Change of multiple plans

See the 550lb text on the screen? That is good news for us because our plans just changed....again. The 550lb's is the amount of fuel the flight managment computer predicts that will be remaining once we land at our destination.

The original plan for today as of this morning was to fly from Camarillo-Santa Barbara-Portland-San Jose-Los Angeles. Our plan was to take a leasurely lunch in Portland to help fill the two and a half hour gap between flights, but that all changed when one of our company planes in Las Vegas got a flat tire. We happened to be the closest plane available to do the recovery flight for that trip, so the new plan was that we would fly to Vegas as soon as possible to pick up the owner and take him to Denver (he was probably going to the Democratic national convention). So the relaxing lunch we were looking forward to went right our the window. We instead got the courtesy crew car and drove to a Subway and ate there to save time.

I did the flight planning when we got back to the FBO (Fixed based operator/private terminal) and determined that we would take off with just enough fuel to get to Las Vegas with a minimal reserve of about 600 lbs to save money. Jet fuel in Portland was over $7/gallon and in Vegas we get it for under $6/gallon, so you can do the math on how much is saved when we purchase over 300 gallons at a time.

So we finally got going to Vegas and we were climbing through 30,000ft when the bat phone started ringing (satellite phone). I answered and the flight followers on the other end told me that the owner decided to cancel the flight, so they now needed us to fly to Denver for a trip to Florida and the Bahamas tomorrow. Luckly we had enough fuel on board to make it without a fuel stop .