A Last Flight

On October 24, 2004, Captain Mitch Michelson landed a Boeing 747-400 for the last time.
The flight from Frankfurt was the culmination of a 32 year airline career with Air Canada.
Mitch is shown with his crew, including his First Officer and twelve Flight Attendants.

This picture was taken after the passengers had deplaned on arrival in Montreal.
The crew made certain that 'the captain' would not leave before visiting the 'J' section.
It was there that I was made to sit down in the center armchair while the mechanic
gave me the aircraft logbook to hold. Everyone gathered round for the picture.

The trip actually originated from Montreal two days earlier, flying all night to Frankfurt, Germany.
Typically, when airline crews depart Montreal for an all-night overseas flight, many pilots make
a point of stopping at Moe's, the airport restaurant, for their famous Montreal smoked meat.

Ayman is the Maître d' at Moe's, and does a fine job of expediting orders for crews.
The old red phone booth serves as the dessert cabinet, but Ayman tells diners that they
have to stand inside that phone booth while they eat their dessert. What a guy!

Well, this is a picture of flying across the ocean in the middle of the night. Just blackness. Sorry.

Crossing the Dutch coast. I zoomed the lens for a better photo. This sight has always intrigued me,
and I can only surmize that what we see is acres of greenhouses in Holland. Notice the intensity of
the yellow lights, compared to the relatively dimmer lights of the town near the top of the photo.

In the clear, sunrise at 37,000 feet is usually spectacular, no matter how often we witness it, and
happens more quickly on eastbound flights, because the 747 is flying to 'meet the sun'. Its blinding
corona, which we call "the welder's arc", will suddenly appear as a bright spot on the red horizon.

After our arrival in Frankfurt, I took this picture through the window beside the loading bridge.
The fuel tender wastes no time and is already plugged in beneath the wing which spans high over
the truck's cab. The engine nacelle has a 9 ft. intake diameter, wider than the 7ft fuel truck. Also,
the yellow cargo unloader has been elevated to the open cargo door aft of the wing. Note the size
of the huge cargo door, compared to the passenger door beside it.

Overseas flights are always tough, and although crews are typically tired on arrival, we still want
to resist sleeping the entire day, in order to be able to get in a full night's sleep before flying home.
After only three or four hours zzzz, we wander out of the hotel to find one of the watering holes.

Mainz, Germany is a lovely little city. It was originally a Roman town, and the meandering streets
are definite proof of that. It is by far-and-away the easiest place in which to get lost, guaranteed.
Above is one of the main 'shopping streets' where there are very few vehicles. The white brickwork
is mixed with a few quartz or acrylic stones that are lighted from beneath; quite a sight after dark.

In front of a local theatre, the walk is embedded with brass plaques, inlaid with 'signature' stars.

This is the Bistro, which is adjoined to the River Hilton. Although our hotel was the City Hilton
we walked down to the River Hilton to meet other crewmembers. Many airlines have crews there.
Nick, the guy in the 'old man' shirt, is also an Air Canada 747 captain, who has chosen to retire.
BTW, I only had coffee. :-))

I asked Nick to take a picture of me for posterity. In case you didn't notice Nick's impish face in the
previous pic, I'll let you in on a little secret: Nick is a practical joker. I was attempting to point to a
feature on the camera, and wham! Gales of laughter. I almost spilled my coffee. We tolerate him :-)

Nick finally got serious and decided that a two-for-one picture would save film (digital camera). :-)

On the way back to our hotel, the cobblestone walk inlaid with lights is pretty at night.

Mainz has an ultra-modern trolley system, as do many places in Europe. I am often amazed at the
apparent fearless confidence with which folks of either gender walk around the city of Mainz late
at night, which may be a bold testament to the influence of its many large Christian churches.

On overseas flights, mornings always seems to come too early. This is the front of the Mainz
City Hilton. In actual fact, the nasty phone rang at 1:10 AM Toronto time, or 11:10 PM in Sk.
Eeeewwww. I think we suffer from chronic sleep deprivation. :-))
Crews can get a complimentary coffee before shuffling out to load their bags on the bus.

Early or not, a night's rest does wonders, and even enables us to smile at dawn. This is it,
the start of the last leg of the cycle, and indeed, the start of my last flight with the airline.
Fin #341, a Boeing 747-400 'combi' aircraft (partial freighter) sits waiting in the background.

Now, in case you don't exactly know just how high a 747 is, then check this out. I'm over six
feet tall, and if you'll notice the amount of fuselage above my head, you'll note that the first
row of windows is still out of view. That is because the top of the fuselage is 33 feet above
the pavement... or about two-and-a-half times the height of this particular pic. BTW, a good
captain will always look at his plane before takeoff. I can't be a good pilot, 'cause I'm looking
at the stupid camera instead of the airplane. Notice the tow-bar attached for the pushback.

The 747-400 interior is divine. I decided to walk through her and photograph the calm decor.
This is the 'J' class section in the nose, and is the only "Business Class" on the main deck, but
J-class fills the entire 747 upper deck. J-class has replaced First Class which fell out of favor.

