pOkE the pLaNeT

I work in the airline industry and every once in a while you change fleets and they put you on a new aircraft. Usually that isnt such a big deal but I am now going from flying domestic on medium jets to flying purely international on heavies. Apparantly this is a move up though I would disagree... it just means I fix light fittings in asian hotel rooms instead of domestic ones.

Heres how it goes. You go from being a captain on a domestic jet to being a first officer on an international one, in this case a Boeing. You start by doing three months of ground school and simulator training and emergency procedures stuff which includes learning how to operate the doors in an evacuation etc etc. Two points... everyone whacks their tail bone on the bloody emergency slide at the 747 simulator and no one gets in the liferaft without assistance in the pool exercise. The good news is that if you mess up in the raft seating exercise you have to move around a lot and its a God given opportunity to bump into wet flight attendants in bunny suits, some of them even being female. Mess up too often and they get suspicious.

After you pass the initial training you do line training, which is where you fly around for a couple of months with a training captain. Its bad enough on domestic but on international the learning curve is massive. You also see how aviation is done in different countries and to be honest I want my comforter back. Examples:

Taxying around Narita airport in Tokyo you notice security barriers right where the middle of where runway 34R should be. Why? When they built the airport the farmers who own the land went all militant and to date they havent been able to take over the land where the middle of the runway was planned, so they have security barriers surrounding the farms. Go on to Google Map, look up Narita Airport Tokyo and spot the farm where the runway on the north side of the field should be.

In Manila the precision approach aids dont work and the taxiways have potholes, and the crew hotel has a strip joint in the basement which seems to account for all of the pilots allowances in one evening. In Singapore they frisk you getting OFF the plane before allowing you into the terminal, at least when you come from Manila. Its all very interesting but if I have one more security employee grope my crotch looking for a weapon Im insisting they buy me dinner afterwards.

The tough part? Apart from interpreting the instructions from the controllers (except for San Francisco, who handle air traffic over Micronesia), its getting used to the sleep pattern. I now sleep until 11.00 am and stay awake until three am, because all of our flights run from dusk till dawn. I feel like a vampire with a samsonite.

K