Trans-Atlantic Passenger Aircraft

While I was trying to find out what was included in the interwar aerodynamics term "wing resistance" I found this 1927 Popular Science article which uses the term in passing while stating that the Germans are building passenger transport planes with passenger seating inside the wings, and speculating that by 1950 there will be two tiers of passenger decks inside the wings of trans-Atlantic aircraft. The article added nothing to the discussion of wing drag, but I grew up seeing the artwork on magazine covers like these and expecting to really see the things manifest.

There is an excellent article on page twelve about Lindbergh's airplane, including the instruments, and then more on another trans-Atlantic flight, by Charles Chamberlain. I could write half a dozen blog articles just researching them, and I may just do that later, but at the moment I'm distracted by all the other tidbits in the old magazine. This must have been an aviation special edition, but it's startling how many things I take for granted are discussed there as cutting edge or future possibilities. I think I'm not visionary enough to be an engineer, to conceive of something being possible based on a particular scientific principle and then chase it down until it is a concrete, beneficial technology. That may be the difference between a science and a belief to me: if you're explaining an observable phenomenon by science, you can use that science to build a technology that works for someone who knows nothing of the science.

There are lots of suggested applications of technology that I haven't seen manifested. Page 56 describes a device for testing a pilot's vision, but I've never been subjected to that test, so I guess it didn't catch on. On page 43 there is an artist's conception of a system of giant deck fans on a ship, allowing aircraft to land in a short distance for refuelling or emergencies. The arrestor cable is probably a better technology for that, but it was a cute idea. Page 32 documents the first known glider tow launch, and predicts that this could lead to 'aerotrains.' But the secret to invention may be not to laugh at the ridiculous ideas, but to try them.

Some of the ideas have taken off. Page 47 suggests that apes might be able to use basic sign language, and there has been a lot of research on that since. The newly-invented breathalyser is introduced on page 56. Radio was still a cool new technology, and page 56 also describes the discovery of a "radio roof." I learned about high frequency radio "sky waves" bouncing off the ionosphere during my first aviation class on radio theory, but I'd never before wondered when we started doing that. Wikipedia dates the discovery of long distance HF propagation to 1923, and the confirmation of the existence of the ionosphere (for which Edward V. Appleton was later awarded a Nobel Prize!) to 1927. Which two-column-inch silly idea in this week's news will be standard knowledge in fifty years?

There's a description of Paul Edwards' experiments with a radio guidance system, and while I can't find him named in any history of the ILS, I'm suspect that his was some of the earliest research that led to its development. There's a tiny bit more on page 253 of this Popular Mechanics.

The ads are great too. A Gillette ad says "every face is different" yet is illustrated with three faces that make the Führerbunker look diverse. Correspondence schools urge you to earn more money by taking courses on electrical refrigeration, radios, accounting or plumbing. Or "$39 in one day!" selling can openers. And then there's aviation:

Are you hungry for ...
Adventure ..
Popularity .
Big Pay?

Apparently you have to be "a red-blooded daring he-man" for that kind of career. But "the fortunes that came out of the automobile industry and out of motion pictures will be nothing compared to the fortunes that will come out of Aviation." If they mean "come out of" in the sense that the stuffing comes out of a well-used toy, they might be close.

An enthusiastic editorial on public utilities (this must be before they were hated corporations) extols the virtues of electrical power, and this time they do include the ladies.

"How about an electric vibrator? You can massage with it one hour a day, if it takes that much time, getting the kinks out of your system for 2 cents a week."

An hour a day is pretty kinky, but I guess if you weren't offered the opportunity to participate in the exciting worlds of aviation, refrigeration or plumbing, you might have a lot of spare time for your vibrator.

Engine Startrekinsey Sequence

I'm not sure if this is a cohesive description of the engine start sequence or an unpublished chapter of Joyce's Ulysses in which we follow Aviatrix's stream of consciousness as she slides into aircraft manual-induced, chocolate-deprived madness. Either way, come for the engines, stay for the Star Trek references and sexual innuendo.

When I start my car, I put my foot on the brake, the key in the ignition, turn and hold the key until the engine sounds just right, then release the key and the engine continues. That's a little bit complex. You have to get a feel for when to release the key. When I first learned to drive there was another complication, in that I had to put my foot on the gas as well and give it just enough gas to start. But many of you start old manual transmission cars every day without even thinking about the process. And some of you start up an electric car by, I understand, pushing a button. I think they just push a button to start the starship Enterprise too, so this is clearly the way of the future.

Push button airplanes exist, and starting mine does begin with pressing a button, but it's a little more complicated than that, and I have to know and understand the whole sequence, including the stuff that does happen automatically. I'm sure I'll be quizzed on this all during the test, and if I'm going to feel helpless someday when I can't get the engine started, I'd best know exactly what is failing to happen.

Before Start

I need to be sure that the inlet and exhaust are free of debris, that the first stage compressor has no visible damage, that the P2T2 probe is clear, the propeller is on the blade angle locks, and that it moves freely. I should check the oil, make sure the speed levers and power levers move freely and are set in the low and just ahead of ground idle positions, respectively. If I'm using a GPU I should make sure it's supplying 24 V and 1000 A, and if I'm using batteries I should check that they have a good charge.

0 - 10% RPM

After the prestart checks are complete, I press and hold the start button. As a result:

• the #1 start control relay closes
• the starter relay closes
• the oil vent valve opens
• the anti-ice lockout valve closes
• the starter engages to rotate the engine

And let's see what that all means.

The #1 start control relay "is used to control the starter relay and the oil vent valve during ground starts, and the propeller unfeather pump during air starts." It "also opens the voltage regulator 'B' to starter-generator 'A' lead to prevent field feedback during starts." The first part I get: The #1 start control relay is the electrical string you pull on to get the next two things on the list to happen. If the second part of the description mentioned some kind of particle or anti-matter, I would swear that was from one of the episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation where Wesley saved the ship again. I can surmise that for some reason the starter-generator has an 'A' lead, that the voltage regulator has a 'B' lead, and that these two are normally connected, but that that connection can lead to undesirable feedback during starts. I can further surmise that the voltage regulator is there to regulate generator output, but seeing as the generator isn't put on line until after it has finished being a starter, that there's no need for it to be connected during start.

The starter relay "energizes the starter generator, during ground starts only." That makes sense, because during air starts the starter is not needed: rotation of the engine from the propeller is sufficient.

The oil vent valve is a clever little kludge to prevent the starter having to work against cold sluggish oil pressure as it rotates the engine. It opens up the oil system to allow it to ingest air during ground starts.

The fuel anti-ice lockout valve closes off the line through which the fuel system cycles cold fuel to a heat exchanger with the oil to prevent ice crystals forming in the fuel. At start the oil isn't warm anyway, so the valve is closed to keep the fuel pressure high.

So that's two things that happen when the start button is pressed, two more that happen because of one of those (or three if we count the A-B lead thing) and one one that happens because of the second wave. And that's all before anything even catches on fire.

10 - 55% RPM

When engine RPM reaches 10% the fire is supposed to start. Specifically:

• the 10% speed switch closes
• the #2 start control relay closes
• the series/parallel relay connects the batteries in series, if selected
• the SPR valve is energized
• the fuel solenoid valve opens
• the 'primaries only' fuel solenoid opens
• ignition turns on

And I know what most of that means.

The speed switches contain reverse tachyon tribarium warp core interfaces a DC regulating system, a signal conditioning amplifier, timing pulse generators and voltage discriminating circuits (it only allows straight voltages to go through, and the ones with suntans don't get to use the good wires). The speed switches contain STUFF, okay, including three relays. The 10% relay (which the voltage discriminating circuits probably think is an overestimate, or maybe a lifestyle choice) is normally open, the 55% relay is normally closed and the 90% relay is normally open. They receive electrical signals from the "tach gen" which for the purpose of my own amusement I will imagine stands for tachyon generator. Each relay changes its respective state when engine rotation reaches the corresponding speed. The 90% one isn't important to engine starting, but I didn't want to leave it out, as it's probably already getting enough hassle from the voltage discriminating circuits. Best I can tell from the ten pages of starter circuit diagrams, when the 10% speed switch closes, it energizes the #2 start control relay, and the #2 start control relay does the four other things on the list: ignition on, batteries to series, SPR energized and fuel solenoid on.

Hey who thinks I should be allowed chocolate now?

The series-parallel switch sounds like something Scotty would do at the last minute to keep the Enterprise from falling into a black hole.

