Crazy schedule!

Approaching Chicago from the southeast at dusk...

So after enjoying 4 days off in Tucson, I flew up to Denver to catch a flight back to Dulles on Sunday night. Rode in the jumpseat of a United 757, and got into Dulles at Midnight. Spent about 4 hours in the crew room, only about 2 asleep, before I had to show for a deadhead to Chicago. I wonder why the call it a deadhead anyway... ah well. First class in a 757, so I got another hour of sleep or so. Then I flew a trip from Chicago to Columbia, SC and was done for the day. The next morning I flew a trip from Columbia to Chicago, then deadheaded back to Dulles. Pretty efficient huh?

Then, they assigned me a 'continuous duty overnight', AKA 'stand up', 'camping trip', 'highspeed', and many more names.. Was off from about 1:00pm when I got in from my deadhead till 9:00pm when I had to report for the 'stand up'. Flew from Dulles to Pittsburgh, spent about 5 hours at the hotel (4 sleeping) and then reported back at the airport for the first flight back to Dulles. Was finished at about 7:30am this morning, caught a flight home to Charlotte at 9:00am, spent about 5 hours at home, then back to the airport to commute back for another 'stand up' tonight. Exactly the same stand up as last night, which really isn't all that bad when it comes to stand ups. Some stand ups are significantly shorter, for example 3 or 4 hours from the time you get to the gate at night till you have to be back at the gate in the morning. This Pittsburgh stand up is about 7 hours from arrival to show the next morning... so it's about 5 hours at the hotel, which isn't all that bad.

Some people like stand ups, and actually bid for them. They're cool if you live in base... you're at home all day, fly for a few hours over the night, then you're back home the next day. But they suck if you're a commuter and don't live in base... like me!

So tomorrow after I get done at 7:30am, I'll catch the same flight back to Charlotte, spend a few hours, then have to come back to Dulles to be here for reserve at 4:00am on Friday. Thennnn it's off to AZ again for the weekend!


So the schedules can suck, but then I see things like this, and realize that I've actually got a pretty cool job.

Holding over Lake Michigan trying to get into Chicago:

A crappy attempt at a picture of downtown Chicago approaching from the southeast.

People Movers

Waiting around in Greensboro, NC for our release to Chicago. Weather in Chicago wasn't even all that bad, but we were delayed for a couple hours anyway. Luckily it was a nice day in NC, and the crew was fun which made the time go by quickly. Quick turn in Chicago, then a short hop to Appleton, WI, where we arrived about 11:45, almost an hour behind schedule. And now I sit in the hotel in Appleton, with a proposed wheels up time already 3 hours beyond our original departure schedule for flow into Chicago.

The sun, some clouds, and a dirty window!

The people movers, or 'mobile lounges' in Washington Dulles. There's a main terminal, and two other main concourses, with these giant military looking people movers that transport passengers back and forth.

8 days

Well, I finished flying out of Phoenix, and will be finishing my first 4-day back on the east coast. How different it is! I got spoiled with the good weather, nicer -900's, and relatively easy flying. Now I'm learning the -200 all over again, and dealing with the older planes that have quirks, issues, and maintenance items. Nothing that is unsafe, but certainly things that make your life easier when they're working properly. Tomorrow will be my 8th straight day at work, but I'll be heading home when I get finished around 4!

Anyhow, some pics from the trips:

At the gate in LAX.. thought the structure looked cool with the scaffolding on it.

One of our -900's lifting off from 25R in Phoenix as we waited to cross the runway and taxi to the gate. The new control tower in the background.

An Airbus A310 landing in Tucson. Looks like some left over de-ice fluid on the fuselage - giving it an orange color.

Sunrise over... somewhere! Enroute from Saginaw, MI to Chicago, just east of Lake Michigan.

