Birdwatching while at 600km/h

There is normally a speed limit below 10,000ft for aircraft, which is 250 KIAS. Most of the time we think it's a hindrance, when departing we would normally request a high speed climb, that is, go to 300KIAS then do the climb at that speed, or 280, depending on our weight. Those speeds, are our normal climb speeds above 10,000ft.

When our FMC isn't really up to scratch, mostly because we didn't plan ahead well enough to place artificial constraints on the route legs, we too would ask for a high speed below 10,000 and use our speed to descend lower and faster, before slowing down and getting into approach config (although I do not recommend doing this).

Asking for high speed below 10,000 is used mainly to catch up on schedule delays etc, but when you do this, you must be alert! I have had a few first officers breaking a sweat when I tell them to go fast below. They seem to have a hard time adjusting to the pace and the planning ahead that's required. Most are OK with it and can do it well, but some, ABUSE IT.

I used to love abusing it, it was an adrenalin rush. In one of my previous companies, we had a very short leg of only 20 minutes. On that leg, we would take off, turn around then accelerate to the red line, and then slow down and configure for the approach and landing in time. We would do this at about 8000 - 10000 ft.

One particular day, the winds were strong up above 4000, and we needed to be at 6000ft only. After take off, I sped up, I was flying the leg. At 6000ft, on the right hand as I was a first officer in those days, the ground whizzed by quicker. The Captain was busy monitoring the instruments and I was too, but also looking out from time to time.

I saw a moving speck on the windshield. With curiousity I leaned forward. The captain saw this and asked "What are you doing?"

"I think I see something."
"Where?"
"Dead ahead, our level."
He too was looking for it. There was nothing in our TCAS. Was it a small plane?

As the spec becomes bigger, and bigger, the shape became clearer but the time to avoid it becomes less and less. Suddenly, we realized what it was.

"Bird! Bird!" I shouted.
"Oh no, this is going to be a close one!" The captain shouted.
"Evade?"

Not enough time, within a moment, the large bird whizzed accross the left side of the aircraft, only a few meters off the fuselage. We were there just stunned.

"Did anyone back there see that?" He asked.
"I don't know, the question is, did it hit the stabilizer?"

We decided to slow down and check if the trim was affected (it shouldn't, but you don't want to find out only at approach do you?). As we slowed to 250 knots, the trim wheel moved and the altitude remained. We handflew the aircraft to the landing from then.

After parking we quickly went out to check if there's anything on the left wing or left stabilizer. We found nothing.

That was the last schedule I had on that leg before I moved companies. Hitting a Pelican on the windshield at 350 knots wouldn't be pleasant, luckily we didn't hit it.

Bus chasing on a pig

Newer planes are here to stay. Mandala ordered 25 brand new A320s, Batavia already has 2 new A319s, and Lion is going to flood our skies with 739ERs. So what do we do? Our 737-300 and -400s are slower, and guzzle more fuel than them, although we aren't as bad as the -200s. But then, the recent holiday season did reveal something, sometimes passengers DO notice if we take off before an aircraft that lands before we do.

How do we go about this?

On a recent flight from Medan to Jakarta, we were late. As we were completing our boarding, a Mandala A320 next to us had already commenced their pushback. Our flight was full, and we were heavy. I looked at the first officer and asked, "Wanna beat that Airbus?"
"Sure Kep, how?"

"We filed for flight lever 350?"

"Yes."

"That Mandala I heard is filing at 350 too. He'll be doing mach 0.76 to 0.78. Shall we speed below them? Say max cruise at FL310? If we have no delays we should catch up with them just after Palembang."

"Wouldn't the chief want to have a word with you when he sees our fuel burn?"

"Hey, we're late, we're full, we got connecting passengers who don't want to miss their onward flights, so, WHY NOT?"

"Your call Kep! It's your turn to fly next anyways."

"Let's revise after we push back."

We pushedback just as the Mandala was entering the runway. With little traffic, we were soon taxying towards runway 23. As we neared the holding point, the first officer asked if there was any incoming traffic that would delay us. There was none. We asked to revise our altitude to FL310.

"Standby," was the answer.The tower came back telling us to line up and wait on the runway. So we did.
"Pigflyer 73, Flight Level Three-One-Zero is approved. After airborne turn left direct MEDIA climb FL150. Wind is calm. Runway 23 cleared for take off."

The first officer answered promptly and then turned to me, "310 approved Kep, and clear for take off."

"OK, let change the cruise altitude on the FMC."

"Ok. Done."

"Ready?"

"Ready when you are."

As we took off, I wondered how far the Mandala A320 is. We cleaned up quickly, turned to MEDIA to join W12 and asked for high speed climb. After switching to the autopilot, we revised the climb speed and manually overrode the econ cruise. After we were happy that the fuel estimates on arrivals were safe, we committed ourselves to the race.
Whilst enjoying coffee and puffing away at FL310, we'd check on the TCAS on the position of the Mandala A320 4000ft above us by selecting "UP" on the TCAS from time to time. We were catching up slowly, although we were burning 250kgs extra fuel per hour.

