High mins? Heigh ho!

I am finally off of "high mins!" "High mins" refers to a recently upgraded captain, or a captain recently upgraded into new equipment. Every airline has rules for new captains, but I think ours is the only one that is retarded about it. I think it's an FAA regulation - for the first 100 hours of Captain experience, you must add 100 feet to the lowest published decision altitude or MDA and 1/2 mile to the lowest visibility requirement to be legal to shoot an approach and make a landing at an airport. In no case may I, as a high mins captain, descend below 300' with a visibility less than 1 statute mile. For the pilot-speak impaired, it means that in order for me to legally land at an airport with shitty weather, it has to be slightly less shitty than what I've been trained to do. Okay, nothing wrong with that. Every airline does that. However, the retarded part of it is that I have to fly EVERY LEG, execute every take off and every landing, for the first 100 hours of flight time. UGH. It wasn't so bad until I started getting 4-day trips with the same crew. I felt so bad for the first officers stuck with me who looked bored to tears. For the record, I never minded flying with a high mins guy, because no one loves the sound of her own voice - especially on the radio with a chance to flirt with ATC and maybe get shortcuts - more than I do, and it was like a 4-day vacation. But that's me. They were all understanding about not getting to fly, and thankfully patient with my excruciatingly slow pace at doing everything. When the opportunity presented itself, I bought the crew a round on the overnights or coffee the next morning as a thank you. I wish I could have done more, but so it goes.

Legend has it that when you are on High mins for the first time, weird crap that you've never seen before suddenly happens to you. After over 5 years in the right seat, I am pleased to say that I'd seen enough that only one thing happened to me that I'd never seen before outside of the simulator. That doesn't mean that the rest of my first 100 hours was event-free, however. Anyway, the weird thing that I've never seen before was the failure of the landing gear to come up normally when requested. I initially heard normal gear-up sounds followed by abnormal gear-up sounds - the a wob-wob-wob of the wheels continuing to turn after liftoff (which is not normal), and the noise of the gear being down in the wind. I had just enough time to say, "what the F***?" before I heard the triple-chime of the aural warning unit accompanied by a red message telling us there was a difference between the position of the landing gear switch and the position of the gear itself.

Crap. "I'll keep it below 200 knots, you run the checklist. Autopilot on, my radios," I barked, feeling like Capt Sully. The ho-hum ending to a would-be thrilling, heart-stopping, news-flashing, hero-making saga is that the problem went away after running the checklist. I wrote it up when we got to our destination and got a roll of the eyes from the maintenance man awaiting our arrival.

While on high-mins, I also got to experience an extended maintenance delay. I was flying with a first officer who was FRESH out of training. The ink had not yet dried on his temporary airman's certificate (issued to him after passing the checkride in our training program), and his epaulettes were still shiny and unblemished from the tears of disappointment and abuse so characteristic of regional airlines. The Flight Attendant had been putting up with jealousy crap from her boyfriend and passenger abuse, and at her wit's end stated to me, "ANYTHING else goes wrong, and I'm calling off!!" This combination in itself was a little tough, but manageable. On his walk-around, the FO noticed a screw needed tightening. So, I call up maintenance, and have them send a guy who could tighten a screw on the aircraft. Should be a non-issue, right?

WRONG. I get back to the plane after getting some coffee, and the gate agent is upset, saying it's a no-go item. I look at her like she's crazy, and say, "It's a screw. There are only 122 other screws in that fairing. I see maintenance out there now. How can it be a no-go item? We'll be ready to board in 5 minutes." Turns out, the screw was loose because there was nothing to tighten it against on the back end. It was, unfortunately, in a portion of the aircraft that Embraer considered crucial. What was troubling, is that our maintenance knew this, and during its last airworthiness inspection, they GLUED it down so it would look like it was tightened upon visual inspection - rather than take the aircraft out of service to fix it properly. After a few flights, of course the glue wore off and the screw was loose again. We waited an hour and a half for a call from the engineering department at Embraer to call our Maintenance personnel with their blessing to put some "speed tape" (AKA "Duct tape") over the errant screw. As luck would have it, they could. The blessing was, this delay allowed us some time as a crew to relax and joke around a bit. We boarded, and off we went to a better day.

