Greetings folks, First of all, a sincere wish for a Happy New Year to everyone! Secondly, here’s hoping that any recovery from the residual trauma of the holidays is coming along nicely. It’s too bad that as we get older, most of us lose our sense of innocence and joy for that time of year. I vividly remember one Christmas finding a big, red fire engine under the tree, and the rest of that day was spent in little boy heaven. It seems a bit sad that we see those once-magical days through older eyes.

A personal note before the next “Logbook” entry.

As that big, sparkly orb touched down in New York City the other night, I sat wondering just what the next 365 days have in store for this weathered old aviator. About a month ago, I awoke to a strange medical issue, and as of yet, the dudes in the long white coats don’t really know why. It’s not life-threatening (so far as I know at this time), but it is serious. The good news is that (in most all cases) it reverses itself; the bad news is the cause leaves a ton of questions unanswered (with regards to the FAA, my career, my future, etc).

My faith, my family, my friends, and my love of aviation in all its forms (“real” and virtual”) will get me through this. However, as I think ahead to that night, just a shade under a year from now (when I find myself again counting down the last moments of another calendar), will I still be a pilot employed by a major U.S. airline? As the previous “Logbook” entry noted, I’ve been down this road many years ago, and it’s not pleasant. It’s a trip full of sleepless nights, blank stares, and lots of unanswered questions. But as I’m fond of saying, “life is a journey,” and if my journey as a pilot is finished, then I thank God for a most unbelievable trek through the skies.

I’ll keep ya in the loop. Here’s the tale…

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“Laughter and Heartache”

Aviation is a wonderful thing, but at times, it can be a schizophrenic mistress. I’ve seen some of the most outrageously humorous stuff in and around flying machines, and conversely, some of the most sad and tragic. While paging back through my old flying logbooks, I stumbled onto the following stories.

Tony.

To start on a humorous note, let us travel back to a time when life seemed to be simple and far more straightforward than nowadays. There was no such animal as the internet (“Oh my God!”), Ronald Reagan had been elected barely a week hence, and it looked like the hostage crisis from the other side of the planet might be coming to an end. The date was the 9th of November, 1980, and yours truly had just been blessed to fly as an honest-to-gosh airline Captain. OK, maybe not as a “four-striper” for a major airline, that wouldn’t come for another 14 years, and although it was for JUST a “commuter” (or as they’re known nowadays, a regional), it was nonetheless a big deal in my life.

The aircraft was the venerable Model 99 from those great folks at Beechcraft; basically a Model B-100 King Air, but without the usual “frivolous airliner” amenities. Things like an autopilot, pressurization, a flight attendant, a cockpit door, etc. … you know … the useless stuff.  She was configured to seat 15 passengers (or, as we liked to refer to them, “daredevils”), but it might as well have been a 400-passenger Boeing 747. The training was done in the middle of the night, for we had no simulators at this little dog and pony show, and the aircraft were far too busy during the daylight hours to pull off the line. The check-ride with the FAA went very well, and on this date, I was to finally be in command of an “airliner” filled with trusting souls.  I was adorned in my spiffy new uniform, complete with a pair of clean underwear AND a little case of the nerves. But I was ready.  I had all my ducks in a row; I was paired with a very competent First Officer, and the weather could not have been more beautiful. I was as ready as I would ever be…now, all I needed was to do it.

(Newly minted “Capt. BBall.” 30 years and 30 pounds ago…lol.)

I was tasked to fly the “second shift” that day, and it was scheduled to be a long day in the cockpit. We were tasked to leave my home base of Fayetteville, Arkansas, at precisely 1:10 pm, fly to Little Rock,  then to Memphis, back to Little Rock, up to Fayetteville, on to Kansas City, and finally return to Fayetteville just before midnight. I reported in early (just like that first day of Kindergarten) and walked down to the flight line (hoping my jacket with the “new” four gold stripes on the sleeves didn’t look too obvious). Again, anxious but ready to tackle whatever the day had in store. However, something important to my day was missing….N749A, the aircraft I was scheduled to fly. Thirty minutes prior, before leaving the Flight Operations Building and heading for the flight line, I checked the computer to see if the inbound flight had left Ft. Smith en route to Fayetteville. It showed it had indeed left the gate on time.

