squawking VFR

United Breaks Guitars awesomeness

2009-07-08T17:01:00.000-07:00

If you have yet to see the above video about United Airlines purposely breaking a passenger's Taylor guitar, I wholeheartedly suggest you take a few minutes and watch United Breaks Guitars.

It is hilarious, and it details the airline's long-standing incompetence and criminal refusal to accept any responsibility for its negligence in purposely destroying a guitar, as witnessed by dozens of passengers.

You would think after this latest public relations blunder, someone at the country's worst major airline would think about taking steps to change the culture of this company. But as someone who has kept tabs on United's horrid customer-service reputation for the better part of a decade, I know it won't change a thing.

United has all the public-relations charm of Nurse Ratched.

It is a company that is irreparably broken.

You can see for yourself by reading thousands of customer-service complaints about the airline at untied.com, a web site which provides a courageous public service by shining light on the airline's years-long bumblings with scathing critiques. The vitriol is not only penned by passengers, it's also dished by employees who often tell harrowing stories about the company's complete disregard for safety. SOme of the whistleblowing stories on there are frightening.

One of these passenger letters was my own, a five-page, single-spaced screed, published back in June of 2002 in what was perhaps the angriest letter I've ever written to admonish a company for shabby treatment.

Thanks to the band responsible for the smash-hit United Breaks Guitars for jumpstarting this trip down memory lane. I'm re-printing my letter here:

To: Mr. Jack Creighton, CEO
CC: Aviation Consumer Protection Division

Dear Mr. Creighton:

There is a reason people are flying less nowadays. It has little to do with fear generated by the Sept. 11 attacks. It has everything to do with the fact companies like yours treat passengers like garbage.

Two summers ago, your industry went before Congress and promised to clean up its act after its deplorable performance through the peak travel season. Instead, all passengers face is longer lines, inexplicable delays and a further descent in service.

After that infamous summer, your company printed apologies for its blunders at the bottom of every itinerary. Typed, computer-generated words enhanced the warmth of the oh-so-sincere message.

Clearly, those words were nothing but lip service.

I am writing you today regarding my latest woeful experience on your airline, as well as the general malaise your company's incompetence has created in the flying public.

There are so many problems with your airline, I do not know where to begin. Let us start with my flight, United 428, from Denver to Newark, N.J., on April 19.

Upon arriving at the airport, I find the new security company, hired by United to replace Argenbright, has implemented strict new measures requiring every passenger to be finished with the check-in process one hour prior to departure.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this new procedure, except for the fact your staff is ill-equipped to handle it. And no passengers were ever notified regarding the change.

As is now standard, I arrived at the airport two hours prior to departure. But because you had so few personnel working in the front, I did not make it through this maze of a line until 50 minutes had passed. I was lucky.

An estimated 40 percent of the people in line did not enjoy such success and missed your new one-hour deadline. This resulted in general chaos and well-deserved anger, as passengers were re-booked on later flights to meet this new and previously unannounced change in procedure.

Lets skip that problem for a few moments. Lets pretend your ridiculously strict enforcement of a previously unannounced rule change never happened. Lets skip directly to the problems on board flight 428.

With the flight nearly completed, a freak thunderstorm hit the greater New York area and produced tornado-sized winds. Our flight was diverted to Washington Dulles. As aggravating as weather problems can be, I know they cannot be avoided.

What occurred on the ground at Dulles, however, was a disgrace.

After refueling the Boeing 777 at Dulles shortly after 5 p.m., ground control informed our pilot Newark would reopen at 6 p.m, and that we should be airborne no later than 5:45 p.m. and into Newark by 6:30 p.m.

Instead of making the best out of this situation, the heavy-handed pencil-pushers who run United Operations at Dulles decided to combine two smaller Newark-bound flights onto our plane.

First, we were told it would be one flight. So we watched all the passengers from this first flight climb aboard and find seats. After waiting nearly an hour, we seemed ready to leave.

But then United Operations told us they decided that passengers from yet another commuter flight would be transferred onto our plane. We had to endure the entire process again.

As one of your own flight attendants said shortly after the second announcement, "This isn't a flight. This is a disgrace."

At 8 p.m., approximately two-and-a-half hours after we could have left, we finally left for Newark. Aside from the fact we were denied food during the ordeal, we wasted countless hours on top of the initial weather delay.

Your operations department capitalized on our helplessness.

Your Newark Operations crew fared no better. Although we were only the third United flight to arrive after the fierce storm, according to a baggage handler, it took your ground crew 50 minutes to get our luggage onto the carousel.

Four hours after we were originally scheduled to land, already-flustered passengers had the added pleasure of waiting nearly an hour for their bags.

(And while we're on the subject of Newark baggage claim, I've stood in grimy New York City alleys less seedy than your baggage area. It is a cesspool).

But that is no surprise. From the beginning, starting with the awful security company you hired in Denver, to the end, every aspect of the trip brought nonstop aggravation. All of these problems fostered nothing but animosity toward your airline.

Of course, that animosity has existed since your wretched summer of 2001. But your poorly planned, knee-jerk responses to the Sept. 11 hijackings have only exacerbated these feelings.

Newly implemented measures are nothing more than a big dog-and-pony show, none of which would have stopped the tragedy. For all your PR-spin, you still do not X-ray every checked bag. You still do not bag-match, despite assurances to the contrary. You hassle your paying customers while allowing the real dangers to persist.

And all passengers get for your toothless measures are longer - and unpredictable - lines. An hour at check-in. Two hours in the security line. Another hour at the gate.

By the time I navigate the maze of your disgraceful check-in procedures and arrive at the gate, then fly to my destination, I may as well have driven. I can drive from Denver to Chicago, and arrive only two hours later than if I had flown United.

As more people realize this, many will choose that option, which will only have a worsening effort on your already-poor fiscal health.

Of course, these new procedures only magnified your pre-existing ineptitude. United already flirted with bankruptcy before that day, thanks to years of fiscal imprudence and the crescendo of anger during the summer of 2000.

While I have great sympathy and compassion for United employees who were affected by Sept. 11, I resent the fact United corporate shills milked the sympathy card before Congress and received a $15 billion bailout.

As a taxpayer, I am happy to support a troubled industry after the cowardly attack on our country. As a taxpayer, I am outraged you would request these funds under the guise of Sept. 11 relief, when in fact you are looking to recover from years of fiscal avarice and galling treatment of passengers.

Airlines go bankrupt for a reason, sir. One of which is because they can no longer meet the reasonable expectations of your customers. Why should taxpayers support your anemic airline when well-run companies, such as Southwest, turned a profit through bear-market times?

I have written my elected representatives, urging them not to grant you further financial relief and to let the free market work its course. I have also implored them to revisit the issue of passing a true passenger's bill of rights, which your lobbyists skillfully scuttled two summers ago.

Now, more than ever, passengers deserve that legislation. Two years later, you still treat customers as if you believe we are too inattentive to notice your incompetence or too apathetic to care. I can assure you the latter is not true. We have endured United's shameful conduct for far too long.

Thankfully, Jet Blue and Frontier are finally emerging as legitimate challenges to your monopoly of the Denver market. I am rooting for them to succeed, and will continue to fly them as much as possible.

You are not losing customers such as myself because people are afraid to fly. You are losing customers because you make it inherently inconvenient and aggravating to do so.

I long for the days when the worst complaints about airline service were regarding the food. Now, I hope for the day when United will follow Braniff and Eastern into the bankruptcy courts.

It is not out of any malice these wishes are born. Only when United is gone, however, will we receive efficient and responsible service from a major carrier in Denver. Until then, we can only vent our frustrations regarding your inane procedures, needless flight delays and empty promises.

Please save your canned apology letter for the endless list of affronts.

I've had enough of your company's hollow regrets. If you are not prepared to offer compensatory measures, such as additional Mileage Plus miles or class upgrades on future flights -- measures to show you are genuinely sorry -- than I have neither the time nor the inclination to deal with United.

Mr. Creighton, I understand you assumed the title of CEO only in recent months. I wish you well in your efforts to reverse the sagging performance of your company.

But after more than 50 trips in the last three years on your airline, there is only one lesson that reverberates through my mind.

At United, nothing ever changes.

Sincerely,

Squawking VFR

Taking a stab at Air France 447

2009-07-01T18:11:00.000-07:00

Interesting story by Alan Levin in Monday's USA Today that suggests National Transportation Safety Board investigators could look to a plane crash from 35 years ago to perhaps explain what happened to Air France 447.

What's the connection?

Early focus of the Air France investigation has centered on the plane's airspeed indicators, which could have malfunctioned, causing the pilots to tragically misinterpret the readings of their most-needed instruments.

That sounds similar to what caused a Northwest Orient 727 crash in Bear Mountain, New York in 1974.

The USA Today story offers some nice play-by-play of the Northwest crash, but doesn't really get into the guts of the most important part -- the "why." Why did the pilots reacted the way they did to a malfunction, effectively stalling the plane and sending it into a graveyard spiral.

So we'll do that here.

A quick primer on the pitot-static system

There's six basic flight instruments that makes up what's known as the "six pack" in the instrument panel. Three of these -- the airspeed indicator, altimeter and vertical speed indicator -- receive their information from the pitot-static system.

(In bigger jets, the machmeter also receives its information from this system, which is important to note, given the accidents we're discussing. But in the interests of keeping this relatively readable, I'm not going to get into details that will put you to sleep).

In its simplest form, the pitot-static system is comprised of a pitot tube (rhymes with speedo) and a static port.

The pitot tube is typically mounted on a wing or the fuselage, depending on the aircraft, and looks like a little stick with a hole at the tip jutting into the wind. It measures the direct pressure of the air blowing into it. The static port, which is a little hole on the side of the plane about the size of a pinhead, measures atmospheric pressure.

Airspeed is measured by the difference between the direct pressure and atmospheric pressure is compared.

When the pitot-static system fails

Blockages in the pitot tube and static port, while not common, aren't particularly rare either. Ice can easily gunk up the pitot tube, so there's a heater on most pitot tubes. The static port can often get bug juice in or around it, so there's an alternate static source.

Even with those runarounds on potential problems, all pilots must know how those three key instruments are affected when the static port or pitot tube -- or both -- are blocked.

What happens when the static port is blocked?

Well, this is serious because it affects all three instruments. The altimeter will stop at the altitude at which the blockage occurs. The vertical speed indicator will show level flight, no matter if the plane is climbing or descending. The airspeed indicator will show a slower-than-actual speed in a climb and a faster-than-actual speed in a descent.

What happens when the pitot tube is blocked?

In a way, it's simpler, because only the airspeed indicator is affected. But it's also a more nefarious problem. The airspeed indicator will function as an altimeter, showing an increase in speed as the plane climbs, even if actual airspeed is constant.

Northwest Orient, 1974, Bear Mountain, N.Y.

So far, I've given you a lot of basic theory. Here's how it actually applies in the case of the Northwest Orient flight referenced in the USA Today piece:

Crews are usually trained in some capacity to maintain a constant-airspeed climb at such-and-such a power setting.

So imagine you're the pilots aboard this flight, thankfully a repositioning flight with only three crew members aboard. As you continue your climb through 16,000 feet, you notice that you're climbing at 300 knots when you should be at 200 knots.

(I don't know the actual figures for the 727 climb; I'm just using them as an example).

What are you going to do?

Keep in mind one of the basic rules of flight: Pitch plus power equals performance. These guys did what makes sense. They decreased their power and pitched the plane up in an effort to slow down to 200 knots.

Unfortunately, the Northwest pitot tube had iced over. Their airspeed indicator was showing a faster-than-actual indication, essentially functioning as an altimeter and increasing as they climbed. In reality, the pilots were on their target climb speed.

By decreasing their power and pitching the plane up, they slowed down to something slower than their stall speed -- remember that from our original Colgan post? -- and induced an aerodynamic stall and subsequently spun the plane into the ground.

AeroPeru 603

There's another crash not mentioned in the original article that's worth mentioning here, an accident involving an AeroPeru flight in 1996 that had multiple instruments fail because the nimrods washing the plane beforehand taped over the static ports and forgot to remove the tape.

It was a night flight in instrument conditions. These poor folks didn't know which way was up, how fast they were going, or whether they were headed up or down. They crashed into the ocean 25 minutes after takeoff.

There's a fascinating National Geographic special on AeroPeru 603 that I recommend watching on YouTube if you have a half-hour to kill.

While speculation centers on the pitot tube in the Air France crash and AeroPeru involves the static ports, this could nonetheless be a really strong comparison, in the sense that you have false instrument readings caused by massive problems in the pitot-static system ultimately leading to disaster.

Conclusions

Crews are trained how to spot anomalies between the instruments that would lead a pilot to realistically catch the error. On a typical flight in instrument meteorlogical conditions, there's a constant cross-check of the instruments in the six pack to verify and confirm information.

In the heat of the moment, could you miss something that leads to a crash? Absolutely. There has to be a lot that goes wrong to get to that point, but yeah, it is feasible.

You could make the argument that if the Air France 447 pilots had been distracted by a vicious thunderstorm and alarms buzzing about incorrect airspeed readings that there was enough confusion that they did precisely the wrong thing.

That's an awfully big leap to make at this point. I'm sticking to what I said the other day -- there's so much information still missing from the Air France puzzle, that it's not prudent to even make an educated guess as to what brought it down.

But since USA Today is offering up a theory, we'll dissect how it might have applied to Air France 447. Right now, it's as good a guess as any.

Update on regional airlines

2009-06-27T20:14:00.000-07:00

In the wake of a string of deadly regional airline crashes, none more egregious than the Colgan Crash in Buffalo, the Federal Aviation Administration is finally taking some steps in the right direction.

It's listening to Squawking VFR.

After our special report detailing the safety chasm between mainline and regional airlines on May 19, the agency Wednesday recommended several changes that addressed the lapses that led to Buffalo as well as the overall safety of regionals.

A list of recommendations introduced included:

- Addressing fatigue. New rules governing flight and rest time for crews.

- Immediate development of a system for tracking pilots who repeatedly fail performance evaluations.

- Demand that mainline airlines ask their regional partners to "mirror their most effective safety practices."

- Upgrade training standards.

Overall, these are only ambiguous proposals, and there's a ton of pencil-pushing ahead before anything of substance gets done. But the fact the notoriously slow-to-act FAA is issuing these recommendations provides unstated acknowledgment of the severity in the safety gap between regionals and mainliners, which forgive me for mentioning, was first unearthed here at Squawking VFR.

A couple of things stand out from this report.

