Bob Heath

 Bob at Anderson River, NWT.  July 2009. Photo by Marcel Siegenthaler, used with permission.



Today is a really sad day.  The New Zealand SAR people have made contact with the site, and confirmed that the crash was not survivable.  My heart goes out to the family and friends of the all crew members on board, Bob Heath, Mike Denton and Perry Andersen.

 That's Bob at the South Pole.  He'd commute from Inuvik, which is an amazing adventure on its own. I think this was maybe his 8th season down there, and he was scheduled to return to his family in Inuvik this week.  Such a loss.

Bob was also a moderator on an internet aviation forum called AvCanada - he went by the online name of Just Curious.  I do that too, and along with a bunch of other dedicated folks, we try to keep the forums running smoothly, which can be tough when wrangling pilots.  About a decade ago I asked some of the moderators to say a little something about themselves in order to become better acquainted with a crop of new moderators who had just come online.



Here's what Bob said about himself on April 17th, 2004:

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My name's Just Curious and I'm an..... oooops! Wrong Meeting

I call myself just curious, because for the most part, I am not particularly interested in jumping ship, since the only game in town with any stability above where I am now would be to fly seasonally for Conair (Mrs Curious worries about bombers) or WestJet (and I haven't ruled that out. ). In any case, I get to wear a leather jacket to work in the summer, so it's not all bad.

I'm sitting at about 22,000 hours right now. Lots and lots of time on Beeches (90, 10, 99) and the Mighty Twin Otter. About 15,000 between the two. I fly for Kenn Borek in both the Arctic, and Antarctic. This does not necessarily mean that I am bi-polar. Periodically, when I'm not at one end or the other, I will ferry one of our machines from Calgary to Asia, South America, or across Canada.

For the most part my job is flying to one of a dozen Inuit villages in my part of the Arctic, carrying everything you need to keep a small town running. Or tourists to pristine remote locations to raft kayak canoe or climb them. Or... mad scientists to the sea ice, the top of Mt Logan. Everyday is different. Wheels, tundra tires, floats, skis, sometimes all on the same day.

I flew for quite some time in North Western Ontario, doing much the same with more medevacs, only the passengers were predominantly Cree instead of Inuit. Met my wife on a medevac. Turns out customer service skills are useful after all!

I was in New Brunswick running a really small charter/flying school for five years, living on generic kraft dinner. I was introducing an Flying Scholarship course to the wonderful world of 172's when Les Maike roared down the runway in YCH, spewing bits of an R2800 as the TBM rolled along at 300 knots. I manage to apply the skills of an instructor every day at work. Odd for a bush pilot I know.

I did my commercial and instructor rating at Moncton, before the College programs, aside from Seneca, Con, and Sault. I was a year into university, when I realized I couldn't wait four years to start flying for a living. Of course, I was flying 1000 hours a year when I realized that to do the job of a pilot manager, I had to go back to school. Doing a BComm while flying full-tilt wasn't the easiest thing, but it's something I can apply.

I was an Air Cadet from the time I was 12 (lied about my age.) Did the Tech Training Glider and Power Scholarship, taught gliding for two summers, towed gliders for one summer, and taught the Powered Scholarship for 4 summers. Sadly in the Western Arctic, there are no Air Cadets, only Jr. Rangers...

For the most part, I do training and line indoc of new hires, as well as upgrade training for senior co-pilots, as well as the training and tricks of the trade for captains to be able to fly "off-strip" ie... no runway. Sadly, a lot of the people I flew with over the last decade have gone off to WJ, and I'm too old to try to match drinks with the people I fly with these days.

...In the last 18,000 two crew hours, I've only had two F/Os not really work out, and with both, it was a matter of them maturing, which they finally did, since both are WJ captains now...Come to think of it, I've always had great Nurses Paramedics and Bird-dog officers as well. Musta been lucky.

It's been easy for me to be objective about a lot of the posts on the board. I've got a good job, and I'm home every night when I'm home. If I can help someone else get a good job, or a better one, why not? In the end, when I'm eating my bowl of mush at the Old Folks Home (hopefully in Mexico, or someplace warm ) I won't remember the airplanes as much as the crews I've flown with.

Flying can be a drudgery. I suppose. But flying with a narcoleptic who kept falling asleep on approach to landing atop Mt. Logan, having someone give birth in the back of a Navajo, bailing out an engineer who got arrested in South America (missing passport, woman, alcohol, much screaming, you get the idea) Flying in the Arctic on Monday Golfing in Scotland on Wednesday, and seeing the Pyramids two days later, with a co-pilot who has basically never been out of a small island village in his life... It hasn't been boring. Even today, we did a rescue of a mad scientist and a helicopter pilot who had been out counting polar bears. Oil pressure indication problems had sat them down on the sea ice, with a dozen pissed off bears around when we came in to get'em.

