergh Field. The jet leapt off the
runway and climbed like a rocket at full power. The shoreline was only a
couple of miles from the end of the runway and we crossed it at over ten
thousand feet.
Then Larry, the flight engineer, went back to the main galley and started
cooking. The catering was still aboard and we ate steak and shrimp all the
way back to DFW.
We flew a lot of trips with thirty-hour layovers in both San Antonio,
where we stayed on the Riverwalk, and New Orleans, where we stayed on
Bourbon Street. In Nawlins, we usually ended up as a crew at Pat O’Brien’s,
which was a little on the touristy side for me, but it was a good place to start
before The Dungeon opened at 11:30 pm.
We had so many new, young flight attendants that I kind of cringed at
the craziness, but they were determined to have a couple Pat O’Brien’s
Hurricanes or worse, some of the rot-gut street drinks.
An MD-80 captain known as “WD” with a reputation as a swordsman
used to say, “Get two hurricanes into a flight attendant and all things were
possible.” Never mind “possibilities,” which sounded and was predatory, my
concern was more related to the slow death hangover they’d endure, but they
were young and for many, it was their first time on Bourbon Street. Usually,
that didn’t end well but we had plenty of layover time for them to recover and
they’d have a wild New Orleans story to tell their friends back home.
Inevitably, if WD was in the group of crews at Pat O’Brian’s, after an
hour or two I’d spy him leaving the bar with some young flight attendant,
“cutting one from the herd, as he’d say,” and heading out the door, once
again reinforcing his reputation. At one point, the legend of WD held that
he’d rented an apartment at an undisclosed location—some said Corpus
Christi—because both his wife and his girlfriend had threatened to kill him.
I also flew several months of long New York City layovers, back at the
Mildew Plaza. Mikey Gregory, our “Tengineer,” and I’d cross 8th Avenue to
Smitty’s for drinks and laughs at the bar, or sometimes we’d join the flight
attendants at the West Side Cottage for good Chinese washed down with bad
free wine. My restaurant of choice was always Puleo’s just across the street
from The Mildew Plaza for some type of pasta. I’d challenge the cook with
“You really can’t put too much garlic in this for me. There’s never enough.”
Which was true, although that was bad news for the captain and engineer on
any westbound leg the next day.
I’d done several full years of union work at the national level, which I
finally stopped doing that year. B-scalers like me had seen plenty of change
as a result of our growing numbers and the hard work of many union
volunteers. Pay parity was whittled down from the eighteen-year mark to six
years or captain, whichever came first. I was getting close to both markers
and I felt that I’d contributed to that in terms of both time and stress, so it was
time for someone else to step up and volunteer.
I had more free time and to be honest, no real desire to spend it enmeshed
in pilot-related things outside of work. I returned to reading and writing in
my free time, especially on layovers. I joined the DFW Writer’s Workshop
and worked on several of my own fiction projects. Gathering for read and
critique and writing development sessions every Wednesday evening when I
wasn’t flying was refreshing. Being with other writers, especially being with
people who had nothing to do with aviation, was energizing and help improve
my writing.
In read and critique sessions over the course of two years I read every
page of my first novel[2] at workshop meetings and enjoyed not only the
critique, but also the fellowship of other writers and creative thinkers, which
was pretty much the exact opposite of what interaction with other pilots was
like.
I still loved flying, especially flying the DC-10. And of course I still
enjoyed the travel and even socializing with a few pilots and most flight
attendants. It seemed like I had the best of both worlds, writing and flying,
although it was still pretty rocky at home: we were two very different
persons, with different visions of the present and the future, and our courses
were only diverging as time went by. But even there at home I had a
wonderful son and daughter, which was all anyone could ever ask for, and I
couldn’t imagine life without them.
I was flying late summer three-day trips with long layovers in downtown
Detroit, enjoying Greektown for dinner and drinks with my crew, when the
world turned upside down. The next day, as I signed in at a computer
terminal in flight operations at the Detroit Airport, a simple message in my
company mailbox proclaimed that nothing, in the air or on the ground, would
ever be the same again. I printed it out on a rickety dot matrix printer, then
stared in amazement for a long while:
CL Manno AA 183008
New Bid Status
Effective 1 Sept:
Captain MD-80 DFW

Chapter 44
Marino’s Custom Tailor Shop felt cramped, musty and stuffy inside.
The air conditioner clattered and labored against the Texas heat, a battle it
seemed to be losing. I didn’t care.
“Step down,” Marino said, straight pins still in his mouth. “Next.”
John “Hosehead” stepped onto the small wooden platform, facing a tri-
fold mirror. It was his turn to get his captain’s uniform measurements. He
was down at the Schoolhouse in the 727 captain upgrade course, which made
sense because he’d been a first officer on the jet. The MD-80 captain’s course
was a fit for me after my years in the McDonnell-Douglas fleet and the MD-
80 itself for so many years.
Marino’s was hard to find, buried among a bunch of nondescript
warehouses in Arlington. But we found the tiny storefront after driving down
from the Schoolhouse between sim sessions. We weren’t about to settle for
less than the classic, custom-made airline captain’s uniforms.
Sure, you could get any alteration shop to simply sew another stripe
onto your first officer’s jacket. But why? We’d just tripled our income,
leaping from B-scale first officer to A-scale captain. That wasn’t a time to
cheap out.
In fact, many guys went out and bought Porsches or Vettes or other
expensive toys— “captain-mobiles”—to celebrate and indulge over the big
promotion. I didn’t do that—though I kind of wanted to—but we did buy a
half acre lot in a nicer neighborhood and made plans to build the typical
captain’s McMansion.
I was still in shock, maybe, but ecstatic nonetheless about our good
fortune: I’d made captain almost exactly six years to the day from when I’d
first reported to the Schoolhouse for class 105 with Hosehead, James-not-
Jim, Kirb, Jack, and Kook. It was real, and it was happening—fast.
Yes, I still had to make it through the six-week upgrade training and
multiple evaluations at the Schoolhouse, but in my mind, that was a done
deal: I already had a couple thousand pilot hours in the MD-80. I’d never had
any problem with any American Airlines flight training so that was not a
question of “if,” but rather “when” I’d finish the ground school classes, the
oral, the simulator syllabus, the simulator check, the IOE and the FAA
inflight evaluation. Details! All just minor details. Barely fifteen years after
my solo date with One-One-Juliet at Woodrum Field, I was about to earn my
fourth stripe as an airline captain.
For me, the MD-80 captain upgrade course was mostly a matter of
refamiliarization with the systems and procedures. I’d only been off the
Maddog for barely a year, so most of my systems and procedural knowledge
was intact and only slightly dusty. But captain upgrade came with a new set
of responsibilities that stemmed from “captain’s authority:” in the FAA’s and
the airline’s eyes, the captain had complete authority in flight, to include
overruling every single rule and regulation related to the flight—in the
interest of safety.
With the ultimate authority came the ultimate responsibility: the captain
would answer for every single detail, good or bad, on the flight. The old
saying about first officers in relation to captains was that FOs were psycho
from having to change their personality each month to fit in with a different
captain’s way of exercising that authority. Now, I was the standard and
copilots would have to “change” to match my personality.
I really wanted to have my personality be secondary to the ironclad best-
practices procedures outlined in our flight manual. I’d flown with enough
mavericks and even a few oddballs who’d had it the other way around, and I
was determined as a captain to stay on track and aligned with standard
operating procedures (SOP). That, I decided, would make things easier for
me and my copilots.
Beyond that stereotype of absolute captain’s authority was a very real
shift in the power dynamics. Whereas before in the right seat, my job had
been to offer advice, correct and sound technical and procedural knowledge,
the ultimate responsibility rested with the pilot in the left seat.
As captain, there’d be no one else to decide, after all the sound advice was
shared and discussed, what we’d do. I’d do that, and the dynamics were
different, way different: I’d have all the authority, and all the responsibility
for the outcome.
In a way, that was one of the few benefits in the copilot’s job: we’d
offer advice, discuss technical and procedural issues, then wait for the captain
to decide our next move. Not long before my captain upgrade class, I’d seen
that authority and responsibility play out in the DC-10 cockpit. We’d had a
combination of mechanical and weather challenges facing us at our
destination and after a thorough discussion among all three of us pilots, the
captain turned to me and said, “This is a difficult decision.”
I got the sense from the way he said it, plus the troubled look on his
face, that he wanted me to say what I’d do in his place. But I just smiled and
said, “Yes, I bet it is.”
At the same time, I was ready for both the authority and the
accountability. I’d learned a lot from many excellent DC-10 and MD-80
captains and how they managed not only challenges but also, how they kept
their crews engaged and the cockpit environment collaborative and
responsive.
That was basically the airline version of the great lessons Air Force
navigators like Paul Boggs, Brian Lombard, Charlie Watts and so many other
natural cockpit leaders taught me, along with pilots like Bob Howard, Tom
Meade, and Huge.
It was also the essence of bad examples like Hitler or the aircraft
commanders in the Air Force who barely managed the flying skills, much
less the leadership component, of a crew aircraft. I knew what not to do as
well as what I should do, needed to do, in order to fulfill the responsibilities
of the fourth stripe.
I found the captain upgrade training to be both a challenge and a breeze.
First, reorienting my thinking and decision making from the outside, offering
advice to the inside, eliciting advice, then sorting out options was a challenge.
But the aircraft systems and procedures, even the feel of the flight controls,
was almost instantly familiar.
Not so for my first officer, who struggled initially with ground school
then even in the simulator, which to me was always easier than the classroom
setting. I did best with the hands-on stuff, the stick-and-rudder common sense
beyond the collection of little BBs crammed into my head.
But my FO wasn’t familiar with the MD-80, having just come off the
727 engineer’s panel. I’d been fortunate to watch the Douglas systems on the
DC-10 for a couple years before my MD-80 first officer upgrade, which
helped me engage the new jet’s systems which were largely the same in
operational use and systems design.
Two sim sessions prior to my upgrade check, the Check Airman
assigned to finish our training split us up, sending the poor guy back to do
some remedial simulator training. I felt bad for him, especially having that
type of training problems on his record. It wasn’t so much because of
American Airlines possessing that record as it would be in my mind to realize
I’d struggled with a fairly basic fact of airline pilot life—upgrade training.
The Schoolhouse would set up a remedial training program for him and
get him through the course eventually, but having been one of The Shit Bros
in my early days of flying, I was determined to progress through my airline
career with a perfect record. He’d already missed that mark early on.
My rating ride in the simulator was administered by two check airmen
working together, throwing multiple challenges at me, one after another. That
was fine, in fact I welcomed the test, emergency after failure after weather
problem after system anomaly, until finally, after I turned toward the airport
on a single-engine approach, a check airman said, “Okay, this isn’t on the
syllabus, but here it comes.”
Then he failed the only engine still running, and said, “Now land it.”
That was fine by me: I had the altitude, airspeed and distance to
touchdown to bring it all together and land safely. Truly, I believed I could as
soon as he failed the last engine but more importantly, I wanted that
capability branded on my basic captain-pilot brain that I could handle
anything, including landing the MD-80 with no engines. Really, they’d given
me a gift, carrying that belief around with me from that day forward.
After the successful simulator check, the next step was for me to fly a
revenue trip in the left seat for “Initial Operating Experience,” or IOE, just as
I’d done with Charles Clack for my first landings in the MD-80 as first
officer. After that, the final step in the upgrade process was a checkride in the
left seat, with a check airman in the right seat and an FAA evaluator on the
jumpseat who pass or fail me on the rating depending on what he observed.
My old friend Jerry Baus had become an MD-80 check airman and he
arranged to get assigned to fly my IOE as the first officer for my first trip as
captain. That was a double-bonus for me, knowing that Jerry was a good pilot
and a friend. He picked a trip with a short layover in Syracuse the first night,
then a longer layover in Sacramento the second night.
Although not all new captains stuck with tradition, I planned to: I’d take
the whole crew to dinner in Sacramento and pick up the tab for everything,
including drinks, to celebrate.
I could hardly sleep the night before the IOE. I thought back to my last
night at home before I matriculated at VMI. I hadn’t dreamt about VMI and
the ratline hell, but rather, about my first day at Air Force pilot training. I
couldn’t have dreamed a dream this big then, being an airline captain at a
major airline, back in those days but my sights truly had been set long ago,
and I was grateful for the uncompromising resolve forged at VMI that had
brought me to that moment, wearing the fourth stripe.
After pushback on a predawn DFW ramp, I took the throttles in my right
hand and bumped them slightly forward. The rush of air from the
pressurization system increased, but the jet didn’t budge.
“You’ll probably need a little more than that,” Jerry coached. I moved the
two throttles forward and finally, we were rolling. I steered the long jet first
with the small control wheel near my left knee—the “tiller,” which controlled
the nose wheel, then with my feet on the rudder pedals just as I’d done with
One-One-Juliet on my first solo.
A couple hours later, in the clear morning sky west of Raleigh-Durham,
we eased into a descent for a long straight-in approach to landing. I burned
into my memory the vision of the RDU runway growing ever closer, the
wings uncommonly steady for the Maddog but the winds were nearly calm,
and at last, we swept over the threshold.
“Don’t even think about it,” Jerry called, “don’t even think about it …
okay, flare.”
The flare picture conundrum was the opposite of my transition to the giant
DC-10. In the MD-80, if I flared at the DC-10 sight picture, we’d still be a
couple stories above touchdown. He’d pre-briefed me that he’d call the flare
for me, at least until I’d regained the narrow-body flare picture.
We touched down gently and I allowed myself a silent smile as I lowered
the nose lightly then pulled up on the reverser levers. Finally, it was real: my
new home, the captain’s seat, for the rest of my flying career. I was grateful
for my good fortune and appreciated how much more luck had played in the
attainment of this monumental step forward as opposed to anything I’d done
myself. Yes, I’d put in the work, I’d doggedly refused to let go of the dream,
but I was nonetheless humbled by and thankful for the opportunity. I
accepted once again that although I didn’t deserve this privilege any more
than so many of my VMI peers who also wanted to fly, I also didn’t deserve
it any less than some of the more dubious pilots I’d shared a cockpit with
over the years. So I just gave thanks and enjoyed it.
On the second day, we touched down in Sacramento around dinner time
and I dropped close to two hundred bucks for dinner and drinks with Jerry
and our flight attendants at a crew favorite Italian restaurant near the capitol.
It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience to upgrade to captain, so I wanted to
commemorate that with the crew who flew with me that trip.
I cleared the final hurdle a few days later, when Flight Standards
scheduled me with another check airman and an FAA flight evaluator for a
Tulsa turn. We took off in low visibility at DFW, which wasn’t a big deal,
but then flew into “no-shit” Category 3 approach minimums in fog at Tulsa.
We’d been scheduled to demonstrate a Category 3 approach, which in the
MD-80, includes an auto-land by the autopilot because of the very limited
visibility, which was the most difficult approach we could fly in that aircraft.
We set the approach up carefully and I flew it to a very textbook landing,
which was an accomplishment to be proud of for a new captain.
We taxied to the gate and completed the after-landing and engine shut
down checklists. As passengers, deplaned, the check airman and I turned to
the FAA evaluator on the jumpseat to debrief the evaluation.
“I have nothing to say,” the check airman stated matter-of-factly, “That
was a textbook Cat 3 and an excellent job as captain.”
The FAA evaluator shrugged.
“It was okay,” he said. “I suppose.”
The check airman’s eyes grew wide.
“Okay? Just okay? That was excellent.”
He and the FAA evaluator went back and forth about minor items, but I
tuned out. I knew I’d passed and that at last, I was a full-fledged airline
captain—although I hoped the check airman wouldn’t piss off the FAA guy
and have him change his mind. At last, the FAA evaluator deplaned, and it
was over.
We cruised easily back to DFW, then the check airman and I went
downstairs to Flight Operations and the DFW Chief Pilot’s office.
Joe Kilianski came out of his office with a knowing smile.
“Do we have a new captain?” he asked, arms folded across his chest.
Goddam hell yes we do, I thought to myself. I smiled back.
“Yes sir,” was all I said.
Joe nodded at the brass bell mounted on the wall in the outer office. An
old airline tradition, ringing the brass bell, letting everyone know someone
had just earned the captain’s star atop his pilot’s wings.
“Ring it.”
I grabbed the lanyard below the bell and gave it a sharp yank, proclaiming
for all the world what I’d done. Then Joe handed me a set of captain’s wings,
shook my hand, and it was done.
Of course, being near the bottom of the MD-80 captain seniority list
meant I was stuck flying the least desirable trips which for me, meant all-
nighters. Still, it was a schedule, a captain’s schedule no less, so I had no
complaints.
And just as I’d learned and been coached along as a new first officer by
some patient captains, so it was with my first officers: they helped me out,
filled in the blanks for me and were patient as I learned the ropes in the left
seat.
The all-night flying was like a different world which some people—pilots
and flight attendants both—actually preferred. Brian, my copilot that month,
was senior enough among the FOs to not have to fly all-nighters, but he
actually preferred them. He was a night owl anyway and there was much less
air traffic on the back side of the clock, so few hassles and usually direct
clearances. He could just go home and grab a few hours rest, just like some of
the hardcore flight attendants on my Europe trips, then get on with his day.
Our number one flight attendant was the same way, bidding the Tucson
turns because she was a single mom and they let her be home all day with her
kids.
“I’ve been married to half of you guys,” she told me, “Which is why I’m
divorced now.”

I still didn’t understand how she and Brian did it, night after night, flip-
flopping their body clock three or four times a week. It was brutal.
Our turns left DFW late and arrived in Tucson at about one in the
morning Central time. We’d leave Tucson for DFW two and a half hours
later, after sitting in Tucson between flights.
We developed an ironclad routine for our sit time that everyone stuck to:
we’d immediately pile into the small crew room at ramp level below the
terminal. The rules were, the captain—me—had dibs on the recliner, the rest
of the crew spread out on sofas and an extra recliner, earplugs went in and
piles of airline blankets and pillows were passed out. Then the lights went out
and power naps commenced.
No one spoke or hardly moved, but it was a kind of fitful sleep because of
the airport sounds of jets taxiing by and ground equipment handling bags, but
I did usually manage a decent nap before the return trip. The irony was in the
reality of our cute young flight attendants and a pair of pilots who all looked
very put together and well-dressed in the terminal, but sprawled like refugees
with a chorus of sleep grunts, snoring and intermittent farts that weren’t just
from me and the FO. Then we’d wake up, put ourselves back together and
resume the airline theater upstairs when it was time to preflight and board.
We’d land back at DFW shortly after dawn, then straggle home, bleary-eyed.
The worst all-nighter I flew at DFW really made no sense at all. We’d
leave late at night for Phoenix, then sit there for two hours waiting for a flight
from Chicago to land. Then we’d swap planes—a major pain in the ass to
drag bags in the middle of the night—then the Chicago pilots would fly our
jet and flight attendants back to DFW, while we flew their jet and crew back
to O’Hare. There we were supposed to sleep all day downtown, then fly the
reverse route back to Phoenix and DFW, another all-night trip.
There was really no way to simply sleep all day in downtown Chicago, so
we ended up with only a few hours of day sleep, then yet another all-night
flight to DFW by way of Phoenix where we’d swap jets again with the
Chicago crew. Why that wasn’t just a Phoenix turn for us out of DFW and
the ORD crew out of Chicago I’ll never know, but it was simply cruel and
senseless for the crews.
That was the price of being junior, along with flying weekends and
holidays, but being a new captain, I was still pretty happy just to be flying the
left seat, period.
It wasn’t too long before I moved off the back side of the clock flying and
into the early morning sign-ins, which seemed downright civilized after a few
months of all-nighters. The destinations weren’t exactly marquee cities, but
still I wasn’t complaining because I was gaining valuable experience and
flight hours in and out of challenging weather on the east coast and
throughout the Rust Belt, especially in the worst of their winter weather.
While some new captains hid out on reserve, avoiding the crappy weather
and dumpy layovers like Buffalo or Cleveland and Syracuse or Providence or
Albany, I jumped into the breach with both feet, learning and gaining
experience.
The flying was as challenging as it was rewarding, working out the
deicing timing, the stopping distances on slushy runways, the poor visibility
and highly congested airports like Kennedy, LaGarbage and O’Hare but I felt
like I needed to ingrain the complex procedures. To me, repetition in real life
worked better than simply reading procedures on a page.
There was a kind of kinship among new captains as we all struggled
through difficult winter weather trials at major airports like O’Hare. We’d
swap stories and “heads-up” warnings about the worst places, especially
O’Hare, Atlanta and LaGarbage.
One dark and snow-blown night at O’Hare I heard a ground controller
chew out an American flight for taking a wrong turn on a taxiway, something
that was easy to do but could get you sent to the “penalty box” as
punishment.
“Why did you turn there, American?” the controller barked on the ground
frequency.
An unmistakable voice with a heavy Mexican accent snapped back,
“Because I’m a new captain and I’m scared.”
We all felt that way as new captains and Jimmy, the DFW-based captain I
knew who actually was Mexican-American, threw it right back in their faces.
It was also new ground to cover in the delicate balance between being a
good guy and being a good captain: sometimes you had to be firm with an FO
who was doing less than a good job. As my friend and fellow new captain
Jim Bailey once told me, “Being a good captain ain’t a popularity contest.”
Finding the right balance could be tricky, but it’s what we were being paid to
do.
There was more than one time on the employee bus after landing at DFW
between thunderstorm cells that I exchanged holy-shit wide-eyed glances
with another young captain that basically confirmed, yeah, I might choose a
different course next time. But that’s how we learned and though everything
turned out well in the end, we learned how to avoid having holy-shit
afterthoughts by living through them, seeing the downside of certain
decisions so we could do better the next time. That’s what my buddy Randy
Sohn, a retired 747 captain, would call “salt:” you learned hard lessons in the
air and if you were smart, you only had to learn those lessons once.
Nothing changed on the home front. We moved into our custom built,
spacious captain’s house on a wooded lot and tried to get settled. But it was
clear that wasn’t going to solve or even mend what hadn’t been held together
by much other than not wanting to lose our kids.
I sat on the front steps early one balmy Fall morning, trying to make sense
of that but at the same time, trying not to.
“Well how does it feel, Chris,” Karen, our next-door neighbor spoke from
her driveway. “Your dream job, living in your dream house?”
I nodded, but looked away. I thought of my VMI roommate Danny, the
quiet giant, our football team’s starting center and the best man at our
wedding. He’d stood with me at the front of the church before the ceremony
and said, “Look, you don’t have to do this. We can get in my car right now
and I’ll drive you away, no questions asked.”
Oh, there were questions. I’d had the sixth sense then that he was right,
but the freight train was already too far down the tracks to stop it then, or so
I’d thought.
I faced the revelation, the conclusion, right there on those sun-bleached
front steps of that brand new “dream house,” that the train must stop, would
stop, before it simply derailed and demolished itself and everyone aboard.
And I knew that wouldn’t end well.

