May 19, 2010 by Sanjay.

I should write more simply. Smaller words. Shorter sentences. Fewer ideas jostling each other into incoherence. Most days I convince myself that my self-defeating tendency to complicate matters is a mere side-effect of my techie education; once over the 10,000 hour hump of writing experience, simplicity shall flow from my keyboard like twisters from Arjun Basu’s smartphone. Which is by way of introducing an exercise I recently underwent: writing a “how to” for a native Spanish speaker with very little English. This is how that came about.

With the encouragement of a local pilot friend, I recently signed up with a volunteer organization called Angel Flight (AF). AF offers private pilots a chance to fly for a reason: helping folks that need healthcare-related transportation. The focus is not on acutely sick people; they are better transported by medical professionals. AF pilots typically fly patients (and family members) who need to get from and to a medical facility. Sometimes it is for treatment. It could also be for a simple exam. In all cases, the appointment is understood to be non-time-sensitive. A volunteer-flown small plane trip makes the most sense if the passenger cannot arrange, afford or bear a long road trip. To ensure that pilots don’t get too mission-focused and inadvertently disregard safety, passengers are asked to have an alternate mode of transportation in case the volunteer has to cancel the trip. About one in three planned trips are actually cancelled or rescheduled.

I figured my first AF mission needed to be bone simple. So I signed up to transport a lady – I’ll call her AC - from the Central Valley town of Madera,  CA, to my home base of Palo Alto. AC was visiting her infant daughter at the Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital where she had had renal surgery. AC has no health issues. She could reach the hospital just about any time, we were under no time pressure. And Madera is a mere 115 miles (185 km) away, less than an hour’s flight. What could be simpler, right? Well, after signing up for the mission, I learned that AC spoke no English! The only Spanish I know is “no habla Español”! Houston, we have a problem.

Since this was AC’s first ride in a small plane and her first Angel Flight, I felt we needed to go over the many, many small details in preparation. My AF mentor had helpfully armed me with a pre-trip letter he sends each passenger. A phone call to AC verified that her only available interpreter was a family member with very rudimentary English. Clearly, my mentor’s letter was too sophisticated and culturally-encoded for a non-American non-Anglophone. So I rewrote it entirely. As simply as I could.

I then asked a friend – a Mexico-born housepainter - to discuss it with AC en Español. They spent about 30 minutes on the phone painstakingly dissecting each item. At least partly as a result of that conversation, AC and I had no expectation management issues on our trip. Though she seemed preoccupied much of the time, she seemed quite comfortable. I got her to her child. All was well.

Below is my letter to AC (with identifying details removed). I make no representations as to optimality in content or tone. I post it for three reasons. First, as a reminder (to myself) to write simply. And second, to see if readers can identify additional simplifications. Money left on the table, as it were. And finally, for those who have only flown on commercial carriers, some of the details might provide a flavor of recreational flight.

AC,

I look forward to flying you on your next Angel Flight trip. I thought you’d like to know a few things before your trip:

1. About the trip
Date: May 17, 2010
Pick-up: 3 pm

Passengers: 1 (you)
Weight: 185 lbs (including people, baggage and medical equipment)
From: Terminal building, Madera Municipal Airport, 4020 Aviation Drive, Madera, CA 93637
To: Palo Alto Airport (I will call your taxi when we get there.)
Travel time: About 1 hour

2. About me
Name: Sanjay Saigal
Profession: Computer (IT) consultant
Phone: XXX XXX XXXX
Email: xx@yy.com

3. About the plane
Type: Cirrus SR-20 (4 seats, single engine)
Color: White with green stripes
Registration: N903CD

4. Things to keep in mind (especially if you are new to small planes)

a. Unlike airlines, private flying times are just estimates. If there’s a headwind, a two hour trip could take half an hour more. We could spend extra time going around bad weather. Sometimes we might even arrive earlier than expected. It’s normal.

b. Since we will fly closer to the ground, you might feel more motion than you’re used to. The plane is engineered to bear many times the load the worst turbulence puts on it. Bumpy flights aren’t fun, but they’re safe. (If you start feeling sick, let me know and we’ll try to get to smoother air. I also keep sick bags in the plane!)

c. If you feel uncomfortable before or during the flight, tell me. We can delay our take-off. If we’re in the air and you feel not so great, we can quickly land at a nearby airport. You’ll be surprised how many small airports there are around here.

d. We fly with the help of air traffic control, just like big planes. That means that sometimes I will be busy on the radio. Most other times, I’ll be free to talk. If you have a question or want to tell me something, go right ahead. If I can’t talk right then, I’ll let you know.

e. I’m not getting paid to make this trip. I do it because I love to fly and because I enjoy helping people. Above all, I am concerned with our safety and comfort. If the weather is bad, if the plane isn’t in tip top condition, or if I am not at my best, I will cancel our flight. Of course, I will give you as much advance notice as possible. But if your trip is absolutely essential, make sure you have another way to get to your destination.

f. Even if it’s warm, carry an extra jacket. It will get cooler as we climb. If it’s cold, dress in layers. It could be warmer if we climb through clouds and the sun shines into the cockpit. Weather can be quite a bit different as little as 50 miles away from where you sit. That takes only 20 minutes in a plane!

