When dreams come true... (long)

Effective 12/1 we're allowed to use our EFBs in all phases of flight provided 1) You've completed the required training and, 2) The EFB mount is installed in the aircraft.

On Tuesday (12/1) I arrived at the plane to find the fancy new mounts installed! I was thrilled. It worked well and I was happy to be back to digital charts all the time!

The next day we boarded a different aircraft for the day's flights. No mount. I was bummed! Supposedly by the end of the week the whole fleet will have them. I certainly hope so.
 
fiveoboy01 said:
4 hours of sleep? Yikes. I don't think I could function:)
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Technically it's all within a single duty day so presumably you're rested before you start...sort of like working a graveyard shift, except you get to take a four hour nap in the middle of your shift!
 
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LDJones said:
Technically it's all a duty day so presumably you're rested before you start...sort of like a graveyard shift. But you get to sleep at least four hours on your shift!
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I have friends who've developed an amazing ability to nap at will, from the airline industry. Doesn't even have to only be pilots. A quick nap between bank times on the ramp was pretty common back in the day. Don't know what it's like now.

Most of those ramp naps were because someone had non-revved to warmer weather and beaches and beer the day before the overnight shift, though, and got back into town around 5PM.

I wasn't as good at it but once in a while it helped with three jobs and school. Heh. I was on a good crew and one of the guys would poke me in plenty of time to get the load sheets and the gear ready for whatever flight was inbound next.

What I hated was the days when the day crews didn't fuel the gear at the end of their shift. Our fuel farm was a long way away from our gates we covered and the limiters on the tugs were set really slow.

That was another game we all played... Find the tugs with higher set or broken limiters and memorize their unit numbers. Then find ways to go snag them all for your gates and swap others into other people's gates when they weren't looking. Haha. That extra 5 MPH was grand.

You also wanted the biggest most badass Paymovers you could find (pushback tugs) but those mostly stayed at their gates. Your options to snag one of the better ones were limited to when the ramp was nuts and airplane's were being sent to the wrong gates just to fill all the holes... "need to take this one to C-mumble.... for a mumble mumble type we need to push!" as you drove off with their tug and they weren't pushing for an hour. Haha.

We all did it, so it was more a game than anything. Nobody got mad. They'd just steal your fastest belt loader when you went in to take a leak. LOL.
 
^^^^ You need to write a book: Games Rampers Play!

I'm pretty good at power naps. 15-20 minutes and I'm good for a long stretch. Drives my wife nuts that I can fall asleep in 30 seconds. But it's handy on short overnights.
 
Yesterday morning I finished the last of my stand-ups for the year and began my six days off Christmas break. The last stretch of flying was a brutal with FIVE short-night (4 hours or less) stand-ups in row. When I got home yesterday morning around 7:30 a.m. I tried to catch a little more sleep, but kept thinking about all the miscellaneous things still on my to-do list before Christmas, so gave up on sleep and dug in.

After finishing some photo projects I was working on (I still love photography and graphic design), then flying with a guy in need of an insurance checkout, then taking 1,100 action shots of 12 high school swimmers for their Senior banners, then out to dinner and visiting with my neighbors of 20 years, I was beat. I crashed at 9 p.m. and slept solid til 8 a.m. this morning. Boy, did that feel good!

BTW, we recently did our bids for January. After these brutal stand-ups I decided I was going to bid 3-day and 4-day trips in January. Then when I saw the pairings all the stand-ups were dramatically improved....paying more and offering much more rest. After seeing those I decided to keep them in the mix. I also decided to try for some weekends off so my wife and I can do some weekend trips this winter.

Well, I ended up with a MONTH of stand-ups, but got all but one weekend off! Plus I have two five-day stretches of days completely off. With the better rest offered by the new stand-ups (6 hours or more per night...meaning less need for a nap during the day) coupled with all the days off, I'll essentially be around home every day in the month of January except two. On my "working days" I'll head to the airport around 7 p.m., fly a jet somewhere, sleep six hours, then fly the jet back and be home by 8 a.m. to work on all the other stuff I like to do. My flight students are going to like that!

So January is looking pretty good. With the short days, I'm doing nothing but night flying....maybe getting a taste of what FedEx pilots must experience. I'm hoping I don't become a vampire.

Merry Christmas everyone!
 
LDJones said:
On my "working days" I'll head to the airport around 7 p.m., fly a jet somewhere, sleep six hours, then fly the jet back and be home by 8 a.m.
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Is your 6 hours of sleep actual "in-bed" hours, or is it gate to hotel to gate? I would imagine the latter would significantly reduce actual sleep time?
 
