And I find myself once again with double Santa Barbara overnights. There are certainly worse places to be. After arriving late in the evening last night, I walked across the street to Von's and set out to find some breakfast since it is not included at the hotel. I saw a box of 4 muffins for $5 and also a box of 9 muffins for $8. As I carefully calculated the microeconomic marginal utility of each muffin in comparison to the diameter of my stomach and carried the one, the choice was obvious. I found myself walking back to the Best Western with a box of 9 muffins. (One chocolate chip muffin met its demise before I could take the picture).
The following day was one of my most stressful flying days to date. It consisted of four legs - all of which had some sort of anomaly. We were delayed going to San Francisco due to a ground stop. We were supposed to have 2 hours break in SFO, but that was quickly whittled away to nothing now that the bay area was clogged up with strong winds favoring runways that are almost never in use. I had planned on acquiring a proper lunch in the terminal, but there was no time. Like any sensible professional pilot, I had packed three muffins and a package of Lorna Doones in my flight bag and was prepared for just such a scenario.
Now the rain was beginning to fall hard at SFO and there was a conga line for the runway about 16 planes deep. As it neared dinner time, I downed a blueberry muffin and did a crossword puzzle where (and I swear I'm not making this up), the answer to one of the clues was LornaDoone. It was a sign. After finally departing SFO, we were rocked with turbulence all the way to Reno. This was naturally my leg and we experienced wind shear on final approach. Well, next leg was to LAX, so things should be easier . . . or so I thought.
Enroute to LAX, we encountered St. Elmo's fire, essentially electrical current swirling around the aircraft. I can't accurately explain the science behind all this without copying and pasting from Wikipedia, but the short end of it is that it's completely safe. It's just . . . really weird. Every five seconds or so, my side of the windscreen would be engulfed in a bright white light. Having landed at LAX many times before, I was now lined up for a familiar landing on 24R . . . or so I thought. An aircraft was slow to exit the runway (Allegiant naturally) and without adequate spacing, LAX tower gave us a Go-Around command. And with that, we launched back up to 5000 feet as I called for Go-Around thrust, flaps 8 and almost laughed to myself. "No easy day, huh?" After getting vectored around a bit, I made a smooth landing on the runway and we departed to Santa Barbara after a quick turn at the gate. People often ask me if I've ever been scared as a pilot.
The short (and honest) answer is no. I have been under large amounts of stress, but never scared. There's not enough time to be scared. Any sort of high pressure situation I've been in has required quick response and near muscle memory that has been indoctrinated into us from simulator training. I have experienced all kinds of failures and anomalies, but my reaction to them is more like finding a parking ticket on my car than of actual fear. It seems that the fear of flying is one of the most common phobias, but I can assure you that a lot can go wrong and the plane (and its occupants) will still be fine. It's those personal electronic devices you have to watch out for. My flight display is always getting screwy when someone can't stop snap-chatting on their iPhone. Why just the other day, my altimeter told me I was 200ft underground and inverted . . .all because the guy in 4F was playing Words with Friends. When will they learn? Now back to my muffin . . .