[PilotMan]

Getting to sleep without an alarm to wake you up is not overrated. I needed it. There was a little issue of the dispatcher not getting the paperwork done for us early enough. We were within an hour of our departure and the paperwork needed to be in our hands by then or it starts to impact other things. We are busy and can't simply wait all day for them to get that done or we are late.

I'll get more into the preflight here in a bit, but part of that preflight is looking at things that are already "deferred." Deferred is when something is broken but it's on one of the aforementioned lists. Those lists lay out certain checks that the pilots might have to do to verify that the correct maintenance has been done and so we can expect certain errors or operating parameters in the flight. In this case we had part of the air conditioning temperature control for the cockpit that wasn't working correctly. During out checks we found something that needed a mechanic to look at it and get it rectified. This caused us to miss our departure time by a good 25 minutes today before it got fixed. Ignoring it isn't an option. The FAA is more than willing to take your license and violate you, putting your livelihood in jeopardy, if you allow something like that to happen.

We had a bunch of extra fuel on board so burning a little extra to try and make up some time wasn't a problem today. I think we ended up in the gate around 15 minutes late.

I didn't even realize it until the Captain brought it up that we had a 3 hour break in Denver today. I killed the time by walking the terminal two times and getting some food before I headed to the gate. I was only deadheading on my next flight. Riding as a regular passenger to Phoenix. That's it for today. Tomorrow is painfully early. Pacific time or not, when my alarm says 245a it's too damn early.

So how much of the preflight is automated? Hmm, there really isn't anything thats automated except the initializing of the flight computer. The list of things that I do for the preflight is substantial. This morning was a first flight for the plane so there were a couple of extra steps to get it ready to go.

I have to get on and introduce myself to the flight attendants, chat for a moment then put my bags away and unpack some of the things like my headset, logbook, sunglasses, ipad and so on. I have to check all the circuit breakers, make sure that the fire extinguisher is charged, that all the pins for the landing gear are on the plane. Then I can sit down turn the power on the plane on. I'll get the battery, position lights and external power turned on so the plane can start to boot up.

As the plane is booting up I'll start the alignment process for part of the navigation system and initialize the flight computer. The navigation system takes a full 10 minutes to be ready to it's one of the first things that get's taken care of. As the computer gets started it starts to spit out weather information for both airports and then throughout the next twenty minutes is spits out various regular messages on everything from our ATC clearance to what things have been serviced and whether or not we have live animals or dangerous goods on the plane.

I'll keep loading the flight computer with our position, yes I have to tell it where it is so it can cross check it with the navigation system. Then I'll start to load the performance information into the computer. I'll upload the winds and set some performance parameters depending on how I want the aircraft to be set up for speeds throughout the flight. After the winds are loaded I'll do a fire test on the engines and the cargo compartment.

In order for me to have a good walk around I have to pressurize all the fuel and hydraulic lines so the fuel pumps come on, the hydraulic pumps come on and I turn on some lights so I can see in the wheel wells easier. I'll finish by setting the parking brake. I'll head outside and do the walk around checking for major damage, leaks or anything that might need checked before we go.

Most of the time, before I even head outside we've started boarding. I might say hi to the flight attendants again, hit the lav, then jump back in my seat to finish my work. By now the ATC clearance has come up and I'll finish loading the flight plan and we both have to verify the routing.

Once I'm satisfied with the flight computer set up I start my panel checks. Starting up high I run a number of switch placements checks, flight recorder, stall checks, heated probes, air conditioning. I have to make sure that the pressurization is set right for the flight then continue with switch checks, set the auto brakes and run tests on the ground proximity warning systems, traffic collision avoidance system, and weather radar. I'll finish with my oxygen mask and then finish my ipad set up for the airport.

Once I've got all that done the Captain and I run through our briefings and checklists. Often times there are numerous interruptions from issues that the flight attendants have to jump seaters coming up to the cockpit to maintenance or even if you have kids come up. By the way, I love having kids come up. It was one of my strongest influences of commercial aviation and I try very hard to make it as fun of an experience as I can. It can be very easy to miss something if you don't stay diligent. All of that has to be done in 25-30 minutes or we won't be ready on time.

The most important thing is to get a very good, strong, efficient routine. There's no hard or fast rules about exactly how everything has to be done, just that it has to be done before you can go. There's two of you up there so it's as much on the other guy as it is on you to know that everything is done and ready to go.

As repetitive as my job is and as detail focused as it it, it's extremely important that I take it that way every time. There's just too much riding on it. Like I've told some of the guys I've flown with, If I don't get to go home at the end of this trip my wife is going to be really pissed at you.