The Black Hole

Position: The Black Hole
Groundspeed: 563 mph (490 kts)
Altitude: 37,000 feet
Passengers: 65 + 2 dead heading pilots + 1 wife of my youth

This place gives me the shivers. We are half way between PANC (Anchorage) and CYVR (Vancouver). By nature, I am mildly paranoid... It comes with the territory of seeing small children boarding with their parents. They are not cool yet and still look into the cockpit as they enter the forward cabin door. Once in awhile, between checklists, I see one of their innocent faces looking at me...

Below us, the cold waters of the Pacific. Outside; 150 mph westerlies, -60 C., and almost no oxygen. I cannot help but to think about the DC-4 that went down at Sandspit in 1952. They lost number one engine. A bunch of folks survived the ditching, but froze to death in the icy waters. Oh, Lord, I pray that you bless our V-2500 engines...

The moon is ten degrees above the eastern horizon and giving just enough heavenly light to illuminate the undercast. A heavy 747 freight wagon just passed 1,000 feet over us in the opposite direction. As usual, one of that companies pilots is hitchhiking on our aircraft. I briefly wonder if any of our pilots, who live in Alaska, are hitchhiking on that freighter. Probably so...

The lead flight attendant reports that the beautiful wife of my youth is sound asleep wrapped in airline blankets. She has been able to fly with me on the last two trips to PANC. The famous Iditarod sled race is about to begin. The loads have been heavy going to PANC, but light coming back, and for a non-revenue passenger, the coming back leg is the most important. Basically, you have to be in the industry to appreciate this concept. Think of a lobster trap...

Number one engine is young; number two engine is old and burning more fuel. We will have to open the cross-feed valve and balance the inner fuel cells over Seattle. Somewhere between here and there, we will pick at our crew meals. Thankfully, my wife put a few ketchup packets in my flight bag to, uh, enhance the taste.

Life on the Line continues...

Sitting Duck

Position: 44 miles east of KRNO (Reno, NV)
Altitude: 36,000 feet
Groundspeed: 368 mph (320 kts)
Passenger count: 65
Destination: PANC (Anchorage)

We are too heavy for 38,000 feet. The PANC weather is grim; heavy snow, surface temperatures below zero, strong winds and turbulence. The landing alternate is Fairbanks. Winter ops continue...

Fi-fi is nose forward in the 150 mph windstream. Her vitals are stable; fuel flow 5200 pounds per hour, good oil pressure, good N1/N2 vibration, generator transmissions 92 C., pilot oxygen pressure 1700 psi, hydraulics 3000 psi, fuel tank balance within limits.

I just got out of training a few days ago, so I am still twitching from engine failures out of high altitude airports at max gross weights on a summer day. High terrain in front of the aircraft and barely able to maintain level flight... Fun and games in the simulator. It will take a few days before I am back to my normal, laid back mode.

When I checked in for this trip, I saw one of my buds, a female captain who used to co-pilot for me in the bad old days. She told me that she recently flew a trip where the flight attendants were all male, the co-pilot was male, and her husband was in the back. That was about two hours ago. Fast forward... To my right is a young female co-pilot; behind the flightdeck door are three female flight attendants, and my lovely wife is sitting in 3C. Yikes! Is this failure mode ju-ju? Two cosmic opposites in the mysteries of the night sky?

Or do I simply need to cut back on the caffeine?

During the pre-flight rituals, my number one flight attendant gave me a rubber duck (for good luck) in an airline uniform. She purchased a bag full of ducks in KSFO and has been handing them out to her pilots. To me, it looks like a sitting duck. That may not be a good thing for line ops...

Life on the Line continues...

Back to the School House

I have been freezing my tail section this winter, so it was with a sigh of relief when I saw my training bid was approved... Back to the school house for me, at least for three days. February is my base training month anyway, so it could not have come at a better time to escape the Arctic temperatures prevalent out there on the line. Plus, I get to sleep with the wife of my youth, instead of shivering in some far away crew hotel. Yes, training, generally speaking, is not a bad thing.

