17 Feb 2011
Attendance – To reiterate the United Regional stance on attendance at company events:
Attendance is encouraged, but not mandatory at company events. Without a doubt pilots will have the best experience with UALR by participating as often as they can. However, certainly other obligations will prevent a pilot from flying at any one particular time. No one will beat you up if you can’t fly. But know that our goal as a company is to have every single pilot shown on dispatch participate in company events - and to depart on time. Imagine the mayhem at ATC that would ensue should that actually happen.
What we ask is that each pilot maintain communication on Skype and seek to participate as much as they can. Furloughs will continue when necessary to keep the dispatch ticket fresh. A pilot will be furloughed after 30 days of non participation, and dropped from dispatch after 60 days of non participation. This is not to fire pilots, but instead to keep the dispatch stocked only with active pilots. Remember a furloughed pilot in good standing may return at any time. As a company we will continue to seek ways to facilitate as much participation and activity as we can.
And related to that…..
Klingon Promotions: Effective immediately, United Regional will recognize the Klingon promotion method as an approved process for instructors to acquire candidates. Star Trek fans will recognize the Klingon promotion system as when a junior officer assassinates their superior and assumes their command. On Klingon ships, this is only possible if the commander is weak and not fulfufilling their duties. This ensures that the strongest leaders always rise to the top.
While assassinations are difficult via internet, UALR will subscribe to that concept in the sense that if an instructor or FO is not taking care of their candidates, then another instructor or FO may adopt that candidate as their own. This will generally not be possible if the officer or instructor is taking good care of their people. But it is intended to make sure that no candidates are left behind by instructors not fulfilling their duties when other more ambitious instructors or FO’s seeking CaptQual are looking for candidates to train.
Therefore if a candidate is not getting the attention they deserve, an ambitious instructor may adopt them as their own, thus promoting themselves in the Klingon method. Message being – officers will give their people the attention they deserve or forfeit them.
KLGA SIDS Seminar – Kudos to CA Matt for organizing a successful seminar on SIDS departures out of LGA. While there isn’t an official headcount, it appears there were at least 10 pilots who participated. The controller at the arrival airport KACK also commented that he “had a really good time and it was a fun night.” Thank you to all pilots and controllers who participated. Hopefully the success of the event will lead to future events with high attendance as well. Congratulations also to Bill R –UAL1106 as the winner of the departure contest. This pilot - - a newbie no less - - had the tightest departure procedure out of all participants including CA’s and SrCA’s per controller Dan. So all you officers out there who think you’re hot? Maybe not so much. Myself included.
KJFK also has similar departure procedures to LGA, and in fact both airports share the Canarsie Climb. At right is a snapshot of the KJFK MERIT3 departures. Please take a moment to review it. If you have any questions please see your instructor or group leader. Remember that UALR pilots have recently been criticized by controllers as not being able to follow a departure procedure… a criticism which should be nullified. Remember also that if you are given a departure instruction that you don’t completely understand, request clarification. DONT FAKE IT!
LiveATC.net and Mirroring RW Flights – Recently a handful of pilots have been operating what we call “mirror flights”. This is where a BVA pilot will follow the exact route and exact departure and arrival times of a real world flight. Flights are chosen by reviewing departures on FlightAware.com for a given departure airport. BVA pilots will select an appropriate flight, with an appropriate departure time and destination, and then mirror that flight move-for-move on BVA.
The key to doing a proper mirror flight is to monitor the appropriate frequency off LiveATC.net starting typically with either ground or clearance delivery. When the real world flight gets their clearance, the BVA flight would take those instructions as their own. When the RW flight is cleared to push, the BVA flight would do the same in real time. Taxi instructions, runway instructions, etc are all followed in real time and performed exactly as the RW flight does them. When your RW flight is handed off to another controller, the BVA pilot also changes to monitor that new frequency on LiveATC.net.
The objective is to complete your flight using RW ATC for the entire duration, and to land within minutes of your RW flight. This is not an easy thing to do. BVA pilots will find that real ATC instructions are fast, furious, and super pro. It’s an excellent standard to live up to, it will greatly improve your interaction with BVA ATC, and it is a fun challenge.
