OVER THE EAST CHINA SEA
FROM CAP’N MERYL
Link to this week’s column at USAToday.com/travel:
Ask The Captain
OVER THE EAST CHINA SEA – PART ONE
First of all, I’d like to thank the many of you who
responded to my quest for information on dealing with
children who are afraid of flying and ways to prepare them
for that first flight. I will be better armed now when
asked at interviews or when people write to ask. Some of
the suggestions included taking children to the airport to
observe planes taking off and landing and letting them get
used to the noise, visiting an aviation museum, meeting the
pilots (my personal favorite for anxious adults as well),
considering very mild doses of Benedryl (only after checking
with your doctor) to help a really spooked child relax if
very stressed, distractions such as puzzles and audio
programs, and more.
Before we start this please note I went ahead and added a
new Album called “Chicago-Tokyo-Taipei. I only got a few
shots of Taipei as we landed at night and it was so hazy the
next morning the pictures were unidentifiable. I did get
some spectacular shots enroute, though, of Alaska including
some glacier shots and a distant view of Mt. McKinley.
Here’s one of the glacial shots now:
Glacier
For the entire Album, go to www.fromthecockpit.com/gallery
and find the new Album on page two. Or, you can always just
click on “Last Uploads” when you get to the Photo Gallery.
When I last wrote, I was headed to Chicago from my Denver
home to “stand reserve” which means I had to rent a hotel
room (the airline pays when we’re flying trips, but they
don’t pay for hotels if we choose to commute). There were
no “open trips” and I anticipated sitting around for a few
days.
The first day in Chicago, I attended a class to teach us
pilots how to bid for our trips each month. Everything is
awarded month by month according to how senior we are, but
there is a major change in our system and we had to attend a
four-hour computer class on how to go about it. Not much
fun but at least I got it over with. I even managed to
sneak a few emails to Al The Web Guy during the breaks as we
each had a computer to work with and were able to sign onto
the Internet.
Next day, with still no trips to fly, I headed out to O’Hare
to visit my airline’s medical facility. As an airline
captain I have to maintain an FAA first class physical which
is required every six months. Once a year an EKG is
required and the airline springs for that. So I went to our
medical facility, which is located among the hangars right
on the airfield, and got that out of the way. At one time,
a third physical was required each year, the third one being
a company physical, but thankfully that one went away as a
requirement so now it’s “only” two a year.
On the bus, which stops in our parking lots and airport
offices, I heard a flight attendant returning from a trip
ask another flight attendant where she had parked. “I
always park in London,” was her response.
The flight attendant who had asked laughed and said, “I’m in
Frankfurt.”
I really had no idea what any of that could possibly mean
but it became clear as the bus swung through the large
parking lot for our Chicago employees. The bus makes
several stops in the huge lots and each stop is labeled:
“Frankfurt,” “London,” “Tokyo,” etc. I wonder who it was
who added this whimsical touch to such a mundane event as
parking, but whoever it was I appreciate the humor of it.
At least it cleared up the flight attendants’ overheard
conversation.
The second night I started to be afraid I would sit around
Chicago for four days and go home without having flown at
all. That’s no good. I started checking our hotline every
few hours and in the middle of the night suddenly there was
a five day trip open to Tokyo and Taipei. I wasn’t
“eligible” for it exactly because I had only two more days
on reserve, but I called our crew desk and they obligingly
juggled some days off and the trip was mine! This meant
nobody else wanted the trip, nobody else had the right
combination of days to take it, or both.
The last time I flew to Taipei was in the late 1980’s on the
DC-10. At that time we relied heavily on HF radio
communications which are—generally speaking—just awful. You
can hear conversations going on with several different
communications facilities around the world at the same time
and, while intriguing to listen to a conversation half a
world away, there is always lots of static and sometimes
it’s hard to establish whether you’re talking to anybody at
all.