"It's no use Captain. We haven't got enough juice to get the warp engines online."

"You've got to get them online Scotty, or we're all dead!"

"Well I suppose if I cross connected the dilithium crystals from the other nacelle, it could possibly give enough of a boost to get the warp core online. It's never been done before, laddie."

And then he does it, and it works and the he publishes a paper on the subject, and the manufacturer comes out with a bulletin saying never to do it because it voids the warrantee. It's just like that. In fact it's hard to believe that some desperate pilot didn't invent it while stranded on a reserve somewhere, except that this isn't a bush plane. The manufacturer has set it up so you can flick a switch and the batteries, usually connected in parallel, one to each starter-generator, automatically go into series when the power is needed most. My company, however, says that the power is not needed most at 10% but rather at about 18-28% where there are bad vibrations (seriously, that's the reason), so what I'm supposed to do is start the engine with the series-parallel switch in parallel, but if the engine rpm is at or above 18% and not increasing steadily by 1% per second through 25%, I should flick the switch into series then. I was so impressed by this in groundschool I immediately asked why I wouldn't do it every time. It's because it's very hard on the batteries and if you drain both of them together, you only have one shot, so you have to hit it with your best shot. Also if you do it at night you need to have a flashlight handy, because it will dim the lights and you won;t be able to see the engine instruments.

The SPR valve is another thing they didn't get quite right, according to company procedures. It sounds all cool and modern with the TLA and all, and it stands for Start Pressure Regulator which brings to mind the idea that it might be some sort of computer. Nope. It's the primer. Yeah, the primer. I have to prime this puppy. Primer is available between ten and fifty-five percent rpm, but I should prime it between zero and ten percent, then not prime it between ten and twenty-five, then go back to priming until 55% when the 55% speed switch opens and de-energizes it. The SPR bypasses the fuel control unit and fuel flow transmitter, going straight to the primary fuel nozzles.

The fuel solenoid valve is the thing that lets the fuel into the engine so the igniters have something to ignite. I'm sure that makes them very happy. You can close these valves mechanically with an emergency stop control, but then you can't open them again. Ever. Okay probably not ever. I assume maintenance can fix you up again. The primaries only solenoid allows fuel through only the primary starter nozzles, not the full manifold.

The igniters are not something that I have a lot of information on, but the ignition exciters supply "a nominal high voltage of 18,000' volts to the igniters" so the exciters seem to be serving as fluffers to the igniters. The igniters are some kind of high tech spark plug that lights the fuel. I know they are different than glow plugs, because I flew an airplane once on which some models had glow plugs and some models had igniters and this was apparently different enough that I was supposed to care. (Can you tell I didn't?) I pretended to at the time, and phasers on kill, I swear I will pretend to care about this, too. The igniters light my fire. Can't start a fire without a spark. What is wrong with me? I almost never quote song lyrics. Because I don't know any.

A light comes on when the igniters are working, and the EGT should rise, indicating that something is actually on fire in there, and that the hot exhaust is coming out the right end. When it happens, the pilot can release the start button. If it doesn't happen within ten seconds of reaching 10% rpm, or before reaching 20% rpm, the pilot should shut down the engine. She does this by pressing the stop button, pulling the stop and feather control and then continuing to motor the engine for ten seconds with the starter test switch.

55% RPM

When the 55% switch (which the book calls a 50% switch, but the book is for an older model of engine, so I have to assume that changed) opens, everything that the #1 and #2 start control relays did gets undone, except for the opening of the fuel solenoid:

• the starter relay closes
• the starter turns off
• the anti-ice lockout valve opens
• the oil vent valve closes
• the series/parallel relay goes back to parallel, if it was used
• the ignition turns off
• SPR becomes unavailable
• primaries only fuel solenoid closes

Whew, that feels good. It was actually worth it. It took too long, though. I spent a couple of hours on that, between course notes, two manuals and the engine supplement. And stalking around hoping chocolate would spontaneously appear.

Is there some kind of vitamin, found only in chocolate, from which deprivation makes it difficult to study without degenerating into lame Star Trek references, old song lyrics and crude jokes?

I'm also getting antsy, waiting for my training to be scheduled. I have a job offer already, but until I actually go online as a pilot, I don't really have a job. They scheduled the first two while I was there, and I know the second one had a PPC ride today. But it could have been delayed by aircraft or training pilot availability. That happens. Or they decided they hated me and are just going to ignore me. It's not paranoia when they really are out to get you. I e-mailed the chief pilot with a question about where I should send my paperwork, kind of the way I ask ATC for an altimeter setting when I haven't talked to them in a while.

Local News

Welcome to a Cockpit Conversation recurring feature: "Aviatrix mocks your town by reading your local newspaper." Today we look at the Regina Leader- Post. I'm not actually in Regina, but, as two readers promptly figured out when I asked, in Estevan, Saskatchewan. This is the complimentary newspaper at the hotel.

Front page news here relates the intriguing tale that "Members of several religions took part [...] to celebrate Good Friday and Easter in Regina." Shouldn't that be "to celebrate Passover, Easter, Songkran, the Feast of Ridvan and the coming of spring?" I suspect that the 'multiple religions' involved in this ceremony were all flavours of the same one. The directory of religious services inside the paper supports that theory: there are forty churches listed under fifteen categories, but every one is Christian. But just when I think I have this community pegged, I see the leftover space on the same page is filled by an open-minded article on Buddhism. Perhaps the multifaith celebrations of other spring festivals were held on other days. The other front page story involves one politician giving another the finger.

Inside the paper we focus mainly on arrests, sentencing, and manhunts. One man who received the minimum sentence for possession of child pornography says he downloaded it because he was curious about whether it really existed. Police are looking for someone who cut across a field in the middle of the night, leaving tire ruts, and for a guy with lots of tattoos who has violated his parole curfew. I wonder if the latter has a tractor. A police spokesman said, regarding other incidents, "There's lots of collisions ... and the people who die, we don't really know what's in their heads." The paper also notes that, "Police say Thursday night and Friday morning were extremely busy, with domestic disputes, fights, and alcohol-fulled incidents." There's a photo of a man in a baseball cap riding his bicycle by sitting backwards on the handlebars and pedalling. He says he was hit by a vehicle once and rides this way to keep an eye on oncoming traffic. I suspect his cycling is alcohol- fuelled, and that if he has a domestic partner, they have had disputes about the wisdom of riding this way.

Last week's paper had a surprising number of reports of unidentified dead bodies. I think all the people that get lost or murdered over the winter here turn up in the same week of spring.

The most interesting news is a wire story on a Canadian named Julia Gaffield who found the Haïtian declaration of independence. No it wasn't lost in the earthquake. It seems that when they originally declared it, they printed up a whole bunch of copies and handed them all out, forgetting to keep one in a safe place. Eventually, as with most ephemera, everyone who had had one had moved or spring cleaned enough times that no one was known to have one anymore. They knew what it says, as they had lots of handwritten copies, just not the original item. Julia found it in the British Library because someone had sent a copy to someone important enough to have had his correspondence archived. Nice timing, and I hope it inspires Haïti during its rebuilding.

There's sports (ice skating, curling, bowling, running, baseball. lacrosse, and hockey, of course), movies (3D everything), homes ($250-600k), and classifieds. The announcements sections has four birthdays, a birth, a graduation, an anniversary and a congratulations to the girl who scored the most points in the playoffs, helping her team win the SFMHL hockey championships.

My favourite part was this cartoon, mostly because I looked at the picture, thought "okay, airliner" and then looked for the joke in the caption, before realizing that the picture is the joke, and the name of the airliner just echoes it.

Oh and the AME at the FBO calls to confirm receipt of the airplane and the work order, and to ask if I happened to notice if the NDB antenna was standing when I arrived. Apparently it blew down. So I guess it was windy enough to be worth tying down the plane.

Also, not local, but way too bizarre not to post, is this story of two eagles crashing into a snowbank while engaged in an aerial mating dance. The male was killed and the female may have a head injury and permanent ligament damage. These birds need to practise safer sex.

Left Out of the Love

In a combined effort with other aviation bloggers, I promised a post that ties in with the holiday some people will be celebrating today. Not the New Year's celebration, but the other holiday. The one with hearts instead of dragons.

There's a wide societal expectation that your romantic life will follow a certain pattern. You'll date a few people who turn out to be inappropriate, or just not long term prospects for you. You then get more serious and fall in love with Mr. or Miss. Right. There's a proposal, an acceptance, engagement, wedding plans and then happily ever after. It's considered polite conversation with near strangers to ask if they are married. And if you don't seem to be on that path, there are confused questions.

