11-11-11

I gave up part of my hubturn nap last night to have a snack with long-time friend from the Navy George. He's been at Fedex for 5 or 6 years, and has been very junior the whole time since we basically stopped hiring when the mandatory retirement age changed from 60 to 65. George and I went through AVROC training together and he ended up flying helicopters while I was in the E-2. We were both on the same cruise on the Kitty Hawk in '83, and I actually got about 30 minutes of stick time in George's H-3 orbiting in starboard delta over the ship one time. George stayed in the Navy and retired, moving to Norfolk with his wife. His experience at Fedex is much different than mine due to the 10 years between our hire dates. Luck and timing have alot to do with this industry. Anyway, it was good to catch up with an old friend and reminisce a little. I hope we'll begin hiring again in earnest so that George can gain some seniority.

Cool tree along the Swamp Rabbit Trail today

I'm looking forward to my wife joining me in Greenville tomorrow for the weekend layover. We will rent a car and visit my folks in Black Mountain. Then, after I get home Tuesday morning, it's vacation time!
PS Happy Veteran's Day

My Kingdom for a Bed

The first two mornings of this week, we were at least an hour late getting in to Greenville. Finally last night, we were basically on time, so I was looking forward to getting into bed before the evil sunlight touched me and destroyed my melatonin. But noooo. When I went to the assigned room, this is what I saw--->

Nice (meeting) room, but no bed! The phone was ringing, so I picked it up. Mike at the front desk said, "Oh, I forgot to tell you that there is no room for you yet, so we put you in this room to have a place to wait..." Uh huh. And wait I did; for an hour. See, I'm obviously not SUPPOSED to get to bed before dawn this week.

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

I jumpseated in to Memphis last night, leaving home after dark for the drive to the ABQ ramp with snow coming down in the mountains. When we arrived in Memphis, it was 70 degrees!  My first mission in MEM was to attach the new registration sticker to my domicile car out in the employee parking lot. It has been quite a while since I left it there, so I had no idea where it was. I spent about 15 minutes crisscrossing the rows of derelict cars and finally found the trusty VW, attaching the sticker to the tag (only 4 months late), thus ensuring it won't be towed away by an overzealous Fedex security Nazi. Mission accomplished, it's back to the library in AOC to wait for the appointed hour (3 am) to arrive. Finally met with tonight's FO and determined the sort was a little late, so we chatted awhile before going out to the airplane. When we arrived at the gate at about 3:10, this (the picture above) is what greeted us. See anything wrong? How would you suggest we get into the airplane? We waited on the crew bus for 30 minutes with repeated calls for help. Finally, the bus driver said she simply had to go b/c she had been at work for 14 hours and could no longer stay awake. We got out so she could leave and waited another 20 minutes before the load crew finally brought the crew stairs so they could start the onload. The freight is all that matters...two guys trying to accomplish their preflight duties do not. Of course, once we finally got aboard, now it was rush rush rush. I made the usual first night errors due to lack of sleep compounded by getting stale while waiting, but it was nice weather and we made it to Greenville with the sunrise without embarrassing ourselves too deeply.

NOAA P-3 and other strange things

Strange navigational anomaly with our jet this morning. The FMS (flight management system) would not give us ETAs or predicted fuel, even though it was getting time and fuel inputs it needed. Had to actually keep a paper fuel log! Everything else was functioning well, but it niggles when you can't figure out why...

There was a NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) P-3 parked near our ramp this morning fairly bristling with various exotic sensors for weather research. I took a quick shot with my phone camera. It reminded me of my Customs days flying P-3's. We once hosted a NOAA bird on our ramp at NAS Corpus Christi after it had the crap kicked out of it flying into a hurricane in the gulf. The guys that fly those missions are a little whacko if you ask me! See http://www.aoc.noaa.gov/aircraft_lockheed.htm for more info.

Crosswind Landing

This morning, the Santa Ana winds were predicted to be gusting to 60 kts out of the north in Ontario. When we arrived, the surface winds were only about 5 kts, but the ride at altitude had been very rough all the way from Texas. Descending through 600' AGL (above ground level), the winds were still 45 kts out of the north, and we were landing west (out of limits for touchdown, if it had continued to the deck). This required about a 30 degree right crab to keep the airplane on the extended centerline of the runway. Imagine driving your car and having to look out the extreme left side of the windshield to keep the car centered in your lane. Between 600' and touchdown on runway 26 left, the wind died down to the 5 kts reported, so the heading had to be continuously "clocked" toward runway heading of 256 degrees magnetic, in order to touchdown with the longitudinal axis of the airplane in alignment with the runway centerline. If the airplane touches down in a crab, the stress on the upwind mainmount can be enormous, so I try to avoid that when possible. An interesting problem at 4:30 in the morning when you've been up all night. It worked out ok, but the FO and I agreed we had never seen a sheer that pronounced and that smooth so close to the ground.

