Flying the 747-400

I got to fly the 747-400 today for the first time and it was amazing! All the training up to this point has been to prepare me for today, the meat and potatoes of a pilot’s job: Flying the plane. It was stressful, and as I started to fly, the cockpit seemed to get pretty warm, but I was also able to relax and have fun with it too. We’ve often been told that this is the most fun we’ll have during training, so I tried to enjoy it as much as I could.

The -400 is the fourth generation of 747 and currently is the newest iteration until the -8 arrives. It will eclipse the -400 as the newest and best, but at 20 years old, the -400, as good as it is, can certainly be updated in both electronics and fuel consumption. I believe that Cathay will be one of the first operators of the new -8 (Cargolux is the first).

Captain Paul Barton helped to guide me through the skies today. We took off out of Hong Kong and headed to Zhuhai, China, about 50 miles away. It is ideal for practicing touch and go’s because of it’s long runway and its light volume of traffic. We only had to avoid two other planes the whole time we were there.

Also aboard was Obet Mazinyi, a captain transitioning from the older -200 version of the 747, and Claudius Van Heyningen. Obet started us off by flying over to Zhuhai and I brought us back to Hong Kong. Obet only needed three landings because he was already qualified in the 747. I needed six landing as a new pilot on the 747. Finally, Claudius was there as a safety pilot, to help Paul run the checklists and and keep an eye on things. We flew B-HUI, a passenger aircraft for Cathay Pacific.

Our plane was a few minutes late from coming in from LAX, so we all four chatted as we waited for it to arrive. Once it was in the gate, it took a long time for everyone to get off (and there were 10 wheelchair assists!) Once in the cockpit, one of the members of the last crew had typed “Good Luck” into one of the navigational computers so that we’d see it. Obet got the cockpit setup while Paul showed me around the preflight of the instruments and cockpit. Claudius did the walk around and started the coffee for us -- how cool!

Everything was uneventful and after Obet’s three landings, it was my turn. We stopped on the taxiway and I climbed up into the seat. Wow! I was sitting thirty feet off the ground and at the controls of a beast. In the 747, unlike a lot of planes, there are steering tillers on both sides of the cockpit. So, if it is the copilot’s turn to fly, he taxis as well. There is a groundspeed readout on one of our instruments, and we have to use that to tell how fast we are actually going because we sit so high up. Without looking at the speed, one might be going 60 before they realized they were taxiing too fast. It’s all about perspective.

I taxied down to the end of the runway, and Paul did the first takeoff and landing so I could see things from up front, and then it was my turn. All four Rolls Royce engines rumbled to life and we sped down the runway. “Rotate” was Paul’s call, and I pitched the nose up to 12.5 degrees, and we were off! All in all, I feel like I did pretty well. The training in the sim is helpful, but nothing can prepare you for landing the real airplane. Small corrections, easy on the controls, and then listen for the callouts. The computer will call “50, 40, 30, 20, 10” As in feet off the ground as you come into land. As a matter of fact, when sitting on the ground, the radio altimeter (which shows us how high we are off the ground below us) shows -8 feet. That’s because it’s set to read zero when the wheels first touch down. The whole landing gear are so massive and huge, that they and the struts compress a full 8 feet from touchdown to full weight on wheels. Amazing.

At “30” we are easing the yoke back to flair above the runway. At “20” we ease the power back to idle by “10” and then wait for the wheels to start rolling. It was beautiful and I wish all my readers could have been there with me. I gave my camera to Obet and he took a few photos. I’m sweating in most, and looking cheesy in others, but I’m glad to have a record of today because it was a monumental day. After returning to Hong Kong, I taxied us into a stand and we had some free meals on the plane: heated meat pies (chicken pot pies) cheese, coffee, milk, water, fruit, whatever we wanted. I ate a lot to save on lunch money later! Then, the van came by to pick us up to take us back to the terminal.

I can still remember my first landing, all by myself, in Marion, Indiana. Steve Manganello was my instructor, and with a hand-held radio by the side of the runway, he watched as I did my first solo flight in a Cessna 172. Now, some 14 years later, almost to the day, I’m reliving my dream of being an airline pilot. All those years of wanting to fly a 747, all that time growing up in Indonesia and riding on 747’s and wanting to be up front, all the heartache to get here to Cathay now all seems worth it and I can finally stop dreaming and start flying.

