Well I just had a fabulous evening! My most excellent client, Todd, a JetBlue captain, told me he had to make a maintenance check-out flight on an Airbus A320, a commercial aircraft that's about the equivalent of a Boeing 737 with a bigger cockpit, in a few hours, and asked if I had time to join him! You bet I did!
I learned to fly about six years ago, but I never flew anything except a single-engine Cessna. My client is former Navy pilot who is now a captain for JetBlue. I had the enormous pleasure of learning much more about his career, accomplishments and shenanigans on our ride to Logan Airport.
First officer, Greg Pre-flight, in the cockpit
At the airport, I was whisked through security (y'all can imagine what Boston's TSA experience is like, still), and down to the pilots' lounge. It turned out that the rules allowed me to be on this type of flight as an observer, but at the last minute, the fact that the plane itself was in a secure hangar, where I couldn't go without a special pass, meant that I might not be able to go after all!
My pilot friend is not the shy type. He asked politely but firmly and, a few minutes later, the plane was pulled out of the hangar and across the airport to a regular gate . . . for me! On the other end, when we landed, they had to have another gate for us to come back to, so people really went out of their way to give me this unique opportunity.
Taxiing Take-off
We were on a "confidence" flight to check out some repairs. Apparently there were some vibrations that had been happening on take-off and were now supposed to have been fixed, and our mission, if we chose to accept it, was to take off, find out if the vibrations were still there or not, fly in a little circle, and land. The whole thing was very relaxed.
I climbed in the jump seat behind the center console and between the two pilot seats, buckled up, and watched the pre-flight routine. Together with the First Officer, Todd walked through the whole process, stopping to chat with me about certain details he thought I would find interesting, and talking with his FO about his life and career and such.
Johnny, the tech op, climbed in the other jumpseat beside me. Then we talked some more as we waited for ground clearance, taxi clearance and tower clearances. Pretty routine stuff for these two professionals. Exhilarating as all get-out for me.
We took off. We didn't feel or see the vibrations. We turned around. We landed. About 20 minutes in the air.
I guess you could say that the whole point of these videos is to show you that nothing happened.
Flying around in a circle Landing
Then we talked the whole way home about the life of a pilot and his time in the Navy and climbing the ladder at JetBlue. I left sincerely impressed with the credentials and character of the man who had invited me on this one-in-a-million trip.
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