starcheck1
Well-known member
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2003
- Posts
- 123
Another pilot found this article in "IFR" publication and sent it to me...its pretty long ..but good. Enjoy
New Year And Out With The Old IFR
- Paul Berge
As I turned into the airport's parking lot I wondered if anyone else had heard the news item. In an oh-by-the-way voice the announcer said that President Bush had signed a regulation that eliminated the need for banks to transfer cancelled checks; instead, electronic transfers would replace paper. Then he turned to sports saying that Barry Bonds was really Arnold Schwarzenegger, but I switched off the motor and walked to the hanger. Did anyone realize that an aviation era might have just passed? Are old freight dogs and graying air traffic controllers the only ones who know that the night skies are filled with mostly young pilots who fly IFR like nothing you'll ever encounter in a weekend safety seminar?
Time was the airlines recruited pilots from the military. The best of the best who'd flown C-130s, 141s, fighters, and tankers in the worst weather conditions carried their skills back to the civilian world as commercial pilots. That pipeline has been squeezed over the years, and prospective airline captains often earn their bones hauling cancelled checks, auto parts, or baby chicks. Earning what Burger King might pay you to say, "Want that Supersized?" these often lower time pilots fly every imaginable piece of ratty-looking hardware that can go fast through almost any weather to get the cargo through on time. Night freight hauling - as our own high time freight dogs Doug Rozendaal and Ron Wheeler have often reported - is a demanding business.
Like the military it demanded the best instrument skills, which means more than the ability to follow a magenta line between waypoints. As former USAF instructor, Ken Holston, shows in this month's article Fly The Black Line To Precision, IFR is a multifaceted mental exercise. And while training is vital - and brutally expensive - experience makes the pro. Unfortunately, if we lose our check haulers, we'll lose one more pipeline of experience that can't be simulated.
When I was a controller, the rule books were set on the shelf after midnight. Until the sun rose, whatever worked was good-to-go. Each weeknight around two AM a squadron of check haulers would hand off from Center to our approach scopes. A ragged collection of Twin Cessnas and a bad-ass Mitsubishi MU-2 would scream in from all points on the compass - all IFR - all headed to whatever runway provided a straight-in, seemingly regardless of the wind. If the clouds demanded an ILS, each freight dog would mutter, "...request close turn-on," meaning at the outer marker with speeds never seen in daylight. Into the mix would drop two Learjets - one from Denver, the other from Minneapolis. We called these the ICBMs because they'd reenter the earth's atmosphere at speeds and accuracy that NORAD would envy.
"Cleared approach, cleared to land, taxi to the ramp, your outbound is: Cleared as filed, maintain 10,000, squawk 4316," was the normal approach clearance phraseology. The check haulers would nail the marker, grab the localizer, slide down the glideslope, and read it all back while barely stifling a yawn.
Thers's little that I miss about working for the FAA except the pay and the check haulers. I miss their shadowy existance, blue jeans-and-sneaker uniforms, but mostly I miss watching great pilots in action. As the IFR world inevitably changes, I hope we don't miss their experience in the cockpit.
New Year And Out With The Old IFR
- Paul Berge
As I turned into the airport's parking lot I wondered if anyone else had heard the news item. In an oh-by-the-way voice the announcer said that President Bush had signed a regulation that eliminated the need for banks to transfer cancelled checks; instead, electronic transfers would replace paper. Then he turned to sports saying that Barry Bonds was really Arnold Schwarzenegger, but I switched off the motor and walked to the hanger. Did anyone realize that an aviation era might have just passed? Are old freight dogs and graying air traffic controllers the only ones who know that the night skies are filled with mostly young pilots who fly IFR like nothing you'll ever encounter in a weekend safety seminar?
Time was the airlines recruited pilots from the military. The best of the best who'd flown C-130s, 141s, fighters, and tankers in the worst weather conditions carried their skills back to the civilian world as commercial pilots. That pipeline has been squeezed over the years, and prospective airline captains often earn their bones hauling cancelled checks, auto parts, or baby chicks. Earning what Burger King might pay you to say, "Want that Supersized?" these often lower time pilots fly every imaginable piece of ratty-looking hardware that can go fast through almost any weather to get the cargo through on time. Night freight hauling - as our own high time freight dogs Doug Rozendaal and Ron Wheeler have often reported - is a demanding business.
Like the military it demanded the best instrument skills, which means more than the ability to follow a magenta line between waypoints. As former USAF instructor, Ken Holston, shows in this month's article Fly The Black Line To Precision, IFR is a multifaceted mental exercise. And while training is vital - and brutally expensive - experience makes the pro. Unfortunately, if we lose our check haulers, we'll lose one more pipeline of experience that can't be simulated.
When I was a controller, the rule books were set on the shelf after midnight. Until the sun rose, whatever worked was good-to-go. Each weeknight around two AM a squadron of check haulers would hand off from Center to our approach scopes. A ragged collection of Twin Cessnas and a bad-ass Mitsubishi MU-2 would scream in from all points on the compass - all IFR - all headed to whatever runway provided a straight-in, seemingly regardless of the wind. If the clouds demanded an ILS, each freight dog would mutter, "...request close turn-on," meaning at the outer marker with speeds never seen in daylight. Into the mix would drop two Learjets - one from Denver, the other from Minneapolis. We called these the ICBMs because they'd reenter the earth's atmosphere at speeds and accuracy that NORAD would envy.
"Cleared approach, cleared to land, taxi to the ramp, your outbound is: Cleared as filed, maintain 10,000, squawk 4316," was the normal approach clearance phraseology. The check haulers would nail the marker, grab the localizer, slide down the glideslope, and read it all back while barely stifling a yawn.
Thers's little that I miss about working for the FAA except the pay and the check haulers. I miss their shadowy existance, blue jeans-and-sneaker uniforms, but mostly I miss watching great pilots in action. As the IFR world inevitably changes, I hope we don't miss their experience in the cockpit.
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