The training ahead will be very tough as there will be much expected of me, but for now, I can revel in the glory of having said that I’ve flown a 747. And what a moment it was, indeed.

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How did we get here?

Want to really know why our stock market is falling almost 800 points in a day? Want to really know why our housing and banking sectors are failing, and causing world-wide troubles? I can even feel the ripples here in Hong Kong. Look no further than here for a quick explanation.



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His Hanger

My First Video Newsletter from Paul Jones on Vimeo.

This is a great, worth while, three minute video by my friend and former coworker at Chautauqua Airlines, Paul Jones. I quit Chautauqua to move on to Cathay Pacific. He quit Chautauqua to make a spiritual difference in this world, being the hands and feet of Jesus. This video shows a little bit about what Paul does as a missionary mechanic and soon to be missionary pilot, as well as his genius video editing skills.

For more, visit his blog at HisHangar

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Hiccup

These last few weeks I’ve been feeling down. Three weeks ago, things were looking up: I had just finished two very hard simulator checkrides, and all I had left to do was a base training exercise and I would then have the following two weeks off. Those two weeks would be spent at home, relaxing and recouping from all the stress from training.

Base training is really a non-event. After all the simulations I had been through, it certainly wasn’t as stressful as the checkrides I had done well in. Base training is where we take the airplane up and do touch and go’s -- take off, come back around and land, and then instead of stopping after the landing, we push the power back up and take off again, hence the term touch and go. We do that in the real plane, but to get ready for that experience, we practice it in the simulator first.

I may have overlooked this sim session because I ended up not doing well in it. Flying big airplanes like the 747 are flown much differently than the smaller planes that I was used to, like the EMB-145. The 747 is so big and massive, that any deviations from the flight path have to be noticed and corrected almost immediately, because of this annoying thing called inertia. Once the airplane is significantly headed off course, it takes a lot of work to get it back to where it should be. Those corrections have to take place much more quickly than in smaller planes, where a little “slop” can be gotten away with.

The base training is also flown without any flight guidance, or “raw data” where there are no pointers on the instruments to show us where to go or if we are getting off course. All the course corrections must be seen by ourselves, and we can’t run home to mama with the flight directors giving us flight guidance. At my last job, I prided myself in not using the flight directors, so that I could fly by my instruments without any guidance help. But, transferring that skill to the 747 has proven to be quite tricky, indeed.

In the simulator, I got stressed as things didn’t fly the way I wanted them to, and then I started flying poorly, which led to more nervousness, which led to worse flying, and so forth. Needless to say, I didn’t pass that portion of the base training. Bummer! I was then scheduled to go on leave (vacation to all you Americans reading this) and I didn’t have this sim session out of the way. They gave me another chance in the sim, but it would be after I returned from Ohio. 

I was upset because I wanted this session out of the way and behind me. I didn’t want that poor performance hanging over my head. I wanted to relax while on leave, but instead, all I could think about was trying to be better the next time. Flying is tricky because like in my case, I could mentally know everything, and how to fly the 747 correctly, but getting it to pass through to my hands and feet was a different story. Flying isn’t like a test, where you can cram knowledge in and pass, it is performanced-based, and you can either have a good day or a bad day in the sim.

As I headed back to Hong Kong after my leave, with this sim evaluation looming over my head, my dad gave me some great words of wisdom. He quoted Matthew 28:20, “And surely I will be with you always, even to the end of the world.” Jesus is talking to His disciples and this is the last thing He says to them before he ascends back into heaven. Those disciples were later beaten, decapitated, and even hung on a cross upside down. They all died for their belief in Jesus. (As an aside note, that is a great reason to believe that the Bible is true -- because what they wrote about in the new testament is what got them killed, and people don’t die for a lie, they die for the truth!) So even as those men suffered great trials, God was with them. And even little old me, who travelled to Hong Kong on the other side of the earth, God was still going to be with me!

