Closing a circle...

The end of my first week of being un-retired for the third time, and this time it is serious. It has been about 13 years since I last went through indoctrination at a new company. No one actually calls it “indoctrination” anymore. Instead it is “indoc,” which sounds a little less 1984 Big Brother-like. In fact it has been rather interesting, going around to various departments to get the low-down on what part they play in the business of helping professional aviators be even more profession still, and how what they do intertwines with what I am going to be doing. As in many things “aviation” there is a whole army of people behind the scenes making possible what pilots or (in this case) instructors, do. We (pilots and pilot instructors) get to launch and strut our stuff for all to see and admire but, without that support staff, we would be talking to empty caves while scratching lessons on the wall with a rock.

Not exactly Kintala's cockpit...

Things have changed a bit since the last time I joined a big company. “INDOC” now includes a long list of subjects addressed by computer-based training. The longest and most detailed instructions explore the areas of workplace harassment, cyber security, document security v privacy, protecting trade and military information and, as one can imagine in this post 9/11 world, preventing bad guys from using advanced simulator training to learn how to crash airliners into buildings. A lot of people clearly put a lot of effort into preventing such a ghastly affront from happening again. Instructors are the last line of defense, but its hard to imagine anyone getting anywhere even close to the classroom, let alone a sim, with such evil intent. Everyone on the planet, except the bad guys, should feel pretty good about that.

The sections on harassment and protecting private information could pretty easily be summed up the words of Confucius. “Surely the maxim of charity is such: Do not unto others what you would not they should do unto you.” I know the Christians claim this one for their own, and that’s fine. But it seems pretty likely that they borrowed it from the Stoics, who likely borrowed it from Confucius…who likely borrowed it from someone now lost into history.) In today’s world the training on work place harassment and protecting private electronic files took up most of a morning. It seems a pretty sad state of affairs when so much emphasis is needed for something we should have all learned in kindergarten, “Don’t be a putz.”

All in all I am finding the transition back into a world I once knew so well, but have been away from for a while, smoother going that I had feared. Some regulations have changed, some procedures are different then they were. I am getting used to driving once again, and now expect at least one person to try and wreck into me on each commute. Keep an eye out, dodge as necessary, and all is well. Seconds later all is forgotten, just another day on a St. Louis road.

It also turns out that one of the instructors working in the same program I am about to join was, once upon a time, a student of mine when I worked at a University. I gave him his initial introduction to high altitude and turbine operations. Now he is a five year veteran at FlightSafety and fully qualified Sim instructor on the Legacy 500. In fact he may end up training / checking me out in that airplane. Which I think ranks pretty high up there on the, "How cool is that" chart.

Talk about closing a circle.

Cockpit time

One of the real joys of living on a boat, at least for me, is time spent sitting in the cockpit. The best cockpit time is evening and night while riding to the hook in a quiet anchorage. Mornings are good too, though I am not normally much of a morning person. The boat moves gently, pitching and rolling easy, swinging slow to light winds and changing currents. With a bit of luck dolphins or manatees will wander near while pelicans wheel by in close formation, wingtips just off the surface. If the water is clear enough to see the bottom, one has the feeling of floating above the earth and resting off the shore at the same time. After a few minutes the boat itself gets absorbed into and becomes part of the scene, then the cockpit, then its occupant. My guess is that land dwellers spend a lot of money on pharmaceuticals and counseling, or a lot of time sitting in bars or cathedrals, or all of the above, seeking just a hint of what one can find sitting in a cockpit of a sailboat, resting easily in the world.

In these parts though, there hasn’t been much cockpit time the last few months.

Except for the occasional passing hurricane / tropical storm / tornado, this summer has passed as still, hot, and humid. There was a day or two where it was just barely comfortable enough to sit in the cockpit at the end of the work day and down a cold beer. But even on those days a cool shower called and, soon enough, the insects would go looking for their evening meal. Florida can be a tough place to live in the summer when one is living this close to nature and filling the cruising kitty by working outside. Except for the time spent riding out Irma on the hard, Kintala has spent the last many months hemmed in, surrounded by pilings, with a boat tied close to her starboard side and a dull gray metal shed inches from her port side. There isn’t much to see, looking out of her ports.

This morning dawned just a bit cooler, with a breeze blowing hard enough to keep the insects grounded. Our neighbor to starboard left for a sail down to Key West, where they plan to spend a couple of days. No one has moved the shed, but it does help block the afternoon sun. If I hold my head just right, looking aft and slightly to starboard, the binnacle blocks the view of the nearest piling, it is a good several hundred feet across the basin, and the occasional pelican soars past. The local family of manatees poke their noses out of the water, blow and snort, and drift back down to the bottom to do whatever it is that manatees do to pass the time. There is no seeing the bottom and the boat moves gently right up until one of the mooring lines checks her up but, hey, I’ll take what I can get.

Though future plans are still vague, next week we will be heading out for a couple of weeks of visiting in St. Louis. The hope is that, once we return, the Florida summer will have broken enough that the air conditioning can be removed from our deck. It will be November after all. Friends north are already talking about freezing temperatures at night and daytime highs in the 50s. With the last of the hurricane season fading away (hopefully), we can bend on the sails as well. Kintala will be a sailboat once again, and Tampa Bay is just a around the corner. There is no reason we can’t spend a few weekends out there. Maybe more than a few, depending on how long we end up staying on this side of the state.

Find a little quality cockpit time.

And rest a little easier in the world.