Position: Seven Miles above New Mexico
Groundspeed: 632 mph (550 kts)
Destination: KMSP (Minneapolis-St. Paul)
PAX on board: 149
This is the first flight back from a week of vacation. A few days ago, I was down there looking up here wondering if I knew the crew leaving the contrail. Now, I am up here looking down there wondering if eyeballs are looking at our contrail. Ethereal thoughts at 35,000 feet...
As usual, the first take-off after vacation is as if I never left the flightdeck. Funny how that works. My co-pilot is a retired USAF colonel who is probably about my age. I am not used to flying with guys my age, i.e., all that gray hair over there. He seems to be very competent, but a quiet sort. I have never seen or heard of this guy before. That always blows me away. One would think that after the first couple of decades, you would have seen about everyone on the list.
Visibility is unlimited today. The sky is a deep blue overhead and a lighter crystalline blue ahead. Lord, it is beautiful. We can see the Great Plains of the Midwest stretching before us all the way to the eastern horizon. The Electric Jet is in high spirits as she runs with the westerlies. She has one on-going maintenance item; seat 19-D is broken and unusable, otherwise we would have 150 folks onboard. Also, I alerted the Maintenance Desk that the left-outer fuel tank temperature probe has failed.
The two flight attendants in the rear galley are senior Sky Babes, a term that used to be in vogue back in the old days. When I was a fledgling co-pilot on 737 steamers, they were beautiful young women, best friends, and newbies fresh from the in-flight academy. Now, they are beautiful middle-aged women with grown children and are still best friends. When we fly together, we have a little meeting in the rear galley, before pax loading, about the Airways behind us. I really like flying with these two... They remind me how great this job can and should be.
I noticed a request on the flight plan to send a position report abeam Wichita. That is a bit unusual, so before I called my dispatcher and whined, I opened my Pilot Handbook to read up on position reports. Sure enough, it says that a dispatcher can request a position report for special circumstances. Someone is probably looking over his shoulder.
Abeam KICT (Wichita), the co-pilot pushed a magic button and sent a position report through the ether to Mother. In less than 30 seconds, the email alert light flashed and the mini-printer spit out a "Thank you very much." Wow! He was easy to please.
Kansas City air traffic control center issues a traffic advisory:
"Heavy 7-6-7, twelve o-clock, a thousand above you."
"Uh, roger, we are looking. OK, he is in sight."
"Roger."
The closing speed is huge. I reach for my camera... Hurry up! Lens cap off, switch ON, point and shoot. The 767 is on us... Big, powerful, and fast. And it is gone. The contrail is roiling with vortex energy. What a sight! Did I get it? No, but I got the contrail.
Fuel quantity is good, hydraulics are good, electrical is good, oxygen is good, engines are good.
Life on the Line continues...
34 comments:
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just curious, why would a "manual" position report be necessary when, as I understand it, the ACARS is continuously sending back GPS-based position (at some interval), and the ATC radar is following you?
thanks!
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chris 1- I have no idea. It is a dispatch thing.
Hey Dave. Just a question if you don't mind. Do you see yourself finishing off your career at the top of the Airbus seniority list or do you see yourself upgrading to captain on a different jet?
Always enjoy reading your posts Dave.
Keep it up and safe flying.
Sounds like you were too far up to stop for a bowl of tortilla soup at ABQ. Would'a gone nice with the scenery.
Then again, I had a great meal in the North End of Boston last night: shrimp risotto with asparagus, tira misu and an espresso.
I'll be riding in the back tomorrow headed home.
Appreciate the rides. Thanks!
Another excellent post! Hope the vacation was a good one. I always look at the contrails and wonder who it is. In few cases when the air is really clear I can make out the colors of who it is.
Aaron
Dave, I am always looking and wondering. I found "Flightaware" recently, which shows a certain number of flighs that go over our area. It is cool..and six to ten minues late, nevertheless, enlightening. I highly recommend it! Thanks for another wonderful post!
Jim,
Flightaware is awesome! I've used it several times when I was heading on vacation to various places to see how they would fly.
It's a pretty cool website.
Hope your visit to MSP was good, assuming it was only an hour or so!
Thanks for the post.
Tim G in MN
Contrails vary very much, I've noticed. Sometimes straight, sometimes blurred, or twisted - recently I saw one intermittent with some strange signs remaining in the sky. It looked like some kind of a genetic code script.
Dave can you read them, giving some clues about the weather?
Dave, I often wonder if the contrails above me happen to be you or possibly some of the other bloggers. Give a shout-out if you're enroute over Dallas!
Rich brings up a good question, CAN you judge atmospheric conditions based on contrails? Assuming that it depends a lot on EGT and sorts.... it might be nearly impossible. Well, that's my opinion. Inform us!!
Grayson
Dave, hope your visit to MSP was a good one. Nice that it finally isn't Hoth out here anymore. Happy flying!
Hey Dave! Awesome and very interesting blog. Wondering if you would be interested in a link swap? I don't want to swap with just anyone, but this is a great one. Let me know david@theairlineblog.com
Thanks for the blog. I always wonder when I call traffic if I'm prompting somebody to take out their camera and snap a pic. Thanks for letting us center guys see the fruits of our labor. Best wishes...
Glad you're back from vacation...you were missed! Somehow, it would be reassuring to know that there was an ex-colonel in the seat beside you.
I'm ALWAYS looking up at the contrails, wondering where they're going, who's on vacation and who's on business, and is Dave driving...
