When dreams come true... (long)

mscard88 said:
LGA and JFK are a blast to fly into and out of! JFK very busy in the evening due to all the European departures, otherwise the rest of the day not bad at all. LGA always busy but fun. I think my favorite is the arrival to runway 19 at Wash Reagan. That's a blast to fly.
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Thankfully, we have very little 200 flying in LGA and none in JFK right now. You can have those airports, I'll fly somewhere that doesn't end up with a 2 hour delay because its overcast. It's not that I don't enjoy going to NYC, its just more work that I don't really enjoy dealing with, versus say going to any small town within an hour of DTW or MSP
 
Back from California. Boy, you guys out west are spoiled rotten! It was gorgeous the two days I was there!

SFO was a bit intimidating at first, but I quickly figured out the routine flow, at least for the good weather days. My first visual approach to runway 28L (the Asiana crash runway) turned out waaaaaay better than Asiana's approach! ;)

A little story: I arrived Monday night and had a 7:10 a.m. show time. I had a couple from India (or at least Indian heritage) behind me on the deadhead flight out. They talked non-stop from the time they sat down until we deplaned in SFO, at a rate of about 40 syllables per second! FIVE hours straight, I kid you not. Often times, they were BOTH talking at the same time, at the same speed! I finally put my ear buds in and cranked up the music, but I could still hear them jabbering.

I so prefer the pointy end of the airliner!

So we get to SFO and I find my way to the hotel van. The same couple was on the van! I thought, "Oh, no...just my luck. They'll be in the room next door and I'll be listening to them all night!" Thankfully, they got off at the OTHER hotel! Whew!

The next morning I had no idea how long it would take to get to the gate so I caught the early van just to be safe. I ended up at the gate over an hour before our departure time. Better early than late, I guess.

Once the gate agent arrived I introduced myself and he cleared me down to the plane. It was at 84C which is a single gate that leads you down to the ramp area where they park 4 CRJs at a time. I headed down, enjoying the warmth and sunshine of California!

Just before my plane arrived my cellphone rang. It was Crew Support. I thought, "Hmm....I'm checked in...what could they want?" I answered. The gal at Crew Support said, "I have your captain on the phone...he wants to speak with you." Uh...ok. She patches him through and I hear, "Hi, Loren! I'm stuck in traffic and am going to be late. Can you get the plane all ready for us?"

"Sure! I'm at the plane. It will be ready when you get here." Just then the plane arrived, so I took it from the inbound crew so they didn't have to shut it down. I grabbed the release via my phone, then started programming the FMS (which I usually do anyways), but added in the additional tasks the captain usually does. I cross-checked and double-checked all my work to make sure I hadn't missed anything.

Then we waited. And waited. And waited. Thankfully, we only had 15 or so passengers on board! Finally, about 15 minutes past departure time he came down the ramp! A quick introduction, a review of the FMS I'd setup and the manifest I'd programmed and he said, "Looks great! Let's go!"

And we were off!

Turned out to be a life-long California native that had grown up in the Bay area but had lived in Bakersfield and other places, so he was a terrific tour guide as we flew up and down the coast. I really enjoyed flying with him. And I have another story or two I'll share later.
 
LDJones said:
Back from California. Boy, you guys out west are spoiled rotten! It was gorgeous the two days I was there!

SFO was a bit intimidating at first, but I quickly figured out the routine flow, at least for the good weather days. My first visual approach to runway 28L (the Asiana crash runway) turned out waaaaaay better than Asiana's approach! ;)

A little story: I arrived Monday night and had a 7:10 a.m. show time. I had a couple from India (or at least Indian heritage) behind me on the deadhead flight out. They talked non-stop from the time they sat down until we deplaned in SFO, at a rate of about 40 syllables per second! FIVE hours straight, I kid you not. Often times, they were BOTH talking at the same time, at the same speed! I finally put my ear buds in and cranked up the music, but I could still hear them jabbering.

