So Mike and I now find ourselves in the Briefing Room poised to do the actual checkride itself, and we’re feeling pretty good about the whole thing. That would change within the next few hours. Day 2 of this extravaganza was best when it was over.

The evening before the event, we met for a nice dinner of good ‘ol southern Bar B-que, headed back to our respective hotel rooms, and after a last minute skull –session reviewing junk that I would be required to regurgitate on the morrow, I instituted “Reveille”, and got a surprisingly good night’s sleep.

As any professional aviator knows, the annual trip under the “instructor pilot microscope” is something that (early in our careers) is filled with dread and foreboding. However, after about a thousand times down that rabbit hole, you learn to relax, do your thing without feeling intimidated, and (many times) actually learn something new about your jet. It’s not a bad thing, can be a good thing…but is mostly a pain in the ass thing.

After arriving at the “schoolhouse”, our I.P. (“Bennie”), started the checkride as most all of them do…a scant amount of small talk, and then a look at our Airmen, Medical, and FCC Certificates. With those little pleasantries taken care of, we divide into teams (his and ours), choose which goal to defend, and the actual checkride kicked off. This normally consists of a “round-robin” volley of questions concerning the Boeing Limitations and performance issues, a waltz through lots of pictures showing various parts of the exterior of the airplanes, whereby you simply explain to the I.P. what you would be checking and/or observing whilst doing an exterior walk-around. This “oral exam” typically ends with some in depth discussions (and questions) concerning new procedures that are the “hot topics du Jour” for that time frame. This can be very informative, even fun, but it can also be ugly.

But with that said, one thing that EVERY instructor knows deep down in their shriveled little rock-hard hearts, the hearts that beat blacker than the depths of Mordor itself (speaking as an ex-CFI-AI-MEI and B727 I.P.): no one is perfect. No one person sitting in a checkride “oral” exam will know everything about everything…period. If you simply ask questions long enough, you’ll eventually find something that even the sharpest of pencils will not know. We call it playing “stump the monkey” (or “stump the dummy”), and it’s a dick move by an I.P. Unfortunately, I’ve seen it up close and personal.

Usually, at this point, the I.P. briefings begin. He/She basically breaks down each maneuver we will be required to perform. If you have any question about such…now is the time to raise your hand. Rest assured, 99% of us have “chair flown” these many times in the proceeding weeks (days), and they SHOULD feel pretty ingrained by now.

For whatever reason this bright sunny afternoon (except in the windowless basement of the schoolhouse where all the simulators and/or briefing rooms reside), our “Herr Bennie” decided it was time to play STM with yours truly. Not a big deal, I’ve been yelled at and berated by the best of them. I remember being a brand spanking new-hire at my former airline, on about ride 5 of my initial training to be a Boeing 727 Flight Engineer, and the I.P. literally screaming at me and saying that I was “the worst student he had ever seen”! I was devastated…until I talked to my roommate and (you guessed it) “Mr. Warm And Fuzzy” screamed at him during his entire lesson also informing him that HE was indeed “the worst student he had ever seen”. Wait a dang minute there Hoss! I thought I was #1 on his Hit Parade…always the bride’s maid and never the bride.

So now we have the dude that’s giving us this rather important checkride, trying to show us (me) that he’s uber cool, and knows everything about everything when it comes to the collection of metal that Mr. Boeing’s wunderkind bolted together up in Everett, Washington those many years ago. He’s off into some rant about VNAV ad nauseum, and he hits me with some obscure question about…”well Bill, if it’s Tuesday in Canada, and the distal constellation is in the house of Mars, and Elvis walks into the building…what will the FMA say when you…..” la, la, la…. I gave him the doe in the headlights look, and he pulls out the big gun of all I.P.’s the world over…”wait a minute Bill….how many years you been flying this?” “Uhhh….18.” “And how many hours do you have in the B757?” “Uhhhh…about 10 or 12,000.” (wait for it)…”AND YOU DON’T KNOW?” “Uhhh….I don’t even understand the question Bennie…”

