Feeling philosophical this afternoon.....

The mornings are cooler now.  With frequent rain showers, heavy beyond imagining, as if the heavens themselves open up to wash away the landscape, everything and everyone stops and waits patiently for the deluge to pass, and one feels that mankind has been waiting patiently for such torrents to pass for eons, and it somehow connects you to a forgotten past.  One can't even chat over the noise so instead of competing with this roaring show of force from nature itself, everyone reverently bides their time watching and waiting.  Not adding to the humidity as one would expect, the rain seems to draw it from the air and spread it across the rutted and muddy roads and alleyways in huge brown lakes, rivers and rivulets collecting discarded refuge and carrying it away.  The heavy clouds give respite from the powerful African sun, and as she drops below the horizon in the evening, she hasn't quite the chance to catch up to her loss of face, and we head into the evenings less oppressed, less beaten by her heat.  The mornings aren't exactly crisp, but they are comfortable now, and soon the storms will pass and the humidity will drop, and the lush, deep greens will slowly give way to lighter green, then khaki and finally browns, before the rains begin again.

I'm busier now.  The rig has moved far offshore and the flying has increased ten fold.  Everyone is happy.  Nothing breeds discontent like inactivity.  We are here, far from home and our loved ones, to do our bit, doing our part in contributing to our species continuing growth, to satisfy it's needs.  Our talents lie in taking those equally beholden to providing for loved ones, out to scour the earth for resources to meet our ever increasing demands for more and more.  Like a huge unmanageable organic system, a system so complex economists and politicians, philosophers and the media struggle to understand and to profit from it, as it leaps ahead, stumbling and faltering, then surging ahead again, with everyone swimming to keep their heads above water, many falling by the wayside and some getting very, very rich.  Entire countries and continents get caught up in the wake, struggling for dominance, or even equality, their piece of the pie, but the bigger picture is lost in the individual's daily struggle, to provide for loved ones and find a little piece of happiness.

It all seems purer here in Africa.  One is unencumbered by the many distractions of Western living, and things are simpler, more basic.  As Africa moves ahead, far behind the West in many respects, I truly hope the West's hunger for resources brings Africa forward gently, giving them what we have, but I am hopeful they will retain their sense of community, the element of humanity, that I fear we are losing.  We have raised the individual far beyond a sustainable position, disconnected him through social media and television and the internet.  The African is far more social and connected to the community, their friends and family.   I'm just another individual contributing as well as I can as the clogs continue to turn, but I hope to learn and apply as I am exposed to world's so different from my own.  It's pleasant to pop my head up from time to time and try as one might to get a glimpse of the bigger picture, and my place in it.

Rufji River

The German SMS Konigsberg, the most feared battleship of the period, terrorized the British along Africa's East Coast during World War One.  The English threw everything they had at her, and after taking serious damage in the Battle of Zanzibar, she took refuge deep in the Rufji River delta to affect repairs.  One Paul von Letow-Vorbek lead a guerilla army through out the world's largest mangrove swamp to resupply and repair the ship, moving parts and tools and huge plates of sheet metal through impossible terrain by hand, while British forces gave everything to thwart their every move.  The story of Paul von Letow-Vorbek's adventures rate as the greatest single guerrilla operation in history, and the most successful. I had read about it all in Wilbur Smith's "The Ghosts of Africa" long before I ever knew I was coming to Africa.  I flew over the Rufji river delta this afternoon, no doubt more comfortable in our Italian AW139 at five hundred feet and one hundred and forty knots than dear old Paul slogging heavy metal parts through the mosquito infested swamps while being hunted by Brits...

It was a crazy night out.  Hitting one of the local clubs early, the Bongo-Flava, a fusion of rap, R&B and urban afropop, was pumping and before long my toes were tapping, then my hips started swaying, and before I knew it my legs were moving, and I lost track of what my upper torso was doing, but we had a blast.  Sober, as I was on call the next morning, I still danced well into the morning, sweat soaked and happy.  After a short but restful sleep, over a breakfast of fresh mango and instant coffee, the call for a medevac flight from the rig to Dar es Salaam came in, and off we scrambled.  After assuring the poor soul was safely on the ambulance in Dar, we headed home, flying over the lush African bush and Indian Ocean Coast line, taking in the view.

