Well, the last couple of days have been quite eventful. I left St. George at about 7:30 MST on Saturday. The drive out of St. George is awesome because the same kind of rock formations that are in Zion are also along the interstate out of town. (It's actually carved be the same river, the Virgin.) Drove through some pretty country and hit Las Vegas. This is definetly a place where I'm going to have to come back to. On the highway you could see the strip very easily and I'm sure it would have been cooler had I driven through it at night. After Vegas, I-15 turned into a mad house. We were still going 75, but there were aas many cars on the road as you'd expect from like a busy rush hour scene. Also, even though the sign said that the speed limit was 70, no one seemed to care. I set the cruise at 75 and was still being passed by people. When it was two lane freeway, it seemed that the right lane was for people who wanted to do 5-10 over the speed limit, and the left lane was for nut jobs. Anyway, crossing the desert was pretty cool, about as barren as you'd expect from seeing Roadrunner cartoons or something like that. At Barstow, I got off the freeway and started on (I may be wrong on this) Highway 58 that led to Highway 99. I also had to get gas in Barstow, and, are you ready for this? - paid $3.67 a freaking gallon! Oi ve! Anyway, the rest of the trip to Fresno was uneventful, and I got in at about 3ish PST. Spent the rest of the day in the hotel room except for finding some food, and then went to bed.
I had to show up for my first day of IOE yesterday at about 12:15, so I got up at about 9, got all my stuff together and headed to the terminal. At about 12:15, the flight attendant walked in, really nice guy named Monte. We were waiting around for our Captain to show up when I got a call from Flight Ops. saying that he was running late and not to worry. He eventually got there at about 1:00, which made me a little nervous cause we were supposed to depart on our flight 15 minutes later! As it turned out however, the airplane that we were supposed to take on our trip was late, so we had some time to kill. The airplane eventually got there at 2, which of course, put us behind for all our flights. This would be a pattern that would repeat throughout the day. Our first leg was to San Fransisco. It was pretty uneventful, other than the fact we were late. We left out of there for Reno. Lake Tahoe, which we flew right past, was very pretty and I wish I had had my camera so I could have taken pictures. There was a prettty strong wind in Reno, so the captain did the landing, and we were again, still late. By this time I was starting to figure out what order things were supposed to happen in, and I was getting it down pretty well. We left Reno for back to San Fransisco. After the takeoff, the captain asked if I wanted to fly. Sweet! I flew to San Fransisco and did the landing there too. The landing was even pretty good I thought! We left San Fransisco for San Luis Obispo, which is south of San Fran. I did the takeoff, which left a little to be desired. Not exactly my best work. On our way to San Luis, the attitude indicator on the Captain's side started acting up. This is a problem, because even though I have one on my side, the captain still needs one on his side. It seemed to correct itself by the time we got there though, but we were still monitoring it. After the passengers got on in San Luis, we taxiied to the runway, and the captain was supposed to do the takeoff. Well, just as he added power, the attitude indicator started acting up again. Since we were in the air when it happened last time, we were ok then, but since it happened while we were still on the ground this time, we had to taxi off and see if we could fix it. The captain got on the phone with maintenance, and after about 10 minutes of pushing buttons and turning stuff on and off, it was decided that we couldn't go and would have to taxi back to the gates. Our airplane wasn't going anywhere so we were trying to figure out what we were going to do. In the end, we ended up taking another airplane that was done for the day from San Luis. On the flight from San Luis we were empty, cause all the passengers had re-booked flights for the next morning, as at this point, we were two hours behind schedule. It was about 10:30 pm when we left San Luis and we still had a ways to go. By the way, we were supposed to have been done for the day by 10:30. Though I did not do the takeoff, I flew to San Fransisco and did the landing there too. We picked up passengers and got the heck outta there for Medford, OR. I flew the entire leg there and we FINALLY landed at about 2 in the morning. Got to the hotel and I CRASHED. We're meeting today at noon in the hotel lobby for yet another day, though this one should be a little more mundane cause we only have 4 legs as opposed to yesterday's six. I am enjoying this, but as my captain put it, "Yesterday was the day from hell." So hopefully today is better!
Monday, July 31, 2006
Friday, July 28, 2006
National Parks are flippin' sweet
Got up and hit the road from Grand Junction this morning at about 8:00 am. There are a lot of national parks along the route today, and I wanted to make sure I hit at least one. (I was on I-70 by the way.) I knew I wasn't going to be able to hit them all, but the two I had a good chance of getting were Arches and Zion National Parks. Whether or not to go to Arches basically came down to me coming to the exit, and trying to decide whether to get off or not. I eventually decided against it, because I wasn't sure how much time I was going to have for the rest of the day. It was a hard one though, cause I've seen pictures and it looks absolutly gorgeous. Arches, in the words of Arnold, "I'll be back."
