A Year in the Life

[PilotMan]

So I'm going to get all serious here for a bit. I wanted to do this and I didn't want to do this.

My day was fine. I worked today. Started off super early and took a plane to Chicago. We left early and were rerouted over Milwaukee because of weather. That reroute, coupled with the near non-stop turbulence in between put us on the ground late. Then ATC had put us on the far north runway, which if you know Chicago, might as well be in Milwaukee. It took that long just to get back to the gate.

A short turn. A plane change. A late fueler, and we were off on the second leg to Bozeman. I've never been here before, but I've been close. It's so close to Yellowstone I can feel it. I could see the Tetons from 150 miles away. I had thought about renting a car and driving there, but I couldn't deal with the cost for only a few hours there.

Instead I met up with an pilot, who rode our jumpseat from Chicago, and lives here and we took me out on a little tour of breweries here in Bozeman. It was an awesome day here today. Just about perfect. I had a good time.

https://scontent-dfw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtp1/v/t1.0-9/11219060_10153602225539648_1194866194948210470_n.jpg?oh=f630659d68bc96901560324f971bde5c&oe=5670ACF3

But I also thought that it might be of interest to just kind of spill my guts on the table about 9/11.

I was working as a flight instructor in Orlando at the time. Not yet a commercial jet pilot, but getting paid to fly planes all the same. The path to my future was laid out before me and each step took me closer to that goal. I was off work that day, 14 years ago. Our son was in school, the Mrs. was working, and I was probably playing Championship Manager.

She called me from work and said that something strange is going on and to check it out and get back to her. They didn't have any way to get caught up on the news, and people kept coming in and talking about it. I turned on the TV and felt sick. The second plane had just hit and I knew. It was clear that it was intentional. My first thought was of the people on those planes. The people and the last thoughts that they had in their lives. The pilots, who had most certainly been killed before, and my world was instantly gripped in the most dreaded feeling of fear.

I couldn't watch, and I couldn't turn away. Emotion coursed through my body. I was all at once sick and angry and sad. So incredibly sad. I thought of the families. The families of those crew members. In the days following, the voices on the phone, the lost voice mails hurt. They hurt and it never let up. The resignation of the situation. And I wanted vengeance. Cold, painful, revenge. All of this at once. The Tom Hanks movie, Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close was hard to watch.

I watched the towers collapse one by one and I sat there, alone, and I cried. I cried and screamed and cried more. I paced the house, I sat, I stood. I was so totally helpless and overwhelmed. I still can't look at at 767 the same way. Seeing it go into that building and just explode like that. It's so violent. So raw. That plane is just huge, and here it was looking like a toy next to that building. I wish I had lived my whole life without ever seeing those images.

I wanted my wife, but she was working. I needed to be with someone. So I drove to work, where my friends were. Where we could console one another and where we could talk about it all. I was so pent up with emotion that I had a road rage incident on the way. I'm sure it was my own fault. I was wired so tight.

After I had calmed down, all I wanted to do was hold my family. I wanted to hold them, and tell them how much I loved them, and I didn't want to let them go. There were thousands of people who weren't getting that chance again, and it was all I could think of. I went to my son's school and simply pulled him out and took him home. I don't remember anything else about the day, except the sadness.

I'm pretty sure that you could have diagnosed me with PTSD afterward. I suffered nightmares from that day for over a year and a half. I still can't watch movies based around it. I've never seen United 93. I only recently watched a documentary with the boys. The real time scenes still make me cry. My boys saw that. They got that. They understand I hope. It was brutal.

Brutal because that was the life I was heading toward. Those might have well been my family members on those planes. They were flight crews. Today it's easier. It's easier because here I am telling you my not overly compelling story, but I'm still sitting here with the remnants of that emotion still running through me.

Of course now I work for one of the companies that were attacked, and so that connection is solidified even more.

Never forget that day. It changed my life forever. It changed my career forever. Not a day goes by where I'm not directly impacted by 9/11 multiple times a day. Not one. We can't forget. I can't forget.

United Flight 93
Captain Jason Dahl
First Officer LeRoy Homer, Jr.
Flight Attendant Lorraine Bay
Flight Attendant Sandra Bradshaw
Flight Attendant Wanda Green
Flight Attendant CeeCee Lyles
Flight Attendant Deborah Welsh

United Flight 175
Captain Victor Saracini
First Officer Michael Horrocks
Flight Attendant Robert Fangman
Flight Attendant Amy Jarret
Flight Attendant Amy King
Flight Attendant Kathryn Laborie
Flight Attendant Alfred Marchand
Flight Attendant Michael Tarrou
Flight Attendant Alicia Titus
Customer Service Representative Marianne MacFarlane
Customer Service Representative Jesus Sanchez

American Flight 11
Captain John Ogonowski
First Officer Thomas McGuinness
Flight Attendant Barbara Arestegui
Flight Attendant Jeffrey Collman
Flight Attendant Sara Low
Flight Attendant Karen Martin
Flight Attendant Kathleen Nicosia
Flight Attendant Betty Ong
Flight Attendant Jean Roger
Flight Attendant Dianne Snyder
Flight Attendant Madeline "Amy" Sweeney

American Flight 77
Captain Charles Burlingame
First Officer David Charlebois
Flight Attendant Michele Heidenberger
Flight Attendant Jennifer Lewis
Flight Attendant Kenneth Lewis
Flight Attendant Renee May

[PilotMan]

I did have a good day yesterday in general. Downtown Bozeman has a number of micro breweries and a good feel. The weather was just about perfect, and I spent the afternoon going from place to place.

Today went according to plan. With it being mountain time it almost felt like sleeping in. It was still an early trip to the airport. We had some trouble getting the final weights, so once we were airborne we had a little catching up to do. Sitting on the right side of the plane I had a special view of Yellowstone this morning.

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/0b3a3e9d-5efd-4c49-9b98-0c1a31ea5ea6.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/0b3a3e9d-5efd-4c49-9b98-0c1a31ea5ea6.jpg.html)

In the front part is Canyon, the middle is Lake, far in the background is Grand Teton, and if you look to the right side of the pic you can see some of the geyser basins. The steam was very prevalent on this cool morning.

There was no time at all between flights, once we got to Denver. I had to change planes, it was get off on, and right back on another to get it ready to go. Our second leg was to the layover, in Boston.

Today was the first time that I really noticed that the season is changing. There were lots of low clouds obscuring the ground, very little in the way of thunderstorms. The cold front that had moved across the country the last couple of days had cleaned everything out, and we were left with a very fall-like weather look. Winter is coming.

We ran into the back end of the cold front up in Boston. But we didn't get the bad weather that we had been expecting. But we did have some turbulence on the decent. It was a very nice day in Boston today.

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/f989669f-e345-42b6-9503-abf5e36dc40d.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/f989669f-e345-42b6-9503-abf5e36dc40d.jpg.html)

After I got settled in at the hotel I figured I might as well keep my tour of breweries going and I headed a couple of blocks over to the Harpoon Brewery and sampled a couple of brews.

Tomorrow is day #3, and while these last couple days have been long, with long flights, tomorrow is the longest.

[britrock88]

Glad you got to see Bozeman and Yellowstone! Some great places if you're willing to drive 8 hours from Bismarck. :)

[PilotMan]

Yeah, A long day.

It's late and I have to go to bed for tomorrow, but I want to get the update for today done first. My first leg was an early morning flight back to Denver from Boston. Another day of nice weather. Typical of fall weather. The flight was almost 4.5 hours. Once I got to Denver I had another 3 hour break between flights. I took that time to eat some lunch and make a couple laps around the building.

I finished the day heading to Minneapolis. There was no brewery on the schedule for today. We didn't get here until later in the afternoon, and tomorrow is the earliest start of the week. I need to get a good nights sleep tonight. Tomorrow is another fairly long day too, and it's go home day, so that'll make it that much longer.

I've had some really good landings on this trip. Not sure what I'm doing that's working, but it's almost rolling on to the runway. Feels great when you get those. My landings are usually pretty solid, but I haven't had this consistency for a while.

I don't remember reporting that I got my October bid in. I got it done a few days ago when I was home. Like I've said, I've got vacation, so I tried to be a little more aggressive with my days. I'm hoping that I can get a couple of weekends in the month. Halloween doesn't actually happen for us until the November bid. My bid months don't perfectly line up with calendar months.

My vacation lines up with the school district fall break, which I never had as a kid. There was no major break after school started until Thanksgiving. So now they get a 4 day in Oct, a 5 day in Nov, and two weeks over Christmas. Seems excessive. Lol.

[PilotMan]

The plan for the next day was to stay on time, and get back to Newark so I could make my flight home. The flight back to Denver and the flight to Newark accomplished both things. We ran on time and the lack of weather and the benefit of weekend flying saw that we ran a little early each flight.

As I was wrapping up this trip I realized that something had happened that I had never happen before. We had flown 8 legs, and we had carried guys on the jump seat on 5 of them. That's the first time that I've had more filled than empty jump seats. It also goes to show that flights are full and getting seats to go back and forth to work are even harder to come by.

I had an hour to kill before I went back home and grabbed a sandwich since I hadn't eaten since my flight to Denver. My flight was quite full, but there were quite a few other non-revs who were trying to travel. I talked to the agent and said that I'd sit on the jump if I needed to so that someone else could get on, but she reassured me that it was going to work out ok.

I had my seat and headed home to my family. My youngest son turned 12 yesterday. One last year until they are all teenagers and older. That really doesn't matter that much, but it means that we've finally traversed that path known as childhood. These boys are now young men, and I only have a few years left to help turn them into great men. I think back on those younger years with a moist eye. I miss those times and the wonder and awe that each of them had. Don't take that time for granted.

I got up this morning to my middle son asking me about some math homework he was struggling with and about a functions question that he had on a standards exam that he had. He laid out the functions and I was a little proud that I was able to write the algebraic equation for the function by just working the functions backward. Hopefully even just this little moment for us helps and encourages him forward in his STEM pursuits. It's one thing that I wouldn't have gotten as a kid that I've been able to give him. For that alone, I am a success.

I'm back to work tonight. Commuting in to start a trip tomorrow. My days off went by fast again, they always do. I will also find out my bidding for October worked out. I realized that our end of year HOA meeting, that I'm supposed to be at, that I want to be at, that I kind of need to be at since I've been the main force for change in the HOA the last year is on a day that I'm pretty much guaranteed to be working because of the way that my vacation lies in the month. I missed the HOA picnic that I planned, now I'm likely to miss the EOY meeting where officers are elected and homeowners actually attend. I'm likely to be picked as President next year, so it would be nice to actually make the meeting. Not sure how all that's going to go down right now.

[PilotMan]

I was supposed to get something down here yesterday after work, but I was tired after a long day and had a short layover. My day started off around 730a with the ride to the Newark. No too early, which I was thankful for. I downloaded my paperwork on the way and was ready to head to the plane when I got there.

My day started off with a flight down to New Orleans. Weather wasn't a concern. In typical September fashion it was beautiful. Once we got to New Orleans I bought fresh Beignets for the whole crew. Call that a perk of the job. Being able to get some specialty food on the road, at the airport, then going somewhere else is pretty fun.

We were heading back to Newark on leg 2. This flight, like the first didn't have any weather, or issues of any kind. But after two flights of 3 hours I was feeling it. We had over 2.5 hours to wait until the next flight. I needed to charge my company ipad and my phone. I found a recliner next to an outlet, put my headphones on and napped in between texts from my wife.

After about 45 minutes it was time to get ready for the next flight. I rounded up all my crap and went to the plane. Our last leg was a short run up to Boston for the overnight. That flight goes pretty fast. Even though it's over an hour, we only spend about 20 minutes at cruise. In between it's busy getting up to cruise and then it's busy getting ready for the decent and the approach.

In Boston we don't even leave the airport. The hotel is right there, but I haven't had dinner and I'm not buying hotel food tonight. I fail at the foodcourt. Who would have thought that in Boston, the restaurants close at 8? I found a salad at one of the few places that was still open and headed out. From the time I got to my room to the time I was asleep was only about 2 hours. Not a whole lot of free time today.

Sleep came easy and I was up by 7 this morning. Saturday didn't even figure into it, except that it's the NDSU/UND football game today. This was later than I usually get to get up at home to I was thankful.

Today was one of the short days. The main goal again was to be safe, on time, and keep it easy. Weather was awesome today and made my flight down to Dulles easy. Days like today make it easy to enjoy my job. We changed planes in DC, had enough time to grab a quick lunch to go, then headed to the next plane to get it ready to go.

The next and last leg was back to Boston for another layover, the third, since last Saturday. Also the third different hotel. We got out of DC quick, no delays, and despite heavy arrivals into Boston, and some fancy ATC routing we got to the gate on time.

The big deal for me today was to get to the hotel downtown with enough time to watch the NDSU/UND game on ESPN3. As of right now, it's 27-3, NDSU. Later I've got plans to get together with DT, or I guess I should say, the guy who was formerly known as DT, since he isn't around here anymore, for dinner.

Here's a couple pics to share with you. The first is a very nice sunset shot of New York from last night heading up to Boston.

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/2dfc33e2-e8e6-4981-9ad7-10e4b6d3691a.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/2dfc33e2-e8e6-4981-9ad7-10e4b6d3691a.jpg.html)

And the next is a shot from Dulles today. The chemtrails...ahem..contrails are hanging in the sky a long time today and you can see how the commercial airliners use the same routing frequently. Here it looks like they are flying side by side, but what you are actually seeing is the contrail from each plane drifting from the wind as they fly over the same fix and make the turn on course.

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20150919_1203251.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20150919_1203251.jpg.html)

So my October schedule is here too. In the grand scheme it's ok. I got some of the things that I wanted, but I screwed up my bid again and it cost me by me having to work over Halloween now. My kids are too old for it now, but we still do some neighborhood activities. My 7 days of vacation was widened to a total of 13 days off, which is nice, it gives me some flexibility if I need to try and move trips around or just pick something else up. All in all, because of the vacation I've only got a couple of trips. But like I said, I'm still not satisfied. I hadn't planned on having that trip run over Halloween. I'll be looking at the trips available throughout the month to see if I can't get something worked out. I had been worried about being able to make it to the HOA meeting, and from the looks of my schedule right now, it looks like I will. That was a surprise. I had written that off. So all in all, it should be a good month. Only one of my trips isn't commutable on both ends, so that's even better than I had for September. That means that it's down to just 2 months left to worry about for this year, and they are big ones. November has the obvious in addition to my anniversary and then the big one in December. Bidding should be fun for both of those.

[PilotMan]

Here's DT and I from dinner tonight:

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20150919_210638.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20150919_210638.jpg.html)

[PilotMan]

Today was one of the absolutely best days that I've had for flying in months.

It seems like a long time ago, but we did start the day in Boston. Maintenance had the plane since overnight and they were a little slow getting it to the gate for the morning flight out. That put us just a couple of minutes behind schedule for our flight back to Newark. We finally got everything done and the bags were loaded and we were off, what seemed like, really late. Now this flight is frequently delayed due to weather or capacity so it gets blocked really fat. Meaning that the scheduled flight time takes into account for delays, and we still had a chance to get in on time.

The route from Boston isn't exactly straight. We flew west, before we flew south and came into the NY airpace from the NW. Newark was landing to the north, and they step you way down early due to overflying departures off of Newark, and arrivals into the other NY airports. So they had us down at a lower altitude for almost 20 minutes as they vectored us to our runway. The weather was really nice, and you could tell that every other pilot was out flying their own planes because of all the "non-commercial" radio traffic. We parked at the gate right on time and had no worries for the passengers to make their next flights.

I had about an hour and fifteen before I had to be at the plane for my next flight, this one a transcon out to Orange County, CA. I chose to spend the time walking around the terminals knowing that I'd be sitting for 6 hours later.

The flight out to the OC was easily one of the best I've had in a while. The weather was perfect. From the moment that I turned the seat belt sign off it was over 3 hours until I had to touch it again, and then it was only a couple of minutes as we climbed up to 40000ft to get out of the bumps. Then it was smooth again.

I took one picture today. After a little bit of research, this is Canyonlands National Park.

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/b8ab41ac-b7c4-4cf0-87e4-4bcdbc81999c.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/b8ab41ac-b7c4-4cf0-87e4-4bcdbc81999c.jpg.html)

We got into Santa Ana about 12 minutes early. It was hot here today. I'm not used to seeing the thermometer his 96 here. Some of the 737-800's of another company couldn't take off as it was too hot, and the runway was too short. You know that wasn't part of the plan.

I've got one leg tomorrow to get back to Newark and then find my way home again. The Mrs and family spent the weekend doing family, outdoor activities, that I missed again. This was also the weekend that I was supposed to be off to go to Columbus. I'm glad they found something to do, but I hate missing out on the County Farm Tour. Ahh well. The pics she took looked good.

Just two more trips until vacation.

[britrock88]

Love the Canyonlands shot. Have to get back to SE Utah after spending several days in SW Utah this summer. (Yes, there's that much scenery in southern Utah!)

[PilotMan]

Argh, I'm super behind.

I'm going to be brief and try and catch up tomorrow. This layover is short and I just don't have the time to really do it justice.

I finished my last trip and was able to make it home on the first flight back. At this point, without looking I don't even remember where that last flight was or went to other than I made it home. Lol. That happens a lot. It's a lot of do it and forget it. Plus, the days and trips just run together after a few days. I know I couldn't even tell you where I went two weeks ago, or even what time I got home.

I headed back to Newark on Friday with an early start on Saturday. I got to the pad and found it nearly full. I was lucky that one of the other guys offered to give me the lower bunk since I was the first one to get up in the morning. Otherwise, I'd have been stuck on the top. This was the most people that I'd had in this crash pad since I started staying there.

Day one had me going out to Vegas and then back to Denver for the overnight. It was a longer day. Weather has been great so things have run smoothly. I've been trying to mentally make a list of some other things to write about, and I swear I will get to it. For now I want to leave you with these pics that I've taken on this trip. It's been great for sightseeing so far.

I'll start off with 2 pictures of the Grand Canyon, taken as we were on our way to Denver:

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/522ec7b6-9303-48bb-acc1-1caf84df4fae.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/522ec7b6-9303-48bb-acc1-1caf84df4fae.jpg.html)

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/9ef5949b-e460-4111-b763-6826114ba3c9.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/9ef5949b-e460-4111-b763-6826114ba3c9.jpg.html)

Next is a picture showing just how low Lake Meade is outside Vegas. I've drawn some arrows to show you that you can see the water line, like the inside of your toilet tank. On the right, you can see a marina that's has had to relocate significantly far away from the parking lot.

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/192fc080-862c-481c-9629-f5ebfe85f590.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/192fc080-862c-481c-9629-f5ebfe85f590.jpg.html)

I know I've taken a picture of Zion National Park before, but this is such a much better picture. I really love how it turned out:

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20150926_113053.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20150926_113053.jpg.html)

Next, flying over the Rockies you can see fall is in full swing. The Aspen trees are turning to their bright yellow color and can be seen all over.

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/db0fa038-a1fb-4746-ba0d-61507b299da0.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/db0fa038-a1fb-4746-ba0d-61507b299da0.jpg.html)

And last you can see how I finished off this long day. I had to take a nap so I could stay up for it, but I finally got to see the Dodgers while I was on a layover after just missing them a few times. Too bad they lost this game on a walk off HR. I had great seats for this one, and considering that Rockies lost 90 games this year, the stadium was so full! I was impressed.

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20150926_185626.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20150926_185626.jpg.html)

This morning I was up and we did a Nashville out and back to Denver, where I finished up tonight. I'm up very early tomorrow, but I wanted to get this semi caught up. Enjoy guys.

[PilotMan]

So let me start with today and see where this goes. We had a 6a van this morning to get to the airport in West Palm Beach. This is the last leg of this trip with today being go home day. It's been a productive, if not tiring, trip. Let's be honest, they are all tiring to one extent or another. It's part of the reason that I've not been good about updates here lately. When I get to the hotel I have an agenda, like eat and sleep or I'm just too tired to really put much thought into this.

So anyway, one leg back to Newark. We were ready about 10 minutes early, but for some reason we didn't have an ATC clearance for our IFR (Instrument Flight Rules, all commercial carriers operate on an IFR flight plan) flight plan. A call to dispatch was in order and they set to getting the problem resolved. We could push back and taxi out, we just couldn't go anywhere without it.

The ride into PBI was fairly bumpy yesterday, no, it was crap. It was just crap for well over an hour. So I didn't have much hope that we would find much of a smooth ride today either. Our flight plan came in and we verified our clearance and then were off, still early.

Much to my surprise the ride was mostly smooth for us. Perhaps being at 39000 ft today was good, as we were hearing rougher rides below. This flight used to be considered a long flight when I was flying for a previous company. Anything over 2 hours was, but on the 737, it's now a short flight. From the time we get to cruise until we start down it's really only a little over an hour and fifteen minutes or so.

This trip hasn't been as good as the last few. I've actually flown with this Captain before, and I remember complaining last time that we just don't "click" in the cockpit. He is a nice guy, but something about our personalities just don't mesh well so we go through bouts of irritation, conversation, quiet. I guess just how you'd normally spend hours on end with someone that you wouldn't spend time with outside of work.

We were going to be early into Newark today, and I was supposed to have a 3 hour break. There was an earlier flight home, but it was scheduled to leave when we landed. So once we parked I didn't hurry off, but still checked the board to see if there was a chance. There was. It was delayed for maintenance, but it was still leaving in 10 minutes.

I had to walk across one terminal, ride the bus, then get to the gate. Odds were slim, but that flicker of hope started running through my mind. That's the dangerous part. The hope that you'll make it. I got to the gate and the plane was still there, but the agent was gone. The other agent said she already closed the flight, and didn't really go out of her way to try and help me. Ten minutes I stood there thinking that maybe she would take pity on me and just walk down and ask the other agent, but she didn't. She did all she needed to, and I missed my chance to get home.

I won't deny it. I was hot, irritated. The plane didn't leave for 10 minutes. I know, I know, I've been lucky before, but you're not always lucky. I know. It's that damned hope. Hope can fuck with you and get you all wound up. I'm still going to get home today. Home to a torn up family room getting ready for a remodel this week. Tonight will be loading flooring up the stairs, and moving furniture and tomorrow will be tearing up carpeting. I like these projects to just "be done." Preferably done by someone else. Lol. The chaos of the in between blows.

Yesterday we were at cruise, coming from Denver back to Newark in the morning when a 767, coming back from Honolulu passed us, 2000 ft above on the same airway we were on. With both of us going to the same place. I've been hoping that this would happen because I wanted to share this unique sight that passengers would never get to see.

<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/j38f3KQBhu4" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" width="560"></iframe>

Alright, so it's probably not that exciting. Just 2 planes flying in the same direction. Doesn't even look fast. We were cruising at .77 Mach, a very normal speed for our plane, and he was probably around .84. That equates to about 40-45 mph faster. So over a 2 hour flight, he ends up roughly 12 minutes ahead until the approach controller gets a hold of him. He landed right in front of us, or about 3 minutes ahead of us.

[PilotMan]

Days at home go by so fast. We moved furniture, ripped up carpet, brought up the new flooring from the basement and got it ready to go. We had flooring to do and a completely new (gas insert) fireplace surround complete with new tile. After 2 long days we still aren't done, but the handyman will come back on Monday and I really hope it's done. We'll have to finish up the grouting work in a couple of days, but overall it's a big upgrade in the room.

The best news of the week was hurricane Joaquin going out the sea. For a while it looked like it was going to make the NY area a mess and a sure fire suck fest to try and commute to work for me. Thank goodness that didn't happen. I start my work week tomorrow, but still had to leave home at 230p today so I could have enough flights to get there. Saturday's can be a big problem coming from Cincinnati. Sometimes there aren't any direct flights, but I lucked out with 3 today. I had to travel on the middle flight so I would have at least one back up flight. That flight ended up being full, and it looked like I would be stuck in the cockpit again, but the other non revenue passenger didn't show up so I got the last seat in the cabin.

I got to Newark and grabbed some Qdoba to take to the crash pad. I got there just in time to catch the start of the NDSU football game on ESPN 3. I'm number 2 in the crash pad tonight, which beats the hell out of number 5. This trip is the last one that I've got before my second week of vacation for 2015.

So I think I've covered what happens during the preflight, taxi out and takeoff. The next section of the flight is the climb out and cruise. Departures can be pretty basic at times. We will always be given an initial altitude to climb to. ATC will either assign us an initial heading as well, or we'll be cleared to depart via any one of a number of other departure procedures that might be GPS or ground navigation based.

We'll have 5-7 controller changes as we climb up through ATC sectors and head out of controller airspace. If I'm the guy flying I try and hand fly the first 15 minutes of the flight or so. Of course that might change, if the sun is in my eyes or it's complicated and busy I may turn the auto pilot on early. If it's quiet and nice, I may handfly the plane all the way up to cruising altitude, 25-30 minutes.

Once we are above 10,000 ft we are technically out of sterile cockpit procedures. Meaning we can relax a little and have a little conversation, but generally, while we are climbing out it's still all business. Radio chatter is busy and if anything is going to go wrong it's got a better chance to happen early into the flight. It's really important that both guys are clear on where we are going, and what the last instructions from ATC were. Getting an instruction wrong, like speed, altitude, heading is not only potentially dangerous, but it's a quick trip to a 30-day, unpaid, suspension and an FAA mark on your permanent record. That's all relevant at all times, but on climbs and descents, more is going on, and the chance for errors is higher. Being able to work together and following standard protocols is necessary for the safe, reliable operation and keeps each pilot tuned in and you know what to expect.

We reach cruising altitude around 25-30 minutes after takeoff and then step through some basic procedures for the cruise. Long haul, over sea's flights have some extra steps, but the main checks are fuel, altitude, and winds. Then what?

The auto pilot and pilots gets a lot of discussion. There is this big misconception that the auto pilot does everything. That we are up there as glorified babysitters who really don't know what's going on as the plane just flies itself to the destination. I think this one generality is one of my biggest pet peeves. Auto pilot is nothing more than cruise control for cars with altitude control. I'm still monitoring over 20 engine gauges, checking for correct auto pilot mode operation, checking pressurization, fuel and controlling the cabin temps. Simple changes in altitudes require cross verification and a multi step process just to move to the next altitude.

"It's always cold."

No kidding, it took me 20 minutes the other day to get the temp right in the cabin. The planes are notoriously finicky about temps. They are old, new good, bad. Each takes a good bit of tinkering with to get right and then, just when you've got it right the flight attendants call and tell you something isn't right. The temps that we have in the cockpit aren't the same at all in the back. We generally have the sun beating in somewhere and with the smaller space we might keep it colder than the cabin. Some planes have the cabin temp controller in the back for the flight attendants to adjust, but that's not the way the 737 works.

So from taxi out to cruise, it's probably 50 minutes into the flight before I really sit back and think about anything else. Then from about 45 minutes before we are supposed to be landing things pick up again. Flights on my 737's that are 1h30m or less can be quite busy up front.

Tomorrow is a one leg day to a good layover. It's time to call it a night.

[PilotMan]

My one leg yesterday started with a 530 get up for a scheduled 755a flight down to Cancun. We were routed around a couple of large areas of turbulence, and we knew that we were going to pick up some flying over the Carolinas. Speaking of that area, it's good that there wasn't a whole lot there at impacted our flight. Just some bumps as we went south. In short order we started out over the Gulf about 80 miles north of Tampa. We were past the worst of it and there was smooth sailing ahead. Cancun has some pretty strict rules about arriving early. We were originally planned in 14 minutes early, just within the guidelines, but a fast departure out of Newark has us looking at closer to 28 minutes. There's only so much you can do to slow down. I messaged dispatch and he called down to the station to smooth over any issues that there might be and messaged us back that we'd be alright when we got there.

This layover is the longest of the trip, almost clocking in at 19 hours. After taking care of talking to the family I changed clothes and headed over the the taco shop across the street for some fish tacos and cervezas. I ended up sitting with a couple of local guys who worked at the hotel next door and we chatted about work, Cancun and the upcoming USA v. Mexico soccer match. They seemed to think very highly of the US team and not very much about the current Mexico team. They could have been trying to make me feel better though. :) Those fish taco's are so damn good and at 88 pesos for 4 of them, at the going exchange and they are a whopping $1.30 each. You can't beat that. I'd pay more than that for a beer later in the day.

I had been looking forward to this layover since I got the award on my schedule. It's easy to see why. The day was about as perfect as they come.

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151004_1319551.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151004_1319551.jpg.html)

I was up and off to work before dawn again today. This leg of the trip started off with a flight back to Houston. In typical fall fashion the ride was excellent. We had a great flight. We were one of the first planes off the gate in Cancun and ended up with another fast taxi out and take off. That doesn't always happen here. The ramp can get very busy, like this summer, when we waited almost 30 minutes to push back and I missed my flight home from vacation.

We landed back in the states and for some reason that time of day was exceptionally busy. The ramp controller was doing his best puzzle game and moving planes to move other planes, to move other planes. We just wanted in and off, and because of our early departure from Cancun we were still in the gate over 15 minutes early.

In Houston, I had just about 20 minutes to clear customs, hit the bathroom, make a phone call, download my paperwork and get to the next plane. Plenty of time.

My second flight took me back to Boston again. We had a great ride until we hit the DC area. Our dispatcher had sent us some pilot reports from ahead so we knew that there might be some bad rides. We had enough time to get the passengers seated and the flight attendants notified that it was coming.

