Ear on Chicago; Flight 721

You can hear this sound at only one place. The passenger terminal at Chicago's Midway Airport. We bring you the story of Midway told in terms of an airplane. It's flight toward the city, it's short stay, and it's departure. The hero of our story is a DC -6 mainliner designated Flight 721, westbound from Boston to San Francisco. Our story opens at the air traffic control center as the pilot of Flight 721 reports in at 14 ,000 feet. Sir, I'm your unit at 721, it's part of the Bacon Intersection. I have a girl, 116. I'm on the Bacon Intersection, 4 ,000. But I'm at every 4 ,000, even 1000. But I don't think we have left 14 ,000. That's your unit at 721, left 14 ,000, thank you. This is the Chief Traffic Control Officer of Midway Airport in Chicago. We've just been hearing conversation between units Flight 721 and your office. What's happening? Well, United 721 is in route 2 Midway Airport. Our facility

here has issued clearance authorizing his descent, cleared to a holding fixed close to Chicago, the Bacon Intersection. And from there he will be cleared on into the airport and released to the Midway Approach Control who will complete the final phase of his authorization in the Midway Airport. Not before Flight 721 is heard from again. Perhaps you can tell me something about the operation of this tremendous rule that you have here. Are you in control of all the flights in this area? How far does your area extend? Well, first, I would like to attempt to differentiate between what we call IFR or Instrument Flight Rules and VFR Visual Flight Rules. Why don't you do that for me? Okay, sir. Under good weather conditions, Visual Flight Rules is possible, and aircraft may operate in the airspace and separate themselves. The pilots can look out and see each other and provide their own separation. Wouldn't the weather is not so good due to restricted visibility, clouds, or weather

conditions of that type? The pilots can navigate, all right, without having to have visual reference to the ground, but they must have some other method of providing separation, altitude separation, time separation, or horizontal separation, or three basic methods of providing separation on instruments. We now have our Flight 721 down to 10 ,000 feet, approximately how far off the field is he now? Well, let's see what his last estimate is. 32, he's approximately 12, 13 minutes away from here at the present time. You have an array of maps up above these switchboards, if I can give some sort of a visual description of what we're seeing. What are these maps covered? These charts are, of course, blown up, as you see here, for the purpose of giving a more accurate picture for our controller personnel. We have aerial highways. Our airway structure, as we call it, is depicted on these charts, and we

use those to route our aircraft and provide separation. So our personnel can take a quick look at those charts, and better pinpoint a route of flight being followed, or to see where we get a better mental picture of what separation they can afford. How do these air highways work now? Eastbound flights, northbound flights, and so on have different levels, do they not? As a general, this is not always so, but normally an eastbound flight will usually operate at an odd altitude, such as 5, 7, 9, and so forth. Westbound is the reverse, 2, 4, 6, 8, and altitudes on the even level. I might say that we have enough activity here at this airport that, usually even with pretty adverse weather, we have a landing interval that we can maintain between two and a half minutes, somebody landing in that short time continuously. Now in just a moment we're going to turn over control of this plane from traffic control to the tower at Midway Airport, right? That is correct, it will be released to the tower's jurisdiction very shortly.

Now in the control tower at Midway Airport in Chicago, the nerve center of Chicago's very, very busy municipal airport. Here is Mr. Nick Molson, the acting watch supervisor of the tower at Midway Airport. Tell us what's happening here. Well right now we're controlling all VFR traffic up here. Now in stores we have what we call the approach control, and that's where we control all the IFR traffic. The man on the left is controlling all the inbound traffic. He's what we call our A -controller, and he gives aircraft clearance slant clearance to take off and separates the inbound from the outbound. The man on to the right is working what we call a correction ground control, and on ground control, he controls all the aircraft that are on the ground. He gets them out to the runway four takeoff, gets them from the hangar to the terminal, from the terminal to the hangar and so on. And the man in the middle, he's working what we call our B -position, and he copies his IFR clearance, his answers are phone and so forth.

