ChrisandCin

What a cruisy week this has been, it started with a monday of not much, just cleaning the plane, Tuesday we did a small small trip to Ranchi (30minutes away), then another day cleaning and a couple of half days in the office.

Ranchi the flight to and from it was ok, just the normal thunderstorms to fly around, but the arrival was a bit strange and hectic. The weather although cloudy with some low clouds was ok, there were breaks in the cloud where you could see the ground, it was a little windy so the air was clear but still the automated weather reporting machine at the airport that the air traffic controller was using to asses the visibility was saying 2500m, even though it looked like there was more than 10km visibility to us. For the first time since I have been here the air traffic controller asked what our required minimums for landings were, of course I hadnt looked at the minimums apart from what was written on the instrument approach plate. But here in India there is a rule, that says for the first 100hrs of flying in a plane in India, even though you may have thousands of hours flying the plane in another country, that the air is different here and for the first 100 hrs you must increase the landing minimums, specifically making sure the visibility isn’t low. For this we have whats called the Z plate, or the 10-9Z chart that lists these increased minimums for each airport for new pilots. Of course after she asks this question I then look at the Z plate and realize we need 3200m visibility to be reported at least before we can even start the approach. By this time we are over the top of the airport, passengers in the back needing to be on the ground for a TV interview in 1 hr, and at the moment no way to land. But after setting up the plane to enter the hold (the poor FO was still lost as per normal) I realized that we could do the ILS (instrument landing system) approach to the other direction as its visibility minimums are higher even for a person learning to fly like me but the wind was right on the 10kt tailwind limit. It took a little convincing but finally the air traffic controller allowed us to land on the other runway. It was the FO’s leg, so I asked him if he’s comfortable doing this, he says he is but not flying the thing….ohh …so we transition to me being the pilot flying.  Get the plane configured and setup for the new approach and new runway and 10 minutes behind schedule we land uneventfully. They park us on ‘the old apron’ which is about 500 ft of taxi way that suddenly ends with a washout and 50ft dropoff (and nothing to mark this of course), and a tiny weed ridden parking area off it, just big enough to turn around on. We then sit and wait in the unairconditioned terminal for the next 4 hrs…lucky I bought a book! The FO still being new to this corporate flying and hurry and and wait way of life still doesn’t carry a computer or book with him…instead he sits around moping that his bored. I of course have absolutely no sympathy for him, and continue reading my Jeremy Clarkson book enjoying my couple of hours of nothing while he tries to doze off in a busy, hot, noisy airline terminal.

We did some cleaning of the plane also this week. Now in the USA you would never clean a corporate jet as a pilot, we have people and cleaning services to do this. But here I like the change of scenery it gives me, sure its stinking hot and the hanger has no flow thru, so its like being in a oven, but its much better than the office. Plus its kind of relaxing to sit there are clean. We have no water in the hanger so this has created a problem, the Indian way of cleaning a car or plane for that matter is to use a wet rag and wipe it down….. bad idea. As you can see by looking at our jet, its covered in scratches, even the inside all the high gloss wood work inside is scratched to shit. But I remembered when they would clean our jets at the last job they would do it out in the open without water, and I remembered the stuff they used, its called Wash and Wax All. Its amazing stuff it  comes as a concentrate, you mix it with water, spray it on and wipe it off (well this takes a little arm work actually) and presto you have a sparkling shiny plane that looks like new. It would be great for a car, I don’t know why the company doesn’t sell it in walmart or some store like that it would sell like hot cakes.

Talking of Walmart, have you seen the new site People of Walmart. Oh its funny, its pics people take of what people do in walmart and more importantly how they dress.. have a look http://peopleofwalmart.com/

OK this was in the paper yesterday. What type of society does this, or even thinks of it! Mortgaging or selling your wife for money as your crop has failed and you need money !

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The temple tour I just went on was pretty cool, although  I didnt actually get close up and personal with any of the temples..

Day 1 – Kolkata to Madurai

Day 2 – Madurai

Day 3 – Madurai to Tirupati

Day 4 – Tirupato to Madurai

Day 5 – Madurai to Raipur to Kolkata

An easy flight with normal weirdness, but nothing too out of the ordinary, the overnights were interesting, the first stop in Madurai was at the Taj hotel up on the hill overlooking town. Its a 1930′s old colonial hotel with the feel of a grand old hotel. Most of the rooms are located in cottages which kinda look like houses.I wish I had a sound recorder as sitting up on the hill all you could hear 24hrs a day was the sounds of blaring hindi music coming from the many puja displays throughout the town. The place was also full of peacocks which was kinda cool and they werent at all scared of the human guests in their back yard.

