View Full Version : Possible topics?
Proon seems to be losing momentum a little at present. In terms of interesting threads!
Can I be so bold as to propose!
A day in the life of ?
As various seasons slack off, or have not yet started to gain momentum. Some of you people must have a little time on your hands...
Why not write a essay or memoir about a real working day in your life as a:
Tour pilot
Mustering Pilot (I´d like to hear a few stories from these guys!)
Offshore pilot
EMS pilot
Fire pilot
Charter pilot
Seimic pilot
Instructor pilot... Etc etc!
It might be interesting reading for newbies, and folks engaged in their own field. But wondering what life is like on the other side of the fence!
It doesn´t matter if they´re repetitive, everyone´s day´s are different?
Any takers?
TheFlyingSquirrel
31st Aug 2006, 09:54
Come on then 170' !! Get the ball rolling !;)
TFS
TFS
I´m in the ideas department for the moment!
And haven´t you gone yet? ;)
And No! I don´t have something half written :O
TheFlyingSquirrel
31st Aug 2006, 10:02
was ' gone ' a long time ago !!:}
Hmmm.. not keeping you busy enough then? :)
Phil
Well, it's hot here, but the Summer weather has just broken. Sitting up front is now only marginally less like being in a fan-assisted oven. It's not worth opening the vents as the incoming airflow only moves the dust around.
Luckily, the trip is short - the rigs for our main contract are only 45 nm off the coast and we go out with a tailwind, arrive just in time for a curry lunch, and come back in late afternoon with another tailwind (thank you, sea breezes!). Now winter is coming, though, we can expect some windier days, too much for the boats so we shall get some field moves to break up the day. There is also some longlining to be done on one or two seismic jobs.
The 212s we fly are like driving concourse classic cars - we're very lucky with the maintenance.
As for the locale - well, Dubai is the sort of place where you have to travel 2-3 miles just to move 100 yards - you can never directly go to your destination but invariably have to drive past, make a U-turn and come back on yourself. The drivers are no worse than on the M25, but these guys here will drive directly acrosss three lanes in front of you with no hint of a signal. If you think that's bad, don't even think of driving in Sharjah unless you own a Sherman tank.
Otherwise, it's relatively crime and insect free, and if you wanted to speak another language, you would be better learning Urdu rather than Arabic.
Phil
helopat
31st Aug 2006, 19:41
...arrive just in time for a curry lunch...
Paco, has the curry lunch ever backfired on you :ooh: (no pun intended)...can't imagine a worse place for a case of gastro than when you're in the cockpit...hmmmm, another idea for a topic?:}
HP
N Arslow
31st Aug 2006, 20:21
Last night never above 600 feet (weather limiting) as it was getting dark. Today a 5000 feet hover for an hour.
The next few days off before doing some different/similar work somewhere else around the UK.
I like this job - it's a goodun'! No poaching.
thecontroller
31st Aug 2006, 20:29
Today was absolutely riveting. 8 hours of doing practice exam questions on Great Circles, Rhumb Lines, Polar Stereographic Charts, Mercator Projections etc.
As an FAA pilot in JAA land, this is as good as it gets...
Whirlybird
31st Aug 2006, 20:45
A day in the life of an instructor.....
Got up late, as quiet day. Only one student coming in this afternoon. Been very quiet all week; is everyone away for bank holiday week or what? Checked TAFs, wx looks awful, not flyable, but maybe hoverable. Messed around doing household chores etc. Phoned airfield, wx still awful but should be OK. Drove for an hour to airfield. Met another instructor who said it's horrible out there, constant drizzle which sticks to windscreen so you can hardly see, and getting worse. Checked out R22, and by the time I'd finished, could see what he meant. Student phones, I tell him it's not nice, but maybe hovering in drizzle and poor vis and gusty winds would be good experience, so it's up to him. He asks me what I think someone of his experience should do! We decide he'll come in and we'll give it a try. I sort out paperwork etc, then he phones and says he's not coming after all. Chat, drink coffee, waste time, do what instructors do at an airfield when they're not flying. Drive home feeling totally pissed off.
Frustration - huge
Earnings - nil
And I wouldn't be surprised if I did the same thing tomorrow. :{
Johe02
31st Aug 2006, 21:06
2.7 hours doing ex 4 to below ave student. . . as above. .:ugh:
TiPwEiGhT
31st Aug 2006, 21:34
Today - Got up at 7am, at the office at 9am, coffee, morning chat with everyone, 4.5 hours of trial lessons, got home at 6pm, fed cat, fed myself, opened beer, read paper, on here, bed soon.