We landed early in Boston and headed to the hotel for the night. I tried to get the Captain to walk over to the Harpoon brewery nearby, but he had taken nasty fall yesterday and was feeling pretty banged up and not like it. So I walked to Jimmy Johns for a sandwich for dinner and then back to the hotel. Nothing exciting about that. The sunset tonight was impressive. I managed to get a great pic of it while I was walking back:

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151005_1824261.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151005_1824261.jpg.html)

Tomorrow will be another early morning and the longest day of the trip. I won't get to the hotel tomorrow until after being on duty for over 12 hours. One more day closer to vacation. Two days down on this trip, two days to go.

[PilotMan]

You'd think I'd be all used to these early morning wake up's by now. All month and most of last has been early mornings. Then I go home and get up early to get the kids to school. I hate early mornings. Much more of a night owl, which you can see if you look at the time stamps on many of these posts. Boston seemed like a long time ago. The first flight was a short hop down to Newark. Today also marked the first time of the fall where I could see my breath on the walk around. Grr.. something about winter...coming...fuck it, it's too early.

This morning was gorgeous. We cruised down at 16000 feet which seems low, but Boston and NY need to keep you down below other traffic traversing the area. There's just too many planes to worry about getting you all the way up and down. We were coming in from the north and Newark was landing to the north, which meant that we had to tool around at 6000 feet for almost 20 minutes while they flew us to the other side of New Jersey to shoot the approach.

When I think of New Jersey, and I know it's not fair, I think of crime, filth, and shipping yards, Atlantic City, whores, and the Jersey Shore. It's not flattering. I will say that it earns it's nickname, the Garden State. From the air it's quite a sight to see, especially on a nice morning like today was. I caught sight of a hot air balloon skimming the tree tops this morning as we were making our way toward Newark. No way I'm doing that. Scary.

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/29914bde-5569-4a45-99b9-5f92a04da668.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/29914bde-5569-4a45-99b9-5f92a04da668.jpg.html)

We touched down and again made it to the gate early. Nice days make for solid schedules. Then we had almost 3.5 full hours of break time before the next leg. My plan was to store my bags and the I walked around the terminal for about an hour. After I was tired of that I headed down to ops where I charged up all my electronics and drifted off to a nice little nap. The time flew by and I had to get back up for the next flight, this time back out to LA.

I looked at the paperwork and didn't really see any areas of concern. A stray thunderstorm over Denver and maybe some light turbulence over the Great Lakes. This was too easy. We pushed 5 early and ended up #2 for takeoff. Only 5 hours and 39 minutes to go. That equates to about 6.5 hours of sitting. We get up and take our lav breaks and meal breaks. Even getting up 2x during the flight helps. The plane had a problem with the wifi that wouldn't clear, but they still had tv back there. There's nothing that I can do except to power cycle it. If that doesn't work it's out of my hands. True to form the trip was good. The only real drawback was that there was a lot of low cloud cover, which is another sign of the fall/winter weather pattern across the US. Smoother rides for us, but nothing to look at, and then in just a few weeks, my most hated of all days. The fall back to the end of Daylight Savings Time.

Getting into LA was easy today. No delays and they cleared us for an approach to the north runway. Our taxi in even managed to stay on time. We had to wait for a plane to exit the alley where our gate was, but that couldn't throw us off. Our layover was in Redondo again, and today I felt like going out to enjoy the awesome day. I stopped at one of my favorite places for, you know, fish tacos and a beer then headed out down the beach to walk off my dinner.

I came across these benches near the volleyball courts on the beach. They appear to be left over from the '84 summer olympics. I thought that was pretty cool to be just sitting here along the beach.

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151006_1658111.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151006_1658111.jpg.html)

Last, before I head off to sleep til tomorrow. The sunsets here are just awesome, and this particular one I could watch from my room, where I could see the ocean. Today, like day 1 in Cancun, certainly makes a case for the fantastic perks of this job.



http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151006_1900501.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151006_1900501.jpg.html)

Tomorrow is one leg back to Newark, and it's GO HOME DAY! Go home to start this vacation! Our bidding window opened for November. 5 full weekends plus the holidays of Halloween and Thanksgiving, plus my 15th Anniversary. The list of what I can actually get will be very small next to the list of what I have no hope of getting. There's going to be a lot of trading off to come out of that with something decent and I need to try and do it before I leave on vacation and the whole thing slips my mind.

[PilotMan]

Oh man, I've started this post a bunch of times, but can't seem to get it going. It seems like it was a long time ago since I left LA and started my vacation, and I guess it was. Let me tell you, it was great. It was great because it was just what everyone needed. We got to get away for a few days, unwind, spend some time together, and recharge.

When we got back I still had a week until my next flight. With the boys back in school our normal routine started back up. One son ended up in the Dr.'s office but seemed to shrug it off with some medicine. I ended up driving my middle son to Bowling Green, KY, where we took a tour of a high school for gifted STEM students at WKU. They take kids for 11th and 12th grade, fully paid room and board and they will graduate high school with 60 college credits. I know that it's perfect for him. All he needs is to keep doing what he is doing and he can do it. The average ACT score for incoming Juniors was 30.8. Not sure he will score that high, but his drive in STEM is very strong. I have very mixed feelings about sending him away two years early. I know he could handle it, he's very well rounded and he would love it, but the parent in me just isn't ready for that yet. It's still a couple years away, so I've got some time to come to terms with it. We took some more family time over the weekend to do our yearly fall leaf drive and picnic. Another great adventure. I also had my important HOA annual meeting and was picked, based on the my successes this year, to be the president for next year. I topped all of it off by shopping for and starting the application process for HELOC so we can keep upgrading the house and consider finishing the basement off. Busy, busy, busy.

I got the results of my November bid and lo and behold it's not half bad. The downside is that I work all 5 weekends (counting Halloween as November, because it is for bidding purposes.) But the upside is at least it's consistent throughout the month. I've got a nice break between trips and a pretty good number of days off. I've got our Anniversary off and I'm actually going to be home on Thanksgiving day. I have to leave the next day, but I haven't been home on Thanksgiving for a couple years at least.

Wednesday morning I headed out around 530a to catch a flight to Newark and get back to the task at hand, flying airplanes. My flight in left me with about 90 minutes before I had to be at the plane. I had enough time to grab a quick breakfast, charge up my Ipad and wait. I'm getting sick. The kind of sick that reminds me of how my son was sick last week. Hmmmmmm. How is this possible? Oh, and not only did he manage to get me sick, but the Mrs, and his brother are also sick. Booooooo.

The first flight was a long transcon to San Francisco. I won't lie. This is just the kind of flight that is challenging after a layoff. It's long, and boring. Boring is good. It's infinitely better than action packed, I'm good with boring. But boring is still boring. This already makes for a long day, but when we got to SFO we had a two hour sit and another leg to LAX after.

By this time I had been on the go for over 12 hours since leaving home that morning and I wasn't exactly feeling great. I was ready to get to the hotel. We had to wait for some traffic to clear behind us in order to push off the gate, then we were underway. SFO was advertising 2 departure runways so we set up for the most expected runway. As we taxied out, ATC had a change of heart and told us to get set up for the other runway, that the one we had been planning on was currently closed. When we have a runway change all the work falls to me in the right seat. The first thing is that we need new takeoff data. I have to reload our flight computer for the new runway, then double check the new take off data that comes back. Reset any flap settings, take off speeds, power settings and verify that our departure is correct for the new runway. Then when I've got all that set up, I have to verify all of it with the Captain so that he knows we are all on the same page, and that he can double check all my work and see if I missed anything. In the meantime, I'm working the radios and making sure that we aren't taxing anywhere we aren't supposed to be. The goal is to be ready to go when you get to the runway. We got there and then were promptly told that he other runway was open and to taxi over there and get ready to go. It was kind of exasperating. I mean, I had just busted it all out and now I've got to go back and do it all again. There's just so many places that you can make an error, you've got to be so dialed in and focused to make sure you've got it all together. Now, I've done this many, many times, but that doesn't make each time any less important. Finally, after I had it all set up again, we were ready to blast off for LAX.

My goal was to try and make up some of the time that we lost on the push back and all the runway changes we endured. Plus it couldn't hurt to try and get to the hotel faster, right? ATC was going to slow us down, but then told us they would let us go, and sandwich us between two "heavies," meaning large wide body plane with a takeoff weight of greater than 300,000 lbs. We would be behind an Asiana 777, like the one that plowed into the sea wall in SFO.

Before we left SFO, the flight attendant told us that Jim Belushi was riding with us. That's cool. Wake turbulence is caused by the wash from planes and is worse when the plane is heavy, slow and clean, or like slowing planes on descents into certain airports when I'm behind them. It feels like uncontrollable turbulence to a passenger. The plane kind of bucks and rolls like a knuckleball dancing in the air. It's usually not terrible, but yesterday it got pretty sporty. I'm sure it made Jim hold on a little bit tighter. ATC had us slow down more to get some more spacing, then told us we would have an extended downwind. We had a great view of the Hollywood sign and Dodger Stadium as we cruised over downtown. We landed on the north side of the airport, but had to taxi to the far south side. About as far away as we could get. Then we found out that our gate wasn't ready. So it must have seemed like we had no idea where we were going, because it just took forever and ever. Eventually, we got where we needed to go, about 20 minutes later than we hoped. Thank god that's over with.

I got to my room, threw a shirt on and walked right across the street to the Burger King for my killer dinner. Too tired to do anything else, too far from anything else.

This morning we headed back out in the dark, and took another plane back to the east coast. I'm still not feeling great. Just kind of getting by. This flight was just under 5 hours, and it's not our only flight today either. We had another two hour break and when we got to Dulles I had hoped to go to the clinic, but there isn't one in Dulles. So I opted for a recliner and a 30 min nap before the next flight.

Before we got into DC, I took this great pic of the leaves in full color in Virginia. It's a great time for sightseeing in the mountains. I did enhance it a bit so the colors pop a little better. My original looks a little washed out, but these are indeed the colors you see.

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/270818c7-7f0a-4c55-8a26-e3b7fa561516.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/270818c7-7f0a-4c55-8a26-e3b7fa561516.jpg.html)

We were just about ready to leave Dulles, when the tug driver told us they had maintenance coming out to check something out. We didn't know about it, this was the first we had heard of it. We were closed up and ready to go. Luckily it turned out to be minor, but it still cost us 15 minutes. Dulles has a runway closed and they gave us a very circuitous route to get to the runway. At least they only gave us the one runway today. We took off into the setting sun and made our way down to Orlando for the night.

Here's the sunset that we got to look at as we were climbing out. That bright orange ball is a pain in the ass, but it sure is pretty at times.

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151022_1836522.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151022_1836522.jpg.html)

It didn't take long for it to be dark again. That's one of the hardest things about the winter time and we haven't even hit the time change yet. It's starting the day in the dark and ending it in the dark. As we cruised past Savannah I got a really good picture of the city lit up at night. We're cruising at 34000 feet in this picture.

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151022_1922521.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151022_1922521.jpg.html)

That's it for tonight. The rest of my schedule on this trip is much more manageable. Or shall I say easy. I get a long layover tomorrow night to recover and I don't have a flight longer than 2 and a half hours the rest of the way.

I'll admit, the wear of the writing is wearing on me a little. I'm feel like I'm losing my steam a little bit, but there's only like 10 weeks left for the year. Wow, 10 weeks. Crazy. I'll make it. I'm worried that it's getting a little repetitive, but that's kind of what it is. One thousand things repeated over and over again. I guess maybe that's the point of all of this. To try and give a peek into my life at the same time help you to understand what this life is like. It's way too late. My alarm clock will be going off before I know it.

[PilotMan]

I had a nice long post here and I was switching between tabs and I accidentally closed it and then I screamed obscenities.

So to recap all that good stuff that you missed because I screwed up. It wasn't long after I posted above that I was in bed, and not long after that I was woken up. We have a text notification system that lets you know when your schedule has changed. I has a setting where I can turn off notifications and set the time you don't want to be disturbed. I thought that I had set it for that. Apparently, I was wrong. Right around 340a I got a series of 4 text messages saying my trip had changed. Of course I had to check. I had to get up in 3 hours anyway.

When I was with my previous airlines, schedule changes were much more common, but this was the first time in 2 years that it had happened to me here.

I was thinking that I really wanted to see something on there that would let me sleep in, but no, that's not what it said. I was supposed to be doing one leg to IAD and then going to the hotel to call it a day, but instead I've got to do another flight back to Orlando for another night there. My next day is different too. Instead of doing IAD/MCO (Orlando)/EWR, I'm flying to Houston and then scheduled to deadhead back to Newark. The deadhead means that I'll have the chance to go home directly from Houston, but with the weather coming in, it might turn into a mess. I'm hoping I get in and out of there before things really go south.

Today was fine, not too terribly early to get up, and each flight ran on time. We had to change planes in DC, and it was enough time to make a call to check on the family and see how everyone was feeling. Orlando was crazy today. Just crazy busy. No idea, it's like Christmas in there. So many people, and it's almost always busy, but not on this level. This was something else. We had a jumpseater both directions today.

After I got to the hotel today, I headed back out and had to get some exercise in. Feeling badly, having long days, has kept me from really doing anything. I made a few loops around the lake downtown and then headed to a Thai restaurant for dinner, alone.

Tomorrow will be early, but the hotel is noisy tonight. I think there's a wedding in the park tomorrow and they are tearing it up. I need that weather to hold off so I can get home.

I took a couple more pics today. Both are throwbacks to when I lived here and trained here. I flew all over Orlando. Basically, this is the birthplace of my career. It started here, at Sanford. Here is where I earned my private, instrument, commercial, flight instructor, instrument instructor, and multi engine instructor ratings. I worked as a check airman and was able to pass guys and give them their own certificates. It seems a long time ago.

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151023_0926301.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151023_0926301.jpg.html)

The next pic is another pic of history. This is Deland, where I soloed. The first solo is a huge deal for a pilot. It's that time when he has to know what to do, because it's all on him to get back to earth safely. I still remember that feeling of taking off alone, and being airborne, alone. It's something. The next day after I soloed, at almost the same time, there was a fatal mid air here. Between one plane in the pattern and another doing a practice instrument approach. In the corner you can see Daytona Beach airport, and the beach where I got engaged while I was there.

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151023_0929081.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151023_0929081.jpg.html)

[claphamsa]

just a random thought...in my flight home from Paris today, the pilot announced of the loudspeaker that the flight attendants should go back to their seats...do you all ever get "sensitivity training" or anything like that? some pilots talk alot, and some say nothing,, an some scare the crap out of the flyers.

[PilotMan]

As in that's all he said, for the entire flight?

Generally speaking, an announcement like that would be for the safety of the flight attendants. It generally means that the ride is going to be potentially dangerous and that they need to be seated right away.

What do you mean exactly by sensitivity training? Are you talking about how pilots are supposed to talk to passengers, and what announcements are or should be made?

If that's the case then, yes, there are some announcements that are required by law. For example, every time the seatbelt sign comes on in flight someone has to make an announcement that says "put your seat belts on." Some companies a flight attendant can make that, but for us, the pilots have to.

Outside of the required announcements, there are recommended ones. As for the quality of the announcements that is up each pilot. You're right, some guys really like to talk, some don't. I'm in the middle. I like to make what's required, plus I'll make an extra one here or there, but I try to make them very professional and thorough.

As for scaring people, I don't think I've every flown with anyone who set out to scare people. I understand that turbulence can be scary, especially when it comes out of nowhere, but it catches us by surprise too. We can't see it, we can't avoid it all the time. We do our best and it's a big deal. There have been some very serious injuries that resulted from turbulence. Broken necks, backs, legs, arms. It's not good. That's why we try and be conservative with that sort of thing. Those kinds of injuries are bad news.

So today was the earliest start of the week. This whole early morning thing makes me sound snarky, but people who get up at 4a because they can have issues. One leg left for this trip and I'm ready to be done. My kids and wife are feeling better, but I'm still not feeling good. I'm guessing the schedule and lack of any true rest as a lot to do with it.

The weather in Houston wasn't holding off for us. We were off the gate 10 minutes early and on our way. The computer was kicking out some takeoff data that had a flaps setting that we didn't want to use, so I reloaded it for a new flaps setting and verified all the data we took off.

The flight west was easy, no delays. We landed and the company changed our arrival gate. No reason why, it was open and available for us. I said goodbye to everyone, packed up my stuff and left. Still not feeling great I headed for the medical clinic at the airport. I needed to get looked at. The dr wasn't too impressed, but was happy I was heading for some days off. He gave me some much stronger medicine and sent me off.

My flight home was running on time. I grabbed some Panda Express and went to wait. The company that was operating the flight had to play some rotating crew games and our flight attendant was late inbound. Even with the delay I was just happy that the weather was not going to be an issue, and that I already had a seat in the back and didn't need to sit in the cockpit going home.

Home at last, home at last. The last weekend that I'll be home through at least the month of November. I need to rest and try and kick this cold. I'm taking the Mrs. to see Rob Thomas on Wednesday. We've got 5th row, center stage seats. We haven't been to a concert together since we saw Sugarland and Brooks and Dunn years ago. So it's not like this is a regular thing. I just got lucky when the opportunity came up to snag some great tickets. She was very surprised. Might as well call it an early Anniversary present.

[claphamsa]

not sure who all said what, I was enjoying the 9 hours of a decent movie selection :)

it really freaked some people out when he said that (also of note, there was a pilot and 2 copilots, I assume for the long flight)

I guess you mostly answered my question (jet lag is killing me). I have heard some pilots really freak out, and I assume its for a good reason. (I also deal with a passenger who is terrified of flying... so alarm is never a good thing)

[CraigSca]

Hey - I was just at Sanford yesterday. Took my two year old to see some planes landing, but it was a slow day, so we only saw one large plane land.

I live right in Winter Springs - did you live in Sanford when you worked here? Please tell me you've been to Hollerbach's Willow Tree Cafe when you were living here :)

[PilotMan]

We lived in Lake Mary when we were there, and sadly no, I've never been to the Willow Tree Cafe. We didn't spend a whole lot of time in Sanford in all honesty. The one place I miss though is Keller's Smoked BBQ. Great BBQ for that area. Tijuana Flats is the other place we used to go that I haven't been to in years.

At one time Sanford was one of the top airports in takeoffs and landings. And yes, that stuff get's tracked for funding and airspace designation purposes. According to the Orlando Sentinel in April of 1999, 8 months before I started there, it was the #5 airport in the US for takeoffs and landings for General Aviation airports (meaning small planes, not necessarily commercial flights.)

I thought that while I was there we jumped to #2 behind somewhere in Calif, but it was just crazy for a while and a lot of fun.

Since we were talking about Sanford, my fun fact of the day is this:

On the day that I was going to solo I was pumped up because the Foo Fighters' song, Learn to Fly, came on the radio while I was heading to the airport. It seemed like providence at that point. LOL.

[PilotMan]

My voice is a little hoarse today, party from still recovering from the nasty cold that I've had, and mostly from the concert last night. I don't think I need to go into great detail about it, but it we had a really good time. We had 5th row, center stage, seats for Rob Thomas. We both fully enjoyed it It's important for us to be able to get out for a night together sometimes. With three kids that all take up time, and my traveling that shortens just how much flexibility we have in our time together and it's easy to just fall into this pattern where we just do our own thing.

I know that I mentioned this issue in marriages and aviation. I've flew with a guy a few years ago who sat there and told me he commuted for over 20 years, worked when he could to provide for his family and put his kids through school. Then when they were gone, his wife divorced him. He was blindsided. He felt betrayed that he had done all this for them, but the as I sat there and listened to him talk it became obvious to me that he had focused on the wrong thing.

As much effort as he put into his job and making money, he let his family get adjusted to life without him. Sure he was gone making the money for them, and I guess he expected them to just figure that was good enough. That the time spent with them didn't matter as much, because he was working for them and that they just had to understand that. And I think that in older generations that might be true. People who's parents lived through the depression, who had to leave to make money, or who had to sent their kids away because they couldn't afford to take care of them anymore. For those kids, now in their 60's, that philosophy works for them, but it doesn't work for their kids.

The Mrs and I, both came from families that were broken. For one reason or another we both went through life with big differences in what made families "normal." I think that's the building block of our family when you get right down to it. Our strong desire for our kids to have a life so different than what we went through. So when I'm gone my wife has to step up and take charge, but then when I get home, everyone has to adjust to the way things are with me there too.

I try and minimize the time I'm gone and maximize the impact of my time at home. If that means I fly more red eyes, and take trips that force me to work weekends and holidays, than so be it. I've made them, not money, or schedule my priority. They get all of me when I'm there. I don't go our for boys nights, hell I barely have any friends at all who are around, I don't take side trips on my own. I give all my time to them. I'll have time for myself later on, but I want them to have a Dad around they can depend on, not like the one I have.

So this morning I got up and left again. My flight was supposed to have around 10 open seats on it and getting here shouldn't have been a big deal, but as boarding continued the number of seats started dropping. I didn't even list for the jump seat, I certainly didn't think that my options would shrink, but another company must have been booking these seats to make up for a cancellation somewhere. The last seat finally disappeared and they were in a hurry to get the plane out, and I still hadn't listed. Another pilot, a former coworker at another airline had already listed, and thankfully there were two jumpseats we could use, because otherwise I'd have been SOL this morning. The gate agent got me in the system and I was allowed on, to sit in the cabin jump seat, sandwiched in the row, right in front of the lavatory.

I got to Newark around 11, and didn't need to be at work until just after 3. Another day where I spend 4 hours at the airport just hanging out. I went down to the cafeteria and grabbed a burger for lunch then off to ops to try and get some work done. We've got another busy week of meetings for the kids, bank meetings for closings and a landscaper coming to the house to start some pretty heavy work. All that has to get scheduled and fit in to the normal stuff going on. I sat here and made some calls then messaged the Mrs to let her know and put on the calendar. It's just a busy time for us.

I'm off to Phoenix this afternoon. My trip starts off with this one leg flight and then to the hotel for an early morning tomorrow. I'm signing off here, downloading my paperwork, then heading to the plane.

Here's my view from the concert last night:

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xft1/v/t1.0-9/12065674_10153693603324648_1314027103829840940_n.jpg?oh=c556049f960aca330979d11ddd024900&oe=56B0069C

[PilotMan]

My layover last night in Phoenix was only about 12 hours. The flight down there was beset with turbulence for most of the first half of our, 5 hours flight. I don't think it started to smooth out until we were around Kansas City. There was absolutely nothing to look at. It was cloudy, such is the fall/winter cycle, and everything was covered.

When I got to the hotel last night there really wasn't anything to do. Twelve hours in between flights equates to about 3-4 hours of free time before it's time to get ready or bed. That time doesn't include the travel from the airport to the hotel, nor does it include the travel time back so we get to the gate at our appropriated 45 minutes before departure. That usually means that we're leaving between an hour and hour and a half before. Then you figure that hour and fifteen early my alarm starts to go off and it's clear that it gets a little short.

This morning we were off to Houston to start the day. We were rerouted twice on the ground, then given a thirty minute delay by ATC due to spacing because of the weather in Texas. After we got going we tried to make up some of it, but I think we were still over 20 minutes late. On the way there we heard that Austin was closed due to flooding at the airport and that the tower had been evacuated because of the storms there. I'm glad we didn't have to deal with it.

In Houston we had about an hour to kill before it was time to pre-flight the next plane. I opted for some food court lunch knowing we weren't going to be getting any food on the plane. By the time I got to the gate they were already boarding the flight. We pushed early, taxied out and took off with virtually no delay.

I'm international again. Once again this year, I find myself in Cancun. We got here a few minutes early so everyone could get a few extra minutes in their vacations. That was pretty freaking nice of us.

The only drawback is that this layover is only a couple hours longer than last night, so it's not all that. Hell, the sun was off the pool when we got here so you should totally feel sorry for me.

The Captain and I grabbed some drinks and dinner and caught a little of the game. Tomorrow is a near a 430a wakeup, so I'm cutting this short and heading to bed. Happy Halloween tomorrow, I'll be on the road again, but looking forward to seeing an old friend tomorrow night.

[PilotMan]

Ok, so yesterday started off easy enough. We got going out of Cancun while it was still dark and headed off to the airport for the tenth or twelveth time. It can take a lot to get the plane ready to go, and the bulk of the preflight and setup falls on the first officer. From the moment that I step on the plane I've got about 30 minutes to have everything done. But I've covered all of this before. Cancun can be a little bit trickier because some of the automated things like weather and ATC clearance have to be obtained manually. The language barrier can be very challenging, so that all takes a little bit longer. I'm going to fast forward a little bit, because the meat of yesterday is going to take a while.

It all started about an hour into the flight and an hour until we were to get to Houston. It's no secret that that the weather in Houston has been crap the last few days. We had an alternate of New Orleans. All that means is that for us to legally depart to Houston, New Orleans has to meet certain weather requirements so we can fly to Houston then be nearly assured of getting into New Orleans. It doesn't mean, that's a hard and fast decision about where we are for sure going if it comes to that.

I sent a message to dispatch asking them to consider some other options because all the weather was heading at New Orleans. We found out that Houston hadn't been taking planes for over 30 minutes and they expected the airport to remain closed for at least another 30-45. Then they'd start letting some in. They messaged us back that New Orleans and San Antonio were off the books and full already. At this point, as every minute goes by we are getting busier and busier. It's hard to explain just everything that's going on in the cockpit.

We are going 500 mph toward the destination. It's not like we can just pull over and think about things. Fuel becomes the first thought almost immediately. We have rules that dictate how much fuel that we need to have when we land as well as when we are pretty much required to divert. Each alternate airport required fuel is different and the overall number is always changing relative to our position from the destination. It's quite a bit of mental math going on. Then there's making sure that wherever we choose we not only have the performance to get in, but to also get out again with the required fuel. So dispatch gets busy running those numbers and trying to find options for us, while we look at the weather, fuel, and start to formulate a plan of action all while driving ceaselessly toward the destination that we may or may not get into.

I was flying so my focus is on the plane, while the pilot monitoring (phrase for guy not flying or PM) is doing the messaging and trying to talk on the radios. He's got to keep the flight attendants in the loop with everything going on so they know what to expect and what kind of time they've got. So I may be on the radios too. Then we're both working together, looking at the most likely outcome and planning. It's busy.

ATC is filling us in on the changing situation and they tell us that we are getting a reroute. That immediately changes the fuel game, depending on where they move us to. Dispatch tells us that Dallas is where they'd like us to go to, but that our thought of Corpus is also an option. Both stations said they could accommodate us so it's kind of up to us at that point. Dispatch has some reservations about getting back out of Corpus as the runways are pretty short in comparison.

The reroute takes us from south of Houston, directly west over Corpus and to San Antonio, then Austin, before joining an arrival to Houston. They are still closed but look like it might open up. Then they give us a hold south of Corpus. Each and every one of these changes means a whole new slew of math to figure out our fuel number and how much longer we can go before we have to call it.

ATC comes back to us and says to forget the hold, they are going to have something else for us and keep heading west. We've can do all of this but really only have about 10-15 minutes of extra fuel to play with so each change is significant. Then we luck out. There's a hole on the backside of the airport and we're going to be about the 6-7th plane to be let in. Just a matter of luck, based on when and where we were. That changes our fuel situation and we get set up for the approach and arrival. The field still has heavy rain and storms around. On final, I'm concerned that we won't break out, the clouds are really low, but we find the lights just a couple hundred feet from decision altitude. It's pouring, the wipers are on fast, and I can only really see the runway for the split second between wiper passes. I have a nice touchdown and we are in. One leg to go, but we're already tired.

We were supposed to have a 3 hour break here, but after we clear customs, oh customs. Hmm, if we had diverted, because we were an international flight, nobody could have gotten off the plane, because they would have had to clear customs, so that would have sucked too. Anyway, we get back to the US and find out that the flight to Tampa is already delayed by almost 2 hours. No surprise. There were a lot of diversions earlier. It's going to take a lot of time to sort out. That put us in a situation where the company has to give us a hotel room, and in Houston, that's very convenient as it's right at the airport, just a few minutes away.

By the time I get into the room I've really only got a couple of hours of down time to recharge. I'm bummed because I've got plans with one of my best friends in Tampa, and we haven't seen one another in over 2 years. This just makes that a lot shorter. I'm on the phone when my phone starts messaging me. My schedule has changed again. I start to pull it up when scheduling calls.

We are being rerouted to operate a flight to Punta Cana. I ask when it's scheduled to leave? He says now. Right now. They know we are in the hotel and it'll take a few minutes to get ready. The effect on my trip means a couple more hours of pay, but I'm going to miss my flight home and have to take a much, much later one. I'll be home about 5 hours later than planned. So I guess I'm making up for last week.

The flight was actually already, 45 minutes late. My guess is that the inbound crew was diverted and stuck somewhere else. It took me about 30 minutes to pack up and get to the plane. There were a lot of frustrated passengers. Think about it. They just know that there's no crew and are pissed at the company because of it. They see the expected departure time getting pushed back and back and they blame the company. The entire cabin crew was pulled from somewhere else, the pilots were pulled from somewhere else and all we are trying to do is bust ass to get out of there, but the looks I'm getting as I walk up say that they think something different. It says "finally, where the fuck were you at?"