First, there's the simple fact that the Colgan crash in Buffalo is becoming a watershed moment for U.S. commercial aviation, the likes of which perhaps have not been seen since the crash of an L-1011 in Dallas in August of '85 that prompted sweeping interest, research and investment in equipment to help combat wind shear and microbursts.

Next, the most interesting of these proposals to me is the third, and it's also the one that leaves me most skeptical.

The FAA is essentially saying that regionals should be held to the same standards as the majors, which is great and everything. But one of the main reasons the majors contract with the regionals is because there is less-stringent requirements in place.

When you hire a pilot with 1,000 hours, you don't have to pay him or her as much as one with 10,000 hours. In terms of experience, it goes without saying that you get what you pay for.

And I'm skeptical of how that could really change or be legislated.

Don't get me wrong, it's good -- and past due -- that the FAA is trying. But whatever proposals they bring to the table will probably meet fierce resistance from the airlines and their lobbying minions.

I hope the proposals don't get watered down, because as I've stated before, the flying public deserves something more than the regional owners ducking the blame for an unenviable safety track record.

Air France 447

2009-06-24T19:54:00.000-07:00

Despite overwhelming demand from my readers, I wanted to let you know the post on Air France 447 is going to be very slow in coming.

There's just so little to go on right now, that any speculation I could come up with would be merely a crapshoot.

Squawking VFR prides itself on at least making educated guesses when it comes to figuring out why planes fall from the sky. I can't come close to offering any insight right now, so we'll withhold the post until we can.

In the meantime, I've got a couple of other posts in the hopper that should be ready in the next few days.

A religious experience with Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers

2009-06-10T21:13:00.000-07:00

Two things you need to understand about me and concerts.

1. Previous spontaneous concert-related road trips have ended in disaster.

A few years back, with a day off from work and an evening shift the following night, it dawned on me that nothing stood between me and a six-hour jaunt from Denver to Santa Fe to see the rollicking Philly-based band, Marah, play a little New Mexican bar.

This sounded like a terrific idea, so off I went down I-25 on a blazing summer day in a jeep with no air conditioning, my only companions a few Grateful Dead cassette tapes and the anticipation for the show.

I had seen Marah weeks before, when they blew the roof off some pissant dive bar on East Colfax in Denver, working themselves into a fervor worthy of a sold-out stadium crowd, not for the applause of a handful of mangy drunks sitting on bar stools.

Couldn't wait to see them again, sure that I was catching the next great American rock-n-roll act in its infancy.

So you can imagine that I vomited in my mouth a little when I pulled into the parking lot of that Santa Fe bar, walked to the door and saw a small 8.5x11-inch sign on the door that regrettably stated Marah's van, Adrian, had broken down in the Arizona desert, and that there would be no show tonight.

2. When it comes to seeing Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers, I have even worse luck.

Every time they scheduled a show nearby, often when I lived in Colorado, I was out of town, in the midst of a Broncos playoff run, chained to the desk, etc. It felt like I suffered a dozen near-misses.

When Mrs. VFR and I actually made it to the Gothic Theater to see The Peacemakers, nee The Refreshments, I felt thrilled. Much like the aforementioned Marah show, my anticipation for a ballyhooed live act zoomed sky high.

So when Mrs. VFR developed a violent migraine two songs into the performance that forced us to leave, the experience wasn't all that surprising, given my track record.

Two weeks ago, Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers played an underrated little venue called The Ark right here in our hometown.

Where was I? In Chicago.

Where was I the next night when they played Chicago? Back in Ann Arbor.

All this serves as a long-winded preamble to what transpired last Wednesday, when I noticed on their tour schedule that RCPM would play Fort Wayne, Indiana, approximately about 150 miles southwest of here.

The mind started whirring.

Baby sitting? My visiting mother-in-law could provide support. Work? I could surely sneak out a few minutes early, leaving me with just enough time to reach Fort Wayne before 8 p.m. Mrs. VFR? Graciously on board with the plan.

5:20 p.m. I grab a few albums off the messy stacks on the closet floor for the ride and get out the door. I'm a little bummed that it's a solo venture, and that no Facebook friends could see the genius of this quick-turnaround trip when I scrounged for last-minute comrades. But nonetheless happy that, yes, I would finally see a RCPM show.

6:48 p.m. I'm admiring the rural farmland on an empty I-69. A beautiful sunset cast orange rays on red barns. I let the stresses of the job and the soon-to-be no job recede for the first time in weeks as the Rockwellian landscape blurred together outside the car window.

Tranquility was short-lived.

I come around a curve about 10 miles north of the Michigan/Indiana border and find a sea of brake lights and orange-and-white-striped barricades across the highway.

"Road closed."

A state trooper directs all traffic onto a single-lane road off the exit ramp, and I start doing math. Seventy minutes to showtime. Sixty-seven miles to Fort Wayne. Zero on the speedometer.

This looks bad. Immediately wonder if I should give up and go home, if I was going to spend an hour in traffic, if this is just the latest in my series of RCPM mishaps.

7:02 p.m. After zig-zagging through backroads in an off-the-map small town, I've navigate the detour, get back on the interstate and presumably avert the crisis. I'm also in Indiana, having crossed the border at an unmarked site.

In my peripheral vision, I catch what looks like a black plastic garbage bag slowly blowing across the highway. It's not a plastic bag.

Upon closer review, I determine the object is a Frisbee-sized turtle huffing it across two lanes of traffic. He's on the striped center line when I veer to the right to avoid him.

I thought of a symbolic chapter in Grapes of Wrath that describes just such a scene. There's only one truck far off in my rear-view mirror. I think he's got a chance. Godspeed, Mr. Joad.

7:58 p.m. I arrive at Come 2 Go, the venue for the evening's entertainment. Here, I'm hit with the second curveball of the trip.

Come 2 Go is not the bar I assumed it was, with peanut shells on the floor, cheap swill on tap and a country twang in the Hoosier night.

It is a church.

A pot-bellied man wearing army fatigues and a beret collects my $10 entry fee. An illuminated cross hangs in the rear corner of the establishment and casts a t-shaped shadow on the floor below.

Pictures of mission trips and charity events are on the walls. Chairs are set up on a carpet that surrounds a stage that, to the church's credit, seems decked out in state-of-the-art sound and lighting equipment.

What to make of this development?

Mr. Clyne and his merry bandmates are known for enjoying their tequila during the show. Would this not happen? (No, it would not). Would they still be the fantastic live act I'd heard about?

8:50 p.m. The Peacemakers take the stage.

"How many of you have seen us play before," Clyne asks.

A smattering of hands go up, maybe a dozen.

How many of you have seen us play sober before," he asks.

Silence.

8:55 p.m. If you haven't heard of them, they're most famous for writing the theme song to Fox TV's "King Of The Hill," although fans appreciate them more for their straight-up rock that sways into an alt-country style at times.

The Peacemakers are sort of like the Jimmy Buffett of the Southwest, specializing in escapist tales about banditos, missions and south-of-the-border hookers. They bring a mass of hard-core fans to Mexico every year for a couple of hard-core shows.

That's the sort of vibe with which they they kick off the Fort Wayne show, keying up "Americano," one of their signature tunes.

In the crowd, there's about five or six of us rocking out in front of the stage, with maybe a dozen or so others crowding around nearby but demonstrating less enthusiasm. Approximately 50 to 60 others are in attendance, and they situate themselves near the back of the room.

It's a wacky group of concert-goers.

I'd estimate 30 percent of the people there had gray or no hair. Thirty percent were teeny-boppers too young to frequent any alcohol-serving establishments. I'm pretty sure none of the people in the two aforementioned groups had ever heard of Roger Clyne.

Of the remaining third, ranging from 20s to 40s, there's about 10 who seem to know the words to the songs.

Nearby, there's two twins with fiercely curly black hair who look like asexual Pat from Saturday Night Live. They would stand six feet from the stage expressionless and emotionless through the entire show.

There's also an obese man wearing a pony tail and a Randy Moss Oakland Raiders jersey, but he seems to be in much better spirits.

9:00 p.m. Americano finishes.

There's a few awkward claps, but silence in the room.

I fear this is going to be a dead crowd, and a mailed-in performance.

9:01 p.m. Clyne smoothly transitions into Counterclockwise, another excellent choice I hoped would make the setlist. It's got a catchy pop sound that's Mellencampian at times, which I figured would be a hit here in Fort Wayne.

9:24 p.m. Ladies and gentlemen, the national anthem:

So give your ID card to the border guard
Yeah, your alias says your Captain Jean Luc Picard
Of the United Federation of Planets
'Cause they won't speak English anyway

Everybody knows
That the world is full of stupid people
So meet me at the mission at midnight
We'll divvy up there

9:33 p.m. The crowd is stirring a little bit, just enough to eliminate the stony awkwardness.

Some of the folks, chiefly the asexual Pat twins, remind me of the people I met at the Christmas Cult Party of 1999, which I attended with my friend Brian Roth, at which I met Tom Petty, The Heartbreaker, not to be confused with Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers.

The vibe is the same.

So much like I did at that party, I attempt to view my fellow concert-goers with a wide lens and enjoy the wackiness for what it is: A rock concert in a church. A once-in-a-lifetime experience.

I'm even trying to look on the bright side. An audience from all walks of life -- teeny-boppers, grandmothers and a few toothless folk -- unified by the holy spirit of rock-n-roll. Reverend Roger Clyne presiding.

That's kinda cool.

11:02 p.m. Whatever thoughts there are about the crowd, there's no mailing it in from the band.

They put the finishing touches a 2-hour, 15-minute show that is well worth the drive down, well worth the years-long wait. All told, they probably played about 24 songs, reaching back into their early catalog for much of the setlist.

They spent the last half hour or so taking requests from the audience, and finished the night with "Switchblade," a request from yours truly.

I was just as impressed with them after the show. Mr. Clyne and his bandmates stayed around and chatted with anyone who wanted to talk. No big-timing it out of the venue or anything. They have some serious cred, but they don't take themselves too seriously.

They heaped a good deal of attention on a kid who stood up front who looked about eight years old, and was definitely attending his first concert, which was particularly good to see. The kid ate it up, and walked out with a pair of drumsticks, among other souvenirs.

The guy who appeared to be running the show at Come 2 Go also did a bit of crowd-working afterward, making sure everyone had a good time and chatting with his congregants, all in a sincere, genuine fashion.

All in all, the Come 2 Go people seemed like nothing but nice Midwesterners. Kudos to them for their show and hospitality.

Someday, I'd love to hear their story of how they started dabbling in the business of hosting rock acts. For this night, though, it was time to hit the highway and get home.

11:48 p.m. Back on the highway somewhere near Angola, Indiana, and I realize I haven't eaten anything but a granola bar and banana since lunch. Desperate, I stop for my first bout of fast food since September 2007, when I grabbed some Burger King on the way to Nathan's apartment for our very first project meeting.

"Welcome to Wendy's, can I take your order?"

"Yes, what's the least-disgusting thing on your menu?"

1:37 a.m. After a fairly brutal drive spent enveloped in a blanket of thick fog, I finally roll into D-Town. Two vile strips of fry-pit burger lurch in my stomach, and I'm thankful to be home.

I check on Baby VFR, eat some cereal and sack out as soon as my head hits pillow.

All in all, a very enjoyable experience for a Wednesday night.

Special report: Danger in the skies

2009-05-19T19:44:00.000-07:00

If you want to live, don't fly on regional airlines.

Regrettably, that's the only reasonable conclusion I can draw after further analysis of the Colgan crash in Buffalo, an interview with a fellow pilot and a Squawking VFR study of National Transportation Safety Board aviation accident records.

I'm not trying to casually dump on a sector of the aviation industry that people love to kick around. But facts are facts.

Through inexperience, incompetence and gross negligence, regional airlines are consistently putting passengers in harm's way at a rate that exceeds their mainline counterparts.

And when accidents arise, the regional officials are happy to point the finger elsewhere, creating a culture that elicits defensive reactions and cover-ups instead of one that learns from mistakes and offers reform.

Along those lines, there's a ton to analyze and write about after last week's release of the cockpit voice recordings in the Colgan crash -- beyond the territory I've already covered in previous posts.

I'm going to save that for another day.

For now, I'm going to more broadly focus on the regionals. I don't want these statistics that I've unearthed to be missed amid the Buffalo rubble. They deserve their own post in the first-ever special report here.

These results are astounding. I never would have guessed the difference between the mainliners and regionals was so great until I bothered to see myself.

Discounting terrorism-related crashes, I've researched all NTSB scheduled-passenger aviation accident reports since 1995 to the present, looking at accidents that involved U.S.-registered aircraft operating on or above U.S. soil.

Here's what I found:

* Eight consecutive fatal accidents have involved regional airliners. Six of the eight, which have all occurred since May 21, 2000, were caused by pilot error, according to the NTSB.

* Ten of the past 12 fatal crashes have involved regional airliners.

* Mainliners have recorded their safest decade on record. The last fatal mainline crash came on Jan. 31, 2000, when an Alaska Air flight crashed into the Pacific Ocean due to mechanical problems.

* Unlike their mainline counterparts, regional accidents tend to be fatal. Eleven of the 12 regional crashes since 1995 have been fatal. Five of the 16 mainline crashes in the same timeframe resulted in fatalities.

* The disparity is even greater when you look at survivability. Occupants are more than four times as likely to die in a regional accident than they are a mainline accident.

Look at the number of fatalities per accident below versus the total number of occupants on board for regional airlines:

Date Airline Location Fatal/Total occupants
08/21/95 Atl. Southest Georgia 8/29
11/19/96 Great Lakes Quincy, Ill. 12/12
01/09/97 Comair Ida, Mich. 29/29
01/23/99 Colgan Hyannis, Mass. 0/4
05/21/00 Executive Air Scranton, Pa. 19/19
01/08/03 Air Midwest Charlotte, N.C. 21/21
08/26/03 Colgan Hyannis, Mass. 2/2
10/14/04 Pinnacle Jefferson City, Mo. 2/2
10/19/04 Corporate Air Kirksville, Mo. 13/15
12/19/05 Chalk Airways Miami, Fla. 20/20
08/27/06 Comair Lexington, Ky. 49/50
02/12/09 Colgan Buffalo, N.Y. 50/50

By my count, regional accidents have killed 212 of 238 possible passengers in these accidents, an 89.1 percent kill rate.

I'd venture to think that, as I did, most readers assume that aviation accidents tend to be fatal, that an 89.1 percent kill rate would be par for the course. But the statistics do not bear that out.

