The Jay Smizzle Report

Denver to the Congo, starring Ted E. Bear

2009-09-17T11:48:00.000-07:00

Some friends of mine have a seven year old daughter named Aubrey who wanted me to take her paper bear with me on my trip to Africa. This is a video I created about my trip, starring Ted E. Bear.

Denver to the Congo starring Ted E. Bear from Justin on Vimeo.

Out of Africa

2009-09-14T11:57:00.000-07:00

We had a departure time of 10 am. The customs and immigration process went very smoothly; no last minute bribes as our field manager had expected.

As we were getting the airplane prepared for the flight, another expat saw our odd looking jet and decided to come over for a chat. Our airplane tech and I chatted with him for a little while. He was telling us how he was there to pick up some guy who was going to pay him $5,000 to fly him over the border to Angola. His passenger apparently didn't want to go through customs, he said.

Yeah, his passenger was probably a drug runner. If not a drug runner, then he was probably doing something highly illegal. It's amazing that guys like this would risk spending the rest of their lives in a third world prison to make a few thousand bucks.

Well, it was now time to blast out of the Congo and I couldn't wait to do it. We taxied out to the runway, pushed the thrust levers to takeoff power, accelerated to 165 mph, lifted off the ground, and made a right turn to the northwest, to Accra. This one felt even better than blasting out of Bamako. Goodbye Pointe Noire. Goodbye Congo. I hope I don't see you again for a long, long time.

Congo to Accra, over the Gulf of Guinea:

Accra to Bamako:

After Accra, we made another fuel stop in Bamako. This time the place didn't give me the willies as much as it did before. Our handler and his assistant greeted us again and we all had a nice chat and a good laugh. Our handler's assistant noticed my new company hat and asked if we had another one. Luckily, we did have one. So I gave him the spare hat and he seemed very happy with it. Unfortunately, this set off a flurry of requests from our fuelers for a hat for them as well. I had to tell them that we didn't have anymore. One of the fuelers took off his old hat and showed it to me. I gave him a look of, "I know, I wish I had one for you". And I wish I did too, they would've loved them.

Now it was time to finally leave Africa. Three hours later we were back on the island of Lanzarote in the Canaries; out of Africa and back to civilization. It felt great.

Approach to Lanzarote:

After checking into the Costa Calero, we enjoyed another excellent dinner buffet at its restaurant and talked about the trip. After a good night's sleep, we were off to the Azores again for a fuel stop.

Lanzarote (Canaries) to Santa Maria (Azores)

I spotted what looks like an aircraft carrier (maybe):

I think I said in one of my earlier blogs that the first Azores approach was the most beautiful I'd ever seen. Well, this one was even better. I just wish I could've taken pictures of it.

It was another crystal clear day except for the scattered layer of low lying clouds over Santa Maria. We flew over the full length of the island, east to west, at an altitude that brought us amongst the puffy white clouds and just above the green rolling hills and mountaintops. As we crossed over the airport, which was situated on the western coast of the island, we began a turn back out over the ocean and then another turn back towards the island to land on its runway.

While flying the airplane, I took a few moments to admire the view. The differing shades of ocean blue were sparkling in the sunlight and I couldn't help but think that compared to a place like western Africa, this was heaven. It was hard to imagine that these two completely different environments were actually on the same planet.

One of the islands in the Azores that we passed on our way to Newfoundland:

Thunderstorm we had to deviate around:

So we landed on Santa Maria, got some fuel, took some more pictures, and then took off for North America - St. John's, Newfoundland to be exact. Several days before, when we had flown from St. John's to Santa Maria, it took us 3 hours and 6 min. because of the great tailwinds. But this time those winds were headwinds, and it took us 4 hours and 15 min. to get back to St. John's. At one point, we were cruising at only 320 mph (compared to a maximum of 620 mph when we were going the other way). But we made it to St. John's with no problems and with about an hour and twenty minutes of fuel left.

After overnighting in St. John's, we made a fuel stop in Toronto, and then flew on to Denver. We overnighted in Denver and then the next morning flew the airplane on its final leg to Provo, Utah where it would be stored until we needed it again.

Shortly after takeoff from St. John's:

Lots of lakes on the island of Newfoundland:

Departing Denver:

Approaching Provo (on the other side of the mountain range):

The trip was over and we were back in the US. It was a great trip and a great experience, and I can't wait to do it again. Maybe to somewhere other than western Africa though.

In the Congo

2009-09-14T07:45:00.000-07:00

After arriving in the Congo, we spent the next day driving around town looking for a local cell phone, exchanging US dollars for local currency, and getting everything ready for the flight the next day.

My hotel room:

Hotel grounds:

View from my hotel room window:

We got to see Pointe Noire in the daytime, which wasn't really a pleasant site, but an interesting one. This place was definitely third world. There was trash strewn everywhere; lots of trash.

There were a lot of street vendors. I even saw a guy with an old copy machine trying to sell use of his machine for 25 francs per copy, which isn't as much as you'd think. We would normally spend about 12,000 francs on dinner.

600,000 francs (about $1,200)

Driving around Pointe Noire, Congo

The store where we got our cheap local cell phones:

Riding around Pointe Noire (notice the beautiful shag upholstery)

Back at the airport, we found our airplane in the same condition that we left it. No dings, no fuel stolen. Our field manager told us that the locals would sometimes steal the fuel from visiting aircraft. Apparently they do that often to the lone Air France A330 that flies into Pointe Noire a few times a week. But today, the locals were just sitting under the wing of the giant A330 playing cards.

We were told that we needed to move our airplane and park it in a different spot on the ramp, so we started the engines and moved it to where they wanted it. However, the spot they wanted us to move it to was even more in the way of other aircraft, which didn't make any sense to me. About an hour later, as we were finishing up at the airport, they asked us to move it again, so we did, to a slightly different spot. Hmmmm, I had a feeling they'd ask us to move it again a little later in the day.

The airport was bustling with activity. They even had a local airline - Air Congo - I think it was. They flew some old 737's and apparently hired western expats to fly them. Can you imagine signing a contract to live and work for two or three years in the Congo as a pilot of their local airline? Nope, me neither. But we got to meet one of these interesting fellas. It was while we were inside our plane, doing some work.

He was from New York, probably in his mid-50's. And yeah, he was a little odd, but friendly. He was drawn to our odd looking learjet and knew that we were from the US based upon the 'N' on our tail number. I had a lot of questions for him about air traffic control and how they do some things around here and he was able to answer about all of them. He told us to meet him at some local pub for drinks later that night. We smiled and shook his hand with not a single desire or intention of taking him up on the offer, but it was nice of him.

This airport was full of the crappiest aircraft I'd ever seen. We watched one of these aircraft, mostly old Russian planes, take off. It looked like they could crash and burn at any moment, so we always made sure to watch when one took off. About halfway down the runway, they would begin to rotate and lift the nose a few feet off the ground where it would remain for another 15 seconds or so until the airplane had enough energy to actually lift off the ground and fly. The lifting off the ground and flying part wouldn't happen until after they were well past our line of sight and probably right at the end of the long runway. There were many times when we thought, "oh, I don't think that one made it", but then we would see it very slowly climbing above the horizon, where it would level off just about treetop level, and then gain some more speed before continuing it's climb. Aviation in the Congo is a scary thing but I guess it's no more dangerous than anything else in the Congo.

A little while after we got back to the airport, I got a knock on my door. It was our field manager. He told me that the airport had called and said that we needed to move our airplane immediately. No surprise.

I grabbed my headset and badge and got into our car along with our field manager and airplane tech and went back to the airport. This time we took a different route. Maybe it was a shortcut, who knows. The road we were on this time was a road of sand. Yes, like on the beach, but deeper. There was no water to make it compact. It was insane. Somehow we made it through the road of sand and back onto a paved road on our way to the airport.

As we walked out onto the ramp, we saw a big cargo DC-10 landing. That was the jet that we had to move our airplane for. By the time I got in the cockpit, the DC-10 was already in front of us, waiting for us to move so it could take our spot. So, I fired up the engines, and moved it back to the same spot it had been in before they asked us to start moving it. Yes, our original spot. Ahhh, Africans.

