From -7 to 20+ºC in 5 days!

This week I went to Riga (Latvia), Kaunas (Lithuania), Lanzarote and Malaga.  Riga and Kaunas were still winter wonderlands with plenty of snow and a biting cold temperature to go with it!  I didn’t have to stay in the cold for long in Riga since I was just doing a walk-around, however in Kaunas, we have to operate the fueling panel since the fuelers do not do it there.  So, I had to stand outside for around 15 minutes in total in -7ºC which was not pleasant at all – my face had gone numb by the time I had finished!  I will have to bear this in mind if I go to Kaunas again and either choose to fly the outbound sector or come with warm hat!

After flying in the cold for two days, I was looking forward to my trips to Lanzarote and Malaga which invited us in with much kinder weather!  My flights on the 3rd day were cancelled due to a strike by the Irish controllers, which has been covered in the news recently.  So I woke up and called in to confirm the flights were not going and was told that I was on standby instead. I woke up anyway to ensure I kept my sleeping pattern consistent with my early shift.  It’s very tempting to sleep in – but it then makes it difficult to sleep at a time that’ll allow you to get enough rest before working the next day. Sleep management is especially important when it comes to earlies.

It took us just over 4 hours to fly to Lanzarote and other than monitoring, I used the cruise to refresh my technical knowledge in preparation for the simulator training and check that I will be having next month.  The approach to Lanzarote was similar to Gran Canaria in the sense that ATC vectored us downwind and eventually onto base and final to intercept the ILS for the runway.  However, the runway in Lanzarote is shorter than Tenerife and Gran Canaria, so we had to ensure we were within landing weight limits and we took out flap 40 as our landing flap.

Once we arrived at stand, I went ahead and proceeded with the walk-around and fuel supervising (where we have to be in communication from the outside with the flight deck whilst fueling & boarding at the same time).  This was a pleasure in the sunshine and temperature over 20ºC in comparison to the freezing temperatures only a couple of days earlier!  It’s almost surreal when you come from winter conditions a few hours away and you’re in beautiful summer-like conditions all of a sudden!  It took us about the same time to return – just over 4 hours again, back to the winter!

On the last day of flying, we went to Malaga and Cork.  For this flight, I had a guest in the flight deck – a pilot that was recently type rated and was rostered for a jumpseat with us to observe line flying.  I was doing this only a few months ago before line training began.  We get rostered for 3 days out of a base, which is not necessarily the base we line train from.  The weather in Cork did not look promising, it was windy, raining and the visibility was low.  The same weather I had experienced when I went their during line training.  As we approached Cork, we go the latest weather and there was the possibility of going into the hold if it deteriorated further.  We planned for both a CAT I approach and a CAT II auto-land, and initially setup for a CAT II approach.  However, as we got closer, the wind was out of auto-land limits, it was 20kts down the runway and gusting higher.  We then setup for a CAT I, monitored approach.  The approach lights came into view just before minimums and we made a successful landing.  I was looking forward to the nicer weather in Malaga even more by now!

I’ve been to Malaga before, when I was training.  I took a trip to Malaga twice during IFR sorties – once in a PA28 and another time in a Seneca, so the area was familiar to me.  Our descent and arrival took us over plenty of high terrain, which we had to be aware and be careful of.  ATC did suggest a direct routing, but we opted to stay on the arrival to ensure our terrain clearance and reduce our workload by keeping to the planned and briefed routing.  The approach was to the southerly facing runway, which was as amazing as I had remembered it from my training days.  We descended down through the valley with mountainous terrain on either side, looking ahead towards the runway with the Mediterranean sea just off the end of the runway.  Clear skies, sunny and beautiful weather!

Once we arrived at stand, carried on with the setup, allowing the pilot jumpseating our flight to help me.  It was only a few months ago that I was jumpseating and trying to taking in as much as I could, so I knew how he felt!  Before we knew it, we were lining up for departure back to Liverpool.  The views out of Malaga were amazing again – we could see the Sierra Nevada mountains, capped with snow and the coastline.  The departure initially took us out to the Mediterranean sea and once we were above MSA, we took the direct routing ATC gave us out to the North.