Page 26 - May 2019

Imaginary Controls
by Kevin Ware
For some strange reason (perhaps my medical training), I have a particular fascination with horrific diseases.
Over time, this interest has led me to faraway places such as Bergen, Norway where Dr. Hansen discovered the bac- teria that causes leprosy, a disease that now bears his name. Leprosy itself is a ghastly condition that causes the most visible parts of its victim’s body, typically parts of the face and hands, to slowly die while the sufferer is still alive and must watch their slow deterioration.
This scourge of humanity has been around for thousands of years and can be found in the tombs of the Pharaohs, and is even mentioned multiple times in the Bible. There is also a famous site in the Hawaiian Islands where lepers were once banished. And so, while on vacation in Molokai this winter, I decided my wife Kari and I just had to fly down to the small airport on Kalaupapa to see the leper colony that was formed there in the mid-1800s.
Now, my wife is not at all interested in horrific diseases and is also very conser- vative when it comes to riding in small single-engine aircraft. From her point of view, the major problem with visiting
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Kalaupapa was we had to fly there in a small airplane f lown by an unknown pilot. Of course, to me that just added to the experience so I assured her that the aircraft operator was no doubt FAR Part 135 certified and probably f lew new equipment with a crew of two highly experienced and careful pilots.
Hoping my promises to be true, we show up at the small Molokai Airport (MKK) with some trepidation to check out our f light arrangements. On the ramp, I see three Cessna 208 Caravans. One was what we call a “POJ” at our air- port. The paint was faded, the upholstery replaced many times (and still torn), the instrument panel full of old round gauges, and I could not help but notice someone had left the master switch on – with the crew nowhere in sight. About a hundred feet away from this fine flying speci- men, there were two brand new looking Caravans with shiny company logos and Garmin G1000 avionics installed in the panels. The crew for each shiny aircraft consisted of two uniformed, clean-cut young people dressed up in black pants, white-starched uniform shirts with shoul- der bars, and prominent gold wings pinned just above their shirt pockets.
Their energetic preflight made them look like students at Embry Riddle taking a final exam, making sure not to miss a single thing that could be wrong with their aircraft. My wife found this very reassuring, and we entered the small ter- minal to check in with their ramp agent.
In making our inquiry, however, we were told our reservation was with the “other company” and their people had gone somewhere but would probably be back shortly. After a while, a scruffy- looking ramp guy showed up, checked us in and assigned us seats in the junky airplane right behind the pilot.
We then sat there long enough with the master on and gyros whirling for me to start thinking that if we don’t get this thing started pretty soon, the battery will be depleted and the PT6 is going to have a hot start if it starts at all. But just as I was wondering if I should do something about this, a portly old fellow shows up dressed in an old white uniform shirt with a frayed collar and stained cargo shorts. There was a tattoo on his right calve of sufficient size and design that’d make the Hells Angels motorcycle gang proud. He was chewing on a toothpick, apparently just having eaten something