Cascade Comes Of
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eruptions,Cascade Airwaysand an hasoccasionalweatheredornerya stormypassengereconomy,to flourishsevereinWashingtonthe Pacific Northwest.winters, volcanic during the lean years, waiting to get on the crew if they can do anything Taxiingways (CAZ)out fromramptheat SEATAC,Cascade Air•the their fair share when the company at to make their trip more pleasant or 18-passenger Embraer EMB-110 Ban• last stands steady on its feet. An airline comfortable. Cleared for takeoff, the deirante twin turboprop seems rarely grows at a steady rate; more Bandeirante accelerates quickly. the dwarfed by the 350-ton heavies lum• often than not, it takes two steps for• penetrating whine of the turboprops bering off to shores an ocean away. ward, one back. drowning out the easy-listening AM Across the ramp, a Northwest Airlines Today, for example, is the Monday station. Estes banks left, southeast over B-747 looms huge against the distant before Thanksgiving 1981.The load fac• the mountains, and climbs through hJlk of glaciered Mount Rainier, jewel tor is on the black side of break-even. thin, dissipating stratuS. Level at 11,000 of the rugged mountain range for SEATAC and Flight 205's destination feet and 175 knots indicated, Schachle which Cascade was named. Like theit airports, Tri-Cities (Richland/Pascol turns off the weather radar. pilot brethren in the jumbo, however, Kennewick) and Walla Walla in south• The elderly gentleman in 1C leans Cascade Flight 205's crew, Captains eastern Washington, are VFR. Cascade toward the cockpit and yells, "Okay to Bob Estes and John Schachle, are full• is gearing up for Part 121 operations, smoke, Captain? Okay to smoke?" The fledged ALPA members. But when and Schachle hopes to move up to the "no smoking" sign stays on. The pas• Cascade's pilots joined ALPA in Au• big iron soon. But the August air traffic senger contents himself with the view: gust 1981, most other ALPA members controllers' walkout has hurt the air• spectacular snow-dusted peaks, steeply outside the northwestern United States line, and six pilots hired on July 29 were sloped stands of fir and spruce, sinu• asked, "Who're they?" furloughed almost immediately. The ous .rivers, and serpentine logging Cascade Airways is a survivor, a resil• retrenchment bumped Estes back to roads. The snow-capped Cascades ient airline that has grown in l~ears• first officer status by one seniority gradually give way to gullied, arid while half a dozen competitors failed• .'number, but today he is flying from the foothills and the neat green circles of from a two-airplane commuter with a left seat. irrigated farmland. single route to a large regional carrier Estes taxis into position on Runway Estes touches down with studied whose 80 active pilots and 18 aircraft 16Land holds to avoid wake turbulence finesse at Tri-Cities, uses less than half serv~ 17 ''Cities in five northwestern from a departing heavy. Schachle re• the 7,700 feet available, and taxis in for states. / minds the passengers to fasten their a 10-minute turnaround; both pilots Cascade's pilots are survivors, too. seat belts, refrain from smoking, read remain in the cockpit. During the brief Like pilot groups everywhere, they've the card, note the exits and the fire ex• respite from the turboprops' whine, the helped build their company. hanging in tinguishers, and not to hesitate to call passenger in 1C tells his neighbor, 10 AIR LINE P;ILOT May 1982 I_ II "Sure am glad to be going home-been LEFT: FIO Rich Herrmann checks a.15• in the hospital 11 months. Got me a passenger EMB-ll0 Bandeirante at SEA• new leg," he says, slapping his unfeel• TAC, one of several major Northwest air ing thigh. terminals served by Cascade. BE• LOW: Capt. Steve Schmokel and FIO Between Pasco and Walla Walla, the Herrmann enroute to Seattle, approaching land rolls and folds in short, gullied the snow-capped mountains for which Cas• hills, contoured in miniature. The deli• cade was named. BOTTOM: A thriving cately hued waves of green, gray, and agricultural center in southeast Washing• brown, rising and falling through ton, Walla Walla has a population of25,000, midafternoon shadows, yield wheat, including Cascade's largest pilot group. onions, peas, and other produce, part of the agricultural, mining, and lumber bounty that earned eastern Washing• ton the sobriquet "the Inland Empire." Estes flies the short hop to Walla Walla by hand at 3,500 feet and logs 20 min• utes block time. The passenger in lC, reunited only with his crutches, wob• bles unsteadily but with native grit across the ramp, home. Wallacade'sWallalargestis alsopilothomegroup.to Cas•The airline's corporate headquarters is in Spokane, but its largest pilot domicile and principal