I hate to fly. Hate it. Discussing why is not even worth the time. I do have my reasons and they aren’t totally irrational. The latest antics by the pilots of the Delta flight fall right into those reasons. I used to interview the pilots when I got on the plane – stick my head in the cockpit while walking on board and say things like, “Hey gentlemen, how was your evening last night?” If I didn’t like the answer, or they didn’t give me direct eye contact, I have been known to walk off the plane.
I think they need to start screening the conversations in the cockpit. Right now they only record the last 30 minutes of cockpit conversation. Record the whole thing. On the flights I’m on, I’ll pay for the extra tape. There are places in any company to save money. The cockpit conversation is not one of them. Put them on a website and let people go in and listen. If Big Daddy can watch me all the time, how come Big Christine can’t watch the persons to whom she entrusts her life during the hours they take her from place to place? I want to hear what they’re chatting about while flying me somewhere.
I have my theories about why these guys flying me around have arrogance quotients the size of Cleveland. (Sorry, Sully, you are not included in this). Let’s start with the word ‘cockpit.’ C O C K P I T.
The first “cockpits” were actual pits in the ground constructed (to the extent that one “constructs” a pit) to house “cockfights” to the death between gamecocks (essentially very belligerent chickens). Cockfighting, a barbaric “sport” usually conducted for gambling purposes, probably originated in ancient China and remains distressingly popular around the world.
As a name for the scene of such grisly matches, “cockpit” showed up in English in the 16th century. By the 1700′s, “cockpit” was being used as a metaphor for any scene of combat, especially areas (such as parts of Belgium and France) known as traditional battlefields. “Cockpit” was then adopted by pilots in World War I, who applied it to the cramped operating quarters of their fighter planes. Our modern sense of cockpit includes the entire crew areas of large airliners, which are usually fairly spacious and not, one hopes, the scene of conflict.
Need I say more? Does the word buckaroo come to mind? Buckaroo. Airline pilots? I dunno. Call me stupid.
Here is another issue. Put a uniform on a person and watch their arrogance grow with the power of their position. Nazi Germany knew that, so do the airlines. I can hear you all now, is she really comparing pilots to Nazis? Of course not. But, what’s with the stripes on the shoulders? And, I wish they would start off by saying, “Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, welcome to flight XYZed, where your pilot and co-pilot have seven stripes between them totaling 31,000 hours of flight time. They took a breathalizer at 08:00 hours and were well beneath the level for competent flying.” I think credentials matter. If we test football players randomly to make sure they deserve to have us watch them, shouldn’t we test pilots? Seems elementary to me.
I don’t want to write more about this because I have a flight in a week or so and starting my Valium medication routine this early before a flight could be detrimental to many things. Suffice it to say, I think there are many things that could be done to tighten up a bit guys. I will surely print this and send it to the FAA. I know they will want my ideas.
