Letters to the Editor
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Welcome Back
Patrick, welcome back to the, er friendly skies of aviation - as the pilot. We look forward to a new slew of articles on your experiences.
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excitement
Sounds like an exciting first day on the job. I'm sort of glad a papercut is about the biggest danger in mine....
Just curious, has your new employer set conditions on your writing, such as you not being able to tell their identity or your home base?
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Update your bio!
I followed the link to the Italian page, and followed a link there to your bio, where it says you are a furloughed pilot.
Hop to it, man! Be Prrrroud! :-)
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Welcome Back
Great article, and I'm glad you're back in the air. I look forward to your articles.
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Thanks for reminding me
why I quit flying. When I went through Naval Aviation training in 2000, it was all the rage for guys to get out as soon as they were eligible and go to the airlines. That didn't work out so well for them post 9-11. I had "Top Gun" dreams, but right from the start, I always thought flying was nothing but miserable drudgery, hard work, airsickness, boring holding patterns, near death experiences, Iraqi bullets, and dead friends. After more than 1300 hours in the Bell Supercobra, I called it quits in 2005. I haven't missed it even once. Flying looks like loads of fun from the ground, but unless you have a genuine passion for it, you are better off cleaning public toilets for minimum wage. How much are they paying you now, Patrick? Are you over the federal poverty line?
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congratulations on a great article
and on your return to the friendly skies - you make it sound almost... pedestrian!
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Wrong sci-fi epic!
Patrick wrote:
I remember how the first "Alien" movie (1979) was revolutionary in its portrayal of spacecraft as industrial machines, greasy and unkempt, a departure from the antiseptic order of "Star Wars" and the like.
Perhaps you meant Star Trek?
Star Wars was seedy bars; broken-down 'droids; Han Solo's filthy, flaky, but fast Falcon that required Fonzie-like whacks on the console to fire up; and a long scene in a trash compactor!
By contrast, the ship in Alien may have been grippingly gothic, but it wasn't gruesomely grody.
Sorry, have to let my geek flag fly sometimes! Otherwise, an evocative and exciting column -- and congratulations on your return to flight!
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Congrats
Congrats on being back in the saddle. Should give some good fodder for articles.
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Hey, Patrick!
Great "piece"!
Welcome back to the skies as a pilot. WHEW. It's been a while, wot ho?
And here it is almost September and I've only discovered that you started flying again way back last April?!
;-( ;-)
Thanks for such a nifty post.
salonmarte
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Mazel Tov!
Didn't know you got a new job. Good luck with that, keep writing the column!
Just a note: what was crazy about the wind shear? That the pilot aborted the landing, or that that was a lot of wind shear?
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Congratulations
Hey Patrick,
Back behind the controls, and with an ATP column out of it to boot. May your life chart continue its upward trend!
I'll be looking forward to some fresh "fodder" indeed.
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Always comforting
Thanks for a great read, Patrick. I have to fly regularly, but I am borderline phobic, so some of these flights can be real psychological ordeals for me. I know all about how safe air travel is statistically, but when I'm 35,000 above ground, little of that logic helps assuage my fear. Your column is the only thing that really seems to help me; when flying, I often conjure up various scenarios and explanations from your past columns. It comforts me--even when I remember descriptions of the harrowing stuff, as in today's column. If nothing else, you've probably saved me thousands of dollars in therapy working through all of this. Best wishes on your "re-entry," and I'm hoping that you'll be at the controls of one of my own flights.
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Memories
This reminds me of my advance twin training 10 years ago. The instructor sitting calmly in the back and us nuggets flying the aircraft. Events happen maching gun fast in the IFR environment; you can skip ahead, but falling behind is not an option. I remember a few times when I wanted to be anywhere else than that cockpit, but the reality was - I had to swallow my panic and fly the plane, fly the plane, fly the plane.
B.
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Great column
Congratulations on being back in the cockpit full time.
I'm glad I wasn't on the flight into New York. I think I'd have just hired a car after landing at the alternate airport...
The article prompts a couple of questions:
- Do you feel that your rustiness had any meaningful impact on flight safety?
- What was the result of the checkride? (satisfactory, I hope)
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Trial by fire
Thanks, Patrick, for another well-written, superbly engaging tale of air travel told from the other side of the cockpit door. The tentativeness that you experienced, both before and during the flight, is one that most passengers are familiar with once they pack their bags and head for the airport. It is good to know that pilots occasionally experience a tumult of emotions, as do the paying customers.
As a single parent, I am pleased to say that I have passed on my ever-increasing comfort level for air travel to my 10-year-old daughter, now a veteran flier. I give thanks to you, your column and your book, portions of which I have read out loud to my daughter, for our comfort. Our better understanding of the intricacies of air travel has immeasurably added to our enjoyment.
Keep the stories coming!
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Keep writing!
Patrick: It's great that you're back flying. I just hope that you can keep up the writing, too. These columns are too valuable to do without: one more reason Fridays are the best day of the week. Like other readers, I'm borderline phobic in airplanes -- espeically now that the general experience has so much unpleasantness built in -- and I am grealty comforted by reading your columns. Which I hope to do for many years more.
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Turbulence
Dear Sir,
Many times I've felt like the proverbial BB in a boxcar while flying, except for the seatbelt holding me to the seat. This is the first time I've ever visualized what the pilot(s) are going through during turbulent landing. Thanks for the heads-up