Roar from 44...2006...The story of Roscoe
Came across this in my files...interesting information. Article "A Recollection of Barney"...I think all new hires need to read it to learn about the legend...
Wish I knew how to get the whole newsletter on here...its extremely enlightening for the situation that we are in now...a little history of how we got here... In the midst of strike talk and the possibility of a Chapter 7 filing, I suspect that you are not particularlyI suspect that you are not particularly interested in a ramble about the past. But certain ones of you have asked, and I have tried to oblige. The last piece of flight engineer training in 1969 at Delta required that you be observed in the airplane handling various problems not readily presentable in the simulator. The check was done by an instructor from our Training department but observed by the FAA. These were the days too when pilot proficiency was checked in the airplane at least once per year. The day I got my flight engineer rating on the CV- 880, I was being observed by the notoriously capricious but thorough FAA inspector, Gene Raymond. I think Bill Doonan was the instructor administering the check. Also aboard were Captains Dick Tidwell, Ed Stewart, and Floyd Davenport. I was to fly a lot with Floyd in the later months. Dick Tidwell and Ed Stewart were instructor pilots and chief pilots in the office. They were to give each other proficiency checks, and Tidwell was to check Davenport. The scenario was to leave Atlanta, do the high work, including stalls and Dutch rolls, and then do an emergency decent into Augusta for the pattern work. A Recollection of Barney It was a cold, clear, early Georgia morning in late March when we got to the brief in the basement of the G.O. The 880 was parked out back having undergone an overnight check of its own in the Hapeville hangar. Floyd Davenport was a salty old four-engine captain with plenty of seniority. He had a million little sayings that he would spout at anybody about anything that wasn’t behaving to his standard. He was complaining this morning about the weather being cold enough “to hair-lip the Pope.” We were chuckling about this as we went about our business. The first part of the check went well. I got us to altitude and through the stalls and Dutch rolls and down with the emergency decent. At the bottom, Tidwell gave Floyd a simulated electrical fire and advised that he might want to hurry over to Augusta. As I started through the convoluted electrical fire checklist with the mask and goggles on, Floyd pointed to the airspeed that he had buried behind the barber pole. He twinkled his eyes and pulled the mask back and said, “I got her throbbing like a cut thumb.” We got on the ground in Augusta. Then we went back out for the pattern work. Floyd breezed through his V1 cut and engine-out work. (The 880 took all the rudder for this.) He came back around and flew a nice hand flown engine out to a miss. The FAA said he had seen enough. We did a quick visual landing, rolled out, and pulled off to change seats. As the famous Gene Raymond was writing out my ticket, Floyd accused me of “grinning like a mule eating briars.” I got tickled. I couldn’t help but remember the old mule that a workman had on the family home place in Alabama. The mule’s name was Barney. Barney would be tethered in the shade during lunch by a little corpse of trees next to the big field that we were plowing. He would inevitably try to browse on any foliage he could reach. He was a big, black-brown, long eared, wile old animal. He was unusually mischievous and inventive. But because he was well-tethered, mostly all he could reach was a few strands of the blackberry thicket that stuck out and were bowered close to his head. When he bit in to these, he would nervously flick his lips all around and show his teeth. I suspect Floyd’s description of my nervous smile about then was nearly perfect. Comes now another cold morning in Atlanta some 30 years later, and I have a 9:00 a.m. show for a 10:30 go to Narita. I no longer live close to the airport. I leave home at 6:30 a.m. to be assured of getting through the Atlanta rush hour snarl to comfortably make sign-in. I am the senior captain who is to sign the clearance outbound on Flight 55 to Tokyo on my MD-11. I knew when I got up that morning at 5:30 that it would be at least 21 hours before I saw the inside of my hotel room in Tokyo. But this morning, I am not worried about myself and my rest. I know that I can sleep almost anywhere. I have a full relief crew on there, and I will be afforded plenty of opportunity to get some naps that give refreshing renewal to crew life on the track. But lately the new breed of managers that has taken over my airline has reconfigured my MD-11 without asking anybody who uses it. They have ruined the service and the marvelous well-thought-out galley. They have stuck a little DC-9 galley in the R1 doorway and abbreviated the other galley and storage. They did even worse to the rest facility. They took the little railroad roomette that sat in the first four rows of center tourist and threw it away. In its place, they had installed a melamine compartment that telescoped out from where a forward lavatory had been in a manner that would block the L1 door. This melamine contraption had two torpedo tube bunks in it. A person had to sit at the head of the bed, crouch, twist, and turn to insert oneself into it. This head of the bed was right behind where the primary jumpseat was. The upper bunk was very close overhead the lower bunk. There was little ventilation and no insulation from cabin noises. Neither the pilot crews nor the flight attendant crews liked this new configuration. I personally did not think it was safe. I had wondered how they had gotten this arrangement certified for the evacuation of a full ship with the L1 door blocked. I was so appalled that I railed against it in a piece I did for the Roar called “Life Over the Big Ocean.” At that time, I