SPIRITED FLYING
by George Jonas
National Post
September 23, 2005

The Airbus 320 had a systems
issue. It circled Long Beach
Airport in Southern California
for several hours on Wednesday
night, with its 140 terrified
passengers watching on satellite
television reporters and experts
speculate whether they would
live or die. They all lived, as it
turned out, after pilot Scott
Burke orbited to burn off fuel,
then brought his ailing jet into
Los Angeles International Airport
for a spectacular but essentially
uneventful landing.

Investigators will let us know in
due course why they think part
of JetBlue Flight 292's
undercarriage got stuck in a
sideways position. Personally, I
think it happened because
mechanical objects and systems have minds of their own. They have rich and
varied inner lives. As an engineer friend put it once: "Objects are people,
too."

I might add that they're not necessarily nice people, either.

Objects have souls, and sometimes they're malevolent or at least
mischievous.
Flicking the light switch usually results in the lamp illuminating the room
--
except when one is running late. Then it often results in a white-blue
flash,
followed by a plopping sound and darkness. Once in a while the filament
keeps
glowing in sheer schadenfreude for another second or two.

Some people anticipate this and speak firmly to objects. A fellow I knew --
Vern
by name -- believed in keeping his light bulbs in line. "Don't even think
about it,"
he'd say to his chandelier before switching it on. Vern was convinced his
method
worked.

Smacking recalcitrant electronic devices does seem to work, which is why
even
mild-mannered people chastise their computers every now and again. "Don't
overdo it, of course," my wife's hardware consultant warned her once. "Just
try
the odd slap on the side, followed by the words 'Now stop that!' You have
to show
'em who's boss."

Others take a more lenient view. The late composer and conductor Tibor
Polgar
spoke forgivingly about a piano that attacked him.

"Yes, Bechstein did drop on my hand when I tried to help the movers," he
explained when I saw him with his arm in a sling. "Bechstein" was what he
called
his upright. "Poor old thing. I've been pummelling it for 30 years, hitting
those
keys day and night. It was Bechstein's first chance to get back at me."

Polgar understood his piano's revenge, but undercarriages are a different
proposition. Lowering them isn't like hitting the keys at all. Hitting the
piano keys
could be viewed as abuse under certain circumstances, but lowering the
landing
gear is pampering a plane, not abusing it. One can see a piano's point when
it falls
on one's hand -- it's payback time -- but planes don't like to slide on
their bellies.
When a landing gear won't go down, it's pure malice.

As it turned out, my wife saw this more clearly than I did.

Normally when a landing gear is cycled, the pilot selects the proper
airspeed,
positions a lever or a switch up or down, listens for a little rumble as
the
undercarriage moves through the air stream, then waits for a light to
illuminate
on the panel. It'll be amber for gear up, and green for gear down and
locked.

A few years ago, with my wife sitting beside me, I was approaching the
Kitchener-Waterloo field in Ontario. I slowed to the right airspeed,
positioned the
lever, felt the usual buffeting and waited for the green light. It didn't
come. The
gear was down all right -- I could see it from the side window -- but it
didn't seem
to be locked.

"Oh well," I said to my wife, "it did the same thing yesterday. I thought
we had it
fixed, but apparently we didn't fix it well enough. Now I'll just pump down
the
gear manually, fly by the tower so they can see if it's locked, and then
we'll land."

"Wait," said my wife. She smacked the panel energetically and addressed the
landing gear lever. "Now stop that," she said.

The green light came on.

I still operated the manual system and flew by the tower for a visual
inspection,
but that was just for show. It was going through the motions to pay lip
service to
science and technology, to satisfy the Department of Transport. My wife and
I
both knew that what needed to be addressed was the soul of the
undercarriage
system, and the person who addressed it was my wife, with a few firm words
and
a smack.

I don't know what Captain Burke said to the landing gear system of Flight
292 as
he and his passengers approached Los Angles International on Wednesday, but
whatever it was, it did the trick. Sometimes objects just need to be put at
ease if
they're jealous or worried -- or put into their places if they're getting
out of hand.
It takes nothing high-tech or complicated. "Now stop that!" is often
enough.

True, sometimes objects take the bit between their teeth and turn vicious.
An
aerobatic Giles G-300 aircraft did last Sunday, and it killed Marta
Bohn-Meyer,
48, chief engineer at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air
Force
Base, Calif. Early reports talk of a witness seeing something fall from the
aircraft
shortly after takeoff.

© National Post 2005

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