I was driving back from somewhere today and happened to hear Justin Timberlake’s new song “SexyBack”.

Ok, let me just say one thing… I didn’t know Sexy had ever left, but JT sure as hell shouldn’t be the one bringing it back.

That is all.

Finished up a 4 day last night by dodging a bunch of thunderstorms into Dayton. We ended up getting routed over Cincy and then Richmond, Indiana and then back east to Dayton. It did keep us out of the weather so that was good. Over all not a bad trip. Note… over all.

I’ve been flying the 700 this month so that means 2 FAs. The two we had this trip were interesting to say the least. The funny thing is they both had the same name (we’ll call them SueAnne) so I took to calling them SueAnne 1 and SueAnne 2 (depending on who was in the front or the back) but then one of them started calling the other one 2 even if they were in the front so I stopped doing that and started calling them “SueAnne in the Front” and “SueAnne in the Back” depending on where they were working. You may be seeing where this is going.

They were complete opposites. One of them really didn’t care about the passengers at all and was always threatening to kick them off if they caused any problems. They weren’t unfriendly but tended towards being confrontational. The other one was very timid but very nice to the passengers. She worried that she wasn’t getting enough positive feedback from the passengers and more so the company. The other one couldn’t care less what the company thought.

The whole trip I was worried that one of them would blow up or break down. Also while they never really got into it, their two VERY different styles caused a bit of tension between the two of them. Either way I was glad when they dropped off the trip on the last day.

Other then that it was non eventful. Good weather (mostly). Good planes (except for one that had 4 MELs on it, but nothing too critical). The only strange thing was heading into CLT on the last day I was flying the ILS for 23 and clicked off the autopilot through 1500 feet. The plane drifted left so I rolled the yoke right a bit to correct and nothing happened. The yoke was jammed. I rolled left to see if that would work and it did. I was able to roll back to level but I couldn’t go right at all. I was just about to call for the immediate action items for a jammed aileron (you can separate the left and right yokes in the event one becomes jammed up) when it freed itself. The flight was normal for the rest of the way in (with a really nice landing if I do say so myself ).

I played around with my camera in low light settings some more. Still not where I want, but getting better.

Moon rise heading to Charlotte from Albany.

City lights 26,000 feet below us. The blur is from the fact we are moving at around 500mph.

Sort of like pre gaming, but not really.

I’ve decided that it only takes me 1 hour to get ready for a 4 day trip. That’s sad. I used to plan a whole day before. I feel sort of like I am cheating my self some how. I mean, 1 hour? But I guess it is what it is. Now, next month when I go back to early shows (grrr) you can bet I’ll be planning the night before because even if it is 1 hour, that is one 1 hour I could be sleeping.

Oh yeah, EWR’s TAF is showing 300@18G28 for our time of arrival. Can’t wait. It must be Fall again.

It’s amazing how a good trip can leave one with nothing to write about. On one hand it’s nice have a (mostly) easy trip… on the other hand there are five fingers!

The four day started with a late afternoon show and heading down to (you guessed it) Charlotte. From there we headed up to CLE where I managed an ok landing at night despite not planning the approach to well. Basically I didn’t start slowing down soon enough and had to do some creative maneuvering to get to the runway fully configured. No harm, no foul. We got there.

The cool thing about the CLE hotel is that it is one of the few places that gives us Priority Points which are Holiday Inn’s frequent traveler program. Most hotels can’t give us points because the airline is paying a cut rate but this one gets around it by making us earn the points. We can either throw darts or answer trivia questions. Most crews pick trivia and spin a wheel to answer 1995 Trivial Pursuit questions. Fortunately the desk clerk that normally is working when we check in is helpful (ie coaching us to an answer). However, I was able to answer two questions (one of them was my question) with out his helping. The other two I didn’t even know who the people were.

We left CLE the next afternoon and headed back to Charlotte, did a quick turn to somewhere I’ve conveniently forgotten and then headed down to Tallahassee for the night. We arrived just a FSU-Clemson game was ending and had to avoid the Outback Steak House Blimp on the way in. The Good news was we got out of the airport and around the stadium area before the crowds really started making traffic bad.

The next day we headed back up to Charlotte (after I got up early for the free hot breakfast only to find there is no hot breakfast on the weekends). From Charlotte we did a turn to Albany. It was a really nice evening and it was nice to get back into New England flying (almost). Back in Charlotte we kept the airplane and ended the night in Charleston, SC. The hotel is a Radison (which is nice enough but the area is awful).

