BEagle:

With the greatest respect I must point out that you appear to have missed the point and I feel this is because you have been spoiled.To get an understanding of what we are discussing why don't you duck across to the USA or come down to New Zealand or Australia and try your hand at crop spraying. Dust the sides of some mountains and spray a few fields of wheat and thus learn something about survival flying. It would help you appreciate the world of the airline pilot. Regards,

Prince of Dzun

Would love to! Real flying like that sounds a lot more fun than bus driving!

A well-respected avaition organisation has recently recognised that "The kudos, rewards and conditions in the airline industry are no longer sufficient to attract the best quality individuals to the profession".

Avman... I'm hearin yuh !:cool:

"It's time for a WORKERS REVOLUTION brothers!"

Amen Brother.

:ouch: :ouch: :ouch:

I can certainly identify with this. Anytime I watch "Catch Me if You Can," I cannot help but marvel and think that maybe I was born 30 years too late.

Here I am, at 30 years old having flown for the last 15. I went at it full tilt sparing no energy, enthusiasm or cash to get into this career line (including getting an aviation related Bachelor's degree from a prestigious university) and now . . . I promise myself that I will do all I can to disuade my daughter from being a pilot. But heck, then I only see her a couple of weeks every 3 months and my wife and I aren't even separated or divorced?

Yeah, there are great memories. Seen great sunrises and sunsets. Landing and being surrounded by banana trees, landing on desert mesas, seeing gorgeous glaciers from below mountain peak level, and others. I have travelled to many places.

But there are so many negatives. I've never managed to hold any aviation job for more than 2 years-- the industry is too unstable so the first thing I do when I start a new job is update my resume and send more of them out. I have rarely been able to make ends meet. I have met some of the bizarest personalities. There are those unwilling to advance you, despite competency and qualifications because they feel that you have not yet "paid your dues" enough. I also remember being invited for dinner by one boss-- expecting to be congratulated for all the hard work I had done for the company only to be the next victim of his paranoid witch hunt and told that I would be terminated (never mind that it was the day before my daughter had to go in for an operation). I have seen pension funds raided to keep a money loosing companies afloat. I have seen our suggestions been thrown by the wayside by management with the condescending attitude of "you don't see the big picture" while the Company loses mega bucks and then comes to the employees demanding "we must all pitch in by making sacrifices" (a.k.a. wage cuts).

Now I find myself in what could be a dream job, but in one novel I read someone explained to the protagonist that "there is no paradise on earth, something must always be imperfect otherwise nobody would want to go to heaven."

I am making good money now (something I have never been accustomed too, hence our single compact 12-year old car). I am also flying very rarely and being treated and fed fairly decently. But here too, things are in decline, the stability and mid to long term prospect wears a big question mark. There has been a constant strain on my family life, I have never been able to know whether I could maintain a "normal" standard of living and I wonder if I will ever have enough money to pay my daughter's college tuition or to retire comfortably (without having to move in with my daughter and her family some day). :sad:

Another colleague, a couple years older and also an FO, is seriously thinking about leaving aviation. I sometimes wonder whether I would have had the talent to become a lawyer or some other professional. It overjoys us, at least, when I see our 3 year old putting a bandage on "Teddy" or telling one of her dolls to "take all your medicine and you will feel better."

Am I A Dreamer?
 

Hi All,

I have been in the aviation industry for a few years now, got a few hours, an ATP, and a left seat on a regional airplane. I have always been interested in knowing to the best I can my airplane, the aircraft systems, the performance, etc., so I try to get the best of my flying time, and, yes, looking for that little satisfaction, maybe, when at the end of the day I can say : "I did my best, and I will keep trying"

Now here is the thing: I do not find a lot of enthousiasts in the airline business, more of pilots who feel it's just "another job".

In the company I am now, I came up with suggestions to save 25,000 USD per year per airplane, without any additional investment. The representative of the pilots (a pilot himself) just replies:"I don'tcare about that kind of paper, I just put the throttles forward, and then look out the window for the landscape).

I don't know if you get the picture, but WHERE IS THE PASSION? Where is the enthousiasm, the drive of making a better, safer, day in flying?

I started aviation in flying gliders, like some of you. There was a real sense of willingness, and we were not even paid for it.

Maybe some will think "get a life", hey, I have a life, live in a beautiful place, enjoy my time off with people I love.