had no idea how much claustrophobia was prevalent in the population. It turns out that there are a lot of those folks out there. I found that there were many crewmembers who would not go into the rest facility under any circumstances. I don’t believe you could hold a gun on them and make them go in there. They could certainly never relax enough to get any sleep in there. I became more alarmed. A full month went by. I had three trips to Narita with the new rig. Each time I found myself in the pattern at Narita with a cockpit full of zombies. Narita is a one-runway operation that is closely slot limited. If it ever stops, you will very quickly have a sky full of whales being controlled by very well technically qualified controllers who have shaky English. You will have to decipher your clearances through a heavy accent. It gets interesting in a hurry. Often you arrive there having been recleared en route. You will then have no more than 30 minutes of loiter fuel before you need to be going to an alternate. After the second of these trips, and nearly having to divert, having very little help because of sleep deprivation in the rest of the cockpit crew, I went to see the boss. In 30 years I had the very best chief pilot I had ever had in George Wilson. He listened to my concerns and then said that I should exercise my best judgment. He said that knowing me, what-ever that best judgment might be—it would be fine. I was somewhat relieved by his remarks and stated that I would not allow myself to be put in that situation again. But I did, on the very next trip. This hardened my resolve. I went off on a vacation. When I came back, I had several of these Narita trips as a relief captain. I was not in a decision-making capacity about the full conduct of the trip. Nevertheless, the operation was continuing to deteriorate. And even though by now they had tried to help the facility with sounddeadening blankets and Velcro curtains, I was further resolved. We come now to April 7, 1999, and I am the “A” captain on 55 outbound to Narita. I have arrived and signed in for my flight a little before 8:00 a.m. because of the aforementioned driving problems in Atlanta. As the other crewmembers drift in, I assess who I will be working with. All are most capable. My copilot is Randy Young, a copilot with whom I had flown many times and for whom I had great respect. My relief captain is Bob Pfister. Bob was an MD-11 check airman as he had been a check guy on nearly everything at Delta. We had worked together many times in the Training department when I was over there. He was also a two-star in the AF reserves. His copilot was Steve “Petro” Petroski, a young hotshot naval aviator from San Diego. His fleet exploits and reputation had preceded him. We complete the flight planning and briefing phase of our duties, and as a crew, we go down to the flight attendant briefing room and introduce ourselves to our cabin crew. I note that the “A” line is Brenda Savage, a lady of great competence. Unlike some of these trips that I have been on, today we have plenty of language-qualified flight attendants. Our brief to them was on the fact that today’s trip would be very long. To avoid the big headwinds, we would be going due north out of Atlanta over Knoxville and Detroit, over Churchill Falls in northern Ontario, and on over Point Barrow in northern Alaska. We would be spending about five hours over continental Siberia in Russian airspace. The weather in Narita would be somewhat iffy with occasional showers. However, I concluded, as I usually did, that if they got me there safely, the first round would be on me. I began to relax. This was going to be a great trip. All of these guys were really sharp and nothing could possibly happen to spoil our day. This attitude persisted throughout the brief. We went out to the airplane, and a familiar mechanic was there to see us off. He assured me that we had a clean book and our steed looked very good on his preflight. As we put our bags away in this now impossibly cramped cockpit, Bob Pfister mentioned to me that he had been up much of the night with a sick grandchild that had been visiting in his home. This gave me some pause. I knew that Randy Young had commuted in from his home in south Florida on an early flight that morning. He could not have gotten much sleep either. I turned suddenly and asked Petro where he had slept the night before. He said that he had come in on a late flight from the West Coast and that he had not been able to get a hotel room and had spent the night in the black chairs. I began to have a nagging twitch of things impending. We commenced our preflight. I loaded the box, as is customary as I was to take the first leg. The “B” crew would take the first break. There would be roughly 12 hours in cruise, which would be divided into four three-hour breaks. Each crew would get two breaks. I reasoned that surely these guys will be able to sleep on here, and all will be well. I was to discover later that all three of these guys were claustrophobic and could barely be forced into this new cramped rest facility. But this was not discussed. We took off using all of 27R and were somewhere north of Knoxville when we leveled off at the first cruise altitude. The “B” crew began to talk about starting their break. I noticed that they made no move to assemble the “bunkroom vampire coffins.” I asked them to accomplish this, and they did before both of them went back to open seats in first class. The weather was nice and smooth, and I assumed that they would get some rest back there. I noticed too that the wind was a little more than advertised. Almost four hours into the flight, these guys came back from the first break. We were about an hour west of Churchill Falls and headed toward Barrow. We had developed about a 3,000-pound deficit on the fuel burn. I asked how their break had been. They said the lunch was wonderful. “Did you get any sleep?” I asked. Both reported that they had not slept a wink. I