Bad Transformer, Bad

Aug 12, 2008

Tonight is packed.  Our departure ticket shows upwards of 20 United Regional flights all departing within half an hour of each other bound for all corners of the Northeast. The weather is good, but not too good.  Challenging would be the word. Arrival at KACK is expected to be the usual zero visibility from black of night and summer shrouds of fog.  Call me crazy but I’m looking forward to it. Just last week my sky babe and I were taking a long weekend on Block Island and I spent many hours in between shrimp cocktails watching the fog roll in and describing to my girl (ad nausium to her I’m sure) how dangerous that fog is.  How the sea and sky become one, the horizon vanishes, and the region conspires to swallow unsuspecting pilots whole. JFK Jr’s Piper was lost in that very fog in this very area not much more than a decade ago.  Yes, last weekend more than a few hours were spent on the deck of the Spring House Hotel sipping Coronas and watching GA aircraft scramble into KBID airfield before the dusk turned to night.  As much as I was on vacation, more than a small part of me wanted to be up there with those GA’s.  I should have brought my aviation scanner with me, then at least I could listen in. It’s a sickness, I know.

But just as we’re getting ready to preflight our ERJ145 tonight the bad news comes in. All traffic is temporarily and immediately grounded. Word is that a power transformer responsible for powering air traffic control’s systems has blown up leaving FlightDesk and radar systems all black.  Oh well.  Nothing to do now except find a quiet spot away from the glare of frustrated passengers, grab a Starbucks, power up the laptop and wait it out.

Good time to update my blog too.  It’s been weeks since my last update, but not for lack of interesting things happening. It’s mostly from flying nonstop for weeks now.  And not only have we been flying a ton, we’ve also been training a ton of United Regional pilots. There have been a number of promotions, routes have been added, and there’s even talk of a new aircraft coming to the line soon too – some Super MD80's we inherited from the Continental merger. Super nice if you ask me.  Plus there’s the constant rotation.  Mother is constantly sending pilots on routes all over the country.  We’ve even had some of our best pilots sent off on loan to other airlines. Captain Conner has been working with Delta Connection, and just last week I received word that Flight Officers Ian and Eric were both loaned out to operations in the Far East.“ Additional training and cultural awareness” Mother calls it.

I call it the draft.  Just like major league baseball Mother will fiddle with the mix and seniority of flight crews and regions in a never ending attempt to create the best combination of pilots and skills for a particular duty, or perhaps even for cross training.  Last I heard FO Eric was working with China Airlines doing FMC training with crews on the Big Iron.  FO Ian I heard was running a UPS MD11 freighter on long hauls to build up hours towards his Captain’s qualification.

As for me, our crew had also been rotated out to the Hawaiian Islands for a week.  Mother apparently saw a need for additional pilots to shuttle tourists on short hops between the islands. The only thing that keeps me from feeling completely displaced while halfway around the globe are the familiar voices on coms of captains and officers I have trained and flown with.  Soon I’m hearing coms from Bill flying the shuttle runs, Branden bringing in a 737 in from San Diego, Mariano in a hold over Lanai, Jim, Javier, and even Peter in UAL615 who unfortunately had to declare an emergency when his gear didn’t give 3 green lights.  That was a little tense to listen to but I’ve had it happen too.  I could close my eyes and hear the warning horn and the three yellow lights blazing in his face all the way down.  Fortunately it was just a bad indicator.  UAL615 ship and crew made it down safely.

Towards the end of our rotation we were sent out to the Midway Islands on a company charter flight to pick up a team of biologists working there for a few months. So with 16,000 pounds of fuel onboard, the trusty CRJ roars out of Henderson Field (PMDY) to ferry 40 scientists over to the Big Island where A/C, real showers, and connecting flights to home await.

Departure from Henderson Field is eventless, and the air is smooth as we set the GPS for DANNO.  The FP indicates a three hour flight before entering the BOOKE8 pipeline, and then more than 200 miles after that to PHNL.  With one big long straight line to fly and thousands of square miles of ocean to cover the flight quickly becomes a battle against fatigue.  But it also affords plenty of time to think.  And in this case to think about the ferocious battle that occurred here over 60 years ago.

7 aircraft carriers, 2 battleships, nearly 50 support ships and hundreds of aircraft slugged it out here in the Battle of Midway.  How surreal it is to be traversing the very same airspace where the turning point in the War in the Pacific took place.  Flying the very same routes that, had we not won that battle, Japanese bombers would be using to attack Americans in Hawaii.  And if we lost Hawaii...?  I can’t help but reflect on the lives that were lost in this very sky and sea nearly 7 decades ago.  It’s one thing to read about it, but it’s an entirely other thing to be here flying it.

