I ended up doing 3 more OCFs today on the same plane as yesterday. Same problem as before. Same outcome. This time we took two mechanics with us on each trip and despite what ever fixes they tried on the ground, nothing seemed to solve the problem. At one point there were 5 line mechanics, a lead mechanic and a Maintenance Controller all on board trying to solve the problem. We I left at 10pm due to running out of duty time they had the airplane pretty well torn apart in the hopes that replacing a specific pressure line would solve the problem. I’m not holding my breath.

Today was day one of three of a reserve block for me. I lucked out with a late reserve time (10am-midnight) and when I checked my schedule on line at about 1:20pm there was nothing there. 10 minutes later may phone was ringing and scheduling was telling me to be at the airport at 3:20 for an OCF. An Operational Check Flight is when something is broken on the airplane and Maintenance is either trying to get more information about the problem or they think they have fixed it but they can’t verify it on the ground and require the airplane to fly to see if they got it. Most OCFs are pretty mundane but sometimes an oddball once pops up that requires repetitive take offs and landings or repeatedly swinging the gear.

There are obvious safety concerns about some OCFs and it generally falls to the Captain’s judgment if it can be done safely. The only hard rule is that we can’t shut a required system down in flight (think, turning off a generator or hydraulic system or an engine). Those flights require a pilot (generally a training department guy) who is “specially” trained to do that stuff. But that’s a whole different story.

Today’s OCF was pretty boring. The aircraft has three separate altimeters that keep track of the aircraft’s altitude using ambient static pressure. The two main altimeters are built into the captain and FO’s primary flight display in the form of an altitude tape that scrolls up and down the right hand side. The third altimeter sits in the center of the panel between the two EICAS screens. It’s considered the standby instrument and gets data from an entirely separate static system. On this specific aircraft it had been written up for showing over 300 feet higher than the two main altimeters when in cruise flight. Because it showed the same on the ground but not in flight they needed us to take the plane up to 31,000 feet and see if they had fixed the problem. To monitor the system we took a mechanic with us in the jumpseat.

Because we weren’t actually going anywhere they filed us in a square route around the state of Ohio. No reason to go too far as we would just have to turn around and come right back as soon as we were done. After briefing what we needed to do with the mechanic and getting stuff loaded in to the computer I started up both engines and we taxied out to runway 6L in Dayton. Once at the end we waited for another departure and then blasted off. The plane weighed only 37,000 pounds (which is between 8000 and 15,000 pounds less then it normally weighs and it pretty much jumped off the ground when I started to rotate.

With the lack of weight we had climbed up to 23,000 feet by the time we were over Columbus. Indianapolis Center asked us if we had to stay on our route or could they just vector us around. We agreed to the vector as they could climb us up to our final altitude much quicker that way. As we passed through 27,000 feet the the standby altimeter started to show a 100 foot split which had widened to 200 feet by the time we leveled off at 31,000 feet. As I accelerated to 310 knots the split grew to almost 500 feet difference. All three of us (me, the FO and the mechanic) were satisfied that they hadn’t solved the problem and informed ATC we were ready to head back.

They gave us a turn back to the west and started descending us back down. 20 minutes later I was passing abeam the airport and cleared for the visual. The exceedingly light aircraft weight (we had burned off another 3000 pounds of gas) was allowing the plane to bounce around in the turbulence below the cloud layer but once i got the flaps out and the plane slowed down the bumps stopped. A 3 mile final put me on speed and glide path at 1000 feet above the ground and a minute later I was planting the mains on the runway. A short taxi and we were parked back in front of the hanger, in the same spot we’d been in 1 hour before.

After shutting down we headed inside where I tracked down the lead mechanic who was on the speaker phone with a very French sounding guy in Montreal on Bombardier’s headquarters. They were just as stumped as our guys were and as I walked out the door the French guy (much to the enjoyment of the mechanics in the room) was going on about how “weez don’t knowa whys use are having theeze problemes”.

15 minutes after that, with no clear solution in site scheduling released us for the day.

Duty time: 1 1/2 hours

Flight time: 1 hour

Driving time: 1 hour

My sort of day.

Here’s our rather phallic flight path

I’m sitting hot reserve. Which is bad. Actually today it’s ok because my apartment has no power and a broken window. But it still boring sitting here.

Here’s a picture to keep you entertained in the mean time. It’s Charlotte during a foggy day last week.

45 Miles SW of Birmingham

Altitude: 27,000 feet

Temp: -24C

Ground Speed: 455 knots

We’re heading eastbound into a rapidly raising sun. The flight computer is showing 125 miles to Atlanta and then another 250 more to Charlotte and the end of our 4 day trip. I’ve just turned up the brightness on all the display screens and turned off the backlighting on the buttons and switches that make up our home away from home. The next step will be to dig my sunglasses out of my flight case and start the daily process of trying to keep the sun out of my eyes.

