Hangar Night

Last night was hangar night. Basically, the class goes out to the maintenance ramp where an aircraft has been set aside for our use. Over the course of three hours we: did a pre-flight walk around inspection, inspected the avionics bay and aft equipment bay.

After all of the exterior activities were complete, it was time to open up the main cabin door and climb aboard. My sim partner and I were the first aboard and that meant we were tasked with doing the flight compartment safety check and firing up the APU. I've done it over 50 times in the simulator, but doing it for the first time in the actual aircraft was a little unnerving. If you do it wrong in the sim, the instructor has you do it again. If you do it wrong in the aircraft, it just might destroy a one million dollar APU.

It's amazing how accurate simulators are. When the battery master is flipped in the plane, it sounded just the way I expected it to. I love seeing the displays light up like Times Square. After doing the safety check and the APU start flow, it was time to press the APU START switch light. I love the way an APU sounds when it's firing up and it was especially gratifying to hear it from the cockpit for the very first time. This may sound corny, but I will never forget it.

The rest of the evening was spent practicing opening the emergency exits, learning the locations of all of the emergency equipment, opening and closing the main cabin door and galley service door, the crew escape hatch in the cockpit plus a few other things. It was a fun night.

In the cockpit getting ready to start the APU

Just after APU start...getting ready to turn on the AC Packs.

Back In The Saddle

We jumped in to the sim today and it just felt right. Due to scheduling conflicts, we were assigned the CRJ-700 sim, which isn't what I will be flying initially.

The -700 has some nice features not found on the -200 such as FADEC, leading edge slats, one-touch switchover for 10th stage bleed air, single button ignition, better environmental controls and fire detection/suppression system. In addition, the CRJ-700 weighs about 20,000 pounds more than the -200.

With leading edge slats, the -700 has a slower Vref speed. It's a CAT C aircraft whereas the -200 is CAT D. They also land in completely different ways. After one "learning" landing, I managed to get the technique and grease the rest.

It was really a laid back session with a lot of hand flying, ILS approaches and not much else. No emergencies, no single engine approaches or V1 cuts. Two more sessions like today, with a few more challenges hopefully, and it will be time say goodbye to the sims for a few more weeks. Things are going well, very well.

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Tomorrow, my wife and I will be celebrating our 17th wedding anniversary...apart. After Sunday's sims, I have 5 days off and will be heading home to see the family. Being away from them is the most difficult part. This first year will be bittersweet. A dream finally realized mixed with the heartache of being absent from family so much. Next month, I will miss my daughter's 9th birthday and my younger son's 5th birthday. We won't talk about Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years right now.

Thankfully, my laptop has a built-in web cam and we get to have video conversations every few days. Isn't technology great?

Home Sweet Home

After being away from home for 31 days, it really feels good to be home. I spent the entire month of April in Denver completing the final phase of my flight training and it really feels good to be home with my wife and kids.

Things at home got a little livelier while I was gone. There was a death in the family and I came home for a day and a half. While the circumstances sucked, it was good to see my family. We had been talking about getting a puppy for the kids and this is what we found:

Piper

Well, from a lazy man's perspective, the timing couldn't have been better. Get the puppy now so my wife and worry about the 2 a.m. potty training while I'm away! As believable as it sounds, that wasn't the true reason. We were driving home from lunch and passed by a sign advertising Lab puppies. My wife actually was the one that made the big deal about it.

Anyway, her name is Piper (my wife's idea, actually). The name fits her perfectly. She was 10 weeks old when we got her. In the three weeks we've had her, she's doubled in size...and energy.

The dog thing is a little O.T., but her name is Piper.

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So now it is time for the long awaited family vacation. We all need it. When we return, it's time to start looking for a job. Wow. One year has passed. My goal was to be ready for a job in 18 months, and it happened in 12.

I'm looking at a four different airlines: ******, ********, ******* *** and **********. The airline I was originally looking towards just won't work for me. They currently have about a 7 year wait for upgrade. ******* *** sounds great, but they fly Embraer 145's. All of my training has been focused on the CRJ. I'm sure it wouldn't be bad to learn the Embraer. My friends all tell me it's a dream to fly.

