Confident that I can fly?
I started out as a very anxious flyer. The first time I got on a plane in the 70s I nearly bolted for the exit and abandoned a grand tour of Europe. Thanks to the calming and supportive nature of my then wife, I stuck it out and discovered that the view from 30,000 feet was worth the sense of anxiety I felt. As was the trip. In the years since I've had to fly, gotten to fly more often to more destinations. And I have come to a zen sense of peace with flight. My last trip was to Washington DC for meetings. I added a day so that I could visit attractions in our Capitol, one of which was the Air and Space Museum. (readers of this blog will recall that I was thwarted last year in my attempt to go there). I spent an entire afternoon at NASM and one of my favorite exhibits was the display of air traffic across the US with thousands of tiny planes like bees leaving a score of hives and wending their way across the large panel. The air traffic system in the US is awe-inspiring in what it does to make air travel safe and timely and relatively cheap for masses of people. It was not so forty years back when I was a kid-air travel was unusual not the norm.
So it is notable to me when there is a "disturbance in the Force". Because I count on the vast rationality of the system working when I fly. In the past several days, two incidents have grabbed my attention. The first, most dramatic, was the unpowered landing of a British Airways Boeing 777 in England after a full power failure-no thrust on the engines- and a stalwart First Officer's hand on the stick bringing the bird down with no loss of life like a battered bomber coming back from a mission in WWII. The second incident was the power failure on board a Qantas Air Boeing 747 on its way to Thailand which forced the pilot to switch to batteries and bring the plane down before the juice ran dry. (Followup reports suggest that an overflowing cracked drain tray shorted out the power).
I am awed that more incidents like this don't happen-particularly in revenue squeezed airlines. I'd like to go on flying- zen style- so I am hopeful the industry nails these issues. And takes seriously that we can't fly cutrate when it comes to all the millions who fly.
So it is notable to me when there is a "disturbance in the Force". Because I count on the vast rationality of the system working when I fly. In the past several days, two incidents have grabbed my attention. The first, most dramatic, was the unpowered landing of a British Airways Boeing 777 in England after a full power failure-no thrust on the engines- and a stalwart First Officer's hand on the stick bringing the bird down with no loss of life like a battered bomber coming back from a mission in WWII. The second incident was the power failure on board a Qantas Air Boeing 747 on its way to Thailand which forced the pilot to switch to batteries and bring the plane down before the juice ran dry. (Followup reports suggest that an overflowing cracked drain tray shorted out the power).
I am awed that more incidents like this don't happen-particularly in revenue squeezed airlines. I'd like to go on flying- zen style- so I am hopeful the industry nails these issues. And takes seriously that we can't fly cutrate when it comes to all the millions who fly.
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