Behind the nose section, is an Economy section, the stairs, 3 galleys, and washrooms. Down
this aisle at the rear, is a door that leads to the the main deck cargo section of the 'Combi'.

The B747's fuselage is enormous. The Combi's cargo section on the main deck occupies about
one quarter of the main deck floor area. It can easily carry automobiles and/or livestock or
even entire jet engines on skids. This picture shows horses, with a jet engine ahead of them.
Notice the immense space above the horse cubicle. The Combi is able to transport very large
items, as the cargo loading door is huge, to say the least. Air Canada hauls a lot of air cargo.
One F/A is assigned to monitor the cargo area, and periodically enters to check for evidence
of smoke or fumes. We like to call that person "the hottie".

Time to get to the Flight Deck and do some work. I always loved the 747-400 stairway
leading to the upper deck. The Flight Deck and the other J-class seats are up there.

This is a shot of the 747 Upper Deck and the J-class seats, taken from the Flight Deck doorway.
The 747-400's Upper Deck is much different than the earlier 747s, which had a spiral stairs and
a small-ish upper deck area. The 747-400 Upper Deck 'J' seats are coveted by many travellers.

And here is my front office. This is where "the business gets done". The boxes with green text are
navigation computers. Stored in them is every useable airport in the world, including all the data
for all of their runways. In the past, aircraft had a myriad of instruments. The Boeing 747-400 has
cathode ray tubes (CRTs, screens) which now show pictures of instruments. There are still 3 old-
style 'standby' instruments on the panel: the stby horizon, stby airspeed and the stby altimeter,
which are positioned one above the other, just over the left navigation computer (green text).

People often ask: "How do you line up the plane at the terminal?" Looking out the windshield,
this is what I see - our 'secret sign' bolted onto the terminal wall just above the big windows.

Positioned in front of the captain's seat visible near the left border of this photo, is a green
indicator light called AGNIS, to guide the 747 straight in ... but as I get closer, I monitor the
board to our right, called PAPA. It is an second indicator which the captain uses to assist in
judging when to stop the arriving aircraft. Using both AGNIS and PAPA, this is how it works.

A white vertical reference bar sits a few feet behind the board and can be seen through the
gap between the upper and lower halves of the sign. Since the PAPA board lies off to my right
at an angle, the visual parallax will give the impression of the white rear reference bar moving
from right to left as the 747 taxies closer, all the while driving straight in, watching the AGNIS.

When the Captain sees the rear bar align with the correct paint line on the board... he stops.

Shown is the AGNIS light and PAPA board for gate B-42 in Frankfurt. The Captain that taxied
the Boeing 747 into the gate that morning obviously did a beautiful job, as the 'behinder bar'
aligns with the B747 line painted on the board (at lower left) and both AGNIS lights are green.

And I always wanted to ask Frankfurt why the derelict old Sikorsky was on the roof. Too late.

This picture was taken by my F/O, Bruce Olson, just before we were ready to start the engines.
We had just spent the best part of a hour tapping the navigation computers, entering nav data.
Now we were ready to go to Montreal, just as soon as all the cargo and passengers were aboard.

The 'pushback tractor' rolls us backwards from the terminal bridge while we start all four of
the 747s jet engines. The tractor aligns us on the taxiway. I set the brakes, and it unhooks.
We plan to taxi for runway 18, which will be straight ahead... no confusing turns today. The
name of the taxiway is "November" (N) and an "N" may be seen painted near the yellow line.
The rule is always "Follow the yellow brick road" with the nose, to give the wings clearance.

Here is a photo of our sister ship, Fin# 343, in Frankfurt on another day. We would appear much like
this as we began our taxi westward on the Frankfurt taxiway named 'November'. This lovely picture
would have been taken from the terminal bldg, looking south toward Runways 25L & 25R, courtesy
of Airliners.net. Frankfurt has airport administrative buildings between the taxiway and the runway,
and we are usually perched on the edges of our seats as we keep a sharp lookout for skitterish little
ramp vehicles dashing across the taxiways. Having said that, Frankfurt ground control is excellent.

This is always a favorite scene of mine: a dawn reflection of my 747 as we taxi past the Lufthansa
office building with their mirrored window wall. The moving image of a Boeing 747-400 is 'striking'.

This photograph is courtesy of Airliners.net, showing Fin# 341 bringing up her wheels after takeoff
from Frankfurt's Rwy 18, just about to punch through some low cloud in the early morning sunlight.

In the clear. The departure route off of Runway 18 requires a turn very soon after the wheels are
up. Both the leading-edge flaps/slats and the trailing-edge flaps can be clearly seen still configured
at the takeoff setting of 10 degrees. The prompt turn to the north is a good thing, because Rwy 18
points to the south, that is to 180 degrees magnetic, and we like to minimize any flight time going in
a divergent direction to reduce our costs. Again, this awesome pic is the courtesy of Airliners.net.

