This was from Saturday... and it is admittedly just a way to both satisfy my narcissism and put some Mötley Crüe in a video.
<3
ZD
What's crackin' y'all?
So it has been a fairly uneventful couple weeks. I'll sprinkle in some pictures down at the bottom to hold your interest.
Louisville, KY- Well, not much to say here. We were based out of Bowman Field just east of the main airport in Louisville. We had battles with weather and frustrating battles with Air Traffic Control. Its always nice when they kick you out of their airspace and when you ask if there's a time of day where they can more easily accommodate us their response is: "After my shift or on my days off." Dicks. So, after dealing with ATC for a week or so it became apparent that the remaining work was too cramped for two planes so I moved on. To where, you ask... well, keep reading... jeez.
Lexington, KY- If you've read my entire blog like a good student, you're asking yourself: "I swear he was in Lexington before." You would be right. Things at Lexington have changed quite a bit since last time. In my Lexington post from before I mentioned the Comair crash that occurred. Well, they have since made a repeat of that impossible. The runways have been reconfigured in such a way that they no longer intersect. I'll try and get a picture soon to demonstrate. Also, the FBO I am based at (which was really nice before) is even nicer now. Bigger facility, TV's in the bathroom, what more could you want?
Well, I'm going to be in Lexington for a while working on 3 different projects. For now, enjoy some pics:
So it has been a fairly uneventful couple weeks. I'll sprinkle in some pictures down at the bottom to hold your interest.
Louisville, KY- Well, not much to say here. We were based out of Bowman Field just east of the main airport in Louisville. We had battles with weather and frustrating battles with Air Traffic Control. Its always nice when they kick you out of their airspace and when you ask if there's a time of day where they can more easily accommodate us their response is: "After my shift or on my days off." Dicks. So, after dealing with ATC for a week or so it became apparent that the remaining work was too cramped for two planes so I moved on. To where, you ask... well, keep reading... jeez.
Lexington, KY- If you've read my entire blog like a good student, you're asking yourself: "I swear he was in Lexington before." You would be right. Things at Lexington have changed quite a bit since last time. In my Lexington post from before I mentioned the Comair crash that occurred. Well, they have since made a repeat of that impossible. The runways have been reconfigured in such a way that they no longer intersect. I'll try and get a picture soon to demonstrate. Also, the FBO I am based at (which was really nice before) is even nicer now. Bigger facility, TV's in the bathroom, what more could you want?
Well, I'm going to be in Lexington for a while working on 3 different projects. For now, enjoy some pics:
KLOU- Bowman Field
Downtown Louisville from the south looking at the Ohio River and Indiana
KFFT- Frankfort Capital City Airport in Frankfort, KY... not to be confused with EDDF- Flughafen Frankfurt am Main in Frankfurt, Germany.
Much love,
zd
Small update here...
I'm trying my darnedest to fall asleep but its rush hour for a million UPS airplanes landing over my hotel in Louisville. Luckily this is a one night stop before I meet up with the rest of the team here in Louisville tomorrow.
On the plus side, the weather in Louisville is warm as hell. It was in the mid-60's when I stepped off the plane at 9:30pm. Should be mid-70's during the day.
Looks like a 2500ft overcast tomorrow morning, but I have no clue how high up the flight plans are around here so who knows if/when I'll be up flying tomorrow. We shall see.
Peace out world!
Holy back from the dead, Batman! Well, I'm about to send in some paperwork while I make final preparations to join the NSA team as a mid-season replacement.
...Wait? Back it up. Where have I been and what the hell am I doing? I'll answer that. I've been plugging away at my office job and flight instructing out of Boeing Field for a while now, and the flying has slowed down immensely. I received a call from the ol' boss about rejoining NSA for a couple months, and it was honestly an easy decision.