Friends try to set you up. And you think you want that, so you accept and thank them, then never call the number, or call but accept flimsy excuses, and fail to follow up if they don't call back. You go through bursts where you rededicate yourself to believing that this really is something you want. You carefully craft a personal ad. You are thrilled but also terrified when you get a response from someone who seems right. You're not sure if you're dreading the date itself--because there have been some terrible ones, and they can be so humiliating--or the inevitable rejection. You gloss over the reason for your previous break ups, trying to make yourself look as good as possible without lying. You try to make the best impression you can, which might mean not presenting your real self. You check your e-mail and your phone for messages, hoping to hear back. Sometimes they schedule another date. You try to be the person they want, and argue to yourself that it is your real self, just the best sides of it, but deep down you wonder if 'maybe there's someone out there who wants me for me, all of me.'

You plan self-improvement of some kind, to make yourself more appealing, but find yourself shirking or dreading sessions because they are a reminder of being unwanted, and is the expense worth the marginal improvement? You catch yourself avoiding friends who are in relationships, because their casual references remind you of what you're supposed to have. You cut yourself off from the people who could help you get what you think you want.

Maybe you're with someone, but it's not very serious. There are no long term prospects and your friends keep asking if you're still with that loser. Maybe you're freelancing, good friends with a enough people whom you can rely on for a booty call or a fling when you're that way inclined. Maybe you've discovered that your life is pretty comfortable with your feet on the ground, avoiding any romantic entanglements. How does one tell whether passing doubts or dissatisfaction is because you aren't with the partner you want, or you aren't with the partner society has taught you and continues to assume is Right? Have you 'settled' or is this what you want? Even when you're totally comfortable right now, external and internal expectations whisper messages of guilt and failure and concern for your future if you haven't succumbed to traditional marriage before you lose your marketability.

This post does not carry the non-aviation tag, because it's really about aviation. The airline job is the mythical Mr. Right for the commercial pilot. Personnel ads and résumés are just like personal ads. Interviews are as awkward and potentially humiliating as first dates. Contract flying is exciting and varied, but does sometimes leave you without a date when there are bills to be paid. You can end up with the wrong one, in a dangerous relationship, but not have the resources to leave, or the self-esteem to know you can do better. The metaphor follows all the way through, including tearful breakups and those confusing relationships where you're not really sure who dumped whom and you're tempted to go over and beg them to take you back. Calling your ex to get your stuff back and talking to your replacement, who has been told lies about you. Yep, it's all there. The only upside is that you probably won't get dumped if your current employer discovers you are actively looking for the next one. You probably won't get promoted either, though. And many who think they have achieved happily ever after discover that the one they have committed thirty years to has gambled away the pension money.

If you're flying helicopters instead of fixed wing, things get more complicated, especially as many people don't become helicopter pilots until years of believing their destiny is in fixed wing. Friends and family who don't know helicopters don't have a clue what they do anyway or what your prospects might be, because there isn't a widely respected stereotype of a successful rotary wing pilot. You might not live in an area where a stable airline job is an option at all on a helicopter. There's a certain freedom there, because expectations are different, but the same angst over career progress. You're forced to define your own success.

Whichever side of the airport you're working, long to be working, or have decided you really don't need the headaches from, I wish you a happy and prosperous Year of the Tiger. Gung Hay Fat Choy.

If I Did It

So, as I said, the instructor quit an hour early so as not to miss his favourite TV show, leaving an unbooked hour in the sim. After discussion with John, I've decided to document as follows. If I had a chance to fly the sim for that hour, this is how it went.

I'm in the left seat, a colleague of John's is in the right, and John is running the sim. Rather than spend precious minutes starting up and taxiing, I ask John to position the aircraft holding short of the runway, engines running. The same eternal twilight prevails. Maybe it's the default. It's commonly used in sims, because you can still see well, but the brain accepts that indistinct visuals are caused by poor lighting conditions, heightening the efficacy of the illusion.

Not Me (nor Lee), doing prestart checks in an Australian C-130

I call for the pre-takeoff checklist, which I had thought was displayed on screens on the glareshield, but now that I can see it close up I find that the centre panels are nav and radio frequencies (funny to see numbers starting with "2" up in the UHF range) and it's where you set the autopilot parameters, which is why they were looking at it at checklist time. You can sort of see them in the photo. My copilot, whom I will call Lee, because it's awkward to keep calling him "the guy in the right seat," says "it's a flow," meaning that it's a silent rechecking of systems. I give a takeoff briefing consisting mainly of the appalling, "I'm going to push everything forward and rotate at ... umm, what's it say on the TOLD?" and "then we'll make it up as we go along." We obtain a takeoff clearance, and then I taxi onto the runway.

You might wonder why I didn't just ask him to start it up ON the runway, like the default in Microsoft Flight simulator. I do want to see what it's like to taxi, not just to know, but because a take off run is transitioning from taxiing to flying and let's give me a chance to see how this thing works before I'm actually taking off. Oh and there's a wrinkle that I very almost forgot. In an airplane this size there is no rudder pedal-nosewheel steering linkage. I have to steer with a separate wheel. It's like the steering wheel on some buses: a normal steering wheel with a knob on it so you can crank it fast. It's weird to have airplane steering in my hand.

With the right hand, it's quite easy to push four power levers forward. They've been designed to act as one, or as two for differential power. Oops, it's too easy. You have to put the power up and wait for things to happen when the airplane is this big. Maybe I'd be more intimidated by this airplane had I had to walk up to it and climb into the cockpit instead of walking across the little bridge into something I could see wasn't much bigger than a minivan. I stay on the simulated runway and get the thrust under control.

Centred -- more or less -- on the runway, that again-forgotten 'go past before you need to turn' thing, and my slowness on the nosewheel crank worked in my favour here. You don't have the same foot feedback on whether the nosewheel is centred like with rudder-linked steering. You have to look at the markings on the pointer by the steering wheel to see if the nosewheel is back in the middle after a turn. I eat up a few hundred feet of runway experimenting with the steering and getting the airplane properly centred with the nosewheel straight, then I stop and look at Lee. "Ready?" Some aircraft have lineup checks or "below the line" items on the runway. If this one does he's snuck them in, because he just says, "Ready, Captain." John must have paid him to say that. I grin like a kid and push the power levers forward.

Oh. Yes. Baby. This is a twenty million dollar sex toy. Size matters, as long as it's got this much thrust. In the back of my mind is the knowledge that lurks there on every real or simulated takeoff that it may be an abort, but I do everything but call out "don't stop!"

It climbs like a bat out of hell, and is remarkably stable doing so. I call "Gear up" and find myself hunting for an HSI or other directional indication to maintain my heading. We're in VMC but even with all these windows, I can't see a ground reference at this climb angle.

"Heading information?" I ask.

John just says, "that's fine right there." He thinks I was asking for a heading. I figure it out. It's on the HUD, like a compass, only forward, which is backwards for a compass. Don't ponder that too hard. I'm right side up and have nowhere to go in particular. I also have to clean up the power. I'm so far behind this plane I wouldn't get hurt in a crash.

"What torque do I set for the climb?" Lee's hand beside me does it. The beauty of having at least one crew member who knows what he's doing. Wait, there are no propeller levers. "Where are the propeller controls?" The throttles are just throttles, but this is not a jet, it's a turboprop. You're not going to tell me it has fixed pitch propellers?! Apparently it's automatic. How cool is that? I have no idea how it works. I could look it up, but then this blog post would be even later.

We're through ten thousand feet in the time it takes me to figure out how to look straight ahead of me and accept that I have no propeller levers. I level off and then make some shallow turns to look around, and get the feel of the airplane. It feels very much like an airplane. Knowing the way a simulator works: tipping and lurching to simulate various kinds of motion, then sneaking smoothly back to the middle so it's ready to do that again, I had intended to try and trick it and come up with a scenario that would allow me to notice the little man behind the curtain, but even as a passenger it didn't occur to me during maneuvers that there was anything going on other than airplane physics. Now that I can try it, I want to think about trying the plane not the sim.

There's a reason the trainees were doing steep turns and stalls. It's not just that they're flight test items, but that's how you tell what an airplane does. You need to know how it responds to roll, pitch and power inputs. On an examination you demonstrate a steep turn to prove you have mastered these controls. On a test flight you find out how the airplane behaves. On a lesson you find out how the student behaves. I find out whether I'm going to make a fool of myself.

