Informative Essay On Wet Footprint

During the days we flew, we had a pattern. The airplane held a little over 50 gallons of gas and burned roughly 10 gallons per hour. When we filed flight plans, we structured our schedule and stops correspondingly. This accorded us four hours of flying time with the expectation that when we landed to re-fuel we would still have 10 gallons to spare. Throughout the trip, we consistently strove to maintain the 10 gallon/1 hour reserve to give us a margin of safety. We fell into a routine, making for exceedingly comfortable days. We each had different tasks and trusted one another to perform them without supervision or criticism. I genuinely enjoyed knowing we had a plan and executing it regularly. It was an arrangement which made it easier

to overcome the many challenges which presented themselves.
The hours we spent in the air were similar to flying in the United States in the 1940's and 50’s. It involved limited radio communications, a large amount of planning, weather briefings, and paperwork. Navigating outside the United States meant using some skills XXXXX I had read about and never used. I assumed it would be difficult, nevertheless it was essentially rather simple and straightforward. However, it was time consuming and exacting so we were fairly busy during flights.
The aircraft had a GPS (Global Positioning System), a navigation system which uses satellites to obtain information about location and time. In the United States, GPS is used on the ground to track planes and, from the pilot’s perspective, to go directly from one airport to another. The other countries where we flew employed simple radar or nothing at all. In those countries we flew highways in the sky that have been in use since the 1940’s. We continued to use GPS as a navigation aid, even though flying direct was not an option.
A typical travel day during the trip was to fly for four hours, land to re-fuel and possibly eat, then fly for another four hours before landing somewhere to spend the night. When there were places we wanted to visit and time permitted, we would stay for a partial and/or a full day.
Flying over water brought new, and initially intimidating, challenges. Whenever possible, we strove to fly high enough not to risk landing or crashing in the water should we experience difficulties with the engine. Our plan was to have sufficient altitude to glide to shore. Part of the safety equipment, our life jackets were professional versions of the ones commercial airlines provide for passengers. We wore them whenever we were over water. They were surprisingly comfortable to wear for extended periods of time and even had numerous pockets in which we carried such things as Swiss army knives and the ultimate survival food: granola bars.
A wet footprint occurs when flying over water and it would be impossible to reach land if an emergency, such as engine failure, should occur.

In the United States Military pilots use the expression “feet wet” to indicate they are flying over water. When they are flying over land, they call it “feet dry.” Our first experience with a wet footprint occurred as we were crossing the Golfo de Fonseca flying from El Salvador to Liberia, Costa Rica. At the time, crossing over that gulf seemed like a momentous event, and putting our vests on and climbing to a higher altitude was like readying for battle. We only spent about 20 minutes crossing it, and left a wet footprint for five, maybe ten minutes maximum, nonetheless, we felt a strange mixture of tension and excitement. Luckily, by the time we arrived in Ecuador, we had flown over a great deal of water, had seen plenty, and were considerably more experienced and comfortable than before. From that point on, we spent a good deal of time over water due to the mainland’s mountainous terrain which reaches all the way to the coast. There were several days when we spent many hours over the water with our vests on, however, by then, flying with a wet footprint was not earth-shattering to

us.
There are three types of ATC’s (Air Traffic Controllers): (1) Tower Controllers – manage the immediate area surrounding an airport, (2) Approach Controllers – provide direction in the area around a large airport and acts as a buffer between the enroute controller and the tower controller, and (3) Enroute Controllers – cover an entire country. Outside the United States, airliners, along with all other aircraft, communicate with an Enroute Controller for the cruise portion of their flight. If the flight is landing at a major airport, the Enroute Controller will pass control over to an Approach Controller who will then pass the control over to the Tower Controller. If the flight is landing at a medium size airport that does not have an Approach Controller, control passes directly from the Enroute Controller to the Tower Controller. At airports too small to have a tower controller, the airplane is the responsibility of the Enroute Controller for the entire flight.
When we landed in Chacarita, Costa Rica, we touched down on a rarely used landing strip. Obviously, there was no tower. We communicated exclusively with the Enroute Controller throughout that leg of the journey. He was responsible for a large section of Costa Rica’s airspace and Chacarita was within his area. Landing in a city like Panama was a stark contrast. While in transit, we were under the jurisdiction of an Enroute Controller, who handed us off to an Approach Controller, who then passed us on to the Tower Controller.
English is the universal language of aviation and is used throughout the world. I have encountered some incredibly remote places where English wasn’t used for pilot/controller communications, although that is extremely rare. Almost exclusively, air traffic communication is conducted in English. I found this quite odd when a native Spanish speaking pilot and a native Spanish speaking air traffic controller communicated in English. For clarity, all pilots and controllers use a phonetic alphabet, for example: A = alpha, B = bravo, C = Charlie, and so on. Throughout Central and South America, native accents sometimes made the communications rather humorous. Many times they made up their own phonetic alphabet using words that were easier for them to pronounce. In pilot speak, November is the standard word associated with the letter N, yet some communications I overheard or received used the word nectar. Since that was the accepted term and controllers became confused when I said November, I developed the habit of substituting nectar for November. “A donde fueras, haz lo que vieras,” loosely translated means “when in Rome, do as the Romans do.”
I recently read an article about “flow,” sometimes called mindfulness. What some people refer to as being “in the zone,” or as “being at one with things.” I could truly relate to most of what was described. At various times in my life I have experienced being completely absorbed in what I was doing, being deeply focused on the present moment, and feeling energized by that focus. In my enjoyment of whatever I happened to be doing, I totally lost track of time and was often amazed by how much time had in reality passed. During the majority of the time Miguel and I were keeping the Pacific on our right, I had the exhilarating experience of effortless attention. Obviously, we had the clear goals, the ability to progress, and the structure to achieve flow. The trip must have also provided the optimum balance between my abilities and the skills needed to be successful. I believe I was in a state of flow throughout the majority of the trip. Not quite so extreme, still in some ways, I was like artists who become so engrossed in their work they forget to eat, drink, and sleep.
After the first four or five days we settled into a routine. I felt I knew what the trip was about, and challenges notwithstanding, we were going to fly and keep progressing. There was truly never a point where I felt we were going to die or lose the airplane. We constantly moved forward without any anxieties, there was no sense of urgency, we simply moved with a purpose. From my point of view, it was great. There was an interesting paradox between the problems and complications we faced on a daily basis when compared to the adventures we experienced and remarkably pleasant patterns we developed. Challenges permeated our days to such a great extent we sometimes joked at breakfast about what difficulties we would encounter that day. Although there was always an issue, they were part and parcel of a quite pleasing, enjoyable routine. For me, the trip provided an extraordinary balance of excitement and calmness. Each day was predictably unpredictable. Any crisis we dealt with was balanced out by the serenity of flying and simply being in the airplane purring along. I loved it, I just plain loved it. The trip appealed to all the qualities I like in myself and all the things I enjoy doing. We were constantly going somewhere and solving problems along the way. Our days possessed a Zen quality.
I sometimes think about that time period and compare it to the rhythm of my days now; perhaps I should say the lack of rhythm in my days now. I am supposedly this “successful airline pilot living the dream,” on the contrary, I don’t have that perfect balance between challenge and routine anymore and I sometimes wish I did. I do realize routine can become boring; however, for me the reverse, having no routine, leads to feeling like a hamster on a treadmill. There are times when I feel as though I rarely stop to take a breath, like I constantly go from one unrelated task to the next, with no overriding structure to anchor my days.