Deaths, alarms and broken cameras

I had a very varied and interesting day today. I was called to fly to Sandakan then Shenzhen - a gruelling 11 hour duty day starting at 6 in the morning. This sector is notorious for ending late due to Hong Kong flow control.

The first event took place on initial approach to Sandakan. We were descending through a layer of light haze - about 5000ft above sea level - when there was an almighty BANG. Out of nowhere a rather large bird had smacked straight into the Captain's windshield... Well I think it was a large bird judging by the 50cm x 50cm red splat it left behind. The startling thing is we didn't see it come and had it ended up in an engine I think we would have spent the night in Sandakan. I now have a newfound respect for the strength of our windshields.

The second event took place en-route to Shenzhen, about half-way, was the master warning going off as the Captain and I were both busy daydreaming. I don't mind saying my heart and book both made a leap for the ceiling. The FIRE - SMOKE IN LAV warning had just gone off telling us that some faggot had decided to light up in one of the toilets. Fire is a very severe risk on an aeroplane and smoking in the toilet is extremely dangerous due to the amount of flammable paper in the immediate vicinity. Thankfully the cabin crew reacted quickly, admonished the culprit and ventilated the toilet.

The arrival into Shenzhen was spectacular - the sky over Hong Kong was clear and the visibility extremely good for once. There plenty of amazing photo opportunities as we overflew Hong Kong Island, Victoria Harbour, the old Kai Tak airport (whose runway surprisingly hasn't been built on yet) and came very close to some heavy jets on approach to Hong Kong airport. On departure we overflew an equally clear Zuhai and Macau and got a stunning view of the runway in the middle of the bay.

Unfortunately I can't share anything I saw because today was the first day in 6 months that I didn't bring any camera with me Typical.

S.

June

June has been a very busy month. Lots of flying, and all my days off were filled with some activity or another... Not that I remember having many days off.

The intense thunderstorm season is slowly starting again the weather radar is getting more and more colourful. Although the whole year is thunderstorm season at the equator June-November seem to be the more active months.

I've had a few interesting moments this month - Kinabalu was landing runway 20 for a few days which involves an offset VOR approach over the city centre. It's quite fun to fly, especially with a bit of weather, and I shall post a video soon.

I also flew into Hong Kong for the first time, after months of flying over/around/beside it en-route to China or Macau. Hong Kong does beat Singapore on the airport coolness scale, the airport is busier, the spacing tighter, the weather is different (less thunderstorm, more wind) and one could be forgiven for thinking it's London from time to time with all the English accents on frequency. There are plenty of nice looking tails to enjoy too. Once out of the airport and in the city I think prefer Singapore though, Hong Kong is a little too wild for my taste ... and I don't understand any of the adds in the underground.

I have a few videos to upload, will attempt to do so soon.

S.

A really visual approach

Captain E's visual approach to Kota Kinabalu, over the hills. First 30ish seconds are accelerated - we weren't really going 400kts so close to the ground.

Filmed a few days before I went on leave.

Time Off

Immediately after completing my session in the box of tricks I went home for a fortnight - hence the lack of posts. The cool crisp dry May air was lovely to breathe, as was being able to drive my car after nearly 7 months away. Unfortunately I didn't get much "rest" with all the rushing about to see various friends and I managed to drive 1500 miles spending a fortune on petrol, but going home really was healthy.

I've been back a week now and am slowly getting back into the rhythm of 12-14h days and sleeping at the oddest hours. My roster isn't exactly gentle but on the other hand I gather the hours very very quickly.

Stories will recommence once something interesting happens.

S.

Pictures - 6

In the box of tricks again, fighting multiple system failures and, ironically, volcanic ash.

Some more pictures from the last few months...

Flying through a rainbow.

Singapore A330 landing on parallel runway in Singapore.

Sunset east of the Philippines.

Taipei.

S.

Eyjafjallajökull

I think everyone who isn't living in a cave knows about this now - how one medium sized volcano in Iceland can take Europe's travel options back 100 years. This pesting volcano (excuse the language) has affected me personally, I was scheduled to fly on one of the first flights that got cancelled and now my 2 weeks off at home are very much in danger of evaporating.

There are a few reasons why this volcano is affecting travel so much more than others in the past.

