The “Reprogramming” of Me

As I mentioned last week, I’m training to fly a new plane here at work, the Embraer 170/175.  I’ll still be a first officer (copilot), and my pay will be the same, but there are a lot more 170s in Indy (my base) than 145s (my old plane), so my seniority will hopefully allow me to have better schedules, meaning more productive trips (less sitting around), more days off, and later starts and earlier finishes to my trips.

My other reason for switching to the 170 is that they are slowly phasing out the 145, and there is a chance that whenever I do upgrade to captain, it will be to the 170.  If that happens, I wanted to have some experience on the plane, flying with other captains.

 

One of our Embraer 170s in United Express colors

Training is a long ordeal.  It started on March 30th, and I’m not finished yet.  Because I’m technically switching airlines (different airlines in the eyes of the FAA, but owned by the same company), I have to do the full training regime as if I were a new hire.  This first part involves about two weeks in a classroom learning the different regulations and procedures of the airline.  This training was done in Indy, which was nice because I just drove back and forth between class and home today.

The next three weeks involve classroom training on the Embraer 170.  This was done in St. Louis at FlightSafety International.  We learn about the various systems on the airplane, how they are supposed to work, and what happens in case they do not work.  Towards the end of this, we spend a couple of days in front of “graphic flight simulator.”  It’s basically an expensive mock-up of the plane’s cockpit using an elaborate (and cool-looking) setup of touch screens.  We get to play with the various switches and knobs and see what happens, and practice programming the FMS (flight management system), basically the navigation computer on the plane.

The next two weeks are also at FlightSafety in St. Louis in a full-motion simulator.  Basically a multi-million-dollar video game, it’s a complete replica of the 170 cockpit, complete with all of the actual computers and systems interfaces that are on the real plane.  This part is a lot of fun, but also a lot of work.  We practice all kinds of things, from normal maneuvers and approaches to worst-case emergencies, including engine fires on takeoff, electrical malfunctions, explosive cabin decompression, wind shear and wake turbulence upsets, etc.  I’m currently about 70% done with the simulator portion.

At the end of the simulator you take a check ride (think of it like a driving test), and then you have to fly 25 hours of real passenger carrying flights with a check airman before you are basically a normally-functioning every day line pilot.  This portion takes a week or two, so hopefully I’ll be done by the end of May.  As you can see, it is a long process.

The first two weeks were not so bad.  I got to experience the “8 to 5” commute that all the normal people get (you can have it), but I got to be home every night for dinner and sleep in my own bed, which is not normal for my line of work.  The really difficult part has been all of this time in St. Louis.  I have been able to make it home most weekends (except for this one and the last one), and I have been able to count the number of nights I’ve been home on two hands since April 9.

 

Getting ready to go back to St. Louis after a weekend home, I seem to have a stowaway.

 

I was not so homesick when I did this the first time for the 145, two and a half years ago.  I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that it was a major milestone in my career, and I didn’t have a cute little baby girl at home.  It helps that the geek in me likes learning about airplanes, and I still do the webcam thing with Abee and Adelaide almost every night.  Thankfully though, it’s almost over, and I can soon go back to my “normal” lifestyle of only being gone 3-4 days at a time.

Now, let me tell you about this plane.  Back on the 145, a lot of us used to make fun of the 170, due to the fact that it’s still a regional jet, but happens to look more like a “mainline” airliner.  “Ooh, a jumbo jet!” we used to say.  Well, after seeing this thing, I have to admit, it’s pretty nice.  This plane is “the cat’s meow,” to borrow a line from my sim instructor (who is a retired Air Force/Southwest pilot).  The level of automation makes it seem like you’re flying the USS Enterprise.  Everything is controlled by computer, even the flushing of the toilets.  (You still pull a handle, but you’re actually asking a computer to flush the toilet.)

 

Those overhead bins are big enough for a full-size carryon suitcase.  The photographer probably actually took this picture standing up, too.

The flight deck is, of course, where I’ll spend most of my time, in front of five large LCD display units, which can show you just about anything you want with respect to the aircraft’s systems, location, other traffic around you, end even a side profile view to help you plan your descents into busy airspace.  The screens are controlled by a touch pad, like the one you’ll find on most laptops, so I’m right at home with this interface.

I could go on for a while about all the cool stuff that this plane does, but it’s kind of technical, so let’s just say it’s a computer geek’s kind of plane (though I’m most excited about sun shades in the cockpit).  In the end though, it’s still an airplane, and I’ll be flying around in the same sky that I always have (which is, ironically, different every day).  I’ve pretty much spent the last few weeks being “reprogrammed” for this plane.  I’ve had to forget all the 145-specific profiles, callouts, and flow procedures, and train my mind for the ones for the 170.  I’ll probably feel kind of like a rookie again for a month or two once I get back out on the line, but soon enough I’ll get used to it, and I’ll be able to fly it in my sleep (though hopefully that will not actually happen).

