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Jeddah, Saturday, 1995-06-10 06:45 local (Z+3)
I'm waiting for the hotel restaurant to open for breakfast so I can get some food. We got into Jeddah yesterday 16:00. I ran as soon as we got to the hotel—really ran, to exhaustion almost. I plopped my sweaty bod onto the bed and promptly fell asleep, not surprising since by then it was 19:00 local but my body was saying 23:00 (Jakarta time). Woke up a couple of hours later, showered, and decided that as long as I had gotten that far without food, I may as well go back to bed. There's something about being horizontal that eliminates hunger. The bad thing is that I woke up ravenous at 05:00 here, and I've been putzing about trying to take my mind off the fact that I am REALLY HUNGRY.
I can't even get into the in-room snack supplies because there are none. Again the hotel was out of rooms. This time they put the captain up in his own separate apartment and the rest of us in another apartment. Very spacious apartment—4 bedrooms—but it lacks snacks. The population here stays up late and sleeps late it seems. The hotel restaurant won't open until 07:00—12 minutes to go. The last time I hit them right at opening, the pre-prepared buffet food hadn't had time for the little Bunsen burners underneath them to warm things up. Big decision: should I eat cold food sooner or delay for warmer food?
Since a first officer outranks a flight engineer or a purser, I got the big bedroom this time—ornate and spacious but very impractical. There's no place to work. No problem, I'm in the kitchen, laptop on the kitchen table.
Jan, the adapter plugs from the international power kit you bought C.J. and I when we went to New Zealand hav been serving in Indonesia and here in Saudi.
I'll be on the last Tower flight out of Jeddah for this year's Hajj. Things are really winding down. The Hajj ramp had only three other airplanes on it when we arrived. After I get back to Jakarta, I'm hoping they'll get me out as soon as possible after minimum rest. Two of the airplanes will go to Singapore to undergo maintenance and installation of large overhead luggage bins in the cabin as well as a thorough cleaning and fumigation. They need it. When I got on the airplane at Jakarta, I put my flight bag in a seat while putting my suitcase in an overhead compartment (on ferry flights we don't bother to lug our suitcases up to the cockpit). When I retrieved the flight bag. I noticed this odor. A moment's investigation revealed the obvious fact that somebody has pissed in the seat. Just before I got to the circular stairway another unmistakable odor assaulted me. I didn't bother to try and find where somebody had shit.
Saw an “official” article on the Hajj: approximately 800,000 this year—180,000 of them from Indonesia. Next year Indonesia expects to send 200,000. They're already talking to Tower about the possibility of Tower supplying 7 airplanes rather than this year's 4. That expansion would mean Tower flights out of Surabaya (other end of Java from Jakarta) and Sumatra. If it all happens and I'm still with Tower, I'll put in for Surabaya; it's one of the most rapidly expanding areas of Indonesia insofar as resorts are concerned. C.J., you could just come over during the break between inbound and outbound. By that time I will have enough seniority to get here at the first, time out, and not have to (or be able to, legally) work until the return part starts. Anyway, a thought to keep in mind.
Okay, it's 07:08. Off to lukewarm food....
...even lukewarm food is good when you're hundry. Found out at breakfast that they've added one more Tower flight, so we'll be the 2nd to the last flight out of Jeddah. Unfortunately that also means our departure out of Jakarta will be offset to a later time.
C.J., remember how Coca-Cola was banned while we were in Saudi? Well, it's back—big time, advertising campaigns and all. Yesterday while I was running I saw an inflatable sign, a 15 foot high Coca-Cola can. So things do change, even in Saudi Arabia.
Another sign of modernization is that I'm told the hotel has a small, private, guarded beach, almost European in that women can go topless. It's a half hour drive, first van leaves at 09:30, first return is at 13:00. I think I'll take it. It'll be an opportunity to see a part of the Jeddah area I've not seen and to get some sun. Having been in the sun, I'll sleep well from 14:00 to our 18:30 wakeup call. The forecast high for the day is 115°F.