I sat down and had to get all the flight papers together. Then started the preflight. The Captain was about 10 minutes behind me so I got a lot done before he got there. It took some time, but we finally got loaded up and pushed back. Flights were now getting into Houston regularly, but gate space was full and the ramp was overloaded with planes waiting for parking spots. Thankfully, because we got in when we did, we were now going to be beating the rush of the next wave of departures.

We taxied out and ATC told us that we had a weather reroute. They wanted us to try out a new departure to see if it was good enough to send planes through. Our only other option was to get rerouted north over Arkansas and Tennessee. Really? We've got a crapton of fuel, but who wants to fly to the Dominican via Tennessee? The weather clearly looks like it's breaking up, but there is still a lot of weather out there. We are fine with going for a look and trying it out. We don't need anymore delays.

It takes about 20 minutes from getting the new clearance, to loading and double checking everything, to getting our new takeoff data. All of this work while we taxi our falls on me. The Captain taxi's the plane, I do the rest, plus make sure he knows where he is, and where he is going, and what our taxi clearance is. Busy.

We finally take off for our 4 hour flight and fly straight toward the weather, picking our way around the heaviest rain, but still getting plenty of turbulence. We have to keep everyone seated for the first 20 minutes of the flight while we fly through the stuff, then just as we we are about to break out we get a lightning strike. It hits around the nose somewhere. The tell tale thump is pretty unmistakable and I challenge anyone not to jump. We don't have any changes to the plane, and after we land I check and don't see anything. Maintenance will still look at it, but I'm sure it was all ok. The flight attendants didn't notice anything at all, so it was a minor event.

The flight takes us back toward Mexico then south of Cuba, north of Jamaica and through the ATC black hole of Port Au Prince. We start to hit some more turbulence around Hispaniola because of a number of thunderstorms in our way, that we did have to fly around, but finally we made our way into Punta Cana.

<a href="http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151031_1653071.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151031_1653071.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 20151031_1653071.jpg"/></a>

Yesterday alone was a killer day for work. It was long, and challenging all around. We had a husband and wife complain about the flight when they got off. I didn't talk to them, but I really don't know what to say when this is what they say, "This is the second worst flight I've ever been on! I just don't understand why (company name) can't figure it out. You guys up there were just flying around to waste gas! When will (company name) teach these pilots to just fly over the turbulence?" Husband pipes up, "Can't you just avoid the fucking turbulence!?" :rant:

I heard this story and can't help but to just shake my head. I really don't know what to say. You think about all the work I've just put in to get this plane here, my day had already been intense and after all this, all this results in getting cussed out? From someone who completely thinks they've got it all figured out and that it's all a giant conspiracy theory to fuck them over? I just drink a little more and shake my head. Un-fuckinging believable end to the day. At least I got to blow off a little steam in an all-inclusive resort. It's go home day today. Back to Newark, then back home. I'm ready.

[claphamsa]

how often do you have lightening strikes? how significant is it?

[PilotMan]

Lightning can be very damaging and they do have the potential to damage to the plane, but the vast majority of strikes that happen are pretty much harmless. Since the plane isn't grounded the bolt generally goes in and out without too much effort. The most common thing you might see would be light scoring from the bolt. I would say that it happens pretty regularly. Just in my career alone I've lost count, but it's been at least 7 or 8 times as a pilot and passenger. The worst thing that has happened to me is that the weather radar quit working.

Today was like my weekend. I actually got to sleep and get up with no alarm. It was nice. I've got school duty when I get home again so it won't happen on my days off. I'm already looking forward to the next day I can sleep in, which will be next Sunday, on my next trip.

I spent most of the morning doing the write up above, and chatted with the Mrs about the yard work that was started today. I ended up heading down to the beach at the resort before I left and grabbed a burger and fries off the beachside grill. If you'll remember the last time I had the Punta Cana layover I got food poisoning and missed my next trip. No way that happens twice, right? It rained most of the morning, but I was still able to sit outside and enjoy the morning before I had to leave.

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xft1/v/t1.0-9/12108875_10153699869354648_3632271674807647564_n.jpg?oh=a4fbbe0b4a7de1de183d28affa93ef4e&oe=56AE5499

I headed back to the my room and thought about the next flight. I'm actually deadheading back to Newark today. That typically means that we don't leave the hotel as early as we normally would, but it's a 20 minute ride to the airport and we are only leaving 60 minutes before departure. This is a company scheduling thing. That's awfully tight, even with my security line fast pass.

We got to the airport and things were jacked up right from the start. They dropped us off at our normal place but security was closed. We had to ride a bus over to another terminal, go through security there, then ride another bus back to the plane. And we only had 30 minutes til departure. Hmmmmm. When we got to security, the level of fucked up far exceeded anything that I had expected. There were people everywhere. Someone came up to me and asked which flight and when I told him, he told me that all these people stuck in security would get put on another plane and they would try and get it out on time. I told him I was a passenger and needed to get on that plane. All the passengers for all the flights were in that line, not just the one for Newark. That whole set up is all on the airport. It has nothing to do with the company at all. The airport dictates what it's going to do and how it's going to execute it. All the company can do is deal with the outcomes and try.

Luckily my fast pass, by being a working crew member, deadheading is company business, zipped us right through. The flight went out late which didn't help my prospects at catching an earlier flight. If we had been 20 minutes early I probably could've hopped on another carrier home. As it was I ended up getting upgraded to first class, which hasn't happened to me on a deadhead in eons. It was so nice. Makes all the difference in the world. Flight crews used to always get first on deadheads. Then the airlines made upgrades available for miles and that ended that.

I had a meal, watched two movies and relaxed. Now I'm sitting here with over 3 hours between my flight here and my flight home. I think I'll get a real seat going home, and I'll get there around midnight. So even though my day was technically short, it's over 12 hours long just to do two flights.

This week will be busy between school, paying bills, Dr's appointments and landscapers, and before I know it I'll be heading back to Newark to start again. The all important December bid is coming up. I have 2 guaranteed days off that I know when they will be and I know that I'm taking the entire family to see Star Wars the week after it opens in IMAX 3-D. I'm already looking forward to that one. It's almost time to get started on my online training as well. I have until the end of the year to get it done, but it'll take a few hours so you can't leave it until the end. There are now 60 days left in this dynasty. Let the countdown begin!

[PilotMan]

Sorry guys, I've been a little bit late on my update as I've been doing this trip. I had to leave home on Thursday to start my trip on Friday. I know that I should have been writing all along because I am behind. I think I'm just dealing with a personal slump of not wanting to do anything at all. Things have been busy at home because of life and the work that we've been doing and I'm just finding content to sit in a quiet hotel room.

I didn't have a great day on Thursday at home. I was tense. There is a decided change in the air on the day that I leave and the day I come home. If we ever have disagreements or fights, when we do, it's probably on one of these days. The constant transition needed in the house between everyone gets us. I don't like leaving, and I need to get my head right to head out the door and off to work. It's like you take all that stuff at home and you have to put it in a box and kind of leave it behind so that you can focus on the task ahead. It's not easy.

I had a really early report time on Friday so I was trying to take an earlier flight to Newark so I could get some rest in the crash pad. The problem was that the flight was full and Newark was running delays. When I got to the airport I saw a 400p flight that was just now boarding but I didn't figure that I'd be able to make that flight and I needed to get to my gate so I could get listed for the jump seat. After I did, food was next on my list. The flight was still showing on time, but I wanted to eat now just in case.

As I was eating I got the distinct impression that this flight was delayed and I found out that if I would have hustled over to the other flight (roughly 3/4 of a mile away) I probably could have gotten on. Grrrrrr. So I wait and cross my fingers that I can get a seat, because missing this flight cuts into my sleep time. Eventually they started boarding and I watched the seats disappear. There was another pilot there too who was ahead of me on the list and would board ahead of me. I got the jump seat and then they found an empty seat anyway, but it was sitting next to a large gentleman, and me being a large gentleman didn't make it much better than the cockpit. My plans to get there early were out the window, we were over an hour late. When I got to the crash pad, you can see that I really wasn't in the mood to write.

I was happy I was alone. I didn't really want to deal with anyone. That feeling continued when my alarm went off at 430a. I struggled to drag myself out of bed and into the shower. My day ahead was a long one, and this wasn't helping. I was off to the airport by 530a and by 7a we were off the ground on the way to our first destination of Boston. The first of three legs, and three plane changes. The weather was very warm. You never know when you look at the schedule for November which days might be trouble. This was one of them, so to start with weather not being an issue was alright with me.

Plane changes. Changing planes between flights is a pain. It takes time to pack up and unpack. There are a lot of things to get set up and adjusted before I even start pre flighting. Dragging my stuff through the airport on a break is less useful than just being able to step off and walk around for a few minutes. Three plane changes in a day is no typical. The company continues to rotate planes on certain routes and they've taken away the EWR-LAX and EWR-SFO flights from the 737 fleet. That hurts overall schedules. Those were very productive. It means instead that the 737 will be doing more, less productive trips, in a day to make up for that loss.

I got all set up for the next leg and we blasted off for Chicago on time. It's definitely winter. We had 175 mph winds right in our face for this leg. Ouch. That's the winter jet stream. Strong and brutal. It's nice going east, but fighting it west makes it long. It also means we are trying to fly near the max speed for the plane to try and stay on time. Turbulence is your enemy at higher speeds. Just like on a boat, hitting a small bump when you're going fast makes it feel that much worse. So flying, even a little bit faster, can feel a lot different to the passengers.

We landed in Chicago on the far north runway and made the long taxi to the gate where, in spite of everything, we were on time. Now we change planes again with only an hour between flights. That's really only enough time to get right on the plane and get set up. I did have time to stop and grab some Garrett's popcorn, because who doesn't like cheese and caramel corn in the morning?

The last flight was going back east and riding those same winds to Rochester NY. Winds in Rochester were very strong out of the west as the cold front was barreling through. We opted to land on a shorter runway and take advantage of the wind rather than have a big crosswind.

The layover there wasn't long, and I had moments where I struggled through the day. I was just tired. We got in around 5p on Friday night. I convinced the captain to join me at Dinosaur BBQ, and we lucked out into a seat at the bar just a couple were getting up. They were already running a sizable wait when we walked up, even though it was still early. So after all that, I was asleep by 10 and not in any mood to write.

We left early the next morning for a flight back to Chicago. Chicago was already running metered departures for inbound flights but they had enough room to work us in so we got off with room to spare. We beat ourselves into that headwind again and landed on the far north runway again. Our early departure helped us stay on time. We now had a couple of hours of time so I went to ops and then to the cafeteria for some lunch. I ran into a friend from my new hire class. An Air Force academy grad who does motivational speaking on the side. A really nice guy and someone who I'm proud to call a friend.

Our last flight yesterday took us to the great northwest of Vancouver. This has been touted as one of the best layovers in the EWR fleet. And I guess it is. In the summer. Not now. It's the rainy season. It rained all day and night. We stay right downtown, not far from some great sights to walk to, but not today. I put on the NDSU football game and watch them blow out Western Illinois on ESPN 3 and then grab some dinner and a beer with the captain at a local burrito joint. After that I finally felt like I was getting some down time and relaxation. I didn't really feel like writing.

I woke up at 330a (630a body time) and figured I'd finally get this done. Today we'll finish up this trip back in Newark and I'd normally say it's go home day, but that isn't true either. We will get back much too late for that tonight. I get the notification to check in for my flight home while I'm writing. As I do I see that it's completely sold out and I'm #3 on the stand by list. Ugh. Here we go again.

Flights are not supposed to be this full this time of year. This is the down time before the holidays. But right now, the airports are full, flights are full and if it's this hard to get to and from work now, the end of this month and December are going to be awful. There's another flight on Delta at the same time, it's full too. I may still go that route, thinking that the competition for the jump seat might be less and the better option for me. If I miss both then the next flight is 5 hours later. I'm already stressing about it and losing half of a day off just trying to get home.

[PilotMan]

What a nice day for flying it was yesterday. The cold front that blew through the eastern US this weekend cleaned everything and left clear skies and mostly smooth flights for me. One interesting thing about the flight from Vancouver was that for the past couple of days there has been a problem with the fuel farm in Chicago and planes have been having to carry a lot of extra fuel so that they land with more than normal so that the next outbound leg won't have to take on as much fuel from Chicago. I really don't know what the issue was to be honest, but it's highly unusual to be flying around spending all that extra money just to fly expensive, heavy fuel around.

I had about 3.5 hours on break before my flight back to Newark. I was able to catch the last quarter of the Steelers game, just in time to see Ben get hurt. Sometimes in my feeble sports mind that kind of thing is all my fault. Then I did a couple of the training modules for my training that I need to get done by the end of the year. They were on the safety culture of the airline and a company production of what to do when there is an active shooter in the building and your life is in danger. Really uplifting stuff here.

I grabbed the paperwork for the flight back. The weather looked good, but we didn't have those 170 mph winds anymore. Too bad, that's always nice when you're going home.

We were ready to push back on time out of Chicago, but because of ramp congestion, as in plane after plane pushing back and taxing in and out. We ended up pushing back close to 10 minutes late, but a fast taxi out and little line at the runway had us off the ground a minute early. The flight back was very nice. We landed almost 20 minutes early in Newark and pulled up to the gate, where we were met by exactly no one. It took the ramp crew a few minutes to get it together and just when we thought they were ready, they disappeared again. Apparently, they had forgotten the lighted wands to park us with. Uh, kind of need those things guys. So we waited some more. The company is tracking all that stuff and it's a big point that they are working to improve on.

We landed at 930 and by 1015 I was in the crash pad for the night. Again, the only one there, which was nice. I gave myself about an hour to wind down then had to force myself to bed. I needed to get up at 430a if I was going to get in line to grab the jump seat.

I showed up at the gate over an hour early and stood in front of the podium and read the paper while I waited for the gate agent to show up. I was the first to claim the jump seat and I would need it too. The flight ended up being full so my ride up front got me home again.

I spent today working on getting caught up on the weekend. I've got a big HOA budget meeting tomorrow night and I needed to get my ducks in order for that too. I fell asleep on the couch, which was to be expected with only a little over 5 hours of (not that great) sleep in me.

My middle son has a concert on Friday night that I'm going to miss because of work. He is in the County Middle School All Star band playing trombone. Just one of the many things he does. It's just one more thing that I'll miss.

The last thing for this week is the December bid. It's a big one. The big one. The one that I worry about. I need to have it done in 2 days.

[PilotMan]

I'm trying to do this fucking December bid and the Mrs and I are currently embroiled in a nice little fight over how shitty my Christmas schedule just might be and trying to define what levels of a shit schedule are better than other levels of a shit schedule so that I can cover my ass in the event none of my more preferred bids work. It always ends up with her being upset and me being pissed, because I can't ever please anyone enough to make it work the way that we'd really like. I've spent the vast majority of my 13 year airline career on the bottom of one seniority list or another where I'm always subject to the whims and foibles of other people. Perhaps next year this won't be so bad, but this year, like so many others, it sucks major levels of ass.

[CraigSca]

Ugh, sorry to hear. The holiday season can be really rough, especially for people that HAVE to work.

[PilotMan]

Thank god that's done with. It only took me 3 hours to finish and hash out. I know that I do it from the perspective of extreme pessimism, but I've been burned enough times that I'm only setting myself up for failure if I don't. November turned out actually much better than I had planned for and it reasonable to assume that December might as well. However, I can't start from the perspective that everything will be alright, because if it isn't than it's just a giant "F" for me on my bidding and a major let down and failure for my family.

[CraigSca]

When will you know how it turned out?

[PilotMan]

I'll find out on the evening of the 17th. I still don't know why it takes so long to publish the results. The computer can crank out everything in minutes, but then every line has to be checked for legality and to be sure that there were no errors in process. Apparently, it takes almost 5 days to get that done. It's a long time to wait to be able to schedule your activities for the next month.

I said goodbye to the family this morning after another hectic week at home. I had my standard list of things that needed done plus a couple extra. The standard driving of the kids back and forth and getting errands done. Plus we made it through the HOA budget meeting with a good feeling for the next year. The oldest son (Aspergers) landed his first job ever. It's a huge step for him and the first big thing he's done since he graduated from High School in the spring of 2014. The Mrs is in the throes of Christmas decorating. It takes her between 2 and 3 weeks to do it and when she's done the house looks like it should be in a magazine. It's pretty much her favorite thing to do of all time....except me of course. :)

The flight out here ran a few minutes late because of the strong winds in Newark. I was fortunate not only to have a seat in the back, but an entire row of 2 seats to myself. So lucky. The wind made the ride in a little bit like a roller coaster with all the turbulence, but I didn't get sick or anything.

I got to Newark and had about 3 hours before I needed to show up at the plane. I found my standard hiding place in one of the briefing rooms, grabbed some lunch and came back. Drama had erupted on the HOA Facebook group that I moderate and I needed to set some things straight. By the time that I had that taken care of, it was time to start getting my flight paperwork going.

Today I'm heading out to the west coast, one leg and I'm done. The goal will be to enjoy some fish tacos later on tonight. If you are bored I'm sure you can follow along on Flight Aware, look for a flight to San Diego that leaves Newark around 2:30. :)

This is day 1 of 3 for me. Last week was also a 3 day, but it acted like a 5 because I couldn't commute on the front or the back. This one is like a 3. I'll be back home Sunday night. Next week has my 15th wedding anniversary. It's been a great year. We've been fortunate enough to be able to celebrate along the way so we'll stay kind of low key. In the meantime, I need to get my job done so I can get home and enjoy it. I really need to find some motivation to get healthier. Maybe that should be next year's blog. PM loses weight? Don't hold your breath for that one. ;)

Here's a photo from last week coming out of Vancouver. It's actually the very snow covered mountains east of there. I took it climbing out. Just a reminder of what the next season looks like.

<a href="http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151108_0858171.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151108_0858171.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 20151108_0858171.jpg"/></a>

[PilotMan]

The flight plan had us getting to San Diego over 20 minutes early. Even despite the stronger westerly winds, they died off enough for us to stay on time. We pushed back a couple of minutes early and had a quick taxi out, getting off the ground an extra 7 minutes early and pushing our expected arrival time even earlier.

When you fly west, leaving in the afternoon the one constant is the sun. It sits above your window and mercilessly saunters down in front of you forever. For the entire 5.5 hour flight the sun was beating into the cockpit. We had turbulence off and on for the entire way until we hit the front range of Colorado. After that it was nice, but low clouds kept any sight seeing from taking place.

After we got to San Diego, I found my way over to the restaurant that I like, and even though their happy hour prices have gone up and aren't nearly as good as they used to be I still was happy to have some fish tacos and Modelo. I didn't stay out late and even though it was Friday in one of the best night scenes that we get to go to, I just couldn't hang. Being on east coast time and commuting in wrecked me.

My layover was good enough that I even got to sleep in this morning and then drug my butt to the gym to get some exercise. My day today is much shorter than yesterday. We leave here in an hour to get ready for the trip. Tonight will be shorter, but it'll lead right into Sunday, which is also go home day and you know that makes me excited.

I spent some time trying to find a nice place to head for our Anniversary dinner, but it's so challenging to find someplace that will have Vegan options for a very restrictive diet and still let us get dressed up. So many of the fine dining restaurants just don't make it worthwhile when you have to restrict yourself to just a couple of things on the menu. I think maybe I've found somewhere for us, but it'll be carb heavy and it won't fit all that well with the Mrs eating plan is in her current exercise routine. Ugh. She is awesome, but she is a real pain in the ass at times and she knows it.

[PilotMan]

I totally forgot to mention this last night. As I was saying "bye" to the passengers a little old lady asks me, "what was the name of that body of water that we flew over at 8 o clock?"

She really expected me to know, right in that minute? Look I'm a lot of things. I know a lot of random stuff, but I don't even know what time zone you're talking about. Let alone the name of every random body of water that we might go over. It was funny. She just huffed and walked off. Like the way a teacher is disappointed when you don't know the right answer.

Today, I got to fly the newest plane in the company! I mean new, new. This plane has been flying on line for 11 days. It did have that new plane smell too. The biggest difference though is that the plane is clean. Not just clean inside, but clean underneath. Very clean. Plus the cockpit is clean. The cockpit is generally a nasty, dirty mess. Like if you sat and ate at your desk for 8 hours, then someone else did that, then another person did that, before you got back and did it again. Imagine just how fast it would get dirty. That's what planes are like. They do get cleaned occasionally, but not often.

We took off from San Diego to the west over the ocean then turned back over land and climbed out. One of my favorite things to look at when I'm flying along the US and Mexico border is to see how the countries blend and how the border creates such a stark line on the ground. Most of the time you've got this big US city like El Paso and this much smaller, poorer city like Juarez right next to it. The dichotomy from the air is stark.

Today I took a picture of something that was just the opposite. Here I've taken a pic of the larger city of Mexicali. You can clearly see the border in the pic and the neighboring US city is the tiny Calexico. You can see how Mexicali runs right to the border and just stops. Like a normal town would have expanded or would be a more circular shape, instead here it is, wedged up against the border like a man clinging to the side of the bed when his wife is taking up the whole thing.

<a href="http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151114_1350281.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151114_1350281.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 20151114_1350281.jpg"/></a>

We had to navigate a couple of rain showers as we flew in and even got a little St Elmo's Fire on the windscreen. I touched down softly and in the dark. For this short layover we stay at the airport hotel, so I grabbed some dinner in the airport and then walked to the hotel.

I've got an earlier flight tomorrow. My day needs to stay on time. I've got about an hour between my arrival time and my flight home. My flight is full, so I need to try and grab that jump seat again. I hope it all goes smooth.

[PilotMan]

In case you were wondering the sticker price on a brand new 737-900ER is $95,000,000. Companies make deals and never pay that full price because of the order size, but that's what they go for, in case you were wondering.

I got up early and walked over to the plane from the hotel. I had intended on getting shoe shine in the morning, but I guess it's that's not an option that early on a Sunday morning. You mean not everyone has to be at work then?

This trip has been a perfect reminder of what it's like to fly on a normal body clock schedule. I didn't have to get up crazy early or stay up super late at all on any of the days. I had plenty of rest in San Diego and my second day was short enough that it felt easy. Now here I am on day 3 feeling rested and excited to finish up. Thanks to UFC 193 I was in bed later than I had planned, but it was alright.

The first flight out was from Houston to Fort Lauderdale. The routing had us tracking along the coast until almost Biloxi before cutting across the Gulf toward Florida. We picked up quite a bit of turbulece pretty early in the decent and landed off to the east in Lauderdale. We landed and parked almost 10 minutes early. We had another scheduled plane change and around 90 minutes until the next flight, or in other words, about 45 minutes of time to grab some lunch.

I ordered a burger at Shula's and checked up on the world and the family, then downloaded my last flight info for the trip back to Newark. The inbound plane was on time so there was every opportunity to get back on time. Hurdle number two was cleared with there not being a wheels up time or Expect Departure Clearance Time (EDCT) to Newark. We were loaded up with a plane full of people coming off of cruises and going back home.

The route back starts off over the Atlantic where we cross back over land in Wilmington NC. The sky cleared up and the weather was good for us. ATC didn't really slow us down at all. I think we landed almost 15 minutes early. I didn't rush off and said goodbye to everyone before I packed up and headed to my plane home.

I should've paid closer attention to what my options were. I had just missed an earlier flight home. I guess when I was listing I didn't feel like it was worth it to run for 10 minutes and I had completely forgotten, but as early as we were I think if I had run for it I would have made it. It worked out alright though. My flight, that had been showing as -2 for the week, ended up with 3 or 4 empty seats and I was even able to get an exit row for the flight home.

I've booked a dinner for Wednesday for the Mrs and I and we may go out to a bar or club afterward. I haven't decided, but dinner will be nice. Not a whole lot going on in Cincinnati on Wednesday nights. In the meantime I'm just patiently waiting for the December schedule. It should be out in about 36 hours.

I'm back out for the next trip early on Friday morning. That will be a very long day, 4 flights starting at home at around 730a and not getting done and to the hotel until after 1a.

[claphamsa]

good luck on the schedule!!!

[PilotMan]

Well ladies and gentlemen, the results are in and it's pretty much all disappointment. I bid 20 different lines, the maximum. The last bid was very vanilla for the purposes of just covering my ass and it looks like it saved it. I had 17 bids rejected that were perfectly legal but that were rejected because it would would have prevented someone junior to me from getting a line. I've covered this before, but the company sets a line in the seniority list and says everyone above that line gets a line the rest are reserve. So my requests meant that while I should be able to hold that time off for the moment, the bidding program needs that trip to be able to complete the schedule. It's complicated, and it doesn't seem right, but that's just how it is. I'm glancing up and down the guys in my general seniority and I did pretty good. I'm not really sure how much me having the 22nd and 23rd off contributed to everything but I only got the 21st off around them. I had really hoped to have 4 days off, but I kid you not, nobody got 4 days off around Christmas.

I currently bid at #275 out of about 400. The most junior guy who had both Christmas Eve and Day and a total of 4 days off was #165. The jr guy with 3 days off and the holiday off was #175. I didn't stand a chance. No prayer at all.

We have a number of bidding rules that we can either keep in and keep the bid more restrictive, or can be ejected and roll the dice on the chance that it might give you a better schedule, but it's got a bigger chance of backfiring too. From what I could see of the other bids the majority of pilots in my seniority range chose to relax their bidding restrictions and ended up getting seriously fucked in the ass. I'm talking about guys who start work on the 17th and have zero days off until the end of the month. Even guys more senior to me just don't have their bids set up right and have worse schedules then me.

My schedule is pretty much 3 days off between trips, at least 1 really crappy trip, and 1 trip that looks like I might need to self modify my schedule so that we can have some family time around the holiday. I have to be available for my trip over Christmas, but missing the trip before will let me have a weekend off and get to go to see the youngest's piano recital and the middle son's band concert.

It's not ideal, but family comes first and you need to do what you need to do. I'll have a nice bunch of days off, but all at the cost of 4 months worth of sick time. No, not ideal. We'll have to open presents on the 21st, go see Star Wars on the 22nd and I'll leave on the 23rd. But, unlike so many other pilots in December, my schedule won't bring tears to my eyes.

[Alf]

Is it legal working 14 straight days ? I mean, in terms of security, I'd rather have someone fresh from a day off piloting my plane than a guy who has been working 14 straight days.

[PilotMan]

It is legal.

The FAA requirement is 24 hours free from duty in 7 days of work. The idea is that that time is achieved at the end of the trip, in domicile, so ending in Newark, then off. Our contract says 2 days off is the min, plus that time has to be achieved in domicile (as in at the end of the trip.) However, that is more restrictive than the FAA regulations.

In some cases a pilot might be able to say hold weekends (or holidays) off, if he relaxes those restrictions and allows just the FAA minimums. Not only does that 24 hours off not have to be in domicile, it isn't considered a calender day either.

So in that run of days, as long as you've got 24 hours off somewhere, you're good to go. A layover that exceeds that, on any trip counts as a reset on that 7 day cycle. I would venture to guess that there's a very good chance that most of these guys are going to self modify their schedules somewhere as needed.

Before I start every flight, as part of my paperwork download process, I have to verify that I am fit to fly. Most of the newer flight and duty restrictions are based off of changes that came about after the Colgan crash in Buffalo. There has always been the opportunity for a pilot to call in fatigued. Essentially saying that he simply can't work. There's a long legal process that's involved in going that route, but it provides the opportunity for someone who is very tired to stop working.

[PilotMan]

I just wanted to add as this thread passes 10,000 views, I'm quite confident that it's one of the most (if not the most) viewed Dynasty thread of 2015. It's the 42nd most viewed dynasty of all time right now (since we've been at OpSports anyway.) I wasn't really sure if I'd be able to stay with it, but the regularity that I see people reading it, even if they aren't commenting, keeps me going. Thanks.

PM

[PilotMan]

I'm already 2 flights into my day today. Last night I was looking at the flight that I was planning on taking to Newark and discovered, lo and behold, that the flight was oversold again and that I was a little way down the stand by list for the flight. I checked my back up flight and it was oversold as well. Weather in Newark last night caused a big backup at the airport and it resulted in at least the cancellation of the last flight out from Cincinnati. That meant that all those passengers were rolled over to the morning flight. So that's what I'm competing against.

When I walked up to the counter and was pleasantly surprised that I was the first to claim the jump seat. I didn't have any time to really waste. If I missed this one, the next one had a good chance of not having room for me either. Nobody else came up and kicked me off the jump seat so I it was mine. Another day with full flights. It sure seems like this is happening more often. I'm really leery of the holidays being a big, giant pain in the ass.

By the time I landed in Newark I had less than an hour to be at the plane for my first flight. Not having eaten I grabbed some lunch in the cafeteria before finding the plane. Good weather today, the cold front had passed and there shouldn't be any delays to Boston. I meet the Captain. He's just picked up the first 2 legs out of Open Time. I don't know what happened to the scheduled Captain, but I guess they had to pay overtime to get it covered.

I'll get another Captain when I get back to Newark. We took off and no major delays, getting into Boston a good 10 minutes early. I've had over an hour and a half here to recharge my Ipad and phone and I've got to get my paperwork downloaded. I'm heading back to Newark next, then sit for a couple of hours before finishing the day with a flight to Cancun. I won't get to the hotel until around 100a eastern time. That's almost 18 hours in uniform for the day. Ahh the joys of commuting.

