01.24.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 1:55 am by jrhilliard
One of the most satisfying things I’ve found about flying is the feeling I get after a well-executed flight during which I faced obstacles, came up with creative solutions, and “worked the system” in order to accomplish my mission.
Such a flight happened to me a few days ago.
A new student signed on to my schedule last week so we met together this week to go up for his first flight. Although he’d flown in small planes a few times before, this was his first true flight lesson, so I treated it as though we were working from the ground up.
Before leaving the office, I checked the weather. The forecast called for lowering ceilings and marginal VFR conditions to arrive shortly, but there was no mention of IFR conditions predicted for the area. I figured as long as we could fly around for at least a few minutes the flight would be worth it.
As we slowly worked our way through the preflight inspection, examining each detail of the aircraft, a cold, blustery wind whipped around us. It wasn’t a pleasant day to spend much time outside, but I needed to make the point that a thorough preflight inspection is always required, regardless of the weather.
Towards the end of our preflight, a fellow instructor came out and informed me the latest METAR reported ceilings overcast at 2900 feet and a visibility of 5 miles.
“You still going?” he asked.
“Ok….umm…yeah, no problem, we can go out for a quick hop over the city,” I replied. He shrugged and walked away. I doubt he’d be flying in this, but that’s his choice.
After getting an excited student out for a first lesson and trudging through a preflight in nasty weather, I wasn’t about to scrub the flight because of poor visibility. Sure, it maybe wasn’t ideal for learning basic attitude flying, but taxiing, learning checklists, talking to air traffic controllers, etc. could all be useful regardless of the weather. If nothing else, I didn’t want to disappoint my new student by having him go through all the work of preparation without the reward of getting in the air, at least for a short while.
So we loaded up, fired up, and prepared to copy a VFR clearance out of our Class C airport.
The controller issued our clearance and we prepared to taxi. Only a few seconds before calling for our taxi instructions, the controller radioed us back:
“Cessna Four Sierra Papa, cancel your departure clearance, visibility is dropping quickly and the field just went IFR.”
Crap. Ok. What now? I’m sure as heck not going to give up that easily! We’re fired up and ready to taxi. Let me pull a trick out of my bag. Work the system…
“Clearance, Cessna Four Sierra Papa, any chance we could get a Special VFR clearance for a quick flight over the city?”
“Four Sierra Papa, standby, I think we can figure something out for you…”
After a few moments the controller returned with a Special VFR clearance and we began taxiing to the runway.
After completing an engine runup, we pulled up to the hold short line and called for our takeoff clearance.
“Cessna Four Sierra Papa, we have multiple IFR aircraft inbound for approaches, including a regional jet currently inbound on the ILS. It looks like it’ll be about a 10-12 minute wait before we can release you, and even then we’re going to need to keep you in the local traffic pattern.”
Think fast, Mr. Instructor Man! It’s time to make decisions. Should we pack it up and head home before we even get off the ground, chalking it up as a lousy day to fly, and hanging our heads in shame? I don’t think so.
So if we’ve decided to fly no matter what, are we going to sit here for 12 minutes, idling at the hold short line, looking fat dumb and stupid? That’ll cost the student an extra $32 in case you were wondering about the math. Not a very nice option.
Quick, key the mic…work the system…
“Tower, we’d like to shut down on the runup pad and restart in about 10 minutes in order to save fuel, would that be alright with you?”
“Will you be able to monitor this frequency while shut down?”
“Yes sir, we’ll be standing by.”
“Roger, approved as requested. I’ll give you a call when you can go.”
And sure enough, after chatting with my student in a silent, cold cockpit for ten minutes with only the Comm 1 radio powered up, the tower informed us we had two minutes until our release.
A few switches flipped, knobs turned, and buttons pushed later, the engine roared back to life. Soon thereafter we lumbered up to the hold short line.
Right on cue the tower cleared us for takeoff. With a bit of coaxing my new friend pushed the throttle in to the wall, steered with his feet, and eased the nose upward. As we lifted off, I looked across the cockpit to find him grinning from ear to ear.
“Pretty cool, isn’t it?” I said.
“Haha…yeah it is,” came his simple reply, still through a huge grin.
