Stories of a (former fixed wing and hopefully future fling wing) Medevac Pilot

and now finally..

2011-03-31T06:16:00.000-07:00

i am the very proud holder of a group 4 instrument rating. passed my ride yesterday, and i could not be happier. i dont' think i understood that 100hr helicopter pilots don't generally do instrument ratings, so i am just really happy to have gotten through it. was a lot of fun to get back on instruments, and it turned out that it is a skill i don't seem to lose. which was a bonus to say the least.

so yeah. i'm pretty happy.

news.

2010-12-19T07:12:00.001-08:00

Sorry I've neglected to post here for so long. Between the weather, wsib jerking me around a bit and some other stuff I hadnt' been able to do any regular flying. But somehow I managed to finally do a ride after flying about .5 in the last month....and I did rather well. In fact, only comment on flight test report was 'excellent ride'. I will give myself a pat on the back for that one. ;)

So yes, commercial helicopter flight test passed. I'm so happy about that. now to just finish the ifr and I'm job hunting. But I feel like a real pilot again, so that's awesome.

Some video's!

2010-09-22T16:48:00.001-07:00

One of the students at the flight school took some video's for me today, and did an great job. :) Let him and another student come along for the ride on the confined areas...always helps me to have pax in the back, more like real world for one, and also really good practice for flying heavy. And they get to see stuff they will do later, so it's winwin really. :)

The first one is an 180auto from 500' to ground. The second is just a confined area, not a small one, but still looks cool. :)

2010-09-02T13:57:00.000-07:00

Sorry for not keeping this updated.

Everything is going really well, and I even got told I now fly like a real chopper pilot. so I guess he has beaten the fixed wing out of me. :D

Anyway, I'll try to write more soon.

new captain upgrade, notams and turning radius

2010-08-15T06:58:00.000-07:00

For some reason I thought of this story the other day. From back early in my medevac career, when I had just returned from simulator training in Orlando and was about to be set loose on the line as captain. This was my captains last day at work with us, he was leaving for the airlines the next day.

We flew our assigned missions, and then returned to base. We still had quite a few hours left in our duty day, so when we called MATC to report our return it wasn't much of a surprise that they had managed to find a bit more work for us to do.

Since I was about to become a full time captain, Captain Big Bars (his nickname, he even called himself that) decided that I would act as captain for this trip. And the first link in the chain is set.

I call FSS to get the wx, and get them to fax it to me with the notams. We had been already flying all around that area previously, so I took a quicker look than I should have.

We depart for XXX.

As we are getting our descent clearance to the small airport (just cleared out of controlled airspace, it was screaming vfr) the controller happens to ask if we have the notam for XXX about the taxiway.

My heart skips a beat. It's my leg to fly, so BB pulls out the paperwork....

The only taxiway off the runway has collapsed, and they have placed a metal plate over it. However, that is limited to a max of 5000lbs.

Oh crap. Double crap. ARGH.

I want to crawl under my seat. I can feel the glare burning a hole in me.

However, the airport is not busy, in fact we are the only aircraft around, and it is a code 4, which means critical so we decide we can land, make calls on the frequency while staying on the runway and load the patient and get out of there quick.

Seems like a good plan, so I land and taxi to the end where the taxiway is.

The ambulance isn't there yet, so we wait with engines running listening to the radio.

Then we hear it. A training aircraft inbound for a touch and go.

Now I have to say it. My thought was to tell them our situation and get them to go elsewhere. I mean, it wasn't like they were landing, and we were picking up a critical patient, seemed logical to me.

But BB decided otherwise. He decides that we are going to get out of the way and go onto the taxiway. We can then turn around, should be tight, but doable.

So I move the throttles and turn left onto the taxiway.

The training aircraft does its touch and go and is gone again.

And we are in a MU2 on a rather narrow taxiway. Really narrow. With a metal plate ahead we cannot cross, and soft, soft ground on either side of this very narrow taxiway.

Again it is decided that we must do something about this now.

This is where things go wrong for the last time.

All but one of our MU2's had props that rotated counterclockwise. So all but one of them have a tighter turning radius while turning left. 104' vs 112'.

And guess which one we had?

I am told to make a left turn. I don't notice the error either.

I start the turn, get the right tire as close to the edge of the pavement as I can. At some point big bars decides I am not doing it right, and takes control. We round the 90deg mark...you can tell we aren't going to make it. But sometimes you hope? I'm not sure why it was not stopped then. But it wasn't. The throttles were pushed further forward.

And man...we almost made it.

And then the right main went off the edge. And started to sink. Fast.

Quickly, shut down the engines before the prop hits the ground.

Then quiet. For a second.

Until we had to get out of our half sinking airplane and try to shore it up.

It sank on that side until the tip tank was just about touching the ground.

Our paramedic called the fire department to see if they could help us stabilize it and get it out. He requested that they please do not use lights and sirens.

A few minutes later I heard the sirens...shortly after that I saw the lights. Oh fantastic.

Then the town reporter showed up. Poor big bars was having the worst last day ever. I ordered a pizza and got a ride to go and pick it up. I thought it was for the best..lol.

After many hours, much help from a nearby AMO, and much embarrassment we finally were ready to leave.

And a line of thunderstorms blocked our path, so we could only make another destination before we have to call it a night and get a hotel and make it to the bar for last call.

So lessons learned.
1) Always, always, always check the NOTAMS thoroughly
2) know what airplane you have, and why things like turning radius might come in handy...
3) don't rush. think. Then act. you know, like you are taught. ;)

From bad to good.

2010-08-07T08:25:00.001-07:00

So a funny thing happened. A few hours after I posted that I felt great after flying I decided I needed to stretch more...you know, to prevent any injury from that day's flying. Being me, and being stupid, I guess I figured more is better...and after I got up off the floor I was in some sort of bent to the left position, and my back was killing me.

I was in disbelief. Until then it had all been fine.

The next day was no better. Did I do it to myself? Or was it the flying? Oh please, please let me have done this to myself.....

I asked the chiro. "is it possible to over stretch? And hurt yourself?" They didn't seem to think that could be the case. (however...they didn't know me and what I am capable of. Being an idiot and all) That left only one thing. The flying.

As the days passed I got more and more panicked. I mean, when you are staring the real end of your career in the face...well, you don't know what that is like until it happens. It sucks. Talk about feeling trapped.

I started to think of why it happened, if it was in fact the flying. I was in the r22. They are one size fits all. Due to the position of the pedals and the cyclic I have to sit with a slightly bent forward posture. Bent towards my bad side. I don't have this problem in the jet ranger as you are able to adjust the pedals. Then I figured that if I put something behind me that should push me just forward enough to prevent the lean forward.

But still the back hurt. I kept going to the chiro. It was feeling better...but not all better.

Finally yesterday I figured I needed to find out if it was in fact over. So off I went. And they had a big foam piece I could put behind me. And we did an hour of auto's. And they went pretty well. Other than the adjustments required due to my new sitting position. My elbow is much further back in the hover now, new muscles to train. ;)

And once it was over, I was fine. And I drove home. And I was still fine. And now it's the next day, and I feel great. But I have NOT stretched like I did that previous time. I am pretty sure that the pain was caused more by what I did, than the flying. Though I think the flying had left my back tired enough to allow what happened to happen.

So I think I can take a deep breath. Because I've been holding it for over a week. I just could not imagine doing anything other than flying, and the prospect of that was just horrible.

I'm glad I can put it out of my mind now. And work on getting myself to 100%. Not quite there yet, but it's possible. I just have to be more careful and aware of what I am doing at all times. I think I tried not to because that would have been admitting that I might never be the same. Well, I guess I'm going to have to accept that fact. I will never be the same person as before I got hurt. But I can still be a hard working pilot capable of doing most things. Just not the ones that I probably should have known better than to be doing in the first place. Ah hindsight. ;) A horrible result of me trying to be just like the guys. But my body paid the price. I hope I have learned my lesson.

And some more crash info.

2010-07-26T15:48:00.000-07:00

Can be found HERE.

Men killed in chopper crash "much more than employees" — UPDATED with new interview
Posted By PJ WILSON The Nugget
Updated 3 hours ago

There were no flight data recorders on a helicopter that crashed near Elk Lake Friday, although National Transportation Safety Board investigators believe they can retrieve information from other components on the ill-fated flight.

Ken Webster, regional senior investigator with the TSB, operating out of Richmond Hill, Ont., said Monday the helicopter was not required to have a flight data recorder.

Two men, John Tumchewics, 21, of Yellowknife, and Ethan Boucha, 20, of Kenora, died when the Bell 206B they were flying crashed in a heavily wooded area between Elk Lake and Gowganda.

The men were "much more than employees," according to a spokesman for Essential Helicopters of North Bay, which employed the men and owned the helicopter.

Both were licensed pilots, but according to Webster, they had only received their commercial ratings "recently."

He said he hopes further information on the crash will be available later this week.

The two men were on a flight from North Bay to Kapuskasing when the accident occurred. Investigators have received reports of poor weather in the area at the time of the accident, including overcast skies, low ceilings and a light drizzle, according to witnesses.

"We are working closely with the Transportation Safety Board to try to determine the cause of this accident," Lavern Ross, chief flight instructor with the company, said in a media release.

"The investigation is ongoing and is a long process. We have no further information at this time.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the families as we all struggle to understand this tragedy."

The Bell 206B "hit a (communications) tower and subsequently impacted the ground," said Webster.

Ontario Provincial Police received an emergency call from a berry picker at about 2 p.m. Friday. It took police about 50 minutes to reach the scene.

Elk Lake is 130 kilometres north of North Bay. Gowganda is about 30 kilometres west of Elk Lake.

Just babies. :(

smile

2010-07-26T13:24:00.000-07:00

Well that was sure fun. :)

Went up in the R22 for an hour, just circuits, hovering and many, many take off's and landings, xwind, tailwind, normal.....

And it went really well. I'm pretty happy about that. I was a bit worried I'd forget how to fly a helicopter altogether.

But boy...am I beat. My right arm will probably feel it tomorrow. It was fairly windy and gusty, so a workout for sure.

Back up Wednesday, have some other stuff to attend to tomorrow. Can't wait. Finally feels like it's time. I must be all better. :D I feel all better. And that's all that counts.

back I go.

2010-07-26T04:00:00.000-07:00

Showered and ready to hit the skies again.

I'm pretty excited, though not the night before xmas type of excited..more of a...it's about time...kind. :)

It's a beautiful day, should be fun to take the R22 for a spin. Or not. ;) Twitchy little beast.

I'll let you know how it goes.

2010-07-25T07:36:00.001-07:00

Well, I don't think I knew the pilots, pretty much 100% sure I did not, but I do know the company and the machine. It belonged to the first flight school I attended.

Story here.

Transportation board investigating fatal chopper crash
Names of two victims have not been released
Posted By Brandi Cramer
Updated 13 hours ago

Two people died in a helicopter crash in a heavily wooded area between Elk Lake and Gowganda Friday afternoon.

The aircraft, a Bell 206 B, left North Bay en route to Kapuskasing with two people on board.

"In the area of Elk Lake, the aircraft hit a tower and subsequently impacted the ground," said Ken Webster, a regional senior investigator with the Transportation Safety Board of Canada.

The aircraft belonged to Essential Helicopters Flight Training School.

The names of the victims have not yet been released, pending notification of next of kin but Webster did identify them as employees of the North Bay company.

Ontario Provincial Police received an emergency call from a berry picker at about 2 p.m. Friday. It took crews about 50 minutes to arrive at the scene, according to an OPP media release.

"It's a heavily wooded area with a rough bush road," Const. Rock Belanger said Friday evening. "You're in the middle of the bush."

Terry Fiset, the reeve of James Township and a volunteer with the Elk Lake Volunteer Fire Department, responded to the scene Friday providing emergency response services and equipment.

Fiset could not comment other than to say the chief of the department would issue a statement in the coming days.

"Our deepest sympathies go out to the families," he said Saturday afternoon.

Elk Lake is 130 kilometres north of North Bay. Gowganda is about 30 kilometres west of Elk Lake.

"We're still looking into weather conditions," Webster said, adding the investigation, including whether there was any sort of radio communication or safety deficiencies and interviews with the company, will continue this week.

Provincial police crews from Temiskaming and Englehart, as well as the OPP helicopter also responded to the scene.

I won't say that this kind of thing doesn't make me really angry. It's senseless. And rumour has it that it was two very recent grads of the school's program. So really low time pilots. And the weather was shitty that day.

RIP kids. :(

Crash.

2010-07-23T15:25:00.000-07:00

From the CBC

Helicopter crash kills 2 in northern Ont.
Last Updated: Friday, July 23, 2010 | 5:38 PM ET Comments0Recommend0
CBC News

Two people were killed in a helicopter crash in northern Ontario, provincial police say.

The crash occurred around 2 p.m. ET on Friday between at Elk Lake and Gowganda, around 200 kilometres south of Timmins.

Members of the Ontario Provincial Police are at the scene of the crash.

Officials with the Transportation Safety Board of Canada are on their way to investigate.

The names of those killed are being withheld pending notification of next of kin.

LINK HERE.

I fly around there. I really hope it isn't anyone I know. RIP.

Just a clarification.

2010-07-08T04:14:00.000-07:00

I feel the need to defend myself after a comment made yesterday, so here goes.

I don't memorize checklists. Just the parts I'm supposed to. engine failure, set max power.....etc. Anyway, maybe I'm wrong, but it seemed to me my professionalism was being questioned, so I'll defend it here. :)

For over 5 years, and almost 3000 hours I did challenge and response checklists. The legs I flew were usually under an hour. There are two engines. We had to start them both before we went flying. That would mean that I would have read that check list out loud over 3000 times. And replied to it over 3000 times. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to not have that go into my brain, and I certainly cannot force myself to forget things. I mean, really?

Anyway, just wanted to clear that up. :)

Put mustard on it.

2010-07-03T06:33:00.000-07:00

I dream about flying all the time. In fact, I'm pretty sure I have a night time job as a pilot flying mu2's in dream land. always the same airport, same FBO. Sometimes I actually get airborne, other times I just watch the plane starting up. Also, I wander around an endless amount of hangars.

Anyway, last night must have been a hard night at the dream office, because I woke up with a funny saying in my head.

"Put mustard on it"

ha.

You see, that was something we used to say all the time at work. When you were arriving to destination and got a particularly crappy atis. (you know the kinds, the 25G40kts 1/4SM VV100 RSC 0.4 or something like that) you'd look at the pilot flying and say..."better put mustard on that one".

I heard it for the first time from my captain. And I, like all other captains passed it along. I hope it's still there, but for some reason I'm sure it's not, and that sort of makes me sad. Because the phrase put mustard on it was said, and heard, many, many times on dark and stormy nights in the cockpit of a MU2.

Still miss my old job. Funny. You'd think I'd be over it, but it was honestly the greatest job ever. For me anyway. On the most amazing airplane. One that for some reason I can still repeat the checklists from start up to cruise from memory...how's that for not letting go?

Battery key switch - on
Voltage- check
battery isolation - check
inverter - main/standby
fuel transfer - off
power levers - set
condition levers - taxi
environmental controls - off
warning lights - check
rotating beacon - on
SRL's - on
start select - right hand ground
battery select - parallel
EGT - below 200C
CRS - run
generators - off
prop - clear, flat, plugs removed
feather valve, NTS, engine start.
10% fuel flow......light off.

and honestly, for some sick reason I can continue...lol

good week.

2010-06-29T08:47:00.000-07:00

So one week down, and I'm feeling pretty good. Nothing much to report other than that. But hey, it's something. :D

And the verdict is.

2010-06-23T05:15:00.000-07:00

I have one more month. One month to try and change something that has plagued me for almost 3 years. Though, I am well on my way since I started going to a chiropractor months ago. While I am not better....I am way ahead of what I have been in a long, long time. and I do think that in time I WILL be 100%...or at least 90%...I'm not sure if it will happen in 30 more days. but then again, it just might.

On the bright side, I have been lifting correctly, standing correctly...all the things I used to do wrong, and well...I have to say...my butt has never looked better. and my abs. totally hilarious and a wonderful, amazing side effect of using your body the way it was intended. Go figure. so I'm down 20lbs without even trying, and I look a few inches taller since I actually cannot physically slouch anymore.

Of course my caseworker who really knows nothing about aviation at all started to suggest that I go back to airplanes because "airline flying has to be easier on your back...". I tend to disagree, the legs would be longer...and it's not like you can just leave the cockpit to go stretch in the stupid aisle. And there's the fact that airlines tend to not want me...that's another issue.. HA.

Anyway, back in the hold for 30 more days. Keep your fingers crossed for me. I promise that I am working very hard, and after 3 years I would really like to get my stupid life back. In some form or another.

2010-06-19T10:53:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the absence. My injury decided it was NOT better, and I have been on the ground attempting to get myself back to normal for the past few months.

I'll know my fate in a few days. I'm scared to be honest.

So yeah. I just don't know what will happen to me. But I'll know soon enough.

Auto's, stuck pedals and hydraulic failures.

2010-01-20T18:24:00.001-08:00

That was on the list for today's flight.

Went pretty well I guess. Was back with my regular instructor and of course that made things easier for me.

Stuck pedals went well, much to my surprise..ha. But yeah. Said he could not have done it better. So that made me happy.

then some ground review for me. Turns out I also know stuff. Who knew.

Tomorrow is nav departure, confined area, forced approach, diversion, some instrument work and unusual attitudes. the latter is NOT my favourite thing to do. In fact, I despise them. I think because it's where I'm not in control. I hate that. Anyway, not looking forward to it, but told J how much I dislike them and he said not to worry, he doesn't go all crazy or anything. Which is good.

I have heard the words 'recover' in fixed wing training and found myself in various flight attitudes. Full spin. Inverted. Anyway, that might explain why I'm a bit jumpy about them. Plus the whole partial panel thing. And the foggles. yay.

So probably recommend ride Friday or Monday? I think the wx is supposed to be not great Monday, so Friday might be better. Guess it depends on how tomorrow goes.

Flight test date.

2010-01-13T07:26:00.000-08:00

So I have a date. Finally.

going to be doing my ride with Transport so I can do my pre ride stuff with my regular instructor. (he is a DFTE, and usually does the rides, but since I really like flying with him the most, I figure I'd just stay with what works for me)

Jan 27th is the day.

Finally. I cannot wait to be done.

Of course today there is FZRA, and they are calling for it all day tomorrow as well. Super awesome.

On the bright side, I have been told that the flying portion of the ride should be no problem, so I guess that means I'm flying ok these days.

Fortunately I have done many, many rides. so it's not like it is new.

Mind you, I haven't done a ride for a license since 1998. Since then it's just been ratings, and PPC's.

So this is causing me slightly more stress than usual. but I will live i am sure.