Unless there are significantly different winds, a given mach number at FL310 would yield a faster ground speed than one at FL350. We overtook the A320 from underneath just as we passed Palembang, and continued until we had enough distance infront of him before slowing down to our economic cruise, and then perform a normal descent.

We landed 10 minutes ahead of the Mandala, and did it all safely without exceeding any of the operational limits, with fun, and most of all regained time for our customers, ain't that right chief?

Remembering Congonhas

I woke up this morning for yet another round of flights. I switched on the TV and found a horrific scene, a plane had crashed. An A320 had crashed while landing at Sao Paulo's Congonhas airport. The carnage of it all foretold the inevitable outcome, 200 people had died.

Many years ago, I went to Brazil on a holiday with some friends from Argentina. I had heard about the wonders of Congonhas and Rio's Santos Dumont. I had a pleasure of jumpseating the flights into both airports, and they were unforgettable.

Santos-Dumont was a scenic airport from a pilot's point of view, although, one could be said to be crazy to want to fly jets there. It's only 1350m with water on either end. It was definitely not a place to mess around. My pulse raced on the finals into Santos-Dumont, but it was nothing in comparison to Congonhas.

Congonhas' runway is about 2000m long. So what gitu lho! Sorry, it's 2000m long at an elevation of 2500ft. The nearest we got to that in Indonesia are Bandung and Malang, with Bandung having a slightly longer runway than Congonhas, and at a similar elevation. I had not flown into Malang so I can't comment. So what made Congonhas so scary? Bandung has no ILS at the moment, and the applicable minimas are "generous" in terms of, if the weather conditions are such that it's going to make you run for the toilet, you'd be below minimas and had to go elsewhere. Before I took the holiday to Congonhas, I already had a jumpseat ride into Bandung. I thought it would just be similar, and I was wrong.

Approaching Congonhas I quickly noticed the difference. First, it was busy. Second, you'd need the ILS there because unless you fly in and out of there everyday, there's no way you could find it, especially on a wet night! It was in the middle of a concrete jungle with lights everywhere. The crew I jumpseated did the familiar method to what we use for short runways. Duck under the slope when visual, land early and watch the speed and any wind that could send you hitting the ground lower. Once you landed, throw out whatever you have, and progressively manual brake to a halt, forget the autobrake if you got a tight schedule and cannot afford delaying due to brake cooling.

I could have ngompol (wet my pants) during that landing had the crew not told me beforehand what it would involve. Thank God they did tell me. On short final, you can see that the airport is 20 - 30 meters above the surrounding neighbourhood. Go low and you'll hit the hill, or the localizer antennae mounted on huge pylons about 100m from the airport. If you want a merciless airport, this would be it. Overrun, find yourself flying off the hill onto the buildings below. Go too low, and you won't make it onto the perimeter thanks to the hill. It was wet, it was scary, but it wasn't me flying. If it was me I could have just said, "forget this, I'm landing somewhere else."

Congonhas is just a memory, it was a thrilling one. But now, it is a sad one. In Memory of those who perished on JJ3504 yesterday.

The cheap prank

There's one way to find out whether someone does the preflight and preparation checks properly. I do this at the end of the night after a flight into Jakarta, and I know the guy taking my seat for the morning duty tomorrow has a reputation not doing those checks properly, or do this to someone who overzealously do those checks.

After you finish everything, take one last cigarette before leaving the aircraft, and use the oxygen mask as your ashtray. Always restow the mask with care. A good check should include checking the mask and that means mean you put the mask in front of your face and then open the bottle valve for a quick spray of oxygen. So, if you hear someone getting the ash in the face in the morning, you know he did the pre-flight checks properly!

A word of caution, if the chief decides to replace your target in the morning or there's an aircraft change, you'll get a call to go to the office by lunchtime!

Holiday Season

Holiday seasons mean lots of flights. The company you work for can determine whether you will have a few extra flights or a lot of extra flights. The holiday season means we have to throw our usual routine of four to five legs a day, with one day off and possibly a standby day in a week because one thing is almost for certain, minimum rests, one day off a week only and lots of schedule revisions!

The load that you fly changes too. The flights are always full, and the extra flights mean you have to chase your schedule because if you get delayed in the morning, your friend flying the aircraft after you is going to get home extra late, with their crying kids wanting to join the holiday rampage. It's not the best times for some people.

Carrying families mean you also have problems such as a family of four insisting to carry a house load of carry-on baggage in addition of their excess baggage. Sometimes, they carry so much that you end up over the weight limit. Explaining a family of 6 that their choice was to let three boxes of dolls for the kids or their 3 cubic meter box worth of oleh-oleh (gifts) or one of their suitcases of clothes to fly later in the day is sometimes harder than to explain to a shopaholic that the white dress is better than the pink dress with fluorescent green polkadots.

