Rant Air – Welcome Aboard!

Another 805 hours in the logbook during 2009. And I thought I slacked off in 2008! I’m down nearly 40 block hours year-over-year. A lot of that can be attributed to a great decrease in the airline’s schedule that began in February.
Last year’s flying brought my totals to 4,101 hours in the 737 and 9,433 [...]

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Our day started pre-dawn in Sacramento last Friday. While flying southbound on the SADDE6 arrival into LAX, we were treated to an amazing sunrise. The high cirro-stratus mixed with lingering smoke from the mostly-contained Station Fire created a wonderful mix of oranges contrasting with the purples of the San Gabriel Mountains as the sun behind [...]

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I can remember no greater horror than we saw after turning on the television early in the morning eight years ago today.
I will never forget. I may never forgive.

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The last week has been an interestingly eventful one at work.
My airline attempted to purchase another airline out of bankruptcy. The auction was held a couple of days ago. My airline lost.
This is one of the few losses of a major business battle I can remember my airline taking. The funny thing is that I’m [...]

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Aside from the obvious continuation of the species and the pride a new mother and father feel for their newborn spawn, does the infant contribute anything to humanity? Of course not. At first, the neonate is simply a screaming, wiggling, out-of-control mess all covered in goo. Only after many, many years of nurturing (read: spent [...]

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For the last month, the pilots at my company have been hotly debating the pros and cons of a new tentatively-agreed-to collective bargaining agreement. The negotiating between the Company and the Pilots took two-and-a-half years to come to the point where we pilots are now voting on the new deal. The CBA we currently work [...]

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I’d gotten everything ready to head on down to San Diego early tomorrow morning. The goal was to “set up camp” on a small patch of ground in Coronado’s Centennial Park from which I could photograph the 2009 Red Bull Air Race qualifying event. I’d borrowed a nice lawn chair from my sister’s RV. I’d [...]

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During the month of March, I did something I don’t normally do. In addition to tracking the total time of each leg I fly in my little gray crew logbook, I decided to keep track of how many passengers I carried on each leg. It was interesting to see the changes from week to week [...]

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I don’t know exactly what’s been keeping me from writing for the blog, lately. I think it has at least partly to do with my recent discovery of Facebook, a site that I hate yet can’t seem to stop using. Rest assured, everything is still okay here.
We became something of a victim of the economic [...]

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A lot of people are into photography. With the price point of good digital SLR cameras coming down in recent years, there is a definite move towards these cameras over point-and-shoot types by people who want a little more “do-more-ability.” When people find out that I’m a photographer, I get a lot of technical questions [...]

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