I is for International Garbage

Yeah, thats pretty much all I can come up with for I...its a little bit of a stretch as all I could think of was " International ". Theres lots of Intl things going on out at the airport, but most people are aware of most of them. International Flights, International Customs, International Arrivals, yada yada yda.

But there is actually such a thing as International Garbage.

See, when a flight arrives, everything on that flight that isn't part of the aircraft ( and will be subsequently leaving ) needs to clear customs.

The passengers get cleared, the crew gets cleared, even the aircraft itself gets cleared. Sometimes the booze and duty-free items on board the aircraft are even sealed by customs as a sort of " bonded cargo " where they have entered the country, but someone has promised that they will not be sold or consumed while visiting and will in fact leave again.

But there is an interesting grey area with the trash. The trash will indeed be staying, so it needs to be cleared right? I mean, you are importing all manner of stuff, including fresh fruit and vegetables which are a big non-no in many countries. They could be infested with foreigner-bugs after all! Just try bringing an orange through customs sometime and see how seriously they take it.

But your orange is nice and clean.

And it's not covered with a babies diaper, a pile of coffee grounds and a used sick-sac. The orange in the garbage is, so customs, while taking it seriously, don't actually want anything to do with it. So, between them and the airlines, they invented a procedure for dealing with International Garbage that looked good on paper and would convince any lawyers reading through the procedures manuals that all was being done tickety-boo.

The procedure, as I understand it, is to paint some of your dumpsters a different colour.

Ok, there's more to it than that, but its all on paper..the reality of it is....some of the dumpsters are painted a different colour.

Thats it.

They'd have you believe much more was being done, but to be blunt, no.

Some operations don't even have access to this special colour of paint and the garbage gets thrown in a regular green one.

Anyways, thats the story there. If you ever get the chance to take one of those college or trade school Airport Management courses and they start in on the International Garbage, just sit in the back row and snicker, you know the truth.

Its kind of sad sometimes to see what gets thrown in the trash after some flights. I mean, stocking the galley on a large charter airliner has its challenges. I'd compare it to stocking an RV for a long road trip. At home, you have all kinds of extra's that you dont think about, like ketchup or salt and pepper or forks. To set up for a charter, you have to bring EVERYTHING. A lot of the larger airliners that charter out tend to sit awhile between trips as well, so you can't just leave the fridge stocked, it all has to go at the end of the trip.

Enter the Lineman, who will helpfully take away this stuff ( and avoid it becoming Intl Garbage ) and see that it gets recycled ( yum! ). Or, follow your Ops Manual which spells out how International Garbage must be segregated and disposed of properly. sigh.

I remember one Global Express that came into town one night for a maintenance stop. It was actually at the end of a series of trips that had it pretty much continuously on the move for its corporate owners, shuttling around execs for a little over three months. The thing had literally been around the world a few times over, in each direction. As a result, the galley had slowly been stocked to the hilt with all the little accoutrements of a good kitchen. Spices, sauces and salad dressings from around the world. They handed us about a half dozen packed boxes full of all kinds of interesting stuff. ( Which we of course threw in the appropriate coloured dumpster...not )


Oh, and not Aviation or Ramp related, but a true story. This happened to TLW and I last year and I stumbled on this email summarizing the event for our strata council.

I is for Intruder

To whom it may concern,

On the morning of July XXth, 2010 a person claiming to be a XXXXX resident entered our unit, without our permission and refused to leave until the police were called and they were removed from our suite.

My wife and I were sleeping at approximately 0700 and were both awakened by a loud banging outside our patio door. It sounded like someone had hit our patio balcony glass several times with their hand. I got up and saw out the window a person standing on the walkway outside our ground-floor unit, with their back to the glass, partially obscured by the stone wall.

I went out on the patio to find out the reason for the disturbance at this hour and saw that it was a man in his late 20's or early 30's holding a small boy, perhaps 4 or 5 years old. I also noticed another resident across the street walking his dog, and he had made a comment to the gentleman with the child that " people are still sleeping you know ", most likely in response to having seen him banging on the glass.

I asked the man what the problem was and he said " theres something going on, you have to call the cops, theres someone in my apartment, you have to call the cops ". He appeared quite agitated and scared, along with his child. My first impression was that he was under the influence of drugs as he appeared quite nervous, sweaty and unable to stand still. I told him I would call the cops and went back inside my suite to get the phone.

As I picked up the phone, my wife, watching out the patio door yelled " He's throwing his baby over the deck! He's coming in! "

The man entered our suite with his child, through our patio door and went into our dining area and crouched down on the floor with his child. He instructed me to lock the door and call the cops. I told him at this point to leave our suite and that I was already calling the cops. He said he needed to stay here and to keep the doors locked, and that he did not want to leave.

He also told me at that point, that he was a resident of building XX, suite # XX. I spoke with the 911 dispatcher and passed that information to them as well.

While we waited for the police to arrive, my wife called our neighbour, XXXX, a member of strata council, and asked that he come over to make sure this was in fact a resident as well as to have additional assistance.

XXXX arrived and confirmed the man as a resident of XXXX and waited with us until the police arrived, approximately 10 minutes after the inital call. The entire time the man remained in our dining area, crouched on the floor with his child. He made several phone calls on our phone, at least one of which was to his father or father-in-law. As he had put his father on speaker-phone when he dialed, I heard his father ask him " what kind of trouble have you got yourself into this time ? ".

