Pilots and Birds

Pilots have sort of a love-hate relationship with birds. Some learned to fly out of a desire to be like the birds. I came grudgingly to appreciate avian skills while I was a student pilot learning to judge winds and momentum in the flare. I still derive schadenfreude from watching a bird misjudge a crosswind landing, because they usually get it so perfect, angling their wings and tail and settling on a single branch just as groundspeed and vertical speed reach zero. I knew an ultralight pilot whose pinnacle of life experience occurred the day an eagle flew along wingtip-to-wingtip with his tiny craft, checking him out and then seeming to just share the joy of being aloft on a beautiful day. If you've got through any part of a career in aviation without having to reject a take-off, perform a go-around, declare an emergency, or visit maintenance because of birds, then I can't imagine which part of the planet you fly over.

The airplane I flew yesterday bears a scar that we think is a rat strike. I know that a rat is not a bird, but I still blame a bird. See, one day an eagle crossed our path while we were on the take-off roll. There was no thump and no exploding cloud of feathers, so we were pretty sure we hadn't struck the eagle, but after the flight there was nevertheless a small dent, mostly just stretching of the aluminum skin between two ribs on the wing, and some blood spatters. The airport crew reported finding no carcass, and certainly an eagle would have made a bigger dent. Our theory is that the eagle dropped its payload in order to more easily dodge us. I should have gone full CSI on the remains. I'll bet I could have found some fibres and checked them out at the MicrolabNW Photomicrograph Gallery. As it is I just nag maintenance to put the dent repair on their spare time list, because tiny as the dent is, it is a roughness in the wing, and that spot is always the first one to ice up in flight.

The video below (preceded by an ad, you don't lose anything if you just mute the whole video) is from an incident a year ago when a bird strike smashed the spinner on a Dash-8 on take-off. I don't see any damage to the propeller itself, but the damage to the spinner must have caused an imbalance, because the pilots elected to shut the engine down. You can see the blades feathered (aligned with the direction of flight for minimum air resistance). And I have to laugh at the fact that the very terminology "feathered" is bird-related.

They inspired us to fly in the first place. They interfere every day with our ability to do so safely. We can't stop admiring them and we can't stop resenting them. This whole post has just been an excuse to show you this gif. Does anyone not love this crow? It's just a looped gif, but the full YouTube clip shows that it wasn't an accident. That crow was hanging in there for the ride. I suppose it wasn't all that different to clinging to a branch on a windy day, but it's having fun, isn't it?

Is The Best Part Taking Off?

A friend wrote today to congratulate me and my countrymen on the 106th anniversary of powered flight in Canada, and then he followed up to ask "is the best part taking off? I always imagine that the best part must always be taking off." And he's right.

You get in and put on your seatbelt and make sure everyone's settled and nothing is in the way, just like heading out for a car trip if you have multiple children inside and pets possibly running around outside. (Don't forget to preflight your car by banging on the hood to evict cats or squirrels that might be snuggling up to your engine block for warmth). You start the engines, and while each one springing into life and turning around is a little victory, especially when it's cold, that's only a little more triumphant than getting the car started. It's nice to see the oil pressure come up, the vacuum pumps show that they are online and sucking, and the alternators come on line and flip the polarity of the charge rate shown on the ammeter, but those are just steps in the preamble. Taxiing to the runway is a bit of a warm up for the pilot, just as the run-up is a warm up for the engines, but finally you're cleared into position on the runway. It's big, like a wide open stretch of three-lane highway with no traffic ahead of you and you know for sure no speed traps. Cleared for take off, you put in the power and feel acceleration, and the rumbling of the tires against the pavement. You keep the airplane aligned with the centreline with your feet. At the correct speed you pull back on the yoke and lift the nosewheel off just a little bit. You wait, and in a few seconds there is no more rumbling. You are in exactly the same attitude, slightly nose up, but now YOU ARE SUSPENDED IN AIR! That's the best part.

Take off is also the part where the most spectacular things can go wrong, so it’s very alert and exciting, as you have to watch all the indications to ensure that none of those things are going wrong, and mostly they don’t go wrong, so that’s a good part too. Imagine that every time before you merged onto the highway you were legally required to recite what you would do if a bad thing happened, so you were all psyched to do whatever one would do if a semi crossed two lanes and tried to take you out. And then you merged and nothing bad happened at all. It’s a mini celebration every time.

I can't imagine the multiplication factor for the thrill of taking off in the Silver Dart in 1909. The aircraft took off from an ice surface, but was on wheels, not skis.Tricycle gear with fairly large, spoked wheels. (On later flights the rear wheels were replaced with skids). The vibration on the take off roll must have been quite juddering. Sea ice is not smooth like a hockey rink and those wheels are not mounted on piston-like oleos the way mine are. The account says that the craft was airborne in about a hundred feet. It would have been very obvious to the pilot the instant the wheels left the ice. People were throwing their hats and mittens in the air. The pilot flew for about half a mile and landed back on the ice, quite gently by his own account.

While a smooth landing is satisfying, and harder to achieve in an airworthy craft than a smooth take off, anything can land. For millennia we could only dream of taking off.

We Just Don't Always Use It

A fueller once told me that he loved watching me take off because the shallow climb angle is different from the way the other aircraft at that airport behave. He thinks it looks cool. Interesting.

Almost all the traffic there besides me are training aircraft, light singles flown by students. Having worked as a flight instructor, I know that such aircraft are also usually close to max weight with an instructor on board. Students tend to rotate late and lift the nose wheel higher, thinking they are pulling the airplane off the runway with their own strength. The manufacturers recommend climbing at the best rate of climb speed, which makes sense because if the one and only engine fails, the more altitude the better. They're only going to climb to three or four thousand feet above ground level anyway, so that's reasonable for them. they are climbing at 500' to 700' per minute, maybe less if it's hot.

Most of my takeoffs are within two percent of max take off weight. At rotation speed I lift the nosewheel just enough to have it clear of the runway, with no attempt to haul the entire airplane off the ground. I know that will come. At that point I am waiting for the speed to come up to blue line, the single engine best rate of climb speed. That happens just before I run out of runway, and then I raise the gear. When both engines are functioning, there is no reason to climb at as low a speed as single-engine best rate. There are no obstacles or noise abatement areas off the end of the runway, so I don't use the two-engine best angle of climb speed. I could climb at the two-engine best rate of climb speed, but the manufacturer recommends a speed fifteen to twenty knots faster than that. I know that I can reduce power slightly, and then climb at the manufacture's recommended climb speed for thirty minutes without overtemping anything. So that's what I do. I stay low over the runway, get my speed, ensure the airplane is flying properly and then climb away at a sustainable rate. I'm climbing at around 750' per minute, but because I'm doing so at around twice the forward speed of the little guys, this translates to a lower climb gradient. I guess it looks cool because it's the way heavies take off.

Obviously if there is terrain, or IFR climb gradients in excess of my default climb rate, then I'm leaving take off power set and climbing at the angle required to meet safety and regulatory requirements. And if I'm on a test flight or empty for some other reason, then my take off profile might be a little different. It's never like the one at the beginning of this video, though.

The second take off in the video, with the immediate left bank, is pretty common for me, when I'm at an airport served by large jets. ATC wants me out the way, fast, so they clear me to make a left (or right, but the most recent one was left) turn as soon as safely able. As soon as have stable control of the airplane, I bank and turn myself out of the path of the Boeing or Airbus that ATC will clear to take off as soon as they are content that I am clear. The other day I saw a Boeing 737 doing a fairly steep low level turn. It was a bright sunny day and I guess they didn't want to go way the heck west to intercept the ILS.

Airplanes are way cool.

Fitting In

I'm working out of an airport where traffic has outstripped construction and the construction that is trying to catch up has made the taxiways and frequencies even more congested. When I get a word in edgewise with ground I'm cleared to taxi, but then have to pull over for a do-si-do at the compass rose so an opposite direction caravan can get by. Wait a few minutes stacked up behind traffic for departure, then cleared for the immediate, with a northbound turn as soon as able so they can keep pumping out faster traffic.

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On the way home, I'm sequenced, allowed to descend towards the runway, and then told to keep it in close behind the departing jet. The controller's goal and hence mine is to put me on the pavement as soon as the jet is safely out of the way. I don't want to land into jet blast, the disturbance to the air made by the jet engines as the aircraft accelerates along the pavement, but I don't have to worry about his wake turbulence, because the vortices made by the wings of a flying aircraft don't start until rotation, and I will be stopped and turned off the runway before the point at which the jet gets airborne and the vortices start. I hear another aircraft behind being told to bring back the speed, follow the ... ATC gets my type wrong, but he's to be forgiven. I know it's me, and from the point of view of the B737 pilot behind me, we're much the same.

