When I was invited out to visit V Australia‘s 777 on it’s maiden voyage from Seattle – Los Angeles – Sydney earlier this year, poor Amanda Bolger from public relations had no idea what she was signing up for. Sitting in the cockpit with Ken Pascoe, the pater familias of VA pilots, we took a couple of photos and he casually mentioned “Hey, if you come out to Sydney we should take out the simulator.”
Oh, but I was coming to Sydney, Ken, and after a few pestering emails, he finally gave in and invited us to come out to Silverwater, just outside of the city to take the simulator out for a spin.
Meeting Ken out at the Strathfield station earlier this week, we drove up to CAE, where V Australia had a small suite of offices and a simulator installed in a rear, cavernous room. This is where all VA pilots train, both in instrumentation at a computer console and in actual flight operation, inside of the 23 million dollar simulator.
The front of the cockpit is replicated in exact detail to a “white tail” aircraft, a generic 777 that still hasn’t got the exact installed features of VA equipment. A little bit later next month, they’ll be making those upgrades. Behind the pilot and co-pilot seats are an additional three seats where an instructor and observers can curate the flight.
As far as operation, Marty Khoury, another V Australia pilot on hand explained that the graphics and performance are so lifelike, even to the bump of every light in the runway, that sometimes the pilots forget that they’re even inside of the simulator.
So how did Gadling’s flight experience go? Disasterously. But I’ll tell you about that next week.
It used to be that when I saw Russian words like this– компьютер, студент, пасспорт — my eyes skipped over them like yours probably just did. But the Cyrillic alphabet, which is used in Slavic languages like Russian as well as non-Slavic languages like Kazakh and Mongolian, is easy to learn.
Given the number of English cognates in Russian (the language we’ll focus on here), learning the Cyrillic alphabet allows you to read and understand dozens of words in Russian, including the three above (computer, student, and passport, respectively).
Here’s a short five-minute lesson on how to read Russian’s Cyrillic alphabet…
1. Some letters are virtually the same as in English. The Cyrillic letters A, K, M, O, and T are close relatives of their English counterparts. The Cyrillic letter Б (which looks like a lowercase “b”) also makes a “b” sound. The letter “C” always makes the “s” sound, like in the English word “cite.”
2. Others are closely related to Greek. Frat guys and sorority girls already know the letters Г (gamma), P (rho), П (pi), and Ф (phi), which are the English equivalents of “G”, “R”, “P”, and “F”, respectively.
Easy so far, right? Check out a few examples:
a. кафе = ?
b. бар = ?
c. опера = ?
d. робот = ?
Look below the fold for the answers…
Answers:
a. кафе́ = cafе́
b. бар = bar
c. о́пера = opera
d. ро́бот = robot
See? Easy. On to the next lesson…
3. Some letters are imposters. They look familiar but don’t sound like their English counterparts. The Russian letter “H” makes the “N” sound, “y” makes the English “oo” sound, and “B” sounds like the English “V.” This letter, И, which looks like a backwards “N”, makes the “short i” sound, as in the English word “pin.” The Russian letter “Я” sounds nothing like it’s mirror image in English. Instead, it makes a “ya” sound, as in “yacht.”
Wth me so far? Here are a few more Russian words you already know.
a. Интерне́т = internet
b. CпyTHИK = Sputnik
c. POCCИЯ = Russia
d. PECTOPAH = restauran(t)
4. The rest of the letters, well, they’re just jerks. You’ve never seen ’em, and you just have to memorize how they sound. Here’s a quick run-down.
Ц = “ts” as in “pizza”
Ш = “sh” as in “shoe”
Л = “l” as in “lamb”
ж = “zh” as in “measure”
Д = “d” as in “door”
З = “z” as in “zebra”
Ю = “oo” or “yu”
Ч = “ch” Since the letter looks like a “4” and makes the “ch” sound, think of the word “fortune.” Four-chun. Get it?
There are a few more subtleties and even a couple more letters in the alphabet, but we’ve only got five minutes here, and I think you’ve got the gist of it.
