Close Calls

There were three occasions when I had a near collision while flying a small aircraft, two were entirely my fault, one was not:

1.  I was flying to an airport I had never been to before.  This airport was on one of the islands close enough to Okinawa that you could fly to it in a small aircraft.  I was relatively new to flying and had done most of my landings at Kadena Airforce Base in Okinawa.  The runway at Kadena was about 2 miles long and probably 150 feet wide, it could accommodate any aircraft.  The Cessna I was flying needed nowhere near this length, so it was a very forgiving runway.  You could land near the end of the runway and still have plenty of time to come to a stop.  The airport I was flying to had a shorter runway, it was still long enough to easily land on, but was probably half the length the runway at Kadena.  The first problem is that I came in way too high.  I immediately chopped the power, and put full flaps, but I still wasn't losing altitude quickly enough.   I put the aircraft into a forward slip, To execute a forward slip, I banked into the wind and applied opposing rudder (e.g. Right aileron + Left rudder) in order to keep moving towards the target. If you were the target you would see the plane's nose off to one side, a wing off to the other side and tilted down toward you.  Still, I wasn't losing altitude fast enough and I was picking up speed.  I should have executed a go around, and aborted the landing, but I stuck with it.  When I finally touched down, I was near the end of the runway and had a pretty good head of steam. My first instinct was to apply full power to see if I could get airborne again. However, I was concerned that if I did not get airborne in time I would hit the fence while still accelerating.  In an instant I made my decision. I stomped on the brakes, harder than I had ever done before but the fence at the end of the runway was still rushing towards me.  Thankfully I stopped, but I did overrun the runway into the grass. Fortunately, I did not hit the fence or do any damage to the aircraft, but it was my worst landing ever.  It would have been particularly awkward if I had damaged the aircraft because I was on a small island and spoke nowhere near enough Japanese to communicate the problem.  It would have been particularly embarrassing too because it was entirely my fault and easily avoidable.  I still don't know why I stayed with the landing.  I was not in a hurry, there was no-one else in the aircraft it would have taken all of 5 minutes to have set up for the landing again and come in low enough that I comfortably landed.  

2.  I was flying in the evening, after work and perhaps I was a bit more tired than I realized.  I was setting up to land at the Air Force base, a maneuver I had done many times in the past.  Because the Air Force base is operational, the pleasure aircraft have lowest priority for landing.  I radioed the tower and asked for permission to land, and was told to "hold over the water tower"  This meant I was supposed to fly in circles around a particular landmark while waiting for incoming traffic to land and clear the runway.  My flight instructor had pointed out the various landmarks that the air traffic control refer to on many occasions and I had held over the water tower several times in the past.  

For whatever the reason, I went to the wrong water tower.  Critically, I flew directly across the approach path to get to the other water tower.  As I was crossing the approach path, the incoming traffic flew just below me, It was close, I could see every detail of that aircraft, had I been 50 feet lower, we would have collided.  I then realized my error and immediately proceeded to the correct water tower and held.  The Air Traffic Controller then instructed me to land immediately and to phone the tower immediately after I secured the aircraft.  

I thought I was going to get yelled at and possibly lose my flying privileges for awhile.  Instead, this very polite senior officer calmly, but sternly, asked why I had done what I did and I explained that I had made a mistake.  He informed me that the other pilot had not reported it or complained and that we could just chalk it up to a learning experience.  I never did get the water towers confused again.  

3.  This is the only one that was not my fault.  Typically, when you depart and set up to land at the air base, you have to come in via a set number of landmarks.  One of the most popular is a lighthouse that is located about 5 miles from the air base.  I was coming in for a landing and was told to proceed to the lighthouse and given an altitude to maintain.  As I was approaching the lighthouse, another Cessna from the Aeroclub was also in the area, but I did not know that … yet.  It is usually pretty tricky to see other aircraft when you are in a small plane.  The visibility is not grab because half the view is taken up by the instrument panel.  Additionally, you really cannot see much above you, because the wing is directly above the cockpit.  You have limited side visibility as well.  Consequently, when Air Traffic Control warns you of other aircraft in the area, it typically take a few moments to find it, even when they tell you directly where to look.  

