AirSpaceMag.com

I’m just back from recurrent training — two days of fun and games in the simulator. It’s kind of like a trip to the dentist: not something you look forward to, but it feels pretty good when it’s over. And it’s definitely worthwhile.

Boeing 767-300ER Simulator

Each day we showed up at 5 a.m. for the briefing, then went into the “box of pain” at 6:30 for a four-hour session. The first day covers a number of real-life scenarios with some approaches and situations we rarely encounter in day-to-day flying. They don’t just throw random emergencies at us; it’s all pretty tightly scripted to get the most out of the very expensive time in the simulator. The two pilots alternate between flying duties and non-flying duties. Good crew coordination is a big part of the training.

We flew some approaches we don’t often see in the real world, including a localizer only approach (an ILS without a glideslope), an RNAV/RNP approach (a GPS-based approach with several special requirements that the crew must consider), and CAT III and CAT II ILS (very low visibility landings using the plane’s auto-land capability).

Lined up for takeoff at Orlando

We had an engine failure on takeoff from Orlando on a hot day with a heavy airplane, which is a worst-case scenario for an engine failure (the four H’s that will decrease aircraft performance are High, Hot, Heavy and Humid). We had another engine failure flying out of Costa Rica later in the session. Both of these scenarios ended with single-engine approaches in low visibilty.

We also had two situations testing our use of proper procedures when flying the trans-oceanic track system. One was a divert from our track due to weather avoidance, and the other was an engine failure while over the ocean, requiring us to initiate a diversion.

The last scenario I recall was a pressurization failure while over critically high terrain. This presents some unique problems, because we can’t just zoom down like we would if terrain weren’t an issue. Again, we have special procedures that we have to execute.

A simulated Terminal 3 at JFK Airport, New York

On the second day we do more of the same, plus we have a Line Oriented Evaluation (LOE), which is a complete flight during which some abnormal situation will arise. Because it’s done in real time, they always pick a short flight. In our case, New York to Philadelphia.

The LOE incorporates all the things we would do for a normal flight, including pre-flight preparation, reviewing the flight plan, pushing back from the gate, starting engines, etc. This exercise checks the crew’s ability to work as a team, using available resources to manage the flight. You never know what kind of problem might crop up.

On this particular LOE we had an engine that began to surge erratically halfway to Philadelphia. We ran all the appropriate checklists and made an uneventful landing with the bad engine back at idle power and using only partial flaps, as dictated by the emergency procedures. There was nothing dramatic, and the instructor had very few items to discuss during the debrief, which is always a sign that things went well.

After the LOE we still had some time available in the sim. I was given an overweight landing in Jacksonville, Florida. [The maximum takeoff weight in the 767-300ER can be as high as 412,000 pounds, but the maximum landing weight is 320,000. In an emergency requiring a landing soon after takeoff, we will exceed that limitation.] The considerations for this landing are to  minimize the descent rate (impact) at touchdown and then to spread out the deceleration over the entire length of the runway to try to avoid overheating the brakes. After any overweight landing, a logbook entry is required and a thorough inspection of the airframe must be done before the next flight.

A 747 passing uncomfortably close

As we rolled out, I looked up to see a 747 on short final coming right at us! I quickly considered my options. Keying the mike and broadcasting on the Tower frequency probably wouldn’t have been a bad idea, something like “Aircraft on short final to Runway Seven, go around! There’s an aircraft on the runway!” The only other thing we could do would be to get off the runway. As I started to push the throttles forward to make a dash for the taxiway, the instructor piped up and said, “Disregard that plane. I hit a wrong button back here.” So we just watched as the 747 passed close overhead. At least if it hit us, the impact would be painless.

Before we left the sim, I asked our instructor to recreate this situation so I could get a picture, but this is the best I could do.

So now, with my “just flossed” feeling, I’m ready to head back to normal, uneventful flying in the real world. Next stop: Madrid.

I should be in Stockholm right now, but instead I’m sitting at home typing this. We had several delays last night and ultimately timed out —i.e., we couldn’t make the flight to Stockholm because we would have been on duty more than 16 hours by the time we landed, which is against the rules.