Then you get loud passengers that you can hear all the way in the cockpit on take off, or the dreaded baby crying louder than our engines on take off during a night flight. One thing I cannot stand is when after six flights, I have to pax back to Jakarta, sitting a row behind a crying baby and a row in front of 7 year old kids whose solution of boredom is to kick the seat in front every three seconds. All that while sitting to a know it all passenger who claims he's seen the Airbus A380 in Makassar.

The nice thing about holiday season is though, we do get good kids flying, and we love to take them into the flight deck and see their eyes go wide in amazement. We like to play with them sometimes, select the autopilot to leave the LNAV/VNAV and go into ALT HOLD and SPD. We then play with the speed a bit and they can spend 5 minutes at the moving throttles. Or change the heading a little bit and tell them "Look! No Hands!"

One thing is for certain on holiday season, you get damn tired. If you work for a company that gives peanuts for the flight hour pay, it sucks. If they give you a nice number for that, then, despite all of the grudges you may have on the season, it may be worth it. I may be tired by the end of the day, but at least the roads aren't jammed packed and I get home quicker.

Single Thrust Reverser

Landing performance we use for our revenue flights do not take into account thrust reversers. As hard as we decelerate on the reversers, many passengers do not realize that if we need to, we can brake a lot harder. We don't use the maximum available brakes much under normal circumstances as it is not our customer service policy to bang passengers' heads onto the seats in front of them.

Was given a 737 with a single reverser locked out yesterday. The dispatch papers noted that and they reminded me again before we started our first flight of the day. As a habit, I would put a post it note in front of me to remind myself of various things I need to remember about the aircraft. I wrote "T/R #1 INOP"

Our first leg of the day was to Pekanbaru, narrow clearway strip with a runway only 25 meters wide. Normally we land at runway 36 to take advantage of the uphill slope, and exit at taxiway A to the right. The slope beyond that is a steep downhill, but we normally are at low speed if we pass that intersection.

Before top of descent, the First Officer briefed for the landing. He's a young lad and a recent addition to our company. He's relatively green, and this is the first time I've flown with him with a deferred.

"Oke Kep, my landing yah. Pekanbaru, expecting 36 ILS, we come in for a straight intercept down to 1,500 unless they tell us to hold as published. Visibility is good, if they change the runway we'll go visual right hand, is that OK?"
"Yeaps, go on."
"ILS from 1500ft, visibility is good, QNH is 1012, and decision is at 200 above or 230 on the QNH. Runway is 2200 meters, landing weight will be 49 tons, ref will be 133 on flap 30, autobrake 2, the wind is 040 at 5 knots so we'll approach at 140. Standard roll and manual braking to go for exit A."
"Missed Approach?"
"Climb straight ahead to 1500ft and notify ATC. Expect vectors right hand to the downwind and redo it. Any questions?"
"Have you missed anything?"
"Oh yes, reverser on engine one is locked, so, idle reverse on number two OK?"
"Yes... want me to call for descent?"
"Landing brief complete yah Kep, ready for descent."

There was no traffic and we were cleared to descend continuously to 1500ft and cleared for the high speed below 10,000ft. Down at 1500ft and slowing our speed from 300 knots on idle power, we got busy. I told him to keep it at idle as we need to start the deploying the flaps. We steadied down to 210 before selecting the flaps to one, then 5, then 10, at 170. Nose was a bit high, and I was waiting for the glideslope to go alive. Autothrottle was still on.

Then the glideslope came alive and I called it. Since we were only at 1500ft, I reminded him to go and select 15 and gear down, I didn't want him not to stabilize at 1000ft.

"Fly the slope on manual will you?"
"Yes Kep. Flaps 30 and Set speed 140 please."

The Autopilot disconnect horn came and he smoothly descended the pig on the glideslope. The airplane slowed to 140 with the autothrottle. The air was bumpy and the aircraft started to oscillate a bit with the autothrottle lagging. The airspeed went off from the targetted 140 due to the oscillation. He switched the autothrottle off to kill the oscillation and retrimmed the pig.

"One thousand," I called, shortly followed by the automatic voice.
We then received our landing clearance.

"Five hundred... and watch the speed, 140 please slow it down abit."
"Two hundred."
"One hundred."
"Fifty... forty... thirty... go idle" I called.
The wind suddenly disappeared and we lost our 5 knots immediately. He pulled the yoke to keep the pig from falling and applied a bit of power to cushion the loss of airspeed before going idle, but it was a little too long and we floated.
"Whoops," he said.
"Hit the aiming bar," I said. I wanted him to bring it down firmly on the 1000ft markers. He hesitated to drop the aircraft and we touched down 1500ft from the threshold. There was still ample room to stop.

