Trust me, I was never really gone.

Okay, aside from some stray thoughts I haven't posted here in a long time.

Trust me, I was never really gone.  Life just got really really busy for a while.  But that's soon to change, it should get even more so now.

Anyway, back in May, having had enough of Columbus and Ohio. I sought out a job in more polite climes.  I found one in Dallas fairly quickly and that's the short answer.

I'm a captain on a Falcon now.

The last month(s) I've been in indoc. training and then Flight Safety at DFW getting the type rating and then, finally, yesterday was the line check/299 checkride.  Sounds pretty simple, huh.

Not really.

The Falcon type I got is on a design that predates pretty much all of modern aviation's innovations, dark cockpit concept, ergonomics, standardization of instrumentation, etc. etc.  It was pretty much the first corporate jet on the market and as the saying goes, if you've seen one Falcon jet, you've seen one Falcon jet.

That being said, it's a very tough bird that'll take lots of abuse and aside from being underpowered (for a jet) it's really easy to fly.

Other than that, the 2 week initial type rating course that we were supposed to take at FS, turned into a 5 week exercise in hurry up and wait.  About the 3rd day of classroom of the 7 "book larnin'" days we were informed that the sim's visuals had broken and they were trying to fix it.  They'd know more soon and they would keep us updated as they learned it.  Apparently what happened was the Mylar screen that the visuals are projected onto had torn.  Well, the screen is vacuum formed to a curved frame and is kept that way by a constant vacuum action.  Then we find out that only Rockwell Collins, the original manufacturer of this screen system, had the ability to fix it, and they'd be a week getting a team together and getting down to Dallas to fix it.  So, we do our first two days of sim sitting in front of a poster on a wall pretending to flip switches and punch buttons.  Fun.

When that was finished they told us that there was a vibration that was causing the tears in the first place and they needed FAA approval to change the software to remove the vibration and fix the problem.  At this point we were going day by day as to when the sim would be back up.  The FAA being, well the FAA, it took them a week to shuffle the paperwork.

BUT....

By that time, they'd found "structural faults" in the hydraulic legs the sim rode on.  These legs move the entire sim around to simulate aircraft motion.  Now, FS was telling us we'd be week by week instead of day by day.  Hey, paid time off!  Except, part of my paycheck was on hold till I'd finished my line checks.  So, basically, FS cut my pay by 1/3 for a month.

Finally, replacement parts were in, paperwork was shuffled, stamped, folded, spindled and mutilated by as many levels of bureaucracy as possible and 21 days after the last time I showed my face at the DFW training center, I was back for 7 straight days of sim sessions and my type checkride.  Which was 28 days after the training started and 14 days after it was supposed to have finished.  So, 7 days of motion sickness, H'Ray!  You see, even though the sim gets close to what you'd feel flying the actual airplane, it's still not reality and the balance portion of your ears are still telling you one thing while what's actually happening is another.

Anyway, yesterday we finished up with the checkride and I now have 3 full fledged type ratings on my pilots license. Learjet, which allows me to fly the Lear 20 series, the Lear 30 series and the Lear 55. Lr-40/45 which covers two more Lear airframes and basically means the only Lear I can't fly right now is the 60.  And the Falcon.  But I know guys who have half a dozen or more type on their licenses so 3 isn't such a big thing.

Oh, as an aside, under my license's limitations section, it now says English Proficiency.  I would never have known that being proficient in the English language would be a limitation.  I guess if you would ask the French, they'd say it was.

Of course, right after the checkride, we sped over to the airport to get our line checks and what we refer to as our 299 ride done.  Basically it was all the portions of the checkride that FS couldn't do, because they were either company specific or required to be performed in an actual airplane, not a sim.

That was fun, motion sick and all.  It basically turned yesterday into a 16 hour marathon.

On the bright side, my pay jumped by a 1/3 yesterday, so H'Ray for disposable income!

Oh! The move. That was... fun.

My friend Phlegm Fatale coordinates and schedules moves for a national freight company.  I'd used her before to move from Tulsa to Columbus and she/They were both cheap and very good at doing it.  So I contacted them for the move to Texas.  The same relocube cost me 3 times the Tulsa to Columbus price! OUCH! So, I went to UHaul to try to save some money.  The price they quoted me for buying and installing a hitch and electric connector on my Jeep, the trailer and packing boxes and materials was going to keep the move under a grand even including gas, hotels and food on the move.  Except they wont rent trailers to soft top Jeeps.  Which, if you ask me, is Jeepist on their part and we should picket them for being all jeepaphobes and jeepist.  Anyway, they would have ended up costing me half again as much as said national freight company quote for a truck, car trailer, etc. etc. so I went back to national freight company and had them do it.

You know, pretty much every line item that I budgeted for the move ended up costing about a grand more than I planned.

Part of the reason it was so much more expensive to move to Texas than to Ohio is all the jobs are down here and everyone is moving here.  So all the equipment ends up in the south.  The moving companies practically have to pay people to get their equipment up to the north.

While I'm at it, I really need to send out huge thanks to my friends in Texas for letting me couch surf while trying to find an apartment that I could afford and was within my insanely short response time of the airport. Lawdog, Phlegmmy, daniels, Desi, Thank You all so very much.

And that's pretty much what I've been up to in a nutshell for the last several weeks.  And aside from some minor stuff like internet for my apartment and buying new furniture, things are starting to settle down.  Although I still don't know if they'll give me time off for blogorado this year.

What I've been up to... some more.

More of the same today.  Hover, pedal turns, hover taxi (forward and left and right), patterns.  I'm trying to tighten up the hover stuff, now more bobbling around, keep it in the 3 to 5 ft. high realm, nice walking pace, stuff like that.

Patterns, more of the same.  Trying to get that pace on approach down, more coordination on collective/throttle, cyclic/pedals.  It's getting there, but I'm still pretty loose on that stuff.

At this point, I've been introduced and demonstrated all the basic stuff.  It's just a matter of polishing up the skills.  Not anything exciting, but it's stuff I have to master.

Oh! p.s.  My instructor, the suicidal maniac, is letting me hover taxi the helicopter more and closer to the helicopter stand that the bird normally rests on.  So, either I am getting better or his life is taking a turn for the worse.  I've taken to searching the flight school office for crumpled up half written "Goodbye, Cruel World" notes.

