Remembering NASM Artist Robert McCall

Artist Robert McCall, who helped illustrate the Space Age for America, passed away on February 26th of a heart attack. He was born in Ohio in 1919.

Every single member of our Silver Wings Fraternity has viewed McCall's captivating perception of space as he or she entered the NASM museum on Independence Avenue. It was completed and waiting to be seen when the great museum first opened on July 4th, 1976. I was working on the premises at the time and watched McCall paint his wonderful larger-than-life mural.It has remained right on the same wall ever since.

Raised on a diet of science fiction, McCall knew he wanted to be an artist when he was 8 years old, but he was also passionately interested in science and technology, especially aviation. After high school, he won a scholarship to the Columbus Fine Art School. While attending school, he worked for a local sign shop, making posters and advertising billboards. He joined the Army Air Corps during World War II, but the war ended before he was sent overseas.

McCall and his new wife, Louise Harrup, moved to Chicago, where he worked as an advertising artist, while aiming "to become a first-rank illustrator, like Norman Rockwell or N.C. Wyeth." They moved to New York in 1949, and he continued to work in advertising art, but also began painting magazine illustrations for the likes of Life, The Saturday Evening Post, and Popular Science.

With the coming of the space program in the 1950s, McCall writes, as aviation moved from planes to rockets, so did he. "It was visually dramatic. All of the buildup to a manned launch, so theatrical and dramatic. It really inspired me." In the middle of the decade, the Air Force started inviting artists to visit their facilities and paint about the experience; McCall jumped at the chance. "I got to fly in all the aircraft. I'd go to great lengths to get permission to fly in the backseat of a jet fighter." When NASA instituted a similar program, again, McCall was at the front of the line. He also created several mission patches for NASA, including those of Apollo 17 (the last manned mission to the Moon) and the first and third Space Shuttle missions. Many of his paintings have been donated to the Pentagon, the Air Force Academy, air bases, and NASA. - Ron David

On approach to Narita

I'm currently still in one piece, writing from my room in the Narita crew hotel. It's 8am. This is my inaugural trans-pacific trip as a brand new, recently checked out, international 767 Captain and it has been interesting, to say the least, so far. I've crossed the Atlantic three times so far so the oceancrossing procedures were familiar.

By the way, stunning scenery flying over the Aleutian Islands. Everything was going fine until 100 miles out from Tokyo and in the descent for arrival. The first indication of any trouble was that Japan air traffic control started putting everyone into holding patterns. At first we thought it was usual congestion on arrival. Then we got a company data link message advising about the earthquake, followed by another stating Narita airport was temporarily closed for inspection and expected to open shortly (the company is always so positive).

From our perspective things were obviously looking a little different. The Japanese controller's anxiety level seemed quite high and he said expect "indefinite" holding time. No one would commit to a time frame on that so I got my copilot and relief pilot busy looking at divert stations and our fuel situation, which, after an ocean crossing is typically low.

It wasn't long, maybe ten minutes, before the first pilots started requesting diversions to other airports. Air Canada, American, United, etc. all reporting minimal fuel situations. I still had enough fuel for 1.5 to 2.0 hours of holding. Needless to say, the diverts started complicating the situation.

Japan air traffic control then announced Narita was closed indefinitely due to damage. Planes immediately started requesting arrivals into Haneada, near Tokyo, a half dozen JAL and western planes got clearance in that direction but then ATC announced Haenada had just closed. Uh oh! Now instead of just holding, we all had to start looking at more distant alternatives like Osaka, or Nagoya.

One bad thing about a large airliner is that you can't just be-pop into any little airport. We generally need lots of runway. With more planes piling in from both east and west, all needing a place to land and several now fuel critical ATC was getting over-whelmed. In the scramble, and without waiting for my fuel to get critical, I got my flight a clearance to head for Nagoya, fuel situation still okay. So far so good. A few minutes into heading that way, I was "ordered" by ATC to reverse course. Nagoya was saturated with traffic and unable to handle more planes (read- airport full). Ditto for Osaka.

With that statement, my situation went instantly from fuel okay, to fuel minimal considering we might have to divert a much farther distance. Multiply my situation by a dozen other aircraft all in the same boat, all making demands requests and threats to ATC for clearances somewhere. Air Canada and then someone else went to "emergency" fuel situation. Planes started to heading for air force bases. The nearest to Tokyo was Yokoda AFB. I threw my hat in the ring for that initially. The answer - Yokoda closed! no more space.