Chapter 45
We were only a couple miles from the final approach fix at the
Milwaukee Airport, cleared for a no-shit Cat 3 approach into ice fog that had
reduced the visibility to less than a quarter mile under an indefinite ceiling.
“Tell them we need to hold at the marker,” I said cross-cockpit to my FO.
“What?”
“Tell them,” I repeated. That was completely unorthodox so late in the
approach, fully configured with landing gear and final flaps at glide slope
intercept altitude. But holding was completely necessary.
He glanced at me, then called approach and made the request for a
holding pattern at the final approach fix. There was no one inbound behind
us, in fact no one qualified for a Cat 3 approach within a hundred miles of the
airport, at least for the moment.
As soon as we entered a right turn to fly a racetrack pattern at the beacon,
I unstrapped.
“You’ve got it,” I said, then headed for the lav.
Gut trouble, stress-related, and it came on with an unpredictable but
unavoidable urgency: get to the lav now.
The stress had nothing to do with the Cat 3 approach and in fact, the
crappy weather was a plus in my mind because it kept most other aircraft on
the ground, and the radar vectors were wide and slow-paced. I actually
preferred such low ceiling and visibility because of the calming effect low
minimums had on the entire process.
What snuck up on me at fickle intervals was a gut wrenching—literally—
and devastating realization that I’d lost my precious children. That was a
piercing grief that resurrected itself in my guts and became an acute alarm.
Hey, stupid—remember what just happened.
I stepped back to the cabin, feigning a casualness that barely masked the
boiling lava in my gut.
“They gave us a couple turns in holding,” I answered the flight
attendants’ inquisitive looks from the jumpseat where they were strapped in
for landing.
Only days before, I’d put both of my precious young children on a plane
to Orlando where my ex had moved. That was the court’s decision.
Actually, that was the second decision, the one that overruled the
injunction I’d fought for—paid dearly in legal fees for—to enjoin the first
decision granting her permission to move the kids a thousand miles away
from their dad. We had testimony from child psychologists who’d
interviewed the kids, found that they were clearly wanting to live near their
dad, needed their dad, didn’t want to be uprooted from schools, friends, their
lives. And two shrinks had found me to be a fit dad, very involved with the
kids and vice versa. But all to no avail.
Because in Texas, my attorney had warned me, they’re not your kids—
they’re her kids. The Lone Star state lagged behind most others in modern
family law, allowing one parent to move the children, even with shared
custody, to another state. That law was updated to conform to family law in
most states which required both parents to concur with such a relocation.
That law changed a couple years too late for me and my kids. You’re clearly
a good father, the judge had said, and the kids want to stay. But …
I returned to the cockpit a moment later and strapped in again.
“Okay,” I said, “Tell them we’re ready for the approach.”
My FO was a good guy, and I’d told him of the random, gut-clenching
attacks since I’d lived the nightmare of saying goodbye to my kids. This
wasn’t the first time he’d seen this tragedy play out.
Even the flight attendant who took custody of them as unaccompanied
minors at the gate had been in tears as she walked them down the jet bridge.
She told me later that they were okay once they got seated. I died a little that
day; no, I died a lot that day and every day afterward, which I suppose was
main purpose. I’d been forewarned many times by pilots and flight attendants
who’d lived the slow death themselves: if you’re the one who files, your
vengeful ex will exact the ultimate penalty from you.
I even considered moving to Florida myself, to Orlando where the kids
were, then trying to commute to work at DFW or maybe, Miami. But my
attorney strongly advised against that.
“If you do,” he warned me, “She’ll move somewhere else, just to be
hateful. Hasn’t she proven that already?”
I had to admit, he was right and I’d likely end up chasing her all over
the country, while still trying to show up at DFW for work every third day. It
was no use, but that didn’t ease the pain.
“And,” I added for my FO, “If you tell anybody about this last-minute
holding, I’ll just deny it.” Plus you’ll get no more landings this month, I
thought but didn’t say.
We flew the Cat 3 approach and landing, then an hour later, we pushed
back and did a low-visibility takeoff for the return flight to DFW. Then, I had
a few days off.
Up till that ugly dark day at DFW, I’d never taken a day of sick leave at
the airline. But I did then, knowing that my head wouldn’t be fully in the
flying game. I needed a few days off. But sooner or later, I had to go back to
work.
In the worst of the shitstorm of threats and hate from my “union brothers”
when I was on the Board of Directors, I’d endured a similar gut response.
Don Sterling, one of my favorite MD-80 captains to fly with, understood.
“Busy hands,” he’d said when I disclosed the distraction of stress, “Might
actually help you.”
I’d rationalized that perhaps busy hands would help after this more severe
stress, and had cleared the sick list and flown the three day, and had been
okay until Milwaukee on the final day. Your kids are gone.
I actually got a lucky reprieve on my next trip when the Flight
Department pulled me off the flight schedule to attend “Charm School” at the
Schoolhouse. “Captain’s Duties and Responsibilities,” or Charm School, was
a two-day seminar covering flight regulations, both airline and FAA,
captain’s authority, and effective crew management.
After my captain qual, I’d been told that Charm School was backlogged
due to the volume of new captains like me. They said I’d be scheduled for
this “vital” instruction within a few months. In reality, I’d been flying as a
captain for nearly two years regardless. I’d learned most of the Charm School
lessons the hard way, a kind of “baptism by fire” in real life line flying as
captain. Still, I welcomed the time off. I could get up from the classroom
talks and find the men’s room without getting a holding clearance from
anyone.
The lectures and discussions were mostly spot-on, in my opinion. But I
was appalled at some of the things I heard from some new captains in Charm
School, though I really shouldn’t have been, knowing how the typical airline
pilot holds himself in such unrealistically high regard.
“What does effective cockpit teamwork mean to you?” the instructor
kicked off a group discussion.
“Do it my way,” someone bellowed. Laughter and some agreement
followed.
Assholes. Certain newly-minted captains’ egos foretold a lot of cockpit
dissonance ahead and what was incredible to me was this was coming from
pilots who’d just been FOs themselves. They knew better! They knew how
that “my way” dictum destroyed teamwork—they’d just lived years of right
seat negotiation with good and not-so-good captains alike.
Maybe there were more latent jerks than I wanted to believe existed, guys
like Jon who’d tossed me and two other FOs off his trips. Maybe they’d been
waiting till they got all the authority, then they’d dictate like an emperor.
Which would essentially leave them flying solo. Dumb.
Not everyone joined in chorus of assent. That was a good sign. Many, like
me, never approached captain’s authority with that ego-driven nonsense and
also like me, many had already flown for over five hundred hours as a
captain. They realized the absolute requirement for a safe and collaborative
crew interaction, especially when things go to shit as they sometimes do with
little warning.
Meanwhile, some guys I’d known as FOs had become self-important
captains almost overnight: several wives I knew referred to their husbands as
“Captain ____,” which seemed absurd, and social media is full of “Cap’n
___,” as if anyone ever called them “Cap’n.” But they had to work that in:
“Look at me, I’m an airline captain.” One of my neighbors actually showed
me an email he’d received from a Boy Scout leader about his son’s upcoming
campout that was signed “Captain ______, American Airlines.” Some guys
just couldn’t get over themselves, no matter how foolish that looked. I was
more of the “forget everything about the job” type the minute I hit the
employee lot after a flight.
Some of them, though, couldn’t live up to the title when it really mattered.
I sat in the de-icing cue with a half dozen other jets at DFW one snowy day,
and the runway conditions clearly didn’t match the current field weather
report. That degraded de-icing effectiveness in real life no matter what
weather was being reported by the field. That was a time when a captain had
to stiffen his backbone and go with the actual field conditions, then manually
modify the takeoff performance data.
“I’m going to need someone’s initials on this,” a voice, which had to have
come from a guy in a left seat, griped on the de-icing frequency. No, I
thought to myself, you need to be a fucking captain. Never mind “initials,” or
what anybody else says. Do the right thing.
Clearly, the Charm School discussions were warranted, given some of the
hubris pouring out of many of the new captains and I was glad to see the
Flight Department introduce a better standard. There was a catered banquet
that night hosted by the airline’s Chief Pilot, Cecil Ewell, a former Navy
fighter pilot and a guy well-respected by everyone, especially the pilots of
American Airlines.
“Always have a backup plan,” Cecil stressed to us over and over at the
dinner, “And know when to get the hell out of Dodge.”
Truer words were never spoken and I knew that firsthand from almost two
years of making plans and getting away from the first signs of trouble in the
air. I added that to the lessons I’d learned from good leaders in the air, from
my Air Force days and including the standout navigators I’d learned from, to
all of my flying with strong, old school American Airlines captains over the
years. To me, the left seat was humbling and moreover, a place to be humble,
if you were going to do justice to the trust placed in you when you strapped
in there.
The more hours I logged as captain, another necessity became clear and in
my mind, ironclad: you had to know the procedures and limitations cold, and
follow them without exception. Collaborative cockpits relied on a single,
consistent common denominator, which was “S.O.P” (pronounced “ess-oh-
pee”)—Standard Operating Procedures. That concept ensured that every first
officer could rely on the fact that I expected SOP, period. There was no
guessing required from them (“What’s he doing now?”) nor any
improvisation tolerated by me.
You wouldn’t think that would be an issue, but if you don’t think so, you
just don’t know pilots: many think they have “a better way.” That insidious
threat to SOP raises its ugly head with comments like, “I have a technique
for” or “here’s a way that makes more sense” or a similar seemingly
innocuous suggestion. That cracks open the door.
Limitations are limitations we don’t transgress, standard procedures are
not amendable, at least not when I’ve signed for the damages. I don’t need to
see something “really cool” or try a “neat shortcut.” Problem was, the FO
might have learned the new “procedure” from another captain who also
thought he knew better.
“I’m not smart enough to make up new procedures,” was my usual way to
sidestep somebody’s “better way,” which was not always welcomed by the
other pilot, but it was still the right way to fly.
One first officer forewarned me he was going to “slip” the aircraft to get
down to the correct altitude on the approach. He’d flown C-130s in the Air
Force and assured me, “We side-slipped all the time,” and he assured me he’d
done it with other captains. A “slip” meant inputting conflicting rudder and
aileron deflections to destroy lift then sink rapidly in uncoordinated flight.
That was nuts in a swept wing airline transport jet.
My usual deflector of harebrained schemes was one that always worked
on me when old-school captains didn’t approve of something I’d suggested,
and that was, “I’m not comfortable with that.” That was my hint that we
weren’t going to do whatever I’d suggested, and that was sufficient for me as
a first officer so I’d simply drop the subject. But often as captain I’d have to
go the extra step and add, “That’s not SOP so we’re not going to do that.”
That type of problem was the exception rather than the rule because most
first officers I flew with relied on SOP just as assiduously as I did. I counted
on that—and them. I needed their head in the game, feeling free to offer ideas
and suggestions. My way was just a stupidly self-indulgent way to end up
solo in the cockpit and if that happened, the failure was the captain’s, no
matter why it happened.
Day to day, week to week, I learned how to engage my FOs with the
intent of making them feel comfortable speaking up. I held my tongue often
when I wanted to simply discount whatever they’d just said—you know how
pilots are, and I’m one—but I felt that it was more important for us to be a
cohesive team than for me to say, “What a stupid idea.”
When I was an MD-80 FO, a new captain mentioned to me “You think as
captain everything would be simple as far as authority goes—but that’s not
really the case.” That statement only made sense once I’d become a captain,
and realized that like an FO, I had to change my personality every month just
to keep the first officer engaged. With good cockpit collaboration at stake,
there was no other option. That was my job and I’d damn well do it: find the
best in every FO and build that aspect up.
A typical flight day for me as a captain fell into a consistent routine. Even
walking out the door cued observations just as it always had all the way back
to riding my bike to the flightline back in pilot training: what was the ceiling
like? The prevailing winds? Approaching weather? As I neared the airport,
I’d note which direction, north or south, aircraft were taking off and landing.
That would determine our taxi route which I could preplan in my head—east
side or west side runway? North or south bridges? Left or right turn off the
ramp?
Almost as significant, though maybe a little trivial, was which way would
we land after the flight, because coming from the north and landing south
was quicker than having to fly a downwind. I just wanted to get home
quicker, like all pilots.
I’d arrive at the airport a little over an hour prior to pushback, just a
little earlier than the mandatory one hour. My first priority was to check what
fuel quantity the flight dispatcher had planned for our arrival at our
destination, then check the weather there to see if the fuel would be adequate
for my comfort and safety margins. The minimum fuel in my mind varied
based on both the weather and the airport. Some airports, even with good
weather, required more fuel based on my experience. I sought out flights to
the challenging airports just to build experience and to stay current in the
peculiar challenges like getting in and out of O’Hare or LaGarbage or other
pain-in-the-ass airports just so I could know exactly what was required.
Now and then, though not often, the planned fuel didn’t meet my
minimums, so I’d call dispatch and suggest an increased fuel load. That
conversation went like this: “Hi, I’m Chris, the captain on 2323 to O’Hare.
Could you add another thousand to that fuel load?”
Sure, I realized I had final authority over the fuel load and yes, I could
have simply ordered it. But just my first name and a request in a low-key
manner was considerate of the busy dispatcher who also already knew I had
the authority to demand the fuel. Why not be collaborative? Why not ask as a
peer rather than order as a superior? And I never heard one iota of resistance
to my requests for more fuel, ever.
I used the same approach with my FOs: everyone knew the rules and
who had the authority, so why not phrase things as a request? Why not
project the collaborative expectation in everything, so when things started to
go to worms in flight, the collaborative paradigm would ensure cohesive
cockpit work?
I’d walk down to the aircraft a few minutes before boarding, deliberately
to not spend too much time in the cockpit. The first officer had a lot to do and
I wanted to back off and stay out of his way. I remembered what a nuisance it
was when a captain would start doing some of the first officer’s many
preflight duties. Even if it was just to “help,” it really only made matters more
confusing. Did you already put in the cost index? Oh, okay, I’ll do it.
The FOs all knew their jobs, so it was best to stay out of the way and
simply that verify everything was done and set up correctly, which is exactly
what the crew challenge and response checklists were for in the first place.
As soon as I stepped aboard, I’d introduce myself to the number one
flight attendant in a low-key way: “Hi, I’m Chris; let me know if I can help
you in any way.” That’s it—they’re busy, too and like the FOs, they know
their job. Best to stay out of everybody’s hair and let them get on with their
preflight work.
Often, upon meeting the flight attendants, a spark of recognition would
flare briefly. Did we …. years ago … wait, I remember now. That
phenomenon was called “deja crew” or, if you’d really done something wild,
“deja screw.” There were two ways that played out: if you both wanted to
remember, there was a shared, special smile, maybe a touch, even a hug. Or,
you could one or both pretend you didn’t remember—but of course you
really did.
Pilots meeting before a flight reminded me of two ants encountering each
other on a trail. There’d be feelers exchanging information, interrogating,
judging friend or foe. That’s the upscale analogy, with the real-life encounter
being more akin to a couple strange dogs sniffing each other’s butt: what
service? Air Force? What squadron … did you know [some pilot’s name] …
yeah, he and I used to …
I still wore my miniature pair of Air Force pilot wings as a tie tack so as
to show my pilot lineage, and a union pin with an inset ruby that signified my
years as a board member and domicile rep, just to clarify the butt-sniff at a
glance.
Not all pilots were ex-military, but that didn’t matter to me. I’d always
declaim my service if a civilian-background guy asked, saying, “I was never
in the military—I was in the Air Force,” then let it drop. What mattered at all
was how they flew and if they were fully SOP—Standard Operating
Procedures.
My P.A. to the passengers is so canned I could do it in my sleep, which
was good because once it was polished, there were no “ahhs” or “ehhs” while
some captains ad libbed and groped for words. And contrary to the
Hollywood clichés, I’ve never once said “this is your captain speaking,”
because why would I? I have a name—wouldn’t it be weird if you answered
the phone and someone said, “This is your doctor speaking?” So, here’s the
boilerplate, unchanged over my entire career:
“Welcome aboard, folks, this is Captain Manno. We’re climbing through
25,000 feet enroute to our cruising altitude of ________; once we level off in
smooth air, I’ll turn the seatbelt sign off however, I ask that while you’re
seated you keep your seatbelt fastened. Our route of flight will take us over
___ and ___ and just about ___, we’ll begin our descent into ____, where
right now, the skies are partly cloudy and the temperature is [make something
up]. Glad to have you flying with us today and for now, I invite you to sit
back, relax, and make yourself at home.” Never varied, and of course sky was
always “partly cloudy:” if it was clear, that was the “part” that wasn’t; if it
was overcast, that was the part that was cloudy. The temp was just a guess—
like my Munich tour guide ad libs—which didn’t matter anyway because if I
was wrong, they wouldn’t figure it out until I was already a hundred miles
gone anyway.
I treated all the out-station people with kid gloves, knowing they were
under pressure to get our jet out again and as importantly, knowing I’d be
back to that station someday, so I’d better not burn any bridges. Like the
dispatchers, flight attendants, agents, rampers and maintenance guys, a
person-to-person, level playing field seemed the best approach, especially
given that the hierarchy was written in stone: who had the final say, who’d
answer for everything that happened.
Usually I’d hit it off with an FO, finding common ground easily. In those
cases, at the layover hotel, I might go for a drink or two with the crew, flight
attendants included. I could still throw the pool furniture into the hotel pool
after a midnight swim same as in my FO days, or get thrown out of a bar with
a crew as in previous years. But it was different.
Sometimes after spending eight or more hours in the tiny closet the
cockpit was with someone I really had to work hard to get along with—and
there were those times and that was my job—I just wanted to be alone once
we got to the hotel, especially with another flight day or even two ahead.
I became more like some of the older, standoffish captains who’d
mystified me before. I finally understood, maybe they were tired of my shit
and the effort it took them to get along all day with me.
So now and then, I’d just find a place on my own to have a beer and
unwind, solo. It was a relief to not have to engage anybody. Or, sometimes
I’d join the flight attendants wherever they were headed after the flight.
Southwest Airlines had a “3-2-1” deal at every hotel bar, negotiated by
their company for their crews: three-dollar mixed drinks, two-dollar wine,
and one-dollar beer. I’d sidle up to the bar—with or without my FO and
crew, but often with—and ask the bartender for the three-two-one pricing.
Often a server would ask for my Southwest Airlines ID card and I’d
answer, “Look at my haircut, my clothes, and my shoes” which basically
screamed “nerdy airline pilot on a layover.” That usually did the trick or if
not, I’d add, “My ID’s in my room and I’m not going back to get it, so charge
me whatever you want.” That usually sealed the deal, and I tipped liberally.
By the last flight leg on the last day, I was ready to get home and shuck
the polyester and not think about flying, being a captain, or being at work for
a few days. I’d drive home at regular speed, no foot-dragging, ready to enjoy
peace and quiet.
Too quiet, though it seemed at times, being alone in a 3,800 square foot
house.
Alone. But not for long.

Chapter 46
“He’s a smart one,” the animal shelter volunteer told me. As soon as he’s
back in his kennel he poops again so we’ll let him out.”
That was my kind of dog, crafty, quiet, smart. He was a medium-sized
dog, maybe forty-five pounds, a retriever-chow mix with a beautiful reddish-
gold coat and a peaceful demeaner. I adopted him right away.
He just looked like a “Gus” so that’s what I named him. Besides keeping
me company in the big ol’ captain’s house, I knew the kids would love him
when they came to visit. So that was that.
I was back in the house solo, after moving into an apartment within
walking distance so the kids would know their dad was always within their
reach, even as grade schoolers. Chip and Jonne had let me stay in their guest
room for a week until my apartment lease started, which was just another act
of friendship I could never repay. I was reassured to see how Jenny was
growing up a smart, happy young lady and Greg a vivacious growing boy. It
was a sign of the future, I hoped, seeing the way the four of them were such a
good family.
I’d leased a two-bedroom apartment near a playground and furnished the
kids’ room with twin beds and all the things they liked so it would feel like
home. I learned to cook—Jonne gave me some easy casserole recipes—
because I was determined that when the kids were with me, we’d lead a
normal life, including home-cooked meals. Before they were ordered by the
court to leave Texas, they endured my early cooking gamely and we had
good stays together in that place.
I gradually got better at cooking the things they liked—who can’t bake a
ham and cook a box of macaroni and cheese? —and it was important to me
that I met the kids’ needs on their terms, as a parent, not as “Disney dad.”
An unexpected side effect was that I really began to enjoy cooking, even
if only for myself, with Gus watching quietly, always close by. That was a
favorite thing to do, after a trip: I’d plan an interesting recipe, usually
seafood, and drink a beer or two with Gus as I put it together, savoring the
solitude after an airline trip where I was always at the epicenter of
somebody’s needs or the flight’s safe conduct.
Hand-making pasta was my Zen, using an old family recipe my
grandmother used to make. There was something peaceful about rolling out
and cutting Trenette or fettucine, my favorites. The ideal post-trip evening
was to cook, then sit down in front of a Major League Baseball game—
preferably the American League—and eat dinner accompanied by a few beers
and watch the game with Gus. Alone.
Gus developed a taste for beer so I’d give him a few ounces in his bowl
every time I cracked open a cold one. He’d just smirk when eventually, I’d
head for the bathroom, acting like you wimp, since he never seemed to have
to go.
Eventually, he got to where he’d only drink Red Dog Beer, maybe
because the dog on the can looked just like him, but that was a pain in the
butt for me to have to buy a special beer just for the dog. But I did, because
he was a good and faithful baseball and house companion.
I didn’t lack for a social life, as no airline pilot with half a brain and even
entry-level social skills ever did. But as most flight attendants would attest,
even that minimal standard eliminated about half of the cockpit crews. I dated
a Delta flight attendant, two from United, then ended up meeting mostly
American flight attendants and pretty much only dated in our crew ranks.
My fellow Shit Brother Animal was married to a flight attendant, Tamara,
and she was a good friend and frequent confidant. She’d regularly suggest
potential dates for me, and I took her up on several, both flight attendants and
ordinary mortals alike. The former option eventually won out, because flight
attendants weren’t constrained by a Monday through Friday nine-to-five
schedule, restricted to mostly dating on weekends like non-flying women
were. Flight attendants had flexible workdays and flight privileges, which
matched my ever-changing schedule well. Plus, they just understood the
airline lifestyle and fit in better. Flight attendants were adaptable to any social
situation and could hold their own in conversations and just all-around fun
more so than any other professionals, at least in my experience.
I was also wary of a potential dating downfall. That is, I wanted to be—
and was—sensible. A pilot I flew with once told me when his sister got
divorced, she went on a “fucking frenzy” for the first year. I knew myself,
and though I’d have maybe enjoyed such a frenzy, I knew that afterward I’d
face myself with the awful question, did you give up your kids for this? The
answer would be a resounding no, I knew that, and I knew I couldn’t live
with myself afterward. I hadn’t gotten divorced for somebody; I’d gotten
divorced because there was nobody.
So, my social life was tame, which is not to say dull: it made sense to me.
I didn’t like the thought of living in a reckless frenzy, nor did I want to show
that to my son or daughter as an example. I eventually started dating one
flight attendant exclusively, and she was the only one I ever included in
anything that involved my kids. They called her “Miss Lisa.”
That Fall the flight attendants at American struck the company for higher
pay and better benefits. Of course I supported them, not only because Miss
Lisa was a dedicated union member, but also because I went to informational
meetings held by union officers for their members and families. They were
right—they deserved better.
I stopped by my church and borrowed their forty-cup coffee pot, then
bought a lifetime supply of Styrofoam cups, plus creamer and sugar at Sam’s
Club. Then I parked my Chevy Blazer at the curb at the DFW Airport
terminal lower level and dropped the tailgate. There I set up a coffee bar for
the picketing flight attendants. They’d take a break from picketing and stop
by for a cup and a chat. I tried to be encouraging and took a lot of satisfaction
from serving them coffee, after all of the coffee and care they’d offered me in
the cockpit for so many years. Gus spent hours happily licking sugar and
creamer off the tailgate every time we drove anywhere in my Blazer for a
couple months afterwards.
The flight attendants did a tremendous job sticking together and virtually
shut the airline down, despite the corporate misinformation that was fed to
the press. They showed everyone on the property—especially the pilots—
what unity and unionism was about.
No one was happier to see them settle their strike than those of us in a
relationship with a flight attendant, because of the stress they had to endure,
which had a trickle-down effect. One captain I knew characterized the strike
date as a rare thunder, which he said was “the sound of ten thousand legs
slamming shut at the same time.” The strike settlement ended a long period
of celibacy for some of the strikers’ partners.
Miss Lisa and I went to the post-strike party in the DFW Airport Hyatt
ballroom later that night. I carried an eighteen-pack of Coors Light and
handed her another whenever she finished one. We did share with friends, but
still perhaps over indulged. The next morning, we rode the elevator to the
lobby with several nicely dressed, silent couples attending a Baptist
convention in one of the Hyatt meeting rooms.
We presented a very effective counter-point, being critically hungover
heathen wounded by some epic sinning the night before. We drove back to
my place, stopping now and then so she could moose on the side of the road.
Strikes are just hell on strikers and their partners alike.
Diminishing business travel demand caused airline bookings and revenue
to slump. The first thing we noted as crewmembers was the decrease in the
number of paid flying hours offered in the monthly schedule package. Instead
of seventy-five or eighty flight hours, schedules dropped to sixty-five to the
low seventies. That was a significant pay cut, just based on the monthly
schedules. Sure, I could and did put my name on the crew schedule “make-up
list,” and they’d call and offer last minute flights to everyone on the list in
seniority order. I made up some of the pay deficit, but that was unreliable and
meant being on call.
But I saw another opportunity, on another fleet. While our MD-80
schedules were reduced, the F-100 fleet, which was relatively small with only
a hundred aircraft, offered flight schedules in the high seventies. The pay was
nearly the same, so swapping fleets would mean a restored income.
I also was ready for a change from the MD-80, which I’d flown for over
five years. The next step for me would be up to widebody captain, but that
was a decade or more away, given how slow our airline expansion had
become.
I checked with Doug Anderson, one of our DFW Chief pilots who also
flew the F-100. “It’s a good jet, fun to fly,” he told me, “You’ll probably
enjoy the aircraft and the trips.”
And, he reminded me, the lock-in for a “sideways” (captain seat to
captain seat) was only a year. I could go back to the MD-80 in a year if I
wanted to. So, if the MD-80 flying time bounced back to normal levels, I
could simply bid the next MD-80 vacancy and return to the fleet. There was
no downside that I could see.
I got an F-100 captain transition class the very next bid run. I was
paired up with Sung Cho, a San Francisco-based pilot, as my first officer. He
was a remarkable young man, an Academy grad and sharp as a tack, which is
a bonus for a captain: he could—and did—help me in training, besides being
a hell of a lot of fun to be around.
The F-100 transition program was slow-paced and easy. Ground school
was dominated by my friend Jock Bethune’s voice narrating self-paced,
multi-media, interactive systems presentations, followed by hours of class
reinforcing the self-paced presentations. That was good reinforcement which
went hand-and-hand with the simplicity of the F-100 cockpit.
The thinking behind the Fokker human factors engineering was leaps
and bounds ahead of the MD-80 “throw everything into the cockpit and slam
the door” concept. The Fokker philosophy used the very smart, logical
premise that the cockpit displays should offer only what a pilot needed to
know at a given time. That, in a nutshell, was the “dark cockpit” concept:
warnings and advisories were screened to include only those indicators there
were relevant to the phase of flight or current conditions. Otherwise,
indicators and warnings remained dark, and the cockpit environment was
seldom distracting. If a situation warranted attention or action, the appropriate
checklist popped up on the main CRT screen between both pilots.
The MD-80 constantly annunciated distracting, irrelevant warnings. For
example, if you were starting a descent from cruise altitude and pulled the
throttles to idle, the MD-80 would emit a loud, distracting warning that the
landing gear wasn’t extended. That warning would make sense near the
ground, but was at best a nuisance at altitude and at worst, a negative
influence: MD-80 pilots learned to, of necessity, ignore most aural warnings.
In addition to the constant, one-size-fits-all warnings and alerts, there
was a fat “MD-80 Quick Reaction Handbook,” “QRH” for short, that pilots
had to fumble through to find systems checklists to fix problems or failures
rather than the Fokker’s instant CRT display of procedures and limits. The
Fokker was ahead of it’s time to an equal degree that the old stretched DC-9
was behind the times.
Being simple and ahead of it’s time included some Fokker quirks which
were a little unsettling. For instance, the concept of “lift dumpers,” which
were essentially the same as the spoilers on top of most transport planes’
wings to kill lift and allow a more rapid descent. In most aircraft, the spoilers
are hydraulically boosted into the slipstream and when not in use, they were
faired by the force of the airflow back flush with the upper surface of the
wing.
The Fokker design was the opposite: the lift dumpers were hydraulically
held down, which meant in certain hydraulic failures, you could end up with
destroyed lift if there wasn’t power to hold them down. That always seemed
backwards to me.
Also, the F-100 ground school instructors loved to emphasize that the
Fokker’s wings were “bonded” to the fuselage, not bolted. They loved to
needle us with “so your wings are glued on—good luck with that.”
A unique design feature that I appreciated was the clamshell speedbrake
assembly on the tail. Unlike most aircraft with speedbrakes on the wings, the
Fokker speedbrake could be used all the way to touchdown. That eliminated
any floating tendency, although you had to be sure you were at flare altitude
above the runway because once the clamshell door opened, she was done
flying. Pilots being pilots, it wasn’t unusual when a bunch of jets were
crammed together on a taxiway nose to tail, if you were behind a Fokker,
someone in that cockpit would open the clamshell doors in your face at
exactly the time you heard a farting sound over the radio frequency.
The Fokker had two complete inertial nav systems that were advanced
and reliable, with dual moving map displays and an integrated flight
management systems. The displays were clear and easily readable, unlike the
Maddog cockpit clutter and obstructed displays.
The simplicity of the Fokker systems coupled with the two-pronged
training (classroom and interactive media) was like cramming five pounds of
shit into a ten-pound bag, as we’d say in Air Force flying. It was easy, no
drinking from the firehose, just a slow-paced, logical course. I loved it.
I also didn’t have to overwork to keep up, so I attended frequent Texas
Rangers baseball games on days off at The Ballpark a few minutes south of
the Schoolhouse. I went with an old squadron buddy to one game and his first
question was, regarding divorce, was, “Are you happy?”
I answered without hesitation, yes. He sighed.
“Well that’s awful,” he said. He knew me and my ex-wife before we
were married and before he was married. He was stuck in a gridlocked,
basically moribund marriage himself and was hoping that there was no
alternative, hoping I regretted my divorce. But I didn’t. I didn’t like the fact
that the court allowed my kids to be moved halfway across the country, but
that was about the only downside I could see.
We both knew too many airline pilots getting divorced and starting over
in their fifties, having stuck it out “until the kids left home.” I didn’t think
that was the best way to live a life. And if I wasn’t in a fulfilling, living
breathing marriage, how could my partner have been in anything else? I came
to realize that I’d done what had to be done, what she needed as well but
wouldn’t do regardless.
My attorney had asked me early on, “Have you tried marriage
counselling?”
“Three years,” I told him, “Of marriage counseling.”
“Well,” he snorted, “You waited about two years too long to come see
me.”
Maybe we both did. If the marriage was DOA for one, how was it not for
both of us? I did what had to be done, so I was labelled the scapegoat. And
yet, it was still the right thing to do.
The F-100 simulator check was straightforward and simple, especially
with Sung Cho in the right seat, keeping me from making any mistakes which
made us both look good. I thought it was a shame that we weren’t based in
the same crew base, but he was a San Francisco guy through and through,
living downtown with his wife and kids. We’d never get a chance to fly the
real jet together.
Mike “Pinky” Lee, an F-100 check airman and Louisiana Air National
Guard “Coon Ass” F-15 pilot, drew my IOE. He found us an easy trip with
late morning sign-ins and a long layover in downtown Detroit.
The Fokker fleet used to joke that with two pilots and two flight
attendants, “every Fokker trip was a double date.” That one sure was, and the
number one flight attendant on that IOE and I dated for several months
afterwards.
But I was a few months out of a consistent and long-term dating
relationship with Miss Lisa and only a couple years beyond the divorce, so I
swore off serious relationships for the rest of the year. Just dating was my
plan, at least until New Year’s. As far as dating, the entire Fall would be just
casual, social, fun stuff.
The IOE proved what I suspected about the F-100 based on the simulator
hours: the jet was smooth and easy to fly. powered ailerons, after years of
wrestling the sluggish flying tabs on the MD-80 and even the -135, gave her a
fingertip control touch.
What surprised me was the initial feel right after rotating at takeoff speed.
There was an instant of hesitation before she lifted off and flew, an instant of
transition, it seemed like to me, that was different from the feel of a wing
with leading edge devices. The Fokker had a “hard wing,” meaning no wing
leading edge slats curving forward and down to increase the camber and lift
of the wing. That changed the slow-speed handling characteristics barely
perceptibly, but distinctly just the same, in my flying experience. That wasn’t
necessarily a bad thing, just a very subtle difference I attributed to the
increased angle of attack upon shifting the body angle to a nose-up position
for takeoff. There was a translational time as lifting forces shifted and she
began to fly. It was just something different, something to anticipate and be
patient about.
Once in the air, the F-100 had a modest climb rate, which was also fine
but again, something to get used to. The MD-80 required a fairly aggressive
nose-up pitch at takeoff power and at lighter weights, required a smooth but
deliberate pitch up to nearly twenty degrees nose high to maintain climb
speed at climb power. The F-100’s Rolls-Royce Tay engines were adequate,
but certainly not exceptional on the initial climb, especially near the higher
gross weight and temperature ranges.
Fokker had designed the jet for shorter flight segments in cooler
climates—at least cooler than Texas in the summer. As a result, the F-100
earned the nickname among crews, “the Dutch oven,” mostly because of its
less-than-adequate ground cooling capacity but also for one other design
anomaly: The F-100 model American bought had no aft emergency exit. That
meant the flight attendant manning the aft cabin jumpseat had to escape in an
emergency from the overwing exit, which meant struggling up the aisle to do
so. That dubious necessity reinforced the Dutch oven nickname and also
inspired “fry before you die” for the aft flight attendant bid position.
Once you’d climbed into the enroute airway structure, thrust became less
of a factor, although she was usually restricted to the twenty-something-
thousand-foot range for initial cruise, which put you in a position of dodging,
rather than topping weather. But even that was not a problem with the very
adept, color-coded radar integrated into our nav displays.
Another automation quirk lessened the cockpit workload, but introduced
another freakish anomaly. When sensors detected icing conditions, the jet
activated its anti-ice systems on the engines and wings, rather than having the
crew turn the system on and off. And in ground school, we’d been shown a
video of Fokker engineers firing frozen chickens from a cannon right into a
running engine. No damage, which was weird but a confidence builder just
the same. Still, part of the ice-shedding procedure that would pop up on our
displays was to reduce a throttle to idle, if ice was detected, then shove it
abruptly to climb power. Centrifugal force would then shed the ice from the
compressor blades right into the engine with a loud, cringe-worthy clatter as
the fragments were ingested.
I knew from studying the F-100 bid lines that a typical F-100 trip had
more legs than the average MD-80 trip. It wasn’t exceptional for the Fokker
trips to include a four-leg day, which, on the MD-80, would be a real beating
for the pilots. The F-100 reduced workload and “dark cockpit” made flying a
five-leg day much less taxing and really, no more difficult than a three-leg
day of MD-80 flying.
I finished the IOE feeling good about the airplane, its versatility, the ease,
with a little forethought, of flying her as well as my decision to step sideways
from the Maddog to the Fokker. The MD-80 had the nickname “Barbie’s
Dreamjet” because it was lighter and nimbler than the 727, and the F-100,
being even smaller and lighter than the MD-80, became known as “the Smurf
Jet.” Whatever you called it; I was happy to be flying the F-100.
And once again, in my first few hundred hours flying her, I had the
benefit of patient, generous FOs who helped me learn the operational quirks
and best practices I needed to gain confidence and competence in the left
seat. That only reinforced my “captain” philosophy born of my Air Force
experience with navs like Paul and Brian, plus the collaborative environment
I’d seen demonstrated by American Airlines captains like Don Sterling, Rob
Stidham, Gary Anderson and so many others. Running a good cockpit was all
about engagement, not authority. The latter was given, the former earned.
The F-100 trips, especially having a few years of captain seniority, were
easy, the Smurf Jet crews were great, and the jet easy to fly. After I had a few
hundred hours in the Fokker left seat, I felt at ease, relaxed really, fulfilling
my responsibilities as an airline captain.
Maybe it was the advanced systems of the Fokker, coupled with the
excellent human factors engineering of the design, plus the trouble-free way
she flew in all weather and all types of instrument environments. Or maybe it
was just the settling-in ease of a few thousand hours in the left seat.
Regardless of the exact cause, without warning—faster than I’d ever
thought possible—I found myself and my little Smurf Jet in a very bad
situation from which I wasn’t sure we’d recover.

