Amazing Big Rocks and More

Hi friends,

I know its been a while since I wrote but I actually wrote a nice, long blog the other night and then, just as I was getting ready to publish it, it all disappeared and I lost the will to recreate it on the same night. So, I went to bed and now here I am in Pakistan just sitting in my hotel room and wondering what it would be like to just go out to the mall or something. It feels so strange to be in a country that I know so little about. I will have to say that the people at the airport were nothing but nice and brought the fuel truck on time and pumped us right back to where we wanted to be for our departure to Bangladesh tomorrow. I don't think in any of my wildest dreams that I thought I would ever be flying from Pakistan to Bangladesh but here I am and here we go. To add interest to the program we are flying the Norwegian Ambassador to India and his staff. My daughter's boyfriend before her husband was Norwegian and he and his family really did some wonderful things for Shayna at her wedding. It was just awesome the way they decorated the gymnasium for her reception, I have never seen anything like it. I told the Ambassador that is made a lifetime impression on me and all the staff were so pleased. They had already complimented our air hostess and said that she needed to start a restaurant in Delhi for the kind of food she served. I had some after we landed and it was really good, I will have to say.

Anyway, I find myself looking out the windows at a country that speaks a similar language to India but, in many ways, is very different. Here, it doesn't feel nearly as crowded and that's probably because this is a desert climate and won't support the numbers of people that the Indian continent does. But, also, the roads are much better and there are fewer cars. We drove about 20 minutes form the airport and didn't hit a single "Jam" as the Indians call the nightmarish Delhi traffic. So, when I get back home I will send some of the pictures from this trip and write another travelogue about where I have been this week. I realize that it must sound like National Geographic at times but it just happens to be my life on the other side of the world. Today, while we were flying over here I heard another airliner on the frequency and it gave me pause for thought as it was "Vietnam Airlines". Here I am, over Pakistan and hearing Vietnam Airlines. It made me realize what kind of a specialized world that I live in here. I consider every day of my life as a HUGE adventure and so interesting for this little, old country boy from Tennessee for the last 30 years.

Last week we did one of the most awesome trips that I have done since coming to India. We flew over to Calcutta, which was my first trip to extreme Eastern India and so I got a look at that city from the air. Then, we flew North of Calcutta towards the Himalayas and spent parts of 3 days in the Himalayan foothills at Bagdotra, with our hotel city being Siliguri. The mountains were staring down on our hotel room windows. I took a private taxi ride for the day up into the mountains to over 5,000 feet. I took over 400 photos which I will eventually post if I ever get the captions done. I have had to go out and buy extra space on my website so that I can post all my photos. While we were flying in and out of Bagdotra I got some of the most awesome photos of Mt. Everest that I have been able to get so far. I had to really reset my brain to look out the window of my jet and be descending through 20,000 feet and see a mountain not that far away that stands over 10,000 feet ABOVE me. This can't be happening, but it was. In this photo above you can see Mt. Everest on the right and K2 on the left, the two highest peaks in the world. I couldn't help but think of my friend Scott Graham in Chattanooga. He took leave from his job in the spring of 2004 and took a couple of months off to climb (successfully) to the top of this mountain. I also thought about the many folks who have died while trying to climb and many who are still up there on the mountain as there is no way to get them down if something happens above a certain altitude. Scott explained to me that once you get into what they call the "death zone" you have to take care of yourself. A broken ankle or any little thing that might prevent you from carrying your own body up here will be a death sentence as no one else can do anything for you at these altitudes. At some points the trail is narrow and they literally have to almost step over the bodies to get to the top. It all just seems unreal and Scott said his brain felt like mush for about 2-3 months after he came back. I know some wonderful young man from Scandinavia gave up his life climbing the mountain last May so it's not an automatic for anyone, that's for sure. I just felt so in awe looking out the window at the really special place on earth. Karen and I have plans to fly over to Katmandu commercially and I will for sure be doing the aerial tour of Mt. Everest before I leave this side of the planet for good. My son's wife, Jessica spent a student missionary year in Nepal and so I am sure she has special feelings about this area.

Those of you who know me know how much I love to go to places that I have never been before and especially if they are outstanding or different places to visit. That is what makes this flight to Pakistan so special today. I wonder if any of my classmates from either high school or college have ever been here, and that alone makes it special to be able to come here. My friend Dr. John McGhee, from Auburn, Washington, was born here in Pakistan and speaks the local language, Urdu, which is similar enough to Hindi that my Indian crewmembers are able to converse and get along just fine here with the language. For those who don't know India and Pakistan were one country until 1947 under the British rule. When Britain pulled out the man who ended up being the prime minister for Pakistan said he wanted all the Moslems here and he shipped all non-Moslems to what became a smaller India under their first independant leader, Nehru. Many of those who travled to India during this very unsettled time were killed and never made it on those death trains to India. I have several friends in Delhi who can tell you terrible stories about that time. It's within my sister's lifetime so that kind of puts it in perspective for me. Anyway, to be sitting in a nice hotel room in Islamabad tonight and thinking about the incredible differences in culture that mankind has come up with just fills me with amazement.

Our other air hostess says that the food is good here so in a little while we'll wander down to the restaurant here at the Crowne Plaza and see what they have. This is not the American Hotel chain that you might be thinking. I thought it was but that would definitely be a 5 star hotel here and this is a 3 star. We have comfortable rooms and air-conditioning and wi-fi, etc, which seems to work faster than just about anywhere I have been in India but it's still not blazing speed, but no complaints and just interesting to look out and take it all in with my eyes. So far, the people have been very nice. We asked if it was okay to take pictures at the airport and sure enough, they said it was fine. I was trying to get pix from the back seat of the taxi on the way to the hotel and I will see how that turns out later. The second pic above was a large 777 or something that flew OVER us at 41,000 feet while I had my telephoto lense on so you guys get treated to a rare photo of that. My autofocus won't work through the aircraft windshield and its very hard to get a good shot of something going by at 1,000 mph.

Well, we have decided to go for a walk at night. Everyone assures us it will be just fine. There are three of us so here we go.

I will send another update soon and let you know what we are up to next.

Karen is in full recovery mode and has been going to the gym with me every morning, so she is starting to look good. Everyone at church was very impressed and mentioned how nice she looked so I was happy for her.

You guys take care, we think of you every day,

Dan and Karen

Himalayas from the Air on a clear day

I am really kicking myself now because I forgot my camera on the most beautiful trip I have had since coming to India. Last night I was telling Karen I would need my camera since I hadn't been to this city before and it was over towards the Himalayas. Well, I got up and my driver was early and so I was in a hurry and when we got levelled at 41,000 feet I was just so sick to my stomach because I didn't have my good camera and telephoto lense. As we levelled I looked out the window at the most unbelieveable sight I have ever seen. Just hundreds of miles of the most beautiful mountains I have ever seen. At, even though we were 41,000 feet above sea level, we were only 12,000 feet above some of these peaks. My eyes could barely take it all in. For awhile I was just completely filled with awe and almost unable to do my job up there. I was so distracted for about 30 minutes. It was just a mind bogglingly religious experience. To have had the camera to really show you would have completed my day. It was clear and cloudless for hundreds of miles, just awesome, as a cold front had recently come through and showed me a world I knew was out there but had never been able to see.

I took out my trusty Blackberry with it's pitiful 3.2 megapixel camera and fired away. It's kind of sad to see all that beauty and then not be able to bring much of it home, but I will still post the photo album and let you see a little bit of the amazing world that I saw today.

