crazy, silly, or downright certifiable..

UPDATE : I've been gifted a model of the very same plane that's pictured at the bottom of this post. It's a sort of a dream come true, because I'd seen it 4 years earlier when i had no money, and wanted to buy it. When i could finally afford it, the shop that had it shut down, and i could find it nowhere. Until a dear friend of mine, Rustom Mazda, found one in Italy and gave it to me as a birthday gift. Friends, like dreams, are awesome :)

those that work with me in the same office know that the website airliners.net is an important part of my day. a hangout for aviation enthusiasts worldwide, its my source for a lot of aerospace knowledge on wide ranging topics, be it technology, business or the latest rumours in the industry. plus the simple pleasure or looking through over a million pictures of airliners. and an occasional source of inspiration, it turns out.

i've jokingly told a lot of people that what i want to do when i retire is to buy a small airplane and live near an airport, so i can take the grandkids out for a spin when they come visit me. for the most part this was a silly pipe dream, and not something i meant in entire seriousness. in fact, there were a few more similar dreams that would fall into the same category. but something happened today, that sorta made me look at them afresh.

on one of the forum threads on airliners.net today, someone posted asking how much it would cost to restore a Lockheed L-1011 Tristar aircraft (a plane i love) to airworthy status to be used as a personal jet to transport all his friends to cool places. now, contrary to appearances, this wasn't posted by a juvenile who hasn't lost all his milk teeth yet, but by a forty eight year old graphic designer from new york. he wanted to paint it in a cool livery of his own design, and wanted to take his friends around, partying in the skies. that was his dream. and he just wanted know his chances of realizing it.
what surprised me were the responses. most of them took the dream reasonably seriously, having had similar dreams themselves. some people were chipping in with aircraft acquisition costs, D-check costs, crew and operational costs etc, while others were giving him more realistic options like smaller planes and charter costs for larger planes. there were also outright naysayers, and some skeptics, which i suppose was to be expected.

but one post stood out from the rest, and sorta touched me i guess. i thought i'd share it here. it was by a real estate agent in the USA, who is also an aviation nut, and he said :

"You know, it's fun to dream. When I read the posting I just had to smile. Who amongst us in this forum or on this website has not, at one time or another, had the same dream? Or similar? I used to think it would be so cool to acquire the old Regent Air B727 and fly my friends around to parties and all the happening hotspots. (I'm seriously dating myself referring to Regent Air!) There is also that incredible B757 in Dallas that the Mavericks charter to fly their team, and I think it seats only 63 pax. I'd load it up with all my co-workers and fly us to our annual convention in style. Call me crazy, silly or downright certifiable. I'm in my mid-40's now -- my reality is a house that has two mortgages, a 1995 Corolla with 200+K miles and two somewhat ungrateful cats. And yet, yet, everyone once in awhile my mind drifts to my "happy place" where I'm in my private plane at 30,000 feet (or higher), being served Maker's Mark and soda by my model-gorgeous cabin crew and headed off somewhere -- ANYWHERE -- away from my current reality. Don't get me wrong -- my life is not at all bad, in fact it's pretty effing good. Dreams are free. You keep dreaming, buddy. I think your dream is awesome.

Mike"

call me a sucker for having fallen for a few words, but this made my day, and made me look at my dreams afresh. thank heavens for small joys, eh?

Lockheed L-1011 Tristar V2-LEJ , leased by Air India from Caribjet in the late 90's.

Commence right turn to heading 240.. no, no, no you idiot, i said 'right'.

The last coupla days were pretty big for me, work wise. After waiting quite a while, my training started on the flight simulator. And boy, has it been fun. I did not realize how much I'd missed a classroom until now, and the competitive atmosphere has been great. Add to it our pilot/instructor who is a Boeing fan, who keeps bashing Airbus and pulling my leg for liking them, it gets even better. I've flown simulators before, including one i helped build, but this has been something else entirely.

For starters, its not a half-game half serious affair anymore. Our pilot is a stickler for rules, as he damn well should be, and following proper procedure for everything has been an eye opener. None of the fun barrel rolls in inappropriate aircraft though, sadly. Our simulator is not a full flight simulator, but comes reasonably close to one. The instruments are all there in some form or the other, though at the moment quite a few are inoperable. The first day, we had theory for most of the class, and then got to take a brief spin on the simulator.

