A Day in the life of a Business Jet Pilot
The kind of flying that a business jet pilot does is varied in many ways, firstly depending on the type of owner and, secondly the required mission.In a large company the job is very similar to airline operations regularly flying to the same airports both long and short haul and the aircraft is operated under an AOC, and can carry fare paying passengers.
The type of aircraft that we fly is a Cessna Citation CJ3 which carries up to 8 passengers typically we carry three to seven and occasionally an eight passenger. It has a range of almost 1900 nm with a full fuel capacity of 4,710 lbs and is operated as a private aircraft for its owners only, to airline safety standards, involving a diverse operating program to many airports both large and small, mainly around Europe, including Weston, Biggin Hill, Copenhagen, Faro, Linate, Bologna, Tivat Montenegro, Malaga and Marrakech. We carry 2 flight crewmembers on board, and an operations controller and an engineer remain at home base in Cork to do all that is necessary to ensure a safe, comfortable and on time flight.
The CJ3 is the ideal aircraft for our particular role, with two Williams FJ44-3A engines each producing 2780 pounds of thrust and at a MTOW of 13,870lbs, it has an excellent power to weight ratio which allows us to operate out of airports with runways just 1000 metres long. It is fitted with a Collins Proline 21 navigation system consisting of dual Flight Management Computers and GPS, together with three individual flat screen displays, one PFD (primary function display )in front of each pilot containing all the flight and navigation instruments, weather radar, TCAS (traffic collision avoidance system) and TAWS (terrain awareness warning system), and one in the centre an MFD (multifunction display) which as well as providing the same information as the two PFDs, also contains all the engine indicators, and is capable of transferring information in the event of a screen failure. It has an autopilot which can be used in all the navigation modes, including coupled approaches down to as low as 180ft.
A typical flight would start with flight planning, met briefing etc followed by a pre-flight inspection, and as we do not have an APU (auxiliary power unit), and if there is no GPU (ground power unit) we start one engine first and load the complete flight plan including SID’s and Star’s, together with the payload and ATIS, into the FMS (flight management system) which brings up the V1 Vr V2 speeds on the PFD’s. Once our passengers are on board with doors closed, and having received our ATC clearance we start the other engine and depart. The take off checks are carried out during taxiing, steering is through the rudder pedals assisted by differential throttles and braking like a twin such as the Piper Seneca. Once take off clearance has been given the final part of the checklist is then completed and the throttles are advanced to the T/O detent, the FADEC (full authority digital engine control) ensures that all the parameters controlling the required engine thrust are met at all thrust settings, so the pilot only has to ensure that no exceedence warning occur.
Depending on the airport elevation, surrounding terrain and weather conditions, the take off may require a flap 15 or a flap up setting for take off. Normally flap15 is used and at a weight of 13,000 lbs the speeds are V1 98 Vr 101 V2 111. On selecting take off thrust you feel a very strong push in your back and V1,Vr is reached very quickly, and the nose is raised with a firm back pressure on the control column. Once a positive climb is established, the landing gear is retracted and on passing 400ft the flaps are selected up, the climb thrust detent is selected with the throttles, the aircraft is accelerated to the climb speed of 222 kts and the after take off checklist completed.
At this time the pilot has the option of hand flying, or engaging the autopilot. Once the flight director is in use and the appropriate mode selected it is just a matter of following the command V bars, setting the altitudes on the Altitude selector as requested by ATC and adjusting the thrust accordingly. The CJ3 is nice to fly with well harmonised controls rather like a big 172 once it is trimmed properly. As well as both manual and electric pitch trim, it has manual aileron and rudder trim. Once airborne with the NAV and FLC (flight level change) mode selected the Flight Director will follow the flight plan loaded in the Flight Management System and when the autopilot is engaged, the job becomes one of monitoring all the indications, the weather radar, TCAS, adjusting power settings (as there is no auto throttle system) and ensuring compliance with ATC clearances. We also ensure that our passengers are kept comfortable by monitoring and adjusting the operation of cabin air conditioning and pressurisation systems, which maintain a sea level cabin altitude up to almost 24,000ft or 8,000ft at 45,000ft.
The CJ3 is most economical at high altitude so ATC and weight permitting, we can climb up to the certified ceiling of 45000 ft., as we are permitted to operate in RVSM (reduced vertical separation minima ) airspace, and this results in a cruise speed of a TAS of 390kts burning 720 lbs per hour at high speed cruise
We must allow sufficient distance to lose the height for our descent, but ideally not descend early as this causes us to use more fuel, as jet engines are very thirsty at low altitudes which is both inefficient and costly, however this is subject to ATC restrictions which sometimes can mean a less than ideal descent often causing us to use more fuel.
We allow 3 times our altitude loss in miles plus an adjustment for wind effect, as the point to commence our descent and use either Vertical Speed mode which allows us to select a desired rate of descent or VNAV mode, which indicates the top of descent point, and which, subject only to the Altitude Selector and will descend the aircraft all the way to the approach altitude.
As we start our descent we obtain the ATIS and set up for our approach, in older aircraft the crew would use paper approach charts, but in our CJ3 we have a system called IFIS ( Integrated Flight Information System) which displays the Jeppesen charts digitally in exactly the same format, but showing the aircrafts position with a small moving aircraft icon which is particularly useful when taxiing, to assist in avoiding runway incursions.
The FMS allows us to make precision and non precision approaches using conventional ground based equipment such as, ILS VOR or NDB or a GPS approach which can either be flown with the autopilot engaged or, manually which is very satisfying as the aircraft is very stable and only requires small thrust changes to maintain a steady glide path either with the flight director, or raw data only.
Once cleared for an ILS approach, APP mode is armed and as soon as the localiser is detected, the system changes to capture and follow, first the localiser and then the glide slope, down to the selected minimum altitude on the PFD. At the maximum landing weight and landing flaps extended the approach speed is about 120kts with a touchdown Vref of 108kts requiring a runway 2,770ft long in ISA conditions. As the CJ has a straight wing and a trailing link main landing gear system it is quite easy to make smooth landings.