The field manager and I got back in our car and our driver took us to the hotel. Our airplane tech needed to stick around a little longer, so he took a taxi. After he got back to the hotel he told us about how they had taken the road of sand again and this time they got stuck. So, he got out of the car and helped direct traffic to give the driver enough room to pull out of the sand trap. I had a good laugh picturing our airplane tech out there directing traffic. I'm just glad it wasn't me.

The road along the beach that our hotel is on:

Arriving at our hotel:

View from the entrance to the hotel lobby:

The next day we completed our first mapping flight and it was a flawless one. They decided we'd do another one the next day just to make absolutely sure we got everything, though. The second flight went almost as well as the first and the company was happy with what we had done so now it was time to go home. We were scheduled to leave the next morning.

To Africa - Part II

2009-09-11T09:05:00.000-07:00

After an overnight in the Canaries, we took off for Bamako, Mali; our first fuel stop in Africa. Our three hour flight would take us over hundreds of miles of the Western Sahara Desert as we crossed over Morocco and Mauritania and then into the lush jungle terrain of southern Mali. The Sahara was definitely a God-forsaken place. I don't remember ever seeing any kind of body of water or sign of civilization (except on the coast) for the hundreds of miles that we spent traversing it's terrain from 35,000 feet. The terrain would occasionally change from a reddish mountainous terrain like you would see in the deserts of the American West, to a flat terrain full of identical sand dunes for as far as you could see.

Arriving at the airplane at dawn in Lanzarote:

Crossing into Morocco, over the Western Sahara Desert:

I went over my plan of action, in case the unthinkable - a dual engine failure - were to occur. I would quickly point the airplane toward the nearest airport, if there was one. I would then allow the airplane to begin a shallow descent while executing all of our memory items (standby fuel pumps on, ignition switches on, etc...) and then run through the checklist in an attempt to restart the engines. While that was happening I would quickly note our latitude/longitude off of our multi-function display and alert air traffic control to our position and current condition. I would then activate the emergency locator transmitter (ELT). If the engine restart failed, I was reasonably certain we could land the jet on one of the sand dunes, gear up, and after giving a final latitude/longitude report to ATC just a minute or so from touchdown we could be certain that someone would know our exact position and be able to home in on our ELT. Of course, it would be many hours if not days before any help would arrive, but with our survival kit of bottled water, food, flares, sleeping bags, and other items, I think we would've made it out of there alive. Also, if we were to land it without any serious damage to the airplane, our satellite phone would still be working and would be another invaluable communication source; allowing us the ability to call literally anyone in the world. But thankfully, none of that happened, and we made it across the Sahara after about an hour and a half of flying time.

There is virtually no radar coverage in Africa, which means that the ATC controllers cannot see where you are, and because of that, we had to make position reports as if we were over the ocean.

As we crossed into Mali, the terrain changed into the lush jungle terrain I mentioned earlier. On approach, I looked down at the city of Bamako and saw dirt roads and shacks and nothing more. This would be my first time in Africa, and it looked exactly like I thought it would - poor, depressing, and a little scary. About an hour before, we had read through the latest Notices to Airmen (NOTAMS) about the Bamako airport, and were alerted to possible goats, dogs, and other animals on the runway. I was flying, and was preparing myself to go-around if I saw a herd of goats that wouldn't leave the runway.

Thankfully, the runway was clear and we landed at Bamako with no problems and then taxied into the ramp area. Our handler directed us where to park. He was an African man in his late 50's, and he carried an umbrella which I assume was used to shield him from the African sun, but in our case, was used to help direct us where to park.

We shut down the engines and opened the door to find our handler, his assistant, and three soldiers (minus the AK-47's, thank God). The handler and his assistant greeted us with a warm smile and decent English, and then helped us with the paperwork.

This place gave me the willies. I did NOT want to have to stay here. There was nothing particularly frightening about it, really, but it was my first time in Africa and I just didn’t like the feel of the place. My fear was that we would start the airplane again and find out that there was some kind of maintenance issue that required us to remain in Bamako for a few days. Luckily, that did not happen and after a quick refuel and some chit chat with our handlers, we blasted out of there on our way to Accra.

One of the things I love about flying a jet is just how quickly you can leave a place that you don't like. That's why blasting out of Bamako felt really, really good. But, of course, we were still in Africa and would eventually be landing in the Congo to stay for a few days. It's not like the Congo would be any better than Bamako, but it still felt really good to leave that place.

We were on our way to Accra, Ghana - a large African city on the coast. Flying time would be about 2 hours. We flew east-southeast for the first half of the flight into Burkina Faso to avoid Côte d'Ivoire's (formerly known as Ivory Coast) airspace. After we were clear of their airspace, we made a turn to the south into Ghana all the way to its southern coast to the city of Accra.

Somewhere over western Africa:

Accra was fairly modern, at least compared to the rest of western Africa. They actually had radar for approach into the airport. We landed at a busy time for the airport, got some fuel, and took off for the Congo.

Accra to Pointe Noire, Congo would be about a three hour flight. We flew across the Gulf of Guinea to the city of Libreville, Gabon, and then south along the coast to Pointe Noire. Somewhere around Libreville we crossed the equator and I took a picture of our flight management system (FMS) showing our latitude as S 00 00.00 - right on the equator. The picture of our MFD also shows exactly where on the map we were when we crossed it.

We descended into Pointe Noire at dusk. By this time, we had gotten fairly used to the incompetency of the African controllers. It took both of us, concentrating on what the controllers were saying, to even partially understand what they were talking about. In fact, you'd never understand what they're saying unless you already had a pretty good idea of what they're going to say.

The Pointe Noire controller was just as bad as the rest. Instead of him directing us where to go, we just told him which point we were going to and which approach we were going to fly. He seemed ok with that and we landed at the coastal city with no problems.

The airport was bustling with activity. It was dark now, and as we opened to door to exit the airplane, we were greeted by the other members of our team who had airlined in a few days before. Our field manager also spoke French, which was great, as French is official language of the Congo Republic.

We also had a handler who, along with our field manager, guided us to the terminal where we went through the customs process for entry into their country. The terminal was not in great shape and not very clean either but it didn't look like anyone cared. This was Africa, after all.

After the customs process was over, we followed our guides to a small room full of Africans. It was the immigration office, we were told. We sat down while our field manager argued with the guy in charge of immigration. I didn't plan on immigrating to the Congo, but nevertheless, this was where we were. Our field manager told us that they were saying our passports were no good because their government had changed with the recent election. It was a bogus claim in an attempt to receive a bribe. Our field manager argued with them some more and eventually the matter was resolved. The immigration official would accept our passport because we were a special case - we were pilots, he said. Great, now let's get out of here and onto the hotel, I thought.

We left the small immigration room to the main terminal area, which was full of locals. We quickly walked out of the building into the parking lot which was also full of locals. Immediately, we were bombarded with locals trying to help us with our bags, in exchange for money, of course. We dismissed them and made our way to a pickup truck, where all of the radar equipment that we had carried from Denver, was being loaded. It was the pickup truck of a local, who our field manager had hired to carry the equipment to our hotel. Our field manager asked our radar technician to ride in the truck with the local to which our radar tech replied, "by myself?" I gave him a very sympathetic laugh as our aircraft technician then volunteered to ride with him.

Now our field manager would have to negotiate (a word I would hear a lot in Africa) with the driver the price of transporting the equipment. As they were negotiating, some local children were standing next to us calling us "Chief" and asking for money. We did our best to ignore them and guarded our pockets as well.

After the negotiating was done, it was time for all of us to head to the hotel. We had our own car and driver; a local taxi who our field manager had hired a couple days before. We were now on our way to the hotel and out of the airport madness.

There were only a few paved roads in town; everything else was dirt or sand. There are no rules of the road in the Congo, at least none that are enforced. People just drive any way they deem appropriate. There is no right of way. People cross the street constantly and were nearly hit by our car on many occasions. I'm sure many people are hit by cars every day in that city, but I doubt anyone cares. This is Africa, after all.

Taxi ride from airport to hotel:

We finally made it to a street along the beach and then turned into our hotel. The Hotel Palm Beach had a wall around it with a security post at the entrance. After checking in, we dropped our luggage off in our rooms and went upstairs for dinner.

