Position: Over Springfield, Colorado
Altitude: 35,000 feet
Groundspeed: 600 kts (690 mph)
Equipment: A321 Enhanced- New Metal
Pax-on-Board: 183 plus 2 jumpers
Airborne...
Out of the school house and back on the airways with the mark of the Training Department on my forehead: AfLO (Approved for Line Operations)
And, once again, my fantasy of being hired away from the airline by Airbus Industries as a 320 demo pilot was dashed. Not a single talent scout attended my sim training. The wife-of-my-youth assures me that I am a pilot of renown and that Airbus Industries will show up any day with the job offer and a satchel full of cash.
We will live in Monte Carlo and I will demonstrate the A320 to prospective buyers while my wife suns her cute little hiney on the French Riviera.
I am still waiting... Maybe next time.
Back to reality... Compass heading 091 degrees
The ride is silky smooth tonight in our new A321. Good Lord, what a beautiful aircraft! She is long, sleek, smooth skinned, and shiny. The upgraded nav computers are running the latest software; lots of new digital magic coming from the Star Trek bay underneath the flight deck.
I remember when I was apprehensive about flying the 321 for the first time because I was terrified of dragging the tail on take-off or landing. Would not do for captain Dave to be the first Company pilot to drag the tail of a new 321... Not only would I have to go into the Spanking Machine for re-training on how to take-off and land, but my low-life buddies would never, ever let me forget it.
I laugh about it now... For I am disappointed when it is not a 321 at the gate. The tail dragging fear was greatly exaggerated by flight line rumor.
Right seat blues...
The young man in the right seat is a University of North Dakota grad who has had a meteoric rise in the pilot business. A twenty-eight year old future major airline captain in training with all the right stuff. He keeps referring to me as Sir, although I have told him several times my name is Dave, not Sir... I like this kid.
Today, he has had two landings and both have been... Uh, interesting. He is a junior reserve co-pilot who, admittedly, does not get to fly much as he waits for the slow march of seniority to pull him out of reserve status.
His first landing was a hard touchdown as a result of letting the aircraft get too slow in the flare and he ran out of elevator authority... Ooops! This is usually a result of Fi-Fi being heavier than the flight management computers calculate, thus the approach/landing speed is too low by a few knots. The pilot can actually feel this coming when he/she gets more experience in seat. The aircraft feels sluggish on final approach and the nose is one or two degrees higher than normal.
Corrective action: add a couple knots of indicated airspeed. Be proactive... Don't sit there and let it happen. Easy for me to say after thousands of Fi-Fi hours in the left seat.
The insidious thing about this type of hard landing is that everything looks normal except for the small nose pitch difference and the nagging feeling that something is out of kilter. A (young) junior reserve co-pilot does not have the tools to detect it yet.
I gave him a pep talk at the gate after the senior Sky Goddess in the rear galley called the flight deck and asked Whose piece of work was that landing? He was mortified.
I told him It wasn't that bad. A Navy guy would be proud of it. Happens to all of us occasionally. Don't worry about it.
His second landing was a smooth touchdown in a strong right crosswind. He had auto-braking selected ON... Not a bad idea for a low time Electric Jet pilot. He should have held more stick into the wind after touchdown, because a gust lifted the right wing and main landing gear off the runway just before the spoilers rose and exactly when the auto-brakes activated. Yikes!
The auto-brake computer could not handle one main gear on the runway and the other still airborne, so it said see ya later boys, and, by the way, I am taking number four brake with me.
Yellow caution lights illuminated the flight deck with a warning bell from the aircraft monitoring system... AUTO-BRK FAULT and BRK RELEASED.
I calmly told the kid to Use max reverse thrust and max manual brakes; don't pump them. Number four brake is gone.
He kept his wits and stayed on the center line while applying all the available stopping power. The usual runway turn-off went by us at about sixty knots, a sobering reminder of the importance of that missing brake. He slowed to taxi speed and made the third turn-off; 3,000 feet of runway remaining.
Taxiing to the gate... After a couple minutes of silence, he asked me What did I do wrong?
You didn't do anything wrong. We will talk about it at the gate. Nice job staying on the center line!
Under the jetway, with the brake fans howling as they wicked the heat away from the hot carbon-fiber pucks, I met the night shaman from Line maintenance that handles the landing gear/brake computer re-sets. The heat plumes blowing out of the wheel assemblies felt good in the chill as I explained what happened to the number four brake. A few minutes later, with several computers reset and tested, we are good to go.
ICT (Wichita)...
As Wichita slips beneath the radome I tell the co-pilot, One time I landed a 737 on the wrong runway at Salt Lake and the captain chewed my butt all the way to the hotel for embarrassing him. I had to take my pants in a few inches afterwards.
Really?
Oh, yeah! And... Long Beach, late night, 737, I made a hard landing that caused some of the overheads to pop open spilling luggage on passengers. It was a quiet ride to the hotel that night. The captain didn't say a word to me and I was still in my probation year.
The co-pilot finally laughs a little bit.
That's better... Life on the Line continues a few miles east of ICT.
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