Eventually, I'll retire or drive the big iron, but until then, I remain, just curious,
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Godspeed, Bob. You will be missed by everyone who met you, flew with you, and had the benefit of your gentle, humorous wisdom.  And that's a whole lot of people.

 http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/01/24/bob-heath-kenn-borek-pilot-antarctic_n_2543657.html

I have known Bob for 15 years.  He's one of the most experienced and well-regarded Twin Otter drivers on the planet. He's been a mentor to dozens (if not hundreds) of pilots over the years, and he knows more than just about anybody when it comes to winter survival.  The plane is well-stocked with survival gear and winter tents, and at least it's currently Summer in Antarctica, meaning the conditions have improved from 'impossible' to only 'extreme'.  Bob can work with extreme - he's been doing it for decades and he's damn good at it.

So far whiteout conditions and 170 km/h winds (yeah, you read that right) at the site has made it impossible for rescue aircraft to see the airplane from above, let alone land nearby.  The weather is forecast to pick up enough in the next few hours to attempt another rescue.

Please send as much good karma as you can spare toward a safe return of all 3 crew members on board.

We're pulling hard for you Bob!

This is for the hardcore aviation nerds.  Yeah, you :)

http://db.tt/4qSj8QFs

This link is to our Company DropBox folder of all the manuals for our particular Citation Ultra.  Yep, all of them.

The summary version would likely be the  Cheat Sheets PDF.  That'll probably get you through a checkride, though it might not get you through an...umm...intense unscheduled event - quite as well as the full manuals would.

If you memorize all this stuff you'll know more than most Ultra pilots, including me.  If you memorize this stuff and then do 16 hours in an Ultra simulator, you can attempt a checkride to get your Citation 560 type rating.  Well, technically you still have to do the ground school as well, but I guarantee you'll have an edge :)

When I created the Policies and Procedures Manual for our company, I sent out draft copies to all the pilots.  I asked for their input, and if they saw anything that should be changed.  I guess nobody looked very closely at our Official Winter Headgear policy, because this is it.

This is not a promising sign when you want to fly back to YYZ at the end of the day.  This is a pic of the Flightaware.com ATC delays map.  Toronto had some snow earlier and it backed up a bunch of arrivals, to the point that ATC told us we could expect to be on the ground at our current airport for a couple of hours before they would have room to slot us in at Toronto.

We spend some time marveling at the free Diabeetus fountain.  I base my choice of FBO on two things:  amount of free sugar offered, and fuel price.  In that order.  

We watched other planes fly about as they pleased, because they weren't going back to Toronto.

  

We watched the plane as she watched the sun go down.  We wondered if we should just give up take the bus home.

Then ATC called and told us we could depart right away.  After hustling the pax on board and lighting up, we found ourselves in smooth air and calm skies.  The iPad app is Foreflight, linked to XM onboard weather.  Freakin' magic.

On final approach into Toronto this evening.  I lucked out with the landing, which was great for my already-bloated ego.  The pax were happy, the plane behaved, and I got to go home to my family.  Turned out to be a good day.

On Tuesday's flight home, we did something unusual, and I want to share it.

It was a pretty short leg home, about 400 nautical miles in total.  The winds were insane at our normal altitude though - basically 190 knots directly in our face at 35,000'. The computer model also showed that the winds died down at around 40,000'-  if it was a longer trip it would have been a consideration but as it was a short one, we knew there was zero chance that Air Traffic Control would let us climb that high.  For their own operational reasons, 35,000' is as high as ATC will let us fly on this particular leg.

At 35,000' we fly through the air in the Citation Ultra at about 430 knots. That would leave us with an average ground speed (airspeed - headwind) of 240 knots.  At 35,000' we burn about 1600 pounds of fuel per hour on average.  The 400 mile trip would take 1 hour 40 minutes, and we would burn 2660 lbs of fuel.

However, the winds at 22,000' was only blowing directly in our faces at 120 knots.  At 22,000' we can only fly at about 400 knots though. That left us with an average ground speed of 280 knots.  At 22,000' we burn about 2000 lbs of fuel per hour - our jet is pretty great, but the engines really suck gas down low.  The 400 mile trip would take 1 hour and 25 minutes, but we would only burn 200 more lbs of fuel despite the markedly higher fuel burn, because we would be burning fuel for less overall time.

Doing the math showed us that we'd save 15 minutes by flying at the lower altitude.  Each 6 minutes in our plane costs us roughly $210 (fuel, maintenance and money for the engine overhauls), so we'd save about $525 by going lower. We still have to factor in the extra fuel burn though.  Our gas costs us about $4.35 per gallon, or about 65 cents per pound.  The 200 lbs of extra fuel will cost us about $130, so our overall savings would be about $395 by flying at the lower altitude.