I-70 to I-15 across central Utah is freaking phenominal. Rock formations everywhere, canyons, etc. I got lots of pictures at the scenic rest stops. Will post those as soon as I get the pictures developed!
At Richfield, I got on Highway 89 going south, but stopped to get gas. Just so you know, according to the Flying J gas station in Richfield, UT, the Terrorist Threat Level is Moderate. Apparently there must be something besides horses and cows in that town that terrorists might want to destroy. I'm guessing they're Republicans.
Highway 89 is also very beautiful. For the first part of it, it winds along the base of the mountains along a river bed. There was a bike path there too, perhaps I'll have to come back someday!
Eventually got to Zion National Park at about 1pm mountain time. Any words that I have to describe it wouldn't do it justice, so either look it up on the internet or wait until I post pictures. I pulled off at one of the stops in the park and went on a quick hike up to a "canyon viewing area" It took about 20 minutes to get up there, but when I did, the views were breathtaking. We were at the mouth of a canyon about 2000 feet in the air. Many pictures were taken.
Zion has very narrow roads running through it, especially to some of its more popular points, so they have an interesting way of taking care of it. Cars in the late 90's were beginning to crowd the roads too much, so now they have everyone park in the visitor center parking lot and then take a shuttle. Shuttles run every 5 minutes or so, so you're never waiting long for a shuttle. I took one into the canyon of the Virgin River, one of the rivers that carved out Zion. It's a really cool place and I walked along the shores of it, again, taking mucho pictures.
On my way back to the parking lot on the shuttle, it started to rain. Like really really hard. Everyone got off the shuttle and ran to a shelter about 20 feet away. The parking lots were a good 100 yards away so we waited until the rain let up a little before all making made dashes to our vehicles. Once inside, I drove through the rain for about 15 minutes until it let up, and got into St. George at about 6:30. Staying at a Days Inn here, and tomorrow it's Fresno or bust!
I-70 to I-15 across central Utah is freaking phenominal. Rock formations everywhere, canyons, etc. I got lots of pictures at the scenic rest stops. Will post those as soon as I get the pictures developed!
At Richfield, I got on Highway 89 going south, but stopped to get gas. Just so you know, according to the Flying J gas station in Richfield, UT, the Terrorist Threat Level is Moderate. Apparently there must be something besides horses and cows in that town that terrorists might want to destroy. I'm guessing they're Republicans.
Highway 89 is also very beautiful. For the first part of it, it winds along the base of the mountains along a river bed. There was a bike path there too, perhaps I'll have to come back someday!
Eventually got to Zion National Park at about 1pm mountain time. Any words that I have to describe it wouldn't do it justice, so either look it up on the internet or wait until I post pictures. I pulled off at one of the stops in the park and went on a quick hike up to a "canyon viewing area" It took about 20 minutes to get up there, but when I did, the views were breathtaking. We were at the mouth of a canyon about 2000 feet in the air. Many pictures were taken.
Zion has very narrow roads running through it, especially to some of its more popular points, so they have an interesting way of taking care of it. Cars in the late 90's were beginning to crowd the roads too much, so now they have everyone park in the visitor center parking lot and then take a shuttle. Shuttles run every 5 minutes or so, so you're never waiting long for a shuttle. I took one into the canyon of the Virgin River, one of the rivers that carved out Zion. It's a really cool place and I walked along the shores of it, again, taking mucho pictures.
On my way back to the parking lot on the shuttle, it started to rain. Like really really hard. Everyone got off the shuttle and ran to a shelter about 20 feet away. The parking lots were a good 100 yards away so we waited until the rain let up a little before all making made dashes to our vehicles. Once inside, I drove through the rain for about 15 minutes until it let up, and got into St. George at about 6:30. Staying at a Days Inn here, and tomorrow it's Fresno or bust!
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Hills are black, mountains are rocky and junctions are grand
Today was a wonderfully full day of driving. I mean that too, great scenery, and I don't mind driving at all. Woke up at about 6:15 mountain time. Got a shower, checked out of the Ramada, and was on the road out of Rapid City by 7:30. Feel free to go get a map so you can follow along with today's route. It's ok, I'll wait.
