The Skies...

Love 'em. So many different displays. We fly almost every day and the view is always changing...sometimes a few times during the day.

Day, night, sun, cloud, water, ice, dust, wind - it's all included.

Sometimes I feel the best part of our job is the fact that no matter what weather we wake up in, for a few minutes every day, it's sunny and warm and we have a birds eye view of the earth.

This shot was taken in the evening returning from South Carolina.



In Montreal after a thunderstorm this fall.




Icing in cloud enroute to Toronto Island Airport YTZ. The next shot shows the result of passing through a cloud like this. (Look at the winglet...stripes...it's the same airplane but a month prior we had a disagreement with a seagull and the winglet was replaced) Got to hand it to the Schweiz...they can sure build a solid airplane. I have yet to see severe icing, but I'm sure she'd still fly



Not bad...not much but not bad.




I love this one. We were enroute to Green Bay KGRB with some clients and stopped up in northern Michigan, at an uncontrolled airport for customs. I'd have to check the Logbook for the name of it. But it was about 830, and while lightning-speed customs officers were arguing over whos idea of how to scan a passport was correct, I was lost in the sight of the sky.





They say Go West. So it goes. Enroute from Ottawa to Sarasota, Fl (KSRQ). The US airspace is packed. This was the contrail sight at FL270 abeam NYC. All going west.




And another. Big boy.





Off to Pearson in the evening. Lake Simcoe YSO VOR is one of our waypoints, and blasting into cottage country at sunset is quite peaceful. Infact on this route we pass directly overhead my wife's family cottage. The next shot is of Loucks Lake from 16,000 ft enroute to Pearson.






Evening flight back to Ottawa last week.





My wife and I travelled to the Island of Medeira, Portugal...a 12sm x 36sm island, rising from sea-level to 6000ft, off the coast of Africa for a week this december. Among many other favorites, this is the view from the top of the island.


Love the Skies.


J

NTaLds...

Of course, some inidividuals make the journey increasingly difficult. There is a book, that sheds some light on the art of it all.


But, it all comes down to balance. The enlightened and the ignorant.
I have been trying to be the former...but I guess the one thing I know for sure is that I know nothing. And how ah yau?

"I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row.


I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.


Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I'm bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after work, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.


I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don't perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer, I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat .400. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me.


I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Egypt, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.


I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago, I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin.


I studied Jazz Performance at McGill, played drums for a living for 6 years, became a corporate pilot and have travelled around the world. Costa Rica is my favorite spot. I'm happily married, successfully keeping 10 plants and 2 trees alive in a tiny appartment, and have 2 chocolate labs as neices.


I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.


But I have not yet honed my skills at dealing with ignorant people...."

The result of ignorance? The Dutchman and I ponder that question constantly. When discussing the result of the bird-smacked-winglet, this question came into focus. Immagine the bird could speak. Immagine the bird was up for a nice evening flight with the flock when out of the clouds comes a bright light movin' at 250 kts. Poor bird was just minding his own business and happened to be on the tracks listening to his ipod when the train came a rollin. At this thought the Dutchman and I decided to have a moment of silence for our fallen bretheren.

Until the silence was broken by the Dutch... "what if the bird was an ignorant, anti-disestablishmentarianistic french bird? what if he saw the plane and decided "NO! Screw yau airplane!! This is MY sky! I don't ave to move fah yau!!"
'Twas a good laugh.
Here's what was left. Part of the birds skull was embedded in 2-inch-thick fiberglass. Not cool.


J

We join our story somewhere in the middle...

Utah. Flight Level 180. Early morning. This, is the story of a few of my views from the right side of a Pilatus PC-12.

Getting to this point has been a wild adventure, the details of which will likely be revealed shortly. Suffice it to say, that armed with a zest for adventure, a love of all life, a degree of social exploration, a few good mentors, a traveling disposition combined with a soupcon of immaginative dialogue, and a digital camera, there is nothing that cannot be learned and accomplished during the ride.

This, is the tale of my adventure. Currently it is alongside the Flyin Dutchman. Recently, to take a plane to Calgary CYYC for a new interior, we flew 36.7 hours in 4 days and covered most of North America. 'Tis a tiny space, the flightdeck of a Pilatus, that cannot be enjoyingly occupied by 2 individuals without a remarkable awareness of the nature of the universe.

Personal political views notwithstanding, this chap's view from the left side of the bird, is facinating.
http://flyindutchman.blogspot.com/

That said, you don't need 4 bars to be enlightened. In fact, more often than not, it is the questioning mind of the guy in the right seat that keeps the proverbial wheels on the bus...if you will.

But I digress...




J