The first big delay was due to the howling winds at Kennedy Airport in New York, gusting up to 51 knots out of the northwest according to the ATIS (Automatic Terminal Information Service, the airport’s recorded weather). This limited the usable runways to just 31L and 31R, and that meant delays getting airborne. Kennedy has two other runways, but the gusty winds would have created a direct crosswind.

The ground congestion made it tough for the ramp controllers to get planes in and out of the ramp area, and we waited close to an hour for clearance to push off the gate. After starting an engine, we shut down the APU as usual. [The Auxiliary Power Unit is a small turbine engine that provides air and electrical power when the engines aren't running, and supplies the pressurized air necessary to start an engine.] As we taxied out, an alert message popped up on our EICAS screen: APU FUEL VAL. Consulting our reference handbook, I found that this message meant that the APU fuel valve wasn’t positioned correctly. Checking another onboard manual told me that it wasn’t something the crew can deal with on their own. This one would require a trip back to the gate.

Back at the gate, maintenance decided that the APU couldn’t be fixed right away, and would have to be “deferred.” So we had to use alternative means of starting that first engine (i.e. an external air cart).

A deferred APU is more of a nuisance than anything else, but for trans-oceanic flights it also becomes a safety consideration. We fly under the ETOPS program, which allows a twin-engine plane to be more than 60 minutes of flying time from a diversionary airport. One of the requirements of ETOPS is to have a working APU as a backup power source in case of an engine failure.

Because of this, the folks in operations decided to use our plane for a flight to LAX and swap us to a plane with a working APU. The plane they had in mind was due to land in about a half hour. As you can imagine, it takes time to clean and cater an arriving plane and then move all the baggage from one plane to another, not to mention the people. Our posted departure time of 11:30 pm left us with only 45 minutes of buffer to be off the gate within our duty day.

The whole process took longer than planned, and we didn’t make it. When we hit the time limit, we had been on duty for almost seven hours. Add to that the nine-plus hours of duty that lay ahead for the flight and we would exceed 16 hours.

As a footnote to this, you may find it interesting that the 16-hour limit is a Federal regulation for domestic flights, but not for international flights. In other words, we could have volunteered to exceed that limit for our flight to Stockholm, whereas if we knowingly exceeded it for a flight within the U.S. we’d be subject to action by the FAA.

That’s the part that has me feeling bad today. We elected not to exceed the limit, and because of this the flight was canceled. Our decision was based on the fact that if something, anything, were to go wrong on that flight, one of the first things we would be asked in an investigation is “Why did you elect to go beyond a 16-hour duty day?” Fatigue has played a role in many accidents, and although we felt okay at 12:25 am (when the flight was canceled), what kind of shape would we be in nine hours later when we had to make the landing in Stockholm?

When I first started flying, I bought half interest in a Cherokee 180, N7728N. My partner was a veterinarian who had owned his half for several years already. He only flew on Thursdays, and then only if the weather was beautiful. What a great deal for me — I had the plane available to me six days a week, and we split all the fixed costs (e.g. tie-down fee, insurance, routine maintenance and annual inspection). I put a few hundred hours on that plane in the two years I owned it. Doc flew it less than twenty hours during that time.

When you own a plane or a boat, you feel kind of obligated to use it when you have free time, otherwise you’re just paying for it to sit. I was up in that plane almost every weekend, often just making the hop to the little airport in Front Royal, Virginia, where Jim Coiner, the local mechanic, let me use his washstand to keep my plane shiny.

The Virginia Aviation Museum

One of my favorite local airports in those days was Shannon Airport in Fredericksburg, Virginia, named for Sidney Shannon, who was one of the original financial investors in Eastern Airlines. The reason I loved flying into this airport was that it had a great museum. Now I’m going from memory here, but I recall they had about 27 vintage aircraft, going as far back as World War I. What was really remarkable was that all but one of them were actually taken out of the museum and flown from time to time, and it was great to see. Since the days I used to visit the museum, the entire collection has moved and they’ve added an A-7 Corsair and an SR-71. (Check out their web site.)