I so prefer the pointy end of the airliner!

So we get to SFO and I find my way to the hotel van. The same couple was on the van! I thought, "Oh, no...just my luck. They'll be in the room next door and I'll be listening to them all night!" Thankfully, they got off at the OTHER hotel! Whew!

The next morning I had no idea how long it would take to get to the gate so I caught the early van just to be safe. I ended up at the gate over an hour before our departure time. Better early than late, I guess.

Once the gate agent arrived I introduced myself and he cleared me down to the plane. It was at 84C which is a single gate that leads you down to the ramp area where they park 4 CRJs at a time. I headed down, enjoying the warmth and sunshine of California!

Just before my plane arrived my cellphone rang. It was Crew Support. I thought, "Hmm....I'm checked in...what could they want?" I answered. The gal at Crew Support said, "I have your captain on the phone...he wants to speak with you." Uh...ok. She patches him through and I hear, "Hi, Loren! I'm stuck in traffic and am going to be late. Can you get the plane all ready for us?"

"Sure! I'm at the plane. It will be ready when you get here." Just then the plane arrived, so I took it from the inbound crew so they didn't have to shut it down. I grabbed the release via my phone, then started programming the FMS (which I usually do anyways), but added in the additional tasks the captain usually does. I cross-checked and double-checked all my work to make sure I hadn't missed anything.

Then we waited. And waited. And waited. Thankfully, we only had 15 or so passengers on board! Finally, about 15 minutes past departure time he came down the ramp! A quick introduction, a review of the FMS I'd setup and the manifest I'd programmed and he said, "Looks great! Let's go!"

And we were off!

Turned out to be a life-long California native that had grown up in the Bay area but had lived in Bakersfield and other places, so he was a terrific tour guide as we flew up and down the coast. I really enjoyed flying with him. And I have another story or two I'll share later.
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It's been beautiful here this week. Hope it continues until I fly out on Friday! SFO can have many delays when the weather is bad because the runways are too close for parallel ILS approaches. If your airline flies in here I'm sure you did the training for the LDA PRM 28R with the visual segment, and you still need 4 miles visibility. Does your airline have other special approaches?
 
Everskyward said:
It's been beautiful here this week. Hope it continues until I fly out on Friday! SFO can have many delays when the weather is bad because the runways are too close for parallel ILS approaches. If your airline flies in here I'm sure you did the training for the LDA PRM 28R with the visual segment, and you still need 4 miles visibility. Does your airline have other special approaches?
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Yeah, we did the PRM with breakout procedures on the SFO 28s in the sim. We have a number of special approaches to several of our destinations, usually when terrain is involved.

The sim time definitely helped prep me for SFO. I was surprised that they only had one freq for the tower. MSP has three of everything, plus clearance, plus ramp control, plus, plus, plus... SFO was actually pretty easy by comparison.
 
A quick update:

March was a month of stand-ups. I've been sucked into the vortex of the vampire life! You get addicted to having your days free to do whatever you want, bracketed between an early morning flight and a late evening flight in jet with a night spent in some distant, nice hotel in between the two flights! Plus you're getting paid more than you would if you spent and entire day flying five segments from 7 a.m. til 4-6 p.m.

The downside, as I've alluded to here previously, is you get much less actual flying time. So this month I mixed it up a bit with a few three-day trips sprinkled in amongst the stand-ups. I just finished the first three-day trip I've had in awhile and it was an adjustment. It's nice throwing 5-6 hours into the logbook every day instead of the 1.5-3 I do with stand-ups, and the quick repetition on the approaches as good.

But I had to relearn how to fly slow! My Captain kept razzing me about flying fast all the time! With a stand-up you're being paid a premium already, so you will never exceed the allotted credit for the trip, hence you tend to fly them as fast as possible to maximize your time "behind the door" or your time at home. De-icing just takes away from those two, so you pray for deicing-free trips!