Took highway 16 south out of Rapid City to where it joined up with 385 in Hill City and took that south. No, I didn't go by Mount Rushmore, cause I've actually see that a number of times, and I haven't seen the Crazy Horse monument since Mom, Dad, Drew and I came here back in '94. So drove by that, then took 385 south to 89, where it joined up with highway 18. Gorgeous drive, by the way, which is to be expected from the Black Hills. It was supposed to be 99 there today, so I'm glad I got out of there early. I took highway 18 west until it joined with highway 85 in Wyoming and took it south to Lusk. Lusk is a very undescript, 3,000 person town, but I've been there 3 times before, cause every time I've gone to Denver, we've always gone through the Black Hills and then through Lusk. Kinda weird.
Anyway, took highway 18/20 west toward I-25, then headed to Cheyenne. In Cheyenne, stopped and got lunch and some gas, and tried to figure out what I was gonna do once I hit Denver. My goal today was to make it to at least Denver, but I was in Cheyenne by 11:00, so there was no way that I was going to stop for the day in Denver, cause that would be a waste of a driving day! My dilemma was wether or not to head west on I-70 from Denver, or head down to Colorado Springs, then head west on highway 50. I eventually decided on I-70, cause highway 50 would have taken too long, though I do plan on doing it sometime.
I-70 is beautiful, for those who haven't been on it. Once I got into the mountains, I turned off the AC and rolled down the windows. Even though it was sweltering on the plains, in the mountains it was nice and cool. It also helped the car's engine to not have to run the AC as well. Drove past Vail, which was a REALLY nice place. I can see why people live there and why it costs so much. Just prior to getting to Vail I went through the Vail Pass, which was the highest point on the Interstate at 10,662 feet. Pretty cool!
Also drove through Glenwood Canyon, which is again, a very cool place. I suggest you look it up on the internet. The way they had to lay the freeway to get it through there is quite an engineering marvel. I think there was a show on the History Channel about it. Finally made it to Grand Junction at about 6:00 pm and here I stay at the Best Western. Tomorrow, I'm driving past a whole crid load of National Parks, including Arches, Capital Reef and Zion on my way through St. George and Las Vegas. I may have to stop to stretch my legs on a number of occasions! Another thing too: about 5 minutes before leaving home yesterday, I checked my email and found that my transfer to Salt Lake City had been approved for September, so I'm only gonna be in Fresno for a month! Then I get to move again to Salt Lake! Good times. This was unexpected as Salt Lake hadn't had many people moving into it lately. Nice surprise!
Took highway 16 south out of Rapid City to where it joined up with 385 in Hill City and took that south. No, I didn't go by Mount Rushmore, cause I've actually see that a number of times, and I haven't seen the Crazy Horse monument since Mom, Dad, Drew and I came here back in '94. So drove by that, then took 385 south to 89, where it joined up with highway 18. Gorgeous drive, by the way, which is to be expected from the Black Hills. It was supposed to be 99 there today, so I'm glad I got out of there early. I took highway 18 west until it joined with highway 85 in Wyoming and took it south to Lusk. Lusk is a very undescript, 3,000 person town, but I've been there 3 times before, cause every time I've gone to Denver, we've always gone through the Black Hills and then through Lusk. Kinda weird.
Anyway, took highway 18/20 west toward I-25, then headed to Cheyenne. In Cheyenne, stopped and got lunch and some gas, and tried to figure out what I was gonna do once I hit Denver. My goal today was to make it to at least Denver, but I was in Cheyenne by 11:00, so there was no way that I was going to stop for the day in Denver, cause that would be a waste of a driving day! My dilemma was wether or not to head west on I-70 from Denver, or head down to Colorado Springs, then head west on highway 50. I eventually decided on I-70, cause highway 50 would have taken too long, though I do plan on doing it sometime.
I-70 is beautiful, for those who haven't been on it. Once I got into the mountains, I turned off the AC and rolled down the windows. Even though it was sweltering on the plains, in the mountains it was nice and cool. It also helped the car's engine to not have to run the AC as well. Drove past Vail, which was a REALLY nice place. I can see why people live there and why it costs so much. Just prior to getting to Vail I went through the Vail Pass, which was the highest point on the Interstate at 10,662 feet. Pretty cool!
