C H I C A G O

There's some of the skyline of Chicago as viewed from the Navy Pier. We had quite the day yesterday. Woke up at a reasonable time, had a brunch downstairs in the hotel and then caught a free shuttle to take us to the commuter train station at the airport. There we hopped a train to take us right into downtown Chicago.

First stop... the Sears tower. Here's me standing in front of it:



We hopped a ride to the top and spent some time taking in the views and reading a lot about the history of Chicago. Here are a couple of views from up high:





After departing the tower we began to walk around the maze of buildings in downtown. What a site. You have some of the most amazing looking buildings all surrounded by the older buildings of Chicago's past. Some looking like they were ready to fall down, but most just looked spectacular. The city was extremely clean and the people very friendly. We decided to head towards Navy Pier in Chicago which is a touristy kind of place where there are some site seeing boats and mini cruise ships around a little shopping and dining area that is on a large pier that heads out into the waters east of the City. It was a very long walk and along the way we came across a huge outdoor amphitheatre which was amazing. There was an international band of some sorts playing. They were doing some sound testing and man were they good. So we got a mini free show for 20 mins. There was also this crazy weird sculpture of highly polished stainless steel too. As pictured here:



It was pretty neat, very reflective. Here's a pic of the other pilot and I in the reflection. Hard to tell it's not a mirror, rather a weirdly shaped reflective piece of artwork.




So we finally arrive at the Pier after a LONG walk. We toured around a bit, had some cold refreshements, chilled out a bit and then started getting hungry for dinner. The plan was to head to the Cheescake Factory which is located at the bottom of the John Hancock building. We eventually found our way there an hour or so later and arrived at this very cool restaurant. We opted for the patio outside because the weather was super nice and the views around this little courtyard were quite amazing. We were surrounded by skyscrapers and beside us was a big waterfall and the restaurant itself which was designed to look like the inside of an apple pie. We ate too much for dinner and didn't have any room for cheesecake.. that kinda sucked. Oh well. Here was the view looking up from our table towards the top of the John Hancock building and also a look at the restaurant.. can you see the theme inside!?





After dinner we were headed off to the House of Blues which is a huge bar and venue for some great blues music. After walking around for quite a long time to find the place we eventually come to realize that they were holding a private party that night and we were not able to get in! What a rip off. So we started walking around some more and decided that we were at least going to find a decent pub and have a couple of beers before heading back to the hotel. So we realize we are clueless as to where any good establishment might be; so we walk into a store that's open and asked a couple of people. We walk back quite a ways to an area which was rich in bars/pubs/clubs. At this point we've crossed over the Chicago River about 9 times in our efforts! We pick an intersting little Irish pub, head in and have a couple of drinks. At one point I wanted to have a Rye and Gingerale, and the waitress/bartender had never heard of Rye... what the hell?!!??!!? They had no Rye in this joint and had never heard of it... crazy! Oh well..

It was now 1130 pm and time to catch one of the last few trains back to the airport so we could get shuttled back to the hotel. We make it back in pretty good time and then it was off to bed. I'm writing this blog entry on Tuesday morning and we've just found out that instead of leaving tomorrow morning, we will be flying home tonight. We won't be getting back into Calgary til about 2am. Lovely. Not only that but we are going to have massive headwinds the whole way... yuck.

Well there you have it. My adventures in Chicago. This has been by far one of my most favorite destinations. This city rocks.

P.S. You can click on all of those pics to enlarge them.

In Chicago!

Made it to Chicago late Sunday night. We spent the past couple of nights in Penticton having a very chill weekend. Nothing too crazy, just a very relaxing time. After dropping off the Penticton people back in Calgary, we picked up our next set that we were to take to Chicago. A relatively nice flight out here. There were a few bumps along the way and we had a fairly good tailwind so we were able to make it direct to Chicago from Calgary in 4.5 hrs.

It was already dark here by the time we arrived, but as we flew the approach into the Midway Airport in Chicago we could clearly see downtown Chicago not too far away.

We're here until early Wednesday, so that will leave us some time to explore the city a little. And that's what on the agenda for tomorrow for sure. We'll be making our way downtown to see some of the sites.