Dick Merrill in the early days, flying the mail

The planes at Shannon were great, but the best thing about this museum was the curator, Dick Merrill. He flew the mail in the 1920s in open cockpit Pitcairn Mailwings, and was the #2 pilot with Eastern Airlines until his retirement in 1961.

I got a personal tour of the museum with him one day, and I had no idea at the time that I was in the presence of an aviation pioneer. He showed me through the displays of memorabilia in the museum, much of it from his personal exploits. He told me the story of flying a Vultee V1A across the Atlantic in 1936. The plane had the empty spaces in the fuselage and wings filled with over 40,000 ping pong balls to serve as buoyancy aids in case of a water landing.

Vultee V1A

It was like being in the presence of Lindbergh, and I wish I could go back and tell the 22-year-old me to make the most of this one-on-one time with a living legend. That same day, I also met Jack King, an author who was in the process of writing a biography of Merrill. As Mr. Merrill told me that day, “We need to get this book written. I see the end of the runway coming up.” He passed away a few years later, in 1982. The book, “The Wings of Man: The Legend of Dick Merrill,” came out in 1981, and sits on my bookshelf today. Come to think of it, it’s about time I give it another read.

[Update on 01/24/2011: A sharp reader pointed out to me that the museum in my picture above is located at Richmond International Airport, not Shannon Airport in Fredericksburg (as my original caption indicated). I missed that little fact somehow. Apparently the entire collection was transferred at some point after the death of Sidney Shannon in 1981.]

I had a nice trip over Christmas, which ended with the red-eye flight back from Las Vegas on Christmas night. We arrived in New York where the forecast was for blizzard conditions later in the day. I was happy to see that not one flake had yet fallen when we landed early on the morning of the 26th.

My plans for a quick commute home were dashed when I found that all of my company’s flights from New York to D.C. had already been canceled in anticipation of the snow. USAirways had one flight scheduled to go at 10:30, so I set out for La Guardia. I was there by 7 a.m. and kept an eye on the weather, as well as checking reports for D.C.

The flight was booked full, but I listed for the jumpseat and was starting to get optimistic about getting home when a USAirways pilot showed up and bumped me. It was disappointing, but that’s the life of a commuter and I certainly don’t begrudge the USAirways pilot the jumpseat. Of course he should get priority on his own airline. Being able to jumpseat on other carriers is a professional courtesy we extend to each other, and the priority thing works both ways.

My ride home. Thank you Amtrak!

How to get home? I’ve heard of commuters renting a car together and getting home that way, but I didn’t see any other commuters and I didn’t really like the idea of driving 300 miles with a blizzard in the forecast.

Then I had a wild thought. How about the train? I pulled out my iPhone and typed “AMTRAK” into my web browser. I found their website and found that the first available ticket to D.C. was on the 1:05 train. I booked it for $147, then took the bus and subway to Penn station. I felt like the guy in the Apple ad who books his train ticket to join some girl he just saw getting on. The difference is it took me about ten minutes to navigate the web sites vs. the 15 seconds it takes the guy in the ad.

So this is what the inside of a train station looks like.

The train station was mobbed, but I simply walked up to a ticket kiosk and put in the confirmation number that had been emailed to me. The train was a little late, but it was a very pleasant way to travel and I arrived at Union Station in D.C. around 5:30 pm to find that no snow had fallen there. What a relief! I had visions of digging out my car at the airport.

A quick cab to National airport to get my car, and I was on my way home. Planes, trains and automobiles. What a day.

I was in Stockholm for New Year’s Day and I had never been in Sweden before. It’s still kind of cool to visit a new place, and I think Stockholm is a city I’d like to see a lot more of.

Snow covered ramp in Stockholm

Knowing that it’s located far to the north, I checked the times for local sunrise and sunset before leaving on my trip. We were only going to have about six hours of daylight, with sunset before 3 p.m. Also, the high temperature was forecast to be 25°F.

As you might expect, we found a snow-blanketed countryside when we arrived. The runway was clear, but there was snow and ice on the taxiways and ramp areas. It was just a little slower taxi to the gate, but no problem. We were all surprised to find lots of snow on the roads during our ride to the hotel. These road conditions would bring Washington D.C. to a standstill, but it didn’t seem to affect traffic flow in Sweden.

