19 March 2007 07:42
"Unnn-ergh." ...Don't worry, I will typically make such prophetic utterances when I'm stretching.I glance over at Dr. X to see how he's coming along. One reason I call him Dr. X to protect his identity in case he ever searches the internet for his name. But mostly I call him X to make him seem more interesting that he really is. He's well into his fifties, thinning greasy hair, overweight with quivering jowls and very soft manner of speech. My Christian heart goes out to him while my 'self' is repulsed. Texan by birth, Chiapan by career, scientist by education; I look at him and wonder what on earth makes him tick. His fluency in Spanish (albeit with a bastardized Texas drawl) and knowledge about entomology--in essence his mental capacity, stand in contrast to the degenerate manner he lives his life. He looks lost just sitting there.
But that doesn't take long to think. I close the book I'm trying to read, "I Am The Clay" by Chaim Potok. I have a very high opinion of the other books of his I have read, but this one is a departure from the writing style I'm used to him using--not to mention the subject material. I'll probably finish it someday simply because I started it, but I won't stay up til two in the morning to do it. Glancing at the GPS I see that we're coming up on the time we should start our descent into Kingston. We left Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico about three and a half hours ago. Another 75 minutes and we'll be home. Home for me, that is.
Dr. X is coming to the island for a week of observation and meetings and opted to fly over with me rather than go via commercial airlines. He is one of the directors for the commission we work for, as a courtesy to them they're usually welcome to tag along on our twice-weekly flights to avoid the airline hassle. Although fighting lines, security, and a minimum of three legs (Tuxtla to Mexico City, thence to DFW or Atlanta or Miami, thence to Kingston) isn't a pretty picture; riding with us isn't a picnic either. No stewardess, no pressurization, no lavatory, no in-flight entertainment, no reclining seats, and generally a cranky pilot (we don't like having to baby-sit). We wind up giving rides a dozen times or so a year, most of our passengers do their best to sleep their way across the Caribbean, Dr. X being no exception.
After checking to make sure he was still breathing and that his oxygen tube flow indicator was still green, I focused my attention forward to see what kind of descent we would have today. I've been fighting allergies, so that meant a shallow one for starters. A steep descent is better for avoiding time in the lower regions with weather, and for a better fuel burn, but it tends to be hard on people with sinus problems.
Air in the Caribbean is inherently moist and unstable, all that's required is a little uplift action to generate cumulous clouds. When approaching from a distance, one can usually tell where the island is located long before the actual landmass is visibly, simply by noticing the Jamaica-shaped collection of cumulous clouds in the distance. Today was a little worse than has been usual, a sign that rainy season is approaching to make the calm winter months a fond memory. A small towering cumulous had formed itself over the Spanish Town area, and while it was "small", it really wasn't something I'd ever be interested in flying through.
It was hard to tell how far away it was, perhaps it was on the far side of Kingston. I'm not holding my breath, but we'll figure it out when we get closer. We're close enough now to start our descent, so I call up center requesting lower and get handed off to the next sector instead. I make the switch and ask the new guy for lower, I'm promptly cleared down to the floor of his sector so I edge the nose down a few degrees and begin to secure the cockpit. After putting away anything that has the potential to knock me in the head during turbulence, checking seatbelts, and stowing charts I return my focus out the front. I like this part, the increased activity typical of the terminal area, the rapid fire issuance of vectors and altitudes, clearances and handoffs. Cruise is by definition a stable state. Weather conditions can make it pretty uh, exciting, but today had been a smooth flight with no complications. Time to spice things up a bit.
Flying with a passenger is bothersome, but I use the opportunity to challenge myself to provide the smoothest flight possible. By myself I would have skirted the base of the towering cumulous (essentially a developing thunderstorm). While still safe, most passengers don't seem to get the same thrill out of watching the wings flex in turbulence as I do. Radar had checked with approach and got me clearance on down to nine thousand. We were now passing south abeam Negril, the westernmost point on the island. After reading back the new altitude I requested to deviate along the south coast. As soon as one moves out over the water the clouds disappear with the removal of the mechanical uplift action (cause by the flow of wind over the island's landmass). In fact, due to its unique situation on a very narrow peninsula the Kingston airport enjoys good weather to a degree not realized by other airports in the area.
Knowing this, my plan is to skirt the southern coast before turning northward when directly south of the airport. I can do this visually, whereas the normal instrument approach would take me either straight through or just south of the towering cumulous...guaranteed to be a rough ride. Passing by Lover's Leap we're handed off to Manley Approach, the terminal approach controller for the two Kingston airports. Since controllers don't always have time to brief each other on each individual flight, I quickly outline my intentions to him when I sign on frequency. He acknowledges and clears me on down to five thousand. If for some reason the normal approach is undesirable (like today) he has the ability to direct me by radio towards the airport, observing my position on his radar and giving me magnetic headings to fly that will avoid other traffic and terrain. The sequential altitude clearances reflect this as I approach the airport past terrain obstacles he is able to clear me lower and lower once I'm past the surrounding mountains.
By now we're down where the air is less rarified, Dr. X and I have removed and stowed our oxygen masks. Lacking a headset he is ignorant of anything going on the radio, but like flying on the airlines a descent is hard to miss. Neither can he miss the white wall of cloud we're approaching. We've crossed Alligator Pond, but rather than flying all the way around southern Clarendon I'm maintaining an east-southeast heading that will take us right across Lionel Town at about six thousand feet. Here we'll meet a long shoulder of cloud coming off the cumulonimbus over Spanish Town that extends southwest for forty miles. I aim for the spot with the least amount of buildup above it and turn the autopilot off.
