Pacific Coast Sunset

One of the best parts of my job is being able to witness some of the most incredible views. One example is a sunset over the Pacific Ocean a few days ago.

We where repositioning the plane from Oakland, CA to Seattle, WA and the sunset was incredible.

Here are a few pictures I took on the way up the coast looking west over the Pacific. Unfortunately, the camera is unable to capture the whole range of colors and light that made this sunset so amazing, but it give a good idea of what it's like in person.

El Dorado Buffet

We ended our day In Reno, NV yesterday and we are staying at the El Dorado casino located in the heart of downtown Reno.

We were starving when we arrived, so we ate at the their buffet which was awesome.I decided to come back to eat breakfast at the buffet this morning and so far, it has not let me down. I'll try not to eat too much!

Haunted Hotel La Rose

Last week we had an interesting overnight at the Hotel La Rose in Santa Rosa, CA. This historic hotel is located in "Railroad Square" and was built in 1907.

The hotel does not provide shuttle service from the airport, so they leave car at the Santa Rosa Jet Center for pilots to drive to and from the hotel about five miles away. We arrived at the hotel around around 9pm and checked in at the front counter. They had a full size replica of Rosie the robot maid from the Jetsons greeting visitors in the front lobby, which I thought was odd, but amusing at the same time.

The hotel looked like it had some history to it, so I asked the girl at the front desk if the hotel was haunted. Her eyes lit up and she began telling us about how they just had a seance a few days earlier on Halloween night and that there was definitely some spirits around the hotel.

Supposedly the story is that many years ago, there was a family staying in room 42 that where killed by bandits and the ghost of the little boy named Daniel, who was killed in the murders, rides the elevator up and down at night looking for his parents.

My First Officer, Paul, stayed in room 44 and I was lucky to stay in room 23, two levels down from the supposed haunted floor. I was a little weirded out after hearing the stories, but I actually slept very well. Paul said his room was a litle spooky, but he didn't hear or feel anything out of the norm.

The next morning, I woke up and looked out my window and the fog had rolled in, adding to the ominous feeling I got of the whole place. I was a little spooked as I was riding the elevator down alone, I had the feeling that there was someone next to me, but I think it was all in my head.

I asked the new front desk lady and the lady serving breakfast if they ever felt or heard anything in the hotel. They both said that they have heard someone call out their name and objects have been be moved around when no one is looking....

The Official Haunted Overnight 2008 Web Page

Ever wanted to be a Ghostbuster? Learn how here! How To Hunt Ghosts!

Flight Map

Here is a map which shows our flights this week. As you can see, most
of the flying was done on the west coast, then we had an owner who
wanted to fly from Santa Rosa, CA to St. Augustine, FL.

I am currently in Pittsburg preparing to fly back to Philly where I
will catch a Southwest airlines flight back to San Jose.

America's Highest Commercial Airport

It has been uneventful this week flying up and down the west coast, so I thought I would post a few pictures of the Piaggio in Telluride, CO.

Telluride Regional Airport sits atop Deep Creek Mesa and is North America's highest commercial airport. This is one of the more challenging airports we fly into due to the 9,078 ft elevation.

Check out this video to see what it's like to land at Telluride airport.

SFO Landing Sequence

We flew five legs and worked a 14 hour day today. I took this sequence of pictures at the end of our fourth leg landing on runway 28R at San Francisco Airport. Click on the pictures to view full size.

Tina Turner

We flew in from Reno and dropped off four passengers at Sacramento Jet Center at the international airport. The passengers are going to the Tina Turner concert and we have about six hours to wait until the passengers return so we can fly them back to Reno.

Tina Turner herself is on her way here shortly to play the concert.

To help pass the time, I decided to take some shots with my new Canon 10-22mm wide angle lens. This is a fun lens and I'm sure I'll be posting many pics using this lens.

San Francisco Bay

We had a beautiful view of the bay this morning on the way from
Oakland to Chico.

University of Georgia Game

Today we departed Nashville, Tennessee with four people who where going to the Tennessee vs University of Georgia football game and flew to Athens, Georgia, home of University of Georgia. We flew right over the stadium at which is located less than two miles from the airport and saw a sea of people wearing the color red (Georgia's colors).

