Bored pilots.

So in a previous post I was trying to remain optimistic that things would get busy and I'd spend a lot more time flying instead of getting hotel rot. Well, its been 3 straight weeks of broken planes and very little flying. I am pretty sick and tired of sitting on my ass in hotel rooms crewing broken planes. It has been such a bad month that its the 15th already and I'm no where near making mileage for the month, which means I'm not making any money. I need to fly a certain number of miles for the month in order to start making mileage money. Once I meet that number, I start building towards a decent paycheck. Typically I'll meet that mark around 30 hours in the air. So far this month, I'm several thousand miles and around 15 hours short of the mark. Its not that there is no flying to be done, our company planes have been busy, at least the ones that are not broke. So I'm attributing most of this to bad luck and will try to remain optimistic about the rest of the month.

(O.K, rant over. I'm pissy about not flying and just want to go home. So here is some stuff that's not negative.)

In order to fend off hotel rot, you need to get out of the room and go do stuff. Sometimes this can be hard to do. For example when the hotel is in the middle of nowhere and you have no means of transportation. Luckily for the past few days I've been in a great location to be stuck. Today I got the chance to go do something that I haven't ever done. I went with the captain to a gun range and shot some guns. I've fired rifles before, but never handguns. I picked out the Glock 9 automatic as my weapon of choice. It was a fun experience and I didn't think I was all that bad a shot.








Due to a serious screw up by dickscratch....aahem...cough..cough, excuse me, dispatch. We were awoken before the butt crack of dawn to drive to base to crew a plane. Turns out that plane was, wait for it....wait for it....your never gunna guess.....broke! But it was not entirely a waste of time because I got to snap some cool new pics. So here is a pic of the cleanest cargo falcon you are ever going to see. And no, it was not washed. That's a fresh paint job. Just don't look too close cause you'll see all the runny paint. I give it a month before the cowlings are blackened with soot and it looks like the rest of the fleet.







I'm a cockpit buff, so I was pretty happy to get the chance to sit up front in a 737-200 to snap some pics. As you can see, these guys are roughing it (steam gauges, no FMS, old school gps) just like the rest of the company pilots.

My 12 day is over tomorrow and I cant wait to get home!!!!