Traffic Awareness

Today was our first day we managed to get two flights done in a single day. Yay for us. Being a Sunday and a beautiful clear day it was also quite busy in the air around the local airports, and we had our hands full tracking all the local general aviation traffic that was up for a Sunday joy-ride.

Despite the heavily populated countryside our survey lines still dictate that we just plow right over top of any local airports in our survey block at the usual 200 ft. The less times we have to break line and go around things the better our data is. Unfortunately overflying airports at 200 ft can provide for some unique safety issues if the airport does have local traffic flying around, so its important to keep in radio contact and keep other traffic informed, as well as have both sets of eyes scanning for traffic.

The Navajo is also equipped with a Zaon PCAS (Portable Collision Avoidance System) unit, and it got a pretty full workout today. I have to say I'm impressed with it. I've seen them before in Aviation shops before but never got to use them, but have always been intrigued by the idea but have been a little skeptical. But I can honestly say this thing is an excellent piece of gear for what you would pay for it.

As far as air-to-air collision avoidance systems go, there a few different levels, all with a different levels of features, and different levels with which they will drain your bank account.

All of these systems are dependent on potential conflict aircraft being equipped with a functioning transponder that will send out return signals after it receives an "interrogation" signal from either a ground radar site, or a special type of transponder (Mode S) from another aircraft. If the other airplane that is about to cross your path doesn't have a transponder, or its not turned on, no system is going to see it - unless of course you're flying a military jet that's equipped with air-to-air radar. The good news is that the vast majority of airplanes do have transponders.

A PCAS system like the one we have in the airplane is entirely passive. It doesn't have the ability to send out its own interrogation signals, but merely listens for the reply signals of other airplanes, and it can plot their position relative to itself that way. Like I said I'm quite surprised how well it works. The major disadvantage to it being passive however is that it is depending on ground radar stations or third party Mode S equipped aircraft to send an interrogation signal and trigger the target aircraft's transponder reply. That means that PCAS is basically useless up north where there is no ground radar coverage. If an aircraft doesn't have its transponder triggered, the PCAS can't see it. For use in medium to high density airspace however, where there most likely is ground radar coverage that can trigger transponders, it has been excellent. The model we have does give relative direction, distance, and altitude with reasonable accuracy. And I've been able to visually spot targets in about the same amount of time it takes me to find traffic when its vocally pointed out by ATC for me.

We happened to buzz by a para-glider who was floating around in the updrafts of some hills, and the PCAS didn't pick him up (no transponder) but his big parachute was easy to spot nonetheless. We probably scared the pants off of him though, haha.

Rock & Roll!

Well finally after a painfully slow and troublesome start we have had our first actual production survey flight! Surveying in France is not like going up to the Northern Canada Bush and doing a survey job like I have been used to in the 206. The airspace here is incredibly dense.

Surveying in the north involves little more than setting up at the nearest airport, and going flying. Up there you can fly at 200 ft all day every day and no one cares because its just wilderness. Here in France its a little different. We're buzzing towns at 200 ft agl, blowing right over top of local airports, criss-crossing military airspace and even working around a nuclear generating plant. Part of the reason of the slow start was getting all the government permits to do this. Even though we're allowed to fly over top of small towns, we have to notify a half dozen different agencies and organizations every time we fly. That's the boring part.

The exciting part is the actual flying. To be a honest I was wondering if I would be of much use as co-pilot/operator, considering this kind of flying is usually done single-pilot with an unlicensed operator. But after today's flight I felt like I contributed to the flight considerably as co-pilot and not just "operator". The navigating is intense! The entire 4 hr flight I served as navigator while the Captain flew the lines. In Canada if we're surveying and we see a road, that's been an eventful flight. Here, there's so many things to look out for; airports, airplanes, power lines, towers and restricted airspace that we were both kept on our toes. I never thought that anyone would let us fly over built up areas at 200 ft agl, everything about flight training says its not allowed, but surprisingly our permits basically (with lots of fine print) allow us to fly over everything but the larger towns. The flight planning and flying is quite complex, and its going to be a great learning experience. I would never know how to even attempt a job like this on my own, so its fascinating to be involved in the planning and thought process of a pilot who has done this before.

