POSTING #42

Noise on Thanksgiving Day; Aeroflot Stories; Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)

Noise on Thanksgiving Day

Pat and I were having a quiet breakfast on Thanksgiving Day when a noise started in the distance. We paid attention, not because the sound was loud---it wasn't--- but because it was strange.

It sounded a little like an earth moving machine, but not exactly.

And it was a holiday---there wouldn't be any construction going on, unless emergency repairs had to be made to, say, a broken water main.

We listened and speculated, and speculated.

Finally, Pat, fed up with all this unproductive speculation jumped in the car in her dressing gown to find the source of the noise.

She came back in a few minutes to say that the noise was coming from the windmill-like machine in a nearby vineyard. The long blade was rotating at enormous speed causing part of the noise, and the rest was coming from some kind of engine that was driving the blade.

We found an article that explains everything one could ever want to know about wind machines (http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/engineer/facts/windmach_info.htm
). Apparently wind machines are used at sensitive times in the spring and fall when frost could damage the growth of vines. They are also used in the winter when the temperature threatens to drop to a point where the dormant plants could be damaged.

It seems that the ground temperature was getting close to freezing on Thanksgiving Day and the wind machine started, automatically, to create a circulation of air that would pull the cold air from the ground and replace it with warmer air from above.

By the time we had finished breakfast the sun was beaming down and the wind machine had shut itself off.

We have been here for about a year and a half and it is the first time we have heard the wind machine.

Aeroflot Stories


I have been planning for some time to tell some stories about flying across Russia on Aeroflot when I was working there from 1995 to 1997.

I intended to start with a disclaimer that things had no doubt improved in the intervening period---and then I came across an article about a drunk Aeroflot pilot.

In February this year, passengers who had boarded a Moscow-New York flight rebelled when they realized from his slurred pre-flight announcements that the captain was either drunk or seriously ill.

It turned out he was drunk.

The initial reaction of Aeroflot when a passenger called the airport office on his cell phone was that a drunk pilot was 'no big deal'. In the end, the pilot was poured off the plane and a new cockpit crew took over. If you haven't seen an article about it, and you need a good laugh, click here .

My first trips from Moscow to the hinterland were by train and I had learned how to cope with Russian trains, and how to brief the incoming Canadian consultants about them.

Aeroflot was a different matter. I had heard tales from Embassy staff and other expatriates about passengers being jammed in with some having to stand during flights. And about goats, sheep and chickens being allowed in the cabin.

Some serious people told me they would never fly Aeroflot, that it was just too risky.

My first Aeroflot flight was on a Tupolev 134, a workhorse used for short flights. It had two engines mounted just in front of the tail and was similar in size and range to the DC9. We boarded from the tarmac with the Aeroflot attendant dividing up the passengers, so many to the front of the plane, so many to the back. I was told that if they got too many people in the back the plane could tip backwards, given the weight of the engines. The goal was to distribute the weight.

This business of a tipping aircraft bothered me at first until I realized that Western airlines always boarded from the front, presumably for the same reason---but no one talks about the reason.

On the plane, my first impressions were that the cabin was a bit more cramped than a DC9 and that it needed a good paint job. The seats were flimsy, some weren't too well anchored to the floor and the seat belts were frayed. Bags were stowed overhead in open racks.

The men and women of the cabin crew were dressed in dowdy uniforms and their main role seemed to be to settle arguments about seating or about space for stowing carry-on luggage. There was no lecture about safety belts, emergency exits and all that.

The staff exuded the off-hand, impersonal attitude one would encounter in a Moscow bread shop or the Gum Department store. 'You are lucky that I have agreed to serve you---just don't push it.'

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Someone told me that Aeroflot's pilots had all started their flying careers as fighter pilots for the Russian air force. That made sense, I thought, as I was thrust back in my seat as the plane took off in the steepest climb I had ever experienced.

When we leveled off the flight was smooth. A Russian friend told me that most of the Aeroflot planes didn't have automatic pilots so the pilots actually flew the planes, moment by moment.

This was presented as an advantage.

In Western planes with auto pilots, the mechanism was programmed to adjust only after a significant deviation from the desired flight plan. This meant that there were abrupt changes in speed, direction or elevation, changes that the passengers could feel.

There were bumpy periods when we were flying through bad weather but generally I would give Aeroflot high marks for smooth flights.

