“Congratulations!” He said with a smile that ran ear to ear. “You’ll need one of these.”

That in a nut shell is the pilot community. A close knit group bonded by the love of flight; compelled to share the experience, especially with the next generation of Aviators, or in this case Aviatrix. It was a beautiful day, sunny, bright; with tremendous thunderstorms blossoming as a back drop miles away.

We plunged into the humid atmosphere; sharing the day. She wasn’t tentative in the least; wearing a slight smile as we practiced basic air work in our mighty Musketeer. An NCAA Athlete (yes, I’m bragging) she displayed that same confidence even when we entered the landing pattern. On the last pass I couldn’t help showing off a bit, flying a tight and steep fighter type approach. She was grinning throughout the demo.

As we drove home in her mom’s convertible, top down, watching the looming thunder boomers get closer; I couldn’t help but realize we had not shared much time in years. Passing’s really, moral fly-bys; but no real time. She had been daddy’s girl, my only girl out of four great kids. Then the awkward teenage years interfered, and my jobs, and daily life in general.

Through many of those busy years I kept updating my CFI (Certified Flight Instructor) Rating, even though I never really used it. I’m glad I did. If nothing else we had yesterday to share, it was worth it.

LCDR (Lieutenant Commander) Leland Shanle, Jr., 1998, Naval Air Weapons Test Station, Point Mugu. The aircraft is a McDonnell-Douglas F-4 Phantom II.

When I started Project7Alpha.com a few years back, my goal was to host a site for my novels that are based on my love of aviation in general and WWII in particular. I wanted to share my experience through aviation-themed books. The reality of the airline industry forced me to seek a back-up plan.

Any writer can tell you there is little money in the written word; most of us do it because we are drawn to it. As I moved back into flight test, aviation consulting, and producing documentaries, the content of 7A has been convoluted. In fact, the scope of 7A has expanded to the point that the original goal has been lost.

Eleven years ago, after a career in the Navy, I was hired by a major airline. We were told, “Congratulations, you won the lottery!” All the major airline pilots had that same euphoric feeling once hired. I started writing as a hobby and was fortunate enough, after years of trying, to get published by Pen and Sword Books LTD.

The “airline lottery ticket” turned out to be a forgery and as the industry melted down, most pilots — especially the First Officers — were forced to augment their pay to support families. Houses were lost. Families fell apart under the economic pressure. There was never any good news and still isn’t. The only ones to flourish were upper management and Wall Street.

Nothing has changed. So I, like the others, was forced to start a business on the side.

A funny thing happened recently: I fell back in love with aviation. Returning to flight test, surrounded by people who loved aviation and wanted to move it forward, instead of exploiting it for personal gain, was rejuvenating. Melding that with doing documentaries on the work was icing on the cake!

With two friends, I incorporated Broken Wing LLC. All technical and industry postings will move to our site at brokenwing.tv, where they belong.

Project7alpha.com will return to it’s original mission: that of putting forth the joy, hardship and reality of flight through words.

F-4 - Chip Shanle, pilot

The brain trust at flyersrights.org is at it again. This time they are specifically targeting JFK International Airport. Led by the noted realtor and self proclaimed aviation expert Kate Hanni; they have put their full weight behind denying the airlines request for temporary relief from The Airline Passenger Bill of rights Act of 2009.

I predicted here, months ago, that the bill would lead to mass cancelations and ultimately hundreds of thousands, even millions of passengers being adversely affected, vice the 1/100th of a percent of flights stranded, that the bill was designed to prevent. Very few flights have had the long on ground delays this bill addresses. On the 22nd of December 2009 I predicted that future weather events would cause massive cancelations. On the 17th of February 2010 I showed an example. On the 9th of March 2010 the debate ended; the CEO of Continental Airlines in his own words:

Smisek said many passengers on delayed flights “really want to go to LA or Mumbai, but the government by God says, ‘We’re going to fine you $27,500.’ Here’s what we’re going to do: We’re going to cancel the flight.”

Because airlines have cut flights, leaving the remaining ones more crowded, passengers will have fewer chances to rebook on another flight. Passengers, he said, won’t get to their destinations “for maybe days.”

