I was a good little boy and took a bunch of pictures for July. Here are a few. The rest are up in the “pictures” area (duh!)

The theme is (not surprisingly for July) Thunder Storms!

A distant thunder storm at sunset. Heading home to Dayton.

Lighting in a cell just over Charleston, WV.

A dying thunder boomer in the moonlight heading from Charlotte to Greenville, NC.

Today is day 4 of a 4 day trip. There is always something nice about waking up on the morning of the last day KNOWING you are going home that day. There are two ways that waking up can go. Either, really early in the morning, which sucks, but you know you will be home by mid day, or later in the morning, which is nice, but you know you won’t get home until late that night. Today is one of the latter.

I’m just hoping the weather that is building south of PHL is all gone by the time we head over there later today.

Today marks two years I’ve been at The Company. It says so right under Date Of Hire on the back of my ID. July 25th 2005. There are times where it seems like I have been here much longer then that, and other times where it seems like it was just yesterday I was walking into the Dayton Resort and Spa (nasty hotel we stay in for training). Time is perhaps the best measure of growth we have. Personal, professional etc. I am certainly not the person I was coming into this place two years ago.

Personally, it’s been a somewhat interesting road. This is really my first “career” job and it means I am now a working professional. There is something exciting about that and yet something depressing as well. People spend their whole childhoods trying to grow up, go through school and go through college to get THAT job. I guess I can now say, been there, done that and have the tshirt (actually a whole bunch of them). There are times I miss aspects of that journey to get “here”. There are of course other days I am glad I am already here and not struggling along the path still. I guess I wish I had realized a little earlier that life is most defiantly a journey, not a destination. On the plus side, falling into the demographic of “young working professional” certainly does have it’s benefits. Stability is nice. A ok income and not constantly wonder “what next” (ok, I do that anyways) is nice too.

Another change is the housing situation. I went from moving out of my family home where I hadn’t had a roommate ever to 15 by 15 college dorm room with a roommate to an apartment with a housemate to an apartment with several roommates to a loft with a housemate and then on to my own apartment. As much as I do like living by my self, there are certainly positives to having a housemate. I did enjoy coming back to the apartment to hear music playing or the TV on. Granted, it is nice now to come home and turn on my OWN music (although in his defense, Paul did like pretty good music).

In these past two years I went from being single to not being single and then back to being single. And that’s all that I’ll say about that.

Professionally I have changed as well. When I first started flying the jet I was WAY behind and struggling to keep up. I was confident as a pilot from instructing for about 700 hours, but I wasn’t confident as a Part 121 pilot. There were paying passengers in the back and a guy with a whole lot more flying time then me in the left seat second guessing ever decision I made. Early on, I almost dreaded my legs to fly as the landings scared me. I would much rather work the radios and not have to worry about flying the plane. When I started the time to upgrade was running around 5 years and I was confident I would need all 5 years to feel ready.

As time passed and I grew more confident. I no longer feared actually flying the plane, and actually started to enjoy it. Also, my knowledge of procedures and regulations increased until I was thinking at about the same speed (and some times faster) then the Captain. I remember a day about a year ago where we had to divert due to bad weather at the destination. Not only did I recommend the course we eventually took (diverting to Jacksonville, FL) but just about every decision we made that night was one I had already come up with in my head. Of course there is a fine line between being cocky and being confident.

Up until about 2 months ago I was constantly looking for the next job. I want to make this a two airline career. While I still very much want to do that, I am enjoying this flying enough that I am willing to really wait until the perfect opportunity comes along. Hopefully it will be sooner then later, but in the mean time I am having fun.

I tend to be a little quirky in the cockpit. Well, I tend to do that in regular every day life too, but in the small confines up front, I worry that it is TOO much some times. The captain I am flying with this month is one of the most laid back guys we have in the left seat and I asked him the other day, after about 12 hours of duty time and almost 8 hours of flying if other FOs were like me in that sense. He said that everybody has their quirks… and that I was quirkier then most. He went on to talk about the first time he flew with me (I was REALLY new) and how he wondered if I would come out of my shell ever. I bet he was now wishing he had a spare shell he could stuff me back into!

