The great big "ask an airline pilot" thread!

basill

The Atlantic tracks on the day will also play a significant part in what levels ATC can facilitate.

Lustrum

One for eatmyshorts:

Just thought of this from your posts on the Qatar thread, what kind of attrition rate is there for new joiners to your place who are coming from say the lo-cos where they are doing 2/3/4hr sectors, to doing 12/13hr sectors? Do many of them find the transition to long haul difficult?

smurfjed

I think that you might find that he is based a little bit further south than Doha!

Attrition rates are easily covered up with bonds forcing people to stay, and not all of the flights operated by the ME airlines are long haul, they do lots of short haul.

Lustrum

Sorry, it was the Doha thread that put the idea in my head, from what I can gather he's in Dubai alright or there abouts.

I'm my place we do sectors between 35mins-2hrs, and even the 2hr flights are a drag! Obviously I havent done anything longer, but even the thought of it at the moment wears me out

martinsvi

Lustrum wrote: »

Sorry, it was the Doha thread that put the idea in my head, from what I can gather he's in Dubai alright or there abouts.

I'm my place we do sectors between 35mins-2hrs, and even the 2hr flights are a drag! Obviously I havent done anything longer, but even the thought of it at the moment wears me out

obviously no names, but is it jets/props you're working with and what region?

smurfjed

I thought that you started flying commercially a couple of years ago?

I think that in time you will realise that it isn't what you fly or who you fly for, but it really comes down to Quality of Life. Flying big shiny airliners may be great fun, but when you are doing 100 hours (in the seat) per month, it can get very tiring. Looking around my friends who all fly 100 hours per month, the short haul A320 guys are much more relaxed and appear to be less fatigued than B777 guys. We also account for all the flight time rather than the in seat time, so for an LAX flight which is 17 hours and 15 hours, the crew would get 32 hours block time towards their monthly limit. In some of the other ME airlines, they would only get half of that time, so basically our crews can go to LAX 3 times a month, for the others they can go 6 times.

Gone are the days when long haul flying meant flying to exotic destinations and staying for a week to enjoy them

The grass isnt always greener

Lustrum

I'm on a jet here in Europe.

Interesting that you should say that smurfjed about the tiredness, I've heard the same thing from lads who moved from our place into BA long haul and they find that they're wrecked a lot.of the time now. Since I was little I've been aiming to get onto a 747, but as you pointed out, the grass may always not be greener

eatmyshorts

Lustrum wrote: »

I'm on a jet here in Europe.

Interesting that you should say that smurfjed about the tiredness, I've heard the same thing from lads who moved from our place into BA long haul and they find that they're wrecked a lot.of the time now. Since I was little I've been aiming to get onto a 747, but as you pointed out, the grass may always not be greener

BA long haul rosters are like a holiday compared to ours.

faceman

Flying to JFK today. Foolishly has a look at the Turbulence Forecast website which paints a grim picture of flying today pretty much from door to door!

Red boxes and bars everywhere. How gloomy a trip ahoy should I expect?

Pat Dunne

faceman wrote: »

Flying to JFK today. Foolishly has a look at the Turbulence Forecast website which paints a grim picture of flying today pretty much from door to door!

Red boxes and bars everywhere. How gloomy a trip ahoy should I expect?

Memo to self, delete Turbulence Forecast website from bookmarks!
Hope you flight wasn't to bad.

faceman

Pat Dunne wrote: »

Memo to self, delete Turbulence Forecast website from bookmarks!
Hope you flight wasn't to bad.

Flight had a couple of rough moments but nothing as bad as I was expecting.

Of course flying back to Dublin today and it looks like the forecast is even worse I'll delete that website the next time!!

Shannon757

faceman wrote: »

Flight had a couple of rough moments but nothing as bad as I was expecting.

Of course flying back to Dublin today and it looks like the forecast is even worse I'll delete that website the next time!!

How's your website btw?

JCX BXC

faceman wrote: »

Flight had a couple of rough moments but nothing as bad as I was expecting.

Of course flying back to Dublin today and it looks like the forecast is even worse I'll delete that website the next time!!

Nothing too bad tbh, just be thankful its not ORK

faceman

Shannon757 wrote: »

How's your website btw?

Ugh. Don't know what's up with it. Flattered to be hacked. Probably going to have to pay someone to fix it.

faceman

Carnacalla wrote: »

Nothing too bad tbh, just be thankful its not ORK

Thanks. It's been seatbelt sign on since take off and we're 90 minutes into the flight. It's bumpy from time to time although pilot says we *should* be grand once we start oceanic crossing.

I think he's fibbing. He told us originally seat belt sign and turbulence would only last 20 minutes. :eek:

TopTec

My daughter flew from LHR to Chennai yesterday afternoon. The flight departed LHR 45 mins late, due to congestion I think, but it still managed to arrive 10 mins early.

Is there that much elbow room on fight times or did the flight likely pick up a big tail wind? It was doing 530+ knots most of the way according to FR24

Just curious.

TT

Growler!!!

TopTec wrote: »

My daughter flew from LHR to Chennai yesterday afternoon. The flight departed LHR 45 mins late, due to congestion I think, but it still managed to arrive 10 mins early.

Is there that much elbow room on fight times or did the flight likely pick up a big tail wind? It was doing 530+ knots most of the way according to FR24

Just curious.