What I've been up to.

So, the reason behind the whole contract trip from hell and missing all my friends in St. Louis is this.  I'm finally putting my money where my mouth is and getting my rotory pilots license.  My planning guess-timated that I'd need about $10,000 for my private, another 15k for my commercial and after that, basically chump change to add it to my ATP.

Why, no. It ain't cheap.

So, this week I started.  I'm driving about 90 miles one way to the flight school everyday and back.  Which is a royal pain in the ass, but I've driven longer for flight training before.  It works out to an extra 45 dollars a day in gas, but if I can find a hotel down there for that, I'll just commute once for the week from now on.

This is a bit complicated.  You see, I get 5 hard days off a month.  5 days when they can't call me and put me on a charter trip.  5 days when I don't have to be within 30 minutes of my airport. 5 days when they can't call me at 2 am to go to wherever ASAP. 5 days when I can have a beer without calling 3 people to get it okayed. So, I have to cram as much helicopter training as I can into those 5 days and then let the skills rot for a month till I can get the next 5 days off.  Anyone who's taking flying lessons can tell you, that isn't the best way to do it, but it's the way I'm stuck with.

Anyway, Monday.  First hour. Sort of a combination discovery flight, first lesson.  We went off and did the 4 basics of flying.  Climbs, turns, descents and straight and level.  All flying is basically some combination of those 4.  At least for fixed wing aircraft. We then went to a big wide empty field next to the runway and I proceeded to make myself airsick.  My instructor, great guy by the way, sets up a hover and then give me the pedals.  My only job is to maintain a heading.  Keep the nose pointed at a big white pole just outside of this acre and a half field that we're in the middle of.  Not too bad.  Then he gave me the collective, throttle and pedals.  Now, I'm supposed to maintain heading and height.  A little worse, but okay.  I'm only bouncing up and down maybe 10 ft. and swinging back and forth maybe 30 degrees. Then he says he's gonna take back the collective, throttle and pedals and he's gonna give me just the cyclic. At this point I KNOW this man is insane and suicidal.

Oh, by the way, before this he'd just say, "Okay, you take the pedals now and hold heading.", or, "Take the collective too now."

Now he's like, "Okay, the cyclic is yours in three... two... one..." Right about the time he got to 'two', he had me wondering what the hell I was in for.

The first time, for about the first 3 seconds everything was fine.  Then it went... wonky.  You see the rotor on a helicopter is about the only thing that's really flying, everything else is just hanging underneath like a pendulum. And that's exactly how it went after those three seconds. I was making too large a control inputs and the lag in the pendulum that is the 'airframe' of the helicopter just got worse and worse.  So, he'd take the controls back, re stabilize, or as I was referring to it at this point, performing his voodoo/black magic on the infernal machine, and then, "Okay, take the cyclic in three... two... (for the love of god, I want to live, NO) one..." and we do it all over again.  This goes on for a good half hour. At the end of which, I'm turning green, trying to get as much air to blow across my face as I can and concentrating on non-throwup-y thoughts. 

End of my first lesson.  Looking back, I suppose each time he gave me the controls, the grace period between fine and wonky got a little longer.

Second lesson. We immediately hop over to that field and he proceeds to give me the pedals, then the collective/throttle, the the bastard give me ALL of them. pedals, collective, throttle and cyclic. and I try to hover.  I will say I managed to hover... in a field a good acre and a half on a side.  Then he has me do set downs, pick ups to hover and pedal turns.  Again, I managed to stay inside that acre and a half.  And I didn't get airsick.  All in all a good day. But, I'm still thinking of reporting my instructor to the mental health people at the local hospital.  He needs to be on a 72 hour suicide watch at the very least.

Third lesson. We discuss some of the forces acting on the helicopter and the rotor. Different types of rotors and some other stuff out of the FAA's FAA-H-8083-21 Rotorcraft Flying Handbook.  Part of me is thinking he's trying to distract me from my impending doom.

Part of me is right.

Today, he gets the helicopter off of the trailer/pad and then gives me the controls and tells me to hover taxi over to the compass rose.  This is a 15 ft. circle with the cardinal compass points painted on it.  It's a way for airplanes to swing their compasses and make sure they're accurate.

I get it there in mostly a straight line and then we do pick ups, 120 degree pedal turns and let downs for 45 minutes. All while trying to stay inside this 15ft. circle.  He basically made me stay on the controls alone the entire time.

Honestly. I figured we'd go from an acre and a half field, to an acre to 3/4 of an acre... you know, work me down to something less than a football field in nice easy steps.  Nope.

And to be honest.  My hovering skills are getting better.  As long as I remember to keep my control inputs small, smooth, and relatively slow, I can hover inside a 15ft circle and within 3 to 5 ft. of the ground.  Then we went out and looked at power/collective settings for 60 kt cruise, 80 kt cruise, and climbs and descents at both air speeds as well.  Then did an approach back to the airport to a spot landing, then he hovered over to the trailer and end of lesson.  I still think he's suicidal and I'm pretty sure now that I can take the helicopter with me when I crash, rather than somehow killing myself as I walk up to the machine.

If the weather holds, I'll have 2 more lessons this week before it's back to work for me.

By the way, the place I'm training at, Vertical Aviation in Lebanon, OH, uses Enstrom F28's for training.  The big difference between Enstroms and the more common Robinsons or Hughes 300's is no governor.  You see, Robinsons and Hughes both have engine governors that keep the engine rpm's in the green for any given collective setting.  Not the Enstroms.  You change collective, you adjust throttle, and vice verse. You move the pedals, you adjust the throttle, you move the collective and vice verse.  You move the cyclic... well, you get the idea. So, I actually set out and made learning helicopters harder than I could have.

Yes, I'm kicking myself over that. No, I don't need your help there.

Actually, I did that on purpose. I figured if I can learn to fly helicopters without the governors. Actually manipulating 4 controls to fly rather than just 3, I should be a better pilot in the end.  At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Anyway, so far, 3 hours of training, so good. Another 30 or 35 hours to go. I'll post updates as I fly. 