At my age, the most important thing is time to upgrade. Quality of life is also important and I might have to sacrifice a little to get the upgrade faster. The quicker I can upgrade to captain, the quicker I can build the all important turbine Pilot In Command time that is required to work for Legacy carriers, or premier global freight companies. One of the above airlines just lowered its upgrade requirements and that is why I am giving it such a serious look.

If all goes well, there could be a few interviews this month and a June class date. That would be exciting, huh? Ugh. I forgot how much I hate looking for a job. Resumes, cover letters, letters of recommendation, interview prep etc. Just writing about it is making me tired.

I hope all is well with everyone. Happy flying. Safe flying.

The flash overpowered the CRT's of the PFD, MFD, EICAS 1&2 & FMS.

No flash. Too blurry. This camera sucks.

A Little Sleep Deprivation Goes A Long Way

Full time job. Family. FOS and Commercial Multi Engine add-on. Trying to close on a mortgage. There are a lot of balls in the air right now. The is no one but myself to blame.

FOS schedule this week: Jet simulator 6a-10a, class 10-Noon and 1-3. Instructor brief 3-4. Each day there is at least one test. So far this week, we've been tested on about 25% of the immediate actions, Part 121 instrument regulations and CRJ-200 limitations. Immediate Actions must be memorized verbatim. There are 30 immediate action items for the CRJ-200. Each one has from 3 to 10 steps. The ones in red have been memorized and tested so far.

1. Passenger Evacuation
2. Loss of All AC Power
3. Aileron System Jammed
4. Elevator System Jammed
5. Rudder System Jammed
6. STAB Trim Runaway
7. Brake OVHT Msg
8. MLD (main landing gear) BAY OVHT Msg
9. During Landing - Excessive Asymmetry or Loss of Braking
10. Configuration Warning
11. Engine Hot Start
12. Interrupted Start
13. No Lightoff
14. N2 Stagnation
15. NO STARTER CUTOUT Msg or Engine Starter Fails to Cutout
16. Rejected Takeoff
17. L or R ENG Fire Msg or Severe Engine Damage (In Flight)
18. L or R ENG Fire Msg or Severe Engine Damage (On Ground)
19. L or R JETPIPE OVHT Msg
20. Post Shutdown Engine Tailpipe Fire
21. Double Engine Failure
22. L or R REV UNLOCKED Msg
23. Uncommanded Acceleration or ENGINE OVERSPEED Msg
24. Flight Compartment Smoke Removal Procedure
25. Air-Conditioning Smoke
26. Electrical Smoke or Fire
27. SMOKE CARGO Msg
28. CABIN ALT Msg or Emergency Descent Procedure
29. APU FIRE Msg
30. Ditching or Forced Landing Imminent

The fun part of FOS training is the sim time. Of course there are many things to memorize there:

1. SAFETY CHECK
2. ORIGINATING CHECK/FLOW
3. COPILOT
4. TAKEOFF BRIEF
5. BEFORE START CHECK
6. CLEARED TO START CHECK
7. AFTER START CHECK/FLOW
8. FLAPS (20) TAXI CHECK/FLOW
9. BEFORE TAKEOFF CHECK/FLOW
10. CLIMB CHECK
11. APPROACH BRIEF
12. IN RANGE CHECK
13. 10,000 FOOT CHECK
14. BEFORE LANDING CHECK/FLOW
15. AFTER LANDING CHECK
16. SHUT DOWN CHECK/FLOW
17. TERMINATING CHECK

Some of the items are silent checks, some are Pilot, some are CoPilot and some are challenge & response items. All must be memorized. Where will it all fit? My brain is like a computer running Windows 95 with a full hard drive.

One thing's for sure, instrument currency isn't an issue. I have logged a ton of approaches, holds and intercepts. ILS Cat II down to minimums, Localizers, back-course, LDA, RNAV and VOR approaches galore. It's exceptionally fun to hand fly a precision approach. Vref is usually around 140kts and about 50 kts faster than anything I'm used to flying!

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As I learn more there will hopefully be time to blog about information on the CRJ.

Spare time is at a very big premium and sleep even more so. I've been averaging 5 hours every night. There's just too much information in my head. My wife say's I've been doing approach briefs in my sleep. She puts up with a lot!