I plan to know the 206 manual so well that if given a pile of parts I could rebuild it myself. haha. just kidding of course, but I do plan on knowing every little thing about it. I hate that moment when you get asked something and you just don't know. So I am going to prevent that from happening. For once. :D

The moment that is done I plan on getting that IFR out of the way ASAP. And then the last few hours I have to burn off.

And then. Then I can finally dust off the old resume, make the appropriate changes, and try to find a job. Which scares me. What if no one wants to hire me? I mean, I'll take anything. I would like rotary wing, sure. But I won't say I won't work fixed wing again. I just want to work. Be productive. Have a normal life again.

That would be awesome.

Almost there.

My guilty pleasure.

2010-01-08T06:18:00.000-08:00

I have a new favourite show.

IcePilots NWT.

yeah, it's cheesy, and made exciting for television, but it's still real northern Canadian flying. And that's cool.

Also reminds me of my days in the northwest when I had to dig out the hose (with my hands and feet, shovels are apparently a luxury in Big Trout.) then pump my own fuel at 3am when it's -30C out with howling winds (and all after a circling to mins I am sure)but not in a bad way. haha.

Anyway, since I'm not sure if any of you outside the country are aware of this show, here's the first part of episode 1. the rest seem to be on youtube now, so if you like it, you should be able to see it all.

Enjoy. :D

Back at it.

2010-01-06T15:43:00.000-08:00

Got flying today finally. Monday I had some business I had to tend to, and yesterday the roads were crap, so I stayed home. Oh well.

But today they were good, so I made the trip. Was nice, all the snow in the trees, reminded me of why I do like winter. Sometimes. :D

So up in the jet ranger today, with a different instructor than usual. I've flown with him a few times, and I always learn something new when we do, so I wasn't too stressed out about it. I do seem to screw up the strangest things when I go flying with him though.

Today it was making my spot doing auto's. I have not really had any trouble picking and making spots through out my training. I mean yeah. Def not perfect for sure, but man. Today I was totally out to lunch. Guess I'll cut myself some slack not having flown for 3 weeks. And the 180s were better than the straight ins. go figure.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll figure out what I was doing wrong. I have a feeling I was not looking for my spot 3/4 down the window...I'll keep an eye on that next time.

Then we did a couple of confined's and I got to see how different it is with the snow. Quite.

Just glad to be back at it again.

Happy New Year.

2010-01-03T07:15:00.000-08:00

happy new year everyone.

Hope everyone behaved themselves. :D

Flying resumes tomorrow after a long sick/xmas vacation break. (the first me, the second the school).

I'm looking forward to it!

So hopefully things will be happening again and soon. I have to put the pedal to the metal here and get some things accomplished in the month of Jan. Should be busy.

Fortunately the weather looks good for the next week, though always subject to change. But I'm hoping that the usual Jan deep freeze begins...just not too cold, I do have 20 hours to burn off on the R22.....

Sick.

2009-12-17T06:54:00.000-08:00

Sick again.

funny, when I flew medevacs all the time for years I was hardly ever sick. Must have been due to all the nasty germs I was exposed to on a daily basis. My immune system was the bomb.

but now...not so much.

I have had few minor illnesses this fall, and now I have this horrible full blown cold.

and I cant' really go flying if I can't stop sneezing I figure. I mean, what would happen if I arrived in the hover and started doing that at the same time? I shudder to think. It was bad enough fixed wing when the odd sneeze would hit in the flare or something, but this?

so what do helicopter pilots do when they get a cold? Stay on the ground? Because also, there is the whole snot factor. and if my left hand is on collective, and right hand is on cyclic...well, yeah. ick.

Between this and the 206 being broken I seem to have a week off. I was really hoping to be done something by xmas, but is not to be I guess. Hopefully the cold clear weather moves in for Jan and I can just fly my ass off and get done.

I want to be done.

Enough. I'd rather be job hunting...or maybe not...LOL

cute.

2009-12-11T07:30:00.000-08:00

also.

2009-11-17T16:34:00.000-08:00

When I was home I scored.

I am now the owner of a photo album.

One full of candid WW2 photo's from my Great Uncle's time there until he was shot down near Malta.

I will try to get them scanned soon. they are really something........

and funny enough, on Nov 11 I happened to grab that very album off the shelf.

anyway, as soon as able. :)

ATPL

2009-11-17T13:10:00.000-08:00

Is back baby. Did my recurrent instrument ride last Wednesday and passed. go me. ;)

ATPL = Airline Transport Pilot License, need a group 1 instrument rating to keep that valid.

Was good fun, ended up doing it with a friend of mine, which really made it less stressful. The plane (PA34-200) was a nice stable platform for IFR, and I guess flying choppers keeps your fixed wing skills honed, because there was no problem transitioning back to airplanes.

I really do love airplanes. They are graceful. they are pretty.

choppers are neither graceful or pretty. But I also love them. Just totally different animals really. Like comparing a motorcycle to a car.

fortunately I didn't try to put the plane into a hover. ;)

Back on the chopper today, and now I have to get moving. Time to get ready for commercial flight test, I need that license done before I can do the instrument rating. I'm not all that worried about the H-IFR ride now, should be a lot like what I just did, and that was pretty easy. I am stressing about the commercial ride, but it will be over one of these days.

So yeah, things are about to get busy again, so I'll try to post a bit more often. :D

I'm so happy to have my fixed wing tickets back though. I feel more like a pilot again.

Weather woes.

2009-11-01T12:29:00.000-08:00

So the weather has sucked. for weeks. Last week there was not a single day that I could go flying. Maybe in my former job I could have, no problem. But not now.

Haven't flown in over a week and a half.

Oh, and the flight school I was going to renew my MIFR with has gone out of business. Go figure.

Planning on maybe heading south to have a friend of mine do it. Would be much more relaxing anyway. Would make my mother happy, I very rarely ever get home...it's just not the same since Dad died.

So yeah, whole lot of nothing atm. Hopefully I can fly tomorrow. Then maybe next week get that IFR out of the way. that sure would be nice.

Airplane day.

2009-10-18T15:16:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I will hopefully be flying a twin comanche doing a bit of training before renewing my instrument rating.

I haven't flown a plane, or ifr in quite some time.

Hopefully I remember lots. :)

Ok, I probably don't suck.

2009-10-09T13:00:00.000-07:00

sorry I vanished there for a bit. Was having such fun at my pity party. ;)

But all is well, and finally the lines of communication are somewhat open between myself and my instructor.

So yeah, the deal. I was freaking out because I have enough time for a ride, but no one was talking about it. I did send him a long ass ridiculous email (which I regretted the moment I hit send of course...LOL), but luck was on my side, and for some reason it was bounced back to me and he never had to read it. whew! I told his wife about it, she laughed and said I was crazy. LOL

I finally had a minute to talk to him about things. funny how you (me) can be so far off on some things. I'm such a tool sometimes.

So I was asking if he thought I'd go out and kill myself doing something stupid once I left the safety of flight school. and he told me that yes, he does have that feeling about some pilots he trains, and usually he's right. But he does NOT have that feeling about me. at all. So another plus.

Of course shortly after this I wanted to do a diversion review in the 22, and the instructor (not my usual) gave me a forced approach from under 500' and I totally and completely fucked it up so fucking bad. It was horrible, and I wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

I haven't done an auto in that thing since July, let alone a forced in the bush off the tree tops. And we did not talk about it prior. I was really worried about my map reading (which was silly also...god I'm ridiculous sometimes) so that was my focus. (and yes, I know always be prepared, I get that. And alone I am always looking for landing spots all the time. I know, I know. No excuse.) Being in the clouds and having my hand held by controllers in the IFR world for so many years really did erode my map reading skills. Especially down low.

So I had that disaster, and attempted to pick myself up and get back at it.

and then the weather decided to be so utterly crappy for the past 2 weeks that I have flown 3 times. But I did get in almost 2 hours today, and in the jetranger, so that's awesome.

First .9 was auto's. Straight in from 500', then 180's from 500'...and then it got fun. 180's from 300'. Omg. How fun was that?????

then I just bombed around for another .9 doing confined's and stuff. Now it's the long weekend, so I will be back tuesday.

so yeah. I'm happy again. I feel like I can do this.

Now I just have to get done...please weather, can you just finish your transition phase and settle down?

I suck.

2009-09-24T14:51:00.000-07:00

which is why I haven't even bothered to post about how much I fucking suck at this.

possibly a close to flight test freakout, but I just don't know. again, the siren song of airplanes calls to me..."it's easy...come baaaaaaack". but I am not a quitter.

I just wish I was a better helicopter pilot. *sigh*

back on the R22 for a bit, the 206 is away working, and since I have taken so much time off healing my stupid hand (which is pretty much all better btw, at least one thing is going ok atm...LOL) I figure I need some work.

but holy hell, is that thing ever hard solo.

I guess I'll just take it as a compliment that I was sent solo in it after not flying it since the beginning of Aug, and without nary a check from the instructor.

I just wish I could have all the knowledge I had about airplanes about helicopters. But alas, I have about 4940 more hours before that happens. If I ever get that far.

saw the medivac chopper today. It just made me sad because all I could think of is how I will never, ever be good enough to do that. ugh.

ok, off to attempt to think happy thoughts.

I'll have more to say later. ;) Cause I always do.

cats.

2009-09-14T16:27:00.001-07:00

took this picture of one of my cats, and thought it turned out really neat.

more confined practice.

2009-09-10T06:53:00.001-07:00

So Tuesday and yesterday I flew 1.5 per day. All confined area work.

Apparently I'm good at recon, and now my instructor had decided that it was time for me to make decisions in the bush.

So he was not going to tell me where to put down. At all. Let me figure it out for myself. Oh boy!

Day one wasn't so hot. I wasn't using my brain effectively and because of that I was just not able to see where I should be going. Well, I mean I know. Look for a flat type spot, try to hang your tail over water to avoid obstacles, have something in front of you to reference so the tall blowing swamp grass doesn't fuck with your head. Which it is want to do. Funny, you can tell the instant your eye wanders. From a stable low hover to landing to some sort of wobbling beast. So yeah, I do know how extremely important it is to have a tree or rock or anything there to focus on.

Day two was much better. I picked all my spots, and actually picked good ones. And I even showed some decision making when I was eying a spot for a little while, and then decided it was above my comfort level. And I'm glad I thought that, because he did too! So I meandered over to another spot next to the swamp and put down there. Much better. And seriously, these areas were small! My turn about the tail practice helped...cause that was all I could do in there. (mind you, not aggressive for his liking...but damn, I honestly do get a bit nervous in there) Find a safe place to put my tail, and keep it there until I found a place that looked like it would be sufficient to put down.

But holy shit, he had me in some tight places. The ones I have shown pictures of were probably 3 times the size. I'm not kidding. Barely enough room to turn around in there. Jebus. (or so it seemed...heh)

Mr. Dagny was trying to tell me that if I sucked then instructor man sure as shit would not have me going into those postage stamp sized areas. And yes, I suppose that is probably true. He also asked if I was getting control taken away from me...which he knows is not true. His logic is that if that was happening, that would mean I suck...and yes, that's true.

So after that, I decided I needed to shoot some ILS approaches on the sim for relaxation.

And yes, it did relax me. :D

My scan lives!! It really does. No problems at all. What a relief. Now if I can just get that MIFR ride out of the damn way.

Oh, and my hand, while not perfect is much better. Also, I noticed that even in tiny confined areas my death grip has disappeared. I now hold the cyclic with a light touch. Kick ass. Now the hand still hurts from a light grip, but nothing a day off after 3.0hrs of confined practice won't fix. Bring on the ice. ;)

Also, I hope I'm not giving anyone the impression I dont' like my instructor, because nothing could be further from the truth. I think he's awesome, and he's teaching me amazing things. So yeah. He rocks.

Many Auto's

2009-08-31T13:20:00.000-07:00

Today I was back into auto's on the jet ranger. I have done quite a few already, but today we were testing out the various rotor rpm/airspeed combo's, to SEE the difference. And I must say, there is quite a bit.

First, normal. 100% rpm and 60mph. Now we had a spot to compare with.

Second, 100% rpm and 80mph. Went a bit further on that one.

Next, <90%rpm (horn going off the whole time) and 80mph. Holy crap, did we ever travel on that one. If I need to make a spot far away, I'll be using that one.

Then, enter auto just prior to spot, and using 100% and 60mph and lots of yanking and banking (well, S turns...LOL) and rpm controlled with collective during turns. Made the spot.

Finally, the one that initially scared the pants off me. The ZERO forward airspeed one. Enter auto over spot, collective down, and back on cyclic. Until you are no longer moving forward. I didn't like that much in the beginning. I have gone backwards in an airplane, but that was because there was an insane amount of wind at 3000' one day when I was in flight college. This is different. So yeah, got zero airspeed, and once the ground is around 400' away, nose down (and this was hard, because as a fixed wing pilot converting to rotary I have been training myself to pretty much NEVER push forward on the cyclic in any sort of forceful manner.) to gain airspeed, looking for 60, but you take what you can get. Then flare.

Anyway, that was today. Lots of that. For an hour.

I should have asked my instructor how I am doing. I really should have. But I hate to seem needy. I should not need someone to tell me if things are going well. (well, we all know I DO, but I dont' want to make a big deal out of it). But other than him telling me a few things I already knew (like watch rotor rpm like a freaking hawk when doing crazy ass S turns while performing an auto, I got that fixed on attempt number two. I should have nailed it on the first one...but I'll try to go easy on myself) he pretty much defaulted to the 'good job' option. I will just have to take his word for it.

My hand is still messed up. But better. I just have to take it easy, and not fly more than once a day right now, and for this week, only every other day. If I can't get it on the road to recovery, well then I'll be fucked. At least they understand that the whole situation is bumming me out completely, and all I want to do is fly. Hell, I'd fly 3 times a day if my hand would co operate. I know I can get it back to 100%...just a matter of when. And I can live with it as is...for now. I'd rather have it not cause me pain all the time for the rest of my life though, cause that would send me back to airplanes I figure....they don't hurt to fly. LOL. Not that I'd want to do that..I don't.

Anyway, life isn't coming to an end. I can still fly a helicopter. I seem to be able to think and fly simultaneously. Always a good combo. Back at it tomorrow if my hand is miraculously better, and Wednesday if not.

And soon I will have to hit the IFR books. Oh boy...it's been a while...I hope I still know how to fly on instruments.

Crisis of confidance

2009-08-28T05:29:00.000-07:00

Yeah. That is where I am at right now. Not a happy, or fun place. But one that I have visited before in my life.

I guess it's the inevitable plateau that occurs when learning a new thing. You get more skilled rapidly at the beginning...and then. Nothing. Less than nothing, in fact I feel like I have gone backwards. Regressing.

And I'm starting to wonder if I am cut out for this. Will I really be able to do this on my own in the field? Will I even get a job once I'm finished? Has this all been a waste of time? Can an old dog really learn new tricks? Or should the dog just go back to what the dog knows?

Because I can hear the airplanes calling to me. "come back to us" they say. "come back to where you belong. where you aren't incompetent, where you can do what is asked of you." "Come back, to where life is easy again....where you already have a bag of experience to draw from, to the place you belong." "Silly girl, why did you even think you could do this in the first place. Helicopters are for Real pilots, not tourists like yourself."

Yes, that is what my brain likes to say to me. Not always of course, or else I would have never left the ground in the first place. And, I am 100% positive that I have heard my brain say similar things to me regarding airplanes back in 1997. And I will never forget training for the MU2...boy, that really sent me for a loop. I was convinced I was the worlds worst pilot for a while there. And I know I ended up flying that machine just fine. But it's a hard thing to ignore some days, especially after a shitty flight where nothing goes right, and you are left feeling like you should set your licenses on fire to protect the rest of the world from you.

I know, I know deep down it's not that bad. I know that I am/was a good pilot. Ah...yes. There you go, it's the 'was' part that's eating away at me. Because while I know I WAS a good pilot until Aug 28, 2007...I don't know if that is still the case. (ETA: I had NO clue what today's date was when I wrote this. Funny this post should occur on the 2 year anniversary of my injury. The mind is a strange thing it would seem.....)

Maybe renewing my MIFR will remind me of who I was before. Because being the idiot student again for this long has started to get to me.

And, to be totally honest, I have no idea where I stand. Am I average? Below average? I need to know this. And for some reason I don't. I have a sinking suspicion that people are being overly nice to me because of my background. Like they feel bad giving me the shit I deserve after a flight maybe? Or maybe I'm doing ok and that is why I haven't gotten a lot of feedback. *cough* I highly doubt that one. I am with me when I go flying, so I know better.

*fucking turns about the tail...grumble...grumble...grumble.....*

So I guess I have to suck it up. But..while I don't think I want to be constantly be told how awesome I am....I do want to know where I stand. Because I have ridiculously high standards for myself. And right now I don't feel like I am anywhere near I should be. Reality? Or just me? I have no clue.

And I wish I did.

Yikes.

2009-08-20T15:15:00.000-07:00

TAF AMD CYYB 202213Z 2022/2108 10015KT 6SM -RA BR FEW008 BKN025 TEMPO
2022/2023 VRB35G50KT 1SM +FC +TSGRRA BR BKN005 OVC010CB
FM202300 14008KT 6SM -RA BR SCT003 OVC012 TEMPO 2023/2108 2SM
SHRA BR OVC003 PROB30 2023/2101 VRB20G30KT 2SM +TSRA BR BKN003
OVC010CB
RMK NXT FCST BY 210200Z=

Glad I'm not there atm I'd say.

Tendonitis

2009-08-20T05:55:00.000-07:00

In my stupid hand.

From my early death grip on the cyclic (and the fact I broke all 4 fingers on my right hand in highschool and took my own cast off early thinking I knew more than the dr's...and discovering I was wrong when it was too late. heh), which hasn't had time to heal so keeps getting worse just from keeping a light grip (when I can, can anyone have a LIGHT grip in the hover? Seriously, I just dont' see how it's possible...but maybe I'm just in a bad habit now, probably reality) on the cyclic. Repetitive stress injury anyone? ARGH.

I feel like an idiot. Seriously.

Guess I should talk to my SIL about it since she is a Physical Therapist. Once the pain is tolerable I can figure out what exercises I need to do to make sure this never, ever happens again.

So for now I have a brace on my silly hand and I am taking a few days off and see if I can get this back to somewhat normal. *sigh*.

Oh well, at least this gives me time to know the jetranger manual inside and out, cause I'm going to be doing my ride in that one. Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet. ;)

//off to ice hand. :$

Nearing the end.

