digits wrote: ↑Tue Jan 30, 2024 8:02 pm
Sweet!
Are you hoping or dreading to break down there? Could go either way I think
We have plenty of redundancy on the A340 - that's why we use it on these flights.
We don't just jump in and go.
There is a briefing the day before. This involves all flight crew, representatives from White Desert and my 2 bosses. We get a weather briefing so we know what to expect.
Any failure in the braking system is not allowed. Same with the thrust reversers.
The flight departure date/time is moved depending on the weather forecast.
We also get Space Weather - Solar Flares can be an issue.
HF blackouts occur on almost every flight. We have SATCOM.
We also fly through the re-entry corridor of the Space X upper stage that launches Starlink satellites - they have a lot of launches. We have to coordinate with them.
We get a runway friction report before departure along with the latest METAR. They now send a webcam photo as well - a picture really is worth a 1000 words!
We have 10/20knot crosswind limit depending on the friction coefficient.
During the flight we get hourly weather reports.
Due to the lack of ground equipment we leave Engine #1 running on the ground so an APU failure doesn't ground us.
We tanker fuel to maximum landing weight - we leave excess fuel behind (anywhere from 4-10T).
We have 2 Engineers and a Ground Coordinator with us as well as a spares kit onboard.
It's a complex operation.
The flying is the easy part!
The runway condition is fine - the friction coefficients are the equivalent of a wet runway.
It's a lot warmer than I thought it would be -3c to -12c.
We use a contaminated runway for performance. Take-off is with Flap 3 TOGA (max) thrust.
I haven't noticed a tendency for the aircraft to move around - even taking off with a 17 knot crosswind.
I'm scheduled to operate the last flight of the season - really hope to be doing this again in November.