Odd…Ft. Smith lies roughly twenty minutes flying time due south of the home base, and after doing the math, I expected the bird to be landing about the time I had walked the 500 or so yards to passenger terminal ramp. It was nowhere to be seen. Being both puzzled and concerned with their tardiness, I checked the “crew orders” to see who was flying it inbound. Here, the mystery began to unravel a bit, for in command of this ship was the “other” new Captain on the block, “Tony.” He wasn’t a bad pilot; it was more like he had a black cloud following him around (of course the fact that he was a “nervous Nellie” type didn’t help). Couple the two, and it left him with the tag of “unlucky.” He and I went through Captain upgrade training in the middle of the night together, so I got to see his operation up close and personal. At times it was less than stellar, but then everyone has a bad day now and then.

Time was starting to tick by with no sign of the airplane, and no sign of Tony. My First Officer had walked up, and we both began to ponder what was happening. How could Tony leave the gate on time, and now, almost an hour later, still be somewhere that was not here? Had they suffered some mechanical difficulty? The weather was “severe clear,” so that was certainly not a part of the problem. Heaven forbid the thought, but had they gone down somewhere? I was on the phone with our company flight controller (our version of an airline’s dispatcher), and both he and I were beginning to get a little more than concerned. About this time, I looked up to see that beautiful red and white twin turbine touching down on runway 34…. I was relieved, to say the least, but I was still curious as hell. What on earth would cause an airplane to take over an hour to make a:20 flight?

Company procedures for this machine dictated that upon reaching the parking spot, the Captain would shut down the left engine, leaving the right engine running at idle, using the residual thrust to balance the weight of the passengers deplaning from the aft left door. The First Officer would make his way back through the cabin, open the aft door, deplane, and assist the passengers as they made their way down the airstairs. On this day, Tony was not doing things according to our SOP, but according to his STPAFU (Standard Tony Procedures, All Forked Up). When they came to a stop, he didn’t shut off the left engine. Nonetheless, the F/O got out of his seat, opened the aft door, made his way to the bottom of the aircraft stairs, and began to assist the passengers. I was fairly close to the aircraft, and when the F/O looked at me, I pointed to my watch to signify a WTF?; all he could do was roll his eyes (and yell over the noise of the Pratt and Whitney PT6’s to tell Tony to “shut down the left engine!”….Tony wasn’t hearing him). The poor guy was having a devil of a time fighting the prop wash, and as every passenger deplaned down the steps, they were fairly blown off the steps. They were all saying something about a “moron, idiot, jerk, etc.” …I noticed something else…. something very different from most passengers getting off an airliner. Many of them had their hands and sleeves covered in dirt and grease, and they were NOT looking pleased about it! What the hell had happened?

When the last person had deplaned and was angrily walking toward the terminal, the F/O launched himself back up the steps, went forward to the cockpit, quickly shut down both engines, then got his kit bag and deplaned. He looked mortified…. or maybe it was highly pissed off…I could not tell.  Here, the mystery began to unfold.

(I truly loved flying the Beech 99.)

He explained that upon taking the runway for departure in Ft. Smith, Captain Tony began his “nervous Nellie” routine and started to fiddle with the “condition levers” on the throttle quadrant. For those who have never flown a turbo-prop aircraft, the condition levers are roughly the equivalent of the mixture controls on a recip-powered aircraft. For takeoff, these are positioned in the “full forward” position, but for some reason, Tony had reverted to his “STPAFU” program, and decided it was time to “adjust” them. He inadvertently moved them far enough aft to SHUT DOWN BOTH OF THE ENGINES! Yep, you read that right; the aircraft is sitting on the runway, take-off clearance has been received, and Tonly shuts down both engines! According to the First Officer, in the process of restarting one of the engines (remember all the aircraft radios are on, transponder on, landing lights on, etc. so in other words, he is a bit “overdrawn” on the battery voltage with no engine generators online), he ran the battery dead! Not to worry…it gets better.

