Observation Flights

V2-LEF (Dash 8-100)

Greetings from the Tropics!

My understanding is that the temperature is pushing about 38 or 39 C up in Canada right now: Today was a gorgeous 28 degrees with a strong breeze from the North-east, absolutely magnificent! I feel for all of you who had to sweat it out up there!


I thought I'd post a picture of my apartment building which I'm currently living in - a newish one bedroom apartment (only 6 or so months old) in the Northern part of the island. It's right next to a golf course, and about a five minute drive to the airport, grocery store and the beach, yes!

The piece of cement which you see in front with the steel re-enforcement sticking out is actually
an enclosed housing which holds the apartments washing machine

I've been plugging away at the training program set out by LIAT: We have spent several weeks in the classroom and the time is coming to finally transition from the class to the aircraft. There have been many hours spent reading and learning the operations manuals, doing other training like; dangerous goods, safety and emergency, SMS. All of which may not be as fun as flying the actual airplane, but are as equally important. This weeks schedule held a mix of observation flights and some classroom work. I spent Wednesday shadowing and observing a crew from the 'Jump-seat', from check-in to shut down of the last flight of the day: Giving me some good experience to observe, ask questions and learn what actually happens, when it happens and why it happens - before I have to go do it myself.

Yesterday's schedule was to Check-in, in Antigua at 10:30 in the morning to go direct to Barbados, then back to Antigua with a stop in St. Lucia, before going to St. Kitts and back. A good mix of long and short flights. Each days starts with meeting up with the Captain, First Officer and Flight Attendant in the Operations Control Center at the Headquarters, just down the road from the airport. This is the place where we get the weather and route briefings, aircraft assignment and find out any special notices which may affect us on our trips. We were assigned V2-LEF, one of the 3 of LIATS Dash 8 100's. (These hold 37 people, as opposed to the 15 other Dash 8 300's which hold 50).

Doing the walk-around with the First Officer on the first flight

The first officer and I went to the aircraft to set up the aircraft and do the First Flight of the Day Checks, as this would be first flight for the day for V2-LEF. I got to see how things were set up inside (radio's, nav equip., etc.) and did the walk around (or external check) on the aircraft, where he pointed out all the areas to check and pay special attention to. For the most part, the Captain usually does the internal systems checks and the First Officer does the walk around. Anyways, everything checked out, they boarded the flight slightly early so we started up and down the road we went! The flight time was 1:20 and a major portion of the time in cruise was spent asking 'why' and 'what' trying to pick everything I could out of their experiences.

On approach into Barbados we had an Air Conditioning Pack Hot Caution light illuminate, which I found to be really interesting to see actual problems (or annoyances) occurring and to see them dealing with it, as opposed to just reading about 'what to do' in the QRH (Quick Reference Handbook) which gets pulled out anytime something occurs in the aircraft. A step-by-step book to help solve problems. The Air Conditioning Pack is just the unit which is run off of engine bleed air to cool the cabin and one of the ducts to the cabin was indicating hot. The Captain suspected it was just a faulty sensor, (and was confirmed when we landed) but the QRH said to shut down the Pack for the rest of the flight, which just made for a warmer approach into Barbados. The Dash 8 100's only have 1 air conditioning machine, as the -300's have 2.

Following the West coast in Barbados to intercept Final Approach into Barbados

About the pass over Oistens on Final Approach

Upon landing in Barbados we were informed we were being switched off the St. Lucia- Antigua flight, and now supposed to do the flight direct to Antigua, as they had a full load for the 300 series. It was good as it gave us a little more time on the ground (although we arrived early) to have the Engineers in Barbados see if they could fix the Air Conditioning Pack.

After some poking around up there, they thought they had fixed the problem. A good thing too because it was 32 degrees outside, and we had a full flight! I could only imagine what it would be like to be sitting in that airplane with 41 sweaty people on board, with no air conditioning! We boarded the aircraft, and up the road we went. We reached Antigua without any other problems. The aircraft's are aging, however LIAT's maintenance and engineering department do an amazing job at keeping the aircraft's in top shape.

