Greater Leap Forward

After my last post about the Surface 2 EFB I use for work, I intended to write soon after about the iPad-based system I'm using in the Pacer, using a real-life cross-country flight as an example. However, the weather has been so crummy that what little Pacer flying I've been able to do on my days off has been entirely local - until this week, when I went cross country in a big way. On Sunday and Monday I flew from Flying Cloud to Peachtree City, GA, and then on to Sebastian, FL - a trip of 1230nm, 12 flying hours, and 7 landings. I'll write about that in the next post. It was an eventful trip weather-wise, and did a good job of showcasing where the modern GA EFB systems really shine, but the photos turned out useless due to glare off of the iPad's screen (I'm new to the iPad and didn't know how to take screenshots at the time). So, the below screenshots are from the last leg of the trip running in simulation mode, with weather from several days after I actually flew it.

There are a number of excellent EFB platforms available for the iPad, and a lesser number available for Android systems. The Surface 2's orphaned operating system, Windows RT, predictably has absolutely zero aviation apps available (indeed, few apps of any sort), other than the ported version of Jeppesen Flight Deck Pro that my company uses. Because GPS synchronicity, VFR charts, and weather overlays are all disabled on my airline's installation, it makes it fairly useless for general aviation purposes. I have Avare, a freeware charting and GPS program with limited flight planning capabilities, on my Android-based phone, and it's fine as a backup but I wanted more capability, so I bought a used iPad 2 off of eBay. Though a few years old, a fairly basic 16GB iPad 2 makes a fine EFB platform so long as you have the 3G model for internal GPS, or an external GPS receiver. The addition of a rugged Otterbox case and/or a RAM mount, space permitting, completes the hardware package.

The most popular EFB applications for the iPad are (in rough order of popularity among GA pilots): Foreflight, WingX Pro7, Garmin Pilot, and Jeppesen FlightDeck. I have experience with the first two, and use a version of FlightDeck for work, but am most familiar with and comfortable with WingX. It helps that they're giving away free subscriptions to CFIs (normally a subscription is $75/yr for VFR and $150/yr for full capability). A good friend and former student of mine whose Warrior I fly occasionally has been using WingX for years, and has always been very impressed with Hilton Software's frequent improvements and responsiveness to customer suggestions. I will say that I do think Foreflight seems a little more intuitive and better integrated, but WingX has a few neat features that Foreflight does not, and supports a greater range of external hardware options.

Here's what WingX, and all the other EFB programs, are at their very basic core: a way to display VFR sectional charts while superimposing your flight planned route and current position. For this, they're honestly not really any better than paper charts. I love paper charts, I still use them for local flights and Cub flying. They're easier to read than electronic charts, which need to be zoomed up to be readable, at which point it's easy to miss important information downrange. It's much easier to rotate a paper chart so that it is aligned with your course, while still being able to read labels upside down or sideways; with electronic charts you pretty much always have to switch back to "North Up" mode to read them (I just leave it there, myself). That said, sectionals are a pain to fold in a manner that's usable in the confines of a small cockpit, and planning a flight that goes between panels or between sectionals is a pain in the ass. Most of all, long flights end up requiring a lot of charts, which are expensive and take up space, and then they expire within six months (or if you're IFR, every 28 days). If you're going to do much cross country flying, a program like WingX will save you money over old-school charts.

Modern EFBs are, of course, much more than simple chart readers. They're fairly sophisticated flight planners and GPS navigators. On the above screenshot, notice that the top of the moving map prominently displays groundspeed, track, and GPS altitude (generally accurate within 100 feet, even using the iPad's internal GPS). Below that is cross-track error, next waypoint, distance, bearing, ETA, and ETE. In the map you can see several gray dots that show where I'll be in 5 and 15 minutes if I maintain my present track. Several overlays are available; I currently have 100LL prices displayed (you can see where my cheapskate priorities lie!) but at various points in the trip I chose to display flight rules (as in the last screenshot), ceilings, vis, or wind speed. More about weather overlays in a second. On the left-hand side I have both route and the Airport/Facility Directory (A/FD) displayed, but I usually only toggle that on when I need it.

