November 13, 2009
It’s 3:30pm Pacific and I’m climbing into the office – the flight deck of my United Express CRJ7 regional jet. We’re parked on the ramp at Seattle International and it’s been several days since I’ve last flown. Coming back to work after a few days off and the bizarre and complicated environment of the cockpit sometimes seems a bit unfamiliar, sometimes intimidating. Certainly you remember what all the buttons do and what all the dials mean. But will you be able to remember everything? Will today be the day you forget that one little silly thing that makes all the difference?
You would think that the more you fly, the more comfortable you get with it. And to an extent that’s true. But really, the more you fly the more you realize how many little tiny variables there are to manage and how little control you have over many of them. All I can wish for is that the training, the experience, the mechanics, our colleagues at ATC, and the pilots of the other aluminum torpedoes we share the sky with will all do their part properly.
It’s astoundingly easy to make a mistake too. For instance, improperly loading the next com channel for approach leads to scrambling to load the correct channel leads to losing the glide slope which leads to finding yourself 500 feet below your assigned altitude and tearing the roof singles off some poor guys house below. Something similar to that happened at my home field of KBDL about 10 years ago where someone loaded the altimeter setting wrong and approached too low, leading to clipping the treetops, leading to the engines ingesting tree parts and stalling, leading to loss of power, leading to an immediate emergency landing shy of the field, leading to taking out a radio shack. Fortunately no injuries, but still…
One little error easily compounds into more little errors which can compound into larger errors, and it all happens at jet speed. Or perhaps today is the day you miscalculate fuel load and takeoff weight and find yourself frighteningly short of runway space. And like my Dad always said about driving a car “… there’s always the other guy”. Just a few days ago on the eastern edge of the Empire I received clearance to pushback from the gate and suddenly had to slam on the breaks to let a 737 pass by. Either he had jumped his own clearance to proceed onto the taxiway, or was in the wrong spot, or was missed by the ground controller. Either way it could have been bad.
By far one of my biggest and most realistic fears as an airline pilot is a collision on the ground at a busy airport. Aircraft have landed on taxiways before. A Delta flight did it in Texas just last year. Even airport maintenance cars and trucks have mistakenly driven out onto an active runways. Let’s also not forget that the worst accident in airliner history occurred as a ground collision when two fully loaded 747’s met at takeoff speed and burst into flames. Ground incursions = bad.
Soon we are off for Vancouver Canada. Mother has us rotated out to the northwest for the week, and once we are airborne I’m sure I’ll feel much better. But for now, I have a completely cold jet to bring to life and a myriad of systems that all must interact perfectly and in the proper order for that to happen. Passengers need to be boarded, fuel needs to be loaded, baggage stowed, departures filed, takeoff weights calculated, radio frequencies loaded and more, navigation charts put on the ready. To add to it, this has been a long day today and I have a headache. I’m hoping the aspirin I popped earlier will kick in soon. But ok, enough griping daydreaming. Time to focus on the task at hand… battery ON, avionics ON, flightplan SEND, check in with Mother and confirm our departure while working the cold start checklist.
As I’m dialing Seattle clearance delivery I hear a faint “pop, pop, pop” sound from outside the aircraft. Looking up to the windscreen reveals …. ah, rain. The clouds have just started shedding ballast. Not a downpour, but definitely the kind of drops that would get your attention if they fell on your head. They make a pronounced “pop” when they hit the windscreen and I see them coming more steadily now. Just the kind of drops you would expect from the compact squalls currently cruising VFR above the airport. A silly random fact from my childhood pops into my head : Seattle – rainiest place in the Empire.
This aircraft is more than equipped to punch through weather much worse than this though. It’s actually a little comforting and pleasant listening to the rain drops self destruct on the windscreen. Its daylight savings time, sunset will be soon, and I’m sure the clouds will be spectacular airborne. I’m anxious to get upstairs and take a look around. Must be sure to remember the forward shields. The temperature outside is approaching 40f at sea level, and is likely to be below freezing before we break the cloud level. I’m sure deicing equipment is being activated on aircraft all over the Empire tonight.
