Saturday, July 27, 2013

Alcohol-Based Oxygen Generation

As I descend into the aerodrome environment I position report on the general traffic frequency of 126.7 and then switch to the mandatory frequency for the airfield and make another call. I'm thirty miles out, descending through, I don't know, nine thousand or something. A helicopter pilot calls short final. Not for the runway. Not even for the aerodrome. He's on final for Bear Mountain. Can you be on left base for Bear Mountain? I never know what helicopters are doing, but the pilots tend to be professional and know what they are doing, and they also grasp that we dimwitted fixed wing folk are bedazzled by their whirling wing.

We land, on a runway, not a mountain. We persuade the people there to put fuel in our airplane in exchange for their being able to take an imprint of a piece of plastic our employer gave us. Seems fair. We also need oxygen, but that is not a service the FBO offers. A local operator has oxygen though, and the fueller knows one of the maintenance guys there, so he makes an introduction. They have the oxygen. They have the time. We have the fittings for our non-standard tank. But they aren't set up for selling oxygen. Eventually the service is negotiated in exchange for the northern currency: a case of beer. Honestly if the stuff wasn't so heavy and perishable we'd just carry a couple of cases around at all times. Any favour can be had for beer in the north.

We leave, with our oxygen, and hear that helicopter on final for a different mountain.

5 comments:

Rob said...

Haha sounds exactly like Australia

Cedarglen said...

Thanks ATX, for the fun and oh-so-true post. Even as a non-user, I recognize the value of EtOH as alternative currency. And that leads to a wholly unrelated question. The givens include you fly many hours in a thirsty, 100LL drinking twin and very often in extremely remote locations. I must assume that your fuel planning procedures, even tankering when necessary, are far more detailed than in more southern areas. Yo probably confirm type and availability before departure. When fueling at extremely remote locations, some with the potential for very low turnover, do you do any additional testing or inspection to verify the product before requesting a fill-up? If so, what do you check and how do you check it? Thanks. I'm curious. -C.

PPL Driver said...

Beer would not be considered a perishable good in our a/c. But then again, it would never be around long enough to used as a currency...

Michael5000 said...

"We persuade the people there to put fuel in our airplane in exchange for their being able to take an imprint of a piece of plastic our employer gave us." Ostranenie! I'm a fan.

majroj said...

International public health researchers and workers tend to bring a bottle or three of whiskey when negotiating their presence and mission with aboriginal leaders....Er, are there any Canadian Cargo Cult locations?