I think Peter Stark from Australia has inspired me to take a new tack with my PIREP. This year, Peter has given thought as to what instruments we all might play, what we’d like to drink, what sport we might play or what music best fits our personalities. In this PIREP I’m not going to “pick” on my fellow simmers (This in itself is newsworthy!) but rather, I will attempt to make analyses with the flights and various, anatomical body parts. Please, no one get too excited!Having ended the last month more or less in Boston, Massachusetts - this month’s flight started from there. First thing, I picked a real-world flight from Boston to Dallas/Fort Worth. Departure time was 17:00 for my Continental A300. I received clearance and pushback on time. My route out to the active runway was like tracking the lines of the Scapula. (That’s the “shoulder blade” for most of you). This bone is oddly shaped, rather triangular with bumps, ridges, lines and smoothed out depressions here and there. Turning from one taxiway to another, crossing a runway, waiting for other AI traffic (arrivals and departures), taking my place in the departure queue…it was like trying to name the dozen-and-a-half muscles which attach to the scapula!
Finally I was cleared to depart at nearly 17:22! [Photo 001] The takeoff roll was uneventful but as I retracted the gear and flaps and began my initial SID turns to join the Airway, I noticed the haze, the limited visibility outside. It was like cutting through the bottom of the foot! One who doesn’t know would have a hard time believing the layers upon layers of thick, fibrous fascia in there! The stuff is like a Teflon web, like the Kevlar sides of my bicycle tires! [Photo 002] It is light, thick and there are a LOT of layers before you get down into the tendons of Flexor Hallucis Longus and Flexor Digitorum Longus. Even DEEPER to the Sustentaculum Tali (which is actually a protruding shelf of bone down there) So, while the skies looked clear from the ground, I could now tell that things were a bit soupy.
Once on the High Altitude Airway I engaged Otto and the FMC. I couldn’t help but notice how the curving track across the eastern and mid-western states was like the Sartorius muscle on the anterior thigh. From high and out side on the hip (near Boston somewhere) it dives downward in a curving fashion crossing over the knee…I mean Arkansas, to insert on the Pes Anserine area of Texas. Arrival was on the ILS, from the south, at just after 8 PM local time. Although it was dark and there were plenty of other aircraft around me, I inserted the arthroscope through the joint capsule, [Photo 003] into the space between Femur and Tibia and landed directly on the Anterior Cruciate Runway!
Quickly I scrubbed in for the next flight, which departed at 21:20. For this procedure I was planning to use a Gibb’s Retractor….I mean an Eastern Airlines A340. Again, I received taxi clearance, made my way back out to the Meniscus and was cleared for a northbound departure. I held the runway heading through 4,500 feet and then manually turned left to head out of the USA. This time my route down to South America utilized just VORs, initially heading west toward Abilene, [Photo 004] then turning on a slightly curving path across Mexico, down to Ecuador and Peru, following the coastline down. (Brad, I did make it a point to pick the VOR at Arequipa as a waypoint so if you saw that big, long white streak in the pre-dawn sky…’Twas me! [Photo 005] ) Speaking of big long streaks, I am again drawn to think of the thigh for this “leg” of the journey (HA – Ha, sometimes I’m so punny!!!) Wasn’t there a line in the movie Pretty Woman about several long inches of thigh to wrap around….something? Not sure, but anyway, my track on the FMC looks rather like a Femur I’d say. From the Acetabulum I headed west, down the neck that is so often fractured in falls of the elderly. Abilene was like the giant, knobby Trochanter where I turned south, past the insertion of the Gluteal Muscles (sorry Mexico!) and down the track of that Sciatic Nerve. [Photo 006] Down, down, down….way down into the Popleteal region of South America. [Photo 007] I missed the Femoral Chondyles though – maybe I should have gone missed a couple of times? [Photo 008] Anyway…I arrived to a visual approach to runway 17 about 10 AM the next day, local time. [Photo 009]
After a couple of days in Santiago I received the FOTM information from Mr. Smith and found that he had planned the first leg to be TO Santiago. I was already here so while I tuned into http://www.plr.org/ , I set a plan using VOR waypoints, which would take me: Santiago -> Valdiva -> Cordoba -> Conception. The track of this flightplan actually looks like the tendons of the Rotator Cuff in the shoulder. Where the tendons of Teres Major and Teres Minor cross over the Long and Short Heads of Biceps Brachii, forming the Triangular and Quadrangular Spaces deep in the anterior shoulder. See how the lines cross over each other on the screenshot? [Photo 010]
First up from the hanger was a Bankhart Tool…(sorry, surgery again). First up was a VASP EMB-170. [Photo 011] I departed Santiago Runway 17 at nearly 06:30 AM arriving in Valdiva at 07:41. [Photo 012] Next up was the Flight Club’s 733 departing runway 17 at 09:30 AM with arrival in Cordoba, runway 18, at 11:28. [Photo 013] I ended the day in the Club’s A-320 departing from runway 23 at 13:00, arriving in Conception at 15:02. [Photos 014 and 015 ]
The next day I took Flight number 797 from the new Flight Club Airways VA: Conception to Arequipa, departing in the dim light and rain of pre-dawn. [Photo 016] My flight rather reminds me of the spine, starting out in the damp, dark depths of the sacrum. Climbing northbound and into the light of the five lumbar vertebrae, over SNO and TOY VORs. [Photo 017] I work my way further north, to the Thoracic spinal levels, where the ribs attach to the Transverse Processes like the Andes off to my right [Photo 018] . My VORs for the Thoracic area were CLD and FAG. Finally rounding out of the kyphosis over the ARI VOR I broke free into the Cervical spinal area. I picked up the Arequipa VOR and turned downwind to a heading of 270degrees, dropping to 10,000 feet.
At 20 miles DME I turned back toward the VOR, closing in on the 90degree radial inbound, back toward that prominent Mastoid process known as the Misti Volcano. [Photo 019] Typical operations into Arequipa suggest landing on runway 9 regardless of wind, and this was one of those mornings, clear skies with a brisk quartering tailwind out of 300! I landed well right of center but had both mains on pavement, [Photo 020] deployed spoilers and engaged reverse thrust with plenty of time to make the last turn-off. [Photo 021] I parked up and shut down at 09:26…plenty of time to catch that 12:15 departure of FCA Flight 796 back down to Conception.
Bill, thanks, I’ve been waiting to get out of those puddle-jumpers! Back to South America again was nice, always scenic, and the weather weren’t too bad either! I learned something too, you can go into VIEWS, INSTRUMENT PANEL, EFIS and it’ll give you little boxes to fly through heading you into a VOR or ILS, neat! (I know, I’m a slow learner, what can I say?) Thanks for the adventures.