The whine of the ground spoilers autodeploying was heard and I hand checked it. "Spoilers deployed."

The pig derotated nicely as he opened the right engine reverser as we climbed up the hill, faster than normal.

To my horror, he said "We're fast," and pulled the reversers into full.
The pig's nose swung to the right catching him by surprise, he realised that the left reverser was locked. "Damn, single only." He yanked the rudder to the left to keep the pig from having a run around the grass, he idled the right reverser and the nose swung left now, we were below 100 knots with the wheels biting and the ground spoilers dumping whatever remaining lift we had on the wings and transferred the weights on the wheels.

"Buset! Nyante dong!" (Jeez, easy boy!)
He pressed on the manual brakes and adjusted our direction to remain on the runway.
"80... 60..." I called as we were still swinging left to right to left to right as he tried to keep us on the runway. "OK, my control."
"Your control Kep."
The swinging took his eye off the braking and I braked harder to a hard stop on the intersection.

I took the pig off the runway and onto the apron, and waited on the parking stand to allow for engine cooling, APU startup and completion of the after landing checklist. We shut down on schedule.

I looked at him and said, "enjoy the single reverser?"
"Scary on this runway Kep. Sorry, first time on a single rev."
"It's not wide, bet you were scared of going off after forgetting the single."
"Indeed. I never knew I'd do that."
"Well, there's always a first time, at least you're not a single reverser perawan (virgin) anymore. Narrow runway, overcompensated, realised the error, and tried to correct it."
"Sorry."
"Don't worry, do the next one back to Jakarta and I'd kick your butt if you swing like mad over there."

The pax deboarded, we completed the paperwork and prepared for the next leg. One of the cabin crew told us they were goyang Inul at the back. Thank God I don't sit on the rearmost part.

The next leg was perfect and the first officer focused on the brakes for deceleration on the 3000m runway. Thank God for long runways.

2 wrongs don't make a right!

The reason why you have more than one pilot in the cockpit is so that one covers the other one for mistakes, lapses and whatever else. This system works well, some airline use the supporting method where the pilot flying is supported by the one monitoring, while some use the delegative method, where the pilot flying is in charge and delegates the monitoring task to the one monitoring. It works well, when I started, the captain would tell me what I'm doing wrong or what I forgot and correct me. When I became captain, I would do the same to the first officers, especially the new ones as they're sometimes nervous.

Unfortunately, the system can break down when you have two people in the cockpit whose minds were somewhere else. This happened to me on an approach into Padang's Minangkabau airport. It's a new airport, replaces the old Tabing whose instrument procedure require some careful planning.

it was the first officer's leg, so he did the briefing. As we neared, a late descent caused us to fly over the airfield at 10,000ft before turning downwind over the sea. We planned for the ILS. Everything was routine for the approach, but the day was out of routine.

My mind was largely somewhere else that day, and the first officer just broke up from his girlfriend. We were running late and weather wasn't on our side. We did the descent on the downwind through the clouds, down to 4000ft. There was another traffic at 4000 about to intercept the ILS and descending, and I saw him on the TCAS. It was a bumpy ride.

We levelled at 4000, just on the bottom of the clouds, so we get moments of obscurity, and moments of a clear view. The reported visibility was 4000m. We were told to extend our downwind due to departing traffic. As we turned towards the ILS, we descended to 3000, in scattered rain.

As we went about our business, we were chatting too. We normally do that, but as I monitored our instruments, selecting the flaps according to the F/O's request, the rain stopped and he suddenly called visual. I was thinking, "huh?"

There was a runway in the distance, but no lights. Airports in Indonesia don't always switch their damn lights even in dull weather. As we hadn't intercepted the localizer yet, the runway was to our right, and we were a bit high.

I asked him, "You gonna go visual?"
"You betcha!"
"Swing it round then. I'll call for clearance once we're near the centerline. We're a bit high so go down but not too steep."
"Aye-Aye sir!"

He manouvered the aircraft nicely, speed was good, we were visual, we'd be landing shortly. I made the announcement, "Cabin crew be seated for landing."

I can see he's planning a turning final, not a large one, but it'll be good and safe enough.

"Landing checklist please," he called.
I took the checklist and did a quick instrument scan.

"Something's not right."
"Whaddya mean Capt?"
"Localizer's too our left now."
"Really?"
"Yes!" I suddenly realized. "Man, that's Tabing!"
"Oh shit..."
"You wanna do it or you want me to do it?"
"I still got it. Going left now for the intercept, no wonder we were high for that runway."

We were down to 2000ft. We did the error of going for whatever we saw first without checking the instruments. This is the most fundamental error one can make on an instrument approach. Landing at the wrong airport would certainly cause a major embarrassment for the airline, and probably ruin our careers.

"Yeah, just keep it smooth and we'll be OK."

We continued the approach and landed without anyone noticing the mistake we made. As we rested in the ground turnaround, we sat there looking each other wondering how we could have made that mistake.