There's lots to see scenery wise as well. We flew past about a half dozen great big French castles, and some cathedrals, and just in general French countryside is very beautiful.

Usually I don't bother to share photos on this blog, but these ones are worth sharing for sure.

Its incredibly warm here though, over 30 degrees C, and one thing I forgot about Pipers is that there isn't nearly enough ventilation for them. Cessnas have those big ol' overhead vents that you can direct at your face, but the Navajo only has little tiny ones like you'd find on an airliner, and then the side storm windows, which give good airflow but are really noisy to open. We're thinking we might buy some flex hose to stick one end out the window into the airflow and the other end down our shirts to keep us cool. I'll report on how that works out if/when it happens.

Navajo Checkout

So I got a little more than half of my Navajo PCC done today in a beautiful warm, calm day. I still need 1.1 hrs more flight training to be considered complete.

I am SO glad to be back into multi-engine flying. Its just so much more fun. We started out with a briefing on the things we planned to cover - all the typical air work stuff like turns, steep turns, slow flight, approach to stall, etc. and then fired the ol' girl up and taxied out. The first take-off went ok, it was both fun and challenging to get back into the swing of a busy take-off roll and climb-out. The biggest error I made was getting distracted after we were airborne with retracting the landing gear and flaps and setting climb power and letting my airspeed decrease too much. Airspeed should always be maintained during the climb-out after takeoff. But that will come as I get more accustomed to the airplane.

Up at altitude most of the air work was a piece of cake, and most of the multi-engine emergency procedures came back to me fairly quickly as well. I was obviously no multi-engine master, but I think I did represent my experience fairly well and looked like someone who didn't have to be taught all over again how to fly a twin.

We went back to the airport for a couple circuits, and although my approach was fairly good, the first landing attempt was pretty ugly. This is no Cessna anymore! Actually the Navajo behaves very similarly to how the Twin Comanche behaves on landing, it just sits much higher off the ground. I think I overcompensated for the high stance and ended up flaring too high, didn't have enough power on into the flare and ended up stalling it onto the runway. Nothing too jolting, but still it was one of those "oh crap add power" moments just as we were touching down.

Unfortunately a few months ago back in the spring, the Company tried to hire a pilot for the Navajo, but unfortunately he couldn't really get the hang of the airplane and during training he put it down hard and did many thousands of dollars of damage to the landing gear. I think that is still in the back of everyone's mind and is still a bruise to the company wallet, so the pressure is on both for me, and for my training Captain not to let the same thing happen again.

My second approach I was feeling that pressure. In mind its acceptable to not grease your first attempt at landing a new aircraft, so there's really not a whole lot of pressure there as long as you don't panic and over-control and do something stupid. But the second attempt you had better have learned. I was feeling the pressure on final for our second landing. My approach was perfect - nice and stabilized, my target airspeed was pinned, and I had a good power setting and glideslope going in. Even still I had a moment where my heart started beating and I was thinking "Don't screw this up!". I actually don't remember when was the last time in my professional career that I felt the pressure like that. Luckily I did have the advantage of a perfectly calm day, and I managed to overcome any anxiety and make the touchdown a pretty good one (of course there is much room for mastery yet). The Captain seemed happy, so we taxied into the fuel pumps and shut down. He didn't say much about anything, which I interpret as meaning I did a good job, and I was fairly satisfied with my performance. You always have to be sparing with the praise when you're dealing with pilots, otherwise our heads swell and it makes it difficult to fit into the cockpit.

