Minting a New Captain

Minting a New Captain (Oh Captain, My Captain!)*(see note at bottom)

So here is a little bit on what the process is while I am down here, and kind of a general overview of the making of a new Captain.

Because of my experience level at AE, I am eligible for the Qualified Upgrade Program. What this means is that I have a lot of time in the aircraft I will be Captain in, so instead of running me through the entire 4 weeks of ground school (3 weeks of systems and 1 week of CSI, Duties, etc,) plus 2 weeks of simulator (4 hours sessions a day,) I’ll be doing just 1 week of systems, CSI, Duties, allll put together, taking an FAA Oral on everything that I need to know, and then going right into the sim sessions.

CSI, btw, means “Cockpit Systems Integration.” So we not only go over systems, but we spend some time on how everything functions together, how we actually handle the cockpit, getting the “flows” down correctly, that sort of thing. “Integration,” after all.

So our Quickie course went rocketing through the entire deal. Day 1 was DNR, or Duties and Responsibilities. Not to beat on it, but the basics comes down to this: You are now the Captain, and you are to blame for anything going wrong, including things you have no control over. It was an 8 hour session on How we can get “wrapped around the axels.” FAA Violations, enforcement, Company discipline procedures, advisory letters, suspensions… well, it was interesting. At the end of the class, you’re dominant thought is “Why the hell does anybody do this anyways?”

We dove straight into systems after a day off, and began our speedy tour of the systems. Normally, in the “long term” courses, there are 4 weeks of system info. This includes Safety, Security, CRM, blah blah blah… All of this gets crammed into 5 days. Day 5 also includes a written test, etc. It goes pretty fast, but let’s face it; IF you don’t got it by now, you don’t got it. (especially after 9 years of flying the airplane.)

So instead of 2 days, we spent a total of 4 hours on the electric systems, that’ll give you an idea of the time crunch. We all know (my class of 6) the airplane well, so we were able to zip right along, going over the highlights of all the systems.

Then we had a little time off, and then it was “Oral Time.”

The FAA Type Oral that we have is 3 hours long. The start of it is taken up by paperwork. There is a logbook review to see if you are actually legal and meet the total requirements for the Airline Transport Pilot License, Called the “ATP,” it is required for every Captain operating and aircraft for the “Skeds,” scheduled airline service. I took the written in 2000, and they are only ‘valid’ for 2 years, but as long as you are employed by a “Part 121” carrier (airline,) your written does not expire. The written is a bear… hundreds of questions, performance on the 737, 727, DC-9, navigation, rules and regs… takes a long time to study for properly.

Once we are past the paperwork part, then we get into the nitty-gritty. I suppose an Oral can be broken into 5 parts, some of which are put together. Limitations, Memory Items, Systems, Rules and Regs, and Performance.

Limitations. You gotta know these cold. These are the operating limits of the aircraft and all of it’s systems. Highest altitude for operations, lowest temps, highest temps, speeds, engine parameters, everything, you have to know by memory… 100%.

Memory Items. This is another 100%-er. Thankfully, there are not that many on my aircraft, and the ones that are there are not that complicated. These are the things you need to know in case something happens while you are flying, and you have to respond immediately, because time is of the essence. Little things, like Engine fires… Cabin Depressurization… Fire/Smoke in the cabin/cockpit. You simply do not have time to go to a piece of paper to find out how to handle this.

Systems. Here is where you have a little leeway. The best Oral tests come across as a casual conversation about the aircraft; what it is capable of, and what we do to operate it safely. There are a lot of “What Iffs” during this part of the Oral, and you can take your time and work things out. Sometimes, you get an examiner like the one that I had for my oral, and he is more than happy to let you wander off into the woods on a system, and he’ll even lead you down the wrong path. You have to get yourself back on track.

Rules and Regs. This is usually just on the Captain Oral, particularly initial Upgrade, or the making of a new Captain. All kinds of things we need to know, but are usually computerized, like flying time requirements, weather requirements, for alternates, additional alternates… all kinds of esoterica. This is the hardest part to study for, which seems funny, since they are the same “R&R” I have been flying under for years, but for some reason, they always find something that you don’t know.