They now find themselves on an active runway, both engines off, and a dead battery. This means they have no way to tell anyone, like the ATC Control Tower, that they are “dead in the water”.  I’m not 100% sure, but I’m fairly certain we did not cover that scenario in Captain upgrade training (maybe we did and, I wasn’t listening).! He did the only thing he could think of at the time (probably in his STPAFU) …. “Got to move this machine off the runway, but how? Well, we got an F/O and about a dozen “able-bodied” passengers in the back.” Seems perfectly logical …. right? He grabbed the P.A. microphone and gave an announcement that probably had not been heard since the “Lone Eagle” took the Spirit of St. Louis across the pond.  “Folks, this is your Capt. speaking; it’s time you got off your big fat asses, get out and push this baby off the runway!” (Probably not what he said, but my twisted cranium couldn’t help itself).  He somehow got all the passengers to deplane, and then, while he steered the plane, those who could push… pushed! About this time in the story, the First Officer was about to boil over at the retelling, he just shook his head and stormed off toward the employee parking lot.

I made my way up the stairs and headed for the cockpit. I found Tony still in his seat, staring at his lap, and pretty much in “la la land.” I helped him pack up his stuff, went through the “shut down and securing checklist” with him, then generally herded him off the aircraft and pointed him toward the Flight Operations Building (I’m sure he was going to have a bit of explaining to do).  I slowly realized that no matter what my “first day” was to throw at me, it was going to be a breeze compared to that. I have to confess, I spent most of the day chuckling at the image of a dozen businessmen pushing an “airliner” off the runway…hehe.

As mentioned above, it seems that every “rib tickler” that the world of flying machines throws at you always brings you back to earth with a big dose of reality.  This November day in 1976,  found me living life as a twenty-year-old student attending an aviation college in Oklahoma…. life was damn good. I was attending classes and logging flight time toward my Commercial Pilots License (this entailed tons of solo flying, which was ALWAYS better than flying under the microscopic eyes of an instructor). For extra cash toward tuition, I was also working part-time washing and waxing the university aircraft which entailed that I bicycle the ten or so miles to work every day after class (I didn’t own a car until my senior year). They were some of the salad days of my youth, and I generally felt that I had the world by its proverbial “testicular orbs.”

Just after eleven that morning, as I made my way down the two-lane blacktop to the airport, I noticed lots of vehicle traffic headed for the airfield…. then that nightmarish vehicle raced past….an ambulance. A horrible feeling hit me square in the gut, “Oh shit, someone has crashed,” I thought, and unfortunately, that awful assumption would prove to be right. As I got to the the flight line, I noticed a large group of vehicles were positioned at the end of runway 17, including the ambulance. I asked the first person I encountered what had happened, and with an ashen face, they said that there had been a mid-air collision. It was the big horror we feared at this busy little airfield, for we had no Air Traffic Control facility. Each airplane was responsible for keeping a safe distance from the other air traffic. It was a strictly “do it as the book says, report in the blind over the Unicom frequency, and keep your eyes OUTSIDE the cockpit at all times” type of operation. So far, it had worked like a charm; this time, it hadn’t.

 

(Sectional chart showing my home field…KDUA.)

This accident was a tragedy in the truest sense of the word (all accidents are tragic; this one just seemed more so somehow). One of the aviation students (who lived in Dallas) was flying his Grumman American AA-5 into town to continue his flight training, thus fulfilling his degree requirements. At the same time, at an airport about twenty miles to the southwest (just across the border in Texas), a group of airshow pilots were practicing for a show that was to be held that weekend. As fate would have it, we were the one airport in the area that sold 80/87 octane avgas…the preferred fuel for the Pitts Special machines they flew. Lots of the airshow guys were flying up to top off their tanks.

Like yours truly, this student was young (21) and lived with the dream of someday becoming a professional aviator. He was moderately experienced; had logged just under 250 total hours, and held his Commercial Pilot’s License along with an Instrument Rating (allowing him to legally and safely fly in bad weather). It would not be needed on this fine morning, for Mother Nature had provided sunny skies and calm winds…a gorgeous day to be a pilot. He was operating a Grumman American AA-1B and had done everything “by the book” as he approached our non-ATC controlled airport. He had entered the traffic pattern from a 45-degree heading to a downwind leg at the correct altitude (just like the book said), had reported over the Unicom frequency (again, by the book), had turned a base leg to final (reporting both over the radio), and was suddenly hit from above by something. He spun into the ground and died…. simple as that. All by the book.

