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. 

Ahh well.. it's about time for a post

Hi all, thanks for continually checking up on my lack of posts! It's been pretty crazy with all the training, reading, training, re-reading, training etc. Airline flying is probably harder than i expected and more intensive than i ever realised. I'm sure once im settled in to everyday life and flying the line with a variet of different people and not so focused on flying the plane and company procedures, than it will be a different kettle of fish again, but at the moment i feel as though i haven't had to work this hard ever!

I finish reading the FCOM, the engineering manual, and other associated texts, only to basically start reading them again. I have spent a lot of hours just reading and re-reading manuals, learning specific limitations of the airplane from memory, recalls from the QRH word perfect (company requirment), on top of learning the syllabus in the training file.

So yeh, good times!
Line flying is a lot different to anything that goes on in the sim. Just some things you cannot replicate, and in marginal weather, you just need to be on top of everything the whole time. The biggest challenge in flying a bigger aircraft in a multi crew environment is the constant management that flying it requires.
Anyway one particular thing of interest in the Dash-8 is the ice protection systems and the penalties when it comes to landing and taking off. As you can imagine there is a lot of emphasis on speed management and situational awareness in the Dash. This is partly due the Colgan crash a few years back, and also because we don't have any autotrottle system, so its very easy to reduce power, get distracted doing something else and all of sudden be at minimum speed in no time flat. That why we have very defined pilot flying, and pilot monitoring roles.
Also with ice protection on in the dash, it increases your Vref (min speed landing in that configuration) over the fence for landing. This actually an automatic speed bias in the stall warning computers, which is triggered by the propeller heaters and also the increase ref speed switch. At a high weight its about an extra 15 knots. In windy conditions, by the time you apply a Vapp speed (basically a target speed to provide some protection over Vref - We use 1/3 the windspeed or all of the gust to a maximum of 15 knots) So by the time you add the ice protection speed coupled with a high Vapp, flaps 15 instead of 35, into a short runway, which is high elevation in miserable weather, it makes for some challenging approaches and high workload situations. With the ice protection on, then its a significant weight penalty for take off as well.. this is due to the speed bias in the stall warning computers which i mentioned earlier. Since you need a high speed, you therefore need more runway, which therefore limits your maximum take off weight.

I hope that made some sense to those reading at home. Anyway line training is 2/3's of the way through now and almost finished. I have a progress check in the next few days and then a check to line early september at this stage.

So thanks for continuing to check it and read my blog, i will get back to being more regular with my postings when im all checked to line.

Some photos from line training. About a third of the way through it.. massively study intensive and making a me hermit. Hope you enjoy, i'll be back to normal blogging and stories soon, but at the moment quite literally too busy.

Thanks for reading.

Line Flying

Start flying the line on Friday, with my first flight to Port Macquarie, which is on the mid north coast of NSW for those not from Australia. Is very exciting but also pretty scary at the same time. I don't ever remember being so nervous about flying a plane before. I guess its finally the real thing. You train and learn so much in the sim, that when it comes to crunch time, it seems foreign to actually get into a real plane.

I will be doing the majority of all my flying down in Melbourne, but the first two flights are based out of Sydney. It will also be the first time that i will fly in and out of Sydney International as pilot flying, and even from the right seat of a 19T aircraft! Pretty cool. It's definately a weird feeling to be achieving i guess what was my dream growing up, watching the planes arrive and depart, and now to actually be part of this and being part of the operating crew is something that i can't really put into words.

So the sims went without a hitch, actually, i lie. I had to repeat one item, which wasn't a fail, but the instructor basically said that he wanted to see it done better. SO, i repeated it, and did it better :) and then my final check was over, and i am being let loose on the line to finish my training. The company requires 100 hours with a training captain to get checked to line as a minimum, so lets hope i'm up to the challenge! Exciting times ahead, plus in the next 2 weeks i will be flying in and out of Melbourne Tullermarine, Sydney Kingsford-Smith, Canberra, and various smaller regional areas. I guess i have wanted to work flying on the east-coast of Australia out of these destinations since i started flying, so its so so so SO cool, that it's finally happening.

Hopefully bring you some pics and other news shortly. For now back to the FCOM and study, preparing my Jepp plates and making sure i know what im actually doing on Friday haha.

Cheers for reading.

apologies

Sorry for the lack of posts of recent. Its been pretty insane finishing up the endo. If all goes well i will be dash-8 endorsed tomorrow afternoon. I will be finished with all sims including the cyclic program by Monday and start line training mid next week!

Will keep you all updated soon!

A lot of my sims were cancelled this week. It's hard to keep reading the same text over and over, and it feels as though im skimming over it at the moment in the vain hope that i 'know' it. I guess it is at the point where i just need to keep going in the sim to get it all done. We had 3 out of 6 cancelled this week, mainly due to a sick instructor. So thanking him for not spreading it around! Last thing i want right now is to be sick and have to call in sick during training.

Im on that very weird line of not working enough, and enjoying the time off a little too much, and i should be head in the books again. But i have 2 sims the next 2 days so it should put it all back into perspective. We did circuits the other day, and it was a good experience not only going through all the drills as pilot monitoring but also actually hand flying the thing in the circuit, doing stable approaches and normal landings. I think thats the extent of normal procedures i will encounter! and as of tomorrow everything and anything abnormal starts to happen, with roll/pitch control jams, to engine failures at V1 into IMC and then conducting the instrument approach around for a landing. FUN....

Anyway, good times ahead, hopefully start line traing in the not too distant future once the endorsement phase is done.