The Plastic Jet

April 24, 2011

It’s early morning and I’m expected on a deadhead to the Capital of the Empire on a company CRJ200.  This morning though I’m pretty tired from staying up too late again last night, and I’m actually looking forward to catching a snooze on this flight.  Call me weird, but to me there’s nothing like napping on a flight and sometimes I stay up late the night before on purpose - just to be tired enough to sleep on the jet the next day.  As long as I’m not flying, of course.

This morning was a little rough though.  After spending over a year with my little rocket ship E135, and after bringing her into BDL last night for perhaps the last time, I’m now leaving her in the grey, cold rain on the tarmac at Bradley.  Not exactly how I imagined our parting would be.  But this morning I’m off to pick up a new aircraft assignment at KDCA.  I have just a few moments to give her one last long look out the concourse window, snap one last photo, and then I have to scurry off to catch my flight.  While on the one hand I’m sad to let go of UAL35, I’m also looking forward to the challenge of my new assignment, as well as the prestige and adventure that comes with hanging the atmospheric processors under the wings instead of on the tail.  I just hope my sweetheart E135 will understand.

I have just enough time to give the flight crew a nod and survey the flight deck as we board.  They are busy with setup, but I can see the MFD and PFD and instantly know the course, the status of the aircraft, and overhear the flight officer reading back the squawk code to clearance delivery. Taking my seat I must say it’s a little unnerving to be riding in back, and especially when I hear the captain announce the Flight Officer will be handling the entire flight.  Is this a checkride?  Oh great.  Well, nothing to do but sit back and enjoy the ride.   

But as we roll down the field for takeoff I am echoing in my head what I know the pilots are hearing, saying, and doing.  “V1… V2 … rotate…”  “United 310 contact departure on 125.35…. United 310 radar contact .. turn left to 250 and intercept victor 405 on course.”  Roger that.  At T/O thrust, and with a light load of fuel and PAX, the little CRJ doesn’t so much as lift off the runway as she does blast off straight to the stratosphere at a company approved 17 degree up angle.  Me?  I’m whispering “yeehaw!” and grinning ear to ear.  It’s a sickness I know. 

A front is closing in on the region and the flight attendant announces that we’ll be strapped down for the entire flight.  “Sorry, no coffee and peanuts for you today”.    The little rocket jet gets tossed around a bit more as it punches through another cloud layer.  I overhear a passenger in the seat in front of me say to her seatmate “you know, no matter how many times I fly I still can never get used to this.”  Me?  4 minutes into the flight and I’m out like a light.

We beat the rain into KDCA and have about 18 hours to kill before I officially take possession of my new aircraft.  Apparently the company has been doing well, and all the old Continental MD80’s we inherited have been phased out and are being replaced with brand spankin’ new E175’s.  We are slowly but surely becoming a true regional airline, and for our medium haul routes the Embraer 175’s are becoming the aircraft of choice.  

To many, the Airbus A320 is affectionately known as the Electric Jet.  With all of her wiz bang features the name is pretty appropriate.  The Embraer E175 I think however should be called the The Plastic Jet.  Honestly my first reaction upon boarding her is that there is more plastic in this thing than any other aircraft I’ve ever seen.  The walls are plastic, the seats are plastic, the armrests, the galley… everything.   I mean, if this sucker ever crashes and burns? God help us.  This jet would fill up with toxic smoke faster than a “silent-but-deadly” gets detected in a sealed cockpit at 28,000 feet.   So let’s just resolve right here and now to never EVER crash and burn one, mmmkay?  Yea that would probably be best.

But believe me sir, I’m not complaining.  The Plastic Jet is a true beauty.   A looker as well as a marvel of Brazilian technical innovation.  Most pilots familiar with Embraer 135/145 cockpits would be able to transition into it fairly easily.    They’re light, they’re strong, they’re powerful, and they’re good on the company dollar.  They’re also astoundingly simple to fly.   Except when they’re not.   It seems I’m back to getting yelled at by Betty when I set the aircraft up in ways she doesn’t prefer.  Back to the books I go.