During previous ground schools, the airline management team would talk to us about our bright future, usually bribing us with pizza to listen to them. A few hours later, the pilot union would send a team to talk to us about certain doom in the near future, usually bribing us with more pizza, but from a different vendor, to, also, listen to them. It was always the same rhetoric year after year from both sides. I always thought it wasted precious time that we needed to dig into aircraft systems or review previous aircraft accidents and why they had happened. Apparently, so did others, because this year neither side showed. OK, so we had to buy our own lunch in the cafeteria. It was worth it.

A couple days of simulator training, and then it is back to the line.

Thirty Below

FiFi is frozen solid. It is thirty (C.) below zero this morning in CYEG (Edmonton). I walked down the jetway marveling at the temperature reduction for every linear foot of travel toward the aircraft. When I got to the forward cabin door, I knew we were going to have some problems. The airframe was covered with ice and snow. Once inside the dark flight deck, I sat down in my seat and thought I was sitting on the metal logbook, so I raised up to pull the cold aluminum logbook from my seat. No logbook! The foam in the seat cushion was frozen solid. You have got to be kidding me! We are talking about Sparky, the Electric Jet. The rampers must have forgotten the heating carts, or they forgot to start them, or the carts failed during the night. Whatever, something went awry last night.

Well, every journey starts with step number one... I pushed the battery switches to ON, checked the voltage, and then, after crossing my fingers, pushed the APU start button. Then I began chanting oh please oh please oh please oh please. The APU will start at 60 below zero at altitude so it should start at a balmy 30 below. About 20 seconds later, I could hear the faint whine from the tail. Hallelujah! It is going to start. A few seconds after that, the relays closed and Fi-Fi awoke from her icy sleep; she is not a happy camper! Her systems are trying to come on line and are faulting because of the extreme cold. One of the two heating and pressurization packs starts OK and begins to pump heat into the fuselage. A small victory is at hand, as in heat.

I already knew the answer, but checked the water spigot in the forward lav anyway. Frozen! The toilets require water to flush, so the bird is officially down until we get some major thawing action. I called the local station manager and Mother to inform them of the situation. The station manger came down to the aircraft moments after the call and like Fi-Fi, was not happy. There were 150 folks trying to get on this aircraft.

A short time later, three Canadian aircraft mechanics were at my disposal in the jetway. We discussed strategy for thawing out Fi-Fi's plumbing. The agreed upon strategy was:

1. Trying to get the second pressurization and heating pack on line.

2. Pumping heat into Fi-Fi's belly with heating carts.

3. Keeping our fingers crossed.

After an hour of intense heating, two of three lavs were thawed. I decided we were good to go. I was reasonably sure the third lav would thaw en route.

We pushed back to the de-icing pad one hour and twenty minutes late. Yikes!! Iceman proceeded to break Fi-Fi out of her icy coat with two trucks. Thirty minutes later, we were a clean machine and began the engine start procedure. Number one started OK with a whoooof of ultra-cold kerosene smoke that quickly blew away in the wind. Number two started OK, but then the transmission that drives the generator set off a low oil pressure alarm in the flight-deck. I wonder why? The oil is -30 C. I decided, on the spot, to let the engine idle for a few more seconds. Oh please oh please... At last, oil pressure to the generator's transmission! Life is good!

Ground control cleared us to taxi to the runway. On the way we got another fault warning from a pressurization hatch in the electronics bay where all the Star Trek stuff lives. #*()@#+ (curse word)!! Take it easy Captain; don't blow a gasket. The co-pilot got permission to return to the ramp/apron so we could troubleshoot the problem.

Once the parking brake was set, I dug into my flight bag for the Captain's Book of Tricks. It is a compilation of years of experience flying the Electric Jet and talking to the maintenance techs that have to deal with this electronic nightmare, er, wonder. There is over 100 pages of shorthand, written quickly during past troubleshooting exercises. Ah Hah! Here it is... Electronic Bay doggy door will not close; pull and reset circuit breakers M-12/H-76/D-11. The co-pilot pulled the circuit breakers, counted to ten, then re-set. The doggy door on her belly closed... We can now pressurize after take-off.

Finally, we received out take-off clearance. I could not wait to leave this deep freeze for the warmth of the Arizona winter. Only for 23 hours, though. Tomorrow... Toronto.

Life on the Line continues...