Jack's back!

I recall I wrote a similar post last year about this time. 24 has begun it's 6th season!!!

I admit I'm a 24 addict. I have followed the show from season 1, and have witnessed it just get better and better. I'm a big fan of season 4 and then season 5 hit which I believe to be the best season to date. So now we start off with season 6 and I have every expectation that it'll surpass the previous seasons.

Jack's back and kicking ass, it's been too long of a wait for the season to start, but now that it's here, oh baby, bring it on!

Also, I'm back in Calgary now after having taken a few days off in Vancouver. At this rate I've been back quite a few times in the past couple of months. The folks want to start charging me rent, haha. Hope to make it back again soon!

Antigua Pictures

Well, now that I have a couple of seconds to myself I'll post up a couple of stories and pictures from this past trip to Antigua in the Caribbean.

After stopping in Florida for some fuel we were off to Antigua. The sun would set on this trip and we would be landing at dark, in an unfamiliar country, with unfamilar aviation rules and guidelines and just basically everything would be unfamilar. It was a nice flight all the way down the chain of islands that are in the Caribbean. It was a bit bumpy, but we were getting a very good tailwind as a result.

We spent the last hour of the 3hr trip from Florida to Antigua looking over all the airport information and approach data. We did not want to end up a smoking hole in paradise. We started our descent and saw St Martin off to the left and Antigua directly in front of us. As we got closer in we could start to feel the moisture and heat building from the warm Caribbean night air.

The landing was uneventful except we took a wrong turn off the runway into the main terminal area, when we meant to taxi to a different side of the airport. Once that got straightened around we were parked and approached by our ground agents. Thankfully they spoke perfect english! We arranged for our parking, fuel and ammentities for the next day. We never even cleared customs there. That makes 2 countries I have been to without ever clearing customs, Mexico and now Antigua. Aircrew's seem to get a lot of extra leeway when traveling alone. :)

The warm Caribbean night was just great, the airplane was sweating like crazy after having been in -50 degree air and now in very moist 26 degree air, the condesation was everywhere. A driver pulled up in this little tiny van, that was RIGHT HAND DRIVE! Haha, it was just too cute of a vehicle. It was a 35 min drive across the island to get to our hotel and we drove through some rather sketchy areas of town.

We arive at our hotel which is actually a yacht club resort in "English Bay". The rooms are in little bungalos which were just amazing. A private patio that overlooked the bay.. I couldn't believe it. And it certainly was not cheap. I believe the rooms cost $260 US per night.

We went out in search of some food and ended up going to a little restuarant right in the bay. We had a couple of beers, and sampled Carib beer which is a Caribbean brewed beer. Very tasty! When in rome right? I had a great curry dinner and Colin had what he described as perfect Mahi Mahi. Back to the hotel room early as we were both exhausted having spent 9hrs in the airplane that day. We agreed to wake up early and take a 5 min walk to the closest beach to check out the Caribbean ocean in the morning.

My alarm clock went off at 3:30am Calgary time.. ouch! But, it was worth it. We walked out to the beach and it was already very light outside. We spent some time on the beach just soaking it all up before having to head back to the rooms and get ready for the very long day ahead of us.

Our driver showed up and we were off to the airport. We arrived nice and early which was good, because we had a lot to prepare. Our airplane needed oil so after adding some oil to one of the engines I accidently brushed up against a cowling and got oil all over my back!!! Bah!!! The rest of the day was spent with people mentioning it to me everywhere.. "hey buddy, looks like you got some oil on your back".. yah, thanks.

We took off and left paradise behind. A little tear in my eye hoping that we could have stayed longer. Our first stop on the way back was Fort Lauderdale which was just as hot as Antigua. Very muggy there. We got fuel and cleared customs and then after many a gongshow getting everything sorted out, it was off to Montreal! Just to drop off one passenger though. We stopped briefly and then it was time to head to Winnipeg, and that would be the end of our flying for the day. Another crew took over in Winnipeg and flew the client home to Edmonton. We spent the night in Winnipeg and then flew back on Westjet the next morning.

After the dust settled we had spent a lot of time flying over the previous 3 days. Some rest was needed and I took advantage of the quiet schedule to sleep in well.

So here's some photo's from the trip! Just click on the picture below and the slideshow will start.