Ego's are a difficult thing to manage when two pilots are working together. Unfortunately I have almost zero experience working side-by-side with other pilots. My jobs prior to now have been single-pilot affairs, so I pretty much got to be the one and final authority in the airplane. If I made a small mistake, no one would notice and I wouldn't look stupid to anyone. But also I didn't have the advantage of spending mass amounts of time watching a more experienced pilot do his thing. All my experience up until now has been born out of personal lessons I've learned and experience from being Pilot-in-Command and I've had very little influence from watching more seasoned pilots. This is one thing I'm actually really looking forward to - getting to tag along as First Officer with a high-time pilot to see how he does things. Its also going to be a challenge as well though, because now there are two ego's in the cockpit, and a first officer has to walk a fine line between challenging the Captain's ego, and safely managing his human side (that can sometimes make mistakes) to contribute to a safer flight. Its going to be especially challenging because this is the first time the company is implementing two-crew SOPs (standard operating procedures) for the Navajo, so up until now my Captain has been accustomed to flying the airplane all by himself (as have I in the airplanes I've flown), so giving up a little bit of control and trusting the guy next to you is going to be a bit of a change for both of us.

Happy Days!

Well since my last post I have trained a new pilot to replace me on the 206, gone on vacation to visit The Lovely Girlfriend in the merry old land of Auz, and now I'm once again deployed - to France this time! France is quite beautiful, I just wish I could speak the language a little better, as we're located in a fairly small town and not many people speak English. My French is improving though.

HOWEVER, I mentioned I trained a pilot to replace me on the 206 because I am finally being promoted to co-pilot on the company Navajo! Finally a twin job! Whoo hoo!! Part of the deal with the upgrade is that I also have operator duties, so I've been trained on that already, and I'm now in the midst of writing the PA-31 type exams for the Navajo. Let me tell you in comparison to all the other aircraft I have flown since now, the Navajo is like a REAL airplane. It has a very detailed Flight Manual (which I've been buried in the last couple days), lots of power with the ability to go really high in the form of two 325 HP turbocharged piston engines (More than double the power of any other airplane in my logbook), an air-stair door, copilot flight instruments, and an overhead switches panel (I've always thought that to be one of the defining aspects between "real" airplanes and "little" airplanes.

The Twin Comanche being the only other Twin I've flown before the Navajo, naturally I have some comparisons of the two airplanes: In one sense they're very similar. They have the same wing shape, the engine positioning is the same, and actually looking out the side window at the wings and engines is very much Deja Vu to the Comanche. The engines and wing have the same proportions, the Navajo is just scaled up a little bit. The engine start procedures are basically the same between the two airplanes, so I'll be at home there, and the approaches for landing are even made at the same airspeed (110 mph). The Twin Comanche, although a slightly slower and less powerful airplane, actually has a slightly higher Vmc (minimum speed at which the airplane can be controlled with a failed engine), and that is mainly what dictates what speed you can fly the approach at. The only thing I think may take some getting used to is the stance the Navajo has on the runway. The Navajo sits fairly high in comparison, while the Comanche was a true low-rider. I'm going to have to develop a new sense for when to start my flair for landing and touching down. But, realistically I'll have lots of chance to develop that because most of the takeoffs and landings will still be done by the Captain. I am just the co-pilot after all. In the other sense of comparison, the Navajo is built and flown like a transport category aircraft. Its solid and the engines need to be operated in a very precise, by the book way otherwise cylinders start cracking and things wear out too fast. The Twin Comanche on the other hand is really just a small private airplane with two engines. It doesn't have a proper flight manual, and other than some of the flight characteristics that were a little bit tricky in comparison to other private airplanes (due to the wing design and high Vmc), the engines were still just your typical Cessna 172 engine. A simple little 4-banger. Overall the Navajo is definitely a step up, but I think my experience in the Twin Comanche will go a long way in helping to prepare me for flying the Navajo.

Hopefully in the next couple days we'll get the flying portion of my Navajo checkout done, and I can officially call myself a Navajo pilot! After that, because of the mass amounts of PIC flight time I've already accumulated and my Twin Comanche multi-PIC time, I'll be eligible for the upgrade to Captain as soon as I get 250 hrs on type.

When I get my checkout done, I'll post again on my experiences in learning to fly the Navajo, because until now I've only flown a few times in it as an Operator, and I have to get the exams finished first before I start the flying portion of my checkout.