Monday, August 11, 2014

Room 419

It's been a while. I've been a little busy.

On June 30th I took the jump to electric and bought a BMW I3. It's my first BMW....first Electric car (my wife does have a Nissan Leaf). It's been exciting...I've been geeking out over it. My kiddo also turns 4 (FOUR!!!!) today.

Geekinthecockpit

As far as flying I've been a little busy....sorta. Here's how it's supposed to go:

Three nights a week I leave home at 7:30PM. I pull into the employee lot at 7:50PM, hop on the bus at 7:55PM and sign in to work at 8:10PM.

Ideally at 9PM the cabin door is closed and around 9:10PM my aircraft achieves flight.

A quick twenty five minutes later the aircraft settles down on a shortened 7000 foot runway.

At 9:55 PM I buckle into the front seat of a minivan and head off to the Comfort Inn and Suites.

At 10:10 PM I insert the key into room 419 and by 10:30PM I settle into bed.

Four fifty-five AM comes quickly and my alarm goes off.

A quick cup of coffee and an apple and I'm back in the same minivan (with the same driver!) departing the hotel at 5:20 AM.  In my bag is a freshly baked pastry as the van driver bakes overnight. I don't know when she sleeps.

I complete my detailed preflight and have everything set up by 5:45AM. The ground crew is really good and we are all buttoned up by 5:55AM.....five minutes early.

Being an uncontrolled airport I call for clearance while holding short of the runway. We blast off and are airborne at our departure time.

Not being very busy we get direct clearances and are back on the ground at 6:25AM.

By 7:10 AM I'm back in my car headed home.

All in all about 11 hours away from home. To do it all again the next night.

Now that's ideal. In reality of the 4 flights I've done only one has left the hub on time. Inbound aircraft delays, connecting baggage delays, passenger delays and weather delays. Sometimes all at once.

In the old days being late would affect the kick off flight as we needed a certain amount of rest. Seeing as my line is a continuous duty overnight there are no rest requirements. We've left the outstation on time every time.

The nights are short. I do take a nap in the middle of the day. By the third day I am quite worn out.

The Captain I'm flying with is very senior and fun to work with. Great sense of humor. We've had rotating Flight Attendants.

It is a little odd and at the same time comforting to stay in the same hotel room each night....room 419.

I have vacation this month. Headed to Norway with the family. Any tips are greatly appreciated. I'll be flying through London Heathrow where I will have a nice 3 hour layover....great for plane spotting.

Time to take a nap.

2 comments:

  1. 4-years - wow, I've been following your day-in-the life for a long time. Congrats on the birthday of the little one. What's her total number of flights now?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think the official logbook shows 78. I think it's more, but my wife does the record keeping.

    ReplyDelete

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