The Check Ride

By Mark W. Danielson

Passengers should find comfort in knowing airline pilots are constantly being evaluated and receive simulator training twice a year.  Since many of the cargo planes are much larger and fly longer legs, it is only logical that the same rules would apply to its pilots.  But regardless of whether you fly passengers or cargo, you can count on odd things happening whenever a Check Airman is looking over your shoulder.  Such was the case for my last line check.

The flight began with an ugly band of weather extending from the Gulf Coast to Canada, directly in my flight path from Memphis to Indianapolis.  To make matters worse, the temperature difference split Indianapolis right down the middle with rain to the east and freezing rain and snow to the west with gusty crosswinds to look forward to on landing.  As if this wasn’t enough, we had a cargo door warning light shortly after takeoff indicating the cargo door may not be locked closed.  Since our ground crew had similar problems on the ground and none of my four passengers in the back were screaming that the door was open, I was certain it was a sensor.  Still, it was something I had not seen so I naturally blamed it on my [good natured] Check Airman.  Thankfully we were late leaving Memphis, so the actual weather was not as bad as what was forecast and my landing was uneventful.

Our return flight the next day was more challenging though because the freezing rain from the day before had frozen our engines to their cowlings and would not spin.  Maintenance worked for over an hour while we sat in a 23 degree cabin waiting for them to get the fan blades moving with de-ice fluid.  We begged Ramp Control for an external heating cart, but it never came.  We started our auxiliary power unit as soon as we were allowed and welcomed the heat from its air source, but every time the cockpit started to warm up, maintenance had to turn our air off while they tried to see if the engines would spin.  When they finally broke free, our middle engine had an erratic fuel flow indicator.  Maintenance did not have time to fix it so they deferred it in accordance with the FAA approved manual.  About the time we were ready to get off the airplane, maintenance said we were good to go, so we kicked them off the aircraft, started the engines, and once more I blamed this on my Check Airman.

It goes without saying that when your engines are frozen solid, it only makes sense to de-ice the airplane.  This process took another thirty minutes, but after confirming all of our flight controls moved freely, our airplane wouldn’t budge, even with all three engines at maximum taxi power.  Having to get a ground tug to push us back caused yet another lengthy delay.  As it turned out, our brakes had frozen while we were being de-iced.  By the time we were ready to taxi, our left engine’s fuel flow became erratic, and since the maintenance manual says we can only go with one fuel flow indicator inoperative, we now had to return to the gate after wasting forty-five minutes of fuel with no forward progress.  Since it now appeared they would have to trans-load our cargo to another aircraft, we went inside Flight Operations.  Curiously, within minutes we were told they found the problem with a connection, our airplane was fixed, and we were good to go.

Although the problem with our middle engine’s fuel flow still existed, we found the left engine problem was indeed fixed, but now we had traffic delays from other aircraft that were inbound to the ramp.  Once again, the delay worked to our advantage and the only weather problem was flying into a 150 mph headwind.  Three and a half hours after our scheduled arrival, we taxied to our gate in Memphis still in time for our cargo to be sorted and our Check Airman told my first officer and I that we did a fine job.  Throughout our ordeal, I kept thinking how fortunate I was not to have passengers and flight attendants in the back.  No doubt they would have been less understanding than my cargo.

Besides telling it like it is from a pilot’s point of view, it should be assuring that whether flying people or cargo, no commercial airline pilot should ever compromise safety to meet a schedule.  It should also be noted that if there is an odd event causing a delay, it’s probably because a Check Airman is on board evaluating the captain.  I suppose that’s God’s little sense of humor, so you just have to deal with it.  As for me, I still have two days simulator training to look forward to this week, but I can’t think of many things that could be more unpredictable than what I just faced.  Coffee, anyone?