The landings were as steep as the take offs, sort of like a Peregrine Falcon spotting a plump rabbit.

The touch downs were fine---the pilots obviously knew what they were doing.

After the plane had come to a stop, there wasn't the usual Western jostling to get off the plane. The passengers waited quietly in their seats until the cockpit crew strode down the aisle and disembarked.

And then the jostling---more like a rugby scrum---started!

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On short flights, there was no meal service and the passengers generally carried their own food and drinks. My interpreter and I would usually buy some cheese and rolls at the airport but if our Russian liaison officer was coming along we didn't bother. Her mother sent her off with bags of tasty fried chicken, salads, cheese, bread, along with wine or beer and some chocolates. The first time, I wondered if this was permitted but I looked around and everyone was digging into food bags.

On a flight from Moscow to Vladivostok (in a longer-range Ilyushin aircraft) meals were offered. Yuri, my interpreter, poked at the lunch-time chicken, "Look, hairy chicken legs."

It was true that the chicken had not been singed very well.

We peeled off the skin and enjoyed the meat.

Yuri looked around and found that everyone had received chicken legs. He wondered what had happened to the breasts.

A few hours later we found out.

Hairy chicken breasts for dinner.

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Aeroflot was not immune to the economic and financial crisis in Russia during the 1995-1997 period.

We had flown to Ulan-Ude, near Lake Baikal (the world's deepest, oldest and most voluminous fresh water lake), to inspect some employment offices. When we arrived at the airport for our return flight we were told that the airport authorities weren't prepared to fuel the jet because Aeroflot owed them too much money. We were lucky that a senior official of the Russian Federal Employment Service had come with us (he had never seen Lake Baikal).

It took phone calls to Moscow and extended negotiations with the local governor before the airport would fuel the jet.

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Looking back, flights on Aeroflot were not a problem. Nothing happened that scared me as much as a flight 20 years earlier on an European airline's 737 from Geneva to Frankfurt. I was sitting next to a friend, a retired Canadian Air Force pilot who had flown Prime Minister John Diefenbaker around the world. We were sitting well back on the right side of the aircraft with a good view of the right wing.

It was a blustery night with rain and cross-winds.

We were about 10 feet above the runway when my friend suddenly exploded, "That idiot has his flaps down too far!"

A moment later the plane tilted to the right and the wing came within a foot or two of the ground. I looked at my friend and his forehead was covered with sweat.

My hands still get wet when I think of it.

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And I never got hurt on Aeroflot.

Unlike on an European airline (not the one with the 'flap' problems).

I was flying from Moscow to London on my way home for a holiday. We were on our ascent out of Moscow when a piece of the bulk head separating non-smokers from smokers swung loose and hit me on the forehead.

I was reading at the time and for a while after the stars had cleared I didn't know where I was.

After checking me over at their clinic at Heathrow, the airline said I could continue to Ottawa but should see a doctor when I arrived.

The Ottawa Civic Hospital checked me over with a Cat Scan and declared me well. (I told the doctor that a hockey coach once told me when I got hit on the head, "If they wanted to hurt you Hunter, they wouldn't have hit you on the head.")

After some prompting, the airline gave a generous gift to the Civic that more than covered the cost of my examination.


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In summary, the Canadian consultants and I logged a lot of miles on Aeroflot. The airline was not great on comfort or service but it always got us there and back in one piece.

Would I fly Aeroflot again---even with the story about the drunken pilot?

Sure.

Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)

Eating while travelling reminds me of car trips we used to take with the kids from Ottawa to Aurora and Arthur to visit our parents.

It was always a challenge to find things to feed them that weren't too salty or too sweet.

Once there was not much in the fridge but I spotted a turnip. I have always liked to eat raw turnip so I cut up some turnip sticks for the trip.

At first the kids treated the turnip with disgust but as the trip dragged on first one and then another tried the sticks. And they ate them.

After that we usually travelled with turnip sticks.

Our daughter once served turnip sticks during a lecture on nutrition and told the clients about our family trips. The clients' first reaction was, 'What kind of parents did you have?'

Then, they tried the sticks. I understand they didn't necessarily rave about them, but they agreed they tasted better than they thought they would.

A bit of rural Ontario wisdom from my mother: the sweetest turnips are those dug up after a good frost.

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See you next Sunday for Posting #43 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting, or email me at johnpathunter@cs.com.