became alarmed. I knew the “A” copilot, Randy Young, was tired. He also had confided in me a reluctance to use the new rest facility. I straightaway asked the “B” crew if they had difficulty sleeping in the new bunks. They both reported that they had no intention of using them in the present configuration. That is a busy service conducted in business class on the Tokyo flight. In 14 hours, they come by and feed you something nearly every 40 minutes. It is always hard to sleep soundly in the midst of it. I began to relay to them my previous experiences. I expressed my trepidations about this situation. The three of them were already tired. We had more than 10 hours of flight left. We were already 3,000 pounds behind on the fuel burn. The weather in Tokyo was iffy and slot limited into one runway. We were to be five hours over Russian airspace working Russian controllers on HF. People had gotten shot down with these guys. It can sometimes be stressful. When we get to Tokyo, we will need to be on the top of our game. Will we be on the top of our game? Is this a safe operation? When I looked into the eyes of each of the others in the crew, I had my answer. None of them thought it was safe. The decision-making process was easy then. Our chief pilot, George Wilson, had told me that if I ever decided to abort a trip like this, that I ought to try to go to Portland. We have crews there, and we originate Narita trips there. It will be a much easier handoff. So I had told Randy to get me a clearance to Portland. The controller was startled, but quickly agreed to a clearance down direct airways to Portland. I called Flight Control on the Sat Phone, but up there we were beyond the horizon of the satellite. I finally got an HF patch to Flight Control. When I explained that we were diverting to Portland because of a crew rest problem, it became very formal, very quickly. Then I called Brenda Savage, our “A” line, and explained what my decision had to be. She agreed and went back to tell the others. I then made a brief PA to our passengers explaining that what we were doing was the safest procedure. We went to Portland, dumped about 25,000 pounds of fuel, and landed to the west on the long runway at its max landing weight. We taxied in. We parked right next to 51, the MD- 11 flight preparing to depart for Narita. They were able to accommodate all 143 of our passengers. They would go on to arrive in Narita no more than about two hours later than originally scheduled. Our cockpit and cabin crew went downstairs to Operations. There was a message that a Captain Mike Quiello wanted to talk to me. We stored our kits and looked in the computer for a reroute. There was one, a very punitive one, we thought. It was a minimum break at the hotel then a ferry down to LAX in the middle of the night and a deadhead home. Yuucck! But Mike Quiello came into the room. He crisply asked the details of our experience. I told him. But I said that if he wanted a full debrief that I would need to see him in the office when I got home. Right now I needed to get to the hotel to get some rest to cover this onerous reroute. He looked at that, picked up the phone, and got us out of that and onto a deadhead home directly the next day with a nice rest. I was delighted. Then I asked what he was doing in PDX. He said that all of Flight Ops management and the top brass were over at a local hotel for a road show. He looked at me strangely when he said that. I was also to learn later that most of that management team had thought I had done this PDX diversion strictly as a stunt and that the news of it had had a spectacular effect on the road show crowd. They give me too much credit. I am not that smart, nor am I that fine an actor to have pulled that off. I was also to learn that there was a definite movement afoot to have me terminated. And that possibly I had been removed from flying the late night ferry to LAX because they did not want me to touch the controls of a Delta airplane again. That news was very disquieting, but I was not to learn of it for several days. Meanwhile, as soon as we got to the hotel, Petro went out and rented a van and we took the wholecrew to Jake’s downtown for happy hour and a nice dinner in the back on linen. I say we took the whole crew; we took those who wanted to go. There were several who had a distinct distaste for what had happened. They were going to lose money on this reroute and did not approve of the decision at all. I was unprepared for the explosion that awaited my return home. The news of what had transpired preceded me. There was an outpouring of goodwill. Reporters from all of the wire services and the local papers called my home wanting my side of the story. I was advised not to talk to any of them. I didn’t. But in a few days, the Wall Street Journal had a middle front page story about the incident that was not unfavorable. The more that public goodwill grew toward me, the frostier my relationship seemed to be with Delta management. We, the cockpit crew, were called in for a full debrief. I chose to go with an ALPA rep, Randy Worrall, who offered excellent advice and accompanied us into the belly of the beast. The debrief took place in a big conference room right outside of Charlie Tutt’s office in the Operations center. It was conducted by Mike Quiello, but Charlie was in the room. Captain Quiello had put together this beautiful little book with all of the pertinent information and personnel interviews in it. This thing looked like it had been produced for a presentation to senior management. It turns out that they had interviewed almost everyone on the airline who had any connection with our flight. They also seemed to have turned over every rock in my past. They looked very hard at everything. We told them what happened. Charlie told me in a very friendly way that the disposition of our case was way above his pay grade. Later, by his actions, I was to learn that, had it been up to him, I would have been fired. I