Someone on frequency asks the controller if they have software that advises them of traffic conflicts or just use their own cleverness. The controller assures them it's just cleverness and the next few calls to tower include praise for the controllers' cleverness. They have to undergo some pretty comprehensive aptitude tests for that job, and then a lot of training and supervised practice, so the cleverness is innate and trained.

I keep it close behind the jet, and plan to keep my speed up to the intersection where they usually ask me to exit. The fading jet blast affects the flare giving me a sudden headwind that dies, I bubble up and then touch down harder than I planned to before I can bring up the power to compensate. I've lost all my speed, because of that, but just as well because ATC asks me to exit on a sooner taxiway than I'd planned. I can refuse that if I consider it unsafe, but a bit of braking and I do it. The 737 must have landed behind me, and by the time I get my taxi clearance and turn onto the parallel taxiway there's a CRJ taking off.

Trial by Ground

We find someone to look at the engine, and he sees nothing visibly wrong with the number two cylinder. They checked the mags, replaced the spark plugs, cleaned the injectors and swapped the #2 and #4 probes. That way they've addressed the most likely issues and if it is the probe or the gauge it will now be a different cylinder complaining. Smart. I'm happy with the work and we fuel and go for the Vancouver mission.

Vancouver International is one of the larger airports I've worked out of for a while, so I have all my charts lines up to find my way around. I listen to the ATIS and call clearance delivery for a departure. He offers me a choice between two departures, They are both in the wrong direction, because the work area is to the east and they are using westbound runways at the moment, so I pick one without much consideration. I'll work out exactly how do get there once they are done vectoring me through the departure. He then asks for more detail on the actual work area and chews me out because I have selected the wrong departure for the most efficient route to that area. He advises me to study a VTA next time. I say "<callsign> checks," contritely. The VTA is an astonishing forest of VFR reporting points, many of which are over the water. Do you get your bearings by identifying particular fish?

Once Clearance is done berating me, I call Ground for taxi. I know I'm on apron two. He asks me pleasantly which pad I will be departing today. Pad? Insert moment of radio silence while Aviatrix processes this question, and then my response, almost student pilotlike in its careful deadpan earnestness. "<callsign> is an aeroplane," pronouncing all three syllables of the last word. "Pad" refers to helipad. This apron is home to some helicopters. There must be a local helicopter with a similar callsign.

"Oh so you'd prefer to depart from a runway today?" he asks. Don't they have a strip on me? Has he been listening to Clearance Delivery telling me where to go and decided to take his turn? Is it a friendly joke like the briefer who pretended he thought I was a B747 on floats for my first student cross-country? I assume it's the last.

"If that would be convenient for you, sir." Sir is routine in the US, but in Canada "sir," like "niner," is often jocular or hypercorrect.

He gives me a taxi clearance I can manage, and I find my way to the correctly lettered piece of pavement and then to the hold short line, monitoring tower. They clear me to position and then for takeoff, and I switch to departure through 1000', as specified on the VFR departure instructions. They quickly vector me around to where I need to go.

It's very beautiful here. The mountains, which still have snow on them, wrap almost all the way around. There are mountains on Vancouver Island to the west, mountains stretching up the coast to the northwest, mountains forming a huge barricade to the north, blocking Vancouver into a valley, and more mountains to the southeast, as the coastal chain continues into Washington state. There's even a ten-thousand foot volcanic peak just south of the US border, with a ski hill on it. I don't get to look at all that much.

I get to look at nearby traffic and a screen with lines and dots on it. Sometimes I talk to the dots. When they talk back, I figure it's time for a snack. I'm improving, but it's easy to lose concentration for a moment, to be distracted by engine management and bank just a little at the wrong moment. "You know," I venture, "This could be made into the world's most boring video came for the iPod." The thing would be, you're not allowed to stop for six hours. So whether you have to make dinner, eat dinner, or attend to other physiological needs, the dots keep coming, and you keep having to follow the line. I also lament that I should get points. The dots should sparkle, like in the game Bejeweled. There should be points for my getting them spot in the middle with the crosshairs centred, and points lost for any red flashes. There should be combos available, and maybe a voiceover telling me to "Get Ready!" for each new line. The game should track high scores, per pilot, and maybe have spaceships. I'm not sure how you'd incorporate spaceships, maybe in the advanced levels I haven't reached yet. If I had an iPod developers' kit, I would try to make this game.

The engines behave perfectly, and lean right back to the fuel flow the operator expects, with normal EGTs. I hypothesize the flaky cylinder had a fuel injector issue or a bad spark plug. Too much fuel or too little ignition might cause combustion to continue too late in the cycle, raising the EGT, and too little of either could cause the intermittent rough running. Whatever it is is fixed now. The video game has to have a screen for fuel management, which you must periodically monitor without losing track of your dots.

Eventually I run out of dots, or spare fuel, I can't remember which, and head back to Vancouver for landing. I've been talking to Vancouver Terminal all this time, so they point me towards a runway and tell me to contact tower. I call them "<callsign>, 3500', with Xray" and tower is already mad at me. They want to know why I'm not with Terminal. I mentally review the last instruction from Terminal. It wasn't "Contact Tower crossing the river," or "Contact Tower through 2500'." It was "Contact Vancouver tower now, <frequency>." Tower has for some reason assumed that I have just appeared in their airspace without deigning to contact the agency that controls ALL the airspace surrounding it. The only way I could reach Vancouver Tower's airspace without passing through Terminal would be to take off from Vancouver. And I've already been through that trial by Ground. Is there such a major problem here with small airplanes bulling their way into class C airspace without a clearance that that is the first assumption on what I must assume is a botched terminal-tower handoff? I'm still cleared straight in, which is a little freaky, because it's a busy time at a busy airport, but I see they are aiming me for the departure runway, so they keep taking off jets in front of me, and landing them on the parallel beside me, and I don't interfere with either set.

I land, can't see a sign on the nearest taxiway, so maybe it's an entry-only taxiway and I roll to the next one, clearing the runway quickly with an Air Canada positioning behind me.

The operator knows I've worked hard today, and asks me if I can do another flight. Yeah, my duty day is good to seven p.m., that's with the time change. And I'm strangely energized after capturing all those dots. The next flight will be just an hour. After fuelling I call clearance again, this time requesting the departure that I think will do me the most good, and he assigns it to me with my squawk code. Ground clears me out and then warns someone else to watch for me. Yeah, watch out for her. He can't see me, but I can see him. He won't run over me. I guess apron II goes all the way to the the east end of the runway, and Ground doesn't know which bit I'm on. Is there a chance I've misnamed my apron location? The chart seems pretty clear.

We take off and go take pictures of a movie set. Cool, eh? I'm high-powered paparazzi now. I'll have to find out what movie. I didn't see the set, just the dots.

Landing back afterwards they clear me for a tight downwind and then clear me to land "keep your base in close." I turn base immediately and plummet to the runway with full flaps and gear down, clearing on that first taxiway, which is labelled, just further back than I looked. I may not know all the VFR departures, but I can keep my base in close.

Boarding During an Earthquake

I had this forwarded to me without a name. It's a first hand account by a Delta Airlines captain whose flight was boarding at Narita when the 8.9 earthquake struck off the coast of Japan.

We were at the gate onboard ship 7001 with passenger boarding in progress when the earthquake began. My F/O, Joe Haggerty, had taken his seat and I was standing behind the center radio console when the airplane began shaking. Initially thought it was wind gusts but ruled that out since it had been calm when we left the hotel. Jet blast from a taxiing aircraft? Nope, look, the terminal windows are flexing and the building is...moving! It's an earthquake...immediately, in a brilliant display of airmanship, Joe reached over and set the parking brake. It seemed quite possible that we could jump our wheel chocks and roll into something hard. After a minute of this, the shaking got much worse and lasted about 2 1/2 minutes total. Our passengers intuitively decided that the safest place in all of this was on the aircrart and not in the terminal or the jetway. Never seen 261 people board a 777 so quickly! Two long and impressive aftershocks followed during the next hour. Narita closed it's runways and our inbound flights began diverting. 281 from Atlanta was about 10 minutes from landing and diverted to Nagoya. Hanada and Narita were both closed. They evacuated everyone from the Narita terminals deeming the structures unsafe for occupancy. The Narita tower was evacuated, Narita Approach Control was evacuated. At about 4pm, the airport was notam'd closed "until 0600 tomorrow morning". So, Delta cancelled us and all of the other flights out of Narita.