Performance. This, while a pain in the pass, is very easy. We get 30 minutes for what we do on the line in under 5. The difference, is on the line we are just looking for answers, and in training, they want to ‘show the work.” (remember that from school?)

Fill out a manifest, weight and balance with pax loading, cargo, fuel, etc… runway performance for landing and takeoff. Piece of Cake, I can do it in my sleep… and I am pretty sure I have, many times over.

And then you are done. Pass/Fair. No middle ground.

So I passed… and one of our toughest, squirreliest check airmen said he was proud of me, although I did have a shakey point for a bit, since I led myself down the wrong road. It happens, but all is well.

So I had a day off of laying by the pool, and starting tomorrow, I start the Simulator work.

Modern Simulator training is amazing. These boxes actually cost more than the airplanes do. They mimic every little quirk the airplane has. I gotta say, though, the airplane flies MUCH better than the Sim. However, the first time a new hire FO walks out to an airplane to fly the real airplane, he or she will be walking out to a bird that has real live passengers on it. Scary?

So, the classes are as such—4 hours sessions, with a 1.5 hour briefing beforehand. So my session runs from 0600-1000, and I have to be there at 0430 for a briefing. Yeek. But then, I am off for the rest of the day.

Sims 1 & 2, are basic flight. Takeoffs, area departures, enroute, arrivals, approaches and landings. The FO that I will be paired with is 24 years old, and as far as I know, he has never flown anything bigger than what he has flown as a Flight Instructor. This is going to be a big leap for him; I know, I’ve been there (although that was quite a while ago!) We’ll polish up our flows, how we organize the cockpit throughout the flight, and how we work as a team. In addition to the basic flying the airplane stuff, he’s going to have to learn how a well trained team works flying, and that is what we are gonna be. I have more than enough time to make his life easier over there. Hopefully, I can guide him in the right direction.

Sims 3 & 4 are where it gets interesting, particularly 3. This is BBQ day… we start lighting things on fire… engines, the APU… anything that burns… after the first 2 sim sessions, you are pretty much done having a fully functioning airplane. Nothing works right again till Sim 9.

Sims 5-8 are more of the same, but combining everything.

Sim 9 is called a “Phase Check.” This is a dress rehearsal for the “PC” which is the big checkride.

Sim 10 is the “PC,” or checkride, In my instance, this will be an “Initial ATP, and Type Ride.” I’ll be going from Commercial Pilot to Airline Transport Pilot. BIG leap. In addition, I will be getting a “Type Rating” on the aircraft I get checked out in… this is a requirement for airline work, and you do it the first time a Captain checks out on an aircraft. I may take more PCs over the years (and I will!,) but this is an “initial type” and it is a NO MISTAKE ride. No retraining, none of that fun stuff…

Following all of that, we head out to a real airplane for IOE! (Initial Operating Experience.) This is exactly what it sounds like. It is at least 25 hours of flying, with a rated Captain on the aircraft who will keep an eye on the new Captain while I do my first number of days of flying. The IOE Captain has a specific plan, and there are a number of things that he has to see, but mostly it comes down to this—Don’t Screw Up. Fly the line professionally and by the book, and nobody gets hurt.

Towards the end of IOE, we get scheduled for a “Fed Ride.” This is where an FAA Rep or designee rides in the jumpseat, and signs me off as safe to fly the airplane as a Captain in Airline service. The Fed Ride is another big deal.

After that, a line check from the airline, and they turn me loose. That should happen around Halloween; it all depends on when they can get someone from the FAA to go flying with the group from my class, one at a time.

That, my friends, is how you make a Captain.

*O Captain, My Captain, is actually not about the Captain of a ship, nor an airplane. Walt Whitman wrote that poem on the death of Abraham Lincoln. Here is the first verse, from Poetry Online:

O Captain my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

Logistics

Logistics

I guess I can cover a little ground on what it takes to even get a flight into the air, let alone the whole Captain thing. As I said, it takes quite a little bit to keep things going, and it helps if it all works in synchronicity. Yeah, dream on….

