Where did you learn to fly, and how did you wind up with a major airline?  Did you come up through the military?

Okay, this one’s a tough one because the answer is very long.  My initial flight training was done privately in San Diego.  I did not come up through the military in the traditional way of other pilots as the Air Force and Navy flight programs were closed to women at the time I applied.  How I did accomplish my goal of becoming a captain for a major airline is in fact the subject of my book now in the editing process, scheduled for publication in just a few months.  Suffice it to say for now, what I did was unusual, sometimes funny, sometimes scary, sometimes unbelievable, but here I am!  And yes, it was worth the long haul to get here.

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What is the most technically difficult airport you fly into and why?

Of course this answer will vary depending upon which pilot is asked.  For me, I would have to say Mexico City would be my Number One pick.  It’s at a relatively high altitude, over 7,000 feet, which reduces airplane performance somewhat because of the thinner air.  All airports we fly into, at least that I am aware of (with the exception of Jackson Hole, Wyoming which uses a different runway surface to help with moisture) have “grooved” runways, allowing rainwater to drain off.  Mexico City’s runway is long but ungrooved.  Even the smallest amount of rain turns the runway into a big “Slip’n Slide”.  Also, the most common approach into Mexico City, landing in a northeasterly direction, requires a sharp turn onto final very close in.  Their navigational aids are not great there and there is an increased danger of a false signal if a pilot tries to tune in too early.  Just a nuisance, but something we can’t set up as far in advance as we would like.  Terrain in the area of the airport includes mountains fairly near the runway, and communications aren’t great there, either.  Although English is required internationally, sometimes the Mexican controllers are difficult to understand.  None of this is particularly dangerous—just different from flying in the U.S.

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What’s your favorite airplane?

I don’t want to sound as if I’m dodging the question, but the honest truth, echoed by many pilots I’ve asked the same question, is “Whatever airplane I’m flying”.  There has never been an airplane I’ve flown that I’ve disliked.  Whatever I’m flying at the moment is my favorite.  Right now it’s the Airbus, both A-319 and A-320.  The Airbus is the only aircraft utilizing a “side stick” as opposed to the more traditional control column to steer the airplane.  We pilots like that a lot because it gives us a lot more space in the cockpit.

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How do guys feel about women in the cockpit?

There is more about this in my upcoming book, but these days it is thankfully pretty much a non-issue.  Most of my copilots are quite a bit younger than I am, and they are more used to women in positions of authority.  Previously, however, it was at times quite a different story.  There was a time, not so long ago, when many men were hostile toward women in the cockpit.  Being a captain makes a difference, and the changing role of women in society has made a difference as well.  These days, as a general statement, I’d say most guys are okay with it, and if they’re not, they hide their feelings better than they used to!

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How many female airline pilots are there?

My source for the following questions and answers comes from the following link: http://www.iswap.org/html/faqs.html

How many women airline pilots are there? In the US? Other countries?
Current estimates are approximate: 4000 women airline pilots worldwide, the majority in the United States. There are about 80,000 airline pilots worldwide.

How many of those women are Captains?
What with growing airlines, downsizing airlines, upstarts, and bankruptcies, we can only speculate that the number is around 450 women airline captains worldwide.

What is the percentage of women airline pilots to the total population
of airline pilots? And which airline has the best percentage?
The percentage of women airline pilots is about 5% worldwide. Aer Lingus has the best percentage of women pilots at this time. This is one of the fastest changing stats though and this may not be the latest stat when you are reading this.

Which airline has the most women pilots?
United has the most women pilots with 68 Captains, 401 First Officers and 44 Second Officers for a total of 513. The total seniority list is about 8800 pilots.

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What is Degan? What is a localizer?

This passenger must have been listening to to my airline's air traffic control channel on an approach to Runway 4R (4 Right) in Chicago.  Degan is a “fix” on the localizer—an identifiable point—and the localizer is a projected beam of the runway centerline so pilots can line themselves up with the runway while making their approach.  An ILS, or Instrument Landing System, is comprised of both a localizer for lateral navigation, and a glide slope for vertical navigation.  Often controllers will tell a pilot to “intercept the localizer”, meaning they want us to line up with the runway, but they don’t want us to start down the glide slope just yet.  This passenger may have heard a restriction requiring us to maintain a certain altitude or airspeed until a certain point, and in this case that point was Degan.  Degan is identified by a certain mileage off of Chicago’s DME (Distance Measuring Equipment) and is located on the localizer, the electronic extended centerline, for Runway 4R.

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What is Zulu?

A flight attendant asked me this question verbally, and I asked him to put it into context for me since “Zulu” has more than one meaning. He said he heard a pilot say on Channel 9, my airline's air traffic control channel for passengers (optional for our pilots to use or not) “we have Zulu”. That was the current identifying phonetic letter for the current ATIS (Airport Terminal Information Service) at that airport. This is airport information usually put out hourly—sometimes more frequently if airport conditions are changing. Pilots will listen (or read digitally if available) this information in advance of contacting Approach Control so we know ahead of time what runways are in use, what the cloud, temperature and wind conditions are, etc. This saves the controllers from having to give the same information over and over to various aircraft as they check in. Each ATIS has a “name”, which is just a letter of the phonetic alphabet (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie….) and when they get to the last letter, “Zulu”, they start over with “Information Alpha” again. Another meaning for Zulu is Greenwich Mean Time, referring to the time at the “prime meridian”, which is zero degrees and runs through The Royal Greenwich Observatory in Greenwich, England. Other time zones have their own designated reference letters, but the one most commonly known is Zulu.

