BARKING DOGGIES

FROM CAP’N MERYL

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

USA Today column

I had my column for usatoday.com all set and ready
to go for this week, and then the JetBlue incident
happened. The editors at USAToday.com like it
when I can tie in to aviation events that are in
the news right now, and they eagerly agreed when I
volunteered to write something regarding the
JetBlue incident. This week’s column was over
twice its usual length due to the incredible
volume of questions which poured in after it
happened. If you haven’t seen the piece yet and
are interested, just click that link at the top.
I answered some of the more popular questions.

A friend and retired airline captain from my own
airline—Robert Boser—sent me his own editorial
about the incident. He’s a Boeing man, as you’ll
be able to tell, whereas I’m more of a
liberal—I’ve always liked the equipment I’ve
flown, including the Airbus, although I’m back to
flying Boeing for the moment.

Here is the link to Captain Boser’s piece:
JetBlue emergency landing:

His main site is: www.aviationsafety.com

I loved flying the Airbus and never personally had
any issues with the nose gear although there were
sometimes little electrical glitches going on in
this “electric jet.” My particular fondness for
the Airbus stems from the fact that there is no
yoke in front of the pilot but a sidestick
instead. It’s a much more comfortable cockpit
without that yoke or control column right in front
of you, not to mention they have little folding
tray tables for the pilots for charts and
food—mostly food (whenever possible). Having said
that, I love flying the magnificent and elegant
Boeing 777.

I once had to fly around burning off fuel when I
needed to make a precautionary landing in Denver.
I was on a flight from Las Vegas nonstop to
Washington, D.C.’s Dulles Airport when we lost one
our hydraulic systems (the fluid leaked out). On
the Airbus, the hydraulic systems are named by
color (on other aircraft they’re often named by
number or letter, like System 1, System 2, System
A, System B, etc.)

There is a green, yellow and blue system on the
Airbus and that’s the order of their importance.
We lost the least important one—the blue
system—and normally would have continued to the
destination and nobody on board would have known
we even had a problem. However, Hurricane Dennis
had just passed through the Washington, D.C. area
and the winds were high and very gusty.

The effect of losing that hydraulic system was
that our flight controls only moved at half-speed.
Under normal conditions, this was not a problem at
all, but I didn’t want to have to deal with
control sluggishness in such nasty wind conditions
at Dulles.

After a consultation (by radio) with our
maintenance and dispatchers, we stopped off in
Denver for repairs but spent an extra half hour
burning off some extra fuel. These days, with
fuel so expensive, I’m sure we would have simply
landed overweight. Back then it seemed like more
of a big deal to avoid landing overweight but with
the cost of fuel so high, the mandatory inspection
after an overweight landing is apparently the more
economic way to go.

The airplane doesn’t land differently when it’s
overweight—it’s just important to do a really
smooth landing with a minimum descent rate at the
very end in order to not overstress the airplane.
I’m happy to say I made the landing and was
surprised when the mechanics showed up. They said
they had videotaped the landing and could see it
was gentle with a shallow rate of descent. Only a
shorter version of the mandatory inspection (less
than 30 minutes) was necessary. There was also a
data recorder on board the aircraft so, if they’d
needed to determine the exact rate of descent at
landing, they could have done so.

Something kind of cute happened on this same
flight. I went outside on the ramp in Denver to
see how the repair was coming along. The
mechanics had our electric hydraulic pump on (in
flight they’re powered by the engines on the
Airbus) and this results in a noise referred to as
the “barking dog” because of the peculiar sound
the pump makes. So many people have asked me
about the sound I included it in the section
called “The Sights, Sounds, Smells and Sensations
of Flight” in my CD course called Ground School
for Passengers (available at
www.flyingfearless.com.)

In any case, there was an ACTUAL barking dog in a
crate the mechanics had offloaded so he (or she)
wouldn’t get too hot inside the aircraft, and this
real barking doggie was having none of the
mechanical barking doggie. Even with the other
noise out on the ramp, there was quite a racket
between the two “dogs.”