Also drove through Glenwood Canyon, which is again, a very cool place. I suggest you look it up on the internet. The way they had to lay the freeway to get it through there is quite an engineering marvel. I think there was a show on the History Channel about it. Finally made it to Grand Junction at about 6:00 pm and here I stay at the Best Western. Tomorrow, I'm driving past a whole crid load of National Parks, including Arches, Capital Reef and Zion on my way through St. George and Las Vegas. I may have to stop to stretch my legs on a number of occasions! Another thing too: about 5 minutes before leaving home yesterday, I checked my email and found that my transfer to Salt Lake City had been approved for September, so I'm only gonna be in Fresno for a month! Then I get to move again to Salt Lake! Good times. This was unexpected as Salt Lake hadn't had many people moving into it lately. Nice surprise!
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
I've got two queens...
No, I'm not talking about poker, and I'm not talking about drag queens either. I have two queen size beds in my hotel room. But that comes later I guess.
Anyway, I haven't posted in awhile cause I've been back home in the Cities, so there's not much to post on. Just kinda chillin at home, making the least out of my days, which is perfectly fine. Today I started my 2000 mile odessey to Fresno, CA. Feel free to pull out a map and follow along if you like. I took highway 169 out of the Twin Cities down to Mankato, and from there took highway 60 to I-90. Once on I-90, that's where I stayed. It was, for the most part a pretty uneventful trip today, about 9 hours all told. In Mitchell, SD, the car needed gas so I stopped, and also saw the world's biggest corn palace. (Or so they say) It's a palace, you guessed it, made entirely out of ears of corn. Got back on 90 and drove past the Badlands, unfortunatly not having time to stop there. Oh well. There will be next times. I did stop in Wall, SD though to take a picture of the famous Wall Drug. As I was leaving Wall, it started to rain. Hard. That was fun, but it's not the worst rain I've driven through. Got into Rapid City at about 8 pm mountain time, and tried to find a hotel. Apparently Wednesday nights are a hopping time for this place, cause I had to go to about 5 hotels before I found this one, a Ramada, and it's the last one in the hotel. So I have two queen size beds. Dad says I have to sleep on both to get my money's worth. So tomorrow I'm going to be at least to Denver, but if I get there and it's still early enough I may do some more driving. Who knows. Anyway, more on that later. I did/am taking pictures along the way, but I have my 35 mm camera so I'll post pics once I get them developed. Night.
Anyway, I haven't posted in awhile cause I've been back home in the Cities, so there's not much to post on. Just kinda chillin at home, making the least out of my days, which is perfectly fine. Today I started my 2000 mile odessey to Fresno, CA. Feel free to pull out a map and follow along if you like. I took highway 169 out of the Twin Cities down to Mankato, and from there took highway 60 to I-90. Once on I-90, that's where I stayed. It was, for the most part a pretty uneventful trip today, about 9 hours all told. In Mitchell, SD, the car needed gas so I stopped, and also saw the world's biggest corn palace. (Or so they say) It's a palace, you guessed it, made entirely out of ears of corn. Got back on 90 and drove past the Badlands, unfortunatly not having time to stop there. Oh well. There will be next times. I did stop in Wall, SD though to take a picture of the famous Wall Drug. As I was leaving Wall, it started to rain. Hard. That was fun, but it's not the worst rain I've driven through. Got into Rapid City at about 8 pm mountain time, and tried to find a hotel. Apparently Wednesday nights are a hopping time for this place, cause I had to go to about 5 hotels before I found this one, a Ramada, and it's the last one in the hotel. So I have two queen size beds. Dad says I have to sleep on both to get my money's worth. So tomorrow I'm going to be at least to Denver, but if I get there and it's still early enough I may do some more driving. Who knows. Anyway, more on that later. I did/am taking pictures along the way, but I have my 35 mm camera so I'll post pics once I get them developed. Night.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
I have no idea where I am anymore...
Well sorry it's been so long since I posted, the days have seemed to go by very quickly. Sunday was our 4th simulator lesson, dubbed "hell day" cause they throw just about everything at you that they can. So you have one little thing that turns into many large things, all while you're trying to fly the aircraft. Jason and I had some fun with that, but afterwards, our instructor said that we handled ourselves very well, and even though we came close to dying on a couple of occasions, he said that we were definetly ready for our checkride the next day. This day was more to see how we react under very intense situations as opposed to if we lived or not. All the things that happened that day weren't very realistic in terms of them actually happening all at the same time in the actual aircraft. Sunday night was pretty chill, and went to bed early so I could be well rested for the checkride on Monday.
