Hunt The Wind

              *     *     *     *     * The Flag of Arizona.      Phoenix, Arizona, USA      Saturday, 13 th July 1996      What in the hell am I doing in Phoenix, in the middle of summer?  No doubt you’re asking yourself, dear reader.      To maintain a level of proficiency and safety, airline pilots are required to annually attend ground school and flight simulator training on emergencies, known as “Recurrent Training.”  Since my last “Recurrent” had taken place in November of 1992 at England, I was long overdue for another one.      Therefore I whistled back to the States to get “Recurrent” at Jet Tech International in Phoenix.  What prompted this was “feelers” from an aviation head-hunting group out of Melbourne, Australia, supplying pilots for a new airline in the Philippines called “Grand Air.”  If I completed “Recurrent Training,” on my own nickel, they were prepared to offer me a 737 Captain’s position, based at Manila.      On this day I finished eight hours of ground sch

             *     *     *     *     * Flag of Thailand.      Phuket International Airport, Thailand.      Monday, 13 th May 1996      It was early morning and I was standing in line, attempting to catch the first TG (Thai Airways) flight of the day to Bangkok.        I had just enjoyed five days off at Patong Beach, allowing me to set up my full-time return, as my contract with Lao was reaching its conclusion at the end of this month.      As I restlessly stood in line to check in at the ticket counter, out of boredom, I engaged in one of my favorite activities: eavesdropping.      Bear with me, dear reader.  Way back in the 1970’s, my aviation insurance agent, a swell guy from Canada, told me how he closed an important insurance contract with a company, simply by eavesdropping in a restaurant on his competition, and beating afore mentioned competition to the punch.  Over the years I’ve discovered this tip to be quite useful in crowded restaurants or airports.      There was

                   *     *     *     *     * Flag of Vietnam.        Hanoi, Socialist Republic of Vietnam  (SRV)       Tuesday, 28 th November 1995      Hanoi was occupied by the  French  in 1873 and was the capital of  French Indochina  after 1887.   The city was occupied by the Imperial Japanese Army in 1940 and liberated in 1945, when it briefly held the seat of the  Viet Minh  government after  Ho Chi Minh  proclaimed the independence of Vietnam. Sadly, the French returned and reoccupied the city in 1946. After nine years of fighting between the French and Viet Minh forces, Hanoi emerged as the capital of an independent  North Vietnam  in 1954.   Following the end of the Vietnam War, with the U.S., Hanoi became the capital of a reunified Vietnam when North and  South Vietnam  were reunited on 2nd July 1976.       And that, dear reader, is my quick and dirty history on Hanoi.      If you’ll remember, at the beginning of this chapter, I had previously operated to Hanoi when fl