The great big "ask an airline pilot" thread!

eatmyshorts

Jack1985 wrote: »

Which airports? They don't issue such clearances at LHR the busiest in the UK, watched a documentary in July last year and aircraft were being cleared to land in LHR as low as 200ft AGL.

Gatwick employ it to.

Jack1985

Question of my own I keep forgetting to ask, say you were in a situation for e.g. ORK was fogbound and you faced approx 30 mins of holding with no guarantee of the fog clearing when would you decide on a diversion?

From you're loadsheet say were estimated to arrive on block with 3.2 tonnes of fuel in ORK, held for approx 30 mins which equates to 1,061 tonnes of fuel burn reducing your FOB to 2.2 tonnes, then you decide you are going to SNN where the fuel burn en-route equates to 909KG approx 84 track miles, which should give an estimated 1.3 tonnes of arrival block fuel in SNN.

What would be the opinion of letting the fuel get to 1.3 tonnes? my own preferable action would be to hold for max 15 minutes before diverting giving me a block arrival fuel of 1.8 tonnes in SNN, if I decided to divert to DUB after 15 minutes of holding at ORK, with 133 track miles or an estimated en-route fuel burn of 1.3 tonnes, I would arrive with an estimated FOB block of 1.4 - Are these figures entirely safe? guaranteeing of course that both alternates are say CAVOK.

Cessna_Pilot

Jack1985 wrote: »

Question of my own I keep forgetting to ask, say you were in a situation for e.g. ORK was fogbound and you faced approx 30 mins of holding with no guarantee of the fog clearing when would you decide on a diversion?

From you're loadsheet say were estimated to arrive on block with 3.2 tonnes of fuel in ORK, held for approx 30 mins which equates to 1,061 tonnes of fuel burn reducing your FOB to 2.2 tonnes, then you decide you are going to SNN where the fuel burn en-route equates to 909KG approx 84 track miles, which should give an estimated 1.3 tonnes of arrival block fuel in SNN.

What would be the opinion of letting the fuel get to 1.3 tonnes? my own preferable action would be to hold for max 15 minutes before diverting giving me a block arrival fuel of 1.8 tonnes in SNN, if I decided to divert to DUB after 15 minutes of holding at ORK, with 133 track miles or an estimated en-route fuel burn of 1.3 tonnes, I would arrive with an estimated FOB block of 1.4 - Are these figures entirely safe? guaranteeing of course that both alternates are say CAVOK.

Instructed to hold for 30 minutes with no gaurantee of improvement after the 30 mins. I'd be on the ground in SNN before those 30 minutes are up!

Jack1985

Instructed to hold for 30 minutes with no gaurantee of improvement after the 30 mins. I'd be on the ground in SNN before those 30 minutes are up!

It happens regularly at ORK but the majority of the flights do hold a good 20 minutes before diverting, is there an actual defined minimum required FOB at the ALTN?

ProfessorPlum

Jack1985 wrote: »

It happens regularly at ORK but the majority of the flights do hold a good 20 minutes before diverting, is there an actual defined minimum required FOB at the ALTN?

You must plan to land with at least your minimum reserve fuel on board (30 mins). There's no legal requirement to have any more than that, and if you know that you will land with less, you must declare a mayday.:eek:

Jack1985

You must plan to land with at least your minimum reserve fuel on board (30 mins).

That's the answer I was looking for thank you, . So to clarify if I hold for 15 mins then divert to SNN and arrive with an ONBL, FOB of 1.8 tonnes with my 30min reserve endurance being 1.1 tonnes, I'm ok?

ProfessorPlum

Jack1985 wrote: »

That's the answer I was looking for thank you, . So to clarify if I hold for 15 mins then divert to SNN and arrive with an ONBL, FOB of 1.8 tonnes with my 30min reserve endurance being 1.1 tonnes, I'm ok?

Absolutely. So long as you land anywhere with your 30mins intact, you're legal.

Jack1985

ProfessorPlum wrote: »

Absolutely. So long as you land anywhere with your 30mins intact, you're legal.

Brilliant cheers for that!

smurfjed

Cessna_Pilot, bear in mind that my planned landing distance for Luton is around 5600 feet at maximum landing weight, the demonstrated landing distances are based on maximum braking immediately upon landing which will result in the aircraft being parked and the thermal fuse plugs melting, so needless to say we don't operate like that. So bear in mind that if you are landing behind us in Luton and we are heavy, we most likely will not make the A1 or B1 taxiways, as neither of these are high speed exits.

adam88

smurfjed wrote: »

Cessna_Pilot, bear in mind that my planned landing distance for Luton is around 5600 feet at maximum landing weight, the demonstrated landing distances are based on maximum braking immediately upon landing which will result in the aircraft being parked and the thermal fuse plugs melting, so needless to say we don't operate like that. So bear in mind that if you are landing behind us in Luton and we are heavy, we most likely will not make the A1 or B1 taxiways, as neither of these are high speed exits.

