02/15/2024 –
Stop me if you’ve heard this one… Four canard pilots walk into an Airbus…
Back in 2022 my friend, Bob, joined me for a class in Dallas learning to fly the Boeing 737. We had a blast during that class, and this past fall at the Rough River fly-in we were telling our friends Jake and Russ about it. It sounded interesting to them as well, and I proposed that the four of us should take the Airbus A320 class the company offers in Orlando.
Upon returning from Rough River, I contacted ATOP and inquired about the next opening for the A320 class. They were booked until at least February, but we were put on the list for the next available, and a few weeks later we were confirmed for class February 17-18.
As class date approached, we discussed our travel preferences (obviously flying our own planes was everyone’s first choice), but winter travel from Minnesota and Wisconsin can be tricky if there are low clouds (Russ had the best chance, being Alabama doesn’t typically freeze for long periods). Bob, Jake and I settled on driving as our backup plan being we really wouldn’t know until the day before if flying would be feasible, but luckily the weather cooperated.
Jake and I decided to take my Cozy from Minnesota being it at least had SOME form of heater in it. On the morning of the 15th I arrived at the airport to find that the runway and taxiways had yet to be cleared from the 3″ of snow we got overnight, and I would have to wait for them to finish before departing for Rochester to pick up Jake. Luckily, our intent for the day was to get only as far as Huntsville, to meet up with Russ. Bob would be departing from Milwaukee a bit later in the day with his nephew and was planning to get to Kentucky.
After a short 45min hop to Rochester, Jake and I refueled the plane, shifted ballast, loaded Jakes bags, and departed for Huntsville. It was an uneventful flight in clear skies until just before we got to Huntsville. As we approached some clouds halfway through Tennessee, I kept nudging the autopilot up a bit to stay clear (we weren’t on an IFR plan). Eventually though the few clouds turned into more, and it was evident we were going to have to descend below or risk getting stuck above and bothering ATC for a pop-up clearance to get down. We found a nice big hole and circled on down just in time to get handed off to approach for the landing into Huntsville.
Russ was already at the airport and waved us over to his hangar. After getting the plane tucked away, Russ brought us back to his place, and later we went for dinner at my favorite brewery, Straight to Ale. Good food, awesome beer and great friends makes for the perfect ending to a great flight.
The next day, the forecast was calling for only a small area of higher clouds along our route. Russ, Jake and I got out to he planes and started getting ready for departure when we found out Bob had awoken to a flat tire on his plane. He had everything needed to repair it with him, so we opted to head for Orlando ahead of him and wait for him there. Along the way those higher clouds turned out to have a little rain in them. While Jake and I only encountered light sprinkles, Russ was a couple miles from us and managed to get substantially more, which resulted in Russ having water ingress the cabin. Russ elected to divert to dry out before continuing on, so he landed about 15min behind Jake and I. Meanwhile, Bob repaired his tire, and arrived about an hour later. We got checked into the hotel and went for dinner at a Mexican restaurant nearby.
Saturday morning we needed to be at the JetBlu University by 8:30 for what would be a full day of systems overview with some light troubleshooting procedures sprinkled in the mix. Bob, Russ and Jake opted to do the High Altitude Endorsement Training as well (I had previously done this in Dallas, but I followed along as they went through it in the FTD (think PC type simulator, but with all the control panels). It was during this point that Russ discovered his favorite part of the training…pressing the cabin call button. You know that soothing ‘Bing….Bong’ chime you hear at various stages of flight? Well, if you put 4 guys who normally fly little planes, onto a flight deck with a call button, you’ve given them all the reason they need to practice making passenger briefings. 🙂 It had been raining the entire day, and it didn’t relent that evening. After class we went back to the hotel to relax a bit before dinner and peek at weather for Sunday (which wasn’t looking too great). We knew we had an early morning in the full motion simulator, so we opted to do dinner at a nearby restaurant and make it an early bed time.
