Last night of my typical week of spreading chemtrails between LAX and Oakland.
Hold on a minute, there’s a couple large men in dark suits at the door.
“Oh, I didn’t realize you had those pictures. Yeah, that definitely looks like me. Look, I was young and I needed the money, OK?”
(Returns a short time later, visibly shaken)
Did I say spreading chemtrails? Ha! I meant hauling packages. Everyone knows there’s no such thing as chemtrails! Had you going for a minute there didn’t I?
(Peeks out window. They’re gone aren’t they?)
It’s thursday night and the weather is good. My kind of night. My motto is “no pain, no pain”.
The running joke in Flight Ops is:
“Did you check the weather?”
“No. Why scare myself early?”
The departure from LAX takes us out over the Pacific, past Santa Barbara “Hi rich people!” and then makes a turn north. I can see Bakersfield on my right (been there exactly once) and then Fresno (likewise).
Once we level off I turn the chemtrail dispensers on.
North of Fresno I can see Merced, where Castle AFB used to be. I trained on the B-52 there in 1989, which seems like an eternity ago.
On the way up to Oakland I’m amazed at the line of vehicles on I-5 out in the Central Valley. Where are all these people going at 10:30 PM? Probably truck traffic, I’m guessing. It’s a solid stream of lights all the way up the middle of the state.
It’s my leg into Oakland and I kick the autopilot off around 4-5 miles out on final. I figure I need the practice more than it does.
Oh, and stop staring at the scenery. I know it’s pretty but you’ve got work to do.
The 767 is super responsive on the controls. Trim it up properly and you can literally fly it with your fingertips. Amazing that 300,000 plus pounds of jet can handle like a sports car but Boeing really got it right with this one.
This was the last of the old-school Boeings before they switched to fly-by-wire with the 777 and 787. You can fly it full-up automated or you can turn all that stuff off and go old-school.
Being an old-school kind of guy I like that. I flew for 20 years before I so much as saw an autothrottle, let alone did an auto-landing. The T-38 didn’t even have an autopilot and the B-52 and KC-135 had pretty basic ones.
I tend to be pragmatic when it comes to automation on the flight deck. Use it when it makes your life easier, but don’t be afraid to turn it down a notch if it starts getting in the way. Remember, you’re the pilot. Your job is to fly the jet, not to let the jet fly you.
My only gripe with the 76 is that the autothrottles have a bad habit of “chasing” the airspeed. Especially in gusty winds. Sometimes I find myself overriding the servos because I’m looking ahead and predicting while the computer is reacting to what just happened. Fly the jet, fly the jet, fly the jet.
I tend to use the fuel flow gauges to set my power, mostly because they’re more in my line of sight than the EPR (Exhaust Pressure Ratio) gauges at the top of the stack.
Sometimes I don’t even look, just put the levers “right about there” and listen for the sound of the engines.
Crossing the runway threshold on speed is critical to a good landing. I always sneak one last look at the speed. A little fast? Better come off the power early or you’ll float. A little slow? Better keep the power on or it’ll drop like a brick when you come to idle.
It’s good. Not my best but I’ll take it.
Taxi in. Hotel. Nap. Coffee. More Coffee. I don’t think you ever really get used to working back side of the clock, you just adapt to it.
I like this Captain. For one, he and I are on the same page politically. I never bring up politics. If they start talking about it I try to carefully feel out where they’re coming from. A lot of times I find myself going “So, what else would you like to talk about?” because I really don’t want to get into an argument.
He also has a technical background like myself, which I find rare in my profession. We spend most of the trip down to LA talking about databases. I haven’t done any of this in a long time but it all starts coming back to me. I used to dream in SQL (Structured Query Language). I point out that being a DBA (Database Administrator) was a pretty good gig because nobody really knows what the hell a DBA actually does.
The arrival into LA is uneventful. We land on the north complex and make our way across the airport on taxiway Tango.
By now the Air Traffic Controllers have been working without pay for several weeks due to the government shutdown. They’re already short staffed and I can tell they’re tired. Plus it’s 4:00 AM and we’re all tired.