A little too cold for a long walking tour

I was told that the Vasa Museum would be an interesting place to visit, but it’s closed on New Year’s Day, so it’ll have to wait until next time. This trip I settled for a short walking tour of the immediate area, limited by how long I could stand the cold. Unfortunately it’s hard to pack heavy winter clothing, and a sweatshirt just isn’t up to the Nordic cold.

Footnote to the trip: I nearly missed our pickup time because my iPhone’s alarm didn’t go off. I’ve been using this as my sole alarm for over a year now, and I couldn’t figure out what went wrong. On the ride to the airport, I tried the alarm over and over again. It felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. It wasn’t until the day after I got back that I found that Apple had some kind of weird New Year’s Day bug that caused the problem. I guess it’s back to setting multiple alarms from now on.

Some pilots hate flying the red-eye flights, but I kind of like them. There aren’t as many planes in the air in the wee hours, and the controllers are quick to give us direct routing. Out of Las Vegas, we’re often cleared direct to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, before we’ve even gotten to Bryce Canyon, Utah. You’ll never get a clearance like that during the daytime.

The band (and me) in the cockpit. Just what they wanted to do after flying the red-eye home.

Monday night’s flight had a couple of things going for it. The first is that we had the band Atomic Tom on board. I admit to having never heard of them before this flight, but it turns out the Captain is a huge fan. He was trying hard to figure out a way to get to meet them, but they had already boarded and he didn’t want to “out” them in front of the other passengers. I had the flight attendants pass a note to them, and they joined us after landing for pictures.

The other big deal is that there was a lunar eclipse that night, and we got a pretty good look at it while cruising at 39,000 feet. There was no point in telling the passengers, who were probably sleeping anyway, because the moon was almost directly overhead and was only viewable from the cockpit. We can look almost straight up because the side windows in the 767 cockpit curve inward a little bit.

Our last view of the eclipse before it slipped behind us as we headed east

With the airplane humming along on autopilot, I couldn’t resist pulling out my camera and getting a shot. It’s really not worthy of publication — hard to get good focus while contorting to shoot straight up — but I submit it for your enjoyment. We were just west of Denver when I snapped this.

It was a quick flight back. With a 150-knot wind out of the west, we were doing close to 575 knots ground speed (about 660 mph). Facing a similar wind going out the day before, it took us five hours and fifteen minutes from New York to Las Vegas. Monday night’s flight was only three hours and fifty minutes. We were at the gate in New York by 5 a.m. The sun wasn’t even up and I was done for the day.

There was some pretty good winter weather this past weekend, and it caused a lot of cancellations and delays. I arrived in Detroit Saturday night, flying in from São Paulo, Brazil and I was scheduled to fly right back to São Paulo at 7:30 on Sunday evening.

The forecast in Detroit was for three to six inches of snow, and we watched the light snow all day on Sunday before leaving for the airport at 5:30 pm. The roads weren’t too bad, but a few times the driver skidded and then regained control.

With the snow still coming down as we arrived at the plane, we knew would have to de-ice before departure. The airport was reporting winds gusting to 35 knots and visibility of a mile and a quarter in light snow and blowing snow. We had three pilots for this long flight, and it was my turn to fly.

As if the weather weren’t enough for us to deal with, we were told by mechanics when we arrived that the airplane’s APU (Auxiliary Power Unit, used to provide power and conditioned air while we’re at the gate and also used to start the engines) had just started acting up, and they couldn’t get it started. They spent some time trying to fix it, but eventually had to just defer it. This meant we would fly with it as is, with the repair was deferred to a later time. This is allowed for certain items on the plane, as long as there are backup procedures or systems for anything critical.

In this case, we couldn’t heat the cold plane for the passengers until we had an engine running, and we would need an external huffer cart to provide high pressure air for starting the engine. Normally this would just be a minor nuisance, but tonight’s weather made it more of an issue.

