Category Archives: social

Sunglasses@Night

November 21, 1995socialcs

My First Officer this month, Marshall B______, is from a generations old Maryland family that included a Supreme Court Justice. Marshall’s father was an officer in the Navy and Marshall came to the right seat of my airplane from an Air Force KC-135 aerial refueling tanker. He was the navigator and knows something about celestial navigation so it is fun to pick his brain on that subject. He was stationed for a time at Castle AFB in Atwater, California, which is not far from my family’s roots, and flying on B-52s. Anyhow. he’s a little green as a co-pilot and not too sure of himself yet. I have to reaffirm what they taught about aircraft systems in ground school and coach him a little bit sometimes. When approaching an airport at night he asks me things like: “Where is it?” and, “So there’s our runway over there, right?” “Call my turn for me, alright?” At first I thought it was just insecurity and thinking out loud. But then I realized that he doesn’t see so well at night. You soon formulate opinions about your crew especially from the confines of a cramped cockpit. You watch for strengths and weakness. After all, your career and not to mention safety depend on it. There were subtle hints like the CRT screens on his side of the instrument panel adjusted to full intensity and only dimmed slightly after it was pitch black outside. He boasted to me that his vision was better then best with acuity measured at 20/07. Wow. I’m impressed. (Didn’t I hear somewhere that people with perfect eyesight sometimes have difficulty with night vision?) Approaching the Dulles airport (~7 miles out) in the middle of the night and his leg he says, “Ah, could I get some landing lights on here please?” Sure. No prob.’. I reached to the overhead panel for the three rocker switches; left landing, right landing, taxi light. Click. Click. Click. (technical note: these lights are mounted to the nose gear strut ) He had forgotten that the lights would not be effective as the landing gear had not yet been lowered. I mockingly reminded him of this by saying, “There. Oh! That’s sure a lot better.” And then after he had realized his mistake and understood that all he had succeeded in doing was to bathe the closed nose gear wheel well with a zillion candlepower, I said laughing, “Boy! You really made those mice and cockroaches in there scramble for the crevices.”

On our way west (my leg), Marshall and I fly toward the brilliant sunset. He explains to me how the celestial charts call for a heavy duty correction for refractive error during sun sights at this shallow zenith. We squint into the bright orange glow, the lower circumference of which is beginning to distort and flatten. “You see? At the very last we are not seeing the true sun at all but merely a reflection in the earth’s thick atmosphere. A mirage`.” Hmmm. Cool! I leave my dark glasses on, even as the sky quickly darkens toward night during our approach for landing in Dayton, Ohio. I do this every once in a dull while just for grins and to relieve the cockpit tedium. I like to wait and see if my crew notices or says anything. Will they be assertive or questioning? It got a rise out of Marshall. “You’ve still got your sun glasses on.” That’s right. This is going to be a dark night approach, I said in my best mono-tone matter of fact voice. “Oh. Are those like the kind that lighten up automatically?”, he asked nervously. Two darkness challenged pilots at the controls. Look out below! Humming the Corey Hart lyrics

Bank Account Security

November 17, 1995socialrantcs

I was with 9 year old KLS at the bank. She was making a withdrawal from her savings account so that the two of us could go to the book store, er uh, record stand to buy a CD. She had meticulously filled out the withdrawal slip; it was her first. This was an exercise in financial training and part of her continuing education, as it were. Then she approached the teller, solo. I was watching proudly from 10 paces back. We were the only customers in the entire place so the teller made a big production out of it; checking references and consulting her monitor and walking over to the managers desk (ahem, excuse me, assistant bank vice president) and speaking in hushed tones. There was a problem. Being a minor, she needed the co-signers signature to withdraw the $20. “Sure, KLS” (I’ll help ya out here), I said cheerfully. “It’s alot easier to put money in then it is to get it back out. Isn’t it.”, I quipped but directed half sarcastically toward the teller. “I’m sorry sir but the little girl’s Mother has to sign it.” What? “I am her Father. I’ll sign it.” She informed me that my name did not appear upon the list of the approved. “What do you mean, I can’t sign?”, I asked. “I was in here not 6 months ago and the three of us sat face to face at this very desk and opened this account.” “I’m sorry sir. I’m only following bank rules. Here is a form which you can take home for Kiersten’s Mother to sign authorizing you to also sign.”

“Come on KLS. I’ll loan you the money.” We walked out. I wanted to tell them what they could do with the form. What ever happened to family value and trust. Would they really have gone out on a limb and jeopardized their position by giving her HER $20? A bank employee can go a little out of control in Singapore and loose BILLIONS of dollars. It’s comforting to know that there are adequate controls in place to prevent a roque Dad from raiding his daughter’s piggy bank.

Dead Battery(s)

June 15, 1994socialcs

You may recall in the last episode where the Taurus left the girls stranded with an engine that refused to crank? This weeks story revisits the Battery Box. Seems as though the car won’t start. (this time in the garage however) I couldn’t believe it. Is this a trick? I fixed it right? I turned the key and ClickClickClickClickClick, just like before. What the… nervous nagging self doubts and paranoid insecure feelings began to invade. This can not be!

I fixed it already, didn’t I? Is the problem something else? If it is I won’t be able to solve it. I give up! The dealer is going to remember me from the last time I was there (with the aborted electric door locks repair that I refused to pay for) and really sock it to me this time. I jumped started it with my new yellow and black Western Auto 12 ft. 16 gauge cables. I probed with my Ace Hardware voltage multi-tester. Battery voltage bad. Alternator output good. What could it be? Was the exchanged old battery still good after all? Maybe the new DieHard was bad too?

Tune in next week… No I wouldn’t do that to you. Mystery solved! (I hope?!) Somebody left a map light on in the overhead. I thought I would say !’?#!*%.’ but I didn’t because I was so relieved. The vehicle had sat overnight with a lone map light burning brightly and innocently. Undetected because it is so small and is designed to illuminate by spot and not by flood it was enough to kill even a DieHard.

I drove it to the airport to make sure it was OK for Dede. When I came back two days later it was fine. Started right up. Whew! I get home safely ready to tell Dede beaming and proud that her car is good, when SMS greets me with, “Hey Dad! The Pontiac’s dead.” No! Now I know this is some sort of cruel joke. Right? Tell me this isn’t happening.

No lie. It’s completely dead. No lights at all. Oh man! Well, the problem here was that the battery cable was slightly loose. Cars from the 70’s used those ridiculous side terminal design posts which I stripped out one time by overtightening. So I was a little gun shy with this one and had torqued the cable to the battery terminal delicate like it was eggs. This allowed some room for corrosion to do its work. So when I hooked up the Jumper cables to get the other car going again the battery cable must have shifted ever so slightly so as to mate corrosion with corrosion. Electrical contact was lost and that’s what happened. I cleaned the connections and re-fastened. Voila! Mystery ends.