Life east of \”30 West\”

The trip to Madrid was my final TOE trip with a check airman.

Being the final phase in training after a month of 757/767 school, a domestic IOE and already having a single oceanic crossing under my belt, I felt there was more pressure because there was really no excuse for me not to have my crap together for the trip to Madrid compared my performance (or lack thereof) on the trip to Paris a few weeks ago.

The evening started with a hitch.

We’re about number six or seven for takeoff, taxiing on a single engine and the generator on the operating engine decides to go offline. We try to reset it, it doesn’t work, talk to maintenance and it looks like we’re going to head back to the gate and that the aircraft is unairworthy to cross the Atlantic.

Domestically, you can have a number of malfunctions with the aircraft, some fairly major, many minor and still be legal to dispatch within the contiguous United States. When you start adding in the legalities, procedures and requirements to satisfy “ETOPS” criteria (extended twin-engine operations? I’m too lazy to look it up), each malfunction may or may not deem the aircraft illegal to perform an ocean crossing.

Luckily, there is a spare aircraft that we’re going to swap into once we arrive back at the gate.

Moving a couple hundred people from one plane to another, including containerized cargo, cleaning and servicing the cabin, conducting fresh security sweeps and the crew and I making sure we have our ducks in a row with the redispatch, it can take a longer period of time than you’d expect.

Especially when 33.3% of the cockpit crew is brand new and doesn’t have a firm grasp on what the hell’s going on! Yes, I know, self-deprecating humor.

But here’s the great part about three-man crews with a ‘relief pilot’. They’re just like flight engineers. They’ll coordinate with maintenance, look up items in the logbook for you and are an extra set of hands when things get a little hectic.

We ended up pushing back a couple hours later after returning to the gate, but we have a MAX 16-hour duty window, we’re still getting fed and still getting a nap so it’s a lot different than looking forward to a 14 hour duty day domestic with 5 legs, 4 approaches and a bunch of weather to circumnavigate.

Rewind!

Let me just rewind the clock a bit and tell you what happens BEFORE you get to the aircraft.

Domestic check-in time is about an hour before departure, but international check-in time is two hours prior to departure.

We’ll sign into the computer, meet up with the other crewmembers and determine who needs a landing. This is important because you might get one, two or none in a month and landing currency becomes an issue. Better to do it in the real airplane than go uncurrent and take a trip to Atlanta to do it in a simulator.

The pilot who needs the takeoff or landing will print the flight plan, weather information and ‘track messages’ . A “track message” is more or less a printout of the negotiated airways of sorts, across the Atlantic. There’s an entry point, like HECKK off the coast of Canada, a series of lat/long coordinates and a exit point on the other side where we join the European airway system.

Naturally, that’s oversimplified, but that’s the basic gist.

The pilot who will be flying the leg prepares a plotting chart with our assigned track. He’ll also plot the “equal time points” where if we have an inflight emergency requiring a unplanned diversion, we’ll know instantly whether it’s best to turn around and land at St. Johns, Newfoundland, fly north up to Reyjavik, Iceland or fly south down to Lajes, Azores.

The other pilot will review the plotting chart and crosscheck your work and then you’ll head off to the aircraft.

The flying pilot will program the flight plan, the non-flying pilot will conduct an interior preflight and the relief pilot assigned for the trip will do an exterior preflight inspection, check some of the systems like the lavatory (IMPORTANT as improperly preflighting the lavatory monitoring system is one of the top reasons planes divert in flight and it costs big dollars to divert over an overflowing toilet).

We’ll figure out the breaks. Say we have a 10 hour, flight, take off an hour for the initial climb, an hour for the descent phase, then divide the 8 hours into three breaks. In this example about 2 hours and 40 minutes per pilot. Then we’ll figure out who goes on first break, second break and third break.

There’s a reclining business elite seat, a light curtain and a leather ottoman-type pad called a “Spongebob” that we can use to make the surface more flat if you’re planning on sleeping.

You can sleep, engorge yourself with food (there’s no lack of food on the international side. Careful else you’ll join the ’spandex waistband club’ very quickly), watch a movie, whatever you want to do.

On most of my flights, the relief pilot will take the first break and he’ll take my seat. Next, he’ll come back up, take my seat and then I’ll head back. After his break is up, he’ll come back up and sit in the captains seat.

But all three of us are generally only in the cockpit together for the first and last 45-60 minutes of the flight.

Back to the future:

Since we were so late departing JFK, the Atlantic track system was very quiet, no one talking on 123.45 at all. We’d hear the occasional Aer Lingus flight or a couple of corporate jets, but for the most part, we were on the tail end of the track eastward.