But I chose aviation because it is some kindamagic thing, and I wonder if there is any airline or pilots who realises what a difference it makes to have individuals that are motivated beyond the money, or the prestige, or the power.

English is not my primary language, so hope there is no mis-statements, but I am sure most will get the general idea.

Any replies welcome

... what a strong response...worldwide:ouch:

This shows it's not isolated in just some regional areas, as certain business morals take effect...:eek:

It has tapped a vein alright, and its a strong one Jim.

Our #6 son wanted to fly. I encouraged him. Extremely intelligent, perfect shape, he enrolled in the AFROTC.

Upon graduating with honors, he applied for flight training. Shot down. "Wrong race and gender, kid, we'll put you on a list."

He served his time, studied accounting, and was accepted by Wharton in PHL. He just graduated with honors with his MBA. He stepped right into a job with a good future, 30 days paid vacation, and $115,000 P/A. How many 30 year old pilots can say this?

Times here are tough, and a lot of the graduates are still looking. Three years ago, the graduates were swamped by recruiters. Not so this year, but the best job went to a friend who is guaranteed 250G's plus commissions on Wall Street.

You really have to like your job, or it's not worth it today.

I agree 100% with this entire post. WE have allowed people who have no clue about what we do micromanage the entire industry. WE have rolled over on every issue from "security" (a complete joke) to drug testing.

The first issue that WE rolled over on since I've been in the industry was flight crew "security" screening. Where exactly is the logic of subjecting flight crew to passenger screening. Especially when the REASON that we had to be subject to screening was due to the actions of a GROUND OPS (PSA 1771) employee, who, ironically, are STILL not subject to passenger or any other type of screening.

If you are going to choose just 2 employee groups to be screened as passengers, why choose the only 2 employee groups (pilots and flight attendants) that don't need a weapon to "take over" the aircraft. It gives us a zero net gain in actual aircraft security, yet a 100% net gain in flight crew AND passenger inconvenience (since we jump to the front of the line).

Ditto for drug/alcohol testing... A couple of train drivers take the Grateful Dead's advice and drive the train, high on cocaine, so WE get mandatory, random drug testing...........at the end of our trip on OUR time, when we would otherwise be going home. Excuse me, but, if this is actually a problem, then wouldn't it make more sense to test us before, or during our trip?

These are ony 2 serious issues in the last 15 years that WE could have had some say in, but for whatever reason, chose not to.

Prior to 9/11, as a B-737 Capt. I was personally responsible for over $12 billion of liability (total loss of a full airplane, not counting anything that is hit on the ground), which has gone up since 9/11.

In a nutshell, either I am a trusted employee, or I'm not. If I am not a trusted employee, then I should not be in command of a 130,000 lb cruise missile. If I am a trusted employee, then I should not be standing in my socks every day, silently absorbing the condescending comments from HS dropouts. All the passenger screening in the world is not going to change the fact that I will have complete control of the airplane just minutes after my small tools and toiltries are pilferred.

I can't help wondering what Ernest K Gann, Dave Behncke, Ed Musick or any of the others who paved the road that our profession ride on would say to the tsA employee that forced them to remove their shoes or belt............

ALL:

For those of you who have Antoine de Saint Exupery's 'Wind Sand and Stars ' on your bookshelf may I suggest you take it down and re-read pages 11,12 and 13. They contain a graphic description of St. Ex's feelings towards the non flying workers who travelled on the airport bus with him one bleak Parisian morning. He compares his life as a pilot to theirs and he speaks of how the " clay that formed them has dried and hardened ". He reflects on the fact that within two hours of stepping off that bus he will be confronting " dark dragons" high above the earth. He leaves it for the reader to ponder the dreary life of those men of clay who ride the bus everyday. Written in 1938 but still applicable to today and especially relevant to this discussion.

Prince of Dzun

And if our unions would come to their senses and drop the absurdity that we call seniority lists, then our employers would actually have to come up with incentives to retain our services and alexb757 would have a decent job today.


Yeah, yeah I know. I just won´t let it go.

Used to drink with a guy who reckoned that things would never be same until airlines had HP42s or flying boats again. He remembered the days when the captain stayed in a separate hotel to be entertained by colonial dignitaries. His first officer often walked respectfully behind him carrying his briefcase. The purser, doubled as 'Ship's clerk' and did all the paperwork.
Now I'm coming near retirement and the 'good old days' were the freight runs to the far east and back. Hauled by four propellers it used to take us ten days for one trip, 8 hotels.
What will be 'the good old days' the present generation will recall?

