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Palmdale, Friday, 1995-05-26 04:00 local (Z-7)
Why am I composing this at 4 in the morning? Because I slept all day yesterday to be fresh for the all night flight tonight from JFK to Edwards Air Force Base. Now I'm trying to stay up as late as possible so I can sleep as close as possible to departure time this evening. The fly in the ointment is that our departure time may get postponed, probably by several small increments—really hard to plan your sleeping in these situations.
In case anyone is wondering, Palmdale is a couple hours drive northeast of Los Angeles and about 45 minutes drive from Edwards Air Force Base. We brought an empty airplane into Edwards about 02:00 and left the airplane for the next crew. They'll take it, full of troops just off desert training, to Savana, Georgia and then to Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina. The airplane will be returned to us this evening, and we'll do the same thing with another load of troops.
This was my first trip as a regular line pilot, off IOE and the standards requirement. It was easily the most pleasant leg I have yet had with Tower although I was a little apprehensive since the captain was a guy who was at Evergreen and junior to me there. But my apprehension was baseless—all worked well—and the leg was without incident. The captain had had only minimum rest after coming off one of Tower's 30 hour marathons, so I flew the leg and he spent most of the time snoozing in his seat.
But for dodging a single thunderstorm over Kansas, the enroute portion was a beautiful, smooth flight. The approach at Edwards was more interesting. The military controller—they're not known for being the best—turned us on to the ILS too close in and too high. Since the weather was severe clear, I elected to accept the situation since we could always turn it into a visual approach. A strong crosswind at the approach altitudes complicated the situation. Just enough problems to make it a challenge. We salvaged the bad turn-on by setting up a 2000 foot per minute rate of descent—nothing over 1000 is considered normal at that altitude—ignored the warning systems, and finally intercepted the glideslope about 300 feet above ground. Touchdown was smooth but just a little left of centerline. I'm going to have to keep working on centerline touchdowns. Touching down right on the centerline is something I've always prided myself on—and before always found easy to do—and it's frustrating to not perform as I would like in this area. Anyway, I'll keep working on it.
Yesterday we got our schedules for June. I didn't get any of the choices I made. Not surprising since I'm at the bottom of the heap. Anyway, it appears that after I get back to New York, I'll have to do a Miami turn and then, hopefully, get a couple of days at home before again going to Jakarta for the outbound part of the Hajj, getting everybody from Mecca back to their home countries.
I really am beginning to remember how to fly the 747, and the more I remember, the more I relax, and the more I relax, the more I remember, etc.
Terry
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