Kinetic energy management is also a much bigger concern than it ever was in the E135.  In the 135 you could hang out the laundry, idle the engines, aim for the ground and quite literally float down from 10,000 feet without covering hardly any ground distance at all.  No so in the 175.  The hardest thing about this aircraft is slowing it down and getting it to descend at a proper rate.  The thing either just wants to keep flying, or it wants to drop out of the sky at 4000 FPM.  Neither of which is acceptable.  This jet and I are going to have to come to an understanding. 

This flight is also the last day of the Fight for the Flight where air crews all across the Empire receive credit for flight plans filed toward the Susan G. Koman Fight against breast cancer.   This weekend we have been flying not only for company and PAX, but also for the fight.  Pilots have been very gung ho to fly as often as they can, and reporting to the dispatch center this weekend has found all the pilots slamming down Starbucks and haggling with the dispatcher to get the most efficient routes to maximize credit for FFTF.

Our first leg out of KDCA in The Plastic Jet is for Bradley.   The route is filed for a 3pm departure on one of those amazingly beautiful first days of spring that only mid April can deliver.  It’s so nice outside that one of the gate agents has propped open a door to the flight line while waiting to load PAX into a tarmac bus.  The TSA would flip their lids if they saw that, and she could easily just open the door to let people through when needed.  But instead she’s standing there in the sun and breeze as if basking in the light of God.   At least she’s guarding the door personally.  I guess that counts as secure.

The flight is a one hour hop up north and it’s one of those days where I’m just glad to be flying.  Landing at KBDL is a visual for 33 and I’m playing it safe on this one.  No hot rod turns or carrier landings today.  I want to see how this aircraft is going to respond in the bright sun of daylight before I try to do it in the murk of night over KACK.  We have a longer than usual changeover at KBDL, so while waiting I ask one of the flight attendants to snap a picture of me trying to look cool in my new Captain’s chair, in my new Plastic Jet, while sporting the newly authorized poplin company blue jackets.  More casual, comfortable, and approachable than the traditional uniform jackets I must say.

Next up is KBGR, then KALB, then finally KBOS.  I’m glad to sock in the legs for credit for the FFTF, but by the KALB run I am suffering from some mild spatial disorientation.  Its one thing to operate out of Bradley often and to know that there’s a right turn off 6 to hit the BDL9 departure and then on to PUT and WOONS.  It’s an entirely different thing to be rapidly in and out of airports that you are not familiar with.  My head is spinning and before too long I have no idea which way is North, which way is up, which way the runways are pointed, and where the nearest Starbucks is.    I’m operating entirely on caffeine and total reliance on charts and nav equipment.  There is no looking out the windows to see anything that makes sense.  All that you have is headings, procedure turns, Victor airways, and flying by the numbers.  When you’re this disoriented you had better be on your game otherwise you’ll find yourself taxiing to take off from the wrong end of the runway real fast.  Not that I’ve done that.  But I know of at least one UAL pilot (remaining nameless) who did.

On the last leg out of ALB we are smooth and climbing to cruise and hearing the usual company com traffic of UAL aircraft all bound for KBOS.  UAL373 is coming out of Rochester, UAL007 is out of Portland, UAL74 is out of KBGR, and if our timing is right we will all be coming in at the same time.  UAL373 is constantly paging us.  “Wait up he says!”  Nah, you’ll just have to push it and see if you can catch up.

On the GDM3 arrival there are a few other flights are ahead of us though so it looks like we’ll be last in  a group of 3, and then following behind that will be another group of 4 or so.  But as we start the decent out of 11,000 for the approach vectors I can see there is something going on with The Plastic Jet.  She just simply does not want to slow down and descend.  The flight level change command is having no effect, and if we don’t start getting our decent down we will be at a bad angle and altitude for approach.  Kinetic energy management is getting all screwed up, I’m spatially disoriented, tired, and in a new aircraft that is not responding the way I would prefer.  Dropping a notch of flaps to add some drag only results in Betty yelling at me some more.  Airspeed is too high for even one notch of flaps but #2 slats is not helping much either.  4000 ft and inside 10 miles for 22L and this is looking grim.  Slats on FULL and force the jet to slow down.  If we can just get below 220 we can drop the flaps further.  The MFD is flashing a yellow “spoilers disagree” warning but no configuration of slats and flaps seems to get the ship to slow down and descend properly.  Betty is yelling at me some more and we are running out of glideslope options fast.  Time to ditch the idea of landing and time to get with the go-around program.  