As we came upon a small island with perhaps a dozen trees on it, the other crew member asked me how long I thought I might survive on such an island.  My first comment was regarding fresh water availability, and as we discussed methods of drawing moisture from the vegetation, we were shocked to find a complete village on the small bit of land!  Soon the breathtaking azure colour took on a muddy brown and we noted the numerous streams emptying into the ocean, and I dug out my Ipad, somehow getting decent internet on the 3G network, and identified the Rufji river delta.  My day was made.

SAR...almost

Finally, I was going to try my hand at some Search and Rescue flying, but it was not to be.

The need was identified, and I was most definitely willing, but today's planned training, starting with hoisting work around the airport, and later, over water, was cancelled due to an unserviceable aircraft.  Maybe I'll get another kick at the can later next week.  I'm anxious to see if my longline background brings any skills to the table.

I did wrangle an opportunity to sit as first officer on a SAR training mission about a year ago.  Fresh on the AW139, my job was basically to keep on eye on aircraft systems, limitations and fuel status, and handle any radio work.  There had been a ground school portion, and we covered what I needed to know, but it's been a year since I've had any exposure. 

This time around, the SarTechs and one of our SAR Training Captains spent the past few days going over everything in detail, with PowerPoint presentations, a fair bit of self study, and some fun exercises conning each other around the room, using the "patter" we'd be using while hoisting.  We covered search patterns and various methods of hoisting and approaching boats and decks and rafts and what-have-you, high lines and emergencies, techniques and variations and procedures, with heavy emphasis on phraseology, as it is critical that everyone on the team is on the same page at all times, but it's all academic until I get to see it in practice.  The wealth of experience in the room, from years, and in some cases, decades, of SAR experience, is readily apparent and much appreciated, and I can't wait to get started.

Search and Rescue has historically been handled, and handled very well, by a specific wing of the military.  As governments cut back more and more responsibility is being handed back to the private sector, and Search and Rescue is increasingly being covered by non-military entities.  Oil and Gas companies, or rather, the underwriters of their insurance companies, as well as offshore employee unions, are demanding comprehensive and dedicated search and rescue coverage for their operations.

While military operations have massive training budgets, and daily training sorties are common place, private sector Search and Rescue has to abide by the laws of commercial supply and demand, or rather, it has to be profitable.  Daily training sorties just aren't going to happen.  So, drawing heavily from the experience and knowledge of ex-military SAR sources, the fledgling industry is struggling to set standards on the amount of required training and proficiency levels, and selling that back to the customer as a product.  Of course companies prefer to draw their crews from ex-military SAR personnel, with their massive background in training sorties and real world experience, but those pools are drying up quickly.  Hence.....my chance to get a kick at the can........

HTFU

You hear it often amongst the crews here.  I believe the helicopter business draws some very strong personalities to start with.  I always cringe when people say "you are so lucky", as if being a helicopter pilot just falls into one's lap; no dream, no desire, no commitment, no acceptance that it wouldn't happen, no effort, no drive.  Although I will admit to being lucky with the choices I've made.  Like envying people in good shape.  One should envy their self control, dedication and commitment.  But enough of tooting my own horn, I've always respected those that worked overseas.  To thrive in some rather rough conditions living amongst cultures far removed from one's own, on the other side of the planet, quite often in third world countries, it takes another sort again.  So when I started whining about my very sore throat and painful sinus congestion that I woke with, the gentile souls around the breakfast table gave me all the sympathy they could muster...."HTFU".  Harden The F### Up.  I'm smiling, but my throat still hurts like hell.

