December To Remember

It's been a while since I've had the time to post. Last time I checked in, it was just before the beginning of the last IOE trip. Due to having several legs canceled, it was necessary to have one more trip to meet the required IOE hourly minimums.

The last trip was a piece of cake. The check airman told me after the last leg of the first day that he would be signing me off. That made the trip go by quite a bit faster. The remainder of the trip was enjoyable and easy, except for a minor emergency that we handled on the last leg of the final day.

After IOE, I enjoyed 5 days off with my family before heading to New York to hunt for a crash pad and begin my reserve tenure at JFK. I found a crash pad in Queens near Jamaica Station that was willing to give me a flat rate for 7 weeks. It's a depressing little place with 8 beds in one room, a bathroom, a kitchen with no stove, a 13-inch tv with basic cable and inconsistent wireless internet. It is cheap and cheap is good right now.

Being on line is MUCH more relaxing than IOE. It's nice not being next to a line check airman having every move evaluated. I'm actually making fewer mistakes with the relaxation of being in a non-jeopardy position. It's also more fun.

The story that was being passed around prior to IOE was that new hire pilots are utilized heavily for the first 100 hours. Once a new pilot reaches 100 hours in the aircraft, several limitations are removed. I have been flying a lot and have already reached 100 hours which makes me eligible to take off and land at special use airports, on icy and contaminated runways, with crosswinds up to the aircrafts limitations, where wind shear is forecast and more. The first thing I'm looking forward to doing is The River Visual at Washington Reagan National. Hopefully it will pop up on my schedule soon.

The thing I've enjoyed most is visual approaches. With a greater comfort level in the aircraft, setting up and configuring for a visual approach is now routine. Very little time is spent in training teaching visuals and most of it is learned in the aircraft. Luckily, they haven't been a struggle for me. Things happen a lot faster on a visual approach and it isn't as regimented as a precision or non-precision approach. Most of the set up is at the pilot flying's discretion. Needless to say, being at 10,000 feet in the downwind and cleared for the visual approach can be a challenge. The CRJ is slippery and although there are several ways to slow it down, it has to be done quickly to ensure staying below 250 knots and configuring for a stabilized approach. I love doing visual approaches.

I have enjoyed several trips up and down the East Coast and have a few photos to share. I keep thinking about bringing the DSLR on a trip, but its bulk is too much. My Canon pocket camera doesn't do too well in low light situations, so a few of the photos are kind of noisy. Unfortunately, my internet connection here at the crash pad is unreliable and slow. For now, here is one photo.

This is Lower Manhattan from over the Hudson River at 3,000 feet. We were following the Hudson North for a visual approach to runway 22 at LaGuardia. This was taken just before sunrise. In the foreground is Battery Park and at the bottom is the Staten Island Ferry Terminal. I should have been more clear when I posted this. Too tired. Thanks for the correction, Rob G.

This has been a busy week with several fill-in trips from Boston to Bangor. Big Sky Airlines has ceased East Coast operations and we are picking up several of their routes. Tomorrow, I start a 3 day trip with a round trip to Melbourne, FL and an overnight at LaGuardia. I am glad to have that versus being released at JFK to the crummy, depressing crash pad. The rest of the trip will keep me busy and put me close to 96 hours for December, just 4 hours shy of the legal limit. Right now, I'll take all of the flying I can get.

I'll try and post more photos, as well as a few interesting stories, when I have a better internet connection.

Flying good. Away from family, BAD. It really sucks to be 2,000 miles away on Christmas. I will be reassigned from JFK to CVG in February and hope that makes the commute easier...for the time being.

The Big Chill, Part Two

YYZ. Up until now, my only experience with it was listening to an instrumental performed by Toronto's Rush on the fantastic album Moving Pictures. Now, I've been initiated at the source of Rush's inspiration.

Toronto Pearson International Airport. Big, Canadian and cold. We landed on Saturday afternoon with light snow flurries and freezing cold temperatures. We settled in for a nice overnight at the YYZ Travelodge (I wish the room was a nice as the elevators) hoping that the next day wouldn't be so bad.

I thought these airport police vehicles were pretty interesting. They look like Segway meets Robocop. Canadian GST at work!

Overnight, two feet of snow had fallen in Toronto. When it was time to head to the airport, it was still snowing and visibility was less than 1/2 mile. Things improved, but getting to the airport was challenging. Due to icy roadways on the ramp, the safety mounties decided that the inter-terminal buses weren't running. It took an hour for the buses to resume their schedule and get us to the international terminal...where...our aircraft sat all night long with no nacelle covers. Yes, the engine nacelles had 2 feet of snow in them and that, among other things, kept us from an on-time departure. Every other flight to JFK had been canceled. That made us the only game in town and nobody was complaining about delays.

A cold soaked airplane with snow in the engines requires a few extra steps. Takeoff weights are reduced by contaminated runways as well as the need to use anti-ice for the engine cowls and wings. To make matters more challenging, ATIS kept changing every 7-10 minutes between freezing rain and snow. We can depart with snow falling, but not freezing rain. Making the necessary calculations, communicating the max gross load to customer service agents so they can determine who stays and who goes and getting in sequence for JFK arrivals on a bad weather day meant pushing back 90 minutes late. The ATIS changed to snow and we headed to the de-icing pad.

At Toronto, de-icing is a very well orchestrated operation. They use Volvo boom trucks that can be driven from the truck and watching them do the two stage process is fascinating. After 15 minutes, Type I and IV had been applied and our holdover time had been issued. It was finally time to leave The Great White North.

