It is finally Friday Blog

Hope you have had a productive week. For me... Well, all I can say is if I do not see another airline for the next few weeks I will be a happy camper. Here is a quick synopsis of the week.

The rat race starting on Monday I had a rental car from Grand Rapids Michigan and drove to Columbus Ohio to conducted a checkride on a Captain ending up in Little Rock Arkansas that evening. The next morning I was on a USAirways regional jet going to Charlotte North Carolina only to rent another car and drive up to Statesville North Carolina. Once there I joined the crew I was to check but there was no flight so we spend six glorious hours at the airport twiddling our thumbs. We finally were released to the hotel around eight at night. Wednesday found os with a flight to Danville Virginia which is just across the border from NC. As I do not conduct checks with passengers on the aircraft, I was sure I would be abandoned in Danville. But Nooooo! It was to be yet another rental car and a drive to Greensboro North Carolina. This time to catch another flight to Charlotte and then to Chicago (ORD). Of course this was not going to be easy. The weather was not very good at ORD so they could not use as many runways and thus caused an hour and forty minute ground delay in CLT. Getting to the hotel in Chicago around 12:30 AM it's lights out by 1:15. I did not have to start until 11:00 AM on but I had an idea. Of course I was going to have to rent another car to drive to Rockford (RFD) Illinois but my plan was to leave early and stop at the Calumet Store in Oakbrook. This worked perfectly but came up empty handed at Calumet. Once in RFD I hooked up with a crew to do another checkride up to Green Bay Wisconsin. Again thinking about a relaxing evening in the land of the Cheese-Heads, my Crackberry told me otherwise. It was off to the terminal to catch an American Airlines flight to ORD and on to Atlanta Georgia. Once there it was a $57 taxi up to a Hyatt in Smyrna Georgia to wait with another crew for an aircraft to come out of maintenance. So far today that did not happen and we are here for another day. After the aforementioned rat race I did not mind it in the least. After all in four days I had rented four different cars, flown on five different airline flights and been in thirteen cities (some twice).

So there you have a week in the life of a check airman.

Take care... Doug