Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
I may not be Carmen Sandiego but I certainly end up in my fair share of different places in the world throughout the week. Turns out, the expanse of destinations available for the Boeing 727 far exceeds the mere puddle jumps of the Cessna 172.
As you can probably infer, my flight engineer training went well. Ground school was grueling to say the least. After 2.5 months of 8-hour days in a classroom with no windows, I was shipped off to Florida for flight simulator training. I had never been in a real, full-motion simulator before. In fact, this 727 sim is one of the only (if not the only) 727 sims still left in the states. I didn't really know what to expect but I knew it'd beat the paper posters of gauges and switches I'd been staring at for the last few months.
My classmates and I were in Florida for about 3 weeks. We were confined to the old, moving box for many hours on end. Our sessions ran about 10 hours long with a few short breaks where I would consume my flattened sandwich and stare at the table like a brain-dead zombie. Throughout the 3 weeks, we had a handful of days off where I would continue studying but outside in the warm FL sun. ANYWHERE but the box.
Because of the intensity, every sim session required a fresh, renewed brain and attitude. Not only that, but every task required the same refreshed mind. We would complete multiple tasks or scenarios per session. For example, engine failures, loss of an electrical system or emergency descents (hint: most of the time all three of these occurred at once!). Even though I may have accidentally come close to flaming out our only good engine just seconds before, the discouragement felt could not taint the attitude of the next task or else you simply would crumble into self-oblivion. Fix it and move on; a mindset I struggled hard with.
There were many moments I didn't think I could make it through and there were times I felt confident. My mental fatigue was wearing on me but the end was in sight. For the sake of my disinterest in reliving the anguish, I pushed through and passed my checkride. It was the hardest thing I had ever done. Now, I realize I said that about my CFI training too... The CFI training was hard because I did not have the motivation to do it. Passing my flight engineer checkride was just straight-up arduous.
So, you can imagine I was cheesing pretty hard post-checkride. Photo evidence:
Alas, training was still not over. After my checkride I still needed to complete about 2 weeks of OE (operating experience) before I was allowed to do flight engineer things all by myself. OE was not as stressful as the sim, but it certainly had higher stakes. Real airplane; real life. No reset buttons here...
During OE, I operate as the flight engineer, but there is a 'check flight engineer' (a person who has been certified to evaluate and approve engineers for duty) who sits behind me and checks my work. While it was intimidating to have someone over my shoulder constantly, it was reassuring and extremely helpful. There are so many operational techniques and more productive ways of doing things that simply cannot be covered during training. I did make some small errors during OE, but nothing that was uncorrectable. During the two weeks, we went coast to (almost) coast, down to Mexico and racked up a good amount of miles overall. I learned how to load small cargo and 45,000 pounds of cargo into the 727 (because that's my responsibility too). And I learned how to drive a pallet jack which was deceivingly difficult. It was also during those weeks when I lost count of the time zone changes, infrequently saw the sun and simply had no idea what day it was. Another pilot capitulates to the freight dog life!
Here are some photos from my first few trips. The left one is from San Diego and the right is one of the volcanoes near Mexico City!
Now, having passed OE, I operate as the sole flight engineer. It would be brash to claim that I feel comfortable and confident in what I am doing. It's still a daunting job and, while I have trained as best as I can, there is still a small fear of the unknown which keeps me vigilant. My dad claims flight engineers "never really have 'good days' - they just have days where they do most of the things right." If that's not true, I don't know what is.
While the schedule of being on-call 24 hrs a day, Monday - Friday, has been quite an adjustment, I can truly say I am having a ton of fun. The difficulty of training has amplified the taste of fulfillment.
I am a professional airline crew member; the sentence I've dreamed of saying for my entire life.
Swimming Scoop:
Turns out, I still swim sometimes. I was contacted by my amazing agency (shoutout CG Sports!) about running a clinic in Portland, OR, over the last weekend of April. It had been a hot minute since I had done a clinic or even gotten in a pool... But it was an instant 'yes' for me. I couldn't wait to share my story again and hope to inspire a few kiddos this Olympic year! I remember having a huge turning point in my own swimming career when I watched the 2012 Olympics.
The clinic went so smoothly and I was hosted by a wonderful team of distinguished coaches and bright swimmers. We worked on my signature underwaters, some faster, more efficient turns, and finally finished it off with some races (where I was defeated by some 14-year-old boys. LOL.) It seemed like everyone had a blast! When it came time for me to sign some autographs, the kids were keen on crocs. Apparently those are back in style?!
Snapshots of the clinic are below:
Afterwards, one of the other guest speakers and I (we had become fast friends that morning) hung out and explored some parts of Oregon. She lives outside of Portland and knew of some fun places to go. We drove to a beautiful, picturesque outlook, then to an alpaca farm. I, also, somehow navigated to a small general aviation airport along the way and we caught an airplane coming in to land. I had such a wonderful afternoon with her and enjoyed getting to see some parts of Oregon I would have never found otherwise!
A few photos from our adventures:
Speedy Shenanigans:
Work on the Forester has continued. And will continue for eternity. I wrangled off the wheel bearing (rip dust shield) and in doing so bent a crowbar seven ways to Sunday and used almost an entire can of PB Blaster, which, in the grand scheme of rust buckets, really isn't that bad. Finally, that sucker came off. Garrett helped press in the new wheel bearing (the old one was very sad) and I put it back together with similar difficulty, my battle being with aligning the strut bolts. Regardless, my car is about 60% safer to drive now and I don't have to worry about my wheel seizing up. Yay!
The WRX also had a moment. I had known the power steering rack was going bad because my stock in ATF had gone up exponentially just for it to end up on the floor of my garage a few hours later. Like with anything, the acquisition of the part was a saga. For sake of brevity, the one I ordered off of eBay had a bent tie rod (which I knew). The plan was to replace the bad tie rod with a good tie rod from the WRX. However, it had failed to be revealed until the new rack was already in the car, that it was not OEM. Read: not OEM = wrong tie rod size. So, it was impossible for me to replace the bent rod. Out went the eBay rack and in went the leaky rack. I waited another week (and another bottle of ATF) until another eBay rack came (this one had good tie rods) and then it was an easy, direct replacement. No more red ATF pools in the garage!
Now the summer tires are back on the WRX and we are about 2 and 1/2 weeks away from the first race of the season! I won't be racing this summer but I am looking forward to being a cheerleader. The RX-8 is in the final stages of its winter revisions. My other friend's Miata has a fresh green wrap and a refreshed electrical system. I am excited to watch some good racing again with my friends.
That's all for now!
Cheers,
Olivia Carter
