Toronto, pronto

This image of the weather map for the northeastern US last night essentially shows the conditions we experienced yesterday, while trying to fly seven legs.  Bands of snow rotating counter-clockwise around a low pressure center between Boston and New York City made it interesting for the second day in a row for everyone in this area. 

My FO and I agreed both that the safety of flying seven flights and seven hours in a day is questionable, and it definitely isn't doable on a day like this.  DC to PIT to Philly to Toronto to Philly to Allentown to Philly to Binghamton was our itinerary.  Regardless, off we went.

Very gusty winds got my attention taking off on the short runway from DC.  Our CRJ juked and jived in the gusts as I turned away from the Pentagon to follow the Potomac river to the northwest, climbing out steeply while wondering how long the constant turbulence would last.  It wasn't long; we cruised over to Pittsburgh at 20,000 feet above the clouds, enjoying the sunshine with the familiar blue backdrop.

In about a mile of visibility because of snow falling, I landed on an all white runway, one with a thin snow cover, highlighted by wavily shaped snow drifts.  After deploying the thrust reversers to full, I applied the wheelbrakes smoothly but surely, increasing the pressure as I stowed our thrust reversers below 80 knots indicated airspeed.  The 'braking action' was there, somewhat more than barely, you could say.  The anti-skid was now cycling constantly, but we were slowing down, slowly, on this 11,500 foot runway in Pittsburgh.  The control tower told us other pilots had reported the braking action as fair, but I though it was closer to poor, and my FO told them so.  Braking action is subjective, and in my opinion this same braking action in DC on the 6,870 foot runway there would definitely been called 'poor'.  I used about 6,000 feet of runway in landing and slowing down.  After waiting for and watching an efficient bulldozer driven snow scooper plow our ramp area, we parked and boarded up quickly for Philadelphia.

Out EDCT (pronounced 'edict') time (Expect Departure Clearance Time) for PHL was 12:15 PM, but on our taxi out we learned they had extended it to 1:15 PM.  Our Dispatcher hadn't sent us an ACARS message to 'hold our push' for some reason.  We taxied to a spot on a taxiway between the snow drifts, and I elected to shut down the engines to conserve fuel.  We actually didn't have much left before we would burn down to our takeoff fuel, and then we would have to either reduce our takeoff fuel by decreasing our holding fuel or go back to the gate to get more gas.  We had an hour to wait as it turned out; they decreased our takeoff delay a little.  I briefed the pax, and after a short wait we started up and got deiced quickly by PIT's excellent deice crew.  Their setup looks like this, using enclosed control cabs on the end of booms connected to ground structures, instead of trucks.

After lining our chariot up on the centerline of this runway (yep, it really is one, see the runway edge lights?), I gave the reins to my FO, who did a great job of keeping us straight on the takeoff roll.  We knew this due to the increasing frequency 'thump thump thump thump' sound the nosewheel tires made in rolling over the runway centerline lights.  Ah, the neat, challenging, and sometimes a little perplexing things you get to see as an airline pilot.  When some visual clues are lost it forces you to use what clues you have left.

In the clear again cruising over to Philadelphia, valleys of smooth and fluffy clouds below us hid the reality of a serious winter storm giving it's best blows on the ground.  Much of the time when the weather gets rotten in winter, with high, gusty winds and snow, the wind blows straight down the runway, and that's what it was doing on the ground in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.  When a pilot has to deal with a low visibility approach with snow, reduced braking action on the runway, and then a healthy crosswind on top of it, that tends to up the ante and the heartrate.  The weather report for Philadelphia was considerably better than the delays imposed on us indicated earlier.  The snow was gone, the runways were dry, and they even offered us a short runway, after clearing us for a visual approach to the long 27 Right.  'No thanks'.   

Gold star time!  By the time we parked at the gate in Philly, we were about an hour behind schedule.  Cause I'm a team player (and because I packed my lunch), I offered to our Flight Attendant that I would say goodbye to the passengers and clean the cabin for her.  She'd already asked for a food run in Philly, and she took me up on this time saving offer too.  I'd never actually done this before, and I'll try to make it a habit when I can.  (Passengers, at the regionals don't get our cabins cleaned by cleaners like at the majors; our flight attendants (and pilots sometimes) do it ourselves.) 

PHL-YYZ, our third out of seven flights was next.  Toronto's ATIS was interesting.  Toronto was only landing on one of it's five runways, and wasn't using the runways which faced into the wind at all. For my FO, the pilot flying, it was going to be a 10-15 knot crosswind landing on a snow covered runway with fair or worse braking action, in falling light snow. What more can you ask for?  How about not having to divert to our alternate airport.  After just passing Buffalo, NY, we heard Toronto Center (ATC) give a holding clearance to two aircraft in front of us.  Holding at a fix name 'Linng' southeast of Toronto, soon became our fate as well.  We had a lot on our plate to think about, in quick order.

Here's the rundown: After conferring with out dispatcher with messages sent and recieved using our ACARS unit in the flight deck, our bingo fuel was 3,200 lbs.  Entering the hold we had 4,200 lbs, and each engine was burning about 1,000 lbs per hour of jet fuel.  Pilot mental math converts that to 30 minutes holding time.  If we weren't released from the holding pattern to continue to YYZ before we our fuel remaining reached 3,200 lbs, we were diverting to Buffalo.  And the weather at Buffalo, called up on ACARS, sucked, frankly.  Any pilot would agree that 1/2 mile visibility in moderate snowfall, freezing fog, and a healthy crosswind is not the best weather to have at your alternate airport that you could very possibly divert to. 

Toronto ATC never offered a clear reason why we were holding, I think the one runway they were landing planes on was full of traffic.  My FO offered that we should consider other options than Buffalo, and we did call up weather from other suitable airports.  None were as close as Buffalo, and if we were to divert, I preferred to land in the US, at an airport which was served by the airline we fly for, to make handling our pasengers of various nationalities easier.  Elmira and Syracuse were bad, and too far away by this time, because of our fuel.  Hamilton, in Canada, was ok, and Erie, PA, was not too great, but doable, fuel wise.  Fortunately, with the next hour's weather report, at 4 PM, Buffalo reported much improved weather, two miles visibility in light snow with better winds.

By this time we had been holding for about fifteen minutes, had a solid plan to divert to Buffalo if we bingoed on our fuel, and were hoping Toronto would open the additional runway soon.  Two other airliners holding in front of us were having fuel issues too.  One gave up and proceeded to their alternate.  Our fuel situation by now: together with the two engines we were using 2,000 lbs an hour, or 200 lbs each tenth of an hour, or 200 lbs every six minutes.  We now had 3,600 lbs, or twelve minutes left.  I asked Toronto how long till the runway is open, notifying them also that we have ten minutes of fuel left before diverting.  'Oh about fifteen minutes they say' in a polite canadian accent came the reply. 

I had briefed the passengers three times, the first being routine, the second being a little concerned and sharing the possibilityof diverting, and the third with the likelyhood of diverting.  I don't like diverting, but I'll do it if I have to.  Tick, tock, tick, tock.  "___  ____ you are now cleared out of the hold, fly heading 180 after Linng"", he told us.  They were clearing us out of the hold with a turn to the south, before having us continue on the arrival northbound.  Good news.  We had about 3,500 lbs, about nine minutes more of holding fuel left.  It looked like the other airliner bugging our had worked in our favor. 

On approach the changing weather had gotten a bit better, the cloud ceiling was higher, about 3,500 feet above the ground, and the crosswind was about half of what it had been before, about seven knots now. 

The control tower reported that the braking action reported by pilots was fair on the runway, and poor on the runway turnoff.  But like I experienced in Pittsburgh, my FO rated it as poor, and told the tower so.  We took the slippery turnoff about two-thirds down the 11,200 foot runway, and taxied in slowly on one inch of fresh snow.  Then we saw and appreciated this:

This behemoth, seen through the falling snow, is the new largest airliner in the world, the Airbus A380.  Those are two passenger decks you see, the entire length of the fuselage.  It flys all the way from Dubai, UAE to Toronto, a world away in culture, geography, religion, government, and weather.

"Hast thou seen the white whale?" Captain Ahab asks.  Well, I have now.  As an aside, I just finished reading, for the first time, Moby-Dick.  It was hard,  took me six months.  It's about much more than an egomaniacal Captain seeking vengeance on a whale.  I could wax on about it, but I can't do it justice.  Maybe just a little.  I highly recommend it. 

