Posts by Berck

I flew today.

It’s a sad state of affairs when it’s blog-worthy that I, an airline pilot, flew an airplane today.

I was sitting in the crew room watching The Baxter on my spiffy new aluminum MacBook that I can’t really afford when my right breast started vibrating. I paused the movie, removed my headset and examined my telephone. Someone with from 336 area code was trying to call me. My first instinct, since I didn’t know who it was, was simply to ignore it. But I decided the likelihood of a wrong number from an area code that’s not mine was small, so I decided to answer it.

The ensuing conversation was exceedingly confusing.

Me: Hello?
Him: Hi Berck. Is Jessica Potter with you?
Me: What? Who’s Jessica Potter?
Him: A Flight Attendant.
Me: Uhm. No?
[It was about now that I placed the deep South accent on the phone as belonging to my Chief Pilot.]
Him: Are you on the plane?
Me: No. What plane? Should I be on a plane?
Him: I don’t know. I’ll call you back.

I seriously had that conversation with my boss today. It’s a wonder that airlines get airplanes anywhere, much less as safely as they do. He called back, and told me that I was, in fact, supposed to be flying to Dulles. I checked my schedule on the computer, and sure enough I was scheduled to depart for Dulles in half an hour.

It turns out that the Captain was notified of the trip several hours prior to the above phone call. The other flight attendants and I were not. I’m still not sure exactly why the Chief Pilot was calling me, or what about. And I have no idea why (s)Crew Tracking didn’t notify me of the trip.

Usually I have some warning before I fly. I was a bit worried about making my brain shift from passive movie-watching mode to flying an airliner. I needn’t have–as soon as I started walking around the plane the motions became automatic.

Pilots are creatures of habit, and good pilots have good habits. I got the ATIS, clearance, calculated performance data, and then the weight and balance for the airplane–all more or less without thinking about it. It’s amazing how far I’ve come since being on IOE just a few short months ago.

The Captain flew us to Dulles uneventfully. He had me switch on the autopilot for him on as soon as legally permissible–at 600 feet above ground on takeoff. I planned to do a fair amount of hand flying on my leg, so I wondered if it was going to bother him.

It didn’t. I flew us back from Dulles and probably did the best job at hand flying a jet I’ve ever done. We were incredibly light, only about 61,000lbs because we only had 11 passengers. When light, my airplane resembles a jet fighter, which makes hand flying all the more challenging. I leveled off at 10,000, 13,000, 15,000 all by hand. I was actually impressed with how well I managed, but I went ahead and let the autopilot do the final level-off at 17,000 feet because my brain was starting to get overloaded. Straight and level is probably the hardest task when hand-flying a fast, powerful swept-wing jet.

We cruised right by Atlantic City on the way back, as usual. If you’ve never seen Atlantic City at night from the air, take my word that it’s quite a sight. I could easily make out Trump’s blue building. The lights appear to be the result of some sort of local nuclear fusion. Cities can be bright at night, but Atlantic City appears to be so bright that I assume they turn the lights off in the day so the sun doesn’t get jealous.

I’ve got ready reserve tomorrow, and then Friday night I’m repositioning a plane to Charlotte, presumably so the final inspections can be done on the plane before we give them to their new operator.

There’s no news on the displacement. I’m still supposed to be in training in PHX on Monday for a plane that, with any luck, I won’t be flying.

A post from Three Jews, Four Opinions makes some interesting points. Mostly it asks the question that while Jewish law clearly forbids homosexuality, does that mean that Jews should vote to ban homosexual marriage in California law? The overwhelming answer is no.

This gets to the heart of my frustration of Christian intolerance. While Jews have some very crazy religious laws, they don’t seek to codify any of those laws into civic statute. Christians, on the other hand, believe that if something is immoral it should be illegal. I’ve often been inclined to think that it’s the very nature of the religious to attempt to impose religion into government, but on further reflection, I think it’s just Christians. Muslims certainly do this in Islamic nations, but I’ve never seen an American Muslim make any real effort to include their crazy laws into American law.

And that right there is intolerance: a refusal to tolerate the differing beliefs, rights and practices of others. Why, if Jesus preached tolerance, are Christians such an intolerant lot?

The linked post above also basically makes the point that I’ve made all along: Government has no place in marriage.

I’m becoming increasingly annoyed with my employer. If anyone in the company knows what’s going on, they’re not telling me. Still no word at all about whether I’m going to fly a Dash here in a couple weeks or not.

Kelsey decided to rearrange his schedule so that the Nachzen kids could hang out last night. I cooked chicken, mashed potatoes, onions, artichoke and asparagus. We drank several bottles of wine and then Mario Carted for a few hours. I’m not very good at video games, but it’s always reassuring to know that Sydney will bring up the rear for me. I actually did very well, and after every race the Nintendo said, “You won!” It doesn’t lie. We all spent the night in Wa-Hi, because trains late at night are annoying. Sydney looks funny in Kelsey’s clothes.

