R.I.P. Morning Light/ Pan Am 103

It’s a cloudy October day in 2007. The last few days of a wonderful vacation. We went to London, then back to Manchester to pick up a rental car. A week in Wales, then up to Scotland for another week.

On the drive back from the Loch Ness area, I took and exit off the motorway, June gave me a quick glance, but said nothing. She knew that this would be a very private moment for me.

So I took the Vauxhall up a hill above the little town. Finding the field near a stone church in Tundergarth, Scotland. The grove of trees is a little taller, and a small flock of sheep wander the hillside now, but there was “The Spot”.

27 years ago the Clipper Morning Light was the Pan Am 747, that my mother and I rode to London from Seattle, on my first, and what would as it turns out be her only trip to England. A big beautiful plane, that made it’s way transporting people the world over.

Fast forward eight years, and a great deal of tension in the world. I had taken a job in the airline support business, gotten married. My mothers health was failing, to the point that another trip to England is out of the question. Still have to thank the Department of Defense for that. It seems mother was an unlisted casualty of the cold war.

The 21st of December 1988, I was taking the day off, it being our wedding anniversary. The news was slow picking up the story, for a few hours there was some confusion, but by that evening the image of the fallen cockpit with “Maid of the Seas” painted on the side was etched in my mind.
Years later while researching my first trip to England, I wondered what had ever happened to the “Morning Light”. A quick check with a Pan Am historical site found the entry (Morning Light renamed Maid of the Seas ).

Where I sit in Tundergarth, it’s quiet, and a few miles to the west Lockerbie has recovered. A few buildings are newer than their neighbors, having been built to replace the homes that were vaporised by the wing sections impact.

Little known is that a few people survived the fall, but died before help could reach them. It seems that the Captain” Jim MacQuarrie” was still trying to fly the 747 when the nose section struck the field next to the gray stone church.
Now I know that there are those that will point out, the Pan Am 103 was a target in a war of conflicting societies.

I come from a military family . My father an Air Force pilot, my mother served in the Air Force, my brother and myself both Air Force, my brother for a great many years more than I. In a real war mistakes happen, and innocent people are hurt. But when real men fight real wars, the targets are not third parties.

Giving your pregnant girlfriend a radio packed with explosive, and send her off on a passenger plane is the act of a coward, backed by a group of men unfit for a place in this world. I guess I just have a problem with people that think that I must follow their path or die.To quote the talk show host “Phil Hendri”. “When they strap bombs on their own children, you know there are no real men left in the Arab World”. Probably a gross overstatement but something to think about.

Anyway, I thought that that day in October 2007, with that visit to Lockerbie, I could put the Morning Light to rest. Maybe next trip….Maybe next time I’ll spend a little time, walk the field, and stand at “The Spot”. I’m not a religious person, but maybe this is something I need to do.

Goodby Northwest Orient

Well it looks like one more real airline joins the ranks of history. Heard on the radio today, that Delta has taken over Northwest. The combined airline will keep the Delta name and Northwest is gone.

A few of the greats : Flying Tigers, bought by Fed Ex. Western, bought by Delta. Hughes Air West, merged into Republic, then (I think) into Northwest. Got to check that. Of course TWA and my personal favorite Pan Am. All gone, replaced by airlines run from cubicles rather that the cockpit.

Still got to get to my rants on TWA 800, and Pan Am 103. As they say watch this space. I’ve got some thinking to do on both of these subjects. But believe me it will be interesting.

Pan Am 103 is more a personal story, we all pretty much know what happend there. TWA 800, well I don’t go with any theory about what happened, I do know what didn’t, and I know that we we’re “told untruths” by officials.

OK stop. Before I get started on that, I’ve got some thinking to do.

Back to the original rant. We could really use an airline cut from the old form. Eastern, TWA, Pan Am, Northwest, Western. I’ve worked with these people and these where airlines that where run by people that liked flying, and took some pride in what they where doing. To many of the Mega Airlines are made up of groups of people, just there for the job. This is OK most of the time, but when things get demanding, (weather, equipment falure, etc) , well then you want real AIRLINE PEOPLE running things. Beyond Alaska Air, and Horizon, and some overseas airlines, British Air, BMI, I don’t see much in the way of real airlines any more. Might not seem like a big deal, but I don’t want a bean counter making decisions about aircraft maintenance.

Books in a landfill

Quick post here. Have started hauling used books from Goodwill, to book dealers. One of these Goodwill warehouses was dumping the overstock, until a few months ago. They had more than their stores could handle, and about 80,000 pounds of books a month where going to the landfill.

Kind of feel good about this work. We are moving two loads a month, about 43,000 pounds each load. And they have a chance at finding new homes. Just dosen’t seem right to toss good reading material in a dump.  As my oldest daughter, Avrila says, “That’s just wrong!”.
There’s still more than the book sellers can take, so were going to start buying the extra ourselves, and take a shot at sorting and selling them. Probably E-Bay to start with, but June is interested in starting a used book store, in our town. As it turns out there’s no book store around here. This might just work.

