Three Shades of Guilt

The ops manager asks me to come from the office into the hangar to look at something. That's not a really unusual occurrence, but what I see is a gouge under the wing of the airplane I flew back to base last night. The metal is creased in. Not sharply just enough to make it abundantly clear that this is not a mere paint scratch. I feel sick. This is the result of taxiing or towing the airplane such that the wingtip passes over an object, except that it doesn't pass over, it scrapes over. Obviously it's something that shouldn't happen, but when it does, the pilot should notice and report it. I have no memory of any incident on my just-returned-from rotation that could have caused this.

I look around the hangar at the equipment under the path that wing would have taken into the hangar. Nothing has paint scraped on it. I'm sure the ops manager can see my horror. I don't remember what I said. Either I did this or I missed seeing it on multiple preflight inspections. Either way I bear some responsibility. I care much less that a deer bashed in the side of my own vehicle the week before. This gouge, or some other wingtip damage I failed to spot could have been serous damage that I shouldn't have taken into the air. I'm very sure it isn't, but I'm not a structural engineer. It's not my job to make that call. Had I found it on a preflight there would have been iPhone pictures going to someone with a maintenance certification before I flew it.

I go back and look at the gouge. It is a little difficult to see, just because of the shape of the wing, and the colours of the paint, and my height. I always check wingtips for damage, because that's a common place to get damage on the taxi, in the hangar or while parked on the ramp. I always look at the underside of the wing, looking for blocked vents, signs of bird or insect entry and fluids from the engines splattered under the flaps. I'll look from the wingtip, under the wing and along the length of the spar for signs of airframe stress, but then my focus is not on the near underside of the wingtip. I have to duck down and look at it from a slightly different direction to see this gouge. So embarrassing as it is, I prefer to think that I missed seeing this as opposed to missed doing it.

But I fly this airplane a lot. Did I do it sometime in the past and the difficulty I have just argued for in seeing the gouge means that no one has caught it in months? I look even more closely to see if I can pretend to know the age of the damage from its appearance. And then I see something almost hilarious. Part of the reason the gouge is hard to see is that it has been painted over with touch up paint. I almost laugh. It's an old problem, one that has been inspected, written off and fixed up. It's even more embarrassing that I didn't see it, ever, but it's now certain that I didn't do it last night.

One of the regular maintenance staff says he thinks it's been there since we got the airplane. I think the ops manager is still suspicious that it represents mishandling of the airplane in the hangar, and a cover-up by someone in maintenance. Unfortunately at the time this story takes place we were having some issues there that made this not paranoia. I trust the guy who said it had been there all along, and not just because it conclusively gets me off the hook for having done the damage. He's a trustworthy person, but more than that, and I told him this myself so he knew I wasn't suspicious. "I've seen paint jobs that you have done and you would never have done such a crappy job." You can see every brush stroke and the colours are poorly matched.

What Kind of Airplane?

"Huh. Wow. What kind of airplane?"

As far as I remember, that's more or less the first thing I said ten years ago on learning that an airplane had hit the World Trade Center. Yeah, cringe, but I was trying to distinguish between incidents like this and something that would do more damage. Some context: I had driven to work listening to a CD (or maybe a cassette tape: it was an old car) because the radio reception along my commute was poor, and it wasn't a time of day when I could expect good programming. I had arrived, grabbed the aircraft documents, inspected the airplane, ensured it had been fuelled and come back to the airside office to drop off my preflight paperwork. It was a small shared office, so I had to squeeze between my coworkers and a television set to get to the filing cabinet where I needed to drop my operational flight plan and weight and balance documents. They were staring at the TV, but then it was a media-related company so they were always staring at the TV. On my way back outside to start the airplane, someone said, "An airplane just hit the World Trade Center." The TV wasn't at an angle that I could see it. In answer to my question, he told me it was a Learjet. I didn't even know which world trade centre it was. I assumed it was in the US, but I guessed Chicago, because the old airport was right by downtown. I ran up my airplane engine wondering if the crash was a control problem or pilot incapacitation or what.

I know someone who was woken up by a call from his friend that morning and ordered to turn on the TV. After seeing the burning buildings his response was even more cringeworthy than mine. "I think I've seen this movie."

My non-pilot coworker--yeah, I've always had jobs like this--jumped in the plane and tucked Walkman (look it up, kids) headphones under his aviation ones, as usual. I told you it was a media-heavy company. He was less conversational than usual, but I assumed this had to do with low caffeine intake, not realizing what he was hearing on the radio. Half an hour or so into the flight he said something was on fire.

"Where?" I asked, looking out the window for smoke or the flashing lights of firetrucks.

"The Pentagon is on fire," he repeated.

The pentagon? What pentagon? I sifted though associations with the word, my strongest image being something from witchcraft, imprisoning demons in a chalked pentagram ringed with candles. That made no sense. Then I thought of another possibility. "You mean bombs and missiles Pentagon?" I asked. He shushed me, so I tuned the ADF to a local news station, just in time to hear a synopsis of the morning's terrorism, and that US airspace had been closed.