I got to fly copilot for everyone else before my turn came in the end, which was cool because i sat in my seat with my disengaged controls and pretend-flew the plane, breaking in between to help with throttle controls and landing gear. This in turn meant that by the time my turn did come, i was pretty good at controlling the throttle, and so was allowed to fly without a co-pilot. Our pilot has a quirky sense of humour which kept us engaged throughout. When one of the chaps made a slow turn that nearly ended in a stall, he reached for the phone pretending to call his wife to let her know that he was gonna die thanks to the imminent crash on the simulator. He botched the navigation instructions for me which resulted in me turning on to finals pretty high, and then when i opted to wrestle the airplane to the ground instead of going around and ended up with a rather hard landing, he said that our resident aircraft carrier pilot has landed the plane, and that the air hostesses would probably sue me for giving them spinal damage. All in all, good fun.

Whats thrilling me the most is the fact that all that i've read up about planes and flying is being put to better use here, and that i'm being able to match theoretical knowledge with practical ability. I was apprehensive about how i'd end up handling the plane, but todays flight removed all such doubts. On the other hand though, it has shown me exactly how much i need to learn. When i selected TOGA thrust for today's takeoff, one engine (No. 2) failed to spool up. The aircraft began moving forward, so i assumed things were going normally, but once thrust picked up on the functional engine, it began to yaw to the right. I did not immediately understand what was going on and had only begun to scan the instruments when our pilot impressively and immediately issued instructions to throttle back and compensate for yaw with the rudder. He had figured in a fraction of a second which engine was at fault, figured out the corrective measures, and issued relevant crisp instructions in the time i had maybe scanned a third of the instruments (of course, he has 20,000 hours real flying experience, i have zero). I followed the instructions, and we avoided a runway excursion. It was humbling, to say the least.

Things went reasonably smoothly after the second takeoff attempt, though. I maintained airspeed and altitude pretty accurately without copilot help, and unlike yesterday, had a better feel for the controls so was doing a much better job of keeping the aircraft attitude as per his instructions. Airspeed is pretty tough to maintain, and he was pretty lenient on us on the first attempt yesterday. He told me i would've lost my license 30 seconds after takeoff if this were a real plane, since i had long exceeded the recommended speed for the flap setting i had chosen. I corrected that bit today, though. The only (minor) glitch happened when my phone started ringing. I had left it in discreet mode for the first time since i've had it, and it produced a beeping sound when a friend called me while i was piloting the simulator. Since i wasn't familiar with the beep, i assumed i was doing something wrong and the simulator was warning me. So, emulating our pilot, i began a scan of the instruments at the precise moment when instructions were issued for me to turn right. And thanks to the distractions, i commenced a left turn, received an earful, and then commenced a right turn.

I had got a bit overconfident by the end of the flight, and wanted to try out a full instrument approach, but was asked, nay, ordered, to do a visual approach. Thankfully, there was less wrestling than yesterday, and i didnt give my virtual air hostesses any room for complaint, it was a decent landing (even if i say so myself). I did miss my ETA by five minutes though, and in real life, that translated to all of us missing the bus that would take us back to our main office.

I emerged from the simulator adrenaline charged, buzzed and happy. It feels nice to be able to meet goals you set for yourself, and I had been psyching myself that I should do good on this training no matter what. Of course, i should add here that i hope i dont go and botch it in the coming days. Navigation and other tough (for me, at least) subjects lay ahead. I wonder, though.. if i'm this happy in a simulator thats not close to the real thing, how the heck would i feel if i (hopefully) get to fly a real plane? The plane would roll to a stop, doors would open, and i'd go out bouncing all over the tarmac in excitement, probably. Or end up kissing the plane in love and gratitude, or do something equally silly. But so far, i'm ecstatic to hear the words 'excellent flying' from our pilot after i completed my flight. Its just the shot in the arm i needed for a flagging motivation level.
TOGA forever!

PS, I've added wiki links to some of the difficult terms in the article above.

On Flight..

I was watching a program on the History channel the other day, about the life and work of Burt Rutan, one of my personal heroes. This triggered another trip down the lanes of aircraft history, and I started reading up on the net, yet again, about various airplanes and their makers and their stories. And I realized that they were people who fascinated and inspired entire generations in their quest to make flight safer and accessible for all of us. They put their lives and fortunes on the line to prove to the rest of the world that what it thought was impossible was merely difficult for these guys. And ironically, all their adventures and risks went to making aviation that much more safer an commonplace for us, that chances are that a kid today wont give much thought to it when he looks up in the sky and sees and airplane leave a contrail across it.

I sometimes like to think, naively or not i leave it to you, that I'm a part of a dwindling group of people still fascinated enough by the whole idea of flight that we decided to go and do something about it. But ironically again, my meagre efforts too would go towards making flight a little bit more commonplace, a little bit less fascinating. oh well..