Things have changed, however, and the entire flight from
Tokyo to Taipei, which was just over two hours, was done on
very clear VHF frequencies with Japanese and Taiwanese
controllers and presented no problems at all. VHF is what
we use here in the United States and other heavily populated
areas of the world.
We were just cruising by the East China Sea and I was
telling my first officer about the first time I ever flew
the DC-10 from Bangkok to Taipei in the late eighties. We
were supposed to be over the South China Sea between Taiwan
and Mainland China, but when I looked out the window I saw
we were over what looked like a city and completely freaked
out.
At that time I was still a “plumber” which is what we called
flight engineers. This was very late at night and both the
captain and copilot were very quiet, staring straight ahead,
and I was hesitant to disturb their thoughts. After a few
moments, and considering the potentially hostile environment
I conjured up directly below us, I told the captain I
thought we had to be off course and told him why.
“How is it possible there are city lights down there when
we’re supposed to be over water?” I asked him. “We must be
off course.”
He looked out the window for a second and laughed, saying,
“That’s no city—that’s the Japanese fishing fleet!”
I looked again and couldn’t believe he was right, but he
was. There were thousands of boats. It looked like we were
over a city as big as the entire Los Angeles basin except
these lights were uniformly white. He told me I wasn’t the
first pilot who mistook the boats for a large city. What a
relief and what an incredible site!
In any case, as I said, I was just telling my first officer
about this when I spotted a cluster of boats about an hour
south of Japan—maybe about 100 boats or slightly fewer.
And then there were more—and more—and more—and next thing we
were looking at over a thousand boats all moored in close
proximity. This wasn’t nearly the size of the fleet I saw
that night as a DC-10 “plumber” but it was still impressive.
Under a moonless sky, the starlight was so fiercely bright
we could see the stars reflected on the dark waters of the
North Pacific to our east where there were no boats at all
as we continued toward Taipei.
To be continued in Part Two next week….
(In the interest of keeping these Updates down to a
reasonable size)
Until Next Time,
Maintain Airpseed!
Cap’n Meryl
http://www.fromthecockpit.com
http://www.flyingfearless.com
Link to this week’s column at USAToday.com/travel:
Ask The Captain
OVER THE EAST CHINA SEA – PART ONE
First of all, I’d like to thank the many of you who
responded to my quest for information on dealing with
children who are afraid of flying and ways to prepare them
for that first flight. I will be better armed now when
asked at interviews or when people write to ask. Some of
the suggestions included taking children to the airport to
observe planes taking off and landing and letting them get
used to the noise, visiting an aviation museum, meeting the
pilots (my personal favorite for anxious adults as well),
considering very mild doses of Benedryl (only after checking
with your doctor) to help a really spooked child relax if
very stressed, distractions such as puzzles and audio
programs, and more.
Before we start this please note I went ahead and added a
new Album called “Chicago-Tokyo-Taipei. I only got a few
shots of Taipei as we landed at night and it was so hazy the
next morning the pictures were unidentifiable. I did get
some spectacular shots enroute, though, of Alaska including
some glacier shots and a distant view of Mt. McKinley.
Here’s one of the glacial shots now:
Glacier
For the entire Album, go to www.fromthecockpit.com/gallery
and find the new Album on page two. Or, you can always just
click on “Last Uploads” when you get to the Photo Gallery.
When I last wrote, I was headed to Chicago from my Denver
home to “stand reserve” which means I had to rent a hotel
room (the airline pays when we’re flying trips, but they
don’t pay for hotels if we choose to commute). There were
no “open trips” and I anticipated sitting around for a few
days.
The first day in Chicago, I attended a class to teach us
pilots how to bid for our trips each month. Everything is
awarded month by month according to how senior we are, but
there is a major change in our system and we had to attend a
four-hour computer class on how to go about it. Not much
fun but at least I got it over with. I even managed to
sneak a few emails to Al The Web Guy during the breaks as we
each had a computer to work with and were able to sign onto
the Internet.
