Made it

The Caddy is a sweet ride. Normally after driving for 6 hours, I'm sick of being in a car. The Caddy seems to be the exception. I drove it from western NY to YIP yesterday and was very comfortable the entire ride. I had thoughts of driving on through to WI, but a call from crew scheduling put a stop to that. I was pleasantly surprised that the car made the trip with no problems and good gas mileage!! I didn't think a V-8 was going to get 25mpg, let alone a 17 year old V-8 that hasn't been driven or tuned up in god only knows how long. The rust was as bad as my uncle said, but I determined that it was road worthy enough to make the trip. The mechanic that my uncle brought the car to wanted to replace a bunch of rusted stuff, but I don't feel its necessary at this time. The car has made its last long trip and is going to be my crashpad car for the rest of its life. All it needs to do now is get me from my crashpad to the airport once in a while. With the new schedule change, I'm never in YIP anymore (Yeah!). Big thanks go out to Uncle Joe and Grandma! I love the car.

Big Pimpin!

I gots me a Caddy! I'z be cruzin the 8 mile fo sum beotches, boooooyeeeee! (In my best Flav-o-flav voice) I recently bought my grandma's old ride to use for my crashpad car in Yip. Its a 1989 Cadillac Eldorado with 83,000 miles. The body and interior are in great shape, but the 17 New York winters have taken their toll on the underside. Several years of inactivity have allowed some garage rot to eat away at the brake lines, fuel lines and gas tank. I'm going to have to replace them all before making the trek to Yip. I just picked up the car tonight, so I have yet to give it a full inspection. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the rust isn't as bad as my uncle said.

Old school, new school

Over at Sam’s site he discussed use of automation and flight directors on one of his blogs. He discusses how he uses his fancy computers, gadgets and whiz-bangs to help him fly the plane. The aircraft he flies has a “glass” cockpit that is by far and away a superior instrumentation system compared to what I fly.


None of the aircraft at my company have “glass” cockpits. We use what are commonly nicknamed “steam gauges”. Our aircraft are all old and outdated by today’s standards. For instance, our standard “6 pack” of instruments, Airspeed, Artificial Horizon, Altimeter, Vertical Speed Indicator, HSI and RMI or Turn Coordinator (depending on aircraft) are six separate gauges/instruments in our aircraft. These instruments require constant scanning and over time you develop an eye scan that covers everything quickly and efficiently. Pilots using glass cockpits have all of the information from those 6 instruments plus additional data available directly in front of them in a format that reduces the amount of scanning needed. These screens are great. They make flying the plane significantly easier.

Raw data was also a term that Sam used. This is flying the aircraft by use the instruments only. This is the type of flying that I do 95% of the time. Most of the aircraft at my company do not have Flight Directors set up on the co-pilots side. None of the Lear’s have them on my side, but the some of the Falcon’s do. Most of the Falcons have attitude indicators that have a built in glideslope and localizer on them. Those really help. Sometimes I wish we had more, especially when flying an approach. The Lear has a nasty little design problem that makes it difficult to get a good look at the HSI. The center of the control wheel blocks your view of a good portion of the instrument unless you lean to the side and sit straight up in the seat. It is an awkward position to fly the aircraft.


We are lucky if we have an autopilot that will hold a decent heading or altitude. I’m joking, usually they do just fine, usually. About only time I ever have the autopilot on is in cruise or when we are busy in the cockpit. Other than that, I almost always hand fly the plane. This has led to me becoming proficient with my stick and rudder skills. Having spoken with pilots that fly more automated aircraft, this will probably be my last job where I am afforded this luxury (or burden depending on your view of autopilot use). The bigger the aircraft, the more people or cargo they hold, the newer they are, the more automation they have built in.





On another note, last Friday I was heading home via regular airlines. My route was to take me through O’Hare. Can you guess if I made it home on time?


