Road Trip to ATL

[AZBigDog]

Well, I'm here in Atlanta. Waiting for for someone from the shop to arrive so they can escort us into the terminal for some food.

My company sent another tech and I from PHX to ATL to perform some maintenance on one of our Airbus aircraft.

The flight over was uneventful, we both sat in first class, which was cool because coach was packed full. The flight left PHX at 10:50 PM and arrived in ATL at 4:00 AM. The weather is dry but the wind is blowing and it feels colder than it really is.

One of the thrust reversers is indicating a fault and the oil pressure sensor circuit breaker popped out. This has happened twice both resulting in gate returns which, of course, makes no one happy. The plane has been sitting at the gate for two days and really needs to get back in service.

So after hours of troubleshooting and a couple of minor repairs and an engine run, we have signed off the aircraft good for service. Now we wait for a flight crew to show up and ferry the aircraft to PHX. I'll be sleeping the whole flight back.

Nice thing is that I'll be racking up a bunch of overtime.We'll probably get back to PHX too late start our next shift, in which case we'll get the night off.

Just thought I'd share my experience with you guys.

AL

 

[bwade210]

Cool story......seems like an interesting career!

 

[flyover]

You make me sick with that hook 'em horns stuff. Course I'd be feeling a lot friendlier toward you if my Jayhawks hadn't gotten creamed last night.

Good luck finding that fault. Don't forget to reboot.

 

[TheGirlinPurple]

Do you work for US Airways(America West) AZ?

 

[AZBigDog]

The ferry crew arrived shortly after my original post. Both pilots were named Ken which I thought was funny. We talked about what was wrong with the aircraft and union business ,as always, worked itself into the conversation.

We rode down to a remote pad over at Mercury Air Center in the Cargo section of the airport, Capt. did a quick walkaround and we were ready to go. I then realized that we had left the aircraft logbook back at the MX shop and sent over one of the local guys to retrieve it.

I requested to watch the takeoff from the flight deck jumpseat and the pilots were both for it. I sat down and buckled in. I had never seen a takeoff from the jumpseat on an Airbus before. We taxied from Mercury over to runway 26L. We held short for aircraft landing, and then position and hold. Cleared for takeoff, the F/O went to Flex power (not too sure what that means). We cross checked 80 kts within seconds.(we were pretty light with only 4 people on board) We lifted off and climbed out to final cruising altitude of 38,000 ft. Amazingly at one point during climb we has a climb rate of 4300 feet per minute.

The flight would normally have lasted about 3.5 hrs but we had a 100 kt headwind back to Phoenix. That pretty much added about a half hour to the flight.

About 45 minutes into the flight, I decided to catch a nap in the cabin. I went to one of the coach seat rows and laid down for my nap. When I woke up, we were about 120 miles east of Tucson and about 35 minutes from landing. I moved up to first class where my patner had been sleeping since take off from Atlanta and enjoyed the final descent.

F/O touched down a little hard and then the airplane got squirrely on the the early part of the roll out. The F/O yelled back to us a quick "sorry" for the weird landing and I yelled back to him "What the hell was that?" We all laughed together at the remark and we were all glad to be back in Phoenix. Especially the crew because they were stuck in ATL while the plane was down. The Capt rushed off to catch a flight home to Portland, OR. I thanked the F/O for the ride home and shook his hand. Both pilots were really cool guys.

So thats my story of the Road trip to ATL. Hope you enjoyed.


Al

 

[AZBigDog]

You make me sick with that hook 'em horns stuff. Course I'd be feeling a lot friendlier toward you if my Jayhawks hadn't gotten creamed last night.

Good luck finding that fault. Don't forget to reboot.

Would you prefer Go Spurs Go?

The fault never presented itself to us the entire time we were there, or during the flight home. Just hoping whatever we repaired took care of the problem.

Al

 

[AZBigDog]

Do you work for US Airways(America West) AZ?

Yes.

 

[AZBigDog]

Cool story......seems like an interesting career!

it can be at times.