sherpa

NFL charters are usually 757's or 767's, except the London stuff. They have two jumpseats. Not likely that anyone sits in the jumpseat, but it used to be possible on charters. Only a few of situations where the same guy flies a team on all away games. I know that the Cowboys and Dolphins used to have the same captains for their road games, but there are contractual requirements that are involved. The guy who used to fly the Dolphins had to trade out of his weekly trip in order to fly the Sat/Sun charter. He was a bit senior to me and always flew mid week Paris trips. I always took his trip so he could do the charter. Jim Ritcher flew a Dolphin charter to Buffalo as first officer once. Quick story involving a Dolphin charter that involved a captain different than the one above. Dolphins were coming back to Fort Lauderdale from an LA game. There was a weak hurricane, but a hurricane nonetheless in South Florida. Jimmy Johnson was the head coach and he insisted that they land in Fort Lauderdale. Captain tells him to get back to his seat and they are going to land In Ft. Meyers. Argument ensues and Jimmy tells him that if they don't land in Fort Lauderdale, he is going to blast the airline in his Monday press conference. Captain tells him it is far too dangerous and he doesn't care about Jimmy's threat and to get back to his seat. They land in Fort Meyers and Jimmy whines about it in his Monday media thing.

NFL charters are quite comfortable. The entire narrative of them somehow being debilitating is nonsense.

Looks like a standard contrail to me.

49ers zeroing out travel this week. Their staying in Youngstown this week between Bengals and Browns away games.

One correction to what I stated above. In the US, we didn't carry 20mm gun ammo unless we were specifically going to do strafing. At sea, in international waters, we always did, along with live anti air missiles.

The ejection system is extremely fast, so as long as you had a proper intercept angle you could get a really good hit on it. There were two F-16's that were armed that were on their way and could have jumped United 93 prior to DC airspace. Nobody other than alert airplanes were armed. Very rare to ever have gun ammo. That status and capability to respond with armed airplanes is quite different now. Regarding the difficulty of mentally doing it, the weird part was right after it. Many airline pilots in the Guard/Reserve were recalled to active duty for a bit and were flying TarCap over major cities, and were armed. Shooting down one of your own company airplanes was a horrific thought.

I don't think there was time. One of the things that happened that day, and immediately, was the profiling of various flights. That's why I got the messages I did, which indicated a direct threat and to defend the cockpit at all cost. Same type airplane, a transcon, and an unusual number of no shows. I am very familiar with what happened to the guys on the flight decks that day, at least two of them, and there was no time for any passenger reaction.

The plan was to eject just prior to impact, momentum carrying the F-16s into the fuselage, and them getting rescued after a successful ejection. Her CO was to take the cockpit, and she the tail. There were also missile equipped airplanes in the hunt, so I don't think this airplane would have gotten to DC. Respect for loss of life, but glad it turned out the way it did, with minimal loss of life.

Ya. Same company. I flew that Dulles to LA trip for 18 months prior to this, then took a job as a check captain, because I got tired of it, and preferred Europe and South America. We lost good people that day, and the career and industry were changed forever. Not complaining, but I know the results.

Worst day of my life. Started out responding to this thing. Diverted, called home because I was flying transcons from New York the day before, and going back from the west coast when it happened, and wanted to let the wife and kids know I was OK. Next, lunch with a group I was working with that clearly had no idea how it was career altering. After lunch, found out the names of friends on American 77. Just a horrible day. Didn't get home until Friday, and one of the things I'll never forget, among many, is seeing only my car and about four others in the usually jammed employee lot at Reagan.

TSA is part of the Department of Homeland Security, not the FAA. If people have problems with them, they have a complaint process that's pretty easy to follow.

Why aren't criminal charges filed? Next thing we'll hear is that its Manti Te'o' ex girlfriend. Too weird.

We had basically the same option and chose Charlottesville, VA. I like university towns. Virginia doesn't have nearly the winters of the north, has quite decent mountains and is close to both ocean and Chesepeake Bay options. Taxes, school systems, plenty of recreation opportunities. Northern VA is not something I ever want to deal with, and we prefer being near the Blue Ridge to near the ocean.

It is becoming more and more obvious that the league consists of 32 independent contractors employing 53 independent contractors.

I "got" that. Sarcasm doesn't get a pass when it's silly.