[CraigSca]

Ugh - do you at least get to sleep late in Cancun?

[PilotMan]

So the plane showed up and got on board to get started. We were trying to get going, but the weather information in Boston already said that they were running metered delays to New York, so it was really just to find out what our delay was going to be. We had one of the toilets out of order for the flight, which could have been a big pain, but the flight was so short that it didn't have an impact. We got the clearance and it showed what amounted to a 15 minute delay after we pushed back and before we took off. That's pretty good. It could've been much long longer.

A lot of times we will get the EDCT or "wheels up" time up to thirty minutes before the plane is scheduled to leave. You'd see this in the waiting area as we were just getting ready to board or we had just started to board and then they stopped and put the ATC delay on. Many times, you get it much later and the crew and the company need to come to an agreement on when it's beneficial to reboard the plane. The flyer bill of rights limits how long a plane can be on the ground with the door closed before it takes off without have to go back to the gate and give people the chance to get off again.

Occasionally we'll know that there will be a 30-40 minute delay and will board up like normal and take the delay away from the gate. I won't make an announcement until we are parked somewhere to wait out our time. If we take our time it can make it seem like it's not that long of a delay even though we knew how long it was going to be the whole time. It's a lot easier to sell a 15-20 minute delay on a plane than a 45 minute delay. Sometimes, depending on the nature of the delay ATC can get you off the ground before your time if they have a spot open up and you are ready to go. I've had it go both ways. Missed times to leave because we were at the gate because we were trying to keep people comfortable and then been out and gotten to leave, or conversely had to return because our time never came. We would never just go sit if it was going to be hours. So many times, you've got a time that just gets extended and extended and nobody has any clue how long it's really going to be.

We took off about a minute before our time and because of the inherent delay time built into the flight from Bos to Ewr, we landed and parked at the gate right on time. By the time we got back to Newark I had already had a long day, and I knew that I had to make it though one more leg. I only had about 45 minutes and while I thought about grabbing some food, I didn't.

The plane was just a few minutes late inbound and it was also international inbound which meant that the plane has to be inspected and clear customs before we could board it up. That lead to us needing to hustle to come close to an on time departure. The Captain gave me the choice on whether I wanted to fly or let him, and given my tired state I optioned to let him and just work the radios.

We tracked right down the east coast before cutting across the Florida panhandle and out over the gulf. All was fairly smooth sailing until we hit the south. The jet stream has been riding further south (normal for late fall/winter) and that brought with it a considerable amount of turbulence. We escaped it further south and then had to maneuver around a nice sized thunderstorm out in the middle of nowhere. Mexico picked us up and gave us a 5 minute delay vector, I guess to get us in line for the Cancun arrivals. We still ended up getting to the gate a few minutes early though.

I couldn't believe how long the line for customs was here. There were like 3 people working and still planes were coming in. It had to be at least 30 minutes long. Good thing I get to fast pass my way to the front and don't have to deal with that mess.

This layover wasn't really planned to be that long. I was scheduled out on a 130p van the next day, but that did mean that I could sleep in, which is very good for me. The real bonus was that I had been given an oceanside suite as well. I've never had one here in Cancun before. It's one of those situations where they sell out regular rooms then just move us to an upgraded room. My room had a wrap around balcony complete with chaise lounge and 4 place table and chairs. Somehow, I convinced myself to even hit the gym for some quality treadmill time before breakfast. After that I chilled and waited for my van time to come. It was really nice.

This was from my balcony, while I was waiting.

https://scontent-ord1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xal1/v/t1.0-9/12274654_10153735693639648_7304761216375709484_n.jpg?oh=36e22ef12ca9e44d731576ba53321a6e&oe=56AE877B

My next flight was to go to Chicago. If you haven't been paying attention, the first snowstorm of the year was blitzing the city by noon. Our plane outbound was indeed coming from Chicago so we planned to keep an eye on it. No sense leaving a perfectly good hotel room when your plane is still hours away.

It was delayed. Big surprise. Scheduling called me to tell me that they pushed out van time back an hour. Then it went to 2 hours. Then 3. This whole time all I can really do is wait. They finally got off the gate to taxi out only to have to come back and eventually cancel. I'm still not complaining, except that my layover in Phoenix and lunch with BYU14 wasn't going to happen again.

With our flight cancelling we still had to sit around and wait for them to make up their mind on what to do with us. It took about 30 more minutes for the schedule change to come across and it meant that we were staying in Cancun. There was much rejoicing.

This literally never happens to me. I think I've spent my whole career hoping to get "stuck" at a really cool layover so I can be there longer. It has never, ever happened. Until now. I was all set to show you pictures of going from the beach, to the snow, to the desert in one day. Now all you get is the knowledge that I really approve of the current trends in bikini swimwear. Very quality stuff.

About 10 minutes after that I got a call from the front desk that went something like this:

"Mr PilotMan?"
"Yes?"
"Your company called and told us you are staying another night and that you are now leaving in the morning. Is this correct?"
"Yes."
"Well sir, we have someone who is paying for that room and we need to move you somewhere else."

Crap.
Oh well. You can't have a suite all the time.

So I had to pack all my crap up and move it to the other side of the hotel to a different room. There's nothing to really complain about through. I am still in Cancun after all. I consumed some more fish tacos and perhaps a margarita and cerveza. My whole schedule is now different, and the biggest change is that I've lost about 12 hours at home. My last day will see my get home in the evening instead of the morning like I had planned. It's still commutable, but the lost time at home hurts a little.

[BYU 14]

It was delayed. Big surprise. Scheduling called me to tell me that they pushed out van time back an hour. Then it went to 2 hours. Then 3. This whole time all I can really do is wait. They finally got off the gate to taxi out only to have to come back and eventually cancel. I'm still not complaining, except that my layover in Phoenix and lunch with BYU14 wasn't going to happen again.

You know I am starting to feel jilted :)

Runs like this must play havoc on your internal clock. Do you ever get used to it?

[Barkeep49]

Are you getting paid for the time you're missing at home? I know you posted more about the ins and outs earlier but I've forgotten how it would apply in this situation.

[PilotMan]

Up at 530a this morning and in the van to the airport about an hour later. We were at the gate right on time and found that the plane was parked on a hard stand. That's a remote parking area, not connected to the terminal, that a bus is needed to move passengers and crew back and forth to.

I went down ahead of the Captain who had made a pit stop prior to coming down. I was the only one on the bus for a few minutes. I don't know why they didn't take me over there. The boarding coordinator, then comes and tells me that they are going to fill the bus up before they take us over to the plane, and I inform him that I have to get over there and have work to do. He is all, oh, well, we already started. Now, it's 15 minutes more before we head over.

Now I'm down to 30 minutes, out of Cancun, no chance of this flight leaving on time, but I do my best. We end up closing up and pushing back five minutes late. How irritating and something totally out of my control. The stupid thing is that I could've walked to the plane and back in the time it took to wait, but I don't think that was an option. The told the Captain that it would've taken too long to drop us off. Bullshit.

We pushed back and the flight to Houston pushed right next to us. We were ready to taxi first and they called and said that they had to go back into the gate because they had passengers on the wrong plane. You see, both planes were side by side, and they were loading buses side by side, and these people just went the wrong way. They were supposed to be going to San Francisco, with me. Just one more thing completely out of my control.

So much of that whole operation is run by the airport. They just work with the airlines to make it all come together. While it makes my airline look bad, it's really the fault of the airport itself and it's operation that put us in that situation to begin with.

So we were off for our nearly 6 hour flight to SFO. We flew north and actually crossed over US land to the east of Houston, then made our way over Dallas and toward the Rockies. Rides were rough at the higher altitudes so we spent the majority of the flight down at 30,000 ft, which is much lower than we'd normally be. I had us flying just a little bit faster than we were planned to make up for the few minutes we lost on the ground. We landed a few minutes early only to find out that our gate was still occupied and we had to hold for them. We parked and then everyone disappeared. The gate agent was there, but she wasn't pulling the jet bridge up. The ramp had pulled us too far forward and needed to get a tow bar to push us back about a foot. Seems unimportant, but the jet bridge won't connect to the plane if its' not in the right spot. Ultimately, we were late. We tried, but it was still within the DOT arrival window, so technically it counts.

I cleared customs then we found our way to the ride to the hotel downtown. So for the first time all year I get to watch some football on a Sunday and the Steelers aren't playing. It was still nice to relax and watch some games though.

I'm wrapping up my trip tomorrow with a dead head back to Newark. Normally, with a deadhead at the end of the trip, I'd just take another flight straight to Cincinnati through another airport, but pretty much every flight is full. I can't book on my own on full flights and my best flight to get home is actually the one out of Newark, so I might as well just take it. Nothing like 8+ hours of riding in a plane just to go home. I'll have about an hour to connect in Newark to go home.

I took a picture when I was back in Boston as we were getting ready to leave and I forgot about it until now. If you've ever been there you might have noticed that there are a few gates with American Flags on them.

You can see the one here and if you look across the ramp you can see one where the American plane is parked.

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151120_1541491.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151120_1541491.jpg.html)

If you look above the door on B27 you'll see a plaque. This is the gate the United 175 departed from on 9/11. Across the way, is where American 11 was parked. The plaque has the names of the crew members who were lost on that day.

Another pic that I snapped today was my view from my room tonight in San Francisco. It's not Coit Tower on the 4th of July or anything, but it's alright. We're not staying at that other hotel anymore. I think this is the 4th different hotel that I've been at in SF this year.

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151122_1706571.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151122_1706571.jpg.html)

[PilotMan]

You know I am starting to feel jilted :)

Runs like this must play havoc on your internal clock. Do you ever get used to it?

Sure, crossing time zones is always challenging. Especially, flipping between late nights and early mornings. It helps to try and stay on your home time zone for eating and sleeping, but it's not always possible. The wide body, international crews have it worse. They are doing over 13 time zones at a time. I've been contemplating bidding to a different plane next year, and picking the brains of guys who've already done it. Most liked it, but admitted that it ages you much, much faster than just domestic flying like I do now. I already feel like I look old enough. I don't need to accelerate it any more than I need to.

Are you getting paid for the time you're missing at home? I know you posted more about the ins and outs earlier but I've forgotten how it would apply in this situation.

As a matter of fact, I am getting paid more for being late to finish my trip. The company has a window they can hit, but this situation isn't even close. I don't remember exactly what the rules are for when it kicks in, but it's certainly worth my while. More money is always welcome during the holidays.

So my trip finishes up with a couple of good layovers, a little bit of extra pay for finishing late, and only flying 4 legs in 4 days. The Captain and I had a good time and got along rather well. That helps keep the stress of everything down and makes the trip a lot more fun overall.

[PilotMan]

The nice thing about the west coast is that the early wake ups really aren't that early. I had no paperwork to download, just to get to the plane and find my seat. By just being a passenger there are actually rules that govern what seats we are supposed to be given.

Generally, a deadhead leg would be scheduled far in advance of the trip. I'd know when I got my monthly schedule which legs I was going to be a passenger only on. I normally only deadhead a few times per year. It's a tactic to move pilots back to a base or to have them work a longer day when it would be illegal to have them fly.

The company takes care of all the booking on these flights as opposed to when I'm commuting back and forth to work. I just have to check in and then I have the option to switch seats like anyone would as a passenger. Per our contract the company is supposed to give us a seat in the economy plus section if it's available. Regular economy otherwise. The seats are supposed to be assigned as aisle, then middle. If I get stuck with a middle seat I can actually get paid a little more as a result. So they'll try and and give us the best available of those options when they do the booking. On the day of the trip I'm also placed on the upgrade list for first behind the highest profile passengers, but ahead of a lot of the other lesser awarded passengers. I've gotten first once this year, but it's far from regular.

My booking was only done a couple of days before the actual flight so I ended up with a window seat in regular economy. So no extra leg room for me, but the window meant I'd have a little "me" space anyway. I haven't been a passenger on a flight this long since I went to Germany when I was in college. The in seat entertainment was a pretty good thing, as is the policy that I can get reimbursed for the internet on the flight. So I bought my wifi and watched movies. The time passed a lot faster than it does in the cockpit.

As a paid, working employee, I can board the flight as soon as the crew gets on. Meet the other crew members, get my bags where I want them, and get situated without any hassle. I don't have any problem putting my two bags in the overhead either because I'm working, required to have them, and I personally, need the extra space at my feet. Especially for a 5.5 hour flight.

It's been my experience in the past that some passengers have a hard time dealing with crew members that cut to the front in security, get on the plane early, or take up more space than a passenger should be allowed. The Known Crewmember program has pretty much eliminated the security issue, but the other stuff is still there. When I'm commuting I try and be as inconspicuous and accommodating as possible. I'm extra and using my benefits. If I'm working, I'm working, whether I'm a passenger or not doesn't matter. I don't go into your place of work and complain that I'm not getting the same perks that you are from your own company. My perks just happen to be very visible and frankly aren't that useful outside of this single environment.

The flight was planned to get in early to Newark, so I changed my listing to try and get the earlier flight home. It was a 3 minute walk between gates, but when I got there the plane was still there, but the agent had closed the flight. I would have had a seat, but it was just too close to departure so I missed out. So frustrating to see the plane you want sitting there without you on it.

The next flight was an hour and a half later, not bad. I grabbed some food and headed over. For once there were plenty of open seats on it. I walked up, got my seat (a whole row this time) and got on to go home.

I talked a while back about the highs and lows of airline travel. Busy seasons and the such. Here's a good article that shows the busiest times of the year.

The day before Thanksgiving actually isn’t the busiest time to fly - Quartz (http://qz.com/545014/the-day-before-thanksgiving-is-not-the-busiest-day-to-fly-in-the-us/)

https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/scheduled_us_airline_capacity_2015_mil_seats_7_day_moving_average_002_chartbuilder.png?w=640

Above you can see what I described as the down seasons in my earlier discussion. Jan/Feb are the quietest, coupled with the post labor day in the fall. The summer is crazy busy, and spring break and the holidays right up there. So it all matches in line with what my observations have been.

I'm home until after the holiday. I haven't been home on Thanksgiving for 3-4 years so this will be very nice. Christmas has exploded all over our house and the Mrs is pretty much done with the decorating. I'm going to enjoy this time as much as I can.

I did a couple of my required training modules this morning. The first was on fatigue risk management. That dealt with definitions of the different types of fatigue, the different triggers that can bring on fatigue. The new time and duty limitations that the FAA imposed a couple of years ago, how to prevent fatigue, and the policies and procedures of what to do when you do find yourself fatigued and unable to fly.

The second training module was on meteorology. How to make the most of the tools that are at our disposal, severe weather avoidance, techniques to operate the airborne radar more efficiently, and policies and procedures for dealing with a severe weather event like a microburst, windshear or severe turbulence event.

That's about it for now. I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and go sign up for the FOFC Secret Santa (http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/showthread.php?t=90938) so I can buy you a gift this year.

[PilotMan]

I'm just going to leave this right here. It's perfect for this week. I'm home, it's Thanksgiving week, and it's got some form of aviation in it. LOL! I'm sure most of you already know it, but if you don't, you're welcome.

<iframe src="http://www.hulu.com/embed.html?eid=argh13thkhoycvglrnop6q" scrolling="no" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="288" width="512"></iframe>

[pbot]

This has been a really interesting thread to follow, to have a better understanding of what a pilot goes through.

I don't travel much for work, so when I do have to fly I always think, 'man those pilots have it good...getting paid to travel, etc'. Never really understood what was going on 'behind the scenes' so to speak, what a grind the job can be.

Your job is still way cooler than mine, the insight you've provided has been fascinating. Thanks for the look at the side of airlines most of us never get to see.

[PilotMan]

A little behind again. I haven't had a good opportunity to really sit down and type this out until now. So I'm going to try and recall all of this the best that I can.

I started off again last Friday, Black Friday. I was able to be home for Thanksgiving for the first time in a few years. We have a very small family so it's no more than my Mom coming over to eat with us, but my wife always goes to great lengths to have a great variety of awesomeness to choose from. I swear that we could have fed 20 easy.

I took off around 215p in the afternoon. My flight was at 3:50p and all I had to do was commute to Newark. I had nothing until Saturday morning. I could've taken a later flight, and been home an extra 2.5 hours, but that would have put my backup flight as a two leg flight through Charlotte and probably not getting to the pad until after midnight. Not the greatest option, and not something that seemed worthwhile considering it was a Holiday weekend and all for 2.5 hours. It just didn't make sense so off I went.

The crew was very anxious to get going. It was their last leg and clearly they told the gate to get going because 20 minutes before departure and we were all boarded up. They still can't push until 10 prior, but they were fired up to get the hell out of Dodge. I was fortunate to have a seat in the last row, but the passengers all seemed on edge, almost rude. It was like nothing was quite good enough. I don't know. It was just an odd feeling.

We got to Newark quite early. I wasn't really hungry, but it was about 545p and dinner would be calling soon, so I opted to grab some Qdoba at the airport and take it to the crash pad. I took the train over and waited. The hotel van is on a schedule so you know when it'll be there. Except today it never showed up. I know I'm not the only one waiting for it. I just keep waiting and looking. I guess I could've called, but the reality is it wouldn't have mattered anyway. Twenty turned to thirty, turned to forty. Still no van. I decided that if I didn't see the van by the time I saw the next Embassy Suites van, that I'd try and hitch a ride with them. It's right across the street, and they are good to crews. So that's what happened. The hotel van never came and I hopped on the other shuttle. All in all it took over an hour. Traffic had completely broken down around the airport and the Jersey Gardens mall on Black Friday. The shuttle driver had to drive crazy and cut people off just to be able to get back to the hotel. I'm guessing that's what happened to the other driver. He simply got stuck in traffic and didn't have any other choice.

I was the number 3 guy in the pad and got the last bottom bunk. There would be one more before the end of the night, and that poor guy had to get up first, from the bunk above my bed. I didn't have to get up until about 645, but I was third. Guys had to get up starting at 430a. So you know, other than the semi-uncomfortable bunk bed, it was pretty busy in there.

I grabbed a quick breakfast in the hotel, knowing that I'd get breakfast on the plane, but not for a few hours. I downloaded my paperwork in the van on the way to the airport and looked over the flight plan. This was an international flight today. Just one leg to a new layover for me. I've been to Bonaire a couple of times before but it was always down and back out again. I was kind of looking forward to it. It's part of the ABC (Aruba, Bonaire, Cuacao) islands of the Netherland Antilles and is a very popular destination for scuba divers. We had 5 groups that were going down there on the plane. I was the first one down to the plane, about an hour before the scheduled departure. That gave me plenty of time to get the plane set up and meet the other crew members.

The plane had just come from maintenance and we had a minor issue to deal with before we left, but it didn't impact our departure. We pushed early and started up the engines. After start we had another mechanical issue having to deal with the redundancy for the temperature control system for the plane. You know it's something that is minor. It's a failure of a redundant system, but like everthing else there's a procedure for it. We had to contact maintenance, explain the issue then wait for further instruction while they look up the issue. In the meantime I've got to make sure that the ramp controller knows we are dealing with a mechanical. She wants us to move, but we need to wait to hear back in case they want us back in the gate. So both of us are busy up front while this is going on. We both look up the failure in the Minimum Equipment List to see what the procedure is going to be when they clear us to go. The failure has to be in the book for us to even be able to go. Luckily for us, we both know it's deferrable and we'll be ok to go eventually.

They have us taxi over to a ramp area that's sort of an overflow/parking area in Newark while we make sure that all the paperwork is in order for the flight. The Captain checks with the dead heading Captain who is bringing the plane back to Newark to make sure he is going to be ok with it, which was very smart. He was, but he might not have been and then the plane would have been stuck in Bonaire. All this takes about 15 minutes and we are finally ready to go. We climb out and make our turn toward the Atlantic. Most of the flight will be Oceanic heading south. Almost 45 minutes into the flight we were out of radar contact and had to begin the communications with the HF radio with position reports and all that stuff. That continues until you get north of the Dominican and talking to Miami again. We start off at 33,000ft but the rides sucked. The weather we reviewed showed a lot of turbulence most starting at 33,000, but the dispatcher was pretty confident that it was improving. Before we got too far, we decided to drop down to 31,000. It was a great choice. Our ride still had plenty of bumps, but I think we found the best ride possible. We were heavy enough that we couldn't go much higher.

There were scattered thunderstorms out there too. From north of the Dominican to almost to Bonaire we had to deviate and pick our way around weather. Normally on a flight this long (4h45m) I've got some time to study (read newspaper), but not this day. There was plenty to do and it was my leg to fly anyway. It was raining when we landed in Bonaire and it would continue off and on throughout the rest of the day. Never hard enough to get really wet while being outside, but wet enough that it was impossible to sit outside. Everything was plenty soaked. Bonarie is not the busy, well developed area like Aruba. It's still quite small and small town feeling. They do have more money coming in but the island only has 17,000 full time inhabitants.

This was the view from my room:

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151129_0621451.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151129_0621451.jpg.html)

We got out and had a nice dinner too. Not far from the hotel was this 315ft yacht:

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151128_2112271.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151128_2112271.jpg.html)

It just happens to be Tatoosh (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatoosh_%28yacht%29), Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen's small boat. He was trying to sell it for 160M, 5 years ago. It's longer than a football field with 2 heli pads, and a big sail boat strapped onto the side of it and is currently the worlds 43rd largest yacht.

I slept pretty good. The ocean surf gently pounded the rocks below the room and it sounded just like those ocean sounds from those relaxation sound machines. One hour ahead of eastern time didn't feel too great this morning. We were up before 6 and out the door back to the airport. Bonaire is called Flamingo Airport, because of the native birds in the area. They really take pride in that here:

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151129_0732441.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151129_0732441.jpg.html)

Pink is IN!

The flight this morning was to Houston, not back to Newark, and was actually longer than the flight from Newark. Wrap your head around that one. When we got to the airport, Operations immediately started pushing us to get the flight out early. We told them we'd be fine, just leave us alone to get our work done, but they just kept bugging the crap out of us. And since most of the preflight work is done by me, that means they were pushing my buttons. I'll get it done, when it gets done, and I make sure that I've done what I need to do to get going. Not before. I knew we'd still be on time, just leave me alone!

There aren't any parallel taxiways either. You have to taxi on the runway and back taxi into position. It's not a busy airport at this time, so we didn't have any delays. We took off and made out turn over the north shore of the island. Our routing took us on almost a straight path just south of Jamaica, over the west coast of Cuba, north of the Yucutan peninsula, and finally to Houston.

I cleared customs and had an hour and a half to kill. I got my shoes shined (for any travelers, I've found Houston and Denver to have the best) and grabbed some lunch. The next flight was just a deadhead over to San Antonio for the rest of the day. We got here just in time to catch the late NFL games. The Captain and I went out for some TexMex dinner and then I called it a night and started typing this out.

Tomorrow will be back to Newark after a short flight to Houston in the morning. I'd like to be on time, even though I've got a couple hours until my commute back home, I'd hate to get there any later than I already will be. Just so long as I get home on go home day. That's the most important thing.

[PilotMan]

This has been a really interesting thread to follow, to have a better understanding of what a pilot goes through.

I don't travel much for work, so when I do have to fly I always think, 'man those pilots have it good...getting paid to travel, etc'. Never really understood what was going on 'behind the scenes' so to speak, what a grind the job can be.

Your job is still way cooler than mine, the insight you've provided has been fascinating. Thanks for the look at the side of airlines most of us never get to see.

I sincerely thank you. I hope that you did since it was my goal. I've surprised myself by sticking with it and found that sometimes the words flow pretty easily once I get started. I've never been the big, prolific writer that Izulde or Abe or some others are, but I like to think that I do alright. I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying it. It's great to have the positive feedback.

[CraigSca]

Still reading this - awesome that you've had the stamina to keep writing!

Did you learn anything new when you took the meteorology training? Knowing how wind shear can effect a landing, how does one compensate for the early additional lift and then, of course, the downdraft? Is wind shear during a landing an automatic go around, or does one attempt to land anyway?

[PilotMan]

An early showtime on the last day is guaranteed to make for another long day. I was up by 430a in San Antonio only thankful that it was 530a in the eastern time zone. The most difficult thing about this leg to Houston should be trying to fit eating breakfast in between climbout and decent, when we are only going to be at cruise for about 6-7 minutes.

This reminds me that I forgot to mention that the weather going into Houston yesterday was very low overcast clouds with a misty, drizzle. I had to shoot an instrument approach that provides us with lateral and vertical information and lets us go all the way down to 200ft AGL (above ground level) before we'd have to go around. There are provisions to go lower if we have the approach lights in sight. So coming back from Bonaire it got all the way down until about 300ft AGL before we broke out. Or to put it another way, about 7 seconds from needing to go around and 21 seconds from the ground. It's something that we do on a regular basis, but that doesn't mean it's easy. Add in that generally on the longer 737's our approach speeds are much faster than some other planes. So at this point we are going around 172 mph, and landing within the first 3000ft of the runway, but staying on the glidepath. So that means that we are likely going to eat up the first 1000 ft, due to the fact that we cross the threshold at 50 ft AGL. So now we've got 2000ft to work with to get down and make the landing as soft as we dare for the conditions. All while traveling around 165 mph at touchdown. That equates to approximately 245ft/s or about an 8 second maximum window to make all the adjustments for wind, rate of decent, and speed while trying to coax a soft landing out of it. Some guys are better at it than others, I happen to be very good at it. While I didn't have this landing, I had the landing in Bonaire and had a passenger comment that he'd never felt anything like that landing and that he had no idea it was even possible to land that soft. I've even landed so softly that I didn't know we were on the ground until the flight spoilers came up on the wings. That's the stuff that gets pilots off. It really is.

The weather in Houston wasn't any better on this day. We had an alternate option of Dallas or Little Rock. When we took off they were reporting 1/4 mi visibility with 200ft ceilings. It was expected to improve as the sun came up, but never really get nice. We had decided that since the weather was so low and even though it was my leg, that the Captain should fly it just in case we'd have to shoot an autoland approach to make sure we could get in. That particular approach is now only done by the left seat guy. And it went as expected. When we shot the approach the bases were reported high enought that I could've made the approach, but not by much. We were coming down the glideslope and didn't pick up the approach lights until we were about 250ft AGL and then only got the full length of the runway around 150ft AGL.

After we taxied to the gate and started to look at the paperwork did we realize the extent of our issues. The company had stolen our airplane to give to someone else. The worse news was the our plane was on its way in from La Guardia.....and wouldn't be on the ground until nearly 2 hours after our scheduled departure time. Ugh. My scheduled flight home was immediately in jeopardy. I had some time to kill so I walked around the terminal just to move a little, then headed down to our operations area to sit and work on a project for a Christmas present.

So I've been doing this project all year long and I was thinking that it would be nice to have something so that I could remember it longer, besides of course, this thread, which we all know will outlive all of us. My wife has done some picture books and they've turned out very well, but I'm not one for taking the time to edit, place and put the effort in generally. I asked her which company we'd been the happiest with and she told me. I checked it out, signed up, and started playing with it. They are kind of expensive, but I know the quality is really good. Plus, they run a promotion if you are a new customer where you can get a $25 discount on a 6x8 hardcover, hard page book, like you get for your kids. I ended up ordering 3 of these. In the end, with shipping it was about $35 per book. I think I'm really happy with how they look on the computer. I hope they look this good for real. Here's what the final product looks like. Let me know what you think. Especially if you've been reading this all year long. It'll be like a walk down memory lane!

<iframe src="http://www.asovx.com/upload/Preview?projectId=vaNtHgnrzAc%3D&bottomPadding=10&baseSize=790&baseAsWidth=true" style="height:462px;width:800px;"></iframe>

There's nothing I can do about the time that we get out of Houston. We meet the plane when it gets in and jump in and get to work. Last week I missed my flight home by only a few minutes, I really didn't want that to happen again. I think we had the plane ready to go in about thirty minutes, but they were having a hard time getting everyone situated in the back. In fact the ramp was all done loading the plane when we still had a load of passengers standing standing in the jet bridge.

We pushed back and taxied out. Ground gave us a runway change, so I had to make all the changes for the takeoff before we got to the runway. When we got there we still didn't have our new performance data so we had to pull off to the side for a couple minutes until that came in. Then go back through all the checklists to verify that everything was set up correctly. Once we were sure that it was we took off for Newark.

We did have some nice tailwinds due to the more southerly jet stream. Over 120 mph right on the tail is much better than the alternative. The ride deteriorated though as we rode the cold front that's been working it's way across the eastern US. Many times we'd have to slow down because the ride was just too rough. Even with landing on a favorable runway in Newark it wouldn't be enough. We were just too late. We touched down, and rolled into the gate. By the time we parked, my flight home had just pushed back. Awwww well.

I made sure that I said goodbye to everyone then took a look at the next flight. It was an hour and a half later. So not terrible, but it was full, whereas the flight I was planning on being on was not. It even had a couple of revenue standbys that must have missed earlier flights due to delays. Newark was a having a Newark kind of day it appeared. I got over to the gate as early as I could. I needed to get listed for the jump seat once again. I was fortunate that nobody else had shown up ahead of me, so it looked like I would be getting on that way. The gate agent was 1 minute from closing the flight when the last family of 4 showed up, running through the terminal to get to the plane. That would have been my seat. Instead I did get to sit up front. It's just as uncomfortable as ever, but as you can tell, it's very helpful at getting you where you need to go.

