Jump Seats and Flight Tests, Part 1
This installment of my weekly blog is the first part of a two-part story. Part 2 will be posted next week.
Working in the LCD Display Technology team at Boeing was a very rewarding time in my career. I learned a lot about light, optics, color science and human visual perception. I also learned how to be an engineer, how to follow processes and good practices, and how to plan and execute. I was mostly working on managing the development of technologies and on systems engineering rather than doing low-level detailed designs. Aerospace is a demanding field with tough environmental standards, high standards for performance, and rigorous testing, documentation, and certification requirements under the oversight of the FAA.
The first opportunity that arose for the deployment of LCD Display technology beyond the TCAS retrofit program was the 7J7. This was a proposed airliner in the same size class as the 727 with novel external bladed engines. This program was short-lived before Boeing decided to abort the effort. Boeing 7J7 - Wikipedia
The Boeing 777 program quickly came into the picture in 1989 and was the new target for the first implementation of the LCD Display Technology using the 8-inch Display Units that my team had been developing. When we were given the go-ahead for the 777 program, there were many LCD performance requirements that we had established for contrast over field-of-view and for background black uniformity and brightness uniformity that still were not met by the various LCD manufacturers and their avionics partners. After a competitive bid process, Honeywell was selected as the avionics supplier for the displays and for the main avionics system.
The displays became part of a system known as the Airplane Information Management System or AIMS. The AIMS architecture was the brainchild of a bright mechanical engineer named Derek Deloe. Derek was an energetic, passionate, and good-natured person with bright red hair. He and I became good friends over the course of the 777 program. The AIMS System consisted of two cabinets that contained processor and I/O modules that slid into the cabinets and were connected by a backplane with ARINC 629 buses for communications between the cabinets and other systems on the airplane. Airplane Information Management System (AIMS) (honeywell.com)
From 1989 to 1991 I worked in the 777 Display Systems group where we wrote the requirements documents for the AIMS Display System. I worked under Len Hardaway and Randy Robertson. Alan Mullaly had overall management responsibility for the 777 program. Mike Sinnett eventually joined our group as my lead engineer and has since moved up to senior management in the Commercial Airplane portion of Boeing.
In 1990 one of my cousins named Pat was engaged to a woman that he had met while traveling in South America. The wedding was to be held in December 1990 in San Martin Argentina near the city of Mendoza. I traveled to the wedding with Pat and his fiance, Pat’s brother Mike and his wife , and Pat’s brother Joe and his wife and my Aunt Barabara. Boeing gave employees two weeks off from December 21 to early January so I had the time available to travel.
We departed from LAX on an Aerolinas Argentinas 747-200 bound for Lima, Peru. I had some of my Boeing business cards with me and handed one to one of the flight attendants during the flight. I had hoped that I might get invited up to meet the flight crew at some point during the flight, but as the flight went on, and we were approaching our destination of Lima, I had given up on that idea. To my surprise, the flight attendant I had given my card to came by my seat and motioned for me to follow him up to the flight deck. I was greeted by the Captain and invited to sit in the rear jump seat and observe as the senior crew was training the junior crew members as they made their approach into the Lima airport. We spoke briefly as we made introductions, and I quickly took my seat and went silent so as not to interfere with their training. The 747-200 is an older flight deck with a bewildering array of mechanical round dial instruments and switches. Seeing it firsthand really helped put perspective on how much cleaner and intuitive the new “glass cockpit” that I was working on for the 777 was in comparison.
The flight crew made their approach toward the Lima airport and captured the localizer for the instrument approach to the runway. The ILS dial indicator showed when they were centered in the localizer radio beam and aligned with the runway centerline. Looking out the front windows all I could see was a solid marine layer of clouds below us. Soon we intercepted the ILS glideslope signal and began the decent for the runway. We descended through the cloud layer and soon broke out in clear air at about 2000 feet with the runway directly ahead of us. The plane continued its glideslope descent to the runway and began to flare for landing. I was surprised to feel the main gear contact the runway with the runway still about 70 feet below the flight deck. This is something that would definitely take getting used to after flying much smaller airplanes! This was my first experience riding in a jump seat on a Boeing airliner, and it really gave me an appreciation for how they operated.
