Ode to Mad Dog

Long before I was assigned the Mad Dog, I knew I was destined to fly her. My company assigns seniority within new-hire classes according to the last four digits of your social security number, and with a sub-0300 SSN I was guaranteed to be one of the most junior in my class and assigned by default to the most junior seat at the airline: New York Mad Dog FO. I was at peace with that, and after six plus years of the stultifyingly automated JungleBus I was honestly ready for a challenge and a change of pace. The Mad Dog’s rugged design and old-school cockpit held a certain attraction for me, and my only real regret was that I never got a chance to fly the DC-9 before it was retired.

That said, I wasn’t quite prepared for just how busy the Mad Dog is, particularly in the right seat during ground operations. The preflight, pushback, after engine start, taxi, before takeoff, after takeoff, descent, approach, before landing, after landing, and shutdown flow patterns and checklists are all considerably longer than on the JungleBus (a couple of those nearly three times as long). Engine starts just about require three hands. Quite a few switches on the right side of the cockpit belong to the FO even while Pilot Flying with the autopilot off. The airplane has VNAV and autothrottles, but both are glitchy enough to require close attention and frequent intervention to smooth out their operation and ensure compliance with restrictions. The relatively small wing means that very careful attention must be paid to speed and maneuvering margins both after takeoff and at cruise altitude, which seldom exceeds FL330. The brakes are by turns pitifully weak and unpredictably grabby, and it’s nigh impossible to symmetrically deploy and spool up the thrust reversers. This is an airplane with a fairly steep learning curve; I did well in training only by studying my ass off (it also helped to have a sharp training partner with experience on the airplane).

Coming to the line as a brand new FO was an eye-opening workout. Many of the captains I initially flew with on reserve had been on the airplane for years and were used to an experienced FO’s pace of operations. I sometimes had to remind them that I was new and needed a little more time. Every trip I made mistakes, found more gotchas, learned new tips and tricks, and saw more unfamiliar glitches and failure modes. There’s a lot of tribal knowledge among Mad Dog drivers, much of it not written down anywhere. And then, after a couple months, I was able to hold a junior line and often flew with captains who were themselves brand new to both the airplane and the left seat. With only a couple hundred hours in the airplane, I was occasionally the “experienced guy” passing on my scant slice of the tribal knowledge.

I passed the magic 400-hour mark, releasing me from probation, after only five months of line flying. Remarkably, I found myself getting comfortable with the airplane. Actually, that’s not exactly the right way to put it, because I continued watching the Mad Dog as closely as ever, if not more so. Perhaps it is better to say that I got comfortable with being uncomfortable. Relaxed preflights, clean uncluttered cockpits, flawlessly smooth autopilots and autothrottles, and trying to stay awake as we blithely cruised across the country at FL370 all faded from memory until they seemed like distant, fanciful dreams. I came to simply accept the Mad Dog’s flaws and quirks as just the way life is. I didn’t pine for a more relaxed, more sophisticated airplane. The hardest part of coming to the Mad Dog is coming to the Mad Dog, and that was already done.

And in fact, once I accepted the plane’s busyness and quirkiness, I actually found quite a few things about it that I really liked. For starters, it’s built like a brick shithouse. The systems are simple and robust, and while there’s not a great deal of redundancy the plane doesn’t really need it as it’s not horribly dependent on hydraulics, electric, etc. The primary flight controls are all manual, with control cables driving servo tabs. It hand flies pretty well for being a notorious truck; though control forces are fairly high, it’s easy to put the plane right where you want it and keep it there. Near-centerline thrust makes single-engine work a cakewalk. The extension speeds on the very draggy flaps are ridiculously high (starting at 280 kts) so it’s easy to get down when you find yourself high. The pilots are so far forward of the engines that even on the JT8D model it’s really quiet, and though the cockpit looks like the bridge of a Russian submarine, it's actually laid out pretty logically. The Flight Mode Annunciator may look like a 1980s football scoreboard but it’s large and visible in any lighting conditions. And once you figure out the myriad controls for the cockpit lighting, it’s almost infinitely customizable which makes for a very comfortable nighttime environment.