We're staying in a very nice hotel near the airport.. a Holiday Inn Express, but it seems more like a Hilton. The rooms are huge with fancy everything. The bathroom is bigger than my room at home! I also have internet access so maybe I'll see some of you online, but don't hold your breath as I do plan to make the most out of my time here in Chicago. All expenses paid vacation pretty much for me!

6 Day Trip Approaching

Well it appears I'm slated on a 6 day trip that begins on Friday and returns home Wednesday.

Friday - Sunday afternoon I'm off to Penticton to spend some time there.

Sunday afternoon - Wednesday I'm then off to Chicago!

This should be an interesting trip as we charge around in our newest plane with all the gizmos and gadgets with the same set of people the entire time. Hopefully it will prove to be a good time.

Days off = booze

Simply put. Pilot's are pretty much alcoholics.. This is because we can't drink on so many occasions that when we can drink we feel the need to make up for lost time.

So.. I'm on days off and of course the first thing that happens at the beginning of our scheduled days off (3 days off every 12 days) is a visit to the booze store. So yesterday I hit up the superstore liqourstore.. yup.. you heard right.. thanks to privatized booze! Anywho... Crown Royal had a special where u got a free glass as well that had the logo of a CFL team. Much to my success the only glasses left were of BC Lions. Hey, works for me!

So the picture above is my prize... I'm already on glass 3 and it's 5pm on Saturday here.. nothing to do because the weather is so freaking miserable.. so I've been having a couple of drinks and surfin the net with tennis on in the background. A riveting 3 days this will be!

Downloading up a storm

Last night the laptop was buzzing away with 9 consecutive downloads.

On the hitlist right now:

The OC - The third season just started on Thursday so I was downloading that episode in HDTV Widescreen... ahh.. finally.. the OC is back! (My guilty pleasure)

The Office - NBC's Americanized version of this series that began in the UK.. I keep on hearing that it's good stuff, so I've got the first season downloading

Over There - This is a miniseries based on the Iraq war and the soldiers and stuff 'over there' I just realized that it had already started in the states so I have the first 7 episodes downloading...

So far only The OC and the last episode of Over There have finished downloading... the others may take some time. Ahh the internet.. what an invention! I rarely watch tv live anymore, I just download the higher resolution and widescreen versions off the internet and play them on my widescreen laptop!

Regina.. wow.. party town & "Are you good with kids?"

First off.. Regina was NOT a party town during our stay. Upon arriving into Regina last week and driving through some rougher areas of the town on our way to the airport, we quickly realized that this was going to be an interesting layover. Once checked into the hotel we KNEW it was going to be one heck of a layover. The hotel was packed. It was labour day weekend and so it was busy busy. The hotel was crazy: 2 weddings, kids running around the pool and hotel hallways and crazy parties.

We took a walk outside looking for a decent restaurant but after a 40 minute walk we came up with nothing. Back in the hotel now we walked into the completely empty hotel bar. We sat down and ordered some food off of the menu (it was actually pretty good) and had a couple of beers to help us forget the fact we were in Regina on a Friday night. After the beer and dinner we decided to temp fate and walked to the "club" next door to the hotel looking for a little Regina fun. When we walked in however, we discovered a completely empty bar/club except for one table of 'questionable' individuals... we promptly turned around and walked out of there as quickly as possible!

Ok, we now needed another drink. So back to the hotel bar, where we pulled up a couple of bar stools and the drinks started to flow again. After a couple of more drinks a few more people had since filtered into the bar, including an older asian guy who sat down next to us at the bar. We were rather friendly that night thanks to a few drinks and so we started to chat him up. He was from Houston Texas and was involved in the oil game. He was up in Regina for the Labour Day Classic football game which was the next day. Quite the character.. we chatted him up for a good hour I think. At one point he calls the bartender over and promptly exclaims "how 'bout we circle the wagons here!" The other pilot, myself and the bartender and I aren't quite sure what to make of it. After a few seconds of awkwardness we all realize he'd like to buy us another round of drinks! We graciously accepted, even though I had already cut myself off, I accepted another crown and coke thanks to the hospitality of this southern individual. It wasn't much longer and we got kicked out as the bar closed.