I will say a couple things.  I identify with Starbuck, the first mate of Captain Ahab, a man of true Christian faith, and one with his head on straight; he tries valiantly to talk Ahab out of attacking Moby-Dick.  A little background on the white whale: Ishmael, the narrator of Moby-Dick, teaches us that all sperm whales are dangerous, but Moby-Dick is a giant who has a fearsome, evil reputation for killing whalers.  Ahab is demented, hell bent on killing Moby-Dick, because of his vengeful pride (Moby-Dick took off half of one of his legs previously), but moreso because he's wrapped up in the 'white whale' his personal bias against the existence of evil and 'fate', (i.e. the unfairness and unapolagetic circumstances of life) in the world.  In demented and megalomanical character, he believes he will rid the world of the problem of evil if he kills the white whale.  It ordinarily sounds strange and implausible for a human to leap to this level of egoism, but in the backdrop of such a grand and mystifying vocation as hunting on the world's oceans (with sailboats and hand thrown harpoons and lances) these huge, majestic, and spiritually associated (by humans) whales, the subject matter and symbolism is easily pulled off by author Herman Mellville, over 150 years ago.  It is an epic and timeless book.

In this picture you can see how big the 'white whale' is compared to the 737 next to it.  We taxiied in and with typical canadian efficiency we boarded up a new batch of passengers for Philadelphia.  I had a message on my phone from crew scheduling, but because I don't get minutes in Canada and it's pretty expensive if I do make a call, I didn't check it.  It was good news (for us), however; we found out after landing in Philly that our Allentown, PA round trip and our Binghampton, NY overnight had been canceled.  We were overnighting in Philly after flying four of seven legs. 

I haven't written too much on spiritual stuff lately, but God is still calling me, and I'm still answering.  Even when I don't answer, he still calls.  What a commitment God has made to all humans through the work of his son, Jesus Christ!  The problem Ahab had with Moby-Dick and evil has been solved by Jesus.  We can fret and philosophize over it, but we're better off examining the life and nature of God's son, who died on the cross for all of our sins, and, well, evil.  The answers to the questions of life and the true life, personal relationship with God, are  found in Jesus. 

What is your white whale?  What is your frustration in life, that has got you in a bind, a bias, against God?  What has been unfair to you in life that has influenced you to think God doesn't care?  God does care.  BTW I'm just assuming these things, my dear reader, I know that not everyone has a grudge against God.  I have had a grudge againtst God before, myself, a few times.  I likely will again in the future, but that won't invalidate my faith.  Recently I flew with a good guy with a poor attitude.  He appeared to have a Christian, but cynical, faith.  His cynicism extended to his personal life and our airline.  To you, my friend, and others, I submit one of my favorite and simple verses: the word of Jesus from Matthew 11:28-30: "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." 

Until next time, thanks for reading my blog.

PBS Frontline's "Flying Cheap"

I recently watched PBS Frontline's premiere of the episode "Flying Cheap", which questions the safety of the regional airline industry. You can watch it online here. The program highlighted the growth of regional airlines in general, and Colgan Airlines specifically. Frontline focused on the crash of one of Colgan’s Dash-8 Q400 Turboprops a year ago in Buffalo, New York. Colgan was operating the flight as Continental Connection 3407, and fifty people perished, including one on the ground.

The NTSB is establishing that pilot error is the cause of the accident. Both pilots let the plane get too slow while configuring for an instrument approach, and then the Captain, the pilot flying, responded improperly to wing stall warning indications. The First Officer made the situation worse by retracting wing flaps at the wrong time, and without being commanded to do so by the Captain. The plane's wings fully stalled, then the big turboprop started to enter a spin. There wasn't enough altitude above the ground to recover from that and the resulting dive.

This sort of basic airmanship pilot error is unconscionable; it is hard to believe that it occurred. But when the Captain’s and First Officer’s record and relatively low experience levels are taken into account, and added to the fact that they both were very likely affected by short term fatigue, it is conceivable that together they could make this series of errors which added up to this horrific tragedy. Another contributing circumstance to the crash that the NTSB might emphasize is that Colgan had an insufficient training and operating program for the Q400, and consequently both pilots’ limited experience in the airplane exposed them to a higher risk of an accident than otherwise.

The Captain had failed checkrides five times, but had notified Colgan about only one of them. When he was hired he had failed three checkrides, and unfortunately he failed two more at Colgan.  Colgan has stated they would’ve never hired him if they had known he lied about two of them of them. Failing a checkride is common, however. I’ve failed three myself, unfortunately, and consider myself to be a pretty capable and skilled aviator. I know in detail why each one didn't work out, but it comes down to the fact that each time I rushed my training and lacked preparation in exactly where I busted the ride at.  My last one was nine years ago on my Captain upgrade checkride at Great Lakes, a commuter turboprop airline with a reputation for failing many Captain upgrade applicants. I retrained and passed the checkride a few days later.

A failure doesn’t mean you’re an unsafe or bad pilot. Does failing the bar exam mean you’re a bad lawyer? Does failing important medical exams while an intern mean you’re an unsafe doctor? No and no. However, if a pilot has basic airmanship deficiencies, it should show up in the training process as a new hire. I’ve heard of new hires failing in training at my current airline and seen it happen at Great Lakes. Should it have happened in this case at Colgan? I don’t know, it would be unfair for me to say without having specific knowledge, but it’s clear that basic but critical flying mistakes were made.

Furthermore, some pilots just need more experience, then they will be able to successfully complete airline pilot training.  The right stuff is real stuff, but it also depends on experience; experience is important.

Our airline has a probationary period of one year for new hires; it’s a period where a pilot can be terminated without job protection from the union. Some have not made off probation at my airline, for airmanship reasons, but the most common reason is having a bad attitude.

I don’t know how well Colgan taught the following operating procedure, but in my opinion the First Officer should’ve had it down pat. When operating in icing conditions, with the icing speed reference switch selected ‘on’ then the pilot not flying must set higher that normal approach and landing speeds (about 20 knots higher) to compensate for the artificially higher stall warning speed produced because this aforementioned switch selected ‘on’. On the accident flight the Q400 was starting an approach in the clouds, in icing conditions. For an unknown reason the higher speeds had not been set; the normal, slower, non-icing condition speeds had been set instead. This left the Q400 dangerously slow when configuring for approach. Neither pilot voiced concern nor presumably noticed that the plane’s airspeed was too slow. The stick shaker (a device which vibrates the control column and indicates an approaching wing stall) activated and the Captain responded by raising the nose of the plane, not lowering it as he should have.

Then the First Officer made another mistake, in retracting the wing flaps of the plane in the midst of the captain fighting the wing stall with the plane’s bank and pitch angles gyrating wildly. Retracting flaps is part of the recovery from wing stalls practiced in the simulator, but only on command and after control is recovered with an increase in airspeed and performance is observed by the pilot. In real life, retracting flaps after recovering from an approach and landing stall would occur long after the airplane is back under control.

Fatigue reared its ugly head in this one, in a way unlike other accidents recently. Each pilot was under the effects of short term fatigue, from sleeping in the crewroom at the airport after commuting in the night before (the captain) and from commuting through the night on a major cargo airline (the first officer), then napping the morning before their showtime. This accident brings it home to me more than ever before: commuting through the night and/or sleeping in the crewroom will leave you very tired and you will sacrifice alertness and airmanship ability if you do it.  If you’re wondering, I don’t sleep in the crew room; I have a bunk bed with my name on it in an apartment within walking distance of the airport.

Overall, this is a good and balanced program, and a needed notification to the public about the present problems at regional airlines. However, it did at times go too far toward the ‘Nancy Grace Tonight’ style of TV journalism sensationalism. One scene showcased the cynical response of a crash victim’s father, who discounted a regional airline executive’s personal expression of sympathy and promise to him that they corrected the 'safety gaps'.  The executive was one for Pinnacle Airlines Corporation, another regional airline company which bought Colgan in June 2007. 
Host Miles O'Brien, who is a private pilot himself, did good in showing the economic hardships new regional pilots face, making as little as $16,000 the first year employed, while possibly being based in a city which has a high cost of living (Newark, NJ in this case). Regional pilots fly smaller planes, and airline pilot's salaries are based on the number of seats the plane has. Thusly, the average Co-Pilot's annual salary at a regional airline is $32,000, and for a Captain it’s approximately $70,000, according to the Regional Airline Association's President Roger Cohen.