I just finished "The Masque of Africa:  Glimpses of African Belief" by V.S. Naipul, a Nobel Prize in Literature recipient (I particularly enjoyed  his "A Bend in the River"), to hopefully give me a little better understanding of life in Africa.  Witch Doctors are the real shit here.  While the Tanzanian government is doing all that it can to stem the activity, rural albinos still live in fear as their body parts weigh heavily in traditional ceremonies, more so if taken from them while alive. It's a far cry from the dairy farms of Lake Erie's North shore.  The vast majority of beliefs are quite harmless though, and some quite beneficial, stemmed in tradition from eons of forest living, passed down from generation to generation.  Methadone, the heroin and morphine substitute used in the West is actually the time immemorial eboga plant used in Gabon for centuries to cure many things.  I dare say the pygmies aren't the ones getting rich from it's "discovery".  The lure of Christianity, the ever growing cloud of Islam, all competing with a way of life ingrained in one's soul.  I dare say that if I was to believe in anything, some of Africa's mystic compares favourably with religion's interpretation of the Bible or the Koran.  But I don't. 

If the book, or actually being here, has taught me anything, it's to not under estimate anyone, nor their beliefs, priorities, customs or way of life. Whose to say we do things better in the West?
I quite like the African Proverb; "The man who has gone nowhere thinks his mother's soup is the best"

So I bath my dry throat with warm instant coffee, and contemplate attempting to rest, something not easily done with the midday heat and noise, or just goop up with SPF15 and walk to the beach.  I've got some night flying/training to give tonight so the rest would be wise.  I'm pretty sure "wise" won't be found anywhere on my epitaph, so I guess it's off to the beach!

Back in Mtwara

Until 1948 Mtwara was little more than a village.  The Brits figured the deep natural harbour would make a perfect port, and developed the area hoping to export ground nuts.  Due to lack of rain, the plantations eventually failed, and Mtwara returned to it's backwater status, a little worse for wear.  You can still see remnants of that ill fated project up and down the coast.

Then in 1982 gas was discovered in Mnazi Bay, with wells operating by 2006.  Recently the entire East Coast of Africa has become a hotbed of activity.  According to the World Bank, economic growth in sub-Sahara Africa should significantly outpace the global average.  Having toured here for over a year now, the rapid growth is very apparent, especially returning after being away for six weeks at a time.  New hotels and complexes cropping up all along the coast, huge ditches throughout town destined to become modern drainage systems, and torn up dirt trails becoming wide roads.  New night clubs and restaurants, cracked and dilapidated poured concrete sidewalks painstakingly replaced with modern interlocking cobblestones, and a general feeling of prosperity on the near horizon.  Tanzania already enjoyed a reputation as being a friendly place, but it seems more so each tour.  It's all smiles and waves and friendly greetings and I'm glad to be back.

Still it's not for everyone, and turn over at the base has been steady and unrelenting.  I was greeted by a few new faces when I returned, some I've even met in previous lives flying in the Canadian bush some two decades ago, and the dynamic of the base shifts yet again.  Having returned to a training role once I finally got enough time flying this new type, it's already scored me some extra flying indoctrinating some new pilots to the type, and I've got more training scheduled early next week.  The rig is moving and our flying should increase ten fold.  I'm finally scheduled to move into a Search and Rescue role, one that some guys have flatly refused, which I don't understand for the life of me, but I'm all over it.  I've always wanted to fly SAR.  Things are rosy indeed!

And I've only been here for four days.  Been mountain biking, to a birthday party, to a stag party, snorkelling in the Indian Ocean, bouncing to a band from the Congo at a huge outdoor night club, and even checked out one of the new night clubs that was built since last tour, and spent today at a pool with hundreds of locals, pushing kids around on inflated tubes and sharing my swim goggles, and playing shark to huge grins and laughing parents.  I finally caught a tuk tuk back to the hotel after dark, and instead of taking the roads, this enterprising fellow (my friend Caesar actually....I ride in his tuk tuk quite frequently) elected to take the trails.  It was surreal experience, with his very weak headlight putting things smack dab in front of you before you saw them, bouncing over trails so rough I hoped to find them again with my mountain bike, shocked laughing people jumping out of the way, jungle bushes snapping at the open doors, and as the bush opened up, my eyes were drawn upwards to that incredible African evening sky, stars so bright you felt like you could reach out and touch them. 

