Post by Dutch Owen on Jan 11, 2013 20:41:50 GMT -5
I once played World of Warcraft with a fellow and I mentioned to him that I enjoyed flight simulator. He snorted. "Flight Sims? How boring can you get?"
Today was simple. A very boring passenger run in the MD-82 Fairbanks to Homer. Weather at PAFA obviously 2SM visibility in heavy snow, but Homer reporting 7SM in mist. Nothing on the TAF looked scary so no real problems. Although PAHO doesn't have an ILS.
Much later we're clear to descend to FL240 and I routinely check the weather. PAHO now reporting 3SM in light snow. Okay. I can handle a non-precision approach at 3SM. No problem.
On down and we're cleared below 10,000 to 8,000 when the message comes in from dispatch: wx below minimums suggest divert. I take a look: it's now a half mile in snow and fog with a ceiling of 300 feet. Yep, that's a divert with no ILS.
Doing the work of this kind of thing in a modern jet without a real co-pilot is a huge task. What's the alternate? Kenai, now showing 5SM in snow. They have an ILS on 19R. I level off at 8,000 and get authority to divert from the company, then set up the change of destination with ATC, then reprogram the FMC all while taking over the LNAV and following ATC vectors.
In the middle of all this, what else but MASTER CAUTION? These things never happen when it's clear and you're cruising; no, always in the soup during a complicated divert procedure. I swear there's a Pilot Stress Detector in the MD-80 and when stress levels go up something will break. Guaranteed 95.8 percent of the time.
We're enroute to PAEN (not very far away) at 10,000 so I pull out the ORH and start to work on "ART INOP", the message that caused the MC. And, of course, there's no mention of this message in the QRH. I check around and everything seems normal. What does ART INOP mean? Maybe it's a false error. Yeah, right. We keep heading towards Kenai.
It's not till I'm cleared down to 8,000 again and vectored onto downwind and told to reduce speed to 230 KT that I find out what ART INOP means. The speedometer won't budge. ART INOP means the autothrottles are stuck! Wonderful!
I switch them off and thankfully I have manual control. Meanwhile, another message from dispatch. SUGGEST DIVERT. What??? I check the weather and it's down to 0SM at a ceiling of 300 feet here! ZERO miles? What does that mean? Total fog?
Alaska is not blessed with an abundance of airports with long runways and ILS. And the weather is rapidly going straight to hell all over southern Alaska. How much gas do we have left anyway?
Answer, after some figuring: maybe enough to get to Anchorage. Weather there is 3SM 1500FT. About what it was before it closed in here. And if we go there we make it on fumes. Decision: we'll see just what 0SM looks like at Kenai. Runway report: braking fair. Snow heavier. Of course.
Long downwind and vectored to final. Visibility zero. But we fly normally down the glide slope with manual throttles. The MD-80 does a great job on final -- I just don't trust it to auto-land. We get lower and lower, flying inside a ping pong ball. Nothing to be seen out the window but the dim glow of the setting sun in the south.
"Approaching minimums." I begin to see a few sprigs of dark tundra in the snow out the right window. There's ground down there. We're going to land somewhere. Right before the minimums call I get the rabbit pulsing below me as we glide over it at Vref of 145 knots. The end of the runway appears and we flare and touch down. Spoilers out reversers MAX and we slide and slide. Trav mentions the hot brakes. No problem, man, they'll cool down in the snow after we slide off the end.
But we don't slide off. There's a good thousand feet left when we finally slow down enough to turn off.
Applause from the back. Well deserved, I think! We taxi in as if everything was routine. Acme's got a crew waiting for us, even with this short a notice. Score ninety. Could have been much, much worse. Like zero and an XX.
Whew! I played World of Warcraft for over a year and nothing there EVER got close to the tension I experienced on this flight trying to make everything work out and not kill all of us.
How boring can you get?
Dutch
Today was simple. A very boring passenger run in the MD-82 Fairbanks to Homer. Weather at PAFA obviously 2SM visibility in heavy snow, but Homer reporting 7SM in mist. Nothing on the TAF looked scary so no real problems. Although PAHO doesn't have an ILS.
Much later we're clear to descend to FL240 and I routinely check the weather. PAHO now reporting 3SM in light snow. Okay. I can handle a non-precision approach at 3SM. No problem.
On down and we're cleared below 10,000 to 8,000 when the message comes in from dispatch: wx below minimums suggest divert. I take a look: it's now a half mile in snow and fog with a ceiling of 300 feet. Yep, that's a divert with no ILS.
Doing the work of this kind of thing in a modern jet without a real co-pilot is a huge task. What's the alternate? Kenai, now showing 5SM in snow. They have an ILS on 19R. I level off at 8,000 and get authority to divert from the company, then set up the change of destination with ATC, then reprogram the FMC all while taking over the LNAV and following ATC vectors.
In the middle of all this, what else but MASTER CAUTION? These things never happen when it's clear and you're cruising; no, always in the soup during a complicated divert procedure. I swear there's a Pilot Stress Detector in the MD-80 and when stress levels go up something will break. Guaranteed 95.8 percent of the time.
We're enroute to PAEN (not very far away) at 10,000 so I pull out the ORH and start to work on "ART INOP", the message that caused the MC. And, of course, there's no mention of this message in the QRH. I check around and everything seems normal. What does ART INOP mean? Maybe it's a false error. Yeah, right. We keep heading towards Kenai.
It's not till I'm cleared down to 8,000 again and vectored onto downwind and told to reduce speed to 230 KT that I find out what ART INOP means. The speedometer won't budge. ART INOP means the autothrottles are stuck! Wonderful!
I switch them off and thankfully I have manual control. Meanwhile, another message from dispatch. SUGGEST DIVERT. What??? I check the weather and it's down to 0SM at a ceiling of 300 feet here! ZERO miles? What does that mean? Total fog?
Alaska is not blessed with an abundance of airports with long runways and ILS. And the weather is rapidly going straight to hell all over southern Alaska. How much gas do we have left anyway?
Answer, after some figuring: maybe enough to get to Anchorage. Weather there is 3SM 1500FT. About what it was before it closed in here. And if we go there we make it on fumes. Decision: we'll see just what 0SM looks like at Kenai. Runway report: braking fair. Snow heavier. Of course.
Long downwind and vectored to final. Visibility zero. But we fly normally down the glide slope with manual throttles. The MD-80 does a great job on final -- I just don't trust it to auto-land. We get lower and lower, flying inside a ping pong ball. Nothing to be seen out the window but the dim glow of the setting sun in the south.
"Approaching minimums." I begin to see a few sprigs of dark tundra in the snow out the right window. There's ground down there. We're going to land somewhere. Right before the minimums call I get the rabbit pulsing below me as we glide over it at Vref of 145 knots. The end of the runway appears and we flare and touch down. Spoilers out reversers MAX and we slide and slide. Trav mentions the hot brakes. No problem, man, they'll cool down in the snow after we slide off the end.
But we don't slide off. There's a good thousand feet left when we finally slow down enough to turn off.
Applause from the back. Well deserved, I think! We taxi in as if everything was routine. Acme's got a crew waiting for us, even with this short a notice. Score ninety. Could have been much, much worse. Like zero and an XX.
Whew! I played World of Warcraft for over a year and nothing there EVER got close to the tension I experienced on this flight trying to make everything work out and not kill all of us.
How boring can you get?
Dutch