RSL Ch 13

The day after returning from Jeju Island was a leisure day. The desk that Han Jae-yi had ordered on his own whim had arrived. There, he dealt with piled-up tasks as if it were his own office.

I cooked ramen with the pot Han Jae-yi bought me. I don’t know how to cook, so I didn’t want to receive any complaints. It was also my intention to let him know the shortcomings of living in this house.

The day ended with passing conversations without any major topics, and morning dawned. I went to the airport bus stop wearing a neatly prepared uniform. Thanks to sufficient rest, I was in good condition.

Before the briefing, I went to find the co-pilot seat companion, and the insignia on his uniform shoulder was the same as mine, with four stripes. It seemed like the captain had put us together because of a shortage of crew.

“Hello. I’m Kim Kyung-soo.”

“Yes, hello. I’m Schmitt.”

He seemed to be in his early fifties, with a robust physique, suggesting he might be from the Air Force. I cautiously asked, and he smiled, confirming my guess.

A fifty-something former Air Force captain… The hierarchy would be firmly established. I worried if he would take orders well from someone twenty years his junior like me. My Korean was too fluent to pass as a foreigner with black hair.

“Would you like to see the PIC?”

“Oh, me? Should I? Okay, then?”

He agreed without asking for reasons. I found the operations officer and requested a position change. I decided to take on the role of co-pilot while letting him be the captain. Even though he was a captain, not everyone could perform the co-pilot position. This also depended on the airplane, and the A350 assigned today had already completed training sessions.

The position change was explained to the crew at the briefing by Captain Kim Kyung-soo. After leaving the briefing room, he walked briskly to the gate. Interestingly, today’s cabin stewardess was the same woman I had traveled with on the last Frankfurt journey. Since such overlaps weren’t common, I began to feel friendly towards her.

“You intentionally changed positions, didn’t you?”

She picked up her pace a bit and walked beside me.

“Oh, yes. I just thought it would be better in various ways.”

“You did well. Captain Kim Kyung-soo, he was a bit… you know?”

She furrowed her brow and swallowed her words. I chuckled and nodded.

At the gate desk, the ground agents were bustling around. The general manager told me that Bangkok has a lot of family travelers, so requests for seat changes were common. It was not that they didn’t want them to sit together, but they couldn’t accommodate them all. A few passengers were already arguing with the crew.

“Huh?! Captain.”

In the gate waiting area, someone approached me and spoke to me. It was the co-pilot who had shown me the impressive landing in Japan.  I still felt grateful to him for kindly dropping me off at home when we returned from Haneda, exhausted. The strap on his neatly dressed uniform sparkled with the name ‘Jo Min-woo’. There was only one reason for a pilot to be here.

“Do you have a ferry flight (flight without passengers)?”

“Yeah. I have to get a plane from Bangkok.”

“I see. Nice to see you.”

“Yes, good to see you too. Haha.”

He had a dimpled face and a beaming smile. With both the cabin manager and the first officer familiar, it felt good to know so many people already.

I sent Captain Kim Kyung-soo ahead and chatted with Co-pilot Cho Min-woo as we crossed the gate bridge. Due to a defective airplane being taken into the maintenance hangar, we had to borrow a plane from a partner company in Bangkok. The crew already stationed there would join us locally, and he would be deadheading on the flight I was piloting today.

Naturally, a drinking plan was made for tonight. I asked if we should invite Captain Kim Kyung-soo too. He murmured quietly that we should decide after today’s flight. It felt like we had become peers.

I entered the cockpit and busily prepared for takeoff. The weather was clear and there was no wind. While going through the checklist, I noticed something unusual in the fuel request.

“Captain, didn’t you request additional fuel?”

“Yes, the contingency fuel has been adjusted up to 10%. Well, wouldn’t that be sufficient?”

An A350 requires roughly 6 tons of fuel for a one-hour flight. The flight to Bangkok is 6 hours long. However, it’s unreasonable to precisely fill 36 tons, and usually, an additional 3-10% of fuel is added for contingency purposes. However, this is only the legal requirement, and it’s common to add extra fuel based on the captain’s request. If it were me, I would have requested an additional 6 tons.

“Captain, I think you should fill up with more Discretionary (captain’s requested fuel).”

“If you ride the jet stream well, it might even be left over.”

“Still, 40 tons for a 6-hour flight is cutting it close. I suggest adding more fuel.”

“I’ve been to Bangkok dozens of times and never had trouble with fuel.”

“Still, in my opinion…”

“Captain, can I take this as a formal protest?”

I shut my mouth for the time being, seeing his stern expression. Co-pilot Jo Min-woo, who was sitting in the observer’s seat, seemed hesitant to intervene.

