[cctalk] Charles Simonyi on his flying experience with Howard

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.