In the 1970's TWA had pairings that would allow you to fly only 4 or 5 trips a quarter, depending on the bow wave from the previous quarter. Included were around the world pairings, Polar flights, etc..

Long trips, many hotels, but good trips. They went senior.

Cat1


I would rather be on the Somme.

Prinz - Thanks for mentioning Wind, Sand and Stars. The man is a real philosopher.
http://www.doyletics.com/arj/wsasrvw.htm

I must get that book.

Bigmouth - Shut it. How long do you think you'd last without a union seniority list? The older you got the more apprehensive you'd become about the future. That's no carreer, that's a nightmare.

I don't care about the money - I've done other well paid jobs during my REDUNDANT years, but for me flying is what I LOVE TO DO.
Yes, security is a right pain in the ARSE - especially when some 19 year old A-level failure starts questioning me when I go through security for the tenth time in a week - closed flightdeck doors are a pain in the arse because it screws the working relationship with CC, and the list goes on. BUT, when I'm sitting there at FL 390 and seeing another fantastic sunrise over some obscure mountain-range that no-one has ever heard of I know that I'm where I really want to be. 16 years since I soloed, thousands of hours in single/ multi pilot aeroplanes and I still EFFING love it.
For all of you doomsdayers out there put that in your pipe and gag on it. To all of the wannabes - stick with it, it's still the best paid HOBBY :ok: :ok: :ok: in the world..

White Knight -

To whose rescue are you riding, airline management?

If things go on the way they are, I will get a better paid job outside flying and still ENJOY flying as a true HOBBY.

Most of us who fly professionally enjoy it; I suspect that's why we have put up with some shoddy management far longer than other professionals such as barristers and doctors. However, current trends suggest that our status will be reduced to that of bus drivers with similar pay and conditions.

So I don't regard it as a hobby, otherwise airline managements would be out charging plane spotters for the privilege of doing it. Perhaps you should reconsider your attitude, you'll get fleeced otherwise.

And now is not the time to put a gag in it, quite the opposite. Given the option, would you rather fly for nothing or for a decent salary?

Thought so.

I'm sure that the "golden age" of airline flying ended a dozen or so years ago. I was fortunate to go into private/corporate flying and have not regreted it for one second. No seniority lists, no office politics, an aircraft thats "clean" both technically and hygienically, no 6 sector days....bliss.

I.M. Esperto:

Thanks for putting up the website that reviewed Antoine de Saint Exupery's " Wind Sand and Stars ". It is one of the best reviews I have read and truly captures the spirit of his book.
Many have enthralled and entertained with aviation writings but it is only St. Ex who makes us think.
Regards,

Prince of Dzun

Guess I'm pretty lucky then........
 

Currently working in Africa and have been for all my aviation career. Where I'm from my complexion and gender preclude me from any worthwhile airline job so I've been operating in the bush. Flown the venerable DC3, mighty Twotter, 748s, F27s, and most light singles and twins in some pretty rough conditions. Been shot at, jailed, bombed, taken hostage and had some pretty close shaves with the wildlife. Fetched my boss and some colleagues in body bags two hours after dropping them off in a remote location. Flown some dodgy types and watched the nose gear through a hole in the floor or had a cup of tea and a stew made on a gas stove in the back by a friendly engineer. Had a great time and met some good people, most of whom I regard as friends.

Left a well paying IT job to fly. Couldn't crap in my boss' ashtray the day I left as the bastard was out to lunch. Battled along for months with no pay from some dodgy operators where I ended up paying for the boss' BMW, ostensibly to keep the company afloat (Yeah, I'm fick). In the end I now have a good/reasonable job flying big noisy smelly beasts with bad attitudes for not much money but enjoying every minute.

In all I reckon it was a good move and my only regret is that I took so much time to get off my backside and start flying. Wish I'd tried to crap in my ex boss' ashtray much earlier.........

NEO With views like those of White Knight is it any wonder this job is going the way it is!! He (White Knight) is a fairly new F/O with Emirates who waxes lyrical about his paid 'Hobby' at every opportunity. When I join Emirates as a DEC I will soon sort him out!! He will probably change his tune when that event occurs if it ever does!

White Knight, with all due respect but I don,t want to be the best paid hobbiest, I just like to be a fair paid proffessional!! And not only fair paid, also fair treated, and that's where very often the problem lies.

