Newsflash!!!!
I actually condescended to check out the rumoured working conditions for Lagos-based r/w pilots (I am f/w aviator, me) by taking a trip on the jumpseat from Lagos (DNMM) to Snake Island and then way offshore to the Bonga Field and back. My findings:
Good:
Free sandwiches.
Change of scenery.
Not so good:
Cockpit air conditioning not working, somehow.
Far too many dials and switches littering non-EFIS cockpit (v. confusing).
Surprising amount of serious weather found at FL015.
Alarming dress sense exhibited by oil workers offshore (pony tails, grubby orange boiler suits). Tsk, tsk....
Still waiting for promised Air Medal.
Conclusions: No serious grounds for moaning when forced to do up to seven (7) sectors in cockpit temperatures up to 28 degrees C. with (sadly often) no sandwiches.
Newsflash II:
Departed Lagos on Virgin yesterday morning from Rwy 19L (Rwy 19R closed for resurfacing to be completed 'any time from now') with confirmed sighting of open hangar doors and one Agusta 109 helicopter parked out on the Caverton ramp, rotors not running. So Caverton still exists. No confirmed Skip sightings since a while now, however. Is he shunning us, Mennonite style? If so, what did we do wrong? Advice on a postcard, please....
In conclusion, let me state that I am perhaps a better person for this brief glimpse into the life of those little blue rhomboids that appear on our TCAS every time we overfly the oil patch. My goodness, what a lot goes on out there at low, almost sea-, level! A whole different world, as it were....
chuks