So, two years go by. I’m sure there will be 2 more. And 2 more after that. And probably a whole bunch of 2 mores to come. It may just be a job, but for me it’s better then just about any other job I can imagine.

Today was just three legs, but over 6:30 of flying time. It was a nice change from the North Carolina Taxi Service that we often times run. This morning found us starting at 6am in Columbia, flying to Charlotte (19 minutes of air time) and then heading up to Minneapolis and then over to Philly. The CLT-MSP and the MSP-PHL legs were both over 800 miles and took more then 2 hours.

I don’t want to get into the “should an RJ be doing longer stage lengths” argument, as it probably has been pretty well beaten to death. What I do want to comment on however is how much I like doing the longer legs. They are a little bit of an adjustment, and that is the only downside of them. If I was doing them all the time I would certainly get used to the whole sitting for 2 or 3 or 6 hours straight.

There are so many benefits (from a crew member point of view) to flying the longer stage lengths. First off, it is much more productive use of time as we are only paid for when the airplane is off the gate. Meaning, for every flight there is a fair amount of time spend sitting at the gate waiting to load or unload. If we have to fly 6 legs (not that unusual), to get our 6 hours of flying time in, that’s 6 legs worth of sitting around and waiting too. If we only have to fly 2 legs to get the 6 hours in that is only 2 legs worth of sitting around time.

Another benefit is the reduction in fatigue. The most tiring/stressful part of a flight is the getting ready (loading the FMS, getting the clearance, getting the numbers, getting the passengers on, taxiing, taking off and climbing) and the arrival (descent, landing, taxi, unload). Doing that 6 times a day can really tire a person out, even if the leg lengths are very short. With the longer legs, most of the time is spent up at cruise where you are just monitoring your instruments, making radio calls and indulging in “company approved” reading material.

And the final thing I really liked about the longer legs was I got to see more of the country then just the Piedmont of North Carolina, Georgia and Virginia. The route up to MSP took us over Cincy, Fort Wayne, Chicago, Milwaukee, Eau Clair and into MSP. Heading back to PHL brought us over the top of Grand Rapids, Detroit, Cleveland and Pittsburgh. I didn’t even know the Mississippi River ran through MSP. Things you learn when you actually get more then 300 miles away from a hub I guess.

As if today wasn’t bad enough having to get up at 4:45 to get to the airport at 6, we had a slight problem in flight on our first leg. About 20 minutes out from PHL (my leg), descending through FL200 we got a single chime followed by a master caution light and a L REVERSER UNLOCKED message.

A quick review of thrust reversers or TRs. TRs are designed to assist in slowing an aircraft down during a landing or an aborted take off. They work not by changing the spin of the engine (and having air sucked in the back blown out the front) but rather by redirecting the engine thrust forward. In general they do this on one of two ways. In a clam shell design, the back half of the engine cowling folds outwards (like a clam shell… duh!) and directs the air coming out the back of the engine forward. This design is also called a “bucket” some times as it looks sort of like two half buckets attached to the back of the engine. The other design is a translating cowl (what we have on the CRJ) which operates by way of a second opening midway back along the engine that directs thrust forward went exposed by the engine cowl sliding back. In both cases reveres thrust pushes air forward to decelerate the aircraft along with the wheel brakes.

Anyhow, here we are cruising along at 300 knots when all of the sudden the left engine cowl (for what ever reason) decides to roll back and expose the reverser. The actual mechanism for deploying the reversers from the cockpit requires the thrust levers to go into idle thrust (all the way back) and then two triggers on the underside of the thrust levers to be released, and then the reverser levers (attached to the back side of the thrust levers) to be pulled upwards. Also, to prevent deployment in the air, there has to be weight on wheels sensed before the system will activate. Obviously none of this happened before we got our message.