The reality of the situation apparently has not yet reached flyersrights.org; in fact they now seem hell-bent on making the situation worse. A mere 5 days after the CEO of Continental Airlines stated the above, flyersrights.org strongly opposed an exception to 14 C.F.R. §§ 259.4(b)(1) and (b)(2).

The problem: JFK Airport is shutting down one of its major runways for construction. Thus knowing it will cause delays; Delta and JetBlue Airlines asked for relief until the construction is complete. A very reasonable request IMO, in light of the fact that the capacity of the airport will be greatly reduced.

Flyersrights.org, “representing the interests of airline passengers” responded:

“FlyersRights.org strongly opposes DOT’s granting any exemption from this regulation to these or to any other airlines serving JFK.”

Further:

“The DOT Secretary should deny these airline requests out of hand and direct FAA Administrator Babbitt to meet promptly with the airlines and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, JFK’s operator, to require the airlines to realistically schedule airline operations correlated to available JFK runway capacity during this construction period.”

Translation; cancel flights (keep in mind load factors are at historical highs. Airlines especially during summer months are virtually at capacity); so much for that trip to Paris. BTW doesn’t “out of hand” mean without even examining the impact? That would be ironically apropos to this organization.

The following paragraphs are laughable, their total lack of insight and understanding of the industry is eye-watering to me. I suppose you don’t get much Air Transport training in realty school.

“Airline passengers should not have to endure multi-hour delays on JFK’s taxiways because the FAA refuses to manage “flow control” over the ground movements of aircraft scheduled for departure. FlyersRights.org has recommended for years that FAA’s air traffic controllers at congested airports like JFK should be required to prohibit airlines from pushing their aircraft back from the gate when an unreasonably long taxiway delay before takeoff is inevitable. FAA has resisted, not wanting to preclude the airlines from using those taxiways as passenger parking lots.

The exemption-requesting airlines have long known about the approaching need for the Bay Runway to be closed temporarily for reconstruction. They have had many months to develop alternative solutions that wouldn’t make passengers suffer long tarmac delays: e.g., scheduling larger capacity aircraft, and adjusting departure schedules. Instead, they now propose distorting a new DOT regulation that was designed to protect airline passengers during occasional “irregular operations” (such as weather) to insulate themselves from the consequences of their chronic, everyday overscheduling of flights.”

Let’s look at some of Kate’s fixes closely, first:

“FlyersRights.org has recommended for years that FAA’s air traffic controllers at congested airports like JFK should be required to prohibit airlines from pushing their aircraft back from the gate when an unreasonably long taxiway delay before takeoff is inevitable.”

Again, evidence that (apparently) even a basic understanding of the industry is not present over at flyersrights.org. They must assume that every flight has its own gate, do the math. Flights have to come off the gate, because an arriving flight needs it to deplane. What is flyersrights.org’s answer to that? Which group of passengers gets to sit; arriving or departing? The industry has its answer ready; in the face of fines they will cancel the departing unless they get regulatory relief. Continentals CEO could not have been clearer. Let’s keep in mind if the aircraft does not go over the pond; the flight back the next day is also cancelled. A two for one deal; think that happening day in day out until November will adversely affect tourism, the economy, not to mention the airlines based in JFK?

“scheduling larger capacity aircraft,”

The international flights into and out of JFK are already flying the largest aircraft available that the markets will support, Boeing 747, 777, 767 and 757’s; Airbus 380, 340 and 330’s as well. They only have so many, they’re kinda expensive and require crews and mechanics and baggage handlers and….well you get the picture.
Surely our intrepid realtor doesn’t mean the airlines need to fly a 777 from small town USA to JFK. Or is it a case of; the small market passengers don’t deserve to fly around the world by connecting in New York. Not to mention in the case of JetBlue (one of the named airlines) the A-320 (approx 150 seats) is the biggest aircraft they fly.

