Takeoff
A got his call for IOE yesterday. At 4pm. To report for a 6:15am flight the next morning. We had been hoping for more than 14 hours notice, but at least we got that. So he got up bright and early at 3:30am and headed out the door. First flight is IAH-JAX, which is nice because at least he’ll be flying into an airport he’s familiar with. Then onto EWR, and several intriging destinations (Jackson, MS anyone? Hartford, Ct?) with 3 overnights. One day short of 6 weeks after completing training, he’s finally in the air.
So we are officially property of crew scheduling at this point. And we will be for a while. A was kind enough to point out yesterday that since he will be on reserve for a bit and will just be assigned trips, it may actually be crew scheduling who determines when we finally get that addition to our family. How depressing is that? I’m thinking that my calling them up and saying “can you send my husband home for 4 days so I can get knocked up?” isn’t going to be very effective. I’m sure they’d all get a laugh out of it though. I have to chuckle just at the thought of what their response might be if I actually tried it.
I had to deal with my first critical incident without A yesterday, and he wasn’t even gone yet. I took Kidzilla to the pool for a bit so A could do some review work and as luck would have it, he jumped in and broke open his chin on the ledge. In the exact same spot he had 5 stitches in just over a year ago. So I had to make the decision whether it was ER worthy (no) and closed it up myself with some butterfly band-aids and a big band-aid over that. In the past, all yucky medical tasks have defaulted to A, which he doesn’t mind handling. Hopefully there won’t be too many incidents like this to deal with.
Now the fun really begins!
Sugar and Salt
A managed to get through his LOFT ( Line Oriented Flight Training, basically a regular, non-eventful flight in the sim, like what a normal flight on the line would be like). He said he did well and was complemented by the Check Airman on being one of the 30% (I think) who actually landed the plane on the first try. That was a good boost to A since he was feeling rusty after waiting at home for so long. Other people from his class have been called for their IOE, so we hope that we will be called soon. There seems to be nothing that we can anticipate with this airline though…
It’s good he hasn’t been called yet though, because he’s come down with a miserable cold. Kidzilla told me this morning that “his brain is on fire” after feeling A’s forehead. Hopefully he’ll be better soon.
It was funny to have him be gone again, even for just one night. All this time he’s been home, I’ve been waiting for him to leave so I can get back into a routine and being the only parent around again. Yes, there are times he gets on my nerves and times when I get incredibly jealous that he gets to be home all day while I am at work. I have been looking forward to getting back to the coming and going schedule again. But at the same time, that one night that he was away, I missed him so much. Much more than I thought I would. Even thought I knew I was being lame b/c it was only one night away. It will be sweet when he’s actually doing the job he wants to be doing (flying) and we have some semblance or normality again, it will also be salty b/c we will miss him in our lives and I know he will miss us.
We’re still holding out for the company to open and east coast base so we live in base. He’s still based in ONT, but thinking about taking the temporary duty assignments to LAX because a) they will fly him out positive space from here for it and b) they will give him room and board during it. Standing bid is for IAH, but really we don’t want to move there. I’ll still pick hurricanes over tornados anyday.
We had a talk last night about getting to follow our dreams and who’s turn it was now. 18 months ago, I put my goals on hold and we all moved out here to FL to support him as he went to flight school. We weren’t sure how we were going to make it but we were committed to trying. Now that he’s acheived his goal and is employed with an airline, I feel that it’s time to turn our focus on acheiving my goal of adding to our family. As much as he wants it, he’s worried about finances and wants me to put it off for another year. We’ve been back and forth with it for the past few days, but I think he’s starting to see my side of it. Besides, with him based on the west coast, lord knows how long it will take for us to finally get our timing right on this one.
Finally getting somewhere
A got called last night for his LOFT. FIN-A-LY! They called at 5pm thurs. and told him he needed to be at the schoolhouse in IAH, ready to go for a 2:30am sat session.
He’s nervous, I can tell, b/c things have turned into a crazy rush. Had to get the 3 hours worth of Jepp revisions done (thank goodness we had them on hand). Fly out at 11am Friday, shuttle to the training center to pick up uniform since he’s in IAH, clear up some issues with the training dept, find out what hotel he’s supposed to be at, shuttle back to the terminal, shuttle to the airport, sleep from 3-12 (or at least attempted to), wake up, study refresher, report to sim at 2am. Once he’s finished with the sim, he’ll be on his way home again. I’m sure it will go fine, especially with all the jumpseating he’s done recently.
Once this is done, it will just be the wait for IOE, hopefully not more than another 2 weeks.
UAL pilots- at least one of you rocks!
Kidzilla (age 5) recently flew with Grandpa and Grandma back to SFO from OKC (via DEN? ORD?). They were non-reving on UAL (yeah, that was my kid, taking up your coveted first class seat, sorry about that). Not only did the pilots give him a set of wings (which he wore for 3 days straight I’m told), they also gave him a trading card of the airplane he flew on. Photo on the front and stats on the back. He loves it! I wish I could get my hands on some more. That’s the first time on ANY airline that he’s ever been given anything.
Thanks to those UAL pilots who still have time to make a little kid’s day, it really meant a lot to him.