Time for your final exam. Candy will be e-mailed to the top scorers.
a. You’re in St. Petersburg and you see a restaurant with this written on it: MAKДOHAЛД’C. Where are you?
b. You’re in a Moscow bar and would like to drink something authentically Russian. Someone suggests Bо́ДKA. What are you having?
c. You’re applying for your Russian visa and a form asks whether you’ve ever criticized the Russian президе́нт. What’s it asking?
Hope you’ve enjoyed the lesson… Leave your “final exam” answers in the comments…
For a helpful, longer-than-five-minute primer on the Russian alphabet, go here (pdf).
Welcome to Gadling’s feature, Plane Answers, where our resident airline pilot, Kent Wien, answers your questions about everything from takeoff to touchdown and beyond. Have a question of your own? Ask away!
Rich asks:
I’m 29 years of age and as long as I can remember, only one job fits my profile: a Pilot. The problem is, I got side-tracked in other areas due to lack of perseverance and confidence. Being a B student, with money in my pocket, knowing it’s ”never too late” … what should I do?
Rich, your timing might not be too bad. They always say that during a downturn the best investment is in yourself, and if you really want to fly, I think you should give it a try.
Step one is to go to www.letsgoflying.com and find a flight school near you. Visit the school, ask a bunch of questions and take a $100 intro flight. If you like the instructor, work on getting your private license.
After that, you’ll have a period that I call ‘no man’s land’ where you’ll need to build time from your 70 or so hours up to at least 210 hours before you can begin the training for your commercial, multi-engine and instrument certificates. To get through this time, I enlisted the help of a lot of friends and classmates at school to chip in and pay their portion of the aircraft rental charges to go flying.
After you get the commercial, multi-engine and instrument ratings, you can pick up your CFI (certified flight instructor) rating, and hopefully you’ll finally be able to turn around and start earning a bit of money while you’re instructing. The instructors I flew with were from all walks of life, including school teachers, a police officer and a few airline pilots who were awfully generous to me with their time. So if you decide to instruct, it’s not like you have to give up your day job.
The only thing that could slow you down would be the economy and the lack of student starts at your local flight school. But if the worst that comes from this is that you achieve your private pilot license, you’re not doing too bad. You can then rent an airplane and enjoy one of the most exciting activities in life (yeah, I still love flying, especially antique and classic airplanes).
After another five years, retirements will likely pick up again since the retirement age was recently extended from 60 to 65. At that point, regional airlines will be losing pilots to the majors and may need to attract new recruits in significant numbers.
Many pilots, ‘Sully’ included, might advise against a career in flying, after the recent troubles, pay cuts and pension losses. But I say, if you can live with the salaries listed at www.airlinepilotcentral.com, then go against the flow. It might pay off for you.
John asks:
Hi Kent,
I’m an avid reader of your “Plane Answers” site, and a fairly frequent flyer, and I’ve recently come up with a question:
With the majority of carriers now flying express jets (ERJ/CRJ’s), how is the safety of these smaller planes in comparison to the larger jets? The reason for asking is, on the last 3-4 flights on these small jets, the turbulence is noticeably stronger, and the take off and landing sequence seems much rougher.
Can you offer any insight as to what’s happening here? Are the small jets, usually flown by “company x doing business as continental express (or whomever)” as safe? Are the pilots as well trained (they all look like young kids, as compared to the more experienced looking pilots on the larger aircraft)?
I’ve had a couple of very uncomfortable wind landings recently, and your answers would go a long way toward me regaining my comfort level with flying.
Hi John,
I talked about the typical number of hours pilots at the regional airlines have a few weeks ago. Since regional pilots fly more hours per year, and usually accomplish more takeoff and landings per day, the experience they’ve racked up while flying the smaller jets is impressive.
There was a time when airlines were on a hiring binge, and that led to a lot of younger faces at the major airlines (I was considered young in my seat years ago).
The regional carriers were scrambling to fill the vacancies created by the large vacuum that the major and national airlines created when they hired so many regional airline pilots.
Much of that has changed over the past eight years, and there are now pilots at regional airlines with more flight time than at any other time in history because of the retirement age increase, and a stagnating airline industry, which has led to much lower turnover.
