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WestWind Airlines Flight WW956 By Michael Rowley You join me on a pleasant Sunday afternoon at Orlando International Airport (KMCO) on the return leg to Norfolk, Virginia. Normally this flight would be one of WestWind's Boeing 737-400's but today it has been upgraded to a 757 in view of the heavy passenger booking; it would seem we have a full load of returning conventioneers. The flight down to Orlando was pretty uneventful but a slight headwind put us about 10 minutes late at the gate and so the usual 45 minute turnaround is reduced to 35 minutes and my First Officer, Steve, is already doing the walk around check as we do like to ensure that we have arrived with the same number of engines, wings and wheels we left with. Whilst Steve is enjoying his stroll in the afternoon Florida sunshine I am working out the fuel load for the return leg. Met has warned of a front that may be overhead Norfolk just in time for our arrival and although it is slow moving it may cause us to look at our alternate if it arrives before we do. The items I need to take account of when planning the fuel. Firstly the actual fuel we will burn from Orlando to Norfolk, second, the fuel we will use on start up and taxi. Today, for example, we are on the opposite side of the airport to the active runway so we can expect a long taxi, in fact it is over 2 miles from our stand to the threshold. I also need to allow for 45 minutes of hold and enough fuel to make our alternate with at least 4000 lbs spare. The distance to Norfolk is 560 miles and will take us about 1 hour 45 minutes runway to runway, I calculate the fuel burn to be 17357 lbs. I am going to allow 300 lbs start up and taxi, 4000 lbs for the alternate and 4000 lbs safety giving me at total fuel load of 25657 lbs and I will round that up to 26000. So how does all this work out? OK, the Basic Operating weight of this particular aircraft is 114600 lbs and that includes the total weight of the aircraft's six crew and galley stores. If we add to that our payload today, which dispatch advises me is 69400 lbs I will get our Zero Fuel Weight (ZFW) of 184000. Now we get to the interesting bit, the maximum weight at which the aircraft will get airborne is 255000 lbs so the absolute maximum of fuel I can load would be 254816 lbs however, it would not be safe for me to do that as the Maximum Landing Weight is 198000 lbs and as i would only burn 17357 lbs of the full fuel load I would exceed the max allowable landing weight and we would plow a rather long furrow in Norfolk's runway. To help me out we prepare a load sheet detailing all the maximum weights, the actual passenger weights, no we don't actually ask passengers to step onto the scales we use averages: males 165 lbs, females 143 lbs, children 95 lbs and infants 22 lbs, as you can tell we do over estimate. We do, however, have actual weights for the baggage, cargo and mail. We can also work out the trim of the aircraft from the load sheet, as it will show us how the passengers are seated and where the baggage, cargo and mail have been loaded. In the case of this flight we have 2/3 of the baggage and cargo in the aft holds and 1/3 in the forward and as we have a full load of passengers evenly distributed throughout the cabin this will give us a trim index of about 3.5 nose up. I am now happy with the load and fuel planning and I have signed the dispatch papers to that effect. Steve had now rejoined me on the flight deck and Gwen, our cabin services supervisor has asked if we are OK to board, a quick check on the fuel panel shows me that fuelling has been completed and the hoses disconnected so I advise Gwen that we are okay the commence boarding. Our next task is the before start checklist and Steve and I carefully run through this. For all pilots checklist are a way of life and so they should be, it can be so easy to forget one switch or one procedure and that's the purpose of checklist to make sure we don't. Whilst the passengers are boarding we review our flight plan, our route for this flight is the normal standard route and because we are using runway 18L we can expect a left turn after takeoff climbing out to the initial height of 2500 with a further climb to FL360 for our cruising altitude of FL370. OMN - BEENO -MILIE - CHS - JMACK - ISO - WEAVR - KORF Our route takes us north to Jacksonville and then up through the Carolinas, commencing our descent a few miles after the JMACK intersection, and finally into Norfolk. We'll just tune into clearance and see what they have for us. "Orlando clearance WestWind 956 is on the ramp with information lima requesting clearance IFR to Norfolk". "WestWind 956 your are cleared to Norfolk as filed climb on runway heading to 2500 feet expect FL350 10 minutes after take off squawk 1342". I repeat our clearance back as Steve enters the squawk code into our IFF and we go straight into the "before pushback" checklist. The checklist complete Gwen advises me that the cabin is secure and we have a pushback team just hooking up, time to have a quick word with our passenger. "From