New York, Friday, 1995-07-28 14:30 local (Z-4)
Just a quick note to let everyone know I have not dropped off the face of the earth, although I have certainly felt like doing that. This trip has turned into the “trip from hell”. I and the captain I'm flying with are not getting along. As I understand it, none of the first officers he flies with ever care to fly with him again, so I'm not alone at least.
To complicate matters, in 1000 hours on the 747, I had never made a bad landing, but in Paris a couple of days ago, I made a real cruncher. The conditions were adverse, a heavy crosswind, but that's no excuse. It was a real ego-destroyer for me since, no matter what else I might do wrong, I could always depend on a good touchdown. It was embarrassing in the extreme.
I'm headed back to Paris in a couple of hours, then commercial to Athens for an overnight, then back to New York on Sunday. I'm scheduled to get a few days off then, but who knows whether that will happen. I'll be near the limit of what I can do internationally, but domestic flying is based on the calendar month rather than on the last 30 days, so the clock gets reset on August 1 domestically.
Everybody is getting really tired. They had a senior captain arrive in Tel Aviv a few days ago and then deliberately head for home without telling crew scheduling. The next day was the start of his “guaranteed” days off and he was planning on taking no chances on having them use him. Unfortunately they were planning on using him, and his leaving left an airplane setting in Tel Aviv without a captain. They managed to cover the trip by shuffling captains between Paris, Moscow and Tel Aviv, but it was close. Tempers are really short. Half the pilots cheered the captain for having left, half blamed him for causing a mess.
At the moment I'm feeling okay. I slept 12 hours to get ready for the 20+ hours I'll be up before arriving in Athens.
Everybody take care...Terry