One long day....
Being up for 24 hours straight is not something I have done in a while. Back in the college days, it had been known to happen from time to time (Springfest for all you UND grads), but since the "college days" are behind me, 24hrs being awake is pretty long.
Last shift had me flying while the sun was setting and sun was rising. I started my day in ORH, Worcester, MA. We had flown in some boxes full of glass for UPS the previous night. I started my day around 10:00am Eastern time with a quick work out at the hotel gym. My 10 hours of required rest were to expire around 12:30pm so the Capt. and I grabbed a quick lunch at a great little cafe named Lucky's Cafe in Worcester. Great food and friendly service. As soon as we got back to the hotel our pagers started going off. After packing up our gear we headed out to the airport for one very long day.
The original plan was for us to pick up some freight in Portsmouth, NH, fuel stop in Nashville, TN, clear customs outbound at base in Addison, TX and then fly on to Juarez, MX to drop the stuff off and hop over to El Paso, TX to spend the night. Ha! As usual our plans get changed. After some thunderstorm delays in Nashville, we got underway to ADS about a half hour behind schedule. As soon as we land in ADS and head up to dispatch, we get the "great news" according to dispatch. They have us picking up more stuff in Juarez and flying it to Atlanta. Two problems immediately come to mind. 1. We are limited to 10 hours flying in a 24 hour period and 2. We are limited to 14 hours of "duty" time. A few quick calculations on flight and duty time show dispatch that we cant finish the return trip. That would have had us flying 11 hours and 17-18 hours of duty* (more on this later). So we come up with an alternative that would have us flying the stuff half way to Atlanta and changing crew's in Shreveport, LA. In the back of my head I'm thinking cool because every mile I'm flying these days is overtime, but this is going to suck because its going to have us flying until 4:30 am. My thin wallet gets the best of me and I decide that since our last few trips have been flying on the backside of the clock, I'm used to flying at those hours and I'm not all that tired, so lets do it.
On the the flight over to Mexico I ask the Capt. if he knew what was going to be done with me in SHV. He started to roll his fingers together giving me the universal sign for making money. He informed me that he was getting off the plane in SHV, but I was to stay with the plane and jumpseat to ATL with the other crew. He knew that the extra flight to ATL would be extra $$ in my pocket, hence the money signal. The thinking was that since I was working this weekend, they would just have me stay with the plane and the company would airline in another captain for me to fly with. Well, things never quite work out the way they are planned. Turns out they needed the plane before my 10 hours of rest were up here in ATL so they flew in another crew and stole my plane leaving me stranded here with no plane to fly, but thats another story. So my day just got a lot longer. I would be making an extra $50, but at the expense of a much longer day.
After picking our way through a line of thunderstorms we made it to Mexico, off loaded our cargo, loaded up our backhaul cargo and hopped over the river to ELP. We cleared customs, loaded up with gas and headed eastbound to the boggy marsh of LA. About halfway through the flight we had to pick our way through the same line of thunderstorms we just avoided. They were dissipating by this point, so there were bigger gaps to fly through. We landed in SHV, the Capt. was on his way to a nice hotel room with a bed, while I continued on in the very uncomfortable jumpseat of a Falcon. While the other crew prepared the plane for the flight, I prepared my FO bed (the engine covers) in the back of the plane and took a 30 min nap. Those engine covers really do make a nice little "cot" to sleep on. They are large enough that you can sleep in a variety of positions and keep the majority of your body off the cold metal floor of the aircraft.
As we were blasting off for ATL the sun was just starting to peek out from behind the clouds to the east. In a few short min, my eyes would be burning with the early morning sunlight. It just doesn't seem right. Usually the only time I see the sunset and sunrise in the same period of being awake is when I've been out doing "other" activities, not working. So we make our way to ATL. I'm hoping that we are going to be off loading at the FBO, but luck was just not on my side that morning. We had to taxi over to the cargo ramp to get off loaded and fueled before we could make our way over to the FBO to put the plane to bed and then ourselves. This added another 2 hours to being awake, but the best part is coming. We had called ahead and had the girl at the FBO find us 3 hotel rooms. We were expecting to just close up the plane, walk in and have a ride to a hotel that was waiting for us to check in..... nothing could be further from the truth. The girl behind the desk didn't make any calls about rooms until we walked in the door (DELAY), the van to give us a ride was out on another run and wouldn't be back for another 30 min (DELAY), the van finally shows up and brings us to the hotel that the girl supposedly had called and found rooms, we get to hotel #1 and there are no rooms clean and we cant check in till noon (DELAY), we call the girl at the FBO again to send the shuttle to bring us to another hotel that supposedly has rooms (DELAY), we go to hotel #2 that specifically said they had rooms available to check into now, we go in, no rooms available (DELAY), by this time I'm pissed. I kept my mouth shut, but I was steaming mad. All I wanted to do was go to sleep. So we call the FBO again, she sends the van to bring us back to hotel #1 (DELAY). We finally roll back into hotel #1 after an hour of delays with everything pretty much S.N.A.F.U. but we miss the free breakfast at the hotel. So I finally opened my mouth about our crappy situation and talked the guy behind the desk into having some food brought back out for us so we could eat. At that point, all I cared about was getting something to eat and going to bed.