The nice thing about the Radison is that they have the sleep number beds in every room. I’m proud to say I am a number 45. Yep, slept like a baby. Woke up the next morning and eventually braved the outside world (drug dealers and a nasty 4 lane road) to get lunch at Arbys. Mmm. The things I’ll do for food.

From CHS we flew back up to Charlotte (see a trend here?) and then on to Richmond. From Richmond it was back to Charlotte were we switched airplanes. This was of course our go home leg and wouldn’t you know it, not only did we have to switch but our other airplane had been worked on by MX for the afternoon and was parked, dark and cold (well, warm) across the ramp. So, we trudged across the ramp, start it up and taxi over to a gate to the passengers can get on. From there we start up to Dayton, dodging the back side of a nasty thunderstorm. All in all we make it in about an hour or so late.

I got home, unpacked, repacked and caught a flight up to Hartford to visit my mom, dad and sister (and aunt) for a few days. I ended up renting a car and drive up to Northampton where I had dinner with dad and then headed back to Amherst. It was raining and a bit foggy and a combination of the rental car, the bad visibility and my lack of driving the roads there recently made me realize for the first time that I don’t know the roads so well anymore. I mean, I know where to go and road lay outs but I don’t remember the steepness and length of some of the curves any more. Strange.

I spent the next day hanging around Amherst (got some used books!) and then went out to Worcester with my mom to visit my sister at college… Sort of funny to see her there. Makes me feel a little old. Sniff… Anyhow, had dinner at a really good Vietnamese place and then stopped in a coffee shop. After that it was back to Amherst where I packed up and went to sleep.

This morning I returned the car and then flew back to Dayton through PHL.

Pictures. More are up in September.

I got my camera sort of working at night. Yeah. Here we are over Columbia, SC heading to TLH with 272 miles to go.

Naw, it’s not a sequel the Samuel Jackson movie.

After sitting for 3 hours in the crew room yesterday, scheduling called me to ask me to take a Lexington turn instead of the Richmond trip I was waiting on. Turns out the LEX crew was stuck doing a MX test flight that was talking longer and would be back in time to fly the Richmond trip, but not the Lexington one. So I headed down to the gate and met the captain (who I was supposed to be flying with the day before and for that day) and we headed over to Lexington.

It was the first time I’d been there since CMR191 and was surprised that you couldn’t see much off the end of 26. The runway is still closed and 22 has the glideslope out and the PAPI are disabled. Basically they moved the whole runway down about 500 feet to make a safety overrun area. In doing so they had to move a taxi way and I guess this could cause confusion as to which runway you were on.

Anyhow there were two 747s parked on the west end of the field. They both had UAE flags on the tail. One was a -100 and the other I believe was a full blown -400. Big suckers for a field that size. I asked ground about them and he said that they were some royalty who had brought some horses over to be bred. Talk about a long way to go. I got to wondering which plane the horses traveled in and which one the people did. Do they think more of their horses then themselves? Random thoughts.

We loaded up a massive 7 people in LEX for the flight back to CLT and headed off. They filed us over SDF (which is west of LEX even though we were going east to CLT) because of weather. Once air born we were able to pick our way around it and headed towards the Volunteer VOR (Knoxville, TN) and then on into Charlotte. The traffic was backed way up and they had us slowed down to 250 knots way out and then started giving us 90 degree turns for spacing. Fun Fun. The best part was they were running 20 mile down winds for the north runways when we got to Charlotte. There was a Cirrus (like a Cessna 172 but a bit faster and cooler) that was trying to get in to land at Charlotte. Approach asked him what his best speed was going to be and he said he could do 120. Normal “slow” operations are 170 or so. We just kept praying he would end up behind us, and thankfully he did. The last thing we heard before switching over to tower was approach telling Dad (us airways… we are the little wholly owned, they are Dad… get it?) to break off the approach due to closure with the Cirrus. Sucks for them. I guess everybody has equal rights to land at an airport, but it really gummed up the traffic ops.

We had a 45 minute sit and our plane came in from Richmond (with the other crew and our FAs). We quick turned and then were delayed 10 minutes while ramp held us up for connecting passengers who turned out to already be on the plane. Go figure. At least we got back before midnight and I’ve got 3 days off.

Here’s the 747s in LEX

I just got back from vacation yesterday to pick up the last two days of a 4 day. I was supposed to deadhead to Charlotte and then fly a TLH turn with a CHS overnight. Easy enough. I get a phone call as I get off my deadhead in CLT to call scheduling about a change to my schedule. That’s never a good thing. Turns out they wanted me to ferry an airplane back to Dayton and then deadhead to Charlotte (again) to pick up the CLT-CHS leg for the overnight. I meet a MX guy and get a ride with the captain over to the hangar to pick up the plane. Turns out the anti ice system doesn’t work which means we need to stay out of icing conditions (<10c and clouds). That means we will be flying the whole trip at 9000 feet. Fun Fun.

