April 2005-
Spring is here for most of us. We are no longer thawing airplanes out in hangars before we can fly them. No frost on the windshields and soon mud daubers will be a factor with our pitot tubes. Pre-heating of engines is over as well as wondering if that ancient Janitrol heater in your Apache is finally going to give you a big case of the carbon monoxides.
Daylight is coming earlier in the morning and leaving later in the evening. Once again a slight change in how our hemisphere is presented to the sun results in idyllic, quiet evening flights, poems of amore and except for the occasional rain-deluged runway, we can forget about braking action reports for a few months.
Soon, if you are unemployed, retired, or can get some vacation, you will be heading down to my hometown, Lakeland, Fla., for that yearly orgy of corn roasting, product testing, speech attending, ultralight flying, air showing, and sun burning.
I don’t get down to Sun ‘n Fun every year, but the times I do, I have a good time. You know from previous columns that Lakeland was where I first began at age 15 as a lineboy at Lakeland Flying Service. I also had the honor of working for Les and Johnny Roberts at Roberts Flying Service. Good times.
It has been over thirty five-years since I started on this journey of aviation and I’ve noticed a weird thing. I’ve been going backwards.
When I started out, I knew everything about flying. The longer I flew the less I knew that I knew and now I’m not too sure about anything.
Confused? Let me explain. At age 15 there is very little you don’t know. I had read a lot of books about aviation, seen a few movies and talked with a few pilots over the previous few years that I had served as resident ramp tramp.
I knew the following:
• The Blue Angels did all of their air show routines on autopilot.
• There was no weather you couldn’t fly through if you were good enough.
• Airplanes were people too.
• Chicks dig a pilot.
• It wasn’t about the money, it was about the flying.
Later when I was over 16 and had a real driver’s license to go with my student pilot certificate I learned:
• Airports are great places to go parking with your girlfriend and
• Drug smugglers are not very nice and in fact are very dangerous.
It turns out that I was pretty smart when I was younger. With the exception of the belief that the Blue Angels did it all on autopilot and the teenage notion that you could fly through any kind of weather, the rest of my tenets have held out to be pretty sound over the years.
There are quite a few skills I got when I was a lineboy that in 26 years of airline flying I’ve never had to use. I no longer need to be able to tell the difference between non-detergent and detergent motor oil by smell. I don’t need to know how to dump the toilet waste tank from a Convair into a garbage can (nobody should have to learn that one) and I don’t think I have the ability anymore to kick a wooden chock from one end of the hangar all the way across the floor to come to rest in front of the nosewheel of a 172.
Back then, weight and balance was all about whether or not I put a suitcase behind my seat in the Cessna 150 or Cherokee 140. Today it is about how many coach passengers we have at a summer weight and the amount of cargo containers loaded under my cockpit. Both concerns are the same in theory but different in practice. The difference is that when I was 16 I was trusted to do weight and balance myself.
Today with thousands upon thousands of hours and decades of experience I am no longer allowed to attempt the math. Weight and balance is done for me and transmitted. Of course, if it is wrong I am still responsible.
During my teenage years, flying in the right seat of the Lodestar or the 180 with a more experienced pilot through crappy weather was an adventure and had a sure, safe outcome. Later, when I had a fresh instrument ticket in my pocket, I actually looked forward to the arrival of scuddy stuff to fly through. Now, after decades of dealing with blizzards, tropical storms, fog of all types and wind shears galore, I’ll take a pass if I can when it gets gnarly out there.
I’ve grown to have an aversion to bumps as well. When I was 21, the severe bumps of a forestry patrol plane over the flames of a huge fire didn’t bother me a bit. Now at the Flight Levels I’m always in search of a smooth ride.
Other than flying skydivers and the occasional sightseeing ride, my first real professional flying job was as a CFI. Boy, did I know a lot of stuff then. It is amazing that my students didn’t throttle me with my own flying scarf. I had firm ideas about the facts and had even firmer thoughts on how to teach people things.
Imagine me at 20 years of age teaching people 30 years older about such things as judgment. This was a sort of the “blind leading the sighted,” but at least I knew how to fly and the basics of how to pass that knowledge along, albeit in a fairly obnoxious, smug way.
Nobody strangled me and if I could remember all of their names I could probably list hundreds of people that were patient with me and got a chuckle out of my sure convictions.
So, grasshopper…. What kind of wisdom do I have to import to you masses, yearning for enlightenment? Not much.
Probably the most notable thing I’ve noticed recently is how much I hadn’t noticed before. How many hundreds of legs in the MD-88 did I sit there, leaning slightly forward with my head against the glareshield not noticing a damn thing? There is nothing finer than being in command of an airliner, except that “holy of holies” being a fighter pilot. How many flights did I spend complaining about the job instead of simply enjoying where I was?
Another thing I’ve learned is that no matter how bad things look they aren’t really that bad and things have a way of working out. From the Nixon fuel embargo through the ATC strike to the recent spate of airline bankruptcies and $50-a-barrel oil, things will have a way of working out.
Never be in a hurry to get to an accident. Taking your time or turning tail away from bad weather to fight another day isn’t cowardice, it is the thing that keeps smart pilots alive. In 35 years I may have missed “getting there on time” on a few occasions but my passengers were always alive to complain about it the next year—if they could remember it.
Don’t be the guy that offers to prop another guy’s airplane when the battery is dead. Do be the guy that helps him get a new battery or some jumper cables. Bring bottled water and never drink the potable water from an airplane’s tank, especially if the airplane is older than you.
During a time when there are a lot of thunderstorms around and ATC is looking for a volunteer to “go take a look,” don’t be that volunteer. Let a few other airplanes play the role of “weather ship.”
Finally, some advice you can use if you go to Lakeland: I hope to see thousands of you at Sun ‘n Fun this year and while still in my Wise Old Man role, I have a few suggestions: First, bring sunscreen and plan on spending the whole day well into the evening. There is a night airshow at least one of the nights and you won’t want to miss it.
I always bring one of those weird backpacks that can fold out into a stool. Trust me, by 3:00 p.m., you’ll be looking for a place to sit down.
When you are trying to cross a taxiway to get a look at the airplane that you just have to get a look at and a Sun ‘n Fun volunteer marshal on a moped tells you to back off, don’t be offended. He or she might have saved you from being run over by a proctologist in a Bonanza.
Last bit of unasked-for advice: Bring some young people with you. Whether they are related to you or not, we need more kids, especially teenagers to come to Sun ‘n Fun to see what the excitement is all about.
Also, if a gray-haired, goofy looking guy that resembles my picture comes up and starts randomly giving you advice just nod your head politely and back away.
Kevin Garrison’s aviation career began at age 15 as a lineboy in Lakeland, Fla. He came up through General Aviation and is currently a senior 767 captain. When not frightening passengers, Kevin plays tennis and lives on a horse farm in Kentucky, where he writes unsold humor projects and believes professional wrestling is real and all else is bogus.