Our first cruising altitude over Belgium is 32,000 ft, a low altitude, because we are heavy with fuel.
Over Britain, we plan on climbing to 34,000 ft as we become lighter. This high altitude photo is the
courtesy of Airliners.net, and shows how we might appear while the passengers enjoy breakfast.

Departures out of Europe are busy, busy, busy... but here we are, finally in cruise and able to now
order hot coffee from the Upper Deck Galley. We are above the cloud, which can be seen, with the
clear blue sky above it. The morning sun is behind us as we head oceanic for Canada at 36,000 ft.

I once wrote a poem, to describe this scene. Here's the relative stanza:

"...then high up in the atmosphere,
he rides above the gray.
Each time the pilot goes to work,
he has a sunny day."

Half the enjoyment about ordering coffee, is not the coffee, per se,
but the visitors, because ever since that sad Sept. day, the flight deck
has been a fortress. Actually, Jo and I have known each other for years,
and she gave me two nice bottles of champagne as a retirement gift.

I'm sorry I didn't get a picture of Louise, the lady working in the Upper Deck Galley,
who kept checking in on the interphone to see if we needed food or beverages.
The flight attendants working the Upper Deck were all so pleasant and cordial,
and gave us royal treatment during the entire flight. We even got calls from below
asking if we needed anything. It is such a pleasure to work with an attentive crew.

Here is my fine First Officer, Bruce Olson, just an excellent right-hand man.
Although Bruce shows a bit of gray, he still displays a lot of spark.
The lady is Jacqueline, our In-Charge Flight Attendant.
She is a lovely person whom I have known for years.

Although the Atlantic Ocean is an immense space, there's usually company.
Oceanic flights normally follow published 'tracks', which lie 60 N. miles apart.
This plane ahead of us was two thousand feet lower in altitude. The air aloft
is relatively moist this day, as the aircraft are 'conning', i.e. making contrails.

Despite its bulbous profile, the Boeing 747-400 is 'the fastest airliner on this planet'.
Mach 1 is equivalent to the speed of sound. Jets quote speed as a Mach percentage.
Others jetliners fly in the range of Mach .80 to .84 (80%-84% of the speed of sound)
but the B747-400 performs well at Mach .86 ...its normal cruise range being between
Mach .84 to Mach .90. The maxiumum allowed speed of the 747-400 is Mach .92 (M.92)
and many of the flights on the B747-400 have been flown at M.88 when I want to pick
up some time. With such good performance, we will often pass other commercial jets.

This charter fellow from Birmingham, England, was only one thousand feet below us.

Landfall. Here is the big 747's Navigation screen, which is virtually a 'moving map'.
There are no lakes or roads on it, but only essential data such as useable airports.
The nose of our 747 is depicted as the tip of the triangle, which remains stationary, and
all the objects scroll from top to bottom. We have just passed Goose Bay, Labrador (CYYR),
and near the top of the screen is "Ombre", a navigation point just northeast of Montreal.

For those who know their airports, Montreal is unmistakable, with the Oratory in the background.
Although I no longer live here, I did begin my career with Air Canada at Montreal's Dorval airport in
1972, so it does seem appropriate that my last landing should be there as well. The 747 is at about
a hundred feet in altitude. I start to move the throttles back to idle at approximately fifty feet up,
and at somewhere around thirty-five feet, I gently raise the nose to stop the descent... and land.
The Boeing 747-400 is just a dream to fly, and with eighteen wheels, it makes a gentle touchdown.

On the ground. This flight was one of the smoothest of my entire career, and we didn't require the
seatbelt sign at all during the trip. We rolled up to the terminal only one minute over the published
arrival time, which is awesome when one considers the many variables to contend with during the
span of a seven and a half hour flight. Sadly, these regal aircraft have now been sold and changed
to all-cargo ships. It is my opinion that the Boeing 747-400 will always be 'The Queen of the Skies'.

After the first group picture, the crew presented me with the flight plan folder that we acquired
in Frankfurt. It had been autographed by the crewmembers, and contained a copy of the flight
plan we had just flown. The crew had also purchased a lovely bottle of Ice Wine from the onboard
Duty-Free, and presented it with explicit instructions that I enjoy it in the presence of my bride.
Earlier, the First Officer had given me a lovely large print of a rebuilt Messerschmitt 262 in flight,
courtesy of Rolf Boehm, the maintenance man I've chatted with in Frankfurt for so many years.
I never expected that the crew would go to such length to make the flight a special one for me.

I recognize now that I was perhaps expected to make a kind of speech, but a lump in my throat
sort of stopped that. On the way off the plane, I patted the 747 on the door, and said goodbye,
. . . forever.

Members of my crew

First Officer Bruce Olson
I/C F/A Jacqueline Couturier
F/A Chantal Marenger
F/A Louise Arsenault
F/A Jocelyne Benoit
F/A Louise Gauthier
F/A Nathalie Attias
F/A Anita Brummer
F/A Louise Demers
F/A Jacques Côté
F/A France Labrie
F/A Louise Mikula
F/A Jo Diakiw

A great big "thank you/mercie beaucoup" to each one of them,
for turning my final airline flight into such a memorable occasion.