A Bad Day At The Office
The little white sticker on top of the display screen is a bad thing.Last week, crew scheduling notified me of a last minute 4 day trip and I was actually pleased. The trip had 3 overnights in Boston and two days of Boston-Jacksonville-Boston legs. Nice and easy, right? WRONG.
The photo above comes from day two. Looking forward to the first day of out and back to JAX, I hopped in to the flight deck to claim my space only to find out that the FMS (flight management system), which makes navigation simple, was out of service. That is why the photo shows a bunch of dashed lines under ACT LEGS. No flight plan loaded due to deferred status.
Does a broken FMS mean the flight gets canceled? Nah, it just means the the flight crew actually has to work by using 1960's technology to navigate. Basic flight stuff. En-route charts and VOR tracking. This is why we still carry paper charts with us. FMS computers break and flights still have to go on.
This is the high altitude en-route chart for the east coast. Good times.
Tracking in & out-bound courses on VOR's and intercepting airways is nothing new to any pilot with an instrument rating. The big difference is speed. With 500+ knots ground speed, VOR's come and go just a little faster. Planning ahead is crucial and flying old school requires much more crew effort.
To make matters worse, ATC kept forgetting that our flight plan was filed without GPS and kept giving routing to GPS way points. "Unable" is all we could say...then wait for a sigh from ATC as they had to do more work and give us vectors.
The FMS is a very useful tool. Not only does it tell the aircraft where to go, it calculates weight and balance, fuel burn, vertical navigation for climb and descent planning and much more. It is a very useful tool and is taken for granted.
The photo above comes from day two. Looking forward to the first day of out and back to JAX, I hopped in to the flight deck to claim my space only to find out that the FMS (flight management system), which makes navigation simple, was out of service. That is why the photo shows a bunch of dashed lines under ACT LEGS. No flight plan loaded due to deferred status.
Does a broken FMS mean the flight gets canceled? Nah, it just means the the flight crew actually has to work by using 1960's technology to navigate. Basic flight stuff. En-route charts and VOR tracking. This is why we still carry paper charts with us. FMS computers break and flights still have to go on.
This is the high altitude en-route chart for the east coast. Good times.
Tracking in & out-bound courses on VOR's and intercepting airways is nothing new to any pilot with an instrument rating. The big difference is speed. With 500+ knots ground speed, VOR's come and go just a little faster. Planning ahead is crucial and flying old school requires much more crew effort.
To make matters worse, ATC kept forgetting that our flight plan was filed without GPS and kept giving routing to GPS way points. "Unable" is all we could say...then wait for a sigh from ATC as they had to do more work and give us vectors.
The FMS is a very useful tool. Not only does it tell the aircraft where to go, it calculates weight and balance, fuel burn, vertical navigation for climb and descent planning and much more. It is a very useful tool and is taken for granted.
BOS-JAX, right? Nah.
Another time the FMS comes in handy is when a diversion is necessary. When operational, the FMS tells you your arrival time and fuel. When diverting to the alternate, which is already in the FMS, you simply check the fuel numbers and make sure there are adequate reserves to make the alternate.
When we departed, the weather in JAX was forecasted to be well above approach minimums. By the time we started to fly the arrival, the weather had actually deteriorated and visibility was reported at 1/8 mile, which is far below even CAT II minimums. We were given holding instructions to wait out the fog. JAX approach came on and told everyone that the Category II ILS was out of service and that CAT I minimums weren't forecast for another two hours.
Our original alternate was Daytona, but the fog was hugging the coast and it was no better there. We radioed our dispatch and our new alternate was determined to be Orlando. So in the old-school holding patter tracking in and out, calculating wind drift etc., we did our fuel burn calculations and determined that we could make Orlando with 200 pounds over reserves.
We made it to Orlando, refueled, lost a few passengers who's final destination was Orlando anyway and, two hours later, arrived in Jacksonville.
Thankfully, other than having no FMS, the trip back to Boston was uneventful.
When we departed, the weather in JAX was forecasted to be well above approach minimums. By the time we started to fly the arrival, the weather had actually deteriorated and visibility was reported at 1/8 mile, which is far below even CAT II minimums. We were given holding instructions to wait out the fog. JAX approach came on and told everyone that the Category II ILS was out of service and that CAT I minimums weren't forecast for another two hours.
Our original alternate was Daytona, but the fog was hugging the coast and it was no better there. We radioed our dispatch and our new alternate was determined to be Orlando. So in the old-school holding patter tracking in and out, calculating wind drift etc., we did our fuel burn calculations and determined that we could make Orlando with 200 pounds over reserves.
We made it to Orlando, refueled, lost a few passengers who's final destination was Orlando anyway and, two hours later, arrived in Jacksonville.
Thankfully, other than having no FMS, the trip back to Boston was uneventful.
5 comments:
Ha, interesting story, thanks for sharing. Normally the person in each seat looks after a certain group of tasks/responsibilities, right? How did this affect that?
I love the confusion when they give you direct to a fix and you say unable. Controllers seems so happy that they can give you a short cut and get you out of their way sooner, then you have to tell them "unable, we're Slant Alpha." You can hear the dejected tone as they have to give you vectors to something you can use (and a VOR 140 miles away doesn't work, either). Welcome to the Old School! You still know where your E6B is for those fuel burn calculations? How long is that deferrable, that's gotta be a pain?
steven,
Having a broken FMS doesn't really change the responsibilities of the pilots. It just adds to the workload.
Teller,
What's up? I think the FMS can be deferred for up to 30 days, but would have to check the FSM to be certain. Needless to say, it makes for a very long day.
Mike
My first post here, I would like to congratulate you for this blog, I like the tone you use when telling your adventures.
I have a question: when the FMS is out of order, what kind of database can you read on your Navigation Display? Do you still see VOR's, Airports, etc or do you actually loose the whole database and just can see the VOR selected via its radio frequency on the radio tuner unit?
alphafloor,
When the FMS is out of service, it's back to the 1960's. We pull out the Hi & Low En-route charts and manually tune in every single navigational aid along the route.
The CRJ auto flight control system is especially poor at tracking VOR radials at altitude, which means maintaining the heading and calculating the wind correction angle manually.
Like I sadi, a day without the FMS is a bad day.
Thanks for your comment. I hope this answers your question.
Mike
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