The program questioned the safety that a regional airline has when it pays that little of a starting wage, and when grows rapidly. The idea it expressed is that safety suffers when rapidly growing, low paying regional airlines hire unsuitable and inexperienced pilots as compared to the past. It also showed that when paid at these salary levels, some pilots will choose to commute to their base and forego suitable rest facilities in order to save money.

Colgan did double in size, twice, in 2005 and 2008. One Colgan Pilot testified that he upgraded to Captain in nine months, to O’Brien’s surprise. To anyone who has spent time in the trenches at a regional, this is nothing new, but traditionally the quick upgrades to Captain have happened on a nineteen seat turboprop, not a brand new advanced 74 seat turboprop or 50 seat jet. With the rapid growth of regional airlines in the 2000’s, this was the new norm. One really nice fella from my first crashpad in DC upgraded to captain of a 66 seat jet before he had two years in at his airline. When the major airlines and the better regional airlines are hiring, the worst regional airlines operate like a revolving door. Flights are typically canceled not because a pilot is sick or the airplane is broken, but because the staffing is simply not adequate.

With interviews and commentary, Frontline opined that the FAA didn’t do much to spur Colgan to correct safety problems that pilots reported flying there. Frontline seemed to say that the FAA has been too busy promoting the airlines and defending them to properly regulate them when their safety is out of bounds. However, in their defense (am I really defending the FAA here?) the FAA has shut down unsafe cargo, commuter/regional, and low-cost (ValuJet) airlines in the past.

But more experience and qualifications doesn't necessarily equal safer, meaning that pilots with very high levels of experience and qualifications can make simple but critical mistakes as well. In the nineties two different major airlines attempted takeoff without the flaps set properly, both ending in disaster. A Spanish airline did the same recently. Pilots are human and prone to mistakes, whether they have 6,000 hours or 600.

Experience does count for something though, and it should. The last six fatal airline accidents in the US were regional airline accidents, according to the program.

Frontline also took major issue with the facts that major airlines don’t have direct oversight or safety management ability over the regional airlines that carry their name and logo, and that each regional airline is liable for accidents, not their parent airline. These are facts which shock passengers and politicians, and Frontline posited that this modus operandi should be corrected because it is seemingly false advertising when an airline, because of the ‘seamless’ marketing and ticketing, ‘advertises their level of safety on their regional airline when it isn’t actually as safe’.

I don’t wish to denigrate airline pilots, this airline profiled by Frontline, the FAA, or the airline industry in general. But because of the facts behind recent accidents and incidents, I feel that I should share my views. The FAA is focusing sharply on improving the level of professionalism and flight discipline in the flight decks of all airlines, major and regional alike. Randy Babbitt, the new FAA Administrator, speaks honestly and unapologetically on this issue, and he should.

There are new, good changes in regulations coming down the pike from the FAA. ALPA, the Air Line Pilots Association, is on board with these changes too.  To see ALPA's position on 'producing a professional airline pilot', click here.  In the future the minimum level of pilot experience to be an airline pilot will increase from approximately 250 hours to 1,500 hours minimum. There is a big difference in a pilot between these experience levels. For pilots who’ve been hired under this experience level and/or with limited time in jets, there will be more frequent ‘line checks’, a flight observed and evaluated by an instructor captain. There are other regulations and programs which will be put in place as well.

I still believe that airline travel in the US, even on a regional airline, is safe, in spite of recent events and current issues. I will still travel on regional airlines with my family. I hope that safety, professionalism, and standards of livings of pilots improve in the future. However, with each accident, no matter how decreased the frequency becomes, we’ll be reminded of the great responsibility pilots have, and of the fragility of life we all have in crossing the sky.

Point of Convergence

Recently, after hurrying through preparing and getting our forty some odd, mostly business travelers on board for an eight AM weekday flight from our nation’s capital to Philadelphia, my First Officer called ground “ready to taxi”. Only DCA ground control didn’t want to play, instead telling us to stay put due to a ‘ground stop’ in Philadelphia.

Knowing that DCA ops (our airline ramp and gate operations) probably needed out gate for another flight, and in addition to the fact that both engines were ‘turning and burning’, we negotiated a taxi with ground control to proceed to the holding pad next to the nearby runway.

Once there, after getting confirmation of the ground stop and ‘expect further update’ time with our Dispatcher and DCA ‘Clearance Release’, we ‘shut ‘em down’ to save fuel, and I briefed the pax (passengers) and our Flight Attendant on our situation.

A ground stop is when ATC, due to weather (usually) at the destination, stops all departure flights headed toward that destination. The philosophy is that it’s better to wait on the ground than to waste fuel in a holding pattern burning fuel or divert to an airport other that your intended destination. The ‘expect update’ time meant that ATC didn’t have a takeoff time planned for us. They were basically winging it, and Mother Nature was in charge for now. Actually, an update time gives ATC time to deal with the situation and the traffic they already have, and means that ‘we will get back to you when we can’.

We had taxied out of the gate at 08:10 AM and the update time they gave us was 9:00 AM. A little after nine they gave us a takeoff time (EDCT) of 9:45 AM, then moved it up a few minutes later to 9:32. Things were looking better, but we still had to contend with a promised to be adventurous short flight from Washington, DC to the City of Brotherly ‘Love’.

Philly’s weather was horrible, due to an inflow of moisture from the Atlantic coast, drawn up into a low pressure are spinning near the Great Lakes, like a wagon wheel on a frontier trail slinging mud up and around itself. Strong, and very strong winds from the south meant that taking off and landing toward the east on the long, east-west runways might not be feasible.

As we were waiting for an update we checked the winds in Philadelphia: 19029G42, or something like that. Translated, that’s an almost direct crosswind from 190 degrees (south) at 29 knots, gusting to 42. In miles per hour, that’s 34 and 49 mph. Regardless, it’s more than our jet’s maximum crosswind component (27 knots) and close to or more than most airliners max crosswind components.

Continuing landings and takeoffs in these type of extreme winds depends on the pilots resolve, and judgment to accept it. Stopping operations requires one or more pilots to request a runway into the wind, to say ‘enough’ to ATC and refuse the approach or takeoff clearance with the crosswind. ATC might want to keep operating the same way because that’s what gives them the most operations per hour, and it’s likely they won’t change it until a pilot complains. At Philadelphia they have three runways aligned on an east-west direction, and only one runway aligned north-south, so you can imagine how the number of takeoffs and landing is reduced when ATC restricts operations to the single runway only.

My 56 year old, retired Marine Aviator veteran First Officer and I agreed that the cause of the ground stop was that Philly had indeed switched to a single runway operation on runway 17, and were trying to deal with the traffic that was already on the ground and in the air. We settled in for while, hoping the wind there wouldn’t get worse.

True to ATC’s word, we started our engines at 9:25 and blasted off the short runway in DC at 9:32 AM. Once airborne, we received a new weather report from Philly which showed a wind of ‘19037G54’, a gust equivalent to 62 mph! They were landing and taking off only on runway 17 (oriented at 170 degrees magnetic) as we had suspected.

An uncommon but discernable feeling came over me as we still flew in relatively smooth air to the northeast toward Philadelphia in and out of smooth gray clouds. I’m hesitant to use the ‘F’ word, but concern and some form of anxiety was settling in my pilot psyche. I was concerned about the unknown, of what we might encounter on approach and landing, and concerned that ATC might change their plans and force us to divert to our alternate airport. I was a little anxious about landing in a 43 mph wind, gusting to 62, and about the possibility of wind shear.

But a good pilot is able to manage their fears, along with managing the risk and making good aeronautical decisions. ‘Know yours and your airplanes capabilities and limitations, and don’t exceed them’ is a good one sentence capsule of advice. The airlines and the FAA will let you can get right up to the limits, with a hair trigger set and trained to ‘retreat’ if the conditions become unacceptable. Safety and efficiency are intended to both be maximized; and this is the way it’s done in the airline world. My office is not a boring one, especially on days like these.

We started preparing for the ‘Converging’ ILS approach to runway 17, with me as the flying pilot. ‘Converging’ meaning that your final approach path converges with the final approach path of another runway and airplane, usually with runway 17 our approach would converge with aircraft on approach for runway ‘Nine Right’ (9R). But since only ‘one-seven’ (17) was being used it wouldn’t be the case. There are higher minimum descent altitudes and an alternate missed approach procedure with the ‘converging ILS 17’ approach, however, which gets us out of the way of an airplane going missed from an approach to 9R. Clear as mud? It’s hard to explain in one paragraph, this map of PHL airport and of the converging ILS 17 approach might help.

