Final for 08R in Vancouver
Most of my friends and family would probably agree that I'm not the most punctual person in the world. However, when it comes to flying, I really do my best to keep ahead of schedule. There are many good reasons for this. First off, it's my job, and I really like my job, so I would like to keep it. People fly because they need to get from A to B quickly, usually because they've got plans at their destination, or they're going home, and nobody wants to waste time heading home. So being late, usually messes with folk's plans, and that has a negative effect on their attitude, which, in turn, has a negative effect on my day. The final reason is selfish, the quicker you finish your day of flying, the quicker you can join your friends for a cold pint and talk about flying.
Lear 25 C-FPUB and Lear 35 C-GBFP parked at the Million Air
Being on time in aviation usually isn't too, too tough. Sometimes though, in spite of your best efforts, the world seems out to make a mockery of your schedule. When you do fall behind, the first reaction of course is to try and catch up. Call ahead on the radio and make sure the fuel truck is waiting when you land, huff bags a little quicker. Sometimes this works, and you catch up. Sometimes, nothing you can do gets you closer to sched, in fact, it seems that, with each stop, you fall further behind. When you find yourself in the latter situation, it's very easy to become stressed about it, but the best thing to do is just accept it. When it comes to flying, I wouldn't recommend rushing around stressed out, it could lead to missing something important.
Cruising back to Vancouver in the moonlight
So this past week, I had one night where being on time just wasn't happening. It all started with dinner. The lovely Holly, room mate Kirsten, her Father Doug, and myself, decided to have dinner at our favorite establishment here in Prince George, Grillin n' Chillin (their motto is "Eat here, or else we'll both starve"). Grillin has great food, huge portions and good prices. They're usually quite good when it comes to getting the food out in a timely manner. So we went for dinner at 7pm, with me having to check in at work at 9pm. For whatever reason, the food didn't come out quite as fast, and we found ourselves leaving the restaurant at 8:30. I rushed home, quickly switched into my flight suit, gathered my flying stuff and ran out the door, It's coming up 9 and I've got a 15-20 minute drive to the airport yet, I'm running late. Car pooling, I picked up the first officer on the way out there and we arrive at the airport at 9:15. This is still 45 minutes prior to our scheduled departure time, which is still, usually, lots of time to get ready. The mail is already waiting so we quickly load it up in the hanger and I get to doing the walk around. The fresh snow and ice is causing problems getting the hanger doors open, so we work with the maintenance guys trying to get that open. When we finally do, we tow the aircraft out into the snowfall. It's not snowing heavily but the airplane just came out from a heated hanger so the snow is melting when it hits the wings and then freezing. So we had to now lather the critical surfaces in glycol to make sure their is no snow or ice adhering. Start-up, after start checklist, grab the IFR clearance, and we taxi to depart PG's runway 15. The gear comes up into the wells at 1024, 24 minutes after our sched departure. At this point the schedule is still salvageable. However, to our dismay, we notice that our ground speed is actually slower then our indicated 160 knots in the climb. This is not a good start to making up time. We level off at flight level 190, as the pilot flying, I let the speed build up as much as it will and I call for cruise power and cruise checks. The f/o pulls back the power to our cruise setting, limited by an engine ITT of 700. We're cruising at a true airspeed of around 260 knots, but a ground speed of just over 200 knots. To add to our now longer leg to Vancouver, the center calls up to tell us of moderate to severe icing reported on the Keinn arrival, our normal route from BC's North into YVR. He clears us direct to Booth for the Booth six arrival, adding an extra 30 - 40 miles onto our trip (but keeping us out of the icing, which, although it's going to delay us, I'm quite happy about).
Cruising along in a 60 knot headwind, we had much time to break out the Booth arrival chart, and prepare for that to take us onto an ILS for 08R, the normally active runway at night, in Vancouver. Nearing Booth, we're handed off to Vancouver Center on 125.95, the sector that lines up the arrivals for the approach controller. He advises us to expect the north runway, 08L in Vancouver. Apparently snow removal is taking place on the south runway. We take out the chart for the ILS 08L and brief that. Approach vectors us onto the localizer and hands us off to tower. We break out of the cloud and tower clears us to land 08L with an exit at taxiway Mike 5, almost all the way down to the end of the 10,000' runway. We land and taxi to Mike 5, right onto Mike and are told to hold short of Juliet, the taxiway that takes us around the main terminal to the south side. We wait for a big British Airways 747, sitting on juliet, to start his taxi. Right behind him, an Air Canada 767 pulls out of the Vancouver deice bays. They both taxi down Juliet and finally right on Lima to come back around to depart 08L. We finally get cleared to taxi to the South Apron and over to the Million Air. The Million air ramp is covered in about 3 inches of wet snow, making it very difficult, actually impossible, for the forklift that brings the big caged boxes of mail to maneuver around. Our plan then becomes to tow the aircraft so the cargo door is in the hanger. First though, the maintenance crew needs to move out the airplanes they've already worked on out and move some others into the hanger. Now, because of the snow, the aircraft tug, which is equipped with chains, is still having a hard time moving around. Needless to say, we spend over an hour on the ramp in Vancouver before we're ready to depart for Calgary. We finally call up Vancouver ground for taxi, and find they're still using 08L. So it's about a 15 minute taxi, topped off waiting for the airport authority to check the runway for contamination and an Air Canada Jazz Dash 8 to depart.
On Mike in Vancouver, waiting behind Air Canada Jazz to depart 08L
Enroute to Calgary, we're now over an hour behind schedule. At this point, I accept the fact we're going to finish late in the morning. We climb to Flight Level 230 and the First Officer enjoys a nice 344 knot ground speed to Calgary. We still arrive Calgary well behind schedule. We unload the Calgary bound mail, load up the Vancouver bound mail, climb back in the saddle, and depart Calgary's runway 34. Departure clears us direct to Varsy, an intersection off Point Grey in Vancouver, and to maintain 16,000'. Expecting a brutal headwind heading for Vancouver, we were pleasantly surprised to level off and get a 230 - 240 knot ground speed heading west. By the time we arrived back in Vancouver they were using the south runway 08R. At least we weren't getting an later. We arrive YVR at 0520 in the morning, rather then the 0330 we had enjoyed through the rest of the week.
Climb out of Vancouver for flight level 230
When I arrived home to get some breakfast and go to sleep, it was 0830 in the morning, about an hour and a half later then the rest of the week. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you just show up late.....
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