New Job!!

Saying good-bye has always been very hard for me to do. I have a picture up here of Captain Sharma and Manika, whom I have been priveleged to work and fly with for quite awhile now. I have been doing the type training for Captain Sharma since early November of last year and Manika has been flying with me ever since I first started with Jindal Steel. This is a picture of my crew standing on the top of a construction project at our overnight camp in Aizawl, India, a place that Manika will always remember since you usually don't have someone breaking into your room and then stealing your money. But, I had never been to this part of the world and the countryside is just beautiful to see.

The last week has been a very difficult one for me and I hate making tough decisions. I just wish they were all easy ones. Jindal Steel has been very good to me and I have many fond memories of flying with this company and the very cool places that we used to go. For example, I am writing this very blog from Tblisi, Georgia, Eastern European Union (former USSR). I love coming here and this is likely my last trip to Tblisi but I am very happy that Karen got to tag along and see what a wonderful place this is to spend time and to get to know some of the most wonderful people on the planet. Again, tomorrow, we are going to drive up to Gudauri Ski resort and Andro and I will go skiing again, just like we did last winter. This time Karen and my co-captain will tag along and Andro's uncle owns a hotel up in the mountains so we'll drive up and then spend the night up near Gudauri somewhere. Just the scenic drive is so fun and so worth it. I again think there aren't many of my classmates who are able to say that they have snow-skiied in a part of the former Soviet Union, although Georgia is independant now and wants nothing to do with Russia.

Captain Sharma is a good pilot and I feel that I am leaving Jindal Steel in very capable hands until they also add another pilot to their group. One of my American pilot friends already called me and said that there is an ad on the professional pilot websites for a Citation XLS captain with the type rating and current experience, so they didn't wait long to try and replace me, that's for sure. But, after oscillating back a forth for over two weeks, as it was a very tough decision, the swing factor for me was the Indian pilot's themselves, who pointed out unanimously that they would definitely make the change as my new company has the best reputation in India for the way they treat their pilots. As most corporate pilots know, this is where the rubber meets the road in our daily jobs. You can be flying the greatest and most modern equipment out there and be the envy of every pilot on earth but maybe not be treated the best, or there may be major issues that affect the daily operation of the flight department but the new company asked me to find a single pilot in India that would have anything bad to say about them and I literally could not. Several of our own pilots in my previous company had worked there before and told me that they would go back in a heartbeat if given the chance. Several of our former people are over there now as this company, Sahara Group, which has a flight department called AirOne, is rebuilding their flight department after some cutbacks a few years ago. That is one of the things that I worried about in making the change because Jindal is very strong, financially, and really has nothing to worry about. Sahara is on the forefront of commercial development in India and is building many commercial projects throughout the country. Could be up and down a little more than Jindal, but what swayed me was, I only need them to do well for another 3-4 years and I can be out of here, if necessary. Even if I decided to stay in India until I was forced to retire in 7 more years, I think the company will be okay for that period of time. That 3-4 years could be very pleasant indeed if they are anything like what I have been told about the company. Very nice hotels and better treatment are all that make up our daily life formula for happiness and success. The added bonus is that, since ex-pat pilots have to bring their expertise to India, nobody can upgrade here to another aircraft. You have to have had 100 hours of pilot-in-command time in order to qualify as a rated captain in India, in addition to having the type rating already. Since I won't likely be changing types here, I am happy that I can at least now fly the latest and greatest iteration of Cessna's Citation XLS, which is now called an XLS+. No performance difference but certainly a lot of electronics and avionics changes will make this a more fun airplane to fly. Since I have been flying this type for right at 11 years now, this should be a nice, little change for me. And, of course, to add to the incentive to make the change, the whole package makes my life better. That doesn't take anything away from Jindal Steel, which was always a great option and has been nice to me throughout.

So, saying good-bye almost always makes me cry. I hate this part of life but certainly look forward to this exciting, new step. I was offered my first India job because of my experience and qualifications in this wonderful Citation XLS. When I first started flying the Citation Excell in April of 2000, I never knew the wonderful journeys that would result from flying this great performing corporate jet. Now, the most exciting part for me, this time, was that I not only got hired because of my experience on this jet and in my flying, in general, but I was offered this job because we flew a charter flight so well under extremely challenging circumstances, that the executives took notice and rewarded my flying with this fantastic job offer. Nothing could cap off my professional career better than to have something like this happen at this stage of life. After working so hard and so many long hours for so many years, now, I finally get a very special offer as I begin the think about winding down my career, it just seems that God has blessed my life so much.

