Spring Has Sprung...a Tornado in Downtown Atlanta!

You may or may not have heard that 2 weeks ago, March 14th to be exact, a strong thunderstorm hit Atlanta. Specifically, an F2 tornado ripped right through parts of downtown and did some nice damage to several buildings.

On the night in question, Allison was at home and I was in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Pennsylvania. I remember being on the phone with her, looking at the storm on radar as it moved in. I told her I was surprised there weren't any tornado watches out because the storm was a textbook supercell with a "nice" juicy hook echo at the southwest corner. That is where tornadoes usually form. Smyrna, where Allison was, is about 15 miles to the north of where the hook echo was so I wasn't concerned. If you saw the news, you know what happened next.


Downtown yesterday, March 25th

The weather the last few days has been perfect. Sunny and 60's for the high. So I went out yesterday on a photo mission and wandered around downtown to check out the damage.

Click here to see the photos.

Ever wonder what it looks like landing at an airport where a snow storm is just moving over the airport but hasn't quite made it all the way across the whole airport yet? You're in luck! See below. It's like flying into a wall:



Can you see the runway? Here, this might help:



I've heard some people are wondering how I take photos like this while flying the airplane. The answer is simple. I'm not flying. I only take them when the other guy doing the work. :-)

Spring Break Panama City!

My 4-day trip this week included a 23-hour overnight in Panama City, Florida from noon on Saturday, March 15th to noon today, March 16th. Allison attempted to come with me on my flight but there were too many Spring Breakers. Too bad she can't ride the cockpit jumpseat. Well, she could, but then I'd lose my job.

After she missed my flight, the momentary chaos started.

The other flights looked bad too, so she listed on an ASA flight to Tallahassee, which is 98 driving miles from the Panama City airport. By the time she found this other option, I had flown my 42 minute flight to Panama City.

Here's the problem. The timing is critical.

I've just arrived to the terminal in P.C. The hotel van is waiting for us. I don't know at this point if Allison is going to make it to TLH because she hasn't been given a seat yet. So do I pick up the rental car and waste money if she doesn't make the flight, or do I just ride the van to the hotel? Bear in mind, there was no penalty if I didn't get the car.

So I tell Allison, "Just forget it, it's too much hassle." But then unbeknown to me, she gets the last seat on the flight to Tallahassee. Meanwhile, I'm riding on the hotel van with my crew. She calls me back already sitting on the airplane.

After some debate, I arrive at the hotel, hastily drop everything in my room, change, make sure I have everything I need, jump back in the van and ride back to the airport to get my rental car.

I had a mid-size reserved but all they had left was a Chevy HHR which is essentially a PT Cruiser. Eh. So for only $15 more, I upgrade to a brand new 2008 Chrysler Sebring convertible for 40% the normal rental rate. Things were starting to get better! Now to drive 98 miles to pick up Allison!

Did I mention the Sebring is a Limited trim line so it has an incredible Boston Acoustics stereo with a subwoofer and Sirius satellite radio? Yeah, I was jamming. Made the drive a lot easier.

We made it back to Panama City around 6 pm. After a quick stop by the hotel, we continued to Panama City Beach where all the "action" was. Neither I nor Allison ever did the whole stereotype Spring Break in college so it was kinda neat. We didn't really do anything except cruise the beachfront at 10 mph blasting music on our loud stereo like everyone else. It was in the high 60's so we had the top down but it was too windy to walk on the beach. Got back to the hotel around 9:30 pm or so and headed down for a relaxing sit in the jacuzzi.

It was really fun watching all the "kids" doing their thing. Made us feel old. Hehe.

Allison has a soccer game today so I drove her to the airport for the 7:30 am flight back to Atlanta and she arrived about when I started typing this blog. My flight leaves at 12:30 so I have a little while. Today I fly back to Atlanta, then up to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. From Harrisburg we go to Cincinnati, and then Cincy back to Atlanta, finishing around 10:30 pm.

I took a few pictures this morning but most of them are of Allison leaving on the ASA ATR-72 back to Atlanta. Wasn't a whole lot to take a picture of yesterday as most of it was driving. I might post a couple later just for fun but I don't have to transfer cable to get them off the camera so you'll just have to suffer. :-)

Boise, Saltillo, Hot Springs and More...

We've had a few things to blog about that neither Allison or I have been able to get to. So I'm writing them all at once but I'm going to break it up into 3 seperate posts so it's not just one giant blob.

