25 May 2012

No matter how long I'm off work, it always ends and I have to leave home again. Day 1 of a 4 day trip. Dfw to STL to DFW to OMA to DFW to OMA. Ok back to the checklist. After we push out and start the engines we run the "before taxi checklist" where we lower the flaps, check all the flight controls (ailerons, rudder, and elevator). Depending which airport we're at I'll have to contact as many as 3 more controllers just to get take off clearance. At Chicago I'll get clearance to push off the gate with ramp frequency. Then request initial taxi out of the alley with them. They'll have me contact metering and metering will switch me over to ground frequency once they see my clearance pop up on their screen. Ground will issue taxi instructions to the runway. LISTEN CLOSELY AND FAST because if you miss it, you will get ignored for 15 minutes until he gets back to you at which time you'll be chastised, yelled at and generally humiliated. Here's an example of the sequence from ramp to taxi out:
"ramp American 123 ready to push off "kilo 12A".
"American 123 cleared to push tail south please"
"American 123 roger tail south"
..after pushing, starting both engines and the pretaxi checklist
"ramp American 123 ready to taxi"
"American 123 south line out switch to metering please have a great day"
"American 123 roger"
"metering American 123 off Kilo 12A with ATIS information foxtrot".
"American 123 roger monitor ground on 121.75"
"American 123 wilco"
.. Here I have my pen and paper out ready to write fast. Ground is talking to 100 airplanes and the freq is a zoo.
"American 123 runway 22L via alpha Alpha 17 Bravo, Bravo 16 Juliet left to whiskey, through the de ice pad and let the united airbus in front of you. Follow him the rest of the way.
He reads this faster than I can write and without break immediately is on to the next aircraft so that his transmission is one continuous blurb lasting 10-20 airplanes. DON'T MISS IT!
The taxi out is whacky. It's a maze of taxi ways, cut offs, medians, pads and ramps leading to a myriad of runways. We each have an airport diagram in our issued pubs. Most pilot mistakes happen now. While one pilot has his head down running the rest of the checklists the other one makes a wrong turn, crosses accidentally onto an active taxi way or runway and both pilots find themselves at the end of a large table defending themselves against an FAA team of cutthroats trying to take their pilot license's away.
So on the taxi out is where the real fun begins because that's likely the first time we can get into trouble and well, frankly, the thrill is fun.
The mechanical checklist is mounted on the center console and has about 10 items which are deemed most important for takeoff. This is where I will compare all the information from the airport analysis page which was downloaded as part of the "paperwork", and compare it with current weather, close out weight&balance numbers and runway information. Remember the paperwork is the plan, but now based on actual numbers I have to determine if the plan was close enough to the actual finished close out numbers for us to be able to take off and climb out safely. The annuls of aviation history are full of airplane crashes caused from taking off too heavy, underpowered, on too short of a runway or without the ability to climb over an obstacle. It's my job to check and cross check this data to ensure we can safely take off. All of these are variables and change with temperature, pressure altitude, humidity, headwind/tailwind component, runway condition/contamination, flap setting, and actual aircraft weight. I'll demonstrate how I do all that in the next blog...