You can plan flights from WingX's moving map route editor, or go over to the dedicated route planner. Here's one of the things I found really useful during my trip: if you've updated the weather database recently, you can use the altitude optimizer to find the best altitude considering winds aloft. It's still a little primitive (you can't store aircraft performance profiles, and it assumes a constant entered true airspeed regardless of pressure altitude and temperature) but it's a heck of a lot simpler than eyeballing winds aloft forecasts and interpolating between altitudes and forecast stations. I saved a significant amount of time and money on this trip by frequently going higher or lower than normal due to winds aloft, a major consideration in a 105-knot airplane.

Here's another great feature that is worth its weight in gold. As long as you've downloaded the NOTAMs recently, WingX displays temporary flight restrictions (TFRs) for the next few days and makes them painfully obvious by outlining them in red. Simply tapping on the TFR brings up all the pertinent info. Instead of UTC dates and times, it simply tells you whether the TFR is currently active, and if not, how long from now it will go active. In this case, there's a rocket launch from Cape Canaveral in 8 hours, 27 minutes. Incidentally, there's also a lot of restricted airspace around that area. WingX makes it super easy to look up special use airspace (just tap it!) but unfortunately doesn't tell you whether it is currently active. I was on VFR flight following and just asked ATC; otherwise I could have called a FSS (I assume I could have found it somewhere on my DUATS briefing but didn't look hard enough, I guess).

WingX's best feature, in my opinion, is how easy it makes it for the pilot to obtain weather information. Tap on any airport, tap display wx, and this panel pops up, showing the METARs, TAFs, etc for the airport and surrounding area. Here's the fairly obvious problem: you need a way to update the weather for it to be useful on a longer flight. ADS-B is fantastic for this and is free once you buy the receiver, but reception is spotty below 3000 feet. On the ground and at low altitudes, a 3G-enabled iPad will often have connectivity, allowing you to regularly download weather. I don't yet have an ADS-B box and 3G isn't enabled on my iPad, so I was reduced to running into the FBO at each fuel stop and trying to download updated weather; they didn't always have WiFi. The weather was significantly worse than forecast for a portion of my trip, and better than forecast for another portion, and I ended up getting updates the good old fashion way: listening to AWOSes and ATISes downrange and calling Flight Watch.

If you do have an ADS-B-In source, WingX does a really nice job of integrating datalink weather with the moving map display. Here's a NEXRAD radar overlay. Pilots have gotten themselves into trouble trying to use datalink radar in a tactical fashion, but it's great for making long-range strategic decisions as long as you recognize that you're looking at what the weather was doing somewhere between 5 and 30 minutes ago.

I haven't really even begun to scratch the surface of WingX's features, like the GPWS display (top left), or how it displays which runway you're taking off on and counts down feet remaining, or the terrain profile view (bottom center button), or ability to split screens with multiple displays, or how it automatically brings up the airport diagram (and shows your position on it) when you're below 45 knots on landing. There's just a lot of really neat capability built into the program and I'm still constantly discovering new things. I've heard the same said of Foreflight and the other EFB programs. My point is, there's a heck of a lot of capability available to the VFR pilot for $75 a year - that's essentially all one need spend on flight information, once you have the hardware. It's a rare good deal in GA. Also worth mentioning is that, as usual, the general aviation community is enjoying the benefits of modern technology well, well before it trickles down to the airline guys. We're finally getting EFBs several years after they came into widespread usage within GA, and the capability in our expensive, custom, FAA blessed EFB software is a small portion of that contained in off-the-shelf consumer software one can download and be using in 5 minutes.

One final note...the iPad is a very reliable piece of hardware, but it's not infallible. You need to have a backup. For flights within 200 miles of my home base, I have paper charts available. I also, as mentioned, have the free Avare program on my Android phone. I'll be switching over to an iPhone 6 soon (I have a MacBook and iPad already, so why not complete the transition to total Apple fanboy!), and I'll be able to use my existing WingX subscription on that for no additional cost.

Great Leap Forward

My airline recently rolled out our Electronic Flight Bag (EFB), a Microsoft Surface 2 tablet, and I've been using it for about a month now. The idea of a paperless cockpit has been around for a long time, and we're a bit late to the party; EFBs have been de rigueur at most major airlines for a couple of years. The most common platform, by far, is Apple's iPad; it's used by Alaska, American, United, FedEx, and UPS, plus many regional airlines, corporate flight departments, and thousands of private pilots. There's a wide variety of well-proven off-the-shelf EFB software available for the iPad, and reams of data on the system's reliability. The FAA is getting very experienced at approving iPad-based EFB installations.

