DATE: 13 Jun 2007, 9:18 pm / MOOD: Bored

Huh, sat here for about an hour getting the morning flight to the States planned out. Not going at all well. I'm bored waiting for Shanwick to get back to me with my clearance! Ugh.

 

I'm watching Paramount Comedy through my lap-top and they re doing this 'Fake-speare' thing, a lot of crap! 

 

Thomas

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DATE: 13 Jun 2007, 9:10 pm / MOOD: Full of life

Wow! I am so excited.

 For some bizarre reason it has been a childhood dream to go on a Cruise even though i have a stronger passion for flying, Cruising just appeals to me so i have took a serious amount of leave from work to go on a 105 day world cruise on the Queen Mary 2, CUNARD Cruises. I am soo excited.

 

 

Anyhoo, hope everyone is well.

 

Thomas

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DATE: 30 Mar 2007, 5:55 pm / MOOD: Other

British Airways plc. Has bought 51 slots from major rival airline bmi. The news comes as both BA and Virgin look into making a bid to buy out bmi.

 

Great news for us here at the Heathrow side of operations. Will be good to see an even more dominant BA fleet at LHR :)

 

This news should take some interest out of bmi for Virgin.

 

Tom

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DATE: 20 Feb 2007, 6:54 pm / MOOD: Other

Today, one of the pilots i was flying with was moving from the sim into the 767 for the first flight, there isn't much of a diffrence in the cockpits, the biggest really is the overhead panel lay out, but on one jet you step up, the other you step down, well, he strode in quite excited about the flight, walked to the cockpit door and fell right over the step into the 76 flight deck.  What a laugh! It was so priceless as he came in cocky and confident, only to sit in his seat with a sore face.

 

Tom

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DATE: 03 Jan 2007, 11:30 am / MOOD: Other

I wasn't going to post a blog on the return flight as they are usually pretty boring ... but this one had a little suprise for me and my Captain of the 757 we were in.

On arrival to EGLL we can in fine, cleared to land, told to taxy ... and go to ground. .... so we went to ground and they instructed us to our Gate. The captain of the aircraft was taxying us in, turning into the gate there was a massive bang, no idea what it was, but the left side if the aircraft had lost the ability to steer on the ground. Turned out that a part that connects the Tiller to the steering colum had snapped. Nothing exciting happened, i was able to take control from my seat but the aircraft really over turned. Nothing happened but the potential for something to go wrong was there .. like go through something sitting from Ground Ops.

Tom

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DATE: 03 Jan 2007, 5:23 am / MOOD: Dont know

  This morning at god knows what time my PDA started flashing and going mental to tell me that i had to baby sit a flight to Glasgow at 0600 ... the scheduled departure time was 0735.

  The reason for this was one of our pilots, was still recovering from the New Year. So ... me like an idiot actually answered the email, and said i would take the hop. It is only around 5 hours and i would be at home getting ready for recurrent anyway. I hate flying these little domestics first thing in the morning. They are full of fresh faced business men who are ready to go mental if there is the dlightest bit of turbulance and there pen misses the line or something, but i am here now, getting ready for 1486 GLA-LHR ... then, hopefully there will be a pilot to take over ... if there isn't i'll be stuck on this route untill 10pm .. ugh.

 Anyway i shall make best of what is happening, good for getting a feel again for the 757, even if i am in the right hand seat.

 

 Tom

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DATE: 02 Jan 2007, 10:02 pm / MOOD: Other

 

   Well, moving on from missing friends, i do intend to keep my job so i am spending my nights and days going through manual after manual, theory after theory and coffee after coffee as i get ready for the darn tests i have coming my way from BAFT, British Airways Flight Training.

   The CAA refer to Recurrent as a way to determine how effective CRM training is (?!) I don't know why they put it like that but apparently thats what they say. Needless to say, any pilot needs to be ready for the Recurrent Training, i have been up for just over 36 hours now reading over things, chapter upon chapter to get ready for this 30 hour course!

   I am in the litte study i have in my house, usually it sits spoltless, with all my books and what knot arranged by title/catagory on a large book shelf ... right now, the shelfs are empty and the books are scattered across a large desk behind my lap top. I think i am going to take the advice of Chris (whaledrvr) and start reading one chapter as i am on the road, keep up to date with things ... i tend only to read the things that i need to be up to date with ... which sucks. I also have around 60 pages of recordings next to me, which will be analysed by another pilot and a report will be given to BA on my ILS accuracy.

 So, back to the books, every now and then i find something that excites me and run upstairs to tell my fionce .... i need something to amuse myself with ...

 

Tom

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DATE: 02 Jan 2007, 9:42 pm / MOOD: Lonely

 

  Today, my son approached me to tell me he had lost contact with a lot of his friends from School, he has posted a blog about it on his web page. But for me it brought back a memory of a friend i had at school. We were great friends and told each other everything, she was great fun to be around and o great to get on with. The last i heard she was a Lawyer in Glasgow. We always used to send letters when i was in flight training and eventually began to keep in touch through email but it all kinda of stopped a few years ago and we havn't spoken since. It is rather depressing.

 Hopefully one day i will randomly bump into her in Glasgow or something and we can get back in touch.

 

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DATE: 27 Dec 2006, 8:36 pm / MOOD: Other

 

   British Airways Flight 209, today, went off the end of the Runway at Miami International. We are not at liberty to disclose information but the aircraft is fine, it only hit a fewrunway lights or at least that is the story we are getting. It will be interesting to see if there is any damage on the 744 when it gets back to LHR, i can't see it being totally untouched after that.

 Glad it wasn't me flying it .... Carrying PM, Tony Blair and family. Going by the online manifest he is in First Class along with his family, would have been rough sitting there as the aircraft bounced off the end of the runway!

 

Tom

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DATE: 22 Dec 2006, 10:23 am / MOOD: Dont know

"Speedbird 109 heavy cleared departure runway 27R"

"109, cleared departure 27R"

 Weather was great! .. actually pretty typical of LHR but i was in a good mood so it wasn't bad. After about a 15 minute delay we were airborne and leaving the London controllers to eventually join up with Turkey before Iraq and UAE. Out of Europe was simple enough ... everything went to plan, we had some routing problems just over Turkey but they got us through it and we were back en route before leaving it.

 Into Dubai was relativly simple as well. The Airport was quiet and the gate was easy enough to find ... (EFB's, amazing things).

Just after landing in DXB the examiner congratulated me in now being rated in the Boeing 777 and told me we were all going out for drinks that night. Was a good night and Dubai is an amazing place, hoping to get to see a little more of it sometime soon :)

 Flight 108 (Back to EGLL) also went well, although most of that leg was flown by another pilot.

Finished with the flyng untill after Christmas although i could be going down south on the 23rd (Tomorrow) for a dang conference (BORING) but i shall wait and see ... if BA1488 isn't running i have a good excuse for not going ;) 

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