The real thing

Off we go. I was scheduled to go on a round trip to Penticton and back, with me actually flying as First Officer for the first time. I was nervous, to say the very least. I felt like I was floating out of my body as I checked the departures board for "my flight", and was extremely aware that passengers were noticing me.

I met my captain and flight attendant at the gate. Capt. Al was an incredibly experienced, very nice man who was easy-going and made sure that I didn’t feel pressured or nervous. I was to be “pilot-monitoring”, or PM, for both flights, that meaning I didn’t actually fly, but did all the other duties to assist the Pilot Flying. I was relieved.

Both trips went really well. Alan said I did really well, and gave me a few suggestions. The best part was handling the radio work, something I’ve always been good at but now included words like “Jazz 352”. Was truly another in a long series of reality checks. Al let me do a passenger announcement just before we started descending into Penticton. I'm sure I sounded completely foolish.

I was scheduled to be on “reserve” for the next 2 days. This is a bit funny, because I’m not really a pilot yet. I can fly as First Officer, but because I have to have a training captain, I can’t be called for just any route.

Which is why I was quite surprised when the phone rang around 11 am. Crew Scheduling had about 8 hours of flying for me to do that afternoon starting at 1:30. And yes, the captain on the legs was a training guy.

So off I went, now getting into the familiar routine of walking through the crew bypass at YVR, finding my gate, and looking for my crew. This time, they were delayed coming in from Victoria, so this was a perfect time for me to be enterprising and show I can get a Dash-8 ready to fly, all by myself.

Except the plane sitting at my gate to Castlegar was not the plane it was supposed to be. Great.

I asked three people to check if this was the right aircraft and got enough confirmation to go do a walkaround (which is still a procedure that leaves me in awe; my goodness, Dash-8’s have really long wings and tall tailfins when you’re right beside them).

I got on board and found a piece of paper on the little receipt-printer that sends us mini-faxes from dispatch: “I understand you guys have found the right plane, but did you get the updated paperwork? If not I’ll send it to the gate for you. Steve. END.”

While I was puzzling over what to do about this, the printer hummed again and spit out, “Did you guys get last message? Steve. END.”

I went to the screen where I knew I could type a reply and start fumbling with the keyboard. When I couldn’t figure out where the spacebar was, I gave up and went inside to ask the gate agent if our updated plan had arrived. She mercifully called Dispatch for me and cleared everything up.

By now, the rest of the crew had arrived. Predictably, we left late. Joe, my captain, was Pilot Flying to and from Castlegar, again something I was grateful for. I didn’t trust myself to actually get this thing on the ground yet, especially in the mountains. Even if the weather was sky-clear.

We returned to Vancouver and had to change planes. We got settled in again, I went through my usual routines while Joe did the walkaround. When we started getting the initial checks done, he informed me that I would be flying this time.

Yikes.

The taxi to the runway was just as normal, with me doing my normal checks that First Officers do. As I read back the takeoff clearance and we lined up on the centerline, Joe told me, “You have control”. I took the power levers from him and responded, “My control”. I tried to keep my hands from shaking.

I advanced the power just as I had been doing in the sim. I almost forgot to look outside and steer with my feet down the middle of the runway, a real one this time. The sound of almost 5,000 horsepower spooling up was enough for goosebumps. I focused on the calls Joe was making beside me, and when I heard “V1, rotate”, I lifted off.

The Dash-8 is an amazing machine to fly. Despite it’s size (today’s weight was 39,000 lbs), it’s surprisingly gentle when it turns. It’s not nearly as sensitive to pitch changes as the sim was (something I expected). It was great.

I turned towards Nanaimo. This was the first of 4 more flights I would do that day, all between Nanaimo and Vancouver. I flew all 4 of them. And landed well enough that I didn’t pop open any overhead bins in the back. Or get any nasty comments from departing passengers. So I guess that means I did okay.

I loved that all this initial flying was in the neighbourhood I was once so familiar with. Victoria and Nanaimo were the places I learned to fly. Nanaimo was the first airport I ever landed at on a cross-country flight, and now it has become the first airport where I landed an airliner. How times have changed.

Capt. Joe asked who I was flying with later that week. When I told him, he smiled in a strange way and appeared to try not to laugh. He only said two things: “Tell him Joe says hi” (in response to “do you know him?”) and “ohh, well, he’ll be good for you” (in response to “what’s he like to fly with?”). Hmmm.