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"We are the protagonists of our stories called life, and there is no limit to how high we can fly."


PHD. MBA. MHS. Type rated on A350, A330, B777, B747-400, B747-200, B757, B767, B737, B727. International Airline Pilot / Author / Speaker. Dedicated to giving the gift of wings to anyone following their dreams. Supporting Aviation Safety through training, writing, and inspiration. Fighting for Aviation Safety and Airline Employee Advocacy. Safety Culture and SMS change agent.

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

First Non-Stop

17 hour 15 minute flight 


Touched down at 0510 am 
March 25th
Between Perth West Australia 
and London Heathrow

"The flight by the state airline, was more noticeable for two points, the original flight took 12 days, then 1947 took only 4 days and till now, flights had stop overs in Singapore or Dubai.



It is also a record breaker for Seattle based manufacturer, BOEING, for it is the longest ever flight conducted by a B787 family member, 9000,5 miles.

On board the flight, was 16 crew including 4 pilots, one of which was and who flew initial leg of flight, Capt Lisa Norman (Qantas of their pilots, 6 % are women).


The 787 burned 110,000 liters of fuel 20% less than a similar aircraft upon route. QF9 will depart tonight 9.30pm UK time to return back to Perth, Qantas has taken a decade to reach this milestone analyzing wind and weather patterns.

The next chapter is to fly Melbourne and Sydney to London non stop using a 787 and similarly out of same Australian hubs to New York."


Enjoy the Journey!
XO Karlene 

Monday, March 26, 2018

CRM & Aviation

You Are Invited! 


“Crew Resource Management (CRM)”

Episode 357
EAL Radio Show Broadcast- 
March 26, 2018

7 pm Eastern time


Join the Eastern Airline Guest Hosts, who are experts and experienced in this very essential Key, relate the importance of CRM to getting the aircraft safely to and from their destinations.

Learn how airlines meet the regulatory requirements of FAA, or EASA, Air Ops, and other regulatory bodies worldwide as they ensure that every flight crew member are trained proficiently in techniques that are key to effective CRM. Safety for the passengers, crew and the aircraft is Number one! A typical Crew Resource Management Syllabus may include a syllabus or whatever the airline organization requires.

Eastern Airlines Radio Show ♦ 
The Radio Voice Of Eastern Airlines


Call the EAL Radio Show 
Talk Number: 213-816-1611


Captain Neal Holland ♦ Jim Hart ♦ Captain George Jehn ♦ Bill Joseph
Chuck Allbright ♦ Dorothy Gagnon, Host & Webmaster ♦ Don Gagnon 
♦ Linda Fuller ♦ Captain Jim Holder ♦ K. Allen Boring



Enjoy the Journey!
XO Karlene 

Friday, March 23, 2018

Women In Aviation 2018

Connect! Engage! Inspire!


If you are at the 
Women in Aviation Conference
Join Andrea and myself 
for our talk on
Writing!

Friday, March 23
3:00 to 4:00 


Then the Party begins! 

The Last Slide of our presentation will
provide the room number for our 
book signing cocktail party.

We hope you can join us!  


Hope to see you there! 

Enjoy the Journey!
XO Karlene

Thursday, March 22, 2018

ATC & Aviation Safety

Helping to Make a Better System!

My friend, Prashant Kulshreshtha, is working on bettering communications between pilots and Air Traffic Control. He has a 2-minute survey. I took it, and was the easies thing I did all day. Perhaps the most important too. 


"On a busy airport, Pilots and ATC communicate on VHF Radio telephony only for seconds. Even in this short span of time, both are life crucial for each other. Mostly, both pilots and ATCs are unaware of each other’s pressure, procedures and limitations in detail. Hence this gap in the understanding may lead to unnecessary arguments, RT congestion, increase in stress and compromise with air safety. Human factors issues related to interpersonal communication have been implicated in approximately more than 70% of all accidents. Therefore, pilots and controllers should interact socially and professionally on regular intervals to develop bonding between each other. This will improve the work environment and performance level of both pilots and ATCs. Kindly share your opinion by filling a short survey. Your experience is really important for the fraternity"



To Learn More about what Prashant is doing,

Enjoy the Journey!
XO Karlene 


Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Vintage Women in Aviation

Women fly! They walk on Wings! 
They do amazing things! 

An amazing woman in honor of Women in Aviation Week. Reno Nevada this week. Join me!

Gladys Ingalls 1924
Without a Parachute 

Mid air repair... 