The police arrived and I let them into the building by passing them our fob over the patio railing. As soon as they entered our suite they called the man by his first name " XX ". He seemed surprised that they knew who he was, but one of the police made a comment that " oh, we know who you are, XX ". He was put into handcuffs and removed from our suite.

At this time the police took my name and details, but on my asking them if they needed a statement from me, they declined.

We will be following up with the XXX Police Service to ensure that charges of unlawful entry, trespassing, mischief, and/or break and enter have been laid against this individual. If charges have not been laid, an official complaint will be lodged with the Police Ombudsman.

I strongly urge strata to look into the status of the occupant(s) of Suite XXX in building XX and if in fact this person is a rental tenant, that steps be taken to evict this tenant.

On listening further to the police discussing the situation with the father outside our window as he was taking custody of the child, we heard that this family has had extensive problems with drugs and alchohol. The police also noted on entering the suite, that there was broken glass and evidence of some kind of altercation.

Domestic Garbage, that one.

Oh, no charges were laid against him. On following up with the cops, I was told by the investigating officer that he is a known crack-head and that he was having a paranoid episode, and " thats just the way it is when they on crack. ".

I further followed up with the Watch Commander to file a complaint or push to get a little more than a shrug of the shoulders, but no dice. He echoed the same sentiment.

There was a little more to it as well, as the officers responding in our suite actually thought that the boy was ours. While they were cuffing this guy, instructed my wife to go around behind this douchebag and get the kid. In hindsight, putting my 8 month pregnant wife in between a man and his child while he is being handcuffed inside an apartment he forced his way into while high on crack probably wasn't in her best interest. Especially since the cop had at least three of his buddies standing behind him with their thumbs in their belts that could have / should have, done that particular task.


Anyways, sorry for the lack of pictures with this post and lately in general...I haven't brought my camera to work for a while and have regretted it more than a few times.

H is for Heavy Pad

At our FBO we have two parking areas for large aircraft. These are areas of the ramp where the surface is made of reinforced Concrete instead of asphalt. The concrete can support much heavier loads than the asphalt and is thus the place where we park the big jets.

We have a little procedure we use for parking them that we like to call " spinning " them.



I tried to type up a description, but failed. Instead, behold my outside limits of my artistic abilities.

The red line represents the path you want the aircraft to take as you marshal it into position.

So, first off, the aircaft has to be kept close to the side of the ramp as they taxi in. as most of our larger aircraft arrive at night, some crews will be a little nervous about taxiing this close to the edge of the pavement. Crews that have been here before recognize the awesomeness that is our marshalling crew and will usually take direction well. Others, just don't.

Secondly, the path once the aircraft is on the pad and you are getting ready to " spin " them, needs to take a small 45 degree turn to it's right. This can be difficult to convey with marshalling wands. Technically, there is marshalling-ology for this and the degree of turn is sometimes indicated by the arm you are using to show the direction of turn being at a 90 degree angle to your body ( normal turn ) a higher angle, towards the ground, of say 120 degrees ( sharper turn ) or pointing sharply downwards, say 160 degrees, representing a hard turn.

If you are facing the aircraft and want it to turn to it's right, you indicate the direction of turn with an outstretched Left arm and wave the Right arm from an outstretched position, towards your head.

I've also seen it where the speed of the moving arm represents the sharpness of the turn.

As both are kind of obscure and usually not in most of the " official " marshalling guides, the second method usually works best as an increase in the speed of your signal is a little more obvious in my opinion.



In any case, the little 45 degree turn allows the Main Landing Gear to move up the pad, so that when you finally make the larger turn, the wing will be centred over the pad, instead of hanging over the grass. This way, we can get ground vehicles past that side of the aircraft and we don't have under-wing slung engines running over grass and ingesting lawn clippings.

The problem is that most crews who are first-time to our ramp, once they realize we are taxiing them towards the edge of the ramp to facilitate turning them around 180 degrees or so, figure that once you start them turning, they should power up and crank it over, all the way over.



A large aircraft requires a good deal of momentum, power or sometimes both, to make a sharp turn like that. Considering they are coming in slowly ( scared of taxiing off the edge of the ramp, in the dark and uncertain of the marshallers ) once they realize our intent-to-spin, as soon as you indicate any turn, they will usually pour the coals to her and crank the nosewheel over.

It can be a challenge to get the gentle turn in first.

Technically the 45 degree turn is followed by another little straight-ahead segment as well. If they've already powered up and cranked it over, when you suddenly switch from a turning indication to a straight-ahead one, there can be some hesitation to comply. In probably 20% of the cases, they simply decide you are an idiot and continue the turn.

Thats on their first visit. We'll take the time to explain what we are doing and we usually get a little more trust the next visit.

It has to be hard for some of the flight crews though. I've seen some linecrew ( thankfully not at our FBO ) who I wouldn't trust to marshal a golf cart around a football field, let alone a 100 million dollar jet around a small ramp, in the dark, full of millionaire passengers.


H is also for Hold Entries

Not much in the way of hold entries on the ramp, but there sure are a lot in my simulator sessions at the flight school lately.

A hold is a way for Air Traffic Control ( ATC ) to park you in the sky. This might be for traffic spacing, a closed airport, runway or other problem. It can also be used by the pilot to park themself in the sky for a bit. Perhaps to change plans, figure out an aircraft issue or anything else where you'd rather stay in one place instead of blundering off in one direction and then have to turn around and come all way back depending on the new plan.

