Chapter 20

Don Matzke’s turn:

It’s been a zoo around here -- the charter biz is growing, as is the cargo biz. That PC-12 has kept Wally busy, but he has been growing a really good maintenance staff. Do it HIS way or he’ll show you the door, but he gets lots of respect -- nothing like having a boss who’s willing to train, and can do the job better than anyone else under this roof.

I spent ten grueling training days in Dallas the last two weeks, getting type-rated in the PC-24. Those guys will give you a serious work-out, and their simulator is entirely unforgiving. It’s going to be a delight to fly, and I’m developing some serious respect for Cindy. Avionics on this bird are very similar to hers, and she probably thinks this is entirely ordinary.

Anyway, I just returned from a charter to Kansas City. I was filling out the logs when my phone buzzed with a text message from Pilatus in Broomfield: “PC-24 is two hours out. When can you come for retrieval?”

My turn: “I’ll try for tomorrow. Let me get confirmation on a retrieval crew.” Odd -- hadn’t expected this for six more weeks. However, here we go -- obviously Cindy is the choice, since the other pilots are either flying or need a rest break.

Cindy’s gonna go nuts. I know she’s got her eye on the new bizjet. I know that her robotics group is turning profits, growing, expanding, and they need whatever it is in her head that makes her so darned QUICK to pick up on stuff. However, a lot of what we do in the charter biz requires an airline transport rating, and that’s one of those insurmountable hurdles, even for Cindy, since she’s gotta be 23. Still, for a lot of non-passenger work, she can get by on her commercial license, but she has to get a type rating in the PC-24, since it breaks the 12,500-pound limit for ‘light’ aircraft.

I’m glad she knows all this, because I’d hate to be one who tells Cindy ‘no’. It just MIGHT work if it’s the Federal Aviation Administration.

Bill Carmody’s turn:

Haven’t had a chance to read an actual newspaper in several years. The “reporting” got so obnoxious, so obviously agenda-driven that I just quit reading. Sad -- I used to get a kick out of the cartoons (used to call them “funny pages”, years ago.)

One of the comic strips I enjoyed was about a cat named Garfield. He always had acerbic, philosophical thoughts. He also used to get some pleasure out of tormenting a kindly dog named Odie. Odie was as dumb as a box of rocks. And right now, I’m feeling like Odie in a room full of Garfields. (Sadly, though, I’ve also been Dilbert.)

Watching kids is a hoot, and I have three of ‘em. Worse, red-heads, all three. Will knows the important words: “Mama, “Daddy”, and “Grefus”. “Grefus” is what one eats early in the morning, if you didn’t know. He knows a lot more, too, but like the others in his group, his baby physiology hasn’t caught up with a mind that’s growing at a scary pace. When he tries talking in sentences, adults need to hang on tight to understand. I know all the words are in there, but he just has trouble forming them. “Grefus”, indeed.

Elise follows Mandy around like a puppy, anytime Mandy is in sight, and she’s picking up vocabulary from Mandy. Tonight’s new word is “counterproductive”, having watched Mandy and Vicki tutoring Bill Hardesty at a Pavilion white-board. Lord, Elise isn’t quite three. At this pace, she’ll probably be an engineer by age ten.

Jason and Susan are sitting with us tonight, but Susan is over at another white-board, with J.W. watching. Susan and Tina are arguing over a power-switching configuration -- not the actual switching, but the control system.

Cindy, Nikki, and Dana are at another table. Much arm-waving, so they’re clearly talking about something flying-related. Or robotics. I’ve seen some trial setups where a guy sits at a monitor and the robot walks up to a piece of equipment and starts poking around. That’s a somewhat mature technology. If those girls make that robot leave a half-empty coffee cup in the shop office before it leaves to go repair a balky electric motor starter, we’re in trouble.

Jason said, “Mister Bill, my mom used to always say, “Birds of a feather flock together”, when she was warning me about my choices of friends. Right now, I’m wondering if I have the right kind of feathers. Look at ‘em -- I understand maybe half of what they’re doing.”

I said, “Jason, I was just thinking that I feel like Odie in a roomful of Garfields. But I don’t know that we had much choice, beginning when Dan Richards asked if he could bring a “guest” out to the plant that time. Remember what happened? I could have told him “no”, but I doubt that it would have made much difference.”

He said, “Yeah, a major obstacle to us looks like a minor nuisance to Cindy. And I remember the first day she walked into that plant -- I looked at her, and thought she might be radio-active. Kinda had that odd glow around her. Still does, and they all do, especially when they get together.”

Suddenly, a “SQUEAL!!” from Cindy, holding her phone up. Then, “DAN! GUESS WHAT?!”

If we hadn’t seen it so many times already, it wouldn’t have been so funny, but Dan already had his head down on his table, with both arms and hands over it. And Cindy was bouncing over to him with the phone held high.

The room exploded in laughter, and I heard Cindy say, “Wanna run up to Colorado with me tomorrow? The new bird is here!”

Poor Dan.

Dan 1.0’s turn:

There I was, living out of a travel trailer in Alabama while I worked the electrical side of a new powerplant. Late summer. Dusty from the construction site. What better could I do than to take advantage of the park’s pool?

Found myself befriended by a slip of red-headed teen girl. Okay scratch “befriended”. She admitted that ‘targeted” is more accurate.

It’s been a wild and crazy ride since then, involving legal shenanigans to get us married, a couple of bouts of armed combat, and a run through the Alabama education system like The South hasn’t seen since Sherman marched through Georgia. (Don’t use that analogy in Georgia. Folks’re still sensitive)

And now she wants me to traipse off with her to Colorado to pick up several million dollars’ worth of new bizjet. The same girl that I gave a credit card so she could buy a set of school clothes right after we first met.

She and her friend Nikki still visit Los Alamos for conferences, some of which might lead to the taming of nuclear fusion as a power source. I delve into the bellies of aging powerplants.

Jealous? Not even a little bit. Now she’s telling me that the latest aviation milestone is upon us.

I’m happy with ONE hat – electrical engineering. I and my cohorts have a very successful engineering house that’s branched into construction, offering you a ‘turn-key’ package if you need an electrical substation for your new industrial facility or your aging and expanding utility company.

Cindy? She has a master’s degree in electrical engineering and a PhD in physics and she teaches for Auburn University when she’s not sitting atop a hotspot in the field of robotics. And she loves to fly. For a kid that started out being wowed by the capabilities of an aging single-engined Cessna, she’s run as far as she can get – business jets and turboprops, with her ‘fun’ stuff being an old Stearman biplane.

And the frantic giggling and waving means that she, well, she does have a BIG interest in the subsidiary company to 3Sigma, parent company and the original engineering firm. That particular subsidiary does commercial aviation up well – bizjet charters, cargo, whatever. And they are getting a new plane, this one a Pilatus PC-24, sister to the several Pilatus (Pilatii?) PC-12 single-engine turboprops that we use for charter as well as the fastest response to electrical problems in the business.

It’d all grown from a meeting at a swimming pool, chance meetings with old friends, drawing new members together from connections as an astonishing collection of brilliant young students who set new limits as to what mind and personality could achieve.

So yes, she says we go pick up the new plane, I’m on board with that. I’m connected electronically these days. It’s almost an anachronism, the desire to meet people face to face to do business, and I suppose when a lot of the senior staff of our clients retire, there’ll be less of it, but I still like to shake a hand, talk about business and life over cups of coffee or a meal or a few drinks.