Tomorrow - PPL(H) students in all day.
Saturday - Pleasure Flying
Sunday - Fliming job
TiP:ok:
Steve76
31st Aug 2006, 23:32
PNG day:
Rung at 0600 for 0630 departure, take off door, look at forming cloud, drink coffee, wait, 0730 - 1030hr wait for 0630 customers, 1130hrs depart from pad at 8000ft noting rapidly forming cloud, run into cloud at 11000ft, elect to sneak over BKN top at 15000ft, think about fuel, grind teeth, spiral down 6,000ft through hole, land at village, do it all again in reverse, grind teeth, study fuel guage intently, worry about fuel, divert for fuel, grind teeth, curse HF radio, dodge weather, reverse track and go the long long long way around, grind teeth, thank God for extra fuel, think about nice warm donga, sneak into pad, eat, watch TV, call wimmen - wonder why you didn't pretend not to have a phone, sleep. Repeat X 30 days.
or:
Get up at 0530hrs, hook on line, squint down 200 odd ft of kevlar, miss skyhole, backup, deal with power settling while still getting bag in hole, enjoy twisted pleasure as 400kgs of bag sails (almost) uncontrolably down towards upturned face with FM radio and arms waving, find clean air moments from touchdown, swing bag at Nationals, turn off FM radio to eliminate annoying National blabber, aim bag at National, chuckle as National trips over running away while wondering why no reply on FM radio, swing bag, scream at National, swing bag, eat, urinate, swing bag, unkink neck, squint, turn up FM radio, curse man who gave National the radio, scream bloody murder at National, turn down radio, swing bag at National, chuckle as National...., pretend it was an accident, swing bag, deal with power settling, think about urinating, think about wimmen, swing bag, drop line, P/U crew, shrug shoulders "I could'nt hear a thing you were saying, radio's must be playing up?", land, post-preflight 1900hrs, eat, shower, DVD on laptop, Bed. Repeat X 30 days.
Something like that usually...
BigMike
1st Sep 2006, 10:59
Climb out of bed 05.00 on EMS base. Pre-flight 05.30 followed by first caffeine of the day. 06.00 flight operations begin. Snooze on sofa for an hour or so dreaming of corporate flying job with Playboy. Caffeine. 09.00 phone call from dispatch to fly hospital transfer to Brno. Land Brno and chat to pretty nurses ;) Return 10.34 and refuel. 10.43 Red light flashes and alarm sounds for Primary mission, heart attack victim in small village 10 mins flt time from base. Land in backyard of house across the street much to the suprise of locals. Old couple who own house ask how much the helicopter is worth, then declare anything in there backyard belongs to them, and they are now very rich! :D See pic:
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a3/Micksphotos/28-Aug.jpg
Doctor and Paramedic spend 40 mins reviving patient. We bring stretcher into house ready to carry patient but heart stops again, and they cannot be revived. Doctor starts paperwork.
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a3/Micksphotos/28-Aug-2.jpg
12.00 back at base refuel. Lunch, small snooze. Caffeine. 14.00 Caffeine and large piece of home-baked Czech cake, medical still 4 months away... 14.30 Primary mission to main highway. Land beside road, multi car crash but no major injuries. Transport one person to hospital for observation. 15.10 back at base refuel. Caffeine. Surf internet, check pprune… 20.00 end of flight operations for the day. Post-flight inspection and paperwork, paperwork, paperwork… quick beer, sleep :zzz:
A day in the life…..SAR….Part one
Here’s some basic nomenclature:
WO = Winch Operator
One = 1st Rear Crew deployed via winch
Two = 2nd Rear Crew deployed via winch
Standby position = position of the helicopter at the scene. Where the machine is not directly overhead the scene, thereby removing most if not all downwash, and some of the noise! The pilot can look down and to the right and use the scene as a hover reference point.
Move in = moving from the Standby position to the vertical or near vertical!
Move out = the opposite…
Winch out = self explanatory
Winch in = self explanatory
RC = non-specific rear crewmember….
FC = the pilots, normally used in derogatory terms only, if someone (usually me ;-) made a boo boo! Or forgot their turn to pay for coffee!
