Atc

[redpoint5]

What's the deal with airports getting "too busy" to allow far away flights to take off enroute to said airport?

How does the airport not know months in advance how busy they will be based on the departure / arrival schedules?

Why did my plane have to sit an extra 50 minutes to let the airport get unbusy instead of simply flying slower?

Missed my connection due to this, and now I get to sleep on the floor for 4hrs before the next flight out. How is SeaTac more busy at 11pm on a random Thursday than say, Thanksgiving weekend?

Either dumb people run important things, or things are way more complex than I realize. Probably some combination of both.

Also, why is this forum not allowing me to capitalize letters in an acronym? Shouldn't it force me to capitalize the beginning of every sentence if it has some sort of capitalization logic? test

Expect worse posts than usual from me today. Much worse.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

How does the airport not know months in advance how busy they will be based on the departure / arrival schedules?

Because airlines change their schedules from time to time? Because there's a lot of air traffic - military, business, emergency responses to e.g. hurricanes - that isn't scheduled?

Why did my plane have to sit an extra 50 minutes to let the airport get unbusy instead of simply flying slower?

Because it's more efficient to fly the airplane at its design speed?

Also, why is this forum not allowing me to capitalize letters in an acronym?

Must be a personal problem: I have no trouble with CAPITALIZATION. Or caPitAliZATion :-)

[Vman455]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Missed my connection due to this, and now I get to sleep on the floor for 4hrs before the next flight out.

Ouch. I've been there; that night in Detroit sucked.

[Xist]

I spent the night somewhere in Romania (I think) on my way to Afghanistan.

I guess that we should have been grateful.

Honestly, I think that there must have been other delays causing yours, and I imagine that they feel it is a better use of the flight crew's time to stand by than spend extra time in the air.

I hope that you arrived safely and things have gone better for you since.

When I woke up this morning Mom told me we were taking my brother to the E.R.. He had an infected bug bite or something next to his eye on Tuesday. Mom took him to urgent care, but it took two days to get the prescription, and the P.A. did not feel it was necessary to give Mom wound care. Mom has over forty years of experience taking care of kids, so hopefully she remembered everything that she needed to do, but perhaps she forgot something.
When we finally received the medicine, it did not seem to work. My brother's face started swelling around the wound and when he woke up this morning it was far worse than last night and he could barely see out that eye. He seems to have a high threshold for pain, he usually does not seem bothered by things that look painful, but he has not enjoyed this.

I drove them to the hospital, but the staff did not let me come in with them, so I spent an hour in the waiting room listening to makeup infomercials.

Did you know that they finally have miracle make-up for women with orange peel?

I did not know that was a problem that humans have, but they must, because apparently they put makeup on an orange!

My brother finally got a room, they numbed the affected area, and the doctor drained it the best that he could, but it obviously hurt my brother. It looked like he cried.

We gave him some hot compresses and my brother pulled away and groaned. I tried to drain it and without anesthesia he fought me and I gave up when he shuddered in pain.

I was going to try to see clients today and I have plenty of homework due soon. Meanwhile, the infection does not seem to be getting better.

Waiting is frustrating, especially when you cannot do anything about it.

[redpoint5]

The next flight out was 5am. It's a super short flight from SeaTac to PDX, but they managed to extend it by 15 minutes by aborting the landing when we were about 100ft off the ground. I felt the engines spool up heavily, and my first thought was that they got the glide way wrong if they had to add that much power, then a couple seconds later realized they were going around. We climbed out, and circled back into the pattern for another approach. The pilot said we were over gross weight, which sounds like BS to me considering the flight was 15% full. They must have had a lot of lead in their cargo. Maybe they burned 1,500 lbs of fuel going around? Seems safer to just land than do a last second abort, but what do I know? That delay lined me up perfectly for Portland rush hour traffic.

I got home at 7:30am with no sleep and immediately took over caring for my daughter as I got home, and had to do some work. I've got her again today and need to figure out how to get a couple hours of uninterrupted work in. I don't mind spending nights in airports if I don't need to function well the next day. I've done it several times to save money to get cheaper flights and skip hotel costs.

Did your brother have a staph infection? Those can be serious.

[Xist]

Well, none of that sounds fun.

The doctor did not mention a staph infection, but he did not even volunteer what happened to my brother. I asked if it was an infected bug bite and he said it might be.

Before one of my flights back from Germany I booked a room in a five-star hotel at the airport. Why not?! It was only 99€, whatever those are. Except every single time I tried to leave Germany everything went wrong and I wasted hours getting to the airport. When I finally reached my room it was surprisingly small, I only had four hours, I could not find the light switch, and the bedding did not cover my feet!

I did not feel that I slept at all.

[redpoint5]

Exactly why I didn't book a hotel for 4hrs. It would take me 1 just to get there and get into bed, then I'd waste another 1hr getting back and through security again.

I won't book a hotel unless I can get at least 7hrs of sleep. Even then I might be too frugal to do it. This trip was business, so the hotel would have been free to me, but still not worth it for the reasons above of it being a hassle.

Doctors rarely know anything. It's more of a process of elimination, with most things being too minor to even figure out in the first place. A staph infection is certainly a good reason to go to the doctor, but I don't get all those who visit when they have a sore throat or cough. My mom just went in for a knee that has been hurting her, and got worse after she played soccer. I could have told her what a doctor would; don't play soccer or do other things that make it hurt. Take some Ibuprofen for pain and swelling. Try heat and cold. I don't know what she expected. Something like a new pill nobody is talking about that repairs old knees instantly. Old knees hurt, that's what they do.

[Xist]

I forget how much time I was supposed to have, but it was probably nearly eight hours, although that may have been the trip that I somehow missed my stop, it was the last train of the night, the conductor kicked me off, and I did not have any idea where to go. There was a T-Mobile pay phone and a card for a taxi service, but they hung up on me. I was traveling in a suit, but had not bought a suitcase yet; I had my big green duffel bag.

I threw it on my back and follow the tracks the best that I could, but stayed on the sidewalk. Eventually I found a gas station on the autobahn, but it might have been five or ten miles from the entrance, so I walked through the woods, waited until someone stopped for gas, and they called the taxi for me, which cost over 100€.

That should have been entirely avoidable, I just do not have any idea how I missed my stop. All that I was doing was sitting and reading the marquis.