Before I had a chance to call flight services to find out if this would affect me, the air traffic controller whose frequency I was on instructed me to land. I landed back at our base, not a major airport, and as I was on short final an ultralight took off, the pilot and the controller who cleared him still oblivious to the day's events.

This is probably the third time I've told the story on the blog and I imagine I've told it dozens of time in real life. Every generation has to have its "where were you?" moment. Ask an old American where they were when they heard Kennedy had been shot. (Yeah if you remember Kennedy, you're officially old. You're welcome). I hope the next such "everyone remembers where they were" event is a good one. There have been good ones, like humans landing on the moon. What amazing good thing could happen today that would be tweeted around the world and that would compel people to tell the story of where they were when it happened, even ten years later? What some people might consider good could be controversial, so please don't mock or condemn any commenter for their choice of an earthshaking positive moment. Is there anything? Or are we too jaded and too divided now to all be awed by an event?

Pop Quiz Indeed

My boss, or perhaps I should say my customer, seeing as I am a contractor, announces what is phrased to me as "good news and very bad news." It's further broken down as good news for the company and very bad news for me. I've had very bad news just too many times in my career to break down into tears at this point. And this is a temporary job. I'm guessing off the top of my head that the company has been bought out and they don't need me any more. Or perhaps there's some air regulation I didn't know that requires me to be shot at dawn for having requested the wrong departure from clearance delivery. I really don't remember that from the CARs. A pilot has to keep up on these things! I'm braced.

The good news is that the company has received approval to do IFR work. IFR photo survey might sound like bad news for anyone involved, but this doesn't mean we'll be taking pictures of the insides of clouds, it's for an airspace technicality, like needing CVFR flight over 12,500'. The airspace 18,000' and above is designated as Class A (which the Americans pronounce "alpha" but the Canadians pronounce "eh") and it is open to IFR traffic only. So in order to fly above 18,000' we need to have an IFR operating certificate.

Why might this bad news for me? Although my IFR rating is current, renewed less than ten months ago, I need to do an IFR flight test on this aircraft type. As soon as possible. Normally it's difficult to get an expedited ride (flight tests are called "rides," I guess because the Americans call them checkrides and the shortened form came north), but Vancouver has a regional Transport Canada office, so TC agreed to do the ride themselves, with the stipulation that it is a monitored ride. Not monitored as in "this call will be monitored to ensure customer satisfaction" but monitored in that there will be one person evaluating me and another person in the airplane evaluating his or her ability to evaluate me. But from any pilot's point of view it means there will be two Transport Canada inspectors sitting in the airplane taking careful notes on the way I screw up. Joy.

I tell the bearer of these tidings that having my skills evaluated is a normal part of my job and that really the second Transport person in the airplane is there to evaluate the first one, so it spreads out the pressure rather than intensifying it. Where ever did I learn such sang froid? I think it's like handling an emergency in the airplane: it's such short notice that there isn't time to get all angsty. I just have to do it. I can fly this airplane. I can fly IFR. I should be able to fly this one IFR. I ask for the opportunity to do a practice flight with a safety pilot, during which I can practice stalls and engine failure drills. I don't know how this airplane responds with a failed engine, or what power setting will hold an ILS glideslope in zero wind, and I don't know what tricks the local controllers might have for me. The employer agrees to that, and even suggests a local Vancouver pilot who knows the airplane and the area.

And then I go and take pictures.

Seagull Versus Eagle

Most people spent their whole lives waiting for an opportunity that was good enough, and then they died. While seizing opportunities would mean that all sorts of things went wrong, it wasn't nearly as bad as being a hopeless lump.

The morning dawns with miserable drizzle and low ceilings, too low for training. It's forecast to clear up later, so we'll wait on it. Boss picks me up and then the chief pilot comes into the office and we're introduced. He's francophone so I speak a few sentences in French because again I think it's polite. It's like you go to the boss's office rather than asking him to come to yours. It shows my willingness to do things his way, and also demonstrates what he's working with in terms of my ability in French. The company operates in English, I checked that out before I came, and our conversation switches quickly back into English. We go over the exams, he answers some more of my questions, and then we all go for lunch. The weather may be good enough to fly after we get back.

We've all travelled enough that no one is left out as our stories and hangar flying ranges all over the world. In fact the chief pilot is from a French-speaking European company, not from Québec at all, and it turns out that most of the pilots are. I knew I was an outsider in Québec for being an anglophone, but once you speak French you're still an outsider because you're not fluent, and then it's because you're not a native speaker, and then apparently it's because you're from France or Luxembourg or Belgium instead of from Québec. My boss has a stable of pilots who have had trouble getting jobs elsewhere in the province because despite their fluent French, they are not "one of them." It's pur laine or nothing, apparently. When does cultural and linguistic pride veer into insularity or racism? I think true pride in ones culture and nation includes enough confidence in its strength to welcome newcomers and teach them to embrace what you do, and make them one of you, rather than holding them forever at bay, one of "them" living among you. I notice myself that I may have a slight "them" feeling about someone whose accent doesn't match that of some region of my own country, but when they care about the same issues I do, not necessarily even supporting the same side, just understanding them in a Canadian context, that they become Canadian to me.

