April 28, 2015 - Day 1

What I hope to do on this trip 11 day trip is to use my be iPhone 6 plus to blog the various locations I'll be visiting. 

Been home for several weeks now getting Springtime yard work completed. So, I was scheduled to begin LCAL starting Monday. It was this morning before church when I noticed the following on my schedule:

I basically have to fly to Kuwait on a commercial airline spending the night in Kuwait and then fly our aircraft to Ireland and then probably commercial back stateside from Ireland. 

As you can tell, I have to airline Tuesday afternoon to Kuwait. Not an easy commute. Here's my itinerary:

Here's my current seat flying from Chicago to Doha, Qutar:

 

That's me in yellow; 15K. It's a window seat with no one sitting beside me currently. 

When I travel internationally, I like to check with seat guru to see if I got a decent seat.

When you do the math, it adds up to 16 hours of flying in Coach.  Here's what my actual duty day looks like:

Notice that number on the far right. That's right, a duty day of 18 hours and 45 minutes. Not your typical 8 hour work day. 

Here's the forecast for Kuwait:

It's currently 46 degrees here in MO. 

Next post should be on Tuesday as I head to the airport. 

Tuesday, 12:30pm and I'm heading to the airport. 

Lots of big rigs on the drive, but made it to the airport. Here is where I park while I'm gone. 

Free parking if you can find a spot. 

Here is what I'll be living out of for the next two weeks. 

It's 2:30 and now on the hotel van heading to the terminal. 

This morning's time break down went like this:

12:30 - leave house

2:30 - catch hotel shuttle 

3:00 - check into flight

4:05 - flight departs for Chicago

Made it through security and to my gate in no time. 

Now I have to wait an hour to fly to Chicago. I was assigned seat 11A. My other two flights are still 15K. 

Made it to Chicago. Here's the terminal. 

Another view from the train running between the Domestic and International terminal. 

Time to wait to board. 

Nice and comfy with an empty seat beside me. 

Here's the dinner they served. Not very good. Some kind of chicken. 

This is a view of the cabin from my seat. 

After 13 hours of flying, I arrive in Doha, Qatar. If you're wondering where in the world Qatar is:

Walking to my gate...

Here I wait for 3 hours for my flight to Kuwait that is scheduled to depart at 8pm. 

Here we are boarding the third and final aircraft at 7pm local. 

Onboard the aircraft. This was my neighbor. 

Of course you have to eat. 

Finally Kuwait. 

This is standing outside waiting for hotel van. 

Its about 10pm here. Quiet ride to hotel. 

Finally, my room. Time to sleep. 

Leaving Las Vegas

After 6 months of terrible commuting lines for LAS, I have decided to bid back to home-base.  It was a difficult decision, but the way the company is designing lines, it was not possible to have more than 4 to 6 days OFF at home.  It wouldn't be so bad if I received compenstaion for this time, but in essence, I am working 26 days and receiving 18 days of compenstation.  Where, if I was home-based, I would only be gone from home 18 days.  As for the Hawaii flying, I think I've seen Hawaii 4 times this year.  Most of my time is spent in the Las Vegas Fairfield hotel sitting SCAL and LCAL reserve in case someone calls in SICK with no per diem.

I'm actually kinda looking forward to doing different flying.  Namely the Caribbean Airlines flying between London and Trinidad.  My final month of LAS will be July, in which I am scheduled to do nothing but SCAL/LCAL for 18 DAYS STRAIGHT.  Can't wait for the August lines to come out on July 10th.

8/26/2011 - Day Four

Well, spent another day hanging around the hotel. Ran into one of our Check Airman, Michael J. He was preparing to receive a Line Check from Cpt. Z Fri morning on the LAS-HNL flight. Then he was commercial traveling on ANA over to Hiroshima, Japan to fly and airplane up to Anchorage, AK. Would have loved to have done that flight.

We decided to meet for dinner around 7pm. As I was walking down to meet him at 7pm, we ran into another Check Airman/Ground Instructor Mr. T. We stood around and chewed the fat for a while. Guess he and I are babysitting N638AX, while his student would probably be heading home. Michael and I then proceed over to Gordan Busch for a lit dinner consisting of a house salad and a dark Ale. Pretty uneventful day.

