Flying the Line

"Cree 927 you are clear for Takeoff runway 28. Call departures airborne when established heading" As I read back our clearance to the tower I start to advance the power levers. The captain calls out "Spoilers down, Autofeather armed, through 80%" as he then tweaks the levers to the 96% takeoff power. As we start to roll on runway 28 at Montreal's Pierre Elliot Trudeau Airport, its evident that we have a full load this morning as it takes a little while to start accelerating down the runway. "70 knots, Takeoff power set" I respond with a "cross-check" verifying that my airspeed indicator is showing the same thing and that the torque gauges are set appropriately. "V1. . . Rotate", we reach our rotation speed, I pull back firmly on the control column and the aircraft easily unsticks itself from the runway and continues to accelerate. What a feeling!  Through 400feet, I call for flaps zero, the bleed air on and climb  power as I start my turn to a heading of 320 for traffic sequencing in the Montreal Terminal area.

The captain switches over to the departures frequency and speaks to the controller who tells us to climb to our flight planned altitude of 19,000ft (or flight level 190 as its called above 18,000 ft) and to proceed direct to TAMKO, one of the way points on the airway to Chibougamau, QC; our first destination this morning. He today punches in TAMKO into our Flight Management System (FMS) and puts 19,000 in the altitude selector and I start the right turn. Since we are now flying in the right direction towards our destination, I accelerate to the enroute climb speed, while calling for the 'After takeoff checks' as we pass through 1500 feet above the ground. We confirm the landing gear and flaps are up, the climb power is set and he turns off different pumps and systems which we mainly use for takeoff and landing, confirms that the after takeoff checks are completed, then gets into the paperwork. Me, enjoying every second of the flight, I decide to hand fly up to 10,000 feet before I engage the autopilot to really get a feel of this bird. All the Dash 8's are the same, but every aircraft has its little quirks to it. I like to hand fly it to have it nicely trimmed out, it also allows me to feel how each aircraft handles, and makes it easier when disengaging the autopilot on approach so I already know how it flies. 

We break out of the overcast layer which is covering most of Southern Quebec and into the nice sunshine. Time to put the shades on, I engage the autopilot, we complete the 10,000ft checklist and dive into my flight bag for my shades. I ask the Captain what he thinks we will get for breakfast today, at the same time, we get a 'ding-dong' from the back, asking if we would like something to eat. The captain answers the flight attendants the call, then unlocks the door her come  into the flight deck. 'Phew!'  breakfast isn't too bad this morning! Some days are pretty good, others, well, don't seem so appealing: I was just happy it wasn't the breakfast which looked like a cross between a pancake, french toast, a sponge and a piece of apple pie. . . Nobody has been able to tell me what exactly it is yet, so I haven't been too keen on testing it so far. I also decide its time for a morning coffee, the captain decides to pass on the java: He's convinced the coffee on the airplanes leaving Montreal comes straight off the early morning Jazz flights from Moncton. I'll admit that it tastes different out of Montreal than all our other stations, but it's still palatable. I guess thats what 15 years of drinking the same coffee will do to you!

Levelling off at our cruise altitude, we set the cruise power and complete the cruise checks while letting the aircraft ride the southerly tailwinds. I'm doing the flying northbound this morning, meaning the Captain will be dealing with the paperwork and radios this morning. Southbound we will switch, so we share the flying equally. After our stop in Chibougamau, we have have another 5 stops up and along the James Bay coast. We call this one the 'milk run' as there are 6 stops up to Chisasibi, QC then another 6 back down to Montreal; its one of the longer flights with a duty day of about 13 hours, with almost 8 of it being flight time.

We ask the Montreal Center (the controller) who is working the northerly airspace for the latest METAR (or hourly weather report from the airport. He gives us the latest sequence  240/12 G 25 VV008 5/8SM SN -3/-5 3014: In other words, the winds are from 240 degrees at 12knots, gusting to 25, A vertical visibility of 800ft (similar to a cloud ceiling) 5/8 of a statute mile visibility horizontally in moderate snow, a temperature of -3, dew point of - 5 and the altimeter setting 3014. Oh boy, this will be some fun! We will plan to use runway 23, so luckily the winds are straight down the pipe, however the visibility on the approach is right at the very minimums! Air Creebec has an Ops Spec (an operations specification - or a permit), granted by Transport Canada to allow us to used a reduced visibility on approaches than what most pilots are able to do. The minimums for the approach are 1 1/4 miles, but this permit allows us half the required visibility - equaling 5/8ths! With some very rough calculations, if the weather is actually at this visibility, and we are flying at our approach speed of 120 knots, or 2 nautical miles a minute, so at 5/8ths of a mile, we should be seeing the runway approximately 15 seconds before touch down! No room for error.Weather along the James Bay region can get pretty serious in the fall, when the bay has not yet frozen over and is retaining some heat, while the land gets cold. Significant amounts of moisture is picked up over the bay and carried over the colder land, causing low cloud, fog and icing (when the temperatures are hovering around and below the freezing point). Once the bay freezes over, the moisture source is cut drastically, leaving cold, dry air - and sunny blue skies! With the spring thaw, a similar situation occurs like in the fall, however its cold moist air from the bay, flowing over the warmer land, causing fog and low cloud once again.  Weather in the Chibougamau region is often caused by its elevation. The airport sits 1207 feet above sea level in central Quebec (as you can see from the map). As the moist air moves westward, it has no other choice but to rise as the terrain rises, forcing it to cool, where it eventually becomes fully saturated, causing clouds, rain and in the cooler months, snow - which is what is causing the weather today.  