The sky opens up blue, but the wind is picking up and they nix the training plans again for today. I think it's odd at first, who doesn't fly in wind, but then the wind becomes quite extreme. I worry about a Tim Horton's sign coming down on me in the parking lot. So instead we massage my resume into the format in which he presents pilot résumés on proposals. My experience is now a resource for him to use. And yes, this is not all an elaborate ruse. He does want to contract my services, probably starting a month and a half out. He's confident that I'll get along well with clients, not get into fistfights with my coworkers and have the maturity to make good decisions. And he figures I can probably fly an airplane, too.

We quit for the day. There may be time before my flight home tomorrow for a flight, but I really have to give a decision to the other potential employer. I've already held them off and I know their timeline is tighter than here. I'm going to call that job "Eagle" and the Québec-based one "Seagull" in recognition of the fact that the real life company names are similar, and there are certain aspects of the jobs that match up. I like both eagles and seagulls; neither term is intended to disparage or praise the company I've attached it to. I just need to stop saying "this one" or "the other one."

It's a difficult decision. I should be savouring this more. After all both potential employers have called me "perfect" to my face. I'm in demand. But that's stressful. I make myself a spreadsheet comparing schedule, aircraft, pay, travel opportunities, coworkers, organization, stability, gut feelings, and everything else I can think of. It gets really elaborate with me rating each company on each aspect, and then going through and rating how important each aspect is to me, to create a multiplier. I know without doing the math that Eagle is the sensible job that gives me almost everything I could ask for at this level of the industry and Seagull is the slightly crazy one that could be terrifying or miserable. I can't believe I'm being such a hopeless lump. I haven't quite finished the elaborate spreadsheet but I find I've made up my mind.

I e-mail Eagle with thanks for their patience, to let them know that I will be taking the offer from Seagull, but that as they won't be needing me for a few weeks that if there is anything I can do for them in the meantime, I'd be happy to help. Yeah, that's right. Who says I have to choose just one company?

The lead quote is, rather embarrassingly, from Harry Potter fan fiction, but I'll defend myself with words from aviation philosopher Richard Bach's Illusions

"You are quoting Snoopy the Dog, I believe?

I quote the truth wherever I find it.

The Airplane Moves Even Faster

If you're looking for a job right now, take heart. The incubation period for resumés can be long, but eventually things start to happen. My life is like popcorn right now. Within twenty-four hours I've had a "come and see" type groundschool invitation, a phone interview, another interview scheduled somewhere else, and a job offer for a job I didn't apply for. Imagine that all going past in a montage now, me at a groundschool, and you hoping I'll have time to explain how I got here in a flashback, later.

This industry is fast. So is the airplane I'm learning now. I shall dub it the "Screaming Whippet," because it is loud, fast and needs attentive management or it will escape and start digging holes. (I think the dog sort of whippet is more likely to chase cars than dig holes, but all metaphors get snagged somewhere). Some of you will recognize the aircraft, and I will much appreciate both your e-mailed advice and your not naming it or providing further hints to its identity or that of its operator in the comments. You all know the drill.

My other comment for the day is "Oy, new employment ... so many forms!" The provincial, and federal tax forms, confidentiality forms, payroll deposit forms, emergency contact and all would be terrifying in themselves, but they pale next to the brain flattening terror of the draconian training bond. The lizard part of my brain tells me the correct response to risk is to curl up under a rock and hold really still, but its input is not really applicable now that I am no longer a lizard. I'm climbing out from under my rock to do this right.

Ask and Ye Shall Receive

I have a little bit of lawn and a little bit of garden, such that I can plant herbs¹ and then come back from work and discover that the lawn and the herbs have all gone to seed, plus that the lawn-garden interface has lost any kind of delineation. I'd been toying a while with the idea of enforcing some kind of separation of chervil and sod: dig a moat, put up a fence, deadly slugs², that sort of thing, and had even gone so far as to stop off at a closed garden store to look through the car window at a display of different kinds of bricks available for purchase as garden edging.

While I was in Cambodia I was inspired by the local creativity in making handbags out of out of old feed sacks, crafts from broken motorcycle seats, homes and even fishing trawlers out of what would be landfill in Canada. I decided that I would reduce what I bought and edge my garden in some cleverly crafted reused item, maybe jars or tin cans from the recycling bin.³ I met a friend for lunch and enthusiastically explained this plan. Before I could get into my musings on the aesthetic possibilities of empty pickle jars, she pointed out that there was a pile of interlocking bricks in the alley behind her house, and she'd be grateful if they went away. Well, that would work too. Work better, in fact.