The WO is the senior guy in back, normally a Para-jumper or Paramedic and is in charge of the cabin and RC. And pretty much in charge of the operation once we’re on task
Standardization is pretty much the norm theses days! But the actual rescue, by nature, requires that you think on your feet. And some latitude is permitted.
In the scenario I’ll try to entertain you with. I’ll try to remember the verbal exchanges as close as possible to verbatim….
The scene:
It’s 11.00am one day last week. We’ve just returned from the coffee shop at the terminal.
All 5 of us were mesmerised in the terminal by the most beautiful woman anyone’s ever seen……wives and girlfriends excepted ;-))
The co-pilot and I are in the pilot’s room, resting on the genuine fake leather sofa’s, that replace the private bedrooms provided at all other company bases!
He’s rattling on about some aviation related issue, and I’m pretending to ‘care’ and secretly daydreaming about the woman in the coffee shop…I just got to the part where she was saying…????
Then the “bat phone” rings…!!!
Well! we haven’t quite reached the...” I don’t care “stage…
SAR duty days are divided into 3 periods.
Arrival... pre-flight- with engineer, after his daily inspection. Weather and Notams…
Followed by one or more visits to the coffee shop…
Followed by email check, proon…various helicopter job sites looking for a better job! Doesn’t matter if the one you have is ok…Old habits die-hard ;-))
This period lasts about 5-6 hours…and is followed by:
I don’t care anymore…this is when you’re sick of waiting for an interesting mission to come up, Now you can take it or leave it! This lasts about another 4-5 hours. Followed by!
They better not call now!
Machine is clean and tied down, all plugs are in, and any kind of mission now means we’ll be going into overtime tonight! Every mission means an engine wash and winch cable wash at the very least! (Highly salt laden atmosphere)
But…we haven’t reached …I don’t care anymore……… yet!
So the next thing is, the WO runs by shouting “We have a mission” followed by another rear crew calling by cell phone to say, “We have a mission” followed by the other RC running up the stairwell and saying, “we have a mission”…
Naturally! I walk out and shout: “Do we have a mission?”
Four voices shout in unison! “Yes”
I put my flight suit on and tie my boots. I’m still on the 2nd floor so
I shout down…Mountain or sea?…
I get 2 “mountains”, a “sea” and one “I don’t know”?
I can see things are moving along smoothly, or as smooth as it get´s around here ;-)
So I head for the helo!
The engineer has pulled the plugs and tiedowns...And is standing by!
I climb in and we have our usual discussion about GPU or no GPU…
It’s a huge prehistoric thing, and the guy gets a bad back every time he drags it around.
The airport authority won’t let us leave it co-located with the ship!
So I call for start clearance, and get number 2 flashed up, while P2 is finishing a last minute walk around with the engineer….Start number 1 while P2 is strapping in…
I finish the flow pattern and P2 reads the checklist. We do a challenge and response as a check list, not a do list…I’ve already done the doing, this is just confirmation!
We don’t get co-ordinates until the last minute, if at all…often it’s “ in the region of ” such and such a town. Mountain, beach etc… and we fine tune it on route to the scene!
In this case we got co-ordinates from RCC but they were wrong anyway…
We only operate up to 12nm out to sea on standard missions, with a standard fuel load. So PNR/CP issues are all standard figures. Outside this distance, we can take as much time as needed for FP purposes.
“Rescue 31 is ready on the south ramp” VFR to the west with Kilo”
“Rescue 31 is cleared via VFR 2, and then westbound, not above 1000… from present position… cleared for take-off ”…. We’re around 8-9 minutes after the call…
We launch from the ramp area, and hang a left at 300’..I have the a/c and victor radio, while P2 gets all the info he can from RCC…I head in a generally westward direction. Heading south of west to avoid the mountain at 12.00 o’clock…
P2 comes up with a rough heading, and throws it in the GPS…It’s about 20 minutes away.
Only thing we have heard from the scene, is its one or three victims’ no-ones sure?
And he/she or them, are either half way down a cliff face, or have fallen onto the rocks where it levels out into the ocean.
We hit the co-ordinates and find nothing, so cruise up the coast a little way. And see a bunch of rescue vehicles parked on a high road, winding down the ravine…
The on scene commander calls on FM, and warns us of power lines in the vicinity…
We do a high recon and see the power lines are running pretty close to the victim (one female) and then angle away… Behind the primary wires, is a SWER line maybe 100 metres back up the ravine…
We do a second recon and decide it’s too risky for a let down between the wires, so we’ll enter the ravine from seawards, low and slow, following the ravine bottom upwards, under the wires, and set down on a flat spot about 2-300’ below the scene!
