Monday morning: We started our day in Helena, Montana. The first leg was a short 50-nm hop to Great Falls, with a subsequent flight to Seattle. The weather in Helena was overcast, with patches of fog seen around the valley. The weather in Great Falls was still good, but the temperature and dewpoint were very close, with a forecast for dense fog within the next two hours. Complicating the matter was the ongoing construction at Great Falls' airport. The main runway, 3/21, is closed, and the ILS out of service. Now, the primary runway is the 6300' long Runway 34/16, which is served by a GPS approach with a minimum visiblity of 1 1/4 miles. The forecast was calling for 3/4 mile visibility in fog.
As the captain and I were looking at this, a Helena gate agent boarded the airplane and told us that an FAA inspector was going to ride along today. I looked at the captain in disbelief. Two line checks in two days? Unheard of! The captain reluctantly told the gate agent to bring the inspector out, and we turned our attention back to how we would get into Great Falls.
Under FAR 121, it is illegal to take off for an airport that is below landing minimums or forecast to go below minimums. My airline, like most, has a way of getting around this provision. We used a "pre-planned amendment" to the flight release. We would be dispatched to Seattle rather than Great Falls, but via a circuitous route that would take us over Great Falls. If Great Falls turned out to be above minimums after all, we would contact dispatch to amend our flight release for a destination of Great Falls. Of course, that's one extra duty in what is already an extremely short flight, particularly with an approach to prepare for. It would be stressful enough without a Fed looking over our shoulders.
Thankfully, the inspector said he'd sit in back for the first leg and line-check the flight attendants. That was a good sign. A real jerk would've seized on the opportunity to sit up front on a tough leg, looking for the smallest screwup to ding us on. He took his seat in row 19, and we continued preparing for the first leg. Knowing how short on time we would be, the captain briefed the GPS 34 approach before we left the ground.
Upon completion of the After Takeoff checklist, I tuned up Great Falls' ATIS. It reported visibility 3 miles, but the remarks included a fog bank just north of the airport. Ok, great. I told the captain I'd call dispatch to amend the release, and punched the appropriate code into our SELCAL keypad. Hmm, no answer. I tried it again. Nothing. Great, we were rapidly approaching the initial approach fix and I needed to talk to dispatch. I called Great Falls operations and asked them to quickly call dispatch and tell Desk 27 to call us ASAP. Shortly thereafter, the dispatcher called us on company frequency with the amendment.
I got back from talking to the dispatcher in time to hear Great Falls Approach tell the captain that the visibility was at 1 mile, below minimums for the GPS 34 approach. The captain told them we needed 1 1/4 miles; after a short pause, they replied "Ya know what, that is 1 1/4 mile visibility." Heh, I was soooo glad the FAA inspector was in back! I banged out the descent and approach checklists just in time.
The approach turned out to be a non-event. The fog bank covered the north and east sides of the airport, where the control tower was located; our own runway was quite visibile shortly after we began the approach. After we shut down, the Fed came up to the cockpit and took the jumpseat as we ran the Before Start checklist for the next leg.
The Great Falls - Seattle leg had no surprises. The FAA guy didn't say much, although the captain tried to engage him in small conversation by showing him our logbook and MEL procedures (!?). In my experience, the less a FAA guy says, the better. They'll speak up if they see something askew. After we got to Seattle, he simply said "Great job, guys, I'll see you around" and left.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Day Three
The white-knuckle VOR approach into Butte didn't end the adventures this trip had in store for us. On Sunday we were in Spokane, preparing for leg #4 of 6, when I spied KH, a check airman on the Megawhacker, coming down the jetway. "Crap, we're getting line checked!" I exclaimed. The captain let out an exasperated sigh and pointed to my laptop and speakers on the glareshield. I quickly silenced Bob Marley and stowed them before KH made his way to the flight deck.
Turns out that he was there to line check me. There is no regulatory requirement to line check first officers, but at my airline they choose to do so every twelve months, just like captains. And I was due.
