Chapter 367 Something happened!
"Um... let me see the high-altitude weather map." Xu Cang had already adjusted the backrest of his chair to the lowest position. It was quite comfortable when he leaned forward.
From a physical point of view, the pilot's seat is indeed more comfortable than the passenger seat, with a wider adjustment range and better cushions on the backrest. Also, when you go to the back, the plane occasionally bumps a little, just like a baby's cradle, and it's easy to fall asleep.
In fact, pilots are not allowed to sleep on duty. But, to be honest, this kind of thing is just talk and is unreasonable.
During the cruise, there was nothing to do. The two of them just stared at each other. They were almost exhausted, and when they approached, the workload increased and they began to feel tired.
If you get tired, anything can happen. Isn't that putting the cart before the horse?
Therefore, what really needs to be taken into consideration is the reasonable allocation of rest time among pilots, rather than simply not allowing sleeping on duty.
Of course, in real-life flights, people in the cockpit will take turns to rest, especially during the early or late shifts, otherwise they really can’t hold on.
Xu Cang saw that the sky was clear and there was a captain next to him, so there was naturally nothing to worry about. However, Xu Cang was still relatively cautious. Before taking a break, he looked at the high-altitude weather map to see if there was any dangerous weather.
The high-altitude meteorological chart is in the release document, which was still in paper format in this era. The captain flipped through the file bag for a while, pulled out a sheet and handed it to Xu Cang: "Here it is."
Xu Cang yawned and took over: "How much have you flown this month?"
"I'm over 60. I'll be 70 after today's flight." The captain said with a smile.
"So many? This is only the 20th, right?" Xu Cang asked, "Did you just take the 36th?"
The captain nodded: "Just finished a break, this is the first shift."
"Then if you keep flying like this, you'll be over ninety this month."
"I think we're going to fly as much as we can." The captain rubbed his hands. "When I was in Muhua, I flew more than 50 flights a month, and the most I could fly was 70. Only when I came here can I be considered profitable."
Xu Cang glanced at the high-altitude meteorological map and said, "You are really hardworking. I think flying forty times a month is the best. However, there is no other way. I have to accumulate experience time."
Xu Cang has everything except time. This is different from landing, which can be accumulated very quickly.
For example, if you are short of landings, you can fly for a week with the help of instructor Mo Shangyun, flying short segments every day, with each segment lasting 40 to 50 minutes. The least you can do is four landings a day, and the most you can do is six landings a day, and the number is rising rapidly.
But the experienced time is divided into minute by minute, and there is no shortcut, which gives Xu Cang a headache.
After all, Xu Cang is still a lazy guy.
"Boss Xu, how much is left to transfer to captain?"
"Eight hundred? I don't know. To get the exact number, you need to go to Feibiao and ask." Xu Cang wiped his face: "Something keeps interrupting me. It's fine when I land, but I can't go up when I experience time."
Actually, this is already good. Since I got the ICAO flight specialist license, even if I encounter some special situations, the relevant agencies will not ask questions. Otherwise, in the past, as long as something happened, no matter if it was caused by Xu Cang, I would be grounded for half a month to understand the situation. If there was something unclear , the grounding time would be even longer.
How could Xu Cang accumulate experience time if he stopped flying every other day?
This was the period of time before Xu Cang had to ask the planning department to schedule long shifts for him every day. If he continued to fly normally, he would probably still be one thousand hours short.
"Eight hundred is not a lot. We can definitely complete the flight in a year." The captain said with a smile, "By then, after going through the procedures, it will be done within a year and a half."
This is not a compliment. With Xu Cang's ability, the only thing that prevents him from becoming a captain is the experience time. Other aspects of ability assessment have no impact. Becoming a captain is a long process. Even if you pass all the tests at once, it will take half a year. There is no way around it.
Some are slow and may be stuck at the captain transfer stage for two or three years.
In addition, many other companies are involved in the captain transfer process, which makes it even more difficult.
However, this makes no difference to Xu Cang .
Just before that, Xu Cang had beaten nearly one-third of the bureau-appointed representatives in the southwest region. In the eyes of these people, Xu Cang was a huge bad star. How dare they not let Xu Cang pass? If Xu Cang was killed, and Xu Cang said, "It's my turn to check you," it would be a bolt from the blue.
For other pilots, accumulating experience time is the easiest, but for Xu Cang it becomes the most difficult.
Xu Cang felt from the bottom of his heart that it was unlikely to become a captain in just one and a half years.
"I hope so." Xu Cang returned the high-altitude meteorological map to the captain: "There is a high-altitude jet stream above Xianchi. Just pay attention. There may be turbulence. Just watch and I will close my eyes for a while."