I agree with most of the postings. Flying was not my first career, that didn't pay well enough! Although I enjoy the bit between shutting the doors to arriving at the other end, its all the other stuff that drives me nuts. I cannot imagine doing this job for another 30 years and my plan is not too.

The things that get my goat about security:-

They search me for anything "dangerous". They ignore my can opener and never search my shoes. But does it even matter? As soon as I get to the aircraft I have an axe within arms reach.

When returning from a flight, trying to get back to landside, with an entire crew in uniform, I get awkward security staff wanting to see my ID pass before they will open the door. Why? I am already airside, its very very obvious that I am crew off a flight, and I am only trying to get back into a building that allows anyone into it from landside. I don't understand.

Rant over.

Amen Sister!

Doesn't make a lot of sense to pilfer "dangerous" items like can openers etc., ostensibly to prevent you from taking over the plane, when that's exactly what you will do not minutes after they take them!

WE allow them to continue the show......

Hey Girl, you ought to write a BOOK!

In fact, there are enough examples in this thread that some talented journalist (I think there are about 7 of them, somewhere) shoul use them as a start for a book.

Just back from FRA tonight..........

Tried to use the LH 'rapid check-in' machine - it didn't work. Neither did 2 others. The women in charge finally did things manually. Then the security check - everything metallic into the bin, walk through the metal detector then pick everything up again. Show passport to unsmiling cop at passport control. Do some shopping, show boarding card to assistant. Walk down towards gate, on the way get asked by some fat woman with dreadlocks and no uniform to show boarding card again. A few feet further on, another security check - everything metallic into the bin, walk through the metal detector then pick everything up again. This time get frisked as well. Then on to boarding gate - show effing passport and boarding card yet again. On to LH A319, across to LHR. Passport again - then wait ages for luggage in that pig sty called LHR T2. Get home to find an arrogant note inside my luggage from the Bundesgrenzschutzamt stating that they had opened my luggage without my knowledge and that it was 'checked manually by airport security agents authorized by the German government'.............

What the f*ck is going on?

The only way that anyone is going to pay attention to this insanity is to shut the operation worldwide..

The good old days might have begun to fade when the flight attendants here were no longer required to be young, good-looking, single females.

As for some of the large, impersonal corporations: some of the people who fly a desk at the airlines are probably jealous of the limited authority (and sometimes, the days off in a row) which many pilots still have, and by increasing the number of company policies, procedures and limitations along with an attempt to enforce more regimentation, they attempt to:

1) place more liability on the flightcrews.

2) try to fly our planes from their desks/cubicles.

And by very liberally using the phrase "force majeur" and "etc" as loopholes, they can now disregard almost anything in a labor contract-even when the latest pilot furlough notices here are to take place NEXT winter! There must be a good bit of shared legal "expertise" over here between the various airlines, in order to punch large holes in the "scope" agreements. The ATA is the powerful industry lobby group which would love to throw away the Railway Labor Act, which governs the US airline negotiation (+mediation and arbitration) procedures.

What is this process called in Britain and other places?:suspect:

Ignition Override- In the U.K the process is called BALPA

This topic struck a deep chord with all the aviating guys at the Orval bar, with many a tale (tail?) about days of yore. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and it is a well-known phenomenon that we all look back through rose tinted glasses.
This could be a very long posting, however, the bottom line is; the only pilots who didn't want to retire were those with no pension expectations!

Be Happy :D

I can only agree with the vast majority of posts on this subject.The job has gone downhill so far you wouldn't be able to see your sorry rear end with a very large telescope from where I started out. 2 hours max out from home 1 hour turnround 2 hours max back and in the Pub with a jumper over your uniform shirt for a few beers before lunch time closing was the norm for an early start,just take your epaulettes off before diving into Pinchins Parlour in the evening.More than 2 sectors a day? you cannot be serious,man!
As for 'security'-- I suspect those of you who quite rightly moan about this farce miss the point. We have to be seen by the punters as often as possible taking this flak as it 'sends a message' that everything possible is being done to keep them safe.The comments about A level failed security operatives is well taken. The trouble is the lunatics really have taken over every ward of the assylum and those of us of a certain age have probably helped them by promising ourselves that we'ld be Mr. NiceGuy when we got a command instead of the real b******* we flew with in our youth. They were a disaster area in every respect except they were respected,to their faces at least,and a lot followed on from that in terms of the jobs status and the way we were treated. In the odd idle moment I often wonder how some of the wartime members would take to the way the 'other ranks' behave towards us now.
Hope this is contentious enough to keep the string going a while longer.