I get the eye roll, he asks Mike, and gets the same response, and OFF TO THE RACES HE GOES to show us that he’s way cooler than we are. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t get that upset, I didn’t even want to smash the QRH checklist into his face. I’ve seen this too many times, and in too many places. He’s just a guy playing “my penis is bigger than your penis”, and if that makes him feel better about his deal, then so be it. I did however, many years ago, basically tell an F.A.A. check airman to go “f*ck himself” after a simulator check ride. It’s a long story, from a galaxy far, far away, and rest assured, I was right, he was wrong, he walked out of the briefing room (as he should have) and we passed our ride. A yarn for another day.

Back to Bennie and our little jaunt to get blessed to go back to the line and do what we do. It’ll be a two-act play: the MV (Maneuvers Validation), and the LOE (Line Oriented Evaluation).

He eventually has his fix of making us feel like morons, asked a few more (relevant) question…which we answer correctly, and all seemed to be well in “Bennie World”, so we head down to the actual flight simulator itself. Mike and I have been in this cockpit so many times over the years that it literally feels like putting on a pair of old shoes…plus we were in this exact “box” the day before, and did a very credible job rattling the dust out of our collective craniums. THAT however was a “warm up”, and THIS is the real deal…for “the win” as it were.

 

(The “office” at FL350 ANC to MSP.)

 

ACT 1: The Maneuvers Validation.

Mike and I strap in, we do our preflight duties, load the jets FMC, load up our Surface Tablets, and start briefing. This is essentially going to be the twin sister from yesterday; operating out of KSFO with all sorts of different weather, different approaches, different “issues” with the jet, and we’ve briefed it all before, in fact less than 24 hours before to be exact! But not in front of Bennie, and that’s huge. Mike knows the game and how it’s played, Bennie knows the game and how it’s played, and yours truly DAMN SURE knows the game and how it’s played. As a transport-category, heavy jet, airline aviator you know (and your experience tells you) one sure thing. Half of the issue is controlling the machine (the PF or “pilot flying” duties), and the other half (and sometimes the much more complex…read harder…half) is the dude NOT controlling the machine. The ring master is always the Captain, but the PM (or “pilot monitoring”) is many times the make it or break it guy in the equation of keeping the dance grooving along like it needs to be. It’s a choreography, and when it’s done right it’s a thing of beauty…when done wrong…well recollections of my disco dancing in college come to mind…uggh.

We brief it ALL again. Start Up, Taxi (single engine to start the remaining engine on taxi out), the Weather, Aborts, Abnormals, Runway to expect, SID for said runway, Terrain issues, Transition Altitude and any “Special” things to consider at this airport. I’ve done it a thousand times, and Mike played the part and attentively listened while I bloviated.

My notes from the actual ride (I’ll only put up the notes I have on my turn “in the barrel”):

– Normal Takeoff = “good here”

– VOR Approach RWY 19L = “I.P. hammered me on the briefing. Mike selects “PPOS HOLD” coming out of the holding pattern, doesn’t take it out and we blow through the LNAV final approach course. We get a GPWS warning and do a CFIT escape.”

*** As Bennie was rushing us to get set up for the VOR RWY 19L approach, I told him that we needed more time and requested a holding pattern. He, acting as ATC, gave us some funky clearance to an obscure point, and I had Mike set it up for an entry into the hold. We got in, I briefed the approach (we actually use our VNAV function on non-precision approaches as a pseudo “glideslope” as it were…works great, but takes longer to brief for you have to use a different manual on your Surface Tablet to brief it…AND…keep the Jeppesen approach page displayed at the same time. Remember, Mike and I had never used the Surface do-dad on the line yet, and some of its “magic”… like showing two pages at the same time… was still a bit of a mystery for us). We eventually feel like we’re good to go, Bennie gives us a quick clearance for the approach, I arm “LNAV” to intercept the final approach course, but Mike gets a bit behind the program, and doesn’t make the FAF our active waypoint…hence the autopilot doesn’t capture the LNAV track and we head through the final approach course. Within about 15 seconds of “what the fkk is it doing now?” from Mike, and me saying we need a clearance to turn back toward the course and for him to “clean up” the FMC…we get a …you guessed it…Ground Proximity Warning System…”whoop, whoop, terrain, terrain.”