Jonesy.... I am surprised a regional would take you on at your age! If I read it right, a law degree in 1982, puts you somewhere north of 55? Maximum age of 60 before mandatory retirement. Some type of investment by the regional. What am I missing?
 
Rcmutz said:
Jonesy.... I am surprised a regional would take you on at your age! If I read it right, a law degree in 1982, puts you somewhere north of 55? Maximum age of 60 before mandatory retirement. Some type of investment by the regional. What am I missing?
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Mandatory retirement is now 65.
 
gkainz said:
Is your 6 hours of sleep actual "in-bed" hours, or is it gate to hotel to gate? I would imagine the latter would significantly reduce actual sleep time?
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That's "behind the door" hours...I'm usually in bed within minutes of arrival and set the alarm 15 min before show time.
 
Rcmutz said:
Jonesy.... I am surprised a regional would take you on at your age! If I read it right, a law degree in 1982, puts you somewhere north of 55? Maximum age of 60 before mandatory retirement. Some type of investment by the regional. What am I missing?
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I was hired three months before my 58th birthday. If they can get three years out of you they're making money on you, or so I'm told. More importantly they're meeting their flying commitments to their partners with fully staffed planes.

And as pointed out above, retirement is now 65, with rumors of 67 or 70. Not sure if we will see that or not.
 
LDJones said:
I was hired three months before my 58th birthday. If they can get three years out of you they're making money on you, or so I'm told. More importantly they're meeting their flying commitments to their partners with fully staffed planes.

And as pointed out above, retirement is now 65, with rumors of 67 or 70. Not sure if we will see that or not.
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I just turned 58 last month. Given the looming pilot shortage, they may have to start laying the ground work for raising it.
 
Cpt_Kirk said:
How is that even possible?
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My rough (uneducated) guess would be that there's not a lot of rush hour traffic to contend with getting to the airport in Duluth for a dawn patrol sortie. Maybe 15 minutes is hyperbole, but 30 minutes would be overkill. As pax, I used to like the first Saturday flight over the last Friday flight in part for that reason.
 
Is the show time when you leave the hotel or when you get to the airport?
 
DJTorrente said:
My rough (uneducated) guess would be that there's not a lot of rush hour traffic to contend with getting to the airport in Duluth for a dawn patrol sortie. Maybe 15 minutes is hyperbole, but 30 minutes would be overkill. As pax, I used to like the first Saturday flight over the last Friday flight in part for that reason.
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I need at least an hour just to get out of the door. Most of which is spent in the shower. I have got to take a shower in the morning. There's no way around it.

Of course, that's a perfect world. Most of the time I'll oversleep and have 20 mins to get out the door. :rofl:

Everskyward said:
Is the show time when you leave the hotel or when you get to the airport?
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Check in at ops, if I'm not mistaken.
 
Cpt_Kirk said:
I need at least an hour just to get out of the door. Most of which is spent in the shower. I have got to take a shower in the morning. There's no way around it.

Of course, that's a perfect world. Most of the time I'll oversleep and have 20 mins to get out the door. :rofl:

Check in at ops, if I'm not mistaken.
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Since it's a single duty day I shower before heading to the airport. The sleep time is just a long power nap before finishing the duty period. Ten minutes is all it takes to comb my hair, throw the uniform on and head to the front door. You get pretty quick!
 
LDJones said:
The last stretch of flying was a brutal with FIVE short-night (4 hours or less) stand-ups in row. !
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It was nice when I flew for ASA to get some seniority and stay away from abuse like that. You're not fit for duty, not rested properly, and it's dangerous. I don't care what anyone says. Not knocking you, or your airline.
 
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It takes me exactly 30 minutes to get out the door after the alarm goes off.

My airplane only does one city pair as a stand up overnight, and it's usually pretty senior. Commuters like starting way late and ending way early. In fact, one of the senior FOs that always bids the trip is a lot like Jonsey - he made his money elsewhere and just loves to fly.
 
mscard88 said:
It was nice when I flew for ASA to get some seniority and stay away from abuse like that. You're not fit for duty, not rested properly, and it's dangerous. I don't care what anyone says. Not knocking you, or your airline.
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There's a significant contingent of fairly senior crews who only do stand-ups. Granted, they grab the longer overnights with more rest time. Having your days free offers a lot of flexibility for family and other interests. Some FAs have young kids at home and it eliminates the need for daycare.

It also gives the company a more efficient way to handle some of these smaller markets.
 