These regional jet pilots undergo the same training their major airline counterparts do, they pass the same medical requirements every 6 months to a year and the captains have regular line checks just as we do.
The airplanes they fly lack the long, flexible wings that improve the turbulence characteristics, and their landing gears are incredibly stiff, making it very difficult to accomplish the silky smooth landings widebody aircraft are known for.
But these are the same type of airplanes that have been flying corporate CEOs all over the country for many years prior to the regional jet boom, so they certainly have a proven track record, and their safety record is one of the best among any category of aircraft.
Personally, I have a lot of confidence in the abilities of regional pilots and their jets. Hopefully this will help you enjoy the ride. If you have to, just close your eyes a bit and imagine you’re on your own corporate jet.
Do you have a question about something related to the pointy end of an airplane? Ask Kent and maybe he’ll use it for next Monday’s Plane Answers. Check out his other blog, Cockpit Chronicles and travel along with him at work.
As part of our Gadling on the Road series, Kent Wien and his wife Linda are participating as Team Gadling in the first run of Competitours, an Amazing Race like competition taking place in three different countries in Europe. Race along as Kent documents their progress.
All eleven teams gathered at the train station in Brussels for our journey to our next destination, which had just been revealed before dinner. Sure enough, we were going to Paris.
I made it to Paris a few times last year but I didn’t feel like Linda and I had any advantage over any of the other teams, since the challenges were rather varied. And I was more interested in the challenges that I wasn’t familiar with, avoiding the Pont Neuf and Catacombs challenges in favor of the more out of the way tasks.
We poured over the 6 pages of options for Paris and the surrounding area. We knew we’d have to come up with either two 30-point and one 15-point challenge or better yet, a 60-point plus one 15-point challenge to reach our maximum limit of 75 points for the day.
The 60-point challenge was risky. A day trip to the Loire Valley to tour the
As part of our Gadling on the Road series, Kent Wien and his wife Linda are participating as Team Gadling in the first run of Competitours, an Amazing Race like competition taking place in three different countries in Europe. Follow along as Kent documents their progress.
THURSDAY – DAY 4.
After day three of our race in the Amsterdam area, we were excited to travel to a new location, Brussels. This would be the start of a completely new contest for all the teams, since the slate would be wiped clean, and a second prize awarded to the team that performs best on Thursday and Friday.
We awoke early enough to fit the free breakfast at the Amsterdam Acro hotel into what would be a very busy day. Unfortunately, we discovered that they wouldn’t be open for another 20 minutes, and Linda began to panic about the possibility of missing breakfast in order to catch our train. If it came down to the train or the breakfast, I’m not sure we’d be on the train.
You tend to discover new things about your partner on this race. It’s nearly impossible not to have some differences, but I’ve learned that most issues can be overcome by avoiding contact with my wife during her “Pre Meal State.” Otherwise known as PMS, this time before breakfast can be very dangerous, since she tends to be a little out of character when she’s awake for more than 15 minutes without her warm cup of tea and something to eat.
Especially bad, she says, is being promised food and a warm drink, only to have it delayed by a long search for the right restaurant or an unexpected closure, something rather common along this trip.
Fortunately we managed to take in breakfast and still arrive at the Amsterdam train station in time for our trip to Brussels. Crisis averted.
I think every team has also discovered something about the strengths and weaknesses of themselves and their teammates. For example, one of our favorites, Team Swizzle, knew early on that Bill was much better at the computer and video work, while Caroline handled the navigating duties and much of the communicating with the locals. Anytime they strayed from their specialties, they’d run into problems.
Because they knew this, they did rather well and rarely stumbled along the way. For the videos, they created a persona, with Bill “Swizzle” as the lead character. It worked rather well, in fact. I couldn’t stop laughing at this indoor skiing challenge video that Bill produced:
Linda and I once again looked over the challenges while on the morning train heading for our next destination, Brussels. We sat next to Bill and Caroline and enjoyed watching each others’ videos.
Upon arriving in Brussels, we chose to accomplish two 30-point tasks in Gent, a medium-sized beautiful town just outside Brussels.
After buying tickets in the train station for Gent, we raced upstairs to catch the train that was just about to depart.
