Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Is it over yet




Chicago ohare waking up, with a b747 departing to Asia. They have a long ride ahead.



Day 5. It's been a long 5 days. The schedule has not really worked as smoothly as previous trips. Nothing has seemed to work as smoothly. Had a day we were supposed to fly syr ORD ind JFK cvg. While enroute to ind we received notice the JFK had been canceled. Now we are scheduled to ferry and empty plane to cvg and overnight there. That's a loss of 4.5 hours of flying. I can say this, empty, the emj145 can climb. You have to be very careful, you can blow right through an altitude assignment in a blink of an eye.

One day Chicago departure held us at 5000 until we got out over the lake.
It was an awesome view. If you look south of downtown, there is a patch of grass that looks like a Island. That was Meigs field. Now, its a patch of grass. Don't even want to get started on that one.

This was out plane on the ORD-IND trip. We gave her to another crew who took her back to ORD. Our plane came in a short time later and we ferried it to Cincinnati.
The only good thing about that was getting some Famous Dave's BBQ. Its pretty good.

This was my view from the back of the plane on our return trip to ORD from Nashville. Yes, Sitting in back. But the stroy really starts at 4am. I get a call from crew scheduling. They have an assignment. I am to Deadhead to Nashville, and pick up an empty plane and ferry it to Chicago. The trip down was ok. I met the Captain I was to fly with on the ferry flight and had some small talk. He was a newly upgraded Captain. Seemed like a really nice guy. I was looking forward to that flight. I had just spent two days with a guy who was not as pleasant. When we got on the ground at BNA The crew who flew us told us they received word that our ferry flight was canceled. Now we are to return to Chicago, again in the back. Deadheading. If your not familiar with that. Deadheading is when the company flys you in the cabin as a passenger, but you are being paid to fly. You are on duty. So they basically paid us to fly as passengers to Nashville and back.
The only problem now is that this is my last day. I want to go home. and Chicago is about to get pounded with Tstorms. This could back things up for days. Not want I want to hear. The view above was on approach in the clouds, and rain and lightning. I do not like looking out the window and seeing lightning. Thankfully it was fairly smooth and the wx we were in was not to bad. We got on the ground and deplaned. Once Inside I called crew scheduling again and they released me. This means I am done and can go home...really? You couldn't release me in BNA where I was already half way home. I could grabbed a flight to DFW and a connection to SAT.
Long story short I made it home, even with the delays and cancellations. Now it's time for a little rest. ONE more day In ORD...Just ONE more, and then I will be DFW based!!! Woohoo. I'm excited 15 flights a day and only a 45 min ride. Compared to 3 flight a day and 2hr and 45 min ride. this is going to make life so much easier!!!

1 comment:

Paul said...

Sounds like deadheading takes the romance out of flying!