Even a consciencious, standardized pilot tends to have a lot of little habits that technically are at odds with the flight standards manual; you just don't realize it until you fly with a check airman. For example, when hand flying, the pilot not flying (PNF) is supposed to set all flight director modes at the Pilot Flying's command. It's pretty standard practice, though, for the PF to just punch the buttons for themself - at least in good weather. There were a few times where I went to push "VS" or "HDG" or "STBY," stopped my hand halfway there as I realized I wasn't supposed to do that, and told the captain, "Um...push vertical speed...command 1500 feet per minute upwards...."
Other than Seattle Approach vectoring us all over Puget Sound for traffic saturation, it was a pretty easy ride. The check airman said I did a good job, but then asked me when I'm supposed to have landing flaps set. "Um...1000 feet above airport elevation?" He nodded: "The flaps were in transition at 1000', they didn't get to 35 degrees until 980', so you were 20 feet low." He didn't dock any points so I just smiled and nodded. A successful ride is a successful ride - but still, that was pretty anal. The pertinent section of the Megawhacker FSM reads, "Landing flaps must be set...by 1000' above the airport elevation." Hmm. Okay, is "set" a verb or an adjective in that context? We had set the flaps by 1000 feet, but they weren't set yet. Heh, that sounds almost Clintonian.
So, nit-picking aside, we survived the line check just fine. The rest of the trip should be a breeze! Right...?
Turns out that he was there to line check me. There is no regulatory requirement to line check first officers, but at my airline they choose to do so every twelve months, just like captains. And I was due.
Even a consciencious, standardized pilot tends to have a lot of little habits that technically are at odds with the flight standards manual; you just don't realize it until you fly with a check airman. For example, when hand flying, the pilot not flying (PNF) is supposed to set all flight director modes at the Pilot Flying's command. It's pretty standard practice, though, for the PF to just punch the buttons for themself - at least in good weather. There were a few times where I went to push "VS" or "HDG" or "STBY," stopped my hand halfway there as I realized I wasn't supposed to do that, and told the captain, "Um...push vertical speed...command 1500 feet per minute upwards...."
Other than Seattle Approach vectoring us all over Puget Sound for traffic saturation, it was a pretty easy ride. The check airman said I did a good job, but then asked me when I'm supposed to have landing flaps set. "Um...1000 feet above airport elevation?" He nodded: "The flaps were in transition at 1000', they didn't get to 35 degrees until 980', so you were 20 feet low." He didn't dock any points so I just smiled and nodded. A successful ride is a successful ride - but still, that was pretty anal. The pertinent section of the Megawhacker FSM reads, "Landing flaps must be set...by 1000' above the airport elevation." Hmm. Okay, is "set" a verb or an adjective in that context? We had set the flaps by 1000 feet, but they weren't set yet. Heh, that sounds almost Clintonian.
So, nit-picking aside, we survived the line check just fine. The rest of the trip should be a breeze! Right...?
Monday, June 12, 2006
A Bad Day in Montana
In my post about Butte, I mentioned that we had "a heck of time" getting in on Friday. It was a pretty ugly day to be flying in Montana, and we were definately glad to be done by the end of it.
We were supposed to do two legs on Friday, Portland to Seattle and Seattle to Butte. There, another crew would normally pick up the airplane and continue to Bozeman and then back to Seattle, since this flight is always operated as a triangle.
As we prepared for the flight to Butte, a few items in the NOTAMs (notices to airmen) caught my eye. First, there was no fuel available in Butte - the fuel truck was broken. Therefore, under no circumstances could we land there unless there was enough fuel for the next crew to get to Bozeman. Indeed, our dispatcher put a note on our release informing us that the next crew needed a minimum of 4800 lbs onboard. Secondly, the ILS and LOC-DME approaches at Butte were out of service, as was the RNAV approach and GPS overlays. The only approaches available to us were two non-precision circling VOR approaches. The weather in Butte was OK, but the forecast noted the possibility of thunderstorms.
