FAA Observation

Next week, the fam and I are going on a vacation of sorts. I’m not sure how many people make a family vacation out of a visit with a terminally ill friend, but that’s exactly what we’re doing.

When I finished up my type rating, the forecast for going out on OE was for late April. I wound up going on my last trip in the middle of April. I figured if they could squeeze me in then, I should be able to finish up fairly quickly. Then, they ran out of check airmen. So I sat at home for quite a while wondering when I’d go out on another trip. When the beginning of May rolled around with no plan for me, I began to wonder if I would finish up prior to starting my vacation.

I admit, I was a bit surprised when I got the call earlier this week for this trip. It often seems that when I hope for something to happen, it doesn’t work out the way I hoped. So far, though, it seems to be. I hesitate to say that too soon, though, because it’s not completely done yet as I write this. But I am one step closer now.

Tuesday, I commercialled to Atlanta, way way way too early in the morning. I don’t know who thought up the idea of a 5:10 a.m. departure, but I’m thinking it must have been someone who stayed up way too late and thought that was an ‘end of the day’ time. It’s certainly not a civil beginning to a day, especially when it’s preceded by an hour plus drive to the airport, not to mention the rest of the usual waking up things. But that was good practice for the next morning’s 6:45 a.m. departure out of Atlanta.

Because World decided to get airplanes far faster than we could possibly train for, they’re having to involuntarily assign pilots to fly them. We used to do that on a very regular basis, but haven’t since signing our new contract in 2006 which included provisions that were designed to both prevent involuntary assignments and enable the company to operate what it needs to operate. All that worked great until now. We’ve gotten close to completing enough training for one new airplane. Two are already on the property and a third is scheduled to test fly next week.

All that background to say that they ran out of pilots and had to involuntarily assign a couple of our check airmen to go fly. The nice thing about that is that it creates more OE opportunities and I happen to be in need of just such a thing. The trip yesterday started in Atlanta which also happens to be where our FAA Certificate is held. Our POI (Principle Operations Inspector) works out of the Atlanta FSDO (Flight Standards District Office). One of the things that must be done with a first-time airline Captain upgrade is that the FAA must be allowed to observe a flight. I had to do that at Comair when I upgrade to Captain in the CRJ, and now I needed to do it again here at World. Can you see the stars aligning? The week before vacation, a check airman is involuntarily assigned to a trip out of Atlanta where our POI is. How convenient.

The trip went from Atlanta to Ft. Worth (not DFW, but a navy base nearby), to Ft. Campbell (Kentucky), to Volk field in Wisconsin. If that sounds like a long day that’s because it is… especially when it starts with a 6:45 a.m. departure. The leg from Atlanta to Ft. Worth was a ferry flight, though we did bring some of our flight attendants who were working in the next two legs with us from Atlanta (the rest met us in Ft. Worth).

Oh, by the way, the FAA inspector (our new POI) was in my DC-10 systems ground school, so I already knew him from there. I’ve probably mentioned before that he’s a pretty nice guy and doesn’t appear to be totally corrupted by the FAA culture. Of course, he does have a job to do, but if he really does his job honestly and fairly (some don’t, IMO), it should be … ahh… tolerable. And, indeed, it was.

But the day didn’t go flawlessly. The night before our departure, I called the puzzle palace to inform whoever cared (dispatch and maintenance, primarily) that the FAA would be riding along. In some respects, I feel like I really shouldn’t have to do that, but I always appreciate a heads up, kinda like a car flashing lights when a cop is just down the road.

So imagine my disappointment when we walked out to the airplane to find the gear doors open, parts and ladders laying around and not a soul in sight. Dispatch had clued me in earlier in the morning that we had a problem, but I really had hoped they would have fixed it by the time we arrived… or at least be visibly working on it. Nope. Just a broken airplane in a ghost town.

Of course, they did eventually show up and put the airplane back together (with parts they stole off another airplane of ours across the airport), but not in time to prevent our hour plus delay. Obviously, we checked over all the paperwork to ensure they got it right. And, to their credit, they could have deferred the item (meaning ‘disabled’ it and legally flown with it inoperative), but they chose to fix it instead. Given the circumstances (far to detailed for this already-too-long entry), that was probably a good choice even given the delay.

No, the story doesn’t end there. We finally started up and pushed back. As we ran the After Start checklist, the flight engineer (who also happened to be in DC-10 ground school with me and the FAA guy) informed me that one of our air conditioning pack-off lights was illuminated. Arrrgh. After an eye roll, we ran the checklist which didn’t solve the problem. We went through our next procedure which involves seeing if we can continue with it not working correctly. In this case, we couldn’t do that without maintenance working on it (sometimes we can delay that until the next stop, but not in this case).