$395 isn't a whole lot in the world of jet travel, but it's more than zero dollars, and combined with the time savings, it made our decision a no-brainer. We only climbed to 22,000', and the lower true airspeed and extra fuel burn was more than offset by the lighter headwind and correspondingly shorter trip length.. We confirmed the stronger headwind by getting ATC to talk to people who were up that high, and it was exactly as the computer models predicted. We landed in Toronto 1 hour and 26 minutes after we departed, feeling quite pleased with ourselves, having saved both time and money (it's usually one or the other).

See, I'm not just a pretty face - I can do math too! Or at least I can read the math that the computer model displayed for me, and agree with it.

To be clear - these calculations are simplified, but I wanted you to get the general idea of one of the many things we did to earn our outrageous pilot salaries on Tuesday :)

To add to my previous post:  564 knots is 649mph :p

 This sign was outside my hotel in Windsor Locks CT.  I'm not kidding.  This view is a bit disturbing.

This was my view today, heading back to Toronto.  I like this view very much.

This was my view today, seeing my kid after daycare.  I absolutely love this view.

We did this on the way to Hartford CT today.  We had a nice push, and the 564 is the fastest documented groundspeed I have ever achieved in the front end of a plane.  We actually did 565, but didn't take a pic.  That works out to 1,044 km/h over the ground, weeeee! :)

I haven't cried since my boy was born, and today I cry for the parents and children in Newtown Connecticut.  I love my boy more than that word means and my heart is breaking for those affected by this horrific tragedy.

We all lost so much today.

 We don't have autothrottles in the Ultra, so during long cruise legs it's fun to try to get the speed right up to redline manually, without going over - our plane will overspeed in cruise if we set the throttles to maximum continuous thrust.  Our maximum Mach is 0.755, so I'm about 6/10ths of a knot from setting off the overspeed alarm. 


Wee!

Yeah, I don't post much.  I haven't posted much for about a year.  On that note, my champion son Nolan entered the world 365 days ago.  He gave me the best birthday present ever, and it wasn't even my birthday.

I could gush endlessly about how cool he is, and how chill he is, and how he prefers to laugh rather than cry, and how I can see the gears working in his head as he decodes the counter-intuitive way we live our lives, and how he makes my heart sing, but I think I'll mostly keep that to myself and instead say he's gold and I'm a rich, rich man.

I'll talk about aviation for a second here - I currently run a small flight department with 3 light jets, and it *might* be my career apex from a $/MTOW perspective.  I have been repeatedly offered more money and heavier equipment and yet I stay here.  Why is that?  Well, frankly because my priorities have changed.  My current job has me home almost every night, and it gives me a lot of time off.  Don't get me wrong - we have our busy periods, and when that happens, I show up and represent the Herculean work ethic.  But we also have our slow periods, and during those, I click the autopilot on at the office, and spend time with Lisa and Nolan.  Not many flying jobs give me that option, but this one does. Sure, there are sacrifices -  I make less money than I possibly could, and I could be flying a heavy jet right now instead of my current 16,500 lbs max takeoff weight.  That used to matter to me.  Also, on the downside, I have less time to spend on my blog. On the upside...

All that being said, I love flying and I will keep posting as time and circumstance permits, because it's a pretty amazing privilege I have, and I'm happy to share it.

We flew to Atlanta this morning at OMG o'clock (if you want to work backwards, I set my alarm for 2:30 am this morning).  This is the final few seconds of an ILS approach.  I haven't been into Atlanta in a private jet in a while, and I forgot how absolutely huge it is.  It's funny, 'cause the Landmark FBO (like a gas station for private jets) is about the size of our laundry room at home.  We were there for more than 8 hours.  No big deal, we got day rooms and slept whilst our passengers did business-stuff.  We then flew to Washington Dulles.

Whoops.

The slightly chunky red streak is the result of 2 sparrows being in the wrong place at the wrong time, though they might argue that we were.  They did zero damage to the plane, and neither one of them got sucked into the left engine, so that's good.  They were likely texting while flying anyway, so I'm pretty sure they had it coming.  The nice airport people scraped the bird carcasses up and presumably gave them to the airport caterers - circle of life and all that.  Now we wait to head home.  Nolan will be asleep by the time I return, which is the worst part of a pretty great day.  When I think about it, it's still a whole lot better than the day the 2 sparrows had.  Sorry about that, nature.

Nothing too special here, just sliding down the ILS back into Toronto.  It was approaching dusk, so the lighting was pretty cool. 1080p makes it look better-er.

Even though I have done this at least a thousand times, I still love it.  It's also sometimes a bit of a challenge finding the freakin' airport in the field of lights that is Toronto.

