Fate is the Hunter

[radarlove]

Has anyone read this book? It's about flying in the 40s and it started out fascinating--how little airline work has changed in 60 years, the same problem with crew schedulers, jerk captains, seniority, etc.

But now I'm almost done and finally my BS meter went off. He just described his fifteenth or twentieth harrowing, wings-on-fire, weather below minimums, out-of-gas skillful approach and landing. Either this guy spent his whole career wearing an instrument-training hood, or he found more bad weather than I've ever seen.

Still a good book, especially his day-to-day life descriptions, but ugh, he spends a lot of time as the hero, let me tell you.

 

[sjcsean]

Although I wasn't around back then, read any novels by author's like Ernest K. Gann's from that period and you'll see much of the same type of but-by-the-grace-of-God-go-I survival stories.

I believe much of had to do the state of airline aviation at the time - relatively primitive by today's standards, and with questionable mechanical reliability of many of the components found on the aircraft of the period.

Add in "can I see the road"/ dead reckoning methodolgy of navigating and it's a wonder that aircraft got to where they going at all in the 30's.

Luckily the technology has improved over the years where system reliability is leaps and bounds ahead of where it was back then. Now how to fix the issues with crew scheduling, dispatchers.....the more things change, the more they stay the same

Just my $.02.

 

[StopNTSing]

Has anyone read this book? It's about flying in the 40s and it started out fascinating--how little airline work has changed in 60 years, the same problem with crew schedulers, jerk captains, seniority, etc.

But now I'm almost done and finally my BS meter went off. He just described his fifteenth or twentieth harrowing, wings-on-fire, weather below minimums, out-of-gas skillful approach and landing. Either this guy spent his whole career wearing an instrument-training hood, or he found more bad weather than I've ever seen.

Still a good book, especially his day-to-day life descriptions, but ugh, he spends a lot of time as the hero, let me tell you.

Any pilot who could survive an entire career during aviation's golden era is a hero in my book. Have you not yet figured out this far into the book that flying during that period was a harrowing experience?? Spend a day at work sometime soon with the radar off, autopilot off, anti-ice off, TCAS off, VOR/ILS/GPS/LNAV off (okay, you can still use the ADF), and no radar vectors from ATC.....and let us know how fun that was.

Your BS meter needs re-calibrating.

 

[mckpickle]

The bible for anyone in this biz for sure.

So you figure out who he flew for yet?

Another good book is "one Pilots Log" Its the tale of Sloninger(sp?) It explains what airline he and Gann worked for. Fate never comes right out and says it.


Also....anyone figure out what the pine bows in an arrow shape durring the Search and Rescue meant? I've wondered that for years.

 

[LEROY]

AUTOPILOT OFF (yes, by 11AGL) RADAR OFF (well, ok) ANTI-ICE OFF (it's summer) TCAS OFF(ok) VOR/LOC OFF (doesn't seem to work that well anyway) sounds like a typical FedEx 727 approach...which I have come to call a HELMET FIRE!!!

 

[DrewBlows]

The biggest lesson I learned from Fate is the Hunter was of the numbers. It's the reality of this industry that the numbers rule your career. If you haven't read the book quit reading because I'm going to give the end away.











At the end of the book he is a first officer. His captain knows what he has been though (look up the word deference, it's something everyone needs to know), yet he is wearing a second or third hand uniform. He finally decides to get out of the airline industry. The numbers treated him wrong even though he was a pilot during aviations golden age. The fact of the matter is that fate (luck) decides who will be a successful pilot and who won't.

Ernest K. Gann happened to be a gifted writer (Band of Brothers, The High and the Mighty). From my limited experience I would be willing to wager that most people who have made it to be professional pilots are some of the most capable members of society. I have no doubt that the people who I have flown with could contribute as much to society as Mr. Gann did.

 

[BigShotXJTdrvr]

By the time Ernie Gann retired from the airlines, he had probably forgotten more about flying airplanes than you or I will ever know.

He didn't have mom and dad paying 35k a year to x flying college so he could learn to talk on the radio, graduate, and fly around (badly) in an airborne video game.

Go research the accident/pilot mortality records from the 30s and 40s. The weekly/monthly commercial aviation accident reports from back then read like the casualty reports from Iraq. Those passengers back then that got on those planes were no pussies. You really had a chance that you might die on an airline flight back then. Today it's like .00000000001% chance of crashing. If anything was BS, I would say it was the fact that he was alive to write it.

 

[Mr.B]

Be thankful the only meter you had go red was your BS meter.

Although I too am a recipient of the TCAS, EGPWS, and (for the most part) radar vectors, I know when to shut my pie hole and thank my lucky stars. The numbers have not been too kind to me but I'll be flying till I drop (well, maybe not for some of the bottom feeders out there....) cause I love it and its all I can really do well and not get bored off my ass.

I'll bet Gann wasn't pecking at his laptop at the end of the day as many of us have the privilage to do. He was nursing a Bombay and thanking those that came before him.

Some of the current breed make me wanna puke.

 

[FN FAL]

Has anyone read this book? It's about flying in the 40s and it started out fascinating--how little airline work has changed in 60 years, the same problem with crew schedulers, jerk captains, seniority, etc.

But now I'm almost done and finally my BS meter went off. He just described his fifteenth or twentieth harrowing, wings-on-fire, weather below minimums, out-of-gas skillful approach and landing. Either this guy spent his whole career wearing an instrument-training hood, or he found more bad weather than I've ever seen.

Still a good book, especially his day-to-day life descriptions, but ugh, he spends a lot of time as the hero, let me tell you.

Two summers ago I got introduced to an NWA retiree at an airport campout party. This retiree was named Chuck Severson.

Anyway, me and him sat up untill the sun rose...trading story for story, drink for drink. It was pretty cool.

Imagine taking off out of GRB with a DC-3 headed for Chicago and having to shoot an ILS at MKE just to shed enough ice so you could do a go around and get the plane into ORD. You can't...but I can. Every story he had about weather and icing, totally related to what I see on a regular basis flying a barn door in 135 flying.

I've never read any of Gan's work, but I'm thinking big fat wing, slow ass airplane, not much ATC radar help and those big stupid round engines...yea, you're going to have stories to tell.

Jet pilots almost have to get kidnapped or get a dui in airliner in order to have a new story to tell...

Really, what is jet pilot going to tell you for a story..."there I was, diverting for kxyz because a thunderstorm was next to kabc, when all the sudden I heard kabc approach vector 20 freight dogs for an approach..."

 

[Mr.B]

True, "jet pilots" have it pretty easy today. If all we have to worry about is whores and shylocks squeezing us then yeah, we have it good.

You, playing with antiquated equipment and crappy conditions, more than anyone,(aside from our brothers-in-arms) demand that you and your family are fairly compensated for your trade. To settle for anything less than what you are truly worth is a travesty.