Lessons Learned: The World’s Most Reluctant Flight Engineer

As a student pilot long ago, I concealed my particular weakness, one shared still today by more than a handful of pilots. Every time my former Air Force flight instructor, an epitome of fighter pilot cool, sent me up solo to practice accelerated and full stalls, well, let's just say I found less adrenaline-fueled maneuvers to keep busy aloft.

Our sporty Grumman American TR2 trainer's exterior was all bright faux military colors, but the interior's canopied cockpit was plastered with SPINS PROHIBITED stickers. And you can bet all those warnings dampened any confidence for practicing stalls. Alone. In an airplane that seemed doomed for peril in the uncoordinated grip of a student pilot's inadvertent spin.

Thankfully, after getting licensed and transitioning into the comforting hardware of spin-certified airplanes, any residual stall anxiety dissipated. Incremental degrees of mastery removed the mystery. Soon, I was off to an aviation university as a CFI, teaching spins left and right, to new students wrestling their own jitters.

After four years, college graduation beckoned.

Have you ever been captivated by the powerful vision of a behemoth NASA Saturn rocket, after the candle's been lit, flexing on the launch pad, billowing clouds of exhaust rumbling as the massive structure strains for blastoff? For what seems an eternity, enormous lock-down arms hold the missile bolted to the ground, delaying release just a few seconds longer, confirming all systems are go for the glorious liftoff. That was me, as a last semester college senior: bucking to launch.

And the person bankrolling my endeavor, the same one who wouldn't fly with me, my mom, couldn't have been more pleased to finally retire the checkbook.

But four years of procrastination had escalated a new problem to red alert: the mandatory flight engineer prep course. It was down to the wire. Unlike the solo stall practice of student pilot days, I didn't see the flight engineer class through a lens of apprehension as much as loathing. The electrical and hydraulic systems minutiae, the performance charts and mind-numbing calculations---it all seemed tediously overwhelming and, frankly, unnecessary. I was a pilot. In the confident ignorance that only a 21-year-old commands, "Why did I need to learn that crap?"

I might have missed the crack of thunder from on high, but at that precise moment I know a chorus of ancient sky gods reclined on nimbus thrones, and with steepled fingers and devious smirks delivered a bemused, "We shall see about that!" as future penance for my flight engineer disdain.

Adding to the pain, I already shouldered a whopping 24-credit course load, the school's maximum, of classes foolishly delayed while up spinning around, until the very last semester. The actual FAA written exams weren't required, so I put in the minimum effort, no more. Besides, why would any pilot waste time at a gig referred to as "wrenching"? Nah, I wanted a ticket to the show, a front-window seat on a jet, not a panel jockey sitting sideways. Only the "wrench" had to grasp all those tiresome systems and performance details. Pilots? We were big-picture thinkers.

Luckily, my grade point average sustained the blow of the barely passing flight engineer class grade. And, eventually, with 3,000 hours under my belt, an airline interview came, but with it the return of my nemesis. The job pre-required passing both FAA Flight Engineer written exams. Maybe the jig was up and I should actually consider studying? No way. Now it was personal.

Why spend weeks cramming what I should have learned in college? Instead, I indignantly circled every damn answer in the thick books and wasted those same weeks memorizing each A, B, C or D. If the FAA exams were in the identical order as the prep guide, I was golden. And they were. I scored a lucky 98 on the Basic exam and a miraculous 100 on the Advanced---off pure memorization. Of course, I still knew absolutely nothing about how to perform the duties of flight engineer. In my continuing self-delusion, I imagined an opportunity to bypass the lowly sideways seat would soon manifest in the form of a B737, or maybe a DC-9, or even a shiny new B757.

Nope. It was the three-crew Boeing 727. The fates had conspired. You can't imagine just how grueling an intense two-week airline systems ground school is when you're the only one who arrives already miles behind. Once we advanced into the full-motion simulators, I realized how wrong I had been. The flight engineer was an integral part of the crew. We did all of the flight's paperwork by hand and managed every system, from electrical busses to balancing thousands of pounds of fuel. Instead of boring, it was fascinating. And a stunning revelation: In the event of a potentially dire emergency, say, two engines on fire at night down to IFR minimums, it was all up to the choreography of the engineer to make sure the pilots had enough juice to their instruments to maintain control.

