Papa's got a brand new bag

Apr 7, 2010

For months there have been murmurings of possible upgrades of aircraft for United Regional pilots.

Over the last few years we’ve flown the CRJ700 and what a fine and marvelous aircraft it is. But rumors have been circulating among the community that there may be some upgrades in the works. Nothing had been confirmed, but strange rumblings. Rumblings such as our Chief Pilot inquiring around as to who might have qualifications in several different aircraft types that we currently don’t have. Rumor became fact last week as three brand spankin’ new Embraer regional jets were delivered to the line. We’ve been told to expect more of them. Better still the company has seen fit to grace me with one of them – a shiny blue and grey ERJ145LR sporting the United Express paint. 

What a fine, beautiful, and sexy aircraft this is. Plus it's Brazilian. Need I say more? But hey! Holy crap the learning curve is steep! I’ve spent the last two weeks with my head stuck in a manual again learning what FLC, FADEC, PFD, MFD, EICAS, and such are and how to use them.

I’m also getting used to the aircraft talking to me all the time. This aircraft has a female human voice enunciator that talks to you and is constantly telling you the state of your aircraft. She will tell you prior to takeoff that your flaps are not lowered, the brakes are on, and trim needs to be configured. It’s actually a little irritating having someone tell me what to do all the time, but this aircraft is a lot more complicated than the CRJ and I’m not exactly ungrateful. Just a little annoyed. I’m expecting before too long she’s going to start telling me the coffee in the galley is getting cold. I’m making it my goal in life to complete an entire flight without her telling me to do something not even once.

But the biggest challenge here is that everything has moved. In the words of Dr. McCoy “if I know engineers, they love to change things.” All of my familiar controls, switches, and displays that I’ve become accustomed to in over 1000 hours in the CRJ are not where I left them. In the CRJ it took a millisecond to review the DME, NAV2, and ALT to know exactly where I am. In the ERJ it now takes 20 seconds of fumbling around with controls, scanning the dash with my eyeballs, and grumbling to myself ”where the fuck is the DME?! And why is that chick yelling at me again?” grrrr..

So this week I’ve had time in the simulator, and some low tension orientation flights to get accustomed the aircraft. After all, I’m sure I’ll be teaching this aircraft to Flight Officer candidates soon too. So I’m using this time to test out all the systems and design procedures for use with future United Regional pilots. There's only been - fortunately - one hair raising moment in the learning curve. While I know how to handle an aborted takeoff, and have practiced in the simulator, it's a completely different matter when you have to do one in real life. Tearing down runway 6 for departure one night on a test flight from KBDL the chick starts yelling at me that takeoff config isn't complete. Three seconds before v1 isn't enough time to figure out what the problem is so it was an immediate stand on the brakes and thrust reversers and hope we don't run out of runway. Another one of those "moments of stark terror" parts again. Fortunately we didn't bend the airplane, and just limped back to the gate to hit the books some more.

Speaking of flight officers, FO’s Ian and Branden were also assigned ERJ’s. Ian I hear from often. He’s typically flying similar routes and times as myself, and he and I catch up on unicom from time to time. Branden however has been on a different rotation. I haven’t seen much of him until we were assigned these ships and found ourselves sitting at adjoining gates one fine night with both our noses in the manuals. Branden was assigned the XR version, and I have the LR version so we’re doing a lot of comparing notes. We’ve also taken to doing orientation and training flights together. With empty airplanes (PAX don’t go on training flights) we’ve been communicating a lot in flight, and even making some flights in formation. The in flight conversation goes something like this…

UAL224: Hey! I figured out how to get the weather radar to light up!

UAL35: Really? That’s cool. I just figured out how to use TO/GA. Oh wait… the chick is yelling at me. Damn. I forgot to shut off the cross bleed and there’s no cabin pressurization. Good thing we’re empty or all the passengers would be dead.

What was really interesting was testing out the TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System). Normally you never want the TCAS to go off. However during this particular flight we needed to purposefully set if off to understand how the aircraft will respond. I maintained straight and level flight while UAL224 snuck up from behind and below. At about 4 miles separation the chick suddenly goes nuts. Every flight indicator on the dashboard goes red, chimes start dinging loudly, and the chick is squawking in a very firm and urgent voice “Warning! Collision! Climb now!” I ignore her temporarily much to my pleasure. I want to see what the aircraft does. The chick continues… “CLIMB NOW, CLIMB NOW!!” Suddenly the aircraft lurches upward. The chick is taking over. We’ve learned that in a TCAS situation the chick will only sit idly by for so long before she takes over the autopilot and makes the necessary change to avoid imminent collision. Good to know.

Yesterday the company had sent us over to the Hawaiian Islands for some promotional photos. Just for the day… no time to hang out. We’re meeting up with a Lear45 equipped with a camera pod who will be taking some promotional photos of the new ships in flight. As we’re getting ready to get underway Branden calls over on Unicom … “So how do you start these engines again?” I know he’s only half joking. The learning curve is still steep. But we’re both getting more comfortable with these new aircraft. Now it only takes 3 seconds to find the DME and NAV2 instead of 20.

The flight was nice, and we’ve learned that we’ll have to turn the TCAS off completely when flying in close formation. Otherwise the chick will be yelling at you the whole time. Once we got past that part the Lear was able to snap some very nice promotional photos. My understanding is that they will be used both to promote United Regional, and to entice new pilots to the community.

That’s good news. United Regional is growing and needs more pilots.