While we were still about 100 miles from Butte, we heard another airplane on Salt Lake Center's frequency as they twice attempted VOR approaches at Butte, went missed approach, and ended up diverting to Bozeman. Butte's AWOS was reporting three miles' visibility and a broken ceiling at 1500', which is above minimums for the VOR-B approach, but they were also reporting a thunderstorm overhead. We weren't too interested in trying an approach during a thunderstorm, particularly after our weather radar painted heavy rain directly over the airport. We began holding over Coppertown VOR and waited for the storm to pass.
We'd taken plenty of fuel from Seattle, and could've held for over an hour before dipping into our alternate and reserve fuel. However, the unavailability of fuel in Butte meant that we couldn't risk beginning the approach with less than 5200 lbs lest we turn the airplane into a pumpkin upon landing. We held for nearly a half hour, watching the storm slowly move southward. Finally, our fuel state reached the point where we had to land in Butte now or go somewhere else. The airport looked like we could maybe get in, and it was tempting to try, but we both knew it'd be foolish. We diverted to Bozeman, zigzagging around several thunderstorms on the short flight there.
Upon arrival in Bozeman, we began crunching the numbers. We needed to put on enough fuel to get to Butte (around 1000 lbs) plus enough fuel for the new crew to get to Seattle - nearly 8000 lbs of fuel. We had 55 passengers going from Bozeman to Seattle, plus 15 of our original passengers who were going to Butte. A full load of passengers and bags plus 8000 lbs of fuel puts the Megawhacker very close to max takeoff weight. The problem is that there is a 2750 lb difference between max takeoff and max landing weights, and we'd only be burning off 1000 lbs on the way to Butte. We couldn't leave behind fuel, so the only option was to offload passengers and/or baggage.
Skywest Airlines came to the rescue by offering to let our Butte passengers ride along on a bus they had chartered for one of their own flights that had diverted from Butte. With those 15 passengers gone, our landing weight was below the maximum. Butte was reporting good weather again, so we did the paperwork, closed the doors, fired up, and took off for Butte.
Once airborne, our weather woes weren't over; we had to dodge several big cells on the airway. The captain listened to Butte's AWOS over a period of several minutes, which painted a picture of rapidly deteriorating weather. Although there were no thunderstorms, the clouds were getting lower and rain was reducing visibility. By the time we began the VOR-B approach, it was down to 3 miles' visibility - the minimum for the approach - with a 1400' ceiling.
Of all the things I wanted to do this week, a "dive-and-drive" non-precision approach to minimums in the mountains definately wasn't on the list. Ameriflight lost a Beech 99 on this particular approach a few months ago (they apparently continued on the 127 radial after Coppertown rather than turning to the 097 radial); that thought contributed to the white-knuckle factor. As we reached minimums, we weren't seeing anything other than I-90 beneath us. We kept trucking along through the driving rain, waiting for 5 minutes to expire on the timer. Eventually, recognizable landmarks around Butte began appearing in front of us, and the forward visibility increased a bit. Finally, the airport appeared three miles ahead and slightly to our right. We both breathed a sigh of relief as the Captain began the final descent to landing.
It's funny how my perceptions have changed. As a flight instructor and freight dog, I shot non-precision approaches to minimums fairly regularly. Now it's a rare event. This approach induced enough adrenaline that we were almost shaking after we got on the ground. "That was one tight approach," my Captain exclaimed to the crewmembers taking the plane over. They shrugged indifferently, as if to say "Well, at least you finally brought us our plane."
That was day one of this trip. I figured after that, the trip would go smoothly. Right? Right.....?
Update: Airline flying really has turned me into a total wuss. I'm catching up on Aviatrix' recent postings and I'm getting embarassed that I actually whined about shooting a real VOR approach. I think Aviatrix is a good hundred miles from the nearest VOR.
We were supposed to do two legs on Friday, Portland to Seattle and Seattle to Butte. There, another crew would normally pick up the airplane and continue to Bozeman and then back to Seattle, since this flight is always operated as a triangle.
