Farewell to Milwaukee

Things again went smoothly at Milwaukee last night as well as Indy this morning. We had a little glitch with the autothrottles right after takeoff that caused them to go to idle in the climbout (not exactly what you want them to do close to the ground, slow and 20 degrees nose up), but we sorted that out and continued on our merry way to an early arrival at MKE. I got a few zzz's and now it's off to the Eagle RJ for the long trip home.

Gloomy morning for farewells

I received a notification that my deadhead trip to Tallahassee on Sunday with a live leg to Memphis on Monday night had a change of gauge. For some reason, they put a 727 on the trip instead of my 757. This means I'll be in "substitution" under our contract. I must be available for a new trip assignment from 3 hours prior to the original showtime until 8 hours later in order to be pay protected. Since the only thing they can realistically assign me is another deadhead, I will get another day at home. If skeds calls with a trip, I can refuse it, but I'll eventually lose the pay unless I make it up. I scheduled a Fedex jumpseat for Monday night to join up with the rest of my Tallahassee trips for the week. We'll see if they change the gauge on those as well. This actually works out well b/c getting to TLH from ABQ was not easy, and I was going to have to take a much earlier flight that I wanted just to be in position by the required 9 hours prior to showtime on Monday night, and pay for an extra night in the hotel out of pocket. Stay tuned for more ...
On the rumor front, the mechanic in Milwaukee this morning said that he heard Fedex was in negotiations with Boeing for 767 ER freighters to replace the MD-11s. Since my type rating is for 757 and 767, this would be great news! I had previously understood that the 767 would not work with our belly can configuration, but I guess anything is solvable if you throw enough money at it. As the saying goes, "Don't believe anything until it's painted purple and sitting on the ramp." See http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/flightblogger/2011/03/boeing-and-fedex-eye-767-400er.html