.. but you can send me on surprise tour!
So, another update is due, and it's been a while since my last update. The car-clamping thing was really a big farce and wound me up a most depressing amount. I reasoned, in the end, that I brought the blight of the evil clamp-peoples upon myself and any amount of consternation wasn't going to get my car back. In short, I paid. In long, I didn't pay because I simply couldn't afford to, I got Mum to pay. I feel wonderfully grown up about this. More shall follow when the stress of the whole situation has worn off somewhat.
So, lets move on shall we?
My week is governed by the Roster. Rosters are mystical and changing beasts, well, at least this particular species of Roster is changeable (Cityflierus Obfusticatious). Some airlines publish a roster and this is what you fly. Thanks (mostly) to being a pretty small airline, we don't have this luxury. Because of the endless trials and tribulations that come from working amidst the wonders of the world of aviation - technical issues, weather, sickness, fatigue, legalities - keeping a schedule going is pretty demanding. Operations and Crewing do a rather splendid job at this, often at incredibly short notice.
All this preamble is leading you all up to my week.
I started work on Thursday. The almighty Roster had decreed that I was to fly to Frankfurt, back and out once more to stay in the hotel there, before flying an (empty) aircraft back the next day. I packed my bag for this one-night trip. It's important that you remember that I packed my bag for a one-night trip. When I checked in, crewing informed me of one change - no big deal, I was flying out to Copenhagen and positioning back to Heathrow the next day. No sweat. But then, I was to get into a taxi, to go to Stansted and operate to Palma and back. This meant a -long- day. So long, in fact that my Sunday (which was standby, and had just become a leisurely position out to Amsterdam) was going to be illegal. This was rectified through a quick call to Crewing who arranged for me to stay the night at Stansted, to position out to Amsterdam on easyJet. Ouch. This means that my one-night wonder was now two nights.
But wait.
The Amsterdam was to position on sunday for a sector on Monday. Three nights.
Monday's sector got me back into City in time to operate my original rostered flight out to Copenhagen again. To nightstop. Four nights.
My one-night away had become 4. I've packed a bag with a toothbrush, and a spare shirt. Well, at least I have a spare shirt, eh?
So. I reasoned thusly:
Firstly, no way am I positioning on easyjet in Uniform. So I need civvies. I purchase these in Stansted on Saturday before heading out to Palma. Secondly, I'm going to need more than one spare shirt. So I get the hotel in Amsterdam to launder one of my shirts as soon as I arrive. Plus I've not eaten much, so room service was called. Excellent. Now this surprise 5-day tour has cost me nearly £90. But I don't worry. I chose to do this.
That's right, I carefully considered, and agreed that this way was the best way. I effectively volunteered for this consternation. Here's why:
Every time our roster gets changed we have the option to accept or reject the changes. Accepting the changes earns you something called a Disruption payment. This is complicated to calculate but effectively, for me, it comes in at about £80 a time. Now, I've just been handed 2 major changes and two unscheduled nightstops. It's not quite this simple, but this means that I'm staring 4 disruption payments in the face. That's £320 for working almost what I was going to work anyway, getting extra flying hours (which I need being a newbie pilot), and because it's a whopping great tour now I've been earning flight duty pay since about 4pm Thursday when I checked in.
I'm not complaining too loud. In fact, because of my cadet-scale salary this year, I'm not complaining at all. I'm begging them for more weeks like this one. I'll work days off, I'll come in early, leave late, I'll stay another night. If it's legal, I'll fly it. Just keep giving me the money. I really, really, need the money.
tl;dr: I whore myself to CityFlyer and I love it.
31 July 2011
21 July 2011
You Shall Not Park!
Today I will mostly be ranting about Clamping.
As some of you will already have worked out this will be because I have recently been clamped. Those that have can have a cookie now. Don't worry, we'll wait, you have your moment - you deserve it.
At Mast Quay, where I'm currently living the car parking is managed by a group of alien fly-men from another dimension. At least this is the conclusion I have drawn given their complete inability to understand simple concepts like being allowed to park in a given space, and that paying to have a wrongly-applied clamp removed actually causes cancer in cute little kittens.