Chapter 47
“Maintain two thousand till established, cleared back course localizer
runway three-two, contact tower,” the approach controller said in a bored
monotone.
Ahead, the McAllen Airport crept onto my map display. My FO read
back the instructions, then checked in with the tower.
“American 1410, you’re cleared to land runway three-two,” the tower
controller said. “Previous arrival reported patchy fog over the south end of
the field.”
That was the problem with McAllen Airport: they only had a non-
precision approach—the back-course localizer—for landing north. The
descent minimums were much higher than on a precision approach, which
meant if we didn’t see the runway at a higher altitude, we couldn’t land.
A precision approach like a Cat 2 would let us descend to a hundred feet
above touchdown, at which point we’d likely see the runway. We’d just
flown a Cat 2 approach on a Charlotte turn before the McAllen flight due to
dense ground fog. We were ready to do the same at McAllen, but the
precision approach was only from the north end, and that approach would
have a tailwind that was beyond the F-100’s limitations.
I’d called the dispatcher before we left DFW to discuss the runway
conundrum: the only sure bet was a precision approach. But, as was typical of
McAllen weather, the fog usually blew by in waves. If we were lucky, we’d
reach the runway in a gap in the clouds. If not, we’d just go missed-approach
and divert to our alternate. We’d planned to carry plenty of fuel for that.
After I talked with the dispatcher, I spoke with another captain, a former
AirCal pilot I knew from my merger work a few years earlier.
“Yeah,” Steve said, shaking his head, “Fog in the Rio Grande Valley.
We’re headed to Harlingen and the same low viz.”
“Well,” I said, “What’s your alternate? We’ll see you there.”
We both laughed, then filed out of Flight Operations for our departure
gates.
After the approach clearance, I pressed the arming buttons for the back-
course localizer approach, then glanced at the FMS (Flight Management
System) “Progress Fuel Prediction” readout. I always did that when cleared
for the approach to decide what our options were if we went couldn’t land
and went missed-approach instead. Options were all about fuel, which
determined flying time available.
We were way ahead on fuel, meaning, we had much more than we needed
to complete the approach, fly the missed approach and divert to our alternate
and still land with extra fuel.
Knowing that the visibility at McAllen would improve and degrade in
cycles, I believed we’d have enough fuel for a second approach, if we wanted
to do that. Or, we could simply divert after the first unsuccessful approach. I
wondered what Steve was doing on his approach into Harlingen, where the
weather always seemed to match McAllen’s. That was why we chose San
Antonio for an alternate rather than Harlingen, and so did Steve.
“Looking at the fuel,” I said cross cockpit and I pointed at the FMS fuel
prediction, “We have enough fuel for a back-course approach, with clearance
on request to San Antonio on the missed approach. Are you comfortable with
that?”
“Comfortable” was the key word: not “okay,” which to me meant I can
stand it but I don’t like it. “Comfortable” meant my FO felt there was no
worries in the idea. And he agreed.
“In the event of a missed approach,” my FO told the tower, “We’d like
vectors to a second approach, with clearance on request to San Antonio
afterward.”
“I’ll relay that to approach,” the tower controller said.
As we neared our descent minimums, there was no telltale lightness or
gaps in the fog—just depthless gray. I executed the published missed
approach and as we climbed past the departure end, the fog vanished. We’d
been a minute too early for the fog bank to blow by, but that was encouraging
nonetheless because we’d possibly catch the gap on the next approach.
I glanced down at the fuel prediction once again before committing to the
approach and also checked with my FO.
“Are you okay with another approach?” I asked. “We could just bail out
to San Antonio now. It’s no big deal.”
But he agreed: we had enough fuel to fly this second approach, go
missed-approach and fly to San Antonio and still land with extra fuel.
But, at the minimum descent altitude, we were still in thick gray fog.
Again I executed the missed approach and my FO told tower, “We’re ready
for clearance to San Antonio.”
The tower controller acknowledged the request and told us that departure
controller was ready with that clearance.
We switched frequencies and as we climbed to our enroute divert altitude,
the FO made contact with departure control.
“Climb and maintain ten thousand feet,” the departure controller said.
That would have to change. We’d planned a much higher cruise altitude
to conserve precious fuel. With the ten-thousand-foot cruise altitude set in the
FMS, the fuel prediction showed us to land with less than planned fuel.
Then the same laconic voice on departure control frequency stabbed me
in the heart.
“Be advised that San Antonio is calling their ceiling and visibility zero,”
he droned. “They’re not accepting arrivals. State your intentions.”
Just like that, we were instantly screwed and I knew it. The fog had rolled
up the Rio Grande valley much faster than our weather shop and dispatch had
predicted. I desperately needed that two thousand pounds of fuel we’d burned
on the second McAllen approach, but it was long gone. And if we’d departed
just those fifteen minutes earlier, we might have made it into San Antonio
before the ceiling crumped. There was no one to blame but myself, because
I’d made the decision to fly that second approach.
“How’s the Austin weather?” I asked the controller. Less than fifty miles
more flying beyond San Antonio. If we could get a higher altitude, we might
conserve enough fuel to land in Austin with an uncomfortably low fuel total,
but what were the options?
“Their ceiling and viz are dropping rapidly,” the controller said. “You’d
better plan minimum time enroute.”
We coordinated a higher altitude but the fuel prediction still showed a
very low fuel total at Austin—if we beat the fog rolling up from the south.
I’d failed Cecil’s second dictum, “Know when to get the hell out of
Dodge.” If we couldn’t land in Austin, the next option was Waco almost a
hundred miles north. That arrival fuel total would be unthinkable, if we even
made it that far at all. I’d relied too heavily on the FMS technology and not
enough on my instinct, which usually was, there’s nothing you’re going to
see on a second approach that you didn’t see on the first. Just get the hell out
of town. The MD-80 didn’t even have a fuel prediction function.
There was no panic in the cockpit, though we both knew instantly what
we were up against. There was just intense concentration, with an ample side
order of tension.
We climbed into the twenties, then I had another critical decision to make.
Do I pull the power back to an endurance speed that burned minimal fuel?
That would add time to our transit, which could mean the difference between
landing before the relentless fog bank.
The longer we waited, the cooler the evening air would become, and that
was the insidious culprit: the fog wasn’t really “moving north” so much as
the temperature-dewpoint spread was diminishing as the sun set. When it
reached zero, there’d be fog, from the surface to at least a thousand feet.
It was an all-in bet, keeping the engine power high to speed north, albeit
at the expense of arrival fuel. The new landing fuel prediction was about half
of what I’d normally accept, but the minimal time gave us at least a fighting
chance to fly the approach and find the runway at descent minimums.
We entered a long, shallow descent toward the Austin airport. I held the
speed at two-hundred-fifty until just about twenty miles out, then we “threw
all the shit out,” as Coker would say, dropping the gear, the boards and the
speedbrakes to slow to approach speed. We broke out of the overcast well
above minimums, which was a huge relief, then I flew her to a normal
touchdown.
I don’t recall ever being so glad to slow a jet to taxi speed as I was that
night. It had been a hell of a day, a long one at that, including a no-shit Cat 2
approach, two back-course localizers to minimums and go-arounds then a
divert at emergency fuel levels.
The passengers never knew the ugly details, other than what should have
been just over an hour of flying time turning into nearly three, plus ending up
in Austin instead of McAllen. Nor did the flight attendants, really. There was
no point informing either of them, as far as I could see.
I told the agent we’d need crew hotel rooms for the night, because we
were done. We’d been on duty for twelve hours and besides that strain, the
uncertainty of the Austin divert left both of us in the cockpit fried.
The agent invited me inside to operations where the dispatcher was on the
line.
“Captain,” said a female voice I didn’t recognize. She must have taken
over the shift from the original dispatcher. “We’re going to refuel you, then
you’ll fly the passengers back to DFW.”
“No,” I said. “That’s a bad idea. We’re both done for the night.”
“We need you to fly these passengers back to DFW.”
“That’s not a good idea, so, no.”
“Are you refusing a direct order from dispatch?”
She must be new, I thought to myself.
“Call it whatever you want,” I said. “We are done and we’re going to the
hotel. Don’t call me back—I’ll be in crew rest. We’ll be ready tomorrow after
we’ve had a decent night’s sleep.”
Then I hung up the phone. The next morning, I got a call from Doug
Anderson, the DFW Chief Pilot who’d recommended I try the F-100. He
listened carefully, then said he agreed with my decision, even ending the day
in Austin, and supported me one hundred percent.
When I mentioned to him the shockingly low fuel we had left after
landing, he simply said, “I’ve landed with less.”
Around nine o’clock the next morning, I rounded up the crew and we
ferried the jet back to DFW empty. On the very quiet, short and routine flight
home, I added an addendum to Cecil’s “get out of Dodge” advice. There’d be
no multiple approaches, at least not without holding for a significant time to
allow conditions to improve. Back-to-back Cat 2 or 3s? Right then and from
then on, I’d just get the hell out of Dodge.
Before I left Flight Operations in Austin, I searched for the DFW to
Harlingen flight schedule. I picked the flight number that corresponded to
Steve’s takeoff time the night before, then typed in a routing check for his
flight. Where had he diverted to? The Harlingen weather had been just as bad
as the McAllen ceiling and visibility. And San Antonio hadn’t been accepting
arrivals.
Turns out, he’d diverted to Corpus Christi, where the ceiling was even
worse. I asked him later, “How’d you get into Corpus with that visibility?”
He just smiled, which said it all.
I returned home for a couple days off, which meant watching baseball
with Gus, after cooking dinner and drinking a few beers, also with Gus. On
days off I typically penciled in something fun with one of two flight
attendants I was dating, like dinner at a new restaurant, a visit to a comedy
club, or maybe even a ball game if the Texas Rangers were in town. One of
the flight attendants I was dating seemed to want our connection to be more
serious than I did. She’d mention a pilot friend coming to town, wanting her
to go out.
“Well,” I’d say, “You should.”
“You don’t mind if I go out with him?”
“No. Go ahead. Have fun.”
I was actually at a baseball game with a buddy while she was there on a
date, seated a few rows above my usual first baseline seats. It was easier to be
at a ball game with a guy friend, because I wouldn’t have to miss anything
exciting on the field while I was searching for a particular beer for her at the
concession stand. And I’d only fend for myself if a fly ball headed our way.
Pancho, the other flight attendant I was dating I really liked, but she
commuted and wasn’t in town much except for before or after a trip. Still,
each trip I’d meet somebody new and interesting anyway. There was no need
to get serious with anyone.
As I did when I was on the MD-80, I sought out some of the more
difficult flying, just to be current and familiar with places like LaGarbage or
O’Hare and especially, Mexico. The F-100 made the sometimes confusing,
often rudimentary Mexican approaches simple and easy. The F-100 flew a lot
of Lyon, Monterrey, Puebla, and Guadalajara, and I enjoyed the layovers,
especially the food, at all of them. There was a restaurant chain throughout
Mexico called Sanborn’s that was my go-to for breakfast of Chilaquiles and
Chorizo on the patio.
The drive from the Monterrey airport to our downtown hotel took at least
a half hour, or sometimes even more depending on traffic. So, my typical
suggestion was to see if the Spanish-speaker on the cabin crew could
coordinate with the driver for a “refreshment” stop near the airport. There
we’d get everyone a couple of cold beverages and enjoy happy hour on the
ride to the hotel.
Like Guadalajara, Monterrey had a wonderful old-world feel, with
beautiful architecture reflecting an old school Spanish influence, plus ornate,
imposing churches and cathedrals downtown.
A crew favorite was a bar called “The Nunnery” where the waitresses
wore nuns’ habits, which was freaky and for me, weirdly reminiscent of
having Sister Euthalia—Hawkeye—serving me cocktails, a fitting turnabout,
I decided. The Nunnery offered excellent and very inexpensive appetizers
that usually substituted for dinner. Plus, there were bakeries everywhere with
fresh bread and pastries for breakfast.
One month my FO discovered a bar that was actually part of an active
cathedral downtown. He said they had cold beer and free appetizers, which
sold us both on the potential for a crew debrief. We were scheduled with the
same flight attendants the whole month, so we agreed that on the next trip,
we’d all meet there for a crew debrief.
The bar was in what seemed to have been a side chapel or maybe a
transept converted into a restaurant-bar setup with tables and bar stools. An
appetizer buffet lined one wall, beautiful stained-glass windows across the
other. We ordered round after round of refreshments, and made several trips
to the appetizer bar for Pico, salsa, guacamole, and delicious handmade
tortilla chips. There’d be no need for a dinner stop that night, I decided.
Maybe I should have been more circumspect about the uncooked items
like the Pico and guacamole, but they were so good I didn’t really think about
moderation or the potential for digestive impact. But by the next day, I was
sick as a dog, gut sick, including a fever.
I went to the American Airlines medical clinic, thinking the layover food
had been the culprit, so they should pay for the doctor’s visit. The doctor just
laughed and told me the fever and the effects would pass, just stay hydrated
and take Ibuprofen as needed. He also gave me some advice that would have
helped out during my Air Force flying in Korea and the Philippines. He told
me it’s not so much a virulent bacterium that causes the symptoms of food
poisoning, but rather, the dissimilar varieties our systems just aren’t
accustomed to that wreak havoc on our digestive tracts.
“Take regular doses of Pepto,” he said, “When you plan to eat and drink
in Mexico, before, during and after. You’ll be fine.”
Better late than never, I decided. When we all got together two trips later
—we all had to call in sick for one trip—I shared that advice with my crew.
Our number one had actually been so sick she’d had to reschedule her bridal
portrait.
The Fokker crew base at DFW was comparatively small, so I often flew
with the same FOs. Everyone seemed fairly laid back and easy to get along
with, although I actually had one copilot remove himself from the trip over a
disagreement.
Billy was fairly young and as pilots, go, I’d say he was a bit on the
dramatic side. He was angry about the way the company was stonewalling
our pilot contract negotiations and to be honest, so was I. But I needed to
separate union politics from flight operations to do my job safely. I was a
good union member and would—and did—walk off the job in Newark when
our strike was called.
Billy was conducting his own guerilla warfare with the airline. I didn’t
mind that, until it clashed with my responsibility to run a decent flight
operation.
“There’s a red arrow missing on the fire door for the left engine,” he
fumed after his preflight exterior walk-around.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s call maintenance.”
A few minutes later a mechanic appeared.
“We’re going to defer that,” he said.
Billy wasn’t having it.
“It needs to be fixed,” he said.
“Look,” the mechanic said. “We could paint it now, but it wouldn’t last
the flight. You’re coming back from Huntsville, then the plane will overnight
and we can paint it and let it set.”
That made sense to me. But not to Billy. The mechanic deferred the
arrow and left.
“I don’t think they should get away with that,” Billy said, starting what
looked like a pout. “I’m tired of them not fixing things.”
There was no point, in my mind, in having the maintenance guys spray
paint a red arrow on the engine cowling only to have it streak because it was
still wet in the four hundred knot slipstream, then have another set of
mechanics remove the smeared mess and repaint the stupid arrow. And
passengers had connections to make, both at DFW and out of Huntsville.
“I’m okay with flying a turn with it deferred,” I said. “It’ll be painted on
correctly when we get back.”
I didn’t want to make useless work for the mechanics, plus I wouldn’t
let my captain’s authority be co-opted by anyone. When Billy checked out as
captain, he’d have the authority to refuse the airplane.
“I don’t feel like I can go along with this,” he said at last.
“Do whatever you have to do, Billy. No hard feelings here.”
He started to pack his flight gear, and I added, “If you remove yourself
from the trip, go home and call your union rep. Don’t go into the Flight
Office.”
That was good, proven advice from my years of having done many
disciplinary hearings as the base union rep. Just let the union rep handle the
Chief Pilots.
Crew Schedule grabbed an F-100 copilot from another flight and
reassigned him to our Huntsville turnaround. We pushed back on time.
After we landed in Huntsville, the agent said, “The DFW Chief Pilot
wants you to call him.”
Oh jeez. Didn’t look like Billy had taken my advice. I called Doug
Anderson.
“Billy wants to know if you’ll let him back on the trip,” Doug said.
Like the hothead he was, Billy must have marched himself into the Flight
Office, full of piss and vinegar. Typical of Doug, he’d talked him down
rather than simply discipline him, which he could have done.
“Of course,” I answered. “I never wanted him off the trip in the first
place.”
I liked Billy; he was a good kid and a decent pilot. He’d learn to channel
his anger—justified in my mind—at the company’s bad faith bargaining into
some constructive union work. A private war, especially as an FO, really
wasn’t in his best interest.
We finished that trip, the first one of the month, then I had a few days off.
My October schedule from that point on was paired with Ralph Miller, a
retired Air Force pilot who was one of my favorite FOs. We had a pretty easy
set of three-day trips ahead, each starting with a long Harlingen layover,
followed by a short Pittsburgh layover, then home in time to watch Monday
Night Football with Gus.
I had no idea that starting with that very next trip, my world would never
be the same.