I found myself growing downright fond of the airplane. More than one friend suggested that my newfound appreciation for the Mad Dog was nothing more than Stockholm Syndrome. Perhaps. The reality is that, much like taildraggers, a certain amount of the Mad Dog’s cachet comes not despite its flaws but because of them. It’s frequently stated to be a “real man’s airplane” (though I hasten to add that several female friends have flown it for years and claim to love it). Airbus pilots, like Cherokee drivers, are considered perhaps a little suspect for no other reason than that their airplanes can camouflage weak flying skills, while Mad Dog wranglers, like tailwheel pilots, get a (sometimes undeserved!) presumption of competence. In 757/767 training, each instructor has asked what fleet I’m coming from and, informed of my Mad Dog status, to a man they’ve given a relieved little wave and assured me I’d do great on the Boeing.

Given all this, I wasn’t planning on leaving the Mad Dog anytime soon. I enjoyed the fruits of its juniority, spending a mere six weeks on reserve in New York, soon thereafter holding weekends-off regular lines, and then getting back to Minneapolis after eight months of commuting. Of the other aircraft in my base, the Airbus has remained improbably senior (nobody wants to leave it!) and the 757/767 category was slowly shrinking. But then pending aircraft retirements were cancelled, the category got additional flying, there was movement from senior FOs upgrading to captain, and suddenly there was a bid out for fifty (!) MSP 757/767 FOs. I ran the numbers and concluded I’d have about the same seniority in either airplane. The Boeing paid more and had better trips, though I might not be able to hold international flying. I was still undecided when I had lunch with (now-former) Flying editor Robert Goyer on an Austin layover. I mentioned the possibility of bidding the Boeing but noted I’d have to spend a month at training. “Don’t you like training for new airplanes?” prodded Goyer. He had a point, I actually do, and I've wanted to fly the 757 since I was ten years old. That decided it; I put the bid in that night.

I was awarded the Boeing in February and didn’t start training until November 5^th, so I had plenty of extra time to appreciate the Mad Dog. The last four days on the plane were so hilariously Maddogish that they merit their own separate post. Meanwhile I wrap up training on the Boeing in a couple days and will be enjoying some paid time off over the holidays while I wait to be assigned OE/TOE. 

Three New for the New Year

Good Lord, can you believe that it's already 2015? I can't; time seems to speed up as I get older. Dawn and I are celebrating New Years in Portland with our good friends Brad and Amber. Like myself and a great many of my flying friends, Brad moved from the regional airlines to the majors this year. Also like many of these friends, we started around the same place (instructing together at ADP) and our career paths have sometimes intertwined, at other times gone in very different directions, and yet we advanced to the next level within a month of each other. We agreed that the process of training, IOE, and probation/reserve/commuting made this year seem far shorter than the last few years in which we were senior in our respective positions. In my case, the last two or three months have seen a few other major developments that put me decidedly behind on this blog. I don't want longtime followers to have to wait to read about them in my Flying column, so here they are all at once: Three new developments as 2014 rolls over to 2015.

1. I'm off probation and (almost) back in MSP!

I completed 400 flight hours in the Mad Dog in early December, finishing my probationary period! Practically, this doesn't really mean a great deal, merely that I'm entitled to union representation in case of disciplinary action. The reality is that if you screw up in an especially egregious manner, the airline will attempt to fire you even after you're off probation, and while on probation you still generally have to screw up in an rather egregious manner to get fired. In my case, I don't see myself acting much differently after probation. But it's a milestone nonetheless, and one that allows you to breathe a bit of a sigh of relief that you're not quite so under the microscope; you've essentially been accepted as a permanent part of your new airline. I was allowed to read the probationary pilot reports submitted by the captains I've flown with thus far, and they were all rather complimentary ("He really likes to hand fly!" read one of the latest).

Concurrently, I was finally converted to my new base of MSP for the February bid period. I wrote about being awarded MSP several months ago, but the contract allows the company quite a lot of flexibility in when they actually make the award effective. Because there were so many New York-based Mad Dog FOs attempting to get back to MSP, the company couldn't let us all go at once without severely affecting their New York schedule. So, I had to wait a bit, but a month from now I'll again be driving to work. Nice!

Taken with a non-wifi camera...100% legal, probation or not!

 

Isn't that beautiful!? Oh yeah, the sunset is nice too!

