On the other hand, some pilots just wear raggedy old clothes and hang around airport ramps at 2:00-3:00 o'clock in the morning. They are the young guys, freight dogs, trying to get a foot in the door. Never mind the weather, if the airport is open, they go. They have to figure out their weather, do their own weight and balance, take care of the preflight in snow and wind, load it, net it down, unload and try to explain to some van driver what headwinds are and how they can put you behind schedule. The van driver looks at him suspiciously, and wonders if this is the old “bucket of prop wash” foolishness. Your copilot is that little niche of your brain which you carve out to keep track of what you are doing. It has to constantly ask the other part of your brain if things are going o.k.; “Sir... with all due respect, ATC is calling for holds down around Teterboro, perhaps you might want to slow this thing down so you won't have do circles in this clag for forty-five minutes or so.” Or the niche copilot might point out that you are one dot right of course on the ILS when East Overshoe Airport is reporting 200 over and 1800 RVR with a direct crosswind of 15 knots. Not bad in a 727, but real work in a light general aviation twin, near gross, no autopilot, and some guy in a nice, warm tower cab is reporting “braking action poor by a truck, you are cleared to land.” And all of this at night.

At times that same little copilot will ask “Why are we out here trying to thread those thunderstorms using a radar which hasn't been tuned since it was installed in this airplane some 15 years ago? Best look outside and since it is still night, try to avoid flying where the flashes are, because that means there is a thunderstorm there. Never mind what ATC told you, his scope is not weather radar.” And the captain part of the brain answers: “I'm here because I have to get the time and experience in order to qualify

(Click the pic for information about this aircraft)

for the regional airlines; after the regionals I hope to get with a major airline which doesn't keep furloughing me every six months or so. You see, copilot brain, it is all seniority number. I will live and die by that stupid number. No matter how good I am, no matter how many times I make a decision which saves the lives of a couple of hundred dozing, drinking, passengers back there in the tube, the company who hires me is going to go by the seniority number. I have to get there as soon as I can. So tonight, you and I are threading these damnable thunderstorms which are bent on depriving me of my shot at the majors; it is a battle, my will and cunning against theirs, just me and them, no company dispatchers, and of course ATC is useless. It is me and them, pardner. And by the way, don't think that they don't have a personality of their own; from the bully on the block to the wimp, they're trying to kill me. Never mind though, I have had similar battles this past winter with a relative of theirs called ‘Ice.’ I beat him, and I'll beat his summertime cousins, too.”

(Click the pic for information about this aircraft)

Then at about 6:00 a.m., after unloading, and perhaps driving the van to deliver the cargo, the kid can go home and get some sleep. No social life here, all of his friends are other freight dogs he runs into at the end of various legs on a six-leg flight. The talk is always the same: Who is hiring, who do you know there, what kind of equipment do they fly.... Sleep will come after he fills out another application for just one more airline which might be hiring... just one more and maybe he can get the right seat in a Beech 1900, a SAAB, a Dash

whatever... sleep, dream about those gold stripes, dream about the heavy iron... but it will start all over again that night, and he better be sure his copilot is along if he wants to make the big time.

When he finally becomes a four-striper, with a little gray at the temples, approaching that magic number 60, long

of tooth in a way, he might walk past one of those young freight dogs out on the ramp, bundled up against the wind, or he might see the “dog” in the weather room checking it all one more time; and if he sees himself from years ago, this major airline guy, this heavy iron driver, will stop and ask the “dog” how is it going. He will tell the kid to keep after the dream, listen to that copilot which every good pilot has with him. After the four-striper leaves the terminal, the “dog” will have had his day made. But for now, it’s the start of another long night. Gird thy loins young warrior,

the weather gods are going to play with your mind again tonight.

--Ron Wheeler