Aug 19 2007
Been a while, but I’m back!
Ok, so I’ve been a little derelict the last month or so with updating the blog.
I apologize.
Since I’ve ‘popped the international cherry’ and gotten much more comfortable with operation and know what the hell I’m doing now, well, mostly at least, I’ll walk you through an oceanic crossing.
I’m JFK-based so all of my trips originate and terminate in JFK.
I have to check in about an 90 minutes before the flight departs of which hopefully one of the three pilots have printed the information we require for the flight.
The information includes:
A “North Atlantic Track Message” which indicates the identifiers and coordinates of that days “routes” across the Atlantic. Those chance daily according to efficient winds, turbulence avoidance, etc.
A turbulence chart, so we can see where our planned track crosses any areas of turbulence so we can prewarn the flight attendants and have a basic idea of when it’s going to begin and when it’s going to end. If at all.
A flight plan. Just like the basic domestic flight plan.
A chart. Being that the North Atlantic Tracks change daily, we need to manually plot them as there’s no permanent airways over the North Atlantic.
NOTAMS. Aircraft can’t fly without NOTAMS.
A hotel sheet…. Important Important Important. It includes the names, employee numbers and bases of all three pilots so we can hand the sheet to the hotel when we arrive and they can prepare the keys for us. Do it while you’re awake.
A “flight folder”. We have to turn in the chart and “part 1″ of the flight plan at the end of the trip for storage. Basically it’s an insurance policy if Gander, Shanwick, New York or Santa Maria Oceanic Control think we experienced a gross navigational error that we can prove that we were in fact on course, etc.
We’ll meet in the designated briefing room, plot the track, review the materials and introduce one another. Proper CRM is your lifeline, will keep you out of trouble and generally ensure that you have a great trip.
Normally, not always, but for simplicity, the captain usually flies the first leg from JFK to our destination. Not always, of course, but most times. Then we usually flip a coin or roll the dice or query which of the two first officers needs a landing for currency. So, the captain’s ALWAYS the captain, the FO that’s not going to get a landing plays “relief pilot” the first leg and the FO who is going to get a landing is relief on the return trip.
Remember in my writing how I mentioned how there was a “captain” and “first officer”, a “pilot flying” and a “pilot monitoring” on domestic legs? Well, it gets much more confusing on the international side.
We have one captain and two first officers.
On any given leg, we have:
A captain (who may be “pilot monitoring” (working the radios more or less)
An FO (who may be “pilot monitoring” or “pilot flying”)
Another FO who acts as “relief”.
A little more on this later.
We’ll arrive at the aircraft after the pre-flight planning is done and greet the flight attendants. Getting acquianted with the flight attendants is very important because these are you co-workers for the next three days (well, two FLIGHT days, but you’ll be dealing with them for three). The captain will generally gather everyone in business class and brief everyone on the flight time, his expectations and any forecast weather for the route.
It’s also important to meet the language speakers for the flight. For example, if we fly to Paris, the language speakers are *usually* nationals of the country you’re flying to and know great places to sight see, interesting tips for your layover, places to AVOID (important!) and are fantastic sources of information during the layover. Trust me, one was absolutely worth DOUBLE her weight in gold during my Bucharest, Romania trip.
The captain and the first officer will go the cockpit to load (and crosscheck) the FMS and the designated relief pilot will check lavatory service (very important because if it wasn’t serviced, you’re going to end up landing in Iceland and having to explain to the chief pilot why you didn’t verify the tanks were emptied), conduct the exterior preflight, verify condition of the pilot rest seat and do some basic cockpit preflight work.
The flying pilot (FO or captain) loads the FMS and the pilot monitoring will confirm the load, certify the inertial reference unit initialization and cross check the data entry.
Pushback, taxi, takeoff and climb are pretty standard.
As you’re climbing, the relief pilot will write down the “estimated time of arrival” over the waypoints on the flight plan, create the ‘break schedule’ (where we figure out how long the rest breaks in flight are going to be for us to go back to the crew rest seat and catch a nap) and load the data for the oceanic clearance.
At top of climb, the ‘relief pilot’ will generally head back for roughly a two hour nap. You can sleep, eat, read, tinker with your ipod, whatever you’d like to do. One of the FO’s is ALWAYS the relief pilot on a three-man crew.
Note: On shorter flights like JFK to Dublin, there are only two pilots so there’s no rest break.
As we progress in the flight, we’ll pick up an Oceanic clearance. Remember, the clearance you receive from air traffic control is only valid to an ‘oceanic entry point’ and you need a clearance to enter the North Atlantic Track system.