For a variety of reasons, my airline chose not to go that route. First, we are a very Windows-based company - we Mac users are barely tolerated and most training & crew applications are not supported on our machines. Secondly, Microsoft is one of our largest corporate customers, and we're currently expanding in the Pacific Northwest. Frankly, we're not a company that's entirely known for its tech savvy. It probably shouldn't come as a surprise that our choice of a fairly uncommon tablet paired with an orphaned standalone operating system (Windows RT), combined with Jeppesen having to do a custom port of their FlightDeck Pro software, resulted in rather lengthy delays. Even now, we're merely in the test phase; until the EFB is fully proven, we're still carrying around ship sets of Jepp charts and operational manuals (individual subscriptions are thankfully a thing of the past - updating Jepps was always among the most hated of pilot chores).

That said, now that the EFB is finally here, I think Microsoft, Jeppesen, and my company absolutely knocked it out of the park. For what it was designed to do, both the hardware and software are beautiful, functional, and intuitive. Here's a good measure of just how easy it is to use: I received my tablet a few days before recurrent simulator training, did the hour-long training DVD, and was able to effectively use it for the first time during two intense days in the sim (one of which, the maneuvers validation, is a graded checkride). All the present features are contained in two programs: Jeppesen FlightDeck Pro is used to view IFR enroute charts and terminal/approach/airport plates, and Secure Content Locker provides access to all company and aircraft manuals and bulletins. The operating system incorporates a number of intuitive touchscreen gestures to make it easy to smoothly switch between programs or even split the screen between them. For example, the other day my Captain and I briefed a Category III ILS approach with the approach plate on one half of the screen and the company Cat III briefing card on the other half.



My favorite feature of the Surface 2 EFB, versus equivalent iPad-based systems, is the inclusion of a very nifty hinged cover that incorporates a backup battery and keyboard. It attaches to the Surface with a magnetic hinge / power connector. While connected, the backup battery recharges the main battery. I typically carry the Surface between flights with the cover connected and closed, take it out during the preflight and input the flight plan and other information with the keyboard, and then disconnect the cover/keyboard and stow the Surface in its RAM mount (which is suction-cupped to the side window). You can leave the backup battery / keyboard attached if needed, but I've found that the mount holds the Surface alone much more securely.



 

Besides the company's stated reasons for going to an EFB system (to save fuel and waste by eliminating the paper charts, the weight of which is considerable), I believe its use also increases safety. There's a lot less heads-down time spent digging through Jepp binders for charts, especially in response to last-minute runway, procedure, and route changes. Finding and highlighting critical information is far easier than with paper charts & manuals, particularly in low-light conditions. The mounts allow for easy EFB removal for briefings; I've found that physically taking the EFB in my hands and turning towards the other pilot is far better for facilitating crew communication than facing the window as we talk. I'm also finding that having the EFB makes me far readier to dig into the manuals when I'm not quite sure about something or haven't done a particular procedure in a while; it's a lot more tempting to wing it when the definitive answers are hidden deep within one of about seven heavy paper manuals (good luck guessing which one!). Finally, casual studying for upcoming training is a lot more palatable on the Surface; I made heavy use of it for this purpose in the days before my recurrent events.



That said, there are some improvements I hope to see over time. Even though all the manuals are searchable, you still have to know which manual to search. The content locker includes a master index that tells you where various references are located but it's not clickable; it would be nice if each subject included hyperlinks to the relevant sections of each manual. We also have a paper "Fast Access Tab" that contains selections of most commonly-used reference pages from various manuals, but it's not on the EFB yet. The internal GPS is not enabled, so some nice Flight Deck Pro capabilities like geosynchronous charts & airport diagrams are not available. We are also prohibited from connecting to airborne WiFi, though it could provide invaluable updated weather, radar overlays, and turbulence plots. Both of these issues are primarily due to FAA restrictions. Hopefully once we have full approval for the EFB, we'll be able to make some headway in getting the feds to let us use its full potential.



Really, my only serious complaint is the Windows RT operating system. It's not really a bad OS, it's just completely orphaned. There are hardly any third-party apps available, and no aviation apps at all other than our custom, IFR-only copy of Flight Deck Pro. I had been hoping to use the Surface in the Pacer, but it turned out to be useless for VFR flight. I ended up buying an iPad 2 off of eBay and running WingX Pro7, which I'll write about in another post soon. Thus, we tripled the number of tablet computers in our household nearly overnight. That said, while my airline allows us to use our Surfaces for personal use (on the ground only), it was never a focus of the program. For strictly company use in the flight deck, I have very few complaints, and became an EFB addict within days of its introduction.

