Exploring
This morning I woke to the sound of dripping on my backpack. Then it became a torrent. I think the family owning the hotel sleep in the loft and baby did a wee wee, or hopefully a glass of water fell over. Fortunately I managed to leap out of bed to move my pack before it became a torrent.
I had breakfast overlooking the roofs of the other houses, the hills and the terraces. Nice. A hunched old lady had two buckets, one at each end of a long pole carried over her shoulders. She skillfully scooped the manure over her tiny vege patch on the side of hillside path … all without putting down the buckets or spilling it. Like I said it was a pretty rural scene but I’ll cross salads off the menu for today.
I went for a couple of walks today … this morning I walked to the neighbouring village and back, a journey of three hours. Then in the afternoon I took a shorter walk to a lookout point called Nine Dragons and Five Tigers. It offered me more views of the rice terraces and village. Between the two walks, I tried the glutinous and bacon cooked in the bamboo which I saw yesterday. It tasted like I had expected but could have done with some MSG!
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- Bridge leading into Ping An.
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- Little hillside village of Ping An is dominated by the Zhuang minority.
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- Rice terraces … as wet as it gets in November.
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- Rice terraces looking a bit dry.
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- Near by village within walking distance from Ping An.
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- Off to work he goes.
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- Corn being dried.
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- Corn being dried.
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- Chilli being dried.
Flight Simulators
Over dinner I got talking with a couple from Europe … he works for Lufthansa airlines specialising in flight simulations. I thought … what do you have to do with flight simulations … you just buy the simulator, right? Well apparently not …
When you buy a flight simulator for a few hundred million bucks, they don’t always display the characteristics of the aircraft it is meant to simulate (damn it!)… it may not produce the right shudders or noises. Eg. a lopsided landing may only have two thuds when it should have three.
Besides that, he also has to load and maintain terrain information especially for new airports as the simulators are only preloaded with basics like long-lat, runway length etc.
Somehow my new friend thinks I should get into this simulator programming career … I need to learn C++ first (well, after I find out what it is). Here’s a few snippets from the conversation for the pilots amongst you (yawn for the rest of you):
He’s very pro-Airbus as he thinks their logic is very consistent with a good workflow and ergonomics for the pilots. He said on some Boeing aircraft the trim alarm sounds the same as failed pressurisation alarm … causing a very bad accident with loss of life.
He’s also very proud of his airline … they don’t employ any ex-Airforce pilots (presumed to be too reckless) … and unlike some airlines, Airbus and Boeing pilots are quite strictly segregated due to their differing philosophies. He couldn’t believe when I told him one budget Asian airline allows dual rating of A320 and B737 pilots as long as they don’t fly the other aircraft on the same day.
He also has access to the flight simulator training results … there’s a captain of a customer airline who loses orientation completely in the dark.