The autopilot is capable of flying through turbulence, although it will automatically switch off if either the roll rate or the pitch rate exceed certain values. In which case, the pilot needs to be awake and handy to correct the sudden attitude change that was too big for the autopilot. If I was lazy, that's the way I would do it (I'm usually lazy). Today I have a passenger, by hand flying I can maintain a smoother flight path overall. Plus, flying by hand in the soup with moderate turbulence is fun!
We have another three or four minutes before entering the cloud when I intercept a transmission from a business jet inbound to Kingston. Because he's approaching from the northeast his line-of-site transmissions to Manley Approach are blocked by the Blue Mountains. Sometimes approach just doesn't hear transmissions if they're weaker, so I called approach to see if they were awake. He was, and asked me to relay.
Relaying is a procedure whereby I tell the other aircraft what control wants them to do and give any responses back to control. Due to poor technique it's usually quite a sloppy event, wide open to miscommunication. This time there was potential for such several times, but fortunately the jet gave a full readback which caught the major one. I had relayed his clearance "Turn right heading two four zero, when established in the turn descend and maintain seven thousand feet". He read back "Turn right heading two forty, when established two four zero descend and maintain six thousand". I replied immediately, correcting the one error and ignoring the other, "Negative, descend and maintain seven thousand", to which he correctly responded. My next and last step was to let approach know the communication was successful since he had heard only my side of the conversation.
Because relaying introduces extra opportunities for error many pilots are reluctant to volunteer a relay, myself included. I'm more than willing to help, but if I had let "six thousand" slide (perhaps I heard seven when he really said six) and he flew into Blue Mountain...who's responsible? Instead of it being just air traffic control and the pilot in command, now I'm added in the mix. When ATC specifically asks for a relay, that somehow makes things seem better, as if they're shouldering the responsibility for any screw-up I might make. So later, when they finally did make contact directly, albeit fuzzily, and the controller's Jamaican accent was confusing the crew and the crew's Hispanic accent was confusing the controller--I stayed out of it. My finger was itching on the transmit button, but I stayed out of it because the system is not designed to accommodate three voices.
(The "when established in the turn" versus "when established on heading" is a whole 'nother issue in standard phraseology that could be poor usage on the controller's part or simply a difference between ICAO and FAA standards).
By now Dr. X and I had punched into the cloud and I was busy keeping the airplane upright anyway. With cumulous clouds, a prominent feature is strong up and downdrafts. I was trying to keep the airspeed as high as possible while remaining at or below the designated "turbulence penetration speed". The power setting that was working well in the smooth air outside was now too high, so I reduced both sides by twenty percent and used aircraft pitch to regulate the airspeed. When we hit a downdraft and the plane accelerates, pull up. When we hit an updraft and the plane decelerates, push down. And since this happens anywhere between five and one hundred times per minute, do it fast. Even more fun is to be had when just one wing or the other gets into a draft and you find yourself in a thirty degree bank in an eyeblink.
We punch in and out several times, going through layers and adjacent clouds. Approach clears us down to two thousand now, we're back out over the water south of Old Harbour. I can't see the water, I don't need to glance at the GPS, I just know that that's where we have to be if he's clearing us that low. He tells me another fifteen miles on my current heading should bring me clear of the main buildup. His weather radar is very primitive and practically useless. If the weather is strong enough to show up on his screen then I'm glad I didn't fly through it with a passenger.
The rough stuff is over in five or six minutes as we've now passed through the shoulder I mentioned earlier. Now we're just passing through the scud that's formed in the shadow underneath the main overcast. Around thirty-five hundred feet I can catch glimpses of the shoreline south of Hellshire Hills. Approach never gave me an actual heading to fly, so I turn left until I'm flight due east, continuing my descent. A thousand feet lower and I now have a clear view of the coastline although the airport itself is not visible through the mist and scattered clouds. I let approach know I have visual contact with the terrain and request a visual approach as I aim for Port Royal at a ninety degree angle to final.
I look over towards Spanish Town and see nothing but a wall of rain extending all the way to the ground. It would have been fun to fly an actual approach, but sneaking in like this was fun too. You can't have it all unless you own your own plane, but then you have to pay for it too. {Sigh} oh well, time to extend approach flaps. Time to open all the vents too. The temperature outside is approaching 25 degrees Celsius. The airframe and instruments have been residing in below freezing temperatures for four hours too, now the humidity is condensating everywhere, obscuring instruments and making the control yoke clammy.
Approach has forgotten about me, something I remind him of by redundantly giving my position which he can see on the radar screen. He hurriedly hands me off to tower and I switch for my landing clearance as I turn final. The gear is already down and the checklist complete. The only thing left to do is see how smooth I can make the landing after four and a half hours of growing stiff and rusty in the cockpit. It's of course a given that the smoothest landings happen when one is alone, the worst when one is trying to impress.
I've had smoother landings, but this one was still good enough that I can label it a "smooth one". It feels weird to have what I would call a "rough" landing and then have the passenger chirp out, "good landing!". My goodness, what are other pilots subjecting these people to?
"November one two three alpha bravo, arrived one niner vacate Delta to the gate this frequency. Good afternoon."
"Delta to the gate, take care. Three alpha bravo."
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