A yearly thing

Hearing: Chatter from classroom next door.

I have just returned from a quick aircraft visit (B777-300). The rest of the class are in the cafeteria getting something cold to drink and I'm up here cooling off in front of the air conditioner. Summer is truly underway with temperatures continuing to climb into the mid 40s in August. The aircraft we visited was undergoing some general maintenance and unfortunately there was no ground supply or APU (Auxilary Power Unit) aircon and everyone melted within seconds of the stifling heat inside. Still theres something about being able to walk upto an aircraft on ground and being inside without the whole customer service perspective that is so wholly raw aviation and i will never get tired of it, same as i will never get tired of watching or being in take-offs and landings.

On the way there i gave A- a quick call to see how he was doing. His latest news is that he has been accepted to fly with VirginBlue back home. He will be based in Melbourne and so has to move there from Perth and i imagine the arrangements are keeping him busy. Congrats A, DJ is lucky to have you.

Well the class is slowly trickling back in and i have 2 hrs of Crew Resource Management to sit through not to mention another 2 days still to come, tomorrow Safety and Emergency and the last day First Aid. Anyways better go,

VP

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Busy, busy, busy.

Hearing:

Ive been so busy since my last post. There is so much to tell. Brothers visit, mums visit, jetskiing, Bar/Club hopping, angry motorists, Amman, annual leave, Cairo and Paris, another visit, training, spot performance assessment....but i have to go study now, got the yearly refresher training tomorrow, will update when i can.

VP

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Boeing Supy

Hearing: Wisemen - James Blunt

Yesterday i got called off standby for a turnaround flight. The only problem was that it was on a Boeing 777 which id never operated before. Id received the training but i hadnt had a familiarisation flight. I told crewing about this so they switched me from operation to observation and said they would get another crew.

Im glad i insisted on the observation flight, aside from getting familiar with cabin configuration, galley layout and service i had time to have a good look around at equipment location, the crew rest, pilot seat operation (in case of pilot incapacitation) and other stuff. Plus i got to sit in the cockpit for landing...WICKED!!! There is nothing like watching a landing from there - except maybe flying the aircraft yourself.

A pretty hectic flight. Loads of kids a huge mess at every bulkhead and one of the ovens didnt work delaying the service as they had to go back and reheat. The galley incharge was beside herself, she was relatively new so i went into help, turns out her crew werent helping out like they should. I mean the galley is supposed to be organised and have everything ready but they could see she needed help and still they dumped everything on her, poor thing. In the end it was ok, the CM knew that she tried hard and didnt give her grief about it. Hope no one who flys has to go through the same thing.

Always
VP

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Training, Istanbul and the goodbye gets closer

Hearing: Feeling way too damn good - Nickelback

Im just here in the sand pit, its my first day off after training. I was watching Gilmore Girls (dont laugh) which my flatmate E- had got me from BKK, a nice surprise after arriving home from training yesterday, anyways i digress. I didnt know my other flatmate A was home, turns out she had just spent her 4 days off in Istanbul, Turkey and showed me the photos...WOW! A- really amazing place and very beautiful. Seeing it like that made its priorty on my list of places to see jump up to be serious competition for my leave in Novemeber. Gotta do some research for that now since i have 9 days.

So training finished yesterday. After 4 days of being drilled in the finer points of first class service i know the menu back to front, can tell you every little thing on the plate infront of you and am thoroughly over it...LOL! We had 2 days of practicles which were great and the trainer thankfully was good, i was especially worried about that since i had heard nightmare stories about some trainers including one sending one guy to the grooming department cuz his sideburns were too long... ??? But i was exhausted, waking up at 5.30am is just so wrong.

My mate A- had booked me for every evening up to his last day and i was very sleep deprived from being awake so early, and trying to fit study around going to dinner with him and then not going to bed early enough. On the 3rd night i just couldnt go, i hated cancelling but i knew he had company so i slept from 6pm all the way through till 5.20am which was good cuz in my exhaustion i had forgotten to set my alarm clock. Last night however, we went for a delicious dinner and then had a baskin and robbins ice cream desert on the roof of my building overlooking the city. Today once he's done cleaning and packing im going to spend the rest of the day with him. I sort of want to spend as much time as possible with him but a also just want to stay away. Being here without a friend like him is going to be very hard and saying goodbye, i suck at them in general and always act boisterous to cover what im really feeling but still, i dont want that, i want a proper goodbye but i also dont want to cry. Ugh, i'll let you all know how it goes.

VP

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Think you have it bad??

Hearing: Locals shouting excitedly over a networked game.

In Training News:
Yesterday was final day of training and i am happy to say that i am now qualified to fly the lovely boeing 777. The 1st day invloved door familiarisation, operation and emergency scenario drills which was fun. The second was a rundown of all everything else we needed to know and an exam at the end of the day which you already know i passed. The next time im back there wont be till the service enhancement course at the end of the month.