With multi-days trips, de-ice time often ends up being extra pay above and beyond the original trip credit, so it's viewed as a good thing, not a bad thing. It took awhile to get back into that mindset, and we had a lot of fun joking about it throughout the three-day trip.

Today was the last day of the trip so I told the captain he could take the first leg from Saginaw to Minnie and I'd take the turn to Fargo, my old hometown. It's been awhile since I've done that turn so was looking forward to it. When he was getting ready to make the passenger briefing P.A. I said be sure to let them know a native-Fargoan would be flying them there today.

He said, "I'll do you one better....YOU make the P.A. and tell them yourself! It'll be good practice for your captain upgrade!"

Seriously? "Yeah, you make the announcement."

So I picked up the mic and said, "Folks, welcome aboard Delta Connection flight 4732 service to Fargo. Flight time today will be 37 minutes, cruising at an altitude of 26,000 feet. Weather in Fargo is cool, with overcast skies and gusty winds out of the SE. Since I grew up in Fargo and learned to fly there, I look forward to taking you all to my old hometown. I hope you enjoy the flight!"

The captain looked over at me and said, "Nice job." I said, "Now, just as long as I don't pooch the landing in Fargo!"

We ended up doing the visual for 18 with windows about 150 at 21 gusting to 30. It make me work for it, but kissed it on pretty softly despite the winds and made the turnoff without even touching the brakes. (Thrust reversers are wonderful things!) I even got a compliment on the landing from the captain.

After a 40 minute turn there we headed back to MSP with 50 pax in the back and a woman pilot who flies B-777s for Delta sitting in our jumpseat. I wish the leg had been longer to hear more of her story.

Out last turn was to Duluth. Coming out of there I picked up the heaviest load of ice I've yet to see on the CRJ. Obviously the wings were clear because we had the anti-ice on, but the windshield wipers really caked up and the winglets were full. We figured the tail (which is NOT hot) had a pretty good load, too, since it took about 7% more thrust than normal to maintain 250 KIAS.

Once we got out of the tops and accelerated to 300 KIAS (over 400 KTAS) it sublimated pretty quickly. Interesting experience.

Oh, and for other experiences, last week I saw St. Elmo's fire for the first time. It was wild! Like those static electricity glass globes you put your hand on and see mini lightning bolts, except it was dancing across our windshield. It was very cools to watch.

Finally, I just got my training dates for my first annual CQ. I'll be going to the Mothership in SLC three days in May to get requalified for another year. A friend just completed his last night and a few other classmates go later this month, so we're getting good intel on what to expect. But I've started studying already to make sure I'm prepared.
 
Please, do upgrade soon, make the passengers happy. Non-revved this week on Compass and when the Captain came out of the cockpit to do the pre-departure PA on the cabin phone, I looked to my wife and said, "Look, they upgrade twelve-year-olds here!" NTTAWWT, dude was a complete professional I am sure.

Why my eyeballs see a 22-year-old in the mirror every morning, and a child in the cockpit of these people haulers I will never know.
 
catmandu said:
Please, do upgrade soon, make the passengers happy. Non-revved this week on Compass and when the Captain came out of the cockpit to do the pre-departure PA on the cabin phone, I looked to my wife and said, "Look, they upgrade twelve-year-olds here!" NTTAWWT, dude was a complete professional I am sure.

Why my eyeballs see a 22-year-old in the mirror every morning, and a child in the cockpit of these people haulers I will never know.
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I hear you on the age thing. My flight attendant this week barely looked 18, but she was 27 and has two kids! I saw a new FO in our crew lounge a few weeks ago and for a minute I thought it was Bring Your Kid to Work Day. He really did look like a 12 year old in a grown man's uniform. Maybe we just need better tailors!
 