Chapter 48
Ralph and I milled around in the boarding lounge in terminal 2E, waiting
for our jet to taxi in and deplane passengers so we could get aboard and start
our preflight. Charlene Jones, our number one flight attendant, stood near her
stack of flight attendant bags and we talked about the weather, how much like
a summertime weather pattern we were experiencing, weird for mid-October.
I wondered where our number two flight attendant was. It was well past sign-
in time.
As we chatted, she walked up. I’d never seen anyone like her, ever, in my
life. She had a grace, a gracefulness, yet a self-assurance and a reserved
demeaner all at the same time. I’d often seen some of those attributes in other
flight attendants, but in over twenty years, never all of it in such clear and
powerful presence, all at once. She was beautiful, gorgeous in an
overwhelming yet understated way, and both poised but no-nonsense
determined at the same time. There’d never been a woman so elegant,
capable, and stunningly beautiful, at least not in my world.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Catherine.”
And my exact thought in my little pea brain was, now what am I going to
do about this?
She helped Charlene in the forward galley as we boarded. We eventually
closed and locked the cockpit door in preparation for pushback. But, as I
sometimes do, I grabbed my pen and inked a quick cartoon for the Fort
Worth goddess I’d just met. I drew a cartoon of her riding an inflight service
cart with a set of longhorns on the front.
I popped the cockpit door open and handed it to her. Ralph gave me a
have you completely lost your mind look, and maybe I had.
“Oh,” she said. “You’re the cartoon guy.”
She’d seen my cartoon work in Skyword in Chicago, where she’d been
based before transferring to DFW.
Our first leg to Des Moines left us with ample time between flights to
grab a bite to eat. I usually tried to find something better than just airplane
food, so as Ralph did the exterior preflight, I told Charlene and Catherine I’d
be right back.
“I’ll go with you,” she said.
We talked and I learned she’d recently fired her long-term boyfriend and
moved into her own place. She had a degree in engineering and had worked
in the field for years before changing her life by becoming a flight attendant.
She was strong, independent, assertive, self-sufficient and knew what she
wanted out of life.
She had a knowing coolness in her eyes, a way of seeming at once laid
back, but at the same time telegraphing I’ve got my act together—how about
you, mister? At the same time, she was the most stunningly warm, easygoing
person I’d ever encountered. I was speechless.
Later that night at the layover hotel in Harlingen, as I walked to my room
on the second floor, I saw her across the courtyard on the first-floor walking
to the ice machine with an ice bucket. That self-assurance, that grace; how
could any one person possess all of that? Moreover, how could I ever have
someone like her in my life? The T-bird wives? The beautiful, confident
flight attendants I’d known and admired over the years—she was all of them.
She was more than them. She was everything, everything I’d ever dreamed
of, and more. What am I going to do about this?
We passed through DFW Airport on our way from Harlingen to
Pittsburgh. Charlene and Catherine greeted boarding passengers while Ralph
and I sat in the cockpit, ready to start engines once the agent pulled the
jetbridge.
“American 323,” someone called over the ramp frequency. Our flight
number, but I wasn’t sure who was calling us.
“Go,” Ralph spoke into his hand mike.
“Tell your number two that ‘Captain Ron’ said hi.”
That pissed Ralph off. Some other pilot was actually using the company
frequency to schmooze our number two, Catherine. That was pretty lame.
That I decided, must be the pilot she was dating and, in my mind, what an
asshole for calling himself “Captain Ron.” He was one of those types.
I already despised him for dating her in the first place, which was crazy:
we’d only just met, and I was dating Kay at the time, Pancho, too. At the
same time, I realized our “number two” would be so much more than that, to
me. I just knew.
We agreed that we’d meet for breakfast despite the early pickup at the
Pittsburgh airport hotel. It was surreal sitting across from her, but at the same
time, it seemed right.
“Would it be too forward of me to give you my number?” she asked over
coffee.
God no it’s not too forward and it lets me off the hook for having to figure
out a tactful way to ask for your number.
“That would be great,” I said. “Maybe we could go out sometime and do
something fun.”
We flew back to DFW, then to Colorado Springs. We all sat in First Class
on the jet killing time between flights, but she got up and headed for the
jetbridge.
“Would you come up in five minutes and unlock the jetbridge door so I
can get back on?” she asked. “I need to use the computer at the gate.”
Of course I would. My mind raced ahead wildly; I decided I’d always be
there, always, for her in whatever she wanted or needed. That was crazy,
really. We’d just met, and she was dating another pilot, and I was dating a
flight attendant. What the hell was wrong with me?
She looked surprised when I stood at the top of the jetbridge exactly five
minutes later. Some sixth sense told me even then that I’d always be there for
her when she needed me.
When we taxied in to the gate at DFW, next to the agent driving the
jetbridge up to the side of the aircraft was Kay, the flight attendant I’d been
dating, probably trying to be sure I wasn’t able to do exactly what I was
doing, which was setting up a date with my dream girl.
I’d actually planned a quiet night at home, watching Monday Night
Football with Gus. I’d figured before the trip that a solo night would be
perfect after a three-day trip, watching a little football. Kay sort of invited
herself over and by halftime, nice as she was, I began to think, wait a minute,
I just wanted to be alone. Plus, I couldn’t stop thinking about Catherine. I
wanted to call her, but of course I’d wait till the next day to not seem too
freaky-stalker-needy. Still, as far as I was concerned, Catherine was the
future, Kay the past. She probably shouldn’t have come over.
Catherine and I went out a on a warm Fall evening a couple days later in
Sundance Square in Fort Worth, and that was that: she broke up with the pilot
she’d been seeing, and I broke up with the Kay. That breakup didn’t go well,
which surprised me. We’d only been seeing each other for a few weeks and,
of course, it was just me, so what was the big deal? When I told her I thought
we should take a break—which was my wimpy way to leap to forever as the
“break”—I thought she was going to hit me, so I made sure I had her coffee
table or breakfast bar between us until I could escape out the front door. After
that, Catherine and I spent every moment possible together from then on.
She was a long-distance biker and so she was in excellent shape. That
matched my long-distance running plans pretty well because we both had
endurance athletics as a core strength in our lives. I actually bought a
mountain bike and we spent many miles and long hours together riding the
sprawling Trinity Trails.
I admired her self-sufficiency and independence: she had her own
apartment, car, and no debt. She’d boldly walked off an aircraft in Miami as
soon as the flight attendant strike had been called and made her way back to
Fort Worth to walk the APFA picket line. She was strong in her beliefs and
confident in herself. She didn’t need me and fact, there’d be no struggle—
she’d simply fire me if I didn’t fit her world. In a weird way, that felt good,
honest, simple and uncomplicated.
Just days after we’d met, we stood in the Fokker galley as the agent
brought an unaccompanied minor down to the forward entry door to pre-
board. She looked to be maybe five or six years old, cute and poised.
“I’m Claire,” she said with a tiny smile. So cute and self-confident.
Catherine and I looked at each other and said, “We’re having one.”
That meant a Claire, our Claire, a child of our own. After barely two
weeks of knowing each other. It took us a few years, but our Claire was even
cuter and more self-assured, just like her mom.
The next week, our days off coincided so we decided to hop on a flight to
Memphis for a quick overnight, which would include Halloween night on
Beale Street. We got into Memphis and downtown by early afternoon and
checked into the crew layover hotel which was right across the street from the
Peabody.
Beale Street was already crazy with costumed partiers roaming the street
with beer and mixed drinks. We decided to stake out a spot at BB King’s
Blues Club and stay for Preston Shannon, the headline act. Even getting there
by five o’clock, the place was jammed and we were lucky to grab a table near
the back of the club.
We drank our way through the first couple of bands, watching the
drunken costume party in full swing in the packed house. Midway through
the Preston Shannon set, he paused and said,” We’re going to slow this down
here for just a moment.”
Then he asked, “Is there anyone in the house who’s in love with
somebody?”
There was a nanosecond when I considered how absolutely stupid I’d
look if my hand went up but hers didn’t. I didn’t care—I raised my hand (it
had a mind of its own after four or five beers) then I glanced a bit worriedly
toward Catherine. And her hand was raised too.
“This one is for the two lovers in the back of the house there.”
I don’t really understand how or why he picked us out, but the spotlight
made it official. We went up to the stage and had a solo slow dance, right in
front of the band, while Preston Shannon covered Bill Whithers’ “Ain’t No
Sunshine When She’s Gone.” To this day, even the from the first few notes
of that song, I think of her and us and that night.
We flew together as often as possible, which usually meant trip-trading
with other crewmembers to be assigned to the same flights. That was a
double bonus for me, flying with my best friend and getting to spend time
together. It always felt like we were making up for lost time, having met each
other later in life. There didn’t seem to ever be enough time to spend
together, then or now, but we always were and are together regardless.
There came the day I kind of figured would eventually happen, when I
pulled up the crew list for one of her flights. I had to forewarn her that she’d
be sharing the jumpseat with one of my exs, Kay, the one who I’d stopped
seeing after we met. The airline world, especially at a crew base, can be a
small world, sometimes too small.
We flew a lot of Nashville layovers, where we toured the capitol grounds
searching for the dead Polks (president and wife—never found them), plus a
couple months of God-awful Hartford layovers in downtown Springfield,
Massachusetts. The only upside that somewhat atoned for the ugly-early sign-
ins on the east coast were the authentic German mittagsessen at The Student
Prince in downtown Springfield, and the stops for fresh produce on the way
to or from the airport. The ugly trip was mine, and she was a real trooper to
trade onto them and gut it out with me.
We also spent a lot of long layovers in New York City, one of our
favorite places for museums, shopping and eating—probably in that order—
as well as in New Orleans, in the French Quarter, eating and sightseeing.
We met and flew with some great folks who became longtime friends,
eventually. It was a different dynamic in the crew world being able to engage
and share the profession as a pair. In the terminal, we always felt under
scrutiny, as crews always were, almost costumed characters in Disneyland.
We kept our relationship out of the public view, but for me flying was
actually more complete with us as a pair than it had ever been by myself.
We had a Charlotte layover that returned us to DFW on Christmas
morning after spending Christmas Eve in a seemingly abandoned downtown
as everyone went home to their families. I had the best of both worlds and
felt very fortunate.
The MD-80 flying began to increase once again, and that presented me
with a decision. I’d been off the fleet for over a year, which meant that if I
wanted to bid back to the MD-80, I’d have to be given some requalification
training. Most of the time, the Training Department assigned a pilot
transitioning back into a fleet the long requalification course, which included
the full simulator syllabus. I hated the simulator and the whole training
environment, from the classroom to the simulator.
I was an airplane guy, not a student or a hobbyist. I needed hands-on, I
wanted to fly, as always. Sure, I’d learned to play the training game, actually
learned very well and had done well ever since leaving Reese. I could cram
then recite and dump all the little BBs out of my head and get back to flying.
I wanted to go back to the MD-80 for a few common-sense reasons. First,
since the fleet was huge, so was the range of flying schedules. It wasn’t so
much because of the wider range of destinations as it was the amount of
flying. Catherine had more trip trading flexibility with the multitude of lines
available on the MD-80. And both trip trading and dropping on my end
became easier with more options.
There was no doubt in my mind that the F-100 was the more pilot-
friendly jet of the two. But the scheduling flexibility of the huge MD-80 fleet
made the best choice clear. So, I put in a MD-80 transfer bid. Then once I
was awarded the bid, I called the training schedulers.
“Well,” Don, our fleet training scheduler said, “You’ve been off the fleet
for over a year now, so you really should have the long requal course.”
“I’m good with the short course,” I pleaded. “There will be no problems, I
promise.”
The short course was basically a day of refresher class on MD-80
systems, then a refresher sim. Then the next day I’d get a basic simulator
check ride and at least three landings, which would update my landing
currency. That would be it—back to the flightline. That was all I wanted.
Eventually, Don agreed, probably because having me flight-ready in three
days versus six weeks was an advantage to the fleet. As soon as I jumped into
the cockpit for the brush-up sim, I knew I’d been right in pursuing the short
course, because it was as if I’d never left the MD-80. In some ways it was
good to be back in the familiar jet, but I knew I’d miss the more advanced
and pilot-friendly Fokker cockpit. Regardless, I breezed through the check
ride and just like that, I was back on the MD-80.
Meanwhile, Catherine and I made a life together. We rode a blistering
twenty-plus mile ride one summer day and at a water stop near the halfway
point, along the Trinity River, we stopped briefly in the one hundred- and six-
degree heat. That was who we were, two riders, hot, sweaty, and miles to go.
I liked the down to earth, no-nonsense metaphor in that. I reached into my
bike bag and drew out the felt-covered Bach Company jewelry box.
Hot, sweaty, nasty, I asked, “Will you marry me?”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
Of course she said yes, then we toasted with a drink of warm water from
our water bottles and pressed on in the heat and blazing sunshine. In my
mind, we were both well past the “engagement ring in the Baked Alaska”
showiness. This would be a second marriage for both of us and we were more
down to earth, realistic, and determined—exactly like our sweat-soaked
endurance ride. She was right there, strong, relentless, and powering forward.
Seemed like a good way to start the rest of forever.
My seniority climbed to near the fifty-percent mark, meaning I was in the
middle of the pack for bidding purposes. I still stuck to my policy of
deliberately flying into challenging airports in order to be well-practiced in
the unique demands of each. Mexico City was one of the most challenging
airports in the MD-80 because of the elevation—over 7,000 feet—and the
bowl of mountain peaks surrounding the airport. The MD-80 handled like a
pig at nearly ten thousand feet, the traffic pattern altitude, especially on hot
days. Because of the challenges, I never let too much time go by before I got
back in there, since that was not a place you’d want to be rusty or unprepared
for.
We sold my “captain’s McMansion” shortly after we got married, then we
bought a house an older neighborhood in southwest Fort Worth near TCU
and as important, on the Trinity Trails system of bike and running path so we
could ride together, and I could run long distance. We made sure it had two
bedrooms and a separate living area for each of my kids when they were with
us. When they’d been moved to Florida, the judge had ruled that my ex
couldn’t take anything from the home with them, but of course I wanted my
kids to have all of their things so we bought all new furniture and clothes for
them so when they were with us, it was home for them, too.
We flew together on the MD-80 every now and then, as our individual
schedules allowed. Or, sometimes I’d hop on her flight and spend the layover
time off with her, and often she’d jump on my trips if she had days off.
It was wry fun to share with her some of the weirdness of pilot world,
especially in flight. We flew a trip with an FO who couldn’t shut up about the
issue of moral decay in society. Religion was not a topic I liked to discuss in
flight for fear of offending someone, but he couldn’t contain himself, going
on about his fundamentalism, eventually disclosing odd details about his own
life.
When he started describing how he’d spanked his wife for her
misbehavior, I had to pause the conversation.
“Hold on,” I said, then picked up the crew interphone handset. I called
Catherine in the forward galley. “Can you come up her for a minute?”
Once she was seated on the flight deck jumpseat, I turned to my FO.
“Now, what were you telling me about disciplining your wife?”
He described in matter-of-fact detail how he’d spanked his wife for
flirting with other men when she was drunk. I just had to have Catherine hear
that firsthand—she’d never have believed me if I’d told her later.
As always, she acted nonplussed, kept a straight face, then returned to the
cabin. That became just one more quirky pilot story to add to our archives of
similar bizarre tales.
We flew together on a series of Harlingen layovers that arrived just after
eleven in the evening. As a crew, we’d urge the hotel van driver to drive fast
so we could get to the hotel before the grocery store across the street closed.
That store, an H-E-B, was a quick dash across the street and became known
as “the Heeb:” we’d all run over to the store to grab munchies. Catherine and
I would buy chips, queso and then watch late night television and unwind.
We travelled together at work, flying our trips and having fun wherever
we went—even Cleveland in the wintertime, especially New York City any
time. We spent several weeks on two trips to Germany so she could see my
old haunts near Munich where I’d lived and worked, and Salzburg, Austria,
where she shared my appreciation for the beautiful architecture, the old-world
feel, and my favorite ratskellers and restaurants.
We toured Germany and Austria north to south, but also spent many
Caribbean evenings in St. Thomas, Barbados and Antigua. We were perfectly
matched for traveling, sharing the same interests and ideas about both travel
and relaxation.
She was a member of several social clubs and charitable organizations in
Fort Worth which including many events each year, some black tie, others
more casual, but we both enjoyed the events and the group of people we met
and socialized with. I joined Ridotto, an old-school Fort Worth men’s social
club comprised of doctors, lawyers and business professionals whose sole
purpose was to host two black tie events a year with a good band, open bar,
and a breakfast buffet at midnight. None of the members were airline pilots
and I appreciated the broader horizons of friendship, conversation and social
interaction, minus the usual narrowminded and cloistered airline pilot dogma.
Between cruises and formals, I eventually bought a tux, then had one tailor
made because we needed formal dress often.
It was almost a cliché how so many pilots had become in ultra-rightwing
doxa which usually meant that for every fundamentalist harangue we heard
from a pilot, we could visualize a beleaguered pilot wife back home with the
kids, probably home-schooling them with little help from the “woman-must-
submit” man of the house.
Of course, we still got together now and then with Chip and Jonne,
Animal Hauser and Tamara, and The Coke and Leslie for dinner or a social
event. But that was about it, as far as socializing with pilots, at least for us.
Chip, too, seemed to branch out beyond the pilot social circle and he and
Jonne were involved with their community and Jenny’s high school where
Jenny was a standout as a student and Keller Indianette drill team member.
Jenny was smart, reliable and resourceful and was my go-to as a stay-over
sitter for my kids when they were with us and Catherine and I both had to fly.
Just watching them all grow and embrace family life gave me hope for our
future.
Catherine’s Texas Tech roommate was also a flight attendant for
American and her husband was a pilot I’d flown with many times before he
upgraded to captain. They were friends we saw now and again, visiting them
in New York City then later when they moved to DFW.
Catherine and I had a long San Antonio layover with a married FO who’d
explained in lengthy detail why his affair with a married flight attendant—
who I also knew, though he had no idea—wasn’t actually cheating. I had to
pause that monologue, too, long enough to ask her to join us.
“It’s not cheating,” he resumed his spiel once Catherine joined us in the
cockpit, “Because I keep my underpants on the whole time we’re in bed.”
Again, Catherine maintained her poker face and we had yet another
strange but true pilot story to laugh about. We called him “Opie” just
between the two of us, because he looked like the old television show
character, childlike, or maybe just childish, but clueless just the same. We
shared a cab with him from the San Antonio layover hotel to the Riverwalk
where we were planning to have a couple beers at Dick’s. He disappeared
into the nighttime crowd, looking for more trouble, we guessed, shielded
nonetheless by his tighty-whiteys.
I adopted Catherine’s wise constraint about conversation taboos, at least
with crewmembers: avoid politics, religion, and union matters. That wasn’t
easy to do, given the usual pilot feelers, the butt sniff, early on in any trip. I
didn’t listen to talk radio; I wasn’t a fan of right-wing rhetoric and
evangelical talking points. Pilots loved to hold forth, preaching to the choir,
with the mistaken assumption that everyone shared their political blinders. To
me that was stultifying and condescending. I hated the narrow thinking, the
recitation of emptyheaded, secondhand talk radio stuff. There was little
thinking and a lot of preaching or really, repeating others’ rhetoric.
Catherine was always seeking broader horizons, ways of appreciating
aesthetics, which drew her to the MLA (Master of Liberal Arts) graduate
program at Texas Christian University (TCU). That opened up a new world
of possibilities for us both, because I too wanted to find something beyond
mechanical rote of basic airline flight. The thought occurred to me more and
more often that there had to be more to life than climb, cruise, descend and
land. There just had to be.
So one day, driving past TCU on my way to DFW Airport to fly my
scheduled airline trip, I parked across the street from the campus. I found my
way to the English Department on the third floor of Reed Hall where Dr. Fred
Erisman, the Department Chair, welcomed me into his office.
He listened to my questions patiently. Did TCU have a doctoral program
in English? Was there a chance, I wanted to know, that I could study English,
that I could get a PhD in English? How many years would that take?
“It’s frowned upon,” he said, “To do the PhD program too fast or too
slow.”
But ultimately, there was a chance. There was a place—Texas Christian
University—where thinking ranged outbound and away rather than the
cloistered, distilled, dogmatic and inward thinking of pilot world. There were
ideas to explore, like persuasive prose and for me, poetic force: what
structure and mechanics drove compelling prose? My first novel was making
the rounds of publishers with a sadly predictable result (“engaging story, but
no thanks”) though my agent said that was normal, no worries, it will sell.
What would drive my fiction past the publication threshold where it had
languished thus far?
I wanted to know the theory behind poetics, why meter propelled
meaning, and how. I had a feeling that poetic elements were part of strong
fiction, but I didn’t know how. I needed to understand the rhetorical power
and impact of Swinburne’s poetics, especially the chorus to “Atalanta at
Calydon.” And I wanted more outward-reaching thought and reason, rather
than the centripetal circle of reasoning that only accepted thoughts that
aligned with a very narrow, homogenized social and political dogma that
passed for intellectual conversation among pilots.
Catherine had already migrated from the aesthetic generalities of the TCU
MLA curriculum to the Theology Department and Hebrew text. Her vision
transcended the engineering structure of math and physics that comprised her
undergrad degree and moved deep into the study of ancient history. She had
questions; the university had answers. It made sense, but once again I was in
awe of her intellect and her reach. I wanted to reach, too.
Don’t get me wrong—I did embrace the concrete certitude of flight
parameters, of ironclad standard procedures and objective measures that went
into flight, from takeoff performance to stopping distance. But there had to be
more to life than just climb, cruise, descend and land.
At the airport, I met my FO at the plane. He looked like a squared-away
guy, although I could tell he was new from his total time in the aircraft and
his seniority number. But, ex-military, F-15s no less, so I knew he’d be a
good pilot. He was self-assured but laid back, content to just let the
interaction center on the checklist, then go from there. No antlike feelers of
socio-political rhetoric (“The Democrats have really screwed the pooch …”),
just let’s be two airline pilots working quietly together.
“Been to Mexico City lately?” I asked. That was my feeler—operationally
oriented and giving him the opening to discuss anything pertinent to our first
leg. Maybe he’d been there more recently than I had and had a heads-up to
share (“They’re still doing the last second runway sidestep”), or maybe he
could let me know he wasn’t familiar with Mexico City, which had more than
a few “gotchas” on the arrival and approach.
“Only once,” he said, “On my IOE.”
I nodded. That was important: he had only 700 hours in the jet, which
meant his IOE—and his last trip to Mexico City had been at least a year ago.
“Well,” I said, trying to keep it lowkey, “It’s the same shitshow as ever,
although the weather today is crap.”
He nodded, and we left it at that. I’d be sure that around an hour out of
Mexico City, we had another understated discussion of the thunderstorms and
the problems they caused for us trying to navigate through the narrow arrival
corridors threaded through the canyons rimmed by twenty-thousand-foot
peaks.
Our jet that day had the early version of the EGPWS: “Enhanced Ground
Proximity Warning System.” Even the early version was a tremendous asset,
displaying mountainous terrain on our radar scope. American Airlines had
been active in the system’s development and had installed the cutting-edge
system on every one of our aircraft. American Airlines was like that,
completely proactive when it came to flight safety.
The system had its own GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) system so it
always knew where we were, were the mountains were, and thus where we
were in relation to the mountains. The weak link in the defensive process was
our outdated display in the MD-80 we were assigned that day. The entire
Maddog fleet was being retrofitted with CRT displays—the “Glass cockpit”
that was standard on the F-100 and newer jets—to combine both weather
radar and terrain depictions. Our older jet required me to switch between
terrain or weather, but wouldn’t show both at the same time.
“That’s an issue we’re going to have to deal with,” I warned my FO,
“Because there are thunderstorms all over the place from San Mateo
inbound.”
“And it’ll be just about sunset,” he added.
Okay, he got it: we’d have to switch back and forth and when we did, we
lost a sweep of each in the process. That is, when I switched from terrain to
weather, we’d lose a sweep of mountain positions. Switching back to the
terrain display would cost us one sweep of the weather radar. It was clumsy,
but doable.
I sat the flight attendants down early, which is always a good idea in
Mexico City, because things come faster, since there’s actually less descent:
when the altimeter reads ten thousand feet, you’re actually only three
thousand feet above the ground because the terrain is so high.
From our standpoint in the cockpit, the normal approach and landing
maneuvers in a dirtied-up Maddog with gear and flaps hanging, at ten
thousand feet or, from the airplane’s perspective, higher if the temp was high,
was a significant challenge. On a hot day, she was going to maneuver like a
beluga whale, and lead radials were critical to not overshoot not only the final
approach, but also the skinny inbound corridors between mountain peaks.
Of course there was a paper chart of high terrain that looked like an
upside-down wedding cake defined by cross-radials and distances. Even the
FAA knew that was a useless piece of paper at twenty thousand feet and three
hundred knots ground speed, but that was all part of the “we told you where
the terrain was” in case you piled into the mountains.
As we expected, it was nearly dark as we began our descent into Mexico
City. I knew the routing, the radials and frequencies, by heart because I’d
deliberately sought out Mexico flying to stay sharp on the procedures. I had
the arrival chart out and well lit, cross-checking it constantly.
“Here comes the trick-fuck,” I warned my FO as we approached the
inbound intercept to San Mateo. There was little room for spacing vectors
due to the air traffic volume, the thunderstorms, and the mountains. So, the
air traffic controllers in Mexico City improvised.
In the United States, air traffic controllers are not allowed to assign an
intercept that is greater than ninety degrees. The MD-80 was designed for
that capacity only and in fact, the FMS engineering logic dictated that when a
point was greater than ninety degrees from your flight path, the system
assumed you no longer needed the original waypoint—so it deleted the point
from the navigation display.
“American 425, turn right heading three-six-zero, intercept the three-four-
zero radial inbound to Mateo, cleared for the approach.”
There it was: intercept an inbound course to a waypoint behind you
—which our nav system had deleted. We’d already tuned in the Mateo
beacon, anticipating the trick-fuck, but we’d still have to do the old school
manual inbound intercept like back in T-37s (“Charlie Brown plus thirty …”)
in mountainous terrain, beyond the capacity of the nav system. Fuck, I
allowed to myself, as we rolled out on the assigned heading, then
immediately reversed course to manually put the jet on an intercept to the
inbound radial, or so I hoped. As I waited for the crude, wavering course
needle to settle, we flew into heavy rain.
“Fuck,” I said out loud, switching from the terrain display to weather,
looking for the hail core of the storm rocking us with heavy rain and
turbulence.
“The course is alive,” my FO said, prompting me to refocus on the nav
display. He was cool and collected, a sharp guy, still engaged in the chess
game we faced.
I switched back to the terrain display, losing sight of the thunderstorm
though we were clearly near the core. Hail raked the windscreen but I ignored
it. Mountains to the right, I knew as I switched back to the weather display.
“American 425,” approach control called, “descend to seven thousand
seven hundred feet.”
My FO read back the clearance and I set the new altitude in the alert
window. A few more degrees, I figured, and we’d be inbound, although the
autopilot still had us in nearly thirty degrees of left bank.
I punched the IAS descent button and pulled the throttles to idle. The nose
dropped and we swept through a deep left slice back into the storm core,
toward the arrival radial.
Our options were to fly either towards the storm, I figured, or the
mountains, both being a bad choice, at least till we came out the far side of
the storm cell. I switched back to weather mode just as the autopilot began to
roll out of the turn.
A blinding flash flared to the right and a white-hot lightning bolt the
thickness of my leg snaked out of the darkness and attached itself to the
radome just below the FO’s window.
In an instant it was gone and with it, the autopilot failed, whether from the
lightning bolt power surge or the moderate to severe turbulence, who knew,
but it didn’t matter anyway.
I grasped the control yoke tightly with my left hand and both throttles
with my right. Then the EGPWS aural warning began to clamor loudly,
“Caution—terrain, caution terrain” and as it did, the radio altimeter flared to
life.
Sonofabitch. The EGPWS knew where we were, but worse, knew the
terrain was too high—the controller had descended us right into the mountain
range. Maybe he’d figured the MD-80 could intercept the inbound not like
the pig it was, or more like the more advanced Boeings with better engines
could handle adequately.
The radio altimeter confirmed what we’d hoped wasn’t true. The radio
altimeter simply bounced a radio wave off the ground and when it sensed a
return putting us below two thousand feet above the terrain, it came to life
and counted your altitude down to landing.
We were at over ten thousand feet on the barometric altimeter. So, if the
radio altimeter was alive, that was confirmation—we were headed into a
mountain at over two hundred miles an hour.
The Flight Data Recorder (FDR) printout—I still have it—showed that
within two seconds I had the wings level, the throttles to the firewall and the
nose pitched up. I couldn’t imagine or really care how that felt in the
passenger cabin; it was all we could do. And I knew I was burning up both
engines, pushed way past their operational limit, to 106% RPM and I didn’t
even look at the hot section temps. There was no choice: if I was going to
impact a mountain, I do it in a climb with both throttles mashed to the
forward stop.
The barometric altimeter spun upwards and the vertical velocity
indicator showed us climbing at nearly three thousand feet per minute, but the
stubborn goddam radio altimeter refused to stop showing rising terrain. We
were close, damn close, to the rocks and while the rate of closure had slowed,
it didn’t stop. I held the nose up pitch, even watching the airspeed bleed off
as the altimeter soared, but the radio altimeter stubbornly showed a relentless
closure with the mountain we’d been vectored into.
Which would run out first, I wondered almost idly, calmly, with no fear,
though it seemed like there should be some, the airspeed, in which case, we’d
stall, or the radio altimeter, which would zero out as we impacted the cold,
wet rocks? You’ve really done it this time, dumbass.
There was no panic on the flight deck, just concentration, me mashing
the throttles full forward, holding best climb pitch, willing the jet to top the
terrain. I felt composed, though pissed at getting into that position, allowing
us all to be on that razor’s edge. It was totally on me to answer for this.
And when I had to admit to myself that I wasn’t sure we’d make it over
the top or not, I deliberately cleared my mind and visualized Catherine,
because if I was going to leave this world, I wanted my last thought in this
life to be of her.

