The Mad Dog âGrowlâ âApril / May 2006 Page 1 - Delta Virtual Airlines

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I’ll take this opportunity to share an embarrassing story of mine. I was a relatively fresh DVA pilot with only a few months under my belt. My schedule finally permitted me to take part in one of the DVA Musketeer Fly-in Events. Many of you still recall how big these events were. If I remember correctly, the conga line took us from KSTL to CYYZ. The flight went smoothly, but things really picked up as the traffic buildup grew at CYYZ. ATC kept the traffic tight and I ended up a couple of planes behind Luke Kolin and right in front of our President, Terry Eshenour. Talk about pressure. Cleveland Center comes on line and begins to track our progress through his airspace. As we approach his north-eastern border, he clears us down to FL250 before sending us to UNICOM. With the approach charts in hand, I prepare for the approach into the Toronto area. Even though I’ve been monitoring the weather situation at our destination, I check the winds information to determine what direction we can expect to approach from. Our approach will be an easy one today, as we will be coming straight in from the south-west. Skies are still mostly clear and the air temp will be brisk. It should be a beautiful arrival into Toronto. We reach our TOD (Top of Descent) point and initiate the descent via our autopilot. There is no other traffic in the area, but we’ll still announce our intentions on UNICOM as we get closer. The workload really picks up as we make our way into the Toronto area. We pick up some chop as we head through 14,000 feet, but it clears into smooth air relatively quickly. A quick and final review of the approach information is made and will hopefully ensure a smooth and uneventful final. Our flaps are deployed according to schedule and we slow to our final approach speed. With runway 6R in view, we drop our gear and disengage the autopilot. Touchdown is smooth and we slow to proper taxi speed with plenty of room to spare. Now the fun begins, finding our way to the gate. As Tyrone Weston described in his article last month, even the pros get lost at an airport. For some reason, Toronto/Pearson always confuses me and I seem to always get lost there. I’ll probably regret this later, but ATC cleared me for final and I let the autopilot take care of the approach. ATC cleared me to land on the runway, but I noticed (a little too late) that I was way to the right of where the other DVA aircraft were. I had received my clearance, the tires were down and the runway was getting bigger. Time to land. After putting the aircraft down and as I cleared the runway, ATC informs me that I landed on the wrong runway…way wrong. We were all coming in on 24R & 24 L. I must have decided I was too good for those The Mad Dog “Growl” –April / May 2006 Page 16
unways, because I landed on 23. As you can see from the facility chart, I was on the complete opposite side of the field. Needless to say, me and my red face had a long taxi back to the terminal to meet up with the other DVA pilots. Oops. Back to the flight at hand. We finally make our way to the gate and shut down. Here’s how things panned out: Fuel remaining: 8900lbs Projected Fuel Burn Rate: 8611 lbs/hr Actual Fuel Burn Rate: 6617 lbs/hr Total fuel used: 7499 lbs Remaining flight time left: 1:20 As you can see, our fuel use was quite a bit less than projected. Of course, the winds were favorable and our approach was a quick one, so we’ll credit those factors for the low burn rate. We also flew the entire route at MACH 0.76, which helped greatly as well. Welcome to Canada!!! All in all, this was a pretty routine flight. Not a bad thing, especially when you’re flying into an unfamiliar field. Thanks for checking out this latest installment and we’ll see you in the next issue. The Mad Dog “Growl” –April / May 2006 Page 17
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The Mad Dog âGrowlâ âApril / May 2006 Page 1 - Delta Virtual Airlines