Oh, and as for the question, why am I learning to fly helicopters?  Well aside from the obvious coming zombie apocalypse.  It's just plain old fun.

A Day in the Life of a Charter Pilot, or Repo Wrap Up

Okay, finally found how to get the old interface back.  Yeah, blogger is free and you get what you pay for.  Remember when free software was unsupported and would stay the same, never changing.  Now, I guess free means, "lets fuck with it till it pisses everybody off."

Anyway, as promised, my contract trip wrap up.

First off, the plan was originally, this:
Get to India on Thursday, spend the day and night in the hotel and get an easy start around midday Friday.  There were 7 planned stops. Kolkata to Fujairah, then to Luxor, then Majorca, then Santa Maria, St. John's Bay, Green Bay, WI, and finally Grand Junction Co.  With planned overnights in Majorca with friends and good seafood, and possibly St. John's Bay to rest up after the crossing.  The ferry company, of course arranged handlers, factors, landing permissions, fuel contracts and everything in all these places before hand.  It was, as contracts go, an easy show up, fly the plane, go home situation. 5 days, Wednesday to Sunday. Easy.

But as many military commanders will tell you, a plan never survives contact with the enemy.  The enemy in this case is Bureaucracy, with a capital B.

First, it suddenly became a "DO IT NOW!" situation.  So, instead of mailing my Indian visa paperwork in to the consulate and getting them back 3 to 5 business days later by mail, I found myself on an airline to New York on Tuesday at OMG in the morning to hand walk them through the agency that India outsourced their Visa process to. I had done the online stuff then night before and had everything printed out and ready to go in a nice neat folder sitting by the door, so I wouldn't forget it in the morning. You see where this is going, don't you.

Okay, on a side note, seriously, India has outsourced it Visa application department to a company with 4 offices around the country in the US.  India is where WE outsource everything to! How recursive do we need to get?

I realize I've forgotten my all important paperwork and 2x2 passport sized photos in my nice neat folder by the door where I wouldn't forget it just after checking in at the ticket counter, but not before going through security theater.

I have an hour till the plane closes its doors and leaves.  My car is on the other side of the airport at the FBO where my plane is. (Hey, I park free there.)  So, I run back out to the White-zone-is-for-loading-and-unloading-only. Grab a cab, through the guy in there out, in a panicked voice explain to the driver that I have to get home and back to the airport in basically 20 minutes. We did it in 24.  I cleared security theater in 15 and I was NOT the last person on the airplane.  But not by a lot.

Seeing as how there were no guarantees that the visa would be issued, but it usually was, it was a fretful day, to say the least.  But at 5:30, they called my name and handed me back my passport with a freshly minted 6 month tourist visa to India.  Big BIG Kudos to the people who work at their NY office.  These guys and gals from the security guard at the street door to the process clerks to the managers made this process as smooth and painless as possible.  You guys RAWKED.

Then it's run back to the airport, grab a flight to Chicago, because that's where my Air India flight is leaving from on Wednesday.

End Day One.

Day Two starts with me meeting up with Vincent, the lead contractor on this ferry at the hotel.  We finish some paperwork, make sure everything is packed and hop the shuttle to the airport with plenty of time.  At which point I realize I've left my phone at the hotel.  No big deal.  We planned on 2 hours to clear Security Theater, so Vin gets off at the international terminal and I just ride the shuttle around back to the hotel and there's my phone at the front desk. 

Thank you thank you thank you.  You don't realize how much of your life is on your phone till you lose it.

I get back on the next shuttle to the airport and call Vin to tell him I have my phone and the day's panic is over.  At which point Vin tells me he's left his visa back at home in Kansas.  You see, his visa is in his OLD passport. He remembered his NEW passport.

Airlines will not let you one their airplane without a visa.  They're liable for HUGE fines and sundry if they do, not to mention the sundries that the foreign country has waiting for you.

No way around it, his visa will get to him no sooner than Thursday.  And since international flights tend to run once a day.  He won't be able to get to India before Friday.  We decide I'll go ahead and go over the airplane and books to make sure there isn't anything that will keep us from launching as soon as Vin gets there.  So, off I go.

I will not get into the flight.  Anybody who's flown internationally on any airline knows what it's like.  Everybody else just couldn't understand.

I land in Delhi around three-ish, India time, with an expected 7pm flight to Kolkata.  Of course the Kolkata flight is late, by 2 hours. And I should have known that was the norm, not the exception.

By the way, when and why did they change the name of Calcutta to Kolkata?

I meet my factor at the airport and he gets me to my hotel with no problems.  By the way, I have to send out electronic Kudos to Dipankar, my factor, Swissotel Kolkata and it's staff.  These guys made the stay as easy and painless as possible.  Are you getting that painless was becoming the goal of this trip?

Anyway, after much shuffling, hemming, hawing and a couple of sticky fingers I finally got a pass to get onto the airport to inspect the airplane, logbooks and paperwork.  Normally, India won't let crews onto the airport till 2 hours prior to flight.  This wasn't going to do, since I needed to be there early enough to get whatever passed for a maintenance facility to fix anything I found wrong.  They coughed up the pass about 4 pm local. Luckily, the maintenance guys were there till 5.

All this time, Vin is either flying to Delhi or waiting on his Kolkata connection.

The airplane was, with some minor and one major exception, immaculate.  I got in contact with the old captain on the plane. (He's in Florida now) and He explained why that was.  Basically, he wouldn't let anyone in Kolkata touch the thing. All maintenance was done at Bombardier's facility in Delhi by factory mechanics and engineers. H'Ray for first world maintenance!  The minor exceptions were your basic electronic ghosts and all airplanes seem to have, they were know, were trying to be traced and weren't going to keep the airplane from flying.

Ah, but the major exception...

You see, this was a repossession on a Lr-40XR.  And we were told that the XR models all had the larger fuel tanks.  The original 40's had a max fuel load of 5375lbs.  This is enough for 3 and a half hours with reserve.  An option for a larger 6060lb fuel tank was introduced with the BR models.  This works out to a 4.5 hour range with reserve.  And we'd done all our leg calculations with that 4.5 hour range in mind.  But, whoever originally spec'd this airplane out must have thought that 3.5 hours will get you anywhere in India comfortably.  There's no need for a larger tank.  That sound you hear was the original plan finally dying.

