THEN … I BECAME A FREIGHT DOG!
In March of 1989, I was hired by Airborne Express in Wilmington, Ohio. For once, this job change did not require us to move. I could sit at home in Erlanger, Kentucky on reserve and be within the required two-hour response time. I began Basic Indoctrination training March 31st, 1989. Basic Indoc lasted one week and its purpose was to familiarize us with company policies and procedures, Operations Specifications, etc. At the end of the week, we were administered a written test for which we were well-prepared.
The following week, I began training to be a YS11 First Officer, commonly referred to as the copilot. One of the other pilots from my Basic Indoc class who had previous jet experience was placed directly into the DC8 training program. The first phase of our YS11 training consisted of a ground school that covered all the systems of the airplane – electrics; hydraulics; flight controls; fuel; powerplants; propellers; etc. There were four Captain upgrades in class with us, and I was glad to see that they were friendly –Mark, Kirk, Kevin, and Bob were all the sort of people that I would enjoy flying with. Our classroom instructor was Phil, a pilot who had lost his medical.
I’d always been challenged by all things mechanical, and in particular coming to understand aircraft systems. I would become overwhelmed and intimidated by the sheer volume of material. I thought that I had to commit it all to memory, and I just couldn’t do it. I nearly washed out of Saab training at ComAir because of it. I struggled but got through the YS11 and later the DC9 training at Airborne.
I eventually came to realize that the problem was not with my ability to read and memorize. My problem was that I did not know how to study. I have since learned, and now I am quicker to grasp the concepts that are being taught in systems ground schools, although this continues to be an area that I could use some improvement.
By the time I got through with ground school and in to flight training, I had learned that Airborne didn’t think twice about washing people out of the program and sending them packing. Pilots who might have gone on to have successful careers if only given an additional hour of training were fired. Another would be hired to replace them. Not the most economical philosophy, considering the expense involved with bringing the replacement to that same point in training, but that was the corporate philosophy nonetheless. Pilots were given a probationary check ride prior to the end of their first year of service. Many did not make it and were fired. The training was tough. While this was going on, Marsha suffered what we believe was a mini-stroke one evening, and we had to take her to the emergency room. Thank goodness the effects were not severe or permanent. In no time, she was up to speed again.
Of my class of four YS11 First Officer candidates, only two of us made it. After completing my check ride, I was given the mandatory ten hours rest period and told to report for IOE – Initial Operating Experience – that night at about three o’clock in the morning. I was to somehow, out of a group of a couple hundred pilots in identical uniforms, find a captain named Gene Foster, my check airman, and fly with him to Des Moines, Iowa. I went back to my room and lay down but was unable to go to sleep. My body didn’t think that it was time for bed yet.
The first night of IOE was awkward. It always is, no matter who you are. It’s like you’re walking around with a huge dunce hat that says “New Guy” on it. There was a crew meeting that night. There were a number of topics discussed, none of which I was familiar with.
After the meeting, my check airman Gene found me. It was easy for him to spot me. I was the new guy with the dunce hat who looked like he was lost. Gene was a likeable fellow, and fortunately for me, a patient one as well. We flew together for a week. He showed me the correct way to do the paperwork and helped me ease into the role of a line pilot. The biggest problem that I had during IOE was fatigue. After going through a rigorous training program, I was suddenly thrown into a work at night, sleep in the day routine, and I did not adjust well. I couldn’t stay awake in the airplane, and I couldn’t sleep in the hotel. I remember one day being so sleep deprived and feeling so lousy that I actually cried, thinking, What have I gotten myself into? I cannot allow myself to fail! I have nowhere else to go! Thankfully, the weekend came and I was able to catch up on some sleep. A few nights later, Gene signed me off. I was officially a freight dog.
After a few well-earned days off, I was now on reserve, taking whatever assignments came my way. Usually, I would know early in the day what I was doing that night, but sometimes there would be a call in the middle of the night. The basic requirement was that I had to be able to report for duty within two hours of receiving a call from crew scheduling.
My first assignment started out as an R1, which meant that I had to report to the airport, preflight an airplane, and standby for a short notice launch. If an airplane were to break out-station, they would launch an R1 to recover the freight. If there was extra freight going outbound in the morning, they would launch an R1 to cover that. Otherwise, if there was nothing going on, the R1 crews could bed down in the bunkroom after 1 a.m. If they needed us, they knew where to find us.
On my first R1, I was paired up with a newly upgraded captain named Pete. He was equal parts nice guy and pain in the butt stickler for details. We were launched early in the night to go to Pittsburgh to pick up some extra freight that needed to be brought to the sort center. We departed Wilmington with full fuel tanks. The weather was Severe Clear. From our cruise altitude of six thousand feet, we could literally see a hundred miles. The air was smooth. It was a pilot’s dream. I remember thinking that it was nice to be finally off IOE, and able to actually enjoy the flight, look outside for once instead of scoring the flight plan and keeping track of fuel consumed and elapsed time between waypoints and comparing it all to the projected figures on the flight release. The flight was less than an hour, and our Flight Ops Manual said that for flights of less than an hour duration it was not necessary to score the flight plan. I sat there, enjoying the view as we traversed the Midwest sky.
“What time are we going to get there?” newly upgraded Captain Pete asked.
I took a guess. “In about an hour.”
“No. I want to know what time.”
I took a look at the flight release to see how much time it predicted we would be en-route and added it to our departure time. “Zero Four Twenty-eight.” I said, making sure to give him Zulu time as opposed to simply saying “Twelve twenty- eight”, or worse, “About twelve-thirty”. I put the flight release back in its tray on the glare shield and returned to my sightseeing.
“How much contingency fuel do we have?” Contingency fuel is the extra fuel remaining after calculating the required fuel to fly to your destination, from there to your alternate, and after that another forty-five minutes. Anything over that is contingency fuel.
I’m thinking, What? We’re only going to Pittsburgh . . .We’ve got full fuel! I promise you, Pete, I won’t let you get us so lost on this, the clearest night of the year, that you run out of gas! I picked up the flight release again, looked at the projected contingency fuel and said, “About an hour and a half.”
“No. I want to know exactly how much.”
I looked at the release again. “An hour and thirty-three minutes.”
“No. I want you to figure it out.”
It was dark, and the YS11 is a noisy airplane. Newly-upgraded Captain Pete could not see my upper lip curling into a vicious snarl nor hear me growling. With a sigh, I picked up the flight release, scored the flight plan even though it was unnecessary. I mean, come on, we were going to Pittsburgh, not the far side of the moon! When I finished, imagine my surprise when my figures exactly matched those that our dispatchers had predicted! “I come up with one hour and thirty-three minutes.”
“Okay. Thanks.” That’s all it took. Captain Pete was now happy, and the rest of the flight went without a hitch. We didn’t get lost. We didn’t run out of fuel. We found Pittsburgh.
Pete later upgraded to DC9 Captain, was always the one chosen by the company to appear in its calendars. He eventually became a chief pilot. At that point, he decided that he wanted to be called Peter. I still always called him Pete whenever I spoke with him, however. Just to bug him.