So you think you know how to fly?

Here's some of my top topics after 11 years in the airline industry.

"Size Matters"

I currently fly the Bombardier CRJ-700 series regional jet, one of the most commonly used airliners in the U.S. (Over 50% of all passenger traffic in the States are flown in regional jets). Depending on airline and configuration, the CRJ-700 typically seats 63-65 passengers. In your words, "tiny".

"But Captain, this sucks, why do I have to sit three hours in a tiny jet, flying from Chicago to Albuquerque, when I remember as a kid we'd be on a large jet with meal service?"

Economics dear passenger, economocis. Quite a long time ago the airlines realized passengers (especially the high paying business traveler) prefers frequency. If a particular market doesn't support a Boeing 757 more than twice a day, I'll be swooping in in my tiny jet, six times a day. That meal service you long for? You can thank Southwest Airlines and other Low Cost Carriers for that. They figured out long time ago passengers will always go for the cheapest ticket price: the meals flew away like the dodo bird. So get that Subway foot-long before you hop on.

In addition to economics of it all, another size limiting factor is the airport itself. While most commercial airport runways with airline service support up to at least 737-sized equipment, other infrastructure, services and facilities may not. Have you ever been to Columbia, Missouri? Our passengers awaiting to board fill the entire terminal. One flight. Imagine bringing in a couple of Airbus 320's with 160 passengers each. No worky.

We keep the flight deck door open during boarding, and often hear "oh my gosh, this is so tiny!" to which we reply "so is your town, M'am."

"What Goes Up, Must Come Down."

Sometimes firmly. Like, quite, firmly.

Every so often airport conditions, with wind and/or runway contamination (water, snow/ice/slush) dictate a firm landing. Every pilot attempts to perform the best landing, each and every time. "Best landing" on the other hand doesn't always mean the smoothest. If the runway in use has high, gusty winds -- especially aircraft limiting crosswinds -- the focus goes from the smoothest of touchdowns, to planting the aircraft quite firmly on the centerline of the runway, and to allow the automated "lift dumping system", i.e. spoilers (panels that pop up from the top surface of the wing) to keep the aircraft firmly on the ground after main wheels make contact. Same applies to snowy or icy runway, where you want the aircraft to be able to use maximum braking as soon as possible after touchdown. No finesse, just plop it down and hold on.

Now, landing is the most demanding phase of flight. I taught flying six years before starting my slog at the airlines. What gets taught about landings in a small Cessna trainer, apply in an airliner. And as you learned as a wee lad flying a Cessna, you reaffirm it while flying airliners: what the landing gods giveth, the landing gods taketh.

On any given aircraft, often you have a great week of landings, followed by a bad month of landings. Things we consider in the landing environment:

Visibility (lack of visibility due to fog, haze; sun in your eyes, yes! that's an excuse, ask anyone landing at LAX at 6pm)
Wind (gusts; turbulence from topography; jet blast from departing aircraft etc)
Runway length (ever sit on a flight to Orange County/Santa Ana, CA? Yeah, SNA with < 6,000ft runway, no finessing there)
Runway slope (upsloping runway creates a visual illusion of being higher than normal vs downsloping runway creates an illusion being too low; runways that dip or crest in the middle, well they just throw a wrench in no matter what, so good luck with that)
Night vs. day (visual illusions caused by lights, especially when associated with upslope/downslope)
Pilots' fatigue level (I land much better on my first flight of the day, than after 12 hours on duty, go figure...)
Aircraft condition (yes, we fly all the time with deferred equipment, and while never jeopardizing safety of flight, there maybe "nice to have" items that don't work)

After all that, you do your best, and the landing gods give the thumbs up or thumbs down. Some of my best landings have been with quite extreme conditions (regarding aircraft limits) and some of my worst have been with calm, smooth air, early morning langings to a long wide runway that I know like the back of my hand.

