Cockpit Confessions of an Airline Pilot

to trust and relationship is hard, if not impossible.

Careening through my twenties and thirties, I tried different careers, jumping from accounting to importing, to money laundering, “muling” millions of other peoples dollars and diamonds all over the Orient. Back in the States, I sold used cars by day, taught at Jones Business College at night, and took a stab at producing a Hemingway play on Broadway… I should have taken a stab at the three Hemingway sons, and their lawyers, instead.

The idea of flying an airplane, actually piloting a plane, had never occurred to me.

Sheamus Businesses

“Hey Rabbi, I’m selling some of the original party napkins from Jesus’ Bar Mitzvah.”

“Oh God” I think, “this is going to be an interesting month.” I haven’t flown with Captain Sheamus O’ Conner for a couple of months.

“Hey, Sheamus, I wonder what became of the Rabbi who performed the circumcision on the little baby Jesus… that child-god must have been pissed.”

Sheamus is a twisted, big-hearted schemer, and a great pilot.

We have completed our pre-flight duties on the 747, loaded the INS’s, and have time to catch each other up a bit. Our plane is still about forty minutes from pushback at the Tower Air gate at JFK, still being loaded with “Chassid” bound for Tel Aviv.

Sheamus is busting to fill me in on some of his latest businesses.

“I’ve developed a line of designer condoms. We’ve got paisley, plaids and stripes. I’m calling the company Sergio Preventos.

“Sounds great, Sheamus, sounds like a wiener.”

Now at altitude, already “coasted out” over Gander, our next radio call isn’t due until 50 west. We have our VHF radios set to monitor “guard” on 121.5, “air-to-air” on 131.8, and the HF’s are tuned to receive any “selcalls.” All of this means that we are now established on tonight’s “Natrack” over the North Atlantic, and have forty minutes free to chat, as our eyes automatically monitor the nav and engine instruments.

Wayne Denze, our PFE (professional flight engineer) is still busy with his engine readings, fuel calculations, and paper work.

“Rabbi, you must know why the Israeli’s don’t have a space program? I’ve figured it out… No Kosher food in space. So, I’m working on ‘the Kosher Kosmos,’ I figure its a great niche market. I can cater Kosher food into space, sell it to the Jews, maybe get some start-up capital out of Morris Nachtomi.”

“Can’t miss, Sheamus, D’Conner’s Kosher Kosmos… has a certain Semitic ring to it.”

Sheamus is a large man, always on yo-yo diets, now he’s bigger than ever. “Brucie,” suffering from extreme cock-in-mouth disease, is working the upper deck tonight, and he’s just entered the cockpit with our coffee.

“Brucie, did I tell you Fm working on a new weight-reduction business?”

No shit, Sheamus, what ever happened to your Scratch and Sniff diet business?”

“Shit, I had to fire my de-frocked perfume chemist! No, no, this one’s much better. I’ve got a door-to-door lipo-suction truck. I haven’t come up with a name yet, but were thinkin’ We Suck, Inc.'

Bruce has already finished his first service in the back, he’s got some time and some advise.. “You know, you’ve got to be thin to make it in the gay world, so between that name, which I love, and the thin-is-in gay community, you should start your immediate sucking in San Francisco, really.”

“Hell no” offers Sheamus, “We’re gonna build up a quick customer base following the Dominos Pizza delivery trucks all over New York City.”

Wayne, who has finished his fuel calculations, has tuned in to this conversation. “Hey, Sheamus, I got an idea that’ll definitely improve your profits.”

“What’s that, Wayne?”

Wayne, forever the bigot, “why don’t you back-haul the truckloads of sucked-out fat, sell the lipids to the World Health Organization in

Geneva, and they can use your famous O’Connor Lipo-Pump” to squirt a dose of fat into all those skinny niggers, you know, the real skinny ones on them food lines over in Africa… give ‘em a coat of fat for the winter.”

“You can call the sales end of the bid’ness ‘Sharing The Fat of The Land’,” I add.

Brucie has had enough, and quickly turns on his heels and flees the fight deck as Wayne continues, “yeah, you can make money on both the sucking and the pumping… probably get a Nobel Peace Prize out of it, too.” Sheamus turns towards his fight bag and makes some quick notes.

Wayne says “we all know why dogs lick their balls, right? Because they can…. but do you know why lions lick their assholes?”

“No, why?”

To get the taste of the niggers out of their mouths!”

“Holy shit, Wayne,” I say, “give it up… you don’t say shit like that in front of ‘N1’ and ‘N2,’ do you?”

“Sure I do… they know they’re niggers!”

On our aircraft, N1 and N2 are gauges for engine rotation speeds. At our Company, Tower Air, with only two black pilots, these are our “nignames” for our two gents of color. Most pilot’s don’t really give two shits about race, religion, or such. Pilot’s are loved, or truly hated, based only on competency. “Shit-hot” guys are loved… “weak-dick” pilots are detested.

“Wayne” I ask, “why don’t you start calling them Canadians, like everyone else does?”

Sheamus asks me “What’s with this Canadian shit that everyone is spouting?”

“Sheamus,” I say, “the L.A.P.D. uses Canadians on their radio calls now, to avoid being accused of racism. Everybody loved it, that’s all we call them now.”

The INS alert light comes on, were approaching 50 west, and we all go back to work.

“Gander, Tower Air three-one, position on 8736.”

“Go ahead with your position report, Tower Air three-one.”

“Tower Air three-one checks 48 north by 50 west, at time 0431, flight level 350, mach decimal 84. Estimating 50 north, 40 west, 0512, next 50 north, 30 west. Fuel remaining, 110.4, go ahead.”

Gander reads back our position report, its correctly repeated, and we are free again for another forty minutes.

“Sheamus, what happened to that Guam business of yours, Nippers with Flippers, did you sell it?”

“Yeah, I had to when we stopped going to Guam a lot, and I was doing great with it, I sold it to that Air Mike guy, you know.”

“The Continental Air Mike guy with the Beef Jerky Business?”

“Yeah, that’s the guy, the ‘Redwing’ shoe distributor for Guam and Saipan.”

When Sheamus and I worked for Continental Air-Mike, before Tower Air, we would check into the Hilton on Tumon Bay for a week. Then fly day or night turns, between Guam-Saipan and Narita or Nagoya.

Guam and Saipan are only three hours from Japan, tropical Marianna islands. A flood of Japanese escape their bitter winters, vacationing on Guam’s Tumon Bay, now more built up with hotels than Waikiki. Tumon Bay, a once beautiful crescent of beach, with great snorkeling reefs and beautiful fish, is now polluted by the effluents of the Hilton and the Pacific Star hotels. Most of the signs and billboards are written exclusively in Japanese.

While the rest of us would lounge at the Tree Bar pool, drinking beer and trying to get lucky with some young, giggling Japanese secretary on vacation, Sheamus came up with “Nippers with Flippers.”

Sheamus brought in hundreds of pairs of flippers, and snorkel masks from Hawaii. He worked out some rental arrangement with the pool-boys at some of the larger hotels, naming his business “Nippers with Flippers.”