Tuesday, October 26, 2004

10/26/04

Howdy. Slaughter something and throw a big party. The prodigal blogger returns. I think I should start with some highlights from the last few months. I flew an average of about 75 hours a month from July through September. So far the weather in October has sucked though, and the end of daylight savings time is just around the corner, which will cut out any daylight in the after-work hours. Alas, I may be blogging and playing silly songs at open mike nights full time soon. Right. I have been playing a few open mike gigs here and there just for fun. My folk/acoustic version of "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-A-Lot usually gets a pretty good reception. I've also met some truly unique people at these events. The first night I played at a place called The Peanut, there were two large gypsiesque gals doing a vocal duet accompanied by an older guy who smoked little cigars through a thick silver beard and whose eyes slyly peeked out from under a full brimmed hat. Everybody called him "Doc." They were amazing. Truly stirring vocal harmony and Doc is a phenomenal guitarist. After their set, I started a conversation with one of the gypsie gals.

"Your group was great! Do you all play a lot of gigs?" I asked.
"Nah, we used to do some, but now we all sort of have other things going on..."
"Really, what do you do for a living?"
"I read cards and make jewelry," she said matter of factly, tilting her head back and running her fingers through her thinning hair. I thought she had said "I write cards."
"Like greeting cards?" I asked naively.
"No, Tarot cards. I'm a psychich. I have a booth!"
"Oh, right on," I said somewhat sheepishly. End of conversation. I didn't have any good psychic stories or questions. I felt like anything I might have said at that point would come off as pejorative or condescending. I excused myself and went over to the bar.

Doc walked up to me and complimented my arrangement of "Baby Got Back."
"Thanks a lot!" I said. "So, are you really a doctor?"
"I'm a VooDoo Doctor," he articulated with a firey twinkle in his eye. End of conversation. Normally, I would have assumed that it was a joke, but after my conversation with the psychic gypsie chick, I wasn't going to assume anything.

One of my students ran a plane off the side of the runway on his third supervised solo flight. Caused a little damage, but nothing too bad and he was all right. I have to admit to seeing my carreer flash before my eyes as I watched from the ramp, though. Luckily, I wasn't on board so my name wasn't even in the FAA incident report.

Let's see, there was also the time I was right seat on a charter trip in the Conquest (Cessna's twin turbo-prop). It was my first trip in that plane. As we climbed through 6,000 feet out of Jefferson City on our way to Chicago, I could just about smell the beer I was hoping to consume with my new friend Gerry that night. Gerry is the husband of one of Ashley's coworker friends (who happened to be instrumental in our getting together...). The four of us had gone on a couple of double dates before he took a job in Chicago. When I found out that our passenger needed to spend the night in Chicago, I called Gerry to see if he wouldn't mind rescuing me from the airport motel. To my delight, he happily obliged. I was revelling in the possibilities of exploring a new city with a new friend when I was brought to rigid attention by the illumination of a big red light on the instrument panel. Ominousley, it read "Left Engine Fire." Beer was suddenly the last thing on my mind. I instantly flashed back to the day in my Advanced Aircraft Systems class when we talked about in-flight fire survival. Two and a half minutes, the instructor had made a point to emphasize, was about how much time you have to get a plane down and evacuated. Longer than that and the odds of survival diminish markedly. I looked at the captain expecting him not to have noticed the warning (surely if he had noticed it, he would have sprung into action, right?) But I could tell that he also had noticed the unwelcome annunciator light. He looked mildly perturbed.

"That's not something we were wanting to see, is it?" I inquired half expecting him to begin cursing about "that pesky engine fire light! I thought those mechanics had fixed that!"
"No. No its not what we were wanting to see," I was disappointed to hear him reply instead. Eyeing the left engine (which bore no outwardly visible signs of conflageration), he rocked the wings back and forth in the manner of someone banging the top of a television set in attempt to get better reception. The light persisted. "Find the checklist," he finally conceded. I thumbed through the checklist book to the red tabbed portion and quickly found the checklist for engine fires. He called Center and declared an emergency even though he didn't "think it [was] actually on fire." They cleared us for a descent direct to Columbia, MO as we finished shutting down the affected engine. I heard the fear in my voice as I read back the clearance to the controller. All the checklists had been completed and we were just waiting to get there. I hadn't had time to notice the fear until then. I felt claustrophobic. It was a clear day and fate seemed to be thumbing its nose at me with all the beautiful terrain below me.
"Look at all these safe places you could be!" she seemed to taunt. "Too bad you're stuck up there in that lonely little death chamber!" I didn't really expect to die, but I couldn't help but wonder how the accident report would read if the little engine fire light became a big engine fire. I'd never been aware of my sense of my own future, but in those moments I noticed in that sense the tangible possibility of a dark, empty, void.

As we finally neared the airport, I heard tower dispatch the fire trucks. It hadn't occurred to me that we would obviously have a welcoming party. After the captain made an admirable single-engine landing, tower asked if we wanted to evacuate or taxi to the ramp. I was all for evacuation, but cap'n didn't ask for my opinion and was rightly convinced that there was no immediate danger. To say that it felt good to finally get out of that plane would be like saying that an orgasm feels "okay."

The mechanics discovered upon inspection of the engine compartment that there had indeed not been an actual fire. The problem turned out to be a short circuit in the fire detection loop encircling the engine. Our passenger, mildly spooked, caught another charter flight from Columbia to Chicago, and the captain and I waited for a ferry permit that would allow us to fly our disabled bird back to home base for repairs. It finally came a few hours later, and although disappointed to have missed the opportunity to drink beer with Gerry in Chicago, I couldn't bring myself to complain. Things could have ended up a lot worse; especially since I actually got to fly the airplane on the part 91 (non-charter) flight home which meant I got to log some twin engine, turbine time. On the way home, I wondered how many times we used up our two and a half minutes while dealing with the perceived emergency earlier that day. If we'd had further confirmation of a fire, we probably would have put it down sooner, but the experience definitely made me realize how quickly things can happen in an emergency. I'm very glad to have had the experience. I had always wondered how I would act in that sort of situation and now I know that I can stay calm and think clearly through heightened awareness and fear.