Monday morning we met our instructor at 5:30 and got right into it. We had a little "mock check" first so we could make sure all the wrinkles were ironed out. I went first and did pretty well, then Jason went and also did well. Our instructor said if we flew like that on the checkride, we'd have no problems. We had a two hour break while Hugh and Chris went in and did their checkride review. We waited in a little area with a tv and a vending machine and some nice couches. I ended up falling asleepo watching Fox News. (imagine that) When it came time for the checkride, Jason went first, and passed just fine. When it was my turn I was nervous, but was confident I knew what I was doing. The checkride was very straight forward and seemed easy compared to all the stuff we'd benn doing over the past 5 days. After I landed, he said, "Ok! You're done! Congratulations!" I was glad it was over but in my mind I was almost like, "That's it?" Not that it was easy, but it could have been worse!
After Chris and Hugh got done with their ride, we went upstairs to the bar and had a few during happy hour, and then met up with Stefanie and Cindy, and decided to go downtown. We went to a couple of bars, walked around. Nice downtown area. We didn't get near the docks where the Queen Mary was, we didn't have enough time, but we could see it from a distance all lit up. Looked pretty cool, I think I'll have to come back sometime. This morning, Chris, Hugh, Jason and I all got on shuttle to LA to catch our flights. Tonight we have our aircraft ride, which is where we go up in an actual airplane (empty) and practice all the stuff we've been doing. Not alot of airlines do this, but SkyWest wants our first time going actually going through all this stuff to not be when there are passengers aboard. Chris and Hugh have their flight tonight in Carlsbad, and Jason and I are in Santa Barbra. Very nice area, although we couldn't see the ocean from the sky cause it was covered in clouds. After tonight, Jason and I both get on a 6:20 am flight to Salt Lake City, then I catch a flight home and he catches a flight home to Tampa. Holy cow! I'll try to take some pictures tonight, but we'll see how busy it is. Meanwhile, here's a few pics from the last few days!
This is Flight Safety, where we did all our training.
This is one of the simulator bays in Flight Safety. The sims you see are about as wide as two 15 passenger vans and sit about 10 feet off the ground on hydraulic jacks which move like the aircraft would in flight.
This is the Santa Monica Airport terminal. Pretty nice place!
This is the view out our balcony in Santa Barbra. Jason looked it up and apparently we're staying in a $200 a night room! Pretty posh!
Monday morning we met our instructor at 5:30 and got right into it. We had a little "mock check" first so we could make sure all the wrinkles were ironed out. I went first and did pretty well, then Jason went and also did well. Our instructor said if we flew like that on the checkride, we'd have no problems. We had a two hour break while Hugh and Chris went in and did their checkride review. We waited in a little area with a tv and a vending machine and some nice couches. I ended up falling asleepo watching Fox News. (imagine that) When it came time for the checkride, Jason went first, and passed just fine. When it was my turn I was nervous, but was confident I knew what I was doing. The checkride was very straight forward and seemed easy compared to all the stuff we'd benn doing over the past 5 days. After I landed, he said, "Ok! You're done! Congratulations!" I was glad it was over but in my mind I was almost like, "That's it?" Not that it was easy, but it could have been worse!
After Chris and Hugh got done with their ride, we went upstairs to the bar and had a few during happy hour, and then met up with Stefanie and Cindy, and decided to go downtown. We went to a couple of bars, walked around. Nice downtown area. We didn't get near the docks where the Queen Mary was, we didn't have enough time, but we could see it from a distance all lit up. Looked pretty cool, I think I'll have to come back sometime. This morning, Chris, Hugh, Jason and I all got on shuttle to LA to catch our flights. Tonight we have our aircraft ride, which is where we go up in an actual airplane (empty) and practice all the stuff we've been doing. Not alot of airlines do this, but SkyWest wants our first time going actually going through all this stuff to not be when there are passengers aboard. Chris and Hugh have their flight tonight in Carlsbad, and Jason and I are in Santa Barbra. Very nice area, although we couldn't see the ocean from the sky cause it was covered in clouds. After tonight, Jason and I both get on a 6:20 am flight to Salt Lake City, then I catch a flight home and he catches a flight home to Tampa. Holy cow! I'll try to take some pictures tonight, but we'll see how busy it is. Meanwhile, here's a few pics from the last few days!
This is Flight Safety, where we did all our training.
This is one of the simulator bays in Flight Safety. The sims you see are about as wide as two 15 passenger vans and sit about 10 feet off the ground on hydraulic jacks which move like the aircraft would in flight.
This is the Santa Monica Airport terminal. Pretty nice place!
This is the view out our balcony in Santa Barbra. Jason looked it up and apparently we're staying in a $200 a night room! Pretty posh!
