Late Moree

Flying the Dash-8-200 back from a late Moree, was a pretty amazing sunset. With daylight savings we don't get a lot of night flying at the moment, but we do get some amazing moments like this. Taken at about 8:45pm, i couldn't help but take a photo.

We had some interesting weather all around Sydney and the sound east coast. There was one day where i think every flight from Port Macquarie did not get in! On that day i flew to Tamworth, which was pretty bad also, requiring an RNAV to the minima on runway 12. Not really a lot to say, its been fun flying and the past week has involved 2 ferry flights to Newcastle/Williamtown Airport.

It's military controlled, so it's just like being back in Darwin, although there is a lot more fast jet activity. I think both times i have been there, i have seen squadrons of Hawks and FA18's doing circuit work. Always good to watch. Kinda feel a little slow in a dash-8 next to them!

Anyway, from Sydney, its only 76nm with a flight time of around 25 minutes each way. The flight required us to sit on the ground for a few hours due to available slots into Sydney, so sitting around in an office with not a whole lot to do, was again, just like being back in Darwin. Anyway, wasn't a bad duty off a reserve period.

Williamtown on a pretty average day!

Pretending to be a passenger! We had the APU running as a Brisbane based crew was taking this aeroplane, so we had to stay with the plane until they took it off us.

Till next time!

787 in Sydney

I was lucky enough to have an ASIC that gets me around the jetbase at Sydney. I was also lucky enough to be on reserve with no callout, and even luckier that another friend who was called out to fly gave me his 787 open day invitation. It was fantastic to see up close, and i also got to see the new Qantas Boeing 737 sky interior planes. Overall a good day! Here are some photos -

Business seats, above and below on the 737 -

AVOD on domestic flights is definately good.

737 cockpit above and 787 below!

 

First glimpse of the 787 in the jetbase

Engine shot. Not small.

Wing and engine -

And more. Notice the raked wingtips

Enjoy.

It's been really good flying recently. CAVOK days, and suprisingly little delays into Sydney, which is very unusual. Although, i did encounted not only my first go-around in the Dash-8, but also my first diversion.

In terms of not getting to a destination, i can't recall of anytime that i haven't been able to get in to where i was going. Once i had to divert to Yuendumu, going into Alice Springs in a 210, but just waited 30 minutes on the ground till the storm line had passed through the field. Another time out of Darwin i go so far overwater in Single engine over crocodile infested water that as i started to backtrack managed to find another way through the weather and get to my destination.

We were doing the routine overnight, had finished our crew meals, and after recieving the AWIS broadcast, knew it was going to be challenging. I think it was from memory, visibility 200m, cloud overcast at 200ft. We were going to do an instrument (RNAV) approach, which the minimums is around 600ft above ground level. At this particular aerodrome, it's about 4100 on the altimeter. We also briefed our minimum fuel for diversion to our alternate, and briefed the actions to take in a missed approach and what we would do.

We requested direct tracking to the initial approach fix, configured early for the approach. Upon passing the final approach fix, 130kts, flaps 15, gear down, checklists complete, we entered so fairly think fog/low cloud. as we approached the minimum descent altitude (MDA). Standard calls meant i called the pilot flying at 100ft above MDA, and the missed approach point he called decide. I replied no contact, and with that we iniated the go around procedure. The trick is to not rush and treat it as though it's a take-off. In the dash-8-300 we have no FADEC on our fuel control system, so its very easy to over torque the engines and cause damage if you panic and throw the throttles foward.

Set power, flaps 10, gear up, after take off checklist. I was very busy as the pilot monitoring. The pilot flying did just that, flew the aeroplane, i reconfigured it, called centre, called company frequency, reloaded the approach. There was a lot to do. So much head down stuff infact that i was a little disoriented when i did finally get breathing space to realise we had already completed the missed approach procedure and climbed to the 25nm minimum safe altitude. We decided to give the approach one more go, although it was fairly obvious we wouldn't get it.