Once aboard, we relaxed for a moment and talked about the competition so far and how it might change now that it’s fixed at a maximum of 75 points.
Strategically speaking, it was good that no one seemed to be on the train with us, but we would’ve still enjoyed visiting with some of the other teams along the way. Most of them, and one reporter, went to Bruges, which was just a bit further than Gent.
After we arrived, Linda and I looked for a modern/abstract art museum that was a tram ride from where our train dropped us off. These can be risky challenges because the museum or attraction can often be closed in the off season. My heart stopped a bit when the museum told us that it was being renovated, but they explained that we’d still be able to see 15% of the museum at a much lower price of just €1.
This also served to get Linda out of the museum faster. Don’t get me wrong, I like SOME museums, but I preferred to see one when we weren’t trying to make our way to each challenge before they close.
We still managed to hang out there for at least a half hour, (28 minutes too long, I thought) to see the three sparse rooms of exhibits that were still open.
Our task was to comment on a piece of artwork we liked, one that had us perplexed, and one that we disliked. We managed to find all three examples and stealthily film our reactions. Two security guards wandered around the only two rooms that were open to the public but I managed to film a few scenes with Linda when the guards were talking to each other.
We went outside and asked some people for directions to the city square. We preferred to get back on the train, but many of the locals tried to talk us into walking the distance.
“It’s such a nice day, you should just walk it. It’s about a half hour from here.” They’d say.
It was, in fact, a great day. But if they had only known how much walking (and running) we had already done that week, they’d understand the appeal a fast tram had for us.
We worked our way to the city center before running into a gentleman who pointed us in the right direction for us to order a Stropke beer. Stropke means noose in Flemish and there’s a long connection with this symbol in Gent.
We had to learn the reason why from the people in the bar while enjoying a Stropke drink. It was a challenge I had been looking forward to! Thanks to Steve for including so many good beer, wine, champagne and chocolate challenges in the line-up.
Our next challenge was located at an amazing tower in the city center that had an ingenious security system for its day. We needed to learn what made it unique and report on that with our Flip video camera. We asked two different people to get the straight scoop.
Since Competitours will no doubt come back through Belgium again someday, I don’t want to give any of their secrets away. I’ll just say that we heard a few differing stories about the security method, but we managed to ask enough people and the truth finally came out. We taped our findings and moved on to the next task, to find a subtle carving of a serpent in a church.
With that video completed we moved on to the Gravensteen Castle, by far the highlight for us in Gent.
The task said to find new uses for some of the items in this middle-ages era castle. We had to come up with an alternate use for the weapons, armor and torture devices. Linda and I put together a video as if we were a couple considering buying the place as our new home in Gent, taking advantage of the ‘down market.’
Here’s what we came up with:
We came back to Brussels with a potential of 60 points under our belts. We just needed a 15 point challenge to reach our maximum of 75 points possible that day.
We chose to do the Mannekin Pis challenge, where we’d travel to three different statues in Brussels; Mannekin Pis, Jeaneken Pis, and the ‘t Serclaes monument. We needed to come up with some made up explanations for these monuments to share with the judges. Since there were many others who did the same, we can only hope for the maximum 15 points. The top half will get the greater points with the bottom 50% receiving only 5 points for the challenge.
We finished the night with a stop in a crêperie to enjoy a nice dinner crêpe. Just minutes after we sat down, another team, Caitlin and Jennifer, a pair that had never met prior to the trip, joined us for dinner.
We made our way back to the train station in time to retrieve our bags and to board our train to the next city.
And just as I had imagined in the first post of this series, our final city was Paris.
But Steve had a number of challenges planned for Paris in locations that I’d never been to before. The finish line was plainly in sight! But who was leading?
I’ll leave you with a few scenes from Gent and Brussels and a glimpse of the other teams during the Thursday competition.
A scoring update:
I’ve been promising the standings from each of the two parts of the game, Cologne and Amsterdam and then Brussels and Paris for a few days now. It seems some videos haven’t been uploaded to the judges yet and they want to make sure everyone has their videos judged before they finalize the scores. So it may be a day or two before we know for sure. I’m hoping to have the results from both parts available by the next post.
