Updates from peeps.

Here is my update, this is my third month of flying the 1900. I just finished 12 straight days of flying and now I am on reserve for the rest of the month until I fly the first ten days of September.

Flying in Alaska is great, and the 1900 is a pretty cool airplane. We land on some pretty short gravel strips with it and the scenary is awesome.
 
[ QUOTE ]
It went pretty well. As usual, I got a lot out of it and feel humbled walking away but I SWEAR that sim doesn't fly like the real plane. You sure don't want to say that to the instructor, though, or tell him how things are out on the line...sometimes I talk too much.

The one day ground school is a total blow off...hard to stay awake. Then two days of hell in the sim. Very first sim was my leg and we had smoke in the cockpit...which means you have to put on your oxygen mask and shop goggles... yeah, I think the goggles they give us are like the ones in shop class. Anyhow, you have to talk to each other via the intercom and can't see anything very well. The F/E who was reading the checklist actually said "My glasses are fogged up and I can't read the checklist"...not what you want to hear when you're on fire.

I did a GPS approach but didn't push it over fast enough at the VDP and was a bit high. Got it on the runway but past the touchdown zone...should have gone around but, luckily, the instructor didn't make me do it over. It's really hard making a non-precision approach because we can't start down until the VDP and then can't exceed 1000fpm, either. I think I could do better if we actually did them once in a while rather than once a year in the sim...



[/ QUOTE ]

Sounds interesting, DE.

Shoulda told the sim guy what things really are like on the front lines vs the desks...
tongue.gif


Funny you mention the non precision IAP/VDP. Do you guys compute your own VDP based on the desired glidepath you're looking for, or fly the on depicted on the plate? Reason I ask is that I've seen some published VDPs, that if I do the equation and check them, for my desired glidepath they're off by up to 0.5nm. Granted for a shallower GP, that'll push your VDP out, but do you guys use a standard GP, or can you select one? Luckily for us, there's no descent rate minimum, so it's not unlikely to break out right at VDP, then take an initial 2000 FPM descent to establish an overrun aimpoint, then reset to a normal descent rate.
 
Hey Flychicaga

Do you ever come to Quad City International (MLI) (moline)?
About 3 hours drive east of DSM.

Thats my home town there. Across the mighty mississippi in Davenport, where the mississippi runs east west in iowa.

Just got my private a coulple weeks ago at the davenport airport.

I've really enjoyed reading about your transition into the majors.

Regards

Tom
 
[ QUOTE ]
I've been off the boards since Sunday...just got home from my annual recurrent training on the 727 in SDF.

Very first sim was my leg and we had smoke in the cockpit...which means you have to put on your oxygen mask and shop goggles

The F/E who was reading the checklist actually said "My glasses are fogged up and I can't read the checklist"...not what you want to hear when you're on fire.

I did a GPS approach but didn't push it over fast enough at the VDP and was a bit high. Got it on the runway but past the touchdown zone... should have gone around but, luckily, the instructor didn't make me do it over. It's really hard making a non-precision approach because we can't start down until the VDP and then can't exceed 1000fpm, either. I think I could do better if we actually did them once in a while rather than once a year in the sim...

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you sure if you were in a real airplane with a real fire that you should have gone around or that you wouldn't start down before the VDP or descend at a rate of only 1000 fpm? Who cares that you didn't get a fireball down at the touchdown zone! I can see haveing standards for normal situations and approaches but if conducting emergency training you take what you can get. Once you've opened up the emergency checklist ALL Standards and limits go out the door based on the Emergency. On FIRE get it on the ground NOW. We all remember the Swiss flight that decided to dump fuel to make thier landing weight and the time it took them to do so got them all killed. I think your sim instructor and Capt. lost an opportunity to accomplish some realistic training, I would have commended you for landing with an inflight fire, my only debrief would have been how could we have done it quicker.
There are events and then there are true emegencies, A single engine approach or in your case an engine out approach is an event, doen correctly with in standards and procedures it is not a problem, but fire is an open ended situation, how many times have we read where a crew died from smoke inhalation or lost controll on final where if they would have aggressively dealt with getting the airplane on the ground they may have had those precious extra seconds.
When I conduct training in the C-12 (BE-200) one of my scenerios is to call cabin fire while on the downwind, at that point we push the nose over and fly as fast as possible to the runway, not the approach end but the runway(granted runway length has to be considered), I prefer the guys put the gear down but in the grand scheme of things if they would in real life land on the runway gear up but still be able to evacuate the airplane I would consider it success. I know a 727 requires a little more runway than a BE-200 but I think you get my point. The point is this during an emergency the pilot in command has to make decisions and following a standard pattern or procedure may not be the correct decision.

I had a standardization ride a while back and the standards guy asked me what I was going to do if an engine quit on rotation. I answered I didn't Know. That raise his eyebrows, he asked again and got the same response from me, which at that point he called in another examiner and started to berate me that as the Unit Senior Instructor Pilot and Examiner I didn't know the Engine malfunction procedure after lift off, I said OH you want to know the Engine malfunction after lift off procedure, which I then sprouted off with. I then explanined that his questions was what was "I" going to do and since this has never happened to me I didn't know what I would do, I said I hope I would perform from memory the critical steps as I have trained to do and have trained others.

The side point here is we train for certain situations but when the real deal is handed to us, chances are it won't be in the form that we have specifically trained for so again as the PIC we have decisions to make and as long as every one goes home at the end of the flight I think it can be argued that we were successfull.
 
We fly the published VDP or make one up if it's not published.

C650capt: Points well taken. The Capt attempted to defend me (and himself, too) by making the point that we had a fire and, though it had "gone out and smoke cleared", we still should have put it on the ground ASAP. The sim guy pushed stabilized approach criteria on the debreif and felt that since the fire was out, there was no emergency.

All in all, I got a lot out of the training, which is the whole point in the first place.
 
Hey DE727UPS, are you guys training with the CANPA procedures at UPS?

We started doing "CANPA" (Constant Angle Non Precision Approach) at Delta instead of doing the "dive 'n drive" to the VDP.

Basically, we'll descend, hit the FAF and if a 3:1 glidepath will require an 800 fpm descent, we'll fly it down to a DDA (derived decision altitude) (50+ HAT).

Or umm, something like that...
smile.gif
 
CANPA...never heard of that before. We are doing it the old way except you can't exceed 1000 fpm below 1000agl and you can't descend before VDP. That creates a small window of opportunity to pitch the nose over at VDP and hit the touchdown zone...do it slightly wrong and your screwed.

Do you have vertical guidance from your FMS on your non-precision's? We don't have that capability with our GPS boxes on the 727. My 152 has a better GPS unit than our 727's...kinda crazy. UPS was all "we're leading the world with our technology" when they put 2 Morrow GPS's in the 727's....now, they just sold 2 Morrow (UPSAT) to Garmin....go figure. I got a Garmin 430 in my 152 that is way better than the NMS2001 in the 727. Would have only touched the UPSAT stuff if they would have given me at least a 50% employee discount...which the didn't
 
We have that green arc on the ND that shows us where the current rate of descent in relation to the altitude window will bring us laterally.

More or less, we scroll in a descent until the green arc (it might be a different color, I can't remember) reaches the threshold of the runway symbol on the ND and follow that until our DDA (derived decision altitude).
 
Back
Top