Also, I'm still getting used to landing this airplane, but I lucked out on this particular one.  I think the trick is not to try to flare as I touch down - when I try to flare, it feels like the ass end of the plane is about to fall out, and we usually arrive with a little more 'thunk' than I'd prefer.  You can hear a short discussion between me and the other guy about my good luck right after the landing.  Nothing like aviation to keep a person humble :)

PS: Right at touchdown (around 3:44) you can kinda hear me say "That's bull-puckey", or words to that effect - despite my greaser of a landing,  I set the master caution lights off (red flashing lights on our panel) because I deployed the thrust reversers a half-second before the weight-on-wheels microswitches were fully engaged, which made the plane think we might have had an airborne deployment.  That'll teach me to be eager ;)

ILS into KTRI Aug 22 2012

Riding the ILS into KTRI Tri-Cities TN this morning. Vis was fine at 4 miles, and the morning ground fog made everything look a little more special. If the temperature had dropped a degree or two more, the fog would have been a solid wall, so we got kinda lucky. Notice how we are landing under a layer :)

Our itin today is here for Customs, then south, then south, then west, then home. Long day, but the weather is perfect and I love this plane, so there's that :)

Interesting plane crash video, filmed inside the cockpit from 2 different angles. According to the original post, this took place in the Idaho wilderness.  720p and fullscreen for maximum 'whoa'.

 Hmm...watch how long the ground roll was.

First of all, everyone survives. That being said, the pilot got a bloody nose so avoid watching beyond 3 minutes if that disturbs you.  No screaming or anything, so at least there's that.  Crash at 2:44, watch til the end for the second camera view.

Original description: "This is unprecedented footage of a small airplane crash from inside the cockpit from two different views. Miraculously, everyone survived. The pilot will make a full recovery and the rest of us escaped with superficial injuries and feel very lucky to be alive . This trip was much anticipated and due to our excitement we had our Gopro cameras filming at various times. After flying up into the mountains for a hike in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness we were planning on flying to a small mountain town for dinner. Due to warming temperatures we had a hard time gaining altitude. After taking off we hit an air pocket that made us rapidly loose altitude, pushing us down into the trees."

I'm not sure if I agree with the 'air pocket made us crash' explanation - I think they were hot n' heavy and ended up flying into an area of rising terrain beyond the climb capabilities of the airplane.   I'm sure the pilot wishes he had made 2 trips instead of attempting all the pax in 1 load...


I posted this on AvCanada, and got some interesting comments:

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"Given the weather of the day from the nearest station:

http://i.wund.com/auto/iphone/weatherst ... &year=2012

Elevation is 6,370 ft.

No pressure provided, going with 29.92.

Density Alt for 20° C would be 8,500 feet. If it was the hottest point of the day, 9,500ft"
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 At 00:13 you can see the mixture is full rich for taxi.....at 6300 feet I wonder if he had it leaned for the takeoff. Over trees without shoulder harnesses is also slightly less than ideal. Even with hindsight being what it is.....he had SO MANY options for aborting that takeoff.

In the hills/mountains (in the summer especially) you need to keep some money in the bank (excess altitude, airspeed, or aircraft performance), and this guy had none.
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 Nope, not a downdraft. The air was too stable... hence the reason why they weren't able to pick up a thermal somewhere in that field.

It was at or above its absolute altitude for the weight and DA, flying along in ground effect or just slightly higher. Vy and Vx are the same at absolute altitude and the only speed you can remain airborne out of ground effect. Sees trees, pulls up, loses speed.... it becomes a mathematical certainty that you are going down.

There probably was no stall horn on this aircraft or the pilot was smart enough to realize that pulling further back wouldn't do anything... which is probably why they lived.

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Oh, the pilot in question had previously crashed a plane a couple of years before.  I'm sure that's not relevant.  Here's the accident synopsis on that one:

NTSB Narrative Summary Released at Completion of Accident The pilot reported that he intended to fly his airplane on a cross-country flight over high mountainous terrain. After takeoff, the pilot climbed to 9,500 feet mean sea level (msl) in order to fly over mountains. He subsequently descended to 8,500 feet msl, and then he attempted to climb back to 9,500 feet to clear additional mountains. This second climbing effort diminished his fuel reserve, so the pilot opted to divert to a 7,160-foot msl uncontrolled airport short of his destination. While flying over the airport to evaluate its runway's condition, the pilot noted that the runway was covered with snow. The pilot opined that because of the airplane's low fuel state, it was prudent for him to land. The pilot made a soft-field landing on the runway. During rollout, the airplane's wheels penetrated the snow-covered surface, the airplane nosed over, and both wings and the empennage broke. NTSB Probable Cause Narrative The pilot's encounter with soft, snow-covered terrain while executing a precautionary landing.

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Yeah, the pilot nearly ran out of fuel attempting to outclimb mountains that were between point A and point B.  Last time I checked, mountains don't move around much, I wonder why that was a surprise to him.