Geek in the Cockpit

Right now I am sitting in a hotel room. I’m not staying the night…no….that would make sense.

I had reserve at home from 10AM till 1AM. I was called at 10:40AM for a 12:40PM sign in for a 1:05PM deadhead to fly a flight back to base and be done at 4:30PM. Sounded easy.

The original flight back to base was to leave at 6AM. It never left due to a mechanical….steering INOP. The original crew was put on a deadhead flight back to base. Nearly all regional airlines are paid a straight “fee for departure”. As long as the flight (and associated flight NUMBER)  leaves the gate and arrives at the destination the airline gets paid. The mainline partner markets the flight, sells the tickets, pays for the fuel and more. All the regional really has to do is staff the flight and provide a plane. The flight can have 1 person on board or a full load…the regional is paid the same. Got it?

Well the flight number I was to fly back was the same as the 6AM flight. All of the passengers have been accomidated on other flights. I was to fly back an empty plane. Deadheading with me was a Captain and two flight attendants. Why flight attendants? Well we can’t fly a revenue flight without flight attendants.

On the way to the airport I forgot my wallet at home. I had to go back as it has my pilot license, medical and oh yeah my drivers license inside. Once back I was short on time. I was originally supposed to be back in base at 4:40PM. I decided to “princess park” (park at the terminal) versus parking in the employee lot. Doing so would allow me to sign in on time. Up to 6 hours is $6….after that it’s $20. I PLANNED on being under 6 hours.

I parked and was sitting in the back of a RJ on time. The deadhead went fine. No annoying passengers using electronics this time.

As the plane taxied to the gate at the outstationI saw my plane being worked on. A good sign. Maybe it would be done on time.

It wasn’t.

The original 3:30PM departure was pushed to 4:30PM. I had not eaten lunch. I walked thru the airport. I couldn’t find anything non-greasy/salty. Thankfully I carry snack bars (Fiber bars). I was sitting in the boarding area with the flight attendants. The Captain had disappeared down in the station operations area earlier.

At 4:30PM the time was pushed back to 8:30PM. Time for a hotel. Our contract states that if we sit in an outstation for more than 4 hours we get a hotel room. It’s black and white.

Sitting across from me was a flight attendant from my mainline partner. I called scheduling and simply asked for a hotel room. Put on hold. The agent came back stating my flight was leaving in 3 hours. I then explained we had already been sitting for 3 hours and that I wanted hotel rooms for the crew. Additionally I reminded the agent the flight attendants would time out before our scheduled arrival as they both started at 5:40 AM. Put on hold again. The flight attendant from mainline told me it’s the exact same crap over at mainline. Nice.

Finally we had hotel rooms. I called down for the Captain. Off we went. On the way to the hotel I looked up the flight attendant schedules on my netbook. They were scheduled for 15 hours 57 minutes of duty time if our flight left at 8:30PM. They were both beat.

After checking into the hotel the Captain called scheduling. They pulled off the original flight attendants. They were staying the night. The Captain and I would still be flying a revenue flight back to base. They were deadheading new flight attendants to work the still empty flight back.

The flight they were on was the same plane we would fly back. It never left the gate. Mechanical. An hour later they swapped planes. My new departure time is 9:10PM. Long day. We are still empty. Airline will get paid. I will have airport standby tomorrow.

Sometimes this job is more frustrating than it has to be.

On a side note a reader of my blog passed his instrument multi-engine checkride today. The ironic thing was it was at the same airport I was sitting at. He passed his checkride about the same time I boarded the initial deadhead. Small world eh?

Time to head downstairs for the van. I do wonder how we will get to the gate. TSA closed an hour ago.

Forgive any spelling/grammar/other errors. Tired. Will clean it up in the morning.

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After a week of avoiding airport standby….I was back on duty yesterday.

Three updates came out Friday for various manuals I carry thus I spent the first 90 minutes ripping out pages and installing new pages. Yeah it was really fun. I was feeling really lazy and just stayed down in the crew room versus heading up to the terminal to my normal hang out. Staying in the crew room isn’t as comfortable (well worn chairs) but  again I was lazy.