The next day we were supposed to end up in Edmonton for a night, but that flight was changed and we just ended up in Calgary for Saturday night. The next day it was off to Kamloops for a beautiful morning of flying.

My last flight since then was to Vancouver for a quick pickup on Tuesday. After loading up the bags of the family of 4 I returned into the lounge area to escort them to the aircraft. The mother and young boy were in the washroom and the father with baby girl was waiting for them as he noticed me walk into the lounge. He then asks me flat out "are you good with kids?" How the hell am I supposed to answer that question professionally? "Sure am!" is my quick reply. Great.. I knew what was coming. He walks over and asks if I would hold his child while he runs in and quickly uses the washroom. Holy pressure batman. So I gingerly pick up the baby girl and hold onto her as he runs to the washroom. I am now standing in the middle of this executive passenger lounge in full uniform holding a baby girl who hasn't quite figured out who the hell I am and I can see her looking straight into my soul with her big blue eyes. One of the receptionists even asked me "I didn't know that was in your job description!" The mother returns with younger boy from the washrooms and sees me holding her baby. She comes over to take back possession and the little girl nearly jumped out of my arms to get to mom. I quickly explained that her husband was using the facilities. Phewph... The flight home was great and uneventful. I even had a greaser of a landing. :)

So that's been my last few days. My buddy Mike a.k.a. "Crazy Mike" has been in town for a couple of days while his plane is having some upgrades installed on it here in Calgary. He flies for a medivac company in the bush in northern Manitoba. It's been great with him visiting and catching up on old college times.

Regina and Edmonton

Ooooooooo... such exotic locals! :)

I kid.. I kid. I'm happy to be flying... wherever the destination. Although there are a couple of trips to New York on the schedule that my name isn't next to. Ah well... next time.

So it's Regina for Saturday night and then Edmonton for Sunday night. Then off to Kamloops on Sunday morning and back to Calgary to finish off this little trip.

I'm quite fond of my schedule. It can be quite hectic at times, but it certainly isn't a 9-5 job. If I'm not flying, I'm on call. So I'm pretty much getting the best of all worlds. When I'm not doing what I love, I'm not doing anything else! A little win-win if you will. :)

Ticket renewed... what a day..

After a good hour of grueling interrogation on aircraft systems, company procedures and air regulations, I finally stepped into the aircraft.

Myself and another pilot were going to both be tested at the same time on a new procedure our company has recently been approved for (GPS approaches to airports). The examiner (a company pilot) would be in the back of the plane observing and telling us what to do for the testing. The plan was to go and have the other pilot do his flight test up in Red Deer, AB (20 min flight north of Calgary). After that we would land in Red Deer and I would then become the pilot flying and do the same procedures for the GPS approaches, and then I would continue with the rest of my recurrency training at the Red Deer airport and then transitioning back to Calgary.

Well holy hell. Bumpy as shit, bad weather in the area and a very busy airspace everywhere we went. It all amounted to a very stressful couple of hours, we were really sweated out during the testing, during my section especially because it was my yearly retraining. Imagine every possible thing that could go wrong on a flight, roll it all into one, and you've pretty much got what I went through. Multiple systems failures while attempting to execute tricky approaches to airports without the ability to look outside until the last couple of hundred feet.

In one scenario we attempted an approach to the Red Deer airport but upon reaching the lowest safe altitude the approach goes to (318 ft above the airport elevation) the examiner told us we had no visual contact and so we initiated a missed approach procedure. Simple enough procedure, where we abort the approach and climb away from the airport and go to a fix to either try again or head off to another airport. Well, as I was climbing away from the airport, the examiner reached forward and pulled the throttles back to idle and informed me that I just had a complete engine failure. Training kicks in and I cranked the aircraft back towards the airport while at the same time running through the emergency memorized checklist to properly set the aircraft up for an emergency landing with no engine. It was great to see that it all worked out as I was able to maneuver the aircraft back to the reciprocal runway at the airport successfully.

