Nostalgy

In 2005 I became the youngest B737 first officer in my airline (may be even the youngest in the whole fleet) which was named "Siberia" (nowadays it is called as S7 Airlines, but actually consitsts of two carriers - Siberia and Globus. I'm working for the last one).

I was young and looked somehow like him:




It think, it was August, 2006, when, after I'd trained two or three "young" Captains, I was informed about planning me to be upgraded, too.

Saying "I'd trained" I mean that I was their FO during their first "solo flight" (with no instructor in the cockpit) and flew with them for some period after. Sometime such FOs are named as "babysitters"- the common practice here in Russia is to fix the new Captain with experienced FO, who will help him to solve problems if they would happen.

To make a sense of the problem, I should say that it that time the transition course was not very long. A guy from a multi-crew Soviet jet had to complete a short theoretical training (more ore less by his own!) followed by simulator training that for the first year was carried out in Denver, USA.

After that steps he returned to the company and flew 10 legs (only!) with the instructor, passed the line check - that was all. He was considered to be ready.

A common way for a western pilot, but today I understand, that we weren't really ready enough - the difference between flying the Soviet jets and modern foreign planes is very great!

I don't mean "flying" as moving the controls (it doesn't have great difference for an experienced pilot), but the problem lied in the lack of necessary knowledges, skills and so on.  Fortunatelly, all of us were lucky enough, and the airplane, the brilliant bird B737, helped us a lot, too.

The most "interesting" period, of'course, was the very beginning. I flew my second flight as a First Officer (after the line check) with the Captain, for whom this flight was the third or something like that.

Tthat flight became a very memorable one - we flew to Sochi, it was night, and during approach we faced with the tremendous thunderstorms! As you can understand, the flight was finished safe, but for me it was a really good experience - suddenly I understood the difference between flying in the multi-crew, where the Navigator was responsible for avoiding the cells, and flying in two-pilot cockpit, where all the decisions are made by you and your colleague.

My Captain was a former CP of Tu-134, where pilots even didn't see the radar picture! They only carried out the commands of their navigators!

I really felt my back was cold!

--==(0)==--

I've got a firm believe in B737 and its radar, though from one side its colored picture made us sure that we see all the situation, but from the another side thunderstorms looked not so scary on the radar of Tu-154 (my previous bird) ! :)

During two years the weather (there were lots of thunders in 2006 and 2007) helped me to get the necessary experience very quick and my back was never cold again.

But some flights are living in my memory.

It was the flight to Samara

A regular night flight, which really was not the loving one among the pilots. Flying into the night, staying in Samara for three hours, returning to Moscow early in the morning with only 3h40min of paid block time!

Two consequent days are switched off from your life - the day before you are not planning anything and trying to have a nap, the day after the flight you're sleeping untill the evening...

Pilots believe that 3h and 40min are not good enough to pay for two lifedays.

At the exit from the Moscow Control Zone we recieved the information about the thundersorm front  located on our route. We requested the highest possible level for our B737-500 - 11100m (36400 feet) and got the clearance.

We flew a little bit and saw all the beaty of this front - in the real meaning of the word! 

(The wedding fireworks wouldn't be able to suprise a man who saw the night thunderstorms from the cockpit)

We found the hole and passed through the front. For a single time in my career I saw the "devils" on the windshields - it looked unusual because the electrization usually happens when the aiplane flies through the clouds in the layer when the temperature is about 0. Not our case - we were flying in the cleas sky (as it seemed to us) at flight level 11100m and the temperature was below -50.

Nevertheless we decided that it was the electrization, but today, when the industry have faced with ice crystals icing, I understand what exactly could happen with us that night.

We faced with this front again on our return trip, and, even its biggest part had already gone, its tail still crossed our route. Because in the western direction we were able to climb only to 10600m (34800f) ant it looked not high enough we had to turn left and flew another 80 nm to avoid the front and then returned on route.

3.40 became 4.00.









Next evening the adventures continued and  became even more interesting! We departed from Domodedovo to Heraklion bus just after the airborn we got into a huge number of cells. Besides there were many other planes in the air, so the radio was very busy.

Because of the traffic the Joker (Controller) didn't allow us to climb to a good altitude, so we had to pass through all this shit and we've got clear of it only near the Moscow FIR boundary at the altitude of about 6000m.





It was one of my last flight as a First Officer. Shortly after I began the upgrade course, the same 10 legs pus Line Check plus one flight under supervision. My first "solo" as a B737 CP happened in October, 7, 2006. I flew to Sochi.

--==(0)==--

But I consider another flight to be my first "solo".

3 months before I was planned to fly with another "young" Captain on his solo flight. He already finished his 10 legs + LC + supervision and looked ahead to fly to Volgograd with me, a very simple airport for the beginners.

But everything was changed and we flew to Frankfurt-Main. I should tell that I've finished the training and got allowance to fly out of Russian borders only a month before, and my Captain had never fly farther than Baky (Azerbaijan)... and he had never spoken English phraseology before, because it was his Navigator's job when he was a CP of Tu134!

I think, you could measure the credit of trust that was given to me by Squadron Commander.

The flight was very interesting. Over Sheremet'evo airport Tu-154 of "Aeroflot" tried to attack us from below and we had to avoid it by climbing. Over Germany we had to avoid thunderstorms and finally, when the runway appeared to be very close and we've got the clearance for the approach my Captain started to increase the speed selector (of the autopilot) instead of setting runway heading.

Fortunately I've caught it, otherwise we could overcame the speed limit for Flaps 1 position - it is 230 for B737-500 and my CP tryed to set 246, a runway course in Frankfurt.

A year later I fully appeciated that "trust credit" when I was candidated to deliver on of our planes to Seletar, a small factory field in Singapur. This flight divided my career to "before" and "after". I think I should write about it later.

--==(о)==--

Photos







Tu-154 of Orenburg Airlines



Sochi






Kazan




Domodedovo



VIM Airlines B757 is "washing". De-icing procedures





Air Union. This company became bancrupt in 2008.



Passengers letter of thanks



And a poem :)

--==(o)==--

And this is the photo from 2002. I was a young student of the Civil Aviation Academy, full of romance dreams about planes, cells, and "solo flights".



Wish you all the best!