I snapped this picture as we were climbing out of Newark. Just a couple of minutes after broke through the cloud layer and could see the sunset.

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151130_1712241.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151130_1712241.jpg.html)

Cincinnati was calling 900 ft ceilings when we came in for the approach. It had been a very typical grey, rainy late fall/early winter day in the Ohio Valley. Except that the actual conditions were much worse when we came in. At 500ft we still had no visibility on the runway, and we didn't at 300 ft either. It wasn't until, nearly at the minimums for the approach that we saw any runway lights. After we landed it was obvious that the conditions were getting worse. On the drive home it felt as if a blanket of mist had descended. Ahh, it didn't matter though. I was home again. Now to get caught up on all the other normal, life stuff that I've been missing!

[PilotMan]

Still reading this - awesome that you've had the stamina to keep writing!

Did you learn anything new when you took the meteorology training? Knowing how wind shear can effect a landing, how does one compensate for the early additional lift and then, of course, the downdraft? Is wind shear during a landing an automatic go around, or does one attempt to land anyway?

Part of getting my CFI (Flight Instructor) rating is going through, and then teaching a large amount of meteorology. I would say that's where the bulk of my knowledge comes from. But then after I stared flying as a career you pick up a lot more that deals with high altitude stuff and you focus more on the larger US weather picture instead of just the local stuff that impacts flight students most. I did learn how to better utilize the weather program on the ipad to get more accurate reports on turbulence potential hazards enroute though.

Wind shear can be deadly. It's defined as a shift in wind of more than thirty knots. An example would be a situation where I might have a tailwind coming down an approach that then changes to a headwind somewhere closer to the ground. It doesn't happen that way much, but it can happen. I had a situation taking off out of JFK a few years ago where we were climbing out into a layer of shear and had to go to max power and even then, we were only just barely climbing. We couldn't make any turns in that situation until we had climbed out of it.

On landing the situation that you describe is what you might find under a large thunderstorm, or what we might call a microburst. It was the primary cause of the Delta crash in Dallas in 1985.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dKwyU1RwPto" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Technology and awareness have improved a lot since then. It's something that we train on a regular basis and are aware of. I generally don't like bringing the power back much below 52% on approach and it's one of the triggers that I use to keep track of my situation. A situation like Delta faced was the headwind like you described, and where they were way above the ILS glidepath. The result was that they got fast and high, pulled the power back to idle and then when the tailwind hit, they were way behind the power curve, lost all their airspeed and couldn't recover.

They talk about approach gates at 1500ft, 1000ft and 500ft. There are certain approach stability standards that have to be met and if those are not met, then a go around would happen. Recognition is the key, and a smart crew will go around long before they get into that situation now. The tower is much more aware as well. Newer technology now reports when there are wind shift discrepancies for each and every runway on the field. That technology doesn't exist at every airport, but it is out there.

Typically, you might start an approach and if a wind shear report for your runway of greater than 30 kts is alerted then an immediate go around would be required. If nothing was reported, but something alerted you on the approach, say you got really high and fast, you would go around. Safety has improved greatly over the last 30 years and it will continue to be pushed by pilots. We want to get there just as badly as you do.

[CraigSca]

I'm familiar with the Dallas incident and that's exactly why I asked. I've often wondered if the industry as a whole has just gotten lucky when it comes to the event repeating itself. It's good to hear how the way a situation like that would be handled has changed dramatically since then. Thanks!

[britrock88]

I didn't fly with your airline over the holiday, but I don't think that's especially relevant. What I wanted to say is that for the fact that it was a holiday, and one where weather can begin to slow/disrupt the network of planes flying across the country, there were tremendously kind and helpful gate agents, pilots, and attendants over this long weekend.

The quick and dirty is that on the way home on Thanksgiving morning,
I had gate agents hold a plane for me in MSP after my first flight had to de-ice for the entire length of my would-be layover. On the way back, a snowstorm was moving through the upper midwest. Still on the ground in CLT, a gate agent announces the delay (based on metering from MSP ATC) and essentially announces that he's monitoring connections and that everyone should be okay because of the metering, yada yada. After he dealt with ~25 passengers, I got up to thank him, mentioned my connecting flight to BIS, and he helpfully let me know that I would be flying the same plane for both legs. And while the planes were taxiing in both CLT and MSP, the pilots and attendants were very thorough in explaining the extra steps the plane was going through and the time impacts involved, and assuaging us about the impacts of them all.

Kudos to PM and all his colleagues. I was happy to give a lot of heartfelt "thank yous" to your kind over the last several days.

[PilotMan]

Awesome news today.

I got notified that the company bought one of my trips in December for training. This is the second time that it's happened this year, and the second time in nearly 13 years that it's happened.

I had a trip in two weeks that started with a 6+ hour red-eye flight to Bogota, Columbia. I was hesitant at first, but had heard that things have changed there. There was absolutely zero excitement for a 6 hour red-eye. Bogota would have been a new one for me, and it would have been the furthest south that I had ever been.

After the schedules came out the captain who had been awarded the trip dropped it and it went into open time and there it sat. Bogota is a special qualification airport meaning that the captain has to be specially trained before he can operate there on his own. That means a Check Airman flies down with him and gives him training, then signs him off as qualified.

So essentially what happened here was that a captain who needed qualification was awarded the trip and the training captain took my spot in the right seat. I am completely pay protected for the three day trip and it's 15 hours worth of pay.

My options at this point are to stay home, enjoy the time off with pay, or I can pick up another trip over the same time period and get double pay. Pay for the work, and pay for the covered trip. If I stay home I'd be off for most of the middle of the month. I'd have another weekend off for us to plan family activities and time to maybe have a social life.

Things to consider for sure. It made my day today.

[PilotMan]

I didn't fly with your airline over the holiday, but I don't think that's especially relevant. What I wanted to say is that for the fact that it was a holiday, and one where weather can begin to slow/disrupt the network of planes flying across the country, there were tremendously kind and helpful gate agents, pilots, and attendants over this long weekend.

The quick and dirty is that on the way home on Thanksgiving morning,
I had gate agents hold a plane for me in MSP after my first flight had to de-ice for the entire length of my would-be layover. On the way back, a snowstorm was moving through the upper midwest. Still on the ground in CLT, a gate agent announces the delay (based on metering from MSP ATC) and essentially announces that he's monitoring connections and that everyone should be okay because of the metering, yada yada. After he dealt with ~25 passengers, I got up to thank him, mentioned my connecting flight to BIS, and he helpfully let me know that I would be flying the same plane for both legs. And while the planes were taxiing in both CLT and MSP, the pilots and attendants were very thorough in explaining the extra steps the plane was going through and the time impacts involved, and assuaging us about the impacts of them all.

Kudos to PM and all his colleagues. I was happy to give a lot of heartfelt "thank yous" to your kind over the last several days.

That's great to hear. I know that my company made an announcement today that they are purchasing 6000 Iphone 6S's and giving them to all of the customer service people in all the major hubs in the system. The goal is to be able to integrate with the booking and reservations software more efficiently so that in times of trouble rebookings can happen much faster and passengers can be helped without having to spend so long waiting in those lines.

After the long dark of airlines failing to make money and having to go through bankruptcy over and over again, it's nice to finally see them making money, and being able to put the much needed improvements in place that can make the industry that much better for passengers and employees.

[PilotMan]

I headed back to work yesterday. This trips is very conveniently commutable for me. Where last week I only had 3 day trip, but was gone for 4 days, this one is a 4 day and still just gone 4 days. I left home around 730a for my 905a flight to Newark. The flight had a few available seats and I was the only stand by passenger listed so getting a seat wasn't a problem.

We landed around 1100a I had about 45 minutes of free time before I had to get to the plane. Not having eaten I ran down to the cafeteria for some lunch. I have a really hard time turning down a Reuben and fries. I really struggle to eat healthy on the road. I downloaded the paperwork for our 2 hour flight to Atlanta. This is only the second time that I've been back to Atlanta with my new company. I used to come here all the time when I was with Comair. It always brings back a flood of memories and mixed emotion.

The weather surely wasn't an issue. Things were nice both in Newark and all up and down the east coast. I took this leg so it was my landing. The guy that I'm flying with on this trip was stationed at the same AFB that my Dad was and where I was born many years before. Aviation can be a very small world. That goes both ways. If you burn bridges anywhere in this business it can come back and bite you and keep you from getting where you want to go. All it takes is one or two people to derail a shot at a major airline.

We landed and parked in Atlanta and only had 45 scheduled minutes in between flights. After we parked I didn't even get out of the seat at first. I had to get right to grabbing the paperwork for the next leg and then setting the plane up again. It took just about 10 minutes of that to get all my paperwork ready and reviewed, then another 20 to get the cockpit set up and preflighted. By the time I was able to get up for the walkaround we were already boarding and just a few minutes to push.

I walked around the plane, then ran inside the terminal to use a real toilet that I can stand up straight in and then right back to the plane. The next, and last flight of the day was out to Denver. My little bit of exercise had to hold me over for another 3+ hours.

ATC was reporting some turbulence going into Denver so we had everyone finish up and sit down. If you've ever been into Denver, you know they can have some hellacious turbulence to playing it safe is always the best option. We landed early and even with a last minute gate change rolled right up to our spot.

Even though it was only 2 flights having that first leg commute from home made it feel a lot longer. Our layover was a shorter layover so instead of going all the way downtown we stayed out closer to the airport so that we didn't have to waste so much time going back and forth.

Last night was short, but I knew that today would be a short workday. We headed out to the airport at 700a. The plane had overnighted and the only real issue would be whether or not it would need to be deiced. I got everything set up pretty quickly. The Captain checked the wings, but couldn't really get an idea if they needed cleaned off. The temp was such that it could've gone either way. When I went out for the walkaround I discovered that they had already sprayed the plane off with some Type 1 prior to us getting there. That was enough to get the frost off and keep us from having to worry about it.

We pushed back with a nearly full flight, on time, for our only leg of the day, down to Ft Lauderdale. On climb out we heard a report of more turbulence so I kept the plane a little bit slower to mitigate the bumps as well as, to allow for a faster rate of climb. Once we were up to cruise and 40 minutes out the ride eased up and we had a great flight.

ATC originally gave us a direct routing down to Tallahassee, but as we got down over Alabama, they rerouted us due to an active military area that we needed to stay away from. As we got to the top of the decent I pulled the weather for Lauderdale up and saw that it was warm, but raining and windy. Somewhere just east of Ft Myers we hit the rain. It wasn't related to any thunderstorms, but it was heavy.

As we were coming down the noise from the rain and the speed that we were going made it seem like we were just plummeting toward the earth. The rain was loud and the wind was bouncing us all over the place. I broke out of the clouds a few hundred feet up and the rain let off for the landing. The wind was still howling though, but I still managed a rather soft landing.

We taxied in and that was it. I was done. I stayed and said goodbye to all the passengers, while the Captain, who lives in Fort Lauderdale, took off to go home. I had been planning to get out today after watching the NDSU football game on ESPN3, but the non stop rain cooled that plan really quick. Instead I ordered a pizza and just watched the Bison lay the smack down on the Griz of Montana. Getting retribution for the week one loss to start the year.

WOOT! WOOT!

I'm out again tomorrow morning and am officially half way done with the trip.

[PilotMan]

I totally forgot to add that by not being home again this weekend that I missed my middle son's robotics competition. He's been working very hard the last few weeks and has been captaining the team. The teacher has been useless when it comes to giving direction for the kids and he has been the one that has given out assignments, given direction, and been, in general, the ass kicker, for the team.

I guess they came in somewhere around 18th out of 42 teams. In a competition made up of elementary to high school students. This is the first team that his school has had in 3 years so expectations weren't very high, but I think he was pleased with how they did. He said their robot is old and needs new motors.

No matter how they did, he learned a ton of responsibility and what it's like to manage other people. He took on tasks way above his stand and seemed to earn the respect of the other teammates. I am very proud of him if you can't tell. I thought about him all day today. Missing these things, never being able to be a regular contributor at the school or with any teams is certainly limiting.

I always thought that I'd be the one who was right in there helping. I never really understood the sacrifices that this job creates until I was in the thick of it.

[PilotMan]

I'm not going to lie. Between the weather, the early, but not o dark thirty, report times, and long enough layovers this trip has been pretty easy. It's the kind of trip that you feel like you could do over and over again when it runs smooth. Things are clicking in the cockpit. The other guy I'm flying with is a retired Air Force, F4 and F16 pilot who was actually stationed at the same base, for a couple of years, that my Dad was stationed at when he retired.

I didn't sleep well last night. There was a major party in the room next to mine. They were just inconsiderate of anyone else. Look I get it, it's time to celebrate, but not everyone is at the hotel for leisure. I called down and complained, but even after that it didn't really improve. Once I got to sleep it was alright, but I just didn't sleep well. The flight was full with a jump seater in the cockpit and 2 FA jumps in the back from Lauderdale for our flight to Houston. It's pretty common to get jump seaters on this leg. There are lots of crew that live down in south Florida that are trying to get to work.

It was still cloudy in Florida, but all it took was to get to about 15000ft and above that was nothing but sun. The forecast had nothing in the way of weather at all. Houston was clear with great visibility and because we pushed early and had no delays we ended up getting in to the gate about 10 minutes early. We were originally scheduled to have a plane change during our hour and fifteen minute break, but while we were getting our paperwork for the next flight we realized that we were getting to keep the plane. As little of a thing as that sounds like it really isn't. When I unpack I've got the Ipad, my headset, my logbook, my sunglasses, my bag with all my extra stuff in it to keep track of. All that stuff has to get packed back up, made sure nothing is left, then unpacked. Logistically, it's just more steps in between actually starting the pre-flight. So when we got to keep it I immediately had an extra 15 minutes to play with.

I got the plane all set up and took a break in the terminal. This was about 30 minute until I was due back to the plane. The weather on the next leg didn't even include a cloud. I mean A cloud. Just about as perfect as you can get. The weather in Phoenix was just as perfect. The ride was smooth, the flight was just about 2.5 hours, so not too long, and the approach was easy peasy rice and cheesy.

Pilots live for days like today, where things are just rolling along, the weather is good, and there are no delays. It makes our jobs so much easier and passengers can be generally assured that everything is going to work out alright. We landed in Phoenix a good 20 minutes early and headed downtown. I needed a nap before I could do anything, then met the Captain out for dinner.

Tomorrow is one leg back to Newark and then a flight home. I'd love it if things we just as smoothly tomorrow.

[britrock88]

Remind me--Minot or Grand Forks?

[PilotMan]

Well, I'm not entirely sure what you're asking, but as far as home goes, I live in the Kentucky side of Cincinnati. I grew up in Minot, graduated from High School in Bismarck, and College in Fargo. I sort of get to claim the whole state for origin.

Emotional would be a little understated in describing how I'm feeling right now. Everything leading up to this was good, very good. The Steelers won big time, I got about 6 solid hours of sleep, the plane was good to go. So it started alright.

We climbed out of Phoenix and headed back to Newark. I was running the radios on this one and there were no shortage of frequency changes. The company flight plan had us flying at a faster speed to stay on time. There was very little tail wind to speak of. That was the reason that flying faster was necessary. We were maybe 15 minutes into the flight when we started to get the standard lull of light chop, the rhythmic bumping along like a boat on the water. Enough turbulence that you can't relax, but not so much that you have to slow down. This lasted from Arizona all the way until we were in Indianapolis airspace. It eventually settle down and we were making good time.

Let me interrupt this to say that we were scheduled to land at the same time that an earlier flight home was scheduled to leave. I really had no expectation to be able to make that flight since we really couldn't make any time up and had no wind help at all. The last 2 weeks of just barely missing a flight home gave me the feeling that if I shouldn't even contemplate it, just relax and wait it out. The next flight that I was planned to be on was a two hour wait longer. Nobody wants to wait that long. But I really didn't have a choice.

As we easily made our way to Newark we were going to land about 8 minutes early. That would put me in the gate around 10 minutes early overall. Still not early enough. Then things started to happen.

Newark turned the airport around and started landing on a more favorable runway for our approach, then the approach controller gave us a direct vector to the final approach fix. This never happens. So much time of Newark is build into ATC vectoring for the final. I've talked about it before, but you can rush all you want and ATC will take it all away for the approach, but the reverse can happen to and it can be shortened much more than if you had been speeding for 4 hours.

Now I started looking at the clock. They had shaved off another 10 minutes. That might make me have to try. We landed and the tower controller cleared us across the parallel runway and over to ground. Ground taxied us straight to the ramp. Ramp taxied us straight to the gate! Holy crap! No delays! Straight to the gate!

Now it's 20 minutes until my flight leaves, and I've got to rush to get my stuff. I might have a chance at this. I jump off and start hurrying to the gate. I see that it's even leaving from the same concourse that I'm in, but it's a long walk. I hustle, ducking and weaving around people. People move like the parting of the Red Sea. It's still along walk.

I finally get there. It's 11 minutes before the departure and it's closed. The gate agent is gone. The plane is there. I'm fucked.

I hate this feeling. I set myself up for it. Now I'm sitting here for 2 hours. Just as I was accepting that I could deal with that I got a notification that my new flight was delayed for 2 hours. Fuck me.

I changed my flight listing to show the next flight out. It's only 3.5 hours instead of the 4, but it feels now, like I'm never going to get home.

The commute home is already 2 hours long. I can't say that I'm excited to wait another 3.5 hours just to begin. I can see another jump seat in my future. Inevitably, any open seats on this flight are going to be filled with people from the delayed flight.

[PilotMan]

Six and a half hours after I missed my flight, and 12 hours after I started my day I finally got home. I am looking forward to my break. I still think I'm going to enjoy the weekend off with pay rather than pick up something else. I think I'm due for a weekend. It's also time to bid for January and I need to finish my computer training by the end of the year.

[britrock88]

Six and a half hours after I missed my flight, and 12 hours after I started my day I finally got home. I am looking forward to my break. I still think I'm going to enjoy the weekend off with pay rather than pick up something else. I think I'm due for a weekend. It's also time to bid for January and I need to finish my computer training by the end of the year.

Enjoy that weekend, and hate to hear about the go-home rollercoaster.

I was curious about which AFB you were referring to, but hey, covering all of ND is fair. :)

[PilotMan]

It was actually George AFB in Victorville CA. It's now a boneyard for cast away planes and the base is long closed.

[PilotMan]

It's just now starting to sink in that I've got the weekend off. The kids have been asking when I'm leaving again (as they usually do), and I've been holding off saying anything concrete because I still wanted to leave the option on the table to work, but they will be very happy to have me here.

I worked on two of my training modules this morning. The first of which dealt with the proper procedures and record keeping for flights that travel out of radar range over the ocean or remote continental locations like upper Canada and Greenland. The only real routes that this applied to for the 737 are some Atlantic routes to the islands and our routes from LA and SFO to Hawaii. The next was procedures and requirements for aircraft operating in RVSM (Reduced Vertical Separation Minimums) airspace above 29,000 ft. It went over the current rules and what procedures we have in place to comply with the rules, as well as how to handle situations where you are no longer legal for RVSM airspace or how to handle short term exceptions where you might be allowed into that area even if you don't have the requirements for it.

The last module was a very detailed section that we have to have training in every year, per the FAA, to be able to stay qualified to shoot a very specific type of approach. They are called PRM (Precision Runway Monitor) approaches, and deal with closely spaced parallel runways with simultaneous approaches to them. I've probably shot less than 5 of these in 13 years, but we still have the training to stay current. All airlines have a variation on this that is similar so I'm very familiar with it, so that makes it much less fun to do over and over again.

I also was able to get my January bid in. January is pretty simple. The flying drops way off from December, there are more people on vacation, and we don't really have any major family activities, with the exception being the last part of Christmas break for school. My bid starts with December 30, and I'm already off the 28-29, and I have a very short vacation Jan 2-3, that I got as part of a Union settlement over work rules from 2 years ago. My goal is try and get that gap of the 30-1 off which would mean that I'd be off with the kids until they have to go back to school on the 4th. The rest of the month I don't really care. So I've got my bid to try and get a minimum of days off between trips and that block of days at the end of December. It's a total of 11 different bids to try and protect myself against really bad things happening. I should be able to get most of what I want. Right now I'm up to 56% seniority in the seat, which is better than ever. It can only mean continued schedule improvement over the next year.

[PilotMan]

I'm a little over halfway through my planned time off at home for the holiday. Things have been busy just taking care of the boys, trying to get the shopping done and plan for the holiday.

I took the time and finished my training that was due by the end of the year. The first module that I did was a refresher on the new procedures that are coming to the 737 in the way of an updated flight management computer that will allow some newer options, specifically the ability to get a pilot/controller data link with the plane on the ground to get clearances. Plus some updates that will allow some additional programming for planning purposes. The other update dealt with the new electronic logbook. The logbook in the plane will be replaced electronically and updated by the company and maintenance. There are new procedures to verify the legality and airworthiness of the aircraft prior to each flight as well as new procedures in the event that we have a mechanical. I'll get more training on each of these things as they come on line next year too.

The second module covered the fuel system of the plane. It went over the function, location and operation of the various pumps. It also covered the limitations and switch position and indicator lights in the aircraft. This a standard system review that I'd see normally.

The last module dealt with the alcohol and drug policies and testing procedures. Since I'm subject to DOT drug testing there are some pretty specific rules and definitions that I need to be aware of. Also, when traveling out of the country the rules of the country that I'm in might be even more stringent than the company rules and that I am bound by the regs of that country. The last part of this training dealt with the ways that pilot can get help if abuse is a problem or suspected and how to handle a crew member that is having problems. The company, FAA and union all have agreed on a path that allows a pilot to keep his job in the event he would get busted somewhere.

Since I'm working over Christmas next week we have to plan to have our family Christmas earlier, so we've got it planned for the 20-21-22 next week. Everyone is excited.

I will get my January schedule late tomorrow night.

[britrock88]

It was actually George AFB in Victorville CA. It's now a boneyard for cast away planes and the base is long closed.

An interesting boneyard, too.

And it's been an interesting year (almost) following along with you, too. Thanks for the knowledge and insight you've shared!

[PilotMan]

An interesting boneyard, too.

And it's been an interesting year (almost) following along with you, too. Thanks for the knowledge and insight you've shared!

Thanks britrock, I've enjoyed it too. I'm looking forward to being able to take a break from the writing, but I think that I may still update it from time to time, or if something occurs to me that I want to point out. It's still going to be here as a forum for questions too. I feel good about how it all turned out.

Today is a busy night. It's a piano recital for one and a band concert for another one. They happen about 30 minutes apart and a it's 40 minute drive in between. That means that we have to split up. I'm planning on being late for the band concert. The piano recital should happen pretty fast, and his teacher knows we need to leave quickly so he is going 3rd tonight. It also might be the last Christmas recital for him too, as his love of piano, after 4 years just isn't taking off. Sigh. That's a hard one for me to swallow. I really wanted to see him continue, and I'm proud of the way that he plays.

So this starts the crazy weekend. Tomorrow will be the end of school for the year, and that's our family movie night. Saturday we are supposed to go to Dayton to see family and exchange presents there. But that's kind of up in the air at this point, due to other family members being difficult.

Sunday is out Christmas Eve. The real part of the day will start around noon when we get ready and head out to go ice skating. That's been a Christmas Eve tradition for years now and the kids really like it, even if none of us is any good. They we'll race home and get cleaned up for church services that night. After the Christmas Eve service we'll all go out for a nice family dinner (also tradition) then drive around and look at lights (another tradition.) I'm sure the excitement will be in the air by then. Everyone will have a present to open (it'll be pajamas) per another tradition and then Monday morning will be our big day.

The day starts off with stockings and then some breakfast. Our breakfast is a brunch style feed yourself. We'll open presents in a couple different rooms, taking turns and having a good time. We'll take breaks and just really enjoy each other and the gifts all morning. When the boys were younger sometimes we'd still be opening gifts as it got dark again.

Tuesday is the 22nd, and that is traditionally known as "play day" around here. Nothing happens at all. It's time relax and enjoy your new toys. Except that this day is a little different. We'll head down to the Newport Levee before noon and have a family lunch and then we'll head to the movie theater for the IMAX 3D matinee showing of The Force Awakens.

Wednesday will be a day to breathe and get caught back up again. I have to get ready and refocused. That night I'll head back out to Newark and get ready for the next trip that starts on the 24th.

[PilotMan]

My January schedule came out and I guess I still haven't learned my lessons about being too optimistic in my schedule expectations. I was trying to get a full break over new years. There were only 28 trips that would have even impacted me, so I was hoping that it would be good enough to hold all that time off between the end of December and my short vacation before the kids go back to school.

Every single one of my bid failed until it got down to my last resort bid and then it put a 2 day trip on my schedule right over New Years. To make matters worse, it's a 2 day that will act like a 4 day for me because of when I have to leave to go to work and when I get back home. That doesn't make me happy either. I'm going to try and drop the trip without pay and try and pick up something else at the end of the month. The end of January is challenging to find anything good though. If it doesn't happen it doesn't, but I have to try.

The rest of my month isn't bad at all. It's back to weekend working, with trips that I'll be able to get back and forth on. The biggest issues are that the commutes aren't as easy as some have been. For example I've got a 5 hour sit before I get to come home after a trip on a Saturday. That's why I try really hard not to have trips start or end on that day. There's just not enough flights back and forth and they end up being a giant waste of time.

There is currently another vacancy bid out for some different planes. I thought about switching planes next year. There are reasons for staying and reasons for switching. Right now I can hold a first officer position in any of the bases, New York, DC, SF, LA CLE, CHI, on the 737 or the combined 757 and 767 fleet. Chicago is probably the easiest commute to work, but I would lose a day off or so because the trips aren't as productive and I wouldn't be as senior so my schedules would suck. If I were to go to the international fleet I'd be spending all of my trips in London somewhere in the UK. I'm not really senior enough to hold trips to any other location and while that is certainly something I want to do, I want more control over my schedules. So in order to have the control I've got to have the seniority. My current seat has the best seniority thus far, and that allows me to have some quality of life. My QOL was so bad for so many years I don't even know what a good QOL is like. I expect that I'd move up more this next year and the good thing is that as each year goes by my seniority goes up company wide. I'm now at 89.9% seniority overall, which means that I've got over 1250 pilots that are Jr to me. Once I make it into the 79% range I should have enough furlough protection that if the industry really just tanks I'd have enough to keep from being laid off. Roughly 2500 pilots, 20% furloughs are common in bad times. That will probably take another 18 months which just shows you how fast things are moving for me. I went 10 years in my last job and never moved up 1000 numbers. Here I am 30 months in and already up higher than that. Retirements are coming, new hires are coming. Jet fuel is much cheaper and the airlines, after 15 years of restructuring, bankruptcies, shuttered airlines, and thousands of pilots on the street, are finally making money and job security is looking much better. Sure nothing is set in stone and it can all change on a dime. Worldwide events shape the industry. There are still plenty of bad things that can make it all go away.

[PilotMan]

I started this whole thing to capture moments like this one. I've spent the vast majority of the day, my last day home, fretting about how I'm getting to work. I don't start my trip until after noon tomorrow, and normally I'd be able to commute to work early in the morning. However, tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and there are no direct flights until after I'm supposed to be there.

There were two leg options in the morning that would get me there, but only 1 so I had planned on taking the last flight to Newark tonight. You've seen this before, and everything has worked out alright. I've been able to avoid bad weather and get to work when I needed to. The day started pretty early this morning, almost over 10 hours before my flight, with a text that said that my flight was already 3 hours late. Not good. Like, really not good. That sort of certainty that early means bad things. There were only 4 direct flights from here to there all day, and the first one, the 630a flight, already cancelled.

So this is where I start thinking. I look up what my options are for the backup flight. What I find is that Chicago is already overbooked, and it's Chicago, land of commuters and bad weather. So the chances of getting to Newark from there suck. There's another flight, going through Charlotte, to Newark that will get me there. So I have an option, but it's not a good one. The combination of fewer flights due to the holiday, and really full flights, due to the holiday make everything so much harder.

Back to the story.

So the flight wasn't to leave now until 11pm, 3.5 hours late. I'm keeping an eye on the earlier flight too. It was supposed to leave around 430p, but it's delayed too. It's all ok so far. I need another backup plan. It's a weekday, so there's supposed to be a cargo flight that goes direct too. I call them to make sure that it is going to run, and that they still have a seat on it. Yes to both answers. The drawback here is that it leaves at 5a. That means I've got to be there by 4 and leave home by 330a, get up at 230a. Not a great backup, but still doable.

So, while I'm keeping an eye on all of this, my flight cancels.

I relist for the earlier flight, now delayed until the time my flight originally was supposed to go. All the flights are full and full of non-revs trying to travel. So the plan now is to take this other, delayed flight. But the reality is, I won't get there early enough to list for the jumpseat, because others will have beaten me to it.

A couple hours later. That flight cancels.

Now there are no direct flights left for me to take to get to work today. I've got the option to call in and miss my trip, without pay. That would cost me some significant coin. I like the idea of being home, but it means losing 1/4 of my monthly pay and having to talk to the chief pilot to explain why I'm missing the trip.

I go back to the drawing board. There's another flight that I can take into LaGuardia tonight. That would mean finding transportation back to Newark, across Manhattan, late tonight. Can't say that's an option I'm keen to try either.