Her bricks turned out to be exactly the sort I had tagged as my favourite at the garden store, so I dug them out of the snowbank beside her garage and hauled them home. When the angle of the sun on the planet cranked around enough that it was possible to work in the garden, I hacked into the grassroot-matted mess around the perennials, dug a brick-sized trench, and filled it in with a line of bricks. It immediately looked better. The only problem, which I discussed with my neighbour while carefully avoiding having my fingers crushed by her two-year-old's enthusiastic assistance with the brick laying, was that I had not quite enough bricks. "Oh you'll find some more somewhere," my neighbour assured me, after attempting to explain to said two-year-old the difference between passing someone a brick and throwing it at her.

I finished up with what I had and drove off to the cow guy's⁴ farm to get a hundred kilograms of frozen cow bits. Parked in the farmyard I noticed a pile of bricks bigger than my car. Some of the bricks were just like the ones I had run out of. "What are the bricks for?" I asked. They were for an abandoned project, and were unneeded. With the meat, there was just enough room left in the back of the car for ten bricks.

And then when I got home from delivering the meat there was an e-mail inviting me to groundschool for one of the jobs I had applied for. It's not a job offer, but it will get me off the couch, allow me to meet some other pilots, learn about a new airplane, and I hope will lead to a job offer. I think I will go.

1. Being that I'm Canadian, I'd better specify that I'm talking about the culinary rather that the 'medicinal' variety.
2. Being that I'm Canadian, I shouldn't have to specify that I'm talking about the gastropod, not the lead kind.
3. Having travelled to places that don't routinely recycle even office paper or aluminum beverage cans, I should explain that in many places in Canada there is curbside pickup or drop-off depots for many recyclable items: glass, plastics, metal, compost, paper, so recycling is mainstream, not a wacky hippie pursuit.
4. I'm in a sort of mini co-op where we bulk buy farmgate meat, and I volunteered to drive this time.

Boxing Day

I'm not doing well on the "taking a blogging break" thing, but I keep finding things I want to announce to the world. A month ago today an Internet friend of mine got "the call." There are a lot of situations in which there is a "the call." This friend was not a Canadian pilot, so it wasn't a place in a groundschool at Air Canada. It was even better than that. Those of you who read the tags before the post already know how much better. "The call" came in as he was hooked up to a dialysis machine, telling him that a matching donor kidney was available.

He received the transplant, and although they say that the donor organ has not entirely woken up yet, he is feeling better than he has in a long time. I've never met him in person. He lives on a continent where I've never been. But the person who decided to sign that donor card and the family that okayed it make me so happy that I'd better stop typing this post or I'm going to cry and wreck my make-up, and I'm just going out to a party.

So to everyone who ever took the trouble to indicate according to their local regulations that they were willing to donate organs after death, you not only do it for the recipient and to ease the minds of your family who might otherwise be asked to donate the organs not knowing your wishes, but you also do it for everyone who knows that recipient, even a little bit.

Thanks.

Oh, I called this post Boxing Day, not just because it will still be December 26th in Canada when this posts, but also because in my family the origin of the term "Boxing Day" was said to be the tradition of boxing up the things you no longer need, and giving them away to someone who can use them, just what happens to donor organs.

San Jose Mine Rescue

I'm watching near live footage of the Chilean miners being pulled from the collapsed mine from the link on this page. It's an extraordinary ordeal these men have been through, and I'm impressed by the planning and details of the rescue operation. It looks as thought it will take a couple of days to get everyone out, even if nothing goes wrong.

As I watch I see parallels with aviation. After fifteen rescuees it's getting a little routine, perhaps, and it is still urgent to rescue everyone, but I'm silently urging the rescuers, "don't get sloppy; don't try to go too fast; inspect it every time; don't get fatigued: sub out with less tired people."

I Thank You All

You wonderful, wonderful people! I always knew I was blessed with some of the best readers on the internet, so I shouldn't be surprised that you can put your money where your fingers are. I posted my request to fund Cambodian building materials on a Sunday night, knowing that not many people read on the weekend, but that Monday would be a big traffic day, and hoping that perhaps a few people would see fit to contribute to the cause. It looks like more people read on the weekend than I thought. Before midnight we had enough for at least half a house! It literally brings tears to my eyes that so many people are willing to share in this way.

I giggled at the rationalizations you came up with for the various eCards you chose. You're right, it's a somewhat odd selection to go with charity donations, but it was fun clicking on them. I think dandelions and kittens were the leading choices. The pictures didn't matter because your words (and numbers, as that was the point of the exercise) carried the message.

I don't even know what the current total is, because many of you let me know you donated without telling me the amount of your donation. I estimate you have given enough to build at least two houses. In a couple of days I've gone from feeling the responsibility of being the out-of-town team member who isn't there to pull her weight at the pub fundraiser nights, to the completely different responsibility of being the one whom all of you have entrusted to take the materials you have purchased and make them into a real home for someone whose own community has judged them worthy.