Next week’s column—the one we agreed to preempt
this week— is about a peculiar sinking feeling
some people notice right after takeoff. When I
got this question the first time several months
ago, I had no idea what the writer was asking
about, so I showed the question to Al The Web Guy
(retired B-747 captain for new readers who may not
know this).

He was as stumped as I was until the next time I
flew, and realized it was something we do on every
single flight so routinely I just didn’t recognize
it when someone asked about it. In any case, I’m
wondering if any of my readers can identify with
it: You take off and after several seconds the
power comes back and you feel like you’re sinking.
I’m anticipating a lot of feedback on this one as
I’ve been asked dozens of times about it, and a
couple of editors at usatoday.com commented after
I wrote it that they had wondered about it as
well.

I’ll also talk in the next column at usatoday.com
about the callouts pilots say out loud as we’re
barreling down the runway. If you haven’t noticed
it yet, we added a second video to our home page
at www.fromthecockpit.com. In addition to the
landing video, you’ll see a video of the takeoff
provided by the same pilot, Captain Juan Carlos
Arzillier. Be sure to turn your volume up and
listen for the crew callouts “V1, Rotate and
V2—but in Spanish! Next week’s column at
usatoday.com will explain the callouts and have a
direct link to this second video. When we ran the
landing video, we had over 600,000 hits in one
day!

One more note: One last reminder that if you
would like to attend a banquet where I’ll be the
keynote speaker for the 99’s (women’s pilot
organization, but men are welcome, too) in
Colorado Springs on Saturday, October 1st, write
to me at info@fromthecockpit.com and put 99’s in
the subject, and I’ll send you all the info. The
cost for attending just the banquet is $38 per
person.(price went up $5 after 9/20). It’s at the
Clarion Hotel, Happy Hour at 6:00 PM, dinner at
7:00 PM.

I hope to see you there but if not…

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

Cap’n Meryl - Keynote Speaker

FROM CAP’N MERYL

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

USA Today column

With the airline industry in such an unsettled
state, I decided some time ago I’d better branch
out and get good at something else. The writing
thing is going well with one book out (The World
At My Feet) and the sequel in the works. I have
some other ideas for books as well.

I’m also starting to speak as the keynote for
companies and events and to that end I spent most
of the week at a speaker’s conference in Las
Vegas. Being on the speaking circuit has as much
to do with marketing as it does with having any
talent as a speaker and I learned so much my head
is still spinning. I know that many of my readers
are either authors themselves or would-be authors,
and being a speaker is something that ties in very
easily. If anyone has any interest in public
speaking, whether for high schools, colleges or
corporations, this is the one event I would
recommend. Please contact me directly for further
information: info@fromthecockpit.com and put
Speaking in the subject.

I met someone who has some good information about
self-publishing as well. If you’re looking for
information about this subject, use the same email
address I just gave and put Self Publish in the
subject and I’ll get some information right out to
you.

I met dozens of interesting people at this event
but one thing was kind of funny: There were maybe
80 people in the room. I sat in the front row as
I usually like to do. It took only a few hours to
discover that I was seated next to a Delta
Airlines pilot! He has his own book and I’ll put
out some more information on that when I receive a
copy of it. For now, you can see him in the
Cap’n Meryl & Friends Album of my Photo Gallery.
Just click here:
Photo Gallery
His own book is not autobiographical like my own,
but a collection of interviews with people around
the country about the one thing they would do over
again if they had the chance. I was able to
glance at a copy but after I receive it I’ll write
more info about how you can get a copy if you’re
interested.

You’ll also see a few other pictures of some of
the people I met at this conference including a
female firefighter and the former Miss Virginia,
also in the Cap’n Meryl & Friends Album.

