Doug Morris - This Is Your Captain Speaking: Stories from the Flight Deck

The flight deck door is incessantly closed. Sure, you get to see pilots approaches, landings, and takeoffs spewed over the internet, but dialogue with a flight crew is not easy. Passengers are intimidated to approach a pilot and ask questions, thinking there may be repercussions. The only ones without inhibitions are kids.

Aviation often dates the Wright brothers first flight to 1903, but modern-day aviation can be divided into pre-9/11 and post-9/11, akin to the Julian calendar dividing time into BC and AD. We have now surpassed 9/11s 20th anniversary, and yet the aftermath still plagues aviation. One downfall is the dissemination of the intricacies of aviation.

One positive spin-off from 9/11 is the record-setting musical Come from Away, which narrates what happened when more than 30 airliners commandeered the town of Gander, Newfoundland, after the attacks. I attended the show in Toronto. It sure induced teary eyes because it hit home: I was flying the day aviation went inverted.

I hope to fill the void of aviation knowledge by enlightening a wide spectrum of readers. Sort of what my in-flight magazine articles have accomplished, but there will be no one in the background taming my thoughts with a torrent of editing. Now 24 years and counting, I have written for the occasionally flown passenger, but these articles had to be dumbed down and politically correct. But wisdom will still prevail here; you wont get all the aviation dirt from this book.

If you are curious about the nuts and bolts of aviation, or if you are a spouse, relative, friend, or an inquisitive neighbor to an aviator, this book is for you! And if you have a fear of flying, the aviation intricacies youll learn will lessen your anxiety.

My aviation career is on its final approach. Its been a great run, so before I set the parking brake for the last time, I feel compelled to write the sequel to my first book, From the Flight Deck: Plane Talk and Sky Science. It too had a fantastic run.

Whenever anyone presents a speech, writes a book, or teaches a class, there is usually a short intro about who the author or presenter is. Heres mine.

Presently, I fly a 298-passenger Boeing B787 (Dreamliner) around the world for an airline with a maple leaf emblazoned on its fuselage; I have amassed over 26,000 hours of total flight time. To give perspective on this total time, its equivalent to driving from Toronto to Montreal (or Boston to New York, or Los Angeles to San Francisco) and back again daily for nearly seven years. When I write this analogy, I too am shocked how much time Ive flown. And this excludes flying during vacations, deadheading, and commuting more about these last two later.

To liven up my weather classes, I would tell this corny quip to the new-hire pilots: How does a flight attendant know their date with a pilot is halfway over? Its when the pilot stops and says, Enough about me, lets talk about you... what do you think about me? Ive told that same joke over 150 times.

I am also a certified meteorologist, having worked for Environment Canada for four years as a forecaster, mostly on Canadas east coast. Again, I have been writing the aviation column for in-flight magazine enRoute and have written many aviation articles for various magazines and papers. The name Doug Morris has been in print over 300 times. This is my fourth book. From the Flight Deck: Plane Talk and Sky Science came first, followed by two aviation weather books that took several years to write. But enough about me, lets talk about you. What do you think about me?

Most pilots, including me, were bitten by the aviation bug early in life. Its a disease only curable by learning to fly. Over my career, I cant count how many times Ive heard, I always wanted to be a pilot. I felt like an aviation priest listening to confessions, with most coming from complete strangers.

I guess you can say I have also been bitten by a latent writing bug. I didnt think I would be saying this, especially having been jinxed by high school and university teachers and some editors averring that writing would not be a viable hobby. Glad I proved them wrong.

Yet another bug is the tenacious travel bug. My three kids inherited it as well. My youngest has been to 50 countries.

Growing up on Canadas east coast, I was generally removed from the pulse of aviation. Sure, a small airline called Eastern Provincial Airlines dominated, but they were swallowed up by their Upper Canada counterparts during mergers. Knowing a pilot equated to knowing an astronaut, and seeking wisdom from high school guidance counselors proved futile. It is why, to this very day, I will always take time to answer questions and to mentor those pining for the skies. My mother sensed my quest for the skies and bought a familiarization flight for my 16th birthday. She even joined me on the flight. She passed away early in life, but before she went, she had a dream of me wearing a dark blue suit. We did have a neighbor down the street who became a military pilot. I shyly approached him one winters day while playing hockey on a local lake, but lets just say PR skills were not his asset. Another reason why I stop what I am doing and bestow wisdom to future pilots.

Science courses would take me further (so I thought) than the arts, and thats what I went after, concentrating on physics, chemistry, and math and thumbing my nose at the artsy English majors. I took French, thinking it might be an additional stepping stone in aviation. Painting houses on the east coast and planting trees on Canadas west coast, I earned enough money for flying lessons at the Halifax Flying Club in Nova Scotia. Sadly, that club and other nearby clubs no longer exist in the largest city on the east coast. After a three-year degree in physics, and a fresh commercial pilot license from Gimli, Manitoba, my dream stalled when I was 21. A recession plagued the economic scene. Time to head back to university. Aviation is one of the first industries to feel the plight of a recession, and one of the last to recover. I gave the military a try, but they werent hiring. I studied meteorology at McGill University in Montreal and then went to Toronto to become a certified meteorologist for Atmospheric Environment Canada. But creating wave height forecasts as a civilian forecaster for the military during the wee hours had me looking out the office window at three a.m., thinking there must be something better. A stint as a weather guy in Esquimalt, B.C., had me briefing the admiral in the morning and taking advanced flying lessons in the afternoon. I returned to the east coast with my bare minimum qualifications to fly as a commercial pilot.