Hours into the flight the exhausted scientists are sleeping, and even the flight attendants are reading books.  We are about two thirds of the way through the flight and I’m running out of things I can use to keep myself from losing focus when a futuristic “ping” sound emanates from my flight bag.  Ahh, someone is sending my Droid phone a text (had to ditch the iPhone… bad antennas). Even though we are in the middle of the ocean and far from a cell tower I’m amazed the range these things have at 31,000 feet.  Happily enough, the ping is from FO Eric.

“Check your 12 o’clock” he says. Hmmm, Ok, let’s see.  Like scanners on a starship looking for signs of life I reset the TCAS for its maximum 40 mile range, and sure enough it pings a single ship at the very edge of the screen.  A quick check of FlightAware.com on the Droid reveals that it is CAL18 – FO Eric’s ship.  Big sucker too.  A 747-400 out of Tokyo en route to Honolulu. “Nice”..  I reply via text.

It turns out this is his last run in the cultural exchange and he left Tokyo at O’dark thirty local this morning, crossed the international dateline at sunrise, and will be returning to the world of United at Honolulu.  As luck would have it, the Universe provided him with a spectacular sunrise to remember CAL by, and he’s sending some pictures over.  He also tells me that FO Ian was rotating back this morning as well, and Ian’s MD11 and Eric’s 747-800 both departed together. He sent over some pictures on the Droid to show.  Very cool.  I love airplane pictures, and the ones he sent are pretty awesome.

Back at the concourse at Bradley and the Droid chirps again.  A controller friend of mine has sent a note saying power is coming back and ATC will be up soon.  Thank goodness.  I know PAX and pilots alike are anxious to get out of here, and soon it will be a mad dash for the sky. Time to head for the aircraft and get her spooled up.  Air captains throughout the concourse all have the same idea and PAX have noticed the increased activity by uniformed personnel and are starting to stir as well. Time to pick up the pace.  I want to be first in cue just as soon as ATC is online again otherwise we’ll be stuck waiting for clearance for another hour.

Power and avionics in the ERJ are lit, clearance delivery announces ATC service is restored and suddenly coms are ablaze with requests for departures.  We’re lucky to get in the cue quickly and our flight is underway, only 3 hours late.  Off we go screaming into the night air once again.

Traffic is heavy and ATC is tight.  Once again I hear the calls of familiar voices – UAL74, UAL428 and even my controller friend running arrival at KACK.  TCAS reveals one long string of aircraft and ATC is a nonstop machine gun of instructions.  It’s a little ridiculous in fact.  I’ve never heard calls and responses so fast and so non-stop.  Nothing but super pro pilots and controllers machine gunning instructions and responses at each other.  I wonder if the poor KACK arrival controller even has time to breathe in between calls.

As we near Nantucket I can see this approach is going to be fast and hot.  There’s another aircraft already turning across our path headed for runway 24 not more than 2 miles in front of us. ATC vectors us around sharply to follow that bogie, and in and down we disappear into the usual black murk of the fog. It’s zero viz as usual all the way down to the deck.  ATC has our initial approach above the glide slope - too high for Betty to take over - so we are hands on, blind, and descending fast.  The usual breakout at about 800 feet and 2 miles comes quickly but shows us just a bit to the right of the centerline. 

A kick of the left rudder and a quick request for power from the twin Rolls Royce Allison engines puts us in a floating crab angle for the centerline.  A Delta 737 is at the hold short and is requesting to get out ahead of us.  “Not going to happen,” I think to myself.  ATC responds more diplomatically with instructions to hold for an aircraft 2 miles inbound.  30 seconds later the ERJ crabs over to the centerline right at the numbers, and with a right kick to the rudder and a chop of the power she glides to a straight on landing just shy of midfield. The Delta is anxious to get out of Dodge so we keep power up to exit off the echo taxiway to the right.  Over to the ramp and we’re unloading and loading pax quickly, and resetting the ship to depart again for KBOS with probably the fastest turnaround we’ve done all year.  There’s a huge backlog of frustrated loved ones to shuttle home and we’d love to do our best to accommodate them as best we can.  Mere minutes after arrival and we are back on the taxiway, cleared to roll and tearing back up through the black murk to punch into the moonlit sky yet again.

Altitude and speed are ramping up as best as we can make it happen.  There’s lost time to make up for, the controllers are machine gunning instructions again, and TCAS is full of aircraft.

Me? I'm grinning ear to ear.

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.