So, a hold is a maneuver that will ensure an aircraft will stay within a prescribed area assigned to it by ATC ( the Protected Airspace ). A hold is also defined by a navigation "fix". A fix being a spot that can be defined by the navigation instruments in the cockpit. Usually a radio-based navigation aid, but can also be a GPS coordinate.

Depending on the direction that you are approaching the fix, there are three different maneuvers that you are recommended to use when entering the hold.

For those people who know what a hold is, I won't make you scratch your eyes out listening to me explain hold entries.

For those that don't know what a hold is, I won't make you scratch your eyes out listening to me explain hold entries.

Suffice to say there is a little bit of mental math and a whole lot of visualization to do it properly.

G is for Gear Pins

So, I've been working hard at my Multi Engine / IFR Rating.

The Lovely Wife has been working hard at a Medical Terminology course thats a pre-requisite for another course that starts in April.

I've been working my day job, TLW has been a full-time mommy for some time now and we've both been juggling study breaks, personal time and of course, night-shift with The Wee One.

It has gotten to the point where we have an online calendar that we both consult before doing anything, replete with respective study periods, class or lesson times, personal time blocks, family commitments, my work schedule and of course, a small portion of the day where we are expected to sleep...

Hectic, to say the least.

Unfortunately, blogging has taken a back seat to pretty much everything else. The only reason I'm typing this, is I should be practicing hold entries on flight sim and planning a mock IFR cross-country flight and my brain has surrendered. It was either this or play some mindless flash game on facebook.

I just saw The Social Network and have decided I need to stop giving those losers my money and/or contributing to their page-load counts.

In any case, heres an update on the last month or so and some of our happenings, aviation and otherwise.

The Wee One

TWO has had a few milestones lately. They seem to come so fast. Everything she does is usually a first of some sort or other and physiologically speaking, big things are afoot.

She just hit six months and we are easing her into "solids". I use that term loosely, and frankly, so do her bowels. A little Rice Cereal mixed with a bit of mushed-up fruit. A new fruit every three days or so, so we can spot any allergies or other issues. So far, Bananas and Strawberries, all systems nominal.

For the last couple weeks she has made the leap from rolling over onto her tummy and back by herself, to getting up on her hands and knees and rocking back and forth in a threatening manner. The threat of course, is that we will go to the kitchen to prepare her mush and come back to find she has walked into the den and started blogging.

A couple little white pointy daggers have popped out of her gums. Two on the bottom and one up top. Came as a bit of a surprise as there was little fanfare or histrionics with their arrival. A little extra drool and some funny sleep patterns of late, but thats it.

Not that the teeth will assist in any way with her current eating routine of gumming the spoon and rubbing mush into her hair and hands.



Multi-IFR Training

Ack, where to begin. This one is by far the most cerebral part of my flight training so far. An innate set of "Good Hands and Feet" ( which I am not professing to have ) will not save me on this one. Lots to learn and memorize.

I'm currently training on a Seneca II. A Twin-engine, turbocharged, non-pressurized, 7-seat aeroplane.

Quite a nice plane actually and it seems to have power to spare compared with some trainers I had a chance to look at while shopping around. 200 Horsepower a side to be precise, and with the turbochargers, all of that is available, right up to 12,000 feet before she starts gasping for air.

Avionics are very nice as well. Seems the AI and/or DG packed it in a while back on this plane and in the research of the Re and Re, they discovered that installing a partial glass cockpit, in the form of an Aspen HSI system, was cheaper, or at least a relatively inexpensive way to upgrade.

The AI is(was) the Attitude Indicator, the little blue and brown ball shaped instrument that you would use to reference the horizon when it's not visible out the front window. The instrument has a gyroscope inside it, run(usually) by a vacuum system and is a key component in the Instrument-flying instrument set. The DG is the Directional Gyro. Similarly run by vacuum and a gyro, it gives you a compass direction on a stable platform.

That is, more stable than a little piece of paper mounted on a pin and floating in a glass jar full of kerosene and bouncing around in an aeroplane and trying to give you indications of magnetic directions while being packaged inside a metal aircraft and sitting on top of all the radio equipment, electrics and spinning gyro bits....

So anyway, the Aspen system is pretty sweet. It's a "partial glass cockpit" in that a couple of key analog and/or mechanical instruments have been replaced by a small computer display screen that gives you the same info, and more, from a solid-state system.

And wow, does it ever give you more.

In some ways, its frustrating, as I'm trying to learn Instrument flying procedures and regulations, handling a larger aircraft and its extra complement of systems, learning the flight test guide and preparing for the written, but then you throw in a modern GPS system and whole slew of extra little "oh, let me show you this, this is cool, watch what it will do " bits and I find my brain tuning out the nice-to-know stuff in sheer survival mode, for favor of the you-better-damn-well-know-this stuff.

The aircraft has had some mechanical issues of late, but luckily, we are forging ahead with the IFR part of the training, so on a day when I miss out on the Multi-Engine part of the course, due to weather or other issues, we can head over to the Simulator Shack where I can sweat it out for an hour trying to learn and practice some of the stuff I have been dutifully studying for months now.

At Six Bucks a minute in the real airplane( a beer a minute ), I'm more than happy to sit in the sim at a fraction of that and practice it till I've got it semi-down.


