Okay, wrote 5 pages today. Not enough, but it is a start. I like my interstellar assassin hero.
Since this is basically from an e-mail I wrote a friend, I thought I could post it with little time-suck penalties. Next entry will be next week from Tokyo. Until then, ciao! (actually, sayonara)
…
After over a quarter-century of flying jets, I’ve accumulated a few rules. A recent trip from Frankfurt to San Francisco reminded me of Rules 13 and 14:
13. avoid emergency landings at airports with names you can’t pronounce
14. avoid landing anywhere with the words “only in a dire emergency” in the notes.
When flying from Europe to the west coast of the US, the hop over the “pond” (the Atlantic Ocean) is quite short, only a few hours. But after you leave the shores of Scotland behind, there’s not a whole lot in front of you but ice–and Iceland, a very pretty place judging from the quick glimpses I’ve had on the few time I’ve flown over it where it wasn’t overcast–and a bleak, desolate place called Greenland. Unlike the GINORMOUS mass of land we’re used to seeing on the flat distorted depictions of the world map, Greenland is little. It takes about an hour to fly over and that’s it.
After crossing Greenland, you’re into northern Canada, where there are lots more places to land if you have an emergency. But for those couple hours over the far north Atlantic when you’re past Iceland and not yet to Canada there ain’t a lot of options should you have to put the airplane down Right Now. (a rare situation, but one we have to be ready for nonetheless)
When we fly over Greenland, we have our books out and ready because there are pages of rules on what to do and how to do it should the airplane experience the sort of emergency where you have to descend immediately, like for a major fire or depressurization, which is, like i said VERY rare. But you always have to be prepared anyway. Everyone I fly with treats this seriously. I can’t speak for the other airlines, but I’m extremely proud of United pilots for being so well-trained, and us international pilots in particular.
The problem with descending over Greenland is that peaks over 12,000 feet are as common as SUVs in suburbia. If we have to land somewhere in Greenland, likely we’d go to Thule, a military base with a nice long runway. But the thing is, our route takes us right over Kangerlussuaq, on the west coast of Greenland, whereas Thule AB is well north of our usual route, 600 miles north of the Arctic Circle.
Our books say: “Diversion to Kangerlussuaq should only be attempted in a dire emergency. There are no medical or passenger handling facilities. At night or in IMC, the dangerous terrain is not visible. The approaches are non-precision and for runway 10 only. The approach to runway 10 is along the north side of a steep-walled fjord. The VASI provides less than standard obstacle clearance. There is high terrain in all quadrants. Significant wind shear can be expected.”
Okay, translated:
1. There’s no Starbucks
2. You can’t see %$*#
3. the approach could lead you in as much as 30 degrees angled off the runway centerline and that’d be considered “okay”
4. When established on said approach, the rocks below are VERY close–both below you and on the sides (the fjord)
5. You’re $%&# out of luck if the wind is from the wrong direction.
6. And if all that isn’t bad enough, the final notes inform me that I can’t use the autopilot or usual approach guidance in the very-high-tech 747 because the airport is not converted to WGS-84 standard (Google it) and we have to fly the approach using what is basically WWII technology!!!
No. Thanks. Really.
The best pix I have of Greenland are on my cell phone and I don’t know how to get them off of there but here are a couple taken with my digital camera on past trips:
A rare sunny summer day at the Greenland shore:
Sunset and the moon over Greenland:
Want to see for yourself? Have you tried this yet? http://earth.google.com/ My son showed it to me. You can type in a place or an address anywhere in the world and it zooms in. I told him to type in Kangerlussuaq. When he asked me how to spell it, I had to go look it up. (reference Rule 13) And when I saw the place…needless to say, I’m sticking to Sue’s Rules 13 and 14. In other words, I will not be landing at Kangerlussuaq anytime soon.