Frigging lovely! In the goo, at night, heading toward some hills east of Oakland (and I don’t even have my Crips or Bloods colors proudly displayed), and we get this crap. Oh well, one thing to do (just as we would in the jet), the old “CFIT Escape Maneuver”. Basically, FULL THRUST (not climb thrust…I mean turn off the auto-throttles and push those funny little levers as far forward as you can), stand her on her ass (about 20 plus degrees nose up), and climb like a homesick angel! Funny thing…we were tasked with having to demo one of these later in the ride, so we just got a tad bit ahead of ourselves…lol.

We recover, Bennie bitches a bit, but can’t really say anything, for even though we dorked up the intercept on the VOR approach, we did the right thing by NOT merging metal with dirt. He gave us a vector back to the course, Mike and I pulled our collective heads out of our asses (remember, I had been off for about six months, and Mike for almost an entire year), and executed a beautiful VOR approach, culminating in a nice landing on 19L.***

(the VOR 19L SFO)

– Engine Failure After V1, RWY 28R = “nailed it”

– Engine out CAT 1 ILS RWY 28R, Engine out Missed Approach = “nailed it”

***On the engine out go-around, Mike was a bit late on getting the rudder trim dialed in, and I did a small amount of weaving on the SFO 295 radial out through the hills. It’s a bitch to have zero thrust on one side, and 37000 lbs of “push” on the other. Thank God, Mr. Boeing puts big-assed rudders on his jets! (and thank God for my Bowflex leg exercise contraption!)***

– Engine out CAT 1 ILS to a landing RWY 28R.

***The F.A.A. (in their infinite wisdom) require that on every other checkride, we actually HAND FLY this monster down the ILS to a landing in “CAT 1” weather (basically 100’ overcast and 1800’ RVR…or just under ½ mile visibility) with an engine out. This is utter stupidity, for in the real world, if I had one motor in the bag, and the weather sucked balls, I would let Mr. Sperry’s incredible autopilot (3 autopilots to be exact) smoothly, gently and no-plussed, ride me down the glideslope and on the localizer until I once again glimpsed the world, then I would click them off, and hand fly the thing the last 30 seconds to a graceful (and light as a feather) touchdown and rollout. Nope…the F.A.A. (meaning Bennie in our case) wants to see if you can “do some of that pilot sh*t Maverick”, and watch us sweat keeping a broken jet flying right side up using our amazingly razor sharp instrument skillz (and a great Flight Director), and all the while whistling Dixie (the last part I made up). It’s stupid, but it’s their bat and their ball, and they can play the game anyway they want. I just show up to sing bass… I did a good job here, although still thinking it’s a stupid thing to have to demo.***

– In-advertant Windshear Encounter After Liftoff = “really ugly windshear…do well.”

– CAT 3 ILS RWY 28R to a landing = “nailed it”

– Approach to Stall During Departure RWY 28R = “nailed it…lots of trim”

– Upset Recovery = “good”

– Approach to Stall in Clean Configuration = “good”

– Controlled Flight Into Terrain GPWS Warning = “did already…lol”

– Approach to Stall in Landing Configuration RWY 28R = “good”

– Holding = “good”

– RNAV (RNP) Y Approach RWY 28R to a Missed Approach = “Mike briefs the wrong page… we figure it out, do the approach to a G/A…good”

End of my MV checkride. Mike does essentially the same stuff (with a few differences), and after about three hours in the box, we take a break and get ready for the LOE.

