Potomac Visual

Today I woke up in Arlington, across the river from our capital, Washington D.C. We arrived at sundown after making the River visual approach to runway 19, which is a real kick for me. ATC provides radar vectors to visually intercept the Potomac river about twelve miles northwest of Reagan National airport. Then the flying pilot follows the river while configuring the aircraft for landing. The crew can not see the runway until in the vicinity of the George Mason memorial bridge, which is very close to the airport. This requires a steep bank to roll out onto final approach at about 700 feet above the ground. The runway has 5859 feet of usable surface; not a lot of surplus pavement. Now, to make it interesting, throw in atmospheric haze and low natural lighting conditions.

I usually do this approach because of: (1) the technical difficulty involved, (2) most, but not all, co-pilots I fly with are a little weak on this procedure, (3) Washington DC is risky airspace nowadays, i.e., becoming disoriented in less than good sky conditions could lead to penetration of restricted airspace over the White House or Capital Building. Would you be shot at? Probably not...but I don't want to be the test case.

Last evening the type-A co-pilot (see previous post ) was scheduled to make this approach. It is customary at my airline to change cockpit duties every other flight. More on this later.... I decided to let him go ahead and give it a shot. Although, he is an arrogant a-hole, his flying abilities are very good. He did a good job on the approach and made a nice landing. I even complimented him on his performance, which was hard for me.

I felt like the wife of my youth was whispering in my ear to "be nice."

Long Day

After a few days off it is back to the cloud mines for me. I got out of bed this morning at o'dark thirty and hit the ground running. I jumped through all the mandatory hoops at the airport and blasted off for Los Angeles on schedule with 123 passengers. At LAX we had to change airplanes for our New York City flight. As we were taxiing out to the runway with 83 passengers, ATC slapped us with a 25 minute delay for airway saturation going eastbound. I immediately elected to shut down one of our engines to conserve fuel during the wait. I considered shutting both engines down, but if the auxiliary power unit fails while both engines are down, then you are screwed, blued and tattooed. So we waited our 25 minutes, all the while burning precious fuel. Very irritating...Eventually we got airborne and turned toward the east for JFK. As luck would have it, the winds were very favorable and we eventually caught up on time and fuel burn.

My co-pilot is a thirty something male with a type A personality. Very smart and in good physical shape. He has been here about four years. A good rule of thumb for co-pilots, and for that matter, Captains, is the 70-20-10 rule. Seventy percent are great to be around; twenty per- cent are just OK; ten percent are, shall we say, a--holes. So, as you can see, 90% of the time the person sitting beside you in the cockpit is OK or better. Pretty good odds, and with a little luck one can go for months, or even a year without a ten percenter. My luck ran out on this trip. Even so, I always give them the benefit of the doubt for awhile. First rattle out of the box was an attempt on his part to ground the aircraft for something petty and not safety related. I was forced to call maintenace to the aircraft and their reaction was, "you gotta be kidding us, right?" During the flight to LAX I noticed the early signs of Captainitus. This is a condition where the co-pilot wants to be the Captain, therefore he will search for a weakness in the Captain's demeanor and try to exploit it. This is not a good thing! The year 1987 saw a horrific take-off crash of an airliner. All aboard, except one infant killed. The probable cause: a hostile atmosphere in the cockpit. Shortly after that, another horrific accident on a taxiway. A Captain, having just returned from medical leave, was being bullsh--ed by an overbearing co-pilot; they became lost in the fog taxiing out for takeoff and moved onto an active runway. You can guess what happened after that. Probable cause: failure to maintain cockpit discipline.

It's going to be a long trip!

Business end of V2500

Days off

I am taking a few scheduled days of rest and relaxation. I went to Las Vegas with the wife of my youth to meet some relatives. We had scheduled this trip back in January. The whole event was stress free and went smoothly, except for one little item. My airline is carrying a lot of passengers and we were unable to fly standby status to Las Vegas. So, we were forced to drive. It took about five hours, but was not too unpleasant.

Yes, the pit bosses separated me from some of my money, as expected. More on this later...

Night Bird

Are we there yet?