Here's the first story as it happened only yesterday, March 2nd.

This reserve pilot thing is interesting. I get to do things I didn't do as a regular schedule-holding pilot. Yesterday, I flew Ship N972EV to Hot Springs, Arkansas for a major maintenance check. Every so often, an aircraft operated under FAA FAR Part 121 (aka airlines) has to undergo regular maintenance. Duh. Ship 972 was due for a C-check which is the "lighter" of the 2 heavy maintenance checks.

When we first got there, one of the mechanics guiding us to parking held up 3 fingers as we parked. Normally, this means to leave hydraulic pump 3 turned on. During maintenance, mechanics install landing gear pins in the landing gear and in order to put this pin in the nose gear, hydraulic pump 3 has to be turned on. We both assumed that was what he meant and shut the aircraft down normally.

Nope. What he wanted us to do was leave both engines running and the APU, hence the 3. Not something either of us had seen before. Well, the problem is they do some of their checks right after the aircraft has flown but the FO and I didn't know that. Long story short, we had to go fly the airplane again.

So after getting more fuel and a new flight plan as a test flight, we launched, flew in a big circle and landed again, this time leaving everything running until they told us otherwise.



You may ask, well, why didn't the mechanics just come on board and tell you that to begin with. Remember, we are flying the plane with just two pilots and no one else. So we have to get up and open the cabin door ourselves which we didn't do until we shut the airplane down.

After that, we waited on our ride to Little Rock airport which was about 60 miles away and deadheaded back to Atlanta.

And of course, here are some pictures.

Another Saltillo Repo!

On Leap Day, Friday, February 29th I took another CRJ down to Mexico to be repainted. In case you didn't know I took a first one, click here to read the post.

Now that you're all caught up, I won't repeat too much as it was essentially the exact same thing. This time we took ship N850AS. The guy down in Saltillo told me they're scheduled to paint 70 airplanes this year so I'm sure it's likely not the last time I'll do it.

Now a few videos for you from that trip.

The first one is me landing the plane as seen wedged between the windshield and the top of the instrument panel. Enjoy the view of the windshield wiper arm. I float forever and the landing is a little firm as the plane is about 10,000 pounds lighter than it normally is. The floating is due to the fact that at the lighter weight, we land about 30 mph SLOWER than we normally do with passengers on board and it feels very strange to be going that "slow," about 115 mph over the ground. So I'm going a little bit fast and the "float" or hanging over the runway before touchdown is because the airplane is not ready to settle. It still has energy in the form of extra speed.

Listen for the dual click of the thrust reversers being unlocked after touchdown and see if you can tell when the nose gear touches. It's very subtle and occurs a bit after the clicks.



Here we are riding through Mexico. My FO is from Nashville. Watch and you'll understand:




And of course, here are a few pictures to view from that trip.

Boise, Idaho Ski Trip 2008

Last story...

We headed out to Boise, Idaho to visit with Allison's brother John and his wife Michelle and daughter Reganne. This was over the long weekend of Feb. 16-17th. Poor Allison spent all day Saturday trying to non-rev out there from Atlanta while I was working. I got finished early enough to run home, pack, run back to the airport and jump on a United flight out to Denver and then another flight to Boise. Ironically, we both arrived around 10:30pm, Allison on Delta from Salt Lake and me on United from Denver. BTW, I can ride as a jumpseater on most any airline for free. Nice perk of being an airline pilot. And I only have to ride the cockpit jumpseat if there are no seats available in the cabin.

On Sunday, we all had an awesome breakfast at a local restaurant in Meridian. John bought his 08-09 Bogus Basin season pass and then we went to a really cool local candy shop near downtown Boise. The rest of the day we relaxed back at the Watts home, visiting and playing with Reganne. For dinner, we had some of the fish John caught on his fishing trip late last year. It was excellent!

Monday morning, John, Allison and I got up early and headed up into the mountains for a day of skiing at Bogus Basin. The snow was incredible, much better then last year when we went at the very end of the season in April. We finished up around 3 pm and headed back home. Allison and I flew back to Atlanta on Tuesday morning, making both flights on the first try. Always a good thing!

Here's some action video. The first part is a little spastic. I'm trying to secure the lens cap in my hand so it doesn't bang around and get in the way.



Click here for the pictures!