I could go on but this pains even me. This is the danger of the internet; a small minority representing a fraction of the airline passengers of the world is inflicting damage to the entire system. Construction, like bad weather, happens in this industry. Not every day, but when it does, it will impact the schedule. The airlines now will have no other choice than to cancel flights. Personally, I would rather wait 4 hours on the ramp or taxi way, rather than sit in a hotel for 2 or 3 days.

An old Admiral once told me; “Son, one person pissing down your leg is not a movement.” Sadly, that is no longer true in the age of the internet.

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• Air traffic perfect storm for NYC (cnn.com)

Smisek said many passengers on delayed flights “really want to go to LA or Mumbai, but the government by God says, ‘We’re going to fine you $27,500.’ Here’s what we’re going to do: We’re going to cancel the flight.”

Because airlines have cut flights, leaving the remaining ones more crowded, passengers will have fewer chances to rebook on another flight. Passengers, he said, won’t get to their destinations “for maybe days.”

This is what happens when you let a self promoting Realtor set National Aviation Policy; truth is stranger than fiction. Good luck next winter; and bring your credit card because for a weather event you are on your own!

Imagine how “Wowed” I was, to learn via her website, that dear Kate is a California Realtor, Napa no less. Impressive credentials for someone who is re-writing the FARs on aviation; add to that she has ridden in the back and got stuck during a storm once. Impressive indeed; and now the “press” runs to her door for expert analysis, apparently over 800 times so far.

And the results are in! Rather than risk fines, the airlines have concluded the only fix is to simply cancel entire banks of flights. When a metric tells them that the mandated limit approaches for a flight or bank of flights they just cancel. Ironically, it is much cheaper for the airlines than de-icing, flying half full aircraft (due to people missing their flights) and sitting for hours burning gas. And here’s the best part: because it is weather-, not company-related, they don’t have to provide hotels or food vouchers. Bingo, Jed’s a millionaire!

So bottom line: instead of waiting on the “tarmac”, it is really called the ramp. Normally during a weather event aircraft are stacked on taxiways, but let’s not throw any technical facts into the mix; this is about emotion and revenge! Instead of that ugly wait for hours on the taxiway, passengers will now wait for days, at their own cost, in a hotel. What a great solution from the Boxer/Hanni brain-trust of California!

Let me explain why: if your flight is canceled your seat goes away. It is a perishable service, end of story. The next day’s tickets are already sold – AND load factors are at historic highs. That means, you guessed it, stand-by for the canceled flights’  hundreds of passengers. Let’s look at JetBlue only: last Wednesday, they canceled 387 flights due to the storm. In 2005/2006, they averaged 254 cancels for the entire year, a dramatic change. Let’s now do the math; 387 x 149=57,663 stranded passengers. JetBlue has 250 flights a day in JFK, so the total number probably represents most of their flights in a day. But I feel generous; let’s say only half were canceled: back to math. JetBlue’s load factor is in excess of 80%, but again we will be generous and use 80. That is 120 seats filled on a 149 seat aircraft for 774 flights in a day – 22,446 seats a day to move 57,663 passengers. That would require two and one half days, if all the stars aligned. Obviously it is not linear, load factors are average and JetBlue flies the E-190 as well. This is simply a big picture look at what happens mathematically when flights cancel vice delay.

Passenger advocates say that airlines don’t need to cancel flights to prevent tarmac delays. “This is solvable” without excess cancellations, said Kate Hanni, who founded Flyersrights.org after a flight she was on in 2006 was stranded.

I suppose there are dumber statements out there, but I haven’t seen one for a while, and it shows just how clueless this “Aviation Advocate” actually is, in my opinion. She must assume each and every flight has a dedicated crew, gate and aircraft. Apparently she doesn’t know that aircraft and crew fly multiple flights a day, gates AND “tarmac” space are finite and that FAR’s cause crew to time out when they return to the gate. Thus, if a flight waits for 2 hours 59 minutes, then returns to the gate, the crew day limits are re-calculated. You can bet at the end of the day they will go illegal. OBTW, reserve crews are finite as well.

Perhaps we can get Kate to do the arithmetic for us. Until then, good luck getting anywhere during the next snowstorm. Oh, I almost forgot. I noticed that 3 for 3 of Kate’s advertisers were lawyers on the site. Hmmm, curious. All this to fix a problem that historically affected less than 1/10th of 1% of daily flights. Amazing.