Day Job

Work out at the airfield has been busy lately. Mostly busy as we've lost some staff over the last year that haven't been replaced due to the economy. As our company US-Owned, they are feeling the pinch a lot more down there and it is having a trickle down effect onto management up here. As always, the monkey at the top of the tree looks down and sees the smiling faces of all the little worker-monkeys making their way up. The monkey at the bottom looks up and sees nothing but @$$holes.

The fuel distributor that we sell for, has also switched over to a new metering system in our trucks. Our old system was so old it was barely computerized. It had these giant " RAM Cards " that were the size and shape of eight-track cassettes and held the days pumping data on it for download at the end of the day.

I'm sure they held upwards of a kilobyte or two of data on each one. Heady stuff for 1972, not so much today...

Now we have a new system, and it's much maligned, as all new systems are. I could rant all day about it, but I'd probably get in trouble and frankly, you always end up coming across as some progress-reluctant Luddite when ranting about the perceived shortcomings in technological change.

I've done a little work with database systems and crude programming in the past though and even to my untrained eye, I can spot the work of a hack when I see it, that's all I'm going to say.

Job Hunt

Some exciting prospects here...



a company I interviewed with over the phone last year is looking like a good potential prospect for this year. I kept in touch with a couple updated resumes over the winter and I actually just got back from making the trip out to see them and introduce myself and get the tour of their operation. It wasn't technically an "interview", but it was close and I suspect something might materialize on this front. Would mean a move to another province and another adventure. Lots to consider and lots of stuff I shouldn't be talking about until things fall more into place....watch this space...

Aside from that, with the addition of the MIFR rating to my license, it will pretty much be " complete ". That is, there is little more I can add to my license in the way of training and ratings that will help me get a job. Now, all I need to get a job is some experience. But of course to get that, I will need to get a job.....funny how that works...




I saw they are looking for more ultralight instructors down at the grass strip where I worked last summer. I'd love to do it again, but frankly, with The Wee One, I really need to find a full-time flying job...trying to fly part-time, work full time and parent full-time, just doesn't add up. Either that or find a cure for sleeping.

Iphone

TLW and I recently traded in our circa 1986 "contractors model" cell phones for a pair of nifty little Iphones.

Wow.

Now I see what they mean when they say smartphones. These really are little PDA's, with very functional Internet browsing, email, GPS and all kinds of other functionality. Our little calendar I mentioned earlier is based on a google calendar, but is synced up to both our phones. If either of us makes and entry on the calendars on our phones, it automatically updates the main one online and the other phone as well.

Some of the Apps available for this thing are pretty sweet too. Lots of little games and novelty ones, but lots of really useful stuff as well.

Highly recommend.

( but of course, everyone else in the world knew this four years ago, and I'm just now catching up )

Road Trip






As part of my trip out to A Different Province, I got to briefly visit some places from my youth.



My old elementary school, complete with separate Boys and Girls entrances.



My old house.



The little alleyway off on the right is actually a steep little gravel road that receives No Winter Maintenance from the snow plow. But every year, some yahoo tries to do a hill-climb in their car or truck. Our kitchen window looked out onto this alley and I'd often get to see the offender come level to the window as I did the dishes and slow to a tire-spinning crawl right in front of me... Then I got to watch their cocky grins morph into white knuckle terror as they started, slowly at first but quickly gaining speed, sliding backwards down the hill.

I remember coming home from school one day and finding a giant car-shaped hole in our wall from where one of these losers had slid into it and then slunk away.

Luckily, the house is ( was?) owned and rented out by the city. Ownership being retained by the highways department in consideration of future expansion. At least that was the story twenty years ago when I lived there..


Random Pics;

Some shots of a very interesting visitor to the field recently, a British Military ( RAF ) Vickers VC-10.


This thing has Four engines, mounted two-a-side on the tail. Very unique design and a rare catch indeed for this neck of the woods.















I was poking around a 767 the other day and was looking at the nose gear and thought I'd comment on this.



On most large aircraft, and some smaller corporate jets as well, there is bit of linkage on the nose gear that connects the steering mechanism in the plane, be they cables, hydraulic assist cylinders or otherwise, to the nose wheel assembly. When you are towing some of these aircraft, you need to "disconnect" the steering mechanism otherwise you could damage parts of it when you turn the nose wheel manually with your tug or tow bar.

On some of the larger airliners, because the assemblies are far too heavy to be simply hooked together with a little pin, they have a "bypass" pin that you insert into the appropriate orifice and you have free rein to steer away.



As Linecrew, when towing an aircraft with disconnect-able gear, you had bloody well remember to disconnect before towing and reconnect afterwards. Like all things aviation, it ultimately falls to the pilot to ensure it is in place before he (tries to ) taxi away for take off. But, just because the ultimate liability rests with him, doesn't mean your fair share of vitriol isn't coming down the pipe if you fail to do your job....

Sweet, I've been struggling to come up with something for this posts " G is for..." item and I just stumbled on it!

G is for Gear Pins

A lot of larger aircraft will also have Gear Pins that need to be inserted before the aircraft can be moved around on the ground. The purpose of a Gear Pin is to stop the gear from retracting inadvertently while being towed. Usually its just a little pin say the thickness of a finger, that is inserted into the gear retraction assembly that would physically stop it from retracting.

