Commuter Nightmares, Reserve Chaos & Recent Military/Private Jet Crashes

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Mike (0:51): Strap in.

Mike (0:53): Hey, everybody. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Black Box Aviation podcast. I'm my co host Tom joined by Mike. Mike, what's going on, sir?

Unknown Speaker (0:59): What up, man? It's been a while.

Mike (1:01): Yeah. This is, an episode that we're back live in the studio kind of I mean, as much studio as you can get. I'm still in the crash pad in Mississippi. You can see Wilson over there. Mike, you're in your studio.

Mike (1:13): I saw my studio two weeks ago, and then I saw it again today. That's all all part of

Unknown Speaker (1:18): this.

Unknown Speaker (1:18): And you

Unknown Speaker (1:18): were home for a little bit and you tried to make it work where I could do, but I was out of town. I had a trip. So just just one thing after another.

Mike (1:25): I know, and look, we told the audience that I hope they listened and we talked about it with each other that this was going to be shooting from the hip this couple weeks before I go to training. And so we we started kinda going through this episode, and we had some stuff set up, and I had some topics. But then this episode kinda wrote itself. And it did it so because, Mike, like you said, you kinda got a surprise trip out of nowhere. And I've commuted back and forth to Connecticut on four three different airlines, four different legs, and it's it's been quite interesting.

Mike (2:06): So I think we should take it from there. So this episode is gonna feature commuting stories, reserve call out stories, kinda what we used to see back in the day. We're gonna talk about crash pads maybe. I got a couple little bit to talk about there. Limo rides, Mike.

Mike (2:21): You just kinda cute clued me. And actually, we we literal Mike and I haven't really talked in the last two weeks. As matter of fact, I called him. He and he he ghosted me. He didn't pick up the phone.

Mike (2:29): And then I texted him, and he's like, dude, I'm at the resort. And I was like, okay. So I actually wanted to bring that up again too for your my own

Mike (2:38): bed in in over a week because we went straight from the resort to me getting called out on reserve. So we'll talk about it, but it's it's I'm looking forward to sleeping in my bed.

Mike (2:48): Yeah, I'm glad you even said that too because literally I sat I went in my my bed the first time I was back in it and like I was like, oh yes, I remember this bed. Yeah. I paid a lot of money for it and I remember that.

Mike (3:00): Pay a lot of money for my bed too and that's one thing that I don't I I will always pay good money for a mattress and I'll always pay good money for shoes. You know, you know, you gotta sleep good and your I feet can't

Mike (3:09): agree and is cheap cheap. When I got to the crash pad, it was before the our contract got signed, and I was cheaping on everything. And the the the the bed is here is fine, but, like, I I was like, I'm gonna get, like, a mattress topper. And then so I started looking at them, and they were, like, $80.90 bucks. And Nicole's like, do it.

Mike (3:30): And then I bought the $15 like egg crate that you would get for college. That's what I decided.

Unknown Speaker (3:35): Yeah. But

Mike (3:35): It it's fine. I like it. It's okay. That's that's Those

Unknown Speaker (3:38): things are fine. They just wear out and you're not gonna be there enough to wear it out. So it's probably fine.

Mike (3:42): I won't be. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a good thing. Another thing coming back in the crash pad is, so I I I don't know who's gonna be here.

Mike (3:51): You never know who's gonna come in the crash pad or who's not gonna be here, and I thought maybe the guy who owns this house, John, my buddy John, would be here. There's people that listen to show that know John, so they'll they'll probably get this story back to them. But this house, I don't know what it is, Mike. It's a beautiful house. It's in a gated community.

Mike (4:07): I love it. And but there's spiders everywhere in this house. I don't they're seller spiders. I took a picture of it and like put it on AI, but they make webs everywhere. So I walked through the place and it's like

Unknown Speaker (4:22): because no one's been in there.

Mike (4:24): And no one's been in here. So I turned the the air conditioner up because no one's gonna be here. So I was like, well, I don't want the thing, you know, cooking while no nobody's here. So I get back in the in the the house. Well, it's hot.

Mike (4:35): Like, it's hot in here right now, and I haven't even changed. Like, I'm in the same clothes that I jump seated in, you know, earlier this morning. So, you you know, you come back into a crash pad. Don't know who's I I thought John was actually gonna be here. I thought he was gonna be on a I had a trip, so he would be here, but he's not.

Mike (4:48): But he might come in, so we could have a a surprise guest or somebody else in the crash pad. You don't know. Because I'm literally in the living room.

Unknown Speaker (4:54): Like I know.

Mike (4:55): This is where it's at. But, like, I'm a mini too when it comes to being in a crash pad. Like, I don't like being in the house, like, by myself. You know? Like, we were watching something last night when I was home last night, and one of the commercials was for, like, a horror movie.

Unknown Speaker (5:12): And they they showed, like, a she's she's like, there's a monster under your bed. I'm like, no. No. No. No.

Unknown Speaker (5:23): Stairs. I'm like, no. No. No. No.

Mike (5:25): No. No. I don't need that. No. Actually, was talking to Jovan.

Mike (5:28): I had dinner with Jovan couple weeks ago, and we were talking about things that scared us from our kids. And I was like, I don't even know if I should have this conversation because I was coming back to the house. I knew I was gonna be alone. And we were talking about, like, I you remember the the book? It was called communion.

Unknown Speaker (5:43): It was about a guy that kidnapped got kidnapped by aliens.

Unknown Speaker (5:46): I don't read, dude. Never heard of it. The only communion I know is the church. The only communion I know is the church. That's what I thought.

Mike (5:52): I agree. But, I mean, when I was a kid, I could be like, you know, I was in the grocery store, and the cover of that book communion was an alien face. Like, it scared the crap out of me. So now every time Jovan, he texts me, he sends me that of the alien. I'm like, thanks dude.

Unknown Speaker (6:08): That's what I wanna see.

Unknown Speaker (6:09): I'm glad you tuned me in on that. I'll I'll I'll get in on that little prank.

Mike (6:13): Yeah. It's a good time. Scare the crap out of me while I'm sweating at night, staring at the ceiling, whatever Dude, least like you're

Mike (6:19): in a decent crash pad. Like, I I stayed in, you know, like in New York, you know, and you're staying in these old houses and they're rickety and every little wood board cracks. And I remember one was like Calm Air and sleep like down in the basement, but it was like the hallway of the basement. It wasn't even like a real room. And it was just super weird.

Mike (6:36): There's like a motion light. So like if I wanted to like change in the in the light, I had to like wave my hands to get the light to turn on, you know, and it would just turn off because the guy was cheap, you know, it was terrible. So bad. I I actually that was when I had the crash pad, but I jumped seated on FedEx flight all night because I'd rather just stay on the airplane than than go to that hellhole, you know?

Mike (6:58): That that and it makes a difference about like where you're gonna go during these overnights and these trips and stuff like that. Like, Jovan, he bought a condo, and he's got a setup. You know, he's comfortable when he goes home. Like, his family will come stay with him because he owns the condo. And there's, like, one other pilot that lives with them, but, I mean, that's it's definitely a comfort thing, and it sucks when you're in these crash pads that are Is that near there?

Mike (7:20): Weird. Yeah. He lives about ten minutes from here. He lives in a town called Horn Lake. Actually, Elvis had a we talk about the king.

Unknown Speaker (7:29): Well, it's not every day we get to talk about the king, but he had a he had a ranch out there with with a horses when him and his mama would ride the horses. Yeah. So he lives in Horn Lake. It's not far from here. I don't I don't actually, don't even know where Elvis's ranch is, but I know it's over there.

Mike (7:47): It's in that town. It's not very big, but yeah. So I don't know. Yeah. So that's what we walk into and, like, crash pad living.

Mike (7:56): Like, Mike, we've all done it. And like you said, Mike, these Yeah. This episode kinda just I mean, that's how me and you met in

Mike (8:02): a crash pad. So I mean, that's that's, you know, there's good things there too, but man, it's not home. It's never gonna be home.

Mike (8:09): So this let's talk about this episode again because we were talking about last week, we we were kinda grooving into getting Ian back on the show, our our air traffic controller guest, and he was all in, and we had it set up, I think, for Friday. And then what happened to you, Mike, on Friday?

Mike (8:27): So I Thursday, I got called out. So Thursday, our trip ended, like our days, our staycation, and I went on call Thursday evening. I'm like, they're not going to call me the first day. Sure enough, we're sitting there. I hadn't been home for an hour.

