I, Robot

-->

The aviation world has been a bit aflutter the past two weeks over an article that recently came out in the mainstream press and was subsequently picked up by various media outlets. The article, available here, was reprinted with several alternate headlines, the most sensational and popular of which asked, “are pilots forgetting how to fly?” Predictably, the article has stirred up a variety of strong opinion among pilots, with attitudes ranging from outrage to derision to hearty approval.

I actually thought the article was fairly well done for something written by and for laymen. There were some factual errors and I don’t agree with all the author’s conclusions, but there’s a pretty big kernel of truth in there. I wouldn’t say pilots have “forgotten how to fly,” but there has been a pretty fundamental shift in our role and duties over the past 20 years, and we are only now seeing some of the unintended consequences of that shift.

Any discussion of airliner automation needs to begin with an affirmation of its value. I do not like that automation makes my job less interesting or that it has decreased the value of my skills as a pilot, but it has undoubtedly made aviation a great deal safer. There was a time when good pilots, real stick-and-rudder types, were crashing airliners with frightening regularity. No matter how “good” one is, humans are fallible creatures, and in the course of operating a complex machine will inevitably make mistakes. When these mistakes take place in times of stress, in environments that inundate one with information to be sorted and interpreted, they can compound unnoticed until no amount of airmanship can save the ship. Automation decreased the pilot’s workload, sorted the information, arranged it in more easily understood formats, and trained an unblinking eye on the pilot, alerting him to all his most common foibles. The results speak for themselves.

So while we’ve seen an uptick in accidents that can be attributed to automation – or rather, the way we’ve interfaced with automated systems – one would do well to remember how many lives have likely been saved by increased automation. That said, our strength as an industry has always been our willingness to ferret out our weaknesses and confront them head-on. A spate of loss-of-control accidents is disconcerting no matter how low the overall accident rate remains, and I for one am very happy to see “the experts” recognizing the problem and doing some hard thinking about how to solve it.

The degradation of stick and rudder skills is one negative side-effect of automation, but not the most serious one in my mind, despite the article’s emphasis of it. It varies according to the aircraft, airline, and personal preferences. The JungleBus has one of the more automated, integrated cockpits out there, but my airline takes a pretty reasonable line on the use of automation. They encourage its use but caution that it should only be used at the level most appropriate to attain the goals of safety, passenger comfort, and economy – in that order. To that end, it is left to the PIC to determine what level of automation to use at any given time, so long as the pilots remain proficient in the use of all levels of automation, including its complete absence. My last airline took a similarly common-sense approach. There are, however, airlines that require automation to be used to the maximum extent possible, particularly overseas. As an example, there is a well-known British airline that prohibits its pilots from using manual thrust on the A320 except in abnormal situations.

I’ve flown with pilots who prefer to turn on the autopilot at 1000’ on departure and leave it on until 200’ on approach. I’ve also known a few guys who, left to their own devices, would hand-fly everything raw-data from takeoff to touchdown. Most of those I’ve flown with, however, are like me: hand-fly down low when the weather is good, use the automation when the weather is crappy or when in busy, complex airspace. This typically results in anywhere between three and twenty minutes of hand-flying per leg. Beech 1900 types excepted, most regional and domestic pilots probably hand-fly anywhere from 2 to 10 hours per month, long-haul pilots considerably less. Most of this time is spent in takeoff, acceleration, climb, visual or easy instrument approach, and landing. Flight directors and autothrottles (where installed) are most commonly left on.

This alone does not lead to anyone “forgetting how to fly,” least of all anyone who had a decent bit of flight time before the airlines. The most autopilot-loving JungleBus pilot has to turn it off to land, and most do a beautiful job of doing so. It does mean, however, that if automation is unexpectedly lost – especially in an unfamiliar flight regime – handling the aircraft without benefit of autopilot, autothrottles, or flight director will probably not be second nature. It will require some concentration, potentially at a time when multiple anomalies of an ambiguous nature are clamoring for attention of their own. The master warning and caution lights have loud alarms that sound with each new occurrence, but only the quiet voice of your first flight instructor reminds you to “fly the airplane!” It’s understandable that sometimes the former get more attention than the latter.

In my opinion, however, the real problem with over-reliance on automation has less to do with stick-and-rudder skills and more to do with how it has affected our habits as professional pilots. Automation was supposed to free us to think more, but instead has freed us to think less. Consider the enroute phase of flight: it’s been so thoroughly automated, there’s precious little left for the pilot to do. Your course is drawn out for you, there is no doubt as to your position, updated weather is at your fingertips, your fuel state at next fix, destination, and alternate is right in front of you, and ATC has become much better about routing aircraft around heavy weather. All of these are good things – nobody is looking to give up positional certainty, accessible weather data, or fuel planning aids - but they are not conducive to keeping one alert and engaged in the flight. It’s too easy to get lulled into passivity, to turn your brain off and let things happen.

This technology-induced torpor can linger beyond cruise into the descent phase. In Dave’s thoughtful post on this same subject, he mentioned that a strong pilot should, when told to cross 40 west of a certain fix at FL250, be able to mentally calculate his descent point in three seconds flat – “tired or not.” Not so long ago, such mathematical process was a baseline requirement of the job; you wouldn’t survive on the line without it. Technological progress has made it possible for weak pilots to fit in. Worse, it has atrophied the brains of some formerly strong pilots.

The JungleBus, like “Fifi”, has a Vertical Navigation (VNAV) system that is very capable – when it works. It can be led astray by operator error, it has some insidious failure modes, and occasionally it does things that are just plain goofy. More than once, manually calculating my descent point as I received a crossing clearance saved my bacon – not from crashing, mind you, but certainly from violating my clearance. Yet, I often witness otherwise good pilots whose very first instinct upon receiving a crossing clearance is to enter it into the FMS. Worse, when asked where they plan to start down, many do not have an answer ready. The steady stream of ASAP reports for busted clearances my company receives (and this is true of other companies operating VNAV-equipped aircraft) suggests that my experience is typical. Yet, you are far more likely to be busted on a line check for failing to enter a crossing restriction in the FMS than you are for failing to mentally back up the FMS.

I do not wish to imply that the majority of airline pilots out there are weak or lazy. The opposite is true: most wish to do their job to the best of their abilities, and expend considerable effort in doing so. I am saying that we have been unintentionally training our pilots to value the technology in their aircraft over their own common sense. We have made it passé for a pilot to fly by his wits and then wonder why those wits have become dulled with disuse. This is becoming evermore true as we start pilots on technologically advanced aircraft ever earlier in their careers, to the point that we have pilots being hired at the regionals today whose very first flight lessons were in Garmin-1000 equipped Cessna 172s.