I spent a good three hours wasting away watching movies via my streaming Netflix account. I then watched a live netcast from Twit (no connection to Twitter!). There is a huge gap between 6:45PM and 9:10PM where there are no flights on my aircraft. If I get to 6:45PM without being called, I have a really good chance of sleeping in my own bed.  I did say really good chance.

With the departure of the 6:45PM flight I thought I was good to go. The remaining flights were all running on time. Then my phone rang. What?

I was assigned a deadhead leaving in just 30 minutes. Nice. My original plan was to get a decent healthier dinner. No time now. I grabbed my bags, stopped by Sbarro (pasta salad…..it’s salad right?) and headed to the gate.

By the time I made it to the gate most of the passengers had boarded. I didn’t feel like playing overhead bin cop and gate checked my suitcase and flight kit bag.

Passengers often seem a little surprised to see a pilot sitting in the back. They sometimes give that, “shouldn’t you be sitting up there look?”

One passenger sitting across the aisle up  and one seat forward did something that really annoyed me.

FAA policy on portable electronics is pretty simple…they must be off. There is no mention of “airplane mode” or exceptions. Last night there was a passenger who closed his Kindle when told to bey the flight attendant, but once she was seated he opened it back up. I know he saw me sit down behind him.

My wife owns a Kindle DX. I know they only use battery power when changing pages. As long as the wireless is off there is likely little risk interfering with the aircraft systems. However policy is policy.

He proceeded to use it during taxi, takeoff and climb out. This really annoyed me as I felt he was disrespecting the flight attendant, pilots and myself. When the flight attendant walked by after takeoff he hid the device again. Once clear he reopened it. The sterile cockpit light was still on indicating we were still likely under 10,000 feet.

I whipped out a hotel notepad and wrote a polite note explaining I own a Kindle, know how they operate and that he was violating FAA policy. There was no threatening language…just information. I passed him the note. He put the Kindle away.

The flight out gave me time to eat my dinner. It was a short flight…just 30 minutes.

Once at the outstation I figured I would have to wait around for a ride to the hangar where the plane was waiting. As luck would have it the plane I deadheaded on was going to the hangar. The Captain and I hitched a ride in the back. Nice.

I would have bet money the test flight plane wasn’t ready. They rarely are. Last night I would have lost.

The plane was sitting outside of the hangar. I stashed my bags, grabbed a flash light and did a very detailed pre-flight. Taking a plane up for a test flight after it has been down for extensive routine maintenance means a little more scrutiny for me. Happily all the big parts (and all the small ones too) were in order.

While I was preflighting ,the Captain was getting the paperwork in order. Within 40 minutes of arriving at the outstation we were taxiing out for a test flight.

The Captain flew while I handled the radios. The outstation is in the middle of nowhere. ATC gave us a block altitude to work with and simply said to call back when we were ready to come back in.

After a few turns, climbs and descents the Captain was happy with the plane. I called up ATC. We were then vectored in for an ILS. The Captain briefed he wanted to go down to mins, go missed, enter a hold and then back for a visual. This would be my second time going missed in the real plane. During training in the simulator going missed is common.

The first time I went missed in the real plane was my own doing.

I was flying to an outstation and was expecting to fly downwind to final. About 20 miles out approach cleared us in for a straight in approach. I decided to “go down, then slow down”. Already slowed to 250 knots at 10,000 feet the Captain set 2500 in the altitude preselect. I idled the engines and hit the descent button to have the plane descend at 250 knots.

This brought us down at about 1600 feet per minute. This wasn’t getting the job done as the “banana” bar showed us leveling off at 2500 feet just inside the final approach fix. I then extended the flight spoilers fully. The rate increased to 2200 feet per minute. The “banana” bar now showed leveling off about 2 miles ahead of the final approach fix. Still no good.

I reduced the descent speed to 220 knots. Passing through 4000 feet the plane slowed to 220 knots and was now descending around 1800 feet per minute. I called for flaps 1, then flaps 8, then flaps 20. The nose pitched down progressively with the increased drag.

Just 2 miles from the final approach fix and just under glide slope I called for gear down. I clicked off the autopilot and flew the plane down on glide slope. Still doing a blazing 200 knots 5 miles from the runway, I looked over at the Captain……he was smiling……the way you do when you know what’s going to happen before it happens.