1. For reasons I don't fully understand, but are related to ice and snow, the ash plume is getting propagated into the higher atmosphere - the place modern aeroplanes hang around - with stunning violence. The ash also seems to be extremely fine and lightweight which means it could remain airborne for weeks or months.
2. There is a jetstream - a high speed current of wind - located roughly over the volcano which snakes it's way towards the North sea before dying out, and there is little movement over Europe itself. Think of a strong river pouring in to a rather stagnant estuary.
3. The affects of ash are not very well documented other than the fact that they ruin gas turbine engines. As no one really knows what intensity is considered a cut off between 'safe' and 'unsafe', and there is very little data available about the actual intensity of the ash floating over Europe.

Through reading forums and news comments a lot of people are mentioning that volcanos erupt all the time in Italy, Japan, Indonesia, and aviation barely takes any notice. This is because either the volcano isn't powerful enough to propel it's ash into the atmosphere, the ash is thick enough to fall to the ground in a fairly limited radius and there are no strong winds overhead to move the ash quickly.

Until one of the three points above is removed from the equation I doubt conditions will change much in Europe - infact as the air in the "estuary" area slowly moves, and ash continues to be fed in, the volume of closed airspace will increase as the ash propagates slowly... As I doubt there will be any breakthroughs in ash knowledge in the next few days we can only hope that the wind conditions change and/or the eruption becomes less intense... But the high pressure is forecast to last well into the week.

S.

What visibility?!

It's Saturday morning, my second morning after 3 days off. I'm flying with a Captain I know well on a brand new, healthy aircraft. The sky is completely clear and the weather forecasts are optimistic ... I'm thinking this will be a good, easy day flying to Singapore via Kuching.

We board quickly and depart 10 minutes ahead of schedule and are granted unrestricted climb to FL380 and more or less direct to destination, there even is a nice 30kt tailwind pushing us along through the clear blue sky. I'm thinking this is a good start, and things can only get better right?

40 minutes later the Captain has just checked Kuching's ATIS. Visibility 200 meters, overcast 100ft. The look on his face is indescribable: "what was the forecast?!" I fumble for the weather... "unlimited visibility, CAVOK" So much for optimistic weather forecasts...

A few miles later Kuching Director confirms the conditions ... the visibility is now 600 meters but that still is below our minima of 800m. We decide to hold for a while to see if this surprise fog will burn off. As I plan the diversion I'm starting to think today isn't really a good day after all. Kuching comes into view about 50 miles ahead and it looks like a winter wonderland with the rather steep cartoonish hills poking out of a very low layer of cloud which is inconveniently sitting on the ground.

Just as we reach the holding fix the visibility increases to 800 meters (or minima) so we decide to give it a try and get vectored onto the ILS. It's still a beautiful clear day at 3000ft but instead of seeing ground when I look down I see cloud, which isn't normal.

1000ft descending on the ILS and we're still above the layer of cloud but there are holes here and there through which I can see bits of a city - the odd road, half a house, etc.

We enter the cloud at 500ft - the lowest we can descend to is 245ft before going around - and right on cue at minima there is a tiny gap in the clouds and the runway comes into sight so we continue and land, smoothly, 15 minutes ahead of schedule and I have enough time to go for a walk in the terminal and find some breakfast. Today is a good day.

Throughout the approach we were constantly seconds from holding/going-around/diverting when the weather conditions changed and allowed us to continue - as if the whole thing was a well scripted suspense novel. I only wish I had remembered to get the camera out of the bag and film it all.

S.

Macau

Still not in a mood conducive to writing material appropriate for this blog, so to keep you busy here is a video of my arrival and departure at Macau (VMMC) on a foggy day. I have accelerated some of the less interesting parts of the video such as approach through cloud and long long taxi segments.

S.

Kinabalu Landing

Taken a few months ago on a decidedly un-tropical day. Unfortunately the rain somewhat confuses the camera, and the battery runs out during the landing roll, but I'm quite proud of the touch-down and the cloud busting is fun.

S.

Pictures - 5

Not really in a blogging mood these days, so here are some pictures to look at.

A glimpse of paradise 38000ft below.

Battling a rather strong wind at max altitude - notice how close the high and low speed limits are.

Another sunset. They just make me hungry.