Even climbing as high as possible and using most economical long range cruise there were gonna be at least 3 legs of the original plan that would have required an hour of glider time. Jets suck as gliders.  I mean they're better than a backpack with an anvil, just ask Wiley E. Coyote.  But still.

So, where are we? Oh yeah, the airplane doesn't have the range, Vin is stuck in Delhi waiting on a flight that's gonna be at least 2 hours late, our overflight clearances are all for Friday and we're rapidly running out of Fridayness.

I do what I can.  I make sure the airplane is fueled. I play loose and fast with Friday and get our flight plans pushed back to 23:55 India time. (Still technically Friday). And I get power on the plane and make sure all the lights light and bells bell and whistles whistle.  Gotta love glass cockpits. I also get as much of the bribery as I can out of the way with what money Vin gave me for that.  The rest will just have to wait for Vin, who gets into Kolkata at 23:30.

I think we finally took off at 1954Z, that's 0124 local. India is +5.5 hour from GMT.  Right?

Now the hard part.  You see the first of those hour glider legs was this first one to Fujairah, UAE. We are not gonna do it.  Scratch scratch, mumble mumble, shuffle shuffle and we decide that as soon as we clear Indian airspace we're gonna call and make a technical stop in Karachi, Pakistan.

Of course we haven't arranged prior permission to do so.  But hey, it's a technical stop.  That's like a Get Out of Jail Free card, isn't it? Right? Guys?!?

We land, they have us follow the follow-me jeep to an appropriately remote and foreboding customs pad and they drop off a guard and take Vin to the airport authorities to arrange fuel and clearances to continue.

The guard was a good guy.  He has very little English, and I have absolutely no Farsi or Arabic or Urdu (thank you google).  So, we discussed the philosophical import of the current global climate orbiting around the international impact of the information super highway and way to improve X25 packet transmissions.

Seriously, we talked families and life.

Aside from a 15 minute period where he went off to do his morning prayers, we hung out at the airplane and watched the sun finally rise.  And yes, he is Muslim and no, he wasn't trying to blow me up or chop my head off.  Which sort of lends credence to all Muslims are not fanatic jihadist theories.

Fuel arrived after a while and Vin came back a while after that.  Our middle eastern handlers in UAE finally contacted someone in Pakistan to act as our factor and all the necessary paperwork was fill out, stamped, folded, spindled and mutilated.

We landed in Karachi at 2312Z and finally took off at 0202Z.  By the by, we landed there after a 3 hour and 17  minute flight with 1200lbs of fuel left on board.  That's 45 minutes of fuel if you squint just right, but not too hard.

Karachi to Fujairah was easy, 1 hour 45 minutes.  Refuel, barely on the ground an hour and off again to Luxor. 

By this point we KNOW we won't make our original fuel stops so we've rerouted from Luxor to Crete to Luxembourg to Keflavik to Goose Bay, then back on plan.

Fujairah to Luxor is a 3:31 flight, Luxor to Crete is 2:10, Crete to Luxembourg is 3:02. We finally landed in Luxembourg at 1537Z which I think was 5:37pm local.  I think Lux is +2, but it might be +1.  It's all sort of fuzzy at this point.  We crawl to the hotel, shower, change, get to the bar for a beer or two and then bed.  I was spent, and I'd burned through 5 of my 6, 5 hour energy shots.  I remember thinking as my head hit the pillow, "I wonder if I'll be abzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"

By they way, all this westward flying meant we were actually sort of making our days longer.  Aside from the first leg, all the flying was done in daylight.  And we ended up with a 28 hour Saturday.

Sunday was supposed to be painless.

We took off from Lux at 0558Z, which I think is either 7am or 8am. local.  Three hours, nineteen minutes later we landed at Keflavik, Iceland 20 minutes after we took off, local time. Quick hour on the ground and 3:16 to Goose Bay, Canada.  At which point we find out that whoever was supposed to arrange Customs at Green Bay and forgot to make the phone call and we weren't gonna be able to fly into the US.  We make some frantic phone calls and on a SUNDAY, customs get someone to Bangor, ME for us with literally zero notice. 

Yes, I am impressed.

No big deal, instead of Green Bay, we clear in Bangor. Hour and a half flight to Bangor, Custom guy inspects us, and our paperwork with a Geiger Counter, I swear to ghu, and 2 hours later were in the US flying to Akron, OH for fuel and then Grand Junction, CO. 1:44 to Akron, 3:17 to Grand Junction.  We landed in Grand Junction 10 minutes late.  From the ORIGINAL plan.  We'd said we'd get the airplane there by 5:30 Sunday, that was with 3 days to fly and 5 days total road days.  Instead, we had 2 days to fly and we still did it.  We got into Grand Junction at 2339Z which is 5:39pm local.  Of course we were zombified.

The hardest part of the entire trip was Monday's airlining back to home. 3 legs, 2 hubs and 12 hours in airports.  I really hate airlines.

Here are some pics snapped from my crappy phone camera:

This is all I saw of Dehli, India

The airplane and our handler in Fujairah, UAE.

These next two are the glaciers in Iceland.  I think we were either at 47,000 ft. or 51,000 ft.

This is on approach in to Keflavik. The Bahamas of Iceland.

Goose Bay.  That's just a pile of snow behind the FBO there.  Did I mention that this was mid-April?

Finally, the airplane on the ramp in Grand Junction.

And the view out my window at the hotel in Grand Junction.  Seriously, I could live there.  Love the country, nice folks, no oxygen though.

And that's all I have to say about that.

A Day in the Life of and Nothing is Going Right.

So....

Turns out the airplane doesn't have the long range tanks that we thought it did.   Which mean that half the planned legs were about 60 minutes too long.  Which wouldn't be a problem, except for the whole glider that used to be a jet thing.

The original plan became, Kolkata to Karachi, Pakistan. 3 hours clearing all the paperwork there, then flying on to Fajairah, an hour there. Then Luxor, Egypt.  Then Crete, and finally Luxembourg.  Worked out to about a dozen hours of flying and nearly 36 hours awake.  The weird bit is, since we were moving westward as fast as we could, Saturday April 14th, 2012 has lasted nearly 30 hours.