Not at all.

By contrast, accidents involving the mainline airlines, or "legacy" airlines if you prefer, are statistically much safer and much more survivable.

06/08/95 Valu-Jet Atlanta 0/62
12/20/95 Tower Air JFK 0/468
02/19/96 Continental Houston 0/87
05/11/96 Valu-Jet Everglades 110/110
07/06/96 Delta Pensacola, Fla. 2/146
07/17/96 TWA Long Island, N.Y.230/230
10/19/96 Delta LaGuardia 0/63
02/09/98 American Chicago O'Hare 0/121
11/01/98 AirTran Atlanta 0/105
06/01/99 American Little Rock 12/143
09/09/99 TWA Nashville 0/48
01/31/00 Alaska Point Mugu, Ca. 88/88
03/05/00 Southwest Burbank, Ca. 0/142
12/08/05 Southwest Chicago Midway 0/103
12/20/09 Continental Denver 0/112
01/15/09 US Airways Hudson River 0/155

Mainline accidents have killed 442 of 2,183 occupants in accidents, a 20.2 percent kill rate, and that's assuming you believe that TWA Flight 800 disintegrated over Long Island Sound because of a random spark in the center fuel tank.

(If you think I am counting aviation incidents in an attempt to bolster my numbers, I will state that I am counting only accidents, not incidents, as classified by the NTSB. There's a difference in the government's definition between the two. Accidents are generally more severe and involve structural damage).

How to explain the huge gap in numbers, in terms of frequency of accidents and survivability of them?

A friend of mine who works as a professional pilot, who came up through the regional ranks and now works at a mainline airline, describes significant diffences in not just the experience level of the pilots, but a difference in culture.

"I think professionalism, not rushing the checklist for the game of it, because it's cool to spit it out quickly, excessive talking, experience levels on a situation, are all so very different between the two."

"Checklists were a game for many at XXXXXX Airlines."

"The difference between the two were so big, and unfortunately, the more I know, teh less I want my family or me on the lesser regionals. Can't imagine flying on Great Lakes anymore."

If a seasoned pilot is worried about putting his family on a regional airline, so should you.

What's irksome is that, although it's printed in small type on a passenger ticket, most members of the flying public don't even realize they're purchasing a ticket on a Colgan or a Pinnacle.

They just know they're on Continental, and a plane painted with a Continental Express logo is waiting for them at the gate, ready to take them to Buffalo.

What they don't know, as seen in the stats above, can kill them.

The flying public deserves to know about the gaping differences between mainliners and regionals.

They deserve more than the blame-the-pilot responses they get from Colgan and others when things go wrong -- an injustice that will be looked at further in a future post.

Bottom line, they deserve a full investigation into the training practices and general culture at regional airlines, which sprouted largely when the industry was de-regulated in the 1980s.

The public deserves answers, and then reform.

A cornucopia of aviation thoughts

2009-04-23T08:41:00.000-07:00

A Pilatus PC-12, the aircraft type involved in recent terrible Montana crash.

Ajira Air, as seen on "Lost."

Between a wonderful wife who's back to work, a wonderful-yet-sleep-adverse baby at home and the Great Job Search of 2009, it's been difficult to create a little mental elbow room for Squawking VFR lately.

Which is a shame, because the sky has been full of fertile blogging territory. Here's my best attempt to catch up with what's up in the aviation world:

Seat infringement

Last year, United Airlines officials say they received roughly 700 complaints about "seat infringement," corporate speak for overweight people allowing their girth to spill onto the poor soul sitting next to them.

United is now requiring overweight customers to purchase a second seat if they are infringing upon their seat mates and alternative seating is not available.

I have written many angry letters to United over the years. When I lived in Denver, they were usually the only airline available until Frontier emerged as a viable option. I've been ruthlessly dumped in unintended destinations, lied to about alleged "weather delays" that were not actual weather delays and generally treated like garbage.

Every time, I let United know about it.

So fair is fair: I applaud United for taking a stand, politically incorrect as it may be, against seat infringement.

I can't count the number of times I've had a flight ruined because of this awkward situation. Once, when I flew from Denver to Kansas City, the gut of the gentleman next to me engulfed the arm console and rested on my knee for the duration of our travels.

Another time, flying from Denver to Newark, the man next seated next to me couldn't rest his arms at his sides due to his girth. So instead his elbow rested in my rib cage for the entire four-hour flight.

By the end of the flight, I was ready to go berserk. You get to a point where you see an overweight person walking down the aisle during boarding and you send up a "Please God, don't let them sit next to me" plea.

No one wants to make these people feel bad, but the truth is that seat infringement is every bit as invasive, bothersome and unjust as the scourge The Recliners thrust upon us traveling folk.

I've paid for my postage-stamp-sized space at 35,000 feet. I'd like to use it.

Bravo, United.

Autopilot cited in crash

The National Transportation Safety Board issued a recent report on the 2007 crash of a Citation jet crash that killed six people, including four members of a University of Michigan organ transplant team.

The report concludes that one of the pilots inadvertently turned on the plane's auto pilot instead of the yaw damper, which is what he allegedly intended. The two buttons are next to each other on the console.

Sad deal all around.

Like the recently detailed Buffalo crash, I'm really struck by the simplicity of this conclusion. Are they really saying that if the pilots had only realized that they had made a rather innocuous mistake, they could have simply turned off the auto pilot and not crashed the plane?

Yeah, they are.

I have to think there's more to this story. There just has to be more there.

Auto pilots make a loud, audible beep when they are engaged, and then again when they are disconnected. This feature was created in response to the Eastern Airlines L-1011 crash in 1972 that I've mentioned before, when the crew became so engrossed with a small problem they didn't realize the auto pilot had disengaged and put the plane on a small, gentle descent into the swamps of the Everglades.

With the audible warnings, I just have to think the crew of this Citation knew the auto pilot was on.

Incidentally, my scariest moment in roughly 680 hours of flight time came thanks to a malfunctioning auto pilot.

On August 22, 2006, I was flying with my friend Tim, a fellow CFII, from Jefferson County Airport to Platte Valley Airpark, an all-but-abandoned landing strip about 17 miles directly north of Denver International.

The flight was mostly for fun, but I was also conducting Tim's biennial flight review.

Denver's Class B airspace extends over Platte Valley at 7,000 feet MSL, so we were below that at 6,500, which means approximately 1,500 feet above ground level.

We were in level flight squawking VFR on our way to Platte Valley with the auto pilot on when, without warning or reason, it started trimming the plane into a pitch-up attitude.

It kept trimming the nose up until the trim wheel hit the backstop. The nose rose at least 15 degrees pitch-up and would have easily gone through 20 -- past the critical angle of attack, if you remember my stall lesson from the Colgan post -- had Tim not fought to keep it down with all his might.

The sudden trim-up was bizarre, but the solution here seemed simple enough. Turn the auto pilot off.

I was in the left seat, and clicked the auto-pilot disconnect button near my left thumb on the yoke. It made the loud, audible beep that signified the disengagement. Except the auto pilot didn't turn off. It retained its grip on the yoke and trim wheel.

Tim cut the throttle to help him fight the pitch-up attitude, then we reversed into a pitch-down attitude of about 15 degrees. This wasn't good either.

At the same time, I pressed the auto-pilot button on the avionics console, trying to turn the damned thing off. Again I got the verbal cue that it had disconnected, but it again didn't actually disconnect.

Tim kept fighting the auto pilot. (This is really hard, by the way. Sort of like trying to steer a car after the power-steering quits).

I don't remember how far we deviated from target altitude, but it's possible that we busted up into the Class B or possible that we sunk below 6,000. I really don't remember at this point, but I know our altitude fluctuated by several hundred feet.

What I do remember our general flight path oscillating like a roller-coaster as we did this pitch-up, pitch-down dance. I remember being worried that the full-aft-trim auto pilot was going to stall us, and that with its grip on the yoke, the AP would somehow complicate our stall recovery.

Then I had the brilliant idea of pulling the auto-pilot circuit breaker. I reached under the yoke, and popped it out.

That worked.

The auto pilot released its grip on the flight controls, we leveled off and shuffled along to Platte Valley without further incident.

All in all, the whole thing probably lasted 30 seconds. Maybe 40. We never reached a crisis level, and the whole was over by the time we did anything but react and respond.

When we returned to our base at Jeffco, the owners of our flight school seemed incredulous when we explained what happened. Had we not been two CFIIs, I really think they would have assumed that one of the students had messed something up or not used the AP correctly and dismissed the incident.

But after our encounter, every student at our school got an auto pilot lesson, one that included learning exactly where the AP circuit breaker was on the dashboard.

Tim recalls: "It does scare me to think of what would happen to most folks flying those planes that don't get an autopilot lesson. Can you imagine that happening to a student during their first solo?"

Prior to this incident, I had suffered other auto pilot malfunctions, far less serious - things like it not picking up the localizer on a practice VOR instrument approach or not maintaining the programmed 500-foot-per-minute descent I had asked for.

One of my own instructors had once explained to me that the AP in the 172s gets "hot," and then it doesn't work so well. I have no idea if that's true or not, but there were times that the AP box in the avionics stack was indeed very hot, and that also worried me, from an electrical perspective.

I'm sure the auto pilot in the Cessna Citation II that crashed off Milwaukee is far more advanced than the rickety ones installed in our 172s and I want to make sure that I'm clear that I'm not comparing the two. I'm also not suggesting that what happened to me is what happened to the pilots of the U-M organ transplant plane.

I'm just relaying an experience with an auto pilot.

And why I have an inherent distrust of them.

Elsewhere in the media

I wrote a little bit about the role pilot fatigue may have played in the Colgan crash, and its impact in other aviation accidents. Salon.com's Patrick Smith goes further in-depth on the topic in this report, which is well worth a read, unless the idea of your pilots falling asleep at the yoke at 35,000 feet makes you uneasy.

Passenger lands plane

You may have read this story, in which a passenger took over the controls of a twin-engine turbo-prop King Air and successfully landed after the pilot died in Naples, Fla.

When I first heard this story, I sort of yawned, because the "passenger" was a private pilot and I figured the mainstream media was merely sensationalizing the story like it does with almost every oddball aviation occurrence and that he had some degree of turboprop experience.

But the more I read and the less I assumed, the more impressed I became with Doug White.

It turns out that White is a private pilot with a mere 130 hours of flight time, all in single-engine planes. He had never before manned the controls of a twin, which is a significantly different animal.

The general flight concepts are the same no matter what aircraft type: Pitch plus power equals performance. But comparing the flight characteristics of a single-engine Cessna with the King Air, well, it'd be a little like trying to fly a kite versus an anvil.

Add in retractable gear and a host of other complex systems that he wasn't accustomed to, and White had his work cut out for him.

I'd stop short of calling it a miracle, because his previous experience clearly gave him the necessary stick-and-rudder background to fly and land. But it's nonetheless a gutsy, poise-under-pressure performance that brought out his best under unfortunate circumstances.

"Lost" in aviation translation

For a show that prides itself on nailing down every last detail, one recent episode of my favorite television series left me a little disappointed.

If you watch Lost, you probably remember that the ol' gang returned to the island a few weeks ago by boarding a fictional Ajira Airways flight and flying straight into the path of the paranormal phenomenon that landed them on the island in the first place.

The gang boarded Ajira flight 316 in Los Angeles, which had a stated destination of Guam. But then the producers showed the Ajira flight in question being conducted in a Boeing 737-800 model aircraft.

This is a careless oversight by Lost producers: There's no airline on earth that's running trans-Pacific service with a 737, much more of a short-haul jet.

Perhaps an even worse transgression? Inside the plane, they showed Hurley, Benjamin Linus and company sitting in the first-class, top portion of a double-decked cabin.

The 737 doesn't have double-decked cabins.

In passenger service, that honor belongs only to the 747, a completely different bucket of bolts.

All around, a bad job by the Lost crew on simple technical matters that should have been caught before production.

Skepticism on Montana crash cause

I have my doubts that the terrible plane crash that killed three families in late March was due to an overloaded airplane, the cause drawing a lot of early speculation/attention.

Yes, there were 14 passengers aboard the 10-seat plane. Many of them were children, who obviously weight less than adults.

Furthermore, and probably more important, I'd expect an overloaded plane to crash on takeoff and not upon landing, after it had flown 1,000 miles and burned off hundreds of pounds in fuel.

Keep an eye on whether the investigation turns not only on weight, but on how that weight was balanced throughout the plane.

A plane can be at or under its maximum gross weight, but it also must be "balanced," i.e. the center of gravity of that weight must lie within a certain range, one usually measured in inches from the nose of the plane backward.

That distance is called the "arm."

Exactly where along the arm the center of gravity lies can affect the way the plane handles. If the C.O.G. lies outside the scope of the predescribed range, it can adversely affect those handling characteristics.

Still, I don't think the Montana crash is one that will ultimately be attributed to weight or balance issues. Investigators need to know why the pilot diverted from Bozeman, the original destination, to Butte.

One key question for me, beyond the weight and balance issues and the decision to divert, is how much prior experience the pilot had in the Pilatus PC-12.

I hope it's a lot. The PC-12 is one of the most powerful single-engine planes on the market. For all intents and purposes, it's a business jet that can zoom around at 350 knots. Except it's a powerful single-engine turboprop with the propeller mounted on its nose.

The one thing that's always struck me about the PC-12 is that any yahoo with a private pilot's license and complex and high-performance sign-offs in their logbook can legally fly an aircraft that's really one no beginner should be anywhere near.

I have no idea how many hours the pilot in this particular crash had in type. I really hope it's a ton and that experience has nothing to do with this terrible accident.

But when I heard it was a Pilatus involved, it reminded me that I've always thought it was odd that such a powerful plane could legally be flown in the hands of a short-time private pilot.

Close that loophole somehow, will you Federal Aviation Administration? If it didn't kill anyone in this crash, it's a matter of time before it's a factor somewhere else.

Coming up

If you're a frequent flyer and you love your family, you won't want to miss Squawking VFR's upcoming special report on the comparative safety of regional airliners and their legacy counterparts.

I've examined databases and crunched numbers for my first-ever special report. Let's just say the conclusions are eye opening, alarming and frightening. You don't want to miss it.

A familiar name found amid agate type

2009-04-09T19:07:00.000-07:00

Buried beneath box scores and standings, this item caught my eye on a recent agate page:

INDIANAPOLIS COLTS -- Named Larry Coyer defensive coordinator.

The name probably doesn't mean anything to you, but I smiled upon reading about that hiring, even if I had to squint to see it in fine-print type.