Anyway, I'm hitting you all with the full force of my rant before I've explained some of the situation, and as much as I like hating on these clamp-happy Nazis, it would be proper to fill you in on the situation somewhat first.
My car has been clamped. Yup, you guessed right. Those of you with cookie crumbs around your mouths probably guessed slightly faster than the others, but I digress. I pay for a space in the non-secure part of the parking available at my flats, and about two weeks ago I received a numbered pass to put in the window which matches the number of the bay in which I park. The clamping company, Secure-A-Space, who have a history decided that- though I had already informed them, and gotten the management company for Mast Quay to confirm that I was authorized to park in that space - this wasn't good enough. My car has now been clamped, and a notice been served saying I've to pay £120 to get my car released.
My first temptation is to lock the clamp to my car and charge them £120 to have the clamp released. However, though sporting, this isn't entirely legal and thus other outlets for my rage will have to be found.
It turns out that the residents of Mast Quay are pretty uniformly against this company and their tendancy to have a massive Clamp-gasm if anything with wheels pauses for more than a few seconds within their domain. Strange, really, common wisdom would suggest that reptiles see moving targets better. Alas Clampers are the Hyena's of their little world - only preying on the dead, rotting, meat that's not likely to give up much of a fight.
Alas this logic seems to have failed them of late, as they've clamped my car. My Car.
I've written a nice long email to Comer, who manage Mast Quay, and I'm in the process of submitting complaints through the council, and SIA.
But this isn't going to get my car un-clamped. Oh no. Secure-A-Space have insisted that I have to pay to get my (wrongly clamped) car released. Oh, and they want to tow it. They actually want to -tow- a car displaying a pass, parked it's authorised bay, with authorisation. It's not blocking any access, dangerously parked, or causing an obstruction so that could be an interesting eventuality.
Anyway. I shall update you all as the saga continues.
As some of you will already have worked out this will be because I have recently been clamped. Those that have can have a cookie now. Don't worry, we'll wait, you have your moment - you deserve it.
At Mast Quay, where I'm currently living the car parking is managed by a group of alien fly-men from another dimension. At least this is the conclusion I have drawn given their complete inability to understand simple concepts like being allowed to park in a given space, and that paying to have a wrongly-applied clamp removed actually causes cancer in cute little kittens.
Anyway, I'm hitting you all with the full force of my rant before I've explained some of the situation, and as much as I like hating on these clamp-happy Nazis, it would be proper to fill you in on the situation somewhat first.
My car has been clamped. Yup, you guessed right. Those of you with cookie crumbs around your mouths probably guessed slightly faster than the others, but I digress. I pay for a space in the non-secure part of the parking available at my flats, and about two weeks ago I received a numbered pass to put in the window which matches the number of the bay in which I park. The clamping company, Secure-A-Space, who have a history decided that- though I had already informed them, and gotten the management company for Mast Quay to confirm that I was authorized to park in that space - this wasn't good enough. My car has now been clamped, and a notice been served saying I've to pay £120 to get my car released.
My first temptation is to lock the clamp to my car and charge them £120 to have the clamp released. However, though sporting, this isn't entirely legal and thus other outlets for my rage will have to be found.
It turns out that the residents of Mast Quay are pretty uniformly against this company and their tendancy to have a massive Clamp-gasm if anything with wheels pauses for more than a few seconds within their domain. Strange, really, common wisdom would suggest that reptiles see moving targets better. Alas Clampers are the Hyena's of their little world - only preying on the dead, rotting, meat that's not likely to give up much of a fight.
Alas this logic seems to have failed them of late, as they've clamped my car. My Car.
I've written a nice long email to Comer, who manage Mast Quay, and I'm in the process of submitting complaints through the council, and SIA.
But this isn't going to get my car un-clamped. Oh no. Secure-A-Space have insisted that I have to pay to get my (wrongly clamped) car released. Oh, and they want to tow it. They actually want to -tow- a car displaying a pass, parked it's authorised bay, with authorisation. It's not blocking any access, dangerously parked, or causing an obstruction so that could be an interesting eventuality.
