Grandployees

I’ve come to the conclusion that bosses want their employees to become managers for the same reason parents want their kids to have children. It's not just the obvious reason that they seek to extend their line and influence beyond what they themselves can do in a flat hierarchy. They seek the schadenfreude of seeing the subordinate suffer as the subordinate made them suffer.

Dear former Chief Pilots,
I am truly sorry for any time I needed to be reminded to give you my medical renewal, PPC report, completed exams, or any other bit of paper you have to keep track of. I had no idea of how much of a pain it was.

Love,
   Aviatrix

Communications Failure

No, there's nothing wrong with the radio, and the headset hasn't undergone a final disintegration. It's my mouth. I can't seem to get communications right with this customer. I try to be really communicative, because that's one of my strengths. I can express myself, explain things, recognize information that will help people make decisions, and share it in a way that is relevant and understandable to them. I've never fallen prey to the desire for power through withholding information. Yay for me! But I keep telling these customers things that make them angry.

For example, I received a text from my company about our planned maintenance schedule. I called the customer to get his approval on that plan, and while there was nothing wrong with the plan, and we were willing to change it if there was, the customer was unhappy. I believe he felt ambushed because a mere pilot knew before he did. I should have waited until my boss told his boss and his boss told him, so he'd know in a day or so, instead of my getting the information to him as soon as possible.

It just seems wrong to me to have information that someone needs and wants, and that is intended for him anyway, but to be obliged to withhold it until it arrives through the proper channels.

It's not all cruising along above the mountains, joking with ATC and recalculating my fuel reserves.

How to Turn Around a B767

From the tiny to the giant. After the time it took to refuel the ultralight at every stop, I was intrigued by this website, optimizing the efficiency of block in to block out of a Boeing 767. It shows how different services are required by a large passenger airplane and how to best arrange the servicing vehicles to access the various orifices on the airplane.

I like the project management bar graphs showing the time required and available for each service. They take into account details like the fact that some last minute baggage may be thrown on while the main baggage conveyor is being put away. There are also very detailed tables showing the airflow rate required from ground carts for pneumatic engine start at different air temperatures and altitudes, and the requirements for ground towing vehicles. The latter is as complex as a take-off performance chase chart, with reference lines and slopes to follow for aircraft weight, traction wheel load, engine thrust resistance (even at idle the engine is resisting a backwards push), and seven different surface conditions, from dry concrete to ice.

You know how hot a car is when you return to it on a hot day. The usual technique is to open all the windows so the really hot air can escape before blasting the air conditioner. The problem with the hot vehicle scales up, but the doors on a Boeing are pretty small and only the front windows open, so the solution doesn't. There are tables here showing how long to expect it to take to cool (or heat) an airplane using ground services.

If makes sense that aircraft designers and airline planners put thought and effort into the efficiency of the turnaround, because the incredible speed of an airplane can easily be wasted waiting for the right things to be loaded and unloaded on the ground.

Don't Tow Me, Bro

FBOs typically monitor the ground control radio frequency, so that when you request taxi to that FBO, they know you are coming and can be ready to wave you in. Otherwise they just see you trudling onto their apron and zip out with their little flashlights to tell you where to park.

Some marshall you into rock star parking right in front of the door, and then tow your airplane to an appropriate place after you have unloaded. Like valet parking, except you don't need to give them the key, just leave the parking brake off. Others marshall you directly into a parking spot, usually marked out with a T on the ground, with your fuselage over the upright and your wings along the crosspiece. Then they usually offer you a ride to the door.

Not long ago I followed the line guys' signals to park in one of these T-marked spots, put on my parking brake, and shut down. They chocked the wheels and as I locked the back door I asked them if they would need to tow the airplane. "Nope," said the guys. "It's going to be fine right there."

"Good," I said, "Because I left the parking brake on."

When I came back, the airplane was not where I left it. It had been towed. With the brake set. This is the sort of thing that makes pilots unhappy. I went out to the airplane and into the cockpit to release the parking brake. Then I crawled underneath to inspect the brake pads. They had been new. They didn't look excessively or irregularly worn. This could mean that they didn't grip, or that they gripped all too well. I went inside and explained what had happened, and asked for the airplane to be towed forward a little, so I could inspect the underside of the tires. The line guys who came to help were different, the other had gone off shift. They thought it was odd that the airplane had been towed and were trying to work out who it had been.

I think I have some pictures of what happens to a tire that has been moved forward while locked. Sometimes this happens if a pilot lands with his or her feet on the brakes, or locks up the wheels by braking heavily after landing. I really don't want to see this on my airplane.