As we prepared for the flight to Butte, a few items in the NOTAMs (notices to airmen) caught my eye. First, there was no fuel available in Butte - the fuel truck was broken. Therefore, under no circumstances could we land there unless there was enough fuel for the next crew to get to Bozeman. Indeed, our dispatcher put a note on our release informing us that the next crew needed a minimum of 4800 lbs onboard. Secondly, the ILS and LOC-DME approaches at Butte were out of service, as was the RNAV approach and GPS overlays. The only approaches available to us were two non-precision circling VOR approaches. The weather in Butte was OK, but the forecast noted the possibility of thunderstorms.
While we were still about 100 miles from Butte, we heard another airplane on Salt Lake Center's frequency as they twice attempted VOR approaches at Butte, went missed approach, and ended up diverting to Bozeman. Butte's AWOS was reporting three miles' visibility and a broken ceiling at 1500', which is above minimums for the VOR-B approach, but they were also reporting a thunderstorm overhead. We weren't too interested in trying an approach during a thunderstorm, particularly after our weather radar painted heavy rain directly over the airport. We began holding over Coppertown VOR and waited for the storm to pass.
We'd taken plenty of fuel from Seattle, and could've held for over an hour before dipping into our alternate and reserve fuel. However, the unavailability of fuel in Butte meant that we couldn't risk beginning the approach with less than 5200 lbs lest we turn the airplane into a pumpkin upon landing. We held for nearly a half hour, watching the storm slowly move southward. Finally, our fuel state reached the point where we had to land in Butte now or go somewhere else. The airport looked like we could maybe get in, and it was tempting to try, but we both knew it'd be foolish. We diverted to Bozeman, zigzagging around several thunderstorms on the short flight there.
Upon arrival in Bozeman, we began crunching the numbers. We needed to put on enough fuel to get to Butte (around 1000 lbs) plus enough fuel for the new crew to get to Seattle - nearly 8000 lbs of fuel. We had 55 passengers going from Bozeman to Seattle, plus 15 of our original passengers who were going to Butte. A full load of passengers and bags plus 8000 lbs of fuel puts the Megawhacker very close to max takeoff weight. The problem is that there is a 2750 lb difference between max takeoff and max landing weights, and we'd only be burning off 1000 lbs on the way to Butte. We couldn't leave behind fuel, so the only option was to offload passengers and/or baggage.
Skywest Airlines came to the rescue by offering to let our Butte passengers ride along on a bus they had chartered for one of their own flights that had diverted from Butte. With those 15 passengers gone, our landing weight was below the maximum. Butte was reporting good weather again, so we did the paperwork, closed the doors, fired up, and took off for Butte.
Once airborne, our weather woes weren't over; we had to dodge several big cells on the airway. The captain listened to Butte's AWOS over a period of several minutes, which painted a picture of rapidly deteriorating weather. Although there were no thunderstorms, the clouds were getting lower and rain was reducing visibility. By the time we began the VOR-B approach, it was down to 3 miles' visibility - the minimum for the approach - with a 1400' ceiling.
Of all the things I wanted to do this week, a "dive-and-drive" non-precision approach to minimums in the mountains definately wasn't on the list. Ameriflight lost a Beech 99 on this particular approach a few months ago (they apparently continued on the 127 radial after Coppertown rather than turning to the 097 radial); that thought contributed to the white-knuckle factor. As we reached minimums, we weren't seeing anything other than I-90 beneath us. We kept trucking along through the driving rain, waiting for 5 minutes to expire on the timer. Eventually, recognizable landmarks around Butte began appearing in front of us, and the forward visibility increased a bit. Finally, the airport appeared three miles ahead and slightly to our right. We both breathed a sigh of relief as the Captain began the final descent to landing.