2009-08-18T06:37:00.000-07:00

Well, not totally, but at least the end of the Commercial license is nearing an end. The written is out of the way, and I have about 50 hours so far, and need 60 for the license, so maybe next week will be ride time? Sooner than later anyway. I'm not stressed out yet, but talk to me as it gets closer...it's been some time since I have done a ride...May 2007 to be exact...eeks.

So the other day I did my first trip in the R44. I'll be doing my ifr on it, so I guess it's time to start to get used to it. Mind you the jetranger was in the shop, so that might be why. ;) But it was a pretty stable platform, and I think it will suit me well for the instruments. I mean, I love the jetranger, love...but it has no instruments that I need, so the Robbie it is.

Last week I also did my solo xcountry. How cute. ;) So I did my planning (how is it that I could plan a entire freaking day and file ifr, yet it takes me 45 min to do a vfr one? God I miss IFR!!) And then I called FSS to file my flight plan and get a wx briefing.

So we are chatting about stuff, and get to filing. As we get to 'Pilot's name', I say mine, and he says..."Wait. Just wait. Helicopters? What the hell? And where have you been?"

*sniff*

He remembered me. That made me feel just awesome. So I filled him in on what has been going on, and he said it was very nice to have me back, as I am one of the few pilots around that actually brighten their day. That was about the kindest thing anyone has ever said to me. Seriously.

So on my trip my instructor had asked if I felt comfortable dropping a part off at the maintenance base. I said sure, but I need to know where it is. So they gave me a point on my map, and showed me a few pics taken from the air. Uhm..ok. so this is a circle in an industrial complex, surrounded by buildings, trees, powerlines, and a hill. Yikes! As I was tooling along I wasn't having any luck finding it. I found the highway and hung a left, and kept looking to my left. Still nothing. Fuck!! The last thing I wanted to do was to have to return to base without completing my mission due to my inability to spot something from the air. But I was about 30s from doing that when I saw it. And it was even smaller than the pictures!! So I circled around to see where I would approach from, looked like over the powerlines was my only option due to the winds. Ok then, here we go.

So I arrived. And I felt like a working pilot again. One that was accomplishing something other than hours in a log book. And really, I was pretty happy that they trusted me to do that. :D

On the way back to base I made a position report on 126.7. And then I heard..."Heya Dagny!!". Now that made me smile. And I REALLY felt back then. I have missed it all. The chatting on frequency with friends. Keeping in touch with my weather people. All of it. And no, I probably won't be working for a bit yet, but I got a taste. A taste of what my life used to be like. And I missed it. Horribly. But I'm getting it back. And that brings a smile to my face.

Commercial Helicopter Written Exam.

2009-08-17T17:18:00.001-07:00

96.6%

heh.

I guess I'm not as dumb as I thought. ;)

solo trip in the Jet Ranger.

2009-08-11T06:05:00.000-07:00

Just to prove that I do take it to some kind cool spots. ;) Honestly, the left seat is vacant!

Catching up.

2009-08-07T12:07:00.000-07:00

Been doing quite a bit of flying lately, mostly on the BH06, which is making me very happy. I had no idea I'd be flying that solo too, what a hoot!! Funny, because I have never flown a turbine alone before...I mean unless you are counting the bit of training I did on the mu2, or a few useless first officers in my past...heh. So yeah, this was awesome.

Anyway, the other day on the way to see Tool, me and the hubby stopped in so I could do an hour, and my instructor asked if hubby wanted to go (duh, he's a pilot, but not practicing anymore, and had never been in a chopper...so yeah, he came along.) and if it was ok for another student (Turkish military license conversion guy with a billion hours...eeks, how's that for pressure??) to come too.

I thought it was a great idea. If I had only known in advance (read: use my stupid brain) how much different that would be. We also had a good load of fuel, so we were HEAVY. And off to practice some 'very challenging confined areas' (words of my instructor...AFTER the flight...LOL. I think I like it that way, if he said it first I'd probably stress out. ;) ). Yep, it was quite different!

Not that I'm complaining, not at all. In fact, I am so very glad I have gotten to experience this now, and not in the field. I want to do more hot and heavy work, because it is very demanding, holy cow.

So getting close to my flight test for the Commercial, and then it's just time building, well not just time building of course, I want to LEARN all sorts of stuff. Which I am doing now. Landing a turbine in a swamp? Yep. heheh. Sorry, it's hard to stop smiling sometimes.

Here's some pics taken from the back for me. :)

Turbine day!

2009-07-15T15:00:00.001-07:00

Heading to the big city...

2009-07-02T08:54:00.001-07:00

To see a punk rock show. Pennywise and the Offspring.

Sulako showed me this pic he took of a jet this morning (hope you dont' mind me using it!!!), and I checked it out, and it's actually flown BY the singer for the Offspring. You go Dexter.

Should be fun, I'm looking forward to the show. :)

And then they came back.

2009-06-30T08:28:00.001-07:00

And I was more prepared, and in a much better position for taking some pics. :)

The last one is funny, because that is the end of my street. So yep, right in the neighbourhood. The one with the house is when I was standing in my driveway.

Thanks for the show!!!!!

//and if you click on the first one, and look at the tower, you can see the guy hanging off it!

Best seat in the house.

2009-06-30T07:20:00.000-07:00

So today I hear the sound of a chopper outside. At first I thought it was the medevac one, because it flies directly over my house all day long. Maybe why that's how I ended up suggesting the chopper training...LOL. Of course it is. ;)

Anyway, I find this. I'm waiting for round two, looks like they have a few sets of lines to string up.

Oh, and sorry so many, I got a bit excited. LOL. Actually, I'm shocked there were any not blurry, my hands were shaking with excitement. :)

just some pics.

2009-06-29T14:15:00.000-07:00

I kinda panicked when I had to actually attempt to explain anything helicopter related, so for the time being, that isn't going to be what I do. I don't even have 30 hours yet, so I really know fuck all about anything. However, if anyone wants to discuss MU2 operating techniques, or IFR ops, I'd be more than happy. ;)

So for today, just some pics I took while on the ground at various landing pads.

And a couple of F18's were in, so of course I HAD to get a few pics of that. ;)

I almost feel like....

2009-06-25T15:49:00.000-07:00

A REAL chopper pilot today.

First, I wore my flight suit. hehehe. But it was MUCH more comfortable than jeans...and the added bonus was when I looked at my feet it looked like a real helicopter pilots feet down there. ;)

But the main reason...

I spent the entire flight off the airport. Started on semi confined areas...well, real ones actually, they are just more known..hence not having to inspect every time.

Anyway, I had to approach into this 'little' area...(I'm sure I'll see much smaller in the near future), follow the 'path' between some trees...down to the log pad. Land... Take off again. Then turn, fly sideways into my departure point..turn into wind again..and then cyclic forward to acheive translation and try to get out of there between the trees.

It was freaking awesome. I had so much fun I can't even verbalize it just yet.

My instructor took me up first, just to show me where I was going, and see if I was a moron or not. So then I just headed to the field, dropped him off, and away I went to practice it on my own.

Oh, and I was worried I wasn't 'practicing' things enough on my solo flights, but that is now gone. According to J, 'whatever you have been doing, keep doing it, I'm REALLY happy about what I see'. *insert big smile here*

So yeah, off I went. Down to the pad. Back up. cyclic forward, hit translation, start to get out of there. He wanted me to pull as little power as possible so I would get used to the fact I'll never be lightly loaded when I'm working in the future. So I kept it at about 20" (needed 24" with him on board). A little scary at first, but I got the hang of it.

Tomorrow I will hit the other spot...it's a much steeper approach, and then to leave you have to follow a path over and old bus..then turn into wind as you get to the tree tops....I was a bit chicken today. ;) But after all I did I'm feeling MUCH more confidant now.

I'll try to remember to bring my camera along tomorrow so when I'm sitting on the log pad I can snap a few shots of exactly where I am...you know, the place with all the trees, shrubs, ravens and a swamp. :D

Flight suit day.

2009-06-23T13:54:00.000-07:00

So I finally made my way to the Army Surplus store to see if they had any small flight suits in. The other girl at my school cleaned them out a week or two ago, so I had waited for them to restock. ;)

I managed to get a green one, not the blue I wanted, but I'll live. Hopefully they will get a small blue one in one day and I'll be lucky enough to be by there that day.

Have a feeling that I will be just as hot in this, but at least I have pockets for pens and crap.

Today was more solo practice due to the fact it is just too hot to do any dual. As of right now it's 30C, and that's pushing the limits of these little machines, at least with two in it. I usually pull about 18"mp to hover while alone...but today it was over 20". Max for today's temp was 23.2", so add 200lbs of instructor..and well yeah.

Going to head out earlier tomorrow so I can take advantage of the less scorching temps...but I won't hold my breath. On my drive this am it was nice and cool in my car for about 10 min...them it started to heat up outside..and by the time I got there I was roasting. I won't even mention the drive home. YUCK. It made me nauseous.

Oh, and major discovery regarding the death grip hand. First, I got some gloves so my hands would not get all sweaty in the heat making it hard to grip the cyclic...I think leading me to the death grip. Second, I iced my poor hand before I went up. Third, I used 'Sandy', the bag of sand that you can strap in beside you. I'm close to the min weight for the R22 solo anyway, so adding sandy up front really eased the amount of forward cyclic I needed to keep level.

And lastly. I had totally and completely forgotten that I actually broke all the fingers on my right hand at the knuckles when I was in high school. I haven't had to use it ever in this capacity, so I guess now I am just learning about the lasting damage of that little whoops. ;)

Then I iced it again when I was down. It is feeling MUCH better. Also, I think wearing the black gloves forced me to THINK about what I was doing...cause my hand looked different, leading me to assess the grip I was using, and relax it.

Spent a lot of time practicing hovering with a loosened grip, and take off's and landings.

So progress was made!

Oh, and I even braved the scary log landing pad 4 times today. Much better than last time when it scared me off after 2 tries. ;)

Pad landings and xwind practice.

2009-06-18T14:15:00.000-07:00

Today my instructor and myself went to practice landing on this log pad for about .5 . I still suck at that. Not sure why, but at least in my mind I do. But he seemed to think I was fine, and after that he had me drop him off to go and tackle it myself for an hour.

Oh, a backtrack. It was rather funny. I was commenting on my deathgrip again, and he said..."you know, you are good at this, and you have a good mind for flying, and you fly good...so there is NO reason you should be stressed out!". Funny. But in all honesty...I don't FEEL stressed...only my hand does. And tomorrow I shall try out the tip from T ...the one with the pen in a strategic spot between fingers...I can feel the pain on my middle finger already. But if that doesn't cure me of this stupid issue, nothing will!

So then off I went.

And of course, the wind picked up. Not a ton (in my fixed wing life, hardly any wind!), but way more than I have done by myself in a chopper. So I tried a few on the log pad...and kinda got a bit nervous with the gusty winds swirling around and kicking my ass, so I chickened out after a bit and headed to the taxiway to practice xwinds on the line there. That was much better.

So all went well, and slowly but surely I am getting the hang of this thing. Actually, today was the first solo where I felt like a pilot again, not a nervous student. And I much prefer that feeling!

Back tomorrow, hopefully the sling hook is fixed so I can get back at that. I can only imagine at this point what it's like to do circuits with something hanging off the bottom of you. ;)

Oh, and I have no clue who has any solo pics of me, so that's why I haven't posted any. Maybe one day.....LOL

Death grip.

2009-06-17T06:12:00.000-07:00

So I have a problem, and I need some help. Though really, I guess no one can really help, it's up to me to fix it.

But it hurts!

I have a nasty habit of clamping my hand down around that cyclic like my life depends on it. It mostly happened in the beginning, when I really didn't know what I was doing, and as I recall from fixed wing flying, it does happen on occasion, especially when you are new on a piece of equipment.

But now that I am solo, well it's back. And very painful the next day. So painful in fact that I am taking today off because I really don't think I can safely grip the cyclic today. Pretty pathetic.

I try to remind myself to loosen up, and sometimes I do actually relax...but a lot of the time....well, you should see my poor hand when I come back down.

I wont' even bother to mention that my feet also get pins and needles because I am keeping them in some sort of strange 'ready for action' pose...also not good.

So really, I guess all anyone can say is that I should try to relax, and that it will get better with experience and confidence. But it's a drag it's cutting into my training a bit.

Speaking of training.

Yesterday I did another hour or solo circuits, immediately followed by an hour of intro to slinging. Had a short line, and a 100lb engine block on the end, and learned hooking up, lifting off, and the reverse. It was pretty warm and there was basically NO wind..and the poor little machine was really struggling. But I got to practice many, many hookups, so that's good. I now completely understand why the wind is my friend. ;) After that I did a bit of practice landing on the 12'X 12' pad. I wont' say I'm great at that yet...that's for sure. But it's fun, and I can't wait to become competent...LOL

I guess today we were going to try slinging circuits, but it's a no wind day again today anyway, and t-storms forecast for most of the day, so maybe it's just saving my time by taking today off.

Oh, and I probably never mentioned that I actually have to drive almost 2 hours to get to training everyday, and same drive home. So for every few hours in the chopper I have to drive for almost 4 hours. Starting to tire me out a bit, I must admit. Plus, the air conditioning in my car is u/s...so it's so freaking hot on the way home. I'm tempted to buy a new car...but really..I'm just too cheap. Is it wrong that I'm happy enough with my shitty 1998 Dodge Neon? Cause I am. Guess I'm just not a fancy car kind of chick. Probably because I've been a poor pilot all these years. ;) Good thing it doesn't bother me to drive a shit box.\

Tomorrow I am also going to go to the second hand flight suit store and try to pick a few up. Flying in jeans in the little glass bubble is freaking HOT, and at least with a flight suit I can just wear a tank top and undies under it. I'm hoping to find a blue one and a green one. Not a big fan of the sand coloured ones....probably because beige is just NOT a slimming colour. LOL

And also, following that I have decided to get a helmet. It's actually a regulation of the school I'm going to..not sure why I'm allowed to get away with my plain old headset, but maybe I'm just special. ;) But since the government is going to pay, I figured I might as well. Plus, want ANR, my ears are getting worse by the day. I wish I was kidding. Anyway, this is the one I'm looking at. Alpha Eagle 900 And as much as I'd like it, no, I won't be getting the NVG assembly. ;) So any comments by owners or former owners on that one? Pros? Cons?

So very sorry!

2009-06-12T12:56:00.001-07:00

Ugh, I'm a horrible slacker here.

Anyway, went solo today!

Funny, I was 'supposed' to go a few days ago, but another student that had been having problems was going, and I didn't want to rain on his parade, so I bowed out until the next day.

So, today I went up with instructor, and we did rapid decelerations..which are freaking awesome! I loved the ones where you come to a air stop then bank it over and pull power.....YEEHAWWWWWWWWWw! Good hands and feet practice in those...heh. Fortunately I have semi decent hands and feet. ;)

So after we did that, he says back to the ramp to gas up and then I can just take it for an hour. Usually people drop off the instructor and take it from the grass area for 2 circuits, but apparently not me! So we filled it up, and I hopped in, and fired it up.

Ready to go.

Raise collective.

Holy cow, getting light on the skids very early here!

Ok, now tail wants to go down, so cyclic forward. WAY more forward than usual. Guess that's what happens when 200lbs of instructor gets out. LOL.

So then I hover taxied to the field and got the feel for a few take off's and landings...and then into the circuit for an hour or so.

I must admit I had the death grip back on the cyclic...my right hand still is sore...LOL. But all in all it went really well, and I feel much more confident than I did this morning.

Choppers rule.

Can't wait for Monday, then I can work on fine tuning everything.

Oh, and they dump water on your head, as per usual. I got 3 full buckets...LMAO

Some pictures were taken, so if they are deemed acceptable by me I'll post them when I get them.

But yeah, that was uber fun. :D

Update tomorrow

2009-06-05T13:34:00.000-07:00

So the last few weeks sucked ass for weather.

It even SNOWED last weekend. Man.

Anyway, this week I got 4 flights in and solo check on Monday.

Auto's are awesome. (thanks Sault College for beating forced approaches into my brain, I'm not kidding. I am still shocked I can be that accurate with picking my spots, even in a chopper).

Tackled stuck pedals today, no probs at all. And engine failures in the hover were also good.

Oh, and yesterday my instructor told me that "on a bunch of those auto's....well I don't think I could have done a better job."

So back pat for me.

Anyway, more tomorrow, it's been a long week and the beer is calling. ;)

Today I dislike..

2009-05-13T13:31:00.000-07:00

The WIND.

Holy shit, 20ktsG25 in a R22 is not fun. At least not yet.

I hope that one day I dont' completely go out of control as I turn my ass end into the wind, but right now I won't hold my breath.

Man.

So now I am sulking.

Oh, and did lots of auto's, so onto that now. Solo next week maybe he said? I dunno, I really don't care to do this by myself...LOL. Plus, not used to flying alone at all, had been working 2 crew since 2000 until now. EEKS.

I'll keep you posted. And if anyone has any wind tricks to pass along, would be much appreciated....man.

This is AWESOME

2009-05-10T08:28:00.001-07:00

You GO CS. Whoever you are. I salute you. Good luck with your new job. (and of course, taken with a grain of salt, could be just in fun as well. )

Subject: NWA Captain Retirement Letter

Northwest Airline Captain Retirement Letter

Well , The good news is, Today I officially Retire from Northwest
Airlines and I was hired last week for a Service Advisor job in the
automotive division of Sears (which is the first real job I had while
going to college and loved it and it's what I want to do in my old
age)--pay is good and it includes full medical,dental,401k & profit
sharing---should be more than enough even without the retirement
money---may still consider the same line of work at a regular
dealership at some point, covering my six for now---- I'll be home
every night---no more check rides--no FEDS or commuters on my jump
seat taking up my office space---no more 25% PENALTY for being
legitimately sick---no more scum bag hotels---no more old bitchy
flight attendants---no more 14 hour duty days with 10 hour
layovers---no more drafting my butt downline to fly the remains of
somebody else's trip because they can't staff the airline
correctly---no more zero/zero approaches into blinding thunderstorms
or blizzards--no more strip searches at the security checkpoints by
high school drop-outs ( my I.D. means nothing )--no more subway
sandwiches at the airport served by Somalis that can never get my
order right. Can't sit down and have a hot meal between legs at a
nice restaurant cause there's not enough time---no more missed
recitals, birthdays or holidays---no more 3:30 am (body clock) wakeup
calls on the east coast--no more number 20 for take off behind 18 little
regional jets at LaGuardia---no more company bus rides from the
employee lot in machines, where either the rear door doesn't work or
the A.C. or heat is out of order---no more "fear and intimidation
style management" to live under( the head honcho of the Sears store
actually gave me the second and final intervie w ( not normal) " he
actually wanted to meet me" and said I should consider a position in
management with my credentials and philosophies about how I believe
people should be treated and that he was really happy to see someone
like me consider a position with his company ..he told me I would be
an asset to any organization, unlike my current employer, that has
always "behind the scenes" regarded me and my peers as liabilities
and prima donnas..go figure ! I'm not unique. Most Pilots at this point
still fit the same mold. Unfortunately that mold is slowly and
methodically being reshaped by corporate robber barons into something
they can shackle to a Yoke and, who they hope, will never question
the methods to their madness.
The more I re-read this e-mail, the more I wonder why it has
taken me so long to come to this decision to hang up flying---oh yeh,
it's cause I couldn't touch my retirement money till now, penalty
free....I'm finally ready for the simpler life with considerably less
stress. It use to be that the Airline rewarded us for all these
little inconviences we take for granted and the time we spend away
from home and family that was part of our daily lives in this profession.
We made good money, had considerable time off and the benefits were to
brag about.That is no longer the case. My Plumber makes more a year
now than I do. His labor rate alone is $95.00/hr when he set my
kitchen sink last May and he's a high school drop out. His yearly
salary is based on a 160 hour work month (40 a week) --My $93.00/hr
and annual salary is based on an 80 hour month (hard time in the air)
which doesn't include all the on duty and time I am away from home.

