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A
R C H I V E S
CAPTAIN
CARGO
 Captain
Cargo grew up in Southern Africa, where, at the age of nineteen, he
started flying by accident. After ten years spraying tsetse flies,
locusts and other nasty insects, interspersed with spells flying tourists
and Hemingway wannabes around the Okavango Delta and Kalahari Desert,
he moved to the United Kingdom. After obtaining a UK ATPL, he joined
an airline that flies freight for a major parcel delivery company.
He has been doing it ever since, and now flies a Boeing 757 freighter
around Europe, mainly at night. Mail to: CaptainCargo@aircargonews.com
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What’s
The Frequency, Kenneth?
Last
week I was in Brussels for the weekend, and ran into Ken, who’s been flying
freight almost as long as I have. He joined the company as a low-time
pilot after a few years in operations, and with our average three hundred
hours a year, it’s taken him ten years to get the hours for a command.
He got promoted recently and has just been checked out on the 757.
Over a few beers down the Hairy Canary,
we start reminiscing over the old days on the Electra, and one trip in
particular just after I myself had been promoted which led to him having
to buy a lot of beer. We’re early for once, the main cargo door closed,
APU up and running, and I ask Ken to get up clearance. It’s Friday night
and we’ve got the weekend in Brussels, arriving early enough to have a
few tonight. He calls Ground and is told that we haven’t got a flight
plan.
“What you mean, no flight-plan?”, I ask
him when he interrupts my conversation with the rather attractive young
handling agent.
“There’s no flight plan. They don’t have
one for us.”
I pick up my headset, giving the young lady
a busy grin. She gives a sort of half-curtsy and slides out of the flight
deck door.
“Tegel Ground, ————625”
“—————625, Go ahead.”
“We should have a flight plan to Brussels.
Departing 1945.”
“———625, we do not have a flight plan for
your flight.”
“We do this flight every night, “ I say,
wondering who in ops has messed up.
“Sorry, but I am not familiar with your
flight number. I would suggest you come in the tower and file a flight
plan.”
I take off my headset. I resist the urge
to recite my dictionary of expletives.
“Ask if we can file a flight plan over the
radio”. I instruct Ken, and get my mobile phone out, in those days a fairly
new device. A short call to ops and they say the flight plan should be
automatic, but they’ll send a new one. Ken’s had no luck with ATC.
“Should be through in a minute, “ I say,
indicating no to the guy outside who’s gesticulating at me regarding removing
the GPU. We sit for a minute, headsets on, hoping they call us. There’s
something I cannot quite put my finger on. Something’s not right. There
should be a flight plan.
“Call him”. I tell Ken.
He calls again, and the German voice, with
a slight trace of annoyance, answers back. No, there is still no flight
plan. Once again, he suggests filing one in the tower. I wave at the ramp
agent who is looking at his watch and holding his arms out as if to say
“What’s the problem?”, indicating that we need the steps. Al, the flight
engineer, opens the door and the agent appears on the flight deck a few
seconds later, looking flustered. I explain our predicament and a few
minutes later he’s driving me to the tower.
On the desk in Briefing I pick up a flight
plan and am trying to remember how to fill one in when a the guy behind
the desk asks,
“Where are you flying to?”
“Brussles”, I tell him, “the company has
forgotten to file a flight plan.” “What’s your flight number?”
“——625”, I reply, writing the aircraft registration.
“I’ve got a plan for that flight”, he says”,
“In fact I received another one a few minutes ago.”
“That’s not possible”, I say, “we asked
for start-up and the controller says he doesn’t have a plan.”
“I don’t understand”, he says. “Try again.
I’ll talk to the controller.”
The agent takes me back to the aircraft,
making a point of looking at his watch again. Back on board, I tell Ken
to call for start up.
“I told you, we don’t have a flight plan
for your flight”, the controllerreplies, sounding really pissed off now.
“What the hell is going on?”, I say, flummoxed.
I’m just about to let rip at the controller when I realise what’s been
bothering me. The frequency we’re talking on is pretty busy. Yet I haven’t
seen another aircraft taxi-ing since we closed the doors. I look at the
airfield plate in front of me, at the radio.
“You dipstick, Ken. You’ve got the wrong
frequency dialled up.” The frequency is one digit removed from the ground
frequency we should be using.
Later, we find out we’ve been talking to
Berlin Templehof Ground, which is only a few miles away.The controller
we were speaking to must have been wondering where we were parked. No
doubt he was as confused as us.
Ten minutes later, forty minutes behind
schedule, we’re airborne. In the cruise, Ken asks me what he should put
the delay down to.
“Air Traffic Control”, I say. “It’s not
too far from the truth.” We all burst out laughing.
“And the beer's on you”, I add.
