Dima’s Corner

We decided to make it out to the other side of the island today. There is a third-largest underground cave system in the world not far from the town of Arecibo on the west side of the island. Unfortunately, there is a limited number of visitors allowed per day and by the time we got out there (including unplanned wait time for unlocking the car after we left the keys on the dashboard in San Juan) we were unable to get in.

We did not feel too bad since we already had a ziplining adventure scheduled for the next day in this area so we knew we would get to check out some of the caves (and it turned out a much better experience anyway).  We turned around and drove to the world’s largest radio telescope located in the mountains nearby. We got in just before they closed and it was definitely an amazing sight - such a large scale structure - just mind boggling.

Once we got out of the observatory, I called a friend of mine that lives in Arecibo and put together a Boeing 727 simulator in his garage. I met Joe last year at the Boeing 737 weekend class in Houston. He built his 727 simulator by purchasing an actual TWA 727 fuselage and cutting it off just past the first class section. Everything inside is authentic TWA items from seats to food trays and flight manuals. Simulated and real cockpit instruments interface to the Microsoft Flight Simulator with a screen ahead of the cockpit providing a nice outside picture for a very realistic simulation experience.

Unfortunately, we did not have much time since we had to drive out all the way to the east side of the island to go kayaking in a bioluminescent bay, so Joe quickly walked me through a takeoff routine and we called it a day.

We hit some traffic on the way back and were about 30 minutes late for our bio bay reservations, but since we had such a large group, we still had two guides waiting to take us, yey! We jumped in the kayaks and paddled in total darkness up the narrow channel surrounded by mangrove trees. After twenty minutes or so, we reached Laguna Grande, one of the five bioluminescent bays in the world. The organisms in the water literally make it glow when you touch it or paddle through it and it looks even more amazing when the little fish zig zag around making it appear like shooting stars. It trully is an amazing experience.

The rest of my Puerto Rico posts:

• Puerto Rico, day 1 - getting there
• Puerto Rico, day 2 - scuba diving
• Puerto Rico, day 3 - sailing
• Puerto Rico, day 4 - the jungles
• Puerto Rico, day 4 cont - old San Juan
• Puerto Rico, day 6 - Ziplining
• Puerto Rico, day 8 - Flameno beach on Culebra
• Puerto Rico, day 9 - Bacardi tour
• Puerto Rico sights and signs

A group of folks I work with decided to check out a churrascaria (Brazilian steakhouse) at some point and this weekend was it. The closest we could find is Samba in Madison, Wisconsin, about 2.5 hour drive from here. These restaurants are famous for all-you-can-eat style dinner made of many different kinds of meat grilled and delivered to the table whenever you indicate that you want some more. Since it was a long drive for a dinner, I decided to drive up to Madison on Friday night to check out the city as well. I got the full taste (aftertaste?) of the college experience on Friday by staying at the University of Wisconsin dorm and having to evacuate at 2 am in the morning when someone pulled a fire alarm.

On Saturday, I drove out to check out the Cave of the Mounds nearby. It formed over the period of hundreds of millions years and was accidentally discovered in 1930s during lead mining in the area. Since it was discovered fairly late, it was immediately equipped with lighting system and plenty of concrete walkways. So, while some of the sites of formations inside the cave were pretty cool, it felt like it was over “developed”. After visiting the cave, I stopped by at a nearby town for a Norwegian festival to try some of the food, however the only thing I could find were burgers and gyros. Instead, I ran into another guy I work with on the street, in the middle of nowhere in Wisconsin - it is a small world…

It was time to drive out to Middleton for a tour of Capital Brewery there. On the way, I managed to swing by an apple orchard and pick up some apples as well. The brewery tour was pretty good with lots of beer (at least three pints) for only $3. I really enjoyed their Super Club beer which is made with corn and has a very pleasant taste. Soon afterward it was time to go meet up with others at Samba four our dinner feast. Overall, I have a mixed feelings about our experience. I have had by far the best steak I have ever tasted (flank steak) and the cinnamon covered pineapple was delightful. On the other hand, the rest of the meats did not leave up to the hype. Sure, the sausage and tenderloins were good, but not $35 dinner good.

On Sunday, I went to Muscatine, Iowa to get a ride in a Civil Air Patrol glider. This was my second time in a glider and I did not think it would beat my first one flying above the mountains in Boulder, Colorado last year. While the scenery was not nearly as exciting, it was still a lot of fun. We got released at 1900 feet and were able to pick up some good thermals to get up to 4600 feet and fly around for almost an hour with no power whatsoever. Good times!

A couple weeks ago a friend of mine was getting a group of people together to go skydiving. I figured it was about time to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. I was going to do that after I would get my pilot license, but I got my ticket a day before I was moving to Florida so never got to do it (and it was a good excuse). This time I figured no excuses, as SAS moto goes, “Who Dares Wins!”

Since we had a group of people coming, we got a safety briefing and instruction on Friday so we just had to show up, strap in, and go on Sunday. Fortunately, that was not the case - it was a perfect day and there were plenty of people feeling suicidal. We watched a bunch of them jump before us so by the time it was our turn we kind of knew what to expect. I did a tandem jump strapped in front of the instructor. We took off in a Cessna Caravan with another dozen of skydivers, climbed up to about 13,000 feet and then limped out of the airplane. After free falling for about one minute, I pulled the chute at around 5,000 feet and it took us another minute or so to get back on the ground.

I will not even try to describe the feeling while we were free falling. It was a little scary on the climb out, but everyone was so cheerful that it put me more or less at ease. But once the door opened and half a dozen people disappeared, I was just starting to get nervous and the next thing I knew we were out as well. It is definitely a rush on the way down, although a different one from riding a roller coaster or flying a plane. It is “only” one G so after the first few seconds, you do not really feel the pull anymore, except for the overwhelming amount of air rushing into your face that makes you scream more in awe of that power rather than in fear.

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.