I also read II Corinthians 1:3-11 as I headed back to this side of the world, with potential trouble looming:

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles . . .
We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many."

That short section was quite an inspiration to me, especially as the parts that I put in bold seemed to jump out at me. Isn’t it just like God, that when your heart is troubled, you can turn to His unfailing word and find peace and encouragement? That is why I feel His word is eternal. It isn’t just a book of old stories that no longer have meaning, but they are words that are full of power!

Needless to say, with the prayer support of many, and my confidence fully resting on God, I was able to stay calm and do exceptionally well on my checkride. Now I will get to fly the real plane and do the touch and go’s that sound so exciting.

I used to tell people that God would not put them in a situation beyond what they could bear. But that is a complete falsehood. That is no where in the Bible! In reality, God puts us in situations like that a lot, where all we can do is trust in Him and lean on Him, and look to Him for direction and guidance. He does that to stretch us and help us grow. Whether it be promising Abraham a son when that was no longer physically possible, or putting a Red Sea in front of Moses and an Egyptian army behind him, or sending Gideon out to conquer an army with only 300 men (the real “300” movie) or using the impossible strength of Samson to kill God’s enemy, or raising men from the dead, God uses the impossible and makes it possible. When we humble ourselves, and become poor in spirit, He loves nothing more than to rush in and save us, sometimes in the most impossible ways.

God sure helped me turn things around because He is always faithful to those who love Him. Even if I had bombed this training and been fired and sent home, He would be guiding and leading and I would have to call it a privilege to follow him, “to the very end of the world.”

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I love her

This is one of the reasons why I love my wife so much: She is so cute! But it isn’t just her looks that make her cute. As a matter of fact, for most people, I think that looks have little to do with cuteness factor. Cuteness comes from within, from the inner being and soul of a person. People’s eyes who “light” up, do so because their sweet inner spirit is shining through their eyes. It isn’t the outward person, but the true inner self that shines through one’s outer self and makes them cute.

This is why there are so many people (women in my context) that are pretty but not beautiful. A woman can be outwardly pretty, but if she doesn’t have an ounce of character, then who cares? This is why strippers and other parts of sleazy society may look pretty, at least on the outside, but are not beautiful. They don’t hold a candle to people like my wife because their external beauty is all there is, whereas my wife has beauty bubbling up from the inside. Yes, everyone has inner beauty that sometimes only God can see, but that is beyond the scope of this blog . . .

My wife has both inner and outward beauty, but I love her looks the most when her inner self shines through her face and becomes visible on the outside. It’s like her outward beauty becomes even better when her sweet spirit shines through her face.

Of all the photos of her in Hong Kong, the picture above turned out to be one of my favorites of her. Look again. Do you see her? For a few days, I never even noticed that she was in this picture. I was snapping away at the local buses passing by and unknowingly caught her in one of her inward beauty moments, where it flowed to the top. She was trying to get my attention to tell me she was headed down the street to the McDonalds, so I would know where she was. Oblivious, I was just taking pictures.

I never did see her, and I found her a few minutes later, but she had yelled from across the street several times, to her embarrassment. The classic look you are seeing on her face in this shot is a look of: “Did you see me? I’m too embarrassed to yell again, so I’m hoping you heard me. Oh boy, did he see me?”

In that moment, when I was just clicking away, I unwittingly snapped a glimpse at the inner Laura. Almost like catching a ghost on film, I was able to see an unposed shot of her face that screams, “I’m cute!” These expressions are so rare and hard to get when a shot is posed. This candid shot, captured for eternity, shows a glimpse into my sweet baby’s heart. Her character is deep and her heart is sweet.

THAT’S why I love my wife so much.

Proverbs 31:10

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Hillbilly smoke detector

Just for fun . . . but hey, it doesn’t need a battery or power cord!



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Good times together

As everyone knows, saying goodbye is always hard. Since we’ve been married, Laura and I haven’t been away from each other for more than two weeks. I know that sounds like no big deal, but married couples need incremental steps of getting used to being away from each other. Our first long time apart was a week, then two weeks while I was alone in Hong Kong, and now it will be over a month apart, as I continue my training.