What had happened? One of the “hotshot” airshow pilots had flown over the airfield above the correct altitude, flown an irregular traffic pattern, pulled the nose of his aerobatic machine sharply up, and entered a multiple spin descent with the intention of recovering a few hundred feet above the ground, and land. A NOT BY THE BOOK, totally cool, hotshot, “airshow arrival.’ Ray Charles could see what happened. As he was in “airshow mode,” and deep into his spinning descent on the final leg, he spun right down onto the little Grumman. Lady Luck was smiling on him this bright sunny Fall morning, for he was able to recover his Pitts and land safely. Over the years, I have often thought…. was he indeed lucky? He would have a lifetime to think about how his little “airshow” had cost another person their life. In shock, I made my way to the crash site, but I won’t tell you what I saw. Thank you, “Mistress Aviation,” one more dose of reality in a long line of many.

Buzz.

The next “giggle-fest” I will retell also took place at the “commuter” airline. For some strange reason, I was paired many times with brand spanking new First Officers for their first few weeks on the line, but for this day, I drew one of the “old head” F/Os. He was one of the best pilots I had ever met and just happened to be my old college roommate and lifelong dear friend. Oh, did I mention it was New Year’s Eve of 1980, AND (I swear) there was a full moon? Have you ever decided NOT to go out on New Year’s Eve because you just did not want to mix it up with all the “amateur” drunks? Well, in this case, we had no choice. Amateur drunks were destined to be a huge part of our evening.

It was nearing the end of a very long day. Buzz and I (his birth name was Steve, but he gained the moniker “Buzz” in college after returning from many a solo flight with grass hanging from various parts of the landing gear and fuselage) had already flown six legs (approximately 6+ hours in the air). Before we could take this horse to the barn, we had to fly from Memphis to Springfield, MO, then the 30-minute or so flight to Fayetteville and call it a year. Sounds simple, right? Remember the “amateur drunks” mentioned earlier? As the passengers filed out to board the Beech 99 as flight 485 in Memphis bound for Springfield, I could tell something was bothering Buzz. Being rather busy in the cockpit, being as vigilant as I could be with “civilians” around the aircraft and the right engine running (we pulled the same residual thrust trick enplaning that we did deplaning), I didn’t get a chance to recon who we had drawn to accompany us on the flight to southeast Missouri this winter night, but you can bet that Buzz noticed. As soon as he had the cabin door closed and was seated in the cockpit, he put on his David Clarke headset and began to give me the rundown on the cast of characters on our little “ship of fools.”

(My dear friend Steve “Buzz” Baker [R] and yours truly on a charter flight during those crazy 1980s… sadly, I lost him to cancer a few years ago. I miss him to this day.)

He started by again, confirming that somewhere in the universe, there was indeed a full moon. We had drawn about half a dozen “daredevils” to accompany us on this New Year’s Eve, and I am not sure any of them were completely “normal.” First up on our manifest were “the sisters.” They were in their mid-teens, were identical twins escorted by Mom, and obviously were not watching the same “I-Max movie” that the rest of us were. His exact statement was something to the effect of, “When they filed past me at the boarding door, they looked at me like I was DINNER!” … not good; probably too many viewings of “The Silence of the Lambs” (shudder).

Next, we had a few redneck/truck driver types headed home for a day or two respite from their life of “white line fever,” and we had the required young couple “first time on a little airplane” holding hands in a vise-like grip trying not to be TOO terrified. Lastly, we had HIM. Late sixties, grey “hadn’t shaved in a week” stubble, requisite, worn to hell, “John Deere” tractor hat, the big “won this at the rodeo” cowboy belt buckle (I’m sure with some sort of excrement still on his boots), constantly cussing and bitching about who knows what. He got on the airplane last, sat in the last row of seats, and off we went. As we taxied out, I snuck a quick peek through the curtain into the cabin and muttered, “Ol’ Lordy, it’s gonna be one of those flights.”

After an uneventful departure, we climbed into an incredibly clear, star-filled night sky. N8099R was purring like only a well-functioning flying machine can. Memphis Center ATC was quiet and accommodating (they had already given us a radar vector for a direct routing to Springfield), and life was looking pretty good. Then it started. Someone, not sure who, but I have my suspicions, had boarded with their own libations and was proceeding to pass the jug around and get a BIG start on that time-honored tradition of getting “butt-faced drunk” on the eve of a new year.

