Sun is Coming as well as Fun
February 22, 2010 § Leave a comment
We will survive this winter. I am sure of it.
The skies can’t stay as misty and full of cold moisture as they are now. It seems impossible that they have remained this teary-eyed for the past month or two but the sky certainly hasn’t been a pilot’s friend lately.
Days like this come along right about this time every year. This “dead zone” of flying exists in February and March right along with the lack of televised football, decent first run movies and outdoor tennis. Grills on decks are silent and covered in plastic this time of year. Our barn cats don’t seem frisky or friendly. They are hunkered-down and exist in a soggy misery in between feedings. Even the dog who is usually a frenzy of play is sitting this day out.
I remember warm flights. I can recall going to the T-hangar and feeling the warmth of the airplane’s skin. No oil dipstick heater was plugged in during those heady, warm days and no snow had to be cleared from the front of the door to get access to the plane. There are two fairly comfortable couches in the T-hangar but they aren’t very welcoming when the temps are in the thirties and there isn’t enough ambient light to read your digital watch without pushing the illumination button on the side.
Somewhere, bees are sleeping. Somewhere there are warm and small puffy clouds instead of this gray and wet sheet that starts in Los Angeles and ends over Bermuda. Birds sing somewhere and not because they are trying to stay warm — they are happy and are basking in the Sun.
We pilots and lovers of VFR flight must pull our rain and winter coats over our heads and wait this one out. The sun is still up there somewhere and I am sure that all the global warming that has been touted by so many is on its way. It won’t be long until we are sweltering on the fire ant infested grass of Lakeland. We will suffer from painful sunburns, stomach aches from too many trips to the junk food stands at the fly-in and severe headaches from cranking our necks skyward to stare into the Sun and attempt to see a Pitts do a roll.
I am ready and am even know sitting in my drafty writers garret wearing shorts and my Hawaiian shirt with the airplane print pattern. http://www.kevincreates.com
In the Pilot’s Lounge
February 15, 2010 § Leave a comment
In The Pilot’s Lounge
A Sample Chapter from the CEO of the Cockpit
The pilot lounge in Newark is larger than most but otherwise is the same as all of them.
Lazy Boy recliner chairs are scattered about the brick-walled windowless room like the
remnants of a close-out furniture sale. Some of them are broken down by hundreds of
desperate toss-turned nights spent by harried (and cheap) commuters. The stale smell of
little aircraft cabin blankets that have been used for napping too long without benefit of a
washing machine added to the aroma of stale coffee and twelve-hour deodorant that has
endured a fifteen-hour duty day.
Around the lounge are the detritus of the pilot life — marked-up bid sheets, company
newsletters and the usual meaningless, self-serving memoranda that only a management
hierarchy made up of pilots with night-school MBAs could produce: “Joe Jones promoted
to Supervisor of Line Operations Management Oversight Committee.”
A dozen trees were senselessly slaughtered and boiled down to print a memo that 10,000
uncaring line pilots would toss into the trash without a second look. Because of Joe’s
ascension to middle management, there are now families of homeless squirrels roaming
the planet. The horror.
The other constant in any pilot lounge are the computer terminals. Lined up and glowing,
they are the Oracle you consult to predict your future as a pilot. Did I get that trip I put in
for? Am I going to go to 767 school next month? Why wasn’t I paid assignment pay for
that late-night call-out last week? Also on the company computer is a means for
employees to send each other email and of course, electronic copies of the Joe Jones
announcement.
A Bird Strike Yields Time to Think
I am sitting in the scrunchy “faux leather” of my lounge chair and will likely continue to do
so for quite awhile. My “Long Beach Death Tube” (MD-88) unwisely ate a large sea gull
during our approach and what is left of that noble bird is still ensconced amidst the inlet
guide vanes of the number-one engine. Our maintenance professionals are gathered
around it on work stands trying with all their might to deny the fact that an engine change
is in their future. Once they reach that decision, my copilot Karl and I will climb aboard a
727 and deadhead home. Until then we are in “reroute limbo.”
The time will be well-spent today. I am thumbing through this year’s edition of my tax
returns. My CPA kindly faxed me a copy before I climbed into my run-out Dodge van and
went to work the other day. This is my first chance to review our version of the truth —
and my last chance to up the ante on any of my so-called deductions. Karl is looking over
my shoulder, smacking his lips as he eats his crew meal granola bar.
“Are you really deducting the cost of a new suitcase?”
Well, Karl, you and I do travel for a living. What does the government expect us to do,
pack our meager belongings in K-mart bags? Besides, with the bankruptcy of K-Mart, the
quality of their bags is in question anyway.
“Yes, but don’t you think that $3,500 is a little steep for a bag on wheels?”
The cost of everything is constantly going up. Last year, for example, my suitcase
deduction was only $2,200. Plus, this year’s suitcase has all the “evildoer thwarting
technology” bells and whistles. For example, if an evildoer tries to break into my suitcase
while I’m napping in this lounge chair, a transmitter in my bag instantly uplinks to a
satellite in geosynchronous orbit. The signal it sends is quickly forwarded to a security
company based in Bridgeton, N.J. They, in turn, will call out local law enforcement and a
swat team will descend on my Dad’s house in Florida because they think he has fallen in
the tub and can’t get up.