It was a nice restaurant and a nice hotel, at least by African standards. Actually, by African standards it was five-star all the way. The food was pretty decent, though I soon learned that their pizzas were the best. It reminded me of the pizza I used to eat in France.

After a long dinner, we headed off to our rooms. We would spend the next day exchanging our US dollars for local currency, getting a local cell phone, and filing our flight plan with the air traffic control tower for our upcoming mapping flights.

We had spent the last four days travelling 9,000 miles on 22 hours of flying time and now it was time to get some sleep.

To Africa - Part I

2009-09-10T07:30:00.000-07:00

(Note: I edited the margins so that my pictures would be larger, however, it kind of distorts the page but not too badly.)

We left Denver early Friday evening on our way to the Republic of Congo. It would take us four days and 9,000 miles to get there. Our first stop was Toronto.

After arriving in Toronto, we went to the hotel for an excellent steak dinner and then off to bed for a noon departure to St. John's, Newfoundland.

Our flight to St. John's would take about three hours. The terrain was mostly cloud covered along the way but as we descended into the St. John's area, the clouds became scattered, giving us a beautiful afternoon view of the city and surrounding landscape. It's time like this when I wish I could stop being a member of the flight crew and just start taking pictures. Some of the most beautiful views I've ever seen were on this trip and unfortunately I just couldn't capture them on camera.

Flying into St. John's area:

After we arrived in St. John's, our driver took us to our hotel - the Delta Hotel in downtown. It must've been the premier hotel in town. I had a gorgeous view from a very large window in my room of downtown and the nearby harbor. It was only the late afternoon now so we decided to take a stroll around town and stop by the harbor on our way to dinner.

Our driver told us that St. John's is the oldest city in North America - quite impressive. It's a beautiful city too. I'd highly recommend it as a place to visit during the summer.

Early the next morning, about 6 am, we took off and headed over the Atlantic Ocean for the island of Santa Maria in the Azores Islands (Portugal). This was my first time piloting an aircraft over the Atlantic and it was something I'd been dreaming about for quite a while. Initially, the clouds obscured my view of the ocean but after a couple hours into the flight I finally got a glimpse of that beautiful ocean blue.

It was 1,360 nautical miles to Santa Maria. That's 1,600 'regular miles' for the layman folk. After about 30 min. from takeoff we were a couple hundred miles over the ocean and our radar contact, along with our primary form of communication - the VHF radio, was lost with air traffic control in Newfoundland. This is typical, of course. Ground based radar and VHF radio just doesn't have the capability of extending all the way across the world's oceans. So, at that point, we were on our own. We would now have to communicate over a very outdated communications system called the HF radio and make occasional position reports so that the oceanic air traffic control centers could keep all of the Atlantic Ocean air traffic separated from each other.

Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean:

A great tailwind pushed our speed up to 620 mph, much higher than our typical cruising speed of 500 mph and we arrived at the Azores Islands in very good time. Santa Maria, however, is the island that is the furthest to the east and so it was another half hour before we began our approach to the island after having passed a number of other islands in the Azores chain. Our approach into Santa Maria was the most beautiful I had ever seen. It was a crystal clear day and the runway was only a few hundred feet from the coast. If only I could've taken some pictures.

Our flight time from Newfoundland to Santa Maria was 3 hours and 6 minutes - amazing. After we taxied in, we shut down the engines, got some fuel, and took in the view for a little bit. I looked back across the ocean to the northwest - the direction we had came from - and thought about how incredible it was that an aircraft could fly across 1600 miles of open ocean and then drop out of the sky and land on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere.

After about 45 min. of enjoying the view, it was time to takeoff for the Canary Islands to the southeast. Flying time would be about 2 hrs 30 min. We would be landing on the island of Lanzarote, a volcanic and desert island paradise located just 80 miles off the coast of Morocco. Our approach took us directly over the island and then a descending 180 degree turn to land.

The runway was located right on the coast. I could see the ocean waves lashing against the rocks located at the beginning of the runway. The beach, located just off the side of the runway, was littered with hundreds of people enjoying the beautiful weather and waves. It was an incredibly gorgeous approach to this Spanish owned island.

After landing, we collected our bags off the jet and took a taxi to our hotel. The taxi ride gave me an opportunity to take some pictures of the beautiful island with palm trees swaying in the wind and the sunlight glittering off the ocean.

Lucky for us, our hotel was the Costa Calero; a resort hotel on the beach. After dropping our luggage off in our rooms we walked into the expansive hotel restaurant, taking a seat at a table on the veranda where we sat back, enjoyed the cool breeze, and took part in a gloriously extravagant buffet. After three days of travelling, we had made it to within just 80 miles of Africa, yet tomorrow would be our longest day yet, flying over six African countries with two stops before we made our way into the Congo.

View from Hotel lobby:

View from my hotel room:

Back in the Saddle

2009-08-26T18:25:00.000-07:00

I was in Calgary for a few days. We did a recurrency flight to get used to flying the learjet again and the day after that we did another flight to test the radar. The jet hadn't flown in several months but it ran very well

On Tuesday we flew to Denver where several dozen company employees got to see the airplane in the hangar. They had never actually seen the airplane before and seemed to enjoy browsing the airplane and sitting in the cockpit while Ken and I, along with our mechanic and radar technician, answered their questions.

We're scheduled to depart Denver on Friday for Africa. Our route will take us from Denver to Toronto, where we may have to wait for a couple of days for the hurricane to pass through Newfoundland. After the hurricane has passed, we'll move on to St. John's, Newfoundland and stay overnight.

The next morning we'll fly 1,600 miles across the Atlantic Ocean to Santa Maria, Azores Islands (Portugal) where we'll get some fuel and then fly 1,100 miles south-east across the Atlantic to Arrecife, Canary Islands (Spain) where we'll overnight.

The next morning we'll fly 80 miles to the coast of Morocco where we'll continue hundreds of miles across the Western Sahara Desert and across the country of Mauritania before entering the country of Mali and landing in its capital city of Bamako.

After refueling in Bamako, we'll takeoff and travel east into Burkina Faso and then make a turn south into Ghana and land in its southern coast city of Accra. After refueling in Accra, we'll fly 1,200 miles across the Gulf of Guinea to our final destination of Pointe Noire, Congo.

Altogether, the trip should take about four or five days (depending on the hurricane) and will cover a distance of about 9,000 miles. Lots of pictures to come.

Moving On

2008-11-03T12:53:00.000-08:00

This blog was created to give you an insight into my life as a pilot but more precisely - my life as a pilot who travels to different places around the world. Unfortunately, that just hasn't happened the last year or so. Instead, I've been stuck with the domestic trips and they're just not as exciting, especially when those domestic trips include places like Little Rock and three consecutive trips to Lincoln, NE.

So anyway, I think it's time to move on and my company has been nice enough to help me in moving on. Actually, we found out a few weeks ago that we've been laid off because they couldn't get enough funding for any new projects because of the current financial crisis. At first, of course, I wasn't very happy about that but now I think it'll probably be one of those... blessings in disguise.

What I really want to do is to fly all over the world, and not just to go there and fly back the next day but more importantly to actually experience those places. And that often requires a rental car, which is why I'll try to stay away from the airlines.

Obviously, I'm now looking for a new job and I'm feeling pretty good about the prospects but I'm not going to hint at anything. I'll just let you know what I have when I have it. I may not be able to get one of those dream jobs with the economy the way it is at the moment but I'm going to at least start with the dream jobs and do whatever I can to get one. If I get something that's worth blogging about then I'll continue this blog, but if I don't, then I won't.

(Insert Title of Lame Blog)

2008-05-28T07:30:00.000-07:00

Alright, so I forgot to post another blog but I've been in Lincoln for the last two and a half weeks and what do you do in Lincoln, Nebraska for two and a half weeks? Answer: A whole lotta nothing. I watched the new Indiana Jones movie a couple days ago. I kinda liked it at first but after a while the cliches, nonsensical plot, and overblown hollywoodness (yep, just created a new word), just got to me and I ended up not liking the movie at all.

So I really don't have much to talk about here. We haven't been flying that much and we haven't done that much. Mike and I got on a pie buying kick while we've been here and I've got half of a banana cream pie sitting in the fridge that I probably won't be able to finish by the time I leave here tomorrow. So if you would like a half eaten banana cream pie, let me know by tomorrow and I'll fedex it to you. (That's what you get when I spend two and half weeks in Lincoln, I talk about pies.)