It's funny how my perceptions have changed. As a flight instructor and freight dog, I shot non-precision approaches to minimums fairly regularly. Now it's a rare event. This approach induced enough adrenaline that we were almost shaking after we got on the ground. "That was one tight approach," my Captain exclaimed to the crewmembers taking the plane over. They shrugged indifferently, as if to say "Well, at least you finally brought us our plane."
That was day one of this trip. I figured after that, the trip would go smoothly. Right? Right.....?
Update: Airline flying really has turned me into a total wuss. I'm catching up on Aviatrix' recent postings and I'm getting embarassed that I actually whined about shooting a real VOR approach. I think Aviatrix is a good hundred miles from the nearest VOR.
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!!!
Given that the World Cup is really the biggest sporting event in the world outside of the Olympics, it's pretty sad that you won't find it on network TV in the US, excepting perhaps the Final match. Fortunately, Univision is one of the few cable stations that we get, so I'll be able to tune in for a few "Copa Mundial" matches.
Just finished watching Italy's win over Ghana, 2-0. Good game. Was a little disheartening to see USA lose 3-0 to the Czech Republic today, but the Czechs are the strongest team in what's already a tough group.
Dawn and I will actually be in Europe during the Third Place and Final matches; it'll be fun to watch in a place where soccer (ahem, football) is the #1 sport.
Just finished watching Italy's win over Ghana, 2-0. Good game. Was a little disheartening to see USA lose 3-0 to the Czech Republic today, but the Czechs are the strongest team in what's already a tough group.
Dawn and I will actually be in Europe during the Third Place and Final matches; it'll be fun to watch in a place where soccer (ahem, football) is the #1 sport.
Friday, June 09, 2006
Butte, Montana
Kevin Garrison of Avweb recently had a nice article about layovers in which he claimed that "a good layover isn't a place, it is an attitude." I can get behind that statement. My best layovers have had little to do with where we were staying, and everything to do with my crew and how we decided to spend our time. With a cool crew and/or something interesting to do, you can be staying in a pigsty in Cowpoke, Iowa, and still have a great time.
That said...most places you go have attitudes of their own that can't help but affect the way you feel about them. Some cities burst with energy and ambition; some towns happily laze along through the decades; a few are content to stay as nondescript as the Holiday Inn rooms the airline rents. And then, there are locales that exude the bittersweet wistfullness of a has-been that time left behind, slowly sinking into decay as ever greater numbers of scornful youngsters flee to the big city. Butte, Montana, is one of those places.
Butte was once one of the great mining towns of the west. It got its start in the 1870's with the discovery of silver and gold in the area, but it was ultimately copper that brought fame and fortune to Butte after production tapered off in erstwhile Copper Kings like Great Britain and Chile. In the early 1900's, around 1/3 of the United States' copper came from Butte. World War One, in particular, proved to be a boon to the town as bullet production quickly spiked demand for copper. At one point, the local Anaconda Mining Company was the fourth largest corporation in the world.
The abundance of mining work ballooned the city to 115,000 inhabitants at its peak in 1915. It was a notorious law-free zone in the best (or worst) boom-town tradition, with hundreds of saloons, bordellos, and gambling parlors lining the mud streets. Recent immigrants formed the majority of the mining workforce, with Irish imigrees particularly well respresented: Butte was once called "Ireland's Fifth Province," and Irish remains the prominent ethnicity among today's residents. In fact, the President of the Republic of Ireland, Mary McAleese, recently paid a visit to Butte.
Butte's long decline began in the 1950's with the introduction of open pit mining. Although safer and more profitable than underground mining methods, it was far less labor intensive, and the town began shrinking as the steady supply of work dried up and the mine companies razed large portions of the town for pit mining operations. Alas, open pit mining proved to be enormously damaging to the environment, and the gigantic Berkeley Pit ceased operations in 1982.
These days, there's not much copper money left in Butte. The monsterous gash north of town that once provided so many miners' livelihoods now silently fills with toxic water in etherworldly swirls of aquamarine, amber, and indigo. While this has made the Berkeley Pit the town's biggest tourist attraction, it is also the nation's largest remaining Superfund site, and high lead and arsenic levels have plagued the area for years.
