This weekend I drove down to Kansas City to check out the town and hang out with my friend Fernando who just moved down there. It was a good five and a half hour drive, but, surprisingly, I did not feel too bad after it. I checked out KC couchsurfing group and they happened to have a monthly meet up that night so we joined them at Harry’s Country Club (which is not really a country club but a nice small bar with lots of different foreign beers). There were at least a dozen and a half people swapping travel stories and just hanging out. Afterward we walked around the downtown and checked out the Power and Light district, one of three hip places to hang out in town.
On Friday, we hit up another one of the three places to hang out - the Plaza. It was a more trendy area than the bar scene at the Power and Light district. Another couchsurfer, Melissa, took us there after grabbing some pretty decent sushi at Kato. First we hit up reVerse, a trendy joint, where Melissa’s roommate joined us and afterward we walked over to Fred P Ott’s for a more casual atmosphere.
I could not make it out for the Air and Water Show in Chicago last year so I made sure to go and check it out this weekend. I met up with a few couchsurfers at the restaurant at the top of Hancock Tower to grab some food and watch the show. Unfortunately we were seated on the other side of the building, away from all the action. After we were finished with our way overpriced buffet, we strolled along the Lakeshore Drive past the North Avenue beach to the Linkoln park. There we finally settled down and watched the rest of the show with some more people. We got to see performances by and Aeroshell and Lima Lima aerobatic teams, the Leap Frogs and the Golden Knights parachuting teams, Air Force’s F15, F16, and A-10 and of course the Thunderbirds.
Once the show was over I walked back to the Navy Pier, had some ice cream and rode a bus back to the Millenium Park. From there I walked over to Exchequer to have some pizza. Since I still had an hour to burn, I decide to ride the L - the famous elevated subway system in downtown Chicago which I saw in the movies while growing up. It was not anything too special, more of sentimental value I guess.
On Sunday Tommy and Justin drove over and we hit up Six Flags Great America theme park. Right away we got in line for the Superman ride where you are riding facing down as if you are flying, similar to Mantrawe rode at Seaworld. The ride was good but it took us an hour and a half in line so once we were done we went out and got ourselves a flash pass so we can skip the lines for the rest of the day. Right away we jumped on the Iron Wolf, a stand up coaster, followed by a 200 foot drop on the appropriately named Giant Drop. Next it was time do go for a few loops on the Demon.
Unfortunately, our luck ran out at that point and it started to rain, shutting down the coasters one after another so we spent the next half hour wondering from one end of the park to another in a fruitless search for a ride. We ended up riding the American Eagle wooden coaster and finished up with the indoor Dark Knight Coaster, neither of which I liked very much. On the way home our GPS decided to take us on a more scenic route across northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin which was a thrill ride of its own, especially after the sunset.
As a Christmas present to myself, I signed up for the Airline Training Orientation Program (ATOP). In a nutshell, it is a quick one day crash course covering the Boeing 737-800 systems followed by some hands on practice on a flight training device and the Level D flight simulator at the Continental Airlines training center in Houston. Due to its popularity, I did not get a slot until the end of July when I signed up in December. Finally, this was the weekend to do it!
There were eight of us in the class, some current pilots, some that have not flown in a long time, and a dad/son pair from Puerto Rico that were not pilots, but have built a full Boeing 727 simulator basically in their garage, complete with either original or Boeing manufactured parts. We spent the entire day in the classroom going through each system on the airplane including normal and emergency operations, flight deck flows and checklists. It trully felt like we were drinking getting hosed from a fire hose - even during the lunch we were going over the ATOP flight profile we would be executing later in the simulator.
After we were done with the theory part, half of us jumped on a wooden replica of the flight deck with a few switches and leverels and pictures in place of the rest of the instruments and buttons. We used the Wooden Indian to practice the flight profile we would be doing in the simulator later. The purpose of the device is for the crew to get used to the location of the equipment and go through the appropriate call outs. The flight profile essentially was a takeoff from San Francicso runway 28R, climb up to 4,000 feet, turn downwind and shoot an ILS approach back to 28R executing a touch-and-go on the runway, followed by another ILS approach. This would give each one of us a chance to fly as the captain and as a first officer - trully two different experiences.
After an hour we switched with the other group and jumped on the flight training device that had the real flight deck setup but no outside or motion simulation. We used the FTD to practice our preflight and start up sequence flows. As we were taught, 80% of getting the aircraft ready is setting all the switches and knobs that could be set to AUTO to that setting. The other 20% comes from fiddling with the rest of the switches until all the amber lights extinguish on the flight deck. Pretty simple, eh?
Next day it was time to get down and dirty and log some time in the Level D sim. It is a full motion aircraft simulator that also provides video simulation of the environment outside the airplane. It is so real that the pilots can be (and most are) type rated to fly the airplane without ever flying the actual thing. The saying goes that the first time a Continental pilot flies a real 737 is when there are 150 people strapped in behind him. At $800 per hour it is not cheap, but still is much, much cheaper than flying the real thing.