It is now 3:55 and the DAY-CLT flight leaves at 5:00. Scheduling says they will hold the flight so we can get back, but we don’t even have gas yet and going at 9000 we are limited to 250 knots meaning the normal 1 hour flight will take a whole lot longer. The captain convinces scheduling that they won’t hold the flight that long and to pull him off the repo so he doesn’t get stuck in Dayton. So I sit and wait for about an hour while another captain is rounded up.

In the mean time the weather goes to hell and we get a new release and routing (over Washington) which makes the trip just under 600 miles as opposed to the normal 350 miles. This is getting better and better by the minute. The other captain finally shows up and we get the last of the paperwork and taxi out. There is a series of thunder cells just to the east on the departures and good rain storm sitting on the runway. We take off in some sizable bumps (no pax in the back to worry about) and rocket up to 8000, our final altitude). We dodge a bunch of cells and get established on the routing heading north and are able to climb as the temperature warms up. We were also able to make some shortcuts which cut the flight down to just over an hour and a half.

Of course they don’t hold the flight and I end up spending the night in Dayton (which was fine) but ended up having to deadhead back down to Charlotte today and sit for 5 hours and wait to fly 3 legs.

And hence here I am sitting in the crew room doing absolutely nothing. The tv is on CNN thankfully (I can’t begin to picture Fox’s posturing on 9/11). Only 3 hours to go. Yeah.

As promised…

I had a week of vacation and decided to go down to visit a friend in Puerto Rico for a few days. Nolan is moving back to California in the near future (next week as it turns out) so I figured I should get down there while he was still there. He is living on Veiques (small island off the coast of San Juan) and flying for a commuter airline down there.

I headed down on Sunday through Philly. The plan originally involved taking the 5:50 am flight to Charlotte and then a A319 to San Juan. The early CLT flight delayed to the point where I would miss the connection so I headed to PHL instead. The good news was that the A330 flies that route. My luck didn’t hold and the flight was downgraded to a 757. At least I had a row to my self. The movie was MI III and it sucked. Yeah, I said it, Maverick ain’t Maverick anymore. Fortunately I had my Creative Zen mp3 player so I was able to listen to some tunes and watch a few videos on the 3 inch screen.

Once I got to San Juan I headed downstairs to the Cape Air counter to try to jump seat to Veiques. They had open flights. In fact the flights were so open (read: empty) they weren’t running them. I went out of security to the front counters to talk to the other two airlines that fly over there. VAL (the company Nolan works for) had a flight but they wouldn’t let me jumpseat. Something about the supervisor being on vacation and the counter guy didn’t want to do anything. Not very helpful at all. I called Nolan to see if he could clear it up but he wasn’t able to reach anybody. He was able to get the station manager at the other San Juan airport, Isle Grande, which is about 20 minutes away.

I grabbed a cab and made it with a few minutes to spare. VAL flies Islanders, Trilanders and Caravans. The Isle Grande route was covered by the Caravan. I sat up front and had a nice view of San Juan as we flew over the top of the international airport. From there we flew the shoreline to the tip of Puerto Rico and then across Roosevelt Roads to Veiques.

Nolan was working when I got there so I hung out at the airport until he got back. I’d been reading a book by NPR columnst Heather Lende about her home town of Haines, Alaska. I managed to finish that while waiting. He had one more trip to do, but the ops manager told me to go along. So I backseated in a trilander to Fahardo on the main island and then flew back on a “deadhead” in an islander. Total trip time for 2 legs? 15 minutes. Nice.

After we got back we headed back to his apartment which sits right on the water. The downside is that it is a concrete box. That means that it is HOT (even with 2 ac units) and there is no cell phone signal. After settling in we walked back up the street to a restaurant run by a expat from New York City. Very good food and interesting pictures on the wall. Because it was a holiday weekended the place was packed but because Nolan and the guy we were meeting there (a friend of Nolan who used to fly for the AF) were regulars we were able to get a table. After dinner there was talk of going to a bar but ended up not doing it.

The next day Nolan went to take some stuff to a laundromat but his car broke midway there. There is a short somewhere in the transmission and any time he shifts from Park to Reverse the engine dies and his battery can’t restart it. It stalled right in the middle of traffic so I had to help him push it down the hill onto a side street. A local who he knew jumped the car back to life and we were able to get it back to his house. Later Paul (the AF guy) came over with his van and we headed to the beach.