While I haven't found any bordellos recently, Butte still has a disproportionately large number of drinking and gambling establishments for any town of 36,000 souls. Sitting with a cocktail in a dark and smoky lounge, you'll look hard for the ghosts of exhuberent miners celebrating their newfound prosperity, but it's hard to see them among the knots of tired and haggard looking citizens gloomily plunking another quarter into the slot machines. Saint Patrick's Day puts a more festive face on the town as denizens both Irish and Irish-For-A-Day go into hardcore celebratory mode, but most of the year it's pretty grim in Butte's leftover dens of vice.
Today, after meeting my captain in the Best Western's cocktail lounge (and casino!) for drinks and conversation, I took a walk over to the mall. Butte's mall has always been a kitschy throwback that simultaneously evokes nostalgia and distaste. You'll find a number of chain stores that have long since shuttered in any prosperous city (Herberger's!?), and it has the best used book store I've found in any mall anywhere, but you'll also find a strikingly large percentage of stores that are closed or in the process of closing. This time, both the Sam Goody and the Radio Shack are on their way out the door, shut down by the WalMart down the street. I'm not too heartbroken - after all, it's just one corporate monster snuffing out two others - but it's hard to walk through a poorly lit mall with dingy 1980's decor and newly shuttered stores among bored youths and frantic mothers with gaggles of small children in tow and not feel mildly depressed.
So - am I saying Butte is a bad layover? Nah, not neccessarilly. It was pretty good this time. We had a heck of a time flying in here today - more on that tomorrow - so the captain and I spent a few hours in the lounge decompressing over good drinks and pleasant conversation, and that always makes for a nice layover. Plus, I picked up a music CD and laptop speakers on clearance sale for a grand total of $11.26! Now, if you'll excuse me, the good Irish brews have left my throat a little dry, so I'm going to quench my thirst with some good 'ole arsenic-laced Butte city water!
That said...most places you go have attitudes of their own that can't help but affect the way you feel about them. Some cities burst with energy and ambition; some towns happily laze along through the decades; a few are content to stay as nondescript as the Holiday Inn rooms the airline rents. And then, there are locales that exude the bittersweet wistfullness of a has-been that time left behind, slowly sinking into decay as ever greater numbers of scornful youngsters flee to the big city. Butte, Montana, is one of those places.
Butte was once one of the great mining towns of the west. It got its start in the 1870's with the discovery of silver and gold in the area, but it was ultimately copper that brought fame and fortune to Butte after production tapered off in erstwhile Copper Kings like Great Britain and Chile. In the early 1900's, around 1/3 of the United States' copper came from Butte. World War One, in particular, proved to be a boon to the town as bullet production quickly spiked demand for copper. At one point, the local Anaconda Mining Company was the fourth largest corporation in the world.
The abundance of mining work ballooned the city to 115,000 inhabitants at its peak in 1915. It was a notorious law-free zone in the best (or worst) boom-town tradition, with hundreds of saloons, bordellos, and gambling parlors lining the mud streets. Recent immigrants formed the majority of the mining workforce, with Irish imigrees particularly well respresented: Butte was once called "Ireland's Fifth Province," and Irish remains the prominent ethnicity among today's residents. In fact, the President of the Republic of Ireland, Mary McAleese, recently paid a visit to Butte.
Butte's long decline began in the 1950's with the introduction of open pit mining. Although safer and more profitable than underground mining methods, it was far less labor intensive, and the town began shrinking as the steady supply of work dried up and the mine companies razed large portions of the town for pit mining operations. Alas, open pit mining proved to be enormously damaging to the environment, and the gigantic Berkeley Pit ceased operations in 1982.
These days, there's not much copper money left in Butte. The monsterous gash north of town that once provided so many miners' livelihoods now silently fills with toxic water in etherworldly swirls of aquamarine, amber, and indigo. While this has made the Berkeley Pit the town's biggest tourist attraction, it is also the nation's largest remaining Superfund site, and high lead and arsenic levels have plagued the area for years.