Tomorrow it's the Old Boma and relaxing under frolicking monkeys while enjoying a good book....

You meet some interesting people...

While an upgrade to business class on any trip is always a treat, a surprise one is even better.  I didn't apply for that first Halifax to Montreal leg for my trip back to East Africa, preferring to save my accumulated upgrade travel points for the long hauls, but as I boarded in Halifax I was given a new seat up front with the big wigs, my travel points in tact!  The trip just kept getting better.  As I sort myself into my posh seat out of Halifax, I recognize a face, and it just happens to be the Captain of the rig I'll be flying to in southern Tanzania.  Not someone I expected to run into a ten minute drive from my house, both destined for two full days of travel....to the same remote spot!

 

One leg down, over beers and the last Canadian hamburger I'll see for six weeks, in a fancy restaurant in Montreal's International departure lounge, my new friend and I watch huge Airbus A380's push their throttles into take-off and the fresh rain on the tarmac behind them creates a maelstrom before they slowly start to move, quickly gaining momentum, vapour trails spinning off the wing tips, as fluid dynamics works it magic and the massive aircraft eventually lifts her nose, the wheels escape the runway, and off they roar into the gloom, bound for Singapore, if the plane's livery is any indication.  I love watching planes take off, and A380's departing in rain raises the bar.

 

Relegated back to coach for the Zurich to Dar flight, with a quick stop in Nairobi, I find myself seated by a khaki dressed outdoorsy looking gentleman, who happens to be an Austrian balloon pilot.  He has spent the last twenty five years buzzing elephants low level across the planes of Maasai Mara, within the shade of Kilimanjaro, in balloons full of paying tourists.  Having also crossed the Swiss alps, the Sahara itself a few times, Turkey, Sri Lanka, and a long list of places I've forgotten, the stories made the trip to Nairobi quite a pleasure.  I took his website address down for if I ever get to Massai Mara, I'll be looking him up and taking a balloon ride.

 

 

 

Another benefit to this routing I had not taken before was the entire route, short of the hop across the pond, would be in daylight.  I've always done the trip at night.  First we watched the massive mountains of Austria pass beneath us, where my balloon pilot friend pointed out his house and we chatted about Reinhold Messner and other famous mountaineers that I've read about, and that he actually knew.
 

It was quite amazing to be flying over the endless deserts of Egypt, or at least, to be able to see the endless expanse of sand while doing it.  I tried to capture the view, but the frosted windows at 39,000 feet and -55 Celsius made photography nigh impossible so I just sat back and took it in.  We first crossed the Nile itself as we left Egypt and headed into Sudan airspace, and overhead Khartoum, looking down at the glittering silver roofs of tin, like the sun shimmering over the ripples of a pond, all the sandy streets aligned in a perfect grid.  The life water brings readily apparent as man redirects and contains it to suit his needs in such a harsh environment, into endless miles of rectangular fields in a quilt work of natural colours, from deep green and browns to sand and everything in between.

 

 

The rainy season is still upon East Africa, and it's not the towering cumulus surrounding us that gives away the time of year, but the sea of deep dark green as we fly over Tanzania, everything looking lush, alive and flourishing.  I'm soon working my way through Tanzanian passport control and looking for Ali, my ride to the Holiday Inn for the night, before continuing on to Mtwara next morning.  I eventually find myself in an open air bar on a roof top in Dar es Salaam, sipping on my gin and tonic as African music washes over me. Dar es Salaam means "Haven of Peace", and I think I've found some.

 

 

 

On the road again....

Back in the Star Alliance lounge in Halifax, waiting for the first leg, a slightly different routing through Montreal then Zurich, before heading off to Dar es Salaam for the night. I was routing through Istanbul and avoiding the overnight in Dar, but then I arrive in Mtwara exhausted. I think this will be less painful. I'm trying something else different too....packed my laptop and flying headset in the checked luggage, using my iPad mini enroute. Lets see if everything shows up....