1. Only a couple months, not the 8 month deployment like last time.
2. No clawing my eyes out in Batavia waiting to depart.
3. Long days of flying, and the most flight hour packed chunk of the season.
4. Why not?
Why not, indeed. With a logbook painfully close to ATP minimums it makes too much sense to go for it. I have a couple prime opportunities that open up when I get my ATP license and I can hit the hours mark without dink'n'dunk flight instructing forever. Don't get me wrong, I love flight instructing, but I told myself a long time ago that I'd never rely on instructing to get me where I'm going or to pay my bills because it is never a guarantee. Besides, I can always go back to it if necessary. Lord knows flying at Rainier is the best flight instructing situation anyone could ask for. Yes, AFSNAC, this is me saying I did not enjoy working there. You need to lighten up and quit screwing over your instructors, especially those that have been in your employ for 5+ years. They deserve better than the crap sandwiches you force-feed them.
Back on target... I have about a week and a half before I hop on a plane to meet up with my new bird, N410FR a.k.a. Professors Old Whip. At the moment it seems I will be headed to Charleston, SC though as the survey business goes, that is extremely subject to change.
I suppose that is all for now. I'll try and keep this thing going a little better for the short time I'm on the road.
xoxo
zachary
Okay, after having slacked off for the better part of a year, its time to make the final entry into the unfinished blog. The thing is, when I left this off I had just gotten in to Alexandria, MN. Word around the campfire was that there may be a cleanup project or two after we finished and then we'd be done. You better believe that we absolutely busted our asses to finish the project and get home. We spent a couple weeks in Alexandria and (to spoil the end of the story) we had NO OTHER PROJECTS!
Couple Minnesoooota highlights to share (apologies for aweful paragraphing):
Neighbor states- Alexandria is on the westernmost part of Minnesota. While out working the project, I managed to leave asome rubber and money from the company credit card in North Dakota and South Dakota. Kinda cool.
The creepy motel- So Bugsy had explained where the motel was (I know, I was WTF about a motel too) and when I came up to it, I thought the guy had lost his mind. Every creepy movie motel you've ever seen was what this one looked like. I'm thinking 'Oh well, small town, small selection of accomadations, deal with it.' Then I stepped into the room. Holy shit. It was NICE! Hard wood floors, a real bed (like $1200 pillow top Sealy). I literally felt like I was in a bedroom. It was fantastic and probably the best place the whole trip. Not a bad way to end the thing.
MSP- So we procured a car for free, and may have neglected to mention we were going to drive 2-3hours to Minneapolis/St. Paul for Twins game. Ben and I had joked about it, and along came a weather day so we jumped on it. We had a blasty at the game and met up with one of Ben's friends who lived in St. Paul. We consumed and played shuffleboard and consumed until they told us to go home. I woke up foggy in a strangers hideaway bed to "Zach we gotta get the fuck outta here. Its good weather, We gotta fly today." The 3rd guy with us had split the bridge of his nose open in a drunken midnight run to the john... still don't understand how he did it. Yada yada yada, we made it back to Alexandria and the weather was not as good as we thought, so we chilled. We may have gotten a parking ticket in St. Paul and it may have disappeared accidentally on the interstate. All in all it was a good time and I got to experience the Metrodome and dome dogs in the Twins last season there.
Project finish- We cranked out some absolutely, unbearably long 12+hr flying days and got word that once done we were to report back to Batavia where it all started. We finished in about an hours flight in the morning. We ran back to the hotel, grabbed out crap and called the boss to peace out to Chicago on our way back.
Last legs- We stayed a night in West Chicago at DuPage Airport. It was pretty nice and its always fun to dink around in really busy airspace like Chacago. We contemplated going downtown but decided we'd rather get back ASAP. We made our plane ticket purchases before leaving chicago too. Due to the way our per diem would be paid out we planned to stop just short of Batavia, spend the night and do a quick hop the next morning. We decided on Dunkirk, NY which would leave a 30-45min flight to close out the season. Aside from Cleveland trying to fly me over the middle of lake Erie (which I refused), the flight to Dunkirk was uneventful. There was some worry about the weather early in the morning getting in to Batavia but it ended up being unnecessary worry. I'll never forget taking off from Dunkirk, firing up my iPod, hopping on air-to-air, and holding the push-to-talk... "Its a beautiful morning.... ahhhh, I think I'll go outside a while, an' just smiiiiile." We landed in Batavia a short time later. It was very weird coming back to the place this whole adventure started. So glad to go home though.