Mike (8:39): Phone rings, five day trip, five days. So which on reserve is not normal. Usually you get called out for, you know, you can pick up the end of a broken pairing or they got to get you somewhere to pick up a trip or something. Not a full five, twenty seven hour, five day. I'm like, you've got to be kidding me.

Mike (8:56): And what's terrible about reserve is you don't get paid any extra unless you go over guarantee, right? So unless I fly more than seventy five hours, I'm doing that trip like, I'm not gonna say for free. They are paying me. But it's it's it's you don't have the same feeling as if you picked up an extra trip, you know? It just kind of working for your per diem, I guess.

Mike (9:14): So

Mike (9:15): Yeah, and when you step into that reserve, like you said, oh, I'm on reserve for five days, and you don't know what's gonna happen. I mean, might not do something the first day, they could give you a one day or an out, but but to get a full five day trip What my company

Mike (9:27): does is like if there's everybody that's in reserve is on the list, If you're good for five days, four days, three days, whatever. And if there's like a one day trip, they're gonna try to call the guys that are good for one day, they're gonna try to call the guys that are good for two days. That's why I'm sitting there on five and I'm like, I'm good, they're not calling me. But man, if they didn't. So we'll talk about it.

Unknown Speaker (9:45): Yeah. Asked

Mike (9:46): I asked you this. Pop up on that show too or on that on that trip.

Mike (9:50): Yeah. When you when you look at you try to guess what's coming your way too, like, with open time and you look for trips that are sitting there, and you're like, well, maybe I might get that one, but I asked you if I you didn't see

Unknown Speaker (10:02): didn't see it. I don't know what happened, so.

Unknown Speaker (10:05): Yeah, so that's where well, do you do you wanna talk about what do you wanna how do you wanna set this up? Do you wanna talk

Unknown Speaker (10:10): how get to the crash pad tonight?

Mike (10:12): I well, I drove. Like, you mean how did I actually get back from Connecticut in my Yeah. Day You're just My day started. So when when I'm I was in Connecticut today, so I I have a plan. You should always have a plan when you're gonna commute, and it usually involves, like, at least one backup plan.

Mike (10:29): And, you know, I like, I have a sim tomorrow morning, so I was con you know, con conscious of that. And at the same time, like, I I ran out and I get on the earlier flights the last time I was home, so I was like, well, you know, maybe I think this one looks good. So I had I had it lined up with Southwest. And Southwest, when I went to bed last night, there were, like, eight open seats and there were, like, four people on standby. And this was to go to Baltimore.

Mike (10:55): So my plan was to go to Baltimore and then go to Memphis after that, and I can't see the flight loads on Southwest. But I can see the open seats, and I can see, you know, who's on standby. So I thought that was pretty confident. Well, it it went bad by about, that was at noon, and probably by, like, eleven, the standby list was, like, fifteen, and it was showing, you know, no open seats. Now that's not the end of the world because there's two jump seats in the 07:37.

Mike (11:22): So you say, okay. Well, alright. I still got to the possibility I get on a jump seat. So I'm I go to the gate the gate agent. I got there earlier.

Mike (11:29): I was there about eleven. No. It was like a a 12:40 departure. So was there, like, eleven. So I go up and talk to the agent.

Mike (11:36): She's like, you're too early. Come back at 11:40. And I'm like, okay. So as I'm sitting there, I see all the dudes in their lanyards and their roller boards, you know, walking around the gate. And, of course, it's pandemonium in the airport too, so it's completely insane.

Mike (11:53): And I'm like, this is not good. Like, I can just tell that the and, you know, so one of the things, like, how how could there be more than one jump seater that's going to Baltimore? Well, look, you gotta think about that too because Baltimore is a pilot base for Southwest. So there are probably guys that are, you know, in Connecticut that are jumping to Baltimore. And plus, if you're a Southwest guy in the Baltimore, you can get anywhere in their system.

Mike (12:17): Although, you probably wouldn't if you're based in Baltimore. You'd go there and do your trip. But, know, I kinda thought about that, but

Unknown Speaker (12:24): Bonjour, compadre. It's the

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Mike (12:52): Stop cutting me up. Priceline. Two jump seats, like, that'd be the worst case scenario. With eight open seats, you'd probably think you'd get on, but so it's not looking good. And I'm sitting there, and my Delta body's pulled the the the flights to Delta through Atlanta, and there's there were seats from Hartford to Atlanta, but when you get to Atlanta, from Atlanta to Memphis, it's all seven one sevens, and there's only one jump seat, and there's a 100 seats on each one of those airplanes.

Mike (13:19): Now, like, they run, like, eight flights a day, maybe more than that, but by the time of the afternoon, there's probably five left. There's no jump seats. They're all booked. My buddy from Delta pulls them. I see them.

Mike (13:28): Zero of one. I'm like, that's it. So now and all those flights are oversold because there's so many non Revvers that they're standbys for all those flights. So if there's an open seat, a standby is gonna get it over you. You're not gonna get on.

Unknown Speaker (13:41): Sure. You're last on the list.

Mike (13:42): Yeah. I literally could have been in Atlanta sitting there. So I had another buddy pull American flights, and he's like, you gotta go right now to Chicago O'Hare. And I'm like, okay. So I go over there.

Mike (13:56): I list for the jump seat. I am the last person to get on the airplane. Like, the gate agents are boarding the flight. They're not impressed that I showed up with a listing, you know, fifteen minutes to go, like, but I was listed and they it was easy for them to, like, extract me. I didn't show up and be like, here's all my stuff.

Unknown Speaker (14:12): Help me. What what me do? Like, I was listed, so she just had to click it and say, okay. Here you go. Yeah.

Mike (14:19): So I go to Chicago, but I gotta ride the jump seat, so I have to ask the the guys for a ride, and they were cool and everything. I'm trying to think about they didn't tell me too much about their backgrounds. I love talking to guys about their backgrounds and everything like that, because I think it's interesting you hear a lot about

Mike (14:35): Everyone's got a different story. Right?

Mike (14:37): Yeah. And I love that. I mean, that's stuff to talk about and relate to. They didn't have an extra headset too, so we didn't really talk about too many things, and the Wi Fi is not working on those. They they told me the Republic American jets for Wi Fi,

Unknown Speaker (14:50): like Aren't they supposed to have an extra jumps headset? Like, what if the FAA was like, here I am to ride, and you, like, can't give them one?

Mike (14:56): I didn't dig for it, or I looked around, you know, and they were wearing, like, pretty fancy headsets. You know, when we would fly the Embraer, they had, like, the David Clarks that were, like the big clampers, know?

Unknown Speaker (15:07): They wouldn't press on your brain. No. They weren't the big, big clampers, David Clarks.

Unknown Speaker (15:10): They weren't?

Unknown Speaker (15:10): They were the little no.

Mike (15:11): They were the little ones. They're the little ones? Yeah. Those are good, the the smaller ones. I remember getting clamped on my head.

Mike (15:18): I can't remember why I thought that. But these guys had their own headsets, they were rocking some high end Bose stuff, which When

Mike (15:25): we were at Compass, you had to have the you had to have your and you know when I fly with these young guys now, they all have like the Bose headsets, because they're all walking out of there getting $100,000 a year jobs like 20 years old, you know, where I was just like using the ship sets on the airplane until like I couldn't hear anymore, you know. That's broke as a joke. Comcom could make you

Unknown Speaker (15:46): bring your own. Had to bring your own.

Unknown Speaker (15:48): And I had one leftover from Comair that I got. There's one chipset for the FA like I said. You're right. There was So a second one in there yeah, when I was at Comair they had a store and you could payroll deduct, so I got a Telx headset I know what happened to it. Deduct it.

Unknown Speaker (16:05): So you go in, there's a new hire in the store and you get yourself your fancy bag, you get all this stuff, you don't realize how it's gonna come out of your paycheck. But I think by the time we all got furloughed, we probably still owed them money. Don't know.

Mike (16:15): My gosh. Yep. I think I used my Navy Telex. Like, I had like an old Telex that plugged into that thing and it was a junker. But I didn't have a thousand dollars to buy a Bose headset.

Mike (16:30): And that's what all these guys have now. So Whatever good for them.

Mike (16:35): Yeah. So we we get up there and we go to Chicago and I had, like, almost two hours before the next flight, so it was fine. But I got there and then I went over to that's why was texting you about what's going on. So I go over to the other gate where it's at, and it's in the regional gates in Chicago, so I don't have to go too far. So I go over there, and there's an agent at the gate even though the flight hadn't populated yet.

Mike (16:57): So I just told them what I what I was doing because those guys don't wanna see customers come up to them, especially when they're not even have a flight on the board. Yeah. They just see the disgust in their face, and I'm like, hey. Hey. I'm a jump seater.