"Gladys Ingalls was a member of a barnstorming troupe called the 13 Black Cats in the 1920's. Ingles was a wing walker. In this film, she shows her fearlessness in classic barnstorming fashion to save an airplane that has lost one of its main landing gear wheels. Ingalls is shown with a replacement wheel being strapped to her back and then off she goes as "Up She Goes," a duet from the era, provides the soundtrack."


She died at 82. 


Tuesday, March 20, 2018

AUTOMATION

And Aviation Safety 

Captain Jim Wright sends me the most interesting articles. He was a harbor ship captain, and continues in training, learning and discussions on automation challenges in his world. However, they are similar in ours too. Captain Wright was a Friday Flyer in 2014, where you can read more about the man behind the words. Today he sent me an interesting email. Enjoy the great read, as there is much to think about. 

Captain Jim Wright


"I just read the recent well done CAMM articles by Capt. Lloyd, Father Oubre and Capt. Cartner -- regarding autonomous ships and “shipmastering”. From a harbor pilot’s perspective, these articles seem to be posing the question, “What is the intended effect of automation on shiphandling and the ship’s Master?”

At one extreme you could say that automation is intended to replace all traces of human endeavor. At the other extreme you could say that automation will eventually prove too expensive and eventually unreliable. 

Maybe we’re missing the point here. The point being that the success of human endeavor over past centuries has been a function of the satisfaction derived from personal achievement. The question then becomes, if the satisfaction realized by hands-on shiphandling is replaced by “artificial intelligence”, what will be the effect on human endeavor going forward?

Pursuit of an answer might lead to the airline industry where Gen-X and ultimately pilotless passenger aircraft seems to be a goal. Let’s look at some examples. Although “Miracle on the Hudson” caught substantial public attention, other passenger jets have made successful water or off-airport landings without power due to the pilots’ hand-flying skills. And then a fully functional 777 crashed on the airport apparently due to lack of hand-flying skills. 

Something to consider. Currently there are quite a few older shipmasters and pilots who are proficient in traditional shiphandling skills to include anchor dredging and docking without tugs or thruster assist. This group is going to be depleted through attrition, taking those skills with them. The common response is that automation eliminates the need for preserving these skills. Defense Exhibit 1 might be “Garuda Indonesia (737-300) Flight 421’s water landing with no engines, no assistance, no electronic guidance and no hydraulic or electrical power.” Without hand-flying skills, 59 souls most likely would not have survived." Captain Jim Wright. 

Can we afford to have our pilots
lose their flying skills and 
depend solely on automation? 


Enjoy the Journey!
XOX Karlene 


Monday, March 19, 2018

Trump Shuttle!

A Part of History

Calling All Eastern and 
Trump Shuttle Employees
EAL Radio Show Broadcast
Episode 357 -
 March 19, 2018

“Eastern/Trump Shuttle”



Our next EAL Radio Show on March 19, 2018, Episode 357 is “The Eastern/Trump Shuttle” or the name as it was originally known as when it began April 30, 1961 was the “Eastern Air Lines Shuttle”. This flight originated out of New York City, Boston, Washington, D.C. and Newark. The shuttle's slogan if you remember was “Imagine Life Without Us”. We are calling Shuttle employees to join us on the broadcast, so please send us your name and telephone number to: host@EALRadioShow.com.

The specialty of this Eastern Air Shuttle was:
  • Reservations were not required ahead of time
  • Passengers just showed up at the terminal
  • Airline tickets were bought on board from Flight Attendant
  • Missed Flight – no problem another Shuttle was in an hour
  • Different location, no problem hourly Shuttle Flights were in each of these cities.

Listen to how and why this money making Shuttle that fulfilled the needs of travel for many business people ended for Eastern. How on October 1988, the Eastern Air Shuttle's ground rights were ended and 17 aircraft were sold to Donald Trump and the beginning of the Trump Shuttle. Discover that the dream of traveling any time without reservations to these destinations still exists and what carrier has the routes now.

Call in to share your experience of flying on it; or enlighten us as to how it was to work any of those routes and share more memories with us on March 19, 2018. 