I wish I could give a real insight into what this whole thing was to all of us. Fun, exciting, new, dreadful, torturous, tiring, enlightening. I've never felt a love-hate like I did withaerial survey. Obviously I chose not to go back, but I think if I continue to struggle to find employment flying I will consider it next season.
I hope you all enjoyed this as much as I was indifferent to writing it... thats a lie, I liked writing it.
Well, I've been flying a solid 9-10hrs a day for some time now and even the couple days off I've been too wiped to keep this up to date. Tough.
I already recapped getting to Independence/Cedar Falls, IA so I'll start from there. We waited about 3 days for the snow to clear before we could resume flying. Whilst in Cedar Falls I decided to make a more concerted effort to get back into runnning and thus begin getting back into shape. I went to a local running store, jumped on their treadmill with several different shoes and found the perfect pair to work with my overpronation. Eventually we made it back into the air and finished up the project in a week or so.
There was a snafu with where we were to go but Ben and I ended up heading to a place called Poplar Grove, just outside of Rockford, IL. It was another short project and we left after staying only one night. We did hit the Texas Roadhouse, getting an instant flashback to Cape Girardeau because they all have the EXACT same layout.
Our next destintation was Alexandria, MN but I had to stop to do a couple partial projects back in Des Moines first. My project ended up being hung-chowed after a couple days of being stuck so I convinced the boss to let me split for Minnesota. The flight up to Alexandria was pretty uneventful. I had to shoot the ILS coming in but I broke out well above min's.
I've been in Alexandria for a scosh over a week now and we've got about 4 days wor left for 2 of us, though we found out they're trying to send 1 or 2 more planes up to finish the project. If they ever make it here it'll be a quick finish, if the weather decides to let us get our work at 9000ft done.
So here's some pics from Sedalia, MO, Des Moines, IA, Rockford, IL and Des Moines, IA again. I have a few from here in Minnesota, but they're in my plane at the airport so you gotsta wait. Enjoy...
Not so stealthy from directly above. B-2 Spirit Stealth Bombers at Whiteman AFB in Missouri.
Note the A-10 Warthogs on the right side of the picture...
This showed up at Signature Flight Support in Des Moines and low and behold he's from Whiteman AFB. Go figure.
From left to right: A-10 Warthog, Ben's plane, My plane
Downtown Des Moines... not too impressive.
Ruh-roh... snow enroute to Independence, IA. Guess we'll go hide out in Byron, MN at Ben's parents.
Rockford, IL KRFD
The midwest is so flat the only thing you to watch out for are towers. This doozy of a towers is 3000ft high and I'm flying by at 3500ft. This is one of about a half dozen just north of the Des Moines airport KDSM.
Thats it for now. Peace.
Z Deezy
I know, its been almost 3 weeks.
Cape Girardeau, MO- The only thing worth mentioning about that stop was we drive down to Memphis for a day when the weather was bad. We went to Graceland and Beale St. Thats about it. I left Cape Girardeau on March 13th.
Sedalia, MO- My next stop was Sedalia, MO. Really nothing to say about this pit stain on the map. I had the worst tasting beer in my life here. You know the smell of a musty cellar? Liquify, add alcohol, hops, etc and you have the filthy trash I drank. Lesson learned. I left Sedalia on March 17th. Sedalia is where my buddy and I got the idea to start camping to save money.
Iowa City, IA- This was just a stopover. There was a project earlier in the season that was cut short due to heavy snow. We only have a few hours of work and never spent the night.
