“Alright, Denver, here we come,” Mack said agreeably.
“So, on the takeoff—”
“I know, I know. A bit too quick raising the nose.”
“Maybe, but you reacted swiftly. I’m talking about your hand staying on the throttles when I called V1.”
“Yeah. It’s an old habit I still haven’t broken,” he sighed frustratedly.
“And why does our ops manual require it?”
“Because after V1 we’re committed to climb-out even if something goes wrong,” he correctly stated. “At my prior carrier, we got yelled at if we took our hand off the throttle until four hundred feet AGL.”
“Same with mine, so I’ll offer you the same suggestion a line check captain offered to help me break it.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“If you do it again during this sequence, I’ll break one of your fingers,” I said with just enough levity in my delivery that he’d know I was speaking metaphorically.
“Oh, that went dark fast!” he laughed.
We completed the last of the cruise-climb checklist which ended with a review of the remaining segments of the flight.
“We got lucky with that clearance,” he observed when he saw the ETA on the FMC indicated earlier than scheduled.
“I’ll send an ACARS message to dispatch to see if we need to slow down. We don’t want to idle on the ramp waiting for a gate in Denver.”
After receiving an affirmative response from a company dispatcher, I initiated some casual conversation.
“So, Mack, answer the obligatories,” I suggested. Every pilot knew the meaning.
“A little over four thousand hours total time, about two thousand in 737s with the company.”
“What’d you fly before?”
“I earned most of my time before my ATP in Beach 1900s doing cargo runs.”
“Oh? Nice! Where?”
“In the Caribbean. Other than being grounded during hurricane season a few times per year, I hopped various islands from Barbados to Puerto Rico and back.”
“That’s rough,” I groaned sarcastically. “I spent almost six hundred hours in 1900s. I’d give my eye teeth to fly one again.”
“Seriously? No way. Huh-uh. I’d never go back.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I love flying the big iron. But there was something about the 1900 that brings back fond memories. I remember a flight I was operating between Des Moines and Urbana. Iowa to Illinois. None of the planes in that fleet had autopilots. I was in clouds during the entire cruise. Stratus, not cumulus, and the air was so smooth I couldn’t tell we were even moving. I swear, even though I obviously heard the engines running at cruise torque, it felt like I was chocked on a ramp somewhere. Every few minutes, I’d nudge the yoke just to feel any form of motion. It was just deliriously smooth. It was almost a religious experience.”
“Sounds like a good time.”
“Okay, this might be a little personal, but is Mack your true given name?”
He laughed.
“I get asked that all the time. My real name is Franklin, but, somehow, that never stuck. The only time anyone ever addressed me as Franklin was if my parents were angry with me or classmates that teased me when they heard my name on the roster on the first days of school.”
Our conversation was easygoing, which wasn’t always to be expected. In an airline with over three thousand pilots, split almost evenly between captains and first officers, the odds of a crew being paired together multiple times are fairly slim. Other than being paired with a familiar line check pilot for training or recertification, it hadn’t happened to me in more than a year.
Sometimes crews meld well, sometimes they don’t. I’d put three captains on my Do Not Pair list during my time as an FO. One was a misogynistic prick who later wound up being terminated because of his behavior. Rumor had it that, on his final flight, he called one of the FAs a particularly vulgar name. The story was that her name was Connie, but he thought he was being funny when he replaced the o with a u. The second was a lady who ranted the entire flight about politics, and the third being one who soured when I pointed out he’d selected the wrong approach plate on his electronic flight bag. I considered the latter the most egregious because advising of a significant oversight is expected of a first officer to improve safety of flight, and if he couldn’t handle such a minor reminder, I didn’t want to fly with him again.
The man sitting to my right was a personable fellow. Our airline was very careful to avoid green-on-green crew assignments, the term for pairing a low-time FO with a new captain. While I had thousands more hours total time in the 737 than he, his experience as a first officer was far greater than mine as a captain, which meant I could be assured he knew his job well and could count on him if things got dicey.
Our approach into Denver was uneventful, and Mack’s landing was just a tad bumpy. Considering the surface crosswinds, it was certainly good for par. I taxied our passengers to the gate, and the front door was opened only three minutes behind schedule.
The shutdown checklists were completed, and the marshal signaled we were secured.
“Nice flight, Mack,” I said, offering him a fist-bump which he returned.
“We’re in mountain time now, right?”
“Yeah. 1300 on the dot, and our pushback is at 1340.”
“I’ll go do the walk around, then see if the attendants need help prepping.”
“Okay. I’m going to jump out to the terminal and see if I can find a salad or a grab-and-go lunch if anything looks good. Can I get you anything?” I asked.
“If you can find one, a peach Snapple would be great. Otherwise, a Mountain Dew?”
“You bet. I’ll be back in ten,” I said, climbing out of my seat.
I followed the last of the passengers out onto the jet bridge, went to a convenience shop where I found a selection of salads on display in a refrigerated case. I selected a grilled chicken Caesar and two Snapples. Returning to the gate, I printed the flight information for our departure to DFW. I was back on board in ten minutes. Mack detached the sheet from the stack which held the flight plan and began punching everything into the FMC just as I had earlier that morning.
While he was occupied with that task, I removed my yellow highlighter from my headset bag and reviewed the NOTAMs, weather info, and all the tons of data that typically added no value at all but was an FAA mandated overload. I then briefed Mack with the relevant information.
The ramp agent came to the flight deck with final weights and fuel quantities. We were also advised that some US Mail pallets were being held up by a broken down tug, and they were still trying to get the cart to the plane with an estimate of fifteen minutes.
“Dagnabit,” I muttered then nodded my understanding to the agent.
“What’s wrong?” Mack asked.
“Push delayed fifteen minutes. There’s a mail cart behind a dead cargo tug. We have to wait for it.”
“Crap. Told ya. You jinxed us.”
I nodded. “I’ll let you make the PA.”
“Good afternoon, all. We’re going to be here at the gate for about another fifteen minutes. Neither rain, nor snow, nor dead of night shall keep the mail from moving, but apparently a broken down cargo tug will. Yeah, we’re waiting on the good ol’ U.S. mail, folks, then we’ll get underway. Captain Grant and I will do our absolute best to get you to Dallas as quickly and safely as we can.”