Blog

incognito

I recently took a trip with my good friend James, in a Piper Warrior. We decided to take a short flight from Sarasota to Vero Beach where we attended flight school together. He was recently checked out from a local FBO and we set out for an afternoon flight to have lunch.

It was a good day for VFR flying in Florida and it was to be my first flight back in a light airplane since I started flying for the airline. I was excited to get back in an airplane type that I spent so much time flight instructing in. It was also to be my first time returning to the airport where I instructed since leaving.

We completed the pre-flight together and set out to begin our taxi from the FBO ramp. We decided to split the duties as he would be the PIC, I would work the radios and read the checklists. An ideal model of our strict training and airline protocols.

“Ground, Cherokee 10155, taxi from FBO, VFR, southeast.”

Sarasota is a primary class Charlie airport and in my experience it varies by locale what procedure they want a VFR pilot to use. Some will request you contact clearance delivery for departure instructions, others simply want a direction, Fort Myers will ask if you even want radar services.

“Is there anything else you want to tell me?” Was my reply over the ground frequency. Not in a helpful tone. More so in a condescending, snarky tone.
“Information Foxtrot, sorry.”
“Anything else?”
“I have no idea what you want.”
We exchanged confused looks in the cockpit. We tried to determine between ourselves what he could possibly be looking for from us.

“Cherokee 10155, how about an altitude, and a destination?”
“Ok. K-V-R-B at three thousand five hundred.”
“Otherwise known to the aviation community as Vero Beach.”
Again, a very condescending and demeaning tone came through our headsets.
“After take-off fly heading 090 and maintain VFR at or below 1600. Contact departure on frequency 119.65 and squawk 5156.”
I read back his clearance and heard a reply.
“I didn’t hear a call sign, so I’m going to assume that was Cherokee 10155. Taxi to runway 14 via alpha.”
At this point I was irritated. I began to read back clearances and acknowledgments extremely slowly. We taxied to the runway and completed our run up checklists and departed without incident.

While cruising I took care of the navigation while James flew. Using a sectional chart and my experience as a flight instructor in Florida, we navigated towards the middle of the state. Unlucky for us, the Restricted areas north of Okeechobee were active today which required slight circumnavigation. We also fought a headwind on the way over which made for a longer flight than we expected. I began to think about what it would be like to be a student pilot in Sarasota. I put myself in the shoes of a new student with a typical case of anxiety associated with radio transmissions. There is a very real sense of exposure when a student pushes that mic button. They’re attempting to communicate in a language and way that can often feel foreign and strange. Overcoming this anxiety is a key step in a students training and sometimes takes quite some time and practice to achieve.

As instructors it is our job to facilitate the learning process. Sometimes outside factors can dilute and dismantle this process. I often heard instructors state on the frequency that the student made a mistake, or that they made a mistake because the student did something. What instructors don’t realize is they just violated trust between the student and themselves. I only mention this because had this situation occurred with my student, I would have taken over the radio communications and encouraged the student to continue. I would have followed with a phone call to the tower.

I got the feeling that this controller was very familiar with the flight training that occurs from this FBO. He must also be familiar with the fact that there are many new students coming from this FBO, however that shouldn’t change his tone of communication. I would have requested his preference of communication for a VFR flight out of the Charlie airspace. I might have added how his tone and language have drastic impacts on new students but I don’t know if it would have done any good.

I guess my overall impression after this flight was you don’t always know who’s behind the mic, but you shouldn’t judge the pilot by the aircraft type.

Flying the Line

stick shaker

One of the stall warning indicators the airplane is equipped with is the stick shaker. It helps provide a ‘WAKE UP’ warning to an impending stall. It literally creates vibration in the yoke control that simulates a car on a dirt road feeling. The mechanism that creates it is loud, while holding the yoke with it active it will shake your entire arm.

There is no mistaking what is occurring when you feel and hear the shaker activate.