Mason City, IA- Mason City was our first attempt at camping. It was mildly successful. We camped at Clear Lake State Park. It was cold as hell. If memory serves, it was 25 that night. Well the next night was supposed to be even colder, possibly hitting the teens. The airport manager offered up an unused EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) meeting room for the night. We gladly accepted, especially since it was free and a toasty 65 degrees.
This morning we woke to a phone call that we would be moving to another project because some grade-A moron of the Mason City political ranks decided there was too much snow on the ground. Let me share a little secret: there was no snow except the occasional pile in a ditch from previous plowing. Nothing like trying to settle in and getting the rug yanked out from under you. Idiots.
For a little fun fact about Mason City. The Mason City airport is where Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens' chartered Beech Bonanza crashed shortly after takeoff. As a matter of fact, I imaged over the area where their plane crashed just NW of the airport. On an unrelated note, I rolled thru 1100hrs in Mason City.
Des Moines, IA- I am currently in Des Moines, IA. We only have a few days here and word is we'll be headed to Cedar Rapids next.
Hopefully that is enough to quench your thirst for my adventures for now. I gotta say, the prospect of being done in 2 months is amazing. This job has its ups, but it has major downs. Its a marathon and I can feel myself (and the other guys here) approaching the wall.
ZDD
I've been a little under the weather literally and figuratively here in Cape Girardeau, thus no updates. I made a real quick video last night of the ride to the top of the St. Louis Gateway Arch. I have a bunch of pics, but I'll add them later. This video is basically me having fun with video and (to a lesser extent) sound editting.
---Sorry, but some chickenshit had my video removed from Facebook. I guess having balls will never be a requirement for wasting everyone's else's oxygen---
More to come.
zdd
Well, I had intentions of updating this sooner but we've been battling the worst wireless internet in the world at the hotel.
So last I wrote, I was in Monroe, LA. We split town and made a 3hr jaunt down to New Orleans. New Orleans... its an interesting town. Still very apparent remains of Katrina damage as many residents never cared to return and their property has been left to rot. Downtown is not bad, but the French Quarter is the happening spot. We only had a 5 block walk from our hotel to Bourbon Street which was very nice. We took advantage of that convenience, for sure.
We finished up the New Orleans project pretty quick and I actually stayed 2 days longer to finish up.
My next stop was to be Springfield, MO. Unfortunately, the day I planned to leave there was nasty winds in Springfield, so I opted to pick a point midway. I definitely didn't want to stay in Arkansas so I picked a more east routing that brought me by Memphis. Obviously, landing at KMEM would be too pricy for the boss, so I opted for Olive Branch airport about 10 miles southeast of Memphis. I didn't realize until I was digging through my approach plates that Olive Branch is actually in Mississippi, not Tennessee. Who knew?
I ended up being marooned in Olive Branch for 3 days. Why, you ask...? Well, the first day I had an infuriating battle with my boss who was afraid of 2 airports with low clouds about 20 minutes into the flight. The rest of the route was clear as a bell. So now I had to stay another night and guess what? I spent the night on Tornado Watch. Luckily the tornados never came to the Memphis area, but we had wicked thunderstorms roll through at 6am. It was loud enough to wake me up and looking outside looked like a damn hurricane. Needless to say I opted not to fly that day. I finally made it out the following day with a 3 hr trip to Springfield.
Springfields been okay so far, but not much to report. I'll just leave you with some pics from the last couple weeks. Enjoy.
Hey Ben, how's it goin?
Monroe, LA
The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway
Another shot to the Lake and Causeway
Lakefront New Orleans (KNEW)
Downtown New Orleans, including the Superdome
The French Quarter
Barges on the Mississippi River in New Orleans
MSY, Louis Armstrong International Airport... slowest bravo in the country.
Popping up at 8000ft enroute to Olive Branch, MS
That is all...
ZD
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