And I just sit up here and watch a whole operation, super nice coordinate. I shouldn't try to describe this room, it's surrounded by glass on all sides so that you have a clear, unobstructed view of the airport and its approaches in all directions, right? That's correct. And this tower is operated 24 hours a day with a crew of approximately the same size. Well, there's approximately 600 all times, three downstairs and three upstairs, three in the IFR room and three upstairs here in the tower. Now, one flight below the main deck of the Chicago control tower at Midway Airport we're about to talk with Mr. Ralph Frick, who works in a dark and groom. He's an airport traffic controller, entrusted with watching the operation of the radar system here at Midway Airport. He also serves another function. Plains are calling you, Mr. Frick. What are you doing for them now? Giving them the wind and the runways and telling them what point to contact the control tower and at which time the tower will give them an intermediate checkpoint for our landing. In other words, approaching planes talk with you before they talk with the main airport control tower. That's correct. Through the magic of electronics,

we leave the control tower and take you now to the flight deck of Flight 721 and listen in as the crew prepares for their Midway landing. Give the direct call telling me we're overlaid your landing inquiries. Connect high, United 721, make sure it's under 6 ,3000. The IFR, go ahead. Roger, United 721, make sure it's 3000. What ways of use are two, two? When Southwest in 15, L -15, turn 9. I have two. Report on final approach for landing parents over. Roger, in part landing, part 2. Well, let's have the checklist. Shall we? Who's pumps? Who's pumps are off? Park events. Take off and climb. Floors. Low. Thanks, lecturers. We're on the main. Cross speeds. Off. mixture control. Auto -ritch and lock. Target radar. Code. Hydraulic bypass. It's down. Which descent checklist is complete? What runway did they

say again? 22. Give me 28 degrees flaps. 20 degrees. Better close up. How close are they? They're full. About 22 inches. Man, I'm full pressure. 22 inches, sir. Okay, sure. We have the gear down, please. Here, coming down. And final approach to checklists. Wing flaps. 20 degrees. Here. Down, three green lights in. Pressure and we have fluid. For dollars. 2400. Light down. L -feps. R.

Four degrees. No smoking signs. On. Final approach to checklists is complete. Got them base length, five miles out. Midnight time. Eight, seven, two, one, five miles out on base length. Roger. Nine, seven, two, one. In parallel. Two, two left. Went southwest 15. Out to turn 29. Nine, two. Roger. Seven, 21. 15, 18, 18, 18. 16, 18. 15, 18. On, final approach. 120, 13, 18. 30 degrees, five miles.

30 degrees set. 15, 118. 1 ,000 feet. Full flaps. Water's on. Full flaps set. 900 feet, 110 knots. 800 feet, 110 knots. 150 knots. 150 knots. Reverse. 90 knots. Reverse. On, reverse. Reverse. United, seven, two, one. Daxies, on runway nine, two, United, eight. Number three,

over. All right, here's seven, two, one. Changing the ground. Come back through. Left through up there. Sold a lot. United, seven, two, one. The environment is going to go 0 .6. Roger, nine, seven, two, one. Chicago, it's 0 .6. In modern air travel, comfort seems to be the watchword. One of the high points of the flight, seven, two, one, to San Francisco, will be the fine food to be served the passengers aboard. It will have been prepared in United's flight kitchen in Chicago, which is headed up by Chef Eugene Ertl, one of the top chefs in this part of the world. He's presently in the world. President of the Chefs of Cuisine Association of Chicago and National Vice President of the American Culinary Federation, among other high honors, and Chef, we've certainly enjoyed looking over the food that you're preparing for flight seven to one. Watch the menu going to be. The menu

is going to have a very elaborate salad bowl. I call it salad cardinal. The reason we call it that is it features the flesh of the cardinal of the sea, which, of course, is the lobster, as you know. It has some lobster chunks on it. It has some asparagus tips. And it also has some aged cheddar cheese, which is cut in fine strips. And with this, we serve a chutney dressing. It's a salad and an appetizer combination, really. Then, for main course, you're going to have a supreme of long island duckling. That is the boneless breast of a long island duckling. And it's called alachubilee. Now, when I talk about chubilee, I think you know what I'm speaking of. You heard of cherries, alachubilee. Well, this has a very rich port wine sauce with pitted blackpink cherries. And with this, we serve a wild rice croquette and some praised California pastry celery. Then, we're having a hard cross -throwle,

one of those nice egg rolls, you know, with butter. And then, we pass a main line of French pastry tray. I can't even speak English. Sorry. We have a very fine assortment of French pastry, which the girl passes around, and you select the piece which appeals to you the most. And, of course, we are having coffee, tea, milk, and dinamins. And for listening to you, I can tell that you really love food, and you've been in the business of preparing food most of your life, haven't you? All my life, yes, I sleep with it, and work with it, and dream about it, and I live it. A food to me is everything, Dennis. And what part of the world did you come from, chef? I was born in Alsace, Lorraine, which is now the east of France, but I worked in Munich, Nürnberg, southern Germany, and then I went over to Paris, and from Paris I came directly to the United States and directly to Chicago, by the way. Well, now, chef, some of the problems that you face, and preparing these thousands and