I also added a few more pictures to the U.S. Album
which is getting a little unwieldy. The best way
to view the new pictures is to go to the U.S.
Album, then click “Latest Uploads” which you’ll
see at the top. Our flight was full so I rode in
the cockpit and took a few airborne photos as long
as I was there anyway. The following link will
take you right to the latest uploads so you can
see the Las Vegas shots:

Photo Gallery
The first five pictures are the new ones and
you’ll have to click on them individually to see
the captions.

The host of the seminar took the entire group to
see Cirque du Soleil’s “O” (water in French is
“eau,” pronounced “o”) at the Bellagio. It was
just spectacular with some of the cast members
diving from the very high ceiling right into the
water that made up part of the stage. It made my
heart stop every time. Just watching the stage
change from water back to a hard surface was
interesting and I could never really tell how they
did it. It seemed like one minute the stage was
deep water, then shallow enough to walk across,
then a dry surface.

This week I received a few inquiries about a B-777
that had something go very haywire in its computer
systems. My friend Captain Lim has a new Weblog I
am pleased to introduce to my readers. He
addressed this situation, which you can see on his
blog: http://askcaptainlim.com/blog If you
scroll down the page, there are some pictures,
including a really nice one of Captain Lim and his
copilot. By the way, Captain Lim has a law degree
from the University of London. He’s going
through the same kind of internal self-debate I am
about what to do after retirement. He may opt to
continue to fly with another carrier after he
retires from Malaysia Airlines, one without the
age 60 requirement. It’s a tough decision for
pilots when they get to retirement age and my own
is not that far away—a little less than eight
years now.

Al The Web Guy was Cap’n Al until he retired as a
B-747-400 captain. He certainly found his after-airline
calling and I wouldn’t be able to produce any of
the things I do without him. All I do is write
stuff but it’s Al The Web Guy who makes sure it
gets out into the world, so my thanks to him as
always.

One more note: Just a reminder that if you would
like to attend a banquet where I’ll be the keynote
speaker for the 99’s (women’s pilot organization,
but men are welcome, too) in Colorado Springs on
Saturday, October 1st, write to me at
info@fromthecockpit.com and put 99’s in the
subject, and I’ll send you all the info. The cost
for attending just the banquet is $33 per person.

Since I was gone most of the week, I don’t really
have anything else to report for now so…

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

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)

KATRINA, KATRINA and REMEMBERING 9/11

FROM CAP’N MERYL

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


USA Today Column


I am writing this on the Friday preceding Labor Day
weekend. Al The Web Guy and I are so filled with
horror and sympathy for all those affected so deeply by
Hurricane Katrina there is room for little else. I
have readers all over the country (and all over the
world) and I know many of them are affected and will
not see this right away, if ever. If and when they do
I want them to know how deeply sorry Al The Web Guy and
I are at these devastating losses. We feel helpless at
the sheer magnitude of the situation and wish we could
help in some meaningful way but for now will settle for
cash donations to the rescue and recovery efforts. In
the meantime, we are following this horrific situation
very closely and hope that the promised help has
finally come and will continue to come in the days,
weeks, months and even years ahead.

I had an elderly aunt in New Orleans who died several
years ago, but she once came over to my layover hotel
and took me out to the most wonderful lunch in the
French Quarter. Her daughter joined us and still lives
in New Orleans. I got word that she was out of state
during the storm itself and then retreated to stay with
relatives in New York, so I’ll be anxious to hear how
that plays out and whether her home survived.

Another very close friend of ours, a retired pilot from
my own airline with whom I flew several times, has
three homes, all in storm areas, and it sounds like
there was damage to all of them but not devastation.
This was a welcome shock because one home is in
Harrison Country, Mississippi, featured on the evening
news as the very “epicenter” of the storm. We didn’t
hear from him for several days but he finally got an
enote out. We haven’t heard back yet to hear the
extent of the damage.

I know many of us have either friends or relatives or
both in the storm-struck area and are watching
anxiously as the days tick by and we see what lies both
behind and ahead. Our hopes and thoughts are with all
those affected both directly and indirectly.