I brief the Captain at the top of descent about the RNAV approach (a GPS approach flying waypoint to waypoint) which we will be conducting onto runway 23, and the event of a missed approach, what our intentions will be. Since we left Montreal at our gross takeoff weight, we were only able to fit the minimum amount of fuel on board:  (destination fuel, to conduct the approach/ missed approach,  proceed to our alternate airport and have 45 minutes reserve fuel to spare [which we can't use unless it's an emergency]) If we don't get visual contact at our minimum descent altitude, we will have to execute a missed approach and proceed to our alternate airport right away.

Crossing 10,000ft I call for the approach checks - the approach lights, hydraulic & fuel pumps come on, along with the seatbelt sign:  'bing!' Allowing the flight attendant to get the cabin ready for landing. Shortly after, we break through the top of the cloud layer and get right into the juice! "Time to earn todays pay" - 'click, click' with an orange light flashing, the autopilot's now disengaged and I'm hand flying. I call "Gear down, Flaps 15, landing checks" and we configure for landing, slowing to our final approach speed as we cross through 1000' above ground.  "Two hundred to minimums. . . one hundred to minimums. . . runway lights twelve o'clock" "Landing. I'm outside, you're inside" I state as I transition to runway coming into sight through the snow. "50ft, plus five. . . over the threshold you're right on REF… 10 feet, on REF"  'ERX… ERX' we touch down and the ground spoilers come up to assist with aerodynamic breaking. "Nice one" the captain says "50 knots, control locks on  and after landing checks:  lets not touch the breaks, this runway is like a skating rink." I complete the after landing flow as we taxi in. "Cree 927, check you're down at 16:31." One sector down, eleven more to go! Next stop.. Namisco

Along the East coast taking off of Eastmain Airport - Water sure looks cold!

Bring on the North!

Riding under the overcast layer southbound 'on the coast'

I'm already two months into my 6 month contract here at Air Creebec and can't believe how the time has flown by so far. Arriving in Montreal at the beginning of September started out at full tilt without a minute to spare, as the company was very short of Dash 8 pilots at both their Timmins and Montreal bases.

Early morning departure out of Montreal - eastbound for Quebec City

The morning after I arrived in La Belle Ville, I was to report to the company's hangar at the Montreal Trudeau airport to start the line indoctrination training at 6:45 AM,  doing one of the daily scheduled flights up the James Bay and Hudson Bay coast. The company, being very ambitious, had me on a schedule of 14 days ON, trying to get me push through the line training as quickly as possible, to have me released onto the line, in the shortest amount of time. The line training is a series of flights to get new pilots accustom to the aircraft, routes and general day-to-day operations under the supervision of a training captain. In my case, since I had just come off the Dash 8 at LIAT two weeks earlier, it wasn't so much learning the airplane, but the differences in the two airlines Standard Operating Procedures and the airports that I would now be flying into. Within about 4 days, I had my 'line check' with the Operations Manager and I was released onto the line.

Route map for our Scheduled service

Im having quite a bit of fun here at Air Creebec, with the diversity in the type of flying we are doing. On top of the daily scheduled flights from Montreal  up the coast of the James Bay and Hudson's Bay coasts, we do a range of charters for many different Industries. Air Creebec has had its hands in charters with the SEBJ (Société d'énergie de la Baie James)/ Hydro-Quebec projects - creating Hydroelectric dams on the rivers in Northern Quebec, charters for a company called Goldcorp - doing gold exploration in Northern Quebec and the Quebec Courts, bringing the judge and jury up to the small communities in Quebec for prisoners to stand trial and have their fate decided for them.  A lot of our charter work is for crew transfers; bringing the workers to and from the cities in the southern parts of Quebec and Ontario up to the mines and hydroelectric dams for their rotations.

A Brief Change of Scenery

I'm on the move again! LIAT has recently granted me a leave of absence from the company for a period of six months due to slowing passenger demand for travel throughout the Caribbean. This resulted in a cut back in the frequency of flights in our network.  To add to this sluggish demand, many of the aircrafts are coming due for heavy maintenance checks, which most of the time means the aircrafts have to go up to Canada to be overhauled at Bombardier's plant (the aircraft's manufacturer). These checks can sometimes take the aircrafts offline between 2-4 weeks, depending on what needs to be done. After being informed by the Flight Operations department that there will some crew reductions in the short term, I figured I would see why is available elsewhere for the time being. Being the second most junior pilot on the seniority list can be quite nerve wracking especially when the word 'redundancy' starts spreading around the company.