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But when you fly as many as 5 in a row they are dangerous and most pilots aren't 100%. Some can get by with 5-6 hours sleep a night, or less. Most can't, and if you're working another job during the day, or just awake doing other things, it catches up with you. One of the hazards is when the flight runs late, and as you're on duty, you depart late, say 1 am and have to be back at the departure airport at 5 am. We called them 'naps', 'bend overs', and 'hi-speeds'.

I'm retired now but I think the ALPA contract limits them to 3 in a row now, and just a 2 leg trip, out and back. When I started the company had 4 legs on them, flying the out and back and then another round trip when you returned in the morning. The contract eliminated those years ago.
 
mscard88 said:
But when you fly as many as 5 in a row they are dangerous and most pilots aren't 100%. Some can get by with 5-6 hours sleep a night, or less. Most can't, and if you're working another job during the day, or just awake doing other things, it catches up with you. One of the hazards is when the flight runs late, and as you're on duty, you depart late, say 1 am and have to be back at the departure airport at 5 am. We called them 'naps', 'bend overs', and 'hi-speeds'.

I'm retired now but I think the ALPA contract limits them to 3 in a row now, and just a 2 leg trip, out and back. When I started the company had 4 legs on them, flying the out and back and then another round trip when you returned in the morning. The contract eliminated those years ago.
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Those that do them regularly have their sleep routines pre or post flight down to a science. But I agree, five in a row gets to be a challenge. Despite that, I can honestly say that while flying them, I've never felt like I was battling fatigue. I've felt it during the day, but then I'll plan some additional sleep time before the next flight. Most of ours are relatively short flights and they never tag additional legs onto them.
 
I just finished a three-day that presented some long days and interesting challenges. I was flying with a recently upgraded Captain who was my age. She had a previous career as an air traffic controller, retiring from there a few years ago. Along the way she's flown Lears on contract to the Navy and some other interesting jobs. She's been with my airline for five years and concluded her "High Mins" hours on our last leg.

I'll relate one story from our last leg on the evening of our second day:

The massive winter storm that gripped the midwest was inching its way northward so we were expecting to get hit all day. But it crept slowly enough that the first three legs went off pretty much uneventful other than a few little maintenance glitches (another story for another day.)

But the time of our last leg the snow had hit with a vengeance. After pushback we sat in "The Alley" for almost 20 minutes waiting for three other planes ahead of us to move. Everything was a mess around the airport. Because of one of the maintenance issues we had elected to start both engines (which is recommended for the alley, anyway.)

Once clear of the alley we were directed to the MSP 30R deice pad, despite the fact we would be departing 12L at the opposite end. There we waited...and waited...and waited some more. Finally, it was our turned and did a Type I full batch and Type IV wings and tail. With the temps and snow we had about 1-1.5 hour holdover time so that gave us plenty of time to get airborne.

But the waits had been killing our fuel reserves. After deicing we started heading for 12L. Shortly thereafter the tower redirected us to 12R, which is a long taxi. I looked at our reserves and we were only 120 lbs or so over our MINTO (minimum takeoff) fuel. I asked the tower if there was any chance they could squeeze us out on 12L. He said he wished he could but the snow removal crews had already waited too long to start cleaning it and he had to cut it off somewhere. So it was with us.

Once over to 12R there was a CRJ in position for takeoff and we sat behind a 737 right beside the A9 taxiway onto 12R. I looked at our fuel and we were 20 lbs. over MINTO....that would be gone in no time.

I called the tower and told him we were one minute from minimum takeoff fuel and a delay longer than that would require us to return to the gate. I asked if there was any way we could get an intersection departure.

He said, "Is there room in front of the RJ in position for you to get on the runway?" I told him we could. He said, "Cleared for immediate takeoff Runway 12R, fly runway heading."

We cranked the nose around, scooted onto the runway and hit the thrust levers as the fuel ticked down to MINTO! I heard him tell the other planes to hold tight due to our tight fuel situation.

I've never been so grateful for a helpful controller! He saved us AT LEAST an hour of time by not having to return to the gate, refuel, deice again, etc.

Later the captain gave me kudos for getting us expedited out of there. She also complimented me on my flying at the end of the trip which was gratifying. With all the adversity we faced and overcame on that trip I actually started to feel like I am getting the hang of it!
 
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mscard88 said:
It was nice when I flew for ASA to get some seniority and stay away from abuse like that. You're not fit for duty, not rested properly, and it's dangerous. I don't care what anyone says. Not knocking you, or your airline.
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I often bid red eyes, and I don't think it's dangerous. I am a huge night owl, and much prefer flying through the night.
 
Nice story Jonesy!

Not sure how your dispatchers are with fuel, but we almost always have some buffers beyond the FAA mins. So if I'm feeling a min TO fuel crunch (and assuming I'm comfortable with a couple hundred pounds less at my destination), we'll fire off an ACARS to have dispatch dip into our additives and re-release us with the necessary min TO fuel.