Our next legs were to St. Kitts and back, which if you are not familiar is a very short flight. It's about 65 miles to the Northwest, but in a Dash 8 you get there in no time at all. The flight time is 20 minutes from Takeoff to Landing, and you are doing all the same checks as you would on the longer flights, just in a much shorter period of time! It was non-stop work for the crew, between checklists, briefings, calculating the fuel burn and arrival time and talking to Air Traffic Control. The crew had quite the rhythm and it worked out very smoothly. I am told those are the most challenging routes for new First Officers, who are new to the area, new to the aircraft and new to the speed that the aircraft is traveling at. I could only imagine what the flight is like when they have the route from St. Kitts to Nevis - its literally a stone's throw across a channel: 6 minute flight from takeoff to touch down.

On final Approach into St. Kitts

Basseterre, St. Kitts

The traffic agents in St. Kitts were pretty efficient at getting the passengers off the aircraft and loading the Antigua bound passengers so we only spent a few minutes on the ground before heading back. Once again, another walk in the park for the well seasoned crew. We landed in Antigua 10 minutes early on a 20 minute flight - hows that for on-time performance!

Doing the walk-around in St. Kitts under an overcast layer
(which was appreciated after a hot day in the sun)

It was a great day, and a huge learning curve. On Monday, my sim partner and I will be taking turns doing Touch and Go's (Takeoff's and Landings) in the aircraft, which will be unbelievably exciting to get to handle the controls of the real aircraft for the first time. Tuesday I observe on a St. Martin turn-around and the end of the week will commence with Line Training, where we actually start acting as a First Officer on Scheduled service with a Training Captain!

Simulator Training

I've spent the last two weeks in the sweatbox ... err Simulator at Flight Safety in Toronto, learning how to fly the Dash 8 and all of LIAT's S.O.P.'s (Standard Operating Procedures). I was pretty glad it was finally summer in Canada, however after being down here for over a month, the 20 degree days, warranted a sweater pretty much all the time: Luckily it warmed up by the end of it!

The 'Sweatbox' as it's referred to by most pilots is actually a box on moving stilts (which happens to be very cool inside) that is an exact replica of the Dash 8 flight deck; switches, gauges, lights and all. It also makes movements to simulate the same sensations which you would get while in a real aircraft. There is also has a seat in the back for the instructor to monitor everything that goes on in the front, while being able to change the aircrafts position, weather and cause any and every failure or fire imaginable. Pretty ingenious if you ask me!

I went up with 5 other guys, 2 company instructors, my sim partner (who is from Anguilla), and another pair of new hires from St. Lucia. We spent 9, 4 hour sessions in the simulator - 8 being training and the final flight being the 'ride' (flight test). The simulator is a fantastic tool because we were able to be exposed to how the aircraft flies, and every different type of emergency possible, (whether an engine fire just after rotation on takeoff or a rapid decompression from 25,000 feet) without leaving having to leave the physical ground. Most of these emergencies couldn't be simulated in a real aircraft, unless it actually happened - and thats not the time I want to be learning how to do the procedures correctly and efficiently! Another great thing was that if you make a mistake, you could always just pause in mid-air, talk about it, then redo it - (as opposed to trying to do it in an aircraft, continuously moving at 230kts. Anyways, the name 'sweatbox' came about because of the fact that it's on the ground, instructors in the back can do pretty much whatever they want, compiling problems and causing new ones - keeping us on our toes, and really making us work (or sweat, for that matter!) My Instructor, Wade, liked to call himself just a DJ. He mixes the music (causes the problems) and we just have to dance along to it (and correct the situation)! After those two weeks, I sure got my fair share of engine failures under my belt... think 10-12 each night, especially at the time of night our sessions had been booked for (12am-4am and 4 - 8 am) - prime sleep time!

I'm back down in the sunny caribbean, where the July weather has proved to be playing fair so far, in terms of temperature! We've gone through a morning of Dangerous goods and a morning of Crew Resource Management - working on skills and techniques in the 2-crew environment. As far as I know (they haven't let us know much farther than the next day), the rest of the week will be spent on a Differences Course, which teaches the small differences between the Dash 8 300's and Dash 8 100's, which the company owns 17 and 2, respectively (as we will be flying both). I will also be looking for a car to drive and an apartment to live in! 6 weeks of living in a hotel is enough for me, I can't wait to start cooking my own meals again, instead of having to eat at restaurants. As for when I start to fly, I would imagine the in-aircraft training will start in about 3 weeks (yes, lots more ground school to cover before). I will keep this updated, especially when I get to be around airplanes again!

We've got a bit of a tropical depression heading this way by the weekend (as seen with the red and purple!) Horray for Hurricane Season!