The Logbook: 0.0-0.7 hours

This is the first in a series of posts chronicling my journey through flight training. I hope you all enjoy reading about it as much as I enjoyed doing it!

Every pilot owns a logbook.

I was taught, by previous examples as well as articles and books, to write as much information into the logbook as you can possibly fit.

Though serving mostly as a legal record of aviation accomplishments and experience, a logbook is more than that: once the actual flight fades from experience to memory, the logbook becomes the only record of the flight.

When my Bride and I were planning our wedding, we discussed the flower situation. Our conclusion was to purchase silk flowers.

We reasoned that in many years, long after the ceremony and the reception, long after the real flowers had wilted and died, the things that would be left from that time would be the pictures.

And when we looked at the pictures, after those many years, it would not matter much whether or not our flowers were real. What would matter was the pictures. Honestly, you can't even tell the flowers weren't real anyway.

So as I went through flight school, I wrote as much as I could about the flight, weather conditions, what I practiced, what my instructor and I did, where I went. Because after some long years, all that would be left from that time would by my logbook.

Ernest Gann wrote an entire book based mostly on his logbook notes and other notes of his many hours aloft. It's called Fate is the Hunter, and it's well worth reading, even if you're not all psychotic for airplanes.

For what it's worth, here is my pithy, nearly empty logbook, laid out flight by flight. 68.2 hours of my life, in mostly hour and a half chunks.

The first flight in my logbook was one of the shortest, at .7 hours. I had called Adam, my flight instructor, the previous week, and said that I wanted to learn how to fly. He took all my information, and scheduled me for an introductory flight.

When I showed up at the field, imagine my surprise when he told me to climb in the left seat.

"Really?"

"Well, that is where you fly it from." he said. "You said you wanted to learn to fly."

Adam had to pick something up in Grand Haven, so it worked out that he took me along for the ride.

It was a clear, calm day, perfect for spring and perfect for flying. Adam spent the time quizzing me on my aviation experience and history. I told him that I had grown up around airplanes, and that my Dad had taken me up quite a few times as a child. But then I told him to assume that I knew nothing about airplanes, and teach me accordingly. He assured me that he does that anyway.

When we landed in Grand Haven, Adam took care of whatever errand he was on, while I looked around in the airport lounge. I had been there a few times as a child, so seeing the building was almost like seeing an old friend. Not much changes quickly at airports, and Grand Haven was no exception. About the only thing really different was a weather computer on the desk in the flight planning room. Even the pictures on the wall were the same, or at least as I remembered them.

It was time to go back now, and Adam graciously let me actually handle the plane more on the way back. I got to call out positions on the radio, and Adam taught me to always call out near the radio towers on GVSU's campus. The towers are close enough to Riverview Airport that every pilot who flies there regularly knows exactly where they are, and can use their position to know where you are. It would become a sort of mantra for me over the next summer: "Riverview air traffic, November One Three Five Three Uniform off the towers, inbound..."

My first landing was fairly decent, although I could feel Adam's feet on the rudder pedals fighting with my inputs, so I don't know how much was me and how much was him.

When we went inside, Adam showed me how to properly fill out my logbook, and gave me advice often read and repeated, "Fill every available space with notes. You'll want to remember this."

He promised to call me and bug me until I scheduled my next flight, but he didn't have to, because as soon as I got home, I did schedule it.



wingnut

Dispatches From the Line MK.VII

With the imminent arrival of cold and snow here in Michigan, I thought it appropriate to resurrect an old series with a look into some of the "finer" points of working outside in a Michigan Winter.

On Winter at the Airport.

I've never been a huge fan of ice and snow. I would choose the hottest temperatures on record in Michigan any day over anything below 40 degrees. I'll take flip flops over shoes or boots any time of the year.

Yet I have found that there is something deep and satisfying about working in the cold, and have felt that for most of my life.

Perhaps it is the knowledge that not many people would willingly go out in such conditions, yet I do. There is the sense that I have answered a question which many do not even ask: I have been tested against the very worst that Michigan has to offer, and have come through relatively unscathed.

When I first started at the airport, I was brought on specifically to assist part time with winter operations. Obviously weather always has a direct impact on any flight operations, yet winter has special conditions that require special attention. I began my aviation career 60 feet above the ramp, open to the snow and the blowing cold, covered in steaming hot glycol, in a bucket just barely big enough for one person. The deice season was upon us, and I found myself in the thick of the snow and cold.

The work was challenging and physical, and I enjoyed it immensely. I still look back on de-ice operations with a mixture of disdain and fondness I can never quite articulate.

I suppose it's mostly because winter always seems to be the season we love to hate. We hate the cold cars, the icy roads, the slush, the salt, the shoveling.

On the flip side of the coin, there is not much more peaceful than the softly falling snow, or much more quiet and reserved as the calm of a clear winter night. The cold air energizes us as it fills our lungs. We can see clearer and breathe deeper.

The always loud and chaotic airport is somehow calmed and hushed by the snow. Even my thick work boots make no noise on the way out to my fuel truck.