So that's where I'm at. I've got to make a decision. Go to LGA, get up at 230a and take a cargo flight direct, or call the company and miss the trip, stay home and take it in the checking account. I hate all these options. On Christmas Eve no less. I've got a stress headache and my last day home, when I'm supposed to be relaxing and enjoying the spoils of my Christmas haul, but no, I'm worrying about this.

In the end I've settled on the cargo flight. I called them, listed on the flight, and no that I've got a seat and that I don't have to worry about someone taking my seat. It's just really, really early. So I get to be home a little later, but my day tomorrow will be just that much longer. If anything happens to this flight, I'm staying home. I've got plenty of support on my side if I do, but I'm at least, giving this my best effort. Now to enjoy the rest of my day.

[PilotMan]

Merry Christmas everyone! This time last year I was in Jackson Hole enjoying the snow and eating my dinner in a Starbucks, because there was nothing else available.

December 21st was the Winter Solstice, best remembered for being the shortest day of the year. While it's considered the first day of winter, to me it means the beginning of the end of short days. Daylight makes my job so much easier that the long, dark winter can drag on. So for me, a sign that days will get long again, is a good sign. This year it was also the day that we celebrated Christmas at home as a family. The boys are old enough that they don't mind so much anymore, but you can't fool my wife. Christmas, still only happens on Christmas, whether or not I'm there. We can pretend, but it's still not the same, because, well, it just isn't.

My Christmas Eve started with the alarm going off at 240a. I hit the snooze a couple times and pulled myself out of bed. Normally, I'd be doing all this on my own, but since I'm taking a cargo flight, I can't leave my car where I normally would and my oldest son wants to use my car too, so my wife has agreed to get up with me and haul my butt to the airport. We are out the door by 330a and she gets me dropped off. Being able to ride on a cargo plane like DHL, FedEx, or UPS is a nice option when things just don't work out the other way, and some guys even insist that it's the only way to do it. No passengers to deal with, a more laid back atmosphere and sometimes it's the only option I have when I get back to EWR late.

I took the bus out to the plane and introduced myself to the pilots and asked if they could take me to work. They gave me the safety demo and lucky for me, there was a row of seats outside the cockpit so they didn't feel like they needed to entertain me and I could lay down if I wanted. There wasn't anyone else up there with me and sleep was what I wanted.

https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/10176169_10153802796174648_1973596876426959180_n.jpg?oh=9db3aca8141ff6a69e40778560e4b00a&oe=57109F4D

Pretty awesome isn't it? Behind that seat is a wall and beyond that thousands of pounds of cargo loaded in, strapped down, and ready to go. I tried to sleep, but no way could I get comfortable enough. The hour and a half went fast though. We landed in EWR and I had to find the bus to take me back to the main terminal where I had a decision to make, stay at the airport or go to the crash pad?

Ultimately, I decided that being able to eat some breakfast (that I've already paid for) might be nice and the beds at the crash pad might be (considerably) more comfortable. So I headed there. By 845 I was in my bunk and asleep 5 minutes later. I planned to head back to the airport at noon so I could eat some lunch prior to flying out. Good thing I woke up at 1145a. I had no alarm set, and no clue that I'd sleep that late. My body clock was already blown. It still felt like morning when I left.

Lunch was a hamburger in the cafeteria and then I got all my paperwork updated before my flight. I only had 1 leg to Ft Myers on this day and after the day I'd already had, I was thankful. We carried a full plane of passengers down to FL for their Christmas. The plane was about 30 minutes late getting in so we weren't expected to run on time either. The holidays are nice if only that people are a little more patient, the airports are way less busy, and there is a general feeling that people are more appreciative than normal.

I hadn't flown in over 2 weeks and I'll admit that I felt rusty. All those routines that you get down sometimes take a minute to get back. By today, it was all old hat again.

Our layover is pretty short, but there's enough time to relax for a couple hours, get a quick workout in, then eat. After dinner the reality of the day set in and I was wiped out. I talked to the family for a bit, but then it was only 6 hours until I had to get up again. Sleep was necessary and I had to plan for the next day. Ft Myers is one of our nicer properties to stay at in the states. It's a resort, but the big drawback is that there's nothing else to really eat around here.

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I had to get up at 445a this morning for a 600a pickup. Today was a full day, but only 2 flights, one to Newark, and one back here.

We had a whopping 25 people for the Christmas morning flight back to Newark. I had some time, and we were a little delayed due to fueling this morning, so I went back and chatted with everyone. We also had a first time flyer who was about 12 who I took up to the cockpit with his Dad to show them around. We had a maintenance deferral that needed a mechanic to perform a check before we could go, and he was the only guy working this morning, and he was stuck between 3 planes. Not good.

We only pushed off 7 minutes late though, and were able to make it up in the air. I kept getting weather updates for Newark and even though there was a forecast for some limited visibility, there was nothing like the thick fog that blanketed the airport. For almost 2 hours of our flight Newark had 0 visibility. Our dispatcher said that planes were still able to get in and I wonder if it had been a normal day, if that had been true? Surely, the big drop off in flights for the holiday helped out.

We set up for an autoland approach, the lowest that we can go, 50Ft above ground without actually seeing the runway, but as we set up the weather had improved to 400ft ceilings and a couple miles vis, or a standard ILS approach.

I had just under an hour and a half between flights to change planes and get my paperwork. Then we took 182 passengers back down to Ft Myers. The weather pattern of warm weather on the east coast has left a lot of instability in the atmosphere and that was translating into a choppy ride for us each way. Once we were south of Savannah it eased up a bit for the rest of the trip to RSW.

I'm back at the same hotel tonight, and the layover isn't any longer tonight than it was last night. The exception is that I'm here a couple hours earlier, but have an even earlier get up tomorrow morning. It's Christmas, and food is really going to be a question mark tonight. The hotel is offering a buffet dinner for $75 per person. That doesn't really appeal to me, but I'm not sure what else they'll have for me. Pizza (if there's anyplace open) might have to be an option. We'll see.

My ride will be here at 430a, that means it's 315a for the wakeup. Ugh. Tomorrow is the long day too. I've really only got time to eat some food, then I need to sleep much earlier tonight so I can be prepared.

Not being home for a big family holiday like this isn't fun. It's just another day. I think that's why I try and make every day at home count. We know that our time as a family, with all the kids home grows shorter every day. The Mrs is kind of bumming. I've not been successful at getting my trip dropped yet, so if I don't it'll be a pretty short turnaround after this trip.

[PilotMan]

Don't worry I didn't have to spend $75 on my Christmas dinner! I could tell that there was a lot of concern and worry that I'd be stuck, but never fear, there were other alternatives. I ended up eating wings and ribs in the hotel bar. Not nearly as glamorous, but it got the job done. The hardest thing last night was just trying to be tired so I could go to bed and get enough sleep before the 315a alarm went off.

If you've been following along, you'll realize that a very big part of this job is getting enough sleep or sleeping when you can, where you can, so you can be as rested as possible. With the schedules that bounce from morning to night and back, or just plain early mornings for someone like me who prefers afternoon flying it can be quite challenging.

Ft Myers was so messed up this morning. The TSA had this long line. A long line before 5a, because they only had 1 lane open, and were doing training on it. So it was going very slowly. They had plenty of people to open another lane, they just didn't. It's so irritating and it makes me happy that most of the time I don't have to bother with all that anymore.

The next hurdle was that we were leaving so early in the morning that the airport was effectively an uncontrolled field and the tower was closed. Again, this is only something that I run into once in a blue moon. A quick refresher on how I deal with ATC at an airport.

I talk to the ground controller to get clearances for my pushbacks and taxi outs. They are responsible for all the ground traffic. Duh. The tower controller gives me my takeoff clearances, ensures spacing and clearances within the airport area. Then I get handed off to the approach controller who controls all the IFR traffic in the area and again, ensures separation. Without the tower being open, most of those safeguards are out the window. Aircraft announce their intentions on the common traffic advisory radio frequency and it's up to everyone to make sure that they know where everyone else is and see and avoid. I have to know all that and all the regulations governing the airspace. There's an exception to all of this in that, for Ft Myers, the Miami Center controller takes over control over the airspace above and can monitor the airspace for other traffic. Sometimes you can talk to them on the ground, sometimes you have to talk to them once you get airborne. They also give us our routing clearance for the entire trip so it's necessary that we get that ASAP. Generally, we'd get that from the controller on the ground, but with the tower closed this morning I didn't have it until just before we took off. It makes for an even busier routine at a critical time when everything has to be right.

We left so early that it was still dark when we landed in Houston. I couldn't wait to get done there. I was tired, we were 20 minutes early, which meant that I had just over an hour to catch a nap before the next flight. I found a chair and fell asleep in just a few minutes.

My next flight had me heading out of the country again. I grabbed all the paperwork and a Subway and went to the plane. We had a couple of minor maintenance issues that we got resolved and then took a delay because of international luggage reconciliation. They had to pull a bunch of bags off the plane, I guess because of people who didn't make the flight. We still took over 160 people down to Panama City, Panama. The routing had us flying southwest over Cancun then cutting the corner over Nicaragua. You need to check out the island of San Andreas. I fly over it coming down here and it looks really cool. I don't know anything about it, it's out in the middle of nowhere and it's actually owned by Columbia.

San Andrés (island) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Andr%C3%A9s_%28island%29)

It was 93 when I got here, but I was just happy it wasn't raining like it was the last time. Tomorrow, I head back to Newark to finish off the trip and then back home again. I need go home day. It's also going to feel like I'm really sleeping in. I don't need to get up until about 6a. HA!

I've not been successful at trying to get rid of my trip over New Years. Bummer. Maybe I'll still be able to pull it off, but I really don't want it. I doubt that I'll be able to get rid of it, but I'm still trying!

[claphamsa]

i was in south FLA until today.... on the way down, as soon as they closed the door, some dude freaked out, and demanded to get off. he was looking sick and lost it as soon as he got off the plane, was super fun.

also the first row seats are obscenely small these days...

[PilotMan]

Yesterday, ugh, yesterday. Yesterday was one of the few days of my career where I finished the day absolutely done, exhausted, and overwhelmed. It was never supposed to be like that of course. In fact, it started like any other day where I have one flight and then one flight home. We left the hotel in Panama City at 800a, which also happens to be 800a body time, as Panama is in the Eastern time zone. That's a very nice thing about N/S routes versus E/W ones.

The plane had over-nighted there so it was ready when we got there. The flight to Newark from Panama is almost due north. The airport runways are situated N/S even though you land on the Pacific side and take off toward the Atlantic. I probably could have gone to see the Canal after I got in, but I needed the break. I got a quick workout in and then had some dinner. After that sleep took hold. I digress.

So the flight is a 5 hour flight, straight north, over Cuba and the Bahamas and then back in the US over NC and into Newark. Unless you've been under a rock the last week you are aware that there's been a significant amount of severe weather that has moved across the US, from heavy rains in the south and tornadoes and thunderstorms from Texas to Ohio. The weather in Newark has also been bad. For the last 2 days visibility has been low as a steady drizzle and low clouds hung in the area. It's been warm and planes have been getting in, but with the holiday, and the reduced schedule it's been manageable for ATC and flight crews. So yesterday was more of the same, and while flights were still getting in, you could tell that things were getting harder. The plane behind us on the approach lost separation and the tower controller had to send them around for another approach. We were tight to the plane in front of us too. After we landed and tower cleared us across the parallel runway because ATC had stopped departures temporarily.

I'm going to back up for a minute, because I don't really know if I've talked about what it's like to be the guy who isn't flying the plane. I know that I've said that I run the radios when I'm not flying, but there's so much more to it than that. A big part of working with someone else is that both of you have to know what to expect from the other person. That's the whole reason for standardization of procedures and call outs. There's a whole 2000 page book that talks about how we are to fly the airplane. We both have to understand that and work that way together. In the preflight brief you mention that if you see me doing something stupid speak up because I probably am. So the two of us work together, but we both have different responsibilities for that flight, but we both have to be available to step in and take over or cover for the other guy at any time. You are each other's safety net. You are the line of defense. So while I may not be in actual, physical control of the plane, I am flying it. I'm flying it mentally. I'm watching everything and noting what I would do, what I expect him to do, monitor how the plane is working and then have to be prepared to step in or that the least, say something and wait for it to be corrected. It's not like I'm just sitting there and waiting for my turn or anything. Kind of like getting in the car with your kid and your teaching them to drive. You're not in control, but you have to be right there, aware of everything and the entire situation just in case you need to take over. So every flight is like that. We've both been flying for over 40 years combined, but this is the mentality that it takes. You've got to watch out, because there might come a time where you are the only thing that saves you. It's why a 5 hour flight is tiring, even when I'm not actually flying the plane.

Yesterday was a red day. As in, there's a lot of red on the flight boards.

So let me frame what's about to happen next. It's a Sunday, as you know, and there is already a reduced number of flights because of the weekend. No matter that it also happens to be the Sunday after Christmas and the volume of passengers is much higher than a typical Sunday. Meaning that flights that may have been mostly full are now very full. The third thing is the weather. Now the weather in Newark might not have been awful, but the scope of the weather across the US was causing all kinds of ripple effects. Newark was starting to run some pretty heavy delays when we landed and I got off the plane at 230p yesterday. My flight home was to be at 430p and the last time that I had looked, a couple of days ago, it still had 5 seats on it. That should have been plenty of room to get me there.

So I cleared customs and started for a restaurant that I knew would have a few games playing that I could watch while I called home and waited. I took a look at my flight and found that not only was it oversold, but that I was now #4 on the standby list. That meant that I would have to be standing at the gate when the agent showed up so I could be first in line for the jumpseat. Meaning that I wasn't going to get much downtime before I'd have to wander over there.

I called home and while I was on the phone I got the text notification that my flight home had cancelled. That just sent everything into a tailspin. There was only 1 other flight home for me, and it was sold out, and it was 5 hours away. Plus if there were any empty seats they'd be booked with revenue stand by passengers. But 5 HOURS! And it was the last direct flight. I had to come up with some kind of plan and each minute that went by was a minute I was not getting home.

I double check, no other direct flights. I pull up google flights and flight aware and start to cross check some other options for cities that I might be able to go through and still have a chance to get home on. Obvious options are Chicago, Atlanta, Charlotte. Options like Houston are out because of just travel time and weather. Atlanta is out because of weather. If I decide to 2 leg it home I have to have a couple of options that will get me home on that second leg. I don't want to get caught somewhere with no options and have to shell out cash for a hotel. The stress is through the roof. I just want to go home. I know I can't. I'm watching my time off slip away like sands through the hourglass. Everything is oversold. Every flight is full. Every flight has loads of stand by passengers on it. If I decide to wait for the last direct flight I might not make it then at least I can go to the crash pad. I look up the next flight home in the morning. It's not until 1030. Crap. I wouldn't make it home until after 1p and waste half of my day off.

I really don't like doing the whole 2 leg thing. It's really a crapshoot. I look up Chicago. It's got a lot of guys from my company. The jumpseat is already taken, and if I get to Chicago on the next flight I really only have 1 maybe 2 flights to get home. There's even a late night flight that leaves after midnight and gets in at 2a, but guess what? It's full too. Everything is full. Everything is full and I've got no seniority. I just want to go home and I'm tired.

The airport is just buzzing from all the people. The delays and cancellations give everything an extra edge. People are rushing, ducking, weaving, running to their next plane. It's a hum of commotion and it's hot. I'm wearing my uniform which is a 2 piece suit with a hat and an open invitation to ask any question that anyone might have. I'm so used to being looked at in the airport that when I'm not in uniform and I'm not being looked at it feels weird. I totally get how celebrities get used to that.

I finally settle on a plan. I've had good success using Charlotte in the past. They don't have the bad weather and I know that even when I get there I should have 2 chances to get home, and that last flight home always has seats on it. In order to go to Charlotte I've got to ride on American. American has a delayed flight that is still there, waiting for a plane to come in. I leave security, take the train, and head over to the other terminal. If I didn't have the ability essentially bypass security nothing like this would be possible. It's wall to wall people everywhere. I head up to the gate and ask if the jumpseat is taken, it is.

Sigh. The next flight to Charlotte is 90 minutes later at 515p. I ask if there is anyone on the jump for that flight and the agent is very nice and offers to get me listed and lists me all the way home, back to Cincinnati. So now I've got to wait for this plane. Another hour until it even gets there and no idea if it's going to work. So at this point my plan is to get to Charlotte, and catch one of 2 flights home. If I miss this next flight, then I'll sit around and wait until the 800p direct. If I don't get on that then it's back to the crash pad for me.

The second Charlotte flight starts to board and I'm number 30 on the standby list for the flight. I've already talked to the crew, introduced myself and let them know that I'm trying to catch a ride. I need to do all I can do to get on. It doesn't look good and I don't know anything until just a couple of minutes before. It's all stressful. The waiting, the noise, the people, the hoping your plan works out. And just like that they call me and give me a seat and tell me to get on. Whoohoo!

Half the plan is in play now I need to be on time. My connecting flight is only 30 minutes later in Charlotte and it's from one end of one concourse to the other end of another. ATC held us on the ground in Newark for a few minutes but it wasn't long. It didn't delay us enough to hurt me. We landed in Charlotte and I grabbed a burger on my way to the next flight. As I'm sitting there I start getting notifications that the last flight I was going to take from Newark is delayed. I'm thankful that I made this choice.

I head to the gate and introduce myself to the agent and he gives me a seat. This flight is open and it's going to be ok. I get on board and ask the Captain for permission to board and he tells me to sit in first class which is really nice. It's something that I used to do when I was a Captain and it's something that should be (and could be) done more often. The flight home is fairly short and after all that I'm tired. The Mrs. picks me up (cause she dropped me off at the start) and hauls me home.

When I get there I've been in uniform for 15 hours and it took me more time to get home than I actually worked. I was tired from the trip itself which had many early, early days, shorter layovers and then this craziness at the end of it. I walked in the door and said hi, went to my room, and went to bed. At 1030p I was done and just needed to not think about anything else. I was exhausted, but at least I made it home. The last flight I could have gotten on hadn't even left Newark yet by the time I had landed at home. I made a good choice today.

[Barkeep49]

I'm glad you got home. Congrats on that.

[PilotMan]

So I'm still trying to get rid of this trip on the 31st and I still can't. I keep looking at the flying that's open to see if there's anything better that I can swap into. Today there was a trip, almost identical to the trip that I had planned that goes to a layover that I prefer. In all reality it's less pay and I have to still leave the day before, and get back very late on the end, but it's still a more desirable trip.

I was originally supposed to do a trip back down to Panama City, and I had considered taking a trip to see the Canal while I was there. I make a little bit more for it being an international destination, but there's a limit to how much I can really enjoy that layover being out of the country. The layover is about 24 hours, meaning I'd have plenty of time to kill. But I'm not doing that now.

Right now, I'm heading somewhere much colder. Last year, for Christmas I got the chance to layover in Jackson Hole. It was a challenging trip for food, but to be in one of my favorite places at that time was a great experience. Now I'm going back. We only do seasonal flights into Jackson Hole, and it's a special qualification airport, like I explained with Bogota earlier this month. The Captain spot is still open as well, so there's a small chance that I could get bought off this trip too. I put the trip back in the drop list, I still want to be home for the New Year, but now, if I don't, I'll be in Jackson Hole at 1p on New Years Eve, and I don't have to leave again until noon the next day. I'd say that's a great way to see the year out if I'm not at home.

[PilotMan]

Here I am, beginning the last trip of the year. It feels good that I stuck with this project. If anything, it shows me that I can undertake something that seems big and keep it up.

My time at home went by really, really fast. Just like any other weekend. I did some laundry, played a bunch of computer games with the kids and slept good in my own bed. I was supposed to take a 430p flight out of there to head back to Newark today, and just like Sunday when I came home, and like the 23rd coming here, it sucked. Full flights, few options, but I had my bases covered. I really had 3 flights to try if you include that I can take the cargo flight as a final backup. I didn't succeed at getting rid of the trip either.

The 430p flight was oversold, and overfull. I could tell by who was listed for standby on the trip that I wasn't going to get either of the jumpseats. The later flight was also oversold, but there wasn't any non-revs listed just yet. I thought about it and decided to not even show up to the earlier flight. I switched my flight to the later flight and enjoyed a couple extra hours at home. I figured that the pilot and flight attendant from the earlier flight would get on and that I'd have first shot on the second one. So when I showed up an hour early, and saw my friend, left over from the first flight, still there I was a little alarmed. He had gotten bumped off and didn't get on, so he already had 1 of the seats. I went to list at the gate and found that another pilot, who wasn't even listed on the flight, was already there and had listed for the other. FUCK!!!!

The flight was full, I wasn't going to get either jump seat. I didn't really want to get up at 230a for the cargo flight. I started making plans to walk over and try and get on the 830p flight to LGA if things didn't work out for me. I figured that if I didn't get on to EWR, or LGA I could call and just miss the trip. It wouldn't be all bad anyway. If I did get on to LGA I would have an adventure to write about. As it turned out, I would luck out in a big way.

As the flight was almost done boarding, it was still oversold, and a group of 8 was going to have to be split up. Half of them weren't going to get on, and they were all traveling together. They refused to be split up, so the company had to buy all of them off. While that was expensive for the company, it was great for me because it opened up 4 seats in the back, and I only needed 1. It was a huge break.

So I got to the crash pad kind of late, but it was way earlier than I would have been with any other plan. I'm the #3 guy here tonight. One of them is a massive snorer too. I get to be the last one up too. Tomorrow I'm off to the mountains, the cold of Jackson Hole and the end of a really good year.

[PilotMan]

The last day of 2015 started off quietly. I was the last one up and out of the crash pad. By 8a I was on my way to the airport. The flight time today was 4 hours and 20 minutes. We were sitting at the gate, all loaded up and ready to go, and watched our departure time come and go. The plane had been loaded as far as we could tell, but nobody was getting back to us on why we were late. The ramp Lead finally found a headset that worked and let us know that they had a cart full of skis that didn't get loaded with the rest of the bags, that we needed to get on the plane before we could go. It's a good thing too. I don't think a cart full of skis, for passengers going to Jackson Hole, that comes up missing would have made many people happy.

Once we got going we ended up about #15 for takeoff. It seemed like we were going to be late with all the time we wasted at the gate and waiting for takeoff, but we had been planned to get in 12 minutes early, and there was a generous amount of time planned for taxi out. After we took off we were only a couple of minutes behind schedule and we didn't even need to go faster than planned. The route was a circle route that took us over northern Wisconsin and just south of Fargo and Bismarck in NoDak, before heading back to the south. The ride was mostly smooth so I didn't even have to mess with the seat belt sign that much.

We started down and made our approach. We were landing to the south in Jackson Hole and that took us right in front of the Tetons on the approach. It was an incredible view. The weather was clear and cold.

https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/1934812_10153819485504648_1335843309851723704_n.jpg?oh=9e92a2bb682594a7be71988ebd68a579&oe=57207F6A

After we landed I found out how cold. It was -5, but it had warmed up from -15. The high for the day was about 5. I went out and wandered around the town. I was all alone today. The flight attendants from my flight were going back to Newark. The Captain was going to Denver, and the crew that I was flying with tomorrow wasn't in town yet, and wouldn't get a hold of me anyway. So I was on my own.

I had to call the company because they hadn't put the pickup time for me on my schedule. Actually I had to call them 6 times. The first 4 I didn't get a hold of anyone, or more appropriately they were too busy to pick up. I called the transport company and they were no help at all. I finally got it sorted out with the company so at least I had a time that we were going back to the airport.

I ate some dinner alone. Drank some beer alone. Was generally ignored by the waitress. Got bored and went back to my room to see the new year in. Other than finishing the year with a little boredom and loneliness it was an alright day.

Here's a couple of interesting stats about the last year:

Total Flight Hours: 664.5
Total Takeoffs and Landings (I actually did): 94
Total Layovers : 96 (Crash Pad stays not included)
Times I flew with a Captain that I had previously flown with in 2015: 1
Times I flew with a Captain that I had previously flown with ever: 4

I'll finish all this up tomorrow after I get back home. Tomorrow is go home day, one leg back to Newark in the evening. My flight home has 2 seats on it right now, so by tomorrow, it'll probably be oversold by 12. That's how it's felt lately. I need some sleep.

Happy New Year! Have a great 2016!

[claphamsa]

thanks for writing this! have a wonderful new year

[CraigSca]

Are those statistics hand tallied by you, or is this tallied by the company?

I can't believe you only flew with the same captain 4 times! Unfathomable to me.

[PilotMan]

Are those statistics hand tallied by you, or is this tallied by the company?

I can't believe you only flew with the same captain 4 times! Unfathomable to me.

The flight time is tracked by the company, but I have all of it written down too. I just haven't updated my master logbook in a couple years so it's not exactly up to date. The landings, layovers and Captains are all from my own records. All of my records are kept in smaller, travel logs that I transpose to my master logbook to keep track of all of my flight time. So what things to I log?

Date
Flight Number
Aircraft Type
Aircraft Tail Number
City Pairing
Scheduled Flight Time
Actual Block Out/In Times
Night Time
Instrument Flying Time
Instrument Approach Flown
Takeoffs
Landings
Captain flown with

I log all of that for each and every leg, every day.

So yeah, for all of 2015 I only flew with 4 guys, who were someone that I had flown with for the entire 2.5 years that I've been with this company. Just 1 repeat for the entire year. Otherwise, each guy I was paired with was someone I'd never worked with.

[PilotMan]

Well here it is! After 365 (+1) days I've reached the end of the year. It's my intention to keep posting occasional things of interest of experiences from the job. I just won't be very regular about it. I'll also keep answering questions and discussing things here that anyone else might be curious about.

I really hope that over the last year you've been able to get a glimpse into my work and my life. I really appreciated all the comments. I found it encouraging to want to keep at this. It was important to me. I'm curious if you've learned anything or had a change of opinion about the life, one way or the other. My soapbox ramblings can be a bit much at times, but thanks for sticking with me. So thank you very much.

So with that let's get to this.

I might have seen in the New Year in Jackson, but I wasn't out and about. It got down to -20 and in this ski town I was sticking out like a sore thumb in my trench coat and tennis shoes. My vented tennis shoes. Even with 2 pair of socks I was cold. Even my cold hardened North Dakota Attitude couldn't steel me enough against it. I had a show time of 1213p so I had the whole morning to myself. After breakfast I played some Rocket League, which while I suck at, is sickeningly fun and just as addictive as World of Warships.

I headed down for my show time and turned my key and when the girl at the front desk asked if I was Mr Pilotman. I replied that I was and she ran to the door and said "Shoot!" She said, " I had a note that you had checked out at 11 and the van left without you." Oh thats great. I normally don't get very worked up about this kind of thing. I was surprised when I came down and didn't see anyone else or a driver. Typically I wouldn't be the first one down. This type of thing is neither my fault nor in my control. She calls the driver company and lets them know. After he drops off some flight attendants he comes back to town to pick me up, albeit 15 minutes after I was supposed to be gone.

I cleared security and went to the gate. I wasn't late, the plane had just finished deplaning and I headed out to the cold to get on. I met the crew who had just brought it in and he said that Captain is already on board and that the plane was good and good to go.

Jackson Hole is a special airport. It requires special training for the Captain to operate in and out of there. The runway is a short 6300 feet and the field is at 7750ft asl. That makes it one of the highest airports that we go to, and one of the shortest. In fact, in the summer, I don't think the 737 can get in and out of there.

Dispatch had planned for us to take off with the APU supplying cabin pressure, while the engines use all available power. Generally for all takeoffs the engines would supply the pressure for the cabin and the APU would be off. In situations of high altitude and hot weather the engines need to be capable of supplying more power, hence the need for the APU at takeoff. While we planned for this in the preflight, after we got everything loaded up and the performance numbers run the plane was ok to do a normal takeoff. There is numerous terrain around the airport as well. Taking off to the south there is a special procedure that has to be performed in the event of an engine failure at takeoff. We briefed that, and having a good clear day always helps with terrain avoidance.

Our pushback was delayed due to the ramp taking forever to finish loading the plane. We had been early the day before because of a lack of headwind, today we were going to pay the price for it going the other way. That meant that we would have to fly faster to make up for it, and even then we were planned late. The delay off the gate just compounded the problem. Once we were airborne ATC gave us a short cut that shaved 5 minutes off the flight time and we added as much speed as we thought we could without jeopardizing our fuel situation. The ride was projected to be bumpy but at 39000 ft the ride was nice.

One thing I noticed was the snow. I've seen winters where there was only patches here and there. Not this year. It was solid white all the way to Chicago and beyond. The arrival into Newark was fast. ATC didn't delay us at all and that helped too. We touched down and got a gate change notice from the ramp as we started to taxi in. So the next time you are at the gate and get a gate change, know that we don't know any further in advance than you do.

We parked at the gate, and with our hard work, we had made it on time. We said our goodbyes and I headed off. I had about 2 hours until my supposed flight home. I needed to move so I proceeded to walk around the entire terminal and grab some dinner in one of the food courts. While I was eating I looked at my flight and found, surprise surprise, all the seats are full and I'm going to need the jump seat, yet again.