From Lima we continued on to Rio de Janeiro where we spent several days sightseeing and visited a couple that my cousin Joe knew that lived there. From there we traveled to Buenos Aires for more sightseeing. Next, we traveled to Iguazu Falls which is a true spectacle of nature and well worth putting on your bucket list.
After playing tourist for many days, we finally flew into Mendoza where we were picked up and driven by car to San Martin, a small town Southeast of Mendoza where the wedding was held. I met many members of the bride's family and received a warm welcome while we were there. After a traditional Catholic wedding ceremony, a reception was held that went until 6AM the following morning! It was a true Argentine fiesta; they tend to keep late hours and observe daily siestas. I had a great time and really enjoyed meeting so many people. Even though my Spanish was very limited, I found that the dialect of Spanish that was spoken there was easier for me to understand than in Mexico.
My cousin Joe was intrigued by the solid stone floors in the house we stayed at, which in the USA would have been prohibitively expensive. Joe owned and operated a home remodeling and construction company, so he knew what was involved in materials and labor.
After our time in San Martin, we flew down to San Carlos de Bariloche which is a small town in the lake district of the Andes South of Mendoza. The area is known as the Switzerland of the Andes. It was a very picturesque town surrounded by many beautiful lakes and towering mountains. We went on a boat ride and hike as one of our excursions. It was a great place to spend several days to wind up our adventure in Argentina. We then traveled to Buenos Aires and then back to Lima on New Year's Eve to spend some time in Peru.
By the time we cleared customs in Lima , claimed our luggage, met our tour guide, and exchanged currency it was getting to be late in the evening. We rode in a van from the airport into Lima close to midnight on New Year’s Eve, and along the way we passed through neighborhoods of adobe homes where people were out burning figures in effigy which I learned from our guide was part of their New Year traditions. New Years in Peru: Traditions & Celebrations – Aracari Travel
We had a great time touring Lima and sampling the local cuisine. After a couple of days, we flew to Cuzco on an MD-80 operated by Faucet airlines. Landing in Cuzco is unusual in that the airport sits at an elevation of 10,860 feet. Typical cabin pressure is maintained at 8,000 feet, so shortly after touchdown the crew began to let the air out of the airplane to equalize with the outside air pressure. This was very noticeable both to my ears and to how well I could breathe. I quickly felt a sense of lightheadedness with a mild headache that persisted until the next morning when having breakfast at our hotel I was served Coca tea. The effect was almost immediate after I drank a cup. I had a strong sensation of the fog clearing from my brain and all the negative symptoms disappeared. I drank another cup for good measure, and I was able to enjoy the sights in Cuzco as we toured local Incan and Spanish sites and museums. We did an excursion to the Urubamba river valley by train where we visited several Incan ruins, with a final stop at Machu Picchu. A bus took us from the train station up to Machu Picchu on a road that zigged zagged up the side of the mountain in a long series of switchbacks.
We spent several hours exploring Machu Picchu which is an amazing place. The stonework and engineering that went into creating it is very impressive. It is also a spectacularly scenic place to visit. I have a wall mounted enlargement that I made from a photograph that I keep in my home.
We returned to the bus stop and started down the mountainside. Near the top there was a group of local boys that waved to us and said goodbye in Quechua, the language of the Incans. After we completed the first switchback turn, one of the boys was standing by the side of the road and waved and said goodbye again. After each and every switchback turn on the way down, the same boy was there to greet us. This went on for turn after turn, inducing repeated laughter amongst the tourists on the bus. We saw him a total of 13 times on the way down. He was also there to greet us at the bus stop by the train depot where he gladly accepted tips from the tourists on the bus.
After returning to Cuzco, we departed the next day for Lima, and then flew to Los Angeles. Flying into LA and looking at the city laid out below me gave me a great appreciation for the modern city that was there as compared to Lima which was surrounded by large poor neighborhoods of adobe homes. Hell-A didn’t seem quite as bad to me after that, although I am still not a fan of big cities! I parted ways with my cousins and boarded an Alaska Airlines flight to Seattle. I found myself amid a bunch of UW fans returning from the Rose Bowl after beating Iowa. The game had been played on Jan 1, so these fans had obviously stayed over in LA for a vacation after the game. They were all upbeat and happy which made for a light mood on the flight home.
End of Part 1.