24 August 2011

..that you believed in superstition

Blog time!

Why?

Good question, I'll tell you why.

I have 3 hours to kill at London City is why. I could've gone home, sure, I could have adopted a penguin. My point is, I didn't. I decided to kill time here (kill time, that is - not the penguin. Penguins are awesome).

Today and the next two days work a little like this:

1. Get up Way Too Early
2. Operate some Frankfurt/Zurich sectors
3. Wait
4 PROFIT! Position out to Frankfurt to nightstop.

Easy enough? Yeah, you'd think that, because it doesn't look to bad. Actually, you're right, it's a pretty easy tour. All I have to do is keep myself from spending monies on hotel food - or 'going out and eating' food. This shaln't be difficult because at the moment I have no money. I shall be a model of fiscal responsibility thanks to my rather appalling fiscal situation. I feel somewhat like the UK economy, in this respect.

Today's big gotcha was a problem with the aircraft I took to Zurich this morning - the autobrake had failed at some point during the night and so we were presented with the MEL sat on the centre console. If you learn one thing about airline flying, it's that opening up a flight deck to see the MEL open at a relevant page on the centre console is a big sign that your day just got more complicated in some way.

MEL - Minimum Equipment List.
A book that, counter-intuitively, lists everything that you can go without. It lists systems, items, failures etc that are acceptable to dispatch with and the special procedures you need to execute/complete to make the flight safe.
As a rule, if something is missing or broken and it's not in the MEL, you cannot go (it's not quite this simple - there's another list called the CDL and also the engineers can 'defer' some defects and you can still go). All sorts of things are in the MEL - for example you can fly without a winglet (vertical bit on the end of the wing) - so long as there's no passengers and you're flying back to a maintenance base, and several other things.

Stuff I've had in the past included having a engine bleed out (only half as much air conditioning) - meaning we couldn't fly above FL310 (31,000ft), and the Right-hand side MFD (Multi-Function Display - go go pointless acronyms!) - which is basically my screen with a map on it - meaning that any low-visability stuff had to be flown from the captain's side.

Today it was Autobrake. Dead easy. Brake Manually. I kid you not.

Other than that, an uneventful day. I shall now go back to aimlessly wandering around the internet in search of funnies.

tl;dr: Mike bored.


21 August 2011

...Before you wreckity-wreck yourself

Morning all.

This weekend I'm down at the Simulator in Gatwick. Scary thought, I've been in CityFlyer long enough to warrant my first 6-monthly check. I know that the check is on the early end of the window they have to get my check done and so it's not quite been six months. Regardless, I've really been flying long enough to have my first of many recurrent checks.

There are two kinds of recurrent checks - the Line Operating Proficency Check (LPC) and the Operator's Proficiency Check (OPC). The difference is fairly marked between the two:

The LPC is the full whack and covers everything you need to do to revalidate the Instrument Rating on your licence. This means it includes manually-flown single-engine approaches and go-arounds, EFATO (Engine Failure at TakeOff) and a couple of other bits aside - as well as covering some 'Three-yearly' items - like Rapid Descent drills, for example - things that need to be ticked off at least one every three years. At the end of the LPC paperwork gets sent off the the CAA and your licence gets signed off for another year of blasting around the continent/world in a fancy jet.

The OPC is a less intense affair, it's a check by the operator (in this case, BA CityFlyer) that you can still operate to company SOP's (Standard Operating Procedures). It involves an almost identical profile to the LPC with the exception that you can handle any situation as you would in real life - so the autopilot is always available and you can use all the wonderful gadgets and gizmos that the aircraft has to make your life easier. That said, it's still hard work and you still have to cope with a failure at takeoff or a rejected takeofff (and for added difficulty, we do these out of London City).


So, yesterday a Captain and I hopped in a hire car at City and drove down to Gatwick to undergo the above battery. His LPC, my OPC. Firstly, I have a damm fine captain for these details and so the nerves weren't such a problem as they might have been. We turn up at the Simulator building about 90 minutes ahead of time, giving us plenty of time to brief and discuss the details.

One thing I will say now is that if I power up the aircraft and the batteries are reading 21.2v I -will- go and get the manual and double-check the figures, but the minimum voltage is 22v, and if it's still above 21v you can recharge from any AC source (below 21v it's an engineering thing). I did not know this when asked. Great start there, Mike.

So, we were given a couple of 'standard' sectors to plan and associated weather to discuss and then it's off into the simulator box.

The sim is a very accurate mock-up of the flight deck of a E190, so it's very easy to slip into the roleplay. Started the engines, we were given a hot-start on #1 (temperatures sky-rocket and you have to abort the start) which we handled well enough then we were off.

Now, at this point I'd like to stress that on a check you are always, always, going to get either a rejected take-off or an engine failure. ALWAYS.

Why then, is it always such a damm surprise? We simulated flying through a flock of birds, with engine #2 ingesting a couple and failing. Fine. The E-Jet is a real, real pig on one engine and this wasn't helped by the fact that I mis-identified the swing and used the wrong rudder to counteract the failed engine.

We didn't crash.

We did have a bit of a rollercoaster ride with speed too low and a bank-angle warning just for kicks. As a result we missed the right turn on the departure and got a terrain warning because of Canary Wharf. Good start, guys, good start. The rest of the flight involved tidying up the aircraft, completing all the emergency drills and diverting to Birmingham. Where the weather was crap resulting in a go-around and subisquent divert to Manchester. Where the Radar and ILS were down so it was a procedural approach to a good-old non-precision (VOR) approach. All the time managing a failed engine and the associated fuel balance problems.