 

Final Act: Day 3, the LOE.

As luck would have it, we draw “Bennie” again…wonderful…lol.

First a bit of background on the LOE. It’s a different animal altogether from the M.V., and was pioneered way back in the infancy of airline flight simulators (by my old line I’m proud to say). It used to be called a “LOFT” (Line Oriented Flight Training), was filmed with old (wait for it) VCR tapes, and it would be fun as hell replaying the “brain fart” moments to everyone during the debriefs.

We don’t watch movies at the end of these things nowadays, but some of the old films were great! I distinctly remember watching one (in black and white…hehe…lets you know how long ago that happened), whereby Capt. “Bob” and his intrepid crew of Boeing 727 airman were in the throes of some sort of sim problem, and about every five seconds “Bob” would turn around to Flight Engineer “Bill” and task him with something to do. Within seconds, poor “Bill” was utterly and completely tasked saturated, and it went something like this:

– Captain Bob, “say Bill, would you begin the fuel dump…take us down to 5000 across…and give me a time to dump.”
– F/E Bill, “OK Bob.”
– Captain Bob, “oh, and Bill, would you pull up the latest MKE weather?
– F/E Bill, “OK Bob.”
– Captain Bob, “And Bill, let’s start that engine shutdown checklist right now…OK?”
– F/E Bill, “OK Bob.”
– Captain Bob, “Oh and Bill, call Suzie in the back and give her the briefing on the emergency…she needs to be in the loop on this.”
– F/E Bill, “OK Bob”
– Captain Bob, “One more thing Bill, why don’t you give the company a call, and let them know we’re headed back.”

***Now Ray Charles can see what’s happening here, poor Bill is busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest, Bob is doing nothing but barking orders, and First Officer “Ned” is looking out the window basically doing nothing! You can see the frustration start to build in “Bill” and his “if looks could kill” program is starting to rear its ugly head…crew continuity has completely broken down. Bill can’t get anything done, and he finally just loses it!***

– Captain Bob, “Say Bill, have you got the fuel dump time for me? I thought we were going to start that checklist? How about that MKE weather? How’s Suzie doing in the back? Did you call the company yet and let them know we’re RTB-ing?”
– F/E Bill, without saying a thing, literally throws his hands into the air, and (BEHIND THE CAPTAIN’S BACK) begins to shoot him the “middle finger salute” with BOTH HANDS! Over, and over, and over….

 

 

LMAO. We call it CRM (Crew Resource Management), and the above example is NOT the way it’s supposed to work. It’s hard to believe, but when this idea hit the airline world many years ago, it wasn’t very popular. Certain commanders with a little “Captain Queeg” in them saw it as usurping their (God given) authority, and they didn’t like it…not one bit. But it wasn’t that at all. It was the concept of using ALL of your available resources to get the job done…and in a way that you didn’t have a “Bob” and “Bill” show. Many other industries have since adopted this attitude (medical E.R.s and/or Operating Rooms), and it seems to be working well.

So the premise is to give Mike and I an actual “line flight”. Fly from point A to point B with “normal” things that might happen on any given flight. Weather issues, mechanical problems, passenger things to deal with, ATC headaches….you know, just a normal day at the office. The I.P. wears all sorts of hats…basically whatever you need him to be. Find an issue during preflight…call out the “mechanic Fred” (I.P.), “Barry” the Purser has an issue in the cabin…call out the catering dude (I.P.), Dispatch wants to talk to you…guess what…it’s our very own “Bennie” playing the Dispatcher. You get the jist…he’s here to “help” you, but not break character and instruct you. You’re on your own, and it can actually be kinda fun.

 

Two funny LOE stories.