In the event of a no landing possible due rough terrain…An RC will hover dismount, and mountain goat it up to the scene, and take control…possibly look for a place she can be stretchered to, away from the wires..
When we get to the flat spot, it’s ok for landing. And large enough for a second machine if needed, so we park to one side and shut down…This is not going to happen real quick.
We have 2 other machines co-located at our base.., plus another 2 within 60nm each direction. So in these circumstances, a shutdown is the ‘ Lesser of two evils!’
If we keep turning and burning for an hour, we might have to pull out for fuel, and delay the rescue. So the minimal risk of our well-maintained machines not starting is justified.
The RC are all fit enough for Olympic tryout, and after 3 minutes, 2 of them are on scene…I’m talking nearly vertical rock face…I estimated about 30 minutes if I had to do it myself! ;-))
The senior RC called on portable FM, and explained the situation from the scene.
We have a woman who fell asleep at the wheel. While driving down a canyon road during the previous night! … One of the very rare scenarios where not wearing a seatbelt saved her life! She’s been ejected from the car, and the car was now small enough to fit in a u-haul trailer…
We don’t get too much into injury extent, as any decision has to be made on a basis of sound airmanship…not because someone who’s already a victim, might suffer more due to time factors….
It’s tough sometimes, especially when the injuries are self-evident. But as aircrew, we have to put the safety of our crew and the machine first…Nothing’s to be gained by adding five more to the accident tally…
The RC on site explained that the wires are actually around 30 meters from the overhead position. And then angle away fairly quickly. And the RC’s agree it’s tight, but do-able from their point of view…
We have a basic rule, that if anyone in the crew says’s no-go! It’s a no-go…If this happened, we’d ask attending ground crew to go for option B…Whatever that might be!
As there was no viable Option B in this case, it was good to hear that the guys thought it was do-able…
To be continued:
We briefed the operation by radio…it took around 6 minutes, with everyone playing ‘Devils advocate’ and then finding a solution for each eventuality!
When everyone thought we had all the bases covered…we re-started with no problem. But with a solid plan for all the eventualities we could imagine…
We departed the LZ vertically, with the tail turned out from the hill to give the WO a clear view of the wire behind us...He monitored the distance from the rear SWER line while the P2 and I focussed on the major wires ahead…
Basically, we just climbed vertically up the hill and arrived at the standby position. More or less level with the major wire group. Level with the road, and about 30-50 meters out of the vertical…
When the WO was ready, he called….” move in”….
At this point, I still had visual contact with the victim/scene. And could use it to maintain position.
As we move sideways, I started to lose Visual contact and called…”Contact lost!”
The WO then takes over as my eyes, and gave me the following calls:
Forward 2… right 10….
These figures are not feet or meters, but figures that represent distance, and rates of closure…The speed at which I close with his chosen position, will determine the next call.
It should only need a few calls to get me in position. If it’s gusting etc. It might take a few more. The key here is it’s better to move too slowly, than to move too fast…Particularly when you have live bodies on the hook.
In the case in point, we have trained rescue personnel in position to receive the guideline. They’ve humped it up from the flat spot, to the ravine where the victim is lying.
Often the first ‘winch out’ is a RC with no guideline. But it’s more dangerous…if we can get a guideline into the hands of a responsible person, it’s safer.
In the following calls, imagine a pause between the numerical call-outs.
Long or short duration pauses, depending on how quickly/accurately I’m responding to his instructions…Basically I’m a kind of second-rate autopilot for the WO, but lack the circuitry to perform exactly the same under all conditions ;-)
WO calls….” Forward 20…10…5…. Forward 5…. 4…. 3…Forward 3….2…. steady…forward 2…forward 1…steady…. (Hold position)…right 1…steady…back 2…back 1...Steady!...Hold position!
We’re now in the vertical position, or the position the WO prefers for the next step!
WO Calls…” Guide line (aux line) going down”….”Guide line ½ way down”…
”back 1…steady!”
“Back1”…. “Steady” …”Guideline on the ground” (for static discharge).
“RC has the guideline…”
The WO continues his call outs!