A quick update: I attended my first CQ ("Continuing Qualification") event which is required annually under our Advanced Qualification Program (AQP). It basically is comprised of three days: One day of classroom, the second day is Maneuvers Validation in the sim (six hour session with two hour briefing, then four hours in sim), then the third day is the Line Oriented Evaluation (essentially your annual checkride) which is comprised of a two hour oral exam (the Knowledge Validation) and four hours in the sim (a two-leg trip just like you'd fly on the line with an anomaly or two thrown in to see how you handle it.)

Day one was very relaxed. The first few hours were with our flight attendants which I found interesting since we got very little training in what all they have to do. It's a lot! Especially during emergencies. The rest of the day was powerpoint about current hot topics, safety issues, procedural changes, etc. Relaxed and informative.

The second day our sim session was at 4-10 p.m. so I got together with the PHX-based captain I had been paired with to review and prepare. Some pretty good gouges had been circulated by those who had gone through CQ before us so we spent time reviewing those as well as some chair-flying some of the events we knew we'd get. He was incredibly helpful and fun to train with throughout the CQ.

We arrived at the sim a bit early, had some snacks then met the Check Airman doing the training. He is employee number 225 out of our 52,000+ so you could say he's pretty senior! But he was a great instructor and made the briefing informative and helpful. We then headed into the sim.

What a workout! I heard that it was a bit captain-centric last year so they shifted it to FO-centric this year. After multiple variations of engine failures on take-off, single-engine go-arounds, CAT II approaches on one engine followed by a missed....I was ready to cry "Uncle!" I wanted to turn around and say, "Can't he fly a couple of these??!" But it was a good refresher and only repeated one missed approach which I had technically passed but he gave me some pointers and a chance to do it over for practice.

Needless to say, I was relieved when the MV was over.

The next day I hung out with my Captain again while we prepared for the KV and LOE. The Check Airmen for that was younger and had a great sense of humor, but was also very professional in his approach. Our studying paid off and we breezed through the KV without any trouble. After a break we headed into the sim. The Captain took the first leg from STL to ORD. Neither of us had been into STL so we had to figure out a few things on the lay of the land there, but no biggie. On the way to ORD we had a CPAM failure (pressurization system) and lost our FMS. Both were fairly benign and easily handled. On my short leg from ORD to MKE my biggest screw-up was mis-hearing the surface winds. In the real world I'm always looking at the wind sock but there was none in the sim presentation, so I didn't put in the proper wind correction. But it wasn't a big deal and figured it out. I was prepared for an autopilot failure knowing that was a possibility in this scenario, but instead got the FMS failure again. So, just another ILS on "green needles" (raw ILS approach), landed and as soon as we taxied off he said, "OK, you've both passed LOE, let's do some SPOT training."

The SPOT training this year was on no-flap approaches. The CRJ flaps will take a dump on you from time to time so we practice no-flap approaches. Not a big deal but you do eat up some runway when you approach at 168 knots. He threw some extra stall training in at the end, then we were done. I was signed off to fly airliners for another year.

The adventure continues.
 
Walboy said:
That sounds stressful. What happens if you're deficient in one (or more) area(s)?
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On the MV the goal is to train to proficiency, so mistakes there can be corrected and the task repeated. The constraint there is the sim block, so too many repeats will cause you to run out of time, in which case you'll fail and have to go back for more training.

The LOE is more strict. Up to two tasks can be repeated twice with no training between attempts. If you don't successfully complete those you fail and go back for retraining. I'm not sure how far you can push their patience on retraining and don't want to find out.

Oh, and any failure puts you in Special Tracking which will send you back to the sim in six months rather than a year on the theory a year was too long between training/testing events.
 
Keep 'em coming.

I love my clients, but envy you!
 
Pretty cool, Jonesy! That sounds pretty similar to how we do it.

I did mine back in March, and on the last day we were the guinea pigs for a check airman getting *his* checkout. So he's checking us, another check airman was checking him, and a guy from the FAA was observing the whole process. It was a full simulator. My poor FO was still on probation, so he was pretty freaked out (he did great, though). :)
 
kayoh190 said:
Pretty cool, Jonesy! That sounds pretty similar to how we do it.

