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Flying the CRJ-700 Part 1 – Preflight, Taxi, and Takeoff
By admin | May 25, 2008
Before I finally caved in to the wife and left my office in the clouds for a desk in Ohio, I flew the CRJ-700. I flew it a lot. They say you eventually fell in love with the airplane you fly, and learn to ignore the drawbacks, but the CRJ-700 was such a hot-rod, I didn’t even find many drawbacks to ignore. So, as a bit of information for my fellow airplane geeks, and as a bit of nostalgia for myself, I decided to share what I learned about flying the CRJ-700. Take note that by “learned,” I don’t necessarily mean what was taught to me by the instructors, rather what was taught to me by the airplane. If you really do fly this airplane, don’t go blaming me if you have to do the carpet dance for using one of my techniques.
Getting Situated
To the less-educated, a CRJ-700 is just a stretched CRJ-200. I can tell you with strong conviction that this is not the case. Two major enhancements brought the CR7 to a new level: the wing, and the engines.
For those of you who have watched CRJ-200′s land, you’re familiar with the origin of their “lawn-dart” nickname. Without leading edge devices, the CRJ-200 had a nose-low attitude on approach and landing as well as a higher approach speed. The CRJ-700 had the entire wing redesigned, and leading edge slats were installed. This brought the nose up during approach, but more importantly, improved takeoff performance, and reduced the approach speed.
The CR7 also employed a new version of the CF-34 engine from the CRJ-200. With a newly redesigned core, the CF-34-8C1 engine was reduced from 14 to 10 compression stages, which leaves little in common with the CF-34-3B1 engines on the CRJ-200. The resultant increase in thrust from 9,220 lbs to 13,790 was enough to change the dog of the CRJ-200 into the hot-rod of the CRJ-700.
Pre-flight Walk Around
Walking around the aircraft during preflight, there are several important items to watch for. Of course there are tons of other things you should always check during the walk around, but these are just the one’s that most new pilot’s miss.
The service doors on the right side of the nose can be a problem, especially after the aircraft has been “gently” used by ground service personel for a while. Watch your fingers, since those snaps can be difficult to pop open, and if they hit your fingers on a cold day, you’ll have a nice mark to remind you the next time. The main one to look for is the oxygen service door, which left open, disrupts the airflow across your pitot tube. The other one to pay attention to is the ground crew service panel. Inside this door are a couple of headset jacks they’ll use to communicate directly to you during pushback. This one get’s left open a lot, or not shut properly. There’s no real danger in that door coming open in flight, but it is going to annoy the crap out of you if it does. A constant high-pitched squeel for three hours is enough to remind you to do what you can to keep it from happening again.
While you’re hanging out by the nose, make sure the scissors bar for the nose-wheel steering is connected. This is very important for all the obvious reasons, and for some that aren’t quite so obvious. The CRJ-200 requires the nose wheel steering pin be removed by the ground service personnel. This is not the case in the CRJ-700. Of course, if they do disconnect it, they will catch it after push back, and even if they don’t, you’ll find out real quickly that you have no nosewheel steering. The problem is reconnecting it if it has been disconnected. It’s very difficult to know when it has been properly reconnected, and if it comes off during taxi (which has happened to me several times), there’s going to be a sharp jolt as the nose gear castors all the way around followed by two loud thumps as your flight attendants hit the floor. It’s a good idea to make yourself very familiar with what the nose wheel looks like when it is properly connected. If the ground crew disconnects it, it’s going to take them a long time to get it connected again, and I’d suggest opening the door and offering a helping hand. This ensures it doesn’t come disconnected during taxi. Trust me, you don’t want that to happen.
Another focus point most pilot’s don’t take time to inspect are the main gear wheel wells. The fit in these wheel wells is extremely tight, and a slightly overextended strut is enough to rub the tires on the inside of the wheel well. I have seen wheel wells that were no longer connected to the fuselage, and were free hanging inside gear bay. The fire protection was still connected, but the bolts had been sheared off from the tires pushing on it. This is a no-go item if you see it.
Don’t forget to make sure all static wicks are still attached to the wings and tail. The CRJ-700 makes lightning strikes a non-event, but you’ll see it in a missing static wick. While you’re back there, take a look for any signs of bird ingestion around the engines. Oddly enough, one of the best ways to tell is if you smell fried chicken. (This method does not apply when parked near Popeye’s Chicken in ATL’s Concourse C).
The CRJ-700 also introduced a belly luggage compartment to the CRJ series. The side door to this is interesting, and is also going to result in a few bruised knuckles. Hopefully it’s already open, but if you do have to open it, please don’t let it bang against the side of the aircraft. I hate that.
The other major item to check before jumping back into your seat is the pins on the main cabin door. Make sure they’re not sticking out! I’m not sure how, but sometimes the door handle gets pushed back in while the airplane is parked, and the door pins extend. If the flight attendant raises the door with those pins extended, bad things happen. Bad things, man.