I see no traffic. (It doesn't matter that you're in a glorified box on a stick, if you were properly trained you can't do a turn without checking for traffic) and try a forty-five degree turn. Look at the horizon; roll smoothly through thirty degrees; climb two hundred feet as I add way too much thrust. "Easy on the rudders!" advises the right seat pilot. It's surprising he can speak, given how hard he must have been biting his tongue up to now.

I roll out, using much less rudder, readjust the power, and then try again. This time smoothly, easily, lock it on the horizon and carve a semicircle in the sky, and then back the other way to where I started. It's really just like my regular ride. I usually screw up the first one in recurrent training, too, because due to my regular payload I'm operationally forbidden to bank over 16 degrees, often less. I trust that the way the simulator feels is very much the way the actual airplane feels, but it doesn't feel like I'm hauling around three Humvees, 64 paratroopers or almost 30,000 kg of fuel.

"What weight is it set at?" I ask, scanning the areas where the guys seemed to have been looking when they did their fuel calculations. I don't have their benefit of groundschool, study manuals (I asked, but they were all "not to be transmitted outside the department"), or non-motion cockpit trainers. "Can you adjust it so I can feel it at max gross?" John does so, and I do another steep turn. Now I need more power.

"What is the stall speed in this configuration?" There's a TOLD indicator on the centre console. I think it was one thirty something. Forgive me for not taking notes. Those sinusoidal fans Angus mentioned seem to have done their job. Or maybe it's the week or so delay in writing it up. So fly plane, reduce power, fly plane, reduce power, hold altitude, trim, airspeed dropping. "Hey, I want to hold it in slow flight for a moment," increase power, keep nose up, hold altitude, now I get to use the rudder a bit more, but I guess it has a yaw damper, because not as much as I would expect. I'm trying to balance it on the edge of a stall. There's something amazing about the skills I learned in a Cessna 152 being applicable to something that probably needs chocks bigger than an entire C152. I hold the attitude and reduce the power a bit more.

WHACK!

I was intending to stall it, and knew it had a stick pusher, but the movement of the stick actually pushing takes me by surprise. It's like a flight instructor angrily grabbing the controls, or the first time anti-lock brakes makes themselves felt under your feet. The pilot is supposed to push the stick forward to get the nose down if the airplane stalls, but this airplane isn't taking any chances that I'm stupid or slow, so it shoves it forward itself. Many smaller airplanes are aerodynamically built so that the airplane noses down at the point of stall. This feature replicates that. I increase the power as I should for the stall recovery. The familiarity of that maneuver--stick pusher notwithstanding--is a testament to this being a historic airframe, predating airplanes too fancy for humans to fly them without computer stabilization. "Take it down to a minimum weight," I dictate to John, words like 'could you please' completely lost in the combined spirit of scientific investigation and pilot-in-command.

I stall and recover again in level flight, letting the stick pusher push one hand while the other pushes power levers. I'm really not sure if I can tell that the airplane behaves differently or if I just imagine it does because I know the forces are different. In the real airplanes which I've flown so far, I only really notice weight differences in slow flight, i.e. take off and landing, but the max and min weights are not so different. I try a steep turn at the lower weight and I nail it. Seriously, a HUD is the best invention since the windshield. This would so rock for aerobatics.

Insert a half second pause to consider what I just thought there. Okay, that's enough of a pause.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please ensure your seatbelts are fastened, your tray tables up and your carry on baggage securely stowed." I make a rolling gesture with my hand where Lee can see it but John can't, and he grins and nods. Look at the horizon. Look at the HUD. Coordinated aileron and rudder into the roll. Hold heading, hold altitude, hold the roll inputs, look at the horizon. Amazingly, it really feels like I've rolled inverted. You can actually see the ground ahead through the highest windows. Oh oh I shouldn't have swung my head like that. Check the nose, keep the roll going, look at the horizon, back to right side up, and roll wings level. I make a noise like "Yippee!" only less articulate. This is awesome. I'm sure someone who does a lot of aerobatics would be able to distinguish between the expected disorientation of being upside-down and the artificial orientation of a simulator asked to do something it can't sustain, but it felt good enough to me. Writing this, I realize I should have tried to sustain inverted flight to see how the simulator would respond to that and I might have tried it, but just then an alarm went off.

I look at the glareshield for an annunciator. I'm low on fuel, because that's what I asked for: minimum weight. John magically refuels me. "Inflight refuelling," I say, a standard instructor-in-simulator joke. And then I realize that this is an airplane that provides inflight refuelling to others in real life. I ask if we can simulate air-to-air refuelling. They tell me we need a flight engineer to do that right. In the J-model (we're in the Hercules C-130J) the Marines use the FE position as an FE, navigator, defensive systems operator, loadmaster and refuelling operations controller. Older models had more crew members, but automation has allowed them to condense the jobs. The FE is especially busy during refueling. the pilots just have to fly straight and level while the receiver hooks up and the FE does all the interesting stuff during the transfer. So while it would be cool to see the simulated receiving aircraft pull alongside, it wouldn't be any more educational than watching a movie of the real thing.

It really boggles my mind that they are pumping fuel between aircraft. I wonder if it's an aviator/aviatrix thing whether you see an aerial mating dance, or the comparatively little helicopters suckling at the teats of the mommy Hercules.

I'm trying to think of what else can I do in this airplane that I couldn't in any other. It has radar jamming countermeasures, but useful as that may be, it doesn't sound like a hoot to simulate, and it's the FE's job, anyway. "Can we drop the paratroopers?" I ask, "After the way I've been flying I'm sure they want out." Yes, the sim does do that. I often have to retrim an airplane because one person walked to the back. What is it be like when sixty-four of them jump out the back? There wasn't a crazy pitch change as John insta-fuelled me earlier, but that's not a normal function of the airplane, so I wouldn't expect it to be modelled. But the trainers would want a pilot to know what to expect when everyone jumps out the back.

I turn around so we're headed back to the airport, and we run the checklist. The pilot not flying, that's Lee, does the depressurization. Pressurization is so automatic that I haven't had to think about it yet, but the aircraft is pressurized, so popping the back door might not result in quite as orderly a jump as my simulated Marines have planned. Depressurization is trivial: he has set the pressurization control to "NO" and the rate of depressurization to "normal." It's easier to use than on the King Air. Our altitude (about 12,000', I forget) is good.

When the depressurization is complete, Lee tells me he's going to open the cargo doors and reaches up. Normal airplanes have separate panels for things like lights, fuel system and deicing. This one has all that, plus an 'aerial delivery control panel.' You can drop a tank out of this thing. I'm exercising bad CRM by rubbernecking at the panel and it bites me. The whole airplane shakes violently. I redirect my attention to the controls where it should be and manage the airplane. I have a caution light, but it's just the 'door open' light, not the 'door ripped violently from the airframe' light or the 'missile attack' light that it feels like. Apparently this turbulence is a bug in the sim: it's supposed to be simulating normal airframe vibration caused by opening the door, but every once in a while it produces too much vibration for the event. I slow to the jump speed of 120 kts. Lee is working more switches on the panel. Later I look and see that there are deflector shields (cargo bay doors and deflector shields (it's Star Trek: 2001), plus caution lights in the cargo bay so the jumpers know what is going on. Presumably I would have a jumpmaster or someone else down there to talk to on intercom, too. When Lee tells me everything is ready I "approve" the egress.

I concentrate on flying nice and level and not hurting any of my simulated jumpers, and try to feel if there is any simulated CG shift. Nothing significant. "How long does it take them to all exit?" I ask after a moment.

"They'd be out by now."

It was maybe thirty seconds. "Can I see them?" I immediately want to know, looking out the window. John doesn't know if the simulator shows that. I bank over and try to look, but we don't see any simulated parachutes opening. I'll just have to assume my guys (and gals, if there are there female paratroopers) are all alright. I head back to the airport while Lee closes the doors and tidies up after the jump. We totally abbreviated that procedure, and skipped a bunch of checklists required to ensure the safety of real jumpers. John sent me a lot of information on how it should have been done, so I'll post that in a later entry. Remind me if I don't.

Isn't that the coolest picture? It completely conveys "ready for anything" when you can jump out of an airplane wearing a parachute and swim fins. I guess they just jettison and abandon the parachutes, as you certainly couldn't swim with one. Seems a waste, but then I guess most military operations involve throwing something away.