As I recall from 15 years ago flying Learjets, if you are above a contrail looking down it is dark while from below they are always white. Enjoy your blog especially since I went to A320 ground school when I was with NTSB
I saw my first contrail in 1998 when visiting the US from Australia and find them fascinating as we rarely see them here.
Readers may find this comment from the Perth Observatory of interest: "Contrails are rarely seen over Perth and therefore are relatively unfamiliar and often form the basis of reports of 'unidentified flying objects'. This rarity of contrails arises because Perth is a very isolated city and most jet planes seen over Perth are at low altitude and in the process of either arriving or departing. The images shown [referring to a photo] were probably created by a US military jet undergoing a training exercise high over Perth. At this time a US Navy aircraft carrier group was berthed in Fremantle harbour."
That's a OK Noella, there is a certain breed of conspiracy-minded folks who believe contrails are the so-called CHEMtrails; that the government is "secretly" using commercial airplanes to deliver unknown "chemicals" to the public-at-large for unknown but highly-classified (and surely diabolical) reasons!!
Pretty kooky if you ask me....
Hello Dave,
I discovered this blog quite by accident, I was looking for Flightlevel 350 (aviation pics & videos) and got here by mistake......boy I'm so glad I did!!! You can keep your Stephen Kings, Dean Koontzs and James Herberts....this is the writing of a genius!!! I've spent the last 3 days reading everything you've written so far and I have to say.....it's the best thing I've read in years!!!
I'm a musician by trade (for my sins) but got bitten by the flying bug about 2 years ago and am now totally fascinated by everything aviation...yes I've got FS2004, Active sky, PMDG 737-500 add-ons and I'm a member of VATSIM..'Oh God I hear you cry, not another wannabe armchair pilot!!' *Wait's for Captain Dave to stop rolling his eyes*.
I'm just across the pond from you in the UK, but regularly listen to 'Live ATC.net' You mentioned a few times about flying into/out of Boston Logan, have you ever had the good fortune to be controlled by 'John' the 'Hocha hagadti/Hasta La Vista guy' as he seems to be known up and down the east coast. (Normally works TWR or GND)
Thank you Dave for a totally thrilling and engrossing blog, and I look forward very much to continued reading of your superbly and passionately written stories. Keep up the excellent work Sir.
Deepest Respect,
Ian.
Did you get any of that 767s' wake turbulence ???
My 2 sense...Dave I'm sure could add a lot more...You can tell a few things about the conditions from the structure "shape" of the contrails and how long they linger. If it quickly dissipates or spreads out, it is relatively dry and/or the upper level winds are blowing pretty good. So if you're looking up and the trails seem to hold shape for a good amount of time (high relative humidity with light winds).
Great blog Dave, see you in the Flight Levels!
I love reading the comments on here as much as reading the blog. It's so obvious that we all love Captain Dave. Everyone needs a Captain Dave in their life.
Hmmm. I am wondering how that 767 overtook you with such a high speed differential. The max cruising speed of a 767 is not much more than the 550 kts you were doing. Were the winds that much greater at his FL just 1000 feet above you?
If the guy's 1000 feet above you, according to RVSM rules he was going the other way. 550 kts east + 550 kts west = 1100 kts closing speed.
Cheers,
El G
Ah. Makes sense.
What is the meeaning of the desgnation "heavy"? Just the fact that it is a widebody with lots of wake turbulence?
If I may make one more comment, to Jay about the CHEMtrails. I agree completely absurd. There are several reasons why that's impossible, first off that you can't fit a chemical container big enough to store that much chemicals and run it through the engines...
Dave, maybe you can do a post about that, my grandfather is a big conspiracy person. He visits a website called rense, it's full of.... bologna (for lack of better terms =) )
Grayson
Dave...I think I sat in 19D last time I flew...although I didn't break it! Another great post!
I like the Senior Sky Babes and your friendship with them.
It's easy for us civilians to forget while filing on board and stuffing our oversize bags into the overhead while the flight attendants give a weary look that there are crews, in the air and on the ground, making important decisions every minute to ensure that we can safely file off the plane dragging our over sized bags out of the overhead and through the isles while the attendants give a disgusted look.
Thanks. I really enjoy your writing. You are a regular stop and an honored member of my blogroll.
Dave, I wonder if you can answer a question for me.
Last week I was on a flight from Seoul Korea to Chicago. It was 6:00am central time and the skymap showed us over the Beaufort Sea where Alaska meets the Yukon Territory. I was on the left side of the plane so I was looking North. I opened the shade to see a beautiful deep red and purple sunset. I watched the sun go down for awhile and then the colors changed from deep red to yellow and the sun started to rise.
Did I actually see both the sunset and sunrise, was this some sort of optical illusion or did I imagine the whole thing due to jetlag?
Thanks
--Dan
Capt Dave,
Question for you... I was riding in the back of an A330-300 from HNL to MSP a few nights ago. Once we reached PDX I noticed the engines kept being cycled from low to high power every 5-20 minutes for almost the rest of the cruise. I know we weren't step-climbing or descending because I was monitoring our altitude on the entertainment system. The power excursions were quite drastic and at times unsettling. Turbulence was not a factor and the seatbelt sign was off while this was happening. The only idea I could come up with was that the crew was burning excess fuel in preparation for landing as the tailwinds were unusually strong for most/all of the trip. I'm a GA instructor with no turbine time. What were these power changes about? Thanks!
Dan, You saw the sun in the north in the northern hemisphere?
Could happen when you are inside the Arctic circle. If you are at the right spot at the right time of year you can see the sun just touch the horizon in the north instead of going under.
Midnight sun -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_sun
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