2. There's a new Yellow Cub in the Yellow Cub Club

I've written extensively here and in Flying about my adventures in N77532, the Yellow Cub Club's 1946 Piper J3C Cub. This plane had been in the club since the mid 1970s, the last time it had been recovered - and the use was showing. We were faced with the prospect of being without an airplane for a year or more while we restored 532. The thing is, we're a flying club, not a group of old airplane restorers. The good news was that we've had excellent financial stewardship over the last few years, resulting in very healthy reserve levels. Ultimately we decided that we could afford to sell 532 and then buy a pretty, already-restored Cub. This all happened over a 3-week period in October. Happily, 532 went to a friend of mine, a guy I knew from my last airline who was in my class at my current airline. It's in South Dakota and is being flown by a newly-formed flying club that plans to fly it for a year or two more and then restore it. There's a good chance I'll get to fly 532 again.

The airplane we acquired as 532's replacement is actually older, a 1940 model J3C, but was restored in the mid 1990s and late 2000s. NC28092 is a very pretty bird - one I'd be happy to display at any fly-in. She's also a bit sprightlier than 532 despite only having a 65 hp Continental - perhaps due to lighter construction, perhaps due to less time since overhaul. She cruises quite easily at a solid 80mph. I hope this fine example of the breed makes it to Oshkosh in the next few years, though she probably won't be flown by me for reasons I'll outline below. In fact, I plan to sell my share in the Yellow Cub Club come spring, despite being their new maintenance officer.

 

One of my last times flying N77532, with my father-in-law Tom. I flew 7 family members this late-summer weekend. 

 

NC28092, the new Yellow Cub in the Yellow Cub Club!

 Very nice Cub!

3a. We have a new Piper (dog)!

Dawn and I have been talking about getting a pup for ages but have delayed because of how much we're gone from home. After Dawn's brother's dog gave birth to a litter of 7, we finally decided to just make the adjustments necessary to bring a pooch into our lives. Dawn visited her brother in October and picked out the cutest, calmest, and most loving pup in the litter. Well, the "calm" part was certainly temporary, for shortly after taking him home he started letting out his alter-ego personality that I call "Demon Dog!" Regardless, he's still very cute and loving, and even in his persnickety moods gets a lot of laughs out of us. After a lot of deliberation we decided on calling him Piper, largely Dawn's choice as I was resistant to an aviation-centric name. Once I met him I realized that the name suited him perfectly. It has, however, caused a bit of consternation among our friends because of another addition to our family since the pooch....

Piper at about ten weeks old. It's crazy how much he's grown in the six weeks since this.

 3b. We have a new Piper (airplane)!

This is pretty crazy, I can still barely believe it even as I type it. Dawn and I are airplane owners. Not just 1/12th owners, as we are in the club Cub; sole owners of our very own airplane, a 1953 Piper PA-22/20-160. I'll write more about the process in a separate entry, but we've known for a long time that we would eventually buy an airplane, and this fall decided that the timing was right to start getting serious. I wasn't expecting it to happen so quickly, though; we had really just started looking. This one was exactly what I was looking for and came at a very good price. A friend, fellow aviation writer, and airline pilot of some notoriety helped me ferry it home from Montana - more about that in the next entry. But long story short, there's a pretty little yellow airplane all of our own, sitting in its own hangar at Flying Cloud Airport (FCM), awaiting some seriously awesome adventures together! Dawn and I have big plans for trips with Piper (dog) and the Pacer (airplane). Piper the dog has actually already flown in Pacer the airplane twice, and seems to like the back seat rather well!

Sixteen Again

At my new airline, as at Horizon, many of the captains I am flying with are my parents' age or a little younger. Most of these have adult children and part of the standard "getting to know you chit-chat" is inquiring how many kids they have, what they do for work, what their marital status is, and whether any grandkids are on the way. Most of these children's lives were spent while their father (or mother) worked at a major airline. Which is to say: most had an upper-middle-class upbringing, often involving private schools and world travel and the chance to attend a good university. They tend to fall in either the brilliant-and-going-places category or else good-for-nothing-and-probably-moving-home, at least in their parent's retelling. What I not yet heard is even a single example of a child who is now an airline pilot. This makes sense, in a way. Most captains in this age bracket have offspring that came of age around or just after 9/11, when the airlines were in full economic free-fall and pilot group after pilot group was facing bankruptcy or liquidation. Nobody in this situation would encourage their kids to follow in their footsteps. Many have said as much.

