North To Alaska And Beyond

 You may remember my discussion about being in the army and not understanding Great Circle geography.  I did not understand that Anchorage Alaska is near the Great Circle Route from most places in the contiguous United States to just about anywhere in the Eastern Pacific Rim. (You need to put a string on 2 places on a globe and see where it goes.  You can also see that if you know how to play around with Google Earth.)  Anchorage is close enough to midway between all these points in the contiguous US and those in Asia, that it made a good point for UPS to establish a crew base for its airplanes that were doing most of the flying between them.  That is why the 747-400 was based there, along with some of the MD-11 crews.

This meant that I would have to commute to work, for the first time since the few months I commuted from Orlando to Louisville, during my first year at UPS.  Commuting is a pain in the ass, but I was not going to move to Anchorage for only2 years.  I ended up getting in a crash pad with several other guys.

I was planning to drive my car up there.  It would have been quite an adventure.  I had it all planned out, with hotel reservations and all that.  I had a period of time off, that gave me just enough time to do the drive.  I was beginning to wonder if I could do the long days of driving back to back, that would have been necessary. My car saved me from doing that.  The steering began to make a funny noise and I chickened out.  I thought it was going to require replacement of the steering box, but it was no more than bad tie rod ends.  I could have made the trip.

Before I got into the crash pad, I stayed at a couple dumpy hotels and spent a few nights staying at the home of a friend.  It quickly became obvious that these were not long term solutions.  I decided to use taxis as my means of moving between the crash pad and work.  I was able to jump seat on UPS airplanes, so they were only 2 places where I needed to be transported.  Sometimes one of the crew members or another jumpseater who lived there would offer to drop me off at the crash pad on the way home.  There were stores and restaurants within walking distance of the pad.

There were a few things to worry about in this arrangement. One was availability of a jumpseat to and from Anchorage and reliability of the taxi companies to get me to work on time.  The jumpseat thing worked out pretty well.  I was always able to get back and forth without issues, except for one time, when I had to travel a few days early and spend New Years Eve alone in the crash pad on a very cold and snowy night. No problem.  My dad always said he didn't like drinking with the amatuers on New Years Eve. 

The flights between Louisville and Anchorage were about 6 hours.  I bought a good camping air mattress and used my sleeping bag to get down on the floor in the large area behind the cockpit on the upper deck of the 747.  There were bunk rooms, but you couldn't plan on one of them being available.  I was able to change into pajamas or sweat clothes to be more comfortable.  This way, I could blow up my mattress, crawl into my fart sack and sleep most of the flight.  Otherwise, my sleep could be interrupted.  I viewed getting to work as more important than getting home after a trip, but I never had problems with either. The toughest part was letting the air out of my mattress and folding it up to fit back in its stuff sack, after just waking up.  

The MD 11 did not have quite the space to spread out, but I found a little room near the entry door, to get out of the way of anyone who needed to move around.  It was a little cold there, but I have a really good sleeping bag.  Just part of the glamorous life of a rich airline pilot.

I loved the trips on the Whale.  The only ones I didn't like were from Anchorage to Shanghai and back.  That city is extremely polluted.  They are burning all the coal over there, that we have stopped burning here in the US.  If it really is Global Warming, shouldn't we be trying to reduce pollution all around the globe?  Besides, the Chicoms were not as friendly as the Asians in all the Free World cities.  Buy a fucking clue.  Don't be a Useful Idiot.  I guess the realize they can't do shit with the Chicoms, so they are going to destroy our economy and let the bad guys rule the world.  OK, that's all I'm going to say about that.

My favorite international layover cities in those days and in my previous 5 years on the older 747s were Cologne Germany and Hong Kong.  The company started flying an around the world trip during my year on the Whale.  It started in Anchorage, flew to Louisville, then to Cologne.  After that it went to Hong Kong.  Then it could do one of several variations.  The ones I flew went from Hong Kong to Dubai United Arab Emerates, then Cologne, Hong Kong Anchorage.  It was all in the norther hemisphere, but it truly circumnavigated the globe.  Yep, it's round.

