Confessions of a Newly Licensed Dispatcher

[BeReal]

My dad has almost always been in the airline industry, so I grew up flying all over the world non-rev. I've never been afraid to fly...until last week. Now I think I know too much to be blissfully ignorant.

I got my DX license in October and last week was the first time I've flown since then. I was accompanying my mom to So. Cal. to celebrate her and her twin's 80th birthday. We left DAL at 6:00 a.m. and it didn't seem like we climbed to anything near FL300 for a very long time. I started to wonder why. What's wrong? When we flew past DFW I at least knew it couldn't be anything serious. Maybe we have an AC pack out and we're staying below 14,000 feet. I started to relax. I'm not sure what altitude we eventually got up to, but it just didn't look like/seem like anything like 30,000+ feet.

Then we hit turbulence. Up until now, I'd always thought turbulence was fun, kind of like riding a roller coaster. But since I'd been saturating myself with youtube videos of "Why Planes Crash" in the last few weeks, just to keep myself educated, I no longer considered turbulence "fun." After all, how many PIREPS are out there at 6:00 a.m.? The wings were dipping and bobbing, resulting in a roll of about 15 degrees up and down. Does this constitute an uncontrolled aircraft? Nah. But what if it gets worse?

It didn't help that I had an ominous feeling about this trip from the beginning. Thankfully, the turbulence subsided at about 1000 AGL and we landed at ABQ okay. But I knew when we flew out of there, we'd get the same treatment, which we did. Then all I had to look forward to was the descent in SAN over the parking structure. (I can't believe they only have one runway for larger aircraft in SAN!)

Long story short, except for some non-rev delays that were hard on my 80-year-old mother, we made it into SAN and back to DAL safe and sound. Lesson: Do NOT saturate yourself with "Why Planes Crash" video/audio/transcripts days before you fly. And...ignorance IS bliss.

 

[belgiumania]

Eh. If anything learning the ins and outs of this business and the conditions that planes are routinely dispatched in both in school and on the job makes me feel much more comfortable in planes. You start to realize just how tough these things really are. I used to think of aircraft as dainty little things that would break apart in turbulence or crash if just one little thing went wrong. Now I realize those things can take a pounding, lose multiple systems, etc. and keep on trucking.

And plane crash videos usually just make me angry. Most of them are avoidable mistakes on behalf of the crew, usually coupled with incompetent or non existent help from the ground, or technical issues which should never have been present in the first place and that have since been worked on.

 

[ljg]

You start to realize just how tough these things really are. I used to think of aircraft as dainty little things that would break apart in turbulence or crash if just one little thing went wrong. Now I realize those things can take a pounding, lose multiple systems, etc. and keep on trucking.

Which is not to say that you should dispatch and/or allow a flight to continue into conditions that scare pax and/or break planes/people/bags. Sound judgement is the only effective weapon against Mother Nature.

Interesting turbulence stories can also likely be dragged out of freight pilots of piston-twin aircraft and off of JC. To summarize what they may say: "At least my coffee didn't spill."

 

[BeReal]

Yeah, I had just told my mom about all the redundancy, training, CRM, A/C testing, how extremely a wing will bend, weather radar on board, blah, blah, blah. I feel stupid.