There’s hardly anything to see outside except hazy sun through the clouds and fog as our clearance comes through. “United 35 cleared for the Seattle Four departure, cleared to 5000 then expect one six thousand feet 10 minutes after departure. Departure is 120.8, squawk 1766.” Roger that. I repeat back the clearance and receive confirmation that we have it correct. Clearance continues… “Departure runway will be one two left, advise when ready to taxi with information echo. You’ll have Bravo Charlie to the runway, hold short and monitor tower on 118.5.” I’m loading in the proper settings into the guidance panel in order to make those departure instructions happen in reality. This is also an unfamiliar airport and I’ve only flown from here a few times. So just to make sure I don’t screw up I review the airport charts one more time to confirm I know exactly where taxiway Bravo Charlie is. Remember, ground incursions = bad.
The tug gives us a backward push and the ramper gives the signal that the aircraft is clear. With a few pushes of buttons on the overhead air bleeds off the APU and flows to start spinning turbine #1. I see N1 increasing, I see RPM at 25%, GO start, and engine one comes to life with a puff of smoke. Two follows shortly and we’re all green. With engines started Seattle airport gate C18 starts to fade away.
The taxi to the runway is clean, com traffic is light and our switch to tower and lineup for departure is quick and smooth. Tower gives us the go for the move upstairs, throttles up to 50% to let the engines stabilize, then full forward for just shy of 100% power - and BAM we are feeling some serious G forces as we surge down runway 12. The little but mighty CRJ700 gulps down fuel like it had a six inch hole in each gas tank. She surges to 150knts, and just a little pull back on the stick separates the nose from the ground. Hold the stick right there, and then a second later WAMMO the rest of that beautiful white and blue aluminum torpedo is screaming skyward at a company approved 17 degree up angle. Damn, I love this airplane!
At 1500 feet we start our departure turn and tower hands us off. “United 35 contact departure now on 120.8 have a good flight”. “Ok, over to departure now thanks for the lift” I reply. Flip the com over to the next channel and I alert departure to our presence. Engines are screaming in my ears, temperatures at 90% of redline. Can’t leave them there very long. “Departure, United 35 with you off one two left climbing through one five hundred.” Departure replies dryly, yet professionally. “United 35 good evening, radar contact now. Turn left to three six zero, climb and maintain one six thousand”. Departure has an unusually calm voice tonight. It even hints of a bit of boredom. Not me though. I am tagging flight director ON, I have gear UP, I have 3 GREEN LIGHTS on gear, locked and stowed, I have flaps retracting, I have speed settling at 250, I am throttling back, I have the aircraft turning sharply over to the new heading assigned by departure, and all this while barreling upstairs at 2500 feet per minute.
Departure is a manic series of fast little things to get done in a specific order, and all of them are very important to the transition from ground machine to flying machine. Set the aircraft in climb mode, turn on departure course, monitor departure frequency, manage the machine. But as we pass 4000 with the machine settling into climb the adrenaline starts to subside. On some runs it’s a non-stop machine gun firing of instructions from ATC and replies from aircraft, but not today. Either there’s just not much traffic out, or everyone has just got the blahs tonight. Even controllers get bored sometimes I guess. Departure clears us dryly for the climb to cruising altitude and Seattle fades behind us.
The climb up to 10,000 feet is through nothing but the grey zero visibility of the cloud cover. But as we pass 10,000 feet we punch out of the cloud cover and POW we are awash in sunlight. The cockpit is suddenly the brightest place on the planet and we are surrounded by huge towering white squalls on all sides. Damn. I never get bored of seeing the clouds. So many different colors, so many different kinds. If you fly 10,000 hours you’ll never see the same thing twice. The controller interrupts my brief admiration of mother nature with additional instructions. “United 35 turn left now heading 300”. I repeat back the instructions as the CRJ7 continues to climb higher through the clear cold air to our assigned cruising altitude.
Now that we are above Cessna country and out of the clouds we can bump up to warp speed. The engines surge again as the autopilot translates the new cruise speed command into engine power. The ship is stable, everything is in the green, fuel looks good, NAV course is good. I release the passengers from their seats with a pleasant “ding”. Traffic is still light and now that we are clear of the clouds I think we can safely turn forward shields OFF as well. Only one more task to do before I can catch my breath and collect my wits. Departure is always hair raising.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your pilot speaking, welcome aboard United flight 35 with service to Vancouver….. “
Once the in-flight announcement is finished I can look around, and see what the heck is going on. It’s only then that I see the giant snow capped mountain we just steered around while completely blind and climbing through the clouds. Mount Rainier rises just off to our left, its peak sticking rudely above the cloud tops. I have a sudden feeling of thanks for the folks that planned and mapped out all the standard jet departure procedures for each and every airport.