The Dom, the cathedral in Cologne

 

Hong Kong Harbor from Kowloon

  That is the cockpit of a -400, with my old friend, Aaron.  He and I flew together back in the day on the -100, during my early years at UPS.  We were able to fly together for an 8 week bid period during my time in Anchorage and had a blast.  This was when the trips around the globe were introduced.  We were actually displaced by management pilots for the very first such trip.  That sucked.  Some of those guys were barely competent, because they didn't fly as much as we did.  Aaron and I stuck together for almost all of the bid period and we had a guest International Relief Officer (IRO) for each trip.  One of our IROs took that picture.  

We were on a week on week off schedule.  We could fly around the world with some back tracking and have some quality time to enjoy our layover cities in one week.  With the bunks and inflight breaks, I felt that I was more rested while flying the -400,  than at any other time I was employed there.  

Aaron was a big NFL fan also, so we found a restaurant in Hong Kong that was open all night during the NFL playoff season.  We could go there and watch all the games, while enjoying a couple meals and some beers.  Remember that we were halfway around the world, so the games were on at night over there.  The restaurant was actually on the basement level of a building and we would come crawling up the steps, after the games, as the sun was coming up and the people of Hong Kong were going to work and opening their shops.  No problem for us, it was on our daytime hours.

Back To The Whale

 I spent 3 years as a DC 8 flight engineer.  It was not too bad, but it was not great.  I had some fun, because it was always transportation from one party to another for me.

I kept getting more junior, because people who were senior to me, but younger, kept retiring and going back to the panel and popping in on the flight engineer seniority list, senior to me.  I was only able to hold trips to the Great Lakes area in the winter and to places like San Juan, Puerto Rico, Memphis and New Orleans in the summer.  There was one really shitty winter night in Toronto, when the weather was cold and windy, with deicing fluid dripping off the wings onto my overcoat, that I considered retirement.  However, I calmed down and realized I had to keep the cash flowing in the right direction.

There wasn't much that was interesting during that time, until the talk that the retirement age was going to change to 65.  This started a big fight among UPS pilots and there was also a fight about our contract, between those who were closer to retirement and those who were younger in age and seniority.  Having been hired by UPS at age 44, my retirement situation there was not good. While I was plumbing on the DC 8, there was a contract agreement between UPS and our union, the Independent Pilots Association (IPA), that literally tripled the amount of my pension income.  Shortly after that, the retirement age change happened.  My thoughts toward those who were pissed off about that, were that I was as concerned about their financial situation as they were about mine.  I thought they were acting like inconsiderate little assholes, since people like me, who had come to work at UPS when the situation was shitty, had created the good paying situation that they were going to enjoy for the rest of their careers.  We had a chance to try to make some money for a few years and pile up some wealth for our retirements.  There was also a fight on the contract, between the senior and junior pilots. that revolved around retirement versus pay rates.  It was a dark time for the pilots of the IPA.

I knew that the change of the retirement age would occur whether we wanted it or not and it was futile to argue about it.  When it did happen, the next issue was whether those of us on the seniority list as flight engineers, would be allowed to bid to return to a window seat, as pilots.  The answer was yes, we would,  I just had to wait for a system bid to upgrade.  The first such bid only allowed me to upgrade to a first officer position on the  Boeing 747-400, based in Anchorage Alaska.  I had about 2 years to go until age 65 retirement and the company allowed me to upgrade.  I would have to commute from Louisville to Anchorage.  I talked it over with Doreen and she said, "We can tolerate anything for 2 years".  I bid the Whale.

 

I remembered seeing the 747-400, taxi by when I was preflighting a DC 8 on the ramp in Louisville and thinking I would never have a chance to fly it.  Now it was going to be a reality.