I head over to the terminal where my flight is going out of and walk up to the gate where this ancient woman who looks like she already hates you is working the gate. She informs me coldly that someone else is already on the jump seat and then she and I go around and around about being able to use the flight attendant jump seat. I ask to go down and talk to the crew so they know I'm trying to get on and to ask the FA if it's ok with her. When I come back up I realize that the other guy who has the jump seat is someone who I can boot. I have priority over him and the gate agent should have known better. After she is done boarding I point out to her that I should have gotten the jump. I wasn't letting up on her. She was acting like the Queen of Newark and I wasn't going to take any of her crap. In the end, a seat is a seat, and a seat on the flight home was me going home.

The Mrs picked me up at the airport around midnight and we headed home. It had been a full day, even though my flight to Newark wasn't that long, the flight home seemed to take forever. It just sucks when it takes so long to catch that flight home. I don't think that there's anyone out there who thinks that commuting is awesome. In exchange for getting to live where I want I have to deal with all the extra work of going back and forth. The rest of my month will be better. The heavy travel season should be over, for now, and all my trips for the rest of the month are commutable on the front and back. I shouldn't need to go to the crash pad at all.

I'm going to leave you with one last picture from Jackson Hole. The last and final gasp of the holiday season with the tree, lights and snow. It's bene a great 2015. Thanks to everyone who read and commented. I hope you enjoyed it. :)

PM

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20160101_0753383.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20160101_0753383.jpg.html)

[MIJB#19]

Thanks for sharing, PM! I've tuned in from time to time, it was interesting to get more insight in the life of a pilot.

[PilotMan]

Thanks MIJB! I appreciate the feedback, and I'm glad you got something out of it. :)

[chesapeake]

I've really enjoyed reading about your career. Thanks for doing this!

[CraigSca]

I didn't realize that colder weather was actually better for an airplane's lift. Interesting that it makes THAT much of a difference (referring to your line about a 737's ability to take off in the summer at Jackson Hole).

[PilotMan]

You may or may not have hear about the report that came out talking about the FAA coming up with better ways to make sure that a pilot knows how to handfly the aircraft. While this is certainly a catchy title, as in, "Does your pilot know how to fly the plane?" It's a much more convoluted issue than that.

I've read a couple of articles pertaining to the report and while it does talk about the fact that up to 90% of time flying is with the autopilot on, it fails to mention that with changes to spacing requirements and the advent of Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum (RVSM) that planes are required to have a functioning autopilot above 29,000ft. My plane will get up there in around 15 minutes. I'm not required at this company to turn the autopilot on at that point, however, I have been at previous companies. I generally try and handfly the first 10-15 minutes of the flight, not always, but sometimes up to cruise.

The aerodynamics of lift and pressure at high altitudes almost necessitates some form of automation at the higher flight levels. The plane is traveling very fast and a minimal amount of control from the cockpit will induce a very sudden jolt in the back. At high speeds pilot inputs are actually muted by the place to prevent things like that from happening. If pilots had to handfly, at cruise, for any length of time, passengers would soon be clamoring for the autopilot again.

We can be at these altitudes for hours, so it's no wonder that the autopilot is frequently used. Taking that up to 90% number and adding some perspective to it shows that high autopilot use should be expected. In descents, depending on workload I've taken off the autopilot, but it's almost always on nice days, where I can see for miles. Bad weather, or clouds will cause my attention to be diverted too much for it to seem like the best option. Most days I'll leave the auto pilot on all the way down to the last 1000ft, or lower, depending on the needs of the approach. Again, it's all about workload management.

Contrary to popular belief, planes don't like to descend. Planes like the 737 can essentially glide for miles with the engines at idle due to the lift efficiency of the wing and the efficiency of turbofan engine. On approaches to airports speed control is essential, as is making sure that you are both complying with ATC demands and leaving yourself in a good position to start the approach. Too much speed, or configuring too late, can leave you high and not able to get configured properly to land. That will cause a go around.

The real crux of the report goes to the monitoring skills of the pilot who isn't flying (and the one who is, but more on the former.) Reports talk about the Asiana (SFO), UPS (BHM), and Colgan (BUF) crashes where poor monitoring lead the pilots to be in a position that they didn't think they were in. A pilot properly monitoring and verbally prompting the person flying would have saved each and every one of those.

We talk a lot about positional awareness and situational awareness. This, I believe, is where the greatest issues are. I've said before that my job, when I'm not flying, is to think like I am, and respond accordingly. By the same measure, when I am flying, I'm expecting the same from the other guy.

With Asiana, they didn't realize until too late that the autothrottle had disconnected. The were high coming down the glideslope and were trying to get caught back up. At the bottom, when the plane needed to arrest that decent rate, the thrust levers didn't come back up, and in the blink of an eye, they lost all their airspeed and landed short. With UPS, it was the failure to properly set up, cross check, and correctly cycle the approach into the computer. They thought the computer was set for the approach, when in reality is wasn't, leading them to crash short of the runway when the plane descended too low. Colgan was failure to control speed prior to the approach leading to the stall and incorrect stall recovery.

It's all about the monitoring. I'm not sure exactly what the FAA is going to do to better check monitoring skills, but knowing where you and where you are going is critical. It's critical to stay focused in the game in these critical flight situations. It's critical to check and cross check one another.

You're going to hear too much about the whole autopilot thing. One reason why it's a big deal is that a lot of foreign carriers train their guys to the automation. There are big pilot shortages in Asia and if they can train people the rote skills to operate the autopilot and do it that way every time, they feel, they can do it safely. English is the required language of aviation worldwide. You will hear other languages as well, but everyone has to speak English. If I had to use my second language and learn how to fly in that language I'd want more support too. Many of these carriers train their guys in the states with just enough knowledge of how to fly. That's not how the majority of us learned. Granted, there are still a whole lot of people out there who struggle with the multitasking and awareness of driving. Now add a third dimension and no visuals, along with a cracking voice in your head telling you what to do and they would suffer.

Everyone is better at some things than others. I may not be the greatest stick, but I think my awareness and ability to stay ahead of the plane makes be a better pilot. The end of all of this is not to focus on the whole autopilot argument, especially for US carriers. But to think about why that happens, and to know exactly where the real issues are, which are the constant double, and triple checking of the same repetitive procedures day after day. It takes discipline to stick to the checklist when you've done it thousands of times. Remembering what happens when you don't though should be enough of a reality in check to understand it's importance.

[PilotMan]

I've really enjoyed reading about your career. Thanks for doing this!

Thanks for the feedback, chesapeake. I've been happy to have the participation in the thread too.

I didn't realize that colder weather was actually better for an airplane's lift. Interesting that it makes THAT much of a difference (referring to your line about a 737's ability to take off in the summer at Jackson Hole).

It makes a huge difference, especially at high altitude airports with shorter runways like Jackson Hole. The amount of extra runway required for the higher temps with the 737 is just not available. Even in Denver in the summer, you'll see many 737's with weight restrictions and that airport is nearly 3,000 ft lower and the runways are twice as long.

[PilotMan]

I was flying to Newark on the day of a winter storm warning. I didn't want to go, but when I looked at the weather I was pretty sure that we would be leaving prior to the weather moving in.

I left home at 745a for a 915a flight to Newark. My flight wasn't until 445p that afternoon and I didn't have to be there until 345p, but this was the best time for me to be there. The company allowed me to fly to work with an official seat instead of space available, which offered peace of mind about being in position to be able to work.

I got in dumped my stuff in ops and grabbed some lunch and brought it back to eat and let the waiting begin. We had CNN on and because there's really nothing else to watch. Snow. Snow. Snow. The snow was coming. The company had already made the determination to suspend operations in both Newark and DC. They had begun to cancel flights and move planes to be ready for the restart.

All those decisions happen at a high level. The faster that the operation can get back up to speed when the times comes, the better. They had been telling us to keep a close eye on our schedules in case anything changed. I was pretty sure that I was going. I had one leg to San Diego and a 33 hr layover to look forward to.

At 200p I got a phone call from the company. They informed me that my pairing was cancelled. My entire pairing. They had basically released all my flights to get rescheduled at a later time. They then said that they were going to put me on airport reserve for 4 hours in the event that they needed me to ferry a plane out to another airport. They said they didn't forsee that, but that they needed me there just in case.

That put me at the airport now until at least 745p. I was in luck that there was a flight back to Cincinnati that was still scheduled as on time leaving at 830p. I put the chance that the flight was going at around 60-40. I figured that they didn't want that plane sitting in Newark overnight so I might go, but on the other hand, they might steal it for something else too.

My plan B was to go to the crash pad. I had planned to be gone from home until Monday. I knew that I could hole up at the crash pad for a couple days, but I would much rather be home. Hour after hour I waited. 430 nothing, 530 nothing, 630 nothing. Now I wanted it to stay that way. It did.

I wasn't used and now had been at the airport for over 8.5 hours. About this time I got a notification that my flight was delayed by a couple hours. Not good. The snow was supposed to start around 9 and we were delayed until 1030p. If your flight is delayed that early, it's not good. It's something that has the potential to string into something much longer. I didn't have longer.

I felt the stress of the waiting. I was going stir crazy. The delay was for the inbound crew. They were coming down from Manchester NH. They finally left and the countdown began. It had started snowing in the meantime. It wasn't sticking yet, but it was starting to get heavy.

I had been at the airport for 11 hours when the flight home started boarding. I was relieved. There was even a seat for me. I ended up walking in the door at home at 130a the next day. So I get paid for the entire trip. I don't have to do any flying and I escaped the big winter storm in the NE, and I get to be home 3 days early. Another weekend at home.

I was trying to explain to my son that even though I was at the airport, that even traveling back and forth is like work because I'm in uniform. My day ended up being almost 18 hours long, but in the end it was worth it.

[claphamsa]

good you got to go home:)

[PilotMan]

good you got to go home:)

And you know what the crazy part of this story is? The crazy part is that if I didn't make it back on that flight on Friday night, I would still be stuck in Newark. There are guys stuck all over who can't get back home right now. There are even guys stuck outside the county. Now the international guys will get back faster because those flights are priority in a reduced operation, and they need a plane to get back home.

Domestically, there still haven't been any Express flights into Newark and that's all that comes to Cincinnati. I looked at even Chicago to get home and everything is so overbooked there would have been no chance in hell. I really, really lucked out on this one. I would have been one pissed off puppy if I'd been stuck there this long.

[PilotMan]

We got out and had a nice dinner too. Not far from the hotel was this 315ft yacht:

http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd39/grbaviator/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151128_2112271.jpg (http://s224.photobucket.com/user/grbaviator/media/2015%20Year%20in%20the%20Life/20151128_2112271.jpg.html)

It just happens to be Tatoosh (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatoosh_%28yacht%29), Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen's small boat. He was trying to sell it for 160M, 5 years ago. It's longer than a football field with 2 heli pads, and a big sail boat strapped onto the side of it and is currently the worlds 43rd largest yacht.



Well this is awkward.

techcrunch.com/2016/01/28/paul-allens-yacht-blamed-for-destroying-coral-reef/ (http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/techcrunch.com/2016/01/28/paul-allens-yacht-blamed-for-destroying-coral-reef/)

https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/paul-allen-tatoosh-yacht-1.jpg?w=738

So you can imagine it more than a little embarrassing when Allen’s 300-foot yacht, Tatoosh, was accused yesterday of destroying a coral reef in the Cayman Islands that has been in an officially designated protected zone for the past 30 years.


Allen wasn’t on the boat at the time, but according to the Cayman News Service, its anchor and chain recently wrecked roughly 14,000 square feet of reef and damaged more than 80 percent of the coral in the area.

[britrock88]

An interesting take on PM's work:

The Fortifying Pleasures of YouTube Cockpit Videos - The New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-fortifying-pleasures-of-youtube-cockpit-videos)

[PilotMan]

I had my first go around in years yesterday. We were on approach into Newark and it was really windy. At 3000 ft the wind was screaming at 65 kts, almost 75 mph. The weather wasn't great, plus it was raining. It was a busy arrival bank and planes were stacked tight. The controller kept giving us different speeds to keep us in line with the rest of the flow.

We were behind a 777, which has a 5 mile separation requirement. The reason for the required separation is due to wake turbulence avoidance. Pretty sure on a day as windy as it was, it wouldn't have been much of an issue. The 777 has a slower approach speed and I think the approach controller left us too tight. We were going to be crawling up his backside all the way down final. We were about 8 miles out and had switched over the Tower controller who immediately had us execute the go around. We had only started down on the glideslope, but even then it's all asses and elbows for a little bit.

Approach then turns us out and has to work us back into the flow for another go at it. We were going to be about 20 early and instead we ended up a couple minutes late. Other than that a pretty uneventful flight. Passengers didn't seem too phased by it. Not that they should have been.

[CraigSca]

Interesting - I always though an "official" go round occurred only at final approach (e.g. wheels on the ground or 500 feet or less). I almost wonder - at your altitude, does that even count?!

[PilotMan]

I had another first this week. I had a flight from Dallas to Newark early on Sunday. We were very light, but had some important cargo. We were transporting bone marrow for a transplant.

Airlines will carry time sensitive organs for this purpose and they get a designation called medevac. ATC sees this and they do their best to get you to your destination as rapidly as possible. It was early on a weekend leaving Dallas, so it's not like it was busy, but as we were climbing out, just over 10,000ft the controller cleared us direct Newark. Direct. That's rare.

We went fast and were never delayed for spacing at all. I think the coolest part is just knowing that you're part of a process to save someone's life. Back in the day we used to carry eyeballs in little boxes up in the cockpit. But security changed all that. We can't carry anything up there at all now. It's all handled behind the scenes.

Anyway, I thought maybe you'd like to hear about this interesting little tidbit of aviation.

[PilotMan]

Ahhh, so I totally don't want to post this, but I feel like I should if only to show that shit happens to all of us. This whole mess started on Friday.

Somehow my normal routine got screwed up and I just wasn't firing on all cylinders. I left to catch my commuting flight to Newark, a 730p flight. This night I had 2 extra backup flights in addition to my normal 2. It's a 20 min drive from my home to the parking lot.

I pull into the lot and realize that I've forgotten my badges at home. I'm pretty sure this is my wife's fault. I haven't forgotten them in literally years. She wasn't home when I left, like she normally is, and therefore, it's her fault. Thankfully, she was home when I called and was able to meet me part way so I didn't have to drive all the way home. I had some time to play with, but I was really concerned that I might miss my planned flight.

The only reason that it was a big deal was that I had a 0430 wakeup the next day for the start of my trip. I didn't want to get there too late. I managed to get back to the airport and hustled onto the shuttle, then past security, then to the gate. There were plenty of seats, so that wasn't going to be an issue. I get to the gate and find out that the last few flights into Newark had been delayed by an average of 45 minutes and that the delay seemed to be carrying on. They had had some rainy, overcast weather that might have contributed to it, but it just didn't seem like they were catching up.

My flight then ends up being delayed, then they put passengers from the later flight on ours, because it's smart. Once again, I still had a seat. We finally got boarded up and blasted off, then touched down in Newark just over an hour late. By the time I got to the crash pad it was 1100. On the bright side, I had the place to myself. But I think that might have been part of the problem too. I don't know. So I quickly unpack, and then set up for the morning. I say goodnight to the wife and head to bed, in a different bed than I normally sleep in, because it had a power strip right next to it to charge my phone.

On the way to the pad I had set my alarm for the morning. I had adjusted the volume on my alarm because I had noticed that morning it was too freaking loud. I get up pretty good, in fact, I've gotten up just from the vibration of the the phone when it's gone off and been accidentally silenced. I had wanted it quieter so as not to wake up the whole room when it went off. Still, as I went to bed in a different bed, with my phone in a different place, I couldn't shake the idea that it was too quiet. I shrugged it off, strange room and all. I would be fine. You see where this is going.

I woke up numerous times, the last being around 330a knowing that I had an hour of sleep to go. Then I turned over and the room was bright. Say what? Where is that coming from? Oh, the sun. Fuck me. The sun should NOT be up at 430a. I look over at my phone, 644a. My flight literally leaves for Costa Rica in 16 minutes.

You wanna talk about an painful adrenaline rush? The fear and dread of this is comparable to anything. I haven't had this happen, this bad, in my entire 13 year career. Not 5 minutes later, the phone rings. It's just the company trying to figure out where I'm at. I throw myself at their feet. So sorry, so embarrassed. Tell them that the earliest I can possibly get to the plane is close to 730a. That makes the flight out 30 minutes late, all on me.

The company though is ok. They deal with this regularly. It happens. They were probably just happy that I was that close and it was that easy. Having to recrew that flight might have cost a 2 hour delay, depending on where the next available first officer would have been.

I have to bust ass to get out of the room to make the 700a van and do indeed get to the plane by 725a. Ten minutes later, we were pushing back.

I had plenty of time on our 5 hour flight to think about it. I won't get in trouble. My body took hours to come down from that rush. The flight seemed to fly by. Haha. Even 5 hours of it. It immediately makes me second, third, and fourth guess my alarms and report times for the next couple days. I really don't want to have to go through that again anytime soon.

[britrock88]

Glad it worked out!

(How many start times are really can't-miss in life, anyway?)

[PilotMan]

I want to explain this whole having to hold for a gate thing. So I was operating a flight from Boston to Newark, and this flight sometimes seems to take longer to fly than it does to drive. Anyway, we had been held on the ground in Boston for flow into Newark. But even after that delay, ATC got us in line in good shape that we landed in Newark early. It helps that the flight time itself is padded as much as it is. It's common knowledge that that sort of delay is common, so the extra time keeps the plane on schedule.

Anyway, we landed and were heading to the gate. I check on with the ramp controller and hear that we have to hold, that our gate is still occupied. I try and get an ETD for the plane, but I can't get a clean answer. Just that they are still loading bags and it's not looking close yet. The ramp controller has us move over to the holding ramp, called the "ballpark" in Newark, because it's kind of diamond shaped, I guess. I get on another frequency and bug our operations people about it, they say that all the gates are full, and that as soon as something opens up they may move us to another gate, but right now they don't know when or where that's going to be.

What I want you to understand is that it's an incredibly organic situation. I make 4-5 PA's to the passengers in this time, but it all really boils down to I don't really know what's going to happen next, that I'm sorry, and that I appreciate their patience. Passengers are very jaded. They think the flight crew spends all their time lying to them, and sometimes they are right. As in, I may be at the gate, nearly finished boarding and get a message that our wheels up time just got pushed back by an hour. Well at this point we are going to finish boarding and head out to the runway and see what happens next. So knowing full well that we have a delay, there's nothing I can do for the passengers at this point. All I'm going to do is wait until we get all the way out to the holding point, and after 15-20 min have burned off I can tell you that we got out takeoff time pushed back and now I can tell you it's only 40-45 min more instead of telling you it's an hour at the gate. It's in the eye of the beholder. I didn't lie, so to speak, but I didn't give the whole truth when I knew it either.

Most of the time though, I'm telling you exactly what I know. How can every gate be full, when there are open gates!?

Well, for one reason or another the plane at our gate was delayed. That starts a reaction starting with us. Operations has a list of when each and every one of those gates is going to be filled or cleared by a plane. It's all computerized and pretty easy to see. They are looking for gaps. My plane might not be scheduled go out for 2 hours, so they need to find a gap that will work.

So I take someone else's spot, but because that was a quick turn and another plane is in right behind is. Now I'm pushing 2 planes off of their parking spots. Now those 2 planes have to get moved and that trickle down effect continues.

After about 15 minutes I finally pressed ops hard and said I needed something more substantial to give the passengers. They needed to know what the plan was. They let me know that another plane was just getting ready to push a few gates down and that they were going to give us that slot after they left. Great. Now I've got something to work with.

I stayed on the plane and said goodbye to everyone. We ended up almost 20 minutes late because of this fiasco. I've talked about the dance before. It could have been bags, it could have been maintenance, it could have been staffing, it could have been planning, and yeah it could have been operations. The bottom line is that it always looks bad. And when it looks bad people just love to jump on the whole, "this company doesn't know what they are doing" bandwagon. It's so much more complicated than that. So I said goodbye to everyone and you wouldn't believe how many downcast eyes, or head shakes I got, like it was somehow something that I had done. Like I had let them down and that once again I had failed them. That it was just another day where getting to the gate on time didn't matter.

There's no way for me to show my side of this except through this medium. I just want you to understand that last minute, short notice, changes like this happen all the time. If that plane on my gate is delayed earlier, then yeah, I get a gate change notice 20 minutes before I land and don't even think about it. How many times did I call back and explain why we had to change gates before we land. Right. None. Passengers don't care, so they never see the changes that get preemptively addressed to avoid this sort of thing.

The whole thing is like I'm in a Rodney Dangerfield sketch. I tell ya, I get no respect. ;)

[PilotMan]

Just came back on Saturday from Houston for my yearly simulator training and check ride (flight test). It was a good experience. I always manage to learn a lot and it can be a very humbling experience. No matter how hot you think you are in the plane someone can bring you to your knees in the sim, especially once nerves start to get the better of you. As soon as your confidence flags, you start to doubt yourself and suddenly you can ride yourself into the ground (not literally thank God.)

I left home on Thursday morning, with plans to get to the hotel by 130p in the afternoon. I wasn't due for my briefing until 800p so I had some time to eat and I needed a nap. My training was scheduled until 200a central time, which was damn late and the extra hour time change wasn't helping.

The nap helped, but I timed my dinner poorly and found myself eating a cold sandwich and chocolate milk out of the cooler in the training building before the brief.

Normally our training would be a full crew together, but for some reason, my Captain didn't make the trip and I had a fill in. So I was the only one that was getting trained that night. It's a double edged sword. On one hand with only me needing training I was going to get done well before 2a, but I all the attention would be on me and I would have to fly cold. I was nervous I needed to start off good.

Normal takeoff and vectors to shoot an RNAV approach to a missed approach. Followed by holding, then I had to fly as monitoring pilot while the Captain shot the same approach to another missed approach. That was followed by a CAT III ILS flown by the Captain. I'm required to do this too. Only the Captain flies this approach and I have to do it prove my proficiency and qualification.

After that I had to do another takeoff with an engine failure at our decision speed (one of the worst times for that). It's a high power setting, the plane yaws hard, gotta keep it straight and takeoff. From here it's a lot of single engine work. Single engine ILS to a go around. Back around for another single engine approach, this one to a landing.

From here it's up to a high altitude for stall recovery. Then we go to Anchorage for wind shear recovery and terrain avoidance maneuvers. After that I have to land the plane from a straight in approach with no visual or electronic guidance or even correct approach speeds. It's harder than it sounds. I have to touchdown within a specific part of the runway, it's all pure airmanship.

After that I get another airmanship test. Just takeoff, fly a pattern and land. I've done tons of these as a CFI, they are harder in a jet that wants to go 200 mph. I do well here too. It all takes just over 2.5 hours after the 2 hour briefing. I'm tired. It's almost 1a by the time we get out of there.

I head back to the hotel, hungry. So I grab a Shiner Bock and microwaveable burrito from the sundries at the hotel. It rings up $13. Gotta love hotel prices.


The next day I have to go in a little early for emergency equipment and doors training. We have to demonstrate being able to open and close all the doors (we have mock ups in the training facility). Then we have to demonstrate being able to use the portable breathing equipment, oxygen masks and life vests. We go over the medical equipment, talk about the life rafts, how to set them up, board them. We even have a full mock up of that too.

After that training it was time for my brief for the Line Orientated Evaluation. Day 2 is all about acting like everything is for real, in real time. Day 1 is all about getting it done, and Day 2 is about proving you operate correctly, standard and can handle the problems that will arise.

We start with a flight plan from EWR to San Juan PR. The flight goes out over the ocean where we have some different operating rules. Some very specific procedures that have to be followed when things hit the fan. We head out over the ocean and once we are sufficiently far enough we have an engine start to overtemp.

I'm flying, and try and save the the engine by manipulating it. I can't save it though and it blows. We have to work together to step through the correct procedures. We start to make a course back to Newark and decide that Norfolk will be a better option. It's a very busy time between flying the plane, and splitting time between talking with ATC and the flight crew.

All our work pays off and I successfully put the plane down in Norfolk. It seems like it goes fast but it was at least an hour and a half. From there we have to do more maneuvers.

We are repositioned to Denver for some new go around procedures training. This new procedure will allow us to carry more weight going into high altitude airports like Denver that have terrain around. Our limits can be based on go around performance at landing (or a number of other things). This new procedure will give us some relief from that and allow heavier weights and therefore more efficient operations. We'll only use this new procedure if dispatch tells us we need to for planning purposes. It's taken the company a year to get every one trained. The new procedure should go live later this year.

After this we had another demo maneuver. The instructor set the runway up for poor braking and some icy conditions. I landed the plane in 2 different landing configurations, the point being how much more effective some configurations are than others and when to make the decision to select one over the other.

It's a full schedule. I get done, pass, and convince the instructor to pick up some Taco Bell this time. My flight home isn't until the next day (yesterday.) I take the rest of the night off and enjoy the spoils of success. Another year trained and it feels good to get done. I set all this up so that I could be home for Mother's Day. By finishing when I did I was guaranteed to have it off. Worked out as planned.

Home for Mother's Day, home for a band concert. I'll miss a 7th grade honors night recognition and piano recital for my youngest. It's all a trade off. I can't win them all, I can only enjoy what I can get. Gotta get my bid in for June.

[PilotMan]

It's been well over 4 months since I updated everyone on things. It's really been business as usual for the most part. Mostly. There have been some personal things that have created a level of stress that makes coping so damn hard.

There's a lot of personal stuff to follow, not very pilot centered, but it's most certainly affecting my job.

Early on in spring, around the time went on a family vacation we noticed that my youngest son, Ean, would stare off into space like he was thinking really, really hard. You'd ask him what he was doing, and he said he didn't know. We wrote it off for the most part as an attention seeking behavior because of when it would happen.

FFWD through the summer to around school starting and we had continued to see this behavior, still nothing to really worry about. It wasn't until my youngest son's and I were getting some groceries and I told Ean to grab a bag of ice while we walked to the checkout. My other son and I kept walking and it wasn't until we were 20 feet away that he said, "Ean's zoning out again." I turned around and he was standing there, staring at something across the store, holding the bag of ice, somewhat awkwardly, while he shook his other hand like it was cold. I watched him, then we started to walk back and even calling him couldn't break his attention.

When we got there he really had no idea what happened. This worried me. My education background is in Psychology and I had worked with kids who had been susceptible to seizures (the staring kind, called absence) in college. I called the pediatrician and told him what we had been seeing, what I saw, and what I thought was going on. He referred us to Cincinnati Children's Hospital and we had an EEG scheduled for later that week.

During the EEG, all seemed normal, but we would find out later that he had had a seizure during the EEG and was diagnosed with Juvenile Absence Epilepsy.

So he started on medication for it right away. I messaged all his teachers because he had already started to miss some school for the Dr appts. It took about 9 days for him to reach his maintenance level for the medication and during this time his reaction to it grew worse and worse.

The day before his 13th birthday, he started vomiting and gagging. Not really vomiting, more like repeated dry heaving. That would be the first day that he would miss school. He wouldn't be back for 3 weeks.

He would heave off and on for 6-8 hours a day. The capillaries in his face broke, he was red, splotchy and his will was broken. He would cry because he couldn't take it anymore and we worked with our Dr to try and make it better.

Our pediatrician would take us off the medicine slowly and gradually as the drug left his system he would begin to feel like his old self again. The Dr from Children's wanted us to get right back on another drug, but didn't say why. We knew Ean needed to recover and we didn't care for the way the last few weeks were handled.

On October 5, just after my wife and I got back home from a walk, at 12:49 in the afternoon, my son had a Grand Mal Seizure. He was talking about what to eat with my wife when he collapsed and started convulsing on the floor. She tried to catch him, but he outweighs her by 30lbs. He landed hard.

We both new what to do, but as a parent it was one of the top 2 scariest things we'd seen. The first being the massive gash in Ean's 2 yr old forehead after he had been thrown off of a horse and landed on a rock. That would require 18 stitches to close. Here we were, on the floor of our kitchen, looking at the clock, counting the time. Hearts were pounding and the uncertainty of the next few moments created panic inside. His eyes rolled back in his head, his teeth clenched shut, liquid dripped from his mouth and he shook.

It lasted 2 minutes, after that he was unconscious for another 5 while he recovered. It was another 5 minutes before we could move him to the couch and another 15 until he could really talk to us. We asked him if he knew what happened and all he said was "I fell asleep?"

I was on the phone with the hospital and begged them for an appt ASAP. We were able to get in to see someone, but it was an hour drive from the house. No matter, anything to keep me from seeing all this again. Now we have this time bomb set to go off and no one knows when it will. It changes everything, school, home, privacy, medicine...futures.

I left for work later that week and while I was ok, I was not great. I'm sure you know that I take my job very seriously and that I have the greatest faith in my wife to be able to handle any situation. But we were both still recovering. It hadn't been an easy 6 weeks at all, and we were unsure of what his reaction to the next medication would be.

I was 3 days into my trip and the end of it had me heading to Panama for a layover before heading home on the last day. The captain told me I should go home. He would back me up, I didn't want to call in sick, I didn't want to lose pay. I should have never left on the trip. There was a big meeting that I missed with the school and my wife needed me there. I just didn't feel like I should leave the country with all this so very new and we just needed to be together.

I was in Albuquerque and I called the office in Newark, where my direct bosses were. I talked to the Manager there and explained what's been going on. I broke down. I could get the plane to Houston, but then I couldn't go to Panama. I needed to go home.

