A Trip in the Life... Part 4: Day Two

[ExpressJet Jeremy]

This is the fourth and last article in the series covering a two day trip that I flew on October 23-24, 2007. It ended up being 11 pages and 5,500 words! Enjoy and as always, let me know if you have any questions or other comments.

This is the fourth article in the series. In case you missed it, you can read the entire series from the beginning

An Early Start
Five-thirty a.m. in San Diego came early. I’ve found that an early wake up gets harder and harder to do by the end of a west coast trip, and this one was particularly hard. What I usually do is I usually set my wakeup call 45 minutes before the van time. When that phone rings, the first thing I do is turn on the lamp. I’ll use my mobile phone alarm for snoozing. It too goes off 45 minutes before van and I’ll use the snooze function for an extra 10-15 minutes. That gives me at least 30 minutes to get up, shower, dress, brush (hair and teeth), shave, pack and get downstairs before the van leaves. I have a great fear of missing the van and that paranoia makes it easier to get up on those early mornings.

The trick to these early mornings (or any overnight, for that matter) is to be consistent with your routine. This has been learned from experience... When I get to the hotel, my wallet, belt, tie, watch, phone and anything else in my pockets all go on the desk. The shirt and pants immediately get hung up in the closet (I only take two uniform shirts and a single pair of pants on a four day trip). The suitcase goes on the luggage rack, and the shoes go under the suitcase. The phone and laptop get plugged in on the desk. The toiletry bag goes into the bathroom. I do this every time I get to a new hotel room, as soon as I get to a new hotel room. Nothing gets separated from the herd—if it did, it would be in danger of being left behind the next morning. Before I go to bed, I lay out socks and undergarments for the next day, fold up anything that I got out that evening and iron my uniform shirt. In the morning, the very first thing I do when I get up is to pack away the charger for the computer and the mobile phone (those things are expensive to replace).

This morning, I was the first one downstairs. As the rest of the crew showed up, we exchanged good mornings and got on the very full van for the short ride across the street to the airport. We got to the airport, went through security, and I got a latte at the little airport café. It was ok, but not Starbucks. At the gate, I got the paperwork, quickly looked it over and handed it to the FO. I like to give the paperwork to my first officers’ on their leg. I expect them to look it over and make their own decisions about fuel, weather, alternates, etc. Of course, I supervise, but they’ll never learn if they don’t get to practice. We got to the plane and went through our regular routine. This time, however, there was a problem…

Maintenance
The fueler had been waiting for us to arrive. He got the fuel load from the operations folks before we got there, but the digital control panel that he uses to pressure fuel the airplane had a “fail” message. I had just powered up the airplane when he popped his head in to report the problem. There is no set procedure in my manuals to deal with this so I turned the airplane off and back on again. Many times, simply rebooting the airplane fixes these kinds of weird problems. Not this time, however, as the message appeared again when he reopened the service panel. The only thing left to do is to call maintenance. They gave me a series of circuit breakers to pull and reset. It didn’t fix the problem. Hmm. They suggested turning the airplane off and back on again, and again, of course, it still didn’t work. At this point, the only thing left to do is to fuel the airplane the old fashioned way: overwing. I gave the fueler the amount for each side and he got to work. We chose not to write it up in the aircraft logbook, hoping that this refueling panel would “wake up” later on in the day. We were also only going to Boise and then to our hub in Ontario, so if it still didn’t work in Boise, we could have maintenance deal with it back at the base.

A Silly Little Problem
While all this was happening, our flight attendant was doing her pre-flight checks and found a problem of her own. She didn’t have the bracket that the oxygen mask is supposed to fall from for her emergency demonstration. Unfortunately, I am well aware that this is a required, no-go item (ExpressJet Bob had the same thing happen to him, also in San Diego, when he was an FO). It is a silly little plastic piece that is fixed to the overhead panel and holds the oxygen mask. If there is a depressurization, the door opens and the mask falls. Our standard emergency briefing, however, says, “Pull the oxygen mask from the bracket. This will start the flow of oxygen.” Well, that little phrase makes the bracket a required item. There were no other airplanes there for us to borrow a bracket, and I remembered that when Bob had this problem, it took hours for them to get a new bracket. I asked the flight attendant what she wanted to do about it and she said that her book says that all discrepancies are up to the captain as to how to proceed.