Every airport – and in some cases, every runway - has its own set of departure procedures. Turns and climbs and altitudes that you absolutely must hit exactly and completely perfect without further instruction from the controllers. When we were assigned the Seattle Four departure, that correlates to a specific chart, a specific set of instructions that must be followed without error. In some cases the departure procedures are for noise abatement. In other cases it’s to make sure you don’t have an unplanned encounter with that beautiful snow capped mountain we’re currently admiring.
Airline pilots have to hit those precise set of turns and instructions at high speed while using instruments only, flying blind or at night, and without fail. Fortunately ATC controllers are there to watch over the whole aerial dance. And fortunately the system works very, very well. As long as you know what you are doing. As long as you pay attention. As long as you don’t get cocky and think you’re too damn cool. More than one pilot has fucked up something royally because he thought he was too cool to confirm his departure procedures. A recent collision with a small aircraft and a sightseeing helicopter over the Hudson River in New York City comes to mind as a good example.
I am a bit lost in the view of the mountain when I notice the NAV bots leveling the CRJ off at the proper 16,000 foot altitude we programmed in. Airliner pilots don’t so much as fly the airplane as they manage and supervise the computer systems that actually do the flying. So now, I’m doing my management of the airplane. With warp speed ON and aircraft settling in cruise mode, I see that all is well. Green lights across the board. Except for that burnt out light on the left gear down indicator lamp. I’ll have to make sure to report that to maintenance .
It’s only a short hop though. One of the plusses of flying a regional jet is that you are not airborne for hours on end like the pilots flying the Big Iron from coast to coast. Fighting off sleep is a major problem for those guys and it's not uncommon for them to suck on 100% pure oxygen as a way to help stay awake. Me? I like to be up and down. Out and back. Home in time for dinner. And even though I’m now out west on rotation away from home I still mainly hop the CRJ from city to city to city. That’s my gig. I like it that way.
Tonight’s flight time is less than one hour, and I have about 20 minutes of cruise time left before we are passing over the PAE navigation station. They’re called VOR stations, which stands for Very High Omni Range station. They are basically a radio gizmo that sends out radio beams that form the network of highways that all aircraft use. The name of the station is usually expressed as a three character acronym. PAE for instance is the Paine VOR and there are literally thousands of them out there. If you’re ever driving by an airport, look for the white stubby looking thing sitting out all by itself near the runways that looks like a sombrero. That’s the VOR station. Not only do they send out a 360 degree radio signal an aircraft can triangulate off of, they also spit up a distance measurement. By tuning to the correct frequency with the correct equipment you can accurately view your distance from that station on the instruments. We call it the DME, or Distance Measuring Equipment. DME can be either a noun or a modifier … as in “The DME is 30 miles”, or as in “I am 30 DME from PAE”.
We have 37 miles DME to fly from PAE before we need to start our decent into Vancouver. Time to start loading the new com frequencies. I’m sure we’ll need to contact Vancouver approach soon. Center calls. “United 35 descend at pilot’s discretion to flight level 110.” With a short bit of math we determine our best position for top of climb is coming up quickly, and set thrust reduced, set altitude for 11,000 and let the CRJ responds with a gentle sigh downward. I tag the seatbelt light on again. “Folks, we’re beginning our initial decent now into the Vancouver area and we’ll need to ask everyone to begin to return to their seats…”
15,000 feet, passing 12,000 feet, and we are back into the clouds again. Center advises us to contact approach and we flip the coms over. Approach clears us for 7000 feet and we are flying blind again and descending through the grey murk.
Just as I feel the aircraft start to level off at 7,000 we suddenly punch out of the bottom of the cloud layer. The ship doesn’t descend any further and levels off beautifully right at 7000. In fact, it levels off just immediately below the very base of the clouds. As I look out the windscreen I feel like I could reach straight up out of the emergency escape hatch and scrape my fingers across the bottom of the cloud layer. It reminds me of that scene from the movie Wall.E when he was riding the rocket past Saturn and reached up to run his fingers in the rings stirring up a wake as he goes. I’d even be willing to bet that while the body of the airliner is below the cloud level the high T-shaped tail of the ship is probably sticking up into that cloud ceiling like a shark fin would stick up out of the water.
