Let'sgoflying!
Touchdown! Greaser!
Y'all will think I am a getting a bit manic with these posts, but everyone who know me says I am usually a mild mannered guy - except my wife who hears the keys computer tapping like crazy each night 
.
Well after yesterday's no-go fiasco, today dawned sunny and clear and we had a plan to depart at 7am for Hobby in the CJ, with me left seat and Copilot Dan in the right. It was a rough start. I didn't sleep much and dreamed of every emergency in the checklist, plus a few others when I was unconscious. The main alarm didn't go off, and I completely missed the backup but my wife caught it. Dang. 15 mins late already! I zipped to the strip and couldn't find Dan. Turns out his room clock was still on 'old' time and he was later than I was. Luxuriating in a long shower, he peeked his head out in response to my shouts and I told him we were 5 mins from wheels-up. He got that sick face we all know well, and quicklikearabbit got dressed and away we went to preflight. I had gotten the briefing and filed already; we double checked the charts and started up, planning on getting clearance airborne which works really well here in good wx. Felt a little strange, our actions somewhat mechanical, to not have the comforting presence of our beloved patriarch captain and be doing it alone for the first time. We were both nervous. What person would trust us with a 4 million dollar aerial vehicle? This is crazy!
Anyway, we followed all the checklists closely, we even did the pretakeoff briefing to the letter, and we talked a lot about who does what & when, and how we would handle different issues. I feel really comfortable with Dan because he is so willing to discuss stuff; neither of us have ego problems.
"Set throttles, Airspeed alive" "Throttles set, alive on the right"
"80kts, cross check" "80 on the right" We thundered down the runway at breakneck speed in the early dawn. "V1, rotate" "Pos rate, Gear Up!"
"After Takeoff checklist" etc etc, all this great fun that we in no way deserve! On we went, eastbound into the rising sun, cleared to FL350 checking the climb power settings against the RAT (ram air temp) and altitude.
As we approached central Texas we could see the remnants of yesterday's storms, huge areas of now-subdued clouds from N to S as far as the eye could see. ABQ center to HOU center to another HOU center we approached
the cities of Austin, San Antonio. Into cloud "Eng AntiIce On", and out of cloud "Eng AntiIce Off" we monitored our progress on the charts, the moving maps, watching occasional targets on the TCAS drift past and sometimes actually seeing them go by. We did a lot of talking enroute about a smooth STAR, we walked through the approach out loud so there would be fewer questions in the terminal area. The biggest difficulty in flying this airplane is programming the FMS; training on it is minimal. Almost over SAT we were issued the LISSE arrival which *starts* at SAT. Thanks for the 30 second warning! A few moments of semi-frantic button pushing FLTPLN>ARRIVAL>TRANSIT?>SAT>ARRIVAL?>LISSE6> SELECT>ENTER, then you have to go to "D->" and select the next waypoint. What a great feeling to see all those waypoints pop up on the moving map! I think the programmer sets them to have a 6 second delay just to get us all to hold our breath. Then we got a few step downs and did the Descent Checklist. Cabin Pressure Diff Zero, Windshield Bleed Air On, Defog Fan on, blah blah.
Soon after that, we get "cross lisse at maintain one zero thousand" dial in 10000 on the altitude window, roll the pitch trim forward and I like to hit VS and then do the math to meet the Xing restriction. "Lesse, Lisse at 10, we're at 23, 10 minutes to go, roll the pitch wheel to get 1500fpm" sort of thing. Surprise! we are catching someone and get a vector OFF the arrival for spacing...going fast like they usually want did not pay off today. So I slow us a bit and turn, and they give us 'direct LISSE, rejoin the arrival', and we are ahead of the game this time, ha-ha, and have the waypoints of the star all visible on the FMS, and the next one highlighted - all I have to do is hit enter and change from Hdg mode to Nav, the airplane turns itself back onto the tidy row of waypoints and we grin at each other! This vectoring and reprogramming happened twice which is unusual, we are often the slowest guy in the line.
By now we have the atis and I like to sneak a listen on apprch to see what really is happening, so we have the IAP briefed, navaids tuned & identified (this *is* Hobby; lets learn something from the Gulfstream crash) and are relaxed and ready, watching Houston Texas approach in the windshield. Step downs to 2000', expect the visual but I am backing up with the localizer, have the nav display on the EHSI now, and last vector with "Cleared for the Visual" I hit approach and watch the airplane capture the loc and then start down the gs ("make the electronics work for you Dave, they will always be smoother and more accurate") as we complete landing checklists. We land on the TDZ markers pretty close to the centerline without popping any vertebrae and get backtaxi instructions. I don't hear anything for a while so I call as we approach a Xing runway to make sure he knows we are crossing and see if he remembers us, a short taxi to MillionAir and 200 gals JetA with prist later we are ready to go again! Return flight, we followed the same recipe in reversed roles and it too was very smooth and uneventful. What a fantastic day, feels kind of like my first solo again. Hope someone will enjoy the story.