I knew why he was acting like this. Every captain has a landing ambition, a kind of charm. No matter how well the takeoff is performed or how much flight time is shortened by riding the currents, if the final landing isn’t smooth, it feels like ruining the entire flight.

The most important thing in flying is weight. The airplane itself weighs 200 tons, with an additional 50 or 100 tons of fuel. That’s why fuel is measured in weight, not liters. A heavy airplane sets the stage for a firm landing. Every captain wants to finish the day’s flight with as light a landing as possible.

I had to make a choice. Officially object and make a record. Or follow his experience and instructions. If it were Germany, I would have chosen the former without hesitation, but I wanted to get along well with my colleagues in Korea. Anyway, since all the legal fuel requirements were met, there was no issue according to aviation law. After much deliberation, I decided to follow his instructions.

-Coreana Airways Flight 775 heavy, ready for takeoff.

-Coreana Airlines flight 775, line up for runway 11.

After receiving clearance from the control tower for the assigned runway, the airplane slowly moved towards the taxiway. I hoped for favorable currents as I acknowledged the captain’s gear-up call sign. It was a smooth takeoff.

* * *

“Oh, I’ll go to the restroom for a bit.”

The captain released his seat belt sign. He entrusted the cockpit to me and left. I tuned the radio to the public frequency and checked the altitude. As he said, the currents were good. It seemed like we could arrive about 10 minutes early.

“You might need a Go-around to wake up properly at this rate, huh?”

At the words of Co-pilot Jo Min-woo, sitting behind me, I double-checked to make sure my radio was off, then leaned back slightly and took a long breath.

“I’m starting to regret changing positions.”

“Oh, were you the PIC today? Why did you change?”

“I heard rumors about former Air Force captains.”

“Ah, haha. Still, things have improved a lot lately. We couldn’t even talk back then.”

Many pilots in Korea come from the Air Force. When civilian airlines had a shortage of pilots, most of them were former fighter pilots who had retired from the Air Force. They were disciplined and the hierarchy between captain and co-pilot was strict.

So many Co-pilots couldn’t object to the captain’s wrong decisions and crashed the plane. Eventually, after repeated accidents, the rules changed so that once they sat in the cockpit, they could take off their insignia and address each other respectfully. Captain Kim Kyung-soo must have respected me as a captain until the end, given this context.

“You’re booked at Hotel W, right?”

“Yes.”

“Me too. Shall we meet around 8? Give me your number.”

He handed me his phone. I hadn’t activated my Korean phone yet. I typed in the German number and he chuckled in bewilderment. Even to me, this didn’t seem right. I thought I should change my number when I returned home.

As expected, we entered Thai airspace 10 minutes early. I connected to Suvarnabhumi International Airport’s frequency. It started taking time to be assigned a runway, as it was vacation season. The 10 minutes we saved by riding the currents flew by in vain. A total of four planes were given their sequence. We were the third.

“Oh… We’re cutting it close.”

The captain muttered to himself, but it was clear that he wanted me to hear. We had 40 minutes of fuel left. I couldn’t risk it. I picked up the radio again.

-Control Tower, Coreana Airways Flight 775 heavy, minimum fuel. Can we get the faster number?

-Coreana Airways Flight 775, did you go around?

I glanced at the captain’s face. It was humiliating for a plane that hadn’t even gone around to declare fuel shortage right after approaching the control tower’s airspace. What kind of flight plan had been made when fuel shortage was already declared?

I realized as I looked at him, calmly holding the controls. The reason he didn’t add extra fuel wasn’t some pilot’s pride like landing ambition. It was just a trick to get a faster landing sequence in the bustling Thai airport.

-No, our flight plan was a little twisted, Coreana 775 heavy.

-Coreana Airlines Flight 775, Number1. Wind 2605 runway 15R. Cleared to land. 

-That was ours. (We were first.)

The pilot of the plane that had been granted the first landing clearance vented his dissatisfaction softly over the communication channel. Among over thirty fellow pilots on the control tower frequency, I felt ashamed. Nevertheless, whether to speak up or not, Captain Kim Kyung-soo attempted to approach the runway. I echoed his call sign and checked the altitude. We lowered the landing gear at 200 feet and landed smoothly.

I couldn’t tell how many times he had pulled such a stunt with the fuel excuse. It might have been the first time today. It didn’t really matter, but it wasn’t a particularly enjoyable flight.

“Good job.”

As we were doing the landing checks, Co-pilot Jo Min-woo opened the cockpit door before me. He tapped my shoulder before leaving, making an X with his hands. It seemed that Captain Kim Kyung-soo hadn’t been invited to tonight’s drinking session.