Well.........there was only one "safe area" established at the airport (outside in a cold rain) where passengers could be taken if they deplaned. It became full. There was no chance of deplaning into the terminal. No chance of deplaning at all. No ground transportation as all busses and trains were shut down and the highways had been closed. So, Delta calls the Narita Airport Authority and suggests that since the runway had been inspected, it might be a real good idea to allow 6 Delta departures and get maybe 1,400 customers out of this mess. They agreed and after a four hour wait at the gate, we got out of there. On departure we could see four distinct, large fires in downtown Tokyo, 50 miles to the south. A refinery was on fire at the coastline to our east. We had no real idea of the size of the disaster until we had a datalink discussion with our dispatcher who filled us in. Now, watching the news at home, I am stunned at the devastation. All Delta crews and employees are safe and uninjured in Japan. I am not sure if the layover hotel has power. I'm glad I'm not in room 932 anymore with the aftershocks that they are getting.

Happy to be home and thanks for your concern.

It's weird when you're on the ground and the airplane is moving in a way you haven't commanded it. I remember the first time I couldn't taxi straight in wind, and can see why that was the captain's first impression.

Breaking Things

I wake up and check my text messages. I should buy a scrubbing brush so I can clean my nails better. There are three texts for me. The first one says the a.m. flight departed at 16Z. The second one says it didn't depart after all, but aborted on the runway for an engine problem. One of the engines--not the one that had the problem earlier--wasn't making full manifold pressure. The third text asks me if I noticed any unusual yaw or power loss. No, I didn't. It climbed like a dog,but it was thirty freaking degrees out, so I can't blame it. They're disassembling it looking for a problem.

Meanwhile I play on the Internet. Dav e Carroll, the United Breaks Guitars guy has release the third and final song to make good his threat to United. This one is no longer angry or sad. It acknowledges that United "broke" his career, but that while he has come out well from the incident, there are a lot of other customers whose damage claims have been ignored and who haven't been able to fight back as well. And it's funny Canadian folk music, which is what I like.

I check the weather and it's ... um ... interesting. Not the weather itself, but the delivery. The METARs have been served up on the screen in completely random order, not chronological at all. The number after 06 in each row is the observation time. There are hardly any two in the right order, just scrambled all over the place. The weather turns out to be irrelevant because the problem is suspected to be a failure of the fuel servo, brand new with the engine, and we don't have a spare with us. We are getting one on Greyhound, yes, the bus. It's the fastest way to get it here, short of chartering a plane to fly it directly.

As we go out to dinner I hear the AME on his phone telling someone about the problem. "And then the GFY light came on," he explains. I ask the other pilot sotto voce what that is and he whispers the answer back to me. Oh. Right.

Cows Get Bigger Too Fast

I arrive early to sign out the airplane and do the walkaround, then Oak comes out to show me the idiosyncrasies of the particular type. Most of it is pretty much what you'd expect of any airplane, but the craziest part is the procedure for checking fuel for contamination. The wingtip tanks are checked in what would I would call the normal way for this type of airplane. You take a fuel tester cup--that's like a drinking tumbler with a spike sticking straight up in the middle and jam the spike into a release valve on the underside of the tank. Fuel spews out into the cup and then you can examine it for impurities. The other tanks work differently. Inside the cabin between and slightly behind the control seats, there are some knobs and if you trace the way the lines go from them you can figure out which connects towards the left and which towards the right. Outside the airplane, on the belly just where your hand right hand would be if you extended it after jamming your left shoulder under the flap are two plastic tubes. (Yeah, surgical tubing sticking out of the belly of the airplane. If it were a dog it would have to wear a plastic cone around its neck so it didn't chew on them). In order to check the fuel in the wing tanks, one person holds a fuel testing cup underneath the tubing while another person inside the airplane selects the tanks and pulls the knobs one at a time to let the fuel drain out. Usually when I test fuel at the bottom of my tanks I drain 25-50 mL. If there's no water or sediment, I move to the next tank. If there is some contamination I take another sample. Here Oak wants me to sample one cup of fuel from each tank, and an additional half cup from the crossfeed line.

I call stop after about 250 mL is in the tester and hold it up. "No, the whole cup," he says. Ah, not "one cup" as in the 250 mL kitchen measure but as in the whole, perhaps 600 mL tester. It has a strainer cap on it, so after examining it I can pour the fuel back into the tanks from the top without risking reintroducing contaminants. This is, don't forget, a little single pilot airplane. And it takes two people to check the fuel. Oh this is done before every flight, too, not just after fuelling or for the first flight of the day.

Our first flight is not IFR, just a flight for me to practice handling engine failures and flying this airplane. Fair enough. He briefs where we will go and what the procedures are, and asks if I have any questions. "Yes, how do we get to and from the runways?" Most of the taxiways seem to be NOTAMed closed. It turns out that everything, from Cessna 152s up to WestJet has to get on and off the runways through taxiway A. That's a lot of backtracking. I don't know how long it's been this way, but the NOTAMs suggest it will continue for at least another month.

I run through all the checks for practice, even though it's a VFR flight. There's no VOT here and I can't ID either of the likely VORs in the area. The CDI comes alive while the NAV flag quivers back and forth but never completely falls out of view, and the Morse code is not audible. The ADF works beautifully, though.

I read the departure briefing as though I am going to depart on an IFR flight and then as I'm taxiing for the runway picturing that in my head, realize that I have read the Abbotsford Seven departure for runway 07 as opposed to the one for runway 19. That's disturbing. I've never done that before. I later figure out what happened. Many airports don't have named departure procedures, and for those that do I've never had them match the runway number. In this case I treated the runway number as redundant information because I already had a seven. When I tell Oak what caused me to do that he says it's common. I caught it because I visualized what I was going to do on departure, and it didn't make sense. It goes to show how important test data is for a program or a technique. I wonder how many departures there are in Canada right now that have the same name as the airport and match a runway number. I wouldn't be surprised if this were the only one.

The rotation speed is given for this airplane as "70-78 kts," with no indication whether this depends on take-off weight, runway surface or what. Turns out that the ideal rotation speed would be 70, but Vmc is 78, and they don't want people flying below Vmc (that's the speed below which the airplane is designated unflyable with an engine failure as maximum power), but they don't want people holding an airplane on the runway when it's ready to fly, because that can also result in loss of control. Sounds like a design problem to me. They should have given the thing a slightly bigger rudder or more rudder travel or whatever it takes to bring Vmc down to match Vr. I'm instructed to make up for this by rotating very slowly beginning at 70 and then keeping the airplane in ground effect until it has passed 78. I try this on my first takeoff and am told to hold it in ground effect a little longer next time.

I have him put me under the hood and we try some simulated engine failures and I do the procedure. I was very slow to simulate feathering on one, not sure why. I'm constantly punching the ceiling or dashboard in the wrong place for controls that aren't where they "should be." The airplane is not too hard to handle on one engine. You can hold altitude with the gear up with the power at 25" x 2500 rpm, but if you let the speed decay below 85 knots you've crawled up the backside of the power curve and it loses altitude rapidly. I should be able to fly this airplane. We go back to the airport to land.

Oak seems surprised that I land it adequately. It's not the greatest: I landed straight and on the mains without undue force, but my nosewheel control should have been better. I felt I set it down too rapidly. It's not brutal though. My mind goes back to the private and commercial flight tests, both of which had poor marks for the final full stop landing. The "oh no, now all I have to do is not screw up the landing" feeling was apparently too much pressure for me back then. Here if I get as far as short final without failing anything, I'll be fine. Oak says the approach was too high. Hmm, I got all the way down to the runway and landed in the designated touchdown zone. I'll try to put it underground next time? (He didn't like my high descent rate).

Having Issues. May Be A Bit.

This is so my new motto. Maybe I'll do one of these every day until I run out of famous images of historical figures having issues.