The Busted Pilots of Instagram

By now I'm sure many of you have seen "The Pilots of Instagram" piece that's been going around the interwebs. I'm choosing not to post a link because the author printed the names and airlines of the pilots involved, even in cases where it's pretty clear that safety was not compromised and not even certain that regulations were violated. Even if the pilots did mess up, viral press like this has the potential to ruin careers where more measured discipline might be more appropriate. You can find the article easily enough if you want to.

That said, the piece was surprisingly accurate and nuanced for a general news source (if that's what you call it; I'd never heard of Quartz before this). The author had a solid grasp on the particulars of the new FAR 121.542 regulation and how it interfaces with the more established sterile cockpit rule. I dare say the author has much better knowledge of the legalities of in-flight photo-taking than most airline pilots do. I wrote about the new regulations back in June, when I learned about them several months after they took effect. Since then most airline pilots to whom I've mentioned the new 121.542 were either unaware it existed or had an inaccurate idea of its provisions (erroneously thinking that only laptops were banned, that phones are ok in airplane mode, etc). Most airlines, it seems, did little to educate their pilots about the new law.

In some cases, such as my airline, many personal electronic devices were already prohibited by the Flight Operations Manual (FOM). Though it contains airline policy, the FOM is approved by the FAA and technically has the full force of the FARs (and even supersedes them, where there is conflicting guidance). Despite this, it is my experience that pilots tend to be less heedful of FOM rules than the FARs, and in many cases the FOM has considerable grey areas open to interpretation, whereas the FAA's stance on most major regs is well known. Here's a good example. In my June post, I wrote that my airline's FOM already prohibited any camera with electronic functions, which would rule out nearly every modern example. Later, a check airman pointed out that my interpretation hinged on the meaning of a single word, and that based on the use of that word elsewhere in the FOM and the FARs, this provision would not appear to prohibit cameras that were otherwise permitted by FAR 121.542 (that is, cameras with no wireless capability). So my new understanding is that in a non-sterile phase of flight, I can take a photo with my Nikon D5000 SLR, as it has no capability that would render it a "personal wireless communications device." I could then, after the flight is over, insert the SD card into my laptop and upload the photo to Instagram, or Facebook, or use it for one of my Flying articles, all without being in technical violation of the regulation.

There's another loophole mentioned in my previous piece that very well may have been at play with some of the photos and videos referenced in this article. The FAA specifically said in the final ruling that 121.542 does not apply to jumpseaters. When I see a photo or a video that appears to be taken from near aircraft centerline rather than the left or right side of the cockpit, I tend to suspect it was taken by a jumpseater. For that matter, what of a first-generation GoPro with no wireless capability that is set up on a suction mount in non-sterile flight and then allowed to run through landing and all the way to the gate? Depending on the provisions of that airline's FOM, I can see one arguing that this meets the letter of the regs. In most cases, it's very difficult to tell just from the photo or video whether it was taken legally. Even in seemingly egregious case, such as a photo on short final, it can be difficult to tell whether safety was compromised. What if it was a still from a video shot by the aforementioned mounted camera? If mounted out of the way, I find it hard to accept that any lives put in danger.


Here's the thing though. It's one thing to take a photo or video in the privacy of your own cockpit under circumstances that are arguably safe and legal. It is another thing to put that photo or footage, with identifying information, on a website that allows anyone to view it (or in the case of Instagram, encourages maximizing public views). I myself have had to become a lot more careful about this over the years. I once took a picture at PHL while parked on a taxiway with engines shut down on an extended ground hold, and later posted it to this blog. The FOM of the airline I was with at the time made clear this was a non-sterile period, and allowed us to open the cockpit door under these circumstances. I was immediately lambasted by a commenter for violating sterile cockpit, and why not? I certainly couldn't prove that we weren't in a sterile phase of ground operations. Likewise, the outed pilots of Instagram that posted landing footage taken from aircraft centerline can't prove that a jumpseater was holding that camera. When it comes to the court of public opinion, the concept of innocent until proven guilty definitely does not apply; nor does it hold much weight when facing company discipline.

