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.

Happy B'day, Rocinante :)

My bike turns four today. It's been a helluva ride, almost 50k kilometers. I'm proud of the fact that she's done more kms on long trips than on the office commute. She's my life and love, my pride and joy, blood sweat and tears and all the other cliches possible. I love that bike.

We've been through a lot together. I've had 28 accidents, for starters. I've been airborne and underwater(and how!) on it, both true stories by the way. Skin was scraped, bones were broken, money was spent on expensive and hard-to-get spares, yet the biking spirit endures. I've been to chennai 9 times, pondicherry and goa 4 times each, shivanasamudram twice and once each to sakleshpur, coorg, bombay pune and ahmedabad. And a hundred other places remain on my list.

I hope to do ladakh some day soon, maybe even another country, though that is a distant dream. If i could, i'd go around the world, in a heartbeat. I've done enough miles to cover the equatorial circumference of the earth, and i hope we eventually cover the equivalent of the distance to the moon. I wanna go to the north east on a wild goose chase to find the elusive sonam kazi. I want to chill with the delhi folks after a ride through rajasthan. I want to see pushkar, jaisalmer and bikaner, probably even make an offering at the biker baba shrine thereabouts.

But above all, I want to say its been a helluva ride. I've seen parts of this country in a way few other people have. I've had the most amazing experiences, hurtling through dusty villages on hot afternoons, racing downhill on the ghats against the sunset, scrambled to escape the clutches of a rainstorm, tasting roadside chai in unlikely places, tearing up and down the highways in what can only be called a pursuit of happiness. temporary and fleeting happiness that disappears when i get to work on monday, yes, but a very important happiness nonetheless. A happiness that helped me keep my head amongst a life varying between the mundane and the insane. And for that, i'm grateful i have this bike, a sport tourer extraordinaire. I'm as much in love with my bike today as i was on the day i bought it.

Someone was dead-on right when they said, "Four wheels move the body, two wheels move the soul"

PS- I secretly christened my bike rocinante a few months after id started touring, in honor of Don Quixotes faithful steed. My pursuits are quixotic after all :)

Also, pratheek sends his wishes :)

I know I've been around planes too long when..

There's a thread running on airliners.net about how aviation creeps into the lives of us airplane fanatics..since i qualify for the title of aviation fanatic (in fact, if it were like real education, i'd probably be a triple phd or something on useless airplane facts), i read the thread with what you can imagine to be great glee. People were posting little things that they did in their day to day lives which were a direct effect of their love for aircraft. Like saying roger, when you want to indicate that you understood something. I have a list of my own when it comes to stuff like that, so i thought i might as well write them down.

My biggest offence is to pretend im flying a plane when i ride my bike. To most people, starting up a bike is a reasonably straightforward deal, especially if they have electric start as an option. But for me, it has to be an elaborate affair, as if i were spooling up a jet engine. i turn the key, pull back on the choke, press the starter button, listen to the engine cough to life, imagine its creating a smoke screen behind me like the rolls royce RB211s on a Tristar, wait for the straining sound that the choke makes, pull back on the choke lever pretending its a lever on my cockpit's throttle quadrant, pull the clutch and put it into gear, and then burn through the clutch in the name of feeling the rpms build up, just like it would when a jet spools up. and then im happy.

well not completely happy, cos then i start making estimations for times of arrival, time enroute, alternate routes (since alternate destination like in an airplane is not possible since im gonna be ending up in offce/home at the end of the ride anyway) etc..and when i have to make tight turns or turn around, i hit the throttle just before im aligned straight with the road, just the way i've seen some captains go full thrust a moment before the plane is aligned with the runway centreline. the thrust straightens out the plane as well as the bike, and i get this incredible rush each time it happens, be it on the bike or the plane. oh, and when a im approaching a traffic light that's turning yellow, i mentally call out V1 (the speed beyond which takeoff cannot be rejected) and gun the throttle and zoom through the light, calling 'rotate' once im through.. and when im caught at a red light and if i happen to be right at front, i perform what i call a carrier take off, building up rpms and then letting go, with the tyres skidding and straining to get me up to speed. Oh, and on the rare occasions that i do a wheelie, i call it a high alpha pass.. and then im happy.

of course, the list doesn't end there, far from it. setting right aviation related misconceptions and mistakes, even when my services were unwelcome, is another angle to it. this includes vigorously shaking my head and then making an explanation to my friends when i spot a mistake in a movie. that we are in a theatre does not matter in the least, nor does it matter that they couldn't care two hoots about what i consider to be a sacrilegious mistake. I mean, it may have been practical for the director to show a small regional jet from the outside yet use a twin aisle plane for the interior shot cos its roomier, but i will have none of that. nor will i stand for it when torpedoes are dropped on the ground or when other such stupid things are done.

aircraft recognition is another of these little habits. each time a plane flies above me, i have to crane up and recognize it. its a compulsion. seeing alone will not do. the very least requirement is a recognition of the operator, type and subtype. its not enough that i recognize its a 737, i keep straining my neck and increasing my chances of spondilitis till i figure whether its a 737-700 or 737-800. and if i catch the registration, especially on my visits to places close to the airport, then the day becomes significantly brighter. and if i spot a rare type, like for instance the day i spotted an Antonov 124 at IGI delhi, delirium ensues..sure, i do figure that it gets a bit annoying for those around, considering they dont share the interest, but this is something a lot of us plane nuts have in common.

what i have found most interesting about aicraft lovers is the passion that is shared. to me, it seems a lot more intense than most of the other hobbies and hobbyists i know. i have seen total strangers bond over their common love for aviation, in a way i havent seen much before. its not quite the same as a love for cars, bikes or comic books, but then that's just my opinion. all i know is that i spend two thirds of my waking hours doing thinking about planes, or doing something related to aviation. if i hear the drone of an engine, i look up. if i have to travel, i'll take the longest layovers to spend more time at the airport. i'd do the 50km ride to bangalore airport on the bike just to see off a friend, when im actually seeing the planes. its a passion, its one that keeps me going, and its one that i dont care if those around me don't share it with me.

it's my little world, one where im supersonic, flying on a flightplan that has no destination, only waypoints.

Addendum : I suppose its ironic that two days after i posted this, ive been moved into non aero work. damn you, recession.. :(