“This, right here,” I thought to myself, “is why I love working the system.”
You see, a lot of instructors might have canceled the flight immediately after seeing the forecast for marginal conditions. Other instructors might have given up after the preflight in worsening weather. Still, others might have scrubbed the mission after hearing the field go IFR shortly after startup. Finally, others might have thrown in the towel after hearing of a 12 minute delay. All of those would have resulted in a disappointed student, now less enthusiastic about getting their license.
I didn’t do any of the above because I knew how to work the system. When I saw the look on my student’s face, I knew it was worth it. It’s that “I can’t believe this is so cool!” look that most flight instructors have seen many times before.
After going around the pattern twice, in two miles visibility, we called it a day and returned to the parking ramp. 0.8 hours on the hobbs meter, two takeoffs and landings, and one happy customer who’s coming back for more. That’s what I like to see.
Take it easy and enjoy the ride folks!
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01.07.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 12:20 am by jrhilliard
I’d like to share a story that I’m not especially proud of, but hopefully it will give you some insight into the small-scale ethical temptations that professional pilots can be faced with on a regular basis.
First, the background…
A few weeks ago I went to work at the dropzone. Frigid winter weather prevailed that day–about 20 degrees fahrenheit at the surface, with clear, sunny skies above.
As most pilots know, cold air is more dense and therefore offers improved performance for flying. Aircraft can climb more quickly, and higher, on a cold day versus a hot day, all other factors being equal.
And as most skydivers know, frozen air isn’t especially appealing to jump through. Therefore, only a few skydivers showed up to the dropzone on that particular day.
So these two factors–excellent climb performance and few loads of jumpers equated to little flying for me. I could race up and down through the thick sky in record time. That’s all fine and good if setting records is the goal, but frankly, I get paid by the hour, not by the record. I’d much rather fly on a 90 degree day than a 20 degree day simply because I can log more time and get paid more on a hot day than a cold one.
Now, I must mention however, that regardless of other factors, I take a certain amount of pride in my work. I work quickly, safely, and efficiently, no matter what, and I think that’s cool. It’s something I’m always pushing to get better at. From the moment the engine turns over, that ever-present clock is ticking and it’s time to do business.
In the world of jump piloting, that means the wheels never stop rolling from startup to shutdown. Fly with minimum fuel loads, climb at best rate of climb speed, reach your top of climb precisely at the start of the jump run, descend at speeds in the yellow arc, taxi fast, and get the job done. Thanks to this philosophy, I’ve been able to turn impressive times in, oftentimes requiring less than 25 minutes, from startup to shutdown, to perform drops from 10,000 feet. I’ve been told I’m one of the fastest pilots currently working at the dropzone.
But enough of the background. Here’s my story now…
On this cold winter afternoon, the last load of the day happened to be optimized for climbing quickly. I had the bare minimum fuel available (about 16 gallons), the air was as dense as it will ever get around here, and the four jumpers were fairly small guys. If the Cessna 182 could ever be considered a rocket ship, this load would be it.
The skydivers had signed up for what is generally considered a full altitude jump, with an exit altitude of 9,000 feet above the ground, or 10,500 MSL.
As we hiked out to the plane, I joked that we could go as high as they wanted. Needless to say, they wanted to go as high as we could get.
“But…ssshhhh…you know how that is, right?” winked one of the skydivers, implying the need for secrecy when sliding on a little extra altitude to a jump run. I knew what he meant.
I confirmed that they wanted to go as high as possible and then said, “Sure, let’s go.”
You see, the issue at hand is one of money. Skydivers pay for their jumps by altitude. At my dropzone, it’s a base rate of $8 per jump + $1 per thousand feet of altitude, so for instance, a jump from 9,000 feet costs $17 ($8 + $9).
If the pilot takes them higher than they paid for, it’s like getting “free” altitude–although that extra altitude comes at the dropzone’s expense of extra gas for the plane and extra fees for the pilot’s longer flight time.
At the time, I justified it in my mind using several reasons. Mainly, it’s just a little extra, so what’s the big deal? Nobody will know the difference.