So long as the technology works perfectly, it’s a mere academic issue. Like the JungleBus’ VNAV, technology seldom works perfectly, and is always subject to outright failure. The real question, then, becomes “what happens when the automation quits?” How our pilots handle that is the real test of our reordered priorities. The recent cases of Colgan 3407, Turkish 1951, and Air France 447 are not encouraging. In each case the crew had an abrupt and unexpected transition from full automation to partial or full manual control, in the latter two cases coupled with insidious or confusing failure modes, and they did not handle them well. I can honestly say that just about every messed up situation I’ve seen in both the Q400 and the JungleBus happened because the automation abruptly quit or did something we weren’t expecting, and we handled the transition to manual control poorly. In most cases it was because we spent too much time asking “what’s it doing now?” and “how do we fix it?” instead of just pushing the big red button and flying it like the big 172 it is.

The good news is this: pilots like to be pilots. With some changes I think we can restore a proper balance no matter how advanced our aircraft are. Firstly, an adjustment in automation philosophy is in order (at some airlines more than others). I think my airline’s policy is a good starting point: fly at the level of automation most conducive to safety, passenger comfort and economy, and leave it up to the PIC which level best attains those goals. However, I think we should also emphasize the importance of regular exposure to all levels of automation, including manual thrust and raw data, in various phases of flight, in order to maintain proficiency in all levels. Training and checking should be conducted at all levels of automation, whether the FAA requires it or not.

Secondly, we should adjust procedures to keep pilots engaged in the more automated phases of flight. In cruise, I would suggest pilots be required to complete a navigational log, perhaps collocated with the expanded flight plan section of the release. Passing over or abeam each planned waypoint, the pilots would be required to enter time, fuel load, difference from planned time enroute and fuel burn, estimated time and fuel to the next waypoint & destination, and nearest suitable airport. This is already SOP at a few airlines, but not many. It may smack of busy-work to some, but I think it would be useful as a means of keeping pilots’ brains alert and focused on the flight, as well as serving as an invaluable backup in case of unexpected loss of navigational capability. With newspapers, crossword puzzles, laptops, Angry Birds, and napping all banished from airliner cockpits, I will only half-jokingly suggest that each pilot be issued a sextant and mariner’s almanac to take sightings to back up the GPS.

Lastly and most importantly, we need to adjust our training and checking to emphasize the necessity of brainwork. Technology and mental skill ought to be mutually beneficial and neither should be employed to the exclusion of the other. Simulator instructors and check airmen should make a regular practice of failing the automation in unexpected and artful ways as a means of ensuring that pilots are actively backing up their technology and are continuously prepared to revert to lower levels of automation. Ultimately, the most difficult thing about all this is that it will require a certain change in the training mindset at many airlines. With training footprints slashed to a bare minimum, the goal has become preparing the pilot to pass his checkride in a minimum of time. The focus needs to shift back to preparing the pilot for whatever life on the line throws at him, in particular the sneaky problems that have a way of snowballing unnoticed. Vee One cuts are serious and it’s good that we practice them, but they’re not particularly subtle, nor do they require much thought beyond rote repetition. We need to move beyond “checking the boxes” mode and include opportunities for real learning in every training and checking event. This will require more simulator time and therefore increased training budgets, but I believe the result will be more thoughtful pilots more attuned to their aircraft and better equipped to handle unusual problems.

While the industry sorts out the big-picture stuff, we as individual pilots can take a few simple steps to maintain a balanced relationship with the automation in our aircraft. First, use it as a backup to your own airmanship and common sense. Calculate your descent profiles mentally and then use VNAV. When ATC clears you direct to a fix, have a pretty good idea of what your heading should be so you can check the route your FMS or GPS is proposing for reasonableness. Secondly, make a regular practice of flying under various conditions with reduced levels of automation. You can put together a regimen. I try to fly at least one approach each trip without autothrottles, and one every other trip raw-data. I also occasionally practice fully-automatic RNAV approaches, something we do in real life very little. If you are an FO, explain your habit of practicing all levels of automation to your Captain at the start of the trip. If you’re a Captain, encourage your FOs to do the same.

My third suggestion is to ensure you are paying close attention to what is on your FMA (Flight Mode Annunciator) or equivalent display at all times. Return to it often. It should be as central to your scan as the attitude indicator. Many of the “what’s it doing now?” moments I’ve seen occurred because the autopilot and/or autothrottles were in a different mode than the pilot thought he had selected. And finally, when you do find yourself asking “what’s it doing now?”, make it your very first step to fly the airplane, reverting to lower levels of automation as necessary, and not succumbing to the temptation to troubleshoot until the airplane is going where you want it to.

All these guidelines are applicable to advanced airplanes from glass-equipped C172s on up through A380s. Flight instructors, drill them into your students from the very first flight lesson. I generally believe that glass cockpits in training aircraft are overkill or even counterproductive for early flight training. I may very well revise that opinion, however, if their use results in a new generation of professional pilots who start their careers with a healthy and balanced approach to automation.

Up the Alcan (Part 2)

Yikes...where has the summer gone? Ahem, where was I?...

We rode out of camp at 8am on the morning of June 23rd but only made it a half mile before the promise of hot breakfast lured us to a roadside diner. Our bellies full, we continued up the Alcan, passing a huge herd of bison in the first few miles. We had seen another large herd - or perhaps the same one? - a few miles outside of camp the previous night, as well as a large Grizzly sitting alongside the road, eating berries and paying very little attention to the continuous stream of gawkers.

We crossed into Yukon Territory, pausing to take a photo of the welcome sign with our bikes. Some of our biker friends from the campground stopped, and we took their pictures for them. It was like this throughout the day and week, continuously running into folks we'd seen elsewhere on the road. Everyone was more or less headed to the same place, and everyone on roughly the same pace. It was nice to see familiar faces out in the wilderness.


