Posts by Berck

One of the downsides (though maybe some will consider at an upside, so maybe I’ll just refer to it as a side) of flying the Dash is that we’ve only got a few destinations. I haven’t even really managed to visit half of them, but I’ve spent a lot of time in Casper, Wyoming lately.

As I showered this morning, I thought that the scars in the bathtub seemed awfully familiar, but I was reasonably sure I hadn’t been in this hotel room before. This was based on the fact that this room has a balcony, and I was sure I’d have noticed if it had a balcony. The hotel views project reveals that although I photographed the balcony, I still somehow missed it. In my defense, it was a very short overnight, and we left early in the morning.

I flew us in last night. The autopilot was broken, so I had to hand fly the whole way. I didn’t really mind since I like remembering that I’m actually a pilot. There was some turbulence, so level flight required a bit of work, but the Dash is much easier to hand fly than the jet. My only complaint is that the yoke is positioned strangely–it’s very high up. It’s impossible to grip it where the hand grips are and rest your elbows on the handrest, unless I move my seat so high that my head is touching the ceiling and the glare shield blocks the top instruments. So I was instead holding the yoke down at the bottom with my right index finger and thumb, and seem to have injured those two digits in some strange way. Yes, I’m a pilot, and I hurt my finger flying.

More interestingly, the weather in Casper was overcast at about 1,000 feet, which meant flying an ILS, with no autopilot. This is something we just don’t do in the airlines, because it’s much safer to let the autopilot fly the approach. So, despite having hand-flown a zillion ILS approaches in the sim, this was my first one in an airplane, in the clouds. It required a fair amount of concentration but wasn’t difficult. I did have a flight director, after all. I could hear my sim instructor’s voice, “Stay in the flight director!”

We broke out at 1,000 feet above the ground like the weather said we would. I floated down the runway quite a bit farther than I might have liked, but it’s a very long runway, and I really only needed about 1/8th of it in the Dash, so I elected to keep floating in order to get a smooth touchdown. I wasn’t happy about it, but passenger comfort is important, and we had lots of runway. And the touchdown was nice and smooth, though the wet runway probably helped out.

I collected my free Shiner Bock from the hotel bar (Shiner on tap, in Wyoming even), and headed to bed. It was still raining when I went to sleep.

I woke up this morning and looked outside to see if it was still raining. It was still cloudy, but there were about 4 inches of snow on the ground, which was melting and turning to slush. I made it downstairs in time to collect my free breakfast from the hotel, which unlike most hotel breakfasts, turned out to be really decent. I had a totally acceptable breakfast burrito. My captain had steak and eggs, and the steak looked wonderful. I might get that next time.

Jackson Hole tonight, but we don’t get in until 9pm and leave pretty early in the morning, so I don’t get to have much fun, or get a breakfast burrito from D.O.G. Sad because the Jackson Hole overnights are apparently seasonal, and it doesn’t look like I’m doing any next month. Soon my snow-covered Rockies will be dirt-covered and I’m a bit worried about how hot the Dash will be. That’s okay, winter be back, and with any luck I’ll still be flying it in Denver next year. In the meantime I’ll try to stay cool and dodge the thunderstorms.

I’ve got a solid line. Apparently I figured out how to work PBS (our new, preferential bidding system, because it did a pretty decent job. The most important thing was that I get the 14-17th off to go to Sydney’s graduation, and I got that. In addition, I got a couple other saturdays off. I only have 4-day trips, which was what I wanted. If I had 1 or 2-day trips, I’d have to drive to the airport way too often. A rough sketch of the overnights is on my google calendar (DEN means I’m working, but I’m done when I get back home), as well as all the details on facebook.

Anyway, this new bidding system is a very good thing. If it didn’t work out for some reason, I’d have been on reserve all next month because I missed the cutoff date for rosters. I hope I continue to have reasonably decent lines as more people get furloughed and the base goes more junior. For now, I’m pretty darned happy.

In addition to going to New York, it looks like Jonah and I are going to be able to go to Hawaii next week for a couple of days. The Sunday after next we’re going to see Vienna Teng in Boulder. (I just happened to get that day off by chance–I didn’t bid for it because I didn’t know about the concert until after I bid).

The downside is that I’m making a lot less money. Ahh well.

I did not get the FAA job in Anchorage I applied for. This doesn’t surprise me. What does surprise me is that I didn’t get it because I’m not a retired, disabled veteran. I can understand veteran’s preference. What I can’t understand is that as long as a qualified disabled veteran applies, no one else is even considered. Had I realized that, I’m not sure I’d have bothered apply.

‘Thank you for applying on our external vacancy announcement, AAC-NOE-09-AJW334B-113303, Airspace System Inspection Pilot, FV-2181-H. Qualified 10-point preference eligibles who have a compensable, service-connected disability of 10 percent or more were referred to the selecting official. Other 10-point preference eligibles, 5-point preference eligibles and non-preference eligibles may not be selected as long as two or more qualified preference eligibles in the highest priority group are still available and interested. I am sorry to inform you that, at this time, your application was not included in the group that was referred. Additional information on veterans’ preference in hiring can be located at http://opm.gov/veterans/html/vetguide.asp. Please feel free to contacty me if you have any questions at [email protected]..