Back to Work

After 33 days off (I love my job), I was called back to work.
In August, after backpacking with Sidney, the whole family went back to the Idaho mountains for a Cluff family reunion (we camped between Crouch and Silver Creek Plunge). Two days after returning home we left again on a two week family vacation. Needless to say, no bathroom tiling was done in July and August looks no better.
For our vacation we drove to Fort Bragg, California to visit my sister and here family. They live almost, right on the beach. We had beautiful weather and a great time. Then we drove down to San Francisco for three days in the City by the Bay. On the way home, we stopped by Yosemite.

Jackson on the Pacific








Kids around a Redwood
(classic family photo)







Kris and I - Fort Bragg Sunset








Benson watches the ocean








Jordan and I with Half Dome








Sidney on a beach walk








Now I'm back at work. I started out in Chicago, flying for Lufthansa Cargo to Frankfurt. After a short layover, I was to commercial on Egypt Air to Sharjah (UAE) through Cairo.
When the counter agent for Egypt Air would not let me keep my carry-on, it was over the 8kg limit, I knew this was the start of another long day. The bus out to the parking stand loaded at departure time (aircraft departure time), so Egypt Air missed its slot time. In Europe and some other parts of the world aircraft are filed for slot times. This is the time at which the plane must be airborne. If you miss your slot time you have to go to the back of the line, which usually means a delay of 45 to 90 minutes. This was not good news, because I only had 1 hour and 15 minutes on the ground in Cairo. I landed in Cairo with just enough time to run to one end of the terminal and watch the plane taxi out. After a long discussion with an Egypt Air service manager, I had just enough time to run to the opposite end of the terminal and get on a flight bound for Dubai (good news) with out my luggage (bad news). Checking your bag in is like betting on the Cubs to win, you really want it to happen but your not too surprised when they don't show up.
So, I spent a couple of days in Sharjah waiting for my luggage to find me, which was fine, because there isn't much to do in Sharjah during Ramadan.
Tuesday morning we started what would become a marathon 25 + hour duty day, flying down to Lagos, Nigeria and back to Sharjah for Etihad Airways cargo. It is never simple flying to Lagos, and thinking that there will not be some kind of delay is like betting that the Cubs will win in the post season. In theory, it could happen, but then again statistics don't always tell the whole story.

World MD11 takes off from Lagos Nigeria.

After a day of sleeping I commercialed to Budapest, Hungary (two cities for the price of one - Buda and Pest). A beautiful city especially at night, but you have to remember the reason all those women are talking to you; you are not that good looking. - Not running into a "night flower" in even the nicest areas of Budapest is like betting the Cubs will win the World Series - it hasn't happened for 100 years and no goat is going to change that.

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Bishkek Trip

Antonov An-124

This last trip, I was away from home for 11 days, and flew one, 6 hour and 30 minute flight. Not the optimum crew utilization. My only "live flight was from Leipzig, Germany to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. We carried 308 troops on their way to Afghanistan.

Some of my non-TSA approved passengers.

I didn't do much in Bishkek, but stay at the hotel. The mountains around the city are beautiful.

I haven't been to Leipzig for a while, so it was fun to have a few days to kick about. I was hoping to see my friends the Bauerfeinds, but they were on vacation to Croatia. I did get to attend church and was invited to spend the afternoon with the stake president and his family, it was fun.

LDS chapel in Leipzig, Germany.

This chapel was built before the wall came down around East Germany. These members have many cool stories to tell.

I was scheduled to fly at least four more legs, but the aircraft I was to fly had a problem. This is a picture from the tail pipe of the number one engine on an MD-11. You do not usually see fan blades piled up like this.

At about 13,000 feet, taking off from Leipzig the crew heard what sounded like a compressor stall and then experienced a catastrophic engine failure. Not the best of days, but the MD-11 has 3 engines - so, no big deal if we loose 1.

Because of that crews bad day, I got to go home early as I had no plane to fly.

Budapest

Only 15 hours in Budapest, Hungary and most of
the time was spent sleeping. I wish there would have been more time to explore. What a beautiful city.





























The flight back to Baltimore was empty, the whole cargo bay was the "bunk".

Time in Philly

70 hours in the City of Brotherly Love. I was lucky enough to stay in Society Hill, within walking distance of Old Town. There is so much American History in these few blocks that its overwhelming. At every turn you run into something so well known that every child learns about it in grade school. Independence Hall, The Liberty Bell, Christ Church, Betsy Ross House, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and many more.
Of all the sights I saw, the one that resonated most with me was the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington square. "Freedom is a Light for which many men have died in darkness"





































































What trip to Philadelphia would be complete without seeing the Rocky statue.
Or a mad pig at City Hall. Its really a bear meant to represent the United States.














A cool surprise was running into Kieren Spain. We were hired by World at the same time, but in the past eight years I have only seen him once (Kieren made it to the big time and works for UPS now). We ran into each other in a corner grocery store. It was way cool seeing Philly guided by Kieren.

Lovely Luanda

On long flights we are required by law to have a relief officer. If the flight is really long we are required to have too crews. Houston to Luanda is one of those flights. Today the flight plan says 13 hours and 46 minutes. Anything over 12 hours and we must have two captains and two first officers. I am flying with Captain Donn Hile, and First Officers Tom Jensen, and Ross Seabrooke. Donn wanted to work the first part of the flight (so as to be well rested for the landing), which meant I would have the first 6 hours of the flight off.
I spent most of that time in the bunk. The bunk on the MD-11 is a really small bunk bed that pulls out right behind the cockpit extending into the area of the most forward boarding door. Its really like two coffins stacked on top of each other. Most of the time I don’t sleep but it is nice to relax and listen to some music.
The first class seats look much more inviting, but the In-flight Service Manager (lead flight attendant) told me when I boarded that sitting in those seats was forbidden, even if no passenger was seated in that section. Its bad when you can’t even get an upgrade on your own plane!
Most of the time around the equator you find thunderstorms. They just seem to stay in the same spot all the time. Today was no different, lots of bouncing around. We try to deviate around most of them or climb over, but some times you just have to pick your way through. Thank goodness for radar. One cool thing about flying through weather is the static discharge across the windscreen. It looks like little lighting bolts. Some call this St. Elmo’s fire, but I don’t think it’s the same. I’ve only seen St. Elmo’s fire twice and both times I was in really bad thunderstorms. It really looks like the windscreen is on fire – red, green and purple flames.

After landing in Luanda and jumping through all the customs hoops, we were escorted through lovely Luanda to our hotel. Four armed guards (AK-47s and hand guns) in a pickup truck and

two guards on our bus. Time for some sleep.

The Bunk.

Luanda, Angola on Final to runway.

Benson's Graduation

Benson graduated from kindergarten today! Not only is he a great student, but a great dancer as well.

Sidney's Recital

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