The towing device they have is different from what I consider normal. I'm used to a towing bar shaped like a giant tuning fork. The fork hooks into either side of the hub of the nosewheel, and then the wheel is pulled along the ground. This device actually goes under the nosewheel and lifts it up. They tow it forward inch by inch and I'm watching for a flat spot to emerge from under the tire. But there's no damage. The tire shows no sign at all of having been dragged. "Phew!" I say. "Thanks for helping me check that."

A manager has been alerted and comes up as I'm discovering that everything is okay. He apologizes, recognizes that this should not have happened, and explains that they have a system where not-to-be-towed airplanes get a different colour chocks than ok-to-tow airplanes, so he is going to investigate what happened here. I accept the apology. It turns out that no harm has been done, so I can relax. I guess the brakes released. That's why you're not supposed to trust parking brakes overnight.

I'm a kind of stereotypical customer in that respect. I can be mollified by someone who simply treats me with respect and acknowledges that I have been wronged. If the tires had been damaged I probably would have insisted on at least free labour to change them. They had their own shop. My airplane tires are actually pretty cheap, and I'd done a lot of business with them. And I would have accepted some kind of compromise to that effect. So I leave still a happy customer, just a more watchful one. I can buy a DO NOT TOW tag, I imagine. Or just not set the brakes.

Flyover Country

It's minus one and snowing lightly at dawn next morning in Montana. I'm glad I had my lined jacket for the walkaround inspection. The wind is still blowing, not nearly as strongly, but enough to keep the dry snow from settling on the airplane. Visibility is good, but I'm up early to get out of here before a front arrives and blocks in the Montana mountains.

The first picture is of a butte, a rock structure that there's even a town named after in Montana. They always make me think of Roadrunner cartoons, but I didn't see any coyotes this trip, let alone coyotes on rocket skates. Can anyone see what I forgot to do this morning, that the May 29th entry and preflight inspection suggested I should have done?

I manage to escape the Montana hills without being swallowed up by the clouds, and begin the more routine part of my transcontinental journey. The sparsely-populated middle of the United States, from say Idaho to Wisconsin to Arkansas to Utah, is sometimes termed Flyover Country. This refers to the fact that people from the heavily populated centres on the east and west coasts don't go there, only fly over, on their way from one coast to the other, or on the way to Florida or Arizona. I'm not sure if it's any more derogatory than "grainbelt," but for me the term is not quite accurate. I can't make it coast to coast or from Canada to Florida on one load of gas. For me, it's fuel stop country.

I often have to go from hither to yon, with very little notice and I simply draw a line on the map, then look for airports of a reasonable size four or five hours apart along the route. Right now I might as well be using a dartboard. For example, I considered landing in Omaha, Nebraska merely because the insurance company Mutual of Omaha sponsored a wildlife program I watched when I was little. One of those shows composed mainly of dramatic footage of large predators either killing or barely missing large ungulates while a narrator applied adjectives and dramatic truths of life to the animals and their dinners. As it was I landed in Lincoln, Nebraska instead, where I had excellent service. They loaned me a nice vehicle to go and get lunch while they fuelled the airplane and cleaned the windows.

But I also I saw a new low in corporate tipping policy in Lincoln. Lunch was at Quizno's, a sandwich chain store, and there was a sign on each cash register: "Tips are appreciated and will be pooled by management for employee events and rewards (separate account)." So yes, the management solicits but steals any tips the employees get, and then gives them back and calls that "rewarding" the employees. I don't normally tip fast food employees, but I suppose I might if I felt that a particular individual did something outstanding for me. But whether fast food employees should be tipped is totally irrelevant to this issue: the management of Quizno's has just told me, in bold letters, that they don't care enough about their employees to reward them themselves. I submitted my opinion of that to the corporate website and have since twice avoided eating at Quizno's, even though it was probably a local restaurant policy.

Anyone have recommendations for quick middle-of-the-country fuel stops? I want quick but not-too-bad-for-me food, fuel, preferably pumped by someone else so I can eat while they do it, deicing in the winter, clean washrooms, friendly service, and simple maintenance available if I should need it. It would be a bonus if there were something interesting in town, even just the world's biggest ball of string, or a giant letter on the local hill, in case it's an overnight stop and I have time to take in the sight. Quizno's not required.

A Particular Bit of Paper

Keeping track of bits of paper lends little glamour to aviation, but it's part of your job as a pilot and carries significant penalties if not properly done. It's true that the airplane flies just as well with and without paper, but a discrepancy in paperwork can point the way to a safety issue in the airplane itself. And I have a story, which I believe is true, told to me by someone who works in a charter company flight department. Identifying information has been changed to keep everyone out of more trouble than they're already in. It's a story about how a lack of paperwork tried to kill people.

