Check gear down?

Boring week. Back on morning airport reserve.

Tuesday started like always….sleeping in a recliner while listening to various tech podcast. A few hours in I was called for a quick turn.

The flight was originally scheduled to be flown by another regional carrier. For whatever reason they couldn’t do it.

The crew was all reserves. The Captain and I both weren’t really in the mood to fly. The flight is short. My record time was 16 minutes off to on.

Only 24 people on board, away we went. Captains leg. We made great time initially until we entered the airport area. Problem was it was a military base and there were military aircraft doing pattern work and practice approaches. Lots of miltary aircraft. My TCAS screen was filled with targets.

The tower controller worked us into the pattern. The military aircraft were doing right traffic and so we were on a left downwind to stay clear.

Tower called our base turn and advised we were number 4 for the airport and be advised there is traffic on our right practicing a VOR approach who is number 3.  The tower then said something I haven’t heard in while, “Cleared to land, check wheels down.”

I looked at the EICAS screen…..no the wheels were still up, we had not gotten that far. Then a light bulb clicked, “Cleared to land, check wheels down.” I replied.

I’m not former military. All civillian flying. For whatever reason military aircraft advise the tower when they lower the landing gear. Guess he was used to saying it. Not hard for me to work it into my communications. Similar things happen when I fly international and I hear, “Line up and wait” versus “Taxi into position and hold”.

Once the gear was down I simply replied, “Tower, 802 wheels down.” Easy. As the military trainer (aircraft similar to a Beechjet) executed a missed approach, we were finally next for the runway.

This runway is really bowed…..really bowed. The whole area is hilly. The taxiways are so hilly that the terminal disappears while taxiing in.

Everything was looking great until about 10 feet. That’s when we both remembered just how bowed the runway is….whump! No doubt we landed. Pretty sure it’s in the top 3 firm landings I have experienced.

Twenty-five minutes later we were holding short waiting to be worked into the flow. Away we went.

On final we were behind a 777. Windy day. I clicked off the autopilot and stayed one dot high on the glideslope. VFR day.

I have to keep a constant reminder going of why I am flying slightly high as it’s natural to fly on glideslope. At least twice during the approach I sank bank down to the glideslope. With the steady crosswind the wake turbulence wasn’t much of a factor as it was being blown away.

Light airplane and windy, I floated for a bit. Long runway. Touched down nicely and was released from flying for the day.

Since then I have been like an office worker. Coming in at 6AM…leaving at 2PM. Looking forward to next month being on plain reserve.

Seriously considering trying to get out of my current position. There are buddies of mine who are junior to me holding hard lines (with 16 days off!) elsewhere in the system. I just need to get displaced. That’s the hard part.