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Ummm, strong with the Force this one is...
Day 3 of simulators is over and done with, only 2 more days to go! I can't believe it has gone by so quickly. Yesterday was more normal stuff, takeoffs, landings, approaches and the like. We also introduced some emergency situations like electrical problems, engine problems, and fires. Engine fires are fun, because it means that by the end of the procedure, you've shut down the engine that is on fire. The aircraft is perfectly capable of performing on one engine, but it requires alot of control input on the part of the pilot to keep the airplane straight because now you have one engine producing alot of power and one engine producing no power which creates quite a large yawing motion toward the dead engine. We also did some single engine landings and approaches which are kinda fun, but as you keep looking at all your instruments and don't let the airplane take you for a ride, it turns out fine. After sims Jason and I had a few hours before we had to brief in the afternoon, so I came back to the room not feeling all that tired. I turned on the TV, sat in a chair and woke up 2 hours later! Guess I was. After our briefing with our instructor and the other group, Jason, Hugh, Chris and I went to go grab some grub at the airport terminal. The terminal itself is really cool, cause it still looks like it did back in the 50's. Very old school art deco kinda place. We ate at this cafe on the second floor which overlooked the airfield, and watched airplanes takeoff and land as we ate. We came back to the hotel, studied for awhile and then was in bed by 10:30.
Today the big thing we practiced were V1 cuts. To describe: V1 is the speed when we're taking off that we're committed to taking off, even if we're still on the ground. So if we're barreling down the runway and have an engine failure past V1, we keep going, and don't abort the takeoff. They were kinda intimidating at first, cause these can get really ugly if you don't do them right. (You basically careen off the runway at a high rate of speed.) We never did go off the runway, and after a few of them I was feeling pretty good. In fact, I wanted to keep doing more, even though it was Jason's turn. We did some more emergencies today, and those went well too. Our instructor says we're doing very well and he fully expects us all to do very well. Tonight is just a little more studying, making sure I get all my callouts done correctly. Days have no meaning anymore, I didn't even know today was Saturday until someone told me it was today. Eh, whatever. Anyway, I can't believe I've already been at this for a month and a half. Time flies. Gonna try to get to bed by 11 tonight, so I'm ready for tomorrow!
Today the big thing we practiced were V1 cuts. To describe: V1 is the speed when we're taking off that we're committed to taking off, even if we're still on the ground. So if we're barreling down the runway and have an engine failure past V1, we keep going, and don't abort the takeoff. They were kinda intimidating at first, cause these can get really ugly if you don't do them right. (You basically careen off the runway at a high rate of speed.) We never did go off the runway, and after a few of them I was feeling pretty good. In fact, I wanted to keep doing more, even though it was Jason's turn. We did some more emergencies today, and those went well too. Our instructor says we're doing very well and he fully expects us all to do very well. Tonight is just a little more studying, making sure I get all my callouts done correctly. Days have no meaning anymore, I didn't even know today was Saturday until someone told me it was today. Eh, whatever. Anyway, I can't believe I've already been at this for a month and a half. Time flies. Gonna try to get to bed by 11 tonight, so I'm ready for tomorrow!
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Can't see the forest through the trees, or perhaps the mountains through the smog...
First full day in LA As I said yesterday, it's much cooler here, which is freaking awesome. Jason and I caught a 2:50 flight out of Fresno yesterday for LA. The flight itself was pretty uneventful. As we neared LA though, there seemed to be no nature left and only city as far as the eye could see. Apparently that's the way it is out here, one city just fading right into another in an endless sea of housing. It was cool though cause we flew right past downtown and I could see places like Dodger's stadium, and the coliseum. LA is a huge airport too, it seemed to stretch on forever, with large hotels leading up to it. We got our bags and then took a shuttle to Long Beach where we are doing our training. It can be as short as 20 minutes if the traffic is good, but alas, the traffic wasn't, and it took us a little over an hour to get there. The hotel we are staying at is another Holiday Inn, right off the 405 Freeway in Longbeach. It's a pretty nice place. We get our own rooms too!