As a sports writer, you never really root for teams, contrary to what fans may think. You root for people. Coyer is one of those people.

Coyer served as the Denver Broncos linebackers coach and defensive coordinator during my tenure covering the team, and he was unceremoniously scapegoated after another Mike Shanahan season gone awry in 2006.

His second chance as a coordinator is well deserved.

Beyond the fact he was a damned good one in Denver, he's probably one of the two or three nicest people I've come across in the coaching ranks in 15 years of sports writing.

(Ceal Barry, the one-time Colorado women's basketball coach, would be one of the others).

An older guy with wispy white hair, Coyer was rarely seen without a pipe in his mouth after practices, when he'd sit by himself for a few minutes of peace on the side of the field after everyone else went inside.

When he lit up, reporters could always wander over and get whatever quotes they needed about his defensive players.

But we could also just shoot the shit with him, and that was better.

That may not sound like anything extraordinary, but here's a little perspective that may help put it into context: Shanahan had everyone who worked in that building so paranoid about talking to the media that most reacted like scared cyborgs to the simplest of questions.

For Coyer to act ... you know, human ... was nothing short of astounding. And he'd sit there and talk for an hour if you wanted.

He had that approach because he was the exact opposite of the control-freak egomaniacs who populate most NFL sidelines.

Maybe that's because he knew what real hard work was all about, growing up in and around the mines of Greenbow, West Virginia.

Maybe because he knew what real loss was all about, having recruited a few dozen juniors and seniors aboard a DC-9 that crashed in Huntington, West Virginia in 1970.

Coyer worked as an assistant coach at Marshall.

He had accepted a position as an assistant coach at Massillon (Oh.) High School a year earlier, otherwise he would have also been on that plane.

Or maybe his low-key demeanor just evolved after coaching at dozen colleges, including Michigan, two USFL teams and leading a vagabond life before landing his first NFL gig. He knew what dues-paying was all about.

A couple things stand out about the man:

- Each Thanksgiving, he invited all his linebackers over to his house for dinner if they were stuck in town and didn't have anywhere else to go. His wife, Jan, would often make his players cookies.

- When Shanahan promoted Coyer from linebackers coach to defensive coordinator, the team held a press conference. He was not accustomed to such a formal gathering. He had about a dozen microphones pinned to his lapel, and it was really his first time in front of the cameras.

When the presser was over, he forgot the mics were still clipped to his jacket. He stood up and walked away, dragging them all with him. I can still picture that scene.

Welcome to the big time, Larry.

- My best Coyer memory came following a brutal 41-10 loss to the Indianapolis Colts in a 2004 playoff game.

The defense had a very strong season, but for whatever reason, the unit flat-out choked in this particular playoff game.

Manning destroyed them from the opening snap, and the Colts led 31-3 at the half.

The most egregious Denver failing came when Marvin Harrison caught a leaping pass over the middle and fell to the turf in front of safety Kenoy Kennedy and corner Roc Alexander.

Kennedy and Alexander conferred to discuss who blew the coverage. But neither bothered to tap Harrison when he was down. The Colts receiver got up, untouched, and scampered another 30 yards for a touchdown.

It was an embarrassing, blooper-reel failure.

In most scenarios, the defensive players and coordinator probably would rather join the witness protection program than stand up and answer questions the how, why and degree of their awfulness.

After that game, Larry Coyer not only showed his face to answer questions about that play and the defense's miserable day, but he sought out reporters to personally apologize for the unit's performance in the halls beneath the RCA Dome.

Every member of the Broncos media pool that traveled to Indy for that game got a one-on-one with Coyer that day. He made sure of it.

"I feel sick to my stomach," he said after that game. "I feel physically ill."

I knew he meant it, and thought for sure he would vomit.

The rest of the team had cleared out of the locker room and was ostensibly on a bus to the airport. Coyer stood among the empty lockers and discarded athletic tape and asked me if he had talked to everyone, and inquired about going up to the press box to make sure.

No one asked him to do that. He just did it, when there was no reason to do so and every reason not to.

Watching Coyer seek random reporters out to personally apologize in the halls underneath that dome stands out as one of the most fascinating and honorable sports spectacles I've ever witnessed.

Here's to hoping his best days in Indy are ahead.

The crash of Colgan 3407

2009-03-31T19:18:00.000-07:00

N200WQ, the accident airplane. Photo taken on approach at YYZ on Oct. 5, 2008, courtesy of Michael Fast and airliners.net

I've seen my share of reports on aviation accidents caused by human frailties.

There was the 1972 Eastern Airlines crash in the Everglades that occurred when a crew became so distracted by a burnt-out landing gear bulb that they were unaware the auto-pilot had disengaged and their L-1011 had begun a gentle descent into the swamps.

There was the crash of a United Airlines DC-8 that occurred near Portland Ore. in 1978, when the pilot, circling because of a potential landing gear problem, ran out of fuel. His FO had brought their fuel crisis to his attention; the captain chose to ignore it.

No less than the worst accident of all time was caused by an impatient KLM 747 pilot, who, despite the objections of his co-pilot, commenced his takeoff roll in heavy fog without clearance from air traffic control and smashed into a Pan Am 747 taxiing on the same runway, killing 583 people.

You can blame these accidents on denial, arrogance, whatever. In the end, though, the pilots knew how to fly the planes.

I'm not so sure about the pilot of Colgan 3407.

I'm hesitant to rip a flight crew, especially the deceased pilot-in-command who oversaw a terrible crash. Seems like bad karma. But reading the NTSB preliminary report, there's really no way to argue around the clear-cut evidence.

Gross incompetence cost 50 people their lives near Buffalo, N.Y.

(Not ice, as was originally and continuously lamented as the culprit in knee-jerk media reports. But when it comes to aviation news, is there another kind?)

The inattentive crew of 3407 let a bad situation fester, then when the warning bells alerted them to the situation at hand, they did the exact opposite of what they should have done to correct the problem. That's no exaggeration.

It wasn't a complicated solution, either. The fixes were things my flight students could describe and accomplish after three or four lessons in a Cessna 172. Again, I'm not exaggerating.

But it never should have gotten to that point aboard Colgan 3407, a Dash-8. As I have said a few times here, it's not one thing that causes an accident, but a chain reaction of four or five different problems that, had any been resolved differently, the accident chain could have been broken.

Colgan 3407 is no different.

Let's look at the accident chain:

The fatigue factor

1. It begins with a departure from Newark that's more than five hours late, which means a flight crew that's been on duty much longer than expected by the time they take off circa 9:30 p.m.

Fatigue, according to the NTSB report, will be a topic addressed when the board convenes in May to discuss the accident. I'm glad to hear that, because crew fatigue is a topic that gets brushed aside too often by the FAA, which although it has rules about mandated rest periods and maximum work hours, does nothing to actually enforce them.

Fatigue, you may remember, was also cited as a factor in the last major U.S. plane crash, when a Comair flight took off from the wrong runway in Lexington, Ky.

Pilots need protection from draconian schedule-makers and dispatchers, and also from their own employers. You've never met a group of employers as outright hostile to their indentured servants/employees as the regional airline companies.

It's one of the reasons I chose to abort my aviation career before takeoff; I really don't want to work for an employer who has no respect for me.

The Colgan crash is another example as to why more stringent government intervention and oversight is needed when it comes to crew fatigue. The airlines aren't going to police themselves.

Sterile cockpit

2. According to NTSB officials who have reviewed the cockpit voice recorder (CVR), the crew ignored FAA rules about maintaining a "sterile cockpit" during their approach and descent into Buffalo.

A sterile cockpit, you ask? Below 10,000 feet, commercial pilots can only talk about essential flight topics. This keeps the focus on the task at hand during departure and arrival phases of the flight, when mistakes and oversights are magnified.

(Ever wonder why you have to keep your electronics off early and late in flights? It's so operations-critical communications aren't disrupted below 10,000 feet).

Although there's no sterile-cockpit requirement for private pilots, I taught my students to adopt a similar tactic.

We weren't ever really above 10,000 feet AGL, but my rule of thumb for students was that once they contacted approach and/or copied the ATIS information (a broadcast of local weather and airport conditions), then the chatter stopped and concentration commenced.

I'm sure that the crew of Colgan 3407 isn't the only one to kind of shrug its shoulders at the sterile cockpit requirement -- on the contrary, I'd guess the rule is treated with a grain of salt by thousands of crews every day.

But when you study the accident chain of 3407, it has to be considered the second step, because there's no other way to really conceive of how they got to No. 3 without it.

Low and slow

3. So here comes 3407 into the Buffalo area, and the crew is ostensibly chatting away unaware that the airspeed is slowly bleeding off ... slowly bleeding off ... until the stick-shaker activates and warns of an oncoming stall.

That was one of the more elementary rules broken that night: Don't get low and slow.

One of the key things we're all taught -- pretty much from the first time we step in the airplane -- is to nail target airspeeds at low altitudes, because there's simply a lower margin for error when you're approaching the airport. In airspeed, you're flying closer to the stall speed of the plane ... finally approach speed is generally 1.3 times stall speed; In altitude, there's less leeway for recovery from a mistake.

On their approach, Colgan was at approximately 1,500 feet MSL, a little low, according to the report, and they got slow enough to where they stalled the plane.

This is ultimately a little more complex, and maybe we'll save for another post discussions about cross-controlled stalls, the horizontal component of lift, how g-force affects stall speeds and stall-spin accidents.

For now, moral of the story is simple: don't get low and slow.

That's what they did. They got low and slow, and it's the next chain in the accident.

Stall recovery

4. Back to our troubled plane. The stick shaker activates, warning of an oncoming stall.

The proper response in this situation is to initiate a stall recovery by 1) lowering the nose 2) applying full power and 3) retracting flaps in stages. There might be some small variations to this in jets, such as holding the nose steady instead of lowering it, but the general concept is the same.

When it came to step one, the PIC of Colgan 3407 did the exact opposite. He raised the nose.

In explaining why that's important, I need to back up and explain a few things:

You shouldn't mistake a stall for the engines quitting; in aviation-speak, a stall is code for the wings are no longer producing lift.

A stall is an aerodynamic event.

Ever stick your hand out the window and let it float in the wind? It's floating on the same aerodynamic principles that allow airplanes to fly. Lift is being created.

Lift in airplanes is affected by a lot of factors: air density, surface area of the wing, air speed and angle of attack -- the angle at which the wings meet the wind.

This oversimplifies things a little, but pilots can control the amount of lift being produced largely through two factors: airspeed and angle of attack.

(OK, when you start adding flaps and spoilers and such, they can also control the surface area of the wing, but I'm trying to keep it simple).

The faster you go, the faster the wind goes over the wings. More lift is produced.

The more "tilt" there is to the wing, the more lift is produced. If you plotted this on a graph, the amount of lift being produced would grow steadily as the angle of attack increases.

Think back to your hand out the window of the car. The more you tilt your hand upward, the more your hand wants to rise through the air. Until you reach a point where you tilt your hand so far, it plops like an anvil.

In aviation speak, that point is called the critical angle of attack. That is, the angle at which there's so much tilt to the wing, that air no longer flows smoothly around the surface. It's at this point the wing stops producing lift.

Each plane has a particular angle of attack that, if exceeded, lift ceases and the plane will stall. In most planes, the critical angle of attack is between 17 and 21 degrees.

Although airspeed plays a significant factor in stalls, it's ultimately the angle of attack that plays the most important role in the lift/stall equation.

So back to 3407.

The stick-shaker activates, enough of an event on its own to merit an investigation. The recovery procedure is simple, simple enough that my students all know it by the end of their fourth lesson.

The first two steps in stall recovery account for airspeed and angle of attack, controlling those two key things that help control lift: Power increases airspeed and the nose is lowered so that the critical angle of attack is not exceeded and air begins again flowing smoothly around the wing surfaces.

But does the captain of 3407 lower the nose, (also known as relaxing the back pressure)? Or does he maintain his current pitch, which is the proper procedure in some planes?

Nope, he yanks back on the yoke applying 25 pounds of force and pulls the Dash-8 to a plus-30 degree pitch attitude, way beyond the critical angle of attack.

This significantly worsens the stall, and with only 1,500 feet of altitude to play with, there's just not enough room for a recovery.

Raising the nose is a crazy response. It's so contrary to what's ingrained in a pilot's head from one of his earliest lessons. His response is the aviation equivalent to saying "Well, I saw that light was red, officer, so I stomped on the accelerator."

It's hard to fathom that a professional flight crew with thousands of hours of flight time and many more in a simulator erred so very, very badly.

Conclusions

I hope that I'm wrong. I hope that when the final NTSB report comes out that there's some unforeseen problem that's not in the preliminary report that explains all this.

I hope that I can come back with a post that says, "You know what? I really whiffed on my Colgan analysis and here's the extenuating circumstance that no one caught the first time around."

I'd much rather hear those things, because an accident of such simplicity scares the hell out of me.

When I think of my family and friends flying around the country and the possibility of something catastrophic occurring, I think it'd be easier to accept if a fan blade cracked because of metal fatigue or if the plane rolled after a mysterious uncommanded rudder deflection.

But this business with a bungled stall recovery? The 50 people killed by something so simple deserved much better.

Sky savages

2009-03-25T20:12:00.000-07:00

On Monday morning's flight from Seattle to Denver, I frequently thought of the great Seinfeld episode "The Chinese Restaurant" where George Costanza yelled in frustration "We're living in a society here!"

It was the latest flight in which I've observed that airline travel generally turns fellow citizens into cretins who think they're in the land of the lawless in their little aluminum tubes at 35,000 feet.

In the spirit of returning some decency to air travel, here are two new rules for that would make things more enjoyable for everybody:

1. Just because the seats recline, that doesn't mean you should plop into your rearward neighbor's lap.

I once broke up with a girl, partially because when it came to this topic, she assured me that she'd use her God-given right to recline on any and all flights, despite whatever hardships it might cause the person behind her.

Such a statement, to me, reflected her true colors. And then she was gone.

Look, I know the seats recline, but they were designed 30 years ago in an era when a tightly regulated industry had the luxury of providing ample leg room, space to read a newspaper and stale lasagna.

Airlines have since shaved nearly a foot off the available space per passenger, destroying any semblance of comfort. Please don't wreck the already-limited space for the poor soul behind you. It's just common courtesy.

2. You shouldn't need a forklift to hoist luggage into the overhead bins.

The savagery in the skies is getting worse.

Fees for checked bags is the culprit.