My coworker goes straight to bed after landing, not that he's especially tired after just waiting around for a while and making a short flight, but after eight hours sleep it's a new day and anything I don't get done, he can do tonight before tomorrow's icky weather arrives. I fuel and get ready for the flight, and then we're off. On the takeoff run I bring up the throttles, leading with the right lever as I have been doing, to compensate for a MP split at high power. But as I watch the power develop I adjust and discover that I don't have to do that, the left falls behind if I do that. Looks like they fixed that. They have been tweaking one thing every time it goes into maintenance, so they must have got it this time. The airplane accelerates to rotation speed and I lift the nosewheel about eight or ten degrees nose up for my initial climb. The mains come off and then there's a change in sound in the left engine and a little bit of yaw. Could be a turbocharger issue. The manufacturer specifically instructs pilots not to reject a takeoff with a failed turbocharger, so I just keep it at blue line and fly the plane. Now the left engine is surging. It's like an unsynched propeller, except that at this altitude the props are still unsynchronized. I wonder if I'm going to lose one here. Regardless, if it's putting out power, I fly a dodgy engine to a safe altitude before trying to diagnose it. The first order of business, even in a full engine failure or a fire is Control the airplane.

It flies. I reduce to climb power. The manifold pressure gauge needle isn't flicking noticeably and the tach isn't fluctuating between lights. At this angle and lighting I can't see clearly if the digital tachometer readout is fluctuating with a particular pattern. There is no gauge indication anywhere that says there is something wrong. The airplane isn't yawing crazily, it just doesn't sound right. I look at both engines out the windows. Who is to say whether the left one is surging down or the right one is surging up. The mission specialist has noticed too, which is good, because without a clear gauge indication it's easy to think you've gone insane.

I level off at cruise power and tweak things for a bit, switching fuel tanks in case I have something blocking a line, or a fuel contamination issue. No perceptible change for that or with alternate air. There's obviously something not right, so we circle back and land.

I run it up on the ground so I can report everything, but it doesn't do it on the ground, of course. I shut down and call my PRM while walking around the airplane and looking inside the cowlings from various angles to check for loose hoses, blocked intakes or any other obvious defects. The PRM asks the basic questions and says he'll get back to me. After ten minutes or so, the head of maintenance calls me. I describe the issue again, answer some more questions, and let him know I'm willing to take it up for a trouble-shooting flight, but he doesn't want me to. I joke, knowing it's not really a joke, that it probably won't do it again. He says the airplane is grounded, and he's driving up tonight to see it. I'm not sure he realizes how far north this is. I promise to get him a hotel room and tell him to call me whenever he is ready to work.

And then I have to tell everyone else that I just broke the airplane.

Back at the hotel I look at the information I have compiled on the Alaska flight. The fact that sunrise and sunset times are given as Never/Never today means that vampires must love it in the winter. Do vampires get cold? You'd think they could do quite well with a winter home in Alaska and a summer home in southern Chile. Or do vampires these days not mind the sunlight? PANC looks like one of those stupid airports. I mean this not as a slur on the airport but as a gesture of admiration for the pigheadedness of the skill and technology and rules required to make it work as an international hub, with ridiculous weather, almost total winter darkness and crazy terrain, not to mention frequent volcanic activity in the vicinity. There are mountains everywhere and no doubt horrible icing in the spring and fall given the temperatures and water all around it. Of course we're going to Alaska in what will probably be the best month of the year, because that's the kind of lucky folks we are.

Yesterday I e-mailed Dave of FL390, but he won;t be there while I am. I know (internet "know," but for many years, since before this blog) a pilot who lives in Anchorage, but when I e-mail him it turns out he'll be in Papua New Guinea until after I leave, so I won't be able to meet up with him. Of course. It is pretty much par for the course that if I finally happen to get to the remote location where someone I know lives, they will be out of town, either somewhere even more remote, or in my own town, for the duration. And if they ever come to my town I'm away. (The one glorious exception that proved that rule was that Phil (yes, he's fine, just not blogging these days) called me up out of the blue to say he was in town on the day I was having a birthday party! Perfect timing, and then after the party I drove him back to his crew hotel and instead of him getting out we steamed up my car windows for hours until security guards banged on the outside. But that's all you need to know about that).

So in this case, early to bed and waiting to see what the verdict is on the engine in the morning.

---

This B767 had a hard landing that damaged the fuselage but Boeing's horses and men put it back together again. Notice that the FO of the subsequent flight found the damage on the walkaround, while boarding passengers, and the comments are worth reading, describing and praising Boeing repair savvy.

As Easy As Picking up A Rental Car

Happy Bastille Day, everyone. I'm at a a swanky FBO within easy walking distance of the passenger terminal at a large Canadian airport. There's a spacious waiting room with windows looking out on the runways, and I can recognize one of our company airplanes parked outside at the back of the large apron. Inside there are leather couches, a big TV and a fancy coffee machine.

I order the tanks all topped off, which based on how much should be in there right now, will probably mean three or four hundred litres of avgas, but the FBO lady say there might be a problem. Kind of two problems. The first problem is that the avgas truck broke down this morning, and the second problem is that the totalizer on the avgas truck indicates that there is barely more than four hundred litres in the bowser. This may or may not be the amount that can be actually pumped, so they might have four hundred litres or they might not. I guess they don't always reset the totalizer properly, or something. I didn't press for an explanation.

They estimate that the truck will be operational in about an hour. I tell them that as long as I'm getting good fuel that I'll take what they have once the truck is ready. The FBO woman lets me leave my luggage in a conference room while I go and get some lunch at the terminal. It was Swiss Chalet, or Subway or something. And an apple. A fast food restaurant on the terminal concourse was selling apples and oranges. There might be hope for the world after all.

When I return, the good news is that the truck is fixed, but the bad news is that it only put out two hundred litres or so. I've lost track of the number of FBOs--or entire airports--that I have run out of avgas. I go out to the airplane, noting to myself that if you buy fuel for an airplane, you can get access to the airside at this international airport without producing a ramp pass or any ID. I don't think I even gave my name. Everything is in order with the airplane, but it does need a couple hundred more litres of fuel. No problem, there's a flying club that sells avgas, at the other end of the airport. I start up and call ground for taxi clearance.

They give me clearance, and a simple routing. I read back the hold short instruction and trundle along, in that direction, keeping my nosewheel on the yellow line. I can check it by looking in the mirror I use to ensure the gear is down, but I don't have to. Even though the line is only about the width of my hand, I know when my nosewheel is on it just by looking ahead through the front window. I remember my first or second lesson, when I asked the instructor if I could just taxi today, because I needed more practice. He told me it wasn't necessary, I'd get enough practice as part of normal lessons. I guess I have lots of practice now.

I pass an El Al jet, just sitting there off to the side. There's a visible security presence, so I guess they know how easy it is for me to get onto the apron with my airplane full of shoulder- launched missiles and high explosives perfectly innocuous, harmless cargo. I taxi on by, hold short of a runway and then am cleared across.

The general aviation area is a little crowded. Ground instructs someone else to hold for a Katana, and then me to hold for someone else, and then I find my way to the avgas pumps. And there's someone already at the pumps. I stop and idle waiting for him. He sees me and makes elaborate, "do you want to come here?" gestures. I nod emphatically and then he pushes his small single-engine airplane out of the way. There's a yellow line painted on the tarmac leading up to the fuelling area, but I don't know what wingspan it's for. I'm afraid it's a little too close, so follow a bit to the left of the yellow line. Someone appears to marshall me, so I follow his instructions, still watching out for my own wingtips. It would still be my responsibility if he directed me to taxi into something. When I'm opposite the pumps, he signals me to shut down, so I do, but by the time I get out of the airplane, he's gone again.

I inspect the pumps and they don't look like self-serve. I go up to someone getting out of a light twin behind me and ask if the pumps are self serve. He says no, so I go inside the building to place my fuel order. When the airplane is fuelled, the guys at the hangar say they don't want me to start up there, because I will blast the hangar as I turn out. Someone comes back with a tractor. The tractor is dragging a lawnmower attachment, and on the back of the lawnmower is a hook, and on the hook is a sort of trailer, a tongue pulling a little platform with four wheels on it. And, after a bit of winching, on the platform is the nosewheel of my airplane. This contraption tows my airplane out to where I can start up without blasting anyone, and I do so.

Ground control states the wind and asks me if I can accept the small runway at the flying school end of the field. I glance at the CFS for its length, then at the OAT, and answer in the affirmative. It's not hot enough or high altitude enough for me to have to pull out the chart and do the exact calculation to accept this length. I have a number in my head that I an accept in calm winds up to 2000' density altitude up to 20 degrees. I'm number one on the taxiway and cleared for takeoff after a Cessna 172 lands. I use lots of the runway, but not all of it, and climb out on vectors.

Post continued after you folks have fun deciding where I am.

