THE APPROACH TO SAN DIEGO

FROM CAP’N MERYL

Link to this week’s column at USAToday.com/travel:


USA Today.com column

In this week’s column at usatoday.com/travel there is a
note referring to a home video shot by a captain from
another airline (the airline opted not to be named).
This was sent to me right after I ran my San Diego
column at usatoday.com/travel by Captain Juan Carlos
Arzillier who makes his home in Mexico City. Even
though I’ve flown this approach a gazillion times (give
or take a dozen) I was thrilled watching it and I hope
you enjoy it too.

Captain Juan Carlos refers to himself as flying “Mad
Dogs” (McDonnell-Douglas). In my Ask The Captain
column, I didn’t mention the parking garage which was
built several years ago just outside the airport blast
fence. I don’t personally feel it impedes approaches
although some pilots have been quite vocal about it.
You can see it quite clearly in this video on very
short final. My thanks to Captain Juan Carlos for this
spectacular footage. When you click on the San Diego
picture on my site at www.fromthecockpit.com you’ll be
taken to his video which is being housed at
sandiego.com. I’ve also written an article for
sandiego.com to go with the video. It’s in the
“Experience” section of their site, or just follow this
link for my article if you’re interested:
http://www.sandiego.com/experience.jsp

Also, after the San Diego column came out about the
novel (and fun!) approach into San Diego, I had some
interesting folks contact me. Among them was Mark
Burgess, CEO of SanDiego.com. He asked permission to
use a couple of the photos in my “Denver to San Diego
Album” for their free screen saver they offer to their
site visitors. As luck would have it, my digital
camera had been in the shop that week and I had my
backup camera with me, which didn’t have high enough
resolution for their purposes. Since I get to San
Diego a few times per year to visit my parents and
other family, I’ll get some more shots next time.
Sandiego.com is the very company we’ve now hooked up
with to handle the advertisers on our site.

As I get older and the turmoil continues at the airline
industry in general to include my own airline, I’m
looking more and more at outside activities to keep the
income at no less than its current level. Flying will
always remain my Number
# 1 passion, but right behind it in second place are
speaking and writing, and I’m not sure in which order,
to tell you the truth.

In any case, I am taking this coming week to attend a
four day seminar which addresses marketing in the
speaking circuit. There will be some interesting
people there, some as teachers and some attendees. I’m
looking forward to meeting Jack Canfield, co-author of
the wonderful Chicken Soup books.

I have a speaking engagement right here in Colorado for
the 99’s (a women’s pilot organization) on October 1st.
I always enjoy occasions to meet some of my readers and
I know I have at least a few in that area. Just drop
me a note at info@fromthecockpit.com and put 99’s in
the subject so I’ll be looking for it if you’d like to
attend and I’ll let you know how you can. I’ll be
signing books there, so if you’d like to buy one you
can, or if you have one you’d like signed I can do that
as well.

I’m up to Chapter 14 of the sequel to The World At My
Feet. I’m approximately halfway through at this point.
The book will include parts of my life—most notably the
time I spent in Alaska—prior to being hired at my
current airline. There will be some chapters as well
about flying for them to include my first flights to
Hawaii and Japan back in the late eighties and some of
my current experiences flying to Europe and other
foreign destinations.

One of my earlier adventures happened while I was still
flying for Wien Air Alaska as a flight engineer. To
keep my hand in as a pilot, I wanted to fly on the side
so I ferried some airplanes from the “lower 48” up to
Alaska. I’ll be including a chapter about a flight in
a C-150 from Charleston, S.C. all the way to Fairbanks
with no navigational equipment. I literally followed
freeways up to the Canadian border where I picked up
the Alcan (Alaska-Canada Highway) to Fairbanks.

There was another flight from Washington State up to a
hunting lodge in British Columbia. My mission was to
deliver a piano. I’ll bet there are very few people
who believe you can put an upright piano in the back of
a single engine airplane, but you can and I did (not
without plenty of help loading, however).

Enough of that for now, though. If anyone has an idea
for a title to this sequel, please drop me a line at
info@fromthecockpit.com and put “title” in the subject.
So far, I don’t have any brilliant ideas and my
publisher is starting to think about it. I told her
I’d ask you, my readers, for suggestions.

Our Iraq page is still not quite up. We haven’t
forgotten about it, but Al The Web Guy has just been
too busy dealing with other matters. I’ll remind him
and hopefully that will be up soon.

One more note, and that is that we added four more
pictures to our At Home Album in the Photo Gallery at
www.fromthecockpit.com/gallery By clicking “Last
Uploads” you can see those last four pictures loaded.

And with that…

Until Next Time,
Maintain Airspeed!
Cap’n Meryl
www.fromthecockpit.com
www.flyingfearless.com
www.fromthecockpit.com/profile.htm
(keynote speaker information)