Coming SE from Delhi, we never really got down as far as Mt. Everest or K2, although I believe I saw them from the cockpit, but they were still over 100 miles away. But, on the trip from Delhi to Patna, India, we saw hundreds of miles of the Himalayas. To see those gorgeous mountains on the horizon and realize that it represents the highest places on earth and all the beauty that they contain was completely life changing. My good attorney friend in Chattanooga, Scott Graham, had bothered to come to Nepal in 2004 and climb Mt. Everest successfully in May of that year (GO SCOTT) and now I was seeing it out my window. And today the sky was clear and you could see how huge this area is. But, the biggest thrill was to see from our cat-bird seat these huge mountains, so high they looked like they were out the window, not down below.

I promise now that next time I go this way I will have my good camera and will never miss another opportunity to put this place in it's best light. I will send out a link really soon with connection to the rest of the Himalayas photos that I took today, along with a few others from this week.

Now, I have to go to Nepal and see this magical place. Even though we mess it up continually, I am transfixed by the pictures of our Blue Planet from space and now from high in the sky to see these mountains was completely magical - what a beautiful sight!!

Still kind of tingly from today's flight!!

Dan

A Full Roll

There are things that you just have to get used to in another country. Here, since they really prefer sprayers to paper by the toilets, you have a hard time finding toilet paper. One of the reasons that it is rare is because the roll of paper, if there is one, is always small. I was in a hotel recently and asked for another roll and, after taking the wrapper off, this is what I found on a brand new roll. To give you a reminder of how it feels to be without this precious stuff when you need it, in Africa we used to call it GOLD! I asked Dr. Wical why that name and he said because you will realize how valuable it is one day when you are without it. So true!! But, in America this roll would be almost used up and over with, yet here it constitutes a full roll. I haven't figured out if they want you to use less and think that a small roll helps or if the smaller rolls are all the hotels want to risk in case of theft, I just don't know. I can find full rolls in the stores near our house but never in hotels.

Last night we spent the night in Angul, in Orissa State, near the East Coast of India, just a few miles west of a city called Bhubaneshwar. The pilots who live here were telling me that one of the nice things about this part of India is, for some reason, there are no mosquitos. How nice is that, especially this year since the monsoons were so heavy and the mosquitos were apparently potent since they have had so much dengue fever, including some of our drivers and flight attendants, called air hostesses here. It's further South than Delhi so I notice that it hasn't cooled off as much but it's closer to the ocean and so there is more of an ocean type breeze that helps cool it off a little bit. The whole facility, which will eventually include a steel mill and a coal gasification power plant, is still very much under construction, but the airport is done for now and the guest houses are nice and new. We like staying here because the menu isn't so strict and they have internet that actually works pretty well without so many filters that you cannot get anything done. And now, today we flew 25 minutes in the jet to Raigahr, where we are on a regular basis. There were a couple of new guys from England on board the flight and one of them is a private pilot who used to fly Twin Otters in Florida for a sky-dive school. He came up front to look things over and to see our glass cockpit. I think he was glad to see me up front and wanted to know about how and why I was in India. We ex-pats always want to know why the other guy is here.

The tricky part of this flight is to fly almost 900 miles with 9 passengers and then land, spend the night, and then the next day fly another 100 nautical miles after having taken on no fuel. Our airport in Angul is so new that they have the fuel truck there but it hasn't been DGCA approved yet so we have no option for fuel there yet. Making all your takeoff and landing weights and since Angul is a short runway (4000 feet) you have to do quite a bit of flight planning to make sure this is all going to work (it does).

Karen continues to recover at home and it has now been a full month since I brought her home from surgery late in September. She is doing well but we went to visit her doctor again last week and pressed a little bit for more information about what went on during her surgery. When Karen started talking about getting a couple of other things done she said both she and Dan needed some time for recovery before trying another operation on Karen. We took that to mean that she and the other doctor were quite scared by her low blood pressure and quite pale appearance. They had ended up giving her 3 units of blood and she spent the first night in ICU so that is quite a bit more scary then just a routine surgery with a trip home that night. At one point Karen heard the doctor's voice in the background saying something about her heart not doing things they liked and she had a hard time breathing for quite a while after the surgery so she was scared and quite uncomfortable but now seems to be fine and is on the mend, so to speak. I would still give her another full month before she will be doing exercises in the gym, other than just walking, but at least all the drains are out and the leaks are stopped now.

It's going to be another Christmas away from home as our thoughts about the Citation XLS going home before the end of the year have been changed by the maintenance schedule for India being quite different from the original. Our Phase V, which would be due in 5 years or 1200 hours, was done by the previous owner just before we bought it in 2008, so won't be due until next year because the 5 year schedule is compressed to 3 by the Indian government. That means that we won't be brining it to America like I thought for paint and interior and Phase V until possibly later next year. Dan's training will be due again next Spring and his 40th high school reunion will be coming in April so that's most likely the next trip home to the USA.

We are disappointed that Dr. Tim Jennings visit to India just didn't get wings. From the beginning it seemed like things were aligned against us. The SDA church had a campout planned that was a big conflict and the Sunday church never really got behind the program so we are going to back up and try again sometime in the near future. We already had some touring planned and were just looking forward to having company from America but sometimes patience is a virtue and this should be something we can redo and it will be better. One of the things making this year kind of scary was that President Obama will be here in Delhi that weekend and we don't know what will be shut down and when, so that's a big unknown.

While here in Raigahr this time there were lots of company pilots here so we set up a "party" and solved most of the company problems. That was fun. The difficult part will be communicating it to management. Tomorrow will be a 35 minute flight to Ranchi and then a 1:30 flight back to Delhi. This time of year it's much cooler and yesterday when we took off from Delhi it was only 78 degrees F, which we haven't seen for many months. That made the airplane perform much better as we are used to flying in 25 C above standard air, which really takes the excitement out of flying this airplane, putting us back in the regular jet crowd.

Well, it's getting late and we have to get up and fly tomorrow so I will sign off, say thanks for keeping in touch and hope to see everyone of you sometime in the near future.

Take care,

Dan

Commonwealth Games

Well, we finally broke down and decided to attend some of the Commonwealth Games here in Delhi since Dan's schedule kept cancelling and there were international athletes competing in town, might as well go and see what is going on.

We had been watching it on TV and it seemed like there weren't too many people in the stands so maybe we could help with that also, but what to go see?? We both like swimming competitions and it was the finals, so it would be more exciting and it included the awards ceremonies, so that might be fun. I went online and found the website for the CWG2010 and start trying to buy a ticket. They don't make it easy but I finally purchased the tickets. After hearing the prices for the Olympic Games when they came to Atlanta in 1996, I thought I would have sticker shock but discovered that tickets were amazingly inexpensive. Lots of the events could be attended for 250 rupees, or just over $5 USD. Since the swimming was into the finals and I wanted the best seats we could get, they were 1000 rupees each, or $20. Completely amazing. The hard part, though, was actually picking the tickets up. You would think the advantage to buying online would be to just pickup at the box office at the venue you were at. Sad thing, no box office and there were only two ticket venues where you could pick up online purchases, so we had to go all the way to downtown Delhi in traffic, to the train station, and our driver didn't know where the swim venue was, at all. Fortunately, we drove right by it on the way to the train station. Once I got to the station, I walked around the corner and found quite a long line waiting for ticket issues. I spoke to the lady in line in front of me and she indicated that in Delhi you really needed to come the day before to pick up tickets as the wait was quite lengthy. I had told the taxi driver just 10 minutes and Karen was in the car. Oh-oh. The lady suggested that I cut to the front of the long line and see if they would issue my ticket immediately, as the swimming started in about 90 minutes. I went to the front and there was a door where the security guy let me right in. When the lady at the desk saw my expat face, I was welcomed with open arms and told to hand her my paperwork, which included my passport for identification. So, based on that info, she typed something in and a couple of minutes later I had a couple of pretty cool looking large tickets to the swimming finals. The taxi wasn't allowed to park outside and had to drive down the street some to find parking so he had to come running back a half a block to find me and we headed for the swimming venue. Of course, there were about 10 different gates for this and we drove around for a few minutes and then ended up walking about half a mile from the entry gate to the building itself. Karen had agreed to go to this but we hadn't counted on a long walk since she is healing from her surgery but, fortunately, she did okay and we had a sandwich and a soft drink on the way in and found our seats, which weren't really assigned, but the section was assigned, so you went to your section and then just found the seat that you thought would be good - interesting. We ended up with a whole bunch of expats, probably parents and family of participants, from England, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc. I think we were the only Americans in the building. The lady next to us from New Zealand guessed that we were from England, so that wasn't a bad guess. When we said we were from America but lived in Delhi, I think the look of shock on her face kind of let us know that she thought we were crazy.

