Here's
a different DVD in this long-running series of
jump-seat rides and walkrounds. We are taken inside
a bustling U.S. on-demand charter company. They
never know from day to day whether they'll be
flying car spares, a major part of the business,
horses, human organs or complete people. Most of
their flights are complete within six hours of the
customer's initial phone call .Their dispatchers
are FAA licensed to handle every aspect of a
flight. One dispatcher at the company 's Addison,
Texas, HQ explains the complex colourcoded planning
board showing crew (and their ratings), planes (and
their status), all masterminded from a white board
and magnetic labels! We are taken on a walkaround
of a Learjet 24, Falcon 20 and Boeing 737. Then we
get a briefing on the cockpits. The twelve flights
we take in the jump seat visit Addison, Detroit,
Pellston, St Louis, Denison, Sparta, Fulton,
Toledo, Cleveland and Grand Rapids. The company
operates over most of the Americas and in parts of
Europe. Everyone is totally professional, fast-
talking and is at pains to explain their work and
the aircraft to viewers, instructing the camera to
close in on a static drain for instance during a
walkaround. Once in flight, ATC sound is sometimes
drowned by cockpit noise, hey, this is realistic
folks, but all you 've ever heard about rapid U.S.
ATC will be confirmed. The close-ups of instruments
are sharp, and I can clearly read on an approach
plate being shown in the movie playing on another
part of my computer screen as I type this... wow,
that column is really being shifted around on the
glideslope down into Grand Rapids. If you think
flying is open-cockpits, green fields and summer
evenings, this may not suit you, but this is real
too, money-making flying as it happens
second-to-second across the pond.
Tony French - PILOT MAGAZINE |
