After seven years on the 757 I decided to make the jump and upgrade to the 767.
This was the easiest checkout I’ve done so far. The toughest by far was Flight Engineer on the 727. I think that was a bit of a “hazing program” since it was traditionally where new-hires started out.
Going to the 767 was easy because I was already type-rated on the aircraft. When Boeing built the 757 and 767 they were certified by the FAA as a “common type”. I’m fully qualified to fly either plane from either seat, although I only fly from the right seat due to seniority.
The day prior to training I drive my trusty “airport car” down to Memphis. I have no idea what my schedule will be like after training, so I want the car there in case I get stuck on reserve.
Day one:
Since I already had the rating, all I needed was “differences training”. This consisted of: half a day in the classroom, a short simulator ride and then two nights of “supervised line flying” with a company check airman.
From a systems standpoint the 75 and 76 are very similar. There are minor differences in the fuel and pneumatic systems and some greater differences in the hydraulic system. Flight management and instrumentation are very similar.
It’s kind of like trading in your 5-year-old car for a new one from the same brand. Everything your old car had is still there, but it might be in a different spot. Plus they’ve probably added some new features since you bought your last one.
Day two:
The sim ride was a freebie. Just a chance to get in, flip switches and practice a few maneuvers. It wasn’t a check ride so it was "low threat”.
I have yet to see a simulator that flies exactly like the real thing and this one is no exception. We bought this sim from the lowest bidder and it shows. I thought my landings sucked but I was told that was just how the sim flies. I never could land the 757 simulator very well either but this one was worse. As long as you hit the right spot on the runway they don’t really care about how it feels.
Day three:
A little over twelve hours after finishing my simulator ride I was scheduled for my first trip. A 1:30 AM show for a two hour flight to MHT (Manchester, NH). I tell the check airman that I need to do the landing if we lose an engine, since that was my only good landing in the simulator.
The big danger in the 767 is a “tail strike” on takeoff or landing. We fly the 767-300 freighter, which is 20 foot longer than the original 767-200. At 180 feet in length, it’s like a big see-saw. When the nose comes up the tail goes down quite a ways. You don’t want to snatch it off the ground on takeoff or flare too high on the landing. I for one don’t want to be the guy who puts a scratch on the company’s shiny new $188 million dollar airplane.
We head out to the jet early so he can show me how to do the exterior inspection. It’s been a long time since I’ve flown a wide-body and this one is even bigger than the A300 I used to fly. The wingspan is 156 feet. The main landing gear is about 80 feet behind the cockpit. It’s 52 feet to the top of the tail. The main wheels come almost up to my chest. The engines are large enough that a person could easily stand in the intake.
You don’t realize just how big these things are until you get up close to one. Compared to the Airbus A300 it’s four feet longer, has ten more feet of wingspan and can weigh about 30,000 pounds more (408,000 pounds versus 380,000 pounds). I can walk under the belly without hitting my head. After the B-52 this will be the largest plane I’ve flown.
It’s not as pretty as the 757. The 75 is built like Barbie: long legs, slim waist. The 76 looks more like Barbie’s corn-fed cousin from Des Moines.
The exterior inspection is pretty easy on the newer jets. It’s not like the 727 where you had to actually climb up inside and hope it didn’t leak on your white shirt. You’re mostly just checking for leaks, lose panels or any damage from a previous flight that you don’t want to get blamed for. The 767 has a tail-skid that extends with the landing gear. I check to make sure it isn’t scraped from a previous tail-strike. It seems like 90% of this job is covering your butt.
The first thing I notice when I start my interior inspection is that there’s only one crew entry door and no escape slide. If we have to get out, we’re supposed to grab a handle and jump. The handle has an inertia reel that theoretically will slowly lower you to the ground. Since we’re two stories up I hope the damn thing works if I ever have to use one. The only other way out is out the cockpit window and down a rope.
The cockpit, as one would expect, is a lot roomier than a 757. Our configuration has four jumpseats plus the lavatory in the cockpit. This wouldn’t have been my choice but I wasn’t the one writing the check. We bought the same setup as our main competitor to save some money.