My rambling finally got the desired result and Karl went away muttering under his breath.
Even Airline Captains Have To Pay Taxes
It looks like my contribution to society this year will come to a little over forty grand —
depressing if you think you are paying for Congressional pork barrel projects. I always
prefer to be inspired and think that I am funding a Marine Corps rifleman who is prodding
a terrorist with the business end of a bayonet while I sit here in my lounge chair.
There is nothing that promotes world peace better than an armed Marine and I am all
about world peace.
Someone kicked my chair from the side and I am shocked to see my friend Jerry standing
there in a pilot uniform. The reason I am shocked is because, in over 20 years of being in
this company and two decades of being Jerry’s friend and classmate, I’ve never seen him
in a pilot uniform. He is usually in golf clothes and is non-revving to Maui or someplace to
chase the little white ball and to take large sums of money from fat men with bad hair
implants wearing gaily-colored pants with stretch waistbands.
“Dude…,” Jerry began.
Dude your own self, I reply.
“I see you are going over your opening offer to the government,” he continued.
I look on it as my final offer, Jerry. I don’t want to live in a country where the government
would question the integrity of an airline captain. Look here at the financial hardships I’ve
had to undergo.
The CEO’s Thinking on Tax Deductions
Jerry pulled up another recliner and looked on as I revealed my tax worksheet.
Last year was bad for airline pilots in general and this airline pilot specifically. First, our
careers came to a screeching halt in September — that is if we still have a career.
Thousands of us are out of work due to terrorist-induced furloughs. Next, like many of my
fellow airline pilots, I made a lot of really stupid investments. They all lost money.
A retarded monkey with a dartboard could do a better job of choosing investments than I
did, but, since there were no mentally challenged simians around, I had to make all the
decisions myself, leading to disaster.
My housekeeper had to quit due to some sort of immigration paperwork
misunderstanding. Yatisha couldn’t produce a green card and had to be sent back to her
home country. Now where am I going to find another person that is willing to work for a
dollar and a half an hour?
Jerry nodded in sympathy.
“You think you had setbacks?” he said. “Last year, the IRS disallowed my golf cart rental
fees and wouldn’t let me deduct the cost of country club bar tabs. How the heck am I
supposed to get ahead in the golf business if I can’t buy a round of drinks?”
I saw Jerry’s point. A government interested in data about my children’s schooling, how
many people from foreign lands I’m sponsoring by allowing to them to live on my property
(and mow it) and how many dollars I sent to the Air Line Pilot’s Association Political Action
Committee should have enough class to allow Jerry to write off a few thousand dollars’
worth of post-round beers.
The Business Needs of an Airline Captain
We looked over the list of my pilot-related deductions for this year’s return. They included:
• The expense I have gone to buy a decent handgun. Large groups of people in this
country expect me to be packing heat the next time a hijacker knocks on my cockpit door
and what Johnny Carson once said is true: “You can get more with a kind word and a gun
than you can with a kind word alone.” Even though the government has said they will
never allow me to be armed in the cockpit, I think a few thousand dollars’ write off for me
to buy a heater is appropriate.
• The cost of my paint ball combat game outings is clearly in holding with the spirit of
self-defense training. Ditto for my health club membership fees. How do they expect me to
defend freedom without proper weight training and a tan?
• Next, since I am in the aviation business and am expected to keep the greasy side
down and the shiny side up, I think the $6,000 I spent on the P-51 check-out is totally
deductible. Also, I plan on including the expense I incurred buying first-class tickets on
another airline for our vacation in Europe. How does the IRS think I can improve our
service if I don’t sample the service of other airlines?
• Training to scuba dive might help me on my next visit to the Bahamas, but I think
the expense ought to be at least partially borne by the federal government. This is only
fair. Every year at recurrent we have to undergo training in ditching techniques along with
instruction on how to wear and use life vests lest we find ourselves in the drink.
Obviously, any ditching training for us North Atlantic flyers is pointless — if you get wet
out there you’d die of hypothermia before you could say: “pass the flare gun.” It makes
about as much sense for me to train to scuba dive for this scenario as it does to put on a
life vest that will only serve to help them recover bodies.
• It is obvious that any money spent by an airline pilot to learn a foreign language
ought to be deductible. After all, we travel the world and it is nice (especially in hostage
situations) to speak the local lingo. This year I am taking it one step further and am
deducting all expenses pertaining to the French cooking lessons I’ve taken in New
Orleans.
• The company has been very concerned lately about our layover security. Rightly so
in view of recent events. Because of this I no longer head out to cheap bars in bad areas
of town when I or my crew are laying over. We only go to classy clubs and first-rate
restaurants. This leads to a great increase in the amount of money we spend on food
and drink. I think it is only fair that the government share this burden with us working-
class pilots.
• Other layover expenses should be a total write-off for airline crew members and I
intend to a least try to do so this year. For example, on a recent Phoenix layover my crew
and I decided to clear our heads by renting Harleys for the day and ripping up the desert.
