Bob Buck - North Star over My Shoulder: A Flying Life

ALSOBYBOBBUCK

Weather Flying

Flying Know How

The Art of Flying

The Pilots Burden

SIMON & SCHUSTER

Rockefeller Center

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

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Copyright 2002 by Robert N. Buck

All rights reserved,

including the right of reproduction

in whole or in part in any form.

SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

ISBN-10: 0-7432-2766-2

ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-2766-7

For Jean, Ferris, and Rob.

This is how it was.

For Alexia Dorszynski, a lovely lady who inspired me to keep writing this book when Id about given up, gave me sage advice, and most of all showed what courage really is, delivering a lesson on how to live without cowardice.... No day passes that I do not remember her.

T here are always people to thank for their help, and only Heaven knows all those who deserve it, but a few stand out strongly and I thank them here:

Deep is my gratitude to Jeff Neuman, who edited the booka wonderful, understanding man. We never argued, and he was quick to see the point of things in fields hed never been near before. I am a very lucky person to have worked with Jeff. He plays a good round of golf, too.

I thank Captain Robert C. Sherman, TWA retired, a man and computer who has kept all the pertinent information about TWAs past and its people; if he doesnt know, he knows where to find it.

My oldest and dearest friend, Captain Robert A. Wittke, TWA retired, remembers all the people, places, and stories I forgot.

Bernard J. Dowd, the B-17s crew chiefa tower of knowledge and strength.

William Paris, C.M. Spitfire pilot in North Africa during the big war, then home to Ottawa, Canadamy informant north of our border.

Kitty Werner, my computer guruI would never have made it without her because I am a computer ignoramus.

Finally, thanks go to Captain Robert O. Buck, Delta Airlines, who remembers many things, and keeps me up to date on how it is out there now.

IT WAS LATE FALL, with the brilliant colors already turning dull. The leaves of the large chestnut close by our old stone house lay on the ground, curled and brown and brittle. The sky was overcast, but without definitionno way to identify the clouds, it was simply gray and dreary.

I looked back as I turned the car from the dirt road onto the two-lane blacktop, and waved to my wife, Jean, who was watching me go; she waved back, and after that I only looked ahead.

I felt that emptiness and sadness I always faced when leaving home and family, the nagging feeling of not having had the time for all the important things to do or say.

The country road soon reached the Delaware River; after that the roads grew bigger, and the occasional auto became many as others slid into the flow. Finally the route became the steady nose-to-tail stream of highway leading to New York City and its disheartening surroundings. As home dropped back behind me and the airport loomed, the sad feeling retreated to a quiet place in the minds back storage, while my primary thoughts turned to the evenings task.

This night Id fly a Boeing 747 from New York across the Atlantic to Paris, as I did four or five times a month, hauling people, mail, and cargoa pleasant task despite the problems that weather, crew, and airplane might toss my way. Whenever I drove to an airport the same thoughts occupied my mind, mostly about emergencies and what I would do if one occurred.

The act of flying an airplane is a daily chore and Id long since become proficient at it, the repeated reactions and movements automatic, but emergencies almost never happen so theres no rehearsal for them except for a few hours twice a year in a simulator. And that doesnt cover all of themditching the plane in mid-Atlantic, for example. So you review these things, playing mental games of how to cope if the improbable should come true, and the time spent driving to the airport gives you a good opportunity to do it.

What if an engine catches fire? Pull back the throttle, cut the start lever, call for the emergency checklist. How necessary is this review? Id been thirty years a captain and only had one fire, on a Constellationa Connietaking off from Frankfurt, Germany. Just as we broke ground there came the shattering confusion of a loud bell and a bright red light. Engine fire! Quick action on the remembered items: throttle closed, fuel mixture off, fire extinguisher lever pulled, Read the engine fire checklist! All the pre-trained, well-thought-out operational actions took place, right by the book. But in the back of my mind was the thought of a wing burning off, which told me, Get the son of a bitch back on the ground as fast as possible.

I wrapped the plane into a tight turn I had learned long ago while flying-fast around pylons in small-time air races and stunt shows. Tell the tower were coming right back, I said. The tower operator, accustomed to orderly traffic flow procedures, tried to direct us to follow another aircraft, a normal aircraft on a normal flight. A few firm words advised the tower to get others out of the way, that we were in a hurry for terra firma.

We landed okaytotal flight time was probably five or six minutes, and the fire was out before we touched downbut it had been a fire, caused by a complicated turbine failing and tearing things up. Those few minutes presented the contrast of carefully taught and programmed reactions versus the kind of seat-of-the-pants flying you store up during long hours of flight timesome call it fright time, and a pilot needs some of that in his or her dossier. The modern way is right and necessary, but periodically there are difficult and perhaps emergency situations that demand the basic stick and rudder skills of quick, intuitive action.

But now it was time to quit thinking about that day in a Connie, and to come back to the 747 I was going to fly tonight. How about a hydraulic system loss? An electrical? Instruments? I go over each oneand the tough ones, too, like a crash landing with fire, and how to get 400 people off the plane; review your actions, think of the twelve doors, know the other crew members responsibilities, because theyre yours, too. It sounds matter-of-fact in the manual, the drawings all neat and precise, but planes generally dont crack up so neatly; itd probably be a shambles.

My mind slides back to a noon takeoff from Paris, headed for New York with a light load of only 177 passengers. We climbed toward the Channel because our route was to go over England and north, out to sea over Northern Ireland. There was a scattering of fluffy cumulus clouds around 5,000 feet, the sky above blue, the Normandy countryside green and lush below.

Flight eight-oh-three, Paris. It was our company radio calling. The copilot answered.

Go ahead, Pariseight-oh-three.

Eight-oh-three, we have a telephone [they never say call] saying there is a bomb on your flight set to explode at 1340!