Who Gave Me An ATP Rating?

All that is heard at FL350 at the moment is the combined rush of the wind and engines over the drone of the APU.  AirWeGo Flight 9124 going to Ibiza this morning is 10 minutes ahead of schedule.  Another big iron half-bucket load of revellers for the clubbing island, although I'm sure that there is the fair share of more civilised people milling around back there. Aboard the company 757 I am pondering the celebrations for my 300th flight hour for AirWeGo. It's taken me almost three years to get this far. At the rate that I am racking up flight hours at the moment it will be 2006 before I am a Fleet Captain. Can't wait that long, best get my thoughts down on paper then. My mind rolls back into the past with recollections of zero/zero approaches, getting buzzed by Landmark 777-300's ("Anybody get that guy's licence plate?") and slapping blue/cream paint on dozens of the Flightsim community's best efforts.  All is soft focus filter rosy until I realise that we have missed the top of the descent.  POSKY's plane was about to take a speed test.

History

Whilst it's true to say that I always dabbled in flightsim (my ZX Spectrum got real bored of playing Psion Flight Simulator at 3.14MHz!) I only got real serious with it in 2000.  I had just bought my first proper PC and needed something to do on it other than blasting Mutants, Germans and stuff with big guns (my other computer hobby). Got FS2000,  did a little flying then(!) studied the manual when I found it wasn't as easy as it used to be.  The manual came as a paper book. Joy of joys.  The issue of Virtual Airlines came up.  I hadn't thought about it till then, but it sounded kinda fun.  I did a quick search of the Internet, AWG came up.  What really interested me was the chance to fly a DC-3 in the Carribean. I'm there.  Unfortunately the hub was being closed down so I signed up for Humberside instead.  That was three years ago.

In my time at AirWeGo I think I must've flown everything the company operates at one time or the other.  Even the helicopters.  Blame that on my impulse to buy a set of rudder pedals.  Go buy a pair, highly recommended.  I admit now that I don't have the patience for the whirlygigs, I'll leave that to the Vertigo flyboys. I have been to Lapland in a 757, flown round Alaska's lighthouses in a Bell helicopter, gone round the world in a repainted AirWeCargo B727 (now I'm feeling old!), flown to Istanbul with a 707 full of jumpers and spent many hours helping our Ever So Friendly Fleet Manager by slapping virtual paint on his 'babies'.  He doesn't bite, honest - well not that ferociously anyway!

Episodes that stick most vividly in my mind are the time that, as a First Officer, I broke the mains on a AWGShuttle B1900 during a heavy crosswind landing at Norwich and seeing Canary Wharf loom large in the Sabb340's windscreen out of the fog on the third approach to London City of the night.  I can remember the words 'Compensation' and 'Unift to fly' being used on these occasions by more than one of my passengers....

It's all good fun from where I'm looking.  Managing a VA is a lot of work, my gratitude to all those involved.

Flight Attendant, where's my caffeine please?

AWG9124 took to relatively clear skies from Manchester's RWY6L at just after 0600 GMT. Climb was uneventful, apart from a flight level change on the STAR to accommodate local traffic. Manchester Centre reports upper level winds over the south of England are calm (as calm as they can be up there!).  If we hadn't have been routed over the Woodley VOR, I could probably looked for my house down that way.  As it was i had a good vantage point of the arrivals and departures at Heathrow.  Glad that I'm not going there today. Crossing the channel saw lots of contrails from aircraft that had come from across the pond, timed for a civilised arrival time over their destinations.  In the real world I live under the turn point for aircraft landing on EGLL's RWY9 approaches.  They make a turn northward to go for the localizer. They also start piling in from far away locales at 0430hrs. No problem, I work nights.  No abnormal weather over France or even toward the Pyrenees.  A fine beginning to the day in Western Europe.

The Way Of The Pear

All was going well until we realised that we had missed the top of descent.  It was now going to snowball against us.  FSNavigator tells me that there is a crossing restriction north of Mallorca where we must be at FL070.  Dialling in the altitude to the Autopilot I stick the rate of descent to -2500fpm.  The plane slowly accelerates on its long (but not as long as it should have been) descent back towards earth.  I reckon that I can hear many ears in the cabin popping, even over the ATC chatter. Slowly the engines were wound down to idle. Out came a little speedbrake. 280kts KIAS.  305kts KIAS. Then came all the speedbrake.  It's no good.  We have to reduce rate of descent.  Suffice to say, the start of my 300th hour with AirWeGo was spent explaining to Palma Centre how I had missed both a crossing and a speed restriction.  We made the turn at Mallorca toward Ibiza at the right altitude.  There was not a cloud in the sky over Ibiza and the landing at the airport was made with a huge concentration I can tell you!

Apologies for the quality of the JPEG's, my computer's getting a little past it. I have to turn some stuff down to keep frames up.  I can't buy a new one this month because I have to pay a bit of dosh over to the Spanish Air Traffic Authority!!!!.

To the next 300 hours......Happy Flying!

Kevin.