Observations aloft
May 19th, 2008, 1:19 pm · Post a Comment · posted by davis
Some observations while flying to San Antonio:
There’s no easy there from Seymour.
And early morning flight out of Louisville took me to St. Louis.
“Don’t get off there,” the Southwest attendant warned during check-in. “It’s just a 20-minute stop. Then you’ll go to Dallas and change planes.”
A similarly early flight out of Indianapolis with another airline would have included a brief stop in Chicago — isn’t that NORTH? — and a change of planes somewhere else.
—
When the Southwest attendant gave me the gate number, B17, I thought it was perhaps a good omen. It reminded me of Pop, who flew as a bellygunner aboard B-17s in the skies over Europe during World War II.
But then the attendant brought up the brief stop in St. Louis. Not a good thing, since I’ve had nothing but problems when flying in or out of Lambert.
During one approach for a layover, our plane was slowing down, lining up for landing and starting to drop from the sky. Then the jet engines roared. The plane jerked up and to the right.
“Sorry about that,” the pilot or some other crew member said. He then mentioned something about a “near-miss” with a military transport.
A near-miss? I realize the airline industry probably doesn’t like the word “collision,” that’s what “near-miss” means to this English major. Collision. Objects miss each other or they collide. You don’t nearly miss something. You miss it or you don’t.
But there was no such incident today.
—
I also noticed while driving to Louisville that truckers on Interstate 65 were going slower than normal, confirming a conversation that two friends shared at church Sunday.
Jerry, who had just returned from a trip to Tennessee, asked Kenny if truckers were driving slower. Kenny said that was case as they try to conserve high-priced diesel fuel and therefore their profits.
—
Breakfast offerings at airports are pretty slim, especially in the early morning hours.
—
Thanks for reading my blog, and thanks for logging on to TribTown.com.