My training simulator partner, Chris, is a former 20 year Navy pilot who estimates that he has spent cumulatively over five years deployed at sea. That is a long time to be away! Nevertheless, I will miss my baby, and being so far away makes it seem worse.

Because I am leaving, Laura was gracious enough to take the day off from work and we spent the whole day being together. It was really great, and it meant even more under the circumstances. Hopefully, this is a taste of retired life! Click on Laura’s picture at the top of this blog entry to see more photos from our day together.

We started off with some important sleeping in, then drove over to Slate Run park to walk in the cool of the day under the trees. I love to just walk and talk, with no particular purpose or subject. When you know someone as well as a spouse, it’s easy and relaxing. It had been years since either of us had been there so we enjoyed the “new” sights.

After lunch, we headed to Magic Mountain to do some serious golfing! There are two courses there and we played 17 holes on the first one and 18 holes on the second one (that way, we didn’t lose our ball for the second course). It wasn’t too hot and we spent as much time laughing as we did hitting the ball. We each got a hole in one -- those are always exciting.

We then headed to the bowling alley and played for an hour. We wanted to play three games, but the clerk told us it was cheaper to buy an hour’s worth of play. When we finished the third game, we had three minutes left! How about that for working out just right? Bowling is fun, especially if you don’t take it too seriously. We just had fun and didn’t worry about the score. I was terrible for a long time and then hit my stride with three strikes in a row!

Finally, we headed to O’Charlie’s for some dinner. We were tired but it capped off a really nice time together. Sweet Pea is the sweetest Pea in the whole world and I’m really going to miss her. I’m actually typing this at 39,000 feet over Wuhan, China on my way back to Hong Kong. We’ve been flying for 13 hours, and I miss her already. It’s sad knowing that every turn of the turbine inside the engine is taking me farther away from her. It’s going to be a tough, long time apart, but like I’ve said before, it makes the return even sweeter.

If you think about it, be praying for me as my toughest training challenges still lay ahead of me. If this whole Cathay adventure doesn’t work out, then so be it, but I really want it to and can’t wait to get this training behind me.

I had a great break in Ohio and it was wonderful to see my family and Laura, but now it’s back to the grindstone!

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Old car show

Click on Laura’s photo by the VW for more pictures from the car show. The show was just down the street from our house and takes place every year around the third week in September. The air was cool, the weather was beautiful, and since it was my parents last day in Ohio, we decided to take a stroll through the car show.

It was neat to see all the old cars, and the VW convertible and Microbus van were my favorites. They reminded me of my first car, a ’74 Super Beetle that was bright yellow and had a sunroof. I loved that car and miss it today.

For small little Groveport, the car show is a good time and a lot of cars show up each year, with more each time than the last. Mostly for me, it was just something fun to do with dad and mom before I had to tell them goodbye.

After the show, we got some blizzards down at the DQ and then it was off to the airport to drop them off. I was really sad to see them go because I hadn’t seen them in a long time. Also, I know I won’t get to see them for a long time, and I know that I have a lot more stressful testing with Cathay to get behind me before we can once again relax together and enjoy one another’s company.

It was so good to reminisce, enjoy meals together, forget about the world’s problems, and just have fun together. Being so far apart is actually getting harder on me as I get older. When I was younger, my thought process was different toward my parents. I never thought about how they are getting older, I’m getting older, time is slipping by, memories need to be made today because we aren’t guaranteed that tomorrow will come. When I was younger, I always thought that there would be time for visits and memories, and time to soak them up as much as possible. As I age, I realize that I don’t want to spend more time away from them by pushing our meetings further and further back. I want to see them as much as I can.

Time sure flies when we get older. It’s this knowledge that made it hard to get any words out at all as I hugged them on the curb at the airport. Words wouldn’t come, only tears. As that familiar pain in the back of my throat came on strong as I fought back my emotions, I tried to keep things together so everyone else on the curb wouldn’t think I was a complete wreck.