the flightdeck, this is captain Mike Rowley and on behalf of WestWind Airlines I would like to welcome you all aboard our 757 flight to Norfolk. We will be pushing back from the gate in just a moment and our flying time to Norfolk will be about 1 hour 45 minutes, Please sit back, relax. Gwen our cabin services director and her team will ensure you have a pleasant flight and our First Officer, Steve Knight, will speak with you again once we are airborne. Just one more thing, as we taxi out Gwen and here team will be making a safety announcement and I would like you all to pay particular attention to this, as, even though you may have flown many times before, not all aircraft are the same and you may find some safety features are different. Thank you". The tug is now hooked up; we have clearance to push and start, a quick check that the anti collision light is on. Release brakes and off we go, the pushback crew will turn us onto the taxiway center line and while they are doing that Steve and I launch into the before start checklist. We are now ready to start number 1 keeping a close eye on the N2 once it closes on 20 we open the fuel valve and we get a normal start as the engine steadies we repeat the process on number 2. The push back crew are now clear, both engines are running normally, the after start check list has been completed and we have 15 degrees of flap selected and as I suspected Orlando ground have cleared us to runway 18L the long way around. It take us a few minutes to taxi clear of the stands and onto the out taxiway and listening in on the ground frequency I can hear a few other flight making there way to the same runway so it looks like we will be joining a queue. I have another very quick word with the passengers just to assure them that we are not infact travelling by road to Norfolk but have rather a long taxi to the runway, and that there are a few flights ahead of us. Steve and I take the opportunity to review our take off data, confirming our take off weight of 21000 lbs the book tells us our speeds are: Therefore retracting flaps 5-1 / 166 knots and 1-0 / 188 knots. In the event of an incident before V1 we will halt the aircraft on the runway, spoilers and brakes if its an engine problem, use reverse thrust if the problem allows. In the event of an emergency after V1 we will climb straight ahead I will fly and declare you deal with the problem by the checklist and we will assess a course of action based on the nature of the emergency. At this stage we are number 7 for the runway but everyone seems to me moving so it won't be long now. The before take off checklist is completed, cabin crew are advised to standby for take off. The US Airways 737 in front of us begins its takeoff roll and we call tower ready for takeoff. "WestWind 956 line up and hold runway 18L". Acknowledging the instruction we open the throttles just to give us a little forward momentum and slowly pull onto the runway aligning ourselves just to the right of the center line so as to avoid the bumps from the runway lights and to give us a slight diagonal into the light crosswind. I watch the departing 737 make a slow right turn as the tower calls. "WestWind 956 clear takeoff runway 18L surface wind 174 at 8 knots." "Roger clear takeoff WestWind 956." Slowly moving the throttles forward watching the engines stabilise, release the brakes, opening the throttles the engine noise building from a whine to a roar, Steve calls 80 knots and I lift my hand from the throttles to the yoke engage TOGO, "V1" calls Steve. "Rotate". A slight backpressure on the yoke and our 757 is free of the ground and climbing, "positive rate, gear up" I call. "Gear coming up" replies Steve, following soon after by "gear up". "WestWind 956, call departure on 119.45, good day." "Roger" replies Steve, "to departure 119.45, good day". The departure frequency is already tuned on box 2 so it requires nothing more than the push of a button to change, but things are a little busy here and I call out "Speed check, flaps 5". Steve repeats the instruction and sets the flaps to 5 at the same time he calls departure "Orlando departure WestWind 956 is with you climbing to 2500". "Roger WestWind 956, make a left turn heading 015 and climb to FL350." "Roger, left to 015 and climb FL350 for WestWind 956." "Speed check" I call. "Flaps up." "Flaps up" responds Steve. It's at this point we engage the autopilot setting the speed for 240 knots and the EPR to climb and a quick glance at all the instruments and shows everything normal, as we approach our planned track I engage LNAV and we start the after take off checklist. I check our climb rate, 1800 feet per minute, as we pass 16000 feet I increase our speed so we attain our cruise altitude at Mach 0.76, which is our best economical cruise speed and decrease the rate of climb slightly. As we approach our first waypoint we are handed over to Jacksonville Center and we run through the climb checks. Everything is normal as we pass OMN and turn to 360 to make good our track to BEENO our next waypoint. Time I think to release the passenger