Mt Poas, Costa Rica

With all the recent natural disasters in the world making headlines, I'm pretty content to be steering clear of them and enjoying the mostly sunny skies of the Caribbean and Central America.

However, on a recent trip to San Jose, Costa Rica, as I was unpacking my suitcase in my hotel room, the entire building began to shake and I immediately knew it wasn't the icemaker down the hall!
Yes, it was a small earthquake....enough to knock the pictures off my wall and kill the electricity for a couple of hours but no real damage that I heard about.

The next morning's ride out to the airport had me riding shotgun in the crew van next to our driver. I can speak some limited Spanish so I asked him about the earthquake the previous afternoon. I understood him to say that "oh, we get those all the time...no big deal" or something to that effect. That would make sense since Costa Rica is right smack in the middle of a chain of volcanoes (with it's associated seismic activity) running right down the Pacific coastlines of the Americas.

Then we started discussing the volcanoes in the general vicinity of San Jose. I asked him about any major eruptions and how often they might occur. He said that about every thirty years or so they get an eruption out of one of the nearby volcanoes.

"So how long has it been since the last one?" I asked.

"About thirty years!" he said laughingly!

So with all that to think about we launched our fully loaded 757 for the 2.5 hour leg to Miami.

In a previous post I talked about the departure procedure in San Jose. This day was no different. Takeoff was on runway 07 with a steep climbout to the south, then west, and then an eventual turn to the north.

The POAS SID (standard instrument departure) takes air traffic right by Mt Poas, which lies not too far from San Jose. Typically the peak is obscured by cloud cover, but this was our lucky day. Clear skies prevailed and we would get to look straight down into the semi-active crater.

No ash cloud to worry about though. This volcano was only spewing small amounts of steam and sulfur. Let's hope it stays that way for a long time.

Looking off towards the southeast in the direction of Panama, we could see a more active peak spewing what looked like an ash cloud. Best to steer clear of this one!


No, it's not nearly as impressive as the eruption in Iceland, but it was still fun to see an active volcano from a safe distance. Volcanoes are just not something you get to see that often and if I ever get to see an eruption like the recent one in Iceland, I hope that the ash cloud and I are moving in opposite directions!




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The Flight Deck Of The Future

It seems that not a day goes by anymore that you don't hear about the airlines cutting back on service or charging ridiculous fees for the most basic of services.

In these difficult times in the airline industry, my employer has not been exempt from those practices.

Every single day all of our employee groups are reminded of how many ways we can save our company money. As pilots, we our constantly being asked to save as much fuel as we can whether it be by taxiing on one engine, not running the APU as much, asking for shortcuts from ATC, etc.

The two largest expenses at an airline are typically labor costs and fuel.

There's only so much we can do about saving fuel....but apparently some upper level managers at my employer have found a new way to cut labor costs.

Yes, that's right. They have eliminated the First Officers position!

This is the flight deck of the future. A single pilot Boeing 757.

My "View From The Left Seat" just got a lot better!

But I will miss having someone to talk to.

With the extra space freed up in the cockpit, we have begun placing baggage where the FO's seat used to be. Of course the passengers will have to pay an added fee for that too. But what a great source of extra revenue for the company!

Okay, Okay....It's not true. The entire post is just a joke.

But if the airlines could get away with something like this, I'm sure they would.

Thanks for visiting.





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Seaplanes Anyone?

There wont be much substance in this post. Even less than usual!

This one is all about the photos.

My second trip to Anchorage this summer resulted in a perfect day for a bike ride. Temps started out in the 50's with no wind and sunny skies. The bike rental shop hooked me up with a nice road bike and pointed me towards one of the nicer trails around the town.

First stop...the train station...where I got a shot of this GP-40 ready to go to work.

Then back on the trail.

This particular trail runs along the coastline and winds up back near the Anchorage airport.

And what a fine trail it is!! Very scenic.

I couldn't pass up a great day like this without visiting the Lake Hood seaplane base. It is the busiest seaplane base in the world. It is co-located at the Anchorage airport.