I suspect the New Airline Pilot of the future will probably be one
of those kids you remember in high school that got out of classes
on a 2:30pm work permit to go learn a trade because they weren't
particularly bright. Of course he'll have to be on some kind of Government
program to pay for his training. There's no way he'll be able to come up
with the $100,000.00 in flight training costs to get his licences, and you'll
never see another Military Pilot leave the armed forces for an Air Carrier
position where it will take almost his entire career to reach the salary he
left behind at his Military job. I would not recommend this profession anymore
to anyone I really cared about. My guess is the Airline industry will have to
lower their Standards as well as their requirements as the airplanes get more
automated (the FAA will agree) if they're gonna get any applicants.

Let the buyer beware when he takes his next airplane ride in the future.
I have absolutely no regrets about getting out while the getting is good.
I use to love my job and the adventure that every trip brought. It's just no
fun going to work anymore. It's all about quality of life ---unfortunately,
you don't figure that out till you're on the back side of the clock in most
careers and in the Big Scheme of things, approaching your own ultimate demise.
Life is really too short to devote one extra minute of your time to a company
as well as a profession that is not everything you had hoped for,
I'm baffled trying to think of another industry that has so brutally passed
on the increased costs of doing business to their employees rather
than their customers. Even my garbage man is charging a surcharge
for fuel to me rather than rape his employees.
I'm out - a - here.......
CS

ps: I will forward a short movie to some of you of my Northwest
Uniform going up in smoke so no terrorist can ever use it. My Eastern
Airlines uniform and my Navy uniform still hang proudly in my
closet....

2009-05-08T11:58:00.000-07:00

In the note book I have been using for ground school I discovered all my notes I had made prior to my interview with Air Canada, which included a bunch of stories I wrote down so I'd have examples of stuff.

So I think I'll work on putting a few together, read them yesterday and they made me laugh. :)

Training so far.

2009-05-08T09:10:00.001-07:00

Guess I should fill you in on my progress! So here goes.

Flight #1 (1.0 hours)

Get in R22. Omg. Small! Jeff my instructor starts up, and gets us going. Once we are in the air and going forward I get to try cyclic and pedals together. He's on collective.

Jeff: You have control.
Me: Ack!!! What the hell. This is crazy. I'll never be able to fly this thing!

First exercise is airspeed changes. cyclic back. Cyclic forward. Keep yaw at bay. Ok, I can do this...maybe.

Second one is climbs and descents. He's on cyclic and I'm on collective and pedals. It seems less like it hates me now. But still. This is a crazy beast!

Back to zone and time to try a little hover, with me just on cyclic.

Holy shit. What the hell???

This is impossible. I will never fly helicopters well. I just know it.

Jeff says good job.

Flight #2 (1.2 hours)

Into the circuit.

Now this is more like what I am used to. Using all controls today by myself. Go me. ;)

Get the hang of the hover taxi, and lift off and circuit. All in all not too bad.

More hover practice after. I use all controls this time. And basically go out of control. heh. Ok, not really, but I won't say he didn't have to take it a few times. Damn oscillations! But better than flight #1, and I was totally in control so yeah, not terrible anyway.

Flight #3 (1.3 hours)

Back in circuit. This time I'm not arriving to hover taxi, I'm arriving to the hover. It's starting to make sense now! The slower you get forward the more collective you need until you reach the hover and need 22"MP. Ok, kinda like slow flight, check. I'm able to arrive at my pre picked spot. Awesome. Hovering MUCH better. YAY!

More hover practice when we get near the base. A few take off's and landings. And I air taxi up the hill to the ramp. EEKS! That's a tight spot. But I'm sure I'll laugh at myself for thinking that's a tight spot in a few more hours...like when I start on confined landing areas maybe. LOL

Flight #4 (1.2 hours)

More circuits. I won't even bother to mention the actual forward flight part much anymore, that's all under control.

Arriving to pre planned spot and into the hover. Basic hover under control.

Start 360 hover turns. Not horrible, but not great. It's a bit windy..and well, it's windy!!

Also many take offs and landings. Takes offs not so bad, landings a bit tricky. I still want to pull back in the cyclic which in turn starts me backwards, which is the opposite direction I want to be heading when landing. Small forward movement preferred. Back...bad. LOL

Flight #5 (1.1 hours)

Circuits. And much hover work. 360 clearing turns are good, and also sideways and backwards flight. And the wind will not defeat me today. I anticipate the push when I turn to tail wind and manage to not drift. WOOT! Told "good job" :D

More take off's and landings. Getting better. Still a bit strange though.

Back to hover practice area. There is a big circle of pylons, and you hover in the middle. So Jeff says new exercise. Hover in the circle with tail to middle. Around the circle. Good precision practice. And I did good! This hover stuff is awesome!!!!!!!!

Hover taxi back up hill to ramp, turn 180 and land. Still a bit shy of the closeness of trees and buildings, but a to be honest, a lot less than I had been thinking. Landing soso. Damn you landings!! Also, big crowd there watching as the company had just taken possession of a brand new jet ranger. Apparently I'm not in the show off category just yet.

So there you go. I was supposed to be flying today, but my car is screwed and I can't get to where I need to be. So that's all until Monday. And then it's more landing and take off practice and possibly the start of auto's. Now that should be exciting.

Helicopters are so freaking awesome. I'm having a blast. And boy, it will be hard work to get really good, but I love that kind of stuff. I mean, I flew a mu2. LOL

Any fixed wing pilot that thinks they know it all should go for a spin in one. I have always thought that chopper pilots were the shit, but now I have a WHOLE new level of awe. You guys are awesome.

I'm so happy right now. I feel like I am where I should be. And I like that. :)

Wheeeeeeeeee

2009-05-06T13:39:00.000-07:00

I need a helmet...

2009-05-03T08:29:00.000-07:00

And I really have zero clue what I am looking for.

I know I NEED ANR since my former ride caused me some hearing damage. But other than that...I'm kind of at a loss here.

Any fling wingers out there with any advice for me, good types, price range (They seem to be around $2000, is that about right?), and if you have tried any, what's your favourite?

Thanks in advance. My skull is telling me that I should get on this sooner than later...better safe than sorry. ;)

Running into the Ex

2009-05-03T04:53:00.000-07:00

Ex Airplane that is.

When I was at my helicopter training the other day I heard a very familiar sound.....of my airplane.

I didnt' go to see her, I just couldn't.

Then she left.

And came back.

I went to look at her. I saw others with her. And it hurt.

I went back upstairs. And I felt like crying.

I heard the first engine start up. The second. The sound getting quieter as it taxied to the runway.

And I felt even more like crying.

And I realized. I have not seen or HEARD my plane since the day I got hurt.

And I began to see just how much I miss flying that plane. I loved her. And I miss her. And I had to see her with someone else today. And I could not go and run my hand along her side. I could not open the door and walk up to the cockpit. She was not mine anymore. And I realized I was heartbroken.

I still feel like crying. Stupid I know. But I can't help it.

But I guess now that I saw her, maybe I can move on. Date my new machine, see how that goes.

I don't think it will ever be the same though...you know what they say about first loves....

*sigh*

I miss you my noisy rice rocket. And always will. You were and are very special to me.

Hear that sound?

2009-04-21T07:13:00.000-07:00

It's the sound of a jackass helicopter flight instructor quietly weeping over the loss of a few hundred hours he just pissed away by being a total fuck head. And I wonder...is there any point for him to continue his ifr training if I have left?

Hopefully he will learn a lesson from this, but from what I have seen of these people so far, I doubt it.

Apparently they even fired a perfectly good flight instructor to give sonny boy a job in the first place. No wonder he's such a douche, with idiot parents like that. I know for a fact my Dad (had he had an aviation company) would never have done something so ridiculous for me, and I'm glad.

Pathetic. Just pathetic.

So long suckers.

And now..

2009-04-20T13:02:00.001-07:00

I am approved to leave the school I am at and go to the one that seems to have their shit together.

That sounds much better.

Pissed off.

2009-04-20T08:45:00.000-07:00

So i am not pleased in the least with the company that I chose to do my helicopter training. Let me fill you all in on the bullshit, and maybe you can tell me what you think. But yeah, not happy.

When I got there last week, I was expecting to sit down with my instructor and talk about what our plan of attack was. Well, that didn't really happen. What did happen is that I sat down with him, and he told me about how I know nothing, and how that was to be how I am treated. Also, that I would be flight dispatcher for the college on certain days.

Ok, alarm bells going off already. I am NOT a college student, I am a professional pilot who wants to obtain another rating. Totally different. I did the college dispatch thing...when I was in fucking flight college! That is for their REAL students to do and learn from. Fuck off with that. As my buddy Sulako said..."well, tell them that if you do that you expect one of them to drive to your house to mow your lawn." He is right. Fuck that shit man. Seriously.

So then he mentions that he is taking his IFR rating at the moment. Ok, now that's odd, I was told there was someone there already that could do that with me. So they left a few things out already.

He seems nice enough, but he's only 21, and there's more. So much more...ugh.

I start to notice that all the people involved at this place all have the same last name....

Oh shit.

So the Chief flight instructor is his Dad, and the lady in the office is his fucking Mom.

Oh, and the bit about the name change of the company? That isn't as told either.

See, I picked this place because a guy I know owned it, and well, that made me comfortable. Then I get told that "the name changed, but everything else is the same". Ok then, just separated them for business purposes, I can live with that.

But oh no. That is not the case. In fact, my buddy no longer has ANYTHING to do with them anymore. So another 'fib'. They are starting to add up.

Then, it had been decided back in Jan that I would start on the turbine, because in their words..."that would be the most useful for me". Well, Mom comes in and tells me that it would now be "in my best interest" if I do all my commercial conversion on the piston.

Ok, fine with me, whatever they think is best, right?

WRONG.

Since they are no longer part of my buddies company...well they no longer have a fucking turbine. So they lied...again. I don't fucking care if you have one on the way, that's awesome. But don't tell me you are doing things in my best interest when that is not why you are changing things. Ugh.

And I've been getting hostile vibes off Sonny Boy since day one. You know when you can just see that underlying hostility in the back of someones eyes? Well I see it in his. And I honestly don't need that shit from some punk who has never had to work a hard day in his life cause Mom and Dad take care of it all for him. I mean, sure he's got time and knows some stuff, but to act like he's busted his ass to get where he is now? Common. What a joke. Try finding work when Daddy cant' get you a job. Ass.

So on Friday I go in to talk to him, and he basically acts like I'm lazy for not wanting to come more than 3 times a week. Well fuck you asshole. My travel time is 4 hours round trip. I just can't be coming to the airport every fucking day to sit there and hope you have some time for me. I need an itinerary. I need you to put in some effort into how you are going to teach me, and not use your fucking abinito ground school program for me. Cause I only need 20 hours of ground school, and I'd rather spend that time on shit I don't know. Not a fucking review of basic piloting shit. I know weather. I know navigation. I know air law. what I dont' fucking know is helicopters. ARGH.

Plus, their rates are higher than the other school on the field.

The other company I called this morning to get information, and who just emailed me back to arrange a meeting to discuss a customized program to "suit my needs".

I feel better already. But I feel stupid too. Stupid for getting fucked over. Afraid that comp will be pissed at me. Just ugh.

But better to know this shit early..better than if I was already flying. So yeah. ARGH!!

ETA:

Just spoke to the CFI of the other school. So get this. Apparently the place I am at totally fucked over my buddy when they took the company. So they are dirt bags and liars. Fuck them. Can't wait to go to new school. Where they head guy told me he'd do most of my training because of all my experience. And he's got bags of time and experience. Not a 21 year old brat. So I feel better now. Hopefully go and set this all up in the next few days. *breathes sigh of relief*

oh...

2009-04-15T11:14:00.001-07:00

And I guess you have to re write the silly little P Star to solo a helicopter.

I didnt' crack a book...at all. Fortunately I passed....

I did much better 12 years ago...LMAO.

2 days in to fling wing.

2009-04-14T15:26:00.000-07:00

But no flying yet. Still have to get my helmet and hopefully get to take one for a spin on Thursday. Oh, and I guess I get a new headset that's in the helmet, and I can get it with ANC, so that's cool.

And then on Friday, I get to do this. I'm pretty excited, and glad that I will get the chance to experience it before it ever happens (*knock on wood*) to me.

Looks like...fun? heh.

Cat 1 medical?

2009-03-30T05:28:00.000-07:00

Check.

Apparently I am at least still fit to fly.

This week I'll set up my MIFR renewal (mind you, not the best time of year to try and do that in a plane without icing certification, might take a while to find an hour here and there...ugh, wish I could just get a cheap mu2 to do it in..at least that way I'd know the damn plane), and then on the 13th I'll start the helicopter stuff.

I wish I never had to post these....

2009-03-13T16:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.canada.com/news/hope+finding+crash+survivors+Officials/1385614/story.html

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — Search-and-rescue officials on Friday virtually abandoned hope of finding more survivors from the helicopter that ditched in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Newfoundland Thursday.

Crews looking for the 16 missing passengers were to end their search Friday evening. They were going to search until "last light," said Maj. Denis McGuire, a spokesman for the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in St. John's.

"The likelihood they'll be found alive is no longer there."

McGuire said the search will end at 7:30 p.m. local time and the case was be turned over to the RCMP and the Transportation Safety Board as a missing persons case.

"Obviously, the families are distraught," he said. "We've gone past the 24-hour life expectancy in the survival suits."

The lone survivor, identified as Robert Decker, of St. John's, was pulled from the water where the Sikorsky S-92 went down some 55 kilometres east of St. John's, about 45 minutes after the crash. He remains in hospital in St. John's in critical, but stable condition with salt in his lungs, a broken bone and hypothermia.

Late Friday, there was word his condition had started to improve, however.

Searchers have recovered the body of a young woman, who has not been named, but 16 other people were still unaccounted for.

In Cape Broyle, south of St. John's, Mayor Donny Graham took the loss hard.

He said he knew the woman. "Yes, I knew her. She was 25," he told Global News.

As the long day dragged on, residents of Cape Broyle and other tiny fishing communities south of St. John's continued to pray for a miracle.

"You don't know what to be doing. There's nothing yet. They're still just searching," said Anita Armstrong, 62, who lives in Witless Bay. "Everybody's just holding on to hope. It's just unbelievable. Everybody's in shock yet."

Armstrong said one of the men on the helicopter is from her town, while another still missing lives in Bay Bulls, about five kilometres to the north.

Transportation Safety Board officials plan to send two remote-operated vehicles 120 metres down to the ocean floor Saturday to get a look at the remains of the helicopter that carried 18 people.

TSB spokesman Mike Cunningham said crews will also look at the possibility of raising the helicopter with balloons or a crane.

"This is all the part of what we have to assess," he said. "Put it this way: if there is any way to get it out of there, we'll be getting it out of there."

Officials said they hope the aircraft's cockpit voice recorder will tell them what went so horribly wrong Thursday.

The TSB says vessels have begun to collect surface debris from the Cougar Helicopters aircraft, which had been on its way to two drill platforms approximately 300 kilometres east of St. John's when its main gear box reportedly lost oil pressure.

Rev. Pat Power, who ministers to parishioners in Bay Bulls and Witless Bay, said he knows many of the families who had friends and relatives on the downed helicopter, but was waiting for the RCMP to officially release the names.

"I think people are trying to go about their daily business, but there's an overhanging kind of a grief to it," Power said Friday.

"They realize that something very terrible has happened, and they're still listening to the radio and keeping an eye on the television and the Internet and whatever, and just being aware of what's going on. We realize there's been a great tragedy here, and it's part of our Newfoundland psyche, too, I think. These things will happen. People will get lost at sea, but still there's a sense of grief. There's loss and sorrow there."

McGuire added he "had no idea" how Decker managed to escape the helicopter.

Nor could he say why the search teams didn't receive any locator beacon signals from the survival suits the 16 passengers and two crew members aboard the chopper would have been wearing and which can keep a person alive in the frigid ocean for about 24 hours.

He also acknowledged military response times were delayed Thursday because crews were on a training exercise.

"Our Cormorant helicopters are currently stationed in Gander, (N.L.) but they were in Sydney, (N.S.), conducting a combined exercise with 413 Search and Rescue Squadron from Greenwood, N.S.," McGuire said. "I'm satisfied the persons of Newfoundland and Labrador had continued coverage for search-and-rescue. The aircraft were on SARS (search-and-rescue) standby for this region but they were doing it out of Sydney at the time."

Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams cautioned against pointing fingers.

"There's a very strong likelihood that no matter what, the coast guard could not have made a difference here."

McGuire also issued a correction to times previously released for when the helicopter went down.

He told members of the media Friday, the times were off by 30 minutes. The correct time the mayday call was sent was 9:40 a.m. Thursday local time, and the pilot ditched the helicopter at about 9:48 a.m. local time.

On Friday, the National Transportation Safety Board out of Washington, D.C., said it also would join the Canadian search effort.

A news release said the U.S. team will include technical advisers from the Federal Aviation Administration and Sikorsky.

Cougar Helicopters — the company contracted to transport workers to and from Newfoundland's offshore oilfields — said the chopper pilots reported technical difficulties Thursday morning and indicated they were returning to St. John's. Shortly after, the helicopter ditched in the sea.

According to a Transport Canada aviation database, the pilot of the Cougar Helicopter's Sikorsky declared a mayday due to a main gear box oil pressure problem.

Transport Canada described the information as preliminary, unconfirmed data which is subject to change.

With files from St. John's Telegram

Almost time....

2009-03-13T11:37:00.000-07:00

Medical booked March 25.

