Page 18 - Oct2016 Vol 20 No 10

16 • TWIN & TURBINE OCTOBER 2016`From the Flight Deck AbductedS Flying an aging airliner into an unfriendly alien worldeated in a stiff wood chair, by little gray creatures with pie-sized the room smelled of pencil black eyes, we arrived at Roswell shavings and old books; like in the usual fashion: flying in theis no catering and thus, no coffee. This can be a problem, because it’s against airline pilot protocol for Captains to spend their own money on coffee or newspapers. And, speaking of breaking the rules, the probability of procedural non- compliance is about 25% higher on this type of flight. Partially due to pilots misbehaving. Historically, (not at my carrier) there have been examples of maximum altitude exceedances, bank angle excursions and a few “since we’re empty, let’s try something....” maneuvers. But most non-compliance is accidental. This type of flight is very non-routine and it’s easy to get out of our habit pattern. With this in mind, I still make my nest of kit bag, glasses and note paper. I store the flight documents in their normal location, and I use the seat belt sign as I would on a normal flight. And (don’t laugh) I still make the mandatory PA’s to the non-existent flight attendants: prepare for takeoff, prepare for landing, etc. This helps to keep me in my habit pattern and to avoid accidentally becoming “non- compliant.”Bad Moon ArisenThere were no earthquakes and lightning, or non-compliance, but this was a fateful journey aboard our 29 year-old Mad Dog and there were bad times today (thank you Creedence Clearwater Revival). I volunteered for the mission in hopes of obtaining closure over the loss of my friend of 25 years. The jet of my career. Delivering tail number 569 to a final, peaceful resting place. A chance to say goodbye; without a plane full of passengers that may hear a crack in my voice over the PA or glimpse a tear in my eye. Despite a pre-departure toast and celebration, as we completed the delivery of our MD-80 to Roswell, the emotion I felt was not closure. It was betrayal and abandonment. I’m betraying my darling Super-80. I’m leaving her alone. Alone to die. Yes, stories are told all right abouta library or grade-school classroom. Well lighted, the retro-décor was cold-war era – both spartan and sterile. Single-pane windows were mounted in the military gray, cinder-block walls. The caulking was dried and brittle with pieces missing. Delicate panels of glass were blackened, allowing only shards of light to penetrate the cracks in the paint that resembled canals on the surface of Mars. It was a clumsy but effective way to prevent any view of the secretive, alien environment. We were debriefing, CIA style, after our once-in-a-career flight to this place. What were they going to do with my darling Super-80? One thing was certain: our jet would never leave this place.The Truth is Out ThereWe have all heard tales about this place and how strange things happen here. Ships come from faraway realms – and disappear. Stories are told about this place. This Roswell, New Mexico place. Land of Enchantment, indeed. People see things and never speak of them. Or they lie about what they saw. Those that do talk often stretch credulity so far that you feel the urge to back away from them slowly. This story is not one of seeing a bright light on the runway in ORD then suddenly awakening in a distant land. Nor is the sterile, cold-war interrogation room, described above, an insight into a secret undercover operation involving off-world aliens. In fact, the whole debriefing-room thing never really happened at all – except in a nightmare after this adventure. Apparently it was my subconscious reaction to what I have done to one of my darling Super-80’s. Unassistedatmosphere at jet speeds – landing on a paved runway. Taxiing to a parking spot. Climbing out of the cockpit and down the air-stairs with our pilot-stuff. The difference this time: No one will ever walk back up those stairs, enter the cockpit and fly this wonderful machine again. Ever. My darling Super-80 is being temporarily stored...... then scrapped.Procedural Non-ComplianceThe process of delivering an airliner for “salvage and reclamation” is pretty straight-forward. It’s the same as a maintenance or ferry flight. We operate under Part 91 with a permit from the FAA for just such a flight. Our dispatchers and load agents perform the flight planning and weight and balance calculations just as they would for a revenue flight. Ballast fuel is added to compensate for the abnormal load. We typically board the airplane at one of our maintenance hangars and join the line of other airliners for departure. This flight is different; we will have a CNN crew led by senior correspondent Richard Roth and representatives from corporate communications aboard and we’ll depart from a gate in the terminal – but no paying passengers and no flight attendants. We only arm two of the emergency exit slides, the ones closest to the cockpit. Thereby Kevin R. Dingman