Just as I finished briefing the approach, the constant moderate chop turbulence in the clouds started, and would seemingly not let up. Upon checking on with PHL approach control, they vectored us south, then east, then northwest again, all to get in a long line for the instrument approach to ‘one-seven’. Along the way we picked up the latest update on the wind conditions: 19028G42. It was still a very strong wind, but more doable than previously known. The visibility was still fairly good at 2 ½ miles, and the cloud ceiling was at 1,400 feet above the ground, above our minimums of about 700.

I called for the approach checklist and we were cleared for it by PHL approach. There was a lot of chatter on the frequency as we rapidly bounced down the final approach course and I made the callouts to my FO to configure our plane with flaps and landing gear down. It was like riding a giant gray washboard in the sky, with time seemingly slowed down; due to the high winds at altitude (60 knots) our groundspeed was only 100 instead of the usual 140.

PHL approach then changed our approach clearance for a normal ILS 17, not a converging ILS 17. At first we surmised that it was because the runway 9R wasn’t being used, then approach said the visibility had decreased on 17, which made sense. We quickly reviewed the differences in the approach and made the changes on our FMS and minimums we had set.

We started hearing other flights going around and saying they couldn’t continue the approach. ATC came out with a new ATIS (Automatic Terminal Information Service) with a wind of 19027G34 KT, a visibility of ¾ sm with +RA and OVC14. Translated, this was wind 190 degrees at 27, gusts to 34 knots, visibility of ¾ statute mile in heavy rain, cloud base overcast at 1,400 feet above the ground. This wasn’t good, because our new clearance to fly a 'normal' ILS approach required a minimum visibility of 1 mile or ‘RVR 5000’. I had been feeling my heart pound with some adrenaline on this approach, these new developments made me feel it more.

We were still cleared for the approach, but with the new visibility (3/4 mile) it had gone below what our legal minimums to fly it were: 1 mile or ‘RVR 5000’. RVR (Runway Visual Range) is a horizontal visibility distance measured down the runway, and when it’s available it ‘controls’ whether we can ‘shoot’ and instrument approach or not. We had been switched by PHL approach to PHL tower, and they quickly reported the RVR to us as ‘4,500 touchdown, 4,400 rollout’. We continued the approach, my FO and I talked the minutia of the regulations over, and hoped things would improve. Why didn’t we tell ATC we couldn’t continue then and ‘go missed’ right then? One good regulation the FAA has which we observe and operate under is that we can fly an ILS approach up to the ‘final approach point’ (usually about 1,500 above ground and 5 miles from the runway) with the visibility below minimums. If the visibility hasn’t improved to the minimum required by that point, then we can’t continue the approach and have to go missed.

The tenths of miles and mere seconds to arrive at ‘HYILL’, the name of this final approach point, were rapidly counting down. My FO had been steadfastly trying to get a new, improved RVR report from the tower. Just as we were right on top of HYILL it came: ‘RVR 6,500, cleared to land’. We both breathed easier and prepared to land, at least with more certainty than before. The heavy rain and low visibility had been a temporary condition, to be expected with a wind of 27, gusts to 34. I had my FO configure our jet with the last two settings of flaps for landing and we spied the airport at about 3 miles out. The winds were very gusty and to control our airspeed I had to perform some ‘throttle jockeying’ that experience is the best teacher of. In spite of the gusts, we had a fairly nice landing right on the 1,000 foot markers of runway 17.

Taxiing in and parking at our gate we saw many airplanes of all sizes waiting for takeoff, lined up on both sides of 17, a 6,500 foot long runway. For Airbuses and Boeings this would normally be a ‘short’ runway, especially when there is normally a 9,500 foot runway to be used, but not today. Once shut down at the gate, we thanked each other each other for a job well done and considered our suspenseful ‘point of convergence’ on over HYILL.

Life isn’t always this exciting, but life also brings it’s own points of convergence, sometimes by our own actions, but many times by events and circumstances, or others involved in our lives: Marry this person or not? Change careers or not? Take that big step or not? Go out on a limb or not? Go and fight for your country or what you believe in or not? Believe and receive Jesus Christ as your personal savior or not? Make a deeper level of commitment to God or not?

Gleaned from this experience, I don’t have much scripture to quote or biblical advice this time, except a common one we’ve all heard from our parents: $h!7 or get off the pot. Do it or don’t do it, but if you don’t do it, do something else regardless, and move on. Life is better lived by not getting permanently stuck in an undesirable situation.

(BTW in regard to Jesus, if you’ve read my blog you know that I firmly believe he is worth taking a step of faith for. Making a commitment to Jesus can be daunting. Just remember he committed himself to us first: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. – Romans 5:8)

I was generally miserable in my former career life at a Mechanical Engineer/Designer, not because I didn’t like it, but because (1) I wasn’t very good at it (I give myself a C) and (2) I really wanted to fly for a living. With my wife’s blessing (what was she thinking? ;) I made a career change at about age 30 to full time Flight Instructor, then arrived up at my first regional airline about nine months later. I’ve looked back, but never gone back. The time spent away from my wife and family has made it a struggle to have an acceptable quality of life at times, but overall, I don’t regret it. My office is in the sky! I only imagine how I would regret not giving flying the full time shot that I have.

Thanks for reading my blog.

Far from perfect?

A certain professional golf player, who won’t be named, in what we now know to be perhaps the understatement of 2009, admitted that “I’m far from perfect”. I have a few things in common with him. He plays golf, so do I. Well, it might be a stretch to call it playing, but I try. He’s travels away from his home quite a bit, so do I. He’s far from perfect, and so am I. Actually, so are all of us.

Don’t get the wrong idea; I’m not like the philandering pilot in “The Pilot’s Wife”, showcased by Oprah’s Book Club. I’m devoted to my wife, and take my marriage vows seriously. But like the bumper sticker “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven”, I’m still human.

Since it’s a new year, and resolutions are common, the subject of perfection and being perfect is appropriate. Being perfect is something I’ve wanted to write about for a while now. I feel like sometimes this blog mistakenly makes the impression that I’m expressing how good of a person I am, how obedient I am to God and what not. That is not the purpose. My intent is to share the experiences I have both as an airline pilot and as a Christian, trying to follow Jesus Christ in word, faith, and deed. I wish to glorify God and illuminate Christ. I struggle, I sin, I fail, I fight temptation, and I suffer. But I also pray, study God’s word, praise and worship Him, share my faith with others, revel with God and glorify him in my victories, and try to love others as I do myself.

Nobody’s perfect is a trite saying, but one that we all have in common, whether you’re the Pope or a pauper, President or Pro Golfer, Parent or Pilot. Honestly, we are all ‘far from perfect’. God’s view on this is shown in Romans 3:10-12, 18, and 23 as this theme: “10As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; 11there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. 12All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." . . .18"There is no fear of God before their eyes." . . . 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Well, there is one exception to that rule. There is one man who lived a perfect life, and never committed a sin. I’m speaking of Jesus Christ, of course. He did God’s perfect will, sometimes even surprising his parents and offending others in the process, and though he was human like us and was tempted like us, he never sinned.

Scripture backs me up. From Hebrews 4:15: “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Just after the Holy Spirit descended on him as he started his earthly ministry, he was tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1-10). And from II Corinthians 5:21: “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

There’s more, from Hebrews 9:14 (NLT) “Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins.”  And Hebrews 7:28 calls Jesus our ‘perfect High Priest’.

The naysayer might want to (1) debate whether Jesus lived a perfect life, and (2) also say ‘so we know we’re not perfect, so what? God still loves us anyway, so he would accept me into heaven, I’m not a bad person’. The first point is another subject, maybe for another day.  On the second point, yes, God still love us, but He commanded the Israelites in the Old Testament to “be holy, because I am holy” (Leviticus 19:2).

In the Old Testament, God’s people kept disappointing him with their sin and wickedness (not being holy), and God had Moses and Aaron institute a prescribed and precise system of animal sacrifice, which by the spilling and shedding of blood (because the penalty of sin is death, and spilling of blood represents death) would atone for the sin of the people and make things right with God (Leviticus chapters 16-17).

By the time Jesus was born (start of New Testament) and started his ministry 2000 plus years ago, the system of animal sacrifice for atonement of sins was firmly established. Then Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount and at the end of it commanded us to “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Now didn’t God say in Genesis that he created man in his image? And Adam and Eve for a time didn’t sin, at all. So on the basis of God’s creation it’s actually somewhat valid for him to expect us to be perfect.

