Back to the grind

OK so I flew a Southwest flight on my Birthday from San Antonio to El Paso. Had to scrub the first flight. Number 1 engine shut down at 500 feet off the end of the runway due to a bird strike. I shut down and called an emergency and circled around. I made the approach and threw the rudder to the right to counteract the thrust of the number 2 motor and descended in. Got it on the first try and slowed to a stop at the end of the runway and then turned off and taxied back to the gate where I shut down the remaining motor. After we switched planes I tried it again and this time the flight was worry free. IFR conditions on the landing but no bad wind to contend with.

It's my birthday!

I'm gonna take tomorrow and the next day off because I will be aging a year. I can hear it now...

Happy Birthday to me.
Happy Birthday to me.
Happy Birthday dear a**hole!
Happy Birthday to me.
And many mooooooorrrrreeeee!

So long sun hello rain!

Left the sunny beaches of Princess Julians this morning for a textbook jaunt up to Newark, NJ in a Continental 737. The weather was bauetiful as we left and of course it was overcast and dreary when I got into KEWR. I di have the opportunity to fly over the new sunskyjets KPHL I just installed and even at 10000 feet it looked awesome! That is all for now. Until next time so long!

Midway bites me in the derriere...

Southwest flight this morning left Buffalo and unbeknownst to me there was a fairly large storm cell residing over Chicago. Flight was uneventful landing was a kiss touchdown. I parked at B16 and commenced to service the airplane. This morning I was heading off to Norfolk after a quick turnaround here in CHI. Passengers loaded, Fueled, Jetway retracted, away we go. I get out to the taxi way and hold short at 22L. I call for takeoff and roll onto the runway we start our roll and watch the speed indicator. 60 70 80 knots- callout 120 V1 122 Rotate! Up we go into the sky and  I watch the altitude tape and as it starts to roll downward I throw the gear handle up. Transition lights go red and NOTHING HAPPENS! I cycle the gear handle again and still nothing.; The FO informs me that the gear isn't working. Thank you Captain Obvious!. I squawk 7700 and call out emergency circle to land 22L The runway is clear and we line up. I float her down and ease onto the runway. Soon as the wheels hit the deck I have to get hard on the brakes and reverse thrust due to the high speed because the plane was heavy with extra fuel. Finally come to a stop at the threshold on the other end of the runway and we roll off to the left where we were greeted by fire trucks. After all the pax deplane we jump onto the slide and hit the ramp where the follow me truck takes the aircrew to the terminal. I hitch a ride to the hotel and here I am in Lovely Chi-town for the night. Oh well we'll try it again tomorrow!

Feelin hot hot hot!

Well I flew a Flydubai last night from Kathmandu(vnkt) to Dubai Int.(omdb) I found a brand new paint for the PMDG 737-800 from FlyDubai so I decided to give it a try. I left Kathmandu under some really foggy conditions and climbed out through the clouds to an obscured ground and heavy tail winds. About halfway through the trip I had to descend to about FL280 because of the pressure. For some reason my 800 did not want to maintain 350 but stopped acting up around 280(thank you FSpax). I continued on and made a beautiful approach from over the gulf onto 12L. Have I ever mentioned that Flytampa went way beyond the call of duty when they made OMDB???

Never enough play time...

I try to stay on top of things and I try to balance but i can never find enough time to do what I want and please my family. I flew my actual first real world flight in a Cessna 172 SP and that was fun but of course money is getting in the way of school. Oh well roll with the punches right? I did take a DHC 6 to LUKLA this month and I have been riding the orange bellies around quite a bit. One big change though I have left joinava,org. Not because of anything bad I just wanted to be part of something a little different so I joined skynet virtual www.snvirtual.net many of my friends are on there and my buddy Shawn is the hub manager in KPHX where I fly out of. Good times. I am going to wrap it up for now but I will be back dear reader, hasta la-vista