I'm finished with this trip tomorrow and instead of going home I'm gonna hang out in California for a while. I'll be back at work in late June. I'll probably blog something then but I cannot guarantee it'll be anymore interesting than this one so read at your own risk.

They're Still Paying Us to do This?

2008-05-08T13:13:00.000-07:00

I'm back at work again (or on another vacation, whatever you wanna call it). I went to Flightsafety for the first four days to fly around in the simulator for my 6 month recurrent training. Now I'm in Richmond, VA. We were only supposed to be here for a couple days but we've only flown once in the last six days and we're probably not flying tonight either so it looks like it'll be a few more days before we leave.

Once we do leave Richmond, we'll be going to Lincoln, NE. I know what you're thinking, how do I get all the exciting trips? Well, I'm just a lucky guy I guess. I've missed out on all the European trips for the last several months. I've missed out on Spain and the Mediterranean island of Corsica and now missed out on another trip to France. Think of all the pictures I could've taken.

Our other jet will be brought back to the US in a few weeks where it will likely stay until we've finished mapping the US, which will probably take several months. After we're finished with the US we'll have both jets in different parts of the world and my blogs will be a little more exciting.

So what have we been doing in Richmond? Well, I bought Grand Theft Auto IV so I've been having a lot of fun with that and we've been driving around a lot, hitting balls at the driving range, and finding new restaurants. The last couple days involved going to the driving range, hitting some golf balls around for a while, having dinner at a Japanese steakhouse, and topping it off with ice cream at Dairy Queen (and then back to the hotel to play more Grand Theft Auto). I just got an incoming message: "No flights tonight". Now I've got to figure out what we're going to do. We've talked about visiting Jamestown, so I think we might do that.

Mike and I each bought a joystick at walmart last night. We're going to do some dogfighting on a WWII flight simulator on our laptops. That's gonna be fun. I guess that's about it. We've just been taking it easy, driving around, eating, and playing games. If we go to Jamestown, I'll upload some pics in my next blog.

below: Mike and I working on our swing.

Fun Times at the William Jefferson Clinton Library

2008-03-15T13:28:00.000-07:00

I'm telling ya, there's not much going on here in Little Rock. But I'll blog something just to pacify you blog junkies. You know who you are.

I've been here in Little Rock for the last three weeks or so. We haven't flown that much so there's been a lot of time to take it easy and do a whole lotta nothin'. We have a new radar field tech who likes to "go out". She often brings the rest of us with her. So after dinner some of us would wind up at a club where we would invariably look at our watch all night while she had a good time doing whatever people do at a club.

There's no real possibility of conversation at a club because of the incredibly loud music but after a couple hours we had adapted and by the end of the night had developed a remarkably extensive form of sign language. But most often our communication would involve a simple raising of the eyebrows which when translated means, "Hey, we've been here a long time, you think she's ready to go yet?"

So, not a whole lot going on here in Little Rock. I watched "Semi-Pro" the other day; not a great movie. I've been going to a church here and have been invited out a couple of times for dinner which has been really nice. We're supposed to move on to Richmond, VA at some point if we're ever able to get any flying done. I think we've got at least a week left here.

Hopefully they'll send me to Europe again. I haven't been there since November. We got a call from the guys in Malaga, Spain. They informed us that their hotel is right on the beach. I've got a hunch I may be there in May. Let's hope so.

Bubba's library is apparently the only thing to see in Little Rock, but you didn't think I'd actually gone there, did ya?

Update #3

2008-01-24T20:59:00.000-08:00

We left Houston, suddenly and without warning, like normal. I got the phone call around 3 pm and by 7 pm we were on a Southwest Airlines 737 on our way to Sacramento. The other crew would fly the learjet there. Before we arrived in Sacramento we made a stop in Vegas where I made a $2 donation to the Las Vegas Airport Slot Machine Maintenance Fund and then back on another 737 to Sacramento.

We spent about a week there. Not much happened really. We made a few flights and I took a few pictures.

Below: Over the Sierra Nevadas

A couple days ago I got another phone call and once again, suddenly and without warning, we were on another Southwest 737 on our way to Midland, TX. We made a stop in Vegas again and I made another $2 donation to the Las Vegas Airport Slot Machine Maintenance Fund. We've been in Midland for two or three days now but the learjet is still in Sacramento. It should probably be here tomorrow and we might do some flying then.

I had dinner at my favorite restaurant in Midland last night. (I spent about three weeks here back in May.) I had beef kabobs and a couple IBC root beers (nectar of the gods). I also went to church last night and had a nice visit with some of the people I had gotten to know when I was here in May.

As of right now, I'm in my hotel room at the Elegante hotel (nice place) and trying to think of something to do. Yeah, so things aren't all that exciting this trip but it sure beats working for a living. This trip will be over in a few days but I am scheduled to go to Spain and Portugal in mid-March so that's gonna be really nice. I'm sure I'll have lots of pictures then. However, the schedule changes a lot so there's really no telling where I'll be going in March. I could be in Sweden for all I know. And that's one of the reasons I love this job.

Below: An interesting site at one of the airports I went to.

An Afternoon in Galveston and a Trip to the Johnson Space Center

2008-01-12T18:30:00.001-08:00

I drove down to Galveston Island a couple days ago and had a late lunch at a nice restaurant next to the Gulf. After lunch, I drove around the island a little bit and walked along the beach for a while. It was a cloudy day unfortunately but other than that it was a nice trip.

Today, I went to the Johnson Space Center. The visitor's center was all family friendly and anytime something is family friendly it is almost always lame. But the whole NASA space program is lame so I really should've expected the visitor experience to be just the same. But they've got some great plans that should be coming to fruition around 2020: creating a permanent moon base and landing a man on Mars, stuff like that. As soon as they start doing that I'll start paying attention.

But for right now they just keep sending people up to the space station to do who knows what. It just seems like they're more interested in WHO they send into space rather than focusing on exploration and discovery of the final frontier. Why were they so excited about sending the first teacher into space or the first (name an ethnic group) into space? Who cares?! Just send whoever is most qualified and while you're up there do some exploring. The universe is incomprehensibly vast and mysterious and we've got some exploring to do.

Yet, we waste our time floating around in earth's orbit doing somersaults and performing experiments on how zero-gravity affects plants. But, like I said, they are finally starting to work on some ambitious projects and their Mars program is coming along very well. They've already got a couple unmanned rovers there now and another one is on the way. And I know what you might be thinking, that all they're going to find is rocks and dirt and that's probably true, but... you really have no idea. And you have no idea because you have nothing to compare it to. 500 years ago when European explorers were discovering the new world they could have a pretty good idea of the things they would find because, after all, they were exploring the same planet. But Mars is separated from Earth by tens of millions of miles. The two worlds have had virtually no contact with each other and because of that there's truly no telling what ancient mystery could be discovered that could change the way we view ourselves and the universe.

The latest Martian rover is scheduled to land on one of Mars' polar ice caps in May. It will then dig into this supposed water ice, melt it, and determine what it's composed of and what exists in it, if anything. Most likely, they won't find anything earth-shattering, but then again, maybe they will. And, at some point in the future, they WILL find something earth-shattering and when that happens we'll all have wondered why we wasted decades floating around in our own Earth's orbit instead of searching for whatever is out there for us to find.

The main reason I went to the Space Center was to see this...

This is the Saturn V rocket. The largest rocket ever built. It carried the Apollo missions into space. It's about 375 ft. long and an incredible thing to see in person.

Below: Flight deck of the space shuttle. (not the real shuttle, some sort of mock-up)

Below: One of the main engines of the space shuttle.

Below: Houston Mission Control

Below: This seemed rather out of place, but then again, maybe not.

Flying South for the Winter

2008-01-04T13:11:00.000-08:00

Just when I nearly forgot how to fly an airplane they decided to send me back to work. Actually, since I've been back from my European/Middle East Extravaganza I've been to Portland, Oregon for a few days and Wichita for a few more days. That was back in early December.

