Hey, I parked next to ya! I was in BWI yesterday as always. Were you coming in to repo the plane with the inop fire loop or whatever (heard from CAL ops)?

You guys bragging about that in an RJ...I was in that weather in a 402!

 

I know it...guys I fly with give me grief for hand-flying, not realizing how perishable a skill flying really is...but their first hand-flown ILS quickly humbles them.

Don't doubt it...my first gig at Trans States had me flying with some phenomenal pilots -- guys who taught me how to fly an airplane, and I am eternally grateful for the experience. Unfortunately, SkyWest's culture beats into our heads from day one in training that the RJ is not to (and cannot) be hand-flown...and the pilots here just eat that up. Unsurprisingly, the end result of this is that a majority of our pilots can't barely keep even a semblance of airspeed/altitude/course/heading with the FD, much less raw-data. Yes I just said that, and I meant every syllable. This is coming from over three years of my Captains overshooting altitudes by 200 feet while hand-flying with the FD up, and then struggling to keep the airspeed within 20 knots. Of course, there are some good sticks here as well -- they're just in the minority.

Fair enough!! Unless you fly regularly in the mountains (which I do not either), I know it's impossible to remain proficient in a procedure like that...when I go into HLN, for example, I'll fly the DME Arc in my head half-a dozen times before we even begin the descent, and even then I'm shaking off the rust while flying it.

 

Not sure where you're based, but you might want to try flying with some of us that used to hand fly SA-226&227's all day for up to 13 legs without an autopilot...(I think at least half the captains in my domicile have been around since the Metro days)! The minumums for those of us that came from SunAire also meant we usually had been doing a lot of single pilot freight flying, air ambulance, and or on demand charter before we could get hired.

 

Not quite senior enough to hold left-coast, but I've flown with a few old-timers that were rockstars in the plane, and a few more that were just flying-ASAP forms LoL

But yes, all I want for Christmas is to fly with an Aviator sitting next to me!

 

we overnight d there, your a brave man, we hit turbulence up at altitude, I was honestly scared sh---ess

the worst part was, we had a downs syndrome kid on board who was screaming at the top of his lungs (sitting right in front of me), "WE ARE GOING TO DIE", it was a scene right out of a movie.............. haha funny now but was not at the time

 

What time did you get in? I canceled the first turn because it was gusting 39 with 600' ceilings. No thanks, not in these planes. I ended up actually getting into BWI at about 1030 and it was a pretty decent ride down low at 4000 (or as decent as it could be on that day). I heard the ride up high was really bad though.

 

we got in around 1130, we hit the worst around cruise (FL240 or so), the F/O came on and said we were going to go through Severe Turb, you could hear the concern in his voice, my stomach def sank a little.

These planes are strong but when you taxi behind one and bumps on the runway cause the tail to shake, I could only imagine what Severe does. I also remember hearing a MX guy tell me how the Cables get frayed every now and then from stress( dunno how true it is)

Turb def makes me very concerned

 

I'd just left there about 20 minutes before you got there then. I failed to mention that the way in was okay, but we got torn up on the way out.

You're telling me about turbulence...This aircraft type had a wing separate at one point due to a cracked wing spar. An AD came out to reinforce the spar, but even after that you look out there at the wings flexing with each bump thinking "Huh..."

Come to think of it, when's recall again? :P