It really is that simple. The money has to be all collected eight weeks before the build because the administrators use it to literally purchase lumber and nails and tin and concrete. Local contractors will lay the foundation and frame the houses before we arrive, and then we complete them. I and my team will arrive and presumably see your donations laid out on a tarp. I'll photograph that and then get to work assembling them into the very best homes I can provide.

For me personally this will be a rewarding, exciting experience because I get to travel to a part of the world where I've never been; see cultural and historical sites; attempt communication in some combination of English, French, Russian and Khmer; build something with my own two hands and give people a gift that proportionately will be the biggest most important gift I've ever had the opportunity to give anyone. Giving a home to someone who really needs it is generally the province of a government, corporation, or billionaire.

I think it make a difference as a person grow up what he or she believes the world thinks or expects, and that a child who discovers that the world cares enough to build his family a house will care about the world in return. You've all won yourselves good karma, and if at any time in the future you're feeling that you're not appreciated or not doing anything worthwhile, remember that there's a family in Cambodia whose kids might have died without you.

It's possible I could raise more money with a month-long nagging blog fundraising drive, but the way this worked is the way I like it. I said please; you answered generously; and I'll be saying thank you for the rest of the year. I will drive every nail with care and gratitude. It means a lot to me that you readers see the worth in this project, and agreed to support me.

Loss of Separation

If you're me, when you see news like this Convair 580 crash in British Columbia, you are sad for the pilots and their families, and you hope that your friend wasn't on board. You don't wait for the names to be released, but talk to whom you must to find out enough about the deceased to rule out anyone you know who works for the company. And then you're glad because your friend is alive, and tell him so. And then you are sad for your friend, who has lost beloved colleagues, but still glad because he is alive and well. And then you discover that someone else you know has not been so lucky as to have her friend not be on board that airplane. You feel a little guilty for a moment, until you remind yourself that a burned out cockpit and unreleased crew names is not a Schrödinger's box, with a waveform that will collapse according to who hopes hardest. It's happened. So you are sad for the other friend, and for the pilot you did not know, who was her friend, and for the dead pilots you did not know, and for the other pilots you did know, who did not survive earlier days. And then you shed a few tears without being completely sure whom they are for. And then you check the weather and NOTAMs and go to work. And that's what you do, if you're me.

Everyone fly safe, please.

What Feels Good

A reader of this blog works with teenage refugees. Think about teenage refugees for a moment. Being a teenager is bad enough. Now imagine you're a teenager and you have to move and leave not only all your friends but your whole country. And you can hardly take anything with you, and you're leaving because you or your parents are persecuted or in an area destroyed by war or natural disaster. So you have to learn a new language, a new culture, and fit in to a new group at a time of life where people in their own culture are feeling like misfits, and you have to get on with the usual figuring out who and what you are going to be when you grow up, even though the rules of the game may be radically different from where you came from.

One of these young people expressed interest in becoming a pilot. Another kid in the group told him he couldn't be an airline pilot because his name and appearance was obviously Arab. My reader turned to me to find out whether this was a problem, and how he could find out more about what was required to meet this kid's goal. I answered from my own knowledge, but then remembered an airline pilot reader in that same city. I connected the two people, in the hopes that information and maybe some stickers and postcards would be exchanged, and felt happy to have maybe helped.

Then a couple of weeks later I received an e-mail that leaped into ALL CAPS in its inability to to contain the writer's squealing delight. The airline pilot had set up a full tour of the operations center and maintenance hangar, including a chance to sit in the cockpit of a CRJ. The young prospective pilot received inspiration, and his outreach worker says he now looks to his supervisor and coworkers like a genius who can set up any kind of job experience in a moment's notice. And I who just sent a couple of e-mails feel fantastic. It felt as good as a perfect squeaker landing with the owner and the chief pilot on board. It's as delicious as chocolate macaroons. Feeling good about helping others does appear to be something that is encoded in our psychology/physiology. Thank you to all involved for today's high. And it's non-fattening, too.

My World

Why my life is good.

Today I:

• slept in until I woke up
• opened the curtains and looked out at a panorama of downtown Yellowknife, Frame Lake and lots of rocks and trees
• enjoyed a bike ride around town in absolutely perfect weather
• ate a huge mouthwatering slab of grilled arctic char
• went for a scenic flight over the untracked wilderness northwest of town
• watched the sunset
• landed back at Yellowknife and went to bed, again without setting an alarm clock

Okay, not every day is like this, but anyone, anywhere, anytime who catches my whining about not achieving my intended career goals should kick my butt.

They're Okay!