TT

There will be a certain amount of leeway on block times ie. start up to shutdown. This is to cover any unexpected winds aloft or possible re route. On longer sectors such as you described with a substantial tailwind it's entirely possible to catch up with yourself and even land early.

On the flip side with a large headwind the flight time can exceed the estimated block time by quite a bit.

faceman

Less serious question. Do long haul pilots wear flight socks?

Gaoth Laidir

TopTec wrote: »

My daughter flew from LHR to Chennai yesterday afternoon. The flight departed LHR 45 mins late, due to congestion I think, but it still managed to arrive 10 mins early.

Is there that much elbow room on fight times or did the flight likely pick up a big tail wind? It was doing 530+ knots most of the way according to FR24

Just curious.

TT

Departed or took off 45 mins late? There is a difference. Departed means pushed back from the gate, and that is what is quoted in the schedule. Likewise, arrival time is when it arrives at the gate the other end.

Locker10a

faceman wrote: »

Less serious question. Do long haul pilots wear flight socks?

That's an interesting question actually!!
I know pilots where I work certainly don't :P the seem to struggle with having matching pairs of regular socks :pac:

TopTec

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

Departed or took off 45 mins late? There is a difference. Departed means pushed back from the gate, and that is what is quoted in the schedule. Likewise, arrival time is when it arrives at the gate the other end.

Took off. I watched it queue for 30 mins waiting its turn on the apron after a late push back.

TT

smurfjed

Do long haul pilots wear flight socks?

I do and the max range that we had was 8 hours. Only problem with them is that arent very warm, so i would end up wearing another pair of normal socks over them

Bog Man 1

smurfjed wrote: »

I do and the max range that we had was 8 hours. Only problem with them is that arent very warm, so i would end up wearing another pair of normal socks over them

Great you can fly the plane but cannot understand how the heater controls work . Do you have dual climate control likes on cars if you are flying with someone that has warm feet .

smurfjed

You are assuming that we have foot warmers, you are also assuming that we don't operate to cold places.

eatmyshorts

faceman wrote: »

Less serious question. Do long haul pilots wear flight socks?

Never. I honestly don't see the benefit of them. Seem like quackery to me.

eatmyshorts

Bog Man 1 wrote: »

Great you can fly the plane but cannot understand how the heater controls work . Do you have dual climate control likes on cars if you are flying with someone that has warm feet .

Separate "foot heater" and "shoulder heater" controls on each side. But they're never used. In fact, I don't think they even do anything.
Although a question about them did pop up on one of our recurrent exams recently. Had to dig in the FCOM for that one.

Tenger

TopTec wrote: »

.....
Is there that much elbow room on fight times or did the flight likely pick up a big tail wind? It was doing 530+ knots most of the way according to FR24
.....

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

Departed or took off 45 mins late? There is a difference. Departed means pushed back from the gate, and that is what is quoted in the schedule. Likewise, arrival time is when it arrives at the gate the other end.

Total journey time is referred to as 'Block time'. This block time includes taxi time, take-off, flight time, landing, and taxi to stand. Hence the industry term 'chock to chock'.
A flight may take normally 2 hours, but the airline may add 40 mins to the advertised schedule to cover taxi and common small operational delays.

My favourite example is DUB-LHR with Aer Lingus. It normally takes about 45-50 mins inflight. But with LHR being a busy airport with regular delays, they schedule the entire journey as 1 hr 20 mins.

As stated above with favourable routing and/or winds a long haul flight is capable of taking off an hour after scheduled departure and still making it to destination ahead of the schedule. In the past I had many heated discussions with passengers who thought we were going to be late and they couldn't understand how we were landing early when we left late.

Irish Steve

Tenger wrote: »

As stated above with favourable routing and/or winds a long haul flight is capable of taking off an hour after scheduled departure and still making it to destination ahead of the schedule. In the past I had many heated discussions with passengers who thought we were going to be late and they couldn't understand how we were landing early when we left late.

My brother flew out of Heathrow last week on Malaysian to Kuala Lumpur, they were airborne at 22:15 on a scheduled departure time of 21:35. An hour into the flight, the arrival time was showing 10 minutes before the scheduled arrival time.

The eastbound flights from the USA are another example, if you look at the arrival times into Dublin or Shannon, some of the flights can be anything up to an hour ahead of scheduled arrival time, and at Dublin it does cause problems if the early wave of departures have not left on time. There are times when if there are no pressures for the gate, they will hold the departure and leave "late" to avoid arriving this side before the handling crews on the ground are available.

highlydebased

Irish Steve wrote: »

The eastbound flights from the USA are another example, if you look at the arrival times into Dublin or Shannon, some of the flights can be anything up to an hour ahead of scheduled arrival time, and at Dublin it does cause problems if the early wave of departures have not left on time. There are times when if there are no pressures for the gate, they will hold the departure and leave "late" to avoid arriving this side before the handling crews on the ground are available.

Some relatives of mine flew JFK-SNN last year and arrived at Shannon at 4.40am- Some 80 minutes early. They had to wait 20 mins for ground crew to arrive to meet the flight

pepe the prawn

Just wondering, are datalink communications regularly used among all airlines, or is it a region/operator specific practice?