jordane93
Touchdown! Greaser!
Sounds complicated.
When dreams come true... (long)
- Thread starter LDJones
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What airlines are you guys flying again? In the hundreds of CRJs I've flown over the past 15 years, it seems to me that the only requirement for an FA was that she be short enough to stand up in the RJ without hitting the ceiling. Hips hitting seats B and C at the same time? No problem.
Hey, I'm 5'10" and can stand up just fine in the CRJ! I haven't had any plus-sized FAs yet. Unlike some of the mainline flights I e been on!
I fly for SkyWest.
I had an issue last week where I had tied the end of the flight plan to the first fix of the approach and planned to stay in white needles until the turn inbound. For some reason that neither the captain or I could figure out it never sequenced for the turn inbound. I was IMC and had to kick the autopilot off and turn back to reintercept the final approach course. In retrospect, I think I would have been smoother had I just flipped to heading mode and and slewed the heading bug for a reintercept, although I probably got there a bit quicker.
Over the last two days we've shot three PRM approaches into Atlanta in 3-400' OVC conditions. On those flying the white needle worked perfectly, with switching to green once established inbound.
That first low approach, at night, was breathtaking when ATL 9R emerged from the fog lit up like a freakin' Christmas tree! I wish there was a way to capture the magic of that view photographically...without triggering the wrath of the FAA!
fiveoboy01
Pattern Altitude
Are you prohibited from using any kind of video or still camera in the cockpit?
I assume if anything, they're prohibited during critical phases of flight...
I assume if anything, they're prohibited during critical phases of flight...
The catchall is "Personal Electronic Devices" which are prohibited. I'm guessing a GoPro would fall under that category. That said, no one seems to worry about snapping a camera phone picture during cruise. I'd love to capture a flight with the GoPro but wouldn't dare at this point.
I just finished a two-day trip that was both challenging and confidence-building.
Yesterday we did MSP DLH MSP RHI MSP YWG, all under clear skies and gusty crosswinds (30-60 degree crosswinds at 20G30 at times.) The day ended with a beautiful night arrival into Winnipeg, Manitoba.
This morning the winds had died down but the gorgeous high pressure system remained with clear blue skies and great visibility. We did YWG MSP HIB MSP GFK MSP to wrap up the trip with a couple of hour-plus layovers allowing a chance to catch some food and relax.
The crosswinds were confidence-building, but more importantly the arrival procedures are becoming very routine, to the point of not having to think a whole lot about them. I just dial in my step down altitudes and then tweak the power and descent rate to nail the needed speed and the CRJ just does it. It's so much more relaxing than just a short four months ago.
It's also interesting to see the little nuances each captain brings to the table. The guy I was flying with was big on backing up the ACARS manifest calculation (our W&B ) with the FMS computation. I hadn't seen anyone use that to date, so it was interesting to learn his process and will probably incorporate that into my routine in the future.
I learn something new every single trip. I suspect that won't change anytime soon.
Yesterday we did MSP DLH MSP RHI MSP YWG, all under clear skies and gusty crosswinds (30-60 degree crosswinds at 20G30 at times.) The day ended with a beautiful night arrival into Winnipeg, Manitoba.
This morning the winds had died down but the gorgeous high pressure system remained with clear blue skies and great visibility. We did YWG MSP HIB MSP GFK MSP to wrap up the trip with a couple of hour-plus layovers allowing a chance to catch some food and relax.
The crosswinds were confidence-building, but more importantly the arrival procedures are becoming very routine, to the point of not having to think a whole lot about them. I just dial in my step down altitudes and then tweak the power and descent rate to nail the needed speed and the CRJ just does it. It's so much more relaxing than just a short four months ago.
It's also interesting to see the little nuances each captain brings to the table. The guy I was flying with was big on backing up the ACARS manifest calculation (our W&B ) with the FMS computation. I hadn't seen anyone use that to date, so it was interesting to learn his process and will probably incorporate that into my routine in the future.