I'm doing my preflight, except I can't check oil because the dipstick is too hot to touch, and if I used gloves it wouldn't give a very good reading anyway. I ask my coworker instead, and she says the oil should be fine. I watch the fueller and then check the fuel tank caps. One of them is loose, not because he didn't secure and latch it, but as the aggregate result of its being opened and closed a number of times. Not many people realize that that one is an adjustable cap. It's a rubber plug designed to fit a few different sized tanks. When you pull up on the catch, that releases the form inside that makes the rubber seal firm and round against the inside of the filler neck. Spin the catch one way and the closed size of the plug increases. Spin it the other way and it decreases. Turning the catch a little bit is a normal part of operating the catch, so by coincidence it has been loosened over the last fortnight of fuelling. I spin the catch to embiggify the plug, reseat it in the filler neck and snap the cap closed. The mechanism expands. It fits securely now.

The fueller points out that some fuel is leaking from the tank onto the ramp. I check it: it's just thermal expansion forcing some of the fuel out through the vent again. There's also a little puddle of fuel in the well around the closed cap. I don't complain about having my tanks completely full. It's the only way to really know that I have the fuel I expect on board. Gauges don't tell the difference between full and sorta full. If the fuel level in a wide, flat tank measuring one metre by two metres is one centimetre below capacity that's 20 litres short--about 15 minutes of holding fuel for that engine. Yikes! I secure the metal cover over the fuel cap and repeat my inspection for all the fuel tanks. I also check that the total fuel load matches my expectations based on my colleague's flight time. It does, almost to the litre. If too much fuel went in it could be an aircraft problem. If not enough went in, the fueller might have skipped a tank. I've had that happen. I had it happen almost every day at one FBO, but we're at a good one, now.

The fueller says he doesn't know if anyone was hurt yesterday or what kind of airplane it was. He heard that it had just taken off, and turned and the wind caught it. I don't know if he is also a pilot, but it wasn't windy yesterday, and one you're airborne the wind doesn't knock you over. An abrupt change in wind could cause an airplane to lose lift, but windshear seems unlikely, too. The fueller also mentioned that he heard it was a November-registered aircraft, which is relevant mainly because their National Transportation Safety Board investigates accidents involving US aircraft, even elsewhere in the world. Perhaps it will turn up on their site, even if only as a notation that the Canadian TSB is investigating. As I write this I find a news article (with a picture) about the crash. It is being reported as a power loss, and both occupants suffered only minor injuries. It's significant that just 100 metres from the runway the bush around here is so thick that it took a helicopter to find and direct the police and ambulance workers to the site. It's a relief to hear that they are okay. Too bad about the Pacer.

I start up. (Come on cranky engine, I know you're hot, you can do it). I crack the throttle open a bit and then when the engine catches leave the mixture in the idle cutoff position for a moment, and very very slowly enrich it, and not all the way to full rich either, so I don't flood it. The engine RPM comes up, oil pressure, oil temperature and cylinder head pressure all in the green already, so I start the second engine. Avionics on, computer power on, ground fan on. In less than a week we've gone from needing heating to needing cooling.

Ready for taxi, we take runway 21. It's hotter today and climb performance is noticeably affected by the heat. I'm climbing at blue line (Vy and Vyse are the same on this model) and making less than 500 fpm through 3000'. We are full of fuel and equipment. That's the drawback to taking every drop you can.

As I'm leaving the area, the FSS comes on with a SIGMET for a large area of thunderstorms, relative to Germansen Landing. I have heard of it, but don't know where it is on a map of this province, so I call Edmonton Radio and ask for the lat-long coordinates of the area boundary. It's mostly north of where we are working, and currently the closest part of the line is a degree and a half of longitude west of us. That's about 50 miles this far north. Degrees of longitude get smaller and smaller with increasing latitude, but a degree of latitude is always 60 nm. I don't think those thunderstorms will bother us, but there's a lot of vertical build up here. By the time we reach the work area, fifty miles north of the airport, the weather is unsuitable for the work. That was a quick flight.

Back, land, and take my stuff to the hotel, including the cushion from the airplane. It smells like feet.

April Fool

Sooo, it's that date again. I was just going to skip it, as I didn't want to do a fake post about getting an airline job, quitting blogging, losing my licence, winning the lottery, being taken hostage by extraterrestrials (who, of course, let me blog) or my being baffled by something in Texas. But I found something more foolish to blog about.

I entered a very silly contest hosted by The Flying Pinto, and even sillier than that, I won.

The really foolish part is that I've kind of obligated myself to blog about using the prize, now. It hasn't arrived yet, but when I next get home I gather it will be there, a little too late in the season for me to write my name in the snow.

New Year's Resolutions

Even though I was going to just let this silently post while I partied, I have to break radio silence to thank you all for so many wonderful comments sending me off on my blogcation. It is a great Christmas gift for me to hear about how so many different people from all around the world are enjoying the blog, and I'll definitely return to blog more before these warm glowy feelings have worn off.

For now, it's review and renew time for the New Year's Resolutions. Here's what I said at the beginning of the year.

In the year 2008 I was supposed to:

• Do a hundred consecutive push-ups in good form.
• Skip a thousand times without missing the rope.
• Do my job with enthusiasm, skill and care.
• Reconnect with twelve people I have lost touch with.
• Stay happy, healthy and whole.