It was a good time home, though short with numerous work related commitments; over a week in Italy and yet another in Newark. Both trips were awesome but it did seriously cut into time with my kid, who needs me now more than ever. This touring business is a love it/hate it affair. I have non-touring helicopter pilot friends considering taking it up, and I find it hard to sell the lifestyle with any believable zest. It depends on so much. Believe it or not, quite a few guys just fly the line or hibernate in their rooms, putting in their time until they head home again. I figure I'm seeing the world on the company's coin, I'm going to make the most of it. That being said, I'm hoping we get contracts closer to home, as I live ten minutes from Halifax's International airport, and operated from our hangar there for over a decade. I'd be all over it.

For now, it's back to Africa.....

Medevac on a dark and stormy night....

I wrote this story many, many years ago, and it was submitted and printed by Transport Canada in an excellent safety newsletter they used to issue titled "Vortex", where one could read about other's mistakes and hopefully avoid making the same mistakes themselves. Let's call it fictional to protect the not so innocent....

 

I was a Captain on an Emergency Medical Service IFR twin engine helicopter, on standby in Canada's North country. The day had frequent snow showers giving reduced visibility down to one mile, and ceilings were hanging around the five hundred foot mark. 

 

We received the call in the afternoon for a medevac flight to a medical centre just over one hundred miles away.  As usual, myself and the first officer proceeded to the hangar, and the medic went straight to the local hospital to prep the patient for transport. We checked the weather, which wasn't nice, but acceptable considering the flight was over mostly flat terrain and would be during daylight hours, so we readied ourselves and waited for the call.  After an hour an a half, I started to worry as night would soon be a concern. Icing in cloud would prevent climbing up and proceeding on instruments, so the flight would have to be made with visual reference to the ground, which could not be done at night in those conditions.  I made a call to the hospital, and it took some time to get in touch with our medic, but we were eventually told the trip was a ‘go’.  I made a few quick calculations in my head, and came to the conclusion that we could make our destination prior to nightfall. 

 

After an uneventful flight to the nearby hospital, the first officer headed into the building to check on the situation as I sat at idle in the helicopter. Once again we were subjected to a lengthy delay as there were complications with the patient. Now I started to get worried, so I called the flight service centre to get the exact time for ‘official night’, broke out the whiz-wheel to work out an accurate estimated time enroute, and did a bit of math. I also gave myself a buffer that was nowhere near sufficient. I then passed along our launch cut-off time to the dispatcher and watched my watch. As my calculated cut-off time finally approached, I called the dispatcher again to cancel the trip and to send out the First Officer, but as we spoke, the door opened and out rolled a stretcher, medics, doctors and a few support staff. Now the acid started to flow into my stomach and I seriously considered the consequences of the decision I was to make, but I reassured myself that I had done the math and was thorough. My buffer was going out the window but I had thousands of hours of flogging around in crappy weather as a bush pilot and I forced myself to relax. Now the five minute loading time was nearing fifteen minutes with further complications and we would actually be arriving a tad after dark, but I could hardly turn things around now (something I told myself at the time), besides, there were plenty of lights in the city and I knew every power line and tower along the route like the back of my hand.

 

So off we went into the storm, which of course grew worse. Half way into our trip, I realized with some disgust that ‘official dark’ is dark on a clear night, but in a blizzard, well....let’s just say it gets real dark quite a bit earlier than I had calculated. So now I find myself with a fresh, inexperienced first officer, three oblivious souls in the back, unable to climb and file IFR due to heavy icing in cloud, smoking along at five hundred feet flying completely on the dials. The first officer was furiously punching in known towers into our GPS (still new technology at the time, but they weren't along the route anyway, and it kept him busy) while I kept checking that we weren't picking up any ice, and that we were well above the many power lines crossing our route. I knew I had put us in a bad spot, but I also knew we weren't going to hit anything.  My biggest concern at the time was how to get into the city and contend with the skyscrapers, and how to deal with ATC. My options, as I saw them, were:

 

a) at the edge of the control zone, pick up a clearance for an instrument approach and hope we don't pick up too much ice as we climbed into cloud (I didn't particularly like that one though).