Chapter 49
This is for real, I thought silently to myself. And they’re all for real—PhD
students, some already nearly ready for comprehensive exams—and
absolutely so is Dr. Richard Leo Enos, the scholar of classical rhetoric
renowned and respected worldwide in academia, leading the class discussion.
You’re an airline pilot, the voice in the back of my head complained, you’re
crazy to be sitting in this Texas Christian University classroom with these
real scholars.
I had a windfall of days off while the FAA and the airline gathered the
facts surrounding the Mexico City terrain closure event. It was standard in the
wake of such incidents that the pilots were withheld from service until all the
facts were in.
Eventually, we met with a safety board comprised of American Airlines,
the FAA, and our union’s safety pros. That official hearing was actually
fairly short and to the point: the only data piece mysteriously “missing” was
the Mexican Air Traffic control plot of our position and their vectors. They
realized their controllers had screwed up. The board complimented me on a
textbook escape maneuver and we were returned to flight status.
Meanwhile, in that first graduate class I felt like I was the MD-80 wheels
touching down on the runway, going from zero to a hundred-fifty miles an
hour in an instant of smoke and screeching rubber. The classes were small,
maybe a dozen master’s and doctorate students, and the assignments were
large—“read this book for next time.” Not “these pages” or “this
chapter”—this book.
Dr. Enos was masterful, patient, inclusive and convincing. He didn’t so
much lead a class as lead discovery. The course was at once overwhelming
and addictive: I loved the wide-ranging, deep, and fascinating discovery. For
that course and others, I learned to read—or, more like, vacuum three
hundred to five hundred pages a week, getting the important concepts and
retaining them.
I also had Dr. Linda Hughes’s Intro to Victorian Lit class. She was
another renowned and respected scholar who was nonetheless completely
down-to-earth and generous as a professor and a person. Rhetoric and
literature, at that deep and broad level—I was in heaven.
We were welcomed into the TCU doctoral program, a group of ten of us,
by Neil Easterbrook who promised, “Six of you won’t ever finish your PhD
and of the four who do, two won’t ever get a job.” That was fine by me—I
already had a job. I was there to learn, think, discover.
I took two twice a week doctoral classes each term, plus that first term, a
research methods class that proved invaluable. I had literally leapt from
undergrad English studies to the major leagues in one massive step. The
workload of reading, comprehension, synthesis and writing was daunting,
demanding, but more importantly, rewarding. I finally had something
worthwhile and engaging to occupy so many dead hours in bland hotel rooms
between flights.
The entire English faculty at TCU was warm, collaborative, generous and
inclusive. The fact that the reciprocal setting, the airline pilot world, was the
exact opposite to outsiders, wasn’t lost on me. These titans of academia were
down to earth and inclusive, but none of them would be admitted, much less
embraced, into the cockpit world. Not only because of the pilot world being
so technically rigid, but also because “pilot-think” was congenitally stunted
by the narrowest, most tired socio-political and theological dogma
Academia was fueled by centrifugal, outward-reaching thought and
reason to the same extent that pilot-think was centripetal, wrapped up tight in
premises that only reinforced what they already “knew.”
So I had the best of both worlds, flying jets and learning from some
powerful thinkers sharing new ways to discover and learn. The worlds didn’t
mesh well: academics saw airline life in terms of a trip or two a year, and
pilots definitely couldn’t understand the world of academic inquiry.
The first response from a pilot when the topic of my PhD studies might
come up (“What the hell is that you’re reading?”) was, “Is this an on-line
degree?” Some pilots knew someone who had “gotten their PhD” via credit
from online “colleges,” which must be how I was doing mine. No, I’d
answer, not online, on campus. Twice a week.
The next topic that proceeded from that was typically their own story
about their “pay your fee, get your degree” masters they’d earned in the
military by doing weekend classes for a year. Or worse, their Professional
Military Education (PME) weeks-long online courses about elementary-level
military topics. Whatever. I dropped the subject, resumed my reading,
struggled with abstract but intriguing subjects and assignments. Academia
was a refuge from the plain vanilla world of cockpit chit-chat.
Mexico City, my mountainous nemesis, became one of my favorite
layovers for study and reading. Downtown, in the Polanco District, at a
sidewalk café sipping stout coffee while vacuum-reading a deep and twisted
text on criticism or critical theory—that was ordinarily dead hours well-spent;
fascinating, intriguing, engrossing, then back to the airport for a day of
technical rote work and hand-flying. It was the best double life one could
live, though it took a lot of energy to sustain both endeavors. Still, why not?
The MD-80 fleet training expanded to accommodate the newhires that
ordinarily might go to the 727 engineer’s panel or the F-100 right seat, but
both of those fleets were shrinking due to aircraft retirements. The Maddog
fleet needed Check Airmen, so I gave it a thought.
Scheduling as a Check Airman was done by Al Moll, and Check Airmen I
knew said he was great at arranging everybody’s days off to fit their requests.
That would help me schedule my grad studies and classes, so I thought I
should at least look into it. I had many years of experience on the MD-80,
most of it as captain, which would at least make me viable for the job.
On my way through Flight Ops on my next trip, I stopped in to chat with
Zane Lemon, then-DFW Chief Pilot.
“The Check Airman job,” Zane told me, “Is challenging, but you’ll never
know your aircraft or the job better than you will as a Check Airman.”
That didn’t sound bad, even the “challenging” part. Maybe being a Check
Airman would be the next advanced step in aviation, just like the doctoral
program was the next intellectual step forward in literature and rhetoric.
“Go ahead and apply with your Fleet Manager,” Zane said. “I’ll write you
a strong recommendation when they request it. Get your nose under the tent,
see how you like it.”
So, I did. The next month, I sat in a swivel chair in a Schoolhouse
classroom across from my old union work partner Jim Danahey during a
break in a Check Airman orientation session. Jim had served the pilots as the
DFW union rep, along with me, then he too had put his nose “under the tent”
as a Check Airman. Over the years he’d advanced to the position of 777 Fleet
Manager, mostly because he enjoyed the teaching aspect of being a Check
Airman. He was well-respected by union staff and line pilots alike.
“Even now,” Jim told me, “After all these years, when I come back to the
Schoolhouse for recurrent training and a checkride, I think, ‘This is the year I
forget everything I know; this is the year they find out I really know
nothing.”
I could relate. I’d prepped hard for every recurrent checkride, maybe too
hard: I’d recorded audio files of each memory item, lengthy verbatim sets of
instructions you had to recite from memory for an evaluator before a
checkride—or there’d be no check. You would be busted and grounded. I
played the files over and over as I drove to the airport, reciting each memory
item along with the audio file, for at least a month before every checkride.
“The point is,” Jim continued, “Just showing up here at the Schoolhouse
is a challenge for every pilot. Our job as Check Airmen is to verify they
know their stuff and can fly the maneuvers but as importantly, to teach.
Everyone should leave here a little better for the skills they practice here and
more confident in the aircraft procedures and their own flying abilities.”
I liked Jim’s uplifting, constructive approach to both instructing and
evaluating. But not all of my Check Airman colleagues agreed. Steve, a
longtime Check Airman from Houston told me, “Chris, you have to challenge
pilots when they come to the sim.”
I said nothing, but went with Jim’s more constructive philosophy just the
same: it’s enough of a challenge for pilots to show up for a checkride every
nine months. There was too often a “stump the dummy” aspect of checkride
oral exams I believed to be predatory and pointless. That was counter-
productive, in my mind. Because realistically, every Check Airman had their
pet area of minutiae they’d over-studied and could bust (fail) anyone who
didn’t know what they did. That, to me, was stupid and ego-driven, the worst
of Hitler’s mind games or the “Toad of the Week” humiliation of Tweets at
Reese.
I made “my little corner of minutiae” the critical takeoff speeds and
distances, because they were crucial to safe flight. And I patterned my
briefings and oral exam sessions like Dr. Enos or Linda Hughes conducted
discovery discussions in their class: constructive, collaborative and low-
threat. My goal wasn’t to see if a pilot knew what I knew but rather, let’s
examine and collaboratively lay out the crucial weights, speeds and
conditions for a safe takeoff or stop on a certain length of runway.
Mike, my Check Airman Standardization coordinator, would often barge
into a briefing room during a sim session and drone on about how you could
mathematically calculate the highest obstacle in the departure path with some
weird-voodoo reverse trigonometry. The captain and FO in the briefing
would eventually get lost and their eyes would glaze over—mine would too
—until Mike felt he’d properly dazzled everyone with his complex yet
useless trivialities, then he’d leave and we’d return to actual aircraft
procedures.
Much of my simulator training revolved around operating the massive,
hydraulic jack-mounted simulators, feeding in scenarios and problems for
pilots to experience, analyze and solve.
Jeff Jones, an ex-Navy fighter pilot and an excellent Check Airman,
taught me how to conduct both training and evaluations in the sim as I did
most of a month of over-the-shoulder observation rides in the sim as he
conducted training and evaluations. When a pilot would botch a maneuver, or
barely get it right, Jeff’s comment to me was always, “Well, it wasn’t awful.”
Meaning, it meets the standard but needs to be tightened up, polished. To me,
that was constructive, focused on teaching, learning and improvement with
practice.
I’d watch Jeff freeze the simulator in the middle of a maneuver or
procedure that a crew was messing up and say, “Okay, let’s just take a
moment to sit back and analyze what’s going on.”
Given even sixty seconds, most pilots would discover where things were
going wrong and where they’d diverged from best practices—and they
learned, and owned, a better way to fly. I did that “freeze” moment many
times, even during a checkride. That to me was constructive.
There were other longtime Check Airmen on our fleet who went the
opposite direction. One female Check Airman was dreaded for having an
extraordinarily high bust rate. I only hoped my upgrading pilots wouldn’t get
her for their final check of a training syllabus because no matter how strong
the students were, she was always head-hunting, looking for a bust. I couldn’t
understand why the fleet supervisors put up with that.
Another guy with a high bust rate was a real odd duck, ex-Navy P-3 pilot,
lived with his mom, constantly writing lengthy reports about “dangerous”
performances by ground personnel and airport services around the system. He
too was predatory in his evaluations and had a very high bust rate. I’d sift
through the drawer where checkride bust reports were turned in to the fleet
staff to find his scrawled gripes about a pilot.
For all of his fastidious standards for pilot performance, he wrote at the
level of a first grader. I’d circle his spelling and grammar errors in red then
add a correction (the “pilot’s presents”—vs. “pilot’s presence”—should be
under the pilot’s Christmas tree) and stick the grade sheet back in his mailbox
for him to rewrite the whole thing.
After I passed my Check Airman simulator exam, I was scheduled for a
two-day familiarization trip with a Check Airman supervisor to get re-
accustomed with flying in the right seat, which I’d have to do for new captain
IOEs, just as Jerry Baus had done on mine. The guy they sent me out with
was hard to read. He acted cocky, though I couldn’t figure out why, and the
new “pilot butt sniff” with another Check Airman was if I planned to hang
out at Humperdink’s, the usual Arlington watering hole other Check Airmen
frequented when they were in town.
Many Check Airmen weren’t DFW-based and so the company put them
up in a hotel while they did a simulator month. Of course, my answer was
always a dodge because I simply preferred to be home with my family rather
than hanging out at a bar with pilots in a social setting. So, I never got around
to “joining the guys” for beers at “Dink’s.”
What was more curious to me was a reference that he laced into
conversation more than once, so I clearly heard it.
“When line pilots look at this badge,” he said, pointing to the standard
nametag Check Airmen wore, “They see authority.”
Huh? Badge? That was an ego trip, nothing more: it was a nametag.
When I finished the trip, I was given a new set of wings. The usual
captain’s wings had a star atop them, designating the pilot as a captain, and
the Check Airman wings added a wreath around the star—a toilet seat, it was
called in the Air Force—along with the Check Airman “badge” (nametag).
The Check Airman pay was a significant increase and a financial lifesaver
because the new house we were building was running way over the
inaccurate budget proposed by the builder. We finally had our Claire on the
way, due after the house was supposed to be finished, but that too was way
over the predicted timeline. I was grateful for the Check Airman paycheck
and the time at home during simulator months.
My new job had several duties. First—and this was my favorite—I had to
fly with new captains and FOs to get them familiar with the actual aircraft
after they’d completed the simulator syllabus. I liked the hands-on aspect, the
quiet time to fly and demo rather than the endless briefings the sim required.
I also would have an entire month in the simulator, either giving simulator
evaluations or working with a new crew towards their eventual qualification.
Finally, I had to do the occasional observation of a crew on an actual
flight leg, from the jumpseat. At least it was in the aircraft, which was less
boring than the simulator, but not as rewarding as being at the flight controls.
On IOEs, the rules were different. The challenge was to let a new captain
or copilot make mistakes and catch them, but the trick was in knowing
exactly how far to let them go. Truly, you were basically flying solo—the
other guy wasn’t qualified—often with a full load of passengers on board
nonetheless.
We had monthly standardization meetings where the MD-80 Fleet
Manager and his staff gathered Check Airmen, simulator pilots, and ground
school instructors in a large conference room. That kind of reminded me of
commander’s call in the Air Force, with the squadron suck-ups near the front,
guys like me in the middle trying to be invisible, then the sim pilots and
ground school instructors mostly in the back, like the enlisted crew chiefs and
boom operators in the Air Force.
There were always a few kiss-ass Check Airmen trying to score points
with the fleet staff, and there were the sim pilots and ground school guys who
I was really glad to hear speak up. They were in a different union and didn’t
care about sucking up or nonsense policy or procedure changes. Henry, an
old, maybe mid-seventies-aged sim pilot who’d been at American longer than
the Fleet Manager had been out of grade school was my favorite. While I’d
keep my head down and say in to myself what a crock of shit regarding some
new bureaucratic detail handed down from the managers, Henry would
bellow from the back of the room, “That’s bullshit and I’m not doing it.”
My goal as a Check Airman was to fly, to help others solidify their flying
in the actual aircraft after training and, as importantly, to be able to afford our
way over-budget house construction.
My first time out with a newhire FO, Flight Standards pitched me a lob
right over the plate. The newhire was a Danish guy who already had a
thousand hours in the MD-80 flying for Scandinavian Airlines, so there was
little he needed to learn other than our airline’s procedures.
He was LaGarbage-based—where my old roomie John Hosehead was
also a Check Airman—so I picked us a three-day trip from their open time.
Typical of the LGA trips, this one laid over in Orlando where we stayed at a
hotel on International Drive. I liked the Orlando layovers for a couple
reasons. First, I had safe running routes scoped out and in winter, I enjoyed a
break from my cold-weather running gear.
Second, our hotel was right across I-Drive from “Cricketeer’s Arms,” a
British pub that was an after-hours hangout for Disney workers. It stayed
open till two in the morning and had great bar snacks which worked for us
because we’d usually get in to Orlando near midnight.
Then I’d always drag the FO across the street—especially if he was a
newhire, just trying to be welcoming—and we’d have a pint, on me. One
short woman at the bar pointed out the number of off-duty Mickey Mouse
costume characters who were hanging around the bar, smoking, drinking, and
venting about the kids at the park. She’d been a Mickey but had moved on to
become a bus driver because it paid more.
“These kids,” one short, chain-smoking off-duty mouse sighed into his
beer, “They’ll fuck you over.”
I nodded, trying to imagine him dodging kids in the Mickey costume, just
as I’d done as Yogi Bear.
My FO being Danish drank like a fish and only wanted imported Grolsch
beer, which was expensive, but I figured he deserved it for making my first
IOE as a Check Airman so easy. The second night we spent in Denver, which
was also typical of LGA trips, and I had challenging running routes and good
food options plotted out there as well.
After such IOE trips, we’d seldom land at LaGuardia in time for me to
catch the last flight of the day to DFW, so it was off to the LaGuardia Airport
Marriott for me. I spent so much time at that hotel after or between trips that I
had a routine worked out. I knew which rooms faced the runway and I
dodged those because of the jet noise at night or early in the morning.
As I walked in the door, I punched my phone’s speed-dial for Ming Wok,
a Chinese restaurant that delivered, for my usual shrimp Egg Foo Young with
steamed rice. In my non-runway side room, I’d drag on some jeans and a
non-uniform shirt then head down to the over-priced Marriott bar for an over-
priced draft beer. I’d keep an eye on the hotel entryway for the Ming Wok
delivery guy who’d walk through the hotel doorway moments later. Voila—
shipwrecked pilot dinner.
Mornings of an IOE started with a preflight briefing down in LaGarbage
Flight Operations, and mine had zero “gee whiz, look how smart I am” stuff,
because I realized I’m really not that smart, plus I wanted to focus on what
really mattered. Whether it was a captain or an FO, I’d start out with, “Hi,
I’m Chris—let’s talk about V1.”
V1 is the go/no-go speed on takeoff, a maximum and a minimum at once:
the maximum speed to which you can accelerate and still stop on the runway,
and the minimum speed you must have achieved in order to continue the
takeoff on only one engine. Stopping distances were critical on the relatively
short (7,000’ vs. 13,000 at DFW or JFK) takeoff distance available at
LaGuardia, where we’d start our flight sequence. V1 had to be foremost in a
pilot’s mind, especially close to the maximum speed. I began to realize—and
impart to my new captains especially but also the FOs who’d also be a
captain eventually—that it actually took more to stop the jet than to fly it with
an engine failure.
That’s because although there were some safety margins built in to the
distances and speeds, there were also real life degrades that were not: the
brakes and tires weren’t brand new, the runway surface was not completely
clear of reverted rubber, and the wind wasn’t always what the tower reported.
Abort was mandatory for “the big three:” windshear, structural damage
such that the aircraft couldn’t fly (for example: gear failure) or a fire. But
even then, could you be sure what you’re aborting for didn’t also take out a
system you needed to stop the aircraft? For instance, a complete electrical
failure would disable the antiskid system which metered the maximum brake
pressure to just below a skid. Without it, you’d likely blow a tire or two—and
there went the braking. At LaGuardia, that could land you in the lagoon off
the end of the runway.
But for all its sluggish, unpowered lateral controls, she’d fly with next to
nothing, which was unique: no electrical power, no worries; hydraulic failure
—which would definitely screw stopping distances—was also no problem.
Unlike any of the bigger jets like the 757, 767, and even the 777, the MD-80
required fewer systems to fly than to stop, I had to give her that.
Once we’d preflighted and pushed back, I liked to keep things quiet and
easy. There was enough talking in the briefing, mostly mine, so it was time to
shut up and fly. Pilots had just come out of the Schoolhouse where the yack
—the firehose info and “Gee whiz” happy horseshit—was nonstop. Stick and
rudder now, talk later.
Most pilots did a very good job right away, because most had a lot of
previous flight experience. In fact, I’d say both in my simulator checkride
experience as well as my IOE flying as a Check Airman that over ninety
percent of the American Airlines pilots did a very good job, maybe another
seven percent did a decent job, and only two or three percent just didn’t do
the job. Of that tiny fraction, most had contributing factors that kept them
from performing well, and those were typically remediated easily with a little
extra time and training.
Whether the captain or FO I was flying with or running through the
simulator syllabus was strong or not so strong, I saw it as my job to get them
the training they needed in the way that worked best for them, on their terms
as much as the program allowed. They were the “client,” and if I didn’t meet
their needs, I felt that was my failure, not theirs.
American Airlines flight training was the best in the airline industry and
they realized there’s really no one-size fits all when it came to learning and
training, so there was never anything but a cooperative and constructive
training plan. That kept our pilot ranks current, qualified and competent. And
for all the typical rancor between management and our union, one area was
sacrosanct: safety and training.
The lower performance on some IOEs was mainly due to inexperience,
mostly in the few newhires with little or no jet time. There were some from
small commuters who required more than the usual twenty-five to thirty-five
hours of IOE. That was a challenge for me as a Check Airman, sitting back
and letting a new guy try to catch up with procedures and the jet. Just how far
do you let it go? I learned more about flying as a Check Airman than I ever
taught anyone myself, and Zane Lemon was right: the years of IOE flying
made me a better pilot.
Often, I’d pick up a pilot who’d already flown the first part of an IOE and
I was just there to finish them up on their remaining flight hours. If I felt they
were ready, I could sign them off and they were then fully qualified. If I
didn’t feel like they were ready, I could recommend more IOE time, or even a
trip back to the Schoolhouse, but I never did: simulators weren’t the answer
so much as the problem. Flying the line wasn’t like the Schoolhouse, the
simulator not exactly like the jet.
I’d study the previous Check Airman’s report on the earlier flights, seeing
what needed focus and reinforcement, and my attention. If the previous
Check Airman had been a screamer type—especially the female Check
Airman at DFW—I learned to take the account with a grain of salt. Usually,
after most of a flight leg with my fat Check Airman mouth shut, pilots
relaxed and started to engage the IOE. That was my objective, and I could
usually build up a pilot’s confidence and competence by the end of the trip.
Before every approach with a new captain, I’d cover up the fuel quantity
gages then ask, “How much fuel do you have?” By day two or three, they’d
develop the habit of looking at the fuel gages at the start of descent and
remembering the quantity, which was key to Cecil’s very sage “get the hell
out of Dodge” advice: you had to know just how much time and fuel to spare
before you started the approach.
I also hammered home the three weights the captain must compare before
takeoff on every flight: the planned gross weight, the final dispatch calculated
weight as we taxied to the runway, and what the aircraft reported as the total
weight. Any disparity had to be resolved before takeoff, no ifs, ands or butts,
or late nights in dark cockpits when you’re fatigued or rushed or suddenly
just plain lazy—every flight.
I also tried to show captains how to avoid confrontations with
crewmembers, agents and passengers. Basically, I’d learned in five years as a
captain myself, that there was no need to confront anyone, because as the
captain, you’d already won. All you really had to do was quietly remove
yourself from the situation, making clear that you’d return once everything
was the way you needed it to be.
For example, my number one flight attendant told me there was a problem
with a bag placed in the forward coat closet. An agent had put a passenger’s
bag on the floor of the compartment and even after the flight attendant had
told her that by FAA regulation, the bag was not allowed there, the agent
ignored her.
I backed my flight attendant up, as I always did with my crew when they
were doing their job. Almost immediately, a passenger service supervisor
appeared at the forward entry door and told me he’d approved the bag
placement and that was final.
Fine. I stepped out onto the jetbridge and quietly told him, “I’ll be in the
terminal; let me know when you’ve removed that bag from the closet and
we’ll get underway.”
That’s what I meant by “already won.” No argument, no confrontation,
the aircraft wouldn’t move until the situation was as I said it had to be.
The supervisor flushed red, but removed the bag. He promised to report
me to the Chief Pilot, which he did. I got a call about the incident from the
Chief a week later, and he basically thanked me for handling the situation
without confrontation. Agents, I knew, were only trying to do their jobs and
they were under tremendous pressure to get the aircraft dispatched. Arguing
would only make matters worse. The bag was checked and placed into the
cargo compartment where it belonged, then we departed.
Same technique sidestepped “grounding” an aircraft, which brought with
it a hellfire of protest from maintenance and operations. The simpler way to
accomplish the same goal, when an aircraft was unfit for flight, was to write
up, “Aircraft unsafe for passenger flight due to _____.” For example, in an
aircraft with one air conditioning pack inoperative and also no APU: “Unable
to maintain safe temperature for passengers and crew.” There was no
management or maintenance person who’d sign that off and thus take
responsibility for the consequences. They wanted the captain to take that risk,
but once the tables were turned—and it was just that easy—there was not
another word said. The aircraft was grounded.
Most rewarding to me as a Check Airman was flying the final hours and
the FAA rating ride with a new captain. That was the culmination of long
hours and many years of hope, dreams, and solid, tested flight performance. I
finished up one IOE with a woman at LAX once, and she’d just flown a
perfect STAR (Standard Terminal Arrival) to an excellent Cat 3 landing.
After the engine shutdown checklist was complete, I started the final ritual. I
turned to the FAA evaluator and asked, “What do you think?”
The guy nodded and flashed a thumbs up. “Very good.”
She looked at me.
“Well done, Linda,” I said. “But.”
I let that hang in the air. Her eyes grew wide.
“From now on,” I said, “You wear that uniform properly.”
She looked down at her uniform then back at me. When she did, I was
holding her captain’s wings in one hand, the other extended to be the first to
congratulate her.
She cried, and I nearly did. Because it mattered a lot, it mattered a
goddam lot in a pilot’s life and career right up there with the first solo in 11
Juliet, from the first dreams and endless struggle to the airlines and the
Schoolhouse and the final Cat 3 with the FAA on board. It goddam mattered,
and always meant almost as much to me as it did to them.
Nonetheless, I never did that “wear the uniform correctly” thing ever
again.