We passed through Watson Lake with its signpost forest and settled in for a long slog of straight, flat road with little to see other than a few bears we glimpsed as we rode by. This was what I had thought the Yukon would be like. But it was, in fact, a small sampling, for the Yukon would prove to be much more diverse and beautiful than I'd imagined. After an hour of flat cruising, we ascended into the Cassiar Mountains, the road meandering high above the Rancheria River. These are not tall mountains, persay, but their low treelines and bald ridges give them a wild look. Dark clouds leered over the peeks and spit out menacing rain shafts, but the road always turned before we got to them. Once, three fat raindrops slapped onto my visor. It was the only rain we encountered between Portland and Alaska, which is truly astounding if you know something of the region's climate.


In Swift River we stopped for gas and lunch; the roadhouse proprietor happened to be an avowed Minnesota Twins fan. Near Swan Lake, where the Alcan briefly dips back down into British Columbia, we saw three apparently wild mustangs. At Teslin, we crossed the scariest steel-grated bridge I've ever had the displeasure of riding across, which also happened to be the longest bridge on the Alcan. I rode onto it at around 40 mph and was instantly weaving like a madman. This is fairly normal when riding on steel grating, and while it feels uncomfortable, the best thing is to stay loose, not lock up the handlebars, and accept the unstable feeling. This one, though, wanted to throw the BMW into the guardrails. About halfway across I got it under control and dared to look in my mirrors at Dawn. She looked steady as a rock on her FZ6.

Past Teslin Lake, we passed through a beautiful valley in the White Range that reminded me of the majestic Våltedalen we'd driven through in Norway. It was now late afternoon, and surprisingly hot. Whitehorse was a welcome sight, and a much cuter, nicer town than one would think. All the other northern towns to this point had been fairly ugly, functional and industrial. Whitehorse has the advantage of some quaint architecture from the gold rush days, and has obviously been prettied up for the tourists. It occupies a nice spot on the Yukon River, has a great number of scenic, historical, and sporting destinations within reasonable driving distance, and is easily reached with airline service from Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton. It would, I think, make a very good vacation destination in it's own right.

After doing some shopping, we set up camp at the Robert Service Campground on the edge of the city, headed back downtown for a few brews, and returned to cook dinner at nearly 10pm. It felt like 6PM in the warm evening sunlight. In camp, we talked to our neighbor, an old-timer who, we later learned, was returning home from a doctor's appointment at which he learned he only had a few months left to live. He regaled us with stories of life in the logging camps back in the 50's and driving heavy trucks down the Alcan in the 60's. While we ate, he wandered across the campground and chatted with other campers, then returned to crack ribald jokes and expound on his favorite pasttime, gold panning. He had just spent a few days panning on a friend's claim, and he showed us a vial containing 10 or 15 grams of gold - at today's prices, a pretty good payoff for a guy in his 80s panning recreationally. Finally, after midnight, we had to excuse ourselves to get some sleep. In the still-light tent we could hear him shuffling across the campground, stopping to greet anyone still awake. I felt bad for the guy; he struck me as a lonely man who wanted nothing more than to have someone to talk to for his last few months.


Friday morning we left Whitehorse with a little bit of trepidation, for we were to finally ride on the stretch of road that everyone had warned us about. Thus far, the Alcan had been in better shape than the average country road in Minnesota. Past Destruction Bay, we were warned, it was far worse - potholes, frost heaves, and a hundred miles of perpetual construction consisting of teeth-jarring washboards alternating with thick, loose gravel, all of it obscured by thick, choking dust. As it turned out, we didn't need to wait for Destruction Bay: there was a 10-mile stretch just outside of Whitehorse, and it was tough riding. Brad, of course, was delighted to be off pavement. He tore off ahead on his KLR650 at top speed, soon came flying the opposite direction, and then passed us a second time. I was happy to be done with the construction zone but worried about what awaited us past Destruction Bay.

Shortly after, we passed a huge Grizzly, and a bit after that, a sow with two cubs. Wisely, none of us slowed down or turned around for that. We afterward learned that a sow with two cubs had charged a motorcyclist in that area only the day prior. Approaching Haines Junction, the pavement got rollier and more potholed, making it necessary to pay attention to the road rather than staring at the majestic wall of jagged ice appearing on the horizon. With each bend, the St. Elias Mountains became more massive and beautiful. I got a sudden sense of just how far north we were; just on the other side of those mountains was Alaska!


We filled up in Haines Junction and continued northwest to Kluane Lake, passing a few more bears along the way (ho, hum!). The lake was strikingly gorgeous, ringed as it was by the peaks it reflected in the still morning. A gravel ATV trail ran between the road and lake, and Brad couldn't resist the urge to dive off the pavement and onto the gravel for a mile or two. Along the southwest portion of the lake, the pavement was new and the road was curvy. It was superbly enjoyable riding, carving through the turns between glassy water and boulder-strewn mountainside. We were joined by another rider on a mid-90s BMW R100GS; he had camped near us at Whitehorse and I had briefly talked to him the night before.

At Destruction Bay we stopped for gas and lunch. As we fueled up, a couple of restored early-30s Model A Coupes pulled up behind us. Suddenly my decision to take a 26-year old motorcycle with 90,000 miles on it far into the North Country didn't seem so ballsy! I talked to the rider of the other BMW, a middle aged Alaskan named John, and invited him to have lunch with us at the diner. He accepted, and we soon found out quite a bit about him. He'd been living in Alaska for 30 years and riding for most of that time, making the trek down the Alcan and back at least once every year. He works in the schools, and therefore has the summers off to travel on his motorcycle. He is also a pilot, and owns a Super Cub on bush tires. The lunch stretched on as we chatted about motorcycles, traveling, flying, and Alaska. Finally we decided we could put off the ride ahead no longer.


The frost heaves started almost immediately after Destruction Bay. They were dramatic, but not terribly hard to ride. You'd just stand up a bit in the pegs, knees bent, and let the bike roll over the heave. It looked much more uncomfortable for those driving RVs, particularly since many of them neglected to slow down much. The potholes were frequent and sometimes spanned the entire lane, but these too were fairly easy to negotiate on a bike. Only once or twice did I fail to swerve when I should've, and was rewarded with a bone-crushing blow to my backside. The key, we found, was spreading out rather than riding together, with each rider choosing his or her line. We stopped for a break after forty or fifty miles of heaves, and Dawn was all smiles; "this is fun riding!" she exclaimed.

Shortly after that we passed an orange sign reporting road construction for the next 150 km. In fact, it wasn't all under construction, but a lot of it was. The road alternated periodically between smooth and grooved pavement, short gravel breaks, and long stretches of gravel. After a while we got used to the thin, compacted gravel, and were riding at nearly freeway speeds when we barreled full-bore into a thick layer of deep, loose rock that sent me skidding every which way. After that I was more careful, at least when beginning a new stretch of gravel.


