Fair Weather Photos

At the end of last week we had some good, solid, IFR, but for two weeks before that it was nothing but good weather.

Last weekend, the fiancee and I caught the 1900 on short final into AUG as we were driving down to Portland. I-95 runs right under the final approach course for 17. There's a small clearing in the tree line right next to the approach lighting system that allows for a great view of planes on final.

We were down in Portland looking at apartments for after I transition planes. Of course, any time I'm in a new city, I have to take a look around the airport. I spotted this Skyhawk out on the ramp:
Tripple 9 1-7. While it may look just like any other training fleet Skyhawk, this one caught my eye because it looks strikingly similar to this plane:

Tripple 9 3-0; the plane I did almost all of my private pilot training in, back in Ames. It was a great weekend to walk around the harbor in Portland, and the next week would be great for flying, too.
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With good weather and light passenger loads (or empty legs, as the case was for these photos), the camera comes out.

I talk a lot about the caution and warning panels, so I decided to take some pictures of them:

Above is the Caution/Advisory panel, right above the flap and pressurization gauges (at 16k feet we're holding a 4k foot cabin). This is the yellow, green, and white annunciator lights. The photo below is the Warning annunciator panel...these are the red lights that we really don't want to see in flight; these are the lights that can make for a long afternoon. Under the glareshield are the firewall fuel valves, the so-called "T-handles." They light up bright red when a fire is detected in the engine, cutoff fuel flow to the engine when pulled, and arm the fire bottle if it's needed.

Speaking of the fire bottles, the covered buttons on either side of the Warning panel fire a squib into the pressurized fire bottle mounted in the wheel well, shooting Halon into the engine and cowling, extinguishing (hopefully) any fire that may exist. The bottles themselves are impressively small, only about the size of a baseball, but pressurized to 360psi and capable of putting enough Halon into the engine to make it stop operating. Our SOP when a light isn't work in, on, or around the aircraft usually involves tapping or hitting the light...that's true for every light on board except those in the fire bottle buttons.

For lack of anything better to do as the non-flying pilot at 16,000 feet, I decided to try some artsy-fartsy type shots. The sun was high over my right shoulder, casting some long shadows across the instruments and making reflections in the gauge faces unavoidable.

Speaking of reflections...here's a nice shot of CA Jared eating Fruit Loops, as seen in the EADI.

I call this my "Where's Waldo shot." Can you spot what's out of place here? We're going nice and slow here, with no passengers on board we can run slow and quiet; we still get to Boston 15 minutes ahead of schedule, but everything is much more relaxing and quiet. It's incredibly how much less fatigued you are at the end of a day of running quiet, compared to running WAO all afternoon. And it only takes an extra ten minutes per leg.

I've always liked low angle shots. This isn't my best ever, but I thought it was kind of cool with the gear handle lit up. Pretty much the only way to convince the 1900 to descend at a decent rate is to pull the power way out, and often that means the gear warning horn.

Looking back at the empty cabin. This was a surprisingly hard shot to get. The windows in the 1900 are heavily tinted, so even with all the lights on I had to try to balance the camera on the panel to keep it somewhat steady.

Our standard instruction off the deck in Rockland: "Fly heading 225, vectors for SCUPP; expect to pick up the 082 radial into Boston." And so we are. But, around 60 miles, they have to start bringing us downhill to cross SCUPP (at the latest) at 10,000 feet, when we transition into BOS Approach's airspace.
I always thought this was neat - the side of the plane reflected in the spinner.

Everybody asks about our cockpit door. Yes we have one, no...it doesn't really count. It's basically two pieces of plywood on sliders. I'm sure they worked well at some point, but without the drop bar down (on the left), they don't really close completely. They "seal" with a strip magnet on each door.
But my favorite part of these doors:

That sign is pretty much right behind my arm rest. I'd really love to know how I'm supposed to kick there...it's really quite a conundrum, I know I'm not that flexible!

The requisite self portrait:


Playing with camera settings: low speed, wide aperture...

...high speed, small aperture. I really need a camera with a better lens system.

Guess where Boston is.
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Back to Albany, the same day all these other photos were taken, the night before the severe turbulence incident. We pulled into ALB at about 11:00pm, didn't leave until a little after 2:00am.
I don't mind, though...the Q was there, and plugged into ground power; lots of shiny buttons to push!
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The following day, the day of the overspeed fun, started out as a perfect day. CA Jared and I were still a little tired when we showed at the airport, but flying always has a way of waking you up.

This really was a great day for flying. There was a mid-level overcast layer over most of Maine, New Hampshire, and Mass, but we got on top of it pretty quick on climb out and didn't get back into it until we started down over northern Mass. Cruising along on vectors at 6,000 feet we were in solid IMC until suddenly, the sky cleared and we were in between layers.

It was incredible, I'd never seen this kind of detail on the ground. In the clouds we hit a small bump, then the clouds were gone and the visibility was unbelievable...there was no doubt we had crossed the frontal boundary.