Of course my flying journey began with my father, who encouraged and provided me with the opportunity to fly airplanes when I was 8 years old. He bought our little Cessna 172 and, since mom didn't care about sitting up front too much, I began flying with dad at that very tender age. My siblings had the same opportunity but I was the one absolutely smitten with the flying bug. Dad was glad to have company on many of his business trips and I was so excited to be allowed to fly at such a young age. Pursuing all my flying opportunities, I became a commercial pilot and flight instructor while still in high school at Thunderbird Academy in Arizona, finishing up my instrument rating my freshman year of college just before I headed over to Botswana, Africa for a student missionary year of flying for Kanye Hospital. What a fantastic year that was. Being president of the Thunderbird Academy Flight Club (Cloud Choppers) for two years was one of the most fun things I did while in high school. Then, flying a mission plane in Botswana while still 19 years of age was a great set up for a professional flying career. But the folks really didn't encourage professional flying as a career so I ended up pursuing their dream and got my college degree in Ministry and music, while still flight instructing my friends and renting planes to fly home on vacations every chance I got. This all led to me continuing to fly while I was attending the SDA Seminary in Michigan and where I greaduated with honors in 1979. Early 1980 and I had a call from a friend about an SDA businessman in Tennessee who was setting up a new flight department for his growing health care company. I jumped at the chance to start up the flight department for Forrest Preston and Life Care Centers of America in Cleveland, Tennessee. Did that same job for over 8 years and then opted to go with the airplane when it was sold in 1988. Now, 5 jet type-ratings later and with over 15, 500 hours in my logbook, I feel so amazingly lucky to have had this all happen in my life. My family will all testify that my logbooks are more like a diary for me, as I can go back to as early as my first logbook and look at the specific date and flight and, for the most part, I can recall that flight. Usually I have made a remark in there that keys my memory to something and will help me remember that flight. I can tell you exactly where I was when things like President Reagan being shot or the big stock market slide or my father's stroke or more mundane things like a bad headwind or great tailwind affected my flight and my life. There are entries that are accompanied with tears of sorrow and others with tears of joy. In short, my logbook is a microcosm of my life and I love that. So, while this latest change is scary in many ways, it is also very exciting because, if it works out, it will fully enable me to hang it up and still have a life. When you fly airplanes for a living, you really never know if this is actually going to be a possibility. My friend and copilot John Page used to see the roadside bums with the grocery carts and bandanas and say, "there goes a former corporate pilot." We used to laugh hard at that because there was more than a little truth to that statement.

God has certainly taken me through some very tough trials in my life and there were days that I really thought it all might not be worth it but He has stayed by my side throughout and now, as this all seems to be such a huge blessing in my life, I cannot forget that HE led me all the way and that, all in all, it has been a very good life.

So, since life goes on and this is the next chapter, I expect it to be very exciting and adventurous. Daily life in India meets those criteria, and when you throw in the flying and international travel, I say, who could ask for more.

Now I have all my blog buddies and Facebook friends to share this with me and I feel blessed beyond my wildest imagination. Thank you all for being there for me and for acting interested in

those things that bring joy to my life. I will try to do my best to keep the India adventure and the God takes care of Dan story going so that, if it provides any inspiration or pleasure for even one person, then I will feel like my life has been worth it.

It will take a couple of months to get all my certifications and paperwork processed for my new responsibilities so be patient and then, let the new adventure begin.

So: to Dhaka, Ashish, Jagjiven, Capt Sharma, Manika, Mehak and the countless others who have been associated with me at Jindal, THANKS for all you did for me and I hope to still see you around somewhere in India.

