Sometimes Being Late Pays Off

Quite a busy flight day.  After all was said and done, I racked up five flights and 5.93 hours of flight time.

The day was pretty typical at the beginning.  It was the first day of a four-day trip.  I woke up at 6:40, showed up at the airport around 7:45, and was at the (not yet there) airplane around 8:05 for an 8:35 departure.

We flew down to Columbus and back to Cleveland, then headed to Rochester where we sat for four and a half hours.  I caught up with a good friend on the phone, talked with a couple of Captains about sailing and adventure, and wasted time on the internet to pass the time.

We finally boarded up our 5:20 flight at 5:55 for an always-late flight to Newark.  Because we were late, all of our passengers had been put on other flights.  We literally flew with zero passengers.  We took off with me flying towards the city of never-on-time flights.  I have really come to hate that place.  With about 35 minutes remaining to go, we received word that Newark International Airport had been shut down.  An airplane had a landing gear emergency and was still on the runway.

Sam Costanza/New York Daily News

So we pulled back the throttles and cruised at 160 knots.  But the emergency was fairly long-lived.  The airport ended up being shut down for nearly an hour.  We were more than fine on fuel, but most of the other flights in the sky tonight simply were not.

So while we crept along through the air, our fellow pilots were hitting their "bingo fuel," the mark at which they must divert to another airport.  We hold Colgan head back to Buffalo.  We heard other people (including our own) end up heading to cities in New York and Pennsylvania.  They simply were running out of fuel just hanging out in the sky.

We ended up getting a hold over the WEARD intersection.  So we flew in circles for about 20 minutes as we waited for the airport to open back up.  We ended up doing two turns in the hold.  We were still looking good on fuel, and the fuel-sippin' airplane was more than happy to fly.  I commented to myself just how disorienting the night sky was, though.  As we made the turns in the hold with the heavy 60-knot winds, you couldn't make out anything but black.  I knew there were clouds below us (and bumpy ones at that), but the sky just wasn't visible.  It was BLACK.

We were finally allowed to head to Newark and ended up landing only 47 minutes late.  We had a very fun approach, though...ILS 22L circle-to-land 29.  It's fun to hand-fly.  We landed without incident and headed in where we learned our next airplane was one of the ones that didn't make it in.

I grabbed a much-needed dinner as we learned we were being given another plane so that we didn't "time out."  Basically, with the delay of waiting for our next airplane, we were creeping up towards our 16 hours of work.  Yup, you read that right.  16 hours.  I won't even get in to that here, but suffice it to say, we had had a long day.

We finally boarded up our passengers for our 8:00 flight at 8:58 and flew our fifth and last leg to Syracuse.  We were pretty light on passengers, though, with half of them probably not making it in to Newark in time.  But we were told to shut the doors and get on out of there.  Those decisions are simply out of our hands.

As we took off, we could still see the emergency aircraft disabled on 22L with tons and tons of emergency vehicles around it.  It was pretty neat to see.  The nosewheel didn't come down, so it landed on its main wheels only.  Everything looked perfect, though.  An airplane down the center of the runway with all emergency chutes deployed.  There should be no injuries with that one.  Well, done, sir, well done.

We finally ended up in Syracuse at 10:22, 55 minutes later than scheduled.  All in all, we worked 14 hours and 27 minutes.  Of course, we'll only be paid for 5.93 of those hours.  But I won't get into that here, either.

Remember, this is just another day in the life.  :)

A long day to start a four-day trip.  A realization that sometimes it's in our favor to be running late.  A couple of holds.  And an appreciation for the professionalism and safety of the airplanes flying around me.  An emergency with a crisis avoided.

Kudos to my fellow pilot at Shuttle America.  Well done, sir.  Well done.

