Perspective and greener grass

[GogglesPisano]

One fine, hot summer afternoon a Cessna 150 was flying the pattern at aquiet country airfield. The CFI was getting quite bothered with thestudent's inability to hold pattern altitude in the thermals and wasgetting impatient, at times having to take over the controls. Just thenhe saw a twin Cessna 5,000 feet above him and thought, "Another 1,000 hours ofthis and I qualify for that twin charter job! Ahhh...... to be a realpilot...going somewhere!"The Cessna 402 was already late and the boss told him this charter wasfor one of the company's premier clients. He'd already set MCT and thecylinders didn't like it in the heat of this summer day. He was at 6,000feet and the winds were now a 20-knot headwind. Today was the 6th daystraight flying and he was pretty danged tired. Maybe if he got to 10,000feet, the wind might die off....geeezzzz, those cylinder temps! Helooked out the window momentarily and saw a 737 leaving a contrail at33,000 feet in the serene blue sky. "Oh man," he thought, "My interview is next month. I hope I don't blow it! Outta G/A, nice jet job, abovethe weather..no snotty passengers to wait for....ahhhhhhhhhhh".The Boeing 737 bucked and weaved in the CAT at FL330 and ATC advised thecaptain that lower levels were not available due to traffic. The Captain,who was only recently advised that his destination was below RVRminimums, had slowed to LRC to try and hold off a possible inflightdiversion, and arrange an ETA that would hopefully ensure the fog hadlifted to CAT II minima. The Company negotiations broke down yesterdayand it looked as if everyone was going to take a dang pay cut. The F/O'swill be particularly hard hit as their pay wasn't anything to speak ofanyway.Finally deciding on a speed compromise between LRC and turbulencepenetration, the Captain looked up and saw the Concorde at Mach 2.Tapping his F/O's shoulder as the 737 took another bashing, he said, "NowTHAT's what we should be on..huge pay packet........super fast..not toomany routes....not too many sectors...above the CAT. Yep! What a life!"FL590 was not what he wanted anyway and considered FL570. Already theTAT was creeping up again and either they would have to descend or slowdown. That dang rear fuel transfer pump was becoming unreliable and theF/E had said moments ago that the radiation meter was not reading numbersthat he'd like to see. The Concorde descended to FL570 but the radiationwas still quite high even though the NOTAM indicated hunky-dorey belowFL610. Fuel flow was up and the transfer pump was intermittent. Eveningturned into night as they passed over the Atlantic. Looking up, the F/Ocould see a tiny white dot moving against the backdrop of a myriad of stars. "Hey Captain," he called as he pointed. "Must be the Shuttle".The Captain looked for a moment and agreed. Quietly, he thought how a Shuttle mission, whilst complicated, must be the "be all and end all" in aviation. Above the crap, no radiation problems, no dang fuel transfer problems...ahhhhhhhh. Must be a great way to earn a quid.Discovery was into its 27th orbit and perigee was 200 feet out fromnominated rendezvous altitude with the COMSAT. The robot arm wasvirtually OTS and a walk may become necessary. The 200 feet predictederror would necessitate a corrective burn and Discovery needed that fuelif a walk was to be required. Houston continually asked what theCommander wanted to do, but the advise they proffered wasn't much help.The Commander had already been 12 hours on station sorting out theproblem and just wanted ten dang minutes to himself to take a leak. Just then, a mission specialist, who had tilted the telescope down to the surface for a minute or two, called the Commander to the scope. "Have alook at this, sir, isn't this the kind of flying you said you wanted todo after you finish up with NASA?" The Commander peered through the telescope and cried "Ohhhhhhhhh yeah!Now THAT'S flying! Man, that's what it's all about. Geeezz, I'd give myleft nut just to be doing THAT down there!" What the Discovery Commander was looking at was the Cessna 150 flying thepattern at a quiet country airfield on a nice bright sunny afternoon.

 

[RichardRambone]

Thats funny cause its true. Im an up and comer and that hits the nail on the head. I was speaking to a former 747 Captain and he said the most fun flying he had was when he used to ferry new 152's out in California when he was a young buck. He told me about his desire to fly low and slow now. I want to go up and faster, he wants to go down and slower. Funny how people want to go to their roots.