Once in the seat it looks a lot like a 757 except you’re sitting up higher. You think your SUV sits up high? This is like looking out a 2nd story window.
When I check the maintenance log I notice the plane has less than 350 hours on it. It’s practically brand new. This is probably the newest plane I’ve ever flown. Our 757s are converted passenger models and some have over 80,000 hours on the airframe.
I really like the GE CF-6 engines on this plane. They make an impressive 60,000 pounds of thrust each but more importantly they start almost instantly. The Pratt & Whitney engines on some of the 757s take for freakin’ ever to start. The GE engines only require 3 minutes of warmup time before takeoff, which is nice if you have a short taxi to the runway.
The only other difference is GE uses N1 (fan speed) to set thrust rather than EPR (Exhaust Pressure Ratio) for the Pratt & Whitney and Rolls Royce engines. As a pilot I don’t care that much. If you tell me to set 20,000 turtle-power I’ll dutifully set the turtle gauge to 20,000 for takeoff.
The check airman does the first takeoff but gives it to me on the climbout. The first thing I notice is just how responsive it is. People who fly both usually say “The 767 flies like the 757 looks”. The 767 has a second set of ailerons that makes gives it very impressive roll response. I find myself over-controlling a bit at first but it settles down once I get the feel of it. Hopefully I didn’t bang the other guy’s head on the side window too many times.
We have a couple hours up to Manchester and the check airman goes over some of the differences and the “gotchas” versus the 757. The biggest thing is not to get behind on the approach and find yourself too high, too fast without enough drag. The first bit of flaps on the 767 takes about 30 seconds to extend and that can be a long time if you’re trying to slow down for an approach.
I fly it all the way down to 1000 feet on the approach and then he takes it to demo the first landing. I’m surprised at how similar the landing picture is to a 757. Boeing really did a great job with this thing.
It must be seven years since I’ve been to Manchester. I only know this because it used to be an Airbus trip and I haven’t flown the Airbus for seven years. The hotel looks about the same as I remember it. I get my usual 4-5 hours of daytime sleep. Later on I venture out to the historic Red Arrow diner for dinner. I think it’s been there since the 1920s.
The short layover goes by much too quickly and that evening it’s time to head back to Memphis. The weather in Memphis is looking pretty iffy. There’s a line of thunderstorms scheduled to hit there right around the same time as us, so we’ve got that to look forward to. Indianapolis is our alternate.
The Captain has some extra fuel loaded just in case. There are three things in aviation that are of no use to you: runway behind you, altitude above you and gas in the truck.
My first takeoff in the 767 is in gusty crosswinds but the plane handles it just fine. Man this thing is light on the controls. I barely think about rotating and the nose starts coming up. I hand fly it up to 20,000 feet just to get the feel for the jet. For the most part it flies like a 757, just more responsive.
We’re somewhere around Cleveland when our dispatcher contacts us on ACARS (data link). They want us to reroute to the south and try to end-run around the line of storms. Good thing we put extra gas on.
We end up going almost to Atlanta and then working our way back towards Memphis. As we get closer I’m already seeing flashes of lightning on the horizon to the West.
I’m impressed with the radar on the 767. It not only shows the storms, but also can show us the height of the storm and if we’ll pass over the top it.
The arrival brings us in from the Southeast and it looks like there’s a hole in the line of storms. As we get closer, however, it starts to look like a “sucker hole”. It’s starting to close up as the storm cells build and we decide it’s probably not a good idea to go in there.
We break off the arrival and head south of the airport. At this point the storms are sitting on top of the airport and ATC starts putting everyone into holding patterns. We enter holding and start looking at our fuel situation. I point out that the storms are now between us and Indy, so we might want to get a different alternate.
Our dispatcher comes back with DFW as an alternate. That’s not too bad. The weather at least looks clear in that direction. We had hoped for Shreveport, which is closer but they want us to use Dallas for some reason. Probably because they have more ramp space to park jets there.
