Flight Level 390

Blogging at FL250

• Juniority
  I came off medical leave and was released back onto the line at the beginning of April, which means that I didn't have the opportunity to bid an April schedule in mid-March. Instead, crew planning built me a schedule for the remainder of the month from a combination of trips in open time and reserve days. There wasn't much flying in open time, whic […]
• Homecoming
  Yesterday, I flew my first revenue flight since December 21. The three and a half months in between are the longest I've gone without work since I started flying professionally in 2001. As noted, I at least had the Cub to occasionally putter around the wintry skies, so I wasn't completely grounded, and I managed to keep myself busy through most of […]
• Baja Video Blog - Episode 5
  Last one, I promise. At least for the two weeks that Brad and I did. Last week I returned to Baja for six more days of riding from Loreto to Cabo San Lucas, this time alone. I got some pretty great footage, especially from my nearly 100 sometimes-treacherous miles of dirt riding to the tiny isolated fishing village of San Evaristo. I'll put that togethe […]
• Baja Video Blog - Episode 4
  Wherein I do my best impression of a TV talking head due to a lack of footage and photos from our 5 nights in San Ignacio, we attempt to rebuild Brad's bike in a small town far from anywhere, and we have an incredible encounter with two very friendly Gray Whales. […]
• Baja Video Blog - Episode 3
  Wherein I go an entire day on dirt without dropping or somersaulting my bike, we stay on a ranch and discover where beef comes from, and Brad's Big Red Pig suffers its most serious breakdown yet.Also, I realize that Google Maps' coverage of Baja is quite scant and it's difficult to find many of the places and routes I've been talking abou […]

Aviatrix

• Death Before Dishonour
  Years ago, a chief pilot I was fond of told me during a flight that he was leaving for another company. I congratulated him (we were both working for the kind of company that even being fired from was probably grounds for congratulations) and then I reflected silently for a while, knowing I would miss him. I asked him who would be chief pilot after he left, […]
• Screw Bronze
  Commenter Pete Templin broke the news here first: the remarkable author, athlete and rights advocate Dr. Elizabeth McClung passed away at the end of April, after spending years defying doctors' prognoses and anyone's expectations of what or who she was or could do. I met her some years ago through her blog Screw Bronze, stumbling upon an entry afte […]
• Ramblings Including Oxygen
  This is a story about helping to train a pilot who was hired to take my job after I leave. I want to keep this job now, but then I want every aviation job. I cried handing in my resignation from a flight instruction job to work at an airline, and I once worked three different flying jobs at once because I loved them all. Crazy girl. My resume is kind of hard […]
• Bad Vibrations?
  Summer pre-dawn departure. I do the preflight inspection in a lighter hangar, then tow the airplane out onto the ramp. The sky is black, with slightly lighter grey patches where a few stratus clouds reflect city lights back towards me. The fuel truck arrives, its headlights sweeping through the dark patches between the well-lit areas of the ramp. They can […]
• Made in China
  Li Jingchun, a farmer in China has built what amounts to an art installation or perhaps a plaything, a tribute to his love of airplanes. It's something that he's clearly been inspired to create. It's fun to look at and he has every right to be proud of it, but the media coverage is strange. Not strange that it's covered at all. I'm a […]

The Gimli Chronicle

Plastic Pilot

• Five tools necessary for adequate airport snow removal
• My personal aviation Christmas tale…
• Thank You, and Merry Christmas
• So much to do, and so little time… an aviation wish-list for 2012
• Something new at Frankfurt Airport and a video of Tegucigalpa