Starting and Taxi
Once you’ve disposed of your earplugs (or once your hearing returns), it’s time to go flying. Unlike the CRJ-200, the APU is little more than a noise-maker. Starting an engine and providing a/c or heating while at the gate are the only true requirements for running the APU. In fact, you can start the APU two minutes prior to pushback, start one engine, and immediately shut the APU down again. GE developed an outstanding bleed system on these engines to ensure you get enough bleed air for heat or a/c with only one engine running. Crossbleed starts are a non-event, and I think allow for a faster and cooler start.
The engine is very forgiving during start, but one thing to pay close attention to is an external air start. More often than not, the air pressure is insufficient to turn these engines to the rpm required to introduce fuel. Watch very closely for a hot start if you do this, and be ready to cut fuel at the first sign of ITT going into the red. This happens a lot, especially on hot days. Another problem that baffles me with these external starts is the air pressure drop. We’ll see 35 psi in the bleed duct for start, and once we open the start valve, it drops to 10 psi. Get ready for a hot start. When you do get a hot start, make sure to continue to motor the engine without fuel. It makes an embarrassing puff of smoke out the back the next time you try it, and everyone knows what you did.
You’ll know the engines are running from the gauges, and more probably from the racket of the circuit panel vibrating behind you. At one time or another, every CRJ-700 has done this. Why? I don’t know. Probably some harmonics with the engines, but you’ll definitely notice it. Once you start moving, you may hear some squeaks from the hydraulics when the brakes are applied. Not quite sure why this happens either, but it usually happens more on first flights of the day.
Taxiing is cake, and while it does take a little more planning for a single-engine taxi, you have all the power and control you need to do this easily. At $4 a gallon, I would suggest it.
Inevitibly you’re going to hear someone tell you over the radio that your nose gear doors were left open. This happens a lot, since the CRJ-200 has retractable nose gear doors, but the CRJ-700 does not. A simple explanation usually does the trick. Besides, they were just trying to save you the embarrassment of coming back to the airport.
Takeoff
The CRJ-700 has a retractable tail skid. I’ve seen one here and there that’s been scratched up, but its rare for it to come into use. With this aircraft’s performance, you should never even come close. Taking this airplane to the skies is as simple as pushing forward the thrust levers and pulling back on the controls when the other guy says “rotate.” But please don’t pull back too hard. I’ve yet to see a reason for an aggressive rotation in this aircraft, and if the continuous ignition light comes on, you were waaaaaay too aggressive. Get the shaker, and you should be slapped. The very best rotations all seemed to come from a slight release of back-pressure right before the main landing gear leave concrete. This kind of let the back end of the airplane slide underneath the nose, rather than forcing it into the air. Very smooth, and very comfortable.
A lot has been mentioned about the importance of maintaining V2 (takeoff safety speed). Here’s my theory on that, just please don’t blame me if you bust a checkride because of it. In order to maintain V2 – V2 +10 in the CRJ-700, you have to yank the thing off of the runway in all but the hottest, heaviest, and highest conditions. This rate of rotation adds an inherent risk that contradicts the safety reasoning for maintaining V2. V2 is really only critical when an engine is lost or when you’re staring at a mountain. If you’re at the 15 to 20 degrees nose up required to maintain V2, as soon as you lose an engine, you’re going to be well below V2 before you can say “whoop whoop, pull up.” The remedy is to immediately lower the nose, which is quite a task given the nose-up angle, and the added drag you’re putting on the aircraft to accomplish the maneuver. Those who have learned good energy management techniques will know you can always trade airspeed for altitude, and vice versa. I’d much rather have an excess of airspeed I could sacrifice for more altitude, than altitude I was forced to sacrifice for airspeed. Especially when we’re talking about altitudes all less than 1,000 ft.
Checkrides are a different animal. Fly V2 during the checkride.
Next time, I’ll discuss the climb-out, cruise, and descent in the CRJ-700. If you have any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to contact me.
Topics: CRJ | 15 Comments »
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Ron Carter
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lcdecker
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http://cospilot.wordpress.com Jeffrey Synk
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Rampee
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Going to training soon
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http://www.elijahnicolas.com/wp/2009/01/22/transitioningnot-upgrading/ elijahnicolas.com » Transitioning…Not Upgrading
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http://sfbaycab.com/content/sfo-taxi-san-francisco-airport-cab SFO Taxi
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Zach
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http://www.frigidairerefrigeratorparts.net/ Andres
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Susie
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http://pulse.yahoo.com/_WCW2F3YVO4FQOXNEFSNBWOHFWM Davey Drakey
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DG
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Randysrt4
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Parkercaleb13
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Ankitdubey