Recently, I was reading up on some amphibious / float aircraft I was interested in operating on the river near Montreal. (I suffer from SAFWL - Seasonally Affective Floatplane Wanderlust.)
Naturally this is all fantasy talk, since f*&$%ing Google has not yet acquired our company. Until that time, I’ll spend a little bit of time talking with Jim …
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Gilles took me up in a Hughes 300 (Schweizer to some) and I must say.. a bit terrifying for a fixed wing guy to be going so slow with so little altitude, but eventually the cyclic and collective thing clicked, and good times were abundant. Nonetheless, my fragile and hyper-sensitive ego really liked the continuous stream of these: “Adam, c’est impeccable..vraiment impeccable.”
That was great to hear, then I realized.. if I did do the helo rating, I would have to ask for more english (or all english) since I was facing enough challenges on that hot windy south shore day in Longueuil, QC. Improving my french is always important, just not with that much moving metal nearby. There are only so many parameters the weak minded can handle simultaneously.
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People use big words and concepts like ADD and other equally household acronyms to describe what I’ll call “my people.” Some say we are crazy, but I’d argue.. that given enough time we can make anyone crazy. Mike Heaton simply refers to them as the “fun” guys & gals. (As in, we might be troublesome, annoying, hard to manage…but so much more interesting.)
It has been said that sales people, hunters … you know, ADD & creative types all share one thing: An intense desire to feed the need for novelty, change and thrills. While others prefer the comfort of predictable activities, some just prefer daring commando raids that involve rapelling out of a helicopter, deep inside enemy territory to show just how tough they really are.
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Deep depression brought on by simply working like an idiot (it is in my DNA, nothing I can do about it) has me considering (only considering at this point) working as a pilot at some nearby airport. The idea is to “work” somewhere else / on something. Some people say: “Have children.” That will make you work less. To them I say, “I am a child - how does this warrant having them?”
The process of “Flying Again” entails finding my logbooks and converting my US licenses to Canadian ones. In short, I must humbly submit to an instructor 15 years younger than me who will take a lot of money from me while he or she tells me how to do things “their way” so that the government can say that I really am a “Commercial Multi-Engine IFR, Insructor, Seaplane, High Performance, Tailwheel with some Ski and Float time” kind of guy. I also know that Mike McKendry will be happy to see me out in the whacky world of GA operations again.
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