We left Sunday night from the hotel at Houston Intercontinental, takeoff was actually 01:00 local Monday morning. I flew the first leg, to Port of Spain, Trinidad. Things went well. C.J., my new headphones worked well; I had less trouble communicating than either the captain or the flight engineer. I don't think, though, that I can attribute all of the improvement to the new headphones, although they do cut down on the noise considerably and that is a great help. The only problem with them is that they tend to want to fall off when I look down at too much of an angle, but I'll work that out somehow. If I had more hair up there for them to settle into, that would help. <g>

The approach at Piarco (Port of Spain's airport) was in heavy rain and low stratus. The previous aircraft had missed the approach and been forced to go around, so we were prepared for the possibility of having to do the same and then either hold or go to our alternate (Barbados). However, I was having a good day, had things nailed even though I was hand flying, and we broke out right at minimums. The only problem was that when I pulled the power at 50 feet, the plane sunk like a rock. I caught the sink with heavy back pressure, and as luck would have it stopped the descent just as the wheels touched. Couldn't have worked out better. The captain later apologized for not warning me that this particular airplane (I hadn't been in it before) had a tendency to drop out of the sky when you pulled the power.

During the approach, I don't think I had ever heard the sound of rain on a 747 windshield come through so loudly. That windshield is multiple layers and about 4 inches thick, but the sound was deafening. These tropical rains are really heavy. One nice thing about them is that a lot of water on the runway also helps give a smooth touchdown. Sure doesn't help you get stopped though. Anyway, it was a good leg, and we were treated just a hour prior to the approach to a beautiful sunrise over the Carribean. You may recall seeing paintings where the sun is just below the horizon and casting “rays” upward? This sunrise actually had “rays”, and it was made all the more beautiful by individual buildups that punched above our level and formed numerous narrow columns all along the horizon. With a little imagination you could make all sorts of caricatures out of them. One of them in particular looked like a young man with a 60's style haircut and with his arms outstretched.

What little I saw of Trinidad wasn't impressive. The temperature was surprisingly cool, in the 60s, and it was raining the whole time. The captain I was with said they used to have a good national income here from oil but that it had been depleted and everybody was back to being poor. Apparently tourism is not a big thing here either. The ground handlers seemed a little confused and more than a little inept. I suspect they don't see many 747s at Piarco. Ours was just a refueling stop. This was a cargo flight, and the airplane was an old 747-100, which means it's limited to 734,000 pounds max takeoff weight. Put 200,000+ pounds of cargo on it, and you've only got enough room left for about 125,000 pounds of fuel for the flight—not enough to get from Houston to Sao Paulo.

The big difference between passenger and cargo flights is the weight of the load. Full passengers and baggage only weigh about 100,000 pounds. Cargo flight payloads are typically 200,000+ pounds. That also means that you're heavy when you land. Passenger flights are light at landing. A light aircraft can descend steeply, less potential energy to dissipate. I called for the descent in plenty of time, but their ATC held us high until the last minute. We wound up having to capture the glideslope from above, something you would not normally do in the States, especially not in a 747, but it is a different and much more laid back world down here. No problem, you can fly a 747 just like it was a light aircraft if you need to, and it's actually quite a bit of fun to do so.