As Linecrew, part of the service you can offer is to put the pins in place while the pilots are dealing with passengers or putting the aircraft to bed. Particularly where the main gear require a little bit of a stoop or kneel on the dirty ramp to put the pin in place. White pilot shirts and slacks generally do not stand up to this too well. As a good linecrew, you know where the pins are stored on the aircraft ( little cubbyhole on the stairs or in a cabinet inside ) and have them in even before the crew notices. Again, still their responsibility to ensure they're actually in...




I thought this was kind of neat too. On the nose gear, there is a panel for the ground crew to operate some functions on the aircraft, from outside. One of those functions is to shut off the APU ( Auxiliary Power Unit ), and on this one, you can actually discharge the fire extinguisher bottle into the APU if it catches fire. I've seen this on some Airbus aircraft as well, actually on the fuelers panel. Which is kind of handy as in a lot of cases when you are fueling an aircraft, the crew is upstairs with the APU running and you're the only one down stairs. If a fuel-related emergency were to occur, you might not be free to run upstairs and tell them to shut off the APU ( or to evacuate, for that matter ). Shutting it down on them though would certainly get their attention.

F is for Filming

Occasionally the FBO where I work is used as a movie set. This week it was some US television series I had never heard of, but based on the amount of equipment they brought, it is obviously a big deal.

My favourite piece of kit they bring is the catering truck.

The Lovely Wife introduced me years ago to the Catering Caper and I've enjoyed it ever since. The fact is most movie shoots are comprised of many different contractors, all brought together to do their little part of the big picture. One of these contractors is the Caterer. The Caterer is simply tasked with feeding everyone on set, ie all the different contractors, actors, etc. The beauty is, they have no idea who is who and if you are packing a walkie-talkie, a clipboard and/or a reflective vest and make your way to the food area, chances are, you're getting fed.

The food was good.

( PS - I think I blogged about this before, but can't remember and am too lazy to look. Sometimes I find I have done this and can't help but think I am gravitating towards being THAT guy.. the one who has run out of interesting stories and starts repeating himself.... )


F is for Fire

Not something you'll find airside..hopefully... but definitely something we have to prepare for and take measures against. We used to wear Fire Retardant uniforms but sometime last year they decided that wasn't necessary anymore. Not sure what the justification was or if it as a simple cost/risk analysis, but there it is. We take Fire Extinguisher training every year and have no less than three extinguishers on each truck, one in the cab and two big ones on the back of the truck as well. We've also got a big 200 Pounder on wheels in front of the building in case of an aircraft fire. It kind of looks funny as it has great big wagon-wheel style wheels on it..

Most of the staff is of a similar mindset when it comes to this bad boy. That is, if there is ever a fire big enough that it is needed, chances are, we will have long since run away anyhow. I suppose if there were people trapped in a plane or something, it would change things somewhat.

A few years ago, the Avgas truck at one of our competitors had a mechanical malfunction while it was idling on their ramp and ended up catching fire. The fire started in the cab and they tried to fight it with hand-held extinguishers while it was small enough, but eventually, they ran away as well.

I'm told it took over 30 minutes for the local ARFF trrucks to show up, which, frankly, I have a hard time believing. But I'm curious if they would have run away as well. I wouldn't go anywhere near a burning Avgas truck. No way, No how. Turns out, the truck burned to the ground, with the tank and its flammable contents intact.

Luckily, 99% of our fuel sales are Jet Fuel. Jet fuel is very similar to Diesel and is very difficult to ignite. Similar to gasoline, the fluid form of jet fuel is actually not "flammable". You can throw lit matches into a puddle of jet fuel all day and not worry about it. Both gasoline and jet fuel need to be in vapour form in order to be lit by an open flame. In a liquid form, there simply isn't a combustible mixture, lots of fuel, a source of heat, but not enough oxygen to make it work. The mixture is simply too "rich". Add some heat, say from hot tarmac or a hot engine part and the fuel will start evaporating, turning into a vapour and mixing with the air.

Now we're getting somewhere.

Now we have a mixture that WILL ignite with an open flame. Gasoline will evaporate and create flammable vapours at practically room temperature. Jet fuel, needs to be much, much hotter to create a mixture that will burn. The temperature at which a fuel will create flammable evaporative vapours is known as its flashpoint. A puddle of gasoline on a hot ramp, will have a layer of highly flammable vapours coming off it, that you can even see on a hot day. Jet fuel won't.

Further to Jet fuel being relatively stable, a very large percentage of our deliveries into-plane are done in a closed system. The single-point nozzles are designed to deliver fuel without exposing it to the air ( or the fueler ) and any opportunity for unintentional evaporation.


F is for Frustration

Started working on my Multi-IFR over two months ago and at this rate, 2013 is looking pretty good for completion. Unless it happens to rain next winter...at all. I can only dedicate my two weekend days to flying and my instructor has my other day off, monday, as his fixed day off as well. The plane was down for mechanical repairs for almost three weeks in December and my instructor has also taken a three week vacation over the holidays. I'm starting to think that the goal of getting the entire MIFR done on a part-time basis between now and April might not be realistic. I'm already starting to consider only finishing the multi portion and maybe looking for another seasonal job for the summer.

Between TLW's mat leave and renting out our place for the summer, we could probably swing a summer away if I could find something worth going for. Accommodations are probably going to be the single largest deciding factor though. I'd also have to get approval for another leave of absence from my current employer as we'd be back in the fall.

It would be a lot nicer to finish the MIFR and actually be able to move somewhere semi-permanently, even if it meant working on the ground for a little while longer.

So yeah, frustrating.


