From Yeadon to Russia | Violins in Flight

This essay is written out of gratitude for teachers, mentors, instructors and family members as well as a handful of great pilots and great men, without whom "From Yeadon to Russia" would've never happened.

_______________________________________________

From Yeadon to Russia—World Landings

As I watched From Russia With Love on tv the other night, I thought: How on earth did I ever wind up in Russia? And the answer is: I became an airline pilot. I know many of you, maybe most especially my Yeadon friends, find that incredible. Me too!

Anyway, shortly after the movie ended and without consulting a map or my logbooks, I began writing this blurb. And just to be clear, I've no doubt most airline pilots have seen much more of the world than I have. But here's what I have seen....

I've been to 48 of our 50 states, having never landed in Wyoming or Montana.

I loved landing in Alaska during the Christmas Season. It just seemed that our 49th state was that much more incredible around the days of the winter solstice.

And I loved islands...Block Island, Nantucket Island, Martha's Vineyard, Long Island, Brigantine Island and Diego Garcia to name a few.

I've been to...

Zagreb, Croatia.

Pristina, Kosovo.

Moscow, Russia.

Kiev, Ukraine.

Skopie, Macedonia.

Taszar Air Base, Hungary.

Warsaw, Poland.

Venice, Naples, Pompeii and Aviano Air Base, Italy.

Catania, Taormina, Palermo, Siracusa and Sigonella Naval Base, Sicily.

Paris and Toulouse, France.

Zurich, Switzerland.

Lisbon, Portugal.

London, Manchester and Brize Norton, England.

Madrid, Barcelona and Rota Naval Station, Spain.

Innsbruck and Saltzburg, Austria.

Terceira, Santa Maria and Sao Miguel in the beautiful Azores.

Oslo, Norway.

Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Andorra.

And Germany, including West Berlin and East Berlin, prior to and just after the Wall came down....

I want this piece to be lighthearted but I must tell you that flying the Berlin Corridor was one of the great privileges of my life, given I was flying in the same airspace as heroic U.S. pilots, who during the Berlin Airlift landed their aircraft at Temperlhof Airport 24 hours a day, seven days a week for more than a year, with C-47s and other military aircraft touching down as often as once every 45 seconds, if you can imagine that. These pilots and their aircraft supplied the people of West Berlin with thousands of tons of food, clothing, medicine and other necessities of life every single day of the Berlin Airlift. Every single day for more than a year!

Getting back to lightheartedness, the Berlin Corridor extended upwards to only 10,000 feet and contained three separate tracks. With that in mind, you might enjoy this actual exchange I had with Frankfurt Control around 1989.

FRANKFURT CONTROL. Pan Am 721, Guten morgen. Which track would you like to fly this morning?

PAN AM 721. Guten morgen, sir. We'll take the center track.

FRANKFURT CONTROL. You WILL NOT take the center track. You WILL fly the southern track.

PAN AM 721. Well, that would have been our next choice.

About a minute later, he came back and cleared us to Berlin Tegel Airport via the center track, advising us that Russian MIGS were playing war games above the Corridor. Indeed, they were!

[If I can ever summon the will, perhaps in the future I'll write an essay containing more serious thoughts about my time in Germany.]

I've been writing this off the top of my head. Maybe it's more interesting without a particular order. Sometimes I only make note of the country, especially if mentioning the list of cities feels overdone.

Iceland.

Canada.

El Salvador.

Nicaragua.

Honduras.

Dublin, Galway, Limerick and Shannon, Ireland [Oh, do I love everything Irish.]

Scotland.

Greece.

Thessaloniki.

Crete.

Incirlik Air Base, Turkey.

Copenhagen, Denmark.

And Guantanamo Bay [GTMO] Cuba...

Because various religious congregations would often charter North American Airlines, that air carrier might have been the only American airline authorized to land in Havana during the year 2000. Perhaps that's why the employees at Jose Marti International Airport treated us like special guests. Simply put, the Cuban people were wonderful. Now, as I write this, you can travel to Cuba whenever you'd like and I hope you will. That being said, unless you're a U.S. Marine, I wouldn't suggest landing at Gitmo....

Trinidad & Tobago.

Piarco.

Liberia, Costa Rica.

Manzanilla, Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Zihuatanejo Mexico.

Fort de France.

St. Lucia.

San Salvadore.

St. Martin.

Curaceo.

Aruba.

Dominican Republic.

Haiti.

Providenciales.

Nassau.

San Juan and Aguadilla, Puerto Rico.

The British Indian Ocean Territory—BIOT—of Diego Garcia.

Virtually every single Middle East country except one: Israel.

I've left out a bunch of places, maybe most notably Guyana. Should I write another blurb like this, I'll try to fill in what I've left out, although I've written about the beautiful people of Guyana in Violins in Flight.

I can't emphasize enough that I'm from the little town of Yeadon, Pennsylvania and I never expected to get much beyond Yeadon or the Philadelphia Settlement School of Music. In some ways, at least in my mind, I never really did.

So let me end with a question I've been asked more than a few times over the years.

"What were your best flights?"

My best flights were flying our soldiers back home from overseas deployments, sometimes as far away as Diego Garcia or beyond. My best moment on those flights was when after many thousands of miles we approached United States airspace. I would always make a PA announcement about this but it was rough. Each time I was filled with emotion, so I would take a deep breath, gather myself and then speak these words with barely a hint of emotion.

"Guys, we are just now crossing the boundary into United States airspace. Welcome back home."

My favorite moment on my favorite flights.