Little known facts about me

Well, in response to a challenge by Sacha who was equally challenged by his friend, I have decided to take part in this web blog "little known facts" article about posting a few things about me that not too many people might know. So in keeping on with the task:

1. I'm deathly afraid of heights! This from the pilot?? I know, but I can handle flying quite fine as I'm attached to a machine that has a purpose in the air and I feel secure within it. The same can not be said for me standing on the edge of a tall building, or scaffolding, or at the top of a large ladder etc. I get up there and get a bit weak at the knees, as if I don't trust myself enough not to fall. So I guess it's more of a fear of falling, but I've got it pretty good. Younger I would never go on any kinds of roller coasters or things like that. Now I'll get on a roller coaster, but have a tricky time still at the top of anything with any height to it. But upside down in a plane doesn't really phase me so much, go figure.

2. I just about won a "cutest baby" contest back when I was a few months old. My parents entered a photo of me into a contest for some cash and baby paraphernalia through the paper I believe. The winner would get their picture published and a bunch of free baby stuff and money. I did not win however, but did come in second! Not too shabby. I have seen the picture that they submitted and I can't believe I didn't win! There must have been some bribing of the judges or some other injustice. :)

3. I have a scar on the bottom of my second and third toes on my left foot. This is from when they were cut open pretty good one fateful summer afternoon as a child. Me and best bud Ian were out in the backyard running through the sprinkler when I decided I would try a karate kid style kick as I went flying through the stream of water. Well, needless to say I hadn't planned it out too well and ended up jumping onto the sprinkler with one foot as the other went sky high in spectacular fashion. I hit the plastic sprinkler which then shattered and a piece of the broken plastic then sliced my two toes open pretty good. I had to go to an emergency clinic and have stitches. To this day, the most pain I believe I have ever experienced was receiving the "freezing" needles into my toes. Man oh man that was brutal. Afterwords, as the freezing wore off I can still to this day remember the throbbing pain I experienced all night in those toes. OUCH!

4. I inadvertently tried to kill my instructor and I twice while I was first learning how to fly back in the summer of 1998. The first time was when I was being shown a technique to change the mixture of the fuel going into the engine to maximize power. You were to pull the knob out a little until you saw a slight drop in rpm and then push the knob back in a little so that the rpm returned. Simple enough, but as my instructor told me "ok, now pull out the knob..." I reamed the knob all the way out before he could finish his sentence and stopped the flow of fuel to the engine of the plane. The engine sputtered a few times, and the instructor quickly slammed the knob back in to return fuel to the engine, it started back up fine and we were on our way. Didn't do that ever again wrong! The other time I was doing maneuvers low level and lost track of my airspeed as I was doing turns. I happened to look up at about the same time as my instructor did to see we were just on the verge of stalling the plane, I jammed the throttles up and regained control as we were trained to do, but we were so close to the ground that had we actually stalled the plane, it was unlikely that a recovery would have been possible. So, never did that one again either! Now don't let this alter your views on my flying abilities, haha, everyone has "experiences" during their first few flights, and I'm happy to report that I'm doing quite well these days and accident and incident free!

So there you have it, a couple of tid bits of information that perhaps you didn't know about me. What about you guys? Anyone else wish to post a comment on themselves in the same fashion?

Back from Antigua, it was great!

I'll have to post the full story in a day or 2 as I compile some of the pictures, but I will say it was a great time. It all started on Wednesday when we flew to Palm Springs for the night. The next day we flew to St. Petersburg Florida and from there to Antigua! There we spent the night, up early again the next morning so we could look around a bit, then off to the airport for the flight back to Canada. First was Fort Luaderdale Florida, then Montreal to drop off one passenger, then to Winnipeg (which is where our crew swapped with another as our day was too long), the clients then continued to Edmonton. Early the next morning we flew on Westjet back to Calgary. It was certainly a long 3 days with little sleep.

We travelled nearly 15,000kms in those 3 days. That's a long distance and time to be in the air!

Here's a couple of pics from Antigua until I can post up the full gallery:

On the beach at 7am

Part of the island on departure

Still Caribbean, but now further!

Well, I'm currently here in my uber pimp hotel room at the Hotel Zoso, with my 42" HDTV Plasma TV on beside me. :) This is one slick place!

Tomorrow instead of going to St. Martin, we'll be off to Antigua instead!! It's just a bit further down the chain of islands in the Caribbean. Still only one night, but still looking forward to it.

Now, however, we will crew swap in Winnipeg as the day now becomes to long for us to fly all the way back to Edmonton from Antigua. So we'll spend a night in Winnipeg and then commercially fly home on Westjet most likley. Oooo.

But still a cool trip. Off to sleep as tomorrow's an early morning and lots of flying!

