Becoming a resident of "Camping Boeing".

 "I got my fist. I got my plan. I got survivalism."

- Nine Inch Nails // Survivalism


Neatly packed into the (very luxurious compared to F and BCF) crew rest on the Combi.

If you think that working as a flying loadmaster is glamorous, filled with layovers in expensive 5* hotels, being in a tropical paradise for days and occasionaly load a plane - you might be surprised to hear that the "real life" is slightly different. 

Our lives consist of mostly sleeping in the seat or on the floor, eating airline catering as only source of "nutrition" and looking forward to a first shower in days. Trust me, Eau 'd Boeing Femme isn't as nicely smelling as it may sound.

One of the things that I got hang of REALLY quickly was sleeping at any time of day, in any position and with the little sources available. Sometimes I was able to use the pilot's bunk, but strangely enough nowadays I do prefer a matress or sleeping mat somewhere on the upper deck. Ivan Pavlov would possibly have been proud of the way my body conditioned itself; work done, take a seat for take-off, hit cruising altitude, hear the seatbelt sign *bong* and induce sleep. Next, wake up as soon as my body feels that the aircraft is decending and get going again. Pretty impressive how naturally this process developed!

By now I have been found sleeping strapped in in the jumpseat, halfway upside down in my normal seat, somewhere hidden on the floor behind a row of seats in a carefully constructed blanket fort (never grow up!) and practically with my feet in the galley. And in none of those situations anyone was ever able to wake me up during flight. Even in moderate to severe turbulence I stay knocked out and usually don't even register the event. I think I might have been a sloth in my past life.

Maintaining hygiene standards can be quite the challenge on board though. Especially when the whole crew gets some kind of bug and all have bodily fluids running out of them. Or when the lavatory gives out and you have to use a port-a-potty during turbulence (dodged that one!). Or the simple fact that if you have multiple sectors without a hotel inbetween, you're going to have to either wash yourself with babywipes or boil up some water, run down to the main deck, strip down (tits out at FL360 - woohoo!), quickly wash the most important bodyparts in the freezing cold (unless you have cargo on board that has to be kept at +15/+25ºC!) and jump into some fresh clothes.

Once I had a 6 day trip scheduled, on which we would have a short night stop in Kuala Lumpur after the first 12 hour flight. That also being the first and last ability to feel the sheer luxury of a proper shower for the next 5 days. As per good old Murphy's Law, yours sincerely had a shower that hardly gave warm water and had about zero water pressure. "It is what it is."

The next day, we first had a short hop to Singapore. And if you've ever been to Singapore, you know it can be very hot and VERY humid. It was one of those days. Cracking open the L1 door and get hit by a humid heatwave. The result: sweat dripping down every part of my body within 2 minutes. Not even engaged in any form of activity yet. By the time my job was done I could wring out my clothes. And all you want at that point, is to be able to jump into a quick shower but then you remember you have to settle for either babywipes or ye olde washcloth and a shitload of deodorant. "It is what it is.".

On the way back, after a 14.5h direct flight from Rockford, we hit an unexpected night stop in Incheon. Sheer bliss. One of the best hotels we have down the line is there. With an awesome shower, a bath and... a real bed! That night I took 3 showers, a steaming hot bath after which I comfortably snuggled underneath the fluffy duvet on the bed. Of course, I could not sleep that night. But at least I was squeeky clean for the last day of the trip taking us to Hong Kong, Dubai and finally to another shower in Liege.


A loadmaster burrito in Incheon.

The fun thing I find living on an aircraft for most of the time, is how inventive my brain can be. Simple things like putting a box of water underneath the leg rest to make it more stable, making proper hot chocolate and many more small and simple solutions to gain some "luxury".

Last December, my survival skills were really put to the test on a bitter cold wintersday in Kazachstan. Nur Sultan is a place where we usually have a 2 hour technical stop for refuelling and a crew change. Not this time, as we had to offload 16 ULD's with... flowers and got 8h ground time. Flowers are not really a loadmasters dream, I tell you that. Due to temperature changes, the boxes get soggy and tend to collapse. The pallets then turn into some sort of flowery scrum with a strong bind and it's up to you and the local ground team to release them from that position. Usually not too complicated, but sometimes a little time consuming - providing your loading system works as it should.

My old friend Murphy was back that day, giving me the following conditions:
  • No operational loading system. Meaning all ULD's had to be pushed/pulled by sheer manpower.
  • The aircraft APU (the generator) inoperative, meaning no heating on the aircraft.
  • No pre-airconditioned unit available as external heatsource.
  • A nice Kazachi temperature of -22ºC.
  • An army of groundstaff, of which none spoke even a little understandable English nor had proper experience in offloading a Boeing 747 freighter.
  • Collapsed flowery fuckers weighing about 3500kg per ULD.
The first hurdle; trying to communicate with the locals. Luckily able to use our mechanic who could speak Russian with them. The faces of the people quickly got less cheerful when they found out that every single pallet had to be pushed off the aircraft manually and saw that some of the pallets were hugging each other tightly.

The second hurdle: getting the pallets offloaded. Actually, getting them to move inside the aircraft wasn't the biggest problem. Little bit of clever use of straps and manpower and there they go. Getting them off the highloader promised to be a bigger challenge that day, as the handler had only 1 tractor and 1 dolly available. Which then had to drive every single pallet directly to the warehouse and return to repeat this operation. For the people who never had anything to do with freighter operations: with a good groundteam and a working floor you can do a full off- and onload (42 ULD's) in about 2.5h. Offloading 16 ULD's took us... 4 hours that day. In the bitter cold.


Signs of a former USSR past in Nur Sultan.

Last but not least, the third hurdle: staying warm for the remaining 4 hours, on an aircraft with no heating and that is exposed to that lovely -22ºC with a proper windchill to compliment the experience of cold. The first thing to get and stay warm; get naked and dress yourself again using smart layering of clothes. Thermal underwear, cargo trousers, a cotton t-shirt, a woolen jumper and a jacket. Cover the extremities with a beanie, gloves and shawl and try to stay warm with hot drinks. Easier said than done. After about 2 hours in that ice cold tube (it's astonishing how quickly the temperature drops once there is no more heating on that thing!) and regardless of trying to keep warm as much as possible, my lips started to turn dark purple and my body simply couldn't keep itself warm enough anymore. Lose the jacket, huddle into some blankets was the next step in trying to relief the misery. "It is what it is.".


Still trying to crack a smile.

Untill... EUREKA! There actually WAS a heatsource available. In the form of the small oven in the galley. How could I have overlooked this? Well, simply by inexperience. The oven is powered by the GPU (external ground power source) and thus actually worked. As quickly as I could, I draped some blankets over the galley and fired up the oven. Like a little campfire in front of your tent, it actually got comfortable enough to survive another 2 hours. By the time the crew got in, they were looking at me as if they were witnessing some sort of scenario of a Bear Grylls program on an aircraft. At least they were friendly and aquainted enough to allow them to huddle up against me for a warm greeting hug and promised to GTFO Nur Sultan asap. Because once the engines get running, the aircraft has heating again and I could start defrosting on the way to a +30ºC Hong Kong. 

Definitely one of my most challenging days so far.

And yet, I still loved every second of it.

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