Recently during a departure from a hub airport, we were cleared for take off immediately following an Airbus 319. You’d be surprised how close they clear us for take off normally, however during this departure they were stacking us pretty close.

This specific hub airport utilizes RNAV(Area Navigation, more commonly known as GPS) departure procedures for all RNAV capable aircraft. This means that the flight path for 99% of the traffic departing the airport is within one tenth of a mile of each other. With adequate lateral and vertical separation it’s never really a problem. During this departure we had significantly less lateral separation, however still beyond the minimum required.

Around 1500 feet above the ground we encountered the wake turbulence from the Airbus.

Predictable.

Wake turbulence is defined as a byproduct of induced drag. As airflow over the wing passes over the tip of the wing, it rolls over as it’s mixed with the air from under the wing. There is a small amount of span-wise flow from the air under the wing that creates a rotational vortex. These vortices flow outward and down from the wing tips of the aircraft. Since these are created as a byproduct of induced drag, the heavier the aircraft, the more intense the vortices. There are other factors that create more wake turbulence such as clean and slow aircraft. Clean referring to lack of high lift device deployment such as flaps or slats. Without those devices employed a higher angle of attack is required for flight which increases lift production, which increases induced drag. Slow aircraft require more angle of attack as the amount of lift generated is directly proportional to the indicated airspeed of the wing.

Put all of these factors together and you can see that during take-off, you have the highest amount of wake turbulence creation after take-off.

Small vibrations of what normal light turbulence feels like first. The captain is hand flying the aircraft throughout the climb. One of the signs of wake turbulence is the rotation force exerted on the aircraft that requires aileron input to keep the wings level. That happened next.

Another stall warning and protection device our aircraft uses is a pitch limit indicator. It shows how close to the stalling angle of attack the aircraft it currently at. It immediately showed that we were less than 3 degrees from stalling angle of attack. Simultaneously the stick shaker activated.

The entire event lasted less than 5 seconds.

I spent years teaching students about the dangers of wake turbulence and the techniques to avoid it. This made me realize I need to be more vigilant about it. Almost every take off and landing we hear ‘caution wake turbulence’ because we’re either landing behind or taking off behind a heavy airplane. Perhaps that dumbs it down a little or dilutes the seriousness of it.

Land above and beyond, rotate before and climb above.

Blog

still here

I have been working on some lengthy material, and the process has been somewhat time consuming. I'm not quite ready to publish it yet, but I'm letting you know it's on the way.

Flying the Line

lifeguard

Part of my duties of preparing the aircraft for flight, is an external pre-flight of the aircraft. I basically just walk around the plane and make sure there aren’t big chunks missing, puddles forming, and ensure it’s ready and safe for flight. I have a fancy neon green jumper that I get to wear. This ensures that no crazed ramp worker runs me over, and I believe in enhances my overall appeal.

Most of the time there is nothing too exciting about the pre-flight. I found a puddle of hydraulic fluid under one of the main landing gear once. Turned out to be a strut leak, and we had to get a different aircraft. Another time I had to close a panel that was left open, really exciting stuff.

Yesterday I found a box outside the aircraft on the baggage loader. On the outside of it was labeled ‘Perishable human tissue’ and ‘Kidney’. Now this isn’t very far out of the ordinary for airlines. Transporting human tissue, organs, blood, whichever, not too uncommon. However this was the first time I had ever had the opportunity to do this.

Normally a flight will be chartered for the purpose of transporting human organs, I guess they couldn’t get a charter lined up in time, or we were the only flight available at the time. Either way it was pretty cool to know that we were going to be helping somebody out.

Once I finished my pre-flight, I returned to the cockpit to finish the rest of my work before we depart. When I got the clearance for our flight, it was appended to the bottom that we were to be a ‘LifeGuard’ flight. This basically gives us a high priority over other traffic. The kidney we were transporting was probably going for a transplant or the packaging it was in had a time limit before it would ‘expire’.

