50 x 50 x 50 Number Six

Something that screams Kenyan. I liked this one but the sensitivity was a bit too high at ISO2000 so I had to fix that a bit. 1/125 f/4. It is not fully sharp but not too blurry and I like the amount of detail.

50 x 50 x 50 Number Five

Managed to sneak one in today to keep things going. Something that’s always around the house. 1/125 f/4

50 x 50 x 50 Number Four

4/50 It’s a full moon tonight! Revisting something I had done earlier and incorporating it into the project. 1/250 f/8 Another crop

50 x 50 x 50 Number Three

3/50 Stooped down to get a close up of the Rhodes grass. It was pretty sunny and windy so I moved the shutter speed to 1/4000 and used f/2.8 which made for the bokeh effect. Small confession - I cropped this one a bit :)

50 x 50x 50 Number Two

This one is delayed thanks to the black out last night. Number 2 of 50 with the 50mm. Here I was trying to test the low light limits with iso 12800 f/1.8 and 1/10. It looks black and white but I was using the bright moon last night for all the light

50 x 50 x 50 Number One

Happy new year everybody! hope you've missed me :)

I am back! This time bearing photos. I have been a photo enthusiast for a while and after a long time finally got that DSLR which I wanted so I can go deeper into photography. TO get the hang of things I'll be posting 50 photos in 50 days using a 50mm lens. The 50mm allows a lot of flexibility in terms of aperture and will playing around with it. So to start it off here is a Njanuary themed pic - Every shilling counts!

f/8 1/200 Used built-in flash with a piece of white paper as a DIY diffuser

So You are a pilot?

Invariably when meeting somebody for the first time the question "What do you do?" comes up. The real meaning being what do you do for a living, to pay the bills and sadly that ends up most of the time being a definition of who you are. Generally not taking into account that most people were alive for at least twenty years before embarking on their careers and of course there are other things we do like eat, sleep etc... Having been out of employment for a while I dislike this question as there is more to who we are than our formal employment. That said let me get to the thrust of this post- see what I did there? Which is a little bit of a primer or FAQ if you will of my current profession. Ever since time immemorial man has been enchanted buy flight wishing to be free as the birds  something attested by the tragic tale of Icarus and finally realised when science caught up with our dreams. In our country we are not to many so once one introduces themselves as one some common questions with some assumptions frequently come up. Here we go...

So you're a pilot- which airline?

Not all pilots work for airlines. Some are students, others have a private licence for recreational purposes and then there are those with a commercial licence who are still looking for work which is very common. For those fortunate enough to be employed there are many places one could be for instance a flight instructor which is a common route for building hours, military, a charter pilot . A lot of those who work in General Aviation work in charters for business, tours, humanitarian work, surveying, carrying miraa(khat) etc and those are not formal airlines. At Wilson airport in Nairobi this is most likely what you will find as there are only a couple of airlines based there. Also there are those who are simply building hours in the bush without pay.

If one happens to answer the previous on in the affirmative what comes up next is- Which routes?

Another assumption made is that we fly a certain set of routes but that is not exactly how it works. There are many different models of aircraft and one needs a specific qualification to fly each which is termed a rating. The size and capabilities of the aircraft you fly then determine which routes you do. In a scheduled airline with more than one aircraft type there is an entry fleet usually the lightest aircraft which does short routes and as one gains experience they move on to bigger ones and fly further. So a better question  to ask is "which aircraft do you fly? "

Another one- Since you use autopilot you just sit there, right?

Naturally it is assumed that the autopilot does all the work and pilots just sit there drinking coffee and flirting with the air hostesses. That picture is not accurate. Granted the autopilot greatly reduces the workload but it is still the human in charge. The human is the one who programs it and ensures that the instructions entered are followed. The pilot tells it when to turn, climb and at what speed. Also the pilot has to keep a check on the aircraft systems to make sure they are performing as required and also make changes as dictated by the external environment or instructions by air traffic control. In any case the reason people are there is for when things do not go as expected and that is the focus of pilot training and the numerous emergency drills that are done and evaluated at frequent intervals. So in essence the presence of the autopilot does not mean zero work.

You must get a lot of girls right? Pilots are players

This is an assumption. Anybody can be a player whether you are Pilot, doctor, teacher or sell sweets along Uhuru Highway. Getting a Commercial pilot licence does not automatically give one game. You wither had it before or you didn't. Then again it all boils down to one's character.

There ends my brief FAQ which I hope has answered some basic questions and common misconceptions about flying. The comments section is open for more ...