Flight Training - June 2014 - 48

ADVANCED PILOT»

COMMUTING PILOTS WASTE A STAGGERING AMOUNT OF TIME AND MONEY
GETTING BACK AND FORTH.
The path between Washington
and New York is well covered with
multiple airline flights, trains,
buses, and my own car-or even
personal airplane, if needed. To say
I've become somewhat of a road
warrior would be an understatement. My tote bag is filled with
train and bus schedules, and every
week brought at least some fretting
over how to get to/from work.
Since the point of work is to
make money, I always preferred
the cheapest option, which was
riding on one of my airline's
flights. But while cheap, it was
the most stressful way to get to
work. Employees ride standby or
only when there are spare seats.
It wasn't unusual to have a flight
with plenty of seats the night prior
suddenly become overbooked upon
arrival at the gate. Then, you're
faced with a dilemma. Roll the dice
on another flight, get back in the
car, or run to the train station?
Driving myself was the next
best option if time allowed it. I
could drive the 460-mile round
trip for $120 in gas and tolls (tolls
are substantial in the Northeast
Corridor). Each way was about 3.5
hours with no traffic. The stress
level usually was pretty low when
I drove, but the costs added up if I
did it often.
The train was an expensive
option and it didn't save much, if
any, time over driving. Typically,

it was $120 each way for the train
based on a last-minute fare, which
was always the case since I'd just
been left behind by an airplane.
Finally, I had the most-expensive
option of flying my own airplane
to work. I did this just three times
in my Cessna 172. I would land at
Linden Airport in northern New
Jersey, to avoid the worst of the
fees at the bigger airports near
New York. Besides the expense,
the threat of severe weather/icing
often kept the option of flying
myself to work off the table.
As you can imagine, commuters
waste a staggering amount of time
and money getting back and forth.
Some commutes by airline took
me as long as 12 hours because
of delays, diversions, and myriad
other snafus. Adding insult to
injury was the fact that if I was
going to work, I felt exhausted
before I even started-a real safety
concern at times. After a 14-hour
duty day of flying, I'd often get hit
with huge delays on my commute
flight home, making 20-plus-hour
days a too-often occurrence. I'd
arrive home to life as usual, but I'd
be an absolute bear since I hadn't
slept much at all.
And then there was the crash
pad-my appropriately named
home away from home that
allowed me to get some rest before
or after a trip without spending a
fortune on hotels. The only prob-

lem was the crash pad reminded
me of a college fraternity house,
minus the fun parties and young
singles. No, this was a house full
of old, married guys who tended
to snore in the bunk just feet from
you. My first night, I realized I was
too old to live like that again. But I
did it out of necessity.
So when that day came in
October 2013 when we could bid
different bases, I wasted no time
bidding for a slot in the BaltimoreWashington area. I had to switch
airplanes, but I'd fly any airplane at
my airline to avoid a commute. I've
always said commuting was the
worst part of my job, and I know
now that I was right. Instead of
spending about a half-day on either
side of a trip getting to/from work,
I now leave a few hours ahead of
a trip. Instead of dashing through
airports trying to connect to a
commuting flight out of a different
terminal, I simply walk outside and
catch a bus to home or to my car.
I'm quite sure commuting to
work took a few years off my life
span because of stress, but
I'm now enjoying the ability to
simply go to work and not waste
days per month just getting to/
from my base.
Pete Bedell is a pilot for a major airline and
co-owner of a Cessna 172 and Beechcraft
Baron. He holds type ratings in the BAe
Jetstream 41, Canadair RJ, and Boeing 737.

ASIANA SAYS PILOT WAS FLYING TOO SLOW,
BUT AUTOTHROTTLE CONTRIBUTED TO CRASH
Asiana Airlines said that the probable cause of the fatal crash in San Francisco in July 2013 was that its pilot was flying
too slow, according to a report in USA Today. The airline submitted its position to the National Transportation Safety
Board, which released some of the documents in March. In acknowledging the pilot's error, Asiana also pointed to what
it termed "inconsistencies" in the Boeing 777-200ER's autothrottle, which it claimed contributed to the crash because
the airplane's navigation equipment led the crew to believe that the autothrottle was maintaining the airspeed they had
set. Boeing contended that the airplane and all of its systems were functioning as expected before the accident and did
not contribute to the accident, USA Today reported.

48 /

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Flight Training - June 2014

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