I am continuing to fly quite
a bit on reserve duty, which has been a very pleasant surprise. I was expecting to sit around long hours in
the crashpad doing nothing, but since moving into my Chicago crashpad over
three weeks ago, I have only spent five days there. I’m at the Hyatt Regency in Wichita tonight having completed the
first day of another four-day trip.
My last trip took me through
the Christmas holiday. Despite not
getting home until 11:30 on Christmas night, it was the best trip I’ve had so
far. I really love this job. The crew was awesome and it really is the
people you fly with that make all the difference. Plus, everywhere we went on during the holiday someone had free
food for us. And there is nothing
better than free food. Except free
beer. After the trip I commuted home on
Spirit Airlines, the last flight out of Chicago to Las Vegas that night. It was like riding on a bus, but I could
never really complain about a free ride home, especially on Christmas.
Anyhoo, I snapped a few more
photos for kicks, and because my student Luke told me to. We spent Christmas Eve in Fargo which had a
surprisingly nice hotel. It was the
coldest I have ever been in my life.
When we got off the plane that night, the temperature was 2 degrees
below zero. It hurt to breathe because
of the cold air shock to the lungs. And
I think my nose hairs froze. This trip
really taught me the benefits of things like gloves, scarves, hats. Here is the CRJ parked at the gate in Fargo. Here is me freezing my ass off in front of the CRJ parked
at the gate in Fargo. Bill, have
fun with this one.
More photos: here is the cabin of the CRJ in all its glory, a closeup of the aircraft fuselage, and
one of the kick-ass General Electric
CF34-3B1 turbo fan engines rated at 9220 pounds of thrust.
This is Fargo after takeoff. It’s white and flat. While airborne, I took some pictures of the overhead panel and the center pedestal for those
interested in seeing what I mess around with all day. I like all the buttons.
Here are some nifty clouds, some frozen lakes, and my lunch.
New milestones: clocked a
groundspeed of 560 knots, or 644 miles per hour. 73 hours of jet time, and it looks like I’ll finish up with a
total 675 flight hours for the year, almost twice as many as any previous year.
