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Every now and then my day job, which is usually pretty unremarkable,
rises to the level of recording. Last night's trip was just such an
experience. I still have to say that,
if you gotta work, this flying gig certainly is sweet, especially for
those of us lucky enough to still enjoy it. That's me.
Thursday afternoon a call came in from scheduling. I figured it was
scheduling because the phone shows "Unknown." They're almost always
calling to offer "JA" which means "Junior Assign" or overtime.
And frequently it's a very, very good deal. Something
has gone amiss in the operation and they need someone to fly something.
Now.
If you answer the phone it's mandatory that you take the trip, but
if you call back it's optional. I almost always call back. I call myself
"JA Jeff" because I love doing these things, especially since they usually
involve deadheading—riding in the passenger cabin while still getting
paid; perfect for working on my many projects.
So they offer me this: ferry an empty
airplane to Boston (from Chicago), overnight, then deadhead home in the
morning. Perfect! Sign me up.
After checking in, the first sign that things would not be as
advertised appeared: the
arrival was an hour late. Not a biggie but an omen. No worry, though, I
relaxed in the empty gate area, plugged in and worked on some magazine stuff
coming due. The plane finally arrived, a shiny -700 model,
so we preflighted and headed out.
An empty 737
has awesome performance. With just the First Officer (FO) and I, an
average fuel load and minimal freight,
we were a veritable rocket ship, even taking off at reduced
power (as normal). What a climb rate! Then there was that
gorgeous, sparkling Chicago cityscape with its lights edging against
Lake Michigan. "If you gotta work..."
Flying to Boston was uneventful. The weather was clear, smooth and
visibility unlimited with a few knots of wind when we were cleared for
the "visual" to runway 27.
"GO AROUND — WINDSHEAR AHEAD"
The last thousand feet was nondescript, almost boring, the way we
like it—smooth,
established and steady from 1200 feet or so. I was hand flying using
the HUD (Head-Up Display) mostly because it's kinda fun. Tonight was
just another one of hundreds of such approaches: the runway slowly grows
bigger as we slide down the glideslope. At 500 feet, my partner called
"500 feet". I crosscheck that we got a landing clearance, that
there's 5 green lights and the flaps are set. Keep going. Smooth. Then,
at 300 feet or so, "GO AROUND, WINDSHEAR AHEAD" blared into our
quite serenity.
For a brief second I questioned it but then, biting the bullet, I
powered up into our windshear escape maneuver, feeling kind of silly since I was almost
certain it was false. Better to go around, though, feel the air, and ask
questions later. The windshear maneuver is more aggressive than a
normal go-around and you leave the gear and flaps down initially,
retracting them when clear of the shear. We never felt even the
slightest bump AND got a test pattern on the radar, further confirming
that this was just an indication problem. We discussed it and decided
that, if it happened again we would continue to landing. Sure enough, on
the next approach, at about the same altitude it cried out again. This
time we pressed on to an uneventful landing. In probably 10+ years of
flying with this equipment, I'd gotten my first false alarm. I've heard
(and responded to) it one other time but that was real.
After parking this sort of thing has to get entered into the
maintenance log. Thankfully, at my airline, pilots are encouraged to
write this stuff up so it can get taken care of. Paperwork always takes
a while but that turned out not to be a hold up at all. While I was
working with maintenance and dispatch, the F/O was working a much bigger
problem—we had no hotel. Oh boy. Normally that gets set up by scheduling
but, in the heat of battle, it was missed and now they were scrambling
to find us a place to stay. Don't beat up on scheduling, out of all the
years I've been doing this I've only had one time with no hotel:
tonight.
Ring Around The Roses
Finally they found us a place, a rather nice one, about three miles away, but
there was no
transportation. No biggie, we would just take a cab. It was so late,
though, that even
in Boston, there were no cabs there. We had to call one. Within 10 minutes
a
cab showed up and we were off. A new adventure began.
My Droid phone has a great GPS navigation program which I brought up
to see our progress. The driver also had a GPS with voice directions.
Unfortunately, it
didn't seem like he was following it. In fact, the most common refrain
from that trip was Garmin Girl complaining: "RECALCULATING."
20 minutes later, our tour of Boston complete, and after some encouragement
from us about directions, we arrived at the hotel. I'm not sure that it
was intentional since driving in Boston seems almost as bad as driving in
Italy but clearly there was a quicker way. The fare reflected that. Even
though it's the company's money I bargained with the driver for a more
reasonable fare and thankfully he was OK with that. I don't mind tipping
but I don't like being "taken for a ride."
No Keys At the Inn
The final insult came when we arrived at the front desk and they
informed us there were no keys. Their system was down for some kind of
maintenance and they couldn't make new ones. Thankfully the manager was
quite helpful, and walked us up to our rooms, opening our doors
with his house key.
Finally, rest at last.
The vast majority of work trips are wonderfully mundane—just the way
I like them. But every now and then one rises to an honorable mention
and I feel need to record it for memory's sake. If I can get through my
career with nothing worse than this, I'll be a happy hiker indeed.
Now back to your regularly scheduled paramotor programming. |