Tomorrow should see us and the airplane back in the states and over to the inspector for inspections, paint and repair.

So much fun, so little time.

Other things that have gone wrong with this trip.
I nearly lost my iPhone twice now.
The guy I'm flying the plane back lost his Indian Visa and ended up a day behind me.
Just about every airport we've stopped in has tried to delay us or throw us in jail.
Route clearances aren't, fuel releases haven't.
The winds have conspired against us to ensure the worst possible head winds
And tomorrow we go trans-Atlantic!

My eyes are so tired, the double images I'm seeing hurt.

A Day in the Life of a Charter Pilot.

It's a pretty common title I use for these posts, I know.  But, it fits and it implies a little bit of the resignation to this life and the excitement too.

Today, I'm in Kolkata.  Formerly know as Calcutta. In India.  And when and why did they change the name anyway?  Kolkata used to be Calcutta. Mumbai used to be Bombay.  Which reminds me is Bombay Gin now Mumbai Gin?

I got in late yesterday after nearly 26 hours in airports.  I hate airlines, but it was that or several weeks on a boat.  Anyway, got in really late, like close to midnight, India time. We're picking up a Lr-40 and flying it back to the states.  It's a 4 year old Lr-40XR that's lease has run out here.

So, we fly it back. 

We were going to take the eastward route through Taiwan, Japan, Siberia, Alaska and down, but China wouldn't give us overflight privileges out of Taiwan, so it's the westward route for us. I was really hoping to circle the globe on this contract, but instead I get half way around and turn around and fly the same half back.

Right now, we're planning on Kolkata to Fujairah to Luxor to Majorca to Santa Maria to St. John's Bay to the states, but we may take the northern route across the Atlantic through Shannon and Reykjavik.  We'll see what the jet stream is doing first.  We're also picking routes to avoid airspaces like Iran's and as much of the more turbulent parts of the middle east as possible.

All this means that I'm going to miss all my friends in St,. Louis.  I really wish I could've been there to see everyone, but these days making money has to take priority. Y'all have fun this weekend and I'll be thinking of y'all.

Life of a charter pilot...

(Yes, I know that title gets used a lot in my blog.)

My day.
Times in Eastern.

1:30 am.  Phone call from dispatch, possible ASAP pop up air ambulance trip.  Will know for sure by 3 am. Will call by then.  Just go back to sleep.

Yeah, right....

3:30-3:45 am.  Finally fall back asleep.  No phone call.

7:30  ASAP pop up trip, Home to Dayton, pick up, Peoria IL, drop. Come home. Promise you'll be back by 1:30.

Yeah, right.
Times in Central. from here on.

10:30  Land in Peoria, see passenger off.  Get call from dispatch.  Wait there to see if they can sell the airplane on a trip headed back towards home.  Will call one way or another in 2 hours.  This I foresaw.

Yeah, 2 hours, right.

2 pm. Call Dispatch, Ask why they haven't called.  Told to wait while they make a call to see what's going on.

2:30 Call Dispatch.  Told we could have launched for home "anytime".  Pay FBO for forehead shaped hole in wall.

106 knot tail wind, shaves 15 minutes off of flight.

Times back in Eastern.

4:15 pm.  Land back home.  tremors from caffeine make filling out logs... difficult...

5:15 Clear airport finally, Airplane cleaned, restocked, reset, Paperwork filled, filed and mutilated.

How was your day?

Winter Doldrums.

I just don't have anything to blog about.

It's looking like Brown might, just might, exceed the "margin of cheat" in MA.

Another suspicious person was escorted off an airplane in MI.

Everyone is talking about this new "thumbs high" grip, which looks an awfully lot like the grip I was taught and have used for years.

Hell, I have had a rant about the decision to try the terrorists in civilian courts bouncing around in my head even.

And I just can't get myself to sit down and start typing.

I blame the weather. And I blame Al Gore for the weather, so...

I Blame Al Gore For My Lack Of Posting!

A Night in the Day in the Life of a Charter Pilot.

Okay, fun day Saturday. Saturday night/Sunday morning... not so much.

But first let me give you a basic lesson in meteorology. And believe me, any lessons from me will be about as basic as you get.

The life cycle of a thunderstorm, as we pilots learn, can be characterized into 3 stages. (This comes from AC 00-6A rev.1975)


LIFE CYCLE
A thunderstorm cell during its life cycle progresses through three stages - (1) the cumulus, (2) the mature, and (3) the dissipating.

The key feature of the cumulus stage is an updraft. The updraft varies in strength and extends from very near the surface to the cloud top. Growth rate of the cloud may exceed 3,000 feet per minute.

Precipitation beginning to fall from the cloud base is your signal that a downdraft has developed and a cell has entered the mature stage. Meanwhile, updrafts reach a maximum with speeds possibly exceeding 6,000 feet per minute. Updrafts and down drafts in close proximity create strong vertical shear and a very turbulent environment. All thunderstorm hazards reach their greatest intensity during the mature stage.

Downdrafts characterize the dissipating stage of the thunderstorm cell and the storm dies rapidly.

What, you may ask, does this have to do with my flight Saturday night? Well, let me tell you about my day.

Saturday started pretty early. I'd promised a friend that I would help him set up a table at the gun show and help out where I could. The gun show was fun and I got home around 6:30. I'd barely gotten seated to eat dinner when the phone call happened. Ah, the dreaded phone call. There's a pop up trip to Tampa Bay.

On a side note. When the weather is as bad as it was in Texas this last weekend, you can bet we'll get pop up trips. You see, the airlines won't be able to get in somewhere because the weather is too bad and the people who get bumped from the flight will invariably call the charter outfits to get them where they want to go. Because when the weather is so bad that a jumbo jet can't get through them, the much smaller corporate jets will... Umm, you see it's like this. A massive thunderstorm will take a larger passenger jet and really shake it up, so to speak, but a jet that's only a 10th the size of an airliner when it penetrates the storm will.... Okay, think about it this way. The turbulence in a large thunderstorm that's producing tornadoes will affect a small relatively light corporate jet differently than a larger airliner because... the small jet is safer because...

