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The bored at home / COVID19 / Working from home thread

CaptainRatty

Autocross Champion
Location
Winston-Salem, NC
Car(s)
MK7 GTI
Office is closed for the next two weeks so we’re working from home. I work in college sports so with everything canceled for the spring, it’s essentially summertime for us until football season. All of our offices at schools around the country are closed as well which makes work from home difficult for a decentralized sales force. Our workload has definitely decreased as we’re all just trying to figure out what’s next... no doubt my company is losing millions of dollars.

Fiancé is an elementary school teacher who is working from home as well... she thinks she’s going to be out for the remainder of the year. She’s not doing much “teaching” rather troubleshooting tech issues for parents of students in her class. Unlike colleges, there’s no multimillion dollar online platform for elementary education... so this whole thing was thrown together in a week.

This whole thing sucks and I wish the circumstances were different, but we’re making the best of it, cooking some great meals together and enjoying time we usually don’t get to spend together.
 

KevinC

Autocross Champion
Location
The land of Wyatt Earp & Doc Holliday
Car(s)
'19 Golf R, '21 M2c
I’m still working at work (aviation, so no from home option).

My best buddy is a 757 captain for AA. Based in PHX, lives in Henderson NV. Commuted via SWA last night for a flight to LIH this morning out of Phx. 19 people on his SWA flight, and NO TOWER PERSONNEL at McCarran - it's now an uncontrolled airport. Sends me a text with a pic of the empty plane and the tower info and says "what could go wrong??". Yikes.

I heard from him this morning - 15 people on his flight to LIH. Wow. Aviation is being hit SO hard.
 

GTI Jake

Autocross Champion
Location
Charlotte, NC
My best buddy is a 757 captain for AA. Based in PHX, lives in Henderson NV. Commuted via SWA last night for a flight to LIH this morning out of Phx. 19 people on his SWA flight, and NO TOWER PERSONNEL at McCarran - it's now an uncontrolled airport. Sends me a text with a pic of the empty plane and the tower info and says "what could go wrong??". Yikes.

I heard from him this morning - 15 people on his flight to LIH. Wow. Aviation is being hit SO hard.

Hopefully they’ll pass some sort of stimulus/aid package to hold us over. Supposedly Monday they’ll have some answers, but I’m not holding my breath.
 

jimlloyd40

Autocross Champion
Location
Phoenix
Car(s)
2018 SE DSG
My best buddy is a 757 captain for AA. Based in PHX, lives in Henderson NV. Commuted via SWA last night for a flight to LIH this morning out of Phx. 19 people on his SWA flight, and NO TOWER PERSONNEL at McCarran - it's now an uncontrolled airport. Sends me a text with a pic of the empty plane and the tower info and says "what could go wrong??". Yikes.

I heard from him this morning - 15 people on his flight to LIH. Wow. Aviation is being hit SO hard.

No traffic control? That's crazy and I don't understand how they're allowed to fly.
 

KevinC

Autocross Champion
Location
The land of Wyatt Earp & Doc Holliday
Car(s)
'19 Golf R, '21 M2c
No traffic control? That's crazy and I don't understand how they're allowed to fly.

No kidding, I don't get it. Apparently McCarran was down to 5 flights/hour, but still.. it's dark, no control, and these guys are expected to communicate with and look out for each other somehow? And what about ground movement? Sounds completely insane.
 

GTI Jake

Autocross Champion
Location
Charlotte, NC
No kidding, I don't get it. Apparently McCarran was down to 5 flights/hour, but still.. it's dark, no control, and these guys are expected to communicate with and look out for each other somehow? And what about ground movement? Sounds completely insane.

It’s not as complicated as it sounds, all pilots start out flying from small uncontrolled airfields. You simply talk to each other rather than the tower.

The winds dictate which runway (direction) is in use, and ATIS gives you that information.
 

jimlloyd40

Autocross Champion
Location
Phoenix
Car(s)
2018 SE DSG
It’s not as complicated as it sounds, all pilots start out flying from small uncontrolled airfields. You simply talk to each other rather than the tower.

The winds dictate which runway (direction) is in use, and ATIS gives you that information.

But with passenger jets there's no way to control traffic as to who lands on which runway depending upon the size of the airport. It's a disaster waiting to happen. I used to pick up cancelled checks at the airport from a small single engine plane and the plane was invaribably late because traffic control had him circling while the passenger jets took priority. I was there once when a passenger jet was landing and the pilot had reported a possible flat tire. In just minutes the runway was lined with about 50 emergency vehicles and fire trucks. The plane landed without a problem but with nobody to report a problem like that to it could be devastating. I'm amazed that the FAA hasn't grounded them all without air traffic control.
 

GTI Jake

Autocross Champion
Location
Charlotte, NC
But with passenger jets there's no way to control traffic as to who lands on which runway depending upon the size of the airport. It's a disaster waiting to happen. I used to pick up cancelled checks at the airport from a small single engine plane and the plane was invaribably late because traffic control had him circling while the passenger jets took priority. I was there once when a passenger jet was landing and the pilot had reported a possible flat tire. In just minutes the runway was lined with about 50 emergency vehicles and fire trucks. The plane landed without a problem but with nobody to report a problem like that to it could be devastating. I'm amazed that the FAA hasn't grounded them all without air traffic control.

ATIS still gives which runways are active, so it’s not an issue. I flew my first solo flight at 17 years old and had originally planned to be a pilot for my career.

The greatly reduced volume of flights is why they’re able to pull it off. CLT for instance can have 700 flights per day, and he was saying the airport flying uncontrolled was down to 5 per hour.

There’s still someone in the (a tower, probably not the FAA owned) tower for local operations, but ground ops is just some dude not a FAA trained ATC. Regardless someone’s on the radio to call for EMS/fire if they’re needed.

Aviation in the United States is the model of safety and redundancy. They wouldn’t be flying if it wasn’t 100% safe
 

GTIfan99

Autocross Champion
Location
FL
I work remote most of the time, so it's nothing new, but not being able to go grab lunch with friends or move about freely has me bored. They canceled St. Pete too, so that's a bummer, and it's looking like the May track day at Daytona is up in the air. On the bright side, nah just kidding, no bright side, this whole thing just sucks.
 

riceburner

Autocross Champion
Location
nice try PPNT
Car(s)
MK5 Best GTI
Fair amount of aviation folks here! My company does a lot of aviation construction/program management, while on my side we do more highway/transportation design/construction management. Yes the industry is getting hit hard; really hoping i get to keep working from home...

This is all getting serious quick and anyone could just be layed off at a moments notice. Terrifying.
 

GTIfan99

Autocross Champion
Location
FL
Fair amount of aviation folks here! My company does a lot of aviation construction/program management, while on my side we do more highway/transportation design/construction management. Yes the industry is getting hit hard; really hoping i get to keep working from home...

This is all getting serious quick and anyone could just be layed off at a moments notice. Terrifying.

The terrifying part is that Covid 19 can be transmitted 7 to 14 days before symptoms. If even half the US population is eventually infected, and best case scenario of 1 to 2% death rate, that's 1.8 to 3.7 million deaths. before this is over. NY is doubling deaths daily now.

It's going to take massive amounts for government support directly to companies and directly to those affected to come out of this in decent shape in 6 months.
 

zrickety

The Fixer
Location
Unknown
Car(s)
VW GTI
A new study says 6 out of 7 have no symptoms...and mass testing in Korea was 96% negative, meaning other illness.
It's not as deadly as they would have you believe. The flu kills more people and we never quarantine.
Abortion kills more people and they fight for it. INSANITY.
 
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