The sun actually rises fairly swiftly as you’re flying over the globe and I got my first glimpse of the sea. Perhaps I’m weird, but on all of my other flights, whether I’m flying or non-revving to Europe, it’s always cloudy so it was a special treat. A weird…special treat.

The arrival into Madrid was a lot easier, in my opinion, than France. Partially because I had more experience and partially because I understood the Spaniards English much better.

It’s a beautiful airport, friendly people and I’ll tell you this, pilots are still “somebody” in Europe. Crowd will clear as you walk through, people are especially cordial and respectful and people take notice. It’s almost like the old days I gather.

When we all arrive at the hotel, some of the crew goes out to do shopping or take a walk, others take naps, some just disappear entirely until you see them at van time the next day.

The captain, FO #2 and I decide we’re going to meet about 6pm downstairs.

Usually, once the andrenaline wears off, you’re dog tired and most elect to take a nap before meeting up for dinner and drinks.

And I’ve noticed that if you don’t set an alarm clock, you’ll probably sleep for much longer than you’ve intended because your circadian rhythm is all screwed up at this point.

Later that evening, we met up with some of the captain’s nephews who are residing in Madrid, went to a number of places for “Tapas”, beer and even the famous “Meson de Champignons (??)” which is the place a lot of crews go to for beer and mushroom tapas.

If you’re an eater and a drinker, Madrid is for you.

Going back

The flight back to JFK the next day was enjoyable. I’m starting to finally get a feel for the rhythm of the operation and what needs to be done when and how to do it which I’m transitioning from a perspective of “OH MY GOD, WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING?!” to developing comfort and regularity with the procedures.

It was another beautiful day across the Atlantic and even got a picture, albeit not a very good one, of some of the ice shelf melting off the coast of Newfoundland.

I didn’t do such a nice landing like I did in Paris and Madrid, but I was able to walk away from it!

My trips next month are two Frankfurt Germany trips and another Paris. Thanks for reading and make sure you tune in for updates in June.

Some photos:

“Tapas” while watching the bullfights

The “Mushroom House”

The captain’s two nephews who live in Spain

Navigation chores enroute on the tracks

Melting ice shelf over the North Atlantic.

Strangely, even after having done my first transoceanic leg, the trip back to the United States was even more challenging.

The day started out with sending Kristie on her way to the airport, which you can read about on her blog, but she wasn’t able to ride with the crew to the airport because of the security procedures at CDG. Basically, we’re taken from the layover hotel straight to the airstairs of the jet.

Procedures are a lot different overseas. The ATIS looks different, you get your clearances different, even arranging pushback is different. You’re given your squawk code and a 1 minute pushback clearance window, after which both are void. It’s strange.

Anyway, understanding the French controllers is a HUGE challenge for me at this point. At times I wish they’d just speak French and I’d have a better chance to understand them!

We’re doing an RNAV departure which minimizes the need for speed, altitude and heading vectors so you more or less follow the magenta line. Also, the climb profile is different — something they call the “ICAO II” profile where you maintain takeoff power to 1500 AFE (above field elevation) while holding a speed around V2+20, then at 3000 feet, you start accelerating and retracting flaps on the speed schedule.

A couple ‘cleared directs’ and climbs and we’re on our way. I take about half a millisecond breather only to realize that we’re well within our 90-minute prior position before entering the North Atlantic Tracks. But this time we’re dealing with Shanwick so the rules are a bit different.

Shanwick Oceanic wants us to give them an “alternative track” if our requested track isn’t available and indicate what the next best flight level would be if our requested isn’t available.

It’s really important to get this squared away because you can’t ask for an Oceanic clearance more than 90 minutes away, but it needs to be no later than 30, but you can’t enter their airspace without a clearance in hand, unlike you can while traveling east.

Once that’s all taken care of, the captain sends me back for first break.

And I need it. Holy cow.

The room in Paris was far too hot, ventilation almost nil and I probably got a good solid two hours of sleep because I don’t sleep very well when the room is too warm, I was anxious about the flight and forgot to bring along my melatonin to help me sleep.

Not good, but the two hour nap onboard really helped.

After my breaks up, I go back to the cockpit, switch with Staplegun and the captain and I go over some more transoceanic navigation items, including track changes, emergency procedures and a SATCOM (satellite communications) demonstration where we can dial numbers thru the FMS and have voice conversations with dispatch, maintenance or in this case, FlyChicaga from the website (who didn’t answer) but luckily Iain did so I could learn how the SATCOM works.

Iain asked where we were and all I could really tell him was someplace over the North Atlantic!

