SimpleFlight Radio
  • Home
  • Podcast
  • About

Al Waterloo - Machine with Attitude

4/14/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
It dawned on me one evening. I remember it exactly, we were approaching Denver, the sun was pretty much set and the sky was turning beautiful colors for the second half of our flight from LAX to MKE. I had just used the lav for a potty break since there was no way my bladder could hold it for a 3.5 hour flight with "unlimited soda and water" to the crew. The flight attendants gave me a tray of warm chocolate cookies and milk to take into the cockpit for the captain and me to enjoy for the remainder of the flight. I sat back down in my chair and began to enjoy the warm cookies, cold milk not to mention the view.

It was really the cookie and pretty awesome ground speed in the high 500's knots that threw me over the edge. I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that the airplane delivering this experience was a machine. It was one of the first few times that I thought of the airplane as a machine. Its kinda strange to think about it this way. You may have your own airplane, or fly a fleet of airplanes but you get to know which is your favorite and least favorite. Each airplane even though the same model all fly incredibly different from the next. Its hard not to start thinking each airplane as its own person and having its own personality. Heck, in the EMB -170 a warning message that read " APM FAIL" - Corrective Action: "DO NOT TAKEOFF." I looked up what the "APM" was and by golly, it was called the airplane personality module. The airplane had a mother board in it giving it a personality! Holy smokes! Anyway, when push comes to shove, the airplane is a machine. It can take you across the country, keep you alive, allow you to use the washroom in it, keep a beverage hot or cold for you, bake a hot cookie, connect you to wifi, xm radio, or TV, cool you down or warm you up, all while keeping you on life support in the inhabitable conditions of lack of oxygen, extreme negative temperatures 6 miles above the earth all while hurling you along at 500-600 mph. If you think about it that way its pretty nuts. The airplane is a machine, but I'd like to think otherwise - Have you ever thought of your airplane as just a machine? - AL

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Authors:
    Al Waterloo
    Travis Ammon

    Aviation geeks just bantering about every thing aviation.

    Archives

    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    November 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012

    Categories

    All
    Active Leg
    Airlines
    Airplane
    Airport Food
    Airventure
    Al Waterloo
    Ame
    Aopa
    Aviation
    Aviation Medical
    Aviation Noise
    Aviation Pictures
    Aviation Videos
    Beta
    Boldmethod
    Bonanza
    Breakfast
    Burrito
    Chicago Executive Airport
    Cirrus
    Commercials
    Crewmembers
    Cross Country
    Day Flying
    Eaa
    FARs
    Finding Airports
    Flight Instructors
    Flight Training
    Fly In
    Fly-in
    Flying
    Food
    General Aviation
    Gps
    Health
    Iphone
    Keep
    King Air
    Machine
    Music
    New
    Night Flying
    Oshkosh
    Owning An Airplane
    Part 61
    Part 91
    Photography
    Pink Line
    Piper Merdian
    Pwk
    Restaurants
    Soundtracks
    Turbine
    Vintage
    Youtube

    RSS Feed

Copyright 2018. All Rights Reserved. SIMPLEFLIGHT.net

  • Home
  • Podcast
  • About