So put on some Owl City, this post is all about flying. Monday night, while Karen was over, I decided it'd be nice to flip through my flight sim logbook. I don't think I've ever blogged about my sim logbook. It's a document about as important to me as this blog. I understand it's not something everyone has or cherishes, it's quite strange to the average person to find out that I keep a huge part of my life in a fake logbook.
It all started when I was in 7th grade. It was right around the time of my first real flights and real hours, so for my birthday my Aunt Lisa gave me a nice hardback journal as a way for me to write down my flying experiences. It's honestly not best gift for a little 13 year old guy, but after letting it collect dust for a few months I found a use for it as a way to keep track and log the silly flights I did on flight simulator. At first I remember it being more of a courtesy to my family ("look Aunt Lisa I'm using your gift!"), but somehow the habit of ending every single simulator flight with a logbook entry stuck. After each flight I'd write down the departure and arrival airport, times, dates, aircraft, all pertinent information; then I'd scribble down a few generic comments about the flight. I then formed the tradition that to the right side of each entry I'd right "SIM" in capital letters. The hope was that when I grew too old for flight sim, I'd be able to write down my real life airline pilot adventures in the same book; while signing "REAL" instead.
What I love most about this story, is that even seven years later my flight sim adventure journal is still just as alive as the dream of it becoming real. But one thing I didn't realize as I spent summer days and nights logging two or three flights at a time, is that the two lines of comments I wrote perfectly captured my life at the time. The flights before a big vacation would have comments about my excitement for the upcoming trip. A simflight from Miami to Los Angeles might have a blip like, "Going to LAX in just 84 hours, I just HAD to pull a 767 simflight there." Flights during snowdays and three day weekends included comments about my appreciation for flying the virtual skies rather than sitting in school. On the contrary, it's easy to tell flights I did on a day after a high school girlfriend dumped me. Most comments have just enough written for me to remember a good story about the flight. For example I'm reminded of flights where I'd get to cruising alt and immediately minimize FS to chat online with Alex K. about girls. Going through the logbook I remember friends I made through virtual airlines, things happening in my life like getting my wisdom teeth removed, or just that I had a really good landing that flight.
My enthusiasm for learning new things about my profession and perfecting the art of the airways is completely immersed throughout the pages and pages I filled. The comments I'd write grew more and more technical and complex as I gained experience. Starting out the comments clearly projected my simplistic understanding of everything. Then over time it evolved to the point I'm at now, where comments often include details such as "I forgot about the the AC bus tie delay which switching from external power to the APU generator, leading to my NAV data being erased right before taxi. How embarrasing!" It's heartwarming to look back at young middle-school-Decker flying a transatlantic flight, using nothing but direct GPS navigation, with as much passion as I still have today.
Of course, the most motivating aspect is that the dream is still alive. The thought that one day that gray notebook will be in my flight bag as I walk up three flights of stairs to a C-5 flight deck is what gets me out of bed in the morning. I can't wait for the day that my sim logbook is filled to the brim with adventures that capture my stories throughout life. I'm sure someday that gray notebook will be put up in clear view on a shelf in my house, right next to my prop and plaque of my license. It will be one of the relics I treasure, just like the wings on my chest. And someday when I'm old and retired I can open the book and read a few two-line comments and be taken back to the time I took a flight simulator checklist as seriously as I did in N2866W. My hope is that the logbook, just like the dream of flight, stays alive forever. Fortunately, I think it's looking promising.
But back to Monday night with Karen....
So I'm casually flipping through the logbook, reminiscing and enjoying my naive comments from seven years ago, and Karen notices a flight I logged that was 23 hours long. I ended up happily telling the story of the time Connor O'Leary and I flew the Kangaroo Route.
The Kangaroo Route is a historical route that links the United Kingdom with Australia, the significance being the extreme distance between London and Sydney.Well, one fine winter weekend when I was in 8th grade Connor O'Leary and I landed on the thought of doing the route on flight sim....online...without time acceleration. This would mean that one of us would have to be sitting at the computer (cockpit) communicating with online ATC for the entire 23 hours. If we'd start at 7pm on Friday, we'd be going until 6pm Saturday. That's a long ass flight.
We had shifts made up, granting the legal amount of rest per crew member. We had in flight food and entertainment stocked up in the room we were in. We had a detailed preflight, flight plan, fuel plan, checklist, etc. We had everything completely prepared for this flight, and then Friday came along and we really did do the flight. Unfortunately however, we had to call it short for a few reasons and we had to time accel the last few hours.
Now telling this to a normal girlfriend would result in her saying something like "that sounds awful, why do I date you?" But I keep forgetting that Karen is not most girlfriends. Instead of the expected response, Karen's eyes lit up like Time's Square as she begged me "Can we do that together!? That'd be such a fun date!" After a few moments of me questioning her unexpected enthusiasm, I obliged. So that's what Karen and I are doing this weekend.... The Kangaroo Route....on flight simulator...without time accel...for 23 hours.
But after I thought about if for a little bit I realized where her excitement came from. There's a feeling of security I get with being stuck on a plane with my best friends. It's a sense of euphoria caused by the act of going somewhere fused with the time you're forced to relax and enjoy yourself with the people around you. The longer the flight the better. I'd take a four month flight to Mars if it were possible. Granted that one of the longest flights in history is from London to Sydney, I can't help but feel that it doesn't get any better than that.
Taking off with zero weight to spare, a slow climbout, and eventually leveling off at cruising altitude where I can sit back in my chair with a smile knowing that there's another 22 and a half hours left is a feeling I crave, simulated or not. Then there's almost a day of being cut off from the world, something no one in society finds relaxing anymore. The first five minutes of each hour would be spent going through checklists to ensure the security of the flight, and the following 55 would be blissful downtime enjoying the qualities of having nothing to do. It's a therapeutic Lost at Sea mindset I have to go through to relieve some anxiety; add the miracle of flight, stretch it out over a day and call it a great weekend.
But just like my logbook, the true gravity of flying the virtual Kangaroo Route is primarily due to the dream that it one day might be real. Whether it be in the cargo hold of a C-17, in first class on a 747, or at my computer, Karen and I will always be making an effort to spend as much time in the air as practical. While today we navigate the dense simulated airways above virtual Heathrow, one day Captain Loyd will be walking around a Boeing parked at the international terminal of LAX. One day Karen and I will be non-revving on an adventure into the unknown. And even sooner, one day Karen and I will be clinking our plastic Delta cups together as we blast off into the comfort of the sky.
And that will be a good day in my book.
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