Kellwolf's Upgrade Updates

[kellwolf]

Originally Posted by bike21

Congrats sir!

btw...are you guys approved for GPS approaches? We are not unfortunately, only terminal & enroute for now.

Yeah, we got approved for RNAV/GPS approaches way back in like Feb of 07. I think I've done maybe TWO on the line.

As for my sim partner, he basically let nerves get the best of him. He became unstable on an approach and elected to continue rather than go around, then he did it again. APD told him right then that he was gonna have to go for re-training, but they both elected to continue to get a lot of the other stuff done. Next time out, he got a V1 cut (went fine) with an inadvertent thrust reverser deploy. After the QRH was complete, he still flew the approach as a single engine approach. The last item in the QRH is "thrust levers as required," which means you've got your engine back. He never moved it back up from idle.

[IFly85]

Sorry to hear about your sim partner but Congrats on passing your ride Steve.

[Seggy]

Congrats! WOOOHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Douglas H]

Nice job on the checkride. Keep us up to date on IOE and the Fed Ride.

Your job just became that much sweeter.

[ready2fly]

1. You

2. Friggin'

3.

OUTSTANDING, bro!! Congrats!!! First round (for you) is on me in Vegas, baybay!!!

[bike21]

Originally Posted by kellwolf

Yeah, we got approved for RNAV/GPS approaches way back in like Feb of 07. I think I've done maybe TWO on the line.

Good for you guys, I would rather shoot GPS approaches than VOR/LOC approaches any day. Mainly for the mountain airports we go into. Nothing like having uber precise navigation when descending between granite lined clouds.

[Trip7]

Congrats!

[kellwolf]

LOFT was today, and it was pretty straight forward. Since my sim partner was doing his re-check today, they paired me up with a new hire FO that had passed his checkride this week. His sim partner ALSO had a re-check today. My bet is that if they both pass, our sim partners will wind up being paired up for a LOFT session, too.

Anyway, get the release for MEM-HSV, start out at the gate and do all the normal stuff. Normal pushback, and (gasp!) normal start. Kinda took a second for me to realize I wasn't gonna have to shut an engine down and call maintenance. Taxi over to 18C and takeoff. No problems, land in Huntsville, and the APU dies on the taxi in. The poor new hire FO was like "What does APU ECU FAIL mean?" I just sigh and say "Means it's gonna get hot and we've got to make some phone calls." So, I do the song and dance with dispatch and mx after confirming with Huntsville ops that we're gonna do a hot re-fuel procedure due to their not having a huffer cart. Tell the instructor where the hot re-fuel procedures are in the book, and we take a break.

Come back, turn left, taxi out to the taxiiway and do the cross-bleed start. Takeoff out of Huntsville, and the FO is flying. No problems until we get ALMOST on the arrival. "GEN 2 OFF" caution message. Look up, sure enough IDG DISC light is on. Run the QRH, and since we're down to one generator, it's "land at nearest suitable airport."

Well, he had told us there was a line of t-storms coming in to MEM, so I had our alternate pulled up as a fix on the MFD anyway, and we were less than 20 miles from there. MEM was about 70. Sounds like the nearest suitable airport is gonna be TUP. So, I make the decision to divert there, call dispatch, get a new release, tell the FA we're not gonna be landing in MEM and start the circus of getting us in to Tupelo. Visual conditions and the FO did a good job with the visual seeing as he'd only done about 3 of them in the sim up until that point. Landed. Shutdown check, terminating check. Done.

Cat 2 on Monday (with the same FO, actually), and then it's OE at some point in the near future.

[Sig]

CONGRATULATIONS!

Great job, Kellwolf. Feels weird, doesn't it? Wait until the first time ATC (any level) queries you, and the guy to your right stops everything and stares right at you.

THAT is fun! Literally! It is amazing how easy the left seat job is compared to the right. Hammer the PTT on your side and fix the situation, and voila! No big deal.

And he keeps staring.... that's a little odd.

[adreamer]

Congrat. You passed the ride from "Pink Slip"? You are da man.

I guess I will ask you for a j/s in the near future.

[cencal83406]

Congrats man! Hope to see you on the line as my captain soon! Of course you'll have to finished OE before they move me to to -900

[kellwolf]

Originally Posted by cencal83406

Congrats man! Hope to see you on the line as my captain soon! Of course you'll have to finished OE before they move me to to -900

Why the heck are you going over there? Swayed by those swanky pay rates?