Chapter 50
Simulator months in the Schoolhouse were a drag. In fact, if I was on a
line rotation, flying regular MD-80 trips with my “badge” left at home, I’d
routinely trip-trade to fly into the simulator month to cut down on the number
of days I had to spend in “the cave” giving simulator training. I’d get a call
from Al Moll reminding me, “You have an R-9 sim on the first” to which I’d
reply, “Sorry—I’m flying until the second.”
On one month of line-flying, I got to fly with Chip which was unreal,
just looking back on our Air Force days at Reese and realizing how far we’d
come. We’d have never dreamed we’d get to fly together in the airline
business, much less share time together with our families as civilian airline
pilots.
When Chip upgraded to captain, I displaced his copilot and flew FO for
Chip, which was another satisfying milestone not only as friends, but also
professionals. Eventually, Chip was selected as a Check Airman and he had a
very good run as a popular, effective instructor and evaluator until job cuts
returned him to the line too.
I also flew with Wayne Plump, the Major who’d given me my Initial
Progress Check in T-37s so many years ago. He was my copilot on one
turnaround, and it was great to see him again as well. He’d retired from the
Air Force and was well-respected among the pilot group, just one more good
accession for our airline. I joked with him that he’d blown his chance to get
another seniority number—mine—by helping me through the T-37 gauntlet
so many years ago.
Eventually, though, line flying would give way to yet another month
instructing at the Schoolhouse. Some guys loved doing simulator training,
and “Dinks.” More power to them, as far as I was concerned. But I personally
found the long briefings to be tedious and boring, though I tried to relate
every subject in mine to something significant in the aircraft and the flight
profiles.
We talked about how stopping distances were computed and some of the
variables that could produce unexpected results. I was still all about V1,
examining every aspect, each potential vulnerability, and the captain’s
thinking about each, both in the chocks or rolling down the runway. I didn’t
play “stump the dummy,” wading into the quicksand of systems trivia,
because besides being mostly an ego-driven but useless ordeal, it might be
me who turned out to be the dummy.
The easiest sims to give were the checkrides because most pilots did an
excellent job, making the debrief simple: good job, thanks for all your hard
work today, you’re are good to go. Early one morning I was at the simulator
control panel running a “LOFT” profile: Line Oriented Flying Training. This
was the final step for a new pilot before going out to fly their IOE trip. The
profile was mostly routine, designed to give a new pilot the experience of a
normal point-to-point flight segment so they could be more familiar with
sequencing and standard procedures which would make their IOE more
effective.
We also did a LOFT as part of a nine-month evaluation with regular
crews, giving them a normal flight profile, then introducing some type of
systems problem they’d have to remedy and land successfully afterward.
Those were long and tedious but if you were in one of my recurrent LOFTs,
there was a chance that you’d find yourself fully configured on final
approach but unable to slow down to land.
That would be because your Check Airman—me—had put the simulator
speed on double-time to cut out the wasted miles droning around enroute. But
if I forgot to reset the simulator logic to normal speed, you’d be unable to
slow down to land.
“That’s okay,” I’d say then freeze the sim. “I don’t need to see a landing.
Ya’ll did good.”
That morning I just had a newhire FO for the LOFT, with a “seat-filler” in
the captain’s seat. The seat-filler that day was Rick Bates, a simulator pilot, a
guy I admired because of his Air Force flying background. Rick had flown
fighters in Vietnam, and he’d been shot down, captured, and then endured a
year as a POW. To me, he was just a plain old hero and I felt privileged to
work with him.
We were about to take a break when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I’d
activated the controls to settle the simulator back down on its hydraulic
mounts, then checked my phone. A simple, brief text from Catherine read “an
airplane has flown into the World Trade Center.”
Hmm. I envisioned a light aircraft, probably lost in the fog around the
southern tip of Manhattan, bouncing off the side of the building. I passed that
along to Rick. Instead of taking a break in the “Iron Kitchen,” a collection of
vending machines and microwaves in the hallway between simulator
buildings, we tramped down the stairs to the simulator technicians’ break
room which had a television always on.
As we stepped into the room, we witnessed one tower of the World
Trade Center collapsing. My heart dropped and my gut made a fist. The
report said the aircraft was an American Airlines 767 from Boston. Our
friends, colleagues, and thousands of innocent civilians perished before our
eyes.
We hurriedly finished the second half of the sim period, basically going
through the motions, then went our separate ways. The news snowballed into
even more dire reports, with the destruction of the second tower, part of the
Pentagon and the loss of more jets, crews and people.
The airline industry reeled from the losses, not only of people and
aircraft, but from the grounding of all commercial aviation. The malaise grew
like a virulent cancer as a recession clobbered Wall Street and business
travel, then leisure travel dried up. That was a wooden stake in the heart of
every airline.
Pilot furloughs began almost immediately, in fact, somber supervisors
knocked on briefing room doors in the simulator building, then quietly
summoned newhires out into the hallway: we’re sorry, but you’re furloughed.
Just like that, their dream job vanished even as they were on the verge of
finally stepping into a cockpit.
The Schoolhouse announced drastic cutbacks in training, because pilot
hiring had been virtually halted. There were rumors that up to two thousand
pilots could be furloughed and warning letters went out to the entire pilot
group.
My position seemed stable, at least as a captain, but I hoped also as a
Check Airman. Those jobs would be eliminated by seniority as well and I had
about twenty Check Airmen junior to me. I figured if they sent fifteen, maybe
even twenty guys back to the line, I could possibly hang onto the job and
most importantly, the paycheck. The following month, the Check Airmen
cuts were announced, and they were drastic. They sent thirty-five—half of
the Check Airmen ranks—back to the line, including me. The financial
squeeze became extreme, but we were hanging on to our new house.
Weeks later, I sat at breakfast with my FO at The Doral Hotel in Palm
Springs, watching CNN on a television in the dining room. We were just
about finished and I was already thinking about our upcoming flight from
Palm Springs to Chicago. Then a news bulletin streaked across the screen
about the fatal crash of an American Airlines A-300 near JFK Airport.
It was too much—the loss of life, especially after losing two crews in the
September 11th terrorist attack, then yet another crash. I really doubted we
could stay afloat as an airline. I didn’t want to believe it, but there was in my
mind a very real end to American Airlines.
My flight attendants huddled in First Class after we boarded the empty
jet, most of them in tears.
“Look,” I told them, “We just need to hold ourselves together until
Chicago. Then we’ll go downtown and deal with the worry and the loss.”
It was a long, somber flight to O’Hare. We changed clothes and walked as
a crew to The Lodge on Rush Street. The mood was glum, over unshelled
peanuts and beer, and I wondered if I’d even have a job or an airline to fly for
after all the dust settled.
All the unions on the American Airlines property gathered with
management negotiators to hammer out contract concessions, trying to keep
the airline afloat despite the devastating revenue loss. My hope was that most
of the pilot contract givebacks would be in work rules and maybe a small,
manageable pay cut. Maybe we could survive if the pay cut was closer to five
rather than ten percent.
The final deal was draconian: we gave up work rules, benefits and worst
of all, a twenty-three percent pay cut. It was game over for us: we’d lost
twenty-five percent of my paycheck when I’d lost my Check Airman pay rate
and with this, our income was cut just about in half from just the previous
year. We lost our new home.
And even then, I couldn’t and didn’t complain, knowing thousands of
pilots and flight attendants had lost their jobs and all of their livelihood. The
lucky few pilots who could get back into their military units did so, and at
least secured a stable paycheck for their families. But way too many had no
job and no flying career as thousands of pilots from every airline were
suddenly on the street. We sold our house and moved into a smaller, older
place. Maybe moving wasn’t so difficult for me, having moved so often as a
kid, but I knew it hit my family hard, and I felt bad that I couldn’t provide the
home we’d built any more. But at least I still had a captain job and little
danger of losing that or even being bumped back onto reserve, which would
be yet another pay cut. We’d just deal with the financial crisis, period.
What we as a pilot group desperately needed was a real leader, an
inspirational pilot’s pilot like Cecil Ewell. Unfortunately for us, Cecil was
already retired. Instead, the Flight Department languished and pilot morale
tanked under the tenure of Mark Hetterman. He’d long before apparently
relinquished all of his flight qualifications and had not flown in years. He
held no valid FAA flight ratings, had no recurrent training, checkrides or
physicals to worry about, so he really could not have any idea what the line
pilots he was supposed to lead were going through. It was as if Bob Reding,
then VP of Operations, had decided to send a huge “eff you” to the pilots by
appointing a non-flying “shoe clerk,” as we said in the Air Force, as Chief
Pilot. There were plenty of real Chief Pilot candidates available, well-
respected guys like Zane at DFW, or John Jirschele in Chicago, and
especially, Bill Bronson in Boston. Instead, Reding installed a non-flying
placeholder, and that was just one of many reasons Reding earned zero
respect from the pilots of the very flight operations he proposed to run.
From a line pilot standpoint, it felt demoralizing to have a Chief “Pilot”
who wasn’t even qualified to fly any of the airline’s aircraft and as bad, who
had very few flight hours, compared to even the average first officer, having
sat mostly behind a desk, not behind the controls of a jet. Nonetheless, he
wore our uniform and our wings and appeared at public events as if he was
actually an airline pilot. That did not go over well with the pilots and even
Cecil, in his retirement, refused to call him anything but “Mister Hetterman.”
He became known among pilots as the “Clerk of Flight” rather than “Chief
Pilot.” It was the worst possible time for the airline to install a self-
aggrandizing but self-grounded clerk in the Chief Pilot position, at a time
when pilots were losing homes and jobs and morale was at low ebb.
Those of us not furloughed entered a period of career pay stagnation
worse than any in the entire airline history. On top of the pay cuts there was
little upward movement and wherever you were when “the music stopped”
was where you’d stay for years. The only upward movement was from
retirements, and those were very few. The next step up for me would be 757
captain and that would net me a modest pay raise, but when I called our pilot
planner to get a forecast of possible upgrade timing, he told me to plan on
waiting several years.
Still, I was lucky to hold a full month as a captain, not on reserve, and
with some choice of trips. Some captains grew frustrated with being the
bottom reserve guys for years and gave up and bid back to widebody FO.
Regardless, our airline, like every other, was no longer a happy place to work
as management slashed costs, basically to keep the lights on, while awarding
themselves bonuses just the same.
Crewmembers were bumped back in position and aircraft category,
inflicting even more financial hardship and family stress. Worse, many were
displaced out of their crew bases due to job cuts and were forced to commute
cross-country to fly out of another crew base, adding more time away from
home and more expense to their monthly bills. Marriages were stressed,
budgets failed. The Clerk of Flight, meanwhile, penned weird, completely
irrelevant “Chief Pilot’s Corner” messages like his insensitive bordering on
bizarre commemoration a year after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, musing on how
“beauty” stemmed from the tragedy.
At long last, Mr. Hetterman was replaced by a real pilot, John Hale, a
pilot’s pilot on the order of Cecil Ewell. John was a compassionate leader and
a respected pilot. He’d fly regular trips as a 777 captain, just as Cecil did,
exactly what Mr. Hetterman wasn’t even qualified to do. John insisted on
flying over every holiday to give the originally scheduled captain the days at
home with family while John flew the trip. There never was a better Chief
Pilot than Captain Hale, and I’ve seen six so far.
Still, the all airlines were mired in high debt and diminishing revenue as
the travel industry slumped. We felt the financial squeeze too, even in our
downsized home. There was never any question about my child support,
which was significant, because they were my kids. But there wasn’t anything
we could do above that, and just hoped their mother was saving some of that
support money for their college fund. For several years we weren’t sure we
could even hold onto our smaller, older house. Through it all, there was no
one who could budget and stretch a dollar farther than Catherine. Still, we
weren’t sure we’d be able to keep even our older, downsized home.
At least my academic work was something of a refuge from the gloom
and doom in the airline world. After I had completed more than thirty
graduate hours, I’d have an opportunity to teach classes, which would bring
in some extra money. That would be a lot to juggle, flying full time, reading,
writing, researching and attending class, plus teaching, but I had to try.
Dr. Carrie Leverenz, the TCU Director of Composition, and the English
Department gave wrap-around support to graduate instructors, from classes,
mentors, to a weekly teaching practicum session that covered every aspect of
the course I was assigned to teach. As the Fall semester approached, the
teaching stress grew, at least for me. I felt like Jim Danahey had expressed
about our annual flight evaluations: “this is the time I forget everything I
know; this is the time they find out I know nothing.” I pictured twenty pairs
of undergraduate eyes drilling me, telegraphing you really aren’t a college
professor … you really don’t know anything.
An hour before teaching my first class, I stood in an empty classroom in
the Richardson Building, familiarizing myself with the extensive instructor
podium technology I’d need to use in my Neeley Building classroom. I had
never approached anything so intimidating as teaching a college class in my
life, ever.
I didn’t think I could do it. I’d have to just quit, probably resign from the
PhD program—Neil Easterbrook was right, we’d already had several of our
original group quit—and get back to the safer world of passenger jets and the
flying stuff I’d lived most of my adult life. Who was I kidding, thinking I
could earn a doctorate, much less teach college?
A fellow doctoral student, a friend of mine, walked past me in the
hallway. Loren Loving-Marquez was smart, driven, and nearly ready for her
comprehensive exams. She’d taught several terms already.
“I don’t think I can do this,” I told her.
“Yes, you can.”
“I really don’t think I can.”
“Look,” she said. “You can. You go into that classroom and you teach the
material. You know comp. You know writing. You can. Just go do it.”
It was easier to spin a Tweet ten thousand feet straight down or to step out
the door of an airplane into a half-mile of thin air than it was to walk into that
first classroom, but once again I took that leap of faith. I can still see the
classroom, the desks, the actual flesh and blood undergrads with eyeballs
fixed on me. So, I deliberately stopped trying to read their minds—let them
think I know nothing, because maybe I don’t. Yet I pressed on.
An hour and twenty minutes later, twenty students filed out of the
classroom and I let myself sigh in relief. Day one was done, although I
couldn’t recall what I’d said or if it even made any sense. Sure, half of the
students would likely drop the course, and I’d still probably have to resign,
leave the PhD program in shame and flee back into the simplistic world of
jets and pilots. But maybe, just maybe, I could do just one more
class. Maybe one more week. The whole month. Then, by midterm, it was
clear: the students weren’t leaving, nor was I.
Simon Joyce led a small, fascinating British lit seminar and on day one,
he piled a bunch of books onto a conference table and declared, “We’re going
to decide what’s happening with the British novel.”
I’d already learned to never select a seminar book, to just have one
assigned to me. That was so if the book was a difficult read, well, at least I
hadn’t chosen it myself.
Simon tossed me a copy of Peter Carey’s Jack Maggs, a ballsy send-up of
Dickens’s Great Expectations. I personally found Dicken’s tedious and
boring, a blasphemous opinion from a student of English lit, but that was one
of the best things about academia—there was room for everyone, every
thought, heretical or no. That was so refreshingly different from pilot world
and “pilot think,” or more accurately, the lack of original thought.
Simon also shared regular “Calls for Papers,” which was the term for
open requests to scholars around the world to submit research papers on a
specific seminar topic for possible inclusion and presentation at an academic
conference.
“Now here’s one,” Simon announced in our seminar, “That you might as
well not even submit a proposal to, because only a handful of scholars
worldwide get invited to present every year.”
I scanned the notice—The Dicken’s Society’s annual conference at
Oxford University, was calling for “unique and unusual perspectives” on
Charles Dickens and his writings. That evening, emboldened by
Carey’s Dickens smackdown and after Catherine and I had floated a bottle of
Kendall-Jackson Chardonnay, I said to her, “Watch this.”
I typed up an academic paper proposal designed around the specific
premise that—to be exact—“Charles Dickens was a post-colonial hegemonic
thug and a boring writer.” I described the supposed research premises I’d
investigate and present—of course, I hadn’t actually done any research, I just
knew I found Dickens boring—then I printed the proposal. I mailed it off to
Oxford the next day, just for fun. I figured I could take the eventual rejection
letter from the Dickens Society to my Brit lit seminar and tell Simon he was
right.
A few weeks later, I received a very fancy-crested envelope from the
Dickens Society. The letter said something like “we find your premise to be
unusual, but fascinating. We would like you to attend the Dickens Society
annual conference here at Oxford University and present your paper to our
membership.”
Catherine and I could easily hop on one of our American Airlines London
flights from DFW and attend the conference. Her parents would be happy to
have Claire for a few days. TCU would be delighted to have one of their
doctoral students deliver a paper at Oxford University.
So I accepted the challenge. Of course, then I had to research then write
the thesis, trying at once to be tactful but on the other hand, truthful to my
premise regarding Dickens. Catherine and I flew to London, then took a bus
to Oxford. We stayed at Christ’s College itself and marveled at the old world,
old-school charm of the city. The university interior was like walking into a
Harry Potter novel right down to the ornate great hall where all of our meals
were served.
Being invited to speak at the conference was an honor, for sure, but we
weren’t obsessed to the level of many of the speakers who fretted over their
papers and huddled in their rooms making last minute adjustments. My paper
was done, for better or worse, and I didn’t give it a second thought. We spent
more time in pubs with the few other conference participants of the same
mind as us. I brought along a copy of James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a
Young Man and we walked his route into Oxford and down High Street.
With great effort and some sleuthing, we tracked down the obscure,
overgrown Oxford union where the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded
during the painting of murals and nights of heavy drinking. I felt the spirit of
my Victorian idols, Algernon Swinburne and William Michael Rossetti,
occupying the same space where the revolutionary aesthetic movement had
been founded.
My paper was sandwiched between one presented by a professor and
scholar from Hong Kong and another scholar from Finland. The Dickens
Society members and other participants were reserved, respectful and
tolerant, lucky for me, as I dared to speak of Dickens’s shortcomings and
failures. Their questions afterward were surprisingly gentle and few, then
after the day’s talks, we all went down to the Oxford University cellar and
proceeded to get roaring drunk.
Catherine and I headed back to London for a couple days and did more
sleuthing—the Brits seemed not to care where their renowned literati ever
lived, but I did—and finally tracked down Swinburne’s final home “The
Pines,” in East Putney, where the poet lived out his last days.
The manor had been converted into a dental clinic. I burst in the doors
and looked around in awe. A receptionist glanced up from her computer
screen at me, seeming to want to know who I was and what I was doing
there.
“This was Algernon Swinburne’s home!” was all I could blurt out.
“Do you want your teeth cleaned?” she asked, looking bored.
We found an art supply store where I bought a large, white sheet of
construction paper and a fat, black Conte crayon, then rushed back to The
Pines. I made a crayon tracing of each corner post of the front gate, capturing
the two words, then mailed them back to Texas in a tube. For me, that was a
priceless physical connection to my literary inspiration. Of course, we raised
a few pints at the old pub across the street from The Pines, where Swinburne
most assuredly had done many as well.
Then, Oxford and London seemed like barely a daydream, as I found
myself back in an MD-80 cockpit, flying a three-day trip.
“What did you do on your days off?” my FO asked.
Went to Oxford, defended an academic paper, chased down the Pre-
Raphaelite Brotherhood and Swinburne and immersed myself in the James
Joyce odyssey in the historic old city? Then explain why I was in a doctoral
program, hear about his “pay your fee, get your degree” Master’s from an
extension course back in the military?
“Just hung out,” I answered. That seemed like the best idea. The two
worlds never mixed very well anyway. And as for Simon Joyce’s
wonderfully led seminar, we concluded at the end that we had no idea what
was going on with the British novel, although the exploration had exceeded
my wildest expectations. It was clear to me that I did in fact belong on
campus, in the most unlikely position of an airline pilot firmly embedded in
academia.