I flew what’s likely my last flight in a jet. It took a little work to get back into the swing of things after a month of not flying. My final landing in JFK was a real winner, I think the ground crews are out there now filling the two potholes I left in 22R.

I’m just about to go collect my dry cleaning and go sit ready reserve at the airport tonight from 7pm until at least midnight. Potentially as late as 3am. I’m doing the same thing tomorrow night as well.

There’s been a rather unfortunate change in the configuration of the crew room–the TV is now in the main room instead of the little back room. The only internet connection is in the same room as the TV. Fortunately, I’ve got headphones. There are few things in the world I find more obnoxious than CNN.

Joanna and I went to Dallas to see The Magnetic Fields on a whimsy of mine, that had something to do with Rachel. We could have seen The Magnetic Fields in New York or Denver, which would have been more convenient, but then we wouldn’t have gotten to see Rachel, Kate and JR and meet Joseph. Seeing The Magnetic Fields in Dallas didn’t really seem to be one of those things I had any choice about, despite the fact that I’m the one who made the choice. I’m jealous that Joanna got to eat at Breadwinner’s and I didn’t.

I’m still scheduled to start a 5-day trip tomorrow. This is good news, and I hope it will re-endear me to the job. It’s been so long since I’ve actually flown, I’m forgetting why I ever thought it would be a good idea. It’s really starting to wear me down. I took the midnight DEN-JFK this morning. It’s a silly way to get to work, but means an extra day at home. It’s hot and icky in New York (okay, a whopping 70 degrees, but compared to 40 in Colorado, it’s hot and icky). I crossed Flatbush in a crosswalk, with “the white man” as Liz would say, and about halfway across the street, traffic turning right decided to honk at me and started gesturing to the flashing red hand (“slappy” for those who speak Liz) as though I no longer had the right of way. I raised my hand in a, “What the hell?” gesture and walked slower. It’s that sort of thing, along with the dog shit I discovered on my shoe later that make me hate New York. The love/hate relationship is a delicate balance highly influenced by the amount of time I spend in the city. Lately, I’ve spent way too much time here, and today is a day that I hate New York.

My last 24 hours looked something like this: At 10pm last night, Jonah drove me to the DEN airport. (I was too tired to drive my car back on Tuesday.) I got to the airport at about 11:15pm, and on the plane at about 11:40pm for an 11:50pm departure. I got a middle seat, but at least it was in the “more leg room” section. I was only able to fit my bag in an overhead bin at the back of plane, even though I was sitting in the front, and even that required serious overhead bin mojo, which obviously I now possess.

The flight wasn’t too bad, though I wasn’t able to sleep very well. I got off the plane in New York around 5am. I rode the AirTrain to the LIRR, where I had to buy a peak ticket. I live off-peak, but my going “home” happened to be at the same time and same direction as the rest of New York going to work. I got off the train and walked a mile. My leather jacket was miserably hot and an unwelcome burden. I should have just left it in Jonah’s car, but I’m guessing I’ll want it when I drive home next week. I carried my leather jacket and heavy bag up to Sydney’s 3rd floor apartment, inflated my air mattress and fell asleep around 7am.

I woke up at 11:59am to my phone ringing. Crew tracking jumped the gun by 1 minute, but unfortunately I can’t read the clock on my phone while it’s ringing, so I didn’t know that when I answered it. I knew exactly what the crew tracker was going to say. I could have avoided the phone conversation by clicking the “I’ve been notified” button on my schedule online to acknowledge the Noon-10pm ready reserve, but if I did that, I’d have shorted myself 1.5 hours of sleep. I’m not required to answer my phone until I go on duty at noon, at which point they’ll tell me to be at the airport for ready reserve, but they have to give me 1.5 hours to get to the airport. Sometimes they forget and call me up to half an hour late, but not today. Also, they decided they still wanted the full 10 hours out of me, and instead of my usual 1200-2200 shift, they assigned me a 1330-2330 shift.

And so now it’s 8pm, and I’m at the airport, too tired to read my book with 3.5 hours of sitting left to go.

All this, so that I can get paid to fly an airplane. I keep waiting for the asymptotic deadline where I find out if I can live at home and fly the Dash.

But I get to fly tomorrow. Things will be better tomorrow.

First they said we would find out about the displacements on October 6. And then they said it wouldn’t be until October 10. And then October 17th. And now, they’re saying it will be October 20 or later. Seriously, it’s not like people are trying to make plans for the future or anything. You’re not welcome to my patience. You’ve exhausted my patience.

So, I won’t know anything until sometime after Monday, October 20, now. They’ve also currently put me on reserve until midnight in JFK on Nov 2nd, and then in training at 0800 in PHX on Nov 3rd. Brilliant, just brilliant.