"Your career is as good as your last landing"

We often nervously laugh at the fact that on a 2-3 hour flight we may have troubleshot a quite significant problem that may have come close to a real emergency, but due to system redundancy and thoroughness of our procedures, training, and checklists nothing comes out of it. Both pilots will be mentally drained, landing will be the least of our worries. Yet, since there was no reason to cause alarm, passengers are oblivious to it all. So, should the landing sort of suck, we'll get the usual "Hey Cap, you a Navy pilot?"-comment. More nervous laughter. You got to your destination relatively on time and in one piece didn't you?

So next time you are about to make a comment about that crappy landing, please, be gentle, we are a fragile bunch.

"Doesn't the autopilot do everything nowadays?"

Yes. Yes it does.

Next.

Well, almost. All modern airliners have very well sorted out autoflight systems. The more advanced ones have an autoland function, where pilot input is necessary only after the aircraft has slowed down/stopped on the runway. Autoland, however, is not used unless poor, or zero, visibility so dictates. The rest of the time all of us, myself in my tiny jet to the behemoth A-380 land with the pilot hand flying the aircraft. Why don't I use autoland for landings? I don't have autoland, if I did, maybe I would. I'm lazy. Why doesn't the Lufthansa pilot in the A-380 use it? Because s/he's a friggin' pilot, that's why!

Rest of the time the autoflight system allows us to concentrate less mundane things than hand flying the aircraft (every so often the autoflight system is deferred, and oh the manatee having to hand fly the entire flight! No really, it sucks) like weather and traffic avoidance, fuel management, planning for contingencies, and, with current installations of onboard WiFi: cat videos.

"Hey Cap, my iPhone weather app shows LaGuardia is in the clear, why aren't we going?"

Because your iPhone understands about the air traffic management system as much as goldfish understand about Tour de France (sorry goldfish if you are a cyclist).

Just because the destination weather has improved over the previous thunderstorms that may have caused a ground stop (no aircraft allowed to takeoff to said destination, aircraft already airborne will have to hold in the air, or divert) doesn't mean that suddenly the departure/enroute/arrival corridors become available to our particular flight right meow. In fact, it may be an extra few hours after the destination weather has already improved before our flight can leave. It's like trying to merge on to the interstate after the fender bender has been cleared.

"Are you the Pilot?"

Yes. And so is my colleague sitting in the right seat. Both of us are "the pilot". This terminology originates from a time where there was a "pilot", i.e. the person doing all the cool stuff like flying the airplane, and then an apprentice, eager to become "the pilot" but for the time being settling to observing and learning the ropes as the "co-pilot" (the terminology also has military aviation ties as well).

Today though, both Captain (left seat) and First Officer (right seat) have the same training and qualifications in a particular aircraft. In fact, it's not uncommon for a senior, experienced First Officer on one aircraft type to upgrade to become a junior, inexperienced Captain on another aircraft type.

*As a side note, pilots can't hop from one fleet type to another willy nilly (one exception is the Boeing 757/767 on which pilots will fly the quite significantly different aircraft form one month to another). Once you are trained and checked out on a specific type, let's say a Boeing 737, you can't go and fly a B767 the next week, even if you previously had flown it. So basically the seat (left vs right) and type (B737 vs A320) require each a separate training cycle.

So, often the first few months as newly minted Captain on an aircraft on which you just got a type rating, is spent heavily relying on experienced First Officers to keep you out of trouble. As Captain you assume responsibility of the aircraft, the crew and the passengers, but beyond that, the actual flying and duties are shared equally.

Every so often there's a news report of an unfortunate incident where the Captain (often older) succumbs to a medical condition middle of the flight and by somehow, almost against the odds the First Officer manages to land the airplane. What the news reports never mention is the fact that quite often, the First Officer may have been a Captain at the same airline (if we're talking about main line carriers like American, Delta, United, Jet Blue, Alaska etc.) but on a different fleet, or at least a Captain at a previous airline.

So, both of us are "pilots".

When it's a crappy landing though, it's the First Officer who did it.