Veiques used to be a navy bombing range and since they pulled out several years ago the beaches have opened up. We drove through the abandoned base to a pull off for the beach. As we got out of the van the first rain drops started falling. By the time we walked to the shore you couldn’t see more then 500 feet. We drove back into town in the middle of a huge rainstorm and ate lunch at Bananas, a local bar/lunch place. While eating the sun came back out and we decided to go snorkeling in the bay across the street.

I hadn’t snorkeled since I was in Florida during college. While I liked it, I am slightly apprehensive of deep water (not swimming, but what is in it) and putting my face down in it and looking around took some guts for me. We jumped in by a pier and worked our way out along the pilings. There were a bunch of interesting fish and coral along the seabed. Once we reached the end of the pier we decided to swim the 1/4 miles across the bay to a island with some reefs off it. There wasn’t much on the bottom on the way but once at the reef there were tons of fish and more coral. We also so a eagle ray (RIP Steve Irwin by the way) and a sea turtle. We worked our way around the island fighting a 3 foot swell on the outside (no fun at all) and then back in to the pier. I had a pretty good time despite the fact my legs were killing me.

Once out of the water we headed back to Nolan’s apartment and then walked up to the grocery store to get food for dinner. Of course the store was closed so we made do with what he had at the house. Chicken and bean burritos that came out pretty good. While eating we watched the movie Brick (film noir set in a socal high school based on the writings of Dashel Hammet). We watched it with subtitles on just to follow the language which was a good thing. We had moved one of the ac units to the living room and it brought the temperature down to a comfy 80 degrees (it was 93 when we plugged it in). Nolan had to be at work at 6am so we called it a night after the movie.

I woke up at 5:15 to find an inch of water on the floor. The AC unit had overflowed the runoff pan and had dehumidified all over the floor. After cleaning up the puddles and grabbing a shower we headed to the airport. Fortunately his car made it to airport but died in the parking lot as he was pulling in to a spot. I managed to get all sweaty pushing the car back. Wahoo. When I checked inside to see when I could get a flight back to international I was told that there was a 7:30 to Isle Grande but nothing to international until 9:30. That would still give me enough time to catch a flight home but I wanted to get there as soon as I could. Unfortunately the 7:30 was full but Nolan talked to the guys at another airline (MN) and was able to get me a seat on their 7:30 to Isle Grande.

The pilot flying it was very cool and had offered to drop me at international if they only had 2 passengers. They had more so we ended up at Isle Grande. I was about to find a cab when he told me that he was flying over to international but parking at an FBO on the backside of the field. He then called his ops people and they said they could drive me over to the main terminal. That’s about how it worked out. We flew from Isle Grande to International (flight time 1 minute) and parked at the MN FBO. After waiting a few minutes he, another pilot and a mx guy grabbed a car and a visitor SIDA badge for me and drove me across the airport ramp and dropped me at the US Air gates. Very helpful people.

From there I went back out of security and to the US counter. They listed me for a 12:30 Philly flight and then I went and sat for 3 hours. Fortunately the airport has it’s own Salsa band that wanders around the airport playing music. Sort of cool actually. The flight finally boarded and I was all set to have to take the jumpseat but ended up in first class. 4 hours (a good meal, a bad movie and a 45 minute hold) later we landed in Philly. I had 5 minutes to make a connection that was still showing on time but fortunately once I got there I found it was late. The plane showed up but the crew wasn’t due in for another hour. That meant the flight would leave around 7:30. There was a normal 8pm flight plus the 3pm flight was delayed to 8:10pm. So, all three flights left within 45 minutes of each other.

I took a nap on the flight home and woke up as we started to descend over Columbus. We dodged a pretty good thunderstorm and beat another to the field. I managed to run to my car just as it started raining and then drive home through a heavy storm.

Over all I had a pretty good time. Pictures are here.

I had planned to post a whole thing about my trip to Puerto Rico this week but of course I am too lazy to do that right now. Tomorrow. I promise. There are pictures too.

Random things….

-I tried to make angel food cake with raspberries and whipped cream tonight. Ok, so I bought the angel food cake and raspberries and whipped cream. I tried to put them together. The cake and berries worked great. The whipped cream can some how froze in the fridge so no whipped cream for me.

-My back is VERY badly burned from snorkeling in PR. (I know… what a tease for the “whole story”). It is starting to itch pretty badly. I have been putting aloe on it and it helps a bit.

-My roomba made Questionable Content in the latest strip. If you don’t read QC you really should. Not to mention the guy lives in Northampton and the plot has “Smif” college in it. (Not always safe for work due to language and stuff, but funny all the same).

