A whisper from the past

I walked away from aviation when we moved onto Kintala. Something that, for most of my life as a pilot, I could never have imagined doing. (Aviation was, at least for my generation, more of an affliction than a career choice.) For the first several months I looked up whenever I heard a motor of some kind overhead, usually able to name the class of aircraft, and often the exact model, just from the sound. As the years of cruising passed, those looks up grew ever less frequent. Being a pilot was something I was once, a period of my life that had ended.

Life unfolded as it will, and we ended up back in St. Louis, me collecting shillings by working in a full flight simulator for one of the world's most sophisticated civilian jet—a simulator bolted solidly to Mother Earth. No medical was required and all the associated paperwork needed to gain permission to teach aviation once again was handled by the company. After a couple of years the idea of doing a little contract flying in the jet came up. With a First Class medical in my pocket, once again I did a couple of flights. It felt good to be back up in the Flight Levels, but it was also just part of the job. I am a better instructor for having flown the actual aircraft in its designed environment and, at the same time, a few more shillings got added to the bank account. But that is as far as it went. First Light had been acquired and real plans had started coming together for getting back on the water. Indeed, less than a month remains before I hand my flying "stuff" back to the company and head east for big water once again. Flying, simulated or actual, will not be a part of that life. Something that is of little consequence. I am far more concerned with the idea of being away from grand kids than I am with being away from the Sim and a little contract flying. 

But then one of the grand sons started talking about, maybe, getting a pilot's license to go along with his anticipated Coast Guard Captain's license. Grampy T is a pilot and a flight instructor; any chance an introduction ride in a light airplane could be arranged before we headed off again? 

And so it came to pass that I found myself sitting in the left seat of a two-seat Cessna 152 belonging to a local flight school. Next to me was one of their instructors who, I suspect, was not particularly pleased to find himself sharing a cockpit with a dinosaur lugging log books showing 12,000+ hours of flying time and holding a couple of  licenses festooned with multiple ratings. Old pilots have a well-earned reputation of being a bit cranky when it comes to taking flying advice from those half their age. There is no doubt I now fit that description. 

But I wasn't convinced all that time and all those ratings would matter much to the little Cessna. One thing this old pilot has learned is that no one is the ultimate expert in anything. Everyone has something to teach and, more importantly, everyone still has something to learn. More then a decade has passed since the last time I taxied a light, single-engine piston banger toward a runway with the intent of taking flight. Worse, I had not really thought about actually going flying this day. We were just out checking options. Absolutely none of the prep work involved in any kind of flying, even just a short hop for fun, had been done. I had nary a chart with me and I had to ask for the proper radio channels to get the current weather as well as taxi and tower clearances. As we went through the pre-flight procedures I was as clear as I could be with my instructor.  I was beyond rusty. He could not hurt my feelings or make me mad in any way, and that I expected some honest criticism about my performance as I expected to deserve it. He relaxed a bit after that and off we went.

As we started moving out of the parking spot, it was suggested that I do the run-up on the ramp before calling for taxi clearance to the active runway. Run-up? That's right, magnetos, carb heat, gyro headings, suction, engine oil pressure and temperature; all need to be checked and/or set before attempting flight. We don't do run-ups in the jet. It doesn't have magnetos, carb heat, or suction. The gyros align themselves via GPS satellite signals before the engines are even started. And all of those engine parameters are monitored continuously by a multitude of computers on a continuous basis, said computers sending a visual and/or aural warning message to the pilots if something goes awry. 

I also needed some additional information on proper speeds for lift-off, climb, and cruise. The numbers I got were ridiculously low to my jet-a-fied ears. Lift off at 50 knots, climb at 60? At 50 knots I can't even get the jet's nose wheel off the ground. (If I happen to be following a SouthWest 737 down the taxiway, we are likely going near that fast just getting to the runway.) The jet's auto-brake function for an emergency abort doesn't even arm until 60. Then I asked for the proper flap setting for departure, sparking an odd look from my instructor. The little Cessna doesn't use flaps for departure...something I once knew many, many moons ago, but had forgotten.

I managed to find the end of the runway without being embarrassed, though it was odd to feel the little airplane shudder and sway in the light wind. Once cleared for departure I pushed the tiny (and only!) throttle knob toward the instrument panel and watched the airspeed slowly build. The jet stores a bit more than 7,000 pounds of thrust in each engine. The little Cessna has all of 110 ponies in its single stable. Acceleration in the jet will push you back in the seat and spill any unattended drinks. The Cessna? My grand kids accelerate faster on their scooters. Eventually the airspeed indicator showed the required number and I attempted to leave Mother Earth, finding the control force needed to lift the tiny nose wheel clear of the ground far higher than that needed on the side stick of a full fly-by-wire 38,000 pound jet. I pulled a little harder and...Yee-Haw! Skyward! Just a second or so later I even remembered that the yaw forces involved with levitating little airplanes are controlled with one's feet pushing on the appropriate rudder peddle. A task that remains throughout all regimes of flight. The jet, once airborne? Put your feet on the floor as they will not be needed until landing, unless one needs to walk to the head or to get some fresh coffee. 

