Word: pilote
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...PILOTS. The men who occupy the left?or captain's ?seat of jet airliners operated by the world's major carriers are without question superb flyers. They have risen to the top of their profession through a system designed to weed out the incompetent. In the U.S., typically, the captain of a 747 is in his mid-50s, and has been flying for 30 years or longer. He may have joined his airline in his early 30s and served as a co-pilot for seven years or more before making captain...
Every six months the pilot must pass a demanding FAA physical, and every year the company also looks him over. His job is one of the few in which advancing age is considered an asset, for it means he has been in charge of a jet for a reassuring length of time. A 747 captain often has 20,000 or more hours of flight experience. He flies no more than 65 to 70 hours a month and is paid as much as $100,000 a year. It is safe to say that few people riding behind him in the passenger...
Despite all of these precautions, pilots do occasionally crack up airplanes, and one of the main reasons?a reason that concerns the FAA deeply?is simply that they let their minds wander. In a term of the trade, cockpit discipline breaks down. One chilling example of this occurred on Sept. 11, 1974, when an Eastern DC-9, on a landing approach, hit the ground near Charlotte, N.C. While descending, the pilot?as the flight recorder later showed?chatted amiably about racial integration, Richard Nixon's pardon and the merits of Japanese cars. The pilot and 71 others died...
...From the moment he asks permission to nose his jet away from the ramp, the pilot?however silvery his hair and steady his hand?must work in close partnership with an individual who is usually a decade or two his junior and may be as outwardly nervous as the pilot is calm. As a group, air controllers are intense and self-confident men (their ranks include few women) who are polished professionals. Day after day, unheard by the passengers riding in the sky, controllers spot pilots who have strayed into trouble and direct them to safety. A disaster could occur...
Precise communication becomes vitally important. To reduce the risk of misunderstanding between tower and cockpit, a controller is forbidden to tell a pilot to "hold for takeoff." The mere mention of "takeoff" could trigger a response in the mind of the pilot and cause him to throw the throttles open prematurely. The correct command: "Taxi into position and hold...