A few times we were stopped by flaggers and had to wait fifteen or twenty minutes for a pilot car, which gave us time to get off the bikes briefly and talk with the road crew or with John, who was still riding with us. By late afternoon, we were in Beaver Creek, the end of the notorious stretch of road and our original destination for the day. We decided to press on to Tok, Alaska, which would put us one easy dayride from Anchorage. We spent a few minutes at the border taking triumphant photos with the welcome sign, and then marveled at the fabulously smooth road that began as soon as we crossed into Alaska. It was in fact a bit of Potemkin one-upmanship on the Alaskans' part, for the "normal" highway began a few miles down the road. It was still quite a bit better than what we'd been riding on in the western Yukon; it seems the Alaskans have figured out a better way to build roads on permafrost.



It was an enjoyable 90 miles from the border to Tok through what I later learned was prime moose habitat; we didn't see any. Tok itself is a fairly nondescript little town strung out alongside the Alaskan Highway. John had gone ahead of us from Beaver Creek, but had given us the name of the RV park he'd be staying at; we readily found it, set up camp, met up with John, and all headed to dinner at Fast Eddy's. We took our time eating, talking, and laughing, until I realized all the other patrons had left and the waitresses were casting anxious glances our way. It was after 11pm. We paid the bill and ambled back to camp under a bright sun clinging tenaciously to the sky.


The next morning John stopped in to say goodbye during our breakfast, and that was the last we saw of our latest road friend, although he later called to make sure we made it to Anchorage alright. We took our time packing, knowing we had "only" 300 miles to cover. We rolled out of town at the scandalously late hour of 10am. The "Tok Cutoff" proved to be a nice ride from the start, and it only got more scenic as it crossed the eastern remnants of the Alaska Range and skirted the eye-popping majesty of 18,000 ft Mt. Sanford in the Wrangell Mountains. We choked on the fumes of dozens of RVs through one last stretch of road construction, then took a late lunch in Glenallen. We also discovered that Brad's chain had stretched so much that he could no longer tighten it, and it had become dangerously loose. With no motorsports stores in town, we had little choice but to proceed - carefully! - to Anchorage.

West of Glennallen on the Glenn Highway, the weather turned ugly and we got rained on for 15 minutes, our first honest rain of the trip. I wasn't about to complain, and in any case it settled down to only occasional light showers by the time we got to the Palmer Glacier. From here to Palmer, the road tightened and twisted and became rather slow for being one of the main thoroughfares in Alaska. I'd become rather used to the wide, fast Alaska Highway. Dawn had fun with it, leading us through hairpins and chicanes with gusto. We happened upon Palmer rather suddenly and incongruously; after 2500 miles of mostly rural and wilderness riding, we were suddenly thrust into the middle of American urban sprawl with all its usual trappings.


The last few miles into Anchorage took place on a four-lane divided highway, something we hadn't seen much of since leaving I-5 near the Washington-BC border. My first impressions of Anchorage were unremarkable. Normal houses, normal strip malls, normal chain stores, normal freeway traffic. There were "Beware of Moose" signs on the highway but we didn't see any. Low clouds obscured the Chugach Mountains. My first indication that I was somewhere special came when the highway passed by Merrill Field, Anchorage's main GA airport. I was astounded to see row after row after row of small airplanes of every make, color, and condition, for nearly a mile straight! And then I recalled that many GA aircraft are based at the international airport, and a great deal more on floats at Lakes Hood and Spenard. All this, for a lowly borough of less than 300,000 people! I was clearly in pilot heaven.

And so we arrived in Anchorage after six unforgettable days and 2530 miles under our wheels. Yet, our trip was just beginning, for Dawn and I had eighteen more days to explore the north country and work our way home in a leisurely fashion. The Alcan was an adventure but we had more of that in store, plus a great deal of scenery, wildlife, and good riding ahead of us - all that, and one incredible flight that confirmed Alaska really is pilot heaven.

Up the Alcan

It was an idea forged over a campfire on a freezing spring night in the hills of eastern Pennsylvania. It was the last night of last year’s ride up the east coast with my friend Brad, and so we talked about future trips as we huddled around the fire and drank cheap beer. “Why not ride to Alaska?” Brad suggested, and I loved the idea. Alaska would be the only state I had not visited. The trip was ambitious and adventurous. In 1978, my dad drove up the Alaska Highway in a beat-up $200 station wagon – it was his pot-smoking hippy phase – and as a child his tales of a lonely gravel road threaded through the vast, untamed wilderness sparked my imagination and my developing wanderlust. By the time the embers were dying down, Brad and I agreed that we would ride our motorcycles to Alaska in 2011.

I wasn’t quite sure how Dawn would react to the plan. She didn’t fret about cost or safety or how long I’d be gone. She asked to come along. After all, she had already logged nearly 5000 miles on the back of my BMW. When I mentioned it would be tough to fit everything needed for an extended trip on my bike with the two of us, she concluded she would simply get her motorcycle license and buy her own bike to ride. It was ambitious, even daring, but I didn’t doubt that she could hack it. Dawn is a quick learner with a very good head on her shoulders; she’s also tough and stubborn and refuses to quit when things get rough.

And so, on the morning of June 20th, 2011, three heavily loaded motorcycles accelerated onto Interstate 5, beginning the long journey northward from Portland, Oregon. Brad was on a Kawasaki KLR-650 he had bought specifically for the trip; he was planning on selling it in Anchorage, as he couldn’t get enough time off work for the return trip. I was riding my trusty 26-year old BMW K100RS, which I had repositioned from Minneapolis the previous weekend (1050 miles on Saturday, 750 on Sunday). And Dawn was astride a sexy, purring black-and-silver 2005 Yamaha FZ6 that we had bought in Portland in February. This was Dawn’s seventh day of street riding, her previous experience being a six-day trip down the coast a few months earlier.

Leaving our house on my 1050 mile day while repositioning my BMW from Minneapolis to Portland; camping in Three Forks, Montana; our bikes meet at last.