Many years ago, Mike and I would share cigarettes and coffee outside as the snow fell around us. It was cold, way too cold for intelligent people to be outside, but we still burned our mouths on the coffee and froze our fingers around our cigarettes. When we would go back in, we had sometimes close to an inch of snow on our heads and shoulders.

I look back on the late nights spent putting airplanes in the hangar. Most times we would start around 8 or 9PM, but some nights we wouldn't be able to start until after midnight. Everyone is tired, nobody feels like being there, but we're there anyway, because it's our job. We look scruffy with all our layers on, like the shop-worn and weather-worn blue collar knuckle draggers we are. Phil never wears gloves, no matter how cold it is. A Carhartt jacket and maybe some overalls is all he wears for the cold. Jeremy has to shave twice a day, but for the winter he grows his massive beard out. It is red and glorious. Clint is wearing a ski mask and goggles with his cold weather gear. I don't know why he's wearing the goggles, but the mask is because Clint probably couldn't grow a beard if he drank Rogaine. Andy's goatee has grown past his collar, and nobody has said anything yet. We're taking bets on when they do.

Then there's me, with all my winter gear on, including my scarf, which is wrapped around the top of my head and across my face, covering everything except my eyes, which are covered by my ski goggles. The correct name for my scarf is a shemagh, or keffiyeh. It might be a bit off-putting to see a person working at an airport wearing something like that, but I have to say, it's probably the best piece of cold-weather gear I have. It's warmer than you think it would be, I can use it as a scarf, or head wrap, or total head cover, or as a hat. Besides that, after winter is over, it goes into my paintball gear box and is used as a towel, sweatband, and neck protection.

Winter forces us to deal with Creation on a personal basis. It challenges us, complicating even the most mundane of activities. It's no longer simply a drive to work. It's a challenge to stay on the road and avoid other drivers. And that's after the driveway is clear to a point where the car can get out of the garage. When one works outside, simple tasks are made harder by the weather. Cold, stiff fingers are hard to move through stiff, frozen gloves. Thick, heavy boots fight through drifts, and a ten-minute walk easily turns into twenty. Machines break, engines don't run well, hangar doors freeze shut.

It is hard to work outside in the winter. But I think the biggest challenge is to accept this season as well as the others, and look forward to the day when we can, once again, wear our flip flops.


wingnut

Take Two Minutes....

Take your caps off.

Find a flag.

Shut your yap.


Consider freedom and it's price.

Consider the fallen world we live in, where Creation groans and the Creator weeps.

And promise to end war.


wingnut

In the Beginning....was Ardi. (connections 1)

I've been reading and noting and jotting and scanning and wikipedia-ing for a while now on origins. The Beginning. Genesis. The Big Bang. Adam and Eve. Evolution.

It all started when I was doing some landscaping in our back yard this past summer. My friend Tony and I dug out some old mulch and did some weeding, and then put up a nice retaining wall and filled the space with gravel. Eli was fascinated with the rock pile in our driveway, and began to pick some of the brighter ones out to hand to my Bride and I. All three of us ended up poring over the rock pile in our driveway, no doubt looking rather strange to our neighbors as we picked out fossils, sandstones, granite, quartz, all from the pile delivered to us from Belmont.

It amazed me, that I would be looking at the remnants of a hillside in Belmont sitting in my driveway in Jenison. The hillside in question was formed about 10,000 years ago as the Wisconsin glaciation retreated, leaving all sorts of boulders and rocks and sand and dirt that was further shaped and formed by the Grand River as it moved and eroded the glacial till away to Lake Michigan.

It further amazed me that these rocks themselves were formed when the ground we stand upon was largely underwater in some sort of marine environment, and the shells and fossils I can see were once living creatures at the bottom of this ocean. They were then covered and compressed under different layers of silt and sand, and the whole works became the different strata of rock that we can see as we look at something like the Grand Canyon, or Niagara Falls.

I can't help but get the feeling that whatever time scale is involved, this whole place was prepared just for us...


Last week, an international team of paleoanthropologists went public with their findings on "Ardi", the name they've given to the species they've discovered and researched for 15 years. Turns out, Ardipithecus ramidus, the species in question, is about 4.4 million years old, and is now the oldest hominid yet discovered. What bones and fragments the researchers have suggest that Ardi walked upright, but could still probably swing through the trees with the best of them.

Ardi's dental record is absent of longer fangs, like chimps, gorillas and other primates, suggesting a less aggressive, more cooperative lifestyle not dependant on long sharp teeth and violence to survive.

Her hands were more human-like than ape-like, ready to grasp and use tools when she learned how to make them.

It is far too soon to make any sort of concrete claims as to how Ardi fits into our family tree, but what struck me about this is that the researchers are surprised at how "human" Ardi seems.

It is a far more complex picture than the "us from chimps" story that some would have us believe. In fact, Ardi seems to make the opposite claim: she is more human than chimp. It's more like "chimps from us". As if we were created special, we were given certain traits that then over time manifested themselves in different ways.

Is anyone else hearing Genesis 1 thundering through their head, or is it just me?

