A Day in the Life

I think it might be a good thing to just go through how a typical day runs for me out here in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

The structure of my day is based entirely on the flight schedule which comes out at 5pm the night before, at the earliest. However, today was pretty typical, so I'll use that.

A 0930 brief with a scheduled takeoff time of 1030 means that I need to get up 2 1/2 hours earlier, at the latest if I want to get breakfast and have time to review my procedures and memorized items for the flight.

I got up at 7am and did my usual 1/2 shower/shave/brush teeth routine. Many people can get up and get going much faster than this, and you'd think that I'd be one of those people, having come from the Academy where for a while we were given 7 minutes to be up, dressed, shaved and outside with all our beds re-made, but I'm not.

I ate breakfast and studied from 0740 to 0830, it was definitely helpful. I had to know, be able to draw, label and recite all the Emergency Procedures for the oil system. This included memorizing a Note (one of three types of information that is presented along with a typical Emergency Procedure) that went something like (and feel free to skip to the next paragraph):

"For comparison purposes only, an 850ft-lb/100kt climb on a standard day should yield an approximate rate of climb of 1200fpm (clean) 800fpm (gear down). If indicated climb rates are significantly lower, suspect erroneous torque indications and increase power cautiously to acheive proper airspeed/VSI combination. Closely monitor engine instruments for secondary indications of rising ITT, high oil temperatur and/or pressure. If secondary indications occur while on or above ELP profile, consideration should be given to securing the engine."

That and the accompanying procedure are maybe 1/10th of the material I had to memorize specifically for said typical flight. Luckily, flying and memorizing procedures are pretty much all I do... it's my job.

Anyways, at about 8:30 I went to the hotel lobby (about 30 feet from the breakfast "nook") and waited for one of our 2 duty vans to pick up the 7 of us who were waiting to be driven to the airport. The duty van is driven by a hapless student who was picked by the schedulers (non-pilots who sit in a room and do paperwork) to not fly and drive the van all morning or all afternoon. I was that hapless student yesterday.

The van dropped me off at the hangar before 0845. My typical routine is to get to the field an hour before my flight and study for a half hour. Then I go the aircraft issue office and see if I've been assigned a plane (and if it's on the ground). If I have a plane (and it's there), I go get my survival vest and Oxygen mask (two things I learned about back in Pensacola at API). That takes maybe 5 minutes, then I go to the plane and pre-flight inspect the cockpit (making sure the parachute works, etc. etc.). I put my helmet on the side rail of the cockpit, set up my gear, my mask, my kneeboard, etc. and then check the battery, fuel, O2, etc.

Then I walk around the plane making sure all the parts are in place, nothings bent, broken or dripping. I check the oil (with a dipstick, just like in a car) and make sure there are no loose items in the engine compartment). I check the prop the gear the wings and the avionics compartment (a few black boxes with space for luggage on cross-countries).

By the time I'm done it's almost time for my brief and I go inside the hangar and sit in the waiting area. It's a small hangar, non-descript, with most of the space taken up by a maximum of 2 planes being worked on and the associated equpiment and people. The waiting area is on one end with the briefing rooms, maintenence, gear issue and bathroom on the other. Eventually (or in the case of today, 40 minutes early) an instructor will come out and grab me. We'll brief, starting out by discussing all the systems and EPs that I spent the night before cramming and finishing with a standard formatted speech (by me, also memorized) that is about 4 pages long and includes everythign from passing controls, to weather, to emergency fuel and route of flight.

When that's done, we'll go out to the plane and my IP will do his preflight while I get my gear on and get ready to strap in. Strapping in is slightly ridiculous, I first put on my survival vest, then strap into the parachute and finally hook into a 5 point restraint harness that attaches me to the airplane. Once that's completed I rattle off another 2 pages of pre-start checklists, at the end of which the plane's ready to go, we both have our helmets on and the canopy is "closed and locked."

A linemen then comes out and stands aloofly in front of me until I signal that I'm about to start the turbine by waving my index finger in a circle above my head. I then say and do "starter on battery above 10 volts, ignition light on, fuel pressure light out, oil pressure indicated, N1 passing 12%, condition lever Feather, N1 and ITT monitor, peak N1, starter off, thumbs up for good start, oil pressure checked xxpsi, N1 checked xx%."

We taxi out, I finish my checks, the airplanes ready go and we hit the taxiway. We make the radio calls, I do a few more little checklist items and we're airborne. No streaming fuel, gear up and we're off.

At this point, aside from doing the occassional spin and practicing the landing pattern, my flights are primarily spent practicing Emergencies. I practice losing my engine at high altitude, I practice losing it at low altitude. I practice what happens when something, like the oil system breaks and the engine may fail (I'm not very good at that one for some reason).

It doesn't sound very exciting, but we practice exactly the way it would occur in reality. I'll be flying along and my instructor will randomly pull the power (throttle) all the way back and say "simulated power loss" and I'll have to deal with it using a handy 15 step procedure that I've also memorized.

As I try to save my dying plane I'm also guiding it along a pre-set Emergency Landing Pattern, which is basically a slow controlled spiral to the ground. Here we line up on farmer's fields, dirt roads, bare patches of desert, whatever looks smooth and inviting. I don't know how low I get when I'm on final approach, but my gear is up, my flaps are down and I feel like I'm about to belly-land the plane before my instructor takes controls and flies us back up to altitude to try again.

It'd be a lot more fun if I weren't being graded on every item I perform... the instructor sits right behind me and I can sort feel his eyes hitting the back of my head through my helmet. On the whole it's pretty relaxed if I really screw something up, we generally laugh about it, but it doesn't change the fact that I'll be graded poorly on that item when he fills out the grade sheet.

All things considered though, at this point in the program, assuming I keep doing well, I should be able to get the grades I need to qualify to be selected to maybe, possibly fly jets after this.

When we're done we come back to the landing pattern and maybe practice a few Touch and Gos (bounces) and when we're done bouncing, we do a full stop landing, taxi in, shut it down, get out, walk around, walk inside, de-brief, talk about what I did right, wrong or stupid and what I need to work on. Then I go over and get lunch at this great little grill in the main part of the airport.

Back at the hotel, I chill out for a couple hours to relax and then study until the schedule comes out and repeat.