Stephen Keshner - Cockpit Confessions of an Airline Pilot

The day came that I finally soloed, and my heart was in my mouth. Alone, I was flying alone…what a feeling, initial niggling fear immediately washed away by a flood of freedom. After I landed (I never wanted to come back down), all these wonderful young pilots took part in the post-solo ceremony. Using a pair of office shears, they cut off the back of my shirt, the traditional “clipping of the wings” in aviation. They all signed and dated my torn shirt-back, and presented it to me, along with a Polaroid of the occasion.

After catching up his accounting mess with Maxie’s help, at Will’s request I created a “Rembrandt,” which enabled Deals to con the purchase of a flight school on Jekyll Island, Ga., as well as the avgas concession. I was now very popular with Mr. Deals, his wife Nancy, and all the flight staff. That popularity was not to last long…what have you done for me lately?

Mr. Deals fired me after only a few months on the job. I discovered that Will was cheating his lease-back owners. Creating phony maintenance invoices, he was charging them for parts and repairs that their aircraft never received. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind deceiving institutions, banks or insurance companies, but these owners were people we all knew and liked. I was fired a few days after confronting him with the evidence of his fraud. “There must be some mistake Keshy, I’ll look into it.” Two days later, I was let go with the explanation that I was now superfluous.

I was no longer an attractive female bookkeeper, receiving free flying lessons. Now I had a real problem…addicted to flying, an expensive pursuit, I’m unemployed, broke, and another of my marriages is coming apart.

During the months as Keshy the bookkeeper, I’d ingratiated myself to all the flight staff. Straightening out their payroll problems, doing their personal income tax returns for free, even getting many of them a pile of money back from prior years’ mis-filings.

Most importantly for these foreign flight instructors, I was good at finding them “husbands” or “wives” to marry, dealing with their Petitions for Permanent Residency, and going with them to their meetings with the Immigration Department. These sham-marriages allowed them to stay and to work in the United States.

By this time, my four-year marriage to Ilsa had come apart. Her inability to tell the truth about anything, significant or not, overcame my positive feelings for her warm affection and intelligence. I didn’t love her anymore.

On the road again, I’m on my own again. Another failed marriage, no career, no savings, no credit…now how do I afford flying?

I moved in with Captain “0” and Stig Brandvik, “Stigo.” Suddenly, my flying problems were solved. Oystein and his buddies were all working two jobs. They were flight instructing during the day, and flying night freight jobs in twin engine Navajos and Aerostars. Always exhausted, they would take me along these nights to do the actual flying, while they slept in the seat nest to me. These guys were multi-engine flight instructors. So they were getting paid to sleep, and I was flying twin engine, complex airplanes, logging lots of hours, and I was doing them a favor. They were also signing my log book, the record of hours I needed toward my ratings…okay!

My days were spent begging, borrowing, and stealing flying time…. anything to build flying hours towards these ratings. Eventually, I had enough hours logged to test for my licenses: private pilot, instrument rating, commercial, multi-engine and flight instructor. After accumulating fifteen hundred hours, I was allowed to take, and able to pass my Airline Transport Pilot (ATP) check-ride. I could now legally fly for pay…I had arrived.

Two years had gone by quickly and eventfully. Geri Banion, a good, loving friend I had known for years, did me the favor of falling in love with me, as I had with her. Between Geri’s full time job for the Hamilton Collection, my flight instructing days, and my pizza delivery nights, we were able to afford an apartment together. Marriage seemed like the logical next best step.

Flying for the “Majors” is every pilot’s Holy Grail. For me, it’s pursuit required equal measures of dedication and starvation. Until about twenty years ago, all major airline pilots were hired almost exclusively from the military. Nowadays, FLAPS (Fucking Little Airplane Pilots) make up more than half the total pilot pool of all airlines.

The traditional route up-the-ladder for the FLAP begins with flight instructing, followed by flying night freight in ragged-out equipment, and if you survive, then jobs with the commuters. All this for the express purpose of building turbine time (jet multi-engine hours). 1500 hours lead to the ATP rating, and after a few thousand hours with a commuter, and with persistence and luck, perhaps an interview with a major airline.

Stigo Brandvik and I were broke as always, yet we were excited. We landed our first flying job for, Trans-Air, a Commuter Airline out of Fort Lauderdale. We would not be paid for the first two weeks of ground school nor for flight training. We would only be put on the books after our check ride, when we would then be legally able to “fly the line.” That meant no money for almost six weeks from the time we hitched our ride down to Lauderdale.

Always broke, Stigo and I slept in our clothes in the Alamo Rent-a-car lounge, off the field. Early every morning, we would take the Alamo shuttle bus to the airport, head over to the General Aviation side of the field, and shower in any maintenance locker room we found open. Then we’d sneak through the charter planes parked in the hangars, scrounging for leftover sandwiches, or some half-eaten anything not yet thrown away. Nowadays, that’s called “dumpster-diving” by street-people.

Somehow, we survived the training and the six weeks of starvation, until thrillingly, we received our first paychecks, at our co-pilot rate of $6.00 per flying hour, we could earn a maximum of $600 a month… heaven.

Oystein was still Flight Instructing during the day, and flying bags of bank checks or food stamps at night. Now, without me to spell him at the controls, exhaustion was taking it’s toll. Coming back to Jacksonville from Charlotte, he fell asleep at the controls. He was out over the Atlantic Ocean, nearing Andros Island, when the screams of the Air Traffic Controller in his headset finally woke him up. Luckily, Oystein made it back with enough fuel to land at Ft. Lauderdale Airport.

There are any number of fatalities a year caused by single-pilot exhaustion, someone falling asleep at the controls while the airplane, properly trimmed, just keeps flying along until it runs out of fuel.

Not long after this incident, Oystein was deported… seems that he fell for Jekyll Annie Thomas, whose short shorts inspired many an aviator to fly into Jekyll Island for her specialized fuel pumping. Oystein, who was already married to a cooperative young lady for immigration purposes, was inspired enough by Annie’s pumping services to divorce the first one, and to marry Annie. Annie was trouble… suffice to say she arranged to have Oystein thrown out of the country, since she secretly wanted to live in Norway.

Oystein, our beloved Captain “0,” has last been seen driving cabbage trucks in Bergen, and is reputed to be smuggling a tightly controlled fish drug into Norway from Germany, flying in on fraudulently filed flight plans, listing Stigo’s name as the pilot.

I’m a brand new hire with Trans Air, a commuter feeder for Piedmont Airlines. I’m heading from my home in Jacksonville to my base, Fort Lauderdale. Following aviation protocol, I’ve “requested the jump seat” from the Gate Agent, who sends me to ask the permission of the Captain on this Eastern Airlines jet.