Horizon Air , A ramp workers veiw.

Sometime after I began working for Lockeed in Portland, Oregon, a little airline “Horizon Air” started up. They showed up in Portland with a half dozen used Fairchild F-27s. These where small twin turboprop, regional planes. The fleet gave the impression of being very tired.

One whole gate, next to Western Airlines, and so it began. I remember during those first few months, two of their gate, ramp personnel were trying to reposition the overnight plane at the gate. At that time Horizon didn’t own a bag tug, much less an aircraft tug. A couple of us sat across the ramp having just parked an Eastern 727 back at the gate, and watched the show. Towing an aircraft is not as easy as it looks, and these two where finding out how many ways the job can be done wrong. After a while, I drove our aircraft tug over, and offered to park the plane for them. This one would be on the house.

Since those days, Horizon has managed to find a slot in the Northwest, and fit themselves into it quite nicely. Haven’t ridden on their jets, but a recent trip took me to Missoula , Montana. The trip, to pick my truck up from a shop, would have taken two of us two days and a lot of gas in whatever car we drove out there. The flight, or rather two flights, seemed the best way to get there.

The flight to Seattle a little less than an hour was on one of the smaller Bombardier Q 200s, about the size of the old Fairchild F-27s. Short flight, but the solo attendant , did bring coffee around. The Q 200 is somewhat quieter than the F27 that it replaces.

Then from Seattle to Missoula, about 2 hours, I rode on a Q 400. The larger version of the Q200, or so it seems. About 70 seats for the Q400, the Q200 being in the 40 range. I might be mistaken , but I think the 400 is a little louder than the 200. There seemed to be a drumming in the longer fuselage, still a nice ride, and with the bigger plane you get two flight attendants, and unlike some big airlines (UNITED) they bring around coffee, wine, beer (quite a good micro brew), some snacks, and unlike the big airline, they don’t charge you for them.

I know that in the early days, I wondered at time how long Horizon would be around. I’d seen a couple airlines come and go Air Oregon, and Pacific Express come to mind.

Someone remind me to tell the Pacific Express story one of these days, we’re all lucky they when out off business before they killed someone.

Anyway back to Horizon. They have found their niche, and seem to fit it well. Being under the “wing” of Alaska Airlines can’t hurt. A lot of people take Horizon to Seattle or Portland, then jump to Alaska Air to go on their way.

I wish them the best, they have worked for it.

Expedia may have lost a customer

I’ve bought a lot of tickets through Expedia.com. We see if that happens again. Got a round rip to Manchester, England for my oldest daughter. Was in a bit of a hurry and ticked the wrong return trip. Instead of a direct from Manchester to Chicago, then on to Phoenix, she will be going to London, then Chicago.

I realised the mistake within minutes, but there was not way to correct the problem on line. An E-Mail to Expedia returned a stock answer, from the computer. The next day a short phone call, resulted in a less personal touch than I’d gotten from the computer.

Today a couple of e-mails back and forth resulted in nothing but frustration. Mind you this is a 5 month advance purchase, and could be fixed. I was in the airline business for 18 years, and I know what can be done. This is simply a case of somebody not wanting to pick up a phone. This was ticket number 10 in a two year span, seven of them to the U.K. It seems like after nearly $7,000 in ticket purchases with Expedia, they could have fixed the one problem I’ve had.
I guess it’s not the end of the world that Avrila will have to spend 11 hours at Heathrow, but the other trip would have been quicker for her and cheaper for the airline.

Having said all that. BMI (British Midland) is a great airline, super service, nice people. I’ll continue to use their service. As I have the last two years.

Manchester is a great airport to enter the U.K. at. For much of England, Scotland, and Wales, Manchester is more centrally located. There’s a train station at the airport, and your a short train ride to Manchester Picadilly, the main train station for Manchester. From there you can catch a train pretty much anywhere in the U.K.

I’ll be going again, but probably book through BMI direct.

I know that the saying “The customers always right” isn’t really true, but, “The customer is Always the customer.”

And I thought I’d seen cold weather.

So easy job, just take some paint to Edmunton, Alberta.

Get from Portland to Pasco Washington, roads are so slippery that the last 20 miles to Pasco, we pass at least 6 SUVs off the road. Got into Pasco and decided that’s it, and stopped for the night .

Next day running into Spokane the roads where like washboards. In Idaho the roads where better, covered with snow, but at least smooth.

Up in Alberta, temps got down to -35F that for those of you in most of the world, is COLD. You dont dare shut your truck off, when it’s that cold, and that means you run through a lot of fuel. That’s also cold enough that all the diesel trucks look like steam engines while their running down the freeway. Long trails for steam hanging in the air from each stack.

Also the fuel wants to gel at those temps. Had to ad a gallon of winter additive, just to keep it running. Next time we’ll have some sort of emergency heater along. If occured to me that when it’s that cold, a breakdown could kill you.