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After commuting to ORD from COS, we arrived to 3/4 mile visibility and light snow. Personally, I was surprised that we got in. We did have to hold for about 10 minutes though before doing the approach.

After landing, the funny thing was they parked us at gate F1C which is out on the ramp without a jetbridge which required the passengers to walk, through the snow, to the terminal. Four other jetbridges were wide open but I’m “sure” they were going to be used for “other” airplanes.

Here is a picture of what it looked like when we landed.

Now, my four-day trip was due to start at 12:40 pm and I was again surprised to find that the airplane we were taking was on-time and at the gate.

No APU and Snow

This is when the fun really began.

When I got the flight release, I discovered that our Auxiliary Power Unit (APU), which provides electrical power and air conditioning to the airplane, as well as helps start the engines on the ground, was broken. It is never a fun situation. In this situation, ground personnel provide an “Air Cart” that will take the place of the APU. It usually takes coordination with ground personnel to get the Air Cart in the first place, then coordination to get the engine started. Sometimes this can take a very long time.

What an Air Cart does is it pushes air through some manifolds that are directed to the engine and gets the engine spinning. When you have enough rotation on the engine, you can start the START cycle. Once the engine reaches a certain speed and is burning jet fuel, it is now self-sustaining. The APU usually provides enough pneumatic air to do this but like I said, this one was broken.

The process of doing an air start isn’t difficult but it can be confusing for new captains. It gets easier to manage the situation the more you do it, but one of the biggest collateral problems is that there is no heat because there is no air conditioning, so the passengers are practically freezing.

No pilot likes to have their APU broken. It is a huge inconvenience, and the fact that the APU is broken on this flight, it will cause more problems before takeoff. So read on. Today’s adventure isn’t over.

The Long Taxi to Runway 32R

Now, one of the problems with snow days is that usually there is wind as well. Not always but usually. In this case, ORD was taking off only on 32R and 32L because of wind and once we rounded the corner heading to the runway, we saw that there was a long line of airplanes waiting for 32R. Not too bad really. We figured it would take about 15 to 20 minutes to work ourselves through the line for takeoff.

In such a situation as this, one thing captains have to be aware of after getting de-iced is how long their de-icing fluid will be effective. Because of the light snow and temperature and with help from our hold-over-time (HOT) charts, we determined that if all things stayed the way they were, we could figure we could safely stay on the taxiway for one hour before we had to head back and get de-iced again.

As it turned out, we came in way under that time and once we checked the wings right before takeoff, we confirmed that they were clear of snow and that the de-icing fluid was still working.

As a side note, once we start our takeoff role, the de-icing fluid shears off and is not a factor. It sole purpose is to absorb the snow while on the ground.

More Work on Takeoff Because No APU

As mentioned earlier, by not having an APU and besides the fact we had no electrical power on the ground, or air conditioning on the ground, or any engine starting capabilities on the ground, we were going to have another issue to deal with on takeoff because we didn’t have an APU. Another quick note: Once the engines are running they do everything mentioned above.

Now the CRJ200 does not have enough bleed air from the engines to provide both air conditioning and wing and cowl anti-ice (when needed) for takeoff.

So, normally, in a snow day condition, you would let the APU continue to provide the air conditioning which would leave the engine bleed air to provide the anti-ice. But…since the APU was MEL’d, we would have to work this issue by taking off unpressurized. That means that the air conditioning packs would have to be turned off and the RAM AIR opened for takeoff. Again, not a big deal, it is just that this is outside the normal operations of flying this airplane and creates a higher workload in an already stressful environment. Once you reach 1,500 feet above ground level (agl) after takeoff, you close the RAM AIR valve, open the 10th stage bleed air valves and turn on the air conditioning packs and continue. Easy…right?!

Two More Annoying Problems: Low Cabin Pressure and No FMS

To add to an already workload filled day, two more things were going to pop-up on the next flight. First, we got a “LOW OXY PRESS” caution message. Not a big deal. It was just telling us that the canister that holds the pilot and co-pilot’s oxygen that we would use in an emergency had dropped below 1410 psi. Easy fix…called Maintenance in Denver and they rushed out an filled it up.

Second, on that same flight, we lost our Flight Management System, the FMS. It just went blank. We had no more GPS navigational data and subsequently had to go back to navigating the old fashion way, from VOR to VOR.

It was actually kind of fun and if nothing else a good lesson on how to do it…again. Basically, instead of letting the autopilot follow the programmed GPS route, you now have to be more involved. The autopilot would still maintain control of the airplane, it is just that you now have to program the VOR frequencies and dial-in the correct radials for the airplane to follow. When the FMS is working correctly, once you have programmed the FMS, albeit “correctly,” the airplane on autopilot will follow the programmed route. Anyway, after landing in Denver, we “rebooted” the airplane and it worked fine the rest of the day. A full explanation of the FMS is a topic for another day.

So you can see, a lot went on today! Some days are ordinary and some days challenges are presented that with experience you learn to handle efficiently and safely. It’s good for these things to happen because otherwise you become complacent and when things really go wrong you have nothing to compare it to. So enjoy the small hiccups when they happen and put them away for later use.

Anyway, I hope you have today’s entry from “Flying the Line.” If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment below. Also, don’t forget to sign up for my RSS feed or email updates.

To Your Flying Success…

Jeffrey

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