Flew the "Spirit Of Kauai" home last night

Here are some short videos and pics of our trip last night to fly the "Spirit Of Kauai" home to Indianapolis last night. This was flight 9401, the first flight in the new livery for our new operation in Hawaii. After taking a 6 hour delay while they fixed an FCM module malfunction in the plane that we were flying TO the paint shop, we officially took delivery of the Spirit Of Kauai at 9:55pm eastern time.
There are times when this job can be a little tedious, but there are times like this, when the weather is clear, you are flying with a friend, the plane is empty, and you are once again just a pilot, not a PR person. Enjoy the photos.

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What's all of the plastic sheeting for? Any pics in the air?

CF34-8E5 twin spool high bypass turbofan

Spinning in the wind while they replaced (2) FCM modules and (2) PSEM modules for the fly-by-wire system before departure to GLH

blacklab said:

What's all of the plastic sheeting for? Any pics in the air?

Click to expand...

The plastic sheeting is to protect all of the composite portions of the plane... wing root fairings, vertical stab, engine nacelles etc... from the hundreds of gallons of paint stripper that were applied.

Uploading a couple more vids now that wouldnt cooperate earlier, they are short, they were done on my digital camera.

Edit: I dont have any pics of the OUTSIDE of the plane in the air, as I was sitting in the right seat at the time. Also, it was dark well before we ever got this thing in the air... there were a multitude of issues that arose while trying to complete the airworthyness release from the paint shop. THe only pics I have are the crummy ones in the dark of the panel and the EFB with the 18L ILS to GLH setup

Doing flights like these is an adventure to say the least... when you pick up a plane that has been plugged up, taped off, stripped of paint, repainted, re-assembled etc... it takes a great deal of time and effort to inspect the thing to take delivery and accept the aircraft.
Luckily "Dan" the maintenance inspector that we sent there to also look over this thing is very well versed. He has spent most of the year in Brazil inspecting planes that are coming to us from the factory, and will be leaving to do the same for our remaining E175 deliveries in late Nov.
During our pre-flight inspection the FO and I were both pulling wads of paper, plastic, tape, speed tape etc from nooks and crannies on this plane. Oh, not to mention the ONE static wick that cannot be missing, was missing.
As much as I wanted to high tail it home after a 12 hour day, with operations such as this you can only be deliberate in slowing yourself down. I think it took us 25 minutes from APU start until we were rolling out on TXWY B in GLH to come home. The owner of the shop was noticeably "erked" that we were so deliberate, apparently he wanted to go home. Unfortunately when you are responsible (me) for taking a 32 million dollar plane home in pristine condition, it pays to walk slow.

In Flight Video with the ILS 18L at GLH in the EFB.

Nice looking bird!

When you guys are flying empty on a nice day do you still fly IFR below FL18 or do you get to fly with your own navigation and approach? I've always wondered... I'm just a flight sim junkie, not a pilot.

We can only fly VFR if it is a test flight or training flight... we never do training flights obviously. Any other flight, whether Part91 or Part121 are all dispatched IFR. Also, obviously we fly at the highest altitude practical due to fuel burn issues, so we fly at 41,000 when empty, or really light, in the mid 30's when we are loaded up.

We can do visual approaches, Id say about 95% of them are visuals, but being that we fly to large airports, everything begins as an ILS. GLH is not large, they dont even have app. control, they rely on MEM center for that. We were cleared for the visual about 20 miles out as we had the field in sight. It is so remote that we descended from 38,000 feet to the runway without leveling off last night.

Sorry, I just re-read your question. When you fly IFR you are always under radar control and under the control of CTR, APP, or TWR. We are not allowed to fly VFR, which is what we would have to do in order to opt out of ATC control.

Special paint jobs are always fun and a symbol of pride for that paticular airline. I have been fortunate to work on many of them here at Delta, here is my favorite:



I was the Lead in charge on this paint job and man was it a hand full, we were working on it as they rolled it from one of our paint bays the unveiling party.

Thanks for all the pics, etc. Very fun to watch, read & look.

You are welcome. I wish that my batteries had held out a little longer, and that the pick-up would have been a little less hectic. We were racing the clock as I was unable to fly past midnight. It was a fun trip, I may be picking up #2 next Monday, if so, I will try to get some better videos and pics.

The Pol - Nice photos, I have never flown that airline, but if you fly it out to Kauai try to have a "little" layover on Oahu.

Well, I doubt I will be flying them out there in HI... we have 11 crews that have volunteered to fly the HI trips, and I am not one of those people. Going to HI to fly would probably be the last place that I would be based.

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Primary- Orange Cascade APA
Secondary- AIR
Keg1- Centennial Blonde
Keg2- Oktoberfest
Keg3- Christmas Spice
Keg4- Fire In The Hole
Keg5- AIR
Keg6- AIR
Keg7- AIR
Keg8- AIR