If we were in a ‘normal’ rescue situation, where we have no-one on the ground yet… we’d have to put the guys down like this:
“One… (first rescue guy) leaving cabin”… “One’s…on the skid”..…!”winching out”….
“One’s ½ way down”…”One’s approaching the ground”…. “Steady!” …”One’s on the ground!”
“One’s unhooked”….”Guide line is attached!”
“Move out!”
During this procedure, the Pilot is trying to maintain a perfect hover…Sometimes it’s damned near perfect…other times it’s a battle…but you cannot under any circumstance lose the plot…If you have an inadvertent gust, swing etc…You have to put it out of your mind. And get immediately back in the game…
As I move out to standby position, I call “contact” when the scene comes into view.
As we are “Moving out”…The RC is feeding us more Guideline, and we have a loop of guideline from the ground to the ships winch hook…
The RC we just put down, will do his medical assessment, and decide on what he wants…If he has willing and capable hands available…He’ll tell us to standby, using hand signals. If he needs another RC to help him…He’ll signal his needs…In this case, we’d move back in and put another RC down …Then move out again…
Mountain rescues can be more dangerous than sea rescues. Because if a line breaks, or we suffer momentary control problems, etc, it means the RC on the line might be in real peril…the typical ravines we work in are real ‘tiger country’. Rocks and cross-gullies everywhere… So we try to limit the guys going down via winch to an absolute minimum…The RC normally will try to accomplish things on his own if possible, and avoid the exposure to his colleagues .
Ok…So here we are… We have crewmembers on the ground. We are attached to them via a guideline…. and we just wait…we have the option of recovering the Guideline if it’s appropriate for the situation, and departing for a kind of traffic pattern/circuit…
Which is exactly what we do, if hover power required, takes us into and beyond 5-minute power…If we are in 5 min power, the co-pilot calls out the minutes starting with 3 to go, two to go, etc…I relay to the WO so he can plan his operation appropriately, knowing we’re going to need to break off for a couple of minutes.
In the incident in question…we have 30-35 kts on the nose and Q is in the high seventies…So we hold position.
The RC and helpers stabilize the victim…then the RC signals for a litter…
Now while we were at the ‘Flat spot’ with the scene commander…I told the RC that once we get the victim on board. We’ll depart for the hospital and recover the RC later.
They can either wait at the flat spot, or return with the ground pounders to the hospital.
I asked them to call us after the operation was complete via cell phone, and tell us what they want to do? (We have cell phones installed in the machines, hooked thru the comms system to your helmet)
Again what we don’t want over this kind of terrain is to risk a RC if we don’t have to…
So ….The WO calls…”Move in”…I call “moving in”…”Contact lost”
He says! Right 20-forward 3…right 10…forward 2…. stop forward…right 3….right 2…steady… Hold position!
Now for the Litter/victim recovery, we don’t have to go to the true vertical…as we might have to do when we deploy the RC…. The winch limit for recovery is 30-degrees from the vertical, but we use a 20-degree maximum, to account for possible control error……
So if we’re within the 20-degree limit we’re ready to go…
He asks me if the hover is stable! (Remember we’re on the crest of a canyon with 30-35 kt winds)
I say yes…He calls “winching in” and the litter is recovered with the RC on the ground controlling any swing with the guide line, and the WO still giving me ‘steers’…right 1..steady…back 1…steady…etc…
WO calls “litter ½ way up”…”Litter approaching the skids”….”Litter at the door”….”litter coming in”…..”Litter in cabin”….
Wait a short time and he calls…”Cabin and victim secure”…”Door closing”….
At this point we can start to accelerate up to 60 kts in this particular machine….He then calls doors secure!…We check the door lights on the CWP and if lights are out, we fly away to the hospital, securing winch supply power as the doors are closed..
But in this particular rescue…We don’t fly away!
We back off the major power lines a few feet, and I start a left slide down the mountainside, back into the canyon floor and depart the way we came in…We get established in the climb and the co-pilot asked why we didn’t just take off straight ahead, climbing over the power lines…We already had some altitude… “We went down, only to climb up again!”
I was tired, so I said it was “secret captain ****! “
Once we got going back to the hospital I asked him to fly…….
Explanation of why we didn’t climb out straight ahead….
Which I passed on to P2 after I got my energy back...