In this case, I was unknowingly heading directly towards another aircraft and fortunately we were not at the exact same height, I was slightly higher.  We were probably each traveling at about 90 mph, for a closing speed of 180 mph or 1 mile every 20 seconds.  I only saw the other aircraft for a moment as it passed directly below me.  I don't think the other aircraft saw me at all since I was above.  I could see both the occupants clearly, it was over in a blink of an eye but the memory is still vivid.  There was no follow up to this one.  Since we were flying under visual flight rules, it is the pilot's responsibility to avoid other aircraft.  However, the tower had ordered me to fly to a certain location at a certain height.  Arguably it was the other aircraft's fault, but I don't really think they had done anything wrong.  It was simply a matter of coincidence that we had both chosen to be in nearly the exact same place at the same time.  Who knows, perhaps I had other close calls that I didn't even realize!

Zip Line

For some reason, one of the most popular activities at our camp was the zipline. It was a simple set-up, there was a steel cable that ran across the lake and a bar attached to a trolley that ran along the steel cable. Scouts would climb up to an elevated platform about 10 feet high, grab onto the bar and start sliding down the cable. At some point your ride would come to an end, either by letting go, or the bar got low enough so that your lower half of the body was in the water. Once the scout let go, there was a rope attached to the trolley and the next scout had to pull the zip line back for his turn. If you were tasked with running the zip line that day, you simply stood on the platform and were there to jump in the water if someone had trouble swimming.

There were a number of different strategies. First, you had the older athletic kids that could actually do a backflip off the bar. They would usually let go pretty early so that they had sufficient height. The main group simply cruised down and would let go at various intervals. There was always at least one kid who always wanted to ride the zip line to the end, his lower half of the body would be in the water and he would hang onto the bar for 30 seconds as all the other scouts would yell at him to let go. Eventually he would, and he would repeat the pattern each time. I imagine he probably got beat up a lot. Then you had the chunky kids. These guys couldn't quite hold their body weight, so almost as soon as their feet left the platform they simply fell. They would never admit that they fell, telling their friends that they liked the big drop, but every single time they went it was a very abrubt fall as gravity overwhelmed them.

The staff would often pull various antics at the zip line, the most common riding the zipline in full uniform, there was a fair amount of nude ziplining in the evenings. The thing about the nude ziplining is that it was almost always 100% male, just a bunch of young guys stripping down and getting naked with each other. Every so often a feminina would be up for it, that always led to an extremely well attended event. One particular event involved a young lady named Ruth. Ruth was dark skinned, possibly Indian and was particularly busty. She was quite a character, she was there for only one summer, but was instrumental in keeping morale high across the camp. She was probably in her early 20s, and greatly enjoyed being one of the few females on the staff. She was not ugly by any stretch, but you would have thought she was a super model the way everyone chased her. Fortunately, you didn't have to put much effort into the chase. In fact, she took a liking to a young man of 15. However, it quickly ran its course and from that point on we referred to him as Ruth-less. Interestingly, on the night of the co-ed nude zipline event, she backed out a bit and decided to go down in her underwear and a white t-shirt. Needless to say every run after the first became quite a bit more revealing!

The only time I ever had to do any sort of rescue was an unusual one. Our camp director that year had a young son, probably about 2 years old or so. His son and his wife lived on the camp that summer. The zip line pond is entirely man made and is drained every summer. Consequently, there is a large concrete retaining wall that you walk along to get to the platform. The top of the retaining wall is probably about 18 inches higher than the surface of the water. I happened to be on duty and about midway through the shift, our director's wife and young son came walking along. It all happened so quickly, so I am unsure about the exact sequence of events, but the toddler all of a sudden ended up in the water. He was not a trained swimmer. However, he was the calmest one there, his mother was justifiably panicked. I was all set to go all baywatch like and jump in from the top of the tower, when one of the fathers was able to reach out and pull him to the shore. The best part was that the little tyke's only complaint was that his feet had gotten wet!

The zipline is a Summit Base fixture, a lot of things have changed up at camp, but I think the zipline will always be there.