I didn't work diligently towards my New Year's Resolutions this past year, but I seem to have done pretty well anyway. I did manage to skip 1000 turns of the rope just now, but not without lots of misses, one every 50 to 100 turns of the rope, I'd say. I'm in my bare feet and the rope kept getting caught between my toes. My recovery from breaking my back in 2005 turns out to be like losing weight: something that not only has to be done once, but that one has to continue to maintain. I'm not sure what has shifted, but push-ups hurt my back these days, so I have to take a break every ten, but I got up to eighty. I am staying fit and healthy. Sometimes it's just because I'm having fun doing something that happens to be active. Sometimes it's serious thinking about the long-term health of my cardiopulmonary system and muscles and bones. And sometimes it's just because I caught Terminator 2 or Aliens on TV and who doesn't want a hot, hot action heroine bod?

I can't claim to have maintained unflagging enthusiasm for my job throughout the year, and I have made a few moves that betray less than perfect skill or care, but I do hang on to the knowledge of how lucky I am to fly for a living. It's a constant responsibility to keep my knowledge and planning ahead of the airplane and any emergency that might arise.

Here are my resolutions for 2009. Initially there were just two here, lightweights, but that was before I tested my skipping ability. When I sat down to edit this with the skipping rope endorphins racing through my blood, I added the third. I'll probably add a specific physical goal and a career goal after a month or so.

In 2009 I will:

• 1. Never read the comments on YouTube videos or LOLcat cartoons. No matter how funny or intelligent the images, the comments will be illiterate and inane, and I'll regret the time spent reading them.
• 2. Eat only the best chocolate I can afford.
• 3. Whenever I can gain something of merit without risking anything but my pride and my Internet surfing time, I will make my best try to do it.

It's going to be a good year.

A few other aviation bloggers plan to post their New Year's resolutions today. I hope everyone is able to look back with pride at 2008 and wish you all the best fortune in 2009.

Second Class Citizen

So, having passed the portion of the flight test that takes place on the ground, I head out to the airplane. You don't go flying unless you pass on the ground.

When we get to the airplane, the examiner surprises me by pointing to parts of the airplane and asking me questions about them. Not that I mind, I know the systems well; it surprises me that he thought there was a reasonable chance of an instructor candidate not being able to identify and describe the function of a wing root cabin air intake, the filtered air intake, the alternator belt and the underwing fuel tank vent. He is satisfied with my answers, although I have to think a moment about whether the overvoltage light will go on in this aircraft in the case of a broken alternator belt. I hold his door for him, let him know the seat is adjusted full aft, and start to explain how to get in, as if he were a student. That's okay, he says, just get in. "I take it you decline the passenger briefing?" I ask.

"Offered and declined," he says, a mental tick in a box. "I want to spend as little time as possible in these things."

I start up, get taxi clearance and taxi out. He asks for a soft field takeoff, my favourite, and I demonstrate one. Next he wants me to teach him straight and level flight. I show him how to use the trim, and chastise him for looking inside the cabin for it. He makes it easy to pretend he is really a student, as he's a good roleplayer, so I just relax and do what I am good at. He asks me to demonstrate some maneuvers, teach others and evaluate others as he does them. He demonstrates a beautiful perfect steep turn and I tell him he would get a four out of four for it on a flight test. steep turn pretty much perfect, Mine was not as good. I am hamfooted, if that's a word: hamfisted with my feet. The airplanes I fly for work need bootsful of rudder, whereas this little airplane needs me to merely think about the rudder for it to be too much rudder.

As we approached the airport he said that he would do the landing and that I should assess him, as I would before a first solo to see if he was ready to go on his own. I give him control and see that he is set up very high for the field. I ask him matter-of-factly (not with the "you might want to think about this" edge in my voice that an instructor uses when hinting) what flap setting he plans to land with, and what he planned touchdown point is. He says twenty degrees flap, and the beginning of the third centreline stripe. Both are reasonable choices, although I don't usually teach a student to land with more than ten degrees flap until after first solo. I look at his eyes to make sure he keeps a proper lookout, He keeps his hand on the throttle and makes small, necessary corrections around all three axes of movement and with the power. He is on track for a for a flawless landing. He carries it to the runway like that and at the last moment I realize what he is going to do. I brace and put my hand ready to grab the yoke, even though I know that he won't carry through and do what a student might do.

The airplane rounds out sightly and then meets the runway smack!. The nosewheel comes down at the same moment as the mains. It's a perfectly calculated bad landing. I'm not sure I could do a bad landing so well. I say nothing until we have taxied clear of the runway, then I take control and debrief him, praising him for setting up a perfect approach and telling him--as the student--that he will be rewarded for all his good work on the approach if he just holds the airplane off the ground a little longer. I tell him as the examiner that if I were supervising a new instructor with this student I would tell her that she could solo him as soon as he was holding the nosewheel off right through touchdown, and that if that was achieved in the next three lessons, I did not need to fly with the student again.