Mike (17:08): And he's like, oh, okay. Okay. But he pulls me up. He's like, yeah. There's no other jumpers.

Mike (17:13): He's like, you're you're listed, and he's like, oh, there's a lot of standbys, and there's no seats. Well, I just gotta hope that I get that. Now this is where the backup to the backup to the backup comes in play because I know my company has three flights from Chicago O'Hare that leave at nine 09:00, 09:30, and 10:00, and they go to Memphis. Mhmm. I've got Worst

Mike (17:35): case, can get on that.

Mike (17:37): Yeah. But I'm trying to get here at 6PM, not midnight, because I do have a 06:00 sim the next morning.

Unknown Speaker (17:43): And you wanna do a show.

Mike (17:45): And I had to do a show, which I told I told Mike. I said, hey. I got, like, an hour and a half right now. Like, I could do a a mobile show. Like, I could set up and we'll just ride.

Mike (17:53): I had a baseball lesson for my kid, and I you know, because I planned on doing that and then doing the show because I thought you were gonna make it through Baltimore. So it's just a toss-up, man.

Mike (18:02): You don't know. So I'm sitting there at the gate and it's like twenty minutes ago till boarding and I don't know, I couldn't see the podium where I was sitting. I don't know what made me stand up and look, Mike, but I stand up and I look at the podium and who's standing there? Another pilot. Another pilot.

Unknown Speaker (18:23): And That has priority over you.

Mike (18:26): That's what I thought. So I've and that's how it works. So this this is an American flight operated by Republic. So I figured anybody that's under the banner of, like, the regionals that works for American Republic I we used to be better at knowing this stuff when we worked at Compass, like, what the criteria was and the order because different companies, Republican fly United flights and American flights, I don't know what all the rules are and the nuances. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (18:53): I don't

Mike (18:54): either. He worked for whatever. So this guy turns out to be Gojet, and I don't know. I'm like, is Gojet fly American too that they can

Unknown Speaker (19:00): I do think they fly United?

Mike (19:03): Only United. But he's there, and I'm like, well, he's gonna get it. And he lives like two hours from Memphis, he's going home. So I start talking to him about the jump seat, and he's like, oh, he's like, well, he's like, yeah. I think I'll probably get it.

Mike (19:19): And and I'm like, oh, I'm like, I don't like I don't know. Like, okay. Sure. So Yeah. Yeah.

Mike (19:25): He's like, well, we'll see if maybe somebody doesn't show in the gate. He's just like, well, maybe somebody won't show up. So we sit there and wait, wait, wait. And then there's one open seat, but there's four non revs listed. Sure.

Mike (19:35): And this guy's got his family of four, and she's like, you're she's only one, and he's looks down the line. He's got the wife, the daughter, and the son, and he's like,

Unknown Speaker (19:43): blah blah blah blah.

Mike (19:44): He picks the wife. He's like, go. So she gets on the jet, and I'm like, well, whatever. But the the flight says flight closed, and I'm like, maybe she's not gonna list anybody from the jump. And then she looks at me and points at me, and I'm like, okay.

Mike (19:57): Now I'm and you kinda feel guilty sometimes because you're gonna take the jump seat, and this other guy is, like, not gonna get on, which leads me into a backup story. I'll tell this other story right after this quick too. And I'm like, okay, man. Mike, see you later. But then he had told me earlier that there's another United flight at, 9PM that had, like, 90 seats.

Unknown Speaker (20:15): So he's gonna he get

Mike (20:16): would have priority more priority on that probably.

Mike (20:19): Yeah. He's gonna get on on that flight and and go home. He's just gonna get home at midnight or whatever versus getting well, and then he's gotta drive. I don't know.

Unknown Speaker (20:27): Of a commuter, man.

Mike (20:29): Yeah. So I I kinda I told the new guys that I got on that flight with about the the thing, and they're like, well, what are gonna do? And then the captain of that flight from Chicago to Memphis, he just got hired at Delta. So he has two weeks left. He's gonna go to fly to Delta.

Mike (20:45): But he told me in the course of the flight that he had been turned down by Southwest three times. Can you believe that?

Unknown Speaker (20:52): That's wild.

Unknown Speaker (20:53): I usually

Unknown Speaker (20:54): I mean, I totally can believe it.

Mike (20:56): Yeah. But at Southwest, it's like if you show the initiative to come back again, they're usually like

Unknown Speaker (21:03): Who knows?

Mike (21:03): We got you, you know? Like you I he told me that I mean, he's hired at Delta, so he obviously can do an interview, you know, like, I don't three times. Let me rewind quick because when I went to when I went home out of Memphis, and Memphis jump seats are tough because a lot of the a lot of the guys aren't flying, and there's not a lot of bank money, so they can't buy tickets. So you're trying to go to Atlanta, and I got there first and listed, and there was another guy that showed up from my company after I had listed, and that flight was full, and she's like, you got it, and she gives me the thing, and again, I felt that guilt factor, but it's like, you gotta you gotta take it, right? Because that guy would take it over me if it was his ticket.

Unknown Speaker (21:47): Oh, yeah.

Unknown Speaker (21:48): Oh, yeah.

Mike (21:48): So I think it's kinda like this win some and lose some game. I don't like playing the the karma game, you know, like it's gonna come back and get you or something, but I but I didn't do anything bad to do this. I just got got in line. I signed up at the right time, you know. But so this is the part of the gamesmanship and jump seating that can get a little different.

Mike (22:07): So I go down the jet bridge. I say goodbye to him. I say good luck. He's like, thanks, man. I'll see you.

Mike (22:13): And I go down. As I'm going down the jet bridge, I hear them being paging Robert Anderson. Robert Anderson, party of six. You know, Jimmy Smith, party of five. You know, please come down.

Mike (22:28): The final call. Final call. Where where are you? There's only a 100 seats in this airplane. You're in a very small airport.

Mike (22:35): Did you you checked in. You checked in. You went through security. I hope you did. Are you at the bar drinking?

Mike (22:41): But but I

Unknown Speaker (22:42): don't know, man. Now you can check-in online that these people might not be there. There's no way of telling.

Unknown Speaker (22:48): That's probably true. Yeah.

Mike (22:49): Because now that people check-in online, there's no way of knowing that they're at the airport. So they could have checked in and then I don't know why you don't show up. They're stuck in traffic, I don't know. I have no idea.

Mike (23:01): I don't know. So they they don't they don't show up, so

Unknown Speaker (23:05): But it happens every day, that's why the airlines oversell.

Mike (23:08): Hasn't it ever makes sense. So I say hi to the captain, the first officer of that flight, and they're like, okay, you guys sit with us, blah, okay, and then no one's ever happy about that, but it's a short flight. It's like forty five minutes. And as I'm standing there, here comes like six non revs, and then the guy was the jump seater. He gets back and gets a he gets like a, you know, a comfort plus seat or something like that, you know, and he's laughing at me now.

Mike (23:32): He's like, have fun up there because you sit in the cockpit, it's kinda cramped and you're up and everybody's chilly and they're touching your leg and, you know, you're

Mike (23:39): just mean, sometimes I like it better, you know, but I guess I'm used to an Airbus cockpit, you know, but don't I know, think the time goes by faster sitting up front than it does in the back.

Mike (23:47): And I'll tell you, like, I it's been a while since I've been in a one seventy five, even the the first flight was a seven one seven, but I I felt like it was more cramped in the past, like, versus I

Unknown Speaker (23:59): was like, this isn't that bad.

Unknown Speaker (24:00): I felt it was less. Poundsage. Yeah. Was

Unknown Speaker (24:04): All that swimming, man.

Mike (24:06): That's right. All the swimming down here and and working out. So the those were kinda my two commuter stories with that, but it was interesting too because that was a Delta flight, the one where the the other guy got the seat and I didn't I had to say upfront, I would have been a thousand numbers senior to the captain of that seven one seven flight from Had you stayed at Delta? To Atlanta. So if I had stayed at Delta, yeah.

Mike (24:34): You know, those are kind of the weird things that go that come around, and again, that's why I love talking to people and their stories because you hear these stories and you're But then for the

Mike (24:42): people that don't know, why did you leave Delta for cargo? It was because you're in the middle of your new hire class, COVID shut everything down and you didn't know what was gonna happen. Cargo was booming, right, because everyone was ordering stuff online, so you had to make the move, you didn't know if you'd have a job.

