• Memories from 30 Years of Flying the Line

By Capt. Bill Austin
Flying Tigers/FedEx, Retired

  • A large handful of thrust levers, each one connected to 60,000+ pounds of thrust.
  • Rotating at VR and feeling 800,000 plus pounds of airplane come alive as she lifts off.
  • Hearing the nosewheel spin down against the snubber in the well after takeoff. A delightful sound signaling that you were on your way!
  • Punching out the top of a low overcast while climbing 6,000 feet per minute.
  • Cruising mere feet above a billiard-table-flat cloud deck at mach .86, with your chin on the glare shield and your face as close as you can get to the windshield.
  • The majesty and grandeur of towering cumulus. And maneuvering the airplane through canyons between them.
  • Cloud formations that are beautiful beyond description.
  • The delicate threads of St. Elmo’s Fire dancing on the windshield at night.
  • The twinkle of lights on the Japanese fishing fleet far below, and miles from any land, on a night crossing of the North Pacific.
  • Ice fog in Anchorage on a cold winter morning.
  • The patchwork quilt of the great plains from FL 370 on a day when you can see forever.
  • Seeing geologic formations that no ground-pounder will ever see.
  • The chaotic, non-stop babble of radio transmissions at O’Hare or Kennedy during the afternoon rush.
  • The quietness of center frequency at night during a transcontinental flight.
  • Dodging colored splotches of red and yellow light on the radar screen at night.
  • Lightning storms at night over the Midwest.
  • The welcome view of approach lights appearing out of the mist just as you reach minimums.
  • The soft, comforting glow of the instrument panel in a dark cockpit.
  • The dancing curtains of colored light of the aurora on a winter-night Atlantic crossing.
  • The taxiway names at O’Hare… before they were renamed: The Bridge, Lakeshore Drive, Old Scenic, New Scenic, the Bypass, Cargo, Outer, North-South… Anything to drive newcomers and especially foreigners crazy.

  • The majestic panorama of an entire mountain range stretched out beneath you from horizon to horizon.
  • Lenticular clouds over the Sierras.
  • Mono Lake and the steep wall of the Sierra Nevada range when approached from the east.
  • Yosemite Valley from above.
  • Sunsets of every color imaginable.
  • Seventy-thousand-foot-high thunderstorm clouds in the tropics.
  • The deep blue-gray of the sky at FL 430.
  • The Alps in winter.
  • The lights of London at night from FL350.
  • Squall lines that run as far as you can see.
  • Watching the lightning show while crossing the ITCZ at night
  • Exotic lands with exotic food.
  • Old Chinatown in Singapore… before it was torn down, modernized, and sterilized.
  • Long-tail boats speeding along the klongs in Thailand.
  • The quietly turning paddle fans in the lobby of the Raffles Hotel in Singapore.
  • A cold San Miguel in Hong Kong after a long day’s flying.
  • Ocean crossings.
  • The sound of foreign accents on the radio.
  • Luxury hotels.
  • To paraphrase the eloquent aviation writer, Ernie Gann, “The allure of the slit in a China girl's skirt.”
  • The taxiway sentry (with his flag & machine gun) at the old Taipei downtown airport.
  • Sipping Pina Coladas in a luxury hotel bar, while a typhoon rages outside.
  • Chinese Junks bobbing in Aberdeen harbor.
  • Watching the latitude count down to zero on the INS, and seeing it switch from "N" to "S" as you cross the equator.
  • Wake Island at sunrise.
  • Oslo Harbor at dusk.
  • Icebergs in the North Atlantic.
  • Contrails.
  • Pago Harbor, framed by puffy cumulus clouds in the late afternoon.
  • The camaraderie of a good crew.
  • Ferryboat races in Sydney Harbour.
  • Experiencing all the lines from the old Jo Stafford tune…
  • See the pyramids along the Nile.
  • See the sunrise on a tropic isle.
  • See the market place in old Algiers.
  • Send home photographs and souvenirs.
  • Fly the ocean in a silver plane.
  • See the jungle when it’s wet with rain.
  • White picket fences in Auckland.
  • Trade winds.
  • White sandy beaches lined with swaying palms.
  • The endless expanse of white on a polar crossing.
  • The hustle and bustle of Hong Kong Harbor.
  • The bus ride to Stanley...on the upper deck front seat of the double-decker bus.
  • The Star Ferry in Hong Kong.
  • The Peak tram in Hong Kong.
  • The bustle of Nathan Road on a summer day.
  • Bangkok after a tropical rain.
  • The Long Bar at the Raffles.
  • Heavy takeoffs from the reef runway at HNL.
  • Landings in the B-747 when the only way you knew you had touched down was the movement of the spoiler handle.
  • Jimmy’s Kitchen.
  • The deafening sound of tropical raindrops slamming angrily against the windshield, accompanied by the hurried slap, slap, slap of the windshield wipers while landing in a torrential downpour in Manila.
  • Endless ripples of sand dunes across the trackless miles of the Sahara desert.
  • Miller’s Pub in Chicago.
  • German beer. Even in the Bitburg Garden in HKG.
  • The white cliffs of Dover.
  • Oom-pa-pa music at the "Gemaltes Haus" in Frankfurt.
  • Double-decker buses in London.
  • The “Gas Station” in Frankfurt.
  • The Eiffel Tower.
  • Fjords in Norway.
  • The aimless compass, not knowing where to point as you near the top of the world on a polar crossing.
  • Breaking out of the clouds on the IGS approach to runway 13 at Kai Tak, and seeing a windshield full of "checkerboard" and as you approach into Kai Tak in a B-747 with your wingtip skimming the rooftops of Yau Yat Chen as you make the steep turn to final.
  • The old Charlie-Charlie NDB approach into Kai Tak.
  • The Burma Road.
  • Flight bags crammed with charts to exotic places.
  • An empty weight takeoff in a B-747.
  • The rush of a full-speed-brakes descent at barber pole in a B-727.
  • Sliding in over Crystal Springs reservoir for a visual approach and landing on 1R in SFO.
  • The smell of tropical blooms when you step off the plane in Fiji.
  • The quiet of a DC-10 cockpit.
  • Main gear touching down while the 747 cockpit is still 70 feet in the air.
  • The coziness of a B-747 cockpit.
  • Good co-pilots.
  • Good flight engineers.
  • Deadheading in First Class.
  • The Canarsie approach into JFK.
  • Max gross weight takeoffs.
  • Cross-wind landings.
  • The brief, yet tempting, glimpse of runway lights…. after you’ve already committed to the missed approach.
  • The tantalizing glow of the flashing strobe lights just before you break out of the clouds on approach.
  • CAT IIIb autolands in the DC-10 on a foggy day, when you feel the wheels touch before you ever see the ground.
  • “Leak-checking” your eyelids on a long night flight but then.....
  • Sunrises seen from the high flight levels that make the heart soar.
  • And, as one friend so perceptively pointed out, payday


© Bill Austin, March 2, 2006

1 comment:

  1. What an amazing, accurate and clever post! Your discriptions are spot on (@ least the one's I could relate to.) Those that I couldn't... were so well written and articulate, I felt like I'd been there too! I enjoyed this trip down memory lane very much! Again, Thank you!
    K
    Las Vegas, NV

    ReplyDelete