The First Day

Today I flew a jet for the first time. I'm still waiting for it to sink in. In the mean time, I'm going to write about it while it's fresh in my mind.

Originally, my day was supposed to start at 5:30 in the morning. I was supposed to report in Louisville (my base) to fly the 6:30 flight to Cincinnati. From there it was a flight to Akron Ohio, then back to Cincinnati, then to New Orleans to finish the day. Unfortunately, the captain had a flat tire in his car in Minneapolis the night before and was not able to get to Louisville for the 6:30 flight. The earliest (and only) leg he could make it in time to fly was the one from Cincinnati to New Orleans. Now because this is my first week, I have to fly with a specially designated training captain. The captain they found to replace mine on those first few legs did not have such a designation, so they had to get a different first officer too.

Anyway, I got a call from crew scheduling this morning telling me about all of this, and the new plan was for me to catch a ride on a 12:00 noon flight from Louisville to Cincinnati, so that I could join my captain on that Cincinnati-New Orleans leg. I met the captain there at the terminal in Cincinnati, and he said he had some things to take care of, and for me to go ahead and preflight the airplane. I was kind of surprised that he just set me loose on my own like that, but then this was all stuff I had been trained for, it was my job, and I guess you gotta cut the umbilical cord at some point.

I found the gate that the plane was parked at. The flight attendant was there waiting for me. We went out to the plane and he opened the airstair door. I climbed up and put my bag in the closet and my flight kit in the cockpit. From that point on I was pleasantly surprised how naturally everything came. I checked the cockpit to make sure nothing was out of the ordinary, then I powered up the airplane and the auxiliary power unit, which is a small gas turbine that provides electricity and air conditioning when the engines are not running, as well as power to start the engines themselves. Once this was done I got on the radio and listened to the weather report, and then called up air traffic control to get our route clearance. Finally, I turned on the air conditioning system. As far as inspecting the exterior goes, I think it's important to mention here that all of my training for this airplane so far had been done in simulators, which only simulated the cockpit, not the exterior. They did show us a preflight on an actual plane, once, back in November.

Well apparently that (and all the other training) was enough. I grabbed the checklist and headed outside. Again, I was pleasantly surprised. As it turns out, I've preflighted lots of different airplanes hundreds of times before in my flying career, and this was (and felt like) pretty much the same thing, and the checklist I had spelled out all the important things to check. The only real differences were that this was much bigger, had jet engines, and said "Delta" on it. All that stuff is really just aesthetic when you think about it.

By the time I had finished this and got back into the cockpit, the captain arrived and the passengers started to board. I did the weight and balance paperwork as the passengers finished boarding, and then the captain and I did all of our setup checks to make sure we were ready to go. Then he signaled to the ground crew that we were ready to be pushed back. I called the ground controllers and got our pushback clearance. As we were pushed back, the captain started the engines and I called for our taxi clearance.

As we taxied out, I had to do what I was most nervous about doing on the entire flight - I had to go on the PA and tell the passengers that we were ready for takeoff and for the flight attendant to be seated. Eventually I worked up the courage and pushed the "talk" button and miraculously I didn't stutter or stumble or anything.

When we got to the runway the captain informed me that I would be flying the takeoff. I mostly expected to be watching him fly this flight, but by this time I was starting to get used to the surprises. The tower gave us our takeoff clearance. He taxied onto the runway and then told me that I had the controls. At this point my "programming" from the previous seven weeks took over. I set the power levers into the "thrust set" detent and we started rolling. I tried (and did well enough) to keep the airplane going down the middle of the runway without being too abrupt with the controls. The captain called out the rotation speed and I pulled back on the yoke. We started to climb so he called out "positive rate" and I called for him to raise the landing gear. Here we go!

Now I haven't mentioned this yet, but the weather was fairly crappy today. On the ground it was cold and rainy. After takeoff we were immediately in the clouds, and in the bumps. Most of the flight was very choppy, kind of like riding on a speedboat, but not quite as violent. The plane acted and flew so much like the simulator did that I had to remind myself that this was a real jet with 46 people behind me. The most major differences were the scenery was much better, and the wind and bumps felt more "real." Obvious I know, but the point is not much else was different.

As far as the enroute portion goes, it was really just like flying any other plane, except things happened a bit faster, but there were two of us so it actually seemed easier. We flew at 36,000 feet, which was just barely on top of the clouds, and yes, it was still bumpy up there. During that portion, I finally had time to take everything in and enjoy what was going on.

As we got close to New Orleans, the captain listened to the weather report and told Delta Operations at the airport when we would be arriving. We got the radios and the computers and everything set up for our approach, which I would also be flying.

The weather in New Orleans was not too bad. We could see the airport from about ten miles away. I don't mean to sound like a broken record, but again, landing this plane was pretty much the same as landing any other plane. On the way down I was making small changes in pitch, power, and heading to keep us at the right speed, angle, and keep us lined up with the runway. I was a little worried about landing too hard, so I ended up floating down the runway a little too long, but I re-settled the plane and decelerated down the middle of the runway. The captain took over the controls and taxied us to the gate.

When we got there, another crew was waiting to take the plane back to Cincinatti, so we had to hurry up and get our stuff put away and get things ready for them to take over. Once we were done with this, we went through the airport and got on a shuttle bus to take us to a hotel. I'm writing this in my hotel room in New Orleans right now, and we are scheduled to fly out of here tomorrow at 11:00 a.m.

I've been excited about this day for quite a while, even had a dream or two about it. As it got closer I started to get a little nervous that I would forget everything I learned or would do something idiotic, but luckily none of that happened. Things did happen very quickly, which didn't give me much time to really savor what was going on. It will probably take a few more flights for my brain to completely catch up to the airplane, but overall I think I did pretty well for my first day, and the captain said I did pretty good too. Now, I'm going to get a good night's rest so that we can work our way back to Louisville tomorrow. It should be interesting; snow and rain are in the forecast.

note: Both exterior shots in this post are of the exact plane that I flew today. They weren't taken today, but it is the exact same aircraft, N563RP. The cockpit shot is not the same aircraft but ours is identical.