No Brakes.....sorta.

Yesterday was the first time that I have ever had the safe outcome of a landing come into question. Everything was normal right up until the nosegear touched the runway and the Capt. started to apply brakes. It was a bit of a hair raising experience. We touched down and started veering off to the right side of the runway, dangerously close to going off the side.
It was the Capts leg, so he was the one flying the plane. We were doing a visual approach to a short field (5,600ft) to pick up some cargo and fly it to Arkansas somewhere. Nothing about the approach or landing would have indicated that anything was out of the ordinary. During our taxi checks on departure both brake systems were operational and the Anti-Skid system tested normal on both my side and the Capts side. In the air while completing the before landing checklist, the Anti-Skid also tested normal again and all hydraulic indicators were showing good pressure. So as far as we were concerned, all systems were good to go and we could expect a normal landing. Boy, were we in for a surprise.
The weather at our destination was nice. Light crosswinds, good visibilities and a few clouds overhead. We were doing a visual approach to RWY 1. We touched down right around our ref speed and I deployed the airbrakes. Everything was normal until the Capt went to apply brakes. As soon as the nosegear hit the runway and the Capt hit the brakes, the plane started veering off to the right side of the runway. My first thought was "what the hell is this guy doing?" I thought he was getting blasted by a crosswind and was not correcting. But as soon as we started getting really far off centerline and I saw his left hand dive for the nosewheel steering tiller, I knew something was wrong. I took a quick glance at the Anti Skid lights to see if they were operating and noticed that the left light was not on. This meant one of two things, the anti skid system on the left side was not operating and we locked up the tires or that the brake was not operating. The way we were pulling to the right and the fact that we didn't hear any tire squeal or "pops" from blown tires meant that we were not getting any braking from the left braking system. The Capt had me get on the pedals to see if my brakes would work, same result, still pulled to the right. The nosewheel steering tiller was providing enough directional control that we got the aircraft back on centerline, but every time we applied brakes, only the right brake would work and we would pull to the right.

After chewing up the entire runway, we taxied off at the end and took a second to talk about what had happened. The Capt thought we blew a tire or possibly flat spotted one (that's where you skid the tire and wear down the tread till there is just a flat spot left), but I told him that I didn't think we did. As we were taxiing to the ramp, we crossed the runway we had just landed on and looked for skid marks. We did not see any that would have been created by us, nor did we see tire pieces laying around. We got on to the ramp and once we slowed down, we tested the Anti Skid system again, worked fine. I'm not a mechanic, but as far as I was concerned. More to follow, I'm off to Mexico again.....

One long day....

Being up for 24 hours straight is not something I have done in a while. Back in the college days, it had been known to happen from time to time (Springfest for all you UND grads), but since the "college days" are behind me, 24hrs being awake is pretty long.

Last shift had me flying while the sun was setting and sun was rising. I started my day in ORH, Worcester, MA. We had flown in some boxes full of glass for UPS the previous night. I started my day around 10:00am Eastern time with a quick work out at the hotel gym. My 10 hours of required rest were to expire around 12:30pm so the Capt. and I grabbed a quick lunch at a great little cafe named Lucky's Cafe in Worcester. Great food and friendly service. As soon as we got back to the hotel our pagers started going off. After packing up our gear we headed out to the airport for one very long day.

The original plan was for us to pick up some freight in Portsmouth, NH, fuel stop in Nashville, TN, clear customs outbound at base in Addison, TX and then fly on to Juarez, MX to drop the stuff off and hop over to El Paso, TX to spend the night. Ha! As usual our plans get changed. After some thunderstorm delays in Nashville, we got underway to ADS about a half hour behind schedule. As soon as we land in ADS and head up to dispatch, we get the "great news" according to dispatch. They have us picking up more stuff in Juarez and flying it to Atlanta. Two problems immediately come to mind. 1. We are limited to 10 hours flying in a 24 hour period and 2. We are limited to 14 hours of "duty" time. A few quick calculations on flight and duty time show dispatch that we cant finish the return trip. That would have had us flying 11 hours and 17-18 hours of duty* (more on this later). So we come up with an alternative that would have us flying the stuff half way to Atlanta and changing crew's in Shreveport, LA. In the back of my head I'm thinking cool because every mile I'm flying these days is overtime, but this is going to suck because its going to have us flying until 4:30 am. My thin wallet gets the best of me and I decide that since our last few trips have been flying on the backside of the clock, I'm used to flying at those hours and I'm not all that tired, so lets do it.

