Globe with the words Around the Pattern cured around the top half.

Ramblings about flying for fun and profit


airline flying

  • Two Flights and Fun in the Sim

      My wife recently asked me if this is how  I felt. Yeah, it pretty much described my physical state when she asked.  I was amazed to see that it had been a month since my last post. Time flies. My brief hiatus from writing started with a 4-day recovery period at the end of […]

  • Commuting Weather Worries

    I mentioned previously that my OE trip was to start soon, implying that I was going to be commuting to my assigned base to start the trip. Since I was still officially in training the commute was for ‘company business’ and allowed me to book confirmed seats.  That meant I didn’t have to worry about […]

  • Musical Chairs

    Our last flight back to Narita’s runway 16R found us landing at sunset with low clouds and gusting winds.  That night the weather front passed through the area and cleared out most of the clouds, but kept the winds howling. By 7 am the  next morning Narita had switched to runway 34L and  FedEx’s flight […]

  • A Day Off, But Not Really

    This leg was a bit easier than usual and was a change to my originally bid pattern. [Oops, I just read that I’m supposed to refer to these series of flights I work  as “rotations” now, not patterns – part of the standardization of  the two merging airline’s terminology. Oh,  the changes just keep rolling […]

  • Manila Moments

    The last post left us about to begin our layover in Nagoya. After checking into our rooms and changing clothes, three of us (the two captains and I) walked a couple of blocks to a small restaurant for a snack of fried rice and gyoza ( also known as potstickers) followed by a stop at […]

  • An Unusual Crew

    Yesterday I began my one trip for the month of March, a 13-day jaunt around Asia with a couple of round-trips back to the U.S. included in the mix. We started with a leg from Motor City to Nagoya, Japan. The crew for this leg was a little different than I have had lately, for […]