Honestly, I really dislike that my job has come to this, that recording the neat things that I do and see on a daily basis and sharing them with my friends would put my livelihood at risk. It is what it is; going against the grain and posting this stuff online is almost inevitably going to end up with someone trying to destroy you. I'll certainly continue to share inflight pics and vids with you, my friends...but they're generally going to be taken from a single-engine airplane flying under FAR 91. For the past few years that's been my flying club Cub. As of today, however, you're going to start seeing another pretty yellow airplane cropping up in my multimedia offerings. More on that in my next post!

Kick It Out?

The following video has been making the rounds on the interwebs, showing a landing on runway 27L at Chicago O'Hare on a windy day last week:

I initially thought the plane was an AA 737, but closer inspection shows it to be a JungleBus operated for AA by Republic Airways. I have about 5000 hours in the airplane and have made my share of crosswind landings up to and including the published demonstrated crosswind limit of 38 knots (one of which was on 27L at ORD, actually). At NewCo this was considered a hard limit inclusive of gusts, and our FAA principal inspector later lowered our limit to 28 knots steady with gusts to 38. The airplane handled crosswinds very well, with more than enough rudder authority even at 38 knots crosswind component, and enough nacelle and wingtip clearance to use proper wing-low crosswind technique. In big wind, you'd start to kick out the crab and establish the aileron input just before beginning the flare, at about 50 feet.

The technique shown in the video has been criticized by some pilots, and it's definitely not ideal (especially considering the crosswind component was only 15-20 knots), but I don't think the landing was nearly as hairy as the video shows. This was shot from a long ways off using a very high-zoom lens, which greatly exaggerates angular differences (note that 27L looks about 4000' long and 400' wide!). I would guess they landed with somewhere around 5-10 degrees of crab - again, not ideal, but likely within design limits for JungleBus' robust landing gear. Looking at the video, it appears that the pilot attempted to kick out the crab late in the landing flare and didn't put in a corresponding aileron input, which rolled the plane a bit left, where the wind caught the upwind wing, so they touched down on the downwind gear while still crabbed.

I think most airlines would prefer the occasional sideloaded landing to a wingtip or nacelle strike, and for this reason many actually teach a wings-level crosswind technique. The idea is to wait until late in the flare and then kick out as much crab as possible just before touchdown; if you time it right, the plane will be aligned with centerline but on the ground before any side drift develops. You still use some upwind aileron, but only enough to hold wings level. This is a commonly taught technique on the 747 and 737 due to low nacelle clearance, on Airbus products due to the flight control software making cross-controlling difficult, and on the CRJ-200 and JungleBus' little brother JungleJet due to low wingtip clearance. I do not know whether Republic teaches the "kick it out" method on the JungleBus or the JungleJets operated by sister company Chautauqua.

In the JungleBus you have 16 degrees of bank before striking a wingtip or a nacelle. The former requires an unusually high pitch and the latter a nose-low attitude. When landing in 38 knots of crosswind, the most bank I ever saw was about 6-7 degrees. You're typically using Flaps 5 with a lot of wind additive, so you're looking at approach speeds of 140-160 knots depending on weight. There's no reason to use the "kick it out" method; the plane sideslips and lands beautifully on the upwind main wheel with perhaps 3/4 rudder deflection and 1/3 aileron deflection on touchdown, and increasing the aileron deflection throughout the landing roll greatly aids in keeping the plane tracking down centerline. It's not very different to how I land the Cub.

The Mad Dog absolutely hates being landed with any crab at all; doing so nearly always results in a nasty bounce and dramatic gyrations as the tires skip across the runway. For this reason my airline teaches a very similar wing-low technique to the one I used in JungleBus, with cross-control inputs made somewhat lower but still fairly early in the landing flare. There is less wingtip clearance on the Mad Dog than JungleBus, and the ailerons are far less effective (they're manually controlled via cables to servo tabs); the control wheel is close to full deflection on touchdown at the crosswind limit of 30 knots. I know this because a few days before the above video, I landed in Atlanta with winds 310 at 38 knots (twice in one day, actually).

It's easy to pile on the pilots in the video above, but I can say that over the course of thousands of landings I've made some real doozies and was just fortunate that no cameras were rolling. The same goes for any professional pilot flying. The pilot may have well been planning on using a wing-low technique but got a last minute sinker and he was just trying to save it from a hard touchdown. The last few seconds before landing get really busy when the winds are howling, and not just because of the crosswind - it's because your airspeed is often bouncing around +/- 10 knots, and you're making fairly dramatic pitch & power changes in response to floaters and sinkers. At the end of the day, this guy landed on centerline, in the touchdown zone, at what looked like a fairly low sink rate, and the plane appeared to handle the sideload fairly well. This was one of the first windy days since last spring, everyone's knocking the rust off, and no doubt we'll all refine our technique considerably as winter approaches.

