GateHold
Oct 19, 11, 7:12 pm
Now up in my ASK THE PILOT column at Salon.com:
Airlines real and imagined. The peculiar memoir of a pilot-to-be. Plus, remembering the "commuter" airline.
Here's an excerpt of the memoir part:
“Something I used to do as a kid:
I imagined a city-state. It was a huge new metropolis, purpose-built from scratch -- like Brasilia or Abuja, except much bigger. A gleaming new capital of the world.
As a global crossroads, my city-state needed a strategic location, equidistant between the world's most populous regions. The spot I picked was along the Mediterranean coast of eastern Libya, where an atlas told me there was ample empty space and access to the sea.
But it wasn't sea routes that I was interested in. My reason for creating this imaginary place was to create the imaginary * airline * that would have to come with it. It would be one of the biggest airlines in the world.
In the evenings at the dining room table, after pretending to finish my homework, I would sketch out the route network of this fictitious carrier. I'd mark off my capital city (it never had a name, and neither did its airline) with a red circle, and from there the lines burst outward like a great spiderweb; down into Africa, up into Europe, through the Middle East and into Asia. I got pretty specific: flights to Kinshasa went nonstop, but getting to Jakarta required a layover in Bombay. We served Victoria Falls three times weekly for the benefit of European safarigoers. Other destinations were undecided. Taipei? Should we fly to Taipei, perhaps through Hong Kong, or via our prized route to Guangzhou? I could sit for an hour or more pondering the network choices of an imaginary airline.
I went so far as to determine which aircraft types were assigned to various routes, and drew meticulous seat maps. I created blueprints for a spectacular hub airport, including detailed sketches of the terminal and the world's grandest control tower. There would be two pairs of runways, parallel staggered so that planes never had to cross the adjacent strip. Advanced 3-D versions of this airport involved a terminal built with Legos and runways laid out with masking tape.
And so on.
In many respects a version of this fantasy actually came to exist. The place where it happened is Dubai, and the airline is Emirates. On the maps I consulted in childhood, Dubai was seldom marked at all, or it appeared in miniscule font as "Dubay." Its hometown airline didn't exist until 1985. The Dubai of today needs no introduction, and Emirates has grown into the fifth biggest airline on earth measured by revenue passenger kilometers (RPK), bigger even than Lufthansa. Like my own airline did, Emirates takes advantage not only of a strong local population, but ideal geographic positioning -- a transit point for millions of people traveling between Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas.
I don't know, maybe I fell into the wrong line of work. Looking back, it's curious the way seating charts and route maps infatuated me as much or more than cockpits did (a backyard project to construct a replica 727 cockpit using plywood and spare electrical parts never came to fruition). Mine was a peculiar route to pilothood. I have never met a colleague whose formative obsessions were like mine. While I was outlining terminals and fantasizing about Taipei, they were probably at air shows watching the Blue Angels, or at the local airstrip watching Piper Cubs practice touch-and-goes -- two things that would have bored me to tears. Pilots are not into airlines. They are into flying…”
Plus, forgotten terms like "commuter airilne" and "niche carrier"....
The FULL article is here:
http://life.salon.com/2011/10/19/my_peculiar_route_to_pilothood/singleton/
RECENTLY IN ASK THE PILOT:
Debut of the 747-8 and 787. Just how "revolutionary" are these spiffy new planes?
http://life.salon.com/2011/10/06/oops_wrong_button/singleton/
I'm curious if there's anybody out there whose childhood was geekier than mine.
Patrick Smith
Airlines real and imagined. The peculiar memoir of a pilot-to-be. Plus, remembering the "commuter" airline.
Here's an excerpt of the memoir part:
“Something I used to do as a kid:
I imagined a city-state. It was a huge new metropolis, purpose-built from scratch -- like Brasilia or Abuja, except much bigger. A gleaming new capital of the world.
As a global crossroads, my city-state needed a strategic location, equidistant between the world's most populous regions. The spot I picked was along the Mediterranean coast of eastern Libya, where an atlas told me there was ample empty space and access to the sea.
But it wasn't sea routes that I was interested in. My reason for creating this imaginary place was to create the imaginary * airline * that would have to come with it. It would be one of the biggest airlines in the world.
In the evenings at the dining room table, after pretending to finish my homework, I would sketch out the route network of this fictitious carrier. I'd mark off my capital city (it never had a name, and neither did its airline) with a red circle, and from there the lines burst outward like a great spiderweb; down into Africa, up into Europe, through the Middle East and into Asia. I got pretty specific: flights to Kinshasa went nonstop, but getting to Jakarta required a layover in Bombay. We served Victoria Falls three times weekly for the benefit of European safarigoers. Other destinations were undecided. Taipei? Should we fly to Taipei, perhaps through Hong Kong, or via our prized route to Guangzhou? I could sit for an hour or more pondering the network choices of an imaginary airline.
I went so far as to determine which aircraft types were assigned to various routes, and drew meticulous seat maps. I created blueprints for a spectacular hub airport, including detailed sketches of the terminal and the world's grandest control tower. There would be two pairs of runways, parallel staggered so that planes never had to cross the adjacent strip. Advanced 3-D versions of this airport involved a terminal built with Legos and runways laid out with masking tape.
And so on.
In many respects a version of this fantasy actually came to exist. The place where it happened is Dubai, and the airline is Emirates. On the maps I consulted in childhood, Dubai was seldom marked at all, or it appeared in miniscule font as "Dubay." Its hometown airline didn't exist until 1985. The Dubai of today needs no introduction, and Emirates has grown into the fifth biggest airline on earth measured by revenue passenger kilometers (RPK), bigger even than Lufthansa. Like my own airline did, Emirates takes advantage not only of a strong local population, but ideal geographic positioning -- a transit point for millions of people traveling between Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas.
I don't know, maybe I fell into the wrong line of work. Looking back, it's curious the way seating charts and route maps infatuated me as much or more than cockpits did (a backyard project to construct a replica 727 cockpit using plywood and spare electrical parts never came to fruition). Mine was a peculiar route to pilothood. I have never met a colleague whose formative obsessions were like mine. While I was outlining terminals and fantasizing about Taipei, they were probably at air shows watching the Blue Angels, or at the local airstrip watching Piper Cubs practice touch-and-goes -- two things that would have bored me to tears. Pilots are not into airlines. They are into flying…”
Plus, forgotten terms like "commuter airilne" and "niche carrier"....
The FULL article is here:
http://life.salon.com/2011/10/19/my_peculiar_route_to_pilothood/singleton/
RECENTLY IN ASK THE PILOT:
Debut of the 747-8 and 787. Just how "revolutionary" are these spiffy new planes?
http://life.salon.com/2011/10/06/oops_wrong_button/singleton/
I'm curious if there's anybody out there whose childhood was geekier than mine.
Patrick Smith