I am writing this from DTW, where I am preparing for my second "pairing" of my Initial Operating Experience. My first pairing was last week, and I think that I have just now caught back up with the world, just in time for another trip. So, before I sink deeper into my new career, I thought I should share some of the experiences of those first few days. First of all, let me explain a pairing. I am being "paired" with a Line Check Airman Captain, and they pair us up with a cabin crew of two flight attendants, and the four of us are then assigned a 3-day or 4-day flight assignment. That's a pairing. My pairing from last week looked like this:
Jan 28 - DTW-IAH (Detroit to Houston), IAH-MSP (Houston to Minneapolis), MSP-DSM (Minneapolis to Des Moines)
Jan 29 - DSM-DTW, DTW-LAN, LAN-DTW, DTW-PWM (Portland Maine)
Jan 30 - PWM-DTW, DTW-PVD (Providence RI), PVD-DTW, DTW-ROC (Rochester NY)
Jan 31 - ROC-DTW, DTW-DFW (Dallas), DFW-DTW
As you may imagine, that's a full four day's work, and quite a load for a first timer, but it was that very first flight, NWA Flight 3578 from Detroit to Houston Texas that was most memorable. Not only because it was my first flight as a Mesaba First Officer, but because of a couple of equipment failures that made it both frustrating and yet exciting.
Because my first flight was early in the morning, I drove from Chicago over to Detroit the day before and slept in a hotel. I rose early Wednesday morning and got the the airport about 45 minutes before my required check in time, which normally is 1 hour before the flight. A few minutes beyond the agreed upon time my Captain walked up and introduced himself. Don has been with the company about 20 years and had one word of advice for me..."relax". We talked for a few minutes and then headed down to gate B-11, where our aircraft awaited us. With paperwork in hand, we walked down the jetway and for the very first time I walked aboard a CRJ-900 aircraft, the very one I was about to fly. It still seems strange. Anyway, I stow my suitcase (back in row 13, since only the Captain's suitcase goes in the front closet so as to leave enough space for our first class passengers), and head up to the flight deck. Other than the fact that it seems a little worn and somewhat dirty, the flight deck looks very familiar, identical to the simulator. Don tells me that he wants me to go ahead and get started with power initialization and FMS programming, and that he will take care of the pre-flight inspection. Normally the pre-flight is the First Officer's duty, but until he signs me off to perform it, he will take care of it. So, I set about bringing power on and performing the initialization of the FMS system. Before I can even think about it, Don is back on the Flight Deck and passengers are boarding. No time to think about anything, no time to ask too many questions, just get in, strap down, and get to work. In what seemed like a heart-beat, the door was closed and we were ready to push back from the gate. Our "out" time is based on when the brakes are released for pushback, and we release exactly on time, 0932. So far we're off to a good start.
With engines running I call Detroit Ramp Control and tell them we're ready to taxi, and we're cleared to taxi to spot 4N and call Ground Control. Its snowing like hell so at the appropriate time I tell Ground that we're ready to taxi to the deice pad, and they in turn provide us with taxi instructions to taxi to the runway 22L deice pad. As we get close to the pad, we see that there are quite a few aircraft in front of us, so the Captain gets on the PA and tells the passengers that we will be delayed. Just about then, his windshield wiper stops working, frozen right in the middle of his windshield. This would be bad in a car since eventually the snow would build up and you would not be able to see. Its even worse on the CRJ because although the windows and windshield are heated to melt the snow and prevent them from fogging, having a windshield wiper stuck in any position other than the parked position limits you to 250 knots airspeed, since going faster risks having the wiper break off and getting sucked into an engine. Bad Ju-Ju. We simply don't have enough fuel to fly to Houston at 250 knots, so we're informed by Operations that we need to taxi back to the gate and change aircraft.
Taxi back, off load passengers, perform the engine shutdown and termination checklist. Grab our chart cases and suitcases and run to the other end of Detroit's B Terminal, down the jetway and start making preparations to get going yet again. Another power initialization, pre-flight inspection, etc., load passengers, and once again head out, after waiting on catering to load the aircraft with drinks and ice. We complete deicing, taxi out to runway 22L and takeoff. Perhaps it was the mad rush to get the new aircraft ready, but the entire event is pretty much one big blur in my memory. What is not a blur is what happened about 45 minutes from Houston...that event is still quite fresh in my mind.
The AC electrical system on the CRJ-900 is very simple. Each engine has an attached generator what produces AC power and supplies an on-side AC bus. For instance, #1 (left side) engine's generator supplies #1 AC bus, and #2 (right side) engine's generator supplies power to #2 AC bus. There is another bus called the Essential Bus that supplies, yes, you guessed it, essential electrical loads. The Essential Bus is normally powered from #1 AC bus, but should a failure occur, will automatically transfer over such that it will remain powered from #2 AC bus. This ensures that the essential electrical loads are always energized. That is the design anyway.
As we were cruising at 36 thousand feet, with 67 passengers still pissed off about being over three hours late due to the great windshield wiper caper, there was an audible "pop" from the Captain's side electrical panel and a flicker of the ECIAS screens, and then multiple caution messages were announced by Bitch'en Bob. In situations like this the best course of action is to take no action at all immediately, just sit back and take note of what we see. Checking the EICAS electrical system page, it was evident that we had experienced a failure of #1 generator, and that the Essential Bus had not transferred over. In other words, we were operating with only one of three AC buses energized. About the time we started to understand what we were experiencing, the Flight Attendants rang the flight deck and notified us that the emergency lights in the passenger cabin were on, and that it was getting pretty warm back there. Both of these were understandable since we lost half the air conditioning and that the emergency lights are designed to switch on when either the AC or DC essential buses are de-energized.
I get out the Pilots Operations Manual (POM) and start running down the system failure checklists, which directs us to attempt a manual transfer of the Essential Bus, which does not work. Once we've completed the checklists, we get on the radio and inform dispatch and maintenance of our problems. Dispatch starts looking for nearby airports we can divert to, but most of them lie under a pretty thick cloud deck, which is not good since our Air Data Computer probes and windshields no longer have electrical heat and descending through clouds would ice everything up. After reviewing all options Captain Don and I decide that our safest course of action is to continue to Houston which is reporting clear skies. Maintenance and Dispatch agree and we continue on, informing the passengers that we've had an electrical issue but that we would be landing in Houston as planned. The rest of the flight was uneventful, if not a little tense, constantly wondering what had caused the failure and if we would experience yet another surprise. We did not.
More than a week has now passed since that first eventful flight. I have completed my second paring, and have now been signed off as having completed IOE. In other words, I am now officially out of training and have officially become a line pilot. I would like to share a few experiences from that second pairing, which was likely as much fun as I will have flying professionally. I'll pull the plug on this posting and hopefully get the next instalment out very soon.
Until then, stay happy, and fly safe!