On another devastating subject, a few readers have
requested that I write about my own 9/11 experiences as
here we are at another anniversary of that ugly date.
It is intended that just a bit of my perspective as a
pilot will be included in the sequel to “The World At
My Feet” which I’m working on now.

I wasn’t flying that day, having just returned from
Boston the evening before. Al The Web Guy was already
retired as a B-747-400 captain and was on the
construction site for the house we now live in. I was
home sleeping off my trip when he called and told me to
turn on the TV. So I watched unbelievingly along with
the rest of the world.

I remember thinking “poor American Airlines!” since all
the initial reports indicated American’s planes were
involved. When my own airline emerged as one of the
two which had crashed into the World Trade Center it
was, of course, even more of a shock than it already
was, and then of course both airlines lost a second
airplane and passengers as well. It was almost too
much to absorb.

I did not know any of the pilots on board but I had
recently flown with two of the flight attendants who
were on the plane that crashed into the World Trade
Center.

My middle brother, Lorin, had been in New York on his
honeymoon and left early, missing the whole thing by a
day. He was safely back in San Diego with his new
bride when it all happened.

I happened to fly the first flight for my airline into
La Guardia when planes were allowed to fly again. I
had just thirteen passengers on board from Chicago and
I had asked our flight planners if we would come close
to the crater that used to be the WTC. Although I was
told we would be routed some distance away from it—we
weren’t. We were vectored (given headings) which took
us right past the site. The sun was low in the sky
and of course the site was very much still on fire.
The smoke went up and hit a cloud—then sidestepped up
until it hit a second cloud, then went up again from
there. All this against a hazy, blood red background
of light from the setting sun.

The feeling was of overwhelming anger and sadness at
all this death and destruction and despair. There were
even grief counselors in place at La Guardia to meet
the pilots but both my copilot and I were feeling—not
unaffected, of course—but okay to continue to do our
jobs.

Nothing, of course, has ever really been the same for
any of us. For a long time afterward our passenger
loads were scanty and sometimes we flew nearly empty
airplanes. Eventually, things got back to what I would
consider normal but of course my airline which must not
be named (for legal reasons) went into a steep economic
decline which had already begun but which worsened
immeasurably, and it’s still struggling with bankruptcy
even today.

I wear an American flag on the lapel of my uniform. It
was issued by my airline and I will never remove it.
Not that I would or could ever forget, but I don’t ever
want it too far from my consciousness.

On another (but related) subject, I recently mentioned
my idea for a new section on my site for a thoughts
exchange between me, my readers and some of our troops
in Iraq. The entirely favorable (and overwhelming)
response tells me to go ahead. This new section will
make its appearance in a week or two, when Al The Web
Guy can get the new part of my site up and running.
The winning name, after considering all the suggestions
is:
“Welcome to the Sandbox—Voices of our Troops” and if
you have any questions you’d like me to submit, please
do so at: info@fromthecockpit.com and put IRAQ in the
subject for me.

For now, meet Captain Jimmy Smith in my “Cap’n Meryl &
Friends” Album in my Photo Gallery.

Captain Smith
We’ve communicated several times after I dropped him
and a couple hundred other troops off in the “Sandbox”
several months ago. As I read his notes it occurred to
me that I definitely wouldn’t be the only one
interested in his insights. What better than to give
our troops a voice to those of us back home wondering
about their thoughts, their day-to-day existence and
how they’re faring? A genuine, sincere show of support
for them as the valued human beings they are regardless
of our own thoughts about whether or not we as a
country should have a presence there.

I’m along for the ride on this one, so to speak, and
we’ll see what develops and how it goes over with
Jimmy’s cohorts over there. I do know that some
restrictions are going to apply, but more about that in
future Weekly Updates.

In the meantime, I have GOT to get my new book, sequel
to “The World At My Feet” finished. So, until next
time…


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