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Delhi, Tuesday, 1995-11-07(2) 20:30 local (Z+5.5)
When we left Bombay, I got my first look at the airport in daylight since being here with Evergreen. They've pushed back the untouchable hovels a considerable distance from the runways, and the simple barbed wire fence that separated them and the runways has been replaced with a wall (maybe 6 feet high) with concertina wire on top.
Major screw up here at Delhi with plenty of blame to go around. We operated Bombay to Delhi (my leg) and as we were on final we saw another Tower aircraft waiting for takeoff. That was disconcerting since the only other Tower aircraft that was supposed to be in the area was the one that we were supposed to operate from Delhi to Bombay. We got on the ground and found out that, sure enough, that was the flight that we were supposed to operate. What had happened was that nobody had advised Tower's Delhi office that the crew for that airplane was inbound from Bombay. Thus, when the crew that brought the airplane in from Paris found out that there was no crew here, the captain elected, on his own, to operate with his crew to Bombay. He did this without contacting Tower Air dispatch in New York. Big mistake. In his defense, it has to be pointed out that communications here are not good. The Tower Air office here at the airport, for example, has no telephone. They go to a collect-calls-only phone in the airport termina—which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. But anyway, now that crew is in the air in violation of FAA, Indian CAA, and Air India's rules. There'll be hell to pay for this one.
There's also the problem that they were expecting us back in Bombay to operate again to Delhi. Now everybody is out of position. So, the solution—after many phone calls using this special collect-calls-only phone booth, trapesing around the Delhi airport checking on schedules, and much frustration—is that a crew sitting Bombay that was due to deadhead with us from Bombay will now operate here (Delhi) and then deadhead with us as we operate from Delhi to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. We then will climb in back and deadhead from Jeddah to Bombay. This is going to be brutal. We're going to arrive back in Bombay absolutely wiped out. However, once the clock ticks over 16 hours of duty time, we at least start getting extended duty page. Unfortunately though, it will probably be a net loss for us since it will get us back into Bombay too late to operate tomorrow to Paris. We'll just have to wait and see. There is some small chance that we could still operate to Paris, depending on when we reach Bombay.
I wish this captain would either fly the airplane or let me fly it. This business of giving a leg to an f.o. but then dictating how it should be flown as things develop is a real pain in the ass. The approach into Delhi was developing nicely until he told me to slow down, that they'll probably slam dunk us. So I dropped the first notch of flaps, slowed down, and then, of course, they didn't slam dunk us. Then, as I went into the flare, for some reason he reached down and tugged on the control column. That input, plus mine, caused a slight balloon. He released as soon as he realized what he'd done, but that left me with an airplane 10 feet off the ground and slow—great conditions for a real cruncher. My only choice was to slowly ease the stick forward, hoping for the best. I lucked out and the touchdown was still smooth. So far both my touchdowns have been better than either of his. I suspect that's not helping our relationship. The sooner I can get away from this guy the better. Such is the life of a first officer. Actually, overall, Tower Air captains are in general as reasonable to fly with as can be expected.
Terry
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