Not Part of the Plan

Before I worked for the airlines I often wondered what it would really be like.  I'd heard stories, but I'd also heard many say, "until you get there and experience it for yourself, you'll never really know."  Despite that, I thought I'd tell you how my day went a few days ago so you could get a small glimpse into the life of an airline pilot.

My alarm woke me at 4:15am, which is not an uncommon time to have to wake up.  I immediately noticed a missed call from crew support (if you have any early show and don't want to be disturbed by friends and family who go to bed at a normal hour, the "Do Not Disturb" on your iPhone will become your best friend).   I knew a rainstorm was coming to SoCal, so I assumed our plane never made it to Carlsbad (CLD), maybe low visibility?  I called Crew Support back to find out what was going on and was informed our airplane never made it to Carlsbad but was still in San Diego (SAN).  Thankfully we had the same show time so I met my crew down in the lobby at 5:20am and we took a ride from the hotel in Carlsbad to SAN.

This set us back a little bit, but we were scheduled to have an hour break later on in the day, so we figured we could still get done on time if we gave up our break.

With our empty plane, we made it to Los Angeles (LAX) from SAN just fine, though we landed at our next schedule departure time (and might I add, I did the most beautiful landing at LAX).  We could have landed 20 minutes earlier, but LAX was landing to the east, something that happens very rarely- we're talking once a year or so.  Because of that, everything turns from normal operations into complete chaos.  To add to the wind change, causing us to land on the opposite side of the airport, it was also raining cats on dogs, and IMC (Instrument Meteorological Conditions- in the clouds) the entire flight.  The weather was like this the rest of the day, which I secretly enjoyed as I rarely see rain anymore- perks of living in a desert.

This is the pic I took in-between flight before I braved the storm to do the walk around.

I borrowed this sweet jacket to do the walkaroud so I didn't get completely drenched.  

We finally got to the gate in LAX after the longest taxi of my life, got all our passengers boarded within 10 minutes and were off to our next destination, CLD.  We made it to CLD just fine, but now we were running an hour late.  Again, because LAX was using different runways it took us twice as long to get airborne than it usually does.

In CLD we boarded up our 'starting-to-get-angry-passengers' because we were a bit late.  We made sure we had the required amount of fuel on board and were off, back to LAX.  Halfway between CLD and LAX, Air Traffic Control (ATC) informed us we could expect to hold for 3-5 holding patterns (and maybe more), which is about 12-20 minutes, which is about 250-500 pounds of fuel.  We told ATC we may have to divert because we didn't have fuel to play around with... especially not 500+ pounds... and from experience, many times holding turns into much longer than planned.  They told us it could easily be another 30 minutes, so we decided the best and safest thing to do was to divert back to CLD.

As much as we didn't want to, and as much as we knew our passengers really wouldn't want to, we made the safe decision to fly back to CLD.  We landed safely in CLD with the legal amount of fuel.  Even though it was a HUGE inconvenience to divert back to CLD, it was the best decision.  I never want to be stuck with air beneath me and no fuel.  No thanks!

There is always one passenger (remember that) who thinks his world is crumbling down around him when things don't go as planned.  He yelled at the poor flight attendant on our way back to CLD and then some more at the gate agents after we had landed.  Thankfully I couldn't hear what he was saying, but I know he used some pretty choice words.  He must not have realized that we don't have control over the weather... though that would be awesome if we did.

We added more fuel in CLD, let Mr. Grump get off, and slowly made our way back to LAX, this time running quite a bit late;  about 1 1/2 hours at this point.  Keep in mind we still had not seen any blue sky by this time of the day.  Only rain, rain, clouds, and more rain.  Though I LOVE the rain, it does get a bit exhausting fling in it all day; definitely more exhausting that flying in calm/10/clear.

We were supposed to change airplanes when we got back to LAX, but since we were running so late, they managed to swap things around a bit and let us keep the same plane to our final destination, San Luis Obispo (SBP).  Hooray!  Swapping planes can be a bit of a pain.  It wouldn't be bad if I didn't have my suitcase, my flight bag, my headset bag, and my cooler.  I'm not complaining by any means, I choose to bring all that stuff with me, but it is SO nice not having to swap planes throughout the day.

