The summer is almost over so my friend Cisco decided to mark this unfortunate event with a pig roast and get-together for the local Latin dance community. We did it Cuban style - the pig was gutted and placed inside a box with hot coals burning on top of the box. This slow roasting was indeed very slow taking about six and a half hours, 18 pounds of charcoal and four big canisters of lighter fluid. While waiting for the meal it was good to catch up with many people I have not seen in a while as well as make some new friends. At the end, it was well worth the wait - the (late) dinner was delicious!
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.
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.
It was the Bastille Day Regatta weekend. It is an annual event at the University of Iowa sailing club where old and new member get together and have some fun on and off the lake. We started out with a race consisting of a couple dozen of MC Scows, FJs, and Lasers. It was my first time sailing a Laser and it was pretty fun. A Laser is the smallest one person boat that we have and therefore it is very sensitive and is very easy to capsize. It was not easy, but I was able to stay afloat and even came in in the middle of the pack during one of the races.