On the the flight over to Mexico I ask the Capt. if he knew what was going to be done with me in SHV. He started to roll his fingers together giving me the universal sign for making money. He informed me that he was getting off the plane in SHV, but I was to stay with the plane and jumpseat to ATL with the other crew. He knew that the extra flight to ATL would be extra $$ in my pocket, hence the money signal. The thinking was that since I was working this weekend, they would just have me stay with the plane and the company would airline in another captain for me to fly with. Well, things never quite work out the way they are planned. Turns out they needed the plane before my 10 hours of rest were up here in ATL so they flew in another crew and stole my plane leaving me stranded here with no plane to fly, but thats another story. So my day just got a lot longer. I would be making an extra $50, but at the expense of a much longer day.

After picking our way through a line of thunderstorms we made it to Mexico, off loaded our cargo, loaded up our backhaul cargo and hopped over the river to ELP. We cleared customs, loaded up with gas and headed eastbound to the boggy marsh of LA. About halfway through the flight we had to pick our way through the same line of thunderstorms we just avoided. They were dissipating by this point, so there were bigger gaps to fly through. We landed in SHV, the Capt. was on his way to a nice hotel room with a bed, while I continued on in the very uncomfortable jumpseat of a Falcon. While the other crew prepared the plane for the flight, I prepared my FO bed (the engine covers) in the back of the plane and took a 30 min nap. Those engine covers really do make a nice little "cot" to sleep on. They are large enough that you can sleep in a variety of positions and keep the majority of your body off the cold metal floor of the aircraft.

As we were blasting off for ATL the sun was just starting to peek out from behind the clouds to the east. In a few short min, my eyes would be burning with the early morning sunlight. It just doesn't seem right. Usually the only time I see the sunset and sunrise in the same period of being awake is when I've been out doing "other" activities, not working. So we make our way to ATL. I'm hoping that we are going to be off loading at the FBO, but luck was just not on my side that morning. We had to taxi over to the cargo ramp to get off loaded and fueled before we could make our way over to the FBO to put the plane to bed and then ourselves. This added another 2 hours to being awake, but the best part is coming. We had called ahead and had the girl at the FBO find us 3 hotel rooms. We were expecting to just close up the plane, walk in and have a ride to a hotel that was waiting for us to check in..... nothing could be further from the truth. The girl behind the desk didn't make any calls about rooms until we walked in the door (DELAY), the van to give us a ride was out on another run and wouldn't be back for another 30 min (DELAY), the van finally shows up and brings us to the hotel that the girl supposedly had called and found rooms, we get to hotel #1 and there are no rooms clean and we cant check in till noon (DELAY), we call the girl at the FBO again to send the shuttle to bring us to another hotel that supposedly has rooms (DELAY), we go to hotel #2 that specifically said they had rooms available to check into now, we go in, no rooms available (DELAY), by this time I'm pissed. I kept my mouth shut, but I was steaming mad. All I wanted to do was go to sleep. So we call the FBO again, she sends the van to bring us back to hotel #1 (DELAY). We finally roll back into hotel #1 after an hour of delays with everything pretty much S.N.A.F.U. but we miss the free breakfast at the hotel. So I finally opened my mouth about our crappy situation and talked the guy behind the desk into having some food brought back out for us so we could eat. At that point, all I cared about was getting something to eat and going to bed.