When oil prices peaked and airlines freaked, they started charging their pax to check their luggage. This, in turn, caused nobody to check their luggage and instead attempt to wedge their belongings into overhead bins.

It's become open warfare for that coveted space.

Savvy flyers know this means you need to get onto the plane ASAP, and thus need to jockey for position in line and wait with bated breath as they call out rows for boarding.

But if you get on board late, you know what? You lose.

Don't argue with the flight attendants. Don't start re-arranging the bags of others who came before you. Don't attempt to wedge your over-sized bag in with hydraulic jacks. Please just give up, check your bag and the front of the cabin and stop pouting.

It wouldn't be popular, but airlines need to start strictly enforcing their rules on acceptable size of carry-on luggage.

Babyville

2009-03-12T21:27:00.001-07:00

Some thoughts on birth and the baby as we enter week seven of parenthood.

The name

True story. One day, at least a year before we seriously considered attempting pregnancy, I found myself standing in the shower spontaneously pondering baby names. Mrs. VFR and I hadn't discussed anything of the sort in months.

But there I stood, rinsing shampoo out of my hair, and the name "Eliza" popped into my head. I immediately loved it. It fit predetermined criteria. Old, but not Mabel. Classic, but not overly popular.

It was more than the fact it merely passed those initial tests. It had this intangible: It just clicked right away. It sounded right. Eliza VFR. Yes.

I filed this nugget away and proceeded with getting ready for my day, thinking I'd unearth that thought again many months down the road. While I was drying off, Ericka came in to ask me a question. When she was done, she said:

"By the way, I was thinking of baby names for some reason. What do you think of the name Eliza?"

We never really considered anything else.

Numbers game

A little background on the mushier side of my marriage: Ericka and I often say "123" to each other, which is code for "I love you."

This is a little tradition that started on her side of the family. When her brother, Bullfrog, was a fierce southpaw on the mound in high school, her mom would always shout "I love you!" to him from the stands, much to his embarrassment.

He told her to stop; she wouldn't budge.

They eventually compromised on 123. One. Two. Three. I. Love. You. Bullfrog allowed her to shout this from the stands, and it quickly became a family trademark that carried over into our marriage.

It's important to us. Our wedding rings are inscribed on the inside with "One. Two. Three" and our wedding date.

So you can imagine our joy when Eliza was born, two days late, on January 23. 1/23.

Darth Vader visits

For the months leading up to the birth, we did a ton of research on natural birth versus C-section and the general labor process. Ericka concluded that she wanted as natural a birth as possible.

There were a lot of reasons for this, but the crux of it was that she wanted to avoid a C-section, unless an emergency required one.

From our studies, we knew that epidurals can often slow down the labor process, leading antsy doctors to administer the drug Pitocin, which speeds it up. Pitocin can also put undue stress on the awaiting baby, thus creating the sudden need for a C-section.

That cycle was burned into our minds. Epidural = Pitocin = C-section.

She was open to the epidural, but was going to give it her best shot without one. And I was slated to be her advocate during the hospital "experience." Her doula. Her voice of reason. This was the great birth plan.

Here's how it actually went down: My poor wife endured 55 hours of labor by the time they finally induced her, which caused her contractions to exponentially increase in severity.

She rolled around on the birthing ball and soaked in the jacuzzi in our room in hopes of soothing the daggers shooting into her stomach. But nothing really dulled the pain. More worrisome, she wasn't dilating. At all. All this pain, and no gain.

So the prospect of intervention was on the horizon when Ericka looked at me, and in a dark, low voice that sounded like Darth Vader, she said: "I want ... an epidural."

I assumed my role as advocate. "OK, let's slow down and talk about that," I said. "We can do that. Just remember that could slow things down, and --"

"NOW!" she bellowed.

"OK, just remember that it could --"

"NOW!" Darth Vader said.

Heil, epidural

I arranged the epidural.

A few minutes later, an anesthesiologist named Dr. Swastik arrived.

I kid you not. That was the dude's name. I wondered why he never changed it. I also wondered if my baby would someday display an irrational obsession with marching band and Meister Brau.

(Poor guy. I mean, seriously, now he's got some wise-ass cracking on him in a blog entry when all he did was deliver a fantastic epidural).

I left the room for about a half hour while Dr. Swastik administered the epidural. When I came back, Darth Vader had departed and my wonderful, smiling wife had returned.

Crowning achievement

The epidural not only defeated the pain, it allowed Ericka's body to relax to the point where she dilated. It occurred quickly, and in no time, she was ready for the home stretch.

She was feeling no pain, so much so, that we were having very nice conversations with our doctor in between pushes.

We did not know if the baby was a boy or girl, and we discussed our naming options with our doc at this point. We told him we had our girl name picked out for sure, but that we had three boy options.

When we were on the break before the second-to-last series of pushes, we finally got around to talking about what I did for a living. When I told him, he said, "Oh, so you must know Reako."

"Indeed I do," I said, and we had nice conversation about the general state of affairs on the local sports scene.

At this point, the doc said, "OK, you can see the head now." And he pointed in the general direction of this pointy, bluish-gray mass with white goop protruding from Ericka's down-theres.

It looked like a moonscape.

I had no doubt that the doc had indeed pointed to a head and that he knew what he was doing, but I concluded in my own mind that I must be looking in the wrong area.

"I delivered one of Reako's kids," the doc then said, jumping back to the earlier part of our conversation, as we geared up for a final push. (This was later verified).

Minutes later, the baby was born. I was stunned silent by the magnificence of this miracle process. The doc looked at us and said, "I guess you don't have to pick a name!"

Crying commenced. I cut the cord. Nurses placed the baby on the warming table. I watched as they poked and prodded her while the doctor patched up my wife.

At that moment, Eliza opened her eyes for the very first time. Her first sight was a proud papa. She stared right at me, and her steely blue eyes melted my heart.

Die Bambi!

Those of you who are already parents may remember placing your precious cargo in the car for the first time and driving away from the hospital as if you had a Ming vase balancing on a toothpick in the back seat.

I was no exception. I have never driven more slowly or been more on the lookout for soccer moms driving Ford Navigators while blabbing on their cell phones.

We weren't more than two blocks from the hospital when I saw an oncoming car careening off snow banks and hurtling toward us. It looked like the make and model Bluto drove at the end of Animal House.

A few minutes later, after dodging that wreck, we approached Pleasantville on a nice, country road when all of a sudden, a damned deer jumped out of the woods and into our lane. You may remember that I've already had a previous encounter with a deer this year.

I had no choice but to lock up the brakes.

At the last second before impact, Bambi jumped out of our lane and into the east-bound one. Just in time to get whacked by another vehicle.

My nerves were shot for two straight days.

Things I've learned

I know that a few of my readers are going to be proud parents any day now, so I'd like to pass along a few tidbits I've learned in seven fantastic weeks. I hope they're useful.

- Babies R Us is an evil place, filled with fear-mongers who prey upon your worst parental nightmares. All their advertising essentially comes down to this: "You're a bad, dangerous parent if you don't have this crappy, overpriced piece of plastic we'd like to sell you."

- If you have a birth plan, be flexible with it. Like I mentioned above, Ericka went in fairly determined to not have an epidural, because it could lead to the C-section. As it turned out, she probably avoided the C-section by having the epidural.

- We squirreled away a little dough specifically for baby expenses in the early months. OK, we didn't, but we thought about doing so. If you've had similar thoughts, save double what you planned. It's not just the big things. It's the series of little things on top of the big things.

- Three consecutive hours of slumber can indeed be classified as "a good night's sleep."

- There's an overabundance of information out there on birth and babies. Take it all with a grain of salt. Ask questions of your doctors, but realize that if you asked 10 different doctors the same question, you'd probably get 10 different answers. I'm not exaggerating. Trust your instincts. It ain't rocket science. They're either tired, hungry, gassy or sitting in their own waste. There's an outside chance they're sick, but that's why you've got a thermometer.

- Being Papa VFR is the greatest thing ever. Enjoy it.

The Cuba thing

2009-02-25T20:38:00.000-08:00

Forgotten among this week's stock-market flattening and Barack Obama's subsequent call to halve the national deficit by the end of his first term was an intriguing item from the desk of Indiana senator Richard Lugar.

The senate's longest-serving Republican called for a re-thinking of U.S. policy toward Cuba.

In a 23-page report that will be handed over to Congressional members later this week, Lugar wrote "We must recognize the ineffectiveness of our current policy and deal with the Cuban regime in a way that enhances U.S. interests."

It's basically a proposal to end the 47-year embargo of the island, and idea that's time has come.

Although it seems its been conservatives who have been most adamant against Cuban reconciliation, I'm not surprised to see Lugar be the one to propose it.

Despite my liberal leanings, I've always held a great respect for Lugar, a sober-thinking and candid foreign-relations master among the first to criticize former President Bush's handling of Iraq.

He's also worked closely with Obama. When the prez was in the senate, the two collaborated on the Lugar-Obama bill that diminished nuclear proliferation.

(The pair are so tight that scuttlebutt at one time suggested Lugar would be tabbed for Secretary of State, a position that eventually went to H-Rod).

Despite the closeness of the prez and the Senate's eldest Republican, I don't think the Cuba idea will get much traction.

For one, given the economic turmoil, a Middle East in disarray, the energy crisis and our current two-front war, the last thing Obama needs to do is stir up that hornet's nest.

And electorally speaking, the last thing Obama needs to do is stoke sentiment against him in South Florida, a state he won in no small part because of his support from Cuban Americans. To approach Cuba now would be akin to deserting that support.

A better solution would be if the idea of ending the embargo is shelved until Obama's second term.

Then, he has no electoral issues to worry about, and better, the odds are pretty good the Castro regime will be finished. Once Castro's gone, the road to re-establishing economic and diplomatic ties becomes far easier.

For now, the groundwork for such a scenario has been set into place.

I, for one, hope it gets done.

Zeeland represent

2009-02-18T19:38:00.000-08:00

In addition to being a swell guy and my cousin, Keith Reimink is going to go down as one of history's great vagabonds.

He splits his life between Alaska and Antarctica working as a cook/chef/dining manager. Each summer, he runs a kitchen for a lodge in Denali National Park, a stone's throw from the place Into The Wild was filmed.

Each fall, he travels down to the world's least-populated continent and hunkers down on an iceberg for the winter, plying his culinary trade for a bunch of scientists. Occasionally, he graces us with his presence in his home state of Michigan.

This winter, Keith is upping the ante.

He's spending the entire year at the South Pole. He's one of 44 people in the entire world who are staying the winter in Antarctica at the Amundsen-Scott research facility.

In order to do this, he had to pass a battery of psychological tests that prove he's up to this task, which in my opinion, is silly. Anyone who wants to do this must be completely insane.

I'm writing this not only to give my cuz some kudos, but also because two days ago he started a blog to chronicle his many months of darkness. You don't have to be related to Keith to find that it's fascinating reading.

Here's the link -- it's also added to my list on the right -- and I look forward to reading tales of drunken shenanigans from the bottom of the world.

***

Keith's brother, Troy, is also due some belated kudos.

Troy is not only also my cousin, but a fellow Boothie. He works at the Grand Rapids Press as an entertainment reporter, and writes a pretty funny blog, Medium Fidelity, on our shared statewide Web site.

A column that he wrote while still in college on why Gov. Jennifer Granholm is hot may have been the funniest thing I've ever read -- he wrote it at a time I didn't even live in The Mitt and I still fell out of my chair laughing.

So I'm linking to Troy's blog here, and adding it to the right as well.

***

A couple people have asked when Squawking VFR will break down the recent crash of Colgan Air flight 3407. Rest assured, a post is in the works. It's a more complicated accident than some others, so more care is required in the re-construction of this awful accident.

Also, keep an eye out for an upcoming post on the arrival of Baby VFR and the general greatness of fatherhood.

***

If you've noticed some stylistic changes here at Squawking VFR lately, they're not intentional.

I'm really annoyed with whatever recent software update that www.blogger.com has implemented. I can no longer fiddle with the point size of my text, bold the first letter of each entry or center my asterisks.

I used to have all sorts of options for centering, bolding and point-sizing in the toolbar above this little text box. Alas, they have all vanished. It's really irksome.

The Pretenders rock the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor

2009-02-09T20:11:00.000-08:00

(Photo courtesy of thepretenders.com)

Chrissie Hynde stood in a downtown Ann Arbor shop a few hours before Monday's show at the Michigan Theater and eavesdropped on a conversation between a man and a college-aged girl.

The man told her The Pretenders were in town, to which the girl responded, "Who are they?"

"Some 1950s band," he replied.

"Fuck," Hynde chuckled as she recounted the story a few hours later in front of a near-packed house. "It's the '80s! Get it right."

Then she kicked her hard-driving band into a fervent sequence of songs that proved, no matter what decade it is, The Pretenders sound as rollicking and relevant as ever.

Touring off the first band's new album in more than six years, Hynde could have played it safe and trotted out the band's greatest hits catalog. Never one to overly care about what others may think, she instead largely omitted the old warhorses from the set list (notably My City Was Gone, Middle Of The Road and Stand By You).

Which was just fine, because the seven tunes Hynde and The Pretenders played from their new disc, Break Up The Concrete, wonderfully showcased the band's trademarks: her ropy vocals, Martin Chambers' rhythm-dictating drum work and full-throttle guitars.

If that sounds just like the combination that made The Pretenders a power-punk-rock force in the 1980s, well, that's about right.

But in its current form, the band has added a pedal steel guitar that brings weeping flecks of country and western to the new songs and re-casts some of Hynde's older work in a more melancholy layer.

The live result of that addition was a show that mixed tender moments with hard-edged punk and batten-down-the-hatches guitars.

"Boots of Chinese Plastic," the up-tempo lead song on the new album, kicked things off, followed by another newbie, "Don't Cut Your Hair." Hynde slowed things down or a while with an oldie, "Talk Of The Town," followed by "Nothing Maker" and the radio-friendly cut from the new album, "Love's A Mystery."

Then came my favorite moment of the show.

Sending up a tribute to "Dr. Bob," the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, The Pretenders played "The Last Ride," a sad and beautiful song off the new album. On the recorded version, the song is largely piano-driven. But live, with no ivory on stage, guitarist James Walbourne carried the song hauntingly on a mandolin.

It was one of those rare moments where music was both spooky and poignant and new, which just sent chills up my spine.

Hynde got back to the pop, bringing the crowd to its feet for the first time with "Stop Your Sobbing," which was followed by the familiar "Brass In Pocket," and a tribute to fallen guitarists James Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon, "Back On The Chain Gang," which might be one of the best songs ever written.