While I haven't found any bordellos recently, Butte still has a disproportionately large number of drinking and gambling establishments for any town of 36,000 souls. Sitting with a cocktail in a dark and smoky lounge, you'll look hard for the ghosts of exhuberent miners celebrating their newfound prosperity, but it's hard to see them among the knots of tired and haggard looking citizens gloomily plunking another quarter into the slot machines. Saint Patrick's Day puts a more festive face on the town as denizens both Irish and Irish-For-A-Day go into hardcore celebratory mode, but most of the year it's pretty grim in Butte's leftover dens of vice.
Today, after meeting my captain in the Best Western's cocktail lounge (and casino!) for drinks and conversation, I took a walk over to the mall. Butte's mall has always been a kitschy throwback that simultaneously evokes nostalgia and distaste. You'll find a number of chain stores that have long since shuttered in any prosperous city (Herberger's!?), and it has the best used book store I've found in any mall anywhere, but you'll also find a strikingly large percentage of stores that are closed or in the process of closing. This time, both the Sam Goody and the Radio Shack are on their way out the door, shut down by the WalMart down the street. I'm not too heartbroken - after all, it's just one corporate monster snuffing out two others - but it's hard to walk through a poorly lit mall with dingy 1980's decor and newly shuttered stores among bored youths and frantic mothers with gaggles of small children in tow and not feel mildly depressed.
So - am I saying Butte is a bad layover? Nah, not neccessarilly. It was pretty good this time. We had a heck of a time flying in here today - more on that tomorrow - so the captain and I spent a few hours in the lounge decompressing over good drinks and pleasant conversation, and that always makes for a nice layover. Plus, I picked up a music CD and laptop speakers on clearance sale for a grand total of $11.26! Now, if you'll excuse me, the good Irish brews have left my throat a little dry, so I'm going to quench my thirst with some good 'ole arsenic-laced Butte city water!
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
A Successful Ride
As I mentioned in my last post, I had my annual ride in the simulator on monday. I'm happy to report that the ride was successful and I'm still employed as a pilot.
Part 121.411 of the Federal Aviation Regulations requires that first officers satisfactorily complete a proficiency check every 24 months and complete either a proficiency check or other simulator training every 12 months. I've been flying for my current airline since 2004, so last year I did "other simulator training," which we call "training-in-lieu." This year I was required to do a full-blown proficiency check. These are "pass/fail" events, with continued employment based on "passing," so pro checks are stressful to many pilots.
That said, almost nobody gets fired based on a single failed pro check, and in a certain way they are much easier than training-in-lieu. TIL is done with an instructor whose goal is to teach you, not test you, and therefore you're sure to be subjected to a wide array of surprise equipment failures - often uncommon, sometimes mindbogglingly complex, usually combined with horrible weather. A pro check, however, is very predictable, as it follows a checklist laid out in Appendix F of Part 121. A first officer can expect the following:
Then, when we were shooting the ILS, I planned on landing Flaps 35 rather than Flaps 15, which required like 50% torque on the remaining engine. That, in turn, required a lot more rudder and aileron input, which made the approach a lot less stable than I would've liked. At decision altitude I didn't have the runway in sight, but I did have the approach lights, which allows you to descend to 100' above the runway. However, at my airline, First Officers aren't allowed to use that provision unless the approach has been briefed as a "captain monitored approach." Therefore, at DA I went missed approach...on a single engine...at Flaps 35. Both the FOM and the regulations give you leeway to ignore them when you need to do so in an emergency situation, which a single-engine landing definately qualifies as, and using the approach lights to descend to 100' would've been a safer option than the single-engine missed approach. For what it matters, I flew a gorgeous missed approach, but it should've been unneccessary.
Most pilots will agree that the best checkrides are the ones where you walk away feeling like you learned something, and this was one of them.
