In taking risks, air force captain inspiresBy Maria Althea Teves, abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak | 06/05/2009 3:29 PM
When he was a child, Giemel Espino was attached to stuffed toys. So when his mother left him when he was seven years old, he found comfort in his cuddly company and in watching the movie E.T.
Now an Air Force captain, Espino has a collection 500 stuffed toys. His favorite stuffed character E.T. reminds him of the inspiration that assuaged his lonely heart as a child.
Inspiring others is what Espino dreams of doing for the rest of his life.
Inventor
Espino, 39, also liked to invent gadgets and games. “As a child, I had a wild imagination… Inventing was my outlet,” he said.
He said inventing kept his mind off the fact that his mother left their family and that his father, who was busy with business and had other families, neglected him.
“I know there are people worse off than I was. I wanted to show everyone something new so they could say in their heads, ‘Hey that is possible, he made it possible,’” Espino said.
He said that doing something new, doing something different, inspires people.
He made many gadgets like a device that purportedly reads minds, a system to memorize Bible verses and a videoke casino—all of which were just for personal use but he now plans to market.
Making the impossible possible
His love for making the impossible possible is what keeps Espino from leaving his risky work as the head of the rainmaking squadron and as non-combatant pilot of the Philippine Air Force (PAF).
Flying the 49-year-old
Cessna LC 201 to disperse salt in clouds is a dangerous job, but trying to penetrate sponge-thick clouds is even more dangerous. The plane is “very old” and not designed to go into clouds, he said.
“When I am operating the aircraft and going through clouds, it is like riding a roller coaster with my eyes closed. If I look out the window, I would end up having vertigo,” he said.
Espino said that the uniqueness of his work and the risks that it entails may be the reason why he has won leadership awards and was nominated as a recipient of the Gawad Geny Lopez Bayaning Pilipino award.
Gawad Geny Lopez is the annual search by the Lopez group of companies for Filipino leaders who help their communities and inspire love of country.
Not afraid of danger
The rainmaking program of the PAF has been going on for 50 years. “It is riskier now” because of the old equipment they use, Espino said. He recalls one near-death experience when he and his co-pilot were flying over the then-dry CASECNA watershed, maneuvering out of a cloud when it started to rain—a normal occurrence—but there were accompanying lightning bolts that struck to the left and right of the plane.
He tried his hardest to fly out of the cloud, which was getting thicker by the minute. “It felt like getting trapped in a middle of a sponge,” he said.
The turbulence aggravated the situation but they managed to get out, and just as they were able to clear the 1000 ft-thick cloud, they almost slammed into a mountain. Thankfully the engine, which usually stalls when it could not handle a cloud, did not fail.
He said
pilots are taught not to go into the clouds. “But my work entails doing the very opposite, the one thing that must not be done. But I get it done,” he said.
Sticking it out
He ended up in this job because the PAF needed a pilot for rainmaking. He was thought to be qualified because he was an instructor for the Air Force Weather Group.
“I shouted profanities when I found out what a rain maker is supposed to do. The title sounded very easy,” he said.
But Espino stayed on.
There are only two others with him in the rainmaking squadron – a co-pilot and a crew member who “impregnates” the clouds with salt to induce condensation.
He laments that government equipment they use for rainmaking is of very low quality. To create a big storm with heavy rain, a bigger plane would be needed to ensure the safety of the team. But that is not available.
Clouds ahead
Espino said that the PAF is currently studying a rain suppression program in which rain is made to fall over one area to spare another. To do this they inject salt into a cloud before it reaches a certain area so that rain would fall over another place and keep that area dry. He said this was done during the Miss Universe pageant in 1974.
While not flying among the clouds, Espino is doing various environment researches for his post-graduate course in urban and regional planning at the University of the Philippines.
He is looking at adapting the rain making methods in Thailand where they make clouds instead of waiting for them to form naturally. He conducted studies in Thailand in 2008 and has proposed a new type of aircraft for the PAF rain making squadron for this purpose.
Another environment study he is conducting concerns a “Sustainable City Concept,” wherein plants and colors placed in strategic locations in a city could help reduce heat and help in energy consumption.
Espino hopes that he will inspire Filipinos with the kind of work that he does.
“New concepts and ideas are not welcomed by those who lack imagination. But to prove that things could be done is hopefully inspiring not only to those who have dreams but to those who did not even think it is possible,” said the pilot who once lacked inspiration but now overflows with it.
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