Mike (24:56): I didn't. I was unassigned, and they had no intention or forecast of calling me back at that time. And then everybody I talked to is actually the first officer in that flight was like, dude, you gotta make you make decisions based on the information you had at the time, and look, I've told myself that line a million times, right, when I was by myself in Anchorage wondering what the heck I'm doing commuting to Anchorage to do this job. It's a

Mike (25:19): tough industry to pick the right route, there's because there's so many routes, you know, and hopefully you end up at the, you know, streets of gold and retirement, I don't know, you know, like, but who knows?

Mike (25:31): Yeah, and who would have forecast that the industry would have come booming back like that? Was literally at in doc at Delta, and my buddy Jay But obviously, it was

Mike (25:40): all fake because now we're back into a, you know, spirit just closed the doors, and it was just this money that was being printed to stimulate the economy, and it wasn't real, you know.

Mike (25:50): It wasn't real. With with that stuff that propped up those guys, but, like, my buddy Jay, he was like, you need to apply to UPS, like, right now, and he's like, log in and do it. And I was literally doing that in my hotel room in Indoc, and he's like, things are gonna go bad, and I was like, I'm like, I can't believe I'm doing this. I was like shaking and sweating as I was like typing in the application. But that and that was March 2020.

Mike (26:14): Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (26:16): That was a rough time. Yeah.

Mike (26:17): It was pretty ugly. But yeah, so on my four legs home and back, three of the legs I sat in the cockpit.

Mike (26:27): But look, I think It's summertime, man. It's summertime. You're gonna get the summertime travel peaks and then you're gonna get the weather and it just it's summertime travel non rev is ridiculous. It's just hard.

Unknown Speaker (26:38): Weather was yeah. And the weather was bad news today in New York, East Coast to Atlanta. It was funny, though. Was in Chicago.

Unknown Speaker (26:44): Going across.

Unknown Speaker (26:45): You saw a bunch come through.

Unknown Speaker (26:46): Yeah.

Mike (26:47): And I was in Chicago and it's like, it was a beautiful day. It was gorgeous. Actually, the guy was flying. He was struggling. The crosswind into Chicago.

Mike (26:57): I was like, really?

Unknown Speaker (26:58): Well, I'm not bad. You're on a bunch of never mind.

Mike (27:04): I don't know, Mike. But yeah. You know what's interesting? It's funny. It's different from when we commuted at at the regional.

Mike (27:13): It was very an intimidating thing when you would go to the gate agent because they were like the gatekeepers. I've said this before. Obviously, they're gate agents, but they literally like the keepers of who gets on the flight and who doesn't. Sure. So you would definitely mind your etiquette and things like that.

Mike (27:28): And there's different world. Like I was telling you when I was going home, Delta has this line that says like, wait here. Have you seen that before?

Mike (27:36): I haven't been on Delta in a long time.

Unknown Speaker (27:38): Man, and this gate agent was tripping. Do you not see my sign on the floor that says wait here? And she didn't yell at me because I had heard her reprimand everyone else. So I was I was standing behind that line like a boss. Like, nah.

Unknown Speaker (27:53): I didn't have any Don't you think it's funny?

Mike (27:55): Like, not just not just in lines, but like anytime you like you have like a demonstration of people, right, that just mess something up like two or three in a row and then like you're the fourth one. Like, aren't you amazed that when people continue to mess it up and like did you not just watch the person in front of you? Like I see that teaching baseball all the time like they'd make the wrong like did you not just watch the three kids in front of you do the same stupid thing? Know like but to your point like after she yells at the first person, you would think everybody would stay behind the line or whatever. I don't know.

Unknown Speaker (28:24): So good. So good. So good.

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Unknown Speaker (28:47): That's why you Rack.

Mike (28:51): People had checked out, and I saw one lady come up. She was like four people in front of me, and she was on her phone looking around. And I'm like, you are about to step into a world of hurt. You don't even know. And she made her go walk back to the red line.

Mike (29:04): I was like, that's what you gotta do. But that's a power trip, I I mean, I'm not gonna knock Delta too much, but they had that weird thing with this red line. I don't quite get it. But, you know, back to when we were commuting, once you got past the gate agent, like, say you had a ride in the cockpit, you were walking down, say it was a DC nine. I mean, how many times have you ride a DC nine from Detroit to Hartford?

Mike (29:27): Gonna go see this old grumpy captain,

Unknown Speaker (29:29): you know, and you're like, oh god. Oh god. Oh god. God.

Mike (29:34): Of the time it worked out great, but there were other times where, man I flew with some one reason why I didn't go to Delta, the worst jump seat I ever was in was a Delta flight, and the captain was a prick. There's no other way to say it. I'm like, enough to where I didn't want to go there, you know?

Mike (29:48): It definitely left a bad taste in my mouth too as far as like the that kind of mentality, and obviously that's changed.

Mike (29:55): Think a lot that's died out. You know, there's been some movement in the industry, people are happy again, You know, especially over these these legacy carriers, they seem to be for the most part happy. But yeah, back then when there was no movement, these guys were coming off, they're saying it's been for second bankruptcy. The guy is probably like 58 years old, he's been on the DC nine thinking he'd be flying a wide body by now. Yeah.

Mike (30:17): They were they were not happy people. I mean, you know, it was just whatever, you know.

Mike (30:22): And back then too, Mike, we we had the flow up agreement with Delta. Like, you stayed at Compass for that time, you were gonna get an automatic job interview not an automatic job.

Mike (30:33): Yeah. My SIM partner went to Delta in 2015, so I would have been there right with him, but you know, life throws different things at you, you know, so.

Mike (30:41): But those things that come in your mind at that time of thinking about, like, do I wanna sit next to that guy in the DC 9 for that time? Like, when

Mike (30:48): It was definitely part that weighed on me when I made my decision, yes.

Mike (30:51): Yeah. Because other opportunities started presenting themselves. For me and you, it was to go to a different company that was close to home, And we weren't

Unknown Speaker (30:59): making anything for money.

Unknown Speaker (31:00): Yeah, yep. I think First year was making I

Unknown Speaker (31:04): a $100, I probably would have waited it out,

Unknown Speaker (31:06): but I was making Yeah, maybe.

Unknown Speaker (31:07): I don't think I hit 40. I think I was making like $35,000 a year, before taxes. What the

Mike (31:12): pay rate between yeah, right. What was the pay rate between first year at the company that we left Compass for, versus First Officer pay, or Captain pay? Don't I don't Compass?

Unknown Speaker (31:24): Do you remember?

Mike (31:26): Mean, we Covers could have been 80 We would have made more yeah. Probably $80. The company that we went to, I think, was 49 at the time. And then there was a pay raise after that. I think our second year, we made about 80 in our second year, I

Unknown Speaker (31:41): don't The second think you would have made year was the first year I ever made $40,000 in my life.

Mike (31:46): Yeah, yeah, and if you're flying a jet, like, with people on board.

Mike (31:50): And it was my fourth airline.

Mike (31:51): I think people are turning off the show now, like, who who would wanna be a pilot? What a nightmare.

Mike (31:56): It was for about ten years, it was.

Mike (32:00): Actually, this will come up. I'll bring this up now. There's this guy who emailed me. He's starting to think about getting into the airlines. I wanna tell you something else too.

Mike (32:09): I'll get I just remembered I remembered this, but this guy so anyways, this kid's talking about airlines versus colleges and the Air National Guard and anyway, so if I talk to him, and maybe I can get him to come on the show straight off, like, he's a young kid, so he might wanna talk about, but this makes me grumpy right now. And maybe this kid listens to the show, and if you're listening to the show right now, you send an email in because I wanna talk to you. And this is going straight out to this person. And if he's listening to the show, he might be. He'd be a silent listener.

Mike (32:41): I don't think I guess that's a good thing. I don't know. He lives two doors down from me, Mike. He's got a sign out in front of his house. Guess where he's going to college?

Mike (32:50): These kids put signs out on their yard and he's gonna go college. Guess where he's going?

Unknown Speaker (32:54): Embry Riddle. I don't know.

Unknown Speaker (32:56): Correct the window. He's going to Embry Riddle. His sister, his older sister, she babysat for both of my kids. He knows me. He knows what I do.

Unknown Speaker (33:09): Has he

Unknown Speaker (33:09): ever told

Unknown Speaker (33:10): to to me about what's going on? Mike, I literally and the whole point that we do this show oh, I'm all worked up now. I've done it all, Mike. I've touched all the bases.

Mike (33:21): Just don't don't get too fired up in Egga's house. You know? They know where you live too. You know?

Mike (33:25): No. I don't wanna Egga's house. I'm I'm just making a point that look. And then and I'm gonna be nice about it. The door is open.