Funny things that Erin Does

Of my two daughters, my youngest is definitely the bigger prankster. Some highlights:

1. It is always tough to admit that you are wrong and to apologize, whatever your age. Erin, has a really big problem with this. She doesn't do anything that bad, just the usual level of nonsense, but you have to have some sort of discipline. Luckily my wife imposes the discipline, overall she is the far better parent. One day, I can't remember exactly when, we told Erin to apologize to her sister for something minor like stealing her toy. Erin was very reluctant to do so, finally she grinned a big smile and belted out "Sorry Whaaaa", and laughed her head off. Apparently, she came up with the compromise that she was OK with saying sorry if she didn't have to say who she was apologizing too.

2. She loves to sing in public places at the top of her lungs. She usually pulls from the movie "Frozen", but also likes to sing her version of the abc's. Her version consists of inserting the letter "O" at the usual stopping points, so she will sing "A-B-C-D-E-F-O-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-O-Q-R-O-T-U-O-W-X-Y-AND O" and so on. She did this for an entire train ride, but luckily the train wasn't crowded and people thought it was hilarious, in fact they were encouraging her to do it again - which she happily obliged. Sometimes she will just make up a language and sing it along to a melody.

3. She has no idea about her relative size. She genuinely thinks she can wrestle me into submission to get her way. The other day, we were playing in a creek and she was having a great time trying to herd a flock of Canadian Geese, and those are pretty good sized birds. Similarly, she used to believe that she could breathe underwater. The first few times we took her to the pool she would just calmly keep walking into deeper and deeper water until it was over her head. Of course we were there to intervene. Her favorite way to move around is to jump everywhere, off of couches, off of people, off of anything.

4. Depending on the day, she is either extremely friendly with remote controls or a pure menace. Most days she is a menace, she loves to steal the remotes, try to run and jump into a remote (pun!) location and hit all the buttons in the hope of changing the channel, turning it off etc. On other days, she is very concerned that you are actually holding the remotes and not comfortable with the idea of them simply being within arms reach. She will hand over each one, saying "there you go" in the most serious voice she can muster.

5. If it were up to her, she would do all her eating in the car. At meal time, she seems to eat very little, but the moment she gets in the car she has this insatiable appetite. It is amazing how much food she can put away when she in that car seat. Typically, she then falls asleep, kind of like an old man.

Was trying to get to 10, but drawing a bit of a blank right now, I will try to make a note of some more.

Con-Job

My family and I went to the DuPage County Fair this past weekend. It is a pretty fun affair, there are a ton of activities. Even though the area we live is not very rural, there is a full on animal exhibition with people showing off their hogs, sheep, foul, and horses. In addition there is a rodeo, a carnival with a fair number of rides for kids and adults and then there was a guy I will call Cat-Man.

There was an announcement over the PA that there would be a big-cat demonstration in about 20 minutes. The announcement provided that this would be an opportunity to see a number of big cats, including two ligers (crosses between tigers and lions). So, we dutifully trekked down there and got some pretty good seats on a set of bleachers. At this point, it was near 1 pm, and the sun was beating down pretty hard. We were ok with the heat, because of the expectation of seeing ligers. Most of what I know about Ligers comes from the movie "Napolean Dynamite." Some species of animals can cross breed, the most well known example being a cross of a mule, an offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. Often, this cross breed produces desirable traits that are not found in that of either of the parent.

A Liger is the offspring of a male Lion and a female tigress. For whatever reason, the offspring is typically larger than either of the parents, so you end up with a very big cat. The entire display was a small fenced in area in front of a large trailer. I was a bit concerned that we were going to be extremely close to these Ligers when they were displayed. In one corner of the fenced in area there was a 6 month old tiger cub, that was putting on quite a show climbing anything and everything it could. Although it was probably about the size of a rottweiller, it had giant paws that showed it had a lot of growing left to do. About 5 minutes before 1, we heard an announcement that the show was just about ready to begin. I did not realize it at the time that the term "show" was very loosely applied.

