On January 29, 1987, I was diving out of 500 feet, not 5000 feet, flying solo in a rented Cessna two-seater. I’d prepared for this flight for months — studying the approaches down the valleys from windows of my classrooms, imagining my first pass over the football field, pulling up and banking hard to come in for another run. I’d applied all my math and physics knowledge studying a book called Aerodynamics for Naval Aviators to learn everything possible about the relation between altitude, airspeed and ideas.

My flight instructor was a former Navy pilot. He’d flown the F-4 Phantom over Vietnam. At the end of our lessons, he’d show me how to do a wingover or we’d make a low pass over something. Those lessons were really fun. He left out a lesson or two, though. Like the old saying: “Buzz Once.”
I buzzed my high school about 15 times over the course of 20 minutes. I guess I was pretty low. They never got the number of the plane when I flew over, but they took pictures of my face. As soon as I landed, I was arrested and taken in the police car to a scary room right next to the jail cells in the police station. The cops took a statement from me and Mom came and took me home. It was a long ride.
My flying lessons were partially paid for by delivering the local newspaper. Since I couldn’t drive at age 16 in NJ, my Mom drove me around and we split the profits from the hundreds of newspapers we distributed. The day after my escapade, Mom was not pleased that my story was the front-page headline.

Dad had gotten in late from a business trip the night of my “incident.” In the morning he was riding his exercise bike when Mom told me to confess. I walked in, said, “Dad, I got in a little trouble yesterday…” and I handed him the newspaper.
He laughed and asked, “Which one of your friends did this?”
“I did, Dad.”

“No, really, was it Sam?” [names changed to protect the innocent]

“No, it was me.”

“Come on, was it Marley?”

Then he looked at me. Then he looked at Mom. Then he stopped smiling. He slammed down the newspaper and left the room. When he came back with a beer in his hand (at 7:00 am), I knew I was in big trouble.

I was prohibited from going to school that day — I didn’t deserve the “glory”. My best friend started a “Save Dave” fund to bail me out of “jail” … I never saw the proceeds of said fund — reputed to be over $50! The police reduced my charge from a felony — reckless endangerment — to disturbing the peace. I had to make a $100 contribution to a charity. (I chose my church youth group.) The real punishment was that I knew I had blown my chance to fly for a living. I was heart-broken.

I went to school for engineering instead of flying. I got my private pilots license my last year of college. After working for 6 years as an engineer, I realized my heart was still in the sky, so I quit my engineering job and took a job flying 30-seat prop planes for Delta Connection. After paying my dues at ASA (aka “Almost Scheduled Airline” since 50% of our flights were late when I was there), I finally got hired by a good company that flies what most people call “real” airplanes. A couple of months ago, I even got to see my high school from the respectable altitude of 5000 feet.

As the morning wore on, and as we moved east and a little south (around the great circle route) the lightness increased and moved east until at about 5 am the sun rose over Ontario, Canada.

I’d never seen that before. It was pretty cool.

A brand new plane …

A brand new engine…

Don’t grab this part…

Landing gear isn’t supposed to be this clean!

Ellie sits in the captain’s seat.

Copilot and momma…

An Ellie self-portrait…

More airplane parts in the French sunrise…

I wasn’t supposed to take pictures of this, but those are A380’s — Airbus’s new double-decker that will be the largest commercial airliner in the world.

The Paiges … they flew back with us.

Ellie strapped into the jumpseat as we get ready to go flying…

Me reading the before start checklist…

Yeah, I like my job.

We taxied out and took off … that white on the horizon is the snow-capped Pyrinees.

As we get ready to cross the Atlantic I review the winds I downloaded just prior to takeoff.

Meanwhile, in the back, Scott Paige is presiding over the aft galley that Airbus has generously stocked. I guess when you buy a plane for tens of millions of dollars, they throw in some French bounty…

As we’re passing a hundred miles south of Cork, Ireland, we see a Continental Boing 777 … it was going about 500 mph to the east, we were going about 500 mph to the west.

Here’s the wake from the B-777.

A little later, a B747…

After about 4 hours of seeing the Atlantic through clouds, we discovered the new world.

We landed in Goose Bay, Nova Scotia to buy gas. It was cold.

We picked up a little ice on the approach.

The folks in Goose Bay always provide ice cream for their visitors.

I’m standing right next to this snow drift. Literally, it’s twice my height.

I once dreamed of flying something like this for a career. Imagine taking off and landing on skis in the winter and floats in the summer.

Back in the air, Elizabeth meditatively takes in the view of New York City.

After 10 hours of flying, the kids need to play!

A satisfied ferry pilot almost in Orlando.

Our flight to Toulouse was fine, although the pilot of the CRJ-100 that we flew was a little hyperactive with the controls on landing approach and rocked us in the back pretty bad. Elizabeth wasn’t feeling all that good when we landed.