Let me get this straight, you might say. Not only is God and Jesus Christ perfect, but He wants us to be perfect? Yep. According to the Bible, we need either to be perfect (a very tall order indeed) or we need a fix (they say fix in Oklahoma, where I’m from originally), or a repair, or a remedy for our imperfectness. What I mean by this is a way to look like we’re perfect to God, even though we’re not. I think most all of humanity, when it comes down to it, would choose the latter option.

Jesus Christ himself is the fix for our imperfectness, and the way to repair the broken relationship we have with God due to our sin. He is the Son of God, part of the Holy Trinity, which is portrayed and displayed in the Old and New Testament. Thusly, he is God, and admitted as much in the gospels before he was crucified on the cross.

Do I mean Jesus will help us not commit sin at all and be perfect? Yes and no, kind of. Walking spiritually ‘in Christ’ will grow a desire in your heart to please God with your actions, desires, and thoughts. Avoiding sin only because you know its wrong quickly not only becomes tiring, it becomes impossible! Also, can imperfect humans really be perfect, really? Not by our own efforts, not by our own works. Even the Pope and Billy Graham sin. So where does that leave us, desperate?

For a moment only; no, that leaves us totally and completely dependent on Christ to perfect us, to make us perfect. But does the Bible say He does this? Yes! From Hebrews 10:14: “because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy (Christians being sanctified).” There it is, straight from the Holy word of God. We REALLY CAN are made perfect in God’s eyes, without actually being perfect!

This is a lot to chew on spiritually. For more explanation, I found it was good to read the sections from Hebrews 7:23-28, Hebrews 9:13-15, and Hebrews 10:11-18 (all NLT). Also consider the phrase ‘in Christ’ from the standpoint of John 15 (‘I am the vine, you are the branches’) and as well as from John 17:23 (NLT) when a pre-crucifixion Jesus prayed for future believers: “I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.” Christ is perfect, and he is in us and we are in him. Hallelujah!

What can I share about flying lately? Well, I’m not perfect there either. Things occasionally happen, despite my best intents and efforts that I don’t share unless you’re a fellow pilot at my airline that I’m comfortable sharing it with. No, I can’t divulge the details; it didn’t require a visit from the Chief Pilot or the FAA. Let’s just say the complacency curve caught up to me, and something happened which made me ask “how the heck did that happen?” When I make errors, or mistakes, usually it’s ones of small significance, customer service related, or one where the Co-Pilot and I agree that it just amounts to ‘style points’. But sometimes, well, ‘stuff’ happens.

OK, I give, as I frequently do. We were taxiing out of a Birmingham, Alabama, about a month ago at ‘dark O’Clock’ in a pounding, cold rain. We were a little late because of a number of frustrating occurrences, some caused by a seemingly inept ground crew, some caused by a broken and uncooperative airplane.

The ramp crew hadn’t serviced our jet properly during the overnight, and I had to request water for the galley and lavatory, and a ground power unit (GPU) and air start cart. You’re heard these terms before and together they mean our APU (auxiliary power unit) was broken. When the APU is ‘inop’ we need a GPU for electricity and a start cart to provide air pressure to start our engines. The cabin not being clean enough was minor at this point.

They got us water and the aforementioned equipment, then boarded us and we prepared to start engines, only to see that the tug driver couldn’t make his headset work to communicate with us for the pushback. Eventually he got it working intermittently, and then our left engine had trouble starting correctly. The start was fine, but when it was completed we kept getting a red warning light and text and audible message ‘engine oil pressure’ telling us that the oil pressure on our left engine was too low. Upon checking the actual oil pressure gauge and the other engine indications, the reality was that the pressure was fine, and I surmised that so was the engine. It was entirely logical that the warning was not correct, but with a $2 million engine and a warning that won’t go away, you can get antsy quickly. I shut down the engine, we started the right engine, and planned to start the left one again, and we tried to communicate this to our soaked to the bone ramp agents through the rickety headset connection. Upon starting the left engine again the message wouldn’t go away, so I called for the QRH (Quick Reference Handbook) procedure for low engine oil pressure. The checklist basically said if you have both gage and warning message indications of low oil pressure, shut down the engine, if you have conflicting indications, keep it running and monitor it. Just about then the message did go way.

The ramp crew, in their yellow slickers, had about had enough. To get them out of the rain, I resolved to call maintenance and report our trouble in starting the left engine, but do it after taxi while sitting next to the runway. We finished our checklists and prepared to taxi out.

Leaving a rain soaked, black asphalt ramp at an unfamiliar airport for the very first time, at a dark hour of before sunrise would prove to be interesting. There had been so much rain and moisture that our windshield had fogged up on the inside surfaces, like you get on a car sometimes. I asked my FO to select high on our windshield heat instead of low. For some reason he was reluctant to do so, so I did it myself. The high setting would remove the fog on the windshield sooner. Windshield heat is a super powered version of rear window defogging on a car. We started taxiing out from the ramp to the taxiway after receiving taxi clearance from Birmingham ground control to taxi to our departure runway.

Feeling our way past the terminal and other aircraft, the wipers were doing okay in clearing the rain and the fog was slowly being removed from the windscreen. Two ‘islands’ (areas you can’t taxi over), wrapped in the blue lights taxiways are identified by, were ahead of us, and it looked like we could go right between both of them. Getting closer I slowed the plane down and we both peered through the drops on our windshield. “I don’t see lights on the inner sides of the islands” I said. My FO, a really good guy to work with but a new pilot at our airline, with only about 500 hours total time in jets, agreed. Approaching with about ten yards left to reach the islands I noticed that there was a green reflector in the ground right ahead of us, then the depth and width of the drainage ditch I was about to drive the plane into blossomed into full realization in the threat area of my brain. After an exclamation or two, a brake application and a sharp turn to the left around the ‘two’ islands which in reality were one, we found the taxiway down to the runway.

Fortunately I had been taxiing the jet slow enough to see the danger, slow down, and turn out of the way. We surmised that sometime in the past a blue light and post had been broken and the airport had replaced it with just a green reflector on the ground. The ditch was one to two feet deep and about three feet wide, and would’ve ‘ruined our whole day’ had I driven the plane through it.

At a holding ramp next to the runway, I called our maintenance department. When I reported our engine starting difficulty they agreed it was just an anomaly, and advised us to keep an eye on it, as we certainly would. The engine never gave us any more trouble the entire day, which involved five legs worth of flying.

The temperature in this moderate, constant rain was a cold 3 degrees Celsius, or about 38 degrees Farenhight. That required that we takeoff with our wing and engine cowl anti-ice systems turned on. Because our jet doesn’t have takeoff and landing performance calculated (it wasn’t certified this way to increase available payload) when operating without the APU on while using hot air from the engine for wing and engine cowl anti-ice, we would have to perform the takeoff with the cabin unpressurized, and consequently perform an unpressurized landing and takeoff at Charlotte, Huntsville, and Washington DC. I could explain more but at this point it would be too confusing and diverting from the story; just know that an unpressurized takeoff or landing is a pain in the butt!

After we briefed this procedure, I took a little time to consider with my Co-Pilot what we could’ve done better to avoid ‘driving it into the ditch’ in the first place. I should’ve selected high on the windshield heat immediately, and not taxied until it was clear of fog. I should’ve looked at the airport diagram closer and defined and briefed our taxi route from the ramp to the taxiway, before the plane started moving. I always brief the taxi before the plane is moving, but this time I let being in a hurry get the best of me. I noticed that the airport diagram didn’t show enough detail to see that the two islands were actually one, but one page later, in a map of the terminal and ramp area, it did show that important detail. Lastly, I should’ve been on better guard since I was operating at an unfamiliar airport. Actually there’s one more, too, that I kept to myself. I tend to lose ‘flight discipline’ somewhat when I get emotional, on the angry or happy side of the scale. I could do better in safeguarding against this.

‘Flight Discipline’ is an important term I favor in my job arena. When even the new FAA Administrator is lamenting a loss of professionalism in the regional AND major airline pilot ranks these days, encouraging pilots to have better flight discipline will be one of the keys to improving the airline safety record even further. I’d like to plug a great book I read by the same name, ‘Flight Discipline’ by Tony Kern, a veteran Air Force Pilot. He reviews military and airline accidents in which a lack of flight discipline directly contributed to the crashes occurring. Based on my experience as an airline pilot, former military pilots seem to have better flight discipline than their civilian cohorts. They have more of a mission mindset and a greater respect for the rules and SOP’s (standard operating procedures) than other pilots. This isn’t to say that every civilian pilot is a ‘cowboy’ either, by no means.