I'm hoping the weather here in Vegas will cool off enough so I can go out and take some photos of the strip. 113 degrees is a bit much, even if it is low humidity.

Saw scheduling had placed back on my schedule to VH trip on Wednesday next week. Will get me 2 call out days for Sept. We'll see if that really happens...

Photos are of the hotel halls. Talk about bored... They are undergoing a major renovation later this year.

The final picture shows the test results of two test I was required to pass: ILS PRM Approaches and HazMat/DG. 100% on both...

8/24/2011 - Day Three

Well, today was pretty much the same as yesterday. Had left over pizza and just messed around on the computer most of the day. Did a little bit of studying for my PC next month. Found out that one of our Captains, David, has returned to American Airlines. Was really happy to hear of his return to a "real airline" and a normal life.

August 23, 2011

Day 2 - Sitting Hotel Reserve KLAS

Just added an extension to Google Chrome that now allows me to blog straight from my web browser. I'm hoping to find something that works as equally well on my iPhone.

Pretty much spent the entire day at the Fairfield Hotel since I'm on 24 hour Reserve. Which means I have to be ready to leave at the drop of the hat. No Long Call, No Short Call, No Duty Rig, Not Trip Rig and NO PER DIEM!!!

August 22, 2011

Aug 21, 2011 (Monday) - Well, back on the road again after a nice week and a half at home. Got to enjoy my daughter's 7th birthday party and her actual birthday. Got to sit home reserve yesterday and got the lawn mowed. Sitting here at the Columbia Regional Airport since I got approval from our Chief Pilot that if I'm pulled from my LAS trips, travel will MOEX me from STL back to COU. So, 4am the alarm goes off and now I am in the process of jump seating from COU to MEM then on to Vegas. Lots of seats open on this flight, but I may have to sit in the cockpit if the Airbus leaving MEM. It shows overbooked by 4 seats, so there's still a chance I could get a cabin seat. Best to grab either the first flight of the day or the last.
The reason for the change in departing airports was the hotel I was parking at in STL decided to start charging us for parking. I think it was $ 45 a month. That, along with 4 hours of driving gas became too expensive. I now can JS out of COU, free parking and only 30 min drive. Not to mention security is much easier.
On the aircraft now here in Columbia, MO (KCOU). Pinnacle Airlines, CRJ200. Looks like we are going to get out of here. Notice a line of thunderstorms moving in from the North.

MEM-After a smooth one hour flight, arrived here in MEM. Now to catch my LAS connection.

LAS- The flight out of Memphis to Las Vegas. I wasn't able to get a passenger seat in the back because the Delta flight was completely full. I was then given the jump seat. Both pilots were cool. Jay was the Captain and Jon the FO. Both are based in MEM on the Airbus 330. Flight to Vegas was aprox 3.5 hours long. We mostly just read the newspapers. For breakfast we had cereal and yogurt. Upon landing on 25L in Vegas, I checked my voice mail and it was the company wanting me to Tvl out of STL to Oman! Good thing I wasn't available for that call. They had decided to pull Jason T (another Omni FO) out of the hotel to cover the trip. So, here I now sit in my Fairfield hotel room on hotel Reserve.

Aug 6, 2011 - Weekend in Hawaii

Very uneventful flight from Vegas to Honolulu yesterday. The winds were a bit gusty on the approach into the island, but once we were on the ground it felt really nice with the trade-winds whipping around. Most of the mainland has been experiencing drought and aweful heat. I hope to get out on Saturday and enjoy the weather.
After we got into our hotel, we all walked over to the YardHouse. It's a really nice resturant most airline crews hang out at. The name comes from "yard of beer". A yard is a long, tall flask that is used to serve beer. Since it was happy hour, we all got the appitizers for 1/2 off. I got the Crab Cakes and Chicken Lettece Wrap.
Well, I fly back on Sunday night and hope to jumpseat on SouthWest back home on Monday. Looking forward to spending some quality time home with the kids before they go back to school on the 19th. Ashlyn's Birthday is the 18th. She'll be turning 7. Where does time go?