Mike (33:32): Come on the show and talk to him about us now. I wanna hear why you never came down the street Maybe he's going to Emory Riddle to be an aircraft mechanic. It's possible. As a matter of fact, my sim partner just said that he that was his plan when he went to Emory Riddle, to become a mechanic.

Mike (33:46): That's why realize I can work less and make more.

Unknown Speaker (33:50): I think so.

Unknown Speaker (33:51): I wanna go to flight school.

Mike (33:51): So if this person's out there listening, you know who you are, you need to email the show, theblackbox01@yahoo.com, or send a text message 203699 6793. Knock on my door. Come on the show. We'll talk about it.

Unknown Speaker (34:07): I mean, on my door. I think

Mike (34:08): he'd be a great guest. Wow. I that was totally offside. I didn't have any of that scripted out for that either. So anyways, like, that's kinda my bad

Unknown Speaker (34:16): all off script, but it's

Unknown Speaker (34:17): I love it. It's I love

Mike (34:19): one like this in a while, and I think we needed to. Yeah. Because when now we're both getting back into work, and it's kind of been, you know, so Yeah.

Mike (34:26): So let's hear about your trip, Mike. So when's the last time that you did a trip more than two days that you went on

Mike (34:32): the I did five a three day, like I don't know, two weeks ago, but that was fine. The five day just hits hard, know, and it was right after I got home, hadn't slept in my own bed. I mean that's my own fault, I could have left the vacation earlier, right? But anyways, so we go one leg to Richmond the first night and then we were supposed to do like three legs the next day. Of course, I get to the airport.

Mike (34:54): Boom. Delayed. Delayed. Delayed. Delayed.

Mike (34:57): I mean, but we didn't report till late, so we're good forever. We're not going to time out. But we get to Richmond and we don't have weren't gonna have legal rest for the next day. So they pulled us off all the flying for the next day, put us on a deadhead, back to Orlando, and then a limo from Orlando to Fort Lauderdale, which is where we were supposed to originate, where we were supposed to overnight anyway. They're just getting us in position for the overnight.

Mike (35:20): This limo, I don't know how to explain it. Limos are probably the most dangerous thing we do, without a doubt. I mean, you'd like to think it's a professional driver, and I guess that technically is because they get a paycheck, but this was some kid that shows up in like a personal car, mean it was a clown car, and just, I don't know, he was weirdo and like he's driving super slow at the beginning, texting my FO. I couldn't see him texting. FO was like, do you mind pulling over to text if you need to text?

Mike (35:49): And sure enough, man, he pulls over to the side of the road. We're on the side of the highway. Cars are zipping by us so he can finish this text message. Wow. I'm like, we're gonna die, we're gonna die.

Mike (35:58): And then it's raining and it's just he's in the left lane going slow, so people are flying by us on the right lane. I'm like, someone's gonna pop a cap in us here in a second. You know, like, we're going down the floor to turnpike, you know, like and then he's like, do you guys mind if I get gas? I'm like, well, I don't want you to run out, so I guess I don't mind. Like, what kind of like, how are you gonna not get gas before you pick us up to drive three and a half hours?

Mike (36:23): So we go over and it's like a thirty, forty minute gas stop. I'm like, so this three and a half hour limo,

Unknown Speaker (36:29): dude Does he have a 50 gallon tank? What's he doing?

Mike (36:32): One, he he gets off the road and it's not like an exit where there's a one a gas station like right next to the exit. Of course, it's like five miles down, you know, it's like podunk you. I don't know. So then he he leaves the car running and go and he's out there for a while. I just go in.

Mike (36:49): I'm like, I'm gonna get a Doctor Pepper and some candy or something.

Unknown Speaker (36:52): Car is running and he's gonna fuel it while the car is running.

Mike (36:55): That's one reason why I walked away.

Unknown Speaker (36:57): So That's a good reason to get out of the vehicle.

Unknown Speaker (36:59): But then he comes in in and goes to the bathroom. So I'm thinking, okay, he's got done fueling like what was he doing out there? So then I go, get in the car and then he comes out and starts fueling the car. I'm

Unknown Speaker (37:08): like, what the heck were you doing for the ten minutes you were standing out here? And now we get in

Unknown Speaker (37:12): the car and he's like driving like a madman. So he went from driving slow to fast. So don't if he went in there and did a line of coke or something. I don't know. It was really He's so fired

Unknown Speaker (37:20): up, man. We gotta go to the airport.

Mike (37:22): And then he just keeps spraying like this spray and I'm like, what the heck? And my FO is like, dude, he's ripping them up front. Like, he's just I don't think he just got gas at the gas station for his car, man. He's like just ripping bombs, man. And he's just He's got gas coming out of his body.

Unknown Speaker (37:41): It was terrible. And then he's like, how do you and then he keep asking us weird questions. Like, how did you get into flying? Like, you think I'm ready to fly? Do you listen to music while you're flying?

Unknown Speaker (37:50): Like, just I'm just I'm like, dude, just pay attention to the road. Leave me alone. And then he's like and then he answers the phone You turn on

Unknown Speaker (37:57): the AM FM radio? What do you do? I don't get

Unknown Speaker (37:59): And then he answers the phone when someone calls and it's one of his buddies and he's like, oh, I got another trip at 6AM, but you know, as long as I get them to the flights on time, they won't care if I pull over and sleep. And I'm sitting here thinking, I wanna see the captain that he's like, I'm a pull over and take a nap with you in the back. This guy's gonna get punched in the face. I'm like, you can't take a nap on the freaking limo like, just as long as you get to to the airport in time. Dude, it was a terrible

Unknown Speaker (38:25): What's what's terrible he spraying? Is he spraying like like pope

Unknown Speaker (38:29): or It was sort pope that. Was very overpowering. It was not pleasant.

Unknown Speaker (38:35): Don't know. How long was that car ride?

Unknown Speaker (38:37): It was supposed to be three and a half. It was closer to four and a half with the

Unknown Speaker (38:39): gas Oh my god, dude.

Unknown Speaker (38:42): And it's storming, you know, I'm like, we're gonna die. I thought we were gonna die.

Mike (38:48): But we do. Like Wow. I mean, that I've had some crazy experiences like that with the limo rides where the dude was falling asleep. Yep. And he was like and some these things go wrong.

Unknown Speaker (39:01): All night. They work all night.

Mike (39:03): And it says limo, like when I get a limo, like these guys are legit, like they're wearing a suit, like they're not fooling around you get cars sometimes.

Mike (39:12): Yeah. Sometimes we get good stuff. And this is a this is a company that is, you know, it's it's it's national company because we use the same limo company because then I went to Raleigh Durham for a thirty three hour overnight. I mean, give me a break.

Unknown Speaker (39:28): Did you

Mike (39:28): say that? We use the same we did around town Durham. I'll get to that. But we So but we use the same company there, but this one pulled us up in a real van, had a nice driver, completely different experience. So it just shows you how like two different companies with a different manager can be completely different, you know?

Mike (39:45): Absolutely. The cool thing about going to Raleigh though, was a guy played college baseball with lived there. So I called him up and we went out and did some, sporting clay shooting. So they got like the sporting clay course. I don't know if you've ever seen these.

Mike (40:00): I never had, But you actually get in a golf cart and you go to like 18 different stations. It's like a golf course and you shoot And it sporting it was so much fun. Then I went over to his house for dinner and his kids made me a card and we're like, dear mister Mike, you know, like, I hope you had a good Father's Day even though you didn't get to spend it with your own kids, like Oh, that's

Unknown Speaker (40:18): really cool. Yeah. I'll keep

Mike (40:20): that, you know. So I mean, it was a good time. It was a good time seeing him, but five days, dude, on reserve when you know you're not getting paid, it just it kind of hits you in the wrong, hits you in the gut, you know.

Mike (40:32): Yeah, you don't expect that and it's not what you plan for. I mean, I guess you got to. It's first world problems.

Mike (40:39): It's it's first world problems. I completely get that. Like, I didn't call out sick. I went and did the trip, did the best I could with the trip, but it just isn't, you know, once you kinda make up your mind of what's gonna happen and it doesn't happen, it just kinda it's a gut punch.

Mike (40:53): Yeah. So That's why I was trying to keep an open mind today to be like, I might end up doing a show in the airport and then taking an Uber to the cargo terminal and getting to the crash pad at midnight. Like, I definitely ran that scenario in my head and I was, you know, with it. So, yeah, I I think you're right. You can set an expectation for things.