So for the nearly 1 hour flight, I was ‘LifeGuard’. It might have been insignificant to anyone else, but to me it was an immense feeling of service.

Blog / Flight Training

the life of a co pilot

It’s the little things. How you talk on the radio, using airspeed or vertical speed or flight level change to climb, the way you program the flight management, where you write the clearance. It’s the little things you do as the ‘co pilot’ that can aggravate captains.

I’ve found that none seem to have any issue with me. I’ve been far from perfect. I’ve felt more like a student pilot in last 3 months than ever before. I’m an infant in a big world. I’m bright-eyed-bushy-tailed and I feel dumb as a new puppy. I hate being new at things. I hate not being proficient and efficient.

It’s frustrating at times, yet I know it’s a learning curve that will slowly start to fade. However most of what frustrates me isn’t myself, it’s trying to appease the other crew member. Trying to adapt to the ‘right’ way and decipher what is good advice and what is not.

I’ve flown with super relaxed guys that are quiet and reserved, won’t interfere unless something catches fire. They help where they think I need it, and otherwise they just let me fly. These are the guys that are a pleasure to fly with. You don’t feel any pressure to perform or to be perfect, and when you do make a mistake(and I do) they don’t set YOU on fire for it.

There are the guys in the middle that don’t really tell you how to fly, yet they often give you ‘advice’. “Ya know, if you did it this way, I would like it better.” It’s like that moment in Office Space where he wants her to wear more flair. “So I should do it that way?” “Well if you want to do it that way, it would be better. You want to be better right?”

Except it’s not better. It’s just different. Or maybe I just think it’s different and not better. What do I know anyways? What I’ve learned about aviation is everyone has their way. Every single thing you can do with an airplane you can do a million ways. 99% of those different ways are just as efficient and effective. Unfortunately they only teach you one way. Who’s to say it’s the right way, or the best way, but it’s the way they teach you. Yet everyone has their opinion on what is better, so they feel obligated to ‘teach’ me.

Now I’m the kind of guy who wants to know the million different ways so I can choose which is my favorite or preferred, and I’m still figuring out ‘my way’. Yet it still creates this stigma that I can’t do it ‘right’. Everyone is always telling me to do it differently, and I don’t know if that’s because they don’t like the way I do things or because they know I’m new. It has quickly become the most frustrating part of my job.

Then there are the ‘other’ captains. The ones that flat out tell you to do it this way, or don’t do that. My favorite is when I’m flying and they change something and don’t tell me what. Like I get to just figure it out on my own what they changed, and why. Or they will correct my work, or just plain DO my work. Nothing makes you feel like less of an efficient worker than when somebody does your work for you. Did he think I wasn’t capable of doing it myself? Did he think I would do it wrong? Was he being nice and helping me get my stuff done? I wish he wouldn’t do that, I still need to get practice with this stuff!

I got nearly an hour long lecture on why I shouldn’t try to tell the captain where to taxi. It wasn’t my job to set the tone of the cockpit, it was merely my job to shut up and run checklists. Apparently. I was told that captains know where to taxi and they don’t need any help. Granted I wasn’t trying to imply he didn’t know where to taxi. I confirmed our route and made sure he know which way it was. I have lots of work during the taxi that sometimes requires my head to be inside while he’s driving around the airport. Guess where the most doled out violations are given? During taxi. We both get nailed with a runway incursion or deviation because he made a wrong turn. In my short time here I’ve already stopped one guy from taxiing on a closed taxi-way, a crew from crossing a hold short line while on the jump seat, and one guy from getting completely lost.

Regardless of these first world issues, I’ve been enjoying the new job and the benefits. I have traveled a ton the last few months and been able to see friends that I don’t get to see often enough. It has allowed me to make a long distance relationship feel like it isn’t long distance. It allowed me to be with my mom on her birthday for the first time in many years. I have more days off now than I’ve ever had before. I’m getting use to having days off in the middle of the week.