First up was a leg from Las Vegas (McCarran International) to Los Angeles. Things were heating up traffic wise, lots on the GND at KLAS and a few departures as I taxied out. Up and away on 25R, its a fairly steep climb with the mountains in front of you, then leveling off on the SID profile until cleared up to Cruise level. It’s a nice short leg, with loads of way-points along the way and a nice busy descent into KLAX considering its more or less straight in. There’s a fairly complex STAR profile and ATC expect you to follow it without too much prompting (specially on busy days like today). So it was I touched down in LAX, and taxied to the SouthWest terminal right next door to where the AirNZ long-hauls arrive/depart.

Approaching 24R KLAX to land (check out the swarm of aircraft labels on the GND)

Next leg was KLAX to KOAK (Metropolitan Oakland). Once again its a fairly short hop, but the SID at LAX is pretty full on with parallel operations the norm, you’re expected to hold your line on the way out until vectored away to connect with your departure. Have heard many a pilot get chewed out there when they’ve begun their departure procedure without being cleared to deviate from RWY heading. Also at LAX 24R you need to keep below 3000′ until crossing a radial of a nearby VOR so there’s plenty to keep you busy.

The Oakland arrival is an interesting one too. Pretty detailed STAR procedure, a serious kink at the end to get lined up for the ILS on RWY29 which is typically used. Plus the CTR freqs are VERY busy up there on a day like this as they’re covering airspace used by traffic from San Fran, San Jose and Oakland. To increase the stress a little more for me today and to expedite movements I was offered a visual approach to KOAK which I’ve never taken before, shouldn’t have worried, the trusty old SouthWest 733 handled it beautifully.

Landed and shut-down at KOAK at 8am on the dot. Two flights with planning, ground movements and delays all wrapped up in 3-hours. Not bad. The ATC coverage was just FANTASTIC. At each location I left/arrived at today there was GND, TWR and APP, and at LAX a pair of both for the two sides of the aerodrome. The CTR coverage was incredible, musta been passed between at least 10 different CTR positions on the two legs. The ZLA guys are very professional, and very patient, and seem to keep their cool even when the pressure is full on. Much kudos to them.

Following is a screenie of the positions manned in the California area alone, pretty impressive..

The event wasn’t quite as busy traffic wise as other swarm type events can be, but if you’re looking for some ATC that’s as real-as-it-gets then drop on in to the ZLA area some time. You wont be disappointed.

I’m also not sure why its taken so long to get around to posting something about our wee baby (Princess-Two as I call her, Kym demands to be called Princess-One of course), coz despite expecting to effectively be ending life as we knew it, its not like we haven’t had any spare time to write something.

So anyway. We’ve had our baby. Her name is Paige. Kym had some complications after the birth and ended up spending a few days in HDU, but all is well now and wee Paige hasnt looked back from that crazy instant she popped out into the big bad world.

Of course, Kym may have other ideas about just how much time I will have available to spend at the laptop writing blog posts, but I’m picking she’ll be tired enough at the odd time when I’ll be able to sneak down to the lounge. My flight-simming days though are seriously numbered. In fact I’d say their number is approximately one-half of a day (I’ve got a desperate last minute flight underway right now from Tokyo Narita to Auckland which should touch down with a couple of hours to spare

Kym is being induced at 7pm tonite, which is a bummer in one respect coz we were both hoping things would pan out naturally, but in another way its actually kinda good that there is a plan now, we have an idea of what the procedure will be, its almost like Kym has a little more control. Of course that’s not quite the way she looks at it. Like most mothers she worries about the extra added complications of what is basically an intervention into something that should be happening on its own accord.

Anyway back to the previously child-less and blissfully ignorant view of what’s in store for the two of us, if you are a parent you’ll be laughing now just like every other couple we know has done as we near the big day.. “You just dont know what your in for” … followed by an evil cackle pretty much sums up the common reaction, and no doubt that’s true. My strategy has pretty much been to ignore the feedback and more or less pretend its not happening. Whats the point in worrying about things that are unavoidable until they actually hit you, especially if you’ve done pretty much all you can do to prepare. Ok so “prepare” is probably a stretch, we did go to ante-natal classes though (or anti-natal as I called it)

So here we are. Bags packed, snacks and comfort foods ready, a good stiff brandy learing at me from the shelf in the kitchen, us waiting patiently and keeping nerves at bay as 7pm approaches. I promise I wont be posting any gorey pics here later, but I will try and post something as a post-birth-father-traumatic-stress syndrome sufferer.

Wish me luck !!!