I made a couple flights in Portland but the weather was so bad that we only flew two of the five days I was there. That gave me time to study for my pilot-in-command checkride that I was about to take in Wichita which I'm happy to say I passed and am now rated to act as captain on the learjet. However, my company now has to decide when they want me to upgrade to the captain position. It's hard to tell when that might be but probably fairly soon.

On Dec. 31 I airlined to Albuquerque, NM where we made a couple more flights. I actually got to fly during the day on those two flights, which was nice. We flew north over the Colorado Rockies and into Wyoming and then into Montana. We made a few circles over Wyoming and Montana and then flew back to Albuquerque. Wyoming and Montana were completely covered in snow and it looked like really deep snow too, as you might expect. It was a beautiful flight but I didn't take any pictures. Pictures from the cockpit just never seem to capture the beauty of the landscape. So that's my excuse for not taking pictures. Well, that and my camera was in my flight bag which was about two feet out of reach from the cockpit and I was too lazy to unbuckle my seatbelt to go get it.

I had a great meal our last night in Albuquerque. We went to this really nice steakhouse and spent way too much money. I had a 16 oz. steak (I forgot what kind of steak it was) with green peppercorn sauce, garlic mashed potatoes, and a chocolate cupcake type dessert with a chocolate filling and ice cream. I forgot the name of the dessert; but it started with a 'G' so if you have any idea what it is, let me know. It was the same dessert I had in France. Remember the $13 cupcake? Same thing. It cost a little less in Albuquerque, but not much.

We moved our base of operations to Houston yesterday. I'm just a mile from the Johnson Space Center so I'm sure I'll find my way over there pretty soon. That's all for now. Blog at ya later.

Going Home.

2007-11-10T13:24:00.000-08:00

My trip is over. I'm flying home tomorrow morning. This blog is gonna be short because I have to pack and all that good stuff. The last couple weeks have been fun, mostly just eating at different restaurants in Cologne and seeing a few sites. Not too many sites though, mostly just eating. After a month, you tend to get tired of being a tourist, or at least I did. We've flown a little bit but not that much lately.

Here's some pics. I'll be off 'til sometime next year so don't expect another blog for a while.

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(Cologne was built by the Romans. They had a museum in downtown Cologne that we went to see.)

(Below: The statue on the left is of a young Marcus Auerlius. It's about 2,000 years old, amazing)

(Cologne Cathedral. Also amazing.)

(Below: No one here likes their picture taken but me.)

Goodbye Austria, Hello Germany

2007-10-27T05:06:00.000-07:00

There's a phenomenon I've discovered here in Vienna. I call it the Asian Invasion. Every once in a while we'll notice a large mass of asian folks walking through the airport or into the hotel. This mass of people does not separate - ever. I doubt there is an independent thought among them.

They move as one: they enter the hotel through the revolving door together (though sometimes they get stuck attempting this), they eat together, they get on their tour bus together, and they enter the elevator together (or at least make every effort to do so). They are truly a site to behold. They as tourists, are like a tourist attraction themselves - the asian tourist group in action.

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There's another phenomenon I've noticed: my ability to persuade people to speak in tongues. I'm not sure how I developed this ability but it is an amazing thing to see. I can walk into any building in Austria and as soon as someone begins to speak to me in German I simply say the magical word - "hi". Immediately, I am able to understand every word they say.

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Take a look at the picture below. No, those are not new shirts that I have purchased here in Austria. That is my laundry. And yes, they actually put cardboard in the collar and other places throughout the neatly pressed and folded shirts. They also ironed my socks and underwear but because of my high standard of decorum I did not take a picture of that. Interesting to note, Ken told me they also ironed and neatly folded his man-thong. But for $100 a load, that's the kind of service we better get.

I went by Beethoven's house the other day. He was not there, but we did enjoy a quick tour of his home.

Overall, the food has been ok here in Austria. We went to a really nice restaurant in Vienna a few nights ago. I had a sirloin steak and some sides that I don't remember. The food was very good though and the restaurant was a very quaint 16th century building. And by quaint, of course, I mean very, very small. I'm not sure how we all fit in there but we had a great time. By the time we had finished our meal we were breathing about as much oxygen as we would in a depressurized Learjet at 30,000 ft.

Our company has decided to send us to Cologne, Germany to map the Alps in eastern France and northern Italy before the snow covers them. So, we said goodbye to Vienna and took off for Cologne. We had to do some mapping along the way so we headed west over western Austria into Switzerland, and then north over eastern France and into Germany. The moon was full and provided us with a nice view of the snow covered Alps.

We arrived in Cologne at about 2:00 am. There's me, standing next to our condensation covered airplane.

I had my first meal here in Germany and it was fantastic. It was the best meal I've had in Europe. The Germans know how to cook steaks. I had a ribeye with some fried potatoes that were amazing and some ice cream for dessert. It's currently 2:00 in the afternoon and I think it's time for another one of those fantastic meals so I'm going to end this blog... right... now.

Austrian Excursions

2007-10-20T06:11:00.000-07:00

We went to a palace the other day. It was a country estate built in the early 1700's for the Hapsburg's greatest general, Field Marshall Prince Eugene of Savoy. It was a massive estate that encompassed over a hundred acres.

I thought it was funny how almost all of the rooms were of exactly the same dimensions. There were three floors to the palace with two long hallways on each floor and in each hallway we would pass by several rooms that looked almost identical to all the others. The only real differences between each of them was that they were painted a different color and had slightly different furniture. Yet there were so many of them!

It all seemed so ridiculously excessive and pointless. I could just imagine a typical day of theirs where Eugene might say to his wife, "Wifey, let's sit in the light blue room today," or "let's have tea in the dark red room today."

Wifey would reply, "You mean the crimson room, darling?"

"Uh yes, I think. Isn't that the one on the second floor, east wing, with the extra chair in the corner?"

"I'm not really sure, Eugene, I don't think I've ever been to that room before."

"You've never been there?! But we've owned this home for five years!"

"Yes, darling, but we only stay here four weeks out of the year."

"Oh yes, that's right. Well, just have one of the servants show you the way. I'll be there in about fifteen, just as soon as I put my goofy whig on and powder my face so it'll look pasty white and then add some red stuff to make my cheeks look rosy red like the emasculated sissy that I am."

It was an impressive place as you can see from the pictures but it also had a very cold feel to it. I can't imagine myself ever living in a place like that.

On one of our drives recently we saw a castle on a hill so we decided to attempt to drive to it. After going as far as we could in the car we then had to walk a little further to the top of the hill where we found the entrance to the castle. The castle was locked unfortunately but as we walked around the outer edge of the castle we came upon an amazing view from atop the hill.

(views from castle)

We went into Vienna yesterday. This was actually my first time into the city. I've had so much fun driving through the countryside and visiting some of these small towns and castles that I just hadn't made it into the city yet.

Vienna was amazing. I was really impressed with this city. One of the first things we came upon after getting off the train was this incredible cathedral. Ken told me that it was, at one time, the tallest building in Europe and kept that status for centuries. This is one of those things you really have to see in person to appreciate.

I was in awe of the architecture and the size of this massive cathedral. Inside the cathedral there were lots of people mulling around and unfortunately we didn't get to walk around much and discover any hidden passages or crypts but still it was an amazing thing to see.

After an early dinner we decided to walk around for a while and maybe see if we could find the imperial palace. We knew we were in the general area of where the palace should be so we thought it might be easy to find it but we were mistaken. The problem was that there were many buildings that looked like a palace. There were libraries, museums, and government buildings that were enormous and very palace-like. Nevertheless, we had a great time just walking around Vienna admiring all of the history and architecture.

(Below: This is a library! And I could only get half of this enormous building in this picture.)

As far as the real reason I'm here - to map Europe - that's going well. We've been flying a lot the last several days. We're mapping Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, and now Poland. In the next few days we'll probably be heading to Cologne, Germany for a few weeks to map some of France and northern Italy. I've heard we'll be getting to drive BMW's when we're there. That's good news. It'll be nice to get rid of these tiny European go-carts that we're driving now.

We've done a lot of sightseeing the last several days and to talk about all of it would make for a very long blog entry so I've had to skip over a lot of stuff but here's some other pics that I've taken recently.

(Some castle courtyard we wandered into.)

(An ancient Roman archway.)