by turning off the seatbelt sign. Twenty-eight minutes into our flight and we pass BEENO the slight tailwind has put us 2 minutes early at this point and if we continue with no ATC delays we should get to Norfolk about 10 minute ahead of schedule. The cruise portion of our flight, although less frenetic, than take off or landing is still a busy time. The constant monitoring of ATC, instruments, the fuel burn and the all important navigation keep both Steve and I busy, but with the best view in the house I am by no means complaining, and it's a fine day for flying however it's nearing time to plan our descent. I favor a long slow descent and I had planned to begin about 9 miles after JMACK intersection, but Center had traffic below us and has told us to expect descent after ISO. My reason for favoring the long slow descent is simply to avoid the use of the spoilers because they cause my passenger to be buffeted unnecessarily and so its just for passenger comfort. Based on ATC instructions Steve and I re-plan our descent and estimate we will be passing over WEAVR intersection at FL210. We pass over JMACK and are now 15 minutes from the start of our descent and I now start to slow the aircraft, I plan to be at Mach 0.65 over ISO and I will maintain that speed during our descent until passing FL200. "WestWind 956, descend and maintain FL210 continue present heading." "Roger, heading 044, descend and maintain FL210 WestWind 956." As Steve resets the ALT HOLD to 21000 feet the aircraft starts a gentle pitch down and the altimeter begins unwinding, we increase our rate of descent so as to hold our speed at Mach 0.65 and begin our descent checks, recalling the passenger to their seats by switching on the seatbelt sign. We are now in range of Norfolk ATIS and luckily for us the expect front has weakened to just a drop of light rain so it looks like we will be arriving nice and early and without the hassle of a weather hold or diversion. As we pass over WEAVR we are given a further descent and handed over to Norfolk approach where we are told to expect radar vector to the ILS runway 23. As its Sunday afternoon and a reasonably quiet time of the day for other traffic, the Navy doesn't work weekends, we can expect a nice straight forward descent and approach. ATC seem to have heard my wishes and we are vectored to a nice downwind right for runway 23. The aircraft has been slowed now to 250 knots and as we are given further descents, so I slow the aircraft down to 220 knots, I have already set up the ILS frequency and the OBS, I have my approach plates out and I am looking to be at 2000 feet 9.6 miles out and 1200 feet at 4.5 for a 3 degree glide slope. As we turn base leg I reduce speed further to 184 and put us 1 degree of flaps, ATC turn us onto a nice heading to intercept the localiser and I reduce to 172 knots and 5 degrees of flap, just over 12 miles out now and Steve calls "localiser alive". The aircraft begins its left turn now to align with the extended centerline, we are at 2000 feet 9.5 miles to go slowing to 164 knots and 15 degrees of flap 8 miles to go slow to 155, 20 degrees of flat and wheels going down. Three greens with 6 miles to go I have the runway and the lights flaps 25 down to 144 knots, disengaging autopilot, 132 knots flaps 30. This is the basic pitch equals glide slope, power equals rate of descent. Adjusting the trim to hold the glide slope, increasing power to slow the rate of descent it all feels good and ATC clears us to land number 1. "Approaching minimums." "Minimums." Steve calls "Intentions." I reply "Landing." Steve calls the attitudes, "300, 200, 1 to go, 50, 40, 30." I retard the throttles and the main wheels touch with hardly a bump, spoilers are up and auto brakes engage, reverse thrust is applied and we slow to 60 knots where I take over manual breaking. As we turn off the runway and begin out after landing checks I notice we have arrived a good 10 minutes ahead of schedule, we have certainly earned our virtual wages today. I have been a pilot with WestWind Airlines since 1996 and flying with WestWind has added a purpose to my flight simming experience; I now have a wide choice of routes to fly, and the flexibility to fly them when I can. I would recommend flying for virtual airlines to anyone, as it is very rewarding to fly with like-minded people and the support and friendship cannot be equalled. Westwind Airlines is my chosen VA, but there are several more to choice from and I feel sure you will be able to find one who meet your particular requirements. I would also like this opportunity to say a big thank you to Nels Anderson for making FlightSim.Com a "must visit" website to all the developers out there who make our flight sim experiences as real as it gets. The particular software used in this adventure feature 757-200 freeware from www.flywestwind.com. Lonny Payne for the excellent freeware 757 panel, available from the FlightSim.Com file library, also Dave March, for S-Combo, an absolute must have file, and JustFlight for 2002 FS Traffic and World Airports. Michael Rowley michael22@btinternet.com