Back to work...

When you are on international reserve, the company can potentially call you at any moment for a trip. However, you're usually notified around noon the day before the trip. For domestic reserves, you need at least an 8 hour period of designated rest in 24 hours. When they run out of reserve coverage from the domestic pilots, they will give the international pilots this designated rest period just in case a domestic trip comes up.

Last night I was given a rest period that ended at 5 a.m., meaning that they couldn't call me until 5. just as my clock read 5 a.m., my phone rang this morning and I knew this couldn't be good news. They had a trip for me that signed in at 7 a.m. I could make that, I figured, but having not flown for the past month, it took a bit of time to convert my suitcase from vacation mode to work mode. I found myself taping my i.d. back together after I broke it while trying to install a carseat in an airplane during our trip home 2 days earlier. I dusted off my jacket that we never wear during the summer months and changed out the manuals in my kitbag. Finally I took a look at the trip on the computer. Wow, a 'ferry flight' down to Miami with a deadhead back home. How easy. No passengers at all going down and just ride home and catch up on some video on the iPhone. Deadhead trips have become much easier ever since the invention of the video iPod or iPhone.

I hadn't flown with this captain, Steve, yet. He's on the domestic side and I probably fly 3 domestic trips a year or so. Steve also is a fellow mac user who's very involved in video editing, so we had plenty to talk about.

In fact, so much so that I really didn't get any pictures at all during the quick flight to Miami. I hope to make it up on the next trip. One interesting thing about the flight was our very light airplane resulted in an approach speed of 110 knots or 126 mph. That's about as slow as I've seen.

The flight home saw a rarity. We raced to our gate expecting to have a middle seat in the back or even a cramped cockpit jumpseat, but they had two seats available in first class for us. It's been a long time since we've seen that happen. After saying hello to the Boston international crew flying the plane home (two friends) we sat back and enjoyed the flight home. Total time away from home: 11 hours. Not too bad.

I'm on reserve for the next 6 days, so I'm sure something else will pop up. I suspect I'll be flying a lot more than last month. Hopefully I'll have enough time off to put the final touches on the swing set project!