I just got back from two days of flying that ended up not being too bad at all. Day one I did a quick trip to Manila and back and then yesterday I did a trip to Taipei and back. The Taipei trip was a split-duty, where we fly up there in the morning and then come back 7 hours later. In that case, the company gets us a hotel room for the day and some per diem. This view is out my window from the the hotel, which is quite far from downtown, and not in the best of neighborhoods.

I don’t want to sound like a complainer, but these trips are hard and stressful for me. I know that two trips in two days doesn’t sound bad, especially when each leg is only about 90 minutes each. In the real world, where I was finished with training, these flights would be no big deal, and fun to do because they are so quick and easy. Unfortunately, I’m not in the real world yet, and still in training. That means that even though things sound quick and easy, they really are hard. It takes me several hours to prepare for the day’s flying, and the entire trip is filled with learning (stressors).

One of these days, I’ll be able to jump into the cockpit and say, “Lets go!” but for now, everything is slow and methodical and at a pace that screams “I’m new at this.” It will take some time to get used to the Cathay system, and how everything runs. It’s going to take time to gain the necessary experience to fly this 747 like they want it flown, and it will take even more time to get comfortable in the first officer’s seat. But, that all comes with time and I look forward to those days.

It’s tricky for me now, because there are so many more things to think about than when I flew the 50 seat regional jet at my last job. Also, Cathay is big on procedures I’ve never done before. For example, flying in the USA, air traffic controllers (ATC) issue descent clearances and then expect you to get down to that assigned altitude quickly. But over in Asia, there is a lot more leeway and if we don’t want to descend too quickly, we don’t have to. So, that being said, Cathay likes for our approaches to contain no level segments, from initial descent to touchdown. Anytime the airplane levels, it burns more fuel, is not as efficient, and is less comfortable for the passengers. If we fly on a constant descent path, then everything is smoother for our passengers and we burn less gas by not powering up the engines to initiate a level off.

Well, as one can imagine, no level segments means lots of planning ahead, lots of mental math, lots of small updated changes to the profile, and lots of stress for us new joiners! In my past life, if ATC said for us to descend from 5,000 feet to 3,000 feet, then no big deal, we dial in a 1,500 foot per minute descent rate, and forget about it. If we level at 3, then fine, if ATC gives us lower before we get to 3, then we continue to go lower. No biggie. But now, at Cathay, we don’t want to level at 3,000, especially if we are expecting a further descent clearance in the next few seconds. So, if we are getting close to level off, we need to select something like a 300 foot per minute descent rate, to help prevent a level off. This sounds somewhat easy in these simplified terms, but add in vectors for an approach, transitioning from VNAV to V/S or FLCH, track shortening, headings, and then joining the glideslope on profile, and things get a wee bit more difficult. As I learn to fly this big beast, I’d say this is one of the most difficult things about flying at Cathay. It will certainly take some getting used to.

I continue to have pretty smooth landings, sometimes by luck and sometimes by getting the hang of things. However, my most recent landing, back here into Hong Kong, was, shall we say, firm. Firm was the word used in my training captain’s report on my flying that day. You can’t win them all, right? The 747 flies like a dream and is truly a pilot’s airplane. I don’t have many hours on it yet and I can already tell that is true.

Landing is much different than what I was used to as well. At 50 feet up, the airplane starts making callouts: “50, 40, 30, 20, 10.” Those are the feet above the runway that the main gear are as we come in to land. At 50, I do nothing. At 40, I start to have a think about my flare: the act of pitching up slightly to start arresting our descent rate. At 30, I start to pull back on the yoke to make a small pitch change of only 2 degrees or so. At 20, I start to pull the power off to idle, so as to be at idle by 10. And then, it’s just hold everything steady until the main gear touches down. Easy, right? Yeah . . .

After a stressful flight with lots of questions from the training captain, lots of descent profile calculations, fighting wind gusts and bringing that big, lumbering baby down to the runway, it sure feels good to get a greaser landing. It’s a reward for all the hard work put in for the last few hours. To describe it another way, we arm the speedbrakes to auto deploy on touchdown (speedbrakes being the panels that rise up on the top of the wing to spoil lift upon main gear touchdown). When they are armed and the main gear touch down, the speedbrake lever/handle swings back about 8 inches to physically raise the speedbrake panels. It makes a geared sound like an ungreased door hinge opening — reeeh. That sound means you are on the ground. As I fight to make it a smooth touchdown, and I hear the “reeeh” sound, but don’t feel any bang or bump, that means success: a perfect transition from flying to rolling down the runway. It’s not always like that, but that is the goal. I want my passengers to ask, “Are we on the ground yet?”