F is for Freighter, Foreign



This occurred a few months ago, but I don't think I ever got around to posting the pics or details. One of our local Helicopter outfits was shipping a couple of Super Puma helicopters over to Afghanistan, and they chartered an Antonov 124 freighter to come in and pick them up.



The helicopters were staged on our ramp for a couple days while they worked on getting them ready for shipping. Mostly this involved taking the blades off and crating them up, not sure what else they did as both birds looked pretty ready-to-go once they got their blades back.

We were tasked with baby-sitting the workers as they came and went from the disassembly area as most of them did not have airside access passes and needed to be escorted to and fro with Block Passes. The local airport authority sent out three little security cars as well to set up a little perimeter around the work are and make sure no one wandered off down the taxiway.

The security guys come out for the movie shoots as well, and essentially they take a chunk of airside ramp and turn it into a non-restricted area so that all the (well fed ) workers can come and go without too much trouble.

I also got called in for an extra shift on the weekend that the AN-124 came in to help tow the helicopters over to the other side of the field where the freighter would be parking and be there to help the crew if they needed our services.



Our ramp isn't quite big enough to handle an AN124, so we used the Air Canada ramp instead.

Day of, and the freight forwarder ( Panalpina ) sent out their Heli-Logistics guy to come and oversee the whole deal. I've done a few project jobs like this and it is usually fun. If everything is well organized and planned out in advance, the forwarder is just a third wheel, but the minute something goes wrong, guess who everyone turns to, looking for Plan B?

Me and the other guy who were going to do the tow decided we'd have one guy on the tug and another taking up lead in one of the vans. The vans have much better radios ( and you don't have to compete with the tugs engine to hear them ) and we had quite a few people who wanted to ride-along.

The other guy has done a lot more towing than me, and doesn't like talking to Ground Control, so he took the tug and I took lead in the Van. Most of the towing I do is with the Lektro, a special vehicle designed for towing aircraft by lifting the nosewheel off the ground. Frankly, its kind of cheating it's so easy. You can still get in trouble if you don't know what you're doing, but the fact that you steer through the aircrafts nosewheel instead of through a pintle hook and two points of attachment a la a tow bar, makes it laughably easier than towing with a tow bar. As these helicopters have a very low front end, we can't "scoop" them with the Lektro, so its tow-bar time..luckily not for me.

My usual towing jobs involve vey short distances on the field, mostly one or two taxiways at most and rarely across any active runways. This time I made sure I had a pen and paper ready for my taxi clearance from ground.

Helicopter Tow plus one, cleared Alpha, Foxtrot, Charlie, Hold short runway 26 left.

Cross runay 26 Left, Delta-five, Delta to the ramp.

We got the helicopters in place and waited for the Antonov, wasn't hard to miss it on approach, the black smear of exhaust behind it was pretty obvious.



As it taxied in, we all noticed that the ground handling company that had been arranged was not there... They were supposed to be there with marshallers and a ground power unit. Just as I took the spare wands out of the van and prepared to marshal him in myself, one guy in a pickup showed up. The arrival schedule had changed at least three times over the past week and I guess no one had notified them. I was kind of disappointed as it would have been my first time marshalling one of these, but glad at the same time as it was pretty tight.

Not mine, but seasonally appropriate.

Merry Christmas everyone!



Twas the night before Christmas, and out on the ramp,
Not an airplane was stirring, not even a Champ.

The aircraft were fastened to tiedowns with care,
In hopes that come morning, they all would be there.

The fuel trucks were nestled, all snug in their spots,
With gusts from two-forty at 39 knots.

I slumped at the fuel desk, now finally caught up,
And settled down comfortably, resting my butt.

When the radio lit up with noise and with chatter,
I turned up the scanner to see what was the matter.

A voice clearly heard over static and snow,
Called for clearance to land at the airport below.

He barked his transmission so lively and quick,
I'd have sworn that the call sign he used was "St. Nick".

I ran to the panel to turn up the lights,
The better to welcome this magical flight.

He called his position, no room for denial,
"St. Nicholas One, turnin' left onto final."

And what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a Rutan-built sleigh, with eight Rotax Reindeer!

With vectors to final, down the glideslope he came,
As he passed all fixes, he called them by name:

"Now Ringo! Now Tolga! Now Trini and Bacun!
On Comet! On Cupid!" What pills was he takin'?

While controllers were sittin', and scratchin' their head,
They phoned to my office, and I heard it with dread,
The message they left was both urgent and dour:

"When Santa pulls in, have him please call the tower."

He landed like silk, with the sled runners sparking,
Then I heard "Left at Charlie," and "Taxi to parking."

He slowed to a taxi, turned off of three-oh
And stopped on the ramp with a "Ho, ho-ho-ho..."

He stepped out of the sleigh, but before he could talk,
I ran out to meet him with my best set of chocks.

His red helmet and goggles were covered with frost
And his beard was all blackened from Reindeer exhaust.

His breath smelled like peppermint, gone slightly stale,
And he puffed on a pipe, but he didn't inhale.

His cheeks were all rosy and jiggled like jelly,
His boots were as black as a cropduster's belly.

He was chubby and plump, in his suit of bright red,
And he asked me to "fill it, with hundred low-lead."

He came dashing in from the snow-covered pump,
I knew he was anxious for drainin' the sump.

I spoke not a word, but went straight to my work,
And I filled up the sleigh, but I spilled like a jerk.