One thing is for sure, the system is there to keep us out of trouble. That's why we have two and not one pilot. However, in the rare occasion that both are having personal problems, both must realize it and be on the extra lookout. When we didn't, the minor lapse we did could have ruined our careers. We were lucky it wasn't some other lapse that would have costed our lives. After researching, I found that a lot of mishaps happened when one is disturbed or pressured from the going ons of our personal lives. I have always avoided it, work is work, personal is personal. I've had this kind of situation before and never had a problem only this time, both me and the other guy are having problems. When this happens, BE CAREFUL.

The last time a plane landed in Tabing thinking it was Minangkabau, one or both of the pilots were having personal problems. The airline however, said it was a cellphone interference causing the ILS to make an error and guide them to another airport. So much for that, but hey, thats for another time to discuss.

Fly safe and calm everyone.

The day the Captain tried to throw the CRM book out of the window!

Ex Air Force Pilots are... well, let me be more precise, Ex Fighter pilots!
Most are good guys, and can adjust well to civil flying. Some require a little humbling before they come down to earth and start talking to us. Some, a small minority of ex-Air Force pilots, I wish never got their civilian licenses. Some have brains that are programmed to delete any instance of CRM in their memory.

The good guys can be useful when needing stern words to be thrown at the ATC. Some are good when flying into military airports, where their past friendships have enabled us to be given way and the other civil traffic gets thrown into a hold, mixing with pairs of fighters or ground attack aircraft.

But ONE, sticks in my memory the most. He was a cocky bugger. He never respects the guy sitting next to him. I had the unfortunate case of flying with him when he was just released as a Captain for the airline. He sat there like the general, telling the ground crew and me when and how to do things, regardless of company SOPs. The walk around, checking the numbers and loads, the route, the weather, everything and nothing shared. He insists that I check and recheck, but he himself never looks at the numbers nor does he bother even checking a small part of whatever I gave him.

As we pushed back and called ready for taxy to Jakarta's 07R, we were told to leave the apron, go straight on to SP2 to the holding point of 07R. As I repeated the taxi instructions to him, he immediately throttled the plane forward, and turned off at SP1, the parrallel taxiway before SP2.

"Kep, he said SP2, we're in SP1."
"Hey, I've been flying longer than you have, I know where to go!"
"SP2, not SP1, we're on SP1."
"Shut up on the taxying route and do the before take off checklist."

A checklist with him means the guy doing the checklist does everything for him, then reads it out, and he just replies. Checklist was completed, and I was we passed WC1 & WC2, the last opportunity we had to go to SP2.

"We missed the turn at the Whiskey-Charlies Capt."
"We can go this way!" He pressed on.
I thought to myself, this is going to be funny. I expected the tower or ground controller to call us in a minute, and if this was reported I would insist on returning to the gate and ask for the CVRs to be pulled out for evidence. The tower never called.
Within moments we reached the end of SP1 and the only way out was to turn to the right and enter Garuda Maintenance Facility. His face wasn't as confident as before now and a hint of worry was on his face. We turned into GMF and turned left again. I shook my head.
"Wow, big planes they got over here," I said sarcastically. "You sure we're on the right place now Capt?"
He pressed the brakes, slowed the plane down and made a long look out of the right window and then, unbelieveably the made a right hand 180 turn right there. The guys at GMF ran out to look and see what was going on. Embarrassed, he throttled up to get out of the scene faster.

Lo-and-behold, a Garuda A330 was being towed from the north at GMF's apron after it had entered GMF from WC. As the plane revealed itself from behind the hanggar wall, I too begin to get worried thinking to myself, "Oh-Oh, what now?"

I looked at this broken pride guy, he was sweating a bit, he throttled the aircraft up and we lurched forward.

"What are you doing?"
"We gotto get back to SP1 before they close the turnoff!"
"Are you nuts?"
Too late! The guys at the towtrucks and the engineer at the A330 must have pressed the brakes as hard as they could. I held onto whatever I could in the cockpit because at that speed, it would be risky making a turn to SP1.

It wasn't a near miss with the tow truck, but we surely made a quick chicane onto SP1. At that time, I had enough, I pressed the toe brakes and stopped the plane and looked at the Captain.

"Are you out of your mind Captain?"
"Get your feet off and we continue!"
"No! Not like this! You either start working together with me of I shall leave my seat!" I unbuckled.
"SIT DOWN!"
I stood up and said, "No! You make a choice Captain!"

The Tower called "PigFlyer 071, is everything OK?"
The captain sat there for a while, and said, "OK, sorry, sit down please and tell them we made the wrong turn while doing the checklist."

The rest of the day was uneventful, but after that day I requested to crew scheduling to never be put in the same plane as that guy. He jumped carriers a few months afterwards.

Boys will be boys!

