I got home Thursday night. Barely.
The CRJ-200 round trip to Cedar Rapids went reasonably well. We were a little bit late because the captain was on a flight that arrived late. He was new to the jet (he’d been a Beech 1900 Captain and had finished IOE on the jet a couple weeks ago), and I’d never flown the CRJ-200. We figured it would be an interesting flight. He was fortunately extremely professional and thorough, so we were well prepared and I felt comfortable. He had me fly the first leg, which meant I didn’t even get to see a CRJ-200 landing. It’s substantially different from the 700/900. The thrust levers feel like they’re connected to bungee cords on the other end, and tend to be rather stubborn. Why? They’re connected by cables and rods that span the length of the airplane and physically adjust the fuel flow in the engines on the tail. In the CRJ-700, the levers are simply connected to sensors which are send an electrical signal back to the computer at the back that says, “Hey, they want more thrust up there!”, and it takes care of making that happen. So, as a result, the physical sensation of the thrust levers is a lot different. The plane is lighter and more nimble, and the electronics are finicky. There are quite a few more buttons to push, but it more or less flies the same. Because there are no slats on the leading edge of the wing, it lands quite a bit differently, though.
The landing worked out okay with Captain saying, “Keep bringing it down. Lower! Keep on going… I think.” I flew it into the ground paranoid I was going to let it float down the runway. It was a very solid but totally safe arrival. I was happy.
He flew us back to O’Hare, and the only issue was my after takeoff flow which was substantially more complicated. “V2 plus 12,” I said. “Flaps up, set climb thrust,” he called. I pulled up the flaps and went to set climb thrust, which in the CRJ 700/900 involves moving the thrust levers from the “TO/GA” detent to the “Climb” detent. There are no detents on the CRJ-200, and I needed to tell the computer to display the correct climb power so I could set it. But it wouldn’t give it to me. Why not? I hadn’t switched the pneumatic bleed air sources from the APU to the engines. In the 700/900 that all happens automatically. In the 200, there are 4 valves to be opened/closed, and it has to happen in the right order. Open the right engine 10th stage valve, close the 10th stage isolation valve, open the left engine 10th stage valve, and finally close the APU load control valve. That accomplished, I could tell the FMS to display climb thrust, set the thrust, then reset the fuel crossflow to AUTO and disarm both thrust reversers. All the while talking to approach control and setting altitude/speed/heading bugs for the flying pilot until he calls for the autopilot, at which point he can push his own buttons.
I showed up at the gate for the SkyWest flight to COS well over an hour ahead of time. All flights to COS and DEN were well oversold. Jumpseaters of the same priority are sorted by time of check in, so it’s important for me to get there as soon as practicable. On SkyWest, the priority is generally SkyWest pilots, SkyWest Dispatchers, ASA pilots, then United/United Express pilots. I was the first pilot to show up, so theoretically only a SkyWest or ASA pilot (or the FAA) should be able to kick me off. Shortly before departure, a United pilot showed up, and managed to convince the Captain that he had higher priority than me, which doesn’t make any sense at all, and is completely contrary to all the official SkyWest policies. That said, it’s the Captain’s jumpseat, so it’s not like I can argue with him about it if he’d rather give a United pilot the seat over me.
I headed to the gate for the next departing flight to either COS or DEN, which happened to be a 777 to DEN. I waited in line at the gate for half an hour and when I checked in, they told me there were 3 people waiting for the jumpseat, but to stick around. I did, but there didn’t seem much point. There were over 80 standby passengers waiting to get on the flight. We all realized that if we didn’t get out of Chicago that night, that we’d be stuck for some time with a foot of snow in the forecast.
I wanted to go check in for the next SkyWest flight to COS as soon as possible, and the gate was a good 15 minute walk away. So I told the gate agent that I was just going to head over to the COS flight, and then he let me know that I was actually at the top of the list. It seems that United Express pilots have a higher priority on United than other pilots, so I decided to stick around. 10 minutes to departure, no one had called me, so I went up to the gate and asked. They told me that there was already at least one jumpseater on the plane, but he had no idea how many jumpseats a 777 actually had, and I was welcome to go ask.
When I walked on to the flight deck, there was an Air Wisconsin pilot as well as a United dispatcher already sitting in the jumpseat. I talked to the FO and was about to head back out when the Air Wisconsin guy admitted that I probably had a higher priority than he did. The FO looked it up, and we confirmed that Mesa does indeed have a higher priority than Air Wisconsin on United. The United dispatcher had a higher priority than both of us. The Air Wisconsin guy gave up his seat, and while I felt really bad, especially since I would have preferred to fly into COS, I’d just been kicked off a flight myself, so I was a lot less hesitant about than I might otherwise have been. I apologized, but the Air Wisconsin guy didn’t seem to mind too much.
The jumpseat(s) in a 777 are almost as comfortable as the pilots’ seats in a CRJ. I had plenty of room to stretch out my legs and nice comfortable arm rests. The size of the flight deck was astounding. As we taxied by planes that generally look huge to me, I was astounded at how small they looked from the flight deck windows of a 777.
I watched the pilots play with electronics way fancier than mine with some awe. They were able to pull up weather electronically, which would be so convenient. The best we can do is listen to weather reporting stations along the way, which is time consuming and inconvenient when things get busy. The computer magically figures out the weight and balance with sensors in the landing gear. They’ve also got a fairly large printer which spits out whatever information they want to hold on to.
The weather in DEN deteriorated as we got closer. By the time they were setting up for the approach the weather was reporting 100 ft ceilings, 1/4 mile visibility and dropping. With less than 1/2 mile, I couldn’t have legally shot the approach. Fortunately, the 777 was equipped to fly approaches down to 300 feet visibility, provided an autoland approach is used. That’s what they set up for.
The weather was very strange. There was lots of thundersnow en route below us. The low visibility in Denver was caused by very low-level fog that was dense, but localized just around the airport. In fact, we could make out the approach lights for 35L just fine, but the fog started right where the runway did. We were landing on the right side though, and we couldn’t see any of the runway. We were in the clear up until about 500 feet when we entered the fog bank and everything went white. We broke out at about 100 feet and the computer landed us expertly, and started braking as soon as the wheels touched down, tracking the centerline perfectly. It was pretty nifty to see.
I elected to drive home home because Jonah makes me nervous when the roads are questionable, and it was snowing a bit in Denver. I seemed to annoy her by driving slowly. In retrospect, I probably just should have let her drive and slept. I had, after all, been woken up at 4:27am after far too little sleep.
I’m at the COS airport now. I showed up to the gate an hour or so before departure because the flight is overbooked and I didn’t know if I’d be competing with another United pilot. As it turns out, I should have paid a little more attention to the flight and noticed that it was actually a Mesa flight, not a SkyWest flight. That means that I have higher priority than any other airline, and since I was the first one to check in, the jumpseat is mine. What’s more is several folks haven’t checked in, and she said I’m likely to actually get a seat assignment. Who knew. The flight, which was scheduled to depart the gate at 1350, has a wheels up time at 1522, which means we’ve got a bit of a delay. Nothing like sitting at the airport when I could have been sitting at home. It looks like it’s still snowing in Chicago, so I’m sure I’ll have a fun time dragging my bag through the snow. They haven’t assigned me ready reserve yet, so maybe they won’t call me stupid early in the morning again. I’m not going to hold out too much hope, though.
Finally, I was supposed to find out about the displacement yesterday, but you’ll be absolutely astonished to learn that the latest e-mail from the company indicates that it will instead be out, “Before Christmas, we hope.” Yeah right…