Yeah for me! A whole week off! I flew two back to back 2 day trips that both ended up being WAY more work then needed and now have 8 whole days off. Ah yeah, living the dream. I think it will be mostly low key for the week, although I am heading down to Puerto Rico tomorrow morning to visit a friend on Vieques. I was there back in the Spring but had to head home early.

The first 2 day was pretty ugly to start. A late show in Dayton (4pm) and fly the 700 DAY-CLT and then on down to Atlanta. The plane had an APU but the load control valve was broken meaning we could get electric power off it but we would need ground air to start the engines. That was easy enough in Dayton but it took 3 air carts and the cabin temp getting above 95 degrees before we were able to get out of Charlotte. We got in to Atlanta (after a relatively nice landing on my part considering I’d been in the 200 for the two previous trips) around 11. The captain hadn’t been able to reach operations in the air to get a gate and let them know we needed 3 wheel chairs I tried calling on the ground while taxiing in but they didn’t answer. Atlanta has three gates that US Air uses so we weren’t sure where to go.

As we were coming into the ramp I heard Brickyard (Republic flying the old Mid Altantic 170s) calling ops that they were on the ramp waiting for a gate as well. They were assigned D21. I called right after and we were given D23 leaving D25 open. As we were taxiing up towards the gate we both commented on how there was an airplane facing us with their taxi light shinning right in our eyes. Of course it was the 170 waiting for an America West 319 to push off their gate. Sort of bad manners on their part. Anyhow, we pulled in while they sat in the alley waiting for AWA to push (which took about 30 minutes and they were eventually given D25). Anyhow, the problem with D23 is that the jetway is broken. Not a big problem really except our three wheel chair passengers can’t do stairs and because the station never answered our in range calls they didn’t know about them. It took 45 minutes to make them aware of the problem and for them to find a lift system on the ASA ramp. Apparently US doesn’t have any down there because we have jetways, even if they don’t work.

After we finally got everybody off and hiked up the stairs to the terminal (no jetway, remember) we did the lovely tram ride to the main terminal. “The Next Station Stop Will Be Terminal C. C As In Charlie. Please Hold On. This Train Is Stopping.” And again for B and for A and for T and for Baggage Claim. Ah, it’s the ride the never ends (ELP reference). One of our FAs was dead certain that you wanted to be in the last car to be closest to the escalator getting out. The rest of us said it was the front of the train that was closer and he some what angrily got up front with us. We were right. The funny thing was that he was still certain that the front of the train was closer when we got on the train going back to the gates the next morning. As we boarded the last car (which is closer to the escalator going to the gates) he ran as fast as he could to get on the first car. We didn’t have the heart to laugh at him when we had to wait for him at the top of the escalators at the D gates.

We got back to Charlotte no problem and then pushed off the gate for Manchester, NH. As we started to taxi off the ramp a company 200 passed us and told us our mic door (where the ground crews can plug in a head set to talk to us) was still open. We taxied back in to the ramp where a ramper ran out and shut it. In the mean time we lost our place in line and were still 6 from the runway when they shut down the airport due to thunderstorms on the departures. And there we sat for 2 and a half hours. Yeah. Fun. Funny story. I have a feature on my cell phone that allows me to download radar images. They are big pictures images that show the whole area as opposed to the plane radar which just shows what ever your nose is pointed at. Anyhow, about an hour in my phone rings and it is my roommate is asking about the weather. Apparently he is in the plane right behind us waiting to go to Columbia. The south departures eventually opened and he (and all the other guys going south were able to get out. Those of us going east and north (where the weather was moving) had to wait another 40 minutes before we were able to go. When we did it was through some of the roughest weather I have seen since coming on line almost a year ago. Fun stuff. I think we only had 3 passengers toss their cookies. Could have been worse I guess. We got to MHT 2 hours late.

We did a quick turn and headed back to Charlotte. Enroute we found out we wouldn’t be flying back to Dayton but rather deadheading as they had a reserve crew already on the plane. This was fine with us as long as we got to go home. About 40 miles from Charlotte we were descending thru 12000 feet and passing around the edge of a small cell. The windshield started discharging (which is normal) and then there was a HUGE flash and a really loud thumping noise. I checked the electrics quickly and found everything normal. We decided that we’d gotten hit by lighting but suffered no problems. About 5 minutes later the captain asked me why I’d turned off his radar. I told him I hadn’t touched it and the switch was still on. I tried mine and it didn’t work either. So much for the hit not doing anything. I called MX to meet us on the ground and we found a pretty good sized dent in the nose cone, a burn mark on the radar dish and a blackened corner of the tail with a static wick missing. After all that it was really nice not to have to fly the CLT-DAY leg.