Where is everyone #5

I sat next to a Knight driver that won’t shut up.

Crap.

 

Closer look at one during Takeoff

 

Yes it is. They are flying out of Minot Air Force Base. The place where I am hauling grain to they like to fly around doing test runs or exercises. They are neat to watch especially when they go down for a fake landing then they pour the coals to it and take off again.

 

I think they are! Sometimes I can hear them while I'm going down the road if they are close enough.

The pic I took of this one had some yellow panels underneath. Would you know anything about that or what it is?

 

Hours of service mean nothing to me.

I don't need my hand held to do a job safely...

 

Looks like it's the flaps. Not sure why they would be yellow unless they are testing something out, never seen that before. Usually they would do something like that here since this is the Depot for them but who knows, I almost know everything, lol.

When they are flying around like that they are called "locals" or "flyin around the flagpole". New pilots are either getting training or older ones are just staying current on what they've already been trained on. They do touch and go's, where they land and roll out and take off again, and they practice missed approaches where they come in for a landing but don't touch down and go around again. They go up and practice hooking up to a KC-135 Tanker to keep current on that too, they'll hook up and unhook several times for practice and this provides training for the 135 crews also.

All the aircraft in all the services fly training missions everyday and night all over the world just to stay current, plus there are military aircraft in the air 24 hrs a day doing different things all over the world keeping everyone safe.

 

I'm one of those guys that didn't need performance enhancement, no coffee or anything like that. I just needed a truck that would perform. I own my own truck for the simple reason that 99.95% of all "company trucks" are, IMHO a rolling POS and a danger to everyone on the highway. My truck runs the way I want it to run, not what some non driving, cant do my job, no CDL license having deskjockey says it should. And because of that, it's SAFER.

Years ago, on a job interview, you asked how much they paid and how fast are the trucks. They threw you the keys to the truck and you ran like Hell and came home Friday night. Now, they put you in a POS that cant run the speed limit, cant pull a half loaded wagon without dropping 3 gears on a 6% grade, and rats you out if it thinks you're tailgating. No thanks.

"But Six, it has an APU, TV and..."

In the shop 1 week a month, and goes down the road like you're sliding your kciD in the dirt the rest of the time. No thanks. That's a $12k loss for most company drivers.