Captain Dan

Eating bugs for breakfast

You might think that I am talking about going out to eat at this place, but I was getting my Honey Shredded Mini-wheats out the other day and I noticed a couple of dark spots that looked like they had little legs. I immediately began to get the bad feeling and so I poured out the entire contents of an otherwise fairly new and normal but expensive (at $7.50/box) of this cereal onto a plate, where I could inspect and examine these guys. There weren't many of them so I decided to go ahead and pick them out and eat the rest of the box over time, which was 2/3 full. This grossed Karen out but since I had already been in Africa for a year and was born in Bolivia, where my father used to talk about cockroaches in his soup, I was kind of ready for this. I am active on Facebook so I asked my group what I should do about this problem. I received many interesting and experienced answers. I think my favorite one came from Cindy Frank, who was a teenager in Botswana when I lived there in 1972 and 73. She suggested just eating in the dark. This would certainly work and would be the easiest. Then, one suggested the microwave and that would surely work but most suggested putting the cereal in the freezer for a couple of days. These are microscopic little guys, not any kind of big bugs at all. I guess over here it's okay to kill something once it gets to a small enough size. My boss is a Jain Hindu, and they are very strict about their diet and taking care of all living creatures. The really strict ones have shrouds on their house fans so that bugs don't get sucked in and killed. One of my American friends here was talking about going over to visit some Jain Hindus and she was unaware of this rule and was clap-swatting the mosquitos in the room that were flying around. Her husband had to explain to her later that she should not be doing that in front of Jain Hindus, who don't want to kill any living thing. There is a RAT temple not that far from us and since rats can be a problem here, and they are not to be killed, our apartment complex has a pretty high-tech ultrasonic device that keeps rats away. When I first moved in here I was up very late one night and heard all these whistle soundings going on. I got up, went out on the porch and couldn't see a single security guard with a whistle in his mouth. I called the manager the next day to complain and he told me I was hearing the anti-rat sonic system. It must work as we haven't seen one here. Most people who have lived overseas totally understand what is necessary when you are trying to keep food in your cupboard in a tropical type climate. Much of our food is not expensive, but if you have a craving for the stuff you remember from back in your homeland, there are special stores that cater to ex-pats and they also have special prices. Not that they are THAT greedy, but there is a 108% import tax on things brought into India from another country. Think how THAT alone would change the landscape of America, if they did that to protect our jobs and products coming from other countries. So, since I eat on the road a lot and it tends to be more Indian, I often choose to eat my favorite breakfast cereals and pancakes and stuff like that when I am home. Milk is about the same a back home, although it comes in a box and has a shelf-life of many weeks since it is super-pasteurized. You can just grab a milk box out of the cupboard and put it in the fridge the night before you want it. Since food and entertainment are all I pay for here, I do tend to eat some favorite foods from back home like peanut butter, nuts and stuff like that. To offset the expensive, imported foods, eggs are like .30 cents a dozen and bread is 35 cents a loaf for wheat bread. Karen has some favorite fruits that she loves, like pomegranites. These are prohibitively expensive back home and take a massive amount of work to prepare but here they are pretty reasonable and beautiful in season AND the househelper will peel and get the fruit out of as many as you want. She preps one for Karen every day that there is one in the house.

Many of you said that bugs in your food would be a stopper, but you also have bugs in your food in America, you just don't see them because of the way the food is processed. I just consider the ones that I don't get out as extra protein and hope they don't float to the top of my milk as I am eating. If they do, then they get picked out. Karen doesn't eat cereal and doesn't have to put up with this. So, while you may be thinking I was worried about bugs at the above pictured restaurant near our home, it's in our kitchen that they grow. And, this is a brand-name world recognized brand of cereal, too.

We got the windshield back in the plane last week and started flying on Wednesday. Now, it's been really busy and tomorrow I have a day trip to Mumbai and then a 3 day trip way over to Eastern India, to the Myanmar (used to be Burma) border. We will spend the night and then fly back to Western India, Pune. If we overnight there, I will get my driver to take me out to the big SDA school there, Spicer College, and try to get a campus tour. I don't know how far from the airport it is but we'll try. I alway carry my camera to towns I haven't been to before because I never know what I am going to see.

For those of you who aren't on Facebook, I would encourage someone who is tech savvy in your family to get you signed up. You can have a good time finding old friends and even family that you have lost track of in the ensuing years. I post pics there on almost every flight from my Blackberry, so it's almost live action on there. I will put some more pics up here from my trip to Rajahmundry and Chennai last week very soon. That was a nice, long trip and I hadn't been to Chennai before so that was fun.

Take care and drop me a note once in awhile so I know you are alive,

Dan

Everything but Tigers

Hi friends and family,

You might think that I have totally forgotten about my blogsite, but no, its just been a hectic time and then recently I had some interesting things happen to the airplane and ended up with some time off, so have been concentrating on Facebook, which I got on in late October. I know many of you aren't on Facebook so I will continue to write letters and put stuff on my blogsite so you can kind of keep up with what's going on with Karen and me in India.