We do some calculations and figure that when we burn down to 20,000 pounds of fuel we need to head to Dallas in order to get on the ground with reasonable reserves. The 767 burns 9,000-10,000 pounds per hour. To land with less than 7,000 is considered an emergency.
Meanwhile the storms keep building and we actually have to move our holding pattern to stay out of the way. I hear several flights diverting already. Once again I’m glad for the extra fuel. If we have to divert we’ll likely sit in Dallas for several hours waiting for the storms to pass and for someone to get a fuel truck to us. By the time we get back to Memphis they’ll have probably taken me off my outbound trip and my schedule will be a mess.
Safety is the highest priority of course. I’m not going to fly through a thunderstorm just to finish my training.
We’re just about to head for Dallas when they break us out of holding and start vectoring us for the approach. By now the winds on the ground have shifted 180 degrees and they’ve “turned the airport around” and are landing to the North. We scramble to load the new approach in the computer and brief it.
By this point we’ve been vectored all the way around to the West side of the airport. There’s still some weather between us and the airport but it looks doable.
The way our airborne radar depicts storms is:
Red = “They don’t pay me enough to go in there!”
Yellow = “I will if there’s no other way but I’d really rather not. Really.”
Green = “Might get bumpy but we can do it.”
We head for a green area between two yellow blobs. Looking out the window I can see the cumulus buildup but it doesn’t go very high. The tops are maybe 15,000 feet which tells me it shouldn’t be that strong. We enter the clouds.
We hit a brick wall in the sky. I feel the G’s come on as the jet pitches up and banks left about 20 degrees. Then I get the sick feeling as it “unloads” and pitches back down. I’m hanging onto the “oh shit” handle next to the side window. Everything outside the window is black except when it turns red from our rotating beacon. Rain pelts the windshield.
I see lightning, very close. Closer than I’ve ever seen it. I let go of the “oh shit” handle. I figure hanging onto a piece of metal during a lighting strike might not be the best idea I’ve ever had.
The Captain yells something about making an altitude restriction on the arrival and I yell back something about “trying not to die over here”. Between the rain and the crackling of static on the radios it’s hard to hear each other anyway.
Much of the time this can be a pretty easy job. Then you’ll get that one flight that makes you question your choice of careers. This was one of those.
We break out of the weather somewhere around 6,000 feet and I relax a bit. We’re still getting rained on but at least we’re not getting slammed around. The storms have definitely churned up the air near the airport. We have a tailwind most of the way down final approach but at 500 feet it swings around pretty quickly to a quartering headwind. I kick the autopilot off around 700 feet to get a feel for the winds. I find myself over controlling again at first but it quickly settles down. My first landing in the 767 is on a rain soaked runway with variable winds and I dare say it was pretty good. This is the big leagues.
With all the course deviations and time spent in the holding pattern it has taken us nearly five hours to get here. The flight was scheduled for three.
Now might be a good time to explain how our system works.
The “fleet” makes a massive push to the hub between 10:00 PM and Midnight. Everybody then sits through the “sort” and then we make a massive push outbound between 3:00 AM and 5:00 AM.
Day four:
My inbound flight has been delayed so badly that by the time we get into the building it’s actually show time for my next. Since I expect the sort to be very late due to all the delayed arrivals I figure I still have time for a short nap. I book a “sleep room” and ask for a 20 minute wake up before my next show time, which will be adjusted for however late the sort is.
This is probably the best thing we’ve done since I’ve worked here. It wasn’t always this way, but the company has made great efforts to mitigate fatigue. A sleep-room is basically a walk-in closet with a bed and a phone. We used to only have a handful of them. If you didn’t arrive early enough you’d end up trying to nap in a chair or having to just “power through” the rest of the night.
After the Colgan Air crash, fatigue became a big deal for the airlines. I’m sure the company spent a bunch of money building extra sleep rooms, but it was worth every penny. Now I’m almost certain to get a nap between flights. I used to struggle to stay awake on that early AM flight but these days I’m much more rested.
The great thing is, I don’t have to set an alarm. They’ll wake me up when they need me. If the sort is two hours late that just means I get a longer nap. This night I sleep about an hour and wake up on my own 5 minutes before the phone rings. Time to head back to Manchester.
