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.