Ask the pilot

It's trial by fire in the author's long-awaited return to the cockpit. Can you say "barf bag"?

By Patrick Smith

Read more: New York, Technology & Business, Flying, Business, P. Smith, Ask the Pilot

Aug. 31, 2007 | So much training, so little time. For those who've complained because this column has been shorter of late and the schedule somewhat erratic, cut your author some slack. Over the past six months or so, since returning to my day job after five-plus years of layoff, I've endured two complete training programs on two different aircraft. The end result works to the reader's benefit. For the first time in my repeatedly hiccupped career I'm assigned to a wide-body aircraft flying exclusively on international routes. Think of the fodder.

Five years of involuntary leave was a long time. During that stretch, despite being broke, I traveled to more than 40 countries, started a popular online column and wrote a semi-successful book. That was, I suppose, making creative and rewarding use of a bad situation. Certainly it beat selling real estate or turning to a life of crime. On the other hand, such pursuits left me ill-prepared for a return. A majority of laid-off pilots find one or more flying jobs in the interim. For me, living the thrill vicariously was interesting, was enjoyable and made me an extremely famous celebrity (at least in Italy). But it also made for a stressful and challenging readjustment period once I was called back.

In the end, retraining went smoothly and was on schedule. But it was long and tiring, and none of it was easy. That would explain the tenor of frustration in last week's column, in which I pooh-poohed the notion that pilotless planes are just around the corner; I'm a bit touchy when it comes to the mythology of cockpit automation. It's the belief of too many people that a pilot's job involves little more than watching the aircraft "fly itself." In some not-too-distant future, the wisdom goes, we'll be engineered out of the picture altogether.

Especially irritating is how often the pilotless-planes conversation turns up -- in magazines, on television, in the science section of the papers. You'd think the world couldn't get rid of its pilots fast enough. Why the rush? Nobody's pushing for doctorless hospitals or for courtrooms with computerized juries (to cite two other environments in which human errors often result in tragedy). We understand the limitations of such proposals, and why, at least in our age, the task would be far too great. Perhaps that's it: The public has a more intuitive understanding of basic medicine and jurisprudence than it does of flying 747s across oceans. People are gullible because they don't know better. It sounds good. If the "experts" say it's possible, then why not?

Almost always the idea is presented in a purely technical sense that ignores the day-to-day practicalities of commercial flight. A flight is a very organic thing -- complex, always in motion, always changing -- in which subjective decision making is constant and critical. You'd be surprised how busy the most automated cockpit can become during a critical phase of flight, even with the two required crew members.

Case in point, my inaugural return to the cockpit this past spring ...

"For all intents and purposes, it's the real thing," I wrote a week ago, describing the experience of training in a full-motion flight simulator. "Real enough that, assuming you pass your final check ride, you proceed fully qualified from the box and directly to an actual aircraft, full of paying passengers, without any sort of practice flight."

For me that would happen on a Saturday in April. For the first time in over five years, I button up my polyester pilot shirt, zipper up my phony zipper tie, throw a few packets of ramen noodles into my black leather case and head for the airport. (I'm not at liberty to reveal which airport, exactly, but let's just say it's in a reasonably large city east of the Mississippi River.)

It's a pleasant and calm morning, a nice day to fly -- so long as you're not flying to the Northeast, where a spring storm is scheduled to arrive with gale-force winds and driving rain. Earlier, I'd seen New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on CNN, advising residents to stock up on water and spare batteries. In the van from the hotel I hear two women talking. Says one to the other, "I'm glad I'm not headed to New York."

Naturally, I'm headed to New York.

When I arrive at the terminal, I see that many of the day's departures, those later on, have already been canceled. I'm hoping mine is next. How to put this, but I really don't feel like going. Everything is new, difficult, overwhelming. There's a storm brewing, and I'm just not in the mood.

But that's not reason enough. The forecasts are acceptable through early afternoon -- winds, ceilings and visibilities all within legal parameters. Crew and aircraft are qualified and capable. We're going.

I'll be flying under the tutelage of a so-called check airman, a training captain, as do all pilots who are new to a particular aircraft. We meet downstairs in the cavernous and dingy crew lounge. He's an agreeable guy with one of those stereotypical Western drawls. Let's call him Clay. We shake hands and make small talk. Clay's a firebrand libertarian with a house and a small ranch out past Phoenix. He collects old books and enjoys astronomy. He tells me how much he loves the privacy of rural Arizona. "I can take a piss in my own backyard" is how he puts it. "And ain't nobody gonna know or care."

Clay asks what I did during furlough. I tell him that I wrote a book and traveled to Timbuktu. I'd been waiting five years to say that. We grab our stuff and head for the plane.

Unpacking my gear, it strikes me how filthy the cockpit is. Even the most modern cockpits are often layered with dust and grime -- one of flying's odd little nuances that I'd forgotten about. I remember how the first "Alien" movie (1979) was revolutionary in its portrayal of spacecraft as industrial machines, greasy and unkempt, a departure from the antiseptic order of "Star Trek" and the like. It's much the same with an airplane -- no longer a novelty of transport but just another bus. The cabins are swept and straightened because they need to be, lest people make certain, not-quite-accurate inferences involving cleanliness and safety. Flight decks, though, can be nasty.

I mention this to Clay, more or less verbatim as it appears above. He looks at me for a long moment, chews his lip a couple of times. His expression is one of amused, somewhat pained empathy. "How about I take this leg," he says. "You just relax, help me out, work the radios, get a sense of everything."

Captains and first officers typically take turns at the controls. One pilot flies and works the autoflight systems, while the other takes care of communications and a host of other duties. On the next leg, they switch. I'd been wondering whether Clay or I would fly first, but it seems my dissertation on cleanliness and set design took care of that.

We depart on time. The flight is full.

Next page: The flight attendants ask if we can please cool the cabin because "people in the back are throwing up"