Zen and the Art of Aircraft Maintenance

This week I went to my first flying club event, where I was introduced to the wonderful world of aircraft maintenance. It was enjoyable in the same way that cooking is - it makes one feel grounded (insert your own joke here), and a welcome contrast to my otherwise cerebral working life. My contributions to the process were to fill up the tires, use dentistry tools (donated by a pilot/dentist) to winkle carbon deposits out of spark plugs, and engage in long discussions about which screwdriver to use for which job. Good times.

Once the plane was ready to go, I tagged along on a ferry mission, delivering a plane to a nearby airport to be looked at by a real mechanic. It was a night flight, which is new for me, and we got slightly lost, so I got to fly the plane for a while as the pilot tried to sort out which flashing light on the ground was the airport beacon. I learned something interesting, which is that Wal-Mart, while a generally evil force in the world, is most helpful in nighttime navigation because their buildings have a distinctive skylight pattern. Light shines out of the skylights like a flashlight through a cheese-grater, so if you know where the Wal-Marts are on the map, they serve as excellent landmarks.