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!

Happy Festivus!

Those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, obviously don't watch Seinfeld. December 23rd is the recognized day of Festivus, which according to the show Seinfeld was Frank Costanza's own self made holiday.

Some notes about this holiday: An aluminium pole instead of an xmas tree, the "airing of grievances" and "the feats of strength".

Seinfeld has such a cult following that there are many people now that follow this holiday religiously. You can even find places on the internet that are dedicated to the holiday! Other places that even manufacture and sell the aluminum poles.

But one interesting fact that I didn't know, was that this made up holiday, was in fact created by the father of one of the writers for Seinfeld back in 1966! Everything was maintained for the airing on the show except in reality there was never a pole. But an interesting fact nonetheless, and one that I thought I'd share as I haven't met anyone else that knew it either.

"A Festivus for the rest of us!" - Frank Costanza

Holidays are upon us!

"Bill, we might be in a spot of trouble.."

Well it's that time of year again, the holidays have come. Houses are all lit up and trees are making appearances and crazy people are all over the roads dashing out to the gongshow that is holiday time shopping.

Not to say that I won't be contributing to the mayhem, but at least I'll try and minimize the damage by going mid day.

So, just a friendly reminder to all those folks back on the westcoast, I will be coming home this year for my days off.

I will be home from December 26th-29th. My time is fairly booked up solid with events and family get togethers, but I hope to see some of you folks. If not, happy holidays to all!

The traveling public irks me

Just a couple of things of note from my past couple weeks of back and forth commercial travel. Some things about people just irk the hell out of me.

Carry-on Baggage:
Ok, I get it, you don't to wait for your bags on the carousel, but when I see people heaving these suitcases into the overhead bins it boggles my mind. First off, the damn things fill the compartments. I tried to fit just my laptop case in an overhead bin and it was already full with one carry-on suitcase and a coat! Needless to say I jammed the coat into the back of the bin with brute force of my laptop bag.

Let's all stand up the second we can:
I love how the second the plane stops everyone stands up trying to be first off the damn plane. Are these people aware of the fact we're all going to have to walk down the same isles, single file. I look ahead and see people who had middle or window seats standing in their rows too all haunched over with their heads tilted sideways because of the overhead bins.

Seat belts:
The biggest irk of all. Without fail as soon as that seat belt sign comes off I hear "click click click click..." as everyone undoes their seat belts. What does this accomplish!? The belt is still going to have to be on your lap or jammed into the gaps in the seat, why not leave it loosely connected? What the flight attendants are saying "for your safety and for the safety of those around you.." is true. I don't need the guy in seat 3B come flying back and smoke me in the head when we hit a patch of real bad unexpected turbulence.

And it does happen, fly long enough and you'll be going along, it's all fine and dandy and BOOM, stuffs flying through the cabin and people are going to be hurt. It's happened to me on a couple of occasions as a pilot and we are always buckled up in the front, but even if I'm in the back I'm still buckled. I don't need the fabric pattern from the ceiling of the jet permanently burned into my forehead. So please folks, use some common sense. Loosen the belt, there's no need to take it off. Same goes for just after landing, everyone unclicks while the plane is still taxiing in to the gate for parking. At anytime they might have to slam on the brakes or take a quick corner. Take a chill pill, relax, and wait for the plane to come to a full stop and the seat belt sign to be turned off!!

end rant.

Luck continued with a broken plane in YVR

Well I got into Vancouver finally after a long day of commercially traveling on Sunday. Ate lots of leftover goodies that my parents had from an xmas party they threw a couple nights earlier. The next morning I ran some errands on my way to the airport for our noon departure out to Edmonton.

Upon doing some preflight checks on the aircraft at about 11:30 I came across one of our systems which was failing. It was the tail de-ice system. On our aircraft it is a rubber boot that runs the leading edge of the tail, that inflates from air taken from the engine to break off any ice that may accumulate when flying in clouds below the freezing level. So with the system failing, we were not allowed to go into icing conditions, of which our flight had exactly that, icing conditions.

So we tested and tested and tested but it didn't work. Our passnegers arrived and we explained the situation to them, and of course they're understanding. They were given a couple of options about having another aircraft in Vancouver within 4hrs or they could fly commercially. They were strapped for time so they went off on Westjet.