There’s no other place on Earth that would even remotely be possible except right here – right now - and it’s one of the reasons I fly. This is where I belong. This is where I was made to be. This is what I am good at. The clouds are dark and grey and full of water, and the darkness helps to define their bottoms against the sky even more. With as many hours as I have flying I can safely say I’ve never cruised directly beneath a cloud layer like this before. The sense of speed as we cruise just beneath is remarkable. Usually with no clouds as a frame of reference it’s difficult to feel the tremendous speed that a modern airliner generates. But put that airliner next to a layer of slow moving clouds like this and suddenly you’re Han Solo piloting the Millenium Falcon over the cloud city. I would reach for the camera except that we are below 10,000 feet and in ‘sterile cockpit’ mode right now. No outside conversations or distractions.
Approach calls: “United 35 turn left now heading 280, descend and maintain five thousand.”
We confirm the instructions, and enter the new information into the autopilot and the CRJ responds again. The grey cloud layer pulls away up and away from us as we descend. Down to 5,000 and the rain squalls starts up on the windshield again. We are cleared to descend to 3,000 and ATC gives us a few final turns to get set up for our final approach. Turning now to 20 degrees – nearly due north, fly for a bit, then turn 60 degrees – slightly east.
At 15 DME from Vancouver we are cleared to intercept the localizer and cleared for approach to runway zero eight. Once we intercept the localizer beam that shows the way down I disengage the autopilot with a touch of a button. A warning claxon sounds twice on the flight deck as a final audible check of “hey Captain, did you really intend to disengage the flight director just now?” I respond by hoisting the stick over to the right and snap the CRJ over to make the final turn onto the localizer for runway 08. Approach hands us off to Vancouver tower for the final check in before touchdown. Once I clearly see the runway lights in front of me at about 8 DME I drop the gear into the slipstream as well as the final bit of flaps. The only part of the ship that is currently on autopilot is the speed, and shortly I will shut that off as well and float down the final 8 miles to the runway threshold.
Everything about arrival is another manic series of events that need to be performed quickly and exactly right otherwise things can go bad quickly. But now with the aircraft under my direct control, and only the final minutes of the flight left to complete I purposely and with intent force the adrenaline out of my system. This is where you take a deep breath, engage Zen Mode and be One with the aircraft, the glide slope, the runway, the weather, and ATC just in case. Point the nose of the aircraft at the end of the runway and keep glide angle, aircraft speed, and engine power balanced neatly on the tip of a pin until the aircraft passes over the threshold of the runway. If you’ve done everything so far just right, you should be less than 100 feet but more than 50 feet as you pass over the threshold. Now, kill all the remaining power and pull back on the stick lightly and smoothly to lift the nose and arrest the float downward. The nose of the airplane lifts barely just above the horizon. And in a last gasp - as if reluctant to give up the gift of flight - the ship settles down gently onto the runway with barely a bump.
Then all hell breaks loose. BAM shove the throttles into reverse thrust, deploy the wing spoilers to rip any remaining lift off the wings and stand on the brakes. The engines scream to life again, except this time we are thrown forward against the seat straps as reverse thrust and forward momentum battle each other for victory. The airplane shakes and shudders, and dirt and crumbs come flying up off the cockpit floor towards the front. Someone’s lost pencil comes rolling up out of nowhere and settles against my shoes. Reverse thrust wins the battle of forward velocity in about 5 seconds and things return to a state of calm. Yeah, calm not unlike the calm that follows just after a tornado came through. Thrust reversers OFF, brakes RELEASED at around 20 kph, and allow the jet to roll forward with grace and style.
Tower calls. “United 35 welcome to Vancouver, exit left next available taxiway and contact ground on 121.70 for gate instructions.”
It’s a 3 minute taxi to the gate and en route the flaps are put away, the landing lights are turned OFF, and pilot adrenaline is again released. At the gate it’s engines OFF with a quick thanks and goodnight to ATC, seatbelt light OFF, and just a few more minutes of powering down the various components of the ship. We won’t shut it down completely cold though. Once these 60 passengers depart for their final destinations another set of 60 loved ones will be joining us for the return trip to Seattle in about a half an hour. Just enough time for a quick run to the airport Starbucks.
As the flight attendant opens the main cabin door behind us I hear a “pop, pop, pop” sound coming from outside the ship.
Looking up I see it’s raining again.
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