This is a very poor machine transcription of a Zoom conversation I had with Charles about
5 years ago.
I went flying with him once a month.
00:15:04 Charles Simonyi
Yeah the yeah this uh this kind of third hand plane and then flying with him and.
00:15:15 Charles Simonyi
We were flying at night and we had a complete electrical failure.
00:15:21 Paul McJones
Oh, really.
00:15:22 Charles Simonyi
Yeah, in the San Jose airspace.
00:15:27 Charles Simonyi
And dum dum.
00:15:31 Charles Simonyi
There are actual procedures to come to.
00:15:37 Charles Simonyi
Do.
00:15:40 Charles Simonyi
You approach an airport with radio failure.
00:15:43 Charles Simonyi
He was supposed to fly by the You know lookout.
00:15:47 Charles Simonyi
Of course it was.
00:15:48 Charles Simonyi
It was completely beautiful weather, you know, zillion visibility and and you were
supposed to fly by the.
00:15:57 Charles Simonyi
Uhm, he knew all the procedure.
00:16:00 Charles Simonyi
We fly by the the control tower and then they guide you down with this thing called the
light gun.
00:16:07 Charles Simonyi
Which is a colored oh colored thing that actually you can see even in the movies.
00:16:13 Charles Simonyi
You can see it kind of hanging from the from the ceiling.
00:16:16 Charles Simonyi
There's this big flashlights, you know that you you can direct at planes and and and
the weird thing is that that.
00:16:27 Charles Simonyi
I was learning to fly at the time, so I'm doing a little bit of knowledge and and the
when you clear to land, it's a it's steady green.
00:16:38 Charles Simonyi
And flashing green means standby.
00:16:40 Charles Simonyi
OK, wait for the client and and we saw this.
00:16:45 Charles Simonyi
I saw flashing green.
00:16:47 Charles Simonyi
And I said, wait, wait, it's we are not clear.
00:16:50 Charles Simonyi
Yeah.
00:16:51 Charles Simonyi
And and how it said no, no, no.
00:16:53 Charles Simonyi
That's a steady light, except that they are not hitting us, right?
00:16:58 Charles Simonyi
Oh Oh yeah, yeah.
00:16:58 Charles Simonyi
Oh yeah.
00:16:58 Charles Simonyi
00:16:59 Charles Simonyi
So I've just realized and and he said just look very close to the source and you can
see a little bit of of the beam and see that it's steady.
00:17:10 Paul McJones
OK.
00:17:10 Paul McJones
OK.
00:17:11 Charles Simonyi
And and I realized.
00:17:13 Charles Simonyi
I mean, I still remember how.
00:17:15 Charles Simonyi
You know, and then you would have to see this in a simulator or something.
00:17:19 Charles Simonyi
Otherwise you know if I had been alone, I would have never landed because they they
can't take you straight.
00:17:26 Paul McJones
Yeah, yeah.
00:17:26 Charles Simonyi
And I was thinking about this silly, silly distinction.
00:17:31 Charles Simonyi
Because, operationally, it's it's very difficult to tell the difference, But
anyway.