But, we had a great time, it was a great venue, the air-conditioning was strong, the pool was beautiful and the families around us were supportive and talked good English, which was so much fun for a night. By the end of the evening we had several friends and had really enjoyed the spectacle of the games. I will post my pictures on a separate email and you can see more of what was going on. Since the company cars were all tied up we took a taxi and it was great. They dropped us at the gate and after I had the tickets in hand, I realized that they included two free passes on the Metro, the new elevated train around Delhi that we had been threatening to ride but had no reason to. So, I told Karen, let's ride home on the train, which ends up about 3 miles from our house. So, that was the plan, but after the games we were hungry and only a short taxi ride from Connaught Place where our favorite Mexican food is. So, after the game we hit the streets and found a tuk-tuk within a few minutes to take us just 5 minutes to Sancho's. Great!! Karen had only ridden a tuk-tuk one time for just a short block or two when we were at the Taj Mahal last Spring. So, this was her first real tuk-tuk ride in heavy traffic and with horns and close quarters, but we made it and it all made for a great adventure. After a good Mexican dinner we walked a couple of blocks to the Metro station and went down into inner sanctum under the ground. It's all very confusing, with us not even being able to figure out how to get through the gates with our passes from the games but they had someone to let you through a gate with your ticket from the games so on we went. Down more stairs and looking for the yellow train which runs to Gurgaon, where we live. We got on a very uncrowded train in a hurry and began to ride. About the 4th stop they said it was the end of the train but it just kept on going after pausing at the station. We failed to notice that it had reversed direction and now it FILLED UP with a rowdy crowd of somewhat inebriated local boys. Karen was ready to jump off. After about three stops I didn't like the sound of the crowd or the names of the stations. We began to realize that we had headed one way and then reversed course and were now headed for the North Side of Delhi with a rowdy crowd and at a great rate of speed. One older man took mercy on us and told us to change at a certain station, where it was safe, and so we crossed up and over and found the train going all the way to Huda Central Station, where the train now ends. Our ride took over an hour but should have only taken about 40 minutes, but we had nothing better to do and since we had opted for ice tea at the Mexican food place, we were wide awake. Then, when we got to the end of the line we walked out and started looking for another tuk-tuk which took us all the way home, about a 15 minute ride for 150 rupees. Too much fun and it was Karen's first really big outing after her surgery. I had a flight early the next morning but somewhere in the middle of the evening it cancelled so we had no schedule and finally crawled into bed somewhere around midnight. We both think we are the only members of any of our high school or college classes to attend the Commonwealth Games in Delhi. And the whole evening was very inexpensive but really adventure filled. When we were on that Metro train with about 100 pushy, shovy Indian men, I thought Karen was going to jump right out the window but she hung in there and we survived.

While we were in the building we saw several of the contestants practicing on the high diving platforms so now, if I am around, we want to go back for the diving. My boss, Mr. Jindal, was going to participate in the skeet shooting but he said he was the 2nd alternate and so didn't get in. Would have been fun to see him on TV.

The weather is really getting into the nice time of the year and the city really gets crowded and lit up now as the crowds go out in the much more liveable climate.

My cats have totally become loyal to me after Karen went home for the summer. She is quite upset that they always follow dad around and choose to sleep on my side or be by my side, no matter what I am doing. I tend to be the disciplinarian but they take it and come back to cuddle and take a nap. One cat, Rupee, allows me to spin him on the tile floor while he is curled up in a ball, by his tail. You would think that he would get up and run away, but when I finish, he just lays there and kind of looks at me like, is that all you got?? I think he just does anything to guarantee a steady food supply but I will take it as affection and that's my story.

Have a great week!!

Dan and Karen

Taking advantage of inexpensive medical

Hi again friends,

I decided it's been at least a couple of weeks since my last blog so maybe you could stand to hear what's going on with Dan and Karen in New Delhi. If it's seemed kind of quiet lately, that's because Dan has never been busier in his life - and it has nothing to do with flying. In fact, I was really hoping the phone would ring and take me on a flight so I could hire someone or get a friend to come over and do the nursing care thing for awhile.

On September 23 Karen's new cosmetic surgeon, Dr. Rashmi Taneja, who did her training at UCLA Medical Center in the USA, decided it was time to, as they say in India, "Do the needful." The needful was brought on by back problems brought on by carrying around more than she should on the front. So, the doctor started with a breast reduction and then went on to do a tummy tuck and liposuction while she was at it. Karen was like a kid in a candy store when we went in to visit Dr. Taneja to talk about the process. And, the candy was on SALE. It is just so different here. The doctor told us to call her when we were with our driver and she would give him directions to her office. She would call and give us the reports that came back from the medical pre-tests and so on. We were just shocked to have this type of communication with the doctor herself. Because both Karen and I had been affected with diarrhea for a couple of weeks before the surgery, it turned out to be a little more exciting than we had imagined. Even though they did a blood test right before the surgery and the hemoglobin came back a 14, which would be a hugely good number, we now think it was a false high and, with the diarrhea, came dehydration. They told me Karen's surgery would be 4 hours and it turned out to be 6 and 1/2. The doctor called to say Karen was fine but would be spending the first night in ICU. I didn't get to see her until 8:30 that night, which was 12 hours after she went in to surgery. She was in ICU and I went up there. She immediately saw me and started asking for COLD water and a fan. She was feeling like she was dying of thirst. I guess the dehydration manifested itself greatly in her recovery. After they brought a fan in and aimed it straight at her head, she was happier and then I made them get ice water, which is a rare commodity in India and I hand-fed her ice for about half an hour. She said she felt like she was stranded in the middle of the desert without water. Said she never wanted to feel like that again. But, that was as bad as it got and they had given her three units of blood, two during the surgery and one more in ICU, as well as a saline drip, so she was getting rehydrated as rapidly as possible. That was as bad as it got and the next day they took her down to normal hospital care. I visited her for three more days and then, on Monday night we brought her home. Amazingly, even though the company had given me two days leave to be with her, I didn't have a flight for 5 days. That flight was only gone for a few hours and I came back without her even knowing I was gone, and haven't had a flight for 5 more days, so that is a miracle.