As the clock ticked past 1, a gentleman in the typical wildlife gear showed up. He was slightly overweight, wearing short khaki shorts, the typical green/khaki button down short sleeve shirt and the typical safari cat. He then launched into this long speech about working with large cats his entire life. He discussed how much food big cats eat and how expensive it was to feed them. Then it got a bit absurd. He launched into a bit of a tirade against PETA and other big organizations urging none of us to donate to them. He insisted that they had way too much money lined up for pensions for the board of directors and spent something like 2 cents out of every dollar donated to actually rescue animals. Not surprisingly, he advocated that we should donate to small independent operations like his.

Then he dropped this bombshell. He let us know that he would not bring the Ligers out. Rather, they were available to view through a small gate for a small fee. At this point we had been sitting for about 15 minutes. He tried to rationalize that he had yet to be injured by a big cat, and he wasn't going to start now. The problem with that logic is that he billed himself as a big cat show. I could say that I have a zero record of injury from snakes, but I don't bill myself as someone that runs a reptile show.

I wish I could say that we left in disgust. But we didn't. We paid our 4 bucks and went back there to see the Ligers. There they were, both lying down. One was asleep the other was awake and looking at us. It was pretty sad, it was a small enclosure, not much bigger than the animals themselves and all they could do was look at us as we stared.

It is absurd for people to keep animals like these as pets. First of all, the offspring is entirely human created. Ligers do not exist in the wild. Why create an animal that is only to be used for human amusement? This exhibitor provided that in order to generate enough money to care for these big cats, he and his wife were on the road most of the year. Sadly, this means that the cramped storage trailer that we saw these guys in was probably the rule rather than the exception. You cannot simply go to a big field and let these guys out to get some exercise. These animals will never be free, it is just a question of how big their prisons are.

High Times - Part 1

Over the summer of 2005, I went through the necessary training to obtain my private pilot's license. There was a small aeroclub onboard the Air Force Base in Okinawa. I think there is too much material for one post, so I will break it into a series.

The Air Force Base accomodated all sorts of aircraft, from large cargo jets all the way down to our little Cessnas. Consequently, the runways were enormous, each one over 12,000 feet, close to 2 miles long. Our Cessnas could easily take off in a few hundred feet and land in just a bit more. The runways were also quite wide. It was interesting getting used to having all this extra room.

You never knew what other aircraft you might see on the runway, you could take off behind a flight of fighter jets or a large cargo jet. Generally, once you were airborne, you didn't see much other traffic. The military aircraft flew higher and faster than we did. Which was just fine.

On one occasion, I was flying at about 1,500 feet, probably cruising at just over 100 knots. It was a beautiful day, lots of great visibility and I was headed over to one of my favorite island chains to do a little sightseeing. All of a sudden, in quick succession, 4 F-18s zoomed by me quite close. Generally, you have to obey certain speed limits at lower altitudes. However, the military has designated corridors where this does not apply. I was in one of those corridors, there is no prohibition against it, you just need permission from Air Traffic Control. The first one was just a quick blur, I only caught it out of the corner of my eye and wasn't sure what the hell had happened. I was ready for the next few though, they all did a pretty similar maneuver, rolling in really close, hitting the throttles and disapearing. At least I thought they had disappeared.

The view out of a Cessna is relatively limited. Unlike the full canopy covers that the fighters have, you have decent forward vision, no rear vision and limited side vision. Since the wing is above the cockpit, you really have little view of what is above you as well.

It quickly became clear that they knew exactly where I was at all times. I was clueless. Additionally, the military uses a different frequency band to communicate, and I did not have access to this frequency. It was essentially a series of mock engagements as the aircraft would appear out of seemingly no-where and come flashing across. My guess is they came down from above me and were briefly behind me before coming into my field of view. I would sometimes hear them slightly before I saw them, but it was unclear where they would be coming fro. It was awesome. These guys were all professional pilots with thousands of hours of flight time. They knew exactly what they were doing and provided a very safe, but exciting experience. A couple of times, they would fire off the afterburner shortly after crossing and you could sense the raw power associated with it. On some occasions they would slow down and fly next to me. However, try as they might, they simply could not fly as slowly as I could without stalling. They would come by with the gear down, full flaps, airbrake deployed and still they couldn't stay nearby for very long. I think they did it just to make sure I was OK with it, I would give them a quick smile and a thumbs up and the airshow would continue.

