Philadelphia stories
This week, I returned to Philadelphia. Every flying job since college has brought me in and out of the City of Brotherly Love. As you may recall, we just started flying there from San Francisco and Los Angeles.
I like the city. I don’t care for the airport. Like so many others on the east coast, it was designed before anyone could have predicted the demands of current-day airline operations. That breeds delays… both in the air and long taxi times.
I returned rather unceremoniously after a long red-eye flight from SFO. The captain made a nice landing after breaking out of clouds at 1000′ on the ILS to runway 9R. We taxied and parked at the E Concourse. Throughout the day, little things jogged my Philadelphia memories.
Posted in 
Working the late shift
Take a look at the following three photos. I snapped them on the same day I flew a red-eye flight. I’ve posted them in the order they were taken. Do you know what I am showing you in these photographs?
First sky photo
Second sky photo
Third sky photo
If you are thinking it is a nice sunrise, take a closer look at the photographs. In particular, note the height of the clouds in relation to the camera.
Although they were all taken the day of a red-eye to Washington Dulles, the pictures were captured heading back west over Virginia. You are actually looking at a sunset.
Flyover States
If you don’t listen to country music, you probably haven’t heard Flyover States by Jason Aldean.
I’ve heard “flyover states” loosely thrown around by passengers and other crew members. In my opinion, it is a derogatory term that has been given a “free pass” by the politically correct crowd. If they’re really worried about “offending” people, why is it permissible to tell a large part of our population that their states are worthless?
The United States is a very large, diverse country. Sometimes, people on the coasts dismiss the value of what’s in the middle. I think Mr. Aldean does a great job capturing that sentiment and articulating why these folks are a little off base.
Plus, he uses airplanes in the video.
Courtesy of cmt.com, here’s the video:
Here are the lyrics:
A couple of guys in first class on a flight
From New York to Los Angeles
Kinda making small talk killin’ time
Flirting with the flight attendants
Thirty thousand feet above, could be OklahomaJust a bunch of square cornfields and wheat farms
Man, it all looks the same
Miles and miles of back roads and highways
Connecting little towns with funny names
Who’d want to live down there, in the middle of nowhereThey’ve never drove through Indiana
Met the man who plowed that earth
Planted that seed, busted his ass for you and me
Or caught a harvest moon in Kansas
They’d understand why God made
Those fly over statesI bet that mile long Santa Fe
Freight train engineer’s seen it all
Just like that flatbed cowboy
Stacking US Steel on a three day haul
Roads and rails under their feet
Yeah, that sounds like a first class seatOn the plains of Oklahoma
With a windshield sunset in your eyes
Like a watercolored painted sky
You’ll think heavens doors have opened
You’ll understand why God made
Those fly over statesTake a ride across the badlands
Feel that freedom on your face
Breathe in all that open space
Meet a girl from Amarillo
You’ll understand why God made
You might even wanna plant your stakes
In those fly over statesHave you ever been through Indiana
On the plains of Oklahoma
Take a ride
De-stressing the commute
I’m becoming a huge fan of the stress-free commute. Even if it takes a little more time, effort and money, I’m starting to take any measures necessary to eliminate the stress.
A low pressure system was moving over the Bay Area the morning of my commute. With low overcast rainy conditions forecast, I knew SFO would be running big delays. (Same old story I’ve written about before… runways too close together limits the aircraft arrival rate in bad weather.)
Who needs that stress when commuting? I’m at the point that whenever poor conditions are forecast, I commute to an alternate airport. I’ve been using Oakland and riding the Bart over to San Francisco. It takes about an hour and a half and costs $10.80.
With a late afternoon report time, I decided to try the other Bay Area backup: San Jose Airport. I’d been looking for an excuse to give this option a “dry run” when I had plenty of time.