Traditionally, the public holds pilots in such high regard, sometimes I wonder why. Maybe it has to do with entrusting your life to complete strangers in a foreign, unknown, unfriendly sky. Not to malign my brothers and sisters in arms, but we are people too. On one hand, passengers seem to think that pilots are brave, courageous, have razor sharp reflexes and coordination, are safe and professional, and thusly, have the morals and ethics of saints. I’m sorry, it’s just not true. You can be a safe and professional pilot and still be completely human, with many personal failings. The opposite stereotype of pilots as greedy, lazy, drunk, egotistical male chauvinists and bigots who cheat on their wives or girlfriends is far from the mark as well. The reality is somewhere between; as it is in society in general, it depends on the individual pilot. Yes, airline pilots tend to have egos, but we’re not superheroes, we’re people like you and me. We’re just people, far from perfect people who have a love for flying, who have a blood and heart infection for being in the sky.

A Grinch who almost stole Christmas

I’m touched by what went down a few nights ago. The events which transpired on Christmas Eve befit the Holiday. Both the naughty and nice sides of human nature were on display, and I’m proud of the way people with my company and others responded to the situation.

Our story starts after a Philadelphia-Milwaukee round trip, where we incurred takeoff delays in Milwaukee because of not one but two airborne emergencies of Northwest Airlines and United Express planes. After uneventful outcomes of both we blasted off for the ‘City of brotherly love’, grateful that no one was had been hurt.

As a side note, a ‘monumentally impressive snow and rainmaker of a winter storm’ (TV Weatherman impersonation) was producing only a cold and constant rain at Brew City’s Mitchell field. Freezing rain or snow, which was then located to the north and west of Milwaukee, would’ve delayed us twenty minutes or more to de-ice and anti-ice our aircraft. The frontal boundary of this weather system eventually stretched like an upside down horseshoe from the east coast over the Great Lakes and down into the southern plains states. They had blizzard warnings for Iowa and Oklahoma on the same day. The best part is this big storm was moving slowly. They’ve had flood warnings in the east, from days of rain far ahead of the snowy part of the storm system. You can see from the weather map that moisture from the Atlantic Ocean is being drawn up the east coast and across the Great Lakes, helping to feed moisture to the already snow laden atmosphere.

Back to our Christmas story, to start it that is; kind of like the background of the traditional Christmas story, it takes a little to get it going. We arrived a little late in Philadelphia from Milwaukee, and were to swap into a new aircraft for a flight from Philadelphia to Albany, New York for our overnight. I had been flying with reserve Co-Pilots on this trip, and I called our Dispatcher to ask three questions: for a meal break for my Flight Attendant and I, where our plane we were to swap into was, and who my new First Officer (FO) was. He was fine with the meal break, as we had skipped lunch, and told me that our FO, a reserve pilot from one of our other bases, had been in PHL for two hours. Arriving at the gate with Chinese food in my hand, our jet was ‘cold and dark’, airline parlance for not powered up, no electricity and no heat. What it really meant was that my new FO wasn’t present, for some reason. I put on my best poker face in front of fifty anxious passengers and one mainline pilot/jumpseater, then the Flight Attendant and I walked down the jetway to the plane. After firing up the APU to prepare the plane I called Crew Scheduling to advise them that FO ______ wasn’t present. I was quickly concerned when Crew Scheduling was surprised that he wasn’t there and began trying to track him down.

My good Flight Attendant and I agreed not to board the jet until Crew Scheduling had found an FO for the flight, this one or a new one. He wasn’t happy about it, but we advised the gate agent of this, and I became worried that the flight would be cancelled. Crew Scheduling determined that ________ had commuted back to his base for the night, and they started trying to find a new FO for us.

Rachael, our Flight Attendant, brought sodas and water to our fifty Albany bound passengers waiting at the gate. A Gate manager who was helping oversee everything brought out pretzels to the passengers as well. By now we were the last Express flight out of PHL on Christmas Eve, and my optimism was fading fast.

I went out and spoke to a few passengers about the delay, trying to bite my tongue concerning what I suspected our FO had done: essentially ditched us, the company, and fifty Empire Capital bound passengers just before one of the Holiest days and biggest Holidays of the year. A passenger asked me about the new departure time on the monitor. It now showed a 9:40 PM departure time, 2:40 later than we had been scheduled. I called Crew Scheduling (CS) back to ask about it. They informed me that the pilots of a flight currently landing at Elmira-Corning, New York would reposition a jet without passengers back to PHL and the FO from that plane would fly with our crew to Albany (ALB) for the night. Good news!

CS and our Dispatch Coordinator had worked a Christmas Miracle. They had tried assigning ready reserve pilots (different than normal reserve) but they were off duty, no other reserve pilots were available in PHL, and they called to ‘junior man’ pilots but no one was answering their phones (understandably). They had done almost everything they could to find a pilot to assign this flight to, and the only trick they had left was to extend a crew who were still on duty’s schedule, fortunately it worked.

I hated the idea of canceling this flight on Christmas Eve. The visual I had of the suffering these people would experience in not making it to loved ones for Christmas Morning was difficult to me to bear. I’m very grateful that my company and others went the extra mile to find an FO and not cancel this flight. They did more than just avoid a cancellation and the expense of putting fifty customers up in a hotel for the night. They saved Christmas for them!

I’d like to give ‘gold stars’ to my Flight Attendant Rachael, the gate agents, and ramp agents for taking great care of the passengers during this delay, and staying to see our flight out, and especially to my airline’s Dispatch Coordinator and CS Personnel responsible for not canceling this flight and for finding a replacement FO. To strand passengers in PHL on Christmas Eve because of this would have been a very unfortunate thing to do. My company and the others involved spent thousands of dollars more than necessary to get this flight out, but I’m proud of their response in this situation.

I had asked the CS person if she could share any details with me about the first FO’s missed flight assignment. CS contacted him at 7 PM on the 23rd during an overnight stay, via a voice mail message, with the PHL-ALB flight assignment. He didn’t call back, and CS left him another voice mail message on this Christmas Eve during his day of flying. He didn’t return this call either and commuted back to his base after arriving back in PHL after flying three flights. CS wasn’t happy with this person’s actions, and it seemed that this situation would definitely be addressed by management, and rightly so.

I and Rachael were angry and embarrassed, frankly, to hear of these events: angry at this employee, whom neither of us knew, and embarrassed that someone at our airline would do such a thing. While I don’t know his side of the story, it seemed to us that our FO intentionally missed his flight assignment, just in order to be home on Christmas Eve. For a reserve pilot to not call back about a new flight assignment to be flown on a scheduled day of reserve duty is very unprofessional, but even more so on a holiday like Christmas Eve.

I went back to preparing for our ‘Santa’ flight. Our jet’s wingtips were collecting frost, so I requested a de-ice. A PHL Operations Manager responded, but ultimately requested a change of aircraft because the deicing trucks had been shut down for the night, and the de-icing crews had gone home for the night as well (can’t blame them really). Our Dispatcher changed our jet to the one being repositioned to PHL, bringing in our new FO, assigned to our PHL-ALB flight. This plane was “negative APU” (APU inoperative) so I requested an air start cart (for the engines) and a GPU. The circus music had already replaced the Christmas music in my head, and it was getting louder. Fortunately and thankfully our ramp agents and gate agents had not abandoned us, and continued to take care of our needs.

With only the Captain and our ‘savior’ FO on board, our new jet arrived and parked next to our frosty one. The ground crew plugged the GPU (ground power unit) in and we had electricity on the aircraft without having to run one of the engines. Rachael, our new FO and I prepared it and boarded our 50 passengers for ALB ASAP. We pushed back just after ten PM, three hours late.

This night, Christmas Eve night, we had had a Grinch who tried to steal Christmas from our passengers, a selfish fellow with an ugly attitude, thinking only about himself and not others he was to serve. True Christmas spirit, that of giving, serving, and sacrifice, and ultimately of suffering, was not in him. It reminds me of how secular traditions – the commercialization of Christmas (giving gifts, Santa, etc.) and applied humanist philosophies try to steal it from it’s true reason: The celebration of the human birth of Immanuel, ‘God with us’ (Isaiah 7:14) , The prophesied Messiah for the Jewish people and all mankind, Jesus Christ.