Throttle FORWARD, slats RETRACT, flaps to #2, and a quick call to approach.  “ahh,, Boston approach UAL421 is a go-around, LOGAN6”  Gear locks into the belly with 3 green and we are screaming above the field at less than 1000 feet with 200 knts of speed.  Crossing the 4R end of 22L and I bank the ship hard over left to 140.  The controller calls to check on us… “UAL421 when able say reason for go-around”.  Somehow I don’t think incompetence is a good response.  I tell the controller about the slats problem, but make up a quick excuse announcement about “traffic” for the PAX.  Fix it, continue flying.

Back into the cycle we go and on the downwind leg TCAS starts pinging several ships ahead and inbound. Must be the second group that was behind us not just 5 minutes ago.  Approach is suddenly a firestorm of coms as 5 inbounders plus us come under management.  One of them is UAL373 and it looks like with our go-around he’s caught up with us after all.   The controller seems hell bent on bringing us all in within a 5 mile radius of each other too.  Good thing this controller is sharp and fast.   At the last minute though it appears we have more aircraft than we have runway, and the controller reassigns UAL007 for 22R and announces that the parallel runway operations are now briefly in effect.  UAL007 calls back to accept his new runway instructions with literally only a minute left to fly on the inbound.  I know the Captain in that ship and I know he’s sharp.  He responds to the new setup with style and flair while UAL428 slips one in on the parallel in front of us.  Approach announces “United 421 the field is yours, cleared to land runway 22 left”.   Kinetic energy management is much better this time around and I release Betty from her duties at 5 DME and set the Plastic Jet down on the first bounce with UAL373 bringing up the rear.

Whew!

Pulling up to the Charlie terminal there’s nothing but company paint everywhere I look.  As we close out the Flight for the Flight weekend I see no less than 9 company aircraft all around.  What a sight!  Engines OFF, pax DISEMBARK and we are cleared to review paperwork.  The final tallies are coming in regarding FFTF participation and WOW we beat last year with a combined total of 839 flight plans filed in a 60 hour period!   I’m basking in bravado from achievement and the sea of company paint, until soon my thoughts are drifting towards the 600 count sheets waiting for me at the Marriot.  

The droid chirps.  It’s FO Jason on UAL195.  Seems he brought his E145 into KBOS about 45 minutes ago and has found an observation window somewhere where he could watch the inbounders.  “I’ve got something for you” his text message says.  I see there’s an attachment.  “What’s that”?  I type back.  

“Oh, just a picture of you missing the ground half an hour ago.  You know, the runway’s pretty big here.  Even YOU should be able to hit it if you try.”

Busted!!  I guess the hazing isn't going to stop at  United Regional.  Especially not for Senior Captains.  

And particularly not for those with brand new Plastic Jets.

The Wild Wild West

March 12, 2011

For the last 2 weeks Mother had rotated a bunch of our pilots to Alaska. We all were pretty psyched to be there actually since we all had been watching that new Discovery Channel show Flying Wild Alaska. We were looking forward to trying some of those 40 knot crosswind landings for ourselves. Dispatch us running flights to all corners of this last bastion of wild flying, and was looking forward to seeing what I could do with an RJ here. Side slipping an E135 into Unakaleet? Sign me up. But alas, from day one of our arrival we had nothing but clear blue sky, moderate winds, and smooth sailing.

Even with clear skies it was obvious that this was a challenge of a new sort. We were truly operating in the Wild Wild West. Things were different risks were greater, distances were vast. Sure the Victor airway charts show distance, but you really don’t get a sense for how far apart the destinations are until you fly them. And on my first real Alaskan run from Unakaleet to Fairbanks I was unprepared for how long I would…. just….. be…. well, flying. This turned out to be Industrial Strength Flying with a capital “I”. Even while booking along in our sleek little E135 at 300 knots it took almost 2 hours to get even just halfway across the state.

