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Jakarta, Monday, 1995-04-24 14:00 local (Z+7)
Hello, All....
I finally succeeded in figuring out how to log on to Compuserve from here a few minutes ago. Actually it turned out to be pretty simple. Jakarta appears to be one of these places where Internet connections are complicated and expensive but Compuserve is easy and only the cost of a local phone call.
I went 2 years, 6 months, and 27 days between my last flight for Evergreen and my first for Tower, and I thought I probably never would fly again and certainly not in a 747. Anyway, though I'm having to fly as a first officer rather than as a captain, it's good to be back in the air.
The current task is to get through IOE (Initial Operating Experience). My first leg (JFK to Amsterdam) wasn't pretty, but I at least had the excuse of not having flown in such a long time. Departure out of New York was last Fridy night. It went okay, but the aircraft was a real dog even though we had only 200+ on board—obviously not one of their better aircraft. Even the captain commented on the aircraft's lack of performance considering the small load.
The enroute portion was through the North Atlantic MNPS airspace, and I had forgotten many of the MNPS (Minimum Navigational Performance Specifications) procedures. That didn't count against me too badly since Tower had neglected to cover that topic in the ground school.
The approach into Amsterdam was embarassing. We got a number of quick controller changes and reroutes, and I got behind the airplane a bit. That was complicated by the fact that the check captain wanted the aircraft flown by having me control the autopilot rather than just hand flying it, a procedure that I never used at Evergreen and which Evergreen discouraged. At least I got a smooth touchdown, but at the last minute I had to add power. I did it a bit unevently (more power on the right engines than on the left) and that caused a left drift at the last. Touchdown was well to the left of centerline, easily the worst landing in that respect that I have ever made in a 747.
The practice at Evergreen was that you hand-flew the aircraft to the initial cruise altitude and then engaged the autopilot. At the top of descent you disengaged the autopilot and hand-flew the approach. At Tower they wanted the autopilot engaged as soon as the airplane was cleaned up for the enroute climb and not disengaged until you were on final. Of course, at neither carrier were those things strictly enforced, depending on the captain.
We had a couple of hours rest at the Hilton on the airport in Amsterdam, and then commercialed to Jakarta. Since the rest wasn't anywhere near a legal rest, we were considered to be on duty the whole time. By the time I checked into the hotel in Jakara, I had been on duty 34 hours straight. Tower has a policy called “extended duty” which states that after you have been on duty 16 hours, you are considered to be on extended duty and, for pay purposes, the extended duty is considered to have started at 14 hours. Thus, I came up with 20 hours of extended duty. When you're on extended duty, you're paid $50 per hour in addition to whatever you would normally have received. Evergreen had nothing like this, and it's amazing how much better you react to abuse when you know you're being paid for it.
Well, time to go to bed...my first rotation into Saudi Arabia starts tonight at 21:30 local. This little missive will be a test of my ability to send from here.
Hmmm...don't know how to sign this since it's going to different categories of people insofar as their relationship to me, so I guess I'll just be...Terry