After the passengers left to attend the game, we had some lunch at a local BBQ shack and came back to the packed airport and had a good time watching the game with all the other pilots. Georgia's mascot is the Bulldog and the airport had a funny looking aviator Bulldog on the lawn, so I had to take a picture of it.

Georgia ended up winning the game and we flew the owners back to Nashville.

Metrolink to Camarillo

Yesterday was completely pointless. I dropped off N150SL in Camarillo
Tuesday night, drove an hour to LAX so I could be in position to
airline to Houston the next day to meet another airplane.

I flew to three hours to Houston yesterday only to be told when I
landed to get right back on another airline going to Burbank, almost
right where I started the day. The plane had a two hour layover in
Phoenix, so I didn't get to the hotel until past 10pm last night.

I am now on the 8:00am train to Camarillo to meet back up with N150SL.
This is the same route that that the terrible train crash occurred a
few weeks ago. I took a picture of the corner where the wreck happen
as to can see above.

San Jose At Night

I started my tour in San Jose this evening and took this picture shortly after departing to the north. We are in a right hand turn to head back south towards Camarillo where the plane is going in for some maintenance.

The black rectangle you see is San Jose airport. The lights in the middle just to the right of the airport are the stadium lights from a Earthquakes game at Santa Clara University's Stadium, where the San Jose Earthquakes play their soccer games.

Truckee-Tahoe Airport

Here are a few images I took last week at Truckee Airport near Lake Tahoe, CA. We flew an owner in from nearby Oakland, which only took about 25 minutes. We spent a few hours hanging out at the airport and had lunch at a really good deli they have in the terminal. While we were there, two other Avantair Piaggios flew in, giving me a great opportunity to take some pictures with my Canon SLR.

Middle of nowhere: Holyoke, Colorado

We flew into a tiny town in the Northeast corner of Colorado yesterday named Holyoke. After overflying the tiny town and landing at the airport, we were met a few minutes later by Phil, the Chief of Police and his Sergeant, which rounded out the entire Holyoke police department.

Chief Phil heard us fly over and being a pilot himself, wanted to come look at the plane. We told him the name of the owners we were flying out and he then reached in his pocket and pulled out the Holyoke phone book which consisted of about 10 pages of phone numbers.

I thought it was too funny not to share on the blog, so I took a picture. We hung out and talked shop for about 45 minutes until he was called away due to some illegally parked car on the lawn of the fair grounds.

Busy This Week!

We have been unusually busy the last few days and I have not had much time to post. Tuesday I worked 12.5 hrs, Wednesday - 12 hrs, Thursday - 10.5 hrs, and Friday was 11.5 hrs, so I am really tired.

We don't leave until 4pm tomorrow, so I finally have time to recover from the accumulating fatigue which builds after consecutively long days.

Jackson Hole Airport

Here is a view of Jackson Hole airport in Wyoming. This is a very popular destination and it is home to Vice President Dick Chenney, who we all know is very unpopular! You can see the mountains of Grand Teton National Park in the backround.

Horseshoe Bend

This is a famous point on the Colorado river as it makes it's way to
the Grand Canyon.

Flying the iPhone Piaggio in the real Piaggio...

Putting Practice

Want to practice your putting? You'll have to wait until you get home
if you are an airline pilot, but if you are a fractional pilot, you
can practice in the FBO's!

This one is in TAC air at Denver Centennial Airport. It is electronic
and the green moves to adjust the level of difficulty.

Hurricane Hunters

"We're five miles from the eyewall." announces the navigator. Heavy rain begins to pelt the airplane, and sheets of water wash over the windows. It gets darker, and turbulence begins to rock the plane. It's hard to walk back to your seat, but the loadmaster assures, "You ain't seen nothing yet!"

Take a virtual ride into the eye of a hurricane with the Hurricane Hunters. CLICK HERE

Hurricane Ike Watch

I woke up a few minutes ago here in Denver and checked my Blackberry as I do every morning to see if the company added or made any changes to our trips. There two new trips for tonight. The plan is to reposition from Denver, CO to Lubbock, TX at 7:30pm, then depart Lubbock with two passengers at 11:00pm and arrive in Dallas around 12:15am.