It’s a different check airman for this leg. His inbound flight was delayed as much as mine was, so we’re both in the same boat. By now the storms have moved out and we get out of Memphis without any drama.
I can tell we’re late because the sun is in my face most of the way to the East Coast. Otherwise it’s uneventful. The winds are a bit gusty but the landing is no trouble. I’ve always thought the 757 was easy to land well and the 767 is just as easy. Much easier than the Airbus A300, which I could never land consistently. I’d have four good Airbus landings and then the fifth would have me checking my teeth for loose fillings.
Unfortunately we won’t be here long. Arriving late just means a shorter layover. I think that’s why I hate being late so much. It comes out of my rest time.
It seems like I barely have time to sleep, eat dinner and then go back to work. It’s snowing when we show in the lobby for the ride back to the airport.
The hotel van driver is a guy around my age and he’s “chatty”. I hate when they’re chatty. It seems like they always want to talk about current events and nine times out of ten they’re a right winger.
I actually try to avoid Stewart-Newburgh because the driver there never shuts up and I’m sick of getting into arguments with him. The weird thing is, he seems to like me. It’s like I’m a magnet for these people.
“Are you guys from Memphis?” the driver asks.
“Ohio” I reply.
“That’s one of the states that contributed to Donald Trump’s victory!” he exclaims.
(Where the f*ck did that come from? I think to myself. All I said was I live in Ohio. It’s like he was saving it up or something.)
“I don’t like to discuss politics with someone I’ve known for exactly five minutes. What else would you like to talk about sir?” I reply rather curtly.
He doesn’t say a word the rest of the way. I still tip him.
I hate having to deice, but if you have to do it make sure you’re somewhere up North where they get a lot of practice. The ramp crew at Manchester gets us squirted off in no time. The check airman says there’s no need for me to fly this leg, he’s seen enough, but I can do it if I want to. Since I never turn down a landing on general principle I opt to fly the leg back to Memphis.
So now, after a mere four days, I’m completely checked out in a new aircraft. That’s the beauty of a common type rating. The company saves a fortune in training costs and my life gets disrupted a lot less. I would say it was by far the easiest checkout I’ve done. This is my fifth Boeing product and my eighth aircraft in my career so far: T-37, T-38, B-52,KC-135, 727, A300, 757, 767.
Overall I’m very impressed with the 767 and I can see why we’re buying a bunch of them. The accountants must love this jet because it’s so damn efficient. A typical load of freight on the 757 is around 30,000 pounds and it will burn around 7,000 pounds of fuel an hour to carry it. The 767 will burn 9,000-10,000 pounds of fuel carrying twice that load. Maximum load is probably around 110,000 pounds but it will probably “bulk out” and run out of space before then.
From where I sit, it's a bit quieter and the ride is smoother. Overall everything seems to work better, but that may be due to it being a new jet.
Week two:
Scheduling doesn’t waste any time. I jumpseat home for a couple days and I get a call: “You have a trip that leaves Memphis tomorrow afternoon. I didn’t have enough notice to schedule you tonight (gee thanks). I built your schedule for the rest of the month. Sorry I couldn’t give you the days off you wanted.”
I bring up my schedule on the computer and it most closely resembles a shotgun blast. Three days on, one day off, repeat. Not a good schedule for a commuter but I’m not surprised. To the schedulers I’m just “meat in a seat”. At least I have trips and not reserve days. I can always trip-trade to make my schedule more workable.
It could be worse. I had expected to get stuck on reserve for the remainder of the month. Since I don’t have a crash pad in Memphis any more I expected to spend a fortune on hotels. Reserve is only a good-deal if you live in your domicile. For commuters like myself it’s to be avoided. I used to have a crash pad and I hated it. The other pilots were slobs and they ate all my food.
My first trip after training looks like a good deal. Fly to LAX in the afternoon, sit for 36 hours, fly to JFK and then a commercial deadhead back from JFK.