Remember however that a mirror flight MAY NOT take place in this fashion in a controlled BVA airspace. BVA controllers always take priority. If you start in an uncontrolled airspace and then enter a BVA controlled airspace, you MUST switch to BVA ATC when crossing.
United Regional pilots are encouraged to try a mirror flight from time to time. UALR pilots are also encouraged to monitor the appropriate RW center frequency when they are not under BVA ARTCC control – ie when on UNICOM. When doing so, you will fast get an idea of what the standard is for talking with ATC. You will also gain a good knowledge of the appropriate lingo. You will hear flight numbers from company aircraft that you recognize, and controller instructions to points in the airspace that you are familiar with. In short, it’s very cool.
You will also find that the weather reports are shockingly accurate and relevant to what you experience on BVA. Remember, FSX uses real world weather. When there’s icing conditions reported at 10,000 feet on LiveATC.net, you will encounter icing conditions on BVA at 10,000 feet. Active Sky users will find this to be even more pronounced. When we say that BVA “blurs the lines between sim and reality”, mirroring a RW flight is taking this one Nth degree even further and is a sure sign of SrCA competency.
SrCA qualification and Mirror Flight – While the standard for FO promotion and Captain has been spelled out for some time, the standard for Senior Captain promotion hasn’t been fully addressed until now. Going forward the SrCA qualification flight will consist of a mirrored RW flight in the newly repainted UALR 737-800 aircraft. Therefore, pilots seeking SrCA designation will want to practice mirroring flights in this fashion as preparation for their SrCA qualification flight.
Future UALR dispatches may also seek to integrate this concept from time to time. Thanks to the idea from FO Nolan, we will look to have medium range flights mirroring RW flights that depart from outside BVA controlled airspace, that monitor LiveATC.net for departure and cruise, and that then terminate under BVA ATC control within BVA controlled airspace for arrival. Even one step closer to true real world operations. It should be sick.
Fuel burn and Flight level calculations – Recently a handful of pilots have expressed interest in managing fuel, flight level, and descent more appropriately. Fuel management and burn is quite complicated and depends on a number of variable including rate of climb, winds, aircraft weight, final altitude and more. At the moment we are seeking a simplified set of formula’s to help understand this concept, and any pilots who have resources in this area are encouraged to send them in.
For the moment, FO/instructor Jim – UAL007 has submitted this short discussion he found in the AOPA blogs:
Ok, so I found the answer: (Dist/10) + 4 = flight level. eg leg dist 160nm criuse at FL200 or a leg of 80 nm would be FL120 etc up to our max cruise FL. Then adjust as required for known strong winds. Simple as all gitout. No not quite. Here's the answer from those who appear to know:
I would consult the performance manual for your aircraft and it will tell you TAS, fuel burn, for each altitude. If you want to be efficient and don't care about time then go up to the highest altitude and burn less fuel. If there is no wind. Otherwise go with whatever will give you the highest ground speed. Regardless of fuel burn. Usually 20k on turboprop. If you want the best time and fuel burn then using the charts find fuel burn/hr at a given flight level and compute time based on winds and multiply by fuel burn and get how much fuel burned. Do this for other altitudes and usually lower fuel burn will be the quickest in a headwind situation. Also if in a headwind go faster and will usually burn less fuel. if a tailwind. Go high and less power. All in all if I had more than 30 knots of wind i would go lower. Over 50 and i would go real low. Usually burnt about the same amount of fuel but got there quicker.
Chart Binder Photo Contest – In the last OpNote we discussed that officers should take more of an interest in printing of charts and creating a fully stocked chart binder for operations in our airspace. There was also a request for pictures of said chart binder. So far there have been two submissions, both of which are excellent examples of what a chart binder should look like. Please enjoy these lovely examples of the UALR standard from none other than SrCA Evan at BVA Operations, and UALR Flight Officer Mark.
Here at headquarters, we anxiously await more photos.
Keep em flying.
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