The origional plan for today was to wake up in Chattanooga, TN and not show until 4pm to fly to Washington and then back to Dayton. Due to a maintenance problem yesterday scheduling ended up modifying our trip so we overnighted in Jackson, MS and then flew the early morning flight back to Charlotte. It meant only 9 hours of rest instead of the planned 16 in Chattanooga, but it also meant that once we get back to Dayton on a deadhead we are done 11 hours earlier than originally scheduled. For my FO and FA this is a good deal as they are line holders. Because I am on reserve this doesn’t do much for me because I’ll still be on reserve until 8pm tonight, 14 hours after my day started. To add insult to injury my schedule for tomorrow is now showing 5am hot reserve, something they couldn’t have done if I didn’t get back until 10pm this evening as the original plan was.

Yesterday started off pretty badly with an early morning show (6am) in RDU. We got the plane no problem but as soon as we were aboard and starting to get set up, an FAA inspector showed up and told us he’d be riding along. Any FAA inspector is supposed to ride up front when ever they travel to observe. It’s not a big deal really but it’s sort of like a career pizza delivery guy riding around with a police officer in the back seat. They aren’t out to get you (mostly) but you certainly don’t want to do anything wrong. To make matters worse this Fed was going to Greensboro, NC after getting in to Charlotte and so where we so we’d have him onboard for two legs. As was it ended up being just fine minus the rather bumpy arrival into GSO.

After leaving our Fed in GSO and heading back to Charlotte we enjoyed 3 hours of airport appreciation before loading up the plane to head out to do a turn to Jackson. Our people and bags loaded I started us taxing out but about halfway to the runway a button that is part of the landing gear handle assembly started moving around, which was a little bit too creepy for both the FO and I. After a quick phone call to Maintenance Control (they had no clue what was going on) we taxied back to the gate and unloaded out people while several mechanics came on board and started scartching their heads. In the end they decided to replace a PSU (basically a small computer that sense a specific item’s position) and call it a day. The problem seemed to have disappeared so we loaded back up and headed out. Because of the delay we would no longer have enough duty time to go to Jackson, get back to Charlotte and then make it to Chattanooga, so scheduling made that deal with us.

This time we made it all the way out to the runway with no problem and after a short wait we were heading westward into a rapidly dropping sun. Just south of Huntsville we were forced to deviate south around the last band of weather being sucked up from the Gulf behind a rapidly moving mass of weather that at one point in time was Hurricane Ike. The majority of that weather was now 500 miles north of us centered over Ohio, causing all kinds of problems for Cincinnati and Dayton. But winging along at 28,000 feet over Alabama the ride was mostly smooth for us.

30 minutes later we were dropping into a cloud layer just north of Jackson. The weather report was calling for clouds at 6000 feet but we didn’t see anything until 2000 feet and touched down in the middle of a small rain storm. The FO rolled it on nicely and within a few seconds the reversers cycled out and we started slowing down. I took the plane at 60 knots and taxied through the puddles to our gate.

Atlanta is now passing underneath us but due to a combination of the glare from the sun and low cloud layer there is nothing to see. That’s ok, I’m sure I’ll come this way again.

I had my 6 month checkride today. When I was still in the right seat I only had to go the sim once a year where I alternately went through a checkride (called a Proficiency Check or a PC) and a training event (called Proficiency Training, or a PT). The same deal applies now that I have upgraded, but the time frame shrinks to 6 months, so every year I now do both a PC and a PT. Today was my PC.

Because the simulator is in Charlotte, my day started off with a deadhead out of Dayton that got me into Charlotte at 10:30am. My checkride wasn’t until 2pm (with a 1pm show time to do some paperwork and the oral exam portion) so I hung out in the crew room and got some lunch while I waited. At noon I headed outside and caught the shuttle bus over to the training center. Once there I headed upstairs to the briefing room. My sim partner for the day (another captain I went through upgrade training with) was already there and we talked over some stuff until our instructor showed up at 1pm.

By 1:30 we were wrapping up the paperwork and oral exam and another instructor stuck his head in to let us know he was out of the sim. We headed down and through a random process (ok, my sim partner said “pick a number between 1 and 10″ and I went with 7 which apparently meant I was going first) I ended up throwing by bag in the left seat and strapping in to get started. The ride started with the aircraft at the gate in Pittsburgh plugged in to ground power. It took about 10 minutes to get stuff set up and run through the checklists before we were ready to push back. After getting cleared for pushedback I had my FO (actually a Captain, which meant at least in theory he knew what he was doing) start the right engine. It hot started (meaning the temperature inside it spiked to about 700 degrees C VERY quickly) so he shut it back down and after I set the parking brake we ran the appropriate checklist. With that taken care of (and a mock call to Maintenance) we moved on and I started the other engine. This time the engine started fine but the starter (think a big leaf blower but in reverse with the air coming in and causing the engine to start spinning) didn’t stop when it was supposed to. A simple button push (back up with a checklist… there’s always a checklist) solved the problem.