Following the CASS message there was a slightly rumble and I had both feet on the rudders to counteract any sort of roll or yaw that would accompany one engine thrusting backwards and one engine thrusting forwards. Fortunately none came. The autopilot kept the plane going straight, and even with out any rudder input from me, the plane stayed in coordinated flight. Obviously, the reverser didn’t actually unstow.

We still ran the QRH (basically an emergency checklist book that covers just about every situation… well, almost everything) which had us bring the effected thrust lever to idle (first time I flew with a idle engine and a powered engine in the actual airplane… a whole lot of rudder is needed, but not nearly as much as in the sim) and then to press the emergency stow button which is supposed to drive the cowl cover closed (say that three times fast) and stow it. We pressed the button but the message didn’t go away. However, because there was no yawing or rolling and it appeared to just be a sensor, we didn’t have to shut down the engine and were able to proceed to the nearest suitable airport (which just so happened to be our destination of PHL).

Everything was normal on landing, although I didn’t have my left reverser as it was disabled. After parking we called out maintenance, but swapped airplanes before they got there so we weren’t able to find out what happened.

Moral of the story, stuff does break, although not nearly as would be expected considering the thousands and thousands of parts that make up an airplane.

The APU on an aircraft is pretty much a third jet engine, although it doesn’t produce any thrust. It’s primary job is to generate power while on the ground and when the actual engines are running. It also provides bleed air to run the air conditioning when the engines aren’t running. Obviously, it’s a nice thing to have. So of course, we didn’t have one yesterday.

On paper my schedule was very easy. Deadhead from DAY to CLT and then fly the return trip. I got down to CLT no problem, sat for 40 minutes and then went out to the gate to work the flight home. That’s when things started going badly. The captain and I got there to find another airplane parked on our gate (they were just shutting the door) and about 15 other crew members trying to get back to DAY. The flight was full as was and then having 15 must rides didn’t help. Oh yeah, and the APU thing. By the time I got on the plane the cabin temp was around 33 degrees. We normally try to keep it around 27 or 28. They eventually started boarding but because of the oversold situation and the fact they needed 12 volunteers, it took a while to get everybody one. And the whole time the cabin temp was climbing. By the time we got everybody on and the door shut we were at 36 degrees. Of course with no APU we had to start an engine at the gate using a air cart (basically a big compressor hooked up to a hose that starts the engine spinning until it lights off and maintains it’s own revolutions). That takes time and because some idiot designed the hose connection directly under the left engine you can only start the right off of the air cart and then start the left later by using bleed air from the running right engine. By the time we actually were able to taxi out the cabin was at 37 degrees, where it stayed until we leveled off at 28,000 feet and it slowly came down to a “comfortable” 32 by landing 1 hour later.

There are all sorts of considerations in a situation like this. Fortunately it wasn’t too hot outside (only around 90) and the sun wasn’t out as it was cloudy so both those factors kept the cabin temp down. Also, we didn’t expect to have to wait in line to get out. Once the engines are spooled up they actually produce enough thrust to start to cool the cabin. If any of that stuff hadn’t been going for us we might have seriously considered not going. Also, this was the go home leg for the crew, which while doesn’t really effect the passengers too much, it does motivate people to make the leg happen. If this had just been a turn some where and we were coming right back we might have been more inclined to not go.

All in all summer weather seems to wreck havoc on the APUs (this one was leaking oil so they decided to disable it) just when you need them most.

I can’t believe I’m actually home on a Friday night. I’m so excited in fact that I am going to go to bed.

Today is the last day of my vacation. Tomorrow is a quick out and back (DH to CLT and then fly the flight back up) and then I rejoin what was a 4 day for the last 2 days on Sunday. It’s been an ok break from flying. I managed to keep busy the first few days (back to MA and then out to SEA) but the last few have dragged a bit. A combination of my job (being gone a whole lot) and my natural shyness to meet people means I really don’t know anybody in the area, so I spend most of the past few days catching up on housekeeping stuff and reading books. Not a bad thing really I guess. I did manage to play some Ultimate on Wednesday and I’ll play again tomorrow as I don’t have to be at work until 4. The rain we’ve had has softened up the field nicely so it was actually good to play on.

