Sunrise, Sunset for FLYING: To Everything, There Is a Season

My high school journalism teacher told me not to bury the lede, so I won’t: This will be my final Taking Wing column in FLYING. 

Now, now. Sheathe those pitchforks and snuff those torches, good citizens, for the magazine leadership has nothing to do with this. My editors assure me that if they had their druthers, I would scribble on ’til the ink pot slipped from my ancient, withered fingers. 

The decision to retire these pages at a somewhat earlier date is mine alone, though admittedly made under some duress. 

This Article First Appeared in FLYING Magazine

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Most readers will recall that my real job—the one that pays the bills, whilst my literary endeavors primarily feed the ego—is playing Boeing 737 captain for a major U.S. airline. It’s a good job—a great one, even—that I like very much. It pays quite well. I generally work 12 or 13 days a month. I am senior enough to largely pick my routes and layovers. I enjoy the company of my coworkers. Most days the work is pleasant and easy. I am trusted with hundreds of lives and millions of dollars in equipment on a daily basis and largely left to my own devices. Until recently, I imagined that the chief pilot’s office was blissfully unaware of my existence. 

A few months ago, I finished a four-day trip and was commuting home on the ferry across Puget Sound when my phone rang. I answered and was surprised to be hailed by “Bruce” (not his real name), a regional chief pilot at my airline—my boss’ boss, a guy you normally only talk to if you’ve messed up badly. My first thought was that I had somehow damaged the airplane on landing in Seattle, but the call turned out to be completely unrelated to my recent flight duties.

Rather, it concerned one of my latest columns in FLYING. 

I had written, in rather glowing terms, about a vendor-supplied piece of software used by my airline (and others) to present and analyze de-identified flight recorder data. I consider this a material advance in flight safety, albeit one not widely known among the larger pilot population, and was excited to share it with our readership. The idea that the vendor in question might take umbrage to what was, in effect, free advertising, never crossed my mind. But it did and complained to my employer, whom I’ve never publicly named but neither have I taken pains to disguise.

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In fairness to Bruce, he was very pleasant on the phone, complimented my writing, and didn’t seem to quite get the beef either. But in the course of “providing guidance,” he made several gentle suggestions that, while they didn’t quite rise to the level of commands, carried more than a hint of steel. The first was that I henceforth vet my columns with our legal and communications departments. The second was that I file a conflict-of-interest form with HR. 

Back in 2014, as a probationary new hire at my airline (and only in my second year as a FLYING columnist), a union rep had suggested I inform my new employer about my writing side gig and run my articles past them. I considered it at length, and ultimately decided against it. I had little interest in ceding control of my words to my employer. Better to not write at all.

Outside of the cockpit, I’m a fairly risk-tolerant individual. At the tender age of 10 or 11 I jumped off a cliff into terrifying dark water 50 or 60 feet below, survived, and was immediately rewarded with the admiration of several cute older girls. I’ve been jumping off cliffs ever since, so to speak, usually with similarly gratifying results. 

One of my rules of life, aviation, and everything is that “it’s better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.” Thus, in 2014 I chose to keep writing without bothering the airline about it, declining to ask permission in favor of begging forgiveness if and when the time came. Twelve years later, that time has come, and now I’ve used up my forgiveness card. 

Still, I’m ornery enough and feel secure enough in my position that I was briefly tempted to scorn Bruce’s advice. I could use the wiggle room afforded by the fact that he never gave a direct command, be a little more judicious about what I write, and perhaps reduce the airline content in favor of GA or more early career stories. If the airline still took exception, I could rely on the protection of our powerful pilot union or, worst case, fight disciplinary action in court. 

But the reality is that I had already been considering my evolution as a writer, and the future of this column, for some months. Taking Wing was always a young man’s column, concerned with the struggles and discoveries of youth, first written while I was still a regional airline pilot in my early 30s. It recounted my tumultuous early career and charted the winding paths taken by me and various friends in the difficult decade following 9/11, then followed us to new heights as major airline new hires, wide-eyed innocents abroad in widebody jets for the first time, and freshly minted junior captains. 

That chapter of my life is now closed. The charms and difficulties of youth have faded as I’ve steadily settled into a comfortable, prosperous, and secure middle age. My working life has but one more lofty summit to reach, that of a widebody international captain, in a few years time—and then I will be truly out of touch with the newest generation of working pilots. 

Already, I commiserate with those who recently completed commercial flight training only to find themselves in a labor glut and a fiercely competitive job market. But my world is largely divorced from theirs, and I have little useful advice to offer. The struggles and discoveries of youth are theirs now, and while I certainly see parallels with my own career, the poignancy must be lost on those too young to even remember 9/11. 

Perhaps you sensed this dawning realization in my September column, “The Grind.” A number of you commented on it. That piece would serve well as my swan song, yet I wrote it shortly before the fateful phone call. I had already felt the changing of the season.

Here’s another one of my rules of life, aviation, and everything: “There are great gigs in aviation, but they never last forever. While they endure, enjoy the hell out of them. But when they’re over, don’t cling to them, don’t mourn. Move on and find your next great gig.”

To everything there is a season. All life is a cycle. With change comes growth and renewal. 

Organizations and publications, too, have seasons. Perhaps a final factor that helped my decision was acknowledging FLYING Magazine has evolved greatly from the one I started writing for in 2012. The retirement of my good friend Dick Karl, in particular, felt like the end of an era. Change itself is no reason to leave, but it makes leaving easier. There’s less emotional attachment involved. I’ve decided that this is the right season to make way for newer, younger voices. It’s time to let go. 

I’ve been writing longer than I’ve been flying, and I can’t imagine life without either. My evolution as a pilot has taken place alongside my development as a writer, and it is important to me to continue to advance in each field. My interests outside of aviation are wide, and adventures by land and sea form a rich vein of potential freelance work. The big challenge I want to take on, however, is to finally write that book (or two) that I’ve had rattling around in my brain for the past couple decades. I finally have the stories, self-discipline, and writing chops to do it justice.

It’s been an incredible honor to write for the “world’s most widely read aviation magazine,” the literary home of Len Morgan, Ernest Gann, and Gordon Baxter. Through these pages, over the past 14 years I’ve met many amazing people and even made lifelong friends, and have done many more interesting things in aviation than I would have otherwise.

Thank you for taking the time to peruse my scribblings every month, and occasionally scribbling something back. It’s been a pleasure. Goodbye for now, friends. I’ll be seeing you—up there, somewhere.

This column first appeared in the January Issue 966 of the FLYING print edition.