Yeah, finally got this puppy up and posted. Thought it would be good to post before I fly out to Hong Kong in the morning. I’m so excited to spend a layover NOT holed up in the hotel room writing for once! Woo! What to see, what to do… Hmm…I think I need glasses after this last deadline. I’m serious! I can hardly see. I hear getting glasses is really cheap in Hong Kong and the other pilots and flight attendants know of a place. I’ll let ya know what happens. (Can I get a massage with that?) Wow, with bifocals on, I’ll finally look like a real 747 pilot, ya think?!
Lemme tell ya about the red tape tangle I experienced on my last trip to Beijing. Few US airlines have the route authority to fly in and out of mainland China, so I’m one of a small pool of international flyers trained to do so. Yes, I know, I’m special. It’s not the easiest task, flying in and out of China, but it’s always interesting! One thing most pilots take for granted here in the US and much of the world is that all pilots are required to speak English on the radios. Knowing my language ability–or lack thereof–I thank God for this. At one time back early in the last century, French was almost selected to be the language of aviation. Yow. This would not have been pretty. For me. I doubt anyone on the face of this Earth can mangle this lovely tongue in quite the same way I can. I mangle English enough as it is, but it’s a sin to do so with French. Maybe if I had a French boyfriend, I could practeeese, but I don’t and, oh, well. Anyway, it’s easy to see the reason for having a single language being spoken on the radios: for one, you can understand the controller and they can understand you. Um, for the most part.
Example of in-cockpit communication in a foreign land:
Controller to pilot: “United 888, cleared to tohjuk fgeeuer noffird orp.”
Pilot to other pilot: “Say what?”
Other pilot shrugs and keeps flying.
Pilot to controller: “Say again for United 888?”
Controller to pilot: “Cleared to tohjuk turn right fgeeuer noffird now!!!”
The thing with flying in mainland China is that the controller speaks “English” to you, but Chinese to everyone else. So you know what he’s telling you (sort of) but you’ve got no clue what he just told the other guy. It makes it very difficult to maintain your situational awareness, especially in poor weather. I’d like to know if someone had to go missed approach, or was sent to holding, etc, for the heads-up value, but tough luck. Another thing with flying in China is that they use meters instead of feet and meters-per-second instead of knots for wind. It’s not so hard to convert, but it’s just One More Thing. It’s why those ice cold Tsingtaos taste so good when you land!
This particular flight to Beijing was about 12 1/2 hours which somehow didn’t seem so long. I think it was because I had my book filling my brain. Pondering the final scenes kept me alert and the grinding boredom at bay. We had four pilots along. Two of us had first break and spent the first 5.5 hours of the trip sleeping, aka “Dozing for Dollars.” But when I came on duty over the Aleutian Islands, it was to rare and gloriously clear views. The weather in California has been so mud-sucking soggy. Yet, for the trip over much of the Aleutians and northwest Russia, it was spectacularly clear. (something’s really wrong with our global weather when Siberia is having a nicer spring than Sacramento…). During the flight, the Chief Purser (aka the boss flight attendant) came up with the crew documents for us to fill out. Everyone on the crew–there are usually 19 of us total–has to fill out their name, passport number, China visa number and what, if anything, unusual you’re bringing into the country. There are two of these forms filled out in duplicate. Then the purser confiscates everyone’s passports to be surrendered upon arrival to the Chinese officials. This is the ONLY country where you surrender your passport before arrival and step into the country without it in your possession. Kind of creepy. So after landing, we’re waved through booth after booth, officious bean-counter after bean-counter, and get to the desk where the purser is to be given back our passports. As all 19 of us gather around the big booth which is always just high enough to make you feel small, meaningless, and insignificant, and the officious bean-counter, hereafter known in this blog as OBC, actually M.F.OBC which I will not translate because this is a Family Blog, shook his head and declared, “Not right.” Brain-dead from the long flight, we all stand around, me and the other Pilots Who Are Not The Captain leaning against walls and trying to stay awake. (it is about 3 am home time). Time drags on. Fifteen minutes later we learn the problem is that of the two pieces of documentation gathered during the flight, one isn’t filled out right. There is a Meeestake. But there is no other sheet. No blank forms with which to re-do it. But to get into the country, we must have both papers filled out. But there are no blanks. But we can’t enter China unless we have two acceptable ones. You get the picture here? You ever see the movie The Terminal with Tom Hanks? We can’t leave the %&*$ airport.
Luckily, we bring along language-qualified flight attendants. Un-luckily, even fluent Mandarin was not enough to make headway with the MFOBC. This kid had to be like 24 years old, dressed like Napoleon Bonaparte with gold braid and an algae-green uniform. But he had to defend the borders of his homeland and that meant holding the entire crew of a 747 prisoner in the terminal for 45 minutes and counting. Finally, one of the other pilots has a brilliant idea: use his cell phone to call long distance overseas to United Airlines Headquarters–in Chicago–and explain the problem. Normally, no one’s cell would have worked, but he happened to dance salsa as a hobby (I am serious) and had local Chinese salsa-dancing friends (yes, really) and so had a local cell card to use. About 30 minutes later and after much praying and swearing, a higher ranking OBC arrived and with one word whispered in the ear of the MFOBC we were in. In!!!!!! Yes! Hands out like beggars, we got our passports back and pushed through the gates into Beijing and our bus to the hotel. And what’s the very first thing that greeted us? STARBUCKS. Yes, a Starbucks is the VERY FIRST thing you see when exiting the gates at customs in the Beijing airport.
Oh! Oh! I updated my Site of the Month, Week, Whatever with the website of my New Favorite Author: Elizabeth Vaughan. Come join me in laying sacrifices at her feet. If you haven’t read WARPRIZE, do so. Otherwise you are seriously missing out on some amazing reading. This is no plug from any association of authors. This is MY true gush. I LOVED this book. WARSWORN just arrived tonight on my doorstep–at Amazon premium prices I might add. Can’t wait to dig in.
