My New Favorite Joke

In 1703 the worse storm to ever hit England destroyed most of the country. It was called the Great Storm and pretty much destroyed all of London, Bristol, Cambridge, etc. The Bishop of Bath and Wells, Bishop Richard Kidder, who was a very religious man, claims to have predicted the storm based off of God's hatred and wrath against sin.

It wasn't THAT bad of a storm though, it was only as strong as a category 2 hurricane, but it was extremely destructive and deadly because England's infrastructure was built around calm winds and light weather. Most of the buildings were built out of wood and straw with thin roofs, and were easily blown away by the wind and floods. The only structures built out of stone were typically chimneys, and they were poorly mortared so they toppled easily in the storm and crashed into the houses below, killing anyone taking trying to take shelter. 

Approximately 2,000 chimneys toppled, killing thousands of bystanders. Ironically, Bishop Richard Kidder was killed by a falling chimney. This was such a concern, that The Queen feared for her life and was rushed away to the basement of the Royal Palace, far away from any chimneys. 

Despite several chimneys falling in the palace, the queen made it to the basement and ultimately survived, probably because a queen can move in all directions while a bishop can only move diagonally.

Divert Adventure that wasn't my fault

Good evening. I had what was supposed to be a relatively uneventful night flight on Tuesday that turned into an extremely eventful divert-adventure that lasted into Thursday morning.

The plan was to takeoff around 8pm, let Calvin beat up the pattern a bit while the sun set, then head off to AR197L (the classic Mexican-border-straddling horseshoe track) for a double AR to hit two 17s. Then I could hop in the seat and tear it up at KAMA (the last city in Texas that I still haven't been to) and get back on the ground at Altus around 0130. Storms were in the MEF and TAF but it should've only been an issue while we were on the track and at Amarillo. But that proved not to be the case, evidence being a SATCOM call while I was doing my A/P off AR. I quickly punched the SAT1 button on my interphone panel to discreetly listen in. I only listened for a few moments (because I was fucking busy at the moment) but I heard a lot of technical terms like "bigass storm" and "damaging winds" which to me was an initial indication of us having an interesting night. I got a little excited, I mean I was in the left seat and I've written in substantial detail about how much I love the chaos of flying in sporadic weather.

Anyway, we finished up the second AR and ended up present position holding to see if the storms would pass—and they didn't, in fact they intensified. The IB (instructor boom) really didn't want to divert because it was her daughters first day of school the next morning, so the IP and I said if there was a hole we'd at least attempt to get into Altus. Altus weather was telling us a hole was developing if we accepted a tailwind but we'd have to hurry, so we booked it out of holding to give it a try. It didn't go well. We almost got struck by lightning, indicated by all of our glass instruments glitching and glittering. Then a long series of lightning lit up the clouds in front of us and it was just a wall of shit and the IP and I simultaneously said "NOPE!" and peeled off.

At that point we were down to 27k of fuel left and we started looking at divert options. McConnell appeared to be the best option, so the next step is seeing how much fuel it would take to get there... which was also 27k so we thought "hmmm... we should probably get going in that direction." So we did and touched down in beautiful Wichita. And that's how I added Kansas to my list of states!

I was in the left seat (for the very first time in a heavy), so even though the IP landed it I got to do the speedbrakes and rollout braking and then taxi us in. I was expecting the first time taxiing a heavy to be under very controlled and favorable circumstances. As opposed to, ya know, IMC at night with wet surfaces on an unfamiliar field.

Then we spent the night in Kansas, with no change of clothes or any of those luxuries. So I'm becoming more seasoned at being miserable in between flights, just like my college summer days flying to Asia with Karen. Then when we went back to the flightline twelve hours later we discovered the brakes were cracked (I SWEAR TO GOD IT WASN'T MY FAULT, even though I did the landing and taxi braking. Seriously.) So we had to wait another 8 hours which was spent bowling, playing crud, going to the movies, etc. all in dirty flight suits. Then we flew home.