I powered up my phone and dialed maintenance control at the puzzle palace to explain the situation and see if they had any bright ideas short of pulling back into the gate (actually a stand on a cargo ramp). They told me to just sit tight, so there we sat, slurping down about $41 of Jet-A per minute, give or take (yes, that’s at idle.. and I probably estimated the price conservatively).

At roughly the same time, some mechanics started to appear outside and head back towards the airplane, and the mechanic we had on board popped his head in the cockpit. Unbeknownst to me, maintenance control had called him, too. He was asleep already (hah!). The mechanics on the ramp and the mechanic in the cockpit coordinated the fix, which took a few minutes, and the mechanic on board signed all the paperwork. Voila, we were on our way.

No, the story doesn’t end there, either. At that point, we had eaten up roughly two of our three hours of ground time in Ft. Worth. By the time we got there, we actually had less than an hour to load up and get out. We thought we had a shot at making it out on time as we had a couple of unusual factors working in our favor. Dispatch had the forethought to fuel us through Ft. Worth to Ft. Campbell, so we wouldn’t have to wait for a fuel truck, which we later found out would have probably taken an extra hour. And, luckily, the load was really light. There were less than 40 passengers and maybe only 5000 lbs. of baggage and cargo to load.

It was that 5000 lbs. that cost us our on time departure. I’m not sure who at Ft. Worth imagined that they could load anything at all into a DC-10 without any kind of loading equipment at all, but that’s exactly how ready they were. No belt loader, no K-loader, no nothing. They did manage to have enough foresight to get stairs to load the people, so we had that going for us. At one point, they were going to lower the air stairs as low as they could and use them to load the bags, but they wound up finding another way. Of course, the ‘finding another way’ part resulted in us leaving there about an hour and a half late and we never made it up.

The bright spot of my time in Ft. Worth was the FAA’s departure from the airplane. I’ve had lots of checkrides, line checks, and observations from the FAA before. This was probably the very best one I’ve ever had. Despite the challenges, the whole crew handled everything safely and professionally, and the flying part was nice (good weather helps). At the completion of the flight, he said that he saw what he needed to see, was satisfied, and that he’d get all his paperwork done as soon as possible. And then, he made something of an unexpected but understandable comment. I don’t recall the exact wording, but something like, “Ya know Varrin, I’m really envious of you for being able to do what you do.” He was in his late 50’s when his last airline went out of business (he’s now in his early 60’s). At the time, the mandatory retirement age was 60 (it recently changed to 65), so his career as an airline pilot was basically over. Hearing his comment made me good and bad all at the same time. In the end, I have to recognize just how fortunate I am and I’m happy for that.

The rest of the day went about as smoothly as can be expected from a military trip like this: slow and frustrating but uneventful. I think had Ron Paul been elected President and gave the order to bring all the troops home immediately, he would have been quite surprised with the military’s interpretation of the word immediately.

I could stop there, but peeking into this job of mine requires going beyond just the flying. None of us on the crew (pilots or flight attendants) were operating out of Volk. Our Flight Engineer went to Madison to commercial someplace or another (I think back to Atlanta). All of the rest of us jumped into a limo (a giant stretch SUV limo with a trailer for the bags) to go to La Crosse. During the hour or so ride, the check airman filled out my paperwork for the three legs we did. He said that the plan was for me to complete OE and my line check on my next flights from Hawaii back to Atlanta (with a stop in California). He offered his insights, congratulations, and so on.

I was originally scheduled on an early morning departure out of La Crosse to go to Honolulu. By the time we got to the hotel, I was dreading the short night. Then it occurred to me that we had been in that limo for quite a long time riding on the freeway. We surely went more than the 42 miles that our contract defines as local. I checked with the driver and with mapquest and, indeed, we had (more like 55 miles). That meant that our arrival time was considered at the hotel instead of when we blocked in at Volk. That wound up making a 2 hour difference, all together, and meant that I wasn’t legal (according to our contract) to depart that early in the morning. The First Officer, who is quite new here, was also in the same situation as me (everyone else had later flights).

So, I called the company and explained that they’d either have to keep us on duty and pay us for it (which works out to be quite a lot) or reschedule our flights. They wound up putting the F/O on continuous duty (he thanked me for that, being totally unaware how any of that stuff worked), and they rescheduled me. For some odd reason, they wound up doing it in first class (cha ching).

So here I sit, on my way to Hawaii enjoying all that’s happened so far, but knowing in the back of my mind that I’ve got one more day of checking, observing, and so on before I’m unleashed on the world (quite literally) as a DC-10 Captain. And, should that happen, I’ll promptly go on vacation. Seems too good to be true (gulp)… 😉

V-