Vampires

February 16, 2010:  KBNA -> KMEM....

Winter.  Bah.  I’m unimpressed.  

It’s the middle of February and it’s cold and dark all the time.  I’m cold, my ship is cold, and my forward shields are working overtime.   And so far I haven’t even hit any of the interesting snow storms that have pummeled the east coast this year.  All that we’ve hit so far has been that annoying ice we typically pick up as we descend through the final cloud layer onto approach.  

Even though this winter has produced blizzards dumping record snowfalls on NYC and Wash DC we didn’t hit any of them.  Not one.  I actually tried to hit one too.  I had tried to get myself dispatched to at least one of those places during the storms…  just to have something interesting to do.  But no luck.  It turns out that it’s a lot harder to hit a storm bulls eye with a jet Captain’s schedule than you might think.   The closest I got was a small run to a tiny municipal airport in Virginia.  I don’t even remember which one.   Bah.

These days I’m mostly flying the commuters home from business and the majority of my flying is during the evening jet rush hour.  From roughly 8pm to midnight each weeknight we shuttle loved ones back and forth as usual.  But what’s especially rough is that with daylight savings time in full force right now, it’s rare that we ever depart in daylight.  Like, ever.  I actually have a set of vampire teeth in my flight bag, and every once in awhile during some obscenely long leg of some absurdly long dark flight I put my vampire teeth in.  It’s just my one small way of rebelling against the creeping doldrums of the winter back-and-forth flying.  But I will confess, it’s hard to talk to center with vampire teeth, so the novelty is sort of short lived.    

The sun sets these days at around 5:30 local so it’s rare that we even see twilight on departure.  I honestly can’t remember the last time I saw the sun out of the flight deck windows.   Typically all we see out the windows are only slightly varying degrees of black – with sometimes a little grey thrown in for good measure.  At least once though - and maybe even twice if the clouds and timing allow - we’ll get lucky and fly during a full moon.  That’s such a treat I can’t even begin to express it.    In moonlight the clouds stand out against the dark sky so prominently… they hang and glow in the sky with something of a ghostly pearl essence.  A stark white splotch against a pitch black sky that is somehow really comforting to see.  

There was one of those moons just a few weeks back when we were assigned to operate in the Denver, Colorado area for a few weeks.  Mother likes to rotate pilots around.  Keeps the mind sharp.  So for about two weeks Mother had us shuttling skiers and vacationers between Denver, Colorado Springs, Aspen.  Aspen is one of the most notoriously difficult approaches to fly in the USA.  There’s only one runway for both landing and departing flights with mountains on three sides.  Which means there’s only one way in and out of the airport making it a place where head on collisions are a definite real possibility.   Fortunately the weather cooperated for most of our runs and we had no real hair raising occurrences.   

That is except for the fact that the runway is just barely long enough for airliners.  As soon as you touch down you really have to stand on the brakes and flip the thrust reversers right away or you have a real shot at plowing off the end of the runway into the pine trees.  We made it every time though, and I saw a few airliners even larger than us make it too.  Actually, I have to confess it was kind of fun.  I think it’s one of those small badges of honor you can earn as a pilot to say that you flew an airliner into and out of Aspen airport.  And not just once.

Interestingly enough my time in Colorado happened to be synchronized with my annual checkride.  Yes, the checkride that all airline captains must endure at least once per year.  Every so often airline captains (small c) must submit to the indignity of having the Chief Pilot crawl up their butt with a microscope.  I have to say that even though I have over 300 hours in this aircraft I still was chewing nails for at least a few days prior.  I even practiced for what might happen when the Chief was onboard for a few of my prior runs.  But when the day came that the Chief was sitting in the right hand seat and said “ok, start ‘em up” I have to say the training just kicked in.  The flight itself was satisfactory, and even the Chief said he was impressed with the smooth ride.  Cool.  But I also learned a lot of stuff too.  As much as Captains hate the checkride, I think in the big picture it’s a good thing.  It’s good for the system.  I think that any Captain that is just too damn cool to tolerate a checkride once in awhile might want to rethink their position.  

In my case this checkride also qualified me to serve as a training Captain (big C) for newly minted pilots.  Most of them newbies, some with flight experience, and from all different parts of the world too.  Canada, California, even West Germany.   But most of them smart, ambitious and ready to take on the world.  I have to say I’m taking some satisfaction in this.  I’m really looking forward to contributing back to the line, and I’m going to do it by delivering the most proficient pilots I can back to the line.  Already the wheels are turning in my mind as to how I can best serve.  

Besides, with this terrible darkness I could really use something new and interesting to keep me focused.   These days the monotony of flying a regional jet back and forth seems painfully magnified.    Occasionally I do get lucky enough to have something interesting to write about.   But usually it’s just the little things - the simple things - that are the most interesting to me.   Tonight, it’s ASQ494 screaming by during a high speed pass at 19,000 feet and only 2 miles separation.  

Honestly?  I just never ever get tired of seeing that.