“Boxhauler 65 cross Runway 25 Right and 25 Left on Tango, then left on Alpha to parking.”
This is the clearance we usually get, so I’m not surprised. We call that “confirmation bias” by the way.
I read the clearance back verbatim, as I’m required to, especially when there’s a runway crossing.
Right about then we hear another voice come on the radio, probably the maintenance crew: “Men and equipment on Tango”.
Sure enough, I can see the vehicle lights down there between the two runways. It wasn’t mentioned in the NOTAMs (Notices to Airmen), I checked. It might have been on the ATIS and we just overlooked it.
“When in doubt stop and sort it out” and that’s exactly what we do.
Tower immediately gives us a different routing and it’s no-harm, no-foul. Still, they cleared us onto a closed taxiway and we thought nothing of it because that’s what we were expecting to hear. It never progressed to the point of being a safety hazard, but if unchecked it could have. That’s why we back each other up.
Other than that one glitch it’s a pretty easy night. My biggest worry is: how am I going to get home?
Normally on this trip I go to the hotel and sleep Friday morning. Then I take an early afternoon flight back to Ohio. When things go as scheduled I’m back at the house by 11:30 PM.
I have a connection scheduled through Denver, and I’m not liking what I see in the Denver weather forecast. Looks like snow, which means deicing, which means delays. Plus I’m not sure how the shutdown is affecting the TSA. Could be a pain trying to get through the passenger terminal.
I look at the jumpseat schedule on the company website. We have eight, count ‘em, flights between LAX and Memphis on Friday morning. I had no idea there was that much freight. Looks like I have my pick. I cancel my deadhead ticket and opt for the 777 jumpseat as that’s probably the best option for sleeping.
This requires me to go back through our security and have my bags screened, then wait for someone to escort me back to Flight Ops. I’m no longer “operating” I’m just self-loading baggage.
While I’m waiting by security I realize I’ve screwed up and not canceled ground transportation to the hotel. The poor driver is probably out there waiting. I call the van service but I feel bad for making them wait.
The Captain on the 777 and I have flown together at some point, probably on the 757. After a while you start to recognize people.
The “triple” is a sweet ride. It has a full galley in the back plus two bunks and four first-class airline seats. I’ve thought about bidding the 777, but I don’t think I’m up for 10-14 day around the world trips. I’ve looked at their schedules and it’s not uncommon for them to fly a 14 hour leg with a third pilot on board.
There are two of us riding the jumpseats to Memphis. We both hit the bunk right after level off. I’ve never had good luck sleeping in the bunk. I tried it on an MD-11 once and it was like being in a coffin.
The 777 bunk is nice, as bunks go. I doze off for a little while, but as soon as it starts getting bumpy I find it impossible to sleep. I move to one of the recliners and sleep a bit more until it starts getting really bumpy.
Not much I can do. It’s a rough ride most of the way to Memphis. I figure I got maybe an hour sleep total. Good thing I had that two-hour nap back in Oakland, eight hours ago.
I can see it now. A remote prison camp somewhere in North Korea:
“Glorious Colonel Sir! The imperialist running dog pilot has escaped! Sleep deprivation failed to break him!”
“Holy Kim Il Sung! We’ll both be reassigned to the even more remote prison camp!”
“It’s worse than that sir. He took the coffee maker with him!”
We get to MEM around 11:00 AM and I “power through” until 2:30 PM when I can catch the flight up to Columbus. It’s one of our A300’s, which has pretty decent jumpseats once you get used to sitting backwards. I sleep most of the way home.
My commute can be complicated because the freight haulers use Rickenbacker (KLCK), which is across town from Port Columbus (KCMH). Excuse me. It’s called John Glenn International now.
Long story short, my trips sometimes depart from one and return to the other.
Fortunately my well-used 1997 Lincoln “airport car” is waiting for me in the company parking lot. I’m not optimistic because it’s been sitting there for 3 weeks and it’s cold out. It starts, barely. Thirty minutes later I’m back at the house. Not too bad.
So that’s a pretty typical work week for me. Even when you fly between the same two cities every night, each flight is still unique.
No man ever steps in the same river twice,
for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.
Heraclitus