Chapter 51
We climbed out from LAX into a brooding Pacific sunset. We banked
south, then east, over Long Beach and headed for the mountains west of Palm
Springs.
I had just enough seniority to finally hold two-day trips, which allowed
me to be home every single day. Sure, I had to spend a night in a hotel, but in
my mind, being home both days was important. I was tired of dreary hotel
rooms and longer trips and just being away.
Don’t get me wrong—there were still some enjoyable layovers in cities I
liked, such as Seattle, San Diego, or New York, or Fort Myers and West
Palm Beach. But most of all, I liked being home. And too often, trips turned
into a “Death March” from delays and maintenance problems that stretched
eight or nine scheduled hours on duty to twelve or more. There was “hotel
sleep,” which was interrupted and unfamiliar, sometimes uncomfortable, with
early report times in distant time zones, adding to the fatigue.
It was no joke to recount a layover that turned into a trail of uniform parts
discarded on the way from the door to the bed where you’d flop down
exhausted. There were mornings you’d wake up and as you slowly gained an
awareness of your surroundings, you’d realize with disappointment that you
weren’t at home but rather far away in a nondescript hotel somewhere. Father
O’Gara told me more than once he’d had to fumble in the hotel nightstand for
the phonebook to figure out what city he was in. I have to admit, more than
once, to pulling up to an airport in the hotel van and seeing a sign
proclaiming welcome to ______, when the entire night, I had thought I was in
another city. It’s because after a while, for pilots and flight attendants, it all
runs together. You can ask a crewmember as soon as they pull into their own
driveway where they’d been and they’d really have to stop and think to recall
a place.
The thing people outside the flight crew world don’t comprehend about
our travel and layovers is this: it ain’t vacation, and it sure isn’t home. I have
favorite cities with fun pastimes, decent restaurants, and even enjoyable
running routes. But the point is, even at a primo resort such as Puerto Vallarta
or Los Cabos, or in a major city like New York or Chicago, our stays are
fairly brief and for me, I’m mostly reminded that I’m not on vacation.
Though a destination might be fun, Catherine’s not there to enjoy it with me
and as a crew, we’re probably leaving in a matter of hours rather than days.
Even in the Puerto Vallarta Casa Magna Hotel, a magnificent, first-class
resort, seeing everyone else in resort wear hitting the beach bar only reminds
me that we’ll be in the van back to the airport at eight o’clock in the morning.
Often, the Casa Magna put the captain in the penthouse suite with a living
room, grand piano and a rooftop balcony. All I could think of during those
nights was a ruthless drug cartel storming the posh suite and kidnapping the
rich guy who’d booked the place. I couldn’t explain in Spanish, “No, I’m just
an airline pilot and the hotel was full so they put me here.”
At least the two-day trips gave me the illusion of being home more. But
not everyone liked two-day trips and especially, the ones that overnighted in
Mexico. Some didn’t like the mountainous terrain and less advanced air
traffic control system. I took the opposite viewpoint. I wanted to stay current
on the more challenging approaches and the only way to do that was to fly
them regularly. So, I sought out and did a lot of Guadalajara and some of the
more challenging domestic destinations like Burbank, LaGarbage and
Chicago Midway. I spent many nights in the Mexico City Airport Hilton and
every morning that I woke up in that high-rise hotel, I thanked my lucky stars
I was alive and not buried in the rubble of yet another cataclysmic earthquake
that always threatened the city.
The LAX stop on the front end of this trip led to an Austin layover, one of
my favorite cities because of the essentials of a decent hotel, safe running
routes, and good breakfast places. This trip was going to be even better:
Catherine was down in Austin for a baby shower. She’d meet me at the
layover hotel for a little bonus time. That was one less night apart, which was
a windfall for me.
As we raced east, away from the sun, the cockpit grew dark, silent, and
cozy. Sid always seemed to be in his own little world in the right seat and for
me, that was fine. Quiet was good, as far as I was concerned. We had a
blustery tailwind and that was hustling us eastbound, shortening the flight
time. Catherine and I had enjoyed Austin stays on Sixth Street in the past and
I was psyched for this one.
I’d flown the MD-80 for so many years as a captain, copilot, and Check
Airman that she seemed like an old familiar friend. Moreover, almost
intuitively, my eyes seemed to go to whatever gage or system needed
attention without me having to give it much thought. I scanned the engine
instruments and my eyes landed on the oil pressure gages. The right was
significantly lower than the left.
Oil was almost more important as a coolant than a lubricant in a jet engine
spinning at twenty-five-thousand RPM or more. I glanced over at Sid, who
was fumbling with some papers, trip-trade options it looked like.
The master caution light flickered for an instant, then winked out. I caught
a glimpse of an engine warning before it went dark again. With nothing really
to do, I pulled out the QRH (Quick Reaction Handbook) and flipped to
engine and oil malfunctions. Low pressure, oil strainer clogging. That latter
would cause the former, and the eventual remediation was simple: shut down
the engine. Eventually, the yellow master caution light came on steady, along
with the right oil strainer clogged annunciator on the overhead panel.
I glanced at Sid, but he was still lost in his own world of paper scraps and
pen and ink scrawled notes. I waited, taking a moment to think. I recalled an
old fighter pilot I respected who once told me, “when things start going to
shit in flight, you take a minute to breathe deep and say, can you believe this
sonofabitch is still flying?” Nothing was critical, nothing was on fire, so what
this called for was clear thinking and a logical plan. Where would we go on
one engine? Certainly, not all the way to Austin, not from this far away. That
was disappointing, but I dismissed the thought.
Phoenix was straight ahead, but that airport was crowded and, to my
thinking, a bit of a rush to descend and fly an approach, even after declaring
an emergency, which we would do if we were reduced to one engine. But
Tucson was a suitable option: not crowded, and our station was open and
would be handling flights all night long. That seemed like the wisest plan: an
orderly divert to a long runway at an open American Airlines station, one I
was well-familiar with.
“Think we might want to do something about that, Sid?” I asked finally.
He glanced up but even then, it took him a while to notice the bright
yellow “Master Caution” light glowing right before his eyes on the edge of
the glareshield. It was nighttime, and the bright light was hard to miss. His
papers spilled everywhere as he glanced back at me.
“How about you get out the QRH,” I said. “I have the aircraft and the
radios while you get out the procedure for oil strainer clogging. Okay?”
Sid nodded, then dug around in his overstuffed kitbag for his QRH. He
paged through the engine malfunctions section while I called air traffic
control.
“How does a direct vector to Tucson look for us?” I asked.
“Ten right for about a hundred-fifty miles,” the controller answered.
“Why do you ask?”
“Well,” I said, “We’re fixing to be single-engine here in a minute and that
looks like a good divert option.”
There wasn’t a cloud in the sky for two hundred miles, so I knew the
weather would be no problem. Vectors for a long final after a gradual descent
would be just the thing.
“Are you declaring an emergency?” the controller asked.
“Yes,” I answered. “We are declaring an emergency, requesting an
enroute descent and vectors to Tucson for the precision approach.”
“Copy, American. State souls on board and fuel.”
“Standby,” I answered. We’d get to that in due time. There were other
priorities: first, I had to let Sid catch up. Then, I’d have to tell the cabin crew
what was ahead for us. Then, Sid and I would do the checklist procedure
step-by-step together.
Then we’d start the descent checklist and the descent, set up the approach
and brief it, then accomplish the Before Landing checklist and the Single
Engine Landing checklist. Somewhere in there, when we had a minute, I’d
give air traffic control the information they’d asked for and lastly, I’d make a
P.A. to the passengers explaining what was up.
“So,” I asked Sid, “What does the QRH say?”
Sid read off the checklist items and we both confirmed the requirement to
shut the engine down. Step by step, we accomplished the Inflight Engine
Shutdown checklist. I called the air traffic controller and reported our fuel on
board in minutes (basically, multiply the quantity by ten and call it minutes,
then the passenger count plus five crew).
I explained our situation to the flight attendants, told them we’d be on the
ground in twenty minutes, we didn’t anticipate an evacuation, but we would
be landing single-engine. Then Sid took over the radios while I talked to the
passengers. Basically, they needed to be told we were diverting to Tucson
and that we’d be on the ground in about twenty minutes. I didn’t feel that
they needed to know that we were only flying on one engine, with the other
shut down. That would not constructively help in any way I could see. So I
only told them “we’re always monitoring engine instruments and we have a
reading we’re not satisfied with on one engine.” Which was true: putting out
no thrust was not satisfying.
I told them we’d land in Tucson and let our maintenance technicians
evaluate the engine readings. I forewarned the passengers that they might see
emergency vehicles on the edge of the runway, but that would just be a
precaution.
In the descent, the aircraft handled easily on just one engine. We had the
power on the good engine pulled back for the descent so there was little yaw
but even with higher thrust once we were configured for landing, the
centerline mounting of the engines minimized any yaw tendency. The jet was
easier to handle, fully-configured with landing flaps and landing gear
extended, than any single-engine simulator profile I’d ever flown.
We touched down gently and stopped easily. The fire trucks behind us
gave the right engine a quick visual inspection and noted nothing unusual on
either engine. So, we taxied to the gate.
The passengers deplaned in Tucson while I filled out the maintenance
logbook, writing down the sequence of events in the engine and the gage
indications as best as I could remember them. I tried not to think about
missing Catherine in Austin, but that was just the way my luck had turned
out. It looked like we were done for the day.
Then the agent poked his head into the cockpit.
“We’ve got another MD-80 overnighting here,” he said. “Dispatch wants
you to swap aircraft and press on to Austin.”
What were the chances, I asked myself, that a smaller station like Tucson
would have a spare airplane? But they did. My impromptu getaway with
Catherine was saved.
We had our night together, although it was a little shorter because of my
unscheduled stop in Tucson, and a leisurely breakfast the next day. Then I
flew a couple more flights as she drove home and I looked forward to a few
days off.
I started working at the union once again, trying to help in our dragged-
out contract efforts which were basically deadlocked: American simply
wasn’t willing to bargain.
Karl, the head of our Communications Committee, to which I’d been
appointed, was smart, shrewd and trustworthy, as was Lloyd, our union
president at the time, and the best president I’ve ever seen at APA. The Allied
Pilots Association—our pilot union—staffs handling safety, training,
benefits, legal and aeromedical needs were the best any pilot could ask for.
But the Board of Directors—comprised of line pilots elected by their
domicile memberships—was simply out of control, basically holding the
executive function of the union hostage by decree. Two dozen Board
members dictated every policy nuance and negotiating or communications
move. It was like a twenty-four-man presidency: everyone was in charge, so
really, no one was in charge.
As we strategized a public outreach campaign, I tried to stress that the
average working folks would only support our contract goals grudgingly, and
then only when their interests overlapped with ours. They didn’t give a damn
about pilots and in fact the opposite was true—much of the public perceived
us as overpaid prima donnas. I tried to convince the Board that most people
hated our six figure incomes derived from barely half the month at work. We
needed to align with the public’s need for reliable, safe, air travel if we were
to get them on our side.
In the end, the hobbyists and hangers-on at the union shoved their
amateur, untested public relations “posture”—pilots need more money! —
into the campaign and basically alienated the public even further. That was
our best hope for public leverage, basically ignored. Management remained
intransigent, probably laughing at our little band of self-important hobbyists,
tinkerers and amateurs. We got absolutely nowhere in our bid for public
support, much less any leverage in negotiations.
Worse, the stalled negotiations led to infighting between pilots. There
were factions that tried to coerce other pilots to fly less, to not pick up open
trips offered by the company. That was typical of pilots: there was no
shortage of “expert” pilots willing to tell you how to manage your finances,
which is what it came down to. When I was the APA union rep for DFW, I
advocated picking up flying so as to have each member as financially strong
as possible in case we needed to strike. When we as a pilot’s union went on
our famous fifteen-minute strike (then President Bill Clinton immediately
issued an executive order forcing us back to work), I prepared ahead to be
sure that we could sustain our mortgage and living expenses for two or three
months. Moreover, I was committed to at least one peer, like Chip or Animal,
to help them if they needed help with expenses during a strike. That was
solidarity, and unity, in my mind.
That made more sense to me, although I didn’t argue that as a union
policy. But there were plenty who individually decided what we should all do
—that’s just the classic know-it-all pilot persona—which in their mind, was
minimal flying, and they created dissonance in the ranks, flaming other
members online and in meetings, basically destroying the very unity we’d
need to create negotiating leverage. Add that to the misguided public
relations campaign simply prodding the public to demand more and higher
pilot pay was a two-pronged stab that undermined our own success. As a
union, at least at our airline, we were our own worst enemy.
We weren’t the only pilot group at loggerheads with an intransigent
management and at least, if there was a bright side, it was that our airline was
still solvent. One by one, other airlines declared bankruptcy, then gutted their
pilot contracts. Many pilot groups lost their hard-earned retirements with the
stroke of a bankruptcy judge’s pen. Pay cuts and draconian work rules were
imposed, which became like a virulent plague spreading from airline to
airline. How could any company stand by its pension obligations yet still
compete with other airlines who’d shed their own? The future for airlines and
crews looked gloomy at best.
My post-grad work was a welcome refuge from the dismal airline
business. My students challenged me weekly, as did my own graduate
classes. I did a stint as a “T.A:” (Teaching Assistant) in Ann Frey’s poetic
theory class and learned more than I taught. Also, I was probably the lamest
research assistant ever for the very gracious, understanding scholar Linda
Hughes. Meanwhile, Australia Tarver opened my eyes the powerful,
fascinating world of African American literature and critical theory, which
would eventually become one of my three doctoral exam areas. Neil
Easterbrook, the guru of critical theory, showed me the landscape of critical
thinking that was beyond my grasp but not his patience. And Alan Shepard
was a mentor and a model leader in my eyes as Department Chairman and
constant, generous coach and advocate for my own academic growth. These
were selfless, talented teachers and scholars and I cherished my time in the
sanctuary of academia because of them.
I added a drum lab to my weekly TCU schedule as well. I’d been taking
private drum set lessons with Jack Greubel, Roy Orbison’s drummer, and it
occurred to me that since TCU had an excellent music program, there might
be a way for me to add a music lab to my academic schedule.
I stopped in to the TCU Music Department and met with the Dean. Could
I sign up for a drum set lab with one of the Department teaching staff?
At first, he looked at me like I was crazy—an English PhD student,
taking a music lab?
“Probably not with the faculty,” he said at last, “But we have a number of
graduate students who need to teach for their own curriculum requirements.”
That would be fine, I figured, taking drum set for an hour each week, with
a master’s or PhD music student, in addition to my bi-weekly sessions in
Jack’s studio.
What I hadn’t anticipated was how difficult the lab would be from the
standard of teaching that Mark, my linebacker-sized instructor, brought to the
sessions. I was in way over my head, but I loved it—we spent one whole
semester studying and playing the fundamentals of Al Green’s soulful
percussionist.
So, I’d come from my one-on-one critical theory directed study with Neil
Easterbrook, basically reciting Derrida, Foucault and my favorite theorist—
adding him was my idea—Bakhtin. That made my head hurt, and when I left
there, I switched gears from intellectual to physical work behind a drumkit in
a basement music studio with an instructor who was at a level I could only
hope some day to achieve. This was the perfect binary storm of mental and
motor challenge, all in a day. I wasn’t sure that the Tuesday weekly
doubleheader wouldn’t kill me—but it didn’t. And I learned a lot about
critical theory and percussion theory alike.
Then it was back into the cockpit for the simple, non-intellectual, purely
motor skill of flying a jet for a day or two. There was little sleep, week to
week, and tons of work, but as my sister said, as she too finished her
doctorate, “It’s just what we always do.” Overdo was more like it, and we
both knew it. That’s just who we were.
Our MD-80 fleet was always safe and our maintenance topnotch. But, to
save money, management had little choice but to cut back on some of the
non-essential refurbishment on comfort items such as air conditioning and
pressurization systems.
“Look at this overnight servicing card,” one of our aircraft mechanics told
me once as I turned the aircraft over to him for the night. A “card” was their
checklist of required checks and servicing when the aircraft finished flying
for the day. “Now, look at the ‘new’ card.” The “new” overnight card was
barely half the size of the old one, meaning, less items were checked and
serviced. More write-ups were put off, delayed to the max time allowed,
which meant less maintenance hours, less money on mechanics’ wages.
The depot maintenance cutback was even worse. A Check Airman friend
showed me the items simply deleted from the overhaul maintenance of
recurring inspections and repairs. Key among them, as he explained to me,
was the Douglas Aircraft’s recommendation that the air conditioning ducting
be checked for alignment and leakage. Of course, with or without that check,
the aircraft were always safe, airworthy and within the FAA requirements or
we as pilots wouldn’t fly them, nor would the airline ask us to. But the duct
alignment was one of dozens of optional, “nice to have” items that meant the
difference between a comfortable cabin temperature and a stifling, hot jet all
summer long.
Granted, management was basically struggling to keep the lights on and
the jets in the air, never mind the finer points of passenger—and crew—
comfort. Regardless, our product became degraded. Besides sweating all
summer, crews—not management—had to face the angry passengers. Less
gates, less staffing at the gates, dirty, poorly maintained cabins, all left
passengers frustrated, delayed, unhappy and vocal about it. Of course, it was
the crews, primarily the flight attendants, who dealt with the customer
blowback from the crappy product we were putting out.
Going to work, besides the stress of ensuring a safe, by the book flight,
became an endurance contest to survive delays, maintenance liabilities and
angry passengers plus demoralized crews. Trips became a death march of
ever-lower expectations and poor results. I did my job as best as I could, but
fled the airport after each trip and put the entire mess out of my mind.
Besides academics, music was a refuge and an escape for me. But the
airline business even wormed its ugly finger in there one late fall morning.
I played lead guitar in a blues band and when I showed up one morning
for our weekly rehearsal and jam session, Ray, my friend and our rhythm
guitar player, greeted me at the curb with an all too gleeful smile and crowed,
“How does it feel to be unemployed?’
American Airlines had declared bankruptcy.

Chapter 52
Rain swept across the McAllen runway in sheets as we lifted off. There
was rain across the entire state, and heavy showers at DFW, where we were
headed. Fine: bad weather kept the light airplanes on the ground, and
instrument approaches kept air traffic slow and orderly, which was good.
I’d never flown with the FO before, and he seemed quiet, more so than
the average copilot, which I figured could be either good or bad. Many pilots
were angry about the bankruptcy, although we were fortunate to have
managed to preserve most of our retirement. Quiet was good in the cockpit,
or at least better than the usual spouting off about the bankruptcy and the
contract give-backs we’d agreed to. I was sick of the whole mess and
preferred not to hear the ranting, myself. But while “quiet” was good, “surly”
was not. Time would tell.
Since I’d flown the first leg into McAllen, he was flying us back. He
briefed the approach and landing, and I added my usual addendum, “Normal
reverse and brakes.” That was important, especially on a wet runway, but
while there shouldn’t have been a need for me to say that—it was standard
operating procedure—I’d seen too many “boutique landings.” That is, FOs
who had their own little techniques which often didn’t conform to SOP, but
of course, their way was “better.”
I never argued with anyone, nor tried to “correct” or re-educate an FO
because that wasn’t my job. My goal was to have a harmonious cockpit
because that was what best served a cooperative and engaged cockpit crew
function.
I’d discovered over many years in the left seat that if the other pilot
wasn’t doing the job by the book, it wasn’t because he didn’t know the book
procedure. He’d obviously found sufficient reasons not to (“This is better!”)
and I wasn’t about to debate or cajole. We’d just do things by the book. If
that meant I had to do someone else’s job, so be it. No confrontation, just
SOP. Most of the “boutique landings” were about delayed braking and less
than normal reverse, in order to “let it roll.” In the shortsighted mentality
behind that technique was the “save time” justification: if we roll down the
runway at a hundred knots, it’s faster than exiting and reducing to taxi speed.
But what could that save? Ten, fifteen seconds? Meanwhile, the jet behind
you is counting on you getting off the runway so he can land and worse,
you’re way outside of standard operating procedures. If you so much as blow
a tire downfield, you’ll be explaining to the FAA why you’d delayed braking
and decelerating the jet.
This FO showed me a seldom used but always stupid technique after his
touchdown in heavy rain at DFW. He held back pressure on the yoke to keep
the nose in the air to “aerobrake,” as he liked to do in his Air Force flying in
the F-16, applying the brakes as he did. But no reverse thrust because until
the nosewheel was on the runway, you couldn’t deploy the thrust reversers
since their clamshell doors could easily scrape the runway while the nose was
pitched up.
The MD-80 rudder was lame, but at touchdown speed, it was the only
directional control you had until it lost effectiveness. When that happened,
you needed to have the nosewheel on the runway or you’d have no
directional control save differential braking, which was really stupid on a
slick runway. That’s why the MD-80 operating manual dictated “after
touchdown, lower the nose without delay and apply reverse thrust” and
“reverse thrust is most effective at higher speeds.”
As soon as we touched down, it became clear that he was holding the
nose off the runway, which was exactly the wrong thing to do. We needed the
nosewheel on the runway and both engines in reverse thrust. When it was
clear that he wasn’t going to do that, I gently pushed forward on the control
yoke. To most FOs, that signaled, “lower the nose, now.”
This guy was pissed when I did it. As soon as we cleared the runway, he
said, “I don’t have to take that from you. You fly all the rest of the landings.”
Fine, although really, not fine at all. Of course I wouldn’t mind doing all
the flying. But we weren’t going to function collaboratively as a crew if he
was dictating what SOP he was willing to do or really, what he’d be told to
do. His back story was, since he’d flown F-16s, and since he’d been the
narrator for the Thunderbirds—never flew the airshow, just narrated—he was
beyond both standard procedures and captain’s authority.
But again, I don’t believe in confrontation. We were outbound to Tampa
after a brief stop at DFW. That was to be my leg anyway. I said nothing. It
was a quiet flight to Tampa, which in my mind wasn’t a bad thing anyway.
Once I got to my hotel room in Tampa late that night, I called the Chief
Pilot on Duty and outlined what had happened at DFW, and my FO’s edict.
“I’ll need a new FO when we get back to DFW,” I said, “To finish the rest of
the trip.”
He concurred. So, it was set: I’d fly the leg to DFW, then a new FO
would replace the guy who “didn’t have to take” anything from me. The next
morning, as we preflighted, he mumbled something about how he “might be
able to fly some legs” and maybe he’d been hasty in his ultimatum the day
before. I said nothing. I wasn’t game for an on-again, off-again compliance
scenario and as far as I was concerned, the matter was settled. No
confrontation, no argument—just, done.
As we taxied in after landing at DFW, I told him he’d be replaced for the
remainder of the sequence. Another FO would fly the next leg up to Colorado
Springs then back. Of course, he was smoldering angry about that, but I’d let
that be his problem. He might profit from a long “Come to Jesus” talk with
the Chief Pilot about captain’s authority and his duties as FO. And the MD-
80 fleet staff would probably have a discussion with him regarding his ad lib
landing technique. All of that was well beyond my purview, because I wasn’t
a Check Airman or an instructor.
That was the only time in nearly three decades as an American Airlines
captain that I ever had a copilot replaced. I wasn’t sure if he was just having a
bad day, or was actually an arrogant asshole—I suspect the latter—but that,
too, was not for me to untangle. I just wanted to fly simple SOP, period. Most
wayward FOs I could and did just accommodate. I’d do both jobs in fact, I
had done both pilots’ duties as a Check Airman with a new pilot. But “coach
and counselor” at a hundred fifty knots on a wet runway was not in my job
description.
I met another copilot at the start of a two-day trip and his name sounded
familiar, but I couldn’t recall from where. “Don Benson,” he’d said, and he
flew a great jet and was an excellent copilot. Finally, in conversation, he
mentioned he’d lived near Sacramento and I said, “So did I, in Fair Oaks.”
“I know,” he said, “I lived across the street from you.” Turned out, he
was John Benson’s little brother, the kid we’d never let come with us to fly
our gas-powered, control line aircraft back at Del Campo High School. John,
it turned out, had finished his Air Force enlistment then had built a fortune
owning and managing retirement homes. Sometimes, flying could be a
surprisingly small world.
At TCU, my grad studies came to the end of the line: after oral and
written doctoral exams, plus a translation exam because I’d been a dumbass
at VMI, and having taken nearly two years to write my four hundred and
fourteen-page dissertation, it was time for my defense.
To get a doctorate, a foreign language with a “B” average to the third year
was a requirement. At VMI, majoring in graduation and USAF pilot training
only, my three years of German were below a 3.0 average. Once again, the
sins of my youth were revisited upon me. It took me about an hour and a half
locked away in a windowless exam room, armed with a German dictionary,
to translate an academic journal article—it was actually very interesting—
from German to English.
My defense was convened in a Reed Hall conference room on an
uncommonly cold and rainy April morning. My entire committee was in the
room, and Catherine, of course. My biggest honor was to also have my hand-
picked, non-TCU faculty member there via Skype: Tom Davis, VMI class of
’64 and Emeritus English History professor, participated in the entire process
from dissertation prospectus to defense. Tom had been a friend and a mentor
to me during my four years at VMI and ever since so it meant a lot to me as a
link between past and present, as well as to honor Tom with his name
published on my dissertation.
I presented my dissertation in an hourlong talk, then took questions and
challenges from my committee for another hour. Then, Linda Hughes, my
dissertation chair, stood and excused me from the room so they could
deliberate and vote on my doctoral candidacy. I stood in the lower lobby of
Reed Hall and waited, feeling the ponderous weight of seven years of
doctoral study, research, writing and teaching. It felt odd to know that
everything hung on that moment, that vote, behind those closed conference
room doors. I knew going into the defense that it was all or nothing—either
they voted to accept or reject my dissertation, but either way, I was finished.
There was no second chance.
For my dissertation, I produced a critical, analytical breakdown of two
hundred and nineteen critical essays by Pre-Raphaelite founder William
Michael Rossetti. With ample help from the Mary Couts Burnett Library
research and IT staff, I constructed a functioning relational model that could
analyze and report back to a researcher the pattern analysis of the two
hundred plus critical articles based on six sorting parameters—half
quantitative (date, publication, topic) and half qualitative (mode, type of
rhetoric, aesthetics). I’d annotated all two hundred nineteen articles to include
all six parameters, plus keywords that included names mentioned as well as
locations.
The live, computer-based relational model could sort any combination
of the six variables and report back all of the essays meeting a researcher’s
inquiry design variables. In addition, connections between articles—
coincident parameters—were hyperlinked so a researcher could navigate
within the entire four hundred plus pages with a simple mouse click. Of
course there was the required, hardbound paper copies, but the digital version
was fully navigable and the results instantly compiled and reported. Mine
was the first all-digital dissertation ever accepted by the college and my
searchable database remains an active part of the TCU Research Archives to
this day (see: WMRproject.TCU.edu) so other scholars worldwide can
research nineteenth century Pre-Raphaelite aesthetics as I did to produce my
dissertation.
But would that be enough? It was an all-in bet. Look at you, dumbass, I
thought to myself. You’re an airline pilot—what do you think you’re doing
… a PhD, of all things? A tour group of potential TCU freshmen and their
parents trooped through the Reed Hall lobby. I wanted to tell them, this is it,
this is what it all comes down to at the end of the academic road: a PhD …
or not. I said nothing, just continued pacing. Then I heard the conference
room door open. I waited, standing up straight, the least I could do no matter
what the verdict.
“Dr. Manno,” Linda said, “Congratulations.”
Once I had the signed dissertation committee form stating “pass” in hand,
Catherine and I literally rushed next door to the Scharbauer Hall office of the
Dean to turn it in before anyone could change their mind.
Typically, in a semester of doctoral research work, my library fines were
over a hundred dollars and I’d always renegotiated the total down to fifty or
sixty dollars. Not that last time—I simply paid the fine and saved the receipt:
nothing was going to keep me from receiving my degree at commencement.
Wearing the PhD regalia at graduation felt as awkwardly transformative
as the first time I looked down at my airline uniform and saw the four stripes
on the sleeve. It was hard to believe it was me but at the same time, the
evidence was incontrovertible and confirmed yet another mountain climbed. I
wanted to—and did—occupy and savor the ritual space that was
commencement.
The following weekend, I played a gig on a large stage sponsored by
Coors Light on a bill with a dozen other bands leading up to the headliner,
“Reckless Kelly.” Because I’d been so preoccupied with the final dissertation
work, I hadn’t been the usual band nag, so our rehearsals had suffered. Guys
had skipped practice, and it showed. I’d moved our rehearsal time up, starting
at ten or eleven in the morning, but some of the band still showed up—if they
showed up at all—drunk or high.
Craig, our drummer, had another gig, so he’d had to divide his time
between two bands so often at our practice. So often I had to sit in on drums
which meant Ray and I couldn’t work on our intertwined lead guitars. The
end result, from my perspective as we finished our set, was disappointment.
As always, the band was in high spirits after the set, drinking beers
backstage—Coors Light, of course, and I had a couple—as the next band
walked through their sound check. There was backslapping and talk of
another gig at an upcoming music festival thirty miles west.
I couldn’t do it. We had been so much better at so many other gigs. This
set had been flat, forced, sluggish, in my mind. If that was because I hadn’t
wrangled more and better rehearsals out of the band, what did that say for
future gigs? I was tired of being the band nag and clearly, if I didn’t play that
role, we’d deliver mediocre sets and worse, they guys would be satisfied or,
looking around backstage, elated. I wasn’t. It took too much effort on both
drums and guitar to settle for just “decent.”
That was the last gig I played with that band. I filled in on drums for
some other bands—most notably, a band called “Doin’ Time” because one or
more members had recently been released from prison—but I had to admit to
myself a sad reality about bands. That was, the better the musicians, the more
problems they brought to the group.
There was only so much time in the day, and I decided to focus more on
academics and teaching with my newly-minted PhD and less on music.
Honestly, I wasn’t that good on drums or lead guitar, but I had learned a lot
about university teaching and had better potential there for both intellectual
rewards and income. Eventually, I told myself, the right gig, preferably on
drums, would come my way.
As American Airlines climbed back out of the deep, dark hole of
bankruptcy, re-fleeting became a priority. We started taking delivery of new
Boeing 737s and in addition, a whole new narrow body fleet was announced:
the A-320 and 321
I had the seniority to fly either one and at the time, I was worn out from
dealing with the aging MD-80 fleet. In my mind, the Airbus flying was an
unknown because being a new fleet, there was no precedent for the type of
flying it would do. All-nighters? Transcons? Turns? That last factor was
important for one very big reason at my career point.
I’d become senior enough through simple longevity for two new
opportunities: a possible widebody (767, 777) captain’s bid, or soon, narrow-
body turnarounds. Turnarounds would mean day trips—no more hotels, home
every night. The 737-fleet had plenty of them and within a year, I’d be able to
hold such a schedule. The MD-80 fleet had some turns but that would mean
being stuck on that aging, limited-capability jet, a prospect I didn’t relish.
The Airbus fleet probably would have turns, but what kind? Day trips? All-
nighters? Both? And where would they be based? DFW had a huge 737 crew
base, as did Chicago. But what if they put most of the Airbus flying in LAX
or LGA? And while I wouldn’t mind flying the Airbus, a new fleet with few
aircraft meant limited bidding options. Meanwhile, the 737 fleet was growing
and in fact would soon surpass the MD-80 in sheer numbers. The bases and
the types of flying were already well-established.
The widebody flying would mean bottom reserve as captain, flying the
dregs of the schedule. That included South America on both aircraft, a dismal
prospect because it was an all-night flight to and from some of the most
challenging terrain in the world managed by a spotty, primitive air traffic
control system, after flying all night. The Europe flying was an all-nighter
flight eastbound, and that had been a physical beating for me on the DC-10 a
decade ago.
Even the 777 Honolulu flying was a whipping, a low-time (barely 15
hours) three-day trip with an all-nighter on the way home. Being low time
trips (15 hours versus 20 for a Europe trip) meant more trips, more time away
from home, and more all-night flying.
But Coker was perfectly happy at Southwest flying the 737, which was
the only aircraft they flew. I had a VMI classmate flying 737s at Alaska
Airlines too and he seemed perfectly satisfied. I personally didn’t need the
widebody calling card to feel like I was worthy as a pilot. I might have felt
different if my old girlfriend the DC-10 was a possibility, but she was long
gone.
What clinched it for me was home. I always felt Catherine and I were
playing catch-up after meeting later in life, so time away was not anything I
wanted to have, given a choice. And I’d missed so much with my older two
who’d been moved so far away that I wanted to be home as much as possible
while our Claire grew up.
Finally, I just couldn’t face another summer of sweltering flying on the
aging Maddog. I put in the fleet change request on the next bid proffer and
was awarded a 737 captain transition course the following month. I flew my
final Maddog trip to one of my favorite cities, San Diego, for a long layover.
Sitting alone over a glass of dry Pinot Grigio at a dockside bar, I watched the
sun set till there was but an angry red lip above the horizon, then darkness.
I couldn’t help but see the metaphor of my MD-80 flying in that sunset.
She’d been my first commercial jet as copilot, and my first captain jet. I was
a bit nostalgic, but I couldn’t conjure an ounce of regret.
In fact, I was finally happy to be going home to Boeing jets after way
too long away.