It’s so easy and typical for us as people to not appreciate what we have until it is gone. Living away from my parents has helped me to truly love them and appreciate every moment that I have with them. As I’ll soon be over 8,000 miles from them, and Laura too, it makes the training and time in Hong Kong even more bittersweet. But, it sure makes the return even sweeter. I suppose sweeter homecomings and reunions are nice and almost necessary to remind us how much we should truly love one another. I just wish, in my frailty, that I could be with them all the time, but also love and appreciate them like I haven’t seen them in years. I guess I’ll have to wait for Heaven to be able to do that . . .

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My parents in Ohio

During my short visit to Ohio during my training, I was lucky enough to have my parents fly up from Texas for a few days. It was so refreshing to have them here, to catch up in person, and to see them, after all the stress of training.

There is just something calming and stabilizing about being around my family. I know that a lot of families stress out when they are around each other too much, but because I live so far from them and see them so few precious times throughout the year, each visit is something that I cherish.

Because of the storms that we had from hurricane Ike, my dad and I spent some time in the trees, cutting out broken branches, and my mom was a good sport by raking up all our mess.

We also picked up a Mossberg 410 pump action shotgun at Gander Mountain. The gun was my grandfather’s, and after he passed away, my grandma wanted us to have it for Laura. I never realized that UPS, FedEx, and others, including the USPS, won’t allow shipping of guns. So, my dad took the gun to the local Gander Mountain in Tyler, and they were able to transfer it to their store up here in Ohio. We picked it up, cleaned it off, and took it to the firing range for some fun and practice with it. It’s a great gun for Laura because a 410 is much smaller than the familiar 12 gauge shotgun. Also, it is very small and light because it has a pistol grip on it, instead of a big stock that goes up against the shoulder. I’m glad we have it, and Laura did a great job shooting it. We blasted a lot of holes into the paper targets in the range. Think again before entering our house unannounced!

After the firing range, we headed down to Hocking Hills to see Old Man’s Cave. My parents haven’t seen that part of Ohio, and it was fun to get out of the house. The air under the shade of the trees was cool and comfortable. Hopefully, they will be able to visit again some year when the fall colors are at their best.

It was a great day. Shooting the shotgun, visiting the views of southern Ohio, and topping it off with a great dinner at Texas Roadhouse. During stressful or sad times in my life, I’m so blessed to be able to remember, look back at pictures, and think about the fun that we’ve had together as a family. I’m blessed with parents who’ve taken an active role in my life, to pray for me, visit me, help me with projects, and be the great loving parents that all kids should have. I’m so glad they came to visit.

Click on the photo of my parents at the top of the blog to see more photos of our time in Hocking and at the firing range.

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Home for a break

I’m back in Groveport, Ohio this week for a quick break from training in Hong Kong. Cathay builds a few weeks break into our schedules because they don’t have the training staff to carry everyone straight through without any pauses. It saves them money on per diem and hotel costs, it allows us to recharge our batteries at home, and helps get rid of our alloted vacation for the year.

It’s certainly nice to be home for a little over a week, but on the flip side, I’d almost rather stay in Hong Kong until the job is done and training is over. Training has been very stressful and all through this break I have it lingering over my head that I have more, hard exams to go back to in Hong Kong. Also, just as I get back on Ohio’s time, it will be time to head back to Hong Kong and I’ll have to start my time change adjustment all over again, while I’m trying to pass tests in the simulator. My circadian rhythms are going to kill me.

I have a very hard and stressful simulator check to go through when I get back (I appreciate any and all prayers!) and passing that, I move on to flying the plane with revenue passengers on board as I start my line training. Line training is normal procedures that would be used each day, like flying under normal circumstances. In the sim, we practice emergencies and non normal flying that would be unsafe to learn in the real plane. After the sim, we move to the real plane to learn normal flying. Flying is really the least difficult aspect of normal flying. The hard stuff is all the knowledge that needs to be recalled and fully understood, like: fuel policy, regulations, company policy, calculations for alternates, fuel for alternates, how much fuel would we need at a certain point in our flight to get to a safe landing, etc. The list goes on and on. From what I’ve heard, the training I’ve been through so far is nothing compared line flying, so it will be time to hold on tight. If you think of me, say a prayer, it’s going to be the most challenging thing I’ve ever done in my 30 years.