During the Commonwealth Games, which start tomorrow, the local police put out a notice to all the illegal immigrants that they would be searched out, found and prosecuted. Apparently, our househelp is from Bangladesh and is illegally in India. We had no idea as she has a security clearance and a worker's ID card. Anyway, without any notice she disappeared and then called and said she would be back on the 15th of Oct. So, right when we really could have used extra help around the house, we had NONE. And, that's the reason that I am looking forward to the phone ringing and taking me on a flight. At home, I am cook, cleaner, dispenser of medications, changer of drain cannister, back scratcher, laundry guy, cat mess cleaner upper, cat food guy, litter box changer, errand runner and general go-fer. Please ring, phone, and take me to work so I can get some rest! Actually, there is nothing like this experience to bond you together as a couple. Karen keeps lifting up the covers and remarking about her new body shape so I assume she is going to be very happy with the results. And, it was all done for a small fraction of what it would have cost in America. We know because Karen went and met with a cosmetic surgeon in Pittsburgh and got his quote. When I described the procedures to my Anesthiologist cousin in California, he was quoting prices for these same things out there that would make your head spin and your wallet thin. I have included pictures of the front of the hospital so you can visualize that this was not some fly-by-night jungle hospital operation. Everything was new and modern and very clean. Plus, I doubt your hospital has a guy dressed like the one above to open your car door for you and welcome you with praying hands. The nursing staff was amazing and so nice. The last day Karen was there she had her cellphone out to call family and tell them she was still alive and it was apparently too tempting to someone around there and it got stolen. It has a tracking device built in so we turned in the information to hospital security who said the ID number would be put on a police watch list and it would probably turn up. In the meantime, since we are in India, I bought another phone for $60 and put $20 worth of credit on the card and she can talk for months locally, as well as calls to family in America, for that amount. By going to the AirTel office, I managed to keep her same number and have a minimum of fuss about the whole thing. The funny part about the hospital and doctor bill was that they put up an estimate of charges as you arrive, including the doctor's fees, which was exactly as the doctor said it would be, and I didn't know this part, but they don't take checks and are leary about credit cards, so I went to the bank and got cash for most of the transaction. Because this involved a one hour delay, the doctor herself signed a surety for the bill, while I rode to the bank, and since it was in rupees, had to carry the large bunch of bills out in my briefcase, hoping to not get robbed on the way to the hospital. In the end, because of the extra care and more days, I put the last little bit on a credit card and it was all settled. Just very different from America, where the patient would be dismissed and the bill settled with whoever over a period of months. They wouldn't release Karen until the bill was settled and there was no getting her out of the ward without the signed release papers. Checking out of anything in India always takes way longer than it ever should and at times I thought I wouldn't get her out. Money here is just such a huge deal, all the time.

Our smaller jet the CJ, should be back from America this week. It has been gone for over two months to get paint and interior. I am excited to start flying it when it comes back, as I am sure it will look very nice. Then, around the end of the year, our Citation XLS, which is the main plane that I fly, is going to go for the same thing. Since our XLS is a 2005 model and sits outside all the time, it is starting to show it's age a little bit, although the people here keep it very clean and neat all the time. We have hired two new captains, one for the CJ and one for the XLS. They are both retired from the Indian miliatary and are both off to school right now in England. One is at FlightSafety, the other at CAE Simuflite, and when they get back they will start flying with me until they get 100 hours of pilot in command time in type. Then, they will be released as full captains, if they are able to handle it all and get recommended. I am hoping that it all works out because for the last 15 months it has been tough to get time off since I am the only captain on the XLS and our only captain on the CJ just retired last week. We had a nice party for Dhaka and his wife, and the owner of the company, Mr. Jindal, bothered to come to the party for an hour or so, so that was very nice. I will miss Dhaka and his sense of humor and informative ways teaching me about how things work in India. He has already found another job in Malaysia as a chief flight instructor for a big flight school and where the age 65 rule doesn't arbitrarily matter.

We are looking forward to company coming from Tennessee. Dr. Tim Jennings is coming to New Delhi at my invitation to make presentations at both the SDA church in Delhi and the Delhi International Christian Fellowship, which is the Sunday church that I attend here because there are so many expats to network with and form lifelong friendships with. The guest speaker today at the SDA church was a lady from Spain who works with Literature Evangelists from around the world and was here for some presentations. It was her first trip to India and she said that she can see now why people keep coming back to India as it gets into your blood and really gets to you. I have to admit that India has gotten into my blood and at times I get emotional, thinking about the blessing it has been for me at this stage of life.

I just found out that my friend Maria Lopes, from Portugal, who is here with her husband, is one of the most popular writer's of children's religious books for various publishers. Someone told me today that she is outselling The Bible Story and the Bedtime Story sets worldwide and in America. I am amazed as I have been at their house several times, she offered to come take care of Karen last week, and this is the first that I have heard about all this. Wow!!

Take care, my friends, and hope to hear from you!

Dan

Thank Goodness!!

This is Adam Montgomery! Adam came all alone from Pittsburgh via Qatar to visit us for a few days. How great it was to have his company. Adam is the teenage son of our friends from Pittsburgh, Alan and Jennifer Montgomery. Adam wanted to come visit us in India and we were all to happy to have him come. There is always the enthusiasm of youth that comes with a visit from a teenager. Adam came at 5 in the morning and so we picked him up, drove into downtown Delhi to the Shangri-La Hotel and had a wonderful breakfast before coming back home and letting him get what all teenagers covet - sleep!!! And, since I had to go flying that very day, Adam and Karen dropped me at the airport and then, while I flew off into the wild, blue yonder, they continued on to the house. While Adam was in town, I took him out to the airport to see the plane that I fly and since he had never gotten up to see a Citation Excell while I was in Pittsburgh, this gave him a chance to see one. He got kind of excited about all the buttons and controls but when asked if he wanted to be a pilot he said he would rather be the one who chooses the destinations. Anyway, we had a great visit with Adam and even set it up for him to take a driving tour to the Taj Mahal which he said was worth it when he got back. We were also able to do a Delhi tour day, which was kind of warm but still interesting as we toured a lot of the historical sights around Delhi which locals never take time for. Adam had just been to Kenya and Tanzania this summer and had climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro with several of his classmates from the American school in Qatar, plus he has been to Hong Kong and also to China to see the Great Wall so now, with the Taj Mahal to his credit, this kid is getting around the world.

Last week we had a brief scare as Karen went in for a routine mammogram and they ended up not liking a lump they saw in one of her breasts. This is always scary stuff but we got a recommendation for a good doctor to do the biopsy and it came back benign so we are very greatful for our blessings!! The most amazing part was that we were constantly talking directly to her doctors about everything, including driving directions to the offices and hospitals. It is just so different to call the doctor directly on their cellphone and have them pick up in the middle of the day and give your driver directions to the office or to give you a report directly about what is going on with your reports. And, even though we have paid cash the entire time, the largest bill we have seen was for the doctor at the biopsy clinic and included the doctor visit and all the reports and included the biopsy fees and it was less than $100 USD. We are always incredulous at these medical amounts since we are so used to sticker shock. The hospitals and clinics have all been new and clean and well-recommended, so far we are very impressed and happy. Oh, and Karen put off a root-canal and some bondings she was going to have until this other thing settled down, but all that dental work was going to be less than $80 USD, so the dentist was telling me as I prepared for price shock that we were in India and dental and medical was still affordable. I have routing cleanings done for $30, so that seems very fair to me.

This monsoon has been a far cry from last year. Last year it didn't even seem like much rain at all and the storms were few and far between. This year has been a totally different story, with lots of storms and rain and wind. We have almost gotten used to a big thunderstorm every afternoon, which keeps the flying very interesting as you dodge around all the storms. Some of the trips have been really delayed on our arrival back into Delhi. The other day we were coming back from Ranchi, which should have been about 1:20 trip and it turned out to be over 2:00 in the air, plus a long taxi back in. As I stated before, I have never taxiied so much in my life as we go for miles to reach the active runway here and then taxi a few miles to get back to our ramp. Those should shorten up a bit when we get our middle runway open again. It has been closed for a couple of months for renovation before the Commonwealth Games. The biggest thing I have noticed this year around Delhi, though, is the incredible amount of greenery around the city, with all the rain. Karen can't even recognize a lot of the open fields and stuff from before, where it was just dust and dirt and now it is tall with green plants and grass, etc. The roads, of course, have been suffering mightily and it will take months to rebuild some of them. Sohna Road, which is the main artery running near our apartment complex, is just a complete mess and traffic has been so slow with all the potholes and half the road covered with water all the time. Our monsoon should be ending now, but they say this year it might still have a couple of weeks left in it. Wow, everything is so green everywhere I fly in India from the air. It just looks like a different country from what I was seeing last year everywhere I went. I will have to say that I prefer it when it's green but my glasses end up fogging over for a couple of minutes every time I get out of the car since they run lots of air-conditioning and, then, when I get out, instant fog until the glasses warm up a little bit. But, I will still take the air, and lots of it, please.