Anyway. I shall update you all as the saga continues.
14 July 2011
Today I'm going to rage about roaming charges.
What happens if we consider everything as data? Calls as simply voice data, texts as data, picture-messages as good-old data. You get the picture.
Lets assume my home-internet connection is fairly standard. Lets also assume it has a fair usage policy of 40Gb/month (pretty standard for the price with BT, TalkTalk, Virgin etc), 40GB daily is about 1.333Gb, which is (very approximately) 15kbps of 24/7 usage.
Price wise, I pay about £40pcm for this connection. Well, it's included with TV and calls, so the actual internet package costs about £18pcm, lets call it £20 for ease of use. £20 per 40Gb is 50p/Gb or 0.048p per Mb.
Now, I was in Sweden last week - The Menzies Lounge at Stockholm Arlanda Airport to be precise. Vodaphone reliably informed me that calls will cost 75p, plus my minutes to make, and 75p to receive. SMS messages cost 11p and I get 25Mb for £2 daily (£1 per Mb thereafter).
Wait what?
I'm going to ignore the data charges - no normal person uses mobile data rates abroad. The kind of person that uses mobile data charges abroad arrived into foreign on their own jet, or is struggling to find signal off Monaco in their yacht. So not me then. I'm going to look at the call charges. Because wow.
Again, considering everything as data, we have a reasonable comparison with VoIP services such as Skype. A voice call with Skype uses anything from 24-128kbps (source). According to ZDnet, an average cell phone call lasts 3 minutes 15 seconds. That's 195 seconds at between 24-128kbps - lets guess that we're not going to enjoy the 24kbps end, and the 128kbps end would require some seriously good internet from both parties. Lets assume a nice, round, 96kbps stream. It's more than enough for decent voice quality (Mumble, a gaming-base VoIP client I use is perfectly usable down to 20kbps, so 96 is adding some overhead).
96kbps is 0.7Mb per minute (8kb = 1Kb, 1024Kb = 1Mb, 60 seconds in a minute). 0.7Mb, at my home internet rates would cost me 0.034p.
Did I mention that with VoIP software, I can call anywhere in the world for free?
At 75p per call, I would have to be on the phone for 22,000, That's 22 Thousand minutes, or just over 15 days, constantly before I broke even. Though this is moot given that I only have 600 minutes on my contract, I'd actually never break even.
Why does this enrage me, I hear you ask? Free market economics and all that. They charge what people will pay.
The companies don't enrage me (that much). The People who absently pay these charges because 'it's just the way things are'. These people enrage me.
tl;dr: Mobile Phone companies rip you off. As if you didn't already know.
What happens if we consider everything as data? Calls as simply voice data, texts as data, picture-messages as good-old data. You get the picture.
Lets assume my home-internet connection is fairly standard. Lets also assume it has a fair usage policy of 40Gb/month (pretty standard for the price with BT, TalkTalk, Virgin etc), 40GB daily is about 1.333Gb, which is (very approximately) 15kbps of 24/7 usage.
Price wise, I pay about £40pcm for this connection. Well, it's included with TV and calls, so the actual internet package costs about £18pcm, lets call it £20 for ease of use. £20 per 40Gb is 50p/Gb or 0.048p per Mb.
Now, I was in Sweden last week - The Menzies Lounge at Stockholm Arlanda Airport to be precise. Vodaphone reliably informed me that calls will cost 75p, plus my minutes to make, and 75p to receive. SMS messages cost 11p and I get 25Mb for £2 daily (£1 per Mb thereafter).
Wait what?
I'm going to ignore the data charges - no normal person uses mobile data rates abroad. The kind of person that uses mobile data charges abroad arrived into foreign on their own jet, or is struggling to find signal off Monaco in their yacht. So not me then. I'm going to look at the call charges. Because wow.
Again, considering everything as data, we have a reasonable comparison with VoIP services such as Skype. A voice call with Skype uses anything from 24-128kbps (source). According to ZDnet, an average cell phone call lasts 3 minutes 15 seconds. That's 195 seconds at between 24-128kbps - lets guess that we're not going to enjoy the 24kbps end, and the 128kbps end would require some seriously good internet from both parties. Lets assume a nice, round, 96kbps stream. It's more than enough for decent voice quality (Mumble, a gaming-base VoIP client I use is perfectly usable down to 20kbps, so 96 is adding some overhead).