We are all connected. To each other, to our history, our environment, our societies and our cultures, to the Creation, and ultimately, to the Creator. I hope to explore these connections in further detail. I don't know how many posts my random jottings will ultimately create, but for now, let's just enjoy the ride.



wingnut

Playing in the Rain

A couple of years ago, a journalist with the Washington Post decided to do an experiment. The question was, would people recognize concert-level performance art if it were slightly out of context?

The journalist contacted Joshua Bell, one of the worlds leading violin players, and asked him to play for just a little while in the entrance to a busy subway station in Washington D.C.

Joshua showed up to play wearing regular clothing, jeans and a beat up long sleeve shirt, and a Washington Nationals cap. His violin was beat up. To the passersby, he looked like any other street musician trying to feed himself.

He played for about 45 minutes, expertly performing some beautiful and complicated pieces. Not many people stopped. At the end of the 45 minutes, he had made about 32 dollars.

(You can read the original article here. Also, here is a later article, as the author responds to various emails and questions about the piece.)

Pastor Rob gave this example one Sunday in a sermon on context.

If we don't pay attention, we could miss things. We could miss the free Joshua Bell concert that's worth at least a hundred bucks a seat, because we don't recognize what's actually going on. Pastor Rob's point was that we miss out on hundreds of these sacred moments each day, and we need to learn how to look for God and pay attention to what He's trying to tell us. We need to teach ourselves to see God's movement in everything.

There is a beauty to this life, even in the subway station. If we move too fast, or don't remember to look, we'll miss it.

When Shan and I were talking about it later, she said the thing that struck her the most is that the children were the ones to stop.

It's rush hour on a weekday morning at a subway station. There's people heading to work, and parents are bringing their children to daycare, or school, or perhaps along with them.

And the kids are the ones who stop to listen. The kids, probably without any sort of experience with classical music. The kids, who would recognize SpongeBob but not Joshua Bell. The kids, who if asked, might say the instrument the man was playing was a guitar or a flute or a trombone.

The children are the ones who stop to listen.

The children, who are not burdened with work schedules or bosses, with budgets and shopping lists, car repairs and school and shrinking paychecks, are the ones who stop to listen.

In our year and a half of parenting, Shan and I have been intentional in our goal to let Elijah do things that other parents might not let their children do.

It's not that we think we're better, it's not that we think we've got this thing figured out at all. We're just trying to give it our best shot.

And both of us feel strongly that we should never make Elijah feel as if he isn't capable of doing something, or that he can never have any fun.

We let him jump on the bed, for crying out loud. Since he was only a few months old, we would play the "Hop" game with him. From a very young age, Eli enjoyed movement. We would take him in our arms and jump around the house, and he would smile and giggle and wave his arms. In the morning, sometimes we would take him in bed with us and do the same thing. Eventually, this evolved into the "Hop" game. When Eli got old enough to support himself, we would hold his hands and make him stand up, then bounce up and down, carrying him with us, all the while singing "Hop Hop Hop!"

Now, Eli does it all by himself. That's right. Not only did we encourage jumping on the bed, we taught him how fun it could be.

A while back, we went outside. We had our front door open, and we were listening to the sound of the rain on our tree and our roof. At one point, it was nearly too loud to talk, the rain was coming down so hard. Eli didn't leave the front door. He stood there watching and listening. Eventually, he reached up for the handle. By that time, the rain had died down a bit, so we went outside. We stood on our front porch and let the rain wash over the gutters and splash at our feet. We put our hands in the stream. Eli put his head in the stream, and laughed when it dripped down his nose. I remember playing in the rain and puddles as a kid, and I want Elijah to enjoy it as well.

Meal times can get pretty messy when you're teaching your child to eat with utensils. One of Eli's favorite meals is spaghetti. So we make it fairly often, and cut the noodles short enough so Eli doesn't choke, and let him go to town. Eventually, Eli gives up on the fork and goes with his hands, and spaghetti gets everywhere. Floor, walls, table, ears, hair, nose, armpits, inside the diaper...It takes longer to clean up than it did to eat dinner.

We're not trying to be the "cool" parents by doing these things. We're not trying to intentionally spoil Eli-we don't let him walk all over us.

We're merely trying to teach him that life is meant to be lived. That there is beauty and joy and good things all around him. That there is beauty in watching a child enjoy a messy dinner. That there is fun to be had playing in the rain. That joy can be found bouncing up and down on a queen mattress.

We do this because we want Elijah to experience life. We want him to stop and listen when he hears music in the subway station. We don't want him to simply walk by on the way to the next thing.

We do this also because it helps us stop and listen as well. Eli's discovery of spaghetti was worth a whole month of bath times for us. Who really thinks spaghetti is that much fun? Jumping on the bed? Who thinks of the consequences when you're kid is laughing so hard he's about to barf on your sheets? Who thinks of going back inside when your child is laughing at every single drop of water running off the roof?

It's about the experience.

It's about life.

Shan told me, "I let Eli do these things so that I don't forget them."

I hope we all never forget.



wingnut