After getting two stable running engines we taxied out into a rather nasty day with 1/4 mile visibility and strong, gusty winds. The taxi checklist and before take off checklist got us to the end of the runway where after re briefing the departure to take into account the reported windshear in the area I lined up on Runway 28R. In the sim you pretty much can guarantee something is going break or go wrong, but anticipating it can get you in trouble so often times it’s best to just do what you normally do and react once stuff starts going bad. With that in mind I put up the power and we started rolling down the runway, which in the reduced visibility disappeared about 800 feet in front of me. We made it to V1 (the speed at which you can no longer reject a take off) with out incident and then just as I was about to rotated my FO called out that our airpseed indicators had failed. That was an odd one and I half thought about rejecting the take off even though we were past V1 but after seeing that my airspeed matched the standby airspeed indicator, and it is highly unlikely that both systems would fail at the same time, I kept going.

The plane lifted off just fine and as we climbed through 200 feet and I called for the gear up, the speed jumped up about 60 knots and in order to compensate I had to pitch up so much that we were climbing at almost 8000 feet per minute (normal is 1000 to 2000). Within a few moments everything seemed to settle down and I got the plane cleaned up and the autopilot on. Turns out what had happened was we got a huge windshear (a loss of 60 or so knots) right on the runway which led to what seemed like an airspeed indicator freeze. Then, as we came out of the shear and got the increasing performance on the back side, the airspeed jumped up.

And that was just my first take off.

From there I did some air work. The steep turns were ok and my maneuvering stall, while acceptable was a little ugly. After that it was time for the approaches. To facilitate that one of our emergency window exits popped open. While my FO ran some checklists to deal with that problem I got us headed back to PIT. We got lined up for an ILS and everything went well until about 50 feet off the ground tower (ok, our sim op) called for us to go around. So around we went. As I called for the flaps up they started moving just fine but as they rolled through 3 degrees on the way to 0 they stopped moving. Typical sim world stuff.

The good news was the weather drastically improved to clear and a million so I was able to get vectors back around for a visual approach which I managed to plant pretty well despite a gusty cross wind. Following that we reset at the top of the runway as the weather came back down to 1/2 a mile and fog.

This time on rotation my right engine blew up. Literally. As I started (slowly) climbing out the engine fire bell went off. Not a big deal, we have fire suppression back there and the plane flies just fine on once engine. However before i could actually call for a checklist or anything the left engine fire bell went off as well. We only have two engines on the CRJ, and now both of them were burning although the left one was still generating power but I had no idea for how long. I had my FO get us a tight vector to join an approach back down to the runway. I told him not to even bother with a checklist as we didn’t have time. By the time we had the approach set up and briefed we were joining the final and about a minute later broke out of the clouds where I manged an ok landing. We came to a stop and then I started the evacuation process. Or sim op stopped me before we got to far and reset us 3 miles out with the visibility back up to unlimited.

The winds were now blowing directly across the runway at 26 knots (right below our limit) and gusting to 35. I manged to muscle the plane down to just over the runway were I caught a nice sized gust. Despite that I did get it on the ground but it really wasn’t that pretty. To make a point the sim op spun my nose wheel (think much made fun of Jetblue landing in California) which made the plane start sliding off the runway. Using a whole lot of braking I was able to keep us on the pavement and get the plane stopped. At that point I talked through what I would do (call the fire trucks, get a bus for the people and let maintenance tow the plane away) and then we were done.

After a 15 minute break my sim partner got in the left seat and I went back to my old home on the right. Stuff came back pretty quickly, but it already felt odd sitting over there. He managed to do everything just fine and after an hour and a half we were done for the day.

A quick debrief and I was snagging a ride back to the airport (my first ride in a convertible… and a Porsche Boxter at that) to catch a flight home.

On one hand I’m really glad I only have to do these rides every six months. On the other hand there are 5 fingers. No, really, on the other hand, it’s always a good experience to prove that you do in fact have what it takes to deal with stuff when it starts to go bad.

I was given a four day trip starting on Wednesday. It was good to get out and fly, but I actually had planned on doing some stuff at home over those days. Such is life I guess. The worst part about it was that I had just gone grocery shopping and the nice salad I made on Tuesday night will most certainly have gone bad by the time I get back. I have slightly higher hopes for the raspberry pie. As is the line holder called back in for tomorrow so it’s become a three day trip for me with a single leg to fly tomorrow and then a deadhead home.

The yesterday our first round trip out of Charlotte (to Huntsville) was full both ways. We then took 25 people up to Tri Cities and were slightly surprised when we got there to find there were no returning passengers. It was the first time I’d flown a revenue flight with nobody on board. The only thing on the load form (see the picture below) was 38 pounds of ballast in the form of sandbags. After we got back to Charlotte (about an half an hour early due to being able to leave TRI early) we grabbed dinner and then headed east to Newport News for the night.

Today was a quick flight back to Charlotte and then up to Lexington, just ahead of the weather that has been moving up the Mississippi River Valley and into the Ohio River Valley. Despite some gusty winds I managed a nice landing before we turned the airplane around and after a 30 minute sit waiting out an ATC delay we headed back to Charlotte. The flight over to Fayetteville that followed was a quick 20 minutes.

It’s nice flying more than just a day at a time for a change.