What if the Airlines Flew Like This?

ATIS identifiers, India 2987 landing 11, winter calm, clear skies. Did you already check in with Denver Approach? Okay, sounds good. Little signature move. I know they love it. Okay, looks like the flight attendants are just about done. I'll make the announcement. Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon from the flight deck. This is your captain Pail speaking. You may have noticed that we just crossed over the Utah-Colorado border, eastbound. And we're descending now into the Grand Junction terminal area. The current weather in Grand Junction is CAVU, or Clear and Visibility Unlimited. Winds are light out of the east and the temperature is around 72 degrees. You can expect us to be on deck right on time in approximately three minutes. I'm going to go ahead and put on the fasten your seatbelt sign now and ask the flight attendants to secure the cabin for landing. We do realize you have a choice who you fly with and we appreciate you flying Navy today. We've been doing this since 1911 and frankly, we're the best. At this point, I ask that you sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight. Take a look out the canopy and enjoy the view. Brought to you by the United States Navy and Freedom. As we approach Grand Junction, Colorado for the section overhead fan break. Fly Navy. All right, all right. Today we're doing something a little bit different. I'm preparing myself for my future employment opportunity as an airline pilot where I'm practicing Airways Navigation, or Air Nav as we call it, which is basically just moving the jet from one point to another via Victor and Juliet Airways. We just left Whidbey Island about an hour and 50 minutes ago and since we're traveling to the southeast, we followed up to flight level 270. After we left Whidbey Island, we climbed up over the Cascade Mountains, overflew northern and central Idaho, flew just north of Salt Lake City, got to see Wyoming over the left wing and flew over Utah, and now we're just about 15 miles out. All right. And now, after this signature move, let me tell you a little about Grand Junction, Colorado. Grand Junction is nestled high in the Rocky Mountains with an elevation of around 4,500 feet MSL. With a population of nearly 60,000, Grand Junction is the largest city on Colorado's western slope. The city takes its name from the location at the junction of the Gunnison and the Colorado River, which is formerly known as the Grand River, and the heart of the Grand Valley. Since its establishment in 1881, the city and its surrounding land have been the site of railroads, factories, orchards, highways, and most importantly, vineyards. Grand Junction's rapid early growth was due in large part to the agricultural productivity of surrounding communities such as Palisade and Freda, and in the mid-20th century, the city also served as a processing hub for the western slope's uranium mines. Interestingly enough, in 1954, Grand Junction had 15 uranium companies and dozens of mining and mining supply companies in the area, and this mining effort continued until around 1970 when the price of uranium dropped and the industry became unviable. Today, tourism and agriculture are the main drivers of the Grand Junction economy. All right. As we smoothly level off around 1,500 feet AGL, we're going to accelerate to about 350 knots, which is nearly six miles a minute, and we're going to follow what's called the Highland Canal, which is that canal of the body of water you see at our left about 11 to 10 o'clock. That canal is going to veer to the south just a little bit. We're going to stay north of it, and the city of Grand Junction is at our right about 2 o'clock or so. The canal is under the aircraft, and the airport is just off the nose. You can start to make it out now just above my left mirror. Our wingman on the right side has joined up into a nice tight parade, and we're going to execute what's called a section band break today. Basically, both aircraft are going to go overhead the field. We're going to roll smoothly. I'm going to leave my power up. Wingman is going to come back on his power. We're going to slowly separate on top of the field, giving ourselves adequate separation for touchdown. Just trying to be a super smooth platform here for Dash 2. Just about crossing over the field now. There's the hand signal. Come with me. I'm going to roll very smoothly up on a wing, leaving my power up for the first 90 degrees worth of turn. As I drag the velocity vector across the horizon, careful to stay level. Now, as soon as we broke overhead the field, Dash 2 immediately went to idle. You'll see me keep my power up through 90 degrees worth of turn, at which point I'll go to idle. And that throttle differential, combined with the fact that Dash 2 is flying the same ground path as Dash 1, will provide us with plenty of separation on final for a safe landing to be made. Another 30 degrees worth of turn or so. I'm going to stay level here, rolling out parallel to the runway, but on the opposite heading. There it is. 250 knots is our gear speed. Landing gear and flaps come down. There it is. And now I'm just waiting to initiate my turn once I'm parallel to, in a beam, the intended point of landing. Roll up on a wing. As I continue my descent, I'm going to engage PLM on the UFCD, or the Upfront Control Display. Time to knock out our landing checks. We are 1, 2, 3 down the lock. Flaps full, hook up. Anti-skid switch on, harness if you'd like it, dispenser switch is off. Looking good. Continuing our turn now, just trying to play it out. Maintaining on speed as we come around the corner. And now we're just going to modulate our angle of bank as required in order to give us a sufficient groove length for a safe landing to be made as we overfly this beautiful high desert climate. You see me adjust the brightness on the HUD. Get an angle so I let the turn out just a little bit. Belly's clear. You always want to check the groove prior to turning in just to make sure that nobody else is coming, even though it's a controlled airport. Continuing the turn now. You can start to make out the runway on our left at 11 o'clock. There it is. A little more turn. And there's no lens here at this field today, so I'm just going to fly an on-speed landing, targeting to land just before the piano keys or the big white marks on the runway that you'll see right off the nose. Here comes the wings level transition. And just keeping it on speed. On speed. Keep it coming. And there's the piano keys right there. Boom. Touchdown throttle goes to idle. To test the brakes, make sure they're good, they're working, cool, hot or not. Stick comes back in my lap for a little bit of aerodynamic braking as we slow down on the runway. Brakes look good. Just making sure I'm making my line speeds. We just passed the 6th board, or 6,000 feet of runway remaining. We're going to target no faster than 120 knots. There's the 5th board, no faster than 100 knots. Passing the 4th, no faster than 80 knots, and so on. And we're just going to use one smooth application of the brakes in order to make sure we make those speeds. Looking good. With our airspeed under control, I'm going to veer off to the right side of the runway in order to free up the left-hand side in the event that my wingman's got a brake failure or needs to go around for whatever reason. Flight attendants, please prepare the cabin for arrival. All right, as we slow down, we'll execute our after-landing checklist. Flaps switch is up. I'm going to mash down on the takeoff trim button until the trim advisory is displayed and turn the landing light off. Towers just told us to turn off here at Alpha 6, so we'll slow down, make the turn, cross the hold short and pause as we wait to pick up our wingman and then switch to ground on Point Niner to call for taxi to the FBO. Well guys, if you enjoyed the jam today, please like, leave a comment and subscribe. Buy me a beer. The details are in the description. I appreciate your continued support for this channel. Welcome aboard Growler Jams. All right, ready to save him up? Save him the front? I'm on stride. Let's get some talk.