The stretch of Interstate from Portland to Bellingham, WA, was thankfully the last we would encounter for the next three weeks. We stopped for gas in Tacoma – our bikes’ range is 190-220 miles, but we generally fueled up at 120-160 miles, or sooner in areas where gas was scarce – and had lunch at the Skagit River Brewing Co in Mount Vernon. After lunch we took a little time to troubleshoot Dawn’s electrical system, which was acting up again after I thought I’d fixed it on the previous trip. The culprit turned out to be aftermarket lighting installed by the previous owner, which could be deactivated simply by riding with the headlights on “dim” (still blindingly bright). That solved, we crossed into Canada at Sumas and joined Trans-Canada Hwy 1 northward into the Cascades.

Group photo in Vancouver, WA; lunch at Skagit River Brewing Co.

Through the Frasier Canyon, we let Dawn lead so she could go as slow as she liked, which turned out to be fairly fast, and she gave Brad and I a few tense moments when she entered sharp turns awkwardly or with the brakes still on. After a while, she seemed to get the hang of it again, and her entries became clean and her lines rock-solid. Brad and several other riders we encountered would later marvel at how well she rode, considering her new-rider status. After ten hours and 450 miles of riding, we stopped to make camp at a sunny spot in Cache Creek, BC. We spent an enjoyable night chatting, cooking Jambalaya, enjoying a sundowner or two, and visiting with other travelers around the campground.

Camping in Cache Creek, BC.

The next morning we struck camp, ate a quick breakfast at the world’s worst Subway, and headed north on BC Hwy 97. This stretch is known as the “Cariboo Highway,” and I had imagined that from here northward it would be fairly desolate. Not so, for the highway was heavily traveled, there were frequent towns, and I saw no “Cariboo” or other wildlife. Nevertheless, it was a pretty stretch through rolling grasslands ringed by distant mountains. By lunchtime we were at Quesnel, and having noticed the profusion of A&W’s in Canada, we stopped for Spicy Mama Burgers and Root Beer Floats. Further along in Prince George, we made a quick food-shopping stop and then pressed onward up Highway 97.

If we were looking for wilderness, we certainly found it north of Prince George. The road straightened through miles of stunted forest and marshland, towns and homesteads thinned rapidly, and traffic became almost nil. I glimpsed a moose in a reedy pond. The 100 miles through McLeod Lake was as lonely a stretch of road as any we encountered on this trip. Past the turnoff for Mackinzie, we shimmied through a low pass and were suddenly enveloped in an alpine wonderland. The Canadian Rockies aren’t as high here as the more famous stretches further south around Jasper and Banff, but for my money the vistas from Hwy 97 are every bit as scenic. They are certainly less crowded.

Perhaps we were paying too much attention to the views, for we missed the turnoff for the provincial park we were planning to camp at. I didn’t realize the mistake until we had grinded our way through 10 miles of bumpy, sloppy road construction; we decided to press on. The town of Lemoray did not have gasoline as depicted in the Milepost guide, and I kept a very close eye on the kilometers remaining to the next town of Chetwynd. As it happened, all of our bikes got exceptionally good gas mileage this entire trip, and even at the 190 mile mark we were nowhere close to running out of gas. Just prior to Chetwynd we saw a nearly deserted RV park advertising Wifi and hot showers, and pulled in for the night. Normally when tent camping I despise RV parks and other highly developed campgrounds (ie KOAs), but on this trip I discovered that a few creature comforts really aren’t all that bad when you’ve spent 12 hours in the saddle.

While Dawn pitched our tent and I made dinner, Brad looked at the Milepost to plan the next day. When he mentioned that a 500-mile push would get us to Liard Hot Springs, I was sold. Liard has been a favorite stopping point on the Alcan since the early days, and a hot soak in the springs sounded like a soothing reward for a long couple of days of riding. We had covered 450 and 460 miles respectively in the first two days, so 500 didn’t sound that bad. I didn’t know what condition the Alcan was in, though. I knew it was all paved except for areas under construction, but I assumed that the farther north we went, the more conditions would deteriorate. Admittedly, the roads had been excellent so far.

Grassy pasture for our faithful steeds; Brad plans our next day's ride.

The next morning we pulled out of the RV park at 7am, ate breakfast, and headed north on the Hudson’s Hope Loop. This would put us on the Alcan 55 miles north of the official start at Dawson Creek. The bypass turned out to be a scenic route and an enjoyably curvy road. We stopped at a roadside rest high above the Peace River and enjoyed the expansive views to the Rockies.


Having skipped Dawson Creek’s “Mile 0” post and associated hubbub, our introduction to the Alaska-Canadian Highway was an unceremonious intersection with a busy road. It took a bit to find a break in the traffic long enough for us to accelerate onto the highway. Once up to speed, I thought for a minute or two about all the planning, the saving, the preparation, the 2800 miles of riding from Minneapolis that it took just to get here, riding the famed Alcan. Then the novelty wore off as I realized I was riding a pretty normal smooth, straight, and heavily traveled highway, four lanes in many areas and two lanes in others with frequent passing sections. The trees were cut back 100-200 feet from the road on each side. There were frequent crossroads that were heavily used by logging and chemical trucks, as well as the swarms of white fleet pickups that made up a good portion of the traffic on the highway. Recreational Vehicles of every size and vintage were also present in large numbers. These basic facts about the highway stayed mostly unchanged for the next 1300 km to Whitehorse, except that RVs increasingly supplanted semis and utility trucks. The days of a lonely gravel track threaded through the wilderness are long, long gone.

The kilometres flew by at freeway speeds. The long stretch northward to Fort Nelson wasn’t particularly exciting, but it wasn’t entirely unenjoyable either. The road is flung across wooded hill country without too much regard for the terrain, which combined with the roadside clearcuts makes for frequent vistas from the crests of each hill. It was a clear, sunny day – our third straight – and the Rockies were still visible to the west. We stopped for gas at Pink Mountain and then rode straight through to Fort Nelson. I dropped behind Dawn for a bit to admire her riding, then lay down on my large tank bag and listened to the BMW’s purr. It’s a very reassuring sound on a long trip, knowing that a crankshaft turning 5000 times every minute and cylinders containing 150,000 violent explosions every hour are perfectly content to do it for mile after mile after mile.

Like many of the northern towns we encountered, Fort Nelson was rather industrial and ugly, but we found good food and friendly service at Dan’s Neighborhood Pub. After lunch we set out on the 300 km push to Liard Hot Springs, on a westerly heading that brought us back across the Canadian Rockies. Here the Milepost cautions of deteriorated road conditions and narrow, winding passages, but in reality most of it still compared quite favorably to mountain roads in the Lower 48.