.Well after yesterday's no-go fiasco, today dawned sunny and clear and we had a plan to depart at 7am for Hobby in the CJ, with me left seat and Copilot Dan in the right. It was a rough start. I didn't sleep much and dreamed of every emergency in the checklist, plus a few others when I was unconscious. The main alarm didn't go off, and I completely missed the backup but my wife caught it. Dang. 15 mins late already! I zipped to the strip and couldn't find Dan. Turns out his room clock was still on 'old' time and he was later than I was. Luxuriating in a long shower, he peeked his head out in response to my shouts and I told him we were 5 mins from wheels-up. He got that sick face we all know well, and quicklikearabbit got dressed and away we went to preflight. I had gotten the briefing and filed already; we double checked the charts and started up, planning on getting clearance airborne which works really well here in good wx. Felt a little strange, our actions somewhat mechanical, to not have the comforting presence of our beloved patriarch captain and be doing it alone for the first time. We were both nervous. What person would trust us with a 4 million dollar aerial vehicle? This is crazy!
Anyway, we followed all the checklists closely, we even did the pretakeoff briefing to the letter, and we talked a lot about who does what & when, and how we would handle different issues. I feel really comfortable with Dan because he is so willing to discuss stuff; neither of us have ego problems.
"Set throttles, Airspeed alive" "Throttles set, alive on the right"
"80kts, cross check" "80 on the right" We thundered down the runway at breakneck speed in the early dawn. "V1, rotate" "Pos rate, Gear Up!"
"After Takeoff checklist" etc etc, all this great fun that we in no way deserve! On we went, eastbound into the rising sun, cleared to FL350 checking the climb power settings against the RAT (ram air temp) and altitude.
As we approached central Texas we could see the remnants of yesterday's storms, huge areas of now-subdued clouds from N to S as far as the eye could see. ABQ center to HOU center to another HOU center we approached
the cities of Austin, San Antonio. Into cloud "Eng AntiIce On", and out of cloud "Eng AntiIce Off" we monitored our progress on the charts, the moving maps, watching occasional targets on the TCAS drift past and sometimes actually seeing them go by. We did a lot of talking enroute about a smooth STAR, we walked through the approach out loud so there would be fewer questions in the terminal area. The biggest difficulty in flying this airplane is programming the FMS; training on it is minimal. Almost over SAT we were issued the LISSE arrival which *starts* at SAT. Thanks for the 30 second warning! A few moments of semi-frantic button pushing FLTPLN>ARRIVAL>TRANSIT?>SAT>ARRIVAL?>LISSE6> SELECT>ENTER, then you have to go to "D->" and select the next waypoint. What a great feeling to see all those waypoints pop up on the moving map! I think the programmer sets them to have a 6 second delay just to get us all to hold our breath. Then we got a few step downs and did the Descent Checklist. Cabin Pressure Diff Zero, Windshield Bleed Air On, Defog Fan on, blah blah.
Soon after that, we get "cross lisse at maintain one zero thousand" dial in 10000 on the altitude window, roll the pitch trim forward and I like to hit VS and then do the math to meet the Xing restriction. "Lesse, Lisse at 10, we're at 23, 10 minutes to go, roll the pitch wheel to get 1500fpm" sort of thing. Surprise! we are catching someone and get a vector OFF the arrival for spacing...going fast like they usually want did not pay off today. So I slow us a bit and turn, and they give us 'direct LISSE, rejoin the arrival', and we are ahead of the game this time, ha-ha, and have the waypoints of the star all visible on the FMS, and the next one highlighted - all I have to do is hit enter and change from Hdg mode to Nav, the airplane turns itself back onto the tidy row of waypoints and we grin at each other! This vectoring and reprogramming happened twice which is unusual, we are often the slowest guy in the line.
By now we have the atis and I like to sneak a listen on apprch to see what really is happening, so we have the IAP briefed, navaids tuned & identified (this *is* Hobby; lets learn something from the Gulfstream crash) and are relaxed and ready, watching Houston Texas approach in the windshield. Step downs to 2000', expect the visual but I am backing up with the localizer, have the nav display on the EHSI now, and last vector with "Cleared for the Visual" I hit approach and watch the airplane capture the loc and then start down the gs ("make the electronics work for you Dave, they will always be smoother and more accurate") as we complete landing checklists. We land on the TDZ markers pretty close to the centerline without popping any vertebrae and get backtaxi instructions. I don't hear anything for a while so I call as we approach a Xing runway to make sure he knows we are crossing and see if he remembers us, a short taxi to MillionAir and 200 gals JetA with prist later we are ready to go again! Return flight, we followed the same recipe in reversed roles and it too was very smooth and uneventful. What a fantastic day, feels kind of like my first solo again. Hope someone will enjoy the story.