Crossing the Mountains Again

The good weather is forecast to last all day, so we meet at our normal start time of seven a.m. If the weather had been expected to move in before the end of the day we might have met before sunrise so as to use every bit of daylight. The airplane is ready to go, because the super-nice airport manager happily volunteered to stay late to fuel us yesterday. I asked him if he owned the fuel business and he laughed. It's city owned. He is a private pilot, too. His interest in having transient pilots happy is just his interest in having a good job and a healthy airport.

We pull the tents and wing covers off -- they weren't really needed, but you never know when the temperature is going to drop more than forecast, and it's probably better for the engines to start at ten degrees than five degrees. I leave the cords coiled by the plug in socket and close up the wing lockers. The engines start beautifully and the equipment that was finicky yesterday passes all its ground checks while I do the run up. I blow the wing boots and test cycle the hot props, even though there is no chance of needing them this flight. I had been only testing them when I expected to need them, but the PRM (person responsible for maintenance) tells me that it is good for them to be cycled every day, needed or not. He also tells me that I don't need to worry about the fact that I can't see the tail boots from the cockpit because the valves on this model are such that if the tail boots don't inflate, the wing boots won't either. I wonder if I knew that once and forgot. I hate that I used to know more about this airplane than I do right now. I hate that knowledge decays in my brain, like sectors on shelved magnetic media.

Once again the winds are okay to use the straight out runway. I don't remember if they were calm, favouring the easy runway or a light tailwind, just that I never backtracked that long skinny runway the whole time I was there. I think there might have been a second taxiway, but I didn't use it. We've been having a bit of a manifold pressure split at takeoff power, so I do a static start so as not to swerve, and so we can record exactly what the split is. It's two inches of manifold pressure at full throttle, and the right tach is just into the red as we takeoff. We've gotten in the habit of tweaking the prop slightly before rotation, just to keep it in the yellow. Engine gauges (the tachometer is for the propeller, not the engine) are green through the roll and I rotate, waiting for a positive rate of climb and landable terrain no longer visible in front of me before I select gear up. Whump whump and the nosewheel gives the last whump then the doors close and the red light goes out, reporting the rubber bits all hidden inside the airframe.

I climb straight up the valley ahead of me, which is actually straight for a bit then a slight turn to the right, as the valley isn't a hundred percent straight. The IFR minima are so high here and the hills give such evident reason that if I had to come in with low ceilings but good visibility beneath, I would give serious consideration to shooting an ILS at a larger airport not far away and flying down the valleys to get here.

We fly over valleys and ridges and cellphone towers. There's one peak that looks like a volcano erupted here, but it's actually the site of a forest fire. It takes three hours to finish the job, so we didn't really miss out by not getting two hours in last night. And I said this yesterday, but I'm going to say it again, this is amazingly beautiful country. It's obvious why people live here. We all resolve to lobby our respective bosses to find more work in British Columbia. And by that we mean the good southern part with the pretty lakes and town names that don't begin with "Fort."

When we land, there's a jet in "our" parking spot. I park at the pumps and ask the airport manager if he knows whose it is. He does. It belongs to the same guy who is now taxiing out in an amphib Cessna single. He should be gone by tonight, but meanwhile we can park behind him. He'll start up on just one engine and taxi out of the way without blasting us. If I read this correctly, that means someone has flown a jet in from somewhere else in order to take his float plane out for a day trip. And people are jealous of my lifestyle. My coworker parks the airplane as instructed while I pay for the fuel (or rather while I sign for the fuel on a corporate credit card). I run the electrical cords through the shrubbery and we snug everything up for the night.

It's usual that we have to wait until the next day to be sure the mission has been a success, but I gently ask if there is any chance we'll be able to get away today, while the weather is still good through the mountains. We don't have another specific job to go to next, but the chances are very high that it will be on the other side of the granite barrier, and we don't want to get trapped here by the approaching weather. I get a negative answer, as I expected. Weathered in here will be nicer than weathered in at Red Deer, anyway.

We all go out for lunch and I order a mushroom burger. It had a name like "mountain of mushrooms" but we're all used to that kind of hyperbole on menus, so I don't give it a second thought. And then it arrives.

The photograph doesn't show depth clearly, but to give you an idea of how thick a plate heaped full of fried mushrooms that is, realize that there is a full sized normal burger completely buried in mushrooms. I had to eat for a while before I even found the burger. No, I did not finish that meal. And I don't expect to see its likeness on Iron Chef America any time in the near future.

After lunch, or maybe before (I'm too sickened by remembering that lunch to check the timestamp on the photos) we drove around to look at the burned out home from yesterday. It was a mobile home, completely gutted, inside a temporary safety fence marked off with yellow caution tape. Parts of the shell were still standing, black, and the inside looked like nothing more than a campsite firepit. There weren't even recognizable appliances remaining. I hope no one has been inside it.

We also went to the mall to look at a display of radio-controlled model airplanes. They were huge and very detailed with interiors and lights and all kinds of details, even little model pilots inside. I would be intimidated to try and fly one, even though I have flown the real version of a few of the types on display. I picked my favourite, the red one below. I guess I like my model planes to be simple archetypes rather than faithful reproductions.

We go back to the room and my coworker calls to see if we should approach the client about leaving early. "Already did: no dice." But I others higher up saw the weather issue too, and the client was happy with the work, so we were released early to scram back to Red Deer, for lack of anywhere else to send us. It's kind of a rule that the more secure the airplane is and the nicer the place you are staying, the quicker you'll be out of there. We untent, unplug, and pack everything up for the quick trip over the mountains. This time my coworker takes the left seat and flies, playing with the new autopilot at first, then turning it off until we're clear of the valleys. See, I'm not the only Luddite who won't trust an autopilot with important work.

The visibility is terrible through the mountains, with mist and an overcast layer above eliminating the contrast between cloud and sky and snow-covered rock. The GNS430 is a very nice piece of kit for peace of mind in a situation like that. We just have one of those though, so I had charts out with geographical safe altitudes at hand. You always have to leave room for something to go wrong in aviation. Because something usually will.

The airplane didn't manage to come up with anything particular to go wrong, except that at altitude the split in the throttles was noticeable to keep the manifold pressures even. Perhaps the wastegate isn't closing properly. We're soon in Red Deer again, and we secure the airplane for the expected snow. Ah spring.

The snow arrives by the evening and I spend two and a half hours completing paperwork and laundry. There's a rumour where we might be going next: it's a Canadian airport and the last two letters of the airport identifier are the same as the first two letters of the name of the community it serves. (Not the initials of a two-word name, the first two letters of the name). If you can name three airports in Canada that match that description without getting the right one, I will (a) be surprised and (b) give you another hint.

And the 787 is Airborne

Screenshot of first take-off, from the live webcast

I thought the little "flight tracker" gadget there on the right (click on picture to see) was supposed to show the progress of the flight, but it hasn't moved, so I guess it's just ornamentation. Track it for real on FlightAware.

Advance Planning

The client wants us to work out of a little town in southern Alberta for a day, and calls me to check and see if the airport will be sufficient. I promise to check it out and call him back.

It has two runways, a short turf one and a longer paved one, very common here. If the long runway is suitable for you in no wind, but the crosswind is too great for you to land on the long runway, then the headwind on the cross runway is such that your touchdown speed and runway required are sufficiently reduced that the short turf runway should be fine. The long runway is long enough for us at gross weight at runway elevation and and summer temperatures, but not by much. I'm spoiled, really, with many of the runways I take off from being double what I need.

There is avgas available at the field, so I call the number listed in the CFS and ask if they can supply the quantity we need, and if fuel is available on a Saturday and outside normal business hours. He's quick to assure me that yes, that will be no problem, just call the number I called and someone will be there quickly. I confirm again the quantity and that we can take a load of fuel at 7 am, one in the early afternoon and another at ten or eleven p.m. I call back the client and tell him that the aerodrome is adequate, and I pass on the contact number so he can arrange payment for the fuel.

The next day I hear that we're going to a different small town in Alberta. I ask what happened to the first one. "There was no fuel," one of the client's employees tells me. What? It turns out that between me asking and the client calling to arrange it, the guy actually dipped the tanks and found he had only 300L in his tank. They've found another airport that can supply the fuel and have made arrangements themselves. I'm glad we found out that there was virtually no fuel at the first place before turning up and starting work, but I'm pretty ticked that he didn't at least tell me he wasn't sure, or he had to dip the tanks and call me back. I hope the client didn't think I hadn't checked.

Survey Says ...

They do it.

They have to inspect all the circuits that are served by that breaker looking for anomalies. They basically open everything up, poke at it, don't find anything, and then can't reproduce the problem. "What do I put?" muses the engineer, pen poised over the journey log trying to write a rectification.

