Jumpseat

Tonight I’m officially off duty as an instructing captain.  But Candidate Ian is jumpseating along with me to Salina Kansas.  He has a leg out tomorrow morning on another aircraft so he’s in essence hitching a ride to work with us.  I’m tired though.  I’ve already put in a lot of flying today and my brain is spent.  It’s late and I don’t feel too much like talking.  Ian is a good kid though and I think he understands.  He seems pretty happy just to be on board and I’ve always known him to be curious and observant.  I’m sure he’ll learn something just by watching.    

Since he’s off duty he has the luxury of actually listening to music as we depart.  Out of the corner of my eye I see him put on his headsets and cue up his IPod as we position for the departing runway.  The lights are splayed out in front of us beautifully and the throttles go forward.  Power surges and we are all squished back into our seats.  The CRJ’s engines are screaming in my ears.  We clear ground and pull back to 15 degrees up angle as the gear motors whine and pull the struts back up into the belly.  

I’m watching the indicators climb when I notice a faint bit of music coming through.  What is that?  I turn to see that it’s coming from Ian’s direction and his IPod is just blazing loud in his headsets.  Loud enough that I can hear it through the headsets and over the scream of the engines.   He’s got some sort of Euro synth pop music going as an accompaniment to our departure.  I think for a moment to ask him to turn it down in case departure calls, but I think twice against it.  I can manage just fine, and I’m actually I’m a little bit jealous.  I’d love to have a musical soundtrack to my flying, but as Pilot in Command that’s not going to happen.   Besides, the music’s not too bad from what I can sort of hear.   It’s a good choice for our tearing rampage to altitude.   But man, that kid listens to some weird shit sometimes.

And speaking of music…  I’ve just received word that we’re being dispatched to operate in the Caribbean in late month.  “Say what now?  Beach? Warmth?  Reagga music? Bikini clad fauna??”

“I am sooo down with that.”