An Airline Pilot
6/16/202639 min
Shooting cat-three landings in the fog, using the “voice of God” on unruly passengers, and declaring Mayday after an engine fire with Paul Drusch, a commercial airline pilot. Why does the pilot’s paycheck start with the parking brake? And what does “sterile cockpit” mean? (Spoiler: it doesn’t mean “clean.”)
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsDan Heath· Host0:00
Paul Drusch has been a commercial airline pilot for decades, and when I asked him our lightning round question, "What phrase strikes fear in the heart of someone in your profession?" He had one of the most terrifying answers I've ever heard on this show.
Paul Drusch· Guest0:15
So we have a, a system called EGPWS, Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System, and it'll give you one of two alerts that, boy, they, it, it, if it happens, it kinda comes out of the blue, and it will make you stand up and take notice in a big hurry. It'll either start screaming at you, "Wind shear, wind shear."
Speaker 3· Soundbite0:33
Wind shear, wind shear, wind shear.
Dan Heath· Host0:36
Wind shear is a sudden shift in wind speed or direction.
Paul Drusch· Guest0:41
Like a severe tailwind or a downdraft- Hmm ... that require you to instantaneously firewall the engines and try to get the airplane away from the ground as quickly as possible, lest you hit the ground.
Dan Heath· Host0:54
And then there's another alert on there.
Paul Drusch· Guest0:57
Terrain, terrain, which means it has detected that there's terrain that you're approaching rapidly, and if you don't alter course, you're gonna run into.
Speaker 3· Soundbite1:03
Terrain, terrain. Pull up. Terrain, terrain. Pull up.
Dan Heath· Host1:08
So those are warnings where you have to act immediately.
Paul Drusch· Guest1:12
Right, and we practice that every year in the simulator, wind shears and terrain, uh, warnings.
Dan Heath· Host1:18
Can you remember a time when you got one of those warnings unexpectedly and you had to react?
Paul Drusch· Guest1:24
[laughs] Well, uh- Turns out he can, and he'll tell us