Delays delays... and more delays!

...did I mention the delays?

I was beginning to feel a little like Steve Martin in the classic holiday action adventure film,

"Planes, Trains, and Automobiles."         



Pretty much the only difference was the Holiday (US Thanksgiving vs Christmas) and there was no sign of John Candy anywhere (makes me sad)

I was... however, back to square one it seemed.

After nearly a week of delays, cancellations, aborted landings... reports of extremely high winds around the Island I was reminded of a trip Holly took a few years back.  She was flying through the holidays and I was duly at the airport in C'town waiting for her.  Yes I had checked the schedule, so I drove to the BIG city and even then it showed her flight as on time.  No biggy I thought.  Shortly thereafter the arrivals board showed her flight as arrived.  Ummm, thing is... I hadn't seen a plane!  

It wasn't much later, perhaps 20 minutes I could hear the jet approaching on final, saw the aircraft pass over the runway at about 200' altitude gear down, and then heard the wail as the throttle was opened and the jet disappeared from my view.  What gives?



It wasn't more than 10 minutes and the jet came by again, same as before, wheels down above the runway. 

Then it was gone...

The board still showed as 'arrived' but the plane had obviously departed.  There were high winds and C'Town only has a single runway, so if the crosswinds are too high, the flight aborts which is exactly what happened at that time. 

To say "chaos ensued" would be stretching it but of course the flight was diverted.  Now there are several airports which it could have gone to, there is Moncton about an hours drive from me, or Halifax, about three hours.  Nope, turned out the plane headed back to Toronto!!!

Yup, the kid spent New years eve dead tired after flying across the continent, at an airport hotel!

SO... I'm back at my pad in Phx. This is the second time this week I've been defeated by weather.

I had taken the precaution while there on the Thursday attempt to re-book for the following Sunday.  After all the long range weather report was telling me it was going to be 9C back home and moderate winds.  We all know that that weatherman is seldom wrong, especially if he's a she!  

What could possibly go wrong right...?         

Judy graciously drove me back once again, this was my third attempt to get home from home.

I had plenty of time, knew the drill, whisked through security and headed to Gate B 27.  I won't go into the @11G*%@ details but suffice to say, things were tense, there where a lot of irate people, things were getting out of hand, airline employees like the American Airlines reps at gate 26 were getting very red faced  tired of answering the many inquiries with... 

'I DO NOT WORK FOR WESTJET, NO I DON'T KNOW WORK FOR AIR CANADA, I DON'T WHERE THEY ARE, NO I DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU FLIGHT IS..."  


I did make it home that night after all.  Sure our flight into the Island was 2 hours late and as we were on final, the winds that should have been calmed down, rocked us good and hard!  My fear was that in the next second or two I would hear the whine of the turbines as the throttles were pushed forward and we'd be climbing once again, headed to, you guessed it, the center of the Universe.

Or that we would slew and crash and burn in a gigantic ball of orange jet fuel flames!

This was the second hardest landing I can remember having in hundreds of flights I've taken in my lifetime.  

The worst was Frankfurt Germany in 2008, when we touched !? down sideways, and bounced into the air about 50 feet more than twice!  The group of nuns I was traveling with were clutching prayer beads and saying their Hail Mary's in fast motion! 



Speaking of Germany... 

I was gazing at the emergency card in the seat back pouch ahead of me in the Boeing 737-800, thinking while 37,000 feet up in a darkened sky, how similar this aircraft is to the first swept wing Messerschmidt ME 262 jet fighter of 1944.  

Willy M. designed a revolutionary aircraft of lightweight aluminum construction with a swept back wing, two pioneering turbojets, one under each. A top speed much higher than anything else of the day and at around 540 miles per hour, very similar to our current speed and the capability of flying at the altitudes we were presently at. 

Hmmm...