Are you moving to ATL or commuting?

[Cruise]

Originally Posted by ready2fly

1. You

2. Friggin'

3.

OUTSTANDING, bro!! Congrats!!! First round (for you) is on me in Vegas, baybay!!!

Whaaa? Don't go getting cheap on us. First round is first round.....9FI, see you there!





Oh yeah, sweet job on the ride Kellwolf. Kick some butt on IOE!

[kellwolf]

Cat II training at 5 am this morning. Started out with a pre-brief of what we need to do Cat II and the profile. The group was myself, my sim partner and two new hire FOs. It's seat specific training, so we were each paired with an FO. It was the same FO I did my LOFT with the other day, so that worked out well. Sim partner and the other FO went first, and we opted to try to wake up a bit more before our turn in the box.

Climb in, and get in my now-getting-more-comfortable seat. Wow. That's cool. We're already on a 45 degree intercept heading for the ILS to 36L. CA briefs and sets up the approach, so I did all that, and the FO flew. Configured on profile (same as an ILS, just put the final notch of flaps in a bit earlier to give the AP time to trim properly before catching the glideslope.) About 200 ft above minimums, I make my call and put my hand on the yoke and the other hand on the base of the thrust levers. 20 feet above minimum (DH was 99 ft), I call "My controls" and land it. No problem on the normal CAT II. So, we zap back to short final, where we can just BARELY see the approach lights, and the instructor shows us what it looks like at night, dusk, day, approach lights on and approach lights off. Honestly, I don't think I'll ever fly a Cat II approach with the lights ON. Makes it too hard to see the runway or approach lighting.

Next few times we had a localizer failure, so we went around. We had an N2 vib on one approach, so we went around. I had one where the visibility suddenly went nil after I call "my controls," so I did the go around (FO does the flying AND the go around unless the CA takes the controls). Did one where the instructor nudge me and told me to play dead, so the FO had to do the go around all on his own. Last one, I had a situation where the AP wouldn't disengage, so I had to just muscle it on the ground.

All in all, it was pretty easy, especially for me. CAs on Cat II approaches really don't do anything but steal the glory at the end with the landing.

So, turned in my training folder, my Flight Safety badge, my corp education center badge and went home. Scheduling called about 3 hours later. OE starts on Thursday at 8:45 am. I've got a 3 day Thurs-Sat, and another two day starting on Sun going until Monday. I've already checked the legs, but they don't have the fed ride scheduled in there yet.

[JEP]

Originally Posted by Cruise

Whaaa? Don't go getting cheap on us. First round is first round.....9FI, see you there!


Oh yeah, sweet job on the ride Kellwolf. Kick some butt on IOE!

First round = multiple drinks = multiple drinkers

Now if you're going to be Steve a drink, then so be it.....But come on now.....


Kell, Congrats on the process so far.....At least if you end up in MSP during IOE we are getting nice wx now.

[kellwolf]

Originally Posted by JEP

First round = multiple drinks = multiple drinkers

Now if you're going to be Steve a drink, then so be it.....But come on now.....


Kell, Congrats on the process so far.....At least if you end up in MSP during IOE we are getting nice wx now.

So far, all of my OE is MEM out and backs with overnights in PNS, AUS, and MGM. Although, I may get shipped to MSP to sit reserve for a bit. They like to do that a lot. Unfortunately, I won't be sitting in the hotel or in the movie theater like I was on FO reserve. CAs tend to get flown until they drop from exhaustion.

[Bumblebee]

Originally Posted by kellwolf

So far, all of my OE is MEM out and backs with overnights in PNS, AUS, and MGM. Although, I may get shipped to MSP to sit reserve for a bit. They like to do that a lot. Unfortunately, I won't be sitting in the hotel or in the movie theater like I was on FO reserve. CAs tend to get flown until they drop from exhaustion.

Steve, I'll come out of my dormant status to congratulate you on your checkride. Proud of you man!