Followed by my IFR renewal fixed wing. It was a suggestion of the helicopter people that I renew that way, it's easier I guess. Once I have that back I just need 5 hours for helicopter instruments.

Start fling wing April 13.

I can't wait to get started.

Oh, and went flying on the weekend. A friend came to town with his Cherokee and let me get a bit of stick time. It was so great to get back in the air again.

And shocking enough, I can still fly. :D

And as more info comes out...**ETA

2009-02-13T13:26:00.000-08:00

The crash of Colgan3407 appears to maybe have been caused by a tail stall.

According to the NTSB on what they have heard so far from the cockpit voice recorder, they reported a severe pitch down once flaps were selected to 15 degrees.

From the NTSB brief:

Both the FDR and CVR are in excellent shape and have had an initial read in Washington.

The crew discussed significant ice buildup on the descent, airframe deice was selected on.

About one minute before the end of the recording, gear was selected down, 20 seconds later flaps 15 was selected, severe pitch and roll excursions started almost immediately after the flap selection.

The gear and flaps were raised and the recording ended soon afterward.

The briefing is being conducted by Steve Chealander, a former American Airlines captain and USAF Thunderbird.

That sucks.

And makes you think for sure. Because this is one pilot that KNOWS it could have been her. See here.

//it would appear it was far more simple than that. Ugh. I'll wait for the report to come out, but I have a feeling I can guess the gist of it.

sigh

2009-02-13T06:15:00.000-08:00

Plane crashes into suburban Buffalo home; 50 killed

So sad.

ATC recording HERE, the only female voice you hear is one of the pilots from that flight. Godspeed Skysister. And everyone else on board. :(

Interesting article

2009-02-07T12:52:00.000-08:00

“My Aircraft”
Why Sully may be the last of his kind.

Modern piloting is built on routines. Hundreds of millions of man-hours have been poured into analyzing every possible eventuality, stripping it of risk and mapping out what to do on the rare occasion when something does go wrong. On the afternoon of January 15, Chesley B. Sullenberger III was following the routine. He reported for work at La Guardia at the appointed hour. He reviewed the standard preflight data: weight and balance figures; the amount of fuel needed to get to Charlotte, North Carolina; the takeoff, climbing, and cruising speeds. A few seconds before 3:25 p.m., the tower cleared US Airways Flight 1549 for takeoff. Sully’s first officer, Jeffrey Skiles, was at the controls. They trade off, and it was his turn. Skiles hit the throttle. Sully called out the appropriate speeds. And at 3:25, they were aloft over the Bronx, headed out toward the Biggy Intersection, the navigational fix over New Jersey that steers them clear of Newark air traffic. From Biggy, they’d veer south over D.C. to North Carolina. The controller cleared them to climb to 15,000 feet. Sully acknowledged. The skies were clear and calm. For Sully, this was the last leg of a four-day workweek. It had all the makings of a milk run.

Sully saw the birds a second before they hit—at 3:27 p.m., a huge flock of them. His first impulse was to duck. He heard them connect—thump! Then he smelled them. There was no mistaking it. Every pilot with enough flight hours has smelled burning birds. There’s usually not much more to a bird strike than that—maybe a little hiccup in the hum of the engines before the plane keeps on climbing. But this was different. This time, the craft lurched, and then there was silence. Sully had probably experienced something like that long ago, as a trainee, when his instructor leaned over, shoved the throttle into idle to mimic the loss of engine power, and asked, “Okay, now what?” But this wasn’t a lesson. This was real engine failure—both engines. Sully was 3,200 feet in the air, without power, slowly falling to Earth with 150 passengers and four other crew members onboard. For the first time that day, the captain took control of the plane.

“My aircraft,” Sully said.

“Your aircraft,” said the first officer.

Pilots have rules even for falling, and Sully set about following them. He lowered the nose so the plane would glide, not drop quickly. He ordered the first officer to start into a three-page checklist of procedures for restarting both engines, even though he must have known that was hopeless. He radioed the controller to report the bird strike. “Ah, this is Cactus 1549, hit birds, we lost thrust in both engines. We’re turning back toward La Guardia.”

The controller ordered the La Guardia tower to stop all departures. “It’s 1549. Bird strike. He lost the thrust in the engines. He’s returning immediately.” It was 3:28.

Pilots are taught that if you need to ditch, you should land at the nearest practical airport. But Sully didn’t have time for that. He’d been out of power for a minute already; he’d now dropped well below 3,200 feet. The controller asked if Sully wanted to land on La Guardia’s Runway 13. Sully responded: “We’re unable. We may end up in the Hudson.” Teterboro wasn’t a possibility either. He could see the New Jersey airport out of his window and knew it was too far. The rules weren’t useful anymore. Sully had no playbook to consult, even if he’d wanted to. No pilot in modern jet aviation had ever pulled off a successful water landing. The simulators don’t even offer it as a scenario.

He turned the aircraft south from the Bronx to align himself with the river. The George Washington Bridge was straight ahead. Sully had to eyeball it the same way he’d eyeballed Teterboro, deciding if he could clear it. He did, by just 900 feet. Then he had to calculate the projected glide path, and gin up a way to set the plane on the water at just the right angle, so the nose was up and neither one of the wings tipped. If the nose or a wingtip hit the water as he approached, the plane could flip, spin out, or snap in two.

It was 3:29. Sully saw a boat on the river. He wanted to be close to that boat, so passengers could be pulled from the wreckage. He was improvising. Without the use of his engines, he maneuvered the flaps just so to control his speed—enough to minimize impact, but not so much that the plane would drop like a 50-ton rock. And with 90 seconds left, he made his first communication to the passengers of Flight 1549.

“Brace for impact.”

But it wasn’t really his aircraft. It hadn’t been for years. When Chesley B. Sullenberger III was first starting out, 40 years and 19,663 flight hours ago, commercial-airline pilots were like gods. It was the age of Chuck Yeager and Pan Am, and the captain in uniform was a breed apart, on a par with Hollywood actors and professional athletes. The job was prestigious and well paid; kids wanted to visit the cockpit, to grow up to fly. And on a clear but frigid January Thursday, when Sully set his plane down in the middle of the Hudson River, becoming the first pilot ever to execute a controlled water landing in a modern commercial airliner without a single fatality, the age of the hero pilot was once again, for a brief moment, alive. Sully’s deification, which began almost instantly, moved from the Inauguration to the Super Bowl and continues next week, when the pilot is set to appear on 60 Minutes and David Letterman.

But the truth is, in the years since Sully began flying commercial jets, piloting has become anything but glamorous. Automation has taken much of the actual flying out of the job. The airlines’ business woes have led to longer hours and lower pay. Flying is now governed by enough rules and regulations to fill several encyclopedias. The people attracted to the profession today are different, too. Where the piloting ranks were once made up of former Air Force jocks, many of them combat veterans, they are now filled mainly with civilians for whom flying is less an adventure than a job. “Twenty-five years ago, we were a step below astronauts,” says one veteran pilot. “Now we’re a step above bus drivers. And the bus drivers have a better pension.”

From a passenger’s point of view, that’s mostly a good thing. Each year, hundreds of millions of people fly commercial in the U.S., and fatalities are almost always in the low double digits. In the past two years, there have been absolutely no deaths at all. Changes in the way pilots are recruited and trained are a key reason: In the vast majority of situations, airline-safety experts say, you want the company man, not the cowboy. But then there are the exceptions, the Miracles on the Hudson, the rare moments when it is following the rules, not subverting them, that becomes the riskier course of action. Pilots like Sully who can perform in such circumstances are a dying breed.

Sully has been in the business long enough to witness firsthand the domestication of the airline pilot. In the early days, pilots were largely uneducated farm boys or blue-collar kids who left home to become barnstormers. Some might never have spent a minute in flight school or read a flying manual. But as commercial air travel began rapidly expanding, the airlines embraced the image of the heroic captain, the distinguished man in uniform you can trust with your life. The industry paid top dollar for a new generation of service-academy-educated aviators, many of whom had been through Vietnam. This was Sully’s generation. By the seventies, as many as 80 percent of commercial-airline pilots had served in the military. “When Sully first got hired,” says Keith Hagy, the director of engineering and air safety for the Air Line Pilots Association, the pilots’ union, “he probably made a pile of money.”

The airlines liked military pilots, in part, because “the government had done all that work for them,” says Don Skiados, who has worked closely with pilots for 40 years as a past chairman of the Aviation Accreditation Board International. The military had already tested the pilots’ psychological abilities, emotional traits, knowledge base, reaction time, and ability to make judgments. The only downside of the military background was that the pilots were, by necessity, trained to be risk-takers. “The approach to the mission is that this is war,” says Bob Ober, who worked as a pilot for Pan Am for 25 years and Delta for 10. “We gotta go. It doesn’t matter if certain things are inoperative, we’re gonna take some risks.”

Since that time, pilot culture has done almost a 180. The maverick pilot has given way to the professional—the captain who knows how to put aside his ego and not take unnecessary risks. The change began when the military started downsizing after Vietnam and its talent pool dried up. The pilots of the military made room for a generation of pilots largely educated in flight schools offering four-year degree programs. Candidates racked up flight hours on small commuter planes over Albuquerque and Toledo, not in fighter jets.

The planes also began to change. Where a Vietnam-era pilot could fly more or less by stick and rudder, today’s pilots fly primarily by computer. Sully, for instance, was flying the Airbus 320. On older aircraft, a pilot pulls back on a wheel attached to cables that literally pull the plane up. On an Airbus 320, he pulls back a joystick that sends a signal to the computer’s auto-throttle. If he’s doing it wrong, the computer often corrects him, thrusting if he doesn’t do it soon enough, never stalling if he pulls back too hard. Takeoff has preprogrammed speeds; the pilot just moves a lever into a notch. Practically everything about the Airbus assumes the human factor to be the most dangerous thing about the flight. Incredibly, you can go on autopilot from as low as 100 feet in the air. Although some pilots worry about overreliance on technology and the distractions it can cause, most like a tricked-out plane. Still, there’s no getting around the fact that automation has taken control away from pilots. It’s the same with regard to air-traffic controllers and airline operations. Pilots used to have to navigate themselves; now it’s all done with GPS systems. Pilots used to have more discretion over takeoff times and maintenance decisions; now they’re frequently overruled.

The state of the airline industry has also diminished pilots’ status. The modern era of airline mergers and bankruptcies and rising fuel costs has meant extended flying schedules, wage freezes, and pension cuts. Today starting salaries at some airlines are as low as $25,000. Sully’s retirement plan was taken away during one airline bankruptcy, and over two decades, his pay has increased by just 6 percent. “Pilots are being treated as a commodity,” says Gary Hummel, training committee chairman for the U.S. Airline Pilots Association. “Until you need them to park a plane in the Hudson. Then you say, ‘Hey, there might be more to this job.’ ”

Pilots and pilot advocates worry that great aviators may be being bred out of the system. “I have a son who is 27 and a software engineer,” says Hummel. “I have a daughter who is 25 and is a professional nurse. They both graduated from good colleges. Both of them have flown an airplane, but I told them, ‘Find another profession, because you won’t be able to feed your family or have a retirement in this one.’ My daughter earned more in her first year as a nurse than Jeff Skiles, Sully’s first officer on Flight 1549, earns after eighteen years of dedicated service with US Airways. Why would I encourage them to be a professional pilot?”

Pilots have a hard time making a case about the potential effects of all of these changes, because the airlines’ safety records are so impressive at the moment. “You go and argue with either the public or the CEOs that there’s going to be an impact on safety at some point,” says Bob Ober. “The statistics make it hard to make that case to someone who isn’t intimately acquainted with day-to-day operations, sitting in the cockpit next to people. But the guys in the industry know it’s got to.”

So what does happen when the unexpected happens? In an emergency, what separates a great pilot—a Sully—from one who fails catastrophically?

Keeping calm is clearly an essential factor, but what’s that a function of? In 1989, United Airlines Flight 232, a DC-10 piloted by captain Al Haynes, crash-landed in Iowa at Sioux City Airport. The craft had lost one engine and all three hydraulic systems, forcing an emergency landing. One hundred and eighty-five people survived the crash. In part, self-preservation is what helped keep Haynes calm, he says. “Panic just won’t do you any good. From day one, you know that if you panic, you’re dead.” Not only does piloting self-select for people who tend to handle stress effectively, but the airline industry has developed sophisticated systems for ferreting out candidates who aren’t unusually self-possessed. “When I was hired,” says one retired commercial pilot, “you got hired on the basis of your qualifications, your interviews, and that was it. Now you see a shrink, you’ve got batteries of psychological tests, you’ve got an interview process to go through with very sophisticated questioning.”

The thousands of training hours pilots log also help them numb their stress, Haynes says. “By constantly being retrained, and going through all kinds of different problems and having to do it calmly and efficiently, that just sticks with you. So when the time comes that something really goes wrong, that’s inherent in you and you just do it.” Today’s flight simulators can mimic almost any situation. “They’re actually a little more difficult to fly than the airplane, so if you can fly the simulator, then you can certainly fly the airplane.”

In recent years, the old paradigm of the lone pilot’s single-handedly saving the day has been discredited in favor of assiduous collaboration. The approach is known as Crew Resource Management, and it’s seen as another critical tool for successfully managing a crisis. Haynes’s United Flight 232 is taught as a case study in CRM. Denny Fitch was a flight instructor and check airman who happened to be a passenger on Flight 232. When Fitch sent word to the cockpit that he was intimately familiar with the systems of a DC-10, Haynes brought him forward, and he and the rest of the crew worked together. “Any other captain probably would have said, ‘Why don’t you shut the hell up? I’m busy up here,’ ” says Gary Hummel. “But Captain Haynes said, ‘Absolutely. I’ll take all the help I can get.’ ” It was only by working together—Fitch had knowledge of the plane’s hydraulic systems that proved critical—that Haynes and the others managed to jury-rig an effective solution. “If you read the cockpit transcript, there’s no arguing at all,” Haynes says. “None of us knew what to do, and we’re just working together to find a way to get the thing down to the ground.”

The airlines have since concluded that the least communicative pilots and crews in crises are the ones that fail the most, and CRM is now a standard part of flight training. Simulated flights are even videotaped and critiqued to maximize collaboration among pilots and between pilots and crew. “In the debriefing,” Hummel says, “you actually sit down with the captain and the co-pilot and say, ‘Hey, when you were having that emergency situation, and you looked over at the co-pilot and said, “Give me the gear now”—how did that come across?’ And the co-pilot can say, ‘Well, he kind of shut me out. It was like he was screaming at me.’ And the captain might sit back and say, ‘You know what? I didn’t know I came across like a jerk. I could have said, “Hey, how about the gear, please?” I could have included him and made him more inclusive.’ ”

At the same time, a pilot has to know when to take over an aircraft himself and simply improvise. Al Slader was the co-pilot of United Airlines Flight 811, a 747 that was en route from Honolulu to New Zealand in 1989 when a cargo door failed, blowing out several rows of seats. With a gaping hole in the side of their plane, the crew was still able to make an emergency landing back in Hawaii. Nine people died, but 346 survived. “We had two engines out, Nos. 3 and 4, same side,” Slader says. “We were gonna go down; it was just a matter of where.” United’s procedure for severe engine damage is to pull the firewall shutoff, he says. “If I had done that, we’d have lost two hydraulic systems”—half the plane’s flight controls—“and we’d have probably ended up in the water. But I didn’t do that.”

In emergency situations, Denny Fitch says, you have to “live by what you can use out of the book, then adapt your airmanship if it’s not in the book. You just have to come up with your answers to problems that nobody ever thought of before.” Old-fashioned optimism, Fitch says, can also help. “My attitude from the very beginning of that incident was that we weren’t going to crash,” he says. He had a clear vision of the desired outcome: “We are going to successfully land this thing, with the wheels down, rolling down a runway, and come to a stop. The evacuation doors are going to open, the slides are going to deploy, and 296 people are going to slide out safely. Then we are going to get ground transportation, go to the nearest bar, and I am buying.”

When you break the rules, of course, you’ve got to get it right. That’s what leaves other pilots in awe of the Hayneses and Sladers and Sullys of the world. “Pilots are on-off switch people,” says Jack Stephan, another US Airways pilot. “We go through a decision tree, through procedures and training and checklists, and the pilot knows what to do. Captain Sullenberger displayed the type of piloting that’s required when the checklist really doesn’t cover the situation. There is no way to train for this. Clearly this was a hand-flying masterpiece.”

Being lucky doesn’t hurt, either. It was pure chance that Sully had been trained as a glider pilot. It also helped that the sky was clear and the winds light that day. “If Sully had been a mile or so in almost any other direction across the river, he wouldn’t have made it,” Slader notes. “He wouldn’t have been able to glide into the river. So he did a heck of a good job, but there was a little bit of luck involved. Same thing with ours. We were lucky.”

Some experts worry that today’s pilots—with their lack of military experience, their aversion to risk, their reliance on automation—are perhaps less capable of improvising in an emergency. They may be the right men for providing the greatest margin of safety for the greatest number—and in a world in which 80,000 planes take off and land in the United States every day, having that kind of pilot corps makes sense. But what if you are one of the unlucky few who wind up in a plane that’s in trouble? On that plane, you may want the pilot who dodged enemy fire over Vietnam, the seat-of-the-pants stick-and-rudder guy. “I’m not suggesting that a young pilot or new pilot could not handle a situation,” says Jack Stephan. “But would you want your kid in that flight?”

The importance of a pilot’s ability to improvise in an emergency isn’t lost on passengers. Haynes, Fitch, and Slader all stay in touch with some of the survivors of their flights. They have dinner together, see shows, go to ball games. Fitch says he gets a Christmas card every year from a family whose baby daughter survived the crash. She’s in her twenties now. “I’ve watched that child grow,” Fitch says. “The note would include, you know, ‘Look at her, this is the life you saved.’ What a sweet reminder of how they regarded me for my efforts.”

David Sontag, a 74-year-old screenwriter turned professor, was flying home to North Carolina on US Airways Flight 1549 after attending the funeral of his brother. From the back of the plane, in seat 23F, he had heard the bang a minute into the flight. From his window he could see flames coming out of one engine. The next five minutes were a blur of fear: the impact, the evacuation, waiting on the wing to be rescued. Before they hit the water, he said a prayer: “God, my family does not need two deaths in one week.”

Last week, Sontag wrote letters to Sully and the rest of the crew. “I tried to personalize each of them as best I can,” he says—even those to the flight attendants in the front whom he never met. In his letter to Sully, he says, he thanked the pilot “for his extraordinary skill and clear thinking and decision-making, and the calm and professionalism he exhibited.” He included words that he spoke at his brother’s funeral, back in New York: “We leave a little bit of ourselves with everybody we come in contact with.” The whole crew, Sontag says, “would live on with everybody who was on that flight—and everybody we touch with our lives.”