“50 . . . 40 . . . 30 . . . 20 . . . 10 . . . reeeeh” Perfect.



After my two days of flying to both Singapore and Taiwan, I headed out on a four day trip that included stops in Bangkok, Mumbai (Bombay), Dubai, and then back to Mumbai and then finally back to Hong Kong. I flew with a different captain on this trip, Dave Coote. He was really great, knowledgeable, and helpful. We had a good time together, and he was very patient through all my mistakes.

He calls this trip the pit run. Bangkok-Mumbai-Dubai is the pit run because we fly from the cesspit to the fleapit to the sandpit. Funny stuff. More photos from this trip can be seen by clicking on the photo at the top of this blog entry. It’s actually a photo from Dubai and will be the tallest building in the world upon completion.

Day one on this trip was easy because it was just a two hour flight from Hong Kong to Bangkok. I flew this leg and things went well, however, my landing in Bangkok was okay, but not anything to get all excited about. I flew it technically well but I still need work on my finesse. What am I talking about? No one cares about my landings anyway! The hotel was quite nice in BKK and there are two wings to it. The lobby is very nice and the captain stayed in the new wing, while I stayed in the other wing, which hasn’t been remodeled yet. Hmmm. Seniority rules, I just wish we could have both stayed in the nice wing. My sink didn’t drain and the A/C only kept the room around 78, so I tossed and sweated all night long. Bummer.

Dave knew of a great Thai restaurant just a short cab ride from the hotel, so we got some great food for not much money, 540 baht. That was for both of us, with two entrées and he had two beers. 540 baht is 10 dollars and twenty cents! The restaurant was great with live music from a piano and string bass duo. I actually thought it was CD music until I saw them as we left. It was good to eat with Dave because it gave us a chance to get to know each other and he could learn that I’m really a nice guy, and not some jerk.

The next day was going to be a lot longer because we left for Mumbai about 5:30 P.M. which was 6:30 P.M. for us. We got into Mumbai about three hours later. Dave flew that leg because the approach into there can be very difficult, and he hadn’t flown into there for a couple years. Then it was off to Dubai. I flew that leg and I landed (at night) very well. I was so excited about my landing that I started to turn off the runway on the wrong side. The terminal, big as life, is on the right side of the runway, and the old, dark, cargo terminal is on the left, and I start to peel off left. The control tower guy was really nice and as Dave helped me correct back to right side turnoff, said, “Uh, yeah Cathay, that’s a right turn into the terminal. Have a good night.” It’s funny what the brain will do (or not do) when it gets loaded up or overloaded.

This was 10:00 P.M. local time, which was 2:00 A.M. for us. Finally arriving at the Shanghri La hotel at three in the morning for us, it was definitely time for bed. I got to my room as was blown away at how nice it was. This has to be the nicest hotel I’ve ever stayed in. A Hollywood movie even had a scene filmed here, where the main character stayed at this hotel. I awoke about six hours later and headed down for some breakfast. There was a great breakfast buffet, where I tried Hummus, olives in oil, eggs, turkey bacon (no pigs around the Muslim world, remember?) and freshly squeezed OJ. The orange juice came out of a machine that was filled with peeled oranges, and as more OJ was needed, a crank would turn and squeeze it right there, to be seen through the clear plastic machine.

Afterward, I headed out with my trusty D40 and walked about an hour from the hotel, down the main drag in Dubai. Next time I go there (in November) I’ll need to remember to bring sunscreen because I burned my neck under the hot October rays of the desert. There were some Middle Eastern men in suites and others in the full traditional dress. I had never been to any city in the Middle East, or any Arab state before, so it was a little different to see people dressed up in the head scarfs and all in person and not just on T.V.
Dubai was really great. It’s growing so fast that I quit counting all the new building construction sites. Most of my photos of Dubai were taken in the vertical profile to capture all the tall buildings and that really sums up Dubai. Vertical. It’s growing up and up and up out of the desert, and the progress there is amazing. I didn’t get to see the indoor ski slopes, but I want to some day. At least I now know where part of my gas money is going — to build an amazing city in the U.A.E. I’m also really proud of Dubai because they have proven that Arabs can easily and cohesively work with westerners for the enrichment of both societies. We need their oil to fuel our economy and they need our dollars to build their city. They show that it is certainly possible to be peaceful with the west, and in the end, that is more profitable and stable for both sides.