 

b) hope that when we got over some lights I'd have enough reference to get to the ground and call for a land ambulance, and spend the night right where we got our wheels back on terra firma.

c) hope the weather was VFR.

 

d) wake up and not share this dream with anyone, ever. 

 

In the end, after a stressful hour of breaking most of my own rules, we neared the edge of the zone, and the numerous lights of the city gave us enough reference to find a place to land, but the visibility kept improving to the point where I’m sure the controllers almost believed us when we told them we had the airport visual.  The snowfall had lessened considerably, and I was quite comfortable continuing on to the airport VFR, well above the city's skyscrapers. 

 

As we sat over supper in the hotel that evening, I had a good chance to reflect on my stupidity. I kept pushing myself further and further into that trip. I had numerous opportunities to turn the flight down, and I knew that there would be no repercussions for doing so. Sure, some people would have been inconvenienced, and the road trip into the city would have been horrendous for the patient in the storm, but I would not have put anyone's life at risk, something I had surely done by continuing with the flight. My young first officer thought the entire trip was "the coolest" and no amount of second guessing myself that night would wipe the grin from his face. I was not a good example.  I came to the conclusion that the self-induced indigestion was not worth it, is never worth it, and I proceeded to set up some very strict limits for myself that would always assure a safe and boring trip.  

 

As my years of experience slowly build, I realize that being a good pilot isn't hands and feet or knowledge gained from hours spent in the books, as much as the choices one makes.   Know when to call it.

 

I'm glad I found that story, I had forgotten all about it.  I'm relaxing at home without much to write about...... 

 

 

Law Three

Newton's Third Law of Physics; "To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction", is well demonstrated when a helicopter loses it's tail rotor.

With the engines driving that mass of rotors around and around, keeping one up in the air by moving massive amounts of air via the magic of aerodynamics, the helicopter's fuselage requires something to deal with Newton's third law, otherwise it would simply spin in the opposite direction, making everyone inside quite dizzy and not really getting anywhere.  Hence the tail rotor.  These things are pretty safe, as the tail rotor is driven by the same transmission that drives the main rotor.  It's not something pilots spend any time worrying about, but in training sessions, as it's not outside the realm of possibility to lose one's tail rotor, we are taught to deal with it.  With a simple push of a button by the simulator operator, the crew looses it's tail rotor, the aircraft yaws quickly to the right, depending on the type of helicopter and which way it's main rotor blades spin around, and the fix is to take the driving force away from the mass of rotors spinning overhead, generally involving turning your engine off.  Problem fixed.  Now you are flying along, straight mind you, but with no engines.  Next problem; to avoid flying to the scene of the accident, straight of course as we've fixed the loss of tail rotor problem quite nicely.  Unbeknownst to most, helicopters fly quite nicely without engines driving the main rotors, but you are coming down, and fast.  As the pilot lowers his collective stick (actually he does this immediately upon recognizing the loss of tail rotor) the rotors now act like the seeds of a maple tree falling in the autumn.  The rotors keep on spinning, now driven by the rush of air forced up through them as we fall, but the pilot can still speed up and slow down and turn left and right, and as he nears the ground, pull the nose up to flare off his speed, and he only has one shot at the next bit; pulls on the collective, applying a massive amount of lift to the rotors to cushion the landing, but with no engines running, the rotors stop spinning rather quickly, so timing is everything.  Hence the sim and the practice.  These two boys pull it off very nicely.

And in the simulator at least, it's darn good fun. 