We have lots of company coming in the near future. I already got a note from Dr. John McGhee, from Washington state, and he is in country and I will see him at Delhi SDA church tomorrow. He has a week's worth of meetings and then will come to stay with us for a few days while doing some work around this area. With his great musical skills and leadership abilities, it is always good to see him for a catch-up visit. Then, in early November, we have company from Tennessee coming to visit, Dr. Tim Jennings, M.D. I have personally invited Tim to come and make some weekend presentations in New Delhi, both at our SDA church on Saturday and the Delhi International Christian Fellowship church on Sunday. It's very difficult to promote over here as, if they think you are going outside your own congregation, they require you to have a missionary visa and that's a little more difficult than just a tourist visa, but we plan to keep it within the confines of the congretations, so it should be no trouble.

I am so excited about this since Tim is a psychiatrist and Delhi is such a stressful place. I just see a tremendous potential for an incredible ministry here if it all works out. Plus, Tim is bringing his wife with him and so they are going to do some touring around. I love to see people's reactions to the incredibly different culture here. Tim was commenting on how difficult the visa process is here, even worse than China, he says.

Speaking of India government issues, the DGCA has finally decided that I cannot be a check airman for longer than a month unless I have been a check airman in the USA, which I have never tried, nor been asked to do. So now I am going to find out if you can actually request to be a check airman, based on experience and need, from another country, and have something come of it in the USA. I have a favorite person at FlightSafety who is working on that issue for me right now. I suppose it's possible that I may have to go back to the USA and give someone a checkride while the FAA watches and then they can officially pronounce me an official check airman there, which will mean that I can continue to do it here. We went to the DGCA offices today in Delhi and drove two hours in traffic, plus waiting for a couple of hours in the office before being told that this wasn't going to happen in it's present state. They made a short exception in order for us to be able to get a lot of our own checkrides out of the way and then other people saw my name on the list and started asking for checkrides so that was the brief fun before we found the new program. I believe the company will want me to pursue whatever I have to do to make this happen, even renting a simulator outright for a couple of hours in order to do a checkride for someone. This should be interesting!!

The roadside visuals have been incredible with all this rain. The cows continue to rule the roads and so, between the puddles, lakes and cattle, the roads continue to be a very interesting place to travel. My drivers call the road near my house Danger Road, and that is just so true.

Karen and I had been fighting bad cases of Delhi belly for almost two weeks. Mostly it's over now and we are just still weak and dehydrated from dealing with that. With all the rain and dampness this, everyone says that the food supply is dangerous and the water isn't safe so we may have gotten sick from our own water but whatever it was, we don't want that again. Activated charcoal tablets and immodium seem to do the trick. After a couple of weeks of discomfort, we are just proud to have normal bathroom action. You know what I mean!!

Take care everyone and we'll chat again soon,

Dan and Karen

Karen's back

Hi everybody,

Karen is back and so life is getting back to normal around here. I got up at 3:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning and went to meet her flight. It was as this point that I realized that it was going to be over 2 hours late. She had tried to notify me but there is no communication from Abu Dhabi and that's where her flight was coming from. Neither of our cell phones have worked in that place. But, we finally found each other at the new Delhi airport, at the new terminal 3. They have just completed this whole, new international airport complex in time for the Commonwealth Games and it is nice. The sad part is, they won't let you go inside to wait, even for a cup of coffee or anything, because of security concerns, so we waited outside. When I say we, I mean that my driver was somewhere waiting for us to call him that we were ready and I was waiting alone, with about 500 other people, for relatives to come through the door and then, for them, the trip was over.

Karen was amazingly chipper and well-rested, probably due to first and business-class travel this time on Etihad Airlines, which does a wonderful job. The sad part was, after a very nice breakfast at the Leela Kapinski, the nicest hotel in town, we had to go home, change clothes, and then head immediately for the Ministry of Home Affairs to renew her visa. I knew this would involve a lengthy wait in the heat and without really knowing what was going on. It did manage to take most of the day and then, about 1:30 they told us to come back around 5 p.m. I had gone through this before. They finally, about 6 p.m., hand out a bunch of sealed envelopes that you cannot open, but must take over to the Foreign Regional Registration Office, this most hated of Indian government offices, as it involves long and complicated waits to get served rudely. So, after our first full day of standing outside in 100+ degree temps, we headed out for our second day of waiting in long lines at the FRRO. I had two checkrides scheduled for this day at 11:30 a.m., so I had to go in my uniform, which was very hot. We stood outside in line for almost 2 hours and then, finally, just before a total meltdown, we were allowed inside, where there were more lines and finally, the dreaded man at the front desk. He was satisfied with our paperwork, except for the fact that I hadn't realized that they took all copies of Karen's passport and visa at the Ministry of Home Affairs the day before, so he needed those. I literally ran across the busy street with Karen in tow and we got the three copies needed for 3 rupees (6 cents) and headed back across the street, handed in her papers, and were told that everything was fine, we should return for her visa extension on Monday, the 6th of September. What a relief!! Only two days in the burning heat and she could now go home and relax and try to get into the right time zone, which is always more difficult coming this direction, I think.

Meanwhile, I had these two looming checkrides, so the driver hurried me to the airport and dropped me off, while Karen went home to catch up on her sleep. To try and describe what has been happening since I became an examiner on the Citations in this country is difficult. The director of aviation for another company had called me and asked me if I could just charge them the money and sign the guys off without flying with them. This is so much the local attitude, but of course, I explained that I couldn't do this and we should schedule the two checkrides, which could be done together but still needed to be done. It was explained to me that the chief pilot for this company was related to someone at the DGCA, so if I needed any help with issues or had problems, it would be a good connection to have. I appreciated this, but it still didn't negate the checkrides and so, after dropping Karen off, I began my first ride in someone else's airplane since I came to India 14 months ago. The whole process was interesting because I was treated like a King by this company since they needed my signoff to continue flying here. They even sent a person to personally walk me through security to make sure there were no glitches and then, to my surprise, when I arrived at the airplane, their air hostess was onboard, just to serve food and soft drinks to me. All of my requests and questions were treated with the utmost respect and attention, it was just so interesting. We flew to Jaipur, about 30 minutes away and then did a full ILS approach, with the captain losing the autopilot and flight director just as we intercepted the localizer (too bad). The landing gear was a little recalcitrant but the copilot finally coaxed it down and we landed and taxied back. I explained that we would be taking off and then losing an engine right as the gear came up, but would continue and fly to a holding pattern, then followed by the engine shut down checklist (engine still running) and completing a single-engine approach and landing. That all went well until we attempted to lower the landing gear and this time it would not come down. I have been flying Citations for 25 years and this was the first time that we were going to exercise the emergency gear extension for real. Once the captain figured out how hard to pull the emergency gear extension handle, the gear came down and we blew the bottle to lock it into position. Three green gear lights looked mighty pretty at this point and we were still flying the Instrument Approach, so it was a busy time but the pilot handled it well. Now, we had to send one of the crewmembers up to the tower to pay the fees for landing here and for ATC, so we sent him up and while he was doing that, I got fed again. Then, we had to fly our fixed-gear Citation back to Delhi and try to fit in with all the big jets while having our landing gear down and locked. To make matters more interesting, there were a lot of thunderstorms around and so we ended up circumnavigating a lot to get back. It's amazing how much extra air noise there is when the gear is down for the whole flight. We got back and turned the aircraft over to maintenance, who had the same thought I did, that the landing gear switch itself had decided to quit on this day. So, checkride was completed and two pilots were very happy, while I was very tired and just glad to be back on the ground with wheels - yeah!! I went home and found Karen had been sleeping most of the day because she is 9 and 1/2 time zones out of whack and it just takes time to make this up. I always find it easier to travel West towards America then it is to travel East back to India. My body clock has always been this way and I think I would function better on a 25 hour day because it just works well for me. Going East, I always feel like a zombie for a few days, no matter what I do. Anyway, this was my first month of giving checkrides and since I am the only Citation XLS check airman in India, I think just that part of my life will be very busy. The guys I have been giving rides to are always so nice and they love that I have flown this aircraft for so long and understand the systems and the navigation boxes. They say that typically the DGCA guys don't know anything about general aviation jets and so much of what they talk about isn't relevant. So far, my boss says I have been getting rave reviews of my checkrides and cover material so that really makes me feel good. I never dreamed that I would be doing this but it does make me feel like I am making an important contribution to aviation safety, as it relates to private jets, in India.