By now it was a three ring circus in the cockpit, my copilot on the radios, me flying and making decisions and the relief copilot buried in the air charts trying to figure out where to go that was within range while data link messages were flying back and forth between us and company dispatch in Atlanta. I picked Misawa AFB at the north end of Honshu island. We could get there with minimal fuel remaining. ATC was happy to get rid of us so we cleared out of themaelstrom of the Tokyo region. We heard ATC try to send planes toward Sendai, a small regional airport on the coast which was later the one I think that got flooded by a tsunami.

Atlanta dispatch then sent us a message asking if we could continue to Chitose airport on the Island of Hokkaido, north of Honshu. Other Delta planes were heading that way. More scrambling in the cockpit - check weather, check charts, check fuel, okay. We could still make it and not be going into a fuel critical situation ... if we had no other fuel delays. As we approached Misawa we got clearance to continue to Chitose. Critical decision thought process. Let's see - trying to help company - plane overflies perfectly good divert airport for one farther away...wonder how that will look in the safety report, if anything goes wrong.

Suddenly ATC comes up and gives us a vector to a fix well short of Chitose and tells us to standby for holding instructions. Nightmare realized. Situation rapidly deteriorating. After initially holding near Tokyo, starting a divert to Nagoya, reversing course back to Tokyo then to re-diverting north toward Misawa, all that happy fuel reserve that I had was vaporizing fast. My subsequent conversation, paraphrased of course...., went something like this:

"Sapporo Control - Delta XX requesting immediate clearance direct to Chitose, minimum fuel, unable hold."

"Negative Ghost-Rider, the Pattern is full" -Top Gun quote

"Sapporo Control - make that - Delta XX declaring emergency, low fuel, proceeding direct Chitose"

"Roger Delta XX, understood, you are cleared direct to Chitose, contact Chitose approach....etc...."

Enough was enough, I had decided to preempt actually running critically low on fuel while in another indefinite holding pattern, especially after bypassing Misawa, and played my last ace...declaring an emergency. The problem with that is now I have a bit of company paperwork to do but what the heck.

As it was - landed Chitose, safe, with at least 30 minutes of fuel remaining before reaching a "true" fuel emergency situation. That's always a good feeling, being safe. They taxied us off to some remote parking area where we shut down and watched a half dozen or more other airplanes come streaming in. In the end, Delta had two 747s, my 767 and another 767 and a 777 all on the ramp at Chitose. We saw two American airlines planes, a United and two Air Canada as well. Not to mention several extra Al Nippon and Japan Air Lines planes.

Post-script - 9 hours later, Japan air lines finally got around to getting a boarding ladder to the plane where we were able to get off and clear customs. - that however, is another interesting story.

By the way - while writing this - I have felt four additional tremors that shook the hotel slightly - all in 45 minutes.

Cheers,

(name withheld)

NEXTGEN Will Impact everyone of us who flies

One of our most popular Luncheon Speakers, Mr. Jack Kies, rejoined us in 2010 to walk us through the most complex remake to date of America's National Air traffic System. This rendition is being called "Nextgen", and Jack knows it better than almost anyone else because he helped parent it.

We first met Jack when he was head of the FAA's universal system command Center. Now he is TOPGUN at Metro Corporation and lives in the crosshairs of the National Airspace System everyday. In this writer's humble opinion, no one is better suited for the job.

What Is NextGen?

FAA literature describes NextGen as an umbrella term for the ongoing, wide-ranging transformation of the United States’ national airspace system (NAS).

At its most basic level, NextGen represents an evolution from a ground-based system of air traffic control to a satellite-based system of air traffic management. This evolution is vital to meeting future demand, and avoid to gridlock in the sky and at our nation’s airports.

NextGen opens America’s skies to continued growth and increased safety while reducing aviation’s environmental impact.

These goals will be realized through the development of aviation-specific applications for existing, widely-used technologies such as Global Positioning Satellite (GPS). They will also be realized through the fostering of technological innovation in areas such as weather forecasting, data networking, and digital communications. Hand in hand with state-of-the-art technology will be new airport infrastructure and new procedures, including the shifting of certain decision-making responsibility from the ground to the cockpit.

When fully implemented, NextGen will safely allow more aircraft to fly more closely together on more direct routes, reducing delays, and providing unprecedented benefits for the environment and the economy through reductions in carbon emissions, fuel consumption, and noise.

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Posted By Ron David to Silver Wings Over Washington at 3/08/2010 17:23:00 PM