The high-altitude jet stream is different from the clear-air turbulence zone. The main thing is that when entering the high-altitude jet stream, the surrounding air speed will change extremely significantly and be quite unstable.
The aircraft's status is most likely to change at the two time points of entering and exiting, so Xu Cang made a special reminder.
However, these things were not uncommon for a captain who had been flying for so many years. Xu Cang just said something and did not keep watching.
During the two days in Hanjing, Xu Cang was exhausted. After returning, he had to deal with the merger of Asiana Airlines and Xia Shuyue's flying training. In addition, Lian Shanli's matter also needed to be dealt with as soon as possible. She couldn't last two days without eating or drinking.
When Xu Cang thought about all the things that were to come, he felt overwhelmed. He was not a hard-working person, but now he really couldn't rest for a day.
The captain took the high-altitude meteorological chart and said, "Take a break. I'll be watching."
Xu Cang lay back, stretched, and closed his eyes. However, Xu Cang was not that tired. Even with his eyes closed, his consciousness was still active. After trying for a while, he found that squinting his eyes made him sleepier, which made Xu Cang a little angry.
Now Xu Cang really sighed that he was very worthless. He was not lying down just now and his head was groggy. After lying down, he felt more energetic.
After waiting for a while, he still didn't feel sleepy. Xu Cang slapped his face and rubbed it: "Is the simulator at the company still working?"
"It's very useful." The captain actually had nothing to do, so when Xu Cang asked, he answered: "I've flown Muhua's own simulator before, but I feel it can't compare to this."
"Of course, this is a modified plane."
Xu Cang built a small simulator training center next to the company base, sharing the license of Muhua Aviation Simulator Training Center. Duan Lang has always been able to reassure Xu Cang about the construction progress. Not long ago, the simulator training center was put into operation.
One of them is a simulator modified from the main body of the 1566 aircraft, and the other one is specially used for flying a static model, that is, the simulator cabin will not move, and it is mainly used for initial modification.
In fact, the simulator modified by 1566 can also fly the static model, but there are only two simulators in the simulator center, and it is a waste to use such a good simulator to fly the static model. The other simulator specially used for flying the static model was bought by Xu Cang from somewhere else at a very low price.
There are not many flight trainees in Spring Airlines at present, so there is not much demand for its own training.
However, things in the future must be prepared in advance. After a period of trial operation of the simulator center, if the results are good, Xu Cang plans to buy a few more simulators and apply for a separate simulator training center license from the bureau.
It is convenient to share the license with Muhua Airlines now, but as a nominal branch, the maximum number of simulators is three. If we really want to develop, the restrictiveness of this quantity limit is too obvious.
Fortunately, the license application for a simulator training center is not as difficult as the license application for an aviation school. This time, he mentioned Chen Huaxin's helicopter company's license application to Director Wu Yue, and did not mention the simulator training center again, otherwise it would seem too greedy.
The small simulator center will first run it internally for a while, and then open it to other companies in small batches. The pilot community is very small, and after other companies fly a few times, they will basically have a reputation.
Pilots nowadays are not as delicate as they will be in the future, and the hardware requirements for simulators are not high. Xu Cang is still confident that he can promote the reputation of his high-quality training environment to the domestic civil aviation circle.
"Apart from the huge initial investment, the simulator center has basically not invested much afterwards. The biggest expense should be the electricity bill." The captain said: "Then such large electricity users can apply for preferential electricity policies from the local government."
"Are there preferential policies for electricity use?" When it comes to this, Xu Cang suddenly becomes excited.
"Yes." The captain nodded heavily. "I am a local of Jianchuan. Although there are not many plains here, the hydropower resources are very rich and the hydropower generation capacity is sufficient. In addition, the wind resources here are also very good. Let's go to Jianchuan to land. There are several large hills to the east, all of which are wind turbines. There are many things lacking here, but electricity is not lacking. If you don't use it, it will be wasted later. Besides, you have done a good job and you are also paying taxes to the government. It is not like you are earning their electricity discount for nothing."
Xu Cang nodded thoughtfully. He really hadn't thought of this.
After the simulator training center was built, in addition to the basic maintenance costs and the salary expenses of the resident technical personnel, management personnel and some miscellaneous staff, the largest expense was indeed the electricity bill.
Moreover, the simulator consumes a lot of power, especially when it is in motion. It is necessary to drive the hydraulic device to make the simulator cabin produce corresponding state changes to achieve a real flight simulation.
Nowadays, Spring Airlines is basically the largest enterprise in Erhai City. As a major taxpayer, it doesn't seem too much to get some discounts on electricity.
"That's a good suggestion. I'll ask later." Xu Cang put his hands behind his head and started thinking about things.
The captain was quite happy to see Xu Cang agreed with his opinion. Seeing that Xu Cang was thinking about something, he also retracted his gaze and focused all his attention on monitoring the plane.