It also struck me how alone you are in the Wild Wild West. It was spooky in its vast empty spaces and the number of new things you had to figure out by yourself. Nearly every airport we departed from and arrived at was uncontrolled. Many times we would check in with center while still on the ground, receive a timetable for IFR cancellation, depart on UNICOM, and then contact center airborne only to talk to them maybe twice more. As it turns out, the Wild Wild West can also be lonely. Many an hour was spent re-reading the E135 operating manual in the purple light of the midnight sun, and without hearing the voice of a company ship for literally days.

Alaska’s “moments of stark terror” are also of a different variety than we find at Boston. One fine night Skyvector went down just before we were scheduled to take a planeload down to Aniack (PANI). Skyvector almost never goes down, but when it does it’s functionally catastrophic, and it was definitely a form of stark terror. Since this wasn’t our normal airspace our chart binder was useless, and suddenly I had none of the information I would normally rely on to fly. No VOR frequencies, no victor airway data, no DME’s, nada. We were essentially blind, dead in the water, and falling further behind schedule by the second.

The droid was no help either. I Googled just about every combination of “aviation chart” I could think of but nothing worked out. Skyvector is – apparently - the only free charting service on the internet providing anywhere near enough detail to be useful.

But after 45 minutes of frustration, and just before busting out the credit card to buy an FAA chart, I remembered that the ERJ has some rudimentary mapping functions built into its brain. Some button pushing, a little pencil work, and we have a bona-fide Wild Wild West flight plan sporting pilotage, NDB beacons, and just plain flying “that-a-way”. We’ll have to limp along at 16,500 though as penance, since flying “that-a-way” doesn’t qualify you for IFR altitudes. In the Wild Wild West we improvise.

ANC center checks us out, departure is on Unicom, we point vaguely south and wait. Normally nav instruments would light up at 1000 feet, but today there is no signal from anything I can recognize. No signal at all. Out of instinct I reach over and start the chronometer. For a United Regional pilot to be out of contact with anything resembling a radio fix for longer than even a few minutes is really unnerving. Then comes the creeping doubt. Are the instruments working? Did I plan this flight correctly? Am I GIGO?

One minute ticks by and no signal. Two minutes and still nothing. Three minutes and I’m really starting to squirm. I stop looking at the chronometer and force myself to think of something else and I feel like I’m waiting for a watched kettle to boil. Captain Andrew had a class on FMC use not too long ago, and I’m now wishing I paid a bit more attention in class.

Soon enough though the NDB lights up a section of the ERJ dashboard I’ve never seen lit up before. The chronometer reads just past 4 minutes and we are spot on course. Jeez. All that worrying and fuss for just 4 minutes. A few flips of a switch and we superimpose mapping and weather on the MFD, and I’m smiling and having delusions of being a G550 pilot. We are fat, hopefully not dumb, but yes, happy.

Landing is on Unicom, arrival is at pilots discretion and features a beautiful uncontrolled teardrop at scorching speeds out and back from the airport NDB. In the Wild Wild West sometimes you can bend the rules just a little. We’re shortly on the ramp at PANI with nothing but frozen tundra, icy rivers, snow capped mountains, and zero degree air that makes your throat clench up when you breathe it in. Not a single other aircraft is parked with us, not a single person is working on the tarmac. There’s barely a sound anywhere except for the whine of the APU and a background low level howling of wind from somewhere. And I’m feeling like I’ve just landed the Millennium Falcon on Hoth. It feels good.

Later that week we’re on a hop from PAOT to PAFA. ANC center is on com 1 and we’re monitoring PAFA tower on com 2. Center is quiet, but PAFA tower is active and conditions are deteriorating. And just like listening to the Nittany Lions fight their way down the just a building squall. But is there ever just a building squall in the Wild Wild West?

Another inbounder is asking for runway conditions. Tower indicates a DC10 arriving earlier reported light snow, freezing mist, and RVR at five thousand. As if on cue the outer edges of the soup closes in on us as we slip between the layers at cruise. Visibility is decreasing and darkness is approaching. A few minutes pass and another inbounder checks in with tower. It’s a turboprop, callsign PA28. The pilot is requesting that the runway lights be brightened one notch brighter and it sounds like she’s a regular around here. PA28 makes it in safely and I’m just riveted to the radio like listening to the game. We still have 150 miles still to fly in deteriorating conditions, and who knows what we will find when we get there.

