Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Well, we are done our busiest week ever, and today I'm back in the office, coding invoices and making sure the bills for the flights are getting paid. Both our jets are in for scheduled maintenance, so I have a few days to relax, do laundry, buy groceries, and make sure our paperwork is complete and correct.

I really enjoyed the last week except for the part where my lips are very chapped due to the dry air in the cockpit. I haven't had chapped lips before, and I kind of hate it.

Random thoughts looking back on last week:

Toronto - Raleigh - Augusta - Toronto. We did the same route every day for a week, and I was pretty freakin' bored by the end of it. With corporate flying we generally mix up our destinations, and it's rare that we'll do the exact same trip twice in a row. This tells me that perhaps I'm not cut out for airline flying - I really enjoy the variety of places we go to while flying corporate. Don't get me wrong - I have been to Teterboro maybe 50 times in the last 2 years, but those times weren't all in a row.

Overheard last week on departure from Augusta:

ATC - "Cessna 172 5 miles north of Augusta, what are your intentions?"
Student pilot - "Umm, I'm on a solo cross-country trip to Augusta"
"Confirm you want to land at Augusta. Now. During the Masters Tournament"
"Umm, okay. Is there anything special I should do?"
"Just follow the instructions in the NOTAM for Augusta"
"Umm, I think I left that back in the car. Can you tell me what they are?"

Unfortunately we were switched over to another frequency before I could listen in to the rest of the hilarity. But seriously, what kind of instructor would let their student do their solo cross-country flight into Augusta during the busiest week of the year. There were business jet arrivals and departures every 3 minutes for a week straight.

Bah, I forgot to bring my usb cord for my camera but fortunately Kitsch has a few random ones from last week, so here we go:

Each morning was an early one:



This was the weather for the entire week. A bit boring, but no news is good news when it comes to weather::




During an empty leg I decided to make sure my oxygen mask is set to fit snugly around my hairless skull. Results were mixed...



You get pretty familiar with the cockpit layout after spending 6 hours a day in the machine:




In Augusta they use a taxiway as overflow parking. That's us on the right.




And that's about all I know right now. I took a bunch of video clips of Augusta, and when I get home tonight I'll try to remember to post 'em.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That pic of the O2 mask, reminded me that you are one scary looking hairless dude! Funny, I still miss flying those long uneventful legs with you. Sully is always good for a laugh.

Aluwings said...

I notice the first item on the Approach checklist is "Coffee --- OFF" Is that a reminder to take the coffee cup off the dash panel where it might spill during a Go Around? ha ha... I guess a more intelligent guess would be that this is related to "galley power" ???

Why OFF for the approach?

Curious...

Sulako said...

Heh yeah it's galley power. Our coffee heater is right behind the left seat - we have an refreshment center with all sorts of goodies.

But why do we select it off?

That's a really good question. My initial response was "Cause it's in the checklist" but I should actually put some thought into this, and I can't think of a reason for doing so. I mean if we crash we might have hot coffee splattered on the flight crew, but I'm guessing that would be the least of our worries.

I'll ask our AME's today and see if they can come up with a good reason.

Thanks for pointing that out, I'm kind of intrigued now.