There were many prophecies fulfilled just by the birth of Christ. Concerning his birth, the who it was, what would happen, when it would occur, where it would occur, how it would occur, and of what lineage the Messiah would be was prophesied of hundreds and thousands of years before Jesus birth. For two websites worth exploring these prophesies at, click here and here.

Why do I write of Christmas in this way, that it includes sacrifice and suffering? The original, true Christmas story had these elements. Mary and Joseph were certainly cursed at under the breath of others, and possibly ostracized by those who didn’t believe their ‘Holy Spirit conceived pregnancy while still a virgin’ story (Matthew 1:18-25, Luke 1:26-37) that no doubt made the rounds in their town of Nazareth. There’s suffering there.

The arduous journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem that they made during the final stages of her pregnancy involved suffering and sacrifices as well. It was 70 miles, and tradition says that Joseph walked and Mary was on a donkey. The census, called by Caesar Augustus, was to collect taxes for the Roman Empire, and required that everyone travel to their hometown (Luke 2:1-5). By God’s sovereign plan this requirement enabled fulfillment of the prophecy that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, given by Micah the Prophet in Mica 5:2: “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, are only a small village among all the people of Judah. Yet a ruler of Israel will come from you, one whose origins are from the distant past.”

We humans love signs from the divine, and in the Christmas story, one of the signs ‘of the new King’ was given to ‘wise men from the east’. From Matthew 2:1-12, wise men from the east ask King Herod in Jerusalem “Where is the new born king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose, and we have come to worship him.” Why did this signal to the wise men that a new King was born? According to a Bible guide I have, some astronomers calculate that in 7 BC Jupiter and Saturn lined up inside the Pisces constellation not once, but three times. On the ancient Middle Eastern horoscope, Jupiter represented kings, Saturn represented the Jews, and Pisces (fish) represented the Jewish homeland, so it seemed that a Jewish King was arriving at the Jewish homeland! Click here for a Theoretical Astrophysicist’s interesting opinion on it.

What a great sign this was! And I’m grateful that I received a sign this night, a skeptic might say it was coincidence, but I have faith in Jesus, and prefer to use it when I can. Our great sign this night was the name of our new FO, whose last name was ‘King’, I kid you not. He was easy to work with, understanding of the situation, he even called me sir, kept doing it too, even after I told him he didn’t need to. A ‘King’ who suffers and serves, he had those traits in common with the Lord.

If you’re thinking ‘baby Jesus didn’t suffer’ you’re probably right (except for the animal dung smell!), but suffering was part of his destiny. By reading the gospels one can see that He never turned away when faced with suffering and sacrifice. We Christians are quick to accept his serving, suffering, and sacrifice for us, but tend to be slow in accepting it in our own lives. However, In relationship with God through faith in Jesus as personal Savior and Lord and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us, we can grow to accept sacrifice and suffering with Joy. This sentiment is expressed in I Peter 4:12-16: “12Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. 13But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. 14If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. 15If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. 16However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name."

Glory, praises, and all honor to all mankind's newborn Messiah and King!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!  Lots of snow and blizzard conditions where I have loved ones, be careful out there! I'm in Albany, NY, and am scheduled to fly to Philadelphia, PA, then to Cincinati, OH tonight.  I have a great Christmas story I'd like to share, but will get to it later.  I promise.  Thanks for reading my blog again!

The promised Messiah for all of mankind, Jesus Christ, Immanuel, 'God with us', is born this Christmas morning!

Scrooged!

Yesterday started out nice in Milwaukee, and finished nice in Philadelphia, but in between it was murky, foggy, and tenuous with the scene of the world outside the windows, and eventually the question of where I would lay my head for the night.

Our scheduled day was Milwaukee (MKE) - Charlotte (CLT) – Harrisburg, PA (MDT) – CLT – Washington, DC (DCA). Most of it went according to plan. The first flight to Charlotte went well, except for light turbulence the second half, in ‘IMC’ (the clouds) over the Blue Ridge and Smokey Mountains portion of the Appalachians, pointed toward Charlotte. Once over the CLT terminal area, most of the white skies gave way to an undercast layer far below us, guarding the ground with a blanket of Sunday Football watching nap weather, which I wished I had the opportunity to do instead of shepherding planes full of trusting holiday travelers.

In very light winds, I flew the garden variety ILS (Instrument Landing System) approach, but in ‘solid’ conditions. We didn’t spend much time in the thin layer before we broke out at about 350 feet above the runway, which was covered in moisture from a light drizzle. A temperature inversion (which is a layer of air which is warmer at a higher altitude than it is below) hugged the ground. The cooler temperature on the ground promised that the conditions were all set to get worse, and we trusted that it would.

It was my First Officer’s legs to be the PF (pilot flying) from Charlotte to Harrisburg and back, more infamously known as ‘Three Mile Island’, which the airport is very close to. He’s an Asian-American, was born and raised in Hawaii, and is a long way from home. Very easy to work with, he’s a good, knowledgeable pilot, and quiet and good natured. Harrisburg had a thin overcast too, and the air was so smooth during his approach that you wouldn’t have known it otherwise. I called the ‘approach lights in sight’ at about 500 feet AGL (Above Ground Level) and he landed nicely on the long, misty runway.

After a visit to McDonald’s, and not a healthy salad but a greasy third pound burger and fries (comfort food when missing my three wife and two girls back home), I was ready to jump through the murk back to Charlotte. We had a guest up front, a jumpseating Piedmont First Officer who was in his fourth year there, flying the Dash-8 Turboprop and based at Harrisburg. Piedmont is a proud carrier, a rare regional airline which hasn’t ‘lowered the bar’ and taken paycuts and concessions in exchange for Regional Jets. Good for them, I say, but on the other hand, I’d bet that it can be a heartache seeing all those RJ’s taxi by while you’re making a career commanding an out of fashion and out of favor turboprop. I’m not demeaning T-prop’s, just commiserating with their pilots, that’s all. I think the Dash-8 Q400 (which Piedmont doesn’t fly BTW) is a great plane, but for that many seats (74) a pilot should be paid a great hourly rate.

“US Express thirty-seven-fourty-nine, right turn heading one-eight-zero” Harrisburg departure told us as my FO climbed our jetliner out of the clouds into the night sky. As we turned, the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant loomed seemingly just right below us. The enveloping mist around the tall, hourglass shaped cooling towers and other structures tried to hide it all from view, but the power plant’s bright white lights and ‘aviation red’ obstruction lights would have no part of that. It was a surreal moment surrounding a still amazing and controversial energy technology.

From here onward to Charlotte and part way back to DC, we would observe the earth’s new portrayal of itself, as a gray, white and orange, marbled, spider webbed and interconnected surface. Lights of civilization from the cities, towns, and highways below were illuminating through the thin layer of clouds and fog. For me, it was yet another reminder of how Jesus Christ gives light, true light, his true light, to us, and how he penetrates our hearts, through whatever fog and clouds are in our lives.

We chased some more green light on the way to Charlotte, and had good conversation with our Jumpseater. I made a mental note to see whether the green light in a fading dusk horizon from 20,000 feet is observable on terra firma, and yesterday, when driving home, I verified that it is not. You now have another reason to book a flight, in order to cross the sky and appreciate an exquisitely beautiful sunset and dusky sky.

For our second approach into Charlotte, we still had a thin overcast layer and temperature inversion, but the conditions had gotten significantly worse on the ground. Charlotte was reporting almost calm winds, ½ mile visibility with mist, and a thin cloud layer starting at 300 feet above the ground. The businesslike tone of the controllers and the pilots on the frequency reflected the seriousness of the atmosphere.

Upon checking on with Charlotte Approach, they told us that the runway ‘three-six right’ (36R) RVR was 2000. RVR stands for ‘Runway Visual Range’, and is a measured horizontal visibility that governs instrument approaches in poor visibility. Our airline’s minimum legal visibility permitted for an approach is 1,800 feet, so it was approaching our legal minimums for an instrument approach.

He had already briefed the ILS approach to 36R, so all that was left to do was to cross our t’s and dot our i’s regarding our procedures and such on the approach. Since I take the plane off the runway, I briefed that we would take the first exit we saw at a slow enough speed, or as the tower cleared us. It was likely they would want us clear of the first available taxiway. We both knew that the likelihood of going around was good, so we were mentally prepared for that, as we always are, but more so this time.

