Moscow Madness!

So, there I was, sitting at home on Day one of a six day tour on standby with nothing much on the horizon, when the phone goes and I am called out to go to Moscow!  Great, I think, at least some flying!  However, after airlining through Frankfurt and landing at UUDD after midnight to be met by a wall of people trying to get through the new electronic immigration control the airport now has, and after the long drive through pouring rain to the hotel, it would appear that I will be on standby for a few days!  Its raining constantly so not much to see out walking, and there is only a very limited gym, so it looks like I will go mad slowly.  The only bright point is that the rest of the crew have arrived and we have arranged to eat for dinner tonight.  Joy!

Madeira LPMA

We flew some passengers into Madeira yesterday morning and got to stay the whole day before flying them home again late evening.  I have been to Madeira three times now and it never ceases to amaze me!  Not for the stunning view on approach, but for many ways that the island will try to kill you!!  Looking in the Jepps, you will see that if your aircraft has more than 10 seats then you have to complete a full simulator training course and carry out famil training at the airport itself.  However, as we only have 10 seats, we can just go in with no training or briefing!  The reason for all the training requirements is that the runway is on stilts, and is set right next to the mountain, and has a curving approach to final, and has severe downdraughts and windshear!  It's like landing on a carrier!  And the take off at night was tricky too - once at 300' you have to turn right immediately to avoid the mountain, and that takes you away from all your visual cues into a black hole!  It's not as if you can divert to anywhere else either, as that puts you on a different island with grumpy passengers!

But it is a great place to visit, providing the wind is calm and the weather is nice!

Zurich rest home for pilots!

On day 2 of a nice, relaxing tour - just one flight from Biggin Hill to Paris yesterday.  I say relaxing, but we did have a small fault to work through in the short flight.  The 'pitch feel' cation came on just after takeoff and although it was not a big deal it did mean we were limited in what speed we could fly.  Luckily we had no passengers to take care of, but it meant that the Flight Attendant had to stay seated, so we couldn't have any coffee!  On landing,  I did find that when the autopilot came out on approach the controls were a little stiff, so I presume the 'feel' unit failed towards the high speed position.

Day 2 is starting to be a very relaxed day as well.  A reasonably early flight to Zurich and then we wait for 6 hours before going to Munich.  Very short flights today, which I don't mind but it does seem a waste for a jet like the Falcon 2000 EX EASy.  The 6 hours we have are being spent in the pilots lounge - I'm typing quietly as there are quite a few crews here from different companies and most of the pilots are asleep!  It looks like a rest home!  Most of them are just here for the day like us, and taking passengers out this evening.  I may join them for a snooze a little later!

Post Vacation!

And so I'm back at work!  It does feel good to be flying again but I do feel a bit blunt!  It seems like ages since I have been in the air, as before vacation I was in the simulator and after vacation I was teaching some safety equipment recurrent courses.  Its been a good tour though, with plenty of flying and all good weather!  We started in Geneva where we picked the aircraft up and flew to Athens empty, which is a good thing because strong winds gave us a rough ride on the way in!  We picked up the passengers and flew them to Cannes - I love the approach into Cannes as you actually get to fly it instead of the autopilot, and it can be challenging.  Also had a fantastic meal out on the tip that we received! We stayed the night there before taking going to Eindhoven and then on to Le Havre for the night - another great meal was had, but the weather was a bit cooler after what we had experienced in Geneva, Athens and Cannes!  From Le Havre we had our busy day - four flights taking us back to Geneva, then to Calabria in southern Italy, on to Milan Linate and finally ending up in Barcelona!  This was to be our last day, so we shared some tapas and wine in a restaurant just down from the hotel and woke up this morning to find the hotel was right on the beach!  I am finishing a day early, with an airline home in the late afternoon, which allows me some beach time!  I love my job! 

Simulator Time!

Currently in Paris for 4 days carrying out my six monthly simulator check.  This has turned out to be a blessing in disguise because the weather is awful.  Mind you, the weather in the sim was bad too!  We are practising for our winter operations (and summer has barely started!!) so all the emergencies involved some kind of icing problem.  Today it was a lot of control malfunctions, single engine failures and take off aborts.  Tomorrow, we have a check ride, and the following day we get to practise 'special airports', which is mainly finding out how to get into the Alps in bad weather without crashing.  This is all good stuff - I just hope I can remember what I did here when the ski season starts next year!