Episode 77. Strange stuff (that cross my mind)

Let me put it straight: I don’t know why I’m writing this. I have no idea whatsoever.

But I know that I've told you before that sometimes my mind is going crazy (not too much and not for good, but crazy nonetheless) and I think that this is one of those times.

I love jet engines. The power, the possibilities, the promise…But on top of all this, is THE NOISE. That shrieking, continuous, overwhelming scream of a jet engine revving up, always give me goose bumps.

You have the first glance at the start up. The growling of the compressor blades, sucking up tones of air and pushing them, squeeze them trough the firing chamber and the exhaust, faster and faster, more and more. And then the ignition. The first spark. The loud thud of the explosion, and then the shriek of the accelerating turbine. Hot gas emerging from the exhaust, and the feel of the plane keeping all that tremendous power at bay, until ready to be unleashed. The only thing that can possibly beat this is the launch from an aircraft carrier. You just cannot top that. Ever.
Take a look at it. I would watch this (and many others) on and on and on.

And there is another one, thanks to our friend Balauru'. I got a full set of goose bumps:

Unfortunately, only the chosen few have the chance to live this experience at it’s full, the beauty of power and force. Ground staff in the airports, test pilots and generally some aircraft engineers. But they are only half lucky themselves…

For the rest of us, is just a dream with extremely slim chances to turn real.

Yes, sometimes you have a glimpse to this spectacular show when you are boarding your plane on the way to somewhere. But it’s like arriving at a perfect show half an hour after it begun. It’s just not the same. Because it is clear, if you are a passenger and you manage to witness the engine start-up, you’re already kind of fucked.

First, you are normally boarding through a gate tunnel, connected directly from the terminal to the airplane door. If not, this means that you are in a shitty airport and you’re slightly fucked.

Second, if you've already start to tell me that “yeah, but you still have one jet engine running by the time you are boarding, we can hear the noise”, then shut the fuck up. It’s not THE jet engine, it’s just the APU. Auxiliary Power Unit. Yes, it is a jet engine too, but is small, well covered and soundproofed, and it is there only to provide enough juice to run the AC in the plane while boarding and the necessary air flux for starting up the main engines. The main engines are not started until the push back. That’s the part when the strangely looking tractor starts to push the plane from the gate to the middle of the taxi way. You can see it now, don’t you? If you are a passenger and you look at the plane being pushed back from the gate, it means that you very much lost your flight, and yea, you’re fucked. All the scheduling, all the promises, down the drain and farewell. Not to mention the hassle of re booking to another flight, and so on and so forth.

Let’s assume now that maybe you are on the ground, waiting to board your flight (so you are not in the second case of fucked, but merely the first one) and they are starting the engine of another plane. You are still fucked because you are not close enough to enjoy the full fun (and complementarily fucked because reason number one). It’s like watching a football game from your balcony, two miles away from the field. Or going to a concert and being an imp. You will only see the backs and legs of other people, but not so much of what’s going on onstage.

Well, at that time, they usually only start one engine. Maybe for the big birds (A380, 747) they use two for taxiing, but maybe one is just enough. The other engine (or engines) will not be started until the plane is close to be cleared for takeoff. It’s nasty from our point of view (missing all the fun) but is fuel efficient. And of course they will not start it with you people hanging around, would they? With all the safety precautions and such, you will be far and away from the real thing happening. And this really sucks.

Let’s get back a little to the first kind of fucked. So you are on a shitty airport, sweating your ass off (because shitty airports have this tendency to be located in very hot and eventually damp places) but you’re grinning like an idiot because just maybe less than a hundred meters away, an airplane is just starting his main. Sorry, but it’s all in your mind. The noise from you own airplane’s APU is too much and too close to let you enjoy the real show happening on the other side of the strip. You have to be really close to feel it properly.

But what a wonderful tool the mind is…At least mine, that is. Not because it works well (it’s actually quite shitty itself) but because it let me wander everywhere without moving a muscle. And you already know that I’m not very fond of moving muscles (I think I’m the only person able to get tired from laying down, and therefore needing some rest after resting, so you know what I mean).

It’s the thrill of the journey. The mind is already rushing piecemeal thoughts about how it will be, what can happen at the new place, the events, the life. Maybe that’s why I love the sound of the jet engines start-up. For the promise it delivers, for the journey that lays ahead, for the so much expected change in an otherwise boring existence. It might be an instinctual reaction, like Pavlov’s dog’s. Jet engine start, oh something new is going to happen’. Something exquisite. Something that allows for even more mind wandering and dream worlds. That’s why I somehow pity those airport and airplane guys. They see the show everyday, but they never get the change. For them, it’s like a continuous election year. They hear the promises but they never get to see the results. Well, maybe that was not such a good parallel, we don’t get anything after the election year either. But at least we can hope. For us, it’s always a possibility, and sometimes the change is real. For them, it’s just an illusion.

You maybe wonder now why I wrote this in English. The reality is that I don’t know. I just thought it this way. It made more sense, for an unknown reason. I didn’t struggle with it, and I didn’t lost any time translating or such. It just came this way and I let it flow as is. I apologize to those of you that cannot understand it as it is. Use any online translator if you are curious. You might not get the whole nine yards, but you’ll have an idea on what’s about.

Next time, maybe I will tell you how I’ve dreamed that I fell through a portal into Late 15^th century Moldavia when coming home from the powerplant.