The flight to JFK went smoothly. When we arrived, a message from crew scheduling informed us of a few changes. Our deadhead to Boston was canceled, which canceled our flight to Halifax. We were spending the night in New York. The new schedule called for a deadhead to Boston on Monday with legs from BOS to Nashville to CVG.

Monday morning, we headed to BOS as scheduled. In BOS we were having lunch waiting to operate the Nashville flight, when the flight attendant received a call from crew scheduling. She was informed that our Nashville flight was canceled and she was released and going back to Cincinnati. The captain and I gave each other a high five, thinking we were to be released too. Nah. We were going to operate a flight to Baltimore and then deadhead back to Cincinnati on the last flight of the day.

The weather in BOS kept deteriorating and it started snowing heavily. When we got to the gate, we found out that our flight attendant was sitting ready reserve at JFK and was just boarding a flight to BOS. Her departure time at JFK was our departure time from BOS. We would be delayed...again. We finally pushed back and had to be de-iced...again. The winds were howling and it was pretty turbulent in the terminal area around BOS.

A nice day in Boston...NOT!

Things smoothed out en-route and a nice tailwind got us to Baltimore 10 minutes ahead of schedule. The winds in Baltimore were worse than Boston, much worse. Winds were 300 at 28, gusts to 43. It was really bumpy on short final, but a few extra knots for the gusts helped bring us to the runway firmly, but smoothly.

Unfortunately, we arrived 15 minutes after the last flight to Cincinnati and had to spend the night. Our normal crew hotel was overbooked and it took an extra hour for company to find us rooms. Finally they found rooms for us at Amerisuites, which was just days away form becoming a Hyatt. All of the rooms were remodeled including 42 inch plasma televisions. Too bad it was late and we had a 5:15 report time for our deadhead back to CVG.

One day five of a four day trip, I finally made it home. I had been away from home for ten days and it was wonderful to see everyone again. I can't say enough how hard it is being away from home.

Unfortunately, due to having four legs canceled, I didn't get enough hours to complete IOE and will have to complete one more trip. That is scheduled to start this Sunday. Thankfully, I'm off until then and get to enjoy time with my wife and kids.

The Big Chill - Part One

Today I paid pennants for yesterday's glorious weather. To say it was cold today would be like saying "It's a little warm" in Phoenix on a July day. With each destination, I kept thinking that it couldn't possibly feel any colder. Well, umm...it can get colder and it certainly did.

We started off in Baltimore where it was mild and 40. It was a little breezy, but not bad. Our leg to Boston was smooth and easy until the descent in to the terminal area. At about 16,000 feet, we began hitting heavy turbulence and some wind shear. That lasted until about 11,000 feet, which was just below the cloud layer.

As I turned final for the visual to 33L, the whitecaps and foam on Boston Harbor along with a Coast Guard cutter bobbing up and down told me what was in store for landing. The winds were 280 at 20, gusts to 28. Nice. The wind correction crab gave me a nice view of downtown Boston. Surprisingly, I kicked in just the right amount of rudder as we touched down and it was a smooth landing.

40 minutes later, we had a full load of passengers and were on our way to JFK. The weather forecast for JFK looked much the same as BOS. For some reason, people were a little touchy on the radios today around JFK. I was the non-flying pilot on this leg and, when it was time to check in with JFK approach, made the usual call..."XXXair XXX, level at one-two thousand with Echo". There was no response and the radio traffic picked up a bit. Sometimes they don't have time to respond and you just wait for them to acknowledge. About 30 seconds later, the controller came on and said, "XXXair XXX, you checked in yet?" I responded with "XXXair XXX level at one-two thousand...echo." He came back and asked if I had any information for him. Umm...I said ECHO. I told him that I had echo and he said that maybe I should consider giving it to him next time before being asked. He gave me a descent and I responded. He came back, sighed and said, "This is going to be fun...XXXAIR XXX. Descend and maintain 8,000 and call me back when you have FOXTROT". This was at about 54 minutes after the hour and it had just changed. All he needed to do was give me the current altimeter, but he felt like punishing me for the fact that he didn't hear my read backs. Grouch.

We were cleared for the visual for 04R. The controller brought us in right behind a 757. We slowed down to 170 knots and shallowed our turn to put some distance in between us. The 757 couldn't see the airport and had to join the localizer to find the runway. Once inbound, one of the 757's crew started complaining to the tower about the 20 knot direct crosswind and said they should change active runways. The controller said that 04R was the available runway and if they wanted to land, that was the one. They put on their big boy pants and landed just fine. They still were complaining on the ground. Another crew asked to copy a number because of sequencing issues. Everyone at JFK was grumpy today and it was COLD. The temperature was minus 3C, which is about 25 degrees. With the wind chill, it felt like it was about 8 degrees. Brr.

We had a few hours to kill at JFK. There is an employee commissary in the subterranean dungeon underneath the terminal. It's a little dark and dreary, but the food is really good and cheap. There is a station where they make chopped salads to order. You hand them the lettuce and choose the ingredients and they make it right there for you. Very good.

With another hour to kill we headed over to the crew room where I did the most recent Jeppesen and flight standards manual revisions. Big fun. Our aircraft arrived a little late, but with a light passenger load, we were able to push back on time. Apparently, there were only 8 people in New York that were brave enough to face the Arctic Chill in Toronto.

To be continued...