The Hazards of Going On Autopilot

An interesting New Yorker article that mirrors a lot of what I've found to be true of cockpit automation over the years:


The Hazards Of Going On Autopilot - Maria Konnikova

QRH

Being a morning person is a tremendously helpful attribute in an airline pilot, and I'm just not. Ever since adolescence, I've been a pretty serious night owl, with my peak hours typically occurring between 8pm and midnight. This worked well when I was freight-dogging, and may yet prove fortuitous to flying red-eye transcons and ocean crossings. In my present incarnation as a regional airline pilot, though, it's a bit of a handicap. We have a lot of early morning report times, especially in the ultra-efficient trips I like to bid, and I have to work to adjust my body clock accordingly. I can usually function well on six hours of sleep, assuming I started the trip without a sleep deficit, sprinkling in short naps as needed.

Even this means that those really painful 3am wake-up calls for a 4am showtime require getting to sleep by 9pm, which is quite early for me.  Last week I had one of those in Bismark, North Dakota, for a 5am flight to Minneapolis followed by an east coast turn. I was in bed by 9pm, and tossed and turned for hours on end before finally falling asleep, only to be jolted awake by my alarm clock seemingly only minutes later. A hot shower did little to clear the fog. I fought the nods during the 15-minute van ride to the airport. I chugged two cups of coffee before departure time. By the time we pushed back, I was wide awake and ready to assume my Captainly duties of groping around a dark, uncontrolled field under construction and then taking off into inky skies and darting around a large line of storms - but the fatigue was still palpable, a slow steady hiss in the back of my head that grew louder as the flight went on. By the time we were descending into Minneapolis, I was contemplating the possibility of a fatigue call to crew scheduling. They wouldn't like that this early.

 Minneapolis was appropriately quiet at 6am and approach control almost immediately cleared us to 4000 feet; I hustled down, anticipating a short approach. As we leveled, I spun the speed selector back to 200 knots, and at an appropriate speed commanded "Flaps 1." The FO reached for the flap handle and slid it back into the first detente. Normally this results in a 10-second sequence of the slats moving 15 degrees down, followed by 5 degrees of flaps, during which the airplane pitches down appreciably as the lift devices enable a lower angle of attack. Instead we were immediately rewarded with a loud "ding!," flashing yellow master caution lights, and four messages displayed on the EICAS:

SLAT FAIL

SPOILER FAULT

AOA LIMIT FAIL

SHAKER ANTICIPATED

As I reached to press the caution switchlight to cancel the alarm, the first thought that sprung into my head was "why now!?" Readers who have flown the CRJ series will laugh at this, but I've never had to do a real-life zero-flap landing in the JungleBus. I've had a few friends who've done it, and they said it wasn't too bad, but things happen pretty quickly and you touch down uncomfortably close to the JungleBus' 195 knot maximum tire speed. It didn't sound like something I really cared to do with my brain fogged in from lack of sleep and the still-early hour. This indulgence lasted for maybe two seconds before a deeply-seated imperative forced its way up through my sleep-clouded consciousness and crowded everything else out: "QRH!"

"I have the airplane and the radios. Slat Fail QRH, please." The FO already had the spiral-bound, plastic-tabbed rectangular booklet that is the JungleBus' Quick Reference Handbook out and was thumbing to the appropriate page. The Slat Fail checklist seemed like the natural place to start, as the failure happened while we were deploying slats and the other messages were all related to them. I spun the airspeed back up a few knots to give us more margin from the now-undepicted stall speed. While the FO began reading the checklist, I told Minneapolis approach that we had a malfunction we needed to diagnose and requested an extended downwind. No problem, the controller said, and asked if we were declaring an emergency. "Not at this time, but we'll keep you posted." A zero-flap landing would likely merit the precaution of rolling the trucks. 

It turned out to be unnecessary. The very first step in the QRH was to return the slat/flap handle to its last position - UP - and see if the messages cleared. They did. The second step was to extend the slats again and see if the messages returned. The slats and flaps deployed normally this time. "Proceed with normal operations." QRH complete. We thanked Minneapolis Approach for their assistance, and they turned us onto a 25 mile final for an easy visual to 30R. 