It is a fundamentally flawed model: the equivalent of having a thriving business and not owning the building.  Or worse yet, not even having a long term lease; let alone a non-compete clause.  If you could ask Sam Walton he’d tell you that is exactly how he lost his first business.  The owner of the building he was located in refused to renew a short term lease and simply took over his existing business.

The ultimate dream of current airline management “group think” is to rid themselves of their biggest problem, employees.  This from a service based industry.  Putting the service (or lack thereof) question aside, the operational structure is un-sustainable.

Shrinking the production level, in the case of the airlines mainline flying, raises the overhead costs per flight hour.  Ultimately the stand alone revenue stream becomes incapable of supporting the overall structure.

Legacy airlines have been outsourcing at both ends of their systems with disastrous results.  High cost Regional Jets and their subsidiary companies have been handed the tertiary and some secondary city pairs.  High CASM (cost per available seat mile) due to high fuel cost and low seat count has exceeded RASM (revenue per seat mile); in short the small jets are upside down.  At the inception of this model high yield and low fuel costs spread across an entire network allowed profitability.  However in their zeal to outsource both ends of their networks the major airlines have reached a tipping point.  The production level (mainline) can no longer support the costs.

The small jets are dragging down the bottom end of the network and code share is now doing the same to International.  Synergy, virtual mergers, etc. etc.: where is the synergy?  Did either company of an alliance reduce overhead?  Was either management team or their inherent over head eliminated? Marketing?  Public Relations?  HR? Training? Operations? Anything?

Yes; flights and the production level employees that flew them, a lower percent of the company producing revenue.  Taken to its ultimate conclusion, many managers dream, no employees at the production level at all.  A holding company, selling tickets by brand name only, no production level costs.  Sounds good on paper until you realize that translates to a company that is pure overhead.  Pure cost at its core.

Many would argue it is pure profit at its core and thus the perfect company; a self sustaining management team that produces nothing but revenue.  What it really is; is a business that doesn’t own the building.  What is to prevent any discount website from cutting a better deal with the suppliers of an airlines network?  In the brave new “IT” world that could be done in nanoseconds.

On the bottom end the Network Airlines have been outsourcing via small jet providers and pressuring them to slash costs by pitting them against each other.  On the top end they have been aggressively seeking partners to outsource International flying.

Every action causes an equal and opposite reaction.  (Newton’s Third Law of Motion/Physics)

On the top end a shifting alliance can leave a large hole in a network over night, with a subsequent catastrophic loss in revenue.  The JAL loss to One World illustrates the double edged nature of code share; here today gone tomorrow and no real control of an airlines own network.  On the bottom end the first reaction was Independent Air striking out on their own after UAL slashed their contract.  Ultimately; poorly structured, executed and underfunded it failed.  However; it cratered revenue on many UAL routes while it flew.  Republic has learned from Independent Air’s mistakes and is quietly building a National Airline that will compete directly with UAL in Denver via their latest acquisition, Frontier.

Network Airlines no longer own their buildings; their very networks are dependent on other companies at both ends of the scale.  They have outsourced their ability to cover costs, let alone make a consistent profit.  In true irony they have even outsourced their own management team’s ability to control revenue by dumping tickets on the Internet.

Within 12 years the vast majority of all airline pilots will be forced to retire.  The military has slashed pilot production and civilian flight schools are shuttering their doors.  The pending shortage will give the power to the suppliers as they move to the highest bidder.  Future networks could very easily collapse overnight.

The primary tenants of business are to control cost, revenue and especially the product.  Outsourcing surrenders that control to the lowest bidder.  In today’s world of globalization, some code share will be required on thin routes, but it is perilous to sacrifice your network for another’s for short term gain and the resultant instability.  Ultimately the proof is in the pudding; US Network Carriers, as a group, have not been profitable in a decade.  In that decade outsourcing has been the Holy Grail.

