Thinking in Blog

Here I am again, closer to the tropopause than to the surface of the Earth, somewhere between the Rocky Mountains and the Canadian Shield, where I have spent so many hours of my life. I don’t remember precisely why, for this particular mission. I’m not even sure how I got here from where I started this blog. It’s always alike, but never the same. Sometimes the heater works and only our toes are cold, because the frigid air of the flight levels blasts in through the gaps in the unpressurized airplane. Sometimes the heater refuses to work at all, and the cold seeps slowly  through the layers of coats and long johns into our flesh. 

The engines stay warm. The original manufacturer’s engine gauges wore out years ago, and have been replaced with what looks like an iPad fused to the dashboard, sparkling with digital readouts about our fuel, our oil, our cylinders and our exhaust gas temperatures. They’re only as good as the sensors and the software, which means that most of the time when the screen flashes an urgent warning, it means that some sensor has slipped out of alignment.

 I’ve found myself “thinking in blog” a lot lately. I reduce power for descent into a familiar or unfamiliar airport, on the way to supper on the way to bed on the way to getting up in the morning and flying some more, and I see it as I would describe it to you. This day it’s a familiar place, although there are more hotels and strip malls than there used to be. It’s a stop on the highway, the westbound and eastbound lanes separated by a couple of blocks, and most of the town along and between them. As I wait for the light to cross the highway, I notice a jewellery store on the corner of the main street, founded there so long ago that if a couple bought their wedding rings there the day it opened, and they and each successive generation had kids at twenty, their great-great-grandchild could be there shopping for a wedding ring today. I know that’s nothing in some countries. There’s probably a reader who lives down the street from the goldsmith who made the crowns for the kings of Saxony, but here on the edge of the Canadian prairies it is a long time. The whole street has a time stood still kind of feeling. There’s a stationery store that is also a Radio Shack, or at least that’s what the sign says. Kids are hawking free hot dogs outside The Brick, a furniture store. A drugstore, now part of a chain, still has its antique sign up. We go to a sushi restaurant, because our first choice restaurant is closed: too late for lunch, too early for dinner. That’s the way it often is in our trade. 

I didn’t blog that day, because once I had done the post flight paperwork, caught up on all the email, and prepared for the next day, I was consumed with management duties until bedtime. I thought wistfully of the blog as I have on so many days, and took a few notes, so I could share with you later. It took me a week of stolen moments, moments when I could have been mentoring pilots, updating training records, revising checklists, or writing policies to get this much written. I'll keep trying.

Underlying Factors

I'm re-reading the TSB Report on an air crash at Fond-du-Lac, in preparation for another class I'm teaching. At every step of the recounting, pilots who have never worked in the north will be crying, "What?" and "No!" while pilots who have may nod their heads with understanding. 

When I got to this sentence ...

Early in this investigation, it became clear that more information was needed to determine whether the underlying factors identified in this occurrence were present elsewhere in the Canadian commercial aviation industry.

... I said out loud, "Where have you been?" How can someone be working in accident investigation in Canada and need any more information in order to know that the underlying factors in that accident are omnipresent across the land? 

The summary refers to "the inadequacy of de-icing equipment or services at these locations."  Inadequacy doesn't begin to describe it. You'd be lucky to get potable water at Fond-du-Lac. They say, like it makes any difference:

There are many defences in place to ensure the clean aircraft concept is followed, such as regulations, company operating manuals, and standard operating procedures. However, all of these defences rely singularly on flight crew compliance.

And sure, that captain could have picked up that cell phone and called company to tell them there was too much ice on the plane and he was not departing. How would that have worked out for him? Well, probably better than the serious back injuries he received in the crash. That sentence should finish, "... defences rely singularly on flight crew ability to defy company expectations." No, the company doesn't expect crews to fly with iced up aircraft. They just expect you to fly, and don't want to hear about the difficulties.

I think five to ten percent of my training in anything is assuring pilots that I really want them to follow the regulations, the company operating manual, and the SOPs, that they won't get in trouble for cancelling a flight if the conditions aren't right, or for grounding an airplane with a snag. By the time I get them, and I'm by no means at the top of the aviation food chain, the industry has already taught pilots that there is one set of rules for the classroom and another set for the skies. I have to beat it out of them. And myself.

Shutdown Checklist

During an annual training session for flight followers, my ops manager stated that no information on company operations was to be posted on social media. This restriction definitely wasn't targeted at me, and don't think anyone at work knows about this blog, but the ban definitely includes the sort of things I have been posting here. I'm going to respect that request. Kinda too bad, because I have lots of stories to tell, but I have a rule that if your employer wants something done, and it's safe, legal and moral, you do it.

I will blog less now, and what I say will probably be duller without the personal anecdotes, but it may be truer to the original purpose of the blog: to learn by explaining.

Hazards on the Taxi

I'm taxiing into the ramp of a familiar FBO. There's a local airline/charter outfit that flies out of here and I have to run the gauntlet between their ranks of parked airplanes to get to where I'm going. Today there's an additional obstacle. Someone is washing one of their airplanes and a hose stretches from the hangar across my path.

I weigh the possibilities. Probably I can taxi over it with no harm to anything, save a momentary interruption in water pressure for the guy washing the plane.  But there's a possibility, as when taxiing in the vicinity of any rope, that it could be picked up by one of my propellers and turned into a flail of destruction. I've never seen this, and I haven't spoken to anyone it happened to. In fact I can't even remember when I first learned it, but deep in my memories is a flight instructor telling me not to taxi over ropes because they could get caught in the propeller. Before passing on this wisdom I did a little googling to find a student whose instructor learned this the hard way. That's one student who will remember the time and place of the instruction as well as the knowledge.  I can envision the knowledge spreading out around them in ripples as they recount the tale.

So a hose is like a rope. It is however secured to a tap at one end and in someone's hand at the other, so not quite as threatening. But I can shut down and haul the airplane the rest of the way by hand. I put on the brakes. The guy with the hose also knows that airplanes shouldn't taxi over such things. He picks up the hose and crosses back towards the tap with it, leaving the aisle clear for me to taxi through.

Hoses aside, this ramp has more FOD on it than it used to. The pavement is not in great shape and after shutdown I find metal objects--screws and washers--on the ramp. Not impressed. I shut down and do all the piloty post flight things and then after I walk away can't remember turning off the master and mags. I turn around go back and check. Everything is off.


The problem is that now the chief pilot knows not only my every screw up, but even my every almost could have been, thought I screwed up but didn't. And chews me out for it. Oh well, I get to keep my job.

A Day at Work

We don't look like this, but this is me, the ops manager and a line pilot.

Be strong out there. Never become a management pilot, unless you aspire to spend more time discussing how to get other pilots to do things than you do flying.