So it turned out to be a complete nonevent, one of those things that happens pretty routinely when flying an electronic airplane like the JungleBus, a quick control-alt-delete fix-it. It's doubtful any of our passengers even noticed the extended downwind. It was part of the "almost nothing worth blogging about" I mentioned in my last post. It didn't even interrupt our trip, for although I wrote up the malfunction and it almost certainly required computer replacement as it was the second occurrence in four days, we were scheduled to swap to another airplane anyways. The primary, rather agreeable result of the incident was to provide just enough of a diversion to jolt me into full useful consciousness. I didn't feel the least bit tired afterwards, and flew a pleasant turn to Hartford and back to finish the trip. 

But that's really the point of the procedural, aircraft, and training safety systems we have in place. They turn most potential events into non-events, because there's seldom any doubt about what to do. Even a fatigue-addled brain automatically knows through repetition to fly the airplane, call for the QRH, and coordinate with ATC while the non-flying pilot runs the checklist. Had the slats not healed themselves and we actually had to perform a zero-flap landing, even this would have been relatively easy because the guidance on how to do it is quite explicit, and I've done it a number of times in the simulator. Over the years, I've occasionally decried the lack of emphasis on stick and rudder skills and common sense in pilot training, but the flip coin to that is that turning airline pilots into checklist-reading automatons has itself undoubtedly done a great deal for safety.

Delayed

When I think about all the complexities of an airline, all the moving parts that need to work together for a flight to get out, and how "lean" most operations are these days, I'm frankly amazed that we ever run on time. Yet, this is the case far more often than not. The U.S. Department of Transportation has collected data on airline performance since 1995, and most years at least 75% of airline flights operated on-time (defined as arrival within 14 minutes of scheduled time). So far this year we're at nearly 84%. Typically between 1% and 3% of flights are cancelled, and around 1 in 500 are diverted enroute.

NewCo turns in frequent on-time performance of 90% or more, but it's not necessarily due to superior management or pilots (as much as I'd like to claim the latter). It's mostly a function of where we fly. I've landed the JungleBus at 83 airports in 40 states and five Canadian provinces, which is amazing for a small airline of 42 airplanes (and there are a dozen additional destinations I've never landed at). This is because WidgetCo is a bit schizophrenic about how to use us, as they are with all ten of their regional partners. Right now we're doing a lot of west coast flying out of Salt Lake City, which is very good for on-time performance. Last year, though, we did a lot of flying up and down the east coast out of Washington-National Airport. The year before that, we did a ton of flying out of New York's LaGuardia Airport, to the extent that we nearly opened a crew base there. Our on-time rating took a huge hit then.

The northeast airports - particularly PHL, EWR, LGA, JFK, and BOS - have the most air traffic congestion, along with mega-hubs ORD and ATL. This has such a big impact on airline operations that when WidgetCo wanted to rid themselves of a troublesome long-term contract with Mesa Airlines, they simply moved their airplanes to JFK, waited for the inevitable, and then terminated the contract for poor performance. During JFKs evening peak, a two-hour taxi is fairly common - and that's without weather. In the summer, a single air-mass thunderstorm 100 miles west can shut down most departures. In the winter, it doesn't take much snow to bring ground traffic to a grinding halt. The DOT's three-hour rule further complicates things. Even on decent weather days, it's pretty common to have a EDCT (Expect Departure Clearance Time) to the northeast airports.

Most places outside the northeast, though, delays are usually weather-related, and tend to vary seasonally. Minneapolis, Chicago, and Detroit suffer in the winter. Thunderstorms regularly shut down Dallas and Atlanta in the spring and summer. Los Angeles hums right along in all seasons.

Behind weather and air traffic control, unplanned maintenance is a common cause of delays. Most of the time, airplanes are scheduled for maximum utilization with few breaks, so any unplanned maintenance results in a rolling delay for the rest of the day unless the airline has a spare airframe handy somewhere along the way. For this reason, many minor items can be deferred for later repair through the use of a Minimum Equipment List (MEL). When I find that something has broken, the first thing I reach for is the MEL book, followed shortly thereafter by the aircraft logbook and my phone to call Maintenance Control. We discuss whether the discrepancy can be deferred, whether it should be deferred, and if not, what our plan of action is. I try to get an estimate of how long it'll take mechanics to arrive at the airplane and how long it will then take them to either fix the discrepancy or at least arrive at a diagnosis. If passengers on board, I try to give them an update on our status every fifteen minutes or so. If we haven't started boarding, I pass along information to the gate agent.