In the end we divereted about 40nm to the south-west. Our passengers were bussed to the original destination, and possibly the best part about it, was that the weather was forecast to remain bad, so operations bussed our passengers to us in the morning, meaning we got an extra hour and a half sleep in on a minimum rest overnight, and our morning departure out of Sydney was allocated to a different crew as we wouldn't get into Sydney till after the departure time. 

Unrelated photos to the events described, but just some i have taken on my phone recently.

Fog

All through winter, i have dealt with severe icing (that is, by Australian standards to all those Canadians reading!), i have dealt with storms, weather, low cloud, low visibility, high cross-winds, virtually everything mother nature could throw at me - except fog!

Now, we weren't trying to land, so it wasn't a big deal at all. We were coming off the overnight and arrived at the airport with 200 metres visibility. However, this meant we couldn't depart. By Australian standards, the Dash-8 is a 'qualifying' twin engine aircraft - That is we are multi crew, have an autofeather system, above 5,700kg and have a guarenteed climb performance on one engine above 2.4% in the second segment (This relates to the gear up in take off configuration to an acceleration altitude, which for us is normally 500ft above the aerodrome elevation - unless there is a special procedure due to high terrain.)

So our problem became the required vis for take-off. Normally is it 550 metres, but the runway lights at this aerodrome were 90 metres spaced, as opposed to the normal 60 metres, which meant we required 800m visibility to legally take off. Australian airspace used to have low-visibility operations, and my company teaches it in the sim for training, as there are specific procedures and requirements that we need to follow to allow us to operate low vis. Low vis is visibility down to 350 metres, however it has been abandoned at the moment, and currently 550 and 800 metres are the legal minimums for us to take-off.

So for the aerodrome we were at, this required us at the very least to be able to see 8 rows of runway lights so count the 800 metres. Unfortunately for us, we were able to see about 3 lights, and to add to it, the runway has a slope in the middle, which prevents you from seeing lights over a slight ridge.

The captain and myself did an inspection in an airport ground vehicle to check out each runway end, and after listening to the automated weather unit, we decided to give it a shot. We started both engines, taxiied out the end of both runways, with all intention of taking off, but it wasn't to be! We ended up taxiing back on the apron to wait it out, and unloaded our eager passengers. We figured it would be a bit of a wait and it was more comfortable for them in the terminal.

So we were forced to wait it out, until it lifted - about 2 hours later! We finally departed through a very thin layer of overcast cloud at this point into a smooth beautiful clear sunny day everywhere else.

To all those that follow, thanks for the continued reading. I have been slack at posting and taking pictures of recent times, it's hard to know how much i can say or post about now that i'm flying for this company.  

Sunset over Dubbo, central New South Wales.

Checked to line for a week, and flown a total of 2 sectors! I was meant to be doing an overnight tomorrow night to Armidale, however i'm now operating as the safety first officer for a new hire doing their first flight. So the jumpseat it is!

I did however have my first cyclic in the simulator, which straight after my check was an intense week. It involved an engine failure at v1 on a pretty average night weatherwise out of Townsville. The take-off to the south has some pretty high terrain and therefore there is a company procedure, which was at 1DME TL, turn 100 till 6DME or 2000ft, whichever comes first and then track outbound on track 030 till lowest safe altitude or radar assigned level. I requested 3600ft which was the 10nm minimum safe altitude and in the northeastern sector it was 3000ft.

Once we did our checklists and secured the dead engine, i requested direct tracking to NIKKY waypoint which is the inital fix on the VOR 19 approach. Normally i would do an RNAV however there was a RAIM outage for the time that we were departing. (Means that using the FMS for an approach would have produced flags, resulting in a one engine missed approach)

We did 3 holding patterns at NIKKY, to confirm the approach checklists were done, the cabin was secured, the briefings complete and that both pilots were satisfied that we were in a safe configuration and understanding to commence the approach. The VOR to TL must be handflown once the gear is put down, as per company SOP's. I configured at 11DME to be configured an stable by 8DME which is the final approach fix. From there is was a matter of crew co-ordination and flying to get the plane down. We landed safely and the exercise was over.

