| BE911SC |
11-03-2014 09:19 AM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by GH85Carrera
(Post 8336452)
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(Captain E.L. Sloniger flew for American Airlines in the 1930s and was #1 on their pilot seniority list. Ernest K. Gann was also a professional pilot, flew with Sloniger, and later in his career wrote several excellent aviation books including Island in the Sky and The High and the Mighty.)
The following is taken from a short story by E.K. Gann, Old Number One, published in his book, Ernest K. Gann’s Flying Circus.
“Slonnie was incapable of snobbisim, nor did he subscribe to the prevalent airline-pilot hauteur as a standard for his own estimation of other flying men. I have heard him lament, with full complement of rueful gestures, ‘Hell … that man will never learn to fly!’ Often enough he was referring to a ten- or fifteen-thousand-hour airline veteran, and when I stopped to consider the addressees of Slonnie’s invective I could only agree. The typical man he scorned was indeed a pilot, a rough and mechanically thinking driver totally preoccupied with the pay and seniority aspects of his job. Such a man could tell you instantly his bidding prowess according to seniority, the pay details of every run on the system, the exact date of his retirement and all the emoluments to be received thereof; but the runways all along his route were dented with his landings and his most elemental maneuvers were erratic and uncertain.”
In simpler terms, that is a h e l l of a lot of tire smoke coming out from under that MD-11.
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