The sunset was unreal. They put us on vectors for a long right base to 32, which put the bright orange setting sun out my window and over downtown. I'll leave off here with these last few photos of the sunset over Boston. It's hard to believe that about two hours after these photos were taken, we hit clear air turbulence over Maine...such is the nature of this strange job I have. Until next time, good night, and good luck.

Severe CAT

No, this isn't a story about the fiance's retarded cat. This is a story about CAT - Clear Air Turbulence.

By definition, CAT is a high altitude phenomena (roughly 23,000 to 39,000 feet, usually in the jet stream), but last night we found it at a much lower altitude. It had been a great day of flying, but that all changed on the very last leg of the night.

Yesterday (Tuesday) wasn't so great. Well, it started out fine, it was a beautiful clear day and we started out on time, but ended up having to switch airplanes in Boston on our last trip. The plane we handed off (to CA Mark) taxied out and aborted its takeoff because the auto-feather system failed on the takeoff run. The plane we picked up, had its fair share of electrical system problems on the flight up to Augusta, so we ended up putting six new write ups on it when we got to AUG. This got us a free trip to Albany, where we sat (pushing buttons in the Q) until 2:30am when they got the auto-feather plane fixed. We didn't get to the Augusta airport until about 3:45am. So, when today (Wednesday) started out so well, we were both looking forward to an easy and early night.

Of course, the aviation gods had other plans for us. The auto-feather plane had three more aborted takeoffs on Wednesday morning (lots of paperwork for CA Kevin), so they switched us into another plane for the afternoon. Things were looking up. It was severe clear with light winds...a great day to fly! But then, the sun set, and a few storms passed through the area. Nothing major, just a few rain showers in Augusta. We flew about 14 miles to the west of a small but intense thunderstorm that was out over the ocean on our way from Boston to Rockland, but it provided nothing more than a good light show. The weather in Rockland was calm, 10, and clear, so we made a quick visual approach to 31 and hustled over to the terminal. We were empty from RKD to AUG, so it was about a 3 minute turn at the gate in RKD as all we had to do was kick the passengers out.

We're on the ground for just a shade under 11 minutes before the gear hits the up locks and we're on the way to Augusta. With no bags and no people on board, CA Jared is holding about 17 degrees nose up at 150kts as the 1900 claws its way into the clear night sky. In less than a minute we're at 3,000 feet. Augusta is easily visible just to the right of the nose, and Navy Brunswick (Brunswick Approach) has cleared us direct to the airport. Jared asks for the climb and cruise checklists as the plane accelerates through the smooth night air.

I'm busy with the radios when he first asks for the checklists, so we're stabilized at 230 kts by the time I reach up for the prop levers - the first step in both checklists. I loosen the friction lock on the props as Jared pulls some power out. Since we're empty I don't really need to use finesse when I pull the props back, so I just grab and yank. The engines surge slightly as the prop RPM starts to drop, and Jared pulls a little more power out. I've only moved the levers about a half an inch when Jared says "What the..."

His squelch cuts out as the plane hits a little bump, then a second, pretty solid bump. He's pulled a lot of power out at this point. I stop pulling the props for a fraction of a second when suddenly...

SLAM

The aircraft feels like it's been thrown upward, as we're both pushed into our seats.

SLAM

Again, an even stronger impact. It feels like someone just upper-cut the plane. With this one Jared pulls all the power out...straight back to flight idle, setting the gear warning horn off, and causing the bright red lights in the gear handle to come on. Almost simultaneously, we get another warning horn...one you really don't hear too often...the over-speed horn. This thing is ear piercingly loud. And to make things even better, we have red annunciators and a Master Warning flasher going off in our face now. That makes four red lights and two warning horns in midst of severe turbulence.

SLAM

The third hit is a little lighter than the second, and it comes less than two seconds after the first. Out the backside of this phenomena we get into continuous moderate turbulence for about 40 seconds, when things then just smooth back out. The red lights (cabin AND cargo door open) go out, I cancel the master warning and gear horn, and the plane finally slows below Vmo about a minute after that very first bump.

Jared has been at flight idle for at least 50 seconds when we get back into the smooth air, yet the airspeed hasn't dropped below 200kts, and we're now 350 feet higher than when all this started. That's some serious windsheer for this plane to not descend at flight idle.

As things smooth out, we start to look around to see what the hell just happened. There's nothing on TCAS...we didn't hit another plane. 3,000 feet is a lot higher than any ground-based obstacles in this area. There's maybe some very light rain visible in the landing light, but the stars are still out above us. I'm pretty convinced at first that it was something I did with with props, but all the engine gauges are normal. How in the world did my map light get turned on, though? We both laugh uneasily about that, then I make the call to approach, "Navy Brunswick, Company 4973. From present position for the last 3-5 miles we encountered severe clear air turbulence with airspeed fluctuations of +-45kts and uncontrollable altitude deviations of +350 feet."

With the radar as clear as it is in this area, we have to explain what happened a couple times, but I think he could tell by my tone of voice that something had indeed gone wrong.