There were some light moments, with Hynde cajoling both pedal-steel guitarist Eric Heyood and Chambers into exhibiting their bird-calling expertise.

At an earlier point, Hynde got a good laugh from the crowd by saying, "It's nice to see so many old faces here tonight."

One of the fresher faces was Walbourne, who absolutely stole the second half of the show with his furious, Red Bull pace that even upstaged Hynde, who seemed gracious and happy to relinquish the spotlight.

Walbourne, a U.K. guy who has recently played with indie pop's The Pernice Brothers, dished out a punishing solo during "Thumbelina," and that was just his warm-up. He revealed more and more of his considerable ability as the show progressed.

By the end, he brought the crowd to its feet on multiple occasions, and took command during an encore comprised of four songs from The Pretenders debut album -- "Kid," "Precious," "The Wait," and "Up The Neck" -- all probably written when he was in diapers.

Walbourne alone was worth the price of admission.

When you factor in the rest of the show, it was a very, very good night in Ann Arbor, a place that is proudly the home town of punk legend Iggy Pop, as Hynde noted.

My only complaint would be that The Pretenders probably just cleared the 1-hour, 30-minute mark from start to finish. Considering all they compressed into that time and the fact they left me wanting more, it's barely worth mentioning.

Facebook's 25 things

2009-02-02T18:03:00.000-08:00

I know all three of my readers are also on facebook, and you've probably already seen this there, but I thought I'd nonetheless post it on Squawking VFR as well.

For reasons unknown, babies, little kids and dogs are huge fans of mine. I am their pied piper. Sharon and Ericka think I should start my own TV show called “Meet Mr. Pete” and pick up where Mr. Rogers left off.

My favorite smell: Jet A fuel at the airport.

My favorite places in the world, in no particular order: Telluride, Colorado, Moab, Utah, Hanging Lake east of Glenwood Springs, Colorado and The Presidio in San Francisco.

From a young age, I’ve been a big Cleveland Browns fan. I never lived in Ohio. I have never had relatives there. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. My loyalty to and frustration with the franchise continues to this day, albeit at a lesser obsessive-compulsive pace than in my younger years.

I once went four-and-a-half years without drinking a caffeinated or carbonated beverage. Not surprisingly, I had never been healthier than during that stretch. Now? Dr. Pepper is nectar from the gods.

When it comes to IT savvy, gadget assembly or general handyman competence, I am a failure. A complete and unmitigated failure.

A lot of people have asked me if, given the Michigan economy and state of newspapers, I regret moving here two years ago. Honest truth: Not for a second. Do I regret purchasing a home 20 months ago? I love our place, but that’s a different answer.

That said, there are things I miss from Colorado deeply. There’s a lot of family and friends there, not to mention skiing and hiking. And the sun.

I’ve got five 14ers under my belt, but the hardest hike I’ve ever done was the Black Canyon of the Gunnison with Kevin.

I think a lot of my friends who I worked with in Colorado would get a kick out of working with me now. I’m not the outspoken pain-in-the-ass I was before. Pretty much the opposite. Apologies to Foster, Hempy and Mike.

Contrary to what most people think of sports writers/editors, etc., I don’t golf. And it’s probably been about three years since I’ve watched Sports Center.

Covering the NFL was a dream job, but I quickly realized that the daily grind of injury reports, quarterback quotes and coach-speak inevitably consumes your time and inhibits opportunities to do real journalism. I lasted four seasons on the beat.

On our first weekend trip together, I got Ericka lost in the Moab desert for hours. We ran out of water and, as dusk set in, couldn’t see 30 feet in front of us. Lucky for me, she stuck with me after that.

Academically speaking, I was a screw-up in college. So when I started studying for my FAA tests, I viewed it as a second chance to give it my all. I got so stressed out studying for my IFR checkride that I gave myself mono.

I got a perfect score on the instrument written, commercial written and CFI written. After the IFR checkride, which came in 30-kt winds, the examiner told me it was one of his best three rides ever. I went from total slacker to total overkill.

On my first flight as a student, my instructor took me directly over the Statue of Liberty, and then the World Trade Center. It was a proud moment, and it’s hard to reconcile that personal satisfaction with the sadness that now accompanies those memories.

I worked at a funeral home off and on during college. Yes, I did a little bit of everything. One summer, I organized a mass burial at sea for hundreds of unclaimed cremains. We dumped them not far from the splash-down spot of Flight 1549.

At some point in college, I got mugged at gunpoint on Central Avenue, about two blocks from my house. Who’s dumb enough to mug a poor college student? You’ve got to love New Brunswick.

Two of my favorite wedding moments were unplanned: When we were getting out of the car to take pictures, a little girl looked at Ericka, and gasped with pure innocence and wide-eyed amazement: “Look Daddy! … A princess!”

The other: I’m a terrible dancer. Between the ceremony and reception, Ericka and I took a few minutes to practice our well-rehearsed dance. We were standing near a creek doing our routine, and a deer came out of the woods, stood within about 15 feet of us and watched for several minutes as I twirled my beautiful bride.

Although I lived in Jersey for 24 years, I didn’t become a Springsteen fan until late in college. Since then, I’ve seen him 10 times in five states: New Jersey, Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota and Florida. I’m spoiled now – I’ve been in the pit for my past four shows.

I’m a fanatical cereal eater. Often, I have a bowl for breakfast. I absolutely must have one just before bedtime.

At various times, I’ve played the piano, guitar and trombone. But I’m a jack of all trades and master of none.

Ericka and I have been so fortunate to travel to Belize and India in the past two years. Seeing the poverty abroad is heartbreaking, but seeing the joy people possess despite their lack of material possession is priceless. What do I remember most? Their eyes.

There are about five dozen more places overseas that I am dying to see.

ENCORE

Being a dad is the greatest thing ever.

I miss my two deceased grandfathers, and would love to kick back and have a beer – or Dr. Pepper – with them today. I’m grateful that I’m in my 30s and still have two grandmothers who are very much alive and in good spirits.

I wish I lived closer to my parents and sister. Wait. Flip that. I wish they lived closer to me.

My perfect retirement scenario: Each day begins with a hike of Mount Sanitas followed by a Goony Bird sandwich at Mountain Sun, with Mrs. VFR by my side.

Dispatches from the global frontier

2009-01-28T15:53:00.000-08:00

If you haven't read my friend Nathan's travel blog yet, you are missing not only some of the best blogging on the Internet, but some of the best travel writing anywhere.

Actually, to call it travel writing is an insult, given a lot of the shillery that passes for travel writing in publications like Outside, Conde Nast and even sometimes National Geographic Traveler. Nathan's a writer who happens to write about travel.

Far from the posh accommodations and glitzy getaways profiled in those mags, he blogs about his trips to a ramshackle African orphanage, a gritty dhow wharf in Dubai and Christmas in Djibouti, among other topics.

Through his words, you'll get glimpses of not only places you've only dreamed of visiting, but places you'd never want to visit. His posts are snapshots at everyday humanity beyond our cozy borders; they can be hopeful and inspiring, unsettling and heart-breaking.

Above all, they make me feel something.

Read his recent post entitled "Three eggs" and you'll know what I'm talking about.

Aviation thoughts on Sunday afternoon

2009-01-18T14:00:00.000-08:00

Carlos Dardano

Sully, meet Carlos Dardano.

Long before we had the Hero of the Hudson, there was another cap who pulled off a miracle landing in a situation similar to the US Airways splash landing earlier this week.

Dardano was piloting TACA Airlines flight 110, a Boeing 737, on May 24, 1988 when it encountered heavy thunderstorms and hail on descent into New Orleans. Both engines flamed out upon absorbing an intense amount of the wet weather.

A flame-out is a little different than the bird strike encountered by US Airways 1549 -- the engine "fire" is essentially snuffed out as opposed to a structural failure -- but ultimately the results were the same.

The engines stopped working.

TACA 110 got its engines re-started while descending through 4,000 feet, but they would not spool past idle. So they weren't of much use. As the 737 glided through 3,000 feet, Dardano declared an emergency. Air traffic control advised 110 there was an interstate directly ahead, but Dardano didn't think they could reach it.

In fact, with more echoes of the US Airways splash, Dardano replied with these intentions, according to the NTSB report on the crash:

"I don't believe we're going to make it there, sir. We're at 2,000 and we're losing altitude. The only thing I can do right now is make a 360 and I'll land over the water."

What actually happened?

Dardano dead-sticked the 737 not into the water, but somehow landed on a levee next to Lake Borgne. Emergency chutes deployed; all aboard were saved. It was a heck of a feat, one that is just as incredible if not moreso than the landing US Airways accomplished the other day.

Especially considering that he switched plans from water to levee with less than 1,000 feet to spare while guiding a 50-ton anvil.

A few days later, mechanics came out to the plane on the levee and put new engines on it; they actually took off from the levee and the plane is still in service.

Much like the frozen turkey test described in my previous post, engines are also tested for water endurance. They basically open up the nozzles on giant fire hoses and flood the engine. As a result of this incident, though, the FAA rewrote engine water-intake standards.

Would love to be a fly on the wall if Sully and Dardano ever met up for a few beers.

***

A couple of aviation-related questions that I have:

TACA flight 110 departed Belize City for New Orleans. Who runs a nonstop from Belize City to New Orleans, even 20 years ago?

In regard to the US Airways crash the other day, I have yet to read where and how high 1549 was when it hit the flock of geese that led to its swim. I'm really looking forward to the voice recorder release and NTSB initial report and getting more intel on the point of impact.

US Airways 1549 came to rest a few hundred feet north of the Lincoln Tunnel. What would have happened if the Airbus and/or its engines sunk and came to rest on top of the tunnel?

Granted, there's a few bajillion pounds of water on top of the tunnel already. Would a few tons of aluminum make a big difference? I have no idea. But I'd love to hear a structural engineer answer the question of whether the tunnel would be compromised.

Heroes and villains

2009-01-15T18:52:00.001-08:00

Less than two weeks ago, aviation experts proclaimed 2007 and 2008 the safest stretch in American aviation history. No fatalities were reported aboard transport-category flights in those two calendar years.

Miraculously, that streak continues today.

There's really no other way to describe today's crash of US Airways flight 1549 into the Hudson River. Plane plunges into icy river? The last time that happened, in 1982, rescuers plucked 78 bodies from the Potomac after an Air Florida jet with ice on its wings crashed on takeoff. Five survived.

Everybody survived today's accident.

The pilot, who gently dipped the Airbus 320 into the chilly waters, is a hero. Not only for his aviation skills, but for twice walking the aisle of the plane after everyone else was aboard a ferry or raft to make sure no one was left behind.

As you probably know by now, a bird strike caused failures in both engines, which is just hard to comprehend. Engines are built to withstand strikes from an entire flock. They must pass strict tests, including simulated bird strikes which you can watch here as frozen turkeys are jettisoned into the engines, before they are put into service.

They're so strong that they can devour a human being, as this one unfortunate soul in El Paso learned, and keep on spooling like they didn't miss a beat.

So to have one engine fail in a bird-strike situation is rare, but not unheard of. To have both be hit and fail, I don't even know how you'd begin to calculate the odds.

If the early indications on the cause of the crash are correct, I'll be interested to see if the discussions turn to the Airbus 320's glide ratio. A glide ratio basically lays out that, for X feet of altitude, an airplane can horizontally travel Y number of feet in a no-wind situation.

(When I was flying Cessna 172s, the ratio was roughly 1:2. For every 1,000 feet of altitude, I could expect to glide two nautical miles. This sort of thing is useful for quickly calculating that, if I'm cruising at 7,000 feet above ground level, I know that if I lose my engine, I need to find a spot to land in approximately 14 nautical miles).

There's a great case from the 1980s where glide ratio came into play in an incident where disaster was averted. Air Canada flight 143 was cruising at 41,000 feet when it ran out of fuel -- the goofballs working the ground crew that day had topped off the Boeing 767 calculating the fuel weight in kilograms when they should have used pounds. But the glide ratio was about 1:12 and the "Gimli Glider," as it became known, landed at an abandoned air force base many miles from where the emergency began.

Back to New York today: Not sure what the glide ratio is for the Airbus 320, but flight 1549 was at about 3,000 feet when it encountered the flock of geese. Newark is ridiculously close to the spot in the Hudson where 1549 took its drink, so close that the captain could probably see the VASI lights at the end of EWR's runways as he landed.

Teterboro, the airport where I began my training in 1999, is just north of the Meadowlands and perhaps another after-the-fact option for the US Airways flight.

I don't mean in any way to suggest that the pilots of today's US Airways jet should have pursued the Newark or Teterboro options. I don't know. But I'll be interested to see what the glide ratio numbers are, how tantalizing those options may have appeared to the flight crew and the pilot's decision-making process on ultimately choosing to land in the Hudson River.

Any way you look at it, he made the right call.

Thanks to the flight crew, though, there are 155 people who can say that the worst part of their day was enduring La Guardia, an airport that I have panned as the worst in the United States.

While their actions were heroic -- a description I don't throw out lightly -- there was also a bit of cowardice this week in the aviation world.

You may have already read about the scumbag who crashed a plane in a brazen attempt to fake his own death somewhere in the skies over Alabama.

Marcus Schrenker called air traffic control and reported that he was badly injured after a bird strike penetrated his windshield. He then set his Piper on auto-pilot and parachuted out of the plane. We later learned that Mr. Schrenker was a financial adviser of sorts who had fleeced his clients, and amid a crumbling marriage, was attempting to escape.

It was total amateur hour for this guy, because his plan unraveled in less time than it took me to write this post. Authorities caught up with him just about the time he slid a razor through his wrists.

Schrenker's case conjured memories of another felon who started his run from the law by parachuting from an airplane. Only this one may have succeeded. If you don't know about the case of D.B. Cooper, you're missing out on one of the great American mysteries.

On November 24, 1971, the dapperly dressed Cooper hijacked a jet traveling from Portland to Seattle, telling a flight attendant he had a bomb in his briefcase. Upon arrival in Seattle, he released the passengers but kept the crew, then demanded $200,000 and four parachutes.

His request was granted. Cooper ordered the plane back into the air and bound for Reno. Somewhere over southwest Washington, he sent the flight attendants into the cockpit, lowered the aft stairs on the Boeing 727 and jumped into the cloudy skies. Two F-16s trailing the hijacked jet lost him in the haze.

Cooper vanished without a trace.