#1. I was a seasoned First Officer in the DC-10 doing an LOE from Milwaukee (non-stop) to Minneapolis one snowy morning (actually, it was June outside and the sun was shining brightly). We launched toward KMSP, and shortly thereafter, the Flight Engineer (don’t remember his name) leaned forward with a small note that the I.P. had obviously given to him to read to the Captain (Jerry). “Captain…I don’t feel very well, I’m going to be sick.” Jerry looked at me (I was the PF), looked at the F/E and said this, “Don’t you die on me! Don’t you dare die on me! You croak, you do it right there at your desk! Don’t you move!” (I was laughing my ass off). Sure enough, within a few minutes, the F/E “died”, and the two I.P.s (one for us pilots, and one for the F/E) had him get out of his seat and take a seat in the back of the simulator! We were now on our own….

Of course in the next :30, we had to shut down an engine, declare an emergency, dump fuel, and do the LOC only approach to RWY 12L at KMSP in a blinding snowstorm! Jerry got out of the Captain’s seat, worked the F/E panel like a pro, and I basically just flew the jet, talked on the radios, and answered the checklists as he read them. Worked like a charm. Of course….at the debriefing…the (dead) Flight Engineer who was getting his “LOE checkride” also (and did basically nothing), quipped…”Wow, I learned soooo much just sitting in the back observing you two! That was cool!” (We told him he sucked as a human being and that he was buying all the beer that night…)

 

(That beautiful lady…the DC-10. I spent five wonderful years in the front right window seat.)

 

#2. As a new B727 Captain, I was doing my first LOE checkride with a very experienced F/O and F/E. Good guys, I had flown with them on the line, and they knew their sh*t. We departed KDTW inbound for KMSP when about ½ way across Lake Michigan we get a call from “Suzie” in the back that there is water leaking out all over the aft restroom. “Could the F/E come back and shut off the water handle for us?
Again, Ray Charles could see this coming…F/E goes back, gets in a fight with a drunk passenger, gets the snot beaten out of him (simulated), and I’m stuck where Jerry was in that DC-10 scenario!

I looked at the F/O and asked him if he knew where the water shutoff handle was…he sheepishly said “no” (playing the game for the I.P.s…they wanted an “important” member of the crew…the F/E to get whacked). I said to the F/E….”you I need”….to the F/O…”you I don’t need….get your ass back there and find that handle and shut it off” (not playing the I.P.’s game…loll). He gets up from the F/O seat goes to the back of the simulator for a few minutes, comes back and tells me he can’t find it. I do what any good commander would do, I send him BACK to look again! (I REALLY didn’t want to lose the F/E…..). Back he comes a few minutes later with the same story…can’t find it….lol. I FINALLY cave and send back the Flight Engineer and (you guessed it), he gets assaulted by a drunk Navy pilot (just made that up), and he’s out cold.

OK…so me and “numbskull I can’t find the handle” F/O are going to have to work out any small issues just by our lonesome. Guess what #2? Yep, we experience a catastrophic engine failure, and part of the collateral damage is that the “A” system hydraulics begin to bleed out. OK…time to do some of that pilot sh*t. We have to secure the engine, dump fuel, electrically extend the flaps/slats, and last but most assuredly not least, we have to manually crank down the landing gear…and WHO do you think will be doing all of that? Not this cowboy…lo. About this time, me thinks that our intrepid F/O was dearly wishing he would’ve found the handle, had his brains beaten out, and could sit in the back of the simulator and watch the two up front flail away like “Bonzo and Bobo” the pair of trained seals!

Needless to say, we got it all done. He was cussing just a bit as he was lowering that last main gear (if you’ve ever cranked the gear down in the Boeing 727, then you know of what I speak…it’s like monkeys fornicating with footballs), but we got it all finished in time to shoot the ILS to 30L in KMSP, land and be towed to the gate like two conquering Roman Gods! (well, maybe not, but it’s a cool visual, right?).