I’ve never been a fan of mixing airplanes and alcohol, especially unsupervised. Still, at this point, all I could do was get on the P.A. system and advise them to hold off on their little celebration until after we landed in Missouri. This didn’t go over too well; in fact, I think that even the “sisters” told me to “eat feces and expire” (or something to that effect). The farther west we flew, the more toasted they became. EVERYONE in the back of the plane was getting pretty drunk, especially Cletus (my new name for Mister Personality, who boarded last). He was becoming very loud and seemed to be directing his tirade at us in the cockpit. I pulled back an earpiece on the headset to hear just what he was pontificating about….it went something like this: “Why I was a tail gunner in a B-17 back in the BIG ONE, and I’m gonna come up there and kick your two young asses and show you how to fly one of these things!” Great, apparently, Cletus was not your typical “happy drunk.”

(The view that “Cletus” may have had…only at night and much blurrier.)

At this, Buzz gave me the “ok, Boss, what are we gonna do now?” look. As I saw it, we had two choices: either wait until he made good on his threat (and whack him in the head with the fire extinguisher) or get this bird to a higher altitude and try and put them ALL to sleep. “Hello Memphis Center, Skyways 485 requesting higher”, “Skyways 485, you’re the only airplane over northern Arkansas, what would you like?” Again, we were unpressurized, so we had to either stay below 10,000 or, for anything higher for more than 30 minutes, we had to be on supplemental oxygen…..which we didn’t have. “Memphis Center, Skyways 485 requesting 12,000 for about 20 minutes”, “Skyways 485 climb and maintain 12 thousand feet, let us know when you want to descend”. Great, hope it works like the books said it would.

To make a long story short….it worked like a charm. By the time we got to altitude and started our gradual descent back below 10K, they were all off to dreamland. I would have to guess the “sisters” were dreaming of a “Buzz dinner,” the truck drivers were dreaming of home (anyone’s home), the young couple a long life together, and Cletus? I’m guessing he had “visions of Flying Fortresses dancing like sugarplums in his head.” I also bet that noggin of his was pounding like a sledgehammer as he woke up on landing in Springfield…..happy NEW YEAR, Cletus!

Gordon.

Gordon Shattles is (and always will be) my favorite flight instructor, bar none. He was vastly different than the rest of us college types. A few years older than us and married with lots of kids. In the mid-’70s, he was a true “geeks geek” (he actually wore the black horned-rimmed glasses and had a pocket protector with about four thousand pens in it) …. but he was one incredible flight instructor. We would log hours together peering over Jeppesen approach plates, Low Altitude Enroute charts, SIDs, STARS, etc., and all at his dinner table (you know what a home-cooked meal is like for a bunch of college kids? Like air to a drowning man). He taught us everything we needed to learn to break out of the confines of being a VFR-only driver and become a “real pilot” with the coveted Instrument Rating in our pocket. It was very apparent that he loved teaching it, and he was damned good at it. For anyone who has ever gone through any formal IFR training, it can be very daunting. It’s like learning 1) a new language and 2) how to fly all over again, only with precision. You must hone your “flying by instruments only” skills to be within a gnat’s ass of being PERFECT. It is challenging, but with the right person in the Instructor’s seat teaching you, it can also be a huge amount of fun.

(VOR/DME approach to runway 35 at my home field. Gordon taught us this new language.)

I will never forget one flight he and I took during my IFR training. It was an early Fall evening, and the Oklahoma air just before sunset was smoother than a baby’s bottom. Gordon and I had been in the Cessna 172 for over an hour doing the usual things…holding patterns, basic air work, NDB approaches, etc. (all flown by me while wearing “the hood,” a plastic device that fits over your head such as to make only the instrument panel visible to the student). At this point, Gordon began to give me “vectors” to line us up for a straight-in approach to our runway 17. He relayed that since I was doing so well, he was going to give me a “simulated” ASR approach. Just like in the movies, this is where the ATC guy gives you headings and rates of descent to fly an imaginary localizer and glideslope all the way down to an altitude whereby you look up, see the runway, and “take over visually,” usually about 100-200 feet above the ground. In the movies, it usually comes at the climax to a harrowing flight; in my case, it was simply tons of fun.