Navy Brunswick hands us off to Portland Approach, who we advise again about the turbulence as they clear us for the visual approach into Augusta. We talk a little bit about what just happened as Jared turns onto final, but we're both still pretty much stunned.

We get on the ground in Augusta and park the plane...then sit for a few uneasy seconds before I say "Well that was interesting."

We both start laughing, and Jared asks me the question of the hour - "How the hell did you turn your map light on?" Of course there's a few others thing to be concerned with now, but that's probably the biggest mystery of the night. How in the world did I manage to turn my map light on? And how did we hit 275 kts (Vmo=248) at flight idle? And why did both doors show as being open?

Best we can figure on the last question is: there are two switches that have to be made for the door annunciators to extinguish. The first is a small micro switch in the latching mechanism of each door. If the locking handle isn't in the secure position, the switch won't close, and the light will stay on. The second is a micro switch on each door itself. They don't want you to be able to move the latch into the lock position with the door wide open and have the light go out, so there's a switch at the top of the airstair door and the bottom of the cargo door that presses against the fuselage when the door is closed, thus turning the annunciator off. It's nearly impossible for the handles to come out of the latched position once they're locked, and even harder still in flight as there's a pressure lockout system to prevent the doors being opened in flight. So the only option is, the turbulence was strong enough to flex the fuselage to the point that pressure was removed from the door switches. There's nothing in our book about that happening, so this is some uncharted territory we got into.

In any case, it wasn't our problem any more...with the over-speed and high G loading we went through, the plane was grounded when we hit the runway in Augusta. But the fun was just beginning for Jared and I.

Obviously we can't ferry the plane to Albany. And it can't fly again without a spar inspection. And contract maintenance is nowhere to be found. So it's up to the mechanics in Albany to come out to Augusta to do the inspection. Normally when something like this happens, we just leave for the night and come back in the morning at about the time the mechanics would be showing up. BUT...the 1900 uses a wet wing fuel system, meaning the gas is stored in the wing itself, not in tanks inside the wing, so the only way they can inspect the spars inside the wing is if the tanks are empty. Better still, since we use over-wing gravity fueling, like a Cessna, and not single point pressure fueling, the only way to defuel the plane is from the sump points; which is a mechanic-only procedure. So we're not allowed to defuel the plane before the mechanics get here, and once they're here we don't have anyplace to put the fuel anyways. So our only option...burn it all. The easiest and fastest thing to do would be go fly a hold above Augusta with the gear and flaps down to use up at least most of the 2,400 lbs of Jet-A we have on board, then idle the plane on the ground until the engines flame out. But oh wait...we can't take it flying. So instead, we just have to sit on the ground at idle power (remember it's 10:00pm by the time we even start to formulate a plan). That means we burn about 200-220 lbs per hour, per engine. 2,400 lbs of gas on board at 400 lbs per hour. Oh goody.

We started the engines at almost exactly 11:00. A little after midnight, the fuel gauges had hardly moved, when a taxi cab drove by. I started laughing, "Hey, you think we should call Papa Johns? 'Uh ya, hi, order for delivery. The address? It's the Augusta State Airport, the running airplane. Thanks.'"

We were actually just about to make the call, when we realized that we didn't have Papa John's number. So we got on the radio and called the station manager, who was stuck here with us, and asked her to make the call. 45 minutes later, thanks to Nancy, we had our pizza.

By our calculations, the engines should flame out at about 4:50-5am. We hit 16 hours on our duty day at 4:45, though, so we may not even get to see this thing through to the end. That's also right about the time the mechanics should be showing up if they left right at 11. The morning crew is scheduled to show at 5am, which would make this the first time that either of us can remember that the afternoon crew would hand the plane off to the morning crew.

Around about 2am, we finally got word...the mechanics aren't driving up, the company chartered them a plane. At about 3am, we hear the first activity on Boston Center that isn't an international carrier...it's a King Air bound for Augusta. Twenty minutes later, a beautiful King Air C90 owned by North American Aviation Services is taxiing behind us over to the hangers. At 4:15am, Jared and I finally leave the airport; only 30 minutes shy of the end of our legal duty day.

The mechanics got the inspection done, and the morning crew was able to fly the plane out at 7:30am. They swapped planes in Boston, so the Albany crew could take it to the mx base for further inspection. Despite our best efforts, Jared and I weren't able to kill the plane for long - it was back on the line the next day, after only about 30 hours out of service. We had quite an experience, though, and even got published on the internet -

Raw text PIREPs

RKD UUA /OV RKD310005 /TM 0147 /FL030 /TP B190 /TB SEV CAT



More photos from last week to follow shortly. Until then, good night, and good luck.

Day 366

Today is my first official day on second year pay. April 30 is my new-hire date here at Company...it has officially been a year now since this crazy East Coast adventure took off (so to speak). I've got a great story in the works about some heavy weather last week...more to come when I get some free time. Until then, good night, and good luck.

Caption This:

Where RJs really come from, or The proud MD-80 and her duckling. What've you got?