On a side note, I was extremely excited to taxi a heavy for my first time. The reason, other than the amazing feeling of those gentle bumps and sways from the wings flexing that I've always wanted to be at the helm of, goes back to my early days as a pilot. I was in one of my first lessons with Jody in little Piper 2866W. I had never used my feet to steer before and my coarse motor skills weren't yet developed. So taxiing out I was a little squirrelly, you know a few zig zags and a little sensitivity issues with the differential brakes, but hey it's not like I was in a Formula 1 race. I apologized for being a fuckup, especially since I wanted to one day be taxiing giants, and Jody responded by talking out of his ass, "hey those big planes are EASY to taxi. They have hydraulic steering and tillers and everything. It's these little planes that are the most difficult to taxi."

That caught me by surprise, considering...

N6627X/H

Good afternoon. Evening? Nope, 13 minutes left. So good afternoon. Well it finally happened yesterday. I strapped into the right seat of a 185,000 pound aircraft and got to use the "heavy" suffix when I called up Altus Ground. That's something I've wanted to do since I learned that was a thing, which was a while ago. In fact, I forgot about it since I was accustomed to the un-realism of the sim where we left it off the callsign for some reason. So I punched ground into com2, "Oiler 15, spot 65, ready to taxi with alpha." They came back with "Oiler 15 heavy taxi hold short runway 17R via charlie bravo kilo-1." And it hit me with a rush of joy and responded proudly, "17R charlie bravo kilo-1 Oiler 15 HEAVY." It seems they don't really use "heavy" that much locally since everyone knows at Altus that you're in a big plane, but goddamnit I earned it! So I'm gonna use it!

I remember sitting in the warrior, getting through my long ground ops checklist of ten items before taxiing. Then I'd call up ground to get cleared out of the non-movement area and onto the fast and busy taxiways of Bowman Field but was stuck with using not only a tail number as my callsign (gross, never again), but also leaving off the "heavy" addendum. But the dream was alive for that one day I'd be using a badass military callsign (e.g. Devil 31) and, if it all fell into place, it would eventually end with "heavy".

Callsigns are an interesting convention, not even including the Air Force tradition of naming. I've always felt a status associated with the callsigns used over the aviation network. Air Force One and maybe to a lesser extent Thunderbird One (through Seven) have the most powerful callsign in the US airspace; you'll probably never hear them as a civilian though since they'd almost certainly be talking on Uniform, but it's still satisfying to hear ATC (who transmits on all of the frequencies they're listening to) give them a clearance or acknowledgement. I overheard Air Force One over Chattanooga while flying with my dad home from Charleston and got excited, I mean it's like spotting a celebrity in a coffee shop—except it's the president, and he's flying in the same airspace as you. Military callsigns are typically significantly cooler than pretty much all others, for instance: "Dark 5 check - two! - three! - four!" versus "Southwest 1454" or the unfortunate "Cessna 7562 Sierra". And that goes without saying since the military typically is cooler than most other traffic.

However disregarding the badassery of the Air Force for a moment, there's also the "heavy" connotation, which in my opinion supersedes a lot in the coolness of callsigns. Whether you're "Emirates 1 Heavy" or "Delta 1 Heavy" or cargo-something-heavy or something-Russian-heavy, you just can't say "heavy" on the radio unless you're in a flying neighborhood—something so big it will literally destroy all of the 62-Sierras behind it, simply by how much air it fucks with in it's path. I don't know why I'm so drawn to big planes, but it's nothing new and probably just how I'm wired. You know what? Pause analysis. I'm gonna read something I wrote on the tarmac of LAX in a 757 waiting to push circa 2010.

Disregard. I thought there was something in there about being jealous of a United 747 (RIP) taxing out while I'm in a measly domestic 75. I was right, there is a sentence alluding to that, but I mean it's literally one sentence at the end of four pages discussing how great I am. Anyway, resume analysis.

Yet still, even as a high schooler playing on flight simulator the flights in a sub-100,000lbs-er just didn't have the satisfaction on being in a large plane that's a pain in the ass to taxi and who everyone has to wait on after taking off or landing. And even hearing the ridiculously-obviously-computer-generated ATC call me "heavy" made me happy. But now it's not the sim and it's not ridiculously-obviously-computer-generated ATC calling me "heavy", and thus I can let the satisfaction of both hearing and saying it carry me through the next handful of years. I can get impulsively accustomed to it and then over Christmas when I fly with my dad, I can finally make my favorite mistake of calling Bowman ground as "Duchess 6627X-ray heavy" and all laughs will be had and life will be good.

So, here's to life as "whoever-the-fuck heavy", and perhaps one day "27X-ray heavy" for a radio call or two. Until then...