With experience, one develops a sense of which maintenance problems will be resolved quickly and which ones will have you sitting a while, and you can act accordingly. With a long anticipated delay, both passengers and cabin crew will be happier with the passengers off the airplane. If at a hub, I'll start bugging dispatch about getting a different airplane in these cases. If I think it'll be resolved quickly, I'll start or continue boarding and have everything ready to go on my end as soon as we get the logbook back. It's important to communicate with the ground crew, as they otherwise often get left out of the loop and will wander off to other airplanes; you can find yourself finally ready to go but with no personnel to load the last bags or push back the aircraft. Over time, I've learned to overestimate maintenance delays when talking to passengers, as they have a way of dragging out long than expected; best to under-promise and over-deliver.

In my experience, the most common source of delays is simply receiving the airplane late from another crew at the start of your day. I've had days where this has occurred three times, every time I had a plane swap. It's frustrating, especially during an already-long day when delays cut into already-short rest time.

Once delayed, your goal is to get back on-time or as close to it as possible, although always within the bounds of safety. It is possible to get so fixated with going fast that you make mistakes. There are usually some easy, common-sense steps, though. You can request a more convenient runway from ATC. You can request more direct routing from center. You can change your altitude based on aircraft performance and winds aloft, and you can fly at a faster cruise mach number. This may result in worse efficiency, but sometimes it's worth it to get the airplane back on time - particularly early in the day, when making up fifteen minutes makes all subsequent flights that day fifteen minutes closer to on-time. On long flights that tend to be over-blocked, it's possible to make up 30 to 45 minutes in one flight. That said, it's important is to make sure you don't short yourself on fuel you might need later. I'm far more likely to cruise at Mach .81 and FL300 going to Billings on a clear day than I am going to Newark with forecast thunderstorms. You need to coordinate with your dispatcher, and take on extra fuel if necessary.

The other time to make up delays is on subsequent ground turns. The key here is communicating with ground personnel. They'll know you're coming in late, but expressing the need for a quick turn and the crew's willingness to pitch in helps put them in high gear. Small things like starting the APU early to shut the engines down quickly, helping clean the cabin, and running gate-check bags out to the rampers can help shave off minutes.

One thing I do find a bit ludicrous is the obsession many airlines, most gate agents, and some pilots have with "On-Time Zero" or "D-0," basically making sure the airplane isn't even one minute late in departing. Some people go to extraordinary lengths to get the door closed and the parking brake dropped by departure time, even if there's still a lot that needs to be done and the airplane can't actually move for another five or ten minutes. Mind you, all that's at stake is the airline's own internal records. So far as the DOT is concerned, the airplane is on-time until it's fifteen minutes late. The gate agent, however, is often called to account by their supervisors if the plane is even one minute late. This was particularly bad at Northwest; Widget is a bit less extreme about it, although some gate agents still get really wrapped around the axle about it. My own philosophy is that I'll do my job efficiently and will do what I can to help get the flight out on time, but won't cut corners just for the sake of some meaningless internal record that has absolutely no effect on whether we actually get to our destination on-time or not. I've been called by the chief pilots office over very minor delays in the past, and that's always the answer I've given them. I've never been in trouble over it.

As you can see, most delays are out of the crew's control, and we typically do a lot to help mitigate them. There is one exception to this rule: a withdrawal of enthusiasm, or WOE. It usually occurs during contentious contract negotiations. The idea is that if the company is stonewalling or applying undue pressure to the pilot group, the pilots do their job as defined in the contract, and nothing more. You don't have to try to deliberately delay the airline, that takes care of itself. You simply fly the same way whether the plane is delayed or not. Because airlines have become so used to pilots going above and beyond and have built their schedules accordingly, the operation falls apart when the pilots don't make the extra effort. It can be very effective; as recently as 2007 a WOE campaign resulted in Northwest deleting some of the most onerous provisions of their pilots' bankruptcy contract. Whether it's legal is another matter entirely, as a number of judges have ruled that even a withdrawal of enthusiasm constitutes an illegal work action under the Railway Labor Act. This interpretation, however, hinges on the WOE being coordinated. It's apparently hard for management and their accomplices in the legal profession to imagine that pilots who are being told how little they are worth to their companies might be a bit less than willing to go the extra mile, on their own and without the urging of their union.

I, Robot