At 6:45 we drug our half-awake carcasses down to the lobby to throw what had to be the worst coffee I’ve had in my life down my throat. Luckily, we had enough time before our sim session started to get some acceptable coffee at JetBlue. Each Captain/First Officer pair would fly twice, switching duties for the second flight. First up was Russ as Captain, Bob as F.O. They did a great job, with Russ electing to use the autopilot on his first approach, and hand fly the second. Then Jake was captain with myself as F.O. Jake did a great job flying, but as F.O. I didn’t do a great job handling a hydraulic pump failure our instructor threw at us. One of the drawbacks of such a short class, is that it’s really hard to memorize where all the various controls are, leaving me hunting a large panel for one small button. The systems are grouped nicely on the Airbus overhead console, but you still need to remember general locations for each system. Bob then took over as Captain, with Russ as F.O. Bob made some incredibly nice landings, though we all struggled to maintain the centerline on rollout. I blame the distortion effect from the windows in the sim. They do a nice job of adding 3D realism to the view but, if you move your head side to side at all, there’s a distortion that messes with you a little. Lastly, I was up as Captain, with Jake as F.O. One of the things that our instructor had been drilling into each Captain during the takeoff was to make the rotation one slow, gentle, continuous pull back to about 15deg pitch up. We were NOT to release back pressure lest we induce oscillations on takeoff (something us canard pilots are very careful about anyway). Now, continuous, and gentle are easy enough terms to apply. Slow is actually a bit trickier. Slow relative to what? A Cozy? A Pitts? An F16??? With zero frame of reference, it’s hard to know. This is especially true with the A320, as its fly-by wire controls are somewhat slow to respond. I started pulling back and there was no response, but I didn’t want to stop pulling back until it was at 15deg nose up. Once it was and I stopped, it continued pitching up to over 25deg. While it didn’t cause a tail strike (which the sim would have re-enacted), it was a bit ‘aggressive’ as my instructor called it. I opted to hand fly the plane the entire time (I get plenty of AP practice in the Cozy) and was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to hold heading and altitude in it. Being Instrument rated, I elected to fly the ILS approach down to minimums so I could count the approach for currency and did a fine job. After the flight we took care of some paperwork and some pictures before leaving JetBlue.
Weather wasn’t going to be conducive to us getting a start for home, but we went out to the planes anyway so that Bob could check that his repaired tire was still holding air, and I wanted to retrieve the USB key with the flight logs on it from my plane. All was good with Bob’s tire, so we went back to the hotel to relax a bit. Later that afternoon the rain finally let up, so we went to Downtown Disney to check out some of the shops and restaurants, ending up at a great Irish pub for dinner.
Monday we awoke to find it was still raining with low clouds. We went out to the planes about 8:30, figuring we’d need to spend some time drying out any water that ingressed over the weekend. 4TF had a fair bit of water in the foot well and front seats were wet. Going to have to spend some time sorting the canopy seal soon. The bigger problem though was discovered when I sumped the fuel tanks. The right tank was fine, but the left tank ended up with about a quart of water in it! Though it seemed as though I was able to get it all out, I was still concerned. I decided that we’d use the right tank for all take off and landing operations on the flight back, using the left tank only at safe altitude in case we needed to switch back. By 10:30 the rain had stopped but the clouds were still low. I opted to file an IFR plan, then Jake and I loaded up for departure. We broke out around 2700′ and were VFR on top of a broken layer until northern Florida, where skies were clear from there on.
We landed at our planned fuel stop in Evansville, Indiana, having zero issues at altitude with the left fuel tank. We continued to use the right tank for take off and landing though. We spent just 30 minutes on the ground in Evansville, opting to just get fuel and get back in the air. A couple hours later we approached Rochester, and with the sun now setting, I opted to once again just grab fuel and get back in the air after unloading Jake’s luggage and shifting the ballast back to the nose for the solo trip to St. Cloud. 45 Minutes later 4TF touched down back home having flown over 2800 statute miles to Florida and back. It was great to have had the opportunity to get some serous cross country time in the plane again, but the getting to make a trip like this with a bunch of friends made is what really made it memorable.
