Saturday, May 9, 2009

V1....rotate.....Ding!

At another hotel for a short overnight, so this will be brief.

Captain flew both legs. I will take 3 of the 4 tomorrow. We wanted to change it up to keep one guy landing at the outstation and the other at base.

While in the base we had to do a plane swap. Thankfully our next plane was one gate over. After getting on board and pre-flighting the outside, I noticed a circuit breaker panel placard missing. Behind both pilots in the CRJ are rows of circuit breakers. They each have labels that slide in and out detailing what each circuit breaker does. One of them on my side was missing. The placard missing was level with where my kit bag slide in and out of the storage hole. I looked all around the cockpit thinking it slid off when the last FO left. No joy.

I called a mechanic. Thirty minutes later (20 minutes after departure) he arrives. Looks..."yep it's gone". Twenty minutes later we had a new one.

On the takeoff roll we have various items we abort for prior to V1. At V1 we abort for very few things. Today right after the wheels left the ground we got a single "ding" followed by a flashing caution light and an associated EICAS message...."Display Cool". The CRT's in the cockpit are cooled by fans. One set on the ground, another set in the air. The fans that normally turn on while airborne failed. A quick flick of the wrist and I activated the "flight alternate" fans which is the ground set. Having this go off right after V1 was a little startling. A lot is going on at that moment. All handled fine.

The flight was fine. We had two dogs in the back cargo compartment. There is a switch I call the "dead puppy switch". If I don't turn it on....whatever pets we have in the back will likely freeze to death. As part of our checklist we always turn it on after takeoff. What the switch does is allow conditioned cabin air (after it's been passed through all the smells associated with the cabin) to enter the cargo compartment. During the summer I will turn the switch on before we leave the gate to keep the pets at a comfortable temperature. Anyway here is a picture of the "dead puppy switch".

[singlepic id=111 w=320 h=240 float=center]

I have yet to kill a pet (I always check). Time for sleep. Van comes in 8 hours.

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