None of the money, tracked by serial number, was ever spent. No body was ever recovered. Neither was a parachute. To this day, no one knows what happened to D.B. Cooper. He remains one of the most wanted fugitives in American history.

The parachutes, though, are about the only similarities between Schrenker and Cooper. Their respective stories remind me of the line toward the end of Die Hard when Holly McClean says to Hans Gruber, almost with disbelief, "After all your posturing, all your little speeches, you're nothing but a common thief!"

Hans turns to her in a fit of intensity and retorts, "I am an exceptional thief, Mrs. McClean."

That's one difference between Schrenker and Cooper. But more importantly, I think this is the major diference: Schrenker was a coward who was running away and leaving others to clean up the mess he created.

D.B.? We'll never know for sure, but I think he did it just to show that it could be done.

Some thoughts on Mike Shanahan's demise in Denver

2009-01-04T15:09:00.000-08:00

I never thought Pat Bowlen had the guts to do it.

That was my reaction last week when the news arrived that Mike Shanahan was out in Denver.

Bowlen, the Broncos owner, had endured so many mediocre seasons similar to the one that just concluded. After the others, Shanahan was rewarded with contract extensions that made him among the league's highest-paid coaches, if not the highest. At one point, Bowlen called Shanahan his "coach for life."

Why would this one be any different?

But after blowing a three-game division lead with three games to play, Bowlen severed ties with his coach of 14 seasons.

It was a difficult call. It was the right call.

Sometimes change just for the sake of change is a good thing.

That's the case for both Shanahan and the Broncos.

In the years following the back-to-back Super Bowls, Shanahan became a maniac about winning a third. He walked around Dove Valley every day with bug-up-his-ass irritation and created a sense of constant urgency about fulfilling that goal. That's to his credit.

Out of all the coaches I have covered, I've never seen anyone better about instilling that mindset in his players on a day-to-day basis through the grinds of a long season.

But as the years wore on and the goal remained elusive, I think the missing third ring got to him in a way that clouded his judgment and made him pay a price for his impatience. The coaching staff and roster, especially on defense, was constantly being overhauled.

Shanahan went through defensive coordinators like Kleenex:

Greg Robinson was fired at the end of the 2000 season. Ray Rhodes' defense finished sixth overall, but he was gone after one year. Larry Coyer lasted two seasons, but became the scapegoat after a late-season collapse. Jim Bates came in highly touted from Green Bay, but lasted only one season. Bob Slowik is leaving now.

And when it came to assembling the roster, above anything, Shanahan believed in potential. He became enamored with it to a point where it became detrimental.

He drafted high-risk players like Maurice Clarett and injury-prone players like Willie Middlebrooks and George Foster. He brought in big-name free agents like Courtney Brown and Dewayne Robertson believing he could resurrect their careers.

More often than not, he couldn't.

As much as it drives him insane, he couldn't win a Super Bowl without John Elway and especially without Terrell Davis.

Shanahan never seemed comfortable with the fact that those guys helped him get those rings, and I think he wanted that third in part to show everyone he could get there on his own. Because he was so uncomfortable about that, his legacy in Denver will not only be that he won two Super Bowls, but also that he didn't win the third.

And while there's been a lot of talk in the wake of his firing that he spread himself too thin between his coaching duties and making personnel decisions, I'd like to claim first dibs on this line of thinking.

In fact, it was me who was calling for changes just like this one many years ago. I'm pasting in two columns I wrote on that subject over the years, both of which now seem prescient.

****

This one ran on April 23, 2004, and dealt primarily with Shanahan's lust for gambling on draft day:

ENGLEWOOD - Predicting the outcome of the NFL Draft is an annual headache, a complex journey through a maze of arcane statistics and an exercise destined to end in failure.
Predicting the draft of the Denver Broncos is a little simpler.

Scan the college prospects. Look for players who have minimal experience playing football, guys who have outlandish injuries or the hardest of the hard-luck stories out there. Find those players, and you've found future Broncos.

Mike Shanahan apparently borrows his draft philosophy from Lady Liberty. Instead of taking the hungry, tired and poor, the coach chooses from the injured, overlooked and unstable.

While watching endless hours of coverage devoted to the NFL Draft this weekend, expect Denver to pick a project. The rest of the league may use tangible results, statistics and scouting as criteria for their selections.

Shanahan has one. Potential.

It has been the tenet governing Denver's drafting in recent years. Last year, team officials tabbed George Foster with the 20th overall pick.

They could have avoided a player who dislocated a wrist in an auto accident and only started once his senior season. At the least, the Broncos could have traded down and grabbed Foster eight picks lower. But Shanahan held firm. He wanted the project.

"I really believe he would have been one of the top five picks," he said afterward.

Foster played in one game last season - he earned scrub duty in the regular-season finale against the Green Bay Packers.

Drafting damaged goods has been Shanahan's favorite hobby in recent years. He selected Willie Middlebrooks in the first round of the 2001 draft, despite concerns over a badly broken left fibula.

Middlebrooks hobbled through two injury-plagued seasons. Last year, he saw sparing action as a defensive reserve. As unproductive has he became, he looks like a steal compared to Denver's second-round pick that same year.

Paul Toviessi never even reached the football field.

Denver moved ahead seven spots in the second round to draft the Marshall defensive end knowing full well he had a damaged right knee that would keep him out for the season. As it turned out, the injury kept him out forever. Toviessi retired prior to the 2002 season.

Injured players are not the only ones who prove too tempting to pass.

In 2000, Denver picked Deltha O'Neal with the 15th overall selection. Although listed as a cornerback, the Broncos coveted O'Neal's potential as a kick and punt returner.

He never developed into the special-teams star officials envisioned, and the Broncos gave up on him weeks ago, dumping the disgruntled veteran in a trade with the Bengals.

Recent drafts are littered with examples of players drafted on potential alone, while mitigating factors were ignored.

At 5-foot-5, Quentin Griffin is a shrub playing among Sequoias. Tailback Ahmaad Galloway arrived with two broken legs. (To be fair, at least the Broncos had good sense to wait until the seventh round to draft him). Nick Eason brought baggage of a different kind - personal problems that caused him to flee training camp without notifying a soul last year.

What's wrong with a normal, healthy player who has excelled at his position for a couple of years in college?

Logic dictates that the Broncos will draft a defensive tackle, wide receiver or running back with their first-round choice tomorrow. History says it will be a player with a physical defect or some other blemish on his resume.

There is nothing inherently wrong with drafting based on potential. Surely, reporters would go bonkers if Shanahan walked out of his draft room and announced he drafted a player he believed had no potential.

But potential cannot exist in a vacuum. It must be complemented by other attributes, like a proven track record, gaudy statistics or physical intangibles.

Until the Broncos work some of those qualifications into their draft formula, potential will continue to be Shanahan's siren song.

****

And here's a better one dealing with Shanahan's failure to win a playoff game in the six years following the Elway Era, where I declared his free pass over. It originally ran Jan. 12, 2005.

Later this offseason, the Denver Broncos must decide whether to pay quarterback Jake Plummer a $6 million roster bonus that would extend his tenure. Logic would suggest it would be a major question, considering his inconsistent play this season.
Broncos coach Mike Shanahan, however, suggested Monday only a ‘moron’ would doubt the wisdom in extending Plummer’s contract.

Call me stupid.

The infatuation with Plummer is understandable. He provides the team’s offense with the flash and moxie it lacked under predecessor Brian Griese. Yet Plummer offers weekly apologies for his poor decisions at crucial moments in the game.

None of this should come as a surprise. It was his m.o. with the Arizona Cardinals for six seasons before he arrived in Denver. For two years, he has delivered the Broncos a dose of exactly what everybody expected. So can you blame him for the team’s woes?

Not if you listen to his former teammate, Hall of Fame-bound tight end Shannon Sharpe.

“I don’t even fault Jake,” Sharpe said in December. “I fault Mike, because he puts the ball in his hands. … If you’re on a boat and you know this guy is punching holes in your boat and you still allow him to have a hammer and a nail to keep doing it, I don’t feel bad for you.”

And that’s what it’s about.

Six full seasons have passed since Shanahan sniffed a postseason victory, and it’s time to stop genuflecting in front of the coach just because he wears two Super Bowl rings.

Questions regarding his choice of quarterback are worthy topics of debate, and deserve consideration instead than smug replies. Shanahan has received and deserves credit for the triumphs of yesteryear.

Now, the Teflon is wearing off his sterling reputation. People wonder if John Elway and Terrell Davis brought the Broncos to those two championships and not Mastermind mystique. It’s a fair question. Shanahan has accomplished little without those stars.

Look at the track record since those Super Bowls.

Shanahan hand-picked Griese and Plummer as Elway’s replacements and lavished them with fat contracts. They should be the poster children for his alleged offensive genius. But neither brought the Broncos anywhere near a playoff win.

Draft-day errors left the franchise with albatrosses like Deltha O’Neal, Willie Middlebrooks, Paul Toviessi, Dorsett Davis and Quentin Griffin. In fairness, Shanahan succeeded with selections like Clinton Portis, D.J Williams and Tatum Bell over the last two years.

His record on personnel decisions is checkered, at best.

Add free-agent busts like Dale Carter, Lester Archambeau, Kavika Pittman, Leon Lett, Eddie Kennison and Daryl Gardener into his record and one must wonder why owner Pat Bowlen lets his coach waste so much money.

On the field, Shanahan’s teams have recently fizzled after strong starts. In 2002, the Broncos started with a 6-2 record and missed the playoffs. The last two seasons, they have opened with 5-1 records before midseason collapses ruined a chance at a high playoff seed.

During the season that concluded with Sunday’s humiliating 49-24 playoff defeat, Denver defeated only two teams that finished with a .500 record or better – one of those came against an Indianapolis Colts team resting its starters.

The Broncos, who constantly touted themselves as one of the elite teams in the league, suffered home losses against the Atlanta Falcons and woeful Oakland Raiders.

How does Shanahan explain all the turmoil? Every year, he trots out a different excuse.

Terrell Davis’ knee injury ruined the 1999 campaign. Gus Frerotte played an awful AFC Wild Card Game against the Baltimore Ravens in 2000. Ed McCaffrey’s grotesque broken leg struck a definitive blow into the hopes of the ’01 season.

Brian Griese took the blame for the problems in 2002. Last year, Denver’s defensive backs bore responsibility for a playoff collapse against those pesky Colts. And now?

“Well, we got beat by a good football team at Indy,” Shanahan said Monday. “Playing in that environment is not the ideal situation.”

That’s the best excuse he could muster. The Indianapolis Colts are a good team. And the Denver Broncos are not.

The free pass is over.

After six years of mediocrity, Shanahan must be held accountable. Only Seattle Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren has lasted as long with the same employer as Shanahan without delivering a playoff victory, and Holmgren is under considerably more scrutiny.

There is plenty for Shanahan to be proud of during his 10 seasons in Denver. He’s captured two Super Bowl titles with the help of Elway and Davis. His team’s offenses rank consistently among the best in the league and his running game is admired around the league.

It would be difficult for the Broncos to find another coach as accomplished as Shanahan. Yet they need a jolt to shake them out of a six-year rut. Sometimes change, only for the sake of change, can be a good thing.

Pathetic playoff losses call for desperate measures.

Bowlen may deride those who suggest a coaching change and Shanahan may label those who disagree with his quarterback choice as morons.

But it doesn’t take a genius to deduce the Broncos have been worthless for six consecutive seasons, and they appear content to enter next year with the same protagonists in place.

Night moves

2008-12-22T19:50:00.000-08:00

Top: A runway schematic of KDEN. Above: A picture that doesn't really have to do with my post, other than to show the majestic Rockies in a view that can only be captured while flying over them, one I was lucky to see many times. This particular photo was taken while I was a pax, and my friend Tim was executing the published missed approach off 29R at Jeffco, the runway seen above.

Contrary to media reports, the first crash in Denver International Airport's 13-year history did not occur when Continental Airlines flight 1404 veered off a runway Friday night and cut a half-mile long scar through the snow.

It occurred, according to my logbook, on Feb. 5, 2002.

The date was about a year after I earned my private pilot's license, and probably also about a year after I had last flown at night. There are few things better than a night flight, so missing the dark skies, I set off with my instructor, Hazen, to enjoy the scenery and regain my night proficiency.

I also really wanted to practice night landings. They're tricky.

At night, your visual perceptions get twisted in a fun-house mirror. When you're on a long approach, you often get the sensation that you're too high even though you're not, so you need to be careful about descending too low when there's really no need.

When you're closer, it's often much harder to utilize depth perception when you're trying to figure out how high above the runway you are upon descent and landing, and particularly when you should begin the landing flare.

Night landings are a skill that needs to be honed and maintained. I'm pretty good at it now, but certainly was green on this particular night.

According to the FAA, night flight can be logged only between the end of evening civil twilight and the beginning of morning civil twilight, so we had to wait a while before departing.

(If you're interested in carrying passengers at night, the agency's definition sort of changes to 'night begins one hour after sunset,' and there's a difference between that and civil twilight, but I digress).

Hazen and I waited until it had been dark outside for a while, and we taxied to the run-up area, set up our VORs and departed Jeffco on runway 29R, climbing out toward Boulder's Flatirons.

There probably aren't many of the hundreds of flights I've logged that I remember clearly, but this one was one of the few. As soon as we took off, it became apparent that it was one of those rare times in Colorado where the weather was absolutely perfect for flying.

Typically, you either get super-clear conditions that are accompanied by turbulence and wind. Or you get a smooth ride, but lower visibilities. Part of the reason for that is simply the stability of the weather systems; part of it unique to Colorado is the way the winds gust out of the Front Range and onto the Eastern Plains. It's almost always a trade-off between those two scenarios.

February 5, 2002 was a rare exception.

As soon as our wheels left the ground, I could feel the silky smooth conditions. Just like a glassy lake, there wasn't a ripple in the air. It's an eerie feeling to feel that still while flying; that's one of the reasons I remember this night so vividly.

And the visibility was unbelievable. When we banked off our westerly heading and turned south toward The Springs, only a few hundred feet off the ground, we could already see the city lights twinkling some 60 nautical miles away. Above us, thousands of stars huddled in the sky.

I tuned in the Black Forest VOR, and we proceeded on our way. We weren't even past the outskirts of Denver's southern suburbs when the alternating green-and-white flashes of the beacon at Colorado Springs were visible. Springs approach control took us somewhere over Monument and brought us in on a long straight-in approach the rest of the way.

