Leaving for one week cargo run.

Well tomorrow I leave for a week long assignment in the southern Great Plains. The forecast for tomorrow is for rain in the morning and major storms in the evening. I always fly the freight at night which, for tomorrow, means some nasty flying conditions. There are pilots, especially freight dogs, that say that flying in and around thunderstorms are what they live for. They lie. Flying near large cumulonimbus clouds really kind of sucks, particularly when you fly single-pilot operations. All of my flying is of the single pilot variety. The air is extremely bumpy, with large ups and down drafts; the rain is heavy and comes in large waves; and at night you can't see anything past what your radar shows. Not to mention that the lightning can be intense and blinding. It's really no fun. But hey, those packages have got to be to their destinations on time or there's trouble to be had.
Just when you make it through a storm alive you're faced with the prospect of flying an approach down to minimums. All of this done at 3 in the morning and your dog tired. Ah, the life of a freight dog. Makes you wonder why we do it. Wait...why do we do it? That's a good question. A lot of us are trying to move on to bigger and better things, like perhaps an airplane with more than one pilot. Airlines are a major goal of freight dogs. Some think it's pretty cool to fly these big machines after flying the small aircraft at flight schools. Some would do just about anything to get away from instructing. And some are just plain sick in the head! For myself, I would love to get my hands on a jet, especially a Boeing 737.
Don't get me wrong, when the weather is good, it can be really fun and rewarding to fly your packages around from point A to point B. And it sounds like the weather after tomorrow will quiet down for a few days and I can experience some fun. When I return I will post some info about the aircraft I fly ( although the company I fly for will remain anonymous ) and I will fill you in on any interesting things that happened during my trip. Until then, cheers.