But this is what I signed up for, right? :o)

After getting home late on Saturday night, Sunday afternoon, the remnants of hurricane Ike rolled through central Ohio. The same storm passed over my parents house a day or so earlier and didn’t cause much harm. Because of this, I was thinking that it would be an even less traumatic event, as we live so much farther inland than my parents. I was wrong. The winds picked up to about 75 miles per hour and knocked down tree limbs all over the city, including our back yard. We now have several trees in our yard that will probably not live to see next summer. One branch fell within a few feet of our Passat that would have most certainly totaled the car. Thankfully, it missed and life continues.

Then the power went out! No lights, no cool air, no fans, no TV, no internet, no nothing! It ended up being off for almost two days, and what a bummer that was. I couldn’t sleep at night because my time was still 12 hours off, set to Hong Kong time. I woke up Sunday night about 11:30 p.m. and couldn’t go back to sleep. I tried, but to no avail, so I got up. When one can’t sleep at night, usually, it’s no big deal to go downstairs (as to not bother the other half) and pass the time by doing the usual: watch TV or a movie, read a book, listen to music, surf the web, add a blog entry, or whatever. In my case, with no power, there was absolutely NOTHING to help me pass the time! I tried to play “real old school” and read the Bible by candle light, but after almost going blind and burning my fingers on hot, dripping wax, I gave that up. The only other thing to do was go drive around in the car.

I checked up on Laura’s grandparents house to see if they had power (they did) and moved a branch out of the middle of main street. I adjusted and aligned the headlights, took out the trash, and snacked on some chips -- and I still needed to kill several more hours before sunup! If you ever find yourself jet-lagged in a house with no power, be prepared for some serious torment.

The power is now back on, and I’m catching up on e-mail, this blog, and getting ready for my parents to visit in a few days. They are flying up on Thursday to stay for several days, and after all the stress of training, they will be a sight for sore eyes. I’m looking forward to them seeing all the hard work we’ve put into the house and catch up with them in person, instead of over the phone with Vonage.

Once they leave, it will be time to head back to Cathay City. It will be a bittersweet trip back into the “teeth of the tiger.” I want the training over, but at the same time, it really is an amazing experience, one that I will remember for the rest of my life: Learning to fly a 747.

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Observation Flight

On the 7th anniversary of 9/11, I was in Hong Kong today doing an observation flight to Manilla and back. An observation flight is one where I just sit in the cockpit jumpseat and observe what is going on and learn from it.

Captain Terry Hodge was giving instruction to a new copilot Steeve Michielsen (who is Belgian) and my sim partner Chris Rollins and I watched from the two jumpseats. It was quite an impressive day to be up front on this passenger plane and see how my training is supposed to culminate -- with me eventually being in Steeve’s seat as a copilot. 

It was also fun to climb the stairs from the main deck to get up to the cockpit! The main landing gear are 100 feet behind the cockpit when they touch down for landing, so the view from the front windows is quite different from what I am used to. It was good to see how things flowed and it really helped to bring things together in my mind. I pretty much knew what was coming next and a lot of my training in the sim made a lot more sense. This is why pilots have observation flights at many airlines.

The weather was great and Captain Hodge set a very relaxed and positive atmosphere, where we felt free to ask questions and learn from his experience. Overall, it was good to get out of the hotel and see some of the real world stuff that goes on at this airline. In operations, connected to our hotel, we passed through our own security there, then out to a bus that took us straight to our plane! I walked around the aircraft with the captain, while Chris stayed up with Steeve as they set up the cockpit for departure. 

The round trip to Manila was uneventful and just an absolute blast. I hope to finish my training strong and get into that cockpit as soon as I can because even if it becomes a stressful ride, it will still be amazing!

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Stressful Training (but hanging in there)

This is just a quick note to any readers here that I am still alive, but I haven't done much blogging due to the busy and stressful schedule of the training. When I get my head above water, I will again post about my training. Priority number one is to get passed all my assessments.

I wasn't able to complete one section of my simulator training and will have to revisit that later on this month. I'll feel better about all my training and have more time for blogging once that is all passed. Thanks for your prayers and patience,

Toby

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