After finishing at Red Deer we head back to Calgary dodging growing thunderstorms and showers in the area, we were being vectored all around by the air traffic controllers because of a crazy amount of air traffic around Calgary. Then on the approach into Calgary I had all of my navigational systems failed on me except the very bare assed minimums to complete the approach.. a stressful event for sure. However, I must say, my landing back in Calgary was one of my best!

In any event, the flight test was over and we went back for a debriefing.

The end result (if you hadn't already figured it out by the title of this blog entry) is that I passed.

-GPS approach certification PASSED
-Company/Aircraft yearly certification PASSED
-Bi-Annual Instrument rating RENEWED (this was an added bonus, a very costly thing to get done on one's own.. we did enough training and flight testing that the examiner was able to also renew this... woo hoo!)

So.. there you have it... safe to fly the skies again. Legally that is... always safe... ;)

Now I'm absolutely exhausted... off to bed for me!

Time's running out on my ticket!

What's my ticket you might ask? My ticket is just simply my yearly currency for the type of aircraft I'm flying.

So as of September 1st I will no longer be current to legally fly the plane. It will take a flight test for me to continue to be current. Not really a problem, except that time is running out! The weather needs to be good so we can do some certain training items (steep turns, stalls, emergency maneuvers).

So, I'm tentatively scheduled tomorrow.. so lets hope it gets done!

If only you guys could see the training that goes into a pilot's recurrency and initial training on aircraft types. It should comfort ppl to know that they put the plane's completely thru its paces. To have the planes nearly falling out of the sky and sometimes nearly sideways just so they know what to expect in the event of a real emergency. Of course with most larger aircraft this is all done in a full motion simulator, otherwise it would be WAY too expensive to just take a 737 up to do some training. Whereas our Pilatus is very cost effective and we do all the training in the actual aircraft... which is usually lots of fun for us, but would likely scare the crap out of even the most seasoned flyer. :)

Wow... busy busy.

After my last set of days off (when Natalie was in town) I have flown a lot. Much more than average. Which is great in that's exactly what I want to be doing - getting lots of hours under my belt. But at the same time, it's quite exhausting!

Since August 14th I've flown a total of 44.6 hours. This is JUST the time spent in the plane, and does not include the pre-flight and post-flight duties and any waiting around inbetween for passengers.

That 44.6 hours equates to approximately 21,400kms worth of travel! Here's a breakdown of just how hectic my last few days have been.

August 14th

Calgary to Calgary - Maintenance Test Flight
Calgary to Saskatoon
Saskatoon to Calgary

August 15th

Calgary to Inveremere
Inveremere to Kelowna
Kelowna to Sechelt
Sechelt to Vancouver
Vancouver to Inveremere
Inveremre to Calgary

August 16th

Calgary to Kelowna
Kelowna to Calgary
Calgary to Inveremere
Inveremere to Calgary

August 18th

Calgary to Penticton
Penticton to Vancouver
Vancouver to Seattle
Seattle to Calgary
Calgary to Red Deer
Red Deer to Calgary

August 19th

Calgary to Salmon Arm
Salmon Arm to Vancouver
Vancouver to Calgary

August 20th

Calgary to Reno
Reno to Calgary

August 21st

Calgary to Salmon Arm
Salmon Arm to Vancouver
Vancouver to Seattle
Seattle to Kelowna
Kelowna to Salmon Arm
Salmon Arm to Calgary (Springbank)
Calgary (Springbank) to Calgary

August 22nd

Calgary to Reno
Reno to Calgary

So as you can see... it's been quite a busy time! And although I was in Vancouver quite a bit, they were always quick turns there. I was supposed to be staying the night on the 18th when we got the call to go to Seattle... grrrr... oh well, that's the job.

Now it looks like I've got a couple of days off, which I need to use to get updated on some paperwork and prepare for some recurrency exams and flight tests which are approaching rather quickly.

Vancouver Layover

Heads up! I'll be in Vancouver Thursday afternoon until Friday afternoon. For any Vancouverites that wish to meet up at some point.

And here's a neat pic of a mountain peak near Inveremere with some glacier action that I snapped the other day flying through some mountain valley's as we approached Inveremere from the West:

NAT Attack!