Ok… here is some of what it takes;

Obviously, anyone who has booked a flight knows a bit about reservations. Weather it be booking yourself online, through a travel agent, or calling the main reservations desk, there has to be a way to find out how many people are even interested in going. Now there are all kinds of ‘bean counters’ who work in the wild esoterica of numbers, yield management, etc. They take historic trip information, past passenger load factors, percentage of no-shows, holiday information, all of these things, and put together a plan for what is hopefully the most efficient use of aircraft and scheduling. I know, it does not seem like it, but these people make good money putting all this stuff together.

So right there, before we even get to the airport, there are millions of dollars spent just trying to set up the schedules and programs for the aircraft.. and the passengers.

From there, we can look at the operational aspects of our flight. We have to get all of these things together—the aircraft itself (concept, design, manufacture, parts supply, maintenance schedules, time limits, performance to match the original concept, modifications, FAA regs, and I am sure a few more things that I am forgetting;) the cockpit crew (set standards, solicit, interview, background check, winnow, train, schedule, retrain, and retrain again;) cabin crew (same concept- set standards, solicit, interview…;) maintenance personnel (recruit, train, schedule;) ground service personnel (ramp workers, fuelers, lav service, catering;) ‘in terminal’ employees (gate agents, ticket agents, reservation agents.)

That is just off the top of my head! In addition, all these people need training, to be paid, need benefits, etc. Every one of those commas in the paragraph above involve people designing a plan, setting schedules, and other support work. The support staff just to get to this point is quite enormous. Then there are the programmers, maintenance personnel who keep the terminals lit, plugged in, computers functioning, bathrooms dumping, clean, etc… it just keeps getting bigger!

And there is ATC, too…

And we don’t even have an airplane in front of us yet.

So, here we are at the gate, waiting for our bird to drop in, disgorge the inbound peeps, board us up, and then blast off. We’ll just say from here that all the people have been trained properly, etc… I know, I can dream, right?

A few hours before our flight is even ready, the weather personnel are putting forecast packages together for the country. They start way before sunrise for the early flights; it is a 24 hour operation. NOAA updates their forecasts every 6 hours; professional weather services have full time crews running forecast updates as often as they can. They put that information into the servers for the dispatchers to pull down based on departure, routing, destination, etc. A short time after this, about an hour before departure time, the dispatchers get their sets of flight information; basically what flights they should have… runs about 7-10 flights per dispatcher per hour. They get the weather information package together, compare it to what our ‘canned’ (pre-loaded) routes are, and hopefully they route us around the weather, and not through it. They put together the weather package, make sure it has all the proper weather/airport/route information on it, and load it for the pilots or operations to download. (This is in an ideal world… dispatchers still manage to route airplanes through crappy weather, and pilots still manage to accept those routing through crappy weather. We’re all human.)

The flight crew or operations will pull up the dispatch release about 45 minutes before departure time.

By this time, the cockpit and cabin crews should all be at the airport, depending upon their signin times (we’re not even going to go down the road of connecting crews, but you could have, on AA, a Captain, First Officer, and 3 Flight Attendants who are all coming off of different inbound flights to work the flight we are on. Try to schedule around that!) At Eagle, at least it’s 2 F/As at most who will misconnect their trips.)

All the crewmembers will sign in, check that they have all the latest revisions to manuals, etc. I know it sounds crazy, but we get updates constantly, due to changes in the way that ATC wants things handled, the FAA wants things run, the TSA wants security changes, the company has had something happen recently that was not covered.. changes are the only thing that does not change.

The Captain, and hopefully, the First Officer will read the release, noting all the pertinent weather data, Notices to Airmen (information on Navigational aid status, GPS information, runway closures, etc. Even with computer automation, these things get missed. It would suck to fly 4 hours to your destination, only to find that they closed the runway 30 minutes before you got there for scheduled maintenance, and they’re digging trenches in that runway at the moment,)

Basically, if it involves the flight, the Captain is supposed to know about it.

While this is going on, the cabin crew (Flight Attendants… Waitresses… Stews… Peanut-slinging wenches… ) (I prefer Flight Attendant,) is getting their act together; checking for notices about safety in the cabin, checking the loads for the flights, do we need anything special for this flight, all kinds of what-not. It seems like a lot of small stuff, and it is, but it really adds up in the big picture.

And we still do not have an aircraft in front of us at the gate yet.