I descend for the airport and join downwind. Lee talks me through it and sets flaps and gear. I feel like I'm flaring too early, but it's textbook, in the first third of the runway, on the centreline. As an instructor myself, I know that I can pretend to take credit for that, but it wouldn't have looked as nice without the unobtrusive coaching. On the go of the touch and go there's surprisingly little to do. No propeller levers, the gear is supposed to stay down for circuits (but I raised it after takeoff without thinking). I wouldn't have pilots practice circuits with the gear always down. You could train out the instinct to always check it, and end up with something like this.

There's not a lot of time for circuits. I want to try a bush pilot style short field landing, flare over the weeds and stall onto the beginning of the runway, so I fly a long downwind and turn base to set up a long approach, as I said before an easy way to help judge descent profile. But we have to be out of here with the sim shut down and ready for the next people by eight o' clock and it's almost time. Lee says, "Quick, let me show you something."

"You have control."

He takes it, cutting the corner to final and then he shoves the nose down, divebombing the airport. I think he might have added power. He overflies the runway without slowing down. And then reaching the other end of the runway, before I can say 'hey cool,' we're in a knife edge left bank. I look at the simulated ground, including radio towers and buildings. Just when I think he's about to roll it inverted, he cranks the yoke back the other way and makes an equally steep 270 to the right, pulling the throttle to almost idle. He calls for gear down and flap fifty, and before I have that set he has rolled out perfectly on the centreline and wants full flaps. Done, down and brake. I don't think we've quite stopped rolling when John shuts down the sim. Without the visuals, we can feel the pod resetting itself to the neutral position. I'm still saying "holy firetrucks!" or something like it as we unstrap, grab our stuff and vacate the machine with a couple of minutes to spare.

Apparently that roller coaster approach is a trick to confuse people who hang out near your airport with ground to air missiles, and aren't on your team. I won't be trying it soon in my ride. That was definitely more than a fifteen degree bank. It kinda violates the Transport Canada regulations on flying a circuit, too.

As we all left the sim building we passed the open door of a briefing room where two more clean-shaven young men in flight suits were sitting with an instructor preparing for their simulator session. I hope they do well, and what I've seen from the quality of the instruction around here, they will.

It turns out that Lee, whom I didn't get more than a handshake introduction to before flight, is working on qualifying to be an instructor pilot. I wish I'd known that before the session: I could have made better use of his knowledge. I tease him, "I'm an instructor. The first thing is you have to be more outspoken. Don't let some ignoramus in the left seat push you around when you know better." We chat for a bit about the airplane and instruction in general, but he declines my offer of beer and or dinner, probably seeing through my shallow ploy to siphon more information out of him before casting aside his lifeless husk. John watched me do that to an aquarium volunteer, probably warned Lee. Lee therefore accepts only my abject thanks for his role in my flight of fancy, and goes back to studying.

So remember if I flew the KC-130 simulator, and I'm not saying I did, because that could get someone in trouble, that's more or less the way of it. I might have got some things wrong or left some parts out. Those sinusoidal extraction fans are something else.

Afterwards John and I went to a generic sort of food place that unfortunately did not measure up to the barbecue recommendations some of you gave when I announced this trip. I had an unmemorable entree, but then one of the dessert items offered was deep fried cheesecake. If I tried the cheesecake, and I'm not saying I did, because that way it's symmetrical with the previous paragraph, my tastebuds were wary but ultimately happy, my pancreas seemed worried and my arteries cried out in anguish. Seriously, y'all will deep fry anything around here!

So, anyone else have any thrust levers or cheesecake I can sample?

Big Bike, Little Bike

All right, I'm back online. Chronicles of my life as a pod person, and the subsequent battles with Microsoft Vista will follow in their proper sequence.

In the hotel parking lot, I noticed a flatbed trailer containing an unusual vehicle. I'd call it a bicycle, but a bicycle has two wheels and this has instead four really big wheels. It also has about thirty bicycle seats, thirty sets of pedals, and thirty sets of handlebars all arranged in three columns on a frame with the approximate footprint of a schoolbus. And not the short bus, either. It's would be a really, really, big bicycle, if the word "bicycle" didn't imply two wheels. I noted that it was cool, and assumed that it was headed up to some 4th of July celebration in Alaska. (Happy 4th, by the way, to my U.S.A. readers). Everything else on this highway is headed to Alaska.

The next day I crossed the parking lot on my way back from supper just in time to see the big bike pulling out of the parking lot. Not the big bike on the trailer pulled by the truck: but the big bike being ridden by about thirty people all pedalling like crazy. It was fast!

"Hey!" I asked of people at a table with banners on it. "Who rides on the bike?"

"Teams," she said. "Corporate groups, other organizations. Other people too."

That didn't quite answer my question, so I cut to the heart of the matter, "Can I ride on it?"

And the answer is yes -- for a donation --. The whole escapade is a fundraiser for the Heart & Stroke Foundation. I know someone who has had a heart attack and someone else who has had a stroke in the last few weeks, so in their names I ponied up the cash and joined in the fun. "What team are you on?" they wanted to know. A team captain was within earshot worrying that many of the people from her organization who said they would come hadn't turned up, so I said I was on her team, and they were happy to have the ringer. The fire rescue squad was supposed to be there too, but their captain had told them the wrong date, so the whole bike was ladies, with the middle row of seats unoccupied. Those of us who were there got on and were issued silly noisemakers and then we cranked up the onboard tunes and rode off. The seats were big wide fat-bottomed girl seats, so I had to sit forward on the forward point of the seat in order to pedal properly. The drive train was quite complicated. I think the woman in front of me wasn't putting power into the same chain as I was, but the woman two ahead was. She kept putting her feet up and stopping pedalling, possibly because I was pedalling more furiously than she wanted to keep up with. Hey, if I'm going to ride the big bike, I'm going to ride the hell out of it. Even with only two-thirds of the seats filled and not everyone as enthusiastic about pedalling as I was, we got going pretty quickly. We were riding along the Alaska Highway south service road.

We rode past the laundromat-sex shop-buffalo meat sales outlet and up the hill past the grocery store. It wasn't a very steep hill, but it was a heavy bicycle. We all waved and cheered and shook our noisemakers at everyone we saw. And of course because it's a small town, everyone who isn't a ringer like me knows everyone else they see in the pickup trucks or walking on the sidewalk as we go by. We ride past the hunting store, past the Northern Store (which the locals still call The Bay) and past one of the two Chinese restaurants. When we get to the street opposite the community centre, the one that had been constructed incorrectly and had the roof fall in last year right after a kids hockey tournament, we turned right, crossed the Alaska highway and turned right again down the north service road. Now this was a downhill road, not so steep you notice walking, but enough that when you get a mammoth steel-framed "bicycle" loaded with twenty women, some of whom are still pedalling like they paid to do this, it goes pretty fast. There are stop signs at some of the sidestreets, but our driver is just looking up at anyone coming and I guess staring them down, because we barrel on through. "Hang on everyone," he says. "We're going around the corner pretty fast."

The corner is a cross street with a Yield sign to merge with or cross the Alaska Highway. There's one of those bannered Wide Load trucks coming. And we peel around the corner at about 40 km/h screaming like we're on a roller coaster, across the highway and back into the hotel parking lot. Best fifteen minutes on a bicycle I ever spent, and I've bicycled a lot of places, including down the slope of a volcano, across national borders and mountain ranges, and through some spectacular national parks.

Also, some of the participants were from a hospital team, so I checked if they could clear up my mystery. I wasn't too specific, mentioning only that there was a "particular type of garbage" on the street above the hospital. They immediately recognized the reference, but didn't have a clear answer for me. They said it was right down the street from the high school, where free condoms were available. The hospital gives out free condoms, too, but they said they weren't the same kind. They were not aware of orgies occurring on the street behind the hospital.

Back on the subject of bicycles, the people at Montague sent me an e-mail recently about their Paratrooper bike. It's a full-sized bicycle that uses standard bicycle components and is rugged enough to be dropped out of an airplane on a parachute and for a big soldier to ride around in the desert carrying an additional 35 kilograms of gear. And it folds up to barely bigger than airline checked luggage. The unfolding process is apparently a 30-second, no-tools operation. The price is about $500, too, which is a reasonable price for a rugged bike that doesn't fold.

In the picture on the website you see it folded on the seat of a car and it looks smaller than my much- travelled suitcase. But then you realize that the "car" it is in is one of those giant military jeep things, and the soldier is probably a gigantic guy too. Air Canada and United Airlines both restrict standard checked luggage using a weird formula where they add the three dimensions.

