A little break

Thanks to a small subsection in our pilot contract, I was able to procure an extra 5 days off this month. I'll be switching bases from the Motor City to our base in the frozen tundra, so the company had to give me 5 "moving" days. I took full advantage of the extra days off and went snowboarding out west.

First off, I have to say thanks to Uncle Den for letting me come out and crash at his place. I really appreciate your hospitality and I had an absolutely wonderful time. My second thanks goes out to my beautiful wife for letting me go without her. Unfortunately its tax season for her and she is not able to take any time off from Jan. 1 thru Apr. 15th. It would have been great to have some other people come with me, but nobody was able to come on such short notice, maby next time.

And now to the highlight and purpose of the trip, the snowboarding.... It was fantastic!!! Luck was on my side and I happened to show up the day after the mountain got a fresh coating of 6 inches of powder. Den happened to live about 15 minutes from a little mom'n'pop place called Pebble Creek in Inkom, ID and I must say, that place was great. It had nice steep vertical, lots of trails, great natural snow and a variety of terrain. The best run was a double diamond named "The Rock". There was 1-2 feet of fresh powder in the tree line which made for some awesome runs down the mountain. I was able to make first tracks down a lot of my runs due to the many lines I could take through the trees. It had been a long time since I had such great conditions for snowboarding. Pebble Creek is far superior to any of the little hills they have in WI. Not only is it "real" snowboarding, but it's cheap too! $35 for a day pass, $25 for a half day. I hope to be able to do it again next year.

Overall it was a great trip. Idaho is a very scenic state with picturesque mountains and a quiet laid back atmosphere. I loved it out there. I'd love to spend more time out there.

SNAFU Day, part 3

So, continuing on with the story. Needless to say, we arrived back in DTW late. I had already missed my flight home and knew the flights out of DTW in the morning were oversold. This left me with 2 choices. Stay in DTW and hope I can get a jumpseat in the morning, or race across the terminal to catch the last flight to MSP. If I caught this flight, I could spend the night in a lounge chair in ops, then catch the 7 a.m. back home. I'd get in about a half hour sooner than if I were to fly out of DTW. So I choose to race to the last flight.

Enroute from PIA I kept a close eye on our arrival time and on my outbound flight. Thankfully the flight had been delayed several times and with every 5 minute delay, the chances of me getting there in time increased. By the time we landed, I knew I'd have enough time to catch the flight. As soon as we pulled into the gate, I grabbed my flight bag and bolted out the door to do my walk around. Having completed my final flight duties for the trip, I grabbed the rest of my stuff off the plane and headed for the gate.

DTW is a large airport. It takes a solid 15 minutes to get from the Baby gates (B&C gates) to either of the hammer head gates (A 1-10 or A 70-75). I made it in 10. By the time I arrived at the gate the flight had already started boarding. After most of the pax had boarded, I made my way up to the counter and asked if the jumpseat had been taken. Much to my surprise it was not and the gate agent was great. She got me listed and sent me down the jetway to have the Capt. sign my jumpseat form. The flight was full, so I had to ride up front, but I didn't mind, any seat is a good one. The Capt. and F.O were really nice guys and we chatted about the usual industry topics until we pushed back.

The flight was routine for the first hour. It was the last half hour that made things interesting. I was half asleep in the jumpseat when the chime call came in from the Flt Attendants in the back. I didn't pay much attention until I heard the word smoking. The F.O finished his conversation with the F.A and then turned around to tell the Capt. what was going on. Apparently they had a drunk passenger who smoked in one of the aft lav's and was now being belligerent with the F.A's. I was kind of surprised when both the Capt. and F.O said they had never had someone smoke onboard before. They seemed kind of surprised by it, as was I. A few minutes later the F.A called up again. This time it was bacause a little girl sitting in the seat directly in front of the drunk passenger had vomited all over the seat in front of her. According to the little girls father, she was allergic to cigarrette smoke. The drunk passenger had caused the little girl to get sick. The F.A's have had enough and wanted something done about the unruly pax. It was decided that the police should get involved and should meet the plane at the gate.

After we landed and were taxiing to the gate, I could see police cars parked at the bottom of the jetway. As we were pulling into the gate, there were 4 stern looking cops and a gate agent standing there waiting. The Capt. made the announcement to the pax that everyone should remain seated until the police have boarded the aircraft and have taken the offending passenger off the plane. As soon as we parked at the gate, the pilots killed the engines and ran through their shut down checklists and told me to open the cockpit door. They wanted to see what was going on. The police came on board, took the pax off the plane and that was the end of that.

Sitting in the jumpseat, I get to sit back and observe how a crew interacts. I was able to absorb what was going on and saw how the mainline pilots handled the situation. The flight went from a routine flight home to a learning expierence in the span of about 10 minutes. I was glad to have been sitting in the cockpit. I can now take everything I saw and use it later on in my career if I ever have this happen on one of my flights. The flight crew was very professional in how they handled things.

So that was the end of that long, snafu'ed day. All in all, good times.