I had to so a double take when I saw this one! How many general aviation people have ever seen a Cessna 195 on floats? This was a rare sight.Cessna U206Piper PA-14 CruiserSome of these are a little blurry. Remember, I was shooting from a bike.Piper PA-18 Super CubDe Havilland DHC-2 BeaverPiper PA-18 Super CubAnother rare sight was this Helio Super Courier H-295Cessna 208 Grand CaravanYes, I know it's not a seaplane but what fun this must be to fly and land just about anywhere off the pavement.

I could have remained for hours. The action on the lake was very entertaining, but it was time to return. So back to the trail I went with a watchful eye for any wildlife.




With the bike returned to the shop, all that was left was a short rest-up and clean-up before leaving on the all-nighter back to Texas. The days are starting to get a little shorter now, but the first hour of flight still allowed for some great sightseeing just before darkness fell.No more Alaska trips for me this year. Service from DFW will cease at the end of September only to resume again next spring. I'm looking forward to another trip North next year.




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We're Out Of Fuel!!

A few weeks back I had just returned from my morning pool duty at the hotel in San Jose, Costa Rica and was online checking to see if we would be running on time for that afternoon's departure to Miami. Well, the inbound flight was showing on time into SJO but when I checked a little deeper, it showed that our flight would be departing SJO on time but arriving into MIA over 90 minutes late.

What was up with that? Didn't know and didn't really care....these things always work out in the end.

So a little later I'm sitting in my room when my phone rang. It was the station manager at the airport calling to tell me that we were going to have to make an unexpected fuel stop on the way to Miami. It seems that the local jet fuel supply in San Jose was very limited due to a delay in the weekly shipment. Apparently all the airlines were having to either cancel some flights or as in our case, plan a fuel stop enroute.

I asked the manager if we could stop at Havana for fuel.....she wasn't amused.

"So where would we be going" I asked?
"Managua, Nicaragua" was her answer.

A little later on when the entire crew met for the ride out to the airport, I gave them the news. Groans from the flight attendants, but the first officer was pleased as was I. You see, we get paid only when the plane is away from the gate....and any more flight time than scheduled during a given trip means more pay for us! Also, Managua would be a new destination for both of us and that is always fun.

All our passengers had been informed about the fuel stop and they all seemed to be accepting of it. There wasn't much they could do about it anyhow but I still made an onboard announcement about the extra leg and that there would be no extra charge for it! They weren't amused either. We pushed back just as this Iberia A-340 was arriving.


Then off we went for the 35 minute flight to Managua.

We climbed up to 24,000 ft and enjoyed the view.




Managua's radar was out of service that day so we had to fly a full instrument approach until we spotted the runway and were able to proceed visually.


The terrain here was pretty impressive. Very green and lush. Notice the crater in the foreground and the distant volcano.

Final approach was right over the city. The runway is in the top left area of the photo. Kind of hard to see.

The ground crew at MGA was outstanding. We parked at the gate, the fuelers immediately hooked up, the first officer did his walkaround, the agent came on board to deliver some paperwork, and in less than 20 minutes we were airborne for Miami.

Cruising over central Cuba at 40,000 ft we passed around this monster cell. It was topping out at well over 50,000 ft. Havana ATC was nice enough to let us go around it.
Bad press about Cuba notwithstanding, their air traffic controllers are quite good. They are always accommodating and very easy to work with. Their English is also easily understood.

So on to Miami and then back home to DFW. What an interesting day.

I still think that Havana would have been a good fuel stop!




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The Midnight Sun

Once again the opportunity came along to trade a Caribbean trip for something different. That something different happened to be a 757 trip up to Anchorage, Alaska.

Never having been that far north I was looking forward to a new destination and setting foot in a new state. I had asked around among the pilot group about the trip and all the reports were positive. There's plenty to do up there. Great fishing, hiking, biking, sightseeing, camping, etc. The only negative to the trip was that it involved a dreaded all-nighter on the way home. And that all-nighter was with a two man crew, not three!

Nevertheless, I made the trade and away we went.

DFW - ANC is a seasonal 757 flight that AA operates from June until September. I don't know why they don't use a larger plane on it because they could easily fill it up all summer long. But that's a question for the bean counters.

We were fully loaded with a butt in every seat for a 4 PM launch from DFW.