Nothing too eventful happened up to SBP, but again, since the winds were all crazy, we ended up having to fly past the airport to start the approach to the runway favoring the winds.  It was an ILS approach, which is nice, but for some reason our autopilot didn't want to follow the course smoothly, so the captain ended up having to handfly- after a super long day of approaches, long taxis, a divert, rain, ice, clouds everywhere, turbulence, quick breaks with no time to grab real food, etc.  You get the point.  But we made it safely to SBP with the captain shooting a beautiful approach and making a nice touchdown.

Of course the day was still awesome- I mean, I got to fly an airplane, in rain, and fly some pretty awesome approaches- but it was exhausting!  And we got done 2 hours later than planned.  So as great as this job is, if you decide to become a pilot, know that:

THINGS DON'T ALWAYS GO AS PLANNED!

Are We the Right Fit?

I'm sure most of you know now that I flight instructed much longer than any normal person would (5 years!!), and had more than enough hours to go to the airlines when I finally did.  Even with the hundreds of traffic patterns I did, and the steep turns, and how many times I had to remind my students of "safety first," I still loved every day of it.  I tried to be the best flight instructor I could be and felt I did a pretty good job.

That being sad, there were still students with personalities so different than mine that we were not a good fit.  I couldn't explain things in a way that would help them understand.

During my flight instructor days, I was always proud of the fact that I could teach any student to land an airplane smoothly- no slamming it onto the runway or turning one landing into three.  It is a finesse to be able to do that, and I felt my students mastered it quite well.  I even had multiple examiners call me after the checkride to tell me that my students had awesome landings (proud CFI moment).  Here's a pic with me and one of my students after her first solo- she did awesome!  As did all my other students, but that would be too many pictures to share in one post.  :)

However, I had one student about a year after I began flight instructing that I could not teach to land.  We'd spent countless hours in the traffic pattern, but to no avail.  I could not figure out what the problem was.  The approach was always so beautiful, but then it got a little sketchy during the flare with me having to take over the airplane more often than not.

After weeks of trying I didn't want to waste the student's money anymore, so I sent him with a new instructor.  There were no hard feelings and it wasn't awkward.  I kid you not, just a few days after flying with this other flight instructor, he could land like a pro.  Did this offend me?  Of course not!  I was happy for him and the other flight instructor.

For whatever reason, my tips didn't help him out at all; but this other instructor was able to teach him things I could not.  If you are having issues with your flight instructor, or if you are a flight instructor having issues with a student, do not be ashamed to switch things up a bit.  You should both want what is best for each other, even if that means meeting with a different flight instructor.  Make it a positive experience for all the parities involved.

Happy Friday, and have fun flying!

Bring on the Spins!

I remember my first day of spin/aerobatic training like it was yesterday.  I'd heard so many horror stories of 'spins gone wrong,' so I was pretty nervous.  I'd also heard stories of people puking, and I did not want to be one of those.  Of course I didn't show that I was nervous and headed into it like any other situation- like I knew what I was doing.

 

I read everything on spin training that I could get my hands on, so when my flight slot in the school's Decathlon came, I was ready... nervous, but ready.  

This was not the exact Decathlon I flew, but it looked very similar to this one.

I ate a small breakfast, just incase... well, you know, and was on my way out the door.  The instructor I flew with first took me to get our parachutes.  He took me through the ropes of that (I was so glad I hadn't told my mom I was doing this!).  I distincly remembering the instructor telling me that if we got ourselves into a situation we couldn't get out of, he would give me only a few seconds to jump out first; if I hesitated he wouldn't wait.  What!?  No problem, I said, I won't hesitate.  I mean, I had to play it off cool.

No this pic isn't of me, but I'm sure if we'd had to bail, I would have looked something similar to this.  

Now, I am only 5 feet tall and at the time only weighed about 100 pounds.  The parachute straps were barely small enough to fit me and it felt like I was sitting on a couch cushion through the entire flight.  I'm sure I looked funny, but I didn't care.  And honestly, that was the least of my worries.