In the case of Flight 253, apparently we didn’t want to offend anyone.  The future terrorist of Flight 253 was turned in by his own father, a respected international  banker, as a danger to the USA.  But because he had not yet done an act of terrorism, no action was taken.  His visa was not pulled.

Then our terrorist decided to take a flight to the USA.  Apparently, the fact that he came from a country full of  terrorists currently in a civil war, fitting the profile of a terrorist, on a terrorist watch list, was not enough to get him a special screening.  You would have thought being on a terror watch list alone would be enough.  Especially after the warning, done in person by his father, to the U.S. Embassy.  No special screening was done.

It begs the question: if fitting the profile of a terrorist, coming from a nation full of terrorists, and being on a terrorist watch list, WITH a specific warning from a family member, does not get you a special screening, what does?

We are at war; just because some in this country don’t want it to be true doesn’t mean the Islamic terrorists will go away.  We know who our enemies are. Searching Granny is a joke.

I’ve had endless questions on Northwest’s lost communication and over flight of Minneapolis.  After hearing yet another “expert” jabber incoherently on cable, I’ll try and clear a few things up.   First, it is not unusual for an aircraft to go “lost comm” with control centers.  Especially in the west where radios can stay quiet for a long time.  An aircraft can fly out of range of a frequency, the pilots can miss the frequency switch, a stuck microphone can in effect jam the frequency or an equipment failure can occur. 

What was unusual was the over flight.  That means the crew missed the visual and aural cues.  Why?  At this point it is speculation; however the profile is similar to the GO flight in Hawaii, where the NTSB determined the crew fell asleep due to fatigue.   Fatigue is not limited to just falling asleep.  A general loss of SA (situational awareness) also is symptomatic of fatigue.  As the Delta flight that landed on a taxiway showed last week, it surfaces when things do not go according to plan.  An in flight emergency, frequency change, any distraction can cause a loss of SA to a fatigued crew. 

Standard industry contracts allowed airline crews to fly no more than a hard 75 hours ten or fifteen years ago.  After 911 most contracts were ravaged in bankruptcy proceedings, allowing crews at some airlines to go to 100 flight hours a month.  Factor in the average age of the cockpit crew and fatigue becomes a real concern.  Soon the major airlines will have more pilots in their 60’s than in their 40’s.  There are virtually no pilots in their 20’s anymore and only a handful in their 30’s at most legacy carriers.  In short you have a pilot group that is easier to fatigue, due to age, flying more hours a month than crews have flown in generations.

Harding is second row far left

WWII Bomber Pilot, First Lieutenant Bernard Harding, returned to Germany to find his pilot wings. Sixty five years had changed the village and he was not able to find them. The villagers even arranged a flight over the country side so that he could try and orient himself from the air.

It was not to be, he didn’t find the pilot wings he had buried in the corner of a cellar he was held in. And yet his mission was not a failure, in fact he is on a more important one now. Just before he left a villager handed him a bracelet with the name Jack Glenn on it. He had taken it from an American Airman shot down and killed in WWII.

“Bring it home to Glenn’s family.”

In Alaska, 87 year old Helen Foreman is waiting for her brother’s bracelet. Second lieutenant Glenn was shot down when he was 21. He is buried in Belgium. His fellow aviator, first Lieutenant Harding, is on his final mission of the war.

These are the stories I love to tell in my novels.

The runway where the jet was supposed to land, and the small taxiway next to it

Here is why it could have been tragic.  Runway 27R is the central runway to ATL’s 5 parallel runways with 3 parallel taxiways.  Two north, M and L and one south N; these taxiways are normally stacked with aircraft waiting to cross the numerous runways.  I sat for quite a few minutes on all three taxiways last week.  What a conflagration this could have been. 

The crew of Flight 60 had just flown a 10-hour, “all nighter” from Rio.  They had an onboard medical emergency.  I suspect that is why they were assigned the inboard runway, which is normally the takeoff runway.  There is a lot of distraction with a medical emergency. 

Fatigue shows when the normal routine gets disrupted.  I’ll say it again; fatigue shows when the normal routine gets disrupted.  This could very easily have been the worst disaster in aviation history.  All night, 10-hour flight–do you think fatigue played a part?