Unrelated to timekeeping but definitely related to the air travel experience is the following piece that appeared on The Times Tuesday Business rravel page.
Brief passage:
On The Road Outrages Bubble Up, and Even Dampen the Aisle
By JOE SHARKEY Published: July 3, 2007 I’VE got more horror stories than Edgar Allan Poe, and they’re all about our air travel system, which continues to deteriorate as the summer gets rolling and temperatures boil. Let me share just a few of them....
Somehow, I think my next trip to using air transport will be in response to a family emergency.
Posted by Doc Brown (Member # 4724) on :
Interesting article. Except I think airlines will always beat the on time track record of the train from New York to London. ;P OK, I'm being very silly.
Seriously, this is not a real big surprise. It only confirms what I've been hearing through the grapevine. Then just add to it the stress and hassle of security and everything else. We have friends who work for an airline and are always telling us we should get their discount tickets. Except I refuse to sit for 4 - 10 hours waiting for the outside chance to get a seat on stand-by. One friend did this starting off at 7:00 am and finally got a flight at 8:00 pm! I it would be far worse to pay full price and have the same thing happen.
A cot in an airport? Hmm... sounds inviting...
Posted by DeeCT (Member # 3241) on :
Hmmm ---
and I wonder how many of these people - "will NEVER take a plane again".
Posted by Gilbert B Norman (Member # 1541) on :
Ms. Dee--
Not too many to none.
More to mainstream sentiment is a Type A family (a train? doesn't that run into the Loop?) I know. I can recall how she said to me 'all the (flying) crap is what we put up with because we have to get places (in this case, the relatives are all out of state). Besides you don't want to be in a car with three tweenies much longer than an hour'.
Somehow any of us here who even think of LD rail as a travel option are not exactly Type A's. Those folk are different from us.
Case in point is my Stster on our March Florida trip. Southward I met her at MCO (Orlando Mc COy) after I had arrived on the Auto Train. From there it was a three hour drive to our hotel in Boca. A reverse route was planned for the return.
However for such, she chose to call a car service ($100) to go to PBI and rebook an earlier flight (another $150). Reason she gave me?; "I can't sit in a car for three hours when it only takes ten minutes additional flight time".
Posted by notelvis (Member # 3071) on :
Wow.
I'm willing to drive up to four hours (and there are a half dozen major airports within four hours driving) if I can find a significantly cheaper flight (like savings of $100 airfare) or get a nonstop flight.
I like the Raleigh/Durham and Greenville/Spartanburg airports most but Charlotte often gets the nod in terms of best fares, most nonstop flights, and dirt cheap parking.
Posted by wayne72145 (Member # 4503) on :
After reading what has happened this year I feel almost lucky I only had to wait an average of 3 hours per leg on flights last July coast to coast. What disturbed me, and why I vowed never again, IT WAS SUMMER. Getting out of Chicago in a snow storm took less time the year before.
All the time I sat on the ramp in DC in the heat I thought of how comfortable it would have been to be on a train. At least on a train when you are delayed it's very comfortable, not at all like being in a hot sadine can.
Posted by George Harris (Member # 2077) on :
Flights are something I do when there is no practical alternative. For all the in-US insanity, some of the internations crazies can be worse. A few years there was the San Francisco to Tokyo flight that loaded and unloaded twice before it left, about 3 hours later than the NEXT DAY's flight. We got a hotel one night near SFO and another near NRT out of it, and I got 2 no-pay days on the job.
Or, as a coworker traveling in China once experienced, BOTH pilot and copilot sitting back in a couple of empty first class seats drinking coffee while the autopilot did the honors for about 20 minutes.
Posted by RRRICH (Member # 1418) on :
George - you have never shared with us yet about the passenger rail system in Taiwan -- is there one? How is it?
Posted by Gilbert B Norman (Member # 1541) on :
Mr. Rich; until Mr. Harris has the opportunity to respond--
Secondly, regarding the aircrew incident noted by Mr. Harris, at least it was coffee and not sake or whatever.....
I once learned of an incident topping that one. There reportedly once in Russia (pre or post-Sov, I'm not sure) in which the Captain's (minor; hardly licensed) son was playing pilot while Dad and crew were "elsewhere'. Need we report how that one turned out?
Posted by Geoff M (Member # 153) on :
What's more, they have a high speed line as well - 300kph/186mph IIRC.
I've heard a number of stories like the earlier one quoted. Many/most are myths/jokes but I admit I haven't heard this particular one.
Geoff M.
Posted by aircrest7 (Member # 5548) on :
Or, as a coworker traveling in China once experienced, BOTH pilot and copilot sitting back in a couple of empty first class seats drinking coffee while the autopilot did the honors for about 20 minutes.
I hope no one believed this story. If so I have a railroad I would like to sell you. More than likely what he saw was the second flight crew. Airlines flying over a 12 hour leg will carry two flight crews or relief pilots depending on the airline. It could have also been a crew deadheading. Modern airliners are very automated, but they can't do everything.
Posted by RRRICH (Member # 1418) on :
Gilbert - as usual, you have a wealth of information up there at "BNSF Chicago sub, MP 18.34!" Thanks for the Taiwan rail link!
Posted by Gilbert B Norman (Member # 1541) on :
Likely only because of age, I feel free to share that I have been on the flight deck of a commerical aircraft while in flight.
This was during 1957; the aircraft was a United DC-7.
It certainly was a "once in a lifetime" experience, but about the Captain's first words were "we touch nothing".