maintenance base are in Walla Walla, and most of the fleet comes home to roost here every night. Cascade is the sole provider of the plans to fly on its routes into Montana "commuter service to all major North• and Idaho. Beside it sits the big British west air terminals" so prou~ly pro• Aerospace BAe 748 demonstrator; a claimed by the simple sign over chain 48-passenger turboprop, it is by far the link Gate 2. heaviest equipment on the field. Cas• Over a cup of coffee in the little ter• cade's first of four BAe 748s is due any minal restaurant, Estes articulates a day from the paint shop in Santa Bar• combination of pride and frustration. bara. Though their operational ceiling "There's an excellent future here," says is much higher, Cascade will not fly the Estes, despite the recent closing of the new airplanes above Flight Level 250, Pocatello, Idaho, domicile, where he because it has opted not to equip them had been local executive council chair• with quick-don passenger emergency man. "There's less money here than in oxygen masks. The BAe 748s, however, the majors, but we do more flying, and will lift Cascade to the fast track of Part I enjoy the flying." Son of Western Air 121operations. Lines Capt. Robert Bowman, he says Cascade's flight operations depart• he "was brought up in an airplane," ment had scheduled Federal Aviation flew gliders as a teenager, earned his Administration (FAA) checkrides in the private license in high school, served a new airplanes for today,. but a battle brief hitch in the Air National Guard, between Congress and the White and built time instructing and flying contract negotiations between the House over the federal budget has re• charters in the Seattle area. After flYing pilots and Cascade management are sulted in suspension of many federal DC-3s and CV-240s ("charters, cargo, stalled in Spokane. services, grounding local FAA in• bug spraying-you name it, we did it") Also stalled is the schedule for pilot spector Delmar "Del" Randalls. In the for six years, he joined Cascade in 1977 checkrides in the company's new air• Cascade pilots' lounge, Capt. Pete with 7,000 hours of flight time, "most of craft. There is palpable excitement Hilmo, seniority No.3, shrugs off the it in round engines." Despite his en• among the Cascade pilots, for out on postponement. He has waited more joyment of flying, however, Estes, like the ramp, resplendent in new paint, is than 12 years-almost a third of his other Cascade pilots gathered at tables the first of three Swearingen Metro III life-for this checkride, and he can wait and booths nearby, is frustrated that 19-passenger turboprops that Cascade a little longer. May 1982 AIR LINE PILOT 11 had a black uniform with silver stripes, cade promptly added those cities to its FormerChestnuttcommuterstarted Cascadepilot MarkAirwaysM. you were pretty much assured a job system. In May 1974, Cascade moved in 1969 with two shiny new 15• with Cascade." its Seattle operation from Boeing Field passenger Beech 99 turboprop twins; Similarly, when a commuter airline to SEATAC, gaining a substantial boost Cascade's first scheduled flight de• failed, another commuter would pick in business travel. "Things really took parted Seattle's Boeing Field for up the defunct airline's airplanes and, off at that point," says Berry. A 1970-76 Spokane via Tri-Cities on June 9. The as Berry recalls, "whatever paint job night mail run from Spokane to Port• airline's four employees worked di• was on it was how we initiated it into land helped keep the cash flowing. rectly from the ramp, not having a gate service. At some later date we'd change In July 1974, the Cascade pilots voted to call their own. Eleven days later, the the paint scheme to match our other 23-1 to join the Teamsters. "We only airline lost two pilots and one of the 99s airplanes." Cascade's colorful early saw them at contract time," says Bob in an accident near Pasco. Chestnutt menagerie at one time included the two Estes, and in 1981the pilot group, now replaced the crashed airplane the next Beech 99s with purple fuselages and grown to 105strong, voted to join ALPA month, but could not fill enough seats orange tails from the brief Air Pacific instead, According to Cascade's master after the crash to survive financially on operation; before these distinctive executive council chairman, Capt. Jim scheduled passenger service. So Cas• airplanes acquired the modest Cascade James, "100 percent" of the airline's cade hauled freight-bulldozer parts to colors (white with blue and green trim), pilots are members of the Association. Seattle, Wall Street Journals to Spokane Cascade also flew an ex-West Pacific 99 Echoing similar comments from other -and flew charters on weekends. with a red fuselage and black tail.