There are some pretty good accounts of pilots that have inadvertently strayed into protected airspace over the Capital Region. Those guys are intercepted for real by fighter jets. Once intercepted, you are directed to land at the nearest airport where a group of federal agents with guns drawn are there to greet you. I have to imagine that is not nearly as fun.

Miles and Miles

The first time I joined the Navy, I joined the Civil Engineer Corps. After completing our training at Officer Candidate School, where unfortunately I did not get to karate fight my drill instructor Officer and a Gentleman style, I went for additional training in Port Hueneme, California. This is a beautiful area just outside of Santa Barbara.

The first week of training consisted of a field exercise. Which is sort of like camping, in the same way a travelling carnival is sort of like camping. We had tents and cots, but everything was on an enormous scale. We had multiple trucks full of gear, we not only set up sleeping tents but Comm Centers, a giant dining tent and so on. One experience, in particular, sticks out in my mind.

It was the Warrant. Warrant Officers are an interesting bunch. In the Navy, you can become a Warrant Officer only after making it to Chief Petty Officer, an achievement in itself. In theory, Warrant Officers are sort of a bridge between Enlisted and Regular Commissioned Officers. They are generally regarded as subject matter experts, and are very intelligent. They are usually incredibly salty and almost without exception hilarious. Most of them have been in the Navy for a significant amount of time before they become Warrants, and they tend to stay in for awhile longer. I am so glad we had a Warrant in our group. Although he was a relatively new officer, he had been in the Navy for 15 years or so at the time I met him. For whatever reason, he decided to take me under his wing.

The first thing the Warrant did was to appoint himself head chef and declare that he was not going to participate in any of the field exercises. For all of us new people, we were super excited about the field exercises, because it was a chance to traipse through the woods in Camo with an M-16. We had this pretty cool system that was like laser tag on steroids. You wore a series of sensors on your chest and back and had another set on your helmet. A laser was affixed to your rifle and you were armed with blanks for the weapon. When you fired the weapon, it would trip the laser. Depending on where your laser hit the other person they would hear either 1, 2, 3, or 4 beeps. Increased beeps meant the hit was more lethal. If you landed a kill shot, the other individual would hear a steady beep that could only be turned off by an instructor. Although you could still fire your weapon after a kill shot, it would not trip the laser, so it became an expensive party favor.

Before we got started, the Warrant advised me that I should take all the ammo I was issued and bury it. I thought he was crazy, where is the fun in that. So, I ignored the Warrant and thought I had made the right choice as I burned through as much ammunition as possible. The Warrant was definitely the right man to run the kitchen. He consistently cooked really good meals for the 80+ people we had, armed only with a BBQ and a few other rudimentary cooking machines. Perhaps my favorite part, was that you could pop up to the dining tent in the middle of the afternoon, after a fairly intense fake gun battle and he would cook you a real nice hot sandwich with the crispy bread and the gooey cheese. It was made even better if you ate it under the warmth of the sun with your rifle across your knees.

Throughout the course of the week, you do a number of different engagements interspersed with practical training. The staff members represent the opposite forces and wear a different kind of cover (hat) to distinguish themselves. If you happen to knock one out, they will take their cover off and wave it in the air to indicate that you killed them. On one of the later days, we were on a patrol up on a ridge. Down in the valley, probably 250-300 meters away, we saw a group of staff engaging a fellow platoon. The maximum effective range of an M-16 is about 400 meters or so. I don't know why I decided to do what I did next. I took a knee, chambered a round and fired. Two things happened almost at the same time. First, my entire platoon quickly turned around to figure what the hell I was shooting at, and almost at the same time I saw the staff members hand go towards his cover. As he took it off, he was looking all around wondering where the shot had come from. That was the closest I would come to being a sniper, just an incredibly lucky shot.