I can be tracked via THIS LINK HERE via an online free flight tracking website. It will show my series of flights over the next couple of days.

Going to the Caribbean!!!

Well we seem to be going further and further with the jet's lately, and on Thursday I'll be going as far as I've ever travelled while at the controls. I'm off to St. Martin in the Caribbean!

This picture is a very famous one showing how close the airport is to the waters edge and popular beach and tourist area. I even had this picture on my wall in college. In this instance, the aircraft actually ended up hitting the airport fence and dragging some of it down the runway with it. It's just an amazing sight that I hope I get to see in person while I'm down there.

Move over Jack Sparrow, Matt's coming to town. :) The only downfall, is that it is only a one night stay. Another crew took these folks down a couple of weeks ago, and this is the pickup flight. Still, I'm looking forward to it! I've never been so far away from the mainland either, and with the jet we are able to go much further from shore than with the our other single engined turboprop in the fleet. It will be a lot of flying over the two days however. On our way out we'll be spending Wednesday night in Palm Springs and then leaving Thursday morning to go to St. Martin via a fuel stop in Jacksonville Florida. Here's a map showing the distance of nearly 6000 kms! It will take about 8hrs of total flying time to get there.

We will depart at 10am on Friday morning and make a couple more stops on our way to Edmonton. We will first go to Wilmington, NC and then up to Montreal, then Winnipeg and finally Edmonton. It's not a very direct routing, and I don't have the trip information yet, but I imagine that it's at the clients request we're going up to Montreal for some reason. This will also be a long day, of likely 10hrs in the air flying with 7000 kms travelled. Here's another map showing the journey.

Anyone ever been there before? Know of any hotspots to check out there? I'm in town for about 15hrs so time is limited! And the next day will be a full 14hr day of work, so unfortunately we won't be able to go and really hit up the town. We'll be landing at night, so there won't be much of a picture opportunity, but we depart in daylight so I'll snap as much as I can on the way out.

One of our PC-12's is actually there right now, and they've been there for a few days already. It'll take 2 days for them to travel back up to Alberta, but they got to stay there for a whole week. Now that would be a layover to even trump my other great weeklong layover in Mexico!

My WRX... finally all mine

No longer does the bank own anymore of my car. On December 29th my final payment came out of my bank account, and I now fully own my WRX. I'm pretty happy, as this does free up a good chunk of change each month. A great way to start out the new year.

It seems like just yesterday that I went to pick it up from the Subaru dealership in North Vancouver. That morning I had actually been flying the traffic watch airplane and made a few orbits over the dealership to see if I could see my car in the lot, and I did!

Here's a shot I took of the car in the summer with the city of Calgary in the background. I tried to get fancy and walked into the picture while it was being exposed.


I've had the car since April 29th 2003, and have made it my own with various modifications. Here's a list:

17" Superleggera OZ Rims with Kuhmo 712 rubber
STi foglamp covers
STi front corner splitters
Painted sideskirts
Front tower strut bar
Rear tower strut bar
Prodrive Ovaltip axleback muffler
Kartboy short-throw shifter with bushings
Silencer snorkus removal
Greddy Boost gauge
Alpine MP3 Deck
Clarion 12" Sub and amp
Hellahorns wired with stock horns
Rocket Rally ECU reflash (Increasing HP to ~275)

Had I not done all those modifications I could have paid off the car early, but I have built the car to exactly what I wanted it to be and it is my pride and joy. My expensive, ever depreciating, pride and joy.

Happy New Year!!!

Wishing everyone a happy and prosperous 2007!!!

How much does a Corporate Pilot work?

Now that the year has almost come to a close, I have taken a look back at my past year of flying with some interesting results. I am paid on salary so I still get paid the same no matter how much I actually work. Also, keep in mind that the average person working 40 hours per week ends up working about 2000 hours per year.

Total Flying Hours: 482.7

This is the actual amount of time I was in an aircraft. This is about typical for our company. We normally average around 500-700 hours per year. The maximum a pilot can fly in a year is 1200 hours. There are companies out there that you can max out your flying time per year, but I really enjoy the type of flying we do and I'm willing to make the sacrifice of less flying time to take in the rest of the benefits.

Total Duty Hours: 840.5

This is the time spent working as calculated by 1 hour prior to the departure time and 20 mins after landing. This also includes anytime in between flights during the same day where we might be holding and waiting for clients.

Total Away Hours: 2520

This is the time that I spent away from home base (Calgary). It includes the totally duty hours but also now accounts for layovers and business trips. This includes every hour I was away on long layovers, even while in Vancouver on those lucky trips, and also includes the 3 weeks I spent in Dallas on my jet training course.