I dropped 10 degrees of flaps on final. An American MD-80 waited behind the hold line. And I absolutely greased the first landing. I mean, it was perfect. I was right on the center line, brought the wheels down gently, held the nose off for a while, and basked in some lavish praise.

Flaps retracted. Throttle to full. Airspeed alive. Gauges in the green. We completed the touch-and-go, and jumped back into the air.

KCOS tower turned us west toward Cheyenne Mountain, home of NORAD, and kept us in the pattern for a few more touch-and-goes. None of the landings that followed were as perfect as the first. On one, I started descending too early, then had to counter with more power.

But we completed them just fine. They were sloppy from a technical perspective, but nothing that an unknowing passenger would notice. Just missing some style. We thanked KCOS tower for their help and they handed us back to approach for the trip home.

And that's when the trip got interesting.

About halfway home, Hazen piped up.

Hazen was a through-and-through country boy who primarily worked on his family's farm near the Nebraska border and once suspiciously asked my why I wanted to move to Boulder "with all them pot-smoking hippies." He was hilarious.

"Hell, you want to try something fun?"

"Sure," I said.

He contacted Denver approach when we were down by Centennial. "Approach, N5163H is a Cessna 172, wondering if you're not too busy tonight, if we could do a touch-and-go at Denver."

Legend had it that Denver International Airport would let us smaller guys in for a touch-and-go at night if they weren't busy. While we waited for a reply, Hazen told me the chances of such a request being granted were rare, and that he'd only had it work once before.

"Cessna Five One Six Three Hotel, turn right heading 040, maintain eight thousand, five hundred," approach control replied.

Then we heard the magic words.

"You are cleared into the Class Bravo airspace."

Class B airspace is the airspace that surrounds the nation's busiest airports. It sits above those landing strips like an upside-down wedding cake, with layers that grow longer in diameter the higher up you go. In order to enter the Class B, among other requirements, you specifically need to hear those words above. They said them, which meant our request was granted.

Denver Approach took us far to the right of the city, out near Strasburg, then sent us north, almost to Greeley, giving us heading and altitude changes along the way. They might as well have vectored us to Kansas and back.

But after what seemed like forever, they finally turned us south and told us to expect runway 17R. It was a pretty cool moment. It's not every day a yokel private pilot gets to land at a Class B airport. Certainly a moment worth remembering.

As we puttered in at about 90 knots, control cleared a United 757 to land on 16R, which is the same runway the Continental jet used the other day, except in the opposite direction.

We were about one mile from touchdown, and we could see the 757 at our 4-o'clock position, paralleling our path into Denver International. Again, it's a sight to see when you're in a little four-seater and United is dropping off the group from Bora Bora a few hundred feet to your right.

The 757 gracefully touched down on 16R, and then it was my turn.

I dropped 20 degrees of flaps in two stages, slowed to 65 knots and followed the VASI along the glide path perfectly -- red over white and you're all right, the old adage goes. I had my speed and altitude nailed perfect, a stable approach and no wind.

I couldn't ask for a better set-up.

Naturally, I butchered the landing.

Like I described above, I misjudged the distance between the plane and ground. I thought I was high. In reality, I was only a few feet off the ground. Simple stuff. The result was a no-flare landing in which I pretty much just drove the Cessna straight into the ground. A controlled crash, if you will.

The result was, well ... you know how you feel after attempting a belly-flop into the pool and you smack the water and it stings? That's how this felt.

We crunched flat, and bounced back into the air. I reached for the throttle to add a little power back in, hoping to smooth things out, but it was too late. We plopped back to earth again. Then lurched with a sideload.

Shaken out of my complacency, I brought the plane back under control and brought it back to the center line before continuing with the rest of the touch-and-go procedure. There was nothing but silence in the plane.

Finally, Hazen said in his perfect country accent, "You know why they don't let private pilots in their 172s in here?"

There was a long pause. I didn't answer him.

"Well hell, they're afraid a jackass like you is going to crash, and leave the whole place shut down for the big boys!"

He howled with laughter. And then I did too.

We made the short hop back to Jeffco. I aced the landing there, and we went out for a beer afterward.

A good lesson learned, and a good story to tell.

A new spin on an old tradition

2008-12-17T17:44:00.000-08:00

Hiking the dunes has been a time-honored summer tradition in my family.

As a kid, we used to spend two weeks each summer at a cottage on a little lake near the Lake Michigan shores. My sister, cousins and I spent hours trudging up the mountains of sand, watching the buggies zig-zag up and down them and shaking their remnants out of our shoes and clothes for weeks.

We'd summit the behemoths and then charge down straight into the water. We'd hike the mile or so over to the "Big Lake," then get an ice cream cone afterward.

Over Thanksgiving, Mrs. VFR and I saw the dunes in a new way. Instead of wearing bathing suits, we wore ski gear.

We spent a few days near the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes west of Traverse City. Before sitting down for a fantastic meal, we hiked the dunes with my cousin and her husband. Mrs. VFR made the arduous trek while seven months pregnant.

The harsh winds churned through the sand canyons and we navigated some snow, but it was nonetheless a fun time. There's a few pictures from the hike above.

Sail on, Brian Wilson

2008-11-14T19:17:00.000-08:00

One afternoon long ago, I walked into the offices of The Daily Targum to find Oregon's foremost financial wizard engrossed in a conversation with Mr. J about the Beach Boys and Pet Sounds. He kept referencing it over and over again.

Finally, I asked.

"What's Pet Sounds?"

He was kind enough to overlook my status as a cultural rube and fill me in. In his mind, it was just about the best album in the history of mankind. His fierce devotion to the album made me curious, and eventually I bought the album to investigate.

Kudos to E.P. for his rabid insistence that I check Pet Sounds out, for it has become one of my all-time favorites in the decade-plus since that afternoon in Suite 431. Out of that, a desire grew to see one of the 20th century's true musical geniuses, Brian Wilson, perform live.

Mrs. VFR and I got that chance Wednesday night when Wilson brought himself and his excellent 10-person band to the Michigan Theater, one of two solid concert venues in town.

Maybe it was because it was a little odd to see Wilson sitting center stage in front of his keyboard, reading his lyrics off a teleprompter, but the show got off to a slow start. The audience was dead.

About three or four songs into the evening, the audience pretty much snored through California Girls. (Mrs. VFR, Baby VFR and myself were rare exceptions, up and dancing).

One of the guitar players then wondered out loud whether we had all be lulled by "sleeping gas," and seriously asked if they needed to play California Girls again to awaken people.

It was an embarrassing effort by Ann Arborites. One of music's greatest living composers played our little stain on the map, and the majority of townspeople sat comatose.

Everyone exhaled a little after that well-deserved admonishment, and let loose. Wilson then introduced God Only Knows, what he called "the best song I've ever written," and the show kicked up a notch.

He rolled through an off-the-hits-track gem in Sail On Sailor, then rallied again with Good Vibrations, Surf's Up and Fun, Fun, Fun. By the time the show reached intermission, we were awash in a melodic mix of horns, guitars and layered harmonies.

While those popular Beach Boys hits of the '60s served as the underpinnings of the show, the best part of the night came in the second act.

Wilson played his new album, "That Lucky Old Son," in its entirety, and was joined on stage by three violinists.

At first, I was a little nervous the crotchety old crowd might cringe over the fact he turned away from the Top 40 stuff, but they survived.

The new album is a wonderful compilation, a love letter to Los Angeles, the city that came of age in the late 1950s and 60s and sold itself to America by offering up surfing and T-Bird images that populate the Beach Boys' music.

But Lucky Old Son is more melancholy than sunshine, and there are corners of sadness and regret for every note of confidence. In that way, it reminds me of Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Under The Bridge," their look at loneliness in L.A.

It's just a beautiful album that embraces the boldness and heartbreak of the Beach Boys' brilliance, as well as the modern city as a place of hope and aspiration. It's something Wilson could only have written with age and his kaleidoscope of life experience.

And it was a treat to hear it live.

He closed the show with a rollicking six-song encore that kicked off with a cover of Johnny B Goode, and included Barbara Ann, Help Me Rhonda and Surfin' USA. For those last two, he came off the keyboard and joined his bandmates with Fender in hand.

By that point, the crowd had redeemed itself and we left thrilled, knowing that we had spent the night witnessing one of music's elder statesman put on an excellent show with a very, very good backing band.

Two days later, I'm still ooohing and ahhing, and baa-baa-baabbing.

Garden State pride

2008-11-05T17:16:00.000-08:00

A little blend of Jersey and personal history for you tonight:

Before Bruce Springsteen reached the crescendo of his fame and The Sopranos made the Meadowlands a landmark in popular culture, New Jersey had a bit of an image problem.

To the rest of the country, the state was most known for its Superfund sites, syringes on the shores of Sandy Hook, gritty refineries along the Turnpike and stupid 'Joisey' jokes.

There was no avenue to counter those images. Wedged between the New York and Philadelphia media markets, New Jersey existed as a media oddity. She possessed one of the countries largest populations within her borders, yet had no major media outlets of her own.

All of North Jersey congregated around the New York television channels. All of Southern Jersey aligned with Philly. The result? A full-blown identity crisis for the Garden State.

One microscopic exception to this media-created truism was the New Jersey Network.

The NJN was Jersey's branch of public television and radio. Fifteen years ago, when I used to watch the network, public television and radio did not have the geeky cache it has today, so the station's reach was miniscule and its stature pretty much irrelevant.

After airing its nightly lineup of eclectic programming, it closed its broadcast every night at midnight with the above video, a proud tribute to the underrated qualities of the state.

I'm not sure how we first latched onto this nightly farewell, but those of us who lived at 55 Duke Street during college made it part of our evening viewing. First, it was a curiosity. Then a habit. Then an all-out event.

Watching NJN's nightly sign-off was something that was not to be missed on Duke Street.

(What's that? And you wonder why we never had a date?)

At first, I think we were taken with the corny nature of the video. But then, we grew to actually like it. The joke was on us. I won't speak for others, but I can admit now that we actually enjoyed the video -- particularly the black woman wearing the yellow dress and over-sized glasses, who exudes nothing but sheer joy as she bends down to pick up her newspaper.

She got a rousing round of applause every night.

If nothing else, some of this Jersey celebration was pride. We had all attended our "safe" school, somehow failing to join the legions of others who fulfilled their teen-aged dreams of being sprung from cages on Highway 9 and pulling out of here to win. We didn't quite make it across the border.

So we had to rationalize our failures and grasped at the scant positives we could find.

But some of this also stemmed from Bill Gillette's excellent New Jersey history class, where we learned to appreciate the Jersey beyond the cliches -- the one portrayed in the video -- the one that conjoins the cranberry bogs of the Pine Barrens with the ivy-covered campuses of Rutgers College and Princeton.

The one that courageously hosted George Washington as he toppled the British in Trenton, and the one that provided the cliffs for the backdrop of the Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton duel. The Jersey of Sinatra and Springsteen.

The one that is the true home of the New York Giants and Jets, not to mention the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, the one that welcomed immigrants to its textile mills more than a century ago and the one that welcomes them to Edison today.

This is the real Garden State.

So those of you who only know the industrial wasteland near Carteret or the murder rates of Camden, let's keep it that way. You keep making your snide remarks, and we'll keep New Jersey's finer qualities our little secret.

And you with the Joisey jokes?

As Tony Soprano might say, go fuck yourself.

***

(Kudos go to Army's most intrepid football reporter for unearthing this video in recent days and giving some of us 55 Duke Street veterans a good chuckle).

News flash: "Dog crap threatens Pleasantville"

2008-10-21T17:04:00.000-07:00

Arriving home from work today, I found the inaugural edition of the "Ryan/Ulrich News" stuffed into my mailbox along with the regular pile of coupons, credit card solicitations and bills.

Ryan and Ulrich are two of the streets in our Pleasantville subdivision, so at first I assumed this was someone's nifty effort at creating a hyperlocal news product to replace the "dying newspaper" in our close-knit community.

Upon further investigation, however, I learned this news product was the creation of someone whose target audience was perhaps even smaller than hyperlocal -- microlocal? -- it was directed at the owner/owners of two dogs who have apparently been crapping all over our neighborhood.

"Wanted: (sic) for being off leash," the alarming headline read. "Bonnie and Clyde."

A short synopsis of smoldering anger is accompanied by five pictures, three of the offending pooches in their squatting positions and two close-ups of their brown droppings.

The publication then points out that the writer became a part of his/her own story -- never a good idea for you prospective journalists out there -- and picked up the refuse themselves.

I can sympathize with the letter writer. I'd prefer to not be confronted by this obviously dangerous twosome, and certainly do not want to encounter their curly refuse. I'd prefer that Pleasantville be free of such unsightly products.

However, what bothers me more than the occasional stray turd is the knowledge that there's some neighborhood busybody who has nothing better to do with his/her time than craft and distribute these elaborate newsletters -- leaflets that include freaking pictures of the dogs caught in the act.

A better idea? Invest that time in seeking out the owners of Bonnie and Clyde, and rationally explaining the nuisance created by their lax oversight. I know where one of the dogs lives. It's not that hard, certainly not as hard as investing a ton of time and ill will into a ridiculous newsletter anonymously distributed throughout the neighborhood.

Anonymity is nothing but a veil for cowardice.

Sincerely,

Squawking VFR

A2's Angel of Death

2008-10-16T17:00:00.000-07:00

Quite a few wacky things have happened to the local school's athletic program since Mrs. VFR and I arrived in town.

So many so, that I'm beginning to suspect that I am unknowingly the Angel of Death in town.

To recap:

The day after I was invited to interview in person, Bo Schembechler died. The day of my interview was the day of his funeral.

Within my first months here, the men's and women's basketball coaches, Tommy Amaker and Cheryl Burnett, were both fired.

No. 5 Michigan lost at home to I-AA Appalachian State, perhaps the greatest upset in college football history. The following week, the team loses 38-0 to Oregon, its most lopsided defeat ever.

Lloyd Carr retired after one of the most disappointing seasons in program history.

The local paper ran a four-day series that showed how the school guided student-athletes into gut classes for which they did little to no work.

Rich Rodriguez arrives after an ugly divorce from West Virginia that's litigated in the courts for months, an inauspicious start for the new coach who loses the $4 million buyout case badly.

In 2008, Rodriguez is off to a 2-4 start in his first season, the program's worst start in 41 years and one that threatens the team's 33-year consecutive bowl streak, the longest such stretch in college football. It's fair to say that it's almost certainly going to end this year.

I'm not Lucifer, but if I was, it'd be about time to say, "Hmmm ... I think my work here is done."