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What’s the most terrifying thing that has ever happened to you in an airplane?

First of all, let me qualify that what’s happened to me in airplanes cannot compare to some of the pilots’ experiences that have flown in wartime.  Many of my copilots and other airline pilots still fly in the Reserves and served in the Persian Gulf War or more recently in Iraq or Afghanistan.  Some are there now.  My own experiences, by comparison, are pretty-light-weight.  If I can figure out how to do it, I’ll open this question up to all our pilots who I’m sure could relate some hair-raising experiences.

There have been a few things I’d qualify as terrifying:   A turkey buzzard crashed through my right-hand windshield when I was flying a light twin in Mexico.  Blood, guts and feathers everywhere, obscuring my own windshield making it difficult to land.   Another time, a faulty door blew open in a pressurized light twin when I was flying up in Alaska, sucking out everything, including a briefcase with my logbook in it.  I was strapped in, of course.  The briefcase was soft and wrapped itself around a wing strut and I sort laid myself along the strut—outside the aircraft in flight—to get it.  It had most of my jet time in it I needed to get an airline job and I was right there out of reach—so I retrieved it.  Both incidents are in my upcoming book, along with a third incident in a Cessna 150 when my only passenger had a heart attack and passed out.  I initially thought he was dead, but he survived and later recovered.  I’ve never, thankfully, had anything terrifying happen to me in a jet airliner.  Several years ago I had a lightning strike on the nose of my B-727 shortly after taking off out from Oakland, California.  It was unexpected and loud as a rifle shot, but it did no damage to the airplane.

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Why do pilots use nautical miles rather than statute, what is the conversion rate, and what is “Mach airspeed?”

My source for Part I of the following information is : Whittsflying.com.  

Part I:  Why Do Pilots Use Nautical Rather Than Statute Miles?

A statute mile is based upon a thousand paces of a Roman solider dating back to the Roman Empire.  The Latin “mille”, for “thousand”, gave us the world “mile.”  By the way, a Roman soldier’s pace is considered two of our ordinary paces today.  The statute mile was based on the round number of 1,000 paces and equates to 5,280 feet.  The word “statute” referred to the distance markers along Roman roads which were statues or obelisks.  (Mexico does this today from Mexico City.)

The basis cartographers use (and which also dates back to the Roman Empire when Ptolemy used the first conic projection map) when plotting bears no relation to statute miles.  Maps divide the world into 360 degrees, with 60 “minutes” to each degree.  Each minute is called a nautical mile. 

Pilots use charts based upon degrees of latitude and longitude and therefore navigate using nautical rather than statute miles.

 Part II:  Conversion of nautical to statute:

Each nautical mile converts to 6,076.11549 feet, but is more commonly converted by simply adding 15% to a nautical mile to arrive at statute miles.   100 knots equates to 115 mph, 100 nautical miles equates to 115 statute miles.

 Part III:

 “Mach airspeed” is what we use to express airspeed at higher altitudes and is expressed with relation to the speed of sound.  .80 Mach is eight tenths the speed of sound, for example.  There is a good (but fairly technical) explanation of Mach airspeed at the following link if you want something more in depth:   http://www.tscm.com/mach-as.pdf

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How do pilots navigate on the ground?  Aren’t some airports very complicated, like Chicago O’Hare?

Yes, some airports are VERY complicated.  Pilots are issued “plates” (charts) not only for aerial navigation, but also for ground navigation.   Our airport charts show the names of all the runways, taxiways, terminals, etc., all of which have physical markings on them or next to them (on signs) to help us navigate.  It’s pretty much like reading a street map and street signs, and the ground controller is always available to help out if there is any uncertainty.  To see a sample of the airport layout at Chicago O’Hare, check out this link: 

http://www.naco.faa.gov/content/naco/online/airportdiagrams/00166AD.PDF

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How are runways named?  For example, why is Runway 14R at Chicago O’Hare designated as such?

Good question!  The designation “14R” tells pilots two things:  There are two runways 14—the “R” is the right-hand runway as we come in for approach or are taking off.  14L is of course the left-hand runway.  If you ever see a designation such as 14C, the “C” would stand for “center” runway.   It’s rare to have three parallel runways and there aren’t any at O’Hare.  If there is no letter at all, then we know there is only one runway 14 at that airport.

The number 14 tells us that this runway is most closely aligned with a compass heading of 140.  Add a zero to get the basic magnetic (compass) heading.  When you’re approaching Runway 14 for landing (left or right), or taking off, you know you’re heading southeast on a magnetic heading within 10 degrees of a heading of 140 degrees.  Another example would be Runway 27L or 27R which both point west to a heading within 10 degrees of 270, in this case 273 degrees.  A runway designated 1R would point northeast toward a heading of approximately 010 degrees.  (With a single digit, add a zero before and after to come up with the approximate magnetic heading—with two digits just add the zero after.)  On the Jeppesen Charts we use, which look almost like the FAA chart on the link in Question 2, the actual compass heading is in tiny numbers near 14R.  The actual magnetic heading is 143 degrees for 14R and 14L at O’Hare.  Incidentally, the runways are not always exactly parallel.  You might see a set of runways 14R and 14L somewhere else where one has a compass heading of 143 and the other a compass heading of 141, for example.  I noticed the FAA sample chart doesn’t include actual magnetic degrees next to the runway numbers like the charts we pilots use.

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