For today's article I am going to talk about my weekend and how my full-time job affected it. My primary duties at my full-time job include loading/offloading equipment and pallets onto military aircraft. I will start with my happenings on Friday and end it on Monday.
Friday
I normally work a scheduled shifts from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday thru Friday. I took Friday off thinking I could have a four day weekend since Monday was a federal holiday here. I found out on Wednesday that I was needed Friday night.
Since I had the day off I did some delivery driving to earn some extra dollars. I did this for about 8 hours in total. Once that was done I went into my full time job to work overtime.
I started there at 6:00 p.m. and got off around 1130 p.m. We always show up at work for aircraft an hour prior to their arrival time. We had two aircraft to work. The first one we had to download 3 pieces equipment and 8 pallets. Downloading aircraft is almost always easier. This task took us about an hour.
The second mission arrived while we were finishing the first aircraft. This was a high priority mission. If any of you watch the news you may have noticed U.S. President Joe Biden had travel plans overseas. One of our missions is to support Air Force One with one of our own aircraft. Our plane serves as a back up to the back up basically. I can tell you of this now because it's in the past.
This was an upload of 8 pieces of equipment and 2 containers the size of a pallet. This is one of our hardiest loads we do. A lot of chains are thrown and used to tie down equipment. Most of the equipment requires shoring (stacks of wood under axles) to ease the weight of equipment on the aircraft floor so it doesn't bounce during flight. These stacks have to be tied down with cargo straps.
This type of work is very challenging to the body regardless of how old you are. Just carrying chains around is no fun. The larger 25k capacity chains weigh 25 lbs each. I usually lug four at a time to a piece of equipment. I'll brag a little bit I have done as many as 6 💪. There are winches that bring equipment onto the aircraft but we still have to do some pushing to get the equipment in the correct position. This equipment is heavy ranging from 9000 lbs to 18,000 lbs.
It took us 3 hours to load this aircraft. When done we all talked about how nice it will be to relax and enjoy a three day weekend now. The aircraft wasn't scheduled to depart until 5 in the evening the next day.
Saturday
Well a decent day here temperatures felt warm considering it's still February. I woke up a bit sore with some bumps and bruises. I felt much better after a nice warm shower. I decided to go delivery drive after I took care of some household choirs. I drove from noon until I got a call from a co-worker around 7:00 p.m.
My co-worker didn't have a good news. The aircraft we loaded the night before had hydraulic issues and was deemed broke. We needed to be into work 8:00 p.m. to download.
Once at work it was nice to see all the chains were taken off and put away by the aircrew. Oh a sigh of relief, we were not pleased to be back but that was nice to see that task done. It took us almost two hours to download. Whenever we load an aircraft and have to download it so it can be loaded onto another aircraft we call this a "tail swap." We found out another aircraft was due in at 1:30 a.m so we had to be back 12:30. Everyone went home except me I live the farthest away. I didn't want to waste fuel to go from/to work plus I was hungry so I went to Taco Bell and brought back to work to have a late dinner.
Sunday
We all are back to work and head out to the flightline to await the arrival of our aircraft. Sleep deprivation is starting to show on some of us. We all spot the aircraft on final approach. Not once but three times the aircraft flies over head. Past experience tells me this is not good. No one really wants to say anything because we all have this jinx fear 😂
The aircraft lands and the aircrew tells us they are having issues with the nose landing gear. It's very probable this aircraft may be broke before even loading. It was a good 90 minutes before it was deemed broke. When will the 3rd aircraft come in? After sitting around another 3o minutes we were told it may be up to 24 hours.
I got home at about 4:00 a.m. and got to sleep around 4:30. I get a call at 6:50 a.m. that the aircraft will be arriving at 7:30. Oh no, that means I have to leave now. I popped in my contact lens and brushed my teeth and was out the door.
We get into work and the aircraft arrived a little before 8:00. It took us about 3 hours to load. We all looked tired and all we could think about was going home to get rest. Unfortunately I know it wasn't going to happen for me. Once we finished loading we went back to our work center to wait for the aircraft to depart. It had a shorter ground time which we refer to as a "quick turn."
I got home shortly before noon. I didn't get much time to relax because I had to take my son to basketball practice. His practice was at 12:30. I just waited at the school for it to get over. I was thinking I'll take a little nap while waiting. It didn't happen right away. I spent some time reading some articles here and a little discord time. I started to dose off at both activities and put my phone down. I slept for about 20 minutes until my son knocked on the door. It was now about 2:30.
He wanted lunch so we stopped at Burger King and went through the drive thru and brought home. Once we finished our late lunch he took a shower because he was going over to a friend's house. That involves me to give him a ride. It was around 4:30 when I dropped him off at his friends house.
I got back home about 4:45 and did a few things. I don't even remember what I did 🤣 I do remember going to bed around 8:00 and slept until 4:00 a.m.
I love my job but I hate the strange hours I work sometimes. It gives me a great satisfaction to do things that ultimately gives a mission objective a great chance of being successful. Being a transporter, troops can't accomplish their goals if they don't get there or have the things they need. It's a physical job already but losing a lot sleep is no fun on top of it. A lot of the overtime is unscheduled or is on short notice. The extra money is great but not the hours I work sometimes, it really can play hectic on my body. Sometimes time is better than money especially when your working when you should be sleeping. This was the end of my overtime, I had a full day of Monday to look forward to.
Monday
I felt well rested when I got up but again my body felt banged up. Forearms, shoulders, and legs were feeling used the most. Another warm shower helped me recover some. I filled my body with a simple breakfast. I had a bagel and coffee. It was another warm day and the snow on the ground was starting to melt. I decided to make a snow man. It looked pretty good for a short while. I had to canvas the lawn for snow. It's funny thinking about because it felt like I was cleaning the lawn of it's snow, haha.
Once I finished I forgot to capture a photo right away. So what you get is a sickly looking snowman . After I finished I went back inside the house to do some choirs. I than decided to get a car wash and get a haircut.
I don't know why but I had a feeling like I was treating myself. A simple haircut would normally be no big deal but today it charged me for whatever reason. Maybe it was because I had a full day to myself. Afterwards I went to do some delivery driving. I only did about 6 hours worth.
This is all I have for you. Thanks for reading and until next time. Take care and be safe.