Lately, though, I've also flown with quite a few newer captains who've been with the airline for "only" 14 or 15 years. These pilots suffered the effects of 9/11 much more acutely than their senior brethren; many spent months or years on furlough, and they've stagnated in the right seat since. However, their kids were young at the time and are just now getting to the age where they have to pick a career field. Surprisingly, I've flown with three or four younger captains whose kids are actively pursing being an airline pilot. They're either taking flight lessons, are planning to, or are a Private Pilot already, and are selecting an aviation college for their advanced training. All have their parents' enthusiastic support despite the formidable costs involved. Some of this is probably attributable to the upbeat attitude around my airline at the moment. There's a lot of hiring and upgrading going on, the company is making a lot of money, the profit-sharing checks are handsome, and the pilot contract has been slowly inching up towards pre-9/11 levels. My friends at other major airlines report that morale there is considerably worse, understandable since they're all still working through the merger glitches that my airline had to deal with five years ago.

It's made me wonder what I would do if I was sixteen again and looking for a career to pursue, knowing what I know now. When I was sixteen in 1997, the major airline bankruptcies and furloughs were starting to fade from memory, profits and hiring were on the upswing, and Kit Darby was declaring that the biggest pilot shortage in history was right around the corner. I loved flying and thought I was good at it. The idea of flying heavy iron across the world fascinated me. Flight training was a lot of money even then, but I figured the eventual payoff justified it. Had I been able to predict 9/11 and its fallout, had I known that payrates would be gutted and retirements stolen and huge swaths of the domestic networks outsourced to lowest-bidding regional airlines and flown for inferior pay with zero job stability, I'm not sure my decision would have been the same. Had I foreseen it would take 15 years of hard work and low pay and cross-country moves and occasionally dangerous flying to get to the majors, I might not have taken the leap. If my gift of prophecy had included insight into the runaway executive pay in this country coupled with the continuous shrinking of the middle class, I might have gone to business school.

It's probably good I didn't know the future, because I've enjoyed life and flying over the last fifteen years despite the career bumps along the way, and I seem to have arrived at the majors at a good time. But what would I tell a sixteen-year-old version of myself starting out right now? That consolidation has ensured continued profitability and stability at the remaining major carriers for years to come? That the mandatory retirement numbers are incontrovertible and the pilot shortage is real this time? That the upheaval in the regional sector will have played itself out by the time he's qualified and he can expect a more defined, secure career path? Or would I say that the inexorable march of automation has ensured the continual decline of the airline pilot's worth, or that the capacity discipline exhibited by the major airlines of late will attract new entrants and fresh upheaval, or that cabotage is inevitable and the US airline industry will go the way of the US maritime industry? Hell, for all I know airliners could be pilotless in 30 years. By the same token medicine could be automated by then, tort reform may put thousands of lawyers out of work, or the revolution could come and MBAs will swing from every lamppost. I don't know what's going to happen.

I do know this: Aviation has been an unstable, irrational industry since the day Wilbur cracked up on Flight Four and will likely continue to be thus for a long time to come, consolidation be damned. Even in the salad days airline pilots were known to bitch about pay and working conditions, and will continue to do so until they're finally replaced by robots. Very few pilots will have smooth careers from beginning to end. Most of those getting into aviation for money, lifestyle, prestige, or excitement will find one or all of those things lacking at some point in their career, and it may be enough to kill whatever love of flying they had in the first place. For those who love to fly, though, and can't imagine doing else, the joy of flight transcends what's going on in the industry at any given moment. If you are that sort of person, and you can be happy despite low income, birthdays and holidays spent away from family, and uncertainty about the future, you are probably well-suited for a career in aviation. The good news is that at some point along the way, there's a good chance that you'll happen into a sweet well-paid gig that affords a decent lifestyle. As long as those things are considered side benefits, and the flying is the main goal, it's still a pretty decent way to make a living. Of course, if you're an airplane-mad sixteen-year-old like I was, you probably don't need some old codger to tell you that.