ASK THE CAPTAIN: New Pilot Crew Rest Rules. Will It Make Flying Safer?

PLANE TALK: GOT A QUESTION? ASK THE CAPTAIN!

Do you have a question about airline safety, flight etiquette, jet lag, or air travel in general? Submit your question and look for answers in a future column.

by W. M. Wiggins

" I am curious about those DOT/FAA Improved Pilot Crew Rest Rules. Can you tell me what they are?"   

I see you are wondering what’s different, so here are the main Federal Aviation Administration changes: 

• ON DUTY HOURS: 9 to 14 per day
• INCREASE REST PERIOD BY 2 HOURS
• PILOTS CAN SAY THEY ARE FATIGUED

Will these rules help?

And, if they do, will the flying public be willing to pay for the extra costs that will be added to their airline tickets?  

Before answering you,  here is a little background on just some problems associated with pilots flying in a diminished capacity….like ah….”sleep flying”.

You laugh?

If only it were funny. 

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How Anne Frank Eased My Travel Frustrations

by Gillian Kendall

If I’d gotten a fortune cookie yesterday, it would have read: ‘Overconfidence brings misfortune.’ Or maybe, ‘Stay close to home today.’ 

Lacking such foresight, I was feeling cheerful about the two little flights – each less than 4 hours – that would take me from Florida to Arizona. This trip was trivial compared to the one from LAX to Melbourne: 16 hours in the air, which I do several times a year.

I barely even packed. In my carryon, I had just a computer, wallet, and paperback – Anne Frank’s Diary of A Young Girl, which I was reading for the first time.

A friend dropped me at sweet little Sarasota/Bradenton airport exactly 90 minutes before my 1.34 p.m. flight. But at the Delta counter, I heard a staff member apologizing to another customer: our flight was delayed at least an hour.

Over the PA, an agent made the unsmiling declaration that that Atlanta airport was opening and closing all day, due to “weather,” and that if we made it there during a brief open period, we’d probably be spending the night there, not getting on to our final destinations. That, or we could go home and start again tomorrow.

I had booked a “calming facial” the next morning at the Royal Palms Spa, and I needed it. My pores were clogged from months in the sun, and relaxing in the hands of a competent, smooth-skinned aesthetician would make this trip worthwhile.

The flight to Atlanta kept being further delayed, in maddening, twenty-minute increments, which meant there wasn’t time to go to Starbucks or watch the soothing tropical fish display. We finally boarded about 3.30 p.m., and I strapped myself in and sat reading Anne Frank’s Diary. Having never read the book before, I’d assumed it would be horrifically depressing, but in fact her journal was amusing and the narrator almost incredibly cheerful, as in this observation shortly after her family went into hiding.

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Leonardo's Vision

by Pete Thompson

The richness of human imagination has rarely been more realized than in the day/night dreams of Leonardo da Vinci which have deeply impacted modern humankind. Although his fantasy images were limited to the available technologies of the day, he nonetheless, envisioned each as real and probable in time. His fifteenth century vision of a machine capable of leaping into the air under the control of humans in flight has come to pass in the helicopter. I can imagine him watching birds doing these things and actually, in his mind, performing them, himself.  When I was a child, people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. As serious as a monk in prayer, I answered, "A bird!" I have experienced, in every human sense possible, the thrill of flight that Leonardo envisioned as the nearest humans could initiate actual bird flight. 

I AM a helicopter pilot therefore I AM a helicopter.  The integration between a human and a machine is complete when the former is strapped into the latter becoming one and the same. Every human sense becomes ten-fold more sensitive to the machine, and each vibration, sound, smell, sight, and touch becomes acute. When you break friction with the earth, you are no longer in the human world but in the world where the inhabitants are naturally equipped to fly.  You may dance upon the air through every landscape that exists. Leonardo's vision inhabited many inventors, but one, in the twentieth century, made it real….Igor Sikorsky.  Others followed in his footsteps, making the machine better and more friendly to those who have the lust to be a bird. One of those who believed in the machine enough to make it better and safer, my hero, Howard Hughes.

Through odd circumstances, I became a helicopter pilot, and no matter how odd, I have benefited beyond my wildest dreams. It is my goal to share the most wondrous of human experiences by leaping into the air and flying like a bird.

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Icarus and The Iceland Volcano: A Pilot’s Inside Scoop

by W.M. Wiggins

Do you remember Icarus from Greek Mythology? Well, he may have been the first and original flyboy……… you see, piloting goes w-a-a-a-y back.

Icarus and his father, Daedalus, were being held captive in a sky-high tower of that nasty King Minos of Crete… and it was a far piece to the ground, let me tell you….even by Texas standards.

Icarus’ father, Daedalus, who was widely recognized as the master of ingenuity, concocted flyable wings from bee’s wax and feathers. That was just about all the material to be found in that high, old tower. Once those bird-like wings were securely mounted on Icarus and Daedalus, they were almost ready to take flight…but first, that obligatory pre departure briefing.

“Son”, says Icarus’ father, “Don’t fly too close to the Sun or too close to the water.” “If you do, son, you will be in a h-e-a-p of trouble.”

Well, we know the rest of the story. Icarus, flying in a loose formation behind his father, became bored. He zoom-climbed high toward that hot, hot, sun…melting the wax that held the feathers in place. Ploop! Into the sea he went and drowned.

Fast forward. That was then, this is now.

Iceland’s EYJAFJALLAJOKULL volcano (that’s easy for you to say) goes Ka Boom!

In this explosive eruption, volcanic ash is taken tens of thousands of feet into the air….and that’s the rub. Jet airliners need to fly in this airspace.

So, what’s the Big Deal? Ash, that’s just like dirtier dirt…right?

UNFORTUNATELY, NOOOOOOOO…..!!!

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Step Back from the Baggage Claim

Change the World, Start at the Airport

by Jason Barger

It’s funny what a glass of wine can lead to. My wife and I had just put our two young boys to bed when the words “I think I may write a book” leaped from my mouth. The words almost surprised me and my wife had no idea where this was leading. The next thing I knew, the traveling adventure had begun.

My family dropped me off at the airport in our hometown of Columbus, Ohio. Over the next seven days I traveled from Columbus to Boston to Miami to Chicago to Minneapolis to Seattle to San Diego - 7 cities in 7 days without leaving the airport the entire time. I was sleeping on floors, eating rubbery chicken nuggets, and yes, watching people. I soaked in nearly 10,000 minutes of observations of humanity at all four corners of the United States. Yes, I’m strange - but, Life is a trip!

With over 87,000 planes in the skies over the United States on any given day, airports are one of the most unique spaces in our mobile world today. So many different people going different directions with different agendas. The airports are a place filled with great excitement, frustration, sadness and anxiety. In order for us to get from point A to point B, we must navigate our way through the obstacles, delays and cancellations that show up along our path. As a metaphor for the rest of our lives away from the airport, how do we choose to travel through daily life in our world? So, I needed to go and see what I would observe.

Oddly, the baggage claim was calling me.

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