Pretty good demo of how to light up an A320. I do all of this for ground runs, though I don't use the FMGC or FCU much. I also don't take as long to go through it, it's usually cold outside, and I don't want to keep my co-workers waiting unnecessarily.

http://bit.ly/zIpavl

Challenger Dusk Flight

It was a busy week at work. I stayed overtime Thursday and Friday evenings to help get airplanes out. AC207 was still in the hangar from Tuesday's phase check, AC416 was Thursday's airplane. Both went out Thursday, and I did the ground run on AC207, while Dan did the run on AC416, right after I did mine. At the same time, an Embraer was being run after an engine change, so we had three airplanes running, just after midnight. On Friday, AC237 was pushed out just after midnight, and I did the run on it, and then towed it to the terminal. We finished at 2:30 am Saturday morning, and that after finishing at 3:30 am the day before.

On Saturday morning, I went to a glider saftey seminar, put on by Tom Knauff, an American glider pilot. The Winnipeg Gliding Club hosted the seminar - actually a webinar - and since I'm an inactive member of the gliding club, I attended. Maybe this year I'll take up a flying membership again, not sure yet, though.

I went out to Oak Bank on Saturday afternoon, pulled the Challenger out of the hangar, and went for a flight. I took off, headed over to Grant's airfield and did a couple of circuits, and then did a bit of local flying. I stayed below 300 feet AGL for the rest of the flight, having a bit of fun waving at snowmobilers, and scaring some deer.

I had taken off only 25 minutes before sunset, so I didn't have a lot of time. Fortunately, because of the snow cover, there was enough light to keep flying until five minutes before official night. I had to use the glassy water landing technique, though, because it was pretty hard to judge the height above ground as I got close. The airplane has strobes and a landing light of sorts, so that helped a bit.

Five minutes after landing.

Doing the engine run in A319 C-GBIN 284

Doing the engine run in A319 C-GBIN 284. Photo by Hebb Russell

I had the chance to do an engine run during daylight last week. Usually, the airplanes come in at midnight or so, and get finished in the late evening. The run is done at the end of maintenance, and so most often, it's dark when we're going out. This airplane took a bit longer, and so it went outside on day shift.

We run the engines to check that the ignition works, that engine vibration is within the acceptable limit, that there are no leaks from oil or fuel filters, and that the bleed system operates normally. These items are worked on during maintenance, so we make sure they all work before the airplane goes back to the terminal for its next flight. We take each engine up to take off power, which can be a lot of excitement on an icy apron.

This time, there was a construction crew working alongside the apron. We had to encourage them to go to lunch so that we wouldn't deafen them.