On the Road
 

What is the lifestyle like on the road? What do you do when you are not flying? Do you sit in your hotel room and just watch t.v? Also how do you balance life on the road with a family?

I arrived in hotel at HPN around 2pm today. Here's what I've done (just as an example):

I changed clothes, watched some TV, ate some lunch, wasted some time on the internet, talked to my wife on the phone, ran 4 miles on a treadmill and did some abs in the workout room, ate some dinner, took a shower, watched two episodes of Scrubs, and now I'm wasting more time on the internet. I'll talk to my wife again shortly and go to bed early because I have an early show tomorrow.

Now replace a craphole like HPN with a lovely spot like Wilmington, NC for example:

Change clothes, go downstairs and meet the crew, go walk down the riverwalk, eat some dinner and drink some Yuengling at Elijahs or George's right on the river, walk back to hotel, watch some tv, go to Port City Java for an awesome cup of coffee, go back to the hotel, watch the sun set over the river, talk to the wife on the phone, go to bed thinking "this overnight kicks ass, too bad I'm gonna be stuck in that craphole LGA Clarion tomorrow."

Your mileage will likely vary.

Sounds like my life but just out on the west coast. However the overnights here on the pacific and pacific northwest are a little nicer than HPN and LGA in my opinion!

Forgot to add that I catch up on a LOT of sleep from being busy at home with the wife and child and commuting about 2000 miles to work almost every week!

I was born and raised in Wilmington. Great place. I surely miss it. Say hello to the battleship for me the next time.

Cheers

Sorry for the thread drift
 

On a similar topic, if you have a 4 hour layover, and there isn't a crew room, what do you guys do to pass the time?

The Chow

Layovers and overnights
 

At first there is some enthusiasm to venture out however after the tenth time at each destination you will quickly exhaust all avenues for doing anything that is interesting at all. Usually there is no money to eat out with or to do much anyway.

Most of the time you will waste half of your life away alone in a concrete hotel room and think of all the fun your freinds are having at home.

On layovers you try to find a quiet place away from your own gates in the terminal to read left behind news papers. Great fun.

Skyhigh

On 4 hour layovers, I have:
a. taken a take a portable DVD player and put that NetFlix membership to use
b. slept on the airplane
c. read a book
d. reviewed FOM, SOP, ASM (lots of fun)
e. listen to iPod / watch Podcasts
f. walk around the terminal looking at women


On a side note, where are you going that there is NOT a crew room? :confused: Even the BFE Colgan outstation airports had some kind of makeshift crew room.

HAHAHA sad very sad, and partly true if I dont HAVE A GOOD CREW Ill get some food and watch TV. thats what a lot of people do at home anyway without the pestering from the wife/Girlfriend. If you have a good crew you can have a lot of fun, like the time me and the CA went to Chihuahua Mexico and for only $30.00 we both got........:p............well lets just say you can have fun on overnights and if the cities blow and the crew is boring, I enjoy being by myself I spend hours on this site, pay bills, watch the Yanks kick ass etc etc........... I will say I feel like its a Jailbreak when I am off the bus walking to my car in F lot, homefree :) I am lucky to live in base I trade a lot of 4-days for day trips two days etc....................

no wonder you quit flying. i have been to boston probably 100 times and never get tired of going out on the ferry or heading to the boston market and all the other cool stuff there is to do there. not saying everytime i go to boston i head out, some times its nice to relax. ask me how many times i have been to the museum at IAD, or the beach in ft meyers, or the mall in washington, the beach in pensacola, sixflags in dallas, the hershey factory near mdt, and the list goes on, and on... these are things that people can only dream of. OH AND GUESS WHAT,, my WIFE HAS BEEN TO ALL THOSE PLACES WITH ME, and we have a great time. i told my buddy who is a doctor that i was going up to toronto and had a 22 hour layover, we went to the needle, hung out downtown, got some sushi, went to the pier and had a good time. he told me that he hates going on vacations because when he gets back he will have such a back log of patients that his usual 12 hour day will be a 14-16 one for at least a month. yeah my friend is really having a good time at home.

as for long sits in airports if it is 5 hours the company has to give us a hotel room. if its less than that then i go down into the ops area, read my book, watch some tv, and a lot of times just take a nap.

come on skyhigh, everytime you say something you show us a little more of your personallity, i bet flying a 2 day with you seemed like a 5 day.