Just a few days before Christmas, we were doing a company flight to Ranchi, India and level at 41,000 feet all of a sudden we heard a loud crack that sounded like a shotgun. Even with my noise-cancelling Bose headset on, it was noticeable. I looked up at the windshield and the pilot side windshield had cracked like a checkerboard. Because I have been flying Citations for 25 years, I knew that our aircraft had a thick, plexiglass layer with a thin glass layer on the outside and the glass was what had broken. We asked center for a descent to 15,000 feet and got the airplane back to Delhi, where it has been sitting for 3 weeks as of Wednesday. We had to get the windshield from Wichita and when it got here there was a technical hangup in customs for about a week. We now have it in hand and it should be ready to fly in the next day or two but I knew this was going to be lengthy and so I took a couple of side trips. I had been wanting to go to Kathmandu, Nepal and see Everest and the Himalayas ever since I arrived in India in late June of 2009. So, we called our travel agent, something you hardly do anymore in the states, but is definitely the best way to do things here, and in a day or so we were flying commercially to Kathmandu, only a one hour flight from here. Most of you have already seen the photos from our visit and know the stories but for those of you who haven't seen the photos, I only have a Canon 1000D digital camera with 10 megapixels but I will have to say some of the photos are just breathtaking. Of course, we didn't have cooperative weather for the mountain flight the next day. I opted to go anyway since I had come this far but it was like climbing Everest without getting all the way to the top - quite disappointing. I will definitely go back with a few days to spare so we can play the weather and catch the peak without an obscuring cloud deck but the photos that I was able to take were quite beautiful, just not the awesome photo of Everest that I had envisioned.

Karen and I shopped, ate, toured, and just enjoyed another country for a change. Kathmandu is growing and changing rapidly. I have a feeling that it is nothing like it was 10 years ago or anything like it was 25 years ago. To make a long story shorter: we loved Kathmandu. It was less crowded than India seems, the food was much less spicy and the roads seemed better, although there were still "jams" on the road during rush hours. We loved our hotel, with a view of the Himalayas once the fog burned off in the afternoons. Because it was kind of the off season we received excellent service and full attention everywhere we went. Karen had wanted to go visit a couple of casinos since they have none in India so we went over a couple of evenings to see what was going on. Karen is used to the huge casinos of Las Vegas or Biloxi, etc. and was shocked when we walked in and there were just a few, maybe a dozen, slot machines, and they looked like something out of the 50's and 60's. The funniest part to us was, that the Nepalese government doesn't allow the local Nepalese to gamble so the casinos cannot cater to locals at all. This means that the next available group is Indians and many do fly over for gambling junkets. The slot machines take and pay with Indian coins and the casinos will take Indian rupees, which almost no businesses in town will. They pay back in Nepalese rupees, which have a totally different value, so you have to be sharp and keeping track to make sure they don't shortchange you when you cash in your chips. Karen always had lots of helpers in the casino, even one guy who suggested which machine was generous, and it turned out to be. I was having fun at the blackjack tables and we came out ahead, so decided we liked Kathmandu. For those of you who are getting all judgmental and concerned, we spent more money on dinner than in the casino and nothing important was risked, it was only some interesting entertainment, where we met some nice Indians. If a Nepalese casino gets caught letting locals gamble, they immediately lose their license, so it's not something they tolerate. My friend Scott Graham, who successfully climbed Mt. Everest in May of 2004, told me that Kathmandu was a less than desireable little mountain city. It is suffering from extreme growth, water shortages, all the things that the cities of the world suffer from, but the whole time you are there you look to the horizon and see those Himalayas, and for me, that made everything okay. We enjoyed the Thamel area, which is kind of like Old Delhi, but caters more to the trekkers of the world and the tourist busses with it's shops, restaurants and lots of hippie types wandering the streets with backpacks and hiking boots and looking like they have no visible means of support. We ate at the Bhojan Grija, which was an authentic Nepalese restaurant with folk dances and music and an incredible meal. You got no choice about it, they just showed you what was being served that night but, even though we had no idea about most of it, we really found it tasty and enjoyed the program a lot. We stayed 3 days, flew back to Delhi, found out my plane was still a long ways from being fixed so called the travel agent again and said we wanted a tiger safari to Jim Corbett park if possible. He said no trains were available at the last minute but if we could stand a 6 and 1/2 hour drive on Indian roads, they would send a vehicle to our door. We have nothing like this kind of service in America but they sent a driver who picked us up at 7 a.m. and we were off to the park. Since it turned out that we left early on Sunday morning, we thought traffic would not be bad but they have no weekends here and it was just like any other day, busy and crowded. By early afternoon we were pulling into the park and to our very nice resort. Nothing was planned for the first afternoon since we didn't know what time we would arrive so we both decided to go for a full massage down at the spa. That turned out to be very relaxing and then we went to the main lodge where they were serving coffee and tea and showing movies about the tigers and elephants of India. That was where we learned that elephants are not feared in the jungles and that they have recently been carrying video cameras out into the jungle, into tiger dens, etc. and getting some spectacular footage. This was also when we decided to try the elephant safari because it looked like we could just ride our elephant and get some very interesting views of nature. The first day, though, was our regular safari from the back of a jeep. We had only paid for the group safari but since it was the off season and the resort was not crowded we got the private jeep for the group rate. They don't get the park permit to view tigers until the customers show up so we had to get up early and be at the reception at 6, ouch.