Once the dispatcher releases the flight, operational information is sent to the station. So the refueling people get the fuel slip, the gate people get connecting gate info, planned arrival times are sent, are there scheduled delays from the ATC system? All of this information comes into play. If you are on a flight that serves a meal, Catering was ordered in a huge block order weeks ago, and that had to be planned for, scheduled, and prepared.

The maintenance operations people have been tracking mntc logs, as some things need to be checked every certain number of hours/flights/days. We’ll just say that there is nothing special about our aircraft today, but there are some lu-lus out there (oil consumption every 10 hours, landing gear inspections, all kinds of things with exotic lettering like TDMI, etc.) So nobody is planning on turning any wrenches on this bird.

So now, we’re ready to go---

Aircraft is about to land

Flight crew is ready and waiting

Ramp Personnel are ready

Gate peeps are ready

Catering is ready

Maintenance is ready

The Rampers marshal the aircraft onto the gate, the gate agent brings the jetbridge (Used to be made by Jetway Incorporated. What’s a Jet Weigh? I don’t know, a lot!) to the airplane, the pilots shut the motors down, the F/A opens the door, and we’re in business.

NOW we have an airplane….

Ramp crews bring their ‘tugs’ up to the aircraft, with beltloaders, to start unloading the bags. Fuel man pulls the truck up to the front of the wing and hops out to check how much fuel the plane arrived with in the first place. Passengers start deplaning, and heading on their way. The inbound FO (generally) heads down to do a ‘post flight’ inspection of the aircraft. Catering pulls up along the tail exit and starts to unload the inbound catering. Depending on the operation, maybe there is a mechanic there to do a quick walk around, too. The ramp personnel have to take all your inbound bags and sort them (they are pre-sorted a little bit; local bags go to the belt loader, connecting bags go to other flights, freight has to go to the freight house, US Mail goes another way, Cargo goes yet another…) All those connecting bags have to be taken to the correct outbound flight. Picture an inbound flight, 130 people, and 85 of them are connecting on a total of 35 flights. ALL of those bags have to make it to the right flight, right gate, on time, and get loaded, scanned, etc. It’s a miracle it happens at all.

By now, the pilots have walked away, the F/As are on their way to their next trips (fatigue!) and the outbound crew is coming down the jetbridge. The fueler has started putting the Jet-A into the aircraft (ORD – LAX on an MD-80 could easily be as much as 4000 gallons,) depending on what the aircraft arrived with. Ramp is unloading still, they have the connecting bags on the way, and the local bags are almost done unloading. Freight is on it’s way, and there was no US Mail, so that was a nice break. Catering is finished unloading the inbound food (perishables get destroyed in an incinerator. Packaged food may be reused, depending upon the operation (like cans of pop, or packages of snack bars, etc…) or some of it may be sent to local food banks [kudos to cities that have that.])

The Cabin Crew does their safety inspection before every flight; go through the cabin, look for things that were left behind, anything that is amiss, maybe something was broken by a passenger on the inbound flight, and the pax did not tell the F/As about it, and it has to be taken care of. This is also a security check. While this is going on, some ramp peeps come up and do a run though of the cabin to clean it (I know, my airline friends… ideal world.. BIG time.) They come on and restock the lavatory (toilet paper, Kleenex, hand towels, soap,) restock the galley (coffee, cups, cold drink cups… that is not always a catering function.)

The outbound crew has settled into their ‘nest,’ getting the aircraft set up for departure. They have their own safety checks, and a long list of items that have to be run or tested before every flight. At some point, the FO (especially if it is raining,) will get out, go down, and do an exterior inspection pre-flight, checking the condition of everything on the outside.

Now we are ready to board.

The gate agents call down to make sure the Flight Attendants are ready to board (hahahah!!! I know… ideal world.. ideal world.) Cabin is ready, safety checks are done, all pre-flight duties have been accomplished (most of these are on every flight,) briefing from the cockpit to the cabin is complete, and everyone is on the same sheet of music.

Fueler has topped off to the scheduled fuel load, and is waiting for a bag cart to be moved so he can get on to the net flight for the day. Ramp from other gates have been delivering a steady stream of bags from other connecting passengers, who are going out on OUR flight. Freight dropped off a couple hundred lbs of parts that need to be moved, and we’ve got 4 full baggage carts of bags to load up. And, of course, nothing was misplaced or misconnected from the inbound or any of the other inbound flights to get to us.