Our occupation is called "Flight Crew", we call ourselves "pilots", we joke ourselves as "flyboys", and we do have our "ranks": "junior first officer, first officer, senior first officer, captain." No matter what our job is called and what rank we have, sometimes we're just boys being boys.

We work with girls, some young, some old, most are attractive for whatever age they are, and yes, they know how to look good no matter what. We love being around them, some of us do try and get too far with them, but for almost all of us, sometimes we look elsewhere.

Some people don't understand why. Some think we're just perverts outside our job. Sometimes, we like looking at something else. Apart from the flight attendants, we get LOTS of passengers, and there's bound to be a pretty one on a full flight.

When not late, and the weather's simple and the aircraft load is simple, we can rest while the passengers are boarding. There's one thing we like from airports that don't have airbridges, that is we can look at who's boarding our plane. On days flying with younger colleagues, we enjoy watching the passengers board from our cockpit windows and make comments on the passengers, and who can pick out the pretty girl first. It's always best when you have a fun cabin crew set aswell who understand us.

Today, our F/A 1 is a mother of two children, in her late thirties, and is an absolutely charming lady, or girl (I can't decide). We are good friends, I knew her from before we ended up in the same airline, and the first officers absolutely adore her. It's an easy day so she would be in the cockpit a lot and chat with us (did I mention the good coffee?). Just after we landed she was in the flight deck joining the cloud of smoke. She was talking about young good looking female passengers, she was trying to get the first officer to cheer up because he had just broken up with his girlfriend. We decided that if there were any pretty girls boarding the flight, we'd invite her to the flight deck during cruise. It's a nice way to break the repetitiveness of our job, without breaking the rules.

Boarding time came and we were on the lookout. Our F/A 1 was on her post, by the door to greet the passengers. The usual sorts of passengers were there. The family with 4 kids trying to carry 6 large bags into the cabin with the parents struggling to keep the kids within reach. The endless numbers of businessmen, or the old grandad on his first ever flight. An angel caught our eyes, the first officer spotted him first. She was tall, walks as if she was hovering above the ground, tight-ish clothes, but doesn't look too cheap.

"Whaddya think?" I asked my friend.
"Ooh, that's do-able!"

I kept looking as she was walking up the stairs until I could see no more, then I asked my friend again.

"You sure?"
"Yes please!"

I waited for a moment and then flipped the fasten seat belt sign on and off quickly. Twenty seconds later, the F/A 1 went into the flight deck.

"The girl with the tight pink top?"
The first officer nodded.
"She's on 5D, do you want me to invite her in after take off?"
I asked my friend, "Whose leg is it now? Yours or mine?"
"Mine."
"Bring her here after take off," I told the F/A 1.

After we took off and not long after the seat belt signs were switched off, there was a knock on the cockpit door. The F/A 1 brought her in, and we welcomed the passenger. The F/A 1 then brought us coffee and tea. It was going to be a 2 hour flight, at least we got a guest to keep us entertained.

She turned out to be a student who was flying to Jakarta to attend an interview to become a flight attendant at our airline. This was only her 3rd flight she has ever taken in her life. She was quite chatty to the first officer, I kept quiet most of the time. My friend needs a distraction from heartbreak. Towards the end of the flight, the first officer asked if she should go back to her seat or not. I asked her if she got her interview invitation letter in her seat she should show me and she'd get a jumpseat landing. She's a nice enough girl and I thought it would be good that she should know what goes on in front so she could talk a bit more in her interview.

At the end of the flight, I wrote a comment on her letter and signed it. 1 happy passenger, a happy future crew member, but most importantly for that flight, 1 happy co-pilot!

Women on the flight deck

Indonesia have only a handful of female pilots. To me, it makes little difference, as long as a pilot does his or her duties well, who cares about the gender. The company share that sentiment, the regulators seem to have little problem with it, the passengers? That's a different story.

I love to stretch my legs, as long as it's more than an hour's flight time, show the passengers that yes, there are humans flying the aircraft, and of course, talking to the girls at the back. However, sometimes it's counter productive. Spiteful passengers love to complain at anything, and seeing a pilot walking around the cabin can result in written complaints about pilots not doing their jobs and are walking around while flying. Sometimes a passenger waiting for the toilet would ask me if it's OK for one pilot to leave the flight deck, sometimes passengers try and lecture me about work discipline. Hello, I don't want a cramped leg on approach nor do I want to belly flop the landing because my bladder's about to burst!

When flying with female pilots, it's a different level of passenger comments, especially if before the flight, the female first officer does a late walk around check, and the passengers boarding sees her.

"Is she capable of flying?"
"Captain, you should go back to the cockpit, that woman might screw the flight up while you're out!"
"Is she pretty?"

So it's OK for the grumpy old men when the country has a female president or when a female surgeon is about to perform a surgery on their scrotum, but it's not OK for a female to fly an aircraft?