You might think the hundred dollars I spent at “Rent a Hog” was frivolous, but you weren’t
in the back of the jet later that night as I tried to shoot a CAT III into Detroit. Call the
money a mental fitness fee. I call it a legal deduction of income.
Why Can’t The IRS Understand?
Jerry had, for some reason, fallen asleep in his recliner while I was going over my
deductions with him. I prodded him awake with my pencil and asked him how many audits
he had endured over the years.
“Four, counting last year,” he said.
There you go… not only are airline pilots expected to support armed Marines with our
taxes, we are we expected to (yet frowned upon for doing so) support people from third-
world nations who only want to live in our country and operate our lawn equipment. We
are ridiculed and accused of tax fraud when all we are trying to do is fly the population of
this great land of ours to their destinations.
Lastly, we also are expected to financially support thousands of CPAs and tax attorneys!
You’d think all the divorce lawyers we support would be enough, but noooo…..
As I finished my diatribe, I noticed that a mechanic had entered the room and was headed
my way. We were all surprised to learn from him that the engine did in fact need to be
replaced and shipped to our corporate headquarters via flatbed truck for “de-birding.”
We were released to deadhead home and would kill no more waterfowl that day.
I said goodbye to my friend Jerry, noted a $200 tax consulting fee to Jerry & Jerry CPA in
my expense log and went to get my seat in the back of the homeward-bound antique
subsonic three-holer.
It’s another normal day in the life of an airline aviator. Four legs, three gate holds, two
crew meals in boxes, and one layover in Little Rock awaiting us at the end of our day.
A Free Sample Chapter
The CEO of the Cockpit
The CEO is now available at:
Barnes & Noble
Kevin’s Book is also available here:
ASJA Press
Ten Ways to Make Money as a CFI
February 10, 2010 § 1 Comment
A lot of flight instructors complain that they can’t make a living flying around with students. They are more wrong than Rosie O’Donnell at a Republican caucus. I have been a flight instructor since 1974 and I have been alive at least most of that time. The real complaint, I think, is that you can’t make much of a living flight instructing.
Part of what I do now for “a living” is to teach flight instructors a little bit about flight instructing. The money question almost never comes up, but I think flight instructor income is like erectile dysfunction and painful hemorrhoids — it is better to do something about both than just talk about them. Using the same logic, I have decided to list ten good ways to make more money as a CFI. Here they are:
1. Marry somebody rich.
2. Become a professor at a flying college. You may not get tenure, but you will probably at least get insurance.
3. Get your money from your student upfront. It is harder for them to ask for it back than to not give it to you in the first place.
4. Charge at least as much for your time as the local lawn mower shop charges for working on your weed-whacker. Mine bills his time at $65. How much are you charging for your time?
5. Barter. Not only is a used car better than cash, it is probably tax-free. Need dental work? A new patio grill? You get the picture…
6. Combine students. If you can ground-brief them three at a time you just tripled your hourly rate.
7. Get a real job and fly for free. Work for a boss who wants to learn to fly. Job security and you’ll need “extra” time for his or her flight instruction.
8. Amway
9. You could become an aviation writer like I did and supplement your income that way. Unless your last name is Machado, I don’t see a lucrative future in that field, but you never know. Richard Bach was a flight instructor until he met that seagull…
10. Promote yourself. I know it is hard, but would a little self-promotion hurt? How many people do you know who don’t know you are a CFI? How many want to learn?
Well — There you have it. What are your ideas? Send them, along with one hundred dollars to this blog’s response area.
Another world for pilots
February 8, 2010 § 2 Comments
The magic of the craft has opened for me a world in which I shall confront, within two hours, the black dragons and the crowned crests of a coma of blue lightnings, and when night has fallen I, delivered, shall read my course in the stars.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, ‘Wind, Sand, and Stars,’ 1939.
I have seen things when flying that ground-bound people can’t imagine. The inside of purple storm clouds, the St. Elmo’s fire against the windshield of my 727 as it bounced through heavy precip. Sunrises over the Atlantic, Pacific, and even Lake Michigan.
How many people get to begin their day in Kentucky and after flying themselves to Europe lay their head on a pillow in Paris and get paid for it? How often did I fly over sleeping cities in the pre-dawn, bemoaning my fate to be awake yet not envying for a single second the people below who faced another day of boringly predictable days?
Today I still court and play with clouds that others see as sun blockers and annoyances. Snow on the ground evokes thoughts in my head of braking action reports and de-icing fluid types. Pilots see the world in a totally different way than ground-bound people. We notice clouds and automatically and without thought catagorize them according to the smoothness or roughness we would encounter when flying through them.
Student pilots learning about aviation are privy to this new world from the first time they try to taxi with their feet. They fly the shallows of the pond like guppies but they are still part of the larger aviation lake.
Airline passengers pull down their shades in order to see their airborne TV’s. We open the shades wide to see the ground and the sky. To them airplanes are a fancy kind of train or car. To we pilots, an airplane, even an airliner, is a friend and the revealer of magic and freedom.
Sky Ink 