In the real debrief he tells me that when he does that stunt, many candidates will criticize him for landing long on that exercise. He always responds with "you didn't tell me where to land." So I have scored points for determining where the student planned to put the airplane. I criticize myself for my poor rudder work, and he agrees that that is the worst thing. I am praised for being articulate, adaptable, and am criticized for using trigonometry during the briefing. I admit that I put in the trig because he was pretending to be an instructor and am surprised when he says that knowledge is not necessary, even for an instructor. Not everyone agrees that trigonometry is a beautiful thing and should be exercised whenever possible.

It was one of the most enjoyable flight tests I've ever done, and despite my propensity for overusage of both rudder and trigonometry, I am once again qualified to be paid to tell you how to fly. According to Transport Canada statistics, as of March 2008 there were 302 valid class 2 instructors for aeroplanes in Canada. I wonder how many of them work as instructors.

Women Fly

A small two-man camping tent at Oshkosh is not the best place to spent a restful night. (Or as my friend put it: "that's not a two-man tent. A two girl tent, maybe!") I was thinking of doing a blog post with an alphabetical catalogue of all the noises that were keeping me awake, when I remembered that I had brought earplugs for the airshows. A few minutes of time for foam expansion later, and I was fast asleep.

Friday morning I and one of my camping companions were discussing the "Women Fly" or "Women Fly Too" t-shirts you sometimes see. We both think they are weird and insulting. Women have been flying since airplanes were invented. Anyone who doesn't know that probably isn't observant enough to learn things from a t-shirt slogan, and someone wearing a shirt like that seems likely to have a chip on her shoulder. I'd far rather have a t-shirt that said simply "I Fly." Print it across my boobs and I'm sure people will figure out that I'm a woman and do the math. We said catty things about the women who would choose to wear them, and then went to the show.

Friday's first order of events was the Women in Aviation Celebrity Breakfast. We found the tent where it was being served, after running around what seemed like the whole fairground (but was probably less than a tenth of it). It's fun to come together with other women and talk about flying, especially with the celebrities. Most were older women who overcame barriers so that now I can speak dismissively of needing to inform people that women fly. I suppose the shirts were designed by the older generation. There were also some men there, such as an airshow performer named Corky (I forgot his last name and can't take the online time to try to look it up, yes I'd make a terrible reporter). Corky found out after the fact that he hired the first female jet aerobatics pilot. He described the first time that he was sent as a representative to to speak to a female aviation group, by someone who was asking a favour. "Wait a moment," he claims he said, "You're asking me to go to a place where there are two thousand women, and they all speak airplane?" He said he got to sit at a table full of C-5 crew who all wanted to know about his flying, but he demanded they tell him about their airplane too. He says he learned things he didn't know, like how many toilets were on it. (Eight). Later, he claims, he asked male C-5 pilots how many toilets were on their aircraft, and they didn't know. The real gender differences come to the fore.

Breakfast itself was of course a simple buffet, but I noticed that even though I was there pretty early, they were already completely out of fruit. I wonder if they ordered a standard buffet for two hundred and if the fruit would have been demolished so soon had the crowd been the more typical aviation mix of less than ten percent women. My mind holds a stereotype than women are more likely to choose fruit and a bagel for breakfast and men the sausage and bacon. So, um, the WIAI breakfast was not a sausage fest. What else is news, Aviatrix?

The president of Sporty's Pilot Shop came up and announced two $5000 scholarships available to Women in Aviation members (membership is open to anyone, including men). The scholarships are intended to finance a recreational pilot licence for aircraft mechanics, to help them better speak the language of pilots. I'd love to see a guy win one. It would probably help if you have an ambiguous name like Lee or Jean, and get your references to avoid gendered pronouns in the recommendation letter. I don't like to see sexism in either direction, as I want to avoid being clobbered by a pendulum swinging back the other way.

At the end of the breakfast was a prize draw, mostly for books and notepads and the like, but I'm having a good week. Yesterday I was standing in the middle of Aeroshell Square peering through my binoculars at an aircraft flying overhead when I was tapped on the shoulder by a "prize patroller" who handed me a sack of goodies just for wearing the right sticker. At the draw I won a silver necklace. I have to go and enter the "win an airplane" draws today. Or maybe "win an airline job." Yeah, being here has got me all fired up about my career again. Silly woman. I went out next and had my picture taken with what was supposed to be the largest mass of women pilots ever assembled, but I guess we aren't as numerous as the organizers had hoped, because it wasn't that impressive a showing, considering how many people are here. I'm right next to Sarah. Or maybe three over.

I forgot to tell you what the necklace looks like. I won't try to upload photos on this poor connection, so I'll just say it's a little sterling silver square with an airplane, and the words. "Women Fly." The Fates are always depicted as a women, aren't they? And they have an endlessly wicked sense of humour.