I learn something new every single trip. I suspect that won't change anytime soon.
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stratobee
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stratobee
Good stories Loren, but why do regional airlines that don't fly internationally spend money on custom things like this? Why don't they just use Foreflight, Jepp or Garmin? Why reinvent the wheel?
fiveoboy01
Pattern Altitude
I'd guess FAA regs have a lot to do with that. JUST a guess though..
KSCessnaDriver
Pattern Altitude
Foreflight and Garmin aren't 121 approved. Jeppesen has an application that does work. The cost is one of the bigger obstacles, then getting people to run the program is another. Oh, Apple just went from iOs 9.0.1 to 9.0.2, guess what, you've got to test all your approved applications and have your OpSpec re-written to allow it to be used.
olasek
Pattern Altitude
Great story, congratulations.
We fly internationally, serving multiple cities in Canada and Mexico.
But beyond that, Jepp provides a lot of airline-specific supplemental data like airport ops frequencies and procedures for all the airports we serve. We also get customized charting for special departure procedures at airports that require them (typically mountainous areas.)
So there's a lot of value-added charting that we buy from Jepp that NOAA doesn't do.
Kritchlow
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We are a 121 operator, and Foreflight is approved for us.
KSCessnaDriver
Pattern Altitude
No kidding? I wasn't aware anyone had gone through the hassle for that program. Seems like Jepp is a better product. Regardless of the program, 121 doesn't allow ownship position to be used.
Kritchlow
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I'm not really aware of the details. I just know in our initial ground school we were issued a version of Foreflight and said it could be used instead of Jepp.
That's one of the limitations that I think really stinks. At least allow ownship for the taxi diagram. That would be very valuable at some of the more complex airports.
Speaking of EFBs, I got to use mine on my last two day trip. With five legs each day it was a good workout for it. While we can't make use of it during critical phases of flight, I used it regularly getting the key info ahead of time. Despite the heavy use I ended the days with 64-71% battery remaining, which I view as a good sign. Not sure what happens when they activate LTE and we start processing a lot of other data. Should be interesting.
Kritchlow
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We have AC outlets in the airplane, but also are required to carry a backup battery/charging unit.
Were prohibited from using the aircraft AC power for EFB charging due to the flakiness of it. I think that might be a bit over cautious.
I do carry a backup battery.
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KSCessnaDriver
Pattern Altitude
That must be a particular issue with your company OpSpec. Our company had it set up to allow for position of the aircraft on a taxi diagram, the only time it could be used.
Oh well, I'm back into the paper world of 121 regional flying. What a joy...
I'm hoping the ownship issues gets resolved for at least taxi purposes.
I feel your pain on the paper. Do you have to schlep and update your own charts or do you use Airside?
KSCessnaDriver
Pattern Altitude
We do our own charts (I've yet to see them), but my understanding is each pilot gets their own set (3 binders worth), plus there is the extra stuff that is contained within the airplane.
When I see guys dragging those 40 lb. bags through the airport my heart goes out to them. Good luck!
olasek
Pattern Altitude
By the way, do you think you will still practice law, even part time? I imagine flying in the right seat of a regional will be less profitable than your lawyer's income.
Yes, I'm still doing some mediation and a little estate planning, although the 121 flying has been pretty consuming. I also have half a dozen flight students I'm training.
Long day: Flew to SLC yesterday afternoon. Studied til 9:30 p.m. Got up at 2:30 a.m. for more review before my 3:15 a.m. wake up call. Arrived at Flight Safety at 3:50 for my 4 a.m. training slot. Two hour briefing and safety update, then four hours in the sim with a 15 min break. It was a brutal workout. Stuff was failing EVERYWHERE! Controllers tried to vector us into a mountain. Single engine Cat 2 with an airplane on the runway. It was exhausting.
A quick debrief (I passed!) and headed to the airport hoping there was an earlier flight. There wasn't. :-( Watched football for four hours, then a 2.5 hour flight home.
