Eyes

Tucked Away for the Cold Day's Wait

207 NM North Of Saskatoon

FL200

215 Knots Ground Speed

The Northern lights are circling the plane. They are alive and dancing tonight. The stars are bright, showing the paths to the far galaxies. It's smooth and peaceful, the soft glow of the beacon on our wings and the short blue flames off the exhaust is easy on the eyes. Something a pilot has to be careful about. I need to bring my eyes back into the plane, keeping a watchful eye on the instruments, making sure they stay in their monotone state. Not moving. Nothing much is moving in the cockpit, just two sets of eyes and the distance on the GPS, it keeps slowing counting down to our destination.

Waypoints

Looking for a Waypoint

We're slogging away at 16'000 ft enroute to Cowtown. Strong winds aloft are beating us up with over 45 knots on the nose, our ground speed is down to 180ish knots, making the trip from Regina over two hours long. Which is alright now, it gives me time to think and write a little.

Coming out of Regina we were given an intersection waypoint to fly over on our route. Intersection Waypoints are decision to be used with RNAV or GPS equipment, which usually provide waypoints that are more on our route or they can be easy designed because it's just a matter of deciding where you want a waypoint and then just giving the co-ordinates a name. Now the name is what sometimes causes a problem. Generally these waypoints are given a five letter name. I think they pick the five letters out of a hat and then randomly arrange those letters to come up with a name. And yes, that does make for some weird names. Example: MOOSE, DELBR, ONOET, ODGOV, XOXOM, XUKMI... and so on, try and pronounce those?

So usually the first thing a pilot does after hearing the waypoint from ATC (Air Traffic Controller) is try to take a stab at just spelling it out in the GPS. When that doesn't work he/she quickly grabs for the map and starts trying to find a waypoint that sounds about the same, since you sure don't no how to spell it. And then once that doesn't pan out and your hoping you are some how on course still, you finally ask ATC what the waypoint was again and maybe even how to spell it. The smart pilot will ask this question right after he gets the original request. As you got to wonder what ATC is thinking when after five minutes of receiving the request we (us pilots who are trying hard to be smart) have to ask the name of it again. ATC must be thinking, where have they been going for the last five minutes?

Well today we went through that process twice! And on the same waypoint! By the time we got the correct spelling of the correct waypoint we were five miles beyond it and already onto our next waypoint. Luckily our intial vectors from ATC had us heading right for it and we stayed on route the whole time. But still, it made me feel like a pretty poor preformer. But don't worry folks who trust pilots, this won't happen to this old cowboy again. I don't like trying to guess, I like have the facts. And we could have if we would have just asked ATC from the beggenning, and that's what I'll be doing. Sometimes us pilots are a little worried about what ATC will think of us or if we'll annoy them when we have to ask questions, but I know they don't, it's just in our heads.

Anyways, the ground speed has picked up to a 194 knots, that's a little better. We're now estimating the big city in 43 minutes.

The sky is smooth at our present altitude. A high layer of cloud is sheilding us from the bright rays of sun, no need for sunglasses right now.

Riggers

Calgary City Center

1413 Local
105 NM Northwest of Edmonton
FL190
GS 226KTS

It's a gloomy gray all around us, we're in the soup at 19,000 feet. The sun is a dull white ball above and in front of us. 40 miles to the west of us are the mighty Rocky mountains, the broad prairies spread out to the East. But neither are visible as we bump in and out of pockets of turbulance that is being pushed out from the mountains. There are seven strong men behind us, all are sleeping. Finally able to relax after a couple of weeks out on the oil rigs. They are always happier than the guys we bring in, wonder why...

Loading the riggers and all their gear was a fine art of balance... The whole way up to Peace River from Calgary I worked on our fancy little C of G whiz wheel (A nicely designed wheel calculater that lets you easily figure out your airplanes Center of Gravity) to figure out how we could load up all these riggers and their gear. I came out with only one solution. Because of all the gear stored in the rear of the plane, we wouldn't be able to use our rear most seat. Instead, two of the guys had to share the small bench seat at the front of the plane. At least for take off and landing, I let them move around while in cruise, where we weren't faced with any slow speeds. They cooperated real well and didn't seem to be thinking that I was some real weight and balance freak. I appreciate them for making my job easy. The rest of the flight went smooth, well besides the odd pocket of potholes in the airways.

Long Day

The Wind Blowing Hard Across a Hard to See Taxiway

We've just slipped through the gray clouds that are covering nearly all of Saskatchewan today. The sun is near it's setting stages and casting a pinkish speckled glow across the huge sea of stratus cloud. It reminds me of a tropical beach...interesting to say since Northern Saskatchewan is about as far from a tropical beach as you can get, but it makes me feel warm for a moment just thinking it.

We're homeward bound after a long day of many legs, nine to be exact, and one new airport to add to the list. The homeward leg for me is always a relaxing one. We settle into our cruising altitude of 16'000 feet and pull the props back to 1750 RPM. The torque sits at 1500 ft'lbs a side and fuel flow is resting at 300 lbs/hour per engine. Things quiet down and the sheep skin starts to feel overly comfy. It's only a 50 minute leg from La' Ronge to Saskatoon but the early morning and long day has time to catch up with me. The sun is bright on the horizon, the airplanes vibrations are relaxing, the bleed air off the engines is warm and blowing. Not a good combination! I reach back for my last coffee of the day, it's from this morning still, so it should have some kick...

From Cattle to Classroom

The Early Morning Sun Spashing Across the Avionics Switches

It seems like only yesterday that I was running through the fresh snow trying to avoid the large lumps of brown stuff that weren't yet frozen. Waving the remains of an old hockey stick and hooten' and whistling at the slow to move cows. Pushing them into progressively smaller corrals until they're single file down a shoot waiting to get their hides pricked by a big fat needle.

Wait, that was just yesterday! Wow, how quickly your environment changes. The classroom I'm sitting in isn't really one at all. It's a small office that is already near it's maximum pay load just holding a book shelf, a large desk and an even larger flight simulator. Two other pilots are sitting with me on three chairs that are in a semi circle around the front of the instructors desk. The Instructor is sitting forward in his chair trying to see the front of his computer monitor that he has turned towards us, flipping through the pages of his King Air 100's power point.

My mind is working nearly as hard as my body the previous day. My long Christmas holidays have softened my mental powers, not to mention my physical not-so-powers. I've been through this class a few times already, but still my mind is grinding over things forgotten and other things freshly learnt. It's me yearly ground school, soon to be followed by flight training, that I'm hacking away at. It's been a year since I've started flying for a living. Hard to think that after many years of toiling on the ground, I've just completed my first year in the air. The 800 hours that are penned into my log book would have been an amazing feat just two years ago. Now though, sitting next to a ten thousander I feel inexperienced and young. Lot's of more growing to do. That's good though, I'm still flying upwards.