We’re about an hour out of LAX and I’m enjoying the novelty of flying in the daytime. Most of the 757 trips are on the back side of the clock. The 767 seems to have more daytime flying and at my seniority I can probably hold some of those lines. Daytime means the sun is in my eyes all the way to the West Coast. Pilots will always find something to complain about.
Right about then ACARS goes “ding” and we get the dreaded “Call scheduling when you get to LAX” message. No good ever comes from that message.
We get to LAX around 8:00 PM and I bring up the revised schedule on my iPad. Oh what fresh hell is this? My 36-hour layover is now a 9-hour layover with a flight to Newark in the early morning. Then back to the West Coast 17 hours later for 11 hours in Ontario then operate back to Memphis. Ouch. That’s gonna hurt. It seems the early spring blizzard that hit the East Coast has really messed up our operation.
No time to eat. Good thing they gave us a box lunch on the flight to LAX. I hit the hotel and jump in bed. Fortunately my body is on East Coast time so the 5:00 AM show time isn’t as bad as it sounds. This time the sun is in my eyes all the way to the East Coast.
Newark is a big change from California. Cold, windy and icy. The main runways at Newark 04 Right/Left and 22 Right/Left. Normally they use the inside (closest to the terminal) runway for takeoffs and the outside runway for landing.
Right now between the packed snow on the runway and the stiff crosswinds we’ll have to land on the little-used Runway 29. I’ve landed on it exactly once in all the years I’ve been going through Newark. The visual approach to 29 reads something like “cross the railroad bridge at 500 feet”. Which bridge? It’s New York! There are bridges all over the place! Fortunately they get one of the 22s plowed and our landing data says we can land on it even with the crosswinds.
It’s my leg and the Captain asks if I’m OK with doing the landing. I tell him that’s what I get paid for, but if he wants it he won’t hurt my feelings. He’s the one who signed for the jet. He’s been flying with a lot of new-hires and he seems pleased to be flying with someone that’s been doing this for a while. I dare say the landing was quite good given the conditions. The 767 seems to handle the crosswinds well.
Our Newark hotel is out in Summit, a commuter town of million-dollar plus homes. If I wasn’t feeling so beat up right now I’d work out, but instead I take a nap, eat dinner and then go right back to bed.
The 8:00 AM show is actually pretty civilized. I have time for breakfast at the hotel for a change. Usually we show long before breakfast is served (6:30 at most hotels).
Newark has such a backlog of freight that they’ve run out of places to put it. The early March blizzard has hit them hard. We’re about an hour late getting out of there. This doesn’t bother me much because we’re scheduled through Indianapolis. It just means I won’t have to sit in Indy as long.
We sit through the sort in Indy for about three hours. Indy is also running a bit late, which is going to suck because we already have a short layover in Ontario. The Captain offers me the choice to fly this leg or the one back to Memphis. I pick the Ontario leg since I haven’t landed there in many years.
The arrival into Ontario can be a little sporty. You have to stay up high to clear the terrain to the East, and then hurry to get down. Forewarned is forearmed and I keep an eye on our energy state on the arrival. Light winds and daylight makes for an easy landing and I’m pleased with it.
The weather in California is beautiful. Too bad I won’t be here very long. Good thing I ate my box lunch on the way here. I have just enough time to call my wife and then jump in bed. I did note that there’s an In-N-Out Burger next to the hotel for future reference. I have to have an In-N-Out burger any time I’m on the West Coast.
I wake up at stupid-o-clock because my body is on Eastern time. I have no problem being ready for the 5:25 show time in the lobby. Fortunately the hotel puts cold cereal, yogurt and fruit out for us. And coffee of course, or “pilot go-juice” as I call it. My doctor tells me I drink too much coffee. She’s probably right. I tell her crashing a plane because I can’t stay alert would probably be worse for my health.
I don’t think the ground controller at Ontario likes me. I call for pushback and she tells us to wait for company traffic. Immediately I hear one of our Cessna Caravan “feeders” start up and call for taxi. Not a problem. Then a second one calls for taxi. These little guys are always in a hurry. They see an opening and they’re going for it. Then a third one calls for taxi. I’m noticing a trend here.