Things happen in 3's, so the last adventure of my high mins tenure happened on a flight from Richmond, VA to Detroit, MI. It was a hot summer day, and a line of thunderstorms had developed around Detroit, blocking off the arrivals from the south. We were given a holding pattern, to expect further clearance in thirty minutes. I slow down to save gas. More often than not, when you're given a holding pattern, you barely even get into the hold when they're clearing you out of it. I look in the direction ahead and the weather honestly didn't look THAT BAD, so I told the FO to wait until we're in the pattern to contact our dispatch via the 2nd radio. We enter the pattern. FO is on the phone with dispatch. I ask if that EFC time is going to hold. They answer, "as a matter of fact, we were just about to extend it." I look at the fuel load - about 2,900 lbs remaining, and sigh. We're diverting, all right. Now, where do I want to go? We're over Ohio. I know Cleveland and Columbus can handle the Delta codeshare...... in the meantime, my FO has contacted dispatch - Fort Wayne (we call it, "Fort Fun" in much the same way you'd call a bouncer "Tiny") it is!!

We tell air traffic control that we're diverting to Fort Wayne, IN, and comply with their instructions. We're #3 of about 6 divertees. I notify the flight attendant we're diverting. She asks, "will you make the announcement?" I don't want to, but I think, "as a passenger, I want to hear it from the horse's ass.... I mean mouth." I sigh again and say, "yes." I click the PA button, tell the FO I'll be out of the loop, and pause. What the hell am I going to say? I decide on the truth. Without humor. I feel so stupid on the damned PA anyway. I make what I hope is a commanding, yet compassionate (after all, they have connections) announcement, and return to the business at hand. We land at Fort Wayne and are at the mercy of the ground crew. All we need is gas and new paperwork to get going. It takes an hour and 45 minutes. Their ground crew, while completely competent, is stressed to the max with not only people like us, but normal service as well. To my surprise, they have water for the passengers. Thank GOD, because we were out.

I had to laugh at the captain of the ExpressJet plane next to us. Every so often, he would leap out of the cockpit, stand expectantly on his air stair door, and walk to the terminal. A few minutes, later, he would walk back. Sometimes, he'd look at me and we'd both smile and wave. I was reminded of the days I spent in jazz band in high school and college. When we'd play off-campus gigs, the whole band was called upon to help build and tear down the set. Trouble is, after the music stands and microphone stands were packed, there wasn't much that I could help with, but I didn't want to be seen doing nothing! So, what I did was walk "with a purpose" quickly in one direction.... hide for a bit..... then walk in the same manner the other direction. That way it looked like I was still helping, when in fact, I was not. I don't know if that was what this other captain was doing or not.... but it sure as hell looked that way. It made me smile.

Anyway.

We get fueled finally, and still have to wait another 30 minutes at the end of the departure runway for spacing into Detroit. We also had to fly the scenic route - over GRAND RAPIDS before we could turn south for DTW. It was an adventure, and I had a headache by the end of the day. However, I was blessed with a stellar crew throughout the ordeal. The flight attendant kept the passengers entertained, the first officer kept after ops to get our fuel and paperwork, and I hounded dispatch and kept the passengers informed. We enjoyed a round at the hotel bar before crashing into our respective beds.

After 100 hours as Pilot in Command, I am feeling a lot more confident and capable. It is much less awkward when people (passengers, TSA, my friends) address me as "Captain," though at heart I really don't feel like I deserve it. I wonder if that will change. It's funny, as an FO, I had all kinds of confidence, bordering on arrogance. Why should moving a few inches to the left make a difference? I find that the left seat has made a difference in my attitude. Suddenly, "they don't pay me enough to deal with that shit" is not true anymore. I find that I care a lot more about the people in the back, which shames me a little. I find that even though I thought I was good at talking to people in the first place, I am more choosy with my words. There is a right and a wrong way to talk to people, and every person is different. I try to react to things with patience instead of anger. All I ask is that my crews and dispatchers have patience with me. It's going to take a while for me to get good at this. By then, I'll probably get a call from United!

Most importantly, every day I think about the advice I garnered out of every captain I flew with. I try to remember what I liked and didn't like about their style. So that it sticks, I silently recite what that instructor said to me on my last day of sim training, "Take care of your passengers. Take care of your crew. Take care of yourself - your medical. Take care of your airplane - don't bend any metal. If you do those 4 things, in that order, you'll have no problem.

Sounds like sound advice to me.