Eighty kilometers from Fort Nelson, the road climbed to an overlook in the foothills that provided us with our first bruin sighting of the trip, a healthy-sized black bear snacking on berries alongside the road. Dawn and I accelerated smartly past him, while Brad predictably pulled over for a closer look. Past Steamboat, the highway dropped to follow the Tesla River into the Rockies proper. At Summit Pass we pulled over to watch Dall Sheep scampering up the opposite ridge.


Alongside the Macdonald and Toad Rivers, the Milepost’s dire predictions proved a little closer to the mark as the road narrowed, twisted, and heaved its way through a narrow slot in the Rockies. I led the way, and a few decreasing-radius turns on crumbling asphalt had me glancing in my mirrors at Dawn. She never missed a beat. In the middle of one turn, two Dall Sheep hopped onto the road directly in front of me, leading to an interesting few seconds of evasive maneuvering. Shortly thereafter, we came across a female Caribou standing stock still on the centerline, paying no heed to traffic in both directions. These were the only uncomfortably close encounters we had on the trip; although we saw a great deal of wildlife on the Alcan, all of it except this section was wide and straight enough to see animals on or near the road well before we got to them.

The Toad River valley widened before we got to breathtakingly green Muncho Lake, and we could finally enjoy some wide-open vistas of the Rockies as the road became straighter and wider. Shortly after passing the lake, though, we encountered the first examples of a phenomenon well known to Alcan travelers: gravel breaks. Because the Alcan is such a vital link, it is never closed down for construction, and drivers will encounter roadway in various stages of completion, including lengths of gravel that can vary from 100 feet to several miles. These breaks are generally well marked, but they vary widely from well-packed dirt you barely need to slow down for to fresh, deep, and loose gravel that can be rather frightening to the uninitiated rider. Not knowing the difference, Dawn and I slowed way down for this stretch, leading other vehicles to pass us and choke us in billowing clouds of dust. Brad, on the other hand, was delighted to finally have a use for his KLR’s off-road capabilities, and sprinted ahead at high speed, his rear tire spitting out a rooster-tail of flying rock. Throughout our trip, Dawn and I would get a lot more experience riding on gravel, and by the end of the trip were nearly as comfortable on loosy-goosy pearock as on fresh blacktop.

Muncho Lake.

It was 6pm when we pulled into Liard River Hot Springs Provincial Park, only to find that the campground was already full. Fortunately, the park rangers allowed all the latecomers to camp in the day-use area. It turned out that virtually everyone without reservations was a motorcyclist, and in short order the day-use area turned into a biker’s party. There were old duffers on Harley full-dressers headed to Fairbanks, a couple middle-aged guys riding to Inuvik on a KLR and an uncommon Moto Guzzi Stelvio, a Gore-Tex-clad BMW R1200GS nerd on his way up to Prudhoe Bay by himself, and even a freelance motorcycle journalist test-riding a Victory Cross Roads one-way to Anchorage.

We had just come back from a dip in the hot springs when a young couple pulled up on a big old muddy Yamaha Venture towing a trailer. They had an incredible story to tell. They were riding home from Alaska, and had chosen to ride across the border via the “Top of the World Highway” from Chicken AK to Dawson YT. This is a dirt road that is known to be pretty marginal on the Alaska side under the best of conditions. This couple, however, did it in a torrential downpour. The road washed out in multiple places and was a river of mud everywhere else. A big bus-type RV overturned on a soft shoulder, and traffic came to a standstill. The wife recorded a clip of her husband standing up their 800 lb full dresser on a steep hill with a cascade coming down the middle of the road, covering his ankles in a torrent of muddy water. Despite this, they both assured everyone that the Top of the World was an incredible road not to be missed, and that Dawson was also an absolute must-do.


Brad was sold. A bit disappointed over the civility of the Alaska Highway and itching for adventure, he was soon poring over maps with the others, planning an alternate route to Dawson and over the Top of the World Highway. When I gently reminded him that we had a new rider with less than ten days experience under her belt, he told me he was 100% confident that Dawn could handle any conditions we might encounter. Actually, I figured she could, too; it was carnage of the marital kind I was worried about if I put her in that situation. Brad allowed that point but then noted that if he split up from us the next morning, he could take the gravel Campbell Highway up to Dawson, then go over the Top of the World the following day and meet us in Tok, Alaska on Saturday morning. I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of us splitting up – we’d originally planned to do this ride together – but understood his need for some adventure. After everything it took to get this far north, there wasn’t a big chance he’d be coming this way again soon, so why not make the most of it? Brad told me he’d sleep on it.

It was after 11pm and still light out. Nobody was anywhere close to going to sleep. Dawn and I went back down to the hot springs for a bit, then came back to camp and chatted some more. Finally we forced ourselves to go to bed, utilizing eye masks to shut out the lingering twilight. There was no electricity in the camp, no cell phone service, and no noise except for our new friends happily chatting outside. We were only now getting into the North Country, but thus far I liked it very, very much.


To be continued....

Oshkosh till Wednesday

I flew the C170 to Oshkosh this morning, and we are currently parked in Vintage Airplane Camping. If anybody wants to stop by and chat tonight or tomorrow night, N9186A is on the end of row 76 West.

Gone North

I haven't posted in a while, but I haven't been neglecting the blog. I've been "collecting source material." I leveraged two weeks of strategically placed vacation and my high seniority into an entire month off work from mid-June to mid-July, and Dawn and I rode our motorcycles 8000 miles to, from, and around Alaska. It was a great adventure, and I have some good stories and photos to share in the next week or two. Furthermore, there have been some interesting developments in the airline world as of late that I'd like to discuss. And finally, next week I'll be flying to Oshkosh with my dad and the C-170, which I'm sure I'll want to post about. Stay tuned, as they say....

Anyone who will be at Oshkosh and would like to meet up and chat, I'll be there Monday through Wednesday and am planning on camping in the classics area just south of show center. You'll be able to find me by Cessna 170 N9186A, I'll try to remember to post the row number here.

We’ll Never See its Likes Again

-->

Just over ten years ago, one of the most storied names in aviation disappeared forever. It was April 9, 2001, an inappropriately sunny day for a wake in St. Louis. Thousands of employees gathered in a cavernous hangar, many wearing the “Two Great Airlines, One Great Future” ballcaps being handed out at the entrance. Burgers and brats were consumed en masse. A Boeing 777 and a Lockheed Constellation stood just outside the hangar, nose-to-nose, and many toured these pinnacles of their respective ages. It was a bittersweet day. Nobody but the bean counters really wanted the merger, but most thought it was a better outcome than liquidation, a real possibility considering the airline’s meager and waning cash reserves. A thousand miles away, Mohammed Atta and his compatriots were preparing the attack that would put the vast majority of these people out of work and turn STL into a virtual ghost town, but nobody knew that at the time.