Chapter 53
The lanky man with the shaved head walked to the front of the classroom.
Our ground school instructor stood, shook his hand, then turned to my copilot
and me.
“Scott’s our Fleet Manager,” she said. “Since you two are just starting the
transition course, he’d like to talk to you.”
He looked tired. He plopped down on the table before us and rubbed a
hand over his shaved head.
“Welcome to the 737, guys,” he said at last. “I believe we have an
excellent fleet, and an excellent training program for you.”
I’d reserve judgment on that. Though we’d been on time every morning,
several times we’d had to hunt our instructor down, even calling her cell
phone, to see when she’d be getting to the Schoolhouse.
“On your days off,” he continued, “You’ll probably want to study systems
or procedures. Don’t. Just take a break, come back rested, and we’ll get you
ready for the exam and the simulator.”
I liked the sound of that. The entire program seemed relaxed,
gentlemanly, and welcoming. And best of all, I’d once again hit the jackpot
with the FO they’d assigned for ground school and the simulator. Mike was
an ex-Marine, coming off the 767 to fly the 737 in Boston.
He knew the Boeing FMS (Flight Management System) and FGS (Flight
Guidance System) cold, because it was nearly identical to the big Boeing
systems. I, on the other hand, was largely clueless about both systems, having
come off the primitive MD-80 with its old navigation systems. It barely had
one half-assed FMS that was an unreliable make-do catch-up to the advanced
state-of-the-art systems newer jets had on board.
Mike patiently coached me on the integrated functions and the auto-
uploads that got our dual GFMS and IRU (Inertial Reference Unit) systems
up and running. The 737-800 was a brave new world to me, with advanced
avionic, navigation and engine controls. Plus an ample, high lift wing with
powerful CFM-56 hi-bypass fanjets. And in the cockpit, a cogent, sensible
arrangement of CRT displays that were large, clear, and easily visible.
When Douglas had stretched the DC-9 into the MD-80, they’d settled for
a “make do” design theory, simply adding length to the fuselage, but no
improvement to the wing. That was the cheapest way to produce a derivative
with more seats. Meanwhile, Boeing adopted a “make new” strategy. The
737-800 “Next Gen” had a bigger, improved wing, new bypass fanjets and a
modern in-cockpit nav and performance display scheme. While Mike hated
his step down into the smaller narrow-body cockpit, I was in hog heaven with
Boeing’s comparatively plush, generous add-ons to the 737.
The last transition course I’d completed at the Schoolhouse had been over
a decade earlier on the F-100, and the training technology had taken a great
leap forward in the meantime. Gone was the hour-long oral exam and in its
place, we faced a one hundred question, computer-generated multiple-choice
exam. That was no problem, really, because the one hundred questions were
taken from the dozens we’d already seen in individual systems questions in
each training module. So, concentrated and regular study made the exam
pretty simple.
We also had to pass an interactive FMS (Flight Management System)
exam, demonstrating the ability to execute the basic FMS programming for
standard navigation, include fix-to-fix, intercepts, directs, and holding. That
process was difficult for my dinosaur brain accustomed to the stone-age MD-
80 navigation system, but I muddled my way through the exam. The
recurring mantra in ground school was, “You’ll understand this once you’re
on the line” and I agreed—this was a transition course and besides, I’m a
hands-on, aircraft sort of learner. Still, the ground school phase seemed a bit
rushed.
The simulator program for me was the typical love-hate relationship I had
with all simulators: I learned a lot, but I loathed the endless briefings and
despite the realism of the advanced sims, I dreaded the dull fakery of
simulated flight. Nonetheless, I learned what I needed to learn about
procedures, checklists and task flows.
The biggest mystery to me initially was the HUD (Head Up Display), a
pull-down lens that projected an alphabet soup of swimming data bits before
my eyes. Once, I counted over eighty symbols at once and trying to make
sense of them while flying seemed like trying to pat your head and rub your
stomach at the same time. It was awkward and distracting until the key finally
clicked: symmetry was the goal. If the speed tape, altitude tape and FPV
(Flight Path Vector) were symmetrically aligned, the approach was wired.
From then on, I became a HUD-believer or, as FOs liked to gripe because the
HUD was only on the captain’s side, a HUD cripple. The HUD made life
simple and a crosscheck completely integrated without a pilot ever having to
take his eyes off the runway.
The HUD allowed American Airlines captains to hand-fly Cat 3
approaches to touchdown, rather than autoland as the MD-80 and 757/767
did. I’d never felt comfortable with MD-80 autoland because of the bass-
ackwards logic and dependence on automation to touch down. The pilot logic
in autoland has the captain looking for reasons to abort the landing, whereas
hand-flying the approach allows the captain to find reasons satisfactory to
land, and I prefer my own hands-on stick and rudder control for the
touchdown over any assembly of computer-flight control integration.
We breezed through the simulator check and went on to the final training
event, the LOFT (Line Oriented Flight Training), a basic flight profile to
familiarize us with a routine revenue flight and all of the necessary FMS and
maneuver requirements. Scott, the Fleet Manager, was our Check Airman for
this final checkride, which went smoothly.
After the debrief, I told him, “You know, coming off the Jurassic Jet, I
really could have used a couple more days in this transition course.”
He nodded. “Yeah, as we originally wrote the training syllabus, there
were two more days in the program. But the bean-counters decided that
eighty percent of the pilots could get by with less days, so they shaved them
off.”
Sure, I could have asked for more days and they’d have granted them
without question, but I was never one to linger in the Schoolhouse. I made
my escape and figured I’d “understand it on the line” anyway.
The first part of my IOE (Initial Operating Experience) was a San
Francisco turn. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the actual aircraft, but as it
turned out, I had to cool my heels in the left seat on the first leg.
“I’ll fly to San Fran,” the Check Airman announced.
That was disappointing, and not what I usually did as a Check Airman.
The IOE was a time to fly, not sit, but that was his call to make.
We did the exterior preflight walk-around and I liked the scale of the jet
better than the spindly MD-80. The 737 had a thick, fat wing that bespoke
high lift and low wing loading. The broad, rounded airfoil brought me back to
the old feeling of awe I’d had as a kid gazing up at the big silver birds at the
airport. The wide-mouthed CFM-56 engines slung on huge pylons foretold
generous “smash,” as pilots like to call thrust.
Those engines, too, had smart fuel controls— “EECs,” pronounced
“eeks,” Electronic Engine Control System—that fine-tuned and optimized
thrust rather than the primitive hydromechanical fuel controls on the
Maddogs’ JT8D Pratt and Whitneys.
The cockpit to me was very comfortable once I got settled into the left
seat, and the displays, compared to the small, ill-placed MD-80 instrument
panels, were grouped logically, large, and being simply four large CRT
displays, were very easy to read.
The first thing I noticed about taxiing the 737-800 was the ease of the
tiller, or the nosewheel steering wheel. The MD-80 nosewheel steering had
been a wrestling match and worse, the nosewheel being so far forward on the
long MD-80 had made it prone to scrubbing and slipping on any wet or icy
surface. The 737 had a more triangular wheel base so she was easier to
maneuver.
I liked being able to see the left wingtip from the cockpit, which finally
ended a recurring flying nightmare I had often during my MD-80 days. You
couldn’t see either wingtip from the Maddog cockpit and often in my dreams,
I’d be attempting to taxi an MD-80 either through a cramped airport area or
worse, on a downtown street, cringing because I knew I’d crunch a wingtip
into something.
The 737 engines had a very satisfying snarl and good seat-of-the-pants
shove forward at takeoff power and she climbed impressively right after
liftoff. With the big wing and powerful CFM-56 engines, we ascended to
thirty-seven thousand feet easily, on the initial climb. I flew it many times
from Dulles transcon to LAX and it was like a dream to climb immediately
into the upper thirties and very shortly, to forty and above, while the MD-80s
were still weight restricted into the low thirties, slugging it out in the weather.
She also didn’t flinch if you used engine anti-icing, which was another
weakness in the MD-80. Near the top of the MD80 climb envelope, if you
needed anti-icing, that sapped so much engine power that you’d very likely
approach a stall. My rule of thumb in the MD-80 had been to stay two
thousand feet below the max habitable cruise altitude if there was any chance
of needing engine or certainly, wing anti-ice. The 737-800 had plenty of
power and often, climbed above the freezing level to where the temperature
was minus fifty or below—actually too cold for moisture to form into
substantial ice crystals.
I finally got my hands on the controls on the return leg from San
Francisco and I was elated at the smooth, almost fingertip control. She had as
much smash as the DC-10 and even tighter, smoother controls probably
owing to her smaller size. Even the control wheel was significantly smaller
than the MD-80 wheel because you really didn’t need physical leverage on
the yoke with the hydraulically boosted ailerons. No more clumsy, cloddish
“flying tabs”—it would be smooth power steering for me from then on.
Just like the larger Boeings, the rudder was huge and very effective for
minor heading changes, but with the more advanced yaw dampers, there was
no need to use anything but ailerons because Dutch roll was simply not a
factor.
She descended nicely and handled easily even fully dirtied-up with gear
and landing flaps. I used to typically fly the MD-80 on approach with max
landing flaps to keep the power up and the spool-up response fast, but there
was no need with the -800. She handled well and the power response may not
have actually been faster, but because the CFM-56s put out so much thrust,
you really needed significantly less throttle movement anyway.
The lateral stability on final was impressive, reminiscent to me of the
rock-solid DC-10 and much improved over the Dutch roll and wing rock of
the EC-135 and even the MD-80.
The autothrottles were more advanced than the old MD-80 system and
sampled more parameters through the EECs and ADIRUs (Air Data Inertial
Reference Units) which made for smoother, more proactive power inputs.
Finally, the HUD (Head Up Display) made me look much smarter than I
really am, right down to the flare cue. I loved it.
I had a two-day trip to finish out my IOE, flying DFW to MIA then Las
Vegas, then home and instantly, once the Check Airman signed me off, I was
a paper-qualified 737-800 captain.
The “paper” made me legal, but the huge backlog of “you’ll understand
this on the line” stuff made me less than confident. But once again, I was
lucky to be paired with very experienced, patient and generous FOs for
several months after my IOE, which is what it took for me to feel comfortable
at last with the characteristics and the new procedure flows that came with
the 737 Next Gen.
I became senior enough to hold high-time trips, which meant less days
of work per month. Eventually, I could see from the monthly bid results that
pilots in my seniority and even some slightly junior to me were able to hold
schedules that were mostly turnarounds—meaning, home every night.
Thinking about it, I wasn’t sure if I’d like driving to and from the airport
fourteen times a month. But I knew I was sick and tired of hotels after
twenty-eight years as an airline pilot plus, I wanted to be home with
Catherine and Claire as much as possible, not killing time in a Hilton Garden
Inn a thousand miles away. So, I tried it.
The driving wasn’t so bad and I realized that at least it was on my terms,
in my car, rather than waiting for or in a hotel van the same number of days a
month. And that was that: I was a turnaround guy, except for maybe once or
twice a year when we’d get weather-cancelled on our return leg. Life became
much more civilized and so did my university teaching career.
I always taught two back-to-back morning classes, one at eight, the next
at nine-thirty. Then I held office hours until twelve thirty. That left me free to
fly a turn from two-ish to nine-thirty or ten at night. Sure, that made for the
occasional twelve to fifteen-hour workday, but not that often; maybe two or
three times a month. But I wouldn’t give up either passion, flying or
university teaching. It was a question of determination and just powering
through.
Eventually, I could hold and was flying the best, fattest turns, like
Seattle, Calgary, Orange County, Sacramento, San Diego and Ontario, all
high-time turns with low hassles because of good weather and big-ass
tailwinds on the leg home. I stayed the hell away from LaGarbage and the
whole eastern United States except for Florida to avoid weather and traffic
hassles. That could mean only one thing: I was senior enough to hold a
widebody.
After over thirty years, most as captain, I could hold the 777 or 787
international flying. In fact, Animal Hauser, my Shit Brother, and Dorf had
been flying the triple seven for several years and they were both only a year
ahead of me.
But the flying would be brutal: double all-nighters Deep South to
Santiago or Buenos Aires, or the Far East, Tokyo, Peking, Hong Kong or
Seoul where the thirteen hour circadian flip-flop was vicious—I knew that
from my Air Force years flying all over the Far East and Malaysia. On the
737, my seniority and my bidding power would only get better. I had the best
of both worlds—a fantastic jet I loved to fly, and an intellectual academic
discovery lab with some curious, smart, and high-powered TCU undergrads
every week. I could and did still run and bike long distance, something the
jetlag and travel drag killed off in the pilots I knew flying long-haul. And I
had my family, my day to day role as husband and dad, something I wouldn’t
trade for the world. In fact, I’d already lost that once. That was not going to
happen again.
So, that was that, and I never looked back. I only bid turns and also, I
play the makeup game: when turnarounds open up, they’re offered by Crew
Scheduling according to pilot seniority. Recently, my favorite crew
scheduler, Jane, called and announced, “I think we might have a turn that will
meet your unreasonable expectations.”
I wasn’t aware that I had that reputation, but why not? I have the
seniority now to be picky. And I usually fly with the most senior FOs, the
best of the best, like Jim Semikoski, an ex-Navy pilot and true professional
who knows and flies SOP one hundred percent of every flight. I’ve known
Jennifer Olsen since my DC-10 days and enjoy flying with her now because
she’s an absolute pro and a friend. Glenn Rosenberger, an Academy grad and
fighter pilot is another FO who knows and flies procedures and maneuvers
perfectly. Just flying with all of these copilots makes flying as a captain a
pleasure.
Nonetheless, top to bottom, the flying business has devolved, and not
just in the days since I was a goofy high school freshman in a coat and tie
flying transcon alone. In the decades I’ve flown as an airline pilot, I’ve
watched the air travel experience reduced from a now and then luxury to a
demanded public transportation. Passengers, whether they admit it or not, buy
air travel based on price then seem disappointed with the direct results of
their own choices. Aircraft manufacturers and the airlines themselves have
crammed ever more seats onto aircraft in an effort to wring more revenue out
of every very expensive to operate flight. Because of these and other factors,
air travel is now an ordeal, from the security gauntlet to minimal airport
staffing, air traffic and weather delays and reduced airline services.
Airline crews themselves are much the same in most ways these days,
but not in all ways. The median age has bumped up by at least a decade,
maybe even closer to two. Flight attendants are worn out from minimal rest,
long flight duty days, crowded airplanes and the heavy work schedules
required to make mortgage payments and feed a family.
In the pointy end, too, the demographics have shifted. The military hasn’t
produced as many pilots as in past decades, so the supply of ex-Air Force,
Navy and Marine Corps pilots has been sharply reduced. Most airlines are
dipping into their own commuter ranks to grab pilots for the mainline carrier
which brings in a higher percentage of regional pilots rather than ex-military
pilots. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, but even in the cockpit there’s a
different mindset, a more civilian perspective that seems to know little or
nothing about duty or discipline in the same way as in times where most of us
had been military officers.
A peculiar thing about passengers these days is the notion of being
“scared.” Even the slightest, mostly routine maneuver like a discontinued
approach kicks off a social media firestorm of passengers proclaiming how
“scared” they were, how worried about what actually never happened. The
whole idea of confidence and composure has crumbled into self-proclaimed
fear and worry. Maybe that’s partly due to social media, or maybe being
“frightened” is the new adult perspective.
Perhaps the most worrisome “devolution,” at least from a crew standpoint
and certainly, from a captain’s perspective, is the all-time low in passenger
compliance that has become the societal norm: no one is willing to be told
anything, by crew or anyone short of law enforcement.
Sadly for me, it was totally unsurprising last month when I flew a simple
San Francisco turn-around. We left San Fran at about seven in the evening,
scheduled for an eleven o’clock arrival into DFW. We were on time, there
were no delays, and the aircraft was less than two thirds full. In other words,
there was really no pressure on anyone—we left as scheduled, were predicted
to arrive early, and the flight was not crowded.
Less than an hour after takeoff, I got a call from the aft galley telling me
there was a fistfight going on in the main cabin. They said a man in a middle
seat was punching a woman in the window seat over, of all the childish
things, the armrest. Other passengers jumped to her defense and there was a
full-scale brawl underway in coach.
As captain, I realize am viewing the situation as if through a straw: I
really can’t see anything, I get conflicting and scant information from various
flight attendants via the crew interphone. I sighed, resigned to our fate, and
sad that the resolution was all too familiar especially in the last decade or so.
This time, a grown-ass man punching a woman in the face over an armrest.
The lack of passenger compliance with crews or any airline staff is exceeded
only by their lack of restraint. Maybe that’s just a sign of the times, but I
can’t for the life of me understand why. Meanwhile, I have the responsibility
of protecting my crew and passengers.
I glanced down at my nav display. Salt Lake City was off to our left about
a hundred and fifty miles. That was about the perfect distance for an orderly
descent and the accomplishment of a divert and all of the tasks required to
make that happen, from air traffic control clearances to company diversion
procedures to arranging a law enforcement response at the gate.
The fistfight ended, but there was no way I’d fly another two hours
wondering if the tempers would flare up again and cause an injury to my
crew or other passengers.
I discussed the situation with my first officer, and he concurred. Then I
set all the wheels in motion, accomplished the procedures and clearances for
what we required while the FO flew the airplane and the approach to a good
landing.
An eight man and woman law enforcement response team met us at the
gate and boarded the plane. Several passengers had video—another sad
reality of flying today—of the entire indefensible assault, and the man who
punched the woman was removed by law enforcement officers. He was at
least twice her size, and I couldn’t fathom how he could assault her, and in
what world that ever made sense, much less on an airliner.
We refueled and were back in the air after an hour on the ground where
most of my time was spent dealing with the very excellent, professional
officers of the Salt Lake City Police Department. We landed at DFW near
one o’clock in the morning, and I finally got home at around two-fifteen.
That’s where we are in the airline world, but not where we’ve been or
moreover, where I came from, which I never forget. In and out of Dulles or
Washington National, we fly across the Shenandoah Valley. I find Roanoke,
then trace the valley northbound. Interstate 81, then Rte-11, then VMI. I
wonder who’s down there on the parade ground, looking up, watching my
silver jet crease the sky, wishing, wanting the very wings I wear. I know that
guy down there, I’ve been that guy, in many ways I still feel as he does. I’d
like to reassure that solitary, flight-obsessed cadet that someday, it’ll all work
out. That the years of dedication and struggle will pay off.
But then I know for a fact, from the ground looking up and from the sky
looking down, that some things you just have to discover—and earn—for
yourself.

Chapter 54
I sat strapped in on the jumpseat on the Airbus flight deck and kept my
mouth shut, which is what I think you should do below ten thousand feet in
somebody else’s cockpit. I liked the look of the cockpit, at least the
spaciousness of it, but to me the jet and even the flight deck didn’t seem as
sturdy or substantial as the Boeing.
We descended into O’Hare airspace and I pieced together our
whereabouts from glimpses of the nav displays which were also unfamiliar to
me. The winter weather was typical Chicago crud, with low ceilings, ice fog,
and gusty winds. Both pilots had the radar display up, which was smart, but
as usual at O’Hare, there’s nothing on radar, just crappy viz and challenging
winds at the surface.
The first officer was flying the approach and doing a nice, methodical job.
The ride was bad because of the gusty winds, but at O’Hare you just have to
ignore that and just be alert to air traffic control instructions and prompt in
your compliance, which he was.
As we passed the final approach fix, the Chicago flying conundrum
presented itself, as it always does: winds are strong, but aircraft are still
landing and taking off from all points of the compass at O’Hare. But no one
has a tailwind? And you can ask tower for a wind check—but if you fly there
a lot, you know you’re not getting one, so why ask?
The FO was clearly tuned in, monitoring the ground speed and the wind. I
sensed the tailwind but had only a seat-of-the-pants feel because I couldn’t
see the specifics on the displays from the jumpseat, and I wasn’t familiar with
the instrument layouts anyway. It felt like a substantial crab, too.
“Tailwind,” the FO announced cross-cockpit. The captain nodded.
There’s where I looked for some strong captain’s presence, but there was
none. At a point, a captain has to analyze and make a decision. Reading
between the lines, the captain should be thinking, my FO is wary of this wind
factor; what’s my call? I kept my mouth shut, because he, not me, was the
captain.
Finally, the captain spoke up, “If you want to call it, call it.”
Meaning, “go-around;” abandon the approach and get vectors for another.
If you want to.
Lame. The captain is making the go-around optional? He needs the FO
to make the decision?
The FO was smart, savvy, calm. He announced, “Going around.”
The nose pitched up as he added power and climbed the jet while calling
for the standard clean-up items.
That’s my boy, I thought, literally: he was my son, taking charge, smart,
doing the right thing despite the vagary of “if you want to” from the left seat.
He’d done his AFROTC stint in college, just as I’d done, and his active
duty Air Force officer years, had earned his flight ratings and paid his dues
with a thousand hours of instructor pilot time. He knew how to project
forward and resolve a dozen variables at once, and to be ahead of the aircraft
and the other guy who in this case, wasn’t much help. I couldn’t have been
prouder of him, riding his jumpseat. He has since upgraded to A-320 captain.
He has strong, innate air sense, smarts, and calmness—he’ll be a great airline
captain.
Maybe that’s how aviation goes, by generations: Animal Hauser’s son
is currently in USAF pilot training, doing a spectacular job, better than all
three of us Shit Brothers combined. He’ll be flying Air Force jets, tanker
trash, just as I did back in the day, very soon. Then, presumably, on to the
airlines. It’s satisfying for me and Animal to know there will be another long
stretch of Captains Manno and Hauser on airline flight decks, long after he
and I leave flying.
My older daughter made partner in a large, national law firm and is
doing very well for herself and I couldn’t be prouder of her either. Both kids I
died a thousand deaths over when they were moved away have done fine as
adults.
Catherine and I both say it feels like we’ve been together about eight or
nine years, but that doesn’t explain how we have a wonderful twenty-year-
old daughter, the very Claire we’d declared we’d have together after knowing
each other barely a week.
And time just marches on that way. Chip is happily retired from flying
and has become a prolific beekeeper, producing some perfect, delectable
honey every year. He and Jonne dote on four grandchildren who visit often.
Jenny is raising three beautiful, lively girls and is the classic super-mom that
Jonne always was, and Greg now has a newborn daughter himself, giving
Chip nearly a complete all-girls basketball team.
Coker retired from Southwest Airlines and now focuses on his
granddaughters and Leslie, running her family farm. Hosehead Lowry
became the Chief Pilot of the New York crew base, and they were lucky to
have such a good man in charge there. Benjo, my Kadena roommate, took a
look at his 777-captain schedule for the last holidays and said, enough—he
retired on the spot. Father O’Gara and GD both have retired from FedEx and
flying and don’t seem to miss all-night cargo flying.
We still get the Wolfpack together now and then to drink and laugh and
swear, and act like we’re twenty but look like we’re a hundred. Our wives
just smile and nod and roll their eyes, just as they should, knowing who we
are and have always been.
Between the group of us we have a couple centuries of flight time and
experience, heavies to fighters to all manner of airline jets, far beyond what
any of us ever dreamed of back on the wind-swept red pancake of LaButtocks
decades ago.
Nobody flies forever, I know that, and retirement options loom for me:
our financial advisor has assured us we won’t have to live under a bridge, so
I’m not concerned about that. The airline says you can choose your “fini”
flight, they’d put Catherine on board positive space, and my son could be on
the cockpit jumpseat.
Some people choose the firetrucks and water cannons doing an
honorific water arch final salute as they taxi in on their last flight. But I’ve
never done “airline pilot theater,” never played the character or the enacted
the pilot clichés of manner and form; ghoulish mustache, big watch, attitude
—none of it. Why would I start now? Me, I envision when the day comes, I’ll
be sitting that morning on the sofa with Catherine, drinking good coffee, the
dog in my lap, and I’ll just say, “I think my final flight was last week.” And
that will be that.
I’m not sure how that’ll feel, but I know this: I finished my final recurrent
checkride a couple months back, and it felt damn good. I’ve spent four
decades being perfect after the struggle I had in Air Force T-37s, holding
myself to an unforgiving, relentless standard through the Air Force and the
FAA evaluations for over twenty thousand flight hours. Now, when I drive
by the Schoolhouse, I feel nothing but relief, a reassuring calmness that
there’s no longer an open-ended challenge or constant threat of flying
privileges revocation. It’s done; I did it. The Check Airman asked, at the end
of my final checkride as they always do, “Anything else you’d like to see?”
My answer was, no—not ever. I’ll have nothing to do with the FAA, flight
physicals, FARs, random drug and alcohol tests, checkrides or flight training
—just, done.
And no recreational flying, because I realize two important things. First,
I’m not that good, none of us are, without the safety net of operational
support and layers of oversight that are inherent in airline flight operations.
And second, god knows I’ve used up more than my share of good luck in
tight flying situations. I’ll take my good karma and move on before that runs
out.
I can’t envision what not being in the cockpit any more would be like, but
even now as I fly, I look down and see so many tiny little bergs where
Catherine and I have had adventures together and the reality sinks in: it’s all
down there, the places we’ve been, the journeys we’ve had—not up here.
Family, friends, and time with Catherine. That’s life, real life, and what
matters.
I’ll still be the academic Sherpa for my smart young undergrads, side by
side as they climb their mountains. I’ll do my own writing and research,
running, weightlifting and biking. Catherine and I will take to the backroads
for more road trip adventures, just the two of us, with no schedule, no
security hassles, no weather delays, just time together, something that still
feels like there’s never enough of.
And I’ll claim a wry solace in the truth that I’m no longer the desperate
kid looking to the sky with an all-consuming, burning passion to fly, to get up
there, to be an Air Force pilot one way or another, and then an airline pilot.
Rather, I’m the guy who actually did it, all of it, for an entire lifetime. And
I’ll have fulfilled every airline pilot’s ultimate career goal: I never bent any
metal, nor hurt anyone.
Over twenty thousand pilot hours, most as captain, tons of struggle,
setbacks, denials, refusal to give up the dream, and eventually success.
Adventure, misadventure; laughs, pain, loss, achievement, advancement; all
in the priceless company of good pilots and flight attendants over untold air
miles and flight hours. It’s been and still is a spectacular journey, surpassing
everything I’d ever envisioned, and when it’s time to move on, I will.
Then I’ll be content with the truth that it’s a hell of a good life, a life well
lived.
An airline pilot’s life.

Chris Manno has logged over 20,000 pilot hours during seven years as
an Air Force pilot and over thirty-four years as an American Airlines pilot,
most as captain.
He and Catherine live in Texas, and he teaches writing at Texas
Christian University where he earned his doctorate in English.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many thanks to the brave and generous few who read this manuscript in
draft form and shared their thoughts and suggestions about the writing with
me. They include Captain J.K. “Animal” Hauser, my Brother in Shit; my
younger sister and my older brother who all relived the adventures we all
shared.
My old squadron mate James Albright painstakingly proofread and
offered technical critique. My colleague, friend, and fellow American
Airlines pilot (and one of my favorite FOs to fly with) Heather Baggett
proofread tirelessly and helped make the rough draft readable.
Also, my friend and American Executive Platinum flyer Julie Taylor
provided a valuable, wider perspective, and my co-conspirator in airline
cartoons, retired KLM captain Martin Leeuwis offered much-appreciated
comments.
Finally, I am forever grateful to the captains, first officers and flight
attendants of American Airlines with whom I’ve shared a lifetime of flying
adventure both in the air and on the ground.
Y’all fly safe. --CM

Want to know “the rest of the story?” Do you wonder what stories were so
incendiary that couldn’t make it into this book?
Here they are:
The good, the bad, the ugly: the layovers, the bars; misbehavior, extreme
behavior—extreme misbehavior, in air crew stories you’ll need to read
yourself to believe. Kindle or paperback from Dark Horse Books on
Amazon.com.

[1]
The latest edition of this book is titled Airline Crew Confidential, Second
Edition, (ISBN-13 978-1720465454) and is available from Amazon.com
[2]
That novel, East Jesus, (ISBN: 9781798671221) was named runner-up,
Best Fiction 2017 by the N. Texas Book Festival.

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A Pilot’s Guide for Fearful Flyers

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1. One day at a time.

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“Seven Day Option: Before incurring an Active Duty Service Commitment

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