Mike (41:13): I was talking to my buddy, Seth. He's in Anchorage. He's a triple seven captain, and he's been on reserve for a couple months, and he doesn't get called. But he said that, you know, in that world, you could get called out to Asia. He said he has, like, three different bags that are, like, prepacked.

Mike (41:28): So if they call him, he's ready to go for, like, a seven day long to Asia. He's ready to go for, like, a two day if he has to go to New York. So you just don't know, and it's kinda like that preparation of his and, like, I mean, you haven't well, you haven't sat reserve in a while, have you?

Unknown Speaker (41:43): No. No.

Unknown Speaker (41:44): Yeah. No. I think not saying like why

Unknown Speaker (41:47): I don't like it. Yeah.

Mike (41:48): And I mean, that's that's kinda what turned me off to everything too when I started thinking about making changes, like, the reserve that I was on, and your the the rules of change for you and your contract, they weren't like that. I would sit at five day block reserve, and I would get called out on five day turns, like, AM shows in Boston and Kennedy.

Unknown Speaker (42:07): Just because you were the junior guy or something. Yeah.

Mike (42:09): Yeah, it was was very unappealing.

Mike (42:13): But there were other things that happened on this trip too, like leaving Fort Lauderdale, there was some nasty weather moving in and it was like, you know, we were gonna time out because it was our third leg of the day and they kept like closing the ramp, opening the ramp because every time there's a lightning strike, they don't want the rampers out there loading the bags and putting fuel on the airplane and everything and that makes sense. Yeah. But it's like, know, you have to keep telling people, okay, ramps open, we're gonna go. Just kidding, ramps closed, we're not gonna go. Like, it's just like, make up your mind, you know, like I mean, it ended up working out, we made it with like an hour to spare, we didn't get that close to timing out, but

Unknown Speaker (42:44): That's super frustrating. I know you you sit there in the cockpit and then the the when the lightning happens, like, blue lights will flash, you see lights go off really well. And like

Mike (42:52): and I don't want it, mean like timing out, know, let's say it from a lazy pilot's perspective, it's not bad, sometimes it works out in your favor, you get to go home earlier, maybe not, maybe you get but the last thing I want to do is have people on the airplane taxi to the runway and then time out have to turn around. That just I mean, like, I hate that. That's like a worst experience for us. I mean, know, because you really do feel bad and you got to tell these people, but it's a legality thing. You can't change it.

Mike (43:19): Like, I can't break the law. So thankfully that didn't happen. I'd rather time out before I'd rather put time out before they put people on the airplane than after the people are on the plane.

Mike (43:29): Yeah, and they get super upset when you bring them back to the gate because you timed out. I've had that happen before, and I wish that they would say, these guys, like they think we, like, did a big joke. If I run the checklist, if I push the jet and start the engines, like, I'm trying to do everything I can do to get you off the ground because it's not gonna work out good for me if I mean, if I go back, yeah, I'm gonna get paid more and then this and that, but, you know, it's been a long day for me if I'm gonna go out there and take this jet to runway. And if I actually do take off, it's gonna get even more difficult for me because I'm not launching into the the the setting sun and it's I'm going to launch into something horrible that's going to take

Unknown Speaker (44:06): a lot why you're delayed in the first place because there's probably weather in the area. We were, you know, we had to dodge weather all the way up to Raleigh.

Unknown Speaker (44:13): But it was

Unknown Speaker (44:13): I mean, it wasn't bad, but it just, you know, it is one more thing at night, you know, dodging storms at night. And you can only see how it is. Radar is not working good. So you're hoping to see some lightning so it can light up the clouds so you can see where they're at and try to dodge them that you know what I'm talking about. Yeah.

Mike (44:27): Yeah. Because there was no moonlight, you know, but the lightning helped, you know. So Study

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Unknown Speaker (44:58): Ends June 30. Terms at aka.ms/collegepc. Yeah. I've done that before. Well, I've gone back to the gate, then a customer started screaming at me, plane took off, and my friend I'm like, well, it's a different kind of airplane.

Mike (45:11): They carry more gas. Like, I don't know where they're going or how they figured that out. Like, there's a lot of things I don't know about that. I can only do what I can do in this airplane. I think the cops were at the gate when we came up.

Unknown Speaker (45:22): Like, it was it was quite a disaster.

Unknown Speaker (45:24): That's a long time ago. Any of that.

Unknown Speaker (45:26): Yeah. I will tell you this.

Mike (45:27): Fort Lauderdale was way different without Spirit, man. Way less people sleeping in the terminal. Way less people sleeping in the terminal. So it's kind of a pleasant area now.

Mike (45:36): Yeah. Your company put out a statement that talked about how they're gonna start recapitalizing on that that area, and actually, you have some news in that regard too. I'm gonna go down.

Mike (45:47): I'm gonna give up this five day trip summed it up for me. So I base traded out of Orlando, and I'm gonna go down to Fort Lauderdale. So I'd rather do the three and a half hour drive or the train ride or the forty minute flight than do five day trip over Father's Day weekend, you know, on reserve, you know. It's just we talked about it before. It's all about seniority.

Mike (46:06): Right? So I'm gonna go from, like, 95% seniority in Orlando to 70% in in Fort Lauderdale. So I'll have way better you know, I'll probably be home more, and I can bid Orlando overnights and stuff.

Mike (46:17): Yeah. I think that's a good strategic move for you because of what they've your company's talked about doing in Fort Lauderdale and your seniority. Then like you said, it's We're not the

Unknown Speaker (46:26): shrinking Orlando, but it's not growing. Like I'm gonna be at 95% for ten years, you know.

Mike (46:30): Yeah. And you have to measure out like what's that commute like? How different is you know? And I don't mind

Mike (46:37): the drive as long as it's not Anthony from crew taxi services or whatever, you know, in his I

Unknown Speaker (46:44): think it was. It's fartmobile. That's great. You'll have to find something to put in the show about the fartmobile.

Unknown Speaker (46:52): If I ever see him again, give him a little hanging pine tree, you know, just

Mike (46:57): go a little heavy in the pine tree perfume today.

Mike (47:00): But he's talking about how he goes to the gym six days a week. I'm like, stop eating so much protein, man. You're like clogging up your bum hole, you know?

Unknown Speaker (47:07): Eating the creatine and the and the powders. It's wonderful. It's wonderful. Else did You I want

Unknown Speaker (47:14): get the higher end stuff, it's not so bad.

Unknown Speaker (47:16): Buy the high end stuff. He's not a rich pilot, Mike. Gotta go for the

Unknown Speaker (47:19): grass fed protein, it's not as bad. Doesn't hit as hard.

Mike (47:25): I'm trying to think. Let's see. Oh, this is a good story too. So today, I'm sitting there at the gate and I'm waiting for to talk to the agent before she told me I was there too early and to go sit down, and then I saw the holy hell break loose. Cross the line.

Mike (47:38): The girl in front of me, she is a Southwest flight attendant. She's got her Southwest badge, and she shows the agent, and she's like, hey, look, I'm I'm trying to jump seat on this flight. That was so different. That was she was going to Nashville, and so the agent goes, okay, well, looks like you're gonna be on a jump seat and she goes, oh, I have a pet and she's got a dog and like the the pet carrier. You should have seen the agent turn like three different colors like red, purple, she was like, why would you go

Mike (48:08): would you go offline with an animal like that? Like non revving offline with a pet? That sounds

Unknown Speaker (48:13): like I don't know. Yeah. I don't even know

Mike (48:15): if I would go on my own airline without buying a ticket with a pet. Like, that just sounds like a that's a nightmare.

Unknown Speaker (48:21): Yeah. How did she think that was gonna go down? I don't know even how that works. Like, can't sit on a jump seat with a pet like She's Southwest. They're Southwest.

Unknown Speaker (48:28): They're not used to being told no. I don't know. Yeah. So that that I'd never seen that before.

Mike (48:34): They obviously didn't buy they obviously didn't buy that gate agent enough pizza for her to understand the Southwest policy and how things roll.

Unknown Speaker (48:41): I mean, can't believe I've never seen anything like that before. So that that's that's a new one for me. I would never I don't even know, I would never consider second jump seat with your animal. Oh yeah, I'm a jump seater.

Unknown Speaker (48:55): She should have said, oh we'll throw them under we'll throw them under the we'll throw them in the cargo for you, we'll take care of them.

Unknown Speaker (49:00): That's what she said to say. Put it underneath. He's a little pup and a little carrier. Oh my god.