So finally, after 24hrs of being awake, 3,500 miles flown through 3 time zones and back again, it was time to sleep.........zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Last shift had me flying while the sun was setting and sun was rising. I started my day in ORH, Worcester, MA. We had flown in some boxes full of glass for UPS the previous night. I started my day around 10:00am Eastern time with a quick work out at the hotel gym. My 10 hours of required rest were to expire around 12:30pm so the Capt. and I grabbed a quick lunch at a great little cafe named Lucky's Cafe in Worcester. Great food and friendly service. As soon as we got back to the hotel our pagers started going off. After packing up our gear we headed out to the airport for one very long day.
The original plan was for us to pick up some freight in Portsmouth, NH, fuel stop in Nashville, TN, clear customs outbound at base in Addison, TX and then fly on to Juarez, MX to drop the stuff off and hop over to El Paso, TX to spend the night. Ha! As usual our plans get changed. After some thunderstorm delays in Nashville, we got underway to ADS about a half hour behind schedule. As soon as we land in ADS and head up to dispatch, we get the "great news" according to dispatch. They have us picking up more stuff in Juarez and flying it to Atlanta. Two problems immediately come to mind. 1. We are limited to 10 hours flying in a 24 hour period and 2. We are limited to 14 hours of "duty" time. A few quick calculations on flight and duty time show dispatch that we cant finish the return trip. That would have had us flying 11 hours and 17-18 hours of duty* (more on this later). So we come up with an alternative that would have us flying the stuff half way to Atlanta and changing crew's in Shreveport, LA. In the back of my head I'm thinking cool because every mile I'm flying these days is overtime, but this is going to suck because its going to have us flying until 4:30 am. My thin wallet gets the best of me and I decide that since our last few trips have been flying on the backside of the clock, I'm used to flying at those hours and I'm not all that tired, so lets do it.
On the the flight over to Mexico I ask the Capt. if he knew what was going to be done with me in SHV. He started to roll his fingers together giving me the universal sign for making money. He informed me that he was getting off the plane in SHV, but I was to stay with the plane and jumpseat to ATL with the other crew. He knew that the extra flight to ATL would be extra $$ in my pocket, hence the money signal. The thinking was that since I was working this weekend, they would just have me stay with the plane and the company would airline in another captain for me to fly with. Well, things never quite work out the way they are planned. Turns out they needed the plane before my 10 hours of rest were up here in ATL so they flew in another crew and stole my plane leaving me stranded here with no plane to fly, but thats another story. So my day just got a lot longer. I would be making an extra $50, but at the expense of a much longer day.
After picking our way through a line of thunderstorms we made it to Mexico, off loaded our cargo, loaded up our backhaul cargo and hopped over the river to ELP. We cleared customs, loaded up with gas and headed eastbound to the boggy marsh of LA. About halfway through the flight we had to pick our way through the same line of thunderstorms we just avoided. They were dissipating by this point, so there were bigger gaps to fly through. We landed in SHV, the Capt. was on his way to a nice hotel room with a bed, while I continued on in the very uncomfortable jumpseat of a Falcon. While the other crew prepared the plane for the flight, I prepared my FO bed (the engine covers) in the back of the plane and took a 30 min nap. Those engine covers really do make a nice little "cot" to sleep on. They are large enough that you can sleep in a variety of positions and keep the majority of your body off the cold metal floor of the aircraft.
As we were blasting off for ATL the sun was just starting to peek out from behind the clouds to the east. In a few short min, my eyes would be burning with the early morning sunlight. It just doesn't seem right. Usually the only time I see the sunset and sunrise in the same period of being awake is when I've been out doing "other" activities, not working. So we make our way to ATL. I'm hoping that we are going to be off loading at the FBO, but luck was just not on my side that morning. We had to taxi over to the cargo ramp to get off loaded and fueled before we could make our way over to the FBO to put the plane to bed and then ourselves. This added another 2 hours to being awake, but the best part is coming. We had called ahead and had the girl at the FBO find us 3 hotel rooms. We were expecting to just close up the plane, walk in and have a ride to a hotel that was waiting for us to check in..... nothing could be further from the truth. The girl behind the desk didn't make any calls about rooms until we walked in the door (DELAY), the van to give us a ride was out on another run and wouldn't be back for another 30 min (DELAY), the van finally shows up and brings us to the hotel that the girl supposedly had called and found rooms, we get to hotel #1 and there are no rooms clean and we cant check in till noon (DELAY), we call the girl at the FBO again to send the shuttle to bring us to another hotel that supposedly has rooms (DELAY), we go to hotel #2 that specifically said they had rooms available to check into now, we go in, no rooms available (DELAY), by this time I'm pissed. I kept my mouth shut, but I was steaming mad. All I wanted to do was go to sleep. So we call the FBO again, she sends the van to bring us back to hotel #1 (DELAY). We finally roll back into hotel #1 after an hour of delays with everything pretty much S.N.A.F.U. but we miss the free breakfast at the hotel. So I finally opened my mouth about our crappy situation and talked the guy behind the desk into having some food brought back out for us so we could eat. At that point, all I cared about was getting something to eat and going to bed.
So finally, after 24hrs of being awake, 3,500 miles flown through 3 time zones and back again, it was time to sleep.........zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
posted by Windsor at 9:41 AM
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