Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Flying full time!

Well, I've been so busy lately that I haven't been able to post anything up or even be online for that matter. I was working full time days in our office pretty much by myself as the new people that were starting got up and running and now that we've got better coverage in the office I'm needed desperately on the flight line. Which is great! Today is the first day I've had a moment to breathe in 2 weeks of continuous work.

I ended in the office of friday night, and then saturday I was in the plane off to Meadow Lake SK... Oooo... not much there... =D

Sunday I went to Palm Spring CA! Holy mother of heat it was hot there... 38 degrees in the shade. That area is also very very turbulent when you get low to the ground due to all the thermals and low level convection... we got bashed around pretty good. It was just for a pickup and quick return, so I was on the ground for all of about 30mins and then we were airborne again for Calgary. 9.5hrs in the airplane that day, my ass was a bit flat after all of it. Wished I coulda stayed a little longer is Palm Springs but I was happy to just be in the plane and logging some good flight time.

Yesterday was another full day of flying to little airports which made for a great challenging day. We flew to Creston BC which is a little airport in the interior but the weather wasn't very good. There were clouds all around the tops of the mountains so we couldn't get in by just descending right over the top of the airport. So the plan was to fly an approach into the Cranbrook airport that was close by and get below the clouds. So now we were below the clouds and the mountain tops and flying in the valleys. We went screaming through the valleys for about 15mins at between 300-400kms/hr. What a rush, the passengers had a good time too. We then raced back to Calgary and then headed to Salmon Arm BC, where we had some similar luck with weather. Salmon arm had an approach to the airport but it didn't get you very low to the ground, luckily we got below the clouds and went screaming down and landed to drop off the CEO's inlaws... talk about pressure.. =D

After that it was off to Edmonton which is where I now write this blog on Tuesday morning. I spent the night here, and the funny thing is that my roomate also had a layover in Edmonton last night, so we hung out to kill some time. Now today I leave to go and fly up to Fort McMurray about an hour north of Edmonton and then head home empty to Calgary.

Flights for the next week have me going back to the BC interior, and a cool flight all the way out to freaking North Bay, ON! Then from the sounds of it I'll be in Vancouver, but I don't think I will get to spend any time there, but we'll see.

Anywho, that's enough typing for me... I need to find something to eat here in Edmonton.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glad to see your finally flying full time there Mattbo....I got my certification yesterday so now I can sign off any maintenance on 727's WOOT!!!! Oh yah if you got any free time AA 2.4 is out, It's got some sweet new maps!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Hey Matt!
Good to see you flying lots. Was kinda wondering how you were.
Gee

Paladiamors said...

Yo Matt, nice on the air time. Think you can swing by to Japan in about 2 years to pick me up and drop me off in Canada?