Unknown Speaker (49:07): I mean, but

Unknown Speaker (49:08): you yeah. If you don't get a seat, then I'd be, you know

Unknown Speaker (49:11): And think about it, just jump seating, like, we've been talking about we've been talking about this for forty five minutes. There's enough stress in there.

Unknown Speaker (49:16): How do you have a

Unknown Speaker (49:16): dog with you? Like, why would you do that? I

Mike (49:20): don't know. I don't know. I'm nervous about getting my own bag on the airplane, you know?

Mike (49:26): Yeah. They're like, do you have and you get in on the regional jets like today, they're like, oh, do you have I always had a backpack and I have a roller board, you know, and that's you stress that because you're like, do your roller your your suitcase isn't gonna fit anywhere on the tiny jet. If they check it,

Unknown Speaker (49:42): I told my bag once at Compass. I'm sure I

Unknown Speaker (49:43): told you this, probably I just told

Mike (49:44): it on a show. I checked my check bag my bag and my flight case and everything to commute from Orlando to Detroit, and they'd write DTW on the the little pink slip or whatever, but she wrote real sloppy. They thought I said DFW, all my crap went to Dallas. I got there from my trip, didn't have my flight back, didn't have my six jet manuals, didn't have anything, you know.

Unknown Speaker (50:05): What did you do? I went down to

Unknown Speaker (50:07): the chief pod and told him and he took me off the trip, no questions asked. It was fine.

Unknown Speaker (50:10): Oh yeah? Did you get paid

Mike (50:11): for I think I did get paid for I don't remember. They probably took PTO time or sick time or something from me. Don't But I don't remember being an issue. I don't remember, like, walking out of there being like, screw that guy. I remember thinking, god.

Unknown Speaker (50:25): Thank god he understood. You know, like, I mean, was I gonna do? I didn't have any of my No.

Mike (50:30): That's our worst nightmare. And that's Mike's talking about back in the day, you had to carry all the charts for the airplane.

Mike (50:35): It was the big leather bag, like you see some of the older guys still carry it. I don't know why, because I just so they look senior, I don't know. I I don't know.

Unknown Speaker (50:45): You still carry that jetpack? What's who knows what's in there? I'm like, what are you carrying? In there, like, if I could show up with

Mike (50:52): just my iPad and a flashlight, I would totally do that, you know, like

Unknown Speaker (50:55): I bet you there's guys that do that. There's that's the opposite end of the spectrum, you get the guy that's got the his old school with the duct tape on it Yep. With the leather strap.

Unknown Speaker (51:03): 100%.

Unknown Speaker (51:04): Oh, man. People know about write in if you know about that. If you've you've people you've seen somebody carry your jet bag before. We used to

Mike (51:11): do a bunch of pranks. We used to do a bunch of pranks in flight school, and I'll get I should get my buddy on the show that helped me out with those. And one of them, when we, this was after flight school, this was that we were regional. He was at Pinnacle. I was at Comair.

Mike (51:24): I went into their crew room with him to help him with another guy we went to flight school with. And we taped all these like David Hasselhoff photos all over this, our buddy's like flight bag, like, like, taped them on there, like, he's, like, in a leopard bikini and, like, holding tigers or something, like

Unknown Speaker (51:39): That's awesome. Because by the time you get to that your flight bag, like, you don't have time to take that off. Like, you probably have to go somewhere, like, you're David's I coming I had a

Mike (51:47): I I probably told you this this another flight bag story with those old leather ones in the JFK Crew Room for Com Air, you know, there was rats down there. It's the old Delta terminal they tore down, and a bunch of rats were down there. Probably rats in the new one too. It's JFK. Yeah.

Mike (52:02): But one of them I had left a pack of crackers or something in my bag and it chewed through the leather to get in there to get the crackers and then it chewed and crapped all over my JEP charts. Just like confetti is I just had like confetti in there. I had to go get all new JEP charts. It's a nightmare.

Mike (52:20): As you say, Mike, when you go downstairs in these crew rooms, so you like, there's a below city inside the terminal. So you take the elevator down and then you go to the crew room, and they would have these they they're different now, but they would have these rooms where, like, they'd have, like, these, like, erector set, like, metal shelves, and, you know, the five or six of them, and all the guys that had their JEP charts, you wouldn't take your JEP charts. Normally, wouldn't take them with home with you if you couldn't if you

Unknown Speaker (52:45): No. Because your stuff's gonna go to Dallas when you wanted to go to Detroit.

Unknown Speaker (52:48): Right. And So you try to leave

Mike (52:49): that stuff there. But sometimes, like, commuting home, you know, you you get a deadhead and you just go home on your own or you get, you know, you sometimes you went home without going to base. That's probably what I did, but if you go to base and yeah, you're gonna stuff it in the closet like you're talking about so you don't have to travel with it because it's probably an 80 pound bag.

Mike (53:07): It was super heavy and all those cases, those bags, leather bags like Mike's talking about, they'd all be on those shelves or whatever in different states of whatever. Like some guys would go to another job, like they just leave their jet bag there.

Mike (53:21): I remember. When I got my new one, that was payroll deducted from Comair. I got my nice new leather case, and I beat the crap out of it because I didn't want to look like the new guy. So I just like just ran it over the curves and just like, you know, like I just I didn't want to look like the, you know, I already looked like the young guy because I was 24. So I didn't want to look like the guy that, you know.

Unknown Speaker (53:42): And then when it started falling apart, I regretted the decision for years before,

Unknown Speaker (53:46): you know. Took a couple years off that one, you had to get another payroll.

Mike (53:48): And now I got a new bag that I like, I like, I want it to look perfect. I don't care what people, you know, just roll in the giant Airbus cockpit and that thing should last me the next twenty years.

Mike (53:58): That's a tell too. I'll tell you, you can look, see, see a younger pilot walking around and you see his brand new bag or you see like a guy who looks like he's 50, but off active duty and he's got a brand new bag. You're like, oh, that guy's new. Actually, Nicole got me a new bag for Father's Day. I'm say

Mike (54:16): That's the last thing you need is bags. I've been to your house, man. You I went down. Was it in your basement? You had, like, 20 bags.

Unknown Speaker (54:21): I'm like, dude, how many freaking bags do you have?

Unknown Speaker (54:24): Why did we go to the basement? I forget. Was I showing you stuff? That was

Mike (54:30): were Oh, right. Get your Fugazis. Was that where you kept your Fugazis?

Mike (54:32): Hey, everybody wins with a Fugazi. No. I don't keep them there. But I got all these people that travel. These kids travel.

Unknown Speaker (54:40): They go all over the place. Anna goes on her thing for school. She wants to borrow the It a was before

Unknown Speaker (54:46): you left. It's like it's like before you left JetBlue, must have used like all your uniform allowance and just bought every bag in the store.

Unknown Speaker (54:52): I totally did. I have a I have a strong bag that's down there that's I don't use it. It's brand new. It just sits there.

Unknown Speaker (54:58): Good for you.

Unknown Speaker (54:59): Yeah. Well, Mike, we got a bunch of news stories that we we could talk about quick. I don't know if you wanna run through them or bag them. What do

Unknown Speaker (55:07): you wanna do? Don't care at all. Can hit them real quick, that's fine.

Mike (55:11): Let's go through these quick. I just wanna I hit them and quick. One of them, I like this story because it was a f a teen crash that was near Wenatchee, Wisconsin or Wisconsin, Washington, Lake Rim Rimrock. And I talked I showed you this. There's a video of this, Mike.

Mike (55:26): The guy, he ejects and the jet goes into the forest. You see it blow up, and that actually caused a forest fire.

Mike (55:35): That one didn't really catch the news so much, and I guess it's because of the b 52 that crashed kinda stole the news or whatever, but like this I didn't know about this until you sent me the video.

Mike (55:43): Yeah. So this this kinda it's closer to home because this is near Lake Ketchelis, which is near Lake Cachise, which is my buddy Jay from Lower the Bar podcast. They live right there. Like, they see these jets every day, and they're this was, I think, a marine. That was a marine jet.

Mike (56:01): I think it was. But they filmed a ton of the scenes out there too for Top Gun Maverick because that and they fly exercises there because that terrain mimics some of the combat areas that they fly in, like Afghanistan or, you know, Eastern Europe, Russia, kinda stuff like that. So, anyways, my buddy Jay said that he had seen those jets flying, like, the day before doing those runs, and then they had heard that crash, like, right after. But if you listen to Lower the Bar podcast, they do talk about these spots because they talk about a lot of outdoor stuff with skiing. But this is their ski mountain.

Mike (56:36): This is where they ski and everything else. So, anyways, check that out if you haven't seen it. Just do f 18 crash in Washington, and you'll see the video.

