Sidney's Recital

Sidney sings "Many a New Day" from the musical Oklahoma!

A Day in London

I started my journey home Thursday night (May 14). About two hours before I left the hotel in Nairobi I just happened to check my schedule (because, well I work for World Airways and our travel department can make even the way home less traveled) and I noticed that my frequent flier rich trip on United had been changed to British Airways. My schedule showed the origination flight on Kenyan Airways to London was still the same. When I arrived to the airport, I was informed that I didn't have a ticket on the flight (this was after about an hour standing in various lines). After another 30 minutes we worked out that I was no longer flying Kenyan but British Airways. Out of security to another terminal, back through security and I finally found someone who knew who I was! By this time all the nice seats were taken and I got 37H, this was a middle seat between to big guys (8 hours and 43 minutes of fun). After the meal service the Purser found me and moved me up to business class, I could have given this man a kiss. I went to sleep (these seats transform into beds) in comfort for the next 6 hours.
I really like London, but I rarely ever get any time there. Because of a restful nights sleep, after checking into the hotel I went out. I bought an all day tube pass and went to the British Museum. There is just something about this museum that I love - it has a very Indiana Jones feel. After the museum I walked around Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square (homage to the punks of the early 80s). Of course I went to Parliament and saw Big Ben and Buckingham Palace (the Queen was in). But by far the coolest thing I did was go to the Tower of London. I took one of the tours given by the Yeoman Warders. Very entertaining and informative.

Freight Dog

Generalizations don't often work (and sometimes they make people unhappy), but I'm going to make one now. There are two types of pilots - ones who like to wear the hat and those who don't; ones who fly during the day and those who serve the night; Those who love the sound of their own voice on the PA and pilots who just drive; Pilots who fly through fog, ice and thunderstorms at night with no radar in questionable planes alone and those who bought their way into jets; Guys who load their own cargo and those who whine that their flight case is too heavy. Don't get me wrong, both types can be very good, professional pilots who get the job done, but I like the dogs the best. I aspire to that ideal, even though I do like it when little kids ask, "are you really a pilot?" with a tinge of awe in their voice.
This month I get to be a cargo dog. I fly mostly at night without flight attendants. The rules for flying cargo are more lax than flying passengers, because if we screw up, the world is only out a couple of pilots and a plane (maybe some more if we land on your house). I love cargo.

The other day we flew from Shanghai to Mumbai, we were only on the ground a few hours. On our taxi out saw some of the slums but none of the millionaires.
Our flight to Hahn, Germany was very eventful. We had an indication that our flaps might not work on landing. This is not a good thing, because the flaps are used to slow the airplane down - we didn't want to run off the end of the runway!
Our next wake-up call was "fuel quantity fail" warning. More of an annoyance than a problem, but any question about not having enough fuel will stress me out. The flaps worked fine on landing, turned out to be a sensor problem.
The farm land around Hahn was in bloom with the canola crop. Too bad I couldn't get any pictures from the air.

World Circumnavigation (almost)

I have always wanted to circumnavigate the globe, and this month is the closest I've ever come to it. I left home in Nampa, Idaho and flew to Chicago, Frankfurt, Abu Dahbi and then flew a World plane to Shanghai China. If I could just fly across the Pacific home, I would have the goal. Maybe another time.
This month I am flying with Randy Mclain and David Bagby. We all flew into Abu Dahbi together on Etihad Airways. Both Randy and David had business class tickets, I would have been all alone in coach, but a ticket agent took pity on me and moved me up front too.
As we waited for our car to the hotel, we were all given copies of the Quran by a man, who must have thought we all looked like infidels.


Our flight to Shanghai was uneventful (just the way I like it). Randy showed me were the market was (this is a market for all things made in China) and how to bargain. He is very good, and almost reduced one woman to tears by asking such a low price for a shirt. She was a lot happier when the deal was done.

Pictures of Shanghai:

April in Miami

I know it's been a while since the last post, so I want to catch up. Last month I flew out of Miami down to various different cities in South America. In Miami we stayed on Miami Beach at the Sherry Fontenac. It would be very hard to complain about this duty. The only problem with flying out to Miami is that there really isn't a schedule (well there is one but it changes about five times a day). When I wasn't on the beach I flew with Russ Novotney and Jim Davis to Bogota, Columbia, Santiago, Chile and Lima, Peru.
Most of our flying was done at night, so we didn't see all the giant mountains we were flying in-between. Flying in South America is some of the most challenging flying I've every done. Jim and Russ were a great help!
Jim Davis is now one of 34 World pilots on furlough. I hope he is back in the air where he belongs soon.


I love to be on the beach at night. On one of the unusual day light flights, we flew over the Panama Canal. This is the Atlantic side.

Another sunrise over the Caribbean Sea.