Nicknames for continuous duty overnights

[Workin'Stiff]

or "Illegals" at NW

 

[mynameisjim]

Illegals

 

[temcgrew]

oops, I meant less than 9 hours. Our typical overnight is 8:56 of rest with scheduling trying to change your show time to make it 9:01!

 

[Sailpilot]

Easy Money

 

[arthompson]

Where do you work UEJ?

 

[FlyComAirJets]

How 'bout calling it Legal Torture?

They were called "non legal rests" for awhile but went back to Continuous Duties here at Comair. Ahh, sleep deprivation, isn't that how they wrest confessions out of people?

 

[Hovernut]

"Almost Extinct" at Comair!

Nothing like climbing out behind a regular lineholder when you're trying to fly the redline!

 

[greenpickle]

Skyway

At Skyway we call them "stand ups".

 

[lowlycfi]

We used to call them "shortbacks" when we had them at SWA.

 

[91100 100 set]

Greenpickle, your avatar creeps me out. Don't know why, but it does.

Standups, CDO's, high speeds, and "naps" are all the terms I've ever heard. I'm pretty sure they were contractually legal back in the day at ALG, but I never did one or saw them in the bid package. The contract would have made them quite lucrative for the pilots (a full 8 hours of pay for 12-14 hours of duty and 2-4 hours of flying in only two days, unless they could somehow load them up with more flying at either end), so I guess planning tried to stay away from them.

At CHQ, they are also contractually legal, and while the preferential bidding system has a "award/avoid" option for them, I haven't seen them in the pairings yet. I did do an unscheduled CDO last fall though when we got stuck in BOS after a late showtime.

Forgive the diversion, but I gotta share the story behind this particular event. Considering the company (my coworker, not the employer) for that little adventure, it turned into quite the hassle. Flying with Captain America, Mr. Company, loves to push new FO's around (his wife must beat him at home). They need us to ferry... excuse me, reposition, as Mr Company was very quick to try to educate me on the finer points of a ferry flight requiring a ferry permit versus a simple repo flight. Thank you, I know, jargon is jargon buddy, and I am quite familiar with the requirements of both. But anyhow, after we get past that, he lays out his "plan". 0330 report time for an 0400 departure to get the plane back into position for the next day. 0300 van ride of course. As he is "briefing" me (trust me, it was a full blown "briefing", he couldn't just "tell me" like a normal person would), I start smirking a little, because I know that what I'm about to ask will just break his heart. He asks what the problem is. I say, "well, I know scheduling is doing their best, but here's the problem as I see it". "Will security be open to let us through? Will operations people be around, let alone know about it? Will there be ramp people to help us get the plane out?" He responded, all knowing, "Yes". So we go to the hotel, I get a late dinner, and retire to my room to watch TV (falling asleep would only make me worse when I woke up 3 hours later, and I slept in that day anyway, so I was good for awhile yet). 0300 rolls around. No van driver at the hotel. They find a housekeeper or somebody to drive us over. 0315. Security tells us they don't open until 0400. So we stand around and drink Dunkin' Donuts coffee for 45 minutes. We go down to ops to find it deserted at 0400. Fortunately, since he's an old-timer, he still has his Sabre sign-in to print out the paperwork on his own, a point he seemed quite proud of. Okay, one less obstacle. But of course the airplane is remote parked, and I'm not sure if we were permitted to just walk across what I'm not sure is an active taxiway or not, but we did anyway. So get out to the plane, only to find its got a plug door and no stairs. So he goes off in search of a ramper help us out while I do the walkaround. He comes back dragging a ladder, a ladder, across the same taxiway. So we climb on up, and get the plane fired up and ready to start. I ask him, now very amused at his "gung-ho-ness", "so who's gonna take care of the ladder so we can taxi on out of here?". He looks at me with a little loathing, and climbs back down. Comes back 15 minutes later with a ramper. We leave about 45 minutes later than the fantasy timeline that scheduling had built for us, arrive at our destination at the departure time, and the originator leaves about 20 minutes late (on paper of course, in reality I'm sure it was more like 30).

What a guy. I'm all for running a tight ship and on-time operation, but this character's detachment from reality, combined with his attitude towards input, made for an extremely "memorable" trip (as in, I always remember to avoid his employee number when I bid).