Where in the world is Matt?

After updating the Destination Tracker, I decided to add another sidebar. It is titled "Where in the world is Matt?"

Here I will post up my upcoming and current trips, so visitors will have an idea of what I'm up to with my latest adventures. Bare in mind however, that the corporate lifestyle does change daily, sometimes hourly.. so it might say I'm in Palm Springs for a week, but then I actually end up in North Dakota somewhere without internet and you'd never know the wiser!

Still a neat little feature that I think adds a new dynamic to my blogging experience.

Destination Tracker Version 3.0

It seems I've adjusted the format and layout of the Destination Tracker in the right sidebar a number of times. Version 2.0 was a listing of all the locations that I have flown to while flying corporate aircraft. Now, with Version 3.0 I'm pleased to announce a linked access to a google maps page showing the satellite/road map of the city/town/municipality that I have visited.

This may not be too exciting for a lot of the destinations, but some of my more unique trips that took me to the arctic circle, and down to Mexico and Antigua offer some neat views via the web based google maps.

Every once and a while I get bored with certain aspects of the layout and they get changed, and lately with all my free time, it was something to keep me occupied with. Although it did not take too long, at least it gave me the feeling of accomplishing something with my time!

Feedback's appreciated, and if at anytime someone finds a deadlink let me know.

Correction to total distance flown post

I previously posted about the total distance I flew in the past year. I just took a quick look at it and realized that I had posted incorrect info.

The new number for total kilometers flown in 2006 is 305,490 kilometers. Just a few kilometers short of getting to the moon as Sacha had pointed out. :)

I also just took the time to review my total distance flown in my career and training. The total number comes to a nice round number of 665,000 kilometers. Taking into account that during my first 800hrs of flight time I was flying much slower aircraft than I am today.

BORED!

I haven't been working much lately, we're overstaffed in anticipation of more aircraft coming soon. But for the time being that means that there is barely enough flights to go around and I'm not getting any flying in at all! My last trip was to Montreal and California and that was a week ago. Today is also my first of 4 scheduled days off, so I won't be doing anything until at least Monday, and even then it doesn't look too promising as the schedule is pretty dead from the looks of things.

I've been going to have coffee at all the various Starbucks throughout Calgary with my roomate Mike who's in the same boat. Anybody have any suggestions of things to do with lots of free time (but can't be scheduled, like a second job)? I've started watching Prison Break season one and that has got me hooked. But I'm looking for other, non expensive ways to occupy my time with. Any suggestions???

Distance travelled in 2006

Earlier I had blogged on my hour accumulations for the 2006 year in my post titled "How much does a corporate pilot work". By just using some simple conversions and averages it would appear that the distance I traveled last year was as follows:

Turboprop Aircraft - 81,302 nautical miles

Jet Aircraft - 68,309 nautical miles ~Actually 83,830 nm

Totaling - 149,611 nautical miles ~Actually 165,132 nm

For a grand total of 276,780 kilometers ~Actually 305,494 kms

That is just shy of traveling around the world 7 times! This does not include any flights I may have done on commercial flights, but only the actually flights that I logged as a crew member. This was also a relatively slow year for flying at only 480 hours in the airplane, so it could be much much more. It will be interesting to see how this compares next year.

Professional Courtesies

I've been traveling quite a lot on commercial air carriers to position for various flights. Lots of travels back and forth to Toronto mainly, but other places as well when we have had to do crew swaps mid flight because of flying time and working day hour restrictions.

Either way, it's a lot of airports, securities, loading onto over packed airplanes and dealing with all of the hassles that I've come accustomed to avoiding with private air travel! It is in these instances that we tend to use certain tools of trade to help aide in making the experience as stress free as possible. It's amazing how far a smile and aircrew security badge will go. Whenever traveling through security I always have my aircrew badge even if just flying home for holidays and not working. Putting it into the bin with my change and other loose articles immediately grants me some slack with the security personal. No longer am I some skid with no credibility, but am a person with which whom they can be a little more relaxed. This usually results in no taking off the shoes and a quick blast through the metal detector.

On my latest commercial flight from Toronto to Calgary last week, we had just finished our flying day and hoped over to the main terminal, still in full uniform. While we could have changed prior to getting there, we leave it on to help get through all the security bullshit and also, depending on the airline, to maybe even get an upgrade. Airlines such as Air Canada with executive class are more susceptible to upgrade a pilot in uniform to business class than anyone else (unless they're willing to pay for the upgrade). Unfortunately that night the flight was completely full and there were even a couple other pilots in the back of the plane with us in economy. However, once there, the flight attendants were very friendly and we were offered free meals, snacks and pretty much anything else they could legally provide to us.

It is professional courtesies like this that help make these situations much more tolerable. I certainly would have preferred to have flown myself back to Calgary and logged the flight hours instead of flying commercially, but as our jet fleet grows the planes are needed all over the country and to accommodate this we are frequently positioning crews via commercial air travel. I don't think I positioned even ONCE, while on the turboprop fleet, but since getting on the jet, I've likely flown at least a dozen times commercially for the purposes of repositioning.