thousands of meals in your air kitchen here in Chicago for United's passengers flying east and west, what are some of those problems? First of all, the number of raw materials that we can successfully use for in -flight service is very limited. Therefore, what we can successfully use, we have to dress it up always newly. We have to dig into all the volumes of cookbooks and so on and look for ideas and then think of some of ourself. Are there any things that you don't serve in the air, chef, that you've discovered through experience? Yes, we stay away from gas producing foods. We stay away from cabbages, from the vegetables which come into the cabbage family, because those things, when they're just at least a little bit overdone, they become gas -forming and indigestible. We stay away from, to some extent, from pork. We do serve ham, we do serve bacon, but pork is another item which sometimes nauseates people. It's a little fat and up in the

air, we want you to feel comfortable and therefore what we serve must be fresh. It must be clean and not too fat, you know. So we do stay away from these items. You were talking before we began making this recording, chef. What's the importance of color in food served in the air? Oh, color is most important. When the girl puts that tray to your lab, I'm speaking from experience. You might not be actually hungry, but then you see a nice color combination of a crisp looking salad and so forth in front of you. Then your eye is pleased. Then the girl lifts the cover of the casserole and you get a sniff of the aroma of the sauce. We make our sauces with plenty of wine, most of them we finish them with cherry wine. So you get a sniff of that, and your nostrils are pleased. And then again, we have to please your palate. So it has to taste as good as it looks and smells.

But to me the most important thing is what you get into your bloodstream. We nourish you. We don't just feed you, we nourish you. Chef, do you have any idea of how many meals you prepare here? Yes, we do. We now prepare in excess of 4 ,000 meals a day, each day, mind you. But there's somewhere in another month or so and business increases when we are going to have more airplanes flying. Then of course the number of meals prepared here is going to increase on the same way. Chef, do you do much flying yourself? Yes, we do. We do check fly very often. We take an airplane and sit down like a passenger to us and then watch the procedure and then convince ourselves that our food is hard to have food. This hard to call food is cold. And we talk to the passengers who are sitting close to us and get their reaction and their ideas and also their suggestions. Understand, you used to get some first -hand reports from Miss Ertl. Yes, oh yeah, my daughter was a stutus with us. She flew

with you neither the airlines and she was my severe ascetic, of course. She married herself a pilot and still working for the company, though. Thank you so much, Chef Ertl, for this tour of United's Flight Kitchen. Now to the dispatch office where Flight 721 is about to take off. In the United Airlines dispatch office now, one of United's veteran pilots, Captain Huggins, is preparing to take Flight 721 on the next leg of its journey to San Francisco. Captain Huggins, you're getting all set to take off. Suppose we ease drop on your conversations with meteorology and the dispatcher, you mind? Not at all. You go right ahead about your business and we'll just keep the microphone near you. Hi, Bill. How's the weather out San Francisco today? Not too bad today, Tom. We've got a cold front out in eastern Iowa about Cedar Rapids right now, kicking up a few rain showers. However, the rather violent activity of last night's thunderstorms and some tornadoes have all died off. Last trip in gave us tops about 16

,000 or lower and no rough air, no build -ups, no thunderstorms developing. Seems to be pretty good. The west coast is also fine. As the front coming in off the Pacific, kicking up a few rain showers out there but nothing of any particular consequence. The winds are also favorable. Got mostly suddenly winds at 18 or 20, whichever you'd like to use. Out to about Denver, and then they come around to the west and run around 50 knots or so for the balance of the flight. Looks to me like it ought to be a pretty good under -scheduled trip, all in all, I'd say. The best route would be right along the regular airway then. As far as we can tell now, Tom, yes, it will. We'll take 20 ,000 and then we can get best power at 20 ,000. Probably make best schedule there. Okay, fine. Captain Huggins has just been talking with the meteorologist, Bill Bates. Now he's moving over to talk to John, champion the dispatcher, and we'll see if we can pick up this conversation. John and just been talking to Bill and looks

like he'll have a fairly good route, a fairly good flight today with an exception, possibly with some thunderstorm activity just west of here. We'd be agreeable to a 4 ,300 fuel, it would like a little extra fuel for getting around any thunderstorms. How do you feel about it? That sounds good, Tom. We had set up 4 ,400 on our plan. You're planning right down the Victor -8 on the airway, is that correct? Yes, right down the airway. 4 ,400 sounds good to me then. Fine, they're using runway 22 to the southwest. This morning for takeoff, the wind's been holding from south about 15 knots, and that'd give you about a 10 knot headwind component, which will be well within the limits for the load we had planned this morning. Fine, I won't restrict this in any way then, but on payload. No, you'll carry all the load and you're well within the 4 ,400 gallons, and they've been making VFR to parkers from here, so you can probably speed up your departure on that. Fine, then. See you next