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Tirupati was a strange place, this is the home of the countries richest temple and its the temple that makes you rich. But there aint no way you can get anywhere near i, and like all these temples you have to pay a lot to get in. Tirupati on average sees 100 000 people a day, and on a peak day there is 500 000 people there, you could see this when you were there as the line area to get in went for miles and miles.

The temple itself is on top of a 3000ft high hill that you must drive up, and the driver does this at breaknexk speeds, prior to entering the road up the hill the car is fully searched. mainly its searched for contraband like liquor and cigarettes!

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Then on the last day we moved onto Mumbai, which I had never been to before… its a very very cool city, modern, fairly clean and although it is full of slums it didnt look poor. But I think it didnt look poor as it wasnt full of street vendors and beggars, unlike Kolkata!

Here are some pics:

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I would be lying if I said I was excited to be back in Kolkata.  I am very happy to be back with Chris and the kids I missed them a lot.

I have basically been sick since I got back.  I got a terribly high temp the day after I got back and it lasted for a couple of days and then turned into a cold, thank god it wasnt the swine flu, I couldnt have imagined ending up in a hospital here.

I had a wonderful time in Australia. it was great to catch up with family.

I spent some time in Sydney with my cousin Sally and her wonderful little boy Jeremy.  Went up to Maclean to visit with my Grandfather, then I got to spend some time up in Port Douglas as well.

This was the first time for me that I could actually imagine living in Australia again, but truthfully I think that it was because I am unhappy here in India, so anywhere else looks good.

You can tell by Chris’s post this morning that he is a bit pissed off with everything, he took it out on Dipenkar.  He had some crap happen while he was away on his trip and it just proves to us again how ridiculous everything is.  I know that we should be really grateful as Chris has a job and there is nothing in the U.S. at the moment, but sometimes it is really difficult not to say shove it and walk away.

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The things you learn

There is and was Dip. Dip is a guy I work with, his name is much longer…Dipenkar in full, Dip is the first part of his name and is much more appropriate just to call him Dip.

Poor Dip he tries hard, but damn he is arrogant, to the point of being annoying. He has some very strange, and illogical ideas on how to do things in life. One of his weirder traits is his grasp of english, not a very good grasp  though. Sometimes Dip drives me to the office in the city, Dip’s actual job is a airport assistant and driver, he has one of the hard to get airport driving permits… this hard to get permit allows you to drive around on the apron…I have no idea what is the big deal, but here in India this is a very prestige thing to have. But Dip was driving me to the office the other day, he picks up small words I would say and repeat them all them time sometimes for the wrong reason, like when someone pulls out in front of us, he yells ‘idiot’ at them, or ‘fucker’, but the other day out of the blue a bicycle rider decides to stray into our lane, and he yells ‘you masturbate’ ! It was like what did you just call them, and he repeats it, well well…. yep this proves he can say words but has no idea of their true meaning, so when we were in the office I found a English Hindi translator and showed him what it meant. But Dip is a simple man, come from a simple background, he has a TV thats 18 years old that was given to him in the will of his now late father for instance. But some things still amaze me about how sheltered people can still be in this day and age.

Dip has done 2 things that make me go wow in recent days. The other day we were cleaning the jet, and the carpet had never been vacuumed in the last year (yes imagine what that looked like!) but I handed Dip the vacuum cleaner and he looked at me like I had 4 heads…. hmmm  , so I say to him you have never used a vacuum cleaner before have you? No he hadnt, so here I am teaching a 34 year old man the intracities of using a modern vacuum cleaner….another strange sureal moment, and even more so by watching him be amazed at how it collects all the dirt. Then yesterday we are preparing to leave on a trip, and we had bought a electric kettle to boil the water to put in the hot water pot in the jet, and dip had never used a cordless let alone electric kettle. I was sitting there watching him open the kettle from its box, and he had 2 parts, the kettle and the base with its plug. He looks at the kettle part, picks up a extension lead and is trying to plug the extension lead into it….at first I thought he was joking around, but no he was serious he had no clue. I asked him what he was doing and he said power , I said how are you going to plug a power extension cord into it? He looked at me like I had 4 heads …again… so I point out the other bit he unpacked from the box, and he still looks at me like I have 4 heads…..I point out there is a box with a pretty picture of how its used… I put it together, show him where to put the water in it, and to close the lid and stand back. He does this and with the smile of a little kid is amazed that in just 2 minutes we have a pot of boiling hot water…. you should have seen how amazed he was at this modern contraption! Oh the simple things I thought and walked off as he filled the hot water pot from the plane.

But Dip is a frustrating guy to work with and around, I just have to constantly stop and remember where I am and what I am dealing with , then internally laugh at it all and move on.