One of the components of the ILS is the approach lighting system. It is a sequenced line of lights on the ground, extended from the beginning of the runway up to a half a mile, and on some runways the runway itself has touchdown zone lighting, symmetrically on both sides of the runway centerline. ATC can turn these lights up very brightly, to make it easier to see the approach lights and runway through the low fog and mist. Only I forgot to brief my FO on how bright these lights would be, so bright that they take away all of your depth perception in the landing flare. Even with all our jet’s landing lights on, you can’t see the runway surface.

He did a fine job though. By the time he was flaring the plane for landing it was readily apparent that there was no depth perception. I didn’t want to distract him at that point, so I didn’t say anything. You would think this is a no brainer for airline pilot pros, but we see these conditions only about three times a year – twice in real life and once in the simulator. My FO has been at our airline for over three years, and he told me after we taxied in that it was the lowest visibility he’s actually landed in as the pilot flying.

Those conditions aren’t anything to fool around in. Unfortunately, later that night, after we departed Charlotte for Washington DC, another airline’s MD-80 had a landing mishap after continuing an approach in those foggy conditions when they perhaps should have gone around. The crew landed with one main landing gear on the edge of the runway. Then, in trying to steer the jet back onto the runway, one of it’s wingtips struck the ground. It is reported that these pilots reported trouble with their autopilot and disconnected it during the approach, electing to hand fly it the rest of the way to touchdown.

After a landing accident from an unstabilized approach that my own airline had a couple of years ago, (with no lives lost or injuries, thank God), my airline now has a policy of requiring the autopilot to fly the approach to the missed approach point when the visibility below 3 miles. Some of our pilots opine that they’re restricting our ‘freedom’, but I believe this policy is a good thing.

Taxiing out of Charlotte later, I had to take it very slowly; it was so foggy that ground control was relying on position reports from the aircraft. Seeing other jets on the ground itself was difficult. They tended to show up like silvery lit sets of lights, sliding by like ghosts among the colored Christmas tree lights of the taxiways and runways (I like colored lights on Christmas trees). ‘What is that jumbo jet Airbus doing?’ He turned toward us on the runway we were crossing as he was taxiing to the gate after landing. Suddenly he looked a lot bigger and we wondered if he saw us like we saw him. He was a normal narrow body Airbus after all, 320 series. The fog made planes seem bigger, and they sneak up on you quicker.

In a long line for takeoff, we enjoyed watching the airliners (which had lower legal landing minimums than our airline does) break out of the low overcast and land virtually immediately. The clouds were now reported as 100 feet above the ground and the visibility was variable between 1200-1400 RVR. We had asked our dispatcher for a takeoff alternate at the gate, he knew we would call and was planning it for us. Since we were limited to RVR 1800 when landing at Charlotte, if we had an engine failure or another emergency we wouldn’t be able to return to Charlotte. On our release I ‘pen and inked’ the ‘TOA’ and we were on our way.

The trend seemed to be that a blanket of fog was being thrown all across the south. DC’s forecast wasn’t that bad, relatively speaking. It was supposed to be “31005KT 2SM BR OVC003” (light winds from the northwest, two miles visibility, mist, overcast clouds 300 feet above the ground) by the time we arrived after a 50 minute flight. I was the pilot flying this leg, and by the time I finished my salad in cruise flight, Washington center gave us the standard clearance to “Descend to cross OJAAY at one-zero thousand, two-five-zero knots”. OJAAY is an ‘intersection’ on our route of flight into DC from the south, and ATC wanted us to cross it at 10,000 feet at 250 MPH.

My good FO had just brought up the weather report from DC. It was “19003KT 1/2SM FG OVC001”, with the visibility of ½ mile at our approach minimums. The RVR reports would tell the tale on whether we would get in, or even fly the approach. Soon Washington center gave a clearance to turn back behind where we were and enter ‘the published holding pattern’ at JIMBE intersection. We never made it to OJAAY. After my good FO programmed the holding pattern at JIMBE in our FMS (Flight Management System-computer) I said “execute”, punched the right buttons and twisted the right knobs, and our jet magically entered the holding pattern, flying the oval racetrack pattern depicted on our moving map display.

Meanwhile, the RVR reports from DC weren’t good. It was 800-1200, and the absolute minimum RVR at DC for any aircraft (due to limited ground equipment and approach lights etc.) is 1600. Under these conditions, no aircraft were getting into DC tonight. The weather forecast for DC had been in the neighborhood, but the ‘weather guessers’ had still basically blown it. A revised forecast we received via our ACARS box predicted that the thick fog would stick around DC for the night.

We had about 30-40 minutes of fuel to hold with, with four or five other forlorn airliners waiting for DC above and below us. As usual, there is lots to do when holding, waiting, wondering if you’ll divert to your alternate airport or another airport: update the passengers, the Flight Attendant, communicate with Dispatch, check and re-check the weather reports and forecasts at your respective airports, and look for meteors falling through the sky.

Uh, that last part is rare but true. We were lucky enough to be flying in a clear sky on the night of maximum meteor activity of the annual Geminids meteor shower. My FO had spotted a few more than me, but after I learned where to look I started catching up. It was the only consolation I could offer our passengers as we waited for our bingo fuel to arrive or for the fog to lift at DC.

Our bingo fuel, calculated by our Dispatcher, and verified by us, is the minimum fuel we could leave the holding pattern with, fly the approach at DC, go missed approach, and continue to our alternate and land with IFR reserves (45 minutes worth of fuel) at our alternate, which in this case was Philadelphia. PHL seemed like a long way for an alternate, my FO stated, and I tended to agree with him. We checked the weather at nearby Washington DC Dulles (IAD) and Baltimore (BWI). It was fine at BWI and marginal at IAD, but we might be able to get in there. We ‘emailed’ over our ACARS box to Dispatch our suggestion to divert to IAD instead of PHL, but they didn’t take the bait. He kept responding that “PHL is ready for you”. PHL did have better facilities for receiving a stray US Air Express flight, as it’s a hub for them. But I was visualizing unhappy passengers getting off the plane in PHL asking ‘why didn’t we land at Dulles or Baltimore?’. We crept down closer and closer to our bingo fuel with every meteor sighted.

After holding for about 40 minutes we reached our bingo fuel of 3,800 lbs, and set things in motion with ATC to divert to PHL. Away from blanketed ground beneath us we went toward the bare, fog free Virginia and Maryland peninsulas, towards unclouded Philadelphia and a 20 mile line of aircraft on final approach. That’s a long final approach, it seemed Philly was running a reduced ATC operation, using only one runway for landing. A normal flight from Charlotte to DC usually takes 1:25 total, with this diversion to Philly it took 3:08.

Yes, the people were not happy, especially when the gate agent announced on board that the flight had been cancelled. It was a weather cancellation, which meant that the airline wasn’t liable for providing a hotel for inconvenienced passengers. I know, I know, but I just fly the plane, I don’t make up the rules. Comments like “I’ll miss an important meeting because of this”, “did the Airbus flying from Charlotte to DC make it in?” (no), and of course “three airports in DC, what about going to Baltimore?” were faced by me with the best apologetic, empathetic smile I could muster.

At the hotel a while later, at 1 AM I tried to settle into my comfortable room, but my head was still buzzing with the experiences and sights we had this day. My heart had a flurry of activity too, feeling for our passengers so close, but yet so far from where they thought they would be. I was looking forward to going home, on an unknown early flight from Philly to Minneapolis or Chicago, then on the final leg to Sioux Falls. I was missing my wife and two girls dearly. I hadn’t seen my wife but for a couple hours the last time I had been home. She had traveled to be with her father in Omaha, in the hospital.

The internet didn’t work for my laptop in my room, so I would have to guess on the time and airline to jumpseat on. Murphy, as in Murphy’s law, was running the show. After four hours sleep I clawed my way to the airport and picked Northwest, even against my instincts telling me to go to United. My flight had a maintenance delay. Once at MSP, I learned that the flight I could’ve taken to Sioux Falls, if I had been on time, had cancelled. Passengers and jumpseating pilots from the cancelled flight spilled over in the departure lounge. Soon I missed the next two flights on regional jets, and finally caught the third one home, it had taken 12+ hours.

I was home for 22 hours, as I had only two days off and had an early show for next trip I had to commute back to DC for. But I had a great 22 hour layover at home. Sometimes this job, and life, goes this way. Sometimes you get Scrooged, by the weather and your commute. But God doesn’t say in the Bible that you won’t get scrooged. He does say that He will be there for you when it happens.

Thanks for reading my blog. ‘Happy Holidays’, and have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I hope to post again for Christmas, before the year is out.