Max size for checked luggage: Width + Length + Height = 62"

Paratrooper bike dimensions: L36" + H28" + W12" = 76"

That's too bad, by a mere fourteen inches. I wonder if I removed the pedals, seat and handlebars if that would squeeze it down enough. Possibly. But you don't want to be so close to the borderline that you risk getting slapped with a $175 oversized baggage fee. Also you'd have to put it in an opaque bag, so that the airline doesn't automatically charge the bicycle fee. After all, if you can drop it out of an airplane, you can entrust it to baggage handlers, right? You can do a bit more disassembly and get everything inside regulation suitcases, and then of course not tell them anything is a bicycle, to avoid the $100 bicycle surcharge.

I only have one checked bag now. It is tempting to travel with a second one, and have a bicycle with me. My wandering radius would expand from ten or so kilometres to thirty or forty. I'm thinking about it. Does it mean I'd have to sell one of my existing and beloved bicycles?

Colour Theory

This is a topic that, unlike user-pay heathcare, I know in advance is controversial, so please note that I'm not telling anyone you're counting your population wrong, or that any colour of person should count more or less than any other. I'm just documenting what surprises me, and admitting the misconceptions of this one anonymous aviatrix. We touched on this earlier in a discussion in another post's comments, I believe.

I'm in a town of approximately ten thousand people. I looked it up on Wikipedia to see what people do here, what the industries are, or if there is any local history I should know about. There isn't much, but the article says the local population is within a few percentage points of fifty percent black and fifty percent white. And it says that only 1.5% of the population is composed of two or more races.

Wait, what? That's 150 people of mixed race in the whole town, a stunningly low rate of interracial mixing in a place where people of the two races clearly work and go to school together. It stretches credibility. This was once a cotton-growing, slave-owning area, so there have been black and white people living close together here for a couple of hundred years. Let's say that seven generations ago, when the slaves were freed, the population contained only pure white and pure black people, and that just one couple ever dared to breed outside their race. Assuming that two of their kids lived to produce kids, and so on for each generation, a single interracial couple in 1860 would produce the progeny to match the census claim, with no other interracial children being born or coming to the town.

I know for sure that there were interracial couples as far back as the 1860s. There was a speaker at the museum whose great-great-something-great-grandfather was a white slave owner and whose great-great-something-great grandmother was a black slave. I don't believe there was only one such ancestor in this town. Not to be too indelicate, but rape and drunken accident alone would bring the total higher than that. The possibilities, I concluded, were:

• a) Wikipedia is in error
• b) Almost everyone of mixed race leaves or does not have children
• c) The vast majority of people of mixed race either lie on the census or do not know about their ancestry

Option (a) is no fun, so I'll assume that the answer is a combination of (b) and (c), which implies that being of mixed heritage carries such an extreme stigma here that you are socially ostracized or worse unless you can hide the admixture and claim to be descended from solely one race or the other.

While I was hypothesizing on the social hierarchy that would make it less acceptable to be partly descended from the dominant race than not at all, someone laughed at me and swept it all aside. In the United States, he explained, if you have enough African ancestry for it to be visible in your features, you are legally black. You can even be legally black if people can't tell by looking at you. Mixed race, he said, applies only to people who are, for example, part Pacific islander and part Caucasian, or maybe part Cherokee and part black. But if your mom is white and your dad is black, or vice versa, you're black.

I'd heard of the "one drop rule" but I thought it was historical, not a current definition. There does need to be a definition here, because in the US there are still some affirmative action opportunities for blacks, such as scholarships or quotas. For comparison, in Canada there are financial benefits to being a status Indian, so there are rules about who gets status, i.e. 1) the child of any two status Indians retains Indian status, and 2) the child of one status Indian and one non-status person also gets a status card, but only if the status parent did not get his or her card according to part two of the rule. It's called the second generation cutoff.

The probable result of the Canadian rule is that after a number of generations there won't be anyone left who is a status Indian. First nations folk aren't particularly racist in my experience, so if they are living in an area where people of other races are present, which is just about everywhere now, there is a chance they'll have children with someone who doesn't have a status card. But the result of the American rule is almost the opposite: with continued intermixing of the great American melting pot, eventually almost everyone will be able to trace some ancestry to Africa. And no one will be bothered by it.

Modern science tells me that I am ultimately of African descent, but, as far as I know, all my African ancestors walked out of that continent before recorded history, and their descendants trekked further north into Europe before settling down to breed my documented ancestors.

Au Revoir Montréal

Next morning we arrived at the airport at a civilized hour of the morning, our airplane bare and dry and the Montréal weather still cold and clear. Our broker has rebooked our customs appointment, we hope.

"I'll do weather and flight plan while you verify customs," we agreed.

The pilot information kiosk in the FBO is a piece of Nav Canada equipment, essentially a box containing a computer and the slowest modem known to man. It's supposed to connect automatically to Nav Canada's weather servers and provide all the weather products available to the modern pilot. I think it got as far as inquiring whether I would prefer English or French before it got hung up on its own innards. I beat on it for a while and then resorted to the telephone, first reporting the PIK here inoperative, in case someone might care to repair it, and then requesting the weather for our very short flight.

It's not so great. While it's lovely here, we're looking at low cloud and freezing fog for the destination. We might be able to squeeze in under the weather, but then we'd be trapped in the valley in Vermont, unable to proceed southeast through higher terrain. It's supposed to improve, but the briefer doesn't say that with optimism in his voice. We decide to wait for the new forecast and then see.

I load and preflight the airplane while it's still in the hangar. The floor is flooded, from all the melted ice and snow on the airplanes, but the airplane is dry, so it's ready to go. The new forecast, however isn't any better. We don't like to go to unfamiliar airports for customs, because we're a little out of the ordinary. Each station has its own culture and we can get unlucky and run into someone who doesn't accept our classification or doesn't like the way we do our paperwork, and end up stuck for a day, waiting for the broker to fax proof of something or other. But Vermont isn't going to work.

My coworker starts casting around for another place to clear customs, but there's a stationary front sitting over the northeast US, making things ugly everywhere. It looks like we can skirt it by cutting across Lake Ontario, then along the south shore of Lake Erie, to get into Cleveland. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, here we come. When we call the airport in Vermont to say we're not coming, the border guys laugh at us. They know how bad the weather is and were expecting the call. We then call our customs broker to set Cleveland up with the paperwork we need, while we go for lunch.

Lunch is nearby at a cafeteria over the flying school. While we're eating I can here a group at a nearby table working on a weight and balance calculation. It seems to be a couple of male pilots helping a female student pilot with the form. Her voice carries clearly, but I don't hear the others' voices. I guess it depends on which way she is looking. She is an anglophone, not from this province, but I hear her say a couple of times that she'd really does intend to learn French. I'm not deliberately eavesdropping, so my awareness of the conversation fades in an out. Then I hear her pronouncing French words with a heavy English accent. She is in her early twenties and speaks fluent English with a fairly neutral North American accent but it doesn't seem like she has ever taken French in school. Perhaps she is American or Bahamian or something.

"Suis sont nous ... oh what? ... soi sont neuve ..." I look over, a bit puzzled. She's evidently reading something that has been written down for her. After a few starts and quiet corrections, she's saying a recognizable "soixante-neuf." Something from the weight and balance problem, perhaps? I can only hope.

She gets up to use the washroom, still repeating her new word and I turn a raised eyebrow look at the males at the table. They see me, and have the good grace to look sheepish. I think they realize that they'd better fess up or be busted by me, because shortly after she returns to the table I hear a shriek of outrage from her, and laughter all round.

I see her later on the stairs, and confess that I was wondering why they were so eagerly teaching her to say "sixty-nine." She rolls her eyes. The guys of course hadn't told her at first what they were coaching her to say, and had in the end only translated it by miming the sexual meaning, perhaps not realizing that the translation has exactly the same connotation in English. She had a good sense of humour about it.

We call back the customs broker and determine that our arrival is booked in Akron. Akron, Cleveland: it's all the same to us. I confirm that the other pilot is on the customs paperwork as PIC and I file to Akron.

Although she's PIC, she doesn't enjoy flying cross country, so I get the left seat and leave her with the radios. All good for me. There's a little bit of fog and cloud around as we fly south, but nothing to interfere with safe VFR flight.

