722!!!???

If we’re delving deep into the past recesses of our career, “the early days” were ripe…fertile ground for tool of the day stories. Prior to the advent of CRM and fewer concepts of accountability for behavior in the cockpit? Think Wild West.

So here’s my first of two TOTD self-nomination stories: A long, long time ago I was flying for one of several commuters that all got lumped together to feed a major’s hub. This was a ground breaking, unique concept at the time. Previously, regionals truly stuck to a region that was more or less synonymous with their name, (i.e. Air Midwest flew primarily to cities in…you guessed it, the Midwest) In any event I end up paired with a Captain that was several years junior to me, who was hired off the street as a captain because he had a type on the airplane. Due to the recent consolidation, I was commuting to my new temporary base. This was also before the invention of roller bags, so I carried a small hard sided suitcase about twice the size of a briefcase, that just barely had room for 4 days worth of stuff. And two binders of jeps in a small brainbag.

I walked into ops and sat down about two hours ahead of departure. My captain comes in, so I approached him to ask if he was Mckowan or Mckewan. Apparently I mispronounced his name. He said, “No.”, OK, whatever. I sat back down and waited. An hour prior to departure, I headed out to the ramp and preflighted. Threw my little hard shell suitcase in the nose locker. It was a nice cool sunny day, so I climbed in and sat down to read a little. In a few minutes, here comes Captain McWhatever. As he approaches the airplane he sets his flightbag and headset down ramp side and without bothering to stick his head in and ask if I'd already done it, proceeds to duplicate my exterior preflight. When he gets to the nose, even though I can’t see him over the glare shield, I see the battery bus powered annunciator light illuminate when he opens the locker where my little bag is stowed. The light goes off and a few moments latter he climbs up the stairs and introduces himself to me like we hadn’t seen each other in ops.

Next he asks me, “Do you know who’s bag that is in the nose locker?” (Mind you only crew, never rampers were allowed to use the nose locker. My bag always had a crew tag with my name on it, which I am sure he saw.)

Me, “Yes sir it’s mine.”

Him, “Well take it back inside and leave it in ops.”

Me, "Why?"

Him, "Because we're going to a high altitude airport and we might need the weight for performance."

Me, “Wait, this is a 4 day trip, my first week at this base... I don’t know where or even if it’s safe to leave it here and besides if we break down somewhere, I want my suitcase with me.”

Him, “Well if we need the weight, your bag is going to be staying at the outstation.”

Me, “If my bag stays, I stay. As far as I am concerned it’s part of the OEW.”

Him, “We’ll see about that.”

Me, “I guess we will.”

In an extreme situation, there was room in the cockpit for our little suitcases so long as you packed minimally. As far as everyone but this guy was concerned, that prevented it from needing to be counted on the manifest.

So the first six legs went about as well as can be expected, especially given how we'd gotten started. Fortunately push never came to shove on the bag issue and the day passed with minimal communication, no personal conversation, no bonding and wow, what could have been fun, was a long day, nearing it's end. On the last taxi out of the hub for the evening flight to the layover, we get closed, started and half way to the runway, when Captain MacGyver awakens the voice activated intercom for the first non-proceedural communiqué of the day, as he simultaneously bangs his hand on the glare shield, “Dang-it!!!!”

Me, “What?”

Him, “I forgot my overnight bag in Ops!”

Me holding back tears and laughter, “I might have an extra douche nozzle you can borrow.”


Macgyver theme song - YouTube And yes the number one engine is feathered at :29