Saturday Morning

A Company Jetstream Off of Cluff


It's Saturday morning and I'm suppose to be in my warm bed with my warm wife, but instead after a late call last night I'm now sitting in a sort-of warm cockpit with a sort-of warm cup of coffee. A company plane had a starter problem up North last night, so we get to come pick up their over due passengers and bring them back South.

Right now at about 30'000 feet over Northern Sask there is a Jetstream of about 150 MPH out of the West. After leveling off at FL250 and battling an 85 MPH head wind we decided to descend to Fl190 where we only had to put up with a 55 MPH head wind. The fuel burn went from about 530 pph to 680pph (pounds per hour, but we saved ourselves about 15 minutes, so we should still be pretty near our planned arrival fuel. We are void of passenger right now so we could take enough fuel to get home with, we're hoping not to have to load anymore on with these crazy winds. There was also forecast to be some severe CAT (Clear Air turbulence), but it's been fairly smooth so far, let's hope it stays that way.