Here come the passengers.

Catering is done; they’ve loaded the food and taken the old stuff off the inbound, so they are on their way. Slowly more space is opening up under the aircraft. As departments finish their jobs, they move on to other flights, and slowly you can see more ground around our bird. Baggage is getting the last bags from a late inbound on another gate, and the gate agents are waiting for a few stragglers to make their way to the gate.

The flight crew checks with operations, and we’re fully loaded, and all the numbers match (bags, people, fuel, etc..) The FA in the front gets the paperwork from the gate agent on a passenger manifest, there is an exchange of pleasantries, and the door is shut.

The flight crew contacts the ramp crew over an interphone hookup. The ramp indicates that they have completed a FOD check (debris, etc) and the area is clear, and we’re ready to move.

All in 30 minutes. (sometimes)

To be honest, it is pretty dang amazing that it happens at all. When you consider AA… 300+ flights a day, in and out of ORD (only THAT airport)… in peak periods, 30K – 45K+ passengers/day… all that fuel (my last year fueling, we pumped 900,000 gallons a day… and we only fuel outbound flights, remember…) all those bags, all that food, all those people.

So that’s the basics. I know there are plenty of things that I am missing, too, which is kind of funny, that there is more!

We’re not even to the cost of all this yet. It is quite the capital intensive operation.

More to come.

Oh… I passed my oral exam for CA today. Life is good.

Cheers!

So what is this whole Captain thing?

Well, what does it mean to be a Captain?

I guess we first get into "nomenclature." People still classify airline pilots as 'pilot' and 'co-pilot.' This changed quite a while ago, because the co-pilot is also a pilot, obviously. So, the wording was changed to Captain and First Officer.

Here is the mighty Wikipedia's entry (well, part of it:)

Under U.S. FAA FAR 91.3, "Responsibility and authority of the pilot in command", the FAA declares:^[4]

• (a) The pilot in command of an aircraft is directly responsible for, and is the final authority as to, the operation of that aircraft.

• (b) In an in-flight emergency requiring immediate action, the pilot in command may deviate from any rule of this part to the extent required to meet that emergency.

• (c) Each pilot in command who deviates from a rule under paragraph (b) of this section shall, upon the request of the Administrator, send a written report of that deviation to the Administrator.

Well, unless you are a pilot, that is clear as mud.

Basically, it comes down to this-- "The Buck Stops Here." Somebody has to be the fall guy, the decision maker. You cannot make decisions in an aircraft by committee. The job of the First Officer, is to assist the Captain in the handling of the aircraft and the conduct of the flight, but when it comes to crunch time, the CA makes the final call.

This is one of the thorns in the side of pilots. We tend towards Type-A personalities. We generally want to lead.. or at least, be in the front.

I have been very lucky. I have been an FO for American Eagle for almost 10 years (I was hired with a class date of October 30, 2000. If you think the date is not significant, your life has never been ruled by a seniority list.) I posted this on Facebook, but I logged 7,590 hours, and 44 minutes as a First Officer. In that time, I flew with some real tools, yes, but wow, did I get to fly with some amazing people. People who not only knew how to fly the airplane, but knew how to really lead. This is very important where the decisions you make directly impact the lives of the people in your care.

Very few jobs have that level of responsibility. When you get in an airliner to fly somewhere, here is the dealio-- you are paying money to be taken from one place to another, by people you have never met, and have no way of ascertaining their capabilities and skill levels, and can ONLY trust that we know everything we need to know to complete our task successfully. When we screw up... sometimes even minorly... well, people pay with their lives, and they do it by the hundred. At least a doctor can only knock off 1 person at a time.

There is a bit more to it than that, but that is it in a nutshell. When you consider everything that goes into a flight... from designing the aircraft, to the meals (ha!), to servicing, the works, there may be more to things than meets the eye... all happening at once, all hopefully in some sort of synchronicity. I will touch on that in a later post, I think.

I guess that does not get totally down into the nitty-gritty of being a Captain, but I tend to ramble anyway.

More to come.

Scott

How long have I been flying?

So, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine earlier today, and it struck me that most of the people in my life now, and certainly everyone who knows me from sailing, only know me as a pilot.

This is interesting, as I started flying professionally in 2000 (at least, I was in ground school in October of that year,) but I did not start sailing until the summer of 2001. Obviously my sailing friends would only know me flying.

I am still not up to the total time that I spent fueling airplanes for AA; I am about a year short. I pumped gas for AA for 11 years, 1 month. I am just coming up on my 10 year anniversary flying for Eagle, so I am not even yet.

Remembering back, of course, it seems like I had lived 3 or 4 lifetimes before AA, but in reality, I had pumped gas at Midway, for Monarch Air Service. This I did for 2 and 1/2 years; I met lots of famous people there, since we had the corporate side of the airport, too. I shook Sinatra's hand, traded quips with Steve Martin, missed meeting U2 by about 10 feet, met a couple dozen presidential contenders in 1988; lived, loved, and lost.

I started at Monarch as a summer job after freshman year of college, and I was making so much money, and having so much fun, and I was already flying, that I dropped out of college. Pretty sad; I always thought I would go back. I have not set foot in a college in... well... I fly over bunches of them every time I fly! That's about as close as I have gotten to returning.

When I was a new guy at AA, I met up with a couple of guys I fueled with, and we started a band. That band was the first in a series of not very good bands. I tell people we had 1 trick up our sleeves... we were loud. We played hard rock, rhythm and blues, punk, country, whatever felt like a good time to us, but we always played it loud. I am pretty sure the acoustic songs we played were at a "12" on a "10" scale.

This is reason #1 why I have fairly strong hearing loss. I used to be able to hear much better; In fact, I used to be able to eavesdrop in on conversations that were going on in the background of the phone conversation I happened to be having. Realize, that this was in the days of "Ma Bell." The phone company breakup was in 1984, and it took a few years for the Baby Bells to get their act together, and then telecommunications took a major leap ahead. Look at everything we have now! But I still don't have my hearing back.

I rocked out, worked in a tremendously noisy environment (the ACM fan on a 727 was head high under the wing next to the fueler... joy!) for years, and flew single engine airplanes without modern headset. No wonder I can't hear crap.

Funny, the way your thoughts take you.

Cheers!

Duties and Responsibilities

September 20th was my first day of training for upgrade as a Captain for American Eagle Airlines. I've decided to start this blog to post my various musings, ramblings, etc, that would not fit in the sailing blog, and chat with anyone interested about flying, life, whatever sounds good.

So I am in class, and the instructor mentions someone I know who used to work in the training department.

This guy was a pilot for years, and then started having heart problems. He volunteered for an experimental procedure, involving open heart surgery, and was told ex post facto that it would not be approved by the FAA, and lost his medical.

Well, he made the most of it, and went into the training center, and took over a section of our training that while required by the FAA, has never been given any gloss, or any real edge; it was boring, and the person who was the instructor before seemed to have a particular hate for pilots... I guess because she was a dispatcher, and a terrible one at that.

I had a class down here with him 2 years ago, and I chatted him up on a break, and he said they were in the pipeline for giving him another surgery... one that would keep his corrected problems in his heart, AND the FAA had signed off on, so he could get his medical cert back, and go back to regular line flying. He was a bit apprehensive, but excited; he had been let down by the FAA and the medical community before, and just wanted to go back to flying. I told him that he was the only "bright light in a crappy section of our training," and while I really wanted to fly the line with him, I really wanted him to stay on and make our lives more bearable.

He went into surgery, and he died for 20 minutes on the operating table... complications.

They brought him back to life, but he had suffered fairly extensive brain damage, and did not even remember that he had been an airline pilot... 22 years of flying, gone.

They took him to the training center, and walked through the halls with him, wondering if anything would unlock that part of his brain... and he said "I used to do this? Really?"

He has no recollection at all of flying, of aviation, of anything related to it.

Life is short to begin with. We don't know the reasons why, and maybe sometimes there are no reasons why... Jethro Tull penned- "The God who made kittens, put snakes in the grass..." Live every moment you can. We can't go through our entire lives that way, but we should take the time to enjoy so many more things than we actually do. Find a way to enjoy every day, even just a little, somehow, someway.

You just never know....