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"We are the protagonists of our stories called life, and there is no limit to how high we can fly."

PHD. MBA. MHS. Type rated on A350, A330, B777, B747-400, B747-200, B757, B767, B737, B727. International Airline Pilot / Author / Speaker. Dedicated to giving the gift of wings to anyone following their dreams. Supporting Aviation Safety through training, writing, and inspiration. Fighting for Aviation Safety and Airline Employee Advocacy. Safety Culture and SMS change agent.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

A330 SATCOM Question of the Day

News FLASH:  Writers success: Two 17 hour workdays... after a month of revising in hotel rooms, as I flew around the world... and I finished my novel! Completely done.  I wrote it in just under a year... my goal. Now, no more revisions until an agent says so, and the query process begins.

Back to Flying... something interesting happened the night we were scheduled to depart out of Accra Ghana...

Hurricane Danielle was looming in the distance, a man with an overcoat and wool hat boarded...80 temperatures, it was 0130 in the morning and SATCOM wouldn't connect.  This sounds like the making of an Aviation Thriller... 
SATCOM is a requirement for our departure, and we couldn't uploaded any of our much needed data.

SATCOM message: Log on Inop

After performing the "SATCOM did not Auto Tune" procedure... it still didn't work.

Log on wasn't really inop... it just wouldn't happen because it needed ACARS. In Ghana, there is no VHF to get ACARS... thus, we needed a Satellite.  We selected the correct satellite... but it still didn't work. We cycled the IRUs... and nothing...we didn't get the align prompt.

Do you know why this was occurring and what we did to solve the problem?
I'll be back tomorrow with the answer. But until then... I would love to hear what you think

Enjoy the journey!

~ Karlene
Posted by Karlene Petitt at 12:20 PM

7 comments:

  1. Nathan CarrikerSeptember 1, 2010 at 1:15 PM

    Being a displaced Douglas man still grappling with life in the magical world of Boeing, I can't even begin to guess how you solved the problem. Perhaps it doesn't work in former French colonies?

    I'm about done with my little layover shrinker, too. Will be done by the time I'm gear down back home this weekend.

    Wanna play "author"? I'll show you mine...

    ReplyDelete
  2. VictoriaSeptember 1, 2010 at 3:28 PM

    Congrats on finishing your novel!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Karlene PetittSeptember 1, 2010 at 5:20 PM

    Congrats Nate on finishing yours..when wheels touchdown! I got mine from 140,000 down to 96,000 words. Yeah. And...scheduling just called. Off to DTW and then AMS/BOM Oh joy!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Rafael from iloveplanesSeptember 2, 2010 at 7:53 PM

    Did you jiggle the thing?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Karlene PetittSeptember 3, 2010 at 1:42 AM

    Rafael, there is always a lot of jiggling going on, and button pushing too! Sometimes you just have to talk nice to her. :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. CockpitApril 11, 2011 at 8:21 PM

    Do you have to first logon when using SATCOM before you enter the numbers for each center?

    Can you initialize the ACARS first before initializing the SATCOM?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Karlene PetittApril 11, 2011 at 8:34 PM

    You can pre-set numbers on the SATCOm. And... sure you can initialize the ACARS first. SATCOM doesn't care, and or become jealous.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for your comment! If your comment doesn't appear immediately, it will after I land. Enjoy the journey!

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