trip. Alright, now I'll set them. While we're waiting to meet the crew which brought flight 721 from Boston to Chicago, let's talk with Mr. Bill Bates, who provides the meteorological services for United Airlines and the Chicago area. Let me describe the situation that we have here. We have what looks to me like a long old -fashioned accountant's desk, a stand -up type desk. Probably 30 feet long. It's covered with all sorts of maps and charts. Mr. Bates, what do they all mean? Well, they all have a purpose of course. Primarily, the maps are weather maps, surface weather maps prepared every six hours, and occasionally every three hours, when the weather gets a little tough. On the vertical part of the board, we have upper air charts, the direction and speed of winds and the temperatures at various levels. Where do you get all this information from your own pilots or from weather stations or what? Well, predominantly it comes from the United States weather bureau. The raw data that is. We work it up, we draw our charts and post them. The flood of

information is quite ample. We get an awful lot of it, every hour on the hour. Of course, we supplement that with our inbound flight crew reports of what they are actually encountering in the way of clouds, turbulence, icing, hail, that type of thing. What's the highest wind of law that you people like to have or a tailwind? Well, we like to have all we can get of course. But I would say 60, 70 knots is a pretty good speed. All right, Mr. President. Yes, Captain Alameing just arrived on the United's 721. Well, Captain, happy to have you with us. Did you have a good flight in from Boston? We had an excellent flight. Now, what I want to do is heavesdrop on your conversation with Mr. Champion as you report on your flight. So we're ready to head and make your usual report. And I'll try not to get you away, sir. All right. We left Boston this morning. There was Straitis on the coast drifted in during the night from the ocean. And that persisted until we had, oh, I'd say the middle of Pennsylvania where it dissipated. And we

were flying at 20 ,000. There was line of thunderstorms around Goshen, Indiana, which we detoured to the North. They were apparently moving to the Northeast. We had a smooth flight all the way, a bit scheduled by a few minutes. Nevertheless, there are much turbulence in that area. We encounter no turbulence because we detoured all the storm tops. Well, thanks very much, right? Okay, Johnny. See you next trip. All right. All right. Flight 721 is now ready. Passengers have been called to board the plane. And we will board the plane with the Flight 721. The flight we began following is at left Boston in Hartford this morning. He is now ready to dig off for San Francisco after having been fueled.

After the plane having been cleaned, the passengers having had a moment. Now we shall go aboard the Flight 721 as it leaves Chicago to complete its flight to San Francisco. Are you ready to taxi? Midway ground control, United 721, taxi IFR San Francisco, fast. Roger, United 621, you take taxi to position. Short of one way, 313 left. Thanks for being the east of North Lamps. Report the rain for takeoff. Wind's calm, about 2 .992. All right. Right here next, United 721. There's the slew. Full flaps. Any hot or rich kind of means? Full four. Okay, it's all yours. Fill the check. Four. Three. Two. One. Okay, all of them high. Lower side.

Four long. Four is low. ADI. D -riched. Three long. Three long. ADI. D -riched. Two long. Two long. ADI. D -riched. One long. One's low. ADI. D -riched.

Check list. Boost pumps. Hello. Park advance. Take off and climb. Lower. So, diarose hound terminors are set here. Flapsettings. 100 degrees. 907 -290. 40 for takeoff. 409 -721. 180 -series. Cursion added 721. Fungus gov with midway airport direct to San Francisco. International airport. D -33 to Omaha. Victor 66 to San Francisco. 16 ,000. 5 -9 ,000. VFR over. I direct cleared to San Francisco airport. Green 3 to Omaha. Victor 66 to San Francisco. So, maintain 16 ,000. 90FR to 9 ,000. Go ahead. So, 2 -1, the change to tower frequency. 118 point shuttle for takeoff. So, good. Ready. Okay. Operator in. Oh. Trim tens.

Nice set. Curslock. Is off and flipped. Control. Free. ADI switches. Our long green light. V1 V to speed. 86 and 105. Half light. Jail. That's 40 feet. Midway tower in. Added 721 for takeoff. Roger. 21, good. Takeoff. No, 2 -3 left. Gravity. 80. P1. P2. Here. Here. Coming up.

Meadow power. Water is off. Black set, climb power. Black set, climb power. Black set, climb power. Black set, climb power. Black set, get your right turn. Added 721 right turn now. Roger. That's 721 right turn out approved. Roger, 721 off. Chicago Airways 5 -5. We are now airborne. Altitude 3000 feet. 1800 miles away. Six hours and 30 minutes away. Lies San Francisco. Our next port of call for flight 721.