I think you have a valid point BB! At least in the "old days" , one never doubted who was in charge.....

Non origanal quote
 

The pilots in SIA are working like camels and live like horses. Some of the luckier ones in lets say Cathay work like horses and live like human beings, but only the choosen few in some of the bigger American carriers work like human beings and live like Kings!! And although the problems with Sars in Asia seems to get better, the industrial relations in SIA get worse by the day. Dark and gloomy skies ahead.

Good Old Days
 

Where I work, when I first joined it was an abysymal place to work , morale was shattered after Lorenzo's
trip through Bankruptcy court and overnight abrogation of all union contracts, with pilots being told to like it or lump it, hundreds went out on strike, some to return after many years, many never did and were replaced by opportunists. scabs what ever you want to call them.

Most excess cash flow was redirected back into Lorenzo's pockets, or further wasted by his disastrous attempt to acquire Eastern, which if it had been done correctly and managed well would have resulted in a formidable airline. The only tactic's he knew however were slash and burn, unfortunately their mechanics tried to face him down and lost.

So, after destroying thousands more livelihoods he went back to
his 'running' of our airline in which he had no interest, a creature of the 80's and fan of the leveraged buyout <the movie 'Wall Street' was largely based on him and his croney Michael Milken>

We limped along through another bankruptcy, our actual operation was embarassing. I was a 727 Engineer at the time and spent most of my preflight working out the procedures, and legality of the copious amount of MELS. 70% of the aircraft I flew had at least one Generator a fuel tank guage and a pack fan
inoperative as well as numerous other defects.

A couple of incidents come to mind, arriving at the gate in the late
80's In July in Houston I was the first to board the aircraft and walked into an absolute oven the cabin temperature was over 150
degrees although unusually the APU was operative, both pack fans were inoperative allowing pack use only once airborne,
Ater requesting that preconditioned air be connected I was told there were no servicable A/C carts available . That was easy to believe, amazingly the Captain <one of our heroic strike breakers> accepted the aircraft in that condition and we set off to
Los-Angeles, I do remember never being in that hot an aircraft before or after, and that the cabin temp guage went off the upper limits of its range.

It took us two thirds of the flight to cool the cabin down, crew and passengers were in a miserable state, I certainly would have got off if I had a choice.

In the other incident the Aircraft we were given that day had one generator inoperative <and had been so for three weeks> in the 727 of course the APU cannot be used in flight eliminating that as an electrical back-up.

Also for all its complexity the electrical system was the the aircrafts big weakness, requiring significant
and immediate manual downloads with the loss of one generator
and massive downloads with the loss of two.

The inevitable happened of course and halfway to our destination
we lost a second generator, we were fortunate in that we had a severe clear day all the way to our destination and were able to
continue and land.

My only constant thoughts at the time were to get some right seat experience and get the hell out. After four years in the rear seat I
upgraded to First Officer on the 727, this was certainly a lot better
at least I was flying again and I loved that aircraft, it was a real thrill to fly, and best of all that was all I had to do, the Engineer doing 90% of the work.

I slowly accumulated the experience I needed to move on, remarkably though the airline started a slow but gradual improvement itself, mainly due to new, competent management,
aditionally in large part though, due to the sacrifices of the Employees. In fact things improved so much that I shelved my plan to go elsewhere, turning down an opportunity to work for an Airline I had pursued aggressively.

New aircraft started to arrive and I started to move up the seniority list, after another three years in the right seat of the 727,
I switched to the MD80 for better seniority for three more, then moved to the 757, and the 767 as they arrived, which i'm flying now.


In July of 2001 I was awarded a captains seat on the 737, finally
after fourteen years I was giong to upgrade, as there had been no expansion, numerous furloughs and minimal expansion this was how long it took, things really seemed to be going well.

I was asleep in my morning nap in Madrid on September 11th 2001
when the phone rang, the Captain told me of the incredible news
and I turned the TV on in time to see the second aircraft hit.

Over the next few days stuck in Madrid we tried to absorb the second shock of massive imminent furloughs, of course that long awaited Captains training class was immediately cancelled.