Usually, the clearance is as planned by your dispatcher, but sometimes, they’ll issue you a different route, a different altitude or different airspeed. The Airbuses, 767’s and 777’s are usually fairly medium altitude around .80, but the 747’s (which are speed demons in terms of commerical passenger airplanes) fly higher at .85-.87 it seems like.
Every ten degrees, the FMS on most aircraft will spit out a position report to whatever controlling authority is covering your flight. There “officially” isn’t radar coverage over the ocean, so it’s pretty much handled like the old days prior to widespread radar in the domestic United States. Position, time, altitude, next position, expected time, fuel on board.
On some aircfraft without automatic position reporting, we have to call Shanwick or Gander Radio and perform the position report by voice on HF (high frequency) radio. On most aircraft the FMS (via SATCOM (satellite communications)) will conduct the report for you.
HF is an interesting thing. It sounds a bit like the radio chatter on Star Wars, but then the useable rang is tremendous. We can be sitting on the ground in New York and have a voice conversation with Ireland almost like he was next door.
Enroute, we have a thing called “ETP” or “Equal Time Points”. It’s more or less positions on your flight plan where if you had a emergency over the ocean, you’d have a few geographic positions where it might be better to turn around and head for Newfoundland, or north to Keflavik, Iceland or Lajes, Azores, or even to Shannon, Ireland. More on this in another blog entry.
After a couple hours, the “relief pilot” will return to the cockpit and replace the “pilot flying”. Basically, whoever is doing the landing will generally have the second break so he can return in order to do the arrival planning.
Another couple hours goes by, the ‘pilot flying’ returns, and then the relief pilot will replace the ‘pilot monitoring’ as he goes on break.
The ‘relief pilot’ for the leg is more or less a jack of all trades.
Some airlines have systems where they designate a relief pilot, other airlines, like mine, will enable to pilots to determine for themselves who is flying relief.
Just like we have an ‘oceanic entry point’ we also have an ‘exit point’ as which we require a clearance to fly from that position.
Once you receive your clearance to your destination, it’s just like flying over the United States perhaps for a few exceptions.
In the United States, we have “J” airways. Like J42…J138, etc.
In Europe, they have “UL” or “Upper LIma”, “UM” or “Upper Mike” airways. They more or less work the same.
So your clearance at your Oceanic exit point may come like:
“Delta Four Four (it’s not forty four in international ops), cleared to LFPG (ICAO for Paris, Charles De Gaulle) via direct MALOT UL586 SHA UM123 flight planned route, maintain flight level 370″
Each airport you fly into is different. There’s very little standardization so reading all available information, including NOTAMS, “Best Practices” guides and asking the other pilot, “Uhh, you been here before?” and asking lots and lots of questions is absolutely imperative.
Note: Don’t (ever ever ever)^100 presume ATC is going to hold your hand or even correct you if you read back the wrong instructions. Know what you’re going *at all times* Don’t end up in the Gulag. I’m not kidding either! 
At this point, you’re more or less flying a domestic flight, with strange transition levels (in the US, we always go from 29.92 to local altimeter setting at 18,000) whereas the flight levels may be as low at 5,000 feet in Europe. “Descend to flight like five hundred” is an uncommon instruction overseas.
Many airport have STARS, approach transitions and approaches. Often, in lieu of vectors to final approach course, you’ll be assigned a transition off of the STAR, join the transition and follow an lateral/vertical path to final approach course. Yet again, there is a basic amount of standardization once you land, but you need to be ready for anything from very broken English, incomplete instructions or contradictory information from air traffic control so everyone’s got their 10-9 airport depiction pages out, listening intently to ATC and coordinating with one another to ensure that we understand what ATC is directing us to do.
Once you arrive at the gate, it’s just like another domestic flight.
Naturally, you go from a van like you’d have domestic to a bus for the flight crew.
Customs is a piece of cake. Remember, the TSA isn’t in Europe so they have a greater respect for flight crews so you generally don’t have the hassle entering a country in Europe like you do returning to your own country in the United States.
Shorter layovers in Europe are 23 hours, whereas some layovers may be 4 days depending on the city and the tie of the year.
Generally, I’ll get to the hotel, take about a two to two and a half hour nap, get up, shower and do the tourist thing. I’ll swing back by the hotel later that afternoon sometimes to see if there’s a dinner ‘n cocktail group meeting or I’ll meander around the city. If I sleep too much when I first get in, that just ensures that I’ll be up very late that night and get little or no sleep before having to go back to work the next afternoon.
For me, if I stay a little tired, by the time I get back to the hotel around 10 or 11pm, I’d absolutely wiped and and sleep very well.
Well, that’s pretty much the gist of international flight. Any question, ask me over at Jetcareers!
As usual, thanks for reading.