In Search of Castles

2007-10-11T14:24:00.000-07:00

We've been flying about every other night here in Austria, which is typical for us. The heavy fog in this area has cancelled a few flights so far. Last night we flew to the southern border of Slovenia and then flew a line straight north back into Austria, then into the Czech Republic, over the city of Prague, and up to the southern border of Germany and Poland. We flew north and south over these areas a few more times during the mission.

We don't have overfly permits for Croatia or Poland so we had to be careful not to accidentally maneuver into their airspace and get a missile shot up our tailpipe. I'm kidding, they probably wouldn't shoot a missile at us. They'd probably just use anti-aircraft guns.

I decided to go for a drive one morning. I had plans to visit an ancient Roman town and a couple castles. The drive was really nice. It's very beautiful here and it seemed like every town I went through looked like something out of a postcard. However, about ten minutes into the drive I plunged into a thick fog that just wouldn't dissipate.

After driving through the fog for a little while I decided to cancel my trip and return to the hotel. But before I went home I stopped by Eckartsau Castle. I thought it was something I could tour but when I arrived at the castle it appeared I was the only one there. I parked my car and walked down the path through the fog shrouded park toward the entrance of the castle. As I got within about fifty feet of the castle I saw some signs in German that I imagined said something like "Stop! Or I'll release the hounds!" So, I decided to just walk back to the car.

A couple days later I took off again in search of castles but this time I brought along two colleagues. I drove and they did their best to get me lost. Ken seemed so confident in his direction input that you would think he used to live there. However, I soon discovered that his directions were wrong almost every time and therefore decided to relegate his input as that coming from a man with a mild form of Tourette's syndrome who randomly spouts off "turn left!" or "turn right!" without any reason or purpose in his babblings other than to conciliate his psychological disorder. Ken, if you ever read this, that was a joke. I promise.

On our way to one of these castles we decided to take the scenic tour through a couple towns while inadvertently turning into a number of store parking lots instead of streets and, in the feeble attempt to maintain the backseat passenger's confidence in us, myself and the equally guilty navigator, would always come up with something to the effect of, "I thought you might want to get something. No? Ok, well I guess we'll be on our way then."

We finally made it to our first stop, Lichtenstein Castle. And this one was a genuine (say it gen-you-wine) castle. It was built sometime in the 12th century, I think (don't really know, but it sounds about right). We walked up to the entrance where the Lord of the castle came out to greet us and then invited us inside to dine with his family in the banquet hall where we feasted on roasted pork with scrumptious side dishes and listened to a four piece orchestra playing in the corner. This is what I had hoped to happen anyway, but unfortunately, when we arrived at the entrance we discovered that the door was locked and that the castle was closed for the next year due to renovations. Nevertheless, we got some great exterior views.

We then walked through the park near the castle and enjoyed the views from atop the hill. We saw turrets and temples and ruins from a chapel that had been destroyed long ago. I could almost imagine a medieval knight riding along our path on his steed through this beautiful forest and then asking to see our passports.

After finding our way out of the park we then drove to a nice little town and had some lunch. The restaurant was very nice and the people just as friendly. After a long, leisurely lunch we walked around the town for a little while and enjoyed the scenery.

The Exodus

2007-10-06T11:04:00.000-07:00

After finishing my last post I walked out of my room and down the hallway to the beautiful spiraling staircase of the Concorde El Salam hotel in Cairo. As I walked down the staircase I could hear music playing and people talking. Upon entering the main lobby I noticed there were people everywhere. There was a gentleman playing a piano and people sitting and visiting with each other. As I walked out in the courtyard I saw what appeared to be a huge wedding reception with people eating at large tables and waiters/waitresses running all over the place and live music playing in the center of the courtyard. It took me a moment to realize that this was just a typical night at the hotel.

(The lobby of the Concorde El Salam in the daytime)

After admiring the ambiance I then walked passed a large Egyptian man puffing on a cigar over to what I thought was probably the restaurant and waited for someone to seat me. They were so busy that I don't think they even noticed me. I finally asked one of them if I should just take a seat and they said yes and that they would be over to help me in a moment.

After I sat down I noticed that almost everyone eating in the restaurant and in the courtyard was a westerner. I assume this must be a vacation hotspot for them. My waiter soon arrived and I ordered beef tenderloin with a chocolate brownie for dessert and it was great. After I finished dinner, I noticed that most of the people had gone back to their rooms and as a result the place was much more subdued and peaceful. I walked back into the courtyard and listened to some Arabian music for a little while.

(Arabian Night)

One of the things I noticed about the hotel when we first arrived that day was the heavy security. The hotel estate was surrounded by a thick cement wall with a security post filled with several armed Egyptian military guards at the entrance to the hotel grounds. The entrance to the hotel itself also had a couple guards along with a metal detector at the door.

(The view outside my hotel room.)

The next morning we arrived at the airport and noticed a huge group of people standing outside the airport waiting to get in. We also noticed that there didn't appear to be any westerners mixed in with the mass of people which I thought was kind of odd. As we began walking to get into line three Egyptian men came over to us with a wheeled baggage cart and started to grab our luggage to place it on the cart. After they didn't take "no thank you" for an answer I yelled at them and got them to back off but then I noticed that Ken was giving into them. They soon had all of his luggage onto their cart and were telling us to follow them. I finally decided that they were harmless and were just trying to make a buck so I let them place my luggage onto the cart as well.

We then followed our newly hired "baggage handlers" through the mass of people and up to the barricade at the front of the line with about a dozen security guards behind it. Our lead baggage handler spoke some words to one of the guards and after taking one look at us he then pulled part of the barricade back and allowed us into the airport. Our "baggage handlers" then directed us to where we should go and after receiving an e-ticket receipt we then got into line to enter the secured area of the airport. We handed our "baggage handlers" some money and thanked them for their help.

What I just described was the shortened version of the story. The airport in Cairo was pretty much a zoo but there were guards all over the place which was somewhat comforting. These "freelance baggage handlers" were everywhere; swarming over people to try to help them with their bags. It really was very annoying but our baggage handlers actually did a pretty good job so I can't complain about them too much. I would've hated to have had to stand in that huge line outside and they did a good job at helping us avoid that. However, I would definitely feel sorry for any elderly people or families with children to have to deal with that madhouse.

After going through security, getting our bags checked, and passing through customs, we were finally out of the zoo. We then made our way upstairs to the passenger lounge and sit down for some starbucks. The flight on EgyptAir to Vienna was a nice one. After arriving in Vienna we were delighted to see the green grass and beautiful countryside. It was such a dramatic contrast to what we saw in our three days in the Middle East.

The hotel is about 200 feet from the airport and it's a very nice, modern hotel. I haven't made it into the city of Vienna yet but with another month here I'm sure I'll have time. I just got back from the grocery store where I bought a couple sandwiches and some snacks. We're all just taking it easy right now. We haven't flown here yet but we are scheduled to fly tonight. I found out yesterday that we're not just mapping Austria while we're here. We'll also be mapping the Czech Republic and northern Italy.

That's all for now. I'll try to venture out to the city or the countryside soon and take some pictures. Also, I am happy to say that the food here is very good so far and the pepper is black and has no hint of cow manure whatsoever.

The Far Side of the World

2007-10-03T10:52:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, I went on a 13 hour plane ride from New York to Dubai. It was aboard an Emirates Airways B-777-300. I've always heard good things about Emirates and I definitely wasn't disappointed on my first flight with the airline. Each seat had a tv screen on the seatback in front. From this tv I could play games, listen to music, or watch a variety of movies and tv shows. Also, there were two cameras on the airplane: one on the nose pointed forward and the other on the belly of the airplane pointed toward the ground. Each camera could be viewed on each individual passenger tv screen. It was nice, since I didn't have a window seat I could still see what was going on outside the airplane. As far as the service, it was great, and they gave us lots of food. The only thing I could've asked for was more legroom. American Airlines definitely has them beat on that.

I noticed something interesting about the flight. Just before takeoff the captain told us that we would be flying over Iraq, however, just before we were about to enter Iraqi airspace the airplane went slightly to the east over Iran. We then flew down the western edge of Iran all the way down to Dubai. I'm not sure why they had to avoid Iraqi airspace.