 

When we got airborne, and climbed to a sufficiently high altitude, the instructor demonstrated the first spin.  I thought I was going to die for a second- by far the weirdest sensation I had ever felt!  I remember "hanging" onto the ceiling... like there was something to grab on to, and like that something would protect me.  I felt like we were in that spin for hours, maybe even days!  And then he recovered, I realized I had survived, and I wanted to do it again!  I did the next one and it was so much fun!  I could have stayed up there all day doing those, no joke.  We did quite a few spins and then he decided to teach me some aerobatic maneuvers.  We did airleron rolls and my favorite- inside loops (at least I think that is what they are called).  You start the loops in straight and level flight and then pitch up like you are going to stall, but keep going up, up, upside down, and over.  Oh my gosh!  Such a rush.  I decided right then and there that if I could have afforded it, I would have done aerobatic training for the rest of my life.

 

After my flight session was sadly over, I called my mom to tell her what I had done.  As I'd suspected, she was so glad I hadn't told her sooner.  I've done plenty of spins (on purpose, of course... never by accident) since that day, but nothing was ever as fun as doing aerobatic training in a shiny red Decathlon.  So if you ever get the chance to do some aerobatic training, do it!  You will not regret it.  It might be scary at first, but once you do it a few times you'll feel like a pro! 

Learn to Laugh

When it rains it pours.  What I mean by that is, when one thing goes wrong, it seems to turn into a chain reaction and it isn't just one thing anymore; it's 20 or 30!  You can get all angry and annoyed, or you can just laugh it off and move on.

As an airline pilot, I have had main days of "pouring rain."  A few weeks ago a I flew a 4-day trip all over Southern California, mostly in and out of LAX.  Day 1 was perfect.  The weather was gorgeous, the temperatures were in the high 70s/low 80s, our gates were open each time we arrived at our desitation airports; we couldn't have asked for a better day of airline flying.  Our good luck didn't last long.  Day 2 was our chain reaction of "pouring rain."

The plane that we were supposed to start out in that day was a bit behind, so we started the day out late.  Because we were late on our first leg, our gate at LAX wasn't open anymore when we arrived, so we had to wait on the taxiway for a bit.  Our break in LAX was now shortened so we had much less time than originally planned.

The flight attendant ran inside to grab some food, the captain to grab a release, and I stayed with the plane to began my preflight duties.  Halfway through my walkaroud I realized there were passengers starting to board.  What the--- apparently the gate agents just sent the passengers down and the rampers were going to let them on the plane without checking to see if there was a flight attendant on board.  I had to stop the situation (not in my job description) and hold the passengers at the bottom of the stairs.  They were not too happy, so I tried to ease the situation best I could!

We got that whole situation figured out, boarded all our passengers, started engines, and were ready to go.  We got our clearance from ramp control to taxi out of the alley when... just kidding... ramp control asked us to do a U-Turn in the alley, go back to the bottom of it, and then U-Turn again to get out of the way of incoming traffic.  Oookay... that's a little weird.  But we complied.

Then getting a word in edgewise to ground control to get out of the alley was nearly impossible.  However, we finally made it out of the alley and on our way to the runway.  The rest of the trip went the same way; one thing after another after another.

We got flow from SAN to LAX, which we never get into LAX, and had to wait an extra 20 mins before we could takeoff.  We had plane swaps in 25 minute turns, angry controllers, got stuck behind aircraft mowing slower than I thought possible,  long taxi instructions, vectors taking us away from the airport, 15 mile downwinds, etc etc.  It was quite a 4-Day trip.  But I still loved every minute of it.  How, do you ask?  How could I enjoy working with all of that?  Because I learned to laugh.

Instead of being annoyed at having to do 2 U-Turns in the alley, I found it quite comical.  Who can say they have done that before?  Instead of being annoyed at having to swap planes in a 25 minute turn, I told myself it felt nice to get up and walk around and stretch my legs out for a bit.  Twenty minute delay?  Now I have more time to chat with the awesome captain I was with.  Telling the passengers they have to wait to board?  Now I actually get to speak with them face to face instead of just over the intercom; I was able to talk to some really cool people.

So when you get those days of "pouring rain" step aside, realize how comical the situation really is, and learn to laugh.  The situation is going to be that way no matter your attitude, so why not make it a positive one?