Ice Pilots: Flying in the Winter

Before flying for the airlines, I was a pansy when it came to ice.  My first experience with ice was over Ohio in a Cessna 172.  It wasn't anything major, but while traversing across the country, I went through some clouds that instantly froze on my airplane.  I'll never forget looking down on my left wheel and seeing the whole front of the tire changed to white.  I vowed to not do that again!

I admittedly hated ice and airplanes.

My second experience involved a Cessna 172 yet again.  This time I was flying low over Louisiana.  The clouds were very low, and the mist from them occasionally hung down.  But I was flying around 1000 feet above the ground and watched as the fronts of my wings turned a little bit different color than the paint.  What was most interesting about this one was that I actually thought I was staying out of the clouds!  I vowed not to do that again!

I admittedly hated ice and airplanes.

I continually try to learn more and more as a pilot.  One of my hobbies is reading NTSB reports about pilots who have crashed or almost crashed.  I ask myself how they arrived in the situation they did.  I also take online classses fairly regularly to stay fresh in various aspects of flying.  One of the classes I took was about icing.  Basically, it highlighted the various dangers of what ice can do to an airplane...and also how to fly through icing conditions.  Certain aircraft (all airlines) are certified to fly through icing conditions, and it's a combination of training, experience, knowledge, mechanics, and intuition to fly safely.

As I have progressed through airplanes, I have had to learn to fly in icing conditions.  It's illegal to fly in known ice with a Cessna 172, so it was right of me to hate ice when it came to airplanes.  But now that I fly an airplane that is capable and certified of flying through icing conditions, I don't hate the thought at all.  It's not something we take lightly, but the aircraft (and pilots) are quite capable of flying through icing conditions.  And rightfully so.  We operate to some of the worst parts of the country here in the United States.  Cities that compete with each other for the most snowfall in the contiguous 48.  Frankly, we need an airplane that is capable of handling winter weather.  So whereas before I should have hated flying through icing conditions, now it's just another day in the life.

Case and point:  It's now late February.  Truth be told, this winter has been one of the weakest on record.  I have seen snow a number of times, but each and every time, the snow disappears within a few days.  Either by sun or rain in the days immediately following.  But what I have also seen is ice.  I've seen freezing rain, drizzle, freezing fog, light snow, blowing snow, heavy snow, you name it.  It's quite the learning curve really.  I would NEVER fly through what I fly through now in my previous airplanes.  Frankly, I couldn't!  I really had no adequate ice protection (outside of pitot heat and carb heat).

But in just a few short months, in one of the mildest winters on record, I've had some experiences that other pilots will never see!  Ice.  Lots and lots of ice.  Frankly, sometimes you just can't get out of it.  We fly low and slow in the northeast.  In the winter.  In the soup.  On our routes, sometimes we just don't have the ability or time to jump to different altitudes.  We just fly and let the airplane shed the ice.

I was jump-seating on an ExpressJet flight (now AC) last month, and the female Captain asked me what we did if we ever encounter a freezing layer.  Here she was, flying a very powerful and very fast regional jet, and she was curious what a prop pilot did if found to be in icing conditions.

I sat there and rather nonchalantly said, "We fly."

But that's just it.  We fly.  It's kind of hard to explain.  I don't revel in the fact that I fly through icing conditions again and again.  But I don't shy away from it, either.  I have an FAA-certified airplane capable and allowed to fly through ice.  We pilots don't take our job lightly, and we monitor the ice situation rather keenly.  But we fly.  Contrary to jets, we don't climb out of it.  And we can't always descend out of it.  We fly.  It's all we can do.  We just simply fly.

I showed a picture of some of the ice I've encountered to a mainline 737 Captain, and he responded by saying, "Boots are for cowboys, props are for boats."  ha!  But I'm learning that is more and more the case.  Jet guys often just don't feel comfortable in icing conditions.  It's not that they couldn't fly...it's just that they don't have to.  So because of that, they assume that it's "bad."

Well, it's not bad, and it's not good.  It's just winter.

Mild or harsh, we fly.