A short delay for wake turbulence from the heavy Singapore 747 taking off and then we were airborne. Today our 757 was close to maximim gross weight but you would never know it. It climbed like it always does...beautifully. I wish I had my own personal 757!!

We were flight planned for a 6 hour 35 minute flight. On any flights over 8 hours duration we have to have a third pilot, but today it was just the two of us.


For the first three hours it was non-stop deviating around thunderstorms along the eastern slopes of the Rockies. There was plenty of turbulence to go with that also. But by the time we reached the Canadian border just south of Calgary it started to clear up and smooth out.

Just about then we started receiving the first of the phone calls from the flight attendants: "How much longer? Are we there yet? When will we be there?"
My standard answer is, "We're almost there...just a little bit longer."

After passing Calgary and turning slightly northwest, the scenery starts to get interesting. We crossed over the border from Alberta into British Columbia and started seeing some glaciers down below.

As we progressed, the glaciers became more prevalent. By the time we reached the Alaskan border, the glaciers were commonplace. They were everywhere.

On and on we went. You would expect the sun to be setting before long but at these northern latitudes in the summer, that just doesn't happen.

Off to our right in the Yukon Territory we could see Mt Logan. This is the highest point in Canada at 19,550 ft.


Finally Anchorage Center gave us our clearance to descend to the mid twenties. They kept us up pretty high until clearing the mountains east of the city and then out came the speedbrakes as we reported the runway in sight and were then cleared for a visual approach. A pretty steep descent ensued but I doubt that any of the passengers minded. They were probably ready to be there many hours ago. We landed and made the short taxi in and I noted that it was 10:30 PM in Texas. It didn't feel like it though with the sun still up and not about to set anytime soon.

To top it off, on the ride in to the hotel we saw a large moose just off the side of the road having some dinner. You don't see that in Dallas!

So that was it. Six and a half more hours in the logbook with some truly great memories of my first trip to the 49th state. I'll be headed back there again at least once more this summer. It should be a good time!




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Caracas Re-Visited

It's been a while since my last post. A multitude of issues have kept me busy of late.

Recurrent training came and went uneventfully and the summertime line flying is just as busy as ever.

It has been almost one year since I moved over to 767 / 757 international flying and the change has been well worth it. I should have done it sooner. The MD-80 is a worthy machine but I sure don't miss it.

A recent trip took me back to Caracas, Venezuela. As you may recall, the ATC service there is rather slow and the local workers have an affinity for sitting around and doing the minimum required of them. Sometimes they seem to do even less.

The inbound leg went without a hitch. Maybe it was because our arrival time was at 11:00 PM at night. After leaving Curacao's airspace we contacted Maiquetia Control and were promptly cleared directly to the outer marker for runway 10. A maximum gross weight landing with autobrakes and full reverse had us stopped with plenty of room leftover. A smooth trip through Customs and Immigration and off to the hotel
we went.

The smoothness continued the next morning. We sailed right through the three (yes three!) security checkpoints and arrived at our gate to find our inbound flight from Miami had arrived early.

No maintenance issues today so we were all set to launch for Miami.

Our call for clearance from ATC was almost immediately answered with "cleared as filed". That was amazing....what has happened here? Has Caracas ATC joined the rest of the world with their efficiency? Hope so.

Next up was to get all our passengers and their luggage on board, and the door shut for an on time departure. Would it be possible? Amazingly, yes. In fact we pushed back a few minutes early and we given a prompt clearance to taxi to runway 28.

Along the way we spotted a Cubana Ilyushin Il 62. We don't see these Russian planes very often. Very interesting! Click on the photo to get a larger view and you can see that this airliner has a tailwheel.


A takeoff from runway 28 and a turn to the north and we were on our way.

I could soon smell our crew meals cooking in the galley. Or was that the smell from the lavatory?



Not long after takeoff we passed over the Dutch island of Bonaire in the Lesser Antilles. Supposed to be some great diving there I hear.


Two hours later the gear was down with full flaps on final approach to runway 9 at Miami. An approaching thunderstorm was threatening but we made it just in time.

This visit to Caracas went quite well. No issues and no complaints. Let's hope it continues this way in the future.