It starts with e-mail between the flight department and the company's assigned Transport Canada inspector. The company was working on an amended Operations Manual (amending manuals is a never-ending process, and all changes must be approved by Transport), so the e-mail was in relation to that

Please look at Appendix "B" amendment #3, shouldn't this be Appendix "C"?

Because, you know, the airplane is going to crash and burn if the pages in the manual aren't numbered correctly. The savvy ops manager leaves a few easily rectified errors of this type in the manual, so that Transport can spot them, and then, feeling useful, approve the corrected version. But the e-mail continued.

I received a notice today that you have removed VBP from your operating certificate, did you sell the aircraft?

It was the second part that chilled my informant's blood. The inspector received a notice that the company removed VBP? That's not a good sign, as VBP was parked at an airport overseas, ready to fly back to Canada early that afternoon. A telephone call to the inspector confirmed that according to Transport Canada licencing, the airplane in question was no longer registered to the company. What? Airplane identity theft?

The airplane I'm calling VBP was not owned by the company, but leased. That's not in itself a problem; leasing is a perfectly acceptable tool in fleet management. In order for an airplane owned by another party to appear on a Canadian operating certificate, there needs to be paperwork. In this case the lessor and the lessee had signed a lease agreement granting use of the airplane for one year. Problem was that that paperwork had been signed and dated fourteen months earlier. A replacement lease agreement was actually signed in the month after the expiry of the first one, but due to a change in personnel in the company, and the rate at which paper accumulates in aviation, the new agreement didn't get sent to Transport. It didn't get sent anywhere, was just quietly buried like an archeological treasure, on someone's desk.

When Transport didn't receive proof of a renewal of the agreement, they cancelled VBP's registry. And fortunately the person responsible had a strong heart, for he survived the shock of discovery.

This is where it pays to have established a reputation for doing ones best to comply with the regulations. The person into whose desk strata the document had been fossilized made the confessional call to the head of the appropriate Transport Canada department.

"How do I reinstate this aircraft."

"Well, is VBJ on the ground?"

"Yes"

"Then it's really easy - just get the aircraft copy of the C of R and fill out the form on the back of it, then fax it in to me."

"Umm, the thing about that is the airplane is on the ground, but it's in another country."

"Oh"....long pause...."Well I guess we'll have to do it the hard way."

Transport faxed some forms to fill out, and then they had to go online in order to pay $60 for a temporary Certificate of Registration and $110 for a permanent one, and print out the receipts. Next step was to fax in those receipts, along with the completed forms, and wait and hope every t was crossed and i dotted.

Meanwhile the crew of VBP were far away, innocently preparing to depart for Canada. A call from company advised the captain to pick up a fax from the FBO before he left. He said sure and went back to preparing for the flight.

VBP was scheduled to depart at 1 pm, and at 12:47 pm the temporary C of R rolled out of the company fax machine in Canada. They turned around and faxed it to the overseas FBO, where the missing paperwork tried a second time to claim the life of a pilot.

Despite the $3-per-minute charge, the overseas pilot called the home office using his personal cellphone. "What the hell? Why do I have a new C of R?"

"Long story. Just be glad you have it."

"What do you guys do in the office all day? Think of ways to give me a heart attack?"

"Yes. Yes we do."

That's the real reason they give us an ECG every second medical. They need to make sure our hearts can withstand this kind of shock.

Checklists: Not Just for Pilots Anymore

The air regulations require checklists, and pilots can fail flight tests for improper checklist use, even if they actually completed all the required items, but it doesn't mean every pilot uses one every time. Some operators inadvertently encourage this through providing overly long, poorly formatted and difficult to use checklists.

In my career I have watched macho captains deliberately skip checklist items, or even entire checklists. I have been bullied for using the checklist, and told not to come back tomorrow unless I had the checklist memorized. I know someone who failed a PPC check on an accusation of improper checklist use. (It turned out the examiner was using the wrong checklist, so that occurrence magically disappeared from the candidate's record).

Despite pilot machismo, or passenger apprehension that following a checklist means you don't know what you're doing, checklists are a cheap, simple way to improve safety in a complex environment. A reader sent me this fascinating article on checklist use in the medical profession. The idea was initially met with skepticism, and derided as time wasting, but the lifesaving results were dramatic enough to win converts.

It made me cry, and gave me a new dedication to my own checklists.