N36 44/W109 21
Altitude: 35,000 ft
Destination: Las Vegas, NV

It is a dark and moonless night. No stars above, no ground lights below. We are in the crud blown off the tops of huge storms hundreds of miles west of our position. The anti-collision strobes on the wingtips and tail blast the void with a packet of brilliant, white light every 1/2 second. Inside the cockpit we are bathed in an erie blue-green light from the cathode ray tubes, electro mechanical instruments, and hundreds of switches, knobs and push buttons. The evil green eye (weather radar) is looking ahead for the thunderstorms that are surely embedded in this mess. Back and forth it's antenna sweeps looking for the return of radio energy bouncing off the storms. Our V2500 engines are running smoothly. All parameters are "in the green" and fuel flow is 5000 pounds per hour; on target.

In the back, behind the bullet proof/grenade resistant cockpit door, 137 Philadelphians are eager to get to Las Vegas. The pit bosses at the casinos are just as eager for them to arrive. We have been enroute four hours and ten minutes.

Another twenty minutes or so....

Charley's Track

We landed on schedule this morning in Philadelphia on runway 9 right. The weather was not too bad; five miles visibility with light rain and 1,000 foot overcast skies. The winds were absolutely calm. The runway was wet, however braking action was good. No problem; certainly better than forecast. We flew at 33,000 feet all the way from Las Vegas, heavy with fuel and passengers. The landing alternate was Pittsburgh. I did not become sleepy for one second on this trip. I have had hurricane/tropical storm experience before and it can get nasty. I could not help but to worry about fuel and alternate airport weather all the way to Philly. Needless to say, I was relieved when I shut down both V2500 engines at the gate.

We saw a really cool thing during the descent phase. The track of Charley in the sky was clearly visible. The sun was peeking over the horizon and illuminating the underbelly of the cloud tail that Charley left in it's wake. The tail was curved toward the northeast on a grand scale. The curvature was apparent if you took in the panorama view from right to left. Later, in my hotel room I saw a satellite picture of the area and there it was from above; Charley's track.

I'm going where?

The visit to the flight surgeon and the ensuing physical went well. This evening I departed on a four day trip, or so I thought. After I reported for my trip via the pilot lounge, I was standing in line to get food when my cell phone rang. Guess who? That's right; crew scheduling with a nice little surprise. It seems that Tropical Storm Charley is playing havoc with the east coast weather and some of the crews flying out there are unable to operate in such weather because of Federal aviation Regulations that cover new Captains. These regs state that a new Captain in an airliner-type aircraft must have one hundred hours experience in that aircraft before he/she can legally make low instrument approach in bad weather. So, I was re-assigned to another Captain's trip; a totally different trip than I was expecting. At first I wanted to whine about this reassignment, but when I found out I would be getting home one day earlier and extra pay, I kept my mouth shut.

OK, I am heading for Philadelphia via Las Vegas.

Threading the needle

Leo

Happy Birthday to me! Another year gone in a flash! And, to top it off, I am working all day. We are doing the California-Las Vegas shuttle today until midnight; then off for two days. Well, sort of off...tomorrow afternoon I have a flight physical.

California Shuffle

My day started out with humor. My young co-pilot set off the alarm (twice) at the T.S.A. airport security check point in Las Vegas. I knew that he would because of the amount of metal in his hat, shoes and watch, but I didn't say anything. He was certain that he could make it through the magnatometer successfully. He didn't and they, the T.S.A., stuck a probe up his butt looking for a pair of scissors or a pocket knife. Hold it a minute...let's think about this...the government takes our pocket knives away, but they let us command an aircraft later...oops! I forgot; it is the zero tolerance policy. If an airline pilot questions this stupidity, that individual will be led away in handcuffs as a possible security threat. Can you say "public education?" It is embarrassing for our country. Our society is being dumbed down. Want another example? In Philadelphia, recently, I witnessed a Muslim woman ( wearing traditional Muslim clothing ) operating a security checkpoint's x-ray machine. The middle aged T.S.A. supervisor was twenty feet away reading a magazine. What's the problem, you say? Well, for starters, the terrorists involved with the Madrid train incident were embedded and trusted members of Spanish society. Uh oh...

I really do try to keep this blog aligned with the operational aspects of daily airline operations, so I will step down from the soap box. After the co-pilot was strip searched, we started a long and arduous day of short hops in the western United States. We flew five legs and had three different aircraft. Our last leg was from Phoenix to Orange County arriving at 10:56 P.M., four minutes before the landing curfew. We barely made it! Orange County airport has 4,800 feet of usable runway, which is not much for an airliner. The flying pilot must be in the groove when landing on such a short runway. My co-pilot seemed to be on the ball, so I decided to let him land two times at Orange County today. As I suspected, he did a magnificent job. I could not have done it better myself. Stopping a large jet aircraft with aggressiveness is a really cool event. The flying pilot must transform the aircraft from the airborne state to the ground state in a short amount of time and distance. The amount of energy that must be dissipated is incredible.