Our releases and procedures may be different than yours, though. And a cool tower controller is even better! :)
 
MSP was a mess the other day for sure. I was surprised to make it to Detroit with a seat in the back during the recovery from it. That morning (the 29th) I was certain there was no chance of getting home for a few days off during training.

So far in training, I've learned that the CRJ flies like crap, at least the simulator, in terms of pitch mostly. I'm shocked how much crummier this plane flies than my previous 121 airplane. Also, the longer training gets drug out, the more it really, really starts to wear you down.
 
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kayoh190 said:
Nice story Jonesy!

Not sure how your dispatchers are with fuel, but we almost always have some buffers beyond the FAA mins. So if I'm feeling a min TO fuel crunch (and assuming I'm comfortable with a couple hundred pounds less at my destination), we'll fire off an ACARS to have dispatch dip into our additives and re-release us with the necessary min TO fuel.

Our releases and procedures may be different than yours, though. And a cool tower controller is even better! :)
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That's an interesting idea. I'll have to ask about that. The dispatchers are usually pretty conservative and will add extra contingency fuel quite regularly, so we almost never land without 500+ lbs. above our legal reserves. But I like that idea. Even running it to MINTO we still landed with 2250, if I recall correctly, with minimum reserves being about 1500. Typically we like to see 2000+ on landing.

Normally we would have gone out on one engine but we had already deferred the IDG on the #1 engine which required a special start procedure anyway, so we didn't want to tempt fate with having to do that on taxi.
 
KSCessnaDriver said:
MSP was a mess the other day for sure. I was surprised to make it to Detroit with a seat in the back during the recovery from it. That morning (the 29th) I was certain there was no chance of getting home for a few days off during training.

So far in training, I've learned that the CRJ flies like crap, at least the simulator, in terms of pitch mostly. I'm shocked how much crummier this plane flies than my previous 121 airplane. Also, the longer training gets drug out, the more it really, really starts to wear you down.
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I haven't flown any other 121 airplanes, so have nothing to which to compare, but I love the way it handles...impresses me how nimble a 53,000 lb. machine can be. I'm still amazed at the quiet smoothness descending at flight idle.

Personally, after flying the real airplane, going back into the sim left me less impressed with the sim experience than I was initially.
 
LDJones said:
I haven't flown any other 121 airplanes, so have nothing to which to compare, but I love the way it handles...impresses me how nimble a 53,000 lb. machine can be. I'm still amazed at the quiet smoothness descending at flight idle.

Personally, after flying the real airplane, going back into the sim left me less impressed with the sim experience than I was initially.
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And it very well may be the sim and not the actual airplane. Also not real fond of flight controls with no backup beyond hydraulic control.
 
LDJones said:
so we almost never land without 500+ lbs. above our legal reserves. But I like that idea. Even running it to MINTO we still landed with 2250, if I recall correctly, with minimum reserves being about 1500. Typically we like to see 2000+ on landing.
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You do realize that legal reserves apply to departure fuel, and not arrival fuel. As long as you have enough to taxi in after landing, you are legal? Not that it is smart...
 
Mason said:
You do realize that legal reserves apply to departure fuel, and not arrival fuel. As long as you have enough to taxi in after landing, you are legal? Not that it is smart...
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Fully aware of that, but we LIKE taxiing in with a comfortable margin....it means we had bought ourselves some time in the event something unexpected happens!

Like a flight last week my captain was on. The FO wanted to "fly fast" and she let him, knowing he was burning more fuel than planned. When they neared their destination they were informed there was a disabled plane on the runway and no ETA for getting it cleared, so they had to divert and ended up below her comfort level on reserves. There's no way to predict things like that.
 
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RotorAndWing said:
Get use to it. Most everything built today is pure hydraulic or electronic/hydraulic.
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Yeah, I'd like to go back to the quality product made in Long Beach. Sure it may be older than dirt, but they are built like a brick **** house.
 
I sent a note to the captain I flew the challenging three-day trip with earlier this week asking if she'd be kind enough to provide an evaluation. Since my one-year anniversary is approaching I figured getting some fresh evals in wouldn't be a bad idea. I got the following response from her:

Happy New Year, Loren! I'm happy to do an evaluation report for you…. and you can safely assume it will be favorable! What a trip! As I told you, your life experience is a huge asset in all of the communication we had to do and your flying skills put you in the top level of your class. It was a pleasure to fly with you.
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It's always nice to hear you're doing okay! Happy New Year, everyone!

Loren
 
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