In Other News:
You think you've got it bad?? Take a look at this photo:




Imagine living here...these are what i assume to be the homes for the cheap labour my company uses. Now before you start yelling in outrage let me point something out, my company is not the only one that uses cheap labour, in fact id be very much surprised if the majority of companies in the country didnt do the same. Not that it makes it acceptable. You would be surprised at the number of expats (mostly - and im not trying to be racist here - Indians/Pakistani) who come here to work under terrible conditions for crappy wages. They are everywhere sometimes i feel really sorry for them, i mean it cant feel good to be treated as dispensible and othertimes the looks you get from the men can make you feel like a piece of meat - not nice at all.

There are always 2 sides to everything. After speaking to a few of my fellow flighties and a friend who exprienced India in person in a "no frills" sort of way, they explained that conditions in their home country are ten times worse - lack of jobs and terrible living conditions. Here they get paid a small sum but back at home they can support a family and raise their quality of life. And here they at least get airconditioned rooms and satellite tv! So next time you think you have it bad, count your blessings and thank your lucky stars you have it better.

VP

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A much needed 4 days off.

Hearing: People chatting in the lobby.

After spending only 14 days out of the whole month so far in my own bed it was good to be home. I spent the 1st day just doing chores including a huge pile of laundry which I had no idea where it came from and in the evening curled up on the trusty old sofa infront of tv. The next couple of days was spent catching up with friends (finally) and running some errands that had been postponed and postponed again. My old lappie threw in the towel yesterday, I could hear it boot up but nothing would display on the monitor so I had to put it in to get checked, I wont know what the deal is till tomorrow, speaking of which...

tomorrow signals the start of my new roster which includes the 1st 2 days training for 777 ( which I'm looking forward to, it has really good destinations) the last 4 service enhancement and in between a very short London, 2 short Paris a Frankfurt, and 4 standbys. Unfortunately I'm disappointed again as I didn't get my requested 4 days off at the end of the month (I was planning yet again to go to Cairo since I still have the ticket from last time *sigh*). My friend A thinks its pretty lousy of them not being able to give us our request since were only allowed one a month, you'd think they could manage that. But never mind, all the best for Miss TT whose training is going really well.

VP

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My first Supy.

I survived! My first supy was to BOM and according to the rest of the crew, it was better than usual. I have to agree I was expecting it to be worse but I was pleasantly surprised. The departure was early morning and the return was just before midday. Leading upto the flight I was so nervous, trying to revise but still drawing blanks on everything...then there was this dream, you know the kind where your so paranoid about something that you see it in your dreams as a worst case scenario. In this one I confused the time of my flight, showed up without the proper uniform, didn't know what to do or where to go, couldn't remember the simplest of procedures, in short it was chaos.

The good news is that nothing of the sort happened. The crew was very nice and happy to answer any questions I had, show me how things worked and explain what to do etc. For me it was great finally just getting in there and carrying out some of the services and helping with others. It was a full flight back so they were grateful for the extra help. It was fun being onboard behind the scenes that i'd wondered so much about when I was a passenger. The highlight of my flight was being allowed to sit in the cockpit for the landing back at base. The view, the way things worked, such a different perspective on the whole art of flying, it was such a treat ending my flight with that.

One thing that will stick with me forever is that at one stage before we were taking off from BOM airport, one of the CC told me to look out the window to see where people were living. At first glance all I could see was the tarmac and grass so I thought it was some joke but then I bent down to take a proper look.... slums. My jaw dropped. I couldn't believe my eyes, I'm not so ignorant as to find it that big of a shock but seeing it for real, not on tv or in some other form but with your own eyes....and so close to the airport, the contrast of the developed airport with squalor. As I looked I noticed two kids playing between the pieces of sheet metal that was their home...I can honestly say I felt really ashamed of myself for those times when I took things for granted and for those times when I was grateful, for not being moreso.

Ahem, the mood of the post slightly changed there...

I have another supy tomorrow and then a few flights before my London layover. I have never been there before so I cant wait! The best thing is that 8 of the crew are from my training batch which is really rare but were are going to have a blast. I have to say though when our trainers found out their initial thought was OMG I wouldn't want to be on that flight - they were kidding of course. I'll definitely be posting about that trip. But speaking of training.....

For the past 7 wks training was at times intense but generally fun. We had great trainers and I was lucky enough to be in a great batch and where we all got along very well. I made some great friends and I hope to have the opportunity to fly with all of them sometime (guys, thankyou so much for being a fantastic group and thankyou for all the laughs esp. Ollie and Mz Luz). I'm still trying to get a photo of all of us from our 1st day to post here, when I do I'll post an edit.

For now I'm off to get some rest before my flight tomorrow.

From the sandy pit, VP.

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