It’s not hard work. But you get a little fried, maintaining the best no movement hover you can, mostly because you have a life on the line, literally and figuratively… and if you’re not a little tense in this situation, you’ve got a screw loose!. The biggest fear is that you may do something to make the situation worse…
Here we are, heavier now, as we recovered the litter with an ‘economy size’ victim.
Q is in the late seventies, early eighties and we can’t back up, and get a run at it, to get Vtoss plus, before we hit the ‘wire zone’…These wires are multi rack HV lines about 80-100’ from top to bottom…
As we can’t back up to get a run at them because of the SWER line behind us, it means both full power and a vertical climb…not a good scenario if you can avoid it!…
Or taking off towards power lines only 15 meters away…and hoping we don’t lose an engine…
Now it probably sounds incongruous to say that there’s a risk of engine failure, and possible ‘wire catastrophe’…considering we’ve just been hovering OGE in hostile terrain for the last 15 minutes. But this is the fine line in the wonderful world of helicopters…. We do what we have to do, when we have to do it, in the calculated risk sense!
But we never take a single risk we don’t have to…
In this operation, we’re far better descending within the HV diagram, low power applied etc, passing terrain we flew in over…Than heading out climbing and accelerating over heavy duty wires which may or may not be exactly where they appear to be…
To wind it up, we got the woman to hospital and the Doctors said the prognosis was fine and she’d make a full recovery!
A funny anecdote about this particular rescue…!
As we’re flying back to the hospital, P2 on the sticks…
I half turned in my seat and asked the WO how the victim was doing…
He said, “She’s cold”…
Well this is a euphemism for ‘she died’…
We’re not supposed to use words like death, died etc, in case a co-survivor can read lips …and the RC are not certified to call anyone dead…It has to be a doctor!
The fact that their head might be in a different bag to the body, doesn’t come into it. They’re alive until a doctor says their not!
So I’m thinking to myself, what a shame, she only looks to be 25 or so!
Then she opens her eyes and smiles at me..
I said…She’s not dead! You dopey bastards”
The WO looked at me and said, what do you mean?
I said “you said she’s cold”…
He said…” Oops “ I meant she’s cold, and can you close your window”
So when we did the de-brief after getting back to base…I asked the RC to load victims feet first in future…
I’m too old for dead people to look at me and smile! ;)
170’
What Limits
1st Sep 2006, 19:28
To commemorate my 200th post, I shall attempt to do a blog of my day.
0400 in bed following busy night shift.
0700 awake after wife clatters about a bit
doze off, disturbed by formation of HEMS landing at the hospital next door.
awake after my dog barks at the postman x2
decide to get up at about 1030, actually get up at 1130
loaf around with breakfast and coffee, read ceefax news, email, pprune and european asu forum
decide to go for a run as I am supposed to be training for a half marathon very soon. Happy with training run, enjoy endorphins on toast for lunch, watch Discovery Channel for a little while.
Sh1t, Shower and shave.
Decide to leave for work earlier than normal to beat the Friday traffic.
Arrive at about 1630 for coffee and banter
1700 shift commences, good handover, all serviceable and weather looks good. Relief observer and visitor tonight so time taken to familiarise them with some new kit.
1730 job involving person on roof threatening to do something, arrive overhead, identify, observe person having a short conversation with large police dog, observe person giving themselves up. A peaceful resolution.
Back to base, do the monthly returns and fax them to the relevant people. Being Chief Pilot does have its downsides, especially having to keep a close eye on the other pilots - their paperwork can be crap.
2025 - microwave on. Sometimes we have take-out food, but tonight its a Stag Chilli and Rice - WOW.
Watching some crap telly - No cable or satellite - phone rings, its a crap job carefully and craftily fended off by one of the observers.
2245 - Coffee and chocolate bar - must keep up the blood sugar level.
2246 - Pursuit - Motorcycle, 2 up, no insurance, outstanding warrants, failing to stop - approaching the force boundary, you know its all going to go wrong but miraculously and due in part to a crucial position report by the helicopter, the handover goes smoothly between forces. Soon the motorcyclists attempt to de-camp but are apprehended by the officers following in the car. Hoorah!!
2335 - More coffee perhaps ?
0035 - Routine reconnaissance over the big city, result negative which is positive because whoever wanted this done won't have to look there for whatever they were looking for. On the way back nearly got involved in something else but were not required after all.
0130 - Definately coffee time !