Transcontinental and Western Airlines was itself the product of a 1930 merger between Transcontinental Air Transport and Western Air Express. T&WA inherited a transcontinental route structure from TAT, and a visionary named Jack Frye from Western Air Express. Frye was the man who delivered to Douglas Airlines the specifications for the DC-1, and later the DC-2 and DC-3. In 1939, Howard Hughes invested in the airline, later becoming the majority owner. Hughes ordered the fleet of Lockheed Constellations that would make the new Trans World Airlines moniker no great exaggeration. Overseas expansion began after WW2 and continued steadily for 40 years.

TWA was late in ordering jets at the end of the 1950s but they did become the first all-jet airline with the retirement of the Connies in 1967. Two years later, TWA surpassed PanAm in transatlantic traffic and opened Pacific routes to create a true round-the-world route structure. In the 1970s, they developed an extensive intra-Europe network using B727s, even maintaining pilot bases in major European cities. As one of the most visible American symbols abroad, they became a favorite target of terrorist hijackers and bombers through the 1970s and into the 1980s. By 1988, TWA was carrying over 50% of all transatlantic passengers.

It was a dominance that would not last long. Deregulation and the LBO craze of the 1980s turned TWA into a target for corporate raiders. In 1985, unwanted attention from Frank Lorenzo drove the board of directors into the arms of Carl Icahn. He turned out to be every bit as destructive a force as Lorenzo. Icahn sold off TWA’s most valuable assets to competitors, in particular their prized London route authorities to American Airlines. Icahn financed a 1986 purchase of Ozark Airlines by selling their fleet of DC-9s to lessors, then torpedoed the intra-Europe route structure in 1989 by signing DC-9 leases that prohibited operation outside the continental United States.

Icahn wasn’t ousted until 1993, by which time he had transferred hundreds of millions of dollars from TWA into his own accounts. It took a bankruptcy to get rid of him, as well as a poisonous deal that would ultimately contribute to TWA’s downfall. TWA agreed to sell Icahn’s Karibu Corporation an unlimited number of tickets at 45% off the lowest published fare for ten years, excluding tickets originating or terminating in STL. It was a bitter pill to swallow in 1993, and became even more punishing in subsequent years as internet-based ticket sales soared. Icahn sold the tickets through lowestfare.com, and TWA could not compete. Karibu cost them an estimated $150 million per year. TWA went into bankruptcy a second time in 1995, and still couldn’t get the Karibu agreement terminated.

The company fought hard for survival. They reorganized their domestic structure around St Louis to help counter Karibu. The unions gave huge concessions. Employees actually bought an MD-83 and donated it to the company. TWA pilot Bill Compton took over as CEO, continuing to fly the line once a month. TWA was on the verge of profitability when a bare wire in a B747-131’s center fuel tank sparked disaster just off Long Island. Passengers deserted the airline in droves.

By the turn of the millennium, TWA was a ghost of its former self. Their aging B747s and L1011s had all been sold in the aftermath of TWA800, and only a few transatlantic routes remained. They still had a major presence in JFK at their iconic Terminal 5, but otherwise had retrenched to St Louis. Even in the bountiful days of the late 1990s, TWA was losing money, and by the fall of 2000 they were down to under $150 million in the bank.

It’s hard to say, then, what moved me to apply for an internship with TWA for the spring semester of 2001. I knew a girl in St Louis; she turned out to be nutty and drove me to drinking, but I liked her at the time. I had utterly burned myself out flying over the previous summer at UND and needed to get away from Grand Forks. Perhaps it was misplaced affection for the underdog. I said as much in the interview: “It’s do or die time for TWA. I’d like to be part of ‘do.’” It was either a winning line or there was a shortage of applicants lining up to intern for an airline apparently on the verge of collapse.

As it turned out, I worked for TWA for all of three days before they announced a third bankruptcy and purchase by American Airlines. For the remainder of the spring, I got to know a dying airline that had become a husk of itself, still living on the memory of past glory. What remained was a core of absolutely fantastic people and a singularly unique culture. At the time, I had no airline experience; I didn’t realize just how wonderfully different TWA was until well afterward.

When busy line pilots enthusiastically welcomed a lowly intern onto their jumpseat and treated me like a V.I.P., I didn’t know how overinflated egos complicate jumpseat politics at other airlines. When matronly flight attendants who had been flying since Kennedy was President tried to ply me with booze and set me up with their cute granddaughters, I never thought that other airlines’ “cat ranchers” might have a markedly different reputation. When my boss in Training Systems Development insisted that I take a week off to travel as a reward for work well done, I didn’t think much of it. When I met the retired TWA Captain in his 80s who still volunteered as a goodwill ambassador at LAX, I assumed all airlines had similarly loyal employees who couldn’t bear to say goodbye…and figured they would all be happy to have the extra help. When I helped a group of frequent fliers throw an unofficial farewell party in the old STL Ambassador’s Club, I guessed that most businessmen would get a little teary-eyed over the demise of their airline of choice.

At the Hilton in Cairo, Egypt, a very senior B767 Captain reached into his pocket and rented me a dayroom against my wishes because he recognized that a very jetlagged youngster on his first trip outside North America might do something stupid roaming the streets of a third world country. His parting words to me were, “Someday I hope to see you in the left seat. When that day comes, I want you to remember this lesson: always, always take care of your crew.” I took his words to heart and yearned for the day when I could fly with such wise old birdmen and learn from their wealth of experience.

TWA turned me into an airline pilot for life when the circumstances of the time probably ought to have sent me running for the hills. The majority of the pilots were stapled to American’s list and subsequently furloughed after 9/11. An even greater proportion of ground-based workers lost their jobs. Every single TWA flight attendant ended up on the street; in fact, I was on a TWA flight on their last day in November 2001 and every FA on the plane had over 40 years seniority. Of my coworkers in Training Systems Development, one was reassigned to Dallas and the others lost their jobs. One committed suicide less than a year later. Even Captain Randy at LAX had to finally resign himself to retirement.