Some old pilots don't like them though, and sometimes I don't like it, but it's not because they're female, it's because they won't let us smoke in the cockpit! The day seems to go on forever when she turns and say, "Captain, please don't smoke."

*Yes, we're still allowed to smoke in the cockpit. Boeing and Airbus still make planes with ashtrays in the cockpit!

"Have you seen the news lately sir?" Solo Airport, 2006

When Jogja had an earthquake last year, I had the pleasure of flying into nearby Solo the day after the earthquake. It was a nice morning with good weather forecasts, and we were to do 4 legs that day. Before departure, we had a slight delay trying to confirm whether there would be a parking spot for us on arrival. After a "yes", we were on our way.

The route took us over the north coast of Java, and we would descend shortly before reaching the coastal city of Semarang. It was the co-pilot's flying leg, so I was doing the radios and calculations to confirm what our FMC predicts will be our fuel on landing, from there we calculate the expected landing weight, and therefore our planned approach speed. As I was listening to the first officer's approach brief, Jakarta Center called us over the radio, telling us there would be a short delay of around 15 minutes as Solo had run out of parking spots. All the flights to Jogja have been diverted to Solo because the runway at Jogja needed repairs.

We acknowledged the delay and informed them that it would be no problem, we carried extra fuel due to the possibility of the delay. We descended a bit late as we expected to be holding for a while over Solo. There was an a Lion MD-80 infront of us, and Adam Air 737-200 behind. They had descended as normal, and we were a bit higher. I suggested to my friend that we would make sure we hold our position in sequence. The TCAS showed us where the other two aircraft are, and I would watch what the Adam jet is doing, the last thing I want is him descending fast below us and force us to loose our position, which if the ramp is as full as the ATC says, it could mean a 30 - 40 minute delay instead of 15 minutes holding above. As he tried to sneak in from below, I suggested my friend to speed up and descend just a tad faster.

The last waypoint before entering the Solo terminal area is PURWO, I told him "reach PURWO as close as we can to the Lion in front." As we approach PURWO, I saw the MD80 make the right turn south towards Solo, and we'd enter the Jogja Military Control Zone, with a narrow corridor for civilian flights. As we reached PURWO, we hear 1 jet depart Solo from runway 08 and was told to make a direct left turn to PURWO, and the MD80 was told to continue with the ILS approach procedure for runway 26. As we descended below 10,000ft and called Jogja Approach, we were told to make a slight right turn for spacing with the departing traffic, and so did the Adam 737. We were soon told to proceed to SLO VOR and commence holding, and then the Adam Air 737 was told the same, but to hold 1000ft above us.

I checked the fuel, to determine how long we can hold before we had to divert, and we can take 40 minutes of holding. I asked Approach and they informed me that it was going to be another 30 minutes. Great, 10 minutes cushion. As we made the turn inbound into the VOR in the pattern, I saw the 737-200 above just turning to the outbound track. Soon, another aircraft joined the pattern. The first officer can see the airport from his right seat, and he said it was full.

The purser came into the cockpit and asked how long the delay was going to be, as several passengers have been asking why we're flying in circles. Oh damn, I forgot to make an announcement, so I made it.

15 minutes into the hold, I heard 2 aircraft started up to fly back to Jakarta. OK, won't be long now. We recalculated our weight and landing speeds, not much change, but it's better that way. On the next inbound, 1 entered the runway and another was holding short of the runway. Then we were told to make the ILS approach after the next inbound leg of the hold. I made a short announcement that we would land shortly.

We landed normally and our landing roll was short, as I took control of the airplane, the tower told us to take the next exit to the right onto the northern apron, where the unfinished terminal was. As we turned, I saw that the ramp was full, but we found the empty spot waiting for us, and another next to it. One aircraft from the main terminal apron entered the runway and the Adam Air 737 had to wait.

After parking and shutting down, the doors were opened and I saw 1 staircase being pulled from another aircraft and manhandled towards us. The bus was waiting to take the passengers to the terminal, but it wasn't the airport bus (run by the air force), it was a city bus. I guess due to all the diversion into Solo, they'd need all the buses available. As we completed the post shut down checks and filled in the necessary forms, I looked out and saw that the passengers were waiting below, and some were leaving the bus. Hey, this is strange.

After finishing, the passengers were still there on the tarmac and no buses? I told the first officer that I would be doing the walkaround check. As I opened the cockpit door, the aircraft was still half full, and one of the cabin crew were trying to calm several passengers. The purser told me that there was no bus to take the passengers to the terminal. Several passengers demanded that I get them a bus. I walked down the stairs to the apron and several more passengers complained about no buses, and that only 1 staircase was used instead of the normal 2. As I assured several passengers waiting on the tarmac that the bus would be on the way, the Adam Air 737 that landed after us had buses waiting for them, albeit with no stairs. Something's not right, but I decided to do the walkaround first and if the bus isn't here by the time I finished, it was time to call the station manager.