We had to start an engine at the gate, then get pushed back. On the icy ramp, however, the tug driver wasn’t able to push us back with the engine running. They had to come de-ice the ramp so he had more traction, and eventually we got going.

Next we headed out to a remote area for de-icing, which took some time but was mostly uneventful. We finally took off for São Paulo a little over three hours after the scheduled departure time. A short ten hours and four minutes later, we landed in beautiful summer weather with temperatures around 90 degrees.

Eight hours after leaving the snow in Detroit, we're over Manaus, Brazil, looking at the Amazon River

On a recent flight I was looking at my TCAS display and wondering how we ever did without this wonderful bit of equipment. TCAS stands for Traffic Collision Avoidance System, and I saw my first one in the early 90s. Prior to TCAS we had a three-prong approach to traffic avoidance: Air Traffic Control, “see and avoid,” and the Big Sky theory.

“See and Avoid” has always been the time-honored technique when flying under visual conditions. “Keep your head on a swivel” is the phrase I used to hear from my primary flight instructor. “It’s the one you don’t see that’ll kill you.” In the airline world we don’t worry too much about see and avoid when we’re cruising, because we’re in Positive Control Airspace and everyone up there (above 18,000 feet in the U.S.) is on an IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) flight plan and has an altitude reporting transponder. But when we’re down low in the approach and landing phase of the flight, we’re keeping a sharp lookout.

The last line of defense against mid-airs has always been the Big Sky theory. With so much airspace and so few planes, the chances of two of them colliding is a statistical improbability. But it happened in 1956, when a United flight and a TWA flight collided over the Grand Canyon and, of course, we’ve got a lot more planes in the skies these days.

It’s hard to believe, but when TCAS was first introduced there was resistance among pilots. I think they saw it as a first step to having control taken from the cockpit. But that’s the not the case at all. It’s like having someone with eagle eyes in the cockpit keeping a constant lookout…and it works even in the clouds! Pilots quickly got so used to having TCAS, and so appreciated what it does for safety, that they became reluctant to fly if the TCAS unit wasn’t working.

There are several different kinds of TCAS displays. They all show traffic within 40 miles of our plane and within 2,700 feet of our altitude (those limits can be increased to 8,700 feet if we want).

Here’s a picture from a recent flight, showing two planes. The nearer one is 1,500 feet above us and climbing (indicated by the up arrow) and the farther one (almost off the display, which is set at 20 miles for this shot) is 1,600 feet below us.

Two TCAS targets displayed at 20 nautical miles scale.

The same two planes are visible in a view from the cockpit in the next picture only because they have contrails. (A third contrail can be seen, but that plane is not shown on the screen, either because it’s more than 20 miles away or more than 2,700 feet below us.) Neither of these planes represents a threat at this point, but it’s nice to know that TCAS keeps us aware of nearby traffic.

Same two planes as seen from the cockpit.

It would be hard to think of any other single bit of aviation technology that has increased safety so dramatically.

When I’m taxiing around airports worldwide, I’m always amused to see that they still have windsocks. It’s maybe the only thing from the first days of aviation that you’ll still find at modern airports. It’s low tech, but it gives a clear indication of wind strength and direction…at least to anyone who’s looking. Many pilots probably don’t even notice the windsocks at major airports. After all, you don’t really need them. Most large airports continuously broadcast the local weather, including winds, and the tower will normally state the winds when clearing a plane for takeoff or landing.

So why are they there? Maybe they’ve survived because they’re virtually maintenance-free and provide a simple backup in case the ATIS (Automatic Terminal Information Service) fails. I like to think of them as a link to the early days, giving us a connection to Wilbur and Orville. The windsock is familiar to every pilot who has ever flown, all the way back to 1903. It’s hard to think of anything more universal in aviation.

Another item that’s been around a long time is the checklist. I don’t think the Wrights had one, but it wouldn’t surprise me. With very simple planes, a pilot might be able to get away with just depending on memory to cover all the items “necessary to live,” but in the airline world everything is backed up by checklists. The organization and content of the checklists will vary from airline to airline, but the underlying concept is the same: Humans make mistakes, and we need to check that we’re doing it right.