I didn't have much time to do anything in Dubai. I arrived Monday night and on Tuesday we were all busy at the airport doing paperwork and getting ready for our flight to Cairo the next day. The hotel there was amazing though. We stayed at Le Meridien. My room was the Ruby Suite and it was a lot bigger than my apartment. The bedroom was huge, it had a living room, and dining room, a bar, a huge bathroom, and a large closet sized room just for an espresso machine.

We went to a Greek restaurant for dinner Tuesday night. The place was amazing. The food looked great too but unfortunately my taste buds would still prefer the 'open faced turkey sandwich thanksgiving meal' that I can find at Perkins back home. It's terrible I know. I really wanted to like the food but it just rarely happens.

They had a team of ethnically Greek waiters and waitresses that would literally circle the table and whenever they saw something that needed to be done they would swoop in and do it. When there were crumbs at the edge of our table they would come in out of nowhere and wipe the crumbs off the table. They would always ask us if we liked what we were eating but because they were so serious about their food and their service I thought if I told them the truth one of them might commit suicide and I didn't want to see that. Not while I'm eating.

Early Wednesday morning we got the airplane ready and took off for Cairo. Our route took us northwest over the Persian Gulf to Bahrain and then over the Arabian Peninsula, then the Sinai Peninsula, and then into Cairo. The Saudi controllers were really difficult to hear mostly because of their poor quality radios but also because of their strong accents. We had to ask them repeatedly to "say again, please".

The Arabian Peninsula was pretty desolate as you could imagine and from 36,000 ft. on a hazy day like this one we really couldn't see much of the terrain. As we passed over the Sinai Peninsula, Ken and I began talking about Moses and the Israelites. We even saw the mountains that likely included Mt. Sinai though we weren't really sure which mountain was the one. The terrain here was almost as desolate as that on the Arabian Peninsula and I made the comment to Ken that the chances of millions of Israelites surviving in this area while wandering around for 40 years without manna from God was pretty much zero.

Arabian Peninsula

Mt. Sinai

After leaving Sinai we passed over the Gulf of Suez and entered Egypt. It was too hazy to see very far and unfortunately I didn't get to see the pyramids. The city of Cairo is massive as you might expect. I've never seen so many high rise apartment buildings. It was incredible. And there was so little color to the city that everything seemed to just blend in with the sand. I don't even remember seeing the Nile. It must've blended in too.

Egypt

outskirts of Cairo

After arriving in Cairo the other crew met us at the airplane. They were going to take the airplane to Germany for a few days of maintenance and then meet us later in Vienna. We grabbed our bags, got in our limo and were on our way to the hotel. The streets were bustling with people and activity; horns blaring and all that good stuff. I even saw a guy hauling some stuff on a flat trailer type thing with a horse pulling it, right there on a busy three lane street. The apartment buildings we passed were not in the greatest of condition but they all had satellite dishes so they must be doing alright.

Right now, I'm at the hotel in Cairo. I just woke up from a long nap and it's now dark outside. We're leaving tomorrow morning for Vienna (via airline). I think I'm going to wander downstairs and find some dinner.

(picture caption: The Tower of Babel (as I call it) AKA the Burj Dubai. It's the tallest building in the world and they're still building it.)

Into the Mountains of Wyoming and Montana

2007-08-20T10:01:00.000-07:00

Our flight was cancelled Thursday morning so I decided to jump in the car and head to Yellowstone for the day. I had heard that the drive takes between two - four hours. Some of my colleagues told me that it was only a two hour drive but I also know that guys are notorious for always claiming that a drive takes far less time
than it actually does. Someone at church told me it was closer to four hours and I think I put more faith in his assessment (pardon the pun).

So anyway, I headed off toward Yellowstone and probably stopped every mile or so once I got into the mountains. I took a road called Beartooth Pass and it just kept taking me higher and higher. I didn't realize these highways actually take you to the tops of the mountains. It was incredible. I had never seen mountains like this before. There are no trees at the top, of course, so I could see for miles.

After about 3 1/2 hours of driving I entered a town called Cooke City, MT and decided to stop in for lunch. I was probably still 30 miles away from Yellowstone and decided that Yellowstone couldn't possibly be any better than what I'd already seen just driving to the park and I was tired of driving anyway so I decided that I would head back to Billings after lunch.

I stopped in at a place called Prospector Restaurant and had lunch. I drove around the town a little bit too. It was a really interesting town with saloons and old hotels and other tourist stuff. After lunch I got in the car and drove back to Billings, once again stopping every mile or two to admire the scenery.

It was an amazingly beautiful drive and I'm glad I got to do it.

"Get off my mountain."

Maintenance Flight to Colorado

2007-08-16T21:51:00.000-07:00

We took the airplane to Grand Junction, Colorado Tuesday morning for some minor maintenance work. Our mechanic flew along with us and I was the flying pilot on the way there. It was a beautiful 1 hr. 10 min. flight. We flew over Yellowstone but it was too cloudy and I didn't get to see anything, but the rest of the flight was mostly clear with some big puffy clouds. The approach into Grand Junction was breathtaking. I wish I would have remembered to have our mechanic film the approach with my digital camera. Maybe next time.

After we arrived, we booked some hotel rooms, got a rental car, and headed off to the hotel. Apparently, there was a peach festival going on in town. We didn't join in the festivities but I did have some peach cobbler for dessert that evening.

We took off the next day around noon and returned to Billings. The smoke from the forest fires out west reduced the visibility to about 5 miles so air traffic control vectored us in on the ILS approach instead of giving us the visual. While descending through 15,000 ft. we could even smell the smoke from the forest fires.

Speaking of forest fires, I also saw some Kern County firefighters at our hotel a couple days ago. They were on their way to fight the fires there in Montana. I asked them if they knew Brett and they said they did but they hadn't seen him in a few years.

Enjoy the pictures and videos.

Billings, Montana

2007-08-14T09:29:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Billings, Montana on Wednesday, Aug. 8. I flew United through Denver and actually got to sit by females on both flights. That's always a great thing. I hate it when some unusually oversized dude sits next to me on an airplane and then steals my arm rest.

So far we've flown three out of the six days that I've been here. Billings is a city of about 100,000 people. Yellowstone National Park is about a three hour drive away. I might try to make it out there sometime while I'm here.

Our last two flights have involved flying to northern Montana and then straight south to northern New Mexico and then back to Billings. They last about 4 1/2 hours which is a typical flight for us. We've had a really good view of the Rockies the last few days and there's hardly any snow on the mountain peaks.

We have three flight crews here in Billings. The first flight leaves around 9 pm. The second leaves around 3 am and the last flight (mine) leaves at 9 am. Our flight normally lands in Billings at around 1:30 pm. I'm lucky to be on the third flight. I actually get to sleep at normal hours of the day and since we're flying during the day I get to see the scenery.

We flew over eastern Montana, western South Dakota, and eastern Wyoming the first day. In case you didn't already know, it's pretty desolate in those areas but still beautiful in its own way.

Eastern Wyoming

The first night I was here I went to a place right across the street from our hotel in downtown Billings called Jakes. They call themselves Montana's Premier Steakhouse and I think they may be right. I had an 18 oz. prime rib dinner with a slice of cappuccino cheesecake for dessert. Oh and lots and lots of root beer. It was great. The interior of the restaurant has a 1930's decor and the service is fantastic.

I can normally get by just eating one meal a day because I eat so much at that one meal that I'm not hungry for 24 hours. I'm kind of like a lion in that sense and also in the sense that I like to chase down and devour the occasional water buffalo.

I also found a church while I've been here. Its a congregation of about 200 people. Very friendly people, as always.

I'll be in Montana for another 6 days. This is a short 12 day trip for me. I'll go home for a month after that and then I'm off to Seattle for three weeks. Woo-hoo! Seattle! I've always wanted to go there.

Last Few Days In France

2007-07-13T11:10:00.000-07:00

Today was my last day in France. It was a beautiful day, and we decided to visit some old churches (something we had planned on doing for a while). I had wanted to visit some castles at some point during this trip but unfortunately I couldn't find any around here. None that were available to the public anyway.

We went to the St. Sernin Basilica and the Cathedral of St. Etienne (Stephen). These churches were just incredible to see in person. Construction on both churches began in the 11th century though most of what you see was constructed hundreds of years later.