I had a visitor in Calgary this past set of days off. Just after returning home from Wyoming, the next day Natalie arrived at the Calgary airport for a 3 day visit! She had spent the last couple of weeks in Vancouver and was on her way home to Toronto when she took a small detour and came to visit.

Unfortunatley the weather was not it's best. Rainy and cold when she arrived. But we attempted to make the best of it. As she entered the house it was only then that she recalled that we have 3 cats, and only then that I found out she was allergic!!! Oh boy. Luckily it didn't kill her, but certainly added a little complexity to the trip. She was sniffling most of the time in the house.

Here's proof she actually did visit.. see, Calgary in the background!


The second day we took a day trip out to Banff! It had been a while since I had gotten to drive for more than a few mins, so I enjoyed the drive out there immensely, especially as you start to get closer and closer to the Rocky Mountains... some great views to be had!


We did the tourist thing and checked out a good chunk of the sites... the bow river falls here where pretty darn cool:


The nicest hotel in all of Banff is the Banff Springs Hotel (a Fairmont Hotel) quite the place I tell ya. There was a big premiere conference going on at the same time, we didn't see any of the premiere's but did see a lot of the media covering the events. Here's me in front of this posh Banff resort:


Later that night upon our arrival back into Calgary we headed off to the airport to see what it is I do here in Calgary. We went and checked out one of our airplanes that was parked outside on the tarmac. Checked out the posh interior's.. played with some of the bells and whistles (and very loud warning annoucements of which I'm sure Nat can attest to). Here's Nat posing with one of our planes (perhaps a new employee??)


We hung out at the house at night, drank a little booze as it is one of the few times I'm able to drink (on days off) and watched one of her favorite movies that I've been hearing so much about over the years... "Newsies". Not a bad flick, an older Disney musical that she has fallen in love with due to one cast member in particular.. :)

Then on the day of her departure we shopped around for some cheap booze for her to take back to Ontario and took a little cruise around the outskirts of Calgary. My house is right up in the far north of Calgary and therefore it only takes a couple of minutes worth of driving to reach the city limits, and then the prairies begin.

It was great to see her as it had been a long time, and later last night she was back on a plane Toronto bound.

So... when are the rest of you buggers gonna come and visit!?!? :)

Ahhhh... Jackson Hole WY

At first read of that town you might think it's a bit of a dump... but oh how I was proven wrong.

It's a massive tourist type town like Banff or Whistler... nestled right up against some massive mountains and deep down in some valleys with spectacular views of the surrounding terrain. So great in fact that we saw AirForce 2 there with vice prez Dick Cheney and we were also told that Tiger had recently bought some property as well. It really was quite the place.

Very expensive as well. We stayed in a VERY basic motel and it went for $110/NT US! The whole place was very touristy so that also added to some extra expenses for the trip.

The best thing about this trip was we had 2 aircraft with 2 crews down at the same time. It was a rather large group of ppl that wanted to go and they had us staying there for 2 nights. So we really got to live it up the first night, we actually lived it up far too much... far too much. We went to a couple of different bars, the first of which was a bit of a cowboy bar and had a lot of bikers around! We had a little dinner and 4 rounds of drinks there. Then it was off to wander the town looking for something to do. We found another bar that had a bunch of pool tables. There's where it got out of hand. The pitchers kept coming.. 6 in total! And after a couple of shots it was bad news bears. I'm not sure how we made it back to the hotel, but we did. We were all hurting the next day after a night on the town. It hurt to move up to about 4pm the next day. The other crew got called away to get some extra maintenance done on their aircraft, so they had to fly to Denver the next day for the night... poor bastards, if I had been required to fly it wouldn't have been pretty. We did however find a really good pizza place that was very very busy, it was the perfect thing to be eating after that gongshow of a night.

The rest of the stay was fairly relaxing and uneventful. We just toured around the town and flew back home on Tuesday. A nice little trip. I'm going to attempt to post a couple of pics below.. wish me luck.



and another:



here's one of the town like atmosphere (this is one of the bars we visited that first night:

Speculation.. when in doubt.. speculate!

So my trip westbound was changed a bit, to include me pulling a very long day on Tuesday, the maximum allowable for pilots. 15hrs on duty with nearly 10 of it flying. We left Sechelt and headed off to Masset on the Queen Charlottes, but instead of staying, we were off to Vancouver to do another pickup and then fly to Calgary and later continue on to Saskatoon before proceeding back to Calgary to end the night.