Oh No, I Forgot...

Back in Ontario after a great week off. I forgot to pack my laptop's power supply for the first time in 20+ years , and cannot survive without it, so the morning was spent finding a replacement. Radio Shack was just the ticket, but I think the AC adapter cost more than my 2 year old HP laptop is worth! This made me think about all the work-related stuff I need a computer for. Weather, looking at and signing the flight plan (both at the end of the layover each evening and during the hubturn),checking on the maintenance history of the airplane I'll be flying, bidding for vacation, bidding for seat changes, bidding for my monthly line, bidding for training dates, checking on the results of all these bids, getting my paycheck amount, reading safety reports and information files before each flight, reading company email, checking in for a trip when I arrive after a deadhead, entering expense reports, checking open time for trip trades, dropping trips, picking up trips, adjusting monthly lines for vacation or training, calling in sick, calling in well, scheduling jumpseats, reserving deadheads, receiving crew notifications of changes to my schedule, getting hotel and limo info, getting trip info (who I'm flying with, showtimes, etc), performing online annual training, and the list goes on and on. Can't survive without it!

Beauty of Flight

Speaks for itself:
http://www.dogwork.com/owfo8/

Fog in Ontario

When I checked the forecast for Ontario this morning in Fort Worth, the weather was predicted to be no lower than 3 miles visibility for our ETA. I noted that the temperature/dew point spread was a mere 2 degrees, and it seemed likely that the temperature would continue to drop. When these two numbers come together, fog is the result. With no wind to mitigate the situation, the final landing of this duty day would probably be challenging, in spite of the not-so-bad forecast. Enroute, as it always seems to, the visibility began to drop. By the time we were in range and ready to start down from our cruise altitude of 38,000', the touchdown zone on runway 26 left was reporting 1200 RVR, or less than 1/4 mile. We switched to a monitored approach mentality in the cockpit. This means that the First Officer is now in charge of flying the approach down to (in this case) 300' above the ground, freeing the Captain to monitor the whole situation without having to actually fly the airplane. As we came down, the lights on the ground were very visible except where the airport was supposed to be. Very dense fog covered the runway. The runway lead-in lights became visible (barely) through the fog at 500'. At 300', I announced "approaching alert height, I have the airplane" and physically displaced the FO's hand from the throttles. At 100', the runway edge lights had just begun to peek out at us. With this type of approach "Cat 3 with rollout" I do not have to see to land as long as the tower is reporting visibility of at least 600 RVR, and the airplane must autoland. There are about 100 things that have to be working perfectly for all this to come together, and we practice it quite often, but when it's for real, you tend to sit up a little straighter in your seat. This ain't a video game! In the final phase of a monitored approach, my job is to initiate a go around if anything short of perfection occurs. This close to the ground, it's better to get some altitude first and ask "what happened" later. The three autopilots did a great job and we touched down right on centerline, ending another routine night of flying the line.

Flying with a neighbor

This week I'm finally flying with someone I actually know and who also lives in the East Mountains! He just flew his last flight in the reserves before retirement next year, so congrats to Bugsy. We ended up on the same Southwest deadhead to Ontario last night, and we'll be flying from there to Fort Worth every night this week. So far, it looks like we'll actually get to keep the same airplane every night, which is nice b/c we don't have to drag our bags from plane to plane. It's the little things that make a huge difference in the middle of the night.

Down in Norfolk

Broke the airplane in Norfolk last night. We pushed back, eager to get to Indy and back on our last night (FO waiting to start 24 days of vacation, including a trip to Disneyworld from Michigan). Got the left engine started easily, but the right engine fuel valve indicated a fault and would not open to allow fuel to flow. Tried several suggestions by maintenance to no effect. Pulled back into the chocks realizing it would be a long night. Five hours later, they still couldn't get it fixed and we were finally released back to the hotel around 2 am. I changed my deadhead to Albuquerque to this morning at 6:30 and grabbed a 45 minute combat nap and shower before heading back to the airport. Now I'm drooling on myself at DFW on a FOUR HOUR layover b/c I couldn't  get on the better connection due to the Balloon Fiesta attendees grabbing almost all the available seats. Oh well, I'll still get home early afternoon instead of late at night as originally scheduled. Commuting is such fun!

Confessional

After the weekend layover in Richmond, I've been flying between Norfolk and Indy each night. Last night I made the biggest error of my Captaincy, which really wasn't a big deal, but could have been. I lined up on the wrong runway at Indy. There are two parallel and virtually identical runways there, and we were coming in from a direction that put them on the right side of the airplane. That side is very hard to see from my seat on the left side of the cockpit. Because of the city lights, the airport is hard to see, and I just locked onto the far parallel runway instead of the near one, which was not in view when I looked. The First Officer advised me of my error and I made a correction, thanking him. I was tired, but that's no excuse. You can never get complacent in an airplane or it will bite you. If there had been another airplane cleared for an approach to the far side runway, a midair could have occurred (fortunately, there was not). The thing I did right was to foster a cockpit environment all week which allowed the other pilot to speak right up when he saw my error, and me to admit when I had screwed up. That's why you have two pilots up front ladies and gentlemen; for error capture. The hardest thing after making a mistake like that is to recover your mental attitude and get back in the game. How the other person reacts plays a big role in your recovery, but the bottom line is you can't beat yourself up about it, especially in an airplane b/c you simply don't have the luxury of time. So you learn to let it go and move on. We're all human and we will all make mistakes no matter how good we are at what we do.  OK, that's enough of a confession for one day.