Anyhow, I’m rambling a bit so I guess that’s a sure sign to stop writing.

Over Philly
FL280
-6 degrees C
450 Knots

HPN-CLT

White Plains is one of those strange quasi vacation destinations we go to. I hadn’t been there in a while as most of our flying to there was from PHL and PIT, flying we have mostly lost to other carriers. We went in yesterday from PHL and are now heading out down to CLT.

The Westchester County Airport serves as a satellite airport for the eastern New York Metro area, much in the same way Teterboro serves the western side of the Metro Area. White Plains, although crazy isn’t the same level of busy as Teterboro is. However, HPN is still plenty busy. We came in with a full load of people out of PHL at around 9:30pm last night. The trip up was pretty interesting as it is such a short flight and goes right through the arrivals for JFK and EWR coming up the coast.

We started out of PHL heading due east towards Atlantic City (which was all lit up) and then turned north up the coast. The turned us back and forth a few times so we could climb up over the inbound NYC traffic and then eventually were turned on our way to Deer Park, on Long Island. From there we descending while heading Out Island before turning across the sound to Bridgeport, Connecticut and then direct the airport. They were landing to the south so we entered on a left base behind 3 other airplanes (a Cirrus, a Citation and a Piaggio). We joined the localizer about 8 miles behind the Piaggio which gave tower plenty of room to stick a Seminole in front of us. That was fine. What wasn’t fine was them putting a Cirrus between us and the Seminole. It was pretty tight and the Captain was S turning the whole way down, but we touched down just as the Cirrus cleared the runway in front of us. As we taxied clear there were already 4 airplanes lined up on final behind us, all business jets.

White Plains is a shared use airport meaning the airlines don’t own the gates and the airport operations assign them as planes arrive. Oh yeah, and they only have 4 of them. Ours was occupied when we got there but fortunately vacated shortly there after. We dumped out passengers and then, because the plane was done for the night but the gate was still needed had to reposition our airplane to remote parking. Once we shut down there an operations guy gave us a ride back to the terminal where we had to fight our way through an unloading JetBlue A320 from Florida to get to our van ride to the hotel.

Our hotel has improved some here as it is a Marriott, which is much nicer then the old BobO brand place we used to stay. The down side is that it is a 25 minute ride and is in the middle of a business park with NO food options anywhere nearby. The good thing was that it was a short overnight and we were heading back to the airport by 11am the next morning.

We headed through security and cleared into a complete zoo. The terminal is designed to hold MAYBE one 737 worth of people plus a small commuter airplane. Waiting outside was an Airtran 717, a Jetblue 320 three CRJ200s, and ERJ and a 1900. Lots of people. And these are the sort of people that are “too good” to go to LGA and JFK to catch flights. (funny story… the captain I am flying with now used to be at Allegheny. He told me about a time he was flying out of HPN and the FA had asked a woman what she would like to drink. After trying 3 times and getting no response, the woman finally tapped the person sitting next to her and said “tell the stewardess I don’t speak to the hired help”.) Anyhow… we finally made it to the ticket counter were one of the US Airways gate agents was able to bulldoze a path for us to get outside and to the airplane. Once there it was smooth sailing.

For me, once I get back to CLT I have a nice two hour sit and then fly Columbia, PHL and then home to DAY. No weather in the forecast so hopefully it turns out to be a smooth day.

It is very hard for many people in the airline industry to motivate themselves to go places on there days off. After spending four days sitting in an airplane the last thing I want to do is subject myself to more air travel on my days off and then get home and go right back to work. When I first started it was all new and exciting enough to warrant doing, but as time as gone on I have become more and more adverse to going anywhere.

I’m on vacation this week and had 12 days off so I did motivate myself to go back up to Massachusetts and visit my family and then head out to Seattle to go on a tour of Alaska Airlines and Boeing. It was well worth it, but I decided that I really do hate traveling.