We flew south for a little while and did all of those things pilots do in a new-to-them (or long forgotten) airplane. The rust started to flake away as the little airplane showed me steep turns, aerodynamic stalls both power on and power off, and a simulated engine failure / power off approach to a suitable farmer's field. This is not something we practice at the job. If both engines fail in the jet, one is having a very bad day. Setting it down in some farmer's field without doing considerable damage to both the jet and the farmer's crops is unlikely. We do fail both engines in the simulator at 5,000 feet or so after takeoff, simulating a massive bird strike reminiscent of Captain Sully and First Officer Skiles' splash down in the Hudson River. In the Sim, gliding back to a runway is the challenge. Landing in a corn field? Not. All of those maneuvers seemed to go well and I am pretty sure the grin on my face gave away how much fun I was having. Ah, but then it was time to return to the airport and put this little soap-box derby of an airplane back on the ground.

Approach and landing speed were as ridiculously low as those for departure and flight. The visual picture in the traffic pattern was odd. Not only has it been more than a decade since I flew a single engine airplane, this one has the wing on the top, and I was not sitting in the pointy end. Every way I looked had airplane parts in the picture. Check list complete, we turned final and I started searching for the ground.

The first landing was nothing to write home about. I am not used to sitting that close to the tarmac and misjudged the height in the flare by a fair amount. Not enough to have the instructor next to me grab the yoke, but I saw his hand twitch. The second landing went better. And the third? That was the one I was looking for. The little airplane rewarded my efforts with the stall warning horn whispering in my ear just as the mains rolled onto the tarmac. (Stall warning horn? The jet says "LOW SPEED - LOW SPEED" in a scolding female voice and, if one doesn't reduce the pitch attitude, the jet will do it for you regardless of what you do with the stick.)

With two "Okay" landings and one squeaker under my belt, we called it good and taxied back to the ramp. My young instructor allowed as I could take grand kids for a flight without putting them at risk. Back home I logged a "Single Engine" flight for the first time in more than ten years. It is hours later and I am still smiling at flying that little Cessna. I guess there is still some "pilot" lurking in me after all.

Legacy 550 from Embraer, the plane Tj instructs in

Unexpected turns…

Deb's post explains what happened. Kintala will soon be for sale and we are land bound. Really, really land bound. St. Louis is about as far from big water as is possible to be. Our cruising life has hit a bit of an impasse and some very hard decisions had to be made.

Those who know me know that selling the boat isn't much of an issue. Kintala has been our home for a while now, a part of our adventures, and served us well. With much effort we have transformed her into a good and dependable tool for living the life we wanted to live. I expect a good whack of depression when stepping off her decks for the last time. Not from stepping off the boat, but from stepping away from the life - even if just for while - that we worked so hard to build. My Grandfather once told me, "Never cry over anything that can't cry over you." There will be other boats.

I'm still coming to terms with the idea that we would do such a thing but, quite frankly, this opportunity came at the exact right time for us to manage some changes that need to be made. Kintala has been a good boat. Just shy of being an outright racing boat, she did the job of teaching us to sail well rather than just well enough. Being neglected for part of her life and needing a ton of work, she also did the job of teaching us how to keep a sailing boat going, mile after mile, year after year, adventure after adventure. In that light she was likely the perfect boat to get us going. But she was never the right boat. Now we can get her sold without facing financial ruin if she sells slow, piling up the storage fees. We will have a place to live while working though the selling process, and a steady income to cover the (un)expected boat costs sure to raise their hoary heads over the next few months.

Realizing that replacing Kintala would be fundamental if we were to continue cruising happily along was one reason to do this. Another reason, as Deb explained, is that we are just about out of working cash to keep going. Ideas and efforts to "pay as you play" were not promising. I didn't much enjoy being parked at a dock while working full time. It might have been different if the boat yard had been less isolated or we had owned a car. But it was a hard time for me, not at all what I imagined my life would be like when we left to go "cruising." I'm not sure I would have managed it at all except that Daughter Eldest and Family joined us, ending up on their own boat. That we have to leave them is the only real down side to this opportunity,  and it was nearly enough to have me take a pass. Every life gathers a few moments that are impossibly tough, the kind that leave an actual hurt where your heart usually resides. Leaving Blowin' In The Wind in our wake was one of those moments for me.

