Happy 2010, Snow & Winter Ops!

There’s been plenty of snow recently – and unfortunately it seems Britain isn’t very well prepared when it comes to weather!  This causes delays and just slows everything down, since we have to ensure the airport is safe to operate and the aircraft themselves are safe and de-iced before we go.  We recently had a winter ops roadshow at our base, which discussed winter ops and a handy manual was handed out which I read during cruise to just brush up on the winter operations.  This means knowing what the different types of fluids are, and procedures related to de-icing, and cold weather operations.  We have to add temperature corrections to the altitudes on the plates, since there will be a significant error when the temperature drops below zero celcius.  Since the air is colder, the aircraft will actually be at a lower altitude than registered on the altimeters, so this must be compensated for with a correction.

The lowest temperature I’ve experienced so far outside UK is -7 Celsius, which was in Torp, Norway – my colleagues have experienced as low as -17, so I’ll count myself as fortunate!  December wasn’t as windy though – just lots of snow and ice, so it was a bit calmer in the air with high pressure systems moving in and November was rather windy with plenty of low pressure systems making their way across from the Atlantic.  I’ve been lucky enough not to experience any major disruptions such as airports closing for an extended length of time to add considerable delay to flights – that has happened on my days off!

With all this winter weather, I was rather excited to be rostered to fly to Gran Canaria!  I flew there a few days ago, and it took just over 4 hours to get there, and another 4 to get back – so quite a long, but enjoyable day.  The weather, as expected, was beautiful there – 21C and it felt warmer and was refreshing after enduring the cold weather for a few months in UK!  It really felt great – in 4 hours we had gone from Winter to Summer!  The view coming in was amazing – it was clear and I could see the other Canary Islands, and this was my second time over to the Canaries, the first time being to Tenerife.  I have Lanzarote rostered as well, and I’m looking forward to it!  The controller vectored us over the ocean, and around the island, towards the South – giving us a fantastic few of the airport and its two 3100m long runways!  The runways are so long that it is actually an emergency landing site for the space shuttle.

I’m being sent to Marseille for a week at the end of January, so looking forward to that!  Will be interesting to see operations at another base and also tour Marseille.  I’ve got a few days off at the moment, and will be flying to Girona, Bergamo and then ending with a busy 6 sector day to Dublin & Belfast!