I managed to get back up to Amherst no problem by going through Philly. The flight actually got in early. After spending 4 days at home and I headed out to Seattle. My plan was to take United down to Washington or out to Chicago and then head to Seattle from there with UAL having about hourly service (or so I thought) between the two. IAD looked like the better option so I snagged the last seat in the back of United 737. Once we got to IAD I walked 3 gates over and checked in at the counter for the flight to Seattle. It was oversold by about 6 but there was no jumpseater so I figured I was good. The gate agent cleared everybody she could and was just about to print out my jumpseat ticket when a lady came back up the jetway crying because somebody was in her seat and she wasn’t going to get on the plane. The gate agent took her back down the jetway to figure out the problem (turns out there was another open seat), forgot all about me and pushed the flight before she came back up. Next flight to Seattle? Scheduled for 5 hours later but already with a 2 hours delay posted. That wouldn’t get me into Seattle until around 11 that night (PST). To hedge my bets I wandered over to American and got the jumpseat on an MD80 down to Dallas. The crew wasn’t too talkative, but were nice guys. We managed to beat a huge thunderstorm to the field. I just missed the next AA flight to Seattle, so I took the shuttle over to the E terminal to wait for the 7pm Alaska Airlines flight. The MD80 was almost completely full but they managed to find an extra seat for me. So at 8:30 Seattle time I finally got there although it A VERY long day and a not so straight route to do it.

Coming back East takes most of a day so even though I had a hotel room and car booked through two days I decided to come back on a red eye. I headed over to the airport around 9:30 and decided to gamble on good old US Airways. There was a 10:30 flight to CLT and a 11 flight to PHL. Both were oversold by at least 10 with a whole bunch of non revs but both were on Airbus 320s with two jumpseats up front. I started with the CLT flight which already had a jumpseater (actually a PSA captain who I can’t stand) so I checked over at the PHL gate. The FO for the flight had commuted in (the trip was a deadhead up from the PHX and he lives near Seattle) so I talked to him for a bit and then checked in at the gate. I ended up being the only jumpseater on a full flight.

Of course, a jumpseat on a red eye sucks as the whole point of a red eye is to sleep through it and a) jumpseats were not built to sleep in and b) pilots flying red eyes, keep the lights one, talk loudly, and move around a lot to stay awake. Yeah, I got no sleep.

When we landed in PHL I had about 45 minutes to catch my flight. Of course, the Philly Factor struck quickly and that idea went out the window. Somebody had parked a truck in the safety zone around the parking spot for the gate so we couldn’t get in to park. Of course there was no keys in it and the brake was set. So after 45 minutes and a whole bunch of supervisors putting their heads together a ramper jumped on a tug and rammed the truck out of the way. So I missed my connection and had to wait 3 hours (mostly spend dozing in the crew room) for the next one.

Over all being gone for 6 days was fine, but it was nice to get home.

I really thought I’d never be writing those words. Strange job this is.

Because not all trips end on the last day of the month (a four day may START on the last day of the month and carry 3 days into the next month) the first four or five days of a new month (“the blend”) can be interesting. For example, in June I had a 4 day trip start on the 3rd to last day of the month so I had one day of carry out. My schedule for July had 3 day trip starting on the first. I was still tied up flying my 4 day from last month for the first day of this month so I couldn’t cover the flying on the first. Crew planning’s solution is to slot me back into my trip today, the day after I finished up my 4 day. Of course because I am limited to 30 hour of flying in 7 days (and this is day 5) I can’t do most of the flying scheduled today because I just flew 22 hours in the last 4 days and can only fly 8 more in the next 2. So all I do today is deadhead to Charlotte and then fly to Chattanooga. Tomorrow I am on my regular schedule for the last day of the trip. The downside is I end up working 6 days straight with only 14 hours at home between days 4 and 5. Grrr. At least I have vacation once i get back from this trip.