96kbps is 0.7Mb per minute (8kb = 1Kb, 1024Kb = 1Mb, 60 seconds in a minute). 0.7Mb, at my home internet rates would cost me 0.034p.
Did I mention that with VoIP software, I can call anywhere in the world for free?
At 75p per call, I would have to be on the phone for 22,000, That's 22 Thousand minutes, or just over 15 days, constantly before I broke even. Though this is moot given that I only have 600 minutes on my contract, I'd actually never break even.
Why does this enrage me, I hear you ask? Free market economics and all that. They charge what people will pay.
The companies don't enrage me (that much). The People who absently pay these charges because 'it's just the way things are'. These people enrage me.
tl;dr: Mobile Phone companies rip you off. As if you didn't already know.
9 July 2011
Singapore A380, Zurich
So another Split duty this week - this time to Zurich. This A380 was on approach to Runway 34 as we taxied out.
This is interesting, because Runways 34 and 28 cross. They were landing aircraft on 34 and in the gaps were getting aircraft airborne from 28, with the aircraft crossing paths where the two runways cross. Don't panic, this is both perfectly safe and perfectly legal - the separation required for this kind of operation is clearly defined in ICAO legislation, as well as all the usual requirements and regulations for an active runway still applying.
The photo I wished I could've got would've been the Swiss RJ85 rotating just at the point where the two runways cross, with the A380 on approach. Unfortunately I couldn't grab my camera quite in time, that and y'know, having to operate the aircraft we were in.
Speaking of which, we managed to rather jump the Queue for departure this morning - we were taxiing out on the north side of Runway 28, and on the south taxiway there were three other aircraft (two Swiss, one bizjet). Usually departures would be metered out on a first-come-first-served basis, but occasionally they make exceptions. For example, our little E170 is rather faster and has significantly better climb performance than the old RJ's so Tower let us skip ahead rather than be held up by the preceding traffic - which was very nice of them.
All that was left was to watch an Airbus land across our runway, then clearance, and then go.
Another morning at work begins...
4 July 2011
You take the high road and I'll.. well.. I'll fly, actually...
So I'm sat in the crew room at London City. Waiting.
This isn't something strange to me, quite often they'll fly you in (or, more accurately, have you fly in) and then they'll give you a 3-4 hour wait until your next duty. It's long enough so you get bored, but not so long as to make going home for an hour viable, in other words it's carefully calculated to be mildly perturbing.
I'm waiting to position up to Edinburgh to stop there tonight before flying back down early tomorrow morning and then taking an aircraft down to Faro and back. I'm looking forward to this tomorrow because way back during my training I completed my night rating in Faro. In fact, I believe I have a video of that very escapade...
Taken by mounting my teeny little compact to the dashboard of my little warrior as I pootled around the circuit. It was damm good fun, and I'm rather looking forward to seeing the airport from the more commercial side of things. Also it's nearly a 3-hour flight, so it'll be nice and relaxed, we hope.
Anyway - I have to go and check in for my flight soon. Adios
This isn't something strange to me, quite often they'll fly you in (or, more accurately, have you fly in) and then they'll give you a 3-4 hour wait until your next duty. It's long enough so you get bored, but not so long as to make going home for an hour viable, in other words it's carefully calculated to be mildly perturbing.
I'm waiting to position up to Edinburgh to stop there tonight before flying back down early tomorrow morning and then taking an aircraft down to Faro and back. I'm looking forward to this tomorrow because way back during my training I completed my night rating in Faro. In fact, I believe I have a video of that very escapade...
Taken by mounting my teeny little compact to the dashboard of my little warrior as I pootled around the circuit. It was damm good fun, and I'm rather looking forward to seeing the airport from the more commercial side of things. Also it's nearly a 3-hour flight, so it'll be nice and relaxed, we hope.
Anyway - I have to go and check in for my flight soon. Adios
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