Yeah, I don't get it either. People, listen carefully. If the airlines can't make it somewhere because of the weather. There's a VERY good reason they can't. I can guaren-damn-tee you that that corporate jet is no safer. Some charter outfits will take your money and the loss of the airplane, the crew, you and your loved ones are just the price of doing business. Yes, it can be that cynical and cold with some of the outfits out there.

Anyway, we load up the guy, his wife and kids and plot a route that looks to be the safest and away we go.

We'd filed for 41,000 ft and we were slowly clawing our way up there. At about 39,000 ft, that's about 7 and a half miles straight up, we hit one of those updrafts I mentioned above. The vertical speed indicator shoots through 6000 ft/min and hits the peg. We blast through our assigned altitude and through the next thousand feet. We topped the updraft, or flew through it, around 42,500 feet and then the downdraft took over. We got sucked back down to under 40,000 feet with us doing everything we could to NOT get sucked into the thunderstorm proper. Ignitors on, throttles to max temp... We get 5 minutes of max temp before "bad" things happen to the engines, or at least that's what the engine manufacturer says. We get a block altitude of 39,000 to 43,000 feet and got our airspeed under control and continued on.

You see, we're experienced Lear pilots and we weren't scared at all. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Oh, and 43,000 feet wasn't enough to get over the storms. It was just all that plane could do.

The rest of the trip was... uneventful. Till we got back from Tampa and had to descend through that shit again.

Fun times... fun times.

And I finally hit my pillow just after 5am.

Home... Sort of.

I'm home. I spent a grand total of 24 days on the road last month. But since we can't count recurrent training and off days worked to that total, I only "logged" 16. Fun. They would have turned me around and sent me on another week out, but I gently reminded them that they have other pilots and I bribed the schedulers.

I'm definitely not drinking with the right crowd.

Right now, since we've lost a few pilots and added an airplane, we are so short handed that I can expect the same sort of schedule for the foreseeable future.

My bosses excuse for not hiring to even replace the loses is that he and the DO will fill in the schedule as needed. Except neither he nor the DO will fly on weekends or late nights. So the rest of us are getting cosy with the term Chronic Fatigue.

That's the nature of Non-scheduled 135 charter. No regulated days off. So if they wanted to fly us 10 hours a day, every day of the month, they can. The idea being that we'll have non-flying days and enough crews to cover the airplanes so no biggie. Except, when you have X number of crew and X+1 airplanes...

My boss blew up at one of the other guys for not agreeing to work his days off. Seeing as how we only have 6 hard days off (2 three day stretches) as it is. It's kind of hard to not sympathise.

The rumor is we'll lose our hard days off before we replace lost pilots.

And my bosses insistence that we're slow doesn't really jibe with the full flight schedule.

Edit: The trip that my friend got into hot water for not doing, didn't happen. See, the trip would have been on a Friday and that's weekend time for my boss and the DO. So, they weren't available for the trip because you see the weekend and all...

I'm Home!

Sort of.

The checkride went smoothly. Really, during the checkride, the guy flying has it easy. It's the guy sitting right seat that has it hard. Checklists were flying everywhere. Anyway, it went without a hitch. That came after we climbed out of the sim. My little day trip tomorrow morphed into a 6 day trip. So, by next thursday I'll have spent 12 of the last 12 days on the road. Our boss being the giving soul that he is has decreed that recurrent doesn't count as road time. Because, you know the whole away from home in a hotel flying everyday after sitting in a classroom all morning really isn't flying because... umm...

Like I said he's a giving soul. He has no problem giving away our time. Company policy is anything over 16 days on the road per month is considered 'overtime', and we get a little stipend for it. And before you see dollar signs cha-ching before your eyes, it's little. By not counting recurrent time, he gets an extra week out of us. It's a win/____ situation. But enought griping. I've got to finish laundry, get my uniforms ironed and repack.

T-t-t-t-training Day Four.

Actually, day last. The only thing left for us is the checkride tomorrow morning. In class today we finished up all the other systems we hadn't covered in the last 3 days. Things like Ice & Rain Protection, Oxygen, Landing Gear, Drag Chute, Hydraulics. Then we had the mandatory test of everything we've covered over the last four days. Multiple choice, open book, but still a test all the same.

Sim was sort of the same thing. We covered the last bits of our training syllabus; Emergency Descents, Fuel Emergencies, Overspeed, Evacuation, Inadvertent Thrust Reverser Deployment, Fire and the Circle-to-Land approach.

Don't blink, a circle to land approach at night, in bad weather will kill you deader than shit if you're not on the ball. And having a thrust reverser hanging out when your trying to fly, well, think of it as one engine pushing you forward and the other pushing in the opposite direction. Fun.

My instructor continued to be the magnificent sadist. I had a fuel pressure warning light come on AS I'm blasting through 25,000 ft. It would sort of be like trying to suck a can of pop through a straw from 2 stories up. A failed engine inside the final approach fix on a precision approach. Yes, I know it's called the outer marker, but we're not all pilots reading this, are we. Not one, not two, but 3 reverser deploys are various phases of flight. The worst being just micro seconds after starting my rotation on take off. Try maintaining directional control when everything goes wonky like that in a transitory phase. What else... Oh yeah, I had a runaway engine followed by the other engine catching on fire on an ILS set to 1800 RVR. "Let it burn, it's the only thing that's get us to the runway." But say it calmly. It's a nasty situation. We train to pull a burning engine. But if you've already shut the other one down.... You have to think BEFORE you react to the pretty flashing red lights.

Like I said tomorrow is the checkride, then I get to drive several hours home, repack and catch a plane up to pick up another one coming out of maintenance the next day. Because you know, getting some time off after a recurrent pressure cooker is really ridiculous.

T-t-t-t-training Day Three.

More of the same. Classroom was Fuel Systems (What's that smell?), Powerplant (What's that noise?), Fire Protection (What's that smoke?), Pneumatics and Air Conditioning (What's that stench?), and Pressurization (What's that Payne Stewart thing?). All pretty interesting in a new and interesting way to die sort of way.