“Ontario Ground, Boxhauler 51, are we waiting for the entire fleet to launch here?” I ask sarcastically. We finally get cleared to push back onto the taxiway. I’m finishing up the after-start checklist when I hear a fourth Cessna call for taxi and zip out right in front of us. We join the conga-line of Cessnas and make our way to the runway. It’s about a twenty minute delay by the time we get to take off.
Once more into the breach…..
The sun’s in my eyes all the way to Memphis. Hey, you wanted day flying! Otherwise it’s uneventful. When we get there I have two options. I can take the jumpseat home, which will get me to Ohio around 6:30 PM if it’s on time. I can have dinner at home and then catch the 9:00 AM jumpseat back to Memphis for a trip to JFK that afternoon. At this point I’m exhausted from crossing the country four times in as many days. My body feels like I’ve been on the losing end of a bar fight. Or at least what I imagine it would feel like since I’ve never been in a bar fight. I opt to get a hotel and spend the night in Memphis. Cost of doing business sometimes.
The next day I show in the afternoon for my JFK trip. JFK arrivals are backed up due to weather, expect delays. Great. Glad I got the hotel and rested up. The good news is, the freight is already loaded when we get out to the jet. The bad news is, when we get our clearance, our “wheels up” time is in two hours. We settle in for a long wait. The other option would be to call for a crew bus and go back inside. We decide to wait it out.
After maybe 30 minutes we get lucky. Things have improved enough that we can go now. Good thing we didn’t go back inside.
Our routing takes us almost to Cleveland and to avoid a line of thunderstorms. We’re on the arrival to JFK when New York Center tells us to “expect holding, speed your discretion”. I guess things are still backed up at JFK. I’m flying the leg so I slow to best endurance speed. We set up the holding pattern in the FMS and start doing some math. Our alternate is Boston, which will take about 5,000 pounds of gas to get there. We want to be on the ground at Boston with at least 11,000 in the tanks. That means we need to “bingo” with 16,000 pounds. A quick look at our fuel tells us we can stay here boring holes in the sky for maybe a half hour.
Fortunately they break us out of holding before then. We get vectored into a big conga-line of arrivals that makes a spiral pattern into JFK. They bring us in from the North over La Guardia, then take us South over the Atlantic. Finally back around to the North for a base leg to Runway 13L. I get a great view of Manhattan poking through the clouds at twilight. New York controllers cut you zero slack, but damn they’re good. It’s a sight to see them work a bunch of arrivals like this.
We’re at least an hour late so it’s going to be another short layover. The airport hotel doesn’t even have a restaurant so I eat my box lunch in my room and go to bed. I’m noticing a trend here. Show time is 6:15 AM and they’re not getting me a minute before that!
I found these on the internet (of course). Some of them are more descriptive of the smaller cargo outfits than where I work, but I can still relate to some of these.
You might be a freight dog if…
• Your airplane was getting old when you were born.
• You have not done a daylight landing in the past six months.
• ATC advises you of smoother air at a different altitude, and you don’t care.
• When you taxi up to an FBO they roll out the red carpet, but quickly take it back when they recognize you.
• You call the hotel van to pick you up and they don’t understand where you are on the airport.
• Center asks you to “keep the chickens down” so they can hear you talk.
• Your airplane has more than 75,000 cycles.
• Your company call sign is “Oil Can”.
• The lady at the FBO locks up the popcorn machine because you plan on “making a meal of it”.
• Your airplane has more than eight faded logos on it.
• You wear the same shirt for a week, and no one complains.
• Center mispronounces your call sign more than three times in one flight.
• Your Director of Operations mysteriously changes your max. take off weight during the holiday season.
• Every FBO makes you park out of sight of their building.
• You have ever walked barefoot through the FBO because you just woke up.
• You mark every ramp with engine oil.
• Everything you own is in you flight bag and suitcase.
• All the other pilots wait for you to “test the squall line” first.
• All the other airlines hold to see if you get in.
• You request the visual approach with 300’ overcast and ½ SM vis.
• You make no attempt to deviate around weather.