However, as soon as I looked back, I noticed that the left wind in the upper left corner of the navigation page, which was originally over 50 knots, made a circle and turned into a headwind in just a few seconds.
It is normal for wind direction and speed to change greatly in the air. The captain noticed the change in wind direction, but did not react for a while.
"No, we are over Xianchi now!" The captain was stunned: "Into the high-altitude jet stream?"
Xu Cang had just mentioned to him about the high-altitude jet stream, but according to the high-altitude weather map, it would take more than sixty nautical miles to enter the high-altitude jet stream. How could it be so much earlier?
Of course, it doesn’t matter whether you enter the high-altitude jet stream or not. What you should seriously consider is paying attention to the changes in airspeed when the wind direction changes.
When the wind direction turned into headwind, the captain first thought of the increase in airspeed, which was basically the instinctive reaction of an experienced pilot. Therefore, after noticing the change in wind direction, the captain's right hand was already on the throttle lever.
In normal commercial flights, unless there are special circumstances, the autopilot is basically kept on. Therefore, if there is a situation that exceeds the autopilot correction, the pilot must override the throttle and make corrections to the aircraft in advance.
Compared with Airbus's auto throttle, Boeing's auto throttle is simply like a retard. It reacts very slowly and its response to emergencies is terrible. Only the pilot's intervention can help.
When it is, the aircraft is connected to the vertical navigation and horizontal navigation, and the aircraft is operated in the FMA mode of the vertical navigation track. The Mach number of the aircraft is the economic speed calculated by the FMC. 77.
The captain was still somewhat conscious. When he put his right hand on the throttle, he uttered an "ah", then raised his right hand again, intending to press the speed plug-in switch to slow down the speed of the aircraft. His preferred speed was around .75.
The so-called speed insertion switch allows the pilot to manually intervene in the aircraft speed while keeping the vertical navigation connected. In addition to the speed insertion switch, there is also an altitude insertion or altitude intervention switch, which can eliminate all altitude restrictions below the set altitude at one time. It is still used more frequently in daily flight.
However, before the captain's right finger touched the speed switch, the original precise Mach number of .772 was soaring upwards like a rocket.
The captain expected the speed of the plane to increase, as the crosswind turned into a headwind, which was foreseeable. However, he did not expect the speed to increase so quickly. In just a moment, the speed had already reached .80, almost touching the red and black speed band.
The captain's hair stood on end. Almost without thinking, he stepped on the throttle with his right hand, disconnected the autopilot, and yanked the plane forward.
The throttle was fully closed, and the control stick was held, which was an extremely effective way to slow down. The speed of the aircraft stopped at Mach .80 and never rose again.
Originally, Xu Cang was just taking a nap while thinking about the simulator training center. He didn't even look at the airspeed indicator, but the captain's throttle suddenly startled Xu Cang. He suddenly opened his eyes and saw the Mach number of .80 close to the red and black speed band.
However, Xu Cang obviously didn't quite understand the situation yet. His mind was still thinking about the simulator center just a moment ago, and he was a little dazed for a moment after realizing it.
However, he reacted quickly and immediately realized that the captain was trying to recover from the stall.
After realizing this, Xu Cang first recalled the captain's action of stepping on the throttle, and immediately realized that something big had happened.
But just as Xu Cang was about to raise his left hand to push the accelerator, the alarm for the autopilot disconnection sounded. Then, in front of Xu Cang's wide-open eyes, the captain suddenly pulled the stick, and the plane's speed stopped at .80 for a moment and no longer rose.
This seemed to perfectly solve the problem of speeding, but Xu Cang suddenly saw from the TCAS display that there was another plane one thousand feet below them.
Xu Cang's heart skipped a beat and he stepped on the accelerator with his left hand, increasing the speed to over 80.
The captain's stress reaction to speeding was a bit too strong. After disconnecting the autopilot and holding the stick to correct the speed, he suddenly realized that his action seemed a bit too rough and the aircraft's altitude exceeded the limit by nearly 200 feet.
This was already a big deviation, and then, as if by reflex, he pushed the stick hard, trying to get the plane back to its original altitude.
This move was even more violent than the previous one with the pole. Xu Cang could even feel that his body had slightly left the seat. If it weren't for the belt that secured him, he would have flown into the air.
"You can't fly like that!"
Just as Xu Cang put his right hand on the steering wheel, he heard a loud crash coming from the direction of the cabin, followed by a series of wailing sounds.
Xu Cang's face turned pale: "Something happened."
Before Xu Cang recovered from his horrific assumptions about the cabin, he suddenly heard an emotionless, cold electronic voice: "Climb!"
"Oh no!" Xu Cang started to panic. It was the TCAS alarm that sounded.
