Same drill as yesterday. We check out of the hotel, load our gear in the vehicle, drive to the first airport, collect a squat switch and accompanying paperwork, and drive to the second airport. The weather is good here, but poor at destination, however it should clear up by the time the part is installed and we get there. We walk into the hangar with our delivery.
The airplane is up on jacks, with the gear retracted. It looks really creepy that way. I'm used to seeing airplanes sitting on their wheels, and it's okay to have them hoisted onto jacks, but it's very weird when the wheels are up, but the airplane is sitting in a hangar. It looks so precarious like that. The engineer and his apprentice are looking glum. We hold up the part triumphantly, but this doesn't lighten their mood.
"Uh thanks," the engineer says. The switch doesn't seem to be the problem. At the moment they're cleaning out the nose compartment because they had a hydraulic line come off. There's something more other than the switch that sends an electric locked or not locked signal that is causing the airplane to believe its gear is not extended when it is. They aren't going to have this today. This time we check into a hotel in this town, but it turns out we'll have to drive back to the first airport to get a part again tomorrow.
No, I did not just post the same post two days in a row. Yesterday, for example, the weather was poor here and good at destination. Today it's the opposite. In neither case does it matter, as we're not going anywhere until that airplane works. How long do you think we can keep this up?
8 comments:
Dear Trix:
Someone wise said: "It's better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air than the other way 'round."
Regards,
Frank
I'm not pokin into ya bidness, but do you get any compensation for hanging around on the ground?
I just think I would rather be home than "flying my hotel room" somewhere else.
Thanks for the post.
I'm paid the same every day I'm in the field, whether I fly, sit in the hotel room, wash the plane or go to Disneyworld.
Sweet. Glad you're back writing!!
Thanks again
Now throw in many dozens of distressed pax...the pressure is palpable!
I've always maintained that the captain's greatest responsibility is knowing when to NOT get the job done...
That's a great example for why you couldn't fly with that "bad squat switch" the day before, no?
How about floats? No worries about retracting the gear then, just sinking....
John Lenerton wrote: How about floats? No worries about retracting the gear then, just sinking....
unless they're amphibious floats, then the challenge of having the gear in the correct position, and the severity of the results of not, both ratchet up a order of magnitude.
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