In the midst of seat-of-your-pants simulator sessions, the one thing instructors repeatedly say is that, in the real world, most of this stuff is probably never going to happen. Probably.

It was a freezing February dawn on an icy ramp at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport as I hustled through the B727 exterior walk-around. The jet arrived late out of maintenance. My throat was scratchy and sore, but I couldn't miss this roundtrip to Reno because for the first time---ever---my mom would be onboard. A scan of the maintenance log inferred the jet had unresolved oil pressure light issues. To ratchet up the tension further, an ornery FAA inspector grabbed the jumpseat for a surprise line inspection, barking questions at me like a junkyard dog.

I'd been a flight engineer for a grand total of six weeks.

Cold ambient temperatures gave our three mighty Pratt & Whitney engines a peppy boost during the takeoff roll---so much so that the pilots barely noticed when, seconds after liftoff, the number-two engine let loose a bearing and suffered a catastrophic failure.

The copilot tapped the oil pressure light, now illuminated bright red. "Hey, this light's on again." It was an honest mistake. The jet had been in maintenance all night. It lost so much oil overboard on the previous flight that the crew made an unscheduled pit stop in Denver. The big engine was coming apart, but nobody grounded it.

My panel lit up. In training, instructors said that if a generator also comes offline, it's an engine failure. I leaned forward so that the FAA inspector wouldn't hear me, his presence more of a concern than the emergency at hand. I put my lips right up to the copilot's ear and whispered, "It's the real deal!"

From that moment, the flurry was on. An emergency was declared. We ran checklists. A fire handle was pulled. Someone notified the flight attendants who confirmed the explosion. The captain yelled, "Dump fuel!" as I scrambled to calculate new landing weights and approach numbers. Reaching for the tiny dump panel on the back cockpit wall---and the dump valves they said one in a million we'd ever use---I commenced dumping 8,000 pounds of kerosene over the good people of suburban Minneapolis.

After the captain's textbook approach and landing, our now two-engine jet pulled off the runway and rolled to a stop. I kicked open the cockpit door to face 180 passengers. Could have heard a tissue drop.

"Sorry, Mom," my voice rasped, "short flight," and 179 passengers broke into relieved laughter. My mother offered a nod, in typical deadpan understatement.

So, did finally working to overcome a long-held bugaboo pay off? As a matter of fact, it did. Being forced into the flight engineer seat was one of the best things that could have happened to me. I got to help my crew safely execute an emergency, right under an inspector's critical eye, and experience real teamwork, something I'd so often, and so easily, dismissed.

As pleasure-seeking creatures, we learn to avoid discomfort, and after a while, the "it" we're trying to avoid becomes a "thing"---I'm not good at math, can't carry a tune, got two left feet, can't be a flight engineer. For some, it's the anxiety of using the radio in busy airspace or tackling instrument flying. Automation has spawned a breed of pilots who are over-reliant on electronic gizmos and can't hand-fly in a pinch. Maybe it's braving howling crosswinds or the darkness that keeps reluctant night flyers grounded. And we have a generation of young pilots who've never looked under the hood of an automobile, much less an airplane.

A few months later, I was summoned to the Chief Pilot's office. He pointed to a towering stack of  DC-10 performance and systems manuals.

"You're moving me to the heavy jet? Already? Wow!"

"Yes," he said, stifling a smile, "as Flight Engineer." I looked skyward, and on cue, the rumble of thunder boomed.

If self-doubts keep you in procrastination mode, remember that whether you just soloed or just soloed your 1,000th student, you're a pilot. By definition, that means you're up for a challenge. The results will surprise you; they might even save you. The gods have a mirthful sense of humor when it comes to making sure every pilot someday meets their secret challenge, the one they've been quietly bargaining with fate to avoid. And, just to hammer their point home, they might come back for seconds.

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