Oh, and air conditioning isn't about blowing cold air on a hot August afternoon. You see (you can take a nap now) we tap air for pressurization off the engines. We tap it after the turbines but before the combustion chamber. Big deal you say. Well, physics being what it is and gas laws being the way they are, we're tapping air that's either 350-ish (degrees F) or close to 800 F. That's just from compressing the air from ambient. There's not fire going on yet. Well, even with losses in the system, we'd be pouring 130-150 F air into the cabin if we didn't run it through a heat exchange systems first. Thus we condition the air. See, Bob's your uncle.

The sim was a fun day. We did hot and heavy. Which is fun if you're on a date with someone of non-traditional ethics, but not so much when you're watching the end of a runway rolling up way too quickly. We sat down first, figured out the numbers to give us a V1 cut that was 40 feet shorter than the runway we were using and believe me, they got those performance numbers right. Then it was engine outs on takeoff, runaway trim , jammed stabilator (or I don't need to do arms in the gym today), hydraulics failure, no flap landing (which follows nicely from the hydraulics failure), wind shear and then a right seat pattern. And the sadist that is my sim instructor failed an engine on me in the right seat. Thanks for the warning, buddy.

No seriously, we've got one of the better instructors and surprising us with odd stuff like that makes me respect him even more.

On the other hand, the new sim schedules with shorter periods means we don't have any extra time in any of the sessions anymore. It used to be if you were on the ball and worked through the scheduled stuff you could do stuff you wanted to work on with any of the extra time. Stuff like what wind shear looks like on takeoff, what a lightning strike does, asymmetric flap or spoileron deployments, or how we would've fared in the USAir Hudson landing in the jet we're flying. Stuff that might not be on the company or feds lesson plan, but we individual pilots either worry about or would like to try. Yes, some of us ask to fly under the bridges at St. Louis, but really, where's the benefit to training there. Just a gripe on my part. I might mention it on the course critique. And these guys take those critique comments seriously. These guys do a helluva job as it is. I don't want to belittle that at all.

T-t-t-t-training Day Two.

Okay. I'm definitely getting more tired. Today was more classroom and sim. We finished up flight controls. Mostly the secondary flight controls, CRM, Electrical, Flight Planning and Performance, and Weight and Balance.

CRM (cockpit resource management) is funny, depressing or frightening. Depending on what your company is like. For me it's depressing.

Electrical is just a nightmare. The old story goes that Mr. Lear, being an electrical engineer, loved to go in and rewire the airplanes to meet any customer request. The end being that electrical diagrams are almost literally individual per serial number. Yeah, I get headaches too.

The sim was more of the same. 600 RVR taxi and takeoff, V1 cuts, air restart, DME Arc to a Localizer Back Course followed by a miss and hold, then a VOR or NDB approach, and then a raw data ILS. And no autopilot today. Weee?

Are ya bored silly yet?

T-t-t-t-training Day One.

Same old, same old. Basic housekeeping paperwork, Intro and Rules, then Limitations (Hey, I don't think the airplane does what you think it does...), Avionics (There are 4 different RVSM kits available for the airplane. How many do of them do you have in your fleet? Five.) and Flight Controls (H'Ray cables and pulleys). Forty Five minutes for lunch then into the sim for: Start Malfunctions, Taxi, Noise Abatement, Air Work (Steep Turns, Stalls, Slow Flight, and Dutch Rolls) Just in case you were wondering, that's not were some little blonde kid with his finger in a dyke mugs you at knife point. A precision approach coupled with the autopilot to low mins, missed approach and a engine failure in flight followed by a single engine approach to landing. All in an hour and a half. Yeah, I'm tired. I've said this before. It's like trying to fill a dixie cup with a fire hydrant.

T-t-t-t-training.

I'm up in recurrent training for the week. Early days and long ones. Well not so long actually. They revamped the sim sessions, so they're shorter. But we have more of them. So, same amount of time. I'll post if I get time. Maybe I'll try to document what exactly we cover each day. That should be immensely boring.

Illusions Leading to Spatial Disorientation.

As a pilot we learn that sometimes the body and it's sensory systems can lie to us.

Everybody, unconsciously, use three sensory systems for orientation: the visual system, the motion sensing system in the inner ear; and the position sensing system involving nerves in the skin, muscles, and joints. With the visual system being the major sensory organ for orientation while moving. All this adds up to a feeling we have about our position and it's situation relative to our surroundings. Simple.

But sometimes through a combination of visual cues, motion, and body movement we can create orientation signals to the brain that are incorrect to our actual orientation and "illusions" happen. In no particular order some of them are:*

The Leans - Basically, a bank may be entered into so slowly that the fluid in the "roll" semicircular tubes in the inner ear aren't set in motion. An abrupt roll correction sets the fluid in motion causing an illusion of a bank in the opposite direction

Coriolis Illusion - An abrupt head movement made during a steady turn may set the inner ear's fluid in motion in more than one semicircular tube creating an illusion of turning or accelerating in an entirely different direction.

Somatogravic Illusion - A rapid acceleration, especially during take off, can create the illusion of being in a nose up attitude. A rapid deceleration can have the opposite effect, with a feeling of being in a nose low, or dive, situation. This is part of why you feel like the airplane is really climbing during takeoff in an airliner. Even though the deck angle may only be 8 or 9 degrees.

Autokinesis - In the dark, a stationary light may appear to move about when stared at for a period of time.

There are others, they all deal with the visual cues, inner ear or body movement not agreeing with the airplane's attitude.

Don't worry, I'm getting to a point here.

Anyway, as pilot's learn to fly, we train to recognise these illusions and cope with them. The biggest of the coping mechanisms is to use the flight instruments and rely upon them. We're trained to ignore what our feelings are telling us and rely on the facts as relayed by our instruments. With very few specific exceptions, the airplanes instruments don't lie and we train to read them and rely on that information.

While our feelings may be saying one thing, if they don't agree with the instruments, we have to disregard them and believe the instruments. Did you get that, feelings are one thing, but they aren't the only thing. And in some cases they may be the wrong thing.

There are other professions that teach that. My career as an engineer is one. Numbers don't lie. Statistics are another thing. I'm sure there are others, but let me get to my point. (Yes, I know, finally. You don't have to sound so relieved.)

That's whats wrong with a lot of people these days. They haven't been trained to tell the difference between their feelings and what the facts are. I've bemoaned the loss of logic and argument classes that used to be taught in school, this is part of the consequences.