Naturally, “numbskull #3” who did his entire check-ride from the observers seat in the back of the simulator hit us with the usual…”Wow, I learned soooo much just sitting in the back and observing you two! That was cool!” Dickhead…he bought the beer that night also.

 

Our LOE.

This won’t take long for I don’t actually remember too many details from this little “flight of the damned”. We launched with crappy weather (requiring a take-off alternate), headed up the west coast for our :30 flight to KSEA, and somewhere enroute we had a “CARGO FIRE” warning light come on! Lovely!

I ALWAYS elect to have the F/O be the PF on an LOE, for all the obvious reasons. I will be the “ringmaster”, directing ATC, Dispatch, Cabin Crew, Checklists, and most importantly, be the “keeper of the time bucket”. It’s all about time management…slow down to assess and plan, or as in this case, speed up and keep the fire from doing its thing.

You can see which one this became quickly. I had Mike get on the radios, declare an emergency and have ATC inform Dispatch of our predicament, we ran the checklist, talked to “Bruce” the Purser, made the appropriate cabin P.A.s, and about a million other things all while watching Mike fly the jet like a bat outta hell. We were approaching from the south, KSEA was landing south, but ATC offered us a straight-in landing north on RWY34R. Mike, how do you feel about that? Mike was “performance peaking” about now, had it wired, felt good about a “fast” approach (the weather was great), and I cut him loose. “Bruce” was calling with sitreps in the cabin…floor is hot…smoke in the aft of the cabin…have moved passengers to front…etc. Good man. I now had enough info to make the big decisions…we WILL BE EVACUATING THE JET ON THE RUNWAY. Bruce knew it, ATC knew it, Mike knew it, Dispatch knew it…pretty sure even the Kardashians knew it by this time.

We kept up with the checklists, Mike elected to use “MAX AUTO” on the auto-brakes (good thing, ‘cause we were going to us them regardless of what Mike wanted…it’s good to be King), and I directed him to slow when he felt comfortable, but stay fast as long as he could (we were well past the 250 knots below 10,000’ rule by now). Checklists done, Bruce ready in the cabin, Mike flying like a big dog…all that was left was to plop it on the pavement, get ‘er stopped, and get everyone off.

He did, we did, and they did. ATC said it looked like a fire when we were on short final, and Mike performed flawlessly. He planted the big jet on the runway, we screeched to a halt (MAX AUTO works like a charm), and we began the EMERGENCY EVACUATION CHECKLIST. When that was done, I did my “Sully” routine…took my flashlight, cleared the cabin, and exited from the farthest aft (use-able) exit. We then headed for the nearest “virtual lounge”….

 

(These things are NEVER without injuries…ugly to be sure.)

 

LOE complete.
MV complete.

Mike and I were now OFFICIALLY back in the game. He and I shook hands, I thanked him for being a terrific partner, and wished him luck on the line (with the promise to buy him a cold beer next time our paths crossed). He left to drive back home (he lived in the next state over), and I nestled into seat 22B (lodged between two fat guys…what else?), and winged my way back toward the Northland.

It had been a very long five + months away from my world in the cockpit…but it wasn’t the first time I had ridden that roller-coaster. I LOVED the parts about being with my lovely wife and youngest daughter every day, sleeping in my own bed EVERY night (weird to be sure), having the ability to eat and workout on MY daily schedule and not the airline’s (my waistline approved), and just generally feeling “better” physically and/or mentally. It’s a hard job kicking your body’s ass all over the world each month. Lots of strange times, strange meals, strange beds, and just when you start to feel “normal” again, it’s time to pack the trusty suitcase, kiss the loved ones goodbye and head toward the setting sun.

 

(from one of my favorite destinations…Palau)

 

Someday (in the not so distant future) the merry-go-round will turn its last turn, the music will stop, and yours truly will step off for the very last time. Will I miss it? Of course I will. Will I miss MVs and LOEs? LMAO…what do you think?

 

It’s good to be back.

 

’till next time…