Today, a sticker with TWA’s double globe logo graces my flight bag. Almost every week, pilots from the far corners of the industry approach to ask me whether I flew for their beloved former airline. My status as a mere intern in the fading twilight of TWA’s long history seems to do little to tamper these strangers’ enthusiasm; they talk to me like old friends. I think it’s because I understand a little bit of what was lost in 2001. The unvarnished reality is that by the end TWA paid their pilots poorly, flew shabby equipment, had few good routes, and couldn’t offer any light at the end of the tunnel. It was the people who made the airline. I don’t know if TWA was exceptionally talented at recruiting good folks, if simply treating their employees respectfully made the difference, or whether years of shared adversity had knit the group tightly. Whatever the cause, I now recognize that TWA had an utterly unique culture that will likely never be replicated in this industry.

If there is one overriding lesson I learned from my experience at TWA, it is this. When something good comes along in aviation, appreciate the heck out of it while you still can. Chances are, it will not last. Everything good in this industry, unfortunately, seems fated to disappear.

A Plane of our Own (kinda)

A few months ago I wrote about getting my tailwheel endorsement in a 1946 Piper Cub and expressed hope that I would be able to join the flying club that owns the Cub by summer. As it turned out, the club was too good of a deal. None of the members could be persuaded to sell their share, even the inactive ones. In the meantime I got checked out to rent a 1969 Cherokee 140/160 at a nearby flight school.

Early last month, Dawn and I were out flying the Cherokee around on a sunny Saturday when she mentioned that she would really love to have a plane of our own. The last time she made a similar statement, I bought my BMW motorcycle within a week. This time I was paging through Trade-A-Plane within hours and had soon set my sights on a beautiful '67 Cherokee with 3000 hours, a new engine, new paint, new interior, and all the right mods for $27k. It looks like the recession has finally impacted light single-engine piston plane prices.

Dreaming aside, I knew that buying our own plane would be silly at this stage of our lives. We could afford the purchase price and fixed costs, but there wouldn't be much left over for five dollar 100LL. We wouldn't fly it nearly enough to justify having our own plane. It'd end up being far more expensive than renting on a per-hour basis. Sitting unused is also hard on airplanes, particularly pistons. And really, any disruption to our income would result in our dream bird becoming a financial albatross we'd have to sell in a down market.

Shared ownership, on the other hand, makes a great deal of sense for us. I ran the numbers on a 4-person partnership and concluded that with the fixed costs split four ways, you'd only need to fly about 2 hours per month to save money over renting while still retaining most of the benefits of sole ownership. The problem is generally finding like-minded partners. It's often said that aircraft partnership is like marriage, which I suppose would make a 4-way partnership like Bill Henrickson's marriage(s). You need more in common than miserliness. The ranks of NewCo pilots would provide my most likely partners. Setting up a partnership as a first time owner, though, seemed a rather daunting prospect. I started investigating the details.

In the meantime, I was keeping an eye on the Minneapolis craigslist. It was there that I saw an ad for a flying club with a 1949 Cessna 170A; no buy-in, no monthly dues, $50/hr dry. That seemed almost too good to be true, so I inquired. The 170 turned out to be a new purchase by two guys who are already partners in a 182 on straight floats. They wanted a wheel plane for the winter and when a floatplane is inconvenient. However, realizing that the plane would potentially sit for long periods with no use - particularly during the summer when they mostly fly the 182 - they decided to start an informal 5-person flying club by finding three other insurable pilots willing to fly it at least 25 hours a year. It's potentially a win-win scenario; they partially defray the cost of a plane they don't often fly, and the plane gets steady use to keep the engine happy. Meanwhile I get to fly a classic 4-seat taildragger for cheaper than an equivalent FBO spam can, retain the flexibility of a rental arrangement, but enjoy much of the ownership experience.

The devil is always in the details, but with no buy-in cost it seemed pretty risk-free to check it out. I met the partners and looked at the plane. It won't win Grand Champion at Oshkosh but seems pretty well maintained and is in good condition for a 62-year old airplane. It has a low-time engine, good interior, original VFR panel, Horton STOL kit, beefed up main gear, larger-than-stock tires, and a Scott tailwheel. The six-cylinder Continental O-300 runs amazingly smooth to someone who's used to 4-cylinder Lycomings. It's set up for snow skis, which the owners are hoping to have it on this winter.

I submitted my experience to Avemco and they approved me the same day with a 5-hour checkout requirement. I flew with a CFI friend of the owners, who happens to be a Mesaba pilot. The five hours were a nice introduction to what turned out to be a very sweet flying airplane. It's similar to a 172, as you'd expect, but a bit more nimble. The visibility is actually much better than a 172 due to a lower instrument panel and downward sloping cowling. In fact, visibility is so good you don't need to S-turn during taxi and the runway remains in view during 3-point landings, which this plane loves to do. Like most taildraggers, the 170 is particularly in its element on grass runways. My first few takeoffs and landings on pavement were a bit wobbly - the 170 is heavier and less responsive in ground handling than the Cub, and needs to be led a bit more - but it was a no-brainer on grass. Eventually I got things sorted out on pavement, even making passable wheel landings (where the 170's spring-steel gear turns out to be a bit of a handicap). The last hour of the checkout was a workout making wheel landings in a gusty 20 knot direct crosswind. It's less harrowing once you figure out to give the downwind brake a little tap as the tail comes down.

The weekend after that, Dawn and I rode the BMW out to the airport where the 170 is currently being kept and went for a sunset flight over Lake Minnetonka and the surrounding countryside. It was a clear evening with gorgeous soft, golden light blanketing the rolling, green dimpled hills. We lazed along, throttled back at 500 feet, and I couldn't resist opening a window; an icy blast reminded me that it's still spring in Minnesota. To further prove the point, upon returning to the airport the wind across the runway was blowing harder instead of dying down as forecast. I was glad for that last hour of the checkout as I slid down final in a mighty crab. A kick of the rudder, a twist of the yoke, the chirp of the upwind main touching down softly. In a trike the work's pretty much over at that point, but in a taildragger the fun is just beginning! It all worked out quite nicely this time; it would have been very bad form to groundloop my first time in a taildragger without an instructor (to say nothing of my wife's first C170 ride!).

So far, the flying club arrangement is working out great. The other members have been cool and availability is great. It's nice to fly the same plane all the time and know its quirks, and know who else has been flying it. Even though I don't own the plane, it feels like mine. If I continue to get back into GA more heavily and finances permit, ownership may well be in my future. In the meantime, this is a very nice way to get my toes in the water.