St. Sernin Basilica

The Cathedral of St. Etienne (St. Stephen)

I even got to walk down into the crypt of the St. Sernin Basilica.

We've finished mapping most of France. The new crew that flew in a couple days ago has now taken over and should finish it in maybe a few weeks. My last couple flights in France involved mapping the eastern border of the country. To accomplish this we flew over the French Alps and Geneva, Switzerland. Geneva looks like a really beautiful city from the air and since we haven't mapped Switzerland yet, I may be there at some point in time.

Overall it has been a very nice trip. I expected to have more time to see more things but with the weather being consistently nice and the airplane not having very many problems we haven't had much of a reason not to fly. It'll be nice to get home and have a meal that actually fills me up. The meals here just aren't nearly as big as in the US but for some reason they cost a lot more in France. Just the other night I ordered chocolate cake for dessert so they brought me a cupcake and charged $13 (9 euros) for it.

(file photo; not the actual cake)

Tomorrow I'll return home for a month or so. My next trip will be somewhere in the US and then in October I'll return to Europe. Most likely it'll be Palmero, Sicily. That's gonna be nice.

Here's a few other pictures that I took while I was here:

This is Andy filling out paperwork after a flight.

Working Hard (not really)

2007-06-28T11:03:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, it turns out that the church I was looking for is no longer there. I corresponded via email with a missionary from an Arkansas church who had set up the church there and he told me that they've disbanded. That kind of put a damper on things. I was really hoping to get to meet some of the people here.

I haven't done much driving the last week because we've actually been working a lot. We've flown 6 out of the last 7 days which means it's beginning to feel like an actual job. One pilot told me that he once spent 57 days in Italy and only flew once. That would be nice. Not that I'm complaining about flying. It's great. It's kind of nice to get into a routine too.

We flew to the island of Corsica in the Mediterranean a few days ago. We took off late so as we were flying over the island the sun came up and we actually got to see the island. I took some pictures but the sun's rays hadn't really touched the surface of the island yet so it's really hard to see. I've posted a video but, like I said, the island doesn't show up real well.

Corsica

We also flew over the northern part of the island of Sardinia which is owned by Italy. As dawn broke the air traffic controllers told us we were getting in the way of Rome's airspace so we had to bug out and fly back over the Mediterranean to Toulouse. You know, I think I just brought up Sardinia so I could tell you that we were in ROME's airspace.

We flew over the Pyrenees this morning and that was really beautiful. I've posted a video of that too. These videos just don't capture the true beauty of it though but it's better than me describing what it looks like (or drawing a picture).

Pyrenees

As soon as I get a break from flying I'm going to take a drive again and see what I can find.

Looking for a Church / Strange Smelling Pepper

2007-06-19T11:10:00.000-07:00

I went looking for the Toulouse church on Sunday but unfortunately did not find it. I drove to the address that I found on the internet but when I arrived I found a house with no indication that a church met there. I was really disappointed. One of the things I was really looking forward to was going to church in a foreign country and getting to meet some of the people. It still may happen though, I've made some phone calls and emailed a church in Arkansas that apparently has some missionary relationship with the church in Toulouse but so far I haven't heard back from anyone in Arkansas. I'm assuming that either the church there has disbanded or they've moved from meeting in a house to meeting in a building at a different location. I'm hoping for the latter and that the church in Arkansas will be able to give me their new location.

I went for a drive a couple days ago. I wanted to get out of Toulouse and see what the countryside and some of the small towns looked like. The towns are so old that I'm sure each one has an incredible history behind it.

I'm sort of looking for a restaurant that I can go back to on a regular
basis. So far I haven't been impressed with the food in France. Their steaks aren't so great, their french onion soup has no taste, and their pepper smells like cow manure. And I'm not exaggerating about the cow manure smell. I knew that I recognized the smell the first time I sprinkled it on my eggs but I couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was until the next day. When I came to the realization that it smelled like cow manure I thought I would confirm this assumption with a fellow pilot eating breakfast with me that morning. So I asked Chris what he thought the pepper smelled like and he paused for a moment and then replied, "poop". I said, "yeah, cow manure. It smells exactly like cow manure." Chris replied, "it probably is cow manure." I then looked down at the brown pepper covering my plate. Yes, brown, not black. Why brown? Could it really be? So if it smells like cow manure and looks like cow manure then it must be...no, wait it doesn't taste like cow manure (not that I know what cow manure tastes like) and for that reason alone I keep pouring it on my eggs which has the adverse effect of making the entire plate smell like cow manure but at the same time making it taste sooo good.

We also do some flying when we're here. So far we've flown three times in the nine days that I've been here. The route we flew the first night was north to Paris and then south again toward Toulouse and then around the southern coast. Unfortunately, we can't really see anything on the ground when we're doing this because we're flying mostly at night. We fly from about 3:00 am to 7:00 am so the last hour and a half is during the dawn hours and we can actually see the landscape. I wasn't able to see Paris though because of the clouds. Maybe on another flight I will. I also noticed that we'll have to map the island of Corsica in the Mediterranean. I hope it'll be during the daylight hours when we fly over there so I can see it and maybe take some pictures.

First Few Days in Toulouse, France

2007-06-12T05:10:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Toulouse, France a few days ago. I flew on an American Airlines Boeing 777 from Dallas to London then a British Airways 737 from London to Toulouse. The flights were great. I had always wanted to fly on a 777 and was really happy about finally getting the chance to do it. The flight was 9 hours and it was the most comfortable flight I've ever been on especially when I compare it to the DC-10 I flew on from Minneapolis-Honolulu a few years ago. The main difference is that in the 777 each seat has its own tv screen. I watched "Wild Hogs", "Breach", and multiple episodes of "The Office." I could also keep track of where we were by switching my tv screen to the flight track mode that displayed a moving map with our airplane on it. I could see our location, speed, and altitude at any given time. I watched as we flew from Dallas north-east over St. Louis then Chicago then north into northern Canada out over the ocean then passing over the southern tip of Greenland then just south of Iceland and on over Scotland and into London.

I had a window seat but I didn't get to see very much. Sitting directly over the middle of the enormous wing doesn't help. Its an amazing thing to be flying at 37,000 ft. over a far away barren landscape and miles and miles of a frigid ocean while sitting comfortably in an airplane laughing at Dwight Schrute from "The Office."

When I got to London I thought about how interesting it was to know that I was the first Smithson to return to England since my 8th great grandfather, Thomas Smithson, left in the early 1700's for America (first in our direct line of descent anyway). I didn't get to see much of the UK but since my company is going to remap it, I'm sure I'll be back soon for a nice long visit.

The flight from London to Toulouse was great too but that was mostly because their flight attendants were beautiful. Upon arrival in Toulouse I got to see the Airbus A380 in person for the first time. I saw a couple of them taxiing around the airport. Hopefully I'll get a chance to get up close to one over the next few weeks.

The hotel here is very nice and so are the people. I've heard many warnings about the French but so far they've all been very nice. Its great how most people seem to be speak English but I carry a little French language dictionary along with me in case I need more than "Parlez-vous anglais?" ("Do you know English") to get by.

We drove into downtown Toulouse yesterday. It was very cool. We walked through a park and took lots of pictures - most of which did not come out very well. We also went to some local bakery and noticed a lot of really quaint restaurants that I hope we'll go back to sometime. After a couple hours we walked over to the train station to pick up one of our employees who had gone to Paris for a week for some reason and was now returning to Toulouse.

There are about a dozen empoyees in each location at any given time and every one of them that I've spoken with really loves their job. Its great to work in an environment like that. Its so different from my time as an airline pilot. Everyone hated their job there. With this job I probably fly on average every other night. The flights last 4-5 hours and when I'm not flying I just have fun. I spend about a month in each location and then go home for a month. Everything is paid for here: the hotel, the food, laundry, rental cars. I tell people that I get paid to go on an all-expense-paid vacation every other month and every couple days that I'm there they let me fly a learjet around for a few hours. Its really hard to beat that. People stay here a long time and I can see why.

I'll be here for 4 1/2 weeks and I intend on taking tours of castles and vineyards (all the things France is known for) and getting to know some of the folks here. I think there's a Church of Christ around here and I plan on going there this Sunday. Hopefully someone there knows english but just in case I'll bring along my little French book. Au revoir.