He came out of the restroom, and sighed in relief,
Then he picked up a phone for a Flight Service brief.

And I thought as he silently scribed in his log,
These reindeer could land in an eighth-mile fog.

He completed his pre-flight, from the front to the rear,
Then he put on his headset, and I heard him yell, "Clear!"

And laying a finger on his push-to-talk,
He called up the tower for clearance and squawk.

"Take taxiway Charlie, the southbound direction,
Turn right three-two-zero at pilot's discretion"

He sped down the runway, the best of the best,
"Your traffic's a Grumman, inbound from the west."

Then I heard him proclaim, as he climbed through the night,

"Merry Christmas to all! I have traffic in sight."

E is for Emergency

E is for Emergency(ies)

And we do get the odd one from time to time out here. Most of the time they are a non-event. A cockpit indication that may or may not mean something is or isn't going to do what you want it to do when you need it to do what it is supposed to do when you ask it to do it.

We have a prettty clear view over to the fire hall on the other side of the field, so when they roll the crash trucks, all the flashing lights usually catches someones eye. The call on the radio on our end is usually that " someones getting a parade ". I like to grab one of the handheld Icom radios and tune into Tower frequency and listen in. The ARFF ( Aircraft Rescue Fire Fighting ) trucks will usually position themselves at the arrival, mid-point and departure end of the runway where the parade-recipient is landing and once they are down they will go onto the runway and follow the aircraft.

If it's a real emergency, the aircraft usually stops on the runway. If its an emergency of the faulty-instrument-bulb variety, then they will follow the plane to the gate and then go back to the firehall.

When it's the real deal, the fire trucks will relay to tower a discrete frequency for the aircraft to speak with them directly on, so they can coordinate shutting down engines, putting out brake fires, evacuating or de-planing passengers and what not.



In this particular case, it was a rejected take-off caused by birds being ingested into one of the engines causing the engine to fail quite spectacularly. There was a loud series of bangs and a couple big puffs of smoke. Then they sent out FodZilla, our airport's resident street sweeper truck, to clean up the mess on the runway. If you look closely, you can see the big FodZilla sticker on the side of the truck.

FYI - FOD is an abbreviation for either Foreign Object Debris or Foreign Object Damage, depending on whether you found the offending Foreign Object before or after it hit or was ingested by an aircraft.


E is for Eating

A favorite pastime of mine...and something I routinely get to do in the airport environment. We tend to get a fair bit of left-over catering off arriving aircraft. Especially the larger aircraft that transport sports teams. If there are 40 people on board, there are 40 Chicken and 40 Fish meals, along with snacks, drinks, desserts. If you are chartering a transport category aircraft for only 40 people, the catering bill is the least of your concern. The crew already tucked one away in their luggage for the hotel room and since you helped them get their gear out of the cargo area, tidy up the cabin and run them to the hotel, you'll usually get a stack of the meals, a tray or two of cheese, meats, desserts and whatever else they have for your troubles.

One of my neighbours just completed his flight-attendant training and they happened to do the on-aircraft portion of their class at our FBO. I ran into him a few times and took the opportunity to " train " him myself on the important aspects of line-crew / flightcrew relations and upkeep thereof. Give the food the the lineguys before the catering trucks show up and pitch it all in the garbage and you'll never carry your bags down the air-stairs yourself again.


E is for Engine Start

When we're marshalling out an aircraft, one of the more important things we're doing is helping to make sure engine start is done safely. The part most people see is all the arm-waving when the planes are moving to or fro their parking spot, but for the most part, the pilots know where they are going. The marshaller is really just there to watch out behind the plane, where the pilot can't see and assist in tight quarters to make sure they don't run into anything. I've talked to some guys who are quite convinced they are running the show when they get a hold of a couple lighted wands, but I know better. We are an added layer of safety, like chocks on an air-brake equipped truck.

Once the passengers and crew are aboard, the marshaller takes up position in front of the nose of the aircraft, in eye contact with the captain, who sits(usually) in the left seat. When they work their way through the checklist to the part where they want to light up an engine ,they will hold up one finger or two, depending on which engine they want to start. The marshaller will signal in return by pointing to the concerned engine with the wand and waving the other wand vertically, over his head in a circular motion.

Engines are numbered 1 through whatever, usually just 2, but in theory, as many as 8, starting from the captains left, or the aircrafts left wing.



The marshallers main job during engine start is to make sure there is no one passing behind the aircraft and that the general area is clear. if it isn't safe to do so, the marshaller will hold the wands up, crossed in an X, indicating to hold off on starting. Unfortunately, this whole dance is so routine, that it can be hard to get the pilot to stop. They are expecting you to indicate all-clear, you have the last 100 times. More than once I've requested a stop, had eye contact with the pilot while indicating not-clear, and have them carry on and start up anyways.

The other function during engine start is fire-watch. A lot of fuel is moved around during start and not all of it gets burned. Some aircraft actually leave a little puddle of unburned fuel on startup or shutdown. The marshaller needs to be ready to signal the pilot in case there is any type of fire. Its one marshalling signal that a lot of marshallers don't actually know as they probably learned it once and then never used it again.... I suspect if you used the proper signal they wouldn't know what the hell you were trying to say. The look on your face though would probably give it away. I think I would resort to basic (frantic) hand gestures if I got any sort of confused look from a pilot if I ever had to use that particular marshalling signal.