Hoplophobes cry that guns are bad and, sometimes psychotically, ignore the fact that crime rates drop in states that allow concealed carry.

They are convinced they are right because they feel that it is so. The facts must be wrong because they feel that they are. So, they merrily go along holding tighter and tighter to their world, railing against reality that must, MUST be wrong, because their feelings tell them so.

What can stop this cycle? I don't know. Try to present the facts and they shut you out with their feelings. Showing them the reality outside their door won't work, they just view it through the colored lenses that their feelings have placed over their eyes. Would a severe shock to the system work? I'd be afraid that it would just cause them to curl tighter into their cocoon of feelings.

Listening to their feelings makes them feel safe. And safe is supposed to be secure and happy. Pilots are trained to overcome that sometimes terrifying sense that relying on outside information for the real situation can cause. The problem is that feeling safe and actually being safe are two very different things. Feeling safe and being safe are as different as a quiet night flight and an abrupt stop followed by a write up in the aviation safety journals.

=======================================
AC 61-27C - Instrument Flying Handbook, USDoT FAA

The Black Widow

My apologies for not putting a picture of the P-61 up when I mentioned it in a previous post. I tend to forget that not everyone is as complete a propeller head as I am. Anyway, to rectify the error, here is a picture of one. It links to the wikipedia article on the aircraft. Also, if you want to read more, here is a link to Amazons available of books on the aircraft.




by the way: Bayou Renaissance Man does a weekend wings series that is outstanding. If you have time go and read a few of them. He covers everything from planes to engineering to missions to, well, I guess A to Z (or Zed for him) would be the quickest way to say it.

Oh, the humanity...

Today, in the Philadelphia Examiner I came across this article about rationing gun purchases and other such nonsense. What gets me is the last line of the second paragraph. And I'll quote:

At the same time, the Assembly's calendar contains another smart gun-safety measure that would ban .50-caliber sniper rifles capable of targeting a plane.

ZOMG!!!1!!111!! It's the .50 caliber terror! I've read all the emotional, fear inspiring arguments from the banners. And I'd like to state as eloquently as possible... TTTTTHHHHHBBBPPPP!

First off, I'm going to look at this issue from a strictly historical and physical standpoint. The 2nd amendment, punishing the law abiding, and other arguments hold for any of the issues the anti's raise and while they apply here as well, there are others who have stated those positions much better than I ever could.

What I'm talking about is the cry that the .50 caliber rifle can shoot down airplanes. And then they point at the bolt action rifle that's for sale to enthusiasts in our country.

First off, yes, I'll admit that historically the .50 caliber was used by the US and other country's airforces as the dogfighting weapon. But please note that they were machine guns and generally grouped in sets of 6 or 8.

Fighter pilots of that era talk about weight of fire. That is to say that a skilled dogfight pilot could expect to have his sights on the enemy plane for times that were measured in fractions of seconds, and to have a good sight for longer than a second was to have all the time in the world. These experienced duelers KNEW that they had to put tens if not hundreds of rounds into the enemy to be guaranteed a "kill". That meant, machine guns with high cyclic rates of fire and several of those firing together to boot.

A person with A BOLT ACTION rifle to score a hit is remote at best and for a single hit to bring the airplane down is, well, if he can do it, he should be playing the lottery. The chances are vanishingly remote, to say the least.

The fact is, even at take off and landing when the airplanes are, arguable, at their most vulnerable, they're still doing better than 125 mph. Even light single engine general aviation planes are travelling faster then highway speeds. Anybody who has shot at a moving target can tell you how hard it is to hit. It's not a matter of point and shoot. Now, you're shooting at a moving target, but not at just anywhere. You've got to hit specific points to disable and even fewer points to bring the plane down immediately. In fact with today's modern jets, the amount of redundancy, I seriously doubt any single shot could bring a plane down in flames.

Finally, the US Air force abandoned the .50 caliber machine guns in the 1950's in favor of larger cannons because it just wasn't a guarantee that it would bring down an enemy plane.

So, please for Pete's sake. Don't bring that argument up. It doesn't even hold up to a weak light. Much less any reasoned examination.

A partial list.

I'm wandering the internet today with the Military Channel playing in the background. They ran a series of great planes shows. One of the ones they spotlighted was the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt. And this got me to thinking on what were my favorite planes. Now, I'm a propeller head from as early as I can remember, much to the chagrin of my parents. So, in the interest of creating discord and controversy on the internet. (Because we don't have enough of that already.) I'm just going to quick name a couple of my favorite airplanes of all time.

First, and these are in no particular order, the one that got me to thinking. The P-47. Arguable the best fighter of WWII. The J model is the fastest. A fighter that weighed more than some of the AAF bombers of the 30's it was adapted to more roles than the lightning or the spitfire. It carried the reputation for being able to take more battle damage and still get home than any other fighter in any theater. A quick search will find stories of Luftwaffe pilots firing at a Thunderbolt till their guns ran dry and the Jug would just keep flying along.




Second, the Consolidated PBY-5a Catalina. Here's another ungainly looking bird that had that can do attitude. Sub hunter, Search and Rescue, Night Raider, Airliner, Bush Plane, she did it all and years after she was called obsolete to boot. In fact, it was considered out dated by many at the beginning of WWII. She may not go fast, with a top speed under 200 knots and a cruise like some of todays piston singles. But, very few planes could go 2000+ miles on a single tank. I'd love to get one, convert it to a flying camper and just go. Sort of a "send ya an email from polynesia" dream.



Thirdly, and this is by no means the end of the list, the Cessna 177 Cardinal RG. And I don't know why. The first fully cantilever wing from Cessna. It was only produced for a short number of years, 1968-1975. Nothing like the life of the 172 or 182. Plagued with gear troubles the first years it was out, it never overcame that stygma and that may have lead to it's short production life. Still, with the wing set back on the cabin, you've got an excellent view both up and down. The RG version made for a limited payload. And yet, it still looks good to me.



Now, there are more airplanes that I drool over. Jets, props, rotors I'm an equal opportunity plane nut. Plain nuts? Anyway, discuss, flame, lambast... what are yours?