home in Oregon, Monday 1995-11-20 14:30 local (Z-5)
HOME AT LAST. The final score is 131 hours of flying within the last 30 days (actually done in 26 days), 95 hours in this calendar month, 45 in the last 7 days. It was almost all legal. The last trip was a ferry from Paris to JFK under what's called Part 91 of the Federal Aviation Regulations, and there are no flight time limitations under that part since you're not carrying any passengers or cargo for hire. Actually at the last moment, they put a couple of pallets of cargo on, figuring that since the airplane was going that way, they might as well send some stuff that would have been put on the regularly scheduled airplane later that day. We didn't realize they'd done it until the last moment. There was no one who could replace me, and making them take off the cargo (just a couple of pallets) would have delayed the flight, and the airplane was due to be used for the New York to Tel Aviv flight as soon as it got back. The captain gave me my choice as to what to do. I just said, “Hey, I didn't hear anything about any cargo,” and we went.
The good thing about the present situation is that they can't touch me for revenue flying until the 28th, until I drop enough of the 131 hours to get down around 110 in the last 30 days. And, since I'll be on my days off, I won't be answering the phone. That's the phone that runs into my computer by the way, and that's the only one they know about. Sneaky of me, huh? <g> Actually a lot of the pilots have some kind of arrangement like that. Crew scheduling knows it's done, but what can they do. I for one am very careful to use that phone rather than our regular phone whenever I do call them in case they have caller ID. Wouldn't want to let them know the real number.
There's one fly in the ointment. Bids will be out Monday. They never get to the house in time to bid, so if I want to bid, I'll have to call them tomorrow and have them fax them to me. However, I'll still be 8 days away from being usable, and they don't think that far ahead. They should, but they don't. The bids really don't mean much. This month, for example, I didn't fly a single trip that was on the bid line I was awarded.
I got back to JFK to find out that they had indeed scheduled me for the sim early this morning, so no time to do anything but sleep for a few hours and then show up at the TWA training center at JFK. Guess what, scheduling fouled up, the instructors didn't show until 10:00, then a 2 hour briefing, then a 3 hour sim session (a 15 minute break about two thirds of the way through).
The sim session went better than I had expected it to. I didn't really screw up at all during the first 2 hours. After we came back from the break, I was getting pretty tired and screwed up twice, but not seriously. So, it's a relief to have that out of the way. We have to have a sim check every 6 months. If you don't get it in the month it's due, the next month is considered a grace month. In my case, it was due in October, so November was my grace month. The rule is that if you fail to get in in the grace month, all flying done in that month is considered to be illegal. The standard fine to the airline is $1,000 per flight hour. Thus, in my case, Tower stood to be fined $98,000 if it didn't get done. The pilot gets something like a 30 day suspension. Most airlines give priority to training over operating. Tower is an exception. Priority is given to operating until the very last minute.
I have a correction to make. I had been told that the troops we were hauling out of Bombay to Croatia would be Indian troops. Wrong, they turned out to be Malaysian troops. They came out of Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. The Bombay stop was to refuel and change crews. So, my apologies to the Indian government for wondering why they didn't move their own troops. Now, of course, I'm wondering why Malaysia doesn't move their own troops. Actually, the answer is probably simply that the U.N. pays the bill since it's a U.N. operation.
By the way, the bureaucracy in Croatia is alive and well (unfortunately). They tied up an entire page in my passport for a visa. I've never had a country do that when I was an operating crew member. Worse, they give you a new visa each time you go in. I lucked out when I went in the second time, for some reason the gal just looked at my visa from the previous trip and let me pass with only another stamp. Everybody else had another page wasted in their passport when they got another full visa.
To say that I'm feeling lousy physically at the moment is a real understatement. I'm very glad to be headed home and glad to have the sim check out of the way, but I feel really terrible. During the flight yesterday I started a slight, hacking cough. It's full blown today along with a sore throat. Obviously, I've exhausted myself. I'm in that mode where I sleep for about 4 hours then wakeup but only feel good for about 4 hours. I hate it when this happens.
Time to go...Terry