I did mine back in March, and on the last day we were the guinea pigs for a check airman getting *his* checkout. So he's checking us, another check airman was checking him, and a guy from the FAA was observing the whole process. It was a full simulator. My poor FO was still on probation, so he was pretty freaked out (he did great, though). :)
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Definitely sounds like a lot of pressure for the FO. I would have been freaked out, too.
 
LDJones said:
Definitely sounds like a lot of pressure for the FO. I would have been freaked out, too.
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If you know your stuff, it's not a big deal. The entire training process for me was with new instructors being taught/supervised by older ones. The type ride was a new APD getting trained by an older APD. I was in the final class to not have AQP initial, so it was still the hard way. I guess I head back to training in June to get into the AQP program.
 
LDJones said:
Definitely sounds like a lot of pressure for the FO. I would have been freaked out, too.
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My company isn't the type to fire a probie for needing a little more training, I don't think. But I certainly understand his nervousness. The fed turned out to be awesome, though. It was a fun day.
 
I flew a four-day trip this week, the first long one I've done in a number of months. It was good to be getting more flight time and more legs. I averaged over six hours a day for the first three days and almost five on the last day. We battled thunderstorms every day but radar is a big plus when dealing with that menace.

I took the first leg on day four from TVC to MSP. It was a nice, uneventful flight. I topped it off with a pretty nice landing if I do say so myself.

As I was bidding the passengers farewell an older gentleman stopped and asked, "Which one of you was showing off with that greaser landing?"

I smiled, raised my hand and said, "The Old Guy!!"

He chuckled and said, "I did this for 38 years. Nice job!"

That was quite gratifying.

I can't say I'm quite as comfortable in the CRJ as I am in the Cherokee, but it's definitely growing on me. I really enjoy flying it.
 
I like the idea of doing some CQ with the FA's. CQ ended up being my last event at Delta before I went on mil leave (they bought my last trip off me - NICE). Our CQ was just the pilot pair and it was two days in the sim. The second being fairly abbreviated.
 
Just finished my first month flying a more "normal" schedule. Doing standups I was lucky to log 35-40 hours while typically being paid for 90-100. For June I logged almost 91 hours and got paid for 95. The additional flying was welcome. I'm 3/4 of the way to the magic 1,000 hour mark in the jet. It's still not quite a Cherokee to me, but it's a heckuva lot easier to fly now than even six months ago.

It was also a busy month for instructing with just over 40 hours in the right seat and another dozen of ground. Adding 130+ hours to the logbook tripped me over the 5,000 hour mark...one of those little milestones we celebrate.

July schedule looks a bit more relaxed with a little over 80 hours scheduled, including a couple of standups for old times sake. Flying with some interesting captains so that will be good.
 
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Palmpilot said:
What's a "standup"?
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A standup is when you fly the last flight out at night, spend a few hours in a hotel, then bring the first flight back in the morning. It's considered one duty period so normal rest rules don't apply. Think of it as working the graveyard shift but they let you take a long nap in the middle.

They pay well but you don't get a lot of block hours.
 
Thanks.

It's funny that they call it a standup when you get to lie down!
 
It's been awhile since I've posted...not sure if anyone is that interested at this point, but thought I'd share an update.

I've been enjoying great schedules of mostly 2-day trips with an occasional local or stand-up thrown in for good measure. I don't think I've had to fly on a weekend in almost a year, and have had every holiday off. I have yet to burn any accumulated vacation or user time because I've been able to bid off all the days I've needed for R&R or family events. That's pretty crazy for a newbie 121 pilot. I feel pretty fortunate.

I've logged 944 hours in the jet, for a total of 5,356 hours to date. I've been averaging around 90+ hours in the jet (while being paid for 95+), and another 25-30 in GA instructing. Plus a little law practice and other family business. So it's been busy, but still enjoying the heck out of it!