also was to learn that Bob Pfister was asked in a separate questioning in an informal atmosphere, as a check airman, why he had not relieved me. Pfister had snorted at them that he had agreed with the decision. He was grinning like a mule eating briars when he was telling me about this a few days later. That was a nerve-racking week. I wondered throughout it whether my career was over. In retrospect it might have been better. I could have taken a 100% lump and participated in the tech bubble. Naaaah, I would have let it all ride and would have had very little now. As it is, I have my application in to greet at Wal-Mart. Anyway, I was delighted to find myself outbound to NRT on April 16 on my next scheduled trip. Randy Young, Petro, and Dave Waldrop had had plenty of sleep this time, and we went all the way to Tokyo. I was dismayed then at how really out of touch with the line our managers were. I see nothing that makes me think relationships have changed today. The departments are still stove-piped and guarding their turf. Nobody with wings has any real horsepower. They still refuse to put the cockpit crews together with the cabin crews and marry them with the equipment through the hubs. Every time it clouds up, there are scores of misconnects. The least experienced crew schedulers are manning reroute. There are no crew schedulers close to flight kits on the system. The flight and ground equipment looks very tired. Our spreadsheet managers tell us that, even at today’s reduced labor costs, these options are too expensive. As anyone with any line experience knows, no airline can afford to generate the misconnects that we have in ATL. Therefore, you cannot afford not to put these options in place. One has to wonder whether this management is just trying to spiff up our carcass and trying to sell us. Are they outsourcing everything, and polishing the remainder to sell it to somebody in the next oil price valley? Are they just shills for GE Capital and GATX and the other leasing companies? Will they be here down the long corridor of time in the future when we go to airline heaven and are solidly profitable again? Or do you think they just want to take the equity that they may accrue in such a transaction and sweep it into a carpetbag and go on down the road? You need to define for yourself who your long-term friend is in this profession. I know from experience continued on page 36that had there not been a strong union standing there next to me, that I would have been fired. And the firing would have been for exercising my very best judgment in the discharge of my duties. There may come a time when you are asked to stand up for this profession and for that friend that you have now in ALPA. I hope you make the right choice. Stay close to your union. Participate in its decisions. If you do, ALPA will not lightly lead you into this Hobson’s choice. In fact, I suspect that a strike would never come about on our property except and unless we had our professional backs to the wall. This is a very thoughtful leadership. It also has guts. I have heard the stories about your chairman going into a ghetto neighborhood and confronting a young hoodlum in a crowd there to retrieve his child’s recently stolen bicycle. That takes moral fortitude and decisive action in the knowledge that you are right. The rest of the leadership is just as worthy. I hope you will follow their lead. And if you say you will strike, you had best be prepared to fight these folks to the finish. They will marshal every facet of the federal establishment against you. Believe me; I have seen this movie before with that other Bush in the White House. I know what I am talking about. That other fight was just as justified and just as mean and pernicious as the one that seems to be brewing here. Their ship burned to the water line. I also recollect being in the Navy unit out at Dobbins in the very late ’60s with all of those Southern pilots who had been on strike a decade before. Their harshly bitter strike was the longest in ALPA’s history. It was not over until JFK was elected in 1960. By then their airline was more than 50 percent scabs. A decade later the scabs were all but gone. No scab could ever drive anything he cared about to the parking lot. He could never leave luggage unattended in the lounge. He had to fly every checkride flawlessly. They all carried lists of who was who. Nobody but a robot could stand up under that fusillade of hatred and tension in the work place. The one thing that the leasing companies do not want to happen is to see the meters turned off on this equipment. They will get mean and nasty before they can be made to make a deal, but they will deal with the devil himself to turn that meter back on. The government will be on their side. If you decide to go out on the bricks, you will have to stand there like that brave Confederate general at Manassas—stand there like a stone wall and take all sorts of enfilade and defilade fire. There will be casualties. Count on it. But you will have friends out here in Flowery Branch. I will carry your water and try to help wherever I can. But you, with that meter in your hands, have the real power. It will be up to your resolve. They will test it to the depths of your endurance. But if this leadership decides to take you out, you will be so resolved that you will not fail. Be well and don’t be a stranger. I am about six miles above Womac. Come by and enjoy an adult beverage. There might even be a feast for the soul and a flow of reason. In any event, I will be grinning when I see you like a mule eating briars. Your brother, Roscoe McMillan ATL, MD-11, (ret) |
Great find DW, and a great trip down memory lane!
|
Hmmmmm. WWRD?
|
All times are GMT -8. The time now is 07:13 AM. |
User Alert System provided by
Advanced User Tagging v3.3.0 (Lite) -
vBulletin Mods & Addons Copyright © 2024 DragonByte Technologies Ltd.
Website Copyright ©2000 - 2017 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands