All Night Flights

There was a good editorial in the USA Today about pilots, fatigue and all-night flights.

Flying all night sucks. That is the bottom line and it is unsafe.

The person who wrote the piece wouldn't say it was unsafe but I will.

An all night flight usually leaves the westcoast around 10pm which is 1am Eastern, which is the time that my body thinks it is.

I am reasonably coherent for the take-off and about 1 hour into the flight.

About 3am body time, I am dead. I feel like I've been run over by a truck and I want to puke.

On descent and landing, I feel like I'm swimming through a big bowl of jello. Everything is hard to do and I feel like I'm in slow motion. It's hard to concentrate or even realize what is going on.

On a landing the other night, we landed with a tailwind of about 8 knots. The copilot landed a little bit long and we rolled to the end of the runway. I've never been to the end of that runway. That was interesting. It's only after the fact that you realize that the landing and roll out was not exactly what you would do or hope for if you were fully awake.

They've done studies on people to see the affect on staying up all night long, fatigue factor and then driving. It's like being legally drunk. So if you can't fly after consuming alcohol, why can you fly after being up all night which has the same effect?

I know. Money. That's the reason. That's the reason any safety issue is disregarded. Money. And the only reason pilots don't crash everytime after an all night flight is skill, experience and luck.

Think about how you feel in the back of the plane after an all-night flight. And you probably got a few minutes or hours of sleep. We are not allowed to sleep in the cockpit. Although most pilots do sleep and take turns. You feel much better after 30-45 minutes of sleep.

And I've tried every technique to get rested for the all night flight.

You can't. I don't care if you slept for 6 hours before, you would still feel horrible about 3-4am body time. And you can't sleep 6 hours before anyway. 1-2 hours sometime during the day is normal for me.

The international flights get in about 2am body time. That's not too bad and they have a relief pilot and are allowed to sleep for several hours during the flight in the cabin.

Not us. Because the flight is only 4.5 hours or so we are supposed to be able to handle it. I can, but I don't do a very good job of it.

All airlines should be closed form midnight to 6am. That's what I think.

The San Francisco Marathon

I was just in SF and they are getting ready for the SF Marathon this weekend.

It looked like fun.

But, there is nothing I hate to do more than run.

If I ran 100 miles or whatever it is, I would either die or be hospitalized for a month.

My body is not made for running. I don't look like a runner. I never have. When I was a kid, my nickname in the neighborhood was bruiser. Which then transformed, much to my mother's horror to, boozer. Not a good nickname for a 12 year old.

If I try to run now, my body hurts all over. It really hurts. It hurts when I run and it really hurts after.

I like lifting weights, working out, whatever, but no running please.

I can do the eliptical thing or the treadmill. No running please.

Those poor people this weekend.

Go get em boys and girls.

Gary in India

This is news to no one and I'm sure a very tired thing to talk about, But.....

I got this free Dell printer with a Dell computer that I bought.

I'm driving all over the place to get a ink cartridge for the printer and can't find one anywhere.

That is because, Dell printer cartridges are only sold by Dell.

It says so in big letters on my computer everytime I tried to print something and it said I was out of ink. Who would read instructions like that? Hello?

All I saw was it was out of ink. That was all I needed to know.

So, I tried to order online. That didn't work. For some reason it didn't like my zipcode. Who knows why. I would think I would be the resident expert on what my zip code is but evidently Dell knows better.

So I call the 800 number to order and got "Gary".

Now Gary speaks English, I guess. With a very thick Indian accent. I can't understand much of what "Gary" said. So I hung up on him. Plus he kept insisting I was Mr. Frederickson. I'm not, but Mr. Frederickson must have had my telephone number before and Gary was seeing it pop up on his computer in his hovel in India.

Oooops, I said a bad thing about India. I'm sure that my friends would be appalled as they always are when I say I don't like India. I don't I don't I don't. I especially don't like Gary.

I want to talk to Mary Lou in West Virginia, or a real Gary in Buffalo. I don't want India! They don't speak English and have no idea what I'm talking about.

I have no confidence that if I did convince "Gary" that I was not Mr Frederickson and if I could actually get him to understand what I wanted, that I would actually get it.

And why if you are going to pick a name would you pick Gary?

Corporate Profits and Growth

Here's something else I don't understand.

Let's say you're Starbucks.

You have a zillion stores and you are making so much money that you don't know where to stash it all.

Wall Street and the investors say, great! But......

You have to do more next year and more the next year and open more stores and conquer more markets and heaven forbid that you don't increase your sales.

Why?

If you are doing really well, what would be the problem if Starbucks never opened another store or never sold more coffee than they are now?

If they are very profitable and make a lot of money, what's wrong with the status quo?

Every Christmas they say the same thing.

Year to year sales were only up by 3.2%. Hello? They were up! We buy too much stuff anyway.

Why does it continually have to go up and up at a ridiculous pace?

Uncertainty

Doesn't it seem that the world is much less certain these days.

Oil prices are crazy. N Korea is crazy. The Middle East is crazy. And of course the Bushman is certifiable.

Maybe it's always been like this. Maybe I just don't remember.

It used to be that we worried about the USSR blowing us to smithereens. And they worried about the same thing.

Now everything is nuts.