We called our instructor, and he's staying in the same hotel we are, so he told he'd give us a ride to Flight Safety the next morning at...wait for it....3:45 am. Wonderful. We all got to bed as soon as we could, cause it's another early morning. We met our sim instructor the next morning and drove to Flight Safety, which is about 10 minutes away. Flight Safety is a company that was formed in the 60's and all they do is run simulators. Companies come to Flight Safety and contract out pilot training to them. Flight Safety has locations all over the US. They have about 10 simulators per building, which may not seems like much, but when you consider that each of these simulators takes up a whole lot of space (I'll try to get pictures for you) you'd understand why. All these simulators are full motion, using either electrics or hydraulics to simlate movement. So that means when you push the power levers forward to take off, it feels like you're actually moving! Anyway, we got in the sims and did our thing for about 4 hours. Jason and I did a pretty good job and our instructor seemed pretty pleased. He's a really cool guy by the way, been with the company for I think he said 9 years. Anyway, after we got done with our stuff, we chilled for awhile while another group did the same thing with our instructor. After they were done, we briefed on what it was we are going to be doing tomorrow, which mean WE GET TO SLEEP IN. Only until 5, cause he's driving us again at 5:45, but hey, an extra 2 hours is worth it. Tonight is some studying and then a good night's sleep hopefully.
This is the hangar in Fresno where our FTD was.
This was the hotel in Fresno. Nice pool area!
View from my hotel in Long Beach. Too bad there's always so much dang smog!
Hotel in Long Beach. Sorry it's on it's side. haven't quite figured that one out yet.
We called our instructor, and he's staying in the same hotel we are, so he told he'd give us a ride to Flight Safety the next morning at...wait for it....3:45 am. Wonderful. We all got to bed as soon as we could, cause it's another early morning. We met our sim instructor the next morning and drove to Flight Safety, which is about 10 minutes away. Flight Safety is a company that was formed in the 60's and all they do is run simulators. Companies come to Flight Safety and contract out pilot training to them. Flight Safety has locations all over the US. They have about 10 simulators per building, which may not seems like much, but when you consider that each of these simulators takes up a whole lot of space (I'll try to get pictures for you) you'd understand why. All these simulators are full motion, using either electrics or hydraulics to simlate movement. So that means when you push the power levers forward to take off, it feels like you're actually moving! Anyway, we got in the sims and did our thing for about 4 hours. Jason and I did a pretty good job and our instructor seemed pretty pleased. He's a really cool guy by the way, been with the company for I think he said 9 years. Anyway, after we got done with our stuff, we chilled for awhile while another group did the same thing with our instructor. After they were done, we briefed on what it was we are going to be doing tomorrow, which mean WE GET TO SLEEP IN. Only until 5, cause he's driving us again at 5:45, but hey, an extra 2 hours is worth it. Tonight is some studying and then a good night's sleep hopefully.
This is the hangar in Fresno where our FTD was.
This was the hotel in Fresno. Nice pool area!
View from my hotel in Long Beach. Too bad there's always so much dang smog!
Hotel in Long Beach. Sorry it's on it's side. haven't quite figured that one out yet.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
2 down, 3 to go...
Well the last few days have been quite eventful. Tuesday was another sim in the morning, again waaaaaaay too early. We started out by going over flows again, and then did a few instrument approaches. Jason, my partner, went first and did pretty well. My brain must have gone on screensaver at some bad times because I froze on a few of my flows. Mind you I've been practicing these almost every day for the last 4 weeks, so I do know what I am doing with these, but for some reason, my brain decided to shut down at that particular moment. Our instructor was a little dissapointed, as was I, because I did them the first day no problem. Whatever. Anyway. I was a little worried cause we had a test on them the next day (today) where we had to do them pretty flawlessly to continue on with our training. At 8:30, we were done, we went back to the hotel, caught a few z's, and then I pretty much spent the rest of the day/night studying so I wouldn't be such an idiot this morning. Went to bed at 9pm, and had no trouble falling asleep.
Today woke up early again. Was a little bit more awake this morning and went a little bit slower with my stuff today, and everything went fine. I did miss one button, but the instructor said other than that I did a pretty good job! We did some more instrument approaches, and were done by 8:30. Went back to the hotel, slept for a little while, then watched a little tv. Chris, Hugh, Cindy, Stefanie, Jason and I are going to go out to dinner tonight to celebrate being done, then tomorrow it's off to Long Beach for some more sims. Can't wait to keep this thing going and get done with all this training!
Today woke up early again. Was a little bit more awake this morning and went a little bit slower with my stuff today, and everything went fine. I did miss one button, but the instructor said other than that I did a pretty good job! We did some more instrument approaches, and were done by 8:30. Went back to the hotel, slept for a little while, then watched a little tv. Chris, Hugh, Cindy, Stefanie, Jason and I are going to go out to dinner tonight to celebrate being done, then tomorrow it's off to Long Beach for some more sims. Can't wait to keep this thing going and get done with all this training!
