What it takes to fly airplanes

This trip hasn’t been as long as some of the ones I’ve been on lately. It has kept up the trend of new destinations, though. I had commercialled through Paris before but never stayed there. A couple days ago I stayed, but only by the airport long enough to sleep. Now, after I land, I’ll have a whole day there downtown.

And then I went to Abidjan, with a stop in Algiers on the way. That was quite an adventure. I was not exactly thrilled about the idea of doing that trip, and now that I’ve done it, I can’t say as I’m itching to do it again. Just before we were going to leave Paris, it started snowing. That resulted in a 4 hour delay leaving there. And then, while we were on the ground in Algiers, I got to tell one of my favorite truisms of aviation.

When you go to flight school, you learn about what makes airplanes fly. They teach you about lift and thrust and drag and weight – the four forces of flight. For a while, you think that’s what makes airplanes fly.

Then the bill comes. At that point, you realize that it’s really money that makes airplanes fly. No amount of thrust or lift will overcome a lack of money. If you don’t have money, you can’t fly… period.

Then you go to work for an airline. A that point, you learn that there is a force even more powerful than money: paperwork. You can have all the thrust in the world, and all the money in the world, but if you don’t have paperwork, you’re not going flying.

And so it was in Algiers. We had fuel to make thrust, enough money to pay our bills, but insufficient paperwork. So there we sat, not flying, for a couple of extra hours waiting for the paperwork.

Next time someone asks you what it takes to fly airplanes, tell them paperwork…

V-