Hot coffee in my hand, radio up and feeling pretty good. Everything is better after a good nights sleep.
We climb easily through the flight levels Eastbound this morning. The air is cool and we have 50 knots on the tail. The sun is just becoming visible above the solid undercast as it begins blazing its daily trail across the Canadian sky.
We reach 27,000 feet and the autopilot levels us off. I ask for cruise power and plan to settle in for the 2 hour flight which our flight plan shows will take us around one military munitions testing area, and between two others. I forgot to mention our left fuel gauge is MEL'd so I have to do a significant amount of extra calculations derived from flight time during specific phases of flight and indicated fuel flow. We know that if the right fuel gauge is working and the fuel flows to both engines are nearly identical, it makes sense that there should be the same quantity of fuel remaining in both tanks, right? Well, it's the aviation way - if in doubt, do more paperwork....
Our speed is a decent 325 knots over the ground which is not bad for this tired old airplane. We thread the needle between the last two military zones and then proceed direct to destination for a straight in visual landing. My work for the day is done, the Copilot will take us home.
6 hours later..
The copilot asks for cruise power which I set. I make sure the all the engine parameters are set within company limits (not manufacturer limits which are less restrictive) and pull out the logbook to record an engine trend. As I'm doing that I hear something.
Now, you know when your car is broken and you call your mechanic and you want to convey to him the issue.. you will probably begin using words you've picked up from Monster Garage hoping he buys your 'I know what I'm talking about' BravoSierra (because its embarassing to be a man and call a major automotive component a 'thingy'), but at some point you will resort to making noises with your mouth: humming or scraping or grinding/chugging noises. It's simply the best way.
So the props are going waahhhhhhhhhhh waaahh waahh wah wah wah waaahh wahhhh waahhhhhhhhhhh. Thats right. Just what I said. Every few minutes. I did some troubleshooting and could not fix the problem. Prop synch didn't help. Power changes didn't help. Prop RPM changes didn't help. Boy that's annoying. So I end up writing down everything the engine gauges are showing me so I have something to help the AME's figure it out when we get back (AKA something to back me up when they sideways glance at each other with that smirk that says 'sure it did that mr. pilot...').
I tune the ATIS for our arrival back to base. Oh my, RVR 2800 feet. Moderate snow. Light icing. Light to moderate turbulence. Glad I'm not doing the flying. That sounds like work. We get the usual vectors for the ILS, number 6 on the approach. On the descent on downwind we sail by the Towering Cumulus - which is right over the airport giving the aforementioned weather.
A couple of turns and cleared to land. The airplane is configured and my eyes are mostly outside looking for the runway. 500 feet above. 200 feet above. 100 hundred above.....and runway lights, 12 o'clock. The copilot transitions from instruments to visual cues for landing. We're looking at the rabbit lights, the extended centreline lights, then threshold lights. Then a flock of birds. I utter something to the effect of 'uhhhh' and the copilot mutters 'ehhhh'. We instinctively tense up and wait for the thump of a birdstrike report... but nothing. We continue because there is really not much you can do, and even if you tried, you couldn't actually move the airplane quickly enough to evade birds 50 feet in front of you at 110 knots. The copilot has already begun to flare and the mains touchdown nicely.
After looking over the plane on the company ramp, seems like we slipped through the flock harmlessly.
Lucky us.
Lucky them...
