EARN MONEY SNACKING
I don't always work the night shift. In
fact, about a third of the time I work the day shift. 0800 to 2000, or 8AM to 8
PM. That is where I am
today,
Earning
Money
Snacking.
EMS. Emergency medical services can also mean
earn money sleeping, or earn money snacking. We have a saying in the
aeromedical helicopter world that we eat 'till we’re sleepy, then we sleep
'till we’re hungry. Of course don't come to work counting on sleeping and
feasting. Many of our days and nights are spent far from any place to sleep
with growling hungry stomachs.
So far today it is an EMS day. We are snacking. Rob,one of the great Flight Nurses from my 22 year career, has equal prowess in the kitchen or saving a life in the rear of the helicopter. He just cut up about 20 pounds of beautiful fresh fruit for a fantastic salad. Now, having just finished the first part of the equation, I find I am having trouble keeping my eyes open to finish this entry.
This sleepiness is not just a product of my advancing years. As a teenager flying in Vietnam, I recall sleep overtaking me also. We flew many hours each day. Often the days began early and went until early the next day or later. I once flew a little over 13 hours in an H-13 helicopter. There were only two seats on that model helicopter and the second seat was not for another pilot.
We spent many hours trying to figure out where the infantry in the jungle was and how to guide them to where they should go. Back, then we were a lot less able to determine our exact position then your average hiker is today with a portable GPS. We were never lost. We always knew exactly where we were flying. Often, we just didn’t know where that was on a map.
The maps were not that good. A lot of them were developed from aerial photos. Making a map that depicts things in three dimensions from 2D photos taken with clouds often obscuring the ground just isn’t a perfect science. We used these maps, which often unfolded to a size bigger than the cockpit, to help guide our troops through the triple canopy jungles in the mountains. Since these maps only roughly predicted what the grunts were humping through, there was the question of what help we were really provided.
The procedure would involved us circling in big loops over an area, while the ground commander in the back of the aircraft would talk back and forth with his troops. The pilot and the AC—Aircraft Commander or AC is the pilot in command in civilian speak—would alternate flying. Sometimes we would circle for an entire fuel load of a couple of hours. One of us would fly until you could no longer keep your eyes open and then say to the other pilot, “you got it.” It didn’t help when you looked through the aircraft and saw the gunner and crew chief with their tinted visors down—a sure sign they were napping—the other pilot, his head resting on his chest, and even the ground commander and his staff fighting off sleep.
On more than one occasion, often on the same flight, I was jolted back awake when my chin bounced off my chest to realize that I had been sleeping. It wouldn’t have been quite so bad, except the other pilot was sound asleep and no one was really flying. Our gunners and crew chiefs put up with a lot from their pilots but often they didn’t even wake up during these embarrassing little episodes. If they had known they might not be so gracious at our Casper Aviation Platoon reunions these past few years.
So far today it is an EMS day. We are snacking. Rob,one of the great Flight Nurses from my 22 year career, has equal prowess in the kitchen or saving a life in the rear of the helicopter. He just cut up about 20 pounds of beautiful fresh fruit for a fantastic salad. Now, having just finished the first part of the equation, I find I am having trouble keeping my eyes open to finish this entry.
This sleepiness is not just a product of my advancing years. As a teenager flying in Vietnam, I recall sleep overtaking me also. We flew many hours each day. Often the days began early and went until early the next day or later. I once flew a little over 13 hours in an H-13 helicopter. There were only two seats on that model helicopter and the second seat was not for another pilot.
We spent many hours trying to figure out where the infantry in the jungle was and how to guide them to where they should go. Back, then we were a lot less able to determine our exact position then your average hiker is today with a portable GPS. We were never lost. We always knew exactly where we were flying. Often, we just didn’t know where that was on a map.
The maps were not that good. A lot of them were developed from aerial photos. Making a map that depicts things in three dimensions from 2D photos taken with clouds often obscuring the ground just isn’t a perfect science. We used these maps, which often unfolded to a size bigger than the cockpit, to help guide our troops through the triple canopy jungles in the mountains. Since these maps only roughly predicted what the grunts were humping through, there was the question of what help we were really provided.
The procedure would involved us circling in big loops over an area, while the ground commander in the back of the aircraft would talk back and forth with his troops. The pilot and the AC—Aircraft Commander or AC is the pilot in command in civilian speak—would alternate flying. Sometimes we would circle for an entire fuel load of a couple of hours. One of us would fly until you could no longer keep your eyes open and then say to the other pilot, “you got it.” It didn’t help when you looked through the aircraft and saw the gunner and crew chief with their tinted visors down—a sure sign they were napping—the other pilot, his head resting on his chest, and even the ground commander and his staff fighting off sleep.
On more than one occasion, often on the same flight, I was jolted back awake when my chin bounced off my chest to realize that I had been sleeping. It wouldn’t have been quite so bad, except the other pilot was sound asleep and no one was really flying. Our gunners and crew chiefs put up with a lot from their pilots but often they didn’t even wake up during these embarrassing little episodes. If they had known they might not be so gracious at our Casper Aviation Platoon reunions these past few years.
Posted: Tue - August 2, 2005 at 01:06 PM
Quick Links
Categories
Archives
XML/RSS Feed
Statistics
Total entries in this blog:
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Dec 09, 2006 10:23 PM
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Dec 09, 2006 10:23 PM