In the past, when I had not flown for a period as long as 3 years, I had trouble getting back up to speed.  That was not the case this time.  The flight management system was very similar to the 757 and 767 systems I had flown for many years.  I had flown the 747-100, so I was familiar with the size, weight and sight picture from the cockpit.  

The -400 was actually a much better flying machine than the -100.  There was more thrust from the engines and the wings were much better.   For example, I always kept the power set a little above idle, into the touchdown, when landing on the -100s.  On the -400, I had to go to idle, or the plane would float down the runway.  Other than that difference, the planes landed similarly.  (In fact, I thought the 747,757 and 767 could be landed with the same techniques.  The only difference was the sight picture from the cockpit, because of the difference in height. I learned to listen to the radio altimeter call outs.)  The -400 flew better at cruise altitudes also.  This was mostly wing related.  On the -100, you had to always pay attention to speed and not let a downdraft get you slowed down too much.  It was a dog.  The -400, with its flight management system, more engine thrust, auto throttle and improved wing, flew very well, regardless of vertical wind conditions.

My training partner (we called them sim partners) was a guy about my age, who had only flown DC 8s and steam gauge 747s at UPS.  Now, he was trying to learn the modern planes, with flight management systems (FMS).  I had made that transition at about age 50.  That was tough.  Doing it at age 63 or so was excruciating.  I felt sorry for him.  Fortunately, I picked things up quickly, so the instructor could spend more time with my partner.  One day the instructor said to me, "You are a very patient man, Denny Cleary".  I could sympathize, because I saw him struggling the way I had, so many years before.

My partner in the airplane for Initial Operating Experience (IOE), was a completely different story.  He had picked it all up quickly and was a very good stick.  A natural pilot.  I had served as a flight engineer for one of his DC 8 simulator check rides, before he reached age 60 and he was the only guy I ever saw, who could land the DC 8 well on every attempt.  We had a good instructor, who enjoyed expanding the training envelope a little when he saw he had students who could handle it and we learned some good stuff about the 400.  As big as it is, the plane could be flown in a fashion that was almost as sporty as some of the smaller planes. 

I loved this airplane.  I felt bullet proof flying it.  It had 4 of everything.  There is nothing like redundancy.  I was going to revisit my favorite international layover cities, Cologne Germany and Hong Kong. This was 2008, the Chicoms had taken over Hong Kong, but it was still nearly as free and open as it had been before the United Kingdom had turned it over.  It was a 2 pilot airplane, but on really long flights, a second first officer was required.  The plane had two bunk rooms behind the cockpit.  When we flew with an additional crew member (International Relief Officer), when we got to top of climb, we would see how much time we had to top of descent, divide it by 3 and ask who wanted to take the first break and go back to the bunk rooms for a nap or just to relax.  Most guys didn't like going back first, but I did.  It was just like my days in the Army.  I would volunteer for the first break and everyone thought that was cool.  You may remember that I went against the conventional wisdom and began volunteering for everything after basic training and it always worked out as a good deal for me. 

I flew with several good guys during this time.  I was a fairly senior first officer on the Whale in Anchorage.  I remembpoer one flight from Honolulu to Hong Kong, which was probable just a repositioning flight, to get a plane in position to carry rubber dog shit out of Hong Kong, because we were empty, except for empty "cans",  the large containers that were loaded with packages to facilitate the quick loading and unloading of the airplanes.  There was a lot of time when we were not talking to controllers on the radio, just via data link and so we were listening to the tunes on my iTunes app to pass the time.  We passed Midway, Guam, the Philippines and places like that.  

This was the first time at UPS, where I felt up to speed upon first making the transition, except that I needed to get used to the international flying stuff and relearn how to understand the foreign controllers and their accents while speaking English.  We could fly over Russia now and understanding them when they were drunk on Vodka took a while.  The plane was no problem at all.  I really loved flying that plane.