So this week I only had two days of flying since I was able to schedule a block of five days off to go sit on a beach. (On Mustang Island, staying at Amelia's Landing! Jay and Mary were gracious hosts!)

Anyway, so our last turn was MSP to ISN and back. There was a pretty massive weather system in the western Dakotas with lots of thunderstorms. Winds were gusty out of the SE so we planned the GPS 11 approach into ISN. It was my leg and it has been a few months since I've had to do a GPS approach. When we arrived the weather was below our minimums, reporting 1.25 miles and we needed 2 miles. So I punched a hold into the FMS and slowed to our Vmd hold speed to conserve fuel. We continually monitored the AWOS while holding and after three circuits it finally came up to 2 miles and we commenced the approach.

At the MDA we had ground contact but there was ONE cloud between us and the runway so we had to go missed. I think that was only my second actual missed approach in the jet. I've done lots of them in the sim, but they're relatively rare in the real world. As we're going missed we got a good look at the runway but we were committed to the missed at that point. We had just enough fuel to make one more quick attempt, then we'd need to divert to MOT as our alternate. We got vectored around, shot the same approach a second time and this time had the runway in sight with no problem. Winds were still gusty but made a decent landing....good enough for passenger compliment!

We did a quick turn in the rain, then the captain took the last leg home. More weather was bearing down on MSP but we beat it in by about 15 minutes. And I made it to a client appointment with 15 minutes to spare!

At this pace I should hit the magic 1,000 hour mark sometime in mid-October, which is required to be eligible for the Captain upgrade. When that will happen is anybody's guess, but based on recent movement it could come as early as next Spring. I've put my name on the list, but will only take it if offered in MSP. We just opened DTW as the newest, most junior base, but I've watched the travails of commuters and would rather be a First Officer living in base than a commuting Captain, despite the pay difference.

So, still livin' the dream! Great company. Great crews. Still a ton of fun.
 
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Loren - you going to stick with that company or any interest in one of the "big 4"?
 
If you've got no desire to move on to a bigger airplane or airline, absolutely no reason to move up to captain until you can hold MSP. The MSP-DTW commute is hell, I was stuck doing it long enough to know that I wouldn't do it by choice (all of 2 weeks, is all I did) That said, I know that you're from the MSP area, have you looked into Sun Country at all?
 
Cant say i religiously followed the thread, but its nice to pop in once a while and see that you're enjoying it
Contemplated on following suit, but for now my 200 hours a year at FL400-430 work out better and i get to keep my Hawaiian shirt
 
EvilEagle said:
Loren - you going to stick with that company or any interest in one of the "big 4"?
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I'll be a "Lifer" at SkyWest and happily so. Great company, good people and I'll be able to have a much better quality of life than I ever would achieve flying mainline. If I was 20 years younger I certainly would try. But not at my age.
 
KSCessnaDriver said:
If you've got no desire to move on to a bigger airplane or airline, absolutely no reason to move up to captain until you can hold MSP. The MSP-DTW commute is hell, I was stuck doing it long enough to know that I wouldn't do it by choice (all of 2 weeks, is all I did) That said, I know that you're from the MSP area, have you looked into Sun Country at all?
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Exactly. I'll only upgrade when I know I can hold MSP. Sun Country is a decent outfit. I know some pilots there. But I'd always be right seat. At SkyWest I can upgrade, then maybe go for Check Airman in a couple of years. I love to instruct. That would suit me just fine.
 
moonshine said:
Cant say i religiously followed the thread, but its nice to pop in once a while and see that you're enjoying it
Contemplated on following suit, but for now my 200 hours a year at FL400-430 work out better and i get to keep my Hawaiian shirt
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Keep enjoying the view. I only get up to FL36O when flying the 900s!
 
Absolutely still interested at this point.

The positivity of this thread is one of many reasons I decided to leave the rotorcraft market and pursue a position at the airlines. After over a year of working towards my goal I have an interview with Skywest first week of October !

Thanks for sharing.
 
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