I was a new First Officer at a regional airline in the early 90s, and we were departing Pittsburgh, heading back to Dulles airport in Washington D.C. I had been on the job long enough to be very comfortable with the pace of getting engines started, running checklists and configuring the plane for takeoff.

On this day, we had a very short taxi to the active runway. I had just started the second engine and completed the After Start checklist when the tower cleared us for takeoff. The Captain keyed his mike and acknowledged the takeoff clearance, and started taxiing onto the runway. I realized we hadn’t done the Taxi checklist or the Before Takeoff checklist, and I began reciting both lists as fast as I could get the words out. It was a race to see if I could finish before the plane became airborne…and it was close. There were some serious items on those checklists that affect safety of flight, including takeoff flap setting. My memory is a little fuzzy now, but I’m pretty sure I was selecting takeoff flaps as we accelerated down the runway.

I remember feeling angry about being put in this situation. Then I got mad at myself. I could have (and should have) put a stop to it just by speaking up and telling the Captain we weren’t ready to go. I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t fall into this trap ever again.

The root of the problem was being rushed. It’s when we get taken out of our normal pace of doing things that we tend to miss items or make mistakes. Checklists are only good if we take the time to use them. And that’s why our training hammers home the point: Do it methodically, and take your time. One of my early simulator instructors, a retired Air Force C-5 pilot, had a great piece of advice for how to handle emergency situations: “If you’re going to do something stupid, do it slowly.” I’ve heard some old-timers say the first thing to do in any emergency is to wind the clock. The point is that you don’t just rush to react — you take a breath and handle it in a measured pace.

I live in a suburb of Washington, D.C., and heavy rush hour traffic is a common source of complaint around here. Downtown office workers often have drives that are routinely in excess of an hour and sometimes far longer.

A long commute is a fact of life for a large percentage of airline pilots and flight attendants. I used to have a seven-mile drive to the airport, and I didn’t know how good I had it. It was a mere 30 minutes from walking out my front door to signing in on the crew room computer. I flew with guys who commuted in from Chicago or Miami or the west coast (one guy lived in Peru!) and I always felt bad for them when we ended a trip. Chances are I’d be back home before they even boarded their flight home. Living at my domicile easily saved me half a day of travel on either end of a trip.

That’s all changed for me now. I currently fly out of New York, but I still live in northern Virginia. My commute to work isn’t bad as airline commutes go, but it still adds a minimum of three hours on both sides of a trip (and that’s if I cut it close at the beginning or just get lucky with schedules at the end). I don’t usually cut it that close when going to work — being late is really frowned upon in this profession.

On one occasion I took a 6:30 a.m. flight even though I didn’t have to be in New York until 5 p.m. That’s because every flight that day was overbooked except that first early morning flight, and I couldn’t take a chance. Another time there was a winter storm warning for the day of my trip, so I went to work a day early and got a hotel room (at my expense).

Just yesterday I felt like I struck gold. The last flight of my trip was scheduled to get in at 2:50 p.m. and I planned to commute on the next flight home, which was at 6:30. But we arrived twenty minutes early, which made it possible for me to just barely catch the 2:50 flight home, saving me three hours and forty minutes. So sweet!

You may wonder why anyone would put himself in this situation. Why not just move to the city you fly out of? It’s certainly something to consider, and many pilots do just that. For me it’s just a personal preference. I grew up in the D.C. area and I have family here (three brothers, parents) and many friends. I like it here.

At my previous airline we had pilots based in Boston, and that base was closing. The pilots were moved to New York, Cincinnati or Washington, and the junior guys did not get their choice of base. Not long after, the New York base closed and now those pilots were forced to go to Cincinnati or Washington. Within a year, the Cincinnati base closed too, and everyone had to come back to Washington.

How practical would it have been to actually move your residence each time one of these bases closed? (Answer: not at all) Although this example is extreme, many pilots get “involuntarily displaced” at some point in their flying career.

The one thing we’ve got going for us is that we don’t make this commute five days a week. It’s probably more like five times a month, and that makes it a little easier to take. If I had to do it daily, I’d move for sure.