I may have solved a small part of my foreign controller communication problem. I found that the right earpiece of my headset was letting in more noise than it should. The cause was the microphone hanging from that side wasn't letting the earpiece seat properly. Unfortunately the microphone was permanently attached so I had to cut if off (ruined a pair of fingernail clippers in the process) which instantly made a $200 headset into a hacked up headphone only. However, the microphone wasn't usable on Tower's 747s, and any improvement in ability to understand the controllers is well worth the cost. I was flying on the leg here rather than doing the radio work, but I was listening and it did seem to help. The acid test will be tonight—all night flight, possibly a little more tired than I should be, heavy radio traffic due to the herd going from southeast Asia to Europe.
For a jet, a 747 cockpit is quite noisy. The problem is simply airflow noise as the air rushes over the cockpit bulge. Minimizing that bulge is also why 747 cockpits are so small relative to the size of the airplane. Every other widebody aircraft has a positively spacious cockpit compared to the 747.
The flight here was uneventful except for one thrunderstorm encounter and the landing. There was a thunderstorm directly in our path just west of the tip of India. The top reached to just barely above us (we were at 39,000). I elected to go around it—my leg—but the captain said not to bother. He had been watching it on radar and had concluded it was benign at the upper levels. He fancies himself a radar expert and, really, he does seem to know more about radar than anyone I've flown with including myself. The only problem is that radar doesn't always tell the whole story. Anyway, we flew into the top of it and got the crap beat out of us. Fortunately there were no passengers, of course, on the Jakarta to Jeddah leg. Also, in my opinion, the 747 is unparalled in it's ability to take punishment, so other than the physical discomfort, I didn't think there was any reason for undue concern. The captain wound up swearing in an apologetic way.
It was my turn to be embarrassed in a small way on the landing. I overcorrected for a strong crosswind and touched down slightly upwind of the ruway centerline. I'll get it right eventually. My previous off center touchdowns have been on the downwind side—not enough correction. Now that I've bracketed the target, maybe I can start getting it right consistently.
C.J., we wondered what AIA (American International Airways) did for weight & balance? Well, they wound up writing their own program and putting laptops on board their airplanes—that from a Tower guy who recently jumpseated on one of their airplanes. I suspect that means my price to them for my system was too high for them to swallow. Who knows?
Speaking of computers, I may be violating the advice about maintaining a profile “lower than batshit” during probation. I remarked to this captain that the lines we tediously draw by hand on our flight plans could be drawn by the computer. He asked a bunch of questions (he's into computers ina user-sort-of-way) and then added a note to the trip report to be routed to the chief pilot and to Nachtomi that they ask me to modify their setup to add the lines. I don't know if anything will come of it or even if I want anything to come of it. I hope I didn't stick my foot in my mouth.
Okay, time to grab my swim trunks and sun block. As usual, this will not be sent until I return to Jakarta.
Jeddah, same day, 19:00 local
They rousted us out of bed an hour early because Halim Airport (the airport they run the Hajj flights from, not the regular airport) in Jakarta will only accept one 747 per hour, and they realized they had scheduled in two during the same hour. So, getting us out an hour early was the solution. However, small problem: the airplane we're to take back is not yet here, so we're cooling our heels in the Foreign Terminal here at the airport.
Went to the beach, but it wasn't really a beach. It consisted of a narrow portion of beach front with an artificial causeway a couple hundred yards into the Red Sea. An enlarged portion or the causeway at the end was concreted over, and with lawn chairs, etc. Not much as a beach, but I'm sure a welcome escape for western residents of Jeddah. It appeared to be one of a couple of dozen such places. Nobody was around, so I laid in the sun a bit, swam in the Red Sea (just so I could say I had done it), but mostly just sat under a cabana. The water was quite rough as the wind was up, probably about 25 knots or so. There's coral here and lots of fish. It appears each of these “beaches” have blasted or cut a sizable hole in the coral shelf that exists from the beach out a few hundred yards. These cuts then serve as a pool.
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