The second sector was much the same, only leaving from Southampton, engine fire on takeoff, try to return, weather terrible, divert to Gatwick, go-around and then back to Southamption for the non-precision VOR approach.

Word of warning, guys. That aproach is NOT in the FMS. I know there are some approaches in there that look like they're it, but they're not. Check very, very carefully the tracks outbound and distances because the VOR approach you'll be asked to fly isn't in the box.

Two options, build it using the radial/distance cues on the plate and then get the automatics to fly it. Actually, don't do this as this falls under 'constructing an Approach' which is a big faux pas in the FMS world. Second (and only really) is to fly it old-school, tracking the VOR needles to a set distance and then making your turn inbound. It sounds like more effort, but actually tracking outbound in a jet like the Embraer is a doddle, so I'd recommend that approach.

If you hadn't already guessed, we convinced ourselves that the approach we found in the box was the approach on the plate and hence in a calm, considered and carefully planned manner we flew completely the wrong track outbound and overshot our inbound track by miles, delaying our descent and making the whole thing just look and feel messy. So much so that after the detail we went back and did it properly.

Anyway, landed. Then we have to go back and quickly look that the things we needed to re-try. So it was back to City to perfect the EFATO (had two goes, both now nicely within limits), then off to Southamption to complete that annoying VOR approach properly.

Check Complete.

A debrief follows with learning points that I partly mention above, but since there's two of us on test at all times I can't really go into all the details here. Nothing terribly major though, and we're all set for the LPC today. The pressure's slightly off me as this is his check but, as ever, the whole exercise is multi-crew so I've still got to perform.


Right, that's enough on here from me. I'm off for a swim before hitting the books. Simulator fun starts at 2pm, Wish me luck!


tl:dr: I still has job!

10 August 2011

It would never have happened to Smeaton...

Why the riots?

It's a difficult question, and the popular stance seems to be that there's no reason beyond greed; these kids are out to take advantage of the lawlessness, and loot some free stuff. I'm not so sure it's that simple. Nothing can excuse the behaviour we've seen in London and other cities these last few nights but it's highlighting a problem we've been facing for years now. The disenfranchised youth.

We can see it on programs like Jamie Oliver's Dream School, endless episodes of Police Interceptors or any number of documentaries. Britain has a serious problem with a disenchanted, disrespectful and over-entitled youth. How many times have we heard the mantra 'but you don't respect us' in defence of misbehaviour? The assumption from the perpetrators is that they have the right to what they want and their view of things has to be taken at least as seriously as anything opposing it.

I seriously suspect that the seeds of this recent situation go back decades. As a society we've been taught that you're not barred from anything - you can become a billionaire from nothing with just a good idea and the right way of getting it out there. This aspirational element to western, capitalist, economics is central. Yet we increasingly shy away from the truth behind this - not every idea can make it. The vast, vast, majority of attempts fail. Entrepreneurial spirit isn't about having a good idea and pursuing it - it's about having lots of good ideas and keeping to have and chase them until one or two of them make money. We're given this rosy image of everyone coming up with these great ideas and making millions, when, in reality someone's still got to empty the bins and serve the food that these great ideas rely on.

It's not always profitable to be honest about the things you're selling...
And it's not just economic systems we're being sold - it's aspiration. I refer you to Pop Idol, X-Factor, the Glee Project, So You Think You Can Dance, and yes, Dragon's Den. Popular culture is full of the message that we can all become pop-stars and successful business people. It's not surprising - people like to imagine themselves as successful, famous, important. It's nothing new, but the sheer exposure we have to the myth of everyone having everything they want is frightening.

Furthermore, as a nation we have pride in our many socialist ideals - medical care free at the point of delivery, the welfare state, free schooling etc. We're very good at the rhetoric that whilst we should push for innovation and progress, we shouldn't leave anyone behind. This is perfectly reasonable - it might get us into a few sticky spots when it comes to financing said ideals, but this re-investment into society is central to holding an otherwise greed-driven economy together. We've seen the advent of 'Political Correctness' come in as a much-needed, though often-derided measure to become a more inclusive society. In schools across the country the term 'failure' has been outlawed - guidelines now state that a pupil (sorry, colleague in learning) doesn't fail - they 'defer success'. The life lesson of working really, really hard and still not getting what you want is left to some other entity to teach. This mightn't be altogether a 'bad' thing - the ideas and sentiments behind it all are noble enough - but the implementation is such that we get taught from a very young age that we don't fail, that we don't get things wrong, that the school is to blame if we get bored in classrooms and misbehave. The burden is on the system to engage with us, and not us with the system.

So, appeased out of any perceived failings and fed aspirations by the spadeful. Can you see where this is going?

Next, we have the great sledgehammer of reality bearing down on our rose-tinted glasses. Believe it or not, the it's difficult to be successful, and those that are have to fail a lot along the way. It's difficult to get what you want, because others all want it too.We can't all be pop-singers, just as much as we can't all be bin-men or all work in McDonalds. We've fed these kids the ideal that they're special and unique and they deserve. We then put them in a world where it's not perfect - people loose their jobs, people don't earn enough, people fail.

Are we so surprised that they're angry?

Maybe they don't see it like this, maybe it's not this at all - but when one sees a girl on TV defending the looting with the words 'but you don't respect us, so why should we respect you?', one may just consider the possibility that these kids are over-entitled, yet under-privileged and eventually this tips over into simply taking what they want.


tl;dr: If we hadn't told these kids that they could have anything they wanted, they'd probably not have gone and just taken it...




Riots

Burnt Police Astra by Mikebert4
Burnt Police Astra, a photo by Mikebert4 on Flickr.

More on this later.

I'm ok, Woolwich is not.