5. What I expect from you

a. Please be at the pick-up point listed above on time. Call my cell if your plan changes, as far in advance as possible. I cannot get phone calls in the air. So leave a voice-mail message if I don’t pick up the phone.

b. Even though the plane may have extra seats, I am not prepared to carry more people or stuff than listed above. If you expect to have more, call me at least the day before so we can try to work it out.

c. Angel Flight West asks all passengers to sign a waiver before we fly. This form is legal protection for the organization and my family. I will bring a copy for you to sign.

d. I’d like to take a picture for Angel Flight’s pilot recruitment work and for my own records. I hope you’ll be ok with that.

I look forward to meeting you soon, and taking you comfortably and safely to your destination. If you have any questions before then, do let me know.

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April 8, 2010 by Sanjay.

I avoid writing about flying in part because it’s embarrassing to rhapsodize over something that so many of my kith cannot, or will not, share. But I cannot avoid the honest–to-goodness truth: flying the single best thing I do entirely of my own volition, with an entirely clear mind, with unalloyed pleasure. I recall that mindful flow when I read Whitman’s strange and incantatory Passage to India, a poem that connects temporal history to Eastern notions of divinity. Inasmuch as flying is grossly material, grubbily scientific, and inescapably a fruit of affluence, for me it is also an atomic causative for unexpectedly spiritual insight: “Thou, rondure of the world, at last accomplish’d.”

“I see the Monument mountain and the Eagle’s Nest—I pass the Promontory—I ascend the Nevadas; I scan the noble Elk mountain, and wind around its base; I see the Humboldt range—I thread the valley and cross the river,I see the clear waters of Lake Tahoe—I see forests of majestic pines, Or, crossing the great desert, the alkaline plains,I behold enchanting mirages of waters and meadows;” A couple of hundred miles south of Dixie NF, east of Flagstaff, Arizona,is the utter desert seen here. As the sun sets, it comes hauntedwith bleached spirits and flooded with the ghosts of long-driedwatercourses.

Flying lets me hear America sing.

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December 30, 2008 by Sanjay.

Professionally, 2008 was indeterminate. Muddy. My experience starting a new venture is hard to compare with others’, especially given the amorphousness of consulting. But I confess that the ghosts of (regular) paychecks past have visited me more than once. I described the ups and downs of being self-employed to a childhood friend. Tridib put my ambivalence in stark relief by recalling our shared petite bourgeoisie upbringing in India. “Let’s face it,” he said, “you are basically a government servant type, as am I.” Ah, the bracing bluntness of old friends. Nevertheless, I remain determined to fight the entrepreneurial fight!

On the personal front, 2008 has been a year of highs. Chief among them was the opportunity to deepen and broaden my flying logbook. I flew two near-transcontinental trips – from California to Duluth, MN, thence to Springfield, IL and back, and a few weeks later, from California to Appleton, WI and back for that incomparable fly-in, Airventure. Each trip consumed an entire day, with actual flying time being in the 10+ hour range. The autopilot engaged and the plane purring contentedly, the long flight legs provided a great opportunity to observe and reflect.

Flying, as has been oft-observed, is humanity’s second-oldest collective dream, up there with immortality. To be above it all, to “slip the surly bonds of earth”, is divine sensation indeed. But flying is only partly sensual or spiritual. What it provides is a rarity in our circumscribed modern existence: a truly existential experience. No other enterprise places one so actively in the moment: existence precedes essence. The pilot’s actions determine the lived reality.

This connection is far more visceral than people who only fly commercial realize. In the few moments of take-off in a small place, you feel the earth’s slipping grasp as you as you escape her embrace. Within a few minutes, you feel her below you change from protective habitation to an incomprehensibly alien desolation wilderness.

And then, there is the magical experience of being in charge. A trained private pilot, in a well-maintained aircraft, is unambiguously in command. Not the air traffic controller. Not his boss or boss’s boss. Not even – for once – his wife! Before the flight, he decides on the route and stops. During the flight, he decides how to address the vicissitudes of weather and circumstance. After the flight, he decides what he takes from that particular flight by how he analyzes and logs it. Very little in life is so purpose-driven.

After all that analysis though, I return to the notion that the attraction of flight is elemental. Purely child’s play. The Kiwi poet Allen Curnow expresses it beautifully in A Time of Day:

---

A small charge for admission. Believers only.
Who present their tickets where a five-
barred farm gate grapes on its chain and will file on to the thinly grassed paddock.
Out of the afternoon pearl-dipped light the
dung-green biplane descendedand will return later, and later, late as
already it is. We are all born
of cloud again, in a caulof linen lashed to the air-frame of the age
smelling of the scorched raw castor oil
nine whirling cylinders pelt

up-country-smelling senses with, narcotic
joyrides, these helmeted barnstormers
heavier scented than hay,

harnesses, horsepiss, fleeces, phosphates and milk
under the fingernails. I’m pulling at
my father’s hand Would the little

boy for selling the tickets? One helmet smiles
bending over yes, please let me,
my father hesitates, I

pull and I don’t let go.