Unknown Speaker (56:44): Show it on here too for those that are watching the video.

Mike (56:47): So The next one I wanted to hit was since you brought it up, Mike, was the B 52 crash at Edwards. This is a weird thing because so the b 52, there's only about 30 there's 35 of them left in the Air Force inventory. These jets came out and debuted in January 1955, and these have been around forever. These are the workhorses of the cold war, the the operation linebacker in Vietnam, with the bombing the carpet bombing that they were doing in Vietnam. And these are the same airplanes.

Mike (57:17): Like, they've gotten upgrades and mods and things, but literally, it's the same t f 33 engine that's on them now. So they're bringing them through AdWords to do upgrades to the radars, and then they're gonna put new engines on them. Did you know that the the engine they're looking at putting on them is the same one that's in a lot of the Gulfstreams? It's a Rolls Royce f one thirty I

Unknown Speaker (57:38): don't had no idea. I don't know much about any of that.

Mike (57:41): But there's eight engines in a b 52, so, like, it's a big whammy jammer and they can carry listen to this. It can carry 280,000 pounds of fuel and it can still carry 70,000 pounds of weapons. And it's too hard to go through, like, the different cycles of munitions that it can carry because it can carry Tomahawk missiles, cruise missiles, carry nuclear weapons, like, can carry everything you can imagine. So, but this jet crashed three minutes after takeoff and all eight crew members were killed. And it's interesting because you don't see a lot of takeoff crashes, especially in a jet like this.

Mike (58:19): When these guys were at Edwards Air Force Base, so they were obviously involved in some kind of test. So it maybe it could have been a training mission, but you'd still see a pre pretty seasoned crew that was operating this. So this must have been some kind of massive malfunction with the airplane that caused this to happen. So we'll stand by to try to learn more about this, but if you have seen that in the news, pretty sad stuff for those guys, but curious at the same time as to what was going on with that airplane. So we'll we'll keep an eye on that.

Mike (58:45): This one, Mike, is another weird one because I was on the jump seat back from Connecticut, not this time, but the time before that, and I sat next to a NetJets guy. And, like, I talked to some NetJets guys. Do you have buddies that are NetJets? Been there for a while?

Mike (58:59): I think I know anybody that's there anymore. I didn't know some guys that were there back in like 08/00/2009. They all went there because that was kind of the place to go back then, you know, because airlines weren't hiring. But I think they've since left, and either way, don't keep in touch with them.

Mike (59:12): So this guy was doing they have a seven on, seven off schedule, and he's home based. So he lived in Dallas, so he would drive to Shreveport, and they they cut they cut him a ticket to, like, where they go. The weird thing that I learned about NetJets is that during that seven days, like, you're you're up for anything. You have to be ready for anything. They could you could fly from Shreveport you get an airline ticket from Shreveport to Kennedy or whatever, Teterboro, and then you might operate Teterboro to LA.

Mike (59:37): You could sit for three days after that, but they might cut you a ticket the next day to go to Chicago, and then you're gonna

Unknown Speaker (59:43): operate kind of a cool gig, you know? But

Unknown Speaker (59:46): It seemed interesting. The only thing that I thought was

Unknown Speaker (59:48): Seven days a long time.

Mike (59:50): Yeah. And you and you, like, have you're in that rest cycle. So you I was like, when I was like, you don't know what you're gonna do tomorrow? He's like, no. He's like, they the phone will ring at whatever time you're still available and they'll give you the assignment for tomorrow.

Unknown Speaker (1:00:03): I said, well, I guess it's okay if you stay in that mindset, like, you're not, like, thinking, oh, tomorrow, hit the pool and, you know, get a workout because you don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow.

Mike (1:00:12): You're Yeah. On reserve for seven days, but you might be in reserve in LA or wherever they sent you, you know.

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Mike (1:00:47): Yeah. He said some days you don't do anything. You just sit around, but you just don't know until that next window of assignment comes up, and then you go. So it's pretty interesting. It's a different way of doing things.

Mike (1:00:57): Those guys get keep all their airline miles and their hotel points as well. So it's kind of a perk to that job to help them out. So anyways, this is a NetJets crash that happened in Laredo, Texas last week. This is a Citation Latitude bike. This is the same type of aircraft that we talked about from Execjet, which is actually owned by NetJets, where they hit the deer.

Unknown Speaker (1:01:17): Remember that in North Palm Palm Beach? Yep. So it's a big jet. It's a mid range business jet. Like, it's a it's pretty good.

Mike (1:01:23): You haven't listened the episode, we did that on February 19. So go back and listen to that episode, and we had the cockpit tapes for that too, so not for this one in Laredo. I haven't seen anything about that yet. But this jet took off from San Cabo Airport in Mexico. It was destined for Austin, Texas.

Mike (1:01:37): San Cabo is, like, in Southern Baja, and there's dramatic video of this incident because as police and bystanders start to get there, the jet emergency lands essentially on the highway just outside the airport in Laredo, Texas. And there's bystanders and passengers, like or passengers bystanders and police, like, running up to the airplane and, like, prying open the main cabin door of this jet, and then they're smashing the cop windows with the what do they have? Those things that break the windows, you know, the cops have them, like, shatter, whatever they are. But you see the people come out of it. Somebody died.

Mike (1:02:11): There were six passengers. I think one of them died, you see the pilot come out. There's but here's the thing. The jet breaks in two, and you can see it. It's clear in the in the videos.

Mike (1:02:21): Mike, there wasn't much fire there. This is something that I think is concerning to me and something that sticks out with this accident because you should still have a bunch of fuel on that jet. If it lands, crash lands like that, I don't know how the the wings would have stayed. Maybe they stayed in enough tact that they didn't rupture and cause a fire, but it's very unusual. There is a little fire, but there's not like a fireball that you think would Yeah.

Mike (1:02:46): And it wasn't I mean, the people were able to walk up to the plane and help these people out. If the fireball was big, they would not have been able

Mike (1:02:51): to do that. And I think this is something to consider because I don't know. And you'll see there's aftermath pictures of the plane being taken off by a crane off the highway, and you literally can see where it broke in the fuselage. You can see the packs, like, you see the ducts and everything, the air ducting in the in the aft fuselage. But the fact that this plane doesn't have a ton of fuel on it makes me concerned that there was some kind of an issue.

Mike (1:03:13): Maybe there was a fuel leak. We don't know, and that's what happened. They did come from an international destination. Was something that you wanna look at when you leave anywhere as you cross check how much fuel you got on the aircraft, how much fuel was on the paperwork that says you're supposed to have, and then you verify that with what's on the airplane from the fuel I'm

Mike (1:03:31): sure and I'm sure they did. I mean, net NetJets has a great record. This is like the first fatality. I mean, they've got a a spotless record. Right?

Mike (1:03:38): So and I'm sure these guys were professional pilots and ran their checklist and monitored. I I would I just can't imagine they skipped that part. So I don't I don't think that happened.

Mike (1:03:47): I have to agree with you. That's why I just don't know what's gonna come out of this. They could have fuelly. Fuelly is one of the scariest things that I think could happen, especially in, you know, where's it coming from? I mean, because there's a there's a incident in The Azores with Air Transat when they had a fuel leak and they mistransferred things because it's confusing.

Mike (1:04:04): It's it's not an easy thing to kinda diagnose and figure out.

Unknown Speaker (1:04:07): So Yeah. Because you don't do it normally.

Mike (1:04:09): No. No. Exactly. Anyways, we'll keep an eye on that and and we'll check that out for you guys as well. Mike, we zoomed through this show.

Mike (1:04:17): We told a lot of stories. I think we had a little fun. We did some jokes. A lot of jokes out there, mister. Have some fun.

Mike (1:04:24): Is there anything else you wanna add? Anything we we talked about or missed or hit?

Unknown Speaker (1:04:28): We hit it all. Again. It's been a while. It's been it was good.

Mike (1:04:31): Mike and when I called Mike and he ghosted me, he did text me and tell me he was at the resort, which we should talk about that next time at the resort again. We can visit that.

Mike (1:04:38): That was a good time. Always is.

Unknown Speaker (1:04:41): Alright, Mike. And everyone else out there, we'll see you on the next episode, and thanks again for joining us. We'll see you. See you.

Mike (1:04:47): You've been listening to the Black Box Aviation Podcast. Real pilots, real stories, and aviation news the way it's actually talked about in the cockpit. If you like what you heard, make sure to like, subscribe, and follow so you don't miss an episode. Until next time. Keep the blue sign up, and we'll see you at Al

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