As we neared what I thought would be our “decision height,” he said to stay under the hood with these words (I’ll never forget them) ….” you’re landing your 747 at London Heathrow; it’s just gone “zero-zero” in the fog….so you’re going to take this all the way to touchdown.” I remember asking him if he really wanted to do this, and he did not reply. He continued to calmly give me SMALL heading changes, SMALL rate of descent changes, and within a few minutes…. WHAM!… a fairly firm touchdown on the runway…. ALL UNDER THE HOOD! I couldn’t decide if this guy was totally crazy or the best damn instructor I’ve ever seen. The only thing I didn’t care about during all of this was that he would not let me remove the hood! He continued to give me headings down the taxiway, turn on to the ramp, and up to the gas pump (remember Heathrow was “socked in”). My buddies were working the gas pumps, and I think they all got a Texas-sized giggle out of watching me taxi up with that big white plastic thingy strapped to my head. Oh well, at least Gordon thought we were cool!

The Mistress we all loved (and hated) would not shine her love on Gordon for long. His young life came to an end a few years later over my hometown skies of Dallas, Texas. He was flying a Cessna Conquest turboprop for a small corporation, and I’m sure he was doing a super job as their pilot. On this day, he had filed his IFR flight plan, departed into one of the busiest air corridors in the world, and promptly collided with a student on their first solo cross-country. This person had inadvertently wandered into the DFW Class B airspace (it was known as a TCA…or Terminal Control Area back then), was on a VFR flight plan, but wasn’t talking to any ATC facility (a huge violation of the FARs…Federal Aviation Regulations).  So, Gordon, his passengers, and this student pilot came together at exactly the wrong place and exactly the wrong time in the vast Texas skies, and their collision resulted in a crash with no survivors. Again, though he was operating by the book (I’m certain he would do it no other way), FATE was the hunter, and my instructor and good friend paid the ultimate price. Aviation lost a true pilot on that fateful day.

Addendum #1.

Roughly a year had passed since my first day as a Captain at the little airline, and I had completely forgotten about the “pushing the airliner” incident. I was in Memphis between flights one afternoon, so after lunch, I was spending a few peaceful moments before my next flight gazing out of the terminal window and daydreaming. A few minutes into this, a group of people came strolling past my six o’clock, and according to their conversation, they seemed to be there meeting “grandma,” who had gotten off one of our flights. As they passed behind me, I could hear the old lady loudly proclaiming, “Yeah, that’s right, the last time I flew this airline, we all had to get out of the airplane and help PUSH IT OFF THE RUNWAY!” I laughed so hard I almost spewed my hot dog and Cola…thanks Tony, I needed that.

Addendum #2.

In 2014, I received an email. So, what, why was this email so important? It remains one of the most important emails of my life, for it allowed me to see that my friend Gordon’s world did not end that fateful day over Dallas; it did, in fact, live on.  The author of this amazing email was Gordon’s sister. She told me of running a search for his name on the internet, and it turned up (among other sites) the URL to my article. She read the piece and contacted me. She told me of how she had relayed the gist of my article to her parents (in their 80s) and how it “really touched them.” That was wonderful to hear, but the thing that pinged my heart the most was her information concerning Gordon’s sons. She told of how two of the three young men had graduated from college (one now attending law school) and how they had begun their adult lives in earnest.

I had often wondered about his wife and sons, for (as mentioned earlier) during those early days of my aviation journey, Gordon would routinely invite his students over for dinner. We would glimpse his life as a husband and father, and it was beyond good for our young (read sometimes wild) souls to see. He would share his family meal table, but more importantly, he would share his love for all things aviation with us. Eating would always be followed by some rather serious “ground schooling,” and we would leave his home smarter in ways that would transcend flying machines. I recall those evenings with very fond memories. The tragic death of my mentor and friend had come full circle.  It took almost twenty years, the advent of the Internet, and one hack of an aspiring wordsmith penning an article from the heart to do it…. but I must say, it felt good.

Later,

BBall

’til next time…