Enroute both times, it was undercast so you really have no idea what the open ocean looks like below and the only indication you’re approaching land are VOR symbols starting to appear on your NAV display or the RMI needles slowly springing to life.

The captain starts his break, Staplegun comes back and we start the ‘coast in’ procedure where we’re getting back onto the North American airway system over northeastern Canada.

When we “coast in” we’re usually getting a new ATC clearance, climbing/descending off the assigned track altitude, speeding up or slowing down (we fly an assigned airspeed while on the track, no slower, no faster) and such. It’s a big relief because I’m leaving the odd world of the N. Atlantic route structure back to the normal airway system that I’m much more familiar with so it starts to feel a lot more like a domestic flight.

Then it’s just a basic arrival into CVG with a visual approach and landing a few hours later.

My observations? The flights are A LOT shorter when you’re working them. When you’re sitting in back, it really feels like a 9 hour flight goes ON and ON and ON, but when you’re actually a working crewmember, it’s pretty fast, especially when you account for your crew break period in the rest seat.

My challenges are going to be to develop a rhythm of the operation so I can transition from the training environment to the ‘regular line Joe’ environment and not make a name for myself as “Oh, geez, there’s that dead weight FO!” So I’m trying to actively study before my next trip on Sunday where I go to Madrid.

Interesting thing about Madrid. Since this next trip will be out of JFK, the time between takeoff and hustling to get the oceanic clearance is a lot shorter so it’s going to be hectic once again. And Madrid may prove to be a lot different than the operation in and out of Paris.

Stay tuned, thanks for reading. I apologize for the poor sentence structure, but it’s 0100 out here in PHX!

Kristie joined me and wrote about her experiences on Jetgirls.net:
http://forums.jetgirls.net/showthread.php?t=14644

By the way, my OLD blog about 767 training is at http://76school.flyblog.com if you’re interested in how I got up to this point of my adventure on the 767.

This is going to be the ‘condensed version’ so there may be large parts missing.

On my first “TOE” of “trans oceanic experience” trip, I’m flying with another user from Jetcareers (Staplegun) and my actual training captain named Bennie on a trip from Cincinnati to Paris, France.

The first day of the trip, Staplegun and I meet the captain in the briefing room where we go over the ground rules for the flight, and an introduction to what’s expected and what’s going to happen on an international flight that are different than what happens when on a domestic trip.

We go over NOTAMS, alternate weather, NAT messages (North Atlantic Track) and plotting charts.

There aren’t any airways between the US and Europe so each day, all of the ‘powers that be’ decide on east and westbound tracks and assign them for aircraft flying between Europe and the United States. Since they vary from day to day, we’ve got to manually plot them on a plotting chart according to latitude and longitude for reference.

In a nutshell, the US will control everything up until a track “entry point”. Then the NAT system, which may be “Gander”, “Shanwick”, “Santa Maria”, etc control the ‘in between’ before you start working with a class-I (ground based NAV) airways again.

We also print out CDG-specific “best practices” guides which are meant to give you a ‘heads up’ on the operations at the airport in France.

Speaking of France, they’re very difficult to understand on the radio because of the accent. yes everyone uses English, but it’s not the garden variety of English that you’d hear in Nebraska, it’s a hybrid.

Anyway, we finish up the plotting charts, I have a short chat with Kristie who is joining me on the trip and H46Bubba who came to see us both off. At this point, I’m so overwhelmed with international ops stuff and pretty much scared to death so the conversation is pretty short.

We meet the rest of the crew at the gate, introduce ourselves and head down to he aircraft.

Basic preflight, loading A LOT of navigation data into the FMS and cockpit prep. If workload on a scale from 1 to 10, domestic might be a 7, but international-wise, at least at this point when I’m completely fresh to the concept is about about a 15 or 20. Yup, it’s really that different.

Here’s a little known fact that you might not think about. A very important part of the preflight are the lavatory tanks. You’d be surprised but according to the training captain, the #1 reason for inflight diverts over the Atlantic are full lavatories so they take it deadly serious that they’re properly preflighted.

Takeoff and initial climb are about the same as domestic, but a little later in the flight, we do navigation accuracy checks before entering the track system.

Luckily, we’ve got an aircraft with HF, SATCOM and FMC so before we enter the track (”no more than 90 minutes prior and no less than 30 minutes prior) we get out clearance to enter Gander’s airspace and join our transatlantic track towards Europe.

At this point, I’ll readily and without ego admit that I’m completely overwhelmed because the training that we did during Long Range Nav school was pretty damned inadequate and poor Bennie has the burden of having to more or less teach procedure, monitor my performance, and act as PIC.

At this point, Staplegun’s already back on break!