Let me tell you, that when a company responds like this, you want to work for them. You want to be there when they need you and you want to be part of the good stuff that goes on.

I was told go home. We'll put you on a positive space ticket (essentially buying me a ticket) to go home, we'll pay you for your lost time, and we'll follow up to see how you're doing. We want you to be with your family and we want to help you if you need it.

No previous company would have done that. I felt both immensely relived and immensely appreciative, yet again, that I had made it to this company. That I was working somewhere where my life was important. Where I felt like they would give me the support to take care of my family when I needed to and would be there to help if things took a turn for the worse.

We're 3 weeks or so from that day now. Ean is still having some absence seizures (he hasn't had another Grand Mal), but he is handling this new medication much better. Even though we have yet to find the correct dosage for him, his life has returned to a more normal level.

We are still trying to work out the details between the hospital and the school. We are trying to keep him happy and not focused on his new loss of privacy. His life outlook can still be good, but it's about a coin flip at this point if he will completely recover and never need to worry about Epilepsy after a few years of treatment.

The scary thing is that it's still a time bomb. My wife read a story from this weekend of a family that lost their daughter because she had a seizure in her sleep and choked on her vomit, in her bed. It's real. It's as scary as anything I've ever had to deal with. But at least my company knows that I will always put my family first, and I know, that if I ask for help from them, I'm going to get it and I don't need to worry about that part any more.

[finkenst]

.... yay generic airline 3.0. I think my employer would do the same thing: Go home.. take care of family..

[PilotMan]

This situation didn't really occur while I was writing this so I want to write about it today. So yesterday was a hellacious day. And it was all just trying to get home.

Started yesterday with a 600a wakeup call down in Panama City, Panama. I got ready and went to the Executive Lounge to have breakfast and download my paperwork for the flight back to Newark. The paperwork should have been done, but it wasn't. Oh well, frustrating. For an international flight the dispatcher is supposed to have it ready to go 2.5 hours before the flight. I need that to get my weather and load my flight plan into the Ipad.

I head down to catch the van to the airport and still no paperwork. We're now within 90 minutes of departure. The Captain uses my phone, via MagicJack, to call the dispatcher and finds out that they've been busy and he's working on it, should be done soon. Fifteen minutes into the ride, still not done. I call, and he tells me it'll be 30 minutes, with no real excuse as to why, but it's ready just as we roll up to the airport. I'll have do download everything during my preflight, which will eat up at least 15-20 minutes of time when I should be doing something else.

We clear security where for some reason, my shoes, which have never set off an alarm anywhere set the alarm off and I nearly have to disrobe before their happy. We're at the gate, preflight, and push back on time for the flight home. It's scheduled for 4 hours and 20 minutes and we're going to get in about 20 minutes early.

The weather yesterday was supposed to be light snow, no major issues and a little wind. Even when we were looking at the weather on the ride up it didn't seem that bad. They were reporting the the runway was just wet, deiced the full width and good braking action. We noticed that they had been taking turns closing the 2 main runways to clean them off, so it had to be worse than they were expecting.

FFW 4 hours and 20 minutes, and ATC never slows us, we show up and see that the runway is not just wet, it's covered in streaks of snow, and beyond the braking area it's downright snowy. The ground is covered and it's snowing way harder than *light*.

It's supposed to be 3 hours until my flight home. I check my phone and look at my flight aaaaaannnnnnd it's cancelled. It's a Saturday. I generally hate starting or ending a trip on Saturday. There are 2 direct flights home, one in the morning and this one, that was just cancelled. Disappointing, and now the game is on to try and get the hell out of Newark. I've got a crash pad, so if I get stuck I do have a bed I can sleep in, but it's my days off, and I really, really, really, don't want to waste any of it trying to get home. The next couple days are going to be hard to get out of there with the backlog of passengers from misconnects and cancelled flights.

So with Saturday already being a down day for availability, now I've got to deal with mass cancellations and every flight being crazy full. I clear customs and immigration, go back into the terminal and sit down with my laptop. Generally in this situation Charlotte on American is my fall back plan, almost religiously, due to the number of flights from Newark and to Cincy from Charlotte, but I knew that the weather was supposed to be bad there, so it seemed like a bad first option, so that had me thinking differently.

I use a combination of the app Flight Aware, the company listing information and Google flights to see the up to date times, scheduled flights and load information. My immediate options to get out were Chicago, Detroit, Charlotte, take a train to JFK to take a DHL cargo flight direct, or DC.

I'm fighting the clock to get as much information as I can about when the next flights go, how they look, and what options they leave me to get to Cincy when I get there. The first available flight out was to Dulles with 1 flight from there to Cincy, but it was on my company, and they were rebooking every freaking passenger out on the remaining flights. Every passenger who couldn't get a seat was standing by (ahead of me) and tons of crew were trying to do the same thing. I also figured that Dulles was a bit of a crapshoot based on what I knew about the weather forecast. Even at this point I had no idea that both Charlotte and DC had largely been spared as EWR was getting clobbered. Dulles also doesn't really get me closet to home, even though I've got a couple airports to choose from if I need to. I really never considered it. Besides, the options to get to Cincy were poor.

Same with DHL. The flight wasn't until 8pm and it was only 245p. I didn't want to abandon all my other options for that one shot then take a train across town for the first time ever in the snow and try and figure out how to get to the cargo hanger there to leave.

So in my head I had Chicago or Detroit. Lucky for me I could try for both flights, and Chicago was up first. I listed for the flight, with the hope that I could catch one of three flights from Chicago home. The issue was that the company had cancelled 80% of the Chicago flights and so everyone wanted on this one. I used a vacation pass to increase my standing and then listed for the jumpseat. I was officially #26 and #50 on the list for a flight that holds 170 people. I sat, paced, and kept thinking about what other options I might have. Nothing was good, but you never know.

I waited until the last passenger was boarded, and I was right. It wasn't even close. It was about an hour until the Delta flight was going to Detroit. I got on the Airtrain to head over and it broke down with me on it. Is stopped short of the concourse and then the doors opened with the cold coming right into the car. Awesome. It took at least 10 minutes for people to fix the issue then the train just bypassed my stop. I had to ride along, then get on another train going back the other way. Double Awesome.

Obviously, I don't have benefits on Delta any longer. So when I'm trying to fly on them, I try for the jumpseat first, then if there are seats in the back and every other non-revenue passenger gets on, then I get a seat. Same with American. Seeing other people in uniform when you're walking up to the gate can be somewhat demoralizing.

The thing with Detroit is that it's where Delta moved a lot of their flying there from Cincy and a lot of their employees too. There's always a lot of crew going back and forth, but at least it was closer and only a 4.5 hour drive if I needed to. Delta was still selling seats on these flights so at least I know there might be a seat or two. It was one chance for one flight.

There were no more options for Chicago. If the flight left close to on time I'd have about an hour to make my connecting flight home. My last option for the night, if Detroit didn't work would be Charlotte and American. That connection would be only 50 minutes and with the weather and de-ice requirements in Newark might not even be possible.

It was still snowing in Newark, at least 5 inches had fallen by now. The Delta agent listed me and told me I had the jump seat which was surprising, she also told me I'd get on, and that they had seats, which also surprised me because they had cancelled a MSP flight that night. I figured they'd move people to this one, but good for me. It took forever to get cleaned off, but there was a sense of relief upon leaving.

It was 600p when we took off, which should have had us on the ground around 715, giving me 1 hour to connect to Cincy. I had no idea how the flight home looked other than knowing that Delta was still selling seats. Which could mean they were down to 1 or 2.

It was snowing in Detroit, because of course it was, and we were late getting on the ground. Then they moved our gate to the complete other side of the airport from where I needed to be. By the time I got off the plane with my luggage I would have had 15 minutes to go a forever distance, but like everything else this day, my prospective flight home would be delayed.

I decided to forgo food to get to the gate and get listed early. Along the way I ran into a flight attendant friend of mine who I worked with at Comair. He was now working as a gate supervisor there. When I get to the gate I find out that someone already has the jumpseat, there are 5 non revs listed ahead of me, and at the moment, if everyone shows up there is no room.

I'm going to digress for a moment and rant. The gate agent was new and she didn't understand the trials of commuting. I told her I wanted to list for the flight and she's like, do you see what time it leaves?! I told her that I had flown to Detroit for the sole purpose to take this flight and she looks at me like I've got 3 heads. I'm trying to determine if it's worth it for me wait this out and she's like to you want to go talk to customer service and see if they can help? Like there's just an enormous amount of flights to choose from to get home. Then there's the passengers.

This flight was running late because the crew wasn't there, but the plane was and passengers just couldn't wrap there heads around that. Now the operator of this wasn't Delta, it was my former company, Generic Airline 2B. A surely man asked if there was a chance that I would be working the flight and maybe my immediate response of "oh, hell no" was too flippant, but c'mon. I'm not working, I don't even work for that company. I heard him complaining that it was stupid that there was no crew, yet there I was, why couldn't they just have me go down and get the plane all cleaned off and ready for the other crew. Wow. Don't even know what to say to that. Yet in his mind, this was an incredible miscarriage of justice. To be fair, by now, the flight was going to be delayed by 2.5 hours. The crew was coming in from Rochester NY and they hadn't even left yet.

Driving was now a real option for me. The desire to get home is so strong. I had also looked at hotel options by using an app called Hotel Tonight. I could have gotten a room for about 40 bucks at a Travelodge, or 65 at a Wyndam. It would have been a short night. The next direct flight to CVG was a noon on Sunday, or I could fly to Chicago then try one of the many flights to home. Either way, the earliest I could get home was would be noon on Sunday.

Driving was going to cost me $125 for a one way, plus gas, which would have been another $30 for gas, and 4.5 hours later I would have been home, but I was also tired by this time. I would have been looking at getting home around 2am. Better than noon, but punishing on the end of the day I've had.

The Mrs didn't want me to drive. I could feel my body and mind wearing out too. So I decided to hang out and just see if I could get on this flight. If I didn't I'd be going to a hotel.

The crew showed up and my concerns about their available duty time were allayed. They didn't appear to be in danger of timing out anytime soon so that was good news.

I had gotten to talking to another gate agent who came up to help and she and I talked Steelers as her husband was a big fan. She also told me that there were going to be a couple of misconnects and that there would almost certainly be a seat for me. What a sigh of relief.

They started boarding up and indeed, they had a seat for me. The new agent told me to wait while she made a final announcement, then proceeded to unseat a no show passenger in first class and hand me his seat! Wow, was that a nice surprise at the end of the day. It didn't take long to fall asleep either.

I got to my car around midnight and my decision to try parking in the parking garage was good in that I didn't need to scrape my car. The company will reimburse me up to $35 in parking for a month, and since I don't bill them for my yearly parking and I don't have parking in Newark I figured that I could bill them for at least 1 trip a month in the garage. It was cold, and while it was very slow to crank my car did start.

Home by about 1230a, better than a hotel, better than driving, about 4.5 hours later than I thought I'd be and over 10 hours after I had finished working. My day was 18 hours in uniform and goes down as one of the longest days that I've had.

Commuting sucks.

I was scaring myself with how tired I was just on my 20 min drive home. I was slow and weaving like I was drunk, even though I was putting all my concentration into it, it was scary. It was a good thing I didn't decide to drive. From my own exposure to fatigue training in the airline business this was a clear example of fatigue. Self awareness is a big deal and the danger that comes with operating in a fatigued state is real. I was happy when I rolled into the garage, and my bed was never a more welcome sight.

[PilotMan]

Totally forgot to add the photo that I took this week as we descended into Vegas.

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-0/p280x280/15871684_10154865042189648_1444071053291487563_n.jpg?oh=38005d1e32fd40da11993819e229ec3c&oe=591FD5D6

[CraigSca]

Yeah, I agree - traveling by air to commute sucks. It always sounds glamorous, but when you're "in it", it really is a dehumanizing means of travel.

Glad you were able to get home "early"!

[PilotMan]

So it's been a while since I've posted in here, but there was a situation on my last trip that everyone should be familiar with, that I wanted to provide a little bit of insight into.

On Friday morning I flew to Newark to start my next 4 day trip. This was the first trip that I had since our spring break vacation. Even though my vacation was only 7 days official, with my days off, I'd been off for 2 weeks. I tell you what. So much of this career is dependent on routine, that when you're in the midst of the back and forth it's fine, but once that's broken, and you've been off for a while needing to leave home, at least for me, it's just so hard to leave them behind. Once I'm out though, it chills out and things get back to normal.

So I get on the road and things feel like they are getting back to normal. I get to Newark around 1 and there's a town hall meeting at 200p where the company COO, and many others are going to be in the pilots lounge for a Q&A session with pilots. It's only 2nd time in my entire career that I've made one of these. The odds that my schedule matches up perfectly with something like this is rare. They talk about operational stuff, take questions. Things get testy, they always do, but in the end, there are a number of good takeaways, but all is still yet to be seen if it'll play out like that. It's the ultimate long plan. I mean, we're talking stuff that will take 5-10-20 years to play out.

I started work at 545p for a flight down to Tampa. That's all that I had scheduled for the day. Let's talk about Newark for a minute and something that changed there last year. For most of the last 10 years (maybe longer?) Newark was what we call slotted. That means that the airport has restrictions on the number of takeoffs and landings per hour and that companies actually own those slots. It was a response to massive delays due to overcrowding at the airport. It allowed a much more controlled and planned airport operation.

When the weather would go bad companies would cancel slots for shorter, regional flights in order to be able to operate the longer international flights that would need to use those slots because of weather induced airport delays. Now these slots were valuable. They were traded around, bought and sold like a commodity, but they did have a drawback in that no new companies could really come in and compete because everything was restricted and all the slots were already passed out.

Well, last year, the Port Authority, partly in response to the controversy that lead to the departure of a CEO, decided that it was time for Newark to become unslotted again. Now, if you're a small airline and suddenly there's a chance for you to expand into a new market, you might just take it. It's a chance to increase market share and really compete and if you're the main carrier in said airport the most effective thing that you can do is to pump a significant amount of flying in, to try and grab market share, lower operating costs, and probably by injecting so much flying in, make it harder on yourself and everyone else to operate in and out, because the airport is now going to be at or above capacity for much larger chunks of the day than it's been in a very long time. That's how the airport competition game works. If you don't do it, everyone else will, and they probably already are.

I've talked about how ground delay programs work in the past so I'm not going to start on that one again, but suffice to say, last Friday looked like Armageddon in Newark.

Storms were scattered and rolling in from the west. That was causing a chain reaction of departure gate closures that started to back things up. But it wasn't the storms that were the genesis of the issues. It was 90% volume. Just one of those days where the whole airport operation just fell apart from the approach controllers, to tower, to ground. The airport just crumbled.

As I was doing the pre-flight we had a message to call clearance for a push time. They were holding planes on gates, because the ground was so cluttered that unless they could get the plane out and off there was no room to just park them out where they could wait. Except that planes that are landing need to get to those gates too. It's like watching a toilet about to overflow.

We got the plane ready to go, but our delay time was only a guess. They said that our departure corridor was closed and no idea when it would open, but he guessed that it would be about 45 mintues to hold on the gate. When our time came up we were told that it was still closed but that we could push. I called ramp and got our push clearance and we were finally off. We didn't get far.

There were planes everywhere. Ground control was broken into two different frequencies, because of the congestion, and in their words, the airport was nearly gridlocked. My company had international arrivals that have to come into one terminal, then the plane clears customs, then it gets towed over to the domestic gates to go back out again. Those planes couldn't get out, because ground didn't have time to move them. They coudn't get to the gates, because other planes couldn't get off the gates.

We sat out another full hour before we finally got off the ground. Thank god. We were supposed to be in Tampa 30 minutes early, but instead we got in 90 minutes late. This is the new reality for the busy summer season.

Everything that I do in Newark, especially the commuting in and out is going to be made harder. I hope that it's not like that though. It's been years since it was, but let's just say, that it probably will. We've been warned.

[PilotMan]

I'll add a bonus photo from today's flight back from San Diego of the Telluride Colorado area, from 7 miles up.

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/18156010_10155211149759648_6265117388773655672_o.jpg?oh=f19bf846f5fb83b026c0faf5363de4c9&oe=598AC72C

[pbot]

Perhaps you can't, or don't want to comment, but would be curious to hear your insights on the Air Canada incident at SFO a couple weeks ago where they almost landed on the taxiway.

Even if the approach is being hand flown, shouldn't they still have the flight path plotted on the display to help provide guidance, as well as the guide that shows if the plane is aligned with the runway and within the glidescope?

[PilotMan]

Perhaps you can't, or don't want to comment, but would be curious to hear your insights on the Air Canada incident at SFO a couple weeks ago where they almost landed on the taxiway.

Even if the approach is being hand flown, shouldn't they still have the flight path plotted on the display to help provide guidance, as well as the guide that shows if the plane is aligned with the runway and within the glidescope?

Unquestionably. Given all the tech and procedures that should never happen to an airline crew. Incidents like this one typically occur at night, or in the early morning hours. They occur after a long flight, or an overnight flight. There have been incidents similar in Atlanta and Newark, but none where 1 plane would have plowed into a line of planes waiting for takeoff.

Even if the guys were tired, they should have been even more diligent about setting up the plane for the approach. I haven't heard anything that has come out from the crews at this point, they may a good reason, but from a professional pilot stand point both guys dropped the ball. The guy flying and the guy monitoring. Someone fucked up. It's not on the controller.

[PilotMan]

Oh, and fuck Photobucket.

[PilotMan]

Pbot brought up the AirCanada incident in SFO. Check this out. I read it today and it turned my stomach.

Air Canada Flight 759 incident details from NTSB - Business Insider (http://www.businessinsider.com/air-canada-sanfrancisco-landing-worst-disaster-2017-8/#the-third-photo-shows-the-point-where-united-flight-1-tells-air-traffic-control-that-air-canada-759-is-lined-up-for-the-taxiway-3)

[PilotMan]

So yesterday, wow. I have never had a day like I had yesterday.

Started off with a 400a wakeup (Eastern time) in Dallas and a 515a van to the airport for an early morning flight down to Houston. We sped down there, sat for a little more than an hour and headed up to Newark. I had gotten an email from my company pertaining to my flight home in the afternoon, basically saying hey, bad weather is predicted, keep an eye on your reservation because things may go badly. It's kind of a generic email, but nice to give passengers a heads up when weather may impact their travel.

Of course, it was go home day. The day when nothing should go wrong. I've done my trip, I want nothing more to do with work after that. We land about 15 early from Houston in Newark as were taxiing to the gate I mention the Allegiant flight that is just taking the runway is the noon flight back to Cincy, that if we'd have been earlier I could have taken that flight. My flight was soon enough though, at 130p. I finish up, pack up, say goodbye to the passengers and head inside to double check my gate and make sure my flight is still in good shape. It is. I grab a BBQ sandwich and eat it quickly, check my phone and see that I've already been cleared a seat. The flight is pretty open so it's nice to have that seat and an entire row to myself.

We board up, and push back about 10 minutes early. That's the last bit of good news for the rest of the day.

We taxi out and slowly pull off to one of the holding taxiways. It's not raining in Newark, but it's building pretty much everywhere else. We deviated around a couple of them inbound, but stuff was building quick. At this point I'm thinking that they've got some of the departure corridors closed down, and the one that we are trying to go out being one of them. It's not good, we're told that they are working on a reroute with ATC for another route.

Thirty minutes goes by and they've moved us into a long conga line, that isn't lined up for takeoff, but lined up to be held. There's a difference. Yes, you could take off, but you're also out of the way for other traffic that is coming out or needs to move around the airport. It's not a standard holding spot for the normal operation of the field. This is another bad sigh. The Captain comes back on about every 20 minutes to tell us that there's nothing going on. Planes aren't leaving, planes aren't coming in. A quick search online shows that inbound planes are being forced to divert for fuel. This is bad.

We hit the 2+ plus hour mark and our rules state that by 2.5 hours, you're either taking off in 10 minutes or, you're going back to the gate. You're only allowed 3 hours before the FAA starts to fine people. It's no dice. Back to the gate we go. I talk to the flight crew and they are on a day trip Chicago-Nashville-Newark-Cincinnati-Chicago. It's a long day, but they want to go home, the really don't want to be stuck in Newark. I do some math and figure out that they are dead by about 845p. You work backward to 2 hours for the flight to Cincy, plus an hour ground delay, and that works us back to about 545p. That means we have be be boarding up really no later than 515p or this crew is going to be timed out. It's about 4p now. This isn't good either.

I remember that I do have one ace in the hole, and that's the DHL flight that leaves Newark at 1040p. I really don't like the idea of sitting at the airport for another 6 hours, but at least I know that I'll be able to go home as long as the weather clears up a little. The Mrs would have to pick me up at 1230a and take me to my car. This would be the second week in a row that she's had to pick me up. The previous week, I missed the last flight home by 5 minutes because I had to change concourses to get to the plane. That time she had to drive to Louisville. This is better at least. I call them on the phone and give them my information. Those seats are first come, first serve, and after I'm listed I can't be bumped. Still, it's fucking late and I've been up a long time.

There's another Cincy flight scheduled at 330p, but delayed to 600p right now. I gamble that I have time to go over there, list for the jump seat at the gate and get back to my flight in case it starts to board up again. It's a long walk, and the airport is decimated. There are people everywhere, and the airline is renovating gates all over, so there's construction walls, and seating everywhere in the middle of the walkways while the gates get redone. It's a complete clusterfuck. Customer service lines are turning into Disney lines and it takes me over 15 minutes to get to the other gate. It was a bad idea. There are people lined up there, I could go and try to talk to the agent on the side, but the better part of valor is to let it go. I don't have time to wait in 2 places at once. I list for that flight too, just in case, and so I can keep an eye on it.

I get back to the other plane after another 15 minute walk through everyone and there's no change there. It's about 430 by this time. So I grab a chair and wait and wait and wait. The time on the flight changes about every 15 minutes to 15 minutes later. From 445 to 500. From 530 to 545p and as it does and as the minutes click by I know it's done for.

Eventually, the crew comes down from the plane and before it's been announced I know it's cancelled. Looking at my phone, the 330p flight is cancelled too. The 900p flight was already cancelled. So I guess I'm pretty much done at this point. Except I see that Delta has a flight that was supposed to leave at 630p, but it's delayed until 900p. If I can get the jumpseat on that one, the Mrs wouldn't need to come out to me. So I pack up my stuff once again, and head over to the bus and ride over to the B concourse, where Delta lives, and check things out.

It's a little quieter over there, but they are busy and delayed too. The flight is delayed because it hasn't left Detroit yet, and they aren't sure when it will. I find out that the jumpseat is still available and get listed. The agent is really nice and I tell her that I'll wait around and see if the flight leaves soon. If it gets too late, I'll give this up and stick with my guaranteed DHL flight. I watch about 5 minutes of Netflix on my phone, get distracted, walk around, people watch. There's not much else to do. I realize that I am completely exhausted. I mean, I can't concentrate, think straight, and desperately want to close my eyes.

After about 45 minutes there, the flight is already pushed back to 10p. The plane isn't leaving Detroit on time and I thank the agent, give my seat request cards back to her, and head back to the bus. I need to eat, and relax a little. I still have 3 hours until I need to head to the other side of the airport for the DHL flight. I fight my way back through the crowd, store my bag in one of our flight planning rooms and head down to the cafeteria. I get a fish sandwich and some fries and run into the crew from the previous flight again. They look down and decided to eat before they go to the hotel. I don't even think they had clothes packed for today. I eat, then wander 40 gates away back to our Pilot Operations area downstairs. It's about 800p by this time.

I find a recliner and play with the little sensor on my phone. My resting heart rate is normally about 60. After everything, it's at 87. The stress and exhaustion was just working me in overdrive. I have to try 4 recliners before I find one that isn't broken or just dangerous. Eventually I lay back, dont' even set an alarm, but I should have.

I'm asleep in about 3 minutes, tops. I wake up about every 20 minutes to look at the clock except for the end. I wake up at 910p, which is exactly when I needed to get up. I'm so damn groggy and feel lucky that I woke up when I did. I easily could have slept beyond, far beyond. I slug my stuff back upstairs, and back into the warzone. The lines are still long. The people are now laying down, in line, waiting for an agent to get them rebooked. I need to catch another bus, this one outside security and take it to the opposite side of the airport.

It's been a while since I've ridden DHL, but nothing has changed. I get dropped off and walk about a quarter mile to the building. I knock on the window and they let me in, then it's a little more waiting. The flight crew shows up, they are less than impressed with me, but are ready to go. Airport security shows up to go through all of my stuff. With no XRay machine they have to physically look through everything, then I get wanded down with the metal detector.

Finally, I get to head out to the 767, climb the yellow stairs that are rolled up to the plane and go inside. I get my brief, store my bags and take my seat. We're off on time, no delays. I get to CVG by 1230 or so, and after I get my car, I'm home by 130a. It's been 21.5 hours since I got up. I'm still in my uniform and I'm pretty sure I smell awful. It's been 13 hours since I finished work and that was after my 8 hour work day.

This day was a record breaker. I've never had this kind of a day before and I really don't care to have another anytime soon. I should have been home by 400p. I lose half a day and an evening at home. I could have gone to my crash pad in Newark and stayed there, fought the crowds in the morning and taken a 600a flight this morning, but I think that my desire to just get home was the right move. Sleeping in your own bed is far superior to the crash pad bed.

So that was that for my glamorous life. I'm home for the rest of the weekend. I will need these days to recuperate.

[PilotMan]

Last night was one of those nights that you write about.

Day 2 of a 4 day trip we left from Guatemala City in the afternoon. I was watching the NDSU game Watch ESPN on my laptop through a proxy and I was only supposed to get to see the first half, but I saw our inbound was delayed by almost an hour. I convinced the Captain to get our ride delayed so I could watch more, ended up with an extra 45 min out of it. That's really neither here nor there, and neither is NDSU winning it's 6th FCS championship in 7 years. GO BISON!!!!

Ok, that's out of my system now. We're over 3.5 hours into our flight, just getting down to 10,000ft and about to get into the arrivals flow for the approach when the FA calls up and says that we have a medical issue. A girl in the back has been passing stones and she's been bleeding. Her parents were split on the need to get the FA's involved but the mom won out and they wanted on the ground. ATC was helpful about expediting us to the front of the line, although if we had declared an emergency, I could have saved us at least 6 or 7 minutes, but you take what you can get when it's not an explicit emergency, and we were going to be on the ground in pretty short order anyway. There's not a whole lot more to gain with an emergency.

We land and Newark is struggling. Still recovering from the big weather system last Thursday that saw the airport shut down for a day. But it really lasted through yesterday. The wind had forced the airport into a configuration that drastically limits the number of arrivals per hour. So the recovery wasn't really happening fast anyway. As an international arrival there are only a few gates we can come into due to customs and despite letting everyone know ahead of time that we were time critical, there was no gate space. In retrospect, our extra 10 minutes of waiting was nothing, but at the time it really sucked.

The next flight was a short one up to Portland Maine. That plane had been on the ground since 8pm, inbound from international too, but they waited almost 3 full hours for a gate. Like I said, it wasn't pretty. Because of all of the delays, crews were timing out here and there. By the time we got our plane our FA's were about an hour from timing out. On top of that, they catered the wrong plane, and maintenance thought that our plane was staying overnight, and it had a write up that had to be fixed before we could leave. Needless to say, all those things meant a lot of coordination and a lot of things that are completely out of my control until other people make decisions. The plane needed catered, and for some reason, they only catered the front when they came, so we had to wait for them to come and do the back. It's one of those head scratchers. When it rains it pours and it never feels like anything is going right.

The company decides they need to replace our FA's as the delay wears on. We have 4. They get one replacement from one who had just shown up for short call and they pulled another who was expecting to work an overnight to Santo Domingo and back. The other 2 were pulled from an overnight flight to London. Now all of them were going to Portland Maine for 30 hours. None of them had worked a domestic narrow body trip in years. So there was a lot of complaining and a lot of laughing because they were out of their element.

The best part was the FA who had just showed up hadn't been to Portland before and even though our flight was only an hour, didn't realize that we weren't going to Oregon until we had almost landed. Aside from landing at 200a and a few hours late, it was all rather amusing for us.

Before we left, I took time and walked the cabin talking to passengers and trying to apologize, answering questions and reassuring people that we were indeed going to leave and get them there. Thank god I didn't end up looking like a liar. We got going, I got some shortcuts from Boston Center and we landed in Portland, well after the control tower had closed. I haven't made position reports landing at an uncontrolled field for a few years.

That basically means that the airspace in the area is uncontrolled. We're cleared for a visual approach and it's our responsibility to watch for traffic and communicate our position and intentions. Boston Center told us that there was no traffic on their radar in the area before they let us go, and they can't clear another aircraft on an approach until we call them back and let them know we're on the ground and off the runway. I do that and we taxi into the frigid cold night.

[PilotMan]

Just another day of weather.

Last day of my 4 day trip. My goal is to get home after finishing work at 4p. Cincy started the day with freezing rain and ice which has continued. Newark started in on their own freezing rain and snow at 4p. All of my flights on us have cancelled so I'm down to the DHL cargo flight are 1030p.

There will still be weather then but as long as both airports are open they will go. I started the day at 5am, I'll probably finish somewhere around 2 or 230a.

Only 6 hours until that flight leaves!

Ugh.