I’m in the home stretch now, excited to be nearly done with training, and looking forward to getting back out on the line.  However, I think the first thing I’m going to do when I get back is ask for a week off!

Lent Follow-Up

I know it’s been a couple of months since I posted on here.  I apologize to my loyal reader.  I guess I should follow up on the Lent thing.  It worked out rather well, and I was able to stick to it.  Obviously I didn’t use my new-found free time to post on here, nor did I take up exercising for the sake of exercising.  (I think people call that “working out,” despite the fact that it’s usually done indoors.)

I did get a lot of games played.  On Ash Wednesday I beat Need for Speed: Carbon, which was nowhere near as good as NFS Most Wanted.  My main issue with Carbon was that there was absolutely no incentive to get into a police chase (the best part of Most Wanted), and the best cars were not unlocked until you beat the game.  I played Bioshock, which was awesome, I re-played Quest for Glory 3 from 1992, and I dabbled in a few other games.  I also ended up going to bed earlier than usual most nights, due to not staying up surfing the net, and that was pretty nice.  There were many times when I would have really liked to look something up, but obviously there has to be some challenge.  So, in the end, it was admittedly a small sacrifice, but a bit more challenging (and gratifying) than giving up candy bars or french fries.

That’s all I have time for now.  I have been very busy training to fly a new aircraft, which obviously warrants a post or two on here, and I promise you will hear about it soon.

Giving Up The Internet*

The Internet is a great thing.  You can pay your bills, rent movies, communicate quickly, meet people from around the world, research and buy products, keep up with your friends, etc.  Also, if you’re anything like me, you can find yourself wasting 90% of your free time there, aimlessly browsing the news, gossip, reading about new and upcoming products, only later to find out that you no longer have enough time to do what you were planning to do.  So often I turn on my laptop, planning on playing a huge portion of some game I bought years ago, or intending to quickly check my email and update Quicken, then maybe get some exercise or do something otherwise constructive.  Before I know it, it’s three or four hours later (I’m not exaggerating), and all my free time is gone.

Lent is a time when Catholics (such as myself), give up something that we love (among other fasting criteria) for 40 days, from Ash Wednesday (today) until Easter Sunday, emulating the 40 days of fasting that Jesus spent in the desert shortly before Palm Sunday and The Last Supper.  When I was a kid, we often had to give up candy, television, or computer games.  In more recent years, if I’ve even attempted to give up anything, it’s usually been along the lines of a second New Year’s resolution, trying to eat better or exercise more, trying to improve myself rather than simply give something up.  There’s certainly nothing wrong with that, except that this usually worked about as well as most New Year’s resolutions, because it was hoped that they would stick for the long term.

This year, in an attempt to make Lent feel more significant, as it did when I was a kid, I had the notion to give up The Internet*.  I have to put an asterisk there, and here’s why:  Unfortunately, it’s not really possible for me to live without the Internet completely.  I need it to pay my bills, read important memos for work, videoconference with my family, check the weather, etc.  There are also things I do on the Internet that I deem constructive, like updating this blog, since it serves as my oft-neglected journal.

*What I’m specifically giving up is wasting time surfing the net, which is what I spend most of my time on here doing.  Until Easter, I will be giving up Facebook, YouTube, Google, Amazon (and all other shopping sites), Gamespot, news sites, message boards, chat programs, and all those other sites where I spend countless hours reading, scrolling, clicking, repeating.  I will still check email, weather, work-required things, videoconference with my family, pay bills, blog, patch games if necessary, and may make some premeditated purchases (where I don’t read reviews for hours before buying).  In a sense, I’m not giving up the total convenience of the Internet, just the time wasting parts.  It may seem kind of pansy (like not eating meat on Fridays only to go to a fish fry, which does not count somehow), but the goal here is to eliminate an unproductive habit.

Will this make me any closer to God?  It might actually.  I won’t go so far as to say that I’ll now spend my former-web-surfing time on my knees saying the Rosary, but when my laptop comes on and my mouse seems to move automatically to that Firefox shortcut, and a blank page opens up instead of my customized Google homepage with all my favorite sites fed straight into it, I will hopefully stop and think that what I am doing is for God (however insignificant it might seem), just as it did when I was a kid and wanted to turn on the TV or grab a snack.  I might even get some exercise in my new found free time (that’d be a stretch still).