On the last day in the field we had to break camp. Once again, the Warrant came through for me. He told me that I should grab a shovel, put it over my shoulder, look angry and limp. That is what we did for the next few hours, no-one ever asked us to do anything. The Warrant knew all the tricks. I was about to see his best one yet.

At the end of the exercise, we spent an entire day at the armory. The weapons get pretty dirty from all that firing, particularly from firing blanks. The armorers who run the armory are very strict. Once you bring your weapon up for inspection, they will conduct a very detailed inspection with a white cloth, if any part comes back dirty you are sent back to clean it again.

I glanced out of the corner of my eye, and there is the Warrant, smiling as he absent mindedly gently rubs a cloth over his immaculate weapon. Again, he was smart, he could have turned it in early, but he was content to just take in the sun as we furiously digged into every knook and cranny of the weapons. I could hear him chuckling the entire time.

Yakety-Yak

I realize I have not posted in awhile. In an effort to post more, I may not confine myself to camp stories. Although, I have already failed to do that.

From 2002-2006, I was stationed in Okinawa. Prior to going there, my entire entire body of knowledge had been gleaned from watching the Karate Kid. A lot of wonderful things happened in Okinawa, not the least, meeting my wife. We went on a number of adventures together. After work, we would often meet up to do a bit of evening kayaking.

The kayak I had was designed by a company called Folbot. I had never tried a foldable kayak before, but I bought it because it could be shipped via the USPS to Okinawa for a reasonable price. I had a blast with that sucker, it was not the sleekest or the fastest craft, but it was well built, sturdy and lots of fun. Most of the time, we paddled along the shoreline of Okinawa in a body of water called the South China Sea. On most days it was relatively calm, and even if there were swells, you would gently ride up and over them.

Our usual launch location was a Marina located near the Air Force Base. This marina was leased by the US Government and used primarily by Americans. There was a good core group of older guys who would gather most evenings, stand near a boat and drink a lot of beer together. These guys were all boat owners and they would rotate which boat they drank near. They made no pretext about it, they didn't even climb aboard a boat and act like they were working on it. They were there to drink beer, near boats. In some ways that reflects my drinking experiences in college where I would drink beer, near girls.

Even if it was a little choppy, it was always calm in the harbor because it was surrounded by breakwalls. It was always a little dicey leaving the harbor because it was quite shallow and if the swells were a bit larger than usual, they would break over the mouth of the harbor. But, provided that you could keep your kayak headed straight in to the waves, it was no problem. Our usual route would be to paddle straight out for a bit and then turn to paddle along the shoreline.

On this particular evening, it was a bit windier than usual, but did not cause any real alarm. We were also running a bit late, we didn't have any lights on the kayak so we tried to make sure we were in before dark. It started out as a routine paddle. We paddled the 400 yards or so to the mouth of the harbor, and as expected the waves were breaking. Breaking a bit harder than usual. As we continued paddling, I realized that if we turned go along the shoreline, we would take the waves broadside and it would not be very comfortable paddling. I also felt like we were not making particularly good time, so we would paddle out a bit and then turn back for a quick paddle in. We probably paddled for about 25-30 minutes.

When I turned around to see how far we were from shore, it was immediately apparent that something was wrong. We were much further off shore than we should have been. Also, as soon as we turned around we felt the wind blowing quite strongly in our faces. The reason it had felt so slow on the way out was that we were being pushed by the wind so we didn't feel the usual breeze you feel just from moving through the air. I didn't want to panic my wife, so I kept quiet but was paddling much harder than I normally would. The problem was, when you are off shore it is not immediately apparent if you are making any progress. It was quickly getting dark too. We were getting wet from the spray off each successive wave. Unlike the way out, where we were surfing along the waves, we were now crashing through them.

Eventually, I had to tell my wife. I let her know that I was concerned that we were not making any forward progress and the wind had blown us much further out than I expected. She doubled down with her paddling, and after about 5-10 minutes, scary minutes, it became clear that we were making forward progress. Still, no-one talked until we were safely in the harbor. As we took the boat out, the old men drinking team let us know they were concerned we had gone out. Not concerned enough to put down their beers though.