Post by Dutch Owen on Jan 25, 2011 21:53:14 GMT -5
It's a nasty night on the east coast, low visibility, clouds, rain, snow, ice -- you name it.
I climbed into the cockpit of my trusty 727-100 for flight 20, Memphis - Nashville - Charlotte - Greensboro - Norfolk, about 15 minutes early because many of these legs have no flight plan yet. I knew it'd be a long night.
And it is! So far I'm en route to Charlotte. The KMEM -> KBNA trip was interesting -- one of the few times when actual conditions at arrival were significantly worse than reported. METAR and ATIS said Nashville was four miles visibility in light rain. So I confidently expected an easy run in. The flight itself went well -- the required snack service was completed ahead of time instead of the usual interruption on this leg, thanks to the new training course all FSCaptain FA's have been put through.
I rarely have to worry about DH. It's this theoretical thing where I see the DH light come on and the voice says "minimums" but that's about it. But tonight -- I was staring at a black wall of nothing as I got closer and closer to Decision Height. I expected to break out but didn't. That's a very disorienting feeling. You think you know what to expect but that's not what you get. I could really understand all those misguided pilots who've added their names to the CFIT rolls by going down under DH to "have a look".
But not me. I was ready to go around until, about 250 feet, I finally got the rabbit and the end lights. Not much of the runway visible, but enough. Visibility couldn't have been more than 1/2 mile -- the report of 4 miles notwithstanding. Landed safely, and what's more miraculous, found the gate. I'm definitely getting better at picking my way around airports. Never a skill I needed back in the days when I blindly followed the "progressive taxi" cheat line.
Just got clearance to start descent into KCLT. Complicated clearance involving altitude and speed restrictions at a DME point. Better stop typing for now ...
Wx report was more accurate this time. The 4 miles was more like 5 and the landing was easy. Had great difficulty finding the gate and when I finally did and was about to taxi and and unload, FS crashed and rebooted the whole computer.
Sigh.
Dutch
I climbed into the cockpit of my trusty 727-100 for flight 20, Memphis - Nashville - Charlotte - Greensboro - Norfolk, about 15 minutes early because many of these legs have no flight plan yet. I knew it'd be a long night.
And it is! So far I'm en route to Charlotte. The KMEM -> KBNA trip was interesting -- one of the few times when actual conditions at arrival were significantly worse than reported. METAR and ATIS said Nashville was four miles visibility in light rain. So I confidently expected an easy run in. The flight itself went well -- the required snack service was completed ahead of time instead of the usual interruption on this leg, thanks to the new training course all FSCaptain FA's have been put through.
I rarely have to worry about DH. It's this theoretical thing where I see the DH light come on and the voice says "minimums" but that's about it. But tonight -- I was staring at a black wall of nothing as I got closer and closer to Decision Height. I expected to break out but didn't. That's a very disorienting feeling. You think you know what to expect but that's not what you get. I could really understand all those misguided pilots who've added their names to the CFIT rolls by going down under DH to "have a look".
But not me. I was ready to go around until, about 250 feet, I finally got the rabbit and the end lights. Not much of the runway visible, but enough. Visibility couldn't have been more than 1/2 mile -- the report of 4 miles notwithstanding. Landed safely, and what's more miraculous, found the gate. I'm definitely getting better at picking my way around airports. Never a skill I needed back in the days when I blindly followed the "progressive taxi" cheat line.
Just got clearance to start descent into KCLT. Complicated clearance involving altitude and speed restrictions at a DME point. Better stop typing for now ...
Wx report was more accurate this time. The 4 miles was more like 5 and the landing was easy. Had great difficulty finding the gate and when I finally did and was about to taxi and and unload, FS crashed and rebooted the whole computer.
Sigh.
Dutch