Airbus sent a van to take us to our hotel — the Crown Plaza Place Capitole. It was really nice. We crashed and woke up for a really nice French dinner with the rest of the delivery crew — two technicians who would inspect the aircraft and eventually do the closing (on a $45+ million dollar plane) and a captain who was forced to retire because of the FAA’s rule that mandates all airline pilots retire at age 60. (The US is one of 3 countries who use this age, the rest of the world uses 65 as the manditory retirement age…)

We sampled the distinctly Toulouse-ian dish of Cassoulet.

The next day Elizabeth stayed in town and I went to the Airbus factory for a day of ground and flight testing. On the ground we tricked the airplane into thinking it was in the air so that we could verify the proper functioning of all normal and emergency systems. Then we took a test flight.

On taxi-out, we got several glimpses of what will soon be the largest passenger aircraft in the world, the A380.

Here’s another picture of an Airbus being flight-tested: the A340-600, taking off in the rain (through our rainy windshield).

Part of our flight test involved verifying the proper functioning of the aircraft’s fly-by-wire system where a computer interprets all human commands to the aircraft and maneuvers the plane. Here we’re climbing at almost 10,000 feet every minute. For reference, a normal climb on takeoff is about 2500 feet per minute.

We also tested the bank-limiting systems of the fly-by-wire. Here, Captain Earl is rolling into a 67 degree angle of bank. When the aircraft got to that bank, the computer stopped letting us bank further. When Earl released the controls, the airplane rolled back toward a normal angle.

While we were testing the aircraft systems, our technicians were continuing their extremely thorough inspection of the cabin of the aircraft.

After this, we depressurized the cabin, verifying that the oxygen masks automatically drop. Then we descended back for some stalls. Finally, we came back in for an autoland where the computer actually lands the aircraft.

We did that as a touch-and-go where a takeoff is immediately conducted after we touch down. On our climbout we simulated the failure of the electrical systems of the airplane. This caused the RAT (ram air turbine) to automatically deploy to provide emergency electrical power. Here’s the RAT deployed after landing.

Our flight showed that we were receiving another excellent aircraft from Airbus with only a few very minor maintenance items to deal with. By the next time I saw the airplane, they were all fixed and my company was the new owner!

More Toulouse pictures to come!

Flat Tory was extremely helpful. On every trip, we go to our crew lounge to check in, get our mail, and update our computers. Here she is in the crew lounge with me just before we left for Orlando, Florida:

Before each flight, the First Officer (that’s me) inspects the airplane to make sure it’s safe to fly. This is called the preflight inspection. Flat Tory helped with this. This particular plane was well-named for the occasion!

Me — "How’s the engine look Flat Tory?"

Flat Tory — "It looks good, Dave! All the fan blades are there and I don’t think any birds have been sucked in lately!"

Flat Tory helped our inflight crewmembers inspect the cabin of the plane. Here she’s checking out the overhead bins in row 5.

Flat Tory helped me run the computer program that tells us how much the airplane weighs and what speed to takeoff.

Flat Tory got to help move the throttles while we were parked at the gate.

Flat Tory helped put down the landing gear.

Flat Tory tested out the oxygen mask down in Orlando.

Flat Tory got to enjoy the view flying at 37,000 feet above Florida — that’s over 5 miles high!

Flat Tory even helped me read the charts for our arrival into Newark.

I was really glad to have Flat Tory for a companion on this flight. She did a marvelous job. Someday soon she’ll replace me in the cockpit!

I’m on a layover in Orlando and our hotel is near a lot of restaurants. However they are closed on Thanksgiving. So I got to walk about a mile to the nearest convenience store to find something to feast on.

While it’s not a delicious brined turkey like Elizabeth and family had, it’s still edible food and pretty good beer. And I got to watch Denver beat Dallas in OT.

I am really thankful. The reason I’m having this “feast” for thanksgiving is that I have an incredible job working for a company that treats me like a human — unlike most airlines out there. And even my alleged “feast” was a lot more than many people had today.

So, I am thankful for my wife and my family and the knowlede that they are having a good time. I am thankful for my friends. I am thankful for a great job in a crazy industry. And I am thankful for the 2 of you that will read this blog.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I’ve taken pictures of Mommies and Babies (Samuel Wisdom Noonan)…

Dogs guarding food…

Cleveland and Lake Erie …

Thunderstorms near Nashville…

And a crewmember shooting hoops under a jetway…

…before parking a plane…

… at my new employer!

Starting August 31st, a whole new chapter in life!

A lovely sunrise.

A small thunderstorm over Chattanooga.

As we got closer to Atlanta, we got a few bumps from the last remains of the previous days’ thunderstorms. Usually, after a thunderstorm dies, it leaves a few moving air currents and clouds in the atmosphere.

If you can handle waking up really early, summer sunrise flying is an amazing treat.