The Sunday Rule

There is a debate among Catholics that I know, that on Sundays you are allowed to basically take a day off from what you’re giving up, since Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest.  I generally follow this “rule” (most Catholics are good at following the easy rules), but I agree that it doesn’t always fit.  For example, if you’ve given up shopping or going to the movies for Lent, then Sunday just becomes “shopping day” or “movie day.”  In this case, however, I think I’m going to allow up to one hour of web surfing for myself on Sundays (if I can find an hour; Sundays are pretty busy), but I haven’t decided for sure yet.

Well, reading all this, for some reason it doesn’t sound like much, but it will be more than I’ve given up in a long time, and I bet it will be harder than it sounds.  Here goes, wish me luck . . . .

What First Class Should Be

With Adelaide graduating to a full-size car seat, it became just about impossible to squeeze her into the back of the Sebring convertible anymore, so we went car shopping this month. We got a great deal on a 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan with only 26,000 miles on it. This baby is pretty much fully loaded. It has all the power doors, heated leather seats, automatic climate control, "Stow N' Go," etc.

Abee and I both had Monday off, and so did our friends Jeremy and Brooke, so we took the Caravan on its inaugural voyage to Dayton to visit them for the day. I don't think I've ever seen someone more comfortable.

It was a very relaxing day. We all went to a nice little pizza place for lunch, and Jeremy and I continued our marathon Civilization IV game. Unfortunately, Adelaide was feeling a little under the weather, evidenced by this picture:

At around 7:30 p.m., after Jeremy and I thoroughly pounded the Malinese, and after a nice trio of Friends, Family Guy, and Scrubs, (and after Adelaide managed to pull my "tab" key from my laptop keyboard), it was time to load up the van again and head home.

The perks of being a dad continue to pile themselves on. The other day, I was dancing with Adelaide to some more Collective Soul, which I haven't been able to do much since she started sleeping in her crib back in November. I really missed this, and evidently so did Adelaide, as during one of the songs, she grabbed onto my arm, buried her face in my shoulder, and said "Da-da." Even with all the time spent in the frozen wasteland of Montreal last month, this was more than sufficient to melt my heart.

Oh. (more) Canada.

Well, I'm in Montreal again, for the third time this winter. I have yet to see the actual ground here. For all I know it could all be painted white, or maybe purple or red. While the ground is covered with a few feet of snow, for once the sun is shining, so I know it does indeed come out here in Montreal. I have at least four more overnights here this winter, so I still have a chance of seeing the ground. One thing that's kind of neat, though, is that I can watch the inauguration on CTV, BBC, or CNN, and there's some French station that has it too. There's also hockey if I don't want to watch the inauguration. That's just about all that's on.

I'm here pretty much all day, and I don't plan on leaving the hotel room. Everything's all cold and French out there, and I'd rather not deal with it. I got two 200 gigabyte hard drives for my laptop for Christmas, and my goal is to put just about every game I've ever played on it, especially the older ones that are by now very nostalgic and don't take up much space. I'm almost done. I have a flight sim from just about every era of aviation installed (most of them I have yet to learn), and today I'm going to put on all my old Sierra and Lucasarts adventure games.

Back at home, we got a webcam for Abee's laptop, which is great, because now I can video conference much more frequently with Adelaide. Abee just puts the laptop on the floor and I watch Adelaide play with her toys and try to crawl. Adelaide can see me and seems to understand a little of what's going on, at least that it's me she's seeing.

Well, that's about it for now, everything else is pretty much "back to the grind," so I may not have much to write about for a while--

Oh! That reminds me. You may have heard of US Airways flight 1549, the flight that ditched in the Hudson River, with all 155 aboard surviving. I all but saw that happen right in front of me. We were first in line to land at LaGuardia, when ATC told us to break off from our approach so that another flight could return to the field after a problem on takeoff. Of course they never made it. As air traffic control directed us to turn south over the Hudson, they asked the aircraft behind us to look for an aircraft very low over the Hudson "less than 200 feet." That's extremely low, so we knew something bad was happening. The next aircraft in line said they spotted 1549 floating in the Hudson. Probably about five minutes after they went down, ATC turned us back to the north for another holding pattern, and we caught a glimpse of the Airbus, with two ferries already alongside, and at least two more steaming full speed towards them. We did not expect there to be many survivors, simply because the water was so cold, and historically airliner ditchings do not go very well. It wasn't until after we landed at LaGuardia and found a TV inside that we learned that all aboard escaped alive. When the news reported that birds were the most likely cause, I had a hard time believing that the flight could be both so unlucky as to have birds take out both engines, and then so lucky as to have all aboard survive, but it looks like that's what happened. The crew certainly did a great job. Thank God that this went the way it did.

Well, that's all for now. I'm going to install some more games, and then see if I can maybe get a little farther in Doom 3.

Yay Christmas!

I just love this picture.