Some people would say that it is all signs from the Bible and the end times are near.

And some people are happy about that.

Why would you be happy about that?

Global warming, crisis this, crisis that. I want to go live in the middle of nowhere in a cabin. With satellite TV and highspeed internet of course.

By the way.

The 3 month old BMW that was hit from the rear and was just fixed a few weeks ago?

Remember that one?

It got hit yesterday. Again. This time she was a 18 year old female who crashed into us. This time the poor car took a direct hit on the left front. The door won't open and the wheel is bent.

At least the damage is on a new spot and we're working our way around the car.

Next accident....right front!

New Orleans

I wonder what's up with New Orleans?

I know it's still really messed up but you don't hear anything about it anymore.

That's the way the media is. They descend on something, give way too much attention to it in the beginning, everything is a crisis, and then poof, it's gone.

But it's not.

The Bush man promised to rebuild New Orleans. Is that happening?

I know that flying in there a few months back at about 2000 ft this really bad smell came into the cockpit.

The truth is hard to find.

Recovery

I am really really tired. I slept 12 hours last night and it doesn't look like I'm going to get out of the house today. Hopefully tomorrow I will start to feel like a human again. These last 18 days were intense. So much unneccesary drama.

Why can't people just do their jobs?

It would make everything so much easier.

I'm Back

I was gone for almost 3 weeks.

I can't tell you where because it's a secret.

So what's up with this Lebanon Israeli thing?

It's of course on the news 24/7.

I'm not sure what to make of it. Why is it so important? Why is it on the news all the time?

Other wars aren't on TV constantly and no one cares about them.

Is it because this one may involve oil?

Would we even care about the middle east if they didn't have oil?

And wouldn't that really stink if you lived in Lebanon and had to evacuate because you are going to get bombed.

We really have it good over here.

Blogs Closing Down

Two of my favorite blogs closed down recently.

That sucks.

One was a blog of a guy going through USAF pilot training. He probably got shut down because somebody of importance read some of the things he said. He was telling the truth, but in the military that's not always a good course of action.

The second one was of a guy talking about his life.

It was really good and I could relate to alot of what he said. I really enjoyed it.

But for personal reasons it too is gone.

It's like a big steel door closes and you can't get behind the curtain and see anymore.

A friend of mine shut his down a few months ago.

What's going on?

I think its Cheney and the NSA.

How do kids sleep?

This mother gets off the plane holding a probably 1-2 year old.

The kid is out. Limp. Sound asleep. And it is really noisy. Very noisy. The kid doesn't move.

I could no more sleep with all that commotion going on. How do kids do it?

The Wallet

The past 4 weeks, the Delta employees have been exceptionally hateful.

I have no idea why. Maybe it's hot.

You would surprised to learn that most Delta employees hate pilots. That is a sentiment that is carefully tended to by management. And most Delta employees won't help each other. We're all on the same team but we don't act like it.

The flight attendants hate the pilots. The rampers hate everybody. On and on.

So, I'm putting my bags in a closet the other day because we had to sit at the airport for 4 hours before our next flight. We do that alot.

And I find some pilot' wallet. Money, credit cards, pilot license, everything sitting right there. So I hide it in my bag so someone doesn't snag it and I look up his phone numbers in the computer and call him. He's not there so I leave him a message. About 2 hours later he comes blasting in the pilot lounge, finds me and I give him his wallet.

He then proceeds to thank me profusely and wants to give me a reward and acts like no one in the world would do such a magnificent deed.

What?

It's called being a human being and doing unto other as you would have them do unto you.

I didn't scale a mountain or put my life on the line. I simply put the wallet in my bag.

It's a sad commentary on our society when something that should be ordinary is so extra-ordinary.

The Kid

I was walking to the gate in Atlanta the other day to fly to points west.

Ahead of me is this 8-10 year old kid who an unaccompanied minor.

That means that his parents have paid extra to have a Delta employee escort him from flight to flight and when he arrives wherever he's going then someone that they have designated will show ID and sign for him.

Anyway, the guy escorting him is about 30.

I hear their conversation.

Kid: You married?

Delta guy: What?

Kid: You married?

DG: No

Kid: It's no wonder. I've been looking at all the girls who work here and they're all nasty.



I almost fell on the floor. That was so funny from that little kid.

The guy of course had no sense of humor and didn't say a word.

I congratulated the dear child on his expert observation skills.

Hide Your Beer!

We really live in a weird country.

I'm on the BART train in San Francisco and this guy gets off at a stop that is above ground. Outdoors. He has a rollerboard suitcase and kinda looks homeless but not incredibly obvious.

Before the train leaves, I watch him open his bag and pull out a can of Budweiser beer. He also has one of those little bags that the can just fits in. He quickly puts the can in the bag. Opens the can and enjoys his Bud.

He looked very concerned that someone would see him with this can of beer in public and he was greatly relieved when it was safely hidden behind the brown bag.

What in the world is up with that?

I know it has to be against some law to drink beer in public.

But that is ridiculous.

You can still smoke in public. You do lots of things that are bad for you in public.

Like eat a funnel cake. That's bad for you. And you get a sugar high.

What is so freaky about our society that we can't drink a can of beer in public and have to sneak it behind a small bag?

It's like the Taliban is around the corner.