"You've got a three letter abbreviation for that, don't you?" I suggest. "I'm okay if you just put 'NFF'." It stands for 'no fault found.' It sometimes means "pilot is stupid/lazy." I suppose it sometimes means the engineer is, because this one declines to write that. He documents the steps he has taken and signs off the airplane. I offer the flight to my coworker, but she doesn't want it.

Taxi out again. Backtrack to the end. Turn around. Power up. Gauges green. Brakes release, airspeed alive and rotate. Gear up. I bring back the power before we speed up and we cycle the flaps. All good. Flaps up, back to climb power and we're en route for real.

Today's destination is Red Deer. It's in Alberta, almost exactly half way between Calgary and Edmonton. It's getting dark as we arrive. I set up for 16 and then am offered a straight in for 29 and take that instead. Landing on 16 would have had me roll out and be at the apron, but now I'm not sure of the best route. We're coming up on taxiway delta but before I can check if it goes where I want, the controller offers us the backtrack. It's not actually a control tower, but an FSS, but it's one of the assertive ones that coordinates traffic rather than just telling you where other aircraft are and asking "what are your intentions?"

There's a 737 parked on the apron, but we tuck into a corner where we won't be in the jet blast when they start up again, and shut down.

The Flaps That Make It Rise

Recently someone forwarded this article to a mailing list I read. In excerpt:

Jumbo jet packed with British tourists seconds from disaster after it fails to rise on take-off

By Daily Mail Reporter Last updated at 2:21 AM on 01st June 2009

Hundreds of passengers narrowly avoided disaster when their plane nearly crashed after taking off.

The British Airways plane shook violently and did not rise more than 30ft above the ground as it set off from Johannesburg to London.

The pilot has been praised for his quick actions in keeping the Boeing 747 in the air, saving the lives of the 256 passengers on board. Miraculous escape: The British Airways Boeing 747 is thought to have gone into landing mode so that the flaps that make it rise did not work.

Travelling at 200mph, he dumped enough fuel for the aircraft to eventually gain height, before returning it to the airport.

It is believed that a technical fault caused the plane to go into landing mode so that the flaps that normally make it rise did not work.

An investigation is under way as to how the jet came so close to crashing.

A BA spokesman said: 'As a precaution BA56 Johannesburg to Heathrow flight on Monday May 11 returned to the airport shortly after take-off due to a suspected technical problem.

'The Boeing 747 aircraft with 256 passengers on board landed safely and the customers disembarked as normal into the airport.

'We are cooperating fully with the South African aviation safety authority's investigation into the flight.'

Referring to the pilot's quick actions, he added: 'Our crews are trained extensively to deal with all eventualities.'

So "the flaps that make it rise" weren't working. Before reading part on, what would you think this term referred to?

It could be the actual flaps, and there are certainly accidents that result when flaps are mistakenly not extended, but flaps are normally used for landing, so 'going into landing mode' doesn't make sense. If the airplane did get off the ground with no flaps and into level flight, I'd expect it to have accelerated rapidly. They say 200 mph. That's slow, but is it in the slow flight regime for a B747? I don't know. I also don't know which orifice they pulled the 200 mph number out of.

I considered that "the flaps that make it rise" were the two sides of the elevator. It does flap like the flukes of a whale, and certainly when it is raised, the airplane normally pitches up. But operation of the elevator is not suppressed during landing.

I thought also of things like spoilers or leading edge devices: anything tab-shaped that protrudes from the airplane could be a flap. But nothing matched well enough to seem like more than a wild guess.

Fortunately a member of the mailing list found an NTSB report on the flight. Without the identifying details of type, airline and airport I wouldn't even have matched the tabloid story to the report.

On May 11, 2009 at 18:37 UTC, a British Airways Boeing 747, powered by Rolls-Royce RB211-524H2-T engines, experienced a No. 3 thrust reverser unlock light illumination during the takeoff roll from the Tambo International Airport (FAJS - formerly known as Johannesburg International Airport) while the airplane was traveling at 124 knots. The No. 2 engine thrust reverser unlock light came on at 163 knots and just prior to rotation the slats retracted. The airplane rotated and climbed at a 200 foot per minute rate. The flight crew dumped fuel and did an air turn back to FAJS where a safe and uneventful landing was made.

So the flaps that made this particular airplane rise appear to have been the slats, which the NTSB report must be using as a generic term for leading edge lift devices. The B747 uses Krueger flaps instead of slats to modify the wing for takeoff. The Krueger flaps fold out from under the leading edge of the wing, creating a barrier to air incident there. This makes the airflow behave as though the leading edge of the wing were thicker and rounder, just like the wing on an airplane designed to go slowly, thus giving the wing more lift at low speeds.

Mind you, if forced to condense that into six words I'm not sure I'd come up with anything much more meaningful than "the flaps that make it rise." Anyone?

I'm scheduling this to post a week or so after I'm writing it, because everyone is talking about Air France 447 at the moment. Although when you see this, I doubt the voices will have resolved the divided opinions:

• a thunderstorm alone could have done this to a perfectly good airplane
• there must be a flaw in the aircraft for a thunderstorm to do this
• the pilots or the software must have reacted badly to exacerbate the situation
• It was terrorists/a meteor/aliens that did it

People I respect and who are more knowledgeable than I inhabit each of the first three camps, so I'm not putting up my tent anywhere. My traffic is way up from people finding this blog by searching on terms like "coffin corner" and "stall recovery." That means that instead of just talking to the people I hang out with, my regular readers, I'm also addressing a lot of spectators who don't "know" me. I do think it's possible we'll never have a satisfactory answer to what happened on that flight.

High Above the Mud and Bugs

For some reason I decide that today I will have lunch at the A&W. It's a fast food chain famous for its root beer. Or famous for advertising its root beer, one or the other. I cross the service road, the Alaska Highway and the other service road without getting run over, and go into the place. It's full of firefighters. Not the kind with the shiny red trucks, forest fire fighters. They're on their way up to Fort Liard. Yes, to look at (and smell) them, definitely on the way up. There are two talking near the counter. "Are you in line?" I ask, because it really isn't clear.

"Yes," says one while the other says, "No," so I'm behind one of them in line. He turns out to be ordering for a large crew, so I have a while to wait. He is super fit and has that stereotypical high-testosterone square face and jutting jaw. What is it that makes this a "strong" face? It's not just terminology; other members of his crew are just as physically strong and fit, but there's a dominance, something probably programmed in my genes to perceive the lantern-jawed man as the strongest. Maybe the chin is a spot where nature cuts corners if there's some deficiency during gestation. Perhaps there is some genetic condition that is accompanied by a receding chin and females of my species have evolved to disfavour all chinless ones in order to avoid the few that herald a problem. Someone should do a study. My chin doesn't stick out past my nose and I can carry my share of mastadon meat, but standards for beauty and value to the tribe are different for females. There are no women on this crew. Forest fire fighting is such hard physical labour that maybe three percent of the population have the strength and endurance to do it. That eliminates maybe 97% of men and at least 99% of women. And the few women who could do it chose to be professional athletes, or didn't want to wreck their nails.

I'm not familiar with the menu here. There's no mastadon burger, but there's a "Swiss Veggie Deluxe." I wonder if that's a meatless burger. I ask, when I get to the front of the line, but the server doesn't understand "meatless". I try a couple of different wordings, but get blanker and blanker looks. A manager overhears and intercedes, "We don't have that right now." My second choice is the chicken burger. Turns out there are two kinds. I have to ask the difference. So now I'm being one of those problem people you don't want to behind at the fast food place. Just order already, lady. The server doesn't seem to understand my "what's the difference?" question. The guy behind me knows, however and I order the grilled one. And a root beer float, because the picture looks good, and it's what A&W is famous for.

The firefighters are piling back into a convoy of SUVs as I recross the highway with my takeout. Chicken was edible, kind of salty. Float was basically a root beer with one puck of ice cream dumped in the top, floating there. It may have been "frozen dessert product." Not so good. I eat enough to sustain me and go to the airport.

I take another look at the pilot information kiosk to see if my thumb and forefinger theory for operating it will pan out. I take off my sunglasses, this time, inside the darkened room. What do you know, there's a stripe down the right edge of the touchpad, with arrows, labelled scroll. I check it out. The scroll function still doesn't work and I go back to the up and down arrows on the keyboard.