All very depressing, but on the other side of the coin I was senior enough to not be too adversely affected, and was able to stay on
the 76 albeit further down the list.

Probably just as damaging to myself and my peers was our signing off on a recent contract that, although increased salaries significantly, also allowed management to bring in unlimited numbers of regional jets, although I did not vote personally for the contract
the large number of strikebreakers still in the airline swung the vote in their particular base to an overall approval and it was voted in.

Despite managements assurances to the contrary they immediately started to replace a sizable portion of our flying with these aircraft, drastically reducing our upward progress as mainline aircraft went to the desert.


So good old days? I don't know, I come from an entirely civilian background and was fortunate enough to be hired by a major airline at 24 years old although I did work very hard to do that


there was never much merriment in the old days here but as time moved on and we moved into this politically correct world, contrary to many other peoples experiences our 'workplace improved dramatically' with our arlines improving operation.

Without being insensitive to our extremely unfortunate pilots currently on furlough, morale is on the upswing again as there does appear to be light at the end of the tunnel and we are one of the best managed American Airlines.

I still make a good living I hope that left seat comes back before too long, but I enjoy flying the 767 very much and have seen a good portion of the world in it, flying as far south as Rio De Janeiro
west to Tokyo and East to Rome, so its always interesting, although very tiring to do year after year, the occasional 757 domestic trip is a welcome break.

Having just turned 40 I have a few years left if my health holds up
to upgrade, and I hope they don't extend the retirement age.
I miss the older aircraft as well and they were more exciting and at least different in many ways. But I wouldn't want to go back to them now

I, for one, as a relative newcomer to this industry, would obviously be an optimist. Afterall, this is my lifelong dream, and not to mention that I left behind a very unsatisfactory career (which for some would also constitute a dream job), I have but no option to continue.

However, after choosing to leave my prior career, I realized that, perhaps, I've been misleading myself in terms of what I should expect from life. At the outset of that career, it was quite nice, and I was happy to work 80 hours a week, and drink for six. But then, it started to take it's toll on me, and with only two weeks of vacation per year (which I could never take anyway), I started becoming disillusioned and bitter. And this was after three promotions in less than half a decade.

It was quite disappointing to think that dreams like that can fade so easily, wane in the distance, because reality is never like what we envisioned it to be. Thought it was going to be glamourous, fantastic, and big money down the coffers. The truth, as a matter of fact, wasn't far off. At least 10% of the time anyway.

But then, I also came to the realization that, in this world, there is no such thing as a dream job anymore, and that almost every job has its compromises. Speaking to my friends, some of whom have been laid off since the tech bust, and others who work in menial accountancy and secretarial jobs, it doesn't seem like there is a whole lot out there. A close friend of mine who works at the monolith that is IBM is quite content with his job, but that's because he knows if he tried to quit, he would probably spend the rest of his life on the welfare line. For the most part, everyone prefers to be a rancher somewhere in Texas, or a ski bunny at Val d'Isere. As I look at my meagre savings in my pockets, those things are merely the pipe dreams of my own imagination.

So when it came to aviation, I look at all my junior colleagues, and revel in their enthusiasm. Afterall, flying an airplane sure beats sitting in a friggin office 12 hours a day.

Trying to remain positive about aviation even for just an enthusiast like myself is a kind of duty in way - look on the bright side etc. However, you can tell things are now really going off the wall. Yesterday, we were seeing a relation off at Cork on her way back to Stansted and whilst hanging around a U. S. Navy Super King Air arrived. Very nice, says I to myself, very smart. Then we accompany our elderly relation to the security point at the boarding area. Hugs and kisses etc. The flight crew from the U. S. Navy Super King Air arrive at the same security point with cold plates bought from the restaurant and begin conversation with the young security official about what is next etc. Security official defers to a higher order so a real Airport Policeman dressed in what was like the Aer Lingus captain's uniform of about twenty years ago and the four gold bars to boot(!) arrives on scene and has quick words with the U. S. Navy crew and quickly accompanies them around the small queue of passengers to the scanner. Now, I lost sight momentarily of the goings on but then the next thing I see is colleagues of the younger security official ably frisking the U. S. Navy guys before allowing them to continue! I may be off the mark but as a military aircraft the Super King Air parked outside on the Cork ramp may well have some side arms at least stowed away for the crew's protection? The real gods of aviation now are airport security officers - some of them are even wearing Ray Bans! Loony, loony times all right.