Next day, with still no trips to fly, I headed out to O’Hare
to visit my airline’s medical facility. As an airline
captain I have to maintain an FAA first class physical which
is required every six months. Once a year an EKG is
required and the airline springs for that. So I went to our
medical facility, which is located among the hangars right
on the airfield, and got that out of the way. At one time,
a third physical was required each year, the third one being
a company physical, but thankfully that one went away as a
requirement so now it’s “only” two a year.
On the bus, which stops in our parking lots and airport
offices, I heard a flight attendant returning from a trip
ask another flight attendant where she had parked. “I
always park in London,” was her response.
The flight attendant who had asked laughed and said, “I’m in
Frankfurt.”
I really had no idea what any of that could possibly mean
but it became clear as the bus swung through the large
parking lot for our Chicago employees. The bus makes
several stops in the huge lots and each stop is labeled:
“Frankfurt,” “London,” “Tokyo,” etc. I wonder who it was
who added this whimsical touch to such a mundane event as
parking, but whoever it was I appreciate the humor of it.
At least it cleared up the flight attendants’ overheard
conversation.
The second night I started to be afraid I would sit around
Chicago for four days and go home without having flown at
all. That’s no good. I started checking our hotline every
few hours and in the middle of the night suddenly there was
a five day trip open to Tokyo and Taipei. I wasn’t
“eligible” for it exactly because I had only two more days
on reserve, but I called our crew desk and they obligingly
juggled some days off and the trip was mine! This meant
nobody else wanted the trip, nobody else had the right
combination of days to take it, or both.
The last time I flew to Taipei was in the late 1980’s on the
DC-10. At that time we relied heavily on HF radio
communications which are—generally speaking—just awful. You
can hear conversations going on with several different
communications facilities around the world at the same time
and, while intriguing to listen to a conversation half a
world away, there is always lots of static and sometimes
it’s hard to establish whether you’re talking to anybody at
all.
Things have changed, however, and the entire flight from
Tokyo to Taipei, which was just over two hours, was done on
very clear VHF frequencies with Japanese and Taiwanese
controllers and presented no problems at all. VHF is what
we use here in the United States and other heavily populated
areas of the world.
We were just cruising by the East China Sea and I was
telling my first officer about the first time I ever flew
the DC-10 from Bangkok to Taipei in the late eighties. We
were supposed to be over the South China Sea between Taiwan
and Mainland China, but when I looked out the window I saw
we were over what looked like a city and completely freaked
out.
At that time I was still a “plumber” which is what we called
flight engineers. This was very late at night and both the
captain and copilot were very quiet, staring straight ahead,
and I was hesitant to disturb their thoughts. After a few
moments, and considering the potentially hostile environment
I conjured up directly below us, I told the captain I
thought we had to be off course and told him why.
“How is it possible there are city lights down there when
we’re supposed to be over water?” I asked him. “We must be
off course.”
He looked out the window for a second and laughed, saying,
“That’s no city—that’s the Japanese fishing fleet!”
I looked again and couldn’t believe he was right, but he
was. There were thousands of boats. It looked like we were
over a city as big as the entire Los Angeles basin except
these lights were uniformly white. He told me I wasn’t the
first pilot who mistook the boats for a large city. What a
relief and what an incredible site!
In any case, as I said, I was just telling my first officer
about this when I spotted a cluster of boats about an hour
south of Japan—maybe about 100 boats or slightly fewer.
And then there were more—and more—and more—and next thing we
were looking at over a thousand boats all moored in close
proximity. This wasn’t nearly the size of the fleet I saw
that night as a DC-10 “plumber” but it was still impressive.
Under a moonless sky, the starlight was so fiercely bright
we could see the stars reflected on the dark waters of the
North Pacific to our east where there were no boats at all
as we continued toward Taipei.
To be continued in Part Two next week….
(In the interest of keeping these Updates down to a
reasonable size)
Until Next Time,
Maintain Airpseed!
Cap’n Meryl
http://www.fromthecockpit.com
http://www.flyingfearless.com
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