Again, I never know how long I will be allowed to stay here. The expat pilot conversations vary from don't worry about this at all to there is a pilots union that is working very hard to remove all the expats by next July and it could happen earlier. So, I have resolved in my mind to enjoy this for as long as I am allowed and realize that it could be short term. The pilots I flew with yesterday were of the opinion that this would not happen for years because there just aren't enough general aviation pilots in India and since there are so many planes coming to the country there will be continual issues for years and so expats will be required, and by the way, do I know any pilots from America who would be willing to come over and fly. (Which, of course, I do). India is just such a different economy from America right now. There is growth and development everywhere and everything just has this feel of success and expansion. Of course, part of the problem is that it takes so long to develop a core group of pilots who are qualified to fly these airplanes. Our company has just recently hired two ex-Indian Military pilots, both of which I will be responsible for training, one in the CJ2 and one in the XLS. Both seem to have great attitudes and willingness to learn. I only hope that their flying skills are what I need and that this process will eventually lead to them both flying here, safely, for years to come and I won't have to try and make something work that really shouldn't. I have tried to get them to do some flight evaluations before hiring here, but it seems so foreign to them that ex-military pilots might not have flying skills. I have seen and heard about a few over here so I have high hopes and I realize that it is an awesome responsibility to do this, even while giving checkrides to dozens of other Indian pilots as these Citations become a very popular aircraft here, too.

I continue to be very thankful for such good health. As I get older, I realize that life choices make a big difference and now I am able to enjoy life, to a certain extent, because I have taken care of myself. I don't take anything for granted, though, and I do continue my workouts in the gym here at our apartments, which includes a cardio workout and then some weightlifting to try and keep my body from becoming a big saggy sack of flab!! Now we recently found out that the DGCA is going to make expat pilots take the hated and dreaded Indian flight physical, which is a 3 day rigorous test which includes everything from EKG's to MRI's and chest xrays and extensive hearing and eye tests. So, that should be interesting to go through. Some of my friends here think that it is going to be a way to exclude the expat pilots and that they will do anything they can to keep us from flying here. Who knows. I have retained good relationships with the Canadian handling company that brought me here and should India go away, I will try to find another international location, as they are just so intriguing right now. My hope though, is that this will be my last job before retirement. But long ago I realized that there are things I can control and things I can't and those shouldn't get mixed up or it will just cause stress.

Karen got a fresh prescription of her relaxant pills which she has humorously called her "No kill" pillls. I love this description, as, if you are on this medication, nobody gets hurt, but with all the frustrations of living in a very foreign place, if the pills run out, it might get dangerous.

(Just kidding, of course) but still a great description of a prescription.

I will include a picture of my friends from the Delhi SDA church, Richard and Tammy Jackson. He works at the US Embassy. They are already bidding for their next position and job. How nice is that, you can kind of choose where you want to live. I think they are leaving next June, so another year and they will be back in Washington, DC or some island. They say Delhi has been a very challenging location for them, and they were in Mexico before this. I will also include a picture of Ulyana, our friend from Ukraine, as she was able to bring her baby to church last week for the first time since he was born in mid-June. Just imagine setting up a new home and baby and living in India, thousands of miles from home, while doing all this. I admire people like this, my mom did the same thing!!

Drop me a note and let me know you are doing okay. News from home may sound mundane to you, but it makes my day to hear from you all.