This foray back to shore will be different from when we lived there before because we are different people than we were when we left. Happy minimalists now, just the idea of a life weighed down with stuff makes us shudder. Also, living on a boat is just a very small step from living outdoors. I fear having sunrises and sunsets hidden behind walls of concrete, with the night sky whitewashed by the city's glow and the moon barely visible, will chafe at my heart. I know that memories of nights spent at anchor in the Islands will haunt the dark hours when the noises of the city drum against the windows and sleep is hard to find. Memories of clear water and dolphins at play will intrude while sitting in the break room or preparing for another classroom hour. They will be good memories holding the promise of times yet to unfold. But they will also cause a twinge somewhere really, really deep, a moment of regret that we are away from the endlessly restless water that has become so much a part of our everyday life.

So we are looking to live as simply and lightly as possible, something we have never done while living on land. Transportation needs will be met as modestly and cost effectively as possible. A long commute has limited appeal, and the only living space that is green and outside of city / suburban living is many, many miles away from a job sight located just across the street from the International Airport. Which is the first reason for choosing to live in the city.

Another reason for looking to live deep in the heart of a major metropolis area is that, oddly enough, is has its minimalist benefits. Suburban living offers little in the way of small, efficient, boat like living spaces. We are already looking at an apartment that has just about the same square footage living area that is Kintala. Provisioning (grocery shopping as they call it on land) is within easy walking distance, as are eateries (for when Deb is away), a world class public library, and other interesting places to explore. There is no West Marine nearby but, for a change, that will not be an issue.

St. Louis is good about maintaining green, common spaces. There are well maintained parks everywhere one walks, and the Gateway National Park is just a few blocks away. At least we have a river near by, one we can visit pretty much whenever we like. The apartment complex includes its own common spaces, one being a large gym. That is something I have missed while living on the boat. We walk a lot as cruisers are wont to do, but the lifestyle is not as inherently healthy as we thought it would be. Even with a full time job there will be hours available to get my resting heart beat back to where it should be, build up a little stamina, and maybe shed a few sloppy pounds.

Another good reason for living in the city is that we have never lived that life before. Why not try something completely different? The hope is looking at this as a whole new adventure will take some of the sting out of leaving the boat. The fact that two Daughters and seven grand kids live in St. Louis helps, as one can imagine.

There is some question as to just how we can pull this off, having been as deep into, and as much an enthusiast of, the alternative, independent, nearly self-sufficient and mobile life style that is cruising. I am curious about that myself. In my perfect world I would be collecting a nice pile of doubloons for teaching sailors how to warp onto and off of a dock, set a sail, and navigate from hither to yon without crunching into Mother Earth.

In the real world, however, the only way these kinds of dollars come my way is for teaching younger pilots (and reviewing with already highly experienced pilots) how to program some odd ball holding pattern into the FMS, fly a night approach to minimums in ugly weather short an engine and with half the instrument panel dark, and navigate from hither to yon without crunching into Mother Earth. All skills I spent nearly 50 years getting right, and now have a chance to share with the next generation of professional aviators. No small thing, that. This is an important gig, with a ton of responsibility, working with people who take their work seriously. Given that the need to collect a paycheck has become painfully unavoidable, there is no other job I would rather be doing, no other place I would rather be doing it, and no other group of people I would rather be doing it with.

Boat Ops

I had to leave the boat early Sunday to start a series of airplane trips. Now I’m in Moline for a couple of nights. I’ll be out most of the week, getting back to the marina on Friday. Yesterday morning the Moline area took a direct hit from a serious storm. The airport reported a wind gust in excess of 94 mph and there are downed trees everywhere. They still don’t have electrical power. The thought of riding out a blow like that on a sailboat is enough to give a person shivers.

I’m looking forward to the weekend’s planned sail but the truth is I really need to spend a long weekend just wrenching on little Nomad. In addition to the engine cooling woes there is a nice list of electrical glitches that need attention and some navigation equipment to install. It will take a while to get the boat where I want it but (like our new friend Barry pointed out) a sailboat doesn’t have to be perfect to go out and have fun. If it floats, has sails and rigging, and there is some way steer, one is pretty much good to go. Well, good to go on a lake. I suspect facing a long open-water sail brings a slightly different view of necessary boat preparations.

Boats are like airplanes in that sense. A good pilot is never surprised by his or her airplane; disappointed maybe, but never surprised. Equipment failures and weather changes are part of the deal. As an airplane driver I have several different emergency procedures drilled into my very bones, what to do if an engine quits at the worst possible time, what must be done with a fire light or a cabin pressure loss; circumstances that may require that a first move be both quick and correct if the flight is to survive. My boat emergency responses are not nearly so well honed. Knowing that keeps me a little more on edge in Nomad’s cockpit at 5 kts then I am in the Citation cockpit at 400 kts. Weird maybe, but that’s the way it is.