Sontag believes Sully did one crucial thing that day that prevented a widespread panic: He didn’t announce “Brace for impact” until it was absolutely necessary. “My feeling is he waited that long to keep people from freaking out,” Sontag says. “By saying it that close to impact, all you could do was put your head down. If that was his choice, I thought it a good one.”

Of course, Sully also might have been too busy gliding over the Hudson to keep the passengers posted. But Sontag prefers to think he was in control the entire time—that it really was his aircraft. So do we all. For many of us, faith in the captain is the only thing that gets us on a plane.

http://nymag.com/news/features/53788/

Just so I know where to find it if I need it ever...

2009-02-07T07:54:00.001-08:00

The Full Circle

One fine hot Summer’s afternoon saw a Cessna 150 flying circuits at a quiet country airfield. The Instructor was getting quite bothered with the student’s inability to hold circuit height in the thermals and was getting impatient at sometimes having to take over the controls. Just then he saw a twin engine Cessna 5,000ft above him and thought "Another 1,000 hrs of this and I qualify for that twin charter job! Aaahh.. to be a real pilot.. going somewhere!"

The Cessna 402 was already late and the boss told him this charter was for one of the Company’s premier clients. He’d already set MCT and the cylinders didn’t like it in the heat of this Summer’s day. He was at 6,000ft and the winds were now a 20kt headwind. Today was the 6th day straight and he was pretty damn tired. Maybe if he got 10,000ft out of them the wind might die off... geez those cylinder temps! He looked out momentarily and saw a B737 leaving a contrail at 33,000ft in the serene blue sky. "Oh man" he thought, "My interview is next month. I hope I just don’t blow it! Outa G/A, nice jet job, above the weather... no snotty passengers to wait for.. aahhh."

The Boeing 737 bucked and weaved in the heavy CAT at FL330 and ATC advised that lower levels were not available due traffic. The Captain, who was only recently advised that his destination was below RVR minimums had slowed to LRC to try and hold off a possible inflight diversion, and arrange an ETA that would helpfully ensure the fog had lifted to CATII minima. The Company negotiations broke down yesterday and looked as if everyone was going to take a damn pay cut. The F/O’s will be particularly hard hit as their pay wasn’t anything to speak of anyway. Finally deciding on a speed compromise between LRC and turbulence penetration, the Captain looked up and saw Concorde at Mach 2+. Tapping his F/O’s shoulder as the 737 took another bashing, he said "Now THAT’S what we should be on... huge pay packet... super fast... not too many routes... not too many sectors... above the CAT... yep! What a life...!"

FL590 was not what he wanted anyway and considered FL570. Already the TAT was creeping up again and either they would have to descend or slow down. That damn rear fuel transfer pump was becoming unreliable and the F/E had said moments ago that the radiation meter was not reading numbers that he’d like to see. Concorde descended to FL570 but the radiation was still quite high even though the Notam indicated hunky dory below FL610. Fuel flow was up and the transfer pump was intermittent. Evening turned into night as they passed over the Atlantic. Looking up, the F/O could see a tiny white dot moving against the backdrop of a myriad of stars. "Hey Captain" he called as he pointed. "Must be the Shuttle. "The Captain looked for a moment and agreed. Quietly he thought how a Shuttle mission, whilst complicated, must be the be all and end all in aviation. Above the crap, no radiation problems, no damn fuel transfer problems... aaah. Must be a great way to earn a quid."

Discovery was into its 27th orbit and perigee was 200ft out from nominated rendezvous altitude with the commsat. The robot arm was virtually U/S and a walk may become necessary. The 200ft predicted error would necessitate a corrective burn and Discovery needed that fuel if a walk was to be required. Houston continually asked what the Commander wanted to do but the advice they proffered wasn’t much help. The Commander had already been 12 hours on station sorting out the problem and just wanted 10 bloody minutes to himself to take a leak. Just then a mission specialist, who had tilted the telescope down to the surface for a minute or two, called the Commander to the scope. "Have a look at this Sir, isn’t this the kinda flying you said you wanted to do after you finish up with NASA?" The Commander peered through the telescope and cried "Ooooohhhhh yeah! Now THAT’S flying! Man, that’s what its all about! Geez I’d give my left nut just to be doing THAT down there!" What the Discovery Commander was looking at was a Cessna 150 flying circuits at a quiet country airfield on a nice bright sunny afternoon.

Almost back full time.

2009-01-28T06:34:00.000-08:00

There is a very long story as people might imagine, I mean how could I not have any stories for so long?

I'll get to all the details one day, but for now I will just say I got hurt at work, my employer was not good about it at all, and would not let me come back slightly modified (I can fly fine, I can lift patients fine, I just cannot pull out 100+lbs of med bed by myself, sorry....), so I have sat on my ass for a while now.

But...

Good news for me.

The people in charge of getting me back in the workforce recently started that process rolling. And asked me what I'd be interested in. So I jokingly suggested helicopter training since it would be a cool medevac gig, and I really do enjoy the medevac work. I was told that it would be too much money, and to think of other ideas.

Well, the only other idea was an Engineering degree, and I sure didn't feel like going back to school for 4 years, and not flying. But nothing I could do, I was at their mercy.

So, after they finally calculated how much money it would cost to send me to school for 4 years plus pay me my wages the entire time they changed their tune.

And helicopter was submitted as choice number one, as I had pointed out that wasting all my experience would really be pretty stupid.

And has since been approved.

I start in April. First with the conversion to rotary wing. Followed by a Bell 206 rating. And then long line training. And then some time building with what ever I have left.

Even if I end up going back to fixed wing one day I really think that having a rotary wing license would be kick ass.

So off to try the fling wing side of life. Should be an interesting adventure! ;)

back shortly.

2008-11-30T12:09:00.000-08:00

Yeah. :)

U-Haul

2008-07-18T06:28:00.001-07:00

I am sure that one thing most pilots in this country are familiar with is the moving/trailer rental company U-Haul. And all the different sizes of containers generally indicates where you are in your career.

My first move with the U-Haul was right after college. I had to move all the crap I had accumulated in 3 years of college into storage while I moved to my parents cottage to do my instructor rating. Being semi smart I did a major toss out/give away of a lot of my crap, and I also had to get rid of my plants which made me sad. But all in the name of my career. After the throw out I had a trailer worth of crap. Not too bad.

Once I had my instructor rating I lived at the cottage for the rest of the summer into December, when Mr. Dagny had to forcibly remove me from there...I was alone in the bush, with no tv, solar power, and my dad had cut off my water, so I was down to the outhouse and bathing in the lake. Thank Jebus for the sauna..... I think I was getting a bit nutso being away from civilization...if I had no students, or the weather was bad I could go days without seeing another human. I liked it. LOL.

But back to U-Haul.

So once I was out of the bush it was time to get my stuff out of storage. So U-Haul it was again. Still trailer amounts of crap, no cube van needed just yet. It was still early in my career.....

Next job was still instructing, and it was a nightmare. I will have to remember to post about that one day. I will just say that they treated their staff like SLAVES. Brutal place. Wasn't there long. That was a good thing!!

So then I was lucky enough to get my final instructor job, but with that came some twin flying in a BE58. I loved that plane. It seemed like a REAL airplane, not like that crappy Seminole I did my multi in...LOL. Something that pushed you back in the seat when you applied power for take off. That was cool.

Again it was U-Haul that got me there. And I started to pick up crap again. I had an ACTUAL salary, so I convinced Leon's to loan me money and I got a really cool couch. Other things started to accumulate...kitchen crap, curtains, curtain rods...dishes....you name it. In 9 months I had filled up my little apartment.

And then I got a call. For my first FULL TIME TWIN JOB. Whoohoo. So it was time to move again. We really hoped everything would fit into the biggest trailer then had, as we had two cars at the time, and really didn't want to have to rent a van. And commenced loading.

And load we did. Apparently there was more crap in there than I had thought.

It was like tetris. There was not an inch of room left in that trailer at all. NONE.

We borrowed my Dad's car due to the fact we no longer had a hitch, and away we went.

Things were going pretty well, the trailer was behaving, and traffic wasn't too bad.

And then it happened.

There was a sound.

And the trailer started swinging wildly behind the car.

Back, and forth, each oscillation bigger than the last.

Until.

It broke free, and began rolling down HWY11. And ended up on its roof. In the middle of the highway. With my entire LIFE in it. OMG.

We were only blocking one lane, so at least we had that going for us. The police finally arrived, along with a flat bed tow truck to take us to the U-Haul place. I was still internally weeping over the loss of my possessions, I mean, how well could they be doing, lying upside down on the highway after a few rolls? UGH.

Once at the U-Haul facility, they tried to tell us that we had to transfer everything from the trailer into another trailer. And it had just started to snow. We informed them that that was not going to fly with us, and since we were almost at our destination that the flat bed could just get us there. They finally relented, and away we went again. Us in the car, and the trailer on the tow truck.

And then.

The flat bed pulled over to the side of the road.

We pull over behind him.

He has fucking broken down. I am not kidding.

So now we are standing at the side of the highway, 10 minutes from destination, with our smashed up trailer/life on a tow truck that is now broken. I was starting to wonder about my luck at this point...LOL.

He called his base, and they sent ANOTHER tow truck, to tow our tow truck with our U-Haul on it. I am not kidding. I so wish I had had a camera at that moment...because it was beyond believing...LMAO.

And I still didn't know what was going on inside that U-Haul trailer. It very well could have been filled with all broken bits for all I knew.

We reach the storage facility that I have arranged for. And we then open the door. To find. Nothing wrong in there at all. Well, one broken lamp shade, and my mirror got a bit bent. But other than that, everything was intact. Mr. Dagny's game of Tetris had paid off!!

And U-Haul gave us money for the lamp shade...LOL.

Now I have graduated to my own house, so if I have to move again I would have to actually hire someone to do it. I have that much heavy crap. (Juke box, pinball machine, piano..that kind of stuff) So I guess that I am now done with the mighty U-Haul, unless I have something small to pick up somewhere.

So thanks U-Haul, for at least not killing me with your crappy hitches, and getting my crap from place to place mostly safe and sound. As a dirt poor starving pilot it was much appreciated.

Bummer

2008-07-16T12:47:00.000-07:00

Poor Rampage.

Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, one of my fave fighters in the UFC got into some trouble yesterday according to TMZ.

In a video taken less than 24 hours before his 'incident' he gave a rambling interview in which it was quite apparent that the poor guy was in some trouble.

And then it went bad. Very bad.

As TMZ first reported, the just-defeated UFC champ was busted yesterday afternoon for alleged felony hit and run. Now we have the details -- and they're insane! Rampage was on the 55 Freeway in the O.C., hit two cars and got off the freeway. The chase was on.

Rampage then began driving on the center divider. But it gets worse. According to the police report, Jackson then drove on the sidewalk, "causing pedestrians to flee for their lives." He started driving the wrong way on a crowded street, colliding with yet another car in an intersection. As he continued on, running several red lights, his tire disintegrated and he began driving on the rim.

Rampage eventually got to the exclusive Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach, where he again drove on the sidewalk, "causing pedestrians to flee in terror."

Eventually, his car came to a stop and he was taken into custody at gunpoint. Cops took him to the Orange County Jail, but they determined he was "medically unfit" to be booked. Cops won't say if he was high.

I guess Dana bailed him out today.

I hope he'll be ok. It would seem like some sort of mental break, poor guy.

Take care Rampage.

xoxo

A few pretty pictures, again, none airplane related..lol

2008-07-05T08:21:00.000-07:00

Sorry bout that.

2008-06-26T13:05:00.000-07:00

Sorry everyone.

Life has gotten in the way for a bit here, completely unrelated to airplanes.

Hopefully I have things sorted out shortly.

Mourning.

2008-05-28T14:29:00.001-07:00

I am currently mourning the loss of my pepper and cucumber plants.

Damn you late frost.

Though I should have known better.

GRRRRRR.

Something airplane related soon, promise. ;)

What is your moment?

2008-05-23T08:12:00.000-07:00

I am willing to bet that every pilot has that moment some days. That one where they know that there is nothing else in the world that they'd rather be doing.

That moment doesn't happen everyday. It might not happen for weeks, months even. But then there it is again, and you remember why it is you get paged out of bed at 3am in the middle of a blizzard....

Anyway, for me that moment always seems to be this.

It has been crappy for days, and I have been on the ground. And finally I get called to work. And it is still crappy. No one has seen the sun for days and days. The drizzle continues. And you get into the plane, and taxi to the runway.

Taxi to position...

And you push the throttles forward, and start rolling down the runway...

105, rotate.

Into the cloud almost immediately.

Positive rate, gear up.

On instruments.

120 and 3, flaps 5.

150, flaps up.

Then it starts to get brighter.

And then what was dark grey is now bright white, and you know you are almost there.

And then you break out. Into the sunshine. And you look at the entire province covered with its wet blanket of cloud, and know that you are the luckiest today. Because today you see the sun. And they do not.

I just love that.

So anyone want to share?

Happy Birthday to me.

2008-05-21T05:16:00.000-07:00

It's my birthday today, so I am taking the day off.

So yeah, Happy Birthday to me.

I wish I had that cake.

LMFAO

2008-05-20T09:47:00.000-07:00

A must read...

Naked Lost Airline Pilot.

BY FRANK COZZOLI
Of The Patriot-News

Jeffrey Paul Bradford and Adrianna Grace Connor should have just gone back to their motel room Sunday night, according to Lower Swatara Twp. police.

Instead, Bradford, 24, a pilot for Pinnacle Airlines Inc., and Connor, a flight attendant for the airline, left Angies Diner on Eisenhower Boulevard and walked to nearby woods along Richardson Road.

"They told the officer they wanted to go do it in the woods, essentially," said Sgt. Richard Brandt. "That's the best answer they had."

Bradford, of Moon Twp. in the Pittsburgh suburbs, wound up naked and wandering in the woods, triggering a search that involved a state police helicopter with body-heat-sensing gear, authorities said.

The pilot -- who police found shortly before midnight -- had been scheduled to fly out of Harrisburg International Airport to Detroit at 7:30 a.m. Monday, a Pinnacle Airlines official said.

Instead, Bradford and Connor, 24, of Belleville, Mich., appeared before a district judge Monday and were released on $10,000 bail each.

"We would have a zero-tolerance policy for actions of the type alleged in this instance," said Joe Williams, a spokesman for the Memphis-based airline.

Bradford and Connor have been suspended pending an investigation, he said.

The search began after Robert Furlong, the township fire chief, heard noises outside his Richardson Road home sometime after 9 p.m. Sunday and found Connor in his duty vehicle, police said.

"She said the reason she got into the [vehicle] was to look for a flashlight to find her friend," Brandt said.

Police found Bradford's clothes in the woods behind Furlong's house, arrest documents state. But they didn't find Bradford until shortly before midnight, soon after he confronted a woman on Summit Ridge and asked her for a pair of shorts.

The woman, who had just arrived home from work, called 911.

Just as the helicopter joined the search, police found Bradford hiding behind a shed wearing nothing but a wristwatch and flip-flops, the documents state.

Bradford was arraigned before District Judge Michael Smith on charges of indecent exposure, open lewdness, public drunkenness, loitering and prowling at night, and disorderly conduct. Connor was arraigned on charges of theft from a motor vehicle, public drunkenness, and loitering and prowling at night.

During Bradford's arraignment, he told the judge he'd been a pilot for Pinnacle for 31/2 years. Connor told the judge she'd worked for the airline for about a year.

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Jim Peters said any pilot is prohibited from flying with a blood alcohol percentage of 0.04 or higher. However, pilots are not randomly tested unless suspicions are raised, according to the agency.

While the FAA requires eight hours between a pilot's last drink and the time he or she goes behind the controls, Pinnacle has a 12-hour restriction, Williams said.

"And that applies not only to the cockpit, but if you're in uniform and on duty for Pinnacle," Williams said. "It could be a jump crew heading to another airport to pick up their flight."

Bradford is required to report the offense to his employer, Peters said. But for alcohol offenses, Peters said the FAA revokes a pilot's certificate only upon a conviction of driving under the influence of alcohol or driving while intoxicated.

Peters said it would be up to Pinnacle Airlines to take action, and then report that action to the FAA.

All I have to say is...

Bahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Minimum Fuel

2008-05-20T04:58:00.000-07:00

There are some pilots that like to take lots of gas. There are some that like to take the 'needed' amount and no more. Now I know that many different factors come into play here.

If you fly corporate you would want to get fuel where the prices are the best, and of course the lighter you are the less fuel you burn, so flying light is probably the most cost effective anyway. (or so I would imagine, I don't fly corporate)

Flying medevacs you never know where you are going next, and if that 'next' place will even have fuel, so you generally keep your tanks topped off to a 'standard fuel' amount.

But anyway, having enough fuel to do the trip based on available weather data is generally how I would operate, plus extra.

So, my story.

It was a beautiful morning. I was flying with another captain that day, so the combined hours in the cockpit was probably just shy of 10 000 hrs. Not that that means anything. But just giving the background.

The weather was forecast to be awesome. It was clear. Calm. Sunny. What could go wrong?

It was just a short hop. 137NM each way. We had less than standard fuel, but enough to legally do the trip, no problem. We get to our destination, and drop off the patient. Then nothing else to do but head home. Easy day.

Quick check of the weather at home base showed the same as what we left, clear and sunny.

We take off.

15 min into the flight Toronto Centre tells us that the "wx in XXX is starting to deteriorate".

Really? Hmmmmmmmmm.

Another call from centre. "XXX, new speci issued for XXX, ready to copy?"

"1/2 sm FG, VV 200"

Ok. Well, while we weren't expecting to be shooting the ILS to mins on this leg, it still wasn't a big deal. We had both flown that approach more times than we could count. But still, in the back of my mind was why? And how? And of course...damn those idiots at NAV CANADA for getting it all wrong! As usual.

Get our decent clearance, and are now on vectors for the ILS. Centre again calls with a new speci. "now 1/4sm, VV 100"

Oh, awesome.

The one thing I have to say at this point is this. I would much rather shoot an ILS to mins at night when there is FG. You just have more opportunity to see lights, instead of murky white. So we both knew that this was going to be tricky, if doable at all.

Shoot the approach. See nothing. Not a damn thing. Call the missed.

Now what to do.

And here is where things got really interesting. Our alternate was an airport that was 68nm from where we wanted to land. If our base had fogged in without warning, what had happened to our alternate? We decide to ask.

"XXX, XXX is still clear, would you like to proceed there?".

Now generally we would probably give it one more shot. Being that we were well rested, and well, worth a try to get home. BUT. We had enough fuel to do that trip. Not much to spare. And with the possibility of our alternate tanking, we figured we'd better hightail it over there before we were left with no options.