Suddenly, I’m faced with a dilemma. Do we go? Or delay the flight and wait for maintenance? A number of thoughts pass through my mind: “It’s the last day, and I have a plane to catch.” “It’s a no go item.” “Yeah, but it’s a silly little bracket for the FA demo.” “It’s the last day, and I have a plane to catch.” After batting it around in my head for a few seconds, I decided to call maintenance. Maybe they could release us without it. The conversation made it clear that they didn’t want to delay the flight for it, but there wasn’t much to do about it. Luckily, the maintenance guy who was in San Diego last night, was still in the area. San Diego is not a maintenance base, but since we do so many flights from there, they have been sending trucks down there occasionally. What we decided to do was to delay the flight while they got the maintenance guy out of bed at the hotel and down to the airport. If there was one on the truck, then we’d be good to go. If not, they’d remove the bracket from seat 1A, thus rendering that seat unusable. But at least the flight attendant could do her demonstration.

It turned out that there was a spare bracket on the truck. We ended up delaying the flight by 25 minutes, but we ended up arriving in Boise only 7 minutes late. Hindsight being what it is, I should not have allowed my commute to cloud my judgment. That silly little bracket is a no go item, and I knew that. If we had gone without it and showed up in Ontario without it, the flight attendant could have gotten in trouble. Look at what happened… the flight attendant who brought the plane in to San Diego the night before now gets in trouble for not having a required item on board that caused a delay the next day. It just doesn’t pay to break the rules.

Boise
So, we flew out to Boise. It was an uneventful flight, and as I said, we landed 7 minutes late. The fuel panel never woke up and we had to overwing refuel it again. However, one of our FMS’s started acting up as we landed in Boise. This happens occasionally and a quick phone call to maintenance, a few reset circuit breakers, and the problem is usually solved. Not this time. It never came back. Again, no big deal, we just fly with one instead of two. It’s a little inconvenient, but not something that will cause any problems—unless the other one dies. Still, with all this mucking around with maintenance, we blocked out 10 minutes early.

California Burning
Another uneventful flight and we were back in Ontario. The only thing out of the ordinary was a fire that had popped up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Another airliner spotted it and told ATC who then called us, since we were closer, and asked us for a report. Yep, there was a fire on a ridge in the middle of nowhere at our 11 o’clock and about 15 miles. It looked like it was relatively new. We didn’t see it earlier that morning on the way to Boise. When this happens, ATC will then call the local authorities with the latitude and longitude.

We landed in Ontario, and I had 2 hours until my commute home. I called maintenance on the radio who met us at the airplane. We told them about the Fuel panel and the FMS. The airplane was due to sit in Ontario for 4 hours before flying again—plenty of time for them to work on it. I said goodbyes and nice flying with yous to the crew, and we went our separate ways.

To Get Home
I put my flight case back in the storage closet in the crew room, made a last check of my file for any communiqués from the company, and headed off to catch my flight home. I got a window seat with no one in the middle seat on the way home. The captain tried to get me a first class seat, but it was full. No problem, I just want a seat on this airplane. The American Airlines flight attendant gave me a free sandwich and some chips to eat. Very nice. On the flight I started writing this article and also read the newspaper. We landed in Dallas at 8:15pm. As I got off the airplane, I gave the Captain a quick thank you for the ride. Twenty minutes and an employee bus ride later, I was at my car. Twenty-five minutes after that, I was home.

I hope you enjoyed the series. My goal was to provide an insightful look at to what I do when I go to work. This one was just a two day trip. Four day trips, as the name implies, are twice as long--3 nights. As always, if you have any questions about anything that I've written about here, please feel free to pop in and ask. Chances are you're not the only one with the question.

[KevinN-NY-907]

Thanks Jermemy this series is really great . It provides a very indept description of a typical work day. It will definetly be appreicated by many others as well.

[MatthewA-UT-309]

Hey Jeremy, I just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to write that series out for us. Just reading about all that happens in a normal workday for a pilot has made me all the more excited about becoming a pilot.

[ExpressJet Jeremy]

Thanks.... I'm thinking it's about time for me to do another one. I've been looking for a good trip to use as subject matter. I'll keep you all posted.

[TrentK-TX-709]

My name is Trent and I am new to this. Thanks for writing the story and giving your time to us.

[ExpressJet Jeremy]

Your welcome... I'm still looking for that perfect trip to be the subject of another story.

I'm considering creating a blog-like post here. What do you all think?

[ArturoM-NY-1209]

Thank You for taking the time to write this story

You should make a video and post it on YouTube and add the link here

[ExpressJet Jeremy]

Nice idea, Arturo, but video really isn't my thing. I'm more of a photography guy, myself. ATP does occasionally create videos and has used coaches as subjects.

Here is a good friend of mine and Pilot Career Coach, ExpressJet Bob:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsYb6X_fUrY