---

Happy 2009!

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June 6, 2008 by Sanjay.

It’s mid-morning, the week after the Ides of March. Homeward bound from Las Vegas, this time on the northern route over Mammoth and Yosemite. Approached from the east, the ridgelines of the Eastern Sierra run uniformly higher than 10,000 feet, the peaks over 13,000. Abeam the Casa Diablo Mountains, I begin negotiating with 3CD about climbing to 12,500 feet – to stay clear of the high terrain and appropriately high over the protected John Muir Wilderness Area – and turn westward from my previous northwest heading.

I have been dropped by Joshua Approach; the high desert is too topographically challenging and too sparsely trafficked for low altitude radar coverage. No need to talk, I turn up the volume as Amanda fades out and Joni sings her signature sepia blues

I was driving across the burning desert
When I spotted six jet planes
Leaving six white vapor trails across the bleak terrain
…
The drone of flying engines
Is a song so wild and blue
It scrambles time and seasons if it gets thru to you

An unexpected alarm! At first I don’t even recognize that it’s the cell phone and stare at the gauges in confusion. Here? I’m getting a phone call at 11,000 feet over Lake Crowley? Hail technology! It’s my neighbor Bob, likely calling about our joint foray into commercial real estate barony. We have just begun the process of unraveling our partnership less than six months after anteing up for a “sure thing” office property. Dreams and false alarms.

I turn away from Bob’s call and begin looking for evidence of potentially interesting winds funneling through the high pass now straight ahead. Better to go up to 13,500 feet until clear of the pass. 3CD doesn’t protest but wallows hypoxically: till you get there yourself you never really know. Mono Lake, a shimmering mirror on the right, reveals a serration of inverted peaks.

A ghost of aviation
She was swallowed by the sky
Or by the sea, like me she had a dream to fly
Like icarus ascending
On beautiful foolish arms

Unexpectedly, I feel the prickling of tears. Could I be hypoxic? But I’m not remotely euphoric. I square 42 in my head without using my flight pad. After a few minutes I struggle out with 1764. No worse than I do at sea level. Not hypoxic, I think. Music-induced nostalgia; the response that can well me up during an Olympics commercials. I’ve spent my whole life in clouds at icy altitude, and looking down on everything.

I switch the heading bug again, this time to 220⁰. Time to stop scribbling on the pad and re-lean the engine. 3CD smooths out at 8.1 gallons per hour, but cylinder 4 is still giving me the finger on the EMAX display. I turn my attention out and below. The ground is high and close now. Frozen lakes. A ski gondola hut reminds me of James Bond. It’s only March, so snow everywhere. I’m over the pass. Yosemite is ahead to the right. I reprogram the GPS direct to Mariposa airport and twist the heading bug.

I was 10 when I first saw an airplane at close range, Didi was on standby and she let me check out an Indian Airlines HS-748 “Avro” at Palam on a foggy Delhi morning. Today, here over the Sierra Nevada, it is severe clear. Ridgelines to each side and far to the west. Then nothing. The world ends. Alison sings.

Now that I found you
I built my world around you

Soon Joni is back. This time she’s obsessing improbably over boom-boom-pachyderms in a blue motel room. The ground below me is covered only in white bedspreads. A small open field below has four pines marching across it like an advance column supporting a Sherman battalion in the Ardennes.

Half Dome and the deep groove of Yosemite Valley below and Joan is right, there’s nothin’ I wish to be ownin. I’ve been up high for 25 minutes now; I need to bleed off 9,000 feet in the next 20 minutes. Mt. Boullion moves to the center of the windshield. I reset the autopilot, disconnecting the attitude hold. Emmylou flew here once, I’m sure.

I don’t want to hear a love song
I got on this airplane just to fly
And I know there’s life below
…
The last time I felt like this
It was in the wilderness and the canyon was on fire
And I stood on the mountain in the night and I watched it burn

In summer this is prime forest fire country abuzz with air tankers and muddy with smoke. But not this early in the year. Besides, as of January, the Sierra snow pack is at 160% of its historic levels. This will be a very good year.

Mariposa does not have a control tower. But it does have cheap aviation gasoline and a very nice municipally-run pilot lounge. 15 miles out, I announce my position and intentions on the airport frequency. A student pilot with a lovely Spanish accent is working on getting her landings just right. Funny that getting back on the ground without bending metal is the trickiest part of learning to fly. I will learn later that she began flight training at this airport, moved away, began working with another instructor, and now returns on weekends to finish up with her original instructor.

I’ve been in the air for over an hour and a half, hydrating actively to combat the thin dry air. I feel an imminent urge to inspect the excellent facilities in the lounge. On cue, Hiromi peps into Desert Moon. I ignore the discomfort in my ears and steepen the descent to 1500 feet per minute. Ahead, I see the student pilot touch the runway, and then her engine roars. Slowly, her 172 wins its struggle with gravity.

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