I take off with a ten knot direct crosswind from the shorter runway, because I don't feel like back taxiing the longest runway. It's one of those things like airline pilots taking less fuel than the airplane can hold in order to take more baggage. Yes, one would be safer, but the other is more operationally efficient. If you went with the safest option at every turn, you'd never fly at all. This runway is longer, better surfaced and lower altitude as the ones I learned to fly this type of airplane on, where it was often ten degrees warmer and there wasn't a choice of runways in a crosswind. If it gets any hotter I'll make the backtrack, though.

Call clear of the zone; position report on 126.7; turn on the tunes. Darn. Not working. I guess I forgot to recharge the iPod thingy. I find that if I have the music playing, it entertains me just enough that my mind doesn't wander, but I don't get so immersed ni the music that I am not sharp for what the airplane is doing. If I don't have the tunes, I start actually thinking, and no one wants that. Job interviewers quickly detect a pilot who thinks, and cross her off the list, I'm sure.

So I conentrate on the airplane. Two things about a fast food burger. One is that it's really salty. I'm drinking lots of water and hoping I don't end up having to ration it. And the other is that it must pack a hell of a lot of calories. I've been flying for four hours now and I'm not hungry. I'm pulling snacks out of my flight bag because I'm bored and hey, jelly beans are entertainment. I don't want a big hit of insulin right now either, so I ration myself on the sugar-based entertainment. Must be a lot of fat in that chicken burger, too, because I can't raise my interest in almonds sufficiently to eat more than a couple.

There's a nice lake down there. Very round. GPS says it's Maxhamish Lake. We wonder if there are fish. There don't seem to be any buildings or roads. (The link says the lake is a provincial park, with fishing and camping allowed, and confirms no road access. The concept of a "park" in Canada is maybe a little different than in the rest of the world. it's not necessarily on a road with signs and toilets and a park ranger. We seem to just pick a place that's nice and say, "okay that's a park." If you can get there, good for you. If not, well some fish and beavers are happy).

Back to the airport to land. The FSS guys says "Roger" to everything, because he has to say something, and he has nothing to add to my plan to join downwind, or my calls on downwind, final and clear of the runway. I raise the wing flaps, open the cowl flaps, turn off the electric boost pumps and put my hand on the transponder for two clicks counterclockwise, from ALT through ON to SBY. I taxi by the FSS and can see the specialist in there, so I raise a hand and wave, even though he probably isn't looking, and probably couldn't see me inside the airplane anyway.

As I shut down I notice that the transponder is still on. That's odd. What did I turn off instead? It's not until I'm doing a post shutdown flow check that I notice the transponder set to 1400. Ah-ha. My hand was on the transponder, just on the wrong knob. I set it back to 1200 and everything else is fine.

As we pull into the hotel parking lot, there are three guys with baseball gloves playing catch. "Car!" I call through the open window, for the benefit of the one who has his back turned. He moves out the way and we pull into a parking space. "Game on!" I call back.

"Like Wayne's Word, eh," says my coworker. I say yes, even though I wasn't thinking of the movie. The guys don't go back to their ball game, so I chat with them. They work cleaning tanks. I tell them what I do, where I was today. It turns out that they were there too, have been up at Maxhamish. "I didn't know there was a lake," one of them says. Another one knows about the lake, "Yeah, there are fish," he says. But there's no road. he thinks people haul gear in during wintertime on snowmachines, and cache it.

They talk about the bugs and the mud. Neither of which I have to contend with. I have a good job, don't I? I don't make as much money as the firefighters or the tank cleaners, but I don't have to fight fires and I don't have to work in the mud and the bugs.

Gone Down

So I'm back overflying the same wilderness I've been looking at all week. Trees. Muskeg. A big round lake. Dirt roads. The area is so crisscrossed with oil and logging roads that I'm not sure how the bears manage to propagate so effectively, but the ground crew assure me that there are plenty of bears. Just black bears seen so far, though, not grizzlies. I haven't seen any, but then I'm smart enough not to walk out of town.

Once again I'm monitoring the nearest FSS frequency on one radio and 126.7 on the other for en route traffic. I'm fifty miles from the aerodrome (their control zone radius is five) and I'm not on the way to anywhere that normal people go at my altitude, so the radios are on in the background just kind of for entertainment. I'm also listening to the Arrogant Worms on the iPod nano. A helicopter calls the aerodrome. There's a helicopter maintenance base there so the darn things are taking off, flying a circuit and landing all the time. It still makes me smile when they call final for something that isn't a runway. Like "the gas pumps" or "apron III". The helicopter asked for something I didn't pay attention to, and then the FSS guy replied.

I hear the words and do and do an aural doubletake. I ask my mission specialist, "Did he just say an aircraft 'has gone down'?"

"That's what I heard."

As explained in an earlier discussion, "down" to a pilot is a neutral term. If I get a text that a flight is down, I expect that the airplane is taxiing up to the fuel pumps. I record my down time each time my wheels touch pavement. "Call me as soon as you're down," my boss might ask before departure. But "gone down," that's not neutral. That's bad. Or, at minimum, very interesting.

For a hundred kilometres around, pilots are turning up their radios and turning off their iPods. What went down? Where? How bad is it? Someone calls inbound for landing and is told that runway 03 is temporarily closed. If the accident occurred on the runway, maybe it's just a gear collapse. But the term for that would be something like "disabled aircraft" not "gone down." An airplane could have taken off and then stalled/crashed back on the remaining runway. I keep listening.

Someone says he can see the aircraft. It's a helicopter pilot. He says there's a passenger on the belly. That means the airplane is inverted. I wonder if it's in the river. He says there's another passenger lying on the ground. So it's not in the river. Also lying on ground is bad, but much better than strapped in burning airplane. Obviously the airplane is not on fire, or the passenger would find a more convenient place to stand. I hear the words "light aircraft" from someone.

Light aircraft contact the ground inverted in two ways that immediately come to mind: stall-spin and landing mishap. The presence of two people who got out of the airplane strongly suggests that it was not a stall-spin. It's more likely to have been an inflight loss of engine power, followed by a forced landing on inappropriate terrain. (That's not a criticism of the pilot: the terrain he or she picked was probably the most appropriate within gliding range, but there is a strong shortage of appropriate places to land around here). A classic forced landing accident in a Cessna trainer involves a correctly executed forced approach, touching down slowly and under control, then a wheel digs in or catches and the airplane flips upside down. Typically belted occupants receive minor or no injuries and the airplane is substantially damaged. I've no idea if that's what happened here. I've gone through a number of hypotheses in a few minutes.

The helicopter pilot says he will remain hovering over the site so they can find it. The tower passes someone else a NOTAM on a closed runway with vehicle traffic. It seems that the airplane has gone down just off the end of a runway. The RCMP are driving out to the end of the runway to start the search. The helicopter pilot is talking to the RCMP on another VHF frequency, so I tune up that one, too. I can't hear the cops on the ground, but I can hear the helicopter pilot telling them which way to go. The person on the ground is sitting up now.

The RCMP reach the site by walking towards the helicopter and listening to the pilot's guidance, then the helicopter goes to land. About half an hour later you can still hear the ELT in the background of every call the FSS makes. One pilot points this out. We're so conditioned to report hearing the "whoop, whoop, whoop" of an emergency locator transmitter if we hear one that the pilot hasn't thought it through. If the ELT is audible only when the FSS transmits, than the ELT signal must be coming over the FSS transmission, and therefore be audible to the FSS. Presumably the radio in the FSS that is tuned to 121.5 is on speaker, so that everyone in the room can hear it. The FSS guy simply says "we're already aware of that."

Hours later when I land one of the taxiways is still NOTAMed closed, but when an ultralight wants to take off the FSS says they are lifting the restriction now, and approves the intersection departure. I don't see anyone around to ask to make sure that everyone was okay.

When Is a Tower Not a Tower?

I've been getting some questions in comments lately about airport control towers. This post is about air traffic services at Canadian airports, from a pilot's perspective. The controllers and specialists themselves might describe it differently.

First off, the ultimate authority regarding runway selection, wake turbulence separation, altitude of flight and everything else about the flight rests with me, the pilot. I am required to follow any air traffic control instructions which I accept, but if an air traffic controller clears me to do something illegal, and I do it, I still get in trouble for it. If a controller instructs me to do something dangerous and I do it, I still die. Next, any pilot is capable of navigating from any airport to any airport without the assistance of air traffic control. Any pilot, from the student pilot on his first solo, right up to crew of an Air Canada jet coming across the Pacific from Japan, knows how to safely finish a flight with no radio at all. Many flights are conducted every day in Canada in aircraft that are not radio-equipped. Air traffic services greatly increase the safety and efficiency of air travel, in much the same way that traffic lights increase the safety and efficiency of the highways.