Exhausted and relieved.
A quick debrief (I passed!) and headed to the airport hoping there was an earlier flight. There wasn't. :-( Watched football for four hours, then a 2.5 hour flight home.
Exhausted and relieved.
jordane93
Touchdown! Greaser!
Congrats! 4am sim slot?! That's rough man.
Seanaldinho
Pattern Altitude
Its amazing you can do this, teach as one of the finest CFIs in Minneapolis, and do your legal work.
denverpilot
Tied Down
I have an interesting question for you, I hope.
I know at your stage of the game, you likely exit these sim sessions absolutely knowing you gained skills that might save your butt in the real world.
It may be too soon to ask you this but maybe one of the other long-timers can answer.
Do you feel if you were taking this same sim ride 20 years from now that you could form a bad habit of thinking that the only place where anything tries to kill you is in the electronic box?
Or does the stuff in the box happen often enough in the real world that you're more feeling like it's prep for reality than "oh they're going to try to kill us again in this thing"?
Just a weird thought I've had for years as the accidents in pro flying seem to slide ever more toward pilots simply not believing what they're seeing right in front of them in the real aircraft.
Contrarily when aircraft were LESS reliable and tried to kill people on a regular basis, we didn't have the boxes back then, and some crews died for lack of knowing what was happening.
But I think we are in a strange time of very high reliability in the overall system and it leaves even pro crews that have spent tons of time in the box, disconnected and not figuring it out, when something happens in the real world.
To some extent you can chalk this reasoning up to Roselawn, the NY icing thing, the Air France one, and even perhaps the Wee Too Low and Ho Lee Fuk guys in SFO. Certainly there were other factors.
But do you trust the airplane more and the box far far less? And could it affect how you respond in the airplane?
Sorry to sound morbid. I just find the whole concept of spending a number of hours in a box learning what will kill you as a fascinating training method when somewhere deep down, the humans know they are in a box.
I also know it's realistic enough that folks have said they truly feared for their lives early on. But I wonder how much that dulls over a career.
Everskyward
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I'll say that I have never feared for my life while in a sim... although now I've seen the place where people actually died in a sim from a real airplane crashing into it.
But to answer your question, real problems don't often happen in the canned way that they do during much of training. They are often not as clear-cut. Everyone does the V1 cut, but how often do engines fail at V1? It's also sometimes hard to believe you have a real problem when you fly an airplane which tends towards hypochondria. "I'm sick!" No not really, some sensor or proximity switch is bad...
I did get a surprise during training though. During my leg, the PNF called V1, rotate, and I couldn't rotate. I thought the guy was giving me the elevator jammed malfunction where you trim to rotate then pull the pitch/roll disconnect. Well, I trimmed and it did nothing so I aborted. It turns out I did the correct thing because the instructor was trying to simulate that Gulfstream crash at Bedford where they waited too long to abort. He said that even if we had pulled the handle, he had jammed both elevators.
denverpilot
Tied Down
Oh yeah. I remember that one. That's a really bad day in the sim lab, no matter how you slice it.
I think my curiosity about this feeling that "we aren't going to die in here" and how that translates to the aircraft in the real world was piqued by a number of airliner sims I've had the pleasure of goofing off in.
I flew the 75/76 and the 747-400. One session the movement system was locked out (don't remember why), the other (747) it was fully operational.
I never felt worried about anything other than that one of us could probably do something stupid enough that the box would tip all the way forward and if we didn't have a belt on, we'd break something expensive as we fell into it. I also knew I didn't have a damned clue what I was doing in there for most of the systems. The A/P and flight controls were no problem, not were the thrust levers and spoilers and such. I even knew to look for the tiller so I could steer while taxiing.
But I had no business being in there not knowing systems if they threw anything real at me. And I did get an outboard engine failure prior to V1 in the 747. He was showing me how damn much thrust the outboard on the other side had as I wandered off into the grass. Then he explained that it's just a jam the brakes on and kill all the power and stop thing in the 74. You can't fight that much thrust that far out on the wing if it's not balanced by something on the other side.
