Page 42 - Sept18T

From the Flight Deck
by Kevin R. Dingman
40 • TWIN & TURBINE
September 2018
Watch Your Mouth
Delivering a politically correct passenger briefing or PA.
Lest someone posts thine vile words or actions to The Kingdom of Social Media, lightens thine purse with litigation or washes thine mouth out with a bar of soap.
When I transitioned from the Mad Dog to the Guppy, I had to restrict my gravelly-voiced public address jabbering to accommodate the 737-NG’s automated safety announcements (see “In the Groove,” T&T June, 2017). I now limit my PA’s to one at the top of climb, an update at the one-hour-to-go point and a
final PA at the top of descent. If you have yet to uncover why some airline pilots make no PA’s at all, please read on withgiddyanticipation ofthiswhimsical,notcompletelyfactualdisclosureofpoliticalcorrectnessgoneawryanda
hypothesized role it plays in the pilot shortage.
The automated announcement system on airliners is not only used to lower the workload of flight attendants and increase consistency and accuracy, there is also a politically correct rationale entwined in their cautious yet sterile reasoning. And it’s this rationale that’s to blame for the extinction of the old-school PA and face- to-face interaction with customers, replaced by our solitary confinement behind a bullet-proof cockpit door. I mean flight deck door. More on this subtle linguistic distinction and its relevance to the
pilot shortage in a bit.
Toothpicks
Since the availability of a free seat on the regional jet from AZO to ORD is unpredictable, my journey to work consists of an hour drive in the Jeep followed by a two-hour ride on a “luxury” bus. Today, I’m on the bus segment of the commute and realize that I’ve forgotten to reload my supply of toothpicks. On the last trip, it was my toothbrush that was left behind (that’s something that can inhibit human interaction, politically correct or not). And like an annoying splinter in your finger with no tweezers, something stuck between the choppers is an all-consuming distraction. The lack of a toothpick leaves me without a socially acceptable, in-public-view remedy for the “FOD” from my beef barley stew. After all, I can’t pull out a length of dental floss or
stick a finger in my mouth. Or can I?
We Have No Instinctive or Intuitive Knowledge
Can we use a fingernail, floss or even a toothpick in public view? Can we say the F or T words out loud? What if I’m in my airline uniform? They’ve already prohibited us guys from making adjustments or scratching, and from spitting,