I actually think my eye disease or whatever causes the double vision is what screwed me up on the test and caused them to think I might be drunk? I had 2 or 3 beers, and I’ve always been a light drinker. But those beers were over the course of the entire night, we went to eat afterwards in Newport Beach, and were then we were heading home between 2-4 in the morning.
Next door neighbor is a seasoned pilot for one of the big airlines, he said it’s far less common now but there has been many of delayed or canceled flights due to pilot “unavailability”.
That usually happens right after I hit what I thought was a Dukes of Hazzard level jump but I was actually walking and tripped on my own feet
I don't have any problem with cops who do their job right and treat people with respect, but some of them are wearing 50 lb badges and take delight in fucking people over; I have no use for those cops.
The problem is human nature. You can either have SOME cops screwing sober people over, or you can have drunk people running into everyone and causing deaths. Nothing is perfect. Personally I rarely (almost never) drive after drinking even one beer, and If I was pulled over I'd blow into their tube, or give them blood, but I would never do a field sobriety test. You'd have to be kind of simple to submit to that. It's just an opportunity for the cop to write evidence down based on his own version on the facts. It isn't a pass/ fail, it is an opportunity for him to write down probable cause. You won't win that.
My daughter is a detective now but when she was a cop she told me, never talk to a cop unless absolutely necessary and don’t bring attention to yourself by waving or whatever. And if pulled over, be able to say you haven’t been drinking and have it be the truth because they can tell when you’re lying.
As an ex-nuclear worker it sounds like the alcohol rules are similar to the airline pilots. For us it was 5 hours abstention, .04 was "drunk". Plus all the drug requirements. Unscheduled piss tests were the norm. As a manager I was "on call" every third week which meant I had to be within 30 minutes of the plant and alcohol free. Talk about SUX. Not sure how the janitor was gonna kill 300 people with his broom but the rules were for him too. Anyone who had a badge or came through the gate.
If a pilot calls in "sick", what happens? How is the pilot replaced? What, if any, penalties are there for the pilot? Does he have to prove sickness? Does HEPA? save him? Guessing I'd rather be sick, than risk flying with alcohol on my breath.
Pretty much nothing unless you are calling in sick repeatedly and it’s obvious you are doing it to get out of flying…. or if you are sick then maybe you should go out on medical. It’d delay the flight that’s about it
Nothing happens. You don’t have to prove anything. You can call sick for any reason at any time. You could call fatigue at any time. At the point it’s crew scheduling issue to figure out.
I just want to know how this works after all is said and done. Do they limit this pilot routes to the planes that already have breathalyzer ignition interlocks installed?
Every major airline or carrier has standby pilots waiting, ready to go. Delta probably has a dozen or more pilots making their full salary just hanging around the Atlanta airport at any given moment, ready to hoof it to the gate and cover a flight. I've got a former coworker who did that for his first couple months at a regional airline before they moved him to an actual route. He flew every other week or so while in that position.
If its a hub another pilot would be on reserve nearby and able to take over pretty quickly. At a place like Savannah they would have to transport the replacement crew from a crew base so the airplane would sit for a while.
Think about all the pilots that "fly under the radar" and don't get caught you are in the air with!! You know it happens!