We hadn't planned properly for the cooler weather so we were borrowing clothing from the staff, etc., and the ride to the North end of the park in an open jeep in 30-40 degree temps was really cold. We found a blanket and blocked out a lot of the wind but were still shivering by the time we got to the gate where we actually left the road and started exploring the tiger road. Then, that road went even further up the mountain and the trees were now tall and everywhere so no sun to warm you up. Of course, our guide then told us about a man-eating tiger that had killed several people in the last year and one woman just 5 days before we were there. That added an element of scariness to the whole episode but we felt better when he explained that man-eaters are usually older tigers who can no longer kill wild game and end up taking the easy route and killing some poor, hapless villager. This poor lady had been out collecting food for her cattle and had it stacked on her head and was walking with some others back to the village. According to the guide, she was a little bit ahead of the rest of the group and they only found her hand, foot and her sari, as well as the stack of food for her cattle that she was carrying. Since these people are often small and vulnerable, that's what the tiger takes. They send out groups of men to hunt for the man-eaters, and since they are territorial and within a certain area, they can usually find them. Since India's tiger population is dwindling, they try now to tranquilize and capture these animals, rather than just shoot them, but sometimes circumstances prevent doing what they'd like to do. As you can see from the above photo, we were where tigers had been just a short time, maybe minutes, before.

Anyway, we saw lots of tracks and many kinds of game, including a good look at a leopard, which is even more rare than the tiger. I couldn't get my camera ready and get a shot before he was gone but we know we saw it and it is a treasured memory. On the back of the elephant, Karen thought she caught a glimpse of a tiger in the same area where we later saw fresh tracks. I never got a look but I had seen two tigers at Ranthlambore Park a year ago, so I had my wild tiger spotting and was just hoping for a good one for Karen. We will definitely go back just because the park itself was so beautiful and peaceful compared to the hustle and bustle of Delhi.

Now we are back in Delhi and I am just waiting for the call from the mechanics (called engineers here) to go test fly the airplane after the new window installation and the cure of the sealant. If everything goes well, we should be flying by midweek. It will be good to be back in the air, but with Christmas, New Years and some nice vacationing under my belt it was the perfect time for something to ground the airplane.

I think most of you have seen the photo albums that I posted online so I have only put up a couple of reminder pics as to what we were doing here lately. Still having a blast, enjoying the differences and now looking forward to our trip to America in early April so I can attend my 40th high school reunion from Thunderbird Academy in Scottsdale, Arizona. It's also where I got really serious about my flying and worked hard on my early training and it's where my folks are buried so I have a lot of ties to Scottsdale. My sister, Janet, lives there so I will be able to see family, too. While I am there, I will also go see my granddaughter Sadie, who just had her 1st birthday last week, visit my kids and also spend some time with friends.

We are experiencing really chilly weather here now and Karen now sees how it is to be here with no central heat in the house. We have one oil-filled, electric radiator type heater and Karen and the cats are fighting over being close to that. This time passes and then, the rest of the year it's too hot, with heat being back on by late February. At least we do have air-conditioning for that.

Hope everyone had a nice holiday season. I want to high-five and recognize three people who actually got Christmas cards through the mail to Karen and me. My niece Ashley was first and then my cousin Jerry and his wife from Redlands, CA got a card through. Just yesterday we got a nice card from Cherie Wical Sawyer, whom I knew when I was a student missionary in Botswana 38 years ago. Thanks so much, people, for making the effort to give us a real card. No packages have come through yet, so we are thinking about going to customs and see if they have anything for us.

We love and miss you all. God bless and we wish you the best for 2011.

Love,

Dan and Karen Clifford