The zen people have an expression, "wherever you go there you are". We may not all be islands unto ourselves but if you are miserable anywhere except maybe the dentists chair or in a jail, you should probably take a look at your own mind and try to see why.

If you have an open mind and are willing to explore, there is ALWAYS something redeeming about every city. Now Skyhigh will say MFR, GEG, etc blows, but he was too busy sulking in his room to wander and check things out.

If you have a fun crew, you will have a great time. If your crew is lame, you will just have to wander and explore.

For those of you who do not know skyhigh, he can best be defined by the link below.

Skyhigh

Yes, there are many things you can do to pass the time,, this site has some pretty cool games to help if you need.

www.miniclip.com

Skyhigh seems like he is only happy in his own little world. He needs to wake up and enjoy life. Now he will leave a post saying how happy and wonderful his life is, how predictable.

when i worked for AE I use to have 16 hour layovers in Nassau, Key West...etc.... summer layover at Washington National were always fun.... HHI standups and ALB standups sucked but.... it is what you make it.

Sounds like an Air Wisconsin pilot!! Where can I get a job like yours with overnights in ILM!!!

Airsupport,

A layover like BOS is great, a layover like ILM is good. A layover in EWR, at the Holiday Inn, next to the prison? not so much. But at least you can watch some hoops. Orange on Orange scrimmage. At the Metropolitain in DTW there is the bar, and nothing else. In Tri-Cities, TN, there isn't even that. At the Amerisuites RDU you are literally in an industrial park, with nowhere to go and nothing to do, not even a sidewalk to follow.

The cities you layover in, the hotel you get, and the duration make all the difference in the world.

One of the (many) superior things about Eagle vs PSA, is that Eagle doesn't lay over in as many shoddy one horse towns. Even staying in the same city, the RDU layover at PSA was horrendous, the Eagle short layover at the La Quinta is not bad at all. My cousin is a DL FA, she was raving how the CVG Days Inn treats them so well... the crew room has a fully stocked fridge with samacehs, as well as breakfast fare, and until someone screwed it up, even free beer! The PSA overnight at the Drawbridge is widely despised. Lastly, if you're stuck in a crappy hotel, in a nothing town, and have a minimum overnight, its ok. But stay in a nice hotel in a happening place, for that reduced rest overnight and then get stuck in nowheresville for the long overnight, well that just makes you think they are planning on making things as bad as they can.


I had a long overnight in DCA on the 4th of July. My wife & son came down. It was great. But that's only the second time in two years that I had a long overnight in a cool place where they were able to come with me.

Skyhigh presents a valid point of view, which is under represented. Being an airplane driver is not all fun & games, carrying home wheelbarrows full of money and trying to pick between the blond or brunette, or both. The sacrifices that come with this lifestyle need to be more transparent. So skyhigh, is one sided? Ok. But he is the other side of the coin. Stop dumping on him for showing the downside, his perspective is a valuable counterpoint to the obvious positive aspects of this career.

Certain People
 

Question! Why does a certain person who frequents this forum but, no longer works as a pilot (and claims it is a better life... blah, blah, blah) continue to skulk about with nothing positive to say and insist on adding a morose tinge to any upbeat or positive discussion?

I think to him it's a way to keep in touch with a lifestyle that he had a love/hate relationship with. He got in for all the right reasons and got kicked around and abused. Now he's here to present the other side of the story for all of us newbies. Honestly, hearing his side of things never discouraged me from getting into this industry but it definately made me ask myself if this is what I really wanted.

Does it get old for some people? Yes. Does it not also get old knowing that every time I read one of Sky's posts I know that someone is going to talk down on him for his opinion? Also yes.

Like his opinion or not, he's good to have around in a bad sort of way.

He hasnt been around as much lately maybe he is getting tired.

Maybe the fact that real estate is falling on it's face means he had to get a job and doesn't have 23 hours a day to rave about how much money he makes and how much he hated flying for an airline.

I can see his side of it somtimes, it does get old (for me anyways) . I get to the point where "you see one city you seen them all". Tomorrow I have a six hr. layover in KSUS that will be spent doing a large pack of jepps and then trying to nap since it's 2am and I'm still awake right now.

Which FBO are you going to at SUS?

Go down to Annie Gunns for lunch. Good stuff!

Is that the one next to corp jets