Love,

Dan

From the heart of East Central India

Hi friends,
I am sitting in my guesthouse room in Raigahr, India, where we have a huge steel mill. It is thundering and raining heavily outside. We tried to get in here yesterday morning from Delhi and it was raining heavily then so we couldn't get in and instead went to our developing steel mill and power plant in Angul, India, just about 130 km (100 miles) Southwest of Bhubaneshwar, which is along the Eastern coast of India quite a ways South of Kolkutta. Yesterday our first stop was in Ranchi and the trip from Delhi paralleled the Himalayas for quite a ways. There was a high cloud deck and then it was clear in the middle so you could clearly see all the peaks around Katmandu. I am sure I actually laid my eyes on Everest this time, although the peaks are so tightly packed together and almost unrecognizable individually that I can't be sure which one it was. We were at 41,000 feet and about 120 miles away and I felt like I could reach out and touch them. Now I really have to make a point to take a weekend off and go to Nepal, although they tell me it's not a very pleasant place to be these days with all the incredible growth and the attraction of all kinds of people, good and bad, it makes it not a good vacation spot like it might have been before, but I still just want to go over and then take one of the tours that takes you up over Everest. I will have my camera and I will get some photos of the highest place on this earth. Too bad it's in such a tough political spot.
Our smaller jet, the Citation CJ, which I will be flying again here soon, is in America right now, having flown across the North Atlantic and is now occupying space in Duncan Aviation's hangar in Lincoln, Nebraska. Captain Dhaka and my friend Jagjiven flew it over, taking 4 or 5 days and making stops along the way. I love this itinerary: Delhi, Tabriz, Istanbul, Dresden, Prestwick, Keflavik, Iceland, Greenland, Canada, New York and then on to Lincoln. I think around the end of the year, we will be doing the same trip in the XLS to bring it over for the same thing, paint, interior and any avionics or engine work that needs to be done. Pilot training will also be scheduled and Dan might get a few days off to visit family while there. I am hoping that the trip will coincide with the Christmas Holidays but who knows, its very far off right now. That trip that they did in the CJ this time of year with no sweat might be a little more difficult next winter against North Atlantic headwinds, but since we have more range and speed, if we made the same stops it would all work out well. I am really hoping for a couple of days in Istanbul. I have friends who say that is such an interesting city, historically and architecturally, so here's hoping.
India has been on-again, off-again about my flight examiner status. When I renewed my India license a month or so ago, they were taking all the examinerships away and I really didn't care, but I guess they really needed somebody for the Excell/XLS so I got notice yesterday that I have been re-approved for both instructor pilot and examiner on the CJ and the XLS. Furthermore, the government of Maharashtra, which is the Mumbai area, has their own Citation XLS and they have already contacted our company, looking for me to do a checkride for one of their pilots. This could be kind of fun and a great opportunity to improve safety and flight operations here, as well as make some good extra money. I am looking forward to the opportunity, for sure. I never imagined when I was in Citation Excell school in early 2000 that it would turn into all this.
Since I am at the company guest house and the internet here is quite slow and laborious, I will not try to put a picture on this particular blog. Just words will have to do. Speaking of words, I sent off an e-mail to the managing editor of my favorite "Flying Magazine" to see if they had any use for some interesting corporate flying stories from the other side of the world. I would like to do some short story writing that includes my experiences here and if any of these get picked up, that could make more money than the flying. It's just an idea at this point and I may get cruelly and coldly rejected, mainly because I have no clue how to break into the writing business as it pertains to magazines, but here's hoping it might catch on somewhere.
I have been reading Flying Mag since I was just a kid, seeing many of the well-written articles becoming a central part of my own flying career and learning experiences.
When I come on these trips to these smaller Indian towns and villages with not much English TV and no restaurants to go out and eat at, I am pretty much a foreign guest, kind of out of my zone. I went down to the sports room tonight and played some pool with the guys that were there. Won some and then lost a big one right at the end, but really had some great comraderie with the regular guys here. Since my skin color and position are obvious to all, I am treated like a VIP here all the time, never being allowed to carry my own luggage and having my clothes laundered just by calling the desk and having transport wherever I want to go. Since it was a long day today, I took a ride back to the airport and spent 30 minutes with the mechanics (called engineers here) who are rehanging the engine on the Bell 407 helicopter, which is a sad story since the engine had recently been overhauled but then they found metal chips in the oil sample after only about 500 hours. Turns out it was the #5 bearing on the Rolls-Royce C250 turbine engine and it had gone bad. They shipped it off to Singapore and had just gotten it back into Delhi, where our own Pilatus PC-12 had flown up to bring it back to Raigahr for re-installation. I had seen the pilot up in Delhi a couple of weeks ago and he told me the story. Interestingly, the engineers had taken many digital, detailed photos of the un-install process, at every stage, and they were carefully reviewing those photos as they re-installed the engine. Very smart. I wished I had done that a few times when I overhauled engines on my junky cars while growing up. Of course, digital cameras didn't exist when I was in high school doing this kind of work. They were quite interested that I am both licensed as a pilot and as an engineer because here it is like two different castes, and the two don't associate with each other and don't talk, except to discuss issues with the engine or airframe. It's just different here. Since I am now certified to do my own preflight inspections and fuel and oil monitoring, it takes about 10 minutes before each flight just to go through the paperwork and make sure that everything is signed off properly.
The other day I was drinking a larger than usual bottle of water as we flew and, apparently my left hand with-the-ring-finger, caught the switch that turns on the emergency locator transmitter for the last hour or so of the flight and it stayed on as we taxiied in and parked in Delhi, because we had no clue that it was on. Anyway, the proper authorities finally traced it down to our plane and you would have thought that WWIII was almost declared. Management was saying that it was an incident. I had to go over to the plane and show the engineers and one of the authorities how the water bottle fit in the holder and how, while grabbing for a drink, most likely I accidentally turned it on, without even feeling it or knowing that it was on. I had to write a detailed letter of explanation and apology to the authorities, sheesh!! Anyway, after doing all that, it still came up again in a discussion with my boss about other issues about a month later. There is so much here that is just culturally different. And, to make it all seem even more crazy, this type of emergency locator has just been made obsolete in the USA and they are requiring everybody to get them out of the airplane, probably for this very reason, false alarms. But at home you would figure out what you did, tell your mechanic, maybe call the local FSDO office and that would be the end of it, not an international incident like this. But, of course, after all the discussion, nothing happened. I told them I would go before a tribunal and explain how you might accidentally hit the wrong switch, as you might occasionally in your car or wherever. It was all too funny to me, because of the differences, and so it was over. Our aircraft has both a cockpit voice recorder and a digital flight data recorder. I found out just last week that the company occasionally has the engineers download the flight recorder just to review your operational practices. In
America the lawyers would consider this an invasion of privacy and would prohibit it except in the case of an accident or incident. I have nothing to hide but it is just such a different atmosphere. Now that I am an instructor pilot, it has been approved by the authorities for me to ride right seat and to put any potential Citation pilot I want in the left seat at my discretion. As long as we are flying into the big airports with long runways and instrument approaches, this will be an excellent opportunity to give our young pilots a chance at that coveted left seat. I have been training captains on this aircraft ever since I first went to Pittsburgh Jet Center in 2006, where I just started out in the right seat because we had several guys from the airlines and the military who needed left seat experience in the aircraft and since I was an instructor I could do that with them there. Some of my best friends are the guys that I flew with and trained during that time period. Hey Mike, Kevin, Ed and Bobbie, you guys fly safe, wish you could be here to see all this!! A couple of other guys that I trained are flying back with their airlines or one is working on planes again for what was US Air in Pittsburgh. Better deal and he gets to be home at night, something charter pilots don't get to do much.
Sorry if I bored all the non-aviation people on this one. I will be seeing Karen again at 3:45 a.m. on August 31, whether the place is sold or not. Belongings are in storage and we'll see how long it is before we come back to America, who knows?? Surely not me. I figured out a few years ago that I am mostly a passenger on this planet and this ride called life. I am just hanging on to see where it takes me. Every day is filled with appreciation for what I have and for the amazing life God has given me. I try to remain teachable and humble because I really like those kinds of people.
So, as Des Cummings, Sr. used to say, "Go out and make it a good day!"

Dan

Finishing Well

Hi friends,

I was talking with some friends this weekend and we were just amazed at what a land of contrasts India is in almost every way imaginable. Depending on the angle of your view, you can see tall, glass and steel buildings that would rival any city on earth or you can look lower and see complete chaos that starts with the construction cities that spring up wherever construction is going on. I am willing to bet that your local shopping mall doesn't have cows strolling along the walkways like I saw here in this picture. It is so incongruous at first that you have a hard time processing it and then you realize that much of what you see is like this and that is part of what makes India such an interesting place. As the title of this blog indicates, India seems to have difficulty finishing anything well.

There is a new building in downtown Delhi that was the landmark building for Delhi, the new tallest building in town and what should be a showcase of India's new accomplishments and technology. However, just as the got it finished and moved in, a huge rainstorm typical of the monsoon season here came to town. There were pictures in the paper and on the news of the beautiful structure with it's basement full of water and showing light fixtures in the upper floors that looked more like sprinklers as the water poured into the building. I think I have mentioned before that my bathrooms at my apartment look like they were finished by a 4th grader with a new clay set. Electrical outlets constantly burn out and windows leak water and hot air and noise. Looking down from my apartment, within a few hundred meters you can see where a completely different economy exists. I see poor mothers with 3 or 4 small children working on a street corner and while they work, carrying extremely heavy loads on their heads in 45+ (110+f) temps, their kids are self entertained in the dirt and filthy water along the side of the roads. Many of the kids are naked and are knee-deep in water that I cannot imagine would be good for you in any way, shape or form. As I look for signs of residential abodes, I see canvas tentlike structures, corrugated metal scraps and houses that defy description simply because they are constructed imaginatively out of whatever materials are available including cardboard, plastic bags, large pipes that have not yet been buried by the city departments, sticks, branches, tarps, and any combination of the above. Rocks sometimes serve to hold the roof on because any wind will otherwise blow it away. Within sight of this are homes and buildings that are beautiful, modern, air-conditioned and full of the educated and quickly growing middle and upper-middle class in India. A beautiful 700 series BMW or large Mercedes will mix it up in traffic with small cars, motorized rickshaws (tuk-tuks), bicycle rick-shaws, bicycles, donkeys, tractors, carts pulled by horses, huge diesel busses, motorcycles, little scooters being driven by people who are commuting to jobs with their business clothes on but faces completely covered with a shawl or scarf to block out the terrible dust and smog that pollutes the air. In addition, there will be the occasional herds of sheep and goats and cattle pop up everywhere, feeling completely safe because the cows are sacred in the Hindu religion. All of these are sharing the same space. When you include the fact that drivers of various experience are all over the roads, it gets interesting. Something about the stripes on the highways seem to hypnotize the local drivers to the extent that there are numerous signs reminding the drivers that "Lane driving is Sane driving" because many is the car I have seen cruising down the toll road or other busy highway just splitting the car right down the middle with the lane stripes. When you honk or try to get them to move over it doesn't even seem to penetrate their consciousness. Size means everything so the bus drivers do whatever they want, followed by the larger vehicles like trucks and SUV's while the very small cars and tuk-tuks are left to take whatever is left over. Also, to my surprise, if a driver misses his turn or deems it too far to drive to the next cut out in the highway divider, he will just turn and put his lights on high and drive the wrong direction on your side of the road. Passing on two lane roads is a cross between chicken and dodge-em. The big guy always wins and if the passer misjudges the other vehicle just has to get off the road temporarily until the vehicles pass. When you pull up to an intersection or come onto a major road from a side road, there is no yielding or waiting for a break in the traffic because there is so much traffic the break will never come, so the vehicles coming in from the side just pull out and expect the vehicles on the main road to slow down and allow the other vehicles to enter. So, while we are sometimes in a smaller car, we pull out in front of busses, trucks as well as motorcycles and tuk-tuks almost without discretion. If any of these situations makes you queasy, and riding like this gives you pause for thought, don't come to India. It is truly an everday occurence here.