Richmond

Walked around the capitol complex on my weekend layover. Lots of history here.

Back to Primary

The first officer I flew with two weeks ago is big into radio controlled (RC) airplanes and talking with him rekindled my interest in this hobby. Things have come a long way since I was flying RC in college and my early years with the Navy. Back then it was all nitro-burning engines and dubious range on the analog radios. Now, over 30 years later, brushless electric motors power the panes and 2.4 gHz radios provide incredible range. I ordered a ready-to-fly (RTF) T-28 done up to look just like the Navy birds I learned to fly in primary flight training. The picture on my den wall is one that hung in the Whiting Field barber shop that Michelle made a copy of for me. It was taken in 1980, the same time I was there. So far, two flights and no crashes...

Cooling off

It's finally starting to cool off in Phoenix and Fort Worth after a long hot summer. Here's a picture of the tube (fuselage) almost loaded. The floor has rollers on it to facilitate loading. The loader broke last night in El Paso, causing a delay getting to Phoenix. One more night for this week's flying.

9/11

I'm deadheading to Phoenix tonight on Southwest. The tone is somber as everyone remembers ten years ago (can it really be that long?). I was mowing the yard in Bryan Texas when our neighbor Kay came running over to tell me a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. Everyone still thought it was an accident until the second tower was hit as well. Truly a horrific day seared into every one's minds, changing the nature of travel in this country. As with two World Wars and several "police actions," a little bit of our national naivete slips away, and this little piece was, I think, the romance of easily traveling by air. It's such a pain now that many of us dread what was once fun. And even though Bin Laden is now dead, things will never ever go back to the way they were. That's a shame, but pales in comparison to the lives we've lost in Iraq, but don't get me started...

Evidently, pilots ain't too bright

Thank you Boeing, that's most helpful!

This morning, pleasantly giddy with sleep-deprivation and last-night-of -the-trip anticipation, I found the label on the outside of my sliding side window particularly humorous. The thing is, this warning explicitly means that someone, sometime, somewhere tried to takeoff with the window wide open. How embarrasing that must have been! Also included is a picture of the massive American Airlines depot level heavy maintenance hangar just across the taxiway from our ramp at Fort Worth Alliance.

Hot Birthday in Ontario

Bleak, smoggy and hot in Ontario

I'm back in SoCal, having deadheaded in last night. My First Officer took the scheduled deadhead from Memphis on American, and we were supposed to be on the same flight from DFW to ONT, but I never saw him. When I arrived in ONT, there was an email from him saying his flight from Memphis to DFW was delayed, and he missed the connection in DFW, so the company had to re-write his pairing and put him up in Dallas over night. He'll arrive from there just before showtime tonight. It will be a long night for him, having to go between the DFW area and ONT three times in one duty period (the first time as a passenger).

Early B-day gift

There's a nifty little definition in our contract with the company. A "trip" has to begin and end in the pilot's domicile. My domicile is Memphis, so any time I touch that humid soil when operating a normal bidpack trip, I am, by definition, at the end of a trip. I deadheaded to Ontario, CA Sunday night to begin a week of flying between there and Fort Worth on a trip where I never actually saw Memphis. On paper, though, the deadhead on the front end originated in Memphis, and the deadhead on the back end (Saturday, in this case) would also end up in Memphis. Thanks to our ability to "deviate" we can instead ride on a deadhead from/to our actual home instead of Memphis. All was peachy this week until the Memphis-bound MD-11 broke down in Ontario. We were conscripted to fly just their "P-1" (highest priority) freight to Memphis instead of our normal Ontario to Fort Worth leg. When we arrived in Memphis this morning, we were done for the week, and since it was not our fault any of this occurred, my First Officer and I will be paid as if we had operated the entire week. Sweet deal, huh? I jumpseated home, and since we won't be going to the cabin (Michelle has to work...Summer's over) I will finally get some time to maybe, possibly work on the Stag!

Sweltering in the Desert

A week of night flying: Phoenix to Fort Worth, then return to Phoenix via El Paso. Too hot to take pictures. sorry

Along the Swamp Rabbit Trail

I took a VERY HOT walk today (100 degrees) along the trail. Took a smoothie and 30 minutes of a/c to cool down again. Can't wait to get home to New Mexico tomorrow!