Salon :: Tech & Business

Ask the pilot: From cockpit check to walkaround to stocking the galley: The Zen of preparing the "Monster" to fly

From the van at 4 a.m. I catch sight of the Monster, its ink-dark silhouette looming in the Zavantem mist. "Monster" is my affectionate nickname for the Douglas DC-8. Or not so affectionately, really, as I assume the lumbering hulk of metal is destined, one way or the other, to kill me. Sure, it's my first jet. And sure, it's big. But it's also ancient. The real <a href="http://dir.salon.com/topics/airlines/">airlines</a> gave up flying these things nearly two decades ago, and the cockpit looks like something from a World War II Soviet submarine. In a lot of ways, I'm reminded of the first <a href="http://dir.salon.com/topics/airplanes/">airplane</a> I was ever paid to fly -- the twin-engine Beech-99. The scale is off by a factor of 50, but the technophilic pilot inside me -- it's in there somewhere -- finds the antique ship embarrassing. Hell, the DC-7, its immediate and piston-powered predecessor, had a rudder covered not with aluminum or high-tech composite but with fabric. <P>Most pilots can, even for an international run, get the DC-8 ready in less than an hour. I stretch it to a meditative 90 minutes. To me there is, or there should be, something Zen about preflight procedures. <p>...</p><img src="http://feeds.salon.com/~r/salon/tech/~4/263678046" height="1" width="1"/>

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