Someone just mentioned to me the other day that the mechanics that were on trial for the crash of the concorde in Paris were found guilty of manslaughter recently.

Basically, an American Airlines aircraft that departed before Concorde, left a part of some kind of the runway. That part, once run over by Concorde, proceeded to be deflected upwards at highspeed, puncturing the wing and fuel tank just before take off. Leading to a large in-flight fire, crash and the death of all aboard and the end of the Concorde altogether.

I would like to think of France as being a civilized country and I sincerely hope that if there was negligence on the part of the mechanics, that it was gross negligence in order to find them guilty. I'd hate to think there was simply pressure to scapegoat someone. Particularly given the clientele that usually rode around on Concorde. The cynic in me wonders of those particular passengers and surviving families might have a bit more sway than usual... I'm all for being accountable, especially when your job demands it by its nature, but it seems easy to take it too far sometimes.

D is for Diesel

This is a little out of order, as this happened a few months ago, but I just found the pictures, so bear with me.

Over the summer, I went for a fun little flight with a friend of mine from work, Bruce. Bruce recently went to one of the local flight schools to renew his Private Pilots License and in the process, got himself checked out in the schools shiny new Diesel Powered 172.



Most 172's run on AvGas ( 100 Octane, Low Lead - 100LL or AvGas ), but this one has a diesel engine in it and it actually runs on Jet-A, Jet fuel. Jet Fuel and diesel and very similar, in fact I think the only difference is diesel has some added lubricants in the fuel, where Jet-A is quite a bit "drier". You can run Jet fuel in a diesel powered vehicle ( don't get me started, but you can run almost anything in a diesel!! ) but its not recommended for repeated or prolonged use. I suspect diesel fuel will run just fine in a jet engine as well, except for the small problem of it voiding manufacturers warranties and requiring six-figure engine rebuilds to satisfy re-certification....details...



It is also a very new airplane, and has what is known as a FADEC system. I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but I think its Full Authority Digital Engine Control. Essentially, its fuel injected and a computer runs not only the engine and fuel mixtures, but also the propeller RPM to coordinate different power settings as well. I think it does a few other wizard-y things as well.



One of the neat little tricks it does is a push-button run-up. Get yourself set up in the run-up bay and hold down the run-up button and it goes through all the checks on the engine and gauges for you, giving you a green light when its done. cool.

Except that it does the run-up at full power....yikes.

It has a constant speed prop, but with the FADEC system, you'd never know it. You simply set percentage of power required on the throttle and the wizards match engine and prop power output for you.

We took off out of Boundary Bay and flew up the coast to Powell River, an airport Bruce hadn't been to before, but I had been into a couple of times.



A fun trip and a chance to fly with someone I hadn't flown with before. ( I reciprocated a few weeks later and posted the details of a trip to Qualicum in one of the ultralights, in case he looks familiar ).




We didn't do much at Powell River, mostly hung around the airport watching this guy do long-line practice with a helicopter.



It was kind of funny actually, he called up on the radio after we announced our arrival intentions about 10 minutes out, but neither of us caught that he was a helicopter. Once we got into the circuit, he checked in again and said he'd be " over the threshold of XX runway ", which confused us..till we spotted him and it all became clear.



On the way back, we came across a new Diamond TwinStar in flight and they asked us over the radio if we had a camera on board. I replied that we did, and we proceeded to take a few nice air-to-air shots of it for them.



This is the same Twinstar I later took a look at for doing my MIFR in. Shiny.



A local Hostel and Machine shop in Gibsons also had burned down the previous day, got a picture as we flew over, but it didn't really turn out.



D is also for DI's

A DI is a Daily Inspection. Done on all our Fuel Trucks by the Day Shift folks. I used to work Day Shift and used to do the DI's as well. When you get your commercial drivers license, one of the big things that you have to do and show an examiner that you can do, is a pre-trip inspection. A DI is essentially just a pre-trip, but since our trucks are in continuous use all day, we basically just do one big "pre-trip" at the beginning of the day. I remember in the driving test they give you a set amount of time, twenty minutes I think, and they warn you five minutes before time runs out. Not that all the requisite items aren't being checked, but the Test pre-trip and a real-life pre-trip are two very different animals. On the test, you're under the truck with the coveralls on and inspecting frame rails for cracking. In real life, its a flashlight on bended knee.


D is for D

My Airport pass is a "D" pass, it allows me into the airside restricted area, and it also allows me to operate a vehicle on an active taxiway, runway or apron. It requires a security check, a radio operators license and a driving test with the airport authority. Another type of pass is a D/A, which allows vehicle operation airside, but only on the ramps and vehicle corridors and service roads, no driving anywhere that requires a clearance.


D is for Ducks

We've got a lot of them at our airport. A major river delta along a migratory path, go figure. The airport authority has a few guys in trucks whose job it is to drive around all day and scare of the ducks, geese, hawks, eagles and other wildlife. They've got all sorts of noisemakers, sirens, firecrackers and lights to keep the birds away from the runways. I had one pop by the FBO one night when I was working graveyards and he showed me all the gear they give him.

There was a pistol in the console of the truck and a shotgun in a rack as well. I thought they used them to fire off the firecrackers, but they were the real deal and he said they do use them. Particularly if the bird is nesting airside, they tend to get the short straw as there is little reasonable way to keep them from coming back I guess.


D is also for Dirty Diapers.

Not many of them on the ramp, but I've got a few!!!