And good thing.

Because as we were heading over to our alternate we start talking to the FSS there.

"XXX, yeah, there is a fog bank, just 1/2 mile from the airport, moving quickly."

Awesome.

We always fly flat out anyway, so there is no way to get going any faster, and besides, we were almost there.

Begin our descent.

See the FG. It is now on the runways, inching its way to the intersection.

We land.

Whew.

Now we were not just about out of fuel, but it was getting dicey. We would not have been able to make another airport more than likely. And it was ALL done by the book. We did not skimp on fuel. But still, we almost ended up in a rather unfortunate situation.

Our home base stayed 0/0 in FG for the rest of the day, and so did our alternate. I think we finally limped home later that night.

So while this post could have turned into a rant against flight service (because trust me, I have a serious bone to pick with them a lot of the time.....not so much for me, but for all the GA airplanes out there that could get themselves killed over the horribly inaccurate forecasts....) I more just wanted to illustrate the fact that even when you go by the book that things can really change rapidly. And had I KNOWN that FG was a chance in the area, I sure as hell would not have picked an alternate so close to home base. I mean, duh.

I am just glad we didn't mess around with a second approach at our destination, who knows if we would have had enough time to get to and land at the alternate before the FG took over completely. Cause I am pretty sure we would have been SOL, seeing the timing of our arrival.

So yeah, just another day of learning stuff. LOL. (oh, and that pic is not mine, just borrowed it to show much nicer weather than what we had. Cause a pic of that would have just been white. ;) )

This is..

2008-05-17T07:11:00.001-07:00

A rough weekend for me.

So I'll have more to say once my sadness has passed.

Miss you Dad.

Organ Donation

2008-05-16T06:08:00.000-07:00

As a medevac pilot, a good number of calls you do is to take teams to retrieve organs, or to take people waiting for new parts to the hospitals where new parts await.

Now I have always been a proponent of Organ Donation. No reason really, I just saw a lot of people that needed them, and how happy they were when you flew them home for their new lives.

I never really thought that any of this would ever have anything to do with me. But I always was in awe of the families that made that huge gift to others.

Whenever we took a team I was always thinking about the families of the person that had died. And how sad they must be, and how hard it would be to make a decision while your life was falling down around you. And how brave they were. And giving.

I had always talked the talk. Would I walk the walk?

Well, on May 16th, 2005 I was put in that position. My Dad suffered a brain aneurysm, and was on life support in hospital. And I made the 8 hour trek to him.

When I got there it was apparent it was hopeless. That body in that bed was no longer my Dad. It was just a shell. Kept alive by drugs, and a ventilator. But just alive enough that he was not a candidate for organ donation.

The decision was made to stop all drugs for swelling, and let nature take its course. We decided to give him 48 hours to achieve brain death, and after that we would take him off the vent and let him die. But I really wanted him to do it on his own. First, I didn't want to have to kill my dad, and second, because I just wanted something good to come out of this. If I was going to lose my Dad, maybe someone else would get to keep theirs.

Well, just prior to the 48 hour limit, he finally 'passed' the brain death tests, and he was a go.

Due to his rare blood type (AB), and his background (he was Finnish) there was a limited number of people on the list that would need his things. But I still had hope. We decided to donate all organs, and any needed bone and tissue, along with his eyes.

Then the team arrived. I recognized some of them. I had flown them before. When they were going to get the organs of someone else's loved one. Now it was my turn.

And funny, when you are the pilot, they generally treat you like total shit. You are beneath dirt to them. But as the daughter of a body they want to get their hands on? Well that is a different story. I wish they would treat everyone with the same respect all the time. Two faced pricks. But I guess in their minds they are gods, so whatever.

I requested that the hospital call me when the parts started going out, I wanted to know what was used, and where it was going. They said that would be ok. But it would not be for a bit, they were using him in a study to try to prolong organ life with hormones...so it would be later. When there was room in the OR. Now I was starting to realize why I always did these trips in the middle of the damn night.

The next day the phone started ringing. His liver was on its way to Edmonton. Then another call. Kidney's on their way out west as well.

I could imagine the jets his parts were in. The coolers they were in. I imagine he went on a Lear. I have loaded the parts of so many others onto my plane....knowing what was in there. I hope that the crew that flew my dad didn't make jokes about him. I hope they knew that a really great guy was there. I really hope that.

And he was the reason I started to fly. He was the reason I flew. And now he was on his final trip in a plane. Parts of him. Separate from the others.

Where he would give others the life that he had lost. He was my hero before, and he is still my hero. Miss you so much Dad. :(

His eyes made two people see again.

His kidneys took a man off dialysis for the first time in 25 years and gave him his life back.

His liver went to a man who was going to die.

I am sure his bones and skin have been used to help burn victims and accident victims.

So yeah. I talked the talk. And then I had to walk the walk.

Have you all signed your cards?

Airplanes...

2008-05-15T06:04:00.000-07:00

I have big post ready, but it will have to wait for the proper day to post.

It's a bit of a bad time for me right now, so for today, I am just going to tell you what airplanes I really wanted to fly in my career, and which I will probably never get to fly. Maybe some of you would like to do the same?

Anyway, I'd like that.

As for me. When I was going to flight school I was on the ramp one day, and this beautiful WALL of noise was taxiing past our hangar.

I looked out and saw it.

And I fell in love.

Being nosey, I walked over, and asked if I could take a look inside. The pilots were more than nice, and let me up to the front, showed me all the cool stuff, and told me about the plane.

And I was even more in love. And I vowed that one day I would fly that beautiful machine.

Fast forward to after graduation. I was living at my parents cottage while doing my instructor rating. During a particularly rainy week I hit up this little second hand store, and found an airplane model. Of that plane.

So we made it. And it still sits there.

And I continued with my career. From flight instruction, to cargo, to medevacs. And still, I felt the call of that airplane. I really did. And I knew what company I needed to work for in order for me to fly it.

So I applied, and applied. And one day they called me. And then they interviewed me. And finally they hired me. It was the happiest day of my life. Seriously. I was so excited.

And when the manual arrived in the mail, I attacked it. I could not wait to learn all about this beautiful machine.

Finally the day arrived that I got to fly it. For the first time. I was so nervous.

And for good reason. First take off I realized that this thing was like nothing I had ever flown before. At all. I started to think that people had been lying to me all this time, and that I was the world's WORST pilot. By the time we landed I was in tears...

In fact, I then put in a call to Sully, and demanded to know WHY he had lied to me and not told me how badly I sucked. heh.

But things got better, and eventually I didn't feel like it hated me, and I passed my ride, and went online.

I have flown two other types of aircraft while I have been current on this one, and it just wasn't the same. Not even close. I really just think it is an amazing plane. And I always will.

As for ones I would like to fly but never will. Well, that is mainly the DC9. I wanted to fly that so bad. I guess I should count myself lucky that I got to fly the sim at AC a few times. And I was pretty good, if I may pat myself on the back. ;)

Too bad AC changed from sim evaluations to psych exams...LMAO. Oh well. ;)

So yeah, any of you get to fly your dream planes? Or have dreams to fly certain ones?

The effects of fatigue.

2008-05-13T05:43:00.000-07:00

As an on call 24/7 medevac pilot, there are always times that you are paged out when you are not exactly well rested. And those are the really tough nights/days. And add to that weeks on duty without a day off (because at that company, not where I work now, a day not paged out was considered a day off.......) and you get one tired pilot.

And it was one of those days that I really had to give my head a shake before I got myself into trouble due to my exhaustion.

We had been flying all day. And it was not an easy day. T-storms all over the place, and this plane was a piston, so we were really getting beat around. And I was flying with the biggest ass kisser I have EVER run across. I think he was attached to the bosses ass. Seriously.

Anyway, after getting most of the day done, all we had left to do was return a nurse to her home, and then we were done. We were at about hour 14 of our duty day, and as I said, I had already been working like a dog for longer than I could remember, so I was not in great shape. And the entire crew was in the same boat, so it's not like there was anyone in that plane with a sharp brain.

I checked the weather, and it looked really shitty. There was pretty much a wall of crap between us and where we needed to go. But the line was moving north, so my thought was that we would give it a shot, and if we got in fine, and if not fine. I don't stress too hard about getting nurses home. (sorry to any nurses, but you are really the least of my concerns...LOL) Discussed it with the crew, and they seemed ok with my decision, though the ass kisser was making noise about how the boss would be really angry if we didn't get the nurse home. I just stopped listening.

We take off for what should be a 45 min flight. Everything is going fine. The storms are moving north, and there is a line of 5 aircraft all waiting for approach clearance, so I wasn't the only one attempting this. That was a good sign. Or so I thought.

And I was tired. Oh so tired.

So when I was given my decent clearance out of the blue by ATC, my mind for some reason forgot about all those other planes that had been ahead of me. Because there should have been no way to get my clearance that early. None at all. I should have been given a hold if they were all in fact trying to land there.

But my exhausted brain just was on auto pilot I guess, because I called for decent checks, and started down.

And then, the fog in my brain lifted, just for a minute. And I began to wonder where all those planes went. And it was then that I took a good look at my radar. RED. All RED.

Uh oh. That is where they all went. They left!!!

I tell first officer to call ATC and tell them that we DO NOT want to go there, and request direct our alternate. He immediately begins to argue with me, going on and on about how mad the boss is going to be. I tell him that right now, at this moment, I really don't give a damn, and we are leaving. And that he'd better make that radio call.

We get clearance, and get back to base. I can't remember if I got in trouble or not, but if I did, I sure didn't care. I knew I needed a day off to sleep. That was all I knew. I can't remember if I got it, but chances are very high I did not.

But I learned a lesson. A few really. First, when exhausted you can make really poor decisions without being even remotely aware of how bad they could be. Second, if you are number 5 for approach and out of the blue get approach clearance, there might be some things you should be looking at. And third, most nurses are really cool, and would rather spend the night away from home than attempt to get through a T-storm.

Crew house livin.

2008-05-09T11:17:00.000-07:00

For a period of time a few years ago, I had to commute to another base in order to keep flying my plane. It was either that, or put up with the King Air100, which I hated (no offence to any KA drivers out there...). So I made the decision to live away from home for basically 12 days, and be home for 3.

This went on for a period of about 6 months, which really started to take its toll on me, being away so much, and never home long enough to get used to the idea of being home.

Anyway, since the company had a crew house in that city, I was to live there when I was working.

It wasn't a bad place, a little 3 bedroom townhouse. With cable even. And at least it was better than a hotel, you could make your own food, etc. Because I hate take out food, HATE.

At first it didn't seem too bad. I was the only one there, so I had the place to myself. No one else to worry about.

But then the hiring started. And the newbies started arriving in the crew house.

The first few were nice. We got along, and they didn't ask too many questions. Life was going ok.

Then one night I arrived at the crew house from my days off. I could see in the kitchen as I walked up. Not one, not two, but three STRANGE older men, sitting in the kitchen. Since there were only three bedrooms I was a bit curious as to what the hell was going on, so in I went.

Well, I walk in, and they look up at me, and stare. And then proceed to ask me "who the hell I am?" Funny, I was just about to ask them that exact question. I let them know who I am, and why I am there. And why are three of them there?

The biggest and meanest looking one gives me a look, and says that the third person is his friend, and 'he is staying here too, while looking for work'.

Oh really?

You see, I have a problem with that. I have a problem anyway with sharing a house and bathroom with strange men, when there are no locks on the bedroom doors. But I have an even bigger problem sharing a house with someone not even involved with my company at all. I am sure the guy was nice and all, but tough.

So that got sorted out. And then the constant questions started. Tell me how this works? What does this mean? It never stopped. And it became quite apparent that the one guy (older man, I did say I'd be getting back to this...) was a total dick, and thought he was gods gift to aviation.

Did I mention they were both French? And liked to talk in front of my face in french all the time, full well knowing I didn't speak french? And they got busted too. HA.

After a day of flying, my first officer came by the crew house with me to borrow my lap top for a minute. While we were there, 'Maurice' asked me a question regarding prop settings during cruise. I told him the answer...and right away he started speaking french to the other guy. And it was at that moment that my first officer began translating everything that 'Maurice' was saying, which was to the effect of "she doesn't know what she is talking about". As Maurice was finishing bashing me, he realized what was being said in the kitchen. To say his face was a bit red would be a complete understatement, and he tried to back peddle. (by the way, he was WRONG WRONG WRONG) But whatever. I was done with him, and let him know that I would no longer be answering any of his questions, and the next time he asked one I would be letting the CP know he started my duty day. That ended that. Eventually he passed his ride and got out of the house, but I still had to fly with the ass. (the other one got booted from training for sucking) That is for another day.

Back to the crew house. So after the French connection left, more newbies arrived while I was on my days off. I usually kept food in the fridge, and everyone was aware that a captain lived there when she was working, so there should have been no confusion regarding food. If you did not buy it, don't fucking eat it.

So after a rather annoying flight to town, I arrived at the crew house, and went looking for my ice cream. To find it missing. And a certain new hire with a empty bowl. Yeah. That made me happy. And you'd think he'd maybe go and replace it, since it was mine, and it was new, and he ate it. But nope. He never did. Dude, if you are out there, you still owe me ice cream.

I guess that is about it. I did it for quite some time, and I really don't feel like doing it again. Got to know some people that I would not have otherwise, and I am glad for that. Some I met, and I wish I could forget they even exist on this planet. But I liked more than I hated, and I got to keep flying my plane, which was the most important part.

So for the most part it was worth it. ;)

Just thought this was cool

2008-05-06T04:55:00.000-07:00

While 'stumbling around' the internet yesterday I found a lot of cool stuff. Anyway, this pic is just one that I came across, and I like it. :)

Day of Lightning.

2008-05-05T06:25:00.001-07:00

It was just another day flying medevacs.

We had 6 legs planned, all just back and forth from here to another place, and back here...you get the picture.

It was late August, and the weather was that usual hot and humid stuff that generally leads to thunderstorms later in the day.

Before heading out I checked the radar. There was a small line of showers between us and our destination. No big deal it would appear. Besides, we have Wx radar, so I wasn't too concerned. The forecast was calling for storms to develop later in the day, so I knew we'd have to be watchful.

We blast off on the first leg. Hit the line of weather. No big deal, a smattering of some rain, and a bit of the bumps, but nothing much at all.

Get to destination, and off we go back to home, through the line again. It's maybe a bit bigger now, a bit more rain, but still, just baby showers.

When I get back to base I call flight service to get their thoughts on any developments for the rest of the day, and ask specifically about that line. They tell me that there have been no lighting hits, and that it still appears to be just rain showers to them. Though the tops are starting to get a bit higher.

Sounds good to me, and off we go again, to meet up with the line.

This time it is different. It is a lot darker in there. And there is much heavier rain, and we are getting beat about pretty good. But the radar is not showing anything horrible, so we just keep on going. Then the rain gets harder, and it gets even darker in there. I look at the radar, and it is now showing nothing. No rain (though it is OBVIOUSLY raining really hard now). And we are starting to get the crap beat out of us...

And then, out of the corner of my eye I catch a flash. At first I am not sure if it is just the strobe, because as I said, it was getting pretty dark in there. I ask my first officer if he saw anything. He responds in the negative. A few seconds after that there is a huge flash, followed by a bang, and all the hair on the left side of my body stood up. I look over at my first officer, he is wide eyed.

Ok, so we might have been hit. But all my electrics are working, so that is a great thing. Maybe it was just a near miss. But since I am not sure, we slow to maneuvering speed and get our ass out of cloud so we can visually get around this stuff and get on the ground.

We finally break out the bottom at around 3000' feet, and since we have a patient and a nurse on board, and we are exactly half way between the two places we continue.

Once we land and get the patient and nurse off the plane, we start to check for damage. I walk the entire circle of the plane looking for marks, and find nothing. Nothing in the usual places, like nose, or tail. Nothing I can see at all. I am starting to think we just had a near miss, and that was that.

Until...my first officer looks at me and says.."cappy, look up".

And it was then that I saw it. The piece sticking up from the turtle back of the plane.

Ok, that cant' be good. We go and get a ladder to get a better look. Nope, not good at all.

But very, very lucky it would appear.

You see, my airplane has 6 fuel tanks. All of which drain into the main centre tank. And the gaping hole in my plane was just aft of the main tank. All that separated me from losing all my gogo juice was luck pretty much. Let's not even think about the blowing up option....eeks. LOL

So we call company, and eventually maintenance arrives. They cut the piece off, and put a patch on. They also do an inspection to determine where the lightening entered, as it was obvious where the exit point was. They were unable to find anything, and say that the engines should be ok.

Then it is time for the ferry permit. We get that, and prepare to head to the main base for the plane to be worked on.

It is then that the engineer mentions this to us. There is a possibility that the gear may have become magnetized, and once you retract them they might not come back down. But you are running out of duty day, so you have to either fly there gear up, or stay the night where you are.

Since my overnight bag has accidentally gone to main base, I choose that option, and the possible gear up landing at hour 15 of our duty day. Looking back, maybe not the best idea, but that is what we did.

The flight was uneventful, and once we started our approach and landing checks we were relieved to see the gear come down, so there would be no sliding on our belly tonight!! Yay!

We land, and taxi to the ramp. Word is out about what has happened, so there are a few people hanging around. One of them was Sully, who turned white faced when he saw the damage, and proclaimed that I was lucky to be alive.

We then went out for beers (first officer, Sully and myself), and were pleased to still be able to do so.

The next day I head over to the base to see what the actual damage is. It turned out that the mechanics that came to us in the field totally missed the loony sized divot in one of the left prop blades. The engine now has to go away, for quite a while. At least a month as I recall...poor little engine.

At this point the owner calls me 'sparky', and the head of maintenance tells me in his infinite wisdom that "WX radar doesnt' show you lightning you know", to which I responded, "well, it is supposed to show me fucking rain isnt' it???" GRR. And tell him I want that radar FIXED. (though in his defense, I am sure he was just trying to be funny...lol)

I won't bother to get into what I discovered about that radar in the days after the fact. Let's just say I was not impressed, and I am very very careful to make sure the damn thing works perfectly before heading through a line. If that means finding one to paint first, fine. But my trust is definitely lacking. So I like to watch my ass.

Anyway, that is the story. And so far I have been lucky enough to avoid a repeat performance. I'd like to keep it that way. :)

Lightning strike.

2008-05-03T07:17:00.000-07:00

Story to follow, once I get it written. heh.

If you can't be with the one you love...

2008-04-29T13:13:00.000-07:00

Love the ones you are with.

Though not quite in the same way the song meant...LOL.

Flying medevacs you learn one thing rather quickly. You spend WAY more time with your co workers than you do with your own family. Have a few 15 hour days in a row, and you basically have only seen your crew, and nothing else.

