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By the Numbers. For the jet pilot, moreover, the art of flying has become a science: he flies not by feel but by his instruments and the standard procedure. Looking into cloudless skies at high altitudes, his eyes focus only 3½ ft. away; he cannot tell whether his engines are running or whether his wingtips are flat with the horizon—unless he looks at the huge instrument panel. The jet transport is flown, says one 707 pilot, "by the numbers —the instrument numbers." The captain needs two additional qualified pilots in the cockpit to help him, and the air crew's computations in a vast assortment of critical areas must be as unfailing as a heartbeat.
Fortunately, all U.S. airlines have a mutual agreement to keep their planes on Instrument Flight Rules. And since all I.F.R. flights are automatically controlled by Pete Quesada's growing string of Air Route Traffic Control Centers, pilots have an additional safety premium.
Somebody Up There. As good as this seeing-eye system is, Pete Quesada and FAA researchers are out to make it better. Already in the works is an automated, electronic-brain system into which all I.F.R. flight plans will be fed. Geared through a memory phase, a flight plan filed in New York would instantly turn up all other flight plans around the nation that contain conflicting data in time and place. NAFEC in Atlantic City is also working on better runway lighting and approach systems (pilots claim that the dark-blue taxiway lights depress them), a weather-reporting scheme measured on the runways (a must for critically loaded jets), better communications systems.
Explains one FAA official: "We do not want to control all flying. We want the capability of complete surveillance so we can see everything in the skies and spot potential traffic dangers." Although there is a prospect that the actual number of big planes will diminish in years ahead—military aviation will be reduced by missiles, the commercial fleet perhaps by bigger, faster, quick-turn-around jets—the problems of air traffic and safety will become even more complex. The number of private planes—70,000 in the U.S. alone —is increasing steadily, and once FAA has the higher altitudes under complete control, it will have to do something about those closer to the ground.
As for today, the great achievements of FAA's boss are proof enough that matters are well managed, after years of slow deterioration in the government-civilian flying agencies. Glancing skyward at the featherless creatures that fleck the clouds, the U.S. public senses a new confidence: somebody, flying around up there, likes them.
His name is Pete Quesada.
— Who was brushing her teeth with Gleem when she was surprised, as it were, from behind.