Anyway, we climbed through the undercast layer around 5000 feet, breaking through to see the sun shining warm and bright. The ice crystals in the atmosphere were sparkling like diamonds in the air, and it gave the sun a huge halo around it, just kinda gently reminding us that we are very small and insignificant in the great scheme of things.The air is smooth but fairly warm, I check our groundspeed on the GPS and it tells me we are in a great hurry. God I love this airplane. It may be completely squirrely, some may say homicidal, but I find it endlessly fascinating, like a nice fluffy kitty with a pretty vest made of C-4. It's my captain's flying leg, so I finish my paperwork and crack out my Gameboy. Mario proves hard to motivate, so I turn it off after a minute or so and just sit back and enjoy the scenery from nineteen thousand feet. We come up on our destination, and start down. Half the province is covered in a low stratus layer, which means we get to shoot half an ILS before we break out and land.
We sit on the ground and howl for our 3 minute cooldown, then cut the gas, spool down and wait for the ambulance. The bus shows up after a few minutes and takes our tiny passenger and his mum off to the kind and tender gods who administer to infants with cancer. We wave goodbye and turn our attention to our next mission. If you go inside to the FBO here and beg, they give you a token for the hot chocolate machine, which is a source of great enjoyment (and indeed nutrition) for us flight crew. So I go inside the FBO and beg, and the nice lady gives me a token for me, the captain and the flight medic. I don't tell the medic about my newfound treasure, hoarding his token against a sudden attack of thirst
I also forget to give a token to the captain, which results in a tiny wound on my person when she finds out, too late.Now it's time to head for a small town and pick up someone else. We fire up, head out to the main runway and blast off on the SID. We are cleared direct destination, which is about an hour away. This is my flying leg, and I'm trimming and retrimming and trimming yet again as we raise the flaps and gear and get our beast under control for the climb.
The trip over is uneventful, I sing songs I heard while watching Team America: World Police (offensive flick, but I laughed my ass off) to pass the time in cruise while the captain ensures that Ms. Pacman makes her way around the maze safely. Seriously folks, it's one of the best investments I have ever made. Nintendo Gameboy Advance SP, at your local WalMart for $99. Rechargeable battery, all that. Anyway, back to the story. We let down for our destination and note that it's snowing everywhere. We shoot a GPS overlay approach and find the airport in a small clear spot in the middle of a snow squall. Using my exceptional cunning and skill, we manage to make it in and land safely; I even flare this time.
The bus is waiting for us when we arrive, so after we shut down we load up our next patient, a nice older guy who hasn't been able to pee for 3 days and who is in terrible discomfort. Turns out that when he showed up at the hospital not being able to pee, they decided to put a litre of water into his bladder via catheter to try to dislodge whatever was blocking his urethra, but it didn't work, and the water wouldn't come out afterwards. I understand that I am a complete wussy as I sit uncomfortably in my seat during the entire next leg.
This leg is shorter, only about 20 minutes. I just have time to do my paperwork before we land and swap seats for the leg home. It's only 70 miles or so, which means we will essentially fly a parabolic trajectory, climbing up to 8 thousand or so, then almost immediately descending. I like flights like that, it keeps me busy. We are once again cruising above the low stratus layer, and I watch our shadow against the clouds, a sleek black shape with a rainbow around it. I pretend to be strafing some invisible enemy as we cruise a few feet over the layer, then the captain turns the heats on, I push forward and we punch through it for the descent. Our plane has essentially no wing, so each tiny square centimeter is responsible for producing a lot of lift and we notice icing in a fairly immediate and nasty way. Not today though, and that's cool. I shoot a nice VOR approach, pointing in the general direction of the airport and keeping us above stall speed at all times, and we find the runway and land. We taxi to our hangar, cool down and spool down. The captain calls dispatch to check for more trips, but there is nothing pending so it looks like we are done for the day. I wait for the fuel guy and chat with him while he gives us some of his fine jet fuel. I tell him the plane is a little thirstier than normal and he says "You guys musta been given' her today eh? Work up a thirst?" "Today and every day man, we are the definition of work ethic". He laughs and gives me my fuel slip.
I walk into the hanger and am passed the phone. It's my Chief Pilot. He tells me that they are parking our aircraft and that I am laid off, effective immediately. He tells me to leave my pager and keys at the hangar. He tells my captain that she is being transferred to a slower, lower airplane. I drive home, numb. I try to log into our comany website to leave a goodbye message to the people I have worked with for the past 18 months, but my account on the website, like my company email account, has already been cancelled, probably since before I got the news. No hard feelings, right? I drink 5 beers in a row for the first time in years, and fall asleep. Now I'm awake, writing this post. I'm looking through my bedroom window at the forest beyond the back yard. It looks black, icy and foggy. Brrr. Man, I'd hate to be out in the cold on a night like this.
In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield...W. Buffett