Sunday, July 09, 2006
I think my mind just melted...
Well, left St. Paul yesterday where it was beautiful weather. Boarded the 12:30 SkyWest flight from MSP to Salt Lake. We had a maintenance issue, but thankfully it was corrected without too much delay, but enough to make me worry about my 3:03 flight from Salt Lake to Fresno. I didn't think about it too much while we were in the air, and the flight was pretty uneventful. We landed in Salt Lake at 2:50. Needless to say, I was huffing it, well that doesn't acurratly describe what I was doing. Let me rephrase. As I was barreling through the concourse at a speed that would give Jackie Joyner Kersy a run for her money, I finally got to the gate at 3:00. Now mind you I'm not in as good a shape as I could be, having lived in a hotel for the last month, that combined with the fact that I was about 4,000 feet higher in altitude than in St. Paul. I was breathing very heavily, probably making sounds that resembled a wildabeast trying to dislodge a hairball the size of a small goat. I was barley able to ask the gate agent if the flight was gone yet, to which has casually replied that the flight was delayed.
As I stood in the concourse wondering what I was to do in the meantime, I found one of my classmates that is doing his simulator trainging the same time I am. He invited me to come over and sit down, and when I did, I was greeted by 4 more of my classmates, all trying to get to Fresno on the same flight, all delayed. We finally got on our flight about 40 minutes late, and headed to Fresno. The flight over was kind of overcast, so not much to look at. When we landed, we got our bags and stepped outside. It was 104 degrees and 51% humidity. We all almost died on the spot.
We checked into our hotel and then Jason, Chris, Hugh and I went to meet our sim instructor. She seems pretty cool, and we briefed until about 8 or so (we started at about 6) on what life would be like for us in Fresno for the next few days. Jason and I, being the lucky ones, have a regular show time in the morning of 4. That's AM fols. Which means I'm up by 3. Life couldn't get much better. Once we were done, we met up with Cindy and Stefanie, who are here for sims too, and went out to eat.
My alarm went off at a time I never knew existed this morning. We got to the sim building and our instructor was there a few minutes later. We went over what we were going to do that day, and then started off. The thigns we're focusing on are all those flows and things some of you may have seen me doing in St. Louis and at home. I have them down pretty good, but they're kinda harder when you have about a million other things going on at the same time. All in all it was a fun experience mostly, and I think that after a few more times I should have the hang of it. We were done with the sim at about 9. The rest of the day has been pretty uneventful, we came back and slept for awhile of course, then studied for awhile to keep all those things we learned today cemented in our heads. Tonight I'm turning in early cause I have another early day tomorrow. I can't wait. For those of you who gave me trouble about this, you should be able to leave comments now. If you still can't, then I can't help you. No one can.
As I stood in the concourse wondering what I was to do in the meantime, I found one of my classmates that is doing his simulator trainging the same time I am. He invited me to come over and sit down, and when I did, I was greeted by 4 more of my classmates, all trying to get to Fresno on the same flight, all delayed. We finally got on our flight about 40 minutes late, and headed to Fresno. The flight over was kind of overcast, so not much to look at. When we landed, we got our bags and stepped outside. It was 104 degrees and 51% humidity. We all almost died on the spot.
We checked into our hotel and then Jason, Chris, Hugh and I went to meet our sim instructor. She seems pretty cool, and we briefed until about 8 or so (we started at about 6) on what life would be like for us in Fresno for the next few days. Jason and I, being the lucky ones, have a regular show time in the morning of 4. That's AM fols. Which means I'm up by 3. Life couldn't get much better. Once we were done, we met up with Cindy and Stefanie, who are here for sims too, and went out to eat.
My alarm went off at a time I never knew existed this morning. We got to the sim building and our instructor was there a few minutes later. We went over what we were going to do that day, and then started off. The thigns we're focusing on are all those flows and things some of you may have seen me doing in St. Louis and at home. I have them down pretty good, but they're kinda harder when you have about a million other things going on at the same time. All in all it was a fun experience mostly, and I think that after a few more times I should have the hang of it. We were done with the sim at about 9. The rest of the day has been pretty uneventful, we came back and slept for awhile of course, then studied for awhile to keep all those things we learned today cemented in our heads. Tonight I'm turning in early cause I have another early day tomorrow. I can't wait. For those of you who gave me trouble about this, you should be able to leave comments now. If you still can't, then I can't help you. No one can.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)