Many road and other construction projects have been started with the idea that they will be finished by the time the Commonwealth Games are played here in October of this year. I have little faith in the idea that these timings are going to work out. The new Metro transportation system, which is a fancy, elevated train, has already opened but many of the stations are not completed nor are they anywhere near completion. You can see the trains going in one side and coming out the other of a building that looks like it is months away from being done. Glass is not even installed, the floors of the multi-level buildings are empty and you wonder as you see the open stairways how people manage to climb up to the trains without falling many stories down to the street. The whole mall in the picture above would be immediately shut down by OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration for those of you not from the USA). Here, if your child falls in a large, open hole and is injured, you should have been watching your kid, plus, you have many more kids. It's all just a totally different world.

I am enjoying the differences and watching to see how the schedule works out for the games.

We are busy doing charters. I flew every day last week and now the phone just rang and we are off on another charter tomorrow to Ahmadabad. I am getting to see lots of India and some other places, too. Keeps life very interesting and exciting.

Keep in touch. I miss you guys.

Dan

From the cockpit

The pilots are happy and the view is absolutely amazing. Am I dreaming? Am I reading National Geographic? No, I am working and I keep pinching myself because this is so much fun. We had a great time in Georgia and it was because of the beautiful places that we saw but also because of the nice people who set it up for us. Much appreciation has to go to Oksana Gumashvili, who helped us find the nicest restaurants to eat at and the best places to go and set us up for the rafting tour, etc. She is well educated, speaks 3 languages (Georgian, Russian and English) and has a wonderful personality that helped us really enjoy our second trip to Tblisi.

We are back in Delhi now and it's hot, a little humid and threatens to rain every afternoon, but hasn't since we got back. Yesterday while out and about I just wondered how so many people got to this place (somewhere between 17 and 22 million) and find it a place to call home. Since I got back, I think my power has been going off about 25-30 times a day. Of course our apartment complex has backup power but it takes a minute or two to kick on and the air-conditioners have to go through a 2 minute off reboot cycle every time it happens. I finally got control of my TV and internet by buying two separate uninterruptible power supplies to keep that all going. A couple of times I have been on the treadmill in the gym when power went off and you can break a leg, literally. I think someone warned them so now they have huge backup power supplies for the treadmills in the gym. I don't know if America ever went through stages with this kind of growth and expansion but people tell me that the city where I live (Gurgaon) didn't exist 10 years ago and five years ago my apartment complex would have been in the middle of a farmer's field. I think it would be a great place to invest in real estate.

Anyway, Ashish and I are back and trying to catch up on laundry, errands at the bank and other places and get ready for our next trip. Unless something develops, charterwise, we are doing a simple company flight to Hisar, India on Thursday. It's a 25 minute flight Northwest of Delhi and then we will be overnight. Hisar was recently made famous on the International News circuit because there is an Indian doctor there who is doing in-vitro fertilization on elderly couples who want heirs to their family farms, etc. I think it was a 66 year old lady who gave birth to triplets that put the city up in lights. It's our boss's home town and his brother uses the plane a lot to commute back and forth to Delhi and Hisar. They always put us up in one of the company guest houses and it's pretty nice. When you get away from the big city, the TV quality goes down simply because there isn't a need for all the English channels out there so it's down to about 5 channels, one of which is CNN.

Our planned trip to Tel Aviv went to the Global Express because the charter schedule changed on it and it became available for this rather long trip for us. I am disappointed because I was looking forward to that but hey, the pay is the same and now I don't have to worry about flying over the Middle East again and who is trying to shoot at me.

I noticed after our trip over Kandahar last week that it made the news again as a roadside bomb killed 8 people, including 2 American soldiers. When you look down from 8 miles high, you just can't see this stuff and I wish all the political disputes would just go away. I was talking to an educated Indian at a party last night and he said that America equipped the Taliban in the early 80's to fight the Russians so now that they are fighting us we have only ourselves to blame. The only one who has ever conquered these people was an Indian (Sikh) ruler back centuries ago. Since then, no one has ever ruled them. We'll have to see if American firepower and will power can change that or not.

Karen is making progress in Pennsylvania with all the open issues we left behind on this hurry up job in India. The drivers here keep asking about her and the kitties are missing her because they are torturing me for attention.

Hope you all are doing well. I'll be in touch.

Dan

Tblisi Summer trip 2010

Tblisi, Georgia, July 2010.

What a gorgeous place this is in the summer time. This is a photo I took with my own camera in the evening from a walkway overlooking the river towards downtown and also the tower that stands up on the mountain overlooking Tblisi. The evening temperatures are just perfect, not requiring sweaters or shorts, just perfect summertime temps for strolling around and catching a bite to eat or whatever. We went to the World Cup semi-final between Germany and Spain and there was a restaurant that had set up a projection screen with the game going on while they served food and drinks outside. During the halftime show a group of teenagers from one of the schools in the city came by and entertained us with a dance routine set to good old Neil Diamond songs from the USA. It was just a great evening and with our favored team, Spain, winning, it was a great time. Another evening we went to a local Georgian restaurant where they do the local folklore dances complete with costumes and so on. The food and the entertainment were great and it sure is a lot different from what you could find around downtown Chattanooga or Pittsburgh, the last two US cities that I have spent any quality time in.

Then, we got up one morning and headed up the same road where we went snow skiing last January, only this time we turned off on a dirt road and headed for a river where there is the flow required to make a nice spot to go river-rafting. It's about a 1:30 ride on the river with the highest rapids being a class 2.5 or so. But, in the heat, the water is cold and it was a pretty good workout to take this trip. Afterwards our tour guide, Andro, the same guy we skiied with in January, had arranged for some cooks to come out and have a nice cookout with food and drinks and all. It was outstanding fun and so cool. Our little busload of people contained people from Estonia, Britain, India, Japan, America (me), and Lithuania, as well as the local Georgians, so it was a very diverse crowd and quite a good time. Of course as we rode back down into Tblisi in our un-airconditioned bus in the hot afternoon, we were all just about to die of the heat. But, when we got home and took a cool shower and cleaned up, it was definitely worth it. I have river rafted for years not far from my home in Tennessee, USA, and it was definitely higher rapids and a scarier ride than this but just the exotic place that I was and the international crowd made this a very pleasant memory. Of course, I am now nursing a little sore muscle action, as well as some sunburn - but still worth it, and ready to go again.

So, it's been a really nice second visit to Tblisi and we are now thinking of either going back to Delhi tomorrow or Tuesday and that means that our visit will soon be over for this time. Now it will be back to our work a day routine and waiting for our next exciting adventure of flight on the other side of the world.

I hope you are enjoying the photos and stories. I will try to keep you updated and send out another batch of photos from this trip which will include a lot more to see than the few that are posted on the blog.

Take care,

Dan