Then I also thought, “I’m one of the fastest pilots out here. I’ve saved this place a fair amount of money by being a sharp pilot, and what’s my thanks? Less flight time and less pay, all while the company takes bigger profits. I’m screwing myself over by working hard. Screw the company, I deserve a little extra every now and then.” I didn’t see it as a big deal to burn another tenth of an hour’s gas since I’d saved them cash in other areas.
On top of all that, I didn’t view myself as a policeman over anyone. Sort of an, “If I take these guys higher and they don’t pay for it, that’s not my problem, it’s between them and the dropzone,” attitude. I thought, “I’m just the hired hand. I just fly the plane. The jumpers tell me what to do and I do it. I don’t get in to enforcing rules.”
As we lifted off, the VSI indicated an impressive 1,200 foot per minute climb rate. As we gained altitude, I could tell we would blast through the originally planned exit altitude with ease. As we approached the jump run, I stopped the climb at 14,000 MSL because I did not have an oxygen bottle with me, although we were still rising at a respectable 400 feet per minute. The jumpers laughed with excitement, put a finger to their lips to indicate our silence about the activity, then dove out the door.
Fast forward to this morning.
I came in for another day of work, having completely forgotten about our little 14,000 foot secret. As I grabbed the aircraft dispatch clipboard, the dropzone manager confronted me.
“Hey, we busted you with the wing cam from a couple weeks ago.”
“Huh? I don’t get it. Who busted what?” I was honestly confused.
“Your altitude. Going to 12,500 with those guys. The wing cam caught a shot of Roberto’s altimeter as he was going out the door.”
“Oh. Ummm….yeah…..”
I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t even sure how big of a deal they thought it was, so I jokingly played it off, saying I’d screwed up my timing and the wind had taken me farther from the dropzone than I planned, so I just kept climbing instead of leveling off. That legitimately was a factor to some degree, but would never account for more than a few hundred feet. This “error” we were talking about was 3,500 feet worth.
We joked around a little, but I could see how management didn’t view slipping in extra altitude as an entirely laughing matter.
Throughout the day today, I thought a lot about the implications of such a seemingly small error in judgement. The fact is, even if there was peer pressure to give extra altitude, I’m the one in charge of the plane. Nobody was sticking a gun to my head, telling me to climb higher. I made the choice.
And what was it worth? An extra couple bucks in pay? A little extra “cool factor” with the skydivers? Are those things worth losing my reputation, and possibly a great job, over? Not even close.
No matter what my opinion is about my pay (or lack thereof), I’m hired to do a job the way my employer wants it done, and it’s not my place to be adjusting the rules to suit myself.
I want to be able to use the dropzone as a positive reference for future employers. If I screw up my reputation as a good, honest guy, that’s going to hurt me more in the long term than any little gain in flight time, pay, or popularity in the short term.
So I made sure to privately apologize to the manager later in the day, and I think I smoothed things over. He didn’t place all the blame on me, saying skydivers will do almost anything to get extra altitude. He said some hot chick skydivers have gone so far as to flash the pilot in order to get an extra thousand feet for free. I made it clear that I’m won’t be slipping on extra altitude in the future, no matter what.
Ironically, even today, after deciding all this on my own, some jumpers asked me for extra altitude. I told them, thanks, but no thanks. I’ve played that game before and it’s not worth it. Now, if only I could tell that to a hot girl after flashing me, that would be especially entertaining…
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In other news, I found out a few days ago that I won’t be going to Cirrus Standardized Instructor Program training after all. It’s a long story, but basically it boils down to the aircraft owners being more comfortable training with an instructor they already know, versus training with me, who they’ve never met before. They will be sending an instructor they’ve worked with the past, rather than me. I don’t blame them. No hard feelings.
However, this only supports my philosophy that I’ve grown accustomed to over my time in the aviation industry:
I never believe somebody’s getting a plane until I see it parked on the ramp, and I never believe I have a job until my first day of work.
Literally, that’s how aviation is. If I had a dollar for every “maybe, possibly, might, not sure if it’ll happen or not,” opportunity I’ve ever had, I’d be a very rich man. Arrangements fall through right and left in this competitive, complicated line of work. I guess that’s the nature of the beast.
Thanks for reading!
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