Freight Doggin' in Syracuse - Volume 1
Rob Belisario, Chief Flight Instructor for Executive Air Services at KSYR, tells us about some of the interesting experiences he had as a freight pilot.
In the early 90’s, I cut my aviation teeth flying freight for a couple of different companies. For three years, I hauled the boxes all over the Northeast Corridor and Canada, sometimes during the day, but mostly at night. Year One was with a Bennington based company that had a morning Syracuse to Potsdam run for UPS. They kept a Cessna 404 here and hired this lucky local pilot to do the trip to PTD, and then be on the beeper all day when other things popped up. Hint: the 404 has such a large fuel capacity that it will fly for 9 hours before needing a top off. So if you need to repo the empty airplane somewhere far away, you’d better bring an empty soda bottle with a wide mouth. Such was the nature of freight charter, that I flew the Titan 1000 hours during the year they kept the plane here. Cancelled checks, auto parts, tractor tires, electric motors, Thanksgiving turkeys, Valentines Day teddy bears, Christmas hams and seafood for Lent… you name it, I hauled it. One night I flew to a small airport in North Carolina, loaded on cages with 3000 live baby chicks and delivered them to some lab in New Hampshire. Then there was an ugly, snowy February morning when I returned from Potsdam after shooting the lovely NDB approach up there, and the ILS 28 back here, and was “quick turned” and sent to Lawrence, Mass. My company’s operations guy gave me a code word over the phone and the equivalent of a secret handshake. I was directed to pick up “cargo” from some representatives of Raytheon Corporation. When I got in range, Boston Center gave me the cheery news that LHM was closed because the snowstorm had become an ice storm. As I did a few turns in the hold and computed fuel for the trip back home, an incredulous controller vectored me onto the approach, with words to the effect that I must know someone, as the airport was only open for me! On landing, I gingerly did a slip-n-slide taxi dance to an obscure corner of the field, met with the Raytheon reps and loaded on 1000 pounds of air to air missiles and their guidance systems (in separate boxes, of course). After an exchange of identification papers, code words and the secret handshake, I departed the still closed airport and headed for Hagerstown, Md. That’s where I delivered my goodies to the fine folks representing the United States Army, where the codes, ID’s and handshakes were again exchanged.I’ve carried every type of lab sample and tissue specimen there is, and many classes of Hazardous Material. The short list includes explosives, flammables, oxidizers, corrosives, peroxides, cryogenics, poisons, infectious substances and radioactives. My last two freight dog years (is that 14 people years?) were spent in the FedEx Caravans operated by Wiggins Corp. and based here in Syracuse. At least those ships were outfitted with an oxygen mask and smoke goggles. One night going into Newark, our Plattsburg based pilot had to don the gear and declare an emergency when noxious odors filled his Caravan. The Dangerous Goods shipping papers indicated that he had no Haz on board, but many times shippers will lie about what’s in a package in order to send it cheaper. When he landed, the culprit turned out to be a 60 lb. box of vanilla beans from Madagascar that had gotten wet and started to smell. Well, he likes the smell of vanilla like anyone else, but I guess in that concentration, it can be pretty overpowering!My first year as a Wiglet, I did the night run to JFK and Newark, leaving Syracuse at 11 PM and getting back here at about 5 in the morning. FedEx sends its jets all around the country on the trunk routes from the domestic hubs like Newark, Memphis, Philly, Cinci, Cleveland and the like. The Caravans are the feeders and pick up the freight from the hubs and bring it to the smaller communities. Kennedy is the international hub. In order for arriving overseas freight to get from JFK over to Newark for domestic distribution, the big shipping containers are off-loaded directly from the wide bodies to trucks. Then, while everyone in Manhattan sleeps, the freight is trucked over to New Jersey. Except for the Haz!The Port Authority will not allow any Haz Mat to be trucked through the tunnels, so that’s where I’d come in. I usually didn’t bring much freight from Syracuse to the international hub at JFK, but I’d frequently have a planeload of goodies for Newark that couldn’t be trucked. The IFR clearance from JFK to Newark takes longer to copy and read back, than it takes to actually fly it, so the trip is really cool. Most nights I’d take off, be switched to Kennedy Departure even as I was listening to Newark’s ATIS, be given a heading that typically took me over Manhattan, be handed off to Approach and then tower and be on the ground again. All in the space of roughly 15 minutes. It takes longer to taxi around those two airports than it does to fly between them! And now when I think of all the times I flew directly over the World Trade Center with a planeload of Haz, I get goose bumps. Who knew? A few weeks after I started with Wiggins, I left Syracuse for JFK on one of those fabled, “dark and stormy nights” with no Haz declared. As I climbed through 5000 feet, I was greeted by a series of popping noises behind me loud enough to be heard over the engine and even with the headset on. It stopped just as I was about to turn around, and when I got to Kennedy, they unloaded several large boxes from Frito-Lay full of those little vending machine sized bags of chips. Most had exploded due to the pressure change, and with chips everywhere, the FedEx rampies had a feast that night! That happened a lot, but the first time really got my attention.Going into JFK each night was really interesting. You can’t go there direct, regardless of the hour, and have to fly the PAWLING ONE ARRIVAL. This routing takes you out over Rockdale VOR, east into Connecticut, across Long Island sound, past Farmingdale and in the back door to Kennedy from the east. On a clear night you can see the city glowing 50 miles out, and the spectacle of those lights when you get closer is truly awesome. And strange sometimes, too. One summer night as I flew over Long Island, somebody shot off one of those parachute flares at me, that floated past my 3 o’clock about 1000 yards away. Kinda puts a new slant on those TWA flight 800 missile theories doesn’t it?Then there are the JFK approaches themselves. For noise abatement at night, the ILS 4R is typically used for arrivals and 31L for departures. This makes sense for the international arrivals because they are coming in over the Atlantic anyway, plus it keeps the bedroom communities quiet. 31L takeoffs with an abrupt left turn put the noisy departures out over the bay, and keeps everyone away from LaGuardia. The problem for me was that coming down through Connecticut on the arrival would result in a vector for 15 to 20 miles “out to sea”, before the controllers could find a hole in the inbound stream of international wide bodies for my 140 knot, single engine, Caravan. At this point I’d be at 1000 feet, heading in the direction of the South Pole, waiting for the turn on to the 4R localizer. In the winter, in the dark, with ice on the airplane, and nothing but the cold Atlantic Ocean beneath me, I had many occasions to thank Mr. Pratt and Mr. Whitney for staying awake in their physics classes. And while some people might wear a St. Christopher’s medal around their neck, I carried a picture of my own particular patron saint, Clyde Cessna, in my wallet. Thanks, gentlemen. Such was the view from the bottom of the food chain as seen by this humble ex-freight dog. More will follow if anyone is interested.
Rob Belisario