Another lounge

Yet another airport lounge, practicing typing on my new iPad mini. I think I spend an inordinate amount of time in airport lounges, but free Internet, free wifi, free liquor or cappuccinos makes it quite a nice treat. I'd lose the privilege if I fly less than fifty thousand miles in a year, but not much worry about that in the near future. The blues pumping through my headset has my head shaking and toe tapping, with the business travellers looking at me in disdain; my worn African sneakers and faded blue jeans, Indiana Jones leather "satchel", and everyone else in these uncomfortable and expensive looking suits, pouring over the financial pages of the Wall Street Journal. I'm sure they are far richer and successful than I'll ever be, or least well on their way, but I can almost guarantee, I'm having more fun.

Homeward bound, for a few days at least.

A bunch of lives...

Yet another certificate with my name on it.  Agusta Westland AW139 Instructor on Simulator, or IOS.  Former simulator instruction courses involved watching another instructor instruct, as he pointed out what he was doing, and eventually we'd swap seats and I'd run the show and he'd help out, and in time, he'd cut me loose and I'd be on my own.  This was simulator time totally dedicated to me running the sim.  No student.  Although one of us would often reach up front to engage autopilots or engine controls, or even hop in the seat and try to fly through a full stuck right pedal or single engine overshoot utilizing the limitations of the autopilot.  To say I was having fun would be a massive understatement.  I love this shit.

But then back at the Hilton, still struggling to sync iclouds and google drives and sort files, I opened my calendar and noted the days at home were few and far between.  With my six weeks off, I had spent better than a week in Italy, and a full week here in Newark.  I had made the most of it, but I am missing home.  I thought I'd be home for a full two week after this but it's barely ten days, then I'm back to Tanzania and my life there.

I look back and see the stages of my life and each is so different.  My youth with my folks of course, my first jobs throwing hay bails and driving tractors on the farm, highschool, days of homelessness nestled in the mountains of Jasper, washing dishes and struggling to get by, actually stealing bread to feed myself, then living back at home and working construction to pay for a pilots licence (okay, keep me in beer money while my folks paid for my pilot's licence), the early days of bush flying with Bell 47's, the old bubble helicopters from M.A.S.H., my years in Northern Quebec fighting forest fires and moving mineral exploration drills , my years as an EMS pilot in Northern Ontario, my stint of EMS in downtown Toronto, whipping into scene calls on the 401, flying Bandage One to rooftop heliports downtown, and watching myself on the local news nearly nightly, to the venerable S61 days out of Halifax, day/night flying two hundred miles out into the North Atlantic with a non-deiced, non-autopilot equipped helicopter flying five hour IMC sorties returning to ILS approaches at min fuel to hundred foot ceilings and a quarter mile visibility, then the Super Puma and instructing in Norway, equipped with an anti-ice system so proficient we were often launching and returning in full on blizzards and refueling and heading back out into the melee, eighty knots winds be damned, and then losing the contract and heading into off into the world with the International touring pool.  Each stage not defined so much by the job I had, but by the place I lived and people I worked with, and each so different from the stage prior, it's own memories and regrets and pleasures.  I included the line in one of my songs "I've lived a bunch of lives, better believe me" and I meant it.  What life next?  As I stated in an earlier post; ".....the unknown is where things start getting interesting."  I'll keep plugging along, but if things change, if there's yet another life out there for me, experience has shown, we humans have an uncanny knack of adapting.  Bring it on.

New Toys....

Ever wonder why "guy stores" and magazines are full of electronic gadgets?  We love the stuff.  Pilots probably even more so, as we are quite literally living our childhood dream, and have never quite giving up on the concept of playing with toys.  As the guys get together for supper in any corner of the world, most dinner conversations revolve around someone's latest and greatest Smart Phone, at least until well into the third round and the wildly exaggerated "there I was..." stories start to flow. 

But back to the toys....

