11-11-11

I gave up part of my hubturn nap last night to have a snack with long-time friend from the Navy George. He's been at Fedex for 5 or 6 years, and has been very junior the whole time since we basically stopped hiring when the mandatory retirement age changed from 60 to 65. George and I went through AVROC training together and he ended up flying helicopters while I was in the E-2. We were both on the same cruise on the Kitty Hawk in '83, and I actually got about 30 minutes of stick time in George's H-3 orbiting in starboard delta over the ship one time. George stayed in the Navy and retired, moving to Norfolk with his wife. His experience at Fedex is much different than mine due to the 10 years between our hire dates. Luck and timing have alot to do with this industry. Anyway, it was good to catch up with an old friend and reminisce a little. I hope we'll begin hiring again in earnest so that George can gain some seniority.

Cool tree along the Swamp Rabbit Trail today

I'm looking forward to my wife joining me in Greenville tomorrow for the weekend layover. We will rent a car and visit my folks in Black Mountain. Then, after I get home Tuesday morning, it's vacation time!
PS Happy Veteran's Day

My Kingdom for a Bed

The first two mornings of this week, we were at least an hour late getting in to Greenville. Finally last night, we were basically on time, so I was looking forward to getting into bed before the evil sunlight touched me and destroyed my melatonin. But noooo. When I went to the assigned room, this is what I saw--->

Nice (meeting) room, but no bed! The phone was ringing, so I picked it up. Mike at the front desk said, "Oh, I forgot to tell you that there is no room for you yet, so we put you in this room to have a place to wait..." Uh huh. And wait I did; for an hour. See, I'm obviously not SUPPOSED to get to bed before dawn this week.

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

I jumpseated in to Memphis last night, leaving home after dark for the drive to the ABQ ramp with snow coming down in the mountains. When we arrived in Memphis, it was 70 degrees!  My first mission in MEM was to attach the new registration sticker to my domicile car out in the employee parking lot. It has been quite a while since I left it there, so I had no idea where it was. I spent about 15 minutes crisscrossing the rows of derelict cars and finally found the trusty VW, attaching the sticker to the tag (only 4 months late), thus ensuring it won't be towed away by an overzealous Fedex security Nazi. Mission accomplished, it's back to the library in AOC to wait for the appointed hour (3 am) to arrive. Finally met with tonight's FO and determined the sort was a little late, so we chatted awhile before going out to the airplane. When we arrived at the gate at about 3:10, this (the picture above) is what greeted us. See anything wrong? How would you suggest we get into the airplane? We waited on the crew bus for 30 minutes with repeated calls for help. Finally, the bus driver said she simply had to go b/c she had been at work for 14 hours and could no longer stay awake. We got out so she could leave and waited another 20 minutes before the load crew finally brought the crew stairs so they could start the onload. The freight is all that matters...two guys trying to accomplish their preflight duties do not. Of course, once we finally got aboard, now it was rush rush rush. I made the usual first night errors due to lack of sleep compounded by getting stale while waiting, but it was nice weather and we made it to Greenville with the sunrise without embarrassing ourselves too deeply.

NOAA P-3 and other strange things

Strange navigational anomaly with our jet this morning. The FMS (flight management system) would not give us ETAs or predicted fuel, even though it was getting time and fuel inputs it needed. Had to actually keep a paper fuel log! Everything else was functioning well, but it niggles when you can't figure out why...

There was a NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) P-3 parked near our ramp this morning fairly bristling with various exotic sensors for weather research. I took a quick shot with my phone camera. It reminded me of my Customs days flying P-3's. We once hosted a NOAA bird on our ramp at NAS Corpus Christi after it had the crap kicked out of it flying into a hurricane in the gulf. The guys that fly those missions are a little whacko if you ask me! See http://www.aoc.noaa.gov/aircraft_lockheed.htm for more info.

Crosswind Landing

This morning, the Santa Ana winds were predicted to be gusting to 60 kts out of the north in Ontario. When we arrived, the surface winds were only about 5 kts, but the ride at altitude had been very rough all the way from Texas. Descending through 600' AGL (above ground level), the winds were still 45 kts out of the north, and we were landing west (out of limits for touchdown, if it had continued to the deck). This required about a 30 degree right crab to keep the airplane on the extended centerline of the runway. Imagine driving your car and having to look out the extreme left side of the windshield to keep the car centered in your lane. Between 600' and touchdown on runway 26 left, the wind died down to the 5 kts reported, so the heading had to be continuously "clocked" toward runway heading of 256 degrees magnetic, in order to touchdown with the longitudinal axis of the airplane in alignment with the runway centerline. If the airplane touches down in a crab, the stress on the upwind mainmount can be enormous, so I try to avoid that when possible. An interesting problem at 4:30 in the morning when you've been up all night. It worked out ok, but the FO and I agreed we had never seen a sheer that pronounced and that smooth so close to the ground.