So having good co workers is really, really important.

I realized this when I got my first medevac job. There was only one crew. 2 pilots, and one medic. That is it, that is all. And we had no schedule to speak of. We just flew and flew and flew, until the boss decided we were tired enough and could use a day or two off. One 30 day stretch I flew 140 hours.....I was a bit burned out after that one. I think I flew over 1100 hours that year, so you get the picture.

Anyway, we would spend all day everyday together. And we got along great. The only unfortunate thing I discovered is that not all wives are happy when their hubby is spending 15 hours a day with another woman. I have been despised for no reason more than once. But yeah, that certain medic's wife hated my guts. HATED. Oh well, what can you do. You can only tell people so many times that no, you are not in fact after their husband. You have a life of your own you enjoy getting to when you are not flying. But for some reason she never got the hint. Probably still thinks of me and gets pissed off. heh. Oh well.

The next company I went to, again, great medics to work with. Some of the pilots...not so much. I hate brown nosers, and boot lickers. If the plane is broken, be a fucking man and tell the boss you want it fixed. One guy would be all tough in the plane about how he was going to refuse to fly anymore until at least 1 of the 15 or so squawks were dealt with. (one being the transponder, and I was pretty sick of getting told off by Toronto ATC about that! And I didn't blame them, it should have worked!) Once on the ground, he'd be the first one accepting another trip without even mentioning all the things that were broken. Ugh. He drove me insane.

After being sick of the bad maintenance, and the lack of adhering to duty day limits (ie: DO not do log book until you are home, and you can 'fix' your times, or let me rephrase, I got in shit many times for filling out the book during the day for that very reason) I finally got a call from the one company that I really, really wanted to work for. They had the plane I had dreamed of flying (it was on my list), and yeah. I had heard good things about them, and wanted my shot at a turbine. So off I went.

To meet new 'family' for the third time. And again, I was still very lucky. I had two great captains to learn from, and both had their own style. So for the first 5 days on I would get beat down by cappy big bars, and for the last 5 I'd get told how well I was doing by the nice cappy. And then have 5 days off to revel in my awesomeness(*snicker*) and be ready to get beat up again by big bars once back online.

And the medics. Wonderful people. The first one I flew with I shall call A, and he was one of the most awesome people I have ever met. We got along great, and had long and interesting conversations during long flights. And he was so helpful. He knew all about the plane, so once we landed he'd be right out there spinning down the props for me. Sweetheart. He was just a wealth of knowledge. And kindness. Sure there were scraps over the years....what is life without fights. But those were always small, and we always got over them very quickly. Unfortunately, after almost 5 years flying with him he decided he was done with the pager and has left. Work will never be the same, I swear. It was strange when someone was hired to take his place. I still miss him horribly.

And all the other medics at the company. They have all been great. I can't really say anything bad about any of them. A lot that have moved on are still friends of mine, and I'd do anything for them.

There are always those few people that are assholes. No matter what. I have also run into that in my travels, but that is more a pilot thing. In my experience I have found older men to be the WORST. They refuse to listen to a younger female, and get very, very defensive. Some eventually come around, but others.....they never do. I actually am thinking on a post about this very topic, so I won't bother elaborating further for now. ;)

So I guess what I am trying to say after all this is that you should always try your best to get along with your crew. Because they are basically like a second family to you, and if you are a fighting family, it can really make the days looooooooooong. If you try hard enough you can find common ground with just about anyone. Just about.....;)

Miss you brother.

A day at a reserve.

2008-04-26T06:25:00.000-07:00

In picture form.

Airport.

Church

River

Hospital

Statue by the river.

And back to the airport.

I think..

2008-04-24T08:17:00.001-07:00

I can come up with a post for tomorrow.

Time will tell. ;)

UFC anyone??

2008-04-20T13:17:00.000-07:00

So last night, while sitting around, we decided that for once in our lives (or at least for the past say 6 years..) we paid for some entertainment other than a concert. LOL. We decided to splurge and get UFC 83 on pay per view.

I was afraid I might not make it until the end. It started at 10pm, which is when I am usually starting to fade on the couch. But I had a coke, and that seemed to help.

And we got it in high def too, so it was extra good.

I guess I should mention the earlier fights first for anyone interested.

First good fight was Mac Danzig vs Mark Bocek, a Canadian. I know Danzig from watching the Ultimate Fighter, and I really liked him on the show, so of course I am a fan. And while it took him longer than I thought it would, he ended up winning. By rear naked choke in the third round. And neither of these fighters had been submitted before, so I guess sucked to be Bocek. Though for a guy from Woodbridge, I thought he did a damn good job. Danzig was cute and sweet during his post fight interview, and looked sad at the boos. He then asked for some love since his gf is Canadian, and he got it. I just love us. LOL.

Then Michael Bisping vs Charles McCarthy. Both of these guys are also from the Ultimate Fighter as well, so I feel like I know then slightly. And I just like the count. And this was his first fight as his new middle weight class, so was interesting to see him so thin. He looked like a totally different person. And was a much more humble person as well. Maybe he just had to be a dick in the light heavyweights for show? LOL. Anyway, he kicked Charles ass, and the fight ended at the end of the first round.

The next fight was a total and complete fucking joke. It was Kalib Starnes, a Canadian, vs Nate Quarry, and to say pussy ass bitch would be too much of a complement for Mr. Starnes. I hope today he is hanging his head in SHAME. Seriously. All he did, for 3 fucking rounds was run away from Quarry. It was so brutal it was almost funny. Even Quarry had to start mocking him by the third round, it was just so ridiculous. So yeah, fuck off Kalib (also of Ultimate Fighter fame), you proved last night that you are a pussy ass bitch little girl. And that is insulting to little girls everywhere. They'd probably kick your ass too. Loser.

The last fight before the big event was Rich Franklin vs Travis Lutter. I am a big Franklin fan, and he has had a bad time of it lately, so I was really glad to see him finally pull out a win again. And Rich kicked his ass. Go Rich. :)

Then finally it was time. Time to see if Georges St. Pierre could keep it together in front of his home town crowd of over 21 000, and get his belt back from Matt Serra (also of Ultimate Fighter fame)

Anyway, it kicked ass, and GSP (Georges St. Pierre) got his title back from Matt Serra by TKO in the second round. Serra's face was a mess after that one was over, and it was good to see him taken down a peg, he had been getting on my nerves lately. I'll still say he's damn tough, but no one holds a candle to GSP in the 170lb ers. And he's so young. He'll be around forever....unless...

Does GSP remind anyone else of Jean Claude Van Damme?

I just want him to get into the octagon carrying two stools, and then while waiting for his opponent, do the splits over them..hehee.

I wonder when they will come calling for his movie debut? heh.

So yeah, it rocked. Nuff said.

And yes, I know this wasn't about flying, but so what. I like to see crazy ass tough guys fight each other. So sue me. ;)

Stuck Mike.

2008-04-18T05:37:00.000-07:00

I think we all have great fears of this.

The dreaded 'stuck mike'.

Flying along, having a conversation, not thinking about it much until it gets particularly raunchy, and that is the moment your eyes check the light on the radio (that green 'transmit' one), and hit the squelch to make sure you get the static back.

I always wondered if it was the same for controllers. Did they get stuck mikes? And if so, what exactly would you hear?

Well, one day I got that very opportunity.

We were droning along, talking to Toronto Centre. One of the many familiar male voices that I had become quite used to flying in the area so much. A few calls are made by us, and then a few to other aircraft.

And then we heard singing.

(I have tried to find the song ever since, but I don't know it still, if anyone knows, please tell me)

"Lalalalalala, and someday you'll be mine......sweetheart....."

This went on for what seemed like eternity, but was probably maybe a minute or two. A VERY long time in terms of this anyway...LOL.

The singing continued.

And then we heard....

"OH........MY.........GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"click"

SILENCE.

After all the pilots had given the controller the required moments to become even more embarrassed, the calls started.

"Bravo!!!!!"

"Encore!! Encore!!!!!"

"Play it again Sam!!!"

You get my drift.

In our cockpit, nothing but gales of laughter. I think I laughed for at least an hour. And of course the whole time I was thinking of this poor controller, sitting in the dark, looking at his screen, with a red, red face. hehe.

So that day I realized that yes, controllers DO in fact get stuck mikes. But I am just glad this one was in a good mood and singing, instead of going on about how much a certain aircraft (me maybe? who knows) had pissed him off.

I will always think of that song, and that controller, and smile.

And keep very vigilant that I never fall victim to the dreaded stuck mike. But I think it's probably like everything in aviation. There are those that have, and those that will. And that is all you have.

It was a fun day. :)

So, any of you got any good stuck mike stories for me?? :)

Ok, fine.

2008-04-17T08:28:00.001-07:00

Don't discuss.

But how about someone just say hi maybe?

How's that. Just a little something. It's not hard. ;)

Pretty please????? ;)

And then, I promise a flying story. tomorrow. For sure. :)

Discuss.

2008-04-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

Why is the sky blue?

Because if it was pink, girls would want to fly planes...

So any women pilot haters out there?

Or women defenders?

Discuss in comments please, I am VERY interested in this. ;)

And annon comments are allowed, so feel free to blast away.

heh.

A few of my necessary things....

2008-04-15T12:22:00.001-07:00

There really are things that you should never, ever leave home without.

I thought for fun I'd make a list of all the things I can't live without while on the job.

1. Breakfast, lunch and dinner, all in an acceptable sized food bag. You never ever know when you are getting back home. And chances are always high that you could spend your day up in the boonies, where you could not purchase food if you tried.

2. Game boy. Must have. For all those long hours waiting for A) the weather to get better, or the more common B) ambulance delays.

3. A good book. Eventually you get sick of game boy, so you need something else to do.

4. Overnight bag. I cannot stress this enough. And one of the reasons I cannot stress it enough is that I have been caught without one more times than I have dutied out with one. Seriously. And every damn time it sucks soooooooo bad. And every time I SWEAR I will never, ever forget my overnight bag ever again. Yet, somehow I still manage to leave it behind on occasion. I must say I have gotten a bit better at that.

5. Thermos. This is especially critical during the winter months. You might be stuck sitting at a reserve for hours, waiting for the medics to get back from the nursing station. And nothing, I mean nothing is better than something warm. Soup, coffee, tea, hot chocolate. It matters not. What matters is that there is a heat source you can steal from before you lose a finger or two.

6. Long johns. As many pairs as you can accumulate. And the warmer the better. I usually start wearing them end of October, and keep them on until the end of April or so. Nothing worse than the wind blowing through those lovely polyester work pants, onto freezing skin.

7. Bug spray. Or a fly swatter. Something to beat back those massive black flies in early summer. Dear god, they are unrelenting. And huge!!!!!

8. Lip balm. Seriously. It is dry in there, with the pressurized air. And depending on how bad the weather is that day you might be licking your lips more than usual. And nothing worse than cold/wind/chapped lips. Just icky.

9. Hand lotion. Yeah. Girlie, I know. But guess what? You are washing your hands more times in a day than a freaking surgeon. Every leg you wash whatever imaginary germs the last patient left on you. Every time you get the plane fueled you get your hands covered with JetA while checking tip tank caps. So wash again. Add winter to that, and you have very, very unhappy skin. And if you don't want your hands to make it look like you are 85, well I recommend Neutragena myself. ;)

10. Tylenol. Nothing worse than getting a headache half way through the day and having nothing to get rid of it. Seriously.

And of course, really good hats, and gloves. For winter. In the summer, it is still good to have some gloves handy, especially if you have to pull some cowls while at a reserve to get at something.

So that is my boring list of what I feel is important to make it through the day. Hey, it's the small things.....LOL

Seeing things...

2008-04-14T09:31:00.000-07:00

So, a few years ago I did a lot of flying in a certain area of my province. It is the part with no roads, and mostly just native communities, fly in only. And when you are flying along at night, and the radio is quiet, and it seems like you are the only one in the air..when something catches your attention out of the corner of your eye, it causes you to definitely do a double take.

And that is what happened one night to us, while flying along at 4am, after a long night.

I can't remember which one of us first noticed the light. But it was there. And it seemed to be moving.

So we kept watching it.

And when we moved, it seemed to move with us. And it looked like it was getting closer.

We had been making blind radio calls to 'any aircraft in the area of XXX', but we got nothing back.

So now we are getting a bit ticked off. There was OBVIOUSLY an aircraft out there, not using their radio!

And don't forget we are tired. Quite tired. This is the third all nighter we have done in a row, and that can start to take its toll on you after a while. Especially in the middle of winter, when it's -35C and windy all the damn time, and you are having to pump your own fuel at 2am, and that is ONLY after you have dug out the hose, and all the equipment with your damn feet because you can't find a shovel anywhere. And don't forget all the circling approaches onto gravel runways in blowing snow. But I digress. LOL.

Anyway, back to my story. (I think I actually got tired just thinking about that night...LOL)

The light is still out there. We turn, it seems to turn with us. We make radio calls. Nothing but silence.

And then it slowly begins to dawn on us.

Not all at once, but it comes...

We have been taking evasive action...on...a PLANET.

Yep, that is right.

Venus was apparently out to get us.

At 4am, in the middle of nowhere.

So we stopped making radio calls to the phantom planet, and quietly made our way home.

Chuckling the entire way.

Medevac landing.

2008-04-12T09:53:00.001-07:00

And yes, it's me.

When stupid things happen to stupid people... ;)

2008-04-12T07:56:00.000-07:00

One funny day. Or not so funny. Depends on how you look at it I suppose. heh.

I get up and leave the house.

And I get to work.

Everything is good. Even my usual dick head co captain (from now on to be refered to as Otto) is in a good mood. Nothing can go wrong!! Nothing I tell you.

So first stop XXXX. To pick up a baby. Yeah, of course. A baby. Which=Incubator. Born at 30 weeks, 5 days ago, going home. She was really cute.

As I am walking to the plane the ambulance is already there. An Air Canada plane is taxiing towards the runway, and the medic looks at me, winks, and says....."so maybe one day, eh?"

I scowled. And glared. And shook my head NO. Seriously. I was a millimeter away from asking him when he would be a real medical professional and be a Dr. HA. Maybe I should start asking people those questions when they piss me off. But man. Great start. I am now in a bit of a mood, but work hard at hiding it!! LOL

Get to XXXX, and have to wait for nurse and incubator to come back from the hospital.

So we hang out in the pilot lounge and watch tv, and go and look at things in the pilot shop that we can't really afford, because hey, we are working pilots. Which means we are broke. LOL

Now it is time to go back to XXXX. Nothing eventful happens, and we then start the flight to our home base.

This is where the funny shit happens.....

So, because I will be checking out our first officer in the left seat of the plane, I have to be current in the right seat. So this leg I am doing from there. And I'll be honest with you...I really don't like flying from over there...just seems so weird. Been a long, long time since I have been an F/O, but I am doing ok (and I had better be.....sheesh...LOL).

We start our descent into home and Toronto Centre gives us our frequency change to the control tower here.

I am busy trying to be cool in the right seat, and the weather is a bit scuzzy (having to shoot the BC to mins), so I am kinda concentrating on what I am doing, and not really on Otto. Big mistake!!! LOL (but in my defense, he WAS a captain, so as far as I am concerned, I should not have had to watch him like a hawk, though knowing him and his flying I should have)

I hear him call the tower, but that is the last I remember of any dealing with them.

We land. We taxi off the runway.
Otto dials in the ground control frequency. And it is then that I notice. *EEK* That he has the WRONG tower frequency on the other radio. The one he would have been using to call the tower. Oh fuck, please let him have just changed it.......

He calls ground. And we hear this:

"XXX, I did not get ONE call from you on that approach"

OMG. We just landed without landing clearance. Oh my fucking god. This is bad. B A D.

So we taxi to the hanger and I run to the office to call them on the phone. And all was fine, the guy in the tower knows me well enough after all these years (and funny, would not know him to see him, but know his voice, been hearing it for almost 7 years.....LOL) and he just assumed we had a com failure. And he is not going to make a big fuss about it at all. Thank you!!!!!

Now I just have to write up an incident report for the big boss. Yay. Hopefully nothing big comes of it. (and it never did, whew)

So there you go. After many years flying, stupid things can happen when you get complacent. I can honestly say that before that incident that had NEVER happened to me in all those years. But that day it did. And lesson learned once again.

And I must say, I think my face was red for a few days after that one. ;)

Things I have seen....

2008-04-12T05:04:00.000-07:00

I was thinking the other night, that since my life is boring, that I might as well write about some things I have seen in my travels. First because I would like to have a record of things, and second, because I want to gross you all out.

LOL

Ok, just kidding about the second one, but I just might anyway. Though if I do, it's not on purpose....(ok, except that pic...)

So, since it is front and centre I will start with that.

Gangrene. Let me tell you about it. Because I know way too much.

It smells like dead turtles. And those of you that had pet turtles as kids and then they died and you didn't notice soon enough...remember that smell? Well, that is what my entire plane smelled like while flying that stuff.

The other thing about it is that it can sometimes makes things like toes fall off. And roll into the cockpit. For me to see. Seriously. Has happened. It was a black toe. In my cockpit. Lovely!!!

But there are other gross things. Oh so many.

How about the guy I flew once. He had flesh eating disease, and they had scraped off all the flesh from his ass, to his knees to get it all. And as he lay on the stretcher in the back I heard him singing...."I left my ass, at XXXX General..." I guess you have to laugh when things are that good for you.

There was also the man with brain cancer that I flew. He was in his 40's and going home to die. He was a cop, so there were police on each end of this transfer. Anyway, the point of my story is the tube running from his skull to a bag. Draining his brain. And the fluid in the tube was the colour of raspberry crystal light. With chunks. Of brain. My first officer and I were pretty scarred by this one........

We used to fly this woman all the time. She was in her 40's, with diabetes. We would bring her from her home to another centre for dialysis, etc. So we saw her probably once a week. Anyway, she was in a wheel chair when at home, and liked to drink like a fish, and smoke like a chimney. And she was blind. One day we got a call, for a code 4. (which is bad). To go to her town. We wondered if it was her. It was. We took her on her last flight. To finally die. I felt slightly attached to her, even if she was heavy as hell and always hurt my back. I mean, I flew her all the time. She was familiar. But now she is dead.

There was another frequent flyer that I always wondered about after he seemed to vanish. He was a man in his 60s, with diabetes. He had a blood clot in his eye, and was blind. And went for treatment for that. Then he was gone. I was positive he had died. And that made me sad. He was very interesting. A phd engineer, with lots of stories for us while we waited for ambulances. One day, about a year after I had last seen the man I happened to run into a friend of mine who was a physical therapist at the time. And he told he that the man was great! And could see again. That news just made my week. :)

Anyway, just a few of the things...there are so many more.