I just completed the flight planning and noticed that the winds in Dallas are at our arrival time are predicted to be 20-30kts (23-34 mph) which are being caused by the wake of Hurricane Ike. The Piaggio handles wind better than any other plane I have flown and these winds fall well within the safety limits set for our airplane, in fact when I was flying the Grand Canyon, we would have weeks where we would routinely land in winds at least this strong.

The first image is a screen capture of our intended route (red line) from Lubbock (left) to Dallas (right). You can see that the outer wall of Ike is touching Dallas this morning, however, as you can see in the second image, Ike is predicted to turn to the northeast in a few hours.

We will have to keep an eye on the Hurricane (no pun intended) as it makes it's course over Texas.

South Dakota

We had a busy day today with over six hours of flying. We flew from Chicago, IL - St.Paul, MN - Sioux Lookout, Ontario Canada - Sioux Falls, SD - Denver, CO.

I am always amazed by how much open space is in this part of the country, so I took these pictures on the descent into Sioux Falls airport in South Dakota. As you can see, there are farms and open space as far as the eye can see.

Anyone who thinks that this country is over crowded is kidding themselves, we just have overcrowded cities.

Click on the pictures for a larger view.

West Coast flying

As I read the weather section this morning in USA Today, I was reminded of why I (along with nearly every other pilot I've met) love flying on the west coast so much.

The green you see on the right side of the country represents rain and the yellow represents thunder storm activity, neither of which is fun to fly in. As you can see from the picture, the entire east coast is or will be covered with rain or thunderstorms.

The northeast (New York, Boston) airspace is the busiest airspace in the world. Flying on a perfectly clear day in this airspace, you are almost guaranteed to be re-routed multiple times, put into a holding pattern, or be forced to decend more than 300 miles out from your destination (causing fuel consumption to rise dramatically) or all three of these combined into one nice "Welcome to New York" package.

On a bad weather day, you can expect airport closures, ground stops, long lines on the ground for de-icing, long holding patterns, and a variety of other fun and exciting tasks. These are just a few of the many factors which makes flying in the northeast easily double, if not triple the workload of flying out west.

Gateway Arch

Last week I was fortunate enough to have time to visit the tallest national monument in the United States, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, MO.

I was getting hungry after hanging out at the FBO with all the cops and Secret Service guys (see "Secret Service football" below), so I borrowed the crew car from Signature and drove over to Chipotle Mexican Grill to eat lunch. While I was eating my awesome Chipotle burrito bowl (with carnitas and guacamole of course), I though that I should try to find the arch since I had the time and means to get there.

I pulled out my secret maps (secret meaning Google) on my iPhone 3G and the arch was found in a matter of seconds. I drove the 6 miles or so over to the arch and I was very impressed with the size of the 630ft monument.

While I was shooting some pictures, an older couple came up to me and asked if I could take their picture in front of the arch. They had just finished the tour which included a claustrophobic elevator ride to the observation room at the top and the lady summed up her experience by saying, "doing it once was enough for me, I won't do that again." I considered having them take my picture with my SLR, but quickly changed my mind when the old man tried to hand me his camera with it still attached to his neck.

CLICK HERE to learn more about the Gateway Arch.

Line Service Art

I found some cool artwork last week at our west coast headquarters in Camarillo, CA. These were drawn be the line service guys who help fuel and prep the airplane before the flight. I especially like the "Line Service Tomatos" one that says "Chemically enhanced from exposure to Prist". Prist is a chemical fuel additive that prevents ice crystals from forming in the fuel at high altittude.

Personalized Tail Numbers

I took this picture on the ramp in St. Louis the other day shortly before McCain's plane arrived. This is the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) Challenger jet. If you look closely at the tail number (click on the picture for a large version) you will see it is N247WE.

Tail numbers are basically license plate numbers for airplanes and companies can request personalized plates such as this one. Have you figured it out? The "N" just means it is a U.S. registered aircraft, but the 247WE means 24/7 (twenty four hours a day/seven days a week) wrestling entertainment.

Another example would be the Nike corporate jet....Tail number N1KE

Click Here to see a picture of the Nike jet.