0210 - Thinking about wrapping it up as we finish at 0300. Paperwork all settled ready for day shift. Aircraft still in good shape despite age (like me), but going to the menders on Monday for a big service. Still time for a local job though !
0230 - No more jobs, just need to complete the paperwork and put the aircraft to bed.
0300 - Off shift
0400 - Into bed.................
Marc.1234
1st Sep 2006, 21:02
170 une petite histoire au sujet du Cameroun? :E
Hiro Protagonist
1st Sep 2006, 22:06
Tours in Vegas…
0600 – Briefing: Usually amounts to, “No TFRs, no NOTAMS, It’s gonna be hot, and maybe a chance of TS this afternoon (we all hope so). Some of you have been screwing up (you know who you are) – stop it! Good Day.”
0615 – Out to the line. Preflight, “How much fuel do I get?” Thinking is not an issue, as we either get “one way” or “round trip” fuel determined by dispatch after pax. weigh in.
0700 – Pax. arrive. (earlier if you’re not ready, later if you’ve been ready to go now for 15 min.) “Do you have any questions re. your briefing?” (invariably no) Re-brief all pax. on use of seatbelts and how (not) to open doors. “Ok, my manifest says you’re seated as follows…” It now becomes clear they paid no attention to video or hands-on brief. Seatbelts are now in states that are topologically impossible. Re-fasten seatbelts for pax. in need (as a rule, hot chicks have no trouble, but corn-fed Midwesterners need remedial seatbelt training.)
0710 – (Ten minutes late) Start-up, hover out, call tower for clearance on the Tropicana 2 departure. Up we go. “XXX Over the Garage 2,700”, “XXX proceed east on the Trop” As we near 3,500’ we get handed to departure “LAS departure, XXX 3.5 on the Trop.” “XXX, LAS approach roger” (It’s funny 70% of the time if you call ‘em departure, they’ll call themselves approach, If you call ‘em approach, they’ll id. themselves as departure, I think contradicting us is the highlight of their day.)
Once clear of the “B”, squawk 1200, change to the Lake Mead advisory freq. (120.65) and fly the route.
Talk about the Dam.
Talk about the Lake,
Talk about stuff you’re pretty sure the company made up in order to entertain the tourists.
Answer questions.
List of sample answers:
“No, there are no sharks in the lake.” (or sometimes, “yes, they escaped from Dr. Evil’s lair and they have frickin’ laser-beams attached to their heads.”)
“The lake is manmade. It’s created by the Hoover Dam.” (this answer is invariably used within the five minutes AFTER flying s-turns around the dam, and explaining how it was built in the 1930’s, etc…)
“The presidents heads? You mean Mt. Rushmore?, No we won’t be seeing that today, it’s about 800 miles northeast of here.”
“Usually three or four times a day.”
“Nope, I never get tired of seeing this!” So as to avoid lying, make sure to look at something other than the unchanging scenery when you say this. I try to look at my dark C/W panel and it’s true, I never get tired of seeing the panel dark. NOTE: for some reason Aussies have the unique ability to discern that flying the same route three of four times a day would get old no matter how spectacular the scenery, and so, refreshingly, when there’s Aussies on board you often get to answer truthfully, “Yeah, it gets pretty dull after awhile.”
Fly straight and level a lot.
0755 – Land in the canyon and set up picnic baskets, pour champagne (from California, I hear it’s good / awful, I haven’t tried it.), chat with pax. (see above for answers.)
0825 – Round up pax. (should have as many as started the journey), load up, fly back.
0900 - Land, shut down, let out pax., and hope they’re clued into tipping.
0930 – Repeat.
1200 – Repeat.
1430 – lunch break (Timing varies depending on scheduling.) Look at JH, JSFirm, etc. for dream job (which will, of course, be advertised any day now.)
1700 – Repeat. Hope you don’t exceed your 14 hour duty day.
When we’re lucky, the thunderstorms will blow up in the afternoon, and we’ll dust off our thinking caps, and attempt to make a decision. This is a new and interesting experience, but can be hard, since it’s been so long since we made our last one.
If we do turn back, there’s often the challenge of explaining to the irate (insert non English speaking nationality here) pax. that were not going to the Grand Canyon because of weather that they can’t see.
That's about it. It's not BAD work, I tend to actually like my employer and our maintenence is good, and I love my schedule (7/7) ...It's just :zzz:.
It would be better with an Aser story in it? ;)