Look up any Canadian aerodrome in the Canada Flight Supplement (CFS) and you will find at least one of the following. (You could find more than one if for example the control tower closed at night leaving either an FSS or a MF).

• a tower
• a flight services station (FSS)
• a mandatory frequency (MF)
• an aerodrome traffic frequency (ATF)
• the aerodrome is not listed at all

If there is a tower frequency listed in the CFS, there is probably also an ATIS and ground frequency and could be more frequencies for clearance delivery, outer tower, different areas of the ground, and so on. Call any of these frequencies and you are speaking to someone sitting in a physical tower overlooking the airport. They may not have a clear view of the whole thing. They may be 1/8 SM in fog and see nothing out the window. It could be one person operating both the tower and ground frequencies. (I think in that case there would someone else in the break room getting a coffee, and that at a Nav Canada tower no one works a solo shift, but I could be wrong).

If there is a tower, as there are at about forty Canadian airports, then a pilot starting up at that airport will request permission to taxi up to the edge of the runway and then report ready and wait for clearance to enter the runway and take off.

Fort McMurray Ground, GABC on the east apron, request taxi for VFR to Grande Prairie, six thousand five hundred.

GABC, McMurray Ground. Taxi runway 25 via alfa, call tower holding short of 25.

I acknowledge that, trundle up taxiway A to the line marking the edge of the runway and finish my checks before calling...

McMurray Tower, GABC ready 25 on alfa

GABC, cleared takeoff 25

I acknowledge that, and take off, if everything looks safe to me.

I left out some other things we would probably tell each other, but the basics are there. I ask for what I want, they give me instructions and clearances.

About fifty Canadian airports have an FSS but no tower. There may actually exist a raised structure with a good view of the field, and the flight services specialist may indeed sit inside it and look out at the airplanes going by, but when we say there is or is not a tower, we are referring to a tower frequency and the requirement to obtain clearances for movement. The reason I said "about forty" and "about fifty" is that towers and FSSes open and close according to need, so a tower that was occupied by air traffic controllers last year houses an FSS this year. Some FSSes don't have towers, just regular buildings, or even portables. If I want to go somewhere at a field with an FSS but no tower (even if the FSS guys are in a tall skinny building that used to be called a tower) I call the FSS and tell the specialist what I am about to do. An FSS is addressed with the call sign "Radio."

Grande Prairie Radio, GABC on the east apron, taxiing for VFR to Fort McMurray, five thousand five hundred.

GABC, Grande Prairie Radio. Active runway is 12. Traffic is a King Air landing 12 in two minutes.

I see the King Air touch down and go past the intersection. Everything looks safe, so I call..

ABC rolling 25.

Again I left out the FSS giving me the wind and altimeter setting. The difference is that the tower tells me what to do, and I decide if it's safe, while the FSS gives me information and I make a decision based on that. The line blurs of course, because the tower may offer me a choice and the FSS may give me a recommendation, but in the end I ask the tower but I tell the FSS. If I'm departing IFR into controlled airspace, the FSS gives me my IFR clearance.

At all the other airport, some of which may have tower like structures that used to house an FSS or control tower, but are now unoccupied, or used to store paint and frangible taxiway lights, I make calls to traffic. I make calls just like the ones I made to the FSS, but now I talk to "traffic" instead of "radio". There may or may not be anyone else listening to the traffic frequency. If there is, they will tell me if i pose a conflict. If the airport has an MF, then I have to have a radio, listen on the frequency and make appropriate calls. If the published frequency is just an ATF then if I have a radio I should make the MF-style calls, but aircraft using that aerodrome are not obliged to have or use a radio. And if the aerodrome is just a lake somewhere or someone's hayfield then I don't have to make calls, but I can, using the the standard aerodrome frequency of 123.2. In any of these cases there may be someone on the frequency who will give me information. The people who run the fuel truck may reply, e.g. giving me the wind direction and telling me that there's a NORDO ultralight doing left hand circuits on 34.

Whichever kind of airport you depart from, you can enter airspace controlled by terminal or centre controllers. They usually work in darkened rooms, sometimes in the same facility as a tower, so they can share infrastructure like maintenance and backup power. If I have an emergency I can report it to any ATC or FSS I am speaking to, and they will help me coordinate with other facilities to get vectors, firetrucks, whatever I need. Canada has excellent air traffic services, and they are hiring.

And for the pilot geeks: User Friendly. My cockpit overhead light isn't working, but I didn't ground the airplane, because it's light out enough all the time that I dont' need it.

It Was Right Next to the "Fly To Calgary" Button

The Aviation Herald reports a little excitement on a Westjet Flight departing Abbotsford BC.

Incident: Westjet B736 at Abbotsford on Jan 20th 2009, navigation system flies different route than pilots

The crew of a Westjet Boeing 737-600, registration C-GWSB performing flight WS-456 from Abbotsford,BC to Calgary,AB (Canada) with 104 people on board, noticed during an RNP (Required Navigation Procedure, precision RNAV navigation) departure, that the airplane was not following the programmed standard instrument departure route. The airplane was below minimum safe altitude. The crew contacted Victoria Terminal and was issued radar vectors away from high terrain. The airplane continued to the destination for a safe landing.

Subsequently it was established, that the engine out procedure had been inadvertently activated in the flight management system.

Now you see why a pilot might want to shoot the FMS?

Endless Supply of North Winds

Next morning there is no respite on the winds, but the snow has swept through and left Alberta clear. It's threatening to drop the visibility here now, but that's something I can work around. We get a cab back to the airport in early morning darkness. There is no one at the FBO, but they have fuelled the airplane as requested, tied it down and chocked it against the wind. Loaded to the gills, it's still jumping around like a kite. I put my passenger on board and close the door while I do the walkaround with a flashlight, checking especially to make sure that nothing has has blown into the engine cowlings or other important apertures during the night. I untie the ropes, but leave the chocks behind the wheels so it doesn't go anywhere while I'm starting the engines. It's that windy.

The saving grace is that the wind is now blowing straight down the runway, so that all its force will go to shortening my take-off roll and none to trying to push me sideways off the runway. The only challenge is getting to the runway. I taxi very slowly, turning my ailerons at each turn so as to spoil the lift on the into-wind wing. It's a skill I learned as I first learned to taxi in a light little two-place airplane. I don't always do it in this airplane, but today it is needed. I wonder if there is a size of airplane at which you can just leave the ailerons neutral through taxi in any conditions. I wonder if Airbus 380 pilots turn their ailerons for wind anyway, because that's what you do.

I position at the very end of the runway, because that's what you do, complete my pre-takeoff checks and set power. It's an amusingly short take-off roll. I estimate I had seventy percent of rotation speed before I even released the brakes, and there's very little rolling resistance to acceleration at low groundspeed. I climb, but not too high, because this wind is forecast to be even stronger at higher altitudes. My initial heading is due west, because the area of the worst turbulence and of low visibility and snow is approaching from the north. I've chosen a point based on forecasts at which I should be able to head northwest and be clear of the weather.

It works like a dream. I give thanks aloud for modern weather forecasting technology. The passenger is unimpressed and I resolve to shut up about that sort of thing in future. Progress is unbelievably slow. I file a PIREP reporting minimal turbulence and sixty-five knots on the nose. Just as forecast. I watch the scenery go by very slowly. I file another PIREP because I know there will be a lot of people looking at weather reports and forecasts today, wondering if they should venture out.

The frequency on which one files a PIREP up here is 126.7, the same frequency as one makes air-to-air position reports for the benefit of other traffic. Another pilot on frequency recognizes my voice and checks to confirm that it's me. It turns out to be the fueller from one of the places I've stopped recently. He's working on his commercial pilot licence and is on his way back home after a cross-country trip. He too was grounded yesterday. He's headed in the same direction as I am. I shudder to think what his ground speed might be. He's in a C172. He might get to his destination faster by driving. I respect him for being up here at all, with obviously limited experience.

Total flight time for the two legs of the trip, not including time spent on the ground at my planned fuel stop, was six hours, thirty minutes. And I took a more direct route than the 4h 07 southeastbound flight. I once had a student ask, "so where does all that wind COME FROM? Isn't the north going to run out of air?" There's actually a circulation, such that there is a polar high, constantly subsiding and being resupplied by air that circles aloft at the subpolar low.