A mechanic was sent out on Westjet and it wasn't until about 4:30pm that he arrived. It took him about an hour to look around and change a couple of switches within the tail de-ice system. After some more testing, the system was up and running. It took another hour to put everything back together and to ensure everything was going to be good for our flight back. After talking to our dispatch it was determined we were just going to come back to Calgary. Which was relief for our mechanic as he had only left Calgary with the clothes on his back.

It was an uneventful and speedy flight back home. The winds were right on the tail the whole flight back and it was a new record for me to make it back in 58mins.

Too bad we got things fixed, I was looking forward to spending more time in YVR. That will have to wait until later in the week though, as I do plan to be home for xmas from the 26th to 29th.. can't wait.

My latest travels

Currently onboard Westjet on my way to Vancouver, but this isn’t a vacation and I didn’t originate from Calgary either. As I landed in Scottsdale on Thursday I got an email stating that I was going to be traveling commercially to our eastern base for a flight out there.

I was none too impressed as I was scheduled for a 2 night layover, in Vancouver, but that had changed. They needed me out east to do a trip from Toronto to Savannah Georgia all day Saturday and return to Toronto later that night.

So, after some delays on Friday the plane finally left for Toronto. AirCanada it was all the way to Toronto, where I’d then take a rental car and drive to Kitchner where our planes are based. It was rush hour when I arrived and so that made the drive even more exciting. Man, Toronto drivers are full on crazy out there.

I rolled into the hotel parking lot later Friday night, not looking forward to the early morning flight which was soon approaching. 6am EST was the departure time, meaning 5am reporting, meaning 4am waking up. BUT, of course I’m still on Calgary (MST) time and so that wake up time now becomes 2am! To make things better, I only had gone to sleep the previous night at 2am! So needless to say it was a quick nap I received Friday night and not a nice sleep.

We took the boss and some prospective clients for a golfing trip down to Savannah Georgia. There was one person on board that I didn’t recognize right away, but after rechecking the passenger manifest and a confirmation with the other pilot, it was quickly evident we had a Canadian Olympic gold medalist on board. Donovan Bailey was a friend of a prospective client and came along. Pretty neat to have the once “fastest man in the world” on board. He seemed like a good guy, but I didn’t speak with him much other than your average pleasantries.

Because our day was scheduled to be “on duty” for just shy of 17hrs, we were required to have adequate rest in a hotel for a portion of the mid day, so we were off to the Marriot Sweets in Savannah. It was a great hotel and I’m sad we didn’t get to spend the full night there. Mind you, there wasn’t a whole lot around there, just a bunch of hotels.

One neat thing about the Savannah Airport (KSAV) is that it is the main production facility for Gulfstream which is the maker of some very big and fancy business jets. So it was great to see some of the partially constructed planes all around the airport, some even going for test flights and they were totally unpainted so they looked like clapped out crappy planes, but they just didn’t have any paint.

The flight back was uneventful and it was upon my return that my plans for the next day were confirmed. Drive back to Toronto today (Sunday) and take a commercial flight on Westjet to Vancouver, in preparation for a flight out of Vancouver on Monday. There is already a plane in Vancouver, and the other pilot, coincidently my roommate Mike, is being commercially flown out because his days off start before the trip ends.

Tomorrow I will fly out of Vancouver to Edmonton and spend a couple glorious nights there. Sense the sarcasm? Wednesday I’ll finally end up back in Calgary after flying down to Palm Springs from Edmonton.

So, a bit of a stint which involves me criss-crossing the country twice in the airlines. One thing is for sure, I hate traveling commercially. Call me spoiled for flying so much in the private sector, but it is just ridiculous with all of the waiting. It’s just all waiting. Waiting for the ticket agent, waiting for security, waiting for the plane, the flight which is horribly cramped, then waiting for bags and so on. And don’t get me started on some of the many things that irk me about commercial travel from over enthusiastic flight attendants to general idiocy of the traveling public. That will be for another post, and another day.

My ass is completely flat now and I can see the rocky mountains out my window finally. We’ve just passed over Calgary and should only be another 45mins or so until we land in Vancouver. FINALLY. The end is in site. But my stay at home will be so quick I don’t think I’ll get to live it up at all. That’ll have to wait until xmas time. Reminder and notice for those who might have forgotten or are unaware, I’ll be home in Vancouver over xmas on December 26th thru til December 29th.

A day in the life...