Orange County is a really cool place, literally. I love it! After a hard day in the cockpit, it is nice to shower and put the shorts and sandals on and go for a walk in the cool night air.

So, that is what I did...

Lost Wages

I rarely overnight in Lost Wages, aka Las Vegas. Usually I am here long enough to refuel and load up passengers for the trip home. However, tonight we stay. It is not a long overnight, but it is nice to calmly walk to the hotel van instead of running around with one's hair on fire preparing for a departure out of a very busy airport. Tomorrow is a five leg day; we will spend thirteen hours on duty. Time to hit the sack...

Thrust

Visual Approach

Main gear touchdown in Cleveland happened right on schedule this morning. I was worried about fog, but, alas, the visibility was great for our landing. I have an excellent, new co-pilot for this trip. After waking from a hard sleep I turned on the television news. Yikes! Oil is $45 per barrel. This is not good for the airline business and that is putting it mildly. The airline chiefs are surely biting their nails, although most of them have million dollar parachutes to ease their fall. I personally have been furloughed (laid off) twice in this business. As I stated in a previous post, this is an unstable job. It requires low/no debt load and good financial habits to be at peace with the world as an airline pilot. The siren song of living well is hard to resist for so many.

Westbound

Reject

The aircraft assigned to us in Oakland was brand new. The airline had put it in service the day before. The co-pilot and I were excited about the possibility of flying her all the way to Florida. The gate agents loaded her to the gills with passengers, bags and freight. We taxied out on schedule for a runway 29 departure. After we received take off clearance the co-pilot slowly pushed the thrust levers forward and at that time one of the hydraulic systems failed. I took over and rejected the take off at about 50 mph; turned off the runway and started trouble shooting the problem. Long story short- the problem was an electrical relay that controls the hydraulic pump on that system. Did we have one in stock at Oakland? No way! Flight cancelled...hop on another airline to Las Vegas. Arriving in Las Vegas one hour late for our Miami departure, we were told by crew scheduling that we had been re-routed to Chicago and to please have a good flight. We hustled over to the Chicago gate and found our airplane to be one of the oldest in the fleet. I have flown her many times. As usual, we filled every seat to Chicago and blasted off one hour and fifty minutes behind schedule. The ride over to the windy city was uneventful and really quite pleasant. The night sky was gorgeous and the tailwinds were strong. Our arrival into Chicago with the rising sun was one hour and twenty late, so we made up thirty minutes. Not bad, considering.... I am extremely exhausted; must lay down. Tonight we are scheduled to Phoenix. Yeah!! Two days off, I hope.

Night Bird

Cool

One of my favorite cities is San Francisco and that is where I am today. We landed at Oakland in IFR conditions this morning at 0122 after flying from Orlando. We stopped in Las Vegas on the way. After a thirty minute drive to the hotel in downtown San Francisco, I slept hard until 1000; then walked to my favorite coffee shop. The outside air temperature is so nice! The atmosphere is fragrant with strong breezes...lovely! I walked to Fisherman's Wharf for seafood and a little photography of the sea lions. Tonight we are scheduled to go to Las Vegas and Miami. Another long night ahead....

Sunrise at 50 North

Orion the Hunter

Where did July go? Wow, it's incredible how fast time passes as one ages. It's a cruel joke that Mother Nature plays on all of us. As an eighteen year old with no money and no life experience, time is like cold molasses pouring from a jar. All the old silver haired Captains that I used to fly with as a young co-pilot are long gone; many have flown west for the final checkride. Yes, I remember well their sage advice about many things. Uh oh! Now, years later, I am that silver haired Captain. Incredible!

I am on day two of a four day. We arrived this morning into Orlando at sunrise after flying all night. We left Phoenix and flew over to southern California, then to Las Vegas, and finally on to Florida. This morning, over the southern U.S., we watched Orion the Hunter rise. It is my favorite constellation of the night sky. It also signals the coming of winter, a much sought after season for Arizonians. August is the hottest month in Phoenix. It is a month when the sunlight feels heavy on your body. As if it actually presses you toward the ground with hot hands.

Well, it's time to saddle up for the night's flying. We are scheduled for Las Vegas and Oakland. There is a lot of storm activity over Florida this evening. It will be a busy departure tonight....