Made a few survivable landings in the 74. I'm sure the mechanics wouldn't have liked me very much on one of them though. Definitely would have broken something. The next two were passable but the pax wouldn't have been happy at all. We did one of them above the max op spec crosswind normally allowed so I could see how hard it would be not to drag that outboard nacelle on the runway or in the runway lights or the grass or whatever was over there that I was scraping it on. Haha.
Anyway. Took off on memory lane there but never seemed all that "realistic" in the box.
And those were expensive boxes you can get type rating ride done in. Nifty lighting effects, shadows and all that stuff. Hidden fiber optic light sources under the glare shield and all that fun in the 75/76 box.
I couldn't twist anyone's arm hard enough to do the smoke in the cockpit demo. Heh. Oh well.
The sound effects for squealing all eighteen tires didn't seem quite right either. Hahaha. Glad I didn't have to buy those tires though!
Nate: One observation I had returning to the sim after a few hundred hours in the real plane is that it no longer felt as "real" as it did during initial training.
That said, I have worked up a pretty good sweat in some very intense scenarios in the sim. I never feared for my life....I knew the "freeze" button was 2' behind my head.
Real world failures happen every day. I truly believe we don't hear much about them because we DO have sims that allow us to build the muscle-memory responses we need to make them a non-event.
At least that's my take on it at this early stage in my 121 experience. I appreciate Mari's perspective stated above.
That said, I have worked up a pretty good sweat in some very intense scenarios in the sim. I never feared for my life....I knew the "freeze" button was 2' behind my head.
Real world failures happen every day. I truly believe we don't hear much about them because we DO have sims that allow us to build the muscle-memory responses we need to make them a non-event.
At least that's my take on it at this early stage in my 121 experience. I appreciate Mari's perspective stated above.
Everskyward
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Everskyward
I used the abort example above because what are we taught? Don't abort above V1. It's the reason you take your hand off the throttles; so you are not tempted. But there may be instances when the airplane will not fly and the decision has to be made quickly and counter to what you have been taught before and programmed in your mind.
I will agree that after flying the real airplane the sim does not replicate the feel with that much fidelity. It's obviously close enough but I find the sim is actually more difficult to hand fly than the airplane, although this particular airplane is also a truck.
I will agree that after flying the real airplane the sim does not replicate the feel with that much fidelity. It's obviously close enough but I find the sim is actually more difficult to hand fly than the airplane, although this particular airplane is also a truck.
nddons
Touchdown! Greaser!
The Gulfstream accident is so hard to fathom for me. From flight lesson one we have verified control movement. In the CRJ we flip to the flight control status page and exercise them to the stops in all directions, verifying the sensors show full movement. It's my understanding it was in the Gulfstream checklist but they only did it about 15% of the time. What's the procedure in your plane?
I also concur that the airplane is easier than the sim, especially on visual approaches.
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You're too kind, but we have a lot of talented and ambitious people here on POA. I've just lucked into an interesting opportunity and am trying to make the most of it.
58 is the new 38.
I don't feel much different than I did at 38!
Everskyward
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Everskyward
We do the control check near the beginning of the after start checklist and just prior to taking the runway. We can taxi with the control lock engaged, and we do when it's windy. In our airplane the gust lock is part of the 'no takeoff' items so you will get the 'no takeoff' voice if you advance the throttles past a certain point with it engaged.
Ours is part of the pre-taxi check but we don't even have gust locks. Our "Takeoff Config OK" message must be displayed and verified before takeoff. Several factors go into allowing that message to be displayed, like parking break off, proper bleed configuration, etc.
Just a reminder we are having a little POA get-together at the Hofbräuhaus near ORD at 8:30 pm next Thursday 11/19. MarkZ and Arthur (CPA) will be there. Anyone else in the neighborhood is welcome to join us.
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