What a weird week!
The flying this week has
been normal, with no big surprises or speed/altitude records, but my schedule
this week is worth laughing at. This is
a typical (or perhaps not so typical) schedule of a pilot on reserve duty. The standard schedule would be reserve duty
from 0430 – 0830, then you can leave but you’re still on call until 1500.
Monday:
0430 – 0830: Sit reserve
on the couch. Sleep for a while. Listen to other pilot snore loud enough to
wake the dead.
0830 – 1500: Go home. Keep cell phone with you until 1500. Standard reserve day.
Tuesday:
0430 – 0700: Sit reserve on the couch.
0700 – 0900: Fly to Medford when pilot calls in sick.
0900 – 1800: Hang out in Medford.
1800 – 2030: Fly home.
Plan to thank Medford pilot the next day for the flight hours.
Wednesday:
0700 – 0830: Sit reserve on the couch. Go home. Rough day. Only an hour and a half because of FAR 135
limitations on duty time (got back too late Tuesday night to come in at the
regular 0430).
Thursday:
0430 – 0515: Sit for no good reason on the couch because they
forgot to call you to let you know you are flying to Tillamook today and didn’t
need to come in until 0515.
0515 – 0700: Get weather briefing. Find out Tillamook and Astoria are both fogged in. Get told to taxi over to UPS anyway to load
freight. Get to UPS, and listen to UPS
tell you since you can’t go anywhere that they are going to drive the freight
to Astoria. Mumble to self, and taxi
back to Ameriflight after standing in the cold for an hour for no good
reason. Log 0.2 hours.
0700 – 1300: Go home and hang around. Bother cat.
1300 – 1430: Head back to Ameriflight and fly to Tillamook so
you can get the afternoon freight to bring it back to Portland.
1430 – 1630: Hang out in Tillamook for 2 hours.
1630 – 1745: Fly back home via Astoria. Total hours logged: 1.9 Total miles driven: 108
Friday:
0700 – 0900: Fly to Medford.
0900 – 1900: Hang out in Medford and write silly-ass journal
entry.
1900 – 2130: Fly home (tentatively – this day ain’t over yet.)
Interesting week. Total flight hours: 8. Total hours spent writing software: 21. Didn’t I change careers?
Saturday I do AMF 1964 to
LaGrande again. Next week I fly AMF 413
to Ontario Monday and Tuesday (5.5 hours each day) then sit reserve Wednesday
and Thursday. Friday I’m taking the day
off!
I did not receive a
permanent run for the next six-week bid period. However, that doesn’t bum me out too much since I have really
enjoyed the variety of flying different places, and this last week is not
really typical. Most weeks I’m getting
at least 15 hours. With many people
being on vacation and my being first in line to fly the vacant routes I should
sit reserve very little.