November was an interesting month. I had a short recurrent training session that I was able to conflict bid against and netted me some award days. I ended up only flying 2 legs and even got to go home in the middle of my pattern. This also gave me Thanksgiving off and I was able to pick up some nice little Open Time trips before and after Thanksgiving day to make it a pretty nice month. Won’t be so lucky next month though, as I will definitely be working over Christmas.
Thanks for sharing this B747 schedule from Atlas! Every time, I mean, every time I see the Queen of the Sky overhead, I smile - she’s such an amazing bird.
December started off with the end of my short OT trip I picked up right after Thanksgiving. Officially I was on secondary from 12/12-12/29. Almost made it home on Christmas Day but had a trip added to the end last minute, but still got home a bit early on the 27th. When we just have a DH back to base for our last leg, we can get released and fly home directly.
1 - [OT] ICN (Layover)
2 - [OT] ICN - IWK - ANC
3 - ANC - SEA - OAK (Gateway)
4 - OFF
5 - OFF
6 - OFF
7 - OFF
8 - OFF
9 - OFF
10 - OFF
11 - OFF
12 - OAK - SEA - ANC (Gateway)
13 - ANC - MIA
14 - Layover
15 - MIA - SCL
16 - Layover
17 - SCL - MIA
18 - MIA - TPA (DH)
19 - TPA - RZE
20 - Layover
21 - Layover
22 - RZE - ICN
23 - ICN - HAN - HKG
24 - HKG - ANC
25 - Layover
26 - Layover
27 - ANC - ORD | ORD - SFO (Gateway)
28 - ORD - ANC (DH - replaced by Gateway travel above)
29 - OFF
30 - OFF
31 - OFF
Did my first Atlantic crossing this month, slightly more involved than a Pacific crossing but the procedures are in the process of being simplified.
Nice schedule it seems, especially having a couple days off in layovers between the trips. Atlantic crossing, checking fuel, sending for the estimated time of point, current position, altitude, etc.?
Generally yes but on the Atlantic side you need to get an Oceanic clearance…maybe. Oceanic clearances used to be required for every crossing but slowly it’s going away. Shanwick is the only Oceanic airspace that still requires a clearance prior to entry. So if you were to fly New York to London and back your east bound and west bound procedures will be different. At some point I think all oceanic clearances will go away, so the procedures will be the same again.
Pacific is by comparison a bit simpler, you just log on to CPDLC and check in on HF then enjoy your few hours of blissful radio silence