First came the Palm Pilot, and pilots everywhere were using them as the first ereaders, flight planning tools, currency calculators, maps and navigators, whatever you could get them to do...and with every new nuance in technology, there we were.  Someone would show up at base with the latest and greatest, pontificate it's virtues, and next tour, everyone but the odd curmudgeon would have one.  I decided to get off the train for awhile, but it was not to be.  The company I'm now with (fifteen years and running) has fully embraced the ipad.  We use it for everything.  All the aircraft manuals, operation manuals, equipment manuals, charts, checklist, approach plates, weather and notams, flight planning, weight and balance, scheduling.....is all done with ipads we carry in the cockpit, synced to the company's main server so everyone stays on the same page.  I do miss the huge old leather pilot bags we had to carry, full of huge worn leather bound manuals with coffee stained pages falling out, multitudes of colourful maps breaking on their folds, covered in pencil and ink marks from previous adventures, equipment manuals that have been carried for years but have probably never been touched and looked as new as the day we got them, some still in their plastic packaging, old stapled together cheat sheets that every pilot makes up on weather days then forgets, sick bags for weak stomached passengers on rough days, plus old batteries and cables, broken pencils, leaky pens and gum wrappers.....I miss the old dinosaurs, but I am slowly changing teams.  As a TRE, who has taken living out of a suitcase to a new level, I've finally broke down and bought myself an ipad mini.  It's presently streaming some old Fleetwood Mac blues, the old Peter Green/pre-Stevie Nicks blues, through a blue tooth connected travel speaker, and I'm struggling to consolidate my files, stripping down to the bare minimum of required information, syncing to online clouds, backing up and organizing my music, trying to figure out a new log book and how to get my 11,000 hours into the thing with a minimum amount of work, writing my blog, chatting on Skype...

...playing with my new toy.

Play ball!

I was up well before dawn this morning, driving into the AW139 simulator in Newark bright and early, thankful for the clear skies, after the drizzly late night drive from the airport to my hotel just a few hours prior, arguing with the car's GPS the entire route and taking a few wrong exits.  I prefer a map.   Feeling like a horse with blinders on, you are kept slightly off kilter when given only the next upcoming turn, as opposed to the bigger picture one gets from navigating off a map.  Besides lacking "the big picture", it leaves one scrambling if the GPS should ever fail, perish the thought.  I did get there eventually and managed a little bit of sleep.  Sim time is at a premium and you take what you can get, which is often the wee hours of the morning.  I am here in New Jersey to learn to run the simulator for the Agusta Westland AW139, so I can give yearly check rides to other pilots, give type endorsements, etc..  Having run the Super Puma sim in Stavanger Norway for years, I was pretty comfortable running "the box" but I needed to learn the software and interface of this particular unit.  This unit is generations newer than what I'm used to, but the interface is intuitive, and things move along at a good pace.  What I didn't expect was to be finished not long after eleven in the morning, with the sun shining bright, the warmest day yet of spring, and New York just a half hour drive away.

Luckily a good buddy from South Africa showed up fresh from Johannesburg.  We had met in Tanzania the year prior, and he mentioned he'd never been to a baseball game, and a quick check on his iphone showed a Boston Red Sox vs. the New York Yankees game in two hours, at Yankee Stadium.  The Season Opener no less.  You can't get much more classic than that!  Forgetting the nap I had planned, I'll sleep plenty when I'm dead, we head off towards Brooklyn, trusting that damn GPS once again, New York traffic a nightmare, a few wrong turns, finding parking in the mayhem, hiking thirty minutes, only to find the game sold out long before we even came up with the idea.  As we lamented our fate over beer in a nearby pub,  we found some ticket hawkers, or rather, they found us, and next thing you know, we're watching the game, beer in hand, sitting in the sun, in Yankee Stadium......another box ticked.  I apologize to all you baseball fans, but it's not the most exciting game, and we spent more time watching the crowd.  It looked like a great number of the boys were out more for the socializing and beer.  Leaving before the multitudes of unhappy New Yorkers, as the Yankees were far behind, we put the GPS away and trusting our pilot senses, just head South.  Greenwich Village not more than twenty minutes later, we find some artsy little Spanish restaurant and tell stories of daring doo over more beer and a fine meal......not a bad day at all.