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MERCY
CARGO TO
SOUTH AFRICA
We
are struck with a thought in the middle of the worst business run
of months and years in airline and air cargo history. Most of air
cargo, despite the lousy business climate can take for granted many
things about our lives. But elsewhere people are suffering, not
from questions of financial upheaval but in a battle for survival.
For example, millions of people face
hunger and even death by starvation in Southern Africa brought about
by the worst drought in a decade.
Also, the impact of AIDS has caused
drastic food shortages. Crops have dried-up in the fields and desperate
families are selling all they have, including precious livestock,
to buy food.
Prices for the dwindling supply of
available food in the market have soared.
This agricultural, social and economic
disaster is affecting more than 14.6 million people in Lesotho,
Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
In Ethiopia and elsewhere, the situation
is frightening.
Thousands have already died and those
weakened by hunger are increasingly susceptible to disease.
Particularly hard-hit have been the
poorest and most vulnerable, especially the elderly, the children,
AIDS affected orphans and chronically ill, and pregnant and nursing
women.
Southern Africa has the highest HIV/AIDS
prevalence rates in the world.
In some countries, more than 30 percent
of the adult population is infected.
One organization with roots in air
cargo is Anaheim, California-based Mercy Airlift.
What Mercy Airlift does and has done
since 1970, is gather consignments of donated and purchased relief
supplies and foodstuffs and moves the goods to trouble spots in
need around the world.
Now needing lift and support to move
meals to Ethiopia, Mr. Andrew “Andy” Pike who moved over to Mercy
Airlift from a career as Captain aboard Flying Tigers all-cargo
aircraft puts it this way:
"The lifeblood of our organization
comes from charitable contributions - monetary donations and gifts-in-kind
from corporate sponsors and individual donors. However, we cannot
perform our duties in serving the growing numbers of disaster and
poverty stricken people if we do not continually receive support
from donors and volunteers.
“A corporate sponsor becomes one of
our special partners and co-sponsors of our missions. Mercy Airlift
can offer visible recognition on our trucks and planes, as well
as media coverage to those that provide us with the support we need
to continue. We have the financial expertise of Merrill Lynch to
assist in maximizing the tax benefits of our donors and corporate
sponsors.”
Contact toll free at: 1-877-90-MERCY
(63729).
“Over the years corporate sponsors
have provided Mercy Airlift with the ability to conduct its life
saving, disaster relief flights and services. These organizations
recognize that the responsibility for providing the disaster relief
flights and services conducted by Mercy Airlift are the social responsibility
of each and every one of us both individually and corporately:
Doug Hartman, Learnframe.com, S &
J Service, Inc., Singapore Airlines, Pan Am, Lockheed Aircraft Company,
McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Corporation, Christian Pilots Association,
American Data Systems, Golden West Airlines, Pacific Air Academy,
PVT and Associates, Threshold Technologies, White Hawke Industries,
Baja Consultants, Equity Link Homes, Avion Graphics, Reolite Technologies,
Dabon Organic, Dutch Trading Company, International Equity Holdings,
Orion National Equity, West Coast Mortgage, Residential Resources
Financial Services, Sterling Cruise Lines, OralSafe, Fleet Equipment,
Webb Family Foundation, Aperon Technology, Precision Dynamics, Dr.
Walt Mouiser.”
Mercy Airlift has provided humanitarian
assistance to disaster sites in over 60 countries, transporting
millions of pounds of foods, medical services and supplies, reconstruction
supplies and equipment valued in the tens of millions of dollars.
“Through our corporate sponsors, partners,
individual supporters and volunteers, we have been able to source,
secure and replenish emergency supplies. These include food, medicine,
temporary and permanent housing, as well as reconstruction equipment,
educational and agricultural supplies.”
“The items and supplies are inventoried
and maintained in our warehouse facilities, where they are ready
to be quickly loaded aboard aircraft and transported to disaster
and recovery sites as required.”
“Mercy Airlift has one of the lowest
ratios of capital used for administrative services and fund raising
in the humanitarian community.”
“Through the generous support of our
partners from around the world, Mercy Airlift is able to provide
its life saving, disaster relief flights. No amount of support or
any size donation is too small ... every dollar donated saves lives."
www.mercyairlift.org.
e-mail: info@mercyairlift.org. Cell:562-208-2912.
Elsewhere the American Red Cross is
currently focusing its efforts on Malawi, one of the most severely
affected African countries, by providing food to 125,000 of the
most vulnerable in five hard-to-reach, remote districts while implementing
HIV/AIDS programs in prevention, home-based care and support to
orphans
Red Cross contact: 1-800-HELP NOW
or 1-800-257-7575 (Spanish). Donations can also be mailed to your
local Red Cross chapter or to the American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243,
Washington, DC 20013.
So maybe an antidote right now for
some of us feeling sorry for ourselves and our limping economies
and companies, is to look around at the rest of the world with an
eye toward easing other people’s burden.
That’s what Andy Pike, who was born
and raised to move air cargo, does every day.
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