Half an hour passes and tower crackles another update to an inbounder. Conditions at Fairbanks have deteriorated to ½ mile visibility, sky obscured, snow and freezing fog, winds calm. What? No 40 knot crosswind? Common…. Surely you’ve got more than that you can throw at us. As we slip into the clouds everything goes dark at 1200 feet and I can see why PA28 requested the lights up a notch. Betty is showing the way as we pierce through the final bit of chop just above ground. The runway comes up and the icing indicator chimes just as the wheels screech onto runway two zero. As we taxi up to the gate I see the DC10 freighter from earlier still turning around their cargo. Nice.

On our last night in the Wild Wild West we are departing out of PANI again. Late March is turning into early April and there are signs of spring peeking out everywhere. Since our last visit here the snow has melted and everywhere beyond the tarmac there are little green sprouts of grass and shrub. But it’s time for departure, and across the tarmac is the whine of another CRJ’s APU as they also take on PAX. I want to get out before they do. I’ve enjoyed learning about and flying in the Wild Wild West, but I’m also ready to return to the skies of home. Later tonight we’ll be starting our hops back to Boston by way of KSEA and KMSP. Dispatch shows that a number of other United Regional pilots are also rotating home tonight as well. Good news. We’ll have friends and company traffic for the 3 hour redeye to KSEA. As we head into the night air again I see that it’s clear sailing all the way. Bummer. Kindof. As much as I try to hit interesting weather with a jet captains schedule it’s apparently much harder than it looks. I can also say that the Air Alaska show on Discovery – while definitely cool – also compacts the “moments of stark terror” parts of flying into a made for TV one hour segment. We seem to have been left with all the “hours of sheer boredom part”. Not complaining though. Anytime you need someone to strap an E135 to their butt and carry 40 loved ones into the stratosphere call me up. I’m your guy.

Departure is on Unicom again, and checking in with center crossing 5,000 finds the coms are ablaze. Cool! Company Traffic! There are UALR flights from all ends of the Wild Wild West giving center some action. I hear Mark in UAL373 coming down on a long bomb from up north. There’s Javiero in UAL221, Ian in UAL074, Jim in UAL007, Braines in UAL1106, and even a new hire operating UAL693. Pilots are furiously sending chats, catching up, and the onboard texting system is going nuts. It turns out that pretty much no one hit any interesting weather while they were here, and one pilot even pines for the snowy muck over KACK. Another pulls WX for KACK on his iphone and indicates that yes, in fact, it is slushy snow at KBOS right now. We all agree that it truly is a sickness.

Arrival is a piece of cake. We’re number 3 following company aircraft with 2 more right behind. As soon as they are cleared off ground the company com channel erupts with more chatter.  Everyone is obviously excited that there will be more than one company jet parked at the tarmac tonight, and that we’ll all be rotating back home this weekend. Most departures are for KSEA, but then in the morning some will depart for Minneapolis, some for Denver, some for Kansas City, and one even for Chicago, but all then all arriving on Sunday night at KBOS.

Soon we’ll see the stars of home. We’ve been flying here for weeks and everyone is a little slap happy tonight. Pilots are smack talking and hazing each other over COCOM. UAL1106 confesses he triangulated ROCES and missed it by 6 miles and takes a bit of grief for it. “Well at least he was actually trying to hit ROCES unlike all you other slackers” someone remarks. Ribs and jabs are flying about, and cameras are coming out as pilots share in the company and snap photos of operations. These guys are awesome and my sides hurt from laughing and snorking as we prep for a bag drag. These are the hard core pilots of United Regional, and while many pilots come and go, this is part of the group that has been there from the beginning. They’re sharp, they fly like crazy, and I must say they’re fun a party.

But their pilot humor is often dry and inside. As one new aircraft pulls up to the ramp he calls out in jest “Hey where am I supposed to park this thing again?”. Another UALR pilot answers back “put it next to me” he says. “I want to take a picture of it.”

The pause was only 2 seconds before someone has to say it. A voice on COCOM squawks the obvious response.

“That’s what SHE said, hehheh.”

I guess in the Wild Wild West we’re not always politically correct either.