Letters to the Editor
videographer
Published Letters: 25 Editor's Choice: 5
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The Fast Company article is a POS top to bottom.
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Read what it says about being a professional athete, another of the (so-called) 25 best jobs for 2005:
" What they do: You know the drill. The job requires running around a diamond, running up and down a field, running up and down a court, running side to side on a court, skating up and down a rink, or walking around a lush golf course. Competition is fierce, and teamwork is usually required.
Why the job is hot: Being a professional athlete seems like a darn good job. Fun, physical. Rumor has it that it pays OK."
Rumor has it that it pays OK.
Uhhhh, tell that to all the minor-league baseball players driving their rattletrap cars to Arizona and Florida right now. Or the hundreds of folks trailing Tiger Woods on the PGA money list. Or any of a million other examples.
My family has been intimately involved in the airline biz since the early 1950's (not me; I went another direction due to a childhood eye injury. Jeez, am I glad I got hit by that ball.) It's great to have dreams; is life worth living without them? But you have to inform your dreams with a hefty dose of reality, and the reality is that in the airlines - as in so much else of society today - things are NOT getting better. And until some kind of national consensus can be reached to stop government (red OR blue) from colluding with business to screw workers of all types, nothing is going to get better, and indeed can get really worse in a big hurry.
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Window seats for me, too!
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I too love to look out the window; I just can't imagine the mindset of anyone that wouldn't. My idea of aviation hell is being the guy in the middle of the 5-abreast seating chunk that used to pass for coach seating in United's old DC-10's.
There is a practical dimension to a window seat as well. I'm a good-sized guy - 6' 3", and while my butt fits fine in the limited horizontal seating space my shoulders do not. A window gives me a chance to lean away from the poor person in the middle and give us both some space. And the aisle? My shoulders are constantly bumped by people, food carts, etc. The window seat is a refuge as far away from everyone else as possible while still staying in coach.
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Sure you should cut the film some realism slack...
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[Read more letters about this article: Here]...but you gotta think someone really screwed up when the silhouette of the plane in the print ads broadly features the distinctive top & bottom winglet only found on Airbus aircraft.
As to the film...haven't seen it, and won't. I vote exploitation.
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Your love of Air Afrique is a little...
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...misplaced, I fear. I flew Afrique from CDG to Cotonou, Benin in July 2001, with a stopover in Abidjan, Ivory Coast (whose airport bears a striking resemblance to the Oneida County Airport my Dad flew out of for Mohawk Airlines back in the '60's.)
The flight, on an Airbus A330, was hilarious. It left late, but that was excusable since it was raining in Paris that day like I've never seen rain before or since. Once aloft, the service was just stunning. The cabin crew was either indifferent or absent, the food was minimal (although I was, regrettably, in coach), and the in-flight entertainment consisted of watching the video screens deploy, play some South African quasi-pornographic fashion show for about 45 seconds, then watching the screens stow themselves. This happened no less than five times! However, the scenes out the window of the Sahara scrolling by were more than enough for my Africa-virgin eyes.
On the other hand, I got to where I was going safely, and everything was OK other than when my equipment case - with much valuable video gear in it - didn't show up. (It did, unmolested, about two days later.) And leaving Cotonou, whose airport rivaled Abidjan in both antiquity and decrepitude, was even weirder - how the Air France crew managed to both land and take off in a massive A-340 on that tiny strip was quite impressive. (And we stopped in Lagos, Nigeria, on our way to Paris as well.)
Romance has it's limits, even in flying!
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Another reason for in-flight audio...
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[Read more letters about this article: Here]...is the wonderful (for flying geeks) "Channel 9" service on United. I love being able to eavesdrop on the radio communications between the pilots and the various air traffic controllers, and even between planes on long overwater flights. I've never been able to understand why so many UA pilots won't allow this little, free-of-cost amenity for the <5% of us that enjoy it.
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Mojave is one weird place...
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I had the opportunity to shoot at Mojave about a decade ago, interviewing Burt Rutan for a documentary. I got to wander thru the graveyard for a little while as well, which at the time featured a large collection of KLM 747's and a small flock of L1011's, as well as a bunch of USAir DC9's and BAE146's. It really made me sad to see them, but it's really just a part of any airplane's life. I think it is the concentration of so many scrap airplanes in one place that reinforces the sense of despair.
PS: You forgot to mention the other remarkable visual feature at Mojave - the enormous energy windmill farm right across the street in the hills. There must be 500 windmills scattered across the place, and it is a striking sight.
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The Mohave windmill farm...
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...is visible if you just drag the Google Maps window over towards the right (i.e., pan west).
Or try this link: http://tinyurl.com/grmj9
The resolution of the picture drops off drastically about halfway into the farm, but you can see the continuation of the access roads in a southwest/northeast direction.
Considering what trouble windpower is having getting off the ground today, it is impressive to think that this facility has been open for at least 15 years or so.