Sitting in the 'Penalty Box' in Chicago, watching the sun rise and the clock tick. Basically, Operations assigns us a gate when we call them and tell them we're in range (about 20 min out). When we get on the ground we have to double check with Ops to make sure it hasn't changed, then confirm with them and Ramp control that the gate is open. When it's not, you have to tell ground control that you need to hold for your gate, and you get to do that in the 'penalty box'. Unfortunately, this morning we were already an hour late arriving in Chicago, and had to sit in the box for about 40 minutes for our gate to open. We kept bugging Ops, and had our gate switched 3 times before we got one that was actually open. It's funny listening to the pilots when they inform ground control that they need to hold in the box; most have a sound of defeat in their voice.


The 'penalty box' on the taxi diagram for O'Hare.

"Air Shuttle 7372, maintain best forward speed"

A FedEx MD-11, east bound two thousand feet above us.

And now the story of how I chose my blog's title.

Disclaimer: Lengthy, and contains scientific content!

But first, some background:

All of the airlines have different callsigns used when communicating with ATC; some are pretty obvious, like United, and Southwest, while others are a bit tougher to link to the airline, such as Redwood, Brickyard, or Jetlink. We are Air Shuttle. The call sign is then followed by the flight number, typically 4 digits for the regional carriers, and anywhere from 1 to 4 digits for the mainline carriers. But enough about callsigns, for now.

Pilots have limitations on how many hours they can fly in certain amounts of time. Your typical commercial airline pilot is limited to 1000 hours per year, 100 hours per month, 30 hours per 7 days, and 8 hours a day (scheduled). Without getting too complicated, you cannot be scheduled to exceed these times. However, if you encounter delays throughout the day, it's not like you just become a vegetable up front when the clock hits 8 hours for that day. Legal to start, legal to finish, as they say. So our schedulers won't (intentionally) schedule us to exceed these times, but if we encounter delays then there can be conflict.

Conflict is known as "timing out". And that's exactly what my Captain was going to do after one of my first trips. We had flown more hours than we were scheduled for, and he was going to exceed the 30hrs/7days if he went to work as scheduled the day after my trip with him ended. Good news for him; this means he gets the day off because he can't legally fly.

It was on our last leg of the day, going home (for him) that he told me he was going to be on the border line of timing out, based on our estimated time of arrival that our computers were projecting.

Another sidenote, and I'll try to keep this simple as well: At lower altitudes we fly at certain airspeeds, in knots, or nautical miles per hour. As we climb higher and higher into the atmosphere, due to the density changes, we have to start paying attention to our Mach number instead of knots. The Mach number is the ratio or our speed versus the speed of sound. Mach 1.00, is the speed of sound, and you would be right at the "sound barrier", but that's a whole 'nother topic.. Because of how the wings are designed and how lift is created, air is actually accelerated over the wings during flight, and thus travels faster than the airplane is actually going. We can't have any airflow around the airplane exceeding mach 1, so we have established critical mach numbers (max speed) as well as profiles which include a climb mach number, and cruise mach number.

Hopefully you're still with me...

We typically cruise at Mach .77 (77% of the speed of sound) in the -700/-900 and Mach .74 (74% of the speed of sound) in the -200. So there we were, cruising at M.77 at thirty something thousand feet, when my Captain says "hey, I'm going to be close to timing out, slow it up a little". Now, I must also add that we were in fact running ahead of schedule, and would not have slowed down if it would cause the pax (passengers) to be late. Also, slower cruising speeds (to a certain point) use less fuel, and save the company money!

So I pulled it back to M.74... and less than five minutes later, ATC says :

ATC- "Air Shuttle 7372, say Mach number"
Us- "Shuttle 7372 is doing M.74"
ATC- "Roger, Air Shuttle 7372, maintain best forward speed for spacing into Chicago O'hare"

Doh! There went the Captain's plan. Fortunately for him, and unfortunately for the pax, we had to hold for 15 minutes outside of Chicago due to weather when we got closer. The pax were late (but not our fault!) and my Captain timed out.

And there you have it, how Best Forward Speed came to be.