Well, 2 days actually. Seeing as how this is my 200th post I thought I'd do something a little more special.

So on my latest 2 day trip I took my older digicam with me and just snapped like crazy. So here is a photo album that more or less documents my journey from Calgary to Las Vegas to Edmonton to Vancouver to Palm Springs and back to Calgary over 2 days of last week. Enjoy!

A day in the life

The Vegas tease

Ahh the Vegas tease... when the dispatch office calls and says "you are going to Vegas!" and then there is a slight pause as you get your hopes up, followed by "...for 1hr and then turn around and go and spend the night in Edmonton."

Woo hoo. Well, at least I will get to see it for a few minutes. Have yet to actually go to Vegas with the jet. Especially nice to go there now as we are using a very nice new hotel-condo-ish place that is uber pimp. Yes, I just used the term pimp. Check it out at www.theplatinumhotel.com.

So that's the plan, off to Vegas for a few minutes, turn around go to Calgary, pick up some more folks go to Edmonton for the night. Next day we take people to Vancouver, then other downs to Palm Springs and then back up empty to Calgary. Fun fun. Looking forward to some flying as it has been a slow few days and I'm soon to go on days off, so I'll have plenty of time to relax Sunday-Wednesday.

Viva Las Vegas... for an hour.

2 Sunsets in one day

One of the coolest things happened the other day on a flight to Victoria. I'll get to that in a second.

The day started off (Friday) with me sleeping in and getting a phone call from the other pilot at the hotel in Edmonton. My alarm had gone off, I had awaken, even started to reply to an email and then... I nodded off. First time since I've started at AirSprint!! The hotel was very close to the airport but it was -25 with windchill and we had arranged for a ride to the airport. The phone call came at the exact time we were to have our ride. So, I was screwed. I told the other pilot that I'd brave the cold and run to the airport, but he managed to get our ride to come back for me 10 mins later. So I got to the plane at 7:15am for our 8am flight. Generally we need to arrive 1hr before the flight to give us enough time to get everything ready and then be ready for our clients 30 mins prior to departure. So I was hustling around and just made it as our clients arrived bang on 30 mins early. It all worked out well and we were off to a much warmer destination, Scottsdale AZ.

Too bad we didn't get to stay. We were then off to Victoria to do a pickup to take back to Calgary. BUT, that didn't quite happen. Climbing through about 36,000' we got a "master caution" warning, which is a big flashing amber light right in front of our eyes that says there is something wrong that needs attention. My eyes then scan to the announciator panel which will then tell me what is wrong. The illuminated item is "FIRE BOTL EXT LOW". Which stands for "Fire Bottle Extinguisher Low". Alright, now to the checklist to figure out what attention this item requires. The checklist goes on to tell us that 1 or both of our engine fire suppresion bottles is either low or has extinguished. The engine fire extinguishers are designed to put our engine fires by pumping various fire extinguishing gases right into the engine. Well, we know that they didn't go off because both our engines were still running fine. This is also an item that if we land, we are not allowed to take off again without having the problem resolved.

So, the other pilot went into the back of the plane and got on the flight phone and called our maintenance department back in Calgary. If we went to Victoria and landed, we wouldn't be able to leave again without having someone fix the problem. So, after a few minutes on the phone the decision was made to turn towards Calgary and have the problem looked at, and then as soon as it was fixed, fly to Victoria a little bit late for the pickup and bring the folks back to Calgary.

So over Las Vegas we made a pretty good right turn and headed northbound. It's tricky around that area because there is lots of restricted airspace we can't fly through. You may also know of this area as "Area 51" :)

So it was a bigger than normal turn to get back on course. But it had to be done. Here's a screenshot I took from a flight tracking program after we landed. I highlighted area 51 and the routing we were supposed to have taken to Victoria. As you can see it was quite the turn to get back on course.



Everything worked out well, we spent about an hour on the ground in Calgary while the mechanics opened up the back of the airplane to look at the fire bottles, and they were both fine. So it was just an indication problem and we blasted off for Victoria, and that is when it happened, one of the coolest things I've seen while flying.

I watched the sunset twice! Just as we took off the sun had set in Calgary and we got airborne and were headed west bound for Victoria. At about 30,000 ft the sun rose again over the horizon and minutes later I watched it set again. Phenominal! That is one memory that will stick with me for a long time and helps to remind me that I love my job and can still see something new and exciting day to day.