So, in brief summary, my total duty hours of 840.5 would be the number to compare to the average work year of a 9-5'er. I spent less than half that time actually working, and quite often I don't consider what I do for a living as work either. I did however spend over 2500hrs away from home base. So technically, I did have more work related time then the 9-5'er, but I don't mind being in some of the nice destinations we go to, it's almost like mini vacations.

People are always telling me that they couldn't handle the type of lifestyle I have. They prefer to know in advance what they'll be doing, so they can have a more scheduled life and can plan accordingly. I however am at a point in my life where I have the luxury of being able to jump all over the place. There will be a time in the not so distant future where I'll want to settle down a bit more, but for now, I'm enjoying my time hopping around North America and beyond.

Baggage found in Prince George

I got a phone call this morning, after making a few calls myself, from Westjet. They had found my luggage, it had just arrived from Prince George after having gone there last night instead of to Calgary which is where my flight went!

So I was happy to get it back, and got a little compensation for my troubles as well.

Back in Calgary, sans luggage!

That's WITHOUT luggage for you non-frenchies. Westjet lost my luggage tonight on my flight from Vancouver to Calgary. My trip home was great, except for this freaking little mix up. Who knows where my bag is, Westjet certainly doesn't know. That bag had a lot of work related items in it, and I'm now on-call to fly as of 3am. Luckily I have nothing booked as of yet, but in a couple of days I do.

The bag better make it back to me tomorrow, or there is going to be some serious hell to pay! It has all my xmas goodies in it too.

Aside from this, my trip home was great. Glad to see everyone at the various events. Good times and fun was had. If anyone has pictures from any of the events please forward to me!

Addicting Flash Game

I recently came across this very simple but very addicting flash game. Defend the castle by building up tower defences. Give it 10 mins and you'll be hooked. I've likely played for a couple of hours over the past few days.

I got up to level 79... how 'bout you???!

TOWER DEFENCE FLASH GAME

Tornado destroys Daytona Beach FL

Yesterday there was some very active weather in Florida and the south eastern states. I first heard of the crazyness when we received a phone call from the parents of one of our roomates. They were in Tampa Florida and commented on how it had been thunderstorming all morning long and it was just a mess outside.

I decided to go and pull up my aviation weather forecasts for the area and check out the live radar coverage. WOW, a very impressive squall line was racing across Florida at the time and there were severe storm warnings in many areas along with tornado warnings for Daytona Beach.

I had heard on the news of some great damage and had also heard that some aircraft had been destroyed. I found the images today and realized that the damage was far worse than I had imagined. The Embry Riddle Aeronautical University had their ENTIRE fleet of trainer aircraft destroyed by a tornado. These were very pricey aircraft equipped with the latest technology to train pilots in the newest of aviation advancements. What a shame, these poor pilots in training will now all be delayed because they have no airplanes to fly. Not to mention one of the best training facilities in North America has been seriously crippled by these events.

The tornado just demolished the fleet, here is a photo gallery of the damage - CLICK HERE. These images just go to show how damaging the tornados were. They picked up these airplanes and just threw them about. All of these aircraft would have been securely tied down to concrete ancors in the tarmac, but no amount of rope is going to stop a tornado from doing damage.

It just gives me shivers. Not a very merry christmas for these folks.

Merry Christmas!

Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the holiday season with family and friends!

From me and mine to you and yours, happy holidays!

Movie review: "Little Miss Sunshine"

A little insomnia tonight gave me the opportunity to watch a movie I had been wanting to see for some time now - "Little Miss Sunshine".

It was not a big blockbuster movie by any means, and fits more as an Indie Film. Which is something that I've found myself watching more and more of lately. At any rate, this movie has just come out on DVD and I highly recommend to everyone.

The most notable actors in the film are Greg Kinnear and Steve Carell. I must say, Steve Carell did an excellent job in this film. I have really only seen in him in comedies where he is hilarious, and to see him in more of a dramatic role in which he excels in, is great.

The movie is about a family which is being pulled in all different directions with hardships all around. I really am generalizing, but I don't want to give away any of the film. So really, this review kind of sucks. But I just wanted to mention how great this film is. I would suggest everyone see it. It has a lot of very serious topics that surround the whole movie but with some great comedic undertones which had me laughing out loud on more than one occasion. I hope I didn't wake anyone up here in the house, because it's almost 3am.

Well, I think I'll try and get back to sleep. So to reiterate, go rent this movie!