Posted by Henry Kisor (Member # 4776) on :
Maybe the captain and his first officer didn't touch anything when the DC-7 was on autopilot, but autopilots of 1957 vintage were limited to keeping aircraft flying straight and level and on course -- the pilots had to fly the plane by hand from takeoff to flight level, then from flight level to landing.
Fly-by-wire didn't come into wide usage till after 1990, I believe, with the newer Airbuses, followed by the Boinks (scuse, I mean Boeings).
Posted by Henry Kisor (Member # 4776) on :
A correction to my earlier message, sort of: Fly-by-wire, or computer control of the flight controls, has been around since the Concorde in the 1970s. Today's supersophisticated fly-by-wire systems, the ones that do it all from takeoff to landing, came in later, but exactly when, I don't know.
Posted by Gilbert B Norman (Member # 1541) on :
quote:Originally posted by Henry Kisor: Maybe the captain and his first officer didn't touch anything when the DC-7 was on autopilot, but autopilots of 1957 vintage were limited to keeping aircraft flying straight and level and on course
A misunderstand, Mr. Kisor; Captain Jack Holst (recall his name; obviously long since deceased) was using nice words to convey "kid, you WILL NOT touch anything up here".
Oh and talk about "featherbedding", there was also a Flight Engineer - back then I don't think they were even licensed to fly the aircraft.
Lastly and way OT, TCM is airing on July 10 "The High and the Mighty" starring John Wayne and based upon the Ernest K. Gann novel of same title. This movie has had very little airing outside of its theatre release during 1954 (I learned the John Wayne Estate owns the rights and, for reasons unknown, kept it from after-markets i.e. TV, video - until recently when they 'struck a deal' with TCM). This is abbsolutely...positively the best "airline disaster" flick out there and makes the "Airports" look like Abbott and Costello.
The ending could have gone either way.
Posted by Henry Kisor (Member # 4776) on :
Oh. I figured when I left the last message I was going way way too far off the railroad topic and probably should have asked something about locomotive-engineering-by-wire.
Regarding flight engineers, an uncle of mine who was a Panagra DC-3, DC-7 and DC-8 captain once told me that the radial engines of the 1950s needed so much instrumentation that it took a third pair of eyes to watch them. Of course he was a union man, but . . .
I LOVED "The High and the Mighty" in book form but have never seen the movie. I will have a friend TiVo it for me. Thank you for mentioning it!
Posted by TwinStarRocket (Member # 2142) on :
Didn't "The High and the Mighty" have a theme song that was just whistled? Did it also star Robert Stack? If so, I saw it on TV a long long time ago. It was a great film.
Posted by 20th Century (Member # 2196) on :
Yup, the theme song had a whistle. Robert Stack was the pilot. There was a flight engineer whose job was portrayed as quite necessary on piston engine planes. The stewardess was "Mother Theresa" compared to today's crews. Oh well, that's entertainment. Gee, I feel guilty not mentioning Amtrak. All Aboard!!
Posted by Tanner929 (Member # 3720) on :
When I fly I find the biggest delays are with connecting flights. If your going to get delayed its best to be delayed either in your place of destination or somewhat near your home town. The worst is being stuck in between. Hey its easy to reminice about the golden age of air travel, like the age of Pullman but remember flying was expensive when you find that great deal on travelocity for a cheap flight why are we suprised when we are not treated like the Rockefellers.
Posted by Gilbert B Norman (Member # 1541) on :
This is going to get killed--
Post-theatre distribution of High and Mighty has been tightly controlled by the Wayne Estate; until TCM "struck its deal" for including retailing of the DVD.
Even if the movie is 52 years old, it previous TV airings, broadcast or cable have been rare if at all. Why the Estate tightly controlled its distribution escapes me; many other John Wayne movies are of course aired.
Posted by Ocala Mike (Member # 4657) on :
Well, we're way off-topic here, but what the heck. As a young Air Force 2nd Lt. Communications Officer with absolutely NO flight qualifications (I barely could drive a car), I visited the cockpit of a USAF DC-6 (believe it was a C-118) on a "hop" from Missouri to Stewart AFB in NY back in 1965.
After a few minutes of "briefing," the pilot gave me the controls, and I "flew" the plane for about 15 minutes. Although usually sensitive to changes in flight attitude as a passenger, for some reason it didn't bother me sitting in the cockpit looking forward. The flight crew had a good laugh when they told me I was making some of the passengers on the hop sick with my failure to keep the plane nice and level. Still remember the "Douglas" insignia in the middle of the wheel, and thought I was hot stuff when I got off.
Posted by aircrest7 (Member # 5548) on :
Tanner you are so correct. It is the public who sets the business model. I fly to Asia a couple times a year and fares are much cheaper today than 1990. People want cheap fares something has to give and you are seeing the results of that.
On the other hand Amtrak is under our government and I can't figure out what they have against supporting our rail system.
Posted by Gilbert B Norman (Member # 1541) on :
Allow me to ZFT Ocala Mike, Sir!!!
Boeing also put namplates on the yoke wheel.
Secondly Mr Twin Star, the theme song from High and Mighty was Oscar nominated (possibly won, but I defer to movie buffs on that point), but if you are tuned in next Tuesday, I think you will agree that this aircraft disaster flick is second only to "United 93" (and that one of course you know how it was going to turn out). As I noted earlier, it makes the 'Airports' look Abbott and Costello.