Call-in number is 
at 7:00 P. M. EDT 
or listen in by clicking the hyperlink:

Enjoy the Journey!
XOX Karlene 

Saturday, March 17, 2018

Happy St. Patrick's Day


Enjoy the Journey!
XO Karlene 

Friday, March 16, 2018

Characters in Aviation

Friday's Fabulous Flyer
MIKE JARRELL
Mike Jarrell is a 48 year old former race pilot and current league caretaker for Central City Jet Racing League. Mike’s duties as a caretaker include delivering breakfast to race pilots at their dorms Monday to Friday, fueling, inspecting, and maintaining planes, as well as maintaining the facilities at the league airfield (changing light bulbs, washing floors, and oiling door hinges). 
Mike has spent the majority of his life in Texas, but is living at Central City Jet Racing League’s airfield during the NJRA season. At one time, Mike raced with the Dallas Jet Racing League, but his flying career came to an end when deploying a faulty ejection seat left him with lifelong pain. Mike walks with a slight limp as a result of his injuries.
After recovering from the ejection incident, Mike was offered the opportunity to stay in the NJRA in a non-flying position. He decided to become a league caretaker because of his love for planes and jet racing, giving him a chance to be involved, despite being unable to fly. 
Mike is a Southern Baptist and maintains strong religious conservative views. He disapproves of Jay’scrossdressing and Irene’s homosexuality, albeit less openly in the case of Irene. He still treats Irene with respect because she gives good back massages. 



Jet Racer is coming soon!
And it it were to be a movie, 
Michael C. Hall (photo above) 
would make a perfect Mike Jarrell. 

Enjoy the journey!
XO Karlene


Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Photos Needed

To Promote Aviation Safety

"Successful people are always looking for 
opportunities to help others. 
Unsuccessful people are always asking, 
'What's in it for me?'"
Brian Tracy

Last week Rachel Carson from an Airbus Company NAVBLUE, a flight operations and air traffic management solutions provider, contacted me regarding the aerial photo of KSAN I posted on my blog: San Diego



Rachel was inquiring about the use of the above photo for their charts to aid pilot orientation during operations at special pilot-in-command qualified aerodromes. Of course they could have it. In the interest of education, learning and safety, I had no problem sharing this with them. 

They need more photos!  

If anyone has photos of the following airport arrivals 
that you are willing to provide for a good cause, 
Please contact Rachel at 


United States 

KGUC Gunnison
KBUR Burbank
KDRO Durango
KFLG Flagstaff
KONT Ontario
KRNO Reno

Mexico:

MMGL Guadalajara
MMLT Loreto


Enjoy the Journey!
XO Karlene


Tuesday, March 13, 2018

The Plane that Don Built

Part of a Historic Debate

 Don Gagnon

"What A Thrill Building A Model Of The 
Historic Wright Brothers’ Airplane" 

Don Gagnon is one of the hosts each Monday night on the Eastern Airlines Broadcast. He also built an incredible plane and wrote about it. Don, continues to celebrate his love aviation whether building planes or discussing aviation topics. You can chat with him each Monday night on a live broadcast by calling 213-816-1611 at 7 pm Eastern time. Don wrote today's article and I am privileged to share it. 

Don Gagnon: 

"Much controversy has been discussed over time, as to who was the first in manned flight. According to Brazilian history, aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont was the first individual to ever successfully pilot an airplane. Even before the Wright Brothers! He flew a kite-like contraption with boxy wings called the “14-Bis” some 722 feet outside the city of Paris, France and then was hailed as the inventor of the first airplane all over Europe.

It was only later that the secretive Orville and Wilbur Wright flight that proved they had beaten Dumont at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina three years earlier on December 17, 1903. The conditions on that morning were prefect for flight-high; constant winds blowing from the North. At about 10:30 A.M. that morning, Orville lay down on the plane’s wing surface and brought the engine to life in preparation of launching it and himself into history.

Orville Wright piloted the first powered airplane 20 feet above a windswept beach in North Carolina. The flight lasted 12 seconds and covered 120 feet. Three more flights were made that day. The Wright 4 Cylinder Engine weighed 170 pounds, including the radiator, water and 1.5 gallons of gasoline. They also developed their own propeller which was 8.13 feet, and was 66% efficient. 

The wing span was 40 feet 4 inches, length 21 feet, and height 8 feet tall. The total weight of the machine was 605 pounds. The estimated speed of that flight was approximately 31 MPH. That mid-morning flight, December 17, 1903 at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, was the start of an awesome era, a powered flight as we know it that was the beginning of flying. The Wright brothers (Orville & Wilbur) flew for the first time in history; a gas powered manned flying machine. 

When I assembled this model airplane, my memory immediately reflected on my 35 years in the airline business (30-year tenure at Eastern Airlines, and 5 years more at American Trans Air).

Looking back today at this phenomenon that happened 115 years later, we marvel at how far the industry has come, not to mention the millions of jobs created worldwide. The Wright brothers were groundbreakers, record-setters, and history-makers of what led to our future today; unmanned airplanes and helicopters; driverless autos; no steering bicycles…all powered without a person handling the controls inside. Awesome!

I can only close by saying, “Thank you, Orville & Wilbur.”