My training partner Darrel was the first one to fly as a captain from the left seat. I was the first officer manning the right seat. There is a simple division of responsibilities between the pilot flying and pilot monitoring - PF flies the airplane, PM does everything else including taking care of the majority of tasks when there is an anomaly or an emergency. Right off the bat, on climb out, I had to deal with a failure of the right engine driven hydraulic pump. That was followed by a wheel well fire.
Once Darrel’s time was up, we switched seats and now I was the pilot in command of the 150,000 pounds of parts and people rushing down the runway. As we accelerated past eighty knots, the engine fire alarm went off. Since we were below V1, I called for aborted takeoff, cut the power and got on the brakes while trying to keep the aircraft moving down the centerline. At the same time, first officer Darrel was busy contacting the air traffic control and extinguishing the engine fire while being hustled by the instructor. Here is the video of this ordeal taking from the back of the simulator:
After we changed into a set of dry underwear and reset the simulator, we were on a climb out when the right engine decided to quit. Those 150,000 pounds do some funky things when there aint no more power on one of the sides. However, thanks to the auto restart technology, we had the bad boy back up and running momentarily. My landings were nothing to write home about. The picture from the 737 filght deck sure looks different than when I fly a Skyhawk resulting in a late flare and associated jumping down the runway. My session finished off with an ILS category III auto landing with 50 feet visibility. At least that one was right on the needles
While in Houston, I met up with two groups of couchsurfers and their friends. First, we got together at Beaver’s on Friday with Marsha, Ana, John, and many more people. It was a good time spent talking about traveling, salsa dancing, tasting some Texas BBQ and just having a good laugh. On Sunday after the sim I met up with Maria, Frank, Liz and their friends for a tour of the Beer Can House and a quick burrito lunch at the Freebirds before I had to get on my way back to the airport.
After meeting up and staying with many couchsurfers during my european trip, I got my first request to host someone at my place. Andi contacted me a week ago asking to surf my couch while he spends a couple of days in the area. Originally from Germany, he has been traveling around the United States since December and has literally been to most of the states coast-to-coast. Since this is something I want to do myself hopefully sooner than later, I was eager to help him out on his quest.
Andi came over on Tuesday and we went out to grab some dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings with Zach. Not surprisingly, Andi had a lot of interesting stories to share so it was a good time. On Wednesday, I took most of the day off and we went to Amana Colonies. We checked out the Amana Furniture and Clock shop, a souvenirs store and then had a hearty lunch at Brick Haus. By then it was time to head back to catch the UEFA finals game. Afterwards, Andi came with me to our soccer game and we rounded up the day watching the Head of State.
In the morning I took the bus back to the airport and met up with Peter who was nice enough to let me tag along with him to do some plane spotting at Schiphol. Early on we were able to catch a plenty of departures from Polderbaan east spot. It is located half way down the runway so the birds rotated right in front of us. Once again I wished I had a better camera especially with another two dozen people around me with telescopic lenses. Plane spotting is really big there, there were a few families out with kids and lawn chairs just enjoying the weather and watching airplanes.
After the morning departure rush we decided to go to another spot at Kaagbaan to catch some arrivals but by the time we got there, they switched the runway configuration once again and there were no more birds coming that way. Disappointed, Peter took me to the Aviation Megastore model store near by. And megastore it was - pretty much an entire warehouse filled with tons of models, aviation books, magazines, pilot supplies and so on.
We cooled down at the model store and went out to the east corner of the airport to watch the arrivals but once again they switched the configuration a few minutes after we got there. The planes were still pretty high at that point so I did not get any good pictures there. Soon we were heading over to a spot right next to the taxiway that goes to Polderbaan. There we were pretty much right next to the birds so the most of my good pictures came out of there. We spent a good chunk of time there shooting everything that came in - from Fokker 50s to a number of 747s. What really got me thou was that pretty much all the pilots taxiing by had their windows open and waving to the crowds taking the pictures or just watching there. I thought that was a really nice touch.
It was time to leave afterward Peter dropped me off at the terminal and I took the bus back to my hostel. I went out and shopped for some souvenirs and then met up with Gertjan, another couchsurfer. We had a quick dinner and unfortunately I could not join them for a party afterward since I was starting to feel pretty sick. I went back to the hostel and packed up. It was going to be a long day tomorrow.
This weekend I drove down to Kansas City to check out the town and hang out with my friend Fernando who just moved down there. It was a good five and a half hour drive, but, surprisingly, I did not feel too bad after it. I checked out KC couchsurfing group and they happened to have a monthly meet up that night so we joined them at Harry’s Country Club (which is not really a country club but a nice small bar with lots of different foreign beers). There were at least a dozen and a half people swapping travel stories and just hanging out. Afterward we walked around the downtown and checked out the Power and Light district, one of three hip places to hang out in town.