The Canada-US border takes a funny zig-zag course through the lakes, so as we continue south we cross into the US and then briefly we're back in Ontario overhead its namesake lake. That's now four out of five of the Great Lakes I have flown across the middle of. One more to go. There's something really exciting about flying across big stretches of open water for me. If I ever get a job flying ETOPS across oceans, I'm sure the excitement will wear off, but flying across an ocean will be very exciting for a while.

During the flight, my coworker is trying to plan the next leg. "Anywhere in particular you want to stop?" she asks. Other than the fact that I've never been to Arkansas, there is nothing pulling me to anywhere in particular. You see, in the US there are hundreds, possibly thousand of runways that can accommodate our airplane. Almost all of them have fuel and a town with a chain hotel. And one Hampton Inn or Super-8 is pretty much interchangeable with any other one, so it really really doesn't matter where we stop, as long as it's on the way. That's why my plan to visit a friend in Indiana was in no way abuse of company resources.

"I'm partial to the 'funny names' method of choosing a nightstop," I opine. "All else being equal, stay at the place with the silliest name." She is familiar with that technique and goes through the map and the airport info book, looking at possible stops. We discuss the relative silliness of our options. I should have written down some of the names. It's going to depend a bit on weather, so we don't make a final decision.

We can see the bad weather to the southeast for the whole trip, but we remain in the clear right through our descent into Akron. We're right on time and we don't even have to taxi to a customs area: the customs official comes to us at the FBO. He's friendly and quick. I hand him both sets of passports at the rear door and he looks at them quickly, verifies that the number printed on the customs sticker on our door matches the one on the paperwork and he's done with us. Woo! Akron goes on the 'good place to clear customs' list.

I'll break the blog entry here as we order fuel and go inside for flight planning and washrooms. The day continues next post.

Seven Swans a Swimming

The airplane is due for a fifty hour scheduled maintenance check, and company tells me to fly to Grande Prairie, Alberta for the work. G.P. has major airline service and is less than two hours from here, so we can get one of our mechanics in there. I'm to fly out there, hand the airplane over to the mechanic and then fly it back when he's done, probably the next day. I land in Fort Nelson after my day's work for the customer, refuel and then head straight to Grande Prairie. I've brought my overnight gear.

It's an easy trip east, descending into Grande Prairie over farmland and a big lake just west of the airport. The CFS warns me not to overfly a certain lake two miles SSE of the airport because of breeding trumpeter swans. Whether my passage will spoil the mood or risk hitting swans in flagrante delicto isn't clear, but to avoid either risk, I fly a tight circuit to stay west of the lake as I land on the westbound runway. I pull onto the apron and park near the Shell, shutting down beside a Cessna 172 with two flat tires. The Shell fueller, who looks very bored, says I can park here.

I call my PRM but he's not there so I leave a message and call the mechanic. He says we've arranged to use the hangar belonging to "Swan Airmotive," and gives me the name of his contact. I happen to have parked next to the Swan Aero Exec hangar, and I can see the hangar for Swanberg Air around the corner, on the taxiway past the Shell. Swan Aero Exec appears to, as the name would imply, be an executive charter operation. There's a passenger lounge accessible from groundside, visible through the side windows. It is dark and locked. I walk past that hangar and find a hangar signed Swan Aero next to it. It is open and there are a couple of helicopters in it, but no people are immediately evident. There's a telephone number on the front of the hangar. It doesn't have an area code written on it, but I feel the momentary thrill of being an experienced world traveller: I know the area code for northern Alberta by heart. One has to take ones thrills where one can find them.

I call the number, complete with area code and the answering service claims to be Swan Automotive. That's getting closer to being the correct swan. Better still, they transfer me to the cellphone of the correct person, who knows that I'm coming and tells me to leave the airplane where it is, with the brakes released and he'll tow it inside later.

When I hang up from that call, there's a message from the PRM saying that we're getting the work done at Swanberg Airmotive. Have I reached the titular seven swans yet? I'm assuming that there are two separate companies with Swan in their name (one that has several versions of the same name) because of some connection with swans, possibly the ones that are trying to breed two and a half miles south southeast of here.

The airplane taken care of, I now need to find something for me and the mechanic. He hasn't found a room yet. I ask the still-bored fueller (he's now wandering around examining another airplane, a homebuilt with three flat tires) if he can recommend a nearby hotel. He warns me that Grande Prairie is a ludicrously expensive town, and gives me a name and a rate: $160. What?! Isn't there a Super-8 or something? Another chain apparently bought out the Super-8s. He says I can find a worse hotel, but they are all going to be about the same price, so I might as well stay in the nice one. It was not called "The Swan." I call directory assistance on my now functional in northwestern Canada cellphone and they have two rooms and call me a cab.

It's a very nice hotel. I feel guilty for a little while at not finding a cheaper one, but you know what? We're here on Thanksgiving weekend. Lets not live in squallor. The mechanic and I check in, and he doesn't gasp in horror, so perhaps he's been to Grande Prairie before. We go out for dinner at the Keg. I let him know I'm available for any runups or anything else he needs me to do, but I know he just wants the pilot to stay out of the way until he is almost done. I can sleep in the next morning while he works. Ahh, luxury.

Sounds Dirty

If you fly airline, you spend a lot of time waiting in hub cities like Toronto, Calgary, Chicago, or Dallas. If you fly charter, you wait in places like Regina. It's a reasonable sized city, pretty close to the middle of the continent. It's a good place to stop for gas on an east-west trip. It's also a good place to leave an airplane for a while, because it's optimally close to everything that might come up. Florida and BC are not so good places to leave an airplane, because they're both really far from many places and can block you in with hurricanes, tornadoes, squall lines, or mountains and fog. So this time I'm glad the airplane I'm getting is in Regina.

Today, for starters, I have to fly from Regina to Prince Albert, wait a few hours there, then fly back again. I didn't think that sounded dirty at all until a friend snickered at it. Now I'll always hear him saying, "Can I get my Prince Albert to your Regina?" I bet I could call up Winnipeg clearance delivery, say, "Looking fire far vagina with Romeo" and, assuming information Romeo were current, get back a squawk code and an IFR clearance via V304. I dare the next person to fly to Regina to do it. When I was a little kid I pronounced V and R pretty much the same way so that both the Saskatchewan capital and the body part came out as "vridge-EYE-na." I seem to recall the Queen's name inducing a bit of a giggle in class, so I wasn't the only one. (Foreign readers, remember that most Canadians pronounce R with their bottom lip against their top teeth, so they are similar letters to us).

All giggling aside, this one was my first flight as a pilot since landing in Nova Scotia in the Aventura, and these are important clients. Lets hope I remember how to fly this size of airplane. I have done the preflight paperwork, inspected the airplane, put cookies and water on board, and checked weather and NOTAMs. The customers won't be here for a while, so I go out and do a run-up, including testing the heaters, because I don't think this airplane has been used for passengers since the summer. It's hard to tell if the heaters are working, really, because the sun shining in the windows is heating it up pretty well, too. But I declare it working, as is everything else, and taxi to where I will pick them up. They arrive on time and ready to go, so I brief, secure the doors and start up.

There's a moment of uhh on my part because the Garmin 496 that is usually in here, isn't. Pilots get very lazy with toys like that. I have to scrabble for the 'file and forget' operational paperwork that I've filled out, telling me how to get there the old fashioned way. How primitive. I have to match up lakes and other landmarks with the paper chart.

The weather is beautiful. No turbulence, warm enough that I don't even have to turn on the heater and not a cloud in the sky. All I have to do is fly in a straight line and not run into anyone. There's not much traffic. I'm just watching for Prince Albert ahead. It's right on the bank of a river, but I note as I pass overhead that it is quite far from the town, and there are no other buildings close to the airport. I join the circuit and land, with a little prayer of thanks to the landing gods, because they might take vengeance if I take sole credit for the silky touchdown I achieved.

The terminal at Prince Albert is locked from the airside, and the code I guess doesn't work. Someone inside takes pity on us and lets my passengers in to meet their ride. I don't follow them, because I don't want to be trapped away from my airplane, so I get back on the radio and ask flight services where the gate is to get off airside. They tell me to come down to the flight services building. I walk over there, but don't see a gate either, so I go in and poke around the briefing room, looking for a code for access to the terminal. Nothing of interest there, but on my way out there is a flight services specialist going by on the other side of the locked door into his area. The door has a window so he sees me and opens the door. He tells me the code. "We're just not allowed to say it on the radio," he explains. I wonder about the added obscurity that he apparently isn't even allowed to say straight out, "Come to the FSS and I'll tell you the code," either. It turns out to be the same one that I guessed. I must have dialled it incorrectly.