The spoilers were still fully extended just over 1400 feet AGL. The plane wasn’t slowing fast enough. At 1200 feet AGL I realized it wasn’t going to happen. I stowed the flight spoilers and announced I was going around.

We were vectored around for a downwind and I landed normally. Once at the gate the Captain and I talked about the situation. In jets it’s either go down OR slow down….not both. The proper thing (and what I have done since then) is slow down to just under VFE and descend. Works every time.

Last night the Captain had the autopilot fly the ILS down to mins and then took over for a go around. After entering the hold he bounced the very light plane onto the runway. Test complete.

After another hour of waiting it was my turn. The plane was extremely light. On rotation I used minimal force to avoid a tail scrape.

I was a bit tired. I decided to keep my mind active and hand flew the plane for the entire flight. The weather was clear and a million. The outstation was just over 140 miles from base. Leveling off at FL210 I accelerated to 330 knots. Being so late we were cleared direct to the airport.

On the base turn I decided to try something different. We had already been cleared for a visual approach. I had the ILS tuned in like always but decided to turn off the flight director and just fly a true visual approach. The localizer and glide slope were serving as a backup. It was a nice change.

I bounced the light plane onto the runway….eh….I’ve had much worse. The ramp controller had long since gone home. It was 11:30PM. Thankfully we were parking in front of the mechanics area and they were there to guide us in AND take the aircraft. This meant I didn’t have to do a post flight. One of the mechanics even offered us a ride to the employee parking lot. Nice. It was my first time in a car on the airport. Very different view traveling around at ground level.

I walked in the house at 11:58PM. My wife woke up for a moment then fell back asleep. I saw her for a few seconds before she left this morning for work. With a little luck  I will see her again tonight before she goes to bed….that is if I don’t get sent out on a flight.

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We blocked out a 6:49PM instead of the scheduled 3:50PM. Yeah we were late.

The 5:00PM flight was also late…they left at 6:30PM. The 6:45PM flight went out on time. The outstation only has 2 gates.

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Our original return flight was supposed to leave at 5:35PM and have just 26 people on board. By the time we made it to the outstation all the passengers were on board another flight headed back to base. Thus we went back empty. For CG issues we had ballast in the front cargo hold and had both flight attendants sit in the front row. My leg. Tired. We pushed out just 15 minutes after blocking in.

Lined up on the runway I advanced the thrust levers one click…and I thought another click…and said “set thrust”. At this point the Captain verifies that the engines are spooling up together and that I indeed have takeoff power set. Once he states, “power set” I remove my hand from the thrust levers and he places his hand on them.

Being empty I set an assumed takeoff temperature of 44 degrees. The takeoff weight was just 51,000 pounds. He moved the thrust levers another click and then said “thrust set”. Apparently I had only advanced the levers one click. This all happened in less than 5 seconds and before 50 knots.

Even with the reduced power takeoff I lifted the nose off the runway in less than 3500 feet.

After retracting the flaps, I held about 3700 feet per minute while traveling at 250 knots until 10,000 feet. From that point I clicked on the autopilot and climbed at 320 knots.

Being so light we held 2000 feet per minute while traveling at 320 knots all the way to FL300.

Light weight landings are always a little tricky. I jokingly apologized to the Captain for my rough landing that was sure to come. Somehow it didn’t happen. Average. That’s fine with me.

At 9:20PM we pulled into the gate. No rampers…no APU….no bueno. Finally we had rampers. Once they saw there were no bags to remove, they disappeared….without hooking up external power or air. We had no choice but to completely shut the plane down. Of course once we did the rampers were back. Seems the plane was going back out. As I walked out of the plane one was yelling up at me that they needed lights (in the cargo area). I replied, “We waited for you too hook up the power then we shut the plane down.” He came back with, “Yeah man, the power at this gate isn’t working.” Hmm, “Sorry, we have no APU.” I replied. He then proceeded to hook up and turn on the external power! Grrrrr.

My wife picked me up and brought me home in time to see the second half of the game (she paused it for me!).

Still loving my job. I have a good feeling at least one regional might be hiring next spring. I hope it happens.

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