N965VJ
Veteran
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2005
- Messages
- 3,255
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IIRC, you originally had to make a specific bid to do CRAF outside of the normal bidding process. My juniority in PIT wouldn’t let me hold it.
Your current status in PIT holds you a nice stool at the lounge doesn't it?IIRC, you originally had to make a specific bid to do CRAF outside of the normal bidding process. My juniority in PIT wouldn’t let me hold it.
Wow, I love that picture. I know there's a decompression, decontaminant area and liquid oxygen towards the back?
IIRC, you originally had to make a specific bid to do CRAF outside of the normal bidding process. My juniority in PIT wouldn’t let me hold it.
We had basically three CRAF trips. The first trip was a one-day where the crew would ferry to a military base from PHL and bring the troops back to PHL. The second trip with another crew would take them to Europe, and the crew ferries home after a long layover. The third trip and crew would work from Europe to the Middle East and ferry back immediately. This last crew stays on duty for 23 hours for that leg, comes back to Europe for an RON, and DH's back to PHL, making this trip a five-day that paid the max. So the three different trips consisted of a 1-day, 3-day, and a 5-day. There was only one live leg per trip and since we are only required to work ferries and not DHs, people got very creative in their trip combinations with CRAF. It seemed like the same small group of people flew CRAF and the rest of the F/As had never heard of it or had very little knowledge of these trips. We had a trip that went to Panama City too but I couldn't hold it. I ran into other airlines in Europe that were working military charters too. Continental was doing regular North Korea missions. I wished that we could go to Asia but we didn't, probably d/t lack of a/c type.Regarding CRAF flying I have a few questions.
1. When the Crew Arrives, do they stay on the Military base or are they sent to a hotel in the local?
2. Where does the Mechanic Sleep on the plane and how does he stay busy during that time? I'd be going Postal if it was me.
I flew with Bette a lot who told us all about the military charters she did during the Viet-Nam war. Wow...I was just a baby then. We had Jessica Lynch onboard, you know, the one who got hurt in Iraq. We brought her over to the Middle East at the beginning.I didn't even know we flew kraft flights out of PIT! Betty told me kraft flights remind her of how much fun we had after the Piedmont merger - you know a different night in a different southeast military base city! I never told Mr. Holtz about those days!