Nasa Space Shuttle on a Cross Country Flight

Today, as I write this article for Flying Families, I consider that I’ve finally seen a shuttle launch, from my back garden! Now that I’m more based in Florida than Berkshire I can consider what the space shuttle pilots put in their log books. The shuttle recently landed on that long, long runway at Cape Canaveral. When I last saw that runway I was amazed at its length, so long in fact that from one end of the runway you can’t even see the other end (due to the Earth’s curvature). The question that would be uppermost in my mind after the excitement of a spaceflight would be “what should I put down in my log book?”.
Well if I was pilot in command, I can put that down as PIC or P1. The Co-Pilot can put down P2 time. Unless I was the Co-pilot acting as pilot in command, under the supervision of the pilot in command. In which case I can put it down PIC U/S or P1 U/S. That being true only if the acting pilot in command carried out all the duties of the pilot in command including the take off and landing and the log book is endorsed by the pilot in command to state that the pilot acting as pilot in command correctly carried out the duties of a pilot in command. Then I’d have to wonder whether a rocket blasting off from Cape Canaveral counts as a take off and if it did who was flying it?
To those of us who fly in the thin layer of atmosphere nearer to the ground the questions are not so tricky. Put P1 U/S if the instructor didn’t touch the controls at any point and has signed your log book at the end to confirm this. If you are undergoing a test of any kind then a successful test will be P1 U/S (signed log book and the time goes under the P1 column) and a failed test will be P1 U/T (the time goes under Dual column).
As an astronaut, the press conference would come next. Answering questions about space food, what was it like to be weightless etc etc. Then I’d get to wondering…Was it an International flight? After all my logbook will say I left Cape Canaveral and came back to Cape Canaveral; that’s a lot of circuit practice!

Black Square You’re There !

Black Square

This sign indicates that you are at holding point Alpha.

Yellow Array, You’re on the way.

Yellow Array

This sign indicates that you are on the way to Runway 27 and Runway 33 and by
the way it’s to the right.

Red and White Runway in sight.

Red and White

This sign for example indicates that ahead of you is the runway 15 or the
runway 33 (depending which way you turn).

This is not a complete list of all the runway signage you’ll see. There is
lots of it, go look up the rest learn what each of them mean. Hopefully with
those three aide memoires you’ll not take a wrong turn.

An FAA sectional section

Is this due to years of looking at CAA charts? Who knows. If you look on the example fragment of a sectional you’ll see an airport depicted. This is the magenta circle with bumps at the 3pm, 6pm, 9pm and the midday positions. The white line indicates the rough orientation of the runway. The fact the the circle is filled in indicates that is is a hard runway with a length between 1500 ft and 8069 ft. The colour magenta for this airport indicates that it does not have a control tower. If it were blue then the this would indicate that it did have a control tower. The tick marks around the outside indicate that services are available during normal working hours. What constitues normal working hours is accurately defined in the Airport Facilities Directory, but by default means 10am until 4pm Monday to Friday.

If the airport runway is outlined in solid color with no circle around it then this is a big runway (greater than 8069 ft. Seabases are shown with the magenta anchor inside a circle (the one on the chart, without a circle indicates it is for Emergenct seaplane operations only).

Abandoned runways are shown in the same way as on CAA charts with a cross through them. Strangely enough they are all magenta in color.

Military airfields are shown with a double circle either with the tabs around them, indicating they are civil / Military or withour indicating, you probably shouldn’t land there unless you’re flying an F-15.
Airfields with an “H” inside the circle indicate heliports. Aerodromes with a “U” inside the circle indicate “Unclassified”, i.e. Area 51 or aliens please land here. An “F” indicates an “Ultralight Flight Park”.

That’s about it for the actual symbols. Next time we look at the numbers which can be written in the vicinity of the aerodrome. There’s a lot of those!

Big Runway

Checklists are not Do Lists! I’ve heard that a lot recently. Especially from American instructors. What the heck do they mean? You have a checklist. It has a list of items on it. You go down the list and make sure you’ve carried out all the items right? Don’t misunderstand me but the last time I was demonstrating my flying skills to an American, they watched me set up the aircraft for Take off, finger on the checklist items. Mixture (Full Rich), Throttle (quarter inch) etc. After an hours flying in the local area, she was convinced that I could fly alright, I’d just learnt to use the checklist all wrong. She had been thinking

“Jees. Can this guy even fly? He has to read all the items to start the engine!”

It is a common mistake, I’m told (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it) that Checklist are used as do lists. Even high hour pilots do this. Eventually they discover their mistake and correct it.

Here’s an example from the commercial world. The handling pilot (not feeling well) had set up for approach. The captain read out

“Altimeter 992 millibars”

The First Officer read repeated

“992″.

Unfortunately the First Officer had 29.92 inches set on the altimeter.

That’s a difference of 500 feet. The verbal prompt alerted the captain to the error. Something that the Do List would not have.

One option for getting out of the Do List mentality is to get your instructor to read out the checklist after you’ve set up the aircraft, I know that’s not practical for a flight test (or check ride), but it starts to get you into the right frame of mind.

So set up the aircraft from memory (certainly important items should be memorized) and then check against the checklist. That’s why it’s called a checklist!