Most of the North Atlantic Track system is spend doing “waypoint procedures”.

Waypoint procedures are things like as you approach an Atlantic Waypoint, you’re confirming the next point, mag headings, zone times, zone distances, then as you pass it, you’re reconfirming the new course, recording “HOWGOZIT” reports and doing position reporting to the controlling agency if you’re not in an FMC jet. Plus, “post position reports” to ensure you’re where you think you are and that your navigation hasn’t taken a dump on you.

It happens. Trust me. You WILL do a carpet dance, if you’re lucky, if you stray off track because of your IRU’s drifting. If you’re not lucky, you’ll probably hit another aircraft.

In the next few hours, we go through lots and lots of briefing items from the TOE guide and the captain says: “I’m tired of talking, you need to eat so go ahead and start your break”.

Eating on an international flight is strange. First, our rest seat is in business elite, which is nice, but there is more food than you can possibly shake a stick at.

“Do you want the appetizer? how many?”

“Soup? Salad? Both?”

“Beef? Chicken? Lamb? how many?”

They literally throw food at you from the moment you’re doing a cruise climb, up to the top of decent at the next airport. You have to really be careful so you don’t end up a member of the ’spandex/strech waistband club’.

After my break was up about 2 hours later, it’s back to the cockpit and the captain starts his break.

I had a good chat with Staplegun about how overwhelmed I felt with the international procedures but he said it just takes practice and a couple of “crossings” and it’ll feel like second nature. I order a cup of hot water to have a little Tazo green tea to snap me back into place.

I also jokingly tease Staplegun a bit because I think it’d ruin my macho if the website knew that I have a thing for green tea if he mentioned anything!

Fast forward a bit and we’re descending for Paris.

There are a lot of RNAV arrivals into airports in Europe so you often don’t deal with many vectors, but many ‘cleared direct to’ procedures. I do have to admit that my stress level is a little high because not only have I only flown a “real 767-300ER” once during my domestic IOE, I’ve got Staplegun, a training captain, my wife, and a flight attendant that went on and on about how bad the last landing was with the other trainee.

The pressure is on.

Surprisingly enough. I grease it on.

I wasn’t expecting it at all and it came as a big surprise to me, but the nervous flight attendant congratulated me, the crew congratulated me, Kristie was ecstatic and it felt really good to have done such a good landing. To this day still don’t believe it.

At Paris, the terminal that collapsed and killed a few people is the one that we park at so we’re using a ‘hard stand’ and a bus to deplane the aircraft. Fortunately, our crew bus pulls right up to the airplane and we’re shuttled directly from the aircraft right to the crew hotel in downtown Paris near the Eiffel Tour. Unfortunately, by the way the system works, we can’t let Kristie ride with us so she rode the RER to the hotel.

I went from ecstatic and energetic to dead tired and asleep in about 20 minutes after reaching the hotel. In fact, I didn’t even hear her knocking at the door once she arrived. Geez.

Later that evening, the tradition, at least with our crews is to head to the Monoprix (a French grocery chain), pick up a couple bottles of ‘cheap wine with the prettiest labels’ and an appetizer to share in the crew room before we split off in groups to find dinner.

Needless to say, I think I’m going to enjoy this international thing. Lots of fun, camaraderie from the golden years of airline flying and like a big family.

I think I’ve done my last domestic trip for a very long time.

Long story short, Kristie and I and the rest of the crew got back from a KILLER French dinner about 0030.

But we’ve got one more day of a layover in Paris! I’ll type some more tomorrow about how the rest of the trip went.

Thanks for reading! Seriously. If YOU are not reading, I’ve got no motivation to write about this stuff.

So I’m at home this evening packing for the TOE (trans oceanic experience) trip.

I guess I’m a little more careful packing for the trip because it’s not like if I forget something, that I can hop down to the “Monoprix” and find exactly what I left behind in the US.

Basically, tomorrow, I’m flying from PHX to CVG to position for the trip. Then the next evening, I meet up with Staplegun and the training Captain for my flight to Paris.

It’s pretty exciting. It’s a 48 hour layover at a great hotel in Paris so I’m bringing Kristie along. The only ‘catch’ is that I’ll be on a private van, inaccessible to ‘civilians’ and Kristie’s riding the RER down to central Paris. She’s done it before a million times in Paris, but it’s just a wee bit different leaving your wife behind at the airport.

Tomorrow, I’ll most likely study for the Paris flight enroute to Cincinnati, reviewing the things I learned during the two-day transoceanic crash course so the check airman doesn’t think that I’m a COMPLETE idiot when it comes time to pick up the North Atlantic Track message, etc.

So stay tuned!