KORD 102351Z 01025G32KT 4SM TSRA BR BKN013CB OVC018 06/04 A2982 RMK AO2 PK WND 01037/2338 TSE22B41 PRESRR SLP101 FRQ LTGIC ALQDS TS ALQDS MOV NE P0030 60051 T00560039 10072 20050 51026

KORD 102343Z 36019G37KT 10SM TSRA BR BKN013CB OVC018 06/04 A2981 RMK AO2 PK WND 01037/2338 TSE22B41 PRESRR OCNL LTGIC S-NW TS S-NW MOV NE P0027

KORD 102324Z 02021G32KT 10SM RA BR FEW008 BKN012 OVC050 06/04 A2978 RMK AO2 PK WND 01032/2319 TSE22 OCNL LTGIC DSNT NE TS MOV NE P0027 $

In memoriam.........

Here lies Hoss. October 1989 - November 3, 2006. Beloved truck, respected off roader and great fun to drive. He met his demise on Ford Blvd. in Ypsilanti, MI when an errant driver traveling in the opposite direction, crossed the centerline and smashed into him. Hoss served his owner well from the muddy river banks in North Dakota, to the streets of Milwaukee. He loved to play in mud pits, yet cleaned up enough to take on a date. He was respected for his good looks and powerful sounding engine. The neighbors always knew when Hoss was around. On his final mission, he served his owner faithfully by taking the impact like a true friend and allowing his owner to walk away unhurt. I'm going to miss you Hoss, you were a great truck!

Dead Dawg Tired

Yesterday was a loooooong day! 3,538 miles flown, 9.9 flight hours, 15 hours of duty, 6 legs, 5 states, 2 country's and 1 circling approach at minimums, I'm tired.

We started our day up in Maine. Our first leg took us to that foreign exotic neighbor to our north where we picked up a load of the usual stuff. We headed across the lake to our base in the motor city for leg 2. Leg 3 was the most interesting as far as I was concerned. It was my leg to fly and the weather at our destination was calling for thunderstorms, rain and strong winds out of the north. Once in range of the ATIS, the forecast was confirmed as true as the field was calling for 600 overcast with a ragged ceiling at 600 to 800 feet, light rain and stiff winds from the north. Taking a look at our approach plates we noticed that there was an ILS at the field, but the winds were not favoring that runway. So the straight in approach is going to be out of the question, but the circling approach would be the perfect fit. Just happens that the minimums for the approach are a 600 ft ceiling and 1 mile visibility. This would be my first circling approach in a Lear and my first in real life in quite a while. On the descent, my captain and I fully briefed the approach including what we were going to do in case we had to go missed. We agreed that in case we didn't break out, we'd head to our alternate instead of trying another approach. At around 18,000 ft we entered the clouds and proceeded to get vectors for the ILS approach. We hooked up with the localizer about 15 miles north of the field and began tracking it inbound. We picked up the glideslope a few miles later and began flying the approach. The captain was on top of things calling my airspeeds and altitudes and letting me know how much further we had to go. He called 200 till DH (Decision height - the height above the ground where we either see the field and land or go missed) , then 100 and just as I was about to light the fires and go around, he called "runway in sight". Now for the fun part! While flying 600 feet off the ground with a groundspeed in the 160kt range, I get to circle the aircraft around the airport and get lined up for a landing on the opposite direction runway. Fun stuff.

Brutal headwinds slowed our progress for most of the day. Our groundspeeds were consistently under 400kts and sometimes as low as 350. The last 2 legs were retribution. Those winds that has punished us west and southbound were going to give us a big push home. Our groundspeed on the last two legs from Texas back up to the motor city averaged over 550kts or more than 600 miles per hour.


I think the Lear is growing on me. For the last few weeks, I've been flying around in the little rocket. Its fast, loud and extremely tight up front. For the first week or so, all I could do was think about how cramped the cockpit is and how uncomfortable it is to fly long legs in. Now, I think I'm getting used to it and don't seem to mind as much. The fact that I can get 1/3 of the way to my monthly mileage quota in one day really helps. Plus I'm finally starting to feel comfortable flying the aircraft which helps my attitude towards it. Now, its time to sleep until the demon pager wakes me again.