Less Flying... More Logistics...

Now that I've been here for long enough to not be worried about how to do the actual procedure for launching or landing a Predator, a new set of challenges has come up: logistics. For the last week or so, it has been a constant game of trying to figure out the logistics of running the show. Every day I come to work hoping that everything will go as scheduled, and without fail, something always happens that throws a wrench into the plan. A few nights ago, for example, I took off and handed over a plane, no problems. Then, as I was getting set up for the next one, the plane I had just handed off had a major maintenance problem and needed to come home immediately. So I gave stopped the start-up sequence I was in the middle of, and gave that to the newer guy on my shift. I went and quickly got set up to take back the malfunctioning airplane and set up for my emergency landing. While all the was going on, the leadership at the planning level was asking me when they could expect a relaunch for this airplane, and the maintenance people were asking me what was wrong with the plane and telling me how long it would take to fix. After I safely landed the plane, we had to figure out the flow of how we would get the rest of the airplanes airborne that were still scheduled for that night, as well as the relaunch of the malfunctioning airplane, not to mention the airplanes that were airborne and needed to land. So it seems like my job is less like being a pilot, and more like being a logistician.