The next event was by the captain into Cairns, doing an 15nm DME arc arrival 15 ILS. Handflown with a pressurisation fault and roll control fault. All handled well. After our break it was time to get back into it.

Next was an uncontrolled engine fire on descent into Tamworth. Again the associated drills and checklists were done, it was time to get the plane on the ground and simulate a mock evacuation. Shortly after we had to do some bad weather circling approaches at night, which are always challenging. My excercise was all engines operation, so i could use the autopilot. The captain on one engine had to handfly his, not easy, and his involved a missed approach from 300ft.

So 4 hours later we emerged absolutely tired and mentally exhausted, but good to fly the line for another 3 months till the next check. It was a good experience and despite it being stressful and hard, you have to consider the sim as a day at work with abnormal operations and just deal with the problems that occur, as you would the real aeroplane if you were flying on the line. It was good to see that my procedures and drills for abnormal operations were better and more understood than when i was doing endorsement training in the sim nearly 3 months ago.

Cheers   

Hello, hi, welcome, ahoy - i am still alive. I do apologise for a severe lack of posting of recent times, but it was due a few reasons, one massive problem, which i would rather not delve into on the online community, but overall, its been a fairly stressful few months, and finally, after almost 5 months since my induction, ground school, simulator training, i am finally - CHECKED TO LINE! (watch out unsuspecting captains)

So yeh, i haven't actually flown the line yet, had my first day of reserve and didn't get called in, which was a little weird as i was fully expecting it. It's been really nice weather in Sydney at the moment, CAVOK days, so i guess people aren't really dreading flying in challenging conditions and therefore don't mind working. It seems that everyone gets called off reserve when there are challenging conditions and delays at Sydney airport.

Although that brings me to an interesting point which airline flying has kinda challenged me in. And that is, the visual circuit into an uncontrolled aerodrome. It is probably the most dangerous thing we do, and that is decending through 10,000ft and entering the realm of VFR piston drivers, lots who don't tune up CTAF frequencies or have transponders. I actually had a TCAS RA on a line training flight. It's hard to know who was at fault, or whether our TCAS was faulty, or the pilot didn't turn is transponder on till the last minute, but all of a sudden we had traffic 1000ft below us, on our track, climbing through our level. Naturally, we turned out of the way and followed the TCAS instructions, and thankfully nothing came of it. But talk to nearly any captain on the line and they have all nearly had some incident involving traffic.

However apart from all the traffic we encounter, which just adds to the workload and maintain a vigilant visual look out for traffic, when its instrument procedures, it is often easier to plan a flight and manage the workload. What i mean by this, is when you have an ILS or an RNAV approach in marginal conditions, you have a defined set of rules and flight profile to follow.

For example, when we do an RNAV approach, there are defined altitudes to be at the final approach fix, the intermediate approach fix and the initial approach fix. At the initial approach fix, there is a set of speeds we also need to adhere to. So from top of decent we can plan in the FMS to be at a height and a speed at a certain space in time, and then commence the approach. By the final approach fix (usually a five mile final to the runway), we need to be configured for landing and speeds below 130kts. From there is it usually a decent to the minimum altitude and we decide whether we will land or do a missed approach for whatever reason.

I bring this up because when you brief plan for instrument procedures it somehow ended up being easier, having a set of rules and decent steps, with known speeds and 'gates' (aim points) to configure and carry out the approach. Most of my training had been in instrument procedures, partly due to training and partly due to the actual weather at the destinations, so all of a sudden we have really good weather and we were doing visual circuits and visual approaches, i was actually a little lost in what to do. Remember apart from circuit training, you actually practise very little visual procedures in the sim.

So anyway, training is complete, and i'm looking forward to flying the line. It's been a massive learning curve. I can't stress the difference in flying between my general aviation days and flying in a multi crew airliner environment.

Anyway i'll try to get posts a big more regular now with more photos. I have my first sim check as well in the next week, just in case i wasn't done with everything!

Cheers.