There is an interesting photo slide show posted on Airline Pilot Central.  You should definitely check it out and see what a bird can actually do to an aircraft on takeoff or landing.  For that matter, it can happen anytime an aircraft is cruising at the birds flight level.  It’s pretty ridiculous!  Now serving hot meals on today’s flight, fresh flock of geese.  Served as is. 

After getting to bed around 12:00AM an then waking up around 5:30AM for a relaxing start to my day, I got dressed, dily-dalied a little bit and then ended up strolling downstairs for some early breakfast.  A really relaxing way to start out in the morning, but when we arrived at the aircraft to begin some first flight of the day tests, the captain noticed that the Cargo Firex Standby Light was not illuminating during the bottle test.  So, what does that mean?  It means that we cannot continue on this flight with baggage in the cargo bay.  This stems from a ValueJet “AirTran” accident that had  a cargo fire and ended up blowing up in the sky.  What are we forced to do now?  I have no idea, but I do know that I’m not really getting paid for the time that I’m spending just sitting here in the aircraft blogging.  I’m not connected to any internet service either so this is one of those post later type deals. 

Maybe all these maintenance issues comes from the fact that my captain will be leaving for Northwest ina couple of days.  I don’t know how many pilots I have flown with that have ends up leaving the company but its like everyone that flies with me gets some goo karma and moves on or maybe its just that i scare them away! 

Well, after being late in the morning due to boarding, late out of the Bahamas due to a malfunctioning left pack, and late in Atlanta due to maintenance on a tire repair, what else could have went wrong?  Well, as it turns out, after I competed my walk around 40 minutes prior to departure, right before we closed the door, a ramp agent came up the stairs and said that I should inspect some liquid that was leaking from the aft fuselage body.  I approached the area, touched the fluid, smelled it and knew that we were going to be a while.  I called the captain outside to inspect the issue and from there on, it was only a matter of time before we were require to deplane, and re-board another aircraft, get it ready to fly, fuel it up and preflight it. 

The issue that I had was that we were being told that the APU could be deferred because it had its own separate fuel line and therefore if we did not operate it, we should be fine.  Now, let me just ask, would you be fine if you knew your plane had a leak and they still wanted you to ride in it.  I mean, yeah, we wouldn’t use the APU, but maintenance wasn’t even sure, at the time, exactly what the problem was.  Kind of sketchy eh?  The maintenance guy told me that their policy had a loophole in it and it was 1) They were not allowed to defer anything on the aircraft if it was leaking any type of fluid but 2) If the item was leaking and stopped leaking being tagged inoperable, then the aircraft was okay to go. 

That’s that really besides that we got to the overnight (White Plains, NY) 2 hours later than scheduled and the captain and I went to an awesome Italian Restaurant in downtown Armonk call La Scala where I had some Veal alla Scala.  It was tremendous!!!  So fresh and so good!  It cost a pretty penny but as I’ve always said, good food has no price.  You can’t eat your money either so at least enjoy it!

I read an interesting article tonight on Star-Telegram.com about the state of the the airline industry in reference to hiring pilots.  I think that you might find it disconcerning, but I don’t blame you.  I want to assure you that I got some of the best training, but I did pay heavily for it. 

I woke up at 6:30AM PDT, got ready to head down to San Diego, but first I checked my e-mail and then got sidetracked with some morning television.  It consisted of catching up on all the shows that I missed last night while trotting along at 40 mph on the 15N in the Turbo.  It’s been really hampered lately on climbing hills and I’m not sure what the problem is.  So, I’m sitting here doing nothing but watching some tv.  I’ve already lost 1.5 hours of my life and am ready to head out and help out my grandma buy a new / used car.  Any suggestions for her?

Two and Half Men was hilarious and so what How I Met Your Mother.  It’s just been too good.  I hope that the Writer’s Guild Strike ends soon because its going to get ridiculous in the next few weeks without new tv.

Come on Turbo….u can do it! I'm flooring the pedal while climbing a constant grade and the car just doesn't want to climb or accelerate any further.

This movie is definitely going to be awesomeness!  I can’t wait to watch it in IMAX.  Lately, that’s the only way I’ve been wanting to watch movies.  Nothing beats it.

Here’s a preview of the making of the “Dark Knight” out in theaters July 18, 2008.  Click here.