1 passenger followed me as I walked to the right hand side of the aircraft, he called me, so I attended to him.
"What kind of show are you running around here? You call yourself an airline?"
"Excuse me sir, what do you mean?"
"We've been waiting down here for 20 minutes! What kind of an airline are you?"
"Sir, I'm sure a bus will be here as soon as it is available."
"That's not acceptable! I'm going to report this to your management, and report you and your crew as well!"
I don't have time for people like this. I rolled my sleeves up in the morning sun.
"Sir, a bus WILL BE ON ITS WAY SHORTLY" and I walked off continuing with the walkaround. I saw one of the station staff and called him over and asked why the passengers have to wait.

The ground staff told me that it's been like this since all the Jogja flights diverted here and also the extra flights due to the earthquake. The station manager arranged with the Adam station manager to borrow the buses they hired, and it was waiting for us, but then before the first bus was full, they cancelled the deal and the buses had to wait for the Adam Air that had just come in.

"But they have no stairs!"
"I know Capt, but we couldn't force them."

As I completed the walkaround, the rude passenger approached me again.
"See, this is unacceptable! You guys are a lousy airline! You can't even tell the airport to get a bus to take us to the terminal!"

Maybe my patience had disappeared temporarily, but I thought that guy needed a good telling off.
"Sir, do you know where we are? Do you know what happened yesterday? Did you read the news?"
"Yes, so what?"
"Look around sir! Have you seen Solo this busy? Do you know what all the flights to Jogja has been told to land here instead? Do you know that the airport cannot just take 10 buses today for you and send them back tomorrow? Do you know this region is in an emergency situation?"
I noticed a few passengers were looking at me.
"Sir, feel free to report to whoever you want! But for God's sake realize the situation!"

I went back to the cockpit and explained the situation to passengers who are still inside. At least they understood the situation. I myself am not happy about the delay. Not long afterwards, the normal airport buses came along and took the passengers to the terminal. As soon as the airplane was empty, we started boarding as the airport wants us to leave as soon as we can to free up the parking slots.

As we finished boarding and the pax count was completed, a groundstaff came into the flight deck and told us they had no towtruck! Oh no! More delays! Then more bad news, they needed the staircase elsewhere, so we had to close the door but wait. I pulled out my mobile phone and called Ops in Jakarta to explain the situation, they also gave me the Solo station manager's number.

I called the station manager and he was very apologetic. He said it would be at least 10 minutes before the tow truck and tow bar MAY be available. I closed the conversation and shrugged my shoulders and told the first officer of the extra delay, then my phone rang, it was the station manager, apparently he had some good news. He said he was able to "borrow" Adam Air's tow bar and a tow truck.

"What do you mean "borrow"?"
"Well, we share the tow truck, they got their own tow bar, so I told the truck driver to push you first!"
"OK, how much did you give him for the towbar?"
"50,000" (US$5.5)

2 minutes later the towbar was hooked and we were cleared for the push and start. We were 1 hour 30 minutes late, but we were on our way. I told the ground engineer to thank the station manager for his efforts and told him to let the tow bar to another aircraft before giving it back to Adam.

"Don't worry Capt, they got a problem that will need about another hour to fix."

It was my leg to fly, we chased our schedule in the air. We cut 10-15 minutes off that leg by asking for highspeed below 10,000ft, flying on the speed limit throughout until the final approach. By the end of the 4 flights, we were down 30 minute delay. Not a bad catch up, if you know what you're doing!

Catching up with delays require good teamwork from the cockpit crew, the cabin crew, and the ground staff, plus some persuasion with the ATC. We could catch up a few more minutes that day, but it would risk us ending up with an incident or even an accident.

Cellphones above 30,000ft

Another day and another strange pax.
On one flight from Pekanbaru back to Jakarta two weeks back, we heard a cellphone interference on the radio. Nothing major, didn't make our plane fall out of the sky, but it was damn annoying, especially when ATC noticed it.

One of the junior gals came into the flight deck saying that a pax was sitting on their jumpseat at the rear galley and insisted on chatting her and the F/A 2 up. No engineers were on board so no "male crew" to tell the pax off.

As I had to take a leak, I decided to intervene. Taking a leak at the rear toilet next to the galley did the trick. I talked to one of the girls there about cellphone interference. The guy heard it and he quickly disappeared back into his seat and most likely switched his phone off, coz we never heard it again for the rest of the flight.

Back in the crew room in Jakarta, I was chatting with the F/A 2 and F/A 4 while waiting for the car to take us back home. The F/A 2 said she got the guy's name card and wondered what we should do with it. Should we put it up on the crew board and say "Desperate guy seeks F/A for wife" or should we just burn it. We normally put up a few of those cards, but as part of the joke, the F/A receiving the card should also put her name on it as the poster. Since she already had one up there, we decided to just burn the card.