High speed exit?? What does that mean

Thermal fuse plugs?? What are these

dukedalton

Not a tech question but you guys might know the answer, and I don't want to open a new thread:

I was recently on an Aer Lingus flight to Amsterdam, which was a code share with KLM. One of the air hostesses was Dutch. I was just wondering, would she be a KLM employee seconded to Aer Lingus on that particular route, or do Aer Lingus actively recruit foreign, native-speaking crew for specific routes they fly?

lord lucan

dukedalton wrote: »

Not a tech question but you guys might know the answer, and I don't want to open a new thread:

I was recently on an Aer Lingus flight to Amsterdam, which was a code share with KLM. One of the air hostesses was Dutch. I was just wondering, would she be a KLM employee seconded to Aer Lingus on that particular route, or do Aer Lingus actively recruit foreign, native-speaking crew for specific routes they fly?

All EI crew, most likely being bilingual helped in her application and she's a Dutch lady living in Ireland. I'd imagine it was just a coincidence she was on the AMS run.

smurfjed

High Speed Taxiways or Rapid Exit Taxiways are taxiways leading off a runway at an acute angle that allow aircraft to leave the runway at a high speed, unto 60 knots, but in the case of Luton the exits are 90 degrees to the runway so are not classified as high speed.

Every time we brake we convert energy into heat that is absorbed by the brakes, there is only so much of this heat that the brakes and tires can absorb, in order to avoid the tires exploding, the rims are fitted with plugs that are designed to fail at a lower heat than the tires, as they fail, they will release the pressure from the tire and thereby avoid the tires exploding. According to our books, during a high speed rejected takeoff, we can expect the fuse plugs to melt, this can also happen if you apply heavy braking after landing and then have a long taxi to the parking area. This is the primary reason why you will see some aircraft with tail mounted engines taxing with the trust reversers open.

Jack1985

dukedalton wrote: »

Not a tech question but you guys might know the answer, and I don't want to open a new thread:

I was recently on an Aer Lingus flight to Amsterdam, which was a code share with KLM. One of the air hostesses was Dutch. I was just wondering, would she be a KLM employee seconded to Aer Lingus on that particular route, or do Aer Lingus actively recruit foreign, native-speaking crew for specific routes they fly?

Are you sure she was actually Dutch or did you presume that from a flag on her name badge? If the later she was more than likely Dutch speaking.

bkehoe

Jack1985 wrote: »

That's the answer I was looking for thank you, . So to clarify if I hold for 15 mins then divert to SNN and arrive with an ONBL, FOB of 1.8 tonnes with my 30min reserve endurance being 1.1 tonnes, I'm ok?

You hold for as little or long as you decide is appropriate given the specific conditions on the day - you can't decide your plan just based on your own expected fuel burns, there's a much bigger picture than just your aircraft to consider. For example if you push the limits you might find that all those other guys who didn't hang around in the hold for 30mins have diverted to the same alternate and now you're No 5 in the approach or the airport closes to further diversions due to a lack of parking, you don't get the optimal flight level for the cruise to the alternate and thus burn more fuel, etc, or the alternate has a reduced arrivals rate due to similarly bad weather, etc, etc, etc.

If there's no short term forecast improvement from the TAF, or tower reported improvement in RVRs over a short period of time, I'd personally be heading straight for the alternate.

Strumms

Jack1985 wrote: »

Are you sure she was actually Dutch or did you presume that from a flag on her name badge? If the later she was more than likely Dutch speaking.

Do EI crews have flags on their name badges ? I have to say I never even noticed that. EI have non Irish cabin crew and indeed non Irish pilots. Not unusual in the modern world.

Jack1985

Strumms wrote: »

Do EI crews have flags on their name badges ? I have to say I never even noticed that. EI have non Irish cabin crew and indeed non Irish pilots. Not unusual in the modern world.

Yeah those who speak with multiple languages it's only cabin crew where them.

Jack1985

bkehoe wrote: »

You hold for as little or long as you decide is appropriate given the specific conditions on the day - you can't decide your plan just based on your own expected fuel burns, there's a much bigger picture than just your aircraft to consider. For example if you push the limits you might find that all those other guys who didn't hang around in the hold for 30mins have diverted to the same alternate and now you're No 5 in the approach or the airport closes to further diversions due to a lack of parking, you don't get the optimal flight level for the cruise to the alternate and thus burn more fuel, etc, or the alternate has a reduced arrivals rate due to similarly bad weather, etc, etc, etc.