Part 121.411 of the Federal Aviation Regulations requires that first officers satisfactorily complete a proficiency check every 24 months and complete either a proficiency check or other simulator training every 12 months. I've been flying for my current airline since 2004, so last year I did "other simulator training," which we call "training-in-lieu." This year I was required to do a full-blown proficiency check. These are "pass/fail" events, with continued employment based on "passing," so pro checks are stressful to many pilots.
That said, almost nobody gets fired based on a single failed pro check, and in a certain way they are much easier than training-in-lieu. TIL is done with an instructor whose goal is to teach you, not test you, and therefore you're sure to be subjected to a wide array of surprise equipment failures - often uncommon, sometimes mindbogglingly complex, usually combined with horrible weather. A pro check, however, is very predictable, as it follows a checklist laid out in Appendix F of Part 121. A first officer can expect the following:
- Normal, Instrument, and Crosswind Takeoffs
- Rejected Takeoff
- Takeoff with Engine Failure at V1
- Holding
- Normal ILS
- Single-Engine ILS, hand-flown
- Two Types of Non-Precision Approaches
- One Missed Approach
- Approaches to Stalls
- Normal Landing
- Single-Engine Landing
- Go-Around from 50'
- Normal, Abnormal, and Emergency Procedures
Then, when we were shooting the ILS, I planned on landing Flaps 35 rather than Flaps 15, which required like 50% torque on the remaining engine. That, in turn, required a lot more rudder and aileron input, which made the approach a lot less stable than I would've liked. At decision altitude I didn't have the runway in sight, but I did have the approach lights, which allows you to descend to 100' above the runway. However, at my airline, First Officers aren't allowed to use that provision unless the approach has been briefed as a "captain monitored approach." Therefore, at DA I went missed approach...on a single engine...at Flaps 35. Both the FOM and the regulations give you leeway to ignore them when you need to do so in an emergency situation, which a single-engine landing definately qualifies as, and using the approach lights to descend to 100' would've been a safer option than the single-engine missed approach. For what it matters, I flew a gorgeous missed approach, but it should've been unneccessary.
Most pilots will agree that the best checkrides are the ones where you walk away feeling like you learned something, and this was one of them.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Return to The Torture Box
I have my yearly trip to the simulator on Monday, just after I get back from a four day trip on Sunday night. Today I'm scrounging around for study materials to bring on the trip with me, because I just haven't been able to motivate myself to study so far.
And I need to study, because this year I have a full-on proficiency check. Every year we alternate between "training-in-lieu," which is more of an intense training session, and "pro check," which is a full checkride, including oral exam, that you can very much fail.
I think the problem is that I've lost my fear of checkrides. I've had quite a few of them at this point in my career, and have yet to fail one, so I'm just not that nervous about them anymore - and nervousness would be an excellent motivator to study! Of course, my procrastination thus far is giving me concern, so I think I'll be able to hit the books hard during this four day trip. I'm bringing all the manuals and all the study guides and gouges from during my initial training along, and I'm bringing a pack of 4x6 index cards to make flash cards with.
It does help that I'm fresh out of recurrent ground school. Last year, they sent me to the sim first and then to ground school. This time around the knowledge will be fairly fresh when I review it.
And I need to study, because this year I have a full-on proficiency check. Every year we alternate between "training-in-lieu," which is more of an intense training session, and "pro check," which is a full checkride, including oral exam, that you can very much fail.
I think the problem is that I've lost my fear of checkrides. I've had quite a few of them at this point in my career, and have yet to fail one, so I'm just not that nervous about them anymore - and nervousness would be an excellent motivator to study! Of course, my procrastination thus far is giving me concern, so I think I'll be able to hit the books hard during this four day trip. I'm bringing all the manuals and all the study guides and gouges from during my initial training along, and I'm bringing a pack of 4x6 index cards to make flash cards with.
It does help that I'm fresh out of recurrent ground school. Last year, they sent me to the sim first and then to ground school. This time around the knowledge will be fairly fresh when I review it.
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