So finally, after 24hrs of being awake, 3,500 miles flown through 3 time zones and back again, it was time to sleep.........zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The Wild Wild West

Avoiding thunderstorms in Kansas
The Grand Canyon from FL270 enroute from CYMM to PHX
This is Big Sky Ski Area south of Bozeman MT. Its one of my all time favorate places to go snowboarding

This past weekend I got a trip from Nashville, TN to Fort McMurray, Alberta Canada. Turned out to be one very long day, 8.4 hours flying, 5 legs, avoiding thunderstorms during 3 of the legs and 14 hours of duty. We started our day in Detroit catching a Southwest flight into BNA. From there we picked up a plane and flew from Nashville, TN to Baton Rouge, LA to Salina, KS, to Great Falls, MT to Edmonton, AB to Fort McMurray, AB.
What a scenic flight!!

All photos courtesy of Capt. Jerry Engle, my partner in crime for this trip. Thanks Jerry.

Perks

Being on call for 11 days at a time can be a drag, but to every downside, there are some positives. Last week was a good week flying wise. I racked up over half of my monthly mileage quota and got to see more new and interesting places. The highlight of the week was getting my first trip into LAX and getting to have lunch with one of my best friends that I had not seen in months. My good buddy moved to LA last October and I haven't seen him since then. When I got on the ground at LAX, I gave him a call and we went to the In and Out Burger right next to the airport. He was gloating because the rugby team he plays for had just won the Division I National Championship. http://www.santamonicarugby.com/ So congrats to you Sands, awesome job!!!!

Another perk of the job is the Amex card. For $75 a year, you can sign up to collect points that you can use to get free hotels, trips, airline tickets, televisions, ect. For only 450,000 points you can get a 42in plasma TV. Personally that's what I'm gunna save up for, but that's gunna take a few years. Rumor has it that as a Capt. you'll spend around $200,000 a year on the card. That's a lot of points. I even heard of a lucky FO who happened to be at the same FBO as one of our 737's. The Capt on the 737 was in a hurry to leave the airport and didn't want to wait around for the fuel truck, so he asked the FO if he'd put the fuel order on his (the FO's) Amex. The plane took $14,000 in fuel and the FO got a couple free plane tickets with the point accumulated.

I sign up for as many points programs as I can. Typically I'm in a hotel 20 nights a month, so it pays to belong to all the rewards programs. I'm hoping that by the time I get married and its Honeymoon time, all airfare and hotels are paid for with Amex and hotel points. That's not going to be for a while, so I have plenty of time to save up points.

Perks

Being on call for 11 days at a time can be a drag, but to every downside, there are some positives. Last week was a good week flying wise. I racked up over half of my monthly mileage quota and got to see more new and interesting places. The highlight of the week was getting my first trip into LAX and getting to have lunch with one of my best friends that I had not seen in months. My good buddy moved to LA last October and I havent seen him since then. When I got on the ground at LAX, I gave him a call and we went to the In and Out Burger right next to the airport. He was gloating because the rugby team he plays for had just won the Division I National Championship. http://www.santamonicarugby.com/ So congrats to you Sands, awesome job!!!!

Another perk of the job is the Amex card. For $75 a year, you can sign up to collect points that you can use to get free hotels, trips, airline tickets, televisions, ect. For only 450,000 points you can get a 42in plasma TV. Personally thats what I'm gunna save up for, but thats gunna take a few years. Rumor has it that as a Capt. you'll spend around $200,000 a year on the card. Thats a lot of points. I even heard of a lucky FO who happened to be at the same FBO as one of our 737's. The Capt on the 737 was in a hurry to leave the airport and didnt want to wait around for the fuel truck, so he asked the FO if he'd put the fuel order on his (the FO's) Amex. The plane took $14,000 in fuel and the FO got a couple free plane tickets with the point accumulated.

I sign up for as many points programs as I can. Typically I'm in a hotel 20 nights a month, so it pays to belong to all the rewards programs. I'm hoping that by the time I get married and its Honeymoon time, all airfare and hotels are paid for with Amex and hotel points. Thats not going to be for a while, so I have plenty of time to save up points.

Finally got some pics to share

Heres Jack! The newest aviatior to our family. He's flying Grandpa's Bonanza. He joins the family as a 3rd generation pilot along with Grandpa Jack, Uncle Doug and Daddy.