If there's no short term forecast improvement from the TAF, or tower reported improvement in RVRs over a short period of time, I'd personally be heading straight for the alternate.

To be fair I used ORK primarily because there's not going to be more than 5 a/c in the hold, there's going to be paking in DUB/SNN when I said for example they were CAVOK.

Had I said I was flying to BCN with the same weather than id have been asking a totally different question, as you have eluded to there is a lot more to consider in that specific situation.

Jack1985

Another question from me onto another area, can anyone explain to me how to understand sigmet charts? I'm guessing the more lines on the wind dials (sorry if I'm naming them wrong - only recently started receiving examples of them), the stronger the wind in that particular direction? Also what other data can you take in from sigmets? Cloud formations maybe turbulence?

smurfjed

What charts are you talking about in particular, can you link to one? I use an Ipad APP called Wx Charts, from that i can get just about every type of met chart. I usually use them for checking the winds, weather activity and turbulence, we can then decide if we can route around any problem areas, or go higher than them. For example tonight we will have a bumpy time from the bottom of Italy across the med, from FL280 to 410, we will be at the top of that cruising at 410. We have the ability to go to 450, but as we are then required to wear face oxygen masks, its something that we avoid, but if we had passengers onboard we would have to do it in order to give them a smoother ride.

Right now I'm looking out the window of probably the tallest hotel in Paris, the weather is beautiful and i get to fly an empty aircraft out from there in about 3 hours, this is when the job beats every type of office job imaginable...

basill

Who is the sigmet provider? If its something like WAFC prepared then the solid black triangles represent 50kts of wind each. The long thin lines are 10kts and half a line is 5kts.

Type "sigmet chart symbol" into google and you will get loads of returns which should help you decode all the other stuff like cb's, forecast turbulence etc.

Jack1985

Thanks for the replies lads, here's the sigmet, not sure who the provider is as it's linked into the OFP.

bkehoe

Jack1985 wrote: »

To be fair I used ORK primarily because there's not going to be more than 5 a/c in the hold, there's going to be paking in DUB/SNN when I said for example they were CAVOK.

Had I said I was flying to BCN with the same weather than id have been asking a totally different question, as you have eluded to there is a lot more to consider in that specific situation.

Airports can be CAVOK and still have significant delays or a myriad of reasons as to why they may not be suitable or expeditious. No matter how perfect the weather is, how precise the flight plans, one will not be hanging around in a hold till the fuel in the tanks equals the reserve fuel on your flightplan. This is airmanship.

Suasdaguna1

bkehoe wrote: »

Airports can be CAVOK and still have significant delays or a myriad of reasons as to why they may not be suitable or expeditious. No matter how perfect the weather is, how precise the flight plans, one will not be hanging around in a hold till the fuel in the tanks equals the reserve fuel on your flightplan. This is airmanship.

Airmanship is you dont land with less than final reserve fuel......reserve fuel can be eaten into and land at your destination airport but you'd want to be at the top of your game and know that you'll be landing.

Cessna_Pilot

Jack1985 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies lads, here's the sigmet, not sure who the provider is as it's linked into the OFP.

That is not a sigmet. Thats a wind chart.

basill

The attached is a sigmet chart. As Cessna stated your link is wind chart.

http://weather.noaa.gov/pub/fax/PGDE14.PNG

Jack1985

Attached are all related weather charts to the OFP I'm currently viewing, it would be great if someone could say its function, how to interpret it etc, thanks.

The attached is a sigmet chart.

Thanks basil

KnotABother

How often if ever would you fly an NDB approach in the course of commercial jet flying? And how often if ever again do you fly a full procedure? Are you just vectored to intercept a localiser/radial?

Growler!!!

Jack1985 wrote: »

Attached are all related weather charts to the OFP I'm currently viewing, it would be great if someone could say its function, how to interpret it etc, thanks.



Thanks basil

Might explain a few things.
http://weatherfaqs.org.uk/node/186

Growler!!!

KnotABother wrote: »

How often if ever would you fly an NDB approach in the course of commercial jet flying? And how often if ever again do you fly a full procedure? Are you just vectored to intercept a localiser/radial?

Quite often. BHX have been doing rwy extension works on rwy 15 for the last while. Because of the works they have been switching off the ILS. An RNAV approach is available too but we are not certified to do it. Radar are quite good at vectoring us onto the inbound course.

Rwy 08 in KER is ndb only also but you have to do the full procedure as they don't have radar.

Like everything else, it's easy when you're used to it.