The new ride departing CYUL (Montreal)

I've managed to get a contract to fly Dash 8s with Air Creebec; an airline serving the communities around the east and west coasts of James Bay up to the Hudson's Bay. The next six months will surely look like it will be very exciting and another great learning experience in different ways: Many of the airports that Air Creebec flies into are short gravel strips, which provides the life-line for most of these communities, as there aren't any roads apart from Ice roads in the winter that connect them together. I sure will miss flying in the Caribbean, the beach and the sea, but the time will be up before I know it. It has been a busy past couple weeks, dealing with bank accounts, getting documents to and from LIAT, getting rid of my apartment and selling my car. The chores came right down to the very last hour, finally making a deal to sell my car just by chance on the last night in Antigua and going to make the exchange only an hour before the flight to Toronto left! Needless to say, I don't have any material possessions to worry about down there right now, which is a huge relief, especially when getting into the heart of Hurricane season! From the looks of it, there won't be much beach weather for the next few days while Isaac passes through.




I've finally it up to Timmins, Ontario (one of Air Creebec's 3 pilot bases) for training this week, leaving Antigua on Saturday afternoon a Sunny 33C, feeling like it was into the mid-40's, only to be greeted in Northern Ontario to a cloudy 6 degrees- the skies looked like they were about to open up with snow! I am in the classroom all week doing the same fun company training, but next week will be in the Simulator!



I will be sure to update again shortly, that's all for now folks!

Cleared for the Straight in VOR Approach via OMREL

 

Photo of one of our aircraft just shortly after rotation in St Lucia. Thanks to Gianni Deligny, one of LIAT's First Officers (and professional photographers)

Well after several months of being in a holding pattern, I've finally decided to bring out the old pen and paper (AKA: IPad) and continue writing! What turned out to be 'a few weeks off' with Christmas around the corner, turned into a few more weeks studying and preparing for recurrent simulator, which turned into several more months of studying for my Canadian Airline Transport Pilot's Licence (ATPL). With recurrent simulator training right around the corner again in mid-July, I couldn't believe that the time flew by so quickly without any blog posts.



For those of you unsure what a hold is an oval or race-track shaped pattern which we manoeuvre the aircraft in over a fixed point in space by using gps co-ordinates or a distance and bearing from a navigation facility: Because we can't just stop in the air, air traffic control may request us to hold: most often occurring in the arrival phase of flight, just before executing the approach, and any can be due to many things like; slower traffic head, weather at the airport or congestion of landing and departing traffic. I've included a picture of one of the instrument approach plates to the Antigua's V.C. Bird Airport to give you a picture as to what it looks like. You can see on the picture, there is a five letter word 'OMREL' with a racetrack to the Northwest of it. It shows on the approach plate that there are left turns. After making the left turn and going away from OMREL on the outbound leg, we use a timer to accurately adjust the time we spend flying away from the point to correctly estimate a one minute inbound leg (from the time we turn back towards the fix to the time we cross over it).  Every LIAT pilot knows this spot in the Caribbean exceptionally well, because Antigua's air traffic control is known to clear pilots to OMREL even on the most severe clear day, with not a single cloud or aircraft in the airspace. I will work on explaining more of this approach plate in future blogs.


In other news, we had a bit of a disaster in Antigua just recently. Two weekends ago LIAT had one of its two hangers go up in flames one night. Rumors are one of the golf carts the maintenance department uses for getting from the hanger to the ramp had been plugged in all weekend, the battery over charged and exploded. This caused quite the fireworks display for Antigua, causing one of the worst fires the island has seen. I think a hanger is one of the most dangerous places to have a fire. With Jet fuels, oils and lubricants and 100% oxygen stored there, it is a recipe for disaster if there are sparks or an ignition source.

This shot below was taken from the runway showing one of our two hangers on fire.



That night there were winds very strong winds in Antigua, fueling the fire creating such an intense heat that it hindered the firefighters from getting anywhere close to where the flames actually were. What's not seen in this picture is that there was actually an airplane in both hangers that night.


Shot of the hanger ingulfed in flames so much so that it's not even visible.


Aftermath of the hanger. The sliding door in the middle is the only thing holding the roof up.





This picture is showing the lost aircraft inside the hanger. The heat was so intense it melted the aircraft into pieces of scrap that look like pop cans. The only things recognize-able are the two engine mounts being held up by scaffolding and the boarding stairs at the bottom of the ladder.


The disaster is a tremendous loss to LIAT, as they had owned that hanger and the four adjacent buildings on the right; the inner two being destroyed by fire and outer two destroyed by smoke. The aircraft was one of the oldest in our fleet, however it was only leased. V2-LGH (the aircrafts call sign) had been in the hanger for 3 weeks getting a major overhaul where the company and the company had just put approximately 3million XCD into it. The company has estimated its insured losses at 35 million Eastern Caribbean dollars, with the uninsured losses being dramatically more.