Meh Hee Co

Friday was my first time getting a sweet trip. We had 5 legs from CGI-GSP-IAH-MMSP-LRD-ADS for a total of 8.2 hours flying and over 2,300 miles flown. I loved every mile of it. The first two legs were spent dodging T-Storms, pretty fun. The third leg was the most fun and a good learning experience. It started in IAH just before sunset. I got our flight plan from dispatch and headed out to the plane to go grab our clearance. Little did I know that the flight plan filed and our clearance were going to be completely different. Aside from the destination and one VOR, the entire route was different than what I was expecting. So here comes the brand new FO in me. I completely screwed up copying down our clearance and sounded like a private student on the radio. The controller read off the routing at warp speed, naming the fixes waaay faster than my hand could write. So I did my best to read it back, but it was a mess. After 2 screwed up readbacks, I just asked for phonetics. I should have just done that in the first place. After the third time reading back the clearance, a very annoyed controller said "Ameristar 184, read back correct" Phew....I was embarrassed. I thought I was prepared. I had the flight plan in my hand, had reviewed the filed departure procedure and routing on my maps, just wasn't prepared for the curveball that clearance was going to throw my way. Next time I'll prepare harder for unexpected routing. (P.S. All that work was for nothing......after our first fix we were cleared direct to our destination. There were 6 fixes we skipped when we got cleared direct.)
Anyways, back to the fun part of the trip. We took off right before sunset. There was a large T-Storm about 40 mi west of Houston that the sun was setting behind. It was a pretty sight to see. Hopefully sometime soon I'll get a decent digital camera so I can share with you some of what I'm seeing. But the best visuals were to come. As we were flying over the Gulf of Mexico on our way down to our destination, there were T-Storms in front and to the west of us. We were treated to a spectacular light show from the night sky being illuminated by the lightning. This was my first time seeing storms from the front of a cockpit up in the flight levels. Awesome. Thankfully none of the storms were in our flight path.
Listening to Mexican nationals speaking Spanish on the radio is quite interesting. I need to brush up on my Spanish. I could sometimes catch what they were talking about, but most times I'd just catch numbers and VOR's. The controllers that we were talking to were easy to understand and had excellent English. At first I was a bit skeptical on the quality of the controllers English from stories I have heard, but everything went smooth.
We arrived at our destination and I must say, it was nothing too spectacular. I didn't anything besides the airport, a customs agent, a few fuelers and a ground handler. Typical. About the only difference between airports in the states is that all signs in the airport are in Spanish. I didn't get the chance to see any of the country while we were flying over because it was dark. Next time.

Its a small world afterall....

Its amazing how small the United States has become over the past few weeks. Buzzing around in piston twins, where you might see 200kts groundspeed on a good day can make for some long days when your trying to get somewhere far away. Now that I'm flying jets, those same "far" distances have become quite a bit closer. Yesterday we had a trip from the St. Louis area to the Atlanta area and then back. One way, the trip was around 450 miles. In the twins I used to fly, that's about 2.5 to 3 hrs of flying depending on the winds. In my dad's plane (A beautiful 1954 V-35 Bonanza), the trip is about 3.5 hrs. Yesterday we flew it in 1.1 hrs. The round trip would have taken all day to complete in the aircraft I used to fly, but now thanks to the Falcon, we did round trip in 2.3 hrs. Averaging around 480kts groundspeed is quite a huge improvement over the 180kts I was used to seeing.

I'm quite thankful to be flying jets finally. One of the greatest improvements in flying quality comes with the fact that the Falcon only holds enough gas for about 2.5 hours of flight. A Shrike (Twin Commander 500S) that I used to fly for the aerial photography company held enough fuel for 8 hours of flight in certain configurations. That's a rear end numbing experience. I think the longest I was aloft in that aircraft in one flight was 6.1 hours. That makes for one long day of flying. Dealing with hand flying, holding target altitudes, headings, speeds and the constant drone of the engines really wears on you after a while. Typically our missions would last over 4 hours per flight with sometimes more than 1 flight a day. Most days during our busy season I'd be logging over 8 hours a day. So these days my rear end is thankful of my new job because the days of 4 hour legs are over.