So, when it's necessary to make the sacrifice to travel for work like this, the professional courtesies go along way to make the experience as pain free as possible. I'm sure this is similar in many other jobs as well.

Are professional pilots to be trusted?

According to a recent study, yes!

While perusing the Globe and Mail I stumbled upon this article on the most trusted professionals.

Here's an excerpt of the article indicating that pilots rank 4th in "trustworthiness" in a listing of other professionals.

Canadians rate firefighters as the most trusted professionals, while chief executive officers are deemed among the least trustworthy — along with union leaders, politicians and car salespeople, according to a survey released Monday.

A poll of 1,000 Canadians, conducted on behalf of Sympatico.MSN, found that 93 per cent of respondents rate firefighters as trustworthy, followed by nurses (87 per cent), pharmacists (86 per cent), airline pilots (81 per cent) and doctors (80 per cent).

CEOs, on the other hand, are considered trustworthy by just 21 per cent of the adult Canadians who were polled by Ipsos Reid between Dec. 21 and 27. Only union leaders (19 per cent), local politicians (12 per cent), national politicians and car salespeople (both at 7 per cent) ranked below CEOs in the “whom do we trust” survey.

Curious to know how your profession possibly ranks? Take a wild guess where car salesman ends up on the list!

Firefighters: 93 per cent.

Nurses: 87 per cent.

Pharmacists: 86 per cent.

Airline pilots: 81 per cent.

Doctors: 80 per cent.

Police officers: 69 per cent.

Teachers: 69 per cent.

Armed forces personnel: 65 per cent.

Day care workers: 61 per cent.

Accountants: 54 per cent.

Judges: 52 per cent.

Chiropractors: 49 per cent.

Financial advisers: 47 per cent.

Charitable organization employees: 41 per cent.

Environmentalists: 39 per cent.

Plumbers: 39 per cent.

People who work for religious institutions: 37 per cent.

Judicial system employees: 33 per cent.

Television and radio personalities: 29 per cent.

Real estate agents: 28 per cent.

Journalists: 26 per cent.

Lawyers: 25 per cent.

Auto mechanics: 25 per cent.

New home builders: 23 per cent.

Other members of the press: 22 per cent.

CEOs: 21 per cent.

Union leaders: 19 per cent.

Local politicians: 12 per cent.

National politicians: 7 per cent.

Car salespeople: 7 per cent.

4 times coast to coast

Well, pretty close to it. Just got back last night from my latest travels. Started with Calgary to Montreal for a night, then over to San Jose via Sioux Falls SD for fuel for a night, and then back to Montreal. Then Montreal to Toronto and a commercial flight back to Calgary. All of this was in our brand new jet too, what a great pieces of machinery!

I am very impressed with the performance of the aircraft. I wish I could fly this one exclusively!

Overall this trip was pretty good. I got to spend some time in Montreal where I got to use some of my horrible French comprehension and also got to explore a little bit of down town San Jose. Staying in the Hilton downtown San Jose was an added bonus, some good views from way up on the top floor.

Because the jet is brand new we actually have 2 new clients that were anxious to see their investments. So we had the closet of the aircraft filled with 3 bottles of Dom Perignon to be presented to the clients as a congratulatory offering from the company. On return back to Montreal our first clients mentioned there was still some champagne left. After they had left, Colin and I were in the back of the airplane pouring ourselves a glass each. Here's a shot of me being oh so hoity toity about to enjoy a glass of $200 champagne. However, while it did taste "expensive", I probably couldn't have told you the difference between a $20 or $200 bottle. I'm not a big fan of champagne as it is, I guess my palete just isn't quite so refined yet. Haha.


The next clients we were to meet didn't want to take the plane for a fight, but instead wanted to have a little cocktail party around it. So it was arranged, we parked the plane in the very nice hangar facilities we use in Montreal and cleaned it up real nice. Turned on all the lights and gizmos and then some curtains were set up around the airplane and a couple of tables were arranged with catering and a bar service. It was quite the little production. The client brought his family and friends to come and check out the new toy and we were there to answer some questions. However, everyone just assumed we spoke French. So the majority of the night was spent saying the words "I'm sorry but I don't speak much French". I did however get a few phrases out, but it was for the most part an awkward time of French/English misunderstandings.

After the event was done, we took the plane and flew it to Toronto. Another crew was to pick it up there the next day and carry on with some other flights. We then took an AirCanada flight home. The plane had the new on demand entertainment system onboard so I watched a movie and some tv shows. It's a very nice system, it's not live, but you have such a great choice of picking whatever you want that it really is a great way to make the 4 hours more tolerable.

I stock up on groceries...

... and it was bound to happen. I get a call an hour ago informing me I would be going away for 4 days on a trip. It's been very slow so I'm happy to get back in the plane, but at the same time, I JUST stocked up on groceries!

Looks like I'm taking our brand new jet out to Montreal tomorrow so we can then fly some folks to San Jose California on Wednesday. Then Thursday we take 'em right back to Montreal and end the night in Toronto. After that it's anybodies guess as to where we'll end up. So I'm taking some extra clothes as who knows where it's all going to lead too!

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.