[kellwolf]

Well, as of about 8:45 this morning, I'm officially done with OE. Fed ride was yesterday, It could have gone better, but the fact that the first OE CA I flew with basically let a lot of stuff slide without telling me a) I was doing it wrong or b) I wasn't doing it at all along with the fact he didn't sign off on some stuff he should have sorta set a sour tone for the whole thing. I hadn't had any issues (minor or major) and of course on the fed ride they over fuel me and send me past my max takeoff weight. So, I decided to park it in the pad and burn fuel, which was the correct choice. Takeoff out of MEM on our way to CMH, and suddenly I'm a bundle of neves. I feel like it's not going well at all, but there's nothing else I can do about it. While we were taxiing out, I asked the check airman playing FO to give dispatch a call and see what's up. All operations told us is "you're not legal. Call dispatch." So, I wasn't sure if it was a weight issue or a balance issue b/c of the jumpseater. I got jumped on....HARD. I was more or less berated for telling the FO to do something that would have him heads down and not looking out the window. In retrospect, they (the check airman and the APD on the jumpseat) are right, I just felt they were a little harsh with the judgement. Especially since almost every CA I've flown with had me doing that on the taxi out. But, that's neither here nor there. When we got to CMH, I was taxiing a little fast, and I sorta got nailed on that one, too.

Taxi out from CMH after getting another weight and balance issue sorted (this time it WAS balance issues b/c of the jumpseater), and we're off and running again. Everything was fine coming in to MEM, but I got jumped for not slowing down to 200 kts in the terminal area. Now, I've been told by several CAs, check airmen and controllers in MEM they want you doing 250 until the last second, so that was what I was doing. Now, I'm suddenly being told something different. Add to that ATC kept me high and then cleared me for the visual. Now, it worked out, and I was stabilized on the approach all the way down. Got to the gate, taxiied in, and shut it down. More or less got the "I'm gonna sign you off, but you've got a lot of work to do" speech from the fed, and that was it for the ride.

Honestly, I felt I had gotten a bad shake on the whole deal. For about 2 years I'd seen it done one way, been doing it the same way for the past 3 days and told I was doing it fine, and never heard a word that I was doing anything wrong. Then I get more or less blasted for it on the fed ride. Essentially, it seemed like a training breakdown somewhere. I know ultimately I'm the one responsible, and I HATE making excuses. But that's honestly how I felt about the whole deal.

So, I had two more legs with the same check airman (who I actually get along with really well), and he said "Look. I have yet to have a guy bust that I flew with for a while, and I know you got hosed by the guy you've been flying with." So that helped out. So, we did a leg to MGM, and the only thing he had a comment on was I should have started my descent earlier. Ultimately, it turned out to be a beauty of an approach with about a 7 mile final. During the debrief at the hotel he made the comment that he probably shoulda just waited to see how it turned out instead of saying something about the descent b/c it worked out much better than he thought it would. Points for me....finally.

Next morning, we get up and fly back to MEM. Uh oh. Turns out station ops decided to clean the plane using the emergency lighting.....and left them on all night. Batteries were dead, so I called mx. Oh, yeah. We also need someone to look at our #2 hydraulic accumulators since they're low. So, we wait for the contract mx guy to service the accumulators and charge up the emergency lights. By the time he got everything serviced, the lights were good to go. Take off, fly, land, taxi, ZERO issues. So, he tells me all the issues I had yesterday seem to be cleared up, I'm good to go, signs my stuff off, shakes my hand, and that's that.

Now, I'm just waiting on scheduling to call so I can find out when my reserve days start.

[Trip7]

Congrats! You've reached the end of innocence. Looking forward to the greatly improved paycheck?

[surreal1221]

Congrats Steve!

[Doug Taylor]

No doubt! Geez, I remember him when he was a student pilot, now I've got to call him sir or skipper. What's up widdat?

[killbilly]

Now he can afford PREMIUM RUM in his Mojito...as seen below...look familiar, Doug? 'Cause I think that's you being texted in the background there...

[Doug Taylor]

Originally Posted by killbilly

Now he can afford PREMIUM RUM in his Mojito...as seen below...look familiar, Doug? 'Cause I think that's you being texted in the background there...

Oooh!

Man, you know what makes a tasty mojito is "Havana Club" but you can't legally have it in the states because it's Cuban. But then HP826 is Cuban but he's legal... Hmm... howz that work?

Tell him to be careful! That freshly minted captain dinero spends quick!

[kellwolf]

Originally Posted by Doug Taylor

Tell him to be careful! That freshly minted captain dinero spends quick!

Don't tell me, tell Nessa. Actually, I bought a new MP3 player today as sort of a "YeeHaw!" gift for myself....

[ASpilot2be]

Congrats