I go back to the terminal and dial the code again, but it still won't let me in. Eh? I add one more digit to the beginning of it. An obvious digit if you know what I was guessing, but I won't give any of it away as it seems to be the access code to half the airports in North America. My extra digit works its magic and I'm in.

The only food in the terminal is vending machines, and they aren't very well stocked. Outside the terminal is a monument explaining that this was a training airport in World War II. From 7 July, 1940 to 15 November, 1944, 2467 student pilots trained here. Fourteen died. At first I think that's a lot but then I realize that 2467 is a lot, too, and now I've done the math and seen that it's slightly over half of one percent. In 2007 there were 2228 private pilot licences issued for airplanes in all of Canada. An equal proportion of deaths would be twelve. I don't know how many training deaths there were in 2007, but I would be surprised if it were more than three. This accident

claimed three lives but no one on board was a student pilot. The float instructor, airline pilot, and passenger were killed while the airline pilot was learning to fly floats. The seaplane licence, had it been completed, wouldn't be part of the 2228.

There's nothing of interest at this airport. I'm wondering what I'll do with myself for the next few hours. Someone arrives in a car and I ask him to confirm that there's nothing within walking distance to eat or do. He says yes, but that he's just bought a lot of pizza and he figures I could share. He's in management at Pronto Airways, an airline serving this airport, and has come to meet the troops. They are very interesting and competent-seeming people who told me lots of interesting things as well as unbegrudgingly sharing their pizza. There's plenty to go around and I cheerfully participate in dissing the competing airline that shares the terminal. It seemed like a fair payment for the pizza.

After my mooched lunch I went outside, back on the apron to enjoy the day. It was the most perfect weather imaginable. I was wearing long pants and short sleeves and it was neither cool nor warm, almost like my body wasn't there at all, with fresh air all around and leaves showing just the faintest tinges of yellow.

While I was on the ramp chatting to a Pronto employee (who I assumed was Dene, but turned out to be from Chile), an airport consultant came out to inspect the area. He asked some questions of the other employees, including asking one to e-mail him a picture of the mouse they had trapped. He had already noted the absence of food and entertainment. I suspect that if I come back to Prince Albert next year it might have a Tim Horton's and perhaps an airport cat.

The flight back to Regina was a little bumpier, so I climbed a couple of thousand feet to get into smooth air, which still wasn't cold enough to require me to switch on the heaters. The customers thanked me and left quickly. That's what charter flying is for: efficiency.

My next port of call is Grande Cache, Alberta, but I'm not taking this airplane. There's an airplane there already, and a pilot I have to relieve. Grande Cache doesn't have airline service, so I need to get the airlines to Edmonton and then drive. There are no Westjet flights leaving Regina until tomorrow afternoon, and Air Canada has only executive fares left tonight (how do you justify charging $800+ for a ninety minute flight between cities in a CRJ?) but they have a seat sale for the morning, so I choose the latter. After I've booked the ticket the website pops up as usual asking if I would like to rent a car or book a hotel. I usually ignore all that stuff, but in this case I do have to rent a car. So I click through and book a car. From Hertz. This will become relevant in a later posting.

How Not to Nightstop

This pretty much stands on its own.

An airline pilot was found hiding behind a shed wearing only flip-flops and a wristwatch as a nighttime romp in the woods with a flight attendant ended with both under arrest, police said. Jeffrey Paul Bradford, 24, and Adrianna Grace Connor, 24, both employees of Pinnacle Airlines Inc., were at a diner on the outskirts of Harrisburg on Sunday night before they apparently decided to walk into the woods, police said. "They told the officer they wanted to go do it in the woods, essentially," said Lower Swatara Township police Sgt. Richard Brandt. "That's the best answer they had." The two somehow became separated, and people who live in the neighborhood summoned police around 9:30 p.m., saying they had seen a naked man and an intoxicated woman. A helicopter with heat-seeking equipment was called in, and Bradford was discovered hiding behind a shed shortly before midnight. Bradford, of Pittsburgh, was charged with indecent exposure, public drunkenness and other offenses. Connor, of Belleville, Mich., was charged with theft from a motor vehicle, public drunkenness and other offenses; police said she took a flashlight from a neighbor's vehicle. A spokesman for the Memphis, Tenn., airline said the two were suspended while the company investigates. The office of District Justice Michael John Smith, where Bradford and Connor were arraigned, said they were not represented by lawyers. Telephone listings for them could not be located by The Associated Press.

The testosterone-to-common-sense ratio of Pinnacle pilots remains high, I see. A pilot from another airline tells me that it sounds like a typical night in Harrisburg, but that he'll never live it down that he (a) left his wristwatch on, and (b) needed a heat-seeking helicopter to find his date.

So, You Want To Be A Pilot, Eh?

Reader James Ball sent me his recently-published guide to Canadian aviation careers, So, You Want to be a Pilot, Eh? to see if I would review it for you guys. After reading it I'm happy not only to review it but to recommend it. Judging from my own experience and the e-mail I receive, there is certainly a need for such a book, and I can't think of a comparable career guide for prospective Canadian pilots. The closest might be Landing the Big Job, but back when I bought that one, So, You Want to be a Pilot, Eh? would have been a much better choice, had it existed.

James starts where the student pilot should start, with the question "do you really want to be a pilot?" He honestly explains the parts of the career that are tough, holding out no false hope to the waverer, while maintaining a sense of humour. "It's difficult to keep track of all the different licences and ratings that are available to pilots. It can be even more difficult to pay for them all." He gives an excellent jargon-free and Canada-wide overview of the industry, from dollar-a-jumper paradropping jobs up to major airline captains drawing six figure salaries. As he discusses different hiring policies and corporate histories he refers obliquely to companies as, for example, "one operator based in Norman Wells, NWT." Those made me laugh as James and everyone else who has been around the circuit a few times can recognize the operator just by the base.

I liked the good Canada-specific advice he gives regarding joining the military to learn to fly, working the ramp and working the dock. Those are areas in which Canada is quite different from the US, and their airline job-hunting or career guides don't apply. James also gives many useful website URLs. These will unfortunately change in less time than it take to read the book, but James is providing updates and errata on his blog. Perhaps he will group all the recommended URLs on one page there, to spare readers from having to type them in.

James gives good guidance, much of it straight from the Transport Canada website, without trying to take the place of more comprehensive guides on topics like passing written examinations and flight tests.

The resume guide is very worthwhile, as aviation resumes are different than those in other industries. It is vital that your hours be clearly visible and reference contact information be actually given. James says this, but I'm going to underline it here so that anyone hunting around the net for pilot resume advice finds it and buys the book.

There were a few things I didn't like, such as James' advice to student pilots out on a solo, "After you've completed the checklist, take some time to explore your local area." Flight instructors recommending this book should censor that part. Also one of the books he recommends is of such poor quality that my local aviation store has dropped it (but they do carry So, You Want to be a Pilot, Eh?).

There are items I wanted to add, such as the possibility of other more stable and lucrative careers in aviation, but that would make it a different book. There's nothing missing within the scope of the book and I was frequently surprised to see excellent but not widely-known tips. And there was even one that I had never heard of, "abstain from sexual activity for a few days" before an aviation medical. Is this folklore or based on some kind of fact? Unless it gets you pregnant, I don't know of any physical changes as the result of sex that persist long enough to drive to the doctor's office. Perhaps this is a male thing, and one of my readers will enlighten me.

I caught a few editing glitches, the military requirement for Basic Officer Training and Foreign Language Training mentioned twice in consecutive paragraphs in the same section, but there is no fluff here. James has a concise style and still fills over two hundred pages with useful information.

This would be a great purchase for the family of a prospective pilot. Amend the cover with a sticker to make the title read "So, Your Kid Wants to be a Pilot, Eh?" and give it to your mom. I would recommend this book not only for Canadians thinking about a flying career, but to student pilots, pilots looking for their first job, and instructors looking to move on. Also if you're a foreign commercial pilot interested in working in Canada, this book contains what you should know about the Canadian industry and process. It's also written simply enough for ESL students, and laid out so you can refer to one part or another, but it's readable and interesting enough to go right through, as I did.

The list price is $24.95 and there's a Buy It Now link on James' website but it seems that the publisher and distributor have changed their links, so go straight to Chapters to buy it online. It's even on sale at $16.46 which equates to about eight minutes of dual instruction time, converted to student pilot dollars.