{"id":4136,"date":"2016-12-01T19:07:23","date_gmt":"2016-12-02T03:07:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.mechadigital.net\/?p=4136"},"modified":"2021-08-26T20:37:54","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T20:37:54","slug":"169-reft-downwind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/169-reft-downwind\/","title":{"rendered":"#169 “Reft Downwind”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m dithering.\u00a0 I\u2019m dithering about the future of my children.\u00a0 On the one hand, this could be really depressing.\u00a0 On the other, it could be a big adventure, one that I will not be alive to witness.<\/h3>\n

As Woody Guthrie said, \u201cThe times, they are a\u2019changin\u2019\u201d. Chinese, Pakistani, Indian and other nationals will be the predominant forces in the labor and manufacturing markets.\u00a0 Our education system and youth\u2019s sense of entitlement will spell the end of our civilization\u2019s seat at the power table. \u00a0At first, this fact makes me a defeatist about the future of my children and any children they may have.\u00a0 But maybe not.\u00a0 Maybe they should just roll with the punches and learn Mandarin or Hindi.<\/h3>\n

Gawd we\u2019re an arrogant race.\u00a0 \u201cSlopes, Pakkis, chinks, gooks, kaffirs\u201d\u2026 all those terms are simply evidence of our misplaced and fearful\u00a0 attitude toward people who simply don\u2019t look or sound like us. I was flying with a student in the pattern at the Madras, Oregon, airport.\u00a0 In the pattern with me was a 172 with a Chinese student aboard.\u00a0 Those of us who fly in this area are familiar with the Chinese students.\u00a0 Hillsboro Aviation evidently has a contract to train Chinese nationals.\u00a0 I can only assume that they are destined to become airline pilots.\u00a0 In the meantime, they are learning both to fly and to speak English.<\/h3>\n
\"00003545048418\"
A group of Chinese students gather in front of the Prineville, Oregon FBO.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u00a0The latter puts all of us for whom English is our native language to the test.\u00a0 The Chinese students don\u2019t speak English very well.\u00a0 Add to that the fact that their instructors encourage them to make lots of calls and to announce every position in the pattern and you\u2019ve got airwaves which are congested with thick Chinese accents. Those accents are hard to understand by us locals.\u00a0 Ahh, there\u2019s the rub!\u00a0 Many of our locals fail to consider what these Chinese students are up against.\u00a0 They are in a foreign country, learning a new skill and at the same time being forced to communicate in a foreign language and fly like \u201cAcme\u201d.\u00a0 I might add that English and Mandarin are about as different as any two languages can be.<\/h3>\n

The Chinese student in the pattern with me that day had decided to exit the Madras pattern and return to Prineville from whence he\u2019d come.\u00a0 He transmitted, \u201cUh, Madras tlaffic, Cessna thlee thlee foah too seben on reft downwind depachuh flom thlee foah, noathbound\u2026\u201d<\/h3>\n

Realizing that he couldn\u2019t be on a northerly course AND on left downwind from runway three four, I decided to give the kid a hand.<\/h3>\n

\u201cCessna on downwind, this is the one-forty.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think you\u2019re northbound.\u00a0 Where are you going?\u201d<\/h3>\n

Not used to plain English transmissions, he thought for a minute, then answered, \u201cUh thlee thlee foah too seben going to Pihvil\u2026\u201d<\/h3>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what I thought\u201d, I replied.\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019re southbound to Prineville.\u00a0 It\u2019s no factor.\u00a0 I\u2019ve got you in sight.\u00a0 Have a good flight\u201d.<\/h3>\n

Grateful, he replied, \u201cOh, thank-you velly much!\u201d<\/h3>\n

\u201cNo problem\u201d, I replied.\u00a0 Then, thinking about his situation, I added, \u201cOh and by the way, your English is a lot better than my Mandarin.\u201d<\/h3>\n

And then his instructor, who I didn\u2019t even know was in that airplane, keyed his mic and said, \u201cOh, I don\u2019t know, Brian, your Mandarin is pretty good\u201d.<\/h3>\n

I had to chuckle.\u00a0 I don\u2019t speak ANY Mandarin, with the possible exception of knowing how to say \u201cThank you\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 And I still don\u2019t know who that instructor was or how he knew who I was.<\/h3>\n

But my point is that we are all on this planet together.\u00a0 Chinese, American, Mexican, Arabs and even those pesty Serbians.\u00a0 We need to think twice about criticizing others for their stumbling efforts to learn a foreign language or a new skill.\u00a0 Maybe we just need to occasionally put ourselves in their shoes.<\/h3>\n

There\u2019s an old joke about a Lufthansa Captain who insists upon speaking German to an air traffic controller at the Frankfurt Airport.\u00a0 The Controller tells the captain that English is the language of aviation and that he needs to speak English.\u00a0 The German replies, \u201cI am a German\u00a0 flying a German Airplane in German\u00a0 Airspace.\u00a0 Why should I speak English?\u201d\u00a0 The controller, an Englishman, replies, \u201cBecause we won the war, old boy\u201d.<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s true that we won the war and I\u2019m grateful for it.\u00a0 But that old joke ignores the need for a bit of understanding on the part of all of us, pilots and non-pilots as well.<\/h3>\n

And maybe some flying schools need to hire English tutors as well as flight instructors!<\/h3>\n

In the meantime, I take my hat off to those Chinese students and wish them Happy Swooping!<\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Many of our locals fail to consider what these Chinese students are up against. They are in a foreign country, learning a new skill and at the same time being forced to communicate in a foreign language and fly like \u201cAcme\u201d “.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4138,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[35,67,173],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4136"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwheelersjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}