Where does my title of this blog come into effect? Right about the time we landed in Vancouver. We walked into the executive terminal and the TV was tuned to the AirFrance crash in Toronto. It was only a few minutes old by the time we had arrived so information was little other than an aircraft had run off the end of the runway in bad weather.

What do I see/hear on the TV? The media/supposed eye witnesses and so called experts giving all sorts of opinions on to the "what coulda" and "this mighta" happened scenarios. They were interviewing people that had little to know experience with anything related to this event for their expert opinions. Asking a hobby pilot about all sorts of technical and specific information related to the conditions and aircraft involved. This person proceeded to explain how lightning could damage the aircraft's ability to operate the brakes and a few other ridiculous scenarios. All in all it was a gongshow for the first couple of hours before ppl really knew what was going on. Especially when people said it was hit by lightning as it rolled down the runway and many other things.

I find this to be all too common of an event when you take an industry like aviation where so many people are involved and effected by the daily ongoings and then everyone assumes they are an expert or can make good judgement on something that they know absolutely nothing about. I imagine this is similar to some other industries as well, but it is very evident with aviation. I heard one report that was citing the experience of the pilots. They judged that based upon the 10,700hrs of experience one of the pilot's had and based upon the amount of maximum flying a pilot can accomplish in a year (1200hrs) that this individual had approximately 10 years of flying experience. WHAT!?! EXCUSE ME!?? This pilot was 49 years old I believe, or at least somewhere in his 40's. He did not start in aviation when he was in his late 30's! It takes a lifetime to build up flying hours in excess of 10,000hrs just based on the type of flying that one starts to do as their careers advance. Such as those Air France pilots who likely flew on average about 40hrs a month just due to the type of flying (long haul) they would be doing.

It just irks me. Hopefully as time goes on we'll find out the true cause of this accident. My opinion is pretty simple, the aircraft hydroplaned upon landing after recent torrential downpours. Is it safe to fly in those thunderstormy conditions? Yes and No. The type of thunderstorms that produce that type of weather are generally isolated in their intensity. So where it may be chaos at one end of town, it is far less significant at the other. At one end of town it isn't very safe to attempt a landing and at the other, perfectly normal. Looking at the camera shots of the recent weather around the time of the crash it is bad weather but the pilots have a lot better of an idea of what lays ahead of them. The onboard weather radar can quickly point out to a pilot all of the weather hot spots ahead of them. It is their final decision if it is safe to continue during inclimate weather like thunderstorms. We do it all the time in my company. We approach in the vicinity of thunderstorms all the time, it's that time of the year to see them in Alberta and the Prairies especially. We use the information from reports of planes ahead of us, forecasts for the areas and our own weather radar on the aircraft to plot out the best approach or if it is not good enough then we will either hold for the weather to get better, or proceed to a more suitable airport.

Like I said, it's not just aviation, but it's such an easy one to make all these speculations on because everyone's been on a plane or seen a plane or known of a plane to do this and that and... well.. you get the picture.

But in the end, of course leave it to the media to blow everything out of proportion. I eagerly anticipate the findings of this incident and am glad to hear nobody was killed or seriously injured.

Another trip.. this time westbound

I'm off to Sechelt Monday for a night layover there on the sunshine coast and then I head over to Masset on the Queen Charlottes for a 4 night layover there. This should be a great little trip as there should be quite a lot of scenery and little things to do while we're there. After we get back then I'm off the next day to Jackson Hole Wyoming for a 2 night layover.. that should be an interesting trip as well. Jackson Hole seems like a pretty big place for winter fun and even summer fun, it appears that there are some neat things like white water rafting and huge tours and excursions in the area. The unusally neat thing about that Wyoming trip is that there will be 2 aircraft and 2 crew going as it's a big group of people so we are sending 2 planes. So there will be 4 pilots all hanging around looking for trouble.

Well, if I have internet I'll do some posting on the road, but not sure when that will be next as I don't believe Sechelt or Masset has high speed internet in house.