By contrast, just look at the rotting stink-holes of countries that hate America and shun the west in general. In the 50’s through the 70’s, Iran was friendly to the U.S. and was a beautiful city where western tourism flourished. Now look at Iran: It’s a cesspool in the desert with no tourism and a place where a few wealthy and religious zealots keep the people oppressed. But not Dubai! Wisely, they’ve figured out that in the end, we are all just people who want to make a buck and have a secure future for our kids, be they Muslim, Christian, or whatever. For this, I’m proud of Dubai for their pro-western stance. I also felt very safe there and enjoyed my visit. I also saw enough Starbucks to almost walk from one to the next one without ever going outside into the heat.

I wanted to get some sleep that afternoon because we would be flying all night that night, but unfortunately, I couldn’t sleep. It was daytime for me and getting to sleep just wasn’t going to work. We had to leave for the airport at 10:45 P.M. local time (2:45 A.M. body-clock time for us) and that was brutal. With no sleep and looking at an 11 hour duty period ahead of us, I was nervous I wasn’t going to make it and stay sane.

We headed to Mumbai and then back to Hong Kong, where we left Dubai at 3:45 A.M. for us, and would arrive in Hong Kong at three in the afternoon. Fun times! I took the first leg back to Mumbai and it wasn’t too bad. I was tired but it was manageable. I was really proud of how I flew into Mumbai, because we came in on the same approach that Dave had flown into the day before, the one that is somewhat tricky. It’s tricky because the approach slope is steeper than most approaches, the runway is narrow, so it gives the appearance of us being higher than we actually are, we couldn’t roll to the end of the runway because there was no way to exit that end (we would have to make a turn off exit prior to the end). The runway was short, and we had a tailwind on approach, which makes things even harder as it speeds things up quite a bit. Finally, there was high terrain around the approach end of the runway. All this is going through my head as I come in to land. So what’s going to happen?

The truth is, I got lucky. The landing was just about perfect. Right where it should have been and we just rolled onto the runway. I didn’t even know that we had touched down except for the speedbrakes auto deploying when the main wheels touched down, and that makes a noise. Wow! Dave said, “Well done, well done.” Even if luck had a role to play there, it sure made me feel good to get a good one, on an approach where it really counted.

Finally, Dave took us back into Hong Kong, and that leg was the hardest of them all because we were so tired. That sector was five hours long and I had been up for around 30 hours now. We did an autoland back into Hong Kong because it needed to be demonstrated to me for my training, as as tired as we were, it sure made sense. What’s funny about the Boeing 747 autopilot, is that its autoland system will put any pilot to shame — that dude is right on the money and smooth as glass, every time. I guess when the plane costs that much, you expect it to be good. We use autoland when visibilities are too low for us to see for a normal landing. We can actually autoland without ever seeing the runway when things are really foggy. Amazing. It’s good to see an autoland done while the visibility is good so that we can gain confidence in the autopilot system.

Back in Hong Kong, Dave and I debriefed and went our separate ways. He lives in Australia but has a boat he lives on here in Hong Kong while he is in town. For me, being so tired, I was actually excited to get back to the hotel I was familiar with. It was a long trip, but I learned a lot and am looking forward to my next trip. Things will only get tougher from here, as I am off the basic phase of training and am now moving on the advanced phase, but I’ve got to keep moving up the training ladder if I ever want to be finished with all of this. All in all, it was an amazing trip and I will get to do it again twice more in November if my schedule doesn’t change. We’ll see if I can once again get lucky in Mumbai.

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This is a picture of a busy street in Taipei, just down from our hotel. It can be clicked on for more photos of my time in Taiwan. My first flight was down to Singapore and back, then the next day, I flew up to Taiwan and back. We only had a few short moments in Singapore, and when I stepped outside to take a few photos of the plane, my lens fogged up, and that was it — no photos. The next day, we had a seven hour layover in Taipei before we headed back to Hong Kong, so the company got us a hotel room. I used my time at the hotel to go exploring.

Just as an aside note, my little bit of extra money that I spent on my Nikon D40, instead of a cheap, worthless point and shoot has become worth it with the memories I’m able to capture. Sure, a little fancier camera will cost a bit more, but that money is paid back ten fold by being able to record memories that will then last a lifetime. Point and shoots just don’t have the capabilities to shoot in low light or have a large zoom range, that can make the difference in getting the shot or not. I want the shot. I want to remember the adventures I’ve embarked on, and so I’m glad I have my D40. If you are going on a trip where memories will be made, do yourself a favor and buy something that will actually do a good job recording the memories!

So, my first flight was to do a roundtrip from Hong Kong to Singapore. I was very nervous about what to expect and didn’t have any idea what that day would be like. Cathay puts a safety pilot in the cockpit with trainee copilots (me) for the first eight sectors (flights), just in case there is trouble on landings or whatever. My safety pilot was named Claudio and was really nice. The captain was even nicer, Martin Laver. He called me the night before and talked about what to expect. He chuckled and said to relax, don’t do any more studying and don’t worry about anything. He said that the first few flights are just to get oriented, so put the books away and enjoy yourself. Then he said, “So tonight, relax. If you drink, go for a drink. If you don’t drink, don’t start.” We both laughed out loud on that one.

The next morning, we passed through Cathay’s own security station in operations and got on a bus that took us directly to the plane we were to take to Singapore and back. Martin flew the first leg and I was the PM (Pilot monitoring), who works the radios, does the paperwork, and assists the PF (Pilot flying). As we pushed back from the gate and taxied out, it was surreal. I just couldn’t get my mind around the fact that we were a 747 with nearly 200 passengers (not nearly full) and were going to make a voyage to Singapore.

Once over the South China Sea, we passed off the coast of Danang, Vietnam and I told the crew that my dad had spent some time there in the late sixties. They knew that meant the Vietnam War. It was a smooth and uneventful flight and Martin and I discussed some training topics as we passed the time.

Working the radios was a different story. As an American and used to talking on the radio to American air traffic control, this was my first indoctrination of what foreign accents and poor radios sound like. Many poor countries in South Asia are run by military dictatorships, who take all the country’s money and put it into worthless things, like militaries and weapons, which leaves very little for radar and air traffic control services that are used by the airlines passing through that country’s airspace. Combine poor English, with poor radar coverage, with a radio that probably costs less than a new MacBook from Apple, with me, who is new to all of this, and you get a very confused pilot. Martin helped me out a few times and I was glad he was there because sometimes I had no clue what had just been said. Sometimes, I think the Cathay pilots just know what to expect as far as clearances on the radio, and that helps them “hear” the clearance.

When we landed at Singapore’s Changi airport, we had a short taxi to the gate. As the passengers deplaned, we worked on all the after flight routines and took care of paperwork. It was then that I could catch my breath and take it all in. I realized that I was farther from home than I’d ever been before since I left for Hong Kong. Currently, the longest flight in the world is operated by Singapore Airlines, with their amazing A340-500 that runs direct to New York. It’s in the neighborhood of 9,500 miles away. The second longest flight currently is also out of Singapore — to LAX. It skips just to the other side of the north pole that the JFK flight takes. JFK to Hong Kong is fifth longest and shorter than SIN-JFK because Hong Kong is farther north than Singapore. As all these flights head up over the north pole in what is called a great circle route, the farther south the departure airport is, the longer the flight will be.

I didn’t have much time to miss the family because then it was time to get going again. It was now my turn to fly, and that means that I also taxi the aircraft out for takeoff, too. Driving that beast around is amazing. We sit over 30 feet in the air, so the biggest issue is judging the taxi speed and making accurate turns around the corners. The taxi and takeoff were uneventful and once up at cruise, Martin and I once again discussed operational issues. Coming back into Hong Kong would be my first landing at night, and as I suspected, that proved to be a little bit of trouble. The landing was, shall we say, firm.

There are large stripes on the runway that serve as aiming points for touchdown, and the perfect touchdown would have the wheels touch down right on them. As we came in for landing, I was aiming for them, but because I am now in such a large plane, the out-the-window picture is so much different than what I am used to from my previous experience, I miss judged it a bit. The landing gear are 100 feet behind the cockpit, and because the airplane approaches the landing with about 3 degrees nose up, the landing gear are much lower than the front of the plane. As I was looking at the aiming points, we hit hard, with those blasted aim points still in front of us out the window — whoops! It wasn’t terrible, but much worse than I had done in my base training. Oh well, there’s always next time, right?

Martin and Claudio had a good chuckle about it, but it was no big deal. I taxied in and parked us on the gate. That is also a fun part of the flight. The airplanes are guided in with a radio wave guidance system. It detects the type of plane we are as we turn into the gate area and will show on a large screen: 747. We have to verify that it does indeed read the right plane, or it will give us incorrect guidance to park at the gate. It then shows us a visual representation of how to pull in straight to the gate. There is a vertical line that represents the yellow line we are taxing on up to the jetway. Below the vertical line is an arrow pointing up. When the arrow is directly below the vertical line, we are right on track. When the arrow slides to the right of the vertical line, we are off to the right and have to make a small correction to the left. The whole system is very accurate, and it can be a little frustrating when you move just a few inches off and it starts telling you to turn the other way. Finally, it reads off how many meters are left until we need to stop, and below 3 meters, it counts down in tenths of meters, until a large STOP is shown. Following that guidance correctly puts us right on the yellow line and the mark where we need to stop.

Once parked, we did all our after flight duties and debriefed the flight and we talked about how we thought it went. Overall, he said I did a good job, and I was just glad to try and keep up with him. Sometimes I felt like I was so far behind, that if we crashed, I wouldn’t have been hurt because I would have been about 100 miles back.

With the first flight complete, it felt really great. Things were making sense and I was looking forward to going to Taipei in the morning.

The next day, Martin and I had a different safety pilot, Brendan, but everything proceeded roughly the same. This time, I was going to fly both sectors — to Taipei and back. The flight up to Taipei was only a little more than an hour, so things were not as relaxed as Singapore, but we managed to get everything accomplished that we needed to. This landing, in the daylight, was much better than yesterday’s and my confidence was starting to improve.

We were going to land and have about seven hours before we left again. So we got a day room in a hotel to rest and pass the time away. Martin and Brendan took naps, but I was going to explore a little of the city. The hotel was okay, but it wasn’t in the best part of town. Taipei is a pretty area, but there are factories and industrialization everywhere. The part of town we were in was far from downtown, so there was not much English written or spoken and there was not the huge buildings and city feel that Hong Kong gives.

None of the signs along the streets were in English, and people I came across could not speak a lick of it. There were not too many sidewalks where I walked, and I almost got taken out several times by mopeds and motorcycles whizzing by me. Many of the cars parked on the streets had their driver side mirrors pulled in so as to not have them swiped off by passing cars and scooters. I walked about 45 minutes from the hotel in one direction looking around and scouting out a place to eat. I then turned around and headed back to the hotel to then headed about 30 minutes in the other direction.

It was then that I came across an outdoor market like so many in Hong Kong. I bought some fresh fruit and then saw a McDonalds and headed for it. I hate to eat fast food all the time, but in this part of town, it looked like the safest bet. Even in the McDonalds, I had to point to the things on the menu that I wanted, because English was out and gibberish was in. “May I have some BBQ sauce?” “Forget it, never mind.” After dinner and on the way back to the hotel, I stopped by a cart on the side of the road that was selling fresh doughnuts (and since I’m so skinny) I got myself one. Or was it two?

The flight back to Hong Kong went well but now it was evening and I was wondering how my night landing was going to fair. Approaching the runway, the winds were gusty and blowing in a cross wind (across the runway instead of down it) which is more of a challenge. I focused as hard as I could and managed to get us down quite smoothly and accurately, with the aiming markers passing out of sight this time before touching down. Ah, so I can learn! Both Martin and Brendan complimented this one and I felt a lot better about myself.

Flying this plane is amazing and even though it can be challenging, I know I can do it. It’s just a matter of gaining experience and practice to make everything line up just right. So as the flying part comes along, it’s now time to focus more on the head knowledge that has to accompany the flying skills. I’ll have to work on that next time. Now, it’s off to Bangkok, Mumbai, and Dubai and back again.

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