LAX Chief Pilot Office Newsletter September 2015 In this issue… Habitat for Humanity Lost Items in Cockpit Runway Construction Continues Representing Delta Across the Pacific Going Above and Beyond From LAX Line Safety Coord. Captain Guy Cadaing Dude, Where’s my Bus? Contact Information Habitat for Humanity is coming… Giving back to our community is one of the features of our great airline and September brings a popular and rewarding chance to do so. Delta-sponsored Habitat for Humanity comes to LAX with a new home for a deserving and personally invested family. LAX Flight Operations will be working on the job site on Thursday, September 17th. The project will be at 1236 E. 101st Street, Los Angeles 90044 (about 6 miles from the airport) and this year’s effort features a completely new home built from the ground up. Your family members ages 16 and older are encouraged to participate. Interested? There is a sign-up sheet in the CPO. Lost items in the Cockpit Many of us have left an item in the cockpit as we hurry for our next flight. If you happen to be the person that finds a high value item an earlier crewmember left behind, please consider going a little above and beyond. Many pilots have passed along Surface Tablets, iPads, headsets, etc. to the Gate Agent or an ACS supervisor and asked that they contact the Chief Pilot Office. While these ACS personnel often take the extra effort to contact us, their procedure is to take the item to the Lost and Found Department at the Baggage Service Office. As you might imagine, this sometimes makes recovery of the item difficult for the owner. Please consider holding on to the item and personally contacting us in the CPO or try to find out who the owner is through iCrew. We occasionally hear about the amount of effort some pilots go through to retrieve their personal items and want to ask for a little extra care and effort to help out a fellow Delta pilot. Runway Construction Continues In addition to the ongoing Runway 06L/24R construction, there will be periods when Runway 06R/24L will be closed in the coming weeks. Runway 06R/24L will be closed on Sunday mornings from 12:30 am to 6:30 am on 9/13, 9/20 and 9/27. This may affect late night arrivals and the early morning arrivals from the Hawaiian Islands. From LAX 717 Lead Line Check Pilot Brant Ruder Tipp Toe Through The FMS/MCDU 1 Many inquiries have been made about “building” and then flying the TIPP TOE VISUAL Rwy 28L/R. in KSFO. First let’s acquire some situational awareness. ATIS will tell us when KSFO Charted Visual Approaches are in use. Normally we are filed for and asked by NORCAL to descend via the SERFR1, landing West transition and the FMS is pre-loaded with the ILS28L—MENLO transition. Reviewing the TIPP TOE VISUAL 28L/R we can see MENLO has an altitude restriction of 5000’ for Class B Airspace. The next fix is OAK/151/14.0 followed by D10.0 SFO and D6.0 SFO with altitude restrictions of 2500’ and 1800’ respectively. Utilizing Jeppesen FliteDeck PRO and selecting the MAP/Route display, we can zoom in and find the following waypoints: D151N, FR28V and BRIJJ. These three waypoints match the lat./long.’s with the points OAK/151/14.0, D10.0 SFO and D6.0 SFO respectively; and it just so happens that D151N, FR28V and BRIJJ are in the FMS database. To build the approach, simply type and insert after MENLO: D151N FR28V /2500 BRIJJ /1800 RWY 28L Since the ILS28L was pre-loaded, hard-tuning the ILS is not necessary. When NORCAL clears you for the visual approach, “splat” Localizer Only on the NAV/RAD page to track in-bound or select NAV and PROF to comply with the altitude restrictions at MENLO and BRIJJ. If you arm the approach by selecting APPROACH/LAND you will begin descent on the glide path early, thus violating the altitude restriction of 1800’ at BRIJJ (San Mateo Bridge). Once past BRIJJ, select APPROACH/LAND and use the technique you are most comfortable with to intercept the glide path. Personally, I will disconnect the autopilot and hand fly using visual references. Passing BRIJJ is a good time to configure the aircraft for landing. Utilize the pilot monitoring to help with vertical guidance on final. And remember, selecting TCAS “TA Only” is recommended when established on the final approach course. (A shout out goes to FO John Masse for his assistance; thanks John!) Representing Delta across the Pacific…. In July, LAX 7ER F/O Shane Tajima represented Delta at Tokyo Dome’s Delta Days Event. We want to recognize Shane for taking time out of his schedule to be a part of this event. This is the second year he has been involved. While several LAX pilots are part of Delta’s Ambassador Program and travel to events around Southern California, Shane’s trip is probably one of the furthest journeys we have seen. We want to thank all the pilots involved in this program. If you are interested in adding a dimension to your involvement representing Delta, please go to the Flight Ops Webpage and click on the Pilot Ambassador Link. 2 Going Above and Beyond In case you didn’t see this running through the social media world last month, one of LAX’s finest, 737 Captain Kelly Williams went out of his way to take care of one of our passenger’s pets. There was a delay in Seattle and one of his passengers needed to get off the plane so her Teacup Maltese dog could take care of its physiological needs. He volunteered to take the dog down to the ramp so that the passenger didn’t need to leave the plane. Thank you for taking that extra care and effort with our passengers! Dude, Where’s my Bus? Ever walked out to the terminal curb after finishing a trip and wondered where the next bus to the employee lot is? Wonder no longer, there’s an app for that. “Ride Systems” makes it easy to quickly find the location of all busses operating on the route between the employee lots and the LAX terminals and provides arrival time predictions and other bus route information. It won’t make the bus arrive any quicker (that app feature is still in development!) but it will take some of the mystery out of the wait. Ride Systems is available at no charge on the Apple Store and Google Play. Thanks to LAX F/O Tony Gaedicke for bringing this to our attention. Upcoming LAX Events Bob Hope USO – Tuesday, September 15th and October 13th. All are welcome to join in this Delta-sponsored opportunity to serve and honor U.S. Marines traveling through LAX on their way to training locales throughout the country. Meals are served from 2 pm to 5 pm. To serve, contact Mike, Dave, or Patti or sign-up on the poster in the lounge. LAX Habitat for Humanity - Thursday, September 17th. See article above for details. Motion Picture Television Fund volunteer event – Friday, September 18th, 1-4pm. Ask Mike, Dave or Patti for details. Flight Operations LAX Base Visit - Thursday, October 1st, 10:30 am - 12:30 pm. Join Flight Operations S.V.P. Capt. Steve Dickson and representatives from Network for a recap of 2015 and forecast into plans for next year. Q & A at this event is always lively and informative. Delta LAX Block Party - Saturday, September 26, 11:00 a.m.to 4 p.m. All LAX-based pilots and their guests are invited to attend the first Delta LAX Block Party, which will be held at LA Live (outdoor space adjacent to the Staples Center). The event will consist of food, music, games, prizes and more. Click on the Block Party link on the DeltaNet homepage for details and registration. Crew Resources and Scheduling LAX Base Visit – Thursday, November 19th, 10am-1pm. Bring your appetite as well as staffing and scheduling questions for an informative lunchtime visit with Scheduling and Crew Resources leadership. From LAX Line Safety Coord. Captain Guy Cadaing It has been a busy summer season with an abundance of operational threats which continue to challenge us. Leading the pack are runway incursions and unstable approaches. 3 We constantly train and have procedures in effect to mitigate these threats, but we are often set up for less than ideal outcomes due to handling and controlling issues. ATC instructions are frequently preceded by the preparatory commands "expedite" and "without delay". Additionally, our speeds and altitudes are often modified on the RNAV STARS requiring multiple FMC programming keystrokes. Often times this exercise culminates in a last minute runway change to make things even more exciting. During these fast paced and saturated scenarios I would challenge you to build a buffer and buy yourselves some time, if possible. Also, use caution when accepting commands such as "cleared for immediate take-off" or other instructions prefaced with "expedite" or "without delay". These types of instructions force crews to rush normal procedures and increase the possibility for error. As far as "news